SAINT-SAËNS Camille (1835 - 1921) - Lot 196

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  3. SAINT-SAËNS Camille (1835 - 1921) - Lot 196
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Lot n° 196
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SAINT-SAËNS Camille (1835 - 1921) - Lot 196
SAINT-SAËNS Camille (1835 - 1921) L.A.S. "C. Saint-Saëns", Menton March 25, 1911, to Xavier LEROUX; 4 pages in-4. Long and interesting letter on the question of prose in music, following an inquiry in Musica. He regrets not having been asked, "because this question is close to my heart and you could have put me to work by quoting part of the chapter devoted to it in Portraits et Souvenirs. French prose seems to me to be anti-musical, because it is not very accented, the hiatuses, the series of heavy syllables that one often finds in it, deprive it of the rhythm and the sonority necessary to music. A special prose, rhythmic, sonorous, having finally, except the measure, all the qualities of the verse and even the lyricism, can be appropriate to it and even be very useful to him [...] when the Word is in the music". He cites as an example two arias from Faust and Samson, "purely melodic passages; [...] the musical phrase alone is important and the word must be its slave"; similarly, at the climax of the drama at the end of the great duet in Les Huguenots, "but these are exceptional and very rare cases. Usually, it is up to the music to mould itself to the verse", and in this case the beautiful verses bring it rhythm and sonority, "which it only has to bring to light". The study of Musica opposes the rhythm of the sentences, and that of the music which, she says, "proceeds by equal measures. Here, I stop understanding. The music proceeds as it wants; it possesses a flexibility in the unit, and a musician master of his art will not be at all hampered by "the clean rhythm" [...] that the verse imposes to him; he will find there rather a help and a support". He cites as an example the "delicious air of Cherubin", Non so più cosa son... : "how from this obstinate and rigorous rhythm MOZART knew how to draw one of the purest pearls of his score ! The melody comes out naturally from the verse like the flower from the bud"... One also accuses GOUNOD of having martyred the lines: "Ah! je ris de me voir / Si belle en ce miroir", by cutting: ""Ah! je ris / de me voir si belle / en ce miroir" Whereas if someone said these lines, without singing them, he would accentuate them in the same way"... He recalls how Victor HUGO never "sacrifices the caesura" of his alexandrine, in order to preserve the primitive rhythm; and he speaks about the case of SCHUMANN and his "abuse of the overhangs" which is an exception... If someone was respectful of his text, it is GLUCK, in Armide, where without equaling Racine and Corneille, Quinault surpassed himself: "Did the verses hinder the music in the least and prevent Gluck, while following them step by step, from writing the most beautiful of works"... He concludes that "the true French prose substituted to the verse to be put in music is not a progress, but a regression and a heresy. The success of certain recent works would not know how to modify my opinion; the success does not justify all".
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