[239] The first three theses on Music accepted at the Sorbonne were those of M. Jules Combarieu on The Relationship of Poetry and Music, of M. Romain Holland on The Beginnings of Opera before Lully and Scarlatti, and of M. Maurice Emmanuel on Greek Orchestics. There followed, several years afterwards, M. Louis Laloy's Aristoxenus of Tarento and Greek Music and M. Jules Écorcheville's Musical Aesthetics, from Lully to Rameau and French Instrumental Music of the Seventeenth Century, M. André Pirro's Aesthetics of Johann Sebastian Bach, and M. Charles Lalo's Sketch of Scientific Musical Aesthetics.
[240] There are ninety violins, fifteen violas, and fifteen violoncellos. Unfortunately it is much more difficult to get recruits for the wood wind and brass.
[241] They have performed classical music of composers like Bach, Händel, Gluck, Rameau, and Beethoven; and modern music of composers like Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Dukas, etc. This Society has just installed itself in the ancient chapel of the Dominicans of the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, who have given them the use of it.
[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 classical 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 Händel 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 Universités 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 classic 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.
[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 Händel'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.'" (Poème 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 Poème, 1902.)
[244] Taken from the Supplement à la Correspondance générale de l'Instruction primaire, 15 December, 1894.
[245] Three series of these Chants populaires pour les Écoles have already been published.
[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 classical 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 Händel 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 Händel 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 Noël 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.
[247] The Poème has been published in four parts:—I. De la naissance au mariage ("From Birth to Marriage"); II. La Cité ("The City"); III. De l'age viril jusqu'à la mort ("From Manhood to Death"); IV. L'Idéal ("Ideals"). 1900-1906.