imp198-99Figure XXV.Coda of the first movement of the String Quartet in E, opus 45 (1897), based on the fragment from a Gregorian chant:
Figure XXV.Coda of the first movement of the String Quartet in E, opus 45 (1897), based on the fragment from a Gregorian chant:
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1. Melodic. There is no salient phrase which is not derived from the root motive. As for the variety, the reader will judge for himself. This is a supreme case of the germinating power of a musical thought.
2. Rhythmic. The original nucleus of the theme is rhythmed mainly in quarter notes. It is reduced to even eighth notes at the beginning of the coda, and in that murmuring,inconspicuous form stays on a dead level, so to speak, and makes a colorless background of accompaniment whence the more passionate main phrases detach themselves sharply. Beginning in the fifth measure the second violin sounds anaugmentedform of the motive (whole notes), in expression tentative, timid. This recurs in the viola in measure 11, with more of emphasis, and is broken in upon by asyncopatedform of the same (beginning on the second half of the measure) from the first violin. The C sharp here is the crest of the emotional wave, whence it subsides first by the gradual descent of the motive through three octaves in measures 17-20, and then by the flagging of the accompaniment rhythm first to quarter notes, then to half notes. Still a different rhythm is heard in the last announcement by the first violin.
3. Harmonic. The harmony is absolutely the product of concurrent melodies throughout. No notes are added merely for color. Yet the sonorities, though effects rather than causes, are unforgettable.
4. Modulatory. The first measure stronglyestablishes E major as the tonal center, and as the goal of what preceded the excerpt. A subtle change of the violin figure obscures the sense of tonality (by suggesting the atonal "whole-tone scale"), whereupon the first meditative version of the theme appears in the much darker key of A flat. The tonality is again clouded, and the theme appears once more in A, brighter than A flat, but less bright than the original E. The reappearance of this therefore, in the fifteenth measure, has the effect of an "éclaircissement." The tonic of E major is maintained through the last eleven measures, giving a grateful sense of homecoming, of repose after adventure.
5. Instrumental. The student is referred to the score for detail. Particularly notable are the keenness of the violin E string at the moment of climax, and the earnest virility of the G string in the last statement.
The same loyalty to emotional truth that dictates all these processes of detail, guides also d'Indy's treatment of a composition consideredas a whole. His conception of form, though set forth in theCoursin largely intellectual terms, can be thoroughly understood only when traced back to its emotional basis. Because for him a piece of music must hang together emotionally, must proceed, that is, all from a few ideas, and must evolve these freely and variously in obedience to the logic of emotion, he takes as his central principle Variation, or germination from root themes. Not only, he believes, should the single movement thus proceed from a few themes, but the entire work, according to what is called cyclic form, should result from their transformation and recombination. In other words, just as the rhythmic waxing and waning of the emotions embodied in a few themes gives rise to the single movement, the regarding of the same themesfrom different points of view, or under the domination of varying moods, will naturally generate the contrasted movements, all thematically related, of cyclic form.
It may at once be admitted that such a conception of form has its pitfalls. The same process that in the glow of creativeemotion is a spontaneous reshaping of a theme to meet a new situation may in the absence of such emotion degenerate into a hammering of recalcitrant matter into mere distortion and ineptitude. That is what we note too often in Liszt's similar theme transformations in his symphonic poems, as when in "Les Préludes" he makes his lovecantabiledo reluctant duty as a trumpet call to war. D'Indy, let us confess it, is by no means guiltless on this score; in uninspired moments he becomes too easily the slave instead of the master of his process; living form stiffens into dead formula; and we have a more or less mechanical rearrangement of notes, as for instance that of the main theme of the finale in the B flat Symphony, based on the choral at the end, masquerading as a genuine reincarnation. Such scholastic passages do indeed appear as blemishes in too many even of his finest works. But it is fair to judge a process not by its occasional abuse, but by the possibilities a felicitous use of it opens up. These possibilities in the case of cyclic form are a maximum of diversity without diffuseness,and a maximum of unity without monotony or platitude.
