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MUSICIANS OF TO-DAY
BY
ROMAIN ROLLAND
AUTHOR OF "JEAN-CHRISTOPHE"
TRANSLATED BY
MARY BLAIKLOCK
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
CLAUDE LANDI
[Illustration: Decorative]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1915
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
BERLIOZ
WAGNER:
"Siegfried"
"Tristan"
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
VINCENT D'INDY
RICHARD STRAUSS
HUGO WOLF
DON LORENZO PEROSI
FRENCH AND GERMAN MUSIC
CLAUDE DEBUSSY:
"Pelléas et Mélisande"
THE AWAKENING: A SKETCH OF THE MUSICAL MOVEMENT IN PARIS SINCE 1870
Paris and Music
Musical Institutions before 1870
New Musical Institutions
The Present Condition of French Music
INTRODUCTION
It is perhaps fitting that the series of volumes comprising _The
Musician's Bookshelf_ should be inaugurated by the present collection of
essays. To the majority of English readers the name of that strange and
forceful personality, Romain Rolland, is known only through his
magnificent, intimate record of an artist's life and aspirations,
embracing ten volumes, _Jean-Christophe_. This is not the place in which
to discuss that masterpiece. A few biographical facts concerning the
author may not, however, be out of place here.
Romain Rolland is forty-eight years old. He was born on January 29,
1866, at Clamecy (Nièvre), France. He came very early under the
influence of Tolstoy and Wagner and displayed a remarkable critical
faculty. In 1895 (at the age of twenty-nine) we find him awarded the
coveted Grand Prix of the Académie Française for his work _Histoire de
l'Opéra en Europe avant Lulli et Scarlatti_, and in the same year he
sustained, before the faculty of the Sorbonne--where he now occupies the
chair of musical criticism--a remarkable dissertation on _The Origin
of_ _the Modern Lyrical Drama_--his thesis for the Doctorate. This, in
reality, is a vehement protest against the indifference for the Art of
Music which, up to that time, had always been displayed by the
University. In 1903 he published a remarkable _Life of Beethoven_,
followed by a _Life of Hugo Wolf_ in 1905. The present volume, together
with its companion, _Musiciens d'Autrefois_, appeared in 1908. Both
form remarkable essays and reveal a consummate and most intimate
knowledge of the life and works of our great contemporaries. A just
estimate of a composer's work is not to be arrived at without a study of
his works and of the conditions under which these were produced. To
take, for instance, the case of but one of the composers treated in this
volume, Hector Berlioz. No composer has been so misunderstood, so
vilified as he, simply because those who have written about him, either
wilfully or through ignorance, have grossly misrepresented him.
The essay on Berlioz, in the present volume, reveals a true insight into
the personality of this unfortunate and great artist, and removes any
false misconceptions which unsympathetic and superficial handling may
have engendered. Indeed, the same introspective faculty is displayed in
all the other essays which form this volume, which, it is believed, will
prove of the greatest value not only to the professional student, but
also to the _intelligent listener_, for whom the present series of
volumes has been primarily planned. We hear much, nowadays, of the value
of "Musical Appreciation." It is high time that something was done to
educate our audiences and to dispel the hitherto prevalent fallacy that
Music need not be regarded seriously. We do not want more creative
artists, more executants; the world is full of them--good, bad and
indifferent--but we _do_ want more _intelligent listeners_.
I do not think it is an exaggeration to assert that the majority of
listeners at a high-class concert or recital are absolutely bored. How
can it be otherwise, when the composers represented are mere names to
them? Why should the general public appreciate a Bach fugue, an
intricate symphony or a piece of chamber-music? Do we professional
musicians appreciate the technique of a wonderful piece of sculpture, of
an equally wonderful feat of engineering or even of a miraculous
surgical operation? It may be argued that an analogy between sculpture,
engineering, surgery and music is absurd, because the three former do
not appeal to the masses in the same manner as music does. Precisely: it
is because of this universal appeal on the part of music that the public
should be educated to _listen_ to _good_ music; that they should be
given, in a general way, a chance to acquaint themselves with the laws
underlying the "Beautiful in Music" and should be shown the demands
which a right appreciation of the Art makes upon the Intellect and the
Emotions.
And, surely, such a "desideratum" may best be effected by a careful
perusal of the manuals to be included in the present series. It is
incontestable that the reader of the following pages--apart from a
knowledge of the various musical forms, of orchestration, etc.--all of
which will be duly treated in successive volumes--will be in a better
position to appreciate the works of the several composers to which he
may be privileged to listen. The last essay, especially, will be read
with interest to-day, when we may hope to look forward to a cessation of
race-hatred and distrust, and to what a writer in the _Musical Times_
(September, 1914) has called, "a new sense of the emotional solidarity
of mankind. From that sense alone," he adds, "can the real music of the
future be born."
CLAUDE LANDI.
MUSICIANS OF TO-DAY
BERLIOZ
I
It may seem a paradox to say that no musician is so little known as
Berlioz. The world thinks it knows him. A noisy fame surrounds his
person and his work. Musical Europe has celebrated his centenary.
Germany disputes with France the glory of having nurtured and shaped his
genius. Russia, whose triumphal reception consoled him for the
indifference and enmity of Paris,[1] has said, through the voice of
Balakirew, that he was "the only musician France possessed." His chief
compositions are often played at concerts; and some of them have the
rare quality of appealing both to the cultured and the crowd; a few have
even reached great popularity. Works have been dedicated to him, and he
himself has been described and criticised by many writers. He is popular
even to his face; for his face, like his music, was so striking and
singular that it seemed to show you his character at a glance. No clouds
hide his mind and its creations, which, unlike Wagner's, need no
initiation to be understood; they seem to have no hidden meaning, no
subtle mystery; one is instantly their friend or their enemy, for the
first impression is a lasting one.
