Musicians of to-day

by Romain Rolland

For the last eighteen months Don Perosi has been working at a cycle of twelve oratorios descriptive of the life of Christ. In this short time he has finished four: The Passion, The Transfiguration, The Resurrection of Lazarus, The Resurrection of Christ. Now he is at work on the fifth—The Nativity.

These compositions alone place him in the front rank of contemporary musicians. They abound in faults; but their qualities are so rare, and his soul shines so clearly through them, and such fine sincerity breathes in them, that I have not the courage to dwell on their weaknesses. So I shall content myself with remarking, in passing, that the orchestration is inadequate and awkward, and that the young musician should strive to make it fuller and more delicate; and though he shows great ease in composition, he is often too impetuous, and should resist this tendency; and that, lastly, there are sometimes traces of bad taste in the music and reminiscences of the classics—all of which are the sins of youth, which age will certainly cure.

Each of the oratorios is really a descriptive mass, which from beginning to end traces out one dominating thought. Don Perosi said to me: "The mistake of artists to-day is that they attach themselves too much to details and neglect the whole. They begin by carving ornaments, and forget that the most important thing is the unity of their work, its plan and general outline. The outline must first of all be beautiful."

In his own musical architecture one finds well-marked airs, numerous recitatives, Gregorian or Palestrinian choruses, chorales with developments and variations in the old style, and intervening symphonies of some importance.

The whole work is to be preceded by a grand prelude, very carefully worked out, to which Don Perosi attaches particular worth. He wishes, he says, that his building shall have a beautiful door elaborately carved after the fashion of the artists of the Renaissance and Gothic times. And so he means to compose the prelude after the rest of the oratorio is finished, when he is able to think about it in undisturbed peace. He wishes to concentrate a moral atmosphere in it, the very essence of the soul and passions of his sacred drama. He also confided to me that of all he has yet composed there is nothing he likes better than the introductions to The Transfiguration and The Resurrection of Christ.

The dramatic tendency of these oratorios is very marked, and it is chiefly on that account that they have conquered Italy. In spite of some passages which have strayed a little in the direction of opera, or even melodrama, the music shows great depth of feeling. The figures of the women especially are drawn with delicacy; and in the second part of Lazarus, Mary's air, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died," recalls something of Gluck's Orfeo in its heart-broken sadness. And again, in the same oratorio, when Jesus gives the order to raise the stone from the tomb, Martha's speech, "Domine, jam foetet," is very expressive of her sadness, fear, and shame, and human horror. I should like to quote one more passage, the most moving of all, which is found in the Resurrection of Christ, when Mary Magdalene is beside the tomb of Christ; here, in her speech with the angels, in her touching lamentation, and in the words of the Evangelist, "And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus," we hear a melody filled with tenderness, and seem to see Christ's eyes shining as they rest on Mary before she has recognised Him.

It is not, however, Perosi's dramatic genius that strikes me in his work; it is rather his peculiar mournfulness, which is indescribable, his gift of pure poetry, and the richness of his flowing melody. However deep the religious feeling in the music may be, the music itself is often stronger still, and breaks in upon the drama that it may express itself freely. Take, for instance, the fine symphonic passage that follows the arrival of Jesus and His friends at Martha and Mary's house, after the death of their brother (p. 12 et seq. of Lazarus). It is true the orchestra expresses regrets and sighs, the excesses of sorrow mingled with words of consolation and faith, in a sort of languishing funeral march that is feminine and Christian in character. This, according to the composer, is a picture he has painted of the persons in the drama before he makes them speak. But, in spite of himself, the result is a flood of pure music, and his soul sings its own song of joy and sadness. Sometimes his spirit, in its naïve and delicate charm, recalls that of Mozart; but his musical visions are always dominated and directed by a religious strength like that of Bach. Even the portions where the dramatic feeling is strongest are really little symphonies, such as the music that describes the miracle in The Transfiguration, and the illness of Lazarus. In the latter great depth of suffering is expressed; indeed, sadness could not have been carried farther even by Bach, and the same serenity of mind runs through its despair.

But what joy there is when these deeds of faith have been performed—when Jesus has cured the possessed man, or when Lazarus has opened his eyes to the light. The heart of the multitude overflows perhaps in rather childish thanksgiving; and at first it seemed to me expressed in a commonplace way. But did not the joy of all great artists so express itself?—the joy of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach, who, when once they had thrown their cares aside, knew how to amuse themselves like the rest of the populace. And the simple phrase at the beginning soon assumes fuller proportions, the harmonies gain in richness, a glowing ardour fills the music, and a chorale blends with the dances in triumphant majesty.

All these works are radiant with a happy ease of expression. The Passion was finished in September, 1897, The Transfiguration in February, 1898.Lazarus in June, 1898, and The Resurrection of Christ in November, 1898. Such an output of work takes us back to eighteenth-century musicians.

But this is not the only resemblance between the young musician and his predecessors. Much of their soul has passed into his. His style is made up of all styles, and ranges from the Gregorian chant to the most modern modulations. All available materials are used in this work. This is an Italian characteristic. Gabriel d'Annunzio threw into his melting-pot the Renaissance, the Italian painters, music, the writers of the North, Tolstoy, Dostoïevsky, Maeterlinck, and our French writers, and out of it he drew his wonderful poems. So Don Perosi, in his compositions, welds together the Gregorian chant, the musical style of the contrapuntists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Palestrina, Roland, Gabrieli, Carissimi, Schütz, Bach, Händel, Gounod, Wagner—I was going to say César Franck, but Don Perosi told me that he hardly knew this composer at all, though his style bears some resemblance to Franck's.