art; for not only has he reasoned soundly against Wagner, but dared to
criticise the weaknesses of Gluck and Mozart, the errors of Weber and
Berlioz, and the accepted opinions about Gounod; and this classicist,
who was nourished on Bach, goes so far as to say: "The performance of
works by Bach and Händel to-day is an idle amusement," and that those
who wish to revive their art are like "people who would live in an old
mansion that has been uninhabited for centuries."[122] He went even
further; he criticised his own work and contradicted his own opinions.
His love of liberty made him form, at different periods, different
opinions of the same work. He thought that people had a right to change
their opinions, as sometimes they deceived themselves. It seemed to him
better boldly to admit an error than to be the slave of consistency. And
this same feeling showed itself in other matters besides art: in ethics,
as is shown by some verses which he addressed to a young friend, urging
him not to be bound by a too rigid austerity:
"Je sens qu'une triste chimère
A toujours assombri ton âme: la Vertu...."[123]
and in metaphysics also, where he judges religions, faith, and the
Gospels with a quiet freedom of thought, seeking in Nature alone the
basis of morals and society.
[Footnote 122: C. Saint-Saëns, _Portraits et Souvenirs_, 1900.]
[Footnote 123:
I know that a vain dream of virtue
Has always cast a shadow on your soul (_Rimes familières_).
]
Here are some of his opinions, taken at random from _Problèmes et
Mystères_:
"As science advances, God recedes."
"The soul is only a medium for the expression of thought."
"The discouragement of work, the weakening of character, the
sharing of one's goods under pain of death--this is the Gospel
teaching on the foundation of society."
"The Christian virtues are not social virtues."
"Nature is without aim: she is an endless circle, and leads us
nowhere."
His thoughts are unfettered and full of love for humanity and a sense of
the responsibility of the individual. He called Beethoven "the greatest,
the only really great artist," because he upheld the idea of universal
brotherhood. His mind is so comprehensive that he has written books on
philosophy, on the theatre, on classical painting,[124] as well as
scientific essays,[125] volumes of verse, and even plays.[126]
[Footnote 124: C. Saint-Saëns, _Note sur les décors de théâtre dans
l'antiquité romaine_, 1880, where he discusses the mural paintings of
Pompeii.]
[Footnote 125: Lecture on the Phenomena of Mirages, given to the
Astronomical Society of France in 1905.]
[Footnote 126: C. Saint-Saëns, _La Crampe des Écrivains_, a comedy in
one act, 1892.]
He has been able to take up all sorts of things, I will not say with
equal skill, but with discernment and undeniable ability. He shows a
type of mind rare among artists and, above all, among musicians. The two
principles that he enunciates and himself follows out are: "Keep free
from all exaggeration" and "Preserve the soundness of your mind's
health."[127] They are certainly not the principles of a Beethoven or a
Wagner, and it would be rather difficult to find a noted musician of the
last century who had applied them. They tell us, without need of
comment, what is distinctive about M. Saint-Saëns, and what is defective
in him. He is not troubled by any sort of passion. Nothing disturbs the
clearness of his reason. "He has no prejudices; he takes no
side"[128]--one might add, not even his own, since he is not afraid to
change his views--"he does not pose as a reformer of anything"; he is
altogether independent, perhaps almost too much so. He seems sometimes
as if he did not know what to do with his liberty. Goethe would have
said, I think, that he needed a little more of the devil in him.
[Footnote 127: _Harmonie et Mélodie_.]
[Footnote 128: Charles Gounod, _Mémoires d'un Artiste_.]
His most characteristic mental trait seems to be a languid melancholy,
which has its source in a rather bitter feeling of the futility of
life;[129] and this is accompanied by fits of weariness which are not
altogether healthy, followed by capricious moods and nervous gaiety, and
a freakish liking for burlesque and mimicry. It is his eager, restless
spirit that makes him rush about the world writing Breton and Auvergnian
rhapsodies, Persian songs, Algerian suites, Portuguese barcarolles,
Danish, Russian, or Arabian caprices, souvenirs of Italy, African
fantasias, and Egyptian concertos; and, in the same way, he roams
through the ages, writing Greek tragedies, dance music of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, and preludes and fugues of the eighteenth.
