THE PRESENT CONDITION OF FRENCH MUSIC
We have seen how the musical education of France is going on in theatres, in concerts, in schools, by lectures and by books; and the Parisian's rather restless desire for knowledge seems to be satisfied for the moment. The mind of Paris has made a journey—a hasty journey, it is true through the music of other countries and other times,[257] and is now becoming introspective. After a mad enthusiasm over discoveries in strange lands, music and musical criticism have regained their self-possession and their jealous love of independence. A very decided reaction against foreign music has been shown since the time of the Universal Exhibition of 1900. This movement is not unconnected, consciously or unconsciously, with the nationalist train of thought, which was stirred up in France, and especially in Paris, somewhere about the same time. But it is also a natural development in the evolution of music. French music felt new vigour springing up within her, and was astonished at it; her days of preparation were over, and she aspired to fly alone; and, in accordance with the eternal rule of history, the first use she made of her newly-acquired strength was to defy her teachers. And this revolt against foreign influences was directed—one had expected it—against the strongest of the influences—the influence of German music as personified by Wagner. Two discussions in magazines, in 1903 and 1904, brought this state of mind curiously to light: one was an enquiry held by M. Jacques Morland in the Mercure de France (January, 1903) as to The Influence of German Music in France; and the other was that of M. Paul Landormy in the Revue Bleue (March and April,1904) as to The Present Condition of French Music. The first was like a shout of deliverance, and was not without exaggeration and a good deal of ingratitude; for it represented French musicians and critics throwing off Wagner's influence because it had had its day; the second set forth the theories of the new French school, and declared the independence of that school.
For several years the leader of the young school, M. Claude Debussy, has, in his writings in the Revue Blanche and Gil Blas, attacked Wagnerian art. His personality is very French—capricious, poetic, and spirituelle, full of lively intelligence, heedless, independent, scattering new ideas, giving vent to paradoxical caprice, criticising the opinions of centuries with the teasing impertinence of a little street boy, attacking great heroes of music like Gluck, Wagner, and Beethoven, upholding only Bach, Mozart, and Weber, and loudly professing his preference for the old French masters of the eighteenth century. But in spite of this he is bringing back to French music its true nature and its forgotten ideals—its clearness, its elegant simplicity, its naturalness, and especially its grace and plastic beauty. He wishes music to free itself from all literary and philosophic pretensions, which have burdened German music in the nineteenth century (and perhaps have always done so); he wishes music to get away from the rhetoric which has been handed down to us through the centuries, from its heavy construction and precise orderliness, from its harmonic and rhythmic formulas, and the exercises of oratorical embroidery. He wishes that all about it shall be painting and poetry; that it shall explain its true feeling in a clear and direct way; and that melody, harmony, and rhythm shall develop broadly along the lines of inner laws, and not after the pretended laws of some intellectual arrangement. And he himself preaches by example in his Pelléas et Mélisande, and breaks with all the principles of the Bayreuth drama, and gives us the model of the new art of his dreams. And on all sides discerning and well-informed critics, such as M. Pierre Lalo of Le Temps, M. Louis Laloy of the Revue Musicale and the Mercure Musicale, and M. Marnold of Le Mercure de France, have championed his doctrines and his art. Even the Schola Cantorum, whose eclectic and archaic spirit is very different from that of Debussy, seemed at first to be drawn into the same current of thought; and this school which had so helped to propagate the foreign influences of the past, did not seem to be quite insensible to the nationalistic preoccupation of the last few years. So the Schola devoted itself more and more—as was moreover its right and duty—to the French music of the past, and filled its concert programmes with French works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—with Marc Antoine Charpentier, Du Mont, Leclair, Clérambault, Couperin, and the French primitive composers for the organ, the harpsichord, and the violin; and with the works of dramatic composers, especially of the great Rameau, who, after a period of complete oblivion, suddenly benefited by this excessive reaction, to the detriment of Gluck, whom the young critics, following M. Debussy's example, severely abused.[258] There was even a moment when the Schola took a decided share in the battle, and, through M. Charles Bordes, issued a manifesto—Credo, as they called it—about a new art founded on the ancient traditions of French music:
"We wish to have free speech in music—a sustained recitative, infinite variety, and, in short, complete liberty in musical utterance. We wish for the triumph of natural music, so that it shall be as free and full of movement as speech, and as plastic and rhythmic as a classical dance."
It was open war against the metrical art of the last three centuries, in the name of national tradition (more or less freely interpreted), of folk-song, and of Gregorian chant. And "the constant and avowed purpose of all this campaign was the triumph of French music, and its cult."[259]
This manifesto reflects in its own way the spirit of Debussy and his untrammelled musical impressionism; and though it shows a good deal of naïveté and some intolerance, there was in it a strength of youthful enthusiasm that accorded with the great hopes of the time, and foretold glorious days to come and a splendid harvest of music.
Not many years have passed since then; yet the sky is already a little clouded, the light not quite so bright. Hope has not failed; but it has not been fulfilled. France is waiting, and is getting a little impatient. But the impatience is unnecessary; for to found an art we must bring time to our aid; art must ripen tranquilly. Yet tranquillity is what is most lacking in Parisian art. The artists, instead of working steadily at their own tasks and uniting in a common aim, are given up to sterile disputes. The young French school hardly exists any longer, as it has now split up into two or three parties. To a fight against foreign art has succeeded a fight among themselves: it is the deep-rooted evil of the country, this vain expenditure of force. And most curious of all is the fact that the quarrel is not between the conservatives and the progressives in music, but between the two most advanced sections: the Schola on the one hand, who, should it gain the victory, would through its dogmas and traditions inevitably develop the airs of a little academy; and, on the other hand, the independent party, whose most important representative is M. Debussy. It is not for us to enter into the quarrel; we would only suggest to the parties in question that if any profit is to result from their misunderstanding, it will be derived by a third party—the party in favour of routine, the party that has never lost favour with the great theatre-going public,—a party that will soon make good the place it has lost if those who aim at defending art set about fighting one another. Victory has been proclaimed too soon; for whatever the optimistic representatives of the young school may say, victory has not yet been gained; and it will not be gained for some time yet—not until public taste is changed, not while the nation lacks musical education, nor until the cultured few are united to the people, through whom their thoughts shall be preserved. For not only—with a few rare and generous exceptions—do the more aristocratic sections of society ignore the education of the people, but they ignore the very existence of the people's soul. Here and there, a composer—such as Bizet and M. Saint-Saëns, or M. d'Indy and his disciples—will build up symphonies and rhapsodies and very difficult pieces for the piano on the popular airs of Auvergne, Provence, or the Cevennes; but that is only a whim of theirs, a little ingenious pastime for clever artists, such as the Flemish masters of the fifteenth century indulged in when they decorated popular airs with polyphonic elaborations. In spite of the advance of the democratic spirit, musical art—or at least all that counts in musical art—has never been more aristocratic than it is to-day. Probably the phenomenon is not peculiar to music, and shows itself more or less in other arts; but in no other art is it so dangerous, for no other has roots less firmly fixed in the soil of France. And it is no consolation to tell oneself that this is according to the great French traditions, which have nearly always been aristocratic. Traditions, great and small, are menaced to-day; the axe is ready for them. Whoever wishes to live must adapt himself to the new conditions of life. The future of art is at stake. To continue as we are doing is not only to weaken music by condemning it to live in unhealthy conditions, but also to risk its disappearing sooner or later under the rising flood of popular misconceptions of music. Let us take warning by the fact that we have already had to defend music[260] when it was attacked at some of the parliamentary assemblies; and let us remember the pitifulness of the defence. We must not let the day come when a famous speech will be repeated with a slight alteration—"The Republic has no need of musicians."
It is the historian's duty to point out the dangers of the present hour, and to remind the French musicians who have been satisfied with their first victory that the future is anything but sure, and that we must never disarm while we have a common enemy before us, an enemy especially dangerous in a democracy—mediocrity.
