Comments about Meyerbeer

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Comments from the past about Meyerbeer

Authors:

Moritz Moszkowski

Bernard Van Dieren, in four parts, Essay about Meyerbeer from "Down Among the Dead Men"

Cecil Gray

from "The History of Music" (1935) discussing Meyerbeer, Wagner and Verdi
"A Note About Meyerbeer" from "Contingencies and Other Essays (1947)

Honoré de Balzac, "Gambara" (part of the Comédie Humaine) a novel containing an in-depth discussion of the impact of Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable" (in English)

George Sand from Lettres d'un Voyageur ("believe it or not"! one of these famous letters was to Meyerbeer)

Reynaldo Hahn

Max Brod -- Embracing Meyerbeer: A Challenge to the Jews -- Some thoughts of Max Brod, Robert Ignatius Letellier and Chaim Nachman Bialik

Heinrich Heine

Giuseppe Mazzini -- thoughts and writings compiled by Marco Pellegrini in English and Italiano

Walt Whitman Poem from Leaves of Grass

Moritz Moszkowski

On Meyerbeer and Wagner

. . . . It is not to be denied that [the energetic partisans of the so-called new German school] succeeded in somewhat discrediting the value of Meyerbeer's music, and after the absolute denial of merit in his works had become an article of faith for Wagnerism there was no hesitation in its acceptance by those who desired to be modern a tout prix.

The public at large, which has little judgment in things musical, soon became an active participant in the war for reformation of dramatic music; for Wagner not only illustrated his art principles through his operas, but also announced them in papers on art, which most skillfully accentuated the German national element in its esthetic ambitions. He furthermore took into consideration so much that was foreign to music, attempting to establish parallels between his reformatory ideas in his own department of art and matters which apparently concerned remote domains of thought and action, that many who had originally been totally indifferent came through this indirect path of reasoning into the Wagner fold.

The anti-Semitic propaganda found a capable champion in Wagner. Had there been no other available reasons for condemning Meyerbeer's music than the Jewish origin of its author, that, with Wagner's help would have sufficed. The interesting discovery was made that the scores of Robert le Diable and Les Huguenots were in reality nothing but Jewish brogue, though they afforded valuable documentary proof at the same time of the existence of the famous French- Jewish alliance [to combat German composers].. . . .

[For one perspective on this topic see "The Wagner Controversy" by Lili Eylon]

[For a comprehensive analysis of Meyerbeer, Wagner and Verdi and their inter-relationship, see Cecil Gray excerpts from "The History of Music"]

On Spontini and Meyerbeer

. . . .[Even] before Wagner's appearance upon the field the fight against Meyerbeer had been conducted with great personal enmity. Spontini, who was at first overestimated, and later saw his fame fade, had done all that was possible in this reprehensible style of warfare. As soon as he became convinced that no machinations could prevail against the success of his hated rival, he overreached himself in the harebrained assertion that Meyerbeer did not compose his own operas, but that they were the products of a certain Gouin, who preferred selling his fame to endangering his position as postal clerk by the acquisition of musical renoummée.

On comparing the music of Beethoven to that of Meyerbeer

. . . . Meyerbeer's increasing musical ability, as traceable through his successive operas, "Crociato," "Robert," and "Les Huguenots," is quite analogous to the gradual development shown in Beethoven's symphonies. Berlioz says, quite properly, of the First Symphony, "This is not yet Beethoven." No one would question that the Second Symphony bears the unmistakable impress of its creator, but not until the Third Symphony does the master exhibit the full glory of his genius. The careers of Beethoven and Meyerbeer are analogous in that each in his own province showed not only the ripest individuality but also the most perfect mastery of art forms; for just as Beethoven is the mightiest composer that has arisen in the symphonic field, so is Meyerbeer still the foremost representative of grand opera.

George Sand

From Lettres d'un Voyageur

Geneva, September, 1836

To: Giacomo Meyerbeer

Carrisimo Maestro,

You allowed me to write to you from Geneva. I venture to avail myself of your permission; it is apparent that you will never be accused of camaraderie with a poor poet like me. That's why I have decided to go against convention and tell you how much I admire you, and I do not fear offending your modesty. No dispenser of fame, I am, concerning matters of art, an insignificant but enthusiastic novice whose opinions masters can accept with a smile.

