On returning to Paris Charpentier went to live in Montmartre, the Bohemian and artistic quarter, and entered passionately into the life about him. It presented the inspiration and material which he wished to embody in musical conceptions. He absorbed both the socialism of the quarter and its Bohemian disparagement of artistic and moral convention. Thus he witnessed the aspiration of artists, their enthusiasm for a life of freedom, together with its inevitable degradation. He studied its types avidly, and reproduced them with a verisimilitude that has made them well nigh immortal. During these years he composed many of the Poèmes chantés (published as a whole in 1894), the songs, Les Fleurs du mal (1895), on poems by Baudelaire; the Impressions fausses, on poems by Verlaine, including La Veillée rouge (1894); symbolic variations for baritone and male chorus with orchestra; and La Ronde des Compagnons (1895), for the same combination. In 1896 his Sérénade à Watteau (the poem by Verlaine) for voices and orchestra was performed in the Luxembourg gardens. In 1898 a cantata, Le Couronnement de la muse, depicting an established Montmartre custom, later incorporated in 'Louise,' was given in the square of the Hôtel de Ville. As a whole, these vocal works, with the exception of the cantata, are of interest merely as showing the early style of the composer and for their premonitions of his later idiom. Charpentier is not a born song-writer and his settings of Baudelaire's Le Jet d'eau, La Mort des amantes and L'Invitation au voyage, of Verlaine's Chevaux de bois and Sérénade à Watteau have been easily surpassed by Debussy and Duparc. The most attractive are a setting of Mauclair's La Chanson du chemin for solo voice, women's chorus and orchestra, and the Impressions fausses by Verlaine, in which his dramatic and socialistic bent is more plausible.
In the meantime Charpentier had been working steadily at his 'musical novel' Louise, both text and music by himself, which he had begun at Rome. This work, perhaps the most characteristic of his style, was performed for the first time at the Opéra-comique, February 3, 1900. It was an instant and prolonged success, and its composer was not only famous but prosperous financially. Since the recognition of 'Louise' Charpentier has suffered from irregular health. The production of 'Julien' (1896-1904) at Paris, June 4, 1913, announced as a sequel to 'Louise,' has added little to his reputation. It is founded largely on the music of 'The Life of a Poet,' with added episodes which contrast incongruously with the idiom of the earlier work. It has been announced that Charpentier has finished a 'popular epic' entitled a Triptych. This, it is said, will contain three two-act operas with the sub-titles, L'Amour au faubourg, Commédiante, and Tragédiante.
In 1900 Charpentier founded the Conservatoire populaire de Mimi Pinson (the generic slang title for the shop-girl) for encouraging the musical education of working girls. But, despite its worthy sociological purpose, this institution has failed. Charpentier has occasionally written critical articles, among them sympathetic reviews of Bruneau's L'Attaque du Moulin and L'Ouragan.
In considering the music and personality of Charpentier it must be recognized at the outset that he is far removed in emotional and intellectual makeup from other prominent figures in modern French music. A child of the people, absorbing socialistic tendencies from his boyhood, he is a musician of the instinctive type, averse to analysis or pre-conceived theory. As Bruneau drew his inspiration from the creed of realism and the works of Zola, so Charpentier is dominated by his ardent socialistic bent. His music attempts to embody his impressions of life from a democratic standpoint, in which realism and symbolism are sometimes felicitously and sometimes jarringly mingled.
In his musical idiom Charpentier stands close to Massenet, with that involuntary absorption of his teacher's principles which actuates most of the pupils of that facile but marvellously grounded composer. Charpentier is far more sincere, however, in his relations to his art, in that he has not courted popularity or lowered his artistic standard for the sake of success. Despite his obligations to Massenet, Charpentier has a vigorously independent idiom in which Bohemianism and a poetic humanity are the chief ingredients. This asserts itself even if the ultimate source of his style is obvious. He is also indebted to his master for the transparent yet coloristic treatment of the orchestra, in which sonority is obtained without waste or effort. If at times it is evident that Charpentier has not listened to Wagner without profit, the main current of his orchestral procedures, like his basic musical qualities, is preëminently Gallic.
In the early suite, 'Impressions of Italy' (1890), Charpentier has depicted in a pleasing and picturesque style various aspects of nature, the serenades of young men on leaving the inns at midnight, with responses of mandolins and guitars; the balanced and stately walk of peasant maidens carrying water from the spring; the brisk trot of mules with jingling harnesses and their driver's songs; the wide stretches of country seen from the heights near the 'Desert of Sorrento,' the cries of birds and the distant sounds of convent bells; and for finale a realistic description of a fête night at Naples with the tarantella, folk-songs, bands drowning each other out and general and uproarious gayety. While the musical substance of this suite is undeniably light, Charpentier has mingled Italian melodies, descriptions of nature and a poetic undercurrent with an unusual atmospheric charm and glamour that outweigh concretely musical consideration. His instinctive and coloristic manipulation of orchestral timbres heightens greatly the programmistic illusion.
