Chapter II: Preface: xi (2)

It is possible to see in this music a picture of Lear, "stretched to the last moment upon the rack of this tough world"; of Cordelia, "unmingled tenderness and strength, sunshine and rain at once"; of Goneril and Regan, types of "the ravening egoism in humanity which is at war with all goodness." Or one may recall the words of Coleridge as most pithily characterizing the overture of Berlioz: "What is _Lear_? It is storm and tempest--the thunder at first grumbling in the far horizon, then gathering around us, and at length bursting in fury over our heads--succeeded by a breaking of the clouds for a while, a last flash of lightning, the closing in of night, and the single hope of darkness."

FANTASTIC SYMPHONY: Op. 14-a

1. DREAMS, PASSIONS
(_Largo_)
(_Allegro agitato e appassionato assai_)

2. A BALL
(_Waltz: Allegro non troppo_)

3. SCENE IN THE FIELDS
(_Adagio_)

4. MARCH TO THE SCAFFOLD
(_Allegretto non troppo_)

5. WALPURGIS NIGHT'S DREAM
(_Larghetto_)
(_Allegro_)

This _Symphonie fantastique_, in five movements, constitutes the first part of a work entitled by Berlioz "Episode in the Life of an Artist." The second part, a "lyric monodrama," is entitled "Lélio; or, The Return to Life." The _Symphonie fantastique_ was composed in 1830, at the time of Berlioz's "interminable and inextinguishable" passion for the Irish actress Henrietta Smithson--the tragic history of which this is not the place to review. The "Episode in the Life of an Artist," as he wrote to his dear friend Ferrand early in 1830, was to portray "the development of my infernal passion." As to the meaning of the "Fantastic Symphony," Berlioz has himself supplied the following detailed explanatory preface:

"A young musician of morbid sensibility and ardent imagination
poisons himself with opium in a fit of amorous despair. The narcotic
dose, too weak to result in death, plunges him into a heavy sleep
accompanied by the strangest visions, during which his sensations,
sentiments, and recollections are translated in his sick brain into
musical thought and images. The beloved woman herself has become for
him a melody, like a fixed idea which he finds and hears everywhere.

"PART I
"DREAMS, PASSIONS

"He first recalls that uneasiness of soul, that _vague des passions_,
those moments of causeless melancholy and joy, which he experienced
before seeing her whom he loves; then the volcanic love with which
she suddenly inspired him, his moments of delicious anguish, of
jealous fury, his returns to loving tenderness, and his religious
consolations.

"PART II
"A BALL

"He sees his beloved at a ball, in the midst of the tumult of a
brilliant fête.

"PART III
"SCENE IN THE FIELDS

"One summer evening in the country he hears two shepherds playing
a _Ranz-des-vaches_ in alternate dialogue; this pastoral duet, the
scene around him, the light rustling of the trees gently swayed by
the breeze, some hopes he has recently conceived, all combine to
restore an unwonted calm to his heart and to impart a more cheerful
coloring to his thoughts; but _she_ appears once more, his heart
stops beating, he is agitated with painful presentiments; if she were
to betray him!... One of the shepherds resumes his artless melody,
the other no longer answers him. The sun sets ... the sound of
distant thunder ... solitude ... silence....

"PART IV
"MARCH TO THE SCAFFOLD

"He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned to
death and led to execution. The procession advances to the tones
of a march which is now sombre and wild, now brilliant and solemn,
in which the dull sound of the tread of heavy feet follows without
transition upon the most resounding outbursts. At the end, the _fixed
idea_ reappears for an instant, like a last love-thought interrupted
by the fatal stroke.

"PART V
"WALPURGIS NIGHT'S DREAM

"He sees himself at the witches' Sabbath, in the midst of a frightful
group of ghosts, magicians, and monsters of all sorts, who have
come together for his obsequies. He hears strange noises, groans,
ringing laughter, shrieks, to which other shrieks seem to reply.
The _beloved melody_ again reappears; but it has lost its noble and
timid character; it has become an ignoble, trivial, and grotesque
dance-tune: it is _she_ who comes to the witches' Sabbath....
Howlings of joy at her arrival ... she takes part in the diabolic
orgy.... Funeral knells, burlesque parody on the _Dies iræ_. Witches'
dance. The witches' dance and the _Dies iræ_ together."[16]

"HAROLD IN ITALY"

SYMPHONY IN FOUR MOVEMENTS, WITH VIOLA SOLO: Op. 16

1. HAROLD IN THE MOUNTAINS; SCENES OF MELANCHOLY, HAPPINESS, AND JOY
(_Adagio_)
(_Allegro_)

2. MARCH OF PILGRIMS SINGING THEIR EVENING HYMN
(_Allegretto_)

3. SERENADE OF A MOUNTAINEER OF THE ABRUZZI TO HIS MISTRESS
(_Allegro assai_)
(_Allegretto_)

4. ORGY OF BRIGANDS; RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PRECEDING SCENES
(_Allegro frenetico_)

Upon the romanticists in France--"the heroic boys of 1830," as William Ernest Henley called them--the influence of Byron was gripping and profound. To Berlioz, in particular, "greedy of emotion, intolerant of restraint, contemptuous of reticence and sobriety, ... and prepared to welcome, as a return to truth and nature, inventions the most extravagant and imaginings the most fantastic and far-fetched," this prince of romanticists must have seemed a poet after his own heart. Yet, singularly enough, there are in his writings comparatively few references to the author of "Manfred" and "Don Juan."

