Great Italian and French Composers Part 12

However untoward the surroundings of Gounod, his genius did not lie altogether dormant during this period of friction and fretfulness, conditions so repressive to the best imaginative work. He composed several ma.s.ses and other church music; a "Stabat Mater" with orchestra; the oratorio of "Tobie"; "Gallia," a lamentation for France; incidental music for Legouve's tragedy of "Les Deux Reines," and for Jules Barbier's "Jeanne d'Arc"; a large number of songs and romances, both sacred and secular, such as "Nazareth," and "There is a Green Hill"; and orchestral works, a "Salterello in A," and the "Funeral March of a Marionette."

At last he broke loose from the bonds of Delilah, and, remembering that he had been elected to fill the place of Clap.i.s.son in the Inst.i.tute, he returned to Paris in 1876 to resume the position which his genius so richly deserved. On the 5th of March of the following year his "Cinq-Mars" was brought out at the Theatre de l'Opera Comique; but it showed the traces of the haste and carelessness with which it was written, and therefore commanded little more than a respectful hearing.

His last opera, "Polyeucte," produced at the Grand Opera, October 7, 1878, though credited with much beautiful music, and n.o.bly orchestrated, is not regarded by the French critics as likely to add anything to the reputation of the composer of "Faust." Gounod, now at the age of sixty, if we judge him by the prolonged fertility of so many of the great composers, may be regarded as not having largely pa.s.sed the prime of his powers. The world still has a right to expect much from his genius.

Conceded even by his opponents to be a great musician and a thorough master of the orchestra, more generous critics in the main agree to rank Gounod as the most remarkable contemporary composer, with the possible exception of Richard Wagner. The distinctive trait of his dramatic conceptions seems to be an imagination hovering between sensuous images and mystic dreams. Originally inspired by the severe Greek sculpture of Gluck's music, he has applied that master's laws in the creation of tone-pictures full of voluptuous color, but yet solemnized at times by an exaltation which recalls the time when as a youth he thought of the spiritual dignity of the priesthood. The use he makes of his religious reminiscences is familiarly ill.u.s.trated in "Faust." The contrast between two opposing principles is marked in all of Gounod's dramatic works, and in "Faust" this struggle of "a soul which invades mysticism and which still seeks to express voluptuousness" not only colors the music with a novel fascination, but amounts to an interesting psychological problem.

III.

Gounod's genius fills too large a s.p.a.ce in contemporary music to be pa.s.sed over without a brief special study. In pursuit of this no better method suggests itself than an examination of the opera of "Faust," into which the composer poured the finest inspirations of his life, even as Goethe embodied the sum and flower of his long career, which had garnered so many experiences, in his poetic masterpiece.

The story of "Faust" has tempted many composers. Prince Radziwill tried it, and then Spohr set a version of the theme at once coa.r.s.e and cruel, full of vulgar witchwork and love-making only fit for a chambermaid.

Since then Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, and Berlioz have treated the story orchestrally with more or less success. Gounod's treatment of the poem is by far the most intelligible, poetic, and dramatic ever attempted, and there is no opera since the days of Gluck with so little weak music, except Beethoven's "Fidelio."

In the introduction the restless gloom of the old philospher and the contrasted joys of youth engaged in rustic revelry outside are expressed with graphic force; and the Kirmes music in the next act is so quaint and original, as well as melodious, as to give the sense of delightful comedy. When _Marguerite_ enters on the scene, we have a waltz and chorus of such beauty and piquancy as would have done honor to Mozart.

Indeed, in the dramatic use of dance music Gounod hardly yields in skill and originality to Meyerbeer himself, though the latter composer specially distinguished himself in this direction. The third and fourth acts develop all the tenderness and pa.s.sion of _Marguerite's_ character, all the tragedy of her doom.

After _Faust's_ beautiful monologue in the garden come the song of the "King of Thule" and _Marguerites_ delight at finding the jewels, which conjoined express the artless vanity of the child in a manner alike full of grace and pathos. The quartet that follows is one of great beauty, the music of each character being thoroughly in keeping, while the admirable science of the composer blends all into thorough artistic unity. It is hardly too much to a.s.sert that the love scene which closes this act has nothing to surpa.s.s it for fire, pa.s.sion, and tenderness, seizing the mind of the hearer with absorbing force by its suggestion and imagery, while the almost cloying sweetness of the melody is such as Rossini and Schubert only could equal. The full confession of the enamored pair contained in the brief _adagio_ throbs with such rapture as to find its most suggestive parallel in the ardent words commencing "Gallop apace, ye fiery-looted steeds," placed by Shakespeare in the mouth of the expectant _Juliet_.

