Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 5 (1/2)

On the 3rd of June 1865 Bizet married a daughter of his old master, Halevy. His second opera, _La Jolie Fitte de Perth_, produced at the Theatre Lyrique on 26th December 1867, was scarcely a step in advance.

The libretto was founded on Sir Walter Scott's novel, but the opera lacks unity of style, and its pages are marred by concessions to the vocalist. One number has survived, the characteristic Bohemian dance which has been interpolated into the fourth act of _Carmen_. In his third opera Bizet returned to an oriental subject. _Djamileh_, a one-act opera given at the Opera Comique on the 22nd of May 1872, is certainly one of his most individual efforts. Again were accusations of Wagnerism hurled at the composer's head, and _Djamileh_ did not achieve the success it undoubtedly deserved. The composer was more fortunate with the incidental music he wrote to Alphonse Daudet's drama, _L'Arlesienne_, produced in October 1872. Different numbers from this, arranged in the form of suites, have often been heard in the concert-room. Rarely have poetry and imagination been so well allied as in these exquisite pages, which seem to reflect the sunny skies of Provence.

Bizet's masterpiece, _Carmen_, was brought out at the Opera Comique on the 3rd of March 1875. It was based on a version by Meilhac and Halevy of a study by Prosper Merimee--in which the dramatic element was obscured by much descriptive writing. The detection of the drama underlying this psychological narrative was in itself a brilliant discovery, and in reconstructing the story in dramatic form the authors produced one of the most famous libretti in the whole range of opera.

Still more striking than the libretto was the music composed by Bizet, in which the peculiar use of the flute and of the lowest notes of the harp deserves particular attention.

On the 3rd of June, three months after the production of _Carmen_ in Paris, the genial composer expired after a few hours' illness from a heart affection. Before dying he had the satisfaction of knowing that _Carmen_ had been accepted for production at Vienna. After the Austrian capital came Brussels, Berlin and, in 1878, London, when _Carmen_ was brought out at Her Majesty's theatre with immense success. The influence exercised by Bizet on dramatic music has been very great, and may be discerned in the realistic works of the young Italian school, as well as in those of his own countrymen.

BJoRNEBORG (Finnish, _Pori_), a district town of Finland, province of bo-Bjorneborg, on the E. coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, at the mouth of the k.u.mo. Lat. 51 8' N., long. 46 0' E. Pop. (1904) 16,053, mostly Swedes. Large vessels cannot enter its roadstead, and stop at Rafso. The town has s.h.i.+pbuilding wharves, machine works, and several tanneries and brick-works, and has a total trade of over 16,000,000 marks, the chief export being timber.

BJoRNSON, BJoRNSTJERNE (1832-1910), Norwegian poet, novelist and dramatist, was born on the 8th of December 1832 at the farmstead of Bjorngen, in Kvikne, in osterdal, Norway. In 1837 his father, who had been pastor of Kvikne, was transferred to the parish of Noesset, in Romsdal; in this romantic district the childhood of Bjornson was spent. After some teaching at the neighbouring town of Molde, he was sent at the age of seventeen to a well-known school in Christiania to study for the university; his instinct for poetry was already awakened, and indeed he had written verses from his eleventh year. He matriculated at the university of Christiania in 1852, and soon began to work as a journalist, especially as a dramatic critic. In 1857 appeared _Synnove Solbakken_, the first of Bjornson's peasant-novels; in 1858 this was followed by _Arne_, in 1860 by _A Happy Boy_, and in 1868 by _The Fisher Maiden_. These are the most important specimens of his _bonde-fortaellinger_ or peasant-tales--a section of his literary work which has made a profound impression in his own country, and has made him popular throughout the world. Two of the tales, _Arne_ and _Synnove Solbakken_, offer perhaps finer examples of the pure peasant-story than are to be found elsewhere in literature.

Bjornson was anxious ”to create a new saga in the light of the peasant,”

as he put it, and he thought this should be done, not merely in prose fiction, but in national dramas or _folke-stykker_. The earliest of these was a one-act piece the scene of which is laid in the 12th century, _Between the Battles_, was written in 1855, but not produced until 1857. He was especially influenced at this time by the study of Baggesen and Ochlenschlager, during a visit to Copenhagen 1856-1857.

_Between the Battles_ was followed by _Lame Hulda_ in 1858, and _King Sverre_ in 1861. All these efforts, however, were far excelled by the splendid trilogy of _Sigurd the b.a.s.t.a.r.d_, which Bjornson issued in 1862.

This raised him to the front rank among the younger poets of Europe. His _Sigurd the Crusader_ should be added to the category of these heroic plays, although it was not printed until 1872.

At the close of 1857 Bjornson had been appointed director of the theatre at Bergen, a post which he held, with much journalistic work, for two years, when he returned to the capital. From 1860 to 1863 he travelled widely throughout Europe. Early in 1865 he undertook the management of the Christiania theatre, and brought out his popular comedy of _The Newly Married_ and his romantic tragedy of _Mary Stuart in Scotland_.

Although Bjornson has introduced into his novels and plays songs of extraordinary beauty, he was never a very copious writer of verse; in 1870 he published his _Poems and Songs_ and the epic cycle called _Arnljot Gelline_; the latter volume contains the magnificent ode called ”Bergliot,” Bjornson's finest contribution to lyrical poetry. Between 1864 and 1874, in the very prime of life, Bjornson displayed a slackening of the intellectual forces very remarkable in a man of his energy; he was indeed during these years mainly occupied with politics, and with his business as a theatrical manager. This was the period of Bjornson's most fiery propaganda as a radical agitator. In 1871 he began to supplement his journalistic work in this direction by delivering lectures over the length and breadth of the northern countries. He possessed to a surprising degree the arts of the orator, combined with a magnificent physical prestige. From 1873 to 1876 Bjornson was absent from Norway, and in the peace of voluntary exile he recovered his imaginative powers. His new departure as a dramatic author began with _A Bankruptcy_ and _The Editor_ in 1874, social dramas of an extremely modern and realistic cast.

