Chapter II (7)

But it is especially by the manner in which they conceive the respective relationships of poetry and music to opera that the two composers differ. With Wagner, music is the kernel of the opera, the glowing focus, the centre of attraction; it absorbs everything, and it stands absolutely first. But that is not the French conception. The musical stage, as we conceive it in France (if not what we actually possess), should present such a combination of the arts as go to make an harmonious whole. We demand that an equal balance shall be kept between poetry and music; and if their equilibrium must be a little upset, we should prefer that poetry was not the loser, as its utterance is more conscious and rational. That was Gluck's aim; and because he realised it so well he gained a reputation among the French public which nothing will destroy. Debussy's strength lies in the methods by which he has approached this ideal of musical temperateness and disinterestedness, and in the way he has placed his genius as a composer at the service of the drama. He has never sought to dominate Maeterlinck's poem, or to swallow it up in a torrent of music; he has made it so much a part of himself that at the present time no Frenchman is able to think of a passage in the play without Debussy's music singing at the same time within him.

But apart from all these reasons that make the work important in the history of opera, there are purely musical reasons for its success, which are of deeper significance still.[200] _Pelléas et Mélisande_ has brought about a reform in the dramatic music of France. This reform is concerned with several things, and, first of all, with recitative.

[Footnote 200: That is for musicians. But I am convinced that with the mass of the public the other reasons have more weight--as is always the case.]

In France we have never had--apart from a few attempts in _opéra-comique_--a recitative that exactly expressed our natural speech. Lully and Rameau took for their model the high-flown declamation of the tragedy stage of their time. And French opera for the past twenty years has chosen a more dangerous model still--the declamation of Wagner, with its vocal leaps and its resounding and heavy accentuation. Nothing could be more displeasing in French. All people of taste suffered from it, though they did not admit it. At this time, Antoine, Gémier, and Guitry were making theatrical declamation more natural, and this made the exaggerated declamation of the French opera appear more ridiculous and more archaic still. And so a reform in recitative was inevitable. Jean-Jacques Rousseau had foreseen it in the very direction in which Debussy[201] has accomplished it. He showed in his _Lettre sur la musique française_ that there was no connection between the inflections of French speech, "whose accents are so harmonious and simple," and "the shrill and noisy intonations" of the recitative of French opera. And he concluded by saying that the kind of recitative that would best suit us should "wander between little intervals, and neither raise nor lower the voice very much; and should have little sustained sound, no noise, and no cries of any description--nothing, indeed, that resembled singing, and little inequality in the duration or value of the notes, or in their intervals." This is the very definition of Debussy's recitative.

[Footnote 201: We must also note that during the first half of the seventeenth century people of taste objected to the very theatrical declamation of French opera. "Our singers believe," wrote Mersenne, in 1636, "that the exclamations and emphasis used by the Italians in singing savour too much of tragedies and comedies, and so they do not wish to employ them."]

The symphonic fabric of _Pelléas et Mélisande_ differs just as widely from Wagner's dramas. With Wagner it is a living thing that springs from one great root, a system of interlaced phrases whose powerful growth puts out branches in every direction, like an oak. Or, to take another simile, it is like a painting, which though it has not been executed at a single sitting, yet gives us that impression; and, in spite of the retouching and altering to which it has been subjected, still has the effect of a compact whole, of an indestructible amalgam, from which nothing can be detached. Debussy's system, on the contrary, is, so to speak, a sort of classic impressionism--an impressionism that is refined, harmonious, and calm; that moves along in musical pictures, each of which corresponds to a subtle and fleeting moment of the soul's life; and the painting is done by clever little strokes put in with a soft and delicate touch. This art is more allied to that of Moussorgski (though without any of his roughness) than that of Wagner, in spite of one or two reminiscences of _Parsifal_, which are only extraneous traits in the work. In _Pelléas et Mélisande_ one finds no persistent _leitmotifs_ running through the work, or themes which pretend to translate into music the life of characters and types; but, instead, we have phrases that express changing feelings, that change with the feelings. More than that, Debussy's harmony is not, as it was with Wagner and all the German school, a fettered harmony, tightly bound to the despotic laws of counterpoint; it is, as Laloy[202] has said, a harmony that is first of all harmonious, and has its origin and end in itself.

[Footnote 202: No other critic has, I think, discerned so shrewdly Debussy's art and genius. Some of his analyses are models of clever intuition. The thought of the critic seems to be one with that of the musician.]

As Debussy's art only attempts to give the impression of the moment, without troubling itself with what may come after, it is free from care, and takes its fill in the enjoyment of the moment. In the garden of harmonies it selects the most beautiful flowers; for sincerity of expression takes a second place with it, and its first idea is to please. In this again it interprets the aesthetic sensualism of the French race, which seeks pleasure in art, and does not willingly admit ugliness, even when it seems to be justified by the needs of the drama and of truth. Mozart shared the same thought: "Music," he said, "even in the most terrible situations, ought never to offend the ear; it should charm it even there; and, in short, always remain music."

As for Debussy's harmonic language, his originality does not consist, as some of his foolish admirers have said, in the invention of new chords, but in the new use he makes of them. A man is not a great artist because he makes use of unresolved sevenths and ninths, consecutive major thirds and ninths, and harmonic progressions based on a scale of whole tones; one is only an artist when one makes them say something. And it is not on account of the peculiarities of Debussy's style--of which one may find isolated examples in great composers before him, in Chopin, Liszt, Chabrier, and Richard Strauss--but because with Debussy these peculiarities are an expression of his personality, and because _Pelléas et Mélisande_, "the land of ninths," has a poetic atmosphere which is like no other musical drama ever written.

