Musicians of To-Day Part 15

All that is begun must end, All around will sometime perish.

[Footnote 191:

Once we were also men Happy or sad like you; Now life is taken from us, We are only of earth, as you see.

_Chiunque nasce a morte arriva Nel fuggir del tempo, e'l sole Niuna cosa lascia viva....

Come voi, uomini fummo, Lieti e tristi, come siete; E or siam, come vedete, Terra al sol, di vita priva_.

(Poems of Michelangelo, Cx.x.xVI.)

As soon as Wolf was really dead his genius was recognised all over Germany. His sufferings provoked an almost excessive reaction in his favour. _Hugo-Wolf-Vereine_ were founded everywhere; and to-day we have publications, collections of letters, souvenirs, and biographies in abundance. It is a case of who can cry loudest that he always understood the genius of the unhappy artist, and work himself into the greatest fury against his traducers. A little later, and monuments and statues will spring up all over.

I doubt if Wolf with his rough, sincere nature would have found much consolation in this tardy homage if he could have foreseen it. He would have said to his posthumous admirers: "You are hypocrites. It is not for me that you raise those statues; it is for yourselves. It is that you may make speeches, form committees, and delude yourselves and others that you were my friends. Where were you when I had need of you? You let me die. Do not play a comedy round my grave. Look rather around you, and see if there are not other Wolfs who are struggling against your hostility or your indifference. As for me, I have come safe to port."

DON LORENZO PEROSI

The winter that held Italian thought in its cold clasp is over, and great trees that seemed to be asleep are putting out new life in the sun. Yesterday it was poetry that awaked, and to-day it is music--the sweet music of Italy, calm in its pa.s.sion and sadness, and artless in its knowledge. Are we really witnessing the return of its spring? Is it the incoming of some great tide of melody, which will wash away the gloom and doubt of our life to-day? As I was reading the oratorios of this young priest of Piedmont, I thought I heard, far away, the song of the children of old Greece: "The swallow has come, has come, bringing the gay seasons and glad years. Ear ede." I welcome the coming of Don Lorenzo Perosi with great hope.

[Ill.u.s.tration: greek207]

The abbe Perosi, the precentor of St. Mark's chapel at Venice and the director of the Sistine chapel, is twenty-six years old.[192] He is short in stature and of youthful appearance, with a head a little too big for his body, and open and regular features lighted up by intelligent black eyes, his only peculiarity being a projecting underlip.

[Footnote 192: This article was written in 1899, on the occasion of Lorenzo Perosi's coming to Paris to direct his oratorio _La Resurrection_.] He is simple-hearted and modest, and has a friendly warmth of affection. When he is conducting the orchestra his striking silhouette, his slow and awkward gestures in expressive pa.s.sages, and his nave movements of pa.s.sion at dramatic moments, bring to mind one of Fra Angelico's monks.

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 Pa.s.sion_, _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 pa.s.sing, 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 cla.s.sics--all of which are the sins of youth, which age will certainly cure.

Each of the oratorios is really a descriptive ma.s.s, 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 pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sage, 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 pa.s.sage 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 nave 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 mult.i.tude 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 a.s.sumes 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 Pa.s.sion_ 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 pa.s.sed 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, Dostoevsky, 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, Schutz, Bach, Handel, Gounod, Wagner--I was going to say Cesar Franck, but Don Perosi told me that he hardly knew this composer at all, though his style bears some resemblance to Franck's.

Time does not exist for Don Perosi. When he courteously wished to praise French musicians, the first name he chose--as if it were that of a contemporary--was that of Josquin, and then that of Roland de La.s.sus, who seems to him so great and profound a musician that he admires him most of all. And Don Perosi's universality of style is a trait that is Catholic as well as Italian. He expresses his mind quite clearly on the subject. "Great artists formerly," he says, "were more eclectic than ourselves, and less fettered by their nationalities. Josquin's school has peopled all Europe. Roland has lived in Flanders, in Italy, and in Germany. With them the same style expressed the same thought everywhere.

We must do as they did. We must try to recreate a universal art in which the resources of all countries and all times are blended."

As a matter of fact, I do not think this is quite correct. I rather doubt if Josquin and Roland were eclectic at all; for they did not really combine the styles of different countries, but thrust upon other countries the style that the Franco-Flemish school had just created, a style which they themselves were enriching daily. But Don Perosi's idea deserves our appreciation, and one must praise his endeavour to create a universal style. It would be a good thing for music if eclecticism, thus understood, could bring back some of the equilibrium that has been lost since Wagner's death; it would be a benefit to the human spirit, which might then find in the unity of art a powerful means of bringing about the unity of mind. Our aim should be to efface the differences of race in art, so that it may become a tongue common to all peoples, where the most opposite ideas may be reconciled. We should all join in working to build the cathedral of European art. And the place of the director of the Sistine chapel among the first builders is very plain.

