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Exoticism iu the mélodie: The evolution of exotic techniques as used in songs by David, Bizet, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Roussel, Delage, Milhaud, and Messiaen
Randles, Kathleen Martha, D.M.A.
The Ohio State University, 1992
Copyright ©1992 by Randles, Kathleen Martha. All rights reserved.
UMI 300 N. ZeebRd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106
EXOTICISM IN THE MÉLODIE: THE EVOLUTION OF EXOTIC TECHNIQUES AS USED IN SONGS BY DAVID, BIZET, SAINT-SAËNS, DEBUSSY, ROUSSEL, DELAGE, MILHAUD, AND MESSIAEN
D.M.A. DOCUMENT Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Musical Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Kathleen Martha Randles, B.M., M.M.
**********
The Ohio State University 1992
Document Committee: Approved by
Professor Eileen Davis, Adviser
Dr. Jerry Lowder / CX u I X) Adviser, Professor Marajean Marvin School of Music Copyright by Kathleen M. Randles 1992 To the memory of my father, the first Dr. Randles in the family
1 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to extend my thanks to Eileen Davis, adviser, teacher, mentor and friend; the other members of my committee. Dr. Jerry Lowder and Professor Marajean Marvin for their support of this study; John Hartley for his affectionate and untiring assistance in locating scores and publishers; and Glendower Jones of Classical Vocal Reprints for his invaluable help in providing scores no longer in print. I also wish to thank music publishers CPP/Belwin, Alphonse Leduc et Cie., International Music, and Éditions Salabert for their permission to reprint excerpts from copyrighted material.
Xll VITA
June 27, I960...... Bom - Columbus, Ohio 1981...... Bachelor of Music, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1983...... Master of Music, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 1985-1992...... Broadcast producer, WOSU-FM, Columbus, Ohio 1988-1992...... Graduate Teaching Assistant, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1992-present...... Assistant Professor of Voice, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois
FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: Music Studies in Voice: Karen Peeler, Helen Swank, Eileen Davis, Norman Gulbrandson Song Literature: Eileen Davis, Marajean Marvin, Robin Rice Vocal Pedagogy: Helen Swank Opera Direction: Roger Stephens, Robert Gay Conducting: Maurice Casey, James Gallagher iv The Ohio State university School of Music Graduate Student Recital Series
Tuesday, February 6, 1990 8:00 PM Hughes Hall Auditorium
KATHLEEN RANDLES, MEZZO-SOPRANO
Paul Dorgan, Piano
This recital is presented in partial fulfillment for ths degree Doctor of Musical Arts for Ms. Randles.
PROGRAM Lord, What is Man? Henry Purcell from "Harmonia Sacra" Hark! the ech'ing Air from "The Fairy Queen'
Chanson d'Orkenise Francis Poulenc from "Banalités" Chanson triste Henri Duparc Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe Georges Bizet
Heimliche Aufforderung, Op. 27, No. 3 Richard Strauss Der Nachtgang, Op. 29, No. 3 Befreit, Op. 39, No. 4 INTERMISSION Another Spring, Op. 93 Sir Lennox Berkeley Poetry Another Spring Afraid
Siete Canciones Populares Espanolas Manuel de Falla El pano moruno Seguidilla Murciana Asturiana Jo ta Nana Canciôn Polo
V The Ohio State University School of Music
TEE O.S.Ü. SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Third Concert, 90-91 Season Tuesday, February 5th 8:00 PM Weigel Hall Auditorium
Marshall Haddock, Conductor
Kathleen Randles, Mezzo-Soprano
PROGRAM
Hebrides Overture, Op. 26 Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Shéhérazade Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Asie La flûte enchantée L'indifferent
Ms. Randles
INTERMISSION
Syitç)hony No. 9, Op. 7 0 Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) Allegro Moderato Presto Largo A11egretto-Allegro vi The Ohio State University School of Music Graduate Student Recital Series
Friday, February 22, 1991 8:00 PM Hughes Hall Auditorium
KATHLEEN RANDLES, MEZZO-SOPRANO
Paul Dorgan, Piano
This recital is presented in partial fulfillment for the degree Doctor of Musical Arts for Ms. Randles.
PROGRAM
Les nuits d'été Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) Villanelle Le spectre de la rose Sur les lagunes Absence Au cimetière L'île inconnue
INTERMISSION
L'invitation au voyage Henri Duparc (1848-1933) L'extase Phidylé
Deux poèmes chinois. Op. 12 Albert Roussel (1869-1937) A un jeune gentilhomme Amoureux séparées
Beau soir Claude Debussy (1862-1918) La chevelure Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maisons
vil The Ohio State University Opera/Music Theatre Presents
Verdi's
FALSTAFF
Thursday, May 7 and Saturday, May 9 8:00 PM Mershon Auditorium at the Wexner Center
Based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and passages from Henry IV Music by Giuseppe Verdi Libretto by Arrigo Boito English version by Andrew Porter
Producing Director Roger L. Stephens Music Director Marshall Haddock
CAST OF CHARACTERS Sir John Falstaff...... Mark Baker Fenton, a young gentleman...... Craig Montgomery Ford, a wealthy burgher...... Jeffrey Kuhl Dr. Caius, a physician...... J.R. Fralick Bardolph, a follower of Falstaff...... Timothy Tuttle Pistol, a follower of Falstaff John Dean Hardesty Mrs. Alice Ford...... Belinda Andrews Smith Nannetta, her daughter Stephanie Tingler Mrs. Meg Page...... Noelle Woods Dame Quickly Kathleen Randles Robin, Falstaff's page...... Ryan Stephens Innkeeper Matthew Pittman
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication...... ii Acknowledgements...... iii Vita...... iv Doctoral Performance Programs...... v List of Figures...... x
INTRODUCTION...... 1 CHAPTER I: The History of Exoticism in French Culture...... 5 CHAPTER II: David and "Perles d'Orient"...... 15 CHAPTER III: Bizet and "Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe"...... 27 CHAPTER IV: Saint-Saëns and "Mélodies persanes"...... 35 CHAPTER V: Debussy and "Trois chansons de Bilitis"...... 48 CHAPTER VI: Roussel and "Deux poèmes chinois," Op. 12.....62 CHAPTER VII: Delage and "Quatre poèmes hindous"...... 75 CHAPTER VIII: Milhaud and "Chansons de négresse"...... 86 CHAPTER IX: Messiaen and Harawi...... 96 CONCLUSION...... 115
Selected Bibliography...... 117
IX LIST OF FIGURES
Figure: 1: Repetitive rhythm in David's "Amour pour amour"...... 21 2; Grace notes in David's "Amour pour amour"...... 22 3: Lowered sixths and sevenths in David's "Tristesse de 1'odalisque"...... 23 4: Major and minor modes in David's "Amour perdu"...... 24 5: Chromatic scale in Bizet's "Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe".21 6: Augmented second in Bizet's “Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe"32 7: Open fifth, pedal tone, and repetitive rhythm in Bizet's "Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe"...... 32 8: Melisma, chromaticism, and trill in Bizet's "Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe"...... 33 9: Modal melody, repeated rhythm, and open fifth in Saint-Saëns' "La brise"...... 39 10: Mode change in Saint-Saëns' "La brise"...... 40 11: Melismatic writing with grace notes in Saint-Saëns' "La splendeur vide"...... 41 12: Asymmetrical rhythm in Saint-Saëns' "La solitaire" 41 13: Melisma in the Dorian mode in Saint-Saëns' "Sabre en main"...... 43 14: Fluctuating F's in Saint-Saëns' "Au cimetière"...... 44 15: Asymmetrical phrase in Saint-Saëns' "Au cimetière" 44 16: Augmented second in Saint-Saëns' "Tournoiement"...... 45 17: Rhythmic complexity in Debussy's "La flûte de Fan- 56 18: Gong imitations in Debussy's "La flûte de Pan"...... 56 19: Percussive effects in Debussy's "La flûte de Pan"..... 57 20: Chromaticism in Debussy's "La chevelure"...... 58 21: Whole tone scale in Debussy's "La chevelure"...... 59 22: Gong and anklung effects in Debussy's "Le tombeau des naïades"...... 60 23: Gamelan "layering" in Debussy's "La flûte de Pan"..... 60 24: Gamelan "layering" in Debussy's "La chevelure"...... 60 25: Gamelan "layering" in Debussy's "Le tombeau des naïades"...... 61 26: Final image in Roussel's "Ode à un jeune gentilhomme".. 67 27: Percussive effect in Roussel's "Ode à un jeune gentilhomme"...... 67 28: Transition between pentatonic scales in Roussel's "Ode à un jeune gentilhomme"...... 68 29: Gong effect in Roussel's "Ode à un jeunegentilhomme"..69 30: Ambiguous harmony in Roussel's "Amoureux séparées"... 70 31: Abrupt modulation in Roussel's "Amoureux séparées"... 7 0 32: Final cadence in Roussel's "Amoureux séparées"...... 71 33: Gong effect in Roussel's"Amoureux séparées"...... 72 34: Florid melodies of the flute, oboe, and clarinet in Delage ' s "Une belle..."...... 79 35: Cello imitation of sitar in Delage's "Un sapin isolé"..80 36: Melisma in Delage's "Un sapin isolé"...... 82 37: Cello imitation of the tabla in Delage's "Naissance de Bouddha"...... 83 38: Syncopation in Milhaud's "Mon histoire"...... 91
xi 39: Repetition of melody and rhythm patterns in Milhaud's "Mon histoire"...... 92 40: Syncopations in Milhaud's "Sans feu ni lieu"...... 94 41: Cyclic melody in Messiaen's Harawi...... 104 42: Birdsong in Messiaen's "Bonjour toi, colombe verte"... 105 43: Drum imitation in Messiaen's "Doundou tchil"...... 106 44: Dissolution in Messiaen's "L'amour de Piroutcha"..... 107 45: Cry in Messiaen's "Répétition planétaire"...... 107 46: Imitation of funeral bells in Messiaen's "Adieu"..... 108 47: Warning calls in Messiaen's "Syllabes"...... 109 48: Chromatism of duration in Messiaen's "Amour oiseau d'étoile"...... 110 49: Grasshopper figure in Messiaen's "Katchikatchi les étoiles"...... Ill 50: Cry in Messiaen's "Dans le noir"...... 112 51: Final image of Messiaen's "Dans le noir"...... 112
X l l INTRODUCTION Defining Exoticism
Exoticism, broadly speaking, is a term referring to the influence of foreign cultures or countries on the arts. This is a concept meaning different things to different scholars. As applied to French music, it has been recognized under the titles of orientalism, musique pittoresque, musique exotique, musique bizarre, paganism, japonisme, and chinoiserie. The geographical boundaries of exoticism are as varied as its labels. In the literal sense, exoticism in French music could be taken to mean the influence of any country outside France. This could mean other European countries, such as Poland or Hungary. In a somewhat more specific definition, Brody limits exoticism to the influence of non-European countries, with the exception of Spain, Portugal, and Russia.^ Victor Hugo claimed that the Orient stretched from China to Egypt, with the addition of Spain, since "...Spain is half African, and Africa is half Asian.
' Elaine Brody, Paris; The Musical Kaleidoscope (1870-1925) {New York: George Braziller,1987), 71.
* Victor Hugo, Les Orientales, edited by Elisabeth Barbineau (Paris: Librairie Marcel Didier, 1952), 11. 2 However, Hugo brings up the precise reason to exclude Spain, Portugal, and Russia. The exotic aspects of these three countries' cultures are derived from the influences of other cultures. In Spain's case, this is due to centuries of Arab and Moorish presence. Russia owes its exotic qualities to the fact that it shares boundaries with Turkey, Persia, Armenia, and other Eastern nations. The simplest definition of exoticism as it pertains to Western art music comes from Austin, who takes the term to mean "...merely any concern with extra-European cultures."^ In music, the concern of exoticism was frequently the depiction of exterior atmosphere. Exterior atmosphere implies the geographical setting of a text as opposed to the interior atmosphere, or its emotional mood. Hereafter in this document, "exoticism" will take under its umbrella all of the extraneous terms listed earlier, and refer to the influences of the non-Westem music of non-European countries. These influences came from cultures in Asia, India, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. The profound differences in climates, religions, social organization, and other factors created interesting potential for European composers seeking new methods of expression. Recurring themes included the natural world, the sultry climate with its abundance and fertility; the non-Christian religions and the music associated with them; also a fascination with the emotions of these cultures: uninhibited sexuality, self-
® William W. Austin, Music in the Twentieth Century from Debussy through Stravinsky (New York: Norton, 1966), 28. 3 indulgent languorousness, unbridled thirst for revenge and the spilling of human blood, and other so-called "barbaric" attributes. The earliest examples of exoticism in French music were not musical at all; the foreign element was derived entirely through the subject matter, not the score. As expanding trade and colonization exposed Europe to the world beyond, French composers began to imitate other music in primitive ways, through such devices as rhythmical repetition or pedal tones. Over time, this evolved to the sophisticated use of foreign tonal and rhythmical systems. I have chosen to place composers of exotic works in two different categories. The first includes composers who use exotic elements as a novelty, in a purely decorative attempt to evoke a foreign landscape within the idiom of Western diatonic music. Within this category are two further subdivisions: those composers who had been exposed to the genuine music of other countries personally, and those who copied it more or less by instinct. Of the former group, Félicien David traveled extensively in North Africa and the Middle East, collecting melodies that he used in later compositions. In the latter subdivision, Georges Bizet, who never set foot outside of Europe or heard any foreign music, created an entire opera set in Ceylon, Les pêcheurs de perles. While this score contains some moments quite evocative of the East, there is no authentic Ceylonese material in the score. Bizet simply imagined what such music would sound like and wrote it down. 4 The other category of conposer uses genuine elements of foreign music to create a fresh, original sound. Debussy and Messiaen wrote such works. When Debussy adopted the whole tone scale, or Messiaen the Indian tala, the purpose was to augment their musical vocabulary. They assimilated new techniques for the purposes of exploration rather than imitation. Some composers who wrote important exotic works are relatively neglected in this study because their use of exoticism was not innovative. For instance, Maurice Ravel's "Shéhérazade" and "Chansons madécasses" are justly celebrated exotic works. However, Ravel used techniques pioneered by Debussy; to analyze his style of exoticism would be to repeat statements about his colleague. Furthermore, he used exoticism to evoke the exterior atmosphere of a foreign land. This method hearkens back to the style of Bizet and Saint- Saëns, falling under the first "decorative" category previously mentioned. The ensuing chapters examine the historical and theoretical evolution of exoticism from European-derived decoration to exotically-derived assimilation. Composers who made significant innovations in exoticism are discussed, and their innovations are analyzed in a song or set of songs by each coitposer. Many of these songs, although colorful and artistically meritorious, have fallen into obscurity. They are worth a contemporary réévaluation. CHAPTER I The History of Exoticism in French Culture
East-West cultural exchange dates as far back as the eleventh century and the First Crusade. The European knights who rode into Turkey on their holy mission met with Turkish military bands called janissaries. These knights brought janissary instruments back to Europe with them, including huge kettledrums, oboes, and percussion instruments covered with bells. They provided the beginnings of the Turkish fad that swept through Europe in the 1700's. The color and mystery of faraway places lent extra magic to the stage. During the baroque days of the 1600's, Molière called for an Egyptian ballet in his play La Malade Imaginaire. Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme contains a scene that calls for several Middle Eastern elements, including a character in a turban. Moors, and dervishes.^ The French baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau wrote his opera Les Indes Galantes.- a story involving four different cultures, including Persians and American Indians. Rameau, Gluck (Les pèlerins de la Mecque), and Grétry (La caravane du Caire) were just a few of the composers to use exotic subjects in their operas.
' Elaine Brody, Paris: The Musical Kaleidoscope. 1870-1925 (New York: George Braziller, 1987), 65. 6 However, the exotic effect was contained completely in the visual appearance and subject matter of such productions, and not in the music. While the sets and costumes might have been very foreign, the style of the music was purely French baroque. With the Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, European culture began to reconsider foreign cultures that they had for so long deemed barbaric and inferior. Kârpâti wrote of this change:
The great names of the Century of Enlightenment in France were the first to raise the question quite seriously of whether the arrogant and superior attitude of the European bourgeoisie, of the Occidental white man as opposed to the 'barbarians' of the Orient was justified. It was this questioning which was at the origin of a markedly strong and conscious interest in the Orient: the Arab world, Persia, India, Turkey, countries of great traditions in a glorious past where - and this was almost a revelation - millions of human beings live who are different from Europeans and nevertheless like them.^
Stimulated by trade with China, chinoiserie produced such fashionable trends as Chinese Chippendale furniture. Early orientalist literary works were published, including Montesquieu's Lettres persanes and Voltaire's Mahomet. The Turkish trend swept through Europe, prompting Mozart to create his opera The Abduction fpom the Seraglio as well as other Turkish-influenced music, usually in the "Turkish" key of a minor.
