back to (the music of) the future: aesthetics of technology in
TRANSCRIPT
Back to (the music of) the future: Aesthetics of technology in Berlioz’s “Euphonia” and Damnation de Faust
Inge van Rij (New Zealand School of Music)
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EUPHONIA, OU LA VILLE MUSICALE [EUPHONIA, OR THE MUSICAL CITY]
- First published in the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, in installments from 18 February – 28 July 1844. Reprinted in La Critique Musicale de Hector Berlioz vol. 5, ed. Anne Bongrain and Marie-Hélène Coudroy-Saghaï, Paris: Buchet/Chastel, 2004.
- Published with minor alterations in Soirées de l’orchestre (1852); translated by Jacques Barzun in Evenings with the Orchestra, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956, repr. 1999. In this version of the story Berlioz renamed Ellimac ‘Mina’; Rotceh becomes ‘Shetland’.
EXAMPLE 1: Opening, and extracts from Xilef’s first letter to Rotceh: Italian commerce and opera.
CHARACTERS
XILEF, a composer, prefect of voices and stringed instruments in the city of Euphonia SHETLAND [ROTCEH in 1844], a composer, prefect of wind instruments
MINA[ELLIMAC in 1844], a celebrated Danish singer MME HARPER [Mme ELLIANAC in 1844], her mother
FANNY [DÉSIRÉE in 1844], her maid
First Letter Xilef to Shetland [Rotceh]
Sicily, June 7, 2344
I have just taken a swim in Etna! What a delightful time I have been having, my dear Shetland [Rotceh], gliding through the pure waters of that cool, calm lake! [… etc] (Evenings, pp. 258-9) In order to divert these brutish traders a little after their deals on the Exchange, someone has had the happy thought of putting billiard tables in the center of the ground floor of the theatre; and these gentlemen play, shouting at every lucky stroke, while the tenor and the prima donna blow out their lungs on the stage. In Palermo day before yesterday they were giving Il re Murate, a sort of hodgepodge by twenty different authors of twenty different periods. After supper – for everyone takes supper in his box, and always during the performance – the ladies, annoyed at seeing the men preparing to go and smoke and play downstairs, rose up in arms and asked that the billiard tables be removed and a dance improvised in the free space, which was done. A few young men got hold of violins and trumpets and began to play waltzes in an upper corner of the dress circle, while couples whirled around on the floor without the performance being interrupted in the slightest degree. I hardly knew whether to laugh or cry when I saw this incredible opera-ballet under my very eyes. (Evenings, p. 261) When the director wants a new score, he assembles the singers and submits to them the scenario of the piece, and comes to an understanding with them about the costumes they will wear. The costumes really come first, being the only thing which momentarily attracts the public’s attention at the première. (Evenings, p. 262)
EXAMPLE 2: Ellimac’s dramatic form Paris
(A richly furnished drawing-room) MINA [ELLIMAC] (alone): Why, I almost feel as if I were going to be bored. Am I the butt of a practical joke?
Not one of my gentlemen has so far come forth with a diverting idea for today. So here I am, alone, forsaken for the past four hours. […] Am I quite sure I have a soul and a heart? Pshaw! I know one thing: I don’t feel the slightest love for Xilef any more. I haven’t even answered his glowing letters. […]
FANNY [DÉSIRÉE] (entering): Madam, here are the papers and a couple of letters. MINA [ELLIMAC] (unfolding a newspaper): Ah, the Gluck Festival at Euphonia next week. I am going. I want to
sing there. (Reading): “The Song of Praise composed by Shetland [Rotceh] it the talk of the town. No one before him, in our opinion, has expressed noble enthusiasm with more magnificence. Shetland [Rotceh] is a man apart. He differs from other men not only by his genius and character, but also by the mystery in his life.” Fanny, ask my mother to come. (Evenings, pp. 271-2)
EXAMPLE 3: Extract from Rotceh’s letter to Xilef : Rotceh meets Nadira (Ellimac) She was singing (and ornamenting with all kinds of extravagant vocalizes) the theme of my First Symphony, which I thought almost unknown except among Euphonians. But on looking closer at the charming creature who was warbling so brilliantly, I knew that she was not one of us and had never come to Euphonia. […] I made my ship rise perpendicularly some hundreds of feet in order to see the fleeing sun once more, and I gazed at it for some minutes in that ecstatic silence of which one has no idea upon earth (Evenings, p. 277) EXAMPLE 4: Extract from Rotceh’s letter to Xilef: Aeolian harp Immediately after getting up I went and sat in my rose garden, and without thinking about it threw wide open the double door of my Aeolian harp. In an instant, floods of harmony poured into the garden; crescendos, fortes, decrescendos, and pianissimos followed each other haphazard under the fitful breath of the wild morning breeze. I was painfully shaken, yet not in the least tempted to escape my suffering by closing the doors of the mournful instrument. On the contrary, I found pleasure in my pain and listened motionless. Just as a gust of wind stronger than the rest drew from the harp, like a cry of passion, the chord of the dominant seventh, and carried it wailing through the arbor, it so happened that the decrescendo formed an arpeggio containing the opening bars of the theme I had heard my unknown sing the day before – the theme of my First Symphony. Amazed at this freak of nature, I opened my eyes, which I had shut at the beginning of the Aeolian concert and – there she stood before me, beautiful, strong, imperious – a goddess! (Evenings, pp. 277-8)
EXAMPLE 5: Extract from Rotceh’s letter to Xilef : Nadira (Ellimac) and ornamentation “You sing – too well.” “What do you mean, ‘too well’?” “I mean, madam, that in the Gluck Festival florid singing is not allowed. You shine especially by the lightness and grace of your ornaments; hence there is no room for it in a ceremony that is eminently in the grand, epic style.” [Evenings, pp. 278-9] [At the Gluck festival:] “Euphonians,” she begins, “I am not known to you. Only yesterday I was but an ordinary woman gifted with a brilliant and agile voice, and nothing more. High art had not been revealed to me. I have just heard Alcestis for the first time in my life, and with you I have admired the splendid majesty of Shetland’s Song. Now I understand, I have heard, I have come to life: I am an artist. The instinct of genius alone, Shetland’s genius, could have divined this. Allow me therefore, before crowning the god of expressiveness, to prove to you, his faithful worshippers, that i am worthy of this signal honor, and that our great Shetland was not mistaken.” At these words, tearing the pearls and gems from her hair, she flings them to the ground, tramples them underfoot (as a symbol of recantation), places her hand over her heart, bows her head to Gluck, and in a voice sublime in its accent and quality, begins Alcestis’ aria, “Inexorable deities!”’ (Evenings, p. 280)
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EXAMPLE 6: Extract from Rotceh’s letter to Xilef : Nadira (Ellimac) resists a Liebestod. “See: life has nothing more to offer us in this world; we have reached the summit; shall we return to the earth? […] let us fling ourselves over the ship’s side in each other’s arms. Our souls, fused in a last kiss, will rise heavenward as one breath even before our bodies whirling through space have reached the prosaic earth again. Will you? Come!’” “Later,” was her answer. “Let us live a little longer.” Later! thought I. But later will we know another such minute together? Oh, Nadira, you are a mere woman after all! (Evenings, p. 282)
EXAMPLE 7: Xilef’s balloon ride We left Xilef breathing nothing but revenge, and ready to pursue his bold mistress by air to America, where in his simplicity he thought that she had gone. He left, accordingly, mute and gloomy as the thunderclouds that sweep across the sky before the coming of a great storm. He ate up space; never had his engine worked so furiously. If his ship ran into a contrary wind, she would meet it head on, or by soaring to a higher zone, would either seek a more favourable current or rise to that region of eternal calm which probably no human being before Xilef had ever reached. In those almost inaccessible solitudes, on the borderline of life, the cold and dryness are such that the objects made of wood in the ship warped and cracked. Pilot on a sinister mission, Xilef remained impassible. He was half dead from the rarefaction of the atmosphere and unmoved at the sight of blood streaming from his nose and mouth. He waited until he could no longer stand the pain and was forced to come down in search of air fit to breathe, hoping that the direction of the wind would permit him to remain there. Such was his headlong speed of flight that forty hours after his leaving Palermo he landed in New York. (Evenings, pp. 289-90)