The road that stretches before us is long and difficult. But if we turn our heads and look back over the way we have come we may take heart. Which of us does not feel a little glow of pride at the thought of what has been done in the last thirty years? Here is a town where, before 1870, music had fallen to the most miserable depths, which to-day teems with concerts and schools of music—a town where one of the first symphonic schools in Europe has sprung from nothing, a town where an enthusiastic concert-going public has been formed, possessing among its members some great critics with broad interests and a fine, free spirit—all this is the pride of France. And we have, too, a little band of musicians; among them, in the first rank, that great painter of dreams, Claude Debussy; that master of constructive art, Dukas; that impassioned thinker, Albéric Magnard; that ironic poet, Ravel; and those delicate and finished writers, Albert Roussel and Déodat de Séverac; without mention of the younger musicians who are in the vanguard of their art. And all this poetic force, though not the most vigorous, is the most original in Europe to-day. Whatever gaps one may find in our musical organisation, still so new, whatever results this movement may lead to, it is impossible not to admire a people whom defeat has aroused, and a generation that has accomplished the magnificent work of reviving the nation's music with such untiring perseverance and such steadfast faith. The names of Camille Saint-Saëns, César Franck, Charles Bordes, and Vincent d'Indy, will remain associated before all others with this work of national regeneration, where so much talent and so much devotion, from the leaders of orchestras and celebrated composers down to that obscure body of artists and music-lovers, have joined forces in the fight against indifference and routine. They have the right to be proud of their work. But for ourselves, let us waste no time in thinking about it. Our hopes are great. Let us justify them.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "And you, Russia, who have saved me...." (Berlioz, Mémoires, II, 353, Calmann-Lévy's edition, 1897).
[2] Mémoires, II, 149.
[3] The literary work of Berlioz is rather uneven. Beside passages of exquisite beauty we find others that are ridiculous in their exaggerated sentiment, and there are some that even lack good taste. But he had a natural gift of style, and his writing is vigorous, and full of feeling, especially towards the latter half of his life. The Procession des Rogations is often quoted from the Mémoires; and some of his poetical text, particularly that in L'Enfance du Christ and in Les Troyens, is written in beautiful language and with a fine sense of rhythm. His Mémoires as a whole is one of the most delightful books ever written by an artist. Wagner was a greater poet, but as a prose writer Berlioz is infinitely superior. See Paul Morillot's essay on Berlioz écrivain, 1903, Grenoble.
[4] "Chance, that unknown god, who plays such a great part in my life" (Mémoires, II, 161).
[5] "I was fair," wrote Berlioz to Bülow (unpublished letters, 1858). "A shock of reddish hair," he wrote in his Mémoires, I, 165. "Sandy-coloured hair," said Reyer. For the colour of Berlioz's hair I rely upon the evidence of Mme. Chapót, his niece.
[6] Joseph d'Ortigue, Le Balcon de l'Opéra, 1833.
[7] E. Legouvé, Soixante ans de souvenirs. Legouvé describes Berlioz here as he saw him for the first time.
[8] "A passable baritone," says Berlioz (Mémoires, I, 58). In 1830, in the streets of Paris, he sang "a bass part" (Mémoires, I, 156). During his first visit to Germany the Prince of Hechingen made him sing "the part of the violoncello" in one of his compositions (Mémoires, II, 32).
[9] There are two good portraits of Berlioz. One is a photograph by Pierre Petit, taken in 1863, which he sent to Mme. Estelle Fornier. It shows him leaning on his elbow, with his head bent, and his eyes fixed on the ground as if he were tired. The other is the photograph which he had reproduced in the first edition of his Mémoires, and which shows him leaning back, his hands in his pockets, his head upright, with an expression of energy in his face, and a fixed and stern look in his eyes.
[10] He would go on foot from Naples to Rome in a straight line over the mountains, and would walk at one stretch from Subiaco to Tivoli.
[11] This brought on several attacks of bronchitis and frequent sore throats, as well as the internal affection from which he died.
[12] "Music and love are the two wings of the soul," he wrote in his Mémoires.
[13] Mémoires, I, 11.
[14] Julien Tiersot, Hector Berlioz et la société de son temps, 1903, Hachette.
[15] See the Mémoires, I, 139.
[16] "I do not know how to describe this terrible sickness.... My throbbing breast seems to be sinking into space; and my heart, drawing in some irresistible force, feels as though it would expand until it evaporated and dissolved away. My skin becomes hot and tender, and flushes from head to foot. I want to cry out to my friends (even those I do not care for) to help and comfort me, to save me from destruction, and keep in the life that is ebbing from me. I have no sensation of impending death in these attacks, and suicide seems impossible; I do not want to die—far from it, I want very much to live, to intensify life a thousandfold. It is an excessive appetite for happiness, which becomes unbearable when it lacks food; and it is only satisfied by intense delights, which give this great overflow of feeling an outlet. It is not a state of spleen, though that may follow later ... spleen is rather the congealing of all these emotions—the block of ice. Even when I am calm I feel a little of this 'isolement' on Sundays in summer, when our towns are lifeless, and everyone is in the country; for I know that people are enjoying themselves away from me, and I feel their absence. The adagio of Beethoven's symphonies, certain scenes from Gluck's Alceste and Armide, an air from his Italian opera Telemacco, the Elysian fields of his Orfeo, will bring on rather bad attacks of this suffering; but these masterpieces bring with them also an antidote—they make one's tears flow, and then the pain is eased. On the other hand, the adagio of some of Beethoven's sonatas and Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride are full of melancholy, and therefore provoke spleen ... it is then cold within, the sky is grey and overcast with clouds, the north wind moans dully...." (Mémoires, I, 246).
[17] Mémoires, I, 98.
[18] "Isn't it really devilish," he said to Legouvé, "tragic and silly at the same time? I should deserve to go to hell if I wasn't there already."
[19] Mémoires, II, 335. See the touching passages he wrote on Henrietta Smithson's death.
[20] "One day, Henrietta, who was living alone at Montmartre, heard someone ring the bell, and went to open the door.
"'Is Mme. Berlioz at home?'
"'I am Mme. Berlioz.'
"'You are mistaken; I asked for Mme. Berlioz.'
"'And I tell you, I am Mme. Berlioz.'
"'No, you are not. You are speaking of the old Mme. Berlioz, the one who was abandoned; I am speaking of the young and pretty and loved one. Well, that is myself!'
"And Recio went out and banged the door after her.
"Legouvé said to Berlioz, 'Who told you this abominable thing? I suppose she who did it; and then she boasted about it into the bargain. Why didn't you turn her out of the house?' 'How could I?' said Berlioz in broken tones, 'I love her'" (Soixante ans de souvenirs).
[21] From this woman's nature came his love of revenge, "a thing needless, and yet necessary," he said to his friend Hiller, who, after having made him write the Symphonie fantastique to spite Henrietta Smithson, next made him write the wretched fantasia Euphonia to spite Camille Moke, now Mme. Pleyel. One would feel obliged to draw more attention to the way he often adorned or perverted the truth if one did not feel it arose from his irrepressible and glowing imagination far more than from any intention to mislead; for I believe his real nature to have been a-very straightforward one. I will quote the story of his friend Crispino, a young countryman from Tivoli, as a characteristic example. Berlioz says in his Mémoires (I, 229): "One day when Crispino was lacking in respect I made-him a present of two shirts, a pair of trousers, and three good kicks behind." In a note he added, "This is a lie, and is the result of an artist's tendency to aim at effect. I never kicked Crispino." But Berlioz took care afterwards to omit this note. One attaches as little importance to his other small boasts as to this one. The errors in the Mémoires have been greatly exaggerated; and besides, Berlioz is the first to warn his readers that he only wrote what pleased him, and in his preface says that he is not writing his Confessions. Can one blame him for that?
[22] Mémoires, II, 158. The heartaches expressed in this chapter will be felt by every artist.
[23] Mémoires, II, 349.
[24] Berlioz has already touchingly replied to any reproaches that might be made in the words that follow the story I have quoted. "'Coward!' some young enthusiast will say, 'you ought to have written it; you should have been bold.' Ah, young man, you who call me coward did not have to look upon what I did; had you done so you, too, would have had no choice. My wife was there, half dead, only able to moan; she had to have three nurses, and a doctor every day to visit her; and I was sure of the disastrous result of any musical adventure. No, I was not a coward; I know I was only human. I like to believe that I honoured art in proving that she had left me enough reason to distinguish between courage and cruelty" (Mémoires, II, 350).
[25] In a note in the Mémoires, Berlioz publishes a letter of Mendelssohn's which protests his "good friendship," and he writes these bitter words: "I have just seen in a volume of Mendelssohn's Letters what his friendship for me consisted of. He says to his mother, in what is plainly a description of myself, '—— is a perfect caricature, without a spark of talent ... there are times when I should like to swallow him up'" (Mémoires, II, 48). Berlioz did not add that Mendelssohn also said: "They pretend that Berlioz seeks lofty ideals in art. I don't think so at all. What he wants is to get himself married." The injustice of these insulting words will disgust all those who remember that when Berlioz married Henrietta Smithson she brought as dowry nothing but debts; and that he had only three hundred francs himself, which a friend had lent him.
[26] Liszt repudiated him later.
