MODERN FRENCH PIANOFORTE MUSIC
Classical traditions: Saint-Saëns, and others; C.
V. Alkan--César Franck: his compositions and his
style--Vincent d’Indy--Fauré--The new movement: Debussy
and Ravel--Debussy’s innovations: new harmonies, scales,
overtones, pianoforte technique; his compositions--Ravel
differentiated; his compositions; Florent Schmitt and Eric
Satie--Conclusion.
I
By far the most interesting and generally the most significant
developments in pianoforte music since the time of Schumann, Chopin,
and Liszt are those which have taken place in France. Not only have the
French composers greatly enriched the literature for the instrument
with compositions that have a value beyond that which fashion
temporarily lends them; they have refreshed it as well with new ideas
of harmony, and effects, which if they are not essentially new, are
newly extended and applied.
There is still to be observed in France, it is true, a very
considerable loyalty in a group of composers to the style of Chopin,
or even more, to that of Liszt, and a general dependence upon German
ideas of music which have for a century past been so preponderant in
the world as to be considered international. The admirable works of
Camille Saint-Saëns are the result of such a loyalty. He is a great
master of the pianoforte style, endowed, moreover, with a fine sense of
form and a fine imagination. Everything he has written is finished with
care, clear-cut and indisputably effective. There is no piece of music
more grateful from the point of view of the pianist than the second
of his five concertos, that in G minor. This is not only because the
treatment of the solo instrument is clear and brilliant, but because
the themes are worthy of the treatment and of the broad form which they
are made to fill. The writing for the orchestra, moreover, is not less
perfect than that for the pianoforte. But inasmuch as the harmonies are
a familiar inheritance from the past, and the style an adaptation of an
inherited technique, the work signalizes not an advance in music, but
the successful maintenance of an already high standard. The spirit of
it is less emotional and sentimental than that of other concertos, and
more witty and epigrammatic. Hence it holds a special place as well as
a high one, from which it is hard to think that any change of fashion
will ever remove it.
The short pieces of Cécile Chaminade, Paul Lacombe, François Thomé,
Benjamin Godard, and Paul Wachs may be mentioned in passing as having
won a measure of success.
But the works of another group or two of French composers show an
originality that was at first so startling as to enrage conservative
critics. It is owing to them that pianoforte music seems to have
entered upon a new course of life. One finds the stirring of new
movements in Paris even before the time of Chopin’s arrival there, due
very clearly to the French spirit. Berlioz is growing more and more to
a huge stature in the eyes of historians. The figure of his countryman
and acquaintance, Charles-Valentin Alkan, is more obscure, but he
represents the same spirit at work in the special branch of pianoforte
music. If his compositions have not had great influence, they none the
less give an early example of the working towards independence of a
French pianoforte music.
Alkan (1813-88) was admired as a player and as a composer by both
Chopin and Liszt, and Bülow still later held him in high esteem. An
effort is now under way, encouraged by Isadore Philip, and others, to
draw his compositions from the obscurity into which they have fallen.
They are surprisingly numerous and in many ways astonishing. They
include a great number of transcriptions, of études and of pieces of
extraordinary realism. His harmonies and melodies suggest Berlioz, with
whom he is being more and more compared. They have often a quality
that is in a sense bare. They are unusual without connoting a rich
world of the unexplored. They hint rather at a deliberate attack upon
the old than at the youth of a new system. The general flow of his
harmonies, for example, is familiar. Only now and then does something
unusual obtrude itself with a sort of harshness. Notice, for example,
the chromatic movement of the doubled inner voice in the _cantabile_
section of the short piece ‛_Le tambour bat aux champs_.’ Notice, too,
the strange starkness of harmonies in the paraphrase _Super flumina
Babylonis_.
Technically Alkan stands between Chopin and Liszt, and in this regard
his music is very exacting. He demands an equal skill in both hands.
Of the three studies published as opus 76, the first is for the left
hand alone, with long passages of rapid tremolo like that one finds in
the first of Liszt’s Paganini transcriptions. The second is for the
right hand alone, demanding an unrestricted movement of the arm in long
arpeggios and extremely wide chords. Finally the third is a long piece
in unison from beginning to end, far more awkward and more difficult
than the last movement of Chopin’s sonata in B-flat minor. The three
studies opus 15, _Dans le genre pathétique_, are veritably huge works.
Of these the second, _Le vent_, is already well known as one of the
effective concert pieces of the new era. The first and last have the
strange titles of _Aime-moi_ and _Morte_. Twelve études in minor keys
were published as opus 39. One finds again extraordinary titles, such
as _Rythme molossique_, _Scherzo diabolico_, and _Le festin d’Europe_.
All are exceedingly difficult. Some, like the first, are both startling
and interesting as music. There is a more or less famous study in
perpetual motion for the right hand which was given the title _Le
chemin de fer_, extremely rapid, difficult, and effective.
