Musicians of To-Day Part 17

[Footnote 195: I come from G.o.d, and shall to G.o.d return.]

[Footnote 196: Thou wilt rise again, thou wilt rise again, O my dust, after a little rest.]

[Footnote 197: What is born must pa.s.s away; What has pa.s.sed away must rise again.]

And all the orchestra, the choirs, and the organ, join in the hymn of Eternal Life.

In the _Third Symphony_, known as _Ein Sommermorgentraum_ ("A Summer Morning's Dream"), the first and the last parts are for the orchestra alone; the fourth part contains some of the best of Mahler's music, and is an admirable setting of Nietzsche's words:

"_O Mensch! O Mensch! Gib Acht! gib Acht!

Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht_?"[198]

[Footnote 198:

O Man! O Man! Have care! Have care!

What says dark midnight?

The fifth part is a gay and stirring chorus founded on a popular legend.

In the _Fourth Symphony in G major_, the last part alone is sung, and is of an almost humorous character, being a sort of childish description of the joys of Paradise.

In spite of appearances, Mahler refuses to connect these choral symphonies with programme-music. Without doubt he is right, if he means that his music has its own value outside any sort of programme; but there is no doubt that it is always the expression of a definite _Stimmung_, of a conscious mood; and the fact is, whether he likes it or not, that _Stimmung_ gives an interest to his music far beyond that of the music itself. His personality seems to me far more interesting than his art.

This is often the case with artists in Germany; Hugo Wolf is another example of it. Mahler's case is really rather curious. When one studies his works one feels convinced that he is one of those rare types in modern Germany--an egoist who feels with sincerity. Perhaps his emotions and his ideas do not succeed in expressing themselves in a really sincere and personal way; for they reach us through a cloud of reminiscences and an atmosphere of cla.s.sicism. I cannot help thinking that Mahler's position as director of the Opera, and his consequent saturation in the music that his calling condemns him to study, is the cause of this. There is nothing more fatal to a creative spirit than too much reading, above all when it does not read of its own free will, but is forced to absorb an excessive amount of nourishment, the larger part of which is indigestible. In vain may Mahler try to defend the sanctuary of his mind; it is violated by foreign ideas coming from all parts, and instead of being able to drive them away, his conscience, as conductor of the orchestra, obliges him to receive them and almost embrace them.

With his feverish activity, and burdened as he is with heavy tasks, he works unceasingly and has no time to dream. Mahler will only be Mahler when he is able to leave his administrative work, shut up his scores, retire within himself, and wait patiently until he has become himself again--if it is not too late.

His _Fifth Symphony_, which he conducted at Strasburg, convinced me, more than all his other works, of the urgent necessity of adopting this course. In this composition he has not allowed himself the use of the choruses, which were one of the chief attractions of his preceding symphonies. He wished to prove that he could write pure music, and to make his claim surer he refused to have any explanation of his composition published in the concert programme, as the other composers in the festival had done; he wished it, therefore, to be judged from a strictly musical point of view. It was a dangerous ordeal for him.

Though I wished very much to admire the work of a composer whom I held in such esteem, I felt it did not come out very well from the test. To begin with, this symphony is excessively long--it lasts an hour and a half--though there is no apparent justification for its proportions. It aims at being colossal, and mainly achieves emptiness. The _motifs_ are more than familiar. After a funeral march of commonplace character and boisterous movement, where Beethoven seems to be taking lessons from Mendelssohn, there comes a scherzo, or rather a Viennese waltz, where Chabrier gives old Bach a helping hand. The adagietto has a rather sweet sentimentality. The rondo at the end is presented rather like an idea of Franck's, and is the best part of the composition; it is carried out in a spirit of mad intoxication and a chorale rises up from it with cras.h.i.+ng joy; but the effect of the whole is lost in repet.i.tions that choke it and make it heavy. Through all the work runs a mixture of pedantic stiffness and incoherence; it moves along in a desultory way, and suffers from abrupt checks in the course of its development and from superfluous ideas that break in for no reason at all, with the result that the whole hangs fire.

