But as what was really religious in him found itself in agreement with a current of thought that was rather powerful at that time, it was inevitable that this one side of his genius should be first brought to light, and that religious music should be the first to benefit by his work. And also one of the early manifestos[227] of the Schola Cantorum dealt with the reform of sacred music by carrying it back to great ancient models; and its first decision was as follows: "Gregorian chant shall rest for all time the fountain-head and the base of the Church's music, and shall constitute the only model by which it may be truly judged."[228]
They added to this, however, music à la Palestrina, and any music that conformed to its principles or was inspired by its example. Such archaic ideas would certainly never create a new kind of religious music, but at least they have helped to restore the old art; and they received their official consecration in the famous letter written by Pope Pius X on the Re-form of Sacred Music.
The achievement of an artistic ideal so restricted as this would not have sufficed, however, to assure the success of the Schola Cantorum, nor establish its authority with a public that was, whatever people may say, only lukewarm in its religion, and that would only interest itself in the religious art of other days as it would in a passing fashion. But the spirit of curiosity and the meaning of modern life began to weigh little by little with the Schola's principles. After singing Palestrinian and Gregorian chants at the Church of Saint-Gervais during Holy Week, they played Carissimi, Schütz, and the Italian and German masters of the seventeenth century. Then came Bach's cantatas; and their performance, given by M. Bordes in the Salle d'Harcourt, attracted large audiences and started the cult of this master in Paris. Then they sang Rameau and Gluck; and, finally, all ancient music, sacred or secular, was approved. And so this little school, which had been consecrated to the cult of ancient religious music, and had made so modest a beginning,[229] developed into a School of Art capable of satisfying modern wants; and in 1900, when M. Vincent d'Indy became president of the Schola, it was decided to move the school into larger premises in the Rue Saint-Jacques.
The programme of this new school was explained by M. Vincent d'Indy in his Inauguration speech on 2 November, 1900, and showed how he based the foundations of musical teaching upon history.
"Art, in its journey across the ages, is a microcosm which has, like the world itself, successive stages of youth, maturity, and old age; but it never dies—it renews itself perpetually. It is not like a perfect circle; it is like a spiral, and in its growth is always mounting higher. I believe in making students follow the same path that art itself has followed, so that they shall undergo during their term of study the same transformations that music itself has undergone during the centuries. In this way they will come out much better armed for the difficulties of modern art, since they will have lived, so to speak, the life of art, and followed the natural and inevitable order of the forms that made up the different epochs of artistic development."
M. d'Indy claims that this system may be applied as successfully to instrumentalists and singers as to future composers. "For it is as profitable for them to know," he says, "how to sing a liturgic monody properly, or to be able to play a Corelli sonata in a suitable style, as it is for composers to study the structure of a motet or a suite." M. d'Indy, moreover, obliged all students, without distinction, to attend the lectures on vocal music; and, besides that, he instituted a special class to teach the conducting of orchestras—which was something quite new to France. His object, as he clearly said, was to give a new form to modern music by means of a knowledge of the music of the past.
On this subject he says:
"Where shall we find the quickening life that will give us fresh forms and formulas? The source is not really difficult to discover. Do not let us seek it anywhere but in the decorative art of the plain-song singers, in the architectural art of the age of Palestrina, and in the expressive art of the great Italians of the seventeenth century. It is there, and there alone, that we shall find melodic craft, rhythmic cadences, and a harmonic magnificence that is really new—if our modern spirit can only learn how to absorb their nutritious essence. And so I prescribe for all pupils in the School the careful study of classic forms, because they alone are able to give the elements of a new life to our music, which will be founded on principles that are sane, solid, and trustworthy."[230]
This fine and intelligent eclecticism was likely to develop a critical spirit, but was rather less adapted to form original personalities. In any case, however, it was excellent discipline in the formation of musical taste; and, in truth, the École Supérieure de musique of the Rue Saint-Jacques became a new Conservatoire, both more modern and more learned than the old Conservatoire, and freer, and yet less free, because more self-satisfied. The school developed very quickly. From having twenty-one pupils in 1896, it had three hundred and twenty in 1908. Eminent musicians and professors learned in the history and science of music taught there, and M. d'Indy himself took the Composition classes.[231] And in its short career the Schola may already be credited with the training of young composers, such as MM. Roussel, Déodat de Séverac, Gustave Bret, Labey, Samazeuilh, R. de Castéra, Sérieyx, Alquier, Coindreau, Estienne, Le Flem, and Groz; and to these may be added M. d'Indy's private pupils, Witkowski, and one of the foremost of modern composers, Alberic Magnard.
Outside the influence that the School exercises by its teaching, its propaganda by means of concerts and publications is very active. From its foundation up to 1904 it had given two hundred performances in one hundred and thirty provincial towns; more than one hundred and fifty concerts in Paris, of which fifty were of orchestral and choral music, sixty of organ music, and forty of chamber-music. These concerts have been well attended by enthusiastic and appreciative audiences, and have been a school for public taste. One does not look for perfect execution there,[232] but for intelligent interpretations and a thirst for a fuller knowledge of the great works of the past. They have revived Monteverde's Orfeo and his Incoronazione di Poppea, which had been forgotten these three centuries; and it was following an interest created by repeated performances of Rameau at the Schola[233] that Dardanus was performed at Dijon under M. d'Indy's direction, Castor et Pollux at Montpellier under M. Charles Bordes' direction, and that in 1908 the Opera at Paris gave Hippolyte et Aricie. Branches of the Schola have, been started at Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Avignon, Montpellier, Nancy, Épinal, Montluçon, Saint-Chamond, and Saint-Jean-deLuz.[234] A publishing house has been associated with the School at Paris; and from this we get Reviews, such as the Tribune de Saint-Gervais; publications of old music, such as the Anthologie des maîtres religieux primitifs des XVe, XVIe, et XVIIe siècles, edited by Charles Bordes; the Archives des maîtres de l'orgue des XVIe, XVIIe, et XVIIIe siècles, edited by Alexandre Guilmant and André Pirro; the Concerts spirituels de la Schola, the new editions of Orfeo, and the Incoronazione di Poppea, edited by M. Vincent d'Indy; and publications of modern music, such as the Collection du chant populaire, the Répertoire moderne de musique vocale et d'orgue, and, notably, the Édition mutuelle, published by the composers themselves, whose property it is.