The Works of Honore de Balzac Part 51

"And Meyerbeer has given the devil a too prominent part. Bertram and Alice represent the contest between right and wrong, the spirits of good and evil. This antagonism offered a splendid opportunity to the composer. The sweetest melodies, in juxtaposition with harsh and crude strains, was the natural outcome of the form of the story; but in the German composer's score the demons sing better than the saints. The heavenly airs belie their origin, and when the composer abandons the infernal motives he returns to them as soon as possible, fatigued with the effort of keeping aloof from them. Melody, the golden thread that ought never to be lost throughout so vast a plan, often vanishes from Meyerbeer's work. Feeling counts for nothing, the heart has no part in it. Hence we never come upon those happy inventions, those artless scenes, which captivate all our sympathies and leave a blissful impression on the soul.

"Harmony reigns supreme, instead of being the foundation from which the melodic groups of the musical picture stand forth. These discordant combinations, far from moving the listener, arouse in him a feeling a.n.a.logous to that which he would experience on seeing a rope-dancer hanging to a thread and swaying between life and death. Never does a soothing strain come in to mitigate the fatiguing suspense. It really is as though the composer had had no other object in view than to produce a baroque effect without troubling himself about musical truth or unity, or about the capabilities of human voices which are swamped by this flood of instrumental noise."

"Silence, my friend!" cried Gambara. "I am still under the spell of that glorious chorus of h.e.l.l, made still more terrible by the long trumpets,--a new method of instrumentation. The broken _cadenzas_ which give such force to Robert's scene, the _cavatina_ in the fourth act, the _finale_ of the first, all hold me in the grip of a supernatural power. No, not even Gluck's declamation ever produced so prodigious an effect, and I am amazed by such skill and learning."

"Signor Maestro," said Andrea, smiling, "allow me to contradict you. Gluck, before he wrote, reflected long; he calculated the chances, and he decided on a plan which might be subsequently modified by his inspirations as to detail, but hindered him from ever losing his way. Hence his power of emphasis, his declamatory style thrilling with life and truth. I quite agree with you that Meyerbeer's learning is transcendent; but science is a defect when it evicts inspiration, and it seems to me that we have in this opera the painful toil of a refined craftsman who in his music has but picked up thousands of phrases out of other operas, d.a.m.ned or forgotten, and appropriated them, while extending, modifying, or condensing them. But he has fallen into the error of all selectors of _centos_,--an abuse of good things. This clever harvester of notes is lavish of discords, which, when too often introduced, fatigue the ear till those great effects pall upon it which a composer should husband with care to make the more effective use of them when the situation requires it. These enharmonic pa.s.sages recur to satiety, and the abuse of the plagal cadence deprives it of its religious solemnity.

"I know, of course, that every musician has certain forms to which he drifts back in spite of himself; he should watch himself so as to avoid that blunder. A picture in which there were no colors but blue and red would be untrue to nature, and fatigue the eye. And thus the constantly recurring rhythm in the score of _Robert le Diable_ makes the work, as a whole, appear monotonous. As to the effect of the long trumpets, of which you speak, it has long been known in Germany; and what Meyerbeer offers us as a novelty was constantly used by Mozart, who gives just such a chorus to the devils in _Don Giovanni_."

By plying Gambara, meanwhile, with fresh libations, Andrea thus strove, by his contradictoriness, to bring the musician back to a true sense of music, by proving to him that his so-called mission was not to try to regenerate an art beyond his powers, but to seek to express himself in another form; namely, that of poetry.

"But, my dear Count, you have understood nothing of that stupendous musical drama," said Gambara, airily, as standing in front of Andrea's piano he struck the keys, listened to the tone, and then seated himself, meditating for a few minutes as if to collect his ideas.

"To begin with, you must know," said he, "that an ear as practised as mine at once detected that labor of choice and setting of which you spoke. Yes, the music has been selected, lovingly, from the storehouse of a rich and fertile imagination wherein learning has squeezed every idea to extract the very essence of music. I will ill.u.s.trate the process."

He rose to carry the candles into the adjoining room, and before sitting down again he drank a full gla.s.s of Giro, a Sardinian wine, as full of fire as the old wines of Tokay can inspire.

