Chapter 16

DÉBUSSY AND THE INNOVATORS

At intervals during the course of the art have appeared the innovators and pioneers,--rebels against the accepted manner and idiom. The mystery is that while they seem necessary to progress they seldom create enduring works. The shadowy lines may begin somewhere among the Huebalds and other early adventurers. One of the most striking figures is Peri, who boldly, almost impiously, abandoned the contrapuntal style, the only one sanctioned by tradition, and set the dramatic parts in informal musical prose with a mere strumming of instruments.

It is not easy to see the precise need of such reaction. The radical cause is probably a kind of inertia in all things human, by which the accepted is thought the only way. Rules spring up that are never wholly true; at best they are shifts to guide the student, inadequate conclusions from past art. The essence of an art can never be put in formulas. Else we should be content with the verbal form. The best excuse for the rule is that it is meant to guard the element of truth in art from meretricious pretence.

And, we must not forget, Art progresses by slow degrees; much that is right in one age could not come in an earlier, before the intervening step.

The masters, when they had won their spurs, were ever restive under rules.[A] Yet they underwent the strictest discipline, gaining early the secret of expression; for the best purpose of rules is liberation, not restraint. On the other hand they were, in the main, essentially conservative. Sebastian Bach clung to the older manner, disdaining the secular sonata for which his son was breaking the ground.

[Footnote A: Some of the chance sayings of Mozart (recently edited by Kerst-Elberfeld) betray much contempt for academic study: "Learning from books is of no account. Here, here, and here (pointing to ear, head, and heart) is your school." On the subject of librettists "with their professional tricks," he says: "If we composers were equally faithful to our own rules (which were good enough when men knew no better), we should turn out just as poor a quality in our music as they in their librettos." Yet, elsewhere, he admits: "No one has spent so much pains on the study of composition as myself. There is hardly a famous master in music whom I have not read through diligently and often."]

The master feels the full worth of what has been achieved; else he has not mastered. He merely gives a crowning touch of poetic message, while the lighter mind is busy with tinkering of newer forms. For the highest reaches of an art, the poet must first have grasped all that has gone before. He will not rebel before he knows the spirit of the law, nor spend himself on novelty for its own sake.

The line between the Master and the Radical may often seem vague. For, the former has his Promethean strokes, all unpremeditated, compelled by the inner sequence,--as when Beethoven strikes the prophetic drum in the grim Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony; or in the Eroica when the horn sounds sheer ahead, out of line with the sustaining chorus; or when Bach leaps to his harmonic heights in organ fantasy and toccata; or Mozart sings his exquisite clashes in the G Minor Symphony.

As the true poet begins by absorption of the art that he finds, his early utterance will be imitative. His ultimate goal is not the strikingly new but the eternally true. It is a question less of men than of a point of view.

It seems sometimes that in art as in politics two parties are needed, one balancing the weaknesses of the other. As certain epochs are overburdened by the spirit of a past poet, so others are marred by the opposite excess, by a kind of neo-mania. The latter comes naturally as reaction from the former. Between them the poet holds the balance of clear vision.

When Peri overthrew the trammels of counterpoint, in a dream of Hellenic revival of drama, he could not hope to write a master-work. Destructive rebellion cannot be blended with constructive beauty. An antidote is of necessity not nourishment. Others may follow the path-breaker and slowly reclaim the best of old tradition from the new soil. The strange part of this rebellion is that it is always marked by the quality of stereotype which it seeks to avoid. This is an invariable symptom. It cannot be otherwise; for the rejection of existing art leaves too few resources. Moreover, the pioneer has his eye too exclusively upon the mere manner.

A wholesome reaction there may be against excess. When Gluck dared to move the hearts of his hearers instead of tickling their ears, he achieved his purpose by positive beauty, without actual loss. In this sense every work of art is a work of revolution. So Wagner, especially in his earlier dramas,[A] by sheer sincerity and poetic directness, corrected a frivolous tradition of opera. But when he grew destructive of melody and form, by theory and practice, he sank to the rôle of innovator, with pervading trait of stereotype, in the main merely adding to the lesser resources of the art. His later works, though they contain episodes of overwhelming beauty, cannot have a place among the permanent classics, alone by reason of their excessive reiteration.