Therefore, I'll relate to you about a day in my travels that began a church, and where I thought of no one but you, and ended in a theatre where I spoke of no one but you.

. . . . [In the church] from stone floors that no Protestant knee ever warms, solemn voices seemed to resound. . . . In my mind, these imaginary hymns assumed the form of that fine tune of you opera Les Huguenots, and, while dreaming I heard the cries of Catholic indignation and a sharp volley of muskets outside, a tall figure passed before me, one of the noblest figures in drama and one of the loveliest personifications of the idea of pure faith that art has ever produced: Meyerbeer's Marcel.

. . . . .Though you are a musician, you are more a poet than any of us! In what secret recesses of your soul, in what hidden treasury of your mind did you conjure those clear, pure features, that concept, simple as antiquity, true as history, lucid as conscience and strong as faith? It was not long ago [in Robert le Diable] that you were on your knees in the sensuous darkness of Saint Mark's constructing your Sicilian cathedral on a scale even more vast, smothering yourself in Catholic incense at that dark hours when the candles are lit, making the gold and marble walls sparkle until you were overcome and bowed down by the tender and terrible ecstasies of that holy place. How then was it, when you entered Luther's Church that you were able to evoke its austere poetry and revive its heroic dead?

[For a discussion of George Sand's opinion of Meyerbeer, see "The Thematic Nexus of Religion etc." by Robert Ignatius Letellier]

Embracing Meyerbeer: A Challenge to the Jews

Some thoughts of Max Brod, Robert Ignatius Letellier and Chaim Nachman Bialik

compiled by Stephen A. Agus

The Jewish community has, at least since the 1930’s, ignored and forgotten the glorious music and opera of Meyerbeer. Though most Jews and non-Jews alike would be surprised to hear that Giacomo Meyerbeer was considered one of the world’s greatest and most successful composers of 19th century opera, such a statement would not have surprised our great-grandparents. Consider this: unlike many highly revered 19th century “enlightened Jews” of Europe such as Heine, Mendelssohn, Offenbach and Mahler, Meyerbeer was born a Jew, died as a Jew and was married to a Jewish woman. He lived his entire life as a Jew without waiver and suffered the most vicious of anti-Semitic attacks from the pen of Richard Wagner. At the same time, the Jewish community of the 20th century has been and remains a community deeply committed to the patronage, management and performance of classical music and opera. Even so, the neglect of Meyerbeer, which began just before World War I and completed with Hitler’s rise to power, persists to this very day.

Neither the New Israel Opera, nor the "old" Opera of Tel Aviv ever did perform an opera by Meyerbeer, nor is the subject publicly debated in Israel (though Richard Wagner's operas and music is both discussed, argued about AND performed periodically). Since the 1930's, the only opera by Meyerbeer ever perfomed at New York's Metropolitan Opera was Le Prophète, for two short seasons, more than twenty years ago. New York City is the city with the world's largest population of Jews.

With respect to Meyerbeer, Robert Ignatius Letellier has observed

"From his first opera (Jephthas Gelübde) (1812) with its Biblical topic involving as it does an agonizing decision brought on by the dictates of religion and religious sensibility, through Il Crociato in Egitto (1824) with its exploration of two opposed cultures and their respective religions (Christianity and Islam) caught in a conflict that has serious complicating factors of identity for the principal protagonists, to his swansong L'Africaine (1865) where the Catholic West meets the Hindu East in what amounts to a quasi-allegorical consideration of the issues of colonialism and racism, great issues are considered in terms and symbolism of opposed religious factions, and particularly in a variety of Christian imagery. The choice could hardly have been fortuitous, and may well account for the composer's disgraceful neglect by his own people to whose cause and faith he was ever loyal."