The poet now settled on his estate of Aulestad in Gausdal. In 1877 he published another novel, _Magnhild_--an imperfect production, in which his ideas on social questions were seen to be in a state of fermentation, and gave expression to his republican sentiments in the polemical play called _The King_, to a later edition of which he prefixed an essay on ”Intellectual Freedom,” in further explanation of his position. _Captain Mansana_, an episode of the war of Italian independence, belongs to 1878. Extremely anxious to obtain a full success on the stage, Bjornson concentrated his powers on a drama of social life, _Leonardo_ (1879), which raised a violent controversy. A satirical play, _The New System_, was produced a few weeks later.

Although these plays of Bjornson's second period were greatly discussed, none of them (except _A Bankruptcy_) pleased on the boards. When once more he produced a social drama, _A Gauntlet_, in 1883, he was unable to persuade any manager to stage it, except in a modified form, though this play gives the full measure of his power as a dramatist. In the autumn of the same year, Bjornson published a mystical or symbolic drama _Beyond our Powers_, dealing with the abnormal features of religious excitement with extraordinary force; this was not acted until 1899, when it achieved a great success.

Meanwhile, Bjornson's political att.i.tude had brought upon him a charge of high treason, and he took refuge for a time in Germany, returning to Norway in 1882. Convinced that the theatre was practically closed to him, he turned back to the novel, and published in 1884, _Flags are Flying in Town and Port_, embodying his theories on heredity and education. In 1889 he printed another long and still more remarkable novel, _In G.o.d's Way_, which is chiefly concerned with the same problems. The same year saw the publication of a comedy, _Geography and Love_, which continues to be played with success. A number of short stories, of a more or less didactic character, dealing with startling points of emotional experience, were collected in 1894; among them those which produced the greatest sensation were _Dust, Mother's Hands_, and _Absalom's Hair_. Later plays were a political tragedy called _Paul Lange and Tora Parsberg_ (1898), a second part of _Beyond our Powers_ (1895), _Laboremus_ (1901), _At Storhove_ (1902), and _Daglannet_ (1904). In 1899, at the opening of the National theatre, Bjornson received an ovation, and his saga-drama of _Sigurd the Crusader_ was performed.

A subject which interested him greatly, and on which he occupied his indefatigable pen, was the question of the _bonde-maal_, the adopting of a national language for Norway distinct from the _dansk-norsk_ (Dano-Norwegian), in which her literature has. .h.i.therto been written.

Bjornson's strong and sometimes rather narrow patriotism did not blind him to the fatal folly of such a proposal, and his lectures and pamphlets against the _maal-straev_ in its extreme form did more than anything else to save the language in this dangerous moment. Bjornson was one of the original members of the n.o.bel committee, and was re-elected in 1900. In 1903 he was awarded the n.o.bel prize for literature. Bjornson had done as much as any other man to rouse Norwegian national feeling, but in 1903, on the verge of the rupture between Norway and Sweden, he preached conciliation and moderation to the Norwegians. He was an eloquent advocate of Pan-Germanism, and, writing to the _Figaro_ in 1905, he outlined a Pan-Germanic alliance of northern Europe and North America. He died on the 26th of April 1910.

See Bjornson's _Samlede Vaerker_ (Copenhagen, 1900-1902, 11 vols.); _The Novels of Bjornstjerne Bjornson_ (1894, &c.), edited by Edmund Gosse; G. Brandes, _Critical Studies_ (1899); E. Tissot, _Le drame norvegien_ (1893); C.D. af Wirsen, _Kritiker_ (1901); Chr. Collin, _Bjornstjerne Bjornson_ (2 vols., German ed., 1903), the most complete biography and criticism at present available; and B. Halvorsen, _Norsk Forfatter Lexikon_ (1885). (E. G.)

BLACHFORD, FREDERIC ROGERS, BARON (1811-1889), British civil servant, eldest son of Sir Frederick Leman Rogers, 7th Bart. (whom he succeeded in the baronetcy in 1851), was born in London on the 31st of January 1811. He was educated at Eton and Oriel college, Oxford, where he had a brilliant career, winning the Craven University scholars.h.i.+p, and taking a double first-cla.s.s in cla.s.sics and mathematics. He became a fellow of Oriel (1833), and won the Vinerian scholars.h.i.+p (1834), and fellows.h.i.+p (1840). He was called to the bar in 1837, but never practised. At school and at Oxford he was a contemporary of W.E. Gladstone, and at Oxford he began a lifelong friends.h.i.+p with J.H. Newman and R.W. Church; his cla.s.sical and literary tastes, and his combination of liberalism in politics with High Church views in religion, together with his good social position and interesting character, made him an admired member of their circles. For two or three years (1841-1844) he wrote for _The Times_, and he helped to found _The Guardian_ in 1846; he also did a good deal to a.s.sist the Tractarian movement. But he eventually settled down to the life of a government official. He began in 1844 as registrar of joint-stock companies, and in 1846 became commissioner of lands and emigration. Between 1857 and 1859 he was engaged in government missions abroad, connected with colonial questions, and in 1860 he was appointed permanent under-secretary of state for the colonies. Sir Frederic Rogers was the guiding spirit of the colonial office under six successive secretaries of state, and on his retirement in 1871 was raised to the peerage as Baron Blachford of Wisdome, a t.i.tle taken from his place in Devons.h.i.+re. He died on the 21st of November 1889.

A volume of his letters, edited by G.E. Marindin (1896), contains an interesting Life, partly autobiographical.