Beauties succeed each other in swift and picturesque succession, fitting the dramatic order with a nicety which forces the highest praise of the critic. The march and chorus marking the return of _Valentine's_ regiment beat with a fire and enthusiasm to which the tramp of victorious squadrons might well keep step. The wicked music of _Mephistopheles_ in the sarcastic serenade, the powerful duel trio, and _Valentine's_ curse are of the highest order of expression; while the church scene, where the fiend whispers his taunts in the ear of the disgraced _Marguerite_, as the gloomy musical hymn and peals of the organ menace her with an irreversible doom, is a weird and thrilling picture of despair, agony, and devilish exultation.

Gounod has been blamed for violating the reverence due to sacred things, employing portions of the church service in this scene, instead of writing music for it. But this is the last resort of critical hostility, seeking a peg on which to hang objection. Meyerbeer's splendid introduction of Luther's great hymn, "Ein' feste Burg," in "Les Huguenots," called forth a similar criticism from his German a.s.sailants.

Some of the most dramatic effects in music have been created by this species of musical quotation, so rich in its appeal to memory and a.s.sociation. Who that has once heard can forget the thrilling power of "La Ma.r.s.eillaise" in Schumann's setting of Heinrich Heine's poem of "The Two Grenadiers"? The two French soldiers, weary and broken-hearted after the Russian campaign, approach the German frontier. The veterans are moved to tears as they think of their humiliated Emperor. Up speaks one suffering with a deadly hurt to the other: "Friend, when I am dead, bury me in my native France, with my cross of honor on my breast, and my musket in my hand, and lay my good sword by my side." Until this time the melody has been a slow and dirge-like stave in the minor key. The old soldier declares his belief that he will rise again from the clods when he hears the victorious tramp of his Emperor's squadrons pa.s.sing over his grave, and the minor breaks into a weird setting of the "Ma.r.s.eillaise" in the major key. Suddenly it closes with a few solemn chords, and, instead of the smoke of battle and the march of the phantom host, the imagination sees the lonely plain with its green mounds and moldering crosses.

Readers will pardon this digression ill.u.s.trating an artistic law, of which Gounod has made such effective use in the church scene of his "Faust" in heightening its tragic solemnity. The wild goblin symphony in the fifth act has added some new effects to the gamut of deviltry in music, and shows that Weber in the "Wolf's Glen" and Meyerbeer in the "Cloisters of St. Rosalie" did not exhaust the somewhat limited field.

The whole of this part of the act, sadly mutilated and abridged often in representation, is singularly picturesque and striking as a musical conception, and is a fitting companion to the tragic prison scene.

The despair of the poor crazed _Marguerite_; her delirious joy in recognizing _Faust_; the temptation to fly; the final outburst of faith and hope, as the sense of Divine pardon sinks into her soul--all these are touched with the fire of genius, and the pa.s.sion sweeps with an unfaltering force to its climax. These references to the details of a work so familiar as "Faust," conveying of course no fresh information to the reader, have been made to ill.u.s.trate the peculiarities of Gounod's musical temperament, which sways in such fascinating contrast between the voluptuous and the spiritual. But whether his accents belong to the one or the other, they bespeak a mood flushed with earnestness and fervor, and a mind which recoils from the frivolous, however graceful it may be.

In the Franco-German school, of which Gounod is so high an exponent, the orchestra is busy throughout developing the history of the emotions, and in "Faust" especially it is as busy a factor in expressing the pa.s.sions of the characters as the vocal parts. Not even in the "garden scene"

does the singing reduce the instruments to a secondary importance. The difference between Gounod and Wagner, who professes to elaborate the importance of the orchestra in dramatic music, is that the former has a skill in writing for the voice which the other lacks. The one lifts the voice by the orchestration, the other submerges it. Gounod's affluence of lovely melody can only be compared with that of Mozart and Rossini, and his skill and ingenuity in treating the orchestra have wrung reluctant praise from his bitterest opponents.

