Bancroft Stravinsky and the NRF

Stravinsky and the 'NRF' (1920-29)Author(s): David BancroftSource: Music & Letters, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Jul., 1974), pp. 261-271Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/734223 .

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AJUSIC and Letters JULY 1974

VOLUME LV No. 3

MUSIC AND LETTERS was founded in 1920 by the late A. H. Fox Strangways. It was continued by the late Richard Capell and is now the property of Music and Letters Limited, a Company Limited by guarantee and comprising repre- sentatives from the Royal Musical Association and Oxford University Press

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STRAVINSKY AND THE 'NRF' (1920-29)

BY DAVID BANCROFT

THE fortunes of Stravinsky in France during the I920's as reflected in the Nouvelle Revue Franfaise were largely in the hands of Boris de Schloezer, who had by I922 become permanent music critic of the NRF. Through his many 'Chroniques Musicales' and other articles we are offered an intriguing array of reportages reflecting the constantly changing panorama of musical happenings in France. From them emerges the feeling-perhaps unintentional and no doubt chauvinistically unacceptable to the critic responsible for it-that without Stravinsky the French musical scene during the I920'S would have been disastrously unenterprising and uninteresting. De Schloezer, anxious to uphold those traditional patriotic criteria that have in general made French criticism what it is-or at any rate what it has been-("c'est l'ecole francaise qui est aujourd'hui a la tete du mouvement musical europeen", I924, vol. 22, p. 509)1 is nevertheless compelled to acknowledge in the same breath that the true leaders of contemporary music are Schonberg and Stra- vinsky. By implication, upon a number of occasions, it is also quite clear that in de Schlcezer's opinion without Stravinsky there would have been no 'French School' of composers in the I920'S, thereby intimating that Jacques Riviere's urgent plea addressed in I9I3 to all French artists had been answered, at least partially.2

De Schlcezer's contribution to the /RF represents not merely an interesting piece of contemporary documentation for the musical historian but also a valuable source of contemporary attitudes

1 All references to the Nouvelle Revue Franfaise in the text give year of publication, number of bound volume and page.

2 See 'Stravinsky and the "NRF" (1910-1920)', Music & Letters, liii (1972), pp. 274- 83.

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towards aesthetic experience in France during the I920'S, and in particular of Stravinsky's role in the development of these attitudes. The NRF is not a journal of musical scholarship; it is addressed primarily to men of letters, particularly to those who wish to consider literature within the wider framework of cultural experience in general. Thus, although de Schlczer writes from the point of view of a musicologist-unlike Riviere, who wrote at all times as a litterateur-he does not write (in the NRF, that is) for the pro- fessional musician but for the man interested in the arts generally. Strong in his opinion that to write about music the critic must have a formal musical training (and he acknowledges, and accepts, Riviere as the exception to prove the rule), de Schloezer communi- cates to the reader of the NVRF an understanding of contemporary musical experience, inevitably subjective, but none the less valid in any study of the asthetic relationships between the arts in France during this period. The restricted amount of technical musical analysis with reference to Stravinsky that appears in de Schlezer's articles was developed at much greater length in a book of significant scholarship, entitled simply 'Stravinsky' (published by Claude Aveline), which appeared in i929, and of which Gabriel Marcel wrote: "Voici un des livres les plus courageux, les plus significatifs, et ... les plus irritants que j'aie lu depuis longtemps" (I929 vol. 33, p. 427). But Marcel never accorded to Stravinsky those heights of genius which de Schloezer and many others have found in him. At the same time, however, Marcel did acknowledge that nobody in France during these years had a more profound knowledge of, or greater enthusiasm for, the work of Stravinsky. And in de Schlkzer's constant reference to and devotion to Stravinsky's music, and in his eagerness to integrate it into the picture of contemporary artistic expression in France, lies something of the key to the extraordinary magnetic hold of Stravinsky as an artist upon his contemporaries- a hold that was devoid of any dictatorial intention on the part of the composer himself.

