Musical Memories Part 12

MEYERBEER

I

Who would have predicted that the day would come when it would be necessary to come to the defense of the author of _Les Huguenots_ and _Le Prophete,_ of the man who at one time dominated every stage in Europe by a leaders.h.i.+p which was so extraordinary that it looked as though it would never end? I could cite many works in which all the composers of the past are praised without qualification, and Meyerbeer, alone, is accused of numerous faults. However, others have faults, too, and, as I have said elsewhere, but it will stand repeating, it is not the absence of defects but the presence of merits which makes works and men great. It is not always well to be without blemish. A too regular face or too pure a voice lacks expression. If there is no such thing as perfection in this world, it is doubtless because it is not needed.

As I do not belong to that biased school which pretends to see Peter entirely white and Paul utterly black, I do not try to make myself think that the author of _Les Huguenots_ had no faults.

The most serious, but the most excusable, is his contempt for prosody and his indifference to the verse entrusted to him. This fault is excusable for the French school of the time, heedless of tradition, set him a bad example. Rossini was, like Meyerbeer, a foreigner, but he was not affected in the same way. He even got fine effects through the combination of musical and textual rhythm. An instance of this is seen in the famous phrase in _Guillaume Tell_:

Ces jours qu'ils ont ose proscrire, Je ne les ai pas defendus.

Mon pere, tu m'as du maudire!

If Rossini had not retired at an age when others are just beginning their careers and had given us two or three more works, his ill.u.s.trious example would have restored the old principles on which French opera had been constructed from the time of Lulli. On the contrary, Auber carried with him an entire generation captivated by Italian music. He even went so far as to put French words into Italian rhythm. The famous duet _Amour sacre de la Patrie_ is versified as if the text were _Amore sacro della patria._ This is seen only in reading it, for it is never sung as it is written.

Meyerbeer was, then, excusable to a certain extent, but he abused all indulgence in such matters. In order to preserve intact his musical forms--even in recitatives, which are, as a matter of fact, only declamation set to music--he accented the weak syllables and vice versa; he added words and made unnecessarily false verse, and transformed bad verse into worse prose. He might have avoided all these literary abominations without any harm to the effect by a slight modification of the music. The verses given to musicians were often very bad, for that was the fas.h.i.+on. The versifier thought he had done his duty by his collaborator by giving him verses like this:

Triomphe que j'aime!

Ta frayeur extreme Va malgre toi-meme Te livrer a moi!

But when Scribe abandoned his reed-pipes and essayed the lyre, he gave Meyerbeer this,

J'ai voulu les punir ...Tu les as surpa.s.ses!

And Meyerbeer made it,

J'ai voulu les punir ... Et tu les as surpa.s.ses!

which was hardly encouraging.

Meyerbeer had other manias as well. Perhaps the most notable was to give to the voice musical schemes which belong by rights to the instruments.

So in the first act of _Le Prophete,_ after the chorus sings, _Veille sur nous,_ instead of stopping to breathe and prepare for the following phrase, he makes it repeat abruptly, _Sur nous! Sur nous!_ in unison with the orchestral notes which are, to say the least, _a ritornello._

Again, in the great cathedral scene, instead of letting the orchestra bring out through the voices the musical expression of Fides sobs: _Et toi, tu ne me connais pas,_ he puts both the instruments and the voices in the same time and on words which do not harmonize with the music at all.

I need not speak of his immoderate love for the ba.s.soon, an admirable instrument, but one which it is hardly prudent to abuse.

But so far we have spoken only of trifles. Meyerbeer's music, as a witty woman once remarked to me, is like stage scenery--it should not be scrutinized too closely. It would be hard to find a better characterization. Meyerbeer belonged to the theater and sought above everything else theatrical effects. But that does not mean that he was indifferent to details. He was a wealthy man and he used to indemnify the theaters for the extra expense he occasioned them. He multiplied rehearsals by trying different versions with the orchestra so as to choose between them. He did not cast his work in bronze, as so many do, and present it to the public _ne varietur._ He was continually feeling his way, recasting, and seeking the better which very often was the enemy of good. As the result of his continual researches he too frequently turned good ideas into inferior ones. Note for example, in _L'Etoile du Nord_, the pa.s.sage, _Enfants de l'Ukraine fils du desert_.

The opening pa.s.sage is lofty, determined and picturesque, but it ends most disagreeably.

He always lived alone with no fixed place of abode. He was at Spa in the summer and on the Mediterranean in the winter; in large cities only as business drew him. He had no financial worries and he lived only to continue his Penelope-like work, which showed a great love of perfection, although he did not find the best way of attaining it. They have tried to place this conscientious artist in the list of seekers of success, but such men are not ordinarily accustomed to work like this.

Since I have used the word artist, it is proper to stop for a moment.

Unlike Gluck and Berlioz, who were greater artists than musicians, Meyerbeer was more a musician than an artist. As a result, he often used the most refined and learned means to achieve a very ordinary artistic result. But there is no reason why he should be brought to task for results which they do not even remark in the works of so many others.

Meyerbeer was the undisputed leader in the operatic world when Robert Schumann struck the first blow at his supremacy. Schumann was ignorant of the stage, although he had made one unfortunate venture there. He did not appreciate that there is more than one way to practise the art of music. But he attacked Meyerbeer, violently, for his bad taste and Italian tendencies, entirely forgetting that when Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber did work for the stage they were strongly drawn towards Italian art. Later, the Wagnerians wanted to oust Meyerbeer from the stage and make a place for themselves, and they got credit for some of Schumann's harsh criticisms,--this, too, despite the fact that at the beginning of the skirmish Schumann and the Wagnerians got along about as well as Ingres and Delacroix and their schools. But they united against the common enemy and the French critics followed. The critics entirely neglected Berlioz's opinion, for, after opposing Meyerbeer for a long time, he admitted him among the G.o.ds and in his _Traite d'Instrumentation_ awarded him the crown of immortality.

Parenthetically, if there is a surprising page in the history of music it is the persistent affectation of cla.s.sing Berlioz and Wagner together. They had nothing in common save their great love of art and their distrust of established forms. Berlioz abhorred enharmonic modulations, dissonances resolved indefinitely one after another, continuous melody and all current practices of futuristic music. He carried this so far that he claimed that he understood nothing in the prelude to _Tristan_, which was certainly a sincere claim since, almost simultaneously, he hailed the overture of _Lohengrin_, which is conceived in an entirely different manner, as a masterpiece. He did not admit that the voice should be sacrificed and relegated to the rank of a simple unit of the orchestra. Wagner, for his part, showed at his best an elegance and artistry of pen which may be searched for in vain in Berlioz's work. Berlioz opened to the orchestra the doors of a new world. Wagner hurled himself into this unknown country and found numerous lands to till there. But what dissimilarities there are in the styles of the two men! In their methods of treating the orchestra and the voices, in their musical architectonics, and in their conception of opera!

In spite of the great worth of _Les Troyens_ and _Benvenuto Cellini_, Berlioz shone brightest in the concert hall; Wagner is primarily a man of the theater. Berlioz showed clearly in _Les Troyens_ his intention of approaching Gluck, while Wagner freely avowed his indebtedness to Weber, and particularly to the score of _Euryanthe_. He might have added that he owed something to Marschner, but he never spoke of that.

The more we study the works of these two men of genius, the more we are impressed by the tremendous difference between them. Their resemblance is simply one of those imaginary things which the critics too often mistake for a reality. The critics once found local color in Rossini's _Semiramide_!

Hans de Bulow once said to me in the course of a conversation,

"After all Meyerbeer was a man of genius."

If we fail to recognize Meyerbeer's genius, we are not only unjust but also ungrateful. In every sense, in his conception of opera, in his treatment of orchestration, in his handling of choruses, even in stage setting, he gave us new principles by which our modern works have profited to a large extent.

Theophile Gautier was no musician, but he had a fine taste in music and he judged Meyerbeer as follows:

"In addition to eminent musical talents, Meyerbeer had a highly developed instinct for the stage. He goes to the heart of a situation, follows closely the meanings of the words, and observes both the historical and local color of his subject.... Few composers have understood opera so well."

The success of the Italian school appeared to have utterly ruined this understanding and care for local and historical color. Rossini in the last act of _Otello_ and in _Guillaume Tell_ began its renaissance with a boldness for which he deserves credit, but it was left to Meyerbeer to restore it to its former glory.

It is impossible to deny his individuality. The amalgamation of his Germanic tendencies with his Italian education and his French preferences formed an ore of new brilliancy and new depth of tone. His style resembled none other. Fetis, his great admirer and friend and the famous director of the Conservatoire at Brussels, insisted, and with reason, on this distinction. His style was characterized by the importance of the rhythmic element. His ballet music owes much of its excellence to the picturesque variety of the rhythms.

Instead of the long involved overture he gave us the short distinctive prelude which has been so successful. The preludes of _Robert_ and _Les Huguenots_ were followed by the preludes of _Lohengrin_, _Faust_, _Tristan_, _Romeo_, _La Traviata_, _Ada_, and many others which are less famous. Verdi in his last two works and Richard Strauss in _Salome_ went even farther and suppressed the prelude--a none too agreeable surprise. It is like a dinner without soup.

Meyerbeer gave us a foretaste of the famous _leit-motif_. We find it in _Robert_ in the theme of the ballad, which the orchestra plays again while Bertram goes towards the back of the stage. This should indicate to the listener his satanic character. We find it in the Luther chant in _Les Huguenots_ and also in the dream of _Le Prophete_ during Jean's recitative. Here the orchestra with its modulated tone predicts the future splendor of the cathedral scene, while a lute plays low notes, embellished by a delicate weaving in of the violins, and produces a remarkable and unprecedented effect. He introduced on the stage the ensembles of wind instruments (I do not mean the bra.s.s) which are so frequent in Mozart's great concertos. An ill.u.s.tration of this is the entrance of Alice in the second act of _Robert_. An echo of this is found in Elsa's entrance in the second act of _Lohengrin_. Another ill.u.s.tration is the entrance of Berthe and Fides in the beginning of the _Le Prophete_. In this case the author indicated a pantomime. This is never played and so this pretty bit loses all its significance.