[27] Written in an article on the Ouverture de Waverley (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik).
[28] Wagner, who had criticised Berlioz since 1840, and who published a detailed study of his works in his Oper und Drama in 1851, wrote to Liszt in 1855: "I own that it would interest me very much to make the acquaintance of Berlioz's symphonies, and I should like to see the scores. If you have them, will you lend them to me?"
[29] See Berlioz's letter, cited by J. Tiersot, Hector Berlioz et la société de son temps, p. 275.
[30] Roméo, Faust, La Nonne sanglante.
[31] I shall content myself here with noting a fact, which I shall deal with more fully in another essay at the end of this book: it is the decline of musical taste in France—and, I rather think, in all Europe—since 1835 or 1840. Berlioz says in his Mémoires: "Since the first performance of Roméo et Juliette the indifference of the French public for all that concerns art and literature has grown incredibly" (Mémoires, II, 263). Compare the shouts of excitement and the tears that were drawn from the dilettanti of 1830 (Mémoires, I, 81), at the performances of Italian operas or Gluck's works, with the coldness of the public between 1840 and 1870. A mantle of ice covered art then. How much Berlioz must have suffered. In Germany the great romantic age was dead. Only Wagner remained to give life to music; and he drained all that was left in Europe of love and enthusiasm for music. Berlioz died truly of asphyxia.
[32] Here is an official list of the towns where Benvenuto has been played since 1879 (I am indebted for this information to M. Victor Chapót, Berlioz's grandnephew). They are, in alphabetical order: Berlin, Bremen, Brunswick, Dresden, Frankfort-On-Main, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Hamburg, Hanover, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Mannheim, Metz, Munich, Prague, Schwerin, Stettin, Strasburg, Stuttgart, Vienna, and Weimar.
[33] Mémoires, II, 420.
[34] "I do not know how Berlioz has managed to be cut off like this. He has neither friends nor followers; neither the warm sun of popularity nor the pleasant shade of friendship" (Liszt to the Princess of Wittgenstein, 16 May, 1861).
[35] In a letter to Bennet he says, "I am weary, I am weary...." How often does this piteous cry sound in his letters towards the end of his life. "I feel I am going to die.... I am weary unto death" (21 August, 1868—six months before his death).
[36] Letter to Asger Hammerick, 1865.
[37] Letters to the Princess of Wittgenstein, 22 July, 21 September, 1862; and August, 1864.
[38] Mémoires, II, 335. He shocked Mendelssohn, and even Wagner, by his irreligion. (See Berlioz's letter to Wagner, 10 September, 1855.)
[39] Les Grotesques de la Musique, pp. 295-6.
[40] Letter to the Abbé Girod. See Hippeau, Berlioz intime, p. 434.
[41] Letter to Bennet. He did not believe in patriotism. "Patriotism? Fetichism! Cretinism!" (Mémoires, II, 261).
[42] Letter to the Princess of Wittgenstein, 22 July, 1862.
[43] Mémoires, II, 391.
[44] Letters to the Princess of Wittgenstein, 22 January, 1859; 30 August, 1864; 13 July, 1866; and to A. Morel, 21 August, 1864.
[45] " ... Qui viderit illas
De lacrymis factas sentiet esse meis,"
wrote Berlioz, as an inscription for his Tristes in 1854.
[46] "One instantly recognises a companion in misfortune; and I found I was a happier man than Berlioz" (Wagner to Liszt, 5 July, 1855).
[47] Mémoires, II, 396.
[48] Mémoires, II, 415.
[49] "Yes, it is to that escape from the world that Parsifal owes its birth and growth. What man can, during a whole lifetime, gaze into the depths of this world with a calm reason and a cheerful heart? When he sees murder and rapine organised and legalised by a system of lies, impostures, and hypocrisy, will he not avert his eyes and shudder with disgust?" (Wagner, Representations of the Sacred Drama of Parsifal at Bayreuth, in 1882.)
[50] The scene was described to me by his friend, Malwida von Meysenbug, the calm and fearless author of Mémoires d'une Idéaliste.
[51] "I have only blank walls before my windows. On the side of the street a pug dog has been barking for an hour, a parrot screaming, and a parroqueet imitating the chirp of sparrows. On the side of the yard the washerwomen are singing, and another parroqueet cries incessantly, 'Shoulder arrms!' How long the day is!"
"The maddening noise of carriages shakes the silence of the night. Paris wet and muddy! Parisian Paris! Now everything is quiet ... she is sleeping the sleep of the unjust" (Written to Ferrand, Lettres intimes, pp. 269 and 302).
[52] He used to say that nothing would remain of his work; that he had deceived himself; and that he would have liked to burn his scores.
[53] Blaze de Bury met him one autumn evening, on the quay, just before his death, as he was returning from the Institute. "His face was pale, his figure wasted and bent, and his expression dejected and nervous; one might have taken him for a walking shadow. Even his eyes, those large round hazel eyes, had extinguished their fire. For a second he clasped my hand in his own thin, lifeless one, and repeated, in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper, Aeschylus's words: 'Oh, this life of man! When he is happy a shadow is enough to disturb him; and when he is unhappy his trouble may be wiped away, as with a wet sponge, and all is forgotten'" (Musiciens d'hier et d'aujourd'hui).
[54] A travers chants, pp. 8-9.
[55] In truth, this genius was smouldering since his childhood; it was there from the beginning; and the proof of it lies in the fact that he used for his Ouverture des Francs-Juges and for the Symphonie fantastique airs and phrases of quintets which he had written when twelve years old (see Mémoires, I, 16-18).
[56] The Huit scènes de Faust are taken from Goethe's tragedy, translated by Gérard de Nerval, and they include: (1) Chants de la fête de Pâques; (2) Paysans sous les tilleuls; (3) Concert des Sylphes; (4 and 5) Taverne d'Auerbach, with the two songs of the Rat and the Flea; (6) Chanson du roi de Thulé; (7) Romance de Marguerite, "D'amour, l'ardente flamme," and Choeur de soldats; (8) Sérénade de Méphistophélès—that is to say, the most celebrated and characteristic pages of the Damnation (see M. Prudhomme's essays on Le Cycle de Berlioz).
[57] One could hardly find a better manifestation of the soul of a youthful musical genius than that in certain letters written at this time; in particular the letter written to Ferrand on 28 June, 1828, with its feverish postscript. What a life of rich and overflowing vigour! It is a joy to read it; one drinks at the source of life itself.
[58] Mémoires, I, 70.
[59] Ibid. To make amends for this he published, in 1829, a biographical notice of Beethoven, in which his appreciation of him is remarkably in advance of his age. He wrote there: "The Choral Symphony is the culminating point of Beethoven's genius," and he speaks of the Fourth Symphony in C sharp minor with great discernment.
[60] Beethoven died in 1827, the year when Berlioz was writing his first important work, the Ouverture des Francs-Juges.
[61] He left Henrietta Smithson in 1842; she died in 1854.
[62] Written by Berlioz himself, in irony, in a letter of 1855.
[63] Mémoires, I, 307.
[64] About this time he wrote to Liszt regarding L'Enfance du Christ: "I think I have hit upon something good in Herod's scena and air with the soothsayers; it is full of character, and will, I hope, please you. There are, perhaps, more graceful and pleasing things, but with the exception of the Bethlehem duet, I do not think they have the same quality of originality" (17 December, 1854).
[65] In 1830, old Rouget de Lisle called Berlioz, "a volcano in eruption" (Mémoires, I, 158).
[66] M. Camille Saint-Saëns wrote in his Portraits et Souvenirs, 1900: "Whoever reads Berlioz's scores before hearing them played can have no real idea of their effect. The instruments appear to be arranged in defiance of all common sense; and it would seem, to use professional slang, that cela ne dut pas sonner, but cela sonne wonderfully. If we find here and there obscurities of style, they do not appear in the orchestra; light streams into it and plays there as in the facets of a diamond."
[67] See the excellent essay of H. Lavoix, in his Histoire de l'Instrumentation. It should be noticed that Berlioz's observations in his Traité d'instrumentation et d'orchestration modernes (1844) have not been lost upon Richard Strauss, who has just published a German edition of the work, and some of whose most famous orchestral effects are realisations of Berlioz's ideas.
[68] One may judge of this instinct by one fact: he wrote the overtures of Les Francs-Juges and Waverley without really knowing if it were possible to play them. "I was so ignorant," he says, "of the mechanism of certain instruments, that after having written the solo in D flat for the trombone in the Introduction of Les Francs-Juges, I feared it would be terribly difficult to play. So I went, very anxious, to one of the trombonists of the Opera orchestra. He looked at the passage and reassured me. 'The key of D flat is,' he said, 'one of the pleasantest for that instrument; and you can count on a splendid effect for that passage'" (Mémoires, I, 63).