Lastly, the orchestration is purposely restrained, light, and divided, for Debussy has a fine disdain for those orgies of sound to which Wagner's art has accustomed us; it is as sober and polished as a fine classic phrase of the latter part of the seventeenth century. _Ne quid nimis_ ("Nothing superfluous") is the artist's motto. Instead of amalgamating the _timbres_ to get a massive effect, he disengages their separate personalities, as it were, and delicately blends them without changing their individual nature. Like the impressionist painters of to-day, he paints with primary colours, but with a delicate moderation that rejects anything harsh as if it were something unseemly.

* * * * *

I have given more than enough reasons to account for the success of _Pelléas et Mélisande_ and the place that its admirers give it in the history of opera. There is every reason to believe that the composer has not been as acutely conscious of his musico-dramatic reform as his disciples have been. The reform with him has a more instinctive character; and that is what gives it its strength. It responds to an unconscious yet profound need of the French spirit. I would even venture to say that the historical importance of Debussy's work is greater than its artistic value. His personality is not without faults, and the gravest are perhaps negative faults--the absence of certain qualities, and even of the strong and extravagant faults which made the heroes of the art world, like Beethoven and Wagner. His voluptuous nature is at once changeable and precise; and his dreams are as clear and delicate as the art of a poet of the Pleiades in the sixteenth century, or of a Japanese painter. But among all his gifts he has a quality which I have not found so evident in any other musician--except perhaps Mozart; and this quality is a genius for good taste. Debussy has it in excess, so that he almost sacrifices the other elements of art to it, until the passionate force of his music, even its very life, seems to be impoverished. But one must not deceive oneself; that impoverishment is only apparent, and in all his work there are evidences that his passion is only veiled. It is only the trembling of the melodic line, or the orchestration which, like a shadow passing before the eyes, tells us of the drama that is being played in the hearts of his characters. This lofty shame of emotion is something as rare in opera as a Racine tragedy is in poetry--they are works of the same order, and both of them perfect flowers of the French spirit. Anyone who lives in foreign parts and is curious to know what France is like and understand her genius should study _Pelléas et Mélisande_ as they would study Racine's _Bérénice_.

Not that Debussy's art entirely represents French genius any more than Racine's does; for there is quite another side to it which is not represented there; and that side is heroic action, the intoxication of reason and laughter, the passion for light, the France of Rabelais, Molière, Diderot, and in music, we will say--for want of better names--the France of Berlioz and Bizet. To tell the truth, that is the France I prefer. But Heaven preserve me from ignoring the other! It is the balance between these two Frances that makes French genius. In our contemporary music, _Pelléas et Mélisande_ is at one end of the pole of our art and _Carmen_ is at the other. The one is all on the surface, all life, with no shadows, and no underneath. The other is below the surface, bathed in twilight, and enveloped in silence. And this double ideal is the alternation between the gentle sunlight and the faint mist that veils the soft, luminous sky of the Isle of France.

THE AWAKENING

A SKETCH OF THE MUSICAL MOVEMENT IN PARIS SINCE 1870

It is not possible in a few pages to give an account of forty years of active and fruitful life without many omissions, and also without a certain dryness entailed by lists of names. But I have purposely abstained from trying to arouse interest by any artifices of writing and treatment, as I wish to let deeds speak for themselves.

I want to show, by this simple account, the splendid efforts made by musicians in France since 1870, and the growth of the faith and energy that has recreated French music. Such an awakening seems to me a fine thing to look upon, and very comforting. But few people in France realise it, outside a handful of musicians. It is to the public at large I dedicate these pages, so that they may know what a generation of artists with large hearts and strong determination have done for the honour of our race. The nation must not be allowed to forget what she owes to some of her sons.

But you must not accuse me of contradicting myself if in another work, which will appear at the same time as this one,[203] I indulge in some sarcasm over the failings and absurdities of French music to-day. I think that for the last ten years French musicians have rather imprudently and prematurely proclaimed their victory, and that, in a general way, their works--apart from three or four--are not worth as much as their endeavours. But their endeavours are heroic; and I know nothing finer in the whole history of France. May they continue! But that is only possible by practising a virtue--modesty. The completion of a part is not the completion of the whole.

[Footnote 203: _Jean-Christophe à Paris_, 1904.]

PARIS AND MUSIC

The nature of Paris is so complex and unstable that one feels it is presumptuous to try to define it. It is a city so highly-strung, so ingrained with fickleness, and so changeable in its tastes, that a book that truly describes it at the moment it is written is no longer accurate by the time it is published. And then, there is not only one Paris; there are two or three Parises--fashionable Paris, middle-class Paris, intellectual Paris, vulgar Paris--all living side by side, but intermingling very little. If you do not know the little towns within the great Town, you cannot know the strong and often inconsistent life of this great organism as a whole.

If one wishes to get an idea of the musical life of Paris, one must take into account the variety of its centres and the perpetual flow of its thought--a thought which never stops, but is always over-shooting the goal for which it seemed bound. This incessant change of opinion is scornfully called "fashion" by the foreigner. And there is, without doubt, in the artistic aristocracy of Paris, as in all great towns, a herd of idle people on the watch for new fashions--in art, as well as in dress--who wish to single out certain of them for no serious reason at all. But, in spite of their pretensions, they have only an infinitesimal share in the changes of artistic taste. The origin of these changes is in the Parisian brain itself--a brain that is quick and feverish, always working, greedy of knowledge, easily tired, grasping to-day the splendours of a work, seeing to-morrow its defects, building up reputations as rapidly as it pulls them down, and yet, in spite of all its apparent caprices, always logical and sincere. It has its momentary infatuations and dislikes, but no lasting prejudices; and, by its curiosity, its absolute liberty, and its very French habit of criticising everything, it is a marvellous barometer, sensitive to all the hidden currents of thought in the soul of the West, and often indicating, months in advance, the variations and disturbances of the artistic and political world.

