Part 9

The new Wagner producer must possess many qualities if he wishes to place these works on a plane where they may continue to challenge the admiration of the world. Wagner himself was more concerned with his ideals than he was with their practical solution. Besides, it must be admitted that taste in stage art and improvements in stage mechanism have made great strides in the last decade. The plaster wall, for instance, which has replaced in many foreign theatres the flapping, swaying, wrinkled, painted canvas sky cyclorama (still in use at the Metropolitan Opera House; a vast sum was paid for it a few years ago) is a new invention and one which, when appropriately lighted, perfectly counterfeits the appearance of the sky in its different moods. (So far as I know the only theatre in New York with this apparatus is the Neighborhood Playhouse on Grand Street.) In Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s “Richard Wagner,” published in 1897, I find the following:

“Wagner foresaw that in the new drama the whole principle of the stage scenery must undergo a complete alteration but did not particularize in detail. The _Meister_ says that ‘music resolves the rigid immovable groundwork of the scenery into a liquid, yielding, ethereal surface, capable of receiving impressions’; but to prevent a painful conflict between what is seen and what is heard, the stage picture, too, must be relieved from the curse of rigidity which now rests upon it. The only way of doing this is by managing the light in a manner which its importance deserves, that its office may no longer be confined to illuminating painted walls.... I am convinced that the next great advance in the drama will be of this nature, in the art of the eye, and not in music.” (The passage quoted further refers to Appia’s first book, published in French. Chamberlain was a close friend of Appia and “Die Musik und die Inscenierung” is dedicated to him.)

It must also be understood that Wagner in some instances, when the right medium of his expression was clear to him, made concessions to what he considered the unintelligence of the public. Wotan’s waving of the sword is a case in point. The _motiv_ without the object he did not think would carry out the effect he intended to convey, although the absurdity of Wotan’s founding his new humanity on the power of the degenerate giants must have been apparent to him. Sometimes the Master changed his mind. Paris would have none of _Tannhäuser_ without a ballet and so Wagner rewrote the first act and now the Paris version of the opera is the accepted one. In any case it must be apparent that what Wagner wanted was a fusion of the arts, and a completely artistic one. So that if any one can think of a better way of presenting his dramas than one based on the very halting staging which he himself devised (with the limited means at his command) as perhaps the best possible to exploit his ideals, that person should be hailed as Wagner’s friend. It must be seen, at any current presentation of his dramas, that his way, or Cosima’s, is not the best way. The single performances which have made the deepest impression on the public have deviated the farthest from tradition. Olive Fremstad’s Isolde was far from traditional. Her very costume of deep green was a flaunt in the face of Wagner’s conventionally white robed heroine. In the first act, after taking the love potion, she did not indulge in any of the swimming movements usually employed by sopranos to pass the time away until the occasion came to sing again. She stood as a woman dazed, passing her hands futilely before her eyes, and it was to be noted that in some instances her action had its supplement in the action of the tenor who was singing with her, although, in other instances, he would continue to swim in the most highly approved Bayreuth fashion. But Olive Fremstad, artist that she was, could not completely divorce herself from tradition; in some cases she held to it against her judgment. The stage directions for the second act of _Parsifal_, for example, require Kundry to lie on her couch, tempting the hero, for a very long time. Great as Fremstad’s Kundry was, it might have been improved if she had allowed herself to move more freely along the lines that her artistic conscience dictated. Her Elsa was a beautiful example of the moulding of the traditional playing of a rôle into a picturesque, imaginative figure, a feat similar to that which Mary Garden accomplished in her delineation of Marguerite in _Faust_. Mme. Fremstad always sang Brünnhilde in _Götterdämmerung_ throughout with the fire of genius. This was surely some wild creature, a figure of Greek tragedy, a Norse Elektra. The superb effect she wrought, at her first performance in the rôle, with the scene of the spear, was never tarnished in subsequent performances. The thrill was always there.

In face of acting and singing like that one can afford to ignore Wagner’s theory about the wedding of the arts. A Fremstad or a Lehmann can carry a Wagner drama to a triumphant conclusion with few, if any, accessories, but great singing artists are rare; nor does a performance of this kind meet the requirements of the Wagner ideal, in which the picture, the word, and the tone shall all be a part of the drama (_Wort-Tondrama_). Wagner invented a new form of stage art but only in a small measure did he succeed in perfecting a method for its successful presentation. The artist-producer must arise to repair this deficiency, to become the dominating force in future performances, to see that the scenes are painted in accordance with the principles of beauty and dramatic fitness, to see that they are lighted to express the secrets of the drama, as Appia says they should be, to see that the action is sympathetic with the decoration, and that the decoration never encumbers the action, that the lighting assists both. There never has been a production of the _Ring_ which has in any sense realized its true possibilities, the ideal of Wagner.