Above all, I fear Mahler has been sadly hypnotised by ideas about power--ideas that are getting to the head of all German artists to-day.

He seems to have an undecided mind, and to combine sadness and irony with weakness and impatience, to be a Viennese musician striving after Wagnerian grandeur. No one expresses the grace of _Landler_ and dainty waltzes and mournful reveries better than he; and perhaps no one is nearer the secret of Schubert's moving and voluptuous melancholy; and it is Schubert he recalls at times, both in his good qualities and certain of his faults. But he wants to be Beethoven or Wagner. And he is wrong; for he lacks their balance and gigantic force. One saw that only too well when he was conducting the _Choral Symphony_.

But whatever he may be, or whatever disappointment he may have brought me at Strasburg, I will never allow myself to speak lightly or scoffingly of him. I am confident that a musician with so lofty an aim will one day create a work worthy of himself.

Richard Strauss is a complete contrast to Mahler. He has always the air of a heedless and discontented child. Tall and slim, rather elegant and supercilious, he seems to be of a more refined race than most other German artists of to-day. Scornful, _blase_ with success, and very exacting, his bearing towards other musicians has nothing of Mahler's winning modesty. He is not less nervous than Mahler, and while he is conducting the orchestra he seems to indulge in a frenzied dance which follows the smallest details of his music--music that is as agitated as limpid water into which a stone has been flung. But he has a great advantage over Mahler; he knows how to rest after his labours. Both excitable and sleepy by nature, his highly-strung nerves are counterbalanced by his indolence, and there is in the depths of him a Bavarian love of luxury. I am quite sure that when his hours of intense living are over, after he has spent an excessive amount of energy, he has hours when he is only partially alive. One then sees his eyes with a vague and sleepy look in them; and he is like old Rameau, who used to walk about for hours as if he were an automaton, seeing nothing and thinking of nothing.

At Strasburg Strauss conducted his _Sinfonia Domestica_, whose programme seems boldly to defy reason, and even good taste. In the symphony he pictures himself with his wife and his boy (_"Meiner lieben Frau und unserm Jungen gewidmet"_). "I do not see," said Strauss, "why I should not compose a symphony about myself; I find myself quite as interesting as Napoleon or Alexander." Some people have replied that everybody else might not share his interest. But I shall not use that argument; it is quite possible for an artist of Strauss's worth to keep us entertained.

What grates upon me more is the way in which he speaks of himself. The disproportion between his subject and the means he has of expressing it is too strong. Above all, I do not like this display of the inner and secret self. There is a want of reticence in this _Sinfonia Domestica_.

The fireside, the sitting-room, and the bedchamber, are open to all-comers. Is this the family feeling of Germany to-day? I admit that the first time I heard the work it jarred upon me for purely moral reasons, in spite of the liking I have for its composer. But afterwards I altered my first opinion, and found the music admirable. Do you know the programme?

The first part shows you three people: a man, a woman, and a child. The man is represented by three themes: a _motif_ full of spirit and humour, a thoughtful _motif_, and a _motif_ expressing eager and enthusiastic action. The woman has only two themes: one expressing caprice, and the other love and tenderness. The child has a single _motif_, which is quiet, innocent, and not very defined in character; its real value is not shown until it is developed.... Which of the two parents is he like?

The family sit round him and discuss him. "He is just like his father"

(_Ganz der Papa_), say the aunts. "He is the image of his mother" (_Ganz die Mama_), say the uncles.

The second part of the symphony is a scherzo which represents the child at play; there are terribly noisy games, games of Herculean gaiety, and you can hear the parents talking all over the house. How far we seem from Schumann's good little children and their simple-hearted families!

At last the child is put to bed; they rock him to sleep, and the clock strikes seven. Night comes. There are dreams and some uneasy sleep. Then a love scene.... The clock strikes seven in the morning. Everybody wakes up, and there is a merry discussion. We hear a double fugue in which the theme of the man and the theme of the woman contradict each other with exasperating and ludicrous obstinacy; and the man has the last word.

Finally there is the apotheosis of the child and family life.