And this barometer is registering what is happening just now in the world of music, where a movement has been making itself felt in France for several years, whose effect other nations--perhaps more musical nations--will not feel till later. For the nations that have the strongest artistic traditions are not necessarily those that are likely to develop a new art. To do that one must have a virgin soil and spirits untrammelled by a heritage from the past. In 1870 no one had a lighter heritage to bear than French musicians; for the past had been forgotten, and such a thing as real musical education did not exist.

The musical weakness of that time was a very curious thing, and has given many people the impression that France has never been a musical nation. Historically speaking, nothing could be more wrong. Certainly there are races more gifted in music than others; but often the seeming differences of race are really the differences of time; and a nation appears great or little in its art according to what period of its history we consider. England was a musical nation until the Revolution of 1688; France was the greatest musical nation in the sixteenth century; and the recent publications of M. Henry Expert have given us a glimpse of the originality and perfection of the Franco-Belgian art during the Renaissance. But without going back as far as that, we find that Paris was a very musical town at the time of the Restoration, at the time of the first performance of Beethoven's symphonies at the Conservatoire, and the first great works of Berlioz, and the Italian Opera. In Berlioz's _Mémoires_ you can read about the enthusiasm, the tears, and the feeling, that the performances of Gluck's and Spontini's operas aroused; and in the same book one sees clearly that this musical warmth lasted until 1840, after which it died down little by little, and was succeeded by complete musical apathy in the second Empire--an apathy from which Berlioz suffered cruelly, so that one may even say he died crushed by the indifference of the public. At this time Meyerbeer was reigning at the Opera. This incredible weakening of musical feeling in France, from 1840 to 1870, is nowhere better shown than in its romantic and realistic writers, for whom music was an hermetically sealed door. All these artists were "_visuels_," for whom music was only a noise. Hugo is supposed to have said that Germany's inferiority was measured by its superiority in music.[204] "The elder Dumas detested," Berlioz says, "even bad music."[205] The journal of the Goncourts calmly reflects the almost universal scorn of literary men for music. In a conversation which took place in 1862 between Goncourt and Théophile Gautier, Goncourt said:

"We confessed to him our complete infirmity, our musical deafness--we who, at the most, only liked military music."

[Footnote 204: One must at least do Hugo the justice of saying that he always spoke of Beethoven with admiration, although he did not know him. But he rather exalts him in order to take away from the importance of a poet--the only one in the nineteenth century--whose fame was shading his own; and when he wrote in his _William Shakespeare_ that "the great man of Germany is Beethoven" it was understood by all to mean "the great man of Germany is not Goethe."]

[Footnote 205: Written in a letter to his sister, Nanci, on 3 April, 1850.]

"Well," said Gautier, "what you tell me pleases me very much. I am
like you; I prefer silence to music. I have only just succeeded,
after having lived part of my life with a singer, in being able to
tell good music from bad; but it is all the same to me."[206]

And he added:

"But it is a very curious thing that all other writers of our time
are like this. Balzac hated music. Hugo could not stand it. Even
Lamartine, who himself is like a piano to be hired or sold, holds
it in horror!"

It needed a complete upheaval of the nation--a political and moral upheaval--to change that frame of mind. Some indication of the change was making itself felt in the last years of the second Empire. Wagner, who suffered from the hostility or indifference of the public in 1860, at the time when _Tannhäuser_ was performed at the Opera, had already found, however, a few understanding people in Paris who discerned his genius and sincerely admired him. The most interesting of the writers who first began to understand musical emotion is Charles Baudelaire. In 1861, Pasdeloup gave the first _Concerts populaires de musique classique_ at the Cirque d'Hiver. The Berlioz Festival, organised by M. Reyer, on March 23rd, 1870, a year after Berlioz's death, revealed to France the grandeur of its greatest musical genius, and was the beginning of a campaign of public reparation to his memory.

[Footnote 206: We remark, nevertheless, that that did not prevent Gautier from being a musical critic.]

The disasters of the war in 1870 regenerated the nation's artistic spirit. Music felt its effect immediately.[207] On February 24th, 1871, the _Société nationale de Musique_ was instituted to propagate the works of French composers; and in 1873 the _Concerts de l'Association artistique_ were started under M. Colonne's direction; and these concerts, besides making people acquainted with the classic composers of symphonies and the masters of the young French school, were especially devoted to the honouring of Berlioz, whose triumph reached its summit about 1880.[208]

[Footnote 207: I wish to make known from the beginning that I am only noticing here the greater musical doings of the nation, and making no mention of works which have not had an important influence on this movement.]

[Footnote 208: In the meanwhile France saw the brilliant rise and extinction of a great artist--the most spontaneous of all her musicians--Georges Bizet, who died in 1875, aged thirty-seven. "Bizet was the last genius to discover a new beauty," said Nietzsche; "Bizet discovered new lands--the Southern lands of music," _Carmen_ (1875) and _L'Arlésienne_ (1872) are masterpieces of the lyrical Latin drama. Their style is luminous, concise, and well-defined; the figures are outlined with incisive precision. The music is full of light and movement, and is a great contrast to Wagner's philosophical symphonies, and its popular subject only serves to strengthen its aristocratic distinction. By its nature and its clear perception of the spirit of the race it was well in advance of its time. What a place Bizet might have taken in our art if he had only lived twenty years longer!]

