It was romanticism which at first appeared to widen our horizon. It commenced with the encyclopedists and J. J. Rousseau. These phi losophers foresaw how our art would become greater one day, by the action of a free voice and a spirit entirely human. It was that period, forerunner of the Revolution of 1789, in which the ideal of those thinkers, charmed with solidity, gave, at last, to the cry of man kind, the right to live. And that cry, with on the other hand the energy of a resumption of hope, to hymns of serene and en thusiasticjoy, is almost the whole of our music of the present day.
After the celebrated 'Quarrel of the Buf fons) in which the Italians triumphed, the works of Gluck, in harmony with the principles of the encyclopedists, had a considerable in fluence: But our musicians did not grasp the true lesson. These works seem to have made them forget those of Rameau. It was not a question for them to curtail their accompani ments. Indeed Rousseau wrongly judged that a more expressive art demanded a simplification of accords and counterpoint; but modern music and already that of J. S. Bach proves that this is absurd. A noble harmony more often only accentuates the beauty of the melody. It ought to have been understood that the admi rable technic of Rameau was necessary to our school and further that, that kind of wider ex pansion in singing sufficed, coming as it were, to animate a dense and rich material. Unfor tunately, it is easier to impoverish an art, and the principles of Rousseau, followed too strictly to the letter, had that effect. Then, doubtless, there was a desire to render music popular. It was not wanting in interest, how ever, in the revolutionary epoch, especially with the famous 'Song of the Departure,' also in the 'Song of the 25th Messidor,' triple choruses by Maw], and above all with the matchless 'Marseillaise) of Rouget de l'Isle a unique work, born of exceptional circumstances. It has never been reproduced; besides nothing is more rare than a noble heroiC song. Finally, let us call to mind the charm and intelligence of Gretry, the real beauty of Joseph de Maul, the works of Lesueur, full of noble and ex cellent intentions. But a solid musical structure, vivified with songs of particular harmony and rhythm, new and audacious—such was the appanage of Berlioz. An extraordinary phenomenon, this really genial musician had been obliged to invent nearly all his resources (when still at the Conservatoire, he wrote the
tirely in the right in not disowning the art of foreigners, neither that of our Gothic past (so distinctly our own), this movement of free, even revolutionary sensibility, was national - caused by the same. state of the mind. One should also notice that Berlioz possessed that very French sense of measure (and measure may be kept in great works for it concerns only harmonious proportions); lastly his romanticism was balanced by his classical ten dencies, his Virgilian education (the traces of which is revealed in the 'Trojans' and in the pure
Very distinct from Berlioz, often wrongly understood in his simplicity and still also our ancestor was Charles Gounod, the exquisite and grand musician who immortalized the act of the "Garden Scene* in 'Faust.' This act was disdained by the critics, *There is nothing in it." Accustomed to the violent and superfi cial operas of Meyerbeer, all inner action could not exist for them. Now, this inner action so conformable with the idea even of Monteverdi, Gluck, Wagner, and all of those who have made the *theatre of the soul" of profound sentiment (to begin with iEschyltis in 'Prometheus'), that is decidedly the ideal aim of French lyrical drama. That in con sequence of the Wagnerian allurements Gounod might have seemed antiquated to cer tain ears it matters little. In general, our best musicians have never ceased to appreciate him, from Faure to Ravel. And we know what our modern school owes to him. Indeed, like Mozart, like Faure and like Debussy, Gounod was music itself. If there are some irregu larities in his work (for he does not free him self entirely from the tedious musical msthet icism of his epoch), they will not prevent us from loving that which has been preserved from the ravages of time; particularly that extreme charm of which the strong and benef icent perfume has not evaporated.* With Gounod there is something of thepagan in the
with which he surrenders him self, an instinctive and luminous ease, the softness of the phrase and of the harmony.