Chapter II (8)

A publisher of music, Georges Hartmann, feeling the forces that were drawing together in French art, gathered about him the greater part of the talented men of the young school--Franck, Bizet, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, Delibes, Lalo, A. de Castillon, Th. Dubois, Guiraud, Godard, Paladilhe, and Joncières--and undertook to produce their works in public. He rented the Odéon theatre, and got together an orchestra, the conductorship of which he entrusted to M. Édouard Colonne. And on 2 March, 1873, the _Concert National_ was inaugurated in a musical matinée, where M. Saint-Saëns played his _Concerto in G minor_ and Mme. Viardot sang Schubert's _Roi des Aulnes_. In the first year six ordinary concerts were given, and, besides that, two sacred concerts with choirs, at which César Franck's _Rédemption_ and Massenet's _Marie-Magdeleine_ were performed. In 1874 the Odéon was abandoned for the Châtelet. This venture attracted some attention, and the concerts were patronised by the public; but the financial results were not great.[216] Hartmann was discouraged and wished to give the whole thing up. But M. Édouard Colonne conceived the idea of turning his orchestra into a society, and of continuing the work under the name of _Association Artistique_. Among the artist-founders were MM. Bruneau, Benjamin Godard, and Paul Hillemacher. Its early days were full of struggle; but owing to the perseverance of the Association all obstacles were finally overcome. In 1903 a festival was held to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary. During these thirty years it had given more than eight hundred concerts, and had performed the works of about three hundred composers, of which half were French. The four composers most frequently heard at the Châtelet were Saint-Saëns, Wagner, Beethoven, and Berlioz.[217]

[Footnote 216: It must be remembered that the prices of the seats were much cheaper than they are to-day; the best were only three francs.]

[Footnote 217: There were about 340 performances of Saint-Saëns' works, 380 of Wagner's, 390 of Beethoven's, and 470 of Berlioz's. I owe these details to the kind information of M. Charles Malherbe and M. Léon Petitjean, the secretary of the Colonne concerts.]

Berlioz is almost the exclusive property of the Châtelet. Not only have they performed his works there more frequently than anywhere else,[218] but they are better understood there than in other places. The Colonne orchestra and its conductor, gifted with great warmth of spirit,--though it is sometimes a little intemperate--are rather bothered by works of a classic nature and by those that show contemplative feeling; but they give wonderful expression to Berlioz's tumultuous romanticism, his poetic enthusiasm, and the bright and delicate colouring of his paintings and his musical landscapes. Although Berlioz has his place at the Chevillard and Conservatoire concerts, it is to the Châtelet that his followers flock; and their enthusiasm has not been affected by the campaign that for several years has been directed against Berlioz by some French critics under the influence of the younger musical party--the followers of d'Indy and Debussy.

[Footnote 218: The _Damnation de Faust_ alone was given in its entirety a hundred and fifty times in thirty years.]

It is also at the Châtelet that the keenest musical passion has been preserved in the public, even to this day. Thanks to the size of the theatre, which is one of the largest in Paris, and to the great number of cheap seats, you may always find there a number of young students who make the most interested kind of public possible. And the music is something more than a pleasure to them--it is a necessity. There are some that make great sacrifices in order to have a seat at the Sunday concerts. And many of these young men and women live all the week on the thought of forgetting the world for a few hours in musical enjoyment. Such a public did not exist in France before 1870. It is to the honour of the Châtelet and the Pasdeloup concerts to have created it.

Édouard Colonne has done more than educate musical taste in France; for no one has worked harder than he to break down the barriers that separated the French public from the art of other lands; and, at the same time, he has himself helped to make French art known to foreigners. When he himself was conducting concerts all over Europe he entrusted the conductorship at the Châtelet to the great German _Kapellmeister_ and to foreign composers--to Richard Strauss, Grieg, Tschaikowsky, Hans Richter, Hermann Levi, Mottl, Nikisch, Mengelberg, Siegfried Wagner, and many others. No other conductor has done so much for Parisian music during the last thirty years; and we must not forget it.[219]

[Footnote 219: It is known that M. Colonne has now a helper in M. Gabriel Pierné, who will succeed him when he retires.]

The Lamoureux concerts have had from the beginning a very different character from the Colonne concerts. That difference lies partly in the personality of the two conductors, and partly in the fact that the Lamoureux concerts, although of later date than the Colonne concerts by less than ten years, represent a new generation in music. The progress of the musical public was singularly rapid: hardly had they explored the rich treasure-house of Berlioz's music than they were making discoveries in the world of Wagner. And in that world they needed a new guide, who had intimate knowledge of Wagner's art and of German art in general. Charles Lamoureux was that guide. In 1873 he conducted special performances of Bach and Händel, given by the _Societé de l'Harmonie sacrée_. After leaving the conductorship of the Opera, he inaugurated, on 21 October, 1881, at the Château-d'Eau theatre, the _Société des Nouveaux Concerts_. These concerts had at first very comprehensive programmes of every kind of music and every kind of school. At the first concert there were works of Beethoven, Händel, Gluck, Sacchini, Cimarosa, and Berlioz. In the first year Lamoureux had Beethoven's _Ninth Symphony_ performed, as well as a large part of _Lohengrin_, and numerous works of young French musicians. Various compositions of Lalo, Vincent d'Indy, and Chabrier, were performed there for the first time. But it was especially to the study of Wagner's works that Lamoureux most gladly devoted himself. It was he who gave the first hearings of Wagner in their entirety in France, such as the first and second act of _Tristan_, in 1884-1885. The Wagnerian battle was still going on at that time, as the notice printed at the head of the programme of _Tristan_ shows.

"The management of the _Société des Nouveaux Concerts_ is desirous
of avoiding any disturbance during the performance of the second
act of _Tristan_, and urgently and respectfully begs that the
audience will abstain from giving any mark of their approval or
disapproval before the end of the act."

The same year, in the Eden theatre, to which the concerts had been transferred, Lamoureux conducted, for the first time in Paris, the first act of the _Walküre_. In these concerts the tenor, Van Dyck, made his _début_; later, he was one of the leading performers at Bayreuth. In 1886-1887 Lamoureux rehearsed and conducted the only performance of _Lohengrin_ at the Eden theatre. Disturbances in the streets prevented further performances. Lamoureux then established himself in the concert-room of the Cirque des Champs Élysées, where for eleven years he has given what are called the _Concerts-Lamoureux_. He continued to spread the knowledge of Wagner's works, and has sometimes had the help of some of the most celebrated of the Bayreuth artists, among others, that of Mme. Materna and Lilli Lehmann. At the end of the season of 1897 Lamoureux wished to disband his orchestra in order to conduct concerts abroad. But the members of the orchestra decided to remain together under the name of the _Association des Concerts-Lamoureux_, with Lamoureux's son-in-law, M. Camille Chevillard, as conductor. But Lamoureux was not long before he returned to the conductorship of the concerts, which had now returned to the Château-d'Eau theatre; and a few months before his death, in 1899, he conducted the first performance of _Tristan_ at the Nouveau theatre. And so he had the happiness of being present at the complete triumph of the cause for which he had fought so stubbornly for nearly twenty years.[220]

[Footnote 220: My statements may be verified by the account published in the _Revue Éolienne_ of January, 1902, by M. Léon Bourgeois, secretary of the Committee of the _Association des Concerts-Lamoureux_.]

Lamoureux's performances of Wagner's works have been among the best that have ever been given. He had a regard for the work as a whole and a care for its details, to which the Colonne orchestra did not quite attain. On the other hand, Lamoureux's defect was the exuberant liveliness with which he interpreted compositions of a romantic nature. He did not fully understand these works; and although he knew much more about classic art than his rival, he rendered its letter rather than its spirit, and paid such sedulous attention to detail that music like Beethoven's lost its intensity and its life. But both his talents and his defects fitted him to be an excellent interpreter of the young neo-Wagnerian school, the principal representatives of which in France were then M. Vincent d'Indy and M. Emmanuel Chabrier. Lamoureux had need, to a certain extent, to be himself directed either by the living traditions of Bayreuth, or by the thought of modern and living composers; and the greatest service he rendered to French music was his creation, thanks to his extreme care for material perfection, of an orchestra that was marvellously equipped for symphonic music.

This seeking for perfection has been carried on by his successor, M. Camille Chevillard, whose orchestra is even more refined still. One may say, I think, that it is to-day the best in Paris. M. Chevillard is more attracted by pure music than Lamoureux was; and he rightly finds that dramatic music has been occupying too large a place in Parisian concerts. In a letter published by the _Mercure de France_, in January, 1903, he reproaches the educators of public taste with having fostered a liking for opera, and with not having awakened a respect for pure music: "Any four bars from one of Mozart's quartettes have," he says, "a greater educational value than a showy scene from an opera." No one in Paris conducts classic works better than he, especially the works that possess clean, plastic beauty; and in Germany itself it would be difficult to find anyone who would give a more delicate interpretation of some of Händel's and Mozart's symphonic works. His orchestra has kept, moreover, the superiority that it had already acquired in its repertory of Wagner's works. But M. Chevillard has communicated a warmth and energy of rhythm to it that it did not possess before. His interpretations of Beethoven, even if they are somewhat superficial, are very full of life. Like Lamoureux, he has hardly caught the spirit of French romantic works--of Berlioz, and still less of Franck and his school; and he seems to have but lukewarm sympathy for the more recent developments of French music. But he understands well the German romantic composers, especially Schumann, for whom he has a marked liking; and he tried, though without great success, to introduce Liszt and Brahms into France, and was the first among us to attract real attention to Russian music, whose brilliant and delicate colouring he excels in rendering. And, like M. Colonne, he has brought the great German _Kapellmeister_ among us--Weingartner, Nikisch, and Richard Strauss, the last mentioned having directed the first performance in Paris of his symphonic poems, _Zarathustra_, _Don Quixote_, and _Heldenleben_, at the Lamoureux concerts.

Nothing could have better completed the musical education of the public than this continuous defile, for the past ten years, of _Kapellmeister_ and foreign virtuosi, and the comparisons that their different styles and interpretations afforded. Nothing has better helped forward the improvement of Parisian orchestras than the emulation brought about by the meetings between Parisian conductors and those of other countries. At present our own conductors are worthy rivals of the best in Germany. The string instruments are good; the wood has kept its old French superiority; and though the brass is still the weakest part of our orchestras, it has made great progress. One may still criticise the grouping of orchestras at concerts, for it is often defective; there is a disproportion between the different families of instruments and, in consequence, between their different sonorities, some of which are too thin and others too dull. But these defects are fairly common all over Europe to-day. Unhappily, more peculiar to France is the insufficiency or poor quality of the choirs, whose progress has been far from keeping pace with that of the orchestras. It is to this side of music that the directors of concerts must now bring their efforts to bear.

The Lamoureux Concerts have not had as stable a dwelling-place as the Châtelet Concerts. They have wandered about Paris from one room to another--from the Cirque d'Hiver to the Cirque d'Été, and from the Château-d'Eau to the Nouveau Théâtre. At the present moment they are in the Salle Gaveau, which is much too small for them. In spite of the progress of music and musical taste, Paris has not yet a concert-hall, as the smallest provincial towns in Germany have; and this shameful indifference, unworthy of the artistic renown of Paris, obliges the symphonic societies to take refuge in circuses or theatres, which they share with other kinds of performers, though the acoustics of these places are not intended for concerts. And so it happens that for six years the Chevillard Concerts have been given at the back of a music-hall, which has the same entrance, and which is only separated from the concert-room by a small passage, so that the roaring choruses of a _danse du venire_ may mingle with an adagio of Beethoven's or a scene from the Tetralogy. Worse than this, the smallness of the place into which these concerts have been crammed has been a serious obstacle in the way of making them popular. Nevertheless, in the promenade and galleries of the Nouveau Théâtre, in later years, arose what may be called a little war over concertos. It was rather a curious episode in the history of the musical taste of Paris, and merits a few words here. In every country, but especially in those countries that are least musical, a virtuoso profits by public favour, often to the detriment of the work he is performing; for what is most liked in music is the musician. The virtuoso--whose importance must not be underrated, and who is worthy of honour when he is a reverential and sympathetic interpreter of genius--has too often taken a lamentable part, especially in Latin countries, in the degrading of musical taste; for empty virtuosity makes a desert of art. The fashion of inept fantasias and acrobatic variations has, it is true, gone by; but of late years virtuosity has returned in an offensive way, and, sheltering itself under the solemn classical name of "concertos," it usurped a place of rather exaggerated importance in symphony concerts, and especially in M. Chevillard's concerts--a place which Lamoureux would never have given it. Then the younger and more enthusiastic part of the public began to revolt; and very soon, with perfect impartiality and quite indiscriminately, began to hiss famous and obscure virtuosi alike in their performance of any concerto, whether it was splendid or detestable. Nothing found favour with them--neither the playing of Paderewski, nor the music of Saint-Saëns and the great masters. The management of the concerts went its own way and tried in vain to put out the disturbers, and to forbid them entry to the concert-room; and the battle went on for a long time, and critics were drawn into it. But in spite of its ridiculous excesses, and the barbarism of the methods by which the parterre expressed its opinions, that quarrel is not without interest. It proved how a passion and enthusiasm for music had been roused in France; and the passion, though unjust in its expression, was more fruitful and of far greater worth than indifference.

* * * * *

3. _The Schola Cantorum_

The Lamoureux Concerts had served their purpose, and, in their turn, their heroic mission came to an end. They had forced Wagner on Paris; and Paris, as always, had overshot the mark, and could swear by no one but Wagner. French musicians were translating Gounod's or Massenet's ideas into Wagner's style; Parisian critics repeated Wagner's theories at random, whether they understood them or not--generally when they did not understand them. A reaction was inevitable directly Paris was well saturated with Wagner; and it came about in 1890, among a chosen few, some of whom had been, and were even still, under Wagner's influence. It was at first only a mild reaction, and showed itself in a return to the classics of the past and to the great primitives in music.

There had been several attempts in this direction before, but none of them had succeeded in making any impression on the mass of the public. In 1843, Joseph Napoléon Ney, Prince of Moszkowa, founded in Paris a society for the performance of religious and classical vocal music. This society, which the Prince himself conducted in his own house, set itself to perform the vocal works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[221]

[Footnote 221: It published, in eleven volumes, the ancient works that it performed. Before this experiment there had been the _Concerts historiques de Fétis_, preceded by lectures, which were inaugurated in 1832, and failed; and these were followed by Amédée Méréaux's _Concerts historiques_ in 1842-1844.]

In 1853, Louis Niedermeyer founded in Paris an _École de musique religieuse et classique_, which strove "to form singers, organists, choir-masters, and composers of music, by the study of the classic works of the great masters of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries." This school, subsidised by the State, was a nursery for some real musicians. It reckoned among its pupils some noted composers, conductors, organists, and historians; among others, M. Gabriel Fauré, M. André Messager, M. Eugène Gigout, and M. Henry Expert. M. Saint-Saëns was a professor there, and became its president. Nearly five hundred organists, choir-masters, and professors of music of the Conservatoire and other French colleges were trained there. But this school, serious in intention, and a refuge for the classic spirit in the midst of the prevailing bad taste, did not trouble itself about influencing the public, and, in fact, almost ignored it.

Lamoureux attempted in 1873 to perform the great choral works of Bach and Händel; and in 1878 the celebrated French organist, M. Alexandre Guilmant, ventured to give concerts at the Trocadéro for the organ and orchestra, which were devoted to religious music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But the deplorable acoustics of the concert-room had a prejudicial effect on the works that were performed there; and the public did not respond very warmly to M. Guilmant's efforts, and seemed from the first only to find an historical interest in the masterpieces, and to miss their depth and life altogether.

Then a pupil of Franck's, M. Henry Expert, who began his admirable works on Musical History in 1882, laid the foundation of the _Société J.S. Bach_, in order to spread the knowledge of ancient music written between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries. And he succeeded in interesting in his undertaking, not only the principal French musicians, such as César Franck, Saint-Saëns, and Gounod, but also foreigners, such as Hans von Bülow, Tschaikowsky, Grieg, Sgambati, and Gevaert. Unhappily this society never got farther than arranging what it wanted to do, and only sketched out the plans that were realised later by Charles Bordes.