_June 24, 1915._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For a further discussion of Appia’s work and its probable influence on Gordon Craig, see an article “Adolphe Appia and Gordon Craig” in my book “Music After the Great War.”

The Bridge Burners

“_Zieh’hin! ich kann dich nicht halten!_”

Der Wanderer.

The Bridge Burners

I

It is from the enemy that one learns. Richelieu and other great men have found it folly to listen to the advice of friends when rancour, hatred, and jealousy inspired much more helpful suggestions. And it occurred to me recently that the friends of modern music were doing nothing by way of describing it. They are content to like it. I must confess that I have been one of these. I have heard first performances of works by Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy on occasions when the programme notes gave one cause for dread. At these times I have often been pleasurably excited and I have never lacked for at least a measured form of enjoyment except when I found those gods growing a bit old. The English critics were right when they labelled _The Legend of Joseph_ Handelian. The latest recital of Leo Ornstein’s which I heard made me realize that even the extreme modern music evidently protrudes no great perplexities into my ears. They accept it all, a good deal of it with avidity, some with the real tribute of astonishment which goes only to genius.

On the whole, I think, I should have found it impossible to write this article which, with a new light shining on my paper, is dancing from under my darting typewriter keys, if I had not stumbled by good luck into the camp of the enemy. For I find misunderstanding, lack of sympathy, and enmity towards the new music to a certain degree inspirational. These qualities, projected, have crystallized impressions in my mind, which might, under other circumstances, have remained vague and, in a sense, I think I may make bold to say, they have made it possible for me to synthesize to a greater degree than has hitherto been attempted, the various stimuli and progressive gestures of modern music. I can more clearly say now _why_ I like it. (If I were to tell others how to like it I should be forced to resort to a single sentence: “Open your ears”.)

A good deal of this new insight has come to me through assiduous perusal of Mr. Richard Aldrich’s comment on musical doings in the columns of the “New York Times.” Mr. Aldrich, like many another, has been bewildered and annoyed by a good deal of the modern music played (Heaven knows that there is little enough modern music played in New York. Up to date [April 16, 1916] there has been nothing of Arnold Schoenberg performed this season later than his _Pelléas und Mélisande_ and his _Kammersymphonie_; of Strawinsky--aside from the three slight pieces for string quartet--nothing later than _Petrouchka_. Such new works as John Alden Carpenter’s _Adventures in a Perambulator_ and Enrique Granados’s _Goyescas_--as an opera--do not seriously overtax the critical ear) but he has done more than some others by way of expressing the causes of this bewilderment and this annoyance. Some critics neglect the subject altogether but Mr. Aldrich at least attempts to be explanatory. My first excerpt from his writings is clipped from an article in the “New York Times” of December 5, 1915, devoted to the string quartet music of Strawinsky, performed by the Flonzaleys at Æolian Hall in New York on the evening of November 30:

“So far as this particular type of ‘futurist’ music is concerned it seems to be conditioned on an accompaniment of something else to explain it from beginning to end.”

