Musicians of To-Day Part 10

[Footnote 152: _Revue musicale_, November, 1902.]

However that may be, M. d'Indy hails from the Middle Ages, and not from antiquity (which does not exist for him[153]), or from the Renaissance, which he confounds with the Reformation (though the two sisters are enemies) in order to crush it the better.[154] "Let us take for models,"

he says, "the fine workers in art of the Middle Ages."[155]

In this return to the Gothic spirit, in this awakening of faith, there is a name--a modern one this time--that they are fond of quoting at the _Schola_; it is that of Cesar Franck, under whose direction the little Conservatoire in the Rue Saint-Jacques was placed. And indeed they could quote no better name than that of this simple-hearted man. Nearly all who came into contact with him felt his irresistible charm--a charm that has perhaps a great deal to do with the influence that his works still have on French music to-day. None has felt Franck's power, both morally and musically, more than M. Vincent d'Indy; and none holds a more profound reverence for the man whose pupil he was for so long.

[Footnote 153: "The only doc.u.ments extant on ancient music are either criticisms or appreciations, and not musical texts" (_Cours de Composition_).]

[Footnote 154: "The influence of the Renaissance, with its pretension and vanity, caused a check in all the arts--the effect of which we are still feeling" (_Traite de Composition_, p. 89. See also the pa.s.sage quoted before on Pride).]

[Footnote 155: _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, November, 1900.]

The first time I saw M. d'Indy was at a concert of the _Societe nationale_, in the Salle Pleyel, in 1888. They were playing several of Franck's works; among others, for the first time, his admirable _Theme, fugue, et variation_, for the harmonium and pianoforte, a composition in which the spirit of Bach is mingled with a quite modern tenderness.

Franck was conducting, and M. d'Indy was at the pianoforte. I shall always remember his reverential manner towards the old musician, and how careful he was to follow his directions; one would have said he was a diligent and obedient pupil. It was a touching homage from one who had already proved himself a master by works like _Le Chant de la cloche_, _Wallenstein_, _La Symphonie sur un theme montagnard_, and who was perhaps at that time better known and more popular than Cesar Franck himself. Since then twenty years have pa.s.sed, and I still see M. d'Indy as I saw him that evening; and, whatever may happen in the future, his memory for me will be always a.s.sociated with that of the grand old artist, presiding with his fatherly smile over the little gathering of the faithful.

Of all the characteristics of Franck's fine moral nature, the most remarkable was his religious faith. It must have astonished the artists of his time, who were even more dest.i.tute of such a thing than they are now. It made itself felt in some of his followers, especially in those who were near the master's heart, as M. d'Indy was. The religious thought of the latter reflects in some degree the thought of his master; though the shape of that thought may have undergone unconscious alteration. I do not know if Franck altogether fits the conception people have of him to-day. I do not want to introduce personal memories of him here. I knew him well enough to love him, and to catch a glimpse of the beauty and sincerity of his soul; but I did not know him well enough to discover the secrets of his mind. Those who had the happiness of being his intimate friends seem always to represent him as a mystic who shut himself away from the spirit of his time. I hope at some future date one of his friends will publish some of the conversations that he had with him, of which I have heard. But this man who had so strong a faith was also very independent. In his religion he had no doubts: it was the mainspring of his life; though faith with him was much more a matter of feeling than a matter of doctrine. But all was feeling with Franck, and reason made little appeal to him. His religious faith did not disturb his mind, for he did not measure men and their works by its rules; and he would have been incapable of putting together a history of art according to the Bible. This great Catholic had at times a very pagan soul; and he could enjoy without a qualm the musical dilettantism of Renan and the sonorous nihilism of Leconte de Lisle. There were no limits to his vast sympathies. He did not attempt to criticise the thing he loved--understanding was already in his heart. Perhaps he was right; and perhaps there was more trouble in the depths of his heart than the valiant serenity of its surface would lead us to believe.