The manner in which the "Harold" symphony came to be written is related by Berlioz in his Memoirs. His _Symphonie fantastique_ had been played at a concert at the Paris Conservatory (December 22, 1833), with conspicuous success. "And then," says Berlioz, "to crown my happiness, after the audience had gone out, a man with a long mane of hair, with piercing eyes, with a strange and haggard face, one possessed by genius, a colossus among giants, whom I had never seen and whose appearance moved me profoundly, was alone and waiting for me in the hall, stopped me to press my hand, overwhelmed me with burning praise, which set fire to my heart and head: _it was Paganini!_... Some weeks after this vindicatory concert of which I have spoken, Paganini came to see me. 'I have a marvellous viola,' he said, 'an admirable Stradivarius, and I wish to play it in public. But I have no music _ad hoc_. Will you write a solo piece for the viola? You are the only one I can trust for such a work.' 'Yes, indeed,' I answered, 'your proposition flatters me more than I can tell, but, to make such a virtuoso as you shine in a piece of this nature, it is necessary to play the viola, and I do not play it. You are the only one, it seems to me, who can solve the problem.' 'No, no; I insist,' said Paganini; 'you will succeed; as for me, I am too sick at present to compose; I cannot think of it.'

"I tried then to please the illustrious virtuoso by writing a solo piece for the viola, but a solo combined with the orchestra in such a manner that it would not injure the expression of the orchestral mass, for I was sure that Paganini, by his incomparable artistry, would know how to make the viola always the dominating instrument....

"His proposal seemed new to me, and I soon had developed in my head a very happy idea, and I was eager for the realization. The first movement was hardly completed, when Paganini wished to see it. He looked at the rests for the viola in the allegro and exclaimed: 'No, it is not that: there are too many rests for me; I must be playing all the time.' 'I told you so,' I answered; 'you want a viola concerto, and you are the only one who can write such a concerto for yourself.' Paganini did not answer; he seemed disappointed, and left me without speaking further about my orchestral sketch. Some days afterwards, suffering already from the affection of the larynx which ultimately killed him,[17] he went to Nice, and returned to Paris only at the end of three years.

"Since I then saw that my plan of composition would not suit him, I set myself to work in another way, and without any anxiety concerning the means to make the solo viola conspicuous. My idea was to write for the orchestra a series of scenes in which the solo viola should figure as a more or less active personage of constantly preserved individuality; I wished to put the viola in the midst of poetic recollections left me by my wanderings in the Abruzzi, and make it a sort of melancholy dreamer, after the manner of Byron's 'Childe Harold.' Hence the title, _Harold en Italie_. As in the _Symphonie fantastique_, a chief theme (the first song of the viola) reappears throughout the work; but there is this difference: the theme of the _Symphonie fantastique_, the 'fixed idea,' interposes itself persistently as an episodic and passionate thought in the midst of scenes which are foreign to it and modifies them; while the song of Harold is added to other songs of the orchestra with which it is contrasted both in movement and character and without any interruption of the development."

The relationship between Berlioz's symphony and Byron's poetic account of the Italian wanderings of his Harold is of the slightest, and any attempt to discover, in Berlioz's programme of the moods and incidents of his symphonic hero, definite correspondences with Byron's poem, would be more than futile. One who seeks enlightenment concerning the intentions of Berlioz in this symphony must fall back upon the composer's own brief hints as contained in the inscriptions appended to the several movements. The voice of the solo viola, as we know, typifies throughout the "melancholy dreamer" as conceived by Berlioz--it is Harold undergoing his adventures: in the mountains; encountering a band of devout and simple pilgrims; observing an enamoured mountaineer in the act of serenading his mistress; and, finally, involved in a tumultuous orgy of drunken bandits. Concerning this last movement, Berlioz has left us some additional information. Included in his Memoirs is a letter addressed to Heine, in which Berlioz gives an account of a performance of the symphony at Brunswick in March, 1843. "In the finale of 'Harold,'" he writes, "in this furious orgy in which the drunkenness of wine, blood, joy and rage all shout together; where the rhythm now seems to stumble, and now to run madly; where the mouths of brass seem to vomit forth curses and reply with blasphemies to entreating voices; where they laugh, drink, strike, bruise, kill, and ravish; where, in a word, they amuse themselves; in this scene of brigands the orchestra became a veritable pandemonium; there was something supernatural and frightful in the frenzy of its dash; everything sang, leaped, roared with diabolical order and unanimity--violins, basses, trombones, drums, and cymbals; while the solo alto, Harold, the dreamer, fleeing in fright, still sounded from afar some trembling notes of his evening hymn. Ah! what a feeling at the heart! What savage tremors in conducting this astonishing orchestra! You know nothing like it, the rest of you, poets; you have never been swept away by such hurricanes of life. I could have embraced the whole orchestra, but I could only cry out, in French it is true, but my accents surely made me understood: 'Sublime! I thank you, gentlemen, and I wonder at you: you are perfect brigands!'"

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Harriet Constance Smithson, born in Ireland in 1800, was a member of a company of English actors that stirred Paris in 1827 by their performances of Shakespearian plays, then unknown to the French public. Miss Smithson was known in Paris as "Henrietta." Berlioz married her in October, 1833. She died in 1854.

[15] Mr. W. F. Apthorp finds in the initial phrase of this introduction a reminder of Lear's speech to Gloster before the latter's castle (act ii., scene iv.):

"Go tell the duke and 's wife I'd speak with them,
Now, presently; bid them come forth and hear me,
Or at their chamber door I'll beat the drum
Till it cry sleep to death."

"It is quite as likely, however," observes Mr. Apthorp, "that Berlioz may have associated this violent, recitative-like passage with Lear's casting-away Cordelia in the first act of the tragedy."

[16] Translated by Mr. W. F. Apthorp.

[17] Paganini died in 1840. When the symphony was first performed at the Paris Conservatory, in 1834, Chrétien Urhan, one of the most famous virtuosos of his day, played the solo-viola part.