[Footnote 1: "And you, Russia, who have saved me...." (Berlioz,
_Mémoires_, II, 353, Calmann-Lévy's edition, 1897).]
That is the worst of it; people imagine that they understand Berlioz
with so very little trouble. Obscurity of meaning may harm an artist
less than a seeming transparency; to be shrouded in mist may mean
remaining long misunderstood, but those who wish to understand will at
least be thorough in their search for the truth. It is not always
realised how depth and complexity may exist in a work of clear design
and strong contrasts--in the obvious genius of some great Italian of the
Renaissance as much as in the troubled heart of a Rembrandt and the
twilight of the North.
That is the first pitfall; but there are many more that will beset us in
the attempt to understand Berlioz. To get at the man himself one must
break down a wall of prejudice and pedantry, of convention and
intellectual snobbery. In short, one must shake off nearly all current
ideas about his work if one wishes to extricate it from the dust that
has drifted about it for half a century.
Above all, one must not make the mistake of contrasting Berlioz with
Wagner, either by sacrificing Berlioz to that Germanic Odin, or by
forcibly trying to reconcile one to the other. For there are some who
condemn Berlioz in the name of Wagner's theories; and others who, not
liking the sacrifice, seek to make him a forerunner of Wagner, or kind
of elder brother, whose mission was to clear a way and prepare a road
for a genius greater than his own. Nothing is falser. To understand
Berlioz one must shake off the hypnotic influence of Bayreuth. Though
Wagner may have learnt something from Berlioz, the two composers have
nothing in common; their genius and their art are absolutely opposed;
each one has ploughed his furrow in a different field.
The Classical misunderstanding is quite as dangerous. By that I mean the
clinging to superstitions of the past, and the pedantic desire to
enclose art within narrow limits, which still flourish among critics.
Who has not met these censors of music? They will tell you with solid
complacence how far music may go, and where it must stop, and what it
may express and what it must not. They are not always musicians
themselves. But what of that? Do they not lean on the example of the
past? The past! a handful of works that they themselves hardly
understand. Meanwhile, music, by its unceasing growth, gives the lie to
their theories, and breaks down these weak barriers. But they do not see
it, do not wish to see it; since they cannot advance themselves, they
deny progress. Critics of this kind do not think favourably of Berlioz's
dramatic and descriptive symphonies. How should they appreciate the
boldest musical achievement of the nineteenth century? These dreadful
pedants and zealous defenders of an art that they only understand after
it has ceased to live are the worst enemies of unfettered genius, and
may do more harm than a whole army of ignorant people. For in a country
like ours, where musical education is poor, timidity is great in the
presence of a strong, but only half-understood, tradition; and anyone
who has the boldness to break away from it is condemned without
judgment. I doubt if Berlioz would have obtained any consideration at
all from lovers of classical music in France if he had not found allies
in that country of classical music, Germany--"the oracle of Delphi,"
"Germania alma parens,"[2] as he called her. Some of the young German
school found inspiration in Berlioz. The dramatic symphony that he
created flourished in its German form under Liszt; the most eminent
German composer of to-day, Richard Strauss, came under his influence;
and Felix Weingartner, who with Charles Malherbe edited Berlioz's
complete works, was bold enough to write, "In spite of Wagner and Liszt,
we should not be where we are if Berlioz had not lived." This unexpected
support, coming from a country of traditions, has thrown the partisans
of Classic tradition into confusion, and rallied Berlioz's friends.
[Footnote 2: _Mémoires_, II, 149.]
But here is a new danger. Though it is natural that Germany, more
musical than France, should recognise the grandeur and originality of
Berlioz's music before France, it is doubtful whether the German nature
could ever fully understand a soul so French in its essence. It is,
perhaps, what is exterior in Berlioz, his positive originality, that the
Germans appreciate. They prefer the _Requiem_ to _Roméo_. A Richard
Strauss would be attracted by an almost insignificant work like the
_Ouverture du roi Lear_; a Weingartner would single out for notice
works like the _Symphonic fantastique_ and _Harold_, and exaggerate
their importance. But they do not feel what is intimate in him. Wagner
said over the tomb of Weber, "England does you justice, France admires
you, but only Germany loves you; you are of her own being, a glorious
day of her life, a warm drop of her blood, a part of her heart...." One
might adapt his words to Berlioz; it is as difficult for a German really
to love Berlioz as it is for a Frenchman to love Wagner or Weber. One
must, therefore, be careful about accepting unreservedly the judgment of
Germany on Berlioz; for in that would lie the danger of a new
misunderstanding. You see how both the followers and opponents of
Berlioz hinder us from getting at the truth. Let us dismiss them.