The titles throughout all his music are original. Some are easily
understood. ‘The Wind’ and the ‘Railroad’ for instance are fully
explained by the music. In fact the realism of the latter does not
stop with movement. There is to be heard even the pounding of wheels,
the puffing and the whistle of the engine. But what is the meaning
of others, of _Neige et lave_, _Ma chère liberté_ and _Ma chère
servitude_, _Salut, cendre du pauvre_, _Fais dodo_ and _J’étais
endormie, mais mon cœur reveillait?_ On the whole these fantastic
titles suggest less the union of music with poetry or self-conscious
sentiment than a sort of rational, positive realism. There is little
in the music that is vague or sensuous. Most of it is objective rather
than imaginative. He has neither the fire of Liszt, nor the emotion
of Chopin, and his compositions are both spiritually and technically
independent of theirs. He was a terrific worker and he lived apart from
men. Marmontel wrote of him with great respect and some affection.
Oskar Bie thinks of him as a misanthrope. One can hardly speak of
misanthropic music; yet the quality which distinguishes Alkan’s music
is something the quality of an implacable irony. It is strong stuff,
and is likely to prove more logical in itself than any appreciation or
disparagement of it can be made.
CËSAR FRANCK
II
But Alkan’s music must be taken as the manifestation of an independent
spirit, French in its directness, rather than as a source of
stimulation or strength to a further development of a distinctly French
school of pianoforte music. Such a school first centres about César
Franck, who, though he, too, lived in retirement and in an obscurity
which the general public did not attempt to penetrate, exercised a
powerful influence on music in Paris. His compositions are relatively
few in number. There are but two considerable works for pianoforte
alone, and only three more for pianoforte and orchestra. These,
however, are of great beauty and two at least are masterpieces in
music. These are the ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue’ for pianoforte alone,
and the _Variations Symphoniques_ for pianoforte and orchestra. The
other three, which have elements of greatness but seem to fall short of
absolute perfection, are the ‘Prelude, Aria, and Finale’ for pianoforte
alone, and two symphonic poems for pianoforte and orchestra suggested
by poems of Victor Hugo, _Les Eloïdes_ and _Les Djinns_.
The ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue,’ and the ‘Symphonic Variations’ may
be ranked with the symphony, the violin sonata, the string quartet and
the pianoforte quintet, and are no less a perfect and in some respects
a complete expression of his genius than they. One finds in them the
same ceaseless chromatic shiftings and involutions of harmony, the same
polyphonic treatment of short phrases, the same structural unity, the
same exalted and mystical spirit. In fact this spiritual quality is
perhaps nowhere so gloriously expressed as in the Chorale movement for
the pianoforte.
As a whole the ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue’ is flawless in structure.
There is the greatest economy in the use of musical material. The
unusual scoring of the opening measures, with the melody note slightly
off the beat and the harp-like ornamentation, is the scoring which
characterizes the final, tremendous pages of the Fugue. The sections
of the Prelude which offer contrast to this opening melody are based
upon the subject which later forms the basis of the Fugue. And the
magnificent theme and spirit of the following movement, the Chorale, is
projected, as it were, into the whole last section of the Fugue. Never,
perhaps, was a fugue more splendidly and more fully developed, nor was
the force of a work ever so made to grow and to culminate in pages of
such majestic and triumphant music.
There is a similar use of material in the ‘Prelude, Aria, and Finale,’
but the result is not quite so flawless. The Prelude, here, in spite
of the suave beauty of its chief theme, is loose and episodic in
effect. And it cannot be said that the scoring for the pianoforte is
distinguished or animated. The style is either massive or awkward. The
most beautiful part of the whole work is perhaps the concluding section
of the Aria. The earlier parts of the Aria are skillfully devised, but
the scoring is rather heavy and seems more suited to the organ than to
the piano. But the melody of this concluding section is of inspired
beauty; and as if Franck himself were well aware of its rare and
significant worth, the last pages of the stormy Finale bring it back,
woven with the chief theme of the Prelude.
Technically both works are extremely difficult. The general breadth
of effect, the demand for power and for freedom of the arm, and the
use of octaves--these as well as the use of the very high and very low
registers of the keyboard--all make evident the rather orchestral idea
of the pianoforte which Liszt introduced. Liszt, by the way, was one
of the first to recognize the greatness of Franck. But, though Franck
was at one time a brilliant pianist and was intended by his father
to electrify Europe from the concert stage, he was above all else an
organist. His pianoforte style is most evidently very closely allied
to the organ style. This is particularly noticeable in the treatment
of bass parts, which not only suggest the pedals of the organ but are
often impossible for the small hand to play. The octaves for the left
hand in the Aria, and even more remarkably those in the Chorale, need
not only the independent movement which the organ pedals can add in
polyphony, but seem to call for the tone color of the low notes on the
organ. Frequently, moreover, as in the second section of the Prelude
in the ‘Prelude, Aria, and Finale,’ such wide stretches as the music
demands of the hands, as well as the general freedom of polyphonic
movement, almost require an instrument with two keyboards.
On the other hand, there are many effects which are brilliantly
pianistic. The flowing figures in the Prelude of the ‘Prelude, Chorale
and Fugue’ are purely pianistic. The tremendous octave passages in the
Finale need the distinct, percussive sound of the pianoforte. And the
upper notes of the Chorale melody, both when it is given alone and when
it is combined with the fugue theme, must have a ringing, bell-like
quality which only the pianoforte can produce.