The special power which makes Gounod unique in his art, aside from those elements before alluded to as derived from temperament, is his unerring sense of dramatic fitness, which weds such highly suggestive music to each varying phase of character and action. To this perhaps one exception may be made. While he possesses a certain airy playfulness, he fails in rich broad humor utterly, and situations of comedy are by no means so well handled as the more serious scenes.

A good ill.u.s.tration of this may be found in "Le Medecin malgre lui,"

in the couplets given to the drunken _Sganarelle_. They are beautiful music, but utterly unflavored with the _vis comica_.

Had Gounod written only "Faust," it should stamp him as one of the most highly gifted composers of his age. Noticeably in his other works, preeminently in this, he has shown a melodic freshness and fertility, a mastery of musical form, a power of orchestration, and a dramatic energy, which are combined to the same degree in no one of his rivals.

Therefore it is just to place him in the first rank of contemporary composers.

IV.

Among contemporary French composers there is no name which suggests itself in comparison with that of Gounod so worthily as that of Ambroise Thomas, famous in every country where the opera is a favorite form of public amus.e.m.e.nt, as the author of "Mignon" and "Hamlet." Lacking the depth and pa.s.sion of Gounod, he is distinguished by a peculiar sparkle, grace, and Gallic lightness of touch; and if we do not find in him the earnestness and spiritual significance of his rival's conceptions, there is, on the other hand, in the works of Thomas, a glow of poetic sentiment which invests them with a charming atmosphere, peculiarly their own. Perhaps in his own country Thomas enjoys a repute still higher than that of Gounod, for his genius is more peculiarly French, while the composer of "Faust" shows the radical influence of the German school, not only in the cast of his thoughts and temperament, but in his technical musical methods. Still, as all artists are profoundly moved by the tendencies of their age, it would not be difficult to find in the later works of Thomas, on which his celebrity is based, some unconscious modeling of form wrought by that musical school of which Richard Wagner is the most advanced type.

Ambroise Thomas was born at Metz, France, on August 5, 1811, and is therefore by seven years the senior of Charles Gounod. His apt.i.tudes for music were so strong that he learned the notes as quickly as he acquired the letters of the alphabet. At the age of four he was instructed in his _solfeggi_ by his father, who was a professor of music, and three years later he began to take lessons on the violin and piano. When he was seventeen he was thoroughly proficient in all the preparatory studies demanded for admission to the Paris Conservatoire, and he easily obtained admission into that great inst.i.tution. He first studied under Zimmermann and Kalkbrenner, and afterward under Dourlen, Barbereau, Le Sueur, and Reicha. For successive years he carried off first prizes: for the piano in 1829; for harmony, in 1830; and in 1832 the highest honor in composition was awarded him, the Prix de Rome, which allowed him to go to Italy as a government stipendiary.

Our young laureate pa.s.sed three years in Italy, spending most of his time at Rome and Naples. The special result of his Italian studies was a requiem ma.s.s, which was performed with great approbation from its musical judges at Paris and Rome. After traveling in Germany, Thomas returned to Paris in 1836, thoroughly equipped for his career as composer, for he had been an indefatigable student, and neglected no opportunity of perfecting his knowledge. The first step in the brilliant career of Thomas was the production of a comic opera in one act, "La Double ech.e.l.le," produced in 1837. This met with a good reception, and it was promptly followed by the production of several other light scores, that further enhanced his reputation for talent. He was not generally recognized by musicians as a man of marked promise till he produced "Mina," a comic opera in three acts, which was represented in 1843. The beauty of the instrumentation and the melodious richness of the work were unmistakable, and henceforth every production of the young composer was watched with great interest.