But in all these exotic and archaic reflections of times and countries
through which his fancy wanders, one recognises the gay, intelligent
countenance of a Frenchman on his travels, who idly follows his
inclinations, and does not trouble to enter very deeply into the spirit
of the people he meets, but gleans all he can, and then reproduces it
with a French complexion--after the manner of Montaigne in Italy, who
compared Verona to Poitiers, and Padua to Bordeaux, and who, when he was
in Florence, paid much less attention to Michelangelo than to "a very
strangely shaped sheep, and an animal the size of a large mastiff,
shaped like a cat and striped with black and white, which they called a
tiger."
[Footnote 129: _Les Heures; Mors; Modestie (Rimes familières_).]
From a purely musical point of view there is some resemblance between M.
Saint-Saëns and Mendelssohn. In both of them we find the same
intellectual restraint, the same balance preserved among the
heterogeneous elements of their work. These elements are not common to
both of them, because the time, the country, and the surroundings in
which they lived are not the same; and there is also a great difference
in their characters. Mendelssohn is more ingenuous and religious; M.
Saint-Saëns is more of a dilettante and more sensuous. They are not so
much kindred spirits by their science as good company by a common purity
of taste, a sense of rhythm, and a genius for method, which gave all
they wrote a neo-classic character.
As for the things that directly influenced M. Saint-Saëns, they are so
numerous that it would be difficult and rather bold of me to pretend to
be able to pick them out. His remarkable capacity for assimilation has
often moved him to write in the style of Wagner or Berlioz, of Händel or
Rameau, of Lulli or Charpentier, or even of some English harpsichord or
clavichord player of the sixteenth century, like William Byrd--whose
airs are introduced quite naturally in the music of _Henry VIII_; but we
must remember that these are deliberate imitations, the amusements of a
virtuoso, about which M. Saint-Saëns never deceives himself. His memory
serves him as he pleases, but he is never troubled by it.
As far as one can judge, M. Saint-Saëns' musical ideas are infused with
the spirit of the great classics belonging to the end of the eighteenth
century--far more, whatever people may say, with the spirit of
Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart, than with the spirit of Bach. Schumann's
seductiveness also left its mark upon him, and he has felt the influence
of Gounod, Bizet, and Wagner. But a stronger influence was that of
Berlioz, his friend and master,[130] and, above all, that of Liszt. We
must stop at this last name.
[Footnote 130: "Thanks to Berlioz, all my generation has been shaped,
and well shaped" _(Portraits et Souvenirs_).]
M. Saint-Saëns has good reason for liking Liszt, for Liszt was also a
lover of freedom, and had shaken off traditions and pedantry, and
scorned German routine; and he liked him, too, because his music was a
reaction from the stiff school of Brahms.[131] He was enthusiastic about
Liszt's work, and was one of the earliest and most ardent champions of
that new music of which Liszt was the leading spirit--of that
"programme" music which Wagner's triumph seemed to have nipped in the
bud, but which has suddenly and gloriously burst into life again in the
works of Richard Strauss. "Liszt is one of the great composers of our
time," wrote M. Saint-Saëns; "he has dared more than either Weber, or
Mendelssohn, or Schubert, or Schumann. He has created the symphonic
poem. He is the deliverer of instrumental music.... He has proclaimed
the reign of free music."[132] This was not said impulsively in a moment
of enthusiasm; M. Saint-Saëns has always held this opinion. All his life
he has remained faithful to his admiration of Liszt--since 1858, when he
dedicated a _Veni Creator_ to "the Abbé Liszt," until 1886, when, a few
months after Liszt's death, he dedicated his masterpiece, the _Symphonic
avec orgue_, "To the memory of Franz Liszt."[133]
[Footnote 131: "I like Liszt's music so much, because he does not bother
about other people's opinions; he says what he wants to say; and the
only thing that he troubles about is to say it as well as he possibly
can" (Quoted by Hippeau).]
[Footnote 132: The quotations are taken from _Harmonie et Mélodie_ and
_Portraits et Souvenirs_.]
[Footnote 133: In _Harmonie et Mélodie_ M. Saint-Saëns tells us that he
organised and directed a concert in the Théâtre-Italien where only
Liszt's compositions were played. But all his efforts to make the French
musical public appreciate Liszt were a failure.]