BIZET

(_Georges[18] Bizet: born in Paris, October 25, 1838; died in
Bougival, France, June 3, 1875_)

SUITE FROM "L'ARLÉSIENNE," No. 1[19]

1. PRELUDE
2. MINUETTO
3. ADAGIETTO
4. CARILLON

Bizet was commissioned to write incidental music for the performance at the _Vaudeville Theatre_, Paris, of Alphonse Daudet's three-act play "L'Arlésienne." The play and Bizet's music were given at the _Vaudeville_ on October 1, 1872, and withdrawn after fifteen performances. Bizet's music comprised twenty-seven numbers. After the failure of the _Vaudeville_ production, the composer arranged various numbers out of the twenty-seven in the form of a suite, and these were performed at a Pasdeloup concert in Paris on November 10, 1872. Ten years after the composer's death the play of Daudet, together with Bizet's music in its revised form, was revived in Paris, and it has since been repeatedly performed there.

The plot of "L'Arlésienne" is thus related by Mr. Philip Hale: "Fréderi, a young farmer of Carmague, and the son of Rose Mamaï, of Castelet, is madly in love with a girl of Arles, a brunette who is irresistible in the farandole;[20] and he would fain wed her. She is not seen in the drama. Fréderi is told at last that she is unworthy the love of any honest man; and he, thinking that contempt can kill passion, swears he will forget her. The baleful beauty of the woman haunts him day and night. The maiden Vivette, with whom he has grown up, wishes to console him; but, when he would woo her, the woman of Arles comes between them. Thus tortured by jealousy, hatred, love, despair, on a night when the peasants are celebrating the Festival of Saint Éloi, and dancing the farandole to the sound of flute and tambourine, Fréderi hurls himself from the garret-window of the farm-house and dashes his skull against the pavement of the court.

"As a contrast to this furious passion there is the pure love of the long-separated shepherd Balthazar and Mère Renaud. There is also the Innocent, the young brother of Fréderi, whose brain begins to work only as the tragedy deepens, and at last is awakened to full consciousness by the catastrophe."

The connection of the several numbers of Bizet's suite with the action of the play may be briefly indicated:

I. PRELUDE

The Prelude, which serves also as the introduction to the play, prefigures two of the chief dramatic personages: the Innocent, and the impassioned Fréderi. Prefacing the themes of these two appears the tune of an old Provençal Christmas song. There are four variations of this theme, and then follows the theme of the Innocent, forming the second section of the Prelude. The theme of Fréderi's passion constitutes the finale. It is this theme which accompanies the speech of Balthazar at the tragic end of the drama: "Go to the window--you will see whether one does not die of love!"

II. MINUETTO

In the complete version of the music for the play this piece is No. 17 of Act II. The middle portion has been said to denote "the tender and resigned affection of the Shepherd Balthazar and Mère Renaud."

III. ADAGIETTO

This music is played during the conversation between Mère Renaud and her lover Balthazar in the Court of Castelet. Mr. Hale has thus admirably translated the passage:

"BALTHAZAR.
"God keep you, Renaud!

"MÈRE RENAUD.
"Oh! O my poor Balthazar.

"BALTHAZAR (_in a low voice_).
"It's my fault. I knew you were coming. I should not have stayed.

"MÈRE RENAUD.
"Why not? To keep your oath? Bah! that is not worth the trouble. God
himself has not wished that we should die without a meeting, and for
this He put love in the hearts of those children there. And, after
all, He owes us this as a reward for our bravery.

"BALTHAZAR.
"Yes, there was need of courage. Leading my beasts, I sometimes saw
the smoke of your dwelling, and it seemed to make a sign to me:
'Come! She is here!'

"MÈRE RENAUD.
"And when I heard your dogs bark, and I recognized you and your
great cape afar off, it took all my strength to keep me from running
towards you. And now, at last, our trouble is at an end, and we can
look on each other without blushing. Balthazar!

"BALTHAZAR.
"Renaud!

"MÈRE RENAUD.
"Would you be ashamed to kiss me now, all old and wrinkled by years
as I am?

"BALTHAZAR.
"Oh!

"MÈRE RENAUD.
"Well, press me close to your heart. For fifty years I have owed you
this kiss of friendship."

IV. CARILLON[21]

This number forms the prelude to the fourth scene, the Court of Castelet. In celebration of the betrothal of Fréderi and Vivette, the court-yard of the farm-house is gay with May-poles and decorations of cornflowers and poppies. The orchestra plays an unvarying chime-like figure throughout fifty-six measures. There is a contrasting episode--the entrance of Mère Renaud; then the bell-like figure is resumed, and continues to the end.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] The baptismal names of Bizet were Alexandre-César-Léopold. As "Georges" he was known to the world and to his family and friends.

[19] Without opus number.

[20] "Farandole": a peasant dance of Southern France and the adjoining Italian provinces. It is in 6-8 rhythm and rapid tempo.

[21] "Carillon": a set of bells, tuned in a scale; in the modern orchestra, a series of small steel bars producing, when struck, bell-like tones throughout a range of about two and one-half octaves. Hence the use of the term to characterize an instrumental piece suggestive of bell music.

CHADWICK

(_George Whitfield Chadwick: born in Lowell, Mass., November 13,
1854; now living in Boston_)

DRAMATIC OVERTURE, "MELPOMENE"[22]

Chadwick's three principal overtures, "Melpomene," "Adonais," and "Euterpe," belong to that somewhat anomalous class of modern works which occupy a place on the border-line between programme music and "absolute" music--music which, while constructed according to the classic rules of design rather than in conformity with a poetic or dramatic scheme, is yet devoted to the expression of some mood or idea more definite than that which one looks for in music that is admittedly "absolute." In the "Melpomene," "Adonais," and "Euterpe" overtures, the composer has given us no clews as to the particular significance of his music beyond those conveyed by their titles--which are, doubtless, in their case, sufficient to establish a receptive mood in the hearer. The "Melpomene," composed in 1887, was originally intended as a companion piece to his earlier and seldom-played "Thalia" overture. That was subtitled "Overture to an Imaginary Comedy," and the sub-title of the "Melpomene" was intended to be "Overture to an Imaginary Tragedy." In the published score, however, the sub-title was omitted, and only the name of the Tragic Muse[23] was retained as an indication of the emotional purport of the music. The overture, as has been said, bears no explanatory note or preface whatever. Of its emotional outlines an indication is given in this vivid exposition of the music by Mr. Rupert Hughes:

"It opens with the solitary voice of the English horn.... The woful
plaint of this voice, breathing above a low, sinister roll of the
kettle-drum, establishes at once the atmosphere of melancholy. Other
instruments join the wail, which breaks out wildly from the whole
orchestra. Over a waving accompaniment of clarinets, the other
wood-winds strike up a more lyric and hopeful strain, and a soliloquy
from the 'cello ends the slow introduction. The first subject is
announced by the first violins against the full orchestra.... After
a powerful climax and a beautiful subsidence, ... the second subject
appears, ... with honeyed lyricism. Almost before one knows it he is
in the midst of the elaboration [the development, or "working-out"
section, of a composition in sonata form]. It is hard to say whether
the composer's emotion or his counterpoint is given freer rein here,
for the work is remarkable both for the display of every technical
resource and for the irresistible tempest of its passion.... The
cheerful consolation of the second subject provokes a cyclonic
outburst of grief; there is a furious climax of thrilling flutes
and violins over a mad blare of brass, the while the cymbals shiver
beneath the blows of the kettle-drum-sticks. An abrupt silence
prepares for a fierce, thunderous clamor from the kettle-drums and the
great drum. This subsides to a single thud of a kettle-drum; there
is another eloquent silence; the English horn returns to its first
plaint; but grief has died of very exercise, and the work ends in a
_coda_ [conclusion passage] that ... leaves the hearer with a heart
purged white and clean."

ELEGIAC OVERTURE, "ADONAIS"[24]

The score of this overture, completed in 1899, bears the following inscription: "In memoriam Frank Fay Marshall, obiit July 26, 1897." Its emotional kinship with the great threnody of Shelley is indicated in the title and in the character of the music. It might fittingly bear as motto these incomparable lines from Shelley's poem, which voice in words the precise emotion which has seemed to shape the utterances of the musician:

"Oh, weep for Adonais--he is dead!
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within thy burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep,
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
Descend:--oh, dream not that the amorous
Deep Will yet restore him to the vital air;
Death feeds on his mute voice and laughs at our despair.

* * * * *

"He will awake no more, oh, never more!
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace
The shadow of white Death, and at the door
Invisible Corruption waits to trace
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface
So fair a prey, till darkness and the law
Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw."

CONCERT OVERTURE, "EUTERPE"[25]

It has been said authoritatively that this overture (composed in 1903) follows no definite programmatic plan; that the spirit which animates it is adequately suggested by the title. Euterpe, it will be recalled, was the fourth daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Her province among the Muses has been admirably stated by Thomas Heywood, that seventeenth-century Englishman of amazing literary fecundity and erudition.[26] "Euterpe," he wrote in 1624, "is called the goddess of pleasantness and jollities, said to be delighted in all sorts of pipes and wind instruments, and to be both their inventresse and guidress.... This is the consequence and coherence betwixt Clio[27] and Euterpe, according to Fulgentius: we first in Clio acquire sciences, and arts, and enterprises, and by them honour and glorie: that obtained, in Euterpe we find pleasure and delectations in all such things as we sought and attained.... For Euterpe imports to us nothing else but the joy and pleasure which we conceive in following the Muses and truly apprehending the mysteries of discipline and service."

SYMPHONIC POEM, "CLEOPATRA"[28]

The narrative of Plutarch, rather than the play of Shakespeare, has served as the dramatic and poetic basis of this musical embodiment of the tragic history of Antony and Cleopatra. The composer has gone for his basic material to Plutarch's Life of Antony, from which, according to an authorized exposition, "those situations having the most direct reference to Cleopatra have been chosen for musical suggestion, although the action of the tragedy is not literally followed." Those phases of the tale selected by the composer for particular delineation appear to relate--in the order of their place in the score--to the voyage of Cleopatra up the River Cydnus in her barge (that barge which, "like a burnished throne, burnt on the water"); the martial approach of Antony; the passion of the lovers; Antony's melancholy end, and the burial of the pair in one grave.

The music (it was composed in 1904) opens with a passage suggestive of Cleopatra's voyage upon the Cydnus--a tonal paraphrase of Shakespeare's picture of that wonderful floating pageant: the barge whose poop

"was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes."

According to an exposition prepared with the sanction of the composer, the music, after this passage, proceeds as follows in relation to the progress of the tragedy:

"... A climax for the whole orchestra is succeeded by an _allegro
agitato_ depicting the approach of Antony and his army. A bold
military theme is worked up to a powerful climax, but soon dies away
in soft harmonies for the wind instruments and horns. The Cleopatra
theme then begins, first with a sensuous melody for the violoncello,
repeated by the violins and afterwards by the whole orchestra.

"Strange harmonies are heard in the muted strings. The English
horn and clarinet sing short, passionate phrases, to which the
soft trombones later on add a sound of foreboding. But suddenly
the Cleopatra theme appears again, now transformed to a vigorous
_allegro_, and Antony departs to meet defeat and death.

"The Antony theme is now fully worked out, mostly in minor keys and
sometimes in conjunction with the Cleopatra motive. It ends with
a terrific climax.... A long diminuendo, ending with a melancholy
phrase for the viola, suggests Antony's final passing, and Cleopatra's
lamentation follows.