That a development of something of the sort was indispensable to the progress of composition is evident when we reflect how intolerable literal recapitulation has become to the modern ear. Much of the prejudice against the sonata form in our day is due to the literal recapitulations of bunglers in the use of it. The remedy is, not to throw overboard the form, which is a natural, flexible, and convenient one, but to bring to it a freshness of feeling which penetrates at once to the spirit of it, ignoring the letter. Thus d'Indy, in the slow movement of the B flat Symphony, recapitulates the main theme, shown at Figure XXVI,a, not literally but in subtlest reincarnation,one step higher in the scale, though still in the same key, and transferred from the sultry tones of clarinet, horn, English horn, and viola to the pure, pale sonority of a single flute, supported by lightest violin harmonies (Figure XXVI,b). It is the same theme, but breathing now a quite new sentiment.[48]
imp204-205Figure XXVI.(a) Theme of slow movement, B flat Symphony.(This follows immediately after the introduction shown in Figure XX.)
Figure XXVI.(a) Theme of slow movement, B flat Symphony.(This follows immediately after the introduction shown in Figure XX.)
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flute(b) Return of theme in flute.
(b) Return of theme in flute.
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It is but a step from such a recreated recapitulation to a theme transformation such as we find in the last movement of the "Summer Day on the Mountain." This work is not only its composer's masterpiece in the sphere of program music; it is the latest and best of a whole series of works[49]in which he has expressed his love of his native country of the Cévennes in southeastern France. "At this moment," he once wrote in a letter from his château of Faugs, near Boffres in Ardèche, "I see the snowy summits of the Alps, the nearer mountains, the plain of the Rhone, thepine woods that I know so well, and the green, rich harvest which has not yet been gathered. It is a true pleasure to be here after the labors and the vexations of the winter. What they call at Paris 'the artistic world' seems afar off and a trifling thing. Here is true repose, here one feels at the true source of all art."
imp208Figure XXVII.Finale of "Jour d'Été." Très animé et joyeux
Figure XXVII.Finale of "Jour d'Été." Très animé et joyeux
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imp208-209b(b)Très lent
(b)Très lent
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The "Jour d'Été à la Montagne," in three movements, "Aurore" ("Dawn"), "Jour—Après-midi sous les pins" ("Day: Afternoon under the Pines") and "Soir" ("Evening"), is characteristic of the composer in that, despite its program, there is in it little scene-painting, such as we find so constantly in Strauss and others. A memorable suggestion of dawn, with its vague shapes in the half-light and its bird songs, in the first movement[50]; a whiff of peasant dance-tune in the second, coming up through the baking heat under the pines; in the third some evening chimes from the valley: that is all. It is the emotional significance of the scene in its varying aspects,its appeal to the sympathies and associations of a poetic observer, that interest the musician. The main theme of the last movement (Figure XXVII,a) thus suggests the joy of life in the bright summer afternoon; its activity depicts no mere external scene, we feel, but reflectsthe elation of the sensitive heart, witnessing this scene. And when, at the end, after the suggestions of descending night and the distant jangle of chimes tempered by the evening air, the same melody returns in softest sonorities of strings and in quietest motion (Figure XXVII,b), we hear in it again no merely objective facts, but the tranquil evening thoughts of a poet, spiritualized in meditation. Never since he first essayed such theme transformation in a large work, in the "Symphony on a Mountain Theme" of 1886, which M. Paul Dukas called "a single piece in three episodes," has d'Indy been more successful in drawingtogether the most opposing moods by the single subjective point of view from whichthey are regarded, as incarnated in a common theme. Never has he written a more characteristic page than that lovely breath of evening tenderness, the meditation of a lover on the world toward which darkness and sleep gently approach.
imp210aFigure XXVIII.(a) Lentement
Figure XXVIII.(a) Lentement
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imp210b(b) Animé
(b) Animé
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imp210b(c) Second theme.
(c) Second theme.