[69] Mémoires, I, 64.
[70] "Berlioz displayed, in calculating the properties of mechanism, a really astounding scientific knowledge. If the inventors of our modern industrial machinery are to be considered benefactors of humanity to-day, Berlioz deserves to be considered as the true saviour of the musical world; for, thanks to him, musicians can produce surprising effects in music by the varied use of simple mechanical means.... Berlioz lies hopelessly buried beneath the ruins of his own contrivances" (Oper und Drama, 1851).
[71] Letter from Berlioz to Ferrand.
[72] "The chief characteristics of my music are passionate expression, inward warmth, rhythmic in pulses, and unforeseen effects. When I speak of passionate expression, I mean an expression that desperately strives to reproduce the inward feeling of its subject, even when the theme is contrary to passion, and deals with gentle emotions or the deepest calm. It is this kind of expression that may be found in L'Enfance du Christ, and, above all, in the scene of Le Ciel in the Damnation de Faust and in the Sanctus of the Requiem" (Mémoires, II, 361).
[73] "So you are in the midst of melting glaciers in your Niebelungen! To be writing in the presence of Nature herself must be splendid. It is an enjoyment which I am denied. Beautiful landscapes, lofty peaks, or great stretches of sea, absorb me instead of evoking ideas in me. I feel, but I cannot express what I feel. I can only paint the moon when I see its reflection in the bottom of a well" (Berlioz to Wagner, 10 September, 1855).
[74] Musikführer, 29 November, 1903.
[75] Mémoires, II, 361.
[76] M. Jean Marnold has remarked this genius for monody in Berlioz in his article on Hector Berlioz, musicien (Mercure de France, 15 January, and 1 February, 1905).
[77] Gluck himself said this in a letter to the Mercure de France, February, 1773.
[78] I am not speaking of the Franco-Flemish masters at the end of the sixteenth century: of Jannequin, Costeley, Claude le Jeune, or Mauduit, recently discovered by M. Henry Expert, who are possessed of so original a flavour, and have yet remained almost entirely unknown from their own time to ours. Religious wars bruised France's musical traditions and denied some of the grandeur of her art.
[79] It is amusing to find Wagner comparing Berlioz with Auber, as the type of a true French musician—Auber and his mixed Italian and German opera. That shows how Wagner, like most Germans, was incapable of grasping the real originality of French music, and how he saw only its externals. The best way to find out the musical characteristics of a nation is to study its folk-songs. If only someone would devote himself to the study of French folk-song (and there is no lack of material), people would realise perhaps how much it differs from German folk-song, and how the temperament of the French race shows itself there as being sweeter and freer, more vigorous and more expressive.
[80] Mémoires, I, 221.
[81] "Music to-day, in the vigour of her youth, is emancipated and free and can do what she pleases. Many old rules have no longer any vogue; they were made by unreflecting minds, or by lovers of routine for other lovers of routine. New needs of the mind, of the heart, and of the sense of hearing, make necessary new endeavours and, in some cases, the breaking of ancient laws. Many forms have become too hackneyed to be still adopted. The same thing may be entirely good or entirely bad, according to the use one makes of it, or the reasons one has for making use of it. Sound and sonority are secondary to thought, and thought is secondary to feeling and passion." (These opinions were given with reference to Wagner's concerts in Paris, in 1860, and are taken from A travers chants, p. 312.)
Compare Beethoven's words: "There is no rule that one may not break for the advancement of beauty."
[82] Is it necessary to recall the épître dédicatoire of Alceste in 1769, and Gluck's declaration that he "sought to bring music to its true function—that of helping poetry to strengthen the expression of the emotions and the interest of a situation ... and to make it what fine colouring and the happy arrangement of light and shade are to a skilful drawing"?
[83] This revolutionary theory was already Mozart's: "Music should reign supreme and make one forget everything else.... In an opera it is absolutely necessary that Poetry should be Music's obedient daughter" (Letter to his father, 13 October, 1781). Despairing probably at being unable to obtain this obedience, Mozart thought seriously of breaking up the form of opera, and of putting in its place, in 1778, a sort of melodrama (of which Rousseau had given an example in 1773), which he called "duodrama," where music and poetry were loosely associated, yet not dependent on each other, but went side by side on two parallel roads (Letter of 12 November, 1778).
[84] Tribune de Saint Gervais, November, 1903.
[85] Mémoires, II, 365.
[86] "This composition contains a dose of sublimity much too strong for the ordinary public; and Berlioz, with the splendid insolence of genius, advises the conductor, in a note, to turn the page and pass it over" (Georges de Massougnes, Berlioz). This fine study by Georges de Massougnes appeared in 1870, and is very much in advance of its time.
[87] "Oh, how I love, honour, and reverence Schumann for having written this article alone" (Hugo Wolf, 1884).
[88] Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. See Hector Berlioz und Robert Schumann. Berlioz was constantly righting for this freedom of rhythm—for "those harmonies of rhythm," as he said. He wished to form a Rhythm class at the Conservatoire (Mémoires, II, 241), but such a thing was not understood in France. Without being as backward as Italy on this point, France is still resisting the emancipation of rhythm (Mémoires, II, 196). But during the last ten years great progress in music has been made in France.
[89] Ibid. "A rare peculiarity," adds Schumann, "which distinguishes nearly all his melodies." Schumann understands why Berlioz often gives as an accompaniment to his melodies a simple bass, or chords of the augmented and diminished fifth—ignoring the intermediate parts.
[90] "What will then remain of actual art? Perhaps Berlioz will be its sole representative. Not having studied the pianoforte, he had an instinctive aversion to counterpoint. He is in this respect the opposite of Wagner, who was the embodiment of counterpoint, and drew the utmost he could from its laws" (Saint-Saëns).
[91] Jacques Passy notes that with Berlioz the most frequent phrases consist of twelve, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty bars. With Wagner, phrases of eight bars are rare, those of four more common, those of two still more so, while those of one bar are most frequent of all (Berlioz et Wagner, article published in Le Correspondant, 10 June, 1888).
[92] One must make mention here of the poorness and awkwardness of Berlioz's harmony—which is incontestable—since some critics and composers have been able to see (Am I saying something ridiculous?—Wagner would say it for me) nothing but "faults of orthography" in his genius. To these terrible grammarians—who, two hundred years ago, criticised Molière on account of his "jargon"—I shall reply by quoting Schumann.
"Berlioz's harmonies, in spite of the diversity of their effect, obtained from very scanty material, are distinguished by a sort of simplicity, and even by a solidity and conciseness, which one only meets with in Beethoven.... One may find here and there harmonies that are commonplace and trivial, and others that are incorrect—at least according to the old rules. In some places his harmonies have a fine effect, and in others their result is vague and indeterminate, or it sounds badly, or is too elaborate and far-fetched. Yet with Berlioz all this somehow takes on a certain distinction. If one attempted to correct it, or even slightly to modify it—for a skilled musician it would be child's play—the music would become dull" (Article on the Symphonie fantastique).
But let us leave that "grammatical discussion" as well as what Wagner wrote on "the childish question as to whether it is permitted or not to introduce 'neologisms' in matters of harmony and melody" (Wagner to Berlioz, 22 February, 1860). As Schumann has said, "Look out for fifths, and then leave us in peace."
[93] Mémoires, I, 155.
[94] These words are taken from Berlioz's directions on the score of his arrangement of the Marseillaise for full orchestra and double choir.
[95] "From Beethoven," says Berlioz, "dates the advent in art of colossal forms" (Mémoires, II, 112). But Berlioz forgot one of Beethoven's models—Händel. One must also take into account the musicians of the French revolution: Mehul, Gossec, Cherubini, and Lesueur, whose works, though they may not equal their intentions, are not without grandeur, and often disclose the intuition of a new and noble and popular art.
[96] Letter to Morel, 1855. Berlioz thus describes the Tibiomnes and the Judex of his Te Deum. Compare Heine's judgment: "Berlioz's music makes me think of gigantic kinds of extinct animals, of fabulous empires.... Babylon, the hanging gardens of Semiramis, the wonders of Nineveh, the daring buildings of Mizraim."
[97] Mémoires, I, 17.
[98] Letter to an unknown person, written probably about 1855, in the collection of Siegfried Ochs, and published in the Geschichte der französischen Musik of Alfred Bruneau, 1904. That letter contains a rather curious analytical catalogue of Berlioz's works, drawn up by himself. He notes there his predilection for compositions of a "colossal nature," such as the Requiem, the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, and the Te Deum, or those of "an immense style," such as the Impériale.
[99] Mémoires, II, 364. See also the letter quoted above.
[100] Mémoires, II, 363. See also II, 163, and the description of the great festival of 1844, with its 1,022 performers.
[101] Hermann Kretzschmar, Führer durch den Konzertsaal.
[102] Mémoires, I, 312.
[103] Letter to some young Hungarians, 14 February, 1861. See the Mémoires, II, 212, for the incredible emotion which the Marche de Rakoczy roused in the audience at Budapest, and, above all, for the astonishing scene at the end:—
"I saw a man enter unexpectedly. He was miserably clad, but his face shone with a strange rapture. When he saw me, he threw himself upon me and embraced me with fervour; his eyes filled with tears, and he was hardly able to get out the words, 'Ah, monsieur, monsieur! moi Hongrois ... pauvre diable ... pas parler Français ... un poco Italiano. Pardonnez mon extase.... Ah! ai compris votre canon.... Oui, oui, la grande-bataille.... Allemands chiens!' And then striking his breast violently: 'Dans le coeur, moi ... je vous porte.... Ah! Français ... révolutionnaire ... savoir faire la musique des révolutions!'"
[104] Written 5 May, 1841.
[105] Berlioz never ceased to inveigh against the Revolution of 1848—which should have had his sympathies. Instead of finding material, like Wagner, in the excitement of that time for impassioned compositions, he worked at L'Enfance du Christ. He affected absolute indifference—he who was so little made for indifference. He approved the State's action, and despised its visionary hopes.
[106] "My musical career would finish very pleasingly if only I could live for a hundred and forty years" (Mémoires, II, 390).
[107] This solitude struck Wagner. "Berlioz's loneliness is not only one of external circumstances; its origin is in his temperament. Though he is a Frenchman, with quick sympathies and interests like those of his fellow-citizens, yet he is none the less alone. He sees no one before him who will hold out a helping hand, there is no one by his side on whom he may lean" (Article written 5 May, 1841). As one reads these words, one feels it was Wagner's lack of sympathy and not his intelligence that prevented him from understanding Berlioz. In his heart I do not doubt that he knew well who was his great rival. But he never said anything about it—unless perhaps one counts an odd document, certainly not intended for publication, where he (even he) compares him to Beethoven and to Bonaparte (Manuscript in the collection of Alfred Bovet, published by Mottl in German magazines, and by M. Georges de Massougnes in the Revue d'art dramatique, 1 January, 1902).
[108] F. Nietzsche, Der Fall Wagner.
[109] The quotations from Wagner are taken from his letters to Roeckel, Uhlig, and Liszt, between 1851 and 1856.
Of applause
I still hear the noise; and, strangely enough,
In my childish shyness it seemed like mire
About to spot me; I feared
Its touch, and secretly shunned it,
Affecting obstinacy.
These verses were read by M. Saint-Saëns at a concert given on 10 June, 1896, in the Salle Pleyel, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his début, which he made in 1846. It was in this same Salle Pleyel that he gave his first concert.
[111] C. Saint-Saëns, Harmonie et Mélodie, 1885.
[112] C. Saint-Saëns, Rimes familières, 1890.
You will know the lying eyes, the insincerity
Of pressures of the hand,
The mask of friendship that hides jealousy.
The tame to-morrows
Of these days of triumph, when the vulgar herd
Crowns you with honour;
Judging rare genius to be
Equal in merit to the wit of clowns.
[113] Letter written to M. Levin, the correspondent of the Boersen-Courier of Berlin, 9 September, 1901.
[114] C. Saint-Saëns, Charles Gounod et le Don Juan de Mozart, 1894.
But ten years old, slightly built and pale,
Yet full of simple confidence and joy (Rimes familières).
[116] Charles Gounod, Mémoires d'un Artiste, 1896.
[117] Quoted from Saint-Saëns by Edmond Hippeau in Henry VIII et L'Opéra français, 1883. M. Saint-Saëns speaks elsewhere of "these works, well written, but heavy and unattractive, and reflecting in a tiresome way the narrow and pedantic spirit of certain little towns in Germany" (Harmonie et Mélodie).
[118] Charles Gounod, "Ascanio" de Saint-Saëns, 1890.
[119] Id., ibid.
[120] C. Saint-Saëns, Problèmes et Mystères, 1894.
[121] Harmonie et Mélodie.
[122] C. Saint-Saëns, Portraits et Souvenirs, 1900.
I know that a vain dream of virtue
Has always cast a shadow on your soul (Rimes familières).
[124] C. Saint-Saëns, Note sur les décors de théâtre dans l'antiquité romaine, 1880, where he discusses the mural paintings of Pompeii.
[125] Lecture on the Phenomena of Mirages, given to the Astronomical Society of France in 1905.
[126] C. Saint-Saëns, La Crampe des Écrivains, a comedy in one act, 1892.
[127] Harmonie et Mélodie.
[128] Charles Gounod, Mémoires d'un Artiste.
[129] Les Heures; Mors; Modestie (Rimes familières).
[130] "Thanks to Berlioz, all my generation has been shaped, and well shaped" (Portraits et Souvenirs).
[131] "I like Liszt's music so much, because he does not bother about other people's opinions; he says what he wants to say; and the only thing that he troubles about is to say it as well as he possibly can" (Quoted by Hippeau).
[132] The quotations are taken from Harmonie et Mélodie and Portraits et Souvenirs.
[133] In Harmonie et Mélodie M. Saint-Saëns tells us that he organised and directed a concert in the Théâtre-Italien where only Liszt's compositions were played. But all his efforts to make the French musical public appreciate Liszt were a failure.
[134] The admiration was mutual. M. Saint-Saëns even said that without Liszt he could not have written Samson et Dalila. "Not only did Liszt have Samson et Dalila performed at Weimar, but without him that work would never have come into being. My suggestions on the subject had met with such hostility that I had given up the idea of writing it; and all that existed were some illegible notes.... Then at Weimar one day I spoke to Liszt about it, and he said to me, quite trustingly and without having heard a note, 'Finish your work; I will have it performed here.' The events of 1870 delayed its performance for several years." (Revue Musicale, 8 November, 1901).
[135] Portraits et Souvenirs.
[136] Harmonie et Mélodie.
[137] C. Saint-Saëns, Portraits et Souvenirs.
[138] Portraits et Souvenirs.
[139] Revue d'Art dramatique, 5 February, 1899.
[140] Vincent d'Indy: Cours de Composition musicale, Book I, drawn up from notes taken in Composition classes at the Schola Cantorum, 1897-1898, p. 16 (Durand, 1902). See also the inaugural speech given at the school, and published by the Tribune de Saint-Gervais, November, 1900.
[141] Vincent d'Indy, Cours de Composition musicale, p. 132.
[142] Id., ibid., p. 13.
[143] Id., ibid., p. 25. In the thirteenth century, Philippe de Vitry, Bishop of Meaux, called triple time "perfect," because "it hath its name from the Trinity, that is to say, from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in whom is divine perfection."
[144] Id., ibid., pp. 66, 83, and passim.
[145] Id., ibid.
[146] "Make war against Particularism, that unwholesome fruit of the Protestant heresy!" (Speech to the Schola, taken from the Tribune de Saint-Gervais, November, 1900.)
[147] At least Judaism has the honour of giving its name to a whole period of art, the "Judaic period." "The modern style is the last phase of the Judaic school...." etc.
[148] In the Cours de Composition musicale M. d'Indy speaks of "the admirable initial T in the Rouleau mortuaire of Saint-Vital (twelfth century), which represents Satan vomiting two Jews ... an expressive and symbolic work of art, if ever there was one." I should not mention this but for the fact that there are only two illustrations in the whole book.
[149] Cours de Composition musicale, p. 160.
[150] L'Oratorio moderne (Tribune de Saint-Gervais, March, 1899).
[151] Ibid. As much as to say he was a Catholic without knowing it. And that is what a friend of the Schola, M. Edgar Tinel, declares: "Bach is a truly Christian artist and, without doubt, a Protestant by mistake, since in his immortal Credo he confesses his faith in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" (Tribune de Saint-Gervais, August-September, 1902). M. Edgar Tinel was, as you know, one of the principal masters of Belgian oratorio.
[152] Revue musicale, November, 1902.
[153] "The only documents extant on ancient music are either criticisms or appreciations, and not musical texts" (Cours de Composition).
