With the opera L'Étranger, op. 53 (1898-1901), d'Indy made a notable progress in dramatic independence at the cost of unequal musical invention. In the drama (text again by d'Indy) is to be found a conflict between the realistic and the symbolical which was confusing and prejudicial to the success of the opera. In addition the symbolism was not always intelligible or convincing. If there were moral nobility in the drama in the personality of the unselfish Stranger whose devotion to humanity was misunderstood or sneered at until he gave his life in an attempt to relieve ship-wrecked sailors, many of the scenes were somewhat obscure in import. D'Indy also resorted to musical symbolism in the use of a liturgic melody from the office of Holy Thursday, with the text Ubi caritas et amor, ibi Deus est as a thematic basis for the entire work. While this induces an atmosphere of indubitable spiritual and moral elevation in the opera, there are many scenes, especially in the first act, in which d'Indy's dramatic perceptions seem to have deserted him. At the end of the first act, and in the final scene more especially, d'Indy has written music of unparalleled dramatic intensity. In his orchestral style he has virtually renounced Wagner, and its personal eloquence is exceedingly powerful.
The evolution of d'Indy as a dramatic composer forms an epitome of the development of French music along dramatic lines. First slightly irresolute, then acknowledging almost too sweepingly the glamour and originality of Wagner, a nationalistic sentiment has led to the repudiation of his potent influence, and the gradual attainment of dramatic freedom. In a movement whose most characteristic works are Gwendoline, Esclarmonde, Fervaal, and L'Étranger we are compelled to pause at the moment of genuine transition, and defer the completion of this list until later. Report has it that d'Indy has finished the composition of another dramatic work, La Légende de Saint-Christophe (1907-14), which should prove the strongest instance of his unification of the dramatic and spiritual. D'Indy's art has tended more and more to concern itself with religious life and sentiment, and in his unselfish character he is peculiarly qualified to treat such subjects.
With the consideration of d'Indy as an instrumental and dramatic composer, one has traversed the most significant of his works. In addition one must reiterate his services to the Société Nationale, the years of laborious devotion at the Schola and his not infrequent appearances as conductor of programs of French music including a visit to the United States in 1905. Besides, his work as editor and author completes roughly the sum total of his influence. With the reconstitutions of Monteverdi's Orfeo and L'Incoronazione di Poppea, revisions of Rameau's Dardanus, Hippolyte et Aricie and Zaïs, and many other arrangements, the authorship (with the collaboration of Auguste Sérieyx) of the Cours de Composition in two volumes (incomplete as yet) compiled from Schola lectures and showing an extraordinarily comprehensive erudition, the biographies of César Franck and Beethoven, not to mention a host of articles and addresses or lectures, one is able to sense the versatility and the solidity of d'Indy's achievements. It is easy to visualize the debt owed him by French music. In the first place he has steadily been a conserver from the technical standpoint. Using the sixteenth-century counterpoint as a point of departure, he has been innovative harmonically even to the point of prefiguring the whole-tone scale. Using with fluent adaptability the time-honored canon, fugue, passacaglia, chorale, variation and sonata forms, he has been faithful fundamentally to their classic essence, while clothing them in a musical idiom which is definitely modern. While d'Indy is out of sympathy with atmospheric or futuristic tendencies in the music of to-day, he is not of an invital arch-conservative type. As a disciple of Franck he believes in the 'liberty that comes from perfect obedience to the law,' though his speech is permeated with individual eloquence. No more comprehensively eminent figure exists in French music to-day. Others may have shown fresh paths, but they lack the totality of attainment which is eminently characteristic of d'Indy.
IV
After d'Indy, the other representative pupils of Franck have, with the exception of Guy Ropartz, had their careers cut short by premature death or illness. Nevertheless their accomplishment is far from being negligible, and adds lustre not only to the fame of their master but a very specific credit to French music.
Of these the most gifted was Ernest Chausson, born at Paris in 1855, who did not begin the serious study of music until after obtaining his bachelor's degree at law. Entering Massenet's composition class at the Paris Conservatoire in 1880, he tried for the prix de Rome in the following year and failed. He accordingly left the conservatory and worked arduously with César Franck until 1883. Chausson was a man of considerable property, who could thus afford to compose. A man of cultivation and polish, a gracious host and an amiable comrade in society, he was in secret almost obsessed by melancholy, lack of self-confidence despite his affectionate, lovable and gentle nature. He was retiring where his own interests were concerned, made no effort to push his works, and in consequence was not sought by managers. Possessing unusual discernment in literature and painting, he had a fine library, and a distinguished collection of paintings by Delacroix, Dégas, Lerolle, Besnard and Carrière. Thus like Chabrier before him and Debussy after him, Chausson's sympathies were keen in more than one branch of art. Chausson was eager to advance the cause of the Société Nationale and labored as its secretary for nearly a dozen years. His music was played at its concerts and elsewhere, and began to make its way. Chausson was just entering a new creative phase with greater self-confidence, assertion and technical preparedness. At work on a string quartet at his summer place Chimay, he went to refresh himself one afternoon with a bicycle ride, and was found by the roadside, his head crushed against a wall.
Chausson's music reflects his temperament with mirror-like responsiveness. With perhaps more native gifts than d'Indy, he lacked the latter's force of character and his passionate ambition for self-development. For long tormented by indecision as to whether to make music his profession or not, his technical facility was uncertain, and not always equal to the tasks he imposed upon it. Like d'Indy he was influenced both by Franck and Wagner. But he had a melodic vein that was his own, a personal harmonic idiom, expressed in music of poetic and delicately-colored romanticism. Perhaps the most prominent trait in his music is the indefinably affectionate sensibility of its emotion.
Chausson began as a composer of chamber music and songs. He soon entered the orchestral field with a prelude 'The Death of Coelio,' the symphonic poem Viviane, op. 5 (1882), and Solitude dans les bois (1886), later destroyed. If Viviane shows the insecure hand of the apprentice, its technical insecurity is more than counterbalanced by the exquisite poetry and romance which breathe from its pages. Chausson's orchestral masterpiece is his symphony in B-flat, op. 20 (1890), whose conception is noble and dignified, whose themes are mature and full of sentiment, and which has many eloquent pages. Though the work is deficient in rhythmic variety and flexibility of phrase, its underlying substance is too elevated to permit depreciation. Its orchestral style, despite Wagnerian obligations, shows a distinguished coloristic sense even in comparison with the unusual orchestral style of d'Indy. Despite certain defects, a Concert for piano, violin and string quartet, op. 21 (1890-91), a Poème, op. 25 (1896), for violin and orchestra, frequently played by Ysaye, a piano quartet, op. 30 (1897), and the unfinished string quartet bespeak the talent and promise of achievement which was never to be fulfilled. In the dramatic field, Chausson composed incidental music for performances at Bouchor's Marionette theatre of Shakespeare's Tempest, and Bouchor's Legend of St. Cecilia, a lyric drama Hélène (unpublished) and an opera, Le Roi Arthus (text by himself), performed at Brussels in the Théâtre de la Monnaie in 1903. That Chausson had dramatic instinct is especially evident in Le Roi Arthus, but there is immaturity in dramatic technique as well as a too lyrical treatment which detracts from the romantic atmosphere and imaginative conception of the whole. Among the songs, 'The Caravan,' 'Poem of Love' and 'The Sea' and the well-nigh perfect Chanson perpétuelle for voice and orchestra show Chausson's lyric gift at its best.
Chausson remains a figure of importance, even if much of his work suggests the possibilities of the future rather than claims a final judgment on its own account. Viviane, the Poème for violin, the piano quartet, the Chanson perpétuelle and above all the Symphony will survive their technical flaws on account of their individualistic expression of noble thoughts and fastidiously poetic emotion.
Henri Duparc, born at Paris in 1848, studied law as did d'Indy and Chausson. One of the earliest pupils of César Franck, he was also one of the first Frenchmen to recognize Wagner, and made journeys with Chabrier and d'Indy to hear his works in Germany. From 1869, Duparc composed piano pieces, songs, chamber music and works for orchestra. A merciless critic of his own music, he has destroyed several works, including a sonata for violoncello and piano, and two orchestral studies. Since 1885 Duparc's career as a composer has been closed owing to persistent ill health. He is known by a symphonic poem Lénore (1875) after the ballad by Bürger, and something more than a dozen songs. The symphonic poem is interesting if not remarkable, but the songs reveal the born lyricist. Through thirty years of silence, the vitality of some of these persists, especially L'Invitation au voyage, Ecstase, Lamento, and Phydilé, as possessing distinctive qualities which place them in the front rank of French lyrics.