EXAMPLE 8: Xilef’s revenge – the orchestra piano and Ellimac’s death In those days there was in Euphonia a celebrated mechanical genius whose inventions aroused universal wonder. He had just finished a huge piano whose variegated sound was so powerful that under the fingers of a single virtuoso it could hold its own with an orchestra of a hundred players. Hence the name of orchestra-piano given to it. Nadira’s birthday being near, Xilef had no difficulty in persuading his friend what a magnificent present for his beloved the new instrument that everyone admired and talked about would be. “But if you wish to make her joy complete,” he added, “you must give her as well the delightful steel pavilion that the same designer has just made.[…]” (Evenings, p. 292) Xilef lost no time before calling on the inventor. After telling him the object of his visit, he asked whether it would be possible to add to the summerhouse a special and powerful mechanism, the nature and effect of which he described, and the existence of which was to be kept secret by both of them. (Evenings, p 293) Very soon the strains of an irresistible waltz are heard, while groups of dancers form and whirl. Xilef, standing with is hand on a steel button in the outer wall of the summerhouse, follows them with his eyes. […] Fearful shrieks were in fact to be heard from the summerhouse; but Shetland [Rotceh], more and more excited, was letting loose from the orchestra-piano a torrent of sound that drowned out the cries and disguised their import. The instant Xilef had pressed the spring that released the secret mechanism of the summerhouse, the steel walls of the little circular building had begun to roll in on themselves slowly an noiselessly, so that the dancers, finding less space in which to move, thought at first that their numbers had increased. […] [T]he summerhouse turns on itself with a sharply accelerated motion which masks the doors and windows with an iron wall. The space inside shrinks rapidly; the screams grow in intensity, those of Nadira can be heard rising above the din. And the beautiful singer, the poetic fairy queen, feeling herself hemmed in on all sides, pushes back those around her with gestures and words of horrible bestiality, her low nature shown up by the fear of death and standing out in all its hideousness. […] And indeed, to the horrible and anguished screams under the ever-tighter straining of the steel partitions, has succeeded the hideous noise of flesh mangled, the cracking of fractured bones, bursting skulls; eyes are torn from their sockets and screams of foaming blood spurt out from beneath the roof of the summer-house, until the hideous machine stops exhausted over the unresisting mass of bloody clay. (Evenings, pp. 292-9)
EXAMPLE 9: ‘A description of Euphonia’. The singers and players of instruments are grouped by categories in the several quarters of the town. Each type of voice and instrument has a street bearing its name, which is inhabited only be the section of the population which practices that particular voice or instrument. There are streets of sopranos, of basses, of tenors, of contraltos; of violins, of horns, of flutes, of harps, and so on. Needless to say, Euphonia is governed in military fashion and subjected to a despotic regime. (Evenings, p. 283)
EXAMPLE 10: ‘A description of Euphonia’ – electric metronome An ingenious mechanism, which might have been invented some five or six centuries earlier if someone had taken the trouble to design it, and which is actuated by the conductor without being visible to the public, indicates to the eye of each performer, and quite close to him, the beats of each measure. It also denotes precisely the several degrees of piano or forte. In this way the performers are immediately and instantaneously in touch with the conductor’s intention, and can respond to it as promptly as do the hammers of a piano under the hand pressing the keys. (Evenings, pp. 286-7) EXAMPLE 11: ‘A description of Euphonia’ – suppression of body Any marking of the rhythm by bodily movements during the singing is strictly forbidden to the choristers. They are also trained to silence, a silence so absolute and profound that if three thousand Euphonian choristers were assembled in the amphitheater or in any other resonant place, one could still hear the buzzing of an insect, and a blind man in their midst might think he was quite alone. (Evenings, p. 286.)
