Overtones, a book of temperaments

by James Huneker

The elder Daudet finds that Wagner is saturated by nature and nature’s sounds:—

His orchestral parts cradle and swing me to and fro. His gentleness and power cause me to pass within a few hours through the most powerful emotions—emotions, in fact, for which no one can fail to be grateful forever to the man who has excited them, because they reveal our inner depths to ourselves. I love and admire Beethoven also for the wide and peaceful landscapes which he knows how to open up in the soul of sound. Italian music enchants me, and in Rossini I experience that extraordinary impression of melancholy anguish which an excess of life gives us. There is too much frenzy, too much movement; it is as if one were trying to escape from death. I adore Mendelssohn and his delicious pictures of nature in the Scotch and Italian symphonies. There are certain hours toward nightfall when the soul of Schumann torments me.... But to number them all would be to never end. I have lived through the power of music; I am a dweller upon its planet.

Now all this is quite satisfying when one realizes that Daudet, in his love for music, steps out of the French literary tradition. French writers, even those of this century, have never been fanatics for music, Stendhal and Baudelaire excepted—Baudelaire who discovered Wagner to France. I cannot recommend Stendhal as a musical guide. Châteaubriand, Victor Hugo, Gautier, Alfred de Vigny, de Musset, Flaubert, Dumas fils, Zola, the de Goncourts—the brothers secretly abominated music—this mixed company was not fond of the heavenly maid. Catulle Mendès is a Wagnerian, and in his evanescent way Paul Verlaine was affected by melody. He wrote a magnificent and subtle sonnet on Parsifal. Perhaps it was what the despiser of Kundry stood for rather than Wagner’s music that set vibrating the verbal magic of this Chopin of the Gutter. Villier de l’Isle Adam was another crazy Wagnerian, played excerpts on the piano, had his music performed at his own deathbed, and sketched in a book of his the figure of Liszt as Triboulet Bonhomet. Huysmans, of Flemish descent, has made a close study of church music and the old ecclesiastical modes in En Route and in several others of his remarkable books. The younger Parisian writers are generally music lovers.

How well Daudet understood that elusive quantity, the artistic temperament, may be seen in this bit of analysis: “Neither sculptor, nor painter represents anything which did not exist before in the world. It is somewhat different in regard to music. But, looking at things a little closer, music is the lofty manifestation of a harmony, the models for which exist in nature. Nevertheless the writer, the painter, the poet, the sculptor, and the musician, whenever their work bears them honestly along, believe honestly that they are adding to the world something which did not exist before their time. Sublime illusion!”

On this clear, critical note let us leave the always delightful writer, the once charming man. “Oh, Daudet, c’est de la bouillabaisse!” cries the author of Evelyn Innes. Yes, but is not la bouillabaisse a fascinating dish, especially when a master chef has prepared it?

GEORGE MOORE

I
Evelyn Innes

There must be a beyond. In Wagner there is none. He is too perfect. Never since the world began did an artist realize himself so perfectly. He achieved all he desired, therefore something is wanting.—George Moore.

At last a novel with some intelligent criticism of music—George Moore’s Evelyn Innes.

For years I have browsed amidst the herbage offered by writers of musical fiction, and usually have found it bitter and unprofitable. We all smile now at the inflated sentimentalities of Charles Auchester, and shudder at the mistakes of the literary person when dealing with musical themes. Jessie Fothergill’s The First Violin is very pretty, but it is badly written and reeks of Teutonic Schwärmerei. The characters are the conventional puppets of fiction armed with a conductor’s stick and violin bow, instead of sword, cloak, and dagger. A novel dealing with genuine musical figures has yet to be written, so George Moore’s Evelyn Innes is an attempt in the right direction. The book is full of faults, but at least it deals sanely with music, and contains several very acute criticisms of Wagner’s music, acute without being too literary or too technical.