French Cultural Politics and Music. From The Dreyfus Affair To The First World War - Jane F. FULCHER PDF

FRENCH CULTURAL
POLITICS & MUSIC

This page intentionally left blank
FRENCH CULTURAL,
POLITICS & MUSIC
From the Dreyfus Affair

to the First World War
JANE F. FULCHER
New York Oxford

Oxford University Press
1999
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta
Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul
Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai
Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1999 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicalion Data

Fulcher, Jane E
French cultural politics and music : from the Dreyfus affair to
the first world war /Jane F Fulcher.
p. cm,
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-512021-3
1. Music—France—20th century—History and criticism.
2. Music—France—19th century—History and criticism.
3. Music and society—France—History—20th century.
4. Music and society—France—History—19th century.
5. Music—Philosophy and aesthetics.
I. Title.
ML270.5.F85 1998
780'.944'0904—dc21 98-12193
1357Q8642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To My Mother and
the Memory of My Father
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply grateful to many friends and colleagues in musicology history, sociol-

ogy, art history, and literary studies in both the United States and Europe who
helped me so generously with this project. The historians Roger Chartier and
Jacques Revel of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris pro-
vided me with not only ideas and advice but also the valuable opportunity to pre-
sent material from my study in their seminars at the Ecole as "Directeur d'Etudes
Associe" in 1996. I have profited greatly from conversations with the sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu, of the College de France, who graciously read much of my work
and invited me to present aspects of it in his seminar, from which I gained a great
deal. Christophe Charle, of the Department of History at Universite de Paris I,
was always ready to discuss my ideas and to provide references and rare material
to which he had access; he also gave me the valuable opportunity to present parts
of my work to his seminar. The historian Maurice Agulhon of the College de
France generously took time to talk with me and to provide further references
and advice.
I am grateful to the composer-philosopher Hugues Dufourt and to the musi-
cologist Joel-Marie Fauquet for their interest and their help and for welcoming
me to their seminar on music history at the Centre National de la Recherche Sci-
entifique in Paris while I was a visiting "Directeur de Recherche" there in the fall
of 1991. While a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 1986-87, I prof-
VIII ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ited from the help and the perspective of the historian Maurice Garden, the soci-
ologist (and director of the Institute) Wolf Lepenies, and the musicologist Her-
bert Schneider, who graciously came to and commented on the lecture I pre-
sented there on my material.
Colleagues at Indiana University have been of invaluable assistance through-
out the research and writing of this book, providing me with help, encourage-
ment, and advice from the perspectives of their various fields. William Cohen, of
the History Department, was always ready to share his expertise on France in this
period and to give me information, advice, encouragement, and a steady stream
of valuable bibliographic references. Gilbert Chaitin, of the French Department
and Comparative Literature, generously shared his knowledge of the period and
its sources, as well as of relevant theoretical texts, and read part of the manu-
script, offering very helpful suggestions. Rosemary Lloyd, chair of the French De-
partment, provided constant encouragement, as well as a valuable literary per-
spective on the late nineteenth century. Ingeborg Hoesterey, of the Department of
Germanic Studies and Comparative Literature, was a continual source of advice
concerning both theoretical works and comparative studies on literature and the
visual arts. Marc Weiner, of the Department of Germanic Studies, was a stimulat-
ing source of conversation and information concerning both Wagner and anti-
Semitism. I also profited from conversations with Richard Bauman, of the Folk-
lore Department, concerning the field of "performance studies" and the relevant
anthropological literature. I am particularly grateful to Brian Hart, who was writ-
ing his dissertation on the related subject of the French symphony under my di-
rection during the period while I was at work on this book. Both he and his study
were a continual source of references and information, as may be seen by the
many citations from his excellent work throughout this volume.
I am also indebted to American, Canadian, British, French, and German col-
leagues in musicology who provided me with stimulating conversation, com-
ments, references, encouragement, and sources. These include Richard Leppert,
Sabina Ratner, Richard Taruskin, Philip Gossett, David Grayson, Annegret
Fauser, Manuela Schwartz, Hermann Danuser, Jan Pasler, Martin Marks, Leslie
Wright, Elizabeth Bartlet, Roger Parker, Ruth Solie, Elinor Olin, Miriam
Chimenes, Michael Strasser, Pamela Potter, Steven Huebner, Marion Green, Jean
Gribenski, Francois Lesure, and the late Patrick Gillis. Both European and Ameri-
can colleagues in history, art history, and sociology were valuable sources of in-
formation, advice, references, and conversation about my material. These include
the historians Peter Jelavich, William Weber, Robert Wohl, Michael Steinberg,
Joel Blatt, Avner Ben-Amos, Marie-Claude Genet-Delacroix, Patrice Veit, Donna
Evleth, Christophe Prochasson, Christian Jouhaud, Jean Hebrard, and Etienne
Frangois and the sociologists Antoine Hennion, Pierre Birnbaum, and Pierre-
Michel Menger. I am grateful to the art historian Melissa McQuillan, who invited
me to present part of my material in a session she organized at the national meet-
ing of the British Association of Art Historians in 1989 and from which I gained a
great deal.
1 am especially grateful to the historian Carl E. Schorske, who has not only
inspired me to pursue cultural history (as a musicologist) but generously encour-
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IX
aged and helped to guide my work over the past twenty years. I am also very
grateful to the musicologist Edward Lippman, whose excellent training in musi-
cal aesthetics and encouragement of a broad perspective have been so central to
my endeavor. Finally I wish to thank the four anonymous readers of my manu-
script for their suggestions.
In addition to support from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique,
the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and the Wissenschafts-
kolleg zu Berlin, I received a fellowship for individual research from the Na-
tional Endowment for the Humanities and grants from the program in West Eu-
ropean Studies and the Office of Research and Graduate Development at Indiana
University.
CONTENTS
Introduction, 3
I The Battle Is Established: Musicians Enter, 1898-1905
1 The New "Cultural War" and the French Musical World, 15

The Dreyfus Affair and French Musicians, 15
D'Indy, Anti-Dreyfusism, and the Schola, 24
The Republic's First Riposte: The 1900 Exposition and Music, 35
Sources of Support for the Schola, 48
The Battle over French Music History, 56
Ideological Dialogue at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales, 59
2 Creative and Professional Responses to the Politicization of Music, 64

DTndy's "Ideological Music," 64
Magnard's "Dreyfusard" Compositions, 74
Charpentier's Louise: Its Political Uses and Critical Misreadings, 77
The "Conservatoire Populaire de Mimi Pinson," 97
Politicization in Repertoire Choices, Subventions, and Journalism, 103
xii CONTENTS
II The Battle Escalates and Is Won, 1905-1914
3 Proliferating Factions, Issues, and Skirmishes, 119

The Action Francaise and Music, 120
French Socialist Initiatives in Music, 126
The National-Socialist Musical Aesthetic, 133
Cultural Politics in French Musical Journalism, 136
Interlocked Battles over the "New Sorbonne" and the Paris Conservatoire, 140
The Conservatoire's Response through Faure, 143
New Counterattacks on the Schola, 147
Politicization in the War of the "Chapelles," 153
Perceptions of the Conflicting Musical "Dogmas," 162
4. Responses of French Composers to the Traditionalist Victory in

Politics and Music, 169
Debussy's Nationalism, 170
Satie's Creative Politics, 194
Charpentier's Disillusionment and Politics, 204
D'Indy's Triumph and His Enduring Obsessions, 206
The Dilemma of the Independents: Magnard, Ravel, Ropartz, and Roussel, 208
Final Attempts at a Reconciliation, 213
Scholisme and the Musical Mainstream, 214
The Last Skirmish: Le Sacre du printemps, 216
Conclusion, 221
Notes, 227
Bibliography, 265
Index, 285
FRENCH CULTURAL,
POLITICS & MUSIC
INTRODUCTION
This book is about a phenomenon of central importance to cultural studies and,

as such, to current attempts to situate musical culture within a historical land-
scape. Its subject is the "invasion" of one cultural area or field by another—in
this case the occupation of French musical culture by political culture at the turn
of the century.
As this volume demonstrate, the impact of the phenomenon was both broad
and profound: it affected all aspects of French musical culture, which reacted
back on political culture itself. Hence, as opposed to existing music histories, it
argues not only that this political penetration occurred but also that perceiving it
opens new perspectives on contemporary French musical semiotics and values;
meanings and priorities we have previously construed as "purely aesthetic," au-
tonomous, or related to the inner dynamics of the art and the field were, rather,
freighted with ideological significance. Underlying this conviction lies the
premise that in order to comprehend this fact we must reexamine the transforma-
tion of French political culture during and after the Dreyfus Affair.
Historians of France have long established the ideological roots of the Dreyfus
Affair, or the enduring conflicts it articulated and that helped to imbue it with the
power of myth. Extending back to the French Revolution, they lay specifically in
what Timothy Tackett has referred to aptly as the "tragic flaw at the core of the first
revolutionary settlement" (p. 313). Although Enlightenment ideals had tri-
3
4 INTRODUCTION
umphed, they were not founded on complete consensus, especially concerning