[154] "The influence of the Renaissance, with its pretension and vanity, caused a check in all the arts—the effect of which we are still feeling" (Traité de Composition, p. 89. See also the passage quoted before on Pride).
[155] Tribune de Saint-Gervais, November, 1900.
[156] I speak of the passages where he expresses himself freely, and is not interpreting a dramatic situation necessary to his subject, as in that fine symphonic part of the Rédemption, where he describes the triumph of Christ. But even there we find traces of sadness and suffering.
[157] Through a break in the clouds, revealing Celestial joy shining above the deeps.
[158] Tribune de Saint-Gervais November, 1900.
[159] Id., September, 1899.
[160] L'Étranger, "action musicale" in two acts. Poem and music by M. Vincent d'Indy. Played for the first time at Brussels in the Théâtre de la Monnaie, 7 January, 1903. The quotations from the drama, whose poetry is not as good as its music, are taken from the score.
[161] There is a certain likeness in the subject to Herr Richard Strauss's Feuersnot. There, too, the hero is a stranger who is persecuted, and treated as a sorcerer in the very town to which he has brought honour. But the dénouement is not the same; and the fundamental difference of temperament between the two artists is strongly marked. M. d'Indy finishes with the renouncement of a Christian, and Herr Richard Strauss by a proud and joyous affirmation of independence.
[162] Found by M. d'Indy in his own province, as he tells us in his Chansons populaires du Vivarais.
[163] In his criticisms his heart is not always in agreement with his mind. His mind denounces the Renaissance, but his instinct obliges him to appreciate the great Florentine painters of the Renaissance and the musicians of the sixteenth century. He only gets out of the difficulty by the most extraordinary compromises, by saying that Ghirlandajo and Filippo Lippi were Gothic, or by stating that the Renaissance in music did not begin till the seventeenth century! (Cours de Composition, pp. 214 and 216.)
[164] Act III, scene 3. The power of that evocation is so strong that it carries the poet along with it. It would seem that part of the action had only been conceived with a view to the final effect of the sudden colouring of the waves.
[165] Cours de Composition, and Tribune de Saint-Gervais.
[166] Cours de Composition.
[167] This essay was written in 1899.
[168] Nietzsche.
[169] Beyond Good and Evil, 1886. I hope I may be excused for introducing Nietzsche here, but his thoughts seem constantly to be reflected in Strauss, and to throw much light on the soul of modern Germany.
[170] This article was written in 1899. Since then the Sinfonia Domestica, has been produced, and will be noticed in the essay French and German Music.
[171] Composed in 1889, and performed for the first time at Eisenach in 1890.
[171a]Richard Strauss, eine Charakterskizze, 1896, Prague.
[171b]R. Strauss, Essai critique et biologique, 1898, Brussels.
[171c]Der Musikführer: Tod und Verklärung, Frankfort.
[172] Some people have tried to see Alexander Ritter's thoughts in Friedhold, as they have seen Strauss's thoughts in Guntram.
[173] Composed in 1894-95, and played for the first time at Cologne in 1895.
[174] Composed in 1895-96, and performed for the first time at Frankfort-On-Main in November, 1896.
[175] Nietzsche.
[176] Nietzsche, Zarathustra.
[177] Arthur Hahn, Der Musikführer: Don Quixote, Frankfort.
[178] At the head of each variation Strauss has marked on the score the chapter of "Don Quixote" that he is interpreting.
[179] Finished in December, 1898. Performed for the first time at Frankfort-On-Main on 3 March, 1899. Published by Leuckart, Leipzig.
[180] The composition of the orchestra in Strauss's later works is as follows: In Zarathustra: one piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, one English horn, one clarinet in E flat, two clarinets in B, one bass-clarinet in B, three bassoons, one double-bassoon, six horns in F, four trumpets in C, three trombones, three bass-tuba, kettledrums, big drum, cymbals, triangle, chime of bells, bell in E, organ, two harps, and strings. In Heldenleben: eight horns instead of six, five trumpets instead of four (two in E flat, three in B); and, in addition, military drums.
[181] In Guntram one could even believe that he had made up his mind to use a phrase in Tristan, as if he could not find anything better to express passionate desire.
[182] "The German spirit, which but a little while back had the will to dominate Europe, the force to govern Europe, has finally made up its mind to abandon it."—Nietzsche.
[183] A large number of works on Hugo Wolf have been published in Germany since his death. The chief is the great biography of Herr Ernst Decsey—Hugo Wolf (Berlin, 1903-4). I have found this book of great service; it is a work full of knowledge and sympathy. I have also consulted Herr Paul Müller's excellent little pamphlet, Hugo Wolf (Moderne essays, Berlin, 1904), and the collections of Wolf's letters, in particular his letters to Oskar Grohe, Emil Kaufmann, and Hugo Faisst.
[184] Joseph Schalk was one of the founders of the Wagner-Verein at Vienna, and devoted his life to propagating the cult of Bruckner (who called him his "Herr Generalissimus "), and to fighting for Wolf.
[185] Letter of H. von Bülow to Detlev von Liliencron.
[186] Wolf's letters to Strasser are of great value in giving us an insight into his artist's eager and unhappy soul.
[187] Wolf was living there with a friend. He had not a lodging of his own until 1896, and that was due to the generosity of his friends.
[188] The writing of an opera was Wolf's great dream and intention for many years.
[189] Detlev von Liliencron offered him an American subject. "But in spite of my admiration for Buffalo Bill and his unwashed crew," said Wolf sarcastically, "I prefer my native soil and people who appreciate the advantages of soap."
All that is begun must end,
All around will sometime perish.
Once we were also men
Happy or sad like you;
Now life is taken from us,
We are only of earth, as you see.
Chiunque nasce a morte arriva
Nel fuggir del tempo, e'l sole
Niuna cosa lascia viva....
Come voi, uomini fummo,
Lieti e tristi, come siete;
E or siam, come vedete,
Terra al sol, di vita priva.
(Poems of Michelangelo, CXXXVI.)
[192] This article was written in 1899, on the occasion of Lorenzo Perosi's coming to Paris to direct his oratorio La Résurrection.
[193] This essay was written in 1905.
[194] Man lies in greatest misery; Man lies in greatest pain; I would I were in Heaven!
[195] I come from God, and shall to God return.
[196] Thou wilt rise again, thou wilt rise again, O my dust, after a little rest.
[197] What is born must pass away; What has passed away must rise again.
O Man! O Man! Have care! Have care!
What says dark midnight?
[199] May I be allowed to say that I am trying to write this study from a purely historical point of view, by eliminating all personal feeling—which would be of no value here. As a matter of fact, I am not a Debussyite; my sympathies are with quite another kind of art. But I feel impelled to give homage to a great artist, whose work I am able to judge with some impartiality.
[200] That is for musicians. But I am convinced that with the mass of the public the other reasons have more weight—as is always the case.
[201] We must also note that during the first half of the seventeenth century people of taste objected to the very theatrical declamation of French opera. "Our singers believe," wrote Mersenne, in 1636, "that the exclamations and emphasis used by the Italians in singing savour too much of tragedies and comedies, and so they do not wish to employ them."
[202] No other critic has, I think, discerned so shrewdly Debussy's art and genius. Some of his analyses are models of clever intuition. The thought of the critic seems to be one with that of the musician.
[203] Jean-Christophe à Paris, 1904.
[204] One must at least do Hugo the justice of saying that he always spoke of Beethoven with admiration, although he did not know him. But he rather exalts him in order to take away from the importance of a poet—the only one in the nineteenth century—whose fame was shading his own; and when he wrote in his William Shakespeare that "the great man of Germany is Beethoven" it was understood by all to mean "the great man of Germany is not Goethe."
[205] Written in a letter to his sister, Nanci, on 3 April, 1850.
[206] We remark, nevertheless, that that did not prevent Gautier from being a musical critic.
[207] I wish to make known from the beginning that I am only noticing here the greater musical doings of the nation, and making no mention of works which have not had an important influence on this movement.
[208] In the meanwhile France saw the brilliant rise and extinction of a great artist—the most spontaneous of all her musicians—Georges Bizet, who died in 1875, aged thirty-seven. "Bizet was the last genius to discover a new beauty," said Nietzsche; "Bizet discovered new lands—the Southern lands of music," Carmen (1875) and L'Arlésienne (1872) are masterpieces of the lyrical Latin drama. Their style is luminous, concise, and well-defined; the figures are outlined with incisive precision. The music is full of light and movement, and is a great contrast to Wagner's philosophical symphonies, and its popular subject only serves to strengthen its aristocratic distinction. By its nature and its clear perception of the spirit of the race it was well in advance of its time. What a place Bizet might have taken in our art if he had only lived twenty years longer!
