judged by his own writings. And, after all, it is rather interesting to
meet people who are sincere and not afraid to speak their minds. I will
admit that I rather enjoy--a little perversely, perhaps--some of these
extreme opinions, where the writer's personality stands strongly
revealed.
[Footnote 150: _L'Oratorio moderne_ (_Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, March,
1899).]
[Footnote 151: _Ibid._ As much as to say he was a Catholic without
knowing it. And that is what a friend of the _Schola_, M. Edgar Tinel,
declares: "Bach is a truly Christian artist and, without doubt, _a
Protestant by mistake_, since in his immortal _Credo_ he confesses his
faith in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" (_Tribune de
Saint-Gervais_, August-September, 1902). M. Edgar Tinel was, as you
know, one of the principal masters of Belgian oratorio.]
So the old Gothic spirit still lives among us, and informs the mind of
one of our best-known artists, and also, without doubt, the minds of
hundreds of those who listen to him and admire him. M. Louis Laloy has
shown the persistence of certain forms of plain-song in M. Debussy's
_Pelléas_; and in a dim sense of far-away kinship he finds the cause of
the mysterious charm that such music holds for some of us.[152] This
learned paradox is possible. Why not? The mixtures of race and the
vicissitudes of history have given us so full and complex a soul that we
may very well find its beginnings there, if it pleases us--or the
beginnings of quite other things. Of beginnings there is no end; the
choice is quite embarrassing, and I imagine one's inclination has as
much to do with the matter as one's temperament.
[Footnote 152: _Revue musicale_, November, 1902.]
However that may be, M. d'Indy hails from the Middle Ages, and not from
antiquity (which does not exist for him[153]), or from the Renaissance,
which he confounds with the Reformation (though the two sisters are
enemies) in order to crush it the better.[154] "Let us take for models,"
he says, "the fine workers in art of the Middle Ages."[155]
* * * * *
In this return to the Gothic spirit, in this awakening of faith, there
is a name--a modern one this time--that they are fond of quoting at the
_Schola_; it is that of César Franck, under whose direction the little
Conservatoire in the Rue Saint-Jacques was placed. And indeed they could
quote no better name than that of this simple-hearted man. Nearly all
who came into contact with him felt his irresistible charm--a charm that
has perhaps a great deal to do with the influence that his works still
have on French music to-day. None has felt Franck's power, both morally
and musically, more than M. Vincent d'Indy; and none holds a more
profound reverence for the man whose pupil he was for so long.
[Footnote 153: "The only documents extant on ancient music are either
criticisms or appreciations, and not musical texts" (_Cours de
Composition_).]
[Footnote 154: "The influence of the Renaissance, with its pretension
and vanity, caused a check in all the arts--the effect of which we are
still feeling" (_Traité de Composition_, p. 89. See also the passage
quoted before on Pride).]
[Footnote 155: _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, November, 1900.]
The first time I saw M. d'Indy was at a concert of the _Société
nationale_, in the Salle Pleyel, in 1888. They were playing several of
Franck's works; among others, for the first time, his admirable _Thème,
fugue, et variation_, for the harmonium and pianoforte, a composition in
which the spirit of Bach is mingled with a quite modern tenderness.
Franck was conducting, and M. d'Indy was at the pianoforte. I shall
always remember his reverential manner towards the old musician, and how
careful he was to follow his directions; one would have said he was a
diligent and obedient pupil. It was a touching homage from one who had
already proved himself a master by works like _Le Chant de la cloche_,
_Wallenstein_, _La Symphonie sur un thème montagnard_, and who was
perhaps at that time better known and more popular than César Franck
himself. Since then twenty years have passed, and I still see M. d'Indy
as I saw him that evening; and, whatever may happen in the future, his
memory for me will be always associated with that of the grand old
artist, presiding with his fatherly smile over the little gathering of
the faithful.
