Part 3 (2/2)
To obviate this, the conductor must first previously warn the players against such inexactness, into which they almost all are led to fall unawares; and then, while conducting, must cast a glance towards them at the decisive moment, and _antic.i.p.ate a little_, by beating the first beat of the bar where they come in. It is incredible how difficult it is to prevent trumpet-players from doubling the value of a quaver-rest thus placed.
When a long _accelerando, little by little_, is indicated by the composer, for pa.s.sing from an allegro moderato to a presto, the majority of orchestral conductors hurry the time _by jerks_, instead of quickening it equally throughout, by an insensible onward rate. This should be carefully avoided.
The same remark applies to the converse proposition. It is even more difficult to slacken a quick time smoothly, and without checks, so as to transform it little by little into a slow time. Often, from a desire to testify zeal, or from defect of delivery in his musical feeling, a conductor demands from his players _an exaggeration of nice gradations_.
He comprehends neither the character nor the style of the piece. The gradations then become so many blemishes; the accents, yells; the intentions of the poor composer are totally disfigured and perverted; while those of the orchestral conductor--however politely meant they may be--are none the less injurious: like the caresses of the a.s.s in the fable, who crushed his master while fondling him.
And now let us instance many deplorable abuses that are obtained in almost all the orchestras of Europe--abuses which reduce composers to despair, and which it is the duty of conductors to abolish as soon as possible.
Performers playing stringed instruments will rarely give themselves the trouble to play a _tremolo_; they subst.i.tute for this very characteristic effect, a tame repet.i.tion of the note, half, and sometimes three-quarters slower than the one whence results the tremolo: instead of demisemiquavers, they make triple or double ones; and in lieu of producing sixty-four notes in a bar in four-time (adagio), they produce only thirty-two, or even sixteen. The action of the arm necessary for producing a true tremolo, demands from them too great an effort. This idleness is intolerable.
Many double-ba.s.s players permit themselves--from idleness, also, or from a dread of being unable to achieve certain difficulties--to simplify their part. This race of simplifiers has existed for forty years; but it cannot endure any longer. In ancient works, the double-ba.s.s parts were extremely simple; therefore there can be no reason to impoverish them still more: those in modern scores are rather more difficult, it is true; but, with very few exceptions, there is nothing in them impossible of execution; composers, masters of their art, write them with care, and as they ought to be executed. If it is from idleness that the simplifiers pervert them, the energetic orchestral conductor is armed with the necessary authority to compel the fulfilment of their duty. If it is from incapacity, let him dismiss them. It is his best interest to rid himself of instrumentalists who cannot play their instrument.
Flute-players, accustomed to having their parts written in the upper octave, and not admitting that their part can be written below that of clarinets or hautboys, frequently transpose entire pa.s.sages an octave higher. The conductor, if he does not carefully peruse his score, if he is not thoroughly acquainted with the work he is conducting, or if his ear lacks keenness, will not perceive the strange liberty thus taken.
Nevertheless, mult.i.tudes of such instances occur, and care should be taken to banish them entirely.
It happens everywhere (I do not say in some orchestras only)--that when ten, fifteen, or twenty violinists have to play the same part in unison, that they do not count the bars' rest; each, from idleness, relying on the others doing it. Whence it follows that scarcely half of them come in again at the right moment; while the rest still hold their instrument under their left arm, and look about them. Thus the point is greatly weakened, if not entirely missed. I invoke the attention and vigor of orchestral conductors to this insufferable habit. It is, however, so rooted that they will only ensure its extirpation by making a large number of violinists amenable for the fault of a single player; by inflicting a fine, for example, upon a whole row, if one of them misses coming in. Even were this fine no more than half-a-crown, I will answer for it that each of the violinists would count his rests, and keep watch that his neighbors did the same, since it might be inflicted five or six times upon the same individuals in the course of one performance.
An orchestra, the instruments of which are not in tune individually, and with each other, is a monstrosity; the conductor, therefore, should take the greatest care that the musicians tune accurately. But this operation should not be performed in presence of the public; and, moreover, every instrumental noise--every kind of preluding between the acts--const.i.tutes a real offence to all civilized auditors. The bad training of an orchestra, and its musical mediocrity is to be inferred from the impertinent noise it makes during the periods of quiet at an Opera or Concert.
