Paris in the Twentieth Century (11 page)

"So
at last, " Michel exclaimed, "we're going to have a little music.
"

"But
not modern music, " said Jacques. "It's too hard. "

"To
understand, yes, " Quinsonnas replied, "but not to make. "

"How's
that?" asked Michel.

"I'll
explain, " said Quinsonnas, "and I'm going to support what I say with
a striking example. Michel, be so good as to open the piano. " The young
man obliged. "Good. Now, sit down on the keyboard. "

"What?
You want
me...
"

"Sit
down, I said. " Michel lowered himself onto the keys of the instrument and
produced a jangling clash of sounds. "Do you know what you've just
done?" asked the pianist.

"I
haven't a clue!"

"Innocent!
You've just created modern harmony. "

"Right,
" said Jacques.

"Really,
that's a perfect chord for our times, and the awful thing about it is that
today's scholars take it upon themselves to explain it scientifically! In the
past, only certain notes could be sounded together; but they've been reconciled
since then, and now they no longer quarrel among themselves—they're too well
brought up for such a thing!"

"But
the effect is still just as unpleasant, " Jacques put in.

"Well,
my friend, we've reached this point by the force of events; in the last
century, a certain Richard Wagner, a sort of messiah who has been
insufficiently crucified, invented the Music of the Future, and we're still
enduring it; in his day, melody was already being suppressed, and he decided it
was appropriate to get rid of harmony as well—and the house has remained empty
ever since. "

"But,
" Michel reflected, "it's as if you were making a painting without
drawing or color!"

"Precisely,
" replied Quinsonnas. "And now that you've mentioned
painting—painting isn't really a French art, it comes to us from Italy and from
Germany, and I would suffer less seeing it profaned. But music is the very
daughter of our heart..."

"I
thought, " said Jacques, "that music started in Italy!"

"A
mistake, my son; until the middle of the sixteenth century, French music
dominated Europe; the Huguenot Goudimel
[18]
was Palestrina's teacher, and the oldest as well as the most naive melodies are
Gallic. "

"And
now we've reached this point, " said Michel.

"Yes,
my son; on the pretext that we are following new formulas, a score now consists
of only a single phrase—long, loopy, endless. At the Opera, it begins at eight
o'clock and ends just before midnight; if it should extend five minutes more,
it costs the management a fine and overtime for the house workers. "

"And
this happens without protest?"

"My
son, music is no longer tasted, it is swallowed! A few artists put up a
struggle, among them your father; but since his death, not a single note has
been written worthy of that name! Either we endure the nauseating
melody of the virgin forest,
insipid, confused, indeterminate, or else various harmony rackets are produced,
of which you have given us such a touching example by sitting on the piano.
"

"Pathetic!"
said Michel.

"Horrible!"
replied Jacques.

"Also,
my friends, " Quinsonnas resumed, "you must have observed what big
ears we have!"

"No,
" replied Jacques.

"Well
then, just compare our ears with those of the ancients and with the ears of the
Middle Ages—examine the paintings and statues, measure the results, and you
will be astonished! Ears grow in proportion as the human body shrinks: someday
the final result will be something to see! Well, my friends, physiologists have
been diligent in searching out the cause of this decadence, and it seems that
it is music we have to thank for such appendages; we are living in an age of
wizened tympanums and distorted hearing. You realize that no one keeps a
century of Verdi or Wagner in his ears without that organ's having to pay for
it. "

"That
Quinsonnas is a terrifying devil, " said Jacques.

"Nonetheless,
" Michel replied, "the old masterpieces are still performed at the
Opera. "

"I
know, " Quinsonnas answered; "there's even some talk of reviving
Offenbach's
Orpheus in the Underworld
with
the recitatives Gounod added to that masterpiece, and it's quite possible that
the production will even make a little money, on account of the ballet! What
our enlightened public requires, my friends, is some dancing! When you think
that a monument costing twenty million francs has been erected chiefly to
allow some jumping jacks to be maneuvered around the stage.... They've cut
Les Huguenots
[19]
to a single act, and this little curtain-raiser accompanies the fashionable
ballets; the dancers' costumes have been made transparent enough to deceive
nature herself, and this enlivens our financiers; the Opera, moreover, has become
a branch of the Bourse—quite as much screaming goes on there; business is
conducted in full voice, and no one bothers much about the music! Between us, I
must admit, the execution leaves something to be desired. "

"A
great deal to be desired, " Jacques replied. "The singers whinny,
cackle, shriek, and bray—anything and everything but sing. A menagerie!"

"As
for the orchestra, " Quinsonnas continued, "it has fallen very low
since his instrument no longer suffices to feed the instrumentalist! Talk
about a trade that's not practical! Ah, if we could use the power wasted on the
pedals of a piano for pumping water out of coal mines! If the air escaping from
ophicleides could also be used to turn the Catacomb Company's windmills! If the
trombone's alternating action could be applied to a mechanical sawmill—oh, then
the executants would be rich and many!"

"You're
joking, " exclaimed Michel.

