CARICATURE OF BERLIOZ.By Benjamin—Nov. 1, 1838.
CARICATURE OF BERLIOZ.By Benjamin—Nov. 1, 1838.
CARICATURE OF BERLIOZ.By Benjamin—Nov. 1, 1838.
Thenceforward Meyerbeer, one of those rare musicians, be it said to his honor, who feel a concern for other creations than their own, took a lively and permanent interest in all that Berlioz produced. Wagner, on his side, admitted to friends that he no sooner reached Paris than he made a profound study of Berlioz’s instrumentation; that he had since reread his scores many times, and that he had often profited by the works of “that devilishly clever man.” Moreover, from 1841, he regarded Berlioz as a musician filling a place of his own, mingling with none, while loving, understanding, worshipping Beethoven; dreaming perhaps to be German in the hours when his genius urged him to write in imitation of this great master; but unable to assimilate French love of external effect with Beethoven’s profound symphonic style; possessing a wonderful fancy, an imagination of extraordinary energy; torn between his artistic impulses and the tastes of his fellow countrymen, whom he wished to win; incapable of asking or of receiving advice; possessed of that virtue, rare even among Germans, of not wishing to write for money; turning his back on all musical triviality; eminently fitted by reason of these qualities and of these faults to create great works, popular or national as in theSymphonie de Juillet, the best in his eyes, of Berlioz’s works, and the only one which, to him, seemed destined to live.
CARICATURE OF BERLIOZ.By Carjat.
CARICATURE OF BERLIOZ.By Carjat.
CARICATURE OF BERLIOZ.By Carjat.
The portrait is pretty, and coming from the pen of Wagner, is flattering enough, save in its conclusion, which appears somewhat absurd to-day. But this amazing aptitude for obtaining from an orchestra more than any other composer had been able to compass, was exactly the origin of the misunderstanding between Berlioz and the public. Certainly the so-called learned criticisms of the most serious journals and the chaffing of the less dignified press, contributed much to transform Berlioz, in the eye of the masses, into a species of charlatan hungry for fame and banging his drum vigorously to attract the mob; denying him genius except for drawing attention to himself. These slurs, however, would not have taken a firm hold in the minds of their readers if the adverse criticisms had been wholly without an appearance of justice. In brief, with what did they reproach him? of lacking melodic invention and of replacing it by inextricable orchestral tangles; of rejoicing in diabolical noise and of entertaining a positive contempt for all music except his own. Nevertheless, Berlioz was not wanting in melody. His themes, when separated from their complicated accompaniments, have even a family likeness to the romanzas of 1840 in the style of Madame Duchambage or of Blangini; his themes, vocal or instrumental, have generally a dreamy melancholy, which seem to recall his birthplace, with its tender and tremulous songs so loved by the peasants of Dauphiny. These perfectly clear melodies, whenever he was content to give them simple accompaniments, met with instant recognition and success from the public. Among them isLa Captivein its first version; also the tenor recitative inLa Fuite en Egypte. It seemed surprising that the composer of these delicate melodies should be the one who wrote such complicated music, and so the ignorant were taught that these melodic treasure-troves were wholly exceptional with this troublesome, demented and blustering composer.
What repelled the public and assisted its misunderstanding on this point, were the intricacies of his deeply-studied and curiously-strange method of orchestration. In carrying out the idea that by the aid of the most varied tone combinations every shade of meaning in a piece of music can be made clear to the listener, Berlioz, imbued as he was with the teachings of Lesueur, had a tendency to overcharge the more novel touches of his musical picture, in order to indicate the secondary details with that distinctness which seemed indispensable to him. From this practice arose confusion in the mind of the inexperienced hearer, and produced cloudiness in the music from which the dominant idea could not be detached without an effort. On the other hand he gave utterance to many noble and touching thoughts with pathetic declamation, poetic and richly-colored orchestration, and impressive sonority; essential qualities in Berlioz that are really wonderful and on which his enemies, notably Fétis, were careful not to throw light. On the contrary, they did their uttermost to discourage the public from bestowing attention on these works, and they succeeded only too well and too long.
