SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
Gustave Charpentier’s
And so, to make up for the austere grandeur of Les Béatitudes they had it immediately followed by Gustave Charpentier’s Impressions d’Italie. You should have seen the relief of the audience. At last they were to have some French music–as Germans understand it. Charpentier is, of all living French musicians, the most liked in Germany; he is indeed the only one who is popular with artists and the general public alike. Shall I say that the sincere pleasure they take in his orchestration and the gay life of his subjects is enhanced a little by a slight disdain for French frivolity–wälschen Tand?
«Now listen to that,» said Richard Strauss to me during the third movement of Impressions d’Italie; «that is the true music of Montmartre, the utterance of fine words … Liberty!… Love!… which no one believes.»
And on the whole he found the music quite charming, and, without doubt, in the depths of his heart approved of this Frenchman according to conventional notions that are current in Germany alone. Strauss is really very fond of Charpentier, and was his patron in Berlin; and I remember how he showed childish delight in Louise when it was first performed in Paris.
But Strauss, and most other Germans, are quite on the wrong track when they try to persuade themselves that this amusing French frivolity is still the exclusive property of France. They really love it because it has become German; and they are quite unconscious of the fact. The German artists of other times did not find much pleasure in frivolity; but I could have easily shown Strauss his liking for it by taking examples from his own works. The Germans of to-day have but little in common with the Germans of yesterday.
I am not speaking of the general public only, The German public of to-day are devotees of Brahms and Wagner, and everything of theirs seems good to them; they have no discrimination, and, while they applaud Wagner and encore Brahms, they are, in their hearts, not only frivolous, but sentimental and gross. The most striking thing about this public is their cult of power since Wagner’s death. When listening to the end of Die Meistersinger I felt how the haughty music of the great march reflected the spirit of this military nation of shop-keepers, bursting with rude health and complacent pride.
this was: Gustave Charpentier’s
go to next chapter: German artists are gradually losing the power
