When I met the Abbe he began again on the same subject.
"Come, come, my dear boy, it is a word and a blow with you really and
truly! Is there no middle course? Do let us consider the matter calmly.
You went off like a sky-rocket this morning!"
"My dear Abbe, there is not the slightest use in beginning it all over
again. I stick to everything I have said. If I am to notice the
objections of this person or that, I may just as well give up trying to
do anything at all. Either I stay with a perfectly free hand, or else I
go. Those are my conditions, as you know, and I will not alter them one
jot."
"Oh dear! oh dear!" he said, "what a terrible fellow you are!" And then
after a pause, "Well then, you had better stop!"
From that day forth he never mentioned the subject again, and left me
absolute liberty of action. Little by little, my bitterest opponents
became my warmest supporters, and the increasing sympathy of my hearers
soon caused my modest salary to swell. I had begun with 1200 francs a
year, which was not a large sum. The second year my pay was increased by
300 francs; the third I had 1800, and the fourth 2100 francs. But I must
not anticipate.
We lived, my mother and I, in the same house as the Abbe. Another
priest, three years older than myself, who had been a schoolfellow of
mine at the Lycee St. Louis, resided under the same roof--the Abbe
Charles Gay. In the ordinary course of events, the disparity of our ages
and his seniority in the school would have prevented any intimacy
between us, even if we had happened to be acquainted with each other.
However, our common taste for music had brought us together at the
Lycee. Charles Gay, who was then about fourteen, had very remarkable
musical aptitude, and used to take the second soprano parts in the
choruses; he was also one of the most brilliant scholars at the college.
He concluded his studies, and I lost sight of him for three years. I met
him again in the Foyer at the Opera one night, when "La Juive" was
being played. I knew him at once, and accosted him.
"Hallo!" he said, "is that you? And what are you doing with yourself?"
"I have gone in for composing."
"Really!" he said. "So have I. Who are you working with?"
"With Reicha."
"Why, so am I. This is delightful; we must see a lot of each other!"
Thus it was that our schoolboy friendship was renewed, and still remains
one of the strongest of my life.
I had the greatest admiration for my friend, who possessed musical
powers of the very highest order, and whose talent, as I freely
recognised, far surpassed my own. His compositions struck me as being
full of genius, and I envied him the career I felt sure the future had
in store for him. I often spent my evenings in his rooms, where there
was always plenty of music going on. His sister was an excellent
pianiste, and besides his own compositions (which we often used to try
over, among his intimate friends), trios by Mozart and Beethoven were
frequently given.
One day I received a note from my friend (who was out of town) asking
me to come and see him, as he had something interesting to tell me. My
first thought was that he was going to be married; but when I reached
his house, he told me he was anxious to enter the Church. This explained
all the folios and other big books I had for some time remarked lying
about on his table. I was too young then to grasp the meaning of so
sudden a change, and I regretted his decision to sacrifice such a
smiling future to a life which seemed to me devoid of charm.
Meanwhile he made up his mind to pay a visit to Rome, and there begin
his theological studies. I myself had just won the Grand Prix, which
necessitated my going to Rome for two years. So it fell out that I met
my friend again, he having arrived some three months before myself. When
I came back from Germany, luck brought us together again by settling us
under the same roof.
The Abbe Gay has now been a priest for more than thirty years, and is
the Vicar-General of his intimate friend the Bishop of Poitiers.[12] Not
his virtues only, but his talents as a speaker and a writer too, have
brought him the reputation of being one of the most eminent ornaments
the French clergy boasts.
Towards the third year of my duties as chapel-master, I myself felt a
certain leaning towards an ecclesiastical career. Besides my musical
studies, I had dabbled somewhat in philosophy and theology, and had even
attended the theological lectures at the seminary at St. Sulpice all
through one winter, wearing the dress of an ecclesiastical student.
But I had utterly mistaken my own nature and my proper vocation. I felt,
after a time, that existence without my art was quite impossible for me,
so, casting off the garb which suited me so ill, I went back into the
world again. To this youthful phase of mine, however, I owe a friendship
which I make it a point of honour to record in this chronicle of my life
history.
