JULES MASSENET
Massenet has been praised indiscriminately--sometimes for his numerous
and brilliant powers and sometimes for merits he did not have at all.
I have waited to speak of him until the time when the Académie was ready
to replace him,--that is to say, put some one in his place, for great
artists are never replaced. Others succeed them with their own
individual and different powers, but they do not take their places
nevertheless. Malibran has never been replaced, nor Madame Viardot,
Madame Carvalho, Talma and Rachel. No one can ever replace Patti, Bartet
or Sarah Bernhardt. They could not replace Ingres, Delacroix, Berlioz,
or Gounod, and they can never replace Massenet.
It is a question whether he has been accorded his real place. Perhaps
his pupils have estimated him at his true worth, but they were grateful
for his excellent teaching, and may be rightly suspected of partiality.
Others have spoken slightingly of his works and they have applied to him
by transposing the words of the celebrated dictum: _Saltavit et
placuit_. He sang and wept, so they sought to deprecate him as if there
were something reprehensible in an artist's pleasing the public. This
notion might seem to have some basis in view of the taste that is
affected to-day--a predilection for all that is shocking and displeasing
in all the arts, including poetry. Sorcières's epigram--the ugly is
beautiful and the beautiful ugly--has become a programme. People are no
longer content with merely admiring atrocities, they even speak with
contempt of beauties hallowed by time and the admiration of centuries.
The fact remains that Massenet is one of the most brilliant diamonds in
our musical crown. No musician has enjoyed so much favor with the public
save Auber, whom Massenet did not care for any more than he did for his
school, but whom he resembled closely. They were alike in their
facility, their amazing fertility, genius, gracefulness, and success.
Both composed music which was agreeable to their contemporaries. Both
were accused of pandering to their audiences. The answer to this is that
both their audiences and the artists had the same tastes and so were in
perfect accord.
To-day the revolutionists are the only ones held in esteem by the
critics. Well, it may be a fine thing to despise the mob, to struggle
against the current, and to compel the mob by force of genius and energy
to follow one despite their resistance. Yet one may be a great artist
without doing that.
There was nothing revolutionary about Sebastian Bach with his two
hundred and fifty cantatas, which were performed as fast as they were
written and which were constantly in demand for important occasions.
Handel managed the theater where his operas were produced and his
oratorios were sung, and they would have indubitably failed, if he had
gone against the accustomed taste of his audiences. Haydn wrote to
supply the music for Prince Esterhazy's chapel; Mozart was forced to
write constantly, and Rossini worked for an intolerant public which
would not have allowed one of his operas to be played, if the overture
did not contain the great _crescendo_ for which he has been so
reproached. These were none of them revolutionists, yet they were great
musicians.
Another criticism is made against Massenet. He was superficial, they
say, and lacked depth. Depth, as we know, is very much the fashion.
It is true that Massenet was not profound, but that is of little
consequence. Just as there are many mansions in our Father's house, so
there are many in Apollo's. Art is vast. The artist has a perfect right
to descend to the nethermost depths and to enter into the inner secrets
of the soul, but this right is not a duty.
The artists of Ancient Greece, with all their marvellous works, were not
profound. Their marble goddesses were beautiful, and beauty was
sufficient.
Our old-time sculptors--Clodion and Coysevox--were not profound; nor
were Fragonard, La Tour, nor Marivaux, yet they brought honor to the
French school.
All have their value and all are necessary. The rose with its fresh
color and its perfume, is, in its way, as precious as the sturdy oak.
Art has a place for artists of all kinds, and no one should flatter
himself that he is the only one who is capable of covering the entire
field of art.
Some, even in treating a familiar subject, have as much dignity as a
Roman emperor on his golden throne, but Massenet did not belong to this
type. He had charm, attraction and a passionateness that was feverish
rather than deep. His melody was wavering and uncertain, oftentimes more
a recitative than melody properly so called, and it was entirely his
own. It lacks structure and style. Yet how can one resist when he hears
Manon at the feet of Des Grieux in the sacristy of Saint-Sulpice, or
help being stirred to the depths by such outpourings of love? One cannot
reflect or analyze when moved in this way.
After emotional art comes decadent art. But that is of little
consequence. Decadence in art is often far from being artistic
deterioration.
Massenet's music has one great attraction for me and one that is rare
in these days--it is gay. And gaiety is frowned upon in modern music.
They criticise Haydn and Mozart for their gaiety, and turn away their
faces in shame before the exuberant joyousness with which the _Ninth
Symphony_ comes to its triumphal close. Long live gloom. Hurrah for
boredom! So say our young people. They may live to regret, too late, the
lost hours which they might have spent in gaiety.
Massenet's facility was something prodigious. I have seen him sick in
bed, in a most uncomfortable position, and still turning off pages of
orchestration, which followed one another with disconcerting speed. Too
often such facility engenders laziness, but in his case we know what an
enormous amount of work he accomplished. He has been criticised as being
too prolific. However, that is a quality which belongs only to a master.
The artist who produces little may, if he has ability, be an interesting
artist, but he will never be a great one.
[Illustration: M. Jules Massenet]
In this time of anarchy in art, when all he had to do to conciliate
the hostile critics was to array himself with the _fauves_, Massenet set
an example of impeccable writing. He knew how to combine modernism with
respect for tradition, and he did this at a time when all he had to do
was to trample tradition under foot and be proclaimed a genius. Master
of his trade as few have ever been, alive to all its difficulties,
possessing the most subtle secrets of its technique, he despised the
contortions and exaggerations which simple minds confound with the
science of music. He followed out the course he had set for himself
without any concern for what they might say about him. He was able to
adopt within reason the novelties from abroad and he was clever in
assimilating them perfectly, yet he presented the spectacle of a
thoroughly French artist whom neither the Lorelei of the Rhine nor the
sirens of the Mediterranean could lead astray. He was a _virtuoso_ of
the orchestra, yet he never sacrificed the voices for the instruments,
nor did he sacrifice orchestral color for the voices. Finally, he had
the greatest gift of all, that of life, a gift which cannot be defined,
but which the public always recognizes and which assures the success of
works far inferior to his.
Much has been said about the friendship between us--a notion based
solely on the demonstrations he showered on me in public--and in public
alone. He might have had my friendship, if he had wanted it, and it
would have been a devoted friendship, but he did not want it. He
told--what I never told--how I got one of his works presented at Weimar,
where _Samson_ had just been given. What he did not tell was the icy
reception he gave me when I brought the news and when I expected an
entirely different sort of a reception. From that day on I never
intervened again, and I was content to rejoice in his success without
expecting any reciprocity on his part, which I knew to be impossible
after a confession he made to me one day. My friends and companions in
arms were Bizet, Guiraud and Delibes; Massenet was a rival. His high
opinion of me, therefore, was the more valuable when he did me the honor
of recommending his pupils to study my works. I have brought up this
question only to make clear that when I proclaim his great musical
importance, I am guided solely by my artistic conscience and that my
sincerity cannot be suspected. One word more. Massenet had many
imitators; he never imitated anyone.