[209] Its influence is shown, in varying degrees, in works such as M. Reyer's Sigurd (1884), Chabrier's Gwendoline (1886), and M. Vincent d'Indy's Le Chant de la Cloche (1886).
[210] One knows that the Conservatoire originated in L'École gratuite de musique de la garde nationale parisienne, founded in 1792 by Sarrette, and directed by Gossec. It was then a civic and military school, but, according to Chénier, was changed into the Institut national de musique on 8 November, 1793, and into the Conservatoire on 3 August, 1795. This Republican Conservatoire made it its business to keep in contact with the spirit of the country, and was directly opposed to the Opera, which was of monarchical origin. See M. Constant Pierre's work Le Conservatoire national de musique (1900), and M. Julien Tiersot's very interesting book Les Fêtes et les Chants de la Révolution française (1908).
[211] You must remember that I am speaking here of official action only; for there have always been masters among the Conservatoire teaching staff who have united a fine musical culture with a broad-minded and liberal spirit. But the influence of these independent minds is, generally speaking, small; for they have not the disposing of academic successes; and when, by exception, they have a wide influence, like that of César Franck, it is the result of personal work outside the Conservatoire—work that is, as often as not, opposed to Conservatoire principles.
[212] It is to be noted that since 1807 the Conservatoire pupils have made Beethoven's symphonies familiar to Parisians. The Symphony in C minor was performed by them in 1808; the Heroic in 1811. It was in connection with one of these performances that the Tablettes de Polymnie gave a curious appreciation of Beethoven, which is quoted by M. Constant Pierre: "This composer is often grotesque and uncouth, and sometimes flies majestically like an eagle and sometimes crawls along stony paths. It is as though one had shut up doves and crocodiles together."
[213] This is according to M. Rivet's report on the Beaux-Arts in 1906. The Opera employs 1370 people, and its expenses are about 3,988,000 francs. The annual grant of the State comes to about 800,000 francs.
[214] On the occasion of the revival of Don Juan in 1902, the Revue Musicale counted up the pages that had been added to the original score. They came to two hundred and twenty-eight.
[215] The facts which follow are taken from the archives of the Société Nationale de Musique, and have been given me by M. Pierre de Bréville, the Society's secretary.
[216] It must be remembered that the prices of the seats were much cheaper than they are to-day; the best were only three francs.
[217] There were about 340 performances of Saint-Saëns' works, 380 of Wagner's, 390 of Beethoven's, and 470 of Berlioz's. I owe these details to the kind information of M. Charles Malherbe and M. Léon Petitjean, the secretary of the Colonne concerts.
[218] The Damnation de Faust alone was given in its entirety a hundred and fifty times in thirty years.
[219] It is known that M. Colonne has now a helper in M. Gabriel Pierné, who will succeed him when he retires.
[220] My statements may be verified by the account published in the Revue Éolienne of January, 1902, by M. Léon Bourgeois, secretary of the Committee of the Association des Concerts-Lamoureux.
[221] It published, in eleven volumes, the ancient works that it performed. Before this experiment there had been the Concerts historiques de Fétis, preceded by lectures, which were inaugurated in 1832, and failed; and these were followed by Amédée Méréaux's Concerts historiques in 1842-1844.
[222] The following information was given by M. Vincent d'Indy at a lecture held on 20 February, 1903, at the École des Hautes Études sociales—a lecture which later became a chapter in M. d'Indy's book, César Franck (1906).
[223] A complete list may be found in M. d'Indy's book.
[224]Tribune de Saint-Gervais, November, 1900.
[225] See the Essay on Vincent d'Indy.
[226] Revue d'histoire et de critique musicale, August-September, 1901.
[227] "The Schola Cantorum aims at creating a modern music truly worthy of the Church" (First number of the Tribune de Saint-Gervais, the monthly bulletin of the Schola Cantorum, January, 1895).
[228] The Schola had in mind here the vigorous work of the French Benedictines, which had been done in silence for the past fifty years; it was thinking, too, of the restoration of the Gregorian chant during 1850 and 1860 by Dom Guéranger, the first abbot of Solesmes, a work continued by Dom Jausions and Dom Pothier, the abbot of Saint-Wandrille, who published in 1883 the Mélodies Grégoriennes, the Liber Gradualis, and the Liber Antiphonarius. This work was finally brought to a happy conclusion by Dom Schmitt, and Dom Mocqucreau, the prior of Solesmes, who in 1889 began his monumental work, the Paléo-graphie Musicals, of which nine volumes had appeared in 1906. This great Benedictine school is an honour to France by the scientific work it has lately done in music. The school is at present exiled from France.
[229] When Charles Bordes opened the first Schola Cantorum in the Rue Stanislas he was without help or resources, and had exactly thirty-seven francs and fifty centimes in hand. I mention this detail to give an idea of the splendidly courageous and confident spirit that Charles Bordes possessed.
[230] Tribune de Saint-Gervais, November, 1900.
[231] There are actually nine courses of Composition at the Schola—five for men and four for women. M. d'Indy takes eight of them, as well as a mixed class for orchestra.
[232] The orchestra is mainly composed of pupils; and, by a generous arrangement, the financial profits from rehearsals and performances are divided among the pupils who take part in them, and credited to their account. And so besides the exhibitioners the Schola has a great number of pupils who are not well off, but who manage by these concerts to defray almost the entire expenses of their education there. "The concerts serve more especially as aesthetic exercises for the pupils, and as a means of according them teaching at small expense to themselves." I owe this information and all that precedes it to the kindness of M. J. de la Laurencie, the general secretary of the Schola, whom I should like to thank.
[233] The Schola has even performed, in an open-air theatre, Ramcau's La Guirlande.
[234] One may add to this list the choral societies of Nantes and Besançon, which are bodies of the same order as the Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais. And we may also attribute to the influence of the Schola an independent society, the Société J.S. Bach, started in Paris by an old Schola pupil, M. Gustave Bret, which, since 1905, has devoted itself to the performance of the great works of Bach. It is not one of the least merits of the Schola that it has helped to form good amateur choirs of the same type as the choral societies of Germany.
[235] M. Charles Bordes did not even then give up his labours altogether. Though obliged to retire to the south of France for his health's sake, he founded, in November, 1905, the Schola of Montpellier. This Schola has given about fifteen concerts a year, and has performed some of Bach's cantatas, scenes from Rameau's and Gluck's operas, Franck's oratorios, and Monteverde's Orfeo. In 1906 M. Bordes organised an open-air performance of Rameau's Guirlande. In January, 1908, he produced Castor et Pollux at the Montpellier theatre. The man's activity was incredible, and nothing seemed to tire him. He was planning to start a dramatic training-school at Montpellier for the production of seventeenth and eighteenth century operas, when he died, in November, 1909, at the age of forty-four, and so deprived French art of one of its best and most unselfish servants.
[236] The quality of the audience atoned, it is true, for its small numbers. Berlioz used to come to these concerts with his friends, Damcke and Stephen Heller; and it was after one of these performances, when he had been very stirred by an adagio in the E flat quartette, that he burst out with, "What a man! He could do everything, and the others nothing!"
[237] The name, La Trompette, was also the pretext for embellishing chamber-music, by introducing the trumpet among the other instruments. To this end M. Saint-Saëns wrote his fine septette for piano, trumpet, two violins, viola, violoncello, and double bass; and M. Vincent d'Indy his romantic suite in D for trumpet, two flutes, and string instruments.
[238] On 12 September, 1871, at the suggestion of Ambroise Thomas. The first lecturer was Barbereau, who, however, only lectured for a year. He was succeeded by Gautier, Professor of Harmony and Accompaniment, who in turn was replaced, in 1878, by M. Bourgault-Ducoudray.
[239] The first three theses on Music accepted at the Sorbonne were those of M. Jules Combarieu on The Relationship of Poetry and Music, of M. Romain Holland on The Beginnings of Opera before Lully and Scarlatti, and of M. Maurice Emmanuel on Greek Orchestics. There followed, several years afterwards, M. Louis Laloy's Aristoxenus of Tarento and Greek Music and M. Jules Écorcheville's Musical Aesthetics, from Lully to Rameau and French Instrumental Music of the Seventeenth Century, M. André Pirro's Aesthetics of Johann Sebastian Bach, and M. Charles Lalo's Sketch of Scientific Musical Aesthetics.
[240] There are ninety violins, fifteen violas, and fifteen violoncellos. Unfortunately it is much more difficult to get recruits for the wood wind and brass.