Of all the characteristics of Franck's fine moral nature, the most
remarkable was his religious faith. It must have astonished the artists
of his time, who were even more destitute of such a thing than they are
now. It made itself felt in some of his followers, especially in those
who were near the master's heart, as M. d'Indy was. The religious
thought of the latter reflects in some degree the thought of his master;
though the shape of that thought may have undergone unconscious
alteration. I do not know if Franck altogether fits the conception
people have of him to-day. I do not want to introduce personal memories
of him here. I knew him well enough to love him, and to catch a glimpse
of the beauty and sincerity of his soul; but I did not know him well
enough to discover the secrets of his mind. Those who had the happiness
of being his intimate friends seem always to represent him as a mystic
who shut himself away from the spirit of his time. I hope at some future
date one of his friends will publish some of the conversations that he
had with him, of which I have heard. But this man who had so strong a
faith was also very independent. In his religion he had no doubts: it
was the mainspring of his life; though faith with him was much more a
matter of feeling than a matter of doctrine. But all was feeling with
Franck, and reason made little appeal to him. His religious faith did
not disturb his mind, for he did not measure men and their works by its
rules; and he would have been incapable of putting together a history of
art according to the Bible. This great Catholic had at times a very
pagan soul; and he could enjoy without a qualm the musical dilettantism
of Renan and the sonorous nihilism of Leconte de Lisle. There were no
limits to his vast sympathies. He did not attempt to criticise the thing
he loved--understanding was already in his heart. Perhaps he was right;
and perhaps there was more trouble in the depths of his heart than the
valiant serenity of its surface would lead us to believe.
His faith too.... I know how dangerous it is to interpret a musician's
feelings by his music; but how can we do otherwise when we are told by
Franck's followers that the expression of the soul is the only end and
aim of music? Do we find his faith, as expressed through his music
always full of peace and calm?[156] I ask those who love that music
because they find some of their own sadness reflected there. Who has not
felt the secret tragedies that some of his musical passages
enfold--those short, characteristically abrupt phrases which seem to
rise in supplication to God, and often fall back in sadness and in
tears? It is not all light in that soul; but the light that is there
does not affect us less because it shines from afar,
"Dans un écartement de nuages, qui laisse
Voir au-dessus des mers la céleste allégresse...."[157]
[Footnote 156: I speak of the passages where he expresses himself
freely, and is not interpreting a dramatic situation necessary to his
subject, as in that fine symphonic part of the _Rédemption_, where he
describes the triumph of Christ. But even there we find traces of
sadness and suffering.]
[Footnote 157: Through a break in the clouds, revealing Celestial joy
shining above the deeps.]
And so Franck seems to me to differ from M. d'Indy in that he has not
the latter's urgent desire for clearness.
* * * * *
Clearness is the distinguishing quality of M. d'Indy's mind. There are
no shadows about him. His ideas and his art are as clear as the look
that gives so much youth to his face. For him to examine, to arrange,
to classify, to combine, is a necessity. No one is more French in
spirit. He has sometimes been taxed with Wagnerism, and it is true that
he has felt Wagner's influence very strongly. But even when this
influence is most apparent it is only superficial: his true spirit is
remote from Wagner's. You may find in _Fervaal_ a few trees like those
in _Siegfried's_ forest; but the forest itself is not the same; broad
avenues have been cut in it, and daylight fills the caverns of the
Niebelungs.
This love of clearness is the ruling factor of M. d'Indy's artistic
nature. And this is the more remarkable, for his nature is far from
being a simple one. By his wide musical education and his constant
thirst for knowledge he has acquired a very varied and almost
contradictory learning. It must be remembered that M. d'Indy is a
musician familiar with the music of other countries and other times; all
kinds of musical forms are floating in his mind; and he seems sometimes
to hesitate between them. He has arranged these forms into three
principal classes, which seem to him to be models of musical art: the
decorative art of the singers of plain-song, the architectural art of
Palestrina and his followers, and the expressive art of the great
Italians of the seventeenth century.[158] But in doing this is not his
eclecticism trying to reconcile arts that are naturally disunited?
Again, we must remember that M. d'Indy has had direct or indirect
contact with some of the greatest musical personalities of our time:
with Wagner, Liszt, Brahms, and César Franck.
[Footnote 158: _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_ November, 1900.]
And he has been readily attracted by them; for he is not one of those
egotistic geniuses whose thoughts are fixed on his own interests, nor
has he one of those carnivorous minds that sees nothing, looks for
nothing, and relishes nothing, unless it may be afterwards useful to it.