Is this a reproach? The context would seem to indicate that it is. If so it seems a late date in which to hurl anathema at programme music. One would have fancied that that battle had already been fought and won by Ernest Newman, Frederick Niecks, and Lawrence Gilman, to name a few of the gladiators for the cause. Why Mr. Aldrich, having swallowed whole, so to speak, the tendency of music during a century of its development, should suddenly balk at music which requires explanation I cannot imagine. However, this would seem to be the point he makes in face of the fact that at least two-thirds of a symphony society’s programme is made up of programme music. Berlioz said in the preface to his _Symphonie Fantastique_, “The plan of an instrumental drama, being without words, requires to be explained beforehand. The programme (which is indispensable to the perfect comprehension of the dramatic plan of the work) ought therefor to be considered in the light of the spoken text of an opera, serving to ... indicate the character and expression.” Ernest Newman built up an elaborate theory on these two sentences, a theory fully expounded in an article called “Programme Music” published in “Music Studies” (1905), and touched on elsewhere in his work (at some length, of course, in his “Richard Strauss.”) He brings out the facts. Representation of natural sounds, emotions, and even objects--or attempts at it--in early music were not rare. He cites the justly famous _Bible Sonatas_ of Kuhnau, Rameau’s _Sighs_ and _Tender Plants_, Dittersdorf’s twelve programme symphonies illustrating Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, and John Sebastian Bach’s _Capriccio on the Departure of my Dearly Beloved Brother_. Beethoven wrote a _Pastoral Symphony_ in which he attempted to imitate the sound of a brook and the call of a cuckoo. There is also a storm in this symphony. The fact that Beethoven denied any intention of portraying anything but “pure emotion” in this symphony is evasion and humbug as Newman very clearly points out. From what do these emotions arise? The answer is, From the contemplation of country scenes. The auditor without a programme will not find the symphony so enjoyable as the one who _knows_ what awakened the emotions in the composer. Beethoven wrote a “battle” symphony too, a particularly bad one, I believe (I have never seen it announced for performance). It is true, however, that most of the composers of the “great” period were content to number their symphonies and to call their piano pieces impromptus, sonatas, valses, and nocturnes. Nous avons changé tout cela. Schumann was one of the first of the composers of the nineteenth century to write music with titles. In the _Carneval_, for example, each piece is explained by its title. And explanations, or shadows of explanations (Cathedral, Rhenish, Spring, etc.), hover about the four symphonies. Berlioz, of course, carried the principle of programme music to a degree that was considered absurd in his own time. He wrote symphonies like the _Romeo and Juliet_ and the _Fantastique_ which had to be “explained from beginning to end.” Liszt invented the symphonic poem and composed pieces which are only to be listened to after one has read the poem or seen the picture which they describe. Richard Strauss rounded out the form and put the most elaborate naturalistic details into such works as _Don Quixote_ and _Till Eulenspiegel_. Understanding of this music and complete enjoyment of it rely in a large measure on the “explanation.” The _Symphonia Domestica_ and _Heldenleben_ are extreme examples of this sort of thing. What does Wagner’s whole system depend on but “explanation”? How does one know that a certain sequence of notes represents a sword? Because the composer tells us so. How does one discover that another sequence of notes represents Alberich’s curse? Through the same channel. Bernard Shaw says in _The Perfect Wagnerite_: “To be able to follow the music of _The Ring_, all that is necessary is to become familiar enough with the brief musical phrases out of which it is built to recognize them and attach a certain definite significance to them, exactly as any ordinary Englishman recognizes and attaches a definite significance to the opening bars of _God Save the Queen_.” Modern music is full of this sort of thing. It leans more and more heavily on titles, on mimed drama, on “explanation.” Think of almost all the music of Debussy, for example, _La Mer_, _l’Après-midi d’un Faune_, _Iberia_, nearly all the piano music; Rimsky-Korsakow’s _Scheherazade_, _Antar_, and _Sadko_ (the symphonic suite, not the opera); Vincent d’Indy’s _Istar_; Borodine’s _Thamar_; Dukas’s _l’Apprenti Sorcier_; Franck’s _Le Chasseur Maudit_ and _Les Eolides_; Saint-Saëns’s _Phaëton_, _La Jeunesse d’Hercule_, and _Le Rouet d’Omphale_; Busoni’s music for _Turandot_: the list is endless and it is futile to continue it.

But, Mr. Aldrich would object, in most of these instances the music stands by itself and it is possible to enjoy it without reference to the titles. I contend that this is just as true of Strawinsky’s three pieces for string quartet (of course one never will be sure because Daniel Gregory Mason explained these pieces before they were played). However Mr. Newman has already exploded a good many bombs about this particular point and he has shown the fallacy of the theory. Mr. Newman concedes that a work such as Tschaikowsky’s overture _Romeo and Juliet_, would undoubtedly “give intense pleasure to any one who listened to it as a piece of music, pure and simple. But I deny,” he continues, “that this hearer would receive as much pleasure from the work as I do. He might think the passage for muted strings, for example, extremely beautiful, but he would not get from it such delight as I, who not only feel all the _musical_ loveliness of the melody and the harmonies and the tone colour, but see the lovers on the balcony and breathe the very atmosphere of Shakespeare’s scene. I am richer than my fellow by two or three emotions of this kind. My nature is stirred on two or three sides instead of only one. I would go further and say that not only does the auditor I have supposed get less pleasure from the work than I, but he really does not hear Tschaikowsky’s work at all. If the musician writes music to a play and invents phrases to symbolize the characters and to picture the events of the play, we are simply not listening to _his_ work at all if we listen to it in ignorance of his poetical scheme. We may hear the music but it is not the music he meant us to hear.” And Mr. Newman goes on to berate Strauss for not providing programmes for some of his tone-poems (programmes, however, which have always been provided by somebody in authority at the eleventh hour). Niecks thinks that nearly all music has an implied programme: “My opinion is that whenever the composer ceases to write purely formal music he passes from the domain of absolute music into that of programme music.” (“Programme Music in the Last Four Centuries.”) But Niecks does not hold that explanation is always necessary, even if there is a programme.

