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diff --git a/16488.txt b/16488.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1dc267 --- /dev/null +++ b/16488.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2154 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande, by Lawrence Gilman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande + A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score + +Author: Lawrence Gilman + +Release Date: August 8, 2005 [EBook #16488] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEBUSSY'S PELLEAS ET MELISANDE *** + + + + +Produced by David Newman, Chuck Greif and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + +DEBUSSY'S PELLEAS ET MELISANDE + +[Illustration: _Claude Debussy (From the painting by Jacques Blanche)_] + + +A GUIDE TO THE OPERA + +WITH MUSICAL EXAMPLES FROM THE SCORE + + +BY + +LAWRENCE GILMAN + + AUTHOR OF "PHASES OF MODERN MUSIC," "THE MUSIC OF TO-MORROW," + "STORIES OF SYMPHONIC MUSIC," "EDWARD MACDOWELL" (IN "LIVING + MASTERS OF MUSIC" SERIES) "STRAUSS' 'SALOME,'" ETC. + +NEW YORK G. SCHIRMER 1907 + +TO THE MEMORY OF + +GUSTAVE SCHIRMER + +A MUSIC LOVER OF LIBERAL TASTE +AND SENSITIVE APPRECIATION +AND AN INFLUENTIAL FORCE +IN THE PROMOTION OF +THE FINER THINGS OF THE ART +TO WHICH HIS LIFE +WAS DEVOTED + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. DEBUSSY AND HIS ART + + II. THE PLAY + ITS QUALITIES + ITS ACTION + +III. THE MUSIC + A REVOLUTIONARY SCORE + THE THEMES AND THEIR TREATMENT + + + + +DEBUSSY'S PELLEAS ET MELISANDE + +"It is not an ill thing to cross at times the marches of silence and +see the phantoms of life and death in a new way. It is not an ill thing, +even if one meet only the fantasies of beauty."--FIONA MACLEOD. + + + + +I + +DEBUSSY AND HIS ART + + +With the production at Paris in the spring of 1902 of Claude Debussy's +_Pelleas et Melisande_, based on the play of Maeterlinck, the history of +music turned a new and surprising page. "It is necessary," declared an +acute French critic, M. Jean Marnold, writing shortly after the event, +"to go back perhaps to _Tristan_ to find in the opera house an event so +important in certain respects for the evolution of musical art." The +assertion strikes one to-day, five years after, as, if anything, +over-cautious. _Pelleas et Melisande_ exhibited not simply a new manner +of writing opera, but a new kind of music--a new way of evolving and +combining tones, a new order of harmonic, melodic and rhythmic +structure. The style of it was absolutely new and absolutely +distinctive: the thing had never been done before, save, in a lesser +degree, by Debussy himself in his then little known earlier work. Prior +to the appearance of _Pelleas et Melisande_, he had put forth, without +appreciably disturbing the musical waters, all of the extraordinary and +individual music with which his fame is now associated, except the three +orchestral "sketches," _La Mer_ (composed in 1903-1905 and published in +the latter year), the piano pieces _Estampes_ (1903), and _Images, +Masques, l'Ile joyeuse_ (1905), and a few songs. Certain audiences in +Paris had heard, nine years before, his setting of Rossetti's "Blessed +Damozel" (_La Demoiselle Elue_), a "lyric poem" for two solo voices, +female chorus, and orchestra; in the same year (1893) his string quartet +was played by Ysaye and his associates; in 1894 his _Prelude a +l'Apres-midi d'un Faune_ was produced at a concert of the National +Society of Music; the first two Nocturnes for orchestra, _Nuages_ and +_Fetes_, were played at a Lamoureux concert in 1900; the third, +_Sirenes_, was performed with the others in the following year. Yet it +was not until _Pelleas et Melisande_ was produced at the Opera-Comique +in April, 1902, that his work began seriously to be reckoned with +outside of the small and inquisitive public, in Paris and elsewhere, +that had known and valued--or execrated--it. + +In this score Debussy went far beyond the point to which his methods had +previously led him. It was, for all who heard it or came to know it, a +revelation of the possibilities of tonal effect--this dim and wavering +and elusive music, with its infinitely subtle gradations, its gossamer +fineness of texture, its delicate sonorities, its strange and echoing +dissonances, its singular richness of mood, its shadowy beauty, its +exquisite and elaborate art--this music which drifted before the senses +like iridescent vapor, suffused with rich lights, pervasive, +imponderable, evanescent. It was music at once naive and complex, +innocent and impassioned, fragile and sonorous. It spoke with an accent +unmistakably grave and sincere; yet it spoke without emphasis: +indirectly, flexibly, with fluid and unpredictable expression. It was +eloquent beyond denial, yet its reticence, its economy of gesture, were +extreme--were, indeed, the very negation of emphasis. Is it strange that +such music--hesitant, evasive, dream-filled, strangely ecstatic, with +its wistful and twilight loveliness, its blended subtlety and +simplicity--should have been as difficult to trace to any definite +source as it was, for the general, immensely astonishing and unexpected? +There was nothing like it to be found in Wagner, or in his more +conspicuous and triumphant successors--in, so to speak, the direct and +royal line. Richard Strauss was, clearly, not writing in that manner; +nor were the brother musicians of Debussy in his own France; nor, quite +as obviously, were the Russians. The immediate effect of its strangeness +and newness was, of course, to direct the attention of the larger world +of music, within Paris and without, to the artistic personality and the +previous attainments of the man who had surprisingly put forth such +incommensurable music. + +Achille[1] Claude Debussy was born at St. Germain-en-Laye +(Seine-et-Oise), France, August 22, 1862. He was still a youth when he +entered the Paris Conservatory, where he studied harmony under Lavignac, +composition under Guiraud, and piano playing with Marmontel. He was only +fourteen when he won the first medal for _solfege_, and fifteen when he +won the second pianoforte prize. + +[1] He no longer uses the first of these given names. + +In 1884, when he was in his twenty-second year, his cantata, _l'Enfant +prodigue_, won for him the _Prix de Rome_ by a majority of twenty-two +out of twenty-eight votes--it is said to have been the unanimous opinion +of the jury that the score was "one of the most interesting that had +been heard at the _Institut_ for years." While at the Villa Medicis he +composed, in 1887, his _Printemps_ for chorus and orchestra, and, in the +following year, his setting of Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel," of which +the authorities at the Conservatory saw fit to disapprove because of +certain liberties which Debussy even then was taking with established +and revered traditions. He performed his military service upon his +return from Rome; and there is a tradition told, as bearing upon his +love of recondite sonorities, to the effect that while at Evreux he +delighted in the harmonic clash caused by the simultaneous sounding of +the trumpet call for the extinguishing of lights and the sustained +vibrations of some neighboring convent bells. From this time forward his +output was persistent and moderately copious. To the year 1888 belong, +in addition to _La Demoiselle Elue_, the remarkably individual +"Ariettes,"[2] six settings for voice and piano of poems by Verlaine. To +1889-1890 belong the _Fantaisie_ for piano and orchestra and the +striking "Cinq Poemes de Baudelaire" (_Le Balcon_, _Harmonie du Soir_, +_Le Jet d'Eau_, _Recueillement_, _La Mort des Amants_). In 1891 came +some less significant piano pieces; but the following two years were +richly productive, for they brought forth the exquisite _Prelude a +l'Apres-midi d'un Faune_ for orchestra, after the Eclogue of +Mallarme--the first extended and inescapable manifestation of Debussy's +singular gifts--and the very personal but less important string quartet. +In 1893-1895 he was busied with _Pelleas et Melisande_,[3] and with the +_Proses lyriques_, four songs--not of his best--to words of his own +(_De Reve_, _De Greve_, _De Fleurs_, _De Soir_). The next four +years--1896-1899--saw the issue of the extremely characteristic and +uncompromising Nocturnes for orchestra (_Nuages_, _Fetes_, _Sirenes_), +and the fascinating and subtle _Chansons de Bilitis_, after Pierre +Louys--songs in which, aptly observed his colleague Bruneau, "he mingled +an antique and almost evaporated perfume with penetrating modern odors." +The collection "Pour le Piano" (_Prelude_, _Sarabande_, +_Toccata_)--inventions of distinguished and original style--and some +less representative songs and piano pieces, completed his achievements +before the production of _Pelleas et Melisande_ brought him fame and a +measure of relief from lean and pinching days. He has from time to time +made public appearances in Paris as a pianist in concerts of chamber +music; and he has even resorted--one wonders how desperately?--to the +writing of music criticism for various journals and reviews. "Artists," +he has somewhat cynically observed, "struggle long enough to win their +place in the market; once the sale of their productions is assured, they +quickly go backward." There is as yet no sign that he himself is +fulfilling this prediction; for his most recent published +performance,[4] the superbly fantastic and imaginative _La +Mer_--completed three years after the production of _Pelleas_--is +charged to the brim with his peculiar and potent quality. + +[2] A revised version of these songs was published fifteen years later, +in 1903, dedicated _a Miss Mary Garden, inoubliable Melisande_. + +[3] M. Debussy sends me the information that, although the music of +_Pelleas et Melisande_ was begun as early as September, 1893, he was not +finally through with it until nine years later. In the spring of 1901 +the last scene of the fourth act (the love-scene at the fountain in the +park, with its abrupt and tragic close) was rewritten, and in 1902, +after the first rehearsals at the Opera-Comique, it was found necessary +to lengthen the orchestral interludes between the different tableaux in +order that the scene-shifters might have sufficient time to change the +settings. These extended interludes are included in the edition of the +score for piano and voices, with French and English text, published in +1907. + +[4] The above is written in July, 1907. + +What are the more prominent traits of the music of this man who is the +product of no school, who has no essential affinities with his +contemporaries, who has been accurately characterized as the "tres +exceptionnel, tres curieux, tres solitaire M. Claude Debussy"? One is +struck, first of all, in savoring his art, by its extreme fluidity, its +vagueness of contour, its lack of obvious and definite outline. It is +cloudlike, evanescent, impalpable; it passes before the aural vision (so +to speak) like a floating and multicolored mist; it is shifting, +fugitive, intangible, atmospheric. Its beauty is not the beauty that +issues from clear and transparent designs, from a lucid and outspoken +style: it is a remote and inexplicable beauty, a beauty shot through +with mystery and strangeness, baffling, incalculable. It is unexpected +and subtle in accent, wayward and fantastic in rhythm. Harmonically it +obeys no known law--consonances, dissonances, are interfused, blended, +re-echoed, juxtaposed, without the smallest regard for the rules of +tonal relationship established by long tradition. It recognizes no +boundaries whatsoever between the different keys; there is constant flux +and change, and the same tonality is seldom maintained beyond a single +beat of the measure. There are key-signatures, but they strike one as +having been put in place as a mere yielding to what M. Debussy doubtless +regards indulgently as an amiable and harmless prejudice. His melodic +schemes suggest no known model--they conform to patterns which +intertwine and melt and are suddenly and surprisingly transformed; they +are without punctuation, uncadenced, irregular, unpredictable, +indescribably