CHAPTER IX

THE FOLLOWERS OF CÉSAR FRANCK

The Foundations of modern French nationalism: Berlioz; the operatic masters; Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Franck, etc.; conditions favoring native art development--The pioneers of ultra-modernism: Emanuel Chabrier and Gabriel Fauré--Vincent d'Indy: his instrumental and his dramatic works--Other pupils of Franck: Ernest Chausson; Henri Duparc; Alexis de Castillon; Guy Ropartz.

I

Ultra-modern French music constitutes a movement whose significance it may be still too early to estimate judicially, whose causes are relatively obscure and unprophetic, but whose attainments are exceedingly concrete from the historical viewpoint aside from the æsthetic controversies involved. Emerging from a generation hampered by over-regard for convention, vacillating and tentative in technical method in almost all respects save the theatre, and too often artificial there, a renascence of French music has been assured comparable in lucidity of style and markedly racial qualities to the golden days of a Couperin or a Rameau, while fearing no contemporary rival in emotional discrimination and delicate psychological analysis, and not infrequently attaining a masterly and fundamental vigor. The French composers of to-day have virtually freed dramatic procedures from Italian traditions, and even gradually distanced the Wagnerian incubus. They have re-asserted a nationalistic spirit in music, with or without dependence on folk-song material, with a potent individuality of idiom which has not been so persistent since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Finally, French critical activity, scholarship, research, educational institutions, standards of performance have risen to a pitch of excellence formerly denied to all save the Germans.

While the roots of this attainment go back half a century and more, the flower of achievement is still so recent as to pique inquiry. It must be acknowledged that on the surface no causes are discoverable which are proportionate to the results attained, but closer examination discloses an unmistakable drift. During almost three-quarters of the nineteenth century, despite the epoch-making work of Berlioz, the efforts of French composers were centred in one or another of the forms of opera. Auber, Boieldieu, Meyerbeer and others were succeeded by Gounod, Thomas and Délibes, leading insensibly to Massenet and Bizet. Gounod's _Faust_ (1859) and _Roméo et Juliette_ (1867), Thomas' _Mignon_ (1866), Délibes' ballet _Coppélia_ (1870), Massenet's early work _Don César de Bazan_ (1872), and Bizet's _Carmen_ (1875), unjustly pilloried as 'Wagnerian,' were typical of the characteristic tendencies of the period.

Yet it was precisely at a time when Parisians were seemingly engrossed in the theatre, that signs of radical departure were apparent, and these may be fittingly considered the forerunners of the later standpoint. Up to nearly the middle of the nineteenth century the _Concerts du Conservatoire_, themselves the successors to somewhat anomalous organizations, were the only regular orchestral concerts in Paris. In 1849 Antoine Seghers reorganized the _Société de Sainte Cécile_, at which works by Gounod, Gouvy, and Saint-Saëns were occasionally in evidence. In 1851 Jules Pasdeloup founded the _Société des Jeunes Artistes du Conservatoire_, merged ten years later into the _Concerts Populaires_, which afforded a definite opportunity, if somewhat grudgingly accorded, to young French composers. In 1855 Jules Armingaud formed a string quartet, later augmented by wind instruments, for the popularization of chamber music. He persisted against the obstacles of popular indifference, and ultimately became even fashionable. About this time also came an awakening in the study of plain-chant and the religious music of the sixteenth and preceding centuries. In 1853 Niedermeyer founded the _École de Musique Religieuse_, a significant institution which eventually broadened its educative scope into a fairly wide survey of musical literature. Other instrumental organizations of later date, and one particularly significant attempt at educational enfranchisement, will receive mention at the proper place. The foregoing instances serve to point out the seeming paradox of the rise of instrumental music at an apparently unpropitious time.

Without minimizing the genuine impetus given to instrumental music by the establishment of the foregoing organizations, the trend of ultra-modern French tendencies would have been dubious were it not for the preparatory foundation laid by Camille Saint-Saëns, Edouard Lalo and César Franck. Since the work of these men has already been estimated in previous chapters, it will suffice to indicate the precise nature of the influence exerted by each.

Saint-Saëns, possessing marvellous assimilative ingenuity as well as intellectual virtuosity, brought the contrapuntal manner of Bach, the forms of Beethoven, and the romanticism of Mendelssohn and Schumann into skilled combination with his own somewhat illusive and paradoxical individuality. To this he added a wayward fancy for exotic material, not treated however in its native spirit, but often in a scholastic manner that nevertheless often had a charm of its own. From the preparatory standpoint his conspicuous virtue lay in the incredible fertility with which he produced a long series of chamber music works, concertos and symphonies possessing such salient qualities of invention and workmanship as to force their acknowledgment from the Parisian public. If his music at its worst is little better than sterile virtuosity in which individual conviction seems in abeyance, such works as the fifth piano concerto, third violin concerto and third symphony (to name a few only) bear a well-nigh classic stamp in balance between expression and formal mastery. Saint-Saëns, then, popularized the sonata form, in its various manifestations, by means of a judicious mixture of conventional form and Gallic piquancy, so that a hitherto indifferent public was forced to applaud spontaneously at last. If to a later generation Saint-Saëns seems over-conventional and at times sententious rather than eloquent, we must remember that in its day his music was thought subversive of true progress, and unduly Teutonic in its artistic predilections. To-day we ask why he was not more unhesitatingly subjective. But possibly that would be expecting too much of a pioneer. Any estimate of Saint-Saëns would be incomplete without mention of his effective championing of the symphonic poem at a period when it was still under suspicion. His four specimens of this type show impeccable workmanship, piquant grace, true Gallic economy in the disposition of his material. They undoubtedly paved the way for works of later composers manifesting alike greater profundity of thought and higher qualities of the imagination.

Edouard Lalo stands in sharp contrast to Saint-Saëns. He was of an impressionable, dramatic temperament, drawn spontaneously toward the exotic and the coloristic. His Spanish origin betrays itself in the vivacity of his rhythms, and the picturesque quality of his melodies. If indeed the crowning success of a career full of reverses was the opera _Le Roi d'Ys_ (sketched 1875-6, revised 1886-7) produced in 1888 when the composer was sixty-five, his services to instrumental music are none the less palpable. If Saint-Saëns turns to the exotic as a refreshment from a species of intellectual ennui, with Lalo it is the result of a fundamental instinct. Lalo's ultimately characteristic vein is to be found in concertos, of lax if not incoherent form, employing Spanish, Russian and Norwegian themes, a Norwegian Rhapsody for orchestra, and scintillant suites of nationalistic dances from a ballet _Namouna_. He became a deliberate advocate of 'local color' treated with a veracious and not a conventional atmosphere, in which the brilliant orchestral style was more than a casual medium. His salient qualities were romantic conviction and emotional ardor, in which he provided a sincere and positive example whose influence is tangible in later composers. Herein lies his historical import.

It may seem unnecessary to refer again to the unselfish, laborious yet exalted personality of César Franck, or needless to rehearse the humble and patient obscurity of his life for almost thirty years, the gradual assembling of his devoted pupils, the unfolding of his superb later works, and their posthumous general recognition, but it is only through such reiteration that the causes of his position become manifest. For it is precisely through such vicissitudes that convictions are forged and that the composers' idiom becomes forcefully eloquent. Franck was not content with superficial assimilation of technical procedures, nor with a facile eclecticism, hence it is the moral character of the artist which has affected his disciples to a degree even overshadowing his technical instruction. Like Saint-Saëns, Franck went directly to Bach for the essence of canonic and fugal style, to Beethoven for the cardinal principles of the variation and sonata forms. But unlike Saint-Saëns he did not detach external characteristics and apply them half-heartedly; he grasped the basic qualities of the music he studied, yet expressed himself freely and elastically in his own speech. He taught and practised not the letter but the spirit of style.