Have we now come to the end of our difficulties? Not yet; for Berlioz is
the most illusive of men, and no one has helped more than he to mislead
people in their estimate of him. We know how much he has written about
music and about his own life, and what wit and understanding he shows in
his shrewd criticisms and charming _Mémoires_.[3]
[Footnote 3: The literary work of Berlioz is rather uneven. Beside
passages of exquisite beauty we find others that are ridiculous in their
exaggerated sentiment, and there are some that even lack good taste. But
he had a natural gift of style, and his writing is vigorous, and full of
feeling, especially towards the latter half of his life. The _Procession
des Rogations_ is often quoted from the _Mémoires_; and some of his
poetical text, particularly that in _L'Enfance du Christ_ and in _Les
Troyens_, is written in beautiful language and with a fine sense of
rhythm. His _Mémoires_ as a whole is one of the most delightful books
ever written by an artist. Wagner was a greater poet, but as a prose
writer Berlioz is infinitely superior. See Paul Morillot's essay on
_Berlioz écrivain_, 1903, Grenoble.] One would think that such an
imaginative and skilful writer, accustomed in his profession of critic
to express every shade of feeling, would be able to tell us more exactly
his ideas of art than a Beethoven or a Mozart. But it is not so. As too
much light may blind the vision, so too much intellect may hinder the
understanding. Berlioz's mind spent itself in details; it reflected
light from too many facets, and did not focus itself in one strong beam
which would have made known his power. He did not know how to dominate
either his life or his work; he did not even try to dominate them. He
was the incarnation of romantic genius, an unrestrained force,
unconscious of the road he trod. I would not go so far as to say that he
did not understand himself, but there are certainly times when he is
past understanding himself. He allows himself to drift where chance will
take him,[4] like an old Scandinavian pirate laid at the bottom of his
boat, staring up at the sky; and he dreams and groans and laughs and
gives himself up to his feverish delusions. He lived with his emotions
as uncertainly as he lived with his art. In his music, as in his
criticisms of music, he often contradicts himself, hesitates, and turns
back; he is not sure either of his feelings or his thoughts. He has
poetry in his soul, and strives to write operas; but his admiration
wavers between Gluck and Meyerbeer. He has a popular genius, but
despises the people. He is a daring musical revolutionary, but he
allows the control of this musical movement to be taken from him by
anyone who wishes to have it. Worse than that: he disowns the movement,
turns his back upon the future, and throws himself again into the past.
For what reason? Very often he does not know. Passion, bitterness,
caprice, wounded pride--these have more influence with him than the
serious things of life. He is a man at war with himself.
[Footnote 4: "Chance, that unknown god, who plays such a great part in
my life" (_Mémoires_, II, 161).]
Then contrast Berlioz with Wagner. Wagner, too, was stirred by violent
passions, but he was always master of himself, and his reason remained
unshaken by the storms of his heart or those of the world, by the
torments of love or the strife of political revolutions. He made his
experiences and even his errors serve his art; he wrote about his
theories before he put them into practice; and he only launched out when
he was sure of himself, and when the way lay clear before him. And think
how much Wagner owes to this written expression of his aims and the
magnetic attraction of his arguments. It was his prose works that
fascinated the King of Bavaria before he had heard his music; and for
many others also they have been the key to that music. I remember being
impressed by Wagner's ideas when I only half understood his art; and
when one of his compositions puzzled me, my confidence was not shaken,
for I was sure that the genius who was so convincing in his reasoning
would not blunder; and that if his music baffled me, it was I who was at
fault. Wagner was really his own best friend, his own most trusty
champion; and his was the guiding hand that led one through the thick
forest and over the rugged crags of his work.
Not only do you get no help from Berlioz in this way, but he is the
first to lead you astray and wander with you in the paths of error. To
understand his genius you must seize hold of it unaided. His genius was
really great, but, as I shall try to show you, it lay at the mercy of a
weak character.
* * * * *
Everything about Berlioz was misleading, even his appearance. In
legendary portraits he appears as a dark southerner with black hair and
sparkling eyes. But he was really very fair and had blue eyes,[5] and
Joseph d'Ortigue tells us they were deep-set and piercing, though
sometimes clouded by melancholy or languor.[6] He had a broad forehead
furrowed with wrinkles by the time he was thirty, and a thick mane of
hair, or, as E. Legouvé puts it, "a large umbrella of hair, projecting
like a movable awning over the beak of a bird of prey."[7]
[Footnote 5: "I was fair," wrote Berlioz to Bülow (unpublished letters,
1858). "A shock of reddish hair," he wrote in his _Mémoires_, I, 165.
"Sandy-coloured hair," said Reyer. For the colour of Berlioz's hair I
rely upon the evidence of Mme. Chapót, his niece.]
[Footnote 6: Joseph d'Ortigue, _Le Balcon de l'Opéra_, 1833.]
[Footnote 7: E. Legouvé, _Soixante ans de souvenirs_. Legouvé describes
Berlioz here as he saw him for the first time.]
His mouth was well cut, with lips compressed and puckered at the
corners in a severe fold, and his chin was prominent. He had a deep
voice,[8] but his speech was halting and often tremulous with emotion;
he would speak passionately of what interested him, and at times be
effusive in manner, but more often he was ungracious and reserved. He
was of medium height, rather thin and angular in figure, and when seated
he seemed much taller than he really was.[9] He was very restless, and
inherited from his native land, Dauphiné, the mountaineer's passion for
walking and climbing, and the love of a vagabond life, which remained
with him nearly to his death.[10] He had an iron constitution, but he
wrecked it by privation and excess, by his walks in the rain, and by
sleeping out-of-doors in all weathers, even when there was snow on the
ground.[11]
[Footnote 8: "A passable baritone," says Berlioz _(Mémoires_, I, 58). In
1830, in the streets of Paris, he sang "a bass part" _(Mémoires_, I,
156). During his first visit to Germany the Prince of Hechingen made him
sing "the part of the violoncello" in one of his compositions
(_Mémoires_, II, 32).]