His sympathies are readily with others, he is happy in giving homage to
their greatness, and quick to appreciate their charm. He speaks
somewhere of the "irresistible need of transformation" that every artist
feels.[159] But in order to escape being overwhelmed by conflicting
elements and interests, one should have great force of feeling or will,
in order to be able to eliminate what is not necessary, and choose out
and transform what is. M. d'Indy eliminates hardly anything; he makes
use of it. In his music he exercises the qualities of an army general:
understanding of his purpose and the patience to attain it, a perfect
knowledge of the means at his disposal, the spirit of order, and command
over his work and himself. Despite the variety of the materials he
employs, the whole is always clear. One might almost reproach him with
being too clear; he seems to simplify too much.
Nothing helps one to grasp the essence of M. d'Indy's personality more
than his last dramatic work. His personality shows itself plainly in all
his compositions, but nowhere is it more evident than in
_L'Étranger_.[160]
[Footnote 159: _Id._, September, 1899.]
[Footnote 160: _L'Étranger_, "action musicale" in two acts. Poem and
music by M. Vincent d'Indy. Played for the first time at Brussels in the
Théâtre de la Monnaie, 7 January, 1903. The quotations from the drama,
whose poetry is not as good as its music, are taken from the score.]
The scene of _L'Étranger_ is laid in France, by the sea, whose murmuring
calm we hear in a symphonic introduction. The fishermen are coming back
to port; the fishing has been bad. But one among them, "a man about
forty years old, with a sad and dignified air," has been more fortunate
than the others. The fishermen envy him, and vaguely suspect him of
sorcery. He tries to enter into friendly conversation with them, and
offers his catch to a poor family. But in vain; his advances are
repulsed and his generosity is eyed with suspicion. He is a
stranger--the Stranger.[161] Evening falls, and the angelus rings. Some
work-girls come trooping out of their workshop, singing a merry
folk-song.[162] One of the young girls, Vita, goes up to the Stranger
and speaks to him, for she alone, of all the village, is his friend. The
two feel themselves drawn together by a secret sympathy. Vita confides
artlessly in the unknown man; they love each other though they do not
admit it. The Stranger tries to repress his feelings; for Vita is young
and already affianced, and he thinks that he has no right to claim her.
But Vita, offended by his coldness, seeks to wound him, and succeeds.
In the end he betrays himself. "Yes, he loves her, and she knew it well.
But now that he has told her so, he will never see her again; and he
bids her good-bye."
[Footnote 161: There is a certain likeness in the subject to Herr
Richard Strauss's _Feuersnot_. There, too, the hero is a stranger who is
persecuted, and treated as a sorcerer in the very town to which he has
brought honour. But the _dénouement_ is not the same; and the
fundamental difference of temperament between the two artists is
strongly marked. M. d'Indy finishes with the renouncement of a
Christian, and Herr Richard Strauss by a proud and joyous affirmation of
independence.]
[Footnote 162: Found by M. d'Indy in his own province, as he tells us in
his _Chansons populaires du Vivarais_.]
That is the first act. Up to this point we seem to be witnessing a very
human and realistic drama--the ordinary story of the man who tries to do
good and receives ingratitude, and the sad tragedy of old age that comes
to a heart still young and unable to resign itself to growing old. But
the music puts us on our guard. We had heard its religious tone when the
Stranger was speaking, and it seemed to us that we recognised a
liturgical melody in the principal theme. What secret is being hidden
from us? Are we not in France? Yet, in spite of the folk-song and a
passing breath of the sea, the atmosphere of the Church and César Franck
is evident. Who is this Stranger?
He tells us in the second act.
"My name? I have none. I am He who dreams; I am He who loves. I
have passed through many countries, and sailed on many seas, loving
the poor and needy, dreaming of the happiness of the brotherhood of
man."
"Where have I seen you?--for I know you."
"Where? you ask. But everywhere: under the warm sun of the East, by
the white oceans of the Pole.... I have found you everywhere, for
you are Beauty itself, you are immortal Love!"