The treatment of the pianoforte in those works in which it is
supported by the orchestra shows less the influence of the organ
style. Generally Franck had in mind the sonority of the organ and
the movement of music proper to that instrument. In these works the
function of the organ, so to speak, is given to the orchestra; and
hence the pianoforte is free of all responsibility but that of adding
its own special effects to the mass of sound. These are essentially
simple. In the _Djinns_ there is some brilliant rapid work, a few solo
passages of agitated character with wide rolling but not elaborate
accompaniment figures. In the ‘Symphonic Variations,’ very noticeably
a bigger and a finer work, there are solo passages of great breadth,
and nearly all the variations make the piano prominent by means of
its own effects. There are the passages of detached chords and double
notes which seem to tinkle over the first variation, the remarkably
wide spacing in the passage which follows, with the suggested movement
of inner voices and the occasional touch upon high notes; the flowing
figures, with again a suggested richness of inner voices, which pursue
their smooth course over the 'cello solo; finally the more brilliant
effects towards the end, especially those of the tossing chords, and of
the difficult, leaping triplet figures. The pianoforte and orchestra
were never more ingeniously combined than in those passages which the
pianoforte introduces with a sort of double waltz movement and in which
the orchestra subsequently joins with the theme in a decidedly cross
rhythm, leaving the solo instrument free to add delicately melodious
runs.
The structure of the whole work, moreover, is musically interesting.
Though the theme in F-sharp minor, announced simply by the pianoforte
after several pages that are more or less introductory, may be regarded
as the chief theme, there is another distinct and highly characterized
theme--first given fully by the pianoforte in the magnificent solo
passage (C-sharp minor) so prominent in these introductory pages.
This, as well as the chief theme, is elaborately varied, and is ever
and again throughout the work so cleverly combined with the chief
theme, that one must regard the whole ultimately as a series of double
variations.
These few works of César Franck are architecturally the most imposing
for the pianoforte since the last sonatas of Beethoven; and the
‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue’ and the ‘Symphonic Variations’ are surely
to be numbered among the most valuable compositions from which the
pianist may draw his delight. They are very nearly unique in plan
and style. The ceaseless shifting of harmonies and interweaving of
short phrases will doubtless seem to many manneristic and a little
irritating. Then, too, they are, in spite of their breadth and power,
mystical, and in that sense, elusive or even baffling. The weight of
the organ style rests on them, and they are awkwardly difficult and
taxing. Yet in spite of these peculiarities they remain pianoforte
music of great dignity, beauty, and nobility.
III
At the basis of the two greatest pianoforte works of César Franck,
one discerns a classical foundation. The harmonies, it is true, are
Romantic and strange; but the ideals are traditional. In the matter
of form there is less a departure from old principles than a further
development of them. They present a few new complications of structure;
but as far as the pianoforte is concerned they have little new to
show in the matter of effect. Their peculiar sonority is that of the
organ, and remains not wholly proper to the pianoforte. On the whole,
then, the music is easily related to that of Beethoven, of Liszt, and
of Wagner. There is no striking departure from that road to which
Beethoven may be said to have pointed.
Nor does one find, on the whole, less traditional loyalty in the
pianoforte compositions of Franck’s pupil, Vincent d’Indy. These
are not numerous. There are only a few sets of short pieces, and
but two works of length. The little sonata, opus 9, is in classical
form. There are three short waltzes in a set called _Helvetia_, opus
9; a _Serenade_, _Choral grave_, _Scherzetto_, and _Agitato_, opus
16, one or two pieces in classical dance forms, and three little
romances in the style of Schumann, opus 30. Of the last the third is
a most successful imitation of Schumann, resembling passages from the
_Kreisleriana_ in spirit and in technique. None of these short pieces,
however, calls for more than mention, except as they all show a clear
but not distinguished traditional and simple treatment of the keyboard.
There is hardly the harmonic freedom of either Wagner or Franck in them.
The two long pieces are far more distinctly original. The first of
these is a set of three fanciful pieces called _Poëmes des Montagnes_.
The first of these--_Le chant des bruyères_--is divided into five
parts: the song of the heather, or the heath, mists, a touch of
Weber, a theme which is to be found in all three movements called _La
bien-aimée_, and finally the song of the heath again, this time in
the distance. The second movement is again subdivided, this time into
dances amid which _la bien-aimée_ makes a momentary appearance; and
in the last movement--_Plein-air_--one finds a promenade, thoughts
of great trees (_hêtres et pins_) on the side of the mountain, _la
bien-aimée_, a bit of calm before a burst of wind, finally a pair of
lovers united. At the beginning and at the end of the series there are
a few broken chords, vaguely styled _Harmonies_, and at the very end
again there is a reminiscence of the theme of _la bien-aimée_.
One cannot but find the whole series closely akin to Schumann. The
romanticism is the romanticism of Schumann, carried a step into the
open air and among the mountains, of his devotion to which d’Indy has
left many a proof in music. The fleeting touch of Weber, and especially
that d’Indy should have written Weber’s name over the measure in which
it falls, is again characteristic of the composer who introduced
Paganini and Chopin into his _Carnaval_. The identification of a theme
with a beloved one is another instance. But even more definite than
these tokens of a certain romanticism is the treatment of the piano,
and even the nature of much of the thematic material. _Le chant des
bruyères_ and _La bien-aimée_ are in the mold of Schumann. The _Valse
grotesque_ recalls in rhythm some of the _Davidsbündler_ and the
first of these _Danses rhythmiques_ is like parts of the Pantalon and
Colombine of the _Carnaval_.