His faith too.... I know how dangerous it is to interpret a musician's feelings by his music; but how can we do otherwise when we are told by Franck's followers that the expression of the soul is the only end and aim of music? Do we find his faith, as expressed through his music always full of peace and calm?[156] I ask those who love that music because they find some of their own sadness reflected there. Who has not felt the secret tragedies that some of his musical pa.s.sages enfold--those short, characteristically abrupt phrases which seem to rise in supplication to G.o.d, and often fall back in sadness and in tears? It is not all light in that soul; but the light that is there does not affect us less because it shines from afar,

"Dans un ecartement de nuages, qui laisse Voir au-dessus des mers la celeste allegresse...."[157]

[Footnote 156: I speak of the pa.s.sages where he expresses himself freely, and is not interpreting a dramatic situation necessary to his subject, as in that fine symphonic part of the _Redemption_, where he describes the triumph of Christ. But even there we find traces of sadness and suffering.]

[Footnote 157: Through a break in the clouds, revealing Celestial joy shining above the deeps.]

And so Franck seems to me to differ from M. d'Indy in that he has not the latter's urgent desire for clearness.

Clearness is the distinguishing quality of M. d'Indy's mind. There are no shadows about him. His ideas and his art are as clear as the look that gives so much youth to his face. For him to examine, to arrange, to cla.s.sify, to combine, is a necessity. No one is more French in spirit. He has sometimes been taxed with Wagnerism, and it is true that he has felt Wagner's influence very strongly. But even when this influence is most apparent it is only superficial: his true spirit is remote from Wagner's. You may find in _Fervaal_ a few trees like those in _Siegfried's_ forest; but the forest itself is not the same; broad avenues have been cut in it, and daylight fills the caverns of the Niebelungs.

This love of clearness is the ruling factor of M. d'Indy's artistic nature. And this is the more remarkable, for his nature is far from being a simple one. By his wide musical education and his constant thirst for knowledge he has acquired a very varied and almost contradictory learning. It must be remembered that M. d'Indy is a musician familiar with the music of other countries and other times; all kinds of musical forms are floating in his mind; and he seems sometimes to hesitate between them. He has arranged these forms into three princ.i.p.al cla.s.ses, which seem to him to be models of musical art: the decorative art of the singers of plain-song, the architectural art of Palestrina and his followers, and the expressive art of the great Italians of the seventeenth century.[158] But in doing this is not his eclecticism trying to reconcile arts that are naturally disunited?

Again, we must remember that M. d'Indy has had direct or indirect contact with some of the greatest musical personalities of our time: with Wagner, Liszt, Brahms, and Cesar Franck.

[Footnote 158: _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_ November, 1900.]

And he has been readily attracted by them; for he is not one of those egotistic geniuses whose thoughts are fixed on his own interests, nor has he one of those carnivorous minds that sees nothing, looks for nothing, and relishes nothing, unless it may be afterwards useful to it.

His sympathies are readily with others, he is happy in giving homage to their greatness, and quick to appreciate their charm. He speaks somewhere of the "irresistible need of transformation" that every artist feels.[159] But in order to escape being overwhelmed by conflicting elements and interests, one should have great force of feeling or will, in order to be able to eliminate what is not necessary, and choose out and transform what is. M. d'Indy eliminates hardly anything; he makes use of it. In his music he exercises the qualities of an army general: understanding of his purpose and the patience to attain it, a perfect knowledge of the means at his disposal, the spirit of order, and command over his work and himself. Despite the variety of the materials he employs, the whole is always clear. One might almost reproach him with being too clear; he seems to simplify too much.

Nothing helps one to grasp the essence of M. d'Indy's personality more than his last dramatic work. His personality shows itself plainly in all his compositions, but nowhere is it more evident than in _L'etranger_.[160]

[Footnote 159: _Id._, September, 1899.]

[Footnote 160: _L'etranger_, "action musicale" in two acts. Poem and music by M. Vincent d'Indy. Played for the first time at Brussels in the Theatre de la Monnaie, 7 January, 1903. The quotations from the drama, whose poetry is not as good as its music, are taken from the score.]