[Footnote 9: There are two good portraits of Berlioz. One is a
photograph by Pierre Petit, taken in 1863, which he sent to Mme. Estelle
Fornier. It shows him leaning on his elbow, with his head bent, and his
eyes fixed on the ground as if he were tired. The other is the
photograph which he had reproduced in the first edition of his
_Mémoires_, and which shows him leaning back, his hands in his pockets,
his head upright, with an expression of energy in his face, and a fixed
and stern look in his eyes.]
[Footnote 10: He would go on foot from Naples to Rome in a straight line
over the mountains, and would walk at one stretch from Subiaco to
Tivoli.]
[Footnote 11: This brought on several attacks of bronchitis and frequent
sore throats, as well as the internal affection from which he died.]
But in this strong and athletic frame lived a feverish and sickly soul
that was dominated and tormented by a morbid craving for love and
sympathy: "that imperative need of love which is killing me...."[12] To
love, to be loved--he would give up all for that.
[Footnote 12: "Music and love are the two wings of the soul," he wrote
in his _Mémoires_.]
But his love was that of a youth who lives in dreams; it was never the
strong, clear-eyed passion of a man who has faced the realities of life,
and who sees the defects as well as the charms of the woman he loves,
Berlioz was in love with love, and lost himself among visions and
sentimental shadows. To the end of his life he remained "a poor little
child worn out by a love that was beyond him."[13] But this man who
lived so wild and adventurous a life expressed his passions with
delicacy; and one finds an almost girlish purity in the immortal love
passages of _Les Troyens_ or the "_nuit sereine"_ of _Roméo et
Juliette_. And compare this Virgilian affection with Wagner's sensual
raptures. Does it mean that Berlioz could not love as well as Wagner? We
only know that Berlioz's life was made up of love and its torments. The
theme of a touching passage in the Introduction of the _Symphonic
fantastique_ has been recently identified by M. Julien Tiersot, in his
interesting book,[14] with a romance composed by Berlioz at the age of
twelve, when he loved a girl of eighteen "with large eyes and pink
shoes"--Estelle, _Stella mentis, Stella matutina_. These words--perhaps
the saddest he ever wrote--might serve as an emblem of his life, a life
that was a prey to love and melancholy, doomed to wringing of the heart
and awful loneliness; a life lived in a hollow world, among worries that
chilled the blood; a life that was distasteful and had no solace to
offer him in its end.[15] He has himself described this terrible "_mal
de l'isolement_," which pursued him all his life, vividly and
minutely.[16] He was doomed to suffering, or, what was worse, to make
others suffer.
[Footnote 13: _Mémoires_, I, 11.]
[Footnote 14: Julien Tiersot, _Hector Berlioz et la société de son
temps_, 1903, Hachette.]
[Footnote 15: See the _Mémoires_, I, 139.]
[Footnote 16: "I do not know how to describe this terrible sickness....
My throbbing breast seems to be sinking into space; and my heart,
drawing in some irresistible force, feels as though it would expand
until it evaporated and dissolved away. My skin becomes hot and tender,
and flushes from head to foot. I want to cry out to my friends (even
those I do not care for) to help and comfort me, to save me from
destruction, and keep in the life that is ebbing from me. I have no
sensation of impending death in these attacks, and suicide seems
impossible; I do not want to die--far from it, I want very much to live,
to intensify life a thousandfold. It is an excessive appetite for
happiness, which becomes unbearable when it lacks food; and it is only
satisfied by intense delights, which give this great overflow of feeling
an outlet. It is not a state of spleen, though that may follow later ...
spleen is rather the congealing of all these emotions--the block of ice.
Even when I am calm I feel a little of this '_isolement_' on Sundays in
summer, when our towns are lifeless, and everyone is in the country; for
I know that people are enjoying themselves away from me, and I feel
their absence. The _adagio_ of Beethoven's symphonies, certain scenes
from Gluck's _Alceste_ and _Armide_, an air from his Italian opera
_Telemacco_, the Elysian fields of his _Orfeo_, will bring on rather bad
attacks of this suffering; but these masterpieces bring with them also
an antidote--they make one's tears flow, and then the pain is eased. On
the other hand, the _adagio_ of some of Beethoven's sonatas and Gluck's
_Iphigénie en Tauride_ are full of melancholy, and therefore provoke
spleen ... it is then cold within, the sky is grey and overcast with
clouds, the north wind moans dully...." _(Mémoires_, I, 246).]
Who does not know his passion for Henrietta Smithson? It was a sad
story. He fell in love with an English actress who played Juliet (Was it
she or Juliet whom he loved?). He caught but a glance of her, and it was
all over with him. He cried out, "Ah, I am lost!" He desired her; she
repulsed him. He lived in a delirium of suffering and passion; he
wandered about for days and nights like a madman, up and down Paris and
its neighbourhood, without purpose or rest or relief, until sleep
overcame him wherever it found him--among the sheaves in a field near
Villejuif, in a meadow near Sceaux, on the bank of the frozen Seine near
Neuilly, in the snow, and once on a table in the Café Cardinal, where he
slept for five hours, to the great alarm of the waiters, who thought he
was dead.[17] Meanwhile, he was told slanderous gossip about Henrietta,
which he readily believed. Then he despised her, and dishonoured her
publicly in his _Symphonie fantastique_, paying homage in his bitter
resentment to Camille Moke, a pianist, to whom he lost his heart without
delay.