Under the circumstances it seems a bit thick to jump on Strawinsky for writing music which has to be explained. Such pieces as _Fireworks_ or the _Scherzo Fantastique_ need no more extended explanation than the titles give them. His three pieces for string quartet were listed without programme at the Flonzaley concert and might have been played that way, I think, without causing the heavens to fall. But Strawinsky had told some one that their general title was _Grotesques_ and that he had composed each of them with a programme in mind, which was divulged. When the music was played, in the circumstances, what he was driving at was as plain as A. B. C. There was no further demand made on the auditor than that he prepare himself, as Schumann asked auditors to prepare themselves to listen to the _Carneval_, by thinking of the titles. In Strawinsky’s opera, _The Nightingale_, the text of the opera serves as the programme. There are no representative themes; there is no “working-out.” You are not required to remember _leit-motive_ in order to familiarize your emotions with the proper capers to cut at particular moments when these _motive_ are repeated. You are asked simply to follow the course of the lyric drama with open ears, open mind, and open heart. Albert Gleizes, the post-impressionist painter, once told me that he considered the title an essential part of a picture. “It is a _point de départ_,” he said. “In painting a picture I always have some idea or object in mind in the beginning. In my completed picture I may have wandered far away from this. Now the title gives the spectator the advantage of starting where I started.” A title to a musical composition gives an auditor a similar advantage. No doubt Strawinsky’s _Fireworks_ would make a nice blaze without the name but the title gives us a picture to begin with, just as Wagner gives us scenery and text and action (to say nothing of a handbook of representative themes) to explain the music of _Die Walküre_....

An important point has been overlooked by those who have watched painting and music develop during the past century: while painting has become less and less an attempt to represent nature, music has more and more attempted concrete representation. There has seemed, at times, to be an interchange in progress in the values of the arts. (“He [Cézanne] is the first of the great painters to treat colour deliberately as music; he tests all its harmonic resources,” Romain Rolland.) Observers of matters æsthetic have frequently told us that both of these arts were breaking with their old principles and going on to something new but, it would seem, they have failed to grasp the significance of the change. Music, as it drops its classic outline and form, the _cliché_ of the studio and the academy, becomes more and more like nature, because natural sounds are not co-ordinated into symphonies with working-out sections and codas, first and second subjects, etc., while in painting, in some of its later manifestations, the resemblance to things seen has entirely disappeared. This fact, at least one phase of it, was realized in concrete form by the futurists in Italy who asserted that polyphony, fugue, etc., were contraptions of a bygone age when the stage-coach was in vogue. Machinery has changed the world. We are living in a dynasty of dynamics. A certain number of futurists even give concerts of noise machines in which a definite attempt is made to imitate the sounds of automobiles, aeroplanes, etc. At a concert given at the Dal Verme in Milan, for example, the pieces were called _The Awakening of a Great City_, _A Dinner on the Kursaal Terrace_ (doubtless with an imitation of the guests eating soup), and _A Meet of Automobiles and Aeroplanes_.

Picasso and Picabia have made us acquainted with a form of art which in its vague realization of representative values becomes almost as abstract an art as music was in the time of Beethoven, while such musicians as Strauss, Debussy, and Strawinsky, have gradually widened the boundaries which have confined music, and have made it at times something very concrete. Debussy’s _La Mer_, for example, is a much more definite picture (in leaning over the rail of the gallery of the Salle Gaveau in Paris during a performance of this piece I actually became sea-sick!) than Marcel Duchamp’s painting of the _Nu Descendant l’Escalier_. So Strawinsky’s three pieces for string quartet represent certain things in nature (the first a group of peasants playing strange instruments on the steppes; the second sounds in a Cathedral heard by a drowsy worshipper, the responses of the priest, chanted out of key, the shrill antiphonal choruses; and the third a juggling Pierrot with a soul-pain) much more definitely than Picasso’s latest _Nature Morte dans un Jardin_.

“Now the law which has dominated painting for more than a century is a more and more comprehensive assimilation of musical idiom. Even Delacroix spoke of ‘the mysterious effects of line and colour which, alas, only a few adepts feel--like interwoven themes in music ...’ and Baudelaire, in another connection, wrote, ‘Harmony, melody, and counterpoint are to be found in colour.’ Ingres also remarked to his disciples, ‘If I could make you all musicians you would be better painters.’ Renoir, who journeyed to Sicily to paint Wagner’s portrait and to translate _Tannhäuser_, is a musical enthusiast and his work is music. Maurice Denis tells us that his pals at Julian’s Academy, those who were to found synthesism with him, never tired of discussing Lamoureux’s concerts, where they were enthusiastic habitués. Gaugin announced that ‘painting is a musical phase.’ He speaks continually of the music of a picture; when he wants to analyze his work he divides it into the literary element, to which he attaches less importance, and the musical element which he schemes first. Cézanne, whom Gaugin compared to César Franck, said, ‘not model, but modulate.’ Metzinger invokes the right of cubist painters to express all emotions as music does, and one of the æstheticians of the new school writes: ‘The goal of painting is perhaps a music of nature, visual music to which traditional painting would have somewhat the status that sacred or dramatic music has compared to concert music.’