Ambroise Thomas could not be said to have reached a great popular success until he produced "Le Cad," a work of the _opera-boitffe_ type, which instantly became an immense public favorite. This was first represented in 1849, and it has always held its place on the French stage as one of the most delightful works of its cla.s.s, in spite of the compet.i.tion of such later outgrowths of the opera-bouffe, school as Offenbach, Lecocq, and others. The score of this work proved to be immensely amusing and brightly melodious, and it was such a pecuniary success that the more judicious friends of Thomas feared that he might be seduced into cultivating a field far below the powers of his poetic imagination and thorough musical science. Strong heads might easily be turned by such lavish applause, and it would not have been wonderful had Thomas, dazzled by the reception of "Le Cad," remained for a long time a wanderer from the path which lay open to his great talents. The composer's ambition, however, proved to be too high to content itself with ephemeral success, or cultivating the more frivolous forms of his art, however profitable aid pleasant these might be.

In 1850 Ambroise Thomas produced two operas: "Le Songe d'une Nuit d'ete," resembling in style somewhat that masterpiece produced in after-years, "Mignon," and a somber work based on the legend of "The Man with the Iron Mask," "Le Secret de la Reine." The melodramatic character of this latter work seems to have been imitated from the highly accented and artificial style of Verdi, instead of possessing the bright and airy charm natural to Thomas. The vacancy left by Spontini's death in the French Inst.i.tute was filled by the election of M. Thomas, who was deemed most worthy, among all the musical names offered, of taking the place of the author of "La Vestale." He justified the taste of his co-members by his production in 1853 of the comic opera of "La Tonelli," a work which, though not greatly successful with "hoi polloi," was an admirable specimen of light and graceful opera at its best. The new academician was recompensed for the public indifference by the cordial appreciation which connoisseurs gave this tasteful and scientific production.

Another comic opera, "Psyche," which soon appeared, though full of witty burlesque and humor in the libretto, and marked by delicious melody in every part, failed to please, perhaps on account of the predominance of feminine roles, and the absence of a good tenor part. Still a third comic opera, the "Carnaval de Venise" saw the light the same season, which was written in large measure to show the marvelous flexibility of Mme. Cabal's voice. Very few singers have been able to sing the role of _Sylvia_, who warbles a violin concerto from beginning to end, under the t.i.tle of an "Ariette without Words."

Ambroise Thomas remained silent now for half a dozen years, aside from the composition of a few charming songs. It is natural to suppose that he was brooding over the conception of his greatest work, which was next to see the light of day, and add one more to the great operas of the world. Such compositions are not hastily manufactured, but grow for years out of the travail of heart and brain, deep thought, high imaginings, pa.s.sionate sensibilities, elaborately wrought by time and patience, till at last they are crystallized into form.

"Mignon," a comic opera in three acts, was first represented at the Theatre Lyrique, on November 17, 1866, before one of the most brilliant and enthusiastic audiences ever gathered in Paris. Its success was magnificent. This was seven years after Gounod had made such a great stride among the composers of the age, by the production of "Faust"; and it is within bounds to say that, since "Faust," no opera had been produced in Paris so vital with the breath of genius and great purpose, so full of sentiment and poetry, so symmetrical and balanced in its differentiation of music measured by its dramatic value, so instantly and splendidly recognized by the public, cultured and ignorant, gentle and simple.

Like "Faust," too, the opera of Thomas was based on a creation of Goethe. Without the pathetic episode of "Mignon," the novel of "Wilhelm Meister" would lose much of its dramatic strength and quality. Of course, every libretto must part with some of the charm of the story on which it is built; but in this instance the author succeeds in preserving nearly all the intrinsic worth of the Mignon episode. The music is admirably suited to a n.o.ble theme. There is hardly a weak bar in it from beginning to end; and some of the work here done by the composer will compare favorably with any operatic music ever h.o.a.rd. In this opera melodic phrase goes hand in hand with character and motive, and _Mignon, Philina, Wilhelm Meister, and Lothario_, are distinguished in the music with the finest dramatic discrimination.

Among the operas of recent years, "Mignon" ranks among the first for its taste, grace, and poetry. The first act is vigorous, bright, and picturesque; the second, touched with the finest points of pa.s.sion and humor; the third is inspired with a pathos and poetic ardor which lift the composer to do his most magnificent work. But to describe "Mignon"

to the public of today, which has heard it almost an innumerable number of times, is, as much as in the case of Gounod's "Faust," "carrying coals to Newcastle."

In 1868 Thomas produced "Hamlet," and it was represented at the Grand Opera, with Mile. Christine Nilsson in the role of _Ophelia_, the same singer having, if we mistake not, created the role of _Mignon_.