At this time Wagner's success, in its turn, began to make itself felt. For this M. Lamoureux, whose concerts began in 1882, was chiefly responsible. Wagner's influence considerably helped forward the progress of French art, and aroused a love for music in people other than musicians; and, by his all-embracing personality and the vast domain of his work in art, not only engaged the interest of the musical world, but that of the theatrical world, and the world of poetry and the plastic arts. One may say that from 1885 Wagner's work acted directly or indirectly on the whole of artistic thought, even on the religious and intellectual thought of the most distinguished people in Paris. And a curious historical witness of its world-wide influence and momentary supremacy over all other arts was the founding of the _Revue Wagnérienne_, where, united by the same artistic devotion, were found writers and poets such as Verlaine, Mallarmé, Swinburne, Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Huysmans, Richepin, Catulle Mendès, Édouard Rod, Stuart Merrill, Ephraim Mikhaël, etc., and painters like Fantin-Latour, Jacques Blanche, Odilon Redon; and critics like Teodor de Wyzewa, H.S. Chamberlain, Hennequin, Camille Benoît, A. Ernst, de Fourcaud, Wilder, E. Schuré, Soubies, Malherbe, Gabriel Mourey, etc. These writers not only discussed musical subjects, but judged painting, literature, and philosophy, from a Wagnerian point of view. Hennequin compared the philosophic systems of Herbert Spencer and Wagner. Teodor de Wyzewa made a study of Wagnerian literature--not the literature that commentated and the paintings that illustrated Wagner's works, but the literature and the painting that were inspired by Wagner's principles--from Egyptian statuary to Degas's paintings, from Homer's writings to those of Villiers de l'Isle Adam! In a word, the whole universe was seen and judged by the thought of Bayreuth. And though this folly scarcely lasted more than three or four years--the length of the life of that little magazine--Wagner's genius dominated nearly the whole of French art for ten or twelve years.[209] An ardent musical propaganda by means of concerts was carried on among the public; and the young intellectuals of the day were won over. But the finest service that Wagnerism rendered to French art was that it interested the general public in music; although the tyranny its influence exercised became, in time, very stifling.

[Footnote 209: Its influence is shown, in varying degrees, in works such as M. Reyer's _Sigurd_ (1884), Chabrier's _Gwendoline_ (1886), and M. Vincent d'Indy's _Le Chant de la Cloche_ (1886).]

Then, in 1890, there were signs of a movement that was in revolt against its despotism. The great wind from the East began to drop, and veered to the North. Scandinavian and Russian influences were making themselves felt. An exaggerated infatuation for Grieg, though limited to a small number of people, was an indication of the change in public taste. In 1890, César Franck died in Paris. Belgian by birth and temperament, and French in feeling and by musical education, he had remained outside the Wagnerian movement in his own serene and fecund solitude. To his intellectual greatness and the charm his personal genius held for the little band of friends who knew and revered him he added the authority of his knowledge. Unconsciously he brought back to us the soul of Sebastian Bach, with its infinite richness and depth; and through this he found himself the head of a school (without having wished it) and the greatest teacher of contemporary French music. After his death, his name was the means of rallying together the younger school of musicians. In 1892, the _Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais_, under the direction of M. Charles Bordes, reinstated to honour and popularised Gregorian and Palestrinian music; and, following the initiative of their director, the _Schola Cantorum_ was founded in 1894 for the revival of religious music. Ambition grew with success; and from the _Schola_ sprang the _École Supérieure de Musique_, under the direction of Franck's most famous pupil, M. Vincent d'Indy. This school, founded on a solid knowledge, not only of the classics, but of the primitives in music, took from its very beginning in 1900 a frankly national character, and was in some ways opposed to German art. At the same time, performances of Bach and seventeenth-and eighteenth-century music became more and more frequent; and more intimate relationship with the artists of other countries, repeated visits of the great _Kapellmeister_, foreign virtuosi and composers (especially Richard Strauss), and, lastly, of Russian composers, completed the education of the Parisian musical public, who, after repeated rebukes from the critics, became conscious of the awakening of a national personality, and of an impatient desire to free itself from German tutelage. By turns it gratefully and warmly received M. Bruneau's _Le Rêve_ (1891), M. d'Indy's _Fervaal_ (1898), M. Gustave Charpentier's _Louise_ (1900)--all of which seemed like works of liberation. But, as a matter of fact, these lyric dramas were by no means free from foreign influences, and especially from Wagnerian influences. M. Debussy's _Pelléas et Mélisande_, in 1902, seemed to mark more truly the emancipation of French music. From this time on, French music felt that it had left school, and claimed to have founded a new art, which reflected the spirit of the race, and was freer and suppler than the Wagnerian art. These ideas, which were seized upon and enlarged by the press, brought about rather quickly a conviction in French artists of France's superiority in music. Is that conviction justified? The future alone can tell us. But one may see by this brief outline of events how real is the evolution of the musical spirit in France since 1870, in spite of the apparent contradictions of fashion which appear on the surface of art. It is the spirit of France that is, after long oppression and by a patient but eager initiation, realising its power and wishing to dominate in its turn.

