Félicien
David (1810-1876)
Les
Brises d'Orient
Les
Minarets
Claude-Henri
de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, exercised a strong if eccentric influence
over French political thought in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Saint-Simon had fought as an officer in the American War of Independence,
became a generous patron of the arts under the Directoire and was later reduced
to poverty as a result of property speculation. His ideas for the
reorganisation of society, however, showed in some respects a remarkable degree
of foresight. There should be a European federation under a government of
intellectuals: institutions and the educational system should be common to the
countries of the federation, but of the most fundamental importance was the
organisation of the economy on lines that would later be described as
socialist. Artists had a priestly rôle to play in this scheme of things and
after the death of Saint-Simon in 1825 the lectures given by his followers in
Paris in the early 1830s attracted the interest and approval of musicians such
as Liszt, Hiller and Berlioz, of poets and of painters.
Félicien
David was born in 1810. After the death of his mother and subsequently of his
father, an amateur violinist, in 1815, the distinguished oboist François-Joseph
Garnier encouraged the development of his musical abilities and in 1818 he
became a chorister at St. Sauveur in Aix-en-Provence and there soon began to
write music of his own. After further education for three years in Aix at the
Jesuit college of St. Louis, he found varied employment locally, musical and
unmusical, before gaining admission to the Paris Conservatoire, then under the
autocratic rule of Cherubini. As a student he supported himself as best he
could by teaching but soon found himself attracted to the doctrines of the
Saint-Simonians, whose essentially socialist ideals had assumed further
importance after the Revolution of 1830.
In
1831 David followed one of the leaders of the Saint-Simonians, "Père"
Enfantin, to a community established at Ménilmontant, after divisions among the
adherents of Saint-Siman over the question of marriage. At Ménilmontant
Enfantin presided over a so-called community of love, a kind of socialist
convent, with its own strange ceremonies and curious mode of dress, coats
buttoned down the back, a symbolic expression of the law of human solidarity.
The sect, ta which David became composer-in-ordinary, providing piano
accompaniment ta its rites and composing choral music for ceremonial use,
excited considerable public ridicule and official persecution. Liszt, who with
many others had attended meetings in Paris and even played for them, later
disavowed the whole movement, at least in its latest manifestation. The
community at Ménilmontant was dispersed by government order in 1832 and early
in the following year Enfantin, accompanied by David and a few followers, set
out for Egypt, ta preach their new doctrines there and restore the place to its
old pre-eminence. From Marseilles they sailed ta Constantinople (Istanbul) and thence
to Smyrna (Izmir), the Holy Land and Egypt.
David
remained two years in Cairo, earning a living by teaching and at the same time
collecting material which he used later in piano pieces and in the 1844
Ode-symphonie, Le Désert. A year after his return to Paris in 1835 he published
at his own expense a collection of Mélodies Orientales for piano, but this
enjoyed little immediate success. The original plates were destroyed in a fire
and the lack of public interest in a work in which he had attempted to clothe
original oriental melodies in intelligible Western dress led the composer to
leave Paris and settle at Igny, from where he would visit the capital on foot.
In
1841, after a period in which he had written two symphonies and two dozen short
string quintets, as well as anumber of songs and other instrumental pieces,
David returned to Paris, where he finished his third symphony. His popularity
grew, particularly with the performance of his songs by the tenor Walter, but
it was Le Désert, to words by Auguste Colin, its vocal and orchestral movements
introduced by descriptive speech, that brought more significant interest. This
evocation of the Egyptian desert had a profound influence, leading other
composers to explore this form of orientalism, an area already familiar to
painters such as Delacroix and Decamps. The success of Le Désert led to a new
edition of the Mélodies Orientales, under the title Les Brises d'Orient. The
first eighteen of these short pieces were divided into six books and a seventh,
Les Minarets, was published separately.
