Something about that “French” Influence

Something that has haunted me throughout my entire life is a criticism of the French influence on my work. My residence in France and what I gained from it is like some national sin that weighs against me, and each new composition is scrutinized for how much I have or have not been eliminating this influence. For me, criticism of this kind is evidence of complete incomprehension and a lack of willingness even to want to understand.

There is a kind of hypocrisy in our relationship to French culture that we have yet to overcome. We admire and celebrate it, but we do not believe in it and consider it “superficial.” By superficial, we mean not serious enough, not deep enough, or artificial. This comes as a result of our training which, in a calculated way, pounded this into us for the longest time through German metaphysics and a mysterious ideology into which all of man's problems and mysteries were placed. This evolved to such an extent that we consider something “superficial,” but we still talk about it as if it were great art. We do not miss an opportunity to pass judgment when we find a fault, deficiency, or something manqué. It is a careless form of reasoning that is all the more inadmissible now since we see not only the great deficiencies of German metaphysics but also how terribly we suffered from it and how its many mysteries and problems exist only on paper.

So it is time now to decide. If we really consider French culture superficial, at least in music, we should formulate our opinions accordingly and firmly establish our grounds, but we should then not say that “it is but is not superficial.” It is our duty to revise our rationale, even if different inclinations do not suit us. I am not saying by this that we should make a choice between these two positions. My point is that, if I consider something superficial, I do not make it one of my problems.

What compelled me to get to know French culture were issues of much greater significance.