' Jânos Kârpâti, "Non-European Influences on Occidental Music (A Historical Survey)," World of Music, 22 n .2 (1980), 23. Contact with the cultures that inspired these fads was commercial rather than scholarly, and exotic music at this point was only a European concept of how foreign music sounded. Ethnomusicology was unheard of, and Europe had little scholarship on which to base its imitations. The impact of non-Westem countries on French music was negligible. In the nineteenth century, France established a formidable colonial presence in Asia, Africa, the Levant, and India. Cultural exchange was becoming brisk. Paris collected more and more scholarship about foreign lands. It became an important center for the study of Sanskrit.^ Napoleon's campaign into North Africa resulted in the publishing of the Description de I'Eawte. a rich source of information about Egypt and the Far East as well. Champollion had deciphered the Rosetta Stone, unlocking a flood of information about the ancient world. By 1830, the Romantic movement was blossoming. The air of magic and mystery that hovered over France's foreign colonies was well suited to Romanticism. Writers, musicians, and artists began to incorporate exotic references into their work. Eugène Delacroix lived in Algeria for some time and painted desert landscapes and harem scenes. This period produced paintings such as "Sardanapalus" and "Femmes d'Alger." The painter Alexander Gabriel Decaiqp traveled to Turkey in 1828 and put his observations on canvas. These two
Brody, Paris. 66. 8 men and others such as Ingres and Chassérieau became the group of artists known as the Barbizon School. There was an explosive literary trend in exoticism in the 1830's. Writers left France to gather their own impressions of the Orient. Alphonse de Lamartine published his Souvenirs d'un vovacre in 1835. Gustave Flaubert's travels resulted in the story of Thaïs. 1832 saw the publication of Namouna. Alfred de Musset's novel that would later form the basis of Bizet's one act exotic opera Djamilsh. victor Hugo published a volume of poetry in 1828 entitled Les Orientales. Orientale became a generic term for any poem with exotic content. Théophile Gautier and Lamartine contributed their own collections of orientales, which together with Hugo's, were popular as song texts. Literary exoticism burned out fairly quickly. As early as 1831, Balzac stated that the public was suffering from oriental overkill.* However, this poetry was to have long- lived consequences in music. The flowering of fine poetry in the French Romantic movement is one of the factors credited with contributing to the rise of the mélodie. Increased sophistication in a song text creates the potential for a more sophisticated song. It stands to reason that exotic poetry inspired exotic songs. The works of poetry and prose written during the brief Oriental craze of the 1830's served as the inspiration for
* Frits Noske, French Song from Berlioz to Puoarc: the Origin and Development of the Mélodie, tranlated by Rita Benton (New York: Dover, 1970), 81. 9 musical works for the next fifty years. Opera was the most popular entertainment of the day in France. The' lyric theaters of Paris found attractive visual and musical elements in these stage works based on exotic literature. In colloquial terms, they made good box office. With all of this exotic vocal writing for the stage, exotic art songs were a logical next step. Because mélodies were often more simply written than opera in order to accommodate the amateur's skill, exotic songs such as David's "Perles d'Orient" became as popular among the bourgeoisie as the exotic operas. Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo harbor in 1853 and opened a new vista to the West. Once Japan established trade relations with the rest of the world, Japanese art and artifacts flooded France. Japonisme was born. Parisian galleries and salons were now filled with the work of Japanese artists instead of Oriental imitations by European artists. The delicate colors and nature themes of these works influenced the Impressionistic work of painters Monet, Manet, Degas, and Van Gogh. The woodcuts and sketches of the nineteenth century Japanese master Katsushika Hokusai particularly stimulated the admiration of artistic circles. Prominent art critic Edmond de Concourt was so impressed with the work of Hokusai that he published a book about him in 1896. Debussy, an ardent fan of japonisme and owner of many Japanese artifacts, used Hokusai's famous print, "The Hollow of the Wave Off Kamagawa," as the cover of the published score of La Mer. 10 Religion made its own contributions to exoticism. lis France became more familiar with Eastern cultures, Eastern religions came to light. Around the year 1888, a group of artists and intellectuals sought mystical inspiration from the beliefs of the East in order to bring fresh insight to their work. Centered around the painter Paul Serusier, they called themselves Nabis, from the Hebrew word for prophets. Art nouveau, a movement rooted in Japanese style, was closely associated with the nabis. The Rosicrucians, led by an Eastern guru, held the devotion of Erik Satie for a brief period. The slow pace and serene atmosphere of much of Satie's music could be interpreted as striving for the detachment of Hindu and Buddhist belief.® From 1820 to 1835, the Saint-Simonians created the genesis of Félicien David's efforts in exotic music. Named after their founder Henri Saint-Simon, the Saint-Simonians were an interesting group that believed in achieving a new social order through spiritual means. The movement's members called their beliefs Nouveau Christianisme, and their core principle was belief in the equality of all humans. They hoped to do away with the aristocracy and bring the disenfranchised of society (the poor, women) into the fold. David was a devoted member of this movement, for which
® William W. Austin, "The Rhythms of Satie and 'Oriental Timelessness,'" Miscellanea Musicoloaica 13 (1984), 98. 11 he wrote much of its ceremonial music. The Saint-Simonian philosophy was popular with other composers, including Berlioz, Liszt, and Mendelssohn. The arts were held in high esteem by this movement, deemed to have great power as a propagandistic tool for effecting spiritual change. In 1833, Félicien David and several other Saint- Simonians left France for a tour of Egypt and the Holy Land. They believed that a female Messiah would appear in the East before the end of 1833, and they went in search of her.® David collected Egyptian and other Eastern melodies on his travels, bringing them back to Paris and using them in his own compositions. Eventually, they would contribute to his "synphony-ode" called "Le Désert," a work that would cause a sensation in Paris. A congoser did not always have to travel to hear genuine exotic music; sometimes the music travelled to him. The international exhibitions held in Paris brought in cultural displays from all over the world. The exhibitions were originally concerned with displaying the technology and commerce of the participating nations. Later, exhibiting countries included art as a way of encouraging tourism. The first exhibition to include music in a significant manner was the Exposition Universelle of 1867. The theme was le travail ("work")/ exhibiting the products of different countries. Artwork from Japan, China, and India was available for sale. The displays from non-Westem countries, which included their native instruments, were very popular.
® Ralph P. Locke, Music. Musicians, and the Saint-Simonians Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 172. 12 Concerts of music from Brazil and the United States were presented. The 1878 Exposition Universelle gave more prominence to music. Composition competitions were held, more concerts were given, and much more attention was paid to ethnic music. The Rue des Nations, a grouping of the exhibits of the participating countries, featured open air performances of exotic music. However, these performances were not regarded as music in its own right, but rather curiosities of an anthropological nature. The high point, as far as music is concerned, came with the Exposition Universelle of 1889. This was the grandest, most elaborate exhibition so far. The theme was the one hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution. The Eiffel Tower was constructed. Parisians could see exhibits from Rumania, Greece, Serbia, Turkey, Montenegro, Japan, Siam, Persia, Mexico, Egypt, the Transvaal, and an unofficial exhibit from China. Music was given unprecedented importance. The committee that organized the concerts was headed by two of the most important composers of the day, Ambroise Thomas and Léo Delibes. Again, there were competitions for new music. All of the major musical ensembles of Paris were engaged in performances of mainly French music. The great Romantic organists Théodore Dubois and Charles-Marie Widor gave recitals. There were more opportunities to hear exotic music than ever before. There was an international competition for the 13 exotic music ensembles held on the fourth of July. The crowds were exposed to the sounds of Arab,Senegalese, Congolese, Annamite, and Pacific Islander music. A Balinese court dancing troupe was accompanied by its traditional instruments. ’ The most momentous meeting came between Claude Debussy and the Javanese gamelan ensemble. Debussy perceived the sophistication and artistry of this music in a way that no Westerner had before. He saw in this music a highly developed sense of rhythm and counterpoint incomparable to anything in Europe. The sounds he heard were to have revolutionary impact. Debussy began an era in which the nature of exoticism changed. Composers were seeking new ways to create music. The late Romantics took chromaticism to such lengths that the sense of tonality was all but lost. Next came the experimentation with atonality and serial music. Aleatory improvisation, electronic instruments, and all kinds of new sounds were explored. Simultaneously, the field of ethnomusioology was developing, and Europe gained access to authoritative scholarship on non-Western systems of rhythm, scales, and improvisation. Some composers made use of the new concepts revealed to them. As a student at the Paris Conservatoire, Olivier Messiaen was introduced to Indian classical music by his music history professor. He undertook an exhaustive study of
'Brody, Paris, 7 9-95, 14 its theories, especially those regarding rhythm. Messian incorporated many of these principles into his own music. Later, in his role as conposition teacher, he inparted this knowledge to the next generation of French composers, among them Pierre Boulez. Exoticism, which had been a decorative attempt to create a geographical setting, became an integral part of a composer's own musical language. In a sense, earlier composers had been reshaping Eastern music to fit Western concepts. This changed with Debussy and later composers such as Messiaen, who reshaped western music to fit Eastern concepts. CHAPTER II David and "Les Perles d'Orient"
Félicien César David (1810-187 6) was the first French composer to cause a sensation with exotic music. Although some exotic ballets and the Turkish operas of Germany- predated him, he was the first French composer to collect authentic exotic material and use it successfully in Western music.^ After struggling with poverty and public indifference for years, David's work "Le désert" made him a household word overnight and set the example for coitposers for decades to come. David was b o m in Cadenet, the capitol of Aix, to a goldsmith father and a mother who was a native of Santo Domingo. The mother died shortly after Félicien's birth. His father, an amateur violinist, stimulated his son's interest in music by encouraging the boy to sing along with his playing. When Félicien was five years old, his father died, and he went to live with relatives. It appeared that his involvement with music might be finished. Fortunately, a professional oboist who visited the family noticed his clear voice and musical affinity, and recommended a musical
’ Peter Gradenwitz, "Félicien David and French Romantic Orientalism," Musical Quarterly 62 (October 1976), 502. 15 16 education for him. The family placed him as a choirboy a the Cathedral of Saint-Sauveur in Aix. In addition to his singing at the cathedral, David taught himself the violin and piano and studied composition. He discovered a natural bent for improvisation, which was to serve him well in later years. After his years with the cathedral choir, David entered the Jesuit college at Aix. He did not formally study music there but he continued to pursue it on his own. The college had a large collection of scores by Beethoven, Haydn, and Cherubini, which David memorized, since the school did not allow them to be copied. As with his iitprovisation skills, his memory would come in very handy in the future. His first job after leaving school was as assistant conductor in a regional theatre. David's sensibilities were upset by bad vaudeville music, so he resigned. He liked his subsequent job as a law clerk no better. Fortunately, a former teacher recommended him for a job as music director in the cathedral of his boyhood education. Saint-Sauveur. David was sublimely happy there. He wrote a number of motets for the church choir. An uncle, on hearing one of the motets, was persuaded to provide David with meager financial support. David took this opportunity and left for Paris in the spring of 1830. He managed to obtain an interview with one of his idols, Luigi Cherubini, then director of the Paris Conservatoire. Cherubini harshly derided David's writings, but allowed him 17 to join a counterpoint class at the conservatory. Shortly after his arrival in Paris, David began attending meetings of the Saint-Simonians, a group of socialists with a spiritual bent to their philosophy. Originally, Saint-Simonism was more socialist than religious, a dream of achieving equality and freedom for all people through the technology of the Industrial Revolution. By 1830 the movement had gained nystical overtones due to the influence of its charismatic leader, Barthélémy-Prosper Enfantin, known to his followers as "le père." Enfantin granted the fine arts, especially music, a high place in the scheme of the ideal world of the future. Artists were priests in his eyes, with tremendous power to affect spiritual change. They carried the holy flame of the Saint-Simonian message to the masses. As David got increasingly involved in the movement, he became a devoted disciple of Enfantin. He wrote music for the Saint-Simonian ceremonies and joined the movement's celibate community at Ménilmontant. The order's unusual habit included garments that had to be laced up the back, a feature that enphasized the members' dependence on each other. While there, he was known by his fellow members as "our sweet nightingale." One of the most singular beliefs of the Saint-Simonians was that the world would be united by a union of the East and West through social revolution and through a physical union of two people. Enfantin, "le père," represented the West, and a mystical female Messiah, "la mère," would represent the 18 East. One of the group's more radical members, Émile Barrault, believed that this Messiah would appear in the East before the end of the year 1833,^ and he organized a mission to seek her out. The group, which included Félicien David, left France in March of 1833 and headed for Constantinople. The sultan there was not receptive; he jailed them briefly before sending them out of the country. The next stop in Smyrna was much more hospitable. David heard colorful local tunes in the streets and devised piano improvisations on them. He would play these on the balcony of his lodgings for an admiring audience gathered in the street below. Some of the improvisations would later be published in his collection of piano sketches called "Brises d'Orient." He attracted crowds of admirers in Smyrna, who found his European idiom as exotic as he found their melodies. He was so popular that a sculptor in the mission group created a "David Medallion" that he had to copy industriously to satisfy local demand.^ In Jaffa, the Saint-Simonians were the house guests of the French Vice-Consul. David earned the reputation of a miracle worker there, using his gifts to comfort the malaria- stricken son of the Vice-Consul. David moved his piano into the sickroom, where he improvised soothing music all night long. When the son awoke in the morning, he had recovered.
Locke, Music. Musicians, and the Saint-Simonians. 172.
Gradenwitz, "David and French Romantic Orientalism", 47 5. 19 The band of missionaries moved on to Cairo. David frequented cafes there, where he not only heard indigenous music, but also saw the native instruments on which it was played. On a visit to the pyramids, he experienced a scirocco and a sandstorm, episodes he would recreate later in "Le désert". During this period he was using his acute memory to gather musical detail and subsequently applying that information to his ircprovisations in the Western idiom. Slowly, David's fraternal group was disintegrating. Some members were pressured by their families to come home, while others were chafing at Enfantin's authoritarian leadership. Cholera was a serious threat. After one of David's close friends died of the disease, David returned to France. He dropped the distinctive Saint-Simonian garb and focused on launching himself as a musician in Paris. The society of the Parisian salons, so crucial for the exposure of any aspiring artist, was not supportive to David. Unable to find a patron, he had his "Brises d'Orient" engraved at his own expense. These mildly Oriental pieces were technically simple as a result of his own self-taught skills, and gained little notice. His obscurity disappeared overnight in 1844 with the premiere of his syirphony-ode "Le désert." (Symphony-Ode was an attenpt to emulate Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which is known in France as the "Ode-Symphonie"; David identified with the principles of fraternal love and equality embodied in the "Ode to Joy.") "Le désert" was a grand scale cantata set to a libretto by fellow Saint-Simonian poet Auguste Colin. It 20 tells the story of a desert caravan that is hit by a sandstorm. After the storm abates, the caravan's members offer up a hymn of thanks. When they camp for the evening, they enjoy a performance by dancing girls. In the morning they continue their journey. The score contains some startlingly exotic moments, including a melismatic muezzin's chant that must have startled Paris with its novelty. The audience went wild and called for encores. Hector Berlioz, acting as music critic that night, wrote later of David and his music in the Journal des débats, "...for a great composer has appeared, for a masterwork has been unveiled."’ "Le désert" toured internationally, and David was riding the crest of a wave of popularity. In the first flush of his success, he published the "Brises d'Orient" that no one had been interested in before, and his set of six songs, "Les Perles d'Orient," composed in 1845-46. Exoticism was not as vividly present in these songs as in "Le désert." The harmony is tamely diatonic and the text is almost syllabically set. Only small clues point to the sounds David heard on his travels. The first of these songs, "Reviens! Reviens!" sets one of the orientales of Théophile Gautier. This was a popular example of that poetic genre, also set by Bizet, and by Berlioz in his Les nuits d'été. Gautier was a favorite poet of David's. Three of the poems set in this collection are Gautier's, and one of those three was written expressly for
* Gradenwitz, "David and French Romantic Orientalism", 471 21 David. "Reviens! Reviens!" has little exotic effect, except for a sustained pedal tone in the bass of the piano accompaniment. The pedal tone imitates the droning quality many Westerners heard in Eastern and African music. "Amour pour amour" is the second song in the set. The poem, again by Gautier, tells the story of a young woman stepping from her bath and allowing her many servants to dress her in rich clothing and annoint her with perfumes. She enumerates all the luxuries of her life (good food, jewels, opium, servants to satisfy her lightest wish, birds singing around her gardens and fountains), but her greatest pleasure is love. Here, David is more inspired in the use of exotic devices. He uses a short, repeated rhythmic pattern (Figure 1) throughout the song in imitation of the repetitive quality of Arab music that improvises over a rhythmical constant.