[Footnote A: The "Flying Dutchman," "Lohengrin" and "Tannhäuser" seemed destined to survive Wagner's later works.]

One of the most charming instances of this iconoclasm is the music of Claude Débussy.[A] In a way we are reminded of the first flash of Wagner's later manner: the same vagueness of tonality, though with a different complexion and temper. Like the German, Débussy has his own novel use of instruments. He is also a rebel against episodic melody. Only, with Wagner the stand was more of theory than of practice. His lyric inspiration was here too strong; otherwise with Débussy. Each article of rebellion is more highly stressed in the French leader, save as to organic form, where the latter is far the stronger. And finally the element of mannerism cannot be gainsaid in either composer.[B]

[Footnote A: Born in 1862.]

[Footnote B: Some recurring traits Wagner and Débussy have in common, such as the climactic chord of the ninth. The melodic appoggiatura is as frequent in the earlier German as the augmented chord of the fifth in the later Frenchman.]

Among the special traits of Débussy's harmonic manner is a mingling with the main chord of the third below. There is a building downward, as it were. The harmony, complete as it stands, seeks a lower foundation so that the plain tower (as it looked at first) is at the end a lofty minaret. It is striking that a classic figure in French music should have stood, in the early eighteenth century, a champion of this idea, to be sure only in the domain of theory. There is a touch of romance in the fate of a pioneer, rejected for his doctrine in one age, taken up in the art of two centuries later.[A]

[Footnote A: Rameau, when the cyclopaedic spirit was first stirring and musical art was sounding for a scientific basis, insisted on the element of the third below, implying a tonic chord of 6, 5, 3. Here he was opposed by Fétis, Fux and other theoretic authority; judgment was definitively rendered against him by contemporary opinion and prevailing tradition. It cannot be said that the modern French practice has justified Rameau's theory, since with all the charm of the enriched chord, there is ever a begging of the question of the ultimate root.]

A purely scientific basis must be shunned in any direct approach of the art whether critical or creative,--alone for the fatal allurement of a separate research. The truth is that a spirit of fantastic experiment, started by the mystic manner of a César Franck, sought a sanction in the phenomena of acoustics. So it is likely that the enharmonic process of Franck led to the strained use of the whole-tone scale (of which we have spoken above) by a further departure from tonality.[A] And yet, in all truth, there can be no doubt of the delight of these flashes of the modern French poet,--a delicate charm as beguiling as the bolder, warmer harmonies of the earlier German. Instead of the broad exultation of Wagner there is in Débussy the subtle, insinuating dissonance. Nor is the French composer wanting in audacious strokes. Once for all he stood the emancipator of the art from the stern rule of individual vocal procedure. He cut the Gordian knot of harmonic pedagogy by the mere weapon of poetic elision. He simply omitted the obvious link by a license ancient in poetry and even in prose. He devised in his harmonies the paradox, that is the essence of art, that the necessary step somehow becomes unnecessary. Though Wagner plunges without ceremony into his languorous chords, he carefully resolves their further course. Débussy has them tumbling in headlong descent like sportive leviathans in his sea of sound. Moreover he has broken these fetters of a small punctilio without losing the sense of a true harmonic sequence. Nay, by the very riotous revel of upper harmonies he has stressed the more clearly the path of the fundamental tone. When he enters the higher sanctuary of pure concerted voices, he is fully aware of the fine rigor of its rites. And finally his mischievous abandon never leads him to do violence to the profoundest element of the art, of organic design.[B]

[Footnote A: As the lower overtones, discovered by a later science, clearly confirm the tonal system of the major scale, slowly evolved in the career of the art,--so the upper overtones are said to justify the whole-tone process. At best this is a case of the devil quoting scripture. The main recurring overtones, which are lower and audible, are all in support of a clear prevailing tonality.]

