SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
Poème de la Vie humaine
And at last he composed and grouped together twenty-four poems in his Poème de la Vie humaine[247]–fine odes and songs, written for classic airs and choruses, a vast repertory of the people’s joys and sorrows, fitting the momentous hours of family or public life. With a people that has ancient musical traditions, as Germany has, music is the vehicle for the words and impresses them in the heart; but in France’s case it is truer to say that the words have brought the music of Händel and Beethoven into the hearts of French school-children. The great thing is that the music has really got hold of them, and that now one may hear the provincial Écoles Normales performing choruses from Fidelio, The Messiah, Schumann’s Faust, or Bach cantatas.[248] The honour of this remarkable achievement, which no one could have believed possible twenty years ago, belongs almost entirely to M. Maurice Buchor.[249]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 249: We must not forget M. Bourgault-Ducoudray, who was his forerunner with his Chants de Fontenoy, collections of songs for the Écoles Normales.]
this was: Poeme De La Vie Humaine
go to next chapter: M. Buchor’s endeavours
