Chapter VI (1)

We have Richard Ford's testimony that Spain was not very musical in his day. The Reverend Henry Cart de Lafontaine says that the contemporary musical services in the churches are not to be considered seriously from an artistic point of view. Emmanuel Chabrier was impressed with the fact that the music for dancing was almost entirely rhythmic in its effect, strummed rudely on the guitar, the spectators meanwhile making such a din that it was practically impossible to distinguish a melody, had there been one. And all observers point at the Italian opera, which is still the favourite opera in Spain (in Barcelona at the Liceo three weeks of opera in Catalan is given after the regular season in Italian; in Madrid at the Teatro-Real the Spanish season is scattered through the Italian), and at Señor Arbós's concerts (the same Señor Arbós who was once concert master of the Boston Symphony Orchestra), at which Brandenburg concertos and Beethoven symphonies are more frequently performed than works by Albéniz. Still there are, and have always been during the course of the last century, Spanish composers, some of whom have made a little noise in the outer world, although a good many have been content to spend their artistic energy on the manufacture of zarzuelas--in other words, to make a good deal of noise in Spain. In most modern instances, however, there has been a revival of interest in the national forms, and folk-song and folk-dance have contributed their important share to the composers' work. No one man has done more to encourage this interest in nationalism than Felipe Pedrell, who may be said to have begun in Spain the work which the "Five" accomplished in Russia. Pedrell says in his "Handbook" (Barcelona, 1891; Heinrich and Co.; French translation by Bertal; Paris, Fischbacher): "The popular song, the voice of the people, the pure primitive inspiration of the anonymous singer, passes through the alembic of contemporary art and one obtains thereby its quintessence; the composer assimilates it and then reveals it in the most delicate form that music alone is capable of rendering form in its technical aspect, this thanks to the extraordinary development of the technique of our art in this epoch. The folk-song lends the accent, the background, and modern art lends all that it possesses, its conventional symbolism and the richness of form which is its patrimony. The frame is enlarged in such a fashion that the _lied_ makes a corresponding development; could it be said then that the national lyric drama is the same _lied_ expanded? Is not the national lyric drama the product of the force of absorption and creative power? Do we not see in it faithfully reflected not only the artistic idiosyncrasy of each composer, but all the artistic manifestations of the people?" There is always the search for new composers in Spain and always the hope that a man may come who will be acclaimed by the world. As a consequence, the younger composers in Spain often receive more adulation than is their due. It must be remembered that the most successful Spanish music is not serious, the Spanish are more themselves in the lighter vein.

I hesitate for a moment on the name of Martin y Solar, born at Valencia; died at St. Petersburg, 1806; called "The Italian" by the Spaniards on account of his musical style, and "lo Spagnuolo" by the Italians. Da Ponte wrote several opera-books for him, _l'Arbore di Diana_, _la Cosa Rara_, and _La Capricciosa Corretta_ (a version of _The Taming of the Shrew_) among others. It is to be seen that he is without importance if considered as a composer distinctively Spanish and I have made this slight reference to him solely to recount how Mozart quoted an air from one of his operas in the supper scene of _Don Giovanni_. At the time Martin y Solar was better liked in Vienna than Mozart himself and the air in question was as well known as say Musetta's waltz is known to us.

Juan Chrysostomo Arriaga, born in Bilbao 1808; died 1828 (these dates are given in Grove: 1806-1826), is another matter. He might have become better known had he lived longer. As it is, some of his music has been performed in London and Paris, and perhaps in America, although I have no record of it. He studied in Paris at the Conservatoire, under Fétis for harmony, and Baillot for violin. Before he went to Paris even, as a child, with no knowledge of the rules of harmony, he had written an opera! Cherubini declared his fugue for eight voices on the words in the Credo, "Et Vitam Venturi" a veritable chef d'œuvre, at least there is a legend to this effect. In 1824 he wrote three quartets, an overture, a symphony, a mass, and some French cantatas and romances. García considered his opera _Los Esclavos Felices_ so good that he attempted, unsuccessfully, to secure for it a Paris hearing. It has been performed in Bilbao, which city, I think, celebrated the centenary of the composer's birth.

Manuel García is better known to us as a singer, an impresario, and a father, than as a composer! Still he wrote a good deal of music (so did Mme. Malibran; for a list of the diva's compositions I must refer the reader to Arthur Pougin's biography). Fétis enumerates seventeen Spanish, nineteen Italian, and seven French operas by García. He had works produced in Madrid, at the Opéra in Paris (_La mort du, Tasse_ and _Florestan_), at the Italiens in Paris (_Fazzoletto_), at the Opéra-Comique in Paris (_Deux Contrats_), and at many other theatres. However, when all is said and done, Manuel García's reputation still rests on his singing and his daughters. His compositions are forgotten; nor was his music, much of it, probably, truly Spanish. (However, I have heard a polo [serenade] from an opera called _El Poeta Calculista_, which is so Spanish in accent and harmony--and so beautiful--that it has found a place in a collection of folk-tunes!)

Miguel Hilarión Eslava (born in Burlada, October 21, 1807, died at Madrid, July 23, 1878) is chiefly famous for his compilation, the "Lira Sacra-Hispana," mentioned heretofore. He also composed over 140 pieces of church music, masses, motets, songs, etc., after he had been appointed chapelmaster of Queen Isabella in 1844, and several operas, including _El Solitario_, _La Tregua del Ptolemaide_, and _Pedro el Cruel_. He also wrote several books of theory and composition: "Método de Solfeo" (1846) and "Escuela de Armonía y Composición" in three parts (harmony, composition, and melody). He edited (1855-6) the "Gaceta Musical de Madrid."