"Now, you see," said Gambara, "this music is not written for misbelievers, nor for those who know not love. If you have never suffered from the virulent attacks of an evil spirit who shifts your object just as you are taking aim, who puts a fatal end to your highest hopes,--in one word, if you have never felt the devil's tail whisking over the world, the opera of _Robert le Diable_ must be to you, what the Apocalypse is to those who believe that all things will end with them. But if, persecuted and wretched, you understand that Spirit of Evil,--the monstrous ape who is perpetually employed in destroying the work of G.o.d,--if you can conceive of him as having, not indeed loved, but ravished, an almost divine woman, and achieved through her the joy of paternity; as so loving his son that he would rather have him eternally miserable with himself than think of him as eternally happy with G.o.d; if, finally, you can imagine the mother's soul for ever hovering over the child's head to s.n.a.t.c.h it from the atrocious temptations offered by its father,--even then you will have but a faint idea of this stupendous drama, which needs but little to make it worthy of comparison with Mozart's _Don Giovanni_. _Don Giovanni_ is in its perfection the greater, I grant; _Robert le Diable_ expresses ideas, _Don Giovanni_ arouses sensations. _Don Giovanni_ is as yet the only musical work in which harmony and melody are combined in exactly the right proportions. In this lies its only superiority, for _Robert_ is the richer work. But how vain are such comparisons since each is so beautiful in its own way!

"To me, suffering as I do from the demon's repeated shocks, Robert spoke with greater power than to you; it struck me as being at the same time vast and concentrated.

"Thanks to you, I have been transported to the glorious land of dreams where our senses expand, and the world works on a scale which is gigantic as compared with man."

He was silent for a s.p.a.ce.

"I am trembling still," said the ill-starred artist, "from the four bars of cymbals which pierced to my marrow as they open that short, abrupt introduction with its solo for trombone, its flutes, oboes, and clarionet, all suggesting the most fantastic effects of color. The _andante_ in C minor is a foretaste of the subject of the evocation of the ghosts in the abbey, and gives grandeur to the scene by antic.i.p.ating the spiritual struggle. I shivered."

Gambara pressed the keys with a firm hand and expanded Meyerbeer's theme in a masterly _fantasia_, a sort of outpouring of his soul after the manner of Liszt. It was no longer the piano, it was a whole orchestra that they heard; the very genius of music rose before them.

"That is worthy of Mozart!" he exclaimed. "See how that German can handle his chords, and through what masterly modulations he raises the image of terror to come to the dominant C. I can hear all h.e.l.l in it!

"The curtain rises. What do I see? The only scene to which we gave the epithet infernal: an orgy of knights in Sicily. In that chorus in F every human pa.s.sion is unchained in a baccha.n.a.lian _allegro_. Every thread by which the devil holds us is pulled. Yes, that is the sort of glee that comes over men when they dance on the edge of a precipice; they make themselves giddy. What _go_ there is in that chorus!

"Against that chorus--the reality of life--the simple life of every-day virtue stands out in the air, in G minor, sung by Raimbaut. For a moment it refreshed my spirit to hear the simple fellow, representative of verdurous and fruitful Normandy, which he brings to Robert's mind in the midst of his drunkenness. The sweet influence of his beloved native land lends a touch of tender color to this gloomy opening.

"Then comes the wonderful air in C major, supported by the chorus in C minor, so expressive of the subject. '_Je suis Robert!_' he immediately breaks out. The wrath of the prince, insulted by his va.s.sal, is already more than natural anger; but it will die away, for memories of his childhood come to him, with Alice, in the bright and graceful _allegro_ in A major.

"Can you not hear the cries of the innocent dragged into this infernal drama,--a persecuted creature? '_Non, non_,'" sang Gambara, who made the consumptive piano sing. "His native land and tender emotions have come back to him; his childhood and its memories have blossomed anew in Robert's heart. And now his mother's shade rises up, bringing with it soothing religious thoughts. It is religion that lives in that beautiful song in E major, with its wonderful harmonic and melodic progression in the words:

"Car dans les cieux, comme sur la terre, Sa mere va prier pour lui.

"Here the struggle begins between the unseen powers and the only human being who has the fire of h.e.l.l in his veins to enable him to resist them; and to make this quite clear, as Bertram comes on, the great musician has given the orchestra a pa.s.sage introducing a reminiscence of Raimbaut's ballad. What a stroke of art! What cohesion of all the parts! What solidity of structure!