On the other hand, there is something original and new in the section
called _Brouillard_. The general mistiness of the harmonies, the
long holding of the pedals with consequent vague obscurity of sound,
and the irregular line of clear points in a sort of melody that is
drawn against this inarticulate accompanying murmur, these indicate
new ventures in pianoforte style. The rhythmical irregularity of the
first of the dances and the irregularity in the form and recurrence
of sections are further signs of the advent of something rich and
strange. In fact the whole work loses somewhat by the frequent
suggestion of bold experiment, and is hardly to be considered equal
to the traditional standard of music, as represented by Schumann,
nor sufficiently successful to establish a new one. Barring the
_Brouillard_, the treatment of the keyboard lacks distinction.
Far, far different must be the verdict on the Sonata in E, opus 63.
Here, though one still finds a classical ideal of form, there are bold,
clashing harmonies, and endless complexities of rhythm. The scoring
is tremendous, the effect big as an orchestra. The sonata is in three
movements, all of which represent the development of one central idea.
The first movement, which is preceded by a long and fiery introduction,
is made up of a series of variations on this central idea. A subsidiary
idea, which, as in the ‘Symphonic Variations’ of Franck, was suggested
in the introduction, is woven into the music here and there. The
complicated second movement, in 5/4 time, constantly suggests the
subsidiary motives of the first; and in the last, which shows the broad
plan of the classical sonata form, the theme of the first movement
finds a full and glorious expression.
Technically the sonata is extremely difficult. Some of the variations
of the first movement, with their trills, recall the pianoforte style
of the last Beethoven sonatas, however. The interlocking of the hands
in the second movement is in a measure new in effect, though not new in
principle. The scoring of the last movement is not free of commonplaces.
On the whole, the sonata may be considered modern in harmonies,
melodies, and rhythms, though a more or less classical harmonic
foundation may be detected. The form is obviously a further development
of the principles so clearly exemplified in the works of César Franck,
which were drawn from Bach and Beethoven. It does not seem unfair to
say that the scoring is rather orchestral than distinctively pianistic;
so that the sonata may be considered more significant as a contribution
to music in general than as one to pianoforte music in particular.
IV
None of the French composers has written more for the pianoforte
than Gabriel Fauré. In his music, too, there is a strong element of
tradition, though as a harmonist he is perhaps more spontaneously
original than d’Indy. He prefers to work in short forms, and he avoids
titles of detailed significance. He has written eleven Barcarolles, ten
or more Nocturnes, nearly as many Impromptus, a set of eight Preludes,
published as opus 103, and a few pieces of nondescript character
including dances and romances. The impression made by a glance over the
pages of this considerable amount of music is one of great sameness.
Fauré’s style is delicate and well adjusted to the keyboard but there
is little to observe in it that is strikingly original. Nor do the
pieces give proof of much development in technique or in means of
expression. There is little trace of the exquisite impressionism of the
songs. The pianoforte music is hardly more than pleasing, and is only
rarely brilliant.
The well-known second impromptu, in F minor, is perhaps the most
interesting and the most original of all his pianoforte pieces. Here is
genuine vivacity, piquancy of style, originality of harmony. But the
other impromptus and the nocturnes have, in spite of certain modern
touches of harmony, a style that is now Mendelssohn, now Schumann.
The eleven _Barcarolles_ rock gently over the keyboard, the _Valses
caprices_ dance lightly along. All is facile and pleasing salon music,
one piece much like the others. The Theme and Variations, opus 73, is
interesting and is well known at the Conservatoire, and the second of
the preludes, opus 103, is decidedly effective. The fourth Nocturne is
full of poetry. In fact there is poetry in much of his music, but it is
on the whole too much in the same vein.
Finally, after mentioning Pierné, for the sake of a set of short pieces
in delicate style, _Pour mes petits amis_, and Emanuel Chabrier for
the sake of the _Bourrée fantastique_, we come to the two men whose
work for the piano has enchanted the world: Claude Debussy and Maurice
Ravel. So far as the pianoforte is concerned, theirs is the music which
has created a new epoch since the time of Liszt and Chopin, which has
signalized the leadership of France in the art of music.
V
For a discussion of the general musical art of Debussy the reader is
referred to the third volume of this series. His system of harmony and
scales has there been explained. Here we will regard him as a composer
for the pianoforte and attempt only a brief analysis of his pianoforte
style and an appreciation of a few of his compositions. His pianoforte
style has been no little influenced by his conception of harmony which
admits chords of the seventh and ninth among the consonances. The
pianoforte being essentially a harmonic instrument, composers have
spent a great part of their skill in devising rapidly moving figures
which would keep its harmonies in vibration. Such harmonies have
either constituted a music in themselves, or have furnished a vibrant
background behind a melody or an interweaving of several melodies. The
shape of the figures has been determined by harmony and the figures
have been blended into a general effect by the use of the pedal.
One of the most prominent characteristics of Chopin’s style was the
intrinsically melodious conformation of many of such figures. Hence
there is a suggestion of polyphony in his music; and hence, too, the
pedalling of his music must be most delicately and skillfully done.
With Liszt, on the other hand, such figures rarely had this melodious
significance. They were founded rather flatly on the notes of chords or
on the scale. Hence a mass of notes with little or no individuality.
