Duty to remember

1. Forgotten forever

Auguste Mermet (Brussels 1810 - Paris 1889) is typically the kind of composer who will never be remounted, and for reasons that are probably more pragmatic than for Meyerbeer.

Frontispiece to the piano/vocal reduction of Roland à Roncevaux, Auguste Mermet's most successful work.

First and foremost, he was a composer who never achieved brilliant success during his lifetime.

One comic opera, three grand operas and a ballet attest to his passage, along with his writing of a few worldly parodies of the titles on the bill (for the newspapers).

His style itself belongs to a certain academicism, not that it's without personality, but without real originality, let's say - and not without serious writing weaknesses.

Portrait of Auguste Mermet in 1876, the year of Joan of Arc.

In this day and age, when originality is the first criterion of genius, it's hard to imagine putting together an expensive work that doesn't have a place in history, and which, what's more, is of questionable quality even for fans of the genre (its clumsiness was criticized in its day). In short, you'll never hear it.

2. Carnets sur sol's mission

He is nonetheless a rather endearing composer, whose style is akin to Gounod's: a debatable sense of rhythm (though a little more accomplished than Gounod's), some harmonic beauties (but also some of Mermet's clumsiness), a rather sympathetic sincerity of tone, all in a rather mellow cocoon. It's typically an aesthetic of Second Empire comfort, and we'll see that it was precisely appreciated by the emperor.

So, it's still interesting to confront this composer, on several counts:

• testimony to the standard output of an era, apart from works that constitute achievements or breakthroughs ;
• intrinsic quality of the work, secondary but not in vain.

In short, as a matter of curiosity, we invite you to Auguste Mermet's home.

3. What we know about Mermet

Mermetmade his Versailles debut with the comic opera La Bannière du Roi (1825), but he is best known (in a manner of speaking) for his three other operas.

For Le Roi David (1846), Mermet approached playwright Alexandre Soumet to adapt his play Saül for opera.

Lieutenant-Colonel Auguste de Peellaert recounts his stubborn refusal to accept any other solution in his Cinquante ans de souvenirs (1867, shortly after Mermet's success with Roland. At the end of his second chapter, he states:

I'm going to speak for the first time of Mr. Auguste Mermet, my friend and relative, who lived in Paris for many years, and was involved in music.

Warmly welcomed by M. Soumet, author of several successful tragedies, he got him to arrange, for the Opéra, the tragedy of Saül, under the title Le Roi David. As M. Soumet was confined to bed by illness, M. Mermet would go as often as possible to excite the auleur's lyrical verve, and would return home with a scene, a few recitatives or arias, and finally, after an infinite number of errands and fatigue, he had taken an entire work with him.

On every trip I made to Paris, my relative would receive my first visit, and I would listen to the composer's music as he sought my advice.

The director of the Opéra was so taken with David's poem that he begged Mr. Mermet to give it up, promising him another opera poem, to be staged as soon as the music was completed; but with unparalleled tenacity, of which he gave further proof later, Mr. Mermet stood firm and refused all proposals.

Finally, Le Roi David was performed on June 3, 1846, with only a few performances, although Mme Stolz played the role of David with great talent. The music was original, but by a completely inexperienced author; a few dance arias were added by a friend of his, a musician in the orchestra. He was barely able to attend the rehearsals because the work was not fully orchestrated, and a thousand rumors about the author tended to lead people to believe that he had not composed the opera alone.

 

Indeed, the piece did not meet with success during its performances at the Opéra. Always preoccupied with his librettos, Mermet wrote those for his last two operas himself.It was thanks to the intercession of Napoleon III that Roland à Roncevaux was performed at the Opéra in 1864, and was quite successful.

Finally, Jeanne d'Arc was staged at the same venue in 1876, but was a failure.

4. Joan of Arc

This is the score we've been working on. No Scribe-style historizing and critical rereading, here Jeanne does indeed hear some very pretty voices expressing themselves in chorus, quite recitative if need be. As we have said, the style is reminiscent of Gounod, with some fine personal insights, but not without weaknesses.

The complete recording can be found in the section on his works.

First of all, it is necessary, and more than usual, to state the usual reservations.
This is not a 'finished product', but a document, intended to give CSS readers an idea of what it's all about. As I work alone, simultaneously on piano and vocals, it's rare for me to offer polished excerpts, but here it's even more glaring than usual, quite simply because on the one hand the aria is quite out of range (it calls for a bass), which leads to some decanting; on the other hand, and above all, because given the work's limited musical interest, we're less inclined to put it back on the piano, and this recording is therefore the fruit of a limited number of attempts....

That said, despite the breadcrumbs, we can hear more or less what's on the score.

We are at the crossroads of Acts I and II. The voices call out to Jeanne in a rather exhilarating way, with a relatively shifting harmony and funny hesitations between major and minor in Jeanne's vocal line, reflecting her indecision ("Je n'ai plus force ni valeur!").

 

JEANNE
I have no more strength or value!

THE VOICES
Blood flows in torrents, time is running out!

JEANNE
O pain! Yes, pity... my heart...
The voice of Heaven commands it!

THE VOICES
To leave is a sacred duty!

JEANNE
Pity, pity drags me!

LES VOIX
Go, God wills it!

JEANNE
Well, well... I'll go!

 

Act II opens with a decisive interlude, quite beautifully crafted, and begins with a lovely modulation that picks up the rhythm, but with more discreet dynamic nuances.

Entrance of Richard, knight at the court of Charles VI - a king in league with an Agnès who easily reminds the general public of the image of the mistress of... his successor.

The recitative is very successful, with a gentle, melodic prosody and a few traditional dramatic effects (string tremolos for the evocation of danger "when the ship sinks"), which effectively play on the contrast between absence and presence of the orchestra.

From a more formal point of view, the content of the aria is also announced: in a quatrain, the disillusioned, unscrupulous character is introduced to the spectator, and the aria will simply develop his feelings, with some additional "historical" information.

RICHARD
Hiddenin his palace, the king is but a shadow, and his palace crumbles amid the affronts here, every man for himself: when the ship sinks, to save oneself all means are good.

The aria itself begins with a very brief ritornello in a typically Italian formula, with a doubling of the first bar value: these sixteenth notes in the bass at the beginning of a bar made up of eighth notes, as in a polonaise or bolero, are typical of Belcanto and post-Belcanto cabalettes (until Verdi gradually imposed other, freer and more varied standards from the 1850s onwards).

We're in B minor, a key associated with solitude and profound sadness.

RICHARD
Pays gorgé de sang, ton aspect m'importune:
On transforme en enfer ton riant paradis.
Allons chercher ailleurs la gloire et la fortune,
Et laissons la France aux maudits!

This is a very classic tune, with a very identifiable refrain, in this case a dark, combative one. There are two main devices: on the one hand, brief orchestral punctuations (often in the high register, probably intended for flutes), like lightning bolts streaking across the sky, quite successfully (it's rare for an aria to have so little orchestral support), and on the other, unisons with the singer ("Allons chercher ailleurs") that sound more awkward, at least in piano reduction - but I doubt they'd be furiously brilliant in orchestral.

I would have delivered my soul to the devil -
Satan didn't want me.
Dame Isabeau was more amenable:
Between us and the English, it's a done deal.

The verse in D major (a very traditional modulation) is quite interesting, with its slightly sarcastic lyrical line, in which the character peacefully displays a terrible lucidity about his own cynicism. And there's the French taste for the bon mot, with Isabeau de Bavière as a second-rate imp - but more effective than the original.

The verse itself is not very robust: the language often seems a little trivial, and for musical reasons, we end up with repetitions. For example, "palais" in the recitative, even though it was easy to replace; or "entre nous", with its thirteen-syllable length to keep up with the musical rhythm. These distortions are commonplace, but usually the original libretto is correct, whereas here it presents imperfections that a literary writer would not have allowed to be printed.
Nevertheless, the poem works rather well, with less silliness and clichés than many of its equivalents: it remains pleasant to listen to, as does the music, even if there are technical weaknesses here and there.

Le roi n'a plus ni sou ni maille:
Dans les bombances de la Cour
The blackbird has replaced the quail.
Le roi n'a plus ni sou ni maille:
Belle France, adieu pour toujours!

In addition to the impurity of the rhymes (since it is still widely customary in librettos to respect what is now no more than a "rhyme for the eye", and the supposed liaison for "Cour / toujours" differs), there is some rather weak musical filler, with these bland melodies not very well supported by the prosody (first verse), and above all these scales alternating with an obstinate note, which is above all an instrumental figure, abandoned since the end of the 18th century due to its banality. In short, nothing very expressive is created either by the music or by the relationship between this music and the text.
Nevertheless, it sheds a little more light on the character who presented himself as an opportunist in the recitative.

The last two verses are not very original, but they are clearly more expressive, though ultimately unrelated to what has gone before. This is the problem with this section, and more generally with this aria: the impression of patchwork, of a series of effects with no real musical unity. As these effects are not always original or brilliant, this is obviously a weakness that doesn't bore the listener, but makes him or her suspicious and critical of the overall quality.

Repetition of the chorus:

Pays gorgé de sang, ton aspect m'importune:
On transforme en enfer ton riant paradis.
Let us seek glory and fortune elsewhere,
And leave France to the cursed!

As is often the case, especially in French operas of the period, the aria is of little interest out of context, hence the value of recording the entire scene, even the transitions, as CSS's elves do.
Here, Richard's recitative, which introduces the next scene, the duet between the king and his young beloved, is truly delightful in its contrast. The melody becomes quite natural and tasty, and the text also makes the character more sympathetic and compassionate.

With the beautiful Agnès, King Charles steps forward:
A blindfold over his eyes, when he runs to his death,
From his dream of love let us not wake him.
More merrily can one lose a kingdom of France!

After a cadenza (obviously intended for the flute), we end up on a D-flat chord, a far cry from the B-minor of a page earlier... and this can be heard in the delightful pastoral climate that settles in with these well-rounded flat colors. We also hear some beautiful foreign notes in the chords, which give more relief to this new episode, which remains very consonant. Here, in contrast to the previous episode, orchestral flat tones rather than vigorous punctuation are the main feature of the accompaniment.

5. In conclusion

Imperfect but not devoid of charm and interest, CSS has invited you to join them on a page of heritage, in the hope of having provided a ride despite the imperfections of the composer-librettist... and, of course, of his performers.

Bear in mind that you may never hear anything by Auguste Mermet again, even though he performed at the Paris Opéra in the mid-19th century.
And measure your (suspect) luck.