Martinů
in Paris: A Synthesis of Musical Styles
and Symbols
By
Erik Anthony
Entwistle
I. A New Beginning:
Life in Paris
Martinů’s
day-to-day existence in Paris contained
all the prerequisites for une
vie bohème. He settled logically
in the artists’ quarter of Montparnasse,
his first residence there being situated
on the Rue Delambre, where he enlivened
his stark living quarters with pictures
of a skyscraper, a football match, a
cruising Bugatti, and the first woman
pilot, Eliška Junková.
Martinů’s precarious financial
status did not prevent him from also
lining the tiny room with used scores
and books obtained during his daily
walks along the quays of the river Seine.
The Café du
Dôme, just steps away, became
a favorite place to relax in the evenings
with his friends and colleagues. Here
contacts could be established, aesthetics
formulated and argued over, and, if
meager financial circumstances dictated,
a single drink could be stretched to
last an entire evening. This café
was particularly popular and attracted
a diverse group of artists.
Martinů soon joined several other
musicians to form a Groupe
des Quatre, later known as L’Ecole
de Paris. The group was like an
émigré version of Les
Six,
consisting of the Romanian Marcel Mihalovici,
the Swiss Conrad Beck, the Hungarian
Tibor Harsányi, and Martinů.
In America after the
war, Martinů
was asked by his pupil David Diamond
what he missed most about Paris. “Les
cafés” was his succinct reply. In this
genial atmosphere Martinů, despite
his soft-spoken nature and the difficulties
of language, felt at home. Even if not
actively conversing he could take on
the role of an observer, a naturally
assumed posture since his youth when
he spent many hours watching the townspeople
of his native Polička from the
tower of the St. James church that served
as his unlikely home for eleven years.
If today the images
associated with the cafés of
Paris have been reduced to clichés,
they nevertheless fulfilled a great
social need that artists at the time
happily took for granted. As the writer
Nino Frank who had come to Paris from
Italy remarked, "The most important
aspect of life on the terrasses
was the atmosphere of fluidity and acceptance
that greeted newcomers and regulars
alike. There were no class boundaries…
Foreigners were welcomed as people.
You made friends easily and were accepted
immediately." The French critic
and composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud
confirms that Martinů enjoyed a
similar experience, noting that “in
spite of his natural reserve, he was
very kindly treated.” Finally,
as if to underscore their importance,
it was on the terrasses
where Martinů got his first big
break. In 1927 he approached conductor
Serge Koussevitzky and presented him
with the score of his recently completed
orchestral piece La Bagarre.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra later
gave the world premiere performance
under Koussevitzky’s baton.
La Bagarre,
with its celebration of Lindbergh’s
landing in 1927 at Le Bourget, along
with the earlier Half-time
about a tense crowd scene at a soccer
match, were two works in which Martinů
reflected upon the bustle and vigor
of the teeming metropolis. Indeed,
the composer’s oeuvre at the time gives
evidence to the assertion that "the
musical world has not escaped the din
that is characteristic of the ‘age of
speed,’ and the quieter voices of music
are scarcely heard in the turmoil of
modern life."
Such aspects of urban
life, however, were becoming increasingly
controversial. Related to Half-time
is the following quote from Jacques
Bertaut’s book on life in Paris:
With the increasing
palate for violent drinks went an
increasing taste for violent sports.
An enormous stadium was opened at
Colombes to accommodate the growing
crowds that flocked every Sunday
to the football matches. The women
were just as noisy and enthusiastic
as the men; just as unsporting also,
when the home team failed to win.
Bertaut goes on to
lament about
Violence, bitterness,
speed! These are the key-notes of
the life we lead today. Our over-strung
nerves need more and more violent
stimulus to wring a single vibration
from them. Whatever we do, we fling
ourselves into it with fanatic intensity;
we demand to be whirled along the
road or in the air, to be plunged
in work at high pressure, to drink
pleasure dry and to be spurred by
thrill after thrill until the human
machine collapses.
Assessing the situation
from an artist’s perspective was Fernand
Léger, whose paintings from the
same period as La Bagarre depict
urban landscapes reflecting the so-called
"Machine Aesthetic:"
The hypertension
of everyday life, its daily assault
on the nerves is due at least 40%
to the overdynamic exterior environment
in which we are obliged to live.