Robert Ignatius Letellier, The Thematic Nexus of Religion, Power, Politics and Love in the Operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer (www.meyerbeer.com 1998)

In his biography of Heinrich Heine, The Artist in Revolt (1956), Max Brod opines that Jewish historical treatment of Meyerbeer is typical of similar treatment accorded to all Jewish artists of the diaspora who chose to express their art outside the Jewish sphere.

"They live and practice their art in alien cultural spheres. They become entangled in controversy, are despised and praised too, sometimes they are excessively spoilt. But soon after death comes a change. It is as if the nations, smitten with a peculiar kind of remorse, seek to cancel a certain over-estimation in which they held the artists while they were alive by an equally unjust lack of appreciation and neglect, even hostility, after their death. There is an extraordinary transition from what was frequently an all too noisy fame enjoyed by Jewish artists when alive to complete oblivion on their death. The classic example is Meyerbeer. Perhaps his success was noisily exaggerated in his lifetime; today, however, he is the victim of an equally flagrant injustice. Following Wagner, who learnt so much from him, people turn a deaf ear to the genuine musical values in Meyerbeer's compositions, to the glorious arias of L'Africana; his genuine powers of invention are represented as mere striving after effect. . . ."

Brod then expresses the belief that the nullification of the artist's work is not bound to continue:

"Meanwhile, however, there has quietly developed within the Jewish community, frequently on the express initiative of a Jewish personality (Karl Kraus, Offenbach renaissance) a profound loving devotion to the Jewish artist, who himself had little or no connection with the Jewish community. It becomes evident that he was always dear and of importance in this community, that in it, even though separated from it, he had exercised a judge's office. And so, the brethren come down and bring the dead man 'in his father's burying place.' The dead man lies in his place. Gradually, undistorted, his work is now placed before the outside world too. Undistorted because without extravagant praise, and with blame given in its due proportions only."

We note here that Offenbach converted to Christianity at age 35.

It is Brod who draws upon the writings of the great Zionist poet-laureate Chaim Nachman Bialik, in his Essays (Jüdischer Verlag, Berlin, 1925) who made the case for the embracing, by the Jewish people, of all their collective art and literature as a means of achieving redemption.

"We wish to cast a great wide net over the whole sea of human literature and gather in all the sparkling drops of Jewish spiritual creativity. That will be a memorable day, a day of redemption and liberation for the Jewish soul, which will have returned to its fons et origo, to its inheritance, to its bundle of life. . . . "

Heinrich Heine: Angélique

VII

Ja freilich, du bist mein Ideal,
Habs dir ja oft bekräftigt
Mit Küssen und Eiden sonder Zahl;
Doch heute bin ich beschäftigt.

Komm morgen zwischen zwei und drei,
Dann sollen neue Flammen
Bewähren meine Schwärmerei;
Wir essen nachher zusammen.

Wenn ich Billette bekommen kann,
Bin ich sogar kapabel,
Dich in die Oper zu führen alsdann:
Man gibt Robert-le-Diable.

Es ist ein großes Zauberstück
Voll Teufelslust und Liebe;
Von Meyerbeer ist die Musik,
Der schlechte Text von Scribe.

Giuseppe Mazzini -- compiled by Marco Pellegrini for the Meyerbeer Fan Club

English version

In Italia chiunque conosce chi sia Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), uno dei più importanti protagonisti del Risorgimento, ma quasi nessuno sa che era un grande appassionato di Meyerbeer. Nei suoi "Cenni biografici e storici" premessi al nono volume degli "Scritti editi e inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini" del 1877, Aurelio Saffi ricorda che egli "prediligeva, dopo il Guglielmo Tell di Rossini, Gli Ugonotti di Meyerbeer", ed effettivamente Rossini e Meyerbeer sono i compositori che più frequentemente compaiono nei suoi scritti.

Forse la sua passione per il compositore tedesco va ricollegata al suo interesse per l'opera di George Sand ed è significativo che egli abbia scritto una prefazione proprio alle "Lettres d'un voyageur", l'opera in cui la scrittrice francese esprimeva nel modo più chiaro ed appassionato la sua ammirazione per Meyerbeer.

