From the time when Berlioz composed Le Corsaire right up to Debuss’s sea sketches, and including Chausson’s Poème de l’Amour et de la Mer, there has been no shortage of French composers ready to hymn the praises of the ocean. Because of their fascination with the sea, in common with nineteenth-century bards and painters, it is interesting to note that France’s marine bards sometimes have direct family connections with the Navy: Rear-Admiral Jean Cras, for example, represents an illustrious line of French naval officers who sailed the high seas, joining ranks with the likes of Antoine Mariotte, Albert Roussel and, to a lesser extent, Jacques Ibert, between two ‘escales’, or ports of call – an allusion to the composer’s Escales, written in 1922.
Avoiding a regional or simplistic approach, one should add to this naval fraternity the Breton poets who revisited the legends of Roy d’Ys and Roy Arthur, shortly before composers such as Paul Le Flem and Guy Ropartz did the same. Ropartz’s Le Pays and Pêcheurs d’Islande link us also with another milieu : the disciples, direct and indirect, of César Franck.
Not only was Jean Cras a spiritual son of Duparc but he perfected his craft based on a Franckist model, although refusing to be imprisoned within a rigid system. In addition to being the father-in-law of Alexandre Tansman, he had considerable affinity with Ravel. He was perfectly aware of the conflict and arguments the Orchestre Lamoureux, poetic imagination became the natural way of thinking for composers for more than fifty years. It was a time when artistic notions were becoming rather confused, when everyone seemed to be subject to the unremitting influence of ‘isms’, from crashing Wagnerian waves in general and the sea spray of Tristan in particular, to various degrees of symbolism and impressionism. While composers were waiting for neoclassicism to step in and calm things down after Stravinsky’s authoritative firework displays, there was certainly every reason to become deaf to one’s own music and risk the quicksands of external influences. By remaining true to his early intuition and his childhood Catholic faith, Cras managed to distil a personal form of symbolism from among the different musical currents of the period, producing music of considerable character whose qualities have continued to mature with the passage of time. For a man who constantly tried to avoid musical categories that were too restrictive, the call of the open sea was to play its part. Cras refused to be limited by geographical restrictions, not even staying within the confines of his beloved Brittany, a veritable sacred land and haven for his most intimate voyages. So the sailor was free to experience the rare fragances and essences of distant continents which often supplied him with melodic inspiration.
Despite this, he was not tempted to use the kind of superficial descriptive methods or picturesque tourist-camera images which are all too often exploited by a certain number of lesser French masters. The music of Jean Cras, in particular the fine chamber music, grandiose at times and at others remarkably intimate in character, derives its structure from the ingenious arrangement of symbols directly inspired by the Christian faith. These unify his compositions and at the same time they suggest he had a real vocation as a composer. The last point needs to be explained further. One cannot get to the inner core of a musician if one remains satisfied with sticking onto him a vague definintion of his art as neoclassical, while also acknowledging the existence of some of the traits of an ‘exotic’ artist, all neatly kept in order by an impeccable professional naval officer. In fact all the voyages undertaken by this hero of World War I, sailing what were often hostile seas, initiated himexisting in the battle between modern musical trends, but wisely chose not get involved with it. He devised his own musical itinerary and adhered to it, tempted neither by capricious fashionable tendencies nor ever losing track of his originality. One can only admire the discreet, tenacious existence of a man whose short life (1879-1932) was closely associated with the amazing period in French art when, according to Valéry’s speech in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Orchestre Lamoureux, poetic imagination became the natural way of thinking for composers
for more than fifty years. It was a time when artistic notions were becoming rather confused, when everyone seemed to be subject to the unremitting influence of ‘isms’, from crashing Wagnerian waves in general and the sea spray of Tristan in particular, to various degrees of symbolism and impressionism. While composers were waiting for neoclassicism to step in and calm things down after Stravinsky’s authoritative firework displays, there was certainly every reason to become deaf to one’s own music and risk the quicksands of external influences. By remaining true to his early intuition and his childhood Catholic faith, Cras managed to distil a personal form of symbolism from among the different musical currents of the period, producing music of considerable character whose qualities have continued to mature with the passage of time.