models of government or the relation between Church and State: the counterrevo-
lution implacably kept both of these sensitive issues alive—conflicts henceforth
embedded in postrevolutionary France, ready to explode in the right political
compound. This occurred once again in the late nineteenth century, when the
Boulanger and the Panama scandals helped incite antiparliamentary and anti-
Semitic sentiments, formulating the chemistry that the affair would ignite.
Myriad histories have narrated the events that constituted the Dreyfus Affair
and established their role in helping to transform contemporary political culture
in France. Succinctly, in 1894 a Jewish captain in the army, Alfred Dreyfus, was
summarily convicted in a court-martial of selling French military secrets to the
Germans. Public opinion was at first solidly in support of the army's conclusions,
but in 1896 the chief of intelligence, Colonel Picquart, discovered exculpatory
evidence: it implicated not Alfred Dreyfus but rather a Major Esterhazy, who was
subsequently tried but ultimately acquitted by French army authorities.
At this point, Dreyfus's brother, Mathieu, contacted Emile Zola, the promi-
nent novelist, whose interest in Republican politics was, by now, widely known;
Zola, perceiving a miscarriage of justice replete with far greater implications, de-
termined, with the temerity of a renowned public figure, to bring the scandalous
"affair" to light. In 1898, with shrewd effrontery, he published an open letter to
the president of the Republic, consisting of a litany of charges, all beginning with
the words "J'accuse" (I accuse). It resulted in an indictment for libel. Zola's subse-
quent publicized trial and conviction, while compelling him to flee for England,
expanded the arena of the "Dreyfus Affair."
Now in the public sphere, it seized the attention and spurred the engagement
of not only major political but intellectual and literary figures on both sides of the
question. They, like Zola, recast the issues as a referendum on those that had bi-
furcated France since the Revolution, and particularly since the birth of the Third
Republic in 1870: Did "tradition" and the rights of the State take precedence over
those of the individual citizen? Did those of the army outweigh civil authority,
even if the former were found in error? Two conceptions of France baldly con-
fronted each other once more, as they had in 1789 and have periodically ever
since. One maintained the incontrovertible authority of the army, the Church,
and the nation, while the other implacably asserted the judicial and egalitarian
ideals of the French Revolution. New tactics of political organization and direct
intervention immediately spawned to mobilize individuals and groups for align-
ment on each side of the incendiary ideological questions: political leagues,
demonstrations, and petitions now thrust their way into French public life,
politicizing new social groups and rending most sectors of society in France.1
Strenuous ideological combat did not subside with the "closure" of the Drey-
fus Affair—the presidential pardon of Dreyfus in 1899, followed by his exonera-
tion in 1906. Defeated French nationalists refused to concede and pertinaciously
continued the fight through two of the leagues that survived by refocusing their
aims—the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise and the Action Francaise.2 These leagues
did share certain features with others (of the Right) that were born of the Dreyfus
Affair and the preceding political scandals, such as the Ligue des Patriotes and
INTRODUCTION S
the Ligue anti-Semitique: as opposed to political parties, which proposed a

"global" program, or an ideological blueprint for society, leagues were distin-
guished by their strictly limited political aims. They wished to "destabilize" the
government, believing the parliament to protect special interests, thus to be
guilty of corruption as well as irresponsibly negligent of the French electorate. In
search of a more unified society, they rejected political parties as too divisive and
embraced anti-Semitism, perceiving Jews as yet another factor in the loss of com-
munity. And, finally, unlike parties, which they held were incapable of articulat-
ing public opinion or aspirations, the leagues advocated "direct action"—mobi-
lization of the "masses," both metaphorically and in the streets.3
What distinguished the Ligue de la Patrie Frangaise was, first, a more specific
ideological goal, despite an absence of the doctrinal coherence that would appear
with the Action Frangaise.4 The other distinguishing factors of the league (as well
as of the Action Frangaise) were its membership, the nature of its "program," and
the kind of impact it would have. Both leagues were conceived by an intellectual
elite and, despite their more limited membership, acted as "zones of high ideo-
logical pressure," influential in the circulation of French nationalist ideology.5
But most significant here is that both now turned to the domain of culture in
order, legally, to prolong the war over contestatory conceptions of essential
French values. Cultural criticism thus became for them a form of political inter-
vention and action, a means to articulate and indirectly diffuse their conceptions
of the "authentic essence" of France. The Patrie Frangaise, moreover, sought to
prove that the Left had no monopoly on "intelligence" and hence recruited those
brilliant intellectual personalities who seemed sympathetic to its point of view.6
Prominent in both leagues were writers, or those whose major concern was
the arts, particularly Maurice Barres (in the Patrie Frangaise) and Charles Maur-
ras (in the Action Francaise).7 Political and literary historians have amply estab-
lished the conceptual connection that these thinkers and their followers helped
to forge between French nationalist ideology and artistic values.8 Most recently,
David Carroll has emphasized the central and seminal nationalist conception of
the culturally unified nation as the cognate of a great work of art. For Barres and
Maurras, politics and art were to be imbued with the same "national spirit," from
which each was originally born, and which inherently endowed them with an
identical nature.9 As Carroll observes, for Maurras the strength of the nation, its
fundamental unifying principle, was determined by history and supported by tra-
dition in a manner analogous to great art. Hence, literature, for the far Right,
would become "the principal model and support of politics," expressive of "the
ideal form and fundamental nature of the national community and the people."10
Maurice Barres placed consistent emphasis on the tight imbrication of na-
tionalist politics and art, stressing in particular the role of art in "the mythologiz-
ing" of the nation. For Barres as well as for Maurras, revolution in culture (in-
cluding the arts) was no less than essential—a prerequisite for the return to an
endemic state, organically at one with the nation. Both authors were henceforth
to be central in what Carroll has termed the fascist "aestheticizing of politics,"
which would concomitantly contribute to the further politicizing of art in
France. 11
6 INTRODUCTION
F R E N C H NATIONALIST LEAGUES AND MUSIC
The impact of such nationalist theories was by no means limited to politics and lit-
erature in France: the two leagues strove to implement them throughout French
culture, with ramifications we have not yet fully appreciated. This they were able to
do through various new networks of communication and "sociability," such as
journals, publishing houses, and several prestigious Parisian salons. These all fa-
cilitated the circulation of nationalist doctrine throughout the arts, as well as its
common vocabulary and its distinctive set of metaphors and historical refer-
ences.12 Historians of art have recently begun to address the intriguing question of
how this nationalist "campaign" helped to transform the criteria of aesthetic legiti-
macy and thus critical standards. As they have shown, well before World War I art
critics and nationalist writers were applying such politicized conceptions, and thus
subtly shaping aesthetic direction in art: throughout the decade preceding the war,
the conceptual and aesthetic terrain was being prepared for a return to tradition
and an elevation of classicism as the French "national style."13
Analysis of the impact of nationalist cultural initiatives on music is only be-
ginning, and it is the goal of this book to reveal how profoundly the field was, in
fact, affected.14 As I shall demonstrate, not only was the musical world "invaded"
as a part of the cultural aggression of these two leagues after the Dreyfus Affair—
the Republic "had" to respond. In this manner the field of music was penetrated
by political ideology so overtly and directly that it indeed recalls the politicization
of music during the French Revolution.15
Distinctive in music was the institutional dimension. To a greater extent than
in other cultural fields, professional training and thus "consecration" in music
was dominated by a state institution. The Conservatoire National de Musique
controlled "legitimate" education in music, but it now found itself confronted by
a nationalist challenger in the form of the Schola Cantorum. The latter's eventual
director, Vincent d'Indy, was a prominent member of the Ligue de la Patrie Fran-
caise, and through the school he set about establishing a musical culture in sys-
tematic opposition: he marshaled the prestige and resources of the league and
took advantage of the widespread perception of the pedagogical limitations of the
Conservatoire in order to legitimize his own school of music. The resulting insti-
tutional opposition was eventually to generate a structural opposition, at once
both professional and ideological, that would gradually pervade the French musi-
cal world; each side would produce its own conmpositional groupings and find
supporters not only in the press and salons but through the official, academic
world or through the cognate nationalist "institutes."
The Schola Cantorum did not just define a specific range of musical values
that it considered to be "national"; it established a "code" that associated these
values with genres, styles, repertoires, and techniques. Hence, while literature
diffused nationalist "ideas," as embodied creatively in fictional form, and the vi-
sual arts engaged with politically charged images, music opened up another pow-
erful realm:16 it "manifested" nationalist values through a potent symbolism that
was inherently bivocal—that is, simultaneously resonant in invoking the fields of
both French politics and art.
INTRODUCTION 7
Music was valuable as a symbol, for these nationalist leagues were well aware
of all it could evoke when framed by a discourse that imbued it with ideological
meaning: it could engage the realm of what Freud refers to as "primary process
thought," or what is associated with "projection, fantasy, and the incorporation of
disparate ideas."17 Hence, it was particularly useful for the French nationalist
Right in this period because, as such, it was inherently immune to conventional
rational Republican critique. The Republic, which to this point had largely ne-
glected to imprint its values through music, now responded in kind, making it an
agent in the battle over political-symbolic domination.18 The "war" would bifur-
cate French music, which, far from being monolothic and dominated by "impres-
sionism," was sundered by aesthetic-ideological disputes, a phenomenon that our
histories have too often dismissed.
CONTENT AND ORGANIZATION
Part I of this study analyzes the process through which French music was pulled
into the cultural war launched by these nationalist leagues as a response to their
defeat in the Dreyfus Affair. Temporally, it concerns the period between 1899
and 1905, under the anticlerical ministry of Waldeck-Rousseau, a coalition of
Radical-Socialists, Socialists, and Moderates.19 Its central concern is the institu-
tional opposition, how it developed and spread throughout the French musical
world, and how this structure of confrontation and the stylistic codes it created
affected the music taught, supported, performed, and composed.
Chapter 1 examines the Schola, and particularly the resonant new discourse
it developed, one that transcended political abstractions and evocatively con-
flated political, religious, and aesthetic dimensions. It reveals, in particular, not
only how closely dTndy's ideas mirrored those of Barres but also how they gener-
ated the code that associated them with genres, styles, repertoires, and tech-
niques. The chapter then turns to how the Republic first responded through the
intermediary of the Dreyfusard composer Alfred Bruneau, who forged a Republi-
can discourse for the musical programs of the 1900 Exposition; it traces how op-
posing political values thus articulated with aesthetic oppositions and analyzes
the symbolic structure of this ideological confrontation, or the stylistic and for-
mal qualities that encoded it. From here it examines the networks through which
supporters on both sides of the battle disseminated the doctrines and codes of the
warring institutions, affecting the musical culture at large.
Concomitantly, chapter 1 reveals that arguments over canonicity were central
in these disputes, involving partisan scholars and critics in addition to institu-
tions that were henceforth locked in battle. Moreover, in contrast to the Conser-
vatoire, the Schola created a canon that was not just used for pedagogical study
but publicly performed, framed by a discourse that explained its political signifi-
cance. As this chapter demonstrates, the French university system soon re-
sponded to the Schola's challenge in music history and the canon, leading to the
flourishing of musicology in France.
Chapter 2 concerns those composers who responded most prominently and
8 INTRODUCTION
directly to the battle or to the growing politicization they experienced throughout

French musical culture. It reveals the impact of the Dreyfus Affair on the way in
which French musicians conceived their role—as engaged intellectuals—joining
political parties or participating in associated projects and journals. As it further
demonstrates, some reacted by consciously employing new politicized meanings;
others found that their works, conceived outside these codes, were nevertheless
construed within their framework.
D'Indy, in the first case, responded not only through his pedagogy at the
Schola Cantorum, but also through specific compositions that were intended to
encode an anti-Dreyfusard ideological message. But such was not the case with
the politically active composer Gustave Charpentier, who found that the message
he had intended in his earlier naturalist opera Louise was misconstrued in this
context. Chapter 2 analyzes the gulf between his attempt in this work at a multi-
layered projection of his own psychosocial condition and its interpretation as
Dreyfusard, on the basis of subject and style. As it demonstrates, the work's in-
herent polyvalence was temporarily and unfortunately fixed and, thus, its mes-
sage distorted within this framework of signification; for naturalism in opera had
become associated with a Dreyfusard stance because of the operatic collaboration
of Emile Zola and Alfred Bruneau.
By focusing on stylistic codes of meaning as understood within the period,
this study seeks to avoid imputing political meanings on the basis of our current
perceptions of political homologies or metaphors. Such an "essentialist" ap-
proach (which posits an absolute connection between style and ideology, ignor-
ing the political valences of styles in different contexts) must be replaced by the
historical and anthropological study of meaning.20 We must attempt to excavate
the systems of meaning in which specific works were both conceived by com-
posers and then understood by audiences of the time—which were not necessar-
ily identical. In the case of Louise, we shall find that the two were indeed substan-
tially different; moreover, the context of performance played a central role in
determining how the contemporary public and critics "read" the work. Presented
with the support of the Republic, at one of its theaters shortly after the Affair, the
highly personal message of Louise was submerged by the context, which skewed
it ideologically. As this book demonstrates, although politics was not always pres-
ent in the messages or modes of communication of the music, it affected condi-
tions of both presentation and reception.
Chapter 2 further demonstrates (as does chapter 4) that the relation between
music and ideological meaning was mutable—transformable through the politi-
cal, intellectual context, as well as through the dynamics of performance. Not
only could different systems of meaning be applied in interpretation, but the
manner, venue, and political context of presentation could play a politically se-
mantic role. This was true of contemporary French music, but also of the canon
or the "classics," particularly those of Rameau and Beethoven, as we see in chap-
ters 1 and 3. Traditional "reception history," centered on the "horizons of expec-
tation" of a given audience, cannot account for such factors in a performing art
such as music. A central goal of this book is to establish that, in interpreting the
meaning of a work historically, we must, like anthropologists, examine how sig-
INTRODUCTION 9
nificance was constructed, on all its levels, by contemporaries. Certainly, we can-

not ignore the inherent qualities of the work or text, but we must strive to un-
derstand what could credibly be done with it by different groups under certain
circumstances.21
Chapter 2 goes on to explore the case of other composers, like Alberic Mag-
nard, who were equally victimized by a politicized culture that misread or refused
to register their message. Magnard emphatically declined to accept the dominant
codes of meaning and attempted to articulate a Dreyfusard message, using what
was considered an "anti-Dreyfusard style." Finally, chapter 2 examines responses
to the pervasive politicization in other aspects and venues of the musical world,
including repertoire choices, official subventions, and musical journalism. As it
shows, the same codes of meaning were at work throughout these domains: no
aspect of French musical culture was spared from the battle waged by the two na-
tionalist leagues.
Part II concerns the escalation and the further ramifications of this battle as
new groupings publicly entered the political-cultural arena between 1905 and the
advent of the war. Temporally it begins with the dissolution of Emile Combes's
ministry and its anticlerical program, which was followed by a more conservative
collaboration of Radicals and Moderates in the new government. Within this
changed political context, chapter 3 explores how the existing aesthetic-political
discourses were addressed by others that were tied to new French ideological po-
sitions; specifically, it examines the new musical programs that emerged with the
unification of the "internationalist" French Socialist Party, as well as the points of
emphasis that it introduced into the political-cultural dialogue. Just as important,
it considers the response of those who were dissatisfied with both Right and Left
and who joined together briefly as "National-Socialists," with their own distinct
aesthetic ideals. Prominent here, too, was the Action Francaise, which implacably
intensified its battle not only on official culture in general but specifically on the
educational system, which included the Conservatoire.
Chapter 3 also examines how the government responded to this damaging
assault on its legitimacy through a thorough reform of its own national conserva-
tory of music. As we shall see, the Republic, in spite of the Conservatoire's insti-
tutional inertia, finally brought about badly needed changes because of the sym-
bolic challenge of the Schola and its many advocates; however, its new director,
Gabriel Faure, had to balance these reforms (largely drawn, if modified, from the
Schola) with values that resonated symbolically with the Republic's own political
ideas. Again, the translation from political concepts to musical principles is not
transparent, for it had to do with opposition to the Schola, as well as with the
Conservatoire's social role and traditions.
Important here were journalists and writers on music, who entered the battle
of the two institutions and their associated compositional factions, now called
"chapelles." As this chapter demonstrates, they perceptively analyzed the inter-
ests that lay beneath each, drawing an explicit connection, as they perceived it,
between musical taste and French political ideologies; moreover, they astutely
pointed out the difficult position into which French composers were thrust, often
for professional reasons being forced into an alliance with one of the camps. Pro-
10 INTRODUCTION
fessional and political stakes were inseparable: aesthetic groupings were instinct
with ideological dimensions, drawing their support from the government or its
opponents, which even partisan critics could see.
Finally, as this chapter illuminates, the symbolic battle was being fought
through various controversies or skirmishes between the warring compositional
schools or "chapelles." These disputes, again, no longer transparent or consistent
in their logic today, refracted ideological oppositions through the prism of French
musical and aesthetic issues. Here it is also important to note that such alterca-
tions were closely related to, and in some cases generated by, those already rend-
ing other French cultural fields. Hence, it is within this context that disputes we
have not perceived as ideologically charged emerge as fraught with value-tensions
that were inseparably bound to the political world. As this study thus consis-
tently argues, it is impossible fully to grasp this musical culture—its practices,
codes, comportment, and discourses—apart from the political culture that im-
pinged upon it.22
Chapter 4 returns to the responses of composers, here focusing on those most
prominently implicated in cultural conflicts during the period of mounting na-
tionalist hegemony before World War I. Of central concern to this chapter is how
those composers most frequently used as symbols or exemplars by the warring
schools responded to the battle, and then to nationalist dominance. It examines
how they lived and worked in this culture, within its codes of meaning, its profes-
sional practices, its contentiousness, and its centralized, bellicose institutions.
Here the goal is to reveal how this context helped to shape not only their careers
and the reception of their works but also their professional and, in the end, certain
creative decisions. It returns to the complex issue, raised in chapter 2, of how com-
posers attempted to inscribe ideology or comment on the warring factions through
their style. For they could evince an awareness of the dominant ideological and
stylistic orthodoxies by employing current codes creatively, in order to define their
own particular stance. One goal here is thus to establish that the semiotics of
French music in this period is inseparable from this context and that understand-
ing it helps to uncover new layers to certain works.
No French composer during this period could escape awareness of these
structures of meaning or of the battles and tensions that continually subtended
the litigious French musical factions. Most did not or could not retreat from poli-
tics, now such an integral part of their experience: many engaged it subtly, com-
menting on the situation in a variety of ways. Some did so more prominently than
others during the period under scrutiny here; the latter, such as Ravel and Saint-
Saens, although important, are thus examined only in passing.23 And since some
did indeed participate publicly throughout the entire period under study, and in
several different contexts, they are discussed as their roles become relevant, in
several of the chapters. Again, because the subject of this study is the interaction
of French musical and political cultures and its many effects, now lesser-known
composers (such as Magnard, Roussel, and Ropartz) are discussed at some
length.
However, of particular importance are the compositional "commentaries" of
two major composers—Debussy and Satie—whose works reveal what artists can
INTRODUCTION 11
do creatively with political symbols. While Debussy, here a central figure, grew
overtly sympathetic to French nationalist ideology, he refused to adopt its aes-
thetic orthodoxies, instead forging a unique response. Significantly, his written
and verbal discourses were not transcribed through current codes in his music,
although the ascription of political meaning to musical styles did influence cer-
tain of his choices. Chapter 4 stresses, in particular, the original way in which De-
bussy, in his later works, related symbolically to the ideas of Barres, but in a man-
ner far different from that of d'Indy: such ideas—and especially those of the self
in relation to the collective—were for him not doctrine to be translated but,
rather, an impetus to his creative use of the past.
This volume thus seeks to establish that awareness of Debussy's relation to
the ascribed meanings of his period can enrich our understanding of these com-
plex, multivalent works. Clearly, not only minor works were affected by the ideo-
logical context of this musical culture fraught with bivocal political-aesthetic dis-
putes: great works responded to these tensions, with a degree of aesthetic
integrity that both relates them to and helps them transcend the politicized cul-
ture in which they were born.
Another implicit argument in this chapter is that political tensions were here
not simply those of class: ideology in this period transcended class divisions, par-
ticularly with the advent of a new populist Right. This book thus participates in
the more recent turn within French history from a stress on class to cultural rep-
resentation and language in social formation and identity.24 Debussy, as Chap-
ter 4 reveals, indeed grew confused in his class identity and, like so many others,
found refuge in a nationalist ideological stance.
Erik Satie took the political path opposite to that chosen by his friend De-
bussy, but he also responded originally with games about current meanings in
order to say something "other." This is not to claim that Satie was necessarily
supported by those with the same ideological sympathies that he often ironically
professed to hold: like Debussy, he consciously sought to confound those politi-
cized critics who would impute a factional position to him on the basis of his mu-
sical style. Hence, his polyvalent compositions were used not only by the Radical-
Socialist Party (which he joined) but also, in the eve of the war, by the nationalist
Right he opposed. Each group "constructed" the composer by emphasizing ele-
ments in his style that it perceived plausibly to accord with its own aesthetic-
ideological stance. Satie's style was malleable enough to be used by even politi-
cally contestatory groups, including those whose positions he protested and that
appropriated it in ideologically different ways.
Not all composers responded so creatively. D'Indy and Charpentier became
obsessed with political issues and musical-political programs, if from opposite
sides of the French political spectrum. Others remained caught in the middle, the
victims of increasingly shrill and intolerant camps that were dismayed by the
seeming disjunction between their political sympathies and musical style. Chap-
ter 4 concludes by analyzing how the ideological battle continued to rage; the last
skirmish before the traditionalist victory was fought over Stravinsky's Le Sacre du
printemps. It relates the final shift in hegemony to the loss of autonomy in French
musical culture, or the inability of the professional world or field to enforce au-
12 INTRODUCTION
tonomous aesthetic criteria.25 In this way it seeks to explain the otherwise inex-
plicable, and often overlooked, return to tradition in music in France well before
the First World War.
As this book seeks to establish, throughout these years French music was in-
extricably bound to the political culture within which it was a symbol and that af-
fected it in multifarious ways. As a result of the initiatives of two French national-
ist leagues, other political groupings in France, including the parties in power,
came to recognize music's potential ideological agency. Hence, music played a
significant role in the ideological and symbolic battle in France before the war,
one integrally important to the political combat for French nationalist hegemony.
Cultural divisions between music and politics in this period in France are
not easily made; the demarcations were much less clear than today, and the
boundaries were continually blurred. To cite the words of Johan Huizinga, the
task of a cultural history is to "penetrate" the historical landscape, identifying
areas that touched, in an historically unique terrain. This book attempts such a
task, but its concern is, ultimately, the results for "meaning" within the two
spheres that touched in this period for discernible reasons—those of politics and
music. For the goal of cultural history, most fundamentally, is to decipher mean-
ings, to grasp the significations invested in symbolic forms, and it is this intent
that has shaped this book.26
I
THE BATTLE IS ESTABLISHED
Musicians Enter, 1898-1905
1
THE NEW CULTURAL "WAR" AND

THE FRENCH MUSICAL WORLD
THE DREYFUS AFFAIR AND FRENCH MUSICIANS
Few historians of France would dispute that the political landscape experienced
seismic shifts in the traumatic, tumultuous period during and after the Dreyfus
Affair; a new range of political tactics, comportments, practices, and actors made
their debut in—to switch to an equally apt metaphor—the new "theater" of
French politics. Now making their dramatic appearance on the national stage in
this seminal period were political leagues and parties, new social groups, and new
forms of propaganda.1 It is one particular variety of the latter that demands our
special attention here because its impact on the musical world in France was to
be direct and profound: born in the wake of the Affair, its nexus was the milieu of
those defeated—those who refused to capitulate in the struggle for the principles
they had defined in the course of the conflict. With the triumphant Third Repub-
lic stolidly in control of political discourse, the cynosure of their propagandistic
effort henceforth was culture and, above all, the arts.
In the wake of the Affair, French nationalists turned to culture as an effective
but indirect means through which to articulate and subtly insinuate the political
values they still hoped to diffuse. 2 For the debate over Dreyfus had engaged the
central question of French identity, or the fundamental political and moral values
for which the nation stood: Did the authority and tradition of the state, the army,
15
16 THE BATTLE IS ESTABLISHED
the aristocracy, and the Church take precedence over those principles and rights
that had been defined so emphatically by the French Revolution? With the clo-
sure of the Affair, the question of "What is France?," legally at least, was resolved
conclusively in favor of the defenders of the Revolution and of Captain Dreyfus;3
but the cunning rejoinder of two Rightest leagues that were born of the Affair and
that were now redefining their tactics and role was the cognate question "What
cultural values are French?"
Originally conceived to act outside the established political channels, the
leagues had forged new modes of political activity and enlarged the area of politi-
cal action;4 once defeated, two leagues in particular defined the new realm of ide-
ological debate in which they could propagate their conception of French cul-
tural identity—and thus of France as the arts. Actively co-opting prominent
critics or writers on the arts, they were also forming critics from within their own
networks or producing and infiltrating influential publications. Here, in numer-
ous articles, such writers ascribed political associations or values to styles and
concomitantly made aesthetic or artistic legitimacy a political question.
Although the league called the Action Francaise was soon to be central in
this domain, another, initially more influential, was already presciently preparing
the way; created directly as a result of the Dreyfus Affair, the nationalist Ligue de
la Patrie Francaise helped shift the political grounds of debate to authentic
French culture and art.5 Indeed, this was implicit in its origins, for the founders
of the league had aimed at recruiting not only the political and intellectual elite
but also those prominent in the artistic world; significantly, its opening declara-
tion enjoined adherents to work within their professions "a maintenir, en les con-
ciliant avec le progres des idees et des moeurs, les traditions de la Patrie
Francaise" (to maintain, while conciliating with the progress of ideas and morals,
the tradition of the French homeland). Important artists responded, and the di-
rective committee itself included the writers Lemaitre, Brunetiere, and Barres,
and the composer Vincent d'Indy.
The presence of the musician d'Indy, while often overlooked, should not be
minimized, for nowhere was the League de la Patrie Francaise more successful in
its cultural politics than in music. Through d'Indy, it began the process of impreg-
nating French musical discourse with terminology, conceptions, and values that
were derived from the political realm. It thus played a pivotal role in making
French music a stake in the symbolic battle now being waged by the Republic's
critics and in assigning political meaning to style.
Chapter 1 examines the way in which music was drawn into the cultural war
that was launched by this French nationalist league in the immediate aftermath
of the Dreyfus Affair. It demonstrates how musical programs became, in effect,
political initiatives, means to attach ideological meanings to music that could
thus symbolically manifest the league's creed. In the course of this chapter we
trace the structure of the ideological and institutional opposition established be-
tween the Republic's Conservatoire and d'Indy's nationalist cognate, the Schola
Cantorum. By analyzing the Schola's program and discourse, we may reveal its
close ties to the basic concepts of the Ligue de la Patrie Franchise, which helped
support the school as a vehicle to disseminate its doctrine. We also discover that
THE NEW CULTURAL "WAR" AND THE FRENCH MUSICAL WORLD 17
the Schola, although marginal, developed a wide base of support because of its
moral emphasis (interpreted differently by Right and Left) and its badly needed
pedagogical reforms.
Just as important within this temporal framework—from the closure of the
Affair until 1905, or when the backlash against the leagues was strongest—is the
Third Republic's response to the Schola. The latter now ostensibly perceived that
French music could be used ideologically as a means to articulate a Republican
conception of inherently French cultural values. It responded in stages, begin-
ning with the musical programs of the Universal Exposition of 1900, which de-
fined a Republican canon, framed by the discourse of the Dreyfusard Alfred
Bruneau. In this chapter we thus trace the construction of rival models of French
musical identity and examine how each side thus availed itself of music to propa-
gate its cultural conception of "France."
In this context, we also see the Republic's simultaneous riposte to the nation-
alists' attempted appropriation of music history as it promoted it itself through
the university system. It was indeed as a result of this cultural war and its battle
to define the "quintessentially French" that the discipline of music history began
at last to flourish in France. Ideological exchanges were to proliferate in the con-
text of articles and lectures on music in new institutions like the Ecole des Hautes
Etudes Sociales, further attaching political meanings to style. This affected almost
all aspects of musical culture in France, as it was ineluctably pulled into the com-
bat over competing French political myths.
Our point of departure to understand this phenomenon must necessarily be
the Affair itself, and the way in which the political divisions it engendered impli-
cated music, along with other professions. It was, indeed, to the initial engage-
ment of the Dreyfusard composer Alfred Bruneau that d'Indy would eventually
respond, if on a deeper, ideological level. Hence, although the Affair itself had lit-
tle immediate effect on the musical world in France, its long-term effects were to
be both profound and tenacious.
The Engagement of French Musicians

The Dreyfus Affair and the divisions that it inevitably engendered spared few of
the professions in France; this impact by no means excluded French musicians,
particularly those in Paris. They too were approached by leagues and political
groups on both sides of the issues and asked to lend their signatures and thus
their prestige to the petitions and protests circulated by each side. Why they were
sought out and responded publicly becomes less of an enigma if we examine the
circumstances, beginning with their changing self-conceptions or professional
self-images in the 1890s. This was not only the period when Wagner's works were
dominating the operatic stage but also a time when his theoretical writings were
widely known and actively read in France. In large part because of his impact, it
was not only acceptable but indeed expected that a composer would take an in-
terest in or espouse larger philosophical and social ideas.6
In addition, as Christophe Charle has shown, during the period immediately
preceding the Affair, social categories and the conceptions of different professions
were shifting in France. Even before, intellectuals (although not always referred
to specifically as such) were beginning to claim both a special political role and a
distinctive power. This was particularly true of artists, who were beginning to
conceive of themselves and to be perceived as intellectuals, or as serving as "edu-
cators of a new truth." Already by the early 1890s, journals like Entretiens poli-
tiques et litteraires were equating the two, or grouping French poets together with
other intellectuals; devices such as the survey and "protest" were also confound-
ing these categories by approaching writers, journalists, and men of letters alike,
and without distinction.7
By the decade of the 1890s, French musicians were manifesting awareness of
new conceptions of the artist in order to protect their professional interests and,
concomitantly, those of French music: concerned that French operas were being
abandoned in favor of foreign operatic works, they did not hesitate to lobby the
Chamber of Deputies or the relevant ministries on their own behalf. Moreover,
they were learning to use the press to identify their specific professional concerns
with larger national interests, and thus to win the support of sympathetic politi-
cians.8 And so it is not surprising that many French musicians aligned them-
selves politically during the Affair, believing it their responsibility to sign the
various polemical documents. Although it is difficult to generalize concerning
the mechanisms through which they arrived at their decisions, we may gain some
insight by examining several of the important cases.
As is well known, the Dreyfusard "Manifest des Intellectuels" was headed
by prominent literary figures, most notably, Emile Zola, Anatole France, and Mar-
cel Proust; but among its myriad other signatories were well-known and now-
forgotten French composers, musicians, musical scholars and historians, and
critics of music. Most prominent were the composer Charles Koechlin, the music
historian Henry Prunieres, the composer Alfred Bruneau, and the musical scholar
Lionel Dauriac. Signing the opposing petition circulated by the nationalist Ligue
de la Patrie Francaise was the composer Vincent d'Indy, the composer Augusta
Holmes, the director of the Opera Comique Albert Carre, the critic Henri
Gauthier-Villars (or "Willy"), the composer Pierre de Breville, and the professor
of music history at the Paris Conservatoire, Louis Bourgault-Ducoudray.
Others hesitated to choose a side but signed the public petition circulated by
the Comite de 1'Appel a l'Union in favor of reconciliation and first published in Le
Temps on January 17, 1899. Among those subsequently lending it their signature
were the composers Claude Debussy and Gustave Charpentier, the music histo-
rian and critic Julien Tiersot, and the conductor Edouard Colonne.9 The latter
case provides special insight since Colonne, who himself was Jewish, expressed
his reprehension not of anti-Semitism but of militarism to Saint-Saens; the latter,
although in fact a believer in the innocence of Dreyfus, was deeply disturbed by
this remark, pointing out that there had been three generals in his family. Hence,
Saint-Saens refused a request to set a Dreyfusard chanson to music and did not
sign petitions, but he did agree to join the Dreyfusard Ligue des Droits de
I'Homme.10
Yet the leading musical figures in the Affair, those who would go on to make
the connection between the political and the artistic principles, were Alfred
Bruneau and Vincent d'Indy. In both cases, the generalization that historians have
made concerning the basis for the choice of side among other French artists and
intellectuals appear to hold true. Those who wished to uphold positions of domi-
nance in society or their professions and, concomitantly, "tradition," tended to
be anti-Dreyfusards. In the world of arts and letters, this prominently included
members of the Academie, those who had attained an official consecration, as
well as recognized "official" artists.11 In contrast, those who were outside the es-
tablished society or "system" and who were not interested in preserving its tradi-
tions often tended to be in favor of Dreyfus, as was the case of Alfred Bruneau.
But in Bruneau's case there was another compelling reason for his choice: his
friendship and professional collaboration with the Dreyfusard leader Emile Zola.
Bruneau had met the writer Zola through a mutual friend, Frantz Jourdain,
in 1888, two years after Bruneau had won the Second Grand Prix de Rome. Jour-
dain, an architect and novelist, was also the founder of the Salon d'Autonome, for
which Bruneau was entrusted with organizing a "Section Musicale."12 The son of
a music publisher, Bruneau, although he attended the Paris Conservatoire, was
not dependent upon the official system, and he could afford to explore alterna-
tives; this also encouraged his stylistic independence, which grew from his dissat-
isfaction with the dominant operatic conventions, and led him into the fold of
those young composers who were seeking dramatic reform. The latter had grown
dissatisfied with what they considered to be the superficial and "Italianate" style
associated with French composers of the preceding generation.13 Although Vin-
cent d'Indy as well would eventually come to share this disdain, Bruneau's solu-
tion was distinctive and very different from d'Indy's. For his goal was "logical
construction," one that was simultaneously "human" and moving, one that com-
bined poetry with realism by employing contemporary situations to express mod-
ern feelings. Like so many other young French composers (including d'Indy),
Bruneau, inspired by Wagner, sought to adapt the master's innovations to his own
dramatic ends.
Bruneau's meeting with Emile Zola occurred at a propitious moment, when
the novelist was becoming increasingly interested in writing for the theater, in-
cluding the opera. This was the period when Zola was attempting the transcrip-
tion of his novels for theater and when, from an attempt at greater thematic unity,
his style was becoming increasingly symbolic. And perhaps because of his failures
in the theater, Zola was now reflecting on theoretical issues and becoming deeply
interested in the writings and the ideas of Richard Wagner.14 Hence, Zola, with
Bruneau, immediately embarked on a series of operatic collaborations, beginning
with the adaptation of the most appropriate or lyrical of Zola's novels, Le Reve, in
1891. Other works were soon to follow: L'Attaque du moulin (1892—93), Messidor
(1894-96), and L'Ouragan (1897-1900).15
The style of these works is important to note, since, when Zola became em-
broiled in the Dreyfus Affair, they became immediate targets, as well as symbols
of a "Dreyfusard style"; as critics quickly perceived, in an attempt to remain as
"truthful" as possible to Zola's texts, Bruneau sought to mirror their inflections
and accents in the music. Thus the two styles, the literary and the musical, were
eventually to be confounded and attacked by critics hostile to both Dreyfus and
Zola and branded with the label "Dreyfusard." It is, then, significant to note that
before Messidor, Zola's operatic texts were neither in prose nor in informal dic-
tion, despite their proletarian subjects: already critics were charging that his texts
were pretentious and "inflated" (gonflee), and thus unlikely declamation for the
characters depicted, as well as monotonous in rhythm. Zola was discovering a
basic dilemma for those seeking operatic reform—how to be dramatically realis-
tic in a genre that was inherently so unreal. Such disparity in aesthetic distance,
or the problem of operatic verisimilitude, was to lead Zola and Bruneau to both
an impasse, and eventually to politicized attacks. In chapter 2 we examine their
style in detail in the context of the more successful solution that was discovered
by a younger and more gifted French composer, Gustave Charpentier.
Most important here is the critical reception of their operatic works, particu-
larly at the moment when the Dreyfus Affair was reaching its peak of intensity.
For the appearance of Zola's devastating article, "J'Accuse," in January 1898, in
Clemenceau's Aurore, marked a turning point in public responses to the work of
both artists. Despite the novelty of his works, Bruneau had become a popular
French composer, which had led to his being awarded the Legion d'honneur in
1895; after the appearance of Zola's "J'Accuse," however, Bruneau's musical style,
along with Zola's texts, became a target when their operatic works were attacked.
For hostility toward Zola was immediately focused on his operas: the popular
anti-Dreyfusard press declared them to be as "criminal" as the bomb of the anar-
chist Ravachol and thus worthy of pursuit as a national "peril." Hence, Messidor
provided a focus for violent public anti-Dreyfusard demonstrations, first in
Nantes and then in other cities, that led to the cancellation of its performances by
worried theater directors.16
Critics in anti-Dreyfusard journals were quick to add their voices by attack-
ing Zola's libretto on a simultaneously political and stylistic basis. 'O'Divy' (or
Jean Drault), the music critic for La Libre parole, castigated Zola's use of prose and
his mixture of '"correct"' and colloquial usage and of realistic and fantastic ele-
ments. Zola, who had assaulted the forces of "tradition" on a political level, was
now doing so in opera by ignoring the rules of both propriety and convention.17
But the critic for the Dreyfusard Petite Republique defended Zola's texts on
grounds that were similarly an inextricable conflation of aesthetic and political
concepts. According to Alfred Dubarry, Zola's libretti were meritorious not only
because of their naturalness and life but above all because of their artistic "truth."
Indeed, "truth," together with "justice" and the rights of the individual, was the
primary concept or term that had become characteristic of Dreyfusard dis-
course.18 Critics on both political sides of the issue soon transferred this same
criterion to the attack on or defense of Bruneau's setting of Zola's texts. Later in
this chapter we see how Bruneau responded to his critics by developing an even
more complete Dreyfusard or Republican musical aesthetic and history. Another
reason he would do so was the challenge that was posed by his nemesis, the even
more engaged, ardently anti-Dreyfusard composer Vincent d'Indy. For d'Indy's
obsession with what he termed "artistic Dreyfusism" was to have a decisive influ-
ence not just on his career and music but on the school of music he helped
found.
THE NEW CULTURAL, "WAR" AND THE FRENCH MUSICAL WORLD 21
D'Indy and the Dreyfus Affair

To understand d'Indy's engagement and why the Affair was a directive force in his
life, we must, of course, examine the composer's background, professional posi-
tion, and social identity; these help to explain why d'Indy eventually did not dis-
tinguish his professional from his political interests, or his aesthetic from his ideo-
logical beliefs. Hence, it is important to analyze the political and the musical
background together as they simultaneously helped to shape the composer's re-
sponses at the time of the Affair. It is also important to note that d'Indy fits into the
typical paradigm of the anti-Dreyfusard, or the profile of the dominant member-
ship of the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise; for, again, the first adherents of the league
came from positions of social or professional authority—the aristocracy, the Insti-
tut de France, the College de France, and the Academic Francaise.19 By the time of
the Affair, d'Indy was at the peak of his professional reputation, firmly ensconced
in the musical establishment and considered a leading French composer. A be-
liever in collective authority, the army, the Church, and the greatness of ancestors,
he was also a prominent member of the paternalistic French nobility.20
Born into an aristocratic family from the upper Vivarais region (in the de-
partment of the Ardeche, in southern France), he was raised in the traditions and
values of the old French aristocracy; but just as significant is that, since his
mother had died while giving birth to him, he was raised by his paternal grand-
mother, whose background was different from that of the rest of the family. Un-
like them, she was both instilled with the Utopian ideals of the Saint-Simonian
movement and had a great admiration for Napoleon. She passed both of these be-
liefs on to her grandson, to the family's consternation.21 Her belief in the ideals of
Utopian socialism, which she bequeathed to d'Indy, may well have influenced his
late ideological attraction to the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise. For, in distinction to
both Marxism and Anarchism, its model, according to Brunetiere (in 1899) was
rather what he considered to be "le vrai socialisme francaise" (true French social-
ism); like the Saint-Simonians, the league believed in the social responsibility and
the directive force of the intellectual and financial leaders of society, maintaining
that such a hierarchy guaranteed order.22 D'Indy's attraction to the ideology of
the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise—as opposed to that of other nationalist
leagues—was already well prepared.
Another important inheritance from his grandmother was d'Indy's love and
knowledge of music, for she was an accomplished musician, having studied
piano with Pixis, Adam Pere, and Kalkbrenner. In addition, d'Indy's uncle Wilfred
was an amateur composer of operettas and other light works, and when the
family moved to Paris he introduced the boy to the world of concerts and theater.
As a child, d'Indy was given piano lessons by his rigorous grandmother, who
forced him to submit regularly to "examinations," with the family as the jury.23
This was probably one of the factors that determined his later pedagogic ap-
proach, which abjured such systems of examination, modeled ultimately on those
of the Conservatoire. Not content with her own instruction, when d'Indy was
thirteen (in 1864) his grandmother selected a private teacher of harmony and or-
chestration for him; this was the young Albert Lavignac, a recent graduate of the
Conservatoire and later to become one of its noted professors, and a teacher of
Claude Debussy. Hence, it is not surprising that, as an adolescent, d'Indy's com-
positional models resembled those of Conservatoire students—Meyerbeer,
Gluck, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Wagner.24
D'Indy's life was to change abruptly when, in 1870, with the advent of the
Franco-Prussian War, he entered the 105th Battalion of the National Guard. Al-
though he served in the army only six months, in the course of his brief experi-
ence his idealistic, aristocratic image of a military career was inexorably shat-
tered; so marked was d'Indy by the real horrors of war that he felt compelled to
record his impressions in a "soldier's journal," which he published in 1872.25 It
was at this point that, despite his family's expectations, and to their considerable
consternation, he decided resolutely against pursuing a career in the French mili-
tary. But, as we shall see, d'Indy, in fact, transferred his brief experience of mili-
tary discipline and camaraderie to his pedagogical ideal.
After the war, the Commune, and the advent of the Third Republic—to
which the aristocracy was generally opposed—d'Indy, who was no exception,
professed to have an interest in nothing but music. This was also the period when
his taste in music was being transformed, a process that had begun just before the
war, when he met Henri Duparc, a student of Cesar Franck. During the war
d'Indy had been introduced to Franck himself, an event that was to have a mo-
mentous impact on both his life and his career:26 he now began to associate
closely with the coterie of students that coalesced around Franck, a group whose
aesthetic their contemporaries described as aristocratic, conservative, and "bien
pensant" (right-thinking). It was indeed this circle that would later become the
central core of reactionary, anti-Dreyfusard musicians, promoting aristocratic so-
cial traditions. Already, they considered the music of Rossini, Mendelssohn, and
Meyerbeer to be not only too sensual but also meretriciously calculated to
achieve immediate financial success. Hence, these composers, in contrast,
stressed the qualities of '"intelligence"' and the "ideal," which they associated
with truly great works or, as they put it, "la grande musique."27
Although Franck was a professor at the Conservatoire, he was isolated from
most of his colleagues , by his idealistic approach, as well as by the musical mod-
els he taught. Probably because of his Wagnerian proclivities, at a time when
Wagner was suspect in France, he was given not a class in composition but one in
organ, although he surreptitiously taught composition in it. And so it is not sur-
prising that Franck's circle began to criticize the Conservatoire as an institution,
and to condemn all "enseignement officiel."28 This was now to become a con-
stant theme for Vincent d'Indy and to take on an even greater significance at the
time of the Dreyfus Affair.
After the war, d'Indy's father expected him to enter the Faculty of Law, since
the traditions of his family and the aristocracy were against his becoming a pro-
fessional musician.29 But the young man was implacable, spurred on by his
friendship with the group around Franck, as well as by his rapid rise within the
professional musical world in Paris. This was a world in the process of rapid
change in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, with the older dominant
generation now dying or having fled during the fighting; moreover, it was a world
THE NEW CULTU RAL "WAR" AND THE FRENCH MUSICAL WORLD 23
in which taste was changing. Because of the devastation caused by the war and
the subsequent political turmoil, the strangle-hold of opera was temporarily bro-
ken.30 French musicians turned to the development of both chamber and sym-
phonic music and to the goal of bettering the victorious Germans in their own
abstract musical forms.
This was precisely the aim of the Societe Nationale de Musique Francaise, a
new concert society that d'Indy helped indefatigably to found in 1871. Its other
members included Lalo, Franck, Saint-Saens, Massenet, Bizet, Bussine, Duparc,
and Widor—all dedicated to the rebirth of a new and more "serious" French
music. Most had suffered under the dominance of grand opera during the Second
Empire, when music was controlled by a small group of selected successful com-
posers, to the exclusion of younger French artists. Sensitive to German charges
that French "frivolity" had helped to bring its defeat, they now sought to define
and affirm the basic qualities of "la genie francaise." They were thus convinced
that abstract musical forms, to this point largely belittled in France in favor of
lyric theater, could be filled with what they believed to be "French content," em-
phasizing clarity, formal ingenuity, and grace. The Societe was thus to provide an
important new venue, one that was badly needed in Paris, for the cultivation of
contemporary French instrumental music. But this group would be rent by dis-
sension well before the Dreyfus Affair over the issue of what to perform and of
what indeed was authentically French. The divisive issue was the question of for-
eign musical influences, particularly that of Wagner, whom d'Indy admired so ar-
dently. The bifurcation of the French musical world, already present in embryo,
would reach its full maturity when the leagues introduced the ideological dimen-
sion. When the initial split occurred, in 1886, it was d'Indy's faction that was to
win and, in effect, to take over the society with him as its new president, replac-
ing Saint-Saens.
Initially, as a member of the new society, d'Indy was eager to have his own
music performed, and when Franck rejected two of his works, he formally be-
came Franck's composition pupil.31 Since that event coincided with the death of
d'Indy's grandmother, the dominant force in his life to this point, the role of his
new "father" and creed seem clear: "Franckisme," a doctrine conceived by d'Indy
and his circle of friends around the "master," was to provide the guiding princi-
ples for the rest of his life and career. Moreover, with the death of his grand-
mother, d'Indy now came into his full inheritance, which allowed him consider-
able latitude with regard to his future path. In 1873, despite his ire over France's
recent defeat, he went to Germany and was able to meet Liszt and Brahms, both
of whom he greatly admired. He even managed to meet, if briefly his true musical
idol, Richard Wagner, and was present at the opening of the Bayreuth Festival in
1876.32 At a time when many French composers saw ardent nationalism and
Wagnerism as incompatible, d'Indy chose to ignore the contradiction, and he
would later find a way to reconcile it ideologically.
The following decade was one of increasing professional prominence for
d'Indy: he became the secretary of the Societe Nationale, and both the Pasdeloup
and the Colonne concert societies sought his works. His status rose precipitously
when his La Mort de Wallenstein was warmly received at the popular Pasdeloup
concerts in 1880. In 1886 his success was confirmed when he won the presti-
gious competition that was sponsored by the city of Paris (and brought three offi-
cial performances) with his "dramatic legend," Le Chant de la cloche. But, despite
this success, Franck was still not satisfied with d'Indy's work, believing he needed
a clearer and more "robust" conception, and he thus urged him to write an
opera.33 In order to prepare himself for the task, d'Indy read the writings of Wag-
ner, which were permanently to influence his thought and to prepare for his en-
gagement in the Affair.
By the late 1880s d'Indy was firmly ensconced in both French high society and
the musical world, and in 1890 he was elected president of the Societe Nationale.
This was also the period when he began the construction of a grand chateau on the
family property near Combray which he named "Les Faugs." D'Indy's status in the
official world was so high that in 1888 he was selected as a member of the Com-
mission des Auditions Musicales for the Universal Exposition of 1889 and also
named secretary of the Troisieme Section de Musique. But the culmination of his
recognition came in 1892, when d'Indy received the distinction of being named
Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur. Given that, like so many French aristocrats, he
opposed the Republic in principle, it would seem to be another contradiction that
he would accept its honorific awards; yet it is important to remember that this was
the period of "Ralliement," when Pope Leo XVIII urged French Catholics to em-
brace the Republic and its institutions, or to meet the Republican "Opportunists"
half way. D'Indy, devoutly Catholic, did not hesitate to follow the Church's direc-
tives, either now or later, during the period of the Dreyfus Affair.34
In 1892, also, the Director of the Beaux-Arts, Henri Roujon, with whom
d'Indy had friendly relations, named him to an important official commission: it
was a body of experts named to propose a reform of the program of studies at the
state Conservatoire, which even its director, Ambroise Thomas, acknowledged it
needed.35 The commission produced a detailed report that called for far-reaching
changes, including the introduction of a class on the symphony, which tradition-
ally had not been taught at the Conservatoire. Such "Franckiste" ideas were
shocking to some, given the relatively low status of symphonic, as opposed to
vocal, music, as reflected in the Conservatoire's instruction. But the commission's
work came to naught, for in 1893 the funds to implement its many recommenda-
tions were peremptorily denied. As d'Indy later bitterly recalled, its report was
recognized only to the extent that it was printed at state expense, only to be
promptly "buried."36
D'INDY, ANTI-DREYFUSISM, AND THE SCHOLA
D'Indy's bitterness toward the Republic escalated with the advent of the Dreyfus
Affair, which, like the Revolution in Dresden for Wagner, led him to merge his
hopes for political and artistic reform. Like other French aristocrats no longer ac-
tively involved in Republican politics, he now stepped forward to defend the "na-
tion" and the army that he maintained protected it. For French aristocrats har-
bored a keen sense of their responsibility as an elite that was welded to the nation
and thus to the army, as opposed to the political state.37 From this point on,
d'Indy approached his political and professional goals as one, throwing himself
into the development of a musical culture in systematic opposition to that of the
Republic. This he was to do through his involvement in a school of music, the
Schola Cantorum, which he would use to launch his challenge to state control
over "legitimate" education in music. Later, when referring indirectly to his role
in the Ligue de la Patrie Frangaise, d'Indy employed the following revealing anal-
ogy between the school and the league: he spoke of the inherent relation between
what he termed 'I'institution integralement nationale" and the Schola, which he
considered 'I'institution integralement musicale."38 D'Indy's involvement in both
institutions was tangled, since for him the question of what French music should
be and how to attain this was politically charged.
From his inchoate "Franckiste" ethos, d'Indy was now to develop an aes-
thetic system, a pedagogical approach, and a musical philosophy that was insepa-
rable from his belief in the league: his musical and political ideals shared a system
of concepts, meanings, references, vocabulary, and values that derived ultimately
from the league's distinctive nationalist creed. The theoretical patterns of his po-
litical ideology thus informed his basic assumptions concerning not only musical
value but also music history and its implications for the present. But d' Indy, in
addition, would be an integral figure in a network of intellectual influences that
would encourage receptive musicians to equate their own interests with the goals
of the league. And he helped spread a perception that Republican hegemony in
the musical world represented both a cultural power and a moral authority that
had to be contested. Moreover, by assigning political meanings to styles and to
musical forms and genres, he would help make aesthetic legitimacy in music a
political question. Finally, through his teachings, d'Indy would make the history
of French music an integral part of French national history, and thus of the
league's public pedagogy and propaganda. More than any other institution, then,
it was to be the Schola Cantorum that would pull French music into the cultural
war that had been aggressively launched by the nationalist leagues. And d'Indy
would employ the mobilizing themes of the league in a way that would serve
both the professional aims of the Schola and those of the league.
To understand the relative success of the Schola, the status and power that it
was to accrue, and thus the threat that it would pose to the Republic, there are
two facts of which we must be aware: one is the poor state of religious music as
Republican anticlericalism grew, and the other is the parlous state of the peda-
gogy at the now discredited state-funded Conservatoire. Indeed, the Schola filled
a gap in the teaching of religious music in France and helped to raise public con-
sciousness about the quality of the music being performed in churches. Despite
periodic attempts at the reform of plainchant in the nineteenth century, it was
generally performed in a harmonized version, with rhythm imposed, and accom-
panied by a "sepent," low strings, or organ. "Maitrises," or choir schools, existed,
and from the Second Empire on so did Louis Niedermeyer's school of "classic"
and religious music, intended to train choir masters and organists. But funds for
the "maitrises" were severely reduced in the anticlerical 1880s, with only six re-
ceiving any money at all from the French state.
As founded in 1894, the Schola Cantorum was originally a society for the
promotion and teaching of religious music, especially Gregorian chant. Its imme-
diate inspiration was a performing group, Les Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais,
founded in 1892 by Charles Bordes, the choir-master of Saint-Gervais.39 The
Schola itself was Bordes's idea, but he soon enlisted the collaboration of his sym-
pathetic friends and colleagues Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent d'Indy. The lat-
ter eagerly embraced the idea, seeing it as an opportunity to implement the re-
forms in education that he had proposed for the state Conservatoire. It was
indeed a bold project since it had no financial base of support (apart from dona-
tions and fees from its students) and, at first, no established cultural legitimacy;
before we discuss how it defined itself both professionally and politically, we
must first examine the institutional identity and pedagogical limitations of the
state Conservatoire.
The Conservatoire and Its Traditions

Since its founding in the revolutionary period, the Conservatoire National de
Musique et de Declamation had a monopoly on "legitimate" or "authorized" mu-
sical education in France. Nowhere among French institutions was the academic
system stronger or more central and domineering than it was in the field of
music. Although this is evident only on close examination, the Conservatoire was
one of the academic institutions whose identity, sense of function, and "memory"
were linked most closely to the Republican mentality: established by Gossec and
Sarrette in 1792 as a school for military music, it consciously defined itself
against the former Ecole Royale de Chant. The following year it joined together
with the Institut National de Musique in order to prepare musicians to participate
in the massive celebrations of national fetes.40
From its inception, the Conservatoire was conceived as a functional institu-
tion to train "professionals" who would serve the state's various musical institu-
tions and theatrical needs. The Conservatoire was also imprinted with several
fundamental values or traits of Republican thought that were to continue to in-
form its "memory," as well as its logic. The first was an inherent suspicion of all
previous authorities and traditions—the only tradition it recognized being that
which could be altered to meet new social needs;41 second, it rigorously institu-
tionalized the Republican principle of meritocracy, founding advancement within
its system upon the basis of regular and successive competitions. In principle,
anyone could succeed in the system by mastering the requisite technical skills—a
case in point being the director between 1896 and 1905, Theodore Dubois.
Dubois could not have come from a background more different from that of Vin-
cent d'Indy, a fact that became increasingly important as the political-cultural ten-
sions between the schools intensified. Thus it is important here briefly to review
Dubois's social origins, which helped determine his bellicose commitment to the
Conservatoire's ideals during the Affair.
Not atypically for a Conservatoire student, Dubois's early life was difficult,
for his origins as the son of a basket-maker and the grandson of a primary school
teacher were humble.42 Nevertheless, he received piano lessons and soon at-
tracted the attention and protection of the Vicomte Eugene de Boreuil, who intro-
duced him to professors at the Paris Conservatoire. The Vicomte then moved to
Paris, allowing the boy to live in the garret of one of his buildings, where he
shared his meals with the house's servants. Because of his penurious condition,
Dubois lived a life that was austere and focused on his work, as did many others
who would be students at the Conservatoire during his tenure as director. He
soon attracted the attention of Franck, eventually becoming his assistant organ-
ist, and later was one of the founding members of the Societe Nationale de
Musique. But Dubois was to distance himself from the society in 1886, when the
ideological schism that resulted in d'Indy's dominance finally took place; already
employing a political analogy, Dubois referred to the parties of the Right and the
Left, and specifically to the increasingly "exclusive" spirit of the former faction.43
Dubois was a firm believer in the merits of the Conservatoire's education, one
based on a practical and systematic approach to what were considered the profes-
sional fundamentals. These centered on solfege and harmony, with a particular em-
phasis on the latter, especially for students who wished eventually to gain entry
into a class in composition. Once in such a class, they were taught the techniques
of counterpoint and fugue, although most analysis done in such classes was ap-
proached from the perspective of the progression of chords.44 This emphasis was
by no means ideologically innocent, for harmony still carried a strongly scientific
connotation, dating back to the Enlightenment and Rameau. Counterpoint, on the
other hand, carried clerical associations that were considered threatening in a Re-
publican institution and was thus systematically deemphasized.
Because of its practical emphasis, the Conservatoire was oriented toward the
needs of the lyric theaters, the principal ones of which were the national or offi-
cially subventioned stages; because the repertoire of these theaters centered on
the nineteenth century, the Conservatoire placed little value on music history or
the performance of works from the distant past. As we shall later see when we ex-
amine Gabriel Faure's reforms, although a class on music history was offered, it
was not required and was ill attended; the repertoire of the students reflected this,
being largely centered on standard virtuoso compositions, as well as on more re-
cent well-known operatic works.
A "canon," as such, thus did not exist as a component of the institution's in-
struction, although the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire, which performed
in the Conservatoire's hall, had introduced the German canonic repertoire in
France. As William Weber has shown, these concerts were the province of an ex-
clusive, elite public, for whom they filled a gap in the classical French tradition
that had been associated with the Bourbon monarchy. Significantly, these concerts
soon established ties to the state bureaucracy, which not only legitimated them
symbolically but helped in turn to legitimate the Orleanist monarchy on an elite
level imbuing it with a patina of high culture. Although the Third Republic did
continue to provide subventions for the concerts, it did not recognize the sym-
bolic value of promoting the French classical heritage (now safely removed in
time from monarchical associations), together with the German canon, through
the Conservatoire itself.
This would eventually change, but only in response to the Schola's challenge
and to the escalating assaults on the institution in the next decade by the nation-
alist Right. In chapter 3 we shall examine the recurrence and intensification of at-
tacks on its pedagogy, particularly its neglect of the French and German classical
canons. But finally, here, when considering the Conservatoire's dominant posi-
tion, it is important to note that its pedagogy was not limited to Paris: it extended
throughout the entire country.45 Branches of the Conservatoire, as well as mu-
nicipal schools and those choir schools (maitrises) that received subventions,
had to conform to the program outlined by the Conseil Superieur des Etudes du
Conservatoire National.46
The Schola's Counteridentity

It was in opposition to this power, this spirit, and this program that the Schola
defined itself, and with greater explicitness, as the Affair reached its peak; hence,
the school was now characterized by a fusion of ideological and musical goals, as
is clear from both its programs and the written discourse it produced. Indeed, the
Schola's published discourse and pedagogical practices were inseparable, for
every professional goal was explained at length on both a practical and an ideo-
logical level; this was done not only in classes but also in the school's many pub-
lications, as well as through the public lectures and the "pedagogical concerts" it
offered. In the diffusion of this musical ideology to the public at large, the Ligue
de la Patrie Francaise, and then the Action Francaise, would be crucial.
D' Indy was well aware that this battle against the state could not be waged
alone—that he needed both legitimization and support from outside Republican
institutions. As we have noted, the league was powerful within the "cultivated"
world, which included the academy along with the diplomatic and the political
corps; this was facilitated, in part, through the prestigious Parisian salon of the
Comtesse de Loynes, a major patron and force behind the league.47 Hence, the
league offered a substantial audience that was inclined to be receptive to art, as
well as to the Schola's ideas, and could provide it with a base of support. More-
over, the league had considerable influence within the Parisian press, including
Le Gaulois, La Libre parole, L'Intransigeant, L'Eclair, La Presse, and L'Echo de Paris.
Through this press, which amounted to two-thirds of the Parisian dailies, the
league could reach more than two million readers each day, which gave it a pro-
nounced advantage.48
As we have noted, the Schola's "project" coincided felicitously with the ideals
of the league, and we may witness this consanguinity in its journal, Les Annales
de la Patrie Francaise. Begun in 1900, and vaunting prominent writers on its edi-
torial board, the journal articulated as one of its goals the promotion of national-
ism in literature and thus the mounting of attacks on "intellectuals" and their
conception of "progress." The league associated such conceptions with abstract
ideas, or with what it considered to be mere "formulae," and which it maintained
issued from "cosmopolitan" or Jewish elements.
Here the league's anti-Semitism went beyond the Affair itself, being linked to
its philosophical analysis of the foundations of France's decline. As Barres articu-
lated it, the Jews were inherently a "foreign" element, incapable of true assimila-
THE NEW CULTURAL: "WAR" AND THE FRENCH MUSICAL WORLD 29
tion into French culture and, emblematically, French taste. The Affair, for Barres
(and for d'Indy) only proved that the Jews were exacerbating the decline of the
"common idea," or the tradition that purportedly once linked the French.49
These same conceptions appear repeatedly in the Schola's discourse, for d'Indy
made a connection between such traits and specific musical characteristics. The
mobilizing themes of the league, especially anti-Masonism and attacks on
"cosmopolites" and "meteques" (half-breeds), filled d' Indy's writings and public
lectures.
Hence, the league had every reason to support the Schola Cantorum, for the
school fit perfectly into its program of diffusing what it termed an "education na-
tionale" through cultural projects. These included different cultural levels and
embraced public lectures, as well as popular libraries, all of which it helped to fi-
nance through the substantial treasury that it was amassing; for adherents of the
league solicited new members and funds not just from those in the business
world inclined to support their cause, but in elegant salons in which they them-
selves participated.50
D' Indy became part of this recruitment effort through his own professional
network, using the office of his editor, Durand, as a base from which to accept
subscriptions for the league. At the height of the Affair, in 1898 and 1899, he was
proudly writing to the league to announce his successful recruitment of Ernest
Chausson and Pierre de Breville. By 1902, when the Schola was in serious finan-
cial difficulties, d' Indy was writing letters of thanks to the league, which would
seem to indicate that it had contributed funds to the school. The league appar-
ently realized the value of such an association, the way it could use the symbolic
power and cultural prestige of music as a mobilizing force: d'Indy's discourse
could help it transcend mere dry uninspiring political abstractions, for it cogently
conflated the political, religious, and aesthetic dimensions. After internal dissen-
sion in the league in 1901 over the use of violence in the streets, its focus was
henceforth on education and propaganda. The Schola was useful within this con-
text, particularly when the league hoped, through subtle means, to influence the
legislative elections of 1902 (which were indeed successful for the nationalists in
Paris, as opposed to the rest of the country).51
The conflation of the political and aesthetic emerged in almost every aspect
of the Schola's teaching, which, as we shall see later in this chapter, was to find a
considerable network of intellectual influence; in chapter 3 we discuss how the
symbiotic relationship between the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise and the Schola
was to be followed by that between the Schola and the Action Francaise. For the
ideological basis of both leagues as well as of the Schola was "Tradition"—a word
that d'Indy, to manifest his profound respect, was always careful to capitalize. The
tradition that he taught 'was one that was based on authority of the "masters," one
that, while primarily French, he construed as part of a more comprehensive uni-
versal tradition; it was one that he believed ultimately grew out of religious music
and, hence, one whose works were imbued with spirituality and an implicit or
explicit moral message.52 D' Indy's conception of such "grande musique" was thus
not a socially sequestered high art, above social purpose, isolated from life, or ele-
vating humanity in an abstract manner; yet for d'Indy, this did not mean that its
message should be either direct or explicit, for he saw art as an idealization, a

"magnified impression" arising from the soul of the artist.53 His conception of art
was elitist, but this did not exclude the lower classes; rather, he believed that art
was a means of social reform through spiritual elevation.
If d' Indy thus defined the Schola's purpose against the Conservatoire's, he did
so as well with regard to its student body or general clientele. For unlike the
Conservatoire, virtually anyone could enter, and at any age; hence, the Schola
filled a notable gap in musical education in France. More than one observer
noted the heterogeneity of the Schola's student body, but perhaps the most inci-
sive observer of all was Claude Debussy, in 1903: writing in Gil Blas (on Febru-
ary 2), he remarked, "It is a strange thing, but at the Schola, side by side, you will
find the aristocracy, the most left-wing of the bourgeoisie, refined artists, and
coarse artisans." But many also remarked about the Schola's aristocratic concep-
tion of art, one that stressed the "disinterested," or the disdain of any facile suc-
cess;54 to this, however, we might further add another aspect of its instruction
that set it apart from the Conservatoire: its students' avoidance of all competition,
for traditionally the French nobility disdained the spirit of "concours" and the
kind of professionalization characteristic of the official educational system.55 In-
deed, Proust evokes the tone of the school in Le Cote des Guermantes, when he
describes aristocratic women who attended to learn counterpoint and fugue, and
the rigid opinions imbibed there by aristocratic young men.56
The Schola's Curriculum

The curriculum of the Schola, as instituted in 1897, included a five-year course in
music history, analysis, and aesthetics begun in the second year. Again, unlike the
Conservatoire, this was preceded by a one