sensitive and supple. There is a marked indifference to +the possibilities of contrapuntal effect, a dependence upon a method +fundamentally homophonic rather than polyphonic--this music is a rich +and shimmering texture of blended chord-groups, rather than a pattern of +interlaced melodic strands. One cannot but note the manner in which it +abhors and shuns the easily achieved, the facile, the expected. Its +colors and designs are rare and far-sought and most heedfully contrived; +its eloquence is never unrestrained; and this hatred of the obvious is +as plainly sincere as it is passionate and uncompromising; it is not the +fastidiousness of a _precieux_, but of an extravagantly scrupulous and +austerely exacting artist. + +Here, then, is as anomalous an aesthetic product as one could well +imagine. In a day when magnitude of plan and vividness of color, +rhetorical emphasis and dynamic brilliancy, are the ideals which +preeminently sway our tonal architects, emerges this reticent, half-lit, +delicately structured, subtly accented music; which is incorrigibly +unrhetorical; which never declaims or insists: an art alembicated, +static, severely restrained--for even when it is most harmonically +untrammeled, most rhythmically fantastic, one is aware of a quietly +inexorable logic, an uncompromising ideal of form, underlying its +seemingly unregulated processes. It is the product of a temperament +unique in music, though familiar enough in the modern expression of the +other arts. Debussy is of that clan who have uncompromisingly "turned +their longing after the wind and wave of the mind." He is, as I have +elsewhere written, of the order of those poets and dreamers who +persistently heed, and seek to continue in their art, not the echoes of +passional and adventurous experience, but the vibrations of the spirit +beneath. He is of the brotherhood of those mystical explorers, of +peculiarly modern temper, who are perhaps most essentially represented +in the plays and poetry and philosophies of Mr. Yeats and M. +Maeterlinck: those who dwell--it has before been said--"upon the +confines of a crepuscular world whose every phase is full of subtle +portent, and who are convinced (in the phrase of M. Maeterlinck himself) +'that there are in man many regions more fertile, more profound, and +more interesting than those of his reason or his intelligence.'" It is +an order of temperament for which the things of the marginal world of +the mind are of transcendent consequence--that world which is +perpetually haunted, for those mystics who are also the slaves of +beauty, by remote illusions and disquieting enchantments: where it is +not dreams, but the reflections of dreams, that obsess; where passion is +less the desire of life than of the shadow of life. It is a world of +images and refractions, of visions and presentiments, a world which +swims in dim and opalescent mists--where gestures are adored and every +footfall is charged with indescribable intimations; where, "even in the +swaying of a hand or the dropping of unbound hair, there is less +suggestion of individual action than of a divinity living within, +shaping an elaborate beauty in a dream for its own delight." It is, for +those who inhabit it, a world as exclusively preoccupying and authentic +as it is, for those who do not, incredible and inaccessible. The reports +of it, intense and gleaming as they may be, which are contained in the +art of such of its inhabitants as Debussy, are, admittedly, little +likely to conciliate the unbeliever. This is music which it is hopeless +to attempt to justify or promote. It persuades, or it does not; one is +attuned to it, or one is not. For those who do savor and value it, it is +reasonable only to attempt some such notation of its qualities as is +offered here. + +Debussy's ancestry is not easily traced. Wagner, whom he has amused +himself by decrying in the course of his critical excursions, shaped +certain aspects of his style. In some of the early songs one realizes +quite clearly his indebtedness to the score of _Tristan_; yet in these +very songs--say the _Harmonie du Soir_ and _La Mort des Amants_ +(composed in 1889-1890)--there are amazingly individual pages: pages +which even to-day sound ultra-modern. And when one recalls that at the +time these songs were written the score of _Parsifal_ had been off +Wagner's desk for only seven years, that Richard Strauss was putting +forth such tentative things as his _Don Juan_ and _Tod und Verklaerung_, +that the "revolutionary" Max Reger was a boy of sixteen, and that +Debussy himself was not yet thirty, one is in a position forcibly to +realize the early growth and the genuineness of his independence. +Adolphe Jullien, the veteran French critic, discerns in his earlier +writing the influence of such Russians as Borodine, Rimsky-Korsakoff, +and Mussorgsky--a discovery which one finds some difficulty in +crediting. Later, Debussy was undoubtedly affected, in a slight degree, +by Cesar Franck; and there were moments--happily infrequent--during what +one may call his middle period, when a whiff of the perfumed sentiment +of Massenet blew disturbingly across his usually sincere and poetic +pages. But for traces of Liszt, or Berlioz, or Brahms, one will search +fruitlessly. That he does not, to-day, touch hands at any point with his +brother musicians of the elder school in France--with such, for example, +as the excellent and brilliant and superbly unimaginative +Saint-Saens--goes almost without saying. With Vincent d'Indy, a musician +of wholly antipodal qualities, he disputes the place of honor among the +elect of the "younger" school (whose members are not so young as they +are painted); and he is the worshiped idol of still younger Frenchmen +who envy, depreciate, and industriously imitate his fascinating and +dangerously luring art. He has traveled far on the path of his +particular destiny; not since Wagner has any modern music-maker +perfected a style so saturated with personality--there are far fewer +derivations in his art than in the art of Strauss, through whose scores +pace the ghosts of certain of the greater dead. All that Wagner could +teach him of the potency of dissonance, of structural freedom and +elasticity, of harmonic daring, Debussy eagerly learned and applied, as +a foundation, to his own intricately reasoned though spontaneous art; +yet Wagner would have gasped alike at the novelty and the exquisite art +of _Pelleas et Melisande_, of the _Nocturnes_, even of the comparatively +early _Prelude a l'Apres-midi d'un Faune_; for this is music of a kind +which may, indeed, have been dreamed of, but which certainly had never +found its way upon paper, before Debussy quietly recorded it in his +scores. + +What is the secret principle of his method?--if one can call that a +"method" which is, in effect, nothing if not airily unmethodical, and +that principle "secret" which is neither recondite nor perplexing. It is +simply that Debussy, instead of depending upon the strictly limited +major and minor modes of the modern scale system, employs almost +continuously, as the structural basis of his music, the mediaeval church +modes, with their far greater latitude, freedom, and variety. It is, to +say the least, a novel procedure. Other modern composers before Debussy +had, of course, utilized the characteristic plain-song progressions to +secure, for special purposes, a particular and definite effect of color; +but no one had ever before deliberately adopted the Gregorian chant as a +substitute for the modern major and minor scales, with their deep-rooted +and ineradicable harmonic tendencies, their perpetual suggestion of +traditional cadences and resolutions. To forget the principles +underlying three centuries of harmonic practice and revert to the +methods of the mediaeval church composers, required an extraordinary +degree of imaginative intuition; purposely and consistently to employ +those methods as a foundation upon which to erect an harmonic structure +most richly and elastically contrived--to vitalize the antique modes +with the accumulated product of modern divination and +accomplishment--was little less than an inspiration. Debussy must +undoubtedly have realized that the familiar scales, which have so long +and so faithfully served the expressional needs of the modern composer, +tend now to give issue to musical forms that are beginning to seem +_clichee_: forms too rigidly patterned, too redolent of outworn +formulas--in short, too completely crystallized. Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, +and after them the modern Germans and their followers, found in a scale +of semitones a limited avenue of escape from the confinement of the +modern diatonic modes, and bequeathed to contemporary music an +inheritance of ungoverned chromaticism which still clogs its progress +and obstructs its independence. Debussy, through his appreciation of the +living value of the old church modes, has been enabled to shape for +himself a manner of utterance which derives from none of these +influences. It is anything but chromatic; indeed, one of its most +striking characteristics is its use of whole-tone progressions, a +natural result, of course, of its dependence upon the old modes. Other +contemporary Frenchmen have made occasional use of Gregorian effects; +but Debussy was the first to adopt them deliberately as the basis of a +settled manner of utterance, and he has employed them with increasing +consistency and devotion. His example has indubitably served to enrich +the expressional material at the disposal of the modern +music-maker--there cannot conceivably, in reason, be two opinions as to +that: he has acted upon a principle which is, beyond question, +liberating and stimulating. And the adaptability to his own peculiar +temperament of the wavering and fluid order of discourse which is +permitted by the flexibility and variety of the antique modes is +sufficiently obvious. + +His resort to Gregorian principles is, it has been observed, far from +being a matter of recent history with him. Almost twenty years ago we +find him writing in the spirit of the old modes. Examine the opening +phrases of his song, _Harmonie du Soir_ (composed in 1889-1890), and +note the felicitous adaptation to modern use of the "authentic" mode +known as the Lydian, which corresponds to a C-major scale with F-sharp. +Observe the use of the same mode in the introductory measures, and +elsewhere, of his setting of Verlaine's _Il pleure dans mon coeur_ +(1889), the second of the "Ariettes." Five years later, in _Pelleas et +Melisande_, the trait is omnipresent--too extensive and obvious, indeed, +to require detailed indication. One might point out, at random, the +derivation from the seventh of the ecclesiastical modes (the Mixolydian) +of the phrase in the accompaniment to Arkel's words in the final scene, +"L'ame humaine aime a s'en aller seule;" or the relationship between the +opening measures of the orchestral introduction to the drama and the +first of the "authentic" modes, the Dorian; or between the same mode +(corresponding to the D-minor scale without accidentals) and Melisande's +song at the tower window at the beginning of the third act. + + * * * * * + +It remains only to be said, by way of conclusion to this brief survey, +that, for those who are disposed to open their sensibilities to the +appeal of this music, its high and haunting beauty must exert an +increasing sway over the heart and the imagination. It is making no +excessive or invidious claim for it to assert that, after one has truly +savored its quality, other music, transcendent though it may +demonstrably be, seems a little coarse-fibred, a little otiose, a +little--as Jules Laforgue might have said--_quotidienne_. But, however +it may come to be ranked, there are few, I think, who will not recognize +here an accent that is personal and unique, a peculiar ecstasy, a +pervading and influential magic. + + + + +II + +THE PLAY + +ITS QUALITIES + + +Maurice Maeterlinck's _Pelleas et Melisande_, published in 1892, stands +fifth in the chronological order of his dramatic works. It was preceded +by _La Princesse Maleine_ (1889); _L'Intruse_, _Les Aveugles_ (1890); +and _Les sept Princesses_ (1891). Since its appearance Maeterlinck has +published these plays: _Alladine et Palomides_; _Interieur_; _La Mort de +Tintagiles: Trois petits drames pour Marionnettes_ (1894); _Aglavaine et +Selysette_ (1896); _Ariane et Barbe-Bleue_; _Soeur Beatrice_ (1901); +_Monna Vanna_ (1902); _Joyzelle_ (1903). _Pelleas et Melisande_, +dedicated to Octave Mirbeau "in token of deep friendship, admiration, +and gratitude," was first performed at the Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris, on +May 17, 1893, with this cast: _Pelleas_, Mlle. Marie Aubry; _Melisande_, +Mlle. Meuris; _Arkel_, Emile Raymond; _Golaud_, Lugne-Poe; _Genevieve_, +Mme. Camee; _Le petit Yniold_, Georgette Loyer. + +"Take care," warns The Old Man in that most simply touching of +Maeterlinck's plays, _Interieur_; "we do not know how far the soul +extends about men." It is a subtle and characteristic saying, and it +might have been used by the dramatist as a motto for his _Pelleas et +Melisande_; for not only does it embody the central thought of this +poignant masque of passion and destiny, but it summarizes Maeterlinck's +attitude as a writer of drama. "In the theatre," he says in the +introduction to his translation of Ruysbroeck's _l'Ornement des Noces +Spirituelles_, "I wish to study ... man, not relatively to other people, +not in his relations to others or to himself; but, after sketching the +ordinary facts of passion, to look at his attitude in presence of +eternity and mystery, to attempt to unveil the eternal nature hidden +under the accidental characteristics of the lover, father, husband.... +Is the thought an exact picture of that something which produced it? Is +it not rather a shadow of some struggle, similar to that of Jacob with +the Angel?" Art, he has said, "is a temporary mask, under which the +unknown without a face puzzles us. It is the substance of eternity, +introduced ...by a distillation of infinity. It is the honey of eternity, +taken from a flower of eternity." Everywhere, throughout his most deeply +characteristic work, he emphasizes this thought--he would have us +realize that we are the unconscious protagonists of an overshadowing, +vast, and august drama whose significance and _denouement_ we do not and +cannot know, but of which mysterious intimations are constantly to be +perceived and felt. The characters in his plays live, as the old king, +Arkel, says in _Pelleas et Melisande_, like persons "whispering about a +closed room," This drama--at once his most typical, moving, and +beautiful performance--swims in an atmosphere of portent and bodement; +here, as Pater noted in the work of a wholly different order of artist, +"the storm is always brooding;" here, too, "in a sudden tremor of an +aged voice, in the tacit observance of a day," we become "aware suddenly +of the great stream of human tears falling always through the shadows of +the world." Mystery and sorrow--these are its keynotes; separately or in +consonance, they are sounded from beginning to end of this strange and +muted tragedy. It is full of a quality of emotion, of beauty, which is +as "a touch from behind a curtain," issuing from a background vague and +illimitable. One is aware of vast and inscrutable forces, working in +silence and indirection, which somehow control and direct the shadowy +figures who move dimly, with grave and wistful pathos, through a no less +shadowy pageant of griefs and ecstasies and fatalities. They are little +more than the instruments of a mysterious will, these vague and +mist-enwrapped personages, who seem always to be unconscious actors in +some secret and hidden drama whose progress is concealed behind the +tangible drama of passionate and tragic circumstance in which they are +ostensibly taking part. + +"Maeterlinck's man," says S.C. de Soissons in a penetrating study of the +Belgian's dramatic methods, "is a being whose sensuous life is only a +concrete symbol of his infinite transcendental side; and, further, is +only a link in an endless change of innumerable existences, a link that +remains in continual communication, in mutual union with all the other +links.... In Maeterlinck's dramas the whole of nature vibrates with man, +either warning him of coming catastrophes or taking on a mournful +attitude after they have happened. He considers man to be a great, +fathomless mystery, which one cannot determine precisely, at which one +can only glance, noting his involuntary and instinctive words, +exclamations and impressions. Maeterlinck consciously deprives nature of +her passive role of a soulless accessory, he animates her, orders her to +collaborate actively in the action of the drama, to speak mysteriously +beside man and to man, to forecast future incidents and catastrophes, in +a word, to participate in all the actions of that fragment of human life +which is called a drama." This "rhythmic correspondence," as Mr. James +Huneker calls it, between man and his environment, is nowhere more +effectively insisted upon by Maeterlinck than in _Pelleas et Melisande_. +Note the incident at the conclusion of the first act, where the +departure of the ship and the gathering of the storm are commented upon +by the two lovers in a scene which is charged with an inescapable +atmosphere of foreboding; note the incident of the fugitive doves in the +scene at Melisande's tower window; or the episodic passage near the end +of the third act, during the tense and painful scene of Golaud's +espionage: "Do you see those poor people down there trying to kindle a +little fire in the forest?--It has rained. And over there, do you see +the old gardener trying to lift that tree that the wind has blown down +across the road?--He cannot; the tree is too big ... too heavy; ... it +will lie where it fell." Note, further on (in the third scene of the +fourth act), just in advance of the culmination of the tragedy, the +strange and ominous scene wherein Little Yniold describes the passing of +the flock of sheep: + + "Why, there is no more sun.... They are coming, the little sheep. + How many there are! They fear the dark! They crowd together! They + cry! and they go quick! They are at the crossroads, and they know + not which way to turn!... Now they are still.... Shepherd! why do + they not speak any more? + + THE SHEPHERD (_who is out of sight_) + "Because it is no longer the road to the fold. + + YNIOLD + "Where are they going?--Shepherd! Shepherd!--where are they + going?--Where are they going to sleep to-night? Oh! oh! it is too + dark!--I am going to tell something to somebody." + +Always the setting, the accessories, reflect and underscore the inner +movement of the drama, and always with arresting and intense effect. + +It tempts one to extravagant praise, this heart-shaking and lovely +drama; this _vieille et triste legende de la foret_, with its +indescribable glamour, its affecting sincerity, its restraint, its +exquisite and unflagging simplicity. The hesitant and melancholy +personages who invest its scenes--Melisande, timid, naive, child-like, +wistful, mercurial, infinitely pathetic; Pelleas, dream-filled, ardent, +yet honorable in his passion; old Arkel, wise, gentle, and resigned; the +tragic and brooding figure of Golaud; Little Yniold, artless and +pitiful, a figure impossible anywhere save in Maeterlinck; the grave and +simple diction, at times direct and homely in phrasing and imagery, at +times rapturous, subtle, and evasive; the haunting _mise-en-scene_: the +dim forest, the fountain in the park, the luminous and fragrant +nightfall, the occasional glimpses, sombre and threatening, of the sea, +the silent and gloomy castle,--all these unite to form a dramatic and +poetic and pictorial ensemble which completely fascinates and enchains +the mind. The result would have been as inconceivable before Maeterlinck +undertook the writing of drama as, to-day, it is inimitable and +untouched. + + +ITS ACTION + +Maeterlinck's play, as adapted by Debussy for musical setting, becomes a +"lyric drama in five acts and twelve tableaux." Certain portions have +been left out--as the scenes, at the beginning of Act I and Act V, in +which the servingwomen of the castle appear; the fourth scene of Act II, +in which Pelleas is persuaded by Arkel to postpone his journey to the +bedside of his dying friend Marcellus; the opening scene of Act III, +between Pelleas, Melisande, and Yniold. Numerous passages that are +either not essential to the development of the action, or that do not +invite musical transmutation, have been curtailed or omitted, with the +result that the movement of the drama has been compressed and +accelerated throughout. In outlining very briefly the action of the +play (which should be read in the original by all who would know +Debussy's setting of it) I shall adhere to the slightly altered version +which forms the actual text of the opera. + +The characters are these: + +ARKEL, _King of Allemonde_ +PELLEAS & GOLAUD, _half-brothers, grandsons of_ ARKEL +MELISANDE, _an unknown princess; later the bride of_ GOLAUD +LITTLE YNIOLD, _Son of_ GOLAUD _by a former marriage_ +GENEVIEVE, _Mother of_ PELLEAS _and_ GOLAUD +A PHYSICIAN +_Servants, Beggars, etc._ + + + + +ACT I + +The opening scene is in a forest, in an unknown land. It is autumn. +Golaud, gray-bearded, stern, a giant in stature ("I am made of iron and +blood," he says of himself), has been hunting a wild boar, and has been +led astray. His dogs have left him to follow a false scent. He is about +to retrace his steps, when he comes upon a young girl weeping by a +spring. She is very beautiful, and very timid. She would flee, but +Golaud reassures her. Her dress is that of a princess, though her +garments have been torn by the briars. Golaud questions her. Her name, +she says, is Melisande; she was born "far away;" she has fled, and is +lost; but she will not tell her age, or whence she came, or what injury +has been done her, or who it is that has harmed or threatened +her--"Every one! every one!" she says. Her golden crown has fallen into +the water--"It is the crown he gave me," she cries; "it fell as I was +weeping." Golaud would recover it for her, but she will have no more of +it.... "I had rather die at once!" she protests. Golaud prevails upon +her to go with him--the night is coming on, and she cannot remain alone +in the forest. She refuses, at first, in terror, then reluctantly +consents. "Where are you going?" she asks. "I do not know.... I, too, am +lost," replies Golaud. They leave together. + +The scene changes to a hall in the castle--the silent and forbidding +castle near the sea, surrounded by deep forests, where Golaud, with his +mother Genevieve and his little son Yniold (the child of his first wife, +now dead), lives with his aged father, Arkel, king of Allemonde. Here, +too, lives Golaud's young half-brother, Pelleas--for they are not sons +of the same father. Half a year has passed, and it is spring. Genevieve +reads to her father, the ancient Arkel, a letter sent by Golaud to +Pelleas. After recounting the circumstances of his meeting with +Melisande, Golaud continues: "It is now six months since I married her, +and I know as little of her past as on the day we met. Meanwhile, dear +Pelleas, you whom I love more than a brother, ... make ready for our +return. I know that my mother will gladly pardon me; but I dread the +King, in spite of all his kindness. If, however, he will consent to +receive her as if she were his own daughter, light a lamp at the summit +of the tower overlooking the sea, upon the third night after you receive +this letter. I shall be able to see it from our vessel. If I see no +light, I shall pass on and shall return no more." They decide to receive +Golaud and his child-bride, although the marriage has prevented a union +which, for political reasons, Arkel had arranged for his grandson. + +Again the scene changes. Melisande and Genevieve are walking together in +the gardens, and they are joined by Pelleas. "We shall have a storm +to-night," he says, "yet it is so calm now.... One might embark +unwittingly and come back no more." They watch the departure of a great +ship that is leaving the