During the summer of 1846 I was ordered, with the Abbes Dumarsais and
Gay, to take sea baths at Trouville. One day I had a narrow escape from
drowning, and so quickly did the press get hold of the fact, that the
news was published next morning even in the Paris papers. Luckily I had
lost no time in writing to tell my brother I was safe, so he was able
to calm my mother's fears by showing her my letter. The papers had
calmly announced that "I had been brought home dead on a shutter!" Truly
the flimsiest truth travels slower than the weightiest lie! We chanced
during this sea-bathing trip to come across a worthy Abbe walking on the
beach with a boy, who was his pupil. This boy, some twelve or thirteen
years of age, was named Gaston de Beaucourt. His mother, the Comtesse de
Beaucourt, owned a fine property some leagues from Trouville, between
Pont l'Eveque and Lisieux. She invited us, in the most courteous and
kindly way, to go and stay there before returning to Paris.
That charming and lovable boy, now a man of three-and-forty, and one of
the best that ever lived, became my lifelong friend, to whose affection,
sure and strong and tender, I owe not only the happiness our perfect
mutual comprehension brings, but many a precious proof of the deepest
and most unselfish devotion.
The Revolution of 1848 had just broken out when I resigned my post as
chapel-master of the Missions Etrangeres. My duties during the four and
a half years I held it had served me admirably in the development and
improvement of my musical education; but they were not calculated to
advance my career to any practical extent, for they kept me vegetating
in a corner, as it were. There is only one road for a composer who
desires to make a real name--the operatic stage. The stage is the one
place where a musician can find constant opportunity and means of
communicating with the public. It is a sort of daily and permanent
exhibition where his works can be perpetually on view.
Religious and symphonic music no doubt rank higher, in the strictest
sense, than dramatic composition; but opportunities for distinction in
that highest sphere are very rare, and can only affect an occasional
audience, not a regular and systematic one like the opera-going public.
Then, again, look at the huge variety of subject which lies before the
dramatic author! What scope for fancy, for invention! what endless
plots!
The stage tempted me irresistibly. I was nearly thirty, and eager to try
my fortune on the fresh field I dreamt of. But I had no libretto, and I
knew nobody whom I could ask to write me one. Then I had to find an
impresario willing to employ me and trust me with a commission; and who
was likely to do that, in face of the undoubted fact that my previous
training had been mostly confined to sacred music, and that I knew
nothing about the stage? Altogether I was in a fix.
But fortune led me to a man who soon shed light upon my path. This was
the violinist Seghers, who then managed the concerts of the Societe Ste.
Cecile, in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin. Some compositions of mine had
been performed at these concerts, and very favourably received. Seghers
was a friend of the Viardots. Madame Viardot was then at the zenith of
her talent and reputation--this was in 1849, just when she had created
the _role_ of Fides in Meyerbeer's "Le Prophete" with such tremendous
success. Madame Viardot received me with the utmost kindness, and
suggested my letting her hear some of my work. I complied, of course,
with the greatest delight. We spent a long time at the piano, and after
listening to me with the kindest attention, she said--
"But, Monsieur Gounod, why do you not write an opera?"
"Indeed, Madame," I replied, "I would gladly do so, but I have no
libretto."
"But surely you know somebody who could write you one?"
"Oh yes, no doubt I do; but 'could' and 'would' are very different
words! I know, or rather when I was a child I _used_ to know, Emile
Augier; we trundled our hoops together in the Luxemburg. But since those
days Augier has grown famous, and I have remained in my native
obscurity. I hardly think my old playmate would care to join me in
anything more risky than a hoop race!"
"Very well," said Madame Viardot, "go and see Augier, and tell him that
if he will write the libretto I will sing the principal part in your
opera."
My readers may fancy I did not wait to be told that twice. I tore off to
Augier, who accepted my suggestion with enthusiastic delight.
"What! Madame Viardot!" he cried. "I should rather think so! I will set
to work at once!"
