Great Italian and French Composers

by George T. Ferris

Readers will pardon this digression illustrating an artistic law, of which Gounod has made such effective use in the church scene of his "Faust" in heightening its tragic solemnity. The wild goblin symphony in the fifth act has added some new effects to the gamut of deviltry in music, and shows that Weber in the "Wolf's Glen" and Meyerbeer in the "Cloisters of St. Rosalie" did not exhaust the somewhat limited field. The whole of this part of the act, sadly mutilated and abridged often in representation, is singularly picturesque and striking as a musical conception, and is a fitting companion to the tragic prison scene. The despair of the poor crazed Marguerite; her delirious joy in recognizing Faust; the temptation to fly; the final outburst of faith and hope, as the sense of Divine pardon sinks into her soul—all these are touched with the fire of genius, and the passion sweeps with an unfaltering force to its climax. These references to the details of a work so familiar as "Faust," conveying of course no fresh information to the reader, have been made to illustrate the peculiarities of Gounod's musical temperament, which sways in such fascinating contrast between the voluptuous and the spiritual. But whether his accents belong to the one or the other, they bespeak a mood flushed with earnestness and fervor, and a mind which recoils from the frivolous, however graceful it may be.

In the Franco-German school, of which Gounod is so high an exponent, the orchestra is busy throughout developing the history of the emotions, and in "Faust" especially it is as busy a factor in expressing the passions of the characters as the vocal parts. Not even in the "garden scene" does the singing reduce the instruments to a secondary importance. The difference between Gounod and Wagner, who professes to elaborate the importance of the orchestra in dramatic music, is that the former has a skill in writing for the voice which the other lacks. The one lifts the voice by the orchestration, the other submerges it. Gounod's affluence of lovely melody can only be compared with that of Mozart and Rossini, and his skill and ingenuity in treating the orchestra have wrung reluctant praise from his bitterest opponents.

The special power which makes Gounod unique in his art, aside from those elements before alluded to as derived from temperament, is his unerring sense of dramatic fitness, which weds such highly suggestive music to each varying phase of character and action. To this perhaps one exception may be made. While he possesses a certain airy playfulness, he fails in rich broad humor utterly, and situations of comedy are by no means so well handled as the more serious scenes.

A good illustration of this may be found in "Le Médecin malgré lui," in the couplets given to the drunken Sganarelle. They are beautiful music, but utterly unflavored with the vis comica.

Had Gounod written only "Faust," it should stamp him as one of the most highly gifted composers of his age. Noticeably in his other works, preeminently in this, he has shown a melodic freshness and fertility, a mastery of musical form, a power of orchestration, and a dramatic energy, which are combined to the same degree in no one of his rivals. Therefore it is just to place him in the first rank of contemporary composers.

IV.

Among contemporary French composers there is no name which suggests itself in comparison with that of Gounod so worthily as that of Ambroise Thomas, famous in every country where the opera is a favorite form of public amusement, as the author of "Mignon" and "Hamlet." Lacking the depth and passion of Gounod, he is distinguished by a peculiar sparkle, grace, and Gallic lightness of touch; and if we do not find in him the earnestness and spiritual significance of his rival's conceptions, there is, on the other hand, in the works of Thomas, a glow of poetic sentiment which invests them with a charming atmosphere, peculiarly their own. Perhaps in his own country Thomas enjoys a repute still higher than that of Gounod, for his genius is more peculiarly French, while the composer of "Faust" shows the radical influence of the German school, not only in the cast of his thoughts and temperament, but in his technical musical methods. Still, as all artists are profoundly moved by the tendencies of their age, it would not be difficult to find in the later works of Thomas, on which his celebrity is based, some unconscious modeling of form wrought by that musical school of which Richard Wagner is the most advanced type.

Ambroise Thomas was born at Metz, France, on August 5, 1811, and is therefore by seven years the senior of Charles Gounod. His aptitudes for music were so strong that he learned the notes as quickly as he acquired the letters of the alphabet. At the age of four he was instructed in his solfeggi by his father, who was a professor of music, and three years later he began to take lessons on the violin and piano. When he was seventeen he was thoroughly proficient in all the preparatory studies demanded for admission to the Paris Conservatoire, and he easily obtained admission into that great institution. He first studied under Zimmermann and Kalkbrenner, and afterward under Dourlen, Barbereau, Le Sueur, and Reicha. For successive years he carried off first prizes: for the piano in 1829; for harmony, in 1830; and in 1832 the highest honor in composition was awarded him, the Prix de Rome, which allowed him to go to Italy as a government stipendiary.

Our young laureate passed three years in Italy, spending most of his time at Rome and Naples. The special result of his Italian studies was a requiem mass, which was performed with great approbation from its musical judges at Paris and Rome. After traveling in Germany, Thomas returned to Paris in 1836, thoroughly equipped for his career as composer, for he had been an indefatigable student, and neglected no opportunity of perfecting his knowledge. The first step in the brilliant career of Thomas was the production of a comic opera in one act, "La Double Échelle," produced in 1837. This met with a good reception, and it was promptly followed by the production of several other light scores, that further enhanced his reputation for talent. He was not generally recognized by musicians as a man of marked promise till he produced "Mina," a comic opera in three acts, which was represented in 1843. The beauty of the instrumentation and the melodious richness of the work were unmistakable, and henceforth every production of the young composer was watched with great interest.

Ambroise Thomas could not be said to have reached a great popular success until he produced "Le Caïd," a work of the opéra-boitffe type, which instantly became an immense public favorite. This was first represented in 1849, and it has always held its place on the French stage as one of the most delightful works of its class, in spite of the competition of such later outgrowths of the opera-bouffe, school as Offenbach, Lecocq, and others. The score of this work proved to be immensely amusing and brightly melodious, and it was such a pecuniary success that the more judicious friends of Thomas feared that he might be seduced into cultivating a field far below the powers of his poetic imagination and thorough musical science. Strong heads might easily be turned by such lavish applause, and it would not have been wonderful had Thomas, dazzled by the reception of "Le Caïd," remained for a long time a wanderer from the path which lay open to his great talents. The composer's ambition, however, proved to be too high to content itself with ephemeral success, or cultivating the more frivolous forms of his art, however profitable aid pleasant these might be.