From the Flood to the Redemption

From “the Flood” to “the Redemption,” from sin to salvation — the life of humanity with all its wrath and its storms, and all its relief.

A fundamental stage in the history of the Old Testament was presented to us by the administration of the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts — the music branch — on December 21 of the past year, in a delightful concert that gathered an elite of connoisseurs of the arts in an atmosphere where complete solidarity and mutual support prevailed. Before we say our word about the Flood and the Redemption, let us speak of what concerns Saint-Saëns and Franck, and so set out what led us to understand the Flood and the Redemption as the two poles of a fascinating upheaval that took place in the history of the Old Testament — an upheaval whose consequences were dire.

Camille Saint-Saëns was born in 1835, the era of the successive revolutions in Europe and of their repercussions in France in particular; so he was marked by his love of logic and of reason, and this affected his music, which came out clear and plain in its intent. So keen was his intelligence that logic overwhelmed his emotional genius, and his melodies carried some small measure of stillness; yet his feeling flowed a little in the Flood, and this oratorio joined grace of expression to surging feeling. He composed many pieces, but the Flood aroused the astonishment of the theorists for the fine style of its musical composition, without containing any overflowing musical inspiration.

We mention in particular the “Danse Macabre,” in which he describes for us the dance of the skeletons of the dead before the gates of the graveyards, in a descriptive style rare in its like and its splendor. As for Franck, he was born in 1822 in Liège and completed his musical studies in France. He was marked by purity of conscience and goodness of conduct; he devoted his life to art, and especially to religious art, in which he found a heritage that satisfied his overflowing spiritual ambitions. In his writing for the organ he was influenced by the style of Bach, after having found his own personal mold of expression. He wrote several oratorios, among them “Ruth,” the Redemption, the Beatitudes, and Rebecca; and he wrote several pieces of secular music — a symphony and pieces for the piano. All his works were marked by a clear leaning toward mysticism and the things of the spirit. We have now seen that Franck was born, and composed, before Saint-Saëns; but Saint-Saëns's love of logic drove him to compose the Flood after he had heard the Redemption performed, for he saw that the Redemption had a first cause, which was sin, and a powerful mover, which was the Flood. And since he was marked by his power of description, he saw fit to compose the Flood, thus joining his own music to Franck's.

“From the Flood to the Redemption” was a concert that delighted us and achieved a remarkable harmony. The Flood is a magnificent descriptive piece in which fine description shone forth, especially in the second movement, when he depicts the wrath of the Lord descending upon mankind in the likeness of massed clouds, strong winds blowing right and left, and heavy rain falling without pause for forty days and forty nights, until the description brings him to the opening of a window of the ark, from which a dove goes out to survey the state of the earth sunk beneath the waters of the Flood. Here the music puts on the garment of relief, and the melodies rise glittering like the glitter of the sky after a torrential rain that has lasted long — and it is as if we felt the presence of that soft calm which refreshes us after a heavy winter.

There is no doubt that Saint-Saëns poured out the sap of his heart and his resolute skill in description, so that we can almost see an oil painting whose lines were drawn by a skilled painter and translated into melodies by a rare musical genius. As for the Redemption, it was adorned with the silent spiritual garment that accompanied it throughout the performance. Its music came stronger and truer, for it expressed the hopes of mankind, and we hear almost nothing but the sighs rising from every ravine and every depth toward God, that by the fulfillment of the mystery of the Redemption He might grant humanity deliverance from the yoke of the consequences of sin. There is no doubt that the Redemption surpassed the Flood in strength of composition, for it left the listener room to solve musical problems for which it had itself paved the way. And this is the secret of strength in musical composition; for music is a riddle, and the listener's pleasure lies in discovering the meanings of this riddle and applying them to his own life, since music contains diverse elements that we can apply in our social life. Therefore we felt bound to gather all our powers as we listened to the Redemption, so as to grasp the strength of its meanings, the soundness of their harmony, and the beauty of their intent. We could have wished that the ending had come more full of glorification than it did, for redemption is usually followed by hope, and after hope comes victory — and the victory we did not feel as we should have at the close of the Redemption.

So much for the side of composition. As for the performance, we shall not forget the mellow voices and the brilliant skill we heard in the Redemption from the Misses Baaklini and Saba, while Mrs. Avedian captivated the mind with her middle-range voice. Complete understanding prevailed between the singers of the choir and the players, under the direction of Lebanon's foremost artist, Alexis Boutros, whom we cannot but thank for his efforts and his skillful direction — for he offers us most of the precious treasures of music on the occasions of the great feasts. To him we repeat our thanks, and we wish the administration of the Academy continued success in the field of art — the field we are in the utmost need of supporting in Lebanon.