For a man who constantly tried to avoid musical categories that were too restrictive, the call of the open sea was to play its part. Cras refused to be limited by geographical restrictions, not even staying within the confines of his beloved Brittany, a veritable sacred land and haven for his most intimate voyages. So the sailor was free to experience the rare fragances and essences of distant continents which often supplied him with melodic inspiration. Despite this, he was not tempted to use the kind of superficial descriptive methods or picturesque tourist-camera images which are all too often exploited by a certain number of lesser French masters. The music of Jean Cras, in particular the fine chamber music, grandiose at times and at others remarkably intimate in character, derives its structure from the ingenious arrangement of symbols directly inspired by the Christian faith. These unify his compositions and at the same time they suggest he had a real vocation as a composer.
The last point needs to be explained further. One cannot get to the inner core of a musician if one remains satisfied with sticking onto him a vague definintion of his art as neoclassical, while also acknowledging the existence of some of the traits of an ‘exotic’ artist, all neatly kept in order by an impeccable professional naval officer. In fact all the voyages undertaken by this hero of World War I, sailing what were often hostile seas, initiated him into new adventures. Every single recall had to be filtered by an absolute ideal, just as in the works of Loti, and possibly Conrad. Even more than these, his cousin Victor Segalen’s life and work join forces into a single ‘invitation au voyage’. The youthful works of Jean Cras often draw an indulgent smile. They date from the composition of his Violin Sonata L’Esprit (‘The Spirit’), his Viola Sonata L’Ame (‘The Soul’) and the Cello Sonata La Chair (‘The Flesh’), going hand in hand with his veneration for the threefold nature of human character. But once the lofty nature of his musical idiom becomes clear, indulgence is no longer appropriate ; his style gradually distances itself from César Franck’s grandiloquent and moribund churchiness. It turns instead to respond to the call of the open sea and its ‘buried treasures’, as Maurice Emmanuel so aptly put it. Yet Cras, being aware of the deceptive lure of triumphant impressionism, did not follow that route without being spiritually equipped for the journey. His refined harmonies and masterful colour blending recall Ravel’s, as does his fondness for musical borrowing, whether from Breton folklore or from songs and dances from the farthest parts of the earth. His mind was open to remote cultures all the more authentically recalled for having been experienced in their original setting, offering the excitement of fresh discovery. In Cras’s music these borrowings are never purely decorative ; they are used above all to celebrate the colllective memory of men from every corner of the earth, and hold it sacred.
After the Armistice, the navigator returned to port. Following so much tribulation, his life was relatively calm, enabling him to devote more time to composition and to his family. One of the more moving aspects of his work is to see Cras expressing, through his love for those who now surrounded him every day, the same quest for the absolute which had characterised those difficult years when he had to confront the great oceans all alone.
During the 1920s, the family moved to Paris, not far from the Military Academy. Then Jean accepted his last posting towards the end of the decade as a rear admiral, and commander-in-chief of the French Navy in Brest. It was the period when, after the success of his opera Polyphème in 1922, the composer wished to return to composing chamber music.
Ever since the years he spent working with Duparc, he never ceased to study Beethoven Quartets freely admitting a preference for such highly personal music. In an interview in 1929 with Lucien Chevalier for a concert guide, he declared, ‘For me, music is above all a matter of innermost feelings. Sound is the superficial, sensitive aspect, enabling us to fathom our innermost selves…’ Cras appeared to mistrust the appeal of instrumental timbre, considering it too much of an external emotion. He expressed his ideas in the form of a paradox :
‘For thirty years I have been contemplating vast horizons, expanses at one and the same time uniform and infinitely varied, limitless skies, absorbing unexplored atmospheres and living moments of great calm or immense tumult […] Nonetheless, I have acquired a love of pure simplicity.’
After this highly-orchestrated declaration, he concluded : ‘I have always preferred chamber music and always will.’