[Footnote 17: _Mémoires_, I, 98.]
After a time Henrietta reappeared. She had now lost her youth and her
power; her beauty was waning, and she was in debt. Berlioz's passion was
at once rekindled. This time Henrietta accepted his advances. He made
alterations in his symphony, and offered it to her in homage of his
love. He won her, and married her, with fourteen thousand francs debt.
He had captured his dream--Juliet! Ophelia! What was she really? A
charming Englishwoman, cold, loyal, and sober-minded, who understood
nothing of his passion; and who, from the time she became his wife,
loved him jealously and sincerely, and thought to confine him within the
narrow world of domestic life. But his affections became restive, and he
lost his heart to a Spanish actress (it was always an actress, a
virtuoso, or a part) and left poor Ophelia, and went off with Marie
Recio, the Inès of _Favorite_, the page of _Comte Ory_--a practical,
hardheaded woman, an indifferent singer with a mania for singing. The
haughty Berlioz was forced to fawn upon the directors of the theatre in
order to get her parts, to write flattering notices in praise of her
talents, and even to let her make his own melodies discordant at the
concerts he arranged.[18] It would all be dreadfully ridiculous if this
weakness of character had not brought tragedy in its train.
So the one he really loved, and who always loved him, remained alone,
without friends, in Paris, where she was a stranger. She drooped in
silence and pined slowly away, bedridden, paralysed, and unable to speak
during eight years of suffering. Berlioz suffered too, for he loved her
still and was torn with pity--"pity, the most painful of all
emotions."[19] But of what use was this pity? He left Henrietta to
suffer alone and to die just the same. And, what was worse, as we learn
from Legouvé, he let his mistress, the odious Recio, make a scene before
poor Henrietta.[20] Recio told him of it and boasted about what she had
done.
[Footnote 18: "Isn't it really devilish," he said to Legouvé, "tragic
and silly at the same time? I should deserve to go to hell if I wasn't
there already."]
[Footnote 19: _Mémoires_, II, 335. See the touching passages he wrote on
Henrietta Smithson's death.]
[Footnote 20: "One day, Henrietta, who was living alone at Montmartre,
heard someone ring the bell, and went to open the door.
"'Is Mme. Berlioz at home?'
"'I am Mme. Berlioz.'
"'You are mistaken; I asked for Mme. Berlioz.'
"'And I tell you, I am Mme. Berlioz.'
"'No, you are not. You are speaking of the old Mme. Berlioz, the one who
was abandoned; I am speaking of the young and pretty and loved one.
Well, that is myself!'
"And Recio went out and banged the door after her.
"Legouvé said to Berlioz, 'Who told you this abominable thing? I suppose
she who did it; and then she boasted about it into the bargain. Why
didn't you turn her out of the house?' 'How could I?' said Berlioz in
broken tones, 'I love her'" _(Soixante ans de souvenirs_).]
And Berlioz did nothing--"How could I? I love her."
One would be hard upon such a man if one was not disarmed by his own
sufferings. But let us go on. I should have liked to pass over these
traits, but I have no right to; I must show you the extraordinary
feebleness of the man's character. "Man's character," did I say? No, it
was the character of a woman without a will, the victim of her
nerves.[21]
[Footnote 21: From this woman's nature came his love of revenge, "a
thing needless, and yet necessary," he said to his friend Hiller, who,
after having made him write the _Symphonie fantastique_ to spite
Henrietta Smithson, next made him write the wretched fantasia _Euphonia_
to spite Camille Moke, now Mme. Pleyel. One would feel obliged to draw
more attention to the way he often adorned or perverted the truth if one
did not feel it arose from his irrepressible and glowing imagination far
more than from any intention to mislead; for I believe his real nature
to have been a-very straightforward one. I will quote the story of his
friend Crispino, a young countryman from Tivoli, as a characteristic
example. Berlioz says in his _Mémoires_ (I, 229): "One day when Crispino
was lacking in respect I made-him a present of two shirts, a pair of
trousers, and three good kicks behind." In a note he added, "This is a
lie, and is the result of an artist's tendency to aim at effect. I never
kicked Crispino." But Berlioz took care afterwards to omit this note.
One attaches as little importance to his other small boasts as to this
one. The errors in the _Mémoires_ have been greatly exaggerated; and
besides, Berlioz is the first to warn his readers that he only wrote
what pleased him, and in his preface says that he is not writing his
Confessions. Can one blame him for that?]
* * * * *
Such people are destined to unhappiness; and if they make other people
suffer, one may be sure that it is only half of what they suffer
themselves. They have a peculiar gift for attracting and gathering up
trouble; they savour sorrow like wine, and do not lose a drop of it.
Life seemed desirous that Berlioz should be steeped in suffering; and
his misfortunes were so real that it would be unnecessary to add to them
any exaggerations that history has handed down to us.
People find fault with Berlioz's continual complaints; and I, too, find
in them a lack of virility and almost a lack of dignity. To all
appearances, he had far fewer material reasons for unhappiness than--I
won't say Beethoven--Wagner and other great men, past, present, and
future. When thirty-five years old he had achieved glory; and Paganini
proclaimed him Beethoven's successor. What more could he want? He was
discussed by the public, disparaged by a Scudo and an Adolphus Adam, and
the theatre only opened its doors to him with difficulty. It was really
splendid!
