Chapter 22

In a general way one may say that M. Maurice Buchor's campaign has especially succeeded in departments like that of Aisne and Drôme, where the ground has been prepared by the Academy Inspector. Unhappily in many districts the movement receives a lively opposition from music-teachers, who do not approve of this mnemotechnical way of learning poetry with music, without any instruction in solfeggio or musical science. And it is quite evident that this method would have its defects if it were a question of training musicians. But it is really a matter of training people who have some music in them; and so the musicians must not be too fastidious. I hope that great musicians will one day spring from this good ground--musicians more human than those of our own time, musicians whose music will be rooted in their hearts and in their country.]

[Footnote 249: We must not forget M. Bourgault-Ducoudray, who was his forerunner with his _Chants de Fontenoy_, collections of songs for the Écoles Normales.]

M. Buchor's endeavours have been the most extensive and the most fruitful, but he is not alone in individual effort. There was, twenty years ago, in the suburbs of Paris and in the provinces, a large number of well-meaning people who devoted themselves to the work of musical education with sincerity and splendid enthusiasm. But their good works were too isolated, and were swamped by the apathy of the people about them; though sometimes they kindled little fires of love and understanding in art, which only needed coaxing in order to burn brightly; and even their less happy efforts generally succeeded in lighting a few sparks, which were left smouldering in people's hearts.[250]

At length, as a result of these individual efforts, the State began to show an interest in this educational movement, although it had for so long stood apart from it.[251] It discovered, in its turn, the educational value of singing. A musical test was instituted at the examination for the _Brevet supérieur_[252] which made the study of solfeggio a more serious matter in the Écoles Normales. In 1903 an endeavour was made to organise the teaching of music in the schools and colleges in a more rational way.[253]

[Footnote 250: Mention must especially be made of little groups of young students, pupils of the Universities or the larger schools, who are devoting themselves at present to the moral and musical instruction of the people. Such an effort, made more than a year ago at Vaugirard, resulted in the _Manécanterie des petits chanteurs de la Croix de bois_, a small choir of the children of the people, who in the poor parishes go from one church to another singing Gregorian and Palestrinian music.]

[Footnote 251: It is hardly necessary to recall the unfortunate statute of 15 March, 1850, which says: "Primary instruction _may_ comprise singing."]

[Footnote 252: By the decree of 4 August, 1905. At the same time, a programme and pedagogic instructions were issued. The importance of musical dictation and the usefulness of the Galin methods for beginners were urged. Let us hope that the State will decide officially to support M. Buchor's endeavours, and that it will gradually introduce into schools M. Jacques-Delacroze's methods of rhythmic gymnastics, which have produced such astonishing results in Switzerland.]

[Footnote 253: M. Chaumié's suggestion. See the _Revue Musicale_, 15 July, 1903.]

In 1904, following the suggestions of M. Saint-Saëns and M. Bourgault-Ducoudray, class-singing was incorporated with other subjects in the programme of teaching,[254] and a free school of choral singing was started in Paris under the honorary chairmanship of M. Henry Marcel, director of the Beaux-Arts, and under the direction of M. Radiguer. Quite lately a choral society for young school-girls has been formed, with the Vice-Provost as president and a membership of from six to seven hundred young girls, who since 1906 have given an annual concert under the direction of M. Gabriel Pierné. And lastly, at the end of 1907, an association of professors was started to undertake the teaching of music in the institutions of public instruction; its chairman was the Inspector-General, M. Gilles, and its honorary presidents were M. Liard and M. Saint-Saëns. Its object is to aid the progress of musical instruction by establishing a centre to promote friendly relations among professors of music; by centralising their interests and studies; by organising a circulating library of music and a periodical magazine in which questions relating to music may be discussed; by establishing communication between French professors and foreign professors; and by seeking to bring together professors of music and professors in other branches of public teaching.

[Footnote 254: _Revue Musicale_, December 15, 1903, and 1 and 15 January, 1904.]