In a brief reference in I920 to Stravinsky's 'Pulcinella' in the first comment on his work after the war it seemed at first as though the attitude towards Stravinsky in the NRF reflected in the writing ofJacques Riviere had changed abruptly. "Notre ennui est empeche par l'outrance", wrote Yvonne Rihouet (I920, vol. I4, p. 326). It was her only article on Stravinsky. Jacques Riviere, now director of the NRF, made de Schlcezer the principal musical contributor to the journal, but it was not until I922 that he devoted an article to the music of Stravinsky. In commenting on the importance of Stravinsky's role in contemporary music, in general, yet unable to conceal his disappointment at 'Mavra' in particular, de Schlcezer bears witness in this article to the curious ambivalence of his attitude at all times towards Stravinsky. Convinced, as he sincerely was, of Stravinsky's musical genius as one of the major artistic forces of our

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time, he was frankly perplexed when he reacted negatively to one of the composer's works. Not that he wished for a perpetual re- gurgitation of the grand compositions in the style of 'The Firebird' and 'The Rite of Spring'-on the contrary, 'Apollon Musagete' was, in his opinion, one of Stravinsky's truly great works (and indeed, after hearing Ansermet conduct a performance in I929 of 'Le Chant du Rossignol', he comments on how "perim6e" that sort of music had now become for him). But in the case of 'Mavra' there was a serious decalage between Stravinsky's intention, as de Schloezer interpreted it, and the musical result. He blames the subject, referring to it as "trop mince, trop fragile" to allow the successful blending of two styles-"italo-russe et negro-americain". Gabriel Marcel would have no doubt seen in this desire to blend the two styles further proof that by embarking upon such projects Stravinsky felt a need to "masquer le plus ingenieusement du monde l'epuise- ment de la seve musicale elle-meme" (I925, vol. 33, p. 429). Even de Schleczer, admitting to feelings of lassitude, though 'Mavra' is relatively short, is unable to withhold entirely the accusations of pastiche, even though he states Stravinsky's intention was otherwise: "Il s'agit d'infuser un sang nouveau a d'anciennes formes, il s'agit probablement de renover ces formes, de creer ainsi un nouveau style d'opera-comique" (I 922, vol. I 9, p. i i 8). Whereas 'Renard' in his opinion did not work esthetically as a ballet, because the music was too self-sufficient and the dance merely an illustrative superfluity, 'Mavra' did not work musically.

There is quite evidently a link in de Schlcezer's mind-although he does not make this explicit-between the general decline, both aesthetically and technically, of the Ballets Russes, and his reaction to 'Mavra'. 'Mavra' resulted in an impression of pastiche while at the same time Diaghilev manifested "dans son action une sorte de timidite, d'eclectisme" (ibid., p. i i8). And yet Diaghilev had played an important role in conditioning our asthetic responses earlier in the century-"lui qui, auparavant, par ses coups d'audace et son esprit de risque, nous imposait ses conceptions" (ibid.). Ignoring popular taste and public demand before the war, it seemed that Diaghilev had lost sight of this earlier dedication, eager now only to "satisfaire nos inclinations". It was this same fearlessness, lack of pastiche and eclecticism, ruthless disregard for tradition and con- vention that de Schlcezer praised in the pre-'Mavra' Stravinsky. His great contribution to artistic expression, "c'est qu'il ne se repete jamais, c'est qu'il ne developpe meme pas, qu'il n'exploite pas les richesses qu'il d6couvre ... Chacune de ses creations est une invention nouvelle, inattendue" (ibid.). His works are such that they "exigent imm6diatement de notre part une attitude et une adapta- tion nouvelle" (ibid.). From a musical point of view, each of the works from 'Le Sacre' to 'Renard' represents "un coup d'essai; mais ce sont aussi des coups de maitre" (ibid.). Each involves a listener

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response of surprise, anxiety and then conviction. In 'Mavra' this final element of conviction is lacking. But in spite of this, from the zesthetic point of view, the moral lesson for any artist is clear-forge uncompromisingly new paths of creative expression, so that the individual work is created in absolute freedom, and possesses a completely autonomous existence. The exploitation of the discovery is not for the artist of genius but for those who follow, be they disciples or pasticheurs. It was this that had linked together Diaghilev and Stravinsky in I9I3, and which had made such a profound impression on Jean Cocteau in that now-celebrated ride through the Bois de Boulogne after the premiere of 'The Rite of Spring'. a

The following year de Schlcezer's confidence in Stravinsky was completely restored, and with only a few minor exceptions Stra- vinsky's star in the NRF was now to remain as bright as at any time during the Riviere articles. Indeed more so, for convinced finally that Stravinsky was still the leader of musical creation in France, de Schlcezer became incapable-undoubtedly with considerable justification-of sustaining a general enthusiasm for the works being produced by the truly French composers of the period, without constantly drawing parallels between their work and that of Stravinsky-indeed he appears frequently to underline the inescapable influence of Stravinsky upon these other composers.