Don Perosi sat down to the piano and played me the _Te Deum_ of _The Nativity_, which he had written the day before. He played very sweetly, with youthful gaiety, and sang the choral parts in an undertone. Every now and then he would look at me, not for praise, but to see if we were sharing the same thoughts. He would look me well in the face with his quiet eyes, then turn back to his score, and then look at me again. And I felt a comforting calm radiating from him and his music, from its happy harmony and the full and rhythmic serenity of its spirit. And how pleasant it was after the tempests and convulsions of art in these later days. Can we not tear ourselves away from that romantic suffering in music which was begun by Beethoven? After a century of battles, of revolutions, and of political and social strife, whose pain has found its reflection in art, let us begin to build a new city of art, where men may gather together in brotherly love for the same ideal. However Utopian that hope may sound now, let us think of it as a symptom of new directions of thought, and let us hope that Don Perosi may be one of those who will bring into music that divine peace, that peace which Beethoven craved for in despair at the end of his _Missa Solemnis_, that joy that he sang about but never knew.

FRENCH AND GERMAN MUSIC

In May, 1905, the first musical festival of Alsace-Lorraine took place at Strasburg. It was an important artistic event, and meant the bringing together of two civilisations that for centuries had been at variance on the soil of Alsace, more anxious for dispute than for mutual understanding.

The official programme of the _fetes musicales_ laid stress on the reconciliatory purpose of its organisers, and I quote these words from the programme book, drawn up by Dr. Max Bendiner, of Strasburg:

"Music may achieve the highest of all missions: she may be a bond between nations, races, and states, who are strangers to one another in many ways; she may unite what is disunited, and bring peace to what is hostile.... No country is more suited for her friendly aid than Alsace-Lorraine, that old meeting-place of people, where from time immemorial the North and South have exchanged their material and their spiritual wealth; and no place is readier to welcome her than Strasburg, an old town built by the Romans, which has remained to this day a centre of spiritual life.

All great intellectual currents have left their mark on the people of Alsace-Lorraine; and so they have been destined to play the part of mediator between different times and different peoples; and the East and the West, the past and the present, meet here and join hands. In such festivals as this, it is not a matter of gaining aesthetic victories; it is a matter of bringing together all that is great and n.o.ble and eternal in the art of different times and different nations."

It was a splendid ambition for Alsace--the eternal field of battle--to wish to inaugurate these European Olympian games. But in spite of good intentions, this meeting of nations resulted in a fight, on musical ground, between two civilisations and two arts--French art and German art. For these two arts represent to-day all that is truly alive in European music.

Such jousts are very stirring, and may be of great service to all combatants. But, unhappily, France was very indifferent in the matter.

It was the duty of our musicians and critics to attend an international encounter like this, and to see that the conditions of the combat were fair. By that I mean our art should be represented as it ought to be, so that we may learn something from the result. But the French public does nothing at such a time; it remains absorbed in its concerts at Paris, where everyone knows everyone else so well that they are not able and do not dare to criticise freely. And so our art is withering away in an atmosphere of coteries, instead of seeking the open air and enjoying a vigorous fight with foreign art. For the majority of our critics would rather deny the existence of foreign art than try to understand it.

Never have I regretted their indifference more than I did at the Strasburg festival, where, in spite of the unfavourable conditions in which French art was represented through our own carelessness, I realised what its force might have been if we had been interested spectators in the fight.

Perfect eclecticism had been exercised in the making up of the programme. One found mixed together the names of Mozart, Wagner, and Brahms; Cesar Franck and Gustave Charpentier; Richard Strauss and Mahler. There were French singers like Cazeneuve and Daraux, and French and Italian virtuosi like Henri Marteau and Ferruccio Busoni, together with German, Austrian, and Scandinavian artists. The orchestra (the _Stra.s.sburger Stadtische Orchester_) and the choir, which was formed of different _Chorvereine_ of Strasburg, were conducted by Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, and Camille Chevillard. But the names of these famous _Kapellmeister_ must not let us forget the man who was really the soul of the concerts--Professor Ernst Munch, of Strasburg, an Alsatian, who conducted all the rehearsals, and who effaced himself at the last moment, and left all the honours to the conductors of foreign orchestras. Professor Munch, who is also organist at Saint-Guillaume, has done more than anyone else for music in Strasburg, and has trained excellent choirs (the "_Choeurs de Saint-Guillaume_") there, and organised splendid concerts of Bach's music with the aid of another Alsatian, Albert Schweitzer, whose name is well known to musical historians. The latter is director of the clerical college of St. Thomas (_Thoma.s.stift_), a pastor, an organist, a professor at the University of Strasburg, and the author of interesting works on theology and philosophy. Besides this he has written a now famous book, _Jean-Sebastien Bach_, which is doubly remarkable: first, because it is written in French (though it was published in Leipzig by a professor of the University of Strasburg), and secondly, because it shows an harmonious blend of the French and German spirit, and gives fresh life to the study of Bach and the old cla.s.sic art. It was very interesting to me to make the acquaintance of these people, born on Alsatian soil, and representing the best Alsatian culture and all that was finest in the two civilisations.

The programme for the three days' festival was as follows:

Sat.u.r.day, May 20th.

_Oberon Overture_: Weber (conducted by Richard Strauss).

_Les Beat.i.tudes_: Cesar Franck (conducted by Camille Chevillard).

_Impressions d'ltalie_: Gustav Charpentier (conducted by Camille Chevillard).

Three songs by Jean Sibelius, Hugo Wolf, Armas Jarnefelt (sung by Mme. Jarnefelt).

The last scene from _Die Meistersinger_: Wagner (conducted by Richard Strauss).