It is also imperative for a conductor not to allow clarinet-players to use always the same instrument (the clarinet in _B?_), without regard to the author's indications; just as if the different clarinets--those in _D_ and _A_, particularly--had not a special character of their own, of which the intelligent composer knows the exact value; and as if the clarinet in _A_ had not moreover a low semitone more than the clarinet in _B?_--, the C?, of excellent effect, [Ill.u.s.tration] produced by the E, [Ill.u.s.tration] which E gives only the D, [Ill.u.s.tration] on the clarinet in _B?_.
A habit as vicious, and still more baneful, has crept into many orchestras since the introduction of horns with cylinders and pistons: it is that of playing _in open sounds_; by means of the new mechanism adapted to the instrument, those notes intended by the composer to be produced _in closed sounds_, by means of the right hand within the bell.
Moreover, the horn-players nowadays, on account of the facility afforded by the pistons or cylinders for putting their instrument into different keys, use only the _horn in F_ whatever may be the key indicated by the author. This custom gives rise to a host of inconveniences, from which the conductor should use all his efforts to preserve the works of composers _who know how to write_.
He should also set his face against the economical fas.h.i.+on adopted by certain theatres--called lyric--of causing the cymbals and the long drum to be played by the same performer. The sound of the cymbals when attached to the drum--as they must be to render this economy feasible--is an ign.o.ble noise, fit only for bands at tea-gardens. This custom, moreover, leads mediocre composers into the habit of never employing one of these instruments without the other, and considering their use as solely confined to forcibly marking the accented parts of the bar. This is an idea fruitful in noisy plat.i.tudes; and one that has brought upon us the ridiculous excesses beneath which, if a stop be not put to them, dramatic music will sooner or later sink.
I conclude by expressing sincere regret at beholding choral and orchestral studies still so badly organized. Everywhere, for grand choral and instrumental compositions, the system of rehearsals in the ma.s.s is maintained. They make all the chorus-singers study at once, on the one hand; and all the instrumentalists at once, on the other.
Deplorable errors, innumerable mistakes, are thus committed--particularly in the intermediate parts--errors which the chorus-master and the conductor do not perceive. Once established, these errors degenerate into habits, and become part and parcel of the execution.
The hapless chorus-singers, moreover, are by far the worst treated of all the performers during their studies, such as they are. Instead of giving them _a good conductor_, knowing the times of the different movements accurately, and proficient in the art of singing, to beat the time, and make critical observations: _a good pianist_, playing _from a well-arranged pianoforte score_, upon _a good piano_; and a _violinist_, to play in unison or in octave with the voices as each part is learned alone--instead of these three _indispensable artists_, they commit them (in two-thirds of the lyric theatres of Europe) to the superintendence of a single man, who has no more idea of the art of conducting than of that of singing, who is generally a poor musician, selected from among the worst pianists to be found, or who cannot play the pianoforte at all--some old superannuated individual, who, seated before a battered out-of-tune instrument, tries to decipher a dislocated score which he does not know, strikes false chords major, when they are minor, or vice-versa, and under the pretext of conducting and of accompanying by himself, employs his right hand in setting the chorus-singers wrong in their time, and his left hand in setting them wrong in their tune.
One might believe one's self in the Dark Ages, on witnessing such an exhibition of Gothish economy.
A faithful, well-colored, clever interpretation of a modern work, even when confided to artists of a higher order, can only be obtained, I firmly believe, by partial rehearsals. Each part of a chorus should be studied singly until it is thoroughly known, before combining it with the others. The same step should be taken with regard to the orchestra, for a symphony at all complicated. The violins should first be practised alone; the violas and ba.s.ses by themselves; the wooden wind instruments (with a small band of stringed instruments, to fill in the rests, and accustom the wind instruments to the points of re-entrance) and the bra.s.s instruments the same; and very often it is necessary to practise the instruments of percussion alone; and lastly, the harps, if they be numerous. The studies in combination are then far more profitable, and more rapid; and there is then good hope of attaining fidelity of interpretation, now, alas, but too rare.
The performances obtained by the old method of study are merely _approaches_ to achievement; beneath which so very many masterpieces have succ.u.mbed. The superintending conductor, after the butchering of a master, none the less serenely lays down his stick with a satisfied smile; and if some few misgivings remain with him as to the mode in which he has fulfilled his task, should no one venture at the close to dispute its accomplishment, he murmurs aside: ”Bah! vae victis!”
HECTOR BERLIOZ.
<script>