But a careful examination of facts, such as that made by M. Julien
Tiersot, shows the stifling mediocrity and hardship of his life. There
were, first of all, his material cares. When thirty-six years old
"Beethoven's successor" had a fixed salary of fifteen hundred francs as
assistant keeper of the Conservatoire Library, and not quite as much for
his contributions to the _Debits_-contributions which exasperated and
humiliated him, and were one of the crosses of his life, as they obliged
him to speak anything but the truth.[22]
[Footnote 22: _Mémoires_, II, 158. The heartaches expressed in this
chapter will be felt by every artist.]
That made a total of three thousand francs, hardly gained on which he
had to keep a wife and child--"_même deux_," as M. Tiersot says. He
attempted a festival at the Opera; the result was three hundred and
sixty francs loss. He organised a festival at the 1844 Exhibition; the
receipts were thirty-two thousand francs, out of which he got eight
hundred francs. He had the _Damnation de Faust_ performed; no one came
to it, and he was ruined. Things went better in Russia; but the manager
who brought him to England became bankrupt. He was haunted by thoughts
of rents and doctors' bills. Towards the end of his life his financial
affairs mended a little, and a year before his death he uttered these
sad words: "I suffer a great deal, but I do not want to die now--I have
enough to live upon."
One of the most tragic episodes of his life is that of the symphony
which he did not write because of his poverty. One wonders why the page
that finishes his _Mémoires_ is not better known, for it touches the
depths of human suffering.
At the time when his wife's health was causing him most anxiety, there
came to him one night an inspiration for a symphony. The first part of
it--an allegro in two-four time in A minor--was ringing in his head. He
got up and began to write, and then he thought,
"If I begin this bit, I shall have to write the whole symphony. It
will be a big thing, and I shall have to spend three or four months
over it. That means I shall write no more articles and earn no
money. And when the symphony is finished I shall not be able to
resist the temptation of having it copied (which will mean an
expense of a thousand or twelve hundred francs), and then of having
it played. I shall give a concert, and the receipts will barely
cover half the cost. I shall lose what I have not got; the poor
invalid will lack necessities; and I shall be able to pay neither
my personal expenses nor my son's fees when he goes on board
ship.... These thoughts made me shudder, and I threw down my pen,
saying, 'Bah! to-morrow I shall have forgotten the symphony.' The
next night I heard the allegro clearly, and seemed to see it
written down. I was filled with feverish agitation; I sang the
theme; I was going to get up ... but the reflections of the day
before restrained me; I steeled myself against the temptation, and
clung to the thought of forgetting it. At last I went to sleep; and
the next day, on waking, all remembrance of it had, indeed, gone
for ever."[23]
That page makes one shudder. Suicide is less distressing. Neither
Beethoven nor Wagner suffered such tortures. What would Wagner have done
on a like occasion? He would have written the symphony without
doubt--and he would have been right. But poor Berlioz, who was weak
enough to sacrifice his duty to love, was, alas! also heroic enough to
sacrifice his genius to duty.[24]
[Footnote 23: _Mémoires_, II, 349.]
[Footnote 24: Berlioz has already touchingly replied to any reproaches
that might be made in the words that follow the story I have quoted.
"'Coward!' some young enthusiast will say, 'you ought to have written
it; you should have been bold.' Ah, young man, you who call me coward
did not have to look upon what I did; had you done so you, too, would
have had no choice. My wife was there, half dead, only able to moan; she
had to have three nurses, and a doctor every day to visit her; and I was
sure of the disastrous result of any musical adventure. No, I was not a
coward; I know I was only human. I like to believe that I honoured art
in proving that she had left me enough reason to distinguish between
courage and cruelty" (_Mémoires_, II, 350).]
And in spite of all this material misery and the sorrow of being
misunderstood, people speak of the glory he enjoyed. What did his
compeers think of him--at least, those who called themselves such? He
knew that Mendelssohn, whom he loved and esteemed, and who styled
himself his "good friend," despised him and did not recognise his
genius.[25] The large-hearted Schumann, who was, with the exception of
Liszt,[26] the only person who intuitively felt his greatness, admitted
that he used sometimes to wonder if he ought to be looked upon as "a
genius or a musical adventurer."[27]
[Footnote 25: In a note in the _Mémoires_, Berlioz publishes a letter of
Mendelssohn's which protests his "good friendship," and he writes these
bitter words: "I have just seen in a volume of Mendelssohn's Letters
what his friendship for me consisted of. He says to his mother, in what
is plainly a description of myself, '---- is a perfect caricature,
without a spark of talent ... there are times when I should like to
swallow him up'" (_Mémoires_, II, 48). Berlioz did not add that
Mendelssohn also said: "They pretend that Berlioz seeks lofty ideals in
art. I don't think so at all. What he wants is to get himself married."
The injustice of these insulting words will disgust all those who
remember that when Berlioz married Henrietta Smithson she brought as
dowry nothing but debts; and that he had only three hundred francs
himself, which a friend had lent him.]
[Footnote 26: Liszt repudiated him later.]
[Footnote 27: Written in an article on the _Ouverture de Waverley_
(_Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_).]
Wagner, who treated his symphonies with scorn before he had even read
them,[28] who certainly understood his genius, and who deliberately
ignored him, threw himself into Berlioz's arms when he met him in London
in 1855. "He embraced him with fervour, and wept; and hardly had he left
him when _The Musical World_ published passages from his book, _Oper und
Drama_, where he pulls Berlioz to pieces mercilessly."[29] In France,
the young Gounod, _doli fabricator Epeus_, as Berlioz called him,
lavished flattering words upon him, but spent his time in finding fault
with his compositions,[30] or in trying to supplant him at the theatre.