port, the ship that brought Golaud and his +young wife. "Why does she sail to-night?... She may be wrecked," says +Melisande.... "The night comes quickly," observes Pelleas. A silence +falls between them. "It is time to go in," says Genevieve. "Pelleas, +show the way to Melisande. I must go 'tend to little Yniold," and she +leaves them alone. "Will you let me take your hand?" says Pelleas to +Melisande. Her hands are full of flowers, she responds. He will hold her +arm, he says, for the road is steep. He tells her that he has had a +letter from his dying friend Marcellus, summoning him to his bedside, +and that he may perhaps go away on the morrow. "Oh! why do you go away?" +says Melisande. + + +ACT II + +The second act begins at an old and abandoned fountain in the park--the +"Fountain of the Blind," so called because it once possessed miraculous +healing powers. Pelleas and Melisande enter together. It is a stifling +day, and they seek the cool tranquillity of the fountain and the shadow +of the overarching trees--"One can hear the water sleep," says Pelleas. +Their talk is dangerously intimate. Melisande dips her hand in the cool +water, and plays with her wedding-ring as she lies stretched along the +edge of the marble basin. She throws the ring in the air and it falls +into the deep water. Melisande displays agitation: "What shall we say if +Golaud asks where it is?" "The truth, the truth," replies Pelleas. + +The scene changes to an apartment in the castle. Golaud lies upon a bed, +with Melisande bending over him. He has been wounded while hunting. +Melisande is compassionate, perhaps remorseful. She too, she confesses, +is ill, unhappy, though she will not tell Golaud what it is that ails +her. Her husband discovers the absence of her wedding-ring, and harshly, +suspiciously, asks where it is. Melisande, confused and terrified, +dissembles, and answers that she must have lost it in a grotto by the +seashore, when she went there in the morning to pick shells for little +Yniold. She is sure it is there. Golaud bids her go at once and search +for it. She fears to go alone, and he suggests that she ask Pelleas to +accompany her. + +The next scene discovers Melisande with Pelleas in the grotto. They are +deeply agitated. It is very dark, but Pelleas describes to her the look +of the place, for, he tells her, she must be able to answer Golaud if he +should question her. The moon breaks through the clouds and illumines +brightly the interior, revealing three old and white-haired beggars +asleep against a ledge of rock. Melisande is uneasy, and would go. They +depart in silence. + + +ACT III + +The opening scene of the third act shows the exterior of one of the +towers of the castle, with a winding staircase passing beneath a window +at which sits Melisande, combing her unbound hair, and singing in the +starlit darkness--"like a beautiful strange bird," says Pelleas, who +enters by the winding stair. He entreats her to lean further forward out +of the window, that he may come closer, that he may touch her hand; for, +he says, he is leaving on the morrow. She leans further out, telling him +that he may take her hand if he will promise not to leave on the next +day. Suddenly her long tresses fall over her head and stream about +Pelleas. He is enraptured. "I have never seen such hair as yours, +Melisande! See! see! Though it comes from so high, it floods me to the +heart!... And it is sweet, sweet as though it fell from heaven!... I can +no longer see the sky through your locks.... My two hands can no longer +hold them.... They are alive like birds in my hands. And they love me, +they love me more than you do!" Melisande begs to be released, Pelleas +kisses the enveloping tresses.... "Do you hear my kisses?--They mount +along your hair." Doves come from the tower--Melisande's doves--and fly +about them. They are frightened, and are flying away. "They will be +lost in the dark!" laments Melisande. Golaud enters by the winding +stair, and surprises them. Melisande is entrapped by her hair, which is +caught in the branches of a tree. "What are you doing here?" asks +Golaud. They are confused, and stammer inarticulately. "Melisande, do +not lean so far out of the window," cautions her husband. "Do you not +know how late it is? It is almost midnight. Do not play so in the +darkness. You are a pair of children!" He laughs nervously. "What +children!" + +He and Pelleas go out, and the scene shifts to the vaults in the depths +under the castle,--dank, unwholesome depths, that exhale an odor of +death, where the darkness is "like poisoned slime." Golaud leads his +brother through the vaults, which Pelleas had seen only once, long ago. +"Here is the stagnant water of which I spoke; do you smell the +death-odor?--That is what I wanted you to perceive," insinuates Golaud. +"Let us go to the edge of this overhanging rock, and do you lean over a +little. You will feel it in your face.... Lean over; have no fear; ... I +will hold you ... give me ... no, no, not your hand, it might slip.... +Your arm, your arm! Do you see down into the abyss, Pelleas?" "Yes, I +think I can see to the bottom of the abyss," rejoins Pelleas. "Is it the +light that trembles so?" He straightens up, turns, and looks at Golaud. +"Yes, it is the lantern," answers Melisande's husband, his voice +shaking. "See--I moved it to throw light on the walls." "I stifle +here.... Let us go!" exclaims Pelleas. They leave in silence. + +The succeeding scene shows them on a terrace at the exit of the vaults. +Golaud warns Pelleas. "About Melisande: I overheard what passed and what +was said last night. I realize that it was but child's play; but it must +not be repeated.... She is very delicate, and it is necessary to be more +than usually careful, as she is perhaps with child, and the least +emotion might cause serious results. It is not the first time I have +noticed that there might be something between you.... You are older than +she; it will suffice to have said this to you. Avoid her as much as +possible, though not too pointedly." + +The next scene passes before the castle. Golaud and his little son +Yniold, the innocent playfellow of Melisande and Pelleas, are together. +Golaud questions him. "You are always with mama.... See, we are just +under mama's window now. She may be saying her prayers at this +moment.... Tell me, Yniold, she is often with your uncle Pelleas, is she +not?" The child's naive answers inflame his jealousy, confirm his +suspicions, though they baffle him. "Do they never tell you to go and +play somewhere else?" he asks. "No, papa, they are afraid when I am not +with them.... They always weep in the dark.... That makes one weep, +too.... She is pale, papa." "Ah! ah!... patience, my God, patience!" +cries the anguished Golaud.... "They kiss each other sometimes?" he +queries. "Yes ... yes; ... once ... when it rained." "They kissed each +other?--But how, how did they kiss?" "So, papa, so!" laughs the boy, and +then cries out as he is pricked by his father's beard. "Oh, your +beard!... It pricks! It is getting all gray, papa; and your hair, +too--all gray, all gray!" Suddenly the window under which they are +sitting is illuminated, and the light falls upon them. "Oh, mama has lit +her lamp!" exclaims Yniold. "Yes," observes Golaud; "it begins to grow +light." Yniold wishes to go, but Golaud restrains him. "Let us stay here +in the shadow a little longer.... One cannot tell, yet.... I think +Pelleas is mad!" he exclaims violently. He lifts Yniold up to the +window, cautioning him to make no noise, and asks him what he sees. The +child reports that Melisande is there, and that his uncle Pelleas is +there, too. "What are they doing? Are they near each other?" "They are +looking at the light." "They do not say anything?" "No, papa, they do +not close their eyes.... Oh! oh!... I am terribly afraid!" "Why, what +are you afraid of?--look! look!" demands Golaud. "Oh, oh! I am going to +cry, papa!--let me down! let me down!" insists Yniold, in nameless +terror. + + +ACT IV + +Melisande and Pelleas meet in an apartment in the castle. Pelleas is +about to leave, to travel, he tells her, now that his father is +recovering; but before he goes he must see her alone--he must speak to +her that night. He asks that she meet him in the park, at the "Fountain +of the Blind." It will be the last night, he says, and she will see him +no more. Melisande consents to meet him, but she will not hear of his +going away. "I shall see you always; I shall look upon you always," she +tells him. "You will look in vain," says Pelleas; "I shall try to go +very far away." They separate. Arkel enters. He tells Melisande that he +has pitied her since she came to the castle: "I observed you. You were +listless--but with the strange, astray look of one who, in the sunlight, +in a beautiful garden, awaits ever a great misfortune.--I cannot +explain.--But I was sad to see you thus. Come here; why do you stay +there mute and with downcast eyes?--I have kissed you but once hitherto, +the day of your coming; and yet the old need sometimes to touch with +their lips a woman's forehead or the cheek of a child, that they may +still keep their faith in the freshness of life and avert for a moment +the menaces of death. Are you afraid of my old lips? How I have pitied +you these months!" She tells him that she has not been unhappy. But +perhaps, he says, she is of those who are unhappy without knowing it. +Golaud enters, ferocious and distraught. He has blood on his forehead. +It is nothing, he says--he has passed through a thicket of thorns. +Melisande would wipe his brow. He repulses her fiercely. "I will not +have you touch me, do you understand?" he cries. "I came to get my +sword." "It is here, on the prie-Dieu," says Melisande, and she brings +it to him. "Why do you tremble so?" he says to her. "I am not going to +kill you.--You hope to see something in my eyes without my seeing +anything in yours? Do you suppose I may know something?" He turns to +Arkel. "Do you see those great eyes?--it is as if they gloried in their +power." "I see," responds Arkel, "only a great innocence." "A great +innocence!" cries Golaud wildly. "They are more than innocent!... They +are purer than the eyes of a lamb.--They might teach God lessons in +innocence! A great innocence! Listen! I am so near them that I can feel +the freshness of their lashes when they close--and yet I am less far +from the great secrets of the other world than from the smallest secret +of those eyes!--A great innocence?--More than innocence! One would say +that the angels of heaven celebrated there an unceasing baptism. I know +those eyes! I have seen them at their work! Close them! close them! or I +shall close them forever!--You need not put your right hand to your +throat so; I am saying a very simple thing--I have no concealed meaning. +If I had, why should I not speak it? Ah!--do not attempt to +flee!--Here!--Give me that hand!--Ah! your hands are too hot!--Away! the +touch of your flesh disgusts me!--Here!--You shall not escape me now!" +He seizes her by the hair. "Down on your knees! On your knees before +me!--Ah! your long hair is of some use at last!" He throws her from side +to side, holding her by her hair. "Right, left!--Left, right!--Absalom! +Absalom!--Forward! now back! To the ground! to the ground! Ha! ha! you +see, I laugh already like an imbecile!" Arkel, running up, seeks to +restrain him. Golaud affects a sudden and disdainful calmness. "You are +free to act as you please," he says.--"It is of no consequence to me.--I +am too old to care; and, besides, I am not a spy. I shall await my +chance; and then.... Oh! then!... I shall simply act as custom demands." +"What is the matter?--Is he drunk?" asks Arkel. "No, no!" cries +Melisande, weeping. "He hates me--and I am so wretched! so wretched!" + +"If I were God," ruminates the aged king, "how infinitely I should pity +the hearts of men!" + +The scene changes once more to the fountain in the park. Yniold is +discovered seeking to move a great rock behind which his golden ball has +rolled. Night is coming on. The distant bleating of sheep is heard. +Yniold looks over the edge of the terrace and sees the flock crowding +along the road. Suddenly they cease their crying. Yniold calls to the +shepherd. "Why do they not speak any more?" "Because," answers the +shepherd, who is concealed from sight, "it is no longer the road to the +fold." "Where are they going to sleep to-night?" cries the child. There +is no answer, and he departs, exclaiming that he must find somebody to +speak to.