As regards historic import, Franck's harmonic idiom (while remotely related to that of Liszt), perfectly commensurate with his seraphic ideality, has become infiltrated more or less into the individuality of all his pupils. Less imitated but of great intrinsic significance is Franck's virtual reincarnation of the canon, chorale prelude, fugue and variation forms in terms of modern mystical expressiveness. His crowning historical feat was the fusion of hints from Beethoven (fifth and ninth symphonies), Berlioz's somewhat artificial but suggestive manipulation of themes, Liszt's plausible transformation of musical ideas for a programmistic purpose, into an independent solution of thematic unity employing a 'generative' theme to supply all or nearly all the thematic material. It may be suggested that Saint-Saëns had anticipated Franck in this respect (third symphony in C minor), but the latter had already worked out the idea in his quintet (1878-79) and there are germs of a similar treatment in his first trio (1841).[44] If Franck's pupils have adopted this idea of thematic variety based upon unity, in differing degrees of fidelity, this device remains a favorite procedure with the Franckist school, and Vincent d'Indy has employed its resources with conspicuous success.

But the secret of Franck's enduring influence does not consist solely in the genuine creative aspect of his technical mastery despite its ineffaceable example. It lies equally in the pervading morality of his æsthetic principles, and in the intrinsic message of his musical thought. In place of vivacious, piquant but often artificial and conventionalized emotion of a recognizably Gallic type, he brought to music a serenely mystical Flemish (or, to be more exact, Walloon) temperament, a nature naïvely pure and lofty, a character of placid aspiration and consummate trust. His faith moved technical and expressive mountains. Through the steadfastly permeating quality of his artistic convictions he counteracted the superficial and meretricious elements in French music, and substituted the calm but radiant ideals of a gospel of beauty which he not only preached but lived in his own works. Understood only by the few almost to the hour of his death, he preceded his epoch so far in fearless self-expression that it seems almost inaccurate to characterize him as a preparatory figure. He is not only the greatest of these, a forerunner in many respects of a later period, but also a prophet to whom one wing of French composers look for their inspiration and solace.

The foregoing names are not alone in their contributory effect upon modern French composers. Among many, a few names may be selected as worthy of mention. Georges Bizet, essentially of the theatre, in his overtures _Roma_ (1861), _Patrie_ (1875), the suite _Jeux d'Enfants_ (1872), a charming series of miniatures, as well as the classic suites from the incidental music to Daudet's _L'Arlésienne_, disclose a remarkable and specific gift for instrumental music, whose continuance was only limited by his untimely death.

Benjamin Godard, who presumably may have also died before attaining the summit of his powers, was an over-fertile composer of indisputable melodic gift and spontaneity of mood, whose most conspicuous defect was an almost total lack of critical discrimination. In consequence, few of his works have survived, and then chiefly for the practical usefulness of a few pieces for violin or piano.

Jules Massenet, even more emphatically destined for the theatre than Bizet, showed in his early works, such as the overtures _Pompeia_ (1865), _Phèdre_ (1873), _Les Erynnies_ (suite from incidental music to the drama by Leconte de Lisle, 1873), as well as in numerous orchestral suites and shorter pieces, an unusual instinct for concise precision of form, clarity of style, and an extraordinarily dextrous, if at times coarse, manipulation of the orchestra. But his sympathies were never with the 'advanced school,' and his influence, a considerable force despite the sneers of critics, has been exerted almost entirely in the field of opera.

As a further preliminary to the evolution of ultra-modern French music, several important manifestations of progress must be discussed. The Franco-Prussian war of 1870, an irretrievable misfortune to the French people politically, acted as a direct and far-reaching stimulus toward a nationalistic tendency in music. It led to the rejection of extra-French influences, that of Wagner among them, although the current of imitation became ultimately too strong to be resisted. It brought about a conscious striving toward individuality in technical methods and the deliberate attainment of racial traits in expression. The strength and unity of this sentiment among French musicians was strikingly exemplified in the founding as early as 1871 of the National Society of French Music by Romain Bussine and Camille Saint-Saëns. Its purpose, as indicated in the device _Ars Gallica_, was to provide for and encourage the performance of works by French composers, whether printed or in manuscript.[45] From the beginning the Society has striven amazingly, and it is not too much to assert that its programs constitute a literal epitome of French musical evolution and progress. Saint-Saëns, the first president of the Society, resigned owing to disagreement over a policy adopted. César Franck then acted virtually as president until his death in 1890. Since then Vincent d'Indy has been at its head.

The pioneer efforts of Pasdeloup in establishing orchestral concerts were ably continued by Édouard Colonne in connection with different organizations beginning in 1873, and by Charles Lamoureux in 1881. Colonne's great memorial was the efficient popularization of Berlioz, while Lamoureux achieved a like service, not without surmounting almost insuperable obstacles, for the music of Wagner. Both coöperated in encouraging the work of native composers, if less ardently than the National Society, still to a sufficient extent to prove to the Parisian public the existence of French music of worth. In other respects the educational achievement of both orchestras has been admirable, and both are active to-day, the Colonne concerts being directed by Gabriel Pierné, the Lamoureux concerts by Camille Chevillard.

In 1892, Charles Bordes (1863-1905) founded a choral society, _Les Chanteurs de Saint Gervaise_, to spread a knowledge of the choral music of Palestrina and his epoch, as well as the study of plain-chant. Four years later this society was merged into the _Schola Cantorum_, an _école supérieure de musique_, with Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent d'Indy as founders, to perpetuate the spirit and teachings of César Franck. Intended originally as an active protest against the superficial standpoint of the Conservatoire before the administration of Gabriel Fauré, the _Schola_ aims to have the pupil pass through the entire course of musical evolution with a curriculum of exhaustive thoroughness. Aside from the practicability or the æsthetic soundness of this theory, the _Schola_ attempts to furnish a comprehensive education that is praiseworthy in its aims. Further than this the attitude of the _Schola_ possesses an historical import in that it embodies a deliberate reaction against the revolutionary tendencies of Debussy and Ravel, and aims to conserve the outlook of Franck.

To complete the preparatory influences bearing upon ultra-modern French music one should mention more than tentatively the palpable stimulation of the so-called 'Neo-Russian School' comprising Balakireff, Borodine, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Cui, and more particularly Moussorgsky. While these men have reacted more noticeably upon individuals rather than upon modern French composers as a group, their example has been none the less tangible. Russian sensitiveness as to orchestral timbre, their use of folk-song, their predilection for novel rhythms, exotic atmosphere, have all appealed to the receptive sensibilities of the ultra-modern French composer.

II

The pioneers of ultra-modern French music are Emmanuel Chabrier and Gabriel Fauré, men of strikingly dissimilar temperaments and equally remote style and achievement. Each is, however, equally significant in his own province.

Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-94) was born at Ambert (Puy-de-Dôme) in the South of France. One can at once infer his temperament from his birthplace. For Chabrier combined seemingly irreconcilable elements: robust vigor, ardent sincerity and intense impressionability. With an inexpressible sense of humor, he possessed a delicate and distinguished poetic instinct side by side with deeply human sentiments. His early bent toward music was only permitted with the understanding that it remain an avocation. Accordingly Chabrier came to Paris to be educated at the age of fifteen, obtained his lawyer's certificate when he was twenty-one and forthwith entered the office of the Ministry of the Interior. In the meantime he had acquired astonishing skill as a pianist, studied harmony and counterpoint, made friends with many poets, painters and musicians, among them Paul Verlaine, Édouard Manet, Duparc, d'Indy, Fauré and Messager. 'Considered up to then as an amateur,'[46] Chabrier surprised professional Paris with an opéra comique in three acts, _L'Étoile_ (1877) (played throughout this country _without_ authorization and _with_ interpolated music by Francis Wilson as 'The Merry Monarch'), and a one-act operetta, _L'Éducation manquée_ (1879), both of which were described as 'exceeding in musical interest the type of piece represented.'[47] A visit to Germany with Henri Duparc, where he heard _Tristan und Isolde_, affected his impressionable nature so deeply that he resolved to give himself entirely to music and in 1880 resigned from his position at the Ministry. (His paradoxical character was never more succinctly illustrated than by the fact that he later composed 'Humorous Quadrilles on Motives from Tristan.')[48]

In 1881 Chabrier became secretary and chorus master for the newly founded Lamoureux concerts, and helped to produce portions of _Lohengrin_ and _Tristan_. During this year he composed the 'Ten Picturesque Pieces' for piano, from which he made a _Suite Pastorale_, in which the orchestral idiom was not always skillful. From his position in the Lamoureux orchestra he soon learned the secrets of orchestral effect from their source. In 1882 he went to Spain, notebook in hand, and in the following year burst upon the Parisian public with a brilliant rhapsody for orchestra on Spanish themes entitled _España_. This highly coloristic, poetic and impassioned piece at once placed him in the front rank of contemporary French composers, and remains a landmark in a new epoch for its conviction, spontaneous inspiration, rhythmic vitality and individual treatment of the orchestra. If Lalo had shown the way, Chabrier at once surpassed the older musician on his own ground.

During the next few years Chabrier produced some of his most characteristic works, the 'Three Romantic Waltzes' for two pianos, one of which evoked enthusiasm from a Parisian wit for its 'exquisite bad taste,' a remarkable idyllic _scena_ for solo, chorus and orchestra, _La Sulamite_, a _Habañera_, transcribed for piano and also for orchestra. But by far the most ambitious work of these years was a serious opera _Gwendoline_ on a text by Catulle Mendès, produced at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels in 1886. Unfortunately the artistic success of this opera was abruptly closed by the bankruptcy of the management. But Germany received _Gwendoline_ with marked favor, and it was performed at Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Dresden, Munich and Düsseldorf.

_Gwendoline_, despite some obvious defects, is a work of unusual historical import, since it constitutes the first thorough-going attempt, aside from the tentative efforts of Reyer, Bizet, Massenet and others, to incorporate the dramatic reforms of Wagner in an opera of distinctively French character. Mendès' poem on a legendary subject is frankly imitative of scenes and characters from Wagner's music dramas. Chabrier as frankly uses leading-motives, yet he does not conform slavishly to the Wagnerian symphonic treatment of them. Moreover Chabrier is under an equal obligation to Wagner in the use of the orchestra, if indeed there are many pages and scenes which are unmistakably Gallic in their delicacy of conception and in individual color effects. Indeed, there was nothing in Chabrier's previous career to presuppose such genuine dramatic gifts, such fanciful poetry or such depths of sentiment as are to be discovered in this work, even though Mendès' text is commonplace, and his drama too ill-proportioned to form the basis of a satisfactory opera. It cannot be denied that the apotheosis of the dying lovers at the end of Act II is somewhat tawdry and mock heroic in the persistent use of a banal theme; on the other hand, the opening chorus of Act I, Gwendoline's ballad in the same act, the delicate sensibility of the prelude to Act II, the charming bridal music including the tender _Epithalame_ in the same act, all go to establish the intrinsic value and the pioneer force of the work. _Gwendoline_ is and remains a magnificent experiment, which still preserves much of its vitality intact.

Justifiably discouraged, if not overmastered, by the misfortunes attending the production of _Gwendoline_, Chabrier nevertheless brought out in the following year (1887) an opéra comique, _Le Roi malgré lui_, in which the lyric charm, vivacity and humor of the music achieved an instant success. Within a few days, however, the Opéra Comique burned to the ground. Despite this crushing blow, Chabrier continued to persist in composition. He published many songs, fantastic, grotesque and sentimental, among them the inimitable 'Villanelle of the Little Ducks,' a poignant and exquisitely lyric chorus for women's voices and orchestra, 'To Music' (1890), a rollicking _Bourée fantasque_ (1891) for piano, one of the boldest and most paradoxical instances of his combining of humor and poetic atmosphere. In addition he was working feverishly at another opera, _Briseis_, which he hoped to make his masterpiece, when his health gave way. When, after appalling struggles, Chabrier had induced the Opéra to give _Gwendoline_ late in 1893, he was too ill to realize or participate in his success and in the following year he died.

The most striking feature in Chabrier's art was his uncompromising sincerity and directness. He expressed himself in his music with undeviating fidelity, despite the shattering of conventions involved. Herein lies the intrinsic value of his music, and the potency of his example. Whether his medium were a humorous song, a fantastic piano-piece, a pastoral idyl or a tragic drama, he followed his creative impulse with an outspoken daring not to be equalled since that stormy revolutionary, Berlioz. Chabrier possessed a positive genius for dance-rhythms and humorous marches which he redeemed from coarseness by surprising turns of melodic and harmonic inventiveness. Thus the _choeur dansé_ from the second act of _Le Roi malgré lui_, the first of the 'Three Romantic Waltzes,' the witty _Joyeuse Marche_ and finally _España_ are genuinely classics, despite their lack of 'seriousness.' But Chabrier was equally epoch-making in the sincerity and glamour with which he painted lyric moods of poetic intensity and extremely personal sentiment. Gwendoline's ballad, the bridal music and _Epithalame_ from the same opera, _La Sulamite_ and _À la Musique_ display an astonishing variety in scope of sentiment for the robust and almost over-exuberant composer of _España_ and the _Bourée fantasque_. In sensuous and poignant imaginativeness again, Chabrier is the forerunner to a considerable extent of the later group whose essential purpose was truthfulness of atmosphere. While as a dramatic composer Chabrier followed deliberately in the footsteps of Wagner, his own expressive individuality maintained itself as persistently as could be expected from the force of the spell to which it was subjected. Also, Chabrier was in this respect but one of many, and not until the fusion of Wagnerian method and French individuality had been tried out, could the native composer at last enfranchise himself. Harmonically, Chabrier was bold and defiant in a generation which was submissive to convention. With an idiom essentially his own, he foreshadowed many so-called innovations in sequences of seventh chords, the use of ninths, startling modulations, and even a preparing of the whole-tone scale. In short, Chabrier's legacy to French music was that of a self-confident personality, daring to express himself with total unreserve in an assimilative age which deferred to public taste and superficialities of style.

Between Chabrier and Gabriel Fauré there can be no comparison, and no parallel save that both have exerted a constructive influence on modern French music. Where Chabrier was high-spirited almost to boisterousness, Fauré is suave, urbane, polished, a man of society who nevertheless preserves curiously poetic and mystical instincts. Born in 1845 at Pamiers, in that district known as the _Midi_, he is of the reflective rather than the spontaneous type. Meeting with a relatively slight opposition from his father in cultivating his early manifested gift for music, he came to Paris when only nine years of age and studied for eleven years at Niedermeyer's _École de Musique Religieuse_. He studied first with Pierre Dietsch, who is remembered chiefly for his purchase of Wagner's text to 'The Flying Dutchman' and for the inconspicuous success of his music, then with Saint-Saëns, who drilled him thoroughly in Bach and the German romanticists. After four years' incongenial work at Rennes, as organist and teacher (in the latter capacity watchful mothers were loath to confide their daughters' education to the attractive youth), he served in the Franco-Prussian war. Then, returning to Paris, he occupied various positions in Parisian churches before settling finally at the Madeleine. From 1877 to 1889 he made several trips to Germany to see Liszt and to hear Wagner's music. During these journeys he won glowing comments from such diverse personalities as von Bülow, César Cui and Tschaikowsky. In 1896 he became teacher of composition at the Paris Conservatory; in 1905 he became director, and still holds this position. He has thoroughly reorganized the Conservatory, enlarged the scope of its curriculum, especially as regards composition, and has accomplished significant results as a teacher.

Fauré has not been equally successful in every field of composition. His development has been inward. He is first and foremost a composer of songs, and his attainment in this direction alone would maintain his position. He has been a fertile writer of piano pieces. Many of them are disfigured by a light salon style; a considerable number, however, are of intrinsically poetic expression. Despite respectable achievements in chamber music (he has been awarded prizes), the quintet for piano and strings op. 89 (1906) is the one outstanding work which is conspicuous in modern French music, although the early violin sonata, op. 13 (1876), had its day of popularity. He has written some agreeable choral music, of which the cantata 'The Birth of Venus' is notable if unequal. There is noble music in the Requiem op. 48 (1887) and the final number _In Paradisum_ is an exceptionally fine instance of mystical expression. Fauré's orchestral music is relatively insignificant, and his incidental music to various dramas has not left a permanent mark, save for the thoroughly charming suite arranged from the music to _Pelléas et Mélisande_ op. 80 (1898). Not until the performance of _Pénélope_ (1913) at Monte Carlo and Paris has Fauré accomplished a successful opera.

In song-writing, however, Fauré has achieved a remarkable distinction not exceeded by any of his countrymen. Some of the early songs dating from the years spent at Rennes, as _Le Papillon et la Fleur_ and _Mai_, suggest naturally enough the influence of Saint-Saëns. Others in the first volume, _Sérénade Toscane_, _Après un rêve_, and _Sylvie_, show clearly a growing independence, while _Lydia_ in its delicate archaism foreshadows Fauré's later achievements in this style. From 1880 onwards, Fauré at once launches into his own subtle and fascinating vein. If some of the songs in a second volume suggest the _salon_ as do many of the piano pieces, they have a peculiar elegance of mood and a finesse of workmanship which elevate them above any hint of vulgarity. Such are the songs _Nell_, _Rencontre_ and _Chanson d'Amour_. But there are many songs in the same volume which bespeak eloquently Fauré's higher gifts for lyrical interpretation and imaginative delineation of mood. Among these the most salient are _Le Secret_ (1882), remarkable for its intimate sentiment, _En Prière_, delicately mystical though slightly sentimental, _Nocturne_ (1886), which is original in its harmonic idiom; _Clair de Lune_ (1887), adroitly suggestive of Verlaines' Watteauesque text; _Les Berceaux_ (1882), expansive in its human emotion; and _Les Roses d'Ispahan_, replete with an impassioned exoticism. In a third volume are two songs which show Fauré's individuality in a significantly broader scope. These are _Au cimitière_ (1889), a profound elegy, typical of the outspoken lamentation of the Latin temperament, and _Prison_, in which the tragic emotion is heightened by an intensely declamatory style. Fauré has published other sets of songs, among them _La Bonne Chanson_ (1891-92), texts by Verlaine, and _La Chanson d'Ève_ (1907-10), texts by Charles Van Lerbergle, which contain many striking specimens of his delicate lyricism, but none more significant, except possibly from the virtue of added maturity, than those already mentioned. As a whole, the imaginative and expressive traits of Fauré's songs are partially due to his unerring instinct in the choice of texts by the most distinguished French poets, including Leconte de Lisle, Villiers de Lisle-Adam, Paul Verlaine, Jean Richepin, Sully-Prudhomme, Armand Silvestre, Charles Grandmougin, Charles Baudelaire and others.

It is not too much to say that Fauré has vitalized the song as no French composer had done hitherto, and that his influence has been paramount among his younger contemporaries despite divergences of individuality. Furthermore, weighing the differences of race and temperament, they can be successfully compared with the German romanticists. If they do not scale the same heights, sound the same depths, or approach the artless simplicity of German lyricism, their poetry is far more subtle, imaginative and varied in its infinite differentiation of mood. In these songs are the manifestations of suave elegance, individual perfume, sometimes sensuous, sometimes mystical, a singularly poetic essence expressed in music that delights alike by its refined workmanship, melodic and harmonic ingenuity. In his songs, Fauré is at once transitory and definitive; he begins experimentally, but soon attains ultra-modern significance.

_Pénélope_, text by Réné Fauchois, is a lyric drama presenting the legend of Ulysses' return with a few unessential variants. It does not attempt therefore a drama of large outlines, but is content to remain within the scope prescribed by its frame. Fauré also has wisely followed within similar lines as being the more compatible with his lyric talent. Nevertheless we find in many episodes the distinguished invention which marks his songs, a style which if somewhat too restrained is nevertheless adequate. The first act contains many passages of lyrical and emotional charm, but not until the climax of the third act (the slaying of the suitors) does Fauré arrive at genuine intensity. If _Pénélope_ cannot be classed with _Pelléas et Mélisande_ or _Louise_, if it does not convince one that Fauré is a born dramatist, it contains too much that is poignantly beautiful to be dismissed hastily. Furthermore it possesses distinct historical import as owing virtually nothing to the thralldom of Wagnerism. From this standpoint it marks a conscious path of effort which has engaged French composers for thirty years or so.

If some critical attention should rightfully be given Fauré's Elegy for violoncello and piano op. 24 (1883), the quintet, one of his noblest and most individual works, the Requiem, the incidental music to _Pelléas et Mélisande_, these omissions are purposely made to concentrate appreciation on Fauré as a song writer. If he is a significant figure among French musicians of to-day on the intrinsic merits of his creative fancy, he deserves none the less to be recorded as an important innovator from the technical standpoint. He has adapted, either literally or freely, modal harmony to lyrical or dramatic suggestion. If Saint-Saëns had already done this in his third symphony (finale), Fauré has employed this medium with greater fluidity and poetic connotation. Moreover this device has been partially imitated by Debussy. In his use of secondary sevenths in conventional sequence, the use of altered chords suggesting the whole-tone scale, of ninths, elevenths and thirteenths, he has gone beyond Chabrier, and furnished many a hint to later composers. He is also original and evolutionary in his ingeniously transitory modulations, adding a spice of surprise to his music. A conspicuous defect, on the other hand, is his abuse of the sequence, melodic or harmonic, a shortcoming which has been transmitted in some degree to his pupil, Maurice Ravel. But after all critical cavilling and analysis of his harmonic originality his enduring charm and sincerity of sentiment defy analysis or reconstruction.

III

If the pupils of César Franck are regarded to-day as constituting a definitely reactionary wing in French music, they had in their youth to contend with bitter and outspoken criticism for their propagation of dangerously 'modern' tendencies. On the one hand, they were under suspicion for their uncompromising fidelity to their master's technical and æsthetic tenets, on the other they were abused for their eager receptivity to Wagnerian principles in dramatic reform and use of the orchestra. In addition, they had to justify the innovating features (both harmonically and melodically) of their own definite individualities.

To-day we can look back at the struggle and see that in reality they were contending for principles essentially moderate and even classical in drift, especially when viewed in the light of more revolutionary younger contemporaries. We realize that in the main the influence of Wagner was enormously salutary, even if it postponed considerably the final achievement of a positively nationalistic dramatic idiom. The lesson of an opera which should genuinely unite music and drama, of an orchestral style at once of greater scope and of finesse in illustrative detail, was sadly needed. Moreover it became at last an honor to have been a pupil of Franck, and many claimed this distinction who were not genuine disciples in reality. In addition there were some, like Augusta Holmès, who studied under Franck but who were never materially influenced by him, just as there were others like Paul Dukas who showed the imprint of Franck's methods without actually having been his pupil. Vincent d'Indy thus enumerates the real pupils of Franck: Camille Bênoit, Pierre de Bréville, Albert Cahen, Charles Bordes, Alexis de Castillon, Ernest Chausson, Arthur Coquard, Henri Duparc, Augusta Holmès, Vincent d'Indy, Henri Kinkelmann, Guillaume Lekeu, Guy Ropartz, Louis de Serres, Gaston Vallin and Paul de Wailly. Of these de Castillon, Chausson, Duparc, d'Indy, Lekeu and Ropartz may be considered as representative, and d'Indy by virtue of the totality of his activity is entitled to first consideration.

Vincent d'Indy, born at Paris, March 27, 1851, of a family of ancient nobility coming from Ardèche in the Cévennes, has steadily maintained an attitude of intellectual aristocracy toward his art, although like his master Franck he has labored most democratically for the advancement of musical education.[49] Left motherless when an infant, d'Indy was brought up by his grandmother, Mme. Théodore d'Indy, of whom he likes to record that she had 'known Grétry and Monsigny, and shown a keen appreciation of Beethoven in 1825.'[50] It was owing to her that d'Indy came early in contact with the music of Bach and Beethoven. Piano lessons under Diemer occupied him from the age of ten onwards, and after 1865 he studied piano and harmony at the Paris _Conservatoire_ with Marmontel and Lavignac. But d'Indy was also genuinely interested in composition, and by 1870 he finished and published some piano pieces, a short work for baritone and chorus, and projected others of varying dimensions. When the Franco-Prussian war broke out, d'Indy enlisted and served throughout. After the war he took up the study of law in a half-hearted manner, but his introduction by Henri Duparc to César Franck in 1872 settled his musical career definitely. While Franck criticized severely the piano quartet that d'Indy brought him, he was quick to perceive the latent qualities of the young composer. Forthwith d'Indy studied the organ with Franck at the _Conservatoire_, but recognizing the inadequate opportunity of obtaining any technical drill in composition at this institution, he became Franck's private pupil. With him he worked faithfully and pertinaciously, and received not only an exhaustive technical grounding, but an illuminating æsthetic comradeship rich in comprehensive discussions of art-principles. D'Indy soon joined the _Société Nationale de Musique Française_ and became an energetic worker in its behalf, being secretary for nearly ten years and becoming president after the death of Franck in 1890. Under his leadership the Society has wonderfully extended its activity. In 1873 he spent a fruitful month with Liszt at Weimar; in 1876 he heard a performance of 'The Ring of the Nibelungs' at Bayreuth, and in 1881 he heard 'Parsifal.' From 1873 to 1878 he was kettle-drummer and chorus-master in Colonne's orchestra, and in 1887 chorus-master for Lamoureux, both exceedingly valuable practical experiences. In 1885 the city of Paris awarded d'Indy the first prize for his choral work _Le Chant de la Cloche_, whose reception in the following year placed him in the front rank of French composers. In 1896 d'Indy with Charles Bordes and Alexandre Guilmant founded the _Schola Cantorum_ as an _école supérieure de musique_,[51] to perpetuate the spirit and practical essence of Franck's teachings, to restore the study of plain-chant and the music of the Palestrinian epoch to its proper dignity, and to include in its curriculum masterpieces from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. With the death of Bordes in 1909 (compelled by reason of ill health to live in the south of France, where he founded a branch of the Schola at Montpellier in 1905) and of Guilmant in 1911, d'Indy became sole director of the Schola. In this position he has been prodigal of thought and strength.

To comprehend the nature of d'Indy's evolution, it is essential to detail some of the more significant influences reacting upon him. Brought up in a cultivated milieu, d'Indy absorbed Goethe, Schiller, Herder and Lessing, while not a few of his works are founded on their writings. The German romantic musicians, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Weber, affected him fairly acutely for a while, but in a transitory fashion. While the spell exercised by Franck on d'Indy is both deep and permanent, it could not prevent his instant recognition of the import of Wagner's dramatic procedures, including the magical euphony of his orchestration. While there remains of this 'Wagnerianism' only the normal residue that comes with the acceptance of a great historical figure, d'Indy's music continued to show in method or suggestion his admiration and close study of Wagner. That this is no longer the case is due partly to the natural ripening of individuality consequent upon maturity, and also to the Schola. With the profound study of liturgic music and the literature of the sixteenth century, d'Indy has reverted to ecclesiastic counterpoint as a logical foundation for technique despite his adaptation of its principles to a free and modernistic expression. Moreover, he has used plain-chant melodies to an increasing extent in instrumental or dramatic works. Thus his music has taken on a spiritual and humanitarian character, analogous in inward motive if markedly different in outward sentiment from that of his master.

[Illustration: Modern French Composers:]

Emanuel Chabrier Vincent d'Indy Maurice Ravel Gustave Charpentier

Apart from a relatively small amount of miscellaneous works for chorus, piano, etc., the greater portion of d'Indy's productivity can be divided into two general classes, instrumental (orchestral or chamber music) and dramatic (choral works or operas). Moreover he turns (seemingly with deliberate purpose) from one pole to another of the musical field. If the examination of d'Indy's chief works in chronological order would give the best clue to his evolutionary progress, the consideration of each type by itself has perhaps greater clarity.

D'Indy's earliest published instrumental music, the piano quartet op. 7 (1878-88) and the symphonic ballad _La Forêt enchantée_ after Uhland (1878), show him to be too concerned in mastering the technique of his art to be preoccupied as to individuality. Of this the quartet contains more, although not of an assertive order, together with a sedulous attention to detail. _La Forêt enchantée_ is well planned and effectively carried out in a spontaneous adolescent manner, with distinct Teutonic reflections in the general atmosphere. This is all changed with the 'Wallenstein Trilogy' (1873-81), three symphonic poems after Schiller's drama. The subject has struck fire in d'Indy's imagination. _Le Camp de Wallenstein_ is a kaleidoscope of passing scenes hit off with apt characterization, dramatic touches and no little orchestral brilliancy. _Max et Thecla_ (the earliest of d'Indy's orchestral works), performed as _Ouverture des Piccolomini_ in 1874, remodelled to form the second part of the trilogy, contains all too obvious traces of ineptitude, side by side with pages of genuine romantic sensibility. _La Mort de Wallenstein_ is musically the strongest of the three, and the ablest in technical and expressive mastery, despite echoes of the _Tarnhelm_ motif in the introduction and the palpably Franckian canonic treatment of the chief theme. In inventiveness, dramatic force and markedly skillful orchestration, the trilogy is prophetic of later attainments.

The _Poème des Montagnes_ op. 15 (1881) for piano deserves mention because it is one of a number of works concerned with aspects of nature, a source of evocatory stimulus upon d'Indy in a number of instances. There are romantic qualities of some grandeur in these pieces, as well as dramatic vitality in one idea which d'Indy appropriately used in a later work,[52] but as a whole they do not rank with his best music. If a poetic mood is apparent in _Saugefleurie_ op. 21 (1884) and a vein of piquant fancy is to be found in the suite op. 24 for trumpet, flutes and strings, both are not unjustly to be ranked chiefly as steps leading to works of larger significance.

After _Le Chant de la Cloche_, whose performance brought instant recognition to d'Indy, the 'Symphony on a Mountain Air' op. 25 (1886) for piano and orchestra is the first instance of d'Indy's deliberate resolve to follow in the footsteps of Franck as regards formal and thematic treatment. The basis of the work is a true folk-song[53] which furnishes through rhythmic and melodic modification the principal themes of the symphony. Here we find more assertive individuality than in any instrumental work since the Wallenstein trilogy, a genuine capacity for logical developments, thoughtful sentiment in the slow movement, and great animation in the vivid Kermesse which forms the finale. Similarly the trio op. 29 (1887) for clarinet, violoncello and piano adopts the Franckian method while permitting an equal freedom of personal idiom. Again passing over minor works for the piano, a few choral or vocal pieces which have a contributory rather than a capital import, and leaving momentarily the opera _Fervaal_, d'Indy's next striking contribution to instrumental music is the set of symphonic variations _Istar_, op. 42 (1896). The program of the work, taken from the Epic of Izdubar, is concerned with the descent of _Istar_ into the Assyrian abode of the dead to rescue her lover, leaving a garment or ornament with the guardian of each of seven gates, until naked she has fulfilled the test and restores her lover. Accordingly d'Indy has adroitly reversed the variations from the complex to the simple, to describe the gradual spoliation of the heroine, until the theme at last emerges in a triumphal unison depicting the nudity of Istar. The variations are in themselves of great ingenuity, of picturesque detail and gorgeous orchestral color, but the descriptive purpose is somewhat marred by the artificialities of technical manipulation. Heard as absolute music, the intrinsic qualities of the piece delight the listener and its uncompromising individuality shows the progressive maturity of the composer.

In a second string quartet, op. 45 (1897), d'Indy's inventive fertility in evolving not only the chief themes but accompaniment figures from a motto of four notes, gives further evidence of his skill along the lines suggested by Franck. Certain episodes and even entire movements give cause for suspicion that the composer was drawn to the realization of technical problems rather than that of concrete expression. The contrapuntal texture of the quartet undoubtedly proceeds from a source anterior to Franck, that of the counterpoint of the sixteenth century to which d'Indy has reverted more and more since his connection with the Schola. But it is combined with a superstructure of personal and modernistic expression upon classical and Franckian models in such a way as to achieve a notable beauty. If the _Chanson et Danses_, op. 50 (1898), for wind instruments, is laid out in small forms, its singular purity of style and its spontaneous mastery of a difficult medium make it of greater weight than its scope would indicate.

D'Indy's instrumental masterpiece, the Symphony in B-flat, op. 57 (1902-3), easily marks the summit of his achievement in this field. If, from a technical standpoint, it surpasses anything hitherto attained by its composer in logic and elasticity of form, subtle and compelling development of themes from its generative phrases, clarity of style despite its external complexity, its creative inventiveness, richness of detail, profundity of sentiment and genial orchestration are of equal magnitude. With the climax of the finale, a chorale derived from a theme in the introduction to the first movement, d'Indy attains a comprehensive sublimity that is not only unique in modern French music, but which is difficult to find surpassed in the contemporary symphonic literature of any nation. While the piano and violin sonata, op. 59 (1903-4), by reason of its smaller dimensions, can scarcely be compared with the symphony, the diversity and elasticity of its thematic development (on three generative phrases) as well as the concrete beauty of its substance make it one of the most distinguished examples of its class since that by César Franck.

_Jour d'été à la montagne_, op. 61 (1905), three movements for orchestra, with an underlying thematic unification of introduction and conclusion, after prose poems by Roger de Pampelonne, displays a balance of greater homogeneity between constructive and descriptive elements than any of d'Indy's programmistic works. The use of plain-chant themes in the movement _Jour_,[54] with the subtitle _Après-midi sous les pins_, and again in _Soir_, manifests not only a felicitous emotional connotation, but an increasing desire to correlate even the music of externals to spiritual sources.

The poem _Souvenirs_ for orchestra, op. 62 (1906), an elegy on the death of his wife, is not only profoundly elegiac in sentiment, but attains an unusual poignancy through the quotation of the theme of the Beloved from the earlier _Poème des Montagnes_. Both in _Jour d'été à la montagne_ and in _Souvenirs_ d'Indy employs orchestral effects ranging from delicate subtlety to extreme force in a manner so entirely his own as to dispel forever the question of imitative features.

D'Indy's latest instrumental work, a piano sonata, op. 63 (1907), is more happy in its formal constructive unity than in a euphonious or natively idiomatic piano style. Its variations are hardly convincing music despite their technical skill; the scherzo has brilliant pages but too much of its thematic material is indifferent. The finale suffers for the same reason up to the climax and close, where the theme of the variations (first movement) and that of the finale are brought together with consummate contrapuntal perception.

To summarize, d'Indy as an instrumental composer has with sure and increasing power fused the methods of Franck, with early contrapuntal elements, and his own individualistic sentiment into music which presents the strongest achievement in this direction since that of his master. If d'Indy is sometimes dry or over-complex, his best works show a blending of the intellectual with the emotional which constitutes a persuasive bid for their durability. From a conservative standpoint it is impossible to imagine an abler unification of elements that tend to be disparate or antagonistic. As a master of the orchestra he can still hold his own against ultra-modern developments although he is relatively conservative in the forces he employs. If his piano music, including the _Helvetia Waltzes_ (1882), the _Schumanniana_ (1887), the _Tableaux de Voyage_ (1889) and other pieces are, by comparison with others of his works, insignificant, the cantata _Sainte Marie-Magdelène_ (1885), the chorus for women's voices _Sur la Mer_ (1888), the imaginative song _Lied Maritime_ (1896) are conspicuous instances in a somewhat neglected field.

D'Indy's development as a dramatic composer follows a natural path of evolution. Despite the success of the 'Wallenstein Trilogy,' the largeness of conception and the pregnant details of _Le Chant de la Cloche_ op. 18 (1879-83), for solos, chorus and orchestra, text by the composer after Schiller's poem, although preceded by the dramatic experiments of _La Chevauchée du Cid_, op. 11 (1879), scene for baritone, chorus and orchestra; _Clair de Lune_, op. 13 (1872-81), dramatic study for soprano and orchestra, and _Attendez-moi sous l'orme_, op. 14 (1882), opéra comique in one act, came as a complete surprise. Even if d'Indy had obviously applied Wagner's dramatic procedures, with modifications, to a choral work, the variety and power of expression, the firm treatment of the whole, and the superb use of a large orchestra astounded musicians and public alike. If the influence of both Franck and Wagner could be discerned in the scenes of 'Baptism' and 'Love,' the assertive personality evident in the scenes 'Vision' and 'Conflagration' was entirely original, and the dramatic strokes in 'Death,' especially the telling use of portions of the Catholic service for the dead in vigorous modal harmonization, bespoke a composer of tragic intensity of imagination.

Another surprise came several years later, in 1897, when _Fervaal_, op. 40 (1889-95), an opera in three acts, text by the composer, had its _première_ at the _Théâtre de la Monnaie_ in Brussels. For a time the numerous and comprehensive Wagnerian obligations obscured the real qualities of the work, and prevented a judicial opinion. Resemblances were too many; a legendary subject, a hero who combined characteristics of Siegfried and Parsifal, a heroine partly compounded of Brünnhilde and Kundry, the renunciation of love as in the 'Ring' and many others. D'Indy furthermore boldly adopted the systematic use of leading-motives, and system of orchestration frankly modelled on Wagner. But though _Fervaal_ was assimilative in underlying treatment, it was far less experimental than Chabrier's _Gwendoline_. It greatly surpassed the older work not only in thorough absorption of technical method, in continuity and flexibility of style, but in appropriate dramatic characterization, and in adroit manipulation of the orchestral forces. Furthermore, in the essence of the subject dealing with the passing of Pagan mythology, with redemption through suffering, and the outcome a new religious faith whose key-note was the love of humanity, d'Indy achieved a dramatic elevation whose moral force indicated an innovation in French operatic subjects. Its source was ultimately Teutonic, but its realization was concretely Gallic. Despite the manifest obligations, _Fervaal_ not only shows a technical and dramatic skill of a high order, but a tragic note of distinctive individuality. The symbolic use of the ancient hymn _Pange Lingua_ as typifying the Christian religion was not only a genuine dramatic inspiration but a salient instance of effective connotation. With the revival in 1912 at the Paris _Opéra_, when Wagnerianism was no longer an issue,[55] the intrinsic qualities of _Fervaal_ were appreciated more on their own merits. The incidental music to Catulle Mendès' drama _Medée_, op. 47 (1898), showed afresh d'Indy's ability in dramatic characterization, as well as his faculty for realizing noble and tragic conceptions.

With the opera _L'Étranger_, op. 53 (1898-1901), d'Indy made a notable progress in dramatic independence at the cost of unequal musical invention. In the drama (text again by d'Indy) is to be found a conflict between the realistic and the symbolical which was confusing and prejudicial to the success of the opera. In addition the symbolism was not always intelligible or convincing. If there were moral nobility in the drama in the personality of the unselfish Stranger whose devotion to humanity was misunderstood or sneered at until he gave his life in an attempt to relieve ship-wrecked sailors, many of the scenes were somewhat obscure in import. D'Indy also resorted to musical symbolism in the use of a liturgic melody from the office of Holy Thursday, with the text _Ubi caritas et amor, ibi Deus est_ as a thematic basis for the entire work. While this induces an atmosphere of indubitable spiritual and moral elevation in the opera, there are many scenes, especially in the first act, in which d'Indy's dramatic perceptions seem to have deserted him. At the end of the first act, and in the final scene more especially, d'Indy has written music of unparalleled dramatic intensity. In his orchestral style he has virtually renounced Wagner, and its personal eloquence is exceedingly powerful.