The visual world of a large modern
city…is badly orchestrated; in fact,
not orchestrated at all. The intensity
of the street shatters our nerves
and drives us crazy.
Léger goes on
to imagine, hopefully, "a society
without frenzy, calm, ordered, knowing
how to live naturally within the beautiful
without exclamation or romanticism."
This reference to achieving order and
calm, without resorting to romanticism,
reflects the clarity also being
sought by Martinů who, as will
be demonstrated, pursues this idea in
a very significant and characteristic
way. Yet both artists’ works also undeniably
embrace aspects of speed and technology.
In that regard, Martinů himself
observed that “Life is strict,
inconsiderate, and fast, it does not
leave time for lengthy fumbling around
in the extremes of feeling, it demands
intensity, a forceful, compact form
and concentrated contents."
If
one of Martinů’s coping mechanisms
for the frequently unpalatable
conditions of urban life consisted of
his habitual daily walks along the quays
of the Seine, affording him the necessary
breathing space for solitary thought,
the composer seemed equally drawn to
the dynamism of urban bustle. Perhaps
this relates to a childhood spent in
the tower of St. James’
Church looking down upon the townspeople
of Polička going about their daily
business in the streets below. This
isolation in the midst of teeming activity
has significant parallels in Martinů’s
music.
Casting a shadow over
all of the external creative stimuli
to be found in Paris was the very real
and discouraging specter of poverty.
Though he received his share of commissions
and publications, Martinů was never
the darling of the tout Paris
and, in stark contrast to such figures
as Cocteau, Picasso, and
Poulenc and Stravinsky, rarely if ever
traveled in the elite social circles.
Šafránek spoke of Martinů’s intense
spiritual struggle under the hard conditions
of modern life, and Pierre-Octave Ferroud
noted that “Fate could not possibly
have heaped more discouragement
on Bohuslav Martinů…With his untroubled
eyes of an idealist…Bohuslav Martinů
is the type of man who has taken his
stand once for all against the struggles
of daily life, and adapts himself to
conditions in a philosophical manner.”
Part of this
philosophical manner, no doubt, was
Martinů’s cavalier attitude toward
what little money he did have.
Much
has been made of Martinů’s apparent
shyness, a key component to the Martinů
mythos described in the introduction.
Certainly his withdrawn nature,
combined with an intense personal discipline,
gave him the time and motivation to
compose a great deal of music. Ferroud
also noted with apparent amusement that
He disappears for
weeks together, without informing
anyone. When you think he is still
in Paris, he is in Prague. If he
is thought to be in Prague, he is
in the country. His intuition is
such that, conversing with him,
one has the immediate impression
that he is acquainted with the book-selling
world, with the world of the theatre
or the latest exhibition. And yet
he has not been seen about and one
is inclined to believe he has acquired
his knowledge in dreams, so secret
is the source from which it springs.
But Ferroud goes on
to observe, quite rightly, that
Bohuslav
Martinů’s modesty of
nature must not lead us into error.
Strip him of the mask whereby he
escapes the casual contact of the
world, [and] one is bound to admit
that the artist who hides himself
in this feeble defense is not only
fully equipped, as his works testify,
but also one of the most original
musical figures of the time.
Although
undeniably soft-spoken and reserved,
Martinů in many ways lived a very
“normal” life. As a regular spectator
of the soccer games he was inspired
to compose Half-time,
and in 1926 at the Cirque Medrano, while
witnessing the celebrated act of the
Fratellini
Brothers, he introduced himself to his
future wife Charlotte Quennehen. The
shy and reserved Martinů could
also be aggressive in promoting his
own works; the Koussevitsky incident
cited earlier attests to this. Furthermore
the composer certainly
did not resign himself to a life of
penury. Behind the scenes Martinů
was an extremely avid correspondent
with his collaborators and patrons.
He continuously wrote home for more
support and was not ashamed to appeal
to all sources for financial help.
Though
it has often been alleged, Martinů
did not typically compose according
to whim and was not indifferent to performances,
but rather carefully and practically
tailored his works for a specific publisher,
performance ensemble, or audience.
Martinů,
if soft spoken, was in many ways
quite savvy, given the limited opportunities
that were available to him as a virtually
unknown composer living in Paris. The
fact that his fame increased steadily
so that by the end of the thirties he
was highly respected gives evidence
to the composer’s persistent and determined
nature. His mounting success did not
make him rich in the monetary sense,
but encouraged him to continue to pursue
his compositional work without the additional
distractions of teaching and performing.
He was also fortunate in that his companion
and future wife Charlotte Quennehen
provided him with a modicum of financial
stability and, with it, the freedom
to concentrate exclusively on composition.
As a result, his seventeen year residence
saw the composition of nearly 150 works,
many of them large scale, ambitious
projects.
Of the many artistic
associations formed by the composer
during his Paris years, Albert Roussel
stands out as a crucial initial contact
and an undoubtedly important influence.
It is not surprising that Martinů
and Roussel got along so well, for they
seemed to have had quite similar personalities.
A friend of Roussel’s observed that
the French composer “ was quiet, reserved,
but friendly and the very soul of courtesy.”
The exact
nature of the musical influence, however,
is not easy to grasp. In the wake of
Roussel’s death in 1937 Martinů
wrote a short tribute to his one-time
mentor for the Revue Musicale.
It is one of Martinů’s most often
quoted statements, and anticipates
the personal reflections from the "American
diaries" noted in the introduction.
When writing this témoignage
tchécoslovaque,
however, Martinů was at the same
time affirming the wisdom of his decision
to come to Paris in the first place.
In contrast with the comments “about
that French influence” quoted earlier,
Martinů here specifically defines
what attracted him to Paris, as opposed
to what repelled him from Prague. In
that sense the two quotes balance each
other perfectly:
I came all the
way from Czechoslovakia to Paris
to benefit from his instruction
and tuition. I arrived with my scores,
my projects, my plans, and a whole
heap of muddled ideas, and it was
he, Roussel, who pointed out to
me, always with sound reasoning
and with a precision peculiar to
him, the right way to go, the path
to follow. He helped show me what
to retain, what to reject, and succeeded
in putting my thoughts in order,
though I have never understood how
he managed to do so. With his modesty,
his kindness, and with his subtle
and friendly irony he always led
me in such a way that I was hardly
aware of being led. He allowed me
time to reflect and develop by myself…
Today, when I remember how much
I learned from him I am quite astonished.
That which was hidden in me, unconscious
and unknown, he divined and revealed
in a way that was friendly, almost
affectionate. All that I came to
look for in Paris I found in him.
I came for advice, clarity, restraint,
taste and clear, precise, sensitive
expression - the very qualities
of French art which I had always
admired and which I sought to understand
to the best of my ability. Roussel
did, in fact, possess all these
qualities and he willingly imparted
his knowledge to me, like the great
artist he was.
As
Martinů confesses above, his
early Paris works do indeed display
a "heap of muddled ideas"
as apparent stylistic incongruities
abound not only between different works
but often within individual works themselves.
However, despite "clarifying"
his approach under the guidance of Roussel,
Martinů would nevertheless continue
to employ these types of stylistic juxtapositions
in interesting ways, and this would
become a hallmark of the composer’s
style.
Equally
telling is the idea that Roussel showed
Martinů the path to follow. Roussel
had preceded Martinů in his abandonment
of impressionism in favor of a leaner,
more angular style with neo-baroque
and neo-classical features. A similar
tendency can immediately be observed
in Martinů’s first works written
in Paris, which are amazingly confident
in tone despite being very new and experimental
works for the composer. Martinů
was trying to find a convincing alternative
to the overripe aesthetics of post-impressionism
and post-romanticism and increasingly
warmed up to this emotionally colder
approach. But he would not give in so
easily, and one finds Martinů very
reluctant to purge all vestiges of his
earlier style. This inherent conflict
between tradition and experimentation,
old and new, becomes an essential aspect
of Martinů’s music, and
one that has often been misjudged.
