Camille Saint Saens - Musical Memories
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Camille Saint Saens >> Musical Memories
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This evil is at its worst in piano music. Our famous teachers, like
Marmontel and Le Couppey, have published editions of the classics which
are full of their own directions. But the player is forewarned; it is
the Marmontel or Le Couppey edition and makes no pretence of
authenticity. In Germany, however, there are supposedly authentic
editions, based on the originals, but which superimpose their own
pernicious inventions on the author's text.
The touch of the piano used to be different from what it is to-day. The
directions in Mozart's and Beethoven's works show that they used the
execution of stringed instruments as their model. The touch was lighter
and the fingers were raised so that the notes were separated slightly,
and not run together except when indicated. The supposition is that this
must have led to a dryness of tone. I remember to have heard in my
childhood some old people whose playing was singularly hopping. Then,
there came a reaction, and with it a passion for slurring the notes.
When I was Stamaty's pupil, it was considered most difficult to "tie"
the notes; that required, however, only dexterity and suppleness. "When
she learns to 'tie,' she will know how to play," said the mother of a
young pianist. Nevertheless, the trick of perpetual _legato_ becomes
exceedingly monotonous and takes away all character from the pianoforte
classics. But it is insisted on everywhere in the modern German
editions. Throughout there are connections seemingly interminable in
length, and indications of _legato_, _sempre legato_, which the author
not only did not indicate, but in places where it is easy to see that he
intended the exact opposite.
If this is the case, what shall be said of marking the fingering on all
the notes--which often makes good playing impossible. Liszt taught
hundreds of pupils according to the best principles, yet such erroneous
principles have prevailed!
Disciples of the ivory keys are numerous in our day. Everybody wants to
have a piano, and everybody plays it or thinks he does, which is not
always the same thing, and few really understand what the term "to play
the piano," so currently used, means.
The harpsichord reigned supreme before the appearance of the piano--an
instrument which is beloved by some and execrated by others. To his
utter amazement Reyer was considered an enemy of the pianoforte. The
harpsichord has been revived of late so that it is needless to describe
it. It lacks strength, and that was the reason it was dethroned in a
period when strength was everything. On the other hand, it has
distinction and elegance. As the player can not modify the intensity of
the sound by a single pressure of the finger--in which it resembles the
organ--like the organ, with its multiple keyboards and registers, the
harpsichord has a wide variety of effects and affords the opportunity
for several octaves to sound simultaneously. As a result, while music
written for the harpsichord gains in strength and expression on the
modern instrument, it often assumes a deceptive monotony for which the
author is not responsible.
The players of the harpsichord were ignorant of muscular effects; there
was nothing of the unchained lion about them. The delicate hands of a
marquise lost none of their gracefulness as they skimmed over the
keyboards, and the red or black keys emphasized their whiteness.
The introduction of the hammer in the place of the tiny nib permitted
the modification of the quality of sound by differences in the pressure
of the fingers, and also the production at will of such nuances as
_forte_ and _piano_ without recourse to the different registers. This is
the reason why the new instrument was first called the pianoforte. The
word was long and cumbersome and was cut in half. When it became
necessary to _assault_ the note, they used the phrase "to hit the
forte." The papers which gave accounts of young Mozart's concerts
praised him for his ability to "hit."
Nevertheless one did not hit hard. These keyboards with their limited
keys responded so easily that a child's fingers were sufficient. I first
played on one of these instruments at the age of three. It was made by
Zimmerman, whose son was Gounod's father-in-law.
Later, the weight of the keys was increased to get a greater volume of
sound. Then, when long-haired _virtuosi_, playing by main strength,
produced peals of thunder, they really "_toucha du piano_."
* * * * *
To return to _Orphee_ and end as we began, I have to make a painful
confession. If the works of Gluck in general and _Orphee_ in particular
have had a happy influence on our musical taste, a passage from this
last work has been a noxious influence,--the famous chorus of the demons
"_Quel est l'audacieux--qui dans ces sombres lieux--ose porter ses
pas?_"
In the old days French opera was based on declamation and it was
scrupulously respected even in the arias. There is a fine example of
this excellent system in Lully's famous aria from _Medusa_ to prove what
strength results from a close relation between the accent of the verse
and the music. Gluck was one of the most fervent disciples of this
system, but _Orphee_, as we know, was derived from _Orfeo_. The question
was whether he could even think of suppressing this spectacular chorus
with its amazing strength which was one of the principal reasons for the
work's success. Unfortunately the music of the chorus was moulded on the
Italian text, and each verse ended with the accent on the antepenult,
which occurs frequently in German and Italian, but never in French. And
they sing:
Quel est l'auDAcieux
Qui dans ces SOMbres lieux
Ose porTER ses pas
Et devant LE trepas
Ne fremit pas?