Durante il suo lungo esilio londinese, Mazzini si recò in più occasioni a vedere delle opere di meyerbeer e il suo epistolario contiene un considerevole numero di considerazioni in proposito. Per esempio il 1° settembre 1852 scriveva alla madre: "ho sentito il Profeta di Meyerbeer, magnifica opera" [Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini, vol. XLVII, Imola, P.Galeati, 1927, p. 324] e il 24 luglio 1862: "martedì siamo andati a sentire Dinorah: vi è certamente della bella musica, e specialmente un lungo canto di Dinorah alla propria ombra -- e un coro a "Maria" nell'ouverture che è molto bello. In complesso è inferiore agli Ugonotti e al Profeta. Ma dovrei sentirla un'altra volta prima di dare un giudizio finale; e questo è da escludersi" [Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini, vol. LXXIII, Imola, P.Galeati, 1936, p.6]

Il più interessante giudizio su Meyerbeer si trova in una lettera diretta a Emilia Venturi (21.05.1867), in cui Mazzini le indica alcune aggiunte da inserire in una sua opera giovanile, La filosofia della musica. [Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini, vol. LXXXV, Imola, P.Galeati, 1940, pp.44-47]

Cara,

ciò che dovreste dire in una nota a pié di pagina 115 e a modo vostro, è questo:

Che Meyerbeer è andato, da quando è stata scritta la pagina, un passo avanti verso lo scopo. Il problema che era stato posto nel Roberto - dalla concezione musicale di Bertram e Alice - si avvicina sempre più alla conclusione negli Ugonotti. Nel Roberto. In Robert, il trionfo del principio del bene su quello del male è come improvvisato, i due principi continuarono, come dire, su due parallele, reppresentate dai due personaggi e senza pervadere il tutto: la soluzione è appena condotta; sta appesa a un filo fino all'ultimo; e appare più come un fatto che come il lavoro provvidenziale condotto dall'immolazione e da una vera fede, benché piuttosto nuda e fredda - protestante - opposta alla superstizione. Non così Gli Ugonotti. Là la lotta è intrecciata con tutta la concezione musicale per mezzo del riapparire del Corale, e del forte, per quanto appassionato, insistente caratteristico tema melodico di Marcello, la voce del Dovere domina il mondo cattolico, allegro, leggero, regale o triste, esterno, bigotto, una promessa del trionfo dell'emancipazione che a mano a mano aumenta. Voi indovinate fin dal principio che il Cielo trionferà per l'immolazione di un uomo. Questo per l'alta idea ispiratrice; ma in sede secondaria, l'unirsi, il fondersi dei due elementi che costituiranno la Musica del futuro - la melodia italiana e l'armonia tedesca - ha fatto un passo in avanti. Ciò che nel Roberto si può quasi separare e spartire nei due campi, è qui inseparabilmente unito: la melodia nasce dal sostrato armonico: l'una non può prescindere dall'altro.

Meyerbeer è il più grande artista di un periodo di transizione, nel quale il Sommo Sacerdote non può ancora apparire. Egli ha dato le direttive del Dramma musicale e ha creato delle individualità musicali che ricordano Shakespeare. Ha ereditato da Weber - al quale deve molto - la rara facoltà di riprodurre in musica le caratteristiche di uno scenario e dei mondi locali - testimonio ne sia il suo veramente bretone Pardon de Ploërmel.

Inoltre egli ha, come ho detto, moralizzato il Dramma, facendolo eco del mondo e del suo eterno problema vitale. Non si è votato alla musica fine a se stessa; è il profeta della musica come missione, la musica che sta immediatamente dopo la Religione.

Nato nell'Istra italiana da famiglia tedesca, si potrebbe dire che ci è stato dato come un simbolo dell'unione futura, come legame fra i due mondi, il cui armonizzarsi costituirà la più alta espressione musicale del futuro.

La sua passione per Meyerbeer era così grande che ancora nel 1868, a solo quattro anni prima della sua morte, Mazzini cercava di procurarsi qualche autografo del compositore tedesco. [Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini, vol. LXXXVII, Imola, P.Galeati, 1940, p.188]

Marco Pellegrini

BIBLIOGRAFIA: Stefano RAGNI, Les Huguenots di Meyerbeer, tra George Sand e Mazzini, "Annali dell'Università per Stranieri di Perugia", N.S. I (1993), pp.165-181.