I wanted at first to trace the broad line of the movement which for the last thirty years has been affecting French music; and now I shall consider the musical institutions that have had their share in this movement. You will not be surprised if I ignore some of the most celebrated, which have lost their interest in it, in order that I may consider those that are the true authors of our regeneration.

MUSICAL INSTITUTIONS BEFORE 1870

It is not by any means the oldest and most celebrated musical institutions which have taken the largest share in this evolution of music in the last thirty years.

The _Académie des Beaux-Arts_, where six chairs are reserved for the musical section, could have played a very important part in the musical organisation of France by the authority of its name, and by the many prizes that it gives for composition and criticism, especially by the _Prix de Rome_, which it awards every year. But it does not play its part well, partly because of the antiquated statutes that govern it, by which a handful of musicians are associated with a great number of painters, sculptors, and architects, who are ignorant of music and mock at the musicians, as they did in the time of Berlioz; and partly because it is the custom of the Academy that the little group of musicians shall be trained in a very conservative way. One of the names of these musicians is justly celebrated--that of M. Saint-Saëns; but there are others whose fame is of poorer quality, and others still who have no fame at all. And the whole forms a little group, which though it does not put any actual obstacles in the way of the progress of art, yet does not look upon it favourably, but remains rather apart in an indifferent or even hostile spirit.

The _Conservatoire national de Musique et de Déclamation_, which dates from the last years of the _Ancien Régime_ and the Revolution, was designed by its patriotic and-democratic origin to serve the cause of national art and free progress.[210]

[Footnote 210: One knows that the Conservatoire originated in _L'École gratuite de musique de la garde nationale parisienne_, founded in 1792 by Sarrette, and directed by Gossec. It was then a civic and military school, but, according to Chénier, was changed into the _Institut national de musique_ on 8 November, 1793, and into the _Conservatoire_ on 3 August, 1795. This Republican Conservatoire made it its business to keep in contact with the spirit of the country, and was directly opposed to the Opera, which was of monarchical origin. See M. Constant Pierre's work _Le Conservatoire national de musique_ (1900), and M. Julien Tiersot's very interesting book _Les Fêtes et les Chants de la Révolution française_ (1908).]

It was for a long time the corner-stone of the edifice of music in Paris. But although it has always numbered in its ranks many illustrious and devoted professors--among whom it recognised, a little late, the founder of the young French school, César Franck--and though the majority of artists who have made a name in French music have received its teaching, and the list of laureates of Rome who have come from its composition classes includes all the heads of the artistic movement to-day in all its diversity, and ranges from M. Massenet to M. Bruneau, and from M. Charpentier to M. Debussy--in spite of all this, it is no secret that, since 1870, the official action with regard to the movement amounts to almost nothing; though we must at least do it justice, and say that it has not hindered it.[211]

[Footnote 211: You must remember that I am speaking here of _official_ action only; for there have always been masters among the Conservatoire teaching staff who have united a fine musical culture with a broad-minded and liberal spirit. But the influence of these independent minds is, generally speaking, small; for they have not the disposing of academic successes; and when, by exception, they have a wide influence, like that of César Franck, it is the result of personal work outside the Conservatoire--work that is, as often as not, opposed to Conservatoire principles.]

But if the spirit of this academy has often destroyed the effect of the excellent teaching there, by making success in academic competitions the chief aim of the professors and their pupils, yet a certain freedom has always reigned in the institution. And though this freedom is mainly the result of indifference, it has, however, permitted the more independent temperaments to develop in peace--from Berlioz to M. Ravel. One should be grateful for this. But such virtues are too negative to give the Conservatoire a high place in the musical history of the Third Republic; and it is only lately, under the direction of M. Gabriel Fauré, that it has endeavoured, not without difficulty, to get back its place at the head of French art, which it had lost, and which others had taken.

The _Société des Concerts du Conservatoire_, founded in 1828 under the direction of Habeneck, has had its hour of glory in the musical history of Paris. It was through this society that Beethoven's greatness was revealed to France.[212] It was at the Conservatoire that the early important works of Berlioz were first given: _La Fantastique_, _Harold_, and _Roméo et Juliette_. It was there, nearer our own time, that Saint-Saëns's _Symphonie avec Orgue_ and César Franck's _Symphonie_ were played for the first time. But for a long time the Conservatoire seemed to take its name too literally, and to restrict its sphere to that of a museum for classical music.

[Footnote 212: It is to be noted that since 1807 the Conservatoire pupils have made Beethoven's symphonies familiar to Parisians. The _Symphony in C minor_ was performed by them in 1808; the _Heroic_ in 1811. It was in connection with one of these performances that the _Tablettes de Polymnie_ gave a curious appreciation of Beethoven, which is quoted by M. Constant Pierre: "This composer is often grotesque and uncouth, and sometimes flies majestically like an eagle and sometimes crawls along stony paths. It is as though one had shut up doves and crocodiles together."]

In later years, however, the _Société des Concerts_, with M. Marty, began to consider new works. Its orchestra, composed of eminent instrumentalists, enjoys a classical fame; though it is now no longer alone in the excellence of its performances, and has perhaps lost a little the secret that it claimed to possess for the interpretation of great classical works. It excels in works of a neo-classic character, like those of M. Saint-Saëns, which are stronger in style and taste than in life and passion. The Conservatoire concerts have also a relative superiority over other concerts in Paris in the performance of choral works, which up to the present have been very second-rate. But these concerts are not easy of access for the general public, as the number of seats for sale is very limited. And so the society is representative of a little public whose taste is, broadly speaking, conservative and official; and the noise of the strife outside its doors only reaches its ears slowly, and with a deadened sound.