There is the celebrated virtuoso, Pablo de Sarasate, who wrote music, but his memory is perhaps better preserved in Whistler's diabolical portrait than in his own compositions.

Felipe Pedrell (born February 19, 1841) is also perhaps more important as a writer on musical subjects and for his influence on the younger school of composers (he teaches in the conservatory of Barcelona, and his attitude towards nationalism has already been discussed), than he is as a composer. Still, Edouard Lopez-Chavarri does not hesitate to pronounce his trilogy _Los Pireneos_ (Barcelona, 1902; the prologue was performed in Venice in 1897) the most important work for the theatre written in Spain. His first opera, _El Último Abencerraje_, was produced in Barcelona in 1874. Some of his other works are _Quasimodo_, 1875; _El Tasso á Ferrara_, _Cleopatra_, _Mazeppa_ (Madrid, 1881), _La Celestina_ (1904), and _La Matinada_ (1905). J. A. Fuller-Maitland says that the influence of Wagner is traceable in all his stage work. (Wagner is adored in Spain; _Parsifal_ was given eighteen times in one month at the Liceo in Barcelona.) If this be true, his case will be found to bear other resemblances to that of the Russian "Five," who found it difficult to exorcise all foreign influences in their pursuit of nationalism.

He was made a member of the Spanish Academy in 1894 and shortly thereafter became Professor of Musical History and Æsthetics at the Royal Conservatory at Madrid. Besides his "Hispaniae Schola Musica Sacra" he has written a number of other books, and translated Richter's treatise on Harmony into Spanish. He has made several excursions into the history of folk-lore and the principal results are contained in "Músicos Anónimos" and "Por nuestra Música." Other works are "Teatro Lírico Español anterior al siglo XIX," "Lírica Nacionalizada," "De Música Religiosa," "Músiquerias y más Músiquesias." One of his books, "Músicos Contemporáneos y de Otros Tiempos" (in the library of the Hispanic Society of New York) is very catholic in its range of subject. It includes essays on the _Don Quixote_ of Strauss, the _Boris Godunow_ of Moussorgsky, Smetana, Manuel García, Edward Elgar, Jaques-Dalcroze, Bruckner, Mahler, Albéniz, Palestrina, Busoni, and the tenth symphony of Beethoven!

In John Towers's extraordinary compilation, "Dictionary-Catalogue of Operas," it is stated that Manuel Fernández Caballero (born in 1835) wrote sixty-two operas, and the names of them are given. He was a pupil of Fuertes (harmony) and Eslava (composition) at the Madrid Conservatory and later became very popular as a writer of zarzuelas. I have already mentioned his _Gigantes y Cabezudos_ for which Miguel Echegaray furnished the book. Among his other works in this form are _Los Dineros del Sacristán_, _Los Africanistas_ (Barcelona, 1894), _El Cabo Primero_ (Barcelona, 1895), and _La Rueda de la Fortuna_ (Madrid, 1896).

At a concert given in the New York Hippodrome, April 3, 1911, Mme. Tetrazzini sang a Spanish song, which was referred to the next day by the reviewers of the "New York Times" and the "New York Globe." To say truth the soprano made a great effect with the song, although it was written for a low voice. It was _Carceleras_, from Ruperto Chapí's zarzuela _Las Hijas de Zebedeo_. Chapí was one of the most prolific and popular composers of Spain during the last century. He produced countless zarzuelas and nine children. He was born at Villena March 27, 1851, and he died March 25, 1909, a few months earlier than his compatriot Isaac Albéniz. He was admitted to the conservatory of Madrid in 1867 as a pupil of piano and harmony. In 1869 he obtained the first prize for harmony and he continued to obtain prizes until in 1874 he was sent to Rome by the Academy of Fine Arts. He remained for some time in Italy and Paris. In 1875 the Teatro Real of Madrid played his _La Hija de Jefté_ sent from Rome. The following is an incomplete list of his operas and zarzuelas: _Vía Libre_, _Los Gendarmes_, _El Rey que Rabió_ (3 acts), _El Cura del Regimiento_, _El Reclamo_, _La Tempestad_, _La Bruja_, _La Leyenda del Monje_, _Las Campanadas_, _La Czarina_, _El Milagro de la Virgen_, _Roger de Flor_ (3 acts), _Las Naves de Cortés, irce_ (3 acts), _Aqui Hase Farta un Hombre_, _Juan Francisco_ (3 acts, 1905; rewritten and presented in 1908 as _Entre Rocas_), _Los Madrileños_ (1908), _La Dama Roja_ (1 act, 1908), _Hesperia_ (1908), _Las Calderas de Pedro Botero_ (1909) and _Margarita la Tornera_, presented just before his death without success.

His other works include an oratorio, _Los Ángeles_, a symphonic poem, _Escenas de Capa y Espada_, a symphony in D, _Moorish Fantasy_ for orchestra, a serenade for orchestra, a trio for piano, violin and 'cello, songs, etc. Chapí was president of the Society of Authors and Composers, and when he died the King and Queen of Spain sent a telegram of condolence to his widow. There is a copy of his zarzuela, _Blasones y Talegas_ in the New York Public Library.

