Part 9

This melodic conception of harmony has always been a fundamental characteristic of d'Indy's style, as examples from widely sundered periods will easily show. The first, Figure XXII, is a bit from the Chant Elégiaque in the early Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano (1887). The charming unexpectedness of the twist back into E major is thorough d'Indy, as is also the use of a persistent figure (given to the cello in the original) and the rhythmic modification of this same figure to provide the bass in the second measure. The second passage, shown in Figure XXIII, dates from thirty years later, and appears in "Souvenirs" (1906). Here again the melodies "find a way," and a more interesting, vista-opening way than any sonorities could suggest. Such passages enable us to get the full sense of what their composer means when he writes: "The study of chords _for themselves_ is, from the musical point of view, an absolute æsthetic error, for harmony springs from melody, and ought never to be separated from it in its application.... There is only one chord, the perfect chord [triad], alone consonant, because it alone gives the sense of repose or equilibrium. All the combinations that people call 'dissonant chords,' necessitating, in order to be examined, an artificial arrest in the melodies that constitute them, have no proper existence, since in making abstraction of the movement that engenders them, one suppresses their unique reason for being. Chords have too often become the end of music; they ought never to be anything but a means, a consequence, a phenomenon essentially transient."[44] It may be held that d'Indy sometimes goes too far in his denunciations of harmonic theories based on the conception of the "chord," as for example in his note on the famous opening phrase of "Tristan and Isolde." It may also be justly remarked that his own method is not always happy in its results--that the way his melodies find is sometimes an obscure and wandering, or an unnatural and forced way. Nevertheless it remains on the whole true that on the one hand the chord conception of harmony has been responsible for a vast mass of pedantry, and has paralyzed and hamstrung whole generations of students, and that on the other hand it favors the purely sensuous trifling with tones of which there is so much in our day; while the best pages of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Franck, d'Indy show a thousand beauties and poignancies which without the help of melody could never have been discovered.

Seule la Mort l'injurieuse Mort appellera, la Clair Vie

In the course of Kaito's prophecy, in "Fervaal," there is a deeply moving passage to the words: "Only Death, baleful Death, shall summon Life," which strikingly illustrates its composer's way of making all the elements of music contribute to expression (see Figure XXIV). Here the upward inflection of the voice, the strange intervals, the vague harmonies, the halting movement, even the sighing syncopation of the bass, all contribute to the interpretation of the opening lines. But above all, how inexplicably stirring is the gradual increase of force and rise of pitch up to the clear chord of D major (note the composer's indication, "Clair") at the word "Life" ("Vie")! Gloom and mystery give place to hope, faith, will, to which the ecclesiastical harmonies lend an unmistakable religious coloring. This change, completely spontaneous in effect, is dictated by an art that conceals itself, and introduces us to one of the most individual features of d'Indy's harmonic technique, his ease of modulation. In his _Cours de Composition Musicale_ he has worked out his theories of the expressive use of modulation with characteristic thoroughness, and with unprecedented amplitude of detail. To resume his points here, however, interesting as they are, would take us too deeply into technical matters, especially as our main interest is now in his application rather than in his statement of them. The essential principles may therefore be briefly summarized, in his own words, as follows:

(1) "Expression is the unique reason for being of modulation."

(2) "Modulation operates by a displacement of the tonic ['key-note'], by its oscillation towards the higher fifths [that is, towards the sharper keys, as to G, D, A, etc., from C] or towards the lower fifths [that is, towards the flatter keys, as to F, B flat, E flat, etc., from C]."

(3) "Modulation has for its effect to render relative impressions of brightness [that is, movement towards sharper keys produces '_éclaircissement_'] or of darkness [movement towards flatter keys produces '_assombrissement_']."

(4) "Modulation can never be the _end_ of music, since it is by its very nature a _means_ put _at the service of the musical idea_. Every modulation which has not this character of subordination to the idea is thereby inopportune, useless, and even injurious to the equilibrium of the composition."[45]

Looking back at our examples in the light of these principles, and especially with the illumination afforded by the text in Kaito's contrast of death and life, we shall find a further element of art to admire in them--their expressive use of modulation. The slow movement of the symphony begins in the comparatively "dark" key of D flat, but touches in the fourth measure, at the acme of the climax, the brighter D major, whence with the waning emotion it subsides to the original key. The passage cited from the _Chant élégiaque_ emerges from the shades of E flat minor to the bright daylight of E major (wherein starts a new statement of the main theme). The fragment from "Souvenirs" commences in quiet grief, in the clear but rather subdued key of A minor; with the third measure a downward inflection, a sort of depression of mood, sinks it to hopeless groping in the glooms of G flat and C flat, whence it again struggles forth to new assertion, in A minor, in the phrase that follows our excerpt. Stated in bald technical terms like these, such changes may seem crude, obvious, mechanical; but anyone who will listen sympathetically to the music in which they are embodied by a master will realize the infinite variety and subtlety of their appeal.

