CHAPTER X

MODERN FRENCH PIANOFORTE MUSIC

Classical traditions: Saint-Saëns, and others; C. V. Alkan--César Franck: his compositions and his style--Vincent d’Indy--Fauré--The new movement: Debussy and Ravel--Debussy’s innovations: new harmonies, scales, overtones, pianoforte technique; his compositions--Ravel differentiated; his compositions; Florent Schmitt and Eric Satie--Conclusion.

I

By far the most interesting and generally the most significant developments in pianoforte music since the time of Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt are those which have taken place in France. Not only have the French composers greatly enriched the literature for the instrument with compositions that have a value beyond that which fashion temporarily lends them; they have refreshed it as well with new ideas of harmony, and effects, which if they are not essentially new, are newly extended and applied.

There is still to be observed in France, it is true, a very considerable loyalty in a group of composers to the style of Chopin, or even more, to that of Liszt, and a general dependence upon German ideas of music which have for a century past been so preponderant in the world as to be considered international. The admirable works of Camille Saint-Saëns are the result of such a loyalty. He is a great master of the pianoforte style, endowed, moreover, with a fine sense of form and a fine imagination. Everything he has written is finished with care, clear-cut and indisputably effective. There is no piece of music more grateful from the point of view of the pianist than the second of his five concertos, that in G minor. This is not only because the treatment of the solo instrument is clear and brilliant, but because the themes are worthy of the treatment and of the broad form which they are made to fill. The writing for the orchestra, moreover, is not less perfect than that for the pianoforte. But inasmuch as the harmonies are a familiar inheritance from the past, and the style an adaptation of an inherited technique, the work signalizes not an advance in music, but the successful maintenance of an already high standard. The spirit of it is less emotional and sentimental than that of other concertos, and more witty and epigrammatic. Hence it holds a special place as well as a high one, from which it is hard to think that any change of fashion will ever remove it.

The short pieces of Cécile Chaminade, Paul Lacombe, François Thomé, Benjamin Godard, and Paul Wachs may be mentioned in passing as having won a measure of success.

But the works of another group or two of French composers show an originality that was at first so startling as to enrage conservative critics. It is owing to them that pianoforte music seems to have entered upon a new course of life. One finds the stirring of new movements in Paris even before the time of Chopin’s arrival there, due very clearly to the French spirit. Berlioz is growing more and more to a huge stature in the eyes of historians. The figure of his countryman and acquaintance, Charles-Valentin Alkan, is more obscure, but he represents the same spirit at work in the special branch of pianoforte music. If his compositions have not had great influence, they none the less give an early example of the working towards independence of a French pianoforte music.

Alkan (1813-88) was admired as a player and as a composer by both Chopin and Liszt, and Bülow still later held him in high esteem. An effort is now under way, encouraged by Isadore Philip, and others, to draw his compositions from the obscurity into which they have fallen. They are surprisingly numerous and in many ways astonishing. They include a great number of transcriptions, of études and of pieces of extraordinary realism. His harmonies and melodies suggest Berlioz, with whom he is being more and more compared. They have often a quality that is in a sense bare. They are unusual without connoting a rich world of the unexplored. They hint rather at a deliberate attack upon the old than at the youth of a new system. The general flow of his harmonies, for example, is familiar. Only now and then does something unusual obtrude itself with a sort of harshness. Notice, for example, the chromatic movement of the doubled inner voice in the _cantabile_ section of the short piece ‛_Le tambour bat aux champs_.’ Notice, too, the strange starkness of harmonies in the paraphrase _Super flumina Babylonis_.

Technically Alkan stands between Chopin and Liszt, and in this regard his music is very exacting. He demands an equal skill in both hands. Of the three studies published as opus 76, the first is for the left hand alone, with long passages of rapid tremolo like that one finds in the first of Liszt’s Paganini transcriptions. The second is for the right hand alone, demanding an unrestricted movement of the arm in long arpeggios and extremely wide chords. Finally the third is a long piece in unison from beginning to end, far more awkward and more difficult than the last movement of Chopin’s sonata in B-flat minor. The three studies opus 15, _Dans le genre pathétique_, are veritably huge works. Of these the second, _Le vent_, is already well known as one of the effective concert pieces of the new era. The first and last have the strange titles of _Aime-moi_ and _Morte_. Twelve études in minor keys were published as opus 39. One finds again extraordinary titles, such as _Rythme molossique_, _Scherzo diabolico_, and _Le festin d’Europe_. All are exceedingly difficult. Some, like the first, are both startling and interesting as music. There is a more or less famous study in perpetual motion for the right hand which was given the title _Le chemin de fer_, extremely rapid, difficult, and effective.