Such we shall find many of Debussy’s figures to be, and it is indeed
easy to say that there would have been no Debussy had there been no
Liszt. Not only this density, which in the case of Debussy may be more
properly called opaqueness, of figures; but also the free use of the
arms over the keyboard point to a relation of the style of the one to
that of the other. But Debussy’s style is in two features at least
sharply differentiated from that of Liszt.
The first of these is owing to his different conception of harmony.
Liszt’s harmonies are clearly defined, Debussy’s, by contrast, vague.
There are few instances of harmonies in Liszt’s music which are not
related to a tonic scale; Debussy’s whole-tone scale has destroyed
the relation of major and minor keys, even their definitions. With
Liszt the various degrees of the scale suggest their proper harmonies;
and as his melody or his bass moves from one to the other of them,
the harmonies must change to follow it. The harmonic figures must be
constantly moved here and there. Sometimes, as in the first phrase
of the _Waldesrauschen_, they do not change to follow the melody, it
is true; but in such a case the melody is so conceived as really to
accentuate the notes of the chord on which the accompaniment figure
plays. But with Debussy the progress of the melody entails no such
change of harmony, or at least no such frequent change. Even if he
chooses to conceive a passage as in a clearly defined key, his fondness
for the chord of the ninth plays him in good stead. He can keep a ninth
chord running up and down the keyboard and still enjoy the proper
use of five notes of the scale in melody. And in the case where he
is using the whole-tone scale and has consequently thrown his music
out of all relation to the traditional system of keys, he is even
more free. Therefore, the fingers, not having to find a new position
every measure or so, or even twice in a measure, are let free, without
hindrance, over a wide range of the keyboard. Furthermore, since
having once struck the desired notes within this range the use of the
pedal will sustain the vibration a long time, they have not to repeat
them over and over again with the distinctness necessary to establish
a new harmony, but touch them lightly, or graze them unevenly. With
the result that the sparkle which even in the dense runs of Liszt was
created by the more or less distinct sound of indispensable notes, is
veiled, and the general effect is one of fluid color.
A second feature which distinguishes the style of Debussy from that
of Liszt is the relative absence in it of the sensationalism of speed.
The sort of run we have been discussing, which may be studied in the
_Reflets dans l’eau_, or in _Pagodes_, is as rapid as Liszt’s runs.
But the monotony of it, the lack of change and therefore of emphasized
points, reduces the effect of speed. For speed is chiefly appreciable
between definite points. In fact the background of Debussy’s music may
be compared to mist, while that of Liszt’s is, we might say, more like
a curtain of chain mail.
The effect of this prolongation of harmonies by means of the pedal,
lightly aided by the fingers, and of this lack of sharp contours is
to take from a great part of his music a certain hard substantiality.
In other words, recalling what we said of the qualities of sound in
the pianoforte in the chapter on Chopin, the sonority of his music
is one of after-sounds. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, more than
any composers before them, have consciously made use of this peculiar
quality of the pianoforte.
It is not only their treatment of runs which makes it audible, nor do
they depend only upon the after-sounds of notes which have been struck.
Holding the dampers off the strings for relatively long spaces allows
an almost distinct vibration of overtones or of sympathetic tones to
enter into the mass of sound. Both Debussy and Ravel count upon this.
The notes they write upon the page are but the starting point of their
effects. It is what floats up and away from them that constitutes the
background of their music. One finds in the later pieces of Debussy
not the old-fashioned indication of the pedal, but such directions
as _quittez_, _en laissant vibrer_, or _laissez vibrer_ (let the
vibrations continue), which must be intended to attract the ear to
after-sounds. He has even invented a notation of such un-substantial
sound. Here is an example, from _Les collines d’Anacapri_:
[Illustration: Music score]
He will fill up a whole measure with notes that find their reason only
in the vague sound of the next measure, as here in _La cathédrale
engloutie_:
[Illustration: Music score]
Note also that his spacing of chords, and particularly his strange
doubling of parts, brings overtones into prominence. One hears not so
much a doubling of parts on the keyboard as an accompanying shadow of
sound which is, as it were, cast by them. Witness the choral passages
in _La cathédrale engloutie_, and the treatment of chords in _Et la
lune descend sur le temple qui fut_. Here, at the beginning, one
notices too the inclusion within the chord itself of notes which may
properly be considered overtones.
It is true that Schumann experimented with sympathetic vibrations and
overtones, that the player who would give to Chopin its special charm
must have an ear tuned to after-sounds, and that Liszt experimented
with many similar effects and really opened the way for a treatment
of the pianoforte such as that Debussy and Ravel have perfected. But
all earlier experiments were limited by a clear perception of certain
harmonic proprieties. A chord was defined by the notes struck in it.
But in this music of Debussy and Ravel a chord is not such a restricted
thing. It is a potentiality rather than an actuality. It spreads and
grows in after-sounds so that its boundaries become vague and merge
with other boundaries or cross them. So they have created a pianoforte
music that seems almost to have no dependence upon the mechanical
levers and hammers, a sort of music liberated from the box, and yet
the most subtly and intimately related to the instrument that has been
written.
Debussy’s music is by no means all compact of these vague effects. It
is often as clear-cut as crystal, having a _netteté_ hard to match in
other music for the instrument. Witness for example _Les jardins sous
la pluie_ and _La sérénade interrompue_. In these cases it is plain
to see that he is no less aware of the charm latent in the percussive
quality of tone in the pianoforte than of that in its peculiar
after-sounds. He can be incisive, also, and sharply rhythmical as in
_La puerta del Vino_, or sparkling as in the _Feux d’artifice_.