The influence of the Conservatoire is, in music especially, an influence of the past and of the Government. One may say much the same of the Opera. This ancient association, which bears the imposing name of _Académie nationale de Musique_ and dates from 1669, is a sort of national institution which is more concerned with the history of official art than with living art. The satire with which Jean-Jacques describes, in his _Nouvelle Héloïse_, the stiff solemnity and mournful pomp of its performances has not lost much of its truth. What is lacking in the Opera to-day is the enthusiasm that accompanied its former musical struggles in the times of the "_Encyclopédistes_" and the "_guerre des coins_." The great battles of art are now fought outside its doors; and it has become by degrees a showy _salon_, a little faded perhaps, where the public is more interested in itself than in the performance. In spite of the enormous sums that it swallows up every year (nearly four million francs),[213] only one or two new pieces are produced in a year, and they are rarely works that are representative of the modern school. And though it has at last admitted Wagner's dramas into its repertory, one can no longer consider these works, half a century old, to be in the vanguard of music. The most esteemed masters of the French school, such as Massenet, Reyer, Chausson, and Vincent d'Indy, had to seek refuge in the Théâtre de la Monnaie at Brussels before they could get their works received at the Opera in Paris. And the classical composers fare no better. Neither _Fidelio_ nor Gluck's tragedies--with the exception of _Armide_, which was put on under pressure of fashion--are represented; and when by chance they give _Freischütz_ or _Don Juan_, one wonders if it would not have been better to let them rest in oblivion, rather than treat them sacrilegiously by adding, cutting, introducing ballets and new recitatives, and deforming their style so as to bring them "up to date."[214]

[Footnote 213: This is according to M. Rivet's report on the _Beaux-Arts_ in 1906. The Opera employs 1370 people, and its expenses are about 3,988,000 francs. The annual grant of the State comes to about 800,000 francs.]

[Footnote 214: On the occasion of the revival of _Don Juan_ in 1902, the _Revue Musicale_ counted up the pages that had been added to the original score. They came to two hundred and twenty-eight.]

In spite of the changes of taste and the campaign of the press, the Opera has remained to this day as it was in the time of Meyerbeer and Gounod and their disciples. But it would be foolish to pretend that it has not its public. The receipts show well enough that _Faust_ is in greater favour than _Siegfried_ or _Tristan_, not to speak of the more recent works of the new French school, which cannot be acclimatised there.

Without doubt, the enormous stage at the Opera does not lend itself well to modern musical dramas, which are intimate and concentrated, and would be lost in its immense space, which is more adapted for formal processions like the marches in the _Prophète_ and _Aïda_. Besides this, there is the conventional acting of the majority of the singers, the dull lifelessness of the choruses, the defective acoustics, and the exaggerated utterance and gestures of the actors, demanded by the great dimensions of the place--all of which is a serious obstacle to the conception of a living and simple art. But the chief obstacle will always lie in the very nature of such a theatre--a theatre of luxury and vanity, created for a set of snobs, whose least interest is the music, who have not enough intellect to create a fashion, but who servilely follow every fashion after it is thirty years old. Such a theatre no longer counts in the history of French music; and its next directors will need a vast amount of ingenuity and energy to get a semblance of life into such a dead colossus.

But it is quite another affair with the Opéra-Comique. This theatre has taken a very active part in the development of modern music. Without renouncing its classic traditions, or its delightful repertory of the old _opéra-comiques_, it has had understanding enough, under the judicious management of M. Albert Carré, to hold itself open for any interesting productions in dramatic music. It takes no side among the different schools; and the representatives of the old-fashioned light opera with their songs elbow the leaders of the advanced school. No association has done more important work, among musical dramas as well as musical comedies, during the last twenty years. In this theatre, which produced _Carmen_ in 1875, _Manon_ in 1884, and the _Roi d'Ys_ in 1888, were played the principal dramas of M. Bruneau, as well as M. Charpentier's _Louise_, M. Debussy's _Pelléas et Mélisande_, and M. Dukas's _Ariane et Barbebleue_. It may seem astonishing that such works should have found a place at the Opéra-Comique and not at the Opera. But if two musical theatres of different kinds exist, one of which pretends to have the monopoly of great art, while the other with a simpler and more intimate character seeks only to please, it is always the latter that has a better chance of development and of making new discoveries; for the first is oppressed by traditions that become ever stiffer and more pedantic, while the other with its simplicity and lack of pretension is able to accommodate itself to any manner of life. How many artists have revolutionised their times while they were merely looked upon as people who amused! Frescobaldi and Philipp Emanuel Bach brought fresh life to art, but were scorned by the so-called representatives of fine art; Mozart's _opere buffe_ have more of truth and life in them than his _opere serie_; and there is as much dramatic power in an _opéra-comique_ like _Carmen_ as in all the repertory of grand Opera to-day. And so the Opéra-Comique theatre has become the home of the boldest experiments in musical drama. The most daring or the most violent ventures into musical realism, after the manner of Charpentier or Bruneau, and the subtle fantasies of a delicate art of dreams, like that of Debussy, have found a welcome there. It has also been open to various kinds of foreign art: Humperdinck's _Hänsel und Gretel_, Verdi's _Falstaff_, the works of Puccini, Mascagni, and the young Italian school, Richard Strauss's _Feuersnot_, Rimsky-Korsakow's _Snégourotchka_, have all been played. And they have even given the classic masterpieces of opera there: _Fidelio_, _Orfeo_, _Alceste_, the two _Iphigénies_; and taken more pains with them and mounted them with more pious zeal than they do at the Opera. The operas themselves are more at home there, too, for the size of the theatre is more like that of the eighteenth-century theatres. It is true that the stage rather lacks depth; but the ingenuity of the director and the admirable scenic artists he employs has succeeded in making one forget this defect, and accomplished marvels. No theatre in Paris has more artistic staging, and some of the scenery that has been designed lately is a masterpiece of its kind. The Opéra-Comique has also the advantage of excellent conductors, and one of them, M. Messager, who is now Director, has, by his clever interpretations, greatly contributed to the success of the works of the new school.