David's
later works were less successful. The oratorio Moïse au Sinai, based on a prose
sketch by Enfantin, and performed in Paris in 1846, failed to piease and was
followed in 1848 by a second oriental oratorio, L'Eden, similarly received. Of
his operas, again exploring the exotic, Lalla-Roukh, based on the poem by
Thomas Moore, was the most satisfactory. He continued to the end of his life a
loyal Saint-Simonian and eventually received official honours, before his death
in 1876. His own achievement was as a musical pioneer of orientalism, the
influence of which was to be heard in Bizet's Djamileh or in Lakmé by Delibes,
a composer whose debt to David was considerable, or even in Verdi's opera Aida.
Les
Brises d'Orient and Les Minarets were for the most part the result of
improvisation on the portable keyboard that David took with hirn on his
travels, a present from a manufacturer in Lyon. In the 1845 edition one piece
is omitted, some titles are changed and the whole set of Mélodies Orientales
re-ordered. Smyrna, composed in that city, opens the revised edition and is
classical in its form. It is followed by an oriental dance written in Cairo,
with a contrast between oriental and occidental Prière (Prayer) was written in
Alexandria and opens with a direct reference to Schubert's song Die Lorelei,
and was apparently dedicated to the leading propagandist of Saint-Simonism,
Emile Barrault. The A minor Vieux Caire (Old Cairo) was composed on the banks
of the Nile, with Schubert not far away, and contains an A major central
section in contrast.
The
second book begins with the Fantasia Harabi, written in Cairo and more overtly
oriental, until Schubert's Lorelei returns, the first of two episodes, the
second of which re-appears in conclusion. The second piece of the book, in the
later edition of the Brises d'Orient, is La Sultane, dedicated to Jenny
Montgolfier, almost a tarantelle in its energetic motion.
The
third album follows with L'Egyptienne (The Egyptian Girl), with a touch of the
exotic in its rhythmic drone bass. It was dedicated to Dr. Cognat, one of the
group of Saint-Simonians in Cairo, where the piece was written. The third
volume includes also Le Harem, composed in Constantinople, music well suited to
the salon, starting in fine style, a fantasia with passing reference to
melodies of apparent Arab provenance, interrupted by moments of drama, with
distinct echoes of Beethoven and Chopin.
Aux
Filles d'Egypte (To the Girls of Egypt), written in Cairo, retains its place at
the beginning of the fourth volume and starts with a more clearly oriental
melody than many of the other pieces in the collection. It is followed by a
Rêverie, also composed in Cairo, dreaming that contains agitation and
excitement before its gentle conclusion. The album ends with a less exotic
representation of a girl from Smyrna, written there.
L'Almée
(an Egyptian dancer) was also written in Smyrna, a dance form used by Berlioz
in his opera Les Troyens and a source for fashionable oriental elements in
ballet music by other composers. Souvenir d'Occident, from Smyrna, is followed
by a brief Souvenir d'Enfance (Memory of Childhood) and a slow and at first
melancholy waltz, written in Cairo and dedicated again to Dr. Cognat, ending
the fifth album.
The
last album of the Brises d'Orient opens with Une Larme de Douleur (A Tear of
Sadness), written in Alexandria and reminiscent of Mendelssohn. There follows a
contrasting Moment de Bonheur (Moment of Happiness). A second Rêverie, also
from Alexandria, is in a lyrical G major, with Mendelssohn again remembered,
forming a positive conclusion to the whole set of six books.
Les
Minarets consists of three pieces, described on the title-page of the 1846
edition as Trois Fantaisies. The first of these, again dedicated to Jenny
Montgolfier, is Souvenir d'Egypte. Opening in the manner of a Chopin Ballade,
the piece moves on to an Arab Air, so described in the score, however heavy its
western disguise. Sous la Tente (Under Canvas) implies, at least in its title,
some desert exploit and is followed by a final farewell to the East in Adieux à
I'Orient.
Daniel
Blumenthal
From
prize-winning performances at the Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians Competition,
the Geneva International Competition, the Busoni International Competition and
the competitions in Leeds and in Sydney, the American pianist Daniel Blumenthal
has continued with a career that has taken him to four continents as a soloist
and recitalist, in the former capacity with major orchestras in Europe and
America. His extensive recordings include both solo performances and chamber
music.