I have already spoken of _La Dolores_. It is one of a long series of operas and zarzuelas written by Tomás Bretón y Hernandez (born at Salamanca, December 29, 1850). First produced at Madrid, in 1895, it has been sung with success in such distant capitals as Buenos Ayres and Prague. I have been assured by a Spanish woman of impeccable taste that _La Dolores_ is charming, delightful in its fluent melody and its striking rhythms, thoroughly Spanish in style, but certain to find favour in America, if it were produced here. Our own Eleanora de Cisneros at a Press Club Benefit in Barcelona appeared in Bretón's zarzuela _La Verbena de la Paloma_. Another of Bretón's famous zarzuelas is _Los Amantes de Teruel_ (Madrid, 1889). His works for the theatre further include _Tabaré_, for which he wrote both words and music (Madrid, 1913); _Don Gil_ (Barcelona, 1914); _Garín_ (Barcelona, 1891); _Raquel_ (Madrid, 1900); _Guzmán el Bueno_ (Madrid, 1876); _El Certamen de Cremona_ (Madrid, 1906); _El Campanero de Begoña_ (Madrid, 1878); _El Barberillo en Orán_; _Corona contra Corona_ (Madrid, 1879); _Los Amores de un Príncipe_ (Madrid, 1881); _El Clavel Rojo_ (1899); _Covadonga_ (1901); and _El Domingo de Ramos_, words by Echegaray (Madrid, 1894). His works for orchestra include: _En la Alhambra_, _Los Galeotes_, and _Escenas Andaluzas_, a suite. He has written three string quartets, a piano trio, a piano quintet, and an oratorio in two parts, _El Apocalipsis_.

Bretón is largely self-taught, and there is a legend that he devoured by himself Eslava's "School of Composition." He further wrote the music and conducted for a circus for a period of years. In the late seventies he conducted an orchestra, founding a new society, the Unión Artística Musical, which is said to have been the beginning of the modern movement in Spain. It may throw some light on Spanish musical taste at this period to mention the fact that the performance of Saint-Saëns's _Danse macabre_ almost created a riot. Later Bretón travelled. He appeared as conductor in London, Prague, and Buenos Ayres, among other cities outside of Spain, and when Dr. Karl Muck left Prague for Berlin, he was invited to succeed him in the Bohemian capital. In the contest held by the periodical "Blanco y Negro" in 1913 to decide who was the most popular writer, poet, painter, musician, sculptor, and toreador in Spain, Bretón as musician got the most votes.... He is at present the head of the Royal Conservatory in Madrid.

No Spanish composer (ancient or modern) is better known outside of Spain than Isaac Albéniz (born May 29, 1861, at Comprodon; died at Cambo, in the Pyrenees, May 25, 1909). His fame rests almost entirely on twelve piano pieces (in four books) entitled collectively _Iberia_, with which all concert goers are familiar. They have been performed here by Ernest Schelling, Leo Ornstein, and George Copeland, among other virtuosi.... I think one or two of these pieces must be in the répertoire of every modern pianist. Albéniz did not imbibe his musical culture in Spain and to the day of his death he was more friendly with the modern French group of composers than with those of his native land. In his music he sees Spain with French eyes. He studied at Paris with Marmontel; at Brussels with Louis Brassin; and at Weimar with Liszt (he is mentioned in the long list of pupils in Huneker's biography of Liszt, but there is no further account of him in that book); he studied composition with Jadassohn, Joseph Dupont, and F. Kufferath. His symphonic poem, _Catalonia_, has been performed in Paris by the Colonne Orchestra. I have no record of any American performance. For a time he devoted himself to the piano. He was a virtuoso and he has even played in London, but later in life he gave up this career for composition. He wrote several operas and zarzuelas, among them a light opera, _The Magic Opal_ (produced in London, 1893), _Enrico Clifford_ (Barcelona, 1894; later heard in London), _Pepita Jiménez_ (Barcelona, 1895; afterwards given at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels), and _San Antonio de la Florida_ (produced in Brussels as _l'Ermitage Fleurie_). He left unfinished at his death another opera destined for production in Brussels at the Monnaie, _Merlin l'Enchanteur_. None of his operas, with the exception of _Pepita Jiménez_, which has been performed, I am told, in all Spanish countries, achieved any particular success, and it is _Iberia_ and a few other piano pieces which will serve to keep his memory green.

Juan Bautista Pujol (1836-1898) gained considerable reputation in Spain as a pianist and as a teacher of and composer for that instrument. He also wrote a method for piano students entitled "Nuevo Mecanismo del Piano." His further claim to attention is due to the fact that he was one of the teachers of Granados.

The names of Pahissa (both as conductor and composer; one of his symphonic works is called _The Combat_), García Robles, represented by an _Epitalame_, and Gibert, with two _Marines_, occur on the programs of the two concerts devoted in the main to Spanish music, at the second of which (Barcelona, 1910; conductor Franz Beidler) Granados's _Dante_ was performed.

E. Fernández Arbós (born in Madrid, December 25, 1863) is better known as a conductor and violinist than as composer. Still, he has written music, especially for his own instrument. He was a pupil of both Vieuxtemps and Joachim; and he has travelled much, teaching at the Hamburg Conservatory, and acting as concertmaster for the Boston Symphony and the Glasgow Orchestras. He has been a professor at the Madrid conservatory for some time, giving orchestral and chamber music concerts, both there and in London. He has written at least one light opera, presumably a zarzuela, _El Centro de la Tierra_ (Madrid; December 22, 1895); three trios for piano and strings, songs, and an orchestral suite.

I have already referred to the Valverdes, father and son. The father, in collaboration with Federico Chueca, wrote _La Gran Vía_. Many another popular zarzuela is signed by him. The son has lived so long in France that much of his music is cast in the style of the French music hall; too it is in a popular vein. Still in his best tangos he strikes a Spanish folk-note not to be despised. He wrote the music for the play, _La Maison de Danses_, produced, with Polaire, at the Vaudeville in Paris, and two of his operettas, _La Rose de Grenade_ and _l'Amour en Espagne_, have been performed in Paris, not without success, I am told by La Argentina, who danced in them. Other modern composers who have been mentioned to me are Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Turina (George Copeland has played his _A los Toros_), Usandizaga (who died in 1915), the composer of _Las Golondrinas_, Oscar Esplá, Conrado del Campo, and Enrique Morera.