[5] Pelleas enters, to keep his tryst with Melisande. "It is +the last time," he meditates. "It must all be ended. I have been playing +like a child with what I did not understand. I have played, dreaming +about the snares of fate. By what have I been suddenly awakened? Who has +aroused me all at once? I shall depart, crying out for joy and woe like +a blind man fleeing from his burning house. I shall tell her I am going. +My father is out of danger; and I can no longer lie to myself.--It is +late; she is not coming. + +[5] Although this scene was set to music by Debussy, and appears in both +the orchestral and piano scores, it is omitted from the performances at +the Opera-Comique. + +--It would be better to go away without seeing her again.--But I must +look well at her this time.--There are some things that I no longer +recall.--It seems at times as though I had not seen her for a hundred +years.--And I have not yet looked deep into her gaze. There remains +nothing to me if I go away thus. And all those memories!--it is as if I +were to carry away a little water in a muslin bag.--I must see her one +last time, see to the bottom of her heart.--I must tell her all that I +have never told her." Melisande enters. Their greeting is simple. +Pelleas bids her come under the shade of the linden. She wishes to +remain where it is lighter; she wishes to stay where she may be seen. +Golaud, she says, is sleeping. It is late. In an hour the great gates of +the castle will be closed. Pelleas tells her that it is perhaps the last +time he shall see her, that he must go away forever. She asks him why it +is that he is always saying that. "Must I tell you what you know +already?" rejoins Pelleas. "You know not what I am going to tell you?" +"Why, no; I know nothing," says Melisande. "You know not why I must go? +You know not that it is because [he kisses her abruptly] I love you?" "I +love you too," says Melisande simply, in a low voice. "You love me? you +love me too?" cries Pelleas. "Since when have you loved me?" "Since I +saw you first," she answers. "Oh, how you say that!" cries Pelleas. +"Your voice seems to have blown across the sea in spring!... You say it +so frankly--like an angel questioned.--Your voice! your voice! It is +cooler and more frank than the water is!--It is like pure water on my +lips!--Give me, give me your hands!--Oh, how small your hands are!--I +did not know you were so beautiful! I have never before seen anything so +beautiful!--I was filled with unrest; I sought everywhere; yet I found +not beauty.--And now I have found you!--I do not believe there can be +upon the earth a woman more beautiful!" Their love-scene is harshly +interrupted. "What is that noise?" asks Pelleas. "They are closing the +gates!--We cannot return now. Do you hear the bolts?--Listen!--the great +chains!--It is too late!" "So much the better!" cries Melisande, in +passionate abandonment. "Do you say that?" exclaims her lover. "See, it +is no longer we who will it so! Come, come!" They embrace. "Listen! my +heart is almost strangling me! Ah! how beautiful it is in the shadows!" +"There is some one behind us!" whispers Melisande. Pelleas has heard +nothing. "I hear only your heart in the darkness." "I heard the +crackling of dead leaves," insists Melisande. "A-a-h! he is behind a +tree!" she whispers. "Who?" "Golaud!--he has his sword!" "And I have +none!" cries Pelleas. "He does not know we have seen him," he cautions. +"Do not stir; do not turn your head.--He will remain there so long as he +thinks we do not know he is watching us.--He is still motionless.--Go, +go at once this way. I will wait for him--I will hold him back." "No, +no, no!" cries Melisande. + +"Go! go! he has seen everything!--He will kill us!" + +"All the better! all the better!" + +"He is coming!--Your mouth! your mouth!" + +"Yes! Yes! Yes!" + +They kiss desperately. + +"Oh, oh! All the stars are falling!" cries Pelleas. + +"Upon me also!" + +"Again! Again!--Give! give!" + +"All! all! all!" + +Golaud rushes upon them with drawn sword and kills Pelleas, who falls +beside the fountain. Melisande flees in terror, crying out as she goes, +"Oh! oh! I have no courage! I have no courage!" + +Golaud pursues her in silence through the forest. + + +ACT V + +The last act opens in an apartment in the castle. Melisande is stretched +unconscious upon a bed. Golaud, Arkel, and the physician stand in a +corner of the room. Some days earlier Melisande and her husband had +been found stretched out senseless before the castle gate, Golaud having +still in his side the sword with which he had sought to kill himself. +Melisande had been wounded,--"a tiny little wound that would not kill a +pigeon;" yet her life is despaired of; and on her death-bed she has been +delivered of a child--"a puny little girl such as a beggar might be +ashamed to own--a little waxen thing that came before its time, that can +be kept alive only by being wrapped in wool." The room is very silent. +"It seems to me that we keep too still in her room," says Arkel; "it is +not a good sign; look how she sleeps--how slowly.--It is as if her soul +were forever chilled." Golaud laments that he has killed her without +cause. "They had kissed like little children--and I--I did it in spite +of myself!" Melisande wakes. She wishes to have the window open, that +she may see the sunset. She has never felt better, she says, in answer +to Arkel's questioning. She asks if she is alone in the room. Her +husband is present, answers Arkel. "If you are afraid, he will go away. +He is very unhappy." "Golaud is here?" she says; "why does he not come +to me?" Golaud staggers to the bed. He begs the others to withdraw for a +moment, as he must speak with her alone. When they have left him, his +torturing suspicions, suspicions that will not down, find voice. He +entreats her to tell him the truth. "The truth must be spoken to one +about to die." Did she love Pelleas? he asks in agony. "Why, yes, I +loved him--where is he?" The answer maddens him. "Do you not understand? +Will you not understand? It seems to me--it seems to me--well, then, it +is this: I ask you if you loved him with a guilty love? Were you--were +you both guilty?" "No, no; we were not guilty," she replies; "why do you +ask me that?" Arkel and the physician appear at the door. "You may come +in," says Golaud despairingly; "it is useless, I shall never know! I +shall die here like a blind man!" "You will kill her," warns Arkel. "Is +it you, grandfather?" questions Melisande; "is it true that winter is +already coming?--it is cold, and there are no more leaves." "Are you +cold? Shall I close the windows?" asks Golaud. "No, no, not till the sun +has sunk into the sea--it sets slowly." Arkel asks her if she wishes to +see her child. "What child?" she inquires. Arkel tells her that she is a +mother. The child is brought, and put into her arms. Melisande can +scarcely lift her arms to take her. "She does not laugh, she is little," +says Melisande; "she, too, will weep--I pity her." Gradually the room +has filled with the women-servants of the castle, who range themselves +in silence along the walls and wait. "She is going to sleep," observes +Arkel; "her eyes are full of tears. It is her soul, now, that weeps. Why +does she stretch her arms out so?--what does she wish?" "Toward her +child, without doubt," answers the physician. "It is the struggle of +motherhood against...." "At this moment?--At once?" cries Golaud, in a +renewed outburst of anguish.... "Oh, oh! I must speak to her! Melisande! +Melisande!--leave me alone with her!" "Trouble her not," gravely +interposes Arkel. "Do not speak to her again.--You know not what the +soul is.--We must speak in low tones now. She must no longer be +disturbed. The human soul is very silent. The human soul likes to depart +alone. It suffers so timidly! But the sadness, Golaud, the sadness of +all we see!" At this moment the servants fall suddenly on their knees at +the back of the room. Arkel turns suddenly: "What is the matter?" The +physician approaches the bed and examines the body of Melisande. "They +are right," he says. There is a silence. + +"I saw nothing. Are you sure?" questions Arkel. + +"Yes, yes." + +"I heard nothing. So quickly! so quickly! She goes without a word!" + +Golaud sobs aloud. + +"Do not remain here," says Arkel. "She must have silence now. Come; +come. It is terrible, but it is not your fault. It was a little being, +so quiet, so timid, and so silent. It was a poor little mysterious being +like everyone. She lies there as though she were the elder sister of her +baby. Come; the child should not stay here in this room. She must live, +now, in her place. It is the poor little one's turn." + + + + +III + +THE MUSIC + +A REVOLUTIONARY SCORE + + +Debussy's _Pelleas et Melisande, drame lyrique en 5 actes et 12 +tableaux_, was performed for the first time on any stage at the +Opera-Comique, Paris, April 30, 1902. Its first performance outside of +Paris was at the Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels, January 9, 1907; its +second was at Frankfort, April 19, 1907. Its third will be the coming +production at the Manhattan Opera House, New York. The original Paris +cast was as follows: _Pelleas_, M. Jean Perier; _Melisande_, Miss Mary +Garden; _Arkel_, M. Vieuille; _Golaud_, M. Dufrane; _Genevieve_, Mlle. +Gerville-Reache; _Le petit Yniold_, M. Blondin; _Un Medicin_, M. Viguie. +M. Andre Messager was the conductor. The work was admirably mounted +under the supervision of the Director of the Opera-Comique, M. Albert +Carre. + +The fortunes of the opera have not been altogether happy. It has been +said that Debussy conceived the idea of writing music for Maeterlinck's +play soon after its first performance at the Bouffes-Parisiens in 1893; +that, although it was necessary to secure the dramatist's consent to its +adaptation, he did not solicit Maeterlinck's permission until he had +thought out his musical scheme to a considerable degree of elaboration; +and that Maeterlinck (being of that complacent majority of literary men +who neither care for nor are intelligently curious concerning musical +art) was immensely surprised to learn that his play had suggested a +tonal setting. There was much correspondence between composer and +dramatist before Maeterlinck finally heard the music of Debussy at a +rehearsal at the Opera-Comique: so, at least, runs the legend. Just when +or precisely how the famous and probably inevitable rupture occurred +between them, tradition does not make altogether clear. Maeterlinck is +alleged to have become incensed on account of certain excisions made by +Debussy in fitting the text of the play to music; then, it appears, +there was a quarrel over the choice of a singer for the performance, and +Maeterlinck published a letter of protest in which he declared that "the +_Pelleas_ of the Opera-Comique" was "a piece which had become entirely +foreign" to him, and that, as he was "deprived of all control over it," +he could only hope "that its fall would be prompt and noisy." The matter +is important only as contributing to the history of Debussy's work, and +would scarcely reward detailed examination or discussion. + +One would have said, in advance of the event, that Debussy, of all +composers, living or dead, was best fitted to write music for +Maeterlinck's beautiful and perturbing play. He was not only best +fitted, he was ideally fitted; in listening to this music one catches +oneself imagining that it and the drama issued from the same brain. It +is impossible to conceive of the play wedded to any other music, and it +is difficult, indeed, after knowing the work in its lyric form, to think +of it apart from its tonal commentary. For Debussy has caught and +re-uttered, with almost incredible similitude, the precise poetic accent +of the dramatist. He has found poignant and absolute analogies for its +veiled and obsessing loveliness, its ineffable sadness, the strange and +fate-burdened atmosphere in which it is steeped--these things have here +attained a new voice and tangibility. + +In calling this a "revolutionary" score one is being simply and baldly +literal. To realize the justness of the epithet, one has only to +speculate upon what Wagner would have said, or what Richard Strauss may +think, of an opera (let us adhere, for convenience, to an accommodating +if inaccurate term) written for the voices, from beginning to end, in a +kind of recitative which is virtually a chant; an opera in which there +is no vocal melody whatsoever, and comparatively little symphonie +development of themes in the orchestra; in which an enigmatic and wholly +eccentric system of harmony is exploited; in which there are scarcely +more than a dozen _fortissimo_ passages in the course of five acts; in +which, for the greater part of the time, the orchestra employed is the +orchestra of Mozart,--surely, this is something new in modern +musico-dramatic art; surely, it requires some courage, or an +indifference amounting to courage, to write thus in a day when the +plangent and complex orchestra of the _Ring_ is considered inadequate, +and the 113 instrumentalists of _Salome_, like the trumpeters of an +elder time, are storming the operatic ramparts of two continents. + +The radicalism of the music was fully appreciated at the time of the +first performances in Paris. To the dissenters, Debussy's musical +personages were mere "stammering phantoms," and he was regaled with the +age-worn charge of having "ignored melody altogether." Debussy has +defended his methods with point and directness. "I have been +reproached," he says, "because in my score the melodic phrase is always +in the orchestra, never in the voice. I tried, with all my strength and +all my sincerity, to identify my music with the poetical essence of the +drama. Before all things, I respected the characters, the lives of my +personages; I wished them to express themselves independently of me, of +themselves. I let them sing in me. I tried to listen to them and to +interpret them faithfully. I wished--intended, in fact--that the action +should never be arrested; that it should be continuous, uninterrupted. I +wished to dispense with parasitic musical phrases. When listening to a +work, the spectator is wont to experience two kinds of emotions which +are quite distinct: the musical emotion, on the one hand; the emotion of +the character [in the drama], on the other; generally they are felt +successively. I have tried to blend these two emotions, and make them +simultaneous. Melody is, if I may say so, almost anti-lyric, and +powerless to express the constant change of emotion or life. Melody is +suitable only for the song (_chanson_), which confirms a fixed +sentiment. I have never been willing that my music should hinder, +through technical exigencies, the changes of sentiment and passion felt +by my characters. It is effaced as soon as it is necessary that these +should have perfect liberty in their gestures as in their cries, in +their joy as in their sorrow." However much one may hesitate to +subscribe to Debussy's generalities, the final justification for his +procedure is in the fact that it is ideally suited to its especial +purpose,--the tonal utterance of Maeterlinck's rhymeless, metreless, +and broken phrases. To have set them in the sustained arioso style of +_Tristan und Isolde_ would have been as impossible as it would have been +inept. As it is, the writing for the voices in _Pelleas_ never, as one +might reasonably suppose, becomes monotonous. The achievement--an +astonishing _tour de force_, at the least--is as artistically successful +as it is unprecedented in modern music. + +In his treatment of the orchestra, Debussy makes a scarcely less +resolute departure from tradition. There is little symphonic development +in the Wagnerian sense. His orchestra reflects the emotional +implications of the text and action with absolute and scrupulous +fidelity, but suggestively rather than with detailed emphasis. The drama +is far less heavily underscored than with Wagner; the note of passion or +of conflict or of tragedy is never forced. His personages love and +desire, exult and hate and die, with a surprising economy of vehemence +and insistence. Yet, unrhetorical as the music is, it is never pallid; +and in such truly climacteric moments as that of Golaud's agonized +outbreak in the scene with Melisande, in the fourth act, and the +ecstatic culmination of the final love-scene, the music supports the +dramatic and emotional crisis with superb competency and vigor. + +He follows Wagner to the extent of using the inescapable device of +representative themes, though he has, with his usual airy inconsistency, +characterized the Wagnerian _Leitmotiv_ system as "rather coarse." It is +true, however, that his typical phrases are employed far more sparingly +and subtly than modern precedent would have led one to expect. They are +seldom set in sharp and vividly dramatic contrast, as with Wagner; nor +are they polyphonically deployed. Often they are mere sound-wraiths, +intended to denote moods and nuances of emotion so impalpable and +evanescent, so vague and interior, that it is more than a little +difficult to mark their precise significance. Often they are mere +fragments of themes, mere patches of harmonic color, evasive and +intangible, designed almost wholly to translate phases of that psychic +penumbra in which the characters and the action of the drama are +enwrapped. They have a common kinship in their dim and muted loveliness, +their grave reticence, the deep and immitigable sadness with which, even +at their most rapturous, they are penetrated. This is a score rich in +beauty and strangeness, yet the music has often a deceptive naivete, a +naivete that is so extreme that it reveals itself, finally, as the +quintessence of subtlety and reticence--in which respect, again, we are +reminded of its perfect, its well-nigh uncanny, correspondence with the +quality of Maeterlinck's drama. + +As it has been remarked, Debussy's orchestra is here, with few +exceptions, the orchestra of Mozart's day. On page after page he writes +for strings alone, or for strings with wood-wind and horns. He uses the +full modern orchestra only upon the rarest occasions, and then more +often for color than for volume. He has an especial affection for the +strings, particularly in the lower registers; and he is exceedingly fond +of subdividing and muting them. It is rare to find him using the +wood-wind choir alone, or the wood and brass without the strings. His +orchestra contains the usual modern equipment--3 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 +clarinets, an English horn, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 +trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, glockenspiel, cymbals, 2 harps, and +strings; yet one may count on but little more than the fingers of both +hands the pages in which this apparatus is employed in its full +strength. And in spite of this curious and unpopular reticence, we +listen here, as M. Bruneau has observed, to "a magic orchestra"--an +orchestra of indescribable richness, delicacy, and suppleness--an +orchestra that melts and shimmers with opalescent hues--an orchestra +that has substance without density, sonority without blatancy, +refinement without thinness. + +The music, as a whole, is as insinuating as it is unparalleled. Many +passages are of an hypnotic and abiding fascination. There is something +necromantic in the art which can so swiftly and so surely cast an +ineluctable spell upon the heart and the imagination: such a spell as is +cast in the scene at the _Fontaine des Aveugles_, in the second act; or +when, from the window in the castle tower, Melisande's unbound hair +falls and envelops Pelleas--an unforgettable page; or when the lovers +meet for the last time at the Fountain of the Blind; or in the scene of +Melisande's death--one of the most pathetic and affecting pages in all +music. One must wonder at the elasticity and richness of the harmonic +texture--which, while it is incurably "irregular," is never crude or +inchoate; at the distinction of the melodic line; at the rhythmical +variety; at the masterly and individual orchestration. No faculty of +trained perception is required justly to value the excellences of +Debussy's score. There is great beauty, great eloquence, in this music. +It has sincerity, dignity, and reserve, yet it is both deeply +impassioned and enamoringly tender; and it is as absolutely personal, as +underived, as was _Tristan_ forty years ago. + + +THE THEMES AND THEIR TREATMENT + +The score of _Pelleas et Melisande_ ill brooks the short and ruthless +method of the thematic annotator. As I have pointed out in the foregoing +pages, its themes are often so indeterminate, so shadowy and elusive, as +to rebuke the analyst who would disengage and expose them. Many of them +are simply harmonic hues and half-lights, melodic shreds and fragments, +whose substance is as impalpable as mist and whose outlines waver and +fade almost before they are perceived. Few of them are clearly and +definitely articulated; for the most part they are, as I have called +them, mere "sound-wraiths," intentionally suggestive rather than +definitive, evocative rather than descriptive. If one ventures to +exhibit and to name them, one does so rather for the purpose of drawing +attention to their beauty, their singularity, and their delicate +potency, than with any thought of imposing an arbitrary character upon +them or of insisting upon what seems to be their essential +meaning--which is often altogether too recondite for positive +identification. I shall not, therefore, attempt to dissect the music +measure by measure, but shall endeavor rather to survey it "in the +large," to offer simply a general indication of its more significant +features. Nor shall I offer any further justification or apology for +the titles which I have adopted for the various representative themes +than to say that they have seemed to me to be sufficiently supported by +their association with the moods and events of the drama. It is, of +course, entirely possible that apter designations might be found for +them; I offer those that I have chosen more as an invitation to the +sympathetic and the inquisitive than from any desire to impose my own +interpretation upon unwilling, dissenting, or indifferent minds. + + +ACT I + +A brief orchestral prelude, less than twenty measures in length, +introduces the opening scene of the first act. Divided and muted +'cellos, double-basses, and bassoons intone, _pp_, a solemn and brooding +theme[6] designed to evoke the thought of the forest, which, sombre, +mysterious, and oppressive, forms the background against which the +events of the drama are projected (page 1, measure 1):[7] + +[6] Its curious progressions, based on the Dorian mode of the +plain-chant (corresponding to a scale of D-minor without accidentals), I +have alluded to in a previous chapter. + +[7] These indications refer to the arrangement of the score for voices +and piano, with French and English text, published by A. Durand & Fils +of Paris in 1907. I have indicated in each case, in addition to the +page, the measure in which the example begins. + + +I. THE FOREST [Illustration: Tres modere] + +This is immediately followed by one of the most important themes in the +opera, that which seems to typify the veiled and overshadowing destiny +which is very close to the central thought of Maeterlinck's play. +Strangely harmonized, this _Fate_ theme (it is in the second measure +that its kernel is contained, and it is this portion of it that is most +frequently repeated) is sounded, _pp, tres modere_, by oboes, English +horn, and clarinets (page 1, measure 5): + + +II. FATE + +[Illustration] + +These two themes are repeated, with altered harmonization; then follows +one of the two principal themes of the score--that of _Melisande_, sung, +_doux et expressif_, by the oboe over tremolos in the divided strings +(page 