IV
While categorical classification is not always essential in criticism, it is somewhat discommoding to acknowledge that a composer cannot conveniently be placed under one logical and comprehensive heading. While assimilation of qualities peculiar to two opposing groups can be unified to a considerable extent, the work of such an artist is inevitably lacking in complete homogeneity. Such a figure is Dukas, who, nevertheless, must be considered a force of considerable vitality in present-day French music.
Paul Dukas was born in Paris, October 1, 1865. Toward his fourteenth year his musical gifts asserted themselves. In 1881, after some preliminary study, he entered the Paris Conservatory, where he was a pupil of Mathias (piano), Dubois (harmony), and Guiraud (composition). In 1888 he was awarded the second prix de Rome for his cantata Valleda. Since he was passed over entirely in the competition of the following year, he left the Conservatory and fulfilled his military service. At this period he had composed three overtures, of which the last, Polyeucte, alone has been published and performed. In his Cours de Composition,[69] d'Indy discloses that Dukas was ill-satisfied with the instruction he received at the Conservatory, and that he subsequently made a profound study of the classics and evolved his own technical idiom. Dukas, however, shows the effect of two schools, that of Franck in much of his instrumental music, and a sympathy with that of Debussy in the dramatic field. To acknowledge this does not mean to tax him with lack of individuality, but merely to recognize the confluence of opposing viewpoints.
The overture Polyeucte (1891) shows surprising command for so young a man of the technique of composition and orchestration, although unnecessarily elaborate in the former particular. It has the classic dignity of Corneille and at the same time is sincerely dramatic. The Symphony in C (1895-96) shows considerable progress in many respects: clearer part writing, unpretentious yet logical construction, no apparent ambition other than to write sincerely within the limits of normal symphonic style. There is also marked advance in clarity and brilliance in the orchestral style. In 1897 Dukas made a pronounced hit with his fantastic and imaginative Scherzo, L'Apprenti sorcier, after Goethe's ballad, first performed at a concert of the National Society. This work is one of the landmarks of modern French music for its elastic fluency of style, the descriptive imagery of its music, and, above all, its personal note, in which the orchestra was treated with dazzling mastery.
A Sonata for piano (1899-1900) forsakes the vein of programmistic tour de force entirely and exhibits a dignified, almost classic, style whose workmanship is admirable throughout. The theme of the first movement is distinguished, the second less interesting until it appears in the recapitulation with deft canonic imitation. The slow movement is somewhat cold and lacking in inner sentiment; the scherzo is individual, and the finale solid. Similarly the 'Variations, Interlude and Finale,' on a theme by Rameau, for piano (1902), is not only composed with similar preoccupation for thorough workmanship, but its spirit, save for some ever-present harmonic boldness, seems to have proceeded from the epoch of the theme. As a matter of fact, these variations show a post-Beethovenian ingenuity, and genuine skill in perceiving the gracious theme of Rameau in different and engaging lights that make this work conspicuous among piano literature in modern French music. But this music is strongly suggestive of d'Indy and the Schola. A Villanelle for horn and piano (1906) is a charming piece which achieves individuality despite the limitations of the horn.
But when Dukas' music for Maeterlinck's Ariane et Barbe Bleue (1907) was performed May 10, 1907, after he had begun and rejected 'Horn and Riemenhild' (1892) and 'The Tree of Science' (1899), a greater surprise was in store than upon the occasion when L'Apprenti Sorcier was played for the first time.
Instead of the shrinking figure of the fairy-tale, Ariane is a representative of the feminist movement, if not almost a militant suffragette, who flatly disobeys Bluebeard, opens all the forbidden doors to deck herself with jewels, releases her captive sisters, helps them to free Bluebeard when the infuriated peasants have attacked and bound him, and then returns to her home, leaving her infatuated sisters who have too little imagination to make a decision. Dukas has treated this story in a style that at once admits a coherent and almost symphonic development of motives, and employs a harmonic idiom that profits by all that Debussy has done to extend the whole-tone scale. Dukas does not employ this scale as Debussy has done, but it is obvious that he never would have gone so far if it had not been for his pioneer contemporary. Instead of the translucent orchestra of Pelléas, Dukas has employed one that is appropriately far more robust, but which he has nevertheless used with discretion and reserve. He has taken advantage of the discovery of the jewels in the first act to employ coloristic resources lavishly. Despite the complex obligations in the matter of style, Dukas has produced music of a spontaneously decorative and dramatic type, which makes this opera significant among the works of recent years. While Ariane is unequal, the first scene, excellently worked-out ensemble, the close of the first act, the introduction and first scene of the second, and the close of the work cannot be effaced from the records of modern French opera.
In 1910, Dukas had another success with his poëme dansant, La Péri, on a scenario of his own, which has been exquisitely interpreted by Mlle. Trouhanova, to whom it is dedicated. Here is a work of the ballet type, which unites felicitously a sense of structure with a gift for atmospheric interpretation. In this respect, La Péri is one of the most satisfactory of Dukas' works, and one in which his encyclopedic knowledge and his imaginative gifts are best displayed.
In addition to his gifts as a composer, Dukas is an editor and critic of distinction. He has retouched some concertos for violin and clavecin by Couperin; he has revised Les Indes galantes, La Princesse de Navarre and Zephyre by Rameau for the complete edition of that master's works. He made a four-hand arrangement of Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila, and together with that distinguished composer finished and orchestrated Fredegonde, an opera left incomplete by Guiraud at his death. In addition, Dukas' articles for the Revue Hebdomadaire and the Gazette des Beaux Arts display erudition and the clairvoyant judgment of the born critic.
Thus, although attaching himself to no one group exclusively, Dukas has, by his capacity for architectural treatment of instrumental forms and his atmospheric gift in dramatic characterization, attained a position of dignity and individual expression.