It was first a performance of the 'Symphonies for Wind Instru- ments' followed by 'Les Noces', that led to an immediate change of tone towards Stravinsky in the NRF in I923. The 'Symphonies' revealed to de Schlcezer all those qualities that he detected as forming the very basis of Stravinsky's artistic genius: "son puissant dynamisme, sa logique rigoureuse, sa complexite rythmique, toute cette beaute purement formelle" (I923, vol. 2I, p. 241). Yet in spite of this purely formal, rigorously logical beauty, the reaction upon the listener is one of profound emotion, for the symphony "nous a emus, nous a troubles, comme n'aurait pu le faire nul cri de passion" (ibid.). It is in such a remark as this that the critic touches for a moment on the secret powers of Stravinsky as an artist, which can explain the lasting impact of his music upon those who, like Riviere, need no recourse to technical musical experience to be conscious of that power. Formalism and rigorous logic combine with a dynamic rhythmic and harmonic force to grip almost physically the asthetic responses of the listener, to hold him with a strength analogous to that of expressionist art yet with a pleasure more usually associated with a work of pure classicism. (A modern parallel suggests itself in the impact of Resnais' film 'L'Annee derniere a Marienbad', whose structure, deliberately based upon musical principles, is rigorously, almost mathematically formal, and yet whose visual impact- vision being to the film as sound is to musical expression, in the

3 See especially, J. Cocteau, 'Le Coq et l'Arlequin' in 'Le Rappel a l'ordre' (cEuvres Completes, vol. ix, Marguerat, 1950), p. 48.

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initial responses at any rate-envelops the spectator in a profound emotional experience.)

It is in these terms that de Schlcezer reacted in particular to 'Les Noces', "l'ceuvre la plus parfaite de Stravinsky" (ibid., p. 246), and stressed the importance of analysing the overall musical experience in the face of which "ses procedes dont il change d'ailleurs constam- ment c'est chose secondaire" (ibid., p. 247). There is no definable intention on the part of Stravinsky to 'express' anything musically, but that is not to deny the presence of very powerful emotional reactions on the part of the listener or the spectator, which come, even more than in the case of the 'Symphonies', from the fusion of pure formalism with rich musical sonority. (One draws an inevitable parallel between 'Les Noces' and Eisenstein's film 'Potemkin', dating from the same period. No one will dispute the extraordinary emotional impact of the film, which was excessively formalist in structure, edited according to a system of conflicting shots visually conceived in geometric terms, and which rendered the intrinsic pathos of the shots into even greater and starker tragedy.)

It is essentially this same power, communicated perhaps more blatantly for the first time in 'The Rite of Spring', and restored, if more subtly and less emphatically in 'Les Noces', 'Oedipus' and 'Apollon', that really explains what de Schlcezer is attempting to communicate when he speaks of the "splendeur" of Stravinsky's music. Not the "splendeur" of 'The Firebird', nor even, one suspects, of 'The Rite of Spring', but that which comes from a perfect marriage between an absolute formal structure and a purity of musical sonority which has itself no psychological raison d'etre, as far as the composer is concerned, but which is nevertheless capable of spon- taneously evoking deep emotional responses. It is in this context that parallels between Stravinsky, Bach and Mozart become increasingly legitimate and relevant, and it is perhaps not without significance that de Schloezer sought to define his reaction to 'Apollon Musagete' in 1928 in terms of an almost identical reaction to 'The Magic Flute'.

