Death of a Patrician

Now then, what to do about Ernest Chausson?

On the face of it, there’s not much that needs to be done. Despite the red squiggle that my computer has put under his name—and its suggestions of Caisson and Chausses, neither of whom I know—every music lover will know him. The Poème for violin and orchestra gets trotted out regularly, and his Poème de l’amour et de la mer falls not in the “pass the Kleenex” category but in the “hand over the razor blades.” Besides beautiful, it’s heart-wrenchingly sad.

So his reputation is secure—as long as there are violinists and mezzo-sopranos, Chausson will be heard.

The fact everybody knows about him is that he died in a bicycle accident. What isn’t known, however, is whether he willingly crashed himself into a brick wall—quite a metaphorical death, hunh?—or whether it was an accident.

He had been depressed for some time. And composition, for him, was no easy affair. “Not at all prolific,” states Wikipedia, and notes that he left only 39 opus-numbered pieces.

But he had a number of blessings. Money—first of all. His father had made a bundle redeveloping Paris (those famous boulevards are Chausson Père, partly). Friends—among whom were pretty much everybody in the cultural world of France at the time, as well as Turgenev and Albéniz. A wife and five children. A reputation that was just flourishing at the time of his death.

There was everything to live for.

The curious fact about depression is that it’s everything and nothing. An amputation, an infection, open-heart surgery—all that’s visible, on some level. But there’s not much to see, in depression. Until you choose to ride hard into a brick wall.

I read once that depression is the worst disease in terms of quality of life. Having spent some time in that dark forest, I can believe it.

It may also be that having too much money, or too much affluence / influence can be a curse. It didn’t hurt Trollope to have to get to the Royal Post every morning at 8AM. For all that the routine of work grinds you, it also grounds you.

Or just keeps your mind occupied. For in the music of Chausson, there’s the feeling of a man with quivering sensitivity. As well, a man with perhaps too much time to feel, a man who has passed feeling and entered into brooding. One commentator writes that if Chausson is to music as Proust is to literature.

He had many talents. He wrote, and then destroyed, a novel. He drew and painted, and had many friends who were artists. (Not surprising, then, that Chausson left a major collection behind….)

But he was stymied by that weapon that every writer or composer fears the most….

…the blank page.