For myself, I am in sympathy with his heart; and I find his heart is in the right, and his reason in the wrong. There is nothing that M. d'Indy has made more his own than the art of painting landscapes in music. There is one page in Fervaal at the beginning of Act II which calls up misty mountain tops covered with pine forests; there is another page in L'Étranger where one sees strange lights glimmering on the sea while a storm is brooding.[164] I should like to see M. d'Indy give himself up freely, in spite of all theories, to this descriptive lyricism, in which he so excels; or I wish at least he would seek inspiration in a subject where both his religious beliefs and his imagination could find satisfaction: a subject such as one of the beautiful episodes of the Golden Legend, or the one which L'Étranger itself recalls—the romantic voyage of the Magdalen in Provence. But it is foolish to wish an artist to do anything but the thing he likes; he is the best judge of what pleases him.
In this sketchy portrait I must not forget one of the finest of this composer's gifts—his talent as a teacher of music. Everything has fitted M. d'Indy for this part. By his knowledge and his precise, orderly mind he must be a perfect teacher of composition. If I submit some question of harmony or melodic phrasing to his analysis, the result is the essence of clear, logical reasoning; and if the reasoning is a little dry and simplifies the thing almost too much, it is still very illuminating and from the hand of a master of French prose. And in this I find him exercising the same consistent instinct of good sense and sincerity, the same art of development, the same seventeenth and eighteenth century principles of classic rhetoric that he applies to his music. In truth, M. d'Indy could write a musical Discourse on Style, if he wished.
But, above all, he is gifted with the moral qualities of a teacher—the vocation for teaching, first of all. He has a firm belief in the absolute duty of giving instruction in art, and, what is rarer still, in the efficacious virtue of that teaching. He readily shares Tolstoy's scorn, which he sometimes quotes, of the foolishness of art for art's sake.
"At the bottom of art is this essential condition—teaching. The aim of art is neither gain nor glory; the true aim of art is to teach, to elevate gradually the spirit of humanity; in a word, to serve in the highest sense—'dienen' as Wagner says by the mouth of the repentant Kundry, in the third act of Parsifal."[165]
There is in this a mixture of Christian humility and aristocratic pride. M. d'Indy has a sincere desire for the welfare of humanity, and he loves the people; but he treats them with an affectionate kindness, at once protective and tolerant; he regards them as children that must be led.[166]
The popular art that he extols is not an art belonging to the people, but that of an aristocracy interested in the people. He wishes to enlighten them, to mould them, to direct them, by means of art. Art is the source of life; it is the spirit of progress; it gives the most precious of possessions to the soul—liberty. And no one enjoys this liberty more than the artist. In a lecture to the Schola he said:
"What makes the name of 'artist' so splendid is that the artist is free—absolutely free. Look about you, and tell me if from this point of view there is any career finer than that of an artist who is conscious of his mission? The Army? The Law? The University? Politics?"
And then follows a rather cold appreciation of these different careers.
"There is no need to mention the excessive bureaucracy and officialism which is the crying evil of this country. We find everywhere submission to rules and servitude to the State. But what government, pope, emperor, or president could oblige an artist to think and write against his will? Liberty—that is the true wealth and the most precious inheritance of the artist, the liberty to think, and the liberty that no one has the power to take away from us—that of doing our work according to the dictates of our conscience."