The scene of _L'etranger_ is laid in France, by the sea, whose murmuring calm we hear in a symphonic introduction. The fishermen are coming back to port; the fishing has been bad. But one among them, "a man about forty years old, with a sad and dignified air," has been more fortunate than the others. The fishermen envy him, and vaguely suspect him of sorcery. He tries to enter into friendly conversation with them, and offers his catch to a poor family. But in vain; his advances are repulsed and his generosity is eyed with suspicion. He is a stranger--the Stranger.[161] Evening falls, and the angelus rings. Some work-girls come trooping out of their workshop, singing a merry folk-song.[162] One of the young girls, Vita, goes up to the Stranger and speaks to him, for she alone, of all the village, is his friend. The two feel themselves drawn together by a secret sympathy. Vita confides artlessly in the unknown man; they love each other though they do not admit it. The Stranger tries to repress his feelings; for Vita is young and already affianced, and he thinks that he has no right to claim her.

But Vita, offended by his coldness, seeks to wound him, and succeeds.

In the end he betrays himself. "Yes, he loves her, and she knew it well.

But now that he has told her so, he will never see her again; and he bids her good-bye."

[Footnote 161: There is a certain likeness in the subject to Herr Richard Strauss's _Feuersnot_. There, too, the hero is a stranger who is persecuted, and treated as a sorcerer in the very town to which he has brought honour. But the _denouement_ is not the same; and the fundamental difference of temperament between the two artists is strongly marked. M. d'Indy finishes with the renouncement of a Christian, and Herr Richard Strauss by a proud and joyous affirmation of independence.]

[Footnote 162: Found by M. d'Indy in his own province, as he tells us in his _Chansons populaires du Vivarais_.]

That is the first act. Up to this point we seem to be witnessing a very human and realistic drama--the ordinary story of the man who tries to do good and receives ingrat.i.tude, and the sad tragedy of old age that comes to a heart still young and unable to resign itself to growing old. But the music puts us on our guard. We had heard its religious tone when the Stranger was speaking, and it seemed to us that we recognised a liturgical melody in the princ.i.p.al theme. What secret is being hidden from us? Are we not in France? Yet, in spite of the folk-song and a pa.s.sing breath of the sea, the atmosphere of the Church and Cesar Franck is evident. Who is this Stranger?

He tells us in the second act.

"My name? I have none. I am He who dreams; I am He who loves. I have pa.s.sed through many countries, and sailed on many seas, loving the poor and needy, dreaming of the happiness of the brotherhood of man."

"Where have I seen you?--for I know you."

"Where? you ask. But everywhere: under the warm sun of the East, by the white oceans of the Pole.... I have found you everywhere, for you are Beauty itself, you are immortal Love!"

The music is not without a certain n.o.bility, and bears the imprint of the calm, strong spirit of belief. But I was sorry that the story was only about a mere ent.i.ty when I had been getting interested in a man. I can never understand the attraction of this kind of symbolism. Unless it is allied to sublime powers of creation in metaphysics or morals--such as that possessed by a Goethe or an Ibsen--I do not see what such symbolism can add to life, though I see very well what it takes away from it. But it is, after all, a matter of taste; and, anyway, there is nothing in this story to astonish us greatly. This transition from realism to symbolism is something in opera with which we have grown only too familiar since the time of Wagner.

But the story does not stop there; for we leave symbolic abstractions to enter a still more extraordinary domain, which is removed even farther still from realities.

There had been some talk at the beginning of an emerald that sparkled in the Stranger's cap; and this emerald now takes its turn in the action of the piece. "It had sparkled formerly in the bows of the boat that carried the body of Lazarus, the friend of our Master, Jesus; and the boat had safely reached the port of the Phoceans--without a helm or sails or oars. For by this miraculous stone a clean and upright heart could command the sea and the winds." But now that the Stranger has done amiss, by falling a victim to pa.s.sion, its power is gone; so he gives it to Vita.

Then follows a real scene in fairyland. Vita stands before the sea and invokes it in an incantation full of weird and beautiful vocal music: "O sea! Sinister sea with your angry charm, gentle sea with your kiss of death, hear me!" And the sea replies in a song. Voices mingle with the orchestra in a symphony of increasing anger. Vita swears she will give herself to no one but the Stranger. She lifts the emerald above her head, and it shines with a lurid light. "'Receive, O sea, as a token of my oath, the sacred stone, the holy emerald! Then may its power be no longer invoked, and none may know again its protecting virtue. Jealous sea, take back your own, the last offering of a betrothed!' With an impressive gesture she throws the emerald into the waves, and a dark green light suddenly shines out against the black sky. This supernatural light slowly spreads over the water until it reaches the horizon, and the sea begins to roll in great billows." Then the sea takes up its song in an angrier tone; the orchestra thunders, and the storm bursts.

