CONVERSATION ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF TOMASI’S MUSICAL LANGUAGE

It is difficult to analyze one’s own work, and I don’t care for clichés or classifications. Everything was different each time; every one of my pieces is different from the others.

Naturally, certain artists have had a decisive influence on my work: when I was quite young, there were Puccini and Bizet, then, through Boris Godounov, Moussorgski; then Debussy with his Pelléas et Mélisande, but still more so Ravel. Later, something of Richard Strauss – never Wagner. But a ‘legacy’ is so complex and uncertain. In the end, whatI have retained from Ravel and Debussy is a bit of harmonic inspiration...

A rumor says that I’m allergic to serial or dodecaphonic music – balderdash! I even used these modes in the Silence de la Mer and the Symphonie du Tiers-Monde. But I only use them occasionally, when needed, at times when I feel they are called for. What I did say was that I can’t stand systems and sectarianism. And I do maintain that the continual absence of modulation weakens a piece and can only result in monotonous, boring music. In my opinion, color is necessary, as in the juxtaposition of reds and greens, at least in the theater. The best example proving this is the work of Berg himself, who has virtually left the serial mode out of his Wozzeck. Moreover, serialism too has now for all intents and purposes been superseded by electronic music which once again displeases me since it is used as a system. Life could care less about systems – it is constantly undoing them – death to systems! But with electronics, there is a real danger: the end of the human factor, the end of the heart – a world filled with nothing more than the sound of machines!

I repeat: everything changes with every composition! But it’s true that around 1960 I consciously began questionning myself; Le Silence de la Mer (1959) marks this breakoff. Its language is completely different from that of Don Juan de Mañara, for example; its lyricism is unembellished, suggestive, free of those harmonic indulgences which attracted me during the Miguel period and which were, in fact, necessary for writing that piece. In Le Silence, everything is insinuated; the characters’ emotions are expressed by orchestra and no longer by voice. The Concerto pour Violoncelle has the same starkness. How to classify Le Silence de la Mer ?..Perhaps somewhere between Ravel and the serial movement...

The Concerto pour Guitare is yet another story, a dramatic one. It is quite obsessive, because I used in it the melodic themes I had chosen for Noces de Sang (Blood Wedding) Lorca’s drama; and the Symphony is based on Césaire’s drama, Une Saison au Congo... Finally, this is perhaps the only constant in my work: I always base it on a text, even if I don’t use the words written therein... Undoubtedly because the only things that really interest me are Man and his passionate side...

These past ten years, I’ve changed my skin, like a snake! I wanted to recapture the ten years lost between 1930 and 1940 when, because of my activity conducting orchestras, I didn’t have enough time to delve deeply enough into composition and the analysis of musical forms. I had neither the freedom nor the resources that most of my Conservatory comrades from bourgeoise families had. I had to make it on my own. However, while it is true that I regret having lost time conducting, I have to admit that it gave me an advantage that others don’t have. There is no doubt that today, no one can beat me for orchestration – hands down!

L’Éloge de la Folie (In Praise of Madness), my last lyrical composition (1965), mirrors the evolution that I have undergone on every level. Philosophically and historically, absurdity and barbarianism reign supreme – I’ve ceased believing in anything, I have no more hopes for mankind! The finale in l’Éloge is the beginning of a sort of manhunt, of Wisdom being brutally hunted down by madmen who are driven to the height of insanity and evil impulsions by Wisdom’s screams. During exactly five minutes, there is a play-dance of persecution that goes as far as torture and ends with an expulsion-cum-death sentence. Goya, the SS, racism, napalm!...

With regard to the stage, the director should feel absolutely free, with no limits. This is both an opera and a ballet, or rather, neither; it is total drama, and, as a matter of fact, could even be a piece split between the public, the stage and the orchestra!

My ‘succession of truths’ has led to my sincerity being called into question. My answer to this is: he who does not move ahead retreats; he who does not evolve is done for! Do not expect me to become the 55th mummy of the Red Marble Room in Atlantide’s necropolis !

My Dear Jean,

Why do I always arrange for us to meet on the terrace of this bistro?... Why am I so fond of sitting across from the Vieux-Port and waiting for you here?

It’s quite simple, really. Whether in this bistro or the one hanging on the cliffs of the Pharo gardens, I get a glimpse of my entire youth here. There are so many memories that can not be erased... The sky, the sea! Nothing that happened in this Vieux-Port escaped me then. How very often my keen eyes would possess the sea, the city, from my perch above Pharo! With a delicious pleasure, I would breathe in all of the scents that arose from the quays and docks, the odor of the tide, the fish, the fishing boats, etc... And those ‘flat rocks’ below! I envied all those who could laze about in the sun, leaning on the parapets or lying belly down on the rocks. And then a great ship would arrive in an ocean of noise and at once my imagination would give rise to an absurd longing for faraway lands and journeys that I had only embarked upon ‘around my bedroom.’

Sky and sea! Their mysterious and powerful presence is a bitter odor of salty wind on the lips. The coolness of the mistral winds through this forest of riggings and sailboat masts and little fishing boats at anchor! The smell of shellfish! Idleness! So many hours spent by the sea without seeing her! How could I possibly have escaped from the sea’s bewitching spells?! ...But, oh, the punishment that awaited me when I returned home in the evening, having skipped Conservatory! My entire childhood is resuscitated at the sight of the sea. And that’s why I’m sitting at this bistro awaiting your arrival.