A later appearance of this same theme in "Souvenirs," in which for the first two notes in the second measure is substituted a triplet, F, G, E, suggests the further remark that even ornament, so apt to be used merely for show, is employed by d'Indy, like so many more basic resources, singly for expression. His somewhat severe conception of art--there is much in his style that, especially in contrast with German sensuousness, is austere, bare, almost stark--leads him to condemn superficial decoration. "The _fioriture_ of the Italian dramatic school of the early nineteenth century," he insists, "intended only to display the vocal agility of the singer (just as the Variation of Chopin, although more musical, puts forward the fingers of the pianist), this _fioriture_, consisting usually of embroideries about an arpeggio, is truly more harmonic than melodic--and even the harmony is usually extremely banal. The characteristic of the accomplished and conscientious artist is a firm will to treat only subjects that have a value in themselves, not borrowed from the apparel in which they are dressed up."[46] And he elsewhere succinctly defines the Italian _fioriture_ as "that art which consists in making heard the greatest number of useless notes in the shortest space of time."[47] But he takes pains to distinguish "this surcharge dictated by bad taste" from the more essential ornament used in the "expressive vocalises of J. S. Bach and his contemporaries, which, like the Gregorian Variation from which they derive, form a part of the melody." And he cites with approval melodies like the theme of the Allegretto in Franck's Symphony, in which a short phrase is repeated not literally but with ornamental variation resulting from the natural progression of the thought or feeling--from what, in short, we have called the logic of emotion. Such treatment is almost a mannerism in his own work. Other instances, besides the place in "Souvenirs" just cited, are the first theme of the violin sonata, the fugato in the first movement of the quartet, the main theme of the same movement, and the main theme of "Evening" in the "Summer Day on the Mountain" (Figure XXVII, _a_).

Finally, even in the matter of orchestration, the least essential of any we have considered, d'Indy is still guided by the same principle--truth to feeling. Though universally acknowledged, even by those who dislike his music, to be one of the greatest living masters of the resources of the orchestra, he never uses these resources, as does for example Rimsky-Korsakoff, in a spirit of sheer virtuosity. Nothing in his scores is put there to dazzle or to stun; all is for eloquent musical speech; and when there is great liveliness or brilliancy, as there often is--at the end of "Istar," for instance, in the scherzo of the B-flat symphony, and in "Dawn" of the "Summer Day on the Mountain"--it is in response not to an opportunity for display, but to a mood. The sharp contrast of the general method of scoring with Wagner's, especially in a composer so largely indebted to Wagner, is highly instructive in this regard. Wagner in his love of rich sonorities almost habitually doubles different groups of instruments on a single melody; d'Indy prefers the single group, not only for its superior clarity but even more, one must think, for the greater eloquence of its individual voice. The passage quoted from the symphony is a good sample of his methods. First violins on their G strings for the opening phrase, sounding at once the right note of earnestness. Bass clarinet alone on motive _b_. Both first and second violins for the more emphatic repetition of the main motive, and the low strings in their more impassioned accents for the reiteration of the bass clarinet phrase. Then all the violins and the violas for the third, culminating statement,--the first violins leaving off with the B flat, the seconds with the A, and the violas, in their more veiled tones, alone carrying the phrase down to its final A flat.

Thus does d'Indy use the various elements of musical technique--melody, rhythm, harmony, modulation, and even ornament and orchestration--in the interests of emotion. Before asking whether the same principle that we thus see so multifariously at work in short sections of his music can also be traced in the marshaling of its larger masses, let us take one final example of its operation within conveniently narrow limits. In Figure XXV (pages 198, 199) is shown the coda of the first movement of the string quartet in E major, his masterpiece in chamber music. It is entirely derived from the fragment of Gregorian chant used as a text. We may note summarily the following points, which by no means exhaust the interest of the passage.

1. Melodic. There is no salient phrase which is not derived from the root motive. As for the variety, the reader will judge for himself. This is a supreme case of the germinating power of a musical thought.