The music is not without a certain nobility, and bears the imprint of
the calm, strong spirit of belief. But I was sorry that the story was
only about a mere entity when I had been getting interested in a man. I
can never understand the attraction of this kind of symbolism. Unless it
is allied to sublime powers of creation in metaphysics or morals--such
as that possessed by a Goethe or an Ibsen--I do not see what such
symbolism can add to life, though I see very well what it takes away
from it. But it is, after all, a matter of taste; and, anyway, there is
nothing in this story to astonish us greatly. This transition from
realism to symbolism is something in opera with which we have grown only
too familiar since the time of Wagner.
But the story does not stop there; for we leave symbolic abstractions to
enter a still more extraordinary domain, which is removed even farther
still from realities.
There had been some talk at the beginning of an emerald that sparkled in
the Stranger's cap; and this emerald now takes its turn in the action of
the piece. "It had sparkled formerly in the bows of the boat that
carried the body of Lazarus, the friend of our Master, Jesus; and the
boat had safely reached the port of the Phoceans--without a helm or
sails or oars. For by this miraculous stone a clean and upright heart
could command the sea and the winds." But now that the Stranger has done
amiss, by falling a victim to passion, its power is gone; so he gives it
to Vita.
Then follows a real scene in fairyland. Vita stands before the sea and
invokes it in an incantation full of weird and beautiful vocal music:
"O sea! Sinister sea with your angry charm, gentle sea with your kiss of
death, hear me!" And the sea replies in a song. Voices mingle with the
orchestra in a symphony of increasing anger. Vita swears she will give
herself to no one but the Stranger. She lifts the emerald above her
head, and it shines with a lurid light. "'Receive, O sea, as a token of
my oath, the sacred stone, the holy emerald! Then may its power be no
longer invoked, and none may know again its protecting virtue. Jealous
sea, take back your own, the last offering of a betrothed!' With an
impressive gesture she throws the emerald into the waves, and a dark
green light suddenly shines out against the black sky. This supernatural
light slowly spreads over the water until it reaches the horizon, and
the sea begins to roll in great billows." Then the sea takes up its song
in an angrier tone; the orchestra thunders, and the storm bursts.
The boats put hurriedly back to land, and one of them seems likely to be
dashed to pieces on the shore. The whole village turns out to watch the
disaster; but the men refuse to risk their lives in aid of the
shipwrecked crew. Then the Stranger gets into a boat, and Vita jumps in
after him. The squall redoubles in violence. A wave of enormous height
breaks on the jetty, flooding the scene with a dazzling green light. The
crowd recoil in fear. There is a silence; and an old fisherman takes off
his woollen cap and intones the _De Profundis_. The villagers take up
the chant....
One may see by this short account what a heterogeneous work it is. Two
or three quite different worlds are brought into it: the realism of the
bourgeois characters of Vita's mother and lover is mixed up with
symbolisms of Christianity, represented by the Stranger, and with the
fairy-tale of the magic emerald and the voices of the ocean. This
complexity, which is evident enough in the poem, is even more evident in
the music, where a union of different arts and different ideas is
attempted. We get the art of the folk-song, religious art, the art of
Wagner, the art of Franck, as well as a note of familiar realism (which
is something akin to the Italian _opéra-bouffe_) and descriptions of
sensation that are quite personal. As there are only two short acts, the
rapidity of the action only serves to accentuate this impression. The
changes are very abrupt: we are hurried from a world of human beings to
a world of abstract ideas, and then taken from an atmosphere of religion
to a land of fairies. The work is, however, clear enough from a musical
point of view. The more complex the elements that M. d'Indy gathers
round him the more anxious he is to bring them into harmony. It is a
difficult task, and is only possible when the different elements are
reduced to their simplest expression and brought down to their
fundamental qualities--thus depriving them of the spice of their
individuality. M. d'Indy puts different styles and ideas on the anvil,
and then forges them vigorously. It is natural that here and there we
should see the mark of the hammer, the imprint of his determination; but
it is only by his determination that he welded the work into a solid
whole.