As French is not strongly accented such faults are tolerated. Gluck's
theme impressed itself on the memory, so that he dealt a terrific blow
to the purity of prosody. We gradually became so disinterested in this
that by Auber's time scarcely any attention was paid to it. Finally,
Offenbach appeared. He was a German by birth and his musical ideas
naturally rhymed with German in direct contradiction to the French words
to which they applied. This constant bungling passed for originality.
Sometimes it would have been necessary to change the division of a
measure to get a correct melody, as in the song:
Un p'tit bonhomme
Pas plus haut qu'ca.
In such a case we might say that he did wrong for the mere pleasure of
going astray. But popular taste was so corrupted that no one noticed it
and everybody who wrote in the lighter vein fell into the same habits.
We owe a debt of gratitude to Andre Messager for breaking away from this
manner and setting musical phraseology aright. His return to the old
traditions was not the least of the attractions of his delightful
_Veronique_.
But we are wandering far from Gluck and _Orphee_, although not so far
as we might think. In art, as in everything, extremes meet, and there
are all kinds of tastes.
CHAPTER XVI
DELSARTE
Felix Duquesnal in one of his brilliant articles has written something
about Delsarte, the singer, in connection with his controversy with
Madame Carvalho. The cause of this controversy was the lessons she took
from him. The name of Delsarte should never be forgotten, as I shall try
to explain. Madame Carvalho did not refuse to pay Delsarte for her
lessons, but she did not want to be called his pupil. Although she had
attended the Conservatoire, she wanted to be known solely as a pupil of
Duprez. As a matter of fact it was Duprez who knew how to make the
"Little Miolan," the delightful warbler, into the great singer with her
important place on the French stage.
But this was accomplished at a price. Madame Carvalho told me about it
herself. Her medium register was weak and Duprez undertook to
substitute chest tones and develop clearness as much as possible. "When
I began to work," she said, "my mother was frightened. One would have
thought that a calf was being killed in the house."
Ordinarily such a method would produce a harsh, shaky voice and all
freshness would be lost. But in Madame Carvalho's case the opposite was
true. The freshness and purity of her voice were beyond compare, while
its smoothness and the harmony of the registers were perfect. It was a
miracle the like of which we shall probably never see again.
But if Duprez made a wonderful voice at the risk of breaking it, I have
always thought that Madame Carvalho owed her admirable diction, so
distinguishing a mark of her talent, to Delsarte. Delsarte was a
disastrous and deadly teacher of singing. No voice could stand up under
his methods, not even his own, although he attributed its loss to
teaching at the Conservatoire. But he studied deeply the arts of
speaking and gesture, and he was a past master in them.
I once attended a course he gave in these subjects. He stated highly
illuminating truths and gave the psychological reasons for accents and
the physiological reasons for the gestures. He determined the use of
gestures in some sort of scientific way. Mystic fancies were mixed up in
these questions.
It was extremely interesting to see him dissect one of Fontaine's fables
or a passage from Racine, and to hear him explain why the accent should
be on such a word or on such a syllable and not on another, to bring out
the sense. Although this course was so instructive, few took it, for
Delsarte was almost unknown to people. His influence scarcely extended
outside a narrow circle of admirers, but the quality made up for the
quantity. This was the circle of the old _Debats_, which was formerly
devoted exclusively to Romanticism, but at this time to the
classics--the set headed by Ingres in painting and Reber in music.
Theirs was a secluded and ascetic world in silent revolt against the
abominations of the century. One had to hear the tone of devotion in
which the members of this circle spoke of the ancients to appreciate
their attitude. Nothing in our day can give any idea of them. "They
say," one of the devotees once told me, "that the ancients learned
Beauty through a sort of revelation, and Beauty has steadily degenerated
ever since."