The
sense of liberation that Martinů
felt after arriving in Paris is palpable
in these compositions, even if it is
also evident that the composer’s enthusiasm
needed to be reigned in by a more disciplined
approach. But this was Paris in the
20’s, and it is quite remarkable how
quickly Martinů moved from this
tentative plane to something more apparently
masterful, if still informed by a sense
of discovery and experiment. This pattern
of assimilation and mastery can be
readily
observed in the works themselves; here
the results are fascinatingly varied,
with Martinů not only coming to
establish his own voice but creating
many dialects as well. Unfortunately,
the available musical picture from the
early Paris period is far from
complete, as the composer evidently
destroyed many of the works written
under his apprenticeship with Roussel.
Complementing Roussel’s
influence was the music of Stravinsky,
a revelation for the composer who knew
almost nothing of the Russian composer’s
works before coming to Paris. In Stravinsky
Martinů clearly discerned a musical
ally. Writing with apparent satisfaction
in one of the Czech music journals,
he proclaims that “[Stravinsky] otherwise
does not like German music, reproaching
it for its contrived pathos and
its ‘manufacturing’ of emotions which
persevere through the help of characteristic
motives that are purely German. His
style is the music of the west."
Here is another unmistakable reference
to the "real foundations on which
Western Culture rests"
and Martinů consciously brings
Stravinsky’s aesthetic close to his
own.
Martinů no doubt
would have agreed with the following
observations of another writer, who
summed up well a different aspect that
evidently attracted Martinů to
Stravinsky’s oeuvre:
[Stravinsky] is
not only a realist but a formalist;
he works with musical values alone
and his conception moves only on
a musical plane. The Sacre
thus is not the individual expression
of the state of the soul; it is
a musical construction like the
allegro of a symphony by Haydn or
a Bach fugue... One may imitate
Debussy or Schoenberg, one can compose
operas in the manner or Pelléas
or poems in the manner of Prometheus,
but it is impossible to create according
to the forms that these composers
have bequeathed. Once and for all
time they squeezed them dry. Stravinsky
on the other hand has already opened
a path to followers who will be
able to pursue it still farther.
Opened? Rather re-discovered, for
it is the road of the masters of
the eighteenth century.
It
is interesting to note in the context
of the quotes above that Martinů,
who in Prague had been damned by Czech
critics for his obvious leanings towards
Debussy, was now equally damned when
critics perceived that the Parisian
Martinů had now sold out to
Stravinsky.
It was merely one of many harsh realities
that marked Martinů’s first years
in Paris. Failures rather than successes,
works that never saw the light of day,
trials and errors - all inevitably became
part of the picture of a composer struggling
to find a voice and an audience.
In this regard Martinů was careful
to keep the doors to his native land
wide open. Visits home to Polička
and Prague helped the composer maintain
roots established in Czechoslovakia
while sprouting new ones in Paris.
This allowed him the possibility of
success on multiple fronts. If a theatrical
work failed to reach the stage in Baden-Baden,
a new opera or ballet could keep his
name alive in Brno or Prague. It was
a simultaneous cultivation of two reputations,
one national and the other cosmopolitan,
which led correspondingly to a development
of musical dialects in Martinů’s
music.
Ultimately,
Martinů was able to achieve success
on both fronts. Two examples of successes
enjoyed by the composer in 1938 reflect
this duality of his career: the premiere
of Tre Ricercari at the
Venice Music Festival and the opening
night of Julietta at Prague’s
National Theater.
It
was a hard-won success and a long journey
since the composer’s arrival in Paris
in 1923, and tracing Martinů’s
path through a detailed investigation
of his music affords specific insight
into the compositional issues that confronted
the composer. An examination of Martinů’s
evolving compositional approach and
the trajectory leading to a recognizable
and consistent aesthetic might well
begin with a consideration of rhythm,
an aspect
of Martinů’s music that has been
commented upon most frequently and aptly
reflects the dynamic environment of
the French capital. With this in mind,
the next chapter examines in detail
precisely how, in Gershwin’s parlance,
this Czech in Paris "got
rhythm."
Introduction
I.
A New Beginning: Life In Paris
II.
How Martinů "Got Rhythm"
III.
Of Folk Tunes, Pastorals, and the Masses
IV.
Dvakrát Svatý Václave
(St. Wenceslas, Twice)
V.
An Aspect of Minor/Major Significance
VI.
Fin de séjour: Julietta
and Musical Symbolism
VII.Conclusion:
Martinů’s Parisian Legacy
