Page 142 - HandbookMarch1

Nineteenth Century Musical Renaissance in France I7
Liszt had played a large part in the development of
Franck's style, as he had in that of Saint-Sahns ; but beyond
Liszt stood another, far more formidable and controversial
figure-Wagner. Franck never completely clarified his own
attitude to Wagner's music; he was mistrustful, certainly,
but not definitely hostile.

Illustration: ' Psyche,' by Franck
(gramophone record).
But to the young men of the 1870s and '8os Wagner was
inescapable. After the fiasco of Tannhiiuser in Paris in 186I
there was little hope of hearing Wagner's music there,
except for occasional excerpts in the concert-hall, and
pilgrimages first to Munich and later to Bayreuth became
almost de rigueur for young composers. Duparc, d'Indy,
Chausson, Lekeu, Chabrier, Faur6 and Debussy went again
and again during the '70s and '8os. Tristan was inevitably
the work which drew them all, for all were still Romantic
enough to be intoxicated by this dream of love and death
and sensitive enough musicians to be fascinated by the
purely musical novelty and masterliness. Wagner's influence
had of course spread to France. In I884 Reyer's Sigurd and
even Massenet's Manon showed at least superficial traces.
But there was a serious difficulty here. After the exclusive
cultivation of the opera as a musical form for so long, the
very conception of dramatic music had fallen into disrepute
with the avant-garde-that is, with the Franckistes.
But Wagner's was unfortunately dramatic music and those
who returned from their Wagnerian pilgrimages were
inevitably longing for one thing only-to write something
which might correspond in France to the great achievement
they had witnessed in Germany. Here, then, was a problem.
D'Indy found a solution, in the symphonic poem; and his
trilogy of Wallenstein pictures, La Fordt Enchantde,
Saugefleurie and the Chant de la Cloche-works which
appeared between I874-86-were as it were, ersatz music
dramas. Emmanuel Chabrier was the first to succumb com-
pletely to the temptation. He was an original character, a
civil servant who came late to music, with an already well-
formed taste in the visual arts; and it was a journey to
Munich with Duparc in I879 that converted him into a
whole-time musician-and, for the moment, a whole-
hearted Wagnerian. His opera Gwendoline (I889) is an
extraordinary Nordic hotchpotch, the scene laid in eighth
century England, with all the Wagnerian adjuncts-strange

This content downloaded from 139.94.248.191 on Tue, 25 Feb 2020 18:00:24 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms