Chapter XIII: Contemporary Choral Music in France, Italy, Russia and Elsewhere

Debussy: _L’enfant prodigue_, _La demoiselle élue_ and _Le
martyre de Saint-Sébastien_; Reynaldo Hahn: _La pastorale
de Noël_; Gabriel Pierné: _La croisade des enfants_; _Les
enfants de Bethlehem_; _Les fioretti de Saint-François
d’Assisi_--Florent Schmitt: Psalm XLVII; Vincent d’Indy:
_Chant de la cloche_, etc.--Renaissance of oratorio in Italy;
Perosi and his oratorios; Bossi: _Canticum canticorum_; _Il
Paradiso perduto_; Wolf-Ferrari: _La Vita Nuova_ and other
works--Scandinavia; choral music in Russia; Moussorgsky;
Rimsky-Korsakoff; Glazounoff; Glière; Arensky and others;
choral composition in Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, Spain.

I

The choral music of contemporary France has its immediate origin in the recent past. In particular the oratorio and sacred cantata may be said to represent the larger fruition of what Romain Rolland calls ‘the new religious art which has sprung up since the death of César Franck, around the memory of that great musician.’ Pierné, d’Indy, Schmitt--some of the most distinctive composers of modern France--have been influenced by the Belgian master in a greater or less degree. Hence it is not strange that the best-known French choral works of the present day in the larger forms are of a religious or quasi-religious nature.

Thus, even in the case of Debussy (less directly influenced by Franck than any of his contemporaries), we find that two of his three principal choral works, the lyric scene _L’enfant prodigue_ and the ‘mystery’ _Le martyre de Saint-Sébastien_, are developments of Biblical and hagiographic text-motives. And even in his _Damoiselle élue_, a cantata for female voices with solos, the heroine of Rossetti’s famous poem (to a French paraphrase of which Debussy has written his score) looks down from the ramparts of her pre-Raphaelite paradise.

In _L’enfant prodigue_ (Roman Prize, 1884), its composer does not as yet inaugurate those radical changes which were to find complete expression in his later works. It may be briefly described as a simple and expressive miniature oratorio, including duets, trios, a cleverly written _cortège_ and dance, whose frequent recitative anticipates the melodic declamation employed in _Pelléas et Mélisande_.

But when Debussy sent in his _Damoiselle élue_ (first published in 1887) from Rome, the departure, from accepted standards was more marked. Its music is rich in delicate imagery and attention to detail, orchestral and vocal, yet despite its subtle expression of the yearning of the translated for the one left behind on earth--the chorus of sopranos descending in flexible, fluid cadences as the Blessed Damozel ‘leans out from the gold bars of Heaven’ and ‘casts her arms along the golden barriers’--the customary public hearing accorded ‘works sent from Rome’ was denied it in Paris. Since then, however, its composer has not had to complain of a lack of performances.

It is the five-act mystery _Le martyre de Saint-Sébastien_, given in 1911 at the _Châtelet_ theatre in Paris, which is Debussy’s most ambitious and individual contribution to the literature of the newer French choral art, though the music is really incidental to D’Annunzio’s drama. In general, the greatest French critics paid tribute to the merits of the work. Alfred Bruneau spoke of ‘its clarity, serenity and strength,’ insisting that while the composer had hitherto given his attention mainly to the instrumental forms, he had attained new power in the choral portions of _Le martyre_. He dwells on the beauty of the lament of the women at Sébastien’s death, and the ‘vast and magnificent’ final _alleluia_. Pierre Laloy does not share Bruneau’s enthusiasm for the choral close. He admits its ‘occasional Palestrinian character,’ but deprecates the intrusion of trifling motives evidently used for effect alone. Robert Broussel counts the four Preludes, hieratic and voluptuous, among Debussy’s most finished pages. Reynaldo Hahn laments a lack of continuity in the score. Yet all critics agree, in the main, on the interest and artistry of the score, in which the religious feeling is strongly and definitely marked.

This concludes the tale of the composer’s choral compositions of a religious nature, but no mention of Debussy’s activity in the choral field would be complete without a reference to his lovely _a cappella_ choruses, _Chansons de Charles d’Orleans_, practically the only secular music for chorus which he has written, but music well worth careful study.

Notwithstanding the religious expressiveness which permeates _Le martyre_, as witness the musical treatment of its last scene in which paradise unfolds its gates amid a golden glory of angel hosts, it is Gabriel Pierné whose scores are the most successful examples of oratorio composition in modern France. Reynaldo Hahn, it is true, in a manner anticipated Pierné’s _Enfants de Bethlehem_ in 1901, with a Christmas oratorio, _Pastorale de Noël_, written upon the text of one of the great passion-mysteries of the thirteenth century, using the actual mediæval words and thus projecting the liturgic drama of the Middle Ages into the present day. Yet his work has never attained that wider public recognition accorded Pierné’s oratorios.

On these rest the latter’s fame, though he has written a secular cantata, _Edith_ (1882), and a prize symphony for chorus and orchestra, _L’an mil_. _La croisade des enfants_ (known throughout this country as ‘The Children’s Crusade’), _Les enfants de Bethlehem_ and, finally, _Les fioretti de Saint-François d’Assisi_, are his chief works.

The ‘Children’s Crusade’ and the ‘Children of Bethlehem’ are ‘mysteries,’ but not in the sense of Debussy’s impressionistic _Martyre_, or Hahn’s mediæval Christmas ‘Miracle.’ The ‘Children’s Crusade’ has been set to a libretto after Marcel Schwob’s poetic story; the ‘Children at Bethlehem,’ to a poem by Gabriel Nigond. Both scores are musically full of color and rich in pictorial detail, employing the folk-song thematically. Their great effect lies in the introduction of the children’s chorus as a strong factor in the musical development of the oratorio. The criticism has been made,[90] in particular with regard to the ‘Children’s Crusade,’ that the picturesque mingling of male choruses, female choruses, solo voices, humming choruses, echo choruses, voices from above and from the distance, together with the choruses of children and full orchestra in a succession of nerve-stimulating episodes, seems due to deliberate calculation, speculating on the emotional and nervous sensibility of the general public, and that as a consequence the music lacks genuine intimacy and warmth. Be this as it may, the composer has been superlatively successful in creating works whose performance awakens widespread pleasure and appreciation.

In _Saint-François d’Assisi_, set to a poem by Gabriel Nigond after ‘The Little Flowers of St. Francis,’ Pierné again uses Christian legendary material. His music portrays, with less of austere dignity and serious depth than Tinel’s famous ‘Franciscus,’ yet with a more melodious facility of touch, the life-cycle of the sermonizer of the birds and founder of the order which bears his name. Like its predecessors, it has much spiritual charm and delicacy of expression; as in them, the standpoint of tonal effect is kept well in view and--another resemblance--the score has been successful, though not, perhaps, in the same degree as the others. Still, Pierné’s writing has not the dramatic power and individual flavor to be found in the works of some of his _confrères_.

II

Notable among these is Florent Schmitt, a pupil of Gabriel Fauré (who, by the way, has contributed to French choral literature some charming shorter works--_La naissance de Vénus_, _Les Djinns_, and _Madrigal_). _Danse des Devadesis_ is especially notable for brilliant color and subtly suggestive rhythms. Florent Schmitt’s _Tragédie de Salomé_ in its symphonic form is well known to the American concert-goer, but the same cannot be said of his ‘Psalm XLVII,’ for orchestra, organ, chorus and solo voices, though it exists in an edition with English text, and is a musically distinctive and original work. Its keynote is praise and joy, and it bids ‘the people clap their hands’ and proclaims that ‘the fields of the earth belong to the Lord’ with real dramatic effect and vigor.

It is in the work of Vincent d’Indy, principal heritor of the musical and spiritual legacy of César Franck, that a more conservative standpoint makes itself felt. And this is only natural, when we consider that the counterpoint of the sixteenth century is the point of departure of the composer’s own creative activity. He stands for the classic tradition persisting along modern lines of development. His sympathies are with Wagner rather than Debussy, and in his operas or, as he terms them, ‘dramatic actions,’ _Fervaal_ and _L’Etranger_, he merges Wagnerian practice and his individual concept with effective results, though with a rejection of all that atmospheric vagueness which makes the charm of _Pelléas_.

His best known choral work is _Le chant de la cloche_ (‘Song of the Bell’), awarded a prize by the City of Paris in 1885. This is a dramatic legend, opus 18, for chorus, solos and orchestra, broad in outline, rich in detail, Wagnerian in structure, yet the composer’s own in thematic content. The orchestra is handled with great brilliancy. A later work, opus 23, _Sainte-Marie Magdeleine_, a cantata for two solo voices, female chorus and accompaniment of harmonium and piano, is a work of the type of Debussy’s _Enfant prodigue_, a miniature oratorio intended to form part of an evening’s concert-program. It is needless to add that, musically, it shows no semblance to Massenet’s oratorio of the same name. We have also by d’Indy _La Chévauchée du Cid_, a Hispano-Moorish scene for baritone, chorus and orchestra; a ‘Festival Cantata’ for inaugural purposes; an _Ode à Valence_, for solo, chorus and orchestra; and _L’Art et le Peuple_, for four-part male chorus.

For some time d’Indy has been working upon a dramatic choral work on an extended scale, _La légende de Saint-Christophe_ (a subject which Rheinberger and Horatio Parker have already treated in oratorio form), and it is said to be nearing completion. It will be looked forward to with interest, especially as it represents one of the composer’s periodical returns from symphonic to choral composition.

While the works of the composers already discussed may be said to represent the most important achievements in contemporary French choral writing, a number of others have been more or less active in the same field. Among these are: Gustave Charpentier (tone-drama, _La vie du poete_, 1892), the late Augusta Holmès (_Hymne à Apollon_, dramatic scene, and _Nocturne_, both for baritone solo and chorus. _Danse d’Almées_, for contralto solo and chorus, and ‘The Vision of the Queen,’ scene for solos and female chorus); C. de Grandval (_Sainte Agnes_, dramatic cantata, 1892); Bourgault-Ducoudray (_Esprit de la France_, for mixed chorus) and others; but in general the ultra-modernists, Ravel, Dukas, Magnard, and others have neglected the domain of choral for that of symphonic composition.

In Belgium contemporary choral composition since Peter Benoît has been influenced by the Neo-French school. We have G. L. Huberti’s _De laatste Zonnestraal_ (1892) and (in manuscript) _Verlichtung_ (1882), _Bloemardinne_ and ‘Death of William of Orange,’ A greater tone-poet is Émile Mathieu, with three secular choral works, _Le Hoyoux_, _Le Sorbier_ and _Freyhir_ (1893). Jan Blockx’s cantatas are mostly founded on national episodes. Among them are: _Vredezang_, _Het droom van’t paradies_, _Clokke Roelandt_, _Scheldezang_ (1903). The ‘Roland’ cantata is his best-known choral number. Edgar Tinel’s dramatic oratorio, _Franciscus_ (1888), is the greatest choral work the Flemish school has produced. It has been more fully noted in Chapter IX.

III

In Italy the renaissance of choral composition might be said to begin in 1898, with Don Lorenzo Perosi’s appointment as director of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In his sacred trilogy, _La Passione di Cristo_, comprising (a) _La Cena del Signore_, (b) _L’Orazione del Monte_, (c) _La Morte del Redentore_ (performed for the first time at Milan, 1899, at the Italian Congress of Sacred Music), and in his oratorios, _La Transfigurazione del Nostro Signor Gesù Cristo_ (1898), _La Risurrezione di Lazaro_ (1898), _Il Natale del Redentore_ (1899), _Mosè_, and _Il Giudizio Universale_ (1903), all written in a style ‘made up of all styles and ranging from the Gregorian chant to the most modern modulations,’[91] he shows deep melodic instinct, richness of melodic invention, and a strong dramatic veritism which has done much to make them popular in Italy. ‘Each of the oratorios,’ to quote again the great French critic, ‘is really a descriptive mass, which from beginning to end traces out one dominating thought.’ Critics in general are still divided as to the ultimate value of his music; but its sincerity and strength of purpose are unquestioned.

Of greater importance than Perosi’s disciples Giovanni Tebaldini (_Le Nozze de Cecilia_), and Alfredo Ambrogio (_L’Entrata di Cristo in Gerusalemme_), is Enrico Bossi. The latter’s oratorios, _Canticum canticorum_ (1900) and _Il Paradiso perduto_ (1903), are distinctly concert oratorios in the grand style, more strongly individual and less mystically religious than Perosi’s. His treatment of Solomon’s glowing ‘Song of Songs’ is musically sensuous rather than symbolic, and at times suggestive, in its passion, of Massenet. It is a work rich in imaginative development and, again in contrast to Perosi, the weight is laid on its choral rather than its solo portions. The secular trend is even more marked in _Il Paradiso perduto_, and some of its movements are to be reckoned among the finest in modern choral literature. In both these works, as in his secular cantata _Giovanna d’Arca_, and his symphonic poem _Il Cieco_, with tenor solo and chorus, Bossi has infused the spirit of modernism into the Italian oratorio, and developed it beyond the purely ecclesiastical concept represented by Perosi.

In this direction the influence of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, better known, perhaps, as a composer of opera than of oratorio, has also been noteworthy. His cantata, _Talitha kumi_ (‘Maiden, arise’), on the favorite subject of the daughter of Jairus, written in 1900, was followed by the oratorio _Sulamith_, which, if not dramatically as strong as Bossi’s _Canticum_, betrays melodic charm and warm orchestral coloring.

His greatest choral work, however, is undoubtedly his _La Vita Nuova_, opus 9, in which, using Dante’s text, he has woven together incidents of the love-life of Dante and Beatrice in a succession of idyllic and lyric mood-pictures. The suggestive power of the work is remarkable; dramatic effect, rhythmic variety, harmonic subtlety are combined in well-nigh perfect expressional unity. The composer has followed his own inspiration throughout, and that with the happiest artistic results. There need be no hesitation in affirming that this choral work marks the apex of attainment in modern Italian choral composition, and it may be considered the most valuable individual product of the Italian choral revival.

IV

Turning from Italy to Scandinavia, we find that in general little creative work is done in the choral forms at the present day. In Finland, as in Denmark, the cantata after the Handelian or Mendelssohnian model is still in vogue. Even Sibelius has done little in the way of choral writing--only a ‘Festival Cantata’ and some choruses; nor has anything of importance been written in Norway in this genre since the death of Grieg; while oratorio, though largely given in concert in Sweden, has not stimulated original composition.

In Russia more has been done. The Neo-Russians turn more naturally to symphonic and operatic composition than to the choral forms, and although quite a few of the great contemporaries are identified with choral compositions, collectively there has not been a great deal written, with the exception of music for the liturgic services of the Greek Catholic Church, to which Tschaikowsky, Bortniansky, and others have made notable contributions. This liturgic music does not call for consideration here, as it is discussed elsewhere. The folk-music of Russia, which plays such a prominent part as thematic material in the works of the Neo-Russian school, is chorally more identified with the operatic vocal ensemble, which is also outside the scope of the present chapter.

The original choral compositions of contemporary Russia stand high, qualitatively. Moussorgsky is represented by his virile ‘Destruction of Sennacherib’ (1866) for chorus and orchestra, and a choral number from his opera, _Salâmmbo_, revised, polished and enlarged as a chorus for mixed voices and solo under the title of ‘Joshua,’ one of the few of the composer’s works which show a strong Oriental flavor. Nor has Rimsky-Korsakoff, the friend and editor of Moussorgsky, written much more. There is a cantata for tenor, bass, male chorus and orchestra, ‘The Doom of Olga’ (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1909); another, _Switezianka_, for soprano, tenor, chorus and orchestra, a cantata entitled _Doubmouchka_ and a ‘Gloria’ for orchestra and chorus; as well as fifteen folk-songs arranged for mixed voices.

Glazounoff, the symphonist, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakoff, is the author, jointly with Liadow, of a cantata in memory of the celebrated Russian sculptor Antokolsky, for tenor solo, chorus and orchestra, written after his defection from the ranks of the national school; and Liadow himself has set forty-five folk-songs for female voices and composed a musical setting, for mixed voices and orchestra, of the last scene from Schiller’s ‘Bride of Messina.’

Arensky has given us a fine choral number--‘The Fountain of Bachtchissarai,’ after a Pushkin poem, for solo voices, chorus and orchestra; while Rachmaninoff’s spirited and plastically written choral ballad, ‘Springtide,’ after a poem by Nekrassoff, composed in 1901 for dramatic baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra, has already been heard in this country. A new choral work by Rachmaninoff, set to E. A. Poe’s poem ‘The Bells,’ was given at Petrograd in the recent past with great success. Glière has to his credit a choral suite for female voices, with the four seasons as its textual basis; Ippolitoff-Ivanoff has written three cantatas, Oriental in coloring, each in memory of a Russian poet; Akimenko has composed choruses for mixed voices; Georges Catoire for female voices; and Alexander Tanejew has set two groups of twelve poems each, for four and five-part chorus respectively, while his better-known nephew, Sergius Ivanovitch, who died this year in Petrograd (1915), is the composer of a cantata, ‘St. John of Damascus’ (1884). Stravinsky, too, has a cantata to his credit, composed in 1911, and this practically completes the tale of contemporary Russian choral composition.

In concluding this study of contemporary choral music there only remain to be mentioned, in Poland, Felix Nowowiejski, author of several ‘concert-dramas,’ ‘The Prodigal Son’ (1901), ‘The Discovery of the Holy Cross’ (1906) and _Quo Vadis_ (1907)--rich in theatrical effect; and in Hungary, Mauritius Vavrineoz, with an oratorio, _Christus_. In Spain and Portugal choral music, in the modern sense of the word, is hardly written. Felipe Pedrell’s dramatic cantata _Comte Arnau_, a score distinctly modern in style and treatment, and Grignón’s _La Nit de Nadal_, for chorus, solos and orchestra, are about the only ones that come to mind.

FOOTNOTES:

[90] Schering: _Geschichte des Oratoriums_, p. 546.

[91] Romain Rolland: _Musiciens d’Aujourd’hui_, Paris.