"Hamlet," though a marked artistic success, has failed to make the same popular impression as "Mignon," possibly because the theme is less suited to operatic treatment; for the music _per se_ is of a fine type, and full of the genuine accents of pa.s.sion.

In addition to the works named above, Ambroise Thomas has written "La Gypsy," "Le Panier Fleuri," "Carline," "Le Roman d'Elvire," several fine ma.s.ses, many beautiful songs, a requiem, and miscellaneous church-pieces. Thomas is famous in France for the generous encouragement and help which he extends to all young musicians, a.s.sistance which his position in the Paris Conservatoire helps to make most valuable. He is now seventy-one years old, and, should he add nothing more to the musical treasures of the present generation, much of what he has already done will give him a permanent place in the temple of lyric music.

BERLIOZ.

I.

In the long list of brilliant names which have ill.u.s.trated the fine arts, there is none attached to a personality more interesting and impressive than that of Hector Berlioz. He stands solitary, a colossus in music, with but few admirers and fewer followers. Original, puissant in faculties, fiercely dogmatic and intolerant, bizarre, his influence has impressed itself profoundly on the musical world both for good and evil, but has failed to make disciples or to rear a school.

Notwithstanding the defects and extravagances of Berlioz, it is safe to a.s.sert that no art or philosophy can boast of an example of more perfect devotion to an ideal. The startling originality of Berlioz as a musician rests on a mental and emotional organization different from and in some respects superior to that of any other eminent master. He possessed an ardent temperament; a gorgeous imagination, that knew no rest in its working, and at times became heated to the verge of madness; a most subtile sense of hearing; an intellect of the keenest a.n.a.lytic turn; a most arrogant will, full of enterprise and daring, which clung to its purpose with unrelenting tenacity; and pa.s.sions of such heat and fervor that they rarely failed when aroused to carry him beyond all bounds of reason. His genius was unique, his character cast in the mold of a t.i.tan, his life a tragedy. Says Blaze de Bussy: "Art has its martyrs, its forerunners crying in the wilderness, and feeding on roots. It has also its spoiled children sated with bonbons and dainties." Berlioz belongs to the former of these cla.s.ses, and, if ever a prophet lifted up his voice with a vehement and incessant outcry, it was he.

Hector Berlioz was born on December 11, 1803, at Cote Saint Andre, a small town between Gren.o.ble and Lyons. His father was an excellent physician of more than ordinary attainments, and he superintended his son's studies with great zeal in the hope that the lad would also become an ornament of the healing profession. But young Hector, though an excellent scholar in other branches, developed a special apt.i.tude for music, and at twelve he could sing at sight, and play difficult concertos on the flute. The elder regarded music only as a graceful ornament to life, and in no wise encouraged his son in thinking of music as a profession. So it was not long before Hector found his attention directed to anatomy, physiology, osteology, etc. In his father's library he had already read of Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, etc., and had found a ma.n.u.script score of an opera which he had committed to memory. His soul revolted more and more from the path cut out for him. "Become a physician!" he cried, "study anatomy; dissect; take part in horrible operations? No! no! That would be a total subversion of the natural course of my life."

But parental resolution carried the day, and, after he had finished the preliminary course of study, he was ordered up to Paris to join the army of medical students. So at the age of nineteen we find him lodged in the Quartier Latin. His first introduction to medical studies had been unfortunate. On entering a dissecting-room he had been so convulsed with horror as to leap from the window, and rush to his lodgings in an agony of dread and disgust, whence he did not emerge for twenty-four hours.

At last, however, by dint of habit he became somewhat used to the disagreeable facts of his new life, and, to use his own words, "bade fair to add one more to the army of bad physicians," when he went to the opera one night and heard "Les Danades," Salieri's opera, performed with all the splendid completeness of the Academie Royale. This awakened into fresh life an unquenchable thirst for music, and he neglected his medical studies for the library of the Conservatoire, where he learned by heart the scores of Gluck and Rameau. At last, on coming out one night from a performance of "Iphigenie," he swore that henceforth music should have her divine rights of him, in spite of all and everything.

Henceforth hospital, dissecting-room, and professor's lectures knew him no more.

