[232] The orchestra is mainly composed of pupils; and, by a generous arrangement, the financial profits from rehearsals and performances are divided among the pupils who take part in them, and credited to their account. And so besides the exhibitioners the Schola has a great number of pupils who are not well off, but who manage by these concerts to defray almost the entire expenses of their education there. "The concerts serve more especially as aesthetic exercises for the pupils, and as a means of according them teaching at small expense to themselves." I owe this information and all that precedes it to the kindness of M. J. de la Laurencie, the general secretary of the Schola, whom I should like to thank.

[233] The Schola has even performed, in an open-air theatre, Ramcau's La Guirlande.

[234] One may add to this list the choral societies of Nantes and Besançon, which are bodies of the same order as the Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais. And we may also attribute to the influence of the Schola an independent society, the Société J.S. Bach, started in Paris by an old Schola pupil, M. Gustave Bret, which, since 1905, has devoted itself to the performance of the great works of Bach. It is not one of the least merits of the Schola that it has helped to form good amateur choirs of the same type as the choral societies of Germany.

[235] M. Charles Bordes did not even then give up his labours altogether. Though obliged to retire to the south of France for his health's sake, he founded, in November, 1905, the Schola of Montpellier. This Schola has given about fifteen concerts a year, and has performed some of Bach's cantatas, scenes from Rameau's and Gluck's operas, Franck's oratorios, and Monteverde's Orfeo. In 1906 M. Bordes organised an open-air performance of Rameau's Guirlande. In January, 1908, he produced Castor et Pollux at the Montpellier theatre. The man's activity was incredible, and nothing seemed to tire him. He was planning to start a dramatic training-school at Montpellier for the production of seventeenth and eighteenth century operas, when he died, in November, 1909, at the age of forty-four, and so deprived French art of one of its best and most unselfish servants.

[236] The quality of the audience atoned, it is true, for its small numbers. Berlioz used to come to these concerts with his friends, Damcke and Stephen Heller; and it was after one of these performances, when he had been very stirred by an adagio in the E flat quartette, that he burst out with, "What a man! He could do everything, and the others nothing!"

[237] The name, La Trompette, was also the pretext for embellishing chamber-music, by introducing the trumpet among the other instruments. To this end M. Saint-Saëns wrote his fine septette for piano, trumpet, two violins, viola, violoncello, and double bass; and M. Vincent d'Indy his romantic suite in D for trumpet, two flutes, and string instruments.

[238] On 12 September, 1871, at the suggestion of Ambroise Thomas. The first lecturer was Barbereau, who, however, only lectured for a year. He was succeeded by Gautier, Professor of Harmony and Accompaniment, who in turn was replaced, in 1878, by M. Bourgault-Ducoudray.

[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.

[248] The last chorus of Fidelio has been recently sung by one hundred and seventy school-children at Douai; a grand chorus from The Messiah by the Écoles Normales of Angoulême and Valence; and the great choral scene and the last part of Schumann's Faust by the two Écoles Normales of Limoges. At Valence, performances are given every year in the theatre there before an audience of between eight hundred and a thousand teachers.

Outside the schools, especially in the North, a certain number of teachers of both sexes have formed choral societies among work-girls and co-operative societies, such as La Fraternelle at Saint Quentin.

In a general way one may say that M. Maurice Buchor's campaign has especially succeeded in departments like that of Aisne and Drôme, where the ground has been prepared by the Academy Inspector. Unhappily in many districts the movement receives a lively opposition from music-teachers, who do not approve of this mnemotechnical way of learning poetry with music, without any instruction in solfeggio or musical science. And it is quite evident that this method would have its defects if it were a question of training musicians. But it is really a matter of training people who have some music in them; and so the musicians must not be too fastidious. I hope that great musicians will one day spring from this good ground—musicians more human than those of our own time, musicians whose music will be rooted in their hearts and in their country.

[249] We must not forget M. Bourgault-Ducoudray, who was his forerunner with his Chants de Fontenoy, collections of songs for the Écoles Normales.

[250] Mention must especially be made of little groups of young students, pupils of the Universities or the larger schools, who are devoting themselves at present to the moral and musical instruction of the people. Such an effort, made more than a year ago at Vaugirard, resulted in the Manécanterie des petits chanteurs de la Croix de bois, a small choir of the children of the people, who in the poor parishes go from one church to another singing Gregorian and Palestrinian music.

[251] It is hardly necessary to recall the unfortunate statute of 15 March, 1850, which says: "Primary instruction may comprise singing."

[252] By the decree of 4 August, 1905. At the same time, a programme and pedagogic instructions were issued. The importance of musical dictation and the usefulness of the Galin methods for beginners were urged. Let us hope that the State will decide officially to support M. Buchor's endeavours, and that it will gradually introduce into schools M. Jacques-Delacroze's methods of rhythmic gymnastics, which have produced such astonishing results in Switzerland.

[253] M. Chaumié's suggestion. See the Revue Musicale, 15 July, 1903.

[254] Revue Musicale, December 15, 1903, and 1 and 15 January, 1904.

[255] "In this," says M. Buchor, "as in many other things, the children of the people set an example to the children of the middle classes." That is true; but one must not blame the middle-class children so much as those in authority, who, "in this, as in many other things," have not fulfilled their duties.

[256] The Passion according to St. Matthew was given first of all by two little choirs, consisting of from twelve to sixteen students, including the soloists.

[257] It is hardly necessary to mention the curious attraction that some of our musicians are beginning to feel for the art of civilisations that are quite opposed to those of the West. Slowly and quietly the spirit of the Far East is insinuating itself into European music.

[258] There is no need to say that Rameau's genius justified all this enthusiasm; but one cannot help believing that it was aroused, not so much on account of his musical genius as on account of his supposed championship of the French music of the past against foreign art; though that art was well adapted to the laws of French opera, as we may see for ourselves in Gluck's case.

[259] La Tribune de Saint-Gervais, September, 1903.

[260] At any rate, certain forms of music—the highest. See the discussions at the Chambre des Députés on the budget of the Beaux-Arts in February, 1906; and the speeches of MM. Théodore Denis, Beauquier, and Dujardin-Beaumetz, on Religious Music, the Niedermeyer School, and the civic value of the organ.