Enrique Granados was perhaps the first of the important Spanish composers to visit North America. His place in the list of modern Iberian musicians is indubitably a high one; though it must not be taken for granted that _all_ the best music of Spain crosses the Pyrenees (for reasons already noted it is evident that some Spanish music can never be heard to advantage outside of Spain), and it is by no means to be taken for granted that Granados was a greater musician than several who dwell in Barcelona and Madrid without making excursions into the outer world. In his own country I am told Granados was admired chiefly as a pianist, and his performances on that instrument in New York stamped him as an original interpretative artist, one capable of extracting the last tonal meaning out of his own compositions for the pianoforte, which are his best work.

Shortly after his arrival in New York he stated to several reporters that America knew nothing about Spanish music, and that Bizet's _Carmen_ was not in any sense Spanish. I hold no brief for _Carmen_ being Spanish but it is effective, and that _Goyescas_ as an opera is not. In the first place, its muddy and blatant orchestration would detract from its power to please (this opinion might conceivably be altered were the opera given under Spanish conditions in Spain). The manuscript score of _Goyescas_ now reposes in the Museum of the Hispanic Society, in that delightful quarter of New York where the apartment houses bear the names of Goya and Velasquez, and it is interesting to note that it is a _piano_ score. What has become of the orchestral partition and who was responsible for it I do not know. It is certain, however, that the miniature charm of the _Goyescas_ becomes more obvious in the piano version, performed by Ernest Schelling or the composer himself, than in the opera house. The growth of the work is interesting. Fragments of it took shape in the composer's brain and on paper seventeen years ago, the result of the study of Goya's paintings in the Prado. These fragments were moulded into a suite in 1909 and again into an opera in 1914 (or before then). F. Periquet, the librettist, was asked to fit words to the score, a task which he accomplished with difficulty. Spanish is not an easy tongue to sing. To Mme. Barrientos this accounts for the comparatively small number of Spanish operas. _Goyescas_, like many a zarzuela, lags when the dance rhythms cease. I find little joy myself in listening to _La Maja y el Ruiseñor_; in fact, the entire last scene sounds banal to my ears. In the four volumes of Spanish dances which Granados wrote for piano (published by the Sociedad Anónima Casa Dotesio in Barcelona) I console myself for my lack of interest in _Goyescas_. These lovely dances combine in their artistic form all the elements of the folk-dances as I have described them. They bespeak a careful study and an intimate knowledge of the originals. And any pianist, amateur or professional, will take joy in playing them.

Enrique Granados y Campina was born July 27, 1867, at Lerida, Catalonia. (He died March 24, 1916; a passenger on the _Sussex_, torpedoed in the English Channel.) From 1884 to 1887 he studied piano under Pujol and composition under Felipe Pedrell at the Madrid Conservatory. That the latter was his master presupposed on his part a valuable knowledge of the treasures of Spain's past and that, I think, we may safely allow him. There is, I am told, an interesting combination of classicism and folk-lore in his work. At any rate, Granados was a faithful disciple of Pedrell. In 1898 his opera _María del Carmen_ was produced in Madrid and has since been heard in Valencia. Barcelona, and other Spanish cities. Five years later some fragments of another opera, _Foletto_, were produced at Barcelona. His third opera, _Liliana_, was produced at Barcelona in 1911. He wrote numerous songs to texts by the poet, Apeles Mestres; Galician songs, two symphonic poems, _La Nit del Mort_ and _Dante_ (performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the first time in America at the concerts of November 5 and 6, 1915); a piano trio, string quartet, and various books of piano music (_Danzas Españolas_, _Valses Poéticos_, _Bocetos_, _etc._).

_New York, March 20, 1916._

The Land of Joy

"_Dancing is something more than an amusement in Spain. It is part of that solemn ritual which enters into the whole life of the people. It expresses their very spirit._"

Havelock Ellis.

The Land of Joy

An idle observer of theatrical conditions might derive a certain ironic pleasure from remarking the contradiction implied in the professed admiration of the constables of the playhouse for the unconventional and their almost passionate adoration for the conventional. We constantly hear it said that the public cries for novelty, and just as constantly we see the same kind of acting, the same gestures, the same Julian Mitchellisms and George Marionisms and Ned Wayburnisms repeated in and out of season, summer and winter. Indeed, certain conventions (which bore us even now) are so deeply rooted in the soil of our theatre that I see no hope of their being eradicated before the year 1999, at which date other conventions will have supplanted them and will likewise have become tiresome.

In this respect our theatre does not differ materially from the theatres of other countries except in one particular. In Europe the juxtaposition of nations makes an interchange of conventions possible, which brings about slow change or rapid revolution. Paris, for example, has received visits from the Russian Ballet which almost assumed the proportions of Tartar invasions. London, too, has been invaded by the Russians and by the Irish. The Irish playwrights, indeed, are continually pounding away at British middle-class complacency. Germany, in turn, has been invaded by England (we regret that this sentence has only an artistic and figurative significance), and we find Max Reinhardt well on his way toward giving a complete cycle of the plays of Shakespeare; a few years ago we might have observed Deutschland grovelling hysterically before Oscar Wilde's _Salome_, a play which, at least without its musical dress, has not, I believe, even yet been performed publicly in London. In Italy, of course, there are no artistic invasions (nobody cares to pay for them) and even the conventions of the Italian theatre themselves, such as the _Commedia del'Arte_, are quite dead; so the country remains as dormant, artistically speaking, as a rag rug, until an enthusiast like Marinetti arises to take it between his teeth and shake it back into rags again.

