Читать книгу The Evolution of Modern Orchestration - Louis Adolphe Coerne - Страница 38
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ОглавлениеFrance. French musical art owes the stability of her early dramatic growth to three eminent composers: Lulli, Rameau, Gluck; and the first and the last of these were foreigners. Moreover into their hands was entrusted the moulding of French orchestration, for French orchestral music was not destined to disengage itself from bondage to the drama and assert itself as a clearly defined indigenous product until the nineteenth century. A sharp line of demarcation must be drawn between each respective career of these three pillars of the nascent stage. For Lulli had appropriated to himself all the glory attendant upon the Royal Opera, not alone as the director but as composer as well. Not until after his death did it become possible for others to reap the benefits of experience in hearing their own works produced, in consequence of which, latent talent had had no chance to expand. And the interim between Lulli and Rameau is signalized as a period of reaction during which the efforts of even the most prominent writers were but a pale reflection of those of their illustrious master.
Three composers, born in the second half of the seventeenth century, namely Campra, Destouches, Mouret, were the immediate successors of Lulli, and dedicated their services, such as they were, to the conservation of his ideals. Of these three men, Campra is popularly called the link between Lulli and Rameau. Campra possessed genuinely dramatic instincts, exercised his talents along sacred lines as well as secular, and revealed certain traits of independence and originality in that he dared to depart from Lulli's somewhat austere style by emphasizing the necessity for augmenting rhythmic effects, which was distinctly beneficial in the development of orchestration. It is interesting to note that he was the first Frenchman to employ the cor de chasse in opera, although Lulli introduced it into some of his ballets. The contributions of Destouches were of small intrinsic value other than the fact that the chivalrous surroundings of his earlier career as an officer had nurtured his natural temperament for the graceful and refined. And so with this æsthetic touch of a composer otherwise lacking in musical education, he added his mite to the development of daintiness in instrumentation, such as the use of two piccolo flutes in thirds in one of his ballets, and other minor though interesting details. Of Mouret's operas little can be said; but he deserves honorable mention for his labors as a conductor of the "Concerts spirituels," which, as the name implies, had been founded in 1725 to occupy the interregna whenever the opera houses were closed for religious reasons. Consequently, his name is rightfully connected with the evolution of the concert orchestra, for the "Concerts spirituels" exercised a discriminating influence at a critical time in French musical history, especially since subsequently, about the date of Beethoven's birth, it was reorganized by Gossec, with the result that it sprang into prominence equal to that of some of the foremost orchestras of Europe.
With the advent of Rameau (1683-1764), who was born two years before Bach, the Opéra was again lifted out of the lethargy into which it had fallen. Rameau, first to offer to the world a theoretical explanation of harmonic relationship built upon a logically scientific basis, was exactly fifty years old when he made his début as an operatic writer, indeed, he did not reach the summit of his success until about the time of Mozart's birth. And since Gluck's Parisian career dates from the decade in which Beethoven was born, the chronological relationship in the labors of Rameau and Gluck can the more readily be compared. Rameau's handling of dramatic resources was superior to that of Lulli, in fact, his methods were of sufficient merit to be subsequently absorbed by Gluck himself. The three cardinal points of departure from traditional usage that have caused the name of Rameau, first of the genuinely French masters, to be so highly respected are his daring harmonic innovations, the important rôle assigned by him to the dramatic chorus, and what is more, the importance attached to orchestral accompaniment, together with increased independence and prominence for the orchestra itself, as well as enriched instrumentation in detail. Since most of his operas are published in condensed form, which, with the exception of the ritornelli, contain but the vocal, violin, and bass parts, facilities for a satisfactory examination of his instrumentation are usually lacking. This is a matter for regret, since many of his detached instrumental numbers are veritable little gems of descriptive writing in the miniature, not dissimilar in style to those written by his contemporary, François Couperin, who was mentioned in the previous chapter as one of the three earliest exponents of characteristic clavier music.
Though Rameau made but few changes in the constituency of the orchestra, there was assigned to each instrument an individual and appropriate rôle, and the tone-colors cross and intermingle. He extended the range of the violins, aided the independency of accompaniment by the frequent use of arpeggios in the strings, and was the first to use pizzicato chord effects in the entire body of strings at once. Although he did not employ the harp, he imitated its characteristics by means of pizzicati strings. Two horns and even two clarinets are frequently to be found in his scores, and lighter touches, such as the accompaniment of the voice by two flutes and a violin, or three oboes and a bassoon, are also to be met with.
As has been already intimated, the triumphs of Rameau were followed by a second interim that lasted for nearly twenty years. But in the case of this second interim, France was not destined to remain so comparatively unproductive as during the first. For the same period that heralds the crowning point of Rameau's fame ushers in the beginnings of French comic opera, for which date Mozart's birth is again a convenient reminder. As a result of partisanship for the Italian "bouffons," the philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), wrote both the words and music of a little French pastoral in the style of the prevailing Italian intermezzi, and thereby excited the interest more especially of the younger composers. Duni, Philidor, and Monsigny, who were born in approximately the same quarter century as Rousseau, were particularly happy in their efforts to evolve from this germ a lighter and more popular style, and are therefore to be regarded as the founders of opéra comique, which, in the next generation, was to be moulded into plasmic form by Grétry. And no style could have been more beneficial for extricating orchestral writing out of the stiff and prosaic confines within which serious opera was prone to restrict it. On the other hand, Italian orchestration was leaning more and more toward pernicious conventionalism and tawdry superficiality. Here again the early opéra comique appeared as a felicitous counterbalance, and infused into the orchestra that sparkle and piquancy for which French instrumentation has ever since been famed. True, none of these minor composers contributed signally to the advancement of orchestration, but each helped in little ways, and their instrumentation was more correct and finished than that of their prominent successor, Grétry. Their orchestras were still somewhat massive, but showed progress in vigor and sonority, variety and lightness of instrumentation.
And so when Gluck arrived in Paris there existed already four distinct schools for orchestral writing—the rising classic purity of his own native land; the Neapolitan traditions, fast deteriorating into triviality; the legacies of Lulli, revivified and improved upon by Rameau; and the virginal essays at phosphorescent scoring in lighter vein.