The general public were not really interested in the art of the old musicians until the _Association des Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais_ was founded in 1892 by Charles Bordes, the choirmaster of the church of Saint-Gervais. The immediate success and the noisy renown of the Society were due to other things besides the talent of its conductor, who combined with a lively artistic intelligence both common-sense and energy and a remarkable gift for organisation--it was due partly to the help of favourable circumstances, partly to the surfeit of Wagnerism, of which I have just spoken, and partly to the birth of a new religious art, which had sprung up since the death of César Franck round the memory of that great musician.

It is not my intention here to write an appreciation of César Franck's genius, but it is not possible to understand the musical movement in Paris of the last fifteen years if one does not take into account the importance of his teaching. The organ class at the Conservatoire, where in 1872 Franck succeeded his old master Benoist, was for a long time, as M. Vincent d'Indy says, "the true centre for the study of Composition at the Conservatoire. Many of his fellow-workers could never bring themselves to look upon him as one of themselves, because he had the boldness to see in art something other than the means of earning a living. Indeed, César Franck was not of them; and they made him feel this." But the young students made no mistake about the matter. "At this time," M. d'Indy also tells us,[222] "that is to say from 1872 to 1876, the three courses of Advanced Musical Composition were given by three professors who were not at all fitted for their work. One was Victor Massé, a composer of simple light operas and a man with no understanding of a symphony, who was very frequently ill and had to entrust his teaching to one of his pupils; another was Henri Reber, an oldish musician with narrow and dogmatic ideas; and the third was François Bazin, who was not capable of distinguishing in his pupil's fugues a false answer from a true one, and whose highest title to glory is derived from a composition called _Le Voyage en Chine_. So it is not surprising that César Franck's teaching, founded on that of Bach and Beethoven, but admitting, as well, imagination and all new and liberal ideas, did, at that time, draw to him all young minds that had lofty ambitions and that were really in love with their art. And so, quite unconsciously, the master attracted to himself all the sincere and artistic talent that was scattered about the different classes of the Conservatoire, as well as that of his outside pupils."

[Footnote 222: The following information was given by M. Vincent d'Indy at a lecture held on 20 February, 1903, at the _École des Hautes Études sociales_--a lecture which later became a chapter in M. d'Indy's book, _César Franck_ (1906).]

Among those who received his direct teaching[223] were Henri Duparc, Alexis de Castillon, Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Pierre de Bréville, Augusta Holmes, Louis de Serres, Charles Bordes, Guy Ropartz, and Guillaume Lekeu. And if to these we add the pupils in the organ classes, who also came under his influence, we have, among others, Samuel Rousseau, Gabriel Pierné, Auguste Chapuis, Paul Vidal, and Georges Marty; and also the virtuosi who were for some time intimate with him, such as Armand Parent and Eugène Ysaye, to whom Franck dedicated his violin sonata. And if one thinks, too, of the artists who, though not his pupils, felt his power--artists such as Gabriel Fauré, Alexandre Guilmant, Emmanuel Chabrier, and Paul Dukas--one may see that nearly the whole musical generation of Paris of that time took its inspiration from César Franck. And it was largely with the intention of perpetuating his teaching that his pupils, Charles Bordes and Vincent d'Indy, and his friend, Alexandre Guilmant, founded in 1894, four years after his death, the _Schola Cantorum_, which has kept his memory alive ever since.

"Our revered father, Franck," said Vincent d'Indy, in a speech, "is in some ways the grandfather of the _Schola Cantorum_; for it is his system of teaching that we apply and try to carry on here."[224]

[Footnote 223: A complete list may be found in M. d'Indy's book.]

[Footnote 224 2: _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, November, 1900.]

The influence of Franck was twofold: it was artistic and moral. On the one hand he was, if I may so put it, an admirable professor of musical architecture; he founded a school of symphony and chamber-music such as France had never had before, which in certain directions was newer and more daring than that of the German symphony writers. And, on the other hand, he exercised by his own character a memorable influence over all those who came into contact with him. His profound faith, that fine, indulgent, and calm faith, shone round him like a glory. The Catholic party, who were awakening to new life in France just then, tried, after his death, to identify his ideals with their own. But this was, as we have said elsewhere,[225] to narrow Franck's mind; for its great charm lay in its harmonious union of religion and liberty, which never limited its artistic sympathies to an exclusive ideal. The composer's son, M. Georges César-Franck, has in vain protested against this monopoly of his father, and says:

"According to certain writers, who wish to reduce everything to a
dead level and deduce all things from a single cause, César Franck
was a mystic whose true domain was religious music. Nothing could
be wider of the mark. The public is given to generalisations, and
is too easily gulled. They will judge a composer on a single work,
or a group of works, and class him once and for all.... In
reality, my father was a man of all-round accomplishments. As a
finished musician, he was master of every form of composition. He
wrote both religious and secular music--melodies, dances,
pastorales, oratorios, symphonic poems, symphonies, sonatas, trios,
and operas. He did not confine his attention to any particular kind
of work to the exclusion of other kinds; he was able to express
himself in any way he chose."[226]

But as what was really religious in him found itself in agreement with a current of thought that was rather powerful at that time, it was inevitable that this one side of his genius should be first brought to light, and that religious music should be the first to benefit by his work. And also one of the early manifestos[227] of the _Schola Cantorum_ dealt with the reform of sacred music by carrying it back to great ancient models; and its first decision was as follows: "Gregorian chant shall rest for all time the fountain-head and the base of the Church's music, and shall constitute the only model by which it may be truly judged."[228]

[Footnote 225: See the Essay on _Vincent d'Indy_.]

[Footnote 226: _Revue d'histoire et de critique musicale_, August-September, 1901.]