Figure 1: Repetitive Rhythm in David's "Amour pour amour" (Public domain)
This rhythmical pattern achieves a feeling of lightness and delicacy well-suited to the poem's self-indulgent young 22 Bubject. The meloc^ line also uses grace notes (Figure 2) which attempt to create in Western terms the microtonal ornaments of Eastern music.
m J'aime aus . si lo.dcur fi.nc Dc la fleur des hou -
i JL m M i
Figure 2; Grace Notes in David's “Amour pour amour" (Public domain)
The third song in the collection is "Mon aimée, " subtitled "Prayer to the prophet." Aimée is the French rendering of an Arab term referring to a dancing girl. The poetry, by Marc-Constantin, evokes the desert landscape at night, as a dancing girl leads a group in praise of Allah. David makes effective use of the gentle 6/8 rhythm and minor key of the music. However, "Mon aimée" and the following song, "L'Océan" offer negligible exoticism. "L'Océan" is not a masterful piece of writing. Its description of the awesome power of the sea through the piano's stormy tremolos and thundering bass line are hackneyed mediocrities. In addition, the writing for the voice is problematic, lying alternately very high and very low. 23 David redeems himself with "Tristesse de 1'odalisque." Théophile Gautier wrote this poem specifically for David to set to music. This song anticipates Gabriel Fauré's "Après un rêve" in its melancholy calm. David was admired for his ability to depict stillness in music. After a performance of "Le désert," a listener asked David how he could musically create such an admirable silence. David's reply was, "By listening to it."' The story of "Tristesse de l'odalisque" is told by a concubine in a harem. In a series of images invoking Nature, she recounts how the wave may tell its troubles to the shore, the moon may recount the reason for its pallor to the island floating in the sea, the dawn may console the wildflower, but she has no one to whom she may speak. She then contenplates the sea at the bottom of the cliff where the palace is, evidently with the intent of throwing herself into it. The harmony moves between b minor and f-sharp minor, with some modality in the lowered sixths and sevenths (Figure 3). Grace notes create an Eastern-tinged plaintiveness. It: Ton me blaiie. Sain _ to So phi . i é
L T ! TUT Figure 3 : Lowered sixths and sevenths in David's "Tristesse de l'odalisque" (Public domain) ‘ Gradenwitz, "David and French Romantic Orientalism", 491, 24 The final song of the collection, "Amour perdu" (also known as "Bonheur d'aimer") involves a fluctuation between the major and minor modes (Figure 4) . Egyptian culture included an element of mixing sorrow with happiness. A joyous love song may have contained a lament about death. It was an Egyptian custom to place a mummy on the table after a
ii:iitrtict quun jour nous en . lè
cres
Comme il van - tait aJois miibi*au-to,mos at - traits!
Figure 4; Major and minor modes in David's "Amour perdu" (Public domain)
feast.* This was a statement on the ephemeral nature of happiness and the brevity of the joys of life reflected in their music. David's mixture of major and minor was an imitation of this attitude.
* Brody, Paris: The Musical Kaleidoscope. 1879-1925 (New York: George Braziller, 1987), 71. 25 The text of the song iitplies this switching back and forth. The refrain is a cynical declaration that love exists only in idyllic dreams (minor mode). The verses, however, fondly recall the joys of a past love (major mode). "Perles d'Orient" is moderate in range, and could be performed by both high and low voices. The text seems best suited for performance by women. "L'océan" requires a wide range, as the tessitura is schizophrenically divided between passages that lie at the top of the staff and the bottom of the staff, and the mood is dramatic throughout. A soprano will need a solid low B for the ends of the verses in "Tristesse de l'odalisque," but a mezzo or contralto should have good high F-sharps and G's for the high points of most of the songs. All of the songs (except "L'océan") demand a warm middle range capable of communicating sensuality. David attempted other exotic works, some of which became popular standard repertoire of the age. The songs include "Le bédouin," "L'Égyptienne" (a work in which he took special pride), "Le Chybouk," and "Sultan Mabmoud." He achieved his dream of reaching the opera stage when his exotic opera La verle du brésil was produced at the Théâtre de l'Opéra Nationale in 1851. The zenith of his career came when the Opéra-Comique produced his Lalla-Roukh in 1862. He owed his success and reputation almost entirely to exotic influences. David's exotic techniques included modal harmony, frequent changes from major to minor modes, pedal tones, melismatic melodies built on small intervals, and repeated rhythmic patterns. These were imitated by other coirçjosers 26 with little or no alteration for decades. David cast the mold for the early, decorative-style exotic coitçjosers whose aim was to portray the exterior atmosphere of a foreign land in Western musical terms. CHAPTER III Bizet and "Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe"
By 1850, the mélodie was firmly established as a musical form. The banal romance of the early part of the century had disappeared. In its place the mélodie elevated the quality of accoitpaniment, prosody, and vocal virtuosity. Audience taste was more sophisticated, educated by the vocal compositions of Berlioz and Liszt, who chose to write for trained musicians rather than amateurs. Georges Bizet (1838-1875), although uneven in the quality of his songs, elevated the use of exotic techniques in a similar fashion. While still following the guidelines set by Félicien David, Bizet exploited them more subtly as a means to give depth to the emotional impact of the music. Bizet's future as a composer was determined very early in life. He was b o m to musical parents; his mother was a fine pianist, and his father was a voice teacher. Bizet grew up to the sound of voice lessons, which may account for the proliferation of ornaments, trills, and vocalise-like passages in his songs. Bizet also had a vague family connection with Félicien David: his mother's brother, with whom he studied voice, was for a brief time a Saint-Simonian. Precocious in training and talent, Bizet was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire at the age of nine, where he had a 27 28 brilliant student career. He studied counterpoint under Gounod, with whom he developed a lasting friendship. He became a piano virtuoso, and his score-reading skills at the piano were renowned. He studied composition under Halévy, whose sons Ludovic and Léon were to contribute the librettos to some of Bizet's operas. In 1857 Bizet won the highest prize that a French student of music could receive: the Prix de Rome. The stipulations of the prize were that he would receive government support for the next five years while he studied abroad and wrote a number of required compositions. Bizet spent three years in Italy and two more back in Paris. These years in Italy were the only time in his life that Bizet stepped outside the boundaries of France. He never saw any of the Oriental landscapes which inspired him so deeply. Yet over and over again, Bizet's genius with foreign coloration is proven. Despite his lack of firsthand knowledge, his exotic writings were extremely convincing. The Spanish composer Felipe Pedrell went so far as to claim that Bizet knew more about Spanish music than any Spanish composer.^ One of the works that Bizet wrote during his Prix de Rome years in Italy was a one-act comic operetta called La. cnizla de l'Émir. Never published and never performed, the score has vanished, but it earned praise from the judges in Paris to whom he sent the score. This obviously exotic score was the earliest example of Bizet's efforts in this arena.
' John W. Klein, "Reflections on Bizet's Diamileh." Music Review 35 (1974): 296. 29 Once back in Paris, La ouzla de l'Émir was scheduled for production at the Opéra-Comique. Rehearsals began, only to be cancelled abruptly in favor of another project. The Théâtre-Lyrique was given a subsidy to produce an opera by a Prix de Rome winner. The management of the Théâtre-Lyrique offered Bizet the story of Les pêcheurs de ■perles with the contract stipulation that the winner must not have had any previous premieres. Bizet accepted, after canceling the premiere of his one-act opera in order to remain eligible for this richer prize. This time Hindu rather than Arab culture captured Bizet's imagination. Eventually the music was deemed eclectic and derivative of Gounod, but tinged with genius in its evocations of the East. He filled Pêcheurs with daring harmonic ideas. The scoring emphasized the use of the flute, harp, tambourine, and oboe in imitation of exotic instruments. The vocal writing, especially for the part of Leila, was chromatic and ornamented with trills. These innovations puzzled the audience and irked the critics. Although the premiere was applauded as a success. Les pêcheurs de perles closed after eighteen performances. Bizet was nonetheless making progress. As a song writer, Bizet was uneven. He seemed most comfortable with the larger forms, particularly opera, where his sense of drama could best be used. Especially in the matter of exoticism, he needed the orchestra's palette of color. 30 Some of his exotic songs, such as "Rêve de la bien aimée," "J'aime l'amour," and "La chanson du fou," show skillful use of the exotic methods David pioneered. Despite this technical superiority, these songs are not considered great works of art. One song, however, is hailed as an unquestioned masterpiece. "Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe" is astonishing. Bizet's adept use of David's exotic techniques not only sets the scene but also portrays the feelings of the character. That character is a classic subject of exoticism: the lone, languishing woman. We have already seen her in David's "Amour pour amour" and "Tristesse de 1'odalisque". Here she is an Arab woman who may be a member of a harem. She has noticed a handsome young European traveller and fallen in love with him. She tries to persuade him to stay with her, enticing him with descriptions of her country's warmth and fertility. She says the young girls' hearts will pound at the sound of his voice as they dance barefoot in the sand for him. She paints the beguiling picture of a devoted girl waiting on him as she sits on her knees, fanning him and. singing to him. With increasing urgency, she begs him to stay. He refuses the invitation, and in desperation she bids him to remember her. The poem is one of Victor Hugo's orientales. Bizet makes the most of the tension and longing in this situation. Where David had made a single straightforward shift from minor to major in the same two relative keys and the same place in each unvaried strophic verse, Bizet flashes from 31 major to minor in varying keys with such rapidity as to allow only a glimpse of the harmonic color before it changes. This underscores the tension in the Arab heroine's heart as she changes from flirtation to begging, from offering him the peaceful charms of life with her to revealing the pain his departure causes her. in the first verse of the song, the harmonic scheme runs through c minor, g minor, c minor, B- flat major, C major, and finally returns to c minor. The second verse, slightly varied, progresses from c minor to G major, c minor. E-flat major, B-flat major, b-flat minor, and a series of short sequences that bring the key center back to c minor. This allows for a bewildering chromatic display in the melocfy line, exerrplified in a passage that covers an octave by half-steps in its descent (Figure 5).
- to. f I i El sou.hai . lent Ic
vre . *fr/j i/o. nemprry' Him: V con ixhncio. ^ g i~ i i i'^ ' # Kiiir, (Ic.vant li'iir porte___ a s .s i s ,’’l)fs*eii a U 1er «Ians lew e,
a Temp»
Figure 5; Chromatic scale in Bizet's •Adieux de 1'hôtesse arabe" (CPP/Belwin, Inc., publisher. Used by permission.) 32 Another chronaticism Bizet uses is the augmented second (Figure 6). This interval, forbidden in traditional Western counterpoint, approximates some of the larger intervals of the Arab scale. The augmented second may have held an overtone of unhappiness for Bizet; he would later use it in the "Fate" motif in Carmen.
p armpUcr.
hiisqiic rien nct’ar. rêtc en cet heureux pa _ js,
Figure 6: Augmented second in Bizet's "Adieux da l'hôtesse arabe" (CPP/Belwin, Inc., publisher. Used by permission.)
Also present is the pedal tone; here it is not just one note but a more "barbaric" sounding open fifth. That fifth in the bass is sounded over and over as part of the repeated rhythmic figure (Figure 7).
Aiulantlnu.
VP
Figure 7 : Open fifth, pedal tone, and repeated rhythmic figure in Bizet's "Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe" (CPP/Belwin, Inc., publisher. Used by permission.)
The most amazing feature of the song is the final melisma. What in Hugo's poem was a siitple resigned "Souviens-toi" ("Remember") becomes in Bizet's setting a 33 moment of high drama, an outpouring of unsatisfied longing. It ends with a very evocative closely-spaced chromatic ornament that resolves into a trill, a Western rendering of the florid Arab style of vocal music (Figure 8).
» îoii.viens- » Tempo. p u frrg e'lnfemenl
pofti erne tf ftnn. O tmorzain/u. rnl . leu . In» . ,//».
Figure 8: Melisma, chromaticism, and trill in Bizet's "Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe" (CPP/Belwin, Inc., publisher. Used by permission.)
Although Bizet used the same methods to paint a foreign landscape as David, he developed them further, toward a slightly different end. Part of this may be attributed to Bizet's superior gifts as a conposer. Bizet created an inner emotional mood as well as an exterior geographical setting with these methods. As Bizet's biographer Winton Dean observed, "Whereas with David exoticism was an end in itself, an attenpt to paint coloured pictures because the colour was strange and exciting, Bizet is already using it as a vehicle to convey character and dramatic atmosphere."'
*Winton Dean, Bizet: His Life and Work (London: J.M. Dent, 1965), 172. 34 "Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe" is definitely a woman's song, and the original key of c minor would place it in the soprano repertoire. However, it is published in a lower key (a minor) for mezzo-soprano, and the sensuality of the text makes it well-suited for a darkly colored voice. In either case, the singer needs agility for the final melisma and low notes that are capable of dramatic impact. The range is low B-flat to high A-flat for the soprano, or low G to high F for the mezzo. Exoticism marked two of the important works of Bizet's mature period. The one act opera Djamileh. the story of an Egyptian slave girl who saves her master out of love for him, shows the same remarkable instinctive use of exotic idioms to magnify the emotional impact of the moment. For those who side with Victor Hugo in believing that Spain is an exotic country, the Spanish-influenced Carmen was to be the highest achievement of Bizet's life. Bizet's greatest works were inspired by foreign cultures and their indigenous music. CHAPTER IV Saint-Saëns and "Mélodies persanes," Op. 2 6
The word "genius" may be overused in speaking of the great conposers, but it nonetheless applies to Camille Saint- Saëns (1835-1921). Possessed of brilliant intellect, lively curiosity, and prodigious talent that manifested itself very early in his life, Saint-Saëns was hailed as a master while still in his teenage years. B o m to artistic parents (his father wrote and his mother painted) in Paris, Saint-Saëns showed an interest in the parlor piano in babyhood. Such was his intelligence that he learned his notes from his aunt as he learned to walk. He was performing by the age of four and condosing by the age of six. Music was not his only love. He mastered enough Latin to read the classics in only a few weeks. He enjoyed botany and astronomy as hobbies. He was passionately fond of literature, including the works of Racine and especially Victor Hugo, many of whose poems he was later to set to music. He gained expertise in all of these pursuits with the same uncanny facility he showed in music. He began formal piano studies at the age of seven and started composition lessons shortly thereafter. His official
35 36 début occurred when he was ten years old; as an encore, the precocious boy offered to play any Beethoven sonata from memory/ He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1848 at the age of thirteen, where he began to win prizes for organ and conç)osition. In 1849, Saint-Saëns made the acquaintance of the fascinating Pauline Viardot, a singer famous for her electrifying performances and infamous for her promiscuous affairs. Madame Viardot engaged Saint-Saëns as her accompanist, and she began to introduce him to the most elevated circle of Parisian musical life. Through the years, Pauline Viardot would be the genesis of Saint-Saëns' friendships with Gounod, Liszt, Berlioz, Bizet, and Rossini. Saint-Saëns developed an idolatry of Mozart early in life, when he was presented with the gift of a score of Don Giovanni at the age of six. Mozart's style was a role model for him. Eventually Saint-Saëns was to become known for the clean, unaffected manner of his playing and his abstract, instrumental approach to composition. Whereas opera had been the primary interest of his immediate predecessors, Saint-Saëns played a role in reviving the instrumental forms in France. His compositional output was more concerned with the formal demands of symphonies and concertos than with the dramatic interests of opera. As a proponent of the "Art for Art's Sake" movement, emotion interested him less than technique. He decried the need for
'Elaine Brody, Paris; The Musical Kaleidoscope. 1870-1925 (New York: George Braziller, 1987), 286. 37 emotional expression at the expense of structure in art :
If Art accommodates itself marvelously, if it accords itself with the precepts of morality and passion, it is nevertheless sufficient unto itself - and in its self- sufficiency lies its heights of greatness. The first prelude of Sebastian Bach's Wohltemperirte Klavier [sic] expresses nothing, and yet that is one of the marvels of music
Perhaps this is one contributing factor to the relative obscurity of Saint-Saëns' vocal writings. While they are beautifully executed from a technical point of view, they are not always emotionally inspired. Of his thirteen operas, only one remains recognized today: Samson et Dalila. As with Bizet, the exotic setting brought out an extra degree of inspiration. Nothing prior to this point in Saint-Saëns' life indicated any particular interest in exoticism for him. His role model composers were Mozart, Beethoven, and Liszt. The use of foreign sound effects in the work of these composers is infrequent, yet Saint-Saëns had a substantial streak of exoticism in his works. This may be due to his acquaintance with Bizet and Gautier, who were deeply inspired by the Orient. Being an ardent fan of Victor Hugo's verse, he may have been motivated by some of Hugo's orientales. On the other hand, he may simply have been following a fashionable trend of his time. Saint-Saëns began composing Samson at Dalila in 1858, a task which continued on and off until 1877. The desert
' Camille Saint-Saëns, Musical Memories, trans. Edwin Gile Rich (New York: Da Capo Press, 1959), 81. 38 locale of this biblical story afforded aitç)le opportunity for Eastern musical effects. This was not the only exotic work that Saint-Saëns coirposed at the time. His piece for military band, "Occident et orient," dates from 1869. In 1871, the height of the japonisme fad in Paris, he created the Japanese operetta Lq princesse iaune. Also in 1871 he wrote the song "Désir de 1 'Orient." Like Bizet, Saint-Saëns had not traveled to foreign climes or heard any authentic exotic music. Like Bizet, he used the exotic devices that Félicien David had created in an adept, instinctive manner. Also like Bizet, he elevated them to a slightly higher level of sophistication. The "Mélodies persanes," Op. 26, is set to texts by the poet Armand Renaud, taken from a collection of verse entitled "Nuits persanes." The premiere of this set of songs was performed by Saint-Saëns' friend Henri Regnault, a painter and also a fine tenor. Saint-Saëns wrote the "Mélodies persanes" in 187 0, at the time of the outbreak of the Franco- Prussian War, when he was a volunteer in the French National Guard. Sadly, Henri Regnault was killed in that war. The first song of the six is "La brise." The poem sets the scene of a harem in Zaboulistan. Concubines with pink- painted nails dance for their jealous sultan, guarded by a eunuch with his saber in hand. In defiance of the sultan's decree that no one shall see his women, the breeze slips in and plays over their lips and charms their hearts. The breeze accortçjlishes what the dreaming poet wants to, but 39 cannot. This sensuous song was dedicated to Pauline Viardot, Saint-Saëns' friend who led such a full romantic life. The outstanding exotic techniques used in this song are modality and repeated open fifths in the accortpaniment (Figure 9). The tonal center of the song is E, with a key signature of two sharps, resulting in the Dorian mode. I^ Allcçrclto liisiiigando PIANO
m
Figure 9; Modal melody, repeated rhythm, and open fifths in Saint-Saëns' "La brise" (Public domain)
The repeated rhythmic pattern in the bass of the accompaniment is in imitation of the rhythmic patterns of Eastern music, patterns over which improvisations are created. The open fifths in this pattern are a further attempt to render the key ambiguous. In Eastern music the primary elements are melody emd rhythm; harmony is not a factor. The exchange of mode is also used in "La brise": the key goes from Dorian to major when the poetry shifts from the 40 scene of the harem to the freedom of the breeze (Figure 10).