The titles throughout all his music are original. Some are easily understood. ‘The Wind’ and the ‘Railroad’ for instance are fully explained by the music. In fact the realism of the latter does not stop with movement. There is to be heard even the pounding of wheels, the puffing and the whistle of the engine. But what is the meaning of others, of _Neige et lave_, _Ma chère liberté_ and _Ma chère servitude_, _Salut, cendre du pauvre_, _Fais dodo_ and _J’étais endormie, mais mon cœur reveillait?_ On the whole these fantastic titles suggest less the union of music with poetry or self-conscious sentiment than a sort of rational, positive realism. There is little in the music that is vague or sensuous. Most of it is objective rather than imaginative. He has neither the fire of Liszt, nor the emotion of Chopin, and his compositions are both spiritually and technically independent of theirs. He was a terrific worker and he lived apart from men. Marmontel wrote of him with great respect and some affection. Oskar Bie thinks of him as a misanthrope. One can hardly speak of misanthropic music; yet the quality which distinguishes Alkan’s music is something the quality of an implacable irony. It is strong stuff, and is likely to prove more logical in itself than any appreciation or disparagement of it can be made.

CËSAR FRANCK

II

But Alkan’s music must be taken as the manifestation of an independent spirit, French in its directness, rather than as a source of stimulation or strength to a further development of a distinctly French school of pianoforte music. Such a school first centres about César Franck, who, though he, too, lived in retirement and in an obscurity which the general public did not attempt to penetrate, exercised a powerful influence on music in Paris. His compositions are relatively few in number. There are but two considerable works for pianoforte alone, and only three more for pianoforte and orchestra. These, however, are of great beauty and two at least are masterpieces in music. These are the ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue’ for pianoforte alone, and the _Variations Symphoniques_ for pianoforte and orchestra. The other three, which have elements of greatness but seem to fall short of absolute perfection, are the ‘Prelude, Aria, and Finale’ for pianoforte alone, and two symphonic poems for pianoforte and orchestra suggested by poems of Victor Hugo, _Les Eloïdes_ and _Les Djinns_.

The ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue,’ and the ‘Symphonic Variations’ may be ranked with the symphony, the violin sonata, the string quartet and the pianoforte quintet, and are no less a perfect and in some respects a complete expression of his genius than they. One finds in them the same ceaseless chromatic shiftings and involutions of harmony, the same polyphonic treatment of short phrases, the same structural unity, the same exalted and mystical spirit. In fact this spiritual quality is perhaps nowhere so gloriously expressed as in the Chorale movement for the pianoforte.

As a whole the ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue’ is flawless in structure. There is the greatest economy in the use of musical material. The unusual scoring of the opening measures, with the melody note slightly off the beat and the harp-like ornamentation, is the scoring which characterizes the final, tremendous pages of the Fugue. The sections of the Prelude which offer contrast to this opening melody are based upon the subject which later forms the basis of the Fugue. And the magnificent theme and spirit of the following movement, the Chorale, is projected, as it were, into the whole last section of the Fugue. Never, perhaps, was a fugue more splendidly and more fully developed, nor was the force of a work ever so made to grow and to culminate in pages of such majestic and triumphant music.

There is a similar use of material in the ‘Prelude, Aria, and Finale,’ but the result is not quite so flawless. The Prelude, here, in spite of the suave beauty of its chief theme, is loose and episodic in effect. And it cannot be said that the scoring for the pianoforte is distinguished or animated. The style is either massive or awkward. The most beautiful part of the whole work is perhaps the concluding section of the Aria. The earlier parts of the Aria are skillfully devised, but the scoring is rather heavy and seems more suited to the organ than to the piano. But the melody of this concluding section is of inspired beauty; and as if Franck himself were well aware of its rare and significant worth, the last pages of the stormy Finale bring it back, woven with the chief theme of the Prelude.

Technically both works are extremely difficult. The general breadth of effect, the demand for power and for freedom of the arm, and the use of octaves--these as well as the use of the very high and very low registers of the keyboard--all make evident the rather orchestral idea of the pianoforte which Liszt introduced. Liszt, by the way, was one of the first to recognize the greatness of Franck. But, though Franck was at one time a brilliant pianist and was intended by his father to electrify Europe from the concert stage, he was above all else an organist. His pianoforte style is most evidently very closely allied to the organ style. This is particularly noticeable in the treatment of bass parts, which not only suggest the pedals of the organ but are often impossible for the small hand to play. The octaves for the left hand in the Aria, and even more remarkably those in the Chorale, need not only the independent movement which the organ pedals can add in polyphony, but seem to call for the tone color of the low notes on the organ. Frequently, moreover, as in the second section of the Prelude in the ‘Prelude, Aria, and Finale,’ such wide stretches as the music demands of the hands, as well as the general freedom of polyphonic movement, almost require an instrument with two keyboards.

On the other hand, there are many effects which are brilliantly pianistic. The flowing figures in the Prelude of the ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue’ are purely pianistic. The tremendous octave passages in the Finale need the distinct, percussive sound of the pianoforte. And the upper notes of the Chorale melody, both when it is given alone and when it is combined with the fugue theme, must have a ringing, bell-like quality which only the pianoforte can produce.

