Chapter 10

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]

There is in this a mixture of Christian humility and aristocratic pride. M. d'Indy has a sincere desire for the welfare of humanity, and he loves the people; but he treats them with an affectionate kindness, at once protective and tolerant; he regards them as children that must be led.[166]

[Footnote 165: _Cours de Composition_, and _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_.]

[Footnote 166: _Cours de Composition_.]

The popular art that he extols is not an art belonging to the people, but that of an aristocracy interested in the people. He wishes to enlighten them, to mould them, to direct them, by means of art. Art is the source of life; it is the spirit of progress; it gives the most precious of possessions to the soul--liberty. And no one enjoys this liberty more than the artist. In a lecture to the _Schola_ he said:

"What makes the name of 'artist' so splendid is that the artist is free--absolutely free. Look about you, and tell me if from this point of view there is any career finer than that of an artist who is conscious of his mission? The Army? The Law? The University? Politics?"

And then follows a rather cold appreciation of these different careers.

"There is no need to mention the excessive bureaucracy and officialism which is the crying evil of this country. We find everywhere submission to rules and servitude to the State. But what government, pope, emperor, or president could oblige an artist to think and write against his will? Liberty--that is the true wealth and the most precious inheritance of the artist, the liberty to think, and the liberty that no one has the power to take away from us--that of doing our work according to the dictates of our conscience."

Who does not feel the infectious warmth and beauty of these spirited words? How this force of enthusiasm and sincerity must grip all young and eager hearts. "There are two qualities," says M. d'Indy, on the last page of _Cours de Composition_, "which a master should try to encourage and develop in the spirit of the pupil, for without them science is useless; these qualities are an unselfish love of art and enthusiasm for good work." And these two virtues radiate from M. d'Indy's personality as they do from his writings; that is his power.

But the best of his teaching lies in his life. One can never speak too highly of his disinterested devotion for the good of art. As if it were not enough to put all his might into his own creations, M. d'Indy gives his time and the results of his study unsparingly to others. Franck gave lessons in order to be able to live; M. d'Indy gives them for the pleasure of instructing, and to serve his art and aid artists. He directs schools, and accepts and almost seeks out the most thankless, though the most necessary, kinds of teaching. Or he will apply himself devoutly to the study of the past and the resuscitation of some old master. And he seems to take so much pleasure in training young minds to appreciate music, or in repairing the injustices of history to some fine but forgotten musician, that he almost forgets about himself. To what work or to what worker, worthy of interest, or seeming to be so, has he ever refused his advice and help? I have known his kindness personally, and I shall always be sincerely grateful for it.

His devotion and his faith have not been in vain. The name of M. d'Indy will be associated in history, not only with fine works, but with great works: with the _Société Nationale de Musique_, of which he is president; with the _Schola Cantorum_, which he founded with Charles Bordes, and which he directs; with the young French school of music, a group of skilful artists and innovators, to whom he is a kind of elder brother, giving them encouragement by his example and helping them through the first hard years of struggle; and, lastly, with an awakening of music in Europe, with a movement which, after the death of Wagner and Franck, attracted the interest of the world by its revival of the art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. M. d'Indy has been the chief representative of all this artistic evolution in France. By his deeds, by his example, and by his spirit, he was among the first to stir up interest in the musical education of France to-day. He has done more for the advancement of our music than the entire official teaching of the Conservatoires A day will come when, by the force of things and in spite of all resistance, such a man will take the place that belongs to him at the head of the organisation of music in France.

* * * * *

I have tried to unearth M. d'Indy's strongest characteristics, and I think I have found them in his faith and in his activity, I am only too aware of the pitfalls that have beset me in this attempt; it is always difficult to criticise a man's personality, and it is most difficult when he is alive and still in the midst of his development. Every man is a mystery, not only to others, but to himself. There is something very presumptuous about pretending to know anyone who does not quite know himself. And yet one cannot live without forming opinions; it is a necessity of life. The people we see and know (or say we know), our friends, and those we love, are never what we think them. Often they are not at all like the portrait we conjure up; for we walk among the phantoms of our hearts. But still one must go on having opinions, and go on constructing and creating things, if we do not want to become impotent through inertia. Error is better than doubt, provided we err in good faith; and the main thing is to speak out the thing that one really feels and believes. I hope M. d'Indy will forgive me if I have gone far wrong, and that he will see in these pages a sincere effort to understand him and a keen sympathy with himself, and even with his ideas, though I do not always share them. But I have always thought that in life a man's opinions go for very little, and that the only thing that matters is the man himself. Freedom of spirit is the greatest happiness one can know; one must be sorry for those who have not got it. And there is a secret pleasure in rendering homage to another's splendid creed, even though it is one that we do not ourselves profess.