t o m
Figure 10: Mode change in Saint-Saëns' "La brise" (Public domain)
In the second song, "La splendeur vide," the poet speaks of having built a marvelous palace within his heart. The palace is filled with the scent of cinnamon, the pillars are encrusted with precious stones, and tame lions are prowling. Monarchs drink wine from ivory cups while seated on rich carpets. The scene is pleasant, but everything is motionless, silent, and dark. The one thing that would bring music and light to this scene is love. Without love, no matter how grand and luxurious the surroundings, the one who lives there is sad and enpty as the tomb. Again, Saint-Saëns makes use of the plaintive sounding Dorian mode in this song, but the key changes are frequent and varied. Roughly representing the harmonic progression in either major or minor keys, the piece begins in F-sharp major, and runs through A major, f-sharp minor, F-sharp major, E-flat major, and a series of sequences before returning to the original key. 41 Some of the syllables of the text are set melismatically (Figure 11). Saint-Saëns improves on Bizet's melismas through the use of grace notes, coming a little closer to the Arab style of singing. I Dans la nap - pe tranquil. Figure 11: Melismatic writing with grace notes in Saint-Saëns' ^La splendeur vide” (Public domain)
An interesting rhythmic device occurs in the third song of the set, "La solitaire. " Saint-Saëns uses an asymmetrical rhythm to set his text, the first example of this in the mélodies to be examined in this study. Asymmetricality, while very common in Eastern music, was rare in Western music at this time. The opening vocal phrase of this song is unremarkable at first glance. The notes seem to be grouped in four units of two beats, but the prosody of the text puts the accents in odd places, so that the result yields two units of three beats and one unit of two: "O fier jeune homme,” "Ô tueur de ga-," and “-zelles” (Figure 12).
0 fier jeune homme,ô tu . eur de gazeF^. les,
3 + 3 + 2 Figure 12: Asymmetrical rhythm in Saint-Saëns' "La solitaire” (Public domain) 42 The subject of this song is another lonely and lovely young woman imprisoned in a harem. She is in love with a hunter that she has seen from her window. She addresses him from afar, begging him to take her onto his horse and carry her away. She has shed useless tears over him, knowing he does not see or hear her. She bitterly resents a fate that allows her to be young, beautiful, and passionate, yet locked up in a palace. She observes the deadliness of his hunting weapons, begging the young man to kill her like the gazelles he hunts, thus putting an end to her sadness. One of the most remarkable songs of the "Mélodies persanes" is the virile and violent "Sabre en main." Instead of the all too frequent sensual languor of most exotic mélodiesf this piece is angry and full of brio. The hero of this piece is a hot-blooded rebel who glories in saddling up his horse at night to go on a rampage of killing and burning. His head is cool, his eye is steady, and his saber is restless in its sheath. He enjoys the terror he causes; he believes one is great when one is strong. He hopes to make rulers moan at the sound of his name, to wipe the marks of slavery from the face of mankind, and to accumulate such glory and power that the universe will writhe at his feet in the knowledge of its own worthlessness! This is no delicate pastel of sensual imagery, and Saint-Saëns does not set it as such. A melisma, normally reserved for the climactic point of a song, gives the hero a dramatic entrance in the very first vocal phrase of the piece (Figure 13). Again the mode is Dorian, g minor with a 43
ad lib, f ■■ ^ V i i J'ai mis à mon cheval sa hri . . de, sa
hride et sa selJe d’orj-
Figure 13: Melisma in the Dorian mode in Saint-Saëns' "Sabre an main" (Public domain) lowered seventh. An additional remarkable feature is a long piano postlude, marked fortissimo until the end, where the volume is upgraded to fortississimo. The music is full of accent and staccatos and dissonances, a reflection of the passion and bloodthirstiness of the hero. Saint-Saëns dedicated this song to its first interpreter, HenriRegnault. Regnault must have been quite a firebrand to merit it. Following this outburst is an introspective selection, "Au cimetière. " Against an accompaniment of unruffled solid chords, the text creates a melancholy mingling of joy and sadness, life and death, love and loneliness. This trait is derived from Egyptian culture, whicheitphasizes the mixed blessings of life and the brevity of happiness. The contrasts are reflected in the fluctuation of the sixth degree of the scale; in the key of A major, the F vacillates between between natural and sharp (Figure 14). The text presents the tableau of a couple sitting on a marble tombstone and speaking earnestly to each other. At the sound of their words, death stirs as though alive. The 44
Moderato assai CHANT
Moderato assai Assis surcet.teblaacbe torn . be nna corda
PIANO
Figure 14; Fluctuating F'b in Saint-Saëns' “Au cimetière" (Etablie domain) one on whose tombstone they sit may have loved in his lifetime; if so, his passing was without regret. If he loved no one, then his life was wasted. This couple agrees to love each other without regret, for while today may bring roses, tomorrow brings cypress trees (a symbol of mourning). Asymmetricality makes another unusual appearance here, this time not in the rhythm, but in the phrase length. The song is gently rocking along in 12/8 time, phrases of eight beats answered by phrases of six beats. Several times in the song, a 6/8 measure shifts the length of a phrase (Figure 15) so that a five-beat phrase follows the eight-beat phrase.
poco crescendo iii r' t SÜ Tecut, sans avoir en . vi .. « Iru]un cœur pour le sien ,.
= a = a •' - a v - a — j: i' i- pnco crescendo w Figure 15: Asymmetrical phrase in Saint-Saëns' "Au cimetière" (Public domain) 45 The final song of "Mélodies persanes" is about an opium dream, called "Tournoiement. " The poet is hallucinating under the effects of the drug, believing that he is whirling through space like a dead leaf. The turning is perpetual, accelerating against his will as he shivers and sweats simultaneously. He floats by caves, rocks, forests, shores, and wild beasts, without fear or care. He sees soldiers with sabers marching slaves past volcanoes. He travels past the domains of the Mongols and the Slavs. He feels controlled by the natural force that guides the stars in their paths, turning and turning as he climbs into the night sky, past the planets and constellations, into endless night. The accompaniment is a ceaseless undulation of sixteenth notes, like the whirling of the opium smoke and the turning of the hallucination. The augmented second is employed again (Figure 16).
tour _ _ ne, je tour _ _ ne, je tour. - ne.
Figure 16; Augmented second in Saint-Saëns' "Tournoiement" (Public domain)
"Mélodies persanes" as a group presents difficulties for one singer to perform. Saint-Saëns' original intention was for several singers to present the piece, and he wrote for several different voices. The score marks the "La brise" specifically for contralto (although the lowest note in the voice part is a middle C-sharp) . The medium range of "La 46 splendeur vide" is also suitable for a low voice. "La solitaire," however, has floating high F's and F-sharps that might be better sung by a soprano, and "Au cimetière" calls for a sustained pianissimo high A that definitely requires a high voice. "Tournoiement" makes use of high G's that are soft and sustained at the end of the song, again indicating a preference for a high voice. A tenor is the best choice for"Sabre en main," which lies around the top of the staff and demands dramatic high G's and F's, while the text is obviously meant to be sung by a man. In 1870, when Saint-Saëns wrote the "Mélodies persanes, " he had not traveled to any exotic countries. Tuberculosis forced him to go to Algeria in October of 1873, the first of many trips. He also managed to take multiple journeys to Ceylon, Egypt, and the Canary Islands. He occasionally made use of genuine exotic melodies, as in his orchestral "Suite algérienne," Op. 60, or the fantasy for piano and orchestra, "Africa," Op. 89. However, the compositional techniques he used were still basically the same catalog that David had created decades before. Although these techniques were being used in a more sophisticated manner they were still unauthentic and starting to become hackneyed. By the time Saint-Saëns wrote his last exotic composition in 1908, a piece for band called "Sur les bords du nil, " these devices must have seemed quite threadbare. Exoticism was still forcing foreign music into a Western mold which did not fit. There is no way to capture an 47 authentic Eastern scale with Western notation; the Eastern scale is built on different intervals. The Western concept of harmony is alien to Eastern music, which is dominated by rhythm rather than sonority. The idea that Eastern music droned (as represented by pedal tones) or was monotonous (as represented by repetitious rhythms) was due mainly to the untrained perceptions of the ethnocentric Western ear rather than fact No one had yet viewed exotic music as a legitimate form in its own right and appreciated its subtleties. That was about to change.
® Henri Quittard, "L'orientalisme musical. Saint-Saëns orientaliste," Revue musicale 5 (March l, 1906), 108-9. CHAPTER V Debussy and "Trois chansons de Bilitis"
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) seemed b o m to change the rules of music. His early influences were unorthodox, his attitude was fiercely independent; his mission was to avoid the limitations of the well-trodden path and find his own way. B o m into a poor family in the Saint-Germain district of Paris, Debussy had no formal education. His parents were working class people with no training or involvement in music. An aunt arranged for private piano lessons, at which he showed such promise that he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire in 1872. Debussy's early academic career was undistinguished. During his first years at the Conservatoire he won no prizes. It eventually became evident in his piano studies that he would never have a virtuoso's career. His pianistic style was too unusual to gain the approval of his instructors. His most outstanding characteristic at that time was his resistance to the strict rules of his composition teachers. Depending upon the degree of vision on the part of the professor, he was credited either with originality or a bad attitude.
48 49 Circxanstances improved after he began to study conposition with the liberal-minded Ernest Guiraud. The inprovement was so great that Debussy would eventually win the Prix de Rome for composition in 1884. During those Conservatoire days, Debussy was influenced by the music of Saint-Saëns, Delibes, and Lalo. He was attracted to the exotic even then; at a performance of Lalo's opera Namouna. Debussy showed his admiration in such a voluble way he had to be ejected from the theater.^ Exotic music freed him from some of the limitations of strict Conservatoire practice. Debussy became acquainted with the music of the Russian Five in the early 1880's when he traveled to Russia in the employ of Madame Nadezhda von Meek, TchaikovslQ^'s famous patroness. He studied scores by Mussorgsky, Rimsl^r-Korsakov, and Borodin, and was familiar with the Russian style of exoticism. His songs "Paysage sentimental" and "Void que le printemps" particularly show the influence of Borodin. When Debussy returned to Paris, Wagner was the reigning monarch of musical influence. Debussy was for a time part of the crowd that paid homage to the German composer, and he made two separate trips to Bayreuth in 1888 and 1889 to hear Wagner's operas. Debussy's "Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire" reveal the Wagnerian influence. Debussy's admiration was short-lived. Perhaps this was in part because Wagner was becoming such a popular interest, and Debussy usually held contempt for the mainstream.
'Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy (London: Dent, 1980), 12. 50 Perhaps it was that after his attempts to imitate the leading composers of his own country, the Russian Five, and then Wagner, he was now seeking his own esthetic- Erik Satie encouraged him to examine the poetry of the Symbolist writers and see if he could translate their ideals into a musical equivalent. Symbolism was a movement officially founded in 1886. The members included poets who were to become veiy closely associated with Debussy: Stephen Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Maurice Maeterlinck {whose play Pelléas et Mélisande would furnish the libretto for Debussy's only opera), and especially Pierre Louÿs. The guiding concept of Symbolism was to communicate through allusion and imagery rather than declarative statement. Instead of using emotion, as had the Romantics, the Symbolists used sensual imagery. Debussy, whose affinity with literature was deep and perceptive, was drawn to this concept. He began to look for ways to imply harmony, rendering the key center more elusive. He translated the concept of tension in drama to chromaticism in music.' He eschewed traditional musical forms for the illusory quality of freer structures (this was the beginning of his use of the arabesque form). Debussy's attitude toward the established harmonic conventions are revealed in a conversation with his old composition teacher Guiraud that dates from about this time. He declared emphatically, if somewhat ungrammatically: "No
= Arnold Whittall, "Tonality and the Whole-Tone Scale in the Music of Debussy," Music Review 36 (1975), 271. 51 faith in the supremacy of the C major scale. The tonal scale must be enriched by other scales. I am not misled by equal temperament...Music is neither major nor minor. It was while he was involved in this process that he visited the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889. This visit was to have far reaching consequences in Western music. He visited the exhibition from Java, a reconstruction of a Javanese village called a kampong. There he heard for the first time the Javanese percussion ensemble called the gameIan, which accompanied traditional dancers known as bedayas. The gamelan Debussy heard was a small one in conparison to some, numbering from ten to fifteen instruments. Except for a two-stringed bowed instrument called a rehab, the instruments were all percussion types. The gaiabang was a sort of xylophone, along with a metal, keyed version called a saron. The bonang was two rows of pitched metal pots, one row an octave lower, suspended in a wooden frame. Along with these novel instruments was an assortment of gongs and drums. Another ensemble performed in the kampong, providing fanfares that announced the beginning of the gamelan concerts. This group played a set of tuned bamboo rattles called anklungs. While such exotic instruments had been on display at previous exhibitions, this was the first time that they were played by skilled native musicians. Julien Tiersot, in his published commentary on the musical events at the 1889
" Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy: His Life and Mind. Volume 1 (London: Casell, 1962), 206. 52 Exhibition, noted the difference:
It was the great interest of this Exhibition to bring to life some objects that we were acquainted with in inert and mute form...Although we had been able to consider the peculiar forms and the brilliant colors (of the instruments), to listen to certain isolated notes, to admire certain sonorities, for example, the sounds of the enormous gongs, full and sonorous as a bell of a cathedral, the principal ingredient escaped us. It was as if someone had shown us a complete collection of violins, cellos, flutes, horns, etc., and had told us: 'This is the orchestra of the Conservatoire.' Only one thing would be lacking: the symphonies of Beethoven.*
Debussy was thunderstruck by what he heard. He spent hours at a time on multiple visits, listening and absorbing the music. He would be remembering and writing about these sounds for decades afterward. Twenty four years later in 1913, Debussy devoted a section of his essay on "Taste" to the gamelan:
There used to be — indeed, despite the troubles that civilization has brought, there still are — some wonderful peoples who learn music as easily as one learns to breathe... Their traditions are preserved only in ancient songs, sometimes involving dance, to which each individual adds his own contribution century by century. Thus Javanese music obeys laws of counterpoint that make Palestrina seem like child's play.^
Aside from the Javanese counterpoint, Debussy delighted in several other aspects of gamelan music. The lyrical properties of these percussion instruments interested him.
* Tiersot quoted and translated in Richard Mueller, "Javanese Influence on Debussy's Fantaisie and Beyond," Nineteenth Century Music 10, n2 (Fall 1986), 158.
