Chapter II (3)

In Germany, however, they make no mistake about him. There, the name of Camille Saint-Saëns stands for the French classical spirit, and is thought worthiest to represent us in music from the time of Berlioz until the appearance of the young school of César Franck--though Franck himself is as yet little known in Germany. M. Saint-Saëns possesses, indeed, some of the best qualities of a French artist, and among them the most important quality of all--perfect clearness of conception. It is remarkable how little this learned artist is bothered by his learning, and how free he is from all pedantry. Pedantry is the plague of German art, and the greatest men have not escaped it. I am not speaking of Brahms, who was ravaged with it, but of delightful geniuses like Schumann, or of powerful ones like Bach. "This unnatural art wearies one like the sanctimonious salon of some little provincial town; it stifles one, it is enough to kill one."[117] "Saint-Saëns is not a pedant," wrote Gounod; "he has remained too much of a child and become too clever for that." Besides, he has always been too much of a Frenchman.

[Footnote 117: Quoted from Saint-Saëns by Edmond Hippeau in _Henry VIII et L'Opéra français_, 1883. M. Saint-Saëns speaks elsewhere of "these works, well written, but heavy and unattractive, and reflecting in a tiresome way the narrow and pedantic spirit of certain little towns in Germany" (_Harmonie et Mélodie_).]

Sometimes Saint-Saëns reminds me of one of our eighteenth-century writers. Not a writer of the _Encyclopédie_, nor one of Rousseau's camp, but rather of Voltaire's school. He has a clearness of thought, an elegance and precision of expression, and a quality of mind that make his music "not only noble, but very noble, as coming of a fine race and distinguished family."[118]

He has also excellent discernment, of an unemotional kind; and he is "calm in spirit, restrained in imagination, and keeps his self-control even in the midst of the most disturbing emotions."[119] This discernment is the enemy of anything approaching obscurity of thought or mysticism; and its outcome was that curious book, _Problèmes et Mystères_--a misleading title, for the spirit of reason reigns there and makes an appeal to young people to protect "the light of a menaced world" against "the mists of the North, Scandinavian gods, Indian divinities, Catholic miracles, Lourdes, spiritualism, occultism, and obscurantism."[120]

His love and need of liberty is also of the eighteenth century. One may say that liberty is his only passion. "I am passionately fond of liberty," he wrote.[121]

[Footnote 118: Charles Gounod, _"Ascanio" de Saint-Saëns_, 1890.]

[Footnote 119: _Id., ibid._]

[Footnote 120: C. Saint-Saëns, _Problèmes et Mystères_, 1894.]

[Footnote 121: _Harmonie et Mélodie_.]

And he has proved it by the absolute fearlessness of his judgments on art; for not only has he reasoned soundly against Wagner, but dared to criticise the weaknesses of Gluck and Mozart, the errors of Weber and Berlioz, and the accepted opinions about Gounod; and this classicist, who was nourished on Bach, goes so far as to say: "The performance of works by Bach and Händel to-day is an idle amusement," and that those who wish to revive their art are like "people who would live in an old mansion that has been uninhabited for centuries."[122] He went even further; he criticised his own work and contradicted his own opinions. His love of liberty made him form, at different periods, different opinions of the same work. He thought that people had a right to change their opinions, as sometimes they deceived themselves. It seemed to him better boldly to admit an error than to be the slave of consistency. And this same feeling showed itself in other matters besides art: in ethics, as is shown by some verses which he addressed to a young friend, urging him not to be bound by a too rigid austerity:

"Je sens qu'une triste chimère
A toujours assombri ton âme: la Vertu...."[123]

and in metaphysics also, where he judges religions, faith, and the Gospels with a quiet freedom of thought, seeking in Nature alone the basis of morals and society.

[Footnote 122: C. Saint-Saëns, _Portraits et Souvenirs_, 1900.]

[Footnote 123:

I know that a vain dream of virtue
Has always cast a shadow on your soul (_Rimes familières_).
]

Here are some of his opinions, taken at random from _Problèmes et Mystères_:

"As science advances, God recedes."

"The soul is only a medium for the expression of thought."

"The discouragement of work, the weakening of character, the
sharing of one's goods under pain of death--this is the Gospel
teaching on the foundation of society."

"The Christian virtues are not social virtues."

"Nature is without aim: she is an endless circle, and leads us
nowhere."

His thoughts are unfettered and full of love for humanity and a sense of the responsibility of the individual. He called Beethoven "the greatest, the only really great artist," because he upheld the idea of universal brotherhood. His mind is so comprehensive that he has written books on philosophy, on the theatre, on classical painting,[124] as well as scientific essays,[125] volumes of verse, and even plays.[126]

[Footnote 124: C. Saint-Saëns, _Note sur les décors de théâtre dans l'antiquité romaine_, 1880, where he discusses the mural paintings of Pompeii.]

[Footnote 125: Lecture on the Phenomena of Mirages, given to the Astronomical Society of France in 1905.]

[Footnote 126: C. Saint-Saëns, _La Crampe des Écrivains_, a comedy in one act, 1892.]