"In this part much of the previous love music is repeated, and some
of it is entirely changed in expression as well as in rhythm and
instrumentation. At last it dies away in mysterious harmonies.

"The work closes with an imposing passage in which the burial of
Antony and Cleopatra in the same grave is suggested by the two themes
now heard for the first time simultaneously. For this, Shakespeare's
line is, perhaps, not inappropriate:

"She shall be buried by her Antony;
No grave upon the earth shall clip in it
A pair so famous ..."

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Without opus number.

[23] Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy, was the third of the nine Muses born by Mnemosyne to Zeus.

[24] Without opus number.

[25] Without opus number.

[26] Thomas Heywood, dramatist, poet, scholar, actor, translator, historian, whom Lamb amused himself by calling "a prose Shakespeare," was one of the most voluminous and indefatigable writers in the history of English letters. He died about 1850.

[27] The Muse of wisdom, of history, of heroic exploits.

[28] Without opus number.

CHARPENTIER

(_Gustave Charpentier: born in Dieuze, France, June 25, 1860; now
living in Paris_)

SUITE, "IMPRESSIONS OF ITALY"[29]

1. SERENADE
(_Assez vite_)

2. AT THE FOUNTAIN
(_Tranquille, assez lent_)

3. ON MULEBACK
(_Allegretto; andantino_)

4. ON THE SUMMITS
(_Moderato_)

5. NAPLES (
_Allegro non troppo_)

Charpentier, a pupil of the Paris Conservatoire, won the _Prix de Rome_ of 1887, and while at the Villa Medici, Rome, composed the suite _Impressions d'Italie_.

The following explanatory programme, written by Alfred Ernst, the late French music-critic, translator, and historian, is illuminating and trustworthy:

"I. SERENADE

"It is nearly midnight. Coming out from the _osterie_, the young
fellows of the neighborhood sing long, burning songs, at times sad,
often with a savage accent, under their betrotheds' windows. These
lovesick phrases are answered by mandolins and guitars. Then the song
of the young men sounds again, and dies away, little by little.

"II. AT THE FOUNTAIN

"Towards the ravines, where the water-falls spread out, march the
girls, barearmed, barelegged, with their white chemisettes wide open
over their shoulders and tanned busts. Serious, peaceful, without
voice and without a thought, they walk on, to a calm rhythm that
is almost religious, carrying bronze jugs on their heads, with a
slight swaying of the hips beneath the rigidity of their heads and
shoulders. And it is like a procession of priestesses, proud and
passive, marching their silent march through the burning brightness
of the sunlight, while at times the gay refrain of the shepherds
sounds down from the mountain.

"III. ON MULEBACK

"Towards evening, along the road that winds through the Sabine
Mountains, the mules trot at an even gait, to the bright rhythm of
their bells. That melody of the violoncello is the _canzone_, sung
with full voice by the _mulattiere_; and those sweet thirds of the
flutes that follow are the loving song, murmured by the fair girls
with deep eyes, seated, or rather kneeling, in the big carts that go
up towards the village.

"IV. ON THE SUMMITS

"It is noon in the lofty solitudes, in this Desert of Sorrento which
overlooks the town, from whence the eye embraces the islands and the
sea. The strings, with their long-sustained notes, paint, as it were,
the background of the picture, that extent of sea and country burned
by the sun, that glowing atmosphere; a horn suggests the far-off bell
of a monastery. The flutes, clarinets, harps, tell of the twittering
of birds, vociferously trilling, as if drunk with warmth and light.
Those violas and 'celli that sing, that gradually swell their tones,
are the soul, the enthusiasm of the poet, the voice that rises up in
the solitude, while the church-bells grow louder, and the chimes from
Sorrento, from Massa, even from Malfi, awaken those from the hills,
interlace their sounds over a compass of several octaves, pass over
the desert of summits, and are lost far off over the blue sea. All is
peace; some sounds of bells are still heard, feeble and sweet, in the
distant immensity.

"V. NAPLES.

"In this last part of his 'Impressions' the composer has attempted
to paint a musical picture of Naples, its population, its wholly
out-door life, its joyfulness.... At first we hear scattered
vibrations: heat, light, the swarming crowd. It seems as if songs
came from every street, dance rhythms, the amorous languor of
violins, the amusing plunking of guitars. Calls answer to calls,
military bands play proudly their brazen symphony; dancers strike the
ground with their feet, carry the rocking rhythm of tarantellas from
group to group. 'Tis like the great song of a people, the hymn of
Naples on the shore of its azure bay, with the intermittent rumbling
of Vesuvius overcrowding the sentimental songs the singers sing on
the quays in their nasal voice.... And evening falls, while fireworks
burst forth in gerbes of light, in bouquets of stars, which soar and
go out over the boundless mirror of the waves."[30]

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Without opus number.

[30] Translated by Mr. W. F. Apthorp.

CHAUSSON

(_Ernest Chausson: born in Paris, 1855; died in Limay, June 12, 1889_)

SYMPHONIC POEM, "VIVIANE": Op. 5

The subject of Chausson's symphonic poem is not the familiarly known Vivien of Tennyson--"treacherous, malignant, wanton"--but the vastly different Viviane of the old French legends. This delectable creature, the legendary woman who fired the imagination of Chausson, was a fairy who inhabited the forest of Brocéliande.[31] "More beautiful than the snow-necked swan," she typified the beneficence of nature. Merlin, "the old seer that knew the future as well as the past"--Merlin, who was, at various times in the growth of the old legend, the Celtic Mercury, bard, savant, prophet, warrior--was willing, observes Mr. Philip Hale in an interesting commentary, "yea, eager, to enter within the magic circle he had taught her [Viviane]. He knew what his fate would be. He longed to give her this assurance that he would never leave her." The Armorican tale upon which, in particular, Chausson based his symphonic poem has been paraphrased by Mr. Hale from Villermarqué as follows:

"Arthur went to Gaul to deliver the king of Little Brittany and put
Berry under the dominion of the Bretons, and Merlin followed him.
After the deeds were done, Merlin took leave of Arthur for a time
and went homeward through the great forests. He assumed the shape
and dress of a young student. Finally he came to the forest of
Brocéliande, and there he found a spring, which was visited by a young
maiden who lived in a dwelling near by. Her mother was the fairy of
the valley, and she had endowed her daughter with these gifts: she
would be loved by the wisest man in the world; he would obey all her
wishes, and he could never force her to obey his; she would learn
from him whatever she wished to know. And the name of this maiden was
Viviane, which means, in the Chaldæan language, _I shall do nothing_.
Pleased with her at first sight, he showed her many strange and
wonderful things; he commanded proud processions to pass by for her
amusement; he said the word, and gardens smiled before her; and then
he left her for a year with the promise to teach her all that he knew.

"Merlin returned on the eve of Saint John's Day. She was more
beautiful than ever. 'Her skin was so fresh, so white, so smooth!'
And he was well-nigh mad with love. He taught her how to make water
run where none ran before, to change her form at will, to put to
sleep whomever she pleased. 'He taught her then this secret and many
others: our Lord God wished it thus.'

"Again Merlin left her to join Arthur; but he often visited Viviane,
who knew him only as a fair youth. The king would miss him, and send
messengers; but his call would be in vain.

"The hermit Blaise knew the secret of Merlin, and urged him to keep
far from the forest. Merlin answered: 'I shall never have the courage
to abandon her. Yet I know that once near her I shall never have the
strength to come back to you."

"The hermit said: 'Why do you go if you know what is to happen?'

"'I go because I gave her my promise. I love her with such a love that
I cannot hold myself back. It is I, I alone, that gave her this power,
and I shall enlarge it. She shall know all I know. I could not, I
cannot, I do not wish to defend myself.'

"The good hermit left him for one mad, and began to weep. He embraced
him, and Merlin went away, and he too wept at leaving his dear master.

"Viviane had pondered many ways of keeping Merlin as her own. This
time she caressed him as she had never done before. She said: 'I wish
this Garden of Joy to stay here as it is, forever, that we might live
here always, we two; that we should never grow old, never leave each
other, never cease to love in full happiness.' And Merlin told her how
to do this.

"They sat one day beneath a bush of hawthorn, in the shade, on the
green grass, and the head of Merlin was on the knees of Viviane. She
passed again and again her hands through his hair, until he slept.
Then she arose and twined nine times her scarf around the bush of
blossoming hawthorn, and cast nine spells which Merlin had taught
her. Then she took her seat near him, and put again his head upon
her knees, and she thought it all had been only play, and that there
really was no bewitchment. But when Merlin opened his eyes and looked
about him, forest, garden, bush of hawthorn--all had disappeared, and
he found himself in a castle of enchantment, on a bed of flowers,
prisoner to the love of Viviane.

"'Ah, Viviane,' he cried, 'I shall think you purposed to deceive me if
you now ever go from me!'

"'Sweetheart,' said Viviane, 'how could you think so? How could I ever
leave you?'

"And she kept her word to him."

Chausson's symphonic poem was first performed in Paris (at a concert in the _Cirque d'Hiver_), March 30, 1884. Later it was extensively revised, and the altered version was played at a Lamoureux concert on January 29, 1888. The following preface is printed in the score:

"Viviane and Merlin in the forest of Brocéliande. Love scene.

"Trumpet calls. Messengers of King Arthur scour the forest in search
of the enchanter.

"Merlin remembers his errand. He fain would fly the embraces of
Viviane.

"Scene of the bewitchment. To detain him, Viviane puts Merlin to
sleep, and binds him with blooming hawthorns."

CONVERSE

(_Frederick Shepherd Converse: born in Newton, Mass., January 5,
1877; now living in Westwood, Mass._)

"THE FESTIVAL OF PAN," ROMANCE FOR ORCHESTRA: Op. 9

This symphonic poem, composed in 1899, is the first of a series of "romances" suggested to the composer by scenes in Keats's "Endymion." What portions of the poem inspired this particular work Mr. Converse has not avowed; yet the statement is responsibly made that "emphasis is thrown upon the contrast between Endymion's melancholy and the joyous pomp of the festival of Pan"; it may not, therefore, be inapt to quote those portions of Keats' poem which set forth this situation:

"Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who, gathering round the altar, seem'd to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday; nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which even then
Fill'd out its voice and died away again.

* * * * *

"Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd's song;
Each having a white wicker, overbrimm'd
With April's tender younglings; next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'erflowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly.

* * * * *

"... Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-follow'd by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair-wrought car
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple-brown;
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Showing like Ganymede to manhood grown;

* * * * *

"A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd
To common lookers-on like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian;
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets' cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.--Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!"

"ENDYMION'S NARRATIVE," ROMANCE FOR ORCHESTRA: Op. 10

This is the second of Mr. Converse's symphonic poems, or "romances," based upon scenes in the "Endymion" of Keats (the first, "The Festival of Pan," is described in the preceding pages). "Endymion's Narrative" was composed in 1901. The following explanation of the purpose of the music was given by the composer at the time of the first performance of the work by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1903:

"... As I have remarked on the title-pages of these works, they were
_suggested_ by certain scenes from the poem. I meant by this that
there was no desire or attempt to follow the text, slavishly and in
detail, but merely to give a general reflection of its emotional
phases. As a clew to 'Endymion's Narrative,' I would say that its idea
was derived from the scene in the poem where Endymion, oppressed with
melancholy feeling, and no longer cheered by the simple pleasures of
his companions, is withdrawn from the Festival by Peona, his anxious
sister, and led by her to a secluded part of the wood, where she
strives to find the cause of his despondency and to soothe him with
sisterly affection. Under her influence he reveals the cause of his
sorrow. He then relates to her what seems to me the spiritual essence
of the whole poem, the struggle of a mind possessed of an ideal beyond
the common view, and yet bound by affection and devotion to conditions
which confine and stifle its urging internal impulses.