Technically, then, Debussy’s pianoforte style seems to have been
influenced by a clear perception of the two qualities of sound of which
the instrument is capable, and so remarkable has been his revelation
of them that one cannot but feel that they come to our ears as fresh
discoveries. His ingenuity seems inexhaustible and always successful.
He can be rapid without being sensational, forceful without pounding.
Except that an occasional use of chords suggests the organ or some new
mysterious wind instrument, his music never departs from the piano,
to the spirit of which it gives a new expression. It is extremely
difficult to play. It requires the utmost fleetness and lightness
of fingers; and also a perfect freedom of the arm, for he seems at
times to ask the player to touch all parts of the piano at once. In a
measure, however, it may be said of some of his music that it conforms
to types as Liszt’s does, and that consequently, compared with Bach and
Chopin, it is not so difficult. Nevertheless, by all tokens the music
of Debussy, though technically it springs from Liszt, is going to elude
the grasp of most fingers even as that of Chopin does. Perhaps it is a
spiritual rather than a technical difficulty that stands in the way.
His compositions show signs of a very great development both in
his ideals and his means of expression. An early group comprises a
Nocturne, a _Suite Bergamasque_, and another suite called _Pour le
piano_ which consists of a Prelude, Sarabande and Toccata. There are
signs in nearly all these pieces of originality and some attempted
departure from traditional commonplaces. The nocturne is hardly
distinguished either in sentiment or in treatment of the piano. Only
the section in 7/8 time is interesting. But in the _Suite Bergamasque_
one finds a Passepied and the well-known _Clair de lune_ which hint
at the works to come, the former in its piquant scoring and rhythm,
the latter in its harmonies and its employment of the lower and higher
registers. The Toccata is original in harmony also, and well-scored for
the pianoforte. But except in the _Clair de lune_ there is no trace of
the delicate impressionism which has made his better known music unique.
This comes out strongly in a second group of pieces in which one may
include the _L’isle joyeuse_, the _Estampes_ and the first series of
_Images_ including the _Reflets dans l’eau_ in which he seems to us
to reach the height of this middle achievement. _L’isle joyeuse_ is a
strange, wild piece, full of his characteristic harmonies, especially
those founded upon the whole-tone scale. It is the longest of his
pieces for the pianoforte, and is rather unsatisfactory in structure.
Perhaps the monotony of key is to blame--for in spite of passages in
whole-tone scales, the whole is very clearly in A major. Yet it must be
said that this very sameness of key intensifies the early languor and
the later Bacchanalian fury--is intoxicating in itself.
The _Estampes_ (‘Engravings’) are among the best of these middle
pieces. A comparison of them with works of an early period, with the
two arabesques or even the _Suite Bergamasque_, shows an extraordinary
development in Debussy’s art and a change or a more marked independence
in his ideals. There is hardly a trace in the earlier works of the
new expansion in pianoforte technique which marks the _Pagodes_, _La
soirée dans Grenade_, and _Jardins sous la pluie_. Especially in the
first of these pieces the whole range of the keyboard is blended into
effects of a new sonority of sevenths and ninths. The second is a study
in impressionism, in the combination of a few fragments of melody,
harmony and rhythm into a whole of new poetic intensity. In the former
his technique, in the latter his procedure, are strange and unfamiliar
in pianoforte music, yet wholly successful. Their effectiveness is no
doubt largely due to the nature of his material. The motives of the
_Pagodes_ are Oriental, those in _La soirée_ both Spanish and Moorish.
Perhaps for this reason they sound more exotic than the _Jardins sous
la pluie_, which, in spite of odd blendings of harmony, is essentially
more conventional than its two companions in the set. Certainly the
_Jardins_ is a wholly poetic and effective piece of keyboard music;
but it lacks the originality and the elusive suggestiveness of the
_Pagodes_ and of _La soirée_.
The _Reflets dans l’eau_ is superior to the _Hommage à Rameau_ and
the _Mouvement_, with which it is combined in the first series of
_Images_. Technically it is a masterpiece, and both by the quality of
its themes and its perfection of form is fitted to stand as a piece
of absolute music of rare beauty. The plan of it is logical rather
than impressionistic. It is the development of a single idea, not
the combination of suggestive fragments. Hence it seems to stand as
the most complete result of the art of which the _Pagodes_ and _Les
Jardins_ are representative. In the second series of _Images_ the
strange piece, _Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut_, is a further
experiment in the kind of music of which _La soirée_ is an example.
Here as there the music is fragmentary. Here as there there is but an
occasional touch of vividness against a background of misty night. In
both pieces pictures, words, almost sounds are only suggested to the
ear, not completely represented.
On the other hand, the _Cloches à travers les feuilles_, and the
_Poissons d’or_, respectively the first and last pieces in this
second set of _Images_, are what we might call consistently motivated
throughout, in the manner of the _Reflets dans l’eau_. There is always
the rustling of leaves and the faint jangle of bells in the former,
always a quiver of water and a darting, irregular movement in the
latter; whereas in neither _La soirée_ nor in _Et la lune_ is there
the persistence of an idea that is thus predominant and more or less
clearly presented.
