Camille Saint Saens - Musical Memories
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Camille Saint Saens >> Musical Memories
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In this connection let us consider _Boris Godounof_, for there is a
historical drama suited to its music. I saw _Boris Godounof_ with
considerable interest. I heard pleasant and impressive passages, and
others less so. In one scene I saw an insignificant friar who suddenly
becomes the Emperor in the next scene. One entire act is made up of
processions, the ringing of bells, popular songs, and dazzling costumes.
In another scene a nurse tells pretty stories to the children in her
charge. Then there is a love duet, which is neither introduced nor has
any relationship to the development of the work; an incomprehensible
evening entertainment, and, finally, funeral scenes in which Chaliapine
was admirable. It was not my fault if I did not discover in all that the
inner life, the psychology, the introductions, and the explanations
which they complain they do not find in _Henri VIII_.
"To Henry VIII," it is stated at the beginning of the work, "nothing is
sacred, neither friendship, love nor his word--ill are playthings of
his mad whims. He knows neither law nor justice." And when, a little
later, smiling, the King hands the holy water to the ambassador he is
receiving, the orchestra reveals the working of his mind by repeating
the music of the preceding scene. From beginning to end the work is
written in this way. But dissertations on such details have not been
given the public; the themes of felony, cruelty, and duplicity, and of
this and that, have not, as is the fashion of the day, been underlined,
so that the critics are excusable for not seeing them.
Not a scene, not a word, they say, shows the soul of Henry VIII. I would
like to ask if it is not revealed in the great scene between Henry and
Catharine, where he plays with her as a cat with a mouse, where he veils
his desire to be rid of her under his religious scruples, and where he
heaps on her constantly vile and cruel insinuations, or even in the last
scene with its cruel hypocrisies. It is difficult to see why all his
passions and all his feelings are not brought into play here. The
Russian librettos do no more, nor the operas based on mythology.
But to continue. From the point of view of opera mythology offers one
advantage in the use of the miraculous. But the rest of the mythical
element offers, rather, difficulties. Characters who never existed and
in whom no one believes cannot be made interesting in themselves. They
do not sustain, as is sometimes supposed, the music and poetry. On the
contrary, the music and poetry give them such reality as they possess.
We could not endure the interminable utterances of the mournful Wotan,
if it were not for the wonderful music that accompanies them. Orpheus
weeping over Eurydice would not move us greatly, if Gluck had not known
how to captivate us by his first notes. If it were not for Mozart's
music, the puppets of the _Magic Flute_ would amount to nothing.
Musicians should, as a matter of fact, be allowed to choose both the
subject and motives for their operas according to their temperaments and
their feelings. Much youthful talent is lost to-day because the young
composers believe that they must obey set rules instead of obeying their
own inspiration. All great artists, the illustrious Richard more than
any other, mocked the critics.
As I have spoken of Richard Wagner's youth, I will take advantage of the
opportunity to reveal a secret of one of his own works which is known to
me alone. When Wagner was young, I was a child and I attended constantly
the sessions of the Societe des Concerts. The kettledrummer of that day
had a peculiar habit of breaking in before the rest of the orchestra.
When the others began, it produced an effect which the authors had
hardly foreseen and which was certain to be condemned. But the effect
had a rather distinctive character and I thought it might be possible to
use it. Richard Wagner lived in Paris at the time and frequented the
famous concerts. There is no doubt that he noted this effect and used it
in his overture to _Faust_.
CHAPTER VII
ART FOR ART'S SAKE
What is Art?
Art is a mystery--something which responds to a special sense, peculiar
to the human race. This is ordinarily called the esthetic sense, but
that is an inexact term, for esthetic sense signifies a sense of the
beautiful and what is esthetic is not necessarily beautiful. Sense of
style would be better.
Some of the savage races have this sense of style, for their arms and
utensils show a remarkable feeling for style, which they lose by contact
with civilization.
By art let us understand, if you please, the Fine Arts alone, but
including decorative art. Music ought to be included.
I shall astonish most of my readers, when I say that very few people
understand music. For most people it is, as Victor Hugo said, an
exhalation of art--something for the ear as perfume is for the olfactory
sense, a source of vague sensations, necessarily unformed as all
sensations are. But musical art is something entirely different. It has
line, modeling, color through instrumentation, all making up an ideal
sphere where some, like the writer of these lines, live from childhood
on, which others attain through education, while many others never know
it at all. Furthermore, musical art has more movement than the other
fine arts. It is the most mysterious of them all, although the others
are mysterious as it is easy to see.
The first manifestation of art occurs through attempts to reproduce
objects. Such attempts have been found which date back to prehistoric
times. But what is primitive man's idea in such attempts? He wants to
record by a line the contour of the object, the likeness of which he
wishes to preserve. This contour and this line do not exist in nature.
The whole philosophy of art is in that crude drawing. It bases itself on
nature even while making something quite different in response to a
special, inexplicable need of the human spirit. Accordingly nothing can
be more chimerical or vain than the advice so often given to the artist
to be truthful. Art can never be true, even though it should not be
false. It should be true artistically, by giving an artistic translation
which will satisfy the sense of style of which we have spoken. When Art
has satisfied this sense of style, the object of artistic expression has
been attained; nothing more can be asked. But it is not the "vain effort
of an unproductive cleverness," as our M. de Mun has said; it is an
effort to satisfy a legitimate need, one of the loftiest and most
honorable in human nature--the need of art.
If this is so, why should we demand that Art be useful or moral? It is
both in its own way, for it awakens noble and honest sentiments in the
soul. That was the opinion of Theophile Gautier, but Victor Hugo
disagreed. The sun is beautiful, he used to say, and it is useful. That
is true, but the sun is not an object of art. Besides, how many times
Victor Hugo denied his own doctrine by writing verses which were merely
brilliant descriptions or admirable bits of imagination?
We are, however, talking of art and not of literature. Literature
becomes art in poetry but forsakes it in prose. Even if some of the
great prose writers rendered their prose artistic through the beauty and
harmony of their periods and the picturesqueness of their expressions,
still prose is not art in its real nature. So, crude indecency aside,
what would be immoral in prose ceases to be immoral in verse, for in
poetry Art follows its own code and form transcends the subject matter.
That is why a great poet, Sully-Prudhomme, preferred prose to verse when
he wanted to write philosophically, for he feared, on account of the
superiority of form to substance in poetry, that his ideas would not be
taken seriously. That explains as well why parents take young girls to
hear an opera, when if the same piece was played without music they
would be appalled at the idea. What Christian is ever shocked by _La
Juive_ or Catholic frightened away from _Les Huguenots_?
Because prose is far removed from art, it is unsuited to music, despite
the fact that this ill-assorted union is fashionable to-day? In poetry
there has been an effort to make it so artistic that form alone is
considered and verse is written which is entirely without sense. But
that is a fad which can't last long.
Sometime ago M. de Mun said:
"Not to take sides is what the author is inhibited from doing. Art, to
my way of thinking, is a setting forth of ideas. If it is not that--if
it limits itself solely to considerations of form, to a worship of
beauty for its own sake, without regard to the deeds and thoughts it
brings to light, then it seems to me no better than the vain effort of
an unproductive cleverness."
The eminent speaker is absolutely right as far as prose is concerned,
but we cannot agree with him if poetry is considered.
Victor Hugo, in his marvellous ode, _La Lyre et La Harpe_ brings
Paganism and Christianity face to face. Each speaks in turn, and the
poet in his last stanza seems to acknowledge that both are right, but
that does not prevent the ode from being a masterpiece. That would
not be possible in prose, but in the poem the poetry carries all before
it.
[Illustration: M. Saint-Saens in his Later Years]
Why is it that geniuses like Victor Hugo, distinguished minds, thinkers,
and profound critics, refuse to see that Art is a special entity which
responds to a certain sense? If Art accommodates itself marvellously, if
it accords itself with the precepts of morality and passion, it is
nevertheless sufficient unto itself--and in its self-sufficiency lies
its heights of greatness.
The first prelude of Sebastian Bach's _Wohltemperirte Klavier_ expresses
nothing, and yet that is one of the marvels of music. The Venus de Milo
expresses nothing, and it is one of the marvels of sculpture.
To tell the truth, it is proper to add that in order not to be immoral
Art must appeal to those who have a feeling for it. Where the artist
sees only beautiful forms, the gross see only nudity. I have seen a good
man scandalized at the sight of Ingres's _La Source_.
Just as morality has no function to be artistic, so Art has nothing to
do with morality. Both have their own functions, and each is useful in
its own way. The final aim of morality is morality; of art, art, and
nothing else.
CHAPTER VIII
POPULAR SCIENCE AND ART
Rene Bazin has sketched cleverly Pasteur's brilliant career. France has
no clearer claim to glory than in Pasteur, for he is one of the men,
who, in spite of everything, keeps her in the first rank of nations.
A rare good fortune attended him. While many scholars who seek the truth
without concerning themselves with the practical results have to wait
many long years before their discoveries can be used, Pasteur's
discoveries were useful at once. So the mob, which cannot understand
science studied for its own sake, appreciated Pasteur's works. He saved
millions to the public treasury, and tens of thousands of human lives.
He had already secured a notable place in science when the public
learned his name through the memorable contest between him and Pouchet
over "spontaneous generation." The probabilities of the case were on
Pouchet's side. People refused to believe that these organisms which
developed in great numbers in an enclosed jar or that the molds which
developed under certain conditions were not produced spontaneously. The
youth of the time went wild over the question.
I was constantly being asked, "Are you for Pouchet or Pasteur?" and my
invariable response was, "I shall be for the one who proves he is
right." I was unwilling to admit that any such question could be solved
_a priori_ in accordance with preconceived ideas, although I must
confess that among my friends I found no one of the same opinion.
We know how Pasteur won a striking victory through his patience and his
genius. He demonstrated that millions and millions of germs are present
in the air about us and that when one of them finds favorable
conditions, a living being appears which engenders others. "Many are
called, but few are chosen." This law may seem unjust, but it is one of
the great laws of Nature.
Pasteur, the great benefactor, whose discoveries did so much for all
classes of society, should have been popular, but he was, on the
contrary, extremely unpopular. The leading publicists of the day were
influenced by some inexplicable sentiment and they made constant war on
him. When, after several years of prodigious labor, Pasteur ventured to
assert himself, they took advantage of his following the dictates of
humanity in accepting all sorts of cases, curable or not, to spread a
report that his treatment did not cure, but instead gave the disease
which it was supposed to cure. Popular fury was aroused to such a
height, that a monster mass meeting was held _against_ Pasteur. Louise
Michel addressed this meeting with her customary vigor of speech and
amidst frantic applause shouted this unqualified remark, "_Scientific
questions should be settled by the people._"
By this time everybody was talking about microbes, and a shop on the
boulevards announced an exhibition of them. They used what is known as a
solar microscope and threw on a screen, suitably enlarged, the
animalculae which grow in impure water, the larvae of mosquitoes, and
other insects, which bear about the same relation to microbes that an
elephant does to a flea. I went into this establishment, and saw the
plain people with their wives looking at the exhibition very seriously
and really believing that they saw the famous microbes. One of them near
me said, with a knowing air, "What won't science do next?"
I was indignant, and I had all I could do to keep from saying: "They are
fooling you. What they are showing you is not Science, at the most only
its antechamber. As for you who are deceiving these naive good people,
you are only impostors."
But I kept still; I would only have succeeded in getting thrown out. But
I said to myself--and I still say--"Why not enlighten these people, who
obviously want light?" It is impossible to _teach_ them science, but it
should be possible to make them at least comprehend what science _is_,
for they have no idea of it now. They do not know--in this era when they
are constantly talking about their rights and urged to demand more wages
and less work--that there are young people who are spending their best
years and leading a precarious existence, working day and night, without
hope of personal profit, with no other end in view besides the hope of
discovering new facts from which humanity may benefit at some time in
the future. They do not know that all the benefits of civilization which
they carelessly enjoy are the result of the long, painful and enormous
work of the thinkers whom they regard as idlers and visionaries who grow
rich from the sweat of the toilers. In a word, they should be taught to
give respect to what is worthy of it.