"The devil is there, in hiding, but restless. The conflict of the antagonistic powers opens with Alice's terror; she recognizes the devil of the image of Saint Michael in her village. The musical subject is worked out through an endless variety of phases. The ant.i.thesis indispensable in opera is emphatically presented in a n.o.ble _recitative_, such as a Gluck might have composed, between Bertram and Robert:

"Tu ne sauras jamais a quel exces je t'aime.

"In that diabolical C minor, Bertram, with his terrible ba.s.s, begins his work of undermining which will overthrow every effort of the vehement, pa.s.sionate man.

"Here, everything is appalling. Will the crime get possession of the criminal? Will the executioner seize his victim? Will sorrow consume the artist's genius? Will the disease kill the patient? or, will the guardian angel save the Christian?

"Then comes the _finale_, the gambling scene in which Bertram tortures his son by rousing him to tremendous emotions. Robert, beggared, frenzied, searching everything, eager for blood, fire, and sword, is his own son; in this mood he is exactly like his father. What hideous glee we hear in Bertram's words: '_Je ris de tes coups!_' And how perfectly the Venetian _barcarole_ comes in here. Through what wondrous transitions the diabolical parent is brought on to the stage once more to make Robert throw the dice.

"This first act is overwhelming to any one capable of working out the subjects in his very heart, and lending them the breadth of development which the composer intended them to call forth.

"Nothing but love could now be contrasted with this n.o.ble symphony of song, in which you will detect no monotony, no repet.i.tion of means and effects.

It is one, but many; the characteristic of all that is truly great and natural.

"I breathe more freely; I find myself in the elegant circle of a gallant court; I hear Isabella's charming phrases, fresh, but almost melancholy, and the female chorus in two divisions, and in _imitation_, with a suggestion of the Moorish coloring of Spain. Here the terrifying music is softened to gentler hues, like a storm dying away, and ends in the florid prettiness of a duet wholly unlike anything that has come before it. After the turmoil of a camp full of errant heroes, we have a picture of love.

Poet! I thank thee! My heart could not have borne much more. If I could not here and there pluck the daisies of a French light opera, if I could not hear the gentle wit of a woman able to love and to charm, I could not endure the terrible deep note on which Bertram comes in, saying to his son: '_Si je le permets!_' when Robert has promised the princess he adores that he will conquer with the arms she has bestowed on him.

"The hopes of the gambler cured by love, the love of a most beautiful woman,--did you observe that magnificent Sicilian, with her hawk's eye secure of her prey? (What interpreters that composer has found!) the hopes of the man are mocked at by the hopes of h.e.l.l in the tremendous cry: '_A toi, Robert de Normandie!_'

"And are not you struck by the gloom and horror of those long-held notes, to which the words are set: '_Dans la foret prochaine_'? We find here all the sinister spells of _Jerusalem Delivered_, just as we find all chivalry in the chorus with the Spanish lilt, and in the march tune. How original is the _allegro_ with the modulations of the four cymbals (tuned to C, D, C, G,)! How elegant is the call to the lists! The whole movement of the heroic life of the period is there; the mind enters into it; I read in it a romance, a poem of chivalry. The _exposition_ is now finished; the resources of music would seem to be exhausted; you have never heard anything like it before; and yet it is h.o.m.ogeneous. You have had life set before you, and its one and only _crux_: 'Shall I be happy or unhappy?' is the philosopher's query. 'Shall I be saved or d.a.m.ned?' asks the Christian."

With these words Gambara struck the last chord of the chorus, dwelt on it with a melancholy modulation, and then rose to drink another large gla.s.s of Giro. This half-African vintage gave his face a deeper flush, for his pa.s.sionate and wonderful sketch of Meyerbeer's opera had made him turn a little pale.

"That nothing may be lacking to this composition," he went on, "the great artist has generously added the only _buffo_ duet permissible for a devil: that in which he tempts the unhappy troubadour. The composer has set jocosity side by side with horror--a jocosity in which he mocks at the only realism he had allowed himself amid the sublime imaginings of his work--the pure calm love of Alice and Raimbaut; and their life is overshadowed by the forecast of evil.

"None but a lofty soul can feel the n.o.ble style of these _buffo_ airs; they have neither the superabundant frivolity of Italian music nor the vulgar accent of French commonplace; rather have they the majesty of Olympus.