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imp210d(d) Très animé
(d) Très animé
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imp211(e) Très lent
(e) Très lent
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A work in which the cyclic method is applied with almost unparalleled rigor and resourcefulness,and which is therefore worthy of detailed analysis, is the String Quartet in E major,[51]built up from four notes of a Gregorian chant, shown at Figure XXV. The swinging main theme of the first movement, derived from this fragment by a natural rhythmic and tonal proliferation (see Figure XXVIII,b), is not immediately stated, but is rather anticipated tentatively, and gradually allowed to take shape, by a process dear to the composer, first through imitative bits for the different instruments and then through a serious fugato (Figure XXVIII,a). Once achieved it is broadly treated, with a richly conceived tonal digression into E flat major and return. A second theme, of sinuous curve and fluent movement (Figure XXVIII,c), is reached through a transition passage of more animated rhythm. The themes thus stated, development begins: not a perfunctory worrying of the themes such as the "free fantasia" often degenerates into in the hands of composers possessed of neither freedom nor fancy, but adynamic action and reaction of the themes such as d'Indy conceives development essentially to be. "Development," he says, "is ... the action of the themes and ideas, and consequently their reason for being, since an idea is of value only through the action it is capable of exercising. When there are several ideas ... the development expresses usually all the phases of a struggle between them, with the final triumph of one and submission of the other.... The themes comport themselves like living people: they act and move according to their tendencies, their sentiments, and their passions. These modifications show themselves both in the thematic elements which are elaborated as if to surpass themselves, or are restrained as if to become absorbed, and in the tonal trajectories which orient themselves toward light or toward darkness."[52]It will be seen that in this case the development first (pages 9 and 10) takes the aspect of a quiet presentation of the first theme in dark keys (E flat major, etc.) and then (from index number 10, through the whole of page 11) ofa brief recurrence of the second theme and elimination of it with the reviving force of the first, moving through more energetic rhythms and brighter tonalities to final victorious reassertion. The themes are then recapitulated and the movement ends with the beautiful coda we have already examined.
The two middle movements, too complex to analyze in detail, are based on themes strikingly illustrative of what was said a moment ago as to cyclic form arising from the approach to a common theme from different angles, or under the influence of varying moods. That of the scherzo is the theme envisaged playfully (Figure XXVIII,d); that of the slow movement (Figure XXVIII,e) shapes itself in response to a more serious contemplation. It may be pointed out that these are no mere clever or learned jugglings with notes, such as arise sometimes from the abuse of the method; not only are they true textually to the theme, but each is a faithful expression of its own mood; the resulting music accordingly convinces us emotionally as well as intellectually.
The finale is a piece of writing extraordinaryfor the manifold resources developed out of the original theme, for the bold ingenuity of its polyphonic and rhythmic combinations, and for the variety of its emotional content. Its main theme comes from the original motive byinversion(Figure XXIX,a), and derives a certain amplitude from its three half-note rhythm proceeding deliberately against the more agitated two-four of other parts (especially the viola, at first, with a persistent figure taken also from the theme). Its secondtheme also traces its ancestry back to the first movement, but in a more elusive way; a comparison of Figure XXIX,b, with Figure XXVIII,c, will reveal the connection. The elaboration of these themes, and of the quaint staccato bridge passage between them, leads to most unexpected combinations. The fugato of the first movement reappears, but nowinverted(Figure XXIX,c). At the top of page 58 we find the main theme in the second violin answered canonically by the viola, while the first violin sustains, high above, the original motive. Finally, after the themes have met all manner of vicissitudes and wandered through all sorts of keys, the original motive in its most conclusive form brings the final cadence in E major.
imp215aFigure XXIX.(a) Main theme of Finale of String Quartet.
Figure XXIX.(a) Main theme of Finale of String Quartet.
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imp215b(b) Second theme.
(b) Second theme.
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imp215c(c) Fugato lentement
(c) Fugato lentement
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A last illustration, in some ways the most striking of all, of d'Indy's conviction that emotional expressiveness is the criterion of the value of all artistic processes, is afforded by his attitude toward the peculiar idiom that has been developed by Debussy, Ravel, and others,and particularly toward the system of harmony based on the "whole-tone scale." His standpoint here is that of the open-minded and curious artist toward processes that may have new possibilities, saved from faddishness by a thorough familiarity with traditional resources and an indifference to novelty for mere novelty's sake. He has thus won the distinction of being blamed by the academic for "queerness," harshness, and obscurity, at the same time that he is patronized as reactionary by the "ultras."
imp218Figure XXX.(a) From "Fervaal."
Figure XXX.(a) From "Fervaal."
