From
One Musician to Another
A
review
D’un musicien l’autre – de Céline à Beethoven
By
Yannick Gomez
With
a preface by Michael Donley
Éditions
La Nouvelle Libraire
The approach of Yannick Gomez to both
Céline and Beethoven is stated right from the very beginning, and it is both
commendable and rare, and especially so, these days.
“Il faut lire
Beethoven et écouter Céline; et bien entendu l’inverse; c’est l’approche
rieuse est sérieuse á la fois que nous voulons partager ici.” (p.20)[1]
It is the verb partager which must
be underlined here as it has such a warmer connotation than share in
English, il faut partager/ you must share! We share pleasures, of course. Such
is the association. What is enjoyment otherwise, one comes to learn. You could say
that sharing is among the greatest acts of communicating with another human
being, and particularly so when it comes to one’s passions and interests, such
as the music of Beethoven and the literature of one of the most controversial
and now seldom read French writers, particularly during these so very curious
times, Louis Ferdinand Céline.
I consider myself extremely fortunate to
be able to read him in the original French, particularly now that the treasure
throve of manuscripts Guerre ( 2022), Londres ( 2022), La
Volonté Du Roi Krogold ( 2023), all published by Gallimard, have almost
miraculously appeared having been ‘lost’ since 1944. And it is while
researching all things Céline that I discovered Yannick Gomez’s book. I first
discovered both Céline and Beethoven in France when I lived there as a young man
in the nineties, and now that I have reached my middle years, let us call them,
both artists, as artists is what they are, great artists that is, have become
even more important to me as the years have advanced. So, to come across Yannick
Gomez’s study, only recently published along with the previous mentioned
bullion, is rather like hitting the proverbial jackpot.
Before I continue to the study itself, I
should say a few words about its author as he is a very interesting and unusual
man being both pianist and composer[2],
writer and essayist[3].
Another thing that is most unusual about him, and this is very rare these days
indeed, while having obtained a doctorate he is deliberately not writing, as we
can see from the quote above, for a purely academic readership, but, as he says
above, he wrote the present work to share his passion and interest for these
two remarkable artists and it is in exactly the same way that I enter into the
spirit of reviewing his study.
Almost immediately, Gomez attempts to
trace the origins of the French writer’s appreciation of music and in order to
do so, he consults numerous other studies that have been made, though none on them sharing the very particular correspondence between the Master of Bonn and the Hermit of
Meudon that Yannick Gomez has undertaken. For example, Micheal Donley who
writes the short preface to D’un musicien l’autre, which is a play on
the title of the very first instalment of the German Trilogy D’un chateau
l’autre ( 1957) that Céline wrote chronicling his time on the run from
recently liberated France, is the author of a text Céline musicien (
Nizet, 2000) and which Gomez refers to quite frequently. But it is but one source
which the author taps into. Gomez’s knowledge of both artists, this is what is
so pleasurable about this short study, is really quite impressive. There are
works written by Céline, for example, that are cited and which are totally unfamiliar to me. For
example, the play Progrés ( Cahiers Céline 8, Gallimard, 1988) is
referenced early on and which dates from 1927, and in which the piano figures
quite prominently. Apparently, Céline’s maternal grandmother is the source of
the French master’s penchant for music which was to last throughout his life.
Of course, it must also be remembered that the three women who were romantically
attached to Céline were all professional dancers. This is also a very
interesting factor to consider and which Gomez also singles out.
Of course, playing the piano at the time,
be it in France or any where else for that matter, was a very bourgeois
activity. Progrés, which is a short play, gently mocks the whole ‘urban
satire’, as Gomez points out. I must say, I had a smile on my face trying to
imagine Céline in such a setting. I myself was subjected to the same horror in
the late seventies in middle class Ireland. I am reminded now of a line by
Beckett in his radio play Embers ( 1959) when the main character Henry,
looking back over his family life with his dead partner Ada, and thinking about
their daughter, says the following, “ It was not enough to drag her into the
world, now she must play the piano.”[4] In
the first chapter of the study Céline Au Piano, Gomez presents us with a
portrait of the author seen through the eyes of a number of other Céline studies
which are strictly focused on the musical qualities of the writer, and there
are a quite a considerable number too, though what makes Gomez’s particular
study, what distinguishes his monograph from all the other studies, of course,
is that he is trying to explore, and very successfully too, the many
correspondences between these two seminal artists Beethoven and Céline. Gomez
actually uses the Baudelairean term correspondence ( p.46) in relation to the
two artists and I will gladly use it here too by confining myself to referring
to just a couple of them which Gomez makes in his work and which struck
me the most.