It is true that there are scientific congresses, but these are serious
gatherings which attract only the select few. It should be possible to
interest everybody, and in order to make scientific meetings interesting
we should use motion pictures and concerts.
But here we trench on art. We ought to teach the people not only science
but art as well, but the latter is the more difficult.
* * * * *
Modern peoples are not artistic. The Greeks were, and the Japanese were,
before the European invasion. An artistic people is recognized by their
ignorance of "objects of art," for in such an environment art is
everywhere. An artistic people no more dreams of creating art than a
great nobleman of consciously exhibiting a distinguished manner.
Distinction lies in his slightest mannerism without his being conscious
of the fact. So, among artistic peoples, the most ordinary and humble
objects have style. And this style, furthermore, is in perfect harmony
with the purpose of the object. It is absolutely appropriate for that
purpose in its proportions, in the purity of its lines, the elegance of
its form, its perfection of execution, and, above all, in its meaning.
When an outcry is raised against the ugliness and tawdriness of certain
objects in this country, the answer is, "But see how cheap they are!"
But style and conscience in work cost nothing. Feeling for art is,
however, inherent in human nature. The weapons of primitive peoples are
beautiful. The prehistoric hatchets of the Stone Age are perfect in
their contours. There is, therefore, no question of creating a feeling
for art in the people, but of awakening it.
Music holds so important a place in the modern world, that we ought to
begin with that. There is plenty of gay music, easy to understand, which
is in harmony with the laws of art, and the people ought to hear it
instead of the horrors which they cram into our ears under the pretence
of satisfying our tastes. What pleases people most is sentimental music,
but it need not be a silly sentimentality. Instead, they ought to give
the people the charming airs which grow, as naturally as daisies on a
lawn, in the vast field of opera-comique. That is not high art, it is
true, but it is pretty music and it is high art compared with what is
heard too often in the cafes. I am not ignorant of the fact that such
establishments employ talented people. But along with the good, what
frightful things one hears! And no one would listen to their
instrumental repertoire anywhere else!
Every time anyone has tried to raise the standards and employ real
singers and real _virtuosi_, the attendance has increased. But, very
often, even at the theatres, the managers satisfy their own tastes under
the pretence of satisfying that of the public. That is, of course,
intensely human. We judge others by ourselves.
A famous manager once said to me, as he pointed to an empty house, "The
public is amazing. Give them what they like, and they don't come!"
One day I was walking in a garden. There was a bandstand and musicians
were playing some sort of music. The crowd was indifferent and passed by
talking without paying the slightest attention. Suddenly there sounded
the first notes of the delightful _andante_ of Beethoven's _Symphony in
D_--a flower of spring with a delicate perfume. At the first notes all
walking and talking stopped. And the crowd stood motionless and in an
almost religious silence as it listened to the marvel. When the piece
was over, I went out of the garden, and near the entrance I heard one of
the managers say,
"There, you see they don't like that kind of music.
And that kind of music was never played there again.
CHAPTER IX
ANARCHY IN MUSIC
Music is as old as human nature. We can get some idea of what it was at
first from the music of savage tribes. There were a few notes and
rudimentary melodies with blows struck in cadence as an accompaniment;
or, sometimes, the same primitive rhythms without any accompaniment--and
nothing else! Then melody was perfected and the rhythms became more
complicated. Later came Greek music, of which we know little, and the
music of the East and Far East.
Music, as we now understand the term, began with the attempts at harmony
in the Middle Ages. These attempts were labored and difficult, and the
uncertainty of their gropings, combined with the slowness of their
development, excites our wonder. Centuries were necessary before the
writing of music became exact, but, slowly, laws were elaborated.
Thanks to them the works of the Sixteenth Century came into being, in
all their admirable purity and learned polyphony. Hard and inflexible
laws engendered an art analogous to primitive painting. Melody was
almost entirely absent and was relegated to dance tunes and popular
songs. But the dance tunes of the time, on which, perhaps, erudition was
not used sufficiently, were written in the same polyphonic style and
with the same rigid correctness as the madrigals and the church music.