"The piece begins with despondency and indecision. The hero is
harassed by alluring glimpses of the ideal, and soothed by simple
affection and love. There is a sort of dramatic growth of the various
elements, until finally the ideal comes victorious out of the
struggle, and the ungovernable impulse rushes exultantly on with the
mad joy of determination."[32]

"NIGHT" AND "DAY," TWO POEMS FOR PIANOFORTE[33] AND ORCHESTRA: Op. 11

These tone-poems, composed in 1904, derive their inspiration from lines by Walt Whitman, which serve as mottoes for the music. For the first of the two, "Night," he has chosen this line from "A Clear Midnight" (in the section, "From Noon to Starry Night"):

"This is thy hour, O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless."

"This," wrote Mr. Converse to the compiler of the Boston Symphony programme-books at the time of the first performance of the two poems,[34] "expresses quite completely the mood which I have tried to create in my music. Of 'Day,' Whitman says:

'Day full-blown and splendid--day of the immense sun,
action, ambition, laughter.'[35]

"As far as it goes, this describes my [second] poem very well, but the real essence is lacking, although it was the best and most fitting quotation I could find for a motto. The moods of 'action,' 'ambition,' 'laughter,' and of love, too (for the erotic impulse is suggested in the poem), are all there, but strung upon and incident to the one predominant and insistent theme of the struggle of life. This restless, stirring, eternal energy ... is the main strain of the poem, and the other emotional phases are eddies momentarily emerging from it, but always being absorbed again in it, until at the end the tragedy of it becomes apparent and dominant. This is what I have tried to express."

He also points out that the titles are only symbolical; that he has had no intention "of expressing the physical characteristics of night and day"; his purpose was "to suggest their psychological meaning, to put into music the moods suggested by them."

CONCERT OVERTURE, "EUPHROSYNE"[36]: Op. 15

This overture, composed in 1903, is prefaced in the score with these lines from Milton's "L'Allegro":

"But come thou goddess fair and free,
In Heaven ycleped Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth."

It has no other programme.

FANTASY, "THE MYSTIC TRUMPETER": Op. 19

This work was composed in 1903-04. The poem by Whitman which has served the composer as his poetic point of departure is contained in the section of _Leaves of Grass_ called "From Noon to Starry Night." The music is intended as an expression of the emotional and poetic substance of the poem. "I wished," the composer has said, "to use the elemental phases of the poem: mystery and peace; love; war or struggle; humiliation; and finally joy. So I divided the poem into five parts, and my music follows this division. Each section is introduced, or, rather, tied to the preceding one, by characteristic phrases for trumpet."

For each of these five connected divisions into which the music naturally falls, some dominant thought of the poet may be held to suggest the keynote. As in Whitman's strange phantasmagoria, there is set before us the spectacle of the human soul undergoing some of its universal and most vital experiences. After an introduction in which the Trumpeter's "liquid prelude" persuades one to turn from "the fretting world," and whose song "expands the numb'd, embonded spirit," we witness our typical human experiencing the transports of love, the perils and vicissitudes of war, the cankering perplexities and despairs that afflict the spirit in its moments of reaction; and, finally, the assured and confident joy that comes with the attainment of an ultimate poise and self-mastery.

For the five connected sections into which the music, upon the authority of the composer, may be divided, analogies are to be found in Whitman's poem. Those portions of the poem which correspond with the successive mood-pictures in the music may be indicated as follows (only the opening lines of each section are quoted):

[I. "MYSTERY AND PEACE"]

"Hark! some wild trumpeter, some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.
I hear thee, trumpeter--listening, alert, I catch thy notes,
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,
Now low, subdued--now in the distance lost."

* * * * *

[II. "LOVE"]

"Blow again, trumpeter! and for thy theme
Take now the enclosing theme of all--the solvent and the setting;
_Love_, that is pulse of all--the sustenance and the pang;"

* * * * *

[III. "WAR OR STRUGGLE"]

"Blow again, trumpeter--conjure war's wild alarums.
"Swift to thy spell, a shuddering hum like distant thunder rolls;
Lo! where the arm'd men hasten--Lo! 'mid the clouds of dust,
the glint of bayonets;"

* * * * *

[IV. "HUMILIATION"]

"O trumpeter! methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest!
Thou melt'st my heart, my brain--thou movest, drawest, changest them,
at will:
And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me;
Thou takest away all cheering light--all hope:
I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest of
the whole earth;"

* * * * *

[V. "JOY"]

"Now, trumpeter, for thy close,
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet;
Sing to my soul--renew its languishing faith and hope;
Rouse up my slow belief--give me some vision of the future;
Give me, for once, its prophecy and joy.
"O glad, exulting, culminating song!
A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes!"

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[31] On the highway from Rennes to Brest. The forest is now known as Paimpont.

[32] The scene which served Mr. Converse, too long for quotation here, occurs in Book I of Keats's poem, beginning:

"... Yet hourly had he striven
To hide the cankering venom, that had riven
His fainting recollections."

and continuing to the end of Book I.

[33] The piano is here, as the composer has pointed out, treated not as a solo instrument, but "as an integral although very important part of the orchestral scheme, and whatever technically important moments it may have grow naturally out of the emotional contents, and not from the desire for a display of virtuosity."

[34] January 20, 1905.

[35] From "Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night," in the section entitled "Calamus."