The evolution of d'Indy as a dramatic composer forms an epitome of the development of French music along dramatic lines. First slightly irresolute, then acknowledging almost too sweepingly the glamour and originality of Wagner, a nationalistic sentiment has led to the repudiation of his potent influence, and the gradual attainment of dramatic freedom. In a movement whose most characteristic works are _Gwendoline_, _Esclarmonde_, _Fervaal_, and _L'Étranger_ we are compelled to pause at the moment of genuine transition, and defer the completion of this list until later. Report has it that d'Indy has finished the composition of another dramatic work, _La Légende de Saint-Christophe_ (1907-14), which should prove the strongest instance of his unification of the dramatic and spiritual. D'Indy's art has tended more and more to concern itself with religious life and sentiment, and in his unselfish character he is peculiarly qualified to treat such subjects.

With the consideration of d'Indy as an instrumental and dramatic composer, one has traversed the most significant of his works. In addition one must reiterate his services to the Société Nationale, the years of laborious devotion at the Schola and his not infrequent appearances as conductor of programs of French music including a visit to the United States in 1905. Besides, his work as editor and author completes roughly the sum total of his influence. With the reconstitutions of Monteverdi's _Orfeo_ and _L'Incoronazione di Poppea_, revisions of Rameau's _Dardanus_, _Hippolyte et Aricie_ and _Zaïs_, and many other arrangements, the authorship (with the collaboration of Auguste Sérieyx) of the _Cours de Composition_ in two volumes (incomplete as yet) compiled from Schola lectures and showing an extraordinarily comprehensive erudition, the biographies of César Franck and Beethoven, not to mention a host of articles and addresses or lectures, one is able to sense the versatility and the solidity of d'Indy's achievements. It is easy to visualize the debt owed him by French music. In the first place he has steadily been a _conserver_ from the technical standpoint. Using the sixteenth-century counterpoint as a point of departure, he has been innovative harmonically even to the point of prefiguring the whole-tone scale. Using with fluent adaptability the time-honored canon, fugue, passacaglia, chorale, variation and sonata forms, he has been faithful fundamentally to their classic essence, while clothing them in a musical idiom which is definitely modern. While d'Indy is out of sympathy with atmospheric or futuristic tendencies in the music of to-day, he is not of an invital arch-conservative type. As a disciple of Franck he believes in the 'liberty that comes from perfect obedience to the law,' though his speech is permeated with individual eloquence. No more comprehensively eminent figure exists in French music to-day. Others may have shown fresh paths, but they lack the totality of attainment which is eminently characteristic of d'Indy.

IV

After d'Indy, the other representative pupils of Franck have, with the exception of Guy Ropartz, had their careers cut short by premature death or illness. Nevertheless their accomplishment is far from being negligible, and adds lustre not only to the fame of their master but a very specific credit to French music.

Of these the most gifted was Ernest Chausson, born at Paris in 1855, who did not begin the serious study of music until after obtaining his bachelor's degree at law. Entering Massenet's composition class at the Paris _Conservatoire_ in 1880, he tried for the prix de Rome in the following year and failed. He accordingly left the conservatory and worked arduously with César Franck until 1883. Chausson was a man of considerable property, who could thus afford to compose. A man of cultivation and polish, a gracious host and an amiable comrade in society, he was in secret almost obsessed by melancholy, lack of self-confidence despite his affectionate, lovable and gentle nature. He was retiring where his own interests were concerned, made no effort to push his works, and in consequence was not sought by managers. Possessing unusual discernment in literature and painting, he had a fine library, and a distinguished collection of paintings by Delacroix, Dégas, Lerolle, Besnard and Carrière. Thus like Chabrier before him and Debussy after him, Chausson's sympathies were keen in more than one branch of art. Chausson was eager to advance the cause of the Société Nationale and labored as its secretary for nearly a dozen years. His music was played at its concerts and elsewhere, and began to make its way. Chausson was just entering a new creative phase with greater self-confidence, assertion and technical preparedness. At work on a string quartet at his summer place Chimay, he went to refresh himself one afternoon with a bicycle ride, and was found by the roadside, his head crushed against a wall.

Chausson's music reflects his temperament with mirror-like responsiveness. With perhaps more native gifts than d'Indy, he lacked the latter's force of character and his passionate ambition for self-development. For long tormented by indecision as to whether to make music his profession or not, his technical facility was uncertain, and not always equal to the tasks he imposed upon it. Like d'Indy he was influenced both by Franck and Wagner. But he had a melodic vein that was his own, a personal harmonic idiom, expressed in music of poetic and delicately-colored romanticism. Perhaps the most prominent trait in his music is the indefinably affectionate sensibility of its emotion.

Chausson began as a composer of chamber music and songs. He soon entered the orchestral field with a prelude 'The Death of Coelio,' the symphonic poem _Viviane_, op. 5 (1882), and _Solitude dans les bois_ (1886), later destroyed. If _Viviane_ shows the insecure hand of the apprentice, its technical insecurity is more than counterbalanced by the exquisite poetry and romance which breathe from its pages. Chausson's orchestral masterpiece is his symphony in B-flat, op. 20 (1890), whose conception is noble and dignified, whose themes are mature and full of sentiment, and which has many eloquent pages. Though the work is deficient in rhythmic variety and flexibility of phrase, its underlying substance is too elevated to permit depreciation. Its orchestral style, despite Wagnerian obligations, shows a distinguished coloristic sense even in comparison with the unusual orchestral style of d'Indy. Despite certain defects, a _Concert_ for piano, violin and string quartet, op. 21 (1890-91), a _Poème_, op. 25 (1896), for violin and orchestra, frequently played by Ysaye, a piano quartet, op. 30 (1897), and the unfinished string quartet bespeak the talent and promise of achievement which was never to be fulfilled. In the dramatic field, Chausson composed incidental music for performances at Bouchor's Marionette theatre of Shakespeare's _Tempest_, and Bouchor's _Legend of St. Cecilia_, a lyric drama _Hélène_ (unpublished) and an opera, _Le Roi Arthus_ (text by himself), performed at Brussels in the _Théâtre de la Monnaie_ in 1903. That Chausson had dramatic instinct is especially evident in _Le Roi Arthus_, but there is immaturity in dramatic technique as well as a too lyrical treatment which detracts from the romantic atmosphere and imaginative conception of the whole. Among the songs, 'The Caravan,' 'Poem of Love' and 'The Sea' and the well-nigh perfect _Chanson perpétuelle_ for voice and orchestra show Chausson's lyric gift at its best.

Chausson remains a figure of importance, even if much of his work suggests the possibilities of the future rather than claims a final judgment on its own account. _Viviane_, the _Poème_ for violin, the piano quartet, the _Chanson perpétuelle_ and above all the Symphony will survive their technical flaws on account of their individualistic expression of noble thoughts and fastidiously poetic emotion.

Henri Duparc, born at Paris in 1848, studied law as did d'Indy and Chausson. One of the earliest pupils of César Franck, he was also one of the first Frenchmen to recognize Wagner, and made journeys with Chabrier and d'Indy to hear his works in Germany. From 1869, Duparc composed piano pieces, songs, chamber music and works for orchestra. A merciless critic of his own music, he has destroyed several works, including a sonata for violoncello and piano, and two orchestral studies. Since 1885 Duparc's career as a composer has been closed owing to persistent ill health. He is known by a symphonic poem _Lénore_ (1875) after the ballad by Bürger, and something more than a dozen songs. The symphonic poem is interesting if not remarkable, but the songs reveal the born lyricist. Through thirty years of silence, the vitality of some of these persists, especially _L'Invitation au voyage_, _Ecstase_, _Lamento_, and _Phydilé_, as possessing distinctive qualities which place them in the front rank of French lyrics.

Guillaume Lekeu (1870-94), another tragically unfulfilled artist of Belgian descent, played the violin at fourteen, studied the music of Bach, Beethoven and Wagner by himself, and at the age of nineteen had an orchestral piece, _Le Chant de triomphale délivrance_, performed at Verviers, 'without having had a single lesson in composition.'[56] From 1888 he lived in Paris, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in philosophy. He became a friend of the poet Mallarmé, at whose gatherings of poets, painters and philosophers Claude Debussy found such illuminating inspiration. Lekeu completed the study of harmony with Gaston Vallin, a pupil of Franck, and soon came under the influence of Franck himself. After Franck's death, he continued composition lessons with d'Indy. D'Indy urged Lekeu, as a native Belgian, to compete for the Belgian _prix de Rome_. In 1891 he obtained the second prize with a cantata _Andromède_. Its performance later was so successful as to question the decision of the judges. In 1892 Lekeu wrote the sonata for piano and violin, which was frequently played by Ysaye. In the same year he finished a _Fantasie symphonique_ on two folk-tunes of Angers. While working at a piano quartet, Lekeu died suddenly in 1894 from a relapse after typhoid fever. Despite the contrary indications in his music, Lekeu was of a gay, outgoing nature, full of spontaneity and exuberance.