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The evidence of his works is that he makes free use of the whole-tone scale, as of all other technical elements, so far as it lends itself to the expression he has in mind, but no farther. There are already traces of it in certain passages of the early Clarinet Trio (1887) where he wishes to give a sense of groping uncertainty. In "Fervaal" (1895) its peculiar coloring is skilfully used in a number of passages, as, for example, that of the two bucklers, and its vigor and brilliancy, which so commended it to Moussorgsky in "Boris Godunoff," are exploited in the passage beforethe apparition of the cloud figures (see Figure XXX,a). In "Istar" a similar use is made of it for the calls which announce Istar's arrival at the different doors; to it is due a large measure of the mystical expression of the B flat Symphony, especially of the opening bass motive (Figure XXX,b) founded on the tritone which used to be regarded as "diabolus in musica," while the middle section of the scherzo draws upon its power of suspending the sense and piquing the musical curiosity (Figure XXX,c); in the opening of the pianosonata splendid use is made of its clangorous sonorities.
imp219b(b) Opening of B flat Symphony. Extrêmement lent
(b) Opening of B flat Symphony. Extrêmement lent
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imp219c(c) Très animé
(c) Très animé
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But d'Indy is too sound an artist to lend himself to the abuse of any process, however fashionable, and he has the good sense to recognize the dangers of the whole-tone scale. In none of his critical writings has he expressed himself more courageously and at the same time more fairly, than in an article on "Good Sense"[53]in which he takes up this much-disputed matter.
"In the nineteenth century," he says, "some Russian composers, in the interest of certainspecial effects, employed the scale of whole tones, which one may name atonal because it suppresses all possibility of modulation. In the twentieth century Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel elaborated these methods, making often very ingenious applications of them; but they made the mistake (one must dare to speak the truth of those one esteems) of erecting processes into principles, or at least of letting them be so erected by their muftis, so that the formula now established by fashion is: 'Outside of harmonic sensation and the titillation of orchestral timbres there is no salvation.'
"This formula is dangerous, because far from constituting an advance it results in a retrogression of our art, and leads us backward by a hundred years. What these prophets try to establish is the rule of sense to the exclusion of sentiment, it is the supremacy of sensation over the equilibrium of the heart and the intelligence. This sensualist movement is neither new nor original. About a hundred years ago a similar aberration of good sense tried to poison our music. At theepoch of the Rossinis and the Donizettis the sensualist formula was 'All for and by melody!' To-day it is 'All for and by harmony!' I should say however that, of the two maladies, the second is less grave, for nothing is more ephemeral than new harmonies, if they do not take their point of departure from the two other elements of music: melody and rhythm.... In order that harmony should be durable, it must constitute, not mere glistening surface, mere tapestry, but rather the clothing of the living and acting being which is therhythmed melody. The costume, in this case, may safely pass out of style—the human person, if it is well constituted, will endure.
"The scale of whole tones is far from being an improvement on our traditional occidental scale, since it suppresses all tonality and hence all modulation. Now, change of tonal place by modulation is one of the most precious elements of expression. To deprive oneself of it systematically is therefore a retrogression toward the barbaric monotony of past ages.
"What, then, does good sense demand? It demands very simple things—that the youngcomposer should begin by learning his art, and should not allow himself to be hypnotized by a process that happens to be in fashion, employed fruitfully, to be sure, by certain natures, but not constituting in itself the whole of musical art.
"All processes are good, on condition that they never become the principal end, and are regarded only as means to make MUSIC."
The candor, courage, and penetration of such criticism as this, shown, though seldom in quite such measure, in every critical page that d'Indy has written, and the uncompromising nature of his views, not always free from narrowness, have of course made him many enemies. Probably no man in modern music is better loved or better hated. The devotion of his whole life to art, with a modesty, a suppression of self, a really religious enthusiasm rare in musicians, has naturally turned the love of his pupils and disciples into something that is almost worship; and this has in turn naturally enough irritated, sometimes to exasperation, those who vent their disgust of artistic idolatries on the often innocent idol, orwho feel keenly, in a hero, the limitations of which no human being is free, or who find especially antipathetic, in M. d'Indy's case, certain temperamental leanings which he could not overcome if he would, such as those to conservatism, aristocracy, and even chauvinism in social relations, and to the strictest Roman Catholicism in religion.
