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November 11, 2004
TT: Be still, and know that they are shy
I've been rereading John Canarina's Pierre Monteux, Maître, a biography of a great and wise French conductor who never quite became a celebrity (I blogged about him last year), and ran across an anecdote I wanted to share with you. Monteux had just conducted Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande at the Metropolitan Opera House, and was talking about the production with his fellow conductor Max Rudolf, who was then the company's music administrator:When Max Rudolf expressed concern to Monteux over the fact that the Pelléas performances were not well attended, he replied, "That's all right, it is the same in Paris." When asked if he thought Pelléas would ever be a popular opera, he said, "It was not meant to be."
I think Monteux put his finger on something important, not to mention easily misunderstood. I once wrote an essay about Gabriel Fauré for Commentary in which I tried to explain why his music had never been popular and probably never would be. It's called "The Shy Master":
Is it likely that Gabriel Fauré's music will ever speak to a wider audience? Not really. For all its beauties, it lacks a quality normally present in the work of romantic artists: It is not forthcoming. To appreciate Fauré, you must come to him, in the same way that you might open yourself up to a painter like Edouard Vuillard. It is as though you were talking with a shy person whose voice is only audible in a quiet room. If the room is too noisy--or if you insist on doing all the talking--then you will hear nothing at all.
George Balanchine's Liebeslieder Walzer, an hour-long plotless ballet set to the music of Brahms, is another example of shy art. It's intensely romantic, but if you're not in a receptive frame of mind, it won't make much of an impression on you, which may explain why it's never been especially popular with New York City Ballet audiences. And is there anything wrong with that? Balanchine didn't think so. As I wrote in All in the Dances:
More than a few members of the ballet's earliest audiences, bored by its unending succession of "love-song waltzes," would slip out of the theater during the pause between acts. In an oft-told anecdote that may or may not be true, Balanchine and [Lincoln] Kirstein were watching a performance together. "Look how many people are leaving, George," Kirstein moaned, to which Balanchine replied, "Ah, but look how many are staying!" Today, though New York City Ballet now performs Liebeslieder Walzer only infrequently, it is loved by connoisseurs for what Arlene Croce has called its "persistent note of melancholy and tragic remorse," and there are those, myself included, who regard it as their favorite Balanchine ballet of all.
On the other hand, Balanchine's retort to Kirstein suggested that he thought Liebeslieder Walzer would someday find a wider audience, which so far hasn't happened. It is, indeed, beloved, but only by a comparatively modest number of people, just like the music of Fauré, the paintings and prints of Vuillard, John Twachtman, and Giorgio Morandi, the novels of Barbara Pym, and any number of other works of art that occupy a special place in my heart, perhaps because I myself am romantic in much the same way (though you probably wouldn't guess it unless you knew me very well).
Max Beerbohm, himself one of the shyest of artists, liked to call himself a "Tory anarchist." Similarly, I think of myself as a democratic elitist. I know shy art isn't for everyone, but I also know there are more than a few people out there who'd love it if only they knew about it. That's why I write about shy artists whenever I get the chance, knowing that each time I do, a handful of readers whose curiosity is piqued by my praise will make the kind of life-changing discovery I described in "The Shy Master":
And if you choose instead to listen, closely and carefully? Then you may find yourself responding with the fervor of a Copland or a Marcel Proust, who told Fauré that "I not only admire and venerate your music, I am in love with it" and went so far as to use him as one of the models for Vinteuil, the composer in A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. It was a remarkable tribute from one great artist to another--but, then, Fauré had a way of inspiring such tributes. John Singer Sargent painted him. Maurice Ravel studied with him. "I know of no other music which is more purely and uniquely music," Arthur Honegger said, "except, perhaps, that of Mozart or Schubert."
As for Pélleas, it can take care of itself. Every major opera company in the world feels obliged to present it from time to time, as the Met will be doing in January and February, and it's been recorded more than once (I especially like this version). No, it's not for everyone. That's why the Met is only giving four performances of Pélleas this season. It wasn't meant to be popular. It doesn't have to be. All it has to be is beautiful.
Posted November 11, 2004 12:56 PM