The treatment of the pianoforte in those works in which it is supported by the orchestra shows less the influence of the organ style. Generally Franck had in mind the sonority of the organ and the movement of music proper to that instrument. In these works the function of the organ, so to speak, is given to the orchestra; and hence the pianoforte is free of all responsibility but that of adding its own special effects to the mass of sound. These are essentially simple. In the _Djinns_ there is some brilliant rapid work, a few solo passages of agitated character with wide rolling but not elaborate accompaniment figures. In the ‘Symphonic Variations,’ very noticeably a bigger and a finer work, there are solo passages of great breadth, and nearly all the variations make the piano prominent by means of its own effects. There are the passages of detached chords and double notes which seem to tinkle over the first variation, the remarkably wide spacing in the passage which follows, with the suggested movement of inner voices and the occasional touch upon high notes; the flowing figures, with again a suggested richness of inner voices, which pursue their smooth course over the 'cello solo; finally the more brilliant effects towards the end, especially those of the tossing chords, and of the difficult, leaping triplet figures. The pianoforte and orchestra were never more ingeniously combined than in those passages which the pianoforte introduces with a sort of double waltz movement and in which the orchestra subsequently joins with the theme in a decidedly cross rhythm, leaving the solo instrument free to add delicately melodious runs.

The structure of the whole work, moreover, is musically interesting. Though the theme in F-sharp minor, announced simply by the pianoforte after several pages that are more or less introductory, may be regarded as the chief theme, there is another distinct and highly characterized theme--first given fully by the pianoforte in the magnificent solo passage (C-sharp minor) so prominent in these introductory pages. This, as well as the chief theme, is elaborately varied, and is ever and again throughout the work so cleverly combined with the chief theme, that one must regard the whole ultimately as a series of double variations.

These few works of César Franck are architecturally the most imposing for the pianoforte since the last sonatas of Beethoven; and the ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue’ and the ‘Symphonic Variations’ are surely to be numbered among the most valuable compositions from which the pianist may draw his delight. They are very nearly unique in plan and style. The ceaseless shifting of harmonies and interweaving of short phrases will doubtless seem to many manneristic and a little irritating. Then, too, they are, in spite of their breadth and power, mystical, and in that sense, elusive or even baffling. The weight of the organ style rests on them, and they are awkwardly difficult and taxing. Yet in spite of these peculiarities they remain pianoforte music of great dignity, beauty, and nobility.

III

At the basis of the two greatest pianoforte works of César Franck, one discerns a classical foundation. The harmonies, it is true, are Romantic and strange; but the ideals are traditional. In the matter of form there is less a departure from old principles than a further development of them. They present a few new complications of structure; but as far as the pianoforte is concerned they have little new to show in the matter of effect. Their peculiar sonority is that of the organ, and remains not wholly proper to the pianoforte. On the whole, then, the music is easily related to that of Beethoven, of Liszt, and of Wagner. There is no striking departure from that road to which Beethoven may be said to have pointed.

Nor does one find, on the whole, less traditional loyalty in the pianoforte compositions of Franck’s pupil, Vincent d’Indy. These are not numerous. There are only a few sets of short pieces, and but two works of length. The little sonata, opus 9, is in classical form. There are three short waltzes in a set called _Helvetia_, opus 9; a _Serenade_, _Choral grave_, _Scherzetto_, and _Agitato_, opus 16, one or two pieces in classical dance forms, and three little romances in the style of Schumann, opus 30. Of the last the third is a most successful imitation of Schumann, resembling passages from the _Kreisleriana_ in spirit and in technique. None of these short pieces, however, calls for more than mention, except as they all show a clear but not distinguished traditional and simple treatment of the keyboard. There is hardly the harmonic freedom of either Wagner or Franck in them.

The two long pieces are far more distinctly original. The first of these is a set of three fanciful pieces called _Poëmes des Montagnes_. The first of these--_Le chant des bruyères_--is divided into five parts: the song of the heather, or the heath, mists, a touch of Weber, a theme which is to be found in all three movements called _La bien-aimée_, and finally the song of the heath again, this time in the distance. The second movement is again subdivided, this time into dances amid which _la bien-aimée_ makes a momentary appearance; and in the last movement--_Plein-air_--one finds a promenade, thoughts of great trees (_hêtres et pins_) on the side of the mountain, _la bien-aimée_, a bit of calm before a burst of wind, finally a pair of lovers united. At the beginning and at the end of the series there are a few broken chords, vaguely styled _Harmonies_, and at the very end again there is a reminiscence of the theme of _la bien-aimée_.

One cannot but find the whole series closely akin to Schumann. The romanticism is the romanticism of Schumann, carried a step into the open air and among the mountains, of his devotion to which d’Indy has left many a proof in music. The fleeting touch of Weber, and especially that d’Indy should have written Weber’s name over the measure in which it falls, is again characteristic of the composer who introduced Paganini and Chopin into his _Carnaval_. The identification of a theme with a beloved one is another instance. But even more definite than these tokens of a certain romanticism is the treatment of the piano, and even the nature of much of the thematic material. _Le chant des bruyères_ and _La bien-aimée_ are in the mold of Schumann. The _Valse grotesque_ recalls in rhythm some of the _Davidsbündler_ and the first of these _Danses rhythmiques_ is like parts of the Pantalon and Colombine of the _Carnaval_.

