CONTEMPORARY CHORAL MUSIC IN FRANCE, ITALY, RUSSIA AND ELSEWHERE
Debussy: _L’enfant prodigue_, _La demoiselle élue_ and _Le
martyre de Saint-Sébastien_; Reynaldo Hahn: _La pastorale
de Noël_; Gabriel Pierné: _La croisade des enfants_; _Les
enfants de Bethlehem_; _Les fioretti de Saint-François
d’Assisi_--Florent Schmitt: Psalm XLVII; Vincent d’Indy:
_Chant de la cloche_, etc.--Renaissance of oratorio in Italy;
Perosi and his oratorios; Bossi: _Canticum canticorum_; _Il
Paradiso perduto_; Wolf-Ferrari: _La Vita Nuova_ and other
works--Scandinavia; choral music in Russia; Moussorgsky;
Rimsky-Korsakoff; Glazounoff; Glière; Arensky and others;
choral composition in Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, Spain.
I
The choral music of contemporary France has its immediate origin in
the recent past. In particular the oratorio and sacred cantata may be
said to represent the larger fruition of what Romain Rolland calls
‘the new religious art which has sprung up since the death of César
Franck, around the memory of that great musician.’ Pierné, d’Indy,
Schmitt--some of the most distinctive composers of modern France--have
been influenced by the Belgian master in a greater or less degree.
Hence it is not strange that the best-known French choral works of the
present day in the larger forms are of a religious or quasi-religious
nature.
Thus, even in the case of Debussy (less directly influenced by
Franck than any of his contemporaries), we find that two of his three
principal choral works, the lyric scene _L’enfant prodigue_ and the
‘mystery’ _Le martyre de Saint-Sébastien_, are developments of Biblical
and hagiographic text-motives. And even in his _Damoiselle élue_, a
cantata for female voices with solos, the heroine of Rossetti’s famous
poem (to a French paraphrase of which Debussy has written his score)
looks down from the ramparts of her pre-Raphaelite paradise.
In _L’enfant prodigue_ (Roman Prize, 1884), its composer does not
as yet inaugurate those radical changes which were to find complete
expression in his later works. It may be briefly described as a simple
and expressive miniature oratorio, including duets, trios, a cleverly
written _cortège_ and dance, whose frequent recitative anticipates the
melodic declamation employed in _Pelléas et Mélisande_.
But when Debussy sent in his _Damoiselle élue_ (first published in
1887) from Rome, the departure, from accepted standards was more
marked. Its music is rich in delicate imagery and attention to detail,
orchestral and vocal, yet despite its subtle expression of the yearning
of the translated for the one left behind on earth--the chorus of
sopranos descending in flexible, fluid cadences as the Blessed Damozel
‘leans out from the gold bars of Heaven’ and ‘casts her arms along the
golden barriers’--the customary public hearing accorded ‘works sent
from Rome’ was denied it in Paris. Since then, however, its composer
has not had to complain of a lack of performances.
It is the five-act mystery _Le martyre de Saint-Sébastien_, given
in 1911 at the _Châtelet_ theatre in Paris, which is Debussy’s most
ambitious and individual contribution to the literature of the
newer French choral art, though the music is really incidental to
D’Annunzio’s drama. In general, the greatest French critics paid
tribute to the merits of the work. Alfred Bruneau spoke of ‘its
clarity, serenity and strength,’ insisting that while the composer had
hitherto given his attention mainly to the instrumental forms, he had
attained new power in the choral portions of _Le martyre_. He dwells
on the beauty of the lament of the women at Sébastien’s death, and the
‘vast and magnificent’ final _alleluia_. Pierre Laloy does not share
Bruneau’s enthusiasm for the choral close. He admits its ‘occasional
Palestrinian character,’ but deprecates the intrusion of trifling
motives evidently used for effect alone. Robert Broussel counts the
four Preludes, hieratic and voluptuous, among Debussy’s most finished
pages. Reynaldo Hahn laments a lack of continuity in the score. Yet all
critics agree, in the main, on the interest and artistry of the score,
in which the religious feeling is strongly and definitely marked.
This concludes the tale of the composer’s choral compositions of a
religious nature, but no mention of Debussy’s activity in the choral
field would be complete without a reference to his lovely _a cappella_
choruses, _Chansons de Charles d’Orleans_, practically the only secular
music for chorus which he has written, but music well worth careful
study.
Notwithstanding the religious expressiveness which permeates _Le
martyre_, as witness the musical treatment of its last scene in which
paradise unfolds its gates amid a golden glory of angel hosts, it
is Gabriel Pierné whose scores are the most successful examples of
oratorio composition in modern France. Reynaldo Hahn, it is true, in
a manner anticipated Pierné’s _Enfants de Bethlehem_ in 1901, with a
Christmas oratorio, _Pastorale de Noël_, written upon the text of one
of the great passion-mysteries of the thirteenth century, using the
actual mediæval words and thus projecting the liturgic drama of the
Middle Ages into the present day. Yet his work has never attained that
wider public recognition accorded Pierné’s oratorios.
