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.
I do not attach very much importance to the courageous, though not
always very intelligent movement of the Universités Populaires, where
since 1886 a collection of amateurs, of fashionable people and artists,
meet to make themselves heard, and pretend to initiate the people into
what are sometimes the most complicated and aristocratic works of a
classic or decadent art. While honouring this propaganda--whose ardour
has now abated somewhat--one must say that it has shown more good-will
than common-sense. The people do not need amusing, still less should
they be bored; what they need is to learn something about music. This is
not always easy; for it is not noisy deeds we want, but patience and
self-sacrifice. Good intentions are not enough. One knows the final
failure of the _Conservatoire populaire de Mimi Pinson_, started by
Gustave Charpentier, for giving musical education to the work-girls of
Paris.]
Attempts have been made at different times to found a _Théâtre Lyrique
Populaire_. But up to the present time none has succeeded. The first
attempts were made in 1847. M. Carvalho's old Théâtre-Lyrique was never
a financial success, though quite distinguished performances of operas
were given there, such as Gounod's _Faust_ and Gluck's _Orfeo_, with
Mme. Viardot as an interpreter and Berlioz as conductor; and the
directors who followed Carvalho--Rety, Pasdeloup, etc.--did not succeed
any better. In 1875 Vizentini took over the Gaîté, with a grant of two
hundred thousand francs and excellent artists; but he had to give it up.
Since then all sorts of other schemes have been tried by Viollet-le-Duc,
Guimet, Lamoureux, Melchior de Vogüé and Julien Goujon, Gabriel Parisot,
Colonne and Milliet, Deville, Lagoanère, Corneille, Gailhard, and
Carré; but none of them achieved any success. At the moment, a new
attempt is being made; and this time the thing seems to show every sign
of being a success.
But whatever may be the educational value of the theatre and concerts,
they are not complete enough in themselves for the people. To make their
influence deep and enduring it must be combined with teaching. Music, no
less than every other expression of thought, has no use for the
illiterate.
So in this case there was everything to be done. There was no other
popular teaching but that of the numerous Galin-Paris-Chevé schools.
These schools have rendered great service, and are continuing to render
it; but their simplified methods are not without drawbacks and gaps.
Their purpose is to teach the people a musical language different from
that of cultured people; and although it may not be as difficult as is
supposed to go from a knowledge of the one to a knowledge of the other,
it is always wrong to raise up a fresh barrier--however small it
is--between the cultured people and the other people, who in our own
country are already too widely separated.
And besides, it is not enough to know one's letters; one must also have
books to read. What books have the people had?--so far songs sung at the
café concerts and the stupid repertoires of choral societies. The
folk-song had practically disappeared, and was not yet ready for
re-birth; for the populace, even more readily than the cultured people,
are inclined to blush at anything which suggests "popularity."[243]
[Footnote 243: M. Maurice Buchor relates an anecdote which typifies what
I mean. "I begged the conductor of a good men's choral society," he
says, "to have one of Händel's choruses sung. But he seemed to hesitate.
I had made the suggestion tentatively, and then tried to enlarge on the
sincerity and breadth of its musical idea. 'Ah, very good,' he said, 'if
you really want to hear it, it is easily done; but I was afraid that
perhaps it was rather too popular.'" (_Poème de la Vie Humaine_:
Introduction to the Second Series, 1905.) One may add to this the words
of a professor of singing in a primary school for Higher Education in
Paris: "Folk-music--well, it is very good for the provinces." (Quoted by
Buchor in the Introduction to the Second Series of the _Poème_, 1902.)]
It is nearly twenty-five years since M. Bourgault-Ducoudray, who was one
of the people who fostered the growth of choral singing in France,
pointed out, in an account of the teaching of singing, the usefulness of
making children sing the old popular airs of the French provinces, and
of getting the teachers to make collections of them. In 1895, as the
result of a meeting organised by the _Correspondance générale de
l'Instruction primaire_, delightful collections of folk-songs were
distributed in the schools. The melodies were taken from old airs
collected by M. Julien Tiersot, and M. Maurice Buchor had put some fresh
and sparkling verses to them. "M. Buchor," I wrote at the time, "will
enjoy a pleasure not common to poets of our day: his songs will soar up
into the open air, like the lark in his _Chanson de labour_. The
populace may even recognise its own spirit in them, and one day take
possession of them, as if they were of their own contriving."[244] This
prediction has been almost completely realised, and M. Buchor's songs
are now the property of all the people of France.
[Footnote 244: Taken from the _Supplement à la Correspondance générale
de l'Instruction primaire_, 15 December, 1894.]