He has been able to take up all sorts of things, I will not say with equal skill, but with discernment and undeniable ability. He shows a type of mind rare among artists and, above all, among musicians. The two principles that he enunciates and himself follows out are: "Keep free from all exaggeration" and "Preserve the soundness of your mind's health."[127] They are certainly not the principles of a Beethoven or a Wagner, and it would be rather difficult to find a noted musician of the last century who had applied them. They tell us, without need of comment, what is distinctive about M. Saint-Saëns, and what is defective in him. He is not troubled by any sort of passion. Nothing disturbs the clearness of his reason. "He has no prejudices; he takes no side"[128]--one might add, not even his own, since he is not afraid to change his views--"he does not pose as a reformer of anything"; he is altogether independent, perhaps almost too much so. He seems sometimes as if he did not know what to do with his liberty. Goethe would have said, I think, that he needed a little more of the devil in him.

[Footnote 127: _Harmonie et Mélodie_.]

[Footnote 128: Charles Gounod, _Mémoires d'un Artiste_.]

His most characteristic mental trait seems to be a languid melancholy, which has its source in a rather bitter feeling of the futility of life;[129] and this is accompanied by fits of weariness which are not altogether healthy, followed by capricious moods and nervous gaiety, and a freakish liking for burlesque and mimicry. It is his eager, restless spirit that makes him rush about the world writing Breton and Auvergnian rhapsodies, Persian songs, Algerian suites, Portuguese barcarolles, Danish, Russian, or Arabian caprices, souvenirs of Italy, African fantasias, and Egyptian concertos; and, in the same way, he roams through the ages, writing Greek tragedies, dance music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and preludes and fugues of the eighteenth. But in all these exotic and archaic reflections of times and countries through which his fancy wanders, one recognises the gay, intelligent countenance of a Frenchman on his travels, who idly follows his inclinations, and does not trouble to enter very deeply into the spirit of the people he meets, but gleans all he can, and then reproduces it with a French complexion--after the manner of Montaigne in Italy, who compared Verona to Poitiers, and Padua to Bordeaux, and who, when he was in Florence, paid much less attention to Michelangelo than to "a very strangely shaped sheep, and an animal the size of a large mastiff, shaped like a cat and striped with black and white, which they called a tiger."

[Footnote 129: _Les Heures; Mors; Modestie (Rimes familières_).]

From a purely musical point of view there is some resemblance between M. Saint-Saëns and Mendelssohn. In both of them we find the same intellectual restraint, the same balance preserved among the heterogeneous elements of their work. These elements are not common to both of them, because the time, the country, and the surroundings in which they lived are not the same; and there is also a great difference in their characters. Mendelssohn is more ingenuous and religious; M. Saint-Saëns is more of a dilettante and more sensuous. They are not so much kindred spirits by their science as good company by a common purity of taste, a sense of rhythm, and a genius for method, which gave all they wrote a neo-classic character.

As for the things that directly influenced M. Saint-Saëns, they are so numerous that it would be difficult and rather bold of me to pretend to be able to pick them out. His remarkable capacity for assimilation has often moved him to write in the style of Wagner or Berlioz, of Händel or Rameau, of Lulli or Charpentier, or even of some English harpsichord or clavichord player of the sixteenth century, like William Byrd--whose airs are introduced quite naturally in the music of _Henry VIII_; but we must remember that these are deliberate imitations, the amusements of a virtuoso, about which M. Saint-Saëns never deceives himself. His memory serves him as he pleases, but he is never troubled by it.

As far as one can judge, M. Saint-Saëns' musical ideas are infused with the spirit of the great classics belonging to the end of the eighteenth century--far more, whatever people may say, with the spirit of Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart, than with the spirit of Bach. Schumann's seductiveness also left its mark upon him, and he has felt the influence of Gounod, Bizet, and Wagner. But a stronger influence was that of Berlioz, his friend and master,[130] and, above all, that of Liszt. We must stop at this last name.

[Footnote 130: "Thanks to Berlioz, all my generation has been shaped, and well shaped" _(Portraits et Souvenirs_).]

M. Saint-Saëns has good reason for liking Liszt, for Liszt was also a lover of freedom, and had shaken off traditions and pedantry, and scorned German routine; and he liked him, too, because his music was a reaction from the stiff school of Brahms.[131] He was enthusiastic about Liszt's work, and was one of the earliest and most ardent champions of that new music of which Liszt was the leading spirit--of that "programme" music which Wagner's triumph seemed to have nipped in the bud, but which has suddenly and gloriously burst into life again in the works of Richard Strauss. "Liszt is one of the great composers of our time," wrote M. Saint-Saëns; "he has dared more than either Weber, or Mendelssohn, or Schubert, or Schumann. He has created the symphonic poem. He is the deliverer of instrumental music.... He has proclaimed the reign of free music."[132] This was not said impulsively in a moment of enthusiasm; M. Saint-Saëns has always held this opinion. All his life he has remained faithful to his admiration of Liszt--since 1858, when he dedicated a _Veni Creator_ to "the Abbé Liszt," until 1886, when, a few months after Liszt's death, he dedicated his masterpiece, the _Symphonic avec orgue_, "To the memory of Franz Liszt."[133]

[Footnote 131: "I like Liszt's music so much, because he does not bother about other people's opinions; he says what he wants to say; and the only thing that he troubles about is to say it as well as he possibly can" (Quoted by Hippeau).]

[Footnote 132: The quotations are taken from _Harmonie et Mélodie_ and _Portraits et Souvenirs_.]

[Footnote 133: In _Harmonie et Mélodie_ M. Saint-Saëns tells us that he organised and directed a concert in the Théâtre-Italien where only Liszt's compositions were played. But all his efforts to make the French musical public appreciate Liszt were a failure.]

"People have not hesitated to scoff at what they call my weakness for Liszt's works. But even if the feelings of affection and gratitude that he inspired in me did come like a prism and interpose themselves between my eyes and his face, I do not see anything greatly to be regretted in it.[134] I had not yet felt the charm of his personal fascination, I had neither heard nor seen him, and I did not owe him anything at all, when my interest was gripped in reading his first symphonic poems; and when later they pointed the way which was to lead to _La Danse macabre_, _Le Rouet d'Omphale_, and other works of the same nature, I am sure that my judgment was not biassed by any prejudice in his favour, and that I alone was responsible for what I did."[135]

[Footnote 134: The admiration was mutual. M. Saint-Saëns even said that without Liszt he could not have written _Samson et Dalila_. "Not only did Liszt have _Samson et Dalila_ performed at Weimar, but without him that work would never have come into being. My suggestions on the subject had met with such hostility that I had given up the idea of writing it; and all that existed were some illegible notes.... Then at Weimar one day I spoke to Liszt about it, and he said to me, quite trustingly and without having heard a note, 'Finish your work; I will have it performed here.' The events of 1870 delayed its performance for several years." (_Revue Musicale_, 8 November, 1901).]

[Footnote 135: _Portraits et Souvenirs_.]

This influence seems to me to explain some of M. Saint-Saëns' work. Not only is this influence evident in his symphonic poems--some of his best work--but it is to be found in his suites for orchestra, his fantasias, and his rhapsodies, where the descriptive and narrative element is strong. "Music should charm unaided," said M. Saint-Saëns; "but its effect is much finer when we use our imagination and let it flow in some particular channel, thus imaging the music. It is then that all the faculties of the soul are brought into play for the same end. What art gains from this is not greater beauty, but a wider field for its scope--that is, a greater variety of form and a larger liberty."[136]

* * * * *

And so we find that M. Saint-Saëns has taken part in the vigorous attempt of modern German symphony writers to bring into music some of the power of the other arts: poetry, painting, philosophy, romance, drama--the whole of life. But what a gulf divides them and him! A gulf made up, not only of diversities of style, but of the difference between two races and two worlds. Beside the frenzied outpourings of Richard Strauss, who flounders uncertainly between mud and debris and genius, the Latin art of Saint-Saëns rises up calm and ironical. His delicacy of touch, his careful moderation, his happy grace, "which enters the soul by a thousand little paths,"[137] bring with them the pleasures of beautiful speech and honest thought; and we cannot but feel their charm. Compared with the restless and troubled art of to-day, his music strikes us by its calm, its tranquil harmonies, its velvety modulations, its crystal clearness, its smooth and flowing style, and an elegance that cannot be put into words. Even his classic coldness does us good by its reaction against the exaggerations, sincere as they are, of the new school. At times one feels oneself carried back to Mendelssohn, even to Spontini and the school of Gluck. One seems to be travelling in a country that one knows and loves; and yet in M. Saint-Saëns' works one does not find any direct resemblance to the works of other composers; for with no one are reminiscences rarer than with this master who carries all the old masters in his mind--it is his spirit that is akin to theirs. And that is the secret of his personality and his value to us; he brings to our artistic unrest a little of the light and sweetness of other times. His compositions are like fragments of another world.

[Footnote 136: _Harmonie et Mélodie_.]

[Footnote 137: C. Saint-Saëns, _Portraits et Souvenirs_.]

"From time to time," he said, in speaking of _Don Giovanni_, "in the sacred earth of Hellene we find a fragment, an arm, the debris of a torso, scratched and damaged by the ravages of time; it is only the shadow of the god that the sculptor's chisel once created; but the charm is somehow still there, the sublime style is radiant in spite of everything."[138]

And so with this music. It is sometimes a little pale, a little too restrained; but in a phrase, in a few harmonies, there will shine out a clear vision of the past.

[Footnote 138: _Portraits et Souvenirs_.]

VINCENT D'INDY

"I consider that criticism is useless, I would even say that it is
harmful.... Criticism generally means the opinion some man or other
holds about another person's work. How can that opinion help
forward the growth of art? It is interesting to know the ideas,
even the erroneous ideas, of geniuses and men of great talent, such
as Goethe, Schumann, Wagner, Sainte-Beuve, and Michelet, when they
wish to indulge in criticism; but it is of no interest at all to
know whether Mr. So-and-so likes, or does not like, such-and-such
dramatic or musical work."[139]

So writes M. Vincent d'Indy.

After such an expression of opinion one imagines that a critic ought to feel some embarrassment in writing about M. Vincent d'Indy. And I myself ought to be the more concerned in the matter, for in the number of the review where the above was written the only other opinions expressed with equal conviction belonged to the author of this book. There is only one thing to be done--to copy M. d'Indy's example; for that forsworn enemy of criticism is himself a keen critic.

[Footnote 139: _Revue d'Art dramatique_, 5 February, 1899.]

It is not altogether on M. d'Indy's musical gifts that I want to dwell. It is known that in Europe to-day he is one of the masters of dramatic musical expression, of orchestral colouring, and of the science of style. But that is not the end of his attainments; he has artistic originality, which springs from something deeper still. When an artist has some worth, you will find it not only in his work but in his being. So we will endeavour to explore M. d'Indy's being.

M. d'Indy's personality is not a mysterious one. On the contrary, it is open and clear as daylight; and we see this in his musical work, in his artistic activities, and in his writings. To his own writings we may apply the exception of his rule about criticism in favour of a small number of men whose thoughts are interesting even when they are erroneous. It would be a pity indeed not to know M. d'Indy's thoughts--even the erroneous ones; for they let us catch a glimpse, not only of the ideas of an eminent artist, but of certain surprising characteristics of the thought of our time. M. d'Indy has closely studied the history of his art; but the chief interest of his writings lies rather in their unconscious expression of the spirit of modern art than in what they tell us about the past.

M. d'Indy is not a man hedged in by the boundaries of his art; his mind is open and well fertilised. Musicians nowadays are no longer entirely absorbed in their notes, but let their minds go out to other interests. And it is not one of the least interesting phenomena of French music to-day that gives us these learned and thoughtful composers, who are conscious of what they create, and bring to their art a keen critical faculty, like that of M. Saint-Saëns, M. Dukas, or M. d'Indy. From M. d'Indy we have had scholarly editions of Rameau, Destouches, and Salomon de Rossi. Even in the middle of rehearsals of _L'Étranger_ at Brussels he was working at a reconstruction of Monteverde's _Orfeo_. He has published selections of folk-songs with critical notes, essays on Beethoven's predecessors, a history of Musical Composition, and debates and lectures. This fine intellectual culture is not, however, the most remarkable of M. d'Indy's characteristics, though it may have been the most remarked. Other musicians share this culture with him; and his real distinction lies in his moral and almost religious qualities, and it is this side of him that gives him an unusual interest for us among other contemporary artists.

* * * * *

"Maneant in vobis Fides, Spes, Caritas.
Tria haec: major autem horum est Caritas.

"An artist must have at least Faith, faith in God and faith in his
art; for it is Faith that disposes him to _learn_, and by his
learning to raise himself higher and higher on the ladder of Being,
up to his goal, which is God.

"An artist should practise Hope; for he can expect nothing from the
present; he knows that his mission is to _serve_, and to give his
work for the life and teaching of the generations that shall come
after him.

"An artist should be inspired by a splendid Charity--'the greatest
of these.' To _love_ should be his aim in life; for the moving
principle of all creation is divine and charitable Love."

Who speaks like this? Is it the monk Denys in his cell at Mount Athos? Or Cennini, who spread the pious teaching of the Giotteschi? Or one of the old painters of Sienna, who in their profession of faith called themselves "by the grace of God, those who manifest marvellous things to common and illiterate men, by the virtue of the holy faith, and to its glory"?

No; it was the director of the _Schola Cantorum_, addressing the students in an inaugural speech, or giving them a lecture on Composition.[140]

[Footnote 140: Vincent d'Indy: _Cours de Composition musicale_, Book I, drawn up from notes taken in Composition classes at the _Schola Cantorum_, 1897-1898, p. 16 (Durand, 1902). See also the inaugural speech given at the school, and published by the _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, November, 1900.]

We must consider a little this singular book, where a living science and a Gothic spirit are closely intermingled (I use the word "Gothic" in its best sense; I know it is the highest praise one can give M. d'Indy). This work has not received the attention it deserves. It is a record of the spirit of contemporary art; and if it stands rather apart from other writings, it should not be allowed to pass unnoticed on that account.

In this book, Faith is shown to be everything--the beginning and the end. We learn how it fans the flame of genius, nourishes thought, directs work, and governs even the modulations and the style of a musician. There is a passage in it that one would think was of the thirteenth century; it is curious, but not without dignity:

"One should have an aim in the progressive march of modulations, as
one has in the different stages of life. The reason, instincts, and
faith that guide a man in the troubles of his life also guide the
musician in his choice of modulations. Thus useless and
contradictory modulations, an undecided balance between light and
shade, produce a painful and confusing impression on the hearer,
comparable to that which a poor human being inspires when he is
feeble and inconsistent, buffeted between the East and the West in
the course of his unhappy life, without an aim and without
belief."[141]

[Footnote 141: Vincent d'Indy, _Cours de Composition musicale_, p. 132.]

This book seems to be of the Middle Ages by reason of a sort of scholastic spirit of abstraction and classification.

"In artistic creation, seven faculties are called into play by the
soul: the Imagination, the Affections, the Understanding, the
Intelligence, the Memory, the Will, and the Conscience."[142]

[Footnote 142: _Id._, _ibid._, p. 13.]

And again its mediaeval spirit is shown by an extraordinary symbolism, which discovers in everything (as far as I understand it) the imprint of divine mysteries, and the mark of God in Three Persons in such things as the beating of the heart and ternary rhythms--"an admirable application of the principle of the Unity of the Trinity"![143]

From these remote times comes also M. d'Indy's method of writing history, not by tracing facts back to laws, but by deducing, on the contrary, facts from certain great general ideas, which have once been admitted, but not proved by frequent recurrence, such as: "The origin of art is in religion"[144]--a fact which is anything but certain. From this reasoning it follows that folk-songs are derived from Gregorian chants, and not the Gregorian chants from the folk-songs--as I would sooner believe. The history of art may thus become a sort of history of the world in moral achievement. One could divide it into two parts: the world before the coming of Pride, and after it.

"Subdued by the Christian faith, that formidable enemy of man, Pride, rarely showed itself in the soul of an artist in the Middle Ages. But with the weakening of religious belief, with the spirit of the Reformation applying itself almost at the same time to every branch of human learning, we see Pride reappear, and watch its veritable Renaissance."[145]

[Footnote 143: _Id., ibid._, p. 25. In the thirteenth century, Philippe de Vitry, Bishop of Meaux, called triple time "perfect," because "it hath its name from the Trinity, that is to say, from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in whom is divine perfection."]

[Footnote 144: _Id., ibid._, pp. 66, 83, and _passim_.]

[Footnote 145: _Id., ibid._]

Finally, this Gothic spirit shows itself--in a less original way, it is true--in M. d'Indy's religious antipathies, which, in spite of the author's goodness of heart and great personal tolerance, constantly break out against the two faiths that are rivals to his own; and to them he attributes all the faults of art and all the vices of humanity. Each has its offence. Protestantism is made responsible for the extremes of individualism;[146] and Judaism, for the absurdities of its customs and the weakness of its moral sense.[147] I do not know which of the two is the more soundly belaboured; the second has the privilege of being so, not only in writing, but in pictures.[148] The worst of it is, these antipathies are apt to spoil the fairness of M. d'Indy's artistic judgment. It goes without saying that the Jewish musicians are treated with scant consideration; and even the great Protestant musicians, giants in their art, do not escape rebuke. If Goudimel is mentioned, it is because he was Palestrina's master, and his achievement of "turning the Calvinist psalms into chorales" is dismissed as being of little importance.[149]

[Footnote 146: "Make war against Particularism, that unwholesome fruit of the Protestant heresy!" (Speech to the _Schola_, taken from the _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, November, 1900.)]

[Footnote 147: At least Judaism has the honour of giving its name to a whole period of art, the "Judaic period." "The modern style is the last phase of the Judaic school...." etc.]

[Footnote 148: In the _Cours de Composition musicale_ M. d'Indy speaks of "the admirable initial T in the _Rouleau mortuaire_ of Saint-Vital (twelfth century), which represents Satan vomiting two Jews ... an expressive and symbolic work of art, if ever there was one." I should not mention this but for the fact that there are only two illustrations in the whole book.]

[Footnote 149: _Cours de Composition musicale_, p. 160.]

Händel's oratorios are spoken of as "chilling, and, frankly speaking, tedious."[150] Bach himself escapes with this qualification: "If he is great, it is not because of, but in spite of the dogmatic and parching spirit of the Reformation."[151]

I will not try to play the part of judge; for a man is sufficiently judged by his own writings. And, after all, it is rather interesting to meet people who are sincere and not afraid to speak their minds. I will admit that I rather enjoy--a little perversely, perhaps--some of these extreme opinions, where the writer's personality stands strongly revealed.

[Footnote 150: _L'Oratorio moderne_ (_Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, March, 1899).]

[Footnote 151: _Ibid._ As much as to say he was a Catholic without knowing it. And that is what a friend of the _Schola_, M. Edgar Tinel, declares: "Bach is a truly Christian artist and, without doubt, _a Protestant by mistake_, since in his immortal _Credo_ he confesses his faith in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" (_Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, August-September, 1902). M. Edgar Tinel was, as you know, one of the principal masters of Belgian oratorio.]

So the old Gothic spirit still lives among us, and informs the mind of one of our best-known artists, and also, without doubt, the minds of hundreds of those who listen to him and admire him. M. Louis Laloy has shown the persistence of certain forms of plain-song in M. Debussy's _Pelléas_; and in a dim sense of far-away kinship he finds the cause of the mysterious charm that such music holds for some of us.[152] This learned paradox is possible. Why not? The mixtures of race and the vicissitudes of history have given us so full and complex a soul that we may very well find its beginnings there, if it pleases us--or the beginnings of quite other things. Of beginnings there is no end; the choice is quite embarrassing, and I imagine one's inclination has as much to do with the matter as one's temperament.

[Footnote 152: _Revue musicale_, November, 1902.]

However that may be, M. d'Indy hails from the Middle Ages, and not from antiquity (which does not exist for him[153]), or from the Renaissance, which he confounds with the Reformation (though the two sisters are enemies) in order to crush it the better.[154] "Let us take for models," he says, "the fine workers in art of the Middle Ages."[155]

* * * * *

In this return to the Gothic spirit, in this awakening of faith, there is a name--a modern one this time--that they are fond of quoting at the _Schola_; it is that of César Franck, under whose direction the little Conservatoire in the Rue Saint-Jacques was placed. And indeed they could quote no better name than that of this simple-hearted man. Nearly all who came into contact with him felt his irresistible charm--a charm that has perhaps a great deal to do with the influence that his works still have on French music to-day. None has felt Franck's power, both morally and musically, more than M. Vincent d'Indy; and none holds a more profound reverence for the man whose pupil he was for so long.

[Footnote 153: "The only documents extant on ancient music are either criticisms or appreciations, and not musical texts" (_Cours de Composition_).]

[Footnote 154: "The influence of the Renaissance, with its pretension and vanity, caused a check in all the arts--the effect of which we are still feeling" (_Traité de Composition_, p. 89. See also the passage quoted before on Pride).]

[Footnote 155: _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, November, 1900.]

The first time I saw M. d'Indy was at a concert of the _Société nationale_, in the Salle Pleyel, in 1888. They were playing several of Franck's works; among others, for the first time, his admirable _Thème, fugue, et variation_, for the harmonium and pianoforte, a composition in which the spirit of Bach is mingled with a quite modern tenderness. Franck was conducting, and M. d'Indy was at the pianoforte. I shall always remember his reverential manner towards the old musician, and how careful he was to follow his directions; one would have said he was a diligent and obedient pupil. It was a touching homage from one who had already proved himself a master by works like _Le Chant de la cloche_, _Wallenstein_, _La Symphonie sur un thème montagnard_, and who was perhaps at that time better known and more popular than César Franck himself. Since then twenty years have passed, and I still see M. d'Indy as I saw him that evening; and, whatever may happen in the future, his memory for me will be always associated with that of the grand old artist, presiding with his fatherly smile over the little gathering of the faithful.

Of all the characteristics of Franck's fine moral nature, the most remarkable was his religious faith. It must have astonished the artists of his time, who were even more destitute of such a thing than they are now. It made itself felt in some of his followers, especially in those who were near the master's heart, as M. d'Indy was. The religious thought of the latter reflects in some degree the thought of his master; though the shape of that thought may have undergone unconscious alteration. I do not know if Franck altogether fits the conception people have of him to-day. I do not want to introduce personal memories of him here. I knew him well enough to love him, and to catch a glimpse of the beauty and sincerity of his soul; but I did not know him well enough to discover the secrets of his mind. Those who had the happiness of being his intimate friends seem always to represent him as a mystic who shut himself away from the spirit of his time. I hope at some future date one of his friends will publish some of the conversations that he had with him, of which I have heard. But this man who had so strong a faith was also very independent. In his religion he had no doubts: it was the mainspring of his life; though faith with him was much more a matter of feeling than a matter of doctrine. But all was feeling with Franck, and reason made little appeal to him. His religious faith did not disturb his mind, for he did not measure men and their works by its rules; and he would have been incapable of putting together a history of art according to the Bible. This great Catholic had at times a very pagan soul; and he could enjoy without a qualm the musical dilettantism of Renan and the sonorous nihilism of Leconte de Lisle. There were no limits to his vast sympathies. He did not attempt to criticise the thing he loved--understanding was already in his heart. Perhaps he was right; and perhaps there was more trouble in the depths of his heart than the valiant serenity of its surface would lead us to believe.

His faith too.... I know how dangerous it is to interpret a musician's feelings by his music; but how can we do otherwise when we are told by Franck's followers that the expression of the soul is the only end and aim of music? Do we find his faith, as expressed through his music always full of peace and calm?[156] I ask those who love that music because they find some of their own sadness reflected there. Who has not felt the secret tragedies that some of his musical passages enfold--those short, characteristically abrupt phrases which seem to rise in supplication to God, and often fall back in sadness and in tears? It is not all light in that soul; but the light that is there does not affect us less because it shines from afar,

"Dans un écartement de nuages, qui laisse
Voir au-dessus des mers la céleste allégresse...."[157]

[Footnote 156: I speak of the passages where he expresses himself freely, and is not interpreting a dramatic situation necessary to his subject, as in that fine symphonic part of the _Rédemption_, where he describes the triumph of Christ. But even there we find traces of sadness and suffering.]

[Footnote 157: Through a break in the clouds, revealing Celestial joy shining above the deeps.]

And so Franck seems to me to differ from M. d'Indy in that he has not the latter's urgent desire for clearness.

* * * * *

Clearness is the distinguishing quality of M. d'Indy's mind. There are no shadows about him. His ideas and his art are as clear as the look that gives so much youth to his face. For him to examine, to arrange, to classify, to combine, is a necessity. No one is more French in spirit. He has sometimes been taxed with Wagnerism, and it is true that he has felt Wagner's influence very strongly. But even when this influence is most apparent it is only superficial: his true spirit is remote from Wagner's. You may find in _Fervaal_ a few trees like those in _Siegfried's_ forest; but the forest itself is not the same; broad avenues have been cut in it, and daylight fills the caverns of the Niebelungs.

This love of clearness is the ruling factor of M. d'Indy's artistic nature. And this is the more remarkable, for his nature is far from being a simple one. By his wide musical education and his constant thirst for knowledge he has acquired a very varied and almost contradictory learning. It must be remembered that M. d'Indy is a musician familiar with the music of other countries and other times; all kinds of musical forms are floating in his mind; and he seems sometimes to hesitate between them. He has arranged these forms into three principal classes, which seem to him to be models of musical art: the decorative art of the singers of plain-song, the architectural art of Palestrina and his followers, and the expressive art of the great Italians of the seventeenth century.[158] But in doing this is not his eclecticism trying to reconcile arts that are naturally disunited? Again, we must remember that M. d'Indy has had direct or indirect contact with some of the greatest musical personalities of our time: with Wagner, Liszt, Brahms, and César Franck.

[Footnote 158: _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_ November, 1900.]

And he has been readily attracted by them; for he is not one of those egotistic geniuses whose thoughts are fixed on his own interests, nor has he one of those carnivorous minds that sees nothing, looks for nothing, and relishes nothing, unless it may be afterwards useful to it. His sympathies are readily with others, he is happy in giving homage to their greatness, and quick to appreciate their charm. He speaks somewhere of the "irresistible need of transformation" that every artist feels.[159] But in order to escape being overwhelmed by conflicting elements and interests, one should have great force of feeling or will, in order to be able to eliminate what is not necessary, and choose out and transform what is. M. d'Indy eliminates hardly anything; he makes use of it. In his music he exercises the qualities of an army general: understanding of his purpose and the patience to attain it, a perfect knowledge of the means at his disposal, the spirit of order, and command over his work and himself. Despite the variety of the materials he employs, the whole is always clear. One might almost reproach him with being too clear; he seems to simplify too much.

Nothing helps one to grasp the essence of M. d'Indy's personality more than his last dramatic work. His personality shows itself plainly in all his compositions, but nowhere is it more evident than in _L'Étranger_.[160]

[Footnote 159: _Id._, September, 1899.]

[Footnote 160: _L'Étranger_, "action musicale" in two acts. Poem and music by M. Vincent d'Indy. Played for the first time at Brussels in the Théâtre de la Monnaie, 7 January, 1903. The quotations from the drama, whose poetry is not as good as its music, are taken from the score.]

The scene of _L'Étranger_ is laid in France, by the sea, whose murmuring calm we hear in a symphonic introduction. The fishermen are coming back to port; the fishing has been bad. But one among them, "a man about forty years old, with a sad and dignified air," has been more fortunate than the others. The fishermen envy him, and vaguely suspect him of sorcery. He tries to enter into friendly conversation with them, and offers his catch to a poor family. But in vain; his advances are repulsed and his generosity is eyed with suspicion. He is a stranger--the Stranger.[161] Evening falls, and the angelus rings. Some work-girls come trooping out of their workshop, singing a merry folk-song.[162] One of the young girls, Vita, goes up to the Stranger and speaks to him, for she alone, of all the village, is his friend. The two feel themselves drawn together by a secret sympathy. Vita confides artlessly in the unknown man; they love each other though they do not admit it. The Stranger tries to repress his feelings; for Vita is young and already affianced, and he thinks that he has no right to claim her. But Vita, offended by his coldness, seeks to wound him, and succeeds. In the end he betrays himself. "Yes, he loves her, and she knew it well. But now that he has told her so, he will never see her again; and he bids her good-bye."

[Footnote 161: There is a certain likeness in the subject to Herr Richard Strauss's _Feuersnot_. There, too, the hero is a stranger who is persecuted, and treated as a sorcerer in the very town to which he has brought honour. But the _dénouement_ is not the same; and the fundamental difference of temperament between the two artists is strongly marked. M. d'Indy finishes with the renouncement of a Christian, and Herr Richard Strauss by a proud and joyous affirmation of independence.]

[Footnote 162: Found by M. d'Indy in his own province, as he tells us in his _Chansons populaires du Vivarais_.]

That is the first act. Up to this point we seem to be witnessing a very human and realistic drama--the ordinary story of the man who tries to do good and receives ingratitude, and the sad tragedy of old age that comes to a heart still young and unable to resign itself to growing old. But the music puts us on our guard. We had heard its religious tone when the Stranger was speaking, and it seemed to us that we recognised a liturgical melody in the principal theme. What secret is being hidden from us? Are we not in France? Yet, in spite of the folk-song and a passing breath of the sea, the atmosphere of the Church and César Franck is evident. Who is this Stranger?

He tells us in the second act.

"My name? I have none. I am He who dreams; I am He who loves. I
have passed through many countries, and sailed on many seas, loving
the poor and needy, dreaming of the happiness of the brotherhood of
man."

"Where have I seen you?--for I know you."

"Where? you ask. But everywhere: under the warm sun of the East, by
the white oceans of the Pole.... I have found you everywhere, for
you are Beauty itself, you are immortal Love!"

The music is not without a certain nobility, and bears the imprint of the calm, strong spirit of belief. But I was sorry that the story was only about a mere entity when I had been getting interested in a man. I can never understand the attraction of this kind of symbolism. Unless it is allied to sublime powers of creation in metaphysics or morals--such as that possessed by a Goethe or an Ibsen--I do not see what such symbolism can add to life, though I see very well what it takes away from it. But it is, after all, a matter of taste; and, anyway, there is nothing in this story to astonish us greatly. This transition from realism to symbolism is something in opera with which we have grown only too familiar since the time of Wagner.

But the story does not stop there; for we leave symbolic abstractions to enter a still more extraordinary domain, which is removed even farther still from realities.

There had been some talk at the beginning of an emerald that sparkled in the Stranger's cap; and this emerald now takes its turn in the action of the piece. "It had sparkled formerly in the bows of the boat that carried the body of Lazarus, the friend of our Master, Jesus; and the boat had safely reached the port of the Phoceans--without a helm or sails or oars. For by this miraculous stone a clean and upright heart could command the sea and the winds." But now that the Stranger has done amiss, by falling a victim to passion, its power is gone; so he gives it to Vita.

Then follows a real scene in fairyland. Vita stands before the sea and invokes it in an incantation full of weird and beautiful vocal music: "O sea! Sinister sea with your angry charm, gentle sea with your kiss of death, hear me!" And the sea replies in a song. Voices mingle with the orchestra in a symphony of increasing anger. Vita swears she will give herself to no one but the Stranger. She lifts the emerald above her head, and it shines with a lurid light. "'Receive, O sea, as a token of my oath, the sacred stone, the holy emerald! Then may its power be no longer invoked, and none may know again its protecting virtue. Jealous sea, take back your own, the last offering of a betrothed!' With an impressive gesture she throws the emerald into the waves, and a dark green light suddenly shines out against the black sky. This supernatural light slowly spreads over the water until it reaches the horizon, and the sea begins to roll in great billows." Then the sea takes up its song in an angrier tone; the orchestra thunders, and the storm bursts.

The boats put hurriedly back to land, and one of them seems likely to be dashed to pieces on the shore. The whole village turns out to watch the disaster; but the men refuse to risk their lives in aid of the shipwrecked crew. Then the Stranger gets into a boat, and Vita jumps in after him. The squall redoubles in violence. A wave of enormous height breaks on the jetty, flooding the scene with a dazzling green light. The crowd recoil in fear. There is a silence; and an old fisherman takes off his woollen cap and intones the _De Profundis_. The villagers take up the chant....