"People have not hesitated to scoff at what they call my weakness for
Liszt's works. But even if the feelings of affection and gratitude that
he inspired in me did come like a prism and interpose themselves between
my eyes and his face, I do not see anything greatly to be regretted in
it.[134] I had not yet felt the charm of his personal fascination, I had
neither heard nor seen him, and I did not owe him anything at all, when
my interest was gripped in reading his first symphonic poems; and when
later they pointed the way which was to lead to _La Danse macabre_, _Le
Rouet d'Omphale_, and other works of the same nature, I am sure that my
judgment was not biassed by any prejudice in his favour, and that I
alone was responsible for what I did."[135]
[Footnote 134: The admiration was mutual. M. Saint-Saëns even said that
without Liszt he could not have written _Samson et Dalila_. "Not only
did Liszt have _Samson et Dalila_ performed at Weimar, but without him
that work would never have come into being. My suggestions on the
subject had met with such hostility that I had given up the idea of
writing it; and all that existed were some illegible notes.... Then at
Weimar one day I spoke to Liszt about it, and he said to me, quite
trustingly and without having heard a note, 'Finish your work; I will
have it performed here.' The events of 1870 delayed its performance for
several years." (_Revue Musicale_, 8 November, 1901).]
[Footnote 135: _Portraits et Souvenirs_.]
This influence seems to me to explain some of M. Saint-Saëns' work. Not
only is this influence evident in his symphonic poems--some of his best
work--but it is to be found in his suites for orchestra, his fantasias,
and his rhapsodies, where the descriptive and narrative element is
strong. "Music should charm unaided," said M. Saint-Saëns; "but its
effect is much finer when we use our imagination and let it flow in some
particular channel, thus imaging the music. It is then that all the
faculties of the soul are brought into play for the same end. What art
gains from this is not greater beauty, but a wider field for its
scope--that is, a greater variety of form and a larger liberty."[136]
* * * * *
And so we find that M. Saint-Saëns has taken part in the vigorous
attempt of modern German symphony writers to bring into music some of
the power of the other arts: poetry, painting, philosophy, romance,
drama--the whole of life. But what a gulf divides them and him! A gulf
made up, not only of diversities of style, but of the difference between
two races and two worlds. Beside the frenzied outpourings of Richard
Strauss, who flounders uncertainly between mud and debris and genius,
the Latin art of Saint-Saëns rises up calm and ironical. His delicacy of
touch, his careful moderation, his happy grace, "which enters the soul
by a thousand little paths,"[137] bring with them the pleasures of
beautiful speech and honest thought; and we cannot but feel their charm.
Compared with the restless and troubled art of to-day, his music strikes
us by its calm, its tranquil harmonies, its velvety modulations, its
crystal clearness, its smooth and flowing style, and an elegance that
cannot be put into words. Even his classic coldness does us good by its
reaction against the exaggerations, sincere as they are, of the new
school. At times one feels oneself carried back to Mendelssohn, even to
Spontini and the school of Gluck. One seems to be travelling in a
country that one knows and loves; and yet in M. Saint-Saëns' works one
does not find any direct resemblance to the works of other composers;
for with no one are reminiscences rarer than with this master who
carries all the old masters in his mind--it is his spirit that is akin
to theirs. And that is the secret of his personality and his value to
us; he brings to our artistic unrest a little of the light and sweetness
of other times. His compositions are like fragments of another world.
[Footnote 136: _Harmonie et Mélodie_.]
[Footnote 137: C. Saint-Saëns, _Portraits et Souvenirs_.]
"From time to time," he said, in speaking of _Don Giovanni_, "in the
sacred earth of Hellene we find a fragment, an arm, the debris of a
torso, scratched and damaged by the ravages of time; it is only the
shadow of the god that the sculptor's chisel once created; but the charm
is somehow still there, the sublime style is radiant in spite of
everything."[138]
And so with this music. It is sometimes a little pale, a little too
restrained; but in a phrase, in a few harmonies, there will shine out a
clear vision of the past.
[Footnote 138: _Portraits et Souvenirs_.]
VINCENT D'INDY
"I consider that criticism is useless, I would even say that it is
harmful.... Criticism generally means the opinion some man or other
holds about another person's work. How can that opinion help
forward the growth of art? It is interesting to know the ideas,
even the erroneous ideas, of geniuses and men of great talent, such
as Goethe, Schumann, Wagner, Sainte-Beuve, and Michelet, when they
wish to indulge in criticism; but it is of no interest at all to
know whether Mr. So-and-so likes, or does not like, such-and-such
dramatic or musical work."[139]
So writes M. Vincent d'Indy.
