IV
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
IV
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
It is a principle of musical expression that of the two great types of temperament, the active and the contemplative, the first tends to express itself in strongly rhythmic figures, the second in phrases of vaguer outline, full of sentiment not easily to be confined in molds. The man of action is incisive, vigorous, compact in utterance; the mystic is by contrast indefinite and discursive. It has been well established, indeed, that primeval music was the product of two modes of instinctive emotional expression, the gesticulatory and the vocal, dance and song; and throughout its growth these two strands, however closely they may intertwine, can still be traced. Thus it happens that even to-day we find the complex work of modern musicians getting a special impress of personality and style according as the rhythmic or the melodic-harmonic faculty predominates in the individual. One man's music will be notable for its strong impulse, its variety and vivacity of rhythm; another's will appeal to the more dreamy and sentimental part of our natures, will speak to our hearts so movingly that we shall recognize its descent from the song rather than from the dance. And in all such cases the first man will be of the active temperament, a man of the world, of many interests and great nervous force; the second will be contemplative, inclined to the monastic life, and of great heart rather than keen intelligence.
Such an antithesis of artistic product and of personal character exists in a peculiar degree between Camille Saint-Saëns and César Franck, the two greatest composers France has produced since Bizet. Each of these men is great by virtue of qualities somewhat wanting in the other. The one is clever, worldly, learned—and a little superficial; the other, profound, religious, of singularly pure and exalted spirit, is yet emotional to the verge of abnormality. And so with their music; that of Saint-Saëns is energetic, lucid, consummately wrought, while Franck's, more moving and more subtle, is so surcharged with feeling as to become vague and inarticulate. A review of their lives and a brief analysis of their work will bring out more clearly this divergence of nature, which, in spite of the many traits they have in common, has determined them to very different careers and exacted of them very dissimilar artistic services.