[Footnote 227: "The _Schola Cantorum_ aims at creating a modern music truly worthy of the Church" (First number of the _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, the monthly bulletin of the _Schola Cantorum_, January, 1895).]

[Footnote 228: The Schola had in mind here the vigorous work of the French Benedictines, which had been done in silence for the past fifty years; it was thinking, too, of the restoration of the Gregorian chant during 1850 and 1860 by Dom Guéranger, the first abbot of Solesmes, a work continued by Dom Jausions and Dom Pothier, the abbot of Saint-Wandrille, who published in 1883 the _Mélodies Grégoriennes_, the _Liber Gradualis_, and the _Liber Antiphonarius_. This work was finally brought to a happy conclusion by Dom Schmitt, and Dom Mocqucreau, the prior of Solesmes, who in 1889 began his monumental work, the _Paléo-graphie Musicals_, of which nine volumes had appeared in 1906. This great Benedictine school is an honour to France by the scientific work it has lately done in music. The school is at present exiled from France.]

They added to this, however, music _à la Palestrina_, and any music that conformed to its principles or was inspired by its example. Such archaic ideas would certainly never create a new kind of religious music, but at least they have helped to restore the old art; and they received their official consecration in the famous letter written by Pope Pius X on the Re-form of Sacred Music.

The achievement of an artistic ideal so restricted as this would not have sufficed, however, to assure the success of the _Schola Cantorum_, nor establish its authority with a public that was, whatever people may say, only lukewarm in its religion, and that would only interest itself in the religious art of other days as it would in a passing fashion. But the spirit of curiosity and the meaning of modern life began to weigh little by little with the Schola's principles. After singing Palestrinian and Gregorian chants at the Church of Saint-Gervais during Holy Week, they played Carissimi, Schütz, and the Italian and German masters of the seventeenth century. Then came Bach's cantatas; and their performance, given by M. Bordes in the Salle d'Harcourt, attracted large audiences and started the cult of this master in Paris. Then they sang Rameau and Gluck; and, finally, all ancient music, sacred or secular, was approved. And so this little school, which had been consecrated to the cult of ancient religious music, and had made so modest a beginning,[229] developed into a School of Art capable of satisfying modern wants; and in 1900, when M. Vincent d'Indy became president of the _Schola_, it was decided to move the school into larger premises in the Rue Saint-Jacques.

The programme of this new school was explained by M. Vincent d'Indy in his Inauguration speech on 2 November, 1900, and showed how he based the foundations of musical teaching upon history.

"Art, in its journey across the ages, is a microcosm which has,
like the world itself, successive stages of youth, maturity, and
old age; but it never dies--it renews itself perpetually. It is not
like a perfect circle; it is like a spiral, and in its growth is
always mounting higher. I believe in making students follow the
same path that art itself has followed, so that they shall undergo
during their term of study the same transformations that music
itself has undergone during the centuries. In this way they will
come out much better armed for the difficulties of modern art,
since they will have lived, so to speak, the life of art, and
followed the natural and inevitable order of the forms that made up
the different epochs of artistic development."

[Footnote 229: When Charles Bordes opened the first _Schola Cantorum_ in the Rue Stanislas he was without help or resources, and had exactly thirty-seven francs and fifty centimes in hand. I mention this detail to give an idea of the splendidly courageous and confident spirit that Charles Bordes possessed.]

M. d'Indy claims that this system may be applied as successfully to instrumentalists and singers as to future composers. "For it is as profitable for them to know," he says, "how to sing a liturgic monody properly, or to be able to play a Corelli sonata in a suitable style, as it is for composers to study the structure of a motet or a suite." M. d'Indy, moreover, obliged all students, without distinction, to attend the lectures on vocal music; and, besides that, he instituted a special class to teach the conducting of orchestras--which was something quite new to France. His object, as he clearly said, was to give a new form to modern music by means of a knowledge of the music of the past.

On this subject he says:

"Where shall we find the quickening life that will give us fresh
forms and formulas? The source is not really difficult to discover.
Do not let us seek it anywhere but in the decorative art of the
plain-song singers, in the architectural art of the age of
Palestrina, and in the expressive art of the great Italians of the
seventeenth century. It is there, and _there alone_, that we shall
find melodic craft, rhythmic cadences, and a harmonic magnificence
that is really new--if our modern spirit can only learn how to
absorb their nutritious essence. And so I prescribe for all pupils
in the School the careful study of classic forms, because _they
alone_ are able to give the elements of a new life to our music,
which will be founded on principles that are sane, solid, and
trustworthy."[230]

[Footnote 230: _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, November, 1900.]

This fine and intelligent eclecticism was likely to develop a critical spirit, but was rather less adapted to form original personalities. In any case, however, it was excellent discipline in the formation of musical taste; and, in truth, the _École Supérieure de musique_ of the Rue Saint-Jacques became a new Conservatoire, both more modern and more learned than the old Conservatoire, and freer, and yet less free, because more self-satisfied. The school developed very quickly. From having twenty-one pupils in 1896, it had three hundred and twenty in 1908. Eminent musicians and professors learned in the history and science of music taught there, and M. d'Indy himself took the Composition classes.[231] And in its short career the _Schola_ may already be credited with the training of young composers, such as MM. Roussel, Déodat de Séverac, Gustave Bret, Labey, Samazeuilh, R. de Castéra, Sérieyx, Alquier, Coindreau, Estienne, Le Flem, and Groz; and to these may be added M. d'Indy's private pupils, Witkowski, and one of the foremost of modern composers, Alberic Magnard.

[Footnote 231: There are actually nine courses of Composition at the _Schola_--five for men and four for women. M. d'Indy takes eight of them, as well as a mixed class for orchestra.]