1, measure 14): + + +III. MELISANDE + +[Illustration: _p doux et expressif_] + +It is followed by a derivative theme which, in the drama, suggests the +naivete of Melisande's personality (page 1, measure 1): + + +IV. MELISANDE'S NAIVETE [Illustration] + + +Flute, oboe and clarinet repeat it over a counterpoint formed by the +_Fate_ theme (2 horns), and the curtain opens to the accompaniment of +the _Forest_ motive. This latter theme, with the motive of _Fate_, +underscores the earlier portions of the dialogue between Golaud and +Melisande. At Golaud's words: "Oh! you are beautiful!" we hear (page 7, +measure 1) an ardent phrase in the strings expressive of his awakened +passion for the distressful little princess: + + +V. GOLAUD'S LOVE + +[Illustration: Animee] + +This theme is sounded again, with peculiarly penetrating effect, in the +divided strings, as Golaud entreats Melisande not "to weep so" (page 9, +measure 4), and, later in the scene (page 19, measure 1), when he tells +her that she must not stay in the forest alone after nightfall, and +urges her to go with him. As he informs her that he is "Prince Golaud, +grandson of Arkel, the aged king of Allemonde," we hear, on the bassoons +and horns, his own motive (page 14, measure 8): + + +VI. GOLAUD + +[Illustration: Tres soutenu] + +"You look like a mere child," he says, and the _Melisande_ theme is +given out, _doux et calme_, by the divided strings (page 18, measure 2). +As the two go out together, the motive of _Fate_ is quietly intoned by +the horns (page 22, measure 3). + +An interlude of some fifty measures, in which the _Forest, Fate_, and +_Melisande_ themes are exploited, introduces the second scene of the +act. To an accompaniment of long-sustained chords varied by recurrences +of the _Melisande_ theme, Genevieve reads to the venerable Arkel +Golaud's letter to his brother. The entrance of Pelleas is accompanied +by the theme which characterizes him throughout--the second of the two +motives (that of Melisande being the other) which most conspicuously +dominate the score. It is announced (page 33, measure 10) by three +flutes and a clarinet, over a viola accompaniment: + + +VII. PELLEAS + +[Illustration: Animez un peu] + +The scene closes with a variant of this, and there is an interlude in +which the orchestra weaves a commentary out of the themes of _Fate_ and +_Golaud's Love_. + +As the third scene opens (before the castle), the _Melisande_ theme is +sung, _melancolique et doux_, by the oboe against a murmuring +accompaniment of the strings. Together with the _Pelleas_ theme, it +accompanies the opening portion of the scene. A suggestive use is made +of a fragment of the _Fate_ theme at Melisande's words, after Pelleas +prophesies the approach of a storm: "And yet it is so calm now!" (page +44, measure 5). Just before the voices of the departing sailors are +heard, the curious student will note a characteristic passage in the +orchestra (page 45, measure 1)--a sequence of descending "ninth-chords" +built on a downward scale of whole tones. The _Fate_ theme, combined +with that of _Melisande_, colors the rest of the scene to the end. The +conclusion of the act is striking: two flutes outline a variant of the +_Melisande_ motive; a horn sounds the first three notes of the second +measure of the _Fate_ theme, and four horns and flute sustain, _pp_, an +unresolved suspension--C#-F#-A#-D#-G#. + + +VIII + +[Illustration: _presque plus rien_] + + + + +ACT II + +The _Pelleas_ theme, sung by two flutes, opens the brief introduction to +the second act. It is repeated, interwoven with harp arpeggios. +Immediately preceding the entrance of Pelleas and Melisande a muted +horn, two flutes, two oboes, and harp sound a chord of singularly liquid +quality--one of those fragmentary effects in the invention of which +Debussy is so curiously happy. It is the motive of _The Fountain_.[8] + +[8] I quote it in the completer and more beautiful form in which it +appears on page 57, measures 1-3. + + +IX. THE FOUNTAIN + +[Illustration: Modere] + +It is repeated, with still more magical effect (scored for divided +violins and violas, two muted horns, and harp), as Melisande remarks +upon the clearness of the water, while the violins and violas weave +about it a shimmering figure in sixteenth-notes with which its +appearances are usually associated. As Pelleas warns Melisande to take +care, while she leans above the water along the marble edge of the +basin, the clarinet, over a string accompaniment, announces an +impassioned phrase (page 62, measure 3)--the theme of _Awakening +Desire_: + + +X. AWAKENING DESIRE + +[Illustration: En animant] + +As Pelleas questions Melisande about the ring with which she is +playing,--her wedding-ring,--and when it falls into the water while she +is tossing it in the air, we hear persistently the theme of _Fate_, +which, with the _Golaud_ theme (portentously sounded, _pp_, by horns and +bassoons), closes the scene. There is an interlude in which the +_Golaud_, _Melisande_, and _Fate_ themes are heard. + +The rhythm of the latter theme mutters ominously in the bass as the +second scene is disclosed. When _Golaud_, lying wounded on his bed, +describes to Melisande how, "at the stroke of noon," his horse "swerved +suddenly, with no apparent cause," and threw him, as he was hunting in +the forest ("could he have seen something extraordinary?"), the oboe +recalls the theme of _Awakening Desire_, which was first heard as +Melisande and Pelleas sat together by the fountain in the forest during +the heat of midday. The rhythm of the _Fate_ motive is hinted by +violas, 'cellos, and horns as Golaud, in answer to Melisande's +compassionate questioning, observes that he is "made of iron and blood." +Melisande weeps, and the oboe sounds a plaintive variant of her motive +(page 82, measure 2); the strings repeat it as she complains that she is +ill. Nothing has happened, no one has harmed her, she answers, in +response to Golaud's questionings: "It is no one. You do not understand +me. It is something stronger than I," she says; and we hear the +_Pelleas_ theme, dulcetly harmonized, in the strings. When, later, +Golaud mentions his brother's name inquiringly, and she replies that she +thinks he dislikes her, although he speaks to her sometimes, we hear, +very softly, the theme of _Awakening Desire_. As their talk progresses +to its climax, there is a recurrence of the _Fate_ theme; then, as +Golaud, upon discovering the loss of her wedding-ring, harshly tells her +that he "would rather have lost everything than that," the trombones and +tuba declaim (page 99, measure 5) a threatening and sinister phrase +which will later be more definitely associated with the thought of +Golaud's vengeful purpose: + + +XI. VENGEANCE + +[Illustration: Anime, un peu retenu] + +This is repeated still more vehemently three measures further on, and +there is a return of the _Fate_ motive as Melisande, at the bidding of +Golaud, goes forth to seek the missing ring. An interlude, in which are +blended the variant of the _Melisande_ theme, which denotes her +grieving, and the shimmering figure in sixteenth-notes heard during the +dialogue at the fountain, leads into the scene before the grotto. + +As Pelleas and Melisande stand in the darkness of the cavern we hear +again (page 110, measure 2) the variant of the _Fate_ motive which +marked the close of the preceding scene; then, as a sudden shaft of +moonlight illuminates the grotto, it is expanded and transmuted into a +gleaming flood of orchestral and harmonic color (two flutes, oboe, two +harps _glissando_, string tremolos, cymbals _pp_). While they talk of +the beggars sleeping in a corner of the cave, an oboe and flute trace a +tenuous and melancholy phrase (_doux et triste_) which continues almost +to the end of the scene; it leads into a quiet coda formed out of the +theme of _Fate_. + + + + +ACT III + +After several bars of preluding by flute, harp, violas, and 'cellos +(harmonics), on an arpeggio figure, _ppp_, flutes and oboe present (page +115, measure 6) a theme which, in an ampler version, dominates the +entire scene. Its complete form, in which I conceive it to be suggestive +of the magic of night, is as follows (page 118, measure 2): + + +XII. NIGHT + +[Illustration: Modere sans lenteur] + +It continues in the orchestra until, as Pelleas urges Melisande to lean +further out of the window that he may see her hair unbound, a new theme +enters, seeming to characterize the ardor of Pelleas' mood (page 120, +measure 3[9]): + +[9] I quote it as it appears in its maturer form on page 125 (measure +3). + + +XIII. ARDOR + +[Illustration: Animez toujours] + +As Melisande leans further and further out of her window, these two +themes (_Night_ and _Ardor_) grow increasingly insistent. They are +interrupted at Pelleas' words, "I see only the branches of the willow +drooping over the wall," by a rich passage for divided violins, violas, +and 'cellos (page 124, measure 3), and by a brief phrase to which +attention should be drawn because of its essentially Debussy-like +quality--the progression in the first measure of page 125 (scored for +violins and violas). Then suddenly Melisande's unloosed hair streams +down from the open window and envelops Pelleas, and we hear (a famous +passage) in the strings alone, _ff_, a precipitate descending series of +seventh-chords built on the familiar whole-tone scale which Debussy +finds so impelling (page 127, measure 1). + + +XIV + +[Illustration: Animez toujours] + +Then begins (page 128, measure 1) a delectable episode. Over a murmurous +accompanying figure given out by violas, 'cellos, harp, and horn, a +clarinet sings a variant of the _Melisande_ theme. The harmonic changes +are kaleidoscopic, the orchestral color of prismatic variety. The lovely +rhapsody over his beloved's + + +XV + +[Illustration: Moins vite et passionnement contenu] + +tresses which Maeterlinck puts into the mouth of Pelleas is exquisitely +enforced by the music. There is ravishing tenderness and beauty here, +and an intensity of expression as penetrating as it is restrained. As +Melisande's doves come from the tower and fly about the heads of the +lovers, we hear, tremolo in the strings, a variation of her motive. +Golaud enters by the winding stair, and the threatening phrase quoted as +Ex. XI is heard sombrely in the horns, bassoons, violas, and +'cellos--its derivation from Golaud's own theme (see Ex. VI) is here +apparent. The latter motive sounds, _p_, as he warns Melisande that she +will fall from the window if she leans so far out. It is followed by the +_Fate_ theme as he departs, laughing nervously. A short interlude is +evolved from the _Melisande_ theme (the _Pelleas_ motive forming a +counterpoint), and the _Fate_ and _Vengeance_ motives--the latter +outlined, over a roll of the timpani and a sustained chord in the horns +and wood-wind, by a muted trumpet, _pp_. + +No new thematic matter is presented during the two succeeding scenes (in +the vaults under the castle and, afterward, on the terrace), nor are +there significant reminiscences of themes already brought forward. The +music of the vault scene forms a pointed commentary on the implications +of the action and dialogue--in character it is dark-hued, forbidding, +sinister. As Golaud and Pelleas emerge from the vaults, much use is made +in the orchestra of a jubilant figure in triplets (first given out +_fortissimo_ by flutes and oboes, over an undulating accompaniment, on +page 152, measure 1) which seems to express a certain irresponsible +exuberance on the part of Pelleas; it accompanies his light-hearted +remarks about the odor of the flowers, the sheen of the water, and the +invigorating air, as they come out upon the sunlit terrace. As the scene +changes again, a very short interlude introduces a new theme--that of +Little Yniold, Golaud's son, whom he is to use as the innocent tool of +his suspicions. This motive, which occurs repeatedly during the ensuing +scene, is one of the less important, but most typical and haunting ones, +in the entire score. It is first presented (page 158, measure 4) by the +oboe, _doux et expressif_: + + +XVI. YNIOLD + +[Illustration: _p doux et expressif_] + +It