Doctor Faustus (65 page)

“But why do I talk so much about elegant society and its itches? I can see that I am not succeeding in kindling your curiosity, cher Maitre. How could I? I have not seriously been trying to. What do you care about elegant society? Entre nous, what do I care about it? For business reasons—this and that. But personally? Not that much. This milieu, this Pfeiffenng and your presence, Maitre, do not a little to make me realize my indifference, my contempt, for that world of frivolity and superficiality.

Dites-moi done: don’t you come from Kaisersaschern on the Saale? What a serious, dignified place of origin! Well, for me, I call Lublin my birthplace—likewise a dignified spot and grey with age, from which one carries into life a fund of severite, un etat d’ame solennel et un peu gauche… Ah, I am the last person to want to glorify elegant society to you. But Paris will give you the chance to make the most interesting and stimulating contacts among your brothers in Apollo, among the sons of the Muses, your aspiring colleagues and peers, painters, writers, stars of the ballet, above all musicians. The summits of European tradition and experiment, they are all my friends, and they are ready to be yours. Jean Cocteau the poet, Massine the ballet-master, Manuel de Falla the composer, Les Six, the six great ones of the new music—this whole elevated, audacious, amusing, aggressive sphere, it waits only for you, you belong to it, as soon as ever you will…

“Is it possible that I read in your manner a certain resistance even to that? But here, cher Maitre, every shyness, every embarras is really quite out of place—whatever may be the ground for such habits of seclusion. I am far from searching for grounds; that they exist is quite enough for my cultivated and I may say respectful perceptions. This Pfeiffering, ce refuge etrange et ere-mitique—there must be some peculiar and interesting psychological association: I do not ask, I consider all possibilities, I frankly bring them all up, even the most fantastic. Eh bien, what then? Is that a reason for embarras, in a sphere where there reigns unlimited freedom from prejudice? A freedom from prejudice which for its part has its own good reasons too? Oh, la, la! Such a circle of arbiters elegantiarum and society cheer-leaders is usually an assortment of demi-fous excentriques, expended souls and elderly crapules-un impresario, e’est un espece d’infirmier, voila!

“And now you see how badly I conduct my affair, in what utterly maladroit fashion! That I point it out is all that speaks in my favour. With the idea of encouraging you I anger your pride and work with my eyes open against my interests. For I tell myself, of course, that people like you—though I should speak not of people like you, but only of yourself—you regard your existence, your
destin
as something unique and consider it too sacred to lump it in with anyone else’s. You do not want to hear about other
destinees
, only about your own, as something quite unique—I know, I understand. You abhor all generalizing, classifying, subsuming, as a derogation of your dignity. You insist on the incomparableness of the personal case. You pay tribute to an arrogant personal uniqueness—maybe you have to do that. ‘Does one live when others live?’ I have read that question somewhere, I am not sure precisely where, but in some very prominent place. Privately or publicly you all ask it; only out of good manners and for appearance’ sake do you take notice of each other—if you do take notice of each other. Wolf, Brahms, and Bruckner lived for years in the same town—Vienna, that is—but avoided each other the whole time and none of them, so far as I know, ever met the others. It would have been penible too, considering their opinions of each other. They did not judge or criticize like colleagues; their comments were meant to annihilate, to leave their author alone in the field. Brahms thought as little as possible of Bruckner’s symphonies, he called them huge shapeless serpents. And Bruckner’s opinion of Brahms was very low. He found the first theme of the D-minor Concerto very good, but asserted that Brahms never came near inventing anything so good a second time. You don’t want to know anything of each other. For Wolf Brahms meant le dernier ennui. And have you ever read his critique of Bruckner’s Seventh in the Vienna
Salonblattt
. There you have his opinion of the man’s importance. He charged him with ‘lack of intelligence’—avec quelque raison, for Bruckner was of course what one calls a simple, childlike soul, wholly given to his majestic figured-bass music and a complete idiot in all matters of European culture. But if one happens on certain utterances of Wolf about Dostoyevsky, in his letters, qui sont simplement stupefiant, one is driven to ask what kind of mind he had himself. The text of his unfinished opera
Manuel Venegas
, which a certain Dr. Homes has restored, he called a wonder, Shakespearian, the height of poetic creation, and became offensive when friends expressed their doubts. Moreover, not satisfied with composing a hymn for male voices,
To the Fatherland
, he wanted to dedicate it to the German Kaiser. What do you say to that? The memorial was rejected. Tout cela est un peu embarrassant, n’est-ce pas? Une confusion tragique.

“Tragique, messieurs. I call it that, because in my opinion the unhappiness of the world rests on the disunity of the intellect, the stupidity, the lack of comprehension, which separates its spheres from each other. Wagner poured scorn on the picturesque impressionism of his time, calling it all ‘daubs’—he was sternly conservative in that field. Eut his own harmonic productions have a lot to do with impressionism, they lead up to it and as dissonances often go beyond the impressionistic. Against the Paris daubers he set up Titian as the true and the good. A la bonne heure! But actually his taste in art was more likely somewhere between Piloty and Makart, the inventor of the decorative bouquet; while Titian was more in Lenbach’s line, and Lenbach had an understanding of Wagner that made him call
Parsifal
music-hall stuff—to the Master’s very face. Ah, ah, comme c’est melancholique, tout ca!

“Gentlemen, I have been rambling frightfully. I mean I have wandered from my subject and my purpose. Take my garrulity as an expression of the fact that I have given up the idea that brought me here. I have convinced myself that it is not possible. You will not set foot on my magic cloak. I am not to introduce you to the world as your entrepreneur. You decline, and that ought to be a bigger disappointment to me than it actually is. Sincerement, I ask myself whether it really is one at all. One may come to Pfeiffering with a practical purpose in mind—but that must always take second place. One comes, even if one is an impresario, first of all to salute a great man. No failure on the practical side can decrease this pleasure, especially when a good part of it consists in the disappointment. So it is, cher Maitre: your inaccessibility gives me among other things satisfaction as well; that is due to the understanding, the sympathy which I involuntarily feel towards it. I do so against my own interests, but I do it—as a human being, I might say, if that were not too large a category; perhaps I ought to express myself more specifically.

“You probably do not realize, cher Maitre, how German is your repugnance, which, if you will permit me to speak en psychology, I find characteristically made up of arrogance and a sense of inferiority, of scorn and fear. I might call it the ressentiment of the serious-minded against the salon world. Well, I am a Jew, you know, Fitelberg is undeniably a Jewish name. I have the Old Testament in my bones, a thing no less serious-minded than being German is, and not conducive to a taste for the sphere of the valse brillante. In Germany the superstition prevails that there is nothing but valse brillante outside its borders and nothing but serious-mindedness inside them. And still, as a Jew one feels sceptical towards the world, and leans to German serious-mindedness—at the risk, of course, of getting kicked in the pants for one’s pains. To be German, that means above all to be national—and who expects a Jew to be nationalistic? Not only that nobody would believe him, but everybody would bash his head in for having the impudence to try it on. We Jews have everything to fear from the German character, qui est essentiellement antisemitique; and that is reason enough, of course, for us to plump for the worldly side and arrange sensational entertainments. It does not follow that we are windbags, or that we have fallen on our heads. We perfectly well know the difference between Gounod’s
Faust
and Goethe’s, even when we speak French, then too…

“Gentlemen, I say all that only out of pure resignation. On the business side we have said everything. I am as good as gone; I have the door-handle in my hand, we have got up, I am still running on just pour prendre conge. Gounod’s
Faust
, gentlemen—who turns up his nose at it? Not I, and not you, I am glad to know. A pearl—a marguerite, full of the most ravishing musical inventions. Laisse-moi, laisse-moi contempler-enchanting! Massenet is enchanting, he too. He must have been particularly charming as a teacher—as professor at the Conservatoire, there are little stories about it. From the beginning his pupils in composition were urged to produce, no matter whether or not they were technically able to write a movement free from flaws. Humane, n’est-ce pas? Not German, it isn’t, but humane. A lad came to him with a song just composed—fresh, showing some talent. ‘Tiens,’ says Massenet, ‘that is really quite nice. Listen, of course you must have a little friend; play it to her, she will certainly love it and the rest will happen of itself.’ It is not certain what he meant by ‘the rest,’ probably various things, both love and art. Have you pupils, Master? They wouldn’t be so fortunate. But you have none. Bruckner had some. He had from the first wrestled with music and its sacred difficulties, like Jacob with the angel, and he demanded the same from his pupils. Years on end they had to practise the sacred craft, the fundamentals of harmony and the strict style before they were allowed to make a song, and this music-teaching had not the faintest connection with any little friend. A man may have a simple, childlike temperament; but music is the mysterious revelation of the highest wisdom, a divine service, and the profession of music-teacher a priestly office…"