Nestor Roqueplan was then impresario at the Opera. He was quite willing,
on Madame Viardot's recommendation, to give up part of an evening's
performance to my work, but he could not, he said, spare more. So we had
to look for a subject which would combine three essential points--(1)
brevity, (2) interest, (3) a central female figure. We pitched on the
story of Sappho. The opera could not, in any case, be put into rehearsal
till the following year; besides, Augier had to finish a big work he was
then employed on. It was, I believe, his "Diane" for Mademoiselle
Rachel.
At all events I held a formal promise, and I awaited the event with
mingled impatience and calm. Just as I was about to set to work, a
crushing blow fell on me and mine. This was in April 1850. Augier had
just finished the poem of "Sappho." My brother was taken ill on the 2nd;
on the 3rd I signed my agreement with Roqueplan, whereby I undertook to
hand him over the score of "Sappho" by September 30 at latest. This
allowed me six months to compose and write a three-act opera, my maiden
dramatic effort. On the night of the 6th of April my brother breathed
his last. It was a fearful grief to my old mother and to all of us.
My brother left a widow, with a child of two years old, and the prospect
of another. It was born seven months later, opening its baby eyes on
this sad world on the very day when the Church joins us in mourning the
memory of our beloved dead.
These sad circumstances induced many difficulties and complications
which demanded close and immediate attention. The guardianship of the
children, the carrying on of my brother's business as an architect (for
his death left much work still unfinished), every possible consequence,
in fact, of such a sudden and unforeseen disaster, forced me to devote
my time for quite a month to safeguarding the interests and arranging
for the future of my unhappy sister-in-law, whose grief had quite
prostrated her, physically and mentally. Besides all this, my poor
mother nearly lost her reason under the stunning blow which had fallen
on her. Every circumstance, both personal and external, seemed combined
to unfit me utterly for an undertaking for which the time at my disposal
already seemed so insufficient.
Within about a month, however, I was able to think seriously of making
the beginning which was growing so urgently necessary. Madame Viardot,
who had been on tour in Germany, and whom I had informed of the sad
trouble we were in, wrote at once to urge me to take my mother with me
and settle down for a while at a country place of her own in the
neighbourhood of La Brie, where, she said, I should have the quiet and
calm I needed.
I took her advice, and my mother and I started for Madame Viardot's
house, where we found her mother (Madame Garcia, widow of the famous
singer), a sister of Monsieur Viardot's and a girl, his eldest child,
who is now Madame Heritte, and a composer of considerable note. There,
too, I met a most delightful man, Ivan Tourgueneff, the celebrated
Russian author, a close and intimate friend of the Viardot family.
I set to work at once. Though--strange fact!--the feelings which had
been so lately torn by painful emotion might naturally have been
expected to find their first expression in sorrow-laden and pathetic
strains, just the reverse took place. The first ideas that came to me
were full of gaiety and brightness, and they filled all my brain, as if
my inner nature, crushed down by grief and mourning, felt the need of
some reaction, and longed to draw a breath of happier life after my long
hours of anguish and days of tears and bitter mourning.
Thanks to the calmness of the atmosphere around me, my work progressed
much faster than I had dared to hope. After her German tour, Madame
Viardot's engagements took her to England, whence she returned in the
beginning of September, and found my labour nearly completed. I hastened
to play her my work, of which I anxiously desired her opinion. She was
quite satisfied with it, and in the course of a few days she knew the
score so well, that she was able to accompany the whole of it by heart.
This is about the most wonderful musical feat I ever witnessed, and
gives some idea of the extraordinary powers of that splendid musician.
"Sappho" was performed for the first time on April 16, 1851, just before
my thirty-second birthday. It was not a success, but, all the same, it
earned me a good position in the opinion of contemporary artists. It
does indeed betray a lack of theatrical instinct, a want of knowledge of
stage effect, and of the resources of an orchestra, and some ignorance
in handling it. But, on the other hand, the expression is true in
feeling, the appreciation of the subject, from the lyrical point of
view, is fairly exact, and the general style of treatment is distinctly
dignified in tendency. The finale of the first act produced an effect
which fairly astonished me. It was loudly and unanimously encored. I
could hardly believe my ears, though they were tingling with the
unaccustomed emotion, but the encore was repeated at every subsequent
performance.
The effect of the second act was not so good as that of the first, in
spite of the success of an air sung by Madame Viardot, and of the light
duet, "Va m'attendre, mon maitre," sung by Bremond and Mdlle. Poinsot.
But the third act made a very good impression. The goatherd's song,
"Broutez le thym, broutez mes chevres," was encored, and Sappho's final
stanza, "O ma lyre immortelle," were loudly applauded.
The cowherd's song gave the tenor Aymes his first opportunity of
appearing in public; he sang it beautifully, and thereby laid the
foundation of his reputation. Gueymard and Marie took the parts of Phaon
and Alcee.
My mother was present, of course, at the first performance of my opera.
As I passed along one of the corridors on the way from the stage to the
auditorium, where I was to meet her after the crowd had dispersed, I
came upon my friend Berlioz, his eyes still wet with tears. I threw my
arm round him, and said--
"Oh, dear Berlioz, come and show those wet eyes of yours to my mother.
No newspaper paragraph about my opera will make her half so proud."
He granted my request, and said to her--
"Madame, I do not think anything has touched me so much for the last
twenty years."
He afterwards published a notice of my opera, which I still regard as
one of the most flattering and precious I have ever had the delight and
honour of receiving.
"Sappho" was only acted six times. Madame Viardot's engagement was
almost over, and her place in the opera was taken by Mdlle. Masson, who
only sang the part three times.
I think it may safely be laid down as a general principle, that a
theatrical work always, or almost always, has the public reception it
really deserves. Theatrical success so inevitably depends on a variety
of small details, that the failure of any one--of the merest accessories
even--may (as has frequently happened) counterbalance, and perhaps
utterly compromise, the effect of the finest qualities of conception and
performance. Staging, ballet, scenery, dresses, book, fifty things go to
make or mar an opera. The public, if its interest is to be kept alive,
demands constant "variety." Many works of the very highest merit in some
respects, have failed, not in rousing the admiration of true artists,
but in winning popular favour, simply through their lack of this
"spice," so indispensable to that class of the public which is not
content with the simple charm of intellectual beauty.
I do not for a moment desire to claim the benefit of this excuse for my
"Sappho." The public's right of passing judgment on any work offered to
it is based on a prerogative peculiar to itself, and conferring special
competence. It would be unfair to ask or expect it to possess that
specific knowledge which would enable it to decide as to the technical
value of a work of art. But, on the other hand, the public has a
distinct right to expect and demand that a play or opera should satisfy
those particular instincts the satisfaction and gratification of which
it seeks within the playhouse walls. The success of a dramatic work then
does not depend solely on the quality of its form and style. Both are no
doubt essential--nay, indispensable--to save it from the rapid ravages
of Time, whose scythe spares naught that is not essentially true and
beautiful. But form and style are not its only, nor even, in a sense,
its strongest support. They may and do strengthen and solidify success;
they cannot make it.
The theatre-going public is a sort of dynamometer. It has nothing to do
with the question of whether the play is in good taste or not. Its sole
duty is to gauge what constitutes the true essence of every dramatic
work--the strength of passion and the degree of emotion it expresses;
its rendering, in fact, of the feelings which sway all human souls,
individually and collectively. The consequence is, that author and
audience become unconscious instruments in their mutual artistic
education. The public is the author's criterion and measure of truth;
the author serves his public as an exhibitor of the elements and
conditions of the beautiful. This explanation is the only one, to my
mind, which can account for the mysterious and incessant changes in
public taste. What was madly sought for yesterday is neglected to-day;
one evening will see men ready to tear to pieces the very thing the next
morning will see them worshipping on bended knees.
Though not exactly a success, "Sappho" brought me some solid advantage,
both present and future. On the very night of the first performance,
Ponsard asked me to undertake the choral music for "Ulysse," a tragedy
in five acts which he was just bringing out at the Theatre Francais. I
agreed at once, although I did not know the play. It was quite enough
for me to have the chance of collaborating with the author of "Lucrece,"
of "Charlotte Corday," and of "Agnes de Meranie." I felt quite safe.
Arsene Houssaye was then at the head of the Comedie Francaise. He was
obliged to add a chorus to the ordinary staff, and increase the
orchestra as well.[13]
"Ulysse" was played on June 18, 1852. I had been married a few days
previously to a daughter of Zimmerman,[14] the distinguished Professor
of the Piano at the Conservatoire. To his school we owe Prudent,
Marmontel, Goria, Lefebure-Wely, Ravina, Bizet, and many other fine
musicians. By this marriage I became brother-in-law to the young
painter, Edouard Dubufe, who was even then successfully following in his
father's footsteps. His son, Guillaume Dubufe, seems, at the time I
write, to be likely to maintain the reputation of his forefathers right
worthily.
The principal parts in "Ulysse" were filled by Mademoiselle Judith,
Messieurs Geffroy, Delaunay, and Maubant, Mademoiselle Nathalie, and
others. The musical portion of the performance consisted of no less than
fourteen choruses, one tenor solo, several melodramatic instrumental
passages, and an orchestral overture. There was a certain risk of
monotony in the general effect, as the composer was limited to orchestra
and chorus; but I was fortunate enough to avoid the difficulty fairly
well, and this second work of mine earned me fresh good-will in the
artistic world. No publisher had offered to publish the score of
"Sappho," but that of "Ulysse" was more favoured. Messieurs Escudier did
me the honour and the kindness of printing it free of charge.
"Ulysse" had a run of forty performances. It was the second ordeal, as
regards dramatic composition, through which my mother had watched me
pass. The choruses of "Ulysse," as far as I can judge them, are fairly
correct in character and expression, and are marked by a distinctly
personal style. The orchestral treatment still fails from lack of
experience, more than in actual colour, the general feeling for which
strikes me as being fairly good.
A few days after my marriage I was appointed Superintendent of
Instruction in Singing to the Communal Schools of the City of Paris, and
Director of the Choral Society connected with them, in the place of
Monsieur Hubert, himself the pupil and successor of Wilhem, the original
creator of the said society.
This post I held for eight years and a half, and its duties were of the
greatest service to me, musically speaking. They taught me to direct and
utilise large masses of vocal sound, so as to develop the maxim of
sonority under very simple methods of treatment.
My third musical venture on the stage was "La Nonne Sanglante," an opera
in five acts, by Scribe and Germain Delarigne. Nestor Roqueplan, who was
still Director of the Opera, had taken a fancy to "Sappho" and to me. I
was capable, so he declared, of doing great things, and at his wish I
wrote a five-act piece for the Opera. "La Nonne Sanglante" was written
in 1852-53, rehearsed for the first time on October 18, 1853, put aside
and rehearsed again several times over, and finally saw the footlights
on October, 18, 1854, just a year after the first rehearsal. It was only
acted eight times. Roqueplan was succeeded as Director of the Opera by
Monsieur Crosnier, and as the new chief declared he would not allow
"such stuff" to be acted, "La Nonne Sanglante" disappeared from the
bills, and has never shown her face again.
It was rather a grief to me. The very respectable figure reached by the
receipts certainly did not warrant such drastic and summary treatment.
But directorial decisions sometimes, so I have heard it whispered, have
hidden motives which it is vain to try and discover. In such cases the
real reason is concealed, and some other pretext put forward.
I cannot say whether "La Nonne Sanglante" would have had any permanent
success--I am inclined to think not. Not that the work was poor in
effects; there were some most striking situations. But the subject is
too uniformly gloomy. It had the drawback, too, of having a plot that
was more than fanciful or improbable; it was downright impossible, and
depended on a purely imaginary situation, utterly false, and therefore
devoid of dramatic interest, which cannot exist without truthfulness, or
at all events something approaching thereto.
I think, in the matter of orchestration, I made a forward stride in "La
Nonne Sanglante." Some parts show an increased knowledge of
instrumentation, and seem to bear the impress of a firmer hand. There is
good colour in many scenes--such, for instance, as the Crusaders' Hymn,
with Peter the Hermit and the chorus, in the first act; the symphonic
prelude in the ruins, and the Ghosts' March, in the second; the tenor
air and the duet with the Nun, in the third.
The principal parts were played by Mesdemoiselles Wertheimber and
Poinsot, and Messieurs Gueymard, Depassio, and Merly.