No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Zola's relation to music has been discussed by various critics and biographers, all of whom readily admit that he was not in any way a technically competent musician. Beyond this obvious fact, they split into two sharply opposed camps, one of which states that, in spite of a transfer of his theatrical ambitions to the lyric theater late in his life, he actually knew little and cared less about the art of music, while the other insists that he did have a genuine interest in music and an innate though untrained sensitivity to it. Both camps are largely biographical in their approach, and in spite of their differences in emphasis and interpretation, they agree on the obvious facts—that as a schoolboy at Aixen-Provence, Zola played a clarinet in the band (in order to make himself eligible for certain special privileges enjoyed by its members), but gave it up after he went to Paris; that when collaborating with the composer Alfred Bruneau on an operatic version of L'AUaque du moulin, in 1893, he bought a piano (or a harmonium); that at about the same time he began to attend concerts, which he had previously ignored; that he questioned his friends Henry Ceard and Bruneau about the mysteries of music and got a good deal of information from them; that his sense of pitch was poor; that his interest, whether great or small, was largely confined to vocal music; and that he was influenced in some way by the ideas and works of Wagner, though opinions as to the date and extent of this influence vary widely.
1 The principal discussions of Zola and music are as follows: Paul Alexis, Emile Zola, notes d'un ami (Paris, 1882), pp. 166–167 and passim; Alfred Bruneau, Á I'ombre d'un grand cceur, souvenirs d'une collaboration (Paris, 1932); Carol-Bérard, “L'Intelligence musicale d'Emile Zola,” Revue musicale, 15 Sept. 1923, pp. 187–192; Kurt Jäckel, Richard Wagner in der französischen Literatur (Breslau, 1932), ii, 146–154; J.-G. Prod'homme, “Emile Zola et la musique,” Zeitschrift der internationalen Musikgesellschaft, iv, 102–112; M. C. van de Rovaart, “Zola en de muziek,” Weekblad voor Muziek, ix, 385–387; and Julien Torchet, “Emile Zola, musicien,” Guide musical, li, 616–618. These works are hereafter indicated by the authors' last names, and citations are placed directly in the text.
2 See the entry in the Goncourt Journal for 17 July 1891.
3 Madeleine Feral, pp. 250–251, 280–281. Unless otherwise specified, all citations of Zola's works refer to Les? uvres completes: Emile Zola, Notes et Commentaires de Maurice Le Blond, Texte de l'édition Eugéne Fasquelle (Paris: Typographic Franĉois Bernouard, n. d.). Hereafter they will be inserted directly in the text.
4 Nana, pp. 17, 26, 364, 374. For a discussion of the symbolism of these repeated and echoed passages, see my Repetition in Zola's Novels (Athens, Ga.: Univ. of Ga. Press, 1952), pp. 48–49.
5 This letter and the accompanying notes are reproduced in the “Notes et Commentaires” section at the end of Pot-Bouitte (in the edition cited above), pp. 446–447.
6 “dat hij die deze regels schreef, niet slechts een na-prater was” (van de Rovaart, p. 386).
7 Bibliothéque Nationale, Nouvelles Acquisitions Franĉaises, 10316, p. 55. This MS. Is hereafter cited as Dossier.
8 “Beethoven” is underlined twice, and “mort 1823” (sic) is written in above the following words. I have supplied Zola's missing accents and hyphen.
9 “héoique” is written in above the line.
10 “Les quat” is struck out, and the sentence begun over.
11 At the beginning of an article on Berlioz he stated flatly: “Je n'entends pas parler musique, je serais incompétent” (“Hector Berlioz,” in Le Roman experimental, p. 259).
12 André C?uroy, “Notes sur le roman wagnfirien frangais,” Revue musicale, 1 Oct. 1923, pp. 132–140. The passages quoted are on pp. 136 and 137. In my Music and Literature, A Comparison of the Arts (Athens, Ga., 1948), p. 211, I followed Cceuroy in attributing the “symphony of cheeses” to Wagnerian influence. In the light of further study, I consider this statement erroneous.
13 Henri de Curzon, L'?uvre de Richard Wagner à Paris et ses interprétes (1850–1914) (Paris, n. d.), p. 20.
14 Since La Curée appeared in 1872, Jäckel's guess (p. 148), “Die erste Anspielung auf Wagner in seinen Romanen findet sich wohl in La joie de vivre (1884),” is 12 years off. Zola, usually so meticulous about chronology, is himself guilty of an anachronism here. Offenbach's La Belle Béléne was first performed at the Variétés in Dec. 1864, but Maxime's only opportunities to hiss Tannhäuser would have been during March of 1861. Did Zola deliberately violate chronology for the sake of an allusion to the burlesque of German music (pointed out in the text) near the end of Act i of La Belle Héléne? The use of the verb “blaguer” would make it seem not unlikely.
15 Quatre poémes d'opéras Iraduits en prose franqĉaise, précédés d'une lettre sur la musique par Richard Wagner (Paris). Note that the text of Tristan was available in French 4 years before the opera was first performed, in München.
16 See Henri Silége, Bibliographic'wagnérienne franĉaise (Paris, 1902).
17 For a detailed study of this whole matter, see my monograph cited in n. 4.