Great Italian and French Composers 36 – Ferris · Verses Across
Literature · Music
Great Italian and French Composers 36Part 7 · Chapter 3
18
Literature · Music
Great Italian and French Composers 36
Part 7 · Chapter 3
FerrisEnglish
Boieldieu and Auber are by far the most brilliant representatives of the French school of Opera Comique. The work of the former which shows his genius at its best is "La Dame Blanche." It possesses in a remarkable degree dramatic verve, piquancy of rhythm, and beauty of structure. Mr. Franz Hueffer speaks of this opera as follows:
"Peculiar to Boieldieu is a certain homely sweetness of melody which proves its kinship to that source of all truly national music, the popular song. The 'Dame Blanche' might be considered as the artistic continuation of the chanson, in the same sense as Weber's 'Der Freischtitz' has been called a dramatized Volkslied. With regard to Boieldieu's work, this remark indicates at the same time a strong development of what has been described as the 'amalgamating force of French art and culture'; for it must be borne in mind that the subject treated is Scotch. The plot is a compound of two of Scott's novels: the 'Monastery' and 'Guy Mannering.' Julian, alias George Brown, comes to his paternal castle unknown to himself. He hears the songs of his childhood, which awaken old memories in him; but he seems doomed to misery and disappointment, for on the day of his return his hall and his broad acres are to become the property of a villain, the unfaithful steward of his own family. Here is a situation full of gloom and sad foreboding. But Scribe and Boieldieu knew better. Their hero is a dashing cavalry officer, who makes love to every pretty woman he comes across, the 'White Lady of Avenel' among the number. Yet no one who has witnessed the impersonation of George Brown by the great Roger can have failed to be impressed with the grace and noble gallantry of the character."
The tune of "Robin Adair," introduced by Boieldieu and described as "le chant ordinaire de la tribu d'Avenel," would hardly be recognized by a genuine Scotchman; but what it loses in homely vigor it has gained in sweetness. The musician's taste is always gratified in Boieldieu's two great comic operas by the grace and finish of the instrumentation, and the carefully composed ensembles, while the public is delighted with the charming ballads and songs. The airs of "La Dame Blanche" are more popular in classic Germany than those of any other opera. Boieldieu may then be characterized as the composer who carried the French operetta to its highest development, and endowed it in the fullest sense with all the grace, sparkle, dramatic symmetry, and gamesome touch so essentially the heritage of the nation.
Auber's position in art may be defined as that of the last great representative of French comic opera, the legitimate successor of Boieldieu, whom he surpasses in refinement and brilliancy of individual effects, while he is inferior in simplicity, breadth, and that firm grasp of details which enables the composer to blend all the parts into a perfect whole. In spite of the fact that "La Muette," Auber's greatest opera, is a romantic and serious work, full of bold strokes of genius that astonish no less than they please, he must be held to be essentially a master in the field of operatic comedy. In the great opera to which allusion has been made the passions of excited public feeling have their fullest sway, and heroic sentiments of love and devotion are expressed in a manner alike grand and original. The traditional forms of the opera are made to expand with the force of the feeling bursting through them. But this was the sole flight of Auber into the higher regions of his art, the offspring of the thoroughly revolutionized feeling of the time (1828), which within two years shook Europe with such force. Aside from this outcome of his Berserker mood, Auber is a charming exponent of the grace, brightness, and piquancy of French society and civilization. If rarely deep, he is never dull, and no composer has given the world more elegant and graceful melodies of the kind which charm the drawing-room and furnish a good excuse for young-lady pianism.
The following sprightly and judicious estimate of Auber by one of the ablest of modern critics, Henry Chorley, in the main lixes him in his right place:
"He falls short of his mark in situations of profound pathos (save perhaps in the sleep-song of 'Masaniello'). He is greatly behind his Italian brethren in those mad scenes which they so largely affect. He is always light and piquant for voices, delicious in his treatment of the orchestra, and at this moment of writing--though I believe the patriarch of opera-writers (born, it is said, in 1784), having begun to compose at an age when other men have died exhausted by precocious labor--is perhaps the lightest-hearted, lightest-handed man still pouring out fragments of pearl and spangles of pure gold on the stage.... With all this it is remarkable as it is unfair, that among musicians--when talk is going around, and this person praises that portentous piece of counterpoint, and the other analyzes some new chord the uoliness of which has led to its being neglected by former composers--the name of this brilliant man is hardly if ever heard at all. His is the next name among the composers belonging to the last thirty years which should be heard after that of Rossini, the number and extent of the works produced by him taken into account, and with these the beauties which they contain."