On the other hand, there is something original and new in the section called _Brouillard_. The general mistiness of the harmonies, the long holding of the pedals with consequent vague obscurity of sound, and the irregular line of clear points in a sort of melody that is drawn against this inarticulate accompanying murmur, these indicate new ventures in pianoforte style. The rhythmical irregularity of the first of the dances and the irregularity in the form and recurrence of sections are further signs of the advent of something rich and strange. In fact the whole work loses somewhat by the frequent suggestion of bold experiment, and is hardly to be considered equal to the traditional standard of music, as represented by Schumann, nor sufficiently successful to establish a new one. Barring the _Brouillard_, the treatment of the keyboard lacks distinction.

Far, far different must be the verdict on the Sonata in E, opus 63. Here, though one still finds a classical ideal of form, there are bold, clashing harmonies, and endless complexities of rhythm. The scoring is tremendous, the effect big as an orchestra. The sonata is in three movements, all of which represent the development of one central idea. The first movement, which is preceded by a long and fiery introduction, is made up of a series of variations on this central idea. A subsidiary idea, which, as in the ‘Symphonic Variations’ of Franck, was suggested in the introduction, is woven into the music here and there. The complicated second movement, in 5/4 time, constantly suggests the subsidiary motives of the first; and in the last, which shows the broad plan of the classical sonata form, the theme of the first movement finds a full and glorious expression.

Technically the sonata is extremely difficult. Some of the variations of the first movement, with their trills, recall the pianoforte style of the last Beethoven sonatas, however. The interlocking of the hands in the second movement is in a measure new in effect, though not new in principle. The scoring of the last movement is not free of commonplaces.

On the whole, the sonata may be considered modern in harmonies, melodies, and rhythms, though a more or less classical harmonic foundation may be detected. The form is obviously a further development of the principles so clearly exemplified in the works of César Franck, which were drawn from Bach and Beethoven. It does not seem unfair to say that the scoring is rather orchestral than distinctively pianistic; so that the sonata may be considered more significant as a contribution to music in general than as one to pianoforte music in particular.

IV

None of the French composers has written more for the pianoforte than Gabriel Fauré. In his music, too, there is a strong element of tradition, though as a harmonist he is perhaps more spontaneously original than d’Indy. He prefers to work in short forms, and he avoids titles of detailed significance. He has written eleven Barcarolles, ten or more Nocturnes, nearly as many Impromptus, a set of eight Preludes, published as opus 103, and a few pieces of nondescript character including dances and romances. The impression made by a glance over the pages of this considerable amount of music is one of great sameness. Fauré’s style is delicate and well adjusted to the keyboard but there is little to observe in it that is strikingly original. Nor do the pieces give proof of much development in technique or in means of expression. There is little trace of the exquisite impressionism of the songs. The pianoforte music is hardly more than pleasing, and is only rarely brilliant.

The well-known second impromptu, in F minor, is perhaps the most interesting and the most original of all his pianoforte pieces. Here is genuine vivacity, piquancy of style, originality of harmony. But the other impromptus and the nocturnes have, in spite of certain modern touches of harmony, a style that is now Mendelssohn, now Schumann. The eleven _Barcarolles_ rock gently over the keyboard, the _Valses caprices_ dance lightly along. All is facile and pleasing salon music, one piece much like the others. The Theme and Variations, opus 73, is interesting and is well known at the Conservatoire, and the second of the preludes, opus 103, is decidedly effective. The fourth Nocturne is full of poetry. In fact there is poetry in much of his music, but it is on the whole too much in the same vein.

Finally, after mentioning Pierné, for the sake of a set of short pieces in delicate style, _Pour mes petits amis_, and Emanuel Chabrier for the sake of the _Bourrée fantastique_, we come to the two men whose work for the piano has enchanted the world: Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. So far as the pianoforte is concerned, theirs is the music which has created a new epoch since the time of Liszt and Chopin, which has signalized the leadership of France in the art of music.

V

For a discussion of the general musical art of Debussy the reader is referred to the third volume of this series. His system of harmony and scales has there been explained. Here we will regard him as a composer for the pianoforte and attempt only a brief analysis of his pianoforte style and an appreciation of a few of his compositions. His pianoforte style has been no little influenced by his conception of harmony which admits chords of the seventh and ninth among the consonances. The pianoforte being essentially a harmonic instrument, composers have spent a great part of their skill in devising rapidly moving figures which would keep its harmonies in vibration. Such harmonies have either constituted a music in themselves, or have furnished a vibrant background behind a melody or an interweaving of several melodies. The shape of the figures has been determined by harmony and the figures have been blended into a general effect by the use of the pedal. One of the most prominent characteristics of Chopin’s style was the intrinsically melodious conformation of many of such figures. Hence there is a suggestion of polyphony in his music; and hence, too, the pedalling of his music must be most delicately and skillfully done.

With Liszt, on the other hand, such figures rarely had this melodious significance. They were founded rather flatly on the notes of chords or on the scale. Hence a mass of notes with little or no individuality. Such we shall find many of Debussy’s figures to be, and it is indeed easy to say that there would have been no Debussy had there been no Liszt. Not only this density, which in the case of Debussy may be more properly called opaqueness, of figures; but also the free use of the arms over the keyboard point to a relation of the style of the one to that of the other. But Debussy’s style is in two features at least sharply differentiated from that of Liszt.