Here then is one of the causes that made amateurs rebel, on principle, against the innovations of this great composer; but another cause, inherent in the soul of Berlioz, repelled timid people. It was his spirit of intolerance and of exclusive self-admiration. Carried along by the impulse of the time and the desire to insure victory for his art theories, Berlioz did not hesitate to attack the reputations of the most cherished idols of the hour; therefore, whether he wrote, or whether he spoke, he indulged his natural disposition to exaggerate everything with virulent indignation, and outbursts of mad enthusiasm in support of the artistic faith that swayed him. The public did not and could not understand him, and irritated by his fierce aggressive tone, held itself instinctively on guard against the creations of this fighting innovator and stood ready to pay him the price of his contempt for it. Between a rancorous public offended by the disdain this iconoclast manifested for its tastes, and an artist who never exhausted the taunts he had in store for it, there was always an antagonism, skilfully intensified by the personal foes of the master and which ceased only at his death.
Antagonism is the true word, for Berlioz in his vocal works at least never departed from the models so dear to the public. In fact, so far as opera is concerned, he remained ever the disciple and admirer of Spontini and of Gluck, without dreaming that he was destined soon to initiate a revolution in this branch of musical art. Even when, at the height of his own romantic fervor, he broke down the barriers of the symphony, there always remained in Berlioz an instinctive respect for consecrated forms; and as soon as he passed from the concert-room to the stage he conformed in the most ingenious manner imaginable to the old methods in all his works written with an eye to the opera house. He was deliberately revolutionary in the symphony only, and that chiefly in respect to instrumentation.
With this creator, endowed with a phenomenal genius in a certain way, the ideas regarding the essential conditions of musical art were so unsettled, and changed so often from one time and from one style to another, that he would have been puzzled to formulate them with any exactness. He emitted fire and flames, he hurled curses and roared bitter denunciations, but when it came to deciding the ideal that an artist should follow or the absolute principles he should adopt, he did nothing.
There exists a radical difference between the two great musicians who have convulsed the musical world in the second half of this century. The later-comer, Richard Wagner, pursued a fully defined ideal, a single problem, on the solving of which he had long concentrated his thoughts and all the force of his genius, viz.:—the fusion of music and the drama. He kept steadily in this one path and brought the music-drama to the highest point it is possible for it to attain. Berlioz, on the contrary, realized at one stroke all the modifications that seemed to him desirable to fasten upon the symphony and the opera. He did not seek an integral reform, but simply wished to enrich each branch of musical art with new descriptive and picturesque elements. But while his flexible brain turned now toward the stage, now toward the church, or the concert-room, he did not deviate much from the traditional forms, though he endowed them with new and wonderful characteristics.
Warmly romantic with Shakespeare, purely classic with Virgil, who were his literary deities, he was eclectic in literature as in music. The splendid lyric accents of Gluck are not in full harmony with the deep poetic and chivalric inspiration of Weber, and the lack of resemblance between Spontini and Beethoven is still more striking, yet Berlioz loved them all. It matters not that Berlioz confounded these masters in his religious admiration of them and made for himself a double personality, repudiating all rule and tradition when he wrote for the orchestra and for the concert stage, and becoming a pious observer of hallowed forms when he turned to the theatre. In hisLes Troyens, the voice parts are of a wholly classic purity while the orchestra abounds in modern romanticism; inBéatrice et Bénédict, delightful inspirations, exquisite in their poetry, are mingled with the conventional forms that Berlioz mercilessly condemned in the works of others: inexplicable vocal flourishes, repetitions of words, outrages on prosody, the clipping of rebellious words; all this by a composer in whose eyes correct declamation was a fundamental essential of song.