All this is not much, and we are yet terribly behindhand, especially as regards secondary teaching, which is considered less important than primary teaching.[255] But we are scrambling out of an abyss of ignorance, and it is something to have the desire to get out of it. We must remember that Germany has not always been in its present plethoric state of musical prosperity. The great choral societies only date from the end of the eighteenth century. Germany in the time of Bach was poor--if not poorer--in means for performing choral works than France to-day. Bach's only executants were his pupils at the Thomasschule at Leipzig, of which barely a score knew how to sing.[256] And now these people gather together for the great _Männergesangsfeste_ (choral festivals) and the _Musikfeste_ (music festivals) of Imperial Germany.

[Footnote 255: "In this," says M. Buchor, "as in many other things, the children of the people set an example to the children of the middle classes." That is true; but one must not blame the middle-class children so much as those in authority, who, "in this, as in many other things," have not fulfilled their duties.]

[Footnote 256: _The Passion according to St. Matthew_ was given first of all by two little choirs, consisting of from twelve to sixteen students, including the soloists.]

Let us hope on and persevere. The main thing is that a start has been made; the thing that remains is to have patience and--persistence.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF FRENCH MUSIC

We have seen how the musical education of France is going on in theatres, in concerts, in schools, by lectures and by books; and the Parisian's rather restless desire for knowledge seems to be satisfied for the moment. The mind of Paris has made a journey--a hasty journey, it is true through the music of other countries and other times,[257] and is now becoming introspective. After a mad enthusiasm over discoveries in strange lands, music and musical criticism have regained their self-possession and their jealous love of independence. A very decided reaction against foreign music has been shown since the time of the Universal Exhibition of 1900. This movement is not unconnected, consciously or unconsciously, with the nationalist train of thought, which was stirred up in France, and especially in Paris, somewhere about the same time. But it is also a natural development in the evolution of music. French music felt new vigour springing up within her, and was astonished at it; her days of preparation were over, and she aspired to fly alone; and, in accordance with the eternal rule of history, the first use she made of her newly-acquired strength was to defy her teachers. And this revolt against foreign influences was directed--one had expected it--against the strongest of the influences--the influence of German music as personified by Wagner. Two discussions in magazines, in 1903 and 1904, brought this state of mind curiously to light: one was an enquiry held by M. Jacques Morland in the _Mercure de France_ (January, 1903) as to _The Influence of German Music in France_; and the other was that of M. Paul Landormy in the _Revue Bleue_ (March and April, 1904) as to _The Present Condition of French Music_. The first was like a shout of deliverance, and was not without exaggeration and a good deal of ingratitude; for it represented French musicians and critics throwing off Wagner's influence because it had had its day; the second set forth the theories of the new French school, and declared the independence of that school.

[Footnote 257: It is hardly necessary to mention the curious attraction that some of our musicians are beginning to feel for the art of civilisations that are quite opposed to those of the West. Slowly and quietly the spirit of the Far East is insinuating itself into European music.]

For several years the leader of the young school, M. Claude Debussy, has, in his writings in the _Revue Blanche_ and _Gil Blas_, attacked Wagnerian art. His personality is very French--capricious, poetic, and _spirituelle_, full of lively intelligence, heedless, independent, scattering new ideas, giving vent to paradoxical caprice, criticising the opinions of centuries with the teasing impertinence of a little street boy, attacking great heroes of music like Gluck, Wagner, and Beethoven, upholding only Bach, Mozart, and Weber, and loudly professing his preference for the old French masters of the eighteenth century. But in spite of this he is bringing back to French music its true nature and its forgotten ideals--its clearness, its elegant simplicity, its naturalness, and especially its grace and plastic beauty. He wishes music to free itself from all literary and philosophic pretensions, which have burdened German music in the nineteenth century (and perhaps have always done so); he wishes music to get away from the rhetoric which has been handed down to us through the centuries, from its heavy construction and precise orderliness, from its harmonic and rhythmic formulas, and the exercises of oratorical embroidery. He wishes that all about it shall be painting and poetry; that it shall explain its true feeling in a clear and direct way; and that melody, harmony, and rhythm shall develop broadly along the lines of inner laws, and not after the pretended laws of some intellectual arrangement. And he himself preaches by example in his _Pelléas et Mélisande_, and breaks with all the principles of the Bayreuth drama, and gives us the model of the new art of his dreams. And on all sides discerning and well-informed critics, such as M. Pierre Lalo of _Le Temps_, M. Louis Laloy of the _Revue Musicale_ and the _Mercure Musicale_, and M. Marnold of _Le Mercure de France_, have championed his doctrines and his art. Even the _Schola Cantorum_, whose eclectic and archaic spirit is very different from that of Debussy, seemed at first to be drawn into the same current of thought; and this school which had so helped to propagate the foreign influences of the past, did not seem to be quite insensible to the nationalistic preoccupation of the last few years. So the _Schola_ devoted itself more and more--as was moreover its right and duty--to the French music of the past, and filled its concert programmes with French works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--with Marc Antoine Charpentier, Du Mont, Leclair, Clérambault, Couperin, and the French primitive composers for the organ, the harpsichord, and the violin; and with the works of dramatic composers, especially of the great Rameau, who, after a period of complete oblivion, suddenly benefited by this excessive reaction, to the detriment of Gluck, whom the young critics, following M. Debussy's example, severely abused.[258] There was even a moment when the _Schola_ took a decided share in the battle, and, through M. Charles Bordes, issued a manifesto--_Credo_, as they called it--about a new art founded on the ancient traditions of French music:

"We wish to have free speech in music--a sustained recitative, infinite variety, and, in short, complete liberty in musical utterance. We wish for the triumph of natural music, so that it shall be as free and full of movement as speech, and as plastic and rhythmic as a classical dance."

It was open war against the metrical art of the last three centuries, in the name of national tradition (more or less freely interpreted), of folk-song, and of Gregorian chant. And "the constant and avowed purpose of all this campaign was the triumph of French music, and its cult."[259]

[Footnote 258: There is no need to say that Rameau's genius justified all this enthusiasm; but one cannot help believing that it was aroused, not so much on account of his musical genius as on account of his supposed championship of the French music of the past against foreign art; though that art was well adapted to the laws of French opera, as we may see for ourselves in Gluck's case.]

[Footnote 259: _La Tribune de Saint-Gervais_, September, 1903.]

This manifesto reflects in its own way the spirit of Debussy and his untrammelled musical impressionism; and though it shows a good deal of naïveté and some intolerance, there was in it a strength of youthful enthusiasm that accorded with the great hopes of the time, and foretold glorious days to come and a splendid harvest of music.

Not many years have passed since then; yet the sky is already a little clouded, the light not quite so bright. Hope has not failed; but it has not been fulfilled. France is waiting, and is getting a little impatient. But the impatience is unnecessary; for to found an art we must bring time to our aid; art must ripen tranquilly. Yet tranquillity is what is most lacking in Parisian art. The artists, instead of working steadily at their own tasks and uniting in a common aim, are given up to sterile disputes. The young French school hardly exists any longer, as it has now split up into two or three parties. To a fight against foreign art has succeeded a fight among themselves: it is the deep-rooted evil of the country, this vain expenditure of force. And most curious of all is the fact that the quarrel is not between the conservatives and the progressives in music, but between the two most advanced sections: the _Schola_ on the one hand, who, should it gain the victory, would through its dogmas and traditions inevitably develop the airs of a little academy; and, on the other hand, the independent party, whose most important representative is M. Debussy. It is not for us to enter into the quarrel; we would only suggest to the parties in question that if any profit is to result from their misunderstanding, it will be derived by a third party--the party in favour of routine, the party that has never lost favour with the great theatre-going public,--a party that will soon make good the place it has lost if those who aim at defending art set about fighting one another. Victory has been proclaimed too soon; for whatever the optimistic representatives of the young school may say, victory has not yet been gained; and it will not be gained for some time yet--not until public taste is changed, not while the nation lacks musical education, nor until the cultured few are united to the people, through whom their thoughts shall be preserved. For not only--with a few rare and generous exceptions--do the more aristocratic sections of society ignore the education of the people, but they ignore the very existence of the people's soul. Here and there, a composer--such as Bizet and M. Saint-Saëns, or M. d'Indy and his disciples--will build up symphonies and rhapsodies and very difficult pieces for the piano on the popular airs of Auvergne, Provence, or the Cevennes; but that is only a whim of theirs, a little ingenious pastime for clever artists, such as the Flemish masters of the fifteenth century indulged in when they decorated popular airs with polyphonic elaborations. In spite of the advance of the democratic spirit, musical art--or at least all that counts in musical art--has never been more aristocratic than it is to-day. Probably the phenomenon is not peculiar to music, and shows itself more or less in other arts; but in no other art is it so dangerous, for no other has roots less firmly fixed in the soil of France. And it is no consolation to tell oneself that this is according to the great French traditions, which have nearly always been aristocratic. Traditions, great and small, are menaced to-day; the axe is ready for them. Whoever wishes to live must adapt himself to the new conditions of life. The future of art is at stake. To continue as we are doing is not only to weaken music by condemning it to live in unhealthy conditions, but also to risk its disappearing sooner or later under the rising flood of popular misconceptions of music. Let us take warning by the fact that we have already had to defend music[260] when it was attacked at some of the parliamentary assemblies; and let us remember the pitifulness of the defence. We must not let the day come when a famous speech will be repeated with a slight alteration--"The Republic has no need of musicians."