The first of these is owing to his different conception of harmony. Liszt’s harmonies are clearly defined, Debussy’s, by contrast, vague. There are few instances of harmonies in Liszt’s music which are not related to a tonic scale; Debussy’s whole-tone scale has destroyed the relation of major and minor keys, even their definitions. With Liszt the various degrees of the scale suggest their proper harmonies; and as his melody or his bass moves from one to the other of them, the harmonies must change to follow it. The harmonic figures must be constantly moved here and there. Sometimes, as in the first phrase of the _Waldesrauschen_, they do not change to follow the melody, it is true; but in such a case the melody is so conceived as really to accentuate the notes of the chord on which the accompaniment figure plays. But with Debussy the progress of the melody entails no such change of harmony, or at least no such frequent change. Even if he chooses to conceive a passage as in a clearly defined key, his fondness for the chord of the ninth plays him in good stead. He can keep a ninth chord running up and down the keyboard and still enjoy the proper use of five notes of the scale in melody. And in the case where he is using the whole-tone scale and has consequently thrown his music out of all relation to the traditional system of keys, he is even more free. Therefore, the fingers, not having to find a new position every measure or so, or even twice in a measure, are let free, without hindrance, over a wide range of the keyboard. Furthermore, since having once struck the desired notes within this range the use of the pedal will sustain the vibration a long time, they have not to repeat them over and over again with the distinctness necessary to establish a new harmony, but touch them lightly, or graze them unevenly. With the result that the sparkle which even in the dense runs of Liszt was created by the more or less distinct sound of indispensable notes, is veiled, and the general effect is one of fluid color.

A second feature which distinguishes the style of Debussy from that of Liszt is the relative absence in it of the sensationalism of speed. The sort of run we have been discussing, which may be studied in the _Reflets dans l’eau_, or in _Pagodes_, is as rapid as Liszt’s runs. But the monotony of it, the lack of change and therefore of emphasized points, reduces the effect of speed. For speed is chiefly appreciable between definite points. In fact the background of Debussy’s music may be compared to mist, while that of Liszt’s is, we might say, more like a curtain of chain mail.

The effect of this prolongation of harmonies by means of the pedal, lightly aided by the fingers, and of this lack of sharp contours is to take from a great part of his music a certain hard substantiality. In other words, recalling what we said of the qualities of sound in the pianoforte in the chapter on Chopin, the sonority of his music is one of after-sounds. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, more than any composers before them, have consciously made use of this peculiar quality of the pianoforte.

It is not only their treatment of runs which makes it audible, nor do they depend only upon the after-sounds of notes which have been struck. Holding the dampers off the strings for relatively long spaces allows an almost distinct vibration of overtones or of sympathetic tones to enter into the mass of sound. Both Debussy and Ravel count upon this. The notes they write upon the page are but the starting point of their effects. It is what floats up and away from them that constitutes the background of their music. One finds in the later pieces of Debussy not the old-fashioned indication of the pedal, but such directions as _quittez_, _en laissant vibrer_, or _laissez vibrer_ (let the vibrations continue), which must be intended to attract the ear to after-sounds. He has even invented a notation of such un-substantial sound. Here is an example, from _Les collines d’Anacapri_:

[Illustration: Music score]

He will fill up a whole measure with notes that find their reason only in the vague sound of the next measure, as here in _La cathédrale engloutie_:

[Illustration: Music score]

Note also that his spacing of chords, and particularly his strange doubling of parts, brings overtones into prominence. One hears not so much a doubling of parts on the keyboard as an accompanying shadow of sound which is, as it were, cast by them. Witness the choral passages in _La cathédrale engloutie_, and the treatment of chords in _Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut_. Here, at the beginning, one notices too the inclusion within the chord itself of notes which may properly be considered overtones.

It is true that Schumann experimented with sympathetic vibrations and overtones, that the player who would give to Chopin its special charm must have an ear tuned to after-sounds, and that Liszt experimented with many similar effects and really opened the way for a treatment of the pianoforte such as that Debussy and Ravel have perfected. But all earlier experiments were limited by a clear perception of certain harmonic proprieties. A chord was defined by the notes struck in it. But in this music of Debussy and Ravel a chord is not such a restricted thing. It is a potentiality rather than an actuality. It spreads and grows in after-sounds so that its boundaries become vague and merge with other boundaries or cross them. So they have created a pianoforte music that seems almost to have no dependence upon the mechanical levers and hammers, a sort of music liberated from the box, and yet the most subtly and intimately related to the instrument that has been written.

Debussy’s music is by no means all compact of these vague effects. It is often as clear-cut as crystal, having a _netteté_ hard to match in other music for the instrument. Witness for example _Les jardins sous la pluie_ and _La sérénade interrompue_. In these cases it is plain to see that he is no less aware of the charm latent in the percussive quality of tone in the pianoforte than of that in its peculiar after-sounds. He can be incisive, also, and sharply rhythmical as in _La puerta del Vino_, or sparkling as in the _Feux d’artifice_.