[241] They have performed classical music of composers like Bach, Händel, Gluck, Rameau, and Beethoven; and modern music of composers like Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Dukas, etc. This Society has just installed itself in the ancient chapel of the Dominicans of the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, who have given them the use of it.
[242] Of late years there has been a veritable outburst of concerts at popular prices—some of them in imitation of the German Restaurationskonzerte, such as the Concerts-Rouge, the Concerts-Touche, etc., where classical and modern symphony music may be heard. These concerts are increasing fast, and have great success among a public that is almost exclusively bourgeois, but they are yet a long way behind the popular performances of Händel in London, where places may be had for sixpence and threepence.
I do not attach very much importance to the courageous, though not always very intelligent movement of the Universités Populaires, where since 1886 a collection of amateurs, of fashionable people and artists, meet to make themselves heard, and pretend to initiate the people into what are sometimes the most complicated and aristocratic works of a classic or decadent art. While honouring this propaganda—whose ardour has now abated somewhat—one must say that it has shown more good-will than common-sense. The people do not need amusing, still less should they be bored; what they need is to learn something about music. This is not always easy; for it is not noisy deeds we want, but patience and self-sacrifice. Good intentions are not enough. One knows the final failure of the Conservatoire populaire de Mimi Pinson, started by Gustave Charpentier, for giving musical education to the work-girls of Paris.
[243] M. Maurice Buchor relates an anecdote which typifies what I mean. "I begged the conductor of a good men's choral society," he says, "to have one of Händel's choruses sung. But he seemed to hesitate. I had made the suggestion tentatively, and then tried to enlarge on the sincerity and breadth of its musical idea. 'Ah, very good,' he said, 'if you really want to hear it, it is easily done; but I was afraid that perhaps it was rather too popular.'" (Poème de la Vie Humaine: Introduction to the Second Series, 1905.) One may add to this the words of a professor of singing in a primary school for Higher Education in Paris: "Folk-music—well, it is very good for the provinces." (Quoted by Buchor in the Introduction to the Second Series of the Poème, 1902.)
[244] Taken from the Supplement à la Correspondance générale de l'Instruction primaire, 15 December, 1894.
[245] Three series of these Chants populaires pour les Écoles have already been published.
[246] I reserve my opinion, from an artist's point of view, on this plagiarising of the words of songs. On principle I condemn it absolutely. But, in this case, it is Hobson's choice. Primum vivere, deinde philosophari. If our contemporary musicians really wished the people to sing, they would have written songs for them; but they seem to have no desire to achieve honour that way. So there is nothing else to be done but to have recourse to the musicians of other days; and even there the choice is very limited. For France formerly, like the France of to-day, had very few musicians who had any understanding of a great popular art. Berlioz came nearest to understanding the meaning of it; and he is not yet public property, so his airs cannot be used. It is curious, and rather sad, that out of eighty pieces chosen by M. Buchor only nine of them are French; and this is reckoning the Italians, Lully and Cherubini, as Frenchmen. M. Buchor has had to go to German classical musicians almost entirely, and, generally speaking, his choice has been a happy one. With a sure instinct he has given the preference to popular geniuses like Händel and Beethoven. We may ask why he did not keep their words; but we must remember that at any rate they had to be translated; and though it may seem rash to change the subject of a musical masterpiece, it is certain that M. Buchor's clever adaptations have resulted in driving the fine thoughts of Händel and Schubert and Mozart and Beethoven into the memories of the French people, and making them part of their lives. Had they heard the same music at a concert they would probably not have been very much moved. And that makes M. Buchor in the right. Let the French people enrich themselves with the musical treasures of Germany until the time comes when they are able to create a music of their own! This is a kind of peaceful conquest to which our art is accustomed. "Now then, Frenchmen," as Du Bellay used to say, "walk boldly up to that fine old Roman city, and decorate (as you have done more than once) your temples and altars with its spoils." Besides, let us remember that the German masters of the eighteenth century, whose words M. Buchor has plagiarised, did not hesitate to plagiarise themselves; and in turning the Berceuse of the Oratorio de Noël into a Sainte famille humaine, M. Buchor has respected the musical ideas of Bach much more than Bach himself did when he turned it into a Dialogue between Hercules and Pleasure.
[247] The Poème has been published in four parts:—I. De la naissance au mariage ("From Birth to Marriage"); II. La Cité ("The City"); III. De l'age viril jusqu'à la mort ("From Manhood to Death"); IV. L'Idéal ("Ideals"). 1900-1906.
[248] The last chorus of Fidelio has been recently sung by one hundred and seventy school-children at Douai; a grand chorus from The Messiah by the Écoles Normales of Angoulême and Valence; and the great choral scene and the last part of Schumann's Faust by the two Écoles Normales of Limoges. At Valence, performances are given every year in the theatre there before an audience of between eight hundred and a thousand teachers.
Outside the schools, especially in the North, a certain number of teachers of both sexes have formed choral societies among work-girls and co-operative societies, such as La Fraternelle at Saint Quentin.
In a general way one may say that M. Maurice Buchor's campaign has especially succeeded in departments like that of Aisne and Drôme, where the ground has been prepared by the Academy Inspector. Unhappily in many districts the movement receives a lively opposition from music-teachers, who do not approve of this mnemotechnical way of learning poetry with music, without any instruction in solfeggio or musical science. And it is quite evident that this method would have its defects if it were a question of training musicians. But it is really a matter of training people who have some music in them; and so the musicians must not be too fastidious. I hope that great musicians will one day spring from this good ground—musicians more human than those of our own time, musicians whose music will be rooted in their hearts and in their country.
[249] We must not forget M. Bourgault-Ducoudray, who was his forerunner with his Chants de Fontenoy, collections of songs for the Écoles Normales.
[250] Mention must especially be made of little groups of young students, pupils of the Universities or the larger schools, who are devoting themselves at present to the moral and musical instruction of the people. Such an effort, made more than a year ago at Vaugirard, resulted in the Manécanterie des petits chanteurs de la Croix de bois, a small choir of the children of the people, who in the poor parishes go from one church to another singing Gregorian and Palestrinian music.
[251] It is hardly necessary to recall the unfortunate statute of 15 March, 1850, which says: "Primary instruction may comprise singing."
[252] By the decree of 4 August, 1905. At the same time, a programme and pedagogic instructions were issued. The importance of musical dictation and the usefulness of the Galin methods for beginners were urged. Let us hope that the State will decide officially to support M. Buchor's endeavours, and that it will gradually introduce into schools M. Jacques-Delacroze's methods of rhythmic gymnastics, which have produced such astonishing results in Switzerland.
[253] M. Chaumié's suggestion. See the Revue Musicale, 15 July, 1903.
[254] Revue Musicale, December 15, 1903, and 1 and 15 January, 1904.
[255] "In this," says M. Buchor, "as in many other things, the children of the people set an example to the children of the middle classes." That is true; but one must not blame the middle-class children so much as those in authority, who, "in this, as in many other things," have not fulfilled their duties.
[256] The Passion according to St. Matthew was given first of all by two little choirs, consisting of from twelve to sixteen students, including the soloists.
[257] It is hardly necessary to mention the curious attraction that some of our musicians are beginning to feel for the art of civilisations that are quite opposed to those of the West. Slowly and quietly the spirit of the Far East is insinuating itself into European music.
[258] There is no need to say that Rameau's genius justified all this enthusiasm; but one cannot help believing that it was aroused, not so much on account of his musical genius as on account of his supposed championship of the French music of the past against foreign art; though that art was well adapted to the laws of French opera, as we may see for ourselves in Gluck's case.
[259] La Tribune de Saint-Gervais, September, 1903.
[260] At any rate, certain forms of music—the highest. See the discussions at the Chambre des Députés on the budget of the Beaux-Arts in February, 1906; and the speeches of MM. Théodore Denis, Beauquier, and Dujardin-Beaumetz, on Religious Music, the Niedermeyer School, and the civic value of the organ.
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MUSICIANS OF TO-DAY. By ROMAIN ROLLAND, Author of "Jean-Christophe." Translated by MARY BLAIKLOCK. PRACTICAL SINGING. By CLIFTON COOKE and CLAUDE LANDI.
THE UNREST IN THE MUSIC WORLD. By SYDNEY BLAKISTON.
THE SONATA IN MUSIC. By A. EAGLEFIELD HULL, Mus. Doc.
THE SYMPHONY IN MUSIC. By the same.
ON LISTENING TO MUSIC. By E. MARKHAM LEE, M.A., Mus. Doc.
COUNTERPOINT. By G.G. BERNARDI. Translated by C. LANDI.
OPERA. By HARRY BURGESS.
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