Giuseppe Mazzini -- compiled by Marco Pellegrini for the Meyerbeer Fan Club

Italian version

Everybody in Italy knows of Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), one of the most important protagonists of the Italian "Risorgimento" - the struggle for unity and independence in the nineteenth century - but only few of them know he was a great fan of Meyerbeer. In his "Cenni biografici e storici" about Mazzini Aurelio, Saffi writes that he "prediligeva, dopo il Guglielmo Tell di Rossini, Gli Ugonotti di Meyerbeer" ("he preferred, after Rossini's Guglielmo Tell, Meyerbeer's Ugonotti"), and Rossini and Meyerbeer are the composers who appear most frequently in his writings. Perhaps his passion for Meyerbeer was joined with his interest for the works of George Sand. [See George Sand]

It is very significant that Mazzini wrote an introduction to the Lettres d'un voyageur, where Sand revealed her admiration for the German composer.

During his long London exile, Mazzini often went to see Meyerbeer's operas and his letters contain many favorable remarks about them. For example on September 1, 1852 he wrote to his mother: "ho sentito il Profeta di Meyerbeer, magnifica opera" ("I heard The Prophet of Meyerbeer, a wonderful opera") [Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini, vol. XLVII, Imola, P.Galeati, 1927, p. 324] and on July 24, 1862: "we went on Tuesday to heard Dinorah: there is beautiful music of course, and especially a long song of Dinorah to her own shadow - and a chorus to 'Maria' in the Ouverture which is altogether beautiful. The whole is inferior to the Huguenots and to the Prophet. But I ought to hear it again before finally judging; and that is out of question." [Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini, vol. LXXIII, Imola, P.Galeati, 1936, p.6]

The most interesting Mazzini's opinion about Meyerbeer is in a letter to Emilie Venturi (May 21, 1867), where he indicated to her some additions for his juvenile work Filosofia della musica. [Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini, vol. LXXXV, Imola, P.Galeati, 1940, pp.44-47]

Dear,

What you ought to say in a note appended to page 115 and in your own way, is this:

That Meyerbeer went, since, the page was written, one step in advance towards the aim. The problem which was laid down in Robert - by the musical conception of Bertram and Alice - is approaching more and more the solution in the Huguenots. In Robert, the triumph of the good principle on the evil one is somewhat improvised; the two principles went on, as it were, on two parallels, represented by the two rôles and without pervading the whole: the solution is scarcely led; it is hanging on a thread to the last; and appearing more as a fact than a providential work brought on by self-sacrifice and true, although rather barren and cold - protestant-like - faith opposed to superstition. Not so in the Huguenots. There the struggle is intertwined with the whole musical conception: through the re-appearing Chorale, and the stern, although loving, insisting individualized melodic rhythm of Marcel, the voice of Duty sounds dominating the gay light royal or somber external bigoted catholic world, a promise more and more increasing of emancipating success. You guess from the first that Heaven will - through human self-sacrifice - triumph. So far for the high parent-thought; but, in a secondary sphere, the joining, the blending of the two elements which will constitute the Music of the future - Italian melody and German harmony - has gone one step forward. What you almost might, in Robert, separate and apportion to the two camps, is here inseparably united: the melody rises on the harmonic substratum: the one not be singled out from the other.

Meyerbeer is the highest artist of a transition period, in which the High-Priest cannot yet appear. He has given the outline of the musical Drama, and created musical individualities which remind one of Shakespeare. He has inherited from Weber - whom to he owes much - the rare power of reproducing in his music the characteristics of local scenery and manners - witness his truly Briton Pardon de Ploërmel. And he has, as I said, moralized the Drama, making it an echo of the world and its eternal vital problem. He is not a votary of the l'Art pour l'Art music; he is the prophet of the music with a mission, the music standing immediately below Religion.