[Footnote B: In the drama Débussy avoids the question of form by treating the music as mere scenic background. Wagner, in his later works, attempted the impossible of combining a tonal with the dramatic plot. In both composers, to carry on the comparison beyond the technical phase, is a certain reaching for the primeval, in feeling as in tonality. Here they are part of a larger movement of their age. The subjects of their dramas are chosen from the same period of mediaeval legend, strongly surcharged in both composers with a spirit of fatalism where tragedy and love are indissolubly blended.]

_"THE SEA." THREE SYMPHONIC SKETCHES_

_I.--From Dawn to Noon on the Sea._ In awesome quiet of unsoothing sounds we feel, over a dual elemental motion, a quick fillip as of sudden lapping wave, while a shadowy air rises slowly in hollow intervals. Midst trembling whispers descending (like the soughing wind), a strange note, as of distant trumpet, strikes in gentle insistence--out of the other rhythm--and blows a wailing phrase. The trembling whisper has sunk to lowest depths. Still continues the lapping of waves--all sounds of unhuman nature.

[Music: (Muted trumpet, with Eng. horns in lower 8ve.) _Very slowly_ _Espressivo_ (Cellos with basses in lower 8ve.)]

On quicker spur the shadowy motive flits faster here and there in a slow swelling din of whispering, to the insistent plash of wave. Suddenly the sense of desolation yields to soothing play of waters--a _berceuse_ of the sea--and now a song sings softly (in horn), though strangely jarring on the murmuring lullaby. The soothing cheer is anon broken by a shift of new tone. There is a fluctuation of pleasant and strange sounds; a dulcet air on rapturous harmony is hushed by unfriendly plash of chord.

Back again in the quieter play of rhythm the strange, sweet song (of horns) returns.

In a ravishing climax of gentle chorus of quick plashing waves and swirling breeze the song sings on and the trumpet blows its line of tune to a ringing phrase of the clarinet.

[Music: (Strings and horns) _ad lib. faster_]

When this has died down, the lapping waves, as in concert, strike in full chord that spreads a hue of warmth, as of the first peep of sun. It is indeed as though the waves rose towards the sun with a glow of welcome.

In the wake of the first stirring shock is a host of soft cheering sounds of bustling day, like a choir of birds or bells. The eager madrigal leads to a final blast (with acclaiming chorus of big rocking waves), echoed in golden notes of the horns. One slight touch has heightened the hue to warmest cheer; but once do we feel the full glow of risen sun.

The chilling shadows return, as the wistful air of hushed trumpet sounds again. We hover between flashes of warming sun, until the waves have abated; in soothing stillness the romantic horn[A] sings a lay of legend.

[Footnote A: English horn.]

Now to friendly purling of playful wavelets, the sea moves in shifting harmonies. In sudden climax the motion of the waves fills all the brass in triumphant paean, in the gleam of high noon.

_II.--Play of the Waves._ There is a poetic background as for the play of legend. We seem to be watching the sea from a window in the castle of _Pelléas_. For there is a touch of dim romance in a phrase of the clarinet.

The movement of waves is clear, and the unconscious concert of sea-sounds, the deeper pulse of ocean (in the horns), the flowing ripples, the sharp dash of lighter surf (in the Glockenspiel), all with a constant tremor, an instability of element (in trembling strings). We cannot help feeling the illusion of scene in the impersonal play of natural sounds. Anon will come a shock of exquisite sweetness that must have something of human. And then follows a resonant clash with spray of colliding seas.

Here the story of the waves begins, and there are clearly two roles.

To light lapping and cradling of waters the wood sings the simple lay, while strings discourse in quicker, higher phrase. The parts are reversed. A shower of chilling wave (in gliding harps) breaks the thread.