Though the 'Life of a Poet' (1889-91), scenario and text by Charpentier, is crude and immature, it possesses indubitable dramatic vitality notwithstanding. It tells the tragedy of a young and aspiring poet who would conquer the world of expression, confident in his ability. Gradually he is assailed by doubt, loses his faith and ultimately recognizes that he cannot coördinate the vast problems confronting him into unity. Seeking oblivion in drunkenness, he acknowledges his defeat and the drama of his life is over.
In this work Charpentier has placed symbolism and realism side by side in a way that is disconcerting. After an orchestral prelude entitled 'Enthusiasm,' at once rough, forceful and incoherent, a mysterious chorus with the title 'Preparation' has dramatic power and human sentiment. The second and third scenes, respectively described as 'Incantation' and 'In the Land of Dreams,' are still occupied with the symbolic appeal of the poet to inspiration. Throughout this act the music is effective dramatically, although often not far removed from tawdry. In the second act, 'Doubt,' there is a luminous charm in the chorus sung by the 'voices of night,' an appropriate interpretation of the poet's harassing uncertainty in the second scene, and an extremely poetic orchestral passage descriptive of his meditations, which ends the act. In the first tableau of the third act, entitled 'Impotence,' an orchestral introduction of some length, again crudely dramatic, depicts graphically the losing struggle of the poet for his artistic soul. The chorus, 'voices of malediction,' curse a divinity which permits the ruin of the artist's dreams. To this, the poet, sombre and fantastic, adds his last plaint of despair and his curse. In the second 'picture' the poet is at a fête in Montmartre. The orchestra paints vividly the riot of cheap bands and the reckless jollity. The chorus echoes the curse of the preceding act and dies away in mysterious murmurs. A dance orchestra (in the wings) plays a vulgar polka, a noisy military band chimes in while passing. To these a melody is dexterously added in the orchestra. A reminiscence of a chorus in the first act is ingeniously contrived with the polka and orchestral melody as accompaniment. The poet, now drunk, apostrophizes a wretched girl of the streets, who replies with mocking laughter. The orchestra suggests the æsthetic disintegration of the poet, the chorus recalls the aspirations of his earlier life and finally the poet voices his defeat.
'The Life of a Poet' is interesting because it presents in a somewhat primitive state the essential characteristics of the mature Charpentier, namely, a palpable dramatic gift, the faculty of poetic and humanizing illumination and differentiation of scenes. In the scene at Montmartre he has not only furnished a precursor of the Bohemian realism in 'Louise,' but he has displayed considerable contrapuntal facility. If the 'Life of a Poet' has the clearly discernible defects of youth, it has also its vitality and a spontaneous conviction which was prophetic of the future.
The universality of appeal to be found in 'Louise' (finished in 1900, although begun at Rome), a 'musical novel' in four acts, text by the composer, lies chiefly in its simple dramatic poignancy. The story is that of an innocent girl trusting the instincts of her heart in returning the affection of the irresponsible Bohemian poet who lives nearby; her elopement with the poet, her enthralling happiness and brief triumph as 'Muse of Montmartre' shattered by the false report of her father's serious illness; her return to the parental dwelling, her impatient chafing at restraint, her intolerable longing to return to her lover and the facile Bohemian life; her father's anger and her brutal dismissal into the night by him, followed by his curse on Paris. All is basically human and typical of life under all conditions and places. But 'Louise' contains other elements which make alike for retentive charm and for critical admiration. In the first place, it is pervaded by an insinuating glorification of Paris as a city of freedom and provocative attraction, a perpetual Bohemian paradise. Next, by the nature of the plot it affords an opportunity for the librettist to voice a socialistic assertion of the individual's right to personal liberty, somewhat sententiously uttered, and a condemnation of restraint symbolized by parental egotism. 'Louise' also contains a plausible and graphic portrayal of artist life in Montmartre, including the time-honored ceremony of crowning its 'Muse,' by which Charpentier has immortalized types doomed to disappear before the commercialization of the quarter for the foreign visitor. In addition Charpentier may claim distinction for his services as a folk-lorist by introducing the street cries of various vendors to increase 'local color,' recalling the ingenious choruses by Jannequin (of the sixteenth century), such as Les Cris de Paris and Le Chant des Oiseaux. Thus in time it may be recognized that he has fulfilled an ethnographic purpose of some import.