Such false notions were, however, professed by the most sincere people
who were deeply devoted to art. So this group, which had no influence on
their own contemporaries, nevertheless, without knowing it or wishing to
do so, played a useful role.
As we know, the public was divided into two camps. On one side were the
partisans of Melody, opera-comique, the Italians, and, with some effort,
of grand opera. Opposed to them were the partisans of music in the grand
style--Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and Sebastian Bach, although he was
little known and is less well known now.
No one gave a thought to our old French school, to the composers from
Lulli to Gluck, who produced so many excellent works. Reber showed
Delsarte the way and the latter, naturally an antiquarian, threw
himself into this unexplored field with surprising vigor. Only Lulli's
name was known, while Campra, Mondonville and the others were entirely
forgotten. Even Gluck himself had been forgotten. First editions of his
orchestral scores, which it is impossible to find to-day, sold for a few
francs at the second-hand book shops. Rameau was never mentioned.
Delsarte, handsome, eloquent, and fascinating, wielded an almost
imperial sway over his little coterie of artists. Thanks to him the lamp
of our old French school was kept dimly burning until the day when
inherent justice permitted it to be revived. In this restricted world no
evening was complete without Delsarte. He would come in with some story
of frightful throat trouble to justify his chronic lack of voice, and,
then, without any voice at all but by a kind of magic, would put
shudders into the tones of Orpheus or Eurydice. I often played his
accompaniments and he always demanded _pianissimo_.
"But," I would say, "the author has indicated _forte_."
"That is true," he would answer, "but in those days the harpsichord had
little depth of tone."
It would have been easy to answer that the accompaniment was written for
the orchestra and not for the harpsichord.
Delsarte's execution, on account of the insufficiency of his vocal
powers, was often entirely different from what the author intended.
Furthermore, he was absolutely ignorant of the correct way to interpret
the appogiatures and other marks which are not used to-day. As a result
his interpretation of the older works was inexact. But that did not
matter, for even if masterpieces are presented badly, there is always
something left. Besides, both the singer and his hearers had Faith. He
had a way of pronouncing "Gluck" which aroused expectation even before
one heard a note.
From time to time Delsarte gave a concert. He would come on the stage
and say that he had a bad throat, but that he would try to give
_Iphigenia's Dream_ or something of that sort. His courage would prove
to be greater than his strength and he would have to stop. He would
then fall back on old-time songs or La Fontaine's fables in which he
excelled. A skilfully studied mimicry, which seemed entirely natural,
underlay his reading. A red handkerchief, which he knew how to draw from
his pocket at just the proper moment, always excited applause.
One day he conceived the idea of giving one of Bossuet's sermons at his
concert. Religious authority was very powerful at the time and forbade
it. Yet there would have been no sacrilege, and I regretted keenly that
I could not hear this magnificent prose delivered so wonderfully. Now
that religious authority has lost its secular support, we see things in
an entirely different way. Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints walk the
stage, speak in prose or verse, and sing. It would seem that no one is
shocked for there is no protest. For my own part I must frankly confess
that such pseudo-religious exhibitions are disagreeable. They disturb me
greatly and I can see no use in them.
* * * * *
In order to foster admiration for the old masters, Delsarte conceived
the idea of publishing a collection of pieces taken from their works
right and left, and, as a result, he created his _Archives du Chant_. He
had special type made and the publication was a marvel of beautiful
typography, correctness and good taste. At the beginning of each part
was a cleverly harmonised passage of church music. The support of a
publisher was necessary for the success of such a work, but Delsarte was
his own publisher and he met with no success at all. Similar but
inferior publications have been markedly successful.
Delsarte aimed at purity of text, but his successors have been forced to
modernize the works to make them accessible for the public. This fact is
painful. In literature the texts are studied and the endeavor is to
reproduce the writer's thought as closely as possible. In music it is
entirely different. With each new edition a professor is commissioned to
supervise the work and he adds something of his own invention.
Delsarte, a singer without a voice, an imperfect musician, a doubtful
scholar, guided by an intuition which approached genius, in spite of his
numerous faults played an important role in the evolution of French
music in the Nineteenth Century. He was no ordinary man. The impression
he gave to all who knew him was of a visionary, an apostle. When one
heard him speak with his fiery enthusiasm about these works of the past
which the world had forgotten, one could but believe that such oblivion
was unjust and desire to know these relics of another age.