[Music: _Con anima_ (Highest and lowest figure in strings. Middle voices in octaves of wood)]

Now golden tones (of horns) sound a mystic tale of one of the former figures. The scene shimmers

[Music: (With rhythmic harps and strings) (Flutes) (Eng. horn) _espressivo_ (Strings) (Horns)]

in sparkling, glinting waters (with harp and trilling wood and strings). But against the soothing background the story (of English horn) has a chill, ominous strain.

With the returning main song comes the passionate crisis, and we are back in the mere plash and play of impersonal waves.

On dancing ripples, a nixie is laughing to echoing horns and lures us back to the story.

[Music: (Strings with lower 8ve.) (Cl.) _grazioso_ (Horns)]

Later, it seems, two mermaids sing in twining duet. In a warm hue of light the horns sound a weird tale. It is taken up by teasing chorus of lighter voices. In the growing volume sounds a clear, almost martial call of the brass.

In a new shade of scene we recover the lost burden of song; the original figures appear (in the slower air of trembling strings and the quicker play of reed, harp and bells), and wander through ever new, moving phases. A shower of chords (in strings and shaking brass) brings back the ominous melody, amidst a chorus of light chatter, but firmly resting on a warm background of harmony. And the strain roves on generous path and rises out of all its gloom to a burst of profound cheer.

[Music: (1st violins with lower 8ve.) (2d violins; percussion with cellos below) (Harp with violas) (Flutes with higher 8ve.) (See page 104, line 11.)]

As in all fairy tales, the scene quickly vanishes. On dancing rays and ripples is the laughing nixie; but suddenly breaks the first song of the main figures. A climactic phrase of trumpets ends with a burst of all the chorus on stirring harmony, where in diminishing strokes of bells long rings the melodic note.

The teasing motive of the nixie returns while the trumpet sounds a shadowy echo of its phrase, again to dying peal of bells. A chorus of eerie voices sing the mocking air, and again sounds the refrain of trumpet as in rebuke. On a tumult of teasing cries flashes a delivering burst of brilliant light, and we are back in the first scene of the story. Only the main figure is absent. And there is in the eager tension of pace a quivering between joy and doubt. Then, in answer to the lighter phrase of the other, is the returning figure with a new song now of blended longing and content that soars into higher flights until a mighty chorus repeats the strain that rises to triumphant height of joy and transforms the mocking motive to the same mood.

But it is all a play of the waves. And we are left once more to the impersonal scene where yet the fragrance of legend hovers over the dying harmonies.

_III.--Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea._ Tumultuous is the humor of the beginning; early sounds the stroke of wave of the first hour of the sea. The muted trumpet blows a strain (to trembling strings) that takes us back to the first (quoted) tune of the symphony in the wistful mood of dawn. For a symphony it proves to be in the unity of themes and thought. Now unmuted and unrestrained in conflict of crashing chords, the trumpet blows again the motto of the roving sea. In various figures is the pelagic motion, in continuous coursing strings, in the sweeping phrase of the woodwind, or in the original wave-motion of the horns, now unmuted.

The main burden is a plaint

[Music: (Woodwind in lower octaves and touches of horns) (_Animato_) _poco rit._ (Strings in higher and lower octaves)]

(in the wood) against the insistent surge (of strings), on a haunting motive as of farewell or eventide, with much stress of pathos. It is sung in sustained duet against a constant churning figure of the sea, and it is varied by a dulcet strain that grows out of the wave-motive.

Indeed, the whole movement is complementary of the first, the obverse as it were. The themes are of the same text; the hue and mood have changed from the spring of dawn to the sadness of dusk. The symbol of noontide peace reappears with minor tinge, at the hush of eve. The climactic motive of the sea acclaiming the rising sun is there, but reversed.

The sea too has the same tempestuous motion (indeed, the plaintive song is mainly of the wind), unrestrained by the sadder mood. At the passionate climax, where the higher figure sinks toward the rising lower, it is as if the Wind kissed the Sea.