There is the bitter laughter of a divine being mocking the surprise of a troubadour Don-Juanizing himself. But for this dignity we should be too suddenly brought down to the general tone of the opera, here stamped on that terrible fury of diminished sevenths which resolves itself into an infernal waltz, and finally brings us face to face with the demons.

"How emphatically Bertram's couplet stands out in B minor against that diabolical chorus, depicting his paternity, but mingling in fearful despair with these demoniacal strains.

"Then comes the delightful transition of Alice's reappearance, with the _ritornel_ in B flat. I can still hear that air of angelical simplicity--the nightingale after a storm. Thus the grand leading idea of the whole is worked out in the details; for what could be more perfectly in contrast with the tumult of devils tossing in the pit than that wonderful air given to Alice? '_Quand j'ai quitte la Normandie._'

"The golden thread of melody flows on, side by side with the mighty harmony, like a heavenly hope; it is embroidered on it, and with what marvelous skill! Genius never lets go of the science that guides it. Here Alice's song is in B flat leading into F sharp, the key of the demon's chorus. Do you hear the tremolo in the orchestra? The host of devils clamor for Robert.

"Bertram now reappears, and this is the culminating point of musical interest; after a _recitative_, worthy of comparison with the finest work of the great masters, comes the fierce conflict in E flat between two tremendous forces--one on the words '_Oui, tu me connais!_' on a diminished seventh; the other, on that sublime F, '_Le ciel est avec moi._' h.e.l.l and the Crucifix have met for battle. Next we have Bertram threatening Alice, the most violent pathos ever heard--the Spirit of Evil expatiating complacently, and, as usual, appealing to personal interest. Robert's arrival gives us the magnificent unaccompanied trio in A flat, the first skirmish between the two rival forces and the man. And note how clearly that is expressed," said Gambara, epitomizing the scene with such pa.s.sion of expression as startled Andrea.

"All this avalanche of music, from the clash of cymbals in common time, has been gathering up to this contest of three voices. The magic of evil triumphs! Alice flies, and you have the duet in D between Bertram and Robert. The devil sets his talons in the man's heart; he tears it to make it his own; he works on every feeling. Honor, hope, eternal and infinite pleasures--he displays them all. He places him, as he did Jesus, on the pinnacle of the Temple, and shows him all the treasures of the earth, the storehouse of sin. He nettles him to flaunt his courage; and the man's n.o.bler mind is expressed in his exclamation:

"Des chevaliers de ma patrie L'honneur toujours fut le soutien!

"And finally, to crown the work, the theme comes in which sounded the note of fatality at the beginning. Thus, the leading strain, the magnificent call to the dead:

"Nonnes qui reposez sous cette froide pierre, M'entendez-vous?

"The career of the music, gloriously worked out, is gloriously finished by the _allegro vivace_ of the baccha.n.a.lian chorus in D minor. This, indeed, is the triumph of h.e.l.l! Roll on, harmony, and wrap us in a thousand folds!

Roll on, bewitch us! The powers of darkness have clutched their prey; they hold him while they dance. The great genius, born to conquer and to reign, is lost! The devils rejoice, misery stifles genius, pa.s.sion will wreck the knight!"

And here Gambara improvised a _fantasia_ of his own on the baccha.n.a.lian chorus, with ingenious variations, and humming the air in a melancholy drone as if to express the secret sufferings he had known.

"Do you hear the heavenly lamentations of neglected love?" he said.

"Isabella calls to Robert above the grand chorus of knights riding forth to the tournament, in which the _motifs_ of the second act reappear to make it clear that the third act has all taken place in a supernatural sphere. This is real life again. This chorus dies away at the approach of the h.e.l.lish enchantment brought by Robert with the talisman. The deviltry of the third act is to be carried on. Here we have the duet with the viol; the rhythm is highly expressive of the brutal desires of a man who is omnipotent, and the Princess, by plaintive phrases, tries to win her lover back to moderation.

The musician has here placed himself in a situation of great difficulty, and has surmounted it in the loveliest number of the whole opera. How charming is the melody of the _cavatina 'Grace pour toi!_' All the women present understood it well; each saw herself seized and s.n.a.t.c.hed away on the stage. That part alone would suffice to make the fortune of the opera.

Every woman felt herself engaged in a struggle with some violent lover.

Never was music so pa.s.sionate and so dramatic.