Born in Italian Istria, from a German family, one would say that he was given to us a symbol of the future union, a link between the two worlds the harmonizing of which will constitute the highest musical expression of the future.

His passion for Meyerbeer was so great that in 1868, four years before his death, Mazzini was looking for some of Meyerbeer's autographs [Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini, vol. LXXXVII, Imola, P.Galeati, 1940, p.188]

Marco Pellegrini

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Stefano RAGNI, Les Huguenots di Meyerbeer, tra George Sand e Mazzini, "Annali dell'Università per Stranieri di Perugia", N.S. I (1993), pp.165-181.

Walt Whitman

Proud Music of the Storm

   PROUD music of the storm!

   Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies!

   Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains!

   Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras!

   You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert,

   Blending, with Nature's rhythmus, all the tongues of nations;

   You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses!

   You formless, free, religious dances! you from the Orient!

   You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts;

   You sounds from distant guns, with galloping cavalry!

   Echoes of camps, with all the different bugle-calls!

   Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless,

   Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber--Why have you seiz'd me?

   Come forward, O my Soul, and let the rest retire;

   Listen--lose not--it is toward thee they tend;

   Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber,

   For thee they sing and dance, O Soul.

   A festival song!

   The duet of the bridegroom and the bride--a marriage-march,

   With lips of love, and hearts of lovers, fill'd to the brim with

         love;

   The red-flush'd cheeks, and perfumes--the cortege swarming, full of

         friendly faces, young and old,

   To flutes' clear notes, and sounding harps' cantabile.

   Now loud approaching drums!

   Victoria! see'st thou in powder-smoke the banners torn but flying?

         the rout of the baffled?

   Hearest those shouts of a conquering army?

   (Ah, Soul, the sobs of women--the wounded groaning in agony,

   The hiss and crackle of flames--the blacken'd ruins--the embers of

         cities,

   The dirge and desolation of mankind.)

   Now airs antique and medieval fill me!

   I see and hear old harpers with their harps, at Welsh festivals:

   I hear the minnesingers, singing their lays of love,

   I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the feudal ages.

   Now the great organ sounds,

   Tremulous--while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth,

   On which arising, rest, and leaping forth, depend,

   All shapes of beauty, grace and strength--all hues we know,

   Green blades of grass, and warbling birds--children that gambol and

         play--the clouds of heaven above,)

   The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not,

   Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest--maternity of all the rest;

   And with it every instrument in multitudes,

   The players playing--all the world's musicians,

   The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration,

   All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals,

   The measureless sweet vocalists of ages,

   And for their solvent setting, Earth's own diapason,

   Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves;

   A new composite orchestra--binder of years and climes--ten-fold

         renewer,

   As of the far-back days the poets tell--the Paradiso,

   The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done,

   The journey done, the Journeyman come home,

   And Man and Art, with Nature fused again.

   Tutti! for Earth and Heaven!

   The Almighty Leader now for me, for once has signal'd with his wand.

   The manly strophe of the husbands of the world,

   And all the wives responding.

   The tongues of violins!

   (I think, O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself;

   This brooding, yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.)

   Ah, from a little child,

   Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music;

   My mother's voice, in lullaby or hymn;

   (The voice--O tender voices--memory's loving voices!

   Last miracle of all--O dearest mother's, sister's, voices;)

   The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav'd corn,

   The measur'd sea-surf, beating on the sand,

   The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream,

   The wild-fowl's notes at night, as flying low, migrating north or

         south,

   The psalm in the country church, or mid the clustering trees, the

         open air camp-meeting,

   The fiddler in the tavern--the glee, the long-strung sailor-song,

   The lowing cattle, bleating sheep--the crowing cock at dawn.

   All songs of current lands come sounding 'round me,

   The German airs of friendship, wine and love,

   Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances--English warbles,

   Chansons of France, Scotch tunes--and o'er the rest,

   Italia's peerless compositions.

   Across the stage, with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion,

   Stalks Norma, brandishing the dagger in her hand.

   I see poor crazed Lucia's eyes' unnatural gleam;

   Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevell'd.