Outside the influence that the School exercises by its teaching, its propaganda by means of concerts and publications is very active. From its foundation up to 1904 it had given two hundred performances in one hundred and thirty provincial towns; more than one hundred and fifty concerts in Paris, of which fifty were of orchestral and choral music, sixty of organ music, and forty of chamber-music. These concerts have been well attended by enthusiastic and appreciative audiences, and have been a school for public taste. One does not look for perfect execution there,[232] but for intelligent interpretations and a thirst for a fuller knowledge of the great works of the past. They have revived Monteverde's _Orfeo_ and his _Incoronazione di Poppea_, which had been forgotten these three centuries; and it was following an interest created by repeated performances of Rameau at the _Schola_[233] that _Dardanus_ was performed at Dijon under M. d'Indy's direction, _Castor et Pollux_ at Montpellier under M. Charles Bordes' direction, and that in 1908 the Opera at Paris gave _Hippolyte et Aricie_. Branches of the _Schola_ have, been started at Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Avignon, Montpellier, Nancy, Épinal, Montluçon, Saint-Chamond, and Saint-Jean-deLuz.[234] A publishing house has been associated with the School at Paris; and from this we get Reviews, such as the _Tribune de Saint-Gervais_; publications of old music, such as the _Anthologie des maîtres religieux primitifs des XVe, XVIe, et XVIIe siècles_, edited by Charles Bordes; the _Archives des maîtres de l'orgue des XVIe, XVIIe, et XVIIIe siècles_, edited by Alexandre Guilmant and André Pirro; the _Concerts spirituels de la Schola_, the new editions of _Orfeo_, and the _Incoronazione di Poppea_, edited by M. Vincent d'Indy; and publications of modern music, such as the _Collection du chant populaire_, the _Répertoire moderne de musique vocale et d'orgue_, and, notably, the _Édition mutuelle_, published by the composers themselves, whose property it is.

[Footnote 232: The orchestra is mainly composed of pupils; and, by a generous arrangement, the financial profits from rehearsals and performances are divided among the pupils who take part in them, and credited to their account. And so besides the exhibitioners the _Schola_ has a great number of pupils who are not well off, but who manage by these concerts to defray almost the entire expenses of their education there. "The concerts serve more especially as aesthetic exercises for the pupils, and as a means of according them teaching at small expense to themselves." I owe this information and all that precedes it to the kindness of M. J. de la Laurencie, the general secretary of the _Schola_, whom I should like to thank.]

[Footnote 233: The _Schola_ has even performed, in an open-air theatre, Ramcau's _La Guirlande_.]

[Footnote 234: One may add to this list the choral societies of Nantes and Besançon, which are bodies of the same order as the _Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais_. And we may also attribute to the influence of the _Schola_ an independent society, the _Société J.S. Bach_, started in Paris by an old _Schola_ pupil, M. Gustave Bret, which, since 1905, has devoted itself to the performance of the great works of Bach. It is not one of the least merits of the _Schola_ that it has helped to form good amateur choirs of the same type as the choral societies of Germany.]

And all this shows such a marvellous activity and gives evidence of such whole-hearted enthusiasm that I cannot bring myself to join issue with the critics who have lately attacked the _Schola_, though their attacks have been in some degree merited. Pettiness is to be found even in great artists, and imperfection in every human work; and defects reveal themselves most clearly after a victory has been won. The _Schola_ has not escaped the critical periods that accompany growth, through which every work must pass if it is to triumph and endure. Without doubt, the sudden illness and premature retirement of the founder of the work, M. Charles Bordes, deprived the _Schola_ of one of its most active forces--a force that was perhaps necessary for the school's successful development. For this man had been the school's life and soul, and retired, worn out by the heavy labours which he had borne alone during ten years.[235]

[Footnote 235: M. Charles Bordes did not even then give up his labours altogether. Though obliged to retire to the south of France for his health's sake, he founded, in November, 1905, the _Schola_ of Montpellier. This _Schola_ has given about fifteen concerts a year, and has performed some of Bach's cantatas, scenes from Rameau's and Gluck's operas, Franck's oratorios, and Monteverde's _Orfeo_. In 1906 M. Bordes organised an open-air performance of Rameau's _Guirlande_. In January, 1908, he produced _Castor et Pollux_ at the Montpellier theatre. The man's activity was incredible, and nothing seemed to tire him. He was planning to start a dramatic training-school at Montpellier for the production of seventeenth and eighteenth century operas, when he died, in November, 1909, at the age of forty-four, and so deprived French art of one of its best and most unselfish servants.]

But M. d'Indy, like a courageous apostle, has continued the direction of the _Schola_ with a firm hand and unwearying care, despite his varied activities as composer, professor, and _Kapellmeister_; and he is one of the surest and most reliable guides for a young school of French music. And if his mind is rather given to abstractions, and his moods are sometimes rather combative, and certain prejudices (which are not always musical ones) make him lean towards ideals of reason and immovable faith--and if at times his followers unconsciously distort his ideas, and try to dam the stream which flows from life itself, I am convinced it is only the passing evidence of a reaction, perhaps a natural one, against the exaggerations they have encountered, and that the _Schola_ will always know how to avoid the rocks where revolutionaries of the past have run aground and become the conservatives of the morrow. I hope the _Schola_ will never grow into the kind of aristocratic school that builds walls about itself, but will always open wide its doors and welcome every new force in music, even to such as have ideals opposed to its own. Its future renown and the well-being of French art can only thus be maintained.