Technically, then, Debussy’s pianoforte style seems to have been influenced by a clear perception of the two qualities of sound of which the instrument is capable, and so remarkable has been his revelation of them that one cannot but feel that they come to our ears as fresh discoveries. His ingenuity seems inexhaustible and always successful. He can be rapid without being sensational, forceful without pounding. Except that an occasional use of chords suggests the organ or some new mysterious wind instrument, his music never departs from the piano, to the spirit of which it gives a new expression. It is extremely difficult to play. It requires the utmost fleetness and lightness of fingers; and also a perfect freedom of the arm, for he seems at times to ask the player to touch all parts of the piano at once. In a measure, however, it may be said of some of his music that it conforms to types as Liszt’s does, and that consequently, compared with Bach and Chopin, it is not so difficult. Nevertheless, by all tokens the music of Debussy, though technically it springs from Liszt, is going to elude the grasp of most fingers even as that of Chopin does. Perhaps it is a spiritual rather than a technical difficulty that stands in the way.

His compositions show signs of a very great development both in his ideals and his means of expression. An early group comprises a Nocturne, a _Suite Bergamasque_, and another suite called _Pour le piano_ which consists of a Prelude, Sarabande and Toccata. There are signs in nearly all these pieces of originality and some attempted departure from traditional commonplaces. The nocturne is hardly distinguished either in sentiment or in treatment of the piano. Only the section in 7/8 time is interesting. But in the _Suite Bergamasque_ one finds a Passepied and the well-known _Clair de lune_ which hint at the works to come, the former in its piquant scoring and rhythm, the latter in its harmonies and its employment of the lower and higher registers. The Toccata is original in harmony also, and well-scored for the pianoforte. But except in the _Clair de lune_ there is no trace of the delicate impressionism which has made his better known music unique.

This comes out strongly in a second group of pieces in which one may include the _L’isle joyeuse_, the _Estampes_ and the first series of _Images_ including the _Reflets dans l’eau_ in which he seems to us to reach the height of this middle achievement. _L’isle joyeuse_ is a strange, wild piece, full of his characteristic harmonies, especially those founded upon the whole-tone scale. It is the longest of his pieces for the pianoforte, and is rather unsatisfactory in structure. Perhaps the monotony of key is to blame--for in spite of passages in whole-tone scales, the whole is very clearly in A major. Yet it must be said that this very sameness of key intensifies the early languor and the later Bacchanalian fury--is intoxicating in itself.

The _Estampes_ (‘Engravings’) are among the best of these middle pieces. A comparison of them with works of an early period, with the two arabesques or even the _Suite Bergamasque_, shows an extraordinary development in Debussy’s art and a change or a more marked independence in his ideals. There is hardly a trace in the earlier works of the new expansion in pianoforte technique which marks the _Pagodes_, _La soirée dans Grenade_, and _Jardins sous la pluie_. Especially in the first of these pieces the whole range of the keyboard is blended into effects of a new sonority of sevenths and ninths. The second is a study in impressionism, in the combination of a few fragments of melody, harmony and rhythm into a whole of new poetic intensity. In the former his technique, in the latter his procedure, are strange and unfamiliar in pianoforte music, yet wholly successful. Their effectiveness is no doubt largely due to the nature of his material. The motives of the _Pagodes_ are Oriental, those in _La soirée_ both Spanish and Moorish. Perhaps for this reason they sound more exotic than the _Jardins sous la pluie_, which, in spite of odd blendings of harmony, is essentially more conventional than its two companions in the set. Certainly the _Jardins_ is a wholly poetic and effective piece of keyboard music; but it lacks the originality and the elusive suggestiveness of the _Pagodes_ and of _La soirée_.

The _Reflets dans l’eau_ is superior to the _Hommage à Rameau_ and the _Mouvement_, with which it is combined in the first series of _Images_. Technically it is a masterpiece, and both by the quality of its themes and its perfection of form is fitted to stand as a piece of absolute music of rare beauty. The plan of it is logical rather than impressionistic. It is the development of a single idea, not the combination of suggestive fragments. Hence it seems to stand as the most complete result of the art of which the _Pagodes_ and _Les Jardins_ are representative. In the second series of _Images_ the strange piece, _Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut_, is a further experiment in the kind of music of which _La soirée_ is an example. Here as there the music is fragmentary. Here as there there is but an occasional touch of vividness against a background of misty night. In both pieces pictures, words, almost sounds are only suggested to the ear, not completely represented.

On the other hand, the _Cloches à travers les feuilles_, and the _Poissons d’or_, respectively the first and last pieces in this second set of _Images_, are what we might call consistently motivated throughout, in the manner of the _Reflets dans l’eau_. There is always the rustling of leaves and the faint jangle of bells in the former, always a quiver of water and a darting, irregular movement in the latter; whereas in neither _La soirée_ nor in _Et la lune_ is there the persistence of an idea that is thus predominant and more or less clearly presented.