In resolving, in non-musical terms, this fundamental contradic- tion inherent in any work by Stravinsky of this period between the composer's purely formal musical intention and the listener's deep emotional involvement with the music, de Schloezer comes close to defining Stravinsky's true genius as an artist:

Nulle intention expressive donc dans cette musique, nulle ideologie; ce ne sont que des sons agences en systeme selon une logique speci- fique. Mais c'est justement a cause de cela que leur richesse d'6mo- tion, leur puissance d'expression sont inepuisables. Si Noces est la creation la plus emouvante, la plus pathetique de Stravinsky, si elle nous touche jusqu'au frisson, jusqu'aux larmes, c'est qu'elle est son aeuvre la plus rigoureusement construite, la plus pure de style, celle qui se resout entierement, et si loin que soit pousse l'analyse-en &16ments formels' (1923, vol. 21, p. 247).

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De Schlcezer sustained his delight at Stravinsky's continuing output the following year when reviewing the piano concerto. Although he detected echoes of Bach, Liszt and ragtime, these no longer upset him as in the case of 'Mavra', and he readily accepts, quite rightly, that these elements have been transmuted by Stravinsky's musical personality into a work at once personal and original. This whole attitude towards borrowing and influence recalls Jean Cocteau's remark in 'Le Coq et l'Arlequin': "Un artiste original ne peut pas copier. II n'a donc qu'a copier pour etre original".4 As in the case of 'Les Noces', so too for the piano concerto, de Schlcezer betrays his fascination for a work that appears "froid", "scolastique", "logique", "formelle", and yet which is "une des ceuvres les plus chargee's de vie qu'ait jamais 6crites Stravinsky" (1924, vol. 23, p. i22). It was in this general mood of exhilaration, and the conviction that Stravinsky had again proved that his genius had not languished, that it is interesting to look very briefly at de Schlcezer's comments on some of the other composers in France at the time and to whose music he was dedicated, though not blindly so. Stravinsky is every- where present in his musical commentaries. What greater tribute could be made by critic to composer than to see him as a sort of universal influence?

Writing of Milhaud, de Schlcezer speaks of "ces puissantes pages qui tiennent de Bach, et aussi de Stravinsky" (I923, vol. 21, p. 240). He comments on the "musique pure" of Milhaud, "depouillee de toute signification psychologique" and having "une existence ex- clusivement sonore" (ibid.). These are more than echoes of his attitude towards Stravinsky-they are a mirrored reflection. On Auric's sonatina for piano he draws this parallel: "Nous assistons a la recherche d'un style m6lodique, simple et naif o'u s'allient comme dans la plupart des ceuvres neo-classiques ou qui pretendent l'etre, Igor Stravinsky et les maltres du XVIIIc" (ibid., p. 241). And Tailleferre's 'Marchand d'oiseaux' is described as "selon le modele donn6 par Stravinsky en son Pulcinella" (ibid.). Writing some time later of the musical evolution of Manuel de Falla, de Schlcezer detects yet again an ever-increasingly present influence of "son 6mule russe" from 'Le Tricorne' to 'L'Amour sorcier' (I 928, vol. 30, p. 835). When he writes of Poulenc's 'Les Biches' there is a similar parallelism: "des m6lodies d'abord, a foison-toutes ne sont pas originales c'est-a-dire qu'on y reconnalt l'empreinte de Mozart, de Pergolese, de Stravinsky" (I924, vol. 23, p. I I6), while Auric's 'Les Facheux', produced at the same time, receives this comment: "Mais ce qui fait 'a mon avis la nouveaute et la valeur de cette musique, c'est son admirable dynamisme objectif (proche du realisme de Stravinsky)" (ibid., p. I I 7).

It is not merely the references to Stravinsky that cause the reader to pause, but rather the extraordinary similarity of esthetic

' See Cocteau, op. cit., p. 37.

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intention and musical expression discerned by de Schleezer between the work of Stravinsky and that of the other contemporary composers. Indeed he makes a deliberate asthetic parallel between Poulenc and Auric, into which he consciously draws Stravinsky: "C'est qu'il y a parente spirituelle jusqu' un certain point, entre leurs sensibilites, leurs conceptions de la musique et celle de ces epoques, parente qu'ils sont obliges d'invoquer pour remonter le courant et introduire dans le present un klement de changement. Le cas est le meme pour Stravinsky" (ibid., p. i i8). Stravinsky may not have been of the French school, but the French school was certainly of Stravinsky, in precisely the same way that the tcole de Paris was of Picasso. "L'influence [de Stravinsky] sur la jeune generation apparait de jour en jour plus profonde" (1923, vol. 2 1, p. 241 ). It would be naive to deny in this statement a considerable element of truth.

