of any we have considered, d'Indy is still guided by the same
principle--truth to feeling. Though universally acknowledged, even by
those who dislike his music, to be one of the greatest living masters
of the resources of the orchestra, he never uses these resources, as
does for example Rimsky-Korsakoff, in a spirit of sheer virtuosity.
Nothing in his scores is put there to dazzle or to stun; all is
for eloquent musical speech; and when there is great liveliness or
brilliancy, as there often is--at the end of "Istar," for instance, in
the scherzo of the B-flat symphony, and in "Dawn" of the "Summer Day
on the Mountain"--it is in response not to an opportunity for display,
but to a mood. The sharp contrast of the general method of scoring
with Wagner's, especially in a composer so largely indebted to Wagner,
is highly instructive in this regard. Wagner in his love of rich
sonorities almost habitually doubles different groups of instruments
on a single melody; d'Indy prefers the single group, not only for
its superior clarity but even more, one must think, for the greater
eloquence of its individual voice. The passage quoted from the symphony
is a good sample of his methods. First violins on their G strings for
the opening phrase, sounding at once the right note of earnestness.
Bass clarinet alone on motive _b_. Both first and second violins for
the more emphatic repetition of the main motive, and the low strings
in their more impassioned accents for the reiteration of the bass
clarinet phrase. Then all the violins and the violas for the third,
culminating statement,--the first violins leaving off with the B flat,
the seconds with the A, and the violas, in their more veiled tones,
alone carrying the phrase down to its final A flat.
Thus does d'Indy use the various elements of musical technique--melody,
rhythm, harmony, modulation, and even ornament and orchestration--in
the interests of emotion. Before asking whether the same principle that
we thus see so multifariously at work in short sections of his music
can also be traced in the marshaling of its larger masses, let us take
one final example of its operation within conveniently narrow limits.
In Figure XXV (pages 198, 199) is shown the coda of the first movement
of the string quartet in E major, his masterpiece in chamber music.
It is entirely derived from the fragment of Gregorian chant used as a
text. We may note summarily the following points, which by no means
exhaust the interest of the passage.
[Illustration: =FIGURE XXV.
Coda of the first movement of the String Quartet in E, opus 45 (1897),
based on the fragment from a Gregorian chant:=]
1. Melodic. There is no salient phrase which is not derived from the
root motive. As for the variety, the reader will judge for himself.
This is a supreme case of the germinating power of a musical thought.
2. Rhythmic. The original nucleus of the theme is rhythmed mainly in
quarter notes. It is reduced to even eighth notes at the beginning of
the coda, and in that murmuring, inconspicuous form stays on a dead
level, so to speak, and makes a colorless background of accompaniment
whence the more passionate main phrases detach themselves sharply.
Beginning in the fifth measure the second violin sounds an _augmented_
form of the motive (whole notes), in expression tentative, timid. This
recurs in the viola in measure 11, with more of emphasis, and is broken
in upon by a _syncopated_ form of the same (beginning on the second
half of the measure) from the first violin. The C sharp here is the
crest of the emotional wave, whence it subsides first by the gradual
descent of the motive through three octaves in measures 17-20, and then
by the flagging of the accompaniment rhythm first to quarter notes,
then to half notes. Still a different rhythm is heard in the last
announcement by the first violin.
3. Harmonic. The harmony is absolutely the product of concurrent
melodies throughout. No notes are added merely for color. Yet the
sonorities, though effects rather than causes, are unforgettable.
4. Modulatory. The first measure strongly establishes E major as
the tonal center, and as the goal of what preceded the excerpt. A
subtle change of the violin figure obscures the sense of tonality
(by suggesting the atonal "whole-tone scale"), whereupon the first
meditative version of the theme appears in the much darker key of
A flat. The tonality is again clouded, and the theme appears once
more in A, brighter than A flat, but less bright than the original
E. The reappearance of this therefore, in the fifteenth measure,
has the effect of an "_éclaircissement_." The tonic of E major is
maintained through the last eleven measures, giving a grateful sense of
homecoming, of repose after adventure.
5. Instrumental. The student is referred to the score for detail.
Particularly notable are the keenness of the violin E string at the
moment of climax, and the earnest virility of the G string in the last
statement.
III
The same loyalty to emotional truth that dictates all these processes
of detail, guides also d'Indy's treatment of a composition considered
as a whole. His conception of form, though set forth in the _Cours_
in largely intellectual terms, can be thoroughly understood only when
traced back to its emotional basis. Because for him a piece of music
must hang together emotionally, must proceed, that is, all from a few
ideas, and must evolve these freely and variously in obedience to the
logic of emotion, he takes as his central principle Variation, or
germination from root themes. Not only, he believes, should the single
movement thus proceed from a few themes, but the entire work, according
to what is called cyclic form, should result from their transformation
and recombination. In other words, just as the rhythmic waxing and
waning of the emotions embodied in a few themes gives rise to the
single movement, the regarding of the same themes _from different
points of view_, or under the domination of varying moods, will
naturally generate the contrasted movements, all thematically related,
of cyclic form.
