Chapter 21
[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.
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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.]
But M. Buchor did not remain content to be a poet of popular song. During the last twelve years he has made, with untiring energy, a tour of all the Écoles Normales in France, returning several times to places where he found signs of good vocal ability. In each school he made the pupils sing his songs--in unison, or in two or three parts, sometimes massing the boys' and girls' schools of one town together. His ambition grew with his success; and to the folk-song melodies[245] he began gradually to add pieces of classical music. And to impress the music better on the singers he changed the existing words, and tried to find others, which by their moral and poetic beauty more exactly translated the musical feeling.[246]
[Footnote 245: Three series of these _Chants populaires pour les Écoles_ have already been published.]
[Footnote 246: I reserve my opinion, from an artist's point of view, on this plagiarising of the words of songs. On principle I condemn it absolutely. But, in this case, it is Hobson's choice. _Primum vivere, deinde philosophari_. If our contemporary musicians really wished the people to sing, they would have written songs for them; but they seem to have no desire to achieve honour that way. So there is nothing else to be done but to have recourse to the musicians of other days; and even there the choice is very limited. For France formerly, like the France of to-day, had very few musicians who had any understanding of a great popular art. Berlioz came nearest to understanding the meaning of it; and he is not yet public property, so his airs cannot be used. It is curious, and rather sad, that out of eighty pieces chosen by M. Buchor only nine of them are French; and this is reckoning the Italians, Lully and Cherubini, as Frenchmen. M. Buchor has had to go to German classical musicians almost entirely, and, generally speaking, his choice has been a happy one. With a sure instinct he has given the preference to popular geniuses like Händel and Beethoven. We may ask why he did not keep their words; but we must remember that at any rate they had to be translated; and though it may seem rash to change the subject of a musical masterpiece, it is certain that M. Buchor's clever adaptations have resulted in driving the fine thoughts of Händel and Schubert and Mozart and Beethoven into the memories of the French people, and making them part of their lives. Had they heard the same music at a concert they would probably not have been very much moved. And that makes M. Buchor in the right. Let the French people enrich themselves with the musical treasures of Germany until the time comes when they are able to create a music of their own! This is a kind of peaceful conquest to which our art is accustomed. "Now then, Frenchmen," as Du Bellay used to say, "walk boldly up to that fine old Roman city, and decorate (as you have done more than once) your temples and altars with its spoils." Besides, let us remember that the German masters of the eighteenth century, whose words M. Buchor has plagiarised, did not hesitate to plagiarise themselves; and in turning the Berceuse of the _Oratorio de Noël_ into a _Sainte famille humaine_, M. Buchor has respected the musical ideas of Bach much more than Bach himself did when he turned it into a _Dialogue between Hercules and Pleasure_.]
And at last he composed and grouped together twenty-four poems in his _Poème de la Vie humaine_[247]--fine odes and songs, written for classic airs and choruses, a vast repertory of the people's joys and sorrows, fitting the momentous hours of family or public life. With a people that has ancient musical traditions, as Germany has, music is the vehicle for the words and impresses them in the heart; but in France's case it is truer to say that the words have brought the music of Händel and Beethoven into the hearts of French school-children. The great thing is that the music has really got hold of them, and that now one may hear the provincial Écoles Normales performing choruses from _Fidelio, The Messiah_, Schumann's _Faust_, or Bach cantatas.[248] The honour of this remarkable achievement, which no one could have believed possible twenty years ago, belongs almost entirely to M. Maurice Buchor.[249]
[Footnote 247: The _Poème_ has been published in four parts:--I. _De la naissance au mariage_ ("From Birth to Marriage"); II. _La Cité_ ("The City"); III. _De l'age viril jusqu'à la mort_ ("From Manhood to Death"); IV. _L'Idéal_ ("Ideals"). 1900-1906.]
[Footnote 248: The last chorus of _Fidelio_ has been recently sung by one hundred and seventy school-children at Douai; a grand chorus from _The Messiah_ by the Écoles Normales of Angoulême and Valence; and the great choral scene and the last part of Schumann's _Faust_ by the two Écoles Normales of Limoges. At Valence, performances are given every year in the theatre there before an audience of between eight hundred and a thousand teachers.
Outside the schools, especially in the North, a certain number of teachers of both sexes have formed choral societies among work-girls and co-operative societies, such as _La Fraternelle_ at Saint Quentin.