Musicians of To-Day Part 16

Sunday, May 21st.

_Cinquieme Symphonie_: Gustav Mahler (conducted by Gustav Mahler).

_Rhapsodie_, for contralto, choir, and orchestra: Johannes Brahms (conducted by Ernst Munch).

_Strasburg Concerto in G major_, for violin (played by Henri Marteau; conducted by Richard Strauss).

_Sinfonia domestica_: Richard Strauss (conducted by Richard Strauss).

Monday, May 22nd.

_Coriolan Overture_: Beethoven (conducted by Gustav Mahler).

_Concerto in G major_, for piano: Beethoven (played by Ferruccio Busoni).

_Lieder: An die enfernie Geliebte_: Beethoven (sung by Ludwig Hess).

_Choral Symphony_: Beethoven (conducted by Gustav Mahler).

M. Chevillard alone represented our French musicians at the festival; and they could have made no better choice of a conductor. But Germany had delegated her two greatest composers, Strauss and Mahler, to come to conduct their newest compositions. And I think it would not have been too much to set up one of our own foremost composers to combat the glory which these two enjoy in their own country.

M. Chevillard had been asked to conduct, not one of the works of our recent masters, like Debussy or Dukas, whose style he renders to perfection, but Franck's _Les Beat.i.tudes_, a work whose spirit he does not, to my mind, quite understand. The mystic tenderness of Franck escapes him, and he brings out only what is dramatic. And so that performance of _Les Beat.i.tudes_, though in many respects fine, left an imperfect idea of Franck's genius.

But what seemed inconceivable, and what justly annoyed M. Chevillard, was that the whole of _Les Beat.i.tudes_ was not given, but only a section of them. And on this subject I shall take the liberty of recommending that French artists who are guests at similar festivals should not in future agree to a programme with their eyes shut, but have their own wishes considered, or refuse their help. If French musicians are to be given a place in German _Musikfeste_, French people must be allowed to choose the works that are to represent them. And, above all, a French conductor must not be brought from Paris, and find on his arrival a mutilated score and an arbitrary choice of a few fragments that are not even whole in themselves. For they played five out of the eight _Beat.i.tudes_, and cuts had been made in the third and eighth _Beat.i.tudes_. That showed a want of respect for art, for works should be given as they are, or not at all.

And it would have been more seemly if in this three-day festival the organisers had had the courteousness to devote the first day to French music, and had set aside one whole concert for it. But, without doubt, they had carefully sandwiched the French works in between German works to weaken their effect, and lessen the probable (and actual) enthusiasm with which French music would be received in the presence of the Statthalter of Alsace-Lorraine by a section of the Alsatian public. In addition to this, and by a choice that neither myself nor anyone else in Strasburg could believe was dictated by musical reasons, the German work chosen to end the evening was the final scene from _Die Meistersinger_, with its ringing couplet from Hans Sachs, in which he denounces foreign insincerity and foreign frivolity (_Walschen Dunst mit walschen Tand_).

This lack of courtesy--though the words were really nonsense when this very concert was given to show that foreign art could not be ignored--would not be worth while raking up if it did not further serve to show how regrettable is the indifference of French artists who take part in these festivals. And this mistake would never have occurred if they had taken care to acquaint themselves with the programme beforehand and put their veto upon it.

I have mentioned this little incident partly because my views were shared by many Alsatians in the audience, who expressed their annoyance to me afterwards. But, putting it aside, our French artists ought not to have consented to let our music be represented by a mutilated score of _Les Beat.i.tudes_ and by Charpentier's _Impressions d'Italie_, for the latter, though a brilliantly clever work, is not of the first rank, and was too easily crushed by one of Wagner's most stupendous compositions.

If people wish to inst.i.tute a joust between French and German art, let it be a fair one, I repeat; let Wagner be matched with Berlioz, and Strauss with Debussy, and Mahler with Dukas or Magnard.

Such were the conditions of the combat; and they were, whether intentionally or not, unfavourable to France. And yet to the eyes of an impartial observer the result was full of hope and encouragement for us.

I have never bothered myself in art with questions of nationality. I have not even concealed my preference for German music; and I consider, even to-day, that Richard Strauss is the foremost musical composer in Europe. Having said this, I am freer to speak of the strange impression that I had at the Strasburg festival--an impression of the change that is coming over music, and the way that French art is silently setting about taking the place of German art.