After such an expression of opinion one imagines that a critic ought to
feel some embarrassment in writing about M. Vincent d'Indy. And I myself
ought to be the more concerned in the matter, for in the number of the
review where the above was written the only other opinions expressed
with equal conviction belonged to the author of this book. There is only
one thing to be done--to copy M. d'Indy's example; for that forsworn
enemy of criticism is himself a keen critic.
[Footnote 139: _Revue d'Art dramatique_, 5 February, 1899.]
It is not altogether on M. d'Indy's musical gifts that I want to dwell.
It is known that in Europe to-day he is one of the masters of dramatic
musical expression, of orchestral colouring, and of the science of
style. But that is not the end of his attainments; he has artistic
originality, which springs from something deeper still. When an artist
has some worth, you will find it not only in his work but in his being.
So we will endeavour to explore M. d'Indy's being.
M. d'Indy's personality is not a mysterious one. On the contrary, it is
open and clear as daylight; and we see this in his musical work, in his
artistic activities, and in his writings. To his own writings we may
apply the exception of his rule about criticism in favour of a small
number of men whose thoughts are interesting even when they are
erroneous. It would be a pity indeed not to know M. d'Indy's
thoughts--even the erroneous ones; for they let us catch a glimpse, not
only of the ideas of an eminent artist, but of certain surprising
characteristics of the thought of our time. M. d'Indy has closely
studied the history of his art; but the chief interest of his writings
lies rather in their unconscious expression of the spirit of modern art
than in what they tell us about the past.
M. d'Indy is not a man hedged in by the boundaries of his art; his mind
is open and well fertilised. Musicians nowadays are no longer entirely
absorbed in their notes, but let their minds go out to other interests.
And it is not one of the least interesting phenomena of French music
to-day that gives us these learned and thoughtful composers, who are
conscious of what they create, and bring to their art a keen critical
faculty, like that of M. Saint-Saëns, M. Dukas, or M. d'Indy. From M.
d'Indy we have had scholarly editions of Rameau, Destouches, and Salomon
de Rossi. Even in the middle of rehearsals of _L'Étranger_ at Brussels
he was working at a reconstruction of Monteverde's _Orfeo_. He has
published selections of folk-songs with critical notes, essays on
Beethoven's predecessors, a history of Musical Composition, and debates
and lectures. This fine intellectual culture is not, however, the most
remarkable of M. d'Indy's characteristics, though it may have been the
most remarked. Other musicians share this culture with him; and his real
distinction lies in his moral and almost religious qualities, and it is
this side of him that gives him an unusual interest for us among other
contemporary artists.
* * * * *
"Maneant in vobis Fides, Spes, Caritas.
Tria haec: major autem horum est Caritas.
"An artist must have at least Faith, faith in God and faith in his
art; for it is Faith that disposes him to _learn_, and by his
learning to raise himself higher and higher on the ladder of Being,
up to his goal, which is God.
"An artist should practise Hope; for he can expect nothing from the
present; he knows that his mission is to _serve_, and to give his
work for the life and teaching of the generations that shall come
after him.
"An artist should be inspired by a splendid Charity--'the greatest
of these.' To _love_ should be his aim in life; for the moving
principle of all creation is divine and charitable Love."
Who speaks like this? Is it the monk Denys in his cell at Mount Athos?
Or Cennini, who spread the pious teaching of the Giotteschi? Or one of
the old painters of Sienna, who in their profession of faith called
themselves "by the grace of God, those who manifest marvellous things to
common and illiterate men, by the virtue of the holy faith, and to its
glory"?
No; it was the director of the _Schola Cantorum_, addressing the
students in an inaugural speech, or giving them a lecture on
Composition.[140]
[Footnote 140: Vincent d'Indy: _Cours de Composition musicale_, Book I,
drawn up from notes taken in Composition classes at the _Schola
Cantorum_, 1897-1898, p. 16 (Durand, 1902). See also the inaugural
speech given at the school, and published by the _Tribune de
Saint-Gervais_, November, 1900.]
We must consider a little this singular book, where a living science and
a Gothic spirit are closely intermingled (I use the word "Gothic" in its
best sense; I know it is the highest praise one can give M. d'Indy).
This work has not received the attention it deserves. It is a record of
the spirit of contemporary art; and if it stands rather apart from other
writings, it should not be allowed to pass unnoticed on that account.