But to get admission to the Conservatoire was now the problem; Berlioz set to work on a cantata with orchestral accompaniments, and in the mean time sent the most imploring letters home asking his father's sanction for this change of life. The inexorable parent replied by cutting off his son's allowance, saying that he would not help him to become one of the miserable herd of unsuccessful musicians. The young enthusiast's cantata gained him admission to the cla.s.ses of Le Sueur and Reicha at the Conservatoire, but alas! dire poverty stared him in the face. The history of his s.h.i.+fts and privations for some months is a sad one. He slept in an old, unfurnished garret, and s.h.i.+vered under insufficient bedclothing, ate his bread and grapes on the Pont Neuf, and sometimes debated whether a plunge into the Seine would not be the easiest way out of it all. No mongrel cur in the capital but had a sweeter bone to crunch than he. But the young fellow for all this stuck to his work with dogged tenacity, managed to get a ma.s.s performed at St. Roch church, and soon finished the score of an opera, "Les Francs Juges." Flesh and blood would have given way at last under this hard diet, if he had not obtained a position in the chorus of the Theatre des Noveauteaus.

Berlioz gives an amusing account of his going to compete with the horde of applicants--butchers, bakers, shop-apprentices, etc.--each one with his roll of music under his arm.

The manager scanned the raw-boned starveling with a look of wonder.

"Where's your music?" quoth the tyrant of a third-cla.s.s theatre. "I don't want any, I can sing anything you can give me at sight," was the answer. "The devil!" rejoined the manager; "but we haven't any music here." "Well, what do you want?" said Berlioz. "I sing every note of all the operas of Gluck, Piccini, Salieri, Rameau, Spontini, Gretry, Mozart, and Cimarosa, from memory." At hearing this amazing declaration, the rest of the compet.i.tors slunk away abashed, and Berlioz, after singing an aria from Spontini, was accorded the place, which guaranteed him fifty francs per month--a pittance, indeed, and yet a substantial addition to his resources. This pot-boiling connection of Berlioz was never known to the public till after he became a distinguished man, though he was accustomed to speak in vague terms of his early dramatic career as if it were a matter of romantic importance.

At last, however, he was relieved of the necessity of singing on the stage to amuse the Paris _bourgeoisie_, and in a singular fas.h.i.+on. He had been put to great straits to get his first work, which had won him his way into the Conservatoire, performed. An application to the great Chateaubriand, who was noted for benevolence, had failed, for the author of "La Genie de Christianisme" was then almost as poor as Berlioz. At last a young friend, De Pons, advanced him twelve hundred francs. Part of this Berlioz had repaid, but the creditor, put to it for money, wrote to Berlioz pere, demanding a full settlement of the debt. The father was thus brought again into communication with his son, whom he found nearly sick unto death with a fever. His heart relented, and the old allowance was resumed again, enabling the young musician to give his whole time to his beloved art, instantly he convalesced from his illness.

The eccentric ways and heretical notions of Berlioz made him no favorite with the dons of the Conservatoire, and by the irritable and autocratic Cherubini he was positively hated. The young man took no pains to placate this resentment, but on the other hand elaborated methods of making himself doubly offensive. His power of stinging repartee stood him in good stead, and he never put a b.u.t.ton on his foil. Had it been in old Cherubini's power to expel this bold pupil from the Conservatoire, no scruple would have held him back. But the genius and industry of Berlioz were undeniable, and there was no excuse for such extreme measures. Prejudiced as were his judges, he successively took several important prizes.

II.

Berlioz's happiest evenings were at the Grand Opera, for which he prepared himself by solemn meditation. At the head of a band of students and amateurs, he took on himself the right of the most outspoken criticism, and led the enthusiasm or the condemnation of the audience.

At this time Beethoven was barely tolerated in Paris, and the great symphonist was ruthlessly clipped and shorn to suit the French taste, which p.r.o.nounced him "bizarre, incoherent, diffuse, bustling with rough modulations and wild harmonies, dest.i.tute of melody, forced in expression, noisy, and fearfully difficult," even as England at the same time frowned down his immortal works as "obstreperous roarings of modern frenzy." Berlioz's clear, stern voice would often be heard, when liberties were taken with the score, loud above the din of the instruments. "What wretch has dared to tamper with the great Beethoven?"