* * * * *

4. _The Chamber-Music Societies_

On parallel lines with the big symphony concerts and the new _conservatoires_, societies were formed to spread the knowledge of, and form a taste for, chamber-music. This music, so common in Germany, was almost unknown in Paris before 1870. There was nothing but the Maurin Quartette, which gave five or six concerts every winter in the Salle Pleyel, and played Beethoven's last quartettes there. But these performances only attracted a small number of artists;[236] and so far as the general public was concerned the _Société des derniers quartuors de Beethoven_ had the reputation for devoting itself to a singular and incomprehensible kind of music that had been written by a deaf man.

[Footnote 236: The quality of the audience atoned, it is true, for its small numbers. Berlioz used to come to these concerts with his friends, Damcke and Stephen Heller; and it was after one of these performances, when he had been very stirred by an _adagio_ in the E flat quartette, that he burst out with, "What a man! He could do everything, and the others nothing!"]

The true founder of chamber-music concerts in Paris was M. Émile Lemoine, who started the society called _La Trompette_. He has given us a history of his work in the _Revue Musicale_ (15 October, 1903). He was an engineer at the École Poly-technique; and after he had left school he formed, about 1860, a quartette society of earnest amateurs, though they were not very skilled performers. This little society continued to meet regularly, and after perfecting itself little by little, finally opened its doors to the general public, which attended the concerts in gradually increasing numbers. Then _La Trompette_ came into being. It prospered from the day that M. Saint-Saëns--who was at that time a young man--made its acquaintance. He was pleased with these gatherings, and became an intimate friend of Lemoine; and he interested himself in the society, and induced other celebrated artists to take an interest in it, too. Among its early friends were MM. Alphonse Duvernoy, Diémer, Pugno, Delsart, Breitner, Delaborde, Ch. de Bériot, Fissot, Marsick, Loëb, Rémy, and Holmann. With such patronage, _La Trompette_ soon acquired fame in the musical world, and "it represented in classical chamber-music the semi-official part played by the _Société des Concerts du Conservatoire_ in classical orchestral music. Rubinstein, Paderewski, Eugène d'Albert, Hans von Bülow, Arthur de Greef, Mme. Essipoff, and Mme. Menter, never missed getting a hearing there when their tours led them to Paris; and to figure on the programme of _La Trompette_ was like the consecration of an artist." Such a society naturally contributed a great deal to the spread of classical chamber-music in Paris. M. Lemoine writes:

"Classical music was so little known to the musical public that
even the audiences of _La Trompette_, cultured as they were, did
not at all understand Beethoven's last quartettes; and my friends
jeered at my taste for enigmas. This only made me the more
determined that they should hear one of these great works at each
concert. And sometimes I would give the same work at two or three
concerts running if I thought it had not been properly appreciated.
In that case I used to say before the performance: 'It seems to me
that such-and-such a work has not been quite understood at the last
hearing; and as it is a really marvellous work, I am sure that your
feeling is that you do not know it sufficiently. So I have included
it in to-day's programme.'"[237]

[Footnote 237: The name, _La Trompette_, was also the pretext for embellishing chamber-music, by introducing the trumpet among the other instruments. To this end M. Saint-Saëns wrote his fine septette for piano, trumpet, two violins, viola, violoncello, and double bass; and M. Vincent d'Indy his romantic suite in D for trumpet, two flutes, and string instruments.]

These performances of sonatas, trios, and quartettes, were attentively listened to by an audience of five or six hundred persons, the greater part of them cultured people, students from the poly-technics and universities, who formed the kernel of a very discerning and enthusiastic public for chamber-music.

By degrees, following the example of Émile Lemoine, other quartette societies were formed; and at present they are so numerous that it would be difficult to name them all. And then there sprang up the same spirit of intelligent curiosity that had induced the French _Kapellmeister_ of the symphony concert societies sometimes to introduce their German and Russian colleagues as conductors; and for this purpose the _Nouvelle Société Philharmonique de Paris_ was founded, in 1901, on the initiative of Dr. Fränkel and under the direction of M. Emmanuel Rey, to give a hearing in Paris to the principal foreign quartette players. And the profit was as great in one case as in the other; and the friendly rivalry between French quartette players and those of other countries bore good fruit, and gave us a fuller understanding of the inner character of German music.

* * * * *

5. _Musical Learning and the University_

While this movement was going on in the artistic world, scholars were taking their share in it, and music was beginning to invade the University.

But the thing was brought about with some difficulty; for among these serious people music did not count as a serious study. Music was thought of as an agreeable art, a social accomplishment, and the idea of making it the subject of scientific teaching must have been received with some amusement. Even up to the present time, general histories of Art have refused to accord music a place, so little was thought of it; and other arts were indignant at being mentioned in the same breath with it. This is illustrated in the eternal dispute among M. Jourdain's masters, when the fencing-master says:

"And from this we know what great consideration is due to us in a
State; and how the science of Fencing is far above all useless
sciences, such as dancing and music."

The first lectures on Aesthetics and Musical History were not given in France until after the war of 1870.[238] They were then given at the Conservatoire, and, until quite lately, were the only lectures on Music of any importance in Paris. Since 1878 they have been given in a very excellent way by M. Bourgault-Ducoudray; but, as is only natural in a school of music, their character is artistic rather than scientific, and takes the form of a sort of illustration of the practical work that is done at the Conservatoire. And as for Parisian musical criticism as a whole, it had, thirty years ago, an almost exclusively literary character, and was without technical precision or historical knowledge.

[Footnote 238: On 12 September, 1871, at the suggestion of Ambroise Thomas. The first lecturer was Barbereau, who, however, only lectured for a year. He was succeeded by Gautier, Professor of Harmony and Accompaniment, who in turn was replaced, in 1878, by M. Bourgault-Ducoudray.]

There again, on the territory of science, as on that of art, a new generation of musicians had sprung up since the war, a group of men versed in the history and aesthetics of music such as France had never known before. About 1890 the result of their labours began to appear. Henry Expert published his fine work, _Maîtres Musiciens de la Renaissance_, in which he revived a whole century of French music. Alexander Guilmant and André Pirro brought to daylight the works of our seventeenth and eighteenth century organists. Pierre Aubry studied mediaeval music. The admirable publications of the Benedictines of Solesmes awoke at the _Schola_ and in the world outside it a taste for the study of religious music. Michel Brenet attacked all epochs of musical history, and produced, by his solid learning, some fine work. Julien Tiersot began the history of French folk-song, and rescued the music of the Revolution from oblivion. The publisher Durand set to work on his great editions of Rameau and Couperin. Towards 1893 the study of Music was introduced at the Sorbonne by some young professors, who made the subject the theses for their doctor's degree.[239]

[Footnote 239: The first three theses on Music accepted at the Sorbonne were those of M. Jules Combarieu on _The Relationship of Poetry and Music_, of M. Romain Holland on _The Beginnings of Opera before Lully and Scarlatti_, and of M. Maurice Emmanuel on _Greek Orchestics_. There followed, several years afterwards, M. Louis Laloy's _Aristoxenus of Tarento and Greek Music_ and M. Jules Écorcheville's _Musical Aesthetics, from Lully to Rameau_ and _French Instrumental Music of the Seventeenth Century_, M. André Pirro's _Aesthetics of Johann Sebastian Bach_, and M. Charles Lalo's _Sketch of Scientific Musical Aesthetics_.]

This movement with regard to musical study grew rapidly; and the first International Congress of Music, held in Paris at the time of the Universal Exhibition of 1900, gave historians of music an opportunity of realising their influence. In a few years, teaching about music was to be had everywhere. At first there were the free lectures of M. Lionel Dauriac and M. Georges Houdard at the Sorbonne, those of MM. Aubry, Gastoué, Pirro, and Vincent d'Indy at the _Schola_ and the _Institut Catholique_; and then, at the beginning of 1902, there was the little Faculty of Music of the _École des Hautes Études sociales_, making a centre for the efforts of French scholars of music; and, in 1900, two official courses of lectures on Musical History and Aesthetics were given at the College de France and the Sorbonne.

The progress of musical criticism was just as rapid. Professors of faculties, old pupils of the École Normale Supérieure, or the École des Chartes, such as Henri Lichtenberger, Louis Laloy, and Pierre Aubrey, examined works of the past, and even of the present, by the exact methods of historical criticism. Choir-masters and organists of great erudition, such as Andre Pirro and Gastoué, and composers like Vincent d'Indy, Dukas, Debussy, and some others, analysed their art with the confidence that the intimate knowledge of its practice brings. A perfect efflorescence of works on music appeared. A galaxy of distinguished writers and a public were found to support two separate collections of Biographies of Musicians (which were issued at the same time by different publishers), as well as five or six good musical journals of a scientific character, some of which rivalled the best in Germany. And, finally, the French section of the _Société Internationale de Musique_, which was founded in 1899 in Berlin to establish communication between the scholars of all countries, found so favourable a ground with us that the number of its adherents in Paris alone is now over one hundred.

* * * * *

6. _Music and the People_

Thus music had almost come back to its own, as far as the higher kind of teaching and the intellectual world were concerned. It remained for a place to be found for it in other kinds of teaching; for there, and especially in secondary education, its advance was less sure. It remained for us to make it enter into the life of the nation and into the people's education. This was a difficult task, for in France art has always had an aristocratic character; and it was a task in which neither the State nor musicians were very interested. The Republic still continued to regard music as something outside the people. There had even been opposition shown during the last thirty years towards any attempt at popular musical education. In the old days of the Pasdeloup concerts one could pay seventy-five centimes for the cheapest places, and have a seat for that; but at some of the symphony concerts to-day the cheapest seats are two and four francs. And so the people that sometimes came to the Pasdeloup concerts never come at all to the big concerts to-day.

And that is why one should applaud the enterprise of Victor Charpentier, who, in March, 1905, founded a Symphonic Society of amateurs called _L'Orchestre_, to give free hearings for the benefit of the people. And in that Paris, where forty years ago one would have had a good deal of trouble to get together two or three amateur quartettes, Victor Charpentier has been able to count on one hundred and fifty good performers,[240] who under his direction, or that of Saint-Saëns or Gabriel Fauré, have already given seventeen free concerts, of which ten were given at the Trocadéro.[241] It is to be hoped that the State will help forward such a generous work for the people in a rather more practical way than it has done up till now.[242]

[Footnote 240: There are ninety violins, fifteen violas, and fifteen violoncellos. Unfortunately it is much more difficult to get recruits for the wood wind and brass.]

[Footnote 241: They have performed classical music of composers like Bach, Händel, Gluck, Rameau, and Beethoven; and modern music of composers like Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Dukas, etc. This Society has just installed itself in the ancient chapel of the Dominicans of the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, who have given them the use of it.]

[Footnote 242: Of late years there has been a veritable outburst of concerts at popular prices--some of them in imitation of the German _Restaurationskonzerte_, such as the Concerts-Rouge, the Concerts-Touche, etc., where classical and modern symphony music may be heard. These concerts are increasing fast, and have great success among a public that is almost exclusively _bourgeois_, but they are yet a long way behind the popular performances of Händel in London, where places may be had for sixpence and threepence.