'Les Noces' had marked a moment of triumph not only for Stravinsky but also for Diaghilev, whose artistic values and integrity appeared to have been restored. But this mood of confidence with regard to Diaghilev was not to last, and by 1925 de Schlcezer's mood reflects the growing popular concern at the decline of the Ballets Russes. At first it was merely a question of trying not to see the "grande epoque" of Diaghilev before the war through rose-tinted spectacles, and of stressing the futility of drawing constant com- parisons between those earlier works and the present endeavours. And yet a mood of growing personal disappointment cannot be denied, and early in 1926 he gave voice to his pessimism: "Je crois bien que nous assistons a la fin de la lutte; les Ballets Russes pourront encore durer longtemps; mais ce qui faisait leur raison d'etre, ce qui les caracterisait,-cet esprit d'invention, cette fantaisie, ce gouit du risque et de l'aventure, ce continuel renoncement,-tout cela n'est plus" (I926, vol. 27, p. I 12). Their art had become commercialized and popular, "un art uniquement plaisant". Diaghilev could no longer be seen as the symbol of the 'phoenix', for instance, as Jean Cocteau had seen him. Even the 1926 production of 'Petrushka' was a travesty of the original masterpiece. Some members of the audience even found the work amusing. "Les Ballets Russes ont perdu tout contact avec l'art de Stravinsky" (ibid., p. i i6). And yet it must not be forgotten that a theatrical production can only be as good as the potential of the script allows, and underlying de Schloe- zer's criticism of the company is a more fundamental-and in many ways justified-accusation, that the new works being composed for the Diaghilev company lacked any depth of inspiration. From the I870's to the first world war Paris had been the true centre of Western art; and although artists of all kinds of non-French origin had added their lustre to the Paris scene, the French artists (Monet, Debussy, Rodin, M6lies, Braque and many others) had been pioneers of truly great stature dedicated to the evolution of the modern esthetic which embraces all the major art of the past

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hundred years, by penetrating, as Baudelaire had advocated in the last line of the 'Les Fleurs du mal', "au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau". Not even the most ardent francophile could argue that French music, notwithstanding the achievements of Messiaen and Boulez, had attained in modern times the intuitively recognized eternal heights of artistic supremacy scaled by Debussy and Stravinsky.

The qualities that de Schlcezer found in Stravinsky as a creative artist (not merely as a musician) and the asthetic values that he saw in the earlier Diaghilev were common to both: the struggle, invention, risk, challenge, individualism, the refusal to compromise, the search for something new, the continual probing into the unknown. They were those qualities which to Apollinaire were essential in the true artist, for whom the act of creation was a promethean endeavour, and whom he saw as driven by that desire to become 'inhuman'. Without this there would have been no "esprit nouveau", as interpreted by Apollinaire, as the guiding asthetic principle of most modern art. De Schlcezer's pessimism is not merely the result of contemplating the decline in the accomplishments of the Ballets Russes as such, but is rather a foreshadowing of a more widespread disillusionment with the role played by the French arts in the wider field of creative expression in general. Indeed for those left untouched by the self-centredness of the existential literature or the intellectual gimmickry of the "nouveau roman", France has remained in the hollow of the creative wave, to rise perhaps to occasional heights on the crest of the 'new wave' cinema.

This prevailing attitude towards the impoverished nature of French musical expression during the I920'S certainly contributed to de Schlcezer's enthusiasm for Stravinsky's last two compositions written for the Ballets Russes before Diaghilev's death in I929,

'Oedipus Rex' and 'Apollon Musagete'. When one considers the uncompromisingly mediocre offerings of some of the contemporary works (and the poor quality of some of the revivals) one is led to sympathize with de Schloezer's attitude. With such a gulf between the general level of musical output and Stravinsky's, it was perhaps inevitable that the latter came to be considered the only composer worthy of undivided attention in Paris at the time. As de Schlcezer remarks at the end of his article on 'Oedipus Rex', "apres Oedipus Rex, je me sens quelque peu gene pour parler d'autre chose: tout parait insignifiant" (I927, vol. 29, p. 246).

De Schloezer's assessment of 'Oedipus Rex' would undoubtedly have found credit with Apollinaire. "Voici enfin une 'chose' achevee, dense, lourde... une chose reelle, qui veut durer et qui resistera, une de ces aeuvres humaines oiu l'on a la sensation nette que l'homme s'est depasse en s'affirmant, et qu'il a reussi veritable- ment a 'creer'." (ibid., p. 244). Fascinated and initially perplexed by the apparent amalgam of Handel-type vocal ensembles and solo

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lines that appeared to have been drawn from Italian and Russian airs, the critic argued that the cadre alone bears a relationship to the opera-oratorio of Handel (which needs no more justification than the modern poet who chooses to write in sonnet form), while the whole musical ensemble becomes exclusively Stravinsky by the very nature of the rhythms and harmonies. The sense of dramatic solemnity, grandeur and sheer force of the work, give it a truly monumental stature, that is both "neuve" and "revolutionnaire" ("parce que la m6thode et le principe qu'y met en jeu Stravinsky sont completement nouveaux pour notre epoque et radicalement opposes aux diff6rentes tendances modernes") (ibid., p. 246). There is a moral lesson to be drawn from the experience of 'Oedipus Rex', however, which explains both the integrity of the composer as an artist, and his uniqueness: "Stravinsky est le seul compositeur qui poursuive son but en pleine conscience et avec une rigueur systematique qui, pour tout autre que lui, finirait par etre extreme- ment dangereuse" (ibid.).

It is above all the moral lesson to be learned from Stravinsky that characterizes de Schlcezer's comments on 'Apollon Musagete' in I928 in a short article which to my mind illustrates, even more than Riviere's lengthy eulogy of 'Le Sacre du Printemps' some fifteen years previously, the role that Stravinsky had played in France since his arrival there in I909, and the contribution he had made as an artist, not merely as a musician.

Accepting the fact that 'Apollon' must inevitably have responded initially to some inner need on the part of Stravinsky to resolve a particular problem of musical style, and for which perhaps both Lully and Delibes had been a source of inspiration (it most certainly is not pastiche), de Schlcezer argues that such matters are anyway of secondary importance. What is crucial to 'Apollon' is that for the first time in any composition by Stravinsky the listener (or the spectator of the ballet) is engulfed in new sensations of "paix et tendresse". It is in the light of this unexpected new experience, of the revelation of new depths to his personality, that Stravinsky's music must now be re-evaluated, for 'Apollon' "nous revele le secret de son auteur, sa soif de renoncement, son besoin de purete et de serenite" (I928, vol. 3I, p. io6). This is not a "serenite olym- pienne"-which one could attribute to Beethoven, where the composer's strength is to hold for a moment in absolute order the tremendous tensions created by internal conflicts-but rather a 'serenite elyseenne" -a spontaneous, light-filled, joyous serenity that is only fully appreciated when seen in the context of so many preceding works that are filled with a sort of "dynamisme exacerbe". Stravinsky has achieved, with 'Apollon', "ce prodige d'etre libre et spontane et lumineux sans nul effort apparent" (ibid.). It contains that same purity which de Schlcezer finds so evident in 'The Magic Flute'-a music so pure that there is no trace of the 'picturesque' or

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'psychological' element, to such a degree in fact that the airs and ensembles appear completely interchangeable from a musical point of view:

La musique a rompu ses dernieres attaches avec la realite; elle n'en demeure pas moins 6mouvante, capable de bouleverser l'auditeur jusqu'aux larmes; mais cette Emotion est quelque chose de tres particulier, d'absolument pur, d'irreductible a notre experience psychologique quotidienne, si profonde ou raffin6e qu'elle soit. Et telle est precisement la qualit6 de la musique d'Apollon oii il n'entre pas une once de reel! (ibid., p. 107).