"_Walschen Dunst und walschen Tand_...." How that reproachful speech seems to be misplaced when one is listening to the honest thought expressed in Cesar Franck's music. In _Les Beat.i.tudes_, nothing, or next to nothing, was done for art's sake. It is the soul speaking to the soul. As Beethoven wrote, at the end of his ma.s.s in D, "_Vom Herzen ...

zu Herzen_!" ("It comes from the heart to go to the heart"). I know no one but Franck in the last century, unless it is Beethoven, who has possessed in so high a degree the virtue of being himself and speaking only the truth without thought of his public. Never before has religious faith been expressed with such sincerity. Franck is the only musician besides Bach who has really _seen_ the Christ, and who can make other people see him too. I would even venture to say that his Christ is simpler than Bach's; for Bach's thoughts are often led away by the interest of developing his subject, by certain habits of composition, and by repet.i.tions and clever devices, which weaken his strength. In Franck's music we get Christ's speech itself, unadorned and in all its living force. And in the wonderful harmony between the music and the sacred words we hear the voice of the world's conscience. I once heard someone say to Mme. Cosima Wagner that certain pa.s.sages in _Parsifal_, particularly the chorus "_Durch Mitleid wissend_," had a quality that was truly religious and the force of a revelation. But I find a greater force and a more truly Christian spirit in _Les Beat.i.tudes_.

And here is an astonishing thing. At this German musical festival it was a Frenchman who represented not only serious music moulded in a cla.s.sical form, but a religious spirit and the spirit of the Gospels.

The characters of two nations have been reversed. The Germans have so changed that they are only able to appreciate this seriousness and religious faith with difficulty. I watched the audience on this occasion; they listened politely, a little astonished and bored, as if to say, "What business has this Frenchman with depth and piety of soul?"

"There is no doubt," said Henri Lichtenberger, who sat by me at the concert, "our music is beginning to bore the Germans."

It was only the other day that German music enjoyed the privilege of boring us in France.

And so, to make up for the austere grandeur of _Les Beat.i.tudes_ they had it immediately followed by Gustave Charpentier's _Impressions d'Italie_.

You should have seen the relief of the audience. At last they were to have some French music--as Germans understand it. Charpentier is, of all living French musicians, the most liked in Germany; he is indeed the only one who is popular with artists and the general public alike. Shall I say that the sincere pleasure they take in his orchestration and the gay life of his subjects is enhanced a little by a slight disdain for French frivolity--_walschen Tand_?

"Now listen to that," said Richard Strauss to me during the third movement of _Impressions d'Italie_; "that is the true music of Montmartre, the utterance of fine words ... Liberty!... Love!... which no one believes."

And on the whole he found the music quite charming, and, without doubt, in the depths of his heart approved of this Frenchman according to conventional notions that are current in Germany alone. Strauss is really very fond of Charpentier, and was his patron in Berlin; and I remember how he showed childish delight in _Louise_ when it was first performed in Paris.

But Strauss, and most other Germans, are quite on the wrong track when they try to persuade themselves that this amusing French frivolity is still the exclusive property of France. They really love it because it has become German; and they are quite unconscious of the fact. The German artists of other times did not find much pleasure in frivolity; but I could have easily shown Strauss his liking for it by taking examples from his own works. The Germans of to-day have but little in common with the Germans of yesterday.

I am not speaking of the general public only, The German public of to-day are devotees of Brahms and Wagner, and everything of theirs seems good to them; they have no discrimination, and, while they applaud Wagner and encore Brahms, they are, in their hearts, not only frivolous, but sentimental and gross. The most striking thing about this public is their cult of power since Wagner's death. When listening to the end of _Die Meistersinger_ I felt how the haughty music of the great march reflected the spirit of this military nation of shop-keepers, bursting with rude health and complacent pride.