RICHARD STRAUSS

The composer of _Heldenleben_ is no longer unknown to Parisians. Every year at Colonne's or Chevillard's we see his tall, thin silhouette reappear in the conductor's desk. There he is with his abrupt and imperious gestures, his wan and anxious face, his wonderfully clear eyes, restless and penetrating at the same time, his mouth shaped like a child's, a moustache so fair that it is nearly white, and curly hair growing like a crown above his high round forehead.

I should like to try to sketch here the strange and arresting personality of the man who in Germany is considered the inheritor of Wagner's genius--the man who has had the audacity to write, after Beethoven, an Heroic Symphony, and to imagine himself the hero.

* * * * *

Richard Strauss is thirty-four years old.[167] He was born in Munich on 11 June, 1864. His father, a well-known virtuoso, was first horn in the Royal orchestra, and his mother was a daughter of the brewer Pschorr. He was brought up among musical surroundings. At four years old he played the piano, and at six he composed little dances, _Lieder_, sonatas, and even overtures for the orchestra. Perhaps this extreme artistic precocity has had something to do with the feverish character of his talents, by keeping his nerves in a state of tension and unduly exciting his mind. At school he composed choruses for some of Sophocles' tragedies. In 1881, Hermann Levi had one of the young collegian's symphonies performed by his orchestra. At the University he spent his time in writing instrumental music. Then Bülow and Radecke made him play in Berlin; and Bülow, who became very fond of him, had him brought to Meiningen as _Musikdirector_. From 1886 to 1889 he held the same post at the _Hoftheater_ in Munich. From 1889 to 1894 he was _Kapellmeister_ at the _Hoftheater_ in Weimar. He returned to Munich in 1894 as _Hofkapellmeister_, and in 1897 succeeded Hermann Levi. Finally, he left Munich for Berlin, where at present he conducts the orchestra of the Royal Opera.

[Footnote 167: This essay was written in 1899.]

Two things should be particularly noted in his life: the influence of Alexander Ritter--to whom he has shown much gratitude--and his travels in the south of Europe. He made Ritter's acquaintance in 1885. This musician was a nephew of Wagner's, and died some years ago. His music is practically unknown in France, though he wrote two well-known operas, _Fauler Hans_ and _Wem die Krone_? and was the first composer, according to Strauss, to introduce Wagnerian methods into the _Lied_. He is often discussed in Bülow's and Liszt's letters. "Before I met him," says Strauss, "I had been brought up on strictly classical lines; I had lived entirely on Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and had just been studying Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms. It is to Ritter alone I am indebted for my knowledge of Liszt and Wagner; it was he who showed me the importance of the writings and works of these two masters in the history of art. It was he who by years of lessons and kindly counsel made me a musician of the future (_Zukunftsmusiker_), and set my feet on a road where now I can walk unaided and alone. It was he also who initiated me in Schopenhauer's philosophy."

The second influence, that of the South, dates from April, 1886, and seems to have left an indelible impression upon Strauss. He visited Rome and Naples for the first time, and came back with a symphonic fantasia called _Aus Italien_. In the spring of 1892, after a sharp attack of pneumonia, he travelled for a year and a half in Greece, Egypt, and Sicily. The tranquillity of these favoured countries filled him with never-ending regret. The North has depressed him since then, "the eternal grey of the North and its phantom shadows without a sun."[168] When I saw him at Charlottenburg, one chilly April day, he told me with a sigh that he could compose nothing in winter, and that he longed for the warmth and light of Italy. His music is infected by that longing; and it makes one feel how his spirit suffers in the gloom of Germany, and ever yearns for the colours, the laughter, and the joy of the South.

[Footnote 168: Nietzsche.]

Like the musician that Nietzsche dreamed of,[169] he seems "to hear ringing in his ears the prelude of a deeper, stronger music, perhaps a more wayward and mysterious music; a music that is super-German, which, unlike other music, would not die away, nor pale, nor grow dull beside the blue and wanton sea and the clear Mediterranean sky; a music super-European, which would hold its own even by the dark sunsets of the desert; a music whose soul is akin to the palm trees; a music that knows how to live and move among great beasts of prey, beautiful and solitary; a music whose supreme charm is its ignorance of good and evil. Only from time to time perhaps there would flit over it the longing of the sailor for home, golden shadows, and gentle weaknesses; and towards it would come flying from afar the thousand tints of the setting of a moral world that men no longer understood; and to these belated fugitives it would extend its hospitality and sympathy." But it is always the North, the melancholy of the North, and "all the sadness of mankind," mental anguish, the thought of death, and the tyranny of life, that come and weigh down afresh his spirit hungering for light, and force it into feverish speculation and bitter argument. Perhaps it is better so.

