Not only did the Conservatoire audiences know little music, but the larger public knew none at all. The symphonies of the three great classic masters were known to amateurs for the most part only through Czerny’s arrangement for two pianos.
This was the situation when Seghers left the Société des Concerts and founded the Société St. Cécile. He led the orchestra himself. The new society took its name from the St. Cécile hall which was then in the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin. It was a large square hall and was excellent in spite of the prejudice in favor of halls with curved lines for music. Curved surfaces, as Cavaillé-Coll, who was an expert in this matter, once told me, distort sound as curved mirrors distort images. Halls used for music should, therefore, have only straight lines. The St. Cécile hall was sufficiently large to allow a complete orchestra and chorus to be placed properly and heard as well.
Seghers managed to assemble an excellent and sizable orchestra and he also secured soloists who were young then but who have since become celebrities. The orchestra was poorly paid and also very unruly. I have seen them rebel at the difficulties in Beethoven, and it was even worse when Seghers undertook to give Schumann who was considered the ne plus ultra of modernism. Oftentimes there were real riots. But we heard there for the first time the overture of Manfred, Mendelssohn’s Symphony in A minor, and the overture to Tannhauser.
The modern French school found the doors in the Rue Bergère closed to them, but they were welcomed with open arms at the Chaussée d’Antin. Among them were Reber, Gounod, and Gouvy, and even beginners like Georges Bizet and myself. I made my first venture there with my Symphony in E flat which I wrote when I was seventeen. In order to get the committee to adopt it, Seghers offered it as a symphony by an unknown author, which had been sent to him from Germany. The committees swallowed the bait, and the symphony, which would probably not had a hearing if my name had been signed, was praised to the skies.
I can still see myself at a rehearsal listening to a conversation between Berlioz and Gounod. Both of them were greatly interested in me, so that they spoke freely and discussed the excellences and faults of this anonymous symphony. They took the work seriously and it can be imagined how I drank in their words. When the veil of mystery was lifted, the interest of the two great musicians changed to friendship. I received a letter from Gounod, which I have kept carefully, and as it does credit to the author, I take the liberty of reproducing it here:
My dear Camille:
I was officially informed yesterday that you are the author of the symphony which they played on Sunday. I suspected it; but now that I am sure, I want to tell you at once how pleased I was with it. You are beyond your years; always keep on—and remember that on Sunday, December 11, 1853, you obligated yourself to become a great master.
Your pleased and devoted friend,
Ch. Gounod.
Many works which had been unknown to Parisian audiences were given at these concerts and nowhere else. Among them were Schubert’s Symphony in C, fragments of Weber’s opera Préciosa, his Jubel overture, and symphonies by Gade, Gouvy, Gounod, and Reber. These symphonies are not dazzling but they are charming. They form an interesting link in the golden chain, and the public has a right and even some sort of duty to hear them. They would enjoy hearing them too, just as at the Louvre they like to see certain pictures which are not extraordinary but which are, nevertheless, worthy of the place they occupy. That is to say, if the public is really guided by a love of art and seeks only intellectual pleasure instead of sensations and shocks. Some one has said lately that where there is no feeling there is no music. We could, however, cite many passages of music which are absolutely lacking in emotion and which are beautiful nevertheless from the standpoint of pure esthetic beauty. But what am I saying? Painting goes its own way and emotion, feeling, and passion are evoked by the least landscape. Maurice Barres brought in this fashion and he could even see passion in rocks. Happy is he who can follow him there.
Among the things we heard at that time and which we never hear now I must note especially Berlioz’s Corsaire and King Lear. His name is so much beloved by the present day public that this neglect is both unjust and unjustifiable. The great man himself came to the Société St. Cécile one day to conduct his L’Enfance du Christ which he had just written—or rather La Fuite en Egypt which was the only part of the work that was in existence then. He composed the rest of it afterwards. I remember perfectly the performances which the great man directed. They were lively and spirited rather than careful, but somewhat slower than what Edouard Colonne has accustomed us to. The time was faster and the nuances sharper.
In spite of the enthusiasm of the conductor and the skill and talent of the orchestra, the society led a hand-to-mouth existence. The sinews of war were lacking. Weckerlin directed the choruses and I acted as the accompanist at the rehearsals. Love of art sufficed us, but the singers and instrumentalists were not satisfied with that in the absence of all emoluments. If Seghers had been adaptable, he might have secured resources, but that was not his forte. Meyerbeer wanted him to give his Struensée and Halévy wanted a performance of his Prométhée. But this was contrary to Seghers’s convictions, and when he had once made up his mind nothing could change him. Nevertheless he did give the overture to Struensée and it would have been no great effort to give the rest. As to Prométhée, even if the last part is not in harmony with the rest of it, the work was well worthy the honor of a performance, which the proud society in the Rue Bergère had accorded it. By these refusals Seghers was deprived of the support of two powerful protectors.
Pasdeloup craftily took advantage of the situation. He had plenty of money and, as he knew what the financial situation was, he went to the rehearsals and corrupted the artists. For the most part they were young people in needy circumstances and could not refuse his attractive propositions. He killed Seghers’s society and built on its ruins the Société des Jeunes Artistes, which later became the Concerts Populaires.