FRANCE (1800-1913).
France, as a most progressive nation, presents a splendid musical
system and a correspondingly good product of musical culture. The
French national mind is peculiarly sensitive to modern social pressure.
Let this pressure be relieved by musical rhythm and France will bound
ahead in musical paths as she has in so many other lines. In money
expenditure, she stands high, but this expenditure is made largely in
Paris. Culture in a State must be considered in its relation to all of
its inhabitants, and while France shows a large absolute expenditure,
her _per capita_ expenditure is relatively low. This expenditure,
however, is independent of private donations, which have no place in
State control, and which are a detriment rather than a benefit to the
general public, representing as they do, a control by the princely
“fads” of a ruling class. National musical genius is expressed in the
degree to which the national emotions are aroused by national stimuli.
Had France reacted to her social pressure in the same manner as did
Germany with practically the same stimuli, our history might have
properly closed with Germany’s triumph. But France had received quite
a different mental preparation from that which tortured the German
heart in the 18th century, and the nature of French emotionalism was
both far less sincerely tragic, and far more highly intellectual at
every phase, than was Germany’s. The common people of France were
indeed subjected to genuine misery before the downfall of the monarchy,
but they were ever arrayed in the glory of a conquering nation,--a
leading power, conscious of its own supremacy in European affairs,
although the peasantry were ground down with taxes, and made to be
the overburdened supporters of a vicious royalty; yet the tone of the
public mind, while somewhat critical, was chiefly domineering, and
capable of great enthusiasm. Free thought was still in the freshness of
youth, so that oppressions, as they came, were analyzed and denounced
even while endured. Germany had never thought of doing this until 1848.
The troubles of France were a direct consequence of the desires of
the common people, and were not so much brought upon them by outside
forces, as they were voluntarily encountered and even created, by
themselves, in their conscious development of a new idea of popular
rule. France wanted to do great and new deeds before she was mentally
ready for such achievements, and her trials were of her own making.
This fact does not lessen her emotional response to her social
pressure, but it does color it with a certain control even in its
deepest action. Thus it was with France, Napoleon draining her soil of
its best blood, but crowning the nation with laurels. The philosophical
spirit aroused by the genius of Voltaire did not weaken even under this
glory, and the French mind, although wearied by the revolution, rested
only a moment in the re-actions under Napoleon. The reckless Republic
was but the first sign of the new national temper, and--although all
Europe united to subdue it, and Napoleon’s Empire patted it into
momentary quiet with an encouragement of all forms of progress--the
national mind had tasted freedom and the old tolerance of royalty
was dying. During the fourteen years of his reign, Napoleon gave
substantial benefits to France. Continental Europe bent in submission
at his feet. Although the French people hated the old idea of monarchy,
they could not deny the advantages which France received from his
powerful genius. His death in 1821 left his former subjects in a bad
way, the people striving for constitutional government, against the
allies in favor of absolutism. But little by little, certain advances
were made by the people, in a gradual assertion of their opinions.
Revolution was a constant menace in the social pressure of the half
century following Napoleon’s downfall.
The rebellious fanaticism underlying each and all of civilized
manifestations, is certain to strike new and staggering blows at the
commercialism of our times. We feel as though terror and its causes in
religion were lurking very near the surface of the world politics today.
Along many lines France has not lost her old ascendency in leadership,
but her discipline has perhaps been too weak in the direction of dogged
persistence. Her actions possibly have been governed at home and in
her colonization efforts, by too much of a fatalistic policy, to give
strong promise of any continuous establishment of power under the
people’s rule. Yet much is to be expected, from the daring courage,
enthusiasm, and intellectual splendor of the French mind.
The whole country has furnished a strange contrast to German social
reaction, for under the same stimuli the one wept while the other
laughed. During the first forty years of the Nineteenth century, the
piano virtuoso, with his superficial flourishes of finger technique
reigned supreme over instrumental Music in France. The sonata, so
representative of dignity and noble sentiment, was accorded only an
obscure position during this superficial period, and the short piano
piece took its place. On the other hand, performers gave stimulus to
improvements in piano manufacture, as well as to composition of piano
works. Liszt and Thalberg dazzled the Parisians, and the public mind
demanded no deeper expression of its emotional disturbance than that
which was represented in pianistic display. After 1831 Chopin lived in
Paris, and his works continued to express the French love of the dance,
of ornamental display, and of delicate sentimentality. But in 1830 the
romantic movement had made itself felt in Music under Berlioz, who
produced a Music which suited perfectly the hot-headed revolutionary
tendencies of this time. Orchestration attained a tone-color, a new
technical possibility under Berlioz’s manipulation, and the bizarre
aspects of the then economic life were exactly reflected in his
_revolutionary effects_. His book on instrumentation, published in
1844, became an authority, and he influenced musicians to attempt new
forms, however these might be opposed to classical traditions. Berlioz
desired to invent astonishing instrumental effects, and did so, but his
efforts did not win him lasting popularity, although he is the real
founder of modern French Music.
But it is in the field of grand opera that we must look for those
amazingly accurate reflections of economic and social pressure, as
evidenced in the Music of France during the nineteenth century.
Cherubini contributed an earnest musicianship to French opera seria,
but he exhibits strong influences of foreign models. Napoleon
encouraged only the most trivial of the Italian operas; his attitude
was naturally disadvantageous to serious attempts in this field.
Opera-comique began to exhibit dramatic color under Mehul but it
remained for Spontini to reflect the Napoleonic regime, in opera which
glorified the heroic in all its splendor. His French works “La Vestale”
(1807), “Fernando Cortez” (1809), and “Olympie” (1819), reflect the
mental attitude of the time, but true to this reflection, also show
the lack of real depths of emotions not yet touched in France by the
social pressure of the time. The opera-comique more truly represented
public sentiment in the works of Boildieu, in “Le Calife de Bagdad,”
and “La Dame Blanche” which manifest a more serious tone and refinement
than had as yet been known in this field. Auber, however, knew best how
to call forth French admiration. His fame commenced about 1820, when
ideals were beginning to be colored by a darker hue of seriousness,
and his “Fra Diavolo” and “Le Domino Noir” exhibit his fine gift of
characterization. Herold’s “Zampa” presented new orchestral elements,
and is still very popular in America and England. Grand opera of the
heroic character received a strong impulse at the hands of Rossini,
(who lived at Paris after 1824), in his French work “Guillaume Tell”
(produced in 1829). Dramatic expression finds here some scope, although
without any great depth, and Auber’s “La Muette de Portici” (1828),
more nearly expresses the revolutionary feeling of the people, for the
subject of the Music is _popular revolt against tyranny_. The works of
Meyerbeer carry French grand opera to its highest point; his “Robert le
Diable” (1831), and “Les Huguenots” (1836) fit into the expression of
those years admirably, while his last work “L’Africaine” (1864), shows
all of that ferment in French thought which was so inevitably leading
up to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
The dramatic events of French Nineteenth century history had produced
the genuine histrionic instinct in musical composition; and the
complication of orchestral effects, was a natural expression of
the multiplicity of stimuli accompanying every economic impulse.
_Consistency_ in Meyerbeer’s Music was as conspicuous by its absence as
it was in the French economic world, where the abnormal, sensational,
religious and absurd were so inconsistently jumbled up with plans
for a stable constitutional government, and peaceful relations with
Europe. Simplicity was not to the taste of the time. Glaring colors
and noisy effects much more nearly reflected the social mode, and
Meyerbeer responded as the musician in him should have done, to the
prevailing social pressure. The greatest development was exhibited in
the orchestral dramatic expression, and the action in a scene began
to take a superior place above vocalization, in the formation of the
Music drama. This departure may be said to mark the beginning of the
degeneration of the real purpose of the opera.
With the reign of peace after the Franco-Prussian war, a new element
entered the musical productions of the time. Orchestral concerts
abounded. Church Music by Dubois, Gounod and Franck was of an excellent
character, in line with the increasing agitation over religious
questions. France needed rhythm, as a hungry man needs bread, and she
found it in a partial return to Bach, and to the still earlier masters
of sacred Music. Popular concerts were instituted for the benefit of
the people in 1861. These have continued their useful mission to the
present day. France has demanded that life shall be actually pictured
in her Music. This impossible demand is leading French Music far from
the relative characterizations as presented in Guonod’s “Faust” and
Bizet’s “Carmen,” and into the ridiculous “tonal tears” region, where a
printed program is needed to inform the hearers, that the staccati of
the piccolo are meant to indicate the rain drops on my lady’s brow, and
not intended to announce the squeal of a pig. Without the program, who
would know?
Towards the close of the century, there is a decline in the sensuous
and mystical elements, both in economic and in musical affairs.
Gounod’s “Faust” in 1859 had reflected these qualities of the social
mind, and his “St. Cecilia Mass” in 1856 expressed the religious
attitude of the people. But the rise of the present Republic gave
the sceptre into sterner hands, and the skillful use of Music in
characterization was vividly expressed, in so far as it could be,
in Bizet’s “Carmen” in 1873. Saint Saens and Massenet show the
intellectual refinement of the period now ushered in, with its strong
suggestions of dramatic feeling so exquisitely expressed, yet clinging
to ancient models in melodic construction, and avoiding the harsh and
bizarre effects lately manifested in French tendencies. Cesár Franck,
in his beautiful oratorio, “Les Beatitudes” (produced in 1891),
demonstrates the real depth of religious sentiment existing under the
intellectual adornments of the French mind at this period, and the
great depth, and musical value of this work exhibit a fund of religious
sentiment, which we do not believe has been crushed by the recent
separation of Church and State, and which will show itself in revolt at
no distant period.
The very latest operatic works of French composers are exhibiting a mad
desire for an expression of a national Music, which looks more like an
effort to root out the musical supremacy of Germany, than like a plan
to establish a genuine progression in French art. France would like to
have a Music all its own, be it ever so ugly, distorted, or bizarre.
She wants to lead in musical art, to tear up old models, to force a
new-old scale upon her half distracted people, and to over-dress the
misshapen things in absurd orchestral exaggeration, which so drowns
the poor human voice, that the helpless vocal organ is obliged to
shout dramatic phrases to a deafened audience, over the countless
unrestrained vibrations of a hundred or more madly ringing instruments.
What a farce it is! A grand opera presenting a modern girl of Paris, in
a modern shirt-waist, yelling common-place remarks to the accompaniment
of a monster band! But it must change. The human voice will come into
its own again, when the over-excited modern mentality shall have calmed
itself down to the normal. The orchestra will shrink to its diminutive
and correct position, as a mere suggestor of the harmony which supports
the voice, and the emotions of life will find their true relief in
accentuated rhythm, soothing melody, and noble harmonies. France is
still passing through, and she certainly will not come out of, her
transition period with the thing she is now trying to call “Music.”
French pride in musical accomplishment is well exhibited in the aid
extended to this culture by State activity.[36]
FOOTNOTES:
[36] The statistics will be found in Appendix E.