For example, as a musician and a composer
and writer, Gomez is very good at pointing out the onomatopoeic qualities at work
in Céline particularly in the post Voyage novels and which he very
interestingly finds a correspondence with the heroic period in Beethoven’s work.
This is absolutely fascinating stuff. Gomez refers to the ‘répétitions abusives caressent le grotesque et le
pompeux.’ ( p.47) referring particularly
to the 5th symphony op.67 and the pathetic sonata op.13. Correspondingly,
Gomez singles out Guignol’s band and very generously mentions another
study by Michael Ferrier in which Ferrier single out Bizet’s Carmen, particularly
the dances which are a kind of parody and
play a large role in the French ‘opéra comique francais’, which Céline was also a
great fan of too. All of which makes complete and utter sense, when you think about
it, but this is just the thing about this study. Unless you are a musician/composer
like Yannick Gomez, you probably have not even thought about these so very
natural correspondences. Throughout the work, the author weaves and Ariadne thread between the two
very subtle worlds of classical music and contemporary literature, in other
words here is an author who is solely interested in analysing form, both musical
and literary, and who is also interested in fleshing out, and concretely so, the
very many similitudes between these two great arts and who is not at all
interested in creating divisions. How novel!
Les premières pages de Guignol’s band I sont
revelatrice : « C’est pas
terminé la musique, un autre archange nous assaisonne… C’est
la
musique du grand carnage ! » ( p.48)
The term music, Gomez points
out, is mentioned twice in the space of six lines which for him shows ‘la pénétration
sonore, le ‘relief sonore’ voulu par Céline’.
In the same chapter ( Symphonie
Vocale ), Gomez goes on to talk about the use of oxymorons which were so ‘cher
à Céline’ ( p.49) and which correspondingly he sees playing out in the works of
Beethoven in the composer’s use of agogic accents in his work. An agogic accent
is an emphatic structure obtained by playing notes of longer duration. It is
but one of four, the other three accents being dynamic, stress and tonic. For a
writer, like myself, who is unversed in the terms and structure, the grammar as
it were, of musical composition, I found this particular chapter highly
revealing as the author explains very clearly the musical terms, and then, as a
writer, he is also able to find the corresponding structure in literature. So,
Yannick Gomez acts as a kind of Virgil to the reader, gently guiding them
through the content of both the writings of Louis Ferdinand Céline and the
musical compositions of Ludwig Van Beethoven and he is able to show very
practically parallels in the structural dynamics of the compositions of both
artists which I find, quite frankly, such a welcome relief from the usual
monotony one reads these days, confined as it usually is to the artists
personality or what is perhaps even worse, living habits.
The thirty two piano sonatas
by Beethoven are singled out by Gomez, in respect to agogic accents, and once
again very generously referring to another musical study on Beethoven by Lucien
Rebatet[5] in which the latter makes
the claim that Beethoven, when writing the sonatas and quartets, his most
personal and some of his most innovative music, he was writing in a way like a great
novelist, like Céline, Gomez signals, would live through his fictional
characters. Then taking this idea by Rebatet, Gomez illustrates what he perhaps
means by referencing The Tempest op.31, and commenting on the contrast
of force that is created by the agogic stress, ‘par ces accentuations, par les
successions d’episodes orchestraux, virtuoses et déchaînés, puis d’épisodes de
solos récitatifs témoignant de l’habileté de Beethoven pour l’improvisation.’ (p.50).
Then, in an attempt at finding a correspondence in the work of Céline, Gomez
does an extraordinary thing.
Nous retrouvons là l’equivalent du procédé célinien dont
l’écriture
tend à se faire musique. Ce chiasme des expressions n’est
pas
chose nouvelle si l’on considère que les polyphonies médiévales
étaient déjà des mots mis en musique. ( p.51)
So after tracing the very clear and tangible link of origin between modern musical composition and literature in the polyphonic music of medieval Europe, he then goes on to speak of
the emergence of the piano as an instrument to chart human emotion, and of
course one thinks of Beethoven and the emergence of the great 19th
century romantic tradition and which Beethoven, the Master of Bonn, is to such a great extent the central figure of. And, of course, when one thinks of the term emotion is not
this one word the word most famously used, when referring to his style, by the Hermit
of Meudon?
I could go on and single out
many more reasons why Yannick Gomez’s study on Beethoven and Céline is such a
welcome publication, but rather instead I would merely tell you to go and
procure a copy for yourself and enjoy it and when you have finished share it! After
all, is it not one of life’s greatest pleasures!
What follows is a translation of an extract from La
Volonté Du Roi Krogold ( it is the very first page) and which was published
by Gallimard earlier this year. I offer it up here to Yannick as a mark of my
appreciation for his book D’un musicien l’autre, De Céline à Beethoven, Éditions
La Nouvelle Libraire, 2023.
At the end of the
day, victory was granted to the king. You could still see out on the horizon
the royal calvary battling through the country, the great whirlpool of lances
chasing the last runaways into the forests.
The army of the
disbanded Prince, dispersed, were cut down like lambs. All night, the clamour
of combat, the shouts of the melee turned into and enormous and heavy moan.
Then the silence was taken by the suffocating night and all about cries and
wailing became more and more weak, more and more deaf.
The Scythian
legions, ardent, raging, feline in combat but light on the terrain, had only
just endured three assaults, three terrible charges by the Poznan calvary. They
were swept away by the hurricane.
On the other side
of the river shadows, mounting presently
in the valley, recovered everything. An enormous wave of clamours and groans
broke out across the fields, the immense agony of an army. Victors and
vanquished at the same time gave up their souls as best they could and with
great suffering.
[1] “You
must read Beethoven and listen to Céline; and the inverse of course; it’s both
the humorous and serious approach that we would like to share here.”
[3] He is currently engaged on a text about Philippe Sollers, another
obsession, and he has also written fictional prose.
[4] Beckett, Samuel: The Complete Dramatic Works, First paperback
edition, Faber and Faber, London, 1990, p.259.
Of course, there are many points of convergence when
it comes to Beckett, Beethoven and Céline. A recent study of the two authors
has just been published.
Loisel, Yoann: Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Samuel
Beckett, Un abécédaire d’agonie, MJW
Fédition, Paris, 2023.
Beckett was
immensely struck by the style of Voyage au bout de la nuit ( Knowlson,
1996) during the early thirties like most writers at the time and I am pretty
sure that D’un chateau l’autre, a work of singular orality and so music
which was published four years before Beckett’s monumental take on the epic
Comment C’est ( 1961), How It Is ( 1964) and like Céline’s late
masterpiece is also a remarkably oral book, was also to have left a profound
mark on him. I hope to expand more on this subject in a latter study. As for Beckett’s fascination with Beethoven,
it is well known, particularly in respect to the composers use of silence and
pause for dramatic emphasis. Beckett’s whole life work has come to be
synonymous with silence, it being the author’s most desired state and Beethoven
too was the first composer to rupture the classical strains of Haydan and
Mozart with great pauses creating an incredible musical and so emotional
intensity, which is Gomez’s whole point of comparison between Céline and
Beethoven as music/literature ( Art) for both men was emotion.
[5] Lucien Rebatet ( 1903-1972) was a contemporary of Céline’s who shared a
very similar fate to Céline by finding himself in Sigmaringen also in 1944 due
to his clinks with the Vichy government, which was in exile in Germany while
France was being liberated by the Allies. Rebatet was a fellow novelist, also
published by Gallimard, Céline’s publisher in France, and he was also a
journalist after the war. He happened, again like Céline, to avoid the hangman
and went on to publishing, as well as his novels, a history of music and which
Gomez references in his study.