2. Rhythmic. The original nucleus of the theme is rhythmed mainly in quarter notes. It is reduced to even eighth notes at the beginning of the coda, and in that murmuring, inconspicuous form stays on a dead level, so to speak, and makes a colorless background of accompaniment whence the more passionate main phrases detach themselves sharply. Beginning in the fifth measure the second violin sounds an _augmented_ form of the motive (whole notes), in expression tentative, timid. This recurs in the viola in measure 11, with more of emphasis, and is broken in upon by a _syncopated_ form of the same (beginning on the second half of the measure) from the first violin. The C sharp here is the crest of the emotional wave, whence it subsides first by the gradual descent of the motive through three octaves in measures 17-20, and then by the flagging of the accompaniment rhythm first to quarter notes, then to half notes. Still a different rhythm is heard in the last announcement by the first violin.

3. Harmonic. The harmony is absolutely the product of concurrent melodies throughout. No notes are added merely for color. Yet the sonorities, though effects rather than causes, are unforgettable.

4. Modulatory. The first measure strongly establishes E major as the tonal center, and as the goal of what preceded the excerpt. A subtle change of the violin figure obscures the sense of tonality (by suggesting the atonal "whole-tone scale"), whereupon the first meditative version of the theme appears in the much darker key of A flat. The tonality is again clouded, and the theme appears once more in A, brighter than A flat, but less bright than the original E. The reappearance of this therefore, in the fifteenth measure, has the effect of an "_éclaircissement_." The tonic of E major is maintained through the last eleven measures, giving a grateful sense of homecoming, of repose after adventure.

5. Instrumental. The student is referred to the score for detail. Particularly notable are the keenness of the violin E string at the moment of climax, and the earnest virility of the G string in the last statement.

III

The same loyalty to emotional truth that dictates all these processes of detail, guides also d'Indy's treatment of a composition considered as a whole. His conception of form, though set forth in the _Cours_ in largely intellectual terms, can be thoroughly understood only when traced back to its emotional basis. Because for him a piece of music must hang together emotionally, must proceed, that is, all from a few ideas, and must evolve these freely and variously in obedience to the logic of emotion, he takes as his central principle Variation, or germination from root themes. Not only, he believes, should the single movement thus proceed from a few themes, but the entire work, according to what is called cyclic form, should result from their transformation and recombination. In other words, just as the rhythmic waxing and waning of the emotions embodied in a few themes gives rise to the single movement, the regarding of the same themes _from different points of view_, or under the domination of varying moods, will naturally generate the contrasted movements, all thematically related, of cyclic form.

It may at once be admitted that such a conception of form has its pitfalls. The same process that in the glow of creative emotion is a spontaneous reshaping of a theme to meet a new situation may in the absence of such emotion degenerate into a hammering of recalcitrant matter into mere distortion and ineptitude. That is what we note too often in Liszt's similar theme transformations in his symphonic poems, as when in "Les Préludes" he makes his love _cantabile_ do reluctant duty as a trumpet call to war. D'Indy, let us confess it, is by no means guiltless on this score; in uninspired moments he becomes too easily the slave instead of the master of his process; living form stiffens into dead formula; and we have a more or less mechanical rearrangement of notes, as for instance that of the main theme of the finale in the B flat Symphony, based on the choral at the end, masquerading as a genuine reincarnation. Such scholastic passages do indeed appear as blemishes in too many even of his finest works. But it is fair to judge a process not by its occasional abuse, but by the possibilities a felicitous use of it opens up. These possibilities in the case of cyclic form are a maximum of diversity without diffuseness, and a maximum of unity without monotony or platitude.

That a development of something of the sort was indispensable to the progress of composition is evident when we reflect how intolerable literal recapitulation has become to the modern ear. Much of the prejudice against the sonata form in our day is due to the literal recapitulations of bunglers in the use of it. The remedy is, not to throw overboard the form, which is a natural, flexible, and convenient one, but to bring to it a freshness of feeling which penetrates at once to the spirit of it, ignoring the letter. Thus d'Indy, in the slow movement of the B flat Symphony, recapitulates the main theme, shown at Figure XXVI, _a_, not literally but in subtlest reincarnation, one step higher in the scale, though still in the same key, and transferred from the sultry tones of clarinet, horn, English horn, and viola to the pure, pale sonority of a single flute, supported by lightest violin harmonies (Figure XXVI, _b_). It is the same theme, but breathing now a quite new sentiment.[48]

It is but a step from such a recreated recapitulation to a theme transformation such as we find in the last movement of the "Summer Day on the Mountain." This work is not only its composer's masterpiece in the sphere of program music; it is the latest and best of a whole series of works[49] in which he has expressed his love of his native country of the Cévennes in southeastern France. "At this moment," he once wrote in a letter from his château of Faugs, near Boffres in Ardèche, "I see the snowy summits of the Alps, the nearer mountains, the plain of the Rhone, the pine woods that I know so well, and the green, rich harvest which has not yet been gathered. It is a true pleasure to be here after the labors and the vexations of the winter. What they call at Paris 'the artistic world' seems afar off and a trifling thing. Here is true repose, here one feels at the true source of all art."

