Berlioz and Debussy: Sources, Contexts and Legacies

Essays in Honour of Fran-s Lesure

Kerry Murphy, Barbara L. Kelly

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351574174
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

This collection of essays by scholars of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French music has been assembled in homage to the influential and inspirational French musicologist Fran's Lesure who died in 2001. Lesure's immense erudition was legendary and spanned music from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Two French composers who were particular foci in his scholarship were Berlioz and Debussy and this collection is based on scholarship around these two composers and the sources, contexts and legacies relating to their work.

Introduction

Berlioz and Debussy are two of the most innovative figures in French music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They stand out for their original contributions in areas such as orchestral colour, instrumentation and timbre. Yet some have regarded them as standing apart from the French ‘musical tradition Indeed, Debussy made precisely that observation in response to Paul Landormy’s Enquête (1904) about the importance of Berlioz. For Debussy, Berlioz was an exception to the French musical tradition, since he was too literary and not entirely musical.¹ Yet, the same has been said of Debussy, who derived much of his musical inspiration from writers and painters.² In both cases their roles as critics had an impact on how their reputations and their works were received. While Berlioz was very critical of French musical life, and outspoken about operatic practices, Debussy’s irreverent comments on Gluck, Berlioz and Wagner caused many to doubt his suitability to assume the role of chef d’école.³

Both Berlioz and Debussy had enthusiastic supporters as well as outspoken detractors. While Berlioz was initially associated with the perceived low state into which French music had fallen at the time of the Franco-Prussian defeat, the process of his rehabilitation would soon lead to his being considered the upholder of French symphonic traditions. Champions such as Saint-Saëns, Chabrier, and especially Bruneau in his state-commissioned report (1901) did much to bring about a reassessment of Berlioz’s importance, and that of Romanticism in general.⁴ Alluding to the 1871 defeat, Bruneau cites Berlioz as an inspiration for the younger generation in the area of symphonic music, which he regards as a growth area and priority for French music.⁵ For his part, Debussy was involved in the process of establishing his position as France’s leading composer in his public pronouncements on Rameau and the state of French music, and his overtly patriotic references in his war-time music. He was aided by articulate supporters such as Louis Laloy and Emile Vuillermoz, who championed and ‘canonized the composer on his death, towards the end of World War I.⁶ Julien Tiersot, a specialist on Berlioz, commented on the lasting value of both composers; while he linked Berlioz’s music to that of his illustrious forebear, Beethoven, as having ‘expressed the purest, most sincere and most profound essence of humanity’, he acknowledged Debussy as a ‘master in the art he has inaugurated’, despite his disrespectful attitude towards ‘heroes of art such as Gluck, Wagner and Beethoven’.⁷ At the heart of the ambivalence surrounding these two figures is a debate concerning the nature and character of French music. Romain Rolland gets to the crux of this issue in identifying two sides to the French character, the sensual and refined element represented by Debussy, and the heroic and passionate side represented by Berlioz. ‘To tell the truth’, he added, ‘this [Berlioz] is the one I prefer. But God prevent me from renouncing the other. It is the balance between these two Frances that produces the French genius.’⁸ Thus a consideration of these two figures side by side reveals the range, diversity and distinctiveness of French music during this period.

The contributors to this volume are largely English-speaking colleagues and/or former students of François Lesure, who came across him in their research on French music either in his position as music librarian at the Bibliothèque nationale de France or as director of musicology at the École pratique des hautes études The seminars that Lesure ran at the École are described most eloquently in the introduction to this volume by Jeanice Brookes, who stresses the role they served in fostering exchange and communication between scholars. Brookes’s introduction presents this book as a testimony to Lesure’s abilities as a ‘mentor, friend, etc to anglophone scholars; as a written counterpart to those seminars at the Ecole pratique’.

The articles in the first half of the book have Berlioz as their focus, and all concern aspects of Berlioz not previously dealt with in any depth in the literature David Charlton’s chapter demonstrates that study of Berlioz’s critical thinking on music (which is now becoming so easily available through the splendid edition of his complete music criticism) might help us to understand his creative output – in this case his songs – better. Charlton examines the pre-Romantic romance tradition, including some fascinating documentation of folk-song associations in this repertoire, alongside both Berlioz’s creative response to romances and other songs that he knew, and finally his own compositions in the genre, particularly those bearing the designation ‘Romance’. Charlton shows that Berlioz, the stern defender of the integrity of the artwork, actually reverted to a more flexible mode with his songs, which he arranged, embellished, and orchestrated. Charlton claims that despite the sophistication of Berlioz’s later vocal writing, he never ‘forsook the ideal of the simple melody that belonged to the generality of the musical public’.

Benjamin Perl (whose doctoral thesis on ‘The Orchestra in the Operas of Berlioz and His Contemporaries’ was supervised by Lesure and François-Bernard Mâche) examines how despite Berlioz’s admiration for some of Mozart’s works, there is also a hidden antagonism towards Mozart, which at times breaks through openly. Perl examines Berlioz’s conflicting attitude to Mozart through analysing the numerous comments on Mozart’s works in Berlioz’s critical writings. Perl argues that Berlioz unconsciously saw Mozart as a threat to his self-assurance as a musician.