It may at once be admitted that such a conception of form has its
pitfalls. The same process that in the glow of creative emotion is a
spontaneous reshaping of a theme to meet a new situation may in the
absence of such emotion degenerate into a hammering of recalcitrant
matter into mere distortion and ineptitude. That is what we note too
often in Liszt's similar theme transformations in his symphonic poems,
as when in "Les Préludes" he makes his love _cantabile_ do reluctant
duty as a trumpet call to war. D'Indy, let us confess it, is by no
means guiltless on this score; in uninspired moments he becomes too
easily the slave instead of the master of his process; living form
stiffens into dead formula; and we have a more or less mechanical
rearrangement of notes, as for instance that of the main theme of
the finale in the B flat Symphony, based on the choral at the end,
masquerading as a genuine reincarnation. Such scholastic passages do
indeed appear as blemishes in too many even of his finest works. But
it is fair to judge a process not by its occasional abuse, but by the
possibilities a felicitous use of it opens up. These possibilities
in the case of cyclic form are a maximum of diversity without
diffuseness, and a maximum of unity without monotony or platitude.
That a development of something of the sort was indispensable to the
progress of composition is evident when we reflect how intolerable
literal recapitulation has become to the modern ear. Much of the
prejudice against the sonata form in our day is due to the literal
recapitulations of bunglers in the use of it. The remedy is, not to
throw overboard the form, which is a natural, flexible, and convenient
one, but to bring to it a freshness of feeling which penetrates at once
to the spirit of it, ignoring the letter. Thus d'Indy, in the slow
movement of the B flat Symphony, recapitulates the main theme, shown at
Figure XXVI, _a_, not literally but in subtlest reincarnation, one
step higher in the scale, though still in the same key, and transferred
from the sultry tones of clarinet, horn, English horn, and viola to the
pure, pale sonority of a single flute, supported by lightest violin
harmonies (Figure XXVI, _b_). It is the same theme, but breathing now a
quite new sentiment.[48]
[Illustration: FIGURE XXVI.]
=(_a_) Theme of slow movement, B flat Symphony.=
(This follows immediately after the introduction shown in
Figure XX.)
[Illustration: =(_b_) Return of theme in flute.=]
It is but a step from such a recreated recapitulation to a theme
transformation such as we find in the last movement of the "Summer Day
on the Mountain." This work is not only its composer's masterpiece
in the sphere of program music; it is the latest and best of a whole
series of works[49] in which he has expressed his love of his native
country of the Cévennes in southeastern France. "At this moment," he
once wrote in a letter from his château of Faugs, near Boffres in
Ardèche, "I see the snowy summits of the Alps, the nearer mountains,
the plain of the Rhone, the pine woods that I know so well, and the
green, rich harvest which has not yet been gathered. It is a true
pleasure to be here after the labors and the vexations of the winter.
What they call at Paris 'the artistic world' seems afar off and a
trifling thing. Here is true repose, here one feels at the true source
of all art."
[Illustration: =FIGURE XXVII.
Finale of "Jour d'Été." Très animé et joyeux=]
[Illustration: =(_b_) Très lent=]
The "Jour d'Été à la Montagne," in three movements, "Aurore" ("Dawn"),
"Jour--Après-midi sous les pins" ("Day: Afternoon under the Pines")
and "Soir" ("Evening"), is characteristic of the composer in that,
despite its program, there is in it little scene-painting, such as we
find so constantly in Strauss and others. A memorable suggestion of
dawn, with its vague shapes in the half-light and its bird songs, in
the first movement[50]; a whiff of peasant dance-tune in the second,
coming up through the baking heat under the pines; in the third some
evening chimes from the valley: that is all. It is the emotional
significance of the scene in its varying aspects, its appeal to the
sympathies and associations of a poetic observer, that interest the
musician. The main theme of the last movement (Figure XXVII, _a_) thus
suggests the joy of life in the bright summer afternoon; its activity
depicts no mere external scene, we feel, but reflects the elation
of the sensitive heart, witnessing this scene. And when, at the end,
after the suggestions of descending night and the distant jangle of
chimes tempered by the evening air, the same melody returns in softest
sonorities of strings and in quietest motion (Figure XXVII, _b_), we
hear in it again no merely objective facts, but the tranquil evening
thoughts of a poet, spiritualized in meditation. Never since he first
essayed such theme transformation in a large work, in the "Symphony
on a Mountain Theme" of 1886, which M. Paul Dukas called "a single
piece in three episodes," has d'Indy been more successful in drawing
together the most opposing moods by the single subjective point of view
from which they are regarded, as incarnated in a common theme. Never
has he written a more characteristic page than that lovely breath of
evening tenderness, the meditation of a lover on the world toward which
darkness and sleep gently approach.
