SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
French music has been derived
Nothing is truer. The Société Nationale is indeed a guest-chamber, where for the past thirty years a guest-chamber art and guest-chamber opinions have been formed; and from it some of the profoundest and most poetic French music has been derived, such as Franck’s and Debussy’s chamber-music. But its atmosphere is becoming daily more rarefied. That is a danger. It is to be feared that this art and thought may be absorbed by the decadent subtleties or pedantic scholasticism which is apt to accompany all coteries–in short, that its music will be salon-music rather than chamber-music. Even the Society itself seems to have felt this at times; and at different periods has sought contact with the general public, and put itself into direct communication with it. «It becomes more and more necessary,» wrote M. Saint-Saëns, «that French composers should find something intermediate between an intimate hearing of their music and a performance of it before the general public–something which would not be a speculative thing like a big concert, but which would be analogous to the artistic attraction of an exhibition of painting, and which would dare everything. It is a new aim for the Société Nationale.» But it does not seem that it has yet attained this goal, nor that it is near attaining it, despite some not quite happy attempts.
But at least the Société Nationale has gloriously achieved the task it set itself. In thirty years it has created in Paris a little centre of earnest composers of symphonies and chamber-music, and a cultured public that seems able to understand them.
this was: French Music Has Been Derived
go to next chapter: The Grand Symphony Concert
