The Unknown Masterpiece (12 page)

“My dear count, you have failed to understand this great musical drama,” Gambara said quite casually, as he went over to Andrea’s piano, tried the keys, listened to their tone, and sat pensively for a few seconds, as though to gather his thoughts.

“First of all,” Gambara continued, “you must realize that an intelligence trained as mine has been recognizes at once the jeweler’s craft of which you speak. Yes, this music is a sort of loving anthology, but selected from the treasures of a fruitful imagination in which science has compressed ideas in order to extract a musical essence. I shall explain this undertaking to you.”

He stood up to move the candles to the adjoining room, and before sitting back down, he drank a full glass of Giro, that Sardinian wine which contains as much fire as ever flared up in the old Tokays.

“The fact of the matter is,” Gambara said, “that this music was written neither for unbelievers nor for those incapable of love. If you haven’t experienced in your own life the vigorous assaults of an evil spirit who wrecks the very thing you seek, who brings the fairest hopes to a sad conclusion—in a word, if you’ve never glimpsed the devil’s tail wriggling in this world of ours, this opera
Robert le Diable
will be for you what the Apocalypse is for those who believe the world comes to an end when they do. If on the other hand, in your misery and suffering, you understand something of the genius of evil, that great monkey which constantly destroys the works of God, if you conceive him as having not loved but violated a nearly divine woman, and from that as achieving the joys of fatherhood, to the point of loving his son in eternal misery with himself, rather than knowing him eternally blessed with God—if you conceive, finally, the mother’s soul soaring over her son’s head in order to wrest him from his father’s dreadful seductions, you’ll have merely a faint idea of this vast poem which ranks with Mozart’s
Don Giovanni
.
Don Giovanni
, I grant you, is superior in its perfection;
Robert le Diable
represents ideas,
Don Giovanni
excites sensations.
Don Giovanni
is still the only musical work in which harmony and melody are in exactly equal proportions; this is the sole secret of its superiority to
Robert le Diable
, for Meyerbeer’s work is the more abundant. But what use are such comparisons, if each of these two works possesses a beauty all its own? To me, groaning under the devil’s repeated assaults,
Robert le Diable
has spoken more energetically than it has to you, and I have found it to be both vast and concentrated. Truly, thanks to you, I have been, this evening, inhabiting the world of dreams where our senses become more powerful, where the universe reveals itself in gigantic proportions in relation to mankind.” There was a moment of silence. “I still shudder,” said the unfortunate artist, “at the four measures of the kettledrums which pierced me to the core at the opening of that brief overture where the trombone solo, the flutes, the oboes, and the clarinet flood the soul with fantastic colors. That andante in C-minor foreshadows the theme of the invocation of souls in the abbey, and magnifies the scene by its announcement of an entirely spiritual struggle. I shuddered!”

Gambara struck the keys with a firm hand and masterfully developed Meyerbeer’s theme by a sort of spiritual explosion in the manner of Franz Liszt. It was no longer a piano but a whole orchestra that was playing—the genius of music was evoked.

“That is the style of Mozart!” he cried. “You see how this German handles chords, and through what learned modulations he transforms terror to reach the dominant of C. I hear Hell in it! The curtain rises. What do I see? The only spectacle deserving of the name
infernal
, an orgy of knights, in Sicily. And here, in this chorus in F, all human passions unchained by a bacchic allegro. All the strings by which the devil leads us are stirred! This is the joy men know when, yielding to vertigo, they dance over an abyss. What movement in that chorus! The reality of life, life naïve and homely, stands out in G-minor in Raimbaut’s simple song. How this fellow refreshes my soul, if only for a moment, when he reminds the drunken Robert of green Normandy. The sweetness of the beloved homeland runs like a golden thread through this somber opening. Then comes that marvelous ballad in C-major, accompanied by the chorus in C-minor, taking up the narration until ‘I am Robert!’ bursts forth. The rage of the prince offended by his vassal is already more than a natural emotion; but it calms down, for memories of childhood return with Alice in that allegro in A-major, so full of movement and grace. Can you hear the cries of that innocence which in this infernal drama is persecuted from the start? ‘No, no!’” sang Gambara, making the piano echo his straining voice. “His native land and memories of his youth bloom once more in Robert’s heart—his mother’s shade appears, accompanied by gentle religious meditations! Religion inspires that beautiful ballad in E-major with its marvelous harmonic and melodic progression on the words:

‘For in the heavens, as on earth,
His mother prays for him.’

