Literature is an inexhaustible wellspring of inspiration for the composer of music, but few literary gems inspire widespread musical expression immediately on publication.
"Pelleas et Melisande" is the inspiration for the orchestral program in the Great Hall of the Philharmonic on February 10.
Written by Belgian symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck in 1892, "Pelleas" is a sort of "anti-drama," a medieval dream which inspired three fine composers to interpret it within 15 years of publication.
Like an abandoned child, Melisande is found weeping in a forest of the Kingdom of Allemonde (a conflation of the French for `Germany' and `world'). Melisande doesn't know where she's from, never answers questions directly, says little, but usually repeats herself.
Golaud, grandson to the king, takes her to wife. She seems a creature not of this world -- people and events around her have no claim on her attention. She absent-mindedly drops her wedding-ring into a well at the same moment Golaud is thrown from his horse.
From his sickbed he sends Melisande back to this well, in a mysterious grotto, accompanied by Pelleas, Golaud's half-brother. Love grows between the title characters. When Pelleas expresses this love in words, the jealous Golaud kills him. Melisande soon after bears a daughter, and herself expires, leaving Golaud's searching questions unanswered.
The ephemeral understatement of Maeterlinck's play sparked the creative genius of composers of such widely different stamp as Gabriel Faure, Jan Sibelius and Arnold Schoenberg.
Faure's music is the bridge between late 19th century French enthusiasm for Wagner, and the self-assured musical independence from Germany won by Debussy and Ravel.
Perhaps most famous is his Requiem (1887-90), which retreats from the operatic hellfire-and-brimstone of Verdi's and Berlioz' Requiems, creating instead silken music of consolation for those who mourn. His incidental music for "Pelleas et Melisande" was first performed in London, in 1898.
Sibelius' first great success was "Kullervo" in 1892, a massive symphony based on the Finnish national epic, the "Kalevala." In 1897 he began to receive a state annuity so he could devote himself to composition. Sibelius wrote incidental music for Maeterlinck's play in 1905.
Arnold Schoenberg wrote his symphonic poem "Pelleas et Melisande" in 1905. Although he would later revolutionize music, at this stage of his career he wrote in a lush, late-Romantic idiom which brilliantly fused the restless harmonies and effusive melody of Wagner with the formal clarity of Brahms.
But even at this "conservative" stage, Schoenberg was little understood by his native Vienna.
"My music is not modern," he protested wryly, "it's poorly played."