Chapter 19

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

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

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

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

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

Chabrier: Part of _Gwendoline_.

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

Bruneau: _Penthésilée_, _La Belle au Bois Dormant_.

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

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

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

Lekeu: _Andromède_.

Alberic Magnard: Symphonies and a quartette.

Ravel: _Schéhérazade_, _Histoires Naturelles_, etc.

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

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

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

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2. _The Grand Symphony Concerts_

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

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.

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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]