The concluding scene begins as in the first movement, save with greater extension of expressive melody. And the poignant note has a long song against a continuous rippling (of harps).

More elemental figures crowd the scene; the first melody (of trumpet) has a full verse, and the dulcet phrase (of wave-motive).

Toward the end the plaintive song has an ever-growing chorus of acclaiming voices. In the fever of united coursing motion the phrase loses the touch of sadness until in eager, spirited pace, as of galloping steeds, it ends with a shout of victory.

_DUKAS. "THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE"_

Chief among the companions of Claude Débussy in his adventures is Paul Dukas.[A] Though he lags somewhat in bold flights of harmonies, he shows a clearer vein of melody and rhythm, and he has an advantage in a greater freedom from the rut of repeated device.

[Footnote A: Born in 1865.]

It is somehow in the smaller forms that the French composer finds the trenchant utterance of his fancy. A Scherzo, after the ballad of Goethe, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," tells the famous story of the boy who in his master's absence compels the spirit in the broom to fetch the water; but he cannot say the magic word to stop the flood, although he cleaves the demon-broom in two.

After the title-page of the score is printed a prose version (by Henri Blaze) of Goethe's ballad, "Der Zauberlehrling."

Of several translations the following, by Bowring, seems the best:

THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE

I am now,--what joy to hear it!-- Of the old magician rid; And henceforth shall ev'ry spirit Do whatever by me is bid: I have watch'd with rigor All he used to do, And will now with vigor Work my wonders, too.

Wander, wander Onward lightly, So that rightly Flow the torrent, And with teeming waters yonder In the bath discharge its current!

And now come, thou well-worn broom, And thy wretched form bestir; Thou hast ever served as groom, So fulfil my pleasure, sir! On two legs now stand With a head on top; Water pail in hand, Haste and do not stop!

Wander, wander Onward lightly, So that rightly Flow the torrent, And with teeming waters yonder In the bath discharge its current!

See! he's running to the shore, And has now attained the pool, And with lightning speed once more Comes here, with his bucket full! Back he then repairs; See how swells the tide! How each pail he bears Straightway is supplied!

Stop, for lo! All the measure Of thy treasure Now is right! Ah, I see it! woe, oh, woe! I forget the word of might.

Ah, the word whose sound can straight Make him what he was before! Ah, he runs with nimble gait! Would thou wert a broom once more! Streams renew'd forever Quickly bringeth he; River after river Rusheth on poor me!

Now no longer Can I bear him, I will snare him, Knavish sprite! Ah, my terror waxes stronger! What a look! what fearful sight!

Oh, thou villain child of hell! Shall the house through thee be drown'd? Floods I see that widely swell, O'er the threshold gaining ground. Wilt thou not obey, O thou broom accurs'd! Be thou still, I pray, As thou wert at first!

Will enough Never please thee? I will seize thee, Hold thee fast, And thy nimble wood so tough With my sharp axe split at last.

See, once more he hastens back! Now, O Cobold, thou shalt catch it! I will rush upon his track; Crashing on him falls my hatchet. Bravely done, indeed! See, he's cleft in twain! Now from care I'm freed, And can breathe again.

Woe oh, woe! Both the parts, Quick as darts, Stand on end, Servants of my dreaded foe! O ye gods, protection send!

And they run! and wetter still Grow the steps and grows the hall. Lord and master, hear me call! Ever seems the flood to fill.

Ah, he's coming! see, Great is my dismay! Spirits raised by me Vainly would I lay!

"To the side Of the room Hasten, broom, As of old! Spirits I have ne'er untied Save to act as they are told."

In paragraphs are clearly pointed the episodes: the boy's delight at finding himself alone to conjure the spirits; the invocation to the water, recurring later as refrain (which in the French is not addressed to the spirit); then the insistent summons of the spirit in the broom; the latter's obedient course to the river and his oft-repeated fetching of the water; the boy's call to him to stop,--he has forgotten the formula; his terror over the impending flood; he threatens in his anguish to destroy the broom; he calls once more to stop; the repeated threat; he cleaves the spirit in two and rejoices; he despairs as two spirits are now adding to the flood; he invokes the master who returns; the master dismisses the broom to the corner.

