the Enigma Variations.[27] "I have in the Variations," writes Elgar
in a private letter, "sketched portraits of my friends--a new idea, I
think--that is, in each variation I have looked at the theme through
the personality (as it were) of another Johnny." The idea was not
indeed quite new, however originally applied, as Schumann had already
sketched a number of his friends in the "Carnaval." But what is of
much greater import is that Schumann and Elgar, both introspective
temperaments, go about this business of portrait painting in the same
characteristic way--not by recording the external aspects of these
"other Johnnies," but by sympathetically putting themselves at their
points of view and becoming, so to speak, the spokesmen of their souls.
The tender intimateness of Elgar's interpretations is their supreme
charm. Whatever the character portrayed, whether the tender grace of
C. A. E. (Lady Elgar), the caprice of H. D. S-P., the virile energy
of W. M. B., the gossamer delicacy of Dorabelle, or the nobility of
"Nimrod," we feel in each case that we have for the moment really got
inside the personality, and looked at the world along that unique
perspective. Even in the indescribably lovely Romanza, Variation XIII,
calling up the thought of a friend at sea, though programistic devices
are used, the spirit looks away from externalities. Violas in a quietly
undulating rhythm suggest the ocean expanse; an almost inaudible
tremolo of the drum gives us the soft throb of the engines; a quotation
from Mendelssohn's "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage," in the dreamy
tones of the clarinet, completes the story. Yet "story" it is not--and
there is the subtlety of it. Dim sea and dream-like steamer are only
accessories after all. The thought of the distant friend, the human
soul there, is what gently disengages itself as the essence of the
music.
In his two symphonies the composer gives us even less encouragement
to search for detailed programs. It is true that the second bears the
motto from Shelley:
Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight.
But it will be observed, first, that these lines contain no pictorial
images which would prevent their application to the most purely
emotional music--a symphony of Beethoven, for example; and second,
that even their emotional bearing is somewhat ambiguous, as we are
left in doubt whether it is the Spirit of Delight itself, or the
rareness of its visitations, that we are asked to consider. Mr. Ernest
Newman thinks the former, and finds in the symphony the "jocundity
and sweetness" which characterize English music from the earliest
times. We read in the Musical Times,[28] however, that there is "some
disagreement ... with the composer's own opinion that it is on a
totally different psychological plane from that of the first symphony,
and represents a more serene mood," although the writer adds that "it
is unquestionable that the themes, even in the slow movement, speak
of a lighter heart and more tranquil emotions." If there is thus room
for doubt even as to the emotional content of the work, no attempt to
read into it a "story" is likely to be successful. Even Mr. Newman,
programist _à outrance_, is forced in this case to the admission that
"though practically every musical work of any emotional value must
start from this basis [of the composer's life-experience],[29] the
connection of it with the external world or with the symbols of the
literary and plastic arts may range through many degrees of vagueness
or precision, according to the psychological build of the composer."
Coming now at last to Elgar's masterpiece, the Symphony[30] in
A-flat, No. 1, opus 55, first performed under Dr. Hans Richter at
Manchester and at London in December, 1908, we find Elgar's method at
its purest--the preoccupation with spiritual states and experiences is
complete. It is true that this may be the symphony upon which he was
reported nine years earlier to be at work, and which was to bear the
title "Gordon." If this is the case it shows only that he was moved to
musical expression by the heroism of the great Englishman, as Beethoven
was by that of Napoleon before it transpired that he was a tyrant. The
A-flat Symphony is not for that reason any more program music than
Beethoven's "Eroica." The two are indeed similar in being throughout
profound searchings of the human spirit, highly dramatic in the
vividness of their introspection, but never realistic. They penetrate
to a level far deeper than that of action; they deal with the emotional
springs of action; we may even say that each suggests a philosophy,
since the philosophies, too, are born of those deep inarticulate
emotional attitudes toward life which only music can voice in their
purity.
This fundamental attitude is in the A-flat Symphony far more mature and
chastened than that of the ebulliently youthful "Eroica." If we wished
to find its analogue in Beethoven (and it is a high compliment to Elgar
to say that there are few other places we could find it) we should
have to go rather to the Ninth Symphony and to the later sonatas and
quartets. It is in essence the attitude of religious resignation, and
has as its constituents the primary opposition between the ideal and
reality, the disappointment, softening, and impersonalizing of the soul
by experience, the reciprocal activity of the soul winning its values
out of experience, and the final reconciliation between them. Of course
it is not meant that these ideas are intellectually formulated in the
music. It is simply that the music expresses the emotional states that
accompany such universal human experiences, and thus suggests and at
the same time by its beauty transfigures them.
The noble melody in A-flat major with which the symphony starts,
recurring in the finale, and indeed the nucleus of the whole work,
suggests aspiration, resolute will, the quest of the Ideal. Everything
about it,--its steady movement, its simple, strong harmonic basis,
its finely flexible rhythm, notably free from the short breath of the
composer's less exalted moments, even its rich and yet quiet tonality
of A-flat major, raises it into a rarefied atmosphere of its own,
above the turmoil of everyday life. With the theme in D minor marked
Allegro appassionato, on the contrary, we are brought rudely down to
earth, with all its confusion, its chaos, its meaningless accidents
(note the constant feverish motion of the bass, the phantasmagoric
nightmare harmonies at index letter 7, the increasing restlessness of
the whole passage). Presently more poignant or tender phrases (10 and
11) suggest the longing of the spirit for the sweet reasonableness of
the lost ideal world, and at 12, in the "second theme" in F major,
we do get for a moment a breathing interval of peace. The beautiful,
tender phrase, as of divine pity, beginning in the fourth measure of 11
and ushering in this theme, should be especially noticed for its deep
expressiveness and its complete originality. This "phrase of pity," as
we shall see, is destined to play an important part in the structure of
the movement. Soon earlier fragments return, reintroducing the restless
mood, the intensity of the feeling steadily grows, and at 17 we have a
magnificent climax in which the "phrase of pity," much slower and more
emphatic than before, suggests the first crisis of the struggle.
With the return of the theme of the ideal, now in C major (18) and
in tentative accents, begins the long and complex development of
the themes. We need not go into detail here, further than to remark
that the strange, devious new theme at 24 seems almost to have some
concrete "meaning," undisclosed by the composer, and introduces the
most baffling element we find anywhere in the symphony. The development
proceeds much upon it. At 32 begins the recapitulation of themes of
the orthodox sonata-form, treated freely and with many interesting
modifications. The climax recurs at 44, now impressively amplified.
Even finer is the gradual but irresistible return of the fundamental
theme, the "Ideal," and its triumphant statement through 49, 50, and
51. The sinister, groping theme returns, however, seeming to darken the
atmosphere as when clouds come over the sun. The "Ideal" theme is heard
in faltering, uncertain accents, and reaches, just before 55, a timid
cadence on the tone C. Now comes one of the most exquisite things,
not only in this symphony, but in modern music. While the clarinet
holds this C, reached in the original key of A-flat major, the muted
strings, high and tenuous, in the remote key of A minor, like voices
from another world, gently breathe the "phrase of pity." It is magical.
With fine dignity of pace they reach the tone C, whereupon we are again
quietly but conclusively brought back to A-flat, and with a single
plucked bass note the chord of the clarinets sinks to silence (Figure
XVII, page 128).
The two middle movements of the symphony, Allegro molto (the scherzo)
and Adagio, are played without intervening pause and conceived
together. From the point of view both of form and of content their
treatment is of exceeding interest. Structurally they are an inset
between the first movement and the finale, contrasting sharply with
them in key as well as in melodic material, embodying as they do the
"sharp" keys (F-sharp minor and D major) in opposition to the A-flat
major and D minor of the others. After this inset has been completed,
the earlier themes and keys return in the finale and round out the
cycle projected by the first movement. Thus the symphony as a whole
consists of two interlocking systems--a scheme of structure which
gives it both variety and unity in the highest degree.
[Illustration: =FIGURE XVII.
End of first movement, First Symphony.=]
The scherzo begins with a racing, eagerly hurrying theme, staccato,
in the violins, in the fastest possible tempo. Together with a more
vigorous, barbarically insistent tune to which it presently (59)
gives place, it seems a musical expression of the forward-looking,
all-conquering spirit of youth. These themes are separately elaborated,
are displaced for a while by a quieter Trio, and finally return with
renewed vigor, and at last in combination (75). And now, as coda, comes
one of the most remarkable passages of the Symphony. The racing theme
returns (82), but now pianissimo, mysterious, shorn of its pristine
exuberance. It hesitates, halts, seems to lose faith in itself. It
reappears in the more sombre key of F minor, instead of F-sharp minor,
and with abated pace (84). A little later it sobers to a still quieter
movement, in eighth notes (86), then (87) to quarter notes, and at last
(90) the clarinets give it out in a movement eight times slower than
the original headlong dash. Indeed, the rhythm seems about to fail
entirely when, with a change of key to D major, and of time to Adagio,
we hear the identical notes of the original theme, sung now with broad
deliberation by the violins, completely transfigured in meaning.
Thus begins the slow movement with the coming of maturity, the taming
of the blood, the sadness of self-acquaintance no longer to be
postponed. The excitement of unlimited possibilities gives place to
the sober recognition of limitations. Poignant grief there is here,
unanswered questioning, moments of passionate despair. But with the
beautiful and thoroughly Elgarian theme at 96 begins to creep in the
spirit of resignation to the inevitable, and of divine pity for human
failure, born of this bitter self-discovery. From this point on is
heard unmistakably the deeper note of religious consolation, reaching
full expression at last in the melody marked _Molto espressivo e
sostenuto_, one of the noblest, profoundest, and most spiritual that
Elgar has conceived, with which the movement ends.
The finale opens with a slow introduction, intended partly to direct
our attention back to the first movement and partly to forecast the
strains destined to complete the cycle which it began. We hear the
mysterious groping theme first heard in its development and fragments
of the "Ideal." Especial emphasis is laid, however, on a march-like
tune, given out by bassoons and low strings at the sixth measure, and
on an aspiring phrase for clarinet (measures 10-11) peculiar to the
present movement. The prevailing mood here, both in the main theme with
its emphatic interlocking rhythms (the opening Allegro) and in the
second theme at 114, with its buoyant triplets recalling the finale
of Brahms's third symphony, is energetic will. This seems to merge in
jubilant achievement in the march-like theme of the introduction at its
reëntrance at 118. For a moment, to be sure, doubt as to this triumph
seems to be suggested by a rather halting version of the "Ideal"
(129) and by a pondering version of the march theme (130). But with
the return of the main themes of the movement at its recapitulation,
beginning at 134 and now inflected towards A-flat, the radical tonality
of the whole symphony, the mood of vigorous volition revives, and
from now on to the splendid reassertion, by the full orchestra, in its
richest sonorities, of the theme of the "Ideal," all is one long climax.
It is hard to see how any candid student can deny the greatness of this
symphony. If only for the stoutness of its structure, the grasp with
which the fundamental principles of musical form are seized, however
the details have to be modified to suit the occasion, and for the
richness and variety of its treatment of orchestral coloring, it would
hold a conspicuous place among modern orchestral works. But of course
these things are only means; the end of music is expression. It is,
then, to the fact that the symphony gives eloquent voice to some of the
deepest, most sacred, and most elusive of human feelings that we must
attribute its real importance. That it does this at a time when most
musicians are looking outward rather than inward, and incline to value
sensuous beauty above thought, and vividness above profundity, gives us
all the more reason for receiving it with gratitude, and finding in it
a good omen for the future.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] "Recent Developments in Musical Theory," by Edgar Stillman-Kelley.
The Musical Courier, July 1 and 8, 1908.
[21] Vocal score, page 39.
[22] Musical Times, London, May 1, 1911.
[23] Is not Mr. Newman mistaken in stating that this theme begins in G
major?
[24] Musical Times, January, 1914.
[25] Musical Times, January, 1909.
[26] Musical Times, September, 1913.
[27] Arranged for piano by the composer. Novello, Ewer, and Company,
London.
[28] July, 1911.
[29] This premise, which Mr. Newman expands as if it bore directly
on the problem of program music, though true to the verge of truism,
hardly helps us to solve that problem. The question, it may be said
once again, concerns not the composer's stimulus, but his method;
whether, that is, he works through the suggestion of external object or
of inner emotional states.
[30] Arrangement for piano by S. Karg-Elert. Novello, Ewer, and Company.
IV
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
[Illustration: =CLAUDE DEBUSSY=]
IV
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
No peculiarity of contemporary musical taste is more striking than
the extraordinary popularity which the elusive songs and piano pieces
of Debussy have enjoyed during the last decade or two. They have
been heard, with a delight agreeably mixed with bewilderment, in the
drawing-rooms of the whole world, just as Grieg's were at a slightly
earlier period; and, like Grieg, their author has become the idol
of the amateur. There is no doubt of it, Debussy has been the prime
musical fad of the twentieth century. The fact is interesting--worth
examination. The reasons of it throw a strong light not only on Debussy
himself, but--which is more important--on our whole contemporary
musical life.
Claude Achille Debussy, born in 1862 at St. Germain-en-Laye, near
Paris, and educated at the Conservatoire, first gained wide fame by
his opera, "Pelléas et Mélisande," produced at the Opéra Comique in
1902. By its imaginative re-creation in music of Maeterlinck's fatalism
and atmosphere of mystery, by its dramatic directness, its justice of
declamation, its moderation and avoidance of Wagnerian exaggeration,
perhaps above all by the originality of its harmonic style and its
delicately tinted orchestration, it undoubtedly marked an epoch in
French music. Debussy had at this time already fixed the fundamental
qualities of his style in such compositions as the quartet for strings
(1893), more virile than his later works, and the well-known orchestral
prelude after a prose poem by Mallarmé, archpriest of the symbolistic
movement, "L'Après-midi d'un faune." In later orchestral pieces, the
Nocturnes for orchestra (1899), the symphonic sketches "La Mer" (1905),
the highly colored "Iberia" (1907), as well as in choral works like
the "Martyre de Saint Sébastien" (1911), we see him refining the same
manner, seeking always, like his compatriot the poet Verlaine, the
subtleties, the delicacies, the shades and half-shades, _la nuance,
la nuance toujours_. It is, however, through his smaller works--his
songs and especially his piano pieces--that Debussy is best known to
the mass of his admirers; and as the same qualities reveal themselves
here too, it is in these that we shall try to understand them. In the
"Estampes" (1903), the "Masques" (1904), the "Images" (1905 and 1908),
the "Préludes" (1910 and 1913), and many lesser pieces he has created
what is virtually a department of his own in the literature of the
piano. Here is the essential Debussy.
The adaptation between the art and the audience here, as is always
the case where there is extreme popularity, is so perfect that we can
equally well begin our study from either end. Let us start with the
audience. Not that Debussy consciously sought to "give the public what
it wants"; no artist worthy the name does that. What is meant is simply
that his qualities were spontaneously such as exactly to satisfy his
audience's requirements; or, in biological terms, the organism was
fortunate enough to be exactly suited to its environment, peculiarly
"fit to survive." As investigating biologists we can therefore either
approach the environment through the organism or the organism through
the environment--and we choose to do the latter.
The environment of the modern composer is a public numerically larger
than ever before, and qualitatively affected by this increased size
according to the law of averages--degraded, that is, from the qualities
of the minority toward those of the majority. In less abstract terms,
the modern audience contains to every one intelligent listener ten or
a hundred who are ignorant, untrained, or inattentive. The results of
this disproportion are familiar to us on all sides; they range from
such a general matter as the very conception of art, and especially
of music, as a mere amusement or diversion rather than a spiritual
experience, down to such details as the preference, natural to the
untrained, of sensuous pleasure (in rich tone-combinations, for
example) to emotion and thought (as embodied musically in melody),
and of a vague day-dreaming mood when listening to music to the
imaginative and sympathetic attention that music requires of him who
would really grasp its objective beauty.
Now it is in his appeal to this modern preference of sensation to
thought and emotion, and of subjective day-dreaming to the impersonal
perception of beauty, that Debussy has been especially happy. He is
not, of course, alone in making these appeals. The preoccupation
with the sensuous is observable in most contemporary music, an
especially striking instance being Strauss's orchestration. As for the
ministering to "mood" rather than to the sense of beauty, the whole
tendency toward "program," so characteristic of our time, might be
accounted for by a cynic as a sacrifice to the majority of something
they do not understand (music) to something they do (an opportunity
for day-dreaming). But Debussy is peculiarly thoroughgoing in his
application of these familiar modern methods. All the elements of his
art are focused upon this kind of satisfaction.
First he gives us a title admirably fitted (for he has keen literary
instinct) to liberate our reverizing impulse--"Gardens in the Rain,"
"Reflections in the Water," "Sounds and Perfumes Turn in the Evening
Air," "Gold-Fish," "Veils." Then he proceeds to establish the mood
of idle reverie thus suggested by means of a tonal web which at no
point distracts our attention by any definite features of its own,
melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, or structural. All is vague, floating,
kaleidoscopic. Sustained melody is especially avoided, for nothing
arrests attention or dominates mood like melody; we have therefore
only bits and snippets of tune, forming and disappearing like cloud
forms or the eddies in smoke-wreaths. The rhythms are equally casual
and indeterminate, often of exquisite grace, but obeying no law. The
harmonies are surprisingly various--rich, clear, or clangorous, as the
case may be; but always elusive, avoiding the definition that would
impose thought rather than encourage fancy. The effect of vagueness
is here enhanced by the much-talked-of whole-tone scale. As there is
little musical thought or emotion (melody), there is still less of that
natural growth and combination of thought with thought which we call
thematic development and polyphony. These are alien to the type of art,
and are wisely avoided.
It is curious to compare Debussy's treatment of his programs with that
of Strauss. The imagination of the German, however he may call literary
or pictorial associations to his aid, is primarily musical. A literary
idea may suggest to him a theme, as Till Eulenspiegel's capricious
mischief strikes from him that surprising Till motive, with its queer
jumps and galvanic rhythms. But once such a theme exists it begins to
act, musically, of itself, and develops such a network of musically
interesting relationships that the listener, fascinated, clean forgets
the program in his purely æsthetic delight. Strauss, probably,
forgets it too. He does for us, in spite of his programs, exactly the
kind of thing that Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann do; he creates
intrinsically significant and expressive musical forms (melodies)
capable of absorbing our attention and transfiguring all they
touch--even a rogue like Till Eulenspiegel--with their æsthetic magic.
The Frenchman's imagination, on the contrary, is primarily literary,
dramatic, pictorial. He is led by it, not to the creation of musically
significant forms, but to a keenly sympathetic realization of the mood
suggested by the program, and to a most subtle musical evocation of
it by appropriate means, chiefly sensuous. He is thus, literally, a
painter of "mood pictures." And as most people do not care to make the
effort to follow and relive a musical experience, but prefer to be
lulled by agreeable sounds into a trance in which their fancy may weave
adventures and project pictures for itself, his audience is delighted.
From this point of view symbolism is the type of art which most appeals
to the inartistic, and Debussy is the musician most beloved by the
unmusical.
We should not be talking about Debussy, however, if these negatives
were all there were to say about him. Thousands of composers before
him have succeeded in avoiding definite melody, rhythm, and harmony,
coherent thematic development, and thoughtful polyphony, and have won
only oblivion. His not distracting out attention by these musical
elements is a part of his scheme of art, but the more important
part of it is the sensuous charm by which he wins our interest and
inhibits our mental and emotional activity--the sheer tonal magic of
his sonorities. He is a miracle of deftness in the purveying of musical
sweets. This is admitted even by his detractors, who cannot deny the
seductiveness with which his music woos the physical ear, however
little it appeals to their heads or their hearts. As for his admirers,
they become rhapsodic over these "effects" and "sonorities," which they
praise with a half-religious awe that used to be reserved for ideas.
Listen, for instance, to M. Chennevière,[31] an accredited expositor:
"Voluptuous, corporeal, naturalistic--such is the Debussyan art. The
passions, the sentiments, leave him often indifferent." And again:
"The modern ear has become very fine, very delicate. It delights in
sonorities. A beautiful chord is a rare intoxication, and sometimes an
author repeats it lingeringly, the better to savor it." If we adopt,
at least tentatively, this frankly sensuous and hedonistic view of
music, we shall find much to admire in Debussy.