Indeed, from the beginning to the end of his life, his most intimate pieces confirm this predilection. They include the three sonatas for violin, viola and cello with piano written in 1900, and the subsequent string trio and quartet. Music composed later on includes the Piano Quintet (1922) and two major works : the String Trio (1926), considered by many to be his masterpiece, and the Harp Quintet (1928).
The only one of his three youthful works to have been published is the cello sonata. The others remained hidden away in the family archives until Marie-Christine Millière was presented with the manuscript of the violin sonata. The gift was an eloquent tribute to the relationship between the violinist and the Cras family, a friendship dating from the time when Marie-Christine’s father, a young officer in Brest and a good amateur cellist, regularly took part in musical evenings at his admiral’s home. It is quite a moving thought that Cras could never for a moment have suspected that his chamber music partner would one day have a daughter who would play and become an ardent champion of his music.
In this triptych of sonatas, the violin symbolises the Spirit, the viola the Soul and the cello the Flesh, but it is still possible to enjoy the charm of these works while remaining ignorant of the programmatic content. The violin sonata, close in spirit to its Franckist models, charms the listener by its youthful gracefulness while allowing the listener to read between the lines and catch a glimpse of the composer’s authentic style.
The rather high-flown nature of the commentaries accompanying the sonata could hardly be bettered on to enlighten us as to what it inspired. For that reason, they certainly deserve to be quoted here, making the character of the three movements clear :
1. I wanted to pay homage to the profound nature of thoughts which develop freely, discovering at the heart of human affairs a God fashioning man’s soul in his own image.
2. A celebration of the charm of dreams, with nature gentle rocking the drowsy spirit.
3. Alas ! The mind often goes astray and forgets that it is not God ! It is that very mind which has established itself on the giddy heights of its towering ideas, nevertheless intended for the Creator, and is lost in self-adoration ! But I must deplore his pride !
A string trio – a genre more or less neglected since Beethoven but revisited in France by Schmitt, Milhaud, Ropartz and Roussel – involves constraints equal or superior to composing a string quartet. It is unthinkable for a composer who claims to exploit the latent potential of trio writing to succeed without having a detailed acquaintance with stringed instruments. And this is where Cras’s expertise is evident. His thorough understanding of the violin enabled him to master the instrument’s richly varied and colourful potential, although the work is characterised by a pleasing blend of complex and varied elements. Shaping a kaleidoscope of travel images and Breton traditions into cyclic form commands respect by virtue of the seeming spontaneity ; its subject never disappears, and by adopting the narrative style of a story – the story of the life of a sailor-composer. The first movement is compact ; its construction, development, skilfully intertwined themes and thematic fragments prove that the composer had assimilated his Beethovenian model. The second movement, cast in the shadow of Beethoven’s opus 132, is clear recognition of this heritage, even if the music moves towards a world that is French because of the subtlety of the timbres involved, and with an exoticism evoked by melancholy oriental chant suddenly emerging from thematic material characteristic of popular song. The two fast movements are generously imbued with reminiscences of Brittany. Here is the atmosphere of a village fête, but one interrupted by hints of Pardons de la Mer (religious festivals in honour of those who have disappeared while at sea) whose melancholy traditional tunes sung on those occasions give it a solemn and sacred dimension.
The Quintette for harp, flute and strings, together with Roussel’s Sérénade, is a favourite with harpists. This is an appropriate time to remember Pierre Jamet, the harpist who commissioned and performed many of the masterpieces of this period. Continuous motivic development throughout all four movements produces a closely-linked texture in which each instrument plays an indispensable part. The entire work is pervaded by hints of dance rhythms, giving it a compelling interest far removed from the pictorial and literary supports which Cras had frequently used in the past. From that point of view the Quintette is evidence of his complete technical mastery. The composer seems to follow Roussel who, in rejecting external elements, confided his predilection for writing music that ‘resisted any attempt at pin-pointing its precise position at any time.’ So that is why we think of the call of the wide open sea, in the way the monument to Jean Cras invites us as it overlooks the harbour he once commanded, opposite the memorial to Victor Segalen on the other side of the Cours d’Anjot.