Very often whisperings of art life in the foreign theatre (such as accounts of Stanislavski's accomplishments in Moscow) cross the Atlantic. Very often the husks of the realities (as was the case with the Russian Ballet) are imported. But whispers and husks have about as much influence as the "New York Times" in a mayoralty campaign, and as a result we find the American theatre as little aware of world activities in the drama as a deaf mute living on a pole in the desert of Sahara would be. Indeed any intrepid foreign investigator who wishes to study the American drama, American acting, and American stage decoration will find them in almost as virgin a condition as they were in the time of Lincoln.

A few rude assaults have been made on this smug eupepsy. I might mention the coming of Paul Orleneff, who left Alla Nazimova with us to be eventually swallowed up in the conventional American theatre. Four or five years ago a company of Negro players at the Lafayette Theatre gave a performance of a musical revue that boomed like the big bell in the Kremlin at Moscow. Nobody could be deaf to the sounds. Florenz Ziegfeld took over as many of the tunes and gestures as he could buy for his _Follies_ of that season, but he neglected to import the one essential quality of the entertainment, its style, for the exploitation of which Negro players were indispensable. For the past two months Mimi Aguglia, one of the greatest actresses of the world, has been performing in a succession of classic and modern plays (a répertoire comprising dramas by Shakespeare, d'Annunzio, and Giacosa) at the Garibaldi Theatre, on East Fourth Street, before very large and very enthusiastic audiences, but uptown culture and managerial acumen will not awaken to the importance of this gesture until they read about it in some book published in 1950....

All of which is merely by way of prelude to what I feel must be something in the nature of lyric outburst and verbal explosion. A few nights ago a Spanish company, unheralded, unsung, indeed almost unwelcomed by such reviewers as had to trudge to the out-of-the-way Park Theatre, came to New York, in a musical revue entitled _The Land of Joy_. The score was written by Joaquín Valverde, _fils_, whose music is not unknown to us, and the company included La Argentina, a Spanish dancer who had given matinées here in a past season without arousing more than mild enthusiasm. The theatrical impressarii, the song publishers, and the Broadway rabble stayed away on the first night. It was all very well, they might have reasoned, to read about the goings on in Spain, but they would never do in America. Spanish dancers had been imported in the past without awakening undue excitement. Did not the great Carmencita herself visit America twenty or more years ago? These impressarii had ignored the existence of a great psychological (or more properly physiological) truth: you cannot mix Burgundy and Beer! One Spanish dancer surrounded by Americans is just as much lost as the great Nijinsky himself was in an English music hall, where he made a complete and dismal failure. And so they would have been very much astonished (had they been present) on the opening night to have witnessed all the scenes of uncontrollable enthusiasm--just as they are described by Havelock Ellis, Richard Ford, and Chabrier--repeated. The audience, indeed, became hysterical, and broke into wild cries of _Olé! Olé!_ Hats were thrown on the stage. The audience became as abandoned as the players, became a part of the action.

You will find all this described in "The Soul of Spain," in "Gatherings from Spain," in Chabrier's letters, and it had all been transplanted to New York almost without a whisper of preparation, which is fortunate, for if it had been expected, doubtless we would have found the way to spoil it. Fancy the average New York first-night audience, stiff and unbending, sceptical and sardonic, welcoming this exhibition! Havelock Ellis gives an ingenious explanation for the fact that Spanish dancing has seldom if ever successfully crossed the border of the Iberian peninsula: "The finest Spanish dancing is at once killed or degraded by the presence of an indifferent or unsympathetic public, and that is probably why it cannot be transplanted, but remains local." Fortunately the Spaniards in the first-night audience gave the cue, unlocked the lips and loosened the hands of us cold Americans. For my part, I was soon yelling _Olé!_ louder than anybody else.

The dancer, Doloretes, is indeed extraordinary. The gipsy fascination, the abandoned, perverse bewitchery of this female devil of the dance is not to be described by mouth, typewriter, or quilled pen. Heine would have put her at the head of his dancing temptresses in his ballet of _Méphistophéla_ (found by Lumley too indecent for representation at Her Majesty's Theatre, for which it was written; in spite of which the scenario was published in the respectable "Revue de Deux Mondes"). In this ballet a series of dancing celebrities is exhibited by the female Méphistophélès for the entertainment of her victim. After Salome had twisted her flanks and exploited the prowess of her abdominal muscles to perfunctory applause, Doloretes would have heated the blood, not only of Faust, but of the ladies and gentlemen in the orchestra stalls, with the clicking of her heels, the clacking of her castanets, now held high over head, now held low behind her back, the flashing of her ivory teeth, the shrill screaming, electric magenta of her smile, the wile of her wriggle, the passion of her performance. And close beside her the sinuous Mazantinita would flaunt a garish tambourine and wave a shrieking fan. All inanimate objects, shawls, mantillas, combs, and cymbals, become inflamed with life, once they are pressed into the service of these señoritas, languorous and forbidding, indifferent and sensuous. Against these rude gipsies the refined grace and Goyaesque elegance of La Argentina stand forth in high relief, La Argentina, in whose hands the castanets become as potent an instrument for our pleasure as the violin does in the fingers of Jascha Heifetz. Bilbao, too, with his thundering heels and his tauromachian gestures, bewilders our highly magnetized senses. When, in the dance, he pursues, without catching, the elusive Doloretes, it would seem that the limit of dynamic effects in the theatre had been reached.