Then begins the struggle between the unknown powers and the one man who resists them with all the fires of hell. To understand it, you must listen to Bertram’s entrance, which the great composer accompanies by an orchestral ritornello echoing Raimbaut’s ballad. What art! What unity in all the parts, what power of construction! A wriggling devil is hidden underneath. With Alice’s terror, as she recognizes the devil of her own village of Saint-Michel, the combat of the two principles is launched. The musical theme is developed—and by what varied phases! Here is the antagonism necessary to any opera, powerfully revealed by a splendid recitative between Bertram and Robert, like the kind Glück composed:

‘Never shall you know the powers of my love.’

“That diabolical C-minor, Bertram’s terrible bass which begins to undermine and ultimately destroy every effort of this man of violent temper. To me, this whole part of the score is terrifying. Must crime have its criminal, and the executioner his prey? Will disaster consume the artist’s genius? Will disease overcome its victim? Can the guardian angel save the Christian? Then comes the finale, the gambling scene in which Bertram torments his son, arousing terrible emotions. Robert, despoiled, furious, destroying everything in sight, seeking to murder everyone with fire and sword, seems indeed his son so like him at this moment. What cruel gaiety in Bertram’s ‘I laugh at your blows!’ And what lurid colors the Venetian barcarole casts on this finale! What bold transitions bring this criminal father back onstage to drag Robert to the gaming table! This beginning is overwhelming for anyone who can develop the themes in his own heart, granting them the scope the composer has compelled them to communicate. There was nothing but love to set against this great symphony of voices—in which the same means are never used twice: it is unified yet varied, which is the characteristic of everything great and natural. I breathe freely; I inhabit the elevated region of a chivalrous court. I hear Isabelle’s lovely, melancholy phrases, and the double chorus of women echoing each other, reminiscent, perhaps, of the Moorish accents of Spain. At this point the terrible music is sweetened by mellower tones, like a calming storm, until we hear that graceful, flowery duet, so carefully modulated, which has no counterpart in the preceding music. After the tumult of the heroes’ camp and the adventurers’ uproar comes this picture of love. My gratitude, poet, for my heart couldn’t have held out much longer! If I didn’t gather the wildflowers of a French
opéra comique
, if I couldn’t hear the gentle laughter of a woman who can love and console, then I couldn’t endure the terrible dark notes of Bertram’s reappearance, answering his son with that ‘If I permit it!’ when he promises his adored princess to triumph with the weapons she gives him. To the hope of the gambler reformed by love, the love of the most beautiful woman—for such is this ravishing Sicilian maiden, her falcon’s eyes so sure of her prey! What performers this composer has found! To this man’s hopes, Hell opposes its own in that sublime cry: ‘Beware, Robert of Normandy!’ How could you help but admire the grim horror that fills those long, splendid notes of ‘in the nearby forest’? All the enchantment of
Jerusalem Delivered
is in them, as all of chivalry is in that chorus with its Spanish rhythm and in the tempo di marcia. Not to mention the originality of that allegro, the modulation of the four kettledrums (tuned to C, D, and C, G) combined with the grace of the tournament fanfare! All the movement of the heroic life of the age is there; you feel it in your soul, at once a romance of chivalry and a poem. The exposition is over, the music’s resources seem to be exhausted, you’ve heard nothing like it, and yet all is homogenous. You have seen human life in its one and only true expression: Shall I be happy or unhappy? Ask the philosophers. Shall I be damned or saved? Ask the Christians.”

Here Gambara ended on the chorus’s final note, drawing it out in a melancholy chord, and stood to pour himself another full glass of Giro. This semi-African wine rekindled his countenance, which the impassioned performance of Meyerbeer’s score had turned somewhat ashen.

“And that there be nothing lacking in this composition,” he continued, “the great artist has generously given us the one comic duet which the devil could afford: the temptation of a poor troubadour. He sets the jest beside the horror, a jest which destroys the only reality that appears in the sublime fantasy of his work: the pure and tranquil love of Alice and Raimbaut, whose life will be troubled by anticipated vengeance. Only a great soul can feel the nobility which inspires these delicate melodies; they have neither the garishness of our Italian music nor the vulgarity of Parisian street ballads. They have a kind of Olympian majesty. We hear the bitter laughter of a divinity set against the surprise of a troubadour—a troubadour as
Don Juan
! If it were not for this greatness at this point, we should return all too abruptly to the opera’s pervasive color, marked by that horrible rage in diminished sevenths, resolved in an infernal waltz which brings us face-to-face with the demons at last. With what vigor Bertram’s verses stand out in B-minor from the infernal chorus depicting that fatherly feeling which in these demonic songs mingles with a dreadful despair! Then the ravishing transition to Alice’s arrival with the ritornello in B-flat! I can still hear those angelic songs of heavenly freshness—the nightingale after the storm! You hear the grand conception of the ensemble in every detail, for how could we withstand the devils swarming in their pit were it not for Alice’s marvelous aria:

‘When I set out from Normandy!’