Such was the composer Berlioz, such the critic, and the critic was not unhelpful to the composer. In fact, all that he was in France, all that he was able to win, during his lifetime, he owed to his position as a writer for the press and as the friend of influential journalists. But he made many enemies, less by the aggressiveness of his writings than by his caustic wit. There was in him an imperative necessity to tell the public his hates and his loves, and if he did not always feel free to give bold expression to the disgust with which certain works filled him, he invariably let his contempt be seen through his polished and even laudatory phrases. At least, nobody was ever deceived. The musician in Berlioz is impassioned, now tender, now vigorous. It is the same with the writer. His style is picturesque and incisive, sometimes trivial. Side by side are exclamations of admiration and contempt; quasi religious respect and genuinely holy anger, all equally energetic and sincere—the word and the blow. To appreciate this at its full value, it suffices to select at hazard one of the collection of articles published by himself in book form under the titles,Les Soirées de l’orchestra, Les Grotesques de la musique, in which the humorist tone prevails andA travers chants, which contains his most serious thoughts; the two volumes of letters published after his death,Correspondance inédite et lettres intimes; and finally his amusing and fascinatingMémoires, in which he travesties himself unreservedly and confuses somewhat the dates and facts. This book is a genuine romance.
Berlioz, bitter and unsympathetic as it here pleases him to appear, was wholly unconventional; he was the athlete constantly stripped for the combat, and armed for the fight. How different from the Berlioz seen in his profession and in society! As much as those, who knowing him but slightly, judged him hard and unsociable, so much did those to whom his affections went out, laud his extreme kindness and his tenderness of feeling. He was not prepossessing in appearance or manner. His esteem and friendship had to be won little by little, in order to open by some means or other, the way to his heart. He no sooner found himself among friends, than his spirits rose and often urged him into countless pleasantries. Nevertheless, even toward these he showed the most variable disposition: he would arrive sullen and morose, and then without warning, would break into wild and infectious gaiety, to fall just as suddenly into icy reserve. A troublesome thought would suffice for this, and it only needed an inopportune word to make him intractable. If he chanced to be in the mood for brilliant paradoxes or merry persiflage, it was necessary to refrain from interrupting or opposing him. In the heat of conversation, no matter how serious, he loved to utter wretched puns, and absurd verbal extravagances. These irrepressible sallies, at which he was generally the only one to laugh, were something very serious in his eyes. “Genius is akin to madness.”
“Berlioz, one of the most eminent musicians of all time, perhaps the most extraordinary artist in every way who ever lived.” Thus he was characterized by M. Reyer in speaking at the foot of Berlioz’s statue. He was, truly, an extraordinary artist in every sense; apostle and sectarian at one and the same time; one who conceived great things and sometimes partly realized them; who was in turn sarcastic and sentimental, emotional and passionate almost to weeping; who nourished an intolerant worship of his art and never knew moderation in his judgments; who was gifted with admirable creative faculties and opened new paths to the art of instrumentation; who was in perpetual strife with the pretenders of true melody, to whom he never yielded; who aimed to be at once as noble and as majestic as Spontini, as imaginative and as impassioned as Weber, as sweet and as tender as Virgil, as sublime and as trivial as Shakespeare, as grand and pathetic as Goethe and Beethoven, yet who knew how to be himself by force of will and loftiness of genius. Berlioz had a rare grasp of mind, and was keenly sensitive to the beauties of certain great literary works, hence the “romantic movement” in France deeply influenced him. With enormous will power and bordering on insanity, he aspired in his youthful dreams to be considered, some day, the Victor Hugo, the Delacroix of musical art, and, in some respects, his aspiration was more than realized—after he was dead!
Ad. Julien
AMBROISE THOMASReproduction of a photograph from life, by E. Pirou, Paris.
AMBROISE THOMASReproduction of a photograph from life, by E. Pirou, Paris.
AMBROISE THOMASReproduction of a photograph from life, by E. Pirou, Paris.