NEW MUSICAL INSTITUTIONS

1. _The Société Nationale_

Before 1870, French music had already in the Opera and the Opéra-Comique (without counting the various endeavours of the Théâtre Lyrique) an outlet which was nearly enough for the needs of her dramatic productions. Even when musical taste was most decadent, the works of Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, and Massé, had always upheld the name of French _opéra-comique_. But what was almost entirely lacking was an outlet for symphonic music and chamber-music. "Before 1870," wrote M. Saint-Saëns in _Harmonie et Mélodie_, "a French composer who was foolish enough to venture on to the ground of instrumental music had no other means of getting his works performed than by himself arranging a concert for them." Such was Berlioz's case; for he had to gather together an orchestra and hire a room each time he wished to get a hearing for his great symphonies. The financial result was often disastrous: the performance of the _Damnation de Faust_ in 1846 was, for example, a complete failure, and he had to give it up. The Conservatoire, which was formerly more hospitable, rather reluctantly performed a portion of _L'Enfance du Christ_; but it gave young composers no encouragement.

The first man who attempted to make the symphony popular, M. Saint-Saëns tells us in his _Portraits et Souvenirs_, was Seghers, a dissentient member of the _Société des Concerts du Conservatoire_, who during several years (1848-1854) was conductor of the _Société de Sainte-Cécile_, which had its quarters in a room in the rue de la Chaussée d'Antin. There he had performed Mendelssohn's _Symphonie Italienne_, the overtures to _Tannhäuser_ and _Manfred_, Berlioz's _Fuite en Égypte_, and Gounod's and Bizet's early, works. But lack of money cut short his efforts.

Pasdeloup took up the work. After having been conductor for the _Société des jeunes artistes du Conservatoire_ since 1851, in the Salle Herz, he founded, in 1861, at the Cirque d'Hiver, with the financial support of a rich moneylender, the first _Concerts populaires de musique classique_. Unhappily, says M. Saint-Saëns, Pasdeloup, even up to 1870, made an almost exclusive selection of German classical works. He raised an impenetrable barrier before the young French school, and the only French works he played were symphonies by Gounod and Gouvy, and the overtures of _Les Francs-Juges_ and _La Muette_. It was impossible to set up a rival society against him; and an exclusive monopoly in music was, therefore, held by him. According to M. Saint-Saëns he was a mediocre musician, and had, in spite of his passion for music, "immense incapacity." In _Harmonie et Mélodie_ M. Saint-Saëns says: "The few chamber-music societies that existed were also closed to all new-comers; their programmes only contained the names of undisputed celebrities, the writers of classic symphonies. In those times one had really to be devoid of all common sense to write music."

A new generation was growing up, however,--a generation that was serious and thoughtful, that was more attracted by pure music than by the theatre, that was filled with a burning desire to found a national art. To this generation M. Saint-Saëns and M. Vincent d'Indy belong. The war of 1870 strengthened these ideas about music, and, while the war was still raging, there sprang from them the _Société Nationale de Musique_.

One must speak of this society with respect, for it was the cradle and sanctuary of French art.[215] All that was great in French music from 1870 to 1900 found a home there. Without it, the greater part of the works that are the honour of our music would never have been played; perhaps they would not ever have been written. The Society possessed the rare merit of being able to anticipate public opinion by ten or eleven years, and in some ways it has formed the public mind and obliged it to honour those whom the Society had already recognised as great musicians.

[Footnote 215: The facts which follow are taken from the archives of the _Société Nationale de Musique_, and have been given me by M. Pierre de Bréville, the Society's secretary.]

The two founders of the Society were Romaine Bussine, professor of Singing at the Conservatoire, and M. Camille Saint-Saëns. And, following their initiative, César Franck, Ernest Guiraud, Massenet, Garcin, Gabriel Fauré, Henri Duparc, Théodore Dubois, and Taffanel, joined forces with them, and at a meeting on 25 February, 1871, agreed to found a musical society that should give hearings to the works of living French composers exclusively. The first meetings were interrupted by the doings of the Commune; but they began again in October, 1871. The Society's early statutes were drawn up by Alexis de Castillon, a military officer and a talented composer, who, after having served in the war of 1870 at the head of the _mobiles_ of Eure-et-Loire, was one of the founders of French chamber-music, and died prematurely in 1873, aged thirty-five. It was these statutes, signed by Saint-Saëns, Castillon, and Garcin, that gave the Society its title of _Société Nationale de Musique_, and its device, "_Ars gallica_." This is what the statutes say about the aims of the Society:

"The aim of the Society is to aid the production and the
popularisation of all serious musical works, whether published or
unpublished, of French composers; to encourage and bring to light,
so far as is in its power, all musical endeavour, whatever form it
may take, on condition that there is evidence of high, artistic
aspiration on the part of the author.... It is in brotherly love,
with complete forgetfulness of self, and with the firm intention of
aiding one another as far as they can, that the members of the
Society will co-operate, each in his own sphere of action, for the
study and performance of the works which they shall be called upon
to select and to interpret."