Two articles in this section deal with Berlioz source studies. Hugh Macdonald’s article ‘A New Source for Les Troyens’ is based on a recently acquired manuscript libretto of Berlioz’s opera found at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels. This is the most revealing document to have come to light since Macdonald published his critical edition of the opera in 1969–71, and he shows how the newly discovered libretto supplies a unique, indeed precious glimpse of the composer at work, in which Berlioz has recorded his many changes of heart and mind.

Julian Rushton’s article on the prehistory of Berlioz’s much-loved work L’Enfance du Christ also examines sources. Rushton looks at possible literary, visual, religious and even musical sources for L’Enfance du Christ as he attempts to ground it firmly in the context of its time. Berlioz’s use of modality and oratorio-like writing, for instance, Rushton places as part of the historicist mode of the day, in line with the interest in early music encouraged by the St Cecilians Rushton claims that the influence of Berlioz’s early Catholic upbringing – at least the first seven years of his life – has perhaps been overshadowed by his later public statements of his lack of faith, and that L’Enfance du Christ reflects in many ways a nostalgia for his early childhood, a time in which religion and religious music (such as carols) featured very strongly. Despite Berlioz’s lack of religious conviction, Rushton claims that the work could be seen as representing a metaphorical form of Catholic devotion.

Kerry Murphy’s chapter looks at Berlioz neither as critic (her Ph.D. on Berlioz’s criticism was supervised by Lesure) nor composer, but as a judge on the instrumental panel of the Great Exhibition of 1851. She claims that despite the rhetoric of impartiality espoused at the Exhibition, in practice the strength of national rivalries made impartiality very difficult to achieve. And Berlioz was no exception. Murphy argues that although he claimed to approach his job as juror with an impartial eye, he came also to ‘defend the French’, which was hardly an impartial position. Fortunately he had an easy task that required no moral or artistic compromise between his professional and patriotic duties. On the other hand there is the feeling that despite his irritation with some of the British jury members for attempting to manipulate the judging, Berlioz did not wish to be too critical and perhaps tempered his public comments (something that as a critic he had plenty of experience at doing). The British were, after all, to provide him with employment for much of the first half of the following year.

The articles in Part 2 are focused on Debussy and his close contemporaries, particularly the Apaches and Ravel. All make a new contribution to scholarship on Debussy and music in the Third Republic. Richard Langham Smith’s chapter, ‘Taming two Spanish Women: Reflections on Editing Opera’, focuses on his editorial work on Debussy’s Rodrigue et Chimènes (for the Debussy complete edition) and Bizet’s Carmen. He argues convincingly for the important role the literary texts surrounding the operas played for the editor, in throwing crucial light on the libretto and vocal score. He also discusses the problematic issues of the most authoritative source and the composer’s final intention. He asks what a ‘performing Urtext’ edition should include in its aim to capture what was performed at the Opéra-comique.

Michael Strasser re-examines the links between Debussy’s String Quartet and Grieg’s String Quartet in G minor. Drawing on archival sources, contemporary press accounts, and correspondence, this chapter documents the Société nationale’s interest in Grieg. By suggesting a possible rationale for Debussy’s decision to compose a string quartet, and demonstrating that he would have had great incentive to model his work on that of the Norwegian, it sheds new light on the genesis of one of his earliest masterpieces.

Marie Rolf, who worked closely with Lesure on the editorial board of the Debussy edition, gives a detailed study of the climax of Debussy’s Pelléas: Act IV, Scene 4. She argues that Debussy developed specific compositional techniques in this act to respond to Maeterlinck’s Symbolist text. Drawing on Debussy’s working draft manuscripts of the opera, she shows how his sensitivity to ambiguity and symbolic images evolved over time and had an impact on local musical events as well as on large-scale structure.

Pelléas provided the impetus for the formation of the group known as the Apaches, who formed a ‘sacred battalion’ in support of the opera against negative press coverage and to counterbalance the snobs who flocked to the opera. Drawing on numerous interviews with close family members and friends of the group, and documents in private collections, including Ricardo Viñes’s diaries, Jann Pasler’s study gives an important insight into the formation, activities and values of this group of mainly musicians, artists and writers. In so doing, she provides a special window on the private side of musical life in pre-World-War-I France.

Barbara L. Kelly’s chapter examines the position of a key Apache after the group’s demise and the death of Debussy in 1918. It considers Ravel’s stature, reputation and relationship with Les Six at this moment of crisis in French music In assessing his significance in the post-World-War-I context, Kelly explores the extent to which his latest compositions reflected contemporary preoccupations with bitonality, jazz, dépouillement and Neoclassical Stravinsky.

Turning finally to Lesure, Roy Howat’s afterword gives a fascinating account of the links and circumstances surrounding the founding of the Debussy complete edition, in which Lesure played a central role. In detailing how the committee came together and their first editorial challenges, this afterword gives insight into how editions function and progress, and also pays homage to Lesure’s energy and initiative.

Barbara L. Kelly and Kerry Murphy

1 Claude Debussy in Paul Landormy, ‘L’...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Music Examples
• Notes on the Contributors
• Preface: In Honour of François Lesure
• Introduction
• Part Two: Debussy and His Contemporaries
• 6 Taming Two Spanish Women: Reflections on Editing Opera
• Afterword: The Origins of the Œuvres complètes de Claude Debussy
• Bibliography