_Istar_, the _Symphony on a Mountain Air_, and _A Summer Day on the
Mountain_ were composed in the period of d’Indy’s life when he was
concerned chiefly with making music, and not telling young composers how
it should be made. Those three compositions, with the Symphony in B flat
major, will represent him honorably in the years to come. One should not
underrate his work as a teacher, his high ideals. His technic did not
leave him in his later works, but his brain was more in evidence than
any source of emotion. Maurice Boucher, speaking of Debussy being drawn
instinctively toward the French poets contemporaneous with him (the
poems of Rossetti and the dramas of Maeterlinck also attracted him) said
that d’Indy “by his temperament was borne toward doctrinal discussions.”
In _Istar_, though his technical skill is brilliantly in evidence, there
is pure music from the beginning to the end. It is true that the
withholding of the theme in its full glory to the end might be called a
“stunt,” as Ravel’s _Bolero_ is a stunt, but d’Indy’s is the legitimate,
inevitable crowning of the work; Ravel’s was designed chiefly to create
curiosity with a final surprise, and the _Bolero_ once known does not
bear repeated hearings, for the effect, once known, is afterward
discounted if not wholly lost.
* * *
This composition was first brought out in Brussels, and led by Eugène
Ysaye, on January 10, 1897; it was performed in Chicago and led by
Theodore Thomas on April 23, 1898. The variations—the work is
practically a symphonic poem—are scored for piccolo, two flutes, two
oboes, English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, three bassoons,
four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums,
cymbals, triangle, two harps, and strings. They are dedicated to the
Orchestral Society of the Ysaye Concerts.
William Foster Apthorp translated the verses on the title-page as
follows:
_Toward the immutable land Istar, daughter of Sin, bent her steps,
toward the abode of the dead, toward the seven-gated abode where He
entered, toward the abode whence there is no return._
. . . . . .
_At the first gate, the warder stripped her; he took the high tiara
from her head._
_At the second gate, the warder stripped her; he took the pendants
from her ears._
_At the third gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the precious
stones that adorn her neck._
_At the fourth gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the jewels
that adorn her breast._
_At the fifth gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the girdle
that encompasses her waist._
_At the sixth gate, the warder stripped her; he took rings from her
feet, the rings from her hands._
_At the seventh gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the last
veil that covers her body._
. . . . . .
_Istar daughter of Sin went into the immutable land, she took and
received the Waters of Life. She gave the sublime Waters, and thus, in
the presence of all, delivered the Son of Life, her young lover._
The variations begin _très lent_, F minor, 4-4, with a somber motive
(first horn). The violas and clarinets, accompanied by wood-wind
instruments in syncopated rhythm, answer with a second motive, and there
is a modulation to F major. The variations, as Mr. Apthorp says, have
one wholly original peculiarity: “The theme is not given out simply at
the beginning, neither is it heard in its entirety until the last
variation, in which it is sung by various groups of instruments in
unison and octaves, and worked up later in full harmony. Each one of the
variations represents one of the seven stages of Istar’s being disrobed
at the gates of the ‘immutable land,’ until in the last she stands forth
in the full splendor of nudity. The composition is so free as to resent
technical analysis; but by following the poem, and noting the garment or
ornament taken off, the listener can appreciate the composer’s poetic or
picturesque suggestiveness in his music.”
M. Lambinet, a professor at a Bordeaux public school, chose in 1905 the
text “Pro Musica” for his prize-day speech. He told the boys that the
first thing the study of music would teach them would be logic. “In
symphonic development logic plays as great a part as sentiment. The
theme is a species of axiom, full of musical truth, whence proceed
deductions. The musician deals with sounds as the geometrician with
lines and the dialectician with arguments.” The master went on to
remark: “A great modern composer, M. Vincent d’Indy, has reversed the
customary process in his symphonic poem _Istar_. He by degrees unfolds
from initial complexity the simple idea which was wrapped up therein,
and appears only at the close, like Isis unveiled, like a scientific law
discovered and formulated.” The speaker found this happy definition for
such a musical work—“an inductive symphony.”
FRANZ
LISZT
(Born at Raiding, near Oedenburg, Hungary, October 22, 1811; died at
Bayreuth, July 31, 1886)
Liszt suffered as a composer from foolish adulation and still more
absurd denunciation. It was not so many years ago that otherwise
fair-minded musicians, professors in conservatories, composers of smug,
respectable music, pianists and violinists of nimble fingers and
lukewarm blood, would leave the concert hall with an air whenever one of
Liszt’s works was about to be performed. Liszt also suffered from
admiring friends who helped themselves to his musical thoughts, to his
new forms of musical expression, and using them for their own advantage,
were applauded by the crowd, while Liszt himself was ignored or flouted.
How much of Liszt there is in Richard Wagner’s best!
Programme music has existed from the early days of the art. No doubt
David’s performance before Saul had some definite programme; but the
symphonic poem as it is now known was invented and shaped by Liszt, and
he has influenced in this respect composers of every nation. The modern
Russians all hark back to Berlioz and Liszt. The more recent Germans and
even the modern French were made possible by this Hungarian, who, in
Paris, Weimar, or Rome, was first of all a citizen of the world. In the
mass of his compositions there is mysticism that is vague and
insignificant; there is affected simplicity that is as childish prattle;
there is pathos that is bathos; eloquence sometimes degenerates into
bombast; there is frequently the odor of tanbark, the vision of the
ringmaster cracking his whip and the man in tights and spangles leaping
through paper hoops or kissing his hand from the trapeze. Liszt was
first famous as a virtuoso, and as Edward MacDowell once said, in every
virtuoso there is the possibility of the rope dancer; it is in his
blood.
The faults of Liszt as a composer are open to everyone. When they lie in
the music for the piano they have been too often exaggerated by the
“Liszt pupil.” Nor have orchestral conductors always been fortunate in
the interpretation of the greater works; they have been intoxicated by
the pomp or fury and were unable to draw the line between sonority and
vulgarity.
We are inclined to judge a master of years gone by as though he were a
contemporary, and forgetting that he in his day was a daring innovator,
a revolutionary, we cry out against his music as trite and moribund.
Certain forms of Liszt’s expression, forms that recall the reign of
Rossini or Meyerbeer, are now distasteful to us, as are certain formulas
of Wagner. Excessive modernity contains the seeds of early death. But
the architecture that Liszt devised is still strong and beautiful, and
is today a model for others who delight in strange ornamentation. The
world of music owes Liszt a debt that it will be long in paying, and, as
other debtors, it often forgets what it owes and abuses the creditor.
The years go by and the generosity, the loving-kindness, the nobility of
Liszt, the man, are more and more clearly revealed. His purse, advice,
assistance were ever ready. He would not cringe or flatter. His art was
a religion. He was one of the very few composers that stood at ease in
the presence of the mighty and were not snobbish toward the unfortunate,
the misunderstood, the unappreciated. As a man in the world of his art
he is therefore to be ranked with Handel and Hector Berlioz.