One may see by this short account what a heterogeneous work it is. Two or three quite different worlds are brought into it: the realism of the bourgeois characters of Vita's mother and lover is mixed up with symbolisms of Christianity, represented by the Stranger, and with the fairy-tale of the magic emerald and the voices of the ocean. This complexity, which is evident enough in the poem, is even more evident in the music, where a union of different arts and different ideas is attempted. We get the art of the folk-song, religious art, the art of Wagner, the art of Franck, as well as a note of familiar realism (which is something akin to the Italian _opéra-bouffe_) and descriptions of sensation that are quite personal. As there are only two short acts, the rapidity of the action only serves to accentuate this impression. The changes are very abrupt: we are hurried from a world of human beings to a world of abstract ideas, and then taken from an atmosphere of religion to a land of fairies. The work is, however, clear enough from a musical point of view. The more complex the elements that M. d'Indy gathers round him the more anxious he is to bring them into harmony. It is a difficult task, and is only possible when the different elements are reduced to their simplest expression and brought down to their fundamental qualities--thus depriving them of the spice of their individuality. M. d'Indy puts different styles and ideas on the anvil, and then forges them vigorously. It is natural that here and there we should see the mark of the hammer, the imprint of his determination; but it is only by his determination that he welded the work into a solid whole.

Perhaps it is determination that brings unity now and then into M. d'Indy's spirit. With reference to this, I will dwell upon one point only, since it is curious, and seems to me to be of general artistic interest. M. d'Indy writes his own poems for his "_actions musicales_"--Wagner's example, it seems, has been catching. We have seen how the harmony of a work may suffer through the dual gifts of its author; though he may have thought to perfect his composition by writing both words and music. But an artist's poetical and musical gifts are not necessarily of the same order. A man has not always the same kind of talent in other arts that he has in the art which he has made his own--I am speaking not only of his technical skill, but of his temperament as well. Delacroix was of the Romantic school in painting, but in literature his style was Classic. We have all known artists who were revolutionaries in their own sphere, but conservative and behind the times in their opinions about other branches of art. The double gift of poetry and music is in M. d'Indy up to a certain point. But is his reason always in agreement with his heart?[163]

[Footnote 163: In his criticisms his heart is not always in agreement with his mind. His mind denounces the Renaissance, but his instinct obliges him to appreciate the great Florentine painters of the Renaissance and the musicians of the sixteenth century. He only gets out of the difficulty by the most extraordinary compromises, by saying that Ghirlandajo and Filippo Lippi were Gothic, or by stating that the Renaissance in music did not begin till the seventeenth century! (_Cours de Composition_, pp. 214 and 216.)]

Of course his nature is too dignified to let the quarrel be shown openly. His heart obeys the commands of his reason, or compromises with it, and by seeming respectful of authority saves appearances. His reason, represented here by the poet, likes simple, realistic, and relevant action, together with moral or even religious teaching. His heart, represented by the musician, is romantic; and if he followed it altogether he would wander off to any subject that enabled him to indulge in his love of the picturesque, such as the descriptive symphony, or even the old form of opera.

For myself, I am in sympathy with his heart; and I find his heart is in the right, and his reason in the wrong. There is nothing that M. d'Indy has made more his own than the art of painting landscapes in music. There is one page in _Fervaal_ at the beginning of Act II which calls up misty mountain tops covered with pine forests; there is another page in _L'Étranger_ where one sees strange lights glimmering on the sea while a storm is brooding.[164] I should like to see M. d'Indy give himself up freely, in spite of all theories, to this descriptive lyricism, in which he so excels; or I wish at least he would seek inspiration in a subject where both his religious beliefs and his imagination could find satisfaction: a subject such as one of the beautiful episodes of the Golden Legend, or the one which _L'Étranger_ itself recalls--the romantic voyage of the Magdalen in Provence. But it is foolish to wish an artist to do anything but the thing he likes; he is the best judge of what pleases him.

[Footnote 164: Act III, scene 3. The power of that evocation is so strong that it carries the poet along with it. It would seem that part of the action had only been conceived with a view to the final effect of the sudden colouring of the waves.]

* * * * *

In this sketchy portrait I must not forget one of the finest of this composer's gifts--his talent as a teacher of music. Everything has fitted M. d'Indy for this part. By his knowledge and his precise, orderly mind he must be a perfect teacher of composition. If I submit some question of harmony or melodic phrasing to his analysis, the result is the essence of clear, logical reasoning; and if the reasoning is a little dry and simplifies the thing almost too much, it is still very illuminating and from the hand of a master of French prose. And in this I find him exercising the same consistent instinct of good sense and sincerity, the same art of development, the same seventeenth and eighteenth century principles of classic rhetoric that he applies to his music. In truth, M. d'Indy could write a musical _Discourse on Style_, if he wished.

But, above all, he is gifted with the moral qualities of a teacher--the vocation for teaching, first of all. He has a firm belief in the absolute duty of giving instruction in art, and, what is rarer still, in the efficacious virtue of that teaching. He readily shares Tolstoy's scorn, which he sometimes quotes, of the foolishness of art for art's sake.

"At the bottom of art is this essential condition--teaching. The
aim of art is neither gain nor glory; the true aim of art is to
teach, to elevate gradually the spirit of humanity; in a word, to
serve in the highest sense--'_dienen_' as Wagner says by the mouth
of the repentant Kundry, in the third act of Parsifal."[165]