The last two series of _Préludes_ show us his art yet more finely
polished and concentrated. In general these twenty-four pieces are
shorter and more concise than the _Estampes_ and the _Images_,
certainly than the representative pieces in them--_Pagodes_, _Les
jardins_, and _Reflets dans l’eau_. Most of them, moreover, are in his
suggestive rather than his explicit manner. He accomplishes his end
with a few strokes, and usually in a short space. The placing of the
titles at the end rather than at the beginning of the pieces is an
interesting point, too; for one cannot believe that such a finished
artist as Debussy shows himself in these pieces to be would have sent
his work before the public without a consciousness of the significance
of such an arrangement. He does not, as it were, announce to his
auditors his purpose, saying, imagine now this sound which you are
about to hear as representing in music a picture of gardens through a
steadily falling rain. He rather draws a line here upon his canvas and
adds a point of color there, all in a moment, and then, having shown
you first this strange beauty of combinations, says at the end you
may now imagine a meaning in the west wind, a church sunk beneath the
surface of the sea, a tribute to Mr. Pickwick, dead leaves, or what not
in the way of exquisite and incomplete ideas.
Many of these postscripts are significantly vague: _Voiles_, _Les
sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir_, _Des pas sur la
neige_ (Alkan called a piece of his _Neige et lave_), _La terrasse des
audiences du clair de lune_, etc.
Yet, however vague the subject or the suggestion, there is a sort
of epigrammatic clearness in the music. The rhythms are especially
lithe and endlessly varied, the phrase-building concise yet never
commonplace. There is a glitter of wit in nearly all, an unfailing
sense of light and proportion. This, not the strange harmonies nor the
imagery, seems to us the quality of his music that is typically French.
There is infinite grace and subtlety; sensuousness in color, too,
though it is spiritualized; but there is little that is sentimental.
The delicacy and yet the sharpness with which he has reproduced
qualities in outlandish music must be noticed. In earlier music he gave
proof of his insight into the essentials of other systems of music than
the French, or the German which has been considered the international.
The _Suite Bergamasque_ has a local color. There is Oriental stuff in
_Pagodes_, Spanish and Moorish in _La soirée dans Grenade_, Egyptian in
_Et la lune_. Traces of Greek or of ecclesiastical modes are abundant.
Here, in the _Préludes_ all this and more too has he caught. Greece in
_Danseuses de Delphes_, Italy in _Les collines d’Anacapri_, the old
church in _La cathédrale_, Spain in _La puerta del Vino_, cake-walks in
_General Lavine_, England in _Pickwick_, and Egypt in _Canope_. There
seems a touch of the North, too, in the exquisite little pieces, _La
fille aux cheveux de lin_. In this way alone Debussy has rejuvenated
music, doing more than others had done.
Finally, it would be hard to find more essence of comedy and wit in
music than one finds in Debussy’s _Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum_ in the
‘Children’s Corner,’ with its ludicrous play on the erstwhile sacred
formulas of technical study. This alone should place him among the
wits of a century. The _Sérénade interrompue_ and ‘Puck’s Dance’ are
both full of mockery. Then there is the eccentric General Lavine, and,
perhaps most laughable of all, the merry homage to Pickwick, made up of
‘God Save the King’ and a jig in the English style.
No one can say what the future of his music will be, nor how it will
be related to the general development in music by students a hundred
years hence. Yet it is certain that it recommends itself to pianists
at present because it has expanded the technique of the instrument.
It is made up in part of effects which, as we have said, if they are
not new in principle, are newly applied and expanded. He has developed
resources in the instrument which had not before been more than
suggested. His pieces bring into striking prominence the qualities
of after-sound and sympathetic vibrations or overtones in the piano,
which are as much its possession and as uniquely so as the bell-like
qualities it had before been chiefly called upon to produce. Therefore
though his accomplishments in harmony and form, in the possibilities of
music in general, may be regarded with a changed eye in the years to
come, and though he may even some day appear in many ways reactionary,
because he has once more associated music with ideas and weakened the
independence of its life; yet as far as the pianoforte is concerned he
is the greatest innovator since Chopin and Liszt.
VI
The pianoforte music of Maurice Ravel is in many ways similar to
that of his great contemporary. His conception of harmony is, like
Debussy’s, expanded. Sevenths and ninths are used as consonances in his
music as well; and consequently one finds there the free use of the
sustaining pedal, the playing with after-sounds and overtones.
His works are not so numerous. The most representative are the
_Miroirs_, containing five pieces: _Noctuelles_, _Oiseaux tristes_,
_Une barque sur l’océan_, _Alborado del gracioso_ and _La vallée des
cloches_; and a recent set, _Gaspard de la nuit_, containing _Ondine_,
_Scarbo_, and _Le Gibet_, three poems for the piano after Aloysius
Bertrand. A set of _Valses nobles et sentimentales_ are only moderately
interesting on account of the harmonies. The rhythms are not unusually
varied, and the treatment of the pianoforte is relatively simple. There
is a well-known _Pavane pour une infante défunte_ of great charm, and a
concert piece of great brilliance called _Jeux d’eau_.
Though Ravel, like Debussy, makes use of a misty background,
his music is on the whole more brilliant and more clear-cut. One
is likelier to find in it passages that are sensational as well as
effective. His effects, too, are more broadly planned, more salient
and less suggestive. The _Jeux d’eau_ is a very good example, with its
regular progressions and unvaried style, its sustained use of high
registers rather than an occasional flash into them, its repetitions of
rather conventional figures.