BERLIOZ’S ORCHESTRATION TREATISE (1844)
- Hugh Macdonald, Berlioz’s Orchestration Treatise: A Translation and Commentary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
EXAMPLE 12: Berlioz on the orchestra as machine: The assortment of players whose coming together constitutes an orchestra could be regarded as its strings, tubes, chests and surfaces, made of wood or metal – machines bearing intelligence but subordinate to the action of an immense keyboard played by the conductor following the directions of the composer. (p. 319) His [the conductor’s] feelings and emotions will then pass to them [the players], his inner flame will warm them, his electricity will charge them, his drive will propel them. He will radiate the vital spark of music. (p. 337)
EXAMPLE 13: Berlioz on the violins Violins are faithful, intelligent, energetic and indefatigable servants. (p. 34) EXAMPLE 14: Berlioz on stopped notes on the natural horn Unless you are writing stopped notes for a particular effect you should at least avoid those whose tone is too weak and too unlike the rest of the horn’s range, such as d’, d’, b, a and a, which should never be used for
filling in but only for the special effect of their harsh, muffled, savage sound. (p. 170) EXAMPLE 15: Macdonald’s preface - Division of labour There is another sense in which Berlioz’s craft is modern. At certain points in the book he advocates techniques for getting effects form instruments which practice deceive the listener. […] composers began to manipulate instruments as parts in a great machine, not as voices in a choir. The milestone is perhaps the Symphonie fantastique and the curious passage where Berlioz subdivides the violins for a passage in constant quaver movement […] This was certainly a new concept of orchestration, manipulating the allocation of notes to create an effect unperceived by the players themselves. (pp. xxx-xxxi)
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‘THE PIANO POSSESSED’ - Soirées de l’orchestre (1852); translated by Jacques Barzun in Evenings with the Orchestra,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956, repr. 1999. EXAMPLE 16 M. Erard arrives; but try as he will, the piano, which is out of its mind, has no intention of minding him either. He sends for holy water and sprinkles the keyboard with it – in vain: proof that it wasn’t witchcraft, but the natural result of thirty performances of one concerto. They take the instrument and remove the keyboard, still moving up and down, and throw it into the middle of the courtyard next to the Warehouse. There M. Erard in a fury has it chopped up with an ax. You think that did it? It made matters worse: each piece danced, jumped, frisked about separately – on the paving stones, between our legs, against the wall, in all directions, until the locksmith of the Warehouse picked up this bedeviled mechanism in one armful and flung it into the fire of his forge to put an end to it. Poor M. Erard! Such a fine instrument! We were heartbroken, but what could we do? There was no other way to loose its grip. But after all, how can a piano hear a concerto thirty times in the same hall on the same day without contracting the habit of it? M. Mendelssohn won’t be able to complain that his music isn’t being played. But think of the damage! (pp. 218-9.)
IMPRESSIONS OF LISZT EXAMPLE 17 Notes are ‘played staccato with a most incredible rapidity, such that each note produces only a dry sound that is extinguished immediately after it is played and is thus perfectly detached from the notes that both precede and follow, resembling passages of this sort as might be played at the nut of the bow on a fine double bass by a steam engine – because I can imagine no human arm, even that of some Dragonetti or Dragonettis, that would be capable of such incredible agility. (Journal des débats, 12 June 1836. Translated by Peter Bloom in Cécile Reynaud, ‘Berlioz, Liszt, and the Question of Virtuosity’, Berlioz: Past, Present, Future (ed. Bloom), N. Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2003, p. 116; emphasis in original) BERLIOZ AND THE TRAIN EXAMPLE 18: Fear of derailment ‘I’m going to return to Vienna after my third concert, which is taking place in the theatre tomorrow; […] and I will arrive just before the rehearsal, provided the carriages of the train don’t jump the rails.’ (Berlioz to Joseph D’Ortigue, Prague, 27 January 1846. Correspondance Générale vol. 3 (ed. Pierre Citron ), Paris: Flamarion, 1978, p. 310). Berlioz on his trip to Lille in 1846: ‘The railway made an exceptional concession for its inaugurators, in that we reached Arras without being derailed once.’ (Berlioz, Les Grotesques de la musique (1859). Translated by Alastair Bruce, The Musical Madhouse, N. Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2003, pp. 179-82.) EXAMPLE 19 Composing Faust Seeing me approach at such speed the station staff took me for a passenger who was late for a train and directed me to the ticket window saying “Hurry now, you’ve only got five minutes!” So I go. Everyone else pulls out a purse, so I too reach for my purse. They go up to the window, so I do too. They ask for Second Class, so I ask for Second Class too. The clerk slips me a piece of paper through the window with my change saying “Second Class for Enghien”. “So it’s for Enghien” “Yes, sir. Isn’t that where you want to go?” “Yes, perhaps. I seem to be going there. I’m not sure. All right, I’ll go to Enghien.” ... quarentes puellas eamus… ut cras… fortunate Caesares … dicamus: veni, vidi… vici. Still mumbling my gaudeamus I got into the train and it left. But as the movement of the locomotive beat out a rhythm quite different from the one that had been battering my brain a few minutes before, I could see that I was going to forget my song. I quickly wrote it down in my notebook, and after a difficult confinement I fell asleep. (Journal des débats, 6 September 1846, translated by Hugh Macdonald, “Berlioz takes the train,” in Hector Berlioz: Ein Franzose in Deutschland, eds. Matthias Brzoska, Hermann Hofer, and Nicole Strohmann, Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 2005, p. 219)
BERLIOZ, LA DAMNATION DE FAUST - Hector Berlioz : New Edition of the Complete Works, vol. 8a, ed. Julian Rushton, Kassel:
Bärenreiter, 1979. EXAMPLE 20: ‘Choeur des soldats et chanson des étudiants’ (p. 234, mm. 132-7)
EXAMPLE 21: Evocation, Menuet des follets, Sérénade de Méphistophélès 21 (a) Text Scéne XII : Une rue devant la maison de Marguerite. MEPHISTOPHELES : Esprits des flammes inconstantes, Accourez ! j’ai besoin de vous. Accourez ! Accourez ! Follets capricieux, vos lueurs malfaisantes Vont charmer une enfant et l’amener à nous. Au nom du Diable, en danse ! Et vous, marquez bien la cadence, Ménétriers d’enfer, ou je vous éteins tous ! Menuet des Follets (Les follets exécutent des évolutions et des danses bizarres autour de la maison de Marguerite.) MEPHISTOPHELES (Il fait les mouvements d’un homme qui joue de la vielle) Maintenant, Chantons à cette belle une chanson morale, Pour la perdre plus sûrement Sérénade de Méphistophélès MEPHISTOPHELES Devant la maison De celui qui t’adore [etc]
Scene XII : A street in front of Marguerite’s house MEPHISTOPHELES: Spirits of the fickle flames Hasten! I need you. Hasten! Hasten! Capricious will-o-the-wisps, your evil glow Is going to bewitch a child and bring her to us. In the name of the Devil, dance! And you, mark well the rhythm, Fiddlers of hell, or I’ll extinguish you all! Minuet of will-o-the-wisps (The will-o-the-wisps carry out bizarre movements and dances around Marguerite’s house.) MEPHISTOPHELES (He makes the movements of a man who plays a hurdy gurdy) Now, Sing to this beauty a moral song, To damn her all more surely. Mephistopheles’ Serenade MEPHISTOPHELES In front of the house Of the one whom you love [etc]
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21 (b) Evocation, p. 273, mm. 1-8
21 (c) Evocation, p. 278, mm. 41-3
21 (d) Serenade, p. 313, mm. 1-4
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EXAMPLE 22: ‘La course à l’abîme’ 22 (a) Text Scène XVII Récitatif et chasse […] FAUST Qu’exiges-tu ? MEPHISTOPHELES De toi ? Rien qu’une signature Sur ce vieux parchemin. Je sauve Marguerite à l’instant, Si tu jures Et signes ton serment De me servir demain. FAUST Eh ! que me fait demain quand je souffre à cette heure ? Donne. (Il signe) Voilà mon nom. Vers sa sombre demeure Volons donc, maintenant. Ô douleur insensée ! Marguerite, j’accours ! MEPHISTOPHELES À moi, Vortex ! Giaour ! Sur ces deux noirs chevaux, prompts comme la pensée, Montons, et au galop… La justice est pressée. (Ils partent.) SCENE XVIII Plaines, montagnes et vallées La course à l’abîme (Faust et Méphistophélès galopant sur deux chevaux noirs.) FAUST Dans mon cœur retentit sa voix Désespérée ; Ô pauvre abandonnée ! PAYSANS (AGENOUILLES DEVANT UNE CROIX CHAMPETRE) Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis Sancta Magdalena, ora pro nobis. FAUST Prends garde à ces enfants, A ces femmes priant Au pied de cette croix. MÉPHISTOPHÉLÈS
