Franck illustrates, then, in many ways, in his erratic treatment of harmony, in his metrical monotony, and in his «shortness of breath,» the mystic's failure to master form. And yet, so beautiful are his effects, so arresting is his personality, one feels instinctively that there is in him something which destructive criticism cannot assail. The very inarticulateness of the mystic is, in fact, a sort of eloquence, perhaps all the more persuasive because it hints at beauties rather than defines them. However beyond his reach his aspirations may be, so long as they are genuine and ardent he will have his unique artistic message. His work will gain a pathetic appeal from the very fact that it suggests feelings it cannot embody, and his inarticulateness may even open up ways to new modes of utterance by reminding men that there are truths other than those their formulas so smugly stereotype. Thus a writer like Amiel, ineffective as he seems from one point of view, is not without his liberalizing influence in literature. In the same way, César Franck, the mystic among musicians, thanks to his profound insight and emotion, combined though they be with the characteristic shortcomings of the seer, will widen the scope of future musical technique and expression.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.--The Prelude, Choral, and Fugue for Piano are to be had in the Collection Litolff. The Prelude, Aria, and Finale are published by J. Hamelle, Paris. These are the only piano pieces of Franck that are easily obtainable. The house of Hamelle also issues a four-hand arrangement of the Symphony, and Durand, of Paris, publishes a four-hand arrangement of the three masterly Chorals for organ, as well as the original edition of these, and of two sets of organ pieces, one of six and the other of three. The «Beatitudes» has been reprinted, with English words, by G. Schirmer. A few of Franck's songs, particularly «La Procession,» «Panis Angelicus,» and «Le Mariage des Roses,» will be found in the portfolios of most large music dealers.
[Illustration: PETER ILYITCH TSCHAÏKOWSKY]
One of the constant temptations of the biographer is that of seizing on some salient trait in his subject, magnifying it beyond all relation to others which supplement or modify it, and portraying an eccentric rather than a rounded personality, a monster rather than a man. Human nature is complex, many-sided, even self-contradictory to any but the most penetrative view; and so slender are the resources of literature for dealing with such a paradox as a man, that writers, resorting to simplification, sacrifice fullness to intelligibility. In books Napoleon is apt to be denied all scruples, Keats all virility, Marcus Aurelius all engaging folly; the real men were probably not so simple. It is certain, at any rate, that Tschaïkowsky, the greatest of Russian musicians, one of the two greatest of all composers since Wagner, cannot have been the mere incarnation of concentrated gloom that his critics have drawn. Some worthier powers than that of eloquent lamenting must have contributed to mold him. He was not simply a sort of neurasthenic Jeremiah with a faculty for orchestration.