In this book, Faith is shown to be everything--the beginning and the
end. We learn how it fans the flame of genius, nourishes thought,
directs work, and governs even the modulations and the style of a
musician. There is a passage in it that one would think was of the
thirteenth century; it is curious, but not without dignity:
"One should have an aim in the progressive march of modulations, as
one has in the different stages of life. The reason, instincts, and
faith that guide a man in the troubles of his life also guide the
musician in his choice of modulations. Thus useless and
contradictory modulations, an undecided balance between light and
shade, produce a painful and confusing impression on the hearer,
comparable to that which a poor human being inspires when he is
feeble and inconsistent, buffeted between the East and the West in
the course of his unhappy life, without an aim and without
belief."[141]
[Footnote 141: Vincent d'Indy, _Cours de Composition musicale_, p. 132.]
This book seems to be of the Middle Ages by reason of a sort of
scholastic spirit of abstraction and classification.
"In artistic creation, seven faculties are called into play by the
soul: the Imagination, the Affections, the Understanding, the
Intelligence, the Memory, the Will, and the Conscience."[142]
[Footnote 142: _Id._, _ibid._, p. 13.]
And again its mediaeval spirit is shown by an extraordinary symbolism,
which discovers in everything (as far as I understand it) the imprint
of divine mysteries, and the mark of God in Three Persons in such things
as the beating of the heart and ternary rhythms--"an admirable
application of the principle of the Unity of the Trinity"![143]
From these remote times comes also M. d'Indy's method of writing
history, not by tracing facts back to laws, but by deducing, on the
contrary, facts from certain great general ideas, which have once been
admitted, but not proved by frequent recurrence, such as: "The origin of
art is in religion"[144]--a fact which is anything but certain. From
this reasoning it follows that folk-songs are derived from Gregorian
chants, and not the Gregorian chants from the folk-songs--as I would
sooner believe. The history of art may thus become a sort of history of
the world in moral achievement. One could divide it into two parts: the
world before the coming of Pride, and after it.
"Subdued by the Christian faith, that formidable enemy of man, Pride,
rarely showed itself in the soul of an artist in the Middle Ages. But
with the weakening of religious belief, with the spirit of the
Reformation applying itself almost at the same time to every branch of
human learning, we see Pride reappear, and watch its veritable
Renaissance."[145]
[Footnote 143: _Id., ibid._, p. 25. In the thirteenth century, Philippe
de Vitry, Bishop of Meaux, called triple time "perfect," because "it
hath its name from the Trinity, that is to say, from the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost, in whom is divine perfection."]
[Footnote 144: _Id., ibid._, pp. 66, 83, and _passim_.]
[Footnote 145: _Id., ibid._]
Finally, this Gothic spirit shows itself--in a less original way, it is
true--in M. d'Indy's religious antipathies, which, in spite of the
author's goodness of heart and great personal tolerance, constantly
break out against the two faiths that are rivals to his own; and to them
he attributes all the faults of art and all the vices of humanity. Each
has its offence. Protestantism is made responsible for the extremes of
individualism;[146] and Judaism, for the absurdities of its customs and
the weakness of its moral sense.[147] I do not know which of the two is
the more soundly belaboured; the second has the privilege of being so,
not only in writing, but in pictures.[148] The worst of it is, these
antipathies are apt to spoil the fairness of M. d'Indy's artistic
judgment. It goes without saying that the Jewish musicians are treated
with scant consideration; and even the great Protestant musicians,
giants in their art, do not escape rebuke. If Goudimel is mentioned, it
is because he was Palestrina's master, and his achievement of "turning
the Calvinist psalms into chorales" is dismissed as being of little
importance.[149]
[Footnote 146: "Make war against Particularism, that unwholesome fruit
of the Protestant heresy!" (Speech to the _Schola_, taken from the
_Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, November, 1900.)]
[Footnote 147: At least Judaism has the honour of giving its name to a
whole period of art, the "Judaic period." "The modern style is the last
phase of the Judaic school...." etc.]
[Footnote 148: In the _Cours de Composition musicale_ M. d'Indy speaks
of "the admirable initial T in the _Rouleau mortuaire_ of Saint-Vital
(twelfth century), which represents Satan vomiting two Jews ... an
expressive and symbolic work of art, if ever there was one." I should
not mention this but for the fact that there are only two illustrations
in the whole book.]
[Footnote 149: _Cours de Composition musicale_, p. 160.]
Händel's oratorios are spoken of as "chilling, and, frankly speaking,
tedious."[150] Bach himself escapes with this qualification: "If he is
great, it is not because of, but in spite of the dogmatic and parching
spirit of the Reformation."[151]