The fashion for sombre, motionless and gloomy music yielded, most fortunately, to a reaction, instinctive to the race. Some fought against pessimism by the vitality of rhythm, others by the charm and the light. It would seem that, to-day, our younger musicians bene fit by these two victories at once; and it speaks well for the splendid vigor of our contempo raneous art. The musicians of the Franckist school,t the first who took part in this re action, are Ch. Bordes, A. Magnard, d'Indy, Paul Dukas. The characteristic of d'Indy's disposition is to consider energy, which in his works is quite clearly stamped by the force of the rhythm. Whence the best of his influ ence. Moreover, he often seems sustained by the rhythm, the principal subject of his music. And those of his compositions which testify to these qualities the most with piano' ; are also those which reunite the highest expressions of admiration. The name of Ch. Bordes, too little known, mer its to be joined to that of his friend and asso ciate of the Schola Cantorum. It is known what devotion and what portion of his too brief life he consecrated to the work of the (Chanters of Saint Gervais,' reviving the vocal art of the 16th century. But one ignores, in general, that he was a composer of delightful ideas, naive, fresh and sincere, occasionally pic turesque and always exempt from pomposity, Paul Dukas is connected with this Franckist group, although he came from the Conserva toire. His works, in the main, traditionally written denote an accomplished science, a mani fest will in the writing, an orchestral perfec tion often to be compared to that of Saint Saens. His musical personality may seem made up of divers elements, otherwise solidly united. But his most dominant feature is doubtless that vigor of rhythm and development which is ad mired in the finale in his 'Variations) on a theme- of Rameau. as well as in certain pages of and Blue Beard.' At the time of the German invasion in Sep tember 1914, Alberic Magnard was killed under tragical circumstances. Of a sincere mind, strong and sensitive, above all a lover of truth —a noble-hearted man, his music bears witness to his qualities. In my opinion his true per sonality is found outside the traces of the teach ing of the Franckist and the d'Indyist groups. Magnard's style is somewhat that of a classic; it is quite anterior to that of our young school. A priori, he distrusted the harmony (yet, some times so pleasing) of Debussy and his success ors. His resources are those of Beethoven, Wagner and Camar Franck. He declared in his preface to (Berenice' : 'My score is writ ten in the Wagnerian style? He feared the presumption of appearing to create a new style, and kept as models the primitive masters of former times, good, naive artists who cared only to resemble their master. Most fortu nately, however, and in defiance of them, when the instinctive personality commanded, they in fringed on the discipline of strict imitation. Magnard did the same. In spite of the out wardly Wagnerian form, his music, in general, is that of ours. He had the love and the ...-- pro found spirit of his native land that impelled the resistance in which he found his death. And this love discloses itself in the most per sonal of his pages, the best. The rustic enjoy ment, the mirth somewhat rough of the dances which formed his the familiar beauty of the French landscape when evening draws near, and the blue smoke rises from the old thatched cottage into the calm air, and the pure, limpid sensitiveness of a noble and tender soul, those were the accents of an abso lutely original emotion which he interpreted. Verily, Magnard is one of our first and best symphonists.
Outside the school of Franck, the rhythmic reaction had several promoters. To-day ap pears to us the grandeur of the work of an un pretending artist to whom we must give a proper rank as historian and composer: Bour gault-Ducondray. His lyrical drama of (Tha mars,' on account of its very fine scenes, de serves not to be forgotten. But, especially, let us call to mind the class on the history of music, so new and interesting, that he gave at the Paris Conservatoire. By this means, he forci bly helped the revival of the modern Greek, as well as by his transcription the popular songs of Brittany. These ancient gamuts* after having been forgotten for nearly 200 years, seem to have been remembered by our French music, in order to realize certain ar chaical or naive coloring (for instance in The Childhood of Christ' by Berlioz). But gradu
ally the ear again began to understand and love them, realizing all the beauty to which they might be the support. Cmsar Franck and above all, Chabrier, Faure, Debussy came at times, to think naturally by means of these gamuts. They are written to-day in as fluent and instinct ive a manner as the classical major and minor. Our art inherits a priceless antique treasure, the language of contemplation and mystery. And the old Celtic groundwork of our soul finds again, in song, the modes of Brittany of ancient times. At the same time (and to begin with Chopin who was the first to proclaim the splendor of the starry night of which the classics thought so little, and which is adored by modern music) was revealed the grandeur of the Slavonic dream, the vast domain of which extends from the popular airs purely Russian, to the chromatic melopoeias of the Musselman world. The Andantes, so exceed ingly nostalgical of Borodine, the dancing choruses of Prince Ygor,' (Thamar) by Bala kireff, (Sheherazade) by Rimsky, then finally the truly genial work of Moussorgski (by rea son of his audacity, he was long considered an amateur). What glimpses of new horizons! These diverse elements are harmoniously dis solved in the crucible of our national genius. It established the strange light and the dreamy charm of the Slavonic art, as it had "natural ize& the use of the antique modes; it retained from Islam the fancy for the supple arabesques and had not forgotten the Javanese music (so refined in the tone of its accords), which en chanted us at the Exhibition of 1889. Enriched by such means, improved by the profound studies of harmony and the practice of the counterpoint of J. S. Bach,—to the beneficent emanations of poetry and art, the domain in herited from Berlioz, Gounod and Caesar Franck saw marvelous new plants blossom with bright, sweet-scented flowers. The reaction of the sun on the dark pessimism that I have de scribed was the work of Chabrier, graceful elegant, candid, sincere and charming;—of G. Faure, whose pure art evokes that of the painter of Ombrie, so Greek in Penelope,' so pro found in his imperishable melodies from which the true nobleness (to the contrary of hypocriti cal common prejudice) of the soul of Verlaine is released and lastly Debussy, whose (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) came like a thun-. der-bolt, in 1892. The first of modern musicians, these three masters revealed to us a clear and measured art, really glediterranean,)) thor oughly French.
Emanuel Chabrier, so truly original and to whom our school owes so much, offers the ex ample of a very free artistic nature, very naive, — superior on the whole: to have the down right courage to affirm and to write whatever one likes, no matter the subject and the char acter. His natural good nature, rich in enthusi asm and tenderness illuminated the music with happy joyous rays. Its greatest charm is, not only the pleasing sonorousness, but especially a simple mindedness, just and good. Some critics only grant him the genius of the comic art: a very narrow judgment. Without doubt Cha brier was a wonderful author of parody Star', and, The King in Spite of Himself,' are in a way master-pieces) but he was also a refined artist, a lover of musical beauty and of the picturesque. He showed, if one may say so, an entire lack of pedantry. Coming from the operetta, one discerns in this unassuming artist a charming resignation to be only what he is. In other respects, by his melodious liveliness, his discoveries in harmony and the charm of his personality, he seems to me greater than one would imagine. If he were free with regard to subject, no one more than he was more submissive to the reasonable claims of the ear. But while satisfying, for his own pleasure, the secret instinct of that ear, he justly respected the true rules of art, those hidden, mysterious principles, moreover in finitely varying with the works, and which the intuition of the artist alone knows how to obey. In this way Chabrier acquits himself of the first duty of every musician, as our young French. school understands it to-day.