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.