[Illustration: =FIGURE XXVIII.
(_a_) Lentement=]
[Illustration:=(_b_) Animé=]
[Illustration:=(_c_) Second theme.=]
[Illustration:=(_d_) Très animé=]
[Illustration: =(_e_) Très lent=]
A work in which the cyclic method is applied with almost unparalleled
rigor and resourcefulness, and which is therefore worthy of detailed
analysis, is the String Quartet in E major,[51] built up from four
notes of a Gregorian chant, shown at Figure XXV. The swinging main
theme of the first movement, derived from this fragment by a natural
rhythmic and tonal proliferation (see Figure XXVIII, _b_), is not
immediately stated, but is rather anticipated tentatively, and
gradually allowed to take shape, by a process dear to the composer,
first through imitative bits for the different instruments and then
through a serious fugato (Figure XXVIII, _a_). Once achieved it is
broadly treated, with a richly conceived tonal digression into E
flat major and return. A second theme, of sinuous curve and fluent
movement (Figure XXVIII, _c_), is reached through a transition passage
of more animated rhythm. The themes thus stated, development begins:
not a perfunctory worrying of the themes such as the "free fantasia"
often degenerates into in the hands of composers possessed of neither
freedom nor fancy, but a dynamic action and reaction of the themes
such as d'Indy conceives development essentially to be. "Development,"
he says, "is ... the action of the themes and ideas, and consequently
their reason for being, since an idea is of value only through the
action it is capable of exercising. When there are several ideas ...
the development expresses usually all the phases of a struggle between
them, with the final triumph of one and submission of the other....
The themes comport themselves like living people: they act and move
according to their tendencies, their sentiments, and their passions.
These modifications show themselves both in the thematic elements
which are elaborated as if to surpass themselves, or are restrained
as if to become absorbed, and in the tonal trajectories which orient
themselves toward light or toward darkness."[52] It will be seen that
in this case the development first (pages 9 and 10) takes the aspect
of a quiet presentation of the first theme in dark keys (E flat major,
etc.) and then (from index number 10, through the whole of page 11) of
a brief recurrence of the second theme and elimination of it with the
reviving force of the first, moving through more energetic rhythms and
brighter tonalities to final victorious reassertion. The themes are
then recapitulated and the movement ends with the beautiful coda we
have already examined.
The two middle movements, too complex to analyze in detail, are based
on themes strikingly illustrative of what was said a moment ago as to
cyclic form arising from the approach to a common theme from different
angles, or under the influence of varying moods. That of the scherzo
is the theme envisaged playfully (Figure XXVIII, _d_); that of the
slow movement (Figure XXVIII, _e_) shapes itself in response to a more
serious contemplation. It may be pointed out that these are no mere
clever or learned jugglings with notes, such as arise sometimes from
the abuse of the method; not only are they true textually to the theme,
but each is a faithful expression of its own mood; the resulting music
accordingly convinces us emotionally as well as intellectually.
The finale is a piece of writing extraordinary for the manifold
resources developed out of the original theme, for the bold ingenuity
of its polyphonic and rhythmic combinations, and for the variety of its
emotional content. Its main theme comes from the original motive by
_inversion_ (Figure XXIX, _a_), and derives a certain amplitude from
its three half-note rhythm proceeding deliberately against the more
agitated two-four of other parts (especially the viola, at first, with
a persistent figure taken also from the theme). Its second theme also
traces its ancestry back to the first movement, but in a more elusive
way; a comparison of Figure XXIX, _b_, with Figure XXVIII, _c_, will
reveal the connection. The elaboration of these themes, and of the
quaint staccato bridge passage between them, leads to most unexpected
combinations. The fugato of the first movement reappears, but now
_inverted_ (Figure XXIX, _c_). At the top of page 58 we find the main
theme in the second violin answered canonically by the viola, while the
first violin sustains, high above, the original motive. Finally, after
the themes have met all manner of vicissitudes and wandered through all
sorts of keys, the original motive in its most conclusive form brings
the final cadence in E major.
[Illustration: =FIGURE XXIX.
(_a_) Main theme of Finale of String Quartet.=]
[Illustration: =(_b_) Second theme.=]
[Illustration: =(_c_) Fugato lentement=]
IV
A last illustration, in some ways the most striking of all, of d'Indy's
conviction that emotional expressiveness is the criterion of the value
of all artistic processes, is afforded by his attitude toward the
peculiar idiom that has been developed by Debussy, Ravel, and others,
and particularly toward the system of harmony based on the "whole-tone
scale." His standpoint here is that of the open-minded and curious
artist toward processes that may have new possibilities, saved from
faddishness by a thorough familiarity with traditional resources and an
indifference to novelty for mere novelty's sake. He has thus won the
distinction of being blamed by the academic for "queerness," harshness,
and obscurity, at the same time that he is patronized as reactionary by
the "ultras."
[Illustration: =FIGURE XXX.
(_a_) From "Fervaal."=]
The evidence of his works is that he makes free use of the whole-tone
scale, as of all other technical elements, so far as it lends itself to
the expression he has in mind, but no farther. There are already traces
of it in certain passages of the early Clarinet Trio (1887) where he
wishes to give a sense of groping uncertainty. In "Fervaal" (1895) its
peculiar coloring is skilfully used in a number of passages, as, for
example, that of the two bucklers, and its vigor and brilliancy, which
so commended it to Moussorgsky in "Boris Godunoff," are exploited in
the passage before the apparition of the cloud figures (see Figure
XXX, _a_). In "Istar" a similar use is made of it for the calls which
announce Istar's arrival at the different doors; to it is due a large
measure of the mystical expression of the B flat Symphony, especially
of the opening bass motive (Figure XXX, _b_) founded on the tritone
which used to be regarded as "_diabolus in musica_," while the middle
section of the scherzo draws upon its power of suspending the sense and
piquing the musical curiosity (Figure XXX, _c_); in the opening of the
piano sonata splendid use is made of its clangorous sonorities.
[Illustration: =(_b_) Opening of B flat Symphony. Extrêmement lent=]
[Illustration: =(_c_) Très animé=]
But d'Indy is too sound an artist to lend himself to the abuse of any
process, however fashionable, and he has the good sense to recognize
the dangers of the whole-tone scale. In none of his critical writings
has he expressed himself more courageously and at the same time more
fairly, than in an article on "Good Sense"[53] in which he takes up
this much-disputed matter.
"In the nineteenth century," he says, "some Russian composers, in
the interest of certain special effects, employed the scale of
whole tones, which one may name atonal because it suppresses all
possibility of modulation. In the twentieth century Claude Debussy and
Maurice Ravel elaborated these methods, making often very ingenious
applications of them; but they made the mistake (one must dare to speak
the truth of those one esteems) of erecting processes into principles,
or at least of letting them be so erected by their muftis, so that the
formula now established by fashion is: 'Outside of harmonic sensation
and the titillation of orchestral timbres there is no salvation.'
"This formula is dangerous, because far from constituting an advance
it results in a retrogression of our art, and leads us backward by a
hundred years. What these prophets try to establish is the rule of
sense to the exclusion of sentiment, it is the supremacy of sensation
over the equilibrium of the heart and the intelligence. This sensualist
movement is neither new nor original. About a hundred years ago a
similar aberration of good sense tried to poison our music. At the
epoch of the Rossinis and the Donizettis the sensualist formula was
'All for and by melody!' To-day it is 'All for and by harmony!' I
should say however that, of the two maladies, the second is less grave,
for nothing is more ephemeral than new harmonies, if they do not
take their point of departure from the two other elements of music:
melody and rhythm.... In order that harmony should be durable, it must
constitute, not mere glistening surface, mere tapestry, but rather the
clothing of the living and acting being which is the _rhythmed melody_.
The costume, in this case, may safely pass out of style--the human
person, if it is well constituted, will endure.
"The scale of whole tones is far from being an improvement on our
traditional occidental scale, since it suppresses all tonality and
hence all modulation. Now, change of tonal place by modulation is one
of the most precious elements of expression. To deprive oneself of
it systematically is therefore a retrogression toward the barbaric
monotony of past ages.
"What, then, does good sense demand? It demands very simple
things--that the young composer should begin by learning his art, and
should not allow himself to be hypnotized by a process that happens to
be in fashion, employed fruitfully, to be sure, by certain natures, but
not constituting in itself the whole of musical art.
"All processes are good, on condition that they never become the
principal end, and are regarded only as means to make MUSIC."
The candor, courage, and penetration of such criticism as this, shown,
though seldom in quite such measure, in every critical page that d'Indy
has written, and the uncompromising nature of his views, not always
free from narrowness, have of course made him many enemies. Probably no
man in modern music is better loved or better hated. The devotion of
his whole life to art, with a modesty, a suppression of self, a really
religious enthusiasm rare in musicians, has naturally turned the love
of his pupils and disciples into something that is almost worship; and
this has in turn naturally enough irritated, sometimes to exasperation,
those who vent their disgust of artistic idolatries on the often
innocent idol, or who feel keenly, in a hero, the limitations of
which no human being is free, or who find especially antipathetic,
in M. d'Indy's case, certain temperamental leanings which he could
not overcome if he would, such as those to conservatism, aristocracy,
and even chauvinism in social relations, and to the strictest Roman
Catholicism in religion.