BERLIOZ. "ROMEO AND JULIET."
DRAMATIC SYMPHONY
In the sub-title we see the growing impulse towards graphic music. A "dramatic symphony" is not promising. For, if music is the most subjective expression of the arts, why should its highest form be used to dramatize a drama? Without the aid of scene and actors, that were needed by the original poet, the artisan in absolute tones attempts his own theatric rendering. Clearly this symphony is one of those works of art which within an incongruous form (like certain ancient pictures) affords episodes of imperishable beauty.
Passing by the dramatic episodes that are strung on the thread of the story, we dwell, according to our wont, on the stretches where a pure musical utterance rises to a lofty height of pathos or of rarest fantasy.
In the first scene of the Second Part is the clear intent of a direct tonal expression, and there is a sustained thread of sincere sentiment. The passion of Romeo shines in the purity rather than in the intensity of feeling. The scene has a delicate series of moods, with subtle melodic touches and dramatic surprises of chord and color. The whole seems a reflection of Romeo's humor, the personal (Allegro) theme being the symbol as it roams throughout the various phases,—the sadness of solitude, the feverish thrill of the ball. Into the first phrase of straying violins wanders the personal motive, sadly meditative.
Sweeter dreams now woo the muser, warming into passion, pulsing with a more eager throb of desire, in changed tone and pace. Suddenly in a new quarter amid a quick strum of dance the main motive hurries along. The gay sounds vanish, ominous almost in the distance. The sadness of the lover now sings unrestrained in expressive melody (of oboe), in long swinging pace, while far away rumbles the beat of festive drum.
The song rises in surging curves, but dies away among the quick festal sounds, where the personal motive is still supreme, chasing its own ardent antics, and plunges headlong into the swirl of dance.
II Penseroso (in his personal rôle) has glided into a buoyant, rollicking Allegro with joyous answer. Anon the outer revel breaks in with shock almost of terror. And now in climax of joy, through the festal strum across the never-ceasing thread of transformed meditation resound in slowest, broadest swing the
warm tones of the love-song in triumph of bliss.[4] As the song dies away, the festal sounds fade. Grim meditation returns in double figure,—the slower, heavier pace below. Its shadows are all about as in a fugue of fears, flitting still to the tune of the dance and anon yielding before the gaiety. But through the returning festal ring the fateful motive is still straying in the bass. In the concluding revel the hue of meditation is not entirely banned.
The Shakespearian love-drama thus far seems to be celebrated in the manner of a French romance. After all, the treatment remains scenic in the main; the feeling is diluted, as it were, not intensified by the music.
The stillness of night and the shimmering moonlight are in the delicate harmonies of (Allegretto) strings. A lusty song of departing revellers breaks upon the scene. The former distant sounds of feast are now near and clear in actual words.
There is an intimate charm, a true glamor of love-idyll about the Adagio. On more eager pulse rises a languorous strain of horn and cellos. The flow
of its passionate phrase reaches the climax of prologue where, the type and essence of the story, it plays about the lovers' first meeting. As lower strings hum the burden of desire, higher wood add touches of ecstasy, the melting violins sing the wooing song, and all break into an overwhelming rapture, as though transfigured in the brightness of its own vehemence, in midst of a trembling mystery.
The restless spirit starts (allegro agitato) in fearsome agitation on quick nervous throb of melody; below, violas sing a soothing answer; there is a clear dialogue of wistful lovers.
Instead of the classic form of several verses led by one dominant melody to varied paths and views, here almost in reverse we seem to fall from a broader lyric mood to a single note of sad yearning that
grows out of the several strains. Upon such a motive a new melody sings. The delicate bliss of early love is all about, and in the lingering close the timid ecstasies of wooing phrase. But this is a mere prelude to the more highly stressed, vehement song of love that follows on the same yearning motive. Here is the crowning, summing phase of the whole poem, without a return to earlier melody save that, by significant touch, it ends in the same expressive turn as the former languorous song.
The first melody does not reappear, is thus a kind of background of the scene. The whole is a dramatic lyric that moves from broader tune to a reiterated note of sad desire, driven to a splendid height of crowned bliss. The turbulence of early love is there; pure ardor in flaming tongues of ecstasy; the quick turn of mood and the note of omen of the original poem: the violence of early love and the fate that hangs over.
Berlioz has drawn the subject of his Scherzo from Mercutio's speech in Scene 4 of the First Act of Shakespeare's tragedy. He has entitled it "Queen Mab, or the Fairy of Dreams," and clearly intends to portray the airy flight of Mab and her fairies. But we must doubt whether this, the musical gem of the symphony, has a plan that is purely graphic,—rather does it seem to soar beyond those concrete limits to an utterance of the sense of dreams themselves in the spirit of Mercutio's conclusion:
"... I talk of dreams
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air;"
"... I talk of dreams
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air;"
"... I talk of dreams
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air;"
"... I talk of dreams
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air;"
"... I talk of dreams
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air;"
"... I talk of dreams
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air;"
"... I talk of dreams
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air;"
And we may add, as elusive for the enchanted mind to hold are these pranks and brilliant parade of tonal sprites. It stands one of the masterpieces of program-music, in equal balance of pure beauty with the graphic plan.
Imps they are, these flitting figures, almost insects with a personality. In pace there is a division, where the first dazzling speed is simply the fairy rhythm (halted anon by speaking pauses or silences), and the second, a kind of idyll or romance in miniature. It is all a drama of fairy actors, in a dreamland of softest tone. The main figure leads its troop on gossamer thread of varied journey.
Almost frightening in the quickest, pulsing motion is the sudden stillness, as the weird poising of trembling sprites. Best of all is the resonant beauty of the second melody in enchanting surprise of tone.
Anon, as in a varied dance, the skipping, mincing step is followed by a gentle swaying; or the figures all run together down the line to start the first dance again, or the divided groups have different motions, or one shouts a sudden answer to the other.
Much slower now is the main song (in flute and English horn) beneath an ariel harmony (of overtones), while a quicker trip begins below of the same figure. And in the midst is a strange concert of low dancing strings with highest tones of harp,—strange mating of flitting sprites.
We are suddenly back in the first, skipping dance, ever faster and brighter in dazzling group of lesser figures. And here is the golden note of fairy-land,—the horn in soft cheery hunter's lay, answered by echoing voices. For a moment the call is tipped with touch of sadness, then rings out brightly in a new quarter. Beautiful it sings between the quick phrases, with a certain shock of change, and there is the terror of a sudden low rumbling and the thrill of new murmuring sounds with soft beat of drum that hails the gathering fairies. There is a sudden clarion burst of the whole chorus, with clash of drum and clang of brass, and sudden pause, then faintest echoes of higher voices.
A new figure now dances a joyous measure to the tinkling of harp and the sparkling strokes of high
cymbals and long blown tone of horns. The very essence it is of fairy life. And so the joy is not unmixed with just a touch of awe. Amidst the whole tintinnabulation is a soft resonant echo of horns below, like an image in a lake. The air hangs heavy with dim romance until the sudden return to first fairy verse in sounds almost human. Once more come the frightening pauses.
The end is in a great crash of sweet sound—a glad awakening to day and to reality.