Without the shadow of a doubt I owed to his leadership the necessary
courage to make a profound study of the works of the old school, for
they are unattractive at first. Berlioz berated all this music. He had
seen Gluck's works on the stage in his youth, but he could see nothing
in them that was not "superannuated and childish." With all respect to
Berlioz's memory, it deserved a kinder judgment than that. When one
reaches the depths of this music, although it may be at the price of
some effort, he is well repaid for his pains. There is real feeling,
grandeur and even something of the picturesque in these works--as much
as could be with the means at their disposal.
It is only right that we should pay tribute to Delsarte's memory. He
was a pioneer who, during his whole life, proclaimed the value of
immortal works, which the world despised. That is no slight merit.
CHAPTER XVII
SEGHERS
While Delsarte was preparing the way for the old French opera and above
all for Gluck's works, another pioneer of musical evolution was working
to form the taste of the Parisian public, but with an entirely different
power and another effect. Seghers was the man. He played a great role
and his memory should be honored.
As his name indicates, Seghers was a Belgian. He started life as a
violinist and was one of Baillot's pupils. His execution was masterly,
his tone admirable, and he had a musical intelligence of the first
order. He had every right to a first rank among _virtuosi_, but this
man, herculean in appearance and tenacious in his purposes, lost all his
power before an audience.
He had a dream of giving to lovers of music the last of Beethoven's
quartets, which were considered at the time both unplayable and
incomprehensible. In the end he planned a series of concerts at which,
despite my age--I was only fifteen--I was to be the regular pianist. He
planned to give in addition to these quartets, some of Bach's sonatas
and Reber's and Schumann's trios. I spoke of this plan to his
mother-in-law one day as she was peacefully embroidering at the window,
and told her how pleased I was at the thought of the concerts.
"Don't count on it too much," she told me. "He'll never give them."
When everything was ready, he invited some thirty people to listen to a
trial performance. It was wretched. All the depth of tone had gone from
his violin as well as the skill from his fingers.... The project was
abandoned.
It was left for Maurin to make something out of these terrible quartets.
Maurin had peculiar gifts. He had a lightness of bow which I have never
seen equalled by anyone and a lightness and charm which enchanted the
public. But I can say in all sincerity that Seghers's execution was even
better. Unfortunately for him I was his only listener.
Madame Seghers was a woman of great beauty, unusually intelligent and
distinguished. She had been one of Liszt's pupils and was a pianist of
first rank. But she was even more timid than her husband--a single
listener was sufficient to paralyze her. When Liszt was teaching Madame
Seghers, he came to appreciate her husband's real worth and entrusted
his daughter's musical education to him. This is sufficient indication
of the esteem in which Liszt held Seghers. So it was not surprising that
he gave me valuable and greatly needed suggestions in regard to style
and the piano itself, for his friendship with Liszt had given him a
thorough understanding of the instrument.
I first saw and heard Liszt at Seghers's house. He had reappeared in
Paris after long years of absence, and by that time he had begun to seem
almost legendary. The story went that since he had become chapel-master
at Weimar he was devoting himself to grand compositions, and, what
appeared unbelievable, "piano music." People who ought to have known
that Mozart was the greatest pianist of his time shrugged their
shoulders at this. As a climax it was insinuated that Liszt was setting
systems of philosophy to music.
I studied Liszt's works with all the enthusiasm of my eighteen years for
I already regarded him as a genius and attributed to him even before I
saw him almost superhuman powers as a pianist. Remarkable to relate he
surpassed the conception I had formed. The dreams of my youthful
imagination were but prose in comparison with the Bacchic hymn evoked by
his supernatural fingers. No one who did not hear him at the height of
his powers can have any idea of his performance.
* * * * *
Seghers was a member of the Societe des Concerts at the Conservatoire.
