The Musical traditions of Modern Italy—Verdi's heirs: Boïto, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Wolf-Ferrari, Franchetti, Giordano, Orefice, Mancinelli—New paths; Montemezzi, Zandonai, and de Sabbata.
I
For those to whom music is an entertainment rather than an art, the idea that Italy is the 'land of music' will always exist. Almost an axiom has this popular notion become among such persons. And there is, indeed, little purpose in discouraging the belief. For what is to be gained by destroying an illusion which, in actual working, does no harm? Italy's musical development and that, for example, of Germany, are diametrically opposed to each other. Yet they both stand to-day for something particular and peculiar to their own natures. Man in his evolution has subconsciously wrought certain changes, certain innovations; he has been guided in doing so not so much by his desires as by his national characteristics.
Taking this into consideration there is nothing that cannot be understood in Italy's musical line from Palestrina to Montemezzi. Perhaps the road has been travelled with fewer halts with a view to an ideal than has that of other nations, but it has been in accordance with those things which not only shape a nation's fate but also its art. The Italian race, descended as it is from the Roman, had traditions. The ideals of that group of men known as the Florentine monodists were high. It was their purpose to add such music to the spoken word as would intensify its meaning and make its effect upon an audience more pronounced. In short, as far back as 1600, when these men flourished, the ambition of Richard Wagner and the music drama, or, if you prefer, the Greek tragedy of Sophokles and Æschylus, was known by Italian musicians who in their composing tried to establish a union between text and music such as the master of Bayreuth only accomplished late in the nineteenth century. With the beginnings of oratorio and opera—they differed little at first—the idea that personal success for the performer was necessary crept in. Had it not, Richard Wagner would not have been obliged to revolutionize the form of production given on the lyric stage. Händel, a German by birth and an Englishman by adoption, wrote florid Italian opera after 1700; he sacrificed the significance of the word to the effectiveness of his vocal writing and produced some things thereby which we of to-day can look upon only as ludicrous. The musical world knows how opera was composed in Italy in the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century. The librettist was not a poet, but a poetaster; a composer of eminence would call upon him to supply words for an aria already composed and especially adapted to the voice of some great and popular singer. The result naturally was an art-form which was neither sincere nor of real value, except from the standpoint of the singer.
The early Verdi followed the form which was known to him by attending the performances of opera given in his youth in Italy. But he saw the error of his ways and his masterpieces, Aida, Otello and Falstaff, more than atone for his early operas, which have little merit other than their facile melodic flow. Was it not to be expected that after him would come men who would emulate the manner of his last works? Was it unnatural to believe that Italy would interest itself in a more faithful setting of words to music? And the direct followers of the composer of Otello gave forth something that called the world's attention to their works. That it maintained Italian opera at a plane equal to the three final works of Verdi cannot be said. It was a passing phase and opened the way for the men who are now raising Italian operatic composition to the highest point in its history. As such it served its purpose.
When Giuseppe Verdi died in 1901 there had already been inaugurated the Realist movement in Italian opera. Italy's 'grand old man' had seen Pietro Mascagni achieve world renown with his Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggiero Leoncavallo follow him with the popular I Pagliacci. What he thought of the 'Veritists' we are not favored with knowing. It would seem safe to say that he could not have been deeply impressed by them; for the soul which gave musical expression to the emotions of the dying lovers Radames and Aïda, to the grief-stricken Otello after his murder of the lovely Desdemona, could have had little sympathy with the productions of men who fairly grovelled in the dust and covered themselves with mire in their attempts to picture the primitive feelings of Sicilian peasantry.
One man who is still alive and whose best work has a place in the répertoire of more than one opera house was a valued friend of Verdi. Arrigo Boïto[73] is his name. It was he who prepared for Verdi the libretti of Otello and Falstaff and produced a highly creditable score himself in his Mefistofele. Time was when this modern Italian's version of the Faust story was looked upon by cognoscenti as music of modern trend. In 1895 R. A. Streatfeild, the English critic, spoke of it as 'music of the head, rather than of the heart.' Hear it to-day and you will wonder how he made such a statement, for we have gone far since Mefistofele and to us it sounds pretty much like 'old Italian opera' in the accepted sense. But in its day it had potency. Boïto is, however, a finer littérateur than he is a musician. Since his success with Mefistofele he has not given us anything else. He has, to be sure, been working for many years on a Nero opera, the second act of which—there are to be five—is now completed. But a few years ago he donned the senatorial toga and matters of state have so occupied his attention that he is permitted now to turn his thoughts to music only at intervals. Further, he is already a man well along in years and the impulse to create is no longer strong. Those who know Boïto have reported that he will not complete Nero and that it will go down as a fragment.
Alberto Franchetti, born in 1860 in Turin, has composed Asrael, Cristoforo Colombo and Germania, three long, unimportant works, tried and found wanting. It was Luigi Torchi, the distinguished Italian critic, who, in discussing Asrael called it 'the most fantastic, metaphysical humbug that was ever seen on the stage.' (Torchi wrote this before Charpentier compelled himself to complete his 'Louise'!) Franchetti's leaning is toward the historical opera à la Meyerbeer, his method is Wagnerian. Originality he has none.
Our Realists are before us: Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano, Puccini and Wolf-Ferrari. We have purposely omitted the names of men like Smareglia, Cilea, Tasca and Spinelli. Their music has long since been relegated to oblivion even in their own land. Little of it ever got beyond the Italian boundary. Spinelli's A Basso Porto reached New York in 1900 and was thus described by Mr. W. J. Henderson, music critic of the New York Sun: 'The story is so repulsive, the personages so repellent, the motives so atrocious and the whole atmosphere of the thing so foul with the smell of the scums and stews of life, that one is glad to escape to the outer air.... As to the music, ... there is not a measure of it which proclaims inspiration. There is not an idea which carries with it conviction.' Mr. Henderson does not even condemn our American operas so ruthlessly! From all of which the nature of Spinelli's opera may be understood.
We in America have for a number of years looked upon Giacomo Puccini as the greatest of living Italian opera composers. His devotees call him the greatest living creator of operatic music. Already his position is becoming insecure, for younger, more inspired and more learned men are appearing on the horizon of Italy's music. The Italians have never held Puccini in the same esteem as have Americans. Despite his many failures Pietro Mascagni has been the pride of Italian musicians and music-lovers. They will grant you that his L'Amico Fritz, Guglielmo Ratcliff and Iris have failed somewhat ignominiously. They will admit that the story of Iris is one of the most revolting subjects ever chosen for treatment upon the stage. Yet you will have difficulty in proving to the contrary when they challenge you to find them a more powerful piece of orchestral writing by an Italian up to 1910 than the 'Hymn to the Sun' from that opera. We know of nothing in modern Italian music so moving as this marvellously conceived prelude, a piece of imaginative writing of the first rank.