Indeed, regarded simply as an intellect, d'Indy is something of a paradox, moments of the most penetrative insight alternating unaccountably in him with fits of prejudice or narrowness that suggest the existence upon his mental retina of incurable blind spots. What could be more illuminating in their unconventionality than such judgments as these, for example:—Of Schumann: "A genius in short and simple works, he finds himself lost when he has to build a musical monument. He then lets himself be guided by sentiment alone, and in spite of his often very fine ideas he can onlyimproviseworks of limited range, hasty fruits of an art not sufficiently conscious." Of Mendelssohn:—"Always skilful in appropriating the knowledge of others,the Jews are seldom, true artists by nature." Of Grieg: "His short inspiration and his absolute ignorance of composition render him entirely inept in the construction of symphonic works; he produces then only hybrid assemblages of short fragments, unskilfully welded together or simply juxtaposed, without appearance of order or unity either in conception or in execution."[54]But the fastidiousness already verging here on the finical seems always to be in danger, in dealing with subjects on which he has active prejudices, such as Jews, Protestants, free thinkers, and modern Germans, of overshooting its mark, losing the sense of proportion, and becoming narrowly sectarian. Someone once said of him that he had the spirit of the mediæval religious fanatics, and had he lived in the Middle Ages would have been burned at the stake for his convictions, or would have burned others, as the case might be, with equal ardor.
One thus catches sometimes a note of intolerance, almost of superstition, even in some of his most valid judgments, putting one alittle on guard, perhaps rather by what is omitted or implied than by what is actually said. Thus Bach is great, "not because of, but in spite of, the dogmatic and withering spirit of the Reformation,"[55]and Franck's comment on Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," that it was "très amusant," is commended as one of the finest criticisms, "coming from the mouth of the believing French musician, that could be made of the heavy and undigested critique of the German philosopher."[56]Again "The present-day symphonists of Germany seem totally incapable of making anything great: they content themselves with making it big, which is not quite the same thing." They are charged with "total absence of artistic taste, misunderstanding of all proportion and of all tonal order."[57]They are "almost devoid of musical taste; they cannot distinguish good music from bad; the opinion of a German on a musical work has no importance."[58]Thesympathy of the judicial with these pronouncements wanes as they increase in animus; the justice of the first, to which any thoughtful musician could hardly take exception, is obscured by the evident exaggeration of the last; and musical criticism too evidently loses itself in chauvinism.
We need not concern ourselves here to estimate the exact proportion between wisdom and prejudice in d'Indy's writings; the materials for a judgment have been admirably set forth in Rolland's essay, and each reader may judge for himself. The aim of these citations is rather to illustrate the temperament of their author, and to show that in the last analysis, even though these writings make up perhaps the finest body of musical criticism produced by a creative musician since Schumann, that temperament is after all originative rather than judicial. Much light as there is in it, there is even more heat. D'Indy is a crusader of beauty; the shining spear is his natural weapon; and when he takes to the clerk's ink-horn and balance sheet it is always with a sort of youthful impatience.He is essentially a poet, a maker; it is in his music that he finds his truest self. Indeed, he is too many-sided to be quite justly appreciated by his contemporaries; the poet has too much disappeared for us behind the teacher, the scholar, the critic, the philosopher, the devotee. On the occasion of the revival of "Fervaal" in 1913, M. Vuillermoz published an imaginary talk of this composite d'Indy to his adoring pupils, asking them not to idealize him, to let him remain human, to see in him the simple human lover, like his Fervaal, which he felt himself to be. It is time, for our own sakes, that we paid more attention than we do to this human lover that finds supreme expression in the Symphony in B flat, in "Istar," in the E major Quartet, in the "Jour d'Été à la Montagne." He it is who speaks to the young men, to his fellow lovers of immortal beauty, to the future. For, as one of his most understanding critics, Louis Laloy, has written of him: "Emotion is queen, and science is her servant." If d'Indy has studied as few modern musicians have studied, if he has drawnon the past for his ample means, it has been only in order to take more beauty with him, and to enable us to take it, into the future; and for all his intellectual power he has never forgotten that "Only the heart can engender beauty."