This manifesto reflects in its own way the spirit of Debussy and his untrammelled musical impressionism; and though it shows a good deal of naïveté 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 passed 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-Saëns, 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 assemblies; 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."
It is the historian's duty to point out the dangers of the present hour, and to remind the French musicians who have been satisfied with their first victory that the future is anything but sure, and that we must never disarm while we have a common enemy before us, an enemy especially dangerous in a democracy—mediocrity.
The road that stretches before us is long and difficult. But if we turn our heads and look back over the way we have come we may take heart. Which of us does not feel a little glow of pride at the thought of what has been done in the last thirty years? Here is a town where, before 1870, music had fallen to the most miserable depths, which to-day teems with concerts and schools of music—a town where one of the first symphonic schools in Europe has sprung from nothing, a town where an enthusiastic concert-going public has been formed, possessing among its members some great critics with broad interests and a fine, free spirit—all this is the pride of France. And we have, too, a little band of musicians; among them, in the first rank, that great painter of dreams, Claude Debussy; that master of constructive art, Dukas; that impassioned thinker, Albéric Magnard; that ironic poet, Ravel; and those delicate and finished writers, Albert Roussel and Déodat de Séverac; without mention of the younger musicians who are in the vanguard of their art. And all this poetic force, though not the most vigorous, is the most original in Europe to-day. Whatever gaps one may find in our musical organisation, still so new, whatever results this movement may lead to, it is impossible not to admire a people whom defeat has aroused, and a generation that has accomplished the magnificent work of reviving the nation's music with such untiring perseverance and such steadfast faith. The names of Camille Saint-Saëns, César Franck, Charles Bordes, and Vincent d'Indy, will remain associated before all others with this work of national regeneration, where so much talent and so much devotion, from the leaders of orchestras and celebrated composers down to that obscure body of artists and music-lovers, have joined forces in the fight against indifference and routine. They have the right to be proud of their work. But for ourselves, let us waste no time in thinking about it. Our hopes are great. Let us justify them.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "And you, Russia, who have saved me...." (Berlioz, Mémoires, II, 353, Calmann-Lévy's edition, 1897).
[2] Mémoires, II, 149.
[3] The literary work of Berlioz is rather uneven. Beside passages of exquisite beauty we find others that are ridiculous in their exaggerated sentiment, and there are some that even lack good taste. But he had a natural gift of style, and his writing is vigorous, and full of feeling, especially towards the latter half of his life. The Procession des Rogations is often quoted from the Mémoires; and some of his poetical text, particularly that in L'Enfance du Christ and in Les Troyens, is written in beautiful language and with a fine sense of rhythm. His Mémoires as a whole is one of the most delightful books ever written by an artist. Wagner was a greater poet, but as a prose writer Berlioz is infinitely superior. See Paul Morillot's essay on Berlioz écrivain, 1903, Grenoble.
[4] "Chance, that unknown god, who plays such a great part in my life" (Mémoires, II, 161).