Besides the works mentioned he left songs, a piano sonata, chamber music and orchestral pieces, among them symphonic studies on 'Hamlet' and 'Faust' (second part). It is perhaps inevitable that much of his music should be immature, but the sonata for piano and violin and the piano quartet show indisputable gifts of a very high order, in which melodic inspiration, frank harmonic experiments (some of them more felicitous than others), an original and thoughtful kind of beauty, and strong delineation of tragic moods are the most salient qualities.

Alexis de Castillon (1838-73) showed early aptitude for music, but was educated for the army in deference to the wishes of his family. After leaving the military school of Saint-Cyr, he became a cavalry officer. But the impulse toward music was too strong and after several years he resigned from the army. He had studied music in a desultory fashion before, and now turned to Victor Massé (the composer of a popular operetta, _Les Noces de Jeannette_). From him he learned little or nothing. In 1868 Duparc introduced de Castillon to César Franck, who gladly received him as a pupil. De Castillon served valiantly during the Franco-Prussian war and then returned to his chosen profession only to die two years later, leaving piano pieces, songs, some half a dozen chamber works including the piano and violin sonata op. 6, a concerto for piano, orchestral pieces, and a setting of the 84th Psalm. By reason of the vicissitudes of his life, de Castillon was never able to do justice to his gifts. The sonata, a string quartet, and a piano quartet, op. 7, show a native predisposition for chamber music, which assuredly would have ripened had the composer's life been spared. At his funeral were assembled Bizet, Franck, Lalo, Duparc, d'Indy, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, and others who had 'loved the artist and the man.'[57] Impressed by this assemblage one of de Castillon's relatives remarked: 'Then he really had talent!'[58]

Charles Bordes (1865-1905) should receive some mention, not only for his piano pieces, songs, sacred music, and orchestral works, but for innumerable transcriptions and arrangements of folk-songs, cantatas, vocal pieces by various French composers, and his anthology of religious music of the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Furthermore his organization of the _Chanteurs de Saint Gervais_ gave a decided impulse toward the revival of sacred music, and his labors at the _Schola_ in Paris and the branch established at Montpellier give evidence of his untiring devotion to the cause of art.

In contrast to the pathetic incompleteness of the careers of Chausson, Lekeu, de Castillon, and Bordes, Guy Ropartz has been enabled by reason of his long activity to round out his talent. Joseph-Guy-Marie Ropartz was born at Guincamp in the north of France in 1864. After completing his general education he graduated from the law school at Rennes and was admitted to the bar. Then, like d'Indy and Chausson, he gave up law for music, entered the Paris _Conservatoire_, where he studied with Dubois and Massenet. In 1887 he left the _Conservatoire_ to be a pupil of Franck. In 1894 he became director of the conservatory at Nancy, a position which he still holds.

Ropartz has been an industrious composer, and among his works are incidental music for four dramas, including Pierre Loti's and Louis Tiercelius' drama _Pêcheur d'Islande_; a music drama, _Le Pays_; four symphonies; a fantasia; a symphonic study, _La Chasse du Prince Arthur_; several suites for orchestra; two string quartets; a sonata for violoncello and piano, and one for violin and piano; many songs and vocal pieces including a setting of the 137th Psalm.

Following the principles of Franck, he tends toward cyclical forms on generative themes, and in addition employs Breton folk-songs in orchestral and dramatic works. The symphony in C major, by its treatment of a generative phrase, emphasizes his fidelity to his master, but despite effective and transparent orchestration the work is lacking in strong individuality and in inherent logic and continuity in development. The sonatas for violin and for violoncello with piano display adequate workmanship and conception of style but do not possess concrete musical persuasiveness. Ropartz appears in the most favorable light when his music gives free utterance to nationalistic sentiment and 'local color.' His Breton suite and the Fantasia have a rustic piquancy and rhythmic verve which give evidence of sincere conviction.

_Le Pays_ is said by no less an authority than Professor Henri Lichtenberger to belong to 'the little group of works which, like _Pelléas et Mélisande_ of Debussy, _Ariane et Barbe-bleue_ of Dukas, _Le Cœur du Moulin_ of Déodat de Séverac, _L'Heure espagnole_ of Ravel, have distinct value and significance in the evolution of our French art.'[59] But a study of the music does not entirely bear this out. Ropartz shows in this music drama an obvious gift for the stage, and his music clearly heightens the dramatic situations. In its freedom from outside influence it undoubtedly possesses historical significance, but in compelling originality it does not maintain the level of the works mentioned above.

The foregoing pupils of Franck are those who have best illustrated the didactic standpoint of their revered master, both as regards technical treatment and uncompromising self-expression. Of these d'Indy is incomparably the most distinguished by virtue of the continuity of his development, the intrinsic message of his music, and his remarkable faculty for organization in educative propaganda. If Chausson, Lekeu, and Bordes were prevented from reaping the just rewards to which their gifts entitled them, they attained not only enough for self-justification but have left a definite imprint on the course of modern French music.

In conclusion, though Franck's pupils are not iconoclastic, though they seem ultra-reactionary in some respects, their united efforts have preserved intact the traditions of one of the noblest figures in French music, and in their works is to be found music of such lofty conception, admirable technical execution, and fearless expression of personality as to make the task of disparagement futile and ungrateful. Moreover, this influence has not ceased with the actual pupils of Franck. The names and works of Magnard,[60] Roussel, de Séverac and Samazeuilh attest the fact that the Franckian tradition is still a living force.

While Emmanuel Chabrier and Gabriel Fauré showed the way for new vitality in musical expression and the pupils of Franck demonstrated that the resources of conservatism were not yet exhausted, new movements were also on foot which may be classified as belonging to the 'impressionistic or atmospheric' school. A consideration of this movement, together with some unclassifiable figures and an indication of the work of some younger men, will follow in the next chapter.

E. B. H.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] Vincent d'Indy: _César Franck_, pp. 82 _et seq._

[45] Romain Rolland: _Musiciens d'aujourd'hui_, pp. 230 _et seq._

[46] Octave Séré: _Musiciens français d'aujourd'hui_, p. 83.

[47] Ibid., p. 83.

[48] S. I. M., April 15, 1911.

[49] Vincent d'Indy: _César Franck_.

[50] Autobiographical Sketch in 'The Music-Lover's Calendar,' Boston, 1905.

[51] Charles Bordes founded the _Chanteurs de St. Gervaise_ in 1892 to perform sixteenth-century music, and more worthy later choral works. Including the study of plain-chant, better standards in modern church music, and higher requirements in organists, this association became the _Schola Cantorum_ in 1894. As a school it was incorporated as above.

[52] The theme of the Beloved, employed in the orchestral poem _Souvenirs_, op. 62.

[53] From the Cévennes region.

[54] Melody employed in the service proper to the Feast of the Assumption.

[55] '_On accuse les compositeurs de debussysme, on ne leur reproche plus d'être wagnériens._'--Preface to 2nd edition, _Fervaal, Étude thématique_, by Pierre de Bréville and Henri Laubers Villars.

[56] Octave Séré: _Musiciens français d'aujourd'hui_, p. 272.

[57] Louis Gallet: _Notes d'un Librettist_, quoted by Octave Séré in _Musiciens français d'aujourd'hui_, p. 73.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Lowell Institute Lecture, Jan. 7, 1915. Reported in the 'Boston Transcript.'

[60] Magnard died in September, 1914, somewhat quixotically defending his cause against the Germans.

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