Mme. CHAMINADE'S INSPIRATION.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10060, 30 January 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

Mme. CHAMINADE'S INSPIRATION.

Madame Chamina-de, who is making her first tour of America, recently told of her peculiar methods of composition, and !>av(! her impressions of this country through an interview in the- New Yorl; Sun. Her inspirations come in the woods and by the sea, and come of them have come through her dreams. As she fejls it:— i

"I dream my picture,'' said Corel, '"and then I paint my dream." That is exactly what I do. I put my dreams iiijo music as he puts his into paintings. And these dreams?

They ure dreams of the flowers and t.li woods; they are dreams o£ the spring and the summer, of-the song of'birds ami the. deep shadows of ■ Hid forest. ~They are compositions inspired by old, Slav legends, By some dramatic episode in tlio Nibelungen . Ring, by the love-song of, a. troubadour, by a thousand and one thread* of romance which- lead the imagination into tlio. coimtiy -of the Have lieen. In somo ol' them uvc embodied/ arcades of mimosa .trees,' trembling -in the light winds, in others glimpses of, the Mediterranean, blue and mysterious, rushing-. through into far-off silvery perspectives. In one (here is the song- of a nightingale singing in a. night heavy with perfume of many blossoms ami , lighted with thq. crescent moon, in another a- crusader if saying good:bye to his sweetheart befoA'o lie goes, to battle. One of my favorite compositions, "Serenade d'Automne," was not a. day-dream, but a real, dream, as lio .many of them are, I had been all day. .wandering about woods near my villa at Vcjjinet in'the late year. 1 was oppressed by the invincible sadness o£ the time. 1 liad recently taken leave of, Bonie very dear friends of mine, and tp the, other circumstances of fare welling was. added that of the -parting and the ;iineertain return. X thought of the many and inevitable partiiigs of life ; the pal'tt ings of distance, and,, the partings of, the soul, which are worse. I of- the returns never consummated,, or when,. they are of that chasm of .divergent interests that- make aliens of bur one-time, dearest. All tlie evening, I. was alone, niy thoughts. l l?hen I slept, and, lij, my sleep the.dream of came as it Keems frequently, and in the music was 'alL.Oic sadness that I have tried to intimate.,.f woke with a fleecing,, evanescent ' memory ■vvhi'ch I tried to put into musical shape, In vain. It would not come. I tried, and tried again and failed. The dream was like a rainbow, that escapes nearness. „£t was, a will-o'-the-wisp that bfckpns.arid flies beyond. For..weeks' I was pursued and baffled. Then one day,, just, as ..I despaired,' the dream returned., vifal arid vivid, aiid I. wrote the .serenade. , , r( , ,I'hat ..is -.the. way. I. vrork hy,.inspiration, f'everishiy' often, until','a comjxjsitipn. tlmf, has ..been in my mind perhaps, for we?,fa is made tangible. I I. do not believe in , routing—;for "there are often months,. yjljen'.'l dp.'.lnot wriite a note' and ~think iljat perhaps. I never will; again. i I bejie.ve tjie creative mind has ' always those... feat's, and then suddenly the spirit_,i(i iriy fe.et leads me to my desk and, f sit.'Jhei'.e do not leave, it for -hoUrs until . wife spiration is over—perhaps not, to return fpr,:ah6ther period of equal length'. .Ci'eSf tio'n is. like the fleweriiig of-a garden, "Atl fte. life of the,soil is absorbed .in , jte fruition, and : theremust ,he 'a fallow time,