On these rest the latter’s fame, though he has written a secular
cantata, _Edith_ (1882), and a prize symphony for chorus and orchestra,
_L’an mil_. _La croisade des enfants_ (known throughout this country
as ‘The Children’s Crusade’), _Les enfants de Bethlehem_ and, finally,
_Les fioretti de Saint-François d’Assisi_, are his chief works.
The ‘Children’s Crusade’ and the ‘Children of Bethlehem’ are
‘mysteries,’ but not in the sense of Debussy’s impressionistic
_Martyre_, or Hahn’s mediæval Christmas ‘Miracle.’ The ‘Children’s
Crusade’ has been set to a libretto after Marcel Schwob’s poetic story;
the ‘Children at Bethlehem,’ to a poem by Gabriel Nigond. Both scores
are musically full of color and rich in pictorial detail, employing the
folk-song thematically. Their great effect lies in the introduction of
the children’s chorus as a strong factor in the musical development
of the oratorio. The criticism has been made,[90] in particular with
regard to the ‘Children’s Crusade,’ that the picturesque mingling
of male choruses, female choruses, solo voices, humming choruses,
echo choruses, voices from above and from the distance, together
with the choruses of children and full orchestra in a succession of
nerve-stimulating episodes, seems due to deliberate calculation,
speculating on the emotional and nervous sensibility of the general
public, and that as a consequence the music lacks genuine intimacy
and warmth. Be this as it may, the composer has been superlatively
successful in creating works whose performance awakens widespread
pleasure and appreciation.
In _Saint-François d’Assisi_, set to a poem by Gabriel Nigond after
‘The Little Flowers of St. Francis,’ Pierné again uses Christian
legendary material. His music portrays, with less of austere dignity
and serious depth than Tinel’s famous ‘Franciscus,’ yet with a more
melodious facility of touch, the life-cycle of the sermonizer of
the birds and founder of the order which bears his name. Like its
predecessors, it has much spiritual charm and delicacy of expression;
as in them, the standpoint of tonal effect is kept well in view
and--another resemblance--the score has been successful, though not,
perhaps, in the same degree as the others. Still, Pierné’s writing has
not the dramatic power and individual flavor to be found in the works
of some of his _confrères_.
II
Notable among these is Florent Schmitt, a pupil of Gabriel Fauré (who,
by the way, has contributed to French choral literature some charming
shorter works--_La naissance de Vénus_, _Les Djinns_, and _Madrigal_).
_Danse des Devadesis_ is especially notable for brilliant color and
subtly suggestive rhythms. Florent Schmitt’s _Tragédie de Salomé_ in
its symphonic form is well known to the American concert-goer, but the
same cannot be said of his ‘Psalm XLVII,’ for orchestra, organ, chorus
and solo voices, though it exists in an edition with English text, and
is a musically distinctive and original work. Its keynote is praise and
joy, and it bids ‘the people clap their hands’ and proclaims that ‘the
fields of the earth belong to the Lord’ with real dramatic effect and
vigor.
It is in the work of Vincent d’Indy, principal heritor of the musical
and spiritual legacy of César Franck, that a more conservative
standpoint makes itself felt. And this is only natural, when we
consider that the counterpoint of the sixteenth century is the point
of departure of the composer’s own creative activity. He stands for
the classic tradition persisting along modern lines of development.
His sympathies are with Wagner rather than Debussy, and in his operas
or, as he terms them, ‘dramatic actions,’ _Fervaal_ and _L’Etranger_,
he merges Wagnerian practice and his individual concept with effective
results, though with a rejection of all that atmospheric vagueness
which makes the charm of _Pelléas_.
His best known choral work is _Le chant de la cloche_ (‘Song of the
Bell’), awarded a prize by the City of Paris in 1885. This is a
dramatic legend, opus 18, for chorus, solos and orchestra, broad in
outline, rich in detail, Wagnerian in structure, yet the composer’s own
in thematic content. The orchestra is handled with great brilliancy. A
later work, opus 23, _Sainte-Marie Magdeleine_, a cantata for two solo
voices, female chorus and accompaniment of harmonium and piano, is a
work of the type of Debussy’s _Enfant prodigue_, a miniature oratorio
intended to form part of an evening’s concert-program. It is needless
to add that, musically, it shows no semblance to Massenet’s oratorio
of the same name. We have also by d’Indy _La Chévauchée du Cid_, a
Hispano-Moorish scene for baritone, chorus and orchestra; a ‘Festival
Cantata’ for inaugural purposes; an _Ode à Valence_, for solo, chorus
and orchestra; and _L’Art et le Peuple_, for four-part male chorus.