The boats put hurriedly back to land, and one of them seems likely to be dashed to pieces on the sh.o.r.e. The whole village turns out to watch the disaster; but the men refuse to risk their lives in aid of the shipwrecked crew. Then the Stranger gets into a boat, and Vita jumps in after him. The squall redoubles in violence. A wave of enormous height breaks on the jetty, flooding the scene with a dazzling green light. The crowd recoil in fear. There is a silence; and an old fisherman takes off his woollen cap and intones the _De Profundis_. The villagers take up the chant....

One may see by this short account what a heterogeneous work it is. Two or three quite different worlds are brought into it: the realism of the bourgeois characters of Vita's mother and lover is mixed up with symbolisms of Christianity, represented by the Stranger, and with the fairy-tale of the magic emerald and the voices of the ocean. This complexity, which is evident enough in the poem, is even more evident in the music, where a union of different arts and different ideas is attempted. We get the art of the folk-song, religious art, the art of Wagner, the art of Franck, as well as a note of familiar realism (which is something akin to the Italian _opera-bouffe_) and descriptions of sensation that are quite personal. As there are only two short acts, the rapidity of the action only serves to accentuate this impression. The changes are very abrupt: we are hurried from a world of human beings to a world of abstract ideas, and then taken from an atmosphere of religion to a land of fairies. The work is, however, clear enough from a musical point of view. The more complex the elements that M. d'Indy gathers round him the more anxious he is to bring them into harmony. It is a difficult task, and is only possible when the different elements are reduced to their simplest expression and brought down to their fundamental qualities--thus depriving them of the spice of their individuality. M. d'Indy puts different styles and ideas on the anvil, and then forges them vigorously. It is natural that here and there we should see the mark of the hammer, the imprint of his determination; but it is only by his determination that he welded the work into a solid whole.

Perhaps it is determination that brings unity now and then into M.

d'Indy's spirit. With reference to this, I will dwell upon one point only, since it is curious, and seems to me to be of general artistic interest. M. d'Indy writes his own poems for his "_actions musicales_"--Wagner's example, it seems, has been catching. We have seen how the harmony of a work may suffer through the dual gifts of its author; though he may have thought to perfect his composition by writing both words and music. But an artist's poetical and musical gifts are not necessarily of the same order. A man has not always the same kind of talent in other arts that he has in the art which he has made his own--I am speaking not only of his technical skill, but of his temperament as well. Delacroix was of the Romantic school in painting, but in literature his style was Cla.s.sic. We have all known artists who were revolutionaries in their own sphere, but conservative and behind the times in their opinions about other branches of art. The double gift of poetry and music is in M. d'Indy up to a certain point. But is his reason always in agreement with his heart?[163]

[Footnote 163: In his criticisms his heart is not always in agreement with his mind. His mind denounces the Renaissance, but his instinct obliges him to appreciate the great Florentine painters of the Renaissance and the musicians of the sixteenth century. He only gets out of the difficulty by the most extraordinary compromises, by saying that Ghirlandajo and Filippo Lippi were Gothic, or by stating that the Renaissance in music did not begin till the seventeenth century! (_Cours de Composition_, pp. 214 and 216.)]

Of course his nature is too dignified to let the quarrel be shown openly. His heart obeys the commands of his reason, or compromises with it, and by seeming respectful of authority saves appearances. His reason, represented here by the poet, likes simple, realistic, and relevant action, together with moral or even religious teaching. His heart, represented by the musician, is romantic; and if he followed it altogether he would wander off to any subject that enabled him to indulge in his love of the picturesque, such as the descriptive symphony, or even the old form of opera.

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'etranger_ 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'etranger_ 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.

[Footnote 164: Act III, scene 3. The power of that evocation is so strong that it carries the poet along with it. It would seem that part of the action had only been conceived with a view to the final effect of the sudden colouring of the waves.]

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 a.n.a.lysis, 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 cla.s.sic 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]