[36] "Euphrosyne" (from a Greek word signifying the personification of joy): one of the three Graces of Hellenic mythology. The Graces were originally regarded as goddesses of heavenly light, and were supposed to bring fertility to the fields and delight to men. Later they were conceived as goddesses of joy and beauty, and were associated with Hera, goddess of marriage, and with Aphrodite. Their parentage was attributed to Zeus and Eurynome.

DEBUSSY

(_Claude Debussy: born in St. Germain-en-Laye (Seine-et-Oise),
France, August 22, 1862; now living in Paris_)

PRELUDE TO "THE AFTERNOON OF A FAUN"[37]

Debussy's prelude, composed in 1892, was the first of his representative works for orchestra. It was inspired, as he indicates in a sub-title, by the singular poem of the French symbolist, Stéphane Mallarmé, _L'Après-Midi d'un Faune_. This "eclogue," published in 1876, aroused fierce contention because of its obscurity and the uncompromising manner in which it exemplified Mallarmé's novel poetic method; which was, as Mr. Edmund Gosse has lucidly stated it, "to use words in such harmonious combinations as will suggest to the reader a mood or a condition which is not mentioned in the text, but is nevertheless paramount in the poet's mind at the moment of composition." Mr. Gosse thus interprets "The Afternoon of a Faun," which has defied literal translation:

"A faun--a simple, sensuous, passionate being--wakens in the forest
at daybreak and tries to recall his experience of the previous
afternoon. Was he the fortunate recipient of an actual visit from
nymphs, white and golden goddesses, divinely tender and indulgent? Or
is the memory he seems to retain nothing but the shadow of a vision,
no more substantial than the 'arid rain' of notes from his own flute?
He cannot tell. Yet surely there was, surely there is, an animal
whiteness among the brown reeds of the lake that shines out yonder?
Were they, are they, swans? No! But naiads plunging? Perhaps! Vaguer
and vaguer grows the impression of this delicious experience. He
would resign his woodland godship to retain it. A garden of lilies,
golden-headed, white-stalked, behind the trellis of red roses? Ah! the
effort is too great for his poor brain. Perhaps if he selects one lily
from the garth of lilies, one benign and beneficent yielder of her cup
to thirsty lips, the memory, the ever receding memory, may be forced
back. So, when he has glutted upon a bunch of grapes, he is wont to
toss the empty skins into the air and blow them out in a visionary
greediness. But no, the delicious hour grows vaguer; experience or
dream, he will never know which it was. The sun is warm, the grasses
yielding; and he curls himself up again, after worshipping the
efficacious star of wine, that he may pursue the dubious ecstasy into
the more hopeful boskages of sleep."

The manner in which Debussy has set to music this extraordinary conception cannot be better indicated than in the exposition by Louis Laloy, the French critic: "One is immediately transported into a better world; all that is leering and savage in the snub-nosed face of the satyr disappears; desire still speaks, but there is a veil of tenderness and melancholy. The chord of the wood-wind, the distant calls of the horns, the limpid flood of harp-tones, accentuate this impression. The call is louder, more urgent, but it almost immediately dies away, to let the flute sing again its song [the exotic and dreamy phrase with which the prelude begins]. And now the theme is developed: the oboe enters in, the clarinet has its say; a lively dialogue follows, and a clarinet phrase leads to a new theme, which speaks of desire satisfied; or it expresses the rapture of mutual emotion rather than the ferocity of victory. The first theme returns, more languorous, and the croaking of muted[38] horns darkens the horizon. The theme comes and goes, fresh chords unfold themselves; at last a solo 'cello joins itself to the flute; and then everything vanishes, as a mist that rises in the air and scatters itself in flakes."[39]

THREE NOCTURNES

1. CLOUDS (_Nuages_)
2. FESTIVALS (_Fêtes_)
3. SIRENS (_Sirènes_)[40]

This suite was written in 1897-99. In date of composition it stands, so far as Debussy's more important works are concerned, between the opera _Pelléas et Mélisande_ (1893-95) and the "symphonic sketches" _La Mer_ (1903-05). The score bears no explanatory note or elucidation; but the following "programme" (which, it has been remarked, would itself seem to require elucidation) is said to have been supplied by the composer:

"The title 'Nocturnes' is intended to have here a more general and,
above all, a more decorative meaning. We, then, are not concerned
with the _form_ of the nocturne, but with everything that this word
includes in the way of impressions and special lights.

"_Clouds_: The unchangeable appearance of the sky, with the slow and
melancholy march of clouds ending in a gray agony tinted with white.

"_Festivals_: Movement, rhythm dancing in the atmosphere, with bursts
of brusque light. Here, also, the episode is of a procession [a
wholly impalpable and visionary pageant] passing through the festival
and blended with it; but the main idea and substance obstinately
remain,--always the festival and its blended music,--luminous dust
participating in tonal rhythm.

"_Sirens_: The sea and its innumerable rhythm. Then amid the billows
silvered by the moon the mysterious song of the Sirens is heard; it
laughs and passes."[41]

These "Nocturnes" may be sympathetically approached only when it is understood that they are dream-pictures, fantasies, rather than mere picturesque transcripts of reality. The brief characterization of them by Debussy's colleague, Alfred Bruneau, is more suggestive than many an elaborate commentary: "Here, with the aid of a magic orchestra, he has lent to clouds traversing the sombre sky the various forms created by his imagination; he has set to running and dancing the chimerical beings perceived by him in the silvery dust scintillating in the moonbeams; he has changed the white foam of the restless sea into tuneful sirens."

"THE SEA," THREE SYMPHONIC SKETCHES

1. FROM DAWN TILL NOON ON THE SEA
(_De l'aube à midi sur la mer_)

2. FROLICS OF WAVES
(_Jeux de vagues_)

3. DIALOGUE OF THE WIND AND THE SEA
(_Dialogue du vent et de la mer_)