For some time d’Indy has been working upon a dramatic choral work on
an extended scale, _La légende de Saint-Christophe_ (a subject which
Rheinberger and Horatio Parker have already treated in oratorio form),
and it is said to be nearing completion. It will be looked forward
to with interest, especially as it represents one of the composer’s
periodical returns from symphonic to choral composition.
While the works of the composers already discussed may be said to
represent the most important achievements in contemporary French
choral writing, a number of others have been more or less active in
the same field. Among these are: Gustave Charpentier (tone-drama, _La
vie du poete_, 1892), the late Augusta Holmès (_Hymne à Apollon_,
dramatic scene, and _Nocturne_, both for baritone solo and chorus.
_Danse d’Almées_, for contralto solo and chorus, and ‘The Vision
of the Queen,’ scene for solos and female chorus); C. de Grandval
(_Sainte Agnes_, dramatic cantata, 1892); Bourgault-Ducoudray (_Esprit
de la France_, for mixed chorus) and others; but in general the
ultra-modernists, Ravel, Dukas, Magnard, and others have neglected the
domain of choral for that of symphonic composition.
In Belgium contemporary choral composition since Peter Benoît has
been influenced by the Neo-French school. We have G. L. Huberti’s _De
laatste Zonnestraal_ (1892) and (in manuscript) _Verlichtung_ (1882),
_Bloemardinne_ and ‘Death of William of Orange,’ A greater tone-poet
is Émile Mathieu, with three secular choral works, _Le Hoyoux_, _Le
Sorbier_ and _Freyhir_ (1893). Jan Blockx’s cantatas are mostly founded
on national episodes. Among them are: _Vredezang_, _Het droom van’t
paradies_, _Clokke Roelandt_, _Scheldezang_ (1903). The ‘Roland’
cantata is his best-known choral number. Edgar Tinel’s dramatic
oratorio, _Franciscus_ (1888), is the greatest choral work the Flemish
school has produced. It has been more fully noted in Chapter IX.
III
In Italy the renaissance of choral composition might be said to
begin in 1898, with Don Lorenzo Perosi’s appointment as director of
the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In his sacred trilogy, _La Passione di
Cristo_, comprising (a) _La Cena del Signore_, (b) _L’Orazione del
Monte_, (c) _La Morte del Redentore_ (performed for the first time
at Milan, 1899, at the Italian Congress of Sacred Music), and in his
oratorios, _La Transfigurazione del Nostro Signor Gesù Cristo_ (1898),
_La Risurrezione di Lazaro_ (1898), _Il Natale del Redentore_ (1899),
_Mosè_, and _Il Giudizio Universale_ (1903), all written in a style
‘made up of all styles and ranging from the Gregorian chant to the
most modern modulations,’[91] he shows deep melodic instinct, richness
of melodic invention, and a strong dramatic veritism which has done
much to make them popular in Italy. ‘Each of the oratorios,’ to quote
again the great French critic, ‘is really a descriptive mass, which
from beginning to end traces out one dominating thought.’ Critics in
general are still divided as to the ultimate value of his music; but
its sincerity and strength of purpose are unquestioned.
Of greater importance than Perosi’s disciples Giovanni Tebaldini
(_Le Nozze de Cecilia_), and Alfredo Ambrogio (_L’Entrata di Cristo
in Gerusalemme_), is Enrico Bossi. The latter’s oratorios, _Canticum
canticorum_ (1900) and _Il Paradiso perduto_ (1903), are distinctly
concert oratorios in the grand style, more strongly individual and
less mystically religious than Perosi’s. His treatment of Solomon’s
glowing ‘Song of Songs’ is musically sensuous rather than symbolic,
and at times suggestive, in its passion, of Massenet. It is a work
rich in imaginative development and, again in contrast to Perosi,
the weight is laid on its choral rather than its solo portions. The
secular trend is even more marked in _Il Paradiso perduto_, and some
of its movements are to be reckoned among the finest in modern choral
literature. In both these works, as in his secular cantata _Giovanna
d’Arca_, and his symphonic poem _Il Cieco_, with tenor solo and chorus,
Bossi has infused the spirit of modernism into the Italian oratorio,
and developed it beyond the purely ecclesiastical concept represented
by Perosi.
In this direction the influence of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, better
known, perhaps, as a composer of opera than of oratorio, has also
been noteworthy. His cantata, _Talitha kumi_ (‘Maiden, arise’), on
the favorite subject of the daughter of Jairus, written in 1900, was
followed by the oratorio _Sulamith_, which, if not dramatically as
strong as Bossi’s _Canticum_, betrays melodic charm and warm orchestral
coloring.
His greatest choral work, however, is undoubtedly his _La Vita Nuova_,
opus 9, in which, using Dante’s text, he has woven together incidents
of the love-life of Dante and Beatrice in a succession of idyllic and
lyric mood-pictures. The suggestive power of the work is remarkable;
dramatic effect, rhythmic variety, harmonic subtlety are combined in
well-nigh perfect expressional unity. The composer has followed his own
inspiration throughout, and that with the happiest artistic results.
There need be no hesitation in affirming that this choral work marks
the apex of attainment in modern Italian choral composition, and it
may be considered the most valuable individual product of the Italian
choral revival.
IV
Turning from Italy to Scandinavia, we find that in general little
creative work is done in the choral forms at the present day.
In Finland, as in Denmark, the cantata after the Handelian or
Mendelssohnian model is still in vogue. Even Sibelius has done little
in the way of choral writing--only a ‘Festival Cantata’ and some
choruses; nor has anything of importance been written in Norway in this
genre since the death of Grieg; while oratorio, though largely given in
concert in Sweden, has not stimulated original composition.
In Russia more has been done. The Neo-Russians turn more naturally
to symphonic and operatic composition than to the choral forms, and
although quite a few of the great contemporaries are identified with
choral compositions, collectively there has not been a great deal
written, with the exception of music for the liturgic services of the
Greek Catholic Church, to which Tschaikowsky, Bortniansky, and others
have made notable contributions. This liturgic music does not call for
consideration here, as it is discussed elsewhere. The folk-music of
Russia, which plays such a prominent part as thematic material in the
works of the Neo-Russian school, is chorally more identified with the
operatic vocal ensemble, which is also outside the scope of the present
chapter.
The original choral compositions of contemporary Russia stand high,
qualitatively. Moussorgsky is represented by his virile ‘Destruction
of Sennacherib’ (1866) for chorus and orchestra, and a choral number
from his opera, _Salâmmbo_, revised, polished and enlarged as a chorus
for mixed voices and solo under the title of ‘Joshua,’ one of the few
of the composer’s works which show a strong Oriental flavor. Nor has
Rimsky-Korsakoff, the friend and editor of Moussorgsky, written much
more. There is a cantata for tenor, bass, male chorus and orchestra,
‘The Doom of Olga’ (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1909); another, _Switezianka_,
for soprano, tenor, chorus and orchestra, a cantata entitled
_Doubmouchka_ and a ‘Gloria’ for orchestra and chorus; as well as
fifteen folk-songs arranged for mixed voices.
Glazounoff, the symphonist, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakoff, is the author,
jointly with Liadow, of a cantata in memory of the celebrated Russian
sculptor Antokolsky, for tenor solo, chorus and orchestra, written
after his defection from the ranks of the national school; and Liadow
himself has set forty-five folk-songs for female voices and composed a
musical setting, for mixed voices and orchestra, of the last scene from
Schiller’s ‘Bride of Messina.’
Arensky has given us a fine choral number--‘The Fountain of
Bachtchissarai,’ after a Pushkin poem, for solo voices, chorus and
orchestra; while Rachmaninoff’s spirited and plastically written choral
ballad, ‘Springtide,’ after a poem by Nekrassoff, composed in 1901
for dramatic baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra, has already been
heard in this country. A new choral work by Rachmaninoff, set to E.
A. Poe’s poem ‘The Bells,’ was given at Petrograd in the recent past
with great success. Glière has to his credit a choral suite for female
voices, with the four seasons as its textual basis; Ippolitoff-Ivanoff
has written three cantatas, Oriental in coloring, each in memory of a
Russian poet; Akimenko has composed choruses for mixed voices; Georges
Catoire for female voices; and Alexander Tanejew has set two groups of
twelve poems each, for four and five-part chorus respectively, while
his better-known nephew, Sergius Ivanovitch, who died this year in
Petrograd (1915), is the composer of a cantata, ‘St. John of Damascus’
(1884). Stravinsky, too, has a cantata to his credit, composed in 1911,
and this practically completes the tale of contemporary Russian choral
composition.
In concluding this study of contemporary choral music there only remain
to be mentioned, in Poland, Felix Nowowiejski, author of several
‘concert-dramas,’ ‘The Prodigal Son’ (1901), ‘The Discovery of the Holy
Cross’ (1906) and _Quo Vadis_ (1907)--rich in theatrical effect; and in
Hungary, Mauritius Vavrineoz, with an oratorio, _Christus_. In Spain
and Portugal choral music, in the modern sense of the word, is hardly
written. Felipe Pedrell’s dramatic cantata _Comte Arnau_, a score
distinctly modern in style and treatment, and Grignón’s _La Nit de
Nadal_, for chorus, solos and orchestra, are about the only ones that
come to mind.
FOOTNOTES:
[90] Schering: _Geschichte des Oratoriums_, p. 546.
[91] Romain Rolland: _Musiciens d’Aujourd’hui_, Paris.