[199] May I be allowed to say that I am trying to write this study from a purely historical point of view, by eliminating all personal feeling—which would be of no value here. As a matter of fact, I am not a Debussyite; my sympathies are with quite another kind of art. But I feel impelled to give homage to a great artist, whose work I am able to judge with some impartiality.
[200] That is for musicians. But I am convinced that with the mass of the public the other reasons have more weight—as is always the case.
[201] We must also note that during the first half of the seventeenth century people of taste objected to the very theatrical declamation of French opera. "Our singers believe," wrote Mersenne, in 1636, "that the exclamations and emphasis used by the Italians in singing savour too much of tragedies and comedies, and so they do not wish to employ them."
[202] No other critic has, I think, discerned so shrewdly Debussy's art and genius. Some of his analyses are models of clever intuition. The thought of the critic seems to be one with that of the musician.
[203] Jean-Christophe à Paris, 1904.
[204] One must at least do Hugo the justice of saying that he always spoke of Beethoven with admiration, although he did not know him. But he rather exalts him in order to take away from the importance of a poet—the only one in the nineteenth century—whose fame was shading his own; and when he wrote in his William Shakespeare that "the great man of Germany is Beethoven" it was understood by all to mean "the great man of Germany is not Goethe."
[205] Written in a letter to his sister, Nanci, on 3 April, 1850.
[206] We remark, nevertheless, that that did not prevent Gautier from being a musical critic.
[207] I wish to make known from the beginning that I am only noticing here the greater musical doings of the nation, and making no mention of works which have not had an important influence on this movement.
[208] In the meanwhile France saw the brilliant rise and extinction of a great artist—the most spontaneous of all her musicians—Georges Bizet, who died in 1875, aged thirty-seven. "Bizet was the last genius to discover a new beauty," said Nietzsche; "Bizet discovered new lands—the Southern lands of music," Carmen (1875) and L'Arlésienne (1872) are masterpieces of the lyrical Latin drama. Their style is luminous, concise, and well-defined; the figures are outlined with incisive precision. The music is full of light and movement, and is a great contrast to Wagner's philosophical symphonies, and its popular subject only serves to strengthen its aristocratic distinction. By its nature and its clear perception of the spirit of the race it was well in advance of its time. What a place Bizet might have taken in our art if he had only lived twenty years longer!