At the Opera he was passed over in favour of a Prince Poniatowski.
[Footnote 28: Wagner, who had criticised Berlioz since 1840, and who
published a detailed study of his works in his _Oper und Drama_ in 1851,
wrote to Liszt in 1855: "I own that it would interest me very much to
make the acquaintance of Berlioz's symphonies, and I should like to see
the scores. If you have them, will you lend them to me?"]
[Footnote 29: See Berlioz's letter, cited by J. Tiersot, _Hector Berlioz
et la société de son temps_, p. 275.]
[Footnote 30: _Roméo, Faust, La Nonne sanglante_.]
He presented himself three times at the Academy, and was beaten the
first time by Onslow, the second time by Clapisson, and the third time
he conquered by a majority of one vote against Panseron, Vogel, Leborne,
and others, including, as always, Gounod. He died before the _Damnation
de Faust_ was appreciated in France, although it was the most remarkable
musical composition France had produced. They hissed its performance?
Not at all; "they were merely indifferent"--it is Berlioz who tells us
this. It passed unnoticed. He died before he had seen _Les Troyens_
played in its entirety, though it was one of the noblest works of the
French lyric theatre that had been composed since the death of
Gluck.[31] But there is no need to be astonished. To hear these works
to-day one must go to Germany. And although the dramatic work of Berlioz
has found its Bayreuth--thanks to Mottl, to Karlsruhe and Munich--and
the marvellous _Benvenuto Cellini_ has been played in twenty German
towns,[32] and regarded as a masterpiece by Weingartner and Richard
Strauss, what manager of a French theatre would think of producing such
works?
But this is not all. What was the bitterness of failure compared with
the great anguish of death? Berlioz saw all those he loved die one after
the other: his father, his mother, Henrietta Smithson, Marie Recio. Then
only his son Louis remained.
[Footnote 31: I shall content myself here with noting a fact, which I
shall deal with more fully in another essay at the end of this book: it
is the decline of musical taste in France--and, I rather think, in all
Europe--since 1835 or 1840. Berlioz says in his _Mémoires_: "Since the
first performance of _Roméo et Juliette_ the indifference of the French
public for all that concerns art and literature has grown incredibly"
(_Mémoires_, II, 263). Compare the shouts of excitement and the tears
that were drawn from the dilettanti of 1830 (_Mémoires_, I, 81), at the
performances of Italian operas or Gluck's works, with the coldness of
the public between 1840 and 1870. A mantle of ice covered art then. How
much Berlioz must have suffered. In Germany the great romantic age was
dead. Only Wagner remained to give life to music; and he drained all
that was left in Europe of love and enthusiasm for music. Berlioz died
truly of asphyxia.]
[Footnote 32: Here is an official list of the towns where _Benvenuto_
has been played since 1879 (I am indebted for this information to M.
Victor Chapót, Berlioz's grandnephew). They are, in alphabetical order:
Berlin, Bremen, Brunswick, Dresden, Frankfort-On-Main,
Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Hamburg, Hanover, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Mannheim,
Metz, Munich, Prague, Schwerin, Stettin, Strasburg, Stuttgart, Vienna,
and Weimar.]
He was the captain of a merchant vessel; a clever, good-hearted boy,
but restless and nervous, irresolute and unhappy, like his father. "He
has the misfortune to resemble me in everything," said Berlioz; "and we
love each other like a couple of twins."[33] "Ah, my poor Louis," he
wrote to him, "what should I do without you?" A few months afterwards he
learnt that Louis had died in far-away seas.
He was now alone.[34] There were no more friendly voices; all that he
heard was a hideous duet between loneliness and weariness, sung in his
ear during the bustle of the day and in the silence of the night.[35] He
was wasted with disease. In 1856, at Weimar, following great fatigue, he
was seized with an internal malady. It began with great mental distress;
he used to sleep in the streets. He suffered constantly; he was like "a
tree without leaves, streaming with rain." At the end of 1861, the
disease was in an acute stage. He had attacks of pain sometimes lasting
thirty hours, during which he would writhe in agony in his bed. "I live
in the midst of my physical pain, overwhelmed with weariness. Death is
very slow."[36]
[Footnote 33: _Mémoires_, II, 420.]
[Footnote 34: "I do not know how Berlioz has managed to be cut off like
this. He has neither friends nor followers; neither the warm sun of
popularity nor the pleasant shade of friendship" (Liszt to the Princess
of Wittgenstein, 16 May, 1861).]
[Footnote 35: In a letter to Bennet he says, "I am weary, I am
weary...." How often does this piteous cry sound in his letters towards
the end of his life. "I feel I am going to die.... I am weary unto
death" (21 August, 1868--six months before his death).]
[Footnote 36: Letter to Asger Hammerick, 1865.]
Worst of all, in the heart of his misery, there was nothing that
comforted him. He believed in nothing--neither in God nor immortality.
"I have no faith.... I hate all philosophy and everything that
resembles it, whether religious or otherwise.... I am as incapable
of making a medicine of faith as of having faith in medicine."[37]
"God is stupid and cruel in his complete indifference."[38]
He did not believe in beauty or honour, in mankind or himself.