[Illustration]
Famous Pianists. From top left to bottom right:
Ferruccio Busoni, Ignace Paderewski, Ossip Gabrilowitch, Eugen d’Albert.
Yet it is not in technical treatment of the piano that Ravel is most
clearly to be differentiated from Debussy, but rather in the matter of
structure. Most of his pieces are relatively long, and few of them are
written in the fragmentary, suggestive way characteristic of Debussy,
but are consistently sustained and developed. This in general. In
particular one will notice not only a regularity in the structure of
phrases but a frequent repetition of phrases in the well-balanced
manner we associate with his predecessors, sequences that except in
harmony are quite classical. The _Jeux d’eau_ will offer numerous
examples; and the same regularity is noticeable in the _Ondine_
and _Le Gibet_. The phrases are long and smooth. They have not the
epigrammatic terseness of Debussy, who, even in passages of melodious
character, always avoids an obvious symmetry. Nor is Ravel’s music
so parti-colored as Debussy’s. It does not touch upon such exotic or
such foreign scales and harmonies. Ravel shows himself a lover of the
Oriental in his string quartet, especially of the Oriental mannerism
of repetition; but one does not find in his pianoforte music, as in
Debussy’s, hints of ancient Greece, of Italy, of North America, of
England. Even the _Alborada del gracioso_, for all its length and
brilliance, is not Spanish as Debussy’s _Soirée dans Grenade_ or
_Puerta del Vino_. The impressions one receives from hearing works
of the two men performed one after the other are really not similar.
Debussy’s music is subtle and instantaneous, so to speak; Ravel’s is
rather deliberate and prolonged.
Other French composers have hardly made themselves felt with such
distinctness as these two men. The most prominent of them is Florent
Schmitt whose _Pièces romantiques_, _Humoresques_, and _Nuits romaines_
are worthy of study. Within the last year or two several sets of pieces
by Eric Satie have appeared which must give one pause. These are
almost as simple as Mozart; indeed many of them are written in but two
parts. They are not lacking in charm, whether or not one may take them
seriously. Satie shows himself in many of them a parodist. He plays
strains from the Funeral March in Chopin’s sonata, twisting them out of
shape, and writes slyly over the music that they are from a well-known
mazurka of Schubert’s. He parodies Chabrier’s _España_ and Puccini’s
operas.
Finally he writes directions and indications over measures in the
score which cannot but be a malicious though delightful mockery of
modern music in general. Remembering Scriabin’s _Avec une céleste
volupté_, or _une volupté radieuse_, _extatique_ or _douloureuse_, one
is not surprised to find Satie telling one to play _sur du velours
jaunie, sec comme un coucou, léger comme un œuf_, though at this
last one may well suspect a tongue in the cheek. But Satie goes much
further than this. There is among the _Descriptions automatiques_ one
on a lantern, in which we are here told to withhold from lighting it,
there to light, there to blow it out, next to put our hands in our
pockets. And throughout the absurd, unless they be wholly ironical,
pieces inspired by _Embryons désechés_, there is almost a running text
which cannot but stir to hearty laughter. Think of being directed to
play a certain passage like a nightingale with the toothache--_comme
un rossignol qui aurait mal aux dents_; or of being reminded as you
play that the sun has gone out in the rain and may not come back again,
or that you have no tobacco but happily you do not smoke. Such are
the remarks which Satie intends shall illumine your comprehension of
his music; and his humor is the more delightful because as a matter
of fact Mozart’s first minuet is hardly more simple than this music
to dried-up sea-urchins. Such naughty playfulness may well offend
the conservatories; but even if it is only nonsense, surely it is a
felicitous sign in these days, when high foreheads and bald pates
ponderously try to further the gestation of a new art of music.
* * * * *
If we leave our study of pianoforte music with a laugh it is only
because we may be supremely happy in the possession of so much music
that need not be hidden before the raillery of any wit, no matter
how sacrilegious. Into the hands of Claude Debussy we give the art
of writing for the pianoforte. His is the wisest and most sensitive
touch to mold it since the day of Chopin. Whatever the music he writes
may be, it has conferred upon the instrument once more the infinite
blessing of a proper speech. He has once more saved it from a confusion
of thumps and roars.
Bach, Chopin, Debussy: it is a strange trio, set apart from other
composers because to them the pianoforte made audible its secret voice,
a voice of fading after-sounds. Let us not take Bach from among them.
It was after all the same voice that spoke to him from his clavichord,
more faint perhaps yet even more sensitive. Music whispered to Mozart
that she would sing sweetly for him through his light pianoforte. The
powers of destiny made themselves music at the call of Beethoven, and
they swept up the piano in their force. Through Schubert the hand of
a spirit touched the keys. For Weber the keys danced together and
made strange pantomimes of sound. Schumann, as it were, spoke to his
pianoforte apart, and it opened a door for him into a fanciful world.
To Brahms the keys were colleagues, not friends, and Liszt drove them
in a chariot race, worthy of Rome and the emperors, or converted them
like a magician into a thousand shapes with a thousand spells. But to
Bach, Chopin and Debussy this instrument revealed itself and showed a
secret beauty that is all its own.