[Footnote 169: _Beyond Good and Evil_, 1886. I hope I may be excused for introducing Nietzsche here, but his thoughts seem constantly to be reflected in Strauss, and to throw much light on the soul of modern Germany.]

* * * * *

Richard Strauss is both a poet and a musician. These two natures live together in him, and each strives to get the better of the other. The balance is not always well maintained; but when he does succeed in keeping it by sheer force of will the union of these two talents, directed to the same end, produces an effect more powerful than any known since Wagner's time. Both natures have their source in a mind filled with heroic thoughts--a rarer possession, I consider, than a talent for either music or poetry. There are other great musicians in Europe; but Strauss is something more than a great musician, for he is able to create a hero.

When one talks of heroes one is thinking of drama. Dramatic art is everywhere in Strauss's music, even in works that seem least adapted to it, such as his _Lieder_ and compositions of pure music. It is most evident in his symphonic poems, which are the most important part of his work. These poems are: _Wanderers Sturmlied_ (1885), _Aus Italien_ (1886), _Macbeth_ (1887), _Don Juan_ (1888), _Tod und Verklärung_ (1889), _Guntram_ (1892-93), _Till Eulenspiegel_ (1894), _Also sprach Zarathustra_ (1895), _Don Quixote_ (1897), and _Heldenleben_ (1898).[170]

[Footnote 170: This article was written in 1899. Since then the _Sinfonia Domestica_, has been produced, and will be noticed in the essay _French and German Music_.]

I shall not say much about the four first works, where the mind and manner of the artist is taking shape. The _Wanderers Sturmlied_ (the song of a traveller during a storm, op. 14) is a vocal sextette with an orchestral accompaniment, whose subject is taken from a poem of Goethe's. It was written before Strauss met Ritter, and its construction is after the manner of Brahms, and shows a rather affected thought and style. _Aus Italien_ (op. 16) is an exuberant picture of impressions of his tour in Italy, of the ruins at Rome, the seashore at Sorrento, and the life of the Italian people. _Macbeth_ (op. 23) gives us a rather undistinguished series of musical interpretations of poetical subjects. _Don Juan_ (op. 20) is much finer, and translates Lenau's poem into music with bombastic vigour, showing us the hero who dreams of grasping all the joy of the world, and how he fails, and dies after he has lost faith in everything.

_Tod und Verklärung_ ("Death and Transfiguration," op. 24[171]) marks considerable progress in Strauss's thought and style. It is still one of the most stirring of Strauss's works, and the one that is conceived with the most perfect unity. It was inspired by a poem of Alexander Ritter's, and I will give you an idea of its subject.

[Footnote 171: Composed in 1889, and performed for the first time at Eisenach in 1890.]

In a wretched room, lit only by a nightlight, a sick man lies in bed. Death draws near him in the midst of awe-inspiring silence. The unhappy man seems to wander in his mind at times, and to find comfort in past memories. His life passes before his eyes: his innocent childhood, his happy youth, the struggles of middle age, and his efforts to attain the splendid goal of his desires, which always eludes him. He had been striving all his life for this goal, and at last thought it was within reach, when Death, in a voice of thunder, cries, suddenly, "Stop!" And even now in his agony he struggles desperately, being set upon realising his dream; but the hand of Death is crushing life out of his body, and night is creeping on. Then resounds in the heavens the promise of that happiness which he had vainly sought for on earth--Redemption and Transfiguration.

Richard Strauss's friends protested vigorously against this orthodox ending; and Seidl,[1] Jorisenne,[2] and Wilhelm Mauke[3] pretended that the subject was something loftier, that it was the eternal struggle of the soul against its lower self and its deliverance by means of art. I shall not enter into that discussion, though I think that such a cold and commonplace symbolism is much less interesting than the struggle with death, which one feels in every note of the composition. It is a classical work, comparatively speaking; broad and majestic and almost like Beethoven in style. The realism of the subject in the hallucinations of the dying man, the shiverings of fever, the throbbing of the veins, and the despairing agony, is transfigured by the purity of the form in which it is cast. It is realism after the manner of the symphony in C minor, where Beethoven argues with Destiny. If all suggestion of a programme is taken away, the symphony still remains intelligible and impressive by its harmonious expression of feeling.

[1] _Richard Strauss, eine Charakterskizze_, 1896, Prague.]

[2] _R. Strauss, Essai critique et biologique_, 1898, Brussels.]

[3] _Der Musikführer: Tod und Verklärung_, Frankfort.]