But the purity of the musical experience offered by 'Apollon' is not to be confused with the vacuity of "la musique pure" which seemed to be so much the fashion in Paris, where "le moindre eleve du conservatoire pretend aujourd'hui ne faire que de la musique pure" (ibid., p. io6), and which is no more than an excuse for the lack of talent and asthetic sense among what he calls "tous les impuissants et les indigents". This attitude also supports our earlier assessment of de Schloezer's feeling towards contemporary music in general. These lesser musicians are like the painters who with infantile eagerness imitate the coloured swirls of the expressionists, the child-like drawings of the surrealists, the patterns of the abstract painters, without realizing that behind the painter of genius lies a wealth of craftsmanship and a long, painful process of constant searching and self-examination. Stravinsky, who possesses all the "richesse, la puissance, cette dangereuse surabondance de biens" that are unknown to most of his lesser contemporaries, but which have been a permanent part of his musical palette, has renounced them all in the composition of this tender, beautiful, pure work of human warmth which, by virtue of being a symbol of renunciation with respect to Stravinsky himself, "seule confere a l'ascetisme sa vraie couleur" (ibid.). It is from this point of view that the fascination for Stravinsky as a musician merges with a sort of cult of Stravinsky as an artist: "A ce point de vue Apollon contient non seulement la leson esthetique que nous propose tout chef-d'oeuvre, mais aussi une leson morale, je dirai meme: religieuse" (ibid.). De Schloezer predic- ted that Stravinsky's next major work would be a Mass, so convinced was he that the moral fibre of the man and the artistic fibre of the artist had now inextricably fused together. From the efforts and struggles of nearly 20 years of probing into the 'unknown', Stravinsky had emerged with a work whose 'serenity' and 'purity' could find a parallel only in religious experience. It was, as de Schloezer said, the first of Stravinsky's works in which the devil had had no role to play.

It would be easy to adopt Gabriel Marcel's somewhat cynical attitude towards the works of Stravinsky since I9g9, namely that the composer had recourse to certain archetypal musical forms in order to conceal his own lack of musical inspiration, and that what remains is either "directement Pergolese" or "un certain Bach",

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over which are technically superimposed "certaines particularites stravinskiennes" (Dec. 1929, vol. 33, pp. 427-3I). Marcel will not permit de Schloezer's explanations of Stravinsky's constant reference to earlier types of musical structure and expression, declaring that the whole problem of style in Stravinsky "est elude avec une sorte de cynisme dans la virtuosite dont il ne faudrait pourtant pas etre dupe". Refusing to class him with the "grands genies" such as Mozart, Bach and Debussy, Gabriel Marcel obviously regarded Stravinsky in much the same way as many of his contemporaries branded Jean Cocteau as an eclectic, poseur and pasticheur, for he saw in Stravinsky "une sorte de gratuite desesperee de la pensee". It is equally apparent, however, that Stravinsky does not correspond to Marcel's notion of the musician of genius, just as de Schlcezer does not fulfil the role of critic as Marcel interprets it. Nor does the philosopher in him see evidence of more than a mere ingeniousness in Stravinsky's religious development. But the attitude of Marcel, who prefers to interpret the phenomenon of Stravinsky as a fact, not as a being ("ce n'est pas un etre, c'est unfait"), with no greater relevance to human creative endeavour than those "gros nuages cernes qui s'immobilisent vers l'heure du crepuscule au fond des ciels d'ete"', does not reflect the general tone adopted by the NRF, first by Gheon and Riviere, and then by de Schlorzer, that has lasted some 20 years, and was as fervent in I929 (Marcel excepted) at the moment of the demise of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, as it had been in I9IO when Stravinsky first collaborated with Diaghilev.

Although de Schlorzer and Riviere approached Stravinsky's music in very different ways-Riviere from a literary and more general cultural point of view, de Schlchzer from a more strictly musical point of view-both were convinced that there was an element of the "superhumain" in his music from which it was impossible that the contemporary world of art could escape. If one remains, like de Schloezer, "emerveille de l'intuition de Jacques Riviere" (I925, vol. 24, p. 627) with regard to Stravinsky, one must nevertheless pay tribute to de Schloezer himself, who, in the years following Riviere's death early in I925, had continued with a similar conviction to claim that Stravinsky was one of the major artistic forces of the modern word. Stravinsky's presence in the JVouvelle Revue Franfaise is both logical and coherent, for the journal, in its own way, even though its specific reference was to literature, was playing, and had played since its inception (curiously coinciding in I909 with the founding of the Ballets Russes), its own important role in the evolution of the arts in general.

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Documents

Bancroft Stravinsky and the NRF