I embrace you affectionately and eagerly await your next letter,

Henri

August 14, 1970, to his best friend, Jean Molinetti:

It has been sixty-nine years since I arrived in this century. My childhood emotions all reappear from within the silence of these nearly supernatural nights. I see myself going to the Opéra of Marseille for the first time to hear La Bohème with my beloved mother. While I listened to that music, I had the feeling that my entire youthful being was blossoming in a world that had nothing to do with intelligence. It was the voices of Mimi and Musette, especially, and certain orchestral gusts, that gave me an impression that I was never to find again, even when symphonic music was to transport me to other universes. I believe that that performance of La Bohème was responsible for my musical destiny, for it still moves me in the same way.
On the other hand, the more I think about it the more I wonder if, just as truth has no intrinsic existence, beauty isn’t nonexistent in nature. I believe that it is we ourselves who create this truth, this beauty. Haven’t you noticed how we return to the places we loved, often in vain? If we’re so apt to be disappointed, isn’t it because, when all is said and done, the real world doesn’t exist, and it is we who create it?

August 24, 1970, to J. Molinetti:

Now all is well, and my coronarita has disintegrated itself into the melody of La Cucaracha! This morning my doctor, who heard a rerun of Noces de Cendre last night on the radio, came to congratulate me, profoundly moved. And my masseur, who is blind, told me that the music had overwhelmed him... Until now, they probably thought me a composer of popular ditties!... Death will set things straight! From afar, a pitiful little thunderclap is reciting its hoarse solo, and the rain begins anew.
From time to time the chaplain (who knows me by name) tries to engage me in a conversation. I make no attempt to hide my vision of things, and he is incapable of contradicting me... All religious denominations should be stifled, for they are the source of every form of racism.
For the time being, I’m thinking of the Vieux-Port, of you, of the hills, etc...

1964, to his wife, Odette Camp:

The trails are magnificent, the forests thick, dark and humid. The water – dormant, stagnant, disquieting, emitting smells of rotting animal corpses - it all has an unhealthy forest atmosphere reminiscent of Pelléas which is the opposite of my true nature.
A rocky inlet, the sea, an olive tree, a twisted pine, a cypress, the Mediterranean and her light... this, for me, is the stuff that (Saint Francis’) “perfect bliss” is made of.

April 1963, to his son, Claude,

St. Michel de Frigolet, Easter:

I’m sending you (attached) my philosophical considerations, born of twenty days of utter solitude and silence, concerning a subject that touches me deeply and that has tormented me for quite some time. After several rough drafts, I believe that I have now expressed my angst with regard to our era, although I would like to have developed certain passages more completely. Maybe, one day, you’ll smilingly take up where I left off... but if I hadn’t left school at thirteen, I most certainly would have been able to deliver my ‘message’ through other means than music!
The weather is mediocre but mild. Sunday or Monday, at the latest, my ‘kid’ [La chèvre de M. Seguin] will stand on its own feet – but what a job! If it doesn’t smell of thyme and rosemary, then I’ll have botched it.

Much love to you both.

PS: If I wasn’t so fond of you, I’d stay right where I am and would never again set foot in that Parisian ‘shithole’!

Notes from my hermitage,

At the present moment, we are witnessing not only a complete change of civilization, but also a change of era.
We are at an immensely interesting crossroad in the history of the Earth. The life that has made us what we are – are we justified in wanting to go further with it?
In this intense universal muddle, where will we find the guiding light and the strength to follow it?
Either life continues with no set purpose, and therefore the world is absurd, self-destructive and easily condemned by the first intelligent observer (in which case rebellion is necessary, an obligation even), or Something, or Someone, exists... Born of awareness, the wind of rebellion blows through our spirits. Another wind – that which attracts nearly all of us – blows towards the splendid realization of some Unity we can only intuitively sense...

Henri Tomasi’s Musical Influences
Memories as told to his son Claude (1958):

If I think about it, it must be Puccini who gave me such a passion for lyrical theater.

I wasn’t yet twelve years old when I won the First Prize for Piano at the Conservatoire de Marseille, my home town. As a reward, my mother took me to the opera for the first time in my life. They were performing Puccini’s La Bohéme. I was dazzled; the ‘tribulations’ of poor Mimi moved me to tears. The final two acts made such an impression on me that, still today, I can’t resist their lyrical and dramatic spell. For me, Puccini represented the “God of Music” and I could only imagine the “artist’s life” as existing through his Bohème.

Much later, Carmen, Pelléas and Boris became my favorite works – all were somehow initiatory on the lyrical level. But Puccini has a special place in my heart, because he is linked with those first tears as a child. How to explain that these musical and poetical tones have been so deeply rooted in me for the past forty years and more? I couldn’t say! A surprising youthfulness flows through his compositions; in just a few notes, the synthesis and atmosphere of the drama have been created. The poetical and dramatic themes of each scene and character are admirably presented, and the melodic curve constantly gives rise to emotion. After so many years, my enthusiasm hasn’t waned; in my opinion Puccini is one of theater’s greatest men, along with Verdi.