“The golden thread of that melody continues throughout the entire length of the powerful harmony—it is like a heavenly hope, and with what profound skill it keeps returning! Genius never releases the guidelines of science. Here Alice’s song in B-flat is united with the F-sharp dominant of the infernal chorus. Can you hear the orchestra’s tremolo when Robert is summoned to the council of demons? Bertram comes onstage here, and this is the high point of the musical interest, a recitative comparable to anything the greatest masters have devised, the intense struggle in E-flat between the two athletes, Heaven and Hell, the one with its ‘Yes, you know me now!’ on a diminished seventh, the other with its sublime ‘Heaven is with me!’ in F. Hell and the Cross are in each other’s presence here. Then come Bertram’s threats to Alice, so violent and touching, the genius of evil revealing itself so readily and prevailing, as always, by an appeal to self-interest. Robert’s entrance, which brings us to the magnificent unaccompanied trio in A-flat, establishes a first engagement between the two rival forces for possession of the man. You see how explicitly this is expressed,” Gambara observed, synopsizing the scene with an impassioned execution which thrilled Andrea. “This whole avalanche of music, from the four-four time of the kettledrums, has made for this combat of the three voices. The magic of evil triumphs! Alice flees, and we hear the duet in D between Bertram and Robert, the devil sinking his claws into Robert’s heart, lacerating it all the more fiercely to seize it for his own, making use of everything: honor, hope, infinite and eternal delights—everything is made to glow before his eyes; as he did with Jesus, he sets Robert on the pinnacle of the temple and shows him the treasures of the earth, evil’s jewel casket. He tests his courage, and the man’s noblest feelings explode in this cry:

‘To the knights of my country
Honor was ever their guide!’

“And to crown the work, here is the theme with which the opera began so fatally, the principal song in that magnificent evocation of souls:

‘Hear me, you Nuns, asleep
Beneath this marble slab?’

“Gloriously sustained, the music ends with the allegro vivace of the bacchanal in D-minor. It is Hell which triumphs! The music rolls out, enveloping us in its seductive folds. The infernal powers have seized their prey; they hold him fast and dance around him. Behold him lost, this noble genius, born to conquer and to reign! The devils are merry, poverty stifles genius, passion will destroy the knight.”

Here Gambara worked up a variation of the bacchanal for his own purposes, improvising ingenious variations and accompanying himself with a mournful voice, as though to express his own intimate sufferings.

“Do you hear the heavenly laments of neglected love?” he continued. “Isabelle calls to Robert amid the great chorus of the knights entering the tournament, in which motifs of the second act reappear, so we can see how the third act concludes in a supernatural atmosphere. Real life resumes. This chorus subsides at the approach of Hell’s seductions, represented by Robert with the talisman, and the wonders of the third act will continue. Here we have the duet between tenor and violin, where the rhythm indicates the brutalities of an omnipotent man, and where the princess, by plaintive moans, tries to recall her lover to reason. The composer has put himself in a difficult situation here, and has triumphed by the most delicious piece in the whole opera. What an adorable melody in the cavatina ‘Mercy for you!’ Every woman has understood its meaning, for all saw themselves embraced and ravished onstage. This piece alone would make the opera’s fortune, for every woman has fancied herself at grips with some violent knight. There was never such passionate, such dramatic music. Then the whole world turns against the reprobate. We might find fault with this finale for its similarity to that of
Don Giovanni
, but there is this enormous difference in the situation: Isabelle is inspired by a noble faith, a true love which will save Robert; for he scornfully repulses the infernal power confided to him, while Don Giovanni persists in his unbelief. This reproach, moreover, is one that can be made to all composers who have written finales since Mozart. The finale of
Don Giovanni
is one of those classical forms composed for all time. At the very end, religion ascends omnipotent with a voice which overwhelms the world, summoning all miseries to console them, all repentances to reconcile them. The entire audience is stirred by the accents of this chorus: