Musicians of To-Day Part 22

6. _Music and the People_

Thus music had almost come back to its own, as far as the higher kind of teaching and the intellectual world were concerned. It remained for a place to be found for it in other kinds of teaching; for there, and especially in secondary education, its advance was less sure. It remained for us to make it enter into the life of the nation and into the people's education. This was a difficult task, for in France art has always had an aristocratic character; and it was a task in which neither the State nor musicians were very interested. The Republic still continued to regard music as something outside the people. There had even been opposition shown during the last thirty years towards any attempt at popular musical education. In the old days of the Pasdeloup concerts one could pay seventy-five centimes for the cheapest places, and have a seat for that; but at some of the symphony concerts to-day the cheapest seats are two and four francs. And so the people that sometimes came to the Pasdeloup concerts never come at all to the big concerts to-day.

And that is why one should applaud the enterprise of Victor Charpentier, who, in March, 1905, founded a Symphonic Society of amateurs called _L'Orchestre_, to give free hearings for the benefit of the people. And in that Paris, where forty years ago one would have had a good deal of trouble to get together two or three amateur quartettes, Victor Charpentier has been able to count on one hundred and fifty good performers,[240] who under his direction, or that of Saint-Saens or Gabriel Faure, have already given seventeen free concerts, of which ten were given at the Trocadero.[241] It is to be hoped that the State will help forward such a generous work for the people in a rather more practical way than it has done up till now.[242]

[Footnote 240: There are ninety violins, fifteen violas, and fifteen violoncellos. Unfortunately it is much more difficult to get recruits for the wood wind and bra.s.s.]

[Footnote 241: They have performed cla.s.sical music of composers like Bach, Handel, Gluck, Rameau, and Beethoven; and modern music of composers like Berlioz, Saint-Saens, Dukas, etc. This Society has just installed itself in the ancient chapel of the Dominicans of the Faubourg-Saint-Honore, who have given them the use of it.]

[Footnote 242: Of late years there has been a veritable outburst of concerts at popular prices--some of them in imitation of the German _Restaurationskonzerte_, such as the Concerts-Rouge, the Concerts-Touche, etc., where cla.s.sical and modern symphony music may be heard. These concerts are increasing fast, and have great success among a public that is almost exclusively _bourgeois_, but they are yet a long way behind the popular performances of Handel in London, where places may be had for sixpence and threepence.

I do not attach very much importance to the courageous, though not always very intelligent movement of the Universites Populaires, where since 1886 a collection of amateurs, of fashionable people and artists, meet to make themselves heard, and pretend to initiate the people into what are sometimes the most complicated and aristocratic works of a cla.s.sic or decadent art. While honouring this propaganda--whose ardour has now abated somewhat--one must say that it has shown more good-will than common-sense. The people do not need amusing, still less should they be bored; what they need is to learn something about music. This is not always easy; for it is not noisy deeds we want, but patience and self-sacrifice. Good intentions are not enough. One knows the final failure of the _Conservatoire populaire de Mimi Pinson_, started by Gustave Charpentier, for giving musical education to the work-girls of Paris.]

Attempts have been made at different times to found a _Theatre Lyrique Populaire_. But up to the present time none has succeeded. The first attempts were made in 1847. M. Carvalho's old Theatre-Lyrique was never a financial success, though quite distinguished performances of operas were given there, such as Gounod's _Faust_ and Gluck's _Orfeo_, with Mme. Viardot as an interpreter and Berlioz as conductor; and the directors who followed Carvalho--Rety, Pasdeloup, etc.--did not succeed any better. In 1875 Vizentini took over the Gaite, with a grant of two hundred thousand francs and excellent artists; but he had to give it up.

Since then all sorts of other schemes have been tried by Viollet-le-Duc, Guimet, Lamoureux, Melchior de Vogue and Julien Goujon, Gabriel Parisot, Colonne and Milliet, Deville, Lagoanere, Corneille, Gailhard, and Carre; but none of them achieved any success. At the moment, a new attempt is being made; and this time the thing seems to show every sign of being a success.

But whatever may be the educational value of the theatre and concerts, they are not complete enough in themselves for the people. To make their influence deep and enduring it must be combined with teaching. Music, no less than every other expression of thought, has no use for the illiterate.

So in this case there was everything to be done. There was no other popular teaching but that of the numerous Galin-Paris-Cheve schools.

These schools have rendered great service, and are continuing to render it; but their simplified methods are not without drawbacks and gaps.

Their purpose is to teach the people a musical language different from that of cultured people; and although it may not be as difficult as is supposed to go from a knowledge of the one to a knowledge of the other, it is always wrong to raise up a fresh barrier--however small it is--between the cultured people and the other people, who in our own country are already too widely separated.

And besides, it is not enough to know one's letters; one must also have books to read. What books have the people had?--so far songs sung at the cafe concerts and the stupid repertoires of choral societies. The folk-song had practically disappeared, and was not yet ready for re-birth; for the populace, even more readily than the cultured people, are inclined to blush at anything which suggests "popularity."[243]

[Footnote 243: M. Maurice Buchor relates an anecdote which typifies what I mean. "I begged the conductor of a good men's choral society," he says, "to have one of Handel's choruses sung. But he seemed to hesitate.

I had made the suggestion tentatively, and then tried to enlarge on the sincerity and breadth of its musical idea. 'Ah, very good,' he said, 'if you really want to hear it, it is easily done; but I was afraid that perhaps it was rather too popular.'" (_Poeme de la Vie Humaine_: Introduction to the Second Series, 1905.) One may add to this the words of a professor of singing in a primary school for Higher Education in Paris: "Folk-music--well, it is very good for the provinces." (Quoted by Buchor in the Introduction to the Second Series of the _Poeme_, 1902.)]

It is nearly twenty-five years since M. Bourgault-Ducoudray, who was one of the people who fostered the growth of choral singing in France, pointed out, in an account of the teaching of singing, the usefulness of making children sing the old popular airs of the French provinces, and of getting the teachers to make collections of them. In 1895, as the result of a meeting organised by the _Correspondance generale de l'Instruction primaire_, delightful collections of folk-songs were distributed in the schools. The melodies were taken from old airs collected by M. Julien Tiersot, and M. Maurice Buchor had put some fresh and sparkling verses to them. "M. Buchor," I wrote at the time, "will enjoy a pleasure not common to poets of our day: his songs will soar up into the open air, like the lark in his _Chanson de labour_. The populace may even recognise its own spirit in them, and one day take possession of them, as if they were of their own contriving."[244] This prediction has been almost completely realised, and M. Buchor's songs are now the property of all the people of France.

[Footnote 244: Taken from the _Supplement a la Correspondance generale de l'Instruction primaire_, 15 December, 1894.]

But M. Buchor did not remain content to be a poet of popular song.

During the last twelve years he has made, with untiring energy, a tour of all the ecoles Normales in France, returning several times to places where he found signs of good vocal ability. In each school he made the pupils sing his songs--in unison, or in two or three parts, sometimes ma.s.sing the boys' and girls' schools of one town together. His ambition grew with his success; and to the folk-song melodies[245] he began gradually to add pieces of cla.s.sical music. And to impress the music better on the singers he changed the existing words, and tried to find others, which by their moral and poetic beauty more exactly translated the musical feeling.[246]

[Footnote 245: Three series of these _Chants populaires pour les ecoles_ have already been published.]

[Footnote 246: I reserve my opinion, from an artist's point of view, on this plagiarising of the words of songs. On principle I condemn it absolutely. But, in this case, it is Hobson's choice. _Primum vivere, deinde philosophari_. If our contemporary musicians really wished the people to sing, they would have written songs for them; but they seem to have no desire to achieve honour that way. So there is nothing else to be done but to have recourse to the musicians of other days; and even there the choice is very limited. For France formerly, like the France of to-day, had very few musicians who had any understanding of a great popular art. Berlioz came nearest to understanding the meaning of it; and he is not yet public property, so his airs cannot be used. It is curious, and rather sad, that out of eighty pieces chosen by M. Buchor only nine of them are French; and this is reckoning the Italians, Lully and Cherubini, as Frenchmen. M. Buchor has had to go to German cla.s.sical musicians almost entirely, and, generally speaking, his choice has been a happy one. With a sure instinct he has given the preference to popular geniuses like Handel and Beethoven. We may ask why he did not keep their words; but we must remember that at any rate they had to be translated; and though it may seem rash to change the subject of a musical masterpiece, it is certain that M. Buchor's clever adaptations have resulted in driving the fine thoughts of Handel and Schubert and Mozart and Beethoven into the memories of the French people, and making them part of their lives. Had they heard the same music at a concert they would probably not have been very much moved. And that makes M. Buchor in the right. Let the French people enrich themselves with the musical treasures of Germany until the time comes when they are able to create a music of their own! This is a kind of peaceful conquest to which our art is accustomed. "Now then, Frenchmen," as Du Bellay used to say, "walk boldly up to that fine old Roman city, and decorate (as you have done more than once) your temples and altars with its spoils." Besides, let us remember that the German masters of the eighteenth century, whose words M. Buchor has plagiarised, did not hesitate to plagiarise themselves; and in turning the Berceuse of the _Oratorio de Noel_ into a _Sainte famille humaine_, M. Buchor has respected the musical ideas of Bach much more than Bach himself did when he turned it into a _Dialogue between Hercules and Pleasure_.]

And at last he composed and grouped together twenty-four poems in his _Poeme de la Vie humaine_[247]--fine odes and songs, written for cla.s.sic airs and choruses, a vast repertory of the people's joys and sorrows, fitting the momentous hours of family or public life. With a people that has ancient musical traditions, as Germany has, music is the vehicle for the words and impresses them in the heart; but in France's case it is truer to say that the words have brought the music of Handel and Beethoven into the hearts of French school-children. The great thing is that the music has really got hold of them, and that now one may hear the provincial ecoles Normales performing choruses from _Fidelio, The Messiah_, Schumann's _Faust_, or Bach cantatas.[248] The honour of this remarkable achievement, which no one could have believed possible twenty years ago, belongs almost entirely to M. Maurice Buchor.[249]

[Footnote 247: The _Poeme_ has been published in four parts:--I. _De la naissance au mariage_ ("From Birth to Marriage"); II. _La Cite_ ("The City"); III. _De l'age viril jusqu'a la mort_ ("From Manhood to Death"); IV. _L'Ideal_ ("Ideals"). 1900-1906.]

[Footnote 248: The last chorus of _Fidelio_ has been recently sung by one hundred and seventy school-children at Douai; a grand chorus from _The Messiah_ by the ecoles Normales of Angouleme and Valence; and the great choral scene and the last part of Schumann's _Faust_ by the two ecoles Normales of Limoges. At Valence, performances are given every year in the theatre there before an audience of between eight hundred and a thousand teachers.

Outside the schools, especially in the North, a certain number of teachers of both s.e.xes have formed choral societies among work-girls and co-operative societies, such as _La Fraternelle_ at Saint Quentin.

In a general way one may say that M. Maurice Buchor's campaign has especially succeeded in departments like that of Aisne and Drome, 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 ecoles 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 inst.i.tuted at the examination for the _Brevet superieur_[252] which made the study of solfeggio a more serious matter in the ecoles 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 _Manecanterie des pet.i.ts 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. Chaumie's suggestion. See the _Revue Musicale_, 15 July, 1903.]

In 1904, following the suggestions of M. Saint-Saens and M.

Bourgault-Ducoudray, cla.s.s-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 Pierne. And lastly, at the end of 1907, an a.s.sociation of professors was started to undertake the teaching of music in the inst.i.tutions of public instruction; its chairman was the Inspector-General, M. Gilles, and its honorary presidents were M. Liard and M. Saint-Saens. 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 Thoma.s.schule at Leipzig, of which barely a score knew how to sing.[256] And now these people gather together for the great _Mannergesangsfeste_ (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 cla.s.ses." That is true; but one must not blame the middle-cla.s.s children so much as those in authority, who, "in this, as in many other things,"

have not fulfilled their duties.]

[Footnote 256: _The Pa.s.sion 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 ingrat.i.tude; 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 _Pelleas et Melisande_, 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, Clerambault, 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 cla.s.sical 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 navete 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 pa.s.sed 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-Saens, 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 a.s.semblies; 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."