Such a programme serves rather to lead the listener astray than to guide him. It spoils the idea of the work by emphasising its anecdotal and rather comic side. For without doubt the comic side is there, and Strauss has warned us in vain that he did not wish to make an amusing picture of married life, but to praise the sacredness of marriage and parenthood; but he possesses such a strong vein of humour that it cannot help getting the better of him. There is nothing really grave or religious about the music, except when he is speaking of the child; and then the rough merriment of the man grows gentle, and the irritating coquetry of the woman becomes exquisitely tender. Otherwise Strauss's satire and love of jesting get the upper hand, and reach an almost epic gaiety and strength.

But one must forget this unwise programme, which borders on bad taste and at times on something even worse. When one has succeeded in forgetting it one discovers a well-proportioned symphony in four parts--Allegro, Scherzo, Adagio, and Finale in fugue form--and one of the finest works in contemporary music. It has the pa.s.sionate exuberance of Strauss's preceding symphony, _Heldenleben_, but it is superior in artistic construction; one may even say that it is Strauss's most perfect work since _Tod und Verklarung_ ("Death and Transfiguration"), with a richness of colouring and technical skill that _Tod und Verklarung_ did not possess. One is dazzled by the beauty of an orchestration which is light and pliant, and capable of expressing delicate shades of feeling; and this struck me the more after the solid ma.s.siveness of Mahler's orchestration, which is like heavy unleavened bread. With Strauss everything is full of life and sinew, and there is nothing wasted. Possibly the first setting-out of his themes has rather too schematic a character; and perhaps the melodic utterance is rather restricted and not very lofty; but it is very personal, and one finds it impossible to disa.s.sociate his personality from these vigorous themes that burn with youthful ardour, and cut the air like arrows, and twist themselves in freakish arabesques. In the adagio depicting night, there is, though in very bad taste, much seriousness and reverie and stirring emotion. The fugue at the end is of astonis.h.i.+ng sprightliness; and is a mixture of colossal jesting and heroic pastoral poetry worthy of Beethoven, whose style it recalls in the breadth of its development. The final apotheosis is filled with life; its joy makes the heart beat. The most extravagant harmonic effects and the most abominable discords are softened and almost disappear in the wonderful combination of _timbres_.

It is the work of a strong and sensual artist, the true heir of the Wagner of the _Meistersinger_.

Upon the whole, these works make one see that, in spite of their apparent audacity, Strauss and Mahler are beginning to make a surrept.i.tious retreat from their early standpoint, and are abandoning the symphony with a programme. Strauss's last work will lose nothing by calling itself quite simply _Sinfonia Domestica_, without adding any further information. It is a true symphony; and the same may be said of Mahler's composition. But Strauss and Mahler are already reforming themselves, and are coming back to the model of the cla.s.sic symphony.

But there are more important conclusions to be drawn from a hearing of this kind. The first is that Strauss's talent is becoming more and more exceptional in the music of his country. With all his faults, which are considerable, Strauss stands alone in his warmth of imagination, in his unquenchable spontaneity and perpetual youth. And his knowledge and his art are growing every day in the midst of other German art which is growing old. German music in general is showing some grave symptoms. I will not dwell on its neurasthenia, for it is pa.s.sing through a crisis which will teach it wisdom; but I fear, nevertheless, that this excessive nervous excitement will be followed by torpor. What is really disquieting is that, in spite of all the talent that still abounds, Germany is fast losing her chief musical endowments. Her melodic charm has nearly disappeared. One could search the music of Strauss, Mahler, or Hugo Wolf, without finding a melody of any real value, or of any true originality, outside its application to a text, or a literary idea, and its harmonic development. And besides that, German music is daily losing its intimate spirit; there are still traces of this spirit in Wolf, thanks to his exceptionally unhappy life; but there is very little of it in Mahler, in spite of all his efforts to concentrate his mind on himself; and there is hardly any at all in Strauss, although he is the most interesting of the three composers. German musicians have no longer any depth.

I have said that I attribute this fact to the detestable influence of the theatre, to which nearly all these artists are attached as _Kapellmeister_, or directors of opera. To this they owe the melodramatic character of their music, even though it is on the surface only--music written for show, and aiming chiefly at effect.

More baneful even than the influence of the theatre is the influence of success. These musicians have nowadays too many facilities for having their music played. A work is played almost before it is finished, and the musician has no time to live with his work in solitude and silence.

Besides this, the works of the chief German musicians are supported by tremendous booming of some kind or another: by their _Musikfeste_, by their critics, their press, and their "Musical Guides" (_Musikfuhrer_), which are apologetic explanations of their works, scattered abroad in millions to set the fas.h.i.+on for the sheep-like public. And with all this a musician grows soon contented with himself, and comes to believe any favourable opinion about his work. What a difference from Beethoven, who, all his life, was hammering out the same subjects, and putting his melodies on the anvil twenty times before they reached their final form.

That is where Mahler is so lacking. His subjects are a rather vulgarised edition of some of Beethoven's ideas in their unfinished state. But Mahler gets no further than the rough sketch.

And, lastly, I want to speak of the greatest danger of all that menaces music in Germany; _there is too much music in Germany_. This is not a paradox. There is no worse misfortune for art than a super-abundance of it. The music is drowning the musicians. Festival succeeds festival: the day after the Strasburg festival there was to be a Bach festival at Eisenach; and then, at the end of the week, a Beethoven festival at Bonn. Such a plethora of concerts, theatres, choral societies, and chamber-music societies, absorbs the whole life of the musician. When has he time to be alone to listen to the music that sings within him?

This senseless flood of music invades the sanctuaries of his soul, weakens its power, and destroys its sacred solitude and the treasures of its thought.

You must not think that this excess of music existed in the old days in Germany. In the time of the great cla.s.sic masters, Germany had hardly any inst.i.tutions for the giving of regular concerts, and choral performances were hardly known. In the Vienna of Mozart and Beethoven there was only a single a.s.sociation that gave concerts, and no _Chorvereine_ at all, and it was the same with other towns in Germany.

Does the wonderful spread of musical culture in Germany during the last century correspond with its artistic creation? I do not think so; and one feels the inequality between the two more every day.

Do you remember Goethe's ballad of _Der Zauberlehrling_ (_L'Apprenti Sorcier_) which Dukas so cleverly made into music? There, in the absence of his master, an apprentice set working some magic spells, and so opened sluice-gates that no one could shut; and the house was flooded.

This is what Germany has done. She has let loose a flood of music, and is about to be drowned in it.

CLAUDE DEBUSSY

PELLeAS ET MeLISANDE

The first performance of _Pelleas et Melisande_ in Paris, on April 30th, 1902, was a very notable event in the history of French music; its importance can only be compared with that of the first performance of Lully's _Cadmus et Hermione_, Rameau's _Hippolyte et Aricie_, and Quick's _Iphigenie en Aulide_; and it may be looked upon as one of the three or four red-letter days in the calendar of our lyric stage.[199]

[Footnote 199: May I be allowed to say that I am trying to write this study from a purely historical point of view, by eliminating all personal feeling--which would be of no value here. As a matter of fact, I am not a Debussyite; my sympathies are with quite another kind of art.

But I feel impelled to give homage to a great artist, whose work I am able to judge with some impartiality.]

The success of _Pelleas et Melisande_ is due to many things. Some of them are trivial, such as fas.h.i.+on, which has certainly played its part here as it has in all other successes, though it is a relatively weak part; some of them are more important, and arise from something innate in the spirit of French genius; and there are also moral and aesthetic reasons for its success, and, in the widest sense, purely musical reasons.

In speaking of the moral reasons of the success of _Pelleas et Melisande_, I would like to draw your attention to a form of thought which is not confined to France, but which is common nowadays in a section of the more distinguished members of European society, and which has found expression in _Pelleas et Melisande_. The atmosphere in which Maeterlinck's drama moves makes one feel the melancholy resignation of the will to Fate. We are shown that nothing can change the order of events; that, despite our proud illusions, we are not master of ourselves, but the servant of unknown and irresistible forces, which direct the whole tragicomedy of our lives. We are told that no man is responsible for what he likes and what he loves--that is if he knows what he likes and loves--and that he lives and dies without knowing why.