"Everything passes. Space and time consume beauty, youth, love,
glory, genius. Human life is nothing; death is no better. Worlds
are born and die like ourselves. All is nothing. Yes, yes, yes! All
is nothing.... To love or hate, enjoy or suffer, admire or sneer,
live or die--what does it matter? There is nothing in greatness or
littleness, beauty or ugliness. Eternity is indifferent;
indifference is eternal."[39]
"I am weary of life; and I am forced to see that belief in
absurdities is necessary to human minds, and that it is born in
them as insects are born in swamps."[40]
[Footnote 37: Letters to the Princess of Wittgenstein, 22 July, 21
September, 1862; and August, 1864.]
[Footnote 38: _Mémoires_, II, 335. He shocked Mendelssohn, and even
Wagner, by his irreligion. (See Berlioz's letter to Wagner, 10
September, 1855.)]
[Footnote 39: _Les Grotesques de la Musique_, pp. 295-6.]
[Footnote 40: Letter to the Abbé Girod. See Hippeau, _Berlioz intime_,
p. 434.]
"You make me laugh with your old words about a mission to fulfil.
What a missionary! But there is in me an inexplicable mechanism
which works in spite of all arguments; and I let it work because I
cannot stop it. What disgusts me most is the certainty that beauty
does not exist for the majority of these human monkeys."[41]
"The unsolvable enigma of the world, the existence of evil and
pain, the fierce madness of mankind, and the stupid cruelty that it
inflicts hourly and everywhere on the most inoffensive beings and
on itself--all this has reduced me to the state of unhappy and
forlorn resignation of a scorpion surrounded by live coals. The
most I can do is not to wound myself with my own dart."[42]
"I am in my sixty-first year; and I have no more hopes or illusions
or aspirations. I am alone; and my contempt for the stupidity and
dishonesty of men, and my hatred for their wicked cruelty, are at
their height. Every hour I say to Death, 'When you like!' What is
he waiting for?"[43]
[Footnote 41: Letter to Bennet. He did not believe in patriotism.
"Patriotism? Fetichism! Cretinism!" (_Mémoires_, II, 261).]
[Footnote 42: Letter to the Princess of Wittgenstein, 22 July, 1862.]
[Footnote 43: _Mémoires_, II, 391.]
And yet he fears the death he invites. It is the strongest, the
bitterest, the truest feeling he has. No musician since old Roland de
Lassus has feared it with that intensity. Do you remember Herod's
sleepless nights in _L'Enfance du Christ_, or Faust's soliloquy, or the
anguish of Cassandra, or the burial of Juliette?--through all this you
will find the whispered fear of annihilation. The wretched man was
haunted by this fear, as a letter published by M. Julien Tiersot
shows:--
"My favourite walk, especially when it is raining, really raining
in torrents, is the cemetery of Montmartre, which is near my house.
I often go there; there is much that draws me to it. The day before
yesterday I passed two hours in the cemetery; I found a comfortable
seat on a costly tomb, and I went to sleep.... Paris is to me a
cemetery and her pavements are tomb-stones. Everywhere are memories
of friends or enemies that are dead.... I do nothing but suffer
unceasing pain and unspeakable weariness. I wonder night and day if
I shall die in great pain or with little of it--I am not foolish
enough to hope to die without any pain at all. Why are we not
dead?"[44]
His music is like these mournful words; it is perhaps even more
terrible, more gloomy, for it breathes death.[45] What a contrast: a
soul greedy of life and preyed upon by death. It is this that makes his
life such an awful tragedy. When Wagner met Berlioz he heaved a sigh of
relief--he had at last found a man more unhappy than himself.[46]
[Footnote 44: Letters to the Princess of Wittgenstein, 22 January, 1859;
30 August, 1864; 13 July, 1866; and to A. Morel, 21 August, 1864.]
[Footnote 45: " ... Qui viderit illas
De lacrymis factas sentiet esse meis,"
wrote Berlioz, as an inscription for his _Tristes_ in 1854.]
[Footnote 46: "One instantly recognises a companion in misfortune; and I
found I was a happier man than Berlioz" (Wagner to Liszt, 5 July,
1855).]
On the threshold of death he turned in despair to the one ray of light
left him--_Stella montis_, the inspiration of his childish love;
Estelle, now old, a grandmother, withered by age and grief. He made a
pilgrimage to Meylan, near Grenoble, to see her. He was then sixty-one
years old and she was nearly seventy. "The past! the past! O Time!
Nevermore! Nevermore!"[47]
Nevertheless, he loved her, and loved her desperately. How pathetic it
is. One has little inclination to smile when one sees the depths of that
desolate heart. Do you think he did not see, as clearly as you or I
would see, the wrinkled old face, the indifference of age, the "_triste
raison_," in her he idealised? Remember, he was the most ironical of
men. But he did not wish to see these things, he wished to cling to a
little love, which would help him to live in the wilderness of life.
"There is nothing real in this world but that which lives in the
heart.... My life has been wrapped up in the obscure little village
where she lives.... Life is only endurable when I tell myself:
'This autumn I shall spend a month beside her.' I should die in
this hell of a Paris if she did not allow me to write to her, and
if from time to time I had not letters from her."
So he spoke to Legouvé; and he sat down on a stone in a Paris street,
and wept. In the meantime, the old lady did not understand this
foolishness; she hardly tolerated it, and sought to undeceive him.
[Footnote 47: _Mémoires_, II, 396.]
"When one's hair is white one must leave dreams--even those of
friendship.... Of what use is it to form ties which, though they
hold to-day, may break to-morrow?"