_from a photograph by White_

Here are singers! The limpid and lovely soprano of the comparatively placid María Marco, who introduces figurations into the brilliant music she sings at every turn. One indecent (there is no other word for it) chromatic oriental phrase is so strange that none of us can ever recall it or forget it! And the frantically nervous Luisita Puchol, whose eyelids spring open like the cover of a Jack-in-the-box, and whose hands flutter like saucy butterflies, sings suggestive popular ditties just a shade better than any one else I know of.

But _The Land of Joy_ does not rely on one or two principals for its effect. The organization as a whole is as full of fire and purpose as the original Russian Ballet; the costumes themselves, in their blazing, heated colours, constitute the ingredients of an orgy; the music, now sentimental (the adaptability of Valverde, who has lived in Paris, is little short of amazing; there is a vocal waltz in the style of Arditi that Mme. Patti might have introduced into the lesson scene of _Il Barbiere_; there is another song in the style of George M. Cohan--these by way of contrast to the Iberian music), now pulsing with rhythmic life, is the best Spanish music we have yet heard in this country. The whole entertainment, music, colours, costumes, songs, dances, and all, is as nicely arranged in its crescendos and decrescendos, its prestos and adagios as a Mozart finale. The close of the first act, in which the ladies sweep the stage with long ruffled trains, suggestive of all the Manet pictures you have ever seen, would seem to be unapproachable, but the most striking costumes and the wildest dancing are reserved for the very last scene of all. There these bewildering señoritas come forth in the splendorous envelope of embroidered Manila shawls, and such shawls! Prehistoric African roses of unbelievable measure decorate a texture of turquoise, from which depends nearly a yard of silken fringe. In others mingle royal purple and buff, orange and white, black and the kaleidoscope! The revue, a sublimated form of zarzuela, is calculated, indeed, to hold you in a dangerous state of nervous excitement during the entire evening, to keep you awake for the rest of the night, and to entice you to the theatre the next night and the next. It is as intoxicating as vodka, as insidious as cocaine, and it is likely to become a habit, like these stimulants. I have found, indeed, that it appeals to all classes of taste, from that of a telephone operator, whose usual artistic debauch is the latest antipyretic novel of Robert W. Chambers, to that of the frequenter of the concert halls.

I cannot resist further cataloguing; details shake their fists at my memory; for instance, the intricate rhythms of Valverde's elaborately syncopated music (not at all like ragtime syncopation), the thrilling orchestration (I remember one dance which is accompanied by drum taps and oboe, nothing else!), the utter absence of tangos (which are Argentine), and habaneras (which are Cuban), most of the music being written in two-four and three-four time, and the interesting use of folk-tunes; the casual and very suggestive indifference of the dancers, while they are not dancing, seemingly models for a dozen Zuloaga paintings, the apparently inexhaustible skill and variety of these dancers in action, winding ornaments around the melodies with their feet and bodies and arms and heads and castanets as coloratura sopranos do with their voices. Sometimes castanets are not used; cymbals supplant them, or tambourines, or even fingers. Once, by some esoteric witchcraft, the dancers seemed to tap upon their arms. The effect was so stupendous and terrifying that I could not project myself into that aloof state of mind necessary for a calm dissection of its technique.

What we have been thinking of all these years in accepting the imitation and ignoring the actuality I don't know; it has all been down in black and white. What Richard Ford saw and wrote down in 1846 I am seeing and writing down in 1917. How these devilish Spaniards have been able to keep it up all this time I can't imagine. Here we have our paradox. Spain has changed so little that Ford's book is still the best to be procured on the subject (you may spend many a delightful half-hour with the charming irony of its pages for company). Spanish dancing is apparently what it was a hundred years ago; no wind from the north has disturbed it. Stranger still, it depends for its effect on the acquirement of a brilliant technique. Merely to play the castanets requires a severe tutelage. And yet it is all as spontaneous, as fresh, as unstudied, as vehement in its appeal, even to Spaniards, as it was in the beginning. Let us hope that Spain will have no artistic reawakening.

Aristotle and Havelock Ellis and Louis Sherwin have taught us that the theatre should be an outlet for suppressed desires. So, indeed, the ideal theatre should. As a matter of fact, in most playhouses (I will generously refrain from naming the one I visited yesterday) I am continually suppressing a desire to strangle somebody or other, but after a visit to the Spaniards I walk out into Columbus Circle completely purged of pity and fear, love, hate, and all the rest. It is an experience.

_November 3, 1917._

From George Borrow to Mary Garden

"_Les femmes disent qu'elle est laide,
Mais tous les hommes en sont fous:
Et l'archevêque de Tolède
Chante la messe à ses genoux._"

Théophile Gautier's "Carmen."

From George Borrow to Mary Garden
(_Histoire sommaire de Carmen_)

Alice, it will be recalled, adventured into Wonderland bearing a morsel of mushroom in each hand; now she munched one piece, which made her grow tall, now the other, which diminished her height. In this manner she adjusted her size to that of the various doorways and gates of the place as well as to that of the creatures she encountered. In somewhat the same fashion George Borrow, sent by the British Bible Society to distribute the Holy Word in the papalized peninsula, advanced into Spain. In one hand he held a Castilian version of the New Testament; in the other his very considerable curiosity. Doubtless he made many valiant attempts to hawk Bibles, but it is quite as certain that he never restrained his natural aptitude for the companionship of thieves, gitanos, contrabandists, and bandits. More than once his zeal in behalf of the Scriptures landed him in jail, but I can scarcely accept this as proof of his devotion to a holy cause when I remember that he had been attempting in vain to persuade certain Madrid officials to permit him to voluntarily incarcerate himself so that he might have such further opportunities for the pursuit of his studies of the "crabbed gitano" as intercourse with the prisoners might offer. As a matter of fact when he was arrested the English Ambassador secured his pardon before the day was done, but this Borrow refused to consider. He was in jail and he proposed to remain there, and remain he did, a matter of several weeks, during which period he had lengthy talks with all the prisoners, adding substantially to his foreign vocabularies.... His sympathy, indeed, was with the gitanos; he ate and drank and slept with them, sometimes in stables, sometimes in dirty lofts. If he himself did not connive at the "affairs of Egypt," at least he travelled with those who did; if he did not assist at robberies or murders, he was often aware that they were about to be committed. On one occasion he held converse, which is delightfully recorded, with Sevilla, the picador, whom Prosper Mérimée met and who is referred to in Richard Ford's "Gatherings from Spain."... We must, on the whole, thank the British Bible Society for giving Borrow the opportunity to write two strangely charming books, one of them a masterpiece, but over what Borrow did for the Bible Society it is perhaps just as well to draw a shade.

