This is what Germany has done. She has let loose a flood of music, and
is about to be drowned in it.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
PELLEAS ET MELISANDE
The first performance of _Pelleas et Melisande_ in Paris, on April 30th,
1902, was a very notable event in the history of French music; its
importance can only be compared with that of the first performance of
Lully's _Cadmus et Hermione_, Rameau's _Hippolyte et Aricie_, and
Quick's _Iphigenie en Aulide_; and it may be looked upon as one of the
three or four red-letter days in the calendar of our lyric stage.[199]
[Footnote 199: May I be allowed to say that I am trying to write this
study from a purely historical point of view, by eliminating all
personal feeling--which would be of no value here. As a matter of fact,
I am not a Debussyite; my sympathies are with quite another kind of art.
But I feel impelled to give homage to a great artist, whose work I am
able to judge with some impartiality.]
The success of _Pelleas et Melisande_ is due to many things. Some of
them are trivial, such as fashion, which has certainly played its part
here as it has in all other successes, though it is a relatively weak
part; some of them are more important, and arise from something innate
in the spirit of French genius; and there are also moral and aesthetic
reasons for its success, and, in the widest sense, purely musical
reasons.
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