Spiritist MusicParis, Group Desliens, December 9th, 1868 – medium Mr. Desliens
“Recently, at the headquarters of the Spiritist Society of Paris, the President did me the honor of asking my opinion on the current state of music and on the changes that the influence of Spiritist beliefs could bring to that. If I did not immediately respond to such benevolent and sympathetic appeal, believe me gentlemen, that my abstention was caused by a force majeure.
Ah the musicians are men like the others, more men perhaps, and as such, they are fallible and sinners. I was not exempt from weaknesses, and if God gave me a long life so that I had time to repent, the intoxication of success, the complacency of friends, the flattery of courtiers often subtracted me the means. A maestro is powerful in this world where pleasure plays such a big role. He whose art consists in seducing the ear, in softening the heart, sees many traps being laid under his feet, and he falls in them, the unfortunate one! He gets intoxicated in the intoxication of others; the applause plugs his ears, and he goes straight to the abyss without looking for a point of support to resist the enticement.
However, despite my mistakes, I had faith in God; I believed in the soul that vibrated in me, and once freed from its sound cage, it quickly recognized itself amid the harmonies of creation and confused its prayer with those that rise from nature to infinity, from the creature to the uncreated being! …
I am pleased with the feeling that drove me to be among the Spiritists, for it was through sympathy that it happened, and if it were curiosity that first attracted me, it is to my gratitude that you owe my appreciation for the question that you posed to me. I was there, ready to speak, believing I knew everything, when my pride, in falling, revealed my ignorance to me. I remained silent and listened; I went back, I enlightened myself, and when the words of truth uttered by your instructors, joined reflection and meditation, I said to myself: The great maestro Rossini, the creator of so many masterpieces, according to men, did no more than to shell out some of the less perfect pearls of the musical setting created by the master of the maestros. Rossini assembled notes, composed melodies, tasted the cup that contains all harmonies; he stole some sparks from the sacred fire; but that sacred fire, neither he nor the others created it! - We invent nothing; we copy from the great book of nature and the crowd applauds when we do not distort the score too much.
A dissertation on celestial music! … Who could do it? What superhuman Spirit could make matter vibrate in unison with such enchanting art? What human brain, what incarnate Spirit could grasp its infinitely varied nuances? … Who possesses the feeling of harmony at this level? … No, man is not cut for that! … Later! … Much later! …
In the meantime, I will come, perhaps soon, to satisfy your desire and give you my assessment of the current state of music, and tell you about the transformations, the progress that Spiritism can introduce there. - Today it is still too early. The subject is vast, I have already studied it, but it still overwhelms me; when I master it, if that is at all possible, or better when I have glimpsed at that as far as the state of my mind allow me to, I will satisfy you; but still a little while to go. If a musician alone can speak well of the music of the future, he must do so as a master, and Rossini does not want to speak as a schoolboy.
Rossini.”
