SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
complete upheaval
It needed a complete upheaval of the nation–a political and moral upheaval–to change that frame of mind. Some indication of the change was making itself felt in the last years of the second Empire. Wagner, who suffered from the hostility or indifference of the public in 1860, at the time when Tannhäuser was performed at the Opera, had already found, however, a few understanding people in Paris who discerned his genius and sincerely admired him. The most interesting of the writers who first began to understand musical emotion is Charles Baudelaire. In 1861, Pasdeloup gave the first Concerts populaires de musique classique at the Cirque d’Hiver. The Berlioz Festival, organised by M. Reyer, on March 23rd, 1870, a year after Berlioz’s death, revealed to France the grandeur of its greatest musical genius, and was the beginning of a campaign of public reparation to his memory.
[Footnote 206: We remark, nevertheless, that that did not prevent Gautier from being a musical critic.]
The disasters of the war in 1870 regenerated the nation’s artistic spirit. Music felt its effect immediately.[207] On February 24th, 1871, the Société nationale de Musique was instituted to propagate the works of French composers; and in 1873 the Concerts de l’Association artistique were started under M. Colonne’s direction; and these concerts, besides making people acquainted with the classic composers of symphonies and the masters of the young French school, were especially devoted to the honouring of Berlioz, whose triumph reached its summit about 1880.[208]
[Footnote 207: I wish to make known from the beginning that I am only noticing here the greater musical doings of the nation, and making no mention of works which have not had an important influence on this movement.]
[Footnote 208: In the meanwhile France saw the brilliant rise and extinction of a great artist–the most spontaneous of all her musicians–Georges Bizet, who died in 1875, aged thirty-seven. «Bizet was the last genius to discover a new beauty,» said Nietzsche; «Bizet discovered new lands–the Southern lands of music,» Carmen (1875) and L’Arlésienne (1872) are masterpieces of the lyrical Latin drama. Their style is luminous, concise, and well-defined; the figures are outlined with incisive precision. The music is full of light and movement, and is a great contrast to Wagner’s philosophical symphonies, and its popular subject only serves to strengthen its aristocratic distinction. By its nature and its clear perception of the spirit of the race it was well in advance of its time. What a place Bizet might have taken in our art if he had only lived twenty years longer!]
this was: Complete Upheaval
go to next chapter: Wagner’s success