* Claude Debussy, Debussy on Music, trans. Richard Langham Smith (London: Knopf, 1977), 278. 53 Next to Western percussion, these instruments were softer, richer, and carried pitch capable of defining melody. They created different rhythmic effects. The rhythms were more corrplex than anything Debussy had heard. Very rapid rhythms were simultaneous with slow and medium patterns, duplets were presented against triplets, both in varying teir^os. The result was a fantastic web of rhythm unlike anything in European music. The scales were different. The gamelan Debussy heard was probably tuned to the slendro scale, a scale that divides the octave into five intervals slightly larger than a whole step. Not all of the intervals are equal, in this, Debussy perceived the liberation from the confining concepts of major, minor, and equal temperament against which he chafed. He heard rich chords containing sevenths, ninths, elevenths, and even thirteenths that did not resolve in the way demanded by Western rules. He also discovered a musical structure that suited his taste for freedom of form. The gending (gamelan condosition) is based on the concept of the nuclear theme, presented simultaneously in several different voices of the ensemble. Typically, the lower and more profound the voice of the instrument, the slower the statement; the higher the voice, the more rapid and varied the presentation. This gives the effect of free-flowing variations occurring over a bass ostinato. The form is horizontal in concept, a type of layered polyphony in which the vertical structure of chords is irrelevant. 54 These elements inspired new style characteristics in Debussy's music. Tamagawa outlines these features in ascending order of importance: 1) Oriental subject matter, or titles evocative of the East. 2) Passages or forms built around an ostinato in which variations are presented simultaneously. 3) Scales, sonorities, and motives derived from gamelan material. Since the scales of the gamelan are impossible to represent accurately in the Western system of notation, Debussy adapted the slendro scale to the whole tone scale and the pentatonic scale. 4) Timbre and rhythm in imitation of the percussive effects of gamelan instruments. 5) Texture that approximates the gending form: slowly moving, ponderous bass lines, a moderately moving melody in the middle voicing, and rapid, florid lines in the high register.* The techniques Debussy acquired were demonstrated in a concert of his own music at the subsequent Exposition Universelle of 1900. That concert included the String Quartet, the Prix de Rome cantata. La demoiselle élue, and the "Trois chansons de Bilitis." The "Trois chansons de Bilitis" make use of nearly all of the gamelan influences. Written in 1897, they are settings of poems by Debussy's friend, the Symbolist poet
* Kiyoshi Tamagawa, "Echoes from the East: the Javanese Gamelan and Its Influence on the Music of Claude Debussy" (D.M.A. diss.. University of Texas at Austin, 1988), 32-34. 55 Pierre Louÿs. Louÿs claimed to have found and translated an antique manuscript by Bilitis, a woman of early sixth century Greece. This claim was later discovered to be untrue; the poems are entirely Louÿs' work. The setting of ancient Greece, remote in both geography and time, gives Debussy his exotic subject matter. Perhaps "exotic" is not quite the appropriate word, since that term usually implies Asia or Africa or India. Lockspeiser uses the phrase "Debussyan paganism"’ when speaking of this aspect of Debussy's works. The poems are literally pagan, involving the god Pan and evocations of nymphs, satyrs, and naiads. The first of the set of songs is "La flûte de Pan." In this song, Bilitis is a veiy young woman in her first naive romantic encounter. A young man has given her a panpipe. He shows her how to play it by seating her on his lap and playing very softly to her. The experience makes her tremble. She tries to play, and then he plays again; slowly their lips meet on the flute. They remain thus for awhile, until the evening song of the tree frogs makes her realize she has been away too long. She departs hastily, worried that her mother will suspect something. This song is rhythmically diverse. The voice part contains irregular rhythms, but this is due more to Debussy's manner of imitating speech patterns in singing than any exotic influence. However, the accompaniment contains persistent triple rhythms contained within slower duple
’ Lockspeiser, D_ebussy. 133. 56 rhythms (Figure 17), in imitation of the gamelan.
m
Figure 17: Rhythmic conpexity in Debussy's "La flûte de Pan” (International Music, publisher - used by permission)
Percussive sonorities are frequent in the accompaniment. The sound of the gong is recreated in the bass line, usually in open octaves or fifths. In a gending, the gongs sound at specific points that signal a new section of the composition. In "La flûte de Pan," Debussy's pianistic gong effects are played by the left hand before each statement of the syrinx melody is played by the right hand (Figure 18) .
P
a tempo J9
Figure 18: Gong imitations in Debussy's "La flûte de Pan” (International Music, publisher - used by permission) 57
Another kind of percussive effect was inspired by the ensemble of anklungs, the bamboo rattles that provided fanfares for the gamelan. An anklung can be shaken continuously, creating a tremolo, or it can be given a single flick of the wrist, which sounds like a sharp staccato followed by an echo." The result is like a quick anacrusis or a grace note. In "La flûte de Pan," the passage in imitation of the tree frogs' song contains this effect (Figure 19). It not only imitates the anklung, it is also a fairly accurate rendition of a frog chorus.
Plus lent
ÿyp léger mais sans sécheresse
Figure 19 : Percussive effects in Debussy's "La flûte de Pan" (International Music, publisher - used by permission)
The following song, "La chevelure, " takes Bilitis from her days of innocence to mature sexuality. She recalls an encounter with her lover, who tells her of a dream he had the previous night. He dreamed of her hair, twining around him. As he stroked her hair, it became his own, and the two of them came together, growing together like two trees that share the same root. It came to him that they were not only bound together but that they became one being. After telling
* Mueller, "Javanese Influence...," 176. 58 her this, the man puts his hands on Bilitis' shoulders and gazes at her so tenderly that she trembles. This is indeed a passionate song, full of tension that builds and releases in a very Freudian way. Debussy creates musical tension with a high degree of chromaticism. The mood is set in the opening bars with a series of chords that slides chromatically down the scale by half steps (Figure 20).
Assez lent Voice II ma dit; Assez lent
PIANO p tres expressif
Figure 20: Chromaticism in Debussy's "La chevelure" (International Music, publisher - used by permission)
Another kind of tonality change occurs through the use of the whole tone scale (derived frcxn the gamelan's slendro scale). Since this scale has no differing intervals in its sequence, it does not point to any pitch as the tonal center. It could begin or end anywhere, sounding as though it has no destination. This potential of the whole tone scale to sound aimless adds to the surreal quality of the lover's dream (Figure 21). 59
Je les ca.ressais,et c'etaientlesmiens;
9 ‘ 9 9.----9-0- et nous e . tlons II . éspourtoujours aln_sl,
Figure 21: Whole tone scale in Debussy's "La chevelure" (International Music, publisher - used by permission)
"Le tombeau des naïades" is the final song of the set, and it takes Bilitis into old age. Instead of a desirable young woman, she is here depicted as trudging through the snow in muddy sandals with icicles hanging from her stringy hair. She is in search of the iiythical creatures of her youth, nymphs and naiads. As she is following what she believes to be a satyr's track, she runs into a man. He tells her there are no more of these creatures, the winter has killed them all; the footprints are merely a goat's. He cracks the frozen surface of the spring where the naiadsonce swam. Taking a piece of the ice, he holds it up. The two of them look through it, seeing the world from the sober, aged perspective of winter. The gong and the anklung reoccur at the end of the song, with open fifths struck in the bass line, and repeated chords anticipated by grace notes in the top voice (Figure 22). 60
Figure 22; Gong and anklung effects in Debussy's "Le tombeau des naïades" (International Music, publisher - used by permission)
In all three of these songs, the imitation of the stratified gamelan style is present. This is the effect that Tamagawa considers most inçjortant in Debussy's exoticism: the slow, deep bass line, the melody pitched in the middle, and a florid high part to crown the whole (Figures 23-25) .
g , - ^ ^ — *— nrrm II m'apprend à jouer, as. sisesursesge . noux ; mais je suis un peu trem-
i h \ n n m a 1 m r r Figure 23; Gamelem "layering" in Debussy's "La flûte de Pan" (International Music, publisher - used by permission)
cl nous e . tlons II . éspourtoujours aln.sl,
Figure 24; Gamelan "layering" in Debussy's"La chevelure' (International Music, publisher - used by permission) 61
Figure 25: Gamelan "layering" in Debussy's 'Le tombeau des naïades" (International Music, publisher - used by permission)
The most important aspect of Debussy's exotic techniques is that they are not necessarily used to invoke a foreign culture. Debussy meant to find a new way to express tonality through these methods, and not to provide a geographical portrait of Greece. Indeed, by this point in his life, he had conteitpt for that kind of musical travelogue, calling Delibes' Lakmé "...sham, imitative Oriental bric-a-brac."' Debussy no longer limited the use of altered scales, intricate rhythms, etc., to exoticism. These became sane of the hallmarks of Impressionism, a whole new musical language which influenced coiiçjosers for a generation and beyond.
Lockspeiser, Debussv: His life and Mind I, 208. CHAPTER VI Roussel and "Deux poèmes c h i n o i s Op.12
Like Debussy, Albert Roussel (1869-1937) strove for individuality. He preferred not to align himself with any particular movement or group of composers, in order to give his own personality better expression. Exoticism furnished him with some of the techniques that helped him break away from the style of his teachers. Roussel was b o m in Tourcoing, France, to a wealthy and influential family. His father died of consumption when Albert was an infant. His mother taught him the rudiments of piano, theory, and sight singing, but these studies were interrupted when she died in 1877 . For a while, the eight- year-old boy lived with his grandfather, who was the mayor of Tourcoing and had little time for him. Albert filled in the lonely hours by reading through the song sheets and opera scores in the family library. His grandfather died only three years later, and the young Roussel went to yet another home with his aunt, Madame Requillard. She noted his musical interests and allowed him to take lessons with the local church organist. Roussel decided to become a naval officer, despite his love for music. In 1887 he was accepted into the French
62 63 naval academy and embarked on a two-year tour of duty at sea. He had access to a piano on this voyage, and took a music theory text with him for further study. One of his assignments allowed him to live on shore in Cherbourg, and he became very active with his music, playing piano trios with friends and beginning serious efforts at composition. The first public performance of one of his works took place on Christmas day, 1892, at the church of the Trinity in Cherbourg. He showed some of his scores to a fellow officer who was related to the famous singer, Emma Calvé. This officer was highly impressed and encouraged Roussel to pursue composition as a career. Roussel was subsequently assigned to a voyage to the Far East. He visited Siam and Cochin China,retaining some vivid musical impressions. He enjoyed these countries so much that he would return for an extended tour on his honeymoon in 1908. Upon his return, he visited his family in the city of Roubaix. While there he showed some of his music to the director of the Roubaix Conservatoire. Again he was encouraged to take up music as a career. This time Roussel took the advice. In June of 1894, at the age of twenty-five, he resigned his naval commission. By October he was in Paris studying with Eugène Gigout. Gigout grounded him in the music of earlier masters; Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven. Roussel obtained his mastery of counterpoint and fugue from Gigout's tutelage. 64 Roussel first met Vincent d'indy in 1898 and was enrolled shortly thereafter in d'indy's newly opened Schola Cantorum. This school was highly conservative in comparison with the Paris Conservatoire. The curriculum was rigid and the composition students were taught to adhere to strict rules of form and style. These rules followed d'Indy's own French Romantic ideals. Roussel was to be the most successful product of the Schola Cantorum, but not until he broke away from some of his alma mater's concepts. He was appointed professor of counterpoint at the Schola Cantorum in 1902 and held that position until he finished his studies in 1908. During his years there, Roussel began to develop his unique style. The Schola Cantorum's heavy, sustained style of rich sonorities that owed much to Franck and d'indy began to give way to a transparent, rhythmically active sound in Roussel's music. The watershed piece was his "Divertissement, " Op. 6. This sprightly chamber work for piano and winds was the first exaitçjle of what Austin calls Roussel's "sonorous play."^ During the years before World War I, the earliest period of Roussel's composition, his style is dominated by the Schola Cantorum's careful attention to structure, and In^ressionism's concern with hazy harmonic color. Paul Landormy is often quoted in his description of Roussel as "... somewhat like a Debussy trained in the school of
’William W. Austin, Music in the Twentieth Century from Debussy through Stravinsky (New York: W.W. Norton,1966), 420, 65 count erpo int."^ The influence of the foreign music he heard on his voyage to Cochin China may have contributed to this style. The light, percussive quality of the music, its rapid rhythms, and its nondiatonic harmony are all present in Roussel's early compositions. This period also marked the beginning of an interest in the translations of Herbert Giles. Giles was a professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge whose many books and translations were giving the Western world new insight into Chinese culture. He had collected an anthology of Chinese poems and translated them into English verse. Roussel learned of them in H.P. Roche's French renderings. Roussel would eventually set three pairs of these poems: Opus 12, Opus 35, and Opus 47. It is in the earliest pair, the "Deux poèmes chinois," Op. 12, that the Chinese inspiration shows most strongly. The first song of this group is considered one of Roussel's finest works. It is based on a poem by Yin Chih Pu, one that was selected by Confucius to be placed in his collection entitled National Odes of China. There seems to have been some confusion in the translation. Giles called it "To a Young Gentleman,", and Roché's French is entitled "Ode à un jeune gentilhomme," but the original Chinese was
' Paul Landormy, "Albert Roussel," translated by Manton Monroe Marble, Musical Ouarterlv. 24, n.4 (October, 1938), 513. 66 addressed to a woman/ Nonetheless, Roussel meant the song to speak to a man. It depicts an agitated young lady whispering from within the walls of her bedroom to her lover in the street outside. She begs him not to come in as he might crush her willow trees. Not that she would be upset about that, but she is worried about what her parents would say. Even though she loves him, she does not dare think what might happen. Evidently the amorous boy is undeterred, because she implores again that he not come over the wall of her garden; he might damage her mulberry trees. Again, that does not distress her so much, but what would her brothers say? She does love him, but she dare not even think about the consequences- Still he advances, by now approaching her window. Her voice rising frantically, she begs him not to push the shutters open. She would not mind, but everyone will talk. Even though she loves him so much, she does not dare to think what could happen. The poem never reveals what the young man finally does, but Roussel provides a puckish hint of his own. A final ascending figure in the piano accompaniment (Figure 26) paints the image of the youth lightly hopping over the windowsill into his lady's room. The brightness and humor of the poem are well matched to the hallmarks of Roussel's style in this period. He sets the
3 Ti-Fei Hsu, "Chinese Influence in Four Twentieth Century Song Cycles by Roussel, Carpenter, Griffes, and Britten" (D.M.A. diss.. The American Conservatory of Music, 1988), 25. 67
PP
Figure 26: Final image in Roussel's "Ode à un jeune gentilhorme" (Copyright 1989 by Éditions Salabert, Paris, Used by permission) poem with a quickly moving, transparent accompaniment in which the rhythms get more conplex as the character of the poem gets more agitated. The resulting feeling is percussive (Figure 27), hearkening back to Debussy's gamelan influences.
Figure 27: Percussive effect in Roussel's "Ode à un jeune gentilhomme"t (Copyright 1989 by éditions Salabert, Paris. Used by permission.)
The most remarkable feature of this song is that it is written entirely in pentatonic scales. There is not a single passing tone or other embellishment in either the piano part or vocal line that does not belong to the pentatonic mode. Roussel varies the tonality through the use of abrupt modulations upward, transposing the scale into a different set of notes, but always conforming to the pentatonic pattern 68 (Figure 28).
A u inouvî K.'>1. } } J' ll" m pei . ne, Mais que di . raient mon pere et ma .tress me; Blit vhat xronld fa ther and moth.er
m P
Figure 28: Trauisition between pentatonic scales in Roussel's “Ode a un jeune gentilhomme" (Copyright 1989 by Éditions Salabert, Paris. Used by permission.)
The gong is imitated as well (Figure 29) . The Javanese gong signaled the beginning of a new section in a gamelan piece. The Chinese used the gong to begin and end entire selections. Roussel's use of his gong effect (a whole note chord in the bass of the piano) marks the transition from verse to interlude in the piano part. Number Two in Roussel's Opus Twelve carries the title of “Amoureux séparées." The original poem is by Fu-Mi, who lived in the late third and early fourth centuries. The story describes two lovers, a young beauty in the realm of Chao and her handsome swain in the kingdom of Yen. Their two countries are separated by an inpassable mountain range. The young man calls out to the clouds and the winds, commanding them to act as his steeds and carry him over the mountains. The clouds do not hear his voice, and the fickle breeze rises 69
Je n’o . se pen . ser I hard. ly dare think
retenez Plus vite
Hoir they rronld scold next day!.
PP
Figure 29: Gong effect in Roussel's “Ode à un jeune gentilhomme“ (Copyright 1989 by Éditions Salabert, Paris. Used by permission.) only to fall again. He is left with the solitude of his thoughts, dreaming of the woman he will never reach. In this song Roussel applies Debussy's concept of music as being "neither major nor minor." As in Eastern music, which does not use these two types of modality, he avoids stating the tonality too directly through the use of added tones, ambiguously functioning chords, and frequent abrupt modulations of the type he used in “Ode à un jeune gentilhomme." The initial key signature of the piece is three flats, meaning in the Western system either E-flat major or c minor. However, the first chord of the piece 70 could function either as an E-flat major chord with an added sixth or a c minor chord with an added seventh. Only the entrance of the voice gives the piece a vague feeling of c minor (Figure 30). That tonal center is shifted with no warning at measure six (Figure 31).
* ^ Modérément animé P # w # 1--- 1' " K ■■ p 1 4 - . P - i ^ Dans le roya n . me de ''fen There,in the kingdom of Ven -/Zm— :— p -■ “W .. — k— f e t t t ' 1 T p p v ^ p
— m- 17^:1 1, p p f t 7 ~ " . «===F
Figure 30: Ambiguous harmony in Roussel's "Amourewc séparées" (Copyright 1989 by Éditions Salabert, Paris. Used by permission.)
Dans ie ro.yau.me de Cha. WAiie in the kingdom of Cka.
m p
Figure 31: Abrupt modulation in Roussel's "Amoureux séparées" (Copyright 1989 by Éditions Salabert, Paris. Used by permission.) 71 The final cadence leaves an undefined modality as well. By this point, the key center is B-flat. The voice is on the tonic note, and the piano plays only the fifth and the tonic (Figure 32). The third is entirely avoided, and so is modality.
Ti'ès lent
je n’al-tein-rdrai pas., nev . er trill be mine.
d i m .
PP
Figure 32: Final cadence in Roussel's “Ainourexpc séparées" (Copyright 1989 by Éditions Salabert, Paris, Used by permission.)
The meter is asymmetrical, following the so-called aimless quality of Eastern music. The meter switches unpredictably from 3/4 to 4/4 except in the central section. This section imitates the rhythm of a galloping horse in consistent 3/4 time throughout. Again, a gong effect marks the transition from the first part of the song to this galloping second part. The gong effect is in the low G-flat octave in the bass part of the piano (Figure 33). Both songs of Roussel's Opus Twelve are suitable for high or medium high voices. Because of the text, "À un jeune gentilhorme" is probably better sung by a woman. This song goes from middle C to a high G and the tessitura lies in the 72 crrsi-
chai . ne de monts à pic------les se r i . Its a chain of mount . a im th a t i l j > 'ip crp.ic. poco poco
fL
bien.. pa re bel et bien.. » ft XJn p eu pi us an im é'
Figure 33: Gong effect in Roussel's "Amoureux séparées" (Copyright 1989 by Éditions Salabert, Paris. Used by permission.) upper half of the staff. "Amoureux séparées" spans middle 0 to high G-flats. Since the G-flats should be sung fairly gently and the tessitura is roughly equivalent to that of "Â un jeune gentilhomme," only very skillful lower voices should sing this piece. In these two songs Roussel attempted to portray Chinese color, but the techniques he used to achieve this effect served a deeper purpose. They were stylistic tools that he used to evolve as a composer, serving as experiments in Inpressionism as much as exoticism. Roussel's later Chinese odes are not meant to sound exotic, and they do not. They 73 do, however, make use of the devices of ambiguous tonality, dissonance, and unprepared modulations that Roussel began using in these earlier songs. Only months after composing the second song of Opus Twelve, Roussel married and took a long honeymoon trip to India and Southeast Asia. This tour was to have even greater impact on him than the visit during his military days. India in particular left a vivid impression. The sounds Roussel heard were imitated in his orchestral suite Evocations. Op. 15, and the suite for flute and piano, "Joueurs de flûte," Op. 27. One of his masterpieces was his only opera, Padmâvâti. which makes use of genuine ragas, the melodic patterns of Indian classical music. Padmâvâti also borrows its story from an episode in thirteenth century Indian history. Padmâvâti is the wife of a Hindu king who is coveted by a rival sultan. The sultan threatens to destroy the king's city unless he can have Padmâvâti. The king orders her to acquiesce to the sultan's wishes, but she kills her husband rather than endure the grievous dishonor. She then faithfully ascends her husband's funeral pyre. The fire destroys the city the sultan vowed to take, and he is left with nothing but ashes. Despite the genuine elements of Indian music used, this type of exoticism is more than an attempt to evoke the sounds of a foreign culture. As such, it is different from what was known in earlier exotic operas. Cooper explains it best: 74 Roussel's music (in Padmâvâti) stands almost alone in Western music for the authenticity of its orientalism...but his music never gives the impression of being a pastiche or imitation of the original. Still less does it recall that of the nineteenth-century French operas, where the oriental element is no more integral than the stage sets. Roussel's secret seems to have been that of all those who aim, in Falla's words, at 'authenticity without literalism' in their treatment of traditional music - an ability to use that tradition for their own purposes, to create a parallel, similar effect to that of authentic folk-music.*
' Cooper, French Music. 17 4. CHAPTER VII Delage and "Quatre poèmes hindous"
Very little is known about Maurice Delage (1879-1961). The scant information that does exist is due to his close association with Stravinsky and Ravel. Delage's life and music seem to have been minimized by his colleagues' fame. This is not to say that his works are deservedly obscure. His reputation amongst his illustrious friends was that of a master craftsman who created music of the highest quality. Delage was b o m into a wealthy family that had apparently no particular affinity to music. He received no musical training in his formative years. As a young adult, he tried a few jobs in undistinguished fields: clerking in a maritime agency in Paris, working in a Boulogne fishery, and serving in the army. At some point he came into a large inheritance that made a job unnecessary for him. Delage did not get interested in music until he was in his twenties. He still undertook no formal study, however. He taught himself to play the piano and the cello purely by ear. He discovered that he possessed a wonderful auditory capacity for absorbing music, an ability he would use extensively as a conposer. Eventually, he became a pupil of Maurice Ravel. Despite his lack of formal training Delage must have shown 75 76 tremendous ability, as Ravel rarely took on a protégé. The two of them became fast friends. In 1902, Delage saw a performance of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande and was utterly overwhelmed. He and his friends believed that this work revolutionized their lives and altered the course of music as they knew it. The group began to meet regularly after concerts on Saturday nights in Delage's home in Auteuil, a southwest suburb of Paris, to discuss music, aesthetics, and their own works. They were all single young men of high spirits, and they earned the nickname of "Las apaches," a French slang term for "rowdies." Along with Delage and Ravel, the apaches included Florent Schmitt, Tristan Klingsor, Ricardo Vines, D.E. Inghilbrecht, and other members of the artistic intelligentsia.^ Somewhere around 1910, Stravinsky became part of this group, developing a very close friendship with Delage. Stravinsky regarded Delage as a calming influence that shielded him from the furor of public life in Paris. He also held Delage's music in high regard. Perhaps because of his lack of training, Delage composed laboriously and slowly. Another contributing factor to his difficulty in composing was his perfectionism. Delage strove for refinement, subtlety, and the masterful coloration in instrumental scoring that marked Ravel's music. His catalogue of works is small but iir^ressive, especially in the vocal pieces which conprise most of his output.
'Jann Pasler, "Stravinsky and the Apaches," Musical Times 123 (June 1982); 403. 77 Along with the influence of Debussy, exoticism left a deep irtpression on Delage's works. His father traveled extensively on business, and Maurice sometimes accompanied him. In 1912, father and son toured India. This trip served as the inspiration for several vocal works : "Ragaxnalika, " "Trois chants de la jungle" (set to texts from Rudyard Kipling's Junale Book), and the extraordinary "Quatre poèmes hindous." The "Quatre poèmes hindous" were written on the journey. Each song is dated with the month, year, and Indian city in which it was finished. They reflect strong Indian influence, especially in Delage's manner of translating the sounds of traditional Indian instruments to European equivalents. In classical Indian music, there are several groups of instruments used most often in accorrpanying songs. The lute family of plucked stringed instruments has long necks and may or may not be fretted. Prominent in this family is the tambura (an important element in accompanying song), which provides the drone, and the si tar, which plays melodies. The bowed string instruments include the European violin which in Indian music is played in a sitting position. The transverse flute is common in Indian music, often associated with the Hindu deity Krishna, who is said to have played the flute in his youth. Drums are often used to accompany a singer, especially the two-headed drum known as the tabla. In his scoring of "Quatre poèmes hindous, " Delage used piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, clarinets in A and B-flat, harp, and string quartet. The flute has an obvious 78 counterpart in Indian music, and Delage uses it accordingly. The oboe and clarinet are often given the same role as the flute. The strings, bassoon, and piano are used in varying ways - they may provide drone, or percussive effects, or melisma. Throughout the four songs, Delage creates a typically Indian quality in his rhythms. In the theory of Indian classical music, rhythm is not based on a regularly spaced pulse, as in the European system. It is dictated by the tala, a pattern of long and short values that could be referred to as a rhythmic mode. This mode is ordinarily much longer than a measure. To the Western ear, the absence of a regular downbeat results in an undefined, aimless effect. Delage's rhythms in this work convey this effect with complex combinations of duplet and triplet patterns with frequently changing meters. The voice writing throughout this set of songs seems to have no tonality, having numerous surprising resolutions and no perceivable tonal center. This is in keeping with the principles of raga. Raga is a melodic element, neither a scale nor a mode, but rather a series of intervals which serve as the basis for elaboration. As with tala, Western listeners hear this as an amorphous quality with no destination. To Indian listeners, the patterns are readily recognizable and therefore give definition to the melody. While Delage did not use actual ragas in the "Quatre poèmes hindous" he achieved that melodic quality that a European audience perceived as uncentered. 79 The first song is entitled "Une belle..." and was written in Madras in March of 1912. The text is a French translation of a classical Sanskrit verse by the fifth century author and philosopher, Bhartrhari, possibly translated by Delage himself. No translator is credited, and Delage was known to have translated native poetry on a trip to Japan. He may have studied Sanskrit just as he seems to have studied Japanese. This stanza describes a beautiful young woman walking through the forest at night, stopping to rest every now and then. She lifts the three gold veils that cover her breasts. Through this gesture, she returns to the moon the light in which she is bathed. In this song, the drone of the tambura is provided by a pairing of two A-clarinets in open fourths and fifths. The flute, clarinet, and oboe take turns executing rhythmically intricate melismatic melodies that embroider the fairly legato vocal part (Figure 34). These melodies contain
FLUTE
► Cl.
un peu tn dekore ntb
Figure 34: Florid melodies of the flute, clarinet, and oboe in Delage's "Une belle..." (Public domain) 80 closely spaced ornaments that imitate the microtones of the Indian ornament. Delage completed the next song of the set in Lahore in February, 1912. Entitled "Un sapin isolé...," the text is a French translation of Henrich Heine's "Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam" from his Lyrisches Intermezzo. This is the story of a single pine tree situated on a mountain in the North (north here may mean northern India or northern Europe - there is no specific indication). The tree is sleeping under a blanket of ice and snow while dreaming of a lone palm tree that grows on a burning rock in the sultry Orient. There are two extraordinary features in this setting. The first is the cello part in the opening measures of the song. The cello is plucked rather than bowed, and the plucked note immediately slides to another note. The result is an uncanny imitation of a sitar (Figure 35). This combination of pizzicato and glissando was revolutionary in 1912, a technique that was to be explored later by Bartok and other conposers.
sur la 2® C.
/ P »ikratc motto ne arco)
(I) le plit: accord ; en glissent le même doigt de le.U.Q.Attaquer le Corde fortement de leM.D. 1 Jouer les notes te r iie t qui, sur les Cordes 8 et <,sonneront I/2 ton eu-dessous.
Figure 35: Cello imitation of sitar in Delage's "Un sapin isolé..." (Public domain) 81 According to Coomaraswamy, this element of portamento between notes is important in Indian music:
In India, it is far more the interval than the note that is sung or played, and we recognize accordingly a continuity of sound: in contrast with this, the European song, which is vertically divided by the harmonic interest and the nature of the keyed instruments which are heard with the voice, seems to unaccustomed Indian ears to be 'full of holes.''
The other outstanding feature of this song is the extended concluding melisma in the voice part (Figure 36). This melisma is a word painting of the pine tree's yearning for a warmer climate and the palm tree's loneliness in its fertile land. Such word painting is a common practice in classical Indian song. The melisma is reserved for a moment of high emotional intensity, executed on the final syllable of the word to be emphasized.' The last word of the text before the melisma begins is "brûlant," and the melisma is sung on the final sound of that word, a nasal "an" vowel. Delage directs the singer to close her mouth to a hum and reopen to the nasal vowel. Also present is the portamento, indicated by a slur in some of the larger leaps. The floridity, close intervals, and constantly shifting pulse of the rhythms further identify this passage with Indian music. The third selection, "Naissance de Bouddha," uses a text by an anonymous poet. This song, completed in Benares in January of 1912, describes the mystical portents of the birth
' Ananda Coomaraswamy, "Indian Music," Musical Quarterly 3, n. 2 (April 1917), 167.
' Harold S. Powers, et al, "India," in New Grove Dictionary of Music, ed. Stanley Sadie. 82 of Buddha. The poem tells us the clouds thundered, the gods shook countless flowers from their fans and garments; irysterious sweet perfumes mingled like liana vines in the warm breath of that spring night. Resembling a divine pearl.
D une mesure très souple bouche le
bouche ouverte PP
fermer peu i peu la bouche
mezza — ^ poco —
♦ ____ ' ' ......
fermer peu # peu U bouche . = c V . — ------PP
bouche fermee
Figure 36; Melisma in Delage's 'Un sapin isolé..." (Public domain) 83 the moon stopped over the marble palace which was guarded by- twenty thousand elephants, seeming to be cloud-gray hills. In contrast to the dreamy mood of the other songs, "La naissance de Bouddha" portrays an atmosphere of excitement. Part of the active quality of the music is generated by an imitation of the tabla, the drum that provides a steady rhythmic accompaniment for a singer. The cello is the mimic in this case, with syncopated accents through much of the song (Figure 37).
ptzz.
Joner les notes écrites qui, sur les cordes 8 et 4, Effbta sonneront un Ton au-dessous
Figure 37 : Cello imitation of the tabla in Delage's "Naissance de Bouddha" (Public dcxnain)
The same rhythmic figure is played by the harp in the final song, “Si vous pensez...," producing an effect which seems more derived from the exotic music of Borodin than of India. This may be possible - the apaches studied many of the scores of the Russian Five, and Borodin's exoticisms were probably familiar to Delage. "Si vous pensez..." was written in Jaipur in January, 1912. Again, Delage turns to Bhartrhari for his text: If you think of her, you suffer sweet torture. If you see her, your spirit is disturbed. If you touch her, you go mad. How can anyone call her beloved? 84 The song is introduced and concluded by melismatic flute passages. The Indian tradition allows for certain instruments such as the flute to take on the melody in place of the voice.* The bass line is filled with droning open fifths on the cello in imitation of the taiabura. Although Delage intended these songs to be sung by a mezzo-soprano, they are better suited for a light soprano. The range is usually moderate (E# to E in"One belle...," E to F in "La naissance de Bouddha," and E to F-double sharp in "Si vous pensez..." ), but the melisma in "Un sapin isolé" calls for coloratura singing that ascends to high A's. "Quatre poèmes hindous" reflects Delage's devotion to his fellow apaches. "Une belle..." is dedicated to Maurice Ravel, "Naissance de Bouddha" is dedicated to Florent Schmitt, and Igor Stravinsky is the dedicatee of "Si vous pensez..." The premiere took place January 14, 1914, in a concert which included works by Ravel ("Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé) and Stravinsky ("Three Japanese Lyrics"). Delage was very likely the source of inspiration for Stravinsky's "Three Japanese Lyrics." Acconpanying his father on another business trip to Japan, Delage sent some Japanese prints and poems in his own translation to Stravinsky. Stravinsky and the apaches as a group were ardent admirers of Japanese art. Certainly Japan had an iirpact on Delage's music - several of his other vocal works show Japanese influence; "Sept haî-kaî" and "Une wort de Samouraï."
* Powers, et al, "India," in New Grove Dictionary of Music. 85 Darius Milhaud tells a story about the "Quatre poèmes hindous." According to him, Delage had submitted this work to the Société Nationale for performance. This organization was a conservative group, dedicated to upholding the French ethic in music. Such an avant garde, Indian-influenced piece was probably not in accord with their ideals and they refused it. Ravel was offended by this rejection of what he regarded as a worthy piece. Milhaud claims that in protest. Ravel and several others founded the Société Musicale Indépendante, with Gabriel Fauré as its president.® This new organization was devoted to performing new works that reflected current trends in French music. While Ravel's belief in Delage's music is indisputable, his founding of the Société Musicale Indépendante is not. The Société is noted in other sources as being established in 1909, and holding numerous concerts before the "Quatre poèmes hindous" were even written. As with Roussel, Delage's music is not mere imitation of a foreign tradition. Delage synthesized his insightful perceptions of Indian music with other principles: the Impressionist techniques of his teacher Ravel, the music of the Russian Five, and Debussyism and Pelléas et Mélisande. The result is a distinctive work with strong Indian overtones, music that transcends its origins.
® Darius Milhaud, Notes Without Music, translated by Donald Evans, edited by Rollo H. t^ers (London: Dennis Dobson, 1952), 20. CHAPTER VIII Milhaud and "Chansons de négresse"
Not all exoticism is derived from the ancient cultures of the East. Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) found inspiration in the New World with the popular music of Brazil. Milhaud was born to a well-established, influential family in Aix-en-Provence. His wealthy parents were culturally minded and fond of music. Milhaud's mother had trained as a singer in Paris before she married. His father was a member of the Music Society of Aix, fond of accompanying its singers on the piano. Although Milhaud displayed musical affinity very early in his childhood, a nervous condition delayed formal study until he was seven years old. He then took lessons from a local violinist, Léo Bruguier, eventually forming a string quartet with his teacher and two local amateurs. Entering the Paris Conservatoire at age eighteen, Milhaud began the study of harmony with Xavier Leroux. This was not a happy relationship. The young Milhaud was bored by the exercises assigned to him and did them poorly. Leroux was convinced that Milhaud had no gifts as a composer until he saw the score of Milhaud's sonata for violin and piano. He was astonished at the well-defined musical language he saw
86 87 in the work. Leroux advised Milhaud to resign from the Conservatoire harmony class and begin studies with the prestigious André Gedalge. Milhaud fared better under Gedalge's tutelage. He dropped his violin studies to devote himself further to composition. World War I was underway as Milhaud was conpleting his studies and this prevented him from conpeting for the Prix de Rome. However, this does not mean he gained no recognition. In his senior year, he won the composition prize for his sonata for two violins and piano. At this point in his composition career, Milhaud had already developed a few notable characteristics that he would later exploit further. His music was rhythmically active, and his interest in complex rhythms would be one of the sources of his fascination with jazz and Brazilian music. He had an affinity for clashing sonorities (small wonder he fought with his first harmony professor!) that foretold his use of bitonality and polytonality. Milhaud was fond of literature and had a particular sensitivity to poetry. Literature gave impetus to his compositions in the early stages of his career. Milhaud remembered, "...not having enough experience yet to elaborate purely musical work, I sought inspiration in literary ideas. His closest friends were often writers and poets. During his teenage years, he spent much of his time with Léo Latil (who would die in World War I) and Armand Lunel, both poets. His
’Darius Milhaud, Notes Without Music, translated by Donald Evans, edited by Rollo H. Myers (London: Dennis Dobson, 1952), 23. 88 earliest attenpts at song writing used poems by these two companions. During his years at the Conservatoire, he cultivated friendship with Francis Jammes (who provided the story for Milhaud's opera "La brébis égarée") . In the days of Milhaud's involvement with Las Six, writer Jean Cocteau was an influential presence. While still at the Conservatoire, Milhaud had discovered a collection of poems by Paul Claudel entitled "La Connaissance de l'Est." Finding them powerful and emotionally charged, he set a number of them to music. Claudel was a singular person, as whimsically described to Milhaud by Francis Jammes:
...he was highly-strung, as restless as a force of nature, wore a Chinese robe with a consul-general's hat, hated the scent of vanilla, and was always prepared to pack up for some post in far distant lands. He's like a ship with steam up.'
Jammes arranged for a meeting between poet and composer, and the two began a long and warm friendship. Claudel was only a part-time poet; he was a career diplomat. His ceaseless energy allowed him to meet his official duties, travel, and collaborate with Milhaud on incidental music to Claudel's play Protée. By autumn of 1916 Claudel was stationed in Rome, complaining that he had too much work and needed a secretary. He requested that Milhaud be assigned to him in that capacity. However, Claudel's appointment changed as the paperwork was being processed, instead of traveling to Rome, Claudel and his new secretary left for Rio de
Milhaud, Notes Without Music. 35. 89 Janeiro, where Claudel took up the post of French Ambassador to Brazil. Milhaud was immediately plunged into the music of Brazil, arriving in February during Carnaval time. He heard small street ensembles called cordoes with native instruments such as the violao (similar to a guitar) and the choucalha (a percussion instrument) accortpany singers who improvised to popular tunes. There were nightly balls with elaborate formal dress and elegant music. The city celebrated for weeks, and music was a ubiquitous part of the festival.^ That music, especially its rhythm, captivated Milhaud.
I was intrigued and fascinated by the rhythms of this popular music. There was an imperceptible pause in the syncopation, a careless catch in the breath, a slight hiatus which I found very difficult to grasp. So I bought a lot of maxixes and tangoes, and tried to play them with their syncopated rhythms that run from one hand to the other. At last my efforts were rewarded and I could both play and analyze this typically Brazilian subtlety.*
During his two year stay, Milhaud became familiar with several of Brazil's leading coiiposers. He greatly admired the syncopations of Ernesto Nazareth, who was at that time playing piano in a movie house. On the recommendation of a friend, Milhaud studied the scores of Glauco Velasquez and perceived in them a similarity to the music of Guillaume Lekeu. Heitor Villa-Lobos was playing the cello to earn his living when Milhaud made his acquaintance. Milhaud was a source of encouragement to Villa-Lobos, introducing the
" Milhaud, Notes Without Music. 62-63.
* Ibid., 63-64. 90 Brazilian conç)Oser to his own works as well as those of Debussy and Stravinsky. Milhaud acknowledged some reciprocal influence on his music exerted by Villa-Lobos. All of these new elements expanded Milhaud's horizons as a coir^oser. He integrated the sunny melodic style and lively syncopations into several of his works, including the suite for piano "Saudades do Brazil" and the ballet "Le boeuf sur le toit." These works were written either during or shortly after his visit, but he was hardly finished with Brazilian influence yet. He stored the sounds of Brazil in his memory for future use. Milhaud's eclecticism has been noted by Bauer:
Throughout his career, Milhaud's style has been determined by the subject matter at hand: a translation from the Greek, pure chamber music, the lyrics of m o d e m French poets, a humorous ballet, or the ultra-modern fantasy and treatment that Paul Claudel or Jean Cocteau gave to the librettos Milhaud employed.^
In 1935, the "subject matter at hand" was Simon de Bolivar, the hero of Venezuelan history who first liberated his own slaves and then led a popular revolt against the oppressions of the Spanish regime. Milhaud's South American memories were revived in the incidental music for a production of Jules Supervielle's play Bolivar. This work was filled with the lively dance music and tropical atmosphere of its Venezuelan setting. Subsequently, Milhaud excerpted three songs from the incidental music and adapted them for voice and piano. At their first performance on June
® Marion Bauer, "Darius Milhaud," Musical Quarterly 28 n.2 (April 1942), 143. 91 17, 1937, they were given the title of “Trois chansons de négresse.“ These songs were set to Supervielle's words, telling the plight of African slaves brought to Venezuela. All three songs are the words of one character, an African-bom slave woman. Her first song, "Mon histoire," is sprightly and quick, despite the grimness of her opening statements. She relates that she was a small girl when a slaver lied to her in order to get her onto his ship. Once the ship was under full sail, she was told that she was then a slave. The truth was horrible to accept. She was never the same again, filled with tragedy and indignation. The mood of the second verse changes, and now we hear why she is singing so happily. The Liberator, Bolivar, has come, and all are free to come and go, just like the white people. She dances with one leg forward, one leg back. She and her people are like children, free and free-willed. The introduction of this piece makes use of the syncopation that passed, as Milhaud noted, "from one hand to the other on the piano" (Figure 38) .
► »- - 1 J t m— _j B-- 5 Î Î - S ----- V ■ " i s r ^ f —
m f
J - 4 ^
Figure 38: Syncopation in Milhaud's "Mon histoire" (Copyright 1991 by Éditions Salabert. Used by permission.) 92
The melody in this song, as in the others of the set, it simple and forthrightly diatonic, in keeping with its Brazilian folk song roots. Milhaud centers around the key of E major, with some minor modalities appearing as the singer describes the tragedies of her abduction. Like a folk song, the melody is divided into short, repetitive phrases. The rhythm is also divided into repeated patterns of syncopation (Figure 39).
T ri's Vit P
- le Quand ungrand DC-gri - - er Cachant la vé - ri -
Me fit ■ve-nir d'A - fri - - que
Figure 39: Repetition of melody and rhythm patterns in Milhaud's “Mon histoire" (Copyright 1991 by Éditions Salabert. Used by permission.)
The next song in the group is called “Abandonnée." In the story of Bolivar, many women were widowed in the struggle for liberation. The character singing to us has suffered the same fate. She sings of how she waits alone at her house every night, without a single kiss to put on her lips. All her pleasure has been ruined. She makes her sad meal and salts it with her tears. Little by little, her thoughts turn to violent ways of ending her sadness; but it is her baby son's feeding time, and being a modest woman, she goes behind 93 a bush to nurse him. "Abandonnée" shares many of its characteristics with "Mon histoire": the syncopation passing from hand to hand on the piano, the short, repetitive melodies, the diatonic harmony, and the lively energy that belies the tragic subject of the text. In addition, Milhaud increases the rhythmic vitality of the piece through the use of a 7/8 meter throughout. The final song of the group, "Sans feu ni lieu," is set in the most sober manner of the three. It is moderate in tempo and its syncopations are gentler, in sympathy with the subject of the text. Our narrator is singing on behalf of the children left homeless by war. For children without home or hearth, she says, we must sing a song so beautiful that it can take the place of a real home. Their needs, a little milk, a little cloth, and all their other cares must be softened by its verses. In the same way, the song must make them understand that they are less alone, that they have its melody even in the midst of the mountains, war, and winter. In this more melancholy atmosphere, Milhaud forgoes the running stream of hand-to-hand syncopated melody for a less turbulent syncopation that remains stationary in the right hand of the piano part (Figure 40). The low range and tessitura in these songs together with their obviously feminine texts indicate they should be performed by a mezzo-soprano or preferably a contralto. The range of "Mon histoire" goes from a D above middle C to the E a ninth above that. "Abandonnée" only covers the octave from 94
1 A F -4±±-LJ
W- i ( Figure 40: Syncopation in Milhaud's "Sans feu ni lieu" (Copyright 1991 by Éditions Salabert. Used by permission.)
B-flat to B-flat around middle C. "Sans feu ni lieu" spans nearly the same octave, B to B. The narrow range and sinple, folk-like melodies of these songs nake them accessible to less experienced singers. Milhaud's Brazilian elements are different from the types of exotic techniques discussed in previous chapters. The scales and modes of Brazilian music conform to the Western diatonic system, yet the style was fresh and original. Milhaud made use of a group of popular Brazilian dance tunes in "Le boeuf sur le toit." In fact, the ballet's colorful title was the name of one of those tunes.* The rhythms are strictly metrical, as opposed to the Indian talas or the multilinear complexities of the gamelan. This type of syncopation was nonetheless an unknown nuance in European music. Milhaud's knowledge of Brazilian syncopations prepared him for the rhythms of jazz that he was soon to hear. These rhythms were an in^ortant stylistic factor in Milhaud's
• William W. Austin, Music in the Twentieth Century from Debussy through Stravinsky (New York: W.W. Norton, 1966), 479 . 95 jazz-influenced ballet "La création du monde." This in turn evolved to the use of polyrhythms, one of the hallmarks of Milhaud's mature works. CHAPTER IX
Messiaen and Harawi
By his own description, Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was a conç)Oser, rhythmicist, mystic, poet, and ornithologist. This singular composer wielded great influence through both his coitpositions and his teachings. Among his contributions to Western music was a thorough understanding and creative use of Indian music theory. Wen-Chung credits Messiaen with being "...the only major composer since Bartok to have successfully integrated what he learned from a non-Western culture with his own tradition (especially plainsong, Bach, and Debussy) without debasing the newly acquired ideas. Messiaen was b o m to intellectual parents, both poets. His father, Pierre Messiaen, wrote an acclaimed French translation of the works of Shakespeare. His mother, Cécile Sauvage, wrote a book of verses to her son during her pregnancy entitled "L'âme en bourgeon." Messiaen claimed that these poems had a powerful effect on him even before he was b o m and were responsible for mystical side of his nature. '
’ Chou Wen-Chung, "Asian Concepts and Twentieth Century Composers," Musical Quarterly 57, n. 2 (1971), 227.
^Antoine Goléa, Rencontres avec Olivier Messiaen (Paris: Julliard, 1960), 19. 96 97 During World War I while his father served in the military, Messiaen and his mother lived in Grenoble, where Messiaen came to love the nearby mountains of Dauphiny. The natural world, especially its birds and mountains, was an important lifelong influence for him. During this time in Grenoble, the young Olivier taught himself to play the piano. He played and sang through several of the family's opera scores: Mozart's Don Giovanni. Gluck's Alceste. and Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust. His first composition, written at the age of nine, was a song based on Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." After World War I, the family moved to Nantes, where Messiaen began formal studies in piano and harmony. He proved so precocious that his harmony teacher gave him a score of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. The lavish gift astounded the boy, and he studied it so thoroughly that decades later Messiaen could still quote passages from memory. Debussy's style had echoes in many of Messiaen's early compositions. Messiaen entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1919 at the tender age of eleven. He studied orchestration with Dukas, harmony with Jean Gallon and Noel Gallon, organ with Marcel Dupré, and music history with Maurice Emmanuel. Dupré and Emmanuel introduced him to two elements of music that would have tremendous iitpact on his own musical language : the Greek modes and Indian rhythm theory. By the time he graduated from the Conservatoire at age twenty-two, Messiaen had gathered first prizes in fugue. 98 accompaniment, organ and improvisation, and composition. These laurels behind him, he accepted an appointment as organist at the church of La Sainte Trinité. He was a devout Catholic and a nystic in the broader sense as well. During his tenure there, he wrote a number of deeply introspective religious works for organ such as the "Apparition de l'église éternelle" (1932) and "L'Ascension" (1934). Messiaen's spiritual beliefs were an almost constant eleinent in his music. When he married violinist Claire Delbos in 1936, he wrote a song cycle for her, the Poèmes pour Mi. This work explored the mystical, sacramental side of marriage. When his son Pascal was b o m in 1938, the Chants de terre et de ciel examined parenthood from the same spiritual level. It was partly his spirituality that involved Messiaen in a group known as "La jeune France.. " Together with André Jolivet, Jean Yves Daniel-Lesur, and Ives Baudrier, Messiaen strove to counter the mechanistic feel of modem life with music that was serious-minded, emotional, and reflective of the human spirit. This was in reaction to the music of "Les Six, " which during the chaotic post-World War I years had become known for whimsical frivolity. Messiaen was teaching at the Schola Cantorum when World War II broke out. He entered military service as a hospital aide. He was captured in 1940 and intemed in a prison camp in Gorlitz. This gave Messiaen an opportunity to reexamine his rhythmic theories. He made use of several concepts for the first time in his "Quatuor pour le fin du temps," written 99 in the caitç) and premiered there in January of 1941. Repatriated in 1942, Messiaen was appointed professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatoire. He taught composition privately, sharing his concepts with young composition students, including Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. At this time Messiaen was well into his middle period of composition. This period was marked particularly by the dominance of melody, of which he declared:
The melody is the point of departure. May it reign sovereign! And whatever may be the complexities of our rhythms and our harmonies, they shall not draw it along in their wake, but, on the contrary, shall obey it as faithful servants.. .^
Part of Messiaen's use of melody involved Indian jâtis, a word meaning "birth" or "origin." Jâti was the precursor of the raga. He also carefully studied birdsong as the most glorious form of spontaneous melody in the world. Rich harmony was another element of this intermediate style. Messiaen's harmony was based on tonality, although a greatly expanded version of tonality. Chords with added notes, one of Debussy's trademarks, were common. Messiaen loved modes: the Greek modes as well as his own invention, the "modes of limited transposition." The latter subject is complex and not relevant to a discussion of exoticism; it is necessary to forego any discussion of it here. It was rhythm that claimed most of Messiaen's attention. He felt that rhythm was the first element of music to exist.
