loved and trusted, should have so betrayed him, and appeals to Tristan himself. Then as Tristan dowly answers him the motif is heard, and, without its being so expressed (for Tristan does not excuse himself), conveys the impression that Tristan and Isolde are not to blame, but are the victims of the love-potion they had unwittingly shared.
Among more important contemporary composers, Professor Macfarren has made use of the device in his cantata 'The Lady of the Lake,' and to a certain extent in his oratorio 'Joseph.' The following characteristic examples from the cantata will illustrate his mode of employing the device. In a soliloquy in the earlier part of the work Fitz-James refers to Douglas, and sings the following figure:—
This recurs appropriately when Douglas refers to himself and his daughter as all that remained of his clan, under the type of the Bleeding Heart, which was their badge.
Roderick Dhu's motif is as follows:—
This is happily used in the accompaniment to the vocal phrase in which he appeals to Douglas to grant him Ellen for his wife, as follows:—
The prophecy of Brian the Seer is enunciated as follows:—
and this is reintroduced when the Chorus describes how Red Murdoch is slain by Fitz-James, and clearly implies that he is the first foeman whose life is taken, and that the victory in the strife between Roderick and Fitz-James will rest with the latter in fulfilment of the prophecy. It also recurs when Fitz-James warns Roderick that Murdoch is dead and that therefore the prophecy is against him.
Prior to contemporary composers, though subsequent to the idée fixe of Berlioz, a few hints of the spirit of leit-motive may be found in various quarters: for instance, in Meyerbeer's 'Prophète,' when the prophet in the early part of the work speaks of the dream of future splendour in store for him, the first strain of the processional march is heard. Again, the system of giving a particular instrumental tone to the accompaniment of particular characters which is clearly analogous, is notable in the string accompaniment of Christ's words in Bach's 'Passion,' and in the sounding of the trombones when the Commendatore appears in 'Don Giovanni,' and the adoption of a similar quality of tone or definite phrase as the accompaniment to special utterances of Elijah in Mendelssohn's oratorio, and to the appearance of Don Quixote in his opera of Camacho's Hochzeit (1825).
[App. p.699 "Among other instances of the use of what is practically a 'leading motive' apart from the advanced school of composers, should be mentioned 'La Clochette' of Hérold, in which the melody 'Me voilá' allotted to Lucifer, appears at every entrance of the character. See Rev. et Gazette Mus., for 1880, p. 227."]
LE JEUNE, Claude, or Claudin, born at Valenciennes probably about 1530, for we first find his name as a composer in 1554. The only part of his life of which we have any record was spent in Paris. Thus in 1581 he attended the marriage of Henry III's favourite the Due de Joyeuse, and noted the magical effect of his own music.[1] About this time also, Leroy printed 5 vols.[2] of chansons (à 4), 39 of them by Le Jeune, and the publisher, himself a first -rate musician, seems to have valued them highly, placing the author by the side of Lassus, and filling the last 2 vols. with their works alone. Still the Huguenot composer met with slender encouragement for many years, and there is a pathetic story of his attempted flight at the siege of Paris in 1588, when bowed down by the weight of his unpublished MSS., he was caught by the Catholic soldiers, and would have seen his treasures committed to the flames, but for the timely aid of Mauduit, a Catholic musician, who saved the books and aided the escape of his brother artist.
Better times came late in life. In Henry IV's reign, Leroy printed 'Recueil de plusieurs chansons et airs nouveaux,' par Cl. le J. (Paris 1594), and in 1598 Haultin, at La Rochelle, the 'Dodecacorde,' 12 psalms written according to Glarean's 12 Church modes. On the title-page of the latter we see for the first time 'compositeur de la musique de la chambre du roy,' so perhaps the permission to print such a work, and the possibility of holding the appointment, was a result of the Edict of Nantes in the same year. In any case the appointment was quite a recent one, and Le Jeune did not long enjoy it, for the next publication, 'Le Printemps' (dedicated to our king James I[3]), was posthumous, and on the 4th page an ode appears 'Sur la musique du defunct Sieur Cl. le J.,' the second stanza of which begins thus,
'Le Jeune a faict en sa viellesse,
Ce qu'un bien gaye jeunesse,
N'auseroit avoir enterpris.'
The 6th page contains a general essay on music, claiming for Le Jeune the honour of uniting ancient rhythm to modern harmony. 'Le Printemps' contains 33 chansons with 'vers mesurez,'
- ↑ The story goes that an officer was so excited by an air of the composer's that he cried out, with oaths, that he must attack some one, and was only pacified when the character of the strain was altered. Whatever truth there may be in the story, the effect was more probably produced by some martial rhythm in the music than by any superior intelligence which Claude possessed in the use of the modes, to which it is attributed by the narrator.
- ↑ The last 8 of 25 vols. of chansons published between the years 1569 and 1587.
- ↑ See Hawkins's History (Chap. 110). The copy we have seen had the first page torn out, on which this dedication probably appeared, and the words 'roy' and 'majesté' erased on the second.