Scène XVII Recitative and hunt […] FAUST What do you require? MEPHISTOPHELES From you? Nothing but a signature on this old parchment. I’ll save Marguerite in a flash If you swear And sign an oath To serve me tomorrow. FAUST Ha! What do I care about tomorrow when I’m suffering right now? Give it to me. (He signs.) Here is my name. To her gloomy abode Let us fly, straight away. Oh torturous grief! Marguerite, I’m coming! MEPHISTOPHELES Come to me, Vortex! Giaour! On these two black horses, quick as thought, Let us mount, and gallop … Justice will not wait. (They leave.) SCENE XVIII Plains, mountains and valleys The ride to the abyss (Faust and Mephistopheles gallop on two black horses.) FAUST In my heart resounds her despairing voice Oh poor abandoned one! PEASANTS (KNEELING BEFORE A WAYSIDE CROSS) Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis. Sancta Magdalena, ora pro nobis. FAUST Be careful of those children, And those women praying At the foot of that cross. METPHISTOPHELES
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Eh, qu’importe ! en avant! PAYSANS Sancta Margarita – Ah!! (Les femmes et les enfants se dispersant épouvantés.) FAUST Dieux ! Un monstre hideux En hurlant Nous poursuit ! MEPHISTOPHELES Tu rêves ! FAUST Quel essaim de grands oiseaux de nuit ! Quels cris affreux ! Ils me frappent de l’aile ! MEPHISTOPHELES (RETENANT SON CHEVAL) Le glas des trépassés sonne déjà pour elle. As-tu peur ? Retournons ! (Ils s’arrêtent.) FAUST Non, je l’entends, courons ! (Les chevaux redoublent de vitesse.) MEPHISTOPHELES (EXICTANT SON CHEVAL) Hop ! Hop! Hop!... Hop! (etc)
Ah, who cares ?! Keep going ! PEASANTS Sancta Margarita – Ah!! (The women and children scatter in fear.) FAUST Gods! A hideous monster Howling Is pursuing us! MEPHISTOPHELES You’re dreaming! FAUST What a swarm of night birds! What fearful shrieks! They’re striking me with their wings! MEPHISTOPHELES (REINING IN HIS HORSE) The death knell is already sounding for her. Are you afraid? Let’s turn back. (They stop.) FAUST No! I can hear it. Hurry! (The horses redouble their speed.) MEPHISTOPHELES (SPURRING ON HIS HORSE) Hup! Hup! Hup!... Hup ! (etc)
22 (b) La course à l’abîme, pp. 401-402, mm. 1-9
22 (c) La course à l’abîme, p. 406, mm. 65-8
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22 (d) La course à l’abîme, pp. 412-413, mm. 90-104
BERLIOZ, ‘THE RICHARD WAGNER CONCERTS: THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE’ (1860)
- trans. Elizabeth Csicsery-Rónay, The Art of Music and Other Essays, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1971, pp. 202-209.
EXAMPLE 23
Now let us look at the theories said to be those of his school, the school generally called the Music of the Future. It bears this name because it is deemed to be diametrically opposed to the musical taste of the present day, and certain to find itself perfectly in harmony with the taste of a future time. For many years now, I have been credited in Germany and elsewhere with views on this subject that are not mine. I have often received praise that I could have taken as a virtual insult; I have kept silent throughout. Now that I am called upon to explain myself categorically, can I still stay silent? Or should I utter a profession of faith that is a lie? Nobody, I should hope, entertains that expectation. Let me speak then, in complete frankness. If the school of the future says the following: […] “Operas should not be composed for singers; on the contrary, the singers should be trained for the operas. “Works composed for the sole purpose of showing off the talents of virtuosi can only be works of a secondary order, usually of little value. “Performers are merely more or less intelligent instruments whose task is to bring out the form and inner meaning of the work; their despotic rule is over. “The composer must remain the master; it is for him to command. “Beauty of sound ranks below the idea; the idea ranks below feeling and passion. “Lengthy and rapid vocal flourishes, ornaments, and trills, and many kinds of rhythms are all incompatible with the expression of most serious, noble, and deep feelings. […] If such be the musical code of the school of the future, then I belong to this school, I belong to it body and soul, with the deepest conviction and the most ardent fellow feeling. […] But, if that school maintains:[…] “We must concentrate only on the idea and ignore the senses altogether. […] “Nor is the art of singing to be shown any consideration, nor should attention be paid to its nature or requirements. “In opera we must do no more than set notes for declamation, to the point of using, if necessary, ugly, unsingable, outlandish intervals. “No distinction need be made between music that is read by a musician sitting quietly in front of his stand and that which has to be sung form memory, on stage, by a performer who must also attend to his acting and that of others. “We need not concern ourselves over what is possible or impossible in performance. […] If this is the new religion – very new indeed – I am very far from professing it; I never have joined it, I do not join it now, and never shall. I raise my hand and swear: Non credo.