Meyerbeer ventured to use combinations in harmony which were considered rash at that time. They pretend that the sensitiveness of the ear has been developed since then, but in reality it has been dulled by having to undergo the most violent discords.

The beautiful "progression" of the exorcism in the fourth act of _Le Prophete_ was not accepted without some difficulty. I can still see Gounod seated at a piano singing the debated pa.s.sage and trying to convince a group of recalcitrant listeners of its beauty.

Meyerbeer developed the role of the English horn, which up to that time had been used only rarely and timidly, and he also introduced the ba.s.s clarinet into the orchestra. But the two instruments, as he used them, still appeared somewhat unusual. They were objects of luxury, strangers of distinction which one saluted respectfully and which played no great part. Under Wagner's management they became a definite part of the household and, as we know, brought in a wealth of coloring.

It is an open question whether it was Meyerbeer or Scribe who planned the amazing stage setting in the cathedral scene in _Le Prophete_. It must have been Meyerbeer, for Scribe was not temperamentally a revolutionist, and this scene was really revolutionary. The brilliant procession with its crowd of performers which goes across the stage through the nave into the choir, constantly keeping its distance from the audience, is an impressive, realistic and beautiful scene. But directors who go to great expense for the costumes cannot understand why the procession should file anywhere except before the footlights as near the audience as possible, and it is extremely difficult to get any other method of procedure.

Furthermore, the amusing idea of the skating ballet was due to Meyerbeer. At the time there was an amusing fellow in Paris who had invented roller skates and who used to practise his favorite sport on fine evenings on the large concrete surfaces of the Place de la Concorde. Meyerbeer saw him and got the idea of the famous ballet. In the early days of the opera it certainly was charming to see the skaters come on accompanied by a pretty chorus and a rhythm from the violins regulated by that of the dancers. But the performance began at seven and ended at midnight. Now they begin at eight and to gain the hour they had to accelerate the pace. So the chorus in question was sacrificed. That was bad for _Les Huguenots_. The author tried to make a good deal out of the last act with its beautiful choruses in the church--a development of the Luther chant--and the terror of the approaching ma.s.sacre. But this act has been cut, mutilated and made generally unrecognizable. They even go so far in some of the foreign houses as to suppress it entirely.

I once saw the last act in all its integrity and with six harps accompanying the famous trio. We shall never see the six harps again, for Garnier, instead of reproducing exactly the placing of the orchestra in the old Opera, managed so well in the new one that they are unable to put in the six harps of old or the four drums with which Meyerbeer got such surprising effects in _Robert_ and _Le Prophete_. I believe, however, that recent improvements have averted this disaster in a certain measure, and that there is now a place for the drums. But we shall never hear the six harps again.

We must say something of the genesis of Meyerbeer's works, for in many instances this was curious and few people know about it.

II

We might like to see works spring from the author's brain as complete as Minerva was when she sprang from Jove's, but that is infrequently the case. When we study the long series of operas which Gluck wrote, we are surprised to meet some things which we recognize as having seen before in the masterpieces which immortalize his name. And often the music is adapted to entirely different situations in the changed form. The words of a follower become the awesome prophecy of a high priest. The trio in _Orphee_ with its tender love and expressions of perfect happiness fairly trembles with accents of sorrow. The music had been written for an entirely different situation which justified them. Ma.s.senet has told us that he borrowed right and left from his unpublished score, _La Coupe du Roi de Thule_. That is what Gluck did with his _Elena e Paride_ which had little success. I may as well confess that one of the ballets in _Henry VIII_ came from the finale of an opera-comique in one act. This work was finished and ready to go to rehearsal when the whole thing was stopped because I had the audacity to a.s.sert to Nestor Roqueplan, the director of Favart Hall, that Mozart's _Le Nozze di Figaro_ was a masterpiece.

Meyerbeer, even more than anyone, tried not to lose his ideas and the study of their transformation is extremely interesting. One day Nuitter, the archivist at the Opera, learned of an important sale of ma.n.u.scripts in Berlin. He attended the sale and brought back a lot of Meyerbeer's rough drafts which included studies for a _Faust_ that the author never finished. These fragments give no idea what the piece would have been.

We see Faust and Mephistopheles walking in h.e.l.l. They come to the Tree of Human Knowledge on the banks of the Styx and Faust picks the fruit.

From this detail it is easy to imagine that the libretto is bizarre.

The authors.h.i.+p of this amazing libretto is unknown, but it is not strange that Meyerbeer soon abandoned it. From this still-born _Faust_, Scribe, at the request of the author, constructed _Robert le Diable_. An aria sung by Faust on the banks of the Styx becomes the _Valse Infernale_.

The necessity of utilizing pre-existing fragments explains some of the incoherence of this incomprehensible piece. It also explains the creation of Bertram, half man, half devil, who was invented as a subst.i.tute for Mephistopheles. The fruit of the Tree of Human Knowledge became the _Rameau Veneree_ in the third act, and the beautiful religious scene in the fifth act, which has no relation to the action, is a transposition of the Easter scene.