“Comme c’est respectable! Pas prccisement humain mais extremement respectable. Why should we Jews, who are a priestly people, even when we are minaudering about in Parisian salons, not feel drawn to the Germans and let ourselves lean to the German side and an ironic view, as against the world, against art for the little friend? In us nationalism would be impertinent enough to provoke a pogrom. We are international—but we are pro-German, like nobody else in the world, simply because we can’t help perceiving the role of Germany and Judaism on earth. Une analogie frappante! In just the same way they are both hated, despised, feared, envied, in the same measure they alienate and are alienated. People talk about the age of nationalism. But actually there are only two nationalisms, the German and the Jewish, and all the rest is child’s play.—Is not the downright Frenchness of an Anatole France the purest cosmopolitanism alongside German isolation in the subjective and the Jewish conceit of the chosen race… France—a nationalistic pseudonym. A German writer could not well call himself Deutschland, such a name one gives to a battleship. He has to content himself with Deutsch—and that is a Jewish name, oh la, la.

“Gentlemen, this is now really the door-knob. I am already outside. I must just say one more thing. The Germans should leave it to the Jews to be pro-German. With their nationalism, their pride, their foible of ‘differentness,’ their hatred of being put in order and equalized, their refusal to let themselves be introduced into the world and adopted socially, they will get into trouble, real Jewish trouble, je vous le jure. The Germans should let the Jew be the mediateur between them and society, be the manager, the impresario. He is altogether the right man for it, one should not turn him out, he is international, and he is pro-German. Mais c’est en vain. Et c’est tres dommage! Am I still talking? No, I left long ago. Cher Maitre, j’etais enchante. J’ai manque ma mission but I am delighted. Mes respects, monsieur le professeur. Vous m’avez assiste trop peu, mais je ne vous en veux pas. Mille choses a Madame Schweige—still. Adieu, adieu…"

CHAPTER XXXVIII

M
y readers are aware that Adrian in the end complied with Rudi Schwerdtfeger’s long-cherished and expressed desire, and wrote for him a violin concerto of his own. He dedicated to Rudi personally the brilliant composition, so extraordinarily suited to a violin technique, and even accompanied him to Vienna for the first performance. In its place I shall speak about the circumstance that some months later, towards the end of 1924, he was present at the later performances in Berne and Zurich. But first I should like to discuss with its very serious implications my earlier, perhaps premature—perhaps, coming from me, unfitting—critique of the concerto. I said that it falls somewhat out of the frame of Leverkuhn’s ruthlessly radical and uncompromising work as a whole. And I suggested that this was due to a kind of concession to concert virtuosity as shown in the musical attitude of the piece. I cannot help thinking that posterity will agree with my “judgment”—my God, how I hate the word!—and what I am doing here is simply giving the psychological explanation of a phenomenon to which the key would otherwise be lacking.

There is one strange thing about the piece: cast in three movements, it has no key-signature, but, if I may so express myself, three
tonalities
are built into it: B-flat major, C major, and D major, of which, as a musician can see, the D major forms a sort of secondary dominant, the B-flat major a subdominant, while the C major keeps the strict middle. Now between these keys the work plays most ingeniously, so that for most of the time none of them clearly comes into force but is only indicated by its proportional share in the general sound-complex. Throughout long and complicated sections all three are superimposed one above the other, until at last, in a way electrifying to any concert audience, C major openly and triumphantly declares itself. There, in the first movement, inscribed “
andante amoroso
,” of a dulcet tenderness bordering on mockery, there is a leading chord which to my ear has something French about it: c, g, e, b-flat, d, f-sharp, a, a harmony which, with the high f of the violin above it, contains, as one sees, the tonic chords of those three main keys. Here one has, so to speak, the soul of the work, also one has in it the soul of the main theme of this movement, which is taken up again in the third, a gay series of variations. In its way it is a wonderful stroke of melodic invention, a rich, intoxicating cantilena of great breadth, which decidedly has something showy about it, and also a melancholy that does not lack in grace if the performer so interpret it. The characteristically delightful thing about the invention is the unexpected and subtly accentuated rise of the melodic line after reaching a certain high climax, by a further step, from which then, treated in the most perfect, perhaps all too perfect taste, it flutes and sings itself away. It is one of those physically effective manifestations capturing head and shoulders, bordering on the “heavenly,” of which only music and no other art is capable. And the tutti—glorification of just this theme in the last part of the variation movement brings the bursting out into the open C major. But just before it comes a bold flourish—a plain reminiscence of the first violin part leading to the finale of Beethoven’s A-minor Quartet; only that here the magnificent phrase is followed by something different, a feast of melody in which the parody of being carried away becomes a passion which is seriously meant and therefore creates a somewhat embarrassing effect.