We know that the popular songs found their way into the church music and
that Palestrina's great reform consisted in banishing them. However, we
should get but a feeble idea of the part they played, if we imagined
that they naturally belonged there. Take a well known air, _Au Claire de
la Lune_, for example, and make each note a whole note sung by the
tenor, while the other voices dialogue back and forth in counterpoint,
and see what is left of the song for the listener. The scandal of _La
Messe de l'Homme arme_ was entirely theoretical.
We simply do not know how they played these anthems, masses, and
madrigals, in the absence of any indication of either the time or the
emphasis. We find a few directions for expression, as in the first
measures of Palestrina's _Stabat Mater_ but such directions are
extremely rare. They are simply the first signs of the dawn of the
far-off day of music with expression. Certain learned and
well-intentioned persons endeavor to compare this music with ours, and
we surprise in some of the modern editions instances of _molto
expressivo_ which seem to be good guesses. This exclusively consonant
music, in which the intervals of fourths were considered dissonant,
while the diminishing fifth was the _diabolus in musica_, ought from its
very nature to be antithetical to expression. Nothing in the _Kyrie, in
La Messe du Pape Marcel_, gives the impression of a prayer, unless
expressive accents, without any real justification, are introduced by
main strength.
Expression came into existence with the chord of the dominant seventh
from which all modern harmony developed. This invention is attributed to
Monteverde. No matter what has been said, however, it occurs in
Palestrina's _Adoremus_. Floods of ink have been poured out in
discussing this question, some affirming, while others--and not the
least, by any manner of means--denying the existence of the famous
chord. No equivocation is possible. It is a simultaneously played chord
held by four voices for a whole measure. What is certain is that
Palestrina, by putting aside the rules, made a discovery, the
significance of which he did not realize.
With the introduction of the seventh interval a new era began. It would
be a grave error to believe that the rules were overturned, for,
instead, new principles were added to old ones as new conditions
demanded. They learned how to modulate, how to transpose from one key to
the next key and finally to the keys farthest away. In his treatise on
harmony Fetis studied this evolution in a masterly manner. Unfortunately
his scholarship was not combined with deep musical feeling. For example,
he saw faults in Mozart and Beethoven where there are only beauties, and
beauties which even an ignorant listener--if he is naturally
musical--will see without trouble. He did not understand the vast
difference between the unlettered person who commits a solecism and
Pascal, the inventor of a new syntax.
However that may be, Fetis gave us a comprehensive review in broad
outlines of musical evolution down to what he justly called the
"omnitonic system," which Richard Wagner has achieved since. "Beyond
that," he said, "I can see nothing more."
He did not foresee the a-tonic system, but that is what we have come to.
There is no longer any question of adding to the old rules new
principles which are the natural expression of time and experience, but
simply of casting aside all rules and every restraint.
"Everyone ought to make his own rules. Music is free and unlimited in
its liberty of expression. There are no perfect chords, dissonant chords
or false chords. All aggregations of notes are legitimate."
That is called, and they believe it, the _development of taste_.
He whose taste is developed by this system is not like the man who by
tasting a wine can tell you its age and its vineyard, but he is rather
like the fellow who with perfect indifference gulps down good or bad
wine, brandy or whiskey, and prefers that which burns his gullet the
most. The man who gets his work hung in the Salon is not the one who
puts on his canvas delicate touches in harmonious tones, but he who
juxtaposes vermillion and Veronese green. The man with a "developed
taste" is not the one who knows how to get new and unexpected results by
passing from one key to another, as the great Richard did in _Die
Meistersinger_, but rather the man who abandons all keys and piles up
dissonances which he neither introduces nor concludes and who, as a
result, grunts his way through music as a pig through a flower garden.
Possibly they may go farther still. There seems to be no reason why they
should linger on the way to untrammeled freedom or restrict themselves
within a scale. The boundless empire of sound is at their disposal and
let them profit by it. That is what dogs do when they bay at the moon,
cats when they meow, and the birds when they sing. A German has written
a book to prove that the birds sing false. Of course he is wrong for
they do not sing false. If they did, their song would not sound
agreeable to us. They sing outside of scales and it is delightful, but
that is not man-made art.
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