[Footnote 260: At any rate, certain forms of music--the highest. See the discussions at the Chambre des Députés on the budget of the Beaux-Arts in February, 1906; and the speeches of MM. Théodore Denis, Beauquier, and Dujardin-Beaumetz, on Religious Music, the Niedermeyer School, and the civic value of the organ.]

It is the historian's duty to point out the dangers of the present hour, and to remind the French musicians who have been satisfied with their first victory that the future is anything but sure, and that we must never disarm while we have a common enemy before us, an enemy especially dangerous in a democracy--mediocrity.

The road that stretches before us is long and difficult. But if we turn our heads and look back over the way we have come we may take heart. Which of us does not feel a little glow of pride at the thought of what has been done in the last thirty years? Here is a town where, before 1870, music had fallen to the most miserable depths, which to-day teems with concerts and schools of music--a town where one of the first symphonic schools in Europe has sprung from nothing, a town where an enthusiastic concert-going public has been formed, possessing among its members some great critics with broad interests and a fine, free spirit--all this is the pride of France. And we have, too, a little band of musicians; among them, in the first rank, that great painter of dreams, Claude Debussy; that master of constructive art, Dukas; that impassioned thinker, Albéric Magnard; that ironic poet, Ravel; and those delicate and finished writers, Albert Roussel and Déodat de Séverac; without mention of the younger musicians who are in the vanguard of their art. And all this poetic force, though not the most vigorous, is the most original in Europe to-day. Whatever gaps one may find in our musical organisation, still so new, whatever results this movement may lead to, it is impossible not to admire a people whom defeat has aroused, and a generation that has accomplished the magnificent work of reviving the nation's music with such untiring perseverance and such steadfast faith. The names of Camille Saint-Saëns, César Franck, Charles Bordes, and Vincent d'Indy, will remain associated before all others with this work of national regeneration, where so much talent and so much devotion, from the leaders of orchestras and celebrated composers down to that obscure body of artists and music-lovers, have joined forces in the fight against indifference and routine. They have the right to be proud of their work. But for ourselves, let us waste no time in thinking about it. Our hopes are great. Let us justify them.

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

THE MUSICIAN'S BOOKSHELF.

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_Crown 8vo. Occasionally Illustrated._

EDITED BY CLAUDE LANDI, L.R.A.M., A.R.C.M.

MUSICIANS OF TO-DAY. By ROMAIN ROLLAND, Author of "Jean-Christophe." Translated by MARY BLAIKLOCK.

PRACTICAL SINGING. By CLIFTON COOKE and CLAUDE LANDI.

THE UNREST IN THE MUSIC WORLD. By SYDNEY BLAKISTON.

THE SONATA IN MUSIC. By A. EAGLEFIELD HULL, Mus. Doc.

THE SYMPHONY IN MUSIC. By the same.

ON LISTENING TO MUSIC. By E. MARKHAM LEE, M.A., Mus. Doc.

COUNTERPOINT. By G.G. BERNARDI. Translated by C. LANDI.

OPERA. By HARRY BURGESS.

_Other Volumes in preparation_.