16. FRENCH MUSIC. Animated by an intense new life, the French School all schools of music stands out rich and flourish ing. Retaining all that is best in the past, it looks fearlessly toward the future, and repre sents a harmonious classical epoch.
French music displays with profound truth fulness the countless national sensations of the present day. With some composers it expresses a religious sentiment, with others it has become pagan, a noble and sound pagan ism which surrenders itself wholly to the beauty of its surroundings, in hymns of pan theism, in which all the voices of the universe and of mankind are blended. The history of ,music since the °dechant° of the Middle Ages, from the first aseptiemes non prepares° of Monteverde is a continuation of harmonic dis coveries. Moreover, as occasion offers, our art of to-day remains rhythmic, distinct and vigor ous. Its vigor is quite classical, made to bal ance between sentiment and reason.
Of primitive Gallic music we are able to recognize traces in the old songs of Brittany. For Brittany is faithfully traditional as much by her relative remoteness as by the well known stubbornness of her people. Barzas Breis, H. de la Villemarque and the collection of popular melodies copied by Bourgault Ducoudray contain admirable examples. As in some Scottish or Welsh airs, the Celtic soul live§ again. The reverie, face to face with wide horizons, serene and tender piety, some times even a real gladness, are blended in those accents, the character of which, well defined, remains as striking as in former times. One hears in them those antique modes which were equally those of the earlier Greeks. The Dorian, whose virile energy and nobly har monious gravity belonged also to that of the Doric order; the Phrygian, wholly in contem plative ecstasy before the divine scenes of nature; the Lydian, descended from Asia Minor, brilliant with light and of a singular charm. It is probable that these modes were discovered by the people of Brittany, entirely on their part, without having been derived from Greeks by the intermediary of the Gallo-Roman conquest. Modern composers, grouped under the name of °Celtic School,° consider that Brittany owes nothing to the Latin genius. Their influence on our music is undeniable and fruitful.
The Middle Ages saw an extremely ap preciated art. Our Merovingian kings loved music; later, in their heroic poems,' the trouveres, the troubadours (as formerly the aged Homer) related the glory of the heroes. More profane, some popular refrains translate wonderfully the ironical gaiety of a people .who, accqrding to all appearance, were sensi tive to the beauty of sound. Let us call to mind the amusing. 'Prose of the Ass,) wittily taken up by G. Pierne in his °Scherzo° of the 'Year one thousand.) It belongs to comic art, so distinctive in its style, of which certain sculpture in cathedrals has left us grotesque proofs. On the other hand, sacred music reaches to serene heights of collective expression in the Gregorian chants. It has sometimes been thought that these melodies are none other than the themes of ancient Greece, baptized as Christians for the occasion, as the churches of Rome made use of columns from heathen temples. Thus, legend attributes the Te Deum to the inspira tion of Sophocles. This hypothesis would not appear to be absurd. The oldest of the Gregorian chants are very simple, syllabic, e.g.,
the Dies Ira. In the course of time, a freer melody soars higher toward the skies, similar to the expansion of the Gothic cathedrals with their °flamboyant° ogives. Plain chant, the expression of which has no individuality. might seem at first cold, hut its pure meditative line, joyful even in the Sanctus and the Alleluia is full of stirring sentiment. To the Gregorian chant, the art of the contrapuntists of the Renaissance owes its birth. It acquired a sure style and masterly skill with the musicians of the 16th century; their vocal counterpoint was an accomplished science. The descriptive tendency to which our artists often ceded in the course of time asserted itself in the 'Battle of Marignan> and the 'Awakening of the birds,) by Ch. Jannekin. This name, like those of Claude le Jenne,. Guill. de Costeley, Cl. de Scrimzy, are familiar with us to-day.* As to the sacred art of this period, its beauties were brought to light by the chanters of Saint Gervais. In every respect it harmonizes with the architecture and to the proper atmosphere of the cathedrals. The reign of Louis XIV saw the ancient gamut gradually abandoned, retaining only the ordinary major and minor. On the other hand, whilst the 16th century re served, in general, the same importance in all its parts, the melody, of the 17th asserted itself, isolated and preponderant in juxtaposition to the accompaniment. But it did not burst forth with the boldness or the fulness that it has at tained since in modern music. In spite of the excellent writing of our authors, the vocal line retains a sort of timidity in the expression. The art of sound is the slave of the public. It aims to please, to amuse. The language of the personal sentiments of the musician and especially his complainings would scarcely be allowed. Instrumental works and pieces for the organ are concise but charming, sober, full of good humor and of a real nobility of thought. At the opera, poetry is the great ruler and the composer dares not yet translate into music the sentiments which it describes. Tulli, the most illustrious, although Italian by birth, submitted entirely ,to this esthetic style. In spite of the restrictions which resulted from it, our school was very flourishing; there were organists, harpsichord-players of infinite talent, such as L. Marchand, W. de Grigny, Cleram bault, Cai, d'Herlevoix, Couperin and espe cially J. P. L. Rameau. This great master to whom we owe so many delightful, even really vigorous works, receives to-day thejust homage of the Debussy, Dukas, Ravel. Our modern artists have recognized the link with the past. Moreover without imitating it, or losing any new acquisitions, many are inspired by ancient music: its measure, its purity of style, its lucid discernment. Yet, in spite of a real independence, and however thoroughly a musi cian Rameau may be, one cannot 'say that either the qualities or the national soul are to be found entirely in him. Modern music by its expansiveness and its discoveries has turned to the light, the face of that soul, left in the shade by the masters of former times. The latter, polished, worldly, traditional, do not reveal the highly exalted and lofty imagina tion of France. Our professors of rhetoric often insist on the order that characterizes the art of onr country; and it is quite true, but it is not everything.