The last two series of _Préludes_ show us his art yet more finely polished and concentrated. In general these twenty-four pieces are shorter and more concise than the _Estampes_ and the _Images_, certainly than the representative pieces in them--_Pagodes_, _Les jardins_, and _Reflets dans l’eau_. Most of them, moreover, are in his suggestive rather than his explicit manner. He accomplishes his end with a few strokes, and usually in a short space. The placing of the titles at the end rather than at the beginning of the pieces is an interesting point, too; for one cannot believe that such a finished artist as Debussy shows himself in these pieces to be would have sent his work before the public without a consciousness of the significance of such an arrangement. He does not, as it were, announce to his auditors his purpose, saying, imagine now this sound which you are about to hear as representing in music a picture of gardens through a steadily falling rain. He rather draws a line here upon his canvas and adds a point of color there, all in a moment, and then, having shown you first this strange beauty of combinations, says at the end you may now imagine a meaning in the west wind, a church sunk beneath the surface of the sea, a tribute to Mr. Pickwick, dead leaves, or what not in the way of exquisite and incomplete ideas.

Many of these postscripts are significantly vague: _Voiles_, _Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir_, _Des pas sur la neige_ (Alkan called a piece of his _Neige et lave_), _La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune_, etc.

Yet, however vague the subject or the suggestion, there is a sort of epigrammatic clearness in the music. The rhythms are especially lithe and endlessly varied, the phrase-building concise yet never commonplace. There is a glitter of wit in nearly all, an unfailing sense of light and proportion. This, not the strange harmonies nor the imagery, seems to us the quality of his music that is typically French. There is infinite grace and subtlety; sensuousness in color, too, though it is spiritualized; but there is little that is sentimental.

The delicacy and yet the sharpness with which he has reproduced qualities in outlandish music must be noticed. In earlier music he gave proof of his insight into the essentials of other systems of music than the French, or the German which has been considered the international. The _Suite Bergamasque_ has a local color. There is Oriental stuff in _Pagodes_, Spanish and Moorish in _La soirée dans Grenade_, Egyptian in _Et la lune_. Traces of Greek or of ecclesiastical modes are abundant. Here, in the _Préludes_ all this and more too has he caught. Greece in _Danseuses de Delphes_, Italy in _Les collines d’Anacapri_, the old church in _La cathédrale_, Spain in _La puerta del Vino_, cake-walks in _General Lavine_, England in _Pickwick_, and Egypt in _Canope_. There seems a touch of the North, too, in the exquisite little pieces, _La fille aux cheveux de lin_. In this way alone Debussy has rejuvenated music, doing more than others had done.

Finally, it would be hard to find more essence of comedy and wit in music than one finds in Debussy’s _Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum_ in the ‘Children’s Corner,’ with its ludicrous play on the erstwhile sacred formulas of technical study. This alone should place him among the wits of a century. The _Sérénade interrompue_ and ‘Puck’s Dance’ are both full of mockery. Then there is the eccentric General Lavine, and, perhaps most laughable of all, the merry homage to Pickwick, made up of ‘God Save the King’ and a jig in the English style.

No one can say what the future of his music will be, nor how it will be related to the general development in music by students a hundred years hence. Yet it is certain that it recommends itself to pianists at present because it has expanded the technique of the instrument. It is made up in part of effects which, as we have said, if they are not new in principle, are newly applied and expanded. He has developed resources in the instrument which had not before been more than suggested. His pieces bring into striking prominence the qualities of after-sound and sympathetic vibrations or overtones in the piano, which are as much its possession and as uniquely so as the bell-like qualities it had before been chiefly called upon to produce. Therefore though his accomplishments in harmony and form, in the possibilities of music in general, may be regarded with a changed eye in the years to come, and though he may even some day appear in many ways reactionary, because he has once more associated music with ideas and weakened the independence of its life; yet as far as the pianoforte is concerned he is the greatest innovator since Chopin and Liszt.

VI

The pianoforte music of Maurice Ravel is in many ways similar to that of his great contemporary. His conception of harmony is, like Debussy’s, expanded. Sevenths and ninths are used as consonances in his music as well; and consequently one finds there the free use of the sustaining pedal, the playing with after-sounds and overtones.

His works are not so numerous. The most representative are the _Miroirs_, containing five pieces: _Noctuelles_, _Oiseaux tristes_, _Une barque sur l’océan_, _Alborado del gracioso_ and _La vallée des cloches_; and a recent set, _Gaspard de la nuit_, containing _Ondine_, _Scarbo_, and _Le Gibet_, three poems for the piano after Aloysius Bertrand. A set of _Valses nobles et sentimentales_ are only moderately interesting on account of the harmonies. The rhythms are not unusually varied, and the treatment of the pianoforte is relatively simple. There is a well-known _Pavane pour une infante défunte_ of great charm, and a concert piece of great brilliance called _Jeux d’eau_.

Though Ravel, like Debussy, makes use of a misty background, his music is on the whole more brilliant and more clear-cut. One is likelier to find in it passages that are sensational as well as effective. His effects, too, are more broadly planned, more salient and less suggestive. The _Jeux d’eau_ is a very good example, with its regular progressions and unvaried style, its sustained use of high registers rather than an occasional flash into them, its repetitions of rather conventional figures.

[Illustration]

Famous Pianists. From top left to bottom right: Ferruccio Busoni, Ignace Paderewski, Ossip Gabrilowitch, Eugen d’Albert.

Yet it is not in technical treatment of the piano that Ravel is most clearly to be differentiated from Debussy, but rather in the matter of structure. Most of his pieces are relatively long, and few of them are written in the fragmentary, suggestive way characteristic of Debussy, but are consistently sustained and developed. This in general. In

## particular one will notice not only a regularity in the structure of

phrases but a frequent repetition of phrases in the well-balanced manner we associate with his predecessors, sequences that except in harmony are quite classical. The _Jeux d’eau_ will offer numerous examples; and the same regularity is noticeable in the _Ondine_ and _Le Gibet_. The phrases are long and smooth. They have not the epigrammatic terseness of Debussy, who, even in passages of melodious character, always avoids an obvious symmetry. Nor is Ravel’s music so parti-colored as Debussy’s. It does not touch upon such exotic or such foreign scales and harmonies. Ravel shows himself a lover of the Oriental in his string quartet, especially of the Oriental mannerism of repetition; but one does not find in his pianoforte music, as in Debussy’s, hints of ancient Greece, of Italy, of North America, of England. Even the _Alborada del gracioso_, for all its length and brilliance, is not Spanish as Debussy’s _Soirée dans Grenade_ or _Puerta del Vino_. The impressions one receives from hearing works of the two men performed one after the other are really not similar. Debussy’s music is subtle and instantaneous, so to speak; Ravel’s is rather deliberate and prolonged.

Other French composers have hardly made themselves felt with such distinctness as these two men. The most prominent of them is Florent Schmitt whose _Pièces romantiques_, _Humoresques_, and _Nuits romaines_ are worthy of study. Within the last year or two several sets of pieces by Eric Satie have appeared which must give one pause. These are almost as simple as Mozart; indeed many of them are written in but two parts. They are not lacking in charm, whether or not one may take them seriously. Satie shows himself in many of them a parodist. He plays strains from the Funeral March in Chopin’s sonata, twisting them out of shape, and writes slyly over the music that they are from a well-known mazurka of Schubert’s. He parodies Chabrier’s _España_ and Puccini’s operas.

Finally he writes directions and indications over measures in the score which cannot but be a malicious though delightful mockery of modern music in general. Remembering Scriabin’s _Avec une céleste volupté_, or _une volupté radieuse_, _extatique_ or _douloureuse_, one is not surprised to find Satie telling one to play _sur du velours jaunie, sec comme un coucou, léger comme un œuf_, though at this last one may well suspect a tongue in the cheek. But Satie goes much further than this. There is among the _Descriptions automatiques_ one on a lantern, in which we are here told to withhold from lighting it, there to light, there to blow it out, next to put our hands in our pockets. And throughout the absurd, unless they be wholly ironical, pieces inspired by _Embryons désechés_, there is almost a running text which cannot but stir to hearty laughter. Think of being directed to play a certain passage like a nightingale with the toothache--_comme un rossignol qui aurait mal aux dents_; or of being reminded as you play that the sun has gone out in the rain and may not come back again, or that you have no tobacco but happily you do not smoke. Such are the remarks which Satie intends shall illumine your comprehension of his music; and his humor is the more delightful because as a matter of fact Mozart’s first minuet is hardly more simple than this music to dried-up sea-urchins. Such naughty playfulness may well offend the conservatories; but even if it is only nonsense, surely it is a felicitous sign in these days, when high foreheads and bald pates ponderously try to further the gestation of a new art of music.

* * * * *

If we leave our study of pianoforte music with a laugh it is only because we may be supremely happy in the possession of so much music that need not be hidden before the raillery of any wit, no matter how sacrilegious. Into the hands of Claude Debussy we give the art of writing for the pianoforte. His is the wisest and most sensitive touch to mold it since the day of Chopin. Whatever the music he writes may be, it has conferred upon the instrument once more the infinite blessing of a proper speech. He has once more saved it from a confusion of thumps and roars.

Bach, Chopin, Debussy: it is a strange trio, set apart from other composers because to them the pianoforte made audible its secret voice, a voice of fading after-sounds. Let us not take Bach from among them. It was after all the same voice that spoke to him from his clavichord, more faint perhaps yet even more sensitive. Music whispered to Mozart that she would sing sweetly for him through his light pianoforte. The powers of destiny made themselves music at the call of Beethoven, and they swept up the piano in their force. Through Schubert the hand of a spirit touched the keys. For Weber the keys danced together and made strange pantomimes of sound. Schumann, as it were, spoke to his pianoforte apart, and it opened a door for him into a fanciful world. To Brahms the keys were colleagues, not friends, and Liszt drove them in a chariot race, worthy of Rome and the emperors, or converted them like a magician into a thousand shapes with a thousand spells. But to Bach, Chopin and Debussy this instrument revealed itself and showed a secret beauty that is all its own.

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