The "Jour d'Été à la Montagne," in three movements, "Aurore" ("Dawn"), "Jour--Après-midi sous les pins" ("Day: Afternoon under the Pines") and "Soir" ("Evening"), is characteristic of the composer in that, despite its program, there is in it little scene-painting, such as we find so constantly in Strauss and others. A memorable suggestion of dawn, with its vague shapes in the half-light and its bird songs, in the first movement[50]; a whiff of peasant dance-tune in the second, coming up through the baking heat under the pines; in the third some evening chimes from the valley: that is all. It is the emotional significance of the scene in its varying aspects, its appeal to the sympathies and associations of a poetic observer, that interest the musician. The main theme of the last movement (Figure XXVII, _a_) thus suggests the joy of life in the bright summer afternoon; its activity depicts no mere external scene, we feel, but reflects the elation of the sensitive heart, witnessing this scene. And when, at the end, after the suggestions of descending night and the distant jangle of chimes tempered by the evening air, the same melody returns in softest sonorities of strings and in quietest motion (Figure XXVII, _b_), we hear in it again no merely objective facts, but the tranquil evening thoughts of a poet, spiritualized in meditation. Never since he first essayed such theme transformation in a large work, in the "Symphony on a Mountain Theme" of 1886, which M. Paul Dukas called "a single piece in three episodes," has d'Indy been more successful in drawing together the most opposing moods by the single subjective point of view from which they are regarded, as incarnated in a common theme. Never has he written a more characteristic page than that lovely breath of evening tenderness, the meditation of a lover on the world toward which darkness and sleep gently approach.

A work in which the cyclic method is applied with almost unparalleled rigor and resourcefulness, and which is therefore worthy of detailed analysis, is the String Quartet in E major,[51] built up from four notes of a Gregorian chant, shown at Figure XXV. The swinging main theme of the first movement, derived from this fragment by a natural rhythmic and tonal proliferation (see Figure XXVIII, _b_), is not immediately stated, but is rather anticipated tentatively, and gradually allowed to take shape, by a process dear to the composer, first through imitative bits for the different instruments and then through a serious fugato (Figure XXVIII, _a_). Once achieved it is broadly treated, with a richly conceived tonal digression into E flat major and return. A second theme, of sinuous curve and fluent movement (Figure XXVIII, _c_), is reached through a transition passage of more animated rhythm. The themes thus stated, development begins: not a perfunctory worrying of the themes such as the "free fantasia" often degenerates into in the hands of composers possessed of neither freedom nor fancy, but a dynamic action and reaction of the themes such as d'Indy conceives development essentially to be. "Development," he says, "is ... the action of the themes and ideas, and consequently their reason for being, since an idea is of value only through the action it is capable of exercising. When there are several ideas ... the development expresses usually all the phases of a struggle between them, with the final triumph of one and submission of the other.... The themes comport themselves like living people: they act and move according to their tendencies, their sentiments, and their passions. These modifications show themselves both in the thematic elements which are elaborated as if to surpass themselves, or are restrained as if to become absorbed, and in the tonal trajectories which orient themselves toward light or toward darkness."[52] It will be seen that in this case the development first (pages 9 and 10) takes the aspect of a quiet presentation of the first theme in dark keys (E flat major, etc.) and then (from index number 10, through the whole of page 11) of a brief recurrence of the second theme and elimination of it with the reviving force of the first, moving through more energetic rhythms and brighter tonalities to final victorious reassertion. The themes are then recapitulated and the movement ends with the beautiful coda we have already examined.

The two middle movements, too complex to analyze in detail, are based on themes strikingly illustrative of what was said a moment ago as to cyclic form arising from the approach to a common theme from different angles, or under the influence of varying moods. That of the scherzo is the theme envisaged playfully (Figure XXVIII, _d_); that of the slow movement (Figure XXVIII, _e_) shapes itself in response to a more serious contemplation. It may be pointed out that these are no mere clever or learned jugglings with notes, such as arise sometimes from the abuse of the method; not only are they true textually to the theme, but each is a faithful expression of its own mood; the resulting music accordingly convinces us emotionally as well as intellectually.