This reached only a restricted public and there was no other symphony
concert worthy of the name in Paris at the time. And if the public was
limited, the repertoire was even more so. Haydn's, Mozart's and
Beethoven's symphonies were played almost exclusively, and Mendelssohn's
were introduced with the greatest difficulty. Only fragments of vast
compositions like the oratorios were given. An author who was still
alive was looked upon as an intruder. However, the conductor was
permitted to introduce a solo of his own selection. Thus my friend
Auguste Tolbecque, who was over eighty, was permitted to give--he still
played beautifully--my first _concerto_ for the violoncello which I had
written for him. Deldevez, the conductor of the famous orchestra at the
time, did not overlook the chance to tell me that he had put my
_concerto_ on the programme only through consideration for Tolbecque.
Otherwise, he added, he would have preferred Messieurs So-and-so's.
Not only did the Conservatoire audiences know little music, but the
larger public knew none at all. The symphonies of the three great
classic masters were known to amateurs for the most part only through
Czerny's arrangement for two pianos.
This was the situation when Seghers left the Societe des Concerts and
founded the Societe St. Cecile. He led the orchestra himself. The new
society took its name from the St. Cecile hall which was then in the Rue
de la Chaussee d'Antin. It was a large square hall and was excellent in
spite of the prejudice in favor of halls with curved lines for music.
Curved surfaces, as Cavaille-Coll, who was an expert in this matter,
once told me, distort sound as curved mirrors distort images. Halls used
for music should, therefore, have only straight lines. The St. Cecile
hall was sufficiently large to allow a complete orchestra and chorus to
be placed properly and heard as well.
Seghers managed to assemble an excellent and sizable orchestra and he
also secured soloists who were young then but who have since become
celebrities. The orchestra was poorly paid and also very unruly. I have
seen them rebel at the difficulties in Beethoven, and it was even worse
when Seghers undertook to give Schumann who was considered the _ne plus
ultra_ of modernism. Oftentimes there were real riots. But we heard
there for the first time the overture of _Manfred_, Mendelssohn's
_Symphony in A minor_, and the overture to _Tannhauser_.
The modern French school found the doors in the Rue Bergere closed to
them, but they were welcomed with open arms at the Chaussee d'Antin.
Among them were Reber, Gounod, and Gouvy, and even beginners like
Georges Bizet and myself. I made my first venture there with my
_Symphony in E flat_ which I wrote when I was seventeen. In order to get
the committee to adopt it, Seghers offered it as a symphony by an
unknown author, which had been sent to him from Germany. The committees
swallowed the bait, and the symphony, which would probably not had a
hearing if my name had been signed, was praised to the skies.
I can still see myself at a rehearsal listening to a conversation
between Berlioz and Gounod. Both of them were greatly interested in me,
so that they spoke freely and discussed the excellences and faults of
this anonymous symphony. They took the work seriously and it can be
imagined how I drank in their words. When the veil of mystery was
lifted, the interest of the two great musicians changed to friendship. I
received a letter from Gounod, which I have kept carefully, and as it
does credit to the author, I take the liberty of reproducing it here:
My dear Camille:
I was officially informed yesterday that you are the author of the
symphony which they played on Sunday. I suspected it; but now that
I am sure, I want to tell you at once how pleased I was with it.
You are beyond your years; always keep on--and remember that on
Sunday, December 11, 1853, you obligated yourself to become a great
master.
Your pleased and devoted friend,
CH. GOUNOD.
Many works which had been unknown to Parisian audiences were given at
these concerts and nowhere else. Among them were Schubert's _Symphony in
C,_ fragments of Weber's opera _Preciosa,_ his _Jubel overture_, and
symphonies by Gade, Gouvy, Gounod, and Reber. These symphonies are not
dazzling but they are charming. They form an interesting link in the
golden chain, and the public has a right and even some sort of duty to
hear them. They would enjoy hearing them too, just as at the Louvre they
like to see certain pictures which are not extraordinary but which are,
nevertheless, worthy of the place they occupy. That is to say, if the
public is really guided by a love of art and seeks only intellectual
pleasure instead of sensations and shocks. Some one has said lately that
where there is no feeling there is no music. We could, however, cite
many passages of music which are absolutely lacking in emotion and which
are beautiful nevertheless from the standpoint of pure esthetic beauty.
But what am I saying? Painting goes its own way and emotion, feeling,
and passion are evoked by the least landscape. Maurice Barres brought in
this fashion and he could even see passion in rocks. Happy is he who can
follow him there.
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