The first Committee was made up as follows: President, Bussine; Vice-President, Saint-Saëns; Secretary, Alexis de Castillon; Under-Secretary, Jules Garcin; Treasurer, Lenepveu. The members of the Committee were: César Franck, Théodore Dubois, E. Guiraud, Fissot, Bourgault-Ducoudray, Fauré, and Lalo.

The first concert was given on 25 November, 1871, in the Salle Pleyel; and it is worthy of note that the first work played was a trio of César Franck's. Since then the Society has given three hundred and fifty performances of chamber-music or orchestral works. The best known French composers and virtuosi have taken part as executants, among others: César Franck, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, Bizet, Vincent d'Indy, Fauré, Chabrier, Guiraud, Debussy, Lekeu, Lamoureux, Chevillard, Taffanel, Widor, Messager, Diémer, Sarasate, Risler, Cortot, Ysaye, etc. And among the compositions that have been played for the first time it is enough to mention the following:

César Franck: Nearly the whole of his works, including his Sonata, Trio, Quartette, Quintette, Symphonic Variations, Preludes and Fugues, Mass, _Rédemption_, _Psyche_, and a part of _Les Béatitudes_.

Saint-Saëns: _Phaéton_, _Second Symphony_, Sonatas, Persian Melodies, the _Rapsodie d'Auvergne_, and a quartette.

Vincent d'Indy: The trilogy of _Wallenstein_, the _Poême des Montagues_, the _Symphonie sur un thème montagnard_, and quartettes.

Chabrier: Part of _Gwendoline_.

Lalo: Fragments of the _Roi d'Ys_, Rhapsodies and Symphonies.

Bruneau: _Penthésilée_, _La Belle au Bois Dormant_.

Chausson: _Viviane_, _Hélène_, _La Tempête_, a quartette and a symphony.

Debussy: _La Damoiselle élue_, the _Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune_, a quartette, pieces for the pianoforte, and melodies.

Dukas: _L'Apprenti Sorcier_, and a sonata for the pianoforte.

Lekeu: _Andromède_.

Alberic Magnard: Symphonies and a quartette.

Ravel: _Schéhérazade_, _Histoires Naturelles_, etc.

Saint-Saëns was director with Bussine until 1886. But from 1881 the influence of Franck and his disciples became more and more felt; and Saint-Saëns began to lose interest in the efforts of the new school. In 1886 there was a division of opinion about a proposition of Vincent d'Indy's to introduce the works of classical masters and foreign composers into the programmes. This proposition was adopted; but Saint-Saëns and Bussine sent in their resignations. Franck then became the true president, although he refused the title; and after his death, in 1890, Vincent d'Indy took his place. Under these two directors a quite important place was given to old and classical music by composers such as Palestrina, Vittoria, Josquin, Bach, Händel, Rameau, Gluck, Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms. Foreign contemporary music only occupied a very limited place. Wagner's name only appears once, in a transcription of the _Venusberg_ for the pianoforte; and Richard Strauss's name figures only against his Quartette. Grieg had his hour of popularity there about 1887, as well as the Russians--Moussorgski, Borodine, Rimsky-Korsakow, Liadow, and Glazounow--whom M. Debussy has perhaps helped to make known to us. At the present moment the Society seems more exclusively French than ever; and the influence of M. Vincent d'Indy and the school of Franck is predominant. That is only natural; the _Société Nationale_ most truly earned its title to glory by discerning César Franck's genius; for the Society was a little sanctuary where the great artist was honoured at a time when he was ignored or laughed at by the rest of the world. This character of a sanctuary was kept even after victory. In its general programme of 1903-1904, the Society reminded us with pride that it had remained faithful to the promises made in 1871; and it added that if, in order to permit its members to keep abreast of the general progress of art, it had little by little allowed classical masterpieces and modern foreign works of interest on its programmes, it had, however, always kept its guest-chamber open, and shaped many a future reputation there.

Nothing is truer. The _Société Nationale_ is indeed a guest-chamber, where for the past thirty years a guest-chamber art and guest-chamber opinions have been formed; and from it some of the profoundest and most poetic French music has been derived, such as Franck's and Debussy's chamber-music. But its atmosphere is becoming daily more rarefied. That is a danger. It is to be feared that this art and thought may be absorbed by the decadent subtleties or pedantic scholasticism which is apt to accompany all coteries--in short, that its music will be salon-music rather than chamber-music. Even the Society itself seems to have felt this at times; and at different periods has sought contact with the general public, and put itself into direct communication with it. "It becomes more and more necessary," wrote M. Saint-Saëns, "that French composers should find something intermediate between an intimate hearing of their music and a performance of it before the general public--something which would not be a speculative thing like a big concert, but which would be analogous to the artistic attraction of an exhibition of painting, and which would dare everything. It is a new aim for the _Société Nationale_." But it does not seem that it has yet attained this goal, nor that it is near attaining it, despite some not quite happy attempts.

But at least the _Société Nationale_ has gloriously achieved the task it set itself. In thirty years it has created in Paris a little centre of earnest composers of symphonies and chamber-music, and a cultured public that seems able to understand them.

* * * * *

2. _The Grand Symphony Concerts_

Although it was an urgent matter that young French composers should unite to withstand the general indifference of the public, it was more urgent still that that indifference should be attacked, and that music should be brought within reach of ordinary people. It was a matter of taking up and completing Pasdeloup's work in a more artistic and more modern spirit.