is heard again as an accompaniment to Yniold's naive answers to +Golaud's interrogations (page 160); when he cries out that his father, +in his agitation, has hurt him (page 164); and, in a particularly +touching form, on page 165, measure 4, when Golaud promises that he will +give him a present on the morrow if Yniold will tell him what he knows +concerning Melisande and Pelleas. We hear the _Pelleas_ theme in the +strings and wood-wind (page 172, measure 7) when Yniold says that they +"weep always in the dark," and that "that makes one weep also," and +again when he tells of having seen them kiss one day--"when it rained." +Thereafter it is heard repeatedly in varying forms to the end of the +scene, at times underlying a persistent triplet-figure which has the +effect of an inverted pedal-point. A tumultuous and agitated _crescendo_ +passage brings the act to a portentous close. + + + + +ACT IV + +A variant of the _Pelleas_ theme, with the opening notes of the _Fate_ +motive as an under voice, begins the short prelude to the fourth act; +there is a hint of the _Yniold_ theme, and the first two notes of the +_Pelleas_ motive introduce the first scene. The interview between +Melisande and her lover, in which they arrange their tryst at the +fountain in the park, is treated with restraint; an expressive phrase +sung by the 'cellos (page 194, measure 11) may be noted at the point +where Pelleas informs Melisande that she will look in vain for his +return after he has gone. The _Melisande_ theme, in a new form, opens +the moving scene between Melisande and Arkel in which he tells her of +his compassionate observation of her since first she came to the castle. +During his speech and her replies we hear her motive and that of _Fate_ +(page 205), the latter theme announcing the entrance of Golaud, +distraught, blood-bespattered, seeking, he says, his sword. The music of +the ensuing scene does not call for extended description--rather for the +single comment that in it Debussy has proved once for all his power of +forceful, direct, and tangible dramatic utterance: the music here, to +apply to it Golaud's phrase in the play, is compact of "blood and +iron"--as well it needed to be for the accentuation of this perturbing +and violent episode. The _Fate_ motive courses ominously through its +earlier portions. We hear, too, what I have called the "second" +_Melisande_ theme--that which seems to denote her naivete (see Ex. IV), +and a strange variant of the first _Melisande_ theme (page 212, measure +4). At the climax of the scene, when Golaud seizes his wife by her long +hair and flings her from side to side, the music is as brutal, as +"virile," as the most exigent could reasonably demand. Later, as he +hints at his purpose,--"I shall await my chance,"--the trombones, tubas, +and double-basses _pizzicato_ mutter, _pp_, the motive of _Vengeance_. +The orchestral interlude is long and elaborate. We hear a variant of the +_Fate_ theme, which reaches a climax in a _fortissimo_ outburst of the +full orchestra. The theme in this form is developed at length; there is +a reminiscence of the _Melisande_ theme, and the music, by a gradual +_diminuendo_, passes into the third scene of the act--in the park, +before the Fountain of the Blind. At the beginning occurs the incident +of the passing flock of sheep observed by Yniold. This scene need not +detain us long, since it is musically as well as dramatically episodic. +There are no new themes, and no significant recurrences of familiar +ones, though the music is rich in suggestive and imaginative details; as +I have previously noted, it is omitted in the performances at the +Opera-Comique. + +Pelleas enters, and there is an impassioned declaration of his theme, +scored, _f_, for wood-wind, horns, and strings, as he observes that he +is about to depart, "crying out for joy and woe like a blind man fleeing +from his burning house." There is a return of the _Melisande_ theme; and +then, as she herself enters, and Pelleas urges her not to stay at the +edge of the moonlight, but to come with him into the shadow of the +linden, there enters a theme of great beauty and tenderness, announced, +_mysterieusement_, by horns and 'cellos (page 236, measure 6). I may +call it, for want of a better name, the motive of _The Shadows_, since +it appears only in association with the thought of sheltering darkness +and concealment: + + +XVII. THE SHADOWS + +[Illustration: Modere] + +We hear the _Fate_ motive when Melisande warns Pelleas that it is late, +that they must take care, as the gates of the castle will soon be closed +for the night. There is a gracious variant of this motive as Melisande +tells how she caught her gown on the nails of the gate as she left the +castle, and so was delayed. Then comes a reminiscence of the _Fountain_ +theme (the authentic wonder of which is that it is not a theme at all, +but merely a single chord introduced by a grace-note; yet the vividness +of its effect is indisputable), suggested, _pp_, by horns and harp, at +Melisande's words: "We have been here before." As Pelleas asks her if +she knows why he has bidden her to meet him, strings and horn give out, +_pp et tres expressif_, a lovely phrase derived from the _Pelleas_ theme +(page 242, measure 1). Their mutual + + +XVIII + +[Illustration: Modere] + +confessions of love, so simply uttered in the text, are entirely +unaccompanied by the orchestra; but as Pelleas exclaims: "The ice is +melted with glowing fire!" four solo 'cellos, with sustained harmonics +in the violins and violas, sound, _pianissimo_, a ravishing series of +"ninth-chords" (page 244, measure 6)--a sheer Debussy-esque effect, for +the relation between the chords is as absolutely anarchistic as it is +deeply beautiful. "Your voice seems to have + + +XIX + +[Illustration: Lent] + +[Illustration] + +blown across the sea in spring," says Pelleas, and a horn, accompanied +by violins in six parts, announces the motive of _Ecstasy_ (page 245, +measure 7): + + +XX. ECSTASY + +[Illustration: Modere] + +The 'cellos intone the _Melisande_ theme as Pelleas tells her that he +has never seen anyone so beautiful as she; the theme of _Ecstasy_ +follows in the strings, horns, and wood-wind, _forte_; the theme of +_The Shadows_ returns as Pelleas again invites her into the darkness +beneath the trees; there is a dolorous hint of the _Melisande_ theme as +she says that she is happy, yet sad. And then the amorous and caressing +quality of the music is sharply altered. There is a harsh and sinister +muttering in the double-basses as Pelleas, startled by a distant sound, +cries that they are closing the gates of the castle, and that they are +shut out. The _Golaud_ motive is recalled with sombre force in the +strings as the rattle of the great chains is heard. "All the better! All +the better!" cries Melisande; and, as they embrace in sudden +abandonment, we hear, introduced by an exquisite interplay of +tonalities, the motive of _Rapture_, announced, _pp_, by divided strings +and flutes (page 258, measure 12): + + +XXI. RAPTURE + +[Illustration: Modere] + +As Melisande whispers suddenly to Pelleas that there is some one behind +them, a menacing version of the _Vengeance_ theme is played, _pp_, by +the basses, trombones, and timpani. This theme and that of _Rapture_ +hasten the music toward its culminating point of intensity. The +_Pelleas_ theme is given out by the 'cellos, the _Melisande_ theme (this +is not indicated in the piano version) by the violins, and as the lovers +embrace desperately, a _crescendo_ leads to a _fortissimo_ proclamation, +by all the orchestral forces, of a greatly broadened version of the +motive of _Ecstasy_. As Golaud rushes upon them and strikes down +Pelleas, the _Fate_ theme is declaimed by four horns in unison over +string tremolos; and, as he turns and silently pursues the fleeing +Melisande through the forest, his _Vengeance_ theme brings the act, by a +rapid _crescendo_, to a crashing close. + + + + +ACT V + +The last act opens with a dolorous phrase derived from the variant of +the _Melisande_ theme noted on page 82 of the piano score. It is played +by the violas, with harp accompaniment. The violins repeat it, and two +flutes announce a new theme (page 268, measure 5), the motive of +_Pity_: + + +XXII. PITY + +[Illustration: Lent et triste] + +As Golaud bends with Arkel over the unconscious figure of Melisande +where she lies stretched upon her bed, muted horns and 'cellos play a +gentle variant of the _Fate_ theme, followed by the _Melisande_ motive +as Golaud exclaims that they had but "kissed like little children." The +theme of _Pity_ accompanies Melisande's awakening, and a new motive is +heard as she responds, to Arkel's question: "I have never been better." +This new theme (page 274, measure 4), of extraordinary poignancy, is +given out by an oboe supported by two flutes, and its expression is +marked _triste et tres doucement expressif_. I shall call it the motive +of _Sorrow_, for it seems like the comment of the music upon the +transporting and utter sadness of the play's denouement. It voices a +gentle and passive commiseration, rather than a profound and shaking +grief: + + +XXIII. SORROW + +[Illustration: Lent et triste] + +A third new theme, also of searching pathos, occurs in the strings, _p, +tres doux_, as Melisande quietly greets her husband (page 279, measure +1), and later, when she says that she forgives him (page 282, measure +1). It may be called the motive of _Melisande's Gentleness_: + + +XXIV. MELISANDE'S GENTLENESS + +[Illustration: _tres doux_] + +As Golaud's still unvanquished doubts and suspicions torture him into +harsh interrogations, and he asks her if she loved Pelleas "with a +forbidden love," an oboe and two flutes recall, _p et doux_, the +_Rapture_ motive. Later, in succession, we hear (on a solo violin over +flute and clarinets) the _Pelleas_ theme (page 289, measure 2), the +motive of _Gentleness_, for the last time (page 290, measure 3), and +the _Melisande_ theme (pages 290-292). As Melisande recognizes Arkel, +and asks if it be true "that the winter is coming," a solo violin, solo +'cello, and two clarinets play an affecting phrase (page 294, measure +5). She tells Arkel that she does not wish the windows closed until the +sun has sunk into the sea, and the orchestra accompanies her in a +passage of curiously delicate sonority (page 295, measure 6). + +The final scene of the act is treated with surpassing reticence, +dignity, and simplicity, yet with piercing intensity of expression. +Nothing could be at the same time more sparing of means and more +exquisitely eloquent in result than Debussy's setting of the scene of +Melisande's death--it is music which dims the eyes and subdues the +spirit. The _pianissimo_-repeated chords in the divided strings which +accentuate Arkel's warning words (page 304, measure 8); the blended +tones of the harp and the distant bell at the moment of dissolution +(page 306, measure 11); Arkel's simple requiem over the body of the +little princess, with the grave and tender orchestral commentary woven +out of familiarly poignant themes (pages 308-309); the murmurous coda, +with its muted trumpet singing a gentle dirge under an accompaniment of +two flutes (page 310, measure 7),--these things are easy to + + +XXV + +[Illustration: Tres lent] + +value, but they may not easily be praised with adequacy. + +Concerning felicities of structural and technical detail in the work as +a whole, this has not been the place to speak; but if curious +appreciators, or others who are merely curious, should perhaps be +induced, by what has been written here, to explore for themselves +Debussy's beautiful and in many ways incomparable score, the purpose of +this study will have been achieved. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande, by Lawrence Gilman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEBUSSY'S PELLEAS ET MELISANDE *** + +***** This file should be named 16488.txt or 16488.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/4/8/16488/ + +Produced by David Newman, Chuck Greif and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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