SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
his devilish cleverness
That he was an originator in this direction no one doubts. And no one disputes, as a rule, «his devilish cleverness,» as Wagner scornfully called it, or remains insensible to his skill and mastery in the mechanism of expression, and his power over sonorous matter, which make him, apart from his creative power, a sort of magician of music, a king of tone and rhythm. This gift is recognised even by his enemies–by Wagner, who seeks with some unfairness to restrict his genius within narrow limits, and to reduce it to «a structure with wheels of infinite ingenuity and extreme cunning … a marvel of mechanism.»[70]
But though there is hardly anyone that Berlioz does not irritate or attract, he always strikes people by his impetuous ardour, his glowing romance, and his seething imagination, all of which makes and will continue to make his work one of the most picturesque mirrors of his age. His frenzied force of ecstasy and despair, his fulness of love and hatred, his perpetual thirst for life, which «in the heart of the deepest sorrow lights the Catherine wheels and crackers of the wildest joy»[71]–these are the qualities that stir up the crowds in Benvenuto and the armies in the Damnation, that shake earth, heaven, and hell, and are never quenched, but remain devouring and «passionate even when the subject is far removed from passion, and yet also express sweet and tender sentiments and the deepest calm.»[72]
[Footnote 70: «Berlioz displayed, in calculating the properties of mechanism, a really astounding scientific knowledge. If the inventors of our modern industrial machinery are to be considered benefactors of humanity to-day, Berlioz deserves to be considered as the true saviour of the musical world; for, thanks to him, musicians can produce surprising effects in music by the varied use of simple mechanical means…. Berlioz lies hopelessly buried beneath the ruins of his own contrivances» (Oper und Drama, 1851).]
[Footnote 71: Letter from Berlioz to Ferrand.]
[Footnote 72: «The chief characteristics of my music are passionate expression, inward warmth, rhythmic in pulses, and unforeseen effects. When I speak of passionate expression, I mean an expression that desperately strives to reproduce the inward feeling of its subject, even when the theme is contrary to passion, and deals with gentle emotions or the deepest calm. It is this kind of expression that may be found in L’Enfance du Christ, and, above all, in the scene of Le Ciel in the Damnation de Faust and in the Sanctus of the Requiem» (Mémoires, II, 361).]
Whatever one may think of this volcanic force, of this torrential stream of youth and passion, it is impossible to deny them; one might as well deny the sun.
And I shall not dwell on Berlioz’s love of Nature, which, as M. Prudhomme shows us, is the soul of a composition like the Damnation and, one might say, of all great compositions. No musician, with the exception of Beethoven, has loved Nature so profoundly. Wagner himself did not realise the intensity of emotion which she roused in Berlioz,[73] and how this feeling impregnated the music of the Damnation, of Roméo, and of Les Troyens.
[Footnote 73: «So you are in the midst of melting glaciers in your Niebelungen! To be writing in the presence of Nature herself must be splendid. It is an enjoyment which I am denied. Beautiful landscapes, lofty peaks, or great stretches of sea, absorb me instead of evoking ideas in me. I feel, but I cannot express what I feel. I can only paint the moon when I see its reflection in the bottom of a well» (Berlioz to Wagner, 10 September, 1855).]
this was: His Devilish Cleverness
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