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In the piece which I saw, called Le Tombeau de Robespierre, he carries illusion to an extraordinary degree of refinement. His cabinet of physics is rich, and his effects of optics are managed in the true style of French gallantry. His experiments of galvanism excite admiration.
The instruments have become more obedient. He has matured, become virile and even magistral. The war has not softened him. He speaks as intimately as ever in "Le Tombeau de Couperin." Already one can see in him one of the most delightful and original musical geniuses that have been nourished by the teeming soil of France.
Dans la jolie église de Panthéacrator, occupée par des religieux caloyers, qui sont ce que nous appellerions en France moines de l'Observance, on montre une pierre ou table de diverses couleurs que Nicodème avott fait tailler pour placer sur son tombeau, et qui lui servit
An officer, a gentleman of talent, whose name was Hautmont, wrote the following verses upon Cardinal Mazarin, for which he was locked up in the Bastille for eighteen months: Creusons tous le tombeau A qui nous persecute; A ce Jules nouveauu Cherchons un nouveau Brute. Que le jour serait beau, Si nous voyions sa chute!
When the superb mausoleum was built for Lully by his widow, some unknown poet, who hated him for his moeurs infames, scrawled on his tomb these terrific lines: "Pourquoi, par un faste nouveau, Nous rappeler la scandaleuse histoire D'un libertin, indigne de memoire, Peut-être même indigne du tombeau."
And let not hasty travellers follow Arthur Young's example, jotting down, after a visit to Moulins, "No room for the Tombeau de Montmorenci." A quarter of an hour by rail, an hour and a quarter by road, from Moulins lies Souvigny, the cradle of the Bourbons, and as interesting and delightful a little excursion as travellers can desire.
He is more often than he likes a confessor, and while the priest hears, as I have once said, the sins and foibles of to-day, he is as like as not to have to hear the story of a life. He must be what About calls him, "Le tombeau des secrets," the grave of secrets. How can he be too prudent or too close-mouthed? Honor you must ask of him, for you must feel free to speak.
The movement is too sombre, its curves too full of half-suppressed meanings, its rush and sub-human growling too expressive of something that defies definition. Schumann compares it to a "sphinx with a mocking smile." To Henri Barbadette "C'est Lazare grattant de ses ongles la pierre de son tombeau," or, like Mendelssohn, one may abhor it, yet it cannot be ignored.
After a short proclamation here, we were shown into another stone chamber with "Voila le tombeau de Voltaire!" This was of wood also, very nicely speckled and painted to resemble some kind of marble. Each corner of the tomb had a tragic mask on it, with that captivating expression of countenance which belongs to the tragic masks generally.
And in the field of harmony Ravel is steadily building upon Debussy. His chords grow sharper and more biting; in "Le Tombeau de Couperin" and the minuet on the name of Haydn there is a harmonic daring and subtlety and even bitterness that is beyond anything attained by Debussy, placing the composer with the Strawinskys and the Schoenbergs and the Ornsteins and all the other barbarians.
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