   I see where Ernani, walking the bridal garden,

   Amid the scent of night-roses, radiant, holding his bride by the

         hand,

   Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn.

   To crossing swords, and grey hairs bared to heaven,

   The clear, electric base and baritone of the world,

   The trombone duo--Libertad forever!

   From Spanish chestnut trees' dense shade,

   By old and heavy convent walls, a wailing song,

   Song of lost love--the torch of youth and life quench'd in despair,

   Song of the dying swan--Fernando's heart is breaking.

   Awaking from her woes at last, retriev'd Amina sings;

   Copious as stars, and glad as morning light, the torrents of her joy.

   (The teeming lady comes!

   The lustrious orb--Venus contralto--the blooming mother,

   Sister of loftiest gods--Alboni's self I hear.)

   I hear those odes, symphonies, operas;

   I hear in the William Tell, the music of an arous'd and angry people;

   I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert;

   Gounod's Faust, or Mozart's Don Juan.

   I hear the dance-music of all nations,

   The waltz, (some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in

         bliss;)

   The bolero, to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets.

   I see religious dances old and new,

   I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre,

   I see the Crusaders marching, bearing the cross on high, to the

         martial clang of cymbals;

   I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers'd with frantic

         shouts, as they spin around, turning always towards Mecca;

   I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs;

   Again, at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern Greeks dancing,

   I hear them clapping their hands, as they bend their bodies,

   I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet.

   I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding

         each other;

   I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing

         and catching their weapons,

   As they fall on their knees, and rise again.

   I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling;

   I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor

         word,

   But silent, strange, devout--rais'd, glowing heads--extatic faces.)

   I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings,

   The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen;

   The sacred imperial hymns of China,

   To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone;)

   Or to Hindu flutes, and the fretting twang of the vina,

   A band of bayaderes.

   Now Asia, Africa leave me--Europe, seizing, inflates me;

   To organs huge, and bands, I hear as from vast concourses of voices,

   Luther's strong hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott;

   Rossini's Stabat Mater dolorosa;

   Or, floating in some high cathedral dim, with gorgeous color'd

         windows,

   The passionate Agnus Dei, or Gloria in Excelsis.

   Composers! mighty maestros!

   And you, sweet singers of old lands--Soprani! Tenori! Bassi!

   To you a new bard, carolling free in the west,

   Obeisant, sends his love.

   (Such led to thee, O Soul!

   All senses, shows and objects, lead to thee,

   But now, it seems to me, sound leads o'er all the rest.)

   I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul's Cathedral;

   Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies,

         oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn;

   The Creation, in billows of godhood laves me.

   Give me to hold all sounds, (I, madly struggling, cry,)

   Fill me with all the voices of the universe,

   Endow me with their throbbings--Nature's also,

   The tempests, waters, winds--operas and chants--marches and

         Dances,

   Utter--pour in--for I would take them all.

   Then I woke softly,

   And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream,

   And questioning all those reminiscences--the tempest in its fury,

   And all the songs of sopranos and tenors,

   And those rapt oriental dances, of religious fervor,

   And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs,

   And all the artless plaints of love, and grief and death,

   I said to my silent, curious Soul, out of the bed of the slumber-

         chamber,

   Come, for I have found the clue I sought so long,

   Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day,

   Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real,

   Nourish'd henceforth by our celestial dream.

   And I said, moreover,

   Haply, what thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound of winds,

   Nor dream of raging storm, nor sea-hawk's flapping wings, nor harsh

         scream,

   Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy,

   Nor German organ majestic--nor vast concourse of voices--nor layers

         of harmonies;

   Nor strophes of husbands and wives--nor sound of marching soldiers,

   Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the bugle-calls of camps;

   But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee,

   Poems, bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted in night

         air, uncaught, unwritten,

   Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write.

Reynaldo Hahn, celebrated composer, wrote that "people of my father's generation would rather have doubted the solar system than the supremacy of 'Le Prophete' over all other operas." Quote from "Camille Saint-Saens: A Life", by Brian Rees (Chatto and Windus 1999)

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