Page 148 - HandbookMarch1

Nineteenth Century Musical Renaissance in France 23

It was a far cry from this atmosphere to that of Mallarmd's
Prelude a l'apr6s midi d'un faune or Pierre Louys' Chansons
de Bilitis which were concerning Debussy; or even to the
poems of Verlaine and the novels of Zola which Faure and
Alfred Bruneau were choosing as their texts.
Illustration : First movement of string quartet by d'Indy.
And so, with Debussy launched on the composition of
Pellas, the Schola Cantorum founded and prospering and
Faur6 quietly developing along his own purely French
lines, we can claim to have reached a point at which the
French musical renaissance, in the sense of rebirth, is an
accomplished fact. National consciousness was present in
very different proportions in Debussy, d'Indy and Faure;
and in different proportions at different periods of their
development. Nevertheless, by 1895-a quarter of a century,
or the span of a generation, after the foundation of the
Soci6te Nationale-music in France was flourishing, a rich
and varied native growth, as it had not flourished since the
sixteenth century. Gounod saw that day and rejoiced,
before he died in r893 ; but Saint-Saans had a much harder
task, living on until 1921, out of sympathy and embittered
by the open disregard of all the principles which he con-
sidered fundamental to music and by the inexplicable success
of what should, according to him, be a hopeless failure. It
was easy to forget the enthusiastic young founder of the
Societe Nationale in the surly and aggressive octogenarian;
but history, like wisdom, is justified of all her children and
no one can rob Saint-Saens of his high place in the history
of French music.

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