"God
help me, " replied Quinsonnas quite seriously, "I shouldn't be
surprised if some ingenious in
ventor
managed such things one day! The spirit of invention is what is highly
developed in France nowadays! It's really the only spirit we have left! And I
can tell you it doesn't make conversations very lively! But who dreams of being
entertained? Let's bore one another to death! That's our ruling principle
today!"

"And
you can't see any remedy for it?" Michel asked.

"None,
so long as finance and machinery prevail! And it's really machinery that's doing
the mischief. "

"Why
is that?"

"Because
there's this one good thing about finance: at least it can pay for
masterpieces, and a man must eat, even if he has genius! The Genoese, the Venetians,
the Florentines under Lorenzo the Magnificent, bankers and businessmen as they
were, all encouraged the arts! But mechanics, engineers, technicians—devil take
me if Raphael, Titian, Veronese, and Leonardo could ever have come into being!
They'd have had to compete with mechanical procedures, and they'd have starved
to death! Ah, machinery! It's enough to make you loathe inventors and
inventions alike!"

"But
after all, " said Michel, "you're a musician, Quinsonnas, you work!
You spend your nights at your piano—do you refuse to play modern music?"

"Oh,
me! I play as much of it as anyone else—here's a piece I've just written that
will appeal to today's taste; it may even have some success, if it finds a
publisher. "

"What
are you calling it?"

"After
Thilorier
[20]
—a
Grand Fantasy on the Liquefaction of Carbonic Acid."

"You
can't be serious!" Michel exclaimed.

"Listen
and judge for yourselves, " Quinsonnas replied. He sat down at the piano,
or rather he flung himself at it. Under his fingers, under his hands, under his
elbows, the wretched instrument produced impossible sounds; notes collided and
crackled like hailstones. No melody, no rhythm! The artist had undertaken to
portray the final experiment which had cost Thilorier his life.

"There!"
he exclaimed. "Did you hear that? Now do you understand? Are you aware of
the great chemist's experiment? Have you been taken into his laboratory? Do you
feel how the carbonic acid is separated out? Here we have a pressure of four
hundred ninety-five atmospheres! The cylinder is turning- watch out! watch out!
The machine is going to explode! Take cover!" And with a blow of his fist
capable of splintering the ivory keys, Quinsonnas reproduced the explosion.
"Whew!" he said, "isn't that imitative enough—isn't that
beautiful?"

Michel
remained stupefied. Jacques couldn't help laughing.

"And
you expect a lot from a piece like that, " he said.

"Expect
a lot!" Quinsonnas replied. "It's of my time—everyone's a chemist
nowadays. I'll be understood. Only it isn't enough to have ideas, there must
be proper execution. "

"What
do you mean?" asked Jacques.

"Just
what I said. It's by execution that I plan to astound the age. "

"But
it sounds to me, " Michel argued, "as if you played that piece
wonderfully. "

"Don't
be ridiculous, " said the artist with a shrug of his shoulders. "I
haven't mastered the first note, though I've been studying the cursed thing for
three years!"

"What
more do you want to do with it?"

"That's
my secret, my children; don't ask me to share it with you, you'd only think I
was mad, and that would discourage me. But I can assure you that one day the
talents of Liszt and Thalberg
[21]
,
of Prudent and of Schulhoff
[22]
,
will be exposed for what they are. "

"You
mean you want to play three more notes per second than they do?" asked
Jacques.

"No,
but I'll be playing the piano in a new way, a way that will amaze the public!
How? I can't tell you.

One
allusion, one indiscretion, and someone will steal my idea from me. The vile
pack of imitators will be on my heels, and I want to be unique. But that
requires superhuman labor! When I'm sure of myself my fortune will be made,
and I'll say farewell to Bookkeeping forever!"

"I
really think you must be mad, " said Jacques.

"No,
not mad, merely maniacal, which is what you must be in order to succeed! But
let's get back to some gentler feelings and try to revive a little of that
charming past for which we were born too late. Here, my friends, is truth in
music!"

Quinsonnas
was a great artist; he played with profound feeling, and he knew everything
the preceding centuries had bequeathed to his own, which refused the legacy! He
took the art at its birth, passing rapidly from master to master, and by his
rather rough but sympathetic voice completed what his fingers' execution
lacked. He passed in review before his delighted friends the whole history of
music, from Rameau and Lully to Mozart and on to Beethoven and Weber, illustrating
all the founders of the art, weeping with the gentle inspirations of Gr
é
try,
and triumphing in the splendid pages of Rossini and Meyerbeer.
"Listen!" he said, "here are the forgotten songs of
Guillaume Tell
[23]
,
of
Robert le Diable
[24]
,
of
Les Huguenots;
here is
the charming period of H
é
rold
[25]
and Auber
[26]
,
two learned men who did themselves honor by knowing nothing! Ah, what has
knowledge to do with music? Has it any access to painting? No, and painting
and music are all one! That is how people understood this great art during the
first half of the nineteenth century! They didn't search out new
formulas—there's nothing new to find in music, any more than in love. It
remains the charming prerogative of the sensuous arts to be eternally
young!"