The production of two such books as "The Zincali" and "The Bible in Spain" may be regarded, however, as sufficient justification for the incorporation and continued existence of the British Bible Society. If all the information he gives us concerning the gipsies in these books is not authentic we may at least be certain that Borrow had a better opportunity for making it so than that afforded any other writer. If, therefore, he has sometimes distorted facts it is because he is first of all an artist and "The Bible in Spain" is first of all a work of art. These books appeared in the early forties and were read and admired all over Europe, awakening an interest in the Iberian Peninsula, and more especially in the Spanish gipsies, which has never since died. In the preface to the second edition of "The Zincali" Borrow relates his astonishment at the success of his book: "the voice not only of England but of the greater part of Europe, informing me that I had achieved a feat--a work in the nineteenth century with some pretensions to originality." And when a writer in "The Spectator" called "The Bible in Spain" "a 'Gil Blas' in water-colours" Borrow fairly bubbled.

"The Zincali" was translated into several languages, among others into French, and among those influenced and affected by it was Prosper Mérimée; indeed it now seems probable that without the spur of this suggestive book Mérimée would never have written "Carmen," assuredly not in its present form. Here are the facts: Mérimée visited Spain in 1830 and it was during this tour that the Condessa de Teba related to him a story of jealousy and murder, substantially that of "Carmen," in which, however, the gipsies played no part. This material offered scant inspiration for the production of a masterpiece. Mérimée, indeed, seems to have dropped the idea out of his mind entirely until Borrow's books appeared, reviving his interest in the gipsies and suggesting to him the possibility of transferring the Condessa's tale into a gipsy setting. Borrow's translation of the Gospel of Luke into Caló was issued in 1837. There is evidence that Mérimée read it. "The Zincali" came out in London in 1841; "The Bible in Spain" in 1842. "Carmen" first appeared, without the final chapter on the gipsies, in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" for October 1, 1845. The proofs of Mérimée's indebtedness to Borrow are manifold; one of the best is his own admission in his correspondence with his _Inconnue_: "You asked me the other day where I had obtained my acquaintance with the dialect of the gipsies. I had so many things to tell you that I forgot to reply. I got it from Mr. Borrow; his book is one of the most curious I have read." But the internal evidence is even stronger: all but two of the gipsy proverbs in "Carmen" are to be found in "The Zincali" as is many a detail in plot and description. Professor George T. Northup of the University of Toronto has traced a number of such resemblances and you may find his account of them in "Modern Philology" for July, 1915. "When he (Mérimée) set out to manufacture local colour he seldom dispensed with literary aid. He did indeed frequently dispense with direct observation," writes Professor Northup. "In his study of the Gipsies Borrow was Mérimée's important, although not his sole, literary guide; and of that a careful comparison of the two works leaves not the slightest doubt."

On one point, however, Mérimée is at variance with Borrow, and this is a most important point, so important, indeed, that the French author, in spite of (perhaps because of!) his obligation to the Englishman, points the finger of scorn at him in the added chapter (largely made up of facts to be found in "The Zincali"!) of "Carmen." Here is the passage: "M. Borrow, missionaire anglais, auteur de deux ouvrages fort intéressants sur les bohémiens d'Espagne, qu'il avait entrepris de convertir, aux frais de la Societé biblique, assure qu'il est sans exemple qu'une Gitana ait jamais eu quelque faiblesse pour un homme étranger à sa race." Borrow does not say _sans exemple_: "The Gitanas have in general a decided aversion to the white men; some few instances, however, to the contrary are said to have occurred." Let us continue with Mérimée: "Il me semble qu'il y a beaucoup d'exagération dans les éloges qu'il accorde à leur chasteté. D'abord, le plus grand nombre est dans le cas de la laide d'Ovide: _Casta quam nemo rogavit_. Quant aux jolies, elles sont comme toutes les Espagnoles, difficiles dans le choix de leurs amants. Il faut leur plaire, il faut les mériter."

This is what Borrow has to say about the matter in "The Zincali": "There is a word in the Gipsy language to which those who speak it attach ideas of peculiar reverence, far superior to that connected with the name of the Supreme Being, the creator of themselves and the universe. This word is _Lácha_, which with them is the corporeal chastity of the females; we say corporeal chastity, for no other do they hold in the slightest esteem; it is lawful amongst them, nay praise-worthy, to be obscene in look, gesture, and discourse, to be accessories to vice, and to stand by and laugh at the worst abominations of the Busné (Busno is the term used by the Spanish gipsies for the Spaniard or indeed any person not a gipsy), provided their _Lácha ye trupos_, or corporeal chastity remains unblemished. The Gipsy child, from her earliest years, is told by her strange mother, that a good Calli need only dread one thing in this world, and that is the loss of _Lácha_, in comparison with which that of life is of little consequence, as in such an event she will be provided for, but what provision is there for a gipsy who has lost her _Lácha_? 'Bear this in mind, my child,' she will say, 'and now eat this bread, and go forth and see what you can steal.'

"A Gipsy girl is generally betrothed at the age of fourteen to the youth whom her parents deem a suitable match, and who is generally a few years older than herself. Marriage is invariably preceded by betrothment.... With the Busné or Gentiles, the betrothed female is allowed the freest intercourse, going whither she will, and returning at all times and seasons. With respect to the Busné, indeed, the parents are invariably less cautious than with their own race, as they conceive it next to an impossibility that their child should lose her _Lácha_ by any intercourse with _the white blood_; and true it is that experience has proved that their confidence in this respect is not altogether idle. The Gitanas have in general a decided aversion to the white men; some few instances, however, to the contrary are said to have occurred."

The gitanas, Borrow goes on to explain, are never above exciting passion in the Busné which, however, they refuse to satisfy. Their dances for the most part are lascivious and obscene. They often act as procuresses. But let no Busno presume from these facts that he may count on a more intimate acquaintanceship. Richard Ford in "Gatherings from Spain" in his description of the _romalis_ supports Borrow in his theory: "However indecent these dances may be, yet the performers are inviolably chaste, and as far at least as ungipsy guests are concerned, may be compared to iced punch at a rout; young girls go through them before the applauding eyes of their parents and brothers, who resent to the death any attempt on their sisters' virtue."

Mérimée refers to the matter in a letter to the _Inconnue_: "What he (Borrow) relates of the gipsies is perfectly true, and his personal observations are entirely in accord with mine save on a single point. In his capacity of clergyman (_sic_), he may very well have deceived himself where I, in my capacity of Frenchman and layman, was able to make conclusive experiments." In spite of the weight of Mérimée's personal experience it may be noted that the majority of Spanish writers are in accord with Borrow, who was _not_ a clergyman. And, as Professor Northup slyly points out, the man who taught Isopel Berners of Mumpers Dingle to conjugate the verb "to love" in Armenian may not have been so naïve an observer after all.

Whether gipsies are corporeally chaste or not[1] is, however, a matter of the slightest moment in relation to the masterpiece that Mérimée based on the theory that they are not. As Havelock Ellis so precisely puts it: "Art is in its sphere as supreme over fact as Science in its sphere is supreme over fiction. The artist may play either fast or loose with Science, and the finest artist will sometimes play loose." It may be remarked that in general Borrow was more inclined to play loose than Mérimée.

It is interesting enough to realize that "The Bible in Spain," in itself a masterpiece, was the inspiration for another masterpiece, one of the great short stories of all literature. Curiously enough still a third masterpiece emerged from the activities of the British Bible Society, _Carmen_, the opera. In transferring the story to the stage Messrs. Meilhac and Halévy, in searching for dramatic emphasis, have thrown overboard a good deal of the wild and wanton atmosphere, the calid passion, the brutal austerity of the original tale. Carmen, in their version, becomes a mixture of Spanish gipsy and Parisian cocotte. In certain scenes, such as that of the Seguidilla and the duet in the last act a good deal of Mérimée's feeling has been preserved but the scene of the quintet in which the other gipsies taunt Carmen with being _amoureuse_ is probably essentially Parisian. So, too, perhaps, is the scene of the Habanera. Spaniards have long protested against the work because, as nearly as I can discover, they consider it an _idealization_. Spanish women as a rule make the worst Carmens, although they have often achieved notable successes in another Spanish character, Rosina in _The Barber of Seville_.[2] An understanding of the French opéra-comique form is essential to a fine interpretation of this gipsy heroine; even a good deal of the music is not essentially Spanish. If it were it would probably not be great because Bizet was a Frenchman and must perforce in writing French opera hear Spain with French ears.... Nevertheless I see no reason why a singer should not go to Mérimée for many hints; indeed I think she might even go farther and study Borrow's conception of the Spanish gipsy character. One line alone in Mérimée would suggest a new interpretation to an actress capable of realizing it. José is speaking: "Monsieur, quand cette fille-là riait, il n'y avait pas moyen de parler raison. Tout le monde riait avec elle." But an actress must conceive any part in terms of her own personality and this effect could be made only by a very complete _charmeuse_.

In the original story the bull-fighter, Lucas, scarcely appears and he is a picador not an _espada_ as he becomes in the opera under the new name of Escamillo. Why was this name changed? I have a theory, unsupported by any evidence, that Bizet asked his librettists to furnish him with a name which would fit the music of the marvellous duet in the last act. He probably had achieved the phrase which now accompanies _Ah! je t'aime, Escamillo_, only to discover that it could not be married to the name Lucas. Jealousy remains the motive for the murder of Carmen although the scenes are quite differently arranged in the tale and in the lyric drama.... Micaela is new. The only suggestion of her in Mérimée's story is the following line of José's: "J'étais jeune alors; je pensais toujours au pays, et je croyais pas qu'il y eût de jolies filles sans jupes bleues et sans nattes tombant sur les épaules." Carmen's second meeting with José does not take place at Lillas Pastia's but the third does, and ever so many details such as the "chaine avec du fil de laiton," the cassia which the hussy removes from her lips to toss at José's feet, the rejected ring, etc., are incidents from Mérimée. Why, one wonders, does not some interpreter remember that the original Carmen broke a plate and from the pieces fashioned castanets to play while she danced the _romalis_ for José?... The brutal García le Borgne, Carmen's _rom_, disappears completely. He is not essential to the intrigue devised by the librettists. They have also blotted out Carmen's very diverting adventures with the Englishman at Gibraltar.