The most remarkable thing of all is that German artists are gradually losing the power of understanding their own splendid cla.s.sics and, in particular, Beethoven. Strauss, who is very shrewd and knows exactly his own limitations, does not willingly enter Beethoven's domain, though he feels his spirit in a much more living way than any of the other German _Kapellmeister_. At the Strasburg festival he contented himself with conducting, besides his own symphony, the _Oberon Overture_ and a Mozart concerto. These performances were interesting; a personality like his is so curious that it is quite amusing to find it coming out in the works he conducts. But how Mozart's features took on an offhand and impatient air; and how the rhythms were accentuated at the expense of the melodic grace. In this case, however, Strauss was dealing with a concerto, where a certain liberty of interpretation is allowed. But Mahler, who was less discreet, ventured upon conducting the whole of the Beethoven concert. And what can be said of that evening? I will not speak of the _Concerto for pianoforte, in G major_, which Busoni played with a brilliant and superficial execution that took away all breadth from the work; it is enough to note that his interpretation was enthusiastically received by the public. German artists were not responsible for that performance; but they were responsible for that fine cycle of _Lieder, An die entfernte Geliebte_, which was bellowed by a Berlin tenor at the top of his voice, and for the _Choral Symphony_, which was, for me, an unspeakable performance. I could never have believed that a German orchestra conducted by the chief _Kapellmeister_ of Austria could have committed such misdeeds. The time was incredible: the scherzo had no life in it; the adagio was taken in hot haste without leaving a moment for dreams; and there were pauses in the finale which destroyed the development of the theme and broke the thread of its thought. The different parts of the orchestra fell over one another, and the whole was uncertain and lacking in balance. I once severely criticised the neo-cla.s.sic stiffness of Weingartner; but I should have appreciated his healthy equilibrium and his effort to be exact after hearing this neurasthenic rendering of Beethoven. No; we can no longer hear Beethoven and Mozart in Germany to-day, we can only hear Mahler and Strauss. Well, let it be so. We will resign ourselves. The past is past.

Let us leave Beethoven and Mozart, and speak of Mahler and Strauss.

Gustav Mahler is forty-six years old.[193] He is a kind of legendary type of German musician, rather like Schubert, and half-way between a school-master and a clergyman. He has a long, clean-shaven face, a pointed skull covered with untidy hair, a bald forehead, a prominent nose, eyes that blink behind his gla.s.ses, a large mouth and thin lips, hollow cheeks, a rather tired and sarcastic expression, and a general air of asceticism. He is excessively nervous, and silhouette caricatures of him, representing him as a cat in convulsions in the conductor's desk, are very popular in Germany.

[Footnote 193: This essay was written in 1905.]

He was born at Kalischt in Bohemia, and became a pupil of Anton Bruckner at Vienna, and afterwards _Hofoperndirecktor_ ("Director of the Opera") there. I hope one day to study this artist's work in greater detail, for he is second only to Strauss as a composer in Germany, and the princ.i.p.al musician of South Germany.

His most important work is a suite of symphonies; and it was the fifth symphony of this suite that he conducted at the Strasburg festival. The first symphony, called _t.i.tan_, was composed in 1894. The construction of the whole is on a ma.s.sive and gigantic scale; and the melodies on which these works are built up are like rough-hewn blocks of not very good quality, but imposing by reason of their size, and by the obstinate repet.i.tion of their rhythmic design, which is maintained as if it were an obsession. This heaping-up of music both crude and learned in style, with harmonies that are sometimes clumsy and sometimes delicate, is worth considering on account of its bulk. The orchestration is heavy and noisy; and the bra.s.s dominates and roughly gilds the rather sombre colouring of the great edifice. The underlying idea of the composition is neo-cla.s.sic, and rather spongy and diffuse. Its harmonic structure is composite: we get the style of Bach, Schubert, and Mendelssohn fighting that of Wagner and Bruckner; and, by a decided liking for canon form, it even recalls some of Franck's work. The whole is like a showy and expensive collection of bric-a-brac.

The chief characteristic of these symphonies is, generally speaking, the use of choral singing with the orchestra. "When I conceive a great musical painting (_ein grosses musikalisches Gemalde_)," says Mahler, "there always comes a moment when I feel forced to employ speech (_das Wort_) as an aid to the realisation of my musical conception."

Mahler has got some striking effects from this combination of voices and instruments, and he did well to seek inspiration in this direction from Beethoven and Liszt. It is incredible that the nineteenth century should have put this combination to so little use; for I think the gain may be poetical as well as musical.

In the _Second Symphony in C minor_, the first three parts are purely instrumental; but in the fourth part the voice of a contralto is heard singing these sad and simple words:

"_Der Mensch liegt in grosster Noth!

Der Mensch liegt in grosster Pein!

Je lieber mocht ich im Himmel sein_!"[194]

The soul strives to reach G.o.d with the pa.s.sionate cry:

"_Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott_."[195]

Then there is a symphonic episode (_Der Rufer in der Wuste_), and we hear "the voice of one crying in the wilderness" in fierce and anguished tones. There is an apocalyptic finale where the choir sing Klopstock's beautiful ode on the promise of the Resurrection:

"_Aufersteh'n, ja, aufersteh'n wirst du, mein Staub, nach kurzer Ruh_!"[196]

The law is proclaimed with:

"_Was entstanden ist, da.s.s mus vergehen, Was vergangen, auferstehen_!"[197]

[Footnote 194: Man lies in greatest misery; Man lies in greatest pain; I would I were in Heaven!]