=“ Olivier Messiaen, The Technique of Mv Musical Language, translated by John Satterfield (Paris: Alphonse Leduc,1944), 13. 100 before melody and harmony. He went so far as to call himself a rhythmicist.' During his Conservatoire days, Messiaen had immersed himself in a study of a treatise on rhythm by the thirteenth century Indian theorist Shamgadeva. The study, Samaîtaratnâkara. detailed 120 desitâlas (patterns of rhythmic values) that led Messiaen to adopt an entirely new rhythm system in his own writing. The desitâlas were based on formulas of differing rh^/thmical values, each based on the mâtra, or a universal smallest unit of length. Each value in the formula is a multiple of that length. This differs from the Western meter, in which the entire measure is the unit of length, regardless of the rhythm pattern within it. The Indian rhythmic principles imparted a pulseless, ametrical style to Messiaen's music. He entirely dropped the use of time signatures in his scores, using bar lines as an indication of phrasing rather than rhythm. Sherlaw Johnson describes this as "...rhythm as arising from an extension of durations in time rather than a division of time."® Messiaen used desitâlas in either their original forms, in forms varied according to the principles of Shamgadeva, or in forms varied according to principles from other sources.®
' Mirjana Simundza, "Messiaen's Rhythmical Organization and Classical Indian Theory of Rhythm (I)," International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 18 (1987), 117.
® Robert Sherlaw Johnson, Messiaen (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975), 32.
° Simundza, "Messiaen's Rhythmical Organization (I)," 118- 122. 101 The zenith of Messiaen's intermediate compositional period occurred during the years immediately after World War II. During this time he composed his so-called "Tristan trilogy": the song cycle Harawi. the symphony Turanqalxla. and the choral suite Cinqr rechants. All of these works center around the concept of lovers and love-death, as exemplified in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. In folklore, love-death is symbolic of the death of one's self to be reborn to a new life in which the beloved, rather than self, is supreme. Messiaen took this concept to a deeper psychological and spiritual level. Love-death in the trilogy is a passing through love out of personal life and earthly time to an eternal, mystical union with the universe. Harawi is the first work in the Tristan trilogy. This cycle of twelve songs for dramatic soprano and piano centers around two Peruvian lovers, a woman named Piroutcha and an unnamed man who is the narrator of the text. As the story begins, the lovers recline on a grassy bank, as Tristan and Isolde lay on a bank of flowers in Act II of Wagner's opera. They long for mutual self-annihilation, go through a death experience which is at first terrifying and then ecstatic, dance with the movement of all creation, and eventually drift into nothingness. The text of Harawi. like that of almost all of Messiaen's songs, is his own. In 1945 when Messiaen wrote this work, he had been studying the folklore of South America. In Harawi he included numerous references to the Peruvian culture, its rituals, dances, folk tales, and the 102 symbols of its mythology. He uses words from the Peruvian language, quechua. Harawi is itself a quechua word, meaning a traditional type of love song. The kind of love in such songs is disastrous and irresistible, destroying the lovers.’ Messiaen also used authentic Peruvian melodies.
In effect, there are two ways to use folklore: one way is purely imitative, consisting largely of the use of well-known popular melodies; and a more creative way, in the manner of a Falla or a Bartok, creating the atmosphere of popular music through carefully studied modes and appropriate rhythms. In Harawi. I did neither one or the other. Through the admirable works of Madame and Monsieur Bedard d'Harcourt on the folklore of the Andes (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia), I became infatuated with Peruvian music, which I think contains the most beautiful folk tunes in the world. The elements I borrowed from Peruvian music are solely melodic, with completely changed modes...and altered rhythms...”
Messiaen's poetry was surrealist, influenced by the works of Paul Éluard and Pierre Reverdy. The surrealist movement attempted to portray the inner workings of the human mind at its subconscious level through such devices as recording dreams and combining incompatible images to imitate the flow of human imagination. Eroticism, as used in Harawi. was another way to tie in to the deeper layers of the mind. Griffiths found Messiaen's use of eroticism to be more sensual than that of most surrealists.
This eroticism is another link with the obsessions of surrealism; but the exuberant and essentially innocent quality of these works is a long way from the dark and disturbing sexuality which the surrealist poets derived from Baudelaire...Rather the similarities are with Goléa, Rencontres avec Messiaen. 150,
Ibid,, 149. 103 exotic erotic art, such as the temple reliefs of India. This very carnal feeling is conveyed by softly flowing melodic lines, but chiefly by a saccharine harmonic language.®
The first song of Harawi. "La ville qui dormait, toi," sets the stage. Piroutcha is admired by her lover as they lie on a grassy bank at night. He has made her his entire world. To him she represents the sleeping town in the valley below, she is his hand resting on her heart, she is midnight and the bank they lie on, and the double violet (the Peruvian symbol of modesty). He is the unmoving eye that holds her glance. The next song, "Bonjour toi, colombe verte," salutes Piroutcha as a green dove, the Peruvian folkloric symbol of the beloved. The pair are beginning to feel an impetus toward the transformation of death. The green dove, Piroutcha, is urged to return to the sky. Called a "limpid pearl," she is asked to leave the water. In her mortal form, she is a chained star, a divided shadow, seeking to find her true nature as part of all creation; flower, fruit, sky, and water. The principal melody in this song is used cyclically, reappearing later in the key songs "Adieu" and "Dans le noir" (Figure 41). "Bonjour toi, colombe verte" is the beginning of the pair's transformation. "Adieu" is the point at which they have completely left mortality and crossed into the realm of death. "Dans le noir" is the end of their
° Paul Griffiths, "Poèmes and Hai-kai: a note on Messiaen's development," Musical Times 112 (August 1971), 851. 104
Trc» modéré
jour co . lüm
"Bonjour toi, colombe verte"
Très lent, #olenn^* mt très soutenu
A . dieu toi, CD . lom • be ver
"Adieu"
Très lent, solennel
Dane le noir, co . lom
te.
"Dans le noir"
Figure 41 : Cyclic melody in Messiaen's Harawi (Reproduced by permission of A. Leduc & Cie, owners and publishers for all countries) 105 annihilation, in which all of their remaining consciousness is blotted out. Messiaen uses a trademark in this song which, while it is not exotic in the sense of belonging to a foreign culture, is certainly exotic in the sense of being unusual. He gives an accurate rendition of birdsong on the piano, the song of the green dove in her expression of joy (Ficfure 42) .
C n peu vir
Figure 42; Birdsong in Messiaen's "Bonjour toi, colombe verte" (Reproduced by permission of A. Leduc &. Cie, owners and publishers for all countries) Messiaen felt awe in the powerful presence of the mountains near his childhood home. He uses this feeling in "Montagnes" as a catalyst for the intoxication of the lovers in their state of longing for annihilation. They see the colors of the mountain chain: red, violet, black on black. They feel the dizzy vertigo of standing on a precipice (the precipice of both the cliff and their physical transformation). 106 Now the lovers begin a courtship dance in "Doundou tchil." The title is an onomatopoeia (a word which imitates the sound of the concept it describes) for the sound of the ankle bells of the dancers in this Peruvian ritual. While the voice imitates the bells, the piano imitates the accompanying drums (Figure 43). Ik Douiidoutchil. Doundou tchil. ér?b . Doun.dou tchil. Douii.dou tchil. doundou tchil. duuu.duu tchil. /// b Figure 43: Drum imitation in Messiaen's *Doundou tchil‘ (Reproduced by permission of A. Leduc & Cie, owners and publishers for all countries) "L'amour de Piroutcha" follows, in which the lovers are violently yearning for death, inploring each other "Coupe-moi la tête." The song is in the key of G major, a key Messiaen uses to represent the longing for the fulfillment of love.“ Messiaen here makes use of the Indian rhythmic principle of dissolution. In dissolution, a long note is reduced, or dissolved, into a group of shorter notes that take the seune duration of time. In the second statement of the opening Sherlaw Johnson, Messiaen. 43. 107 phrase of the song, a quarter note and two eighth notes are dissolved into equivalent sixteenth notes (Figure 44). “Toung'ou.abi, touiigou, touDgou.ber . ce.tol,. macendicdc's lu.mic.rcs. First statement LA JIUKE rILLt » ^ Toung-ou.— n.hl tounsuu, toungou, ber . ce, toi, Second statement Figure 44; Dissolution in Messiaen's “L'amour de Piroutcha' (Reproduced by permission of A, Leduc & Cie, owners and publishers for all countries) Now the lovers begin a powerful incantation in "Répétition planétaire." This is the spell that takes them into death, a cry from the deeps of time before the creation of the earth. The experience is chaotic, threatening, as the lovers ascend a cosmic winding staircase amongst red stars, the motion of the planet threatening to consume then. One of the notable features of this song is a primeval cry, a type of (for lack of a better term) “Tarzan yell" (Figure 45). (o pUint voir,tin pen four, commenn appel en forêt) Figure 45: Cry in Messiaen's “Répétition planétaire* (Reproduced by permission of A. Leduc & Cie, owners and publishers for all countries) ,108 Now the pair have achieved the state of death. Their passion abated, they now have sadness about their entry into the unknown. They bid farewell to each other and to love as they have known it. The piano imitates the sound of funeral bells (Figure 46). Vll pf w vlf p - .II j; 3*— :--:—-— P'i/ Û --,--- h. T«r ^ ^ — i----— -%-flJn. P — -J to. 1 *> Xre» xnodere Figure 46: Imitation of funeral bells in Messiaen's "Adieu" (Reproduced by permission of A. Leduc & Cie, owners and publishers for all countries) The next song, "Syllabes," is based on a Peruvian traditional dance, the "Dance of the ^es." The dance, in turn, is based on a legend about an Inca prince who is saved from intending danger by the warning voices of the apes as they jump from tree to tree." ” Sherlaw Johnson, Messiaen. 81. 109 The lovers of Harawi have passed through a stage of sadness. Now they experience the primeval human fear of death. Like the apes, they warn each other with terrified cries, imitating the apes' calls with the syllable *pia" that is occasionally mingled with the syllables of their love dance, "doundou tchil" (Figure 47). .. J J' J J' -JJ-- tchil tchil tchil. Pia pia pia pia pia pa pia, duuii. doij tchil tchil P . ~ P'"f fc. fc, tchil. Pia pia pia pia pia pia pin. Ichil tchil Figure 47: Warning calls in Messiaen's "Syllabes' (Reproduced by permission of A. Leduc & Cie, owners and publishers for all countries) Death becomes a state of ecstasy in the subsequent song, “L'escalier redit, gestes du soleil." Still in the process of metamorphosis, the couple now find the winding staircase they climbed in "Répétition planétaire" leading them to joy. They embrace time, water, and sky. They find each other's presence again and, reassured, they realize they have entered a new state of being in the smiling presence of the sun. They joyfully proclaim that they are dead and that it is easy to be dead. "Amour oiseau d'étoile" was inspired by a surrealist painting by Sir Roland Penrose, a picture of a man's hands stretched out toward a wcxnan's head, which is upside down. 110 the neck ending at the top edge of the canvas. The text of the song describes Piroutcha's head as reaching for the sky in a similar fashion. In this way, she is achieving a slowly growing unity of being with the universe. Instead of being a green dove, Piroutcha is now a bird of the stars, her head toward the stars, her eye a star. His hands, her eye, her neck, are all a part of the sky. The expansion of her being is symbolized by the Indian concept of chromatic scale of duration. Messiaen has created a slowly augmenting pattern of rhythmic values that begins with one eighth note and adds an eighth note to each subsequent value until it reaches a duration of five eighth notes (Figure 48) . This rhythmic pattern is repeated without variation three times. 01 . seau de Ton ceil qui chan Figure 48: Chromatism of duration in Messiaen's "Amour oiseau d'étoile" (Reproduced by permission of A. Leduc & Cie, owners and publishers for all countries) The key of "Amour oiseau d'étoile" is F-sharp major. Messiaen used this key to symbolize mystical love, or in this case, perfect human love fulfilled.“ He would use the same ” Sherlaw Johnson, Messiaen. 42-43. Ill key in the second work of the Tristan trilogy, Tnrangalîla. in the movement entitled “Jardin de sommeil d'amour. " Now that the lovers have enmeshed themselves with the fabric of all creation, they sense the dance of all matter at its most profound level. "Katchikatchi les étoiles" is about the movement of all things from the stars down to the atoms, how they jiaitç) and dance like grasshoppers. Katchikatchi is the quechua word for grasshopper, which Messiaen represents with a leaping figure in the piano part (Figure 49). Û.I...... \ \ \ 'V \ f \ ...= li. H L ,,#4 •SUi. Stb. «a. Figure 49; Grasshopper figure in Messiaen's "Katchikatchi les étoiles" (Reproduced by permission of A. Leduc & Cie, owners and publishers for all countries) The final song of the cycle, "Dans le noir," sweeps the two beings into the final state of their metamorphosis. They have COTie through longing, cataclysm, fear, and ecstasy; now they slip into eternal oblivion. A few times the man softly repeats his earthly nicknames for Piroutcha: green dove, limpid pearl. The echoes fall away into the vastness. They are now far from love. In a vivid outcry, he calls to Piroutcha on a fortississimo high A-flat (Figure 50). She does not respond. Inexorably, the calls get lower and softer; the passion dies away, love dies away, everything Tr è s lent 112 f f f K S ; Mon m . mour, m on souf fie! Figure 50: Cry in Messiaen's "Dans le noir" (Reproduced by permission of A. Leduc & Cie, owners and publishers for ail countries) becomes distant. In a final pianississimo whisper, he recalls the beginning of their transformation as they lay on the grassy bank and looked on the sleeping town. There is one last sigh of vocal sound, and then the final chord of the piano decays into silence (Figure 51). The lovers are completely annihilated. court lolo. court dim. Extrêm em ent lent, en rêve p p p ^ J . I ( « boBche feriBtel La vll . le qui do Extrêm em ent lent, en rêve T r e e le n t PPP PP Figure 51: Final image of Messiaen's "Dans le noir'‘ (Reproduced by permission of A. Leduc & Cie, owners and publishers for all countries) 113 Messiaen meant Harawi to be sung by a dramatic soprano, and this demanding work calls for that dramatic power both in the voice and the interpretation. The high range is frequently very sustained and fortissimo, extending to a high B-natural. The low notes must also be powerful. The bottom of the work's range is a low B-flat, and Messiaen occasionally commands that it be sung fortissimo as well. In addition to the extreme vocal demands, the intense emotional content of the music and the detailed precision of the score's rhythms render Harawi a fiendishly difficult piece. Only an accoitplished artist could successfully attempt it. Messiaen brought a new dimension to exoticism. He did not use his authoritative knowledge of Indian theoretical principles to imitate Indian music. If he had, Piroutcha and her lover would have been Hindus rather than Andeans. At least one critic misinterpreted Messiaen's intentions in Harawi. Expecting the exoticism of Shéhérazade or Sam son e.t Dalila. he lambasted the work as "droolingly romantic" and "just plain ridiculous," concluding snappishly, "It is hard to believe that this cycle was written by a Frenchman, for it has few of the qualities generally associated with French music. What this critic refused to understand was that Messiaen was trying to avoid sounding French. Instead, like his " Everett Helm, "Current Chronicle," Musical Quarterly 38 (1952), 144. 114 colleague André Jolivet,^ Messiaen was seeking a reconcilement of cultures, a universality of expression. This mixture of Indian rhythmic principles, Peruvian folklore, and surrealist poetry was an attenpt to create a musical language not limited to any one country or society. Thus Messiaen brings exoticism full circle; what began as a reference to the strangeness of a foreign culture is now a method of communicating with all cultures. Jànos Kàrpàti, "Non-European Influences on Occidental Music (A Historical Survey)," World of Music 22, n.2 (1980), 32. CONCLUSION In the century between 1845 and 1945, the concept of exoticism evolved into the opposite of itself. Originally a method of borrowing foreign musical elements as a decoration for Western music, it expanded until Western music was transformed into the foreign idiom. This evolution paralleled the widening of Europe's knowledge of other cultures through commerce and scholarship. In the mid-nineteenth century, Europeans regarded the cultures of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the New World as quaint and barbarian. Their attitude toward the music of these cultures was equally smug. European composers used the flavor of foreign music to decorate their own works in a Western manner, with little or no genuine knowledge of what they parodied. David, Bizet, and Saint-Saëns used exotic settings and simple foreign musical devices as a novelty. With the meeting of Debussy and the Javanese gamelan, novelty gave way to innovation. It was Debussy's recognition of the true depth and artistry of Java's music that allowed him to borrow elements from it without debasing it. Debussy's attitude reflected the changing European attitude toward non- Western music, spurred by increased scholarship in the field of ethnomusicology. Composers became familiar with exotic music, and used its elements in authentic and authoritative ways. 115 116 Olivier Messiaen completed the process of evolution in exoticism. David had used foreign elements to paint a picture of Egypt, as Roussel evoked China and Delage India. Messiaen used foreign elements to defy geographical boundaries. He combined classical Indian rhythm and Peruvian folklore with European music to create a music without ethnicity. Thus exoticism comes full circle. The early exotic composers had taken what they knew of foreign music and placed it in a European context. The later exotic composers reshaped European music to fit into a foreign context. Exoticism, which originally defined the differences between cultures, eventually came to blend cultures together in a statement of universality. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Austin, William W. "The Rhythms of Erik Satie and 'Oriental Timelessness'," Miscellanea Musicologica, 13 (1984): 97-111. . 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