There is the touch of magic in the first harmonics of strings, and the sense of sorcery is always sustained in the strange harmonies.[A]

[Footnote A: The flageolet tones of the strings seem wonderfully designed in their ghostly sound for such an aerial touch. Dukas uses them later in divided violins, violas and cellos, having thus a triad of harmonics doubled in the octave.

The remaining instruments are: Piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bass-clarinet, 3 bassoons, contra-bassoon (or contra-bass sarrusophon); 4 horns, 2 trumpets (often muted); 2 cornets-à-pistons; 3 trombones; 3 kettle-drums; harp; glockenspiel; big drum, cymbals and triangle.]

After a mystic descent of eerie chords, a melodious cooing phrase begins in higher wood, echoed from one voice to the other, while the spirit-notes are still sounding.

Suddenly dashes a stream of descending spray, met by another ascending; in the midst the first phrase is rapidly sounded (in muted trumpet). As suddenly the first solemn moment has returned, the phrase has grown in melody, while uncanny harmonies prevail. Amidst a new feverish rush a call rings

[Music: (Wood and _pizz._ strings) _Vivace_ (Horns and trumpets)]

loud and oft (in trumpets and horns) ending in an insistent, furious summons. The silence that ensues is as speaking (or in its way as deafening) as were the calls.

After what seems like the grating of ancient joints, set in reluctant motion, the whole tune of the first wooing phrase moves in steady gait, in comic bassoons, to the tripping of strings, further and fuller extended as other voices join. The beginning phrase of chords recurs as answer. Ever the lumbering trip continues, with strange turn of harmony and color, followed ever by the weird answer. A fuller apparition comes with the loud, though muffled tones of the trumpets. The original tune grows in new turns and folds of melody, daintily tipped with the ring of bells over the light tones of the wood. The brilliant

[Music: _Vivace_ (Melody in 3 bassoons) (Acc't in _pizz._ strings)]

harp completes the chorus of hurrying voices. Now with full power and swing the main notes ring in sturdy brass, while all around is a rushing and swirling (of harps and bells and wood and strings). And still more furious grows the flight, led by the unison violins.

A mischievous mood of impish frolic gives a new turn of saucy gait. In the jovial answer, chorussed in simple song, seems a revel of all the spirits of rivers and streams.

At the top of a big extended period the trumpet sends a shrill defiant blast.

But it is not merely in power and speed,--more in an infinite variety of color, and whim of tune and rhythmic harmony, that is expressed the full gamut of disporting spirits. Later, at fastest speed of tripping harp and wood, the brass ring out that first, insistent summons, beneath the same eerie harmonies--and the uncanny descending chords answer as before. But alas! the summons will not work the other way. Despite the forbidding command and all the other exorcising the race goes madly on.

And now, if we are intent on the story, we may see the rising rage of the apprentice and at last the fatal stroke that seemingly hems and almost quells the flood. But not quite! Slowly (as at first) the hinges start in motion. And now, new horror! Where there was one, there are now two ghostly figures scurrying to redoubled disaster. Again and again the stern call rings out, answered by the wildest tumult of all. The shouts for the master's aid seem to turn to shrieks of despair. At last a mighty call overmasters and stills the storm. Nothing is heard but the first fitful phrases; now they seem mere echoes, instead of forewarnings. We cannot fail to see the fine parallel, how the masterful command is effective as was the similar call at the beginning.

Significantly brief is the ending, at once of the story and of the music. In the brevity lies the point of the plot: in the curt dismissal of the humbled spirit, at the height of his revel, to his place as broom in the corner. Wistful almost is the slow vanishing until the last chords come like the breaking of a fairy trance.