Perhaps it is determination that brings unity now and then into M.
d'Indy's spirit. With reference to this, I will dwell upon one point
only, since it is curious, and seems to me to be of general artistic
interest. M. d'Indy writes his own poems for his "_actions
musicales_"--Wagner's example, it seems, has been catching. We have seen
how the harmony of a work may suffer through the dual gifts of its
author; though he may have thought to perfect his composition by writing
both words and music. But an artist's poetical and musical gifts are not
necessarily of the same order. A man has not always the same kind of
talent in other arts that he has in the art which he has made his own--I
am speaking not only of his technical skill, but of his temperament as
well. Delacroix was of the Romantic school in painting, but in
literature his style was Classic. We have all known artists who were
revolutionaries in their own sphere, but conservative and behind the
times in their opinions about other branches of art. The double gift of
poetry and music is in M. d'Indy up to a certain point. But is his
reason always in agreement with his heart?[163]
[Footnote 163: In his criticisms his heart is not always in agreement
with his mind. His mind denounces the Renaissance, but his instinct
obliges him to appreciate the great Florentine painters of the
Renaissance and the musicians of the sixteenth century. He only gets out
of the difficulty by the most extraordinary compromises, by saying that
Ghirlandajo and Filippo Lippi were Gothic, or by stating that the
Renaissance in music did not begin till the seventeenth century! (_Cours
de Composition_, pp. 214 and 216.)]
Of course his nature is too dignified to let the quarrel be shown
openly. His heart obeys the commands of his reason, or compromises with
it, and by seeming respectful of authority saves appearances. His
reason, represented here by the poet, likes simple, realistic, and
relevant action, together with moral or even religious teaching. His
heart, represented by the musician, is romantic; and if he followed it
altogether he would wander off to any subject that enabled him to
indulge in his love of the picturesque, such as the descriptive
symphony, or even the old form of opera.
For myself, I am in sympathy with his heart; and I find his heart is in
the right, and his reason in the wrong. There is nothing that M. d'Indy
has made more his own than the art of painting landscapes in music.
There is one page in _Fervaal_ at the beginning of Act II which calls up
misty mountain tops covered with pine forests; there is another page in
_L'Étranger_ where one sees strange lights glimmering on the sea while a
storm is brooding.[164] I should like to see M. d'Indy give himself up
freely, in spite of all theories, to this descriptive lyricism, in which
he so excels; or I wish at least he would seek inspiration in a subject
where both his religious beliefs and his imagination could find
satisfaction: a subject such as one of the beautiful episodes of the
Golden Legend, or the one which _L'Étranger_ itself recalls--the
romantic voyage of the Magdalen in Provence. But it is foolish to wish
an artist to do anything but the thing he likes; he is the best judge
of what pleases him.
[Footnote 164: Act III, scene 3. The power of that evocation is so
strong that it carries the poet along with it. It would seem that part
of the action had only been conceived with a view to the final effect of
the sudden colouring of the waves.]
* * * * *
In this sketchy portrait I must not forget one of the finest of this
composer's gifts--his talent as a teacher of music. Everything has
fitted M. d'Indy for this part. By his knowledge and his precise,
orderly mind he must be a perfect teacher of composition. If I submit
some question of harmony or melodic phrasing to his analysis, the result
is the essence of clear, logical reasoning; and if the reasoning is a
little dry and simplifies the thing almost too much, it is still very
illuminating and from the hand of a master of French prose. And in this
I find him exercising the same consistent instinct of good sense and
sincerity, the same art of development, the same seventeenth and
eighteenth century principles of classic rhetoric that he applies to his
music. In truth, M. d'Indy could write a musical _Discourse on Style_,
if he wished.
But, above all, he is gifted with the moral qualities of a teacher--the
vocation for teaching, first of all. He has a firm belief in the
absolute duty of giving instruction in art, and, what is rarer still, in
the efficacious virtue of that teaching. He readily shares Tolstoy's
scorn, which he sometimes quotes, of the foolishness of art for art's
sake.
"At the bottom of art is this essential condition--teaching. The
aim of art is neither gain nor glory; the true aim of art is to
teach, to elevate gradually the spirit of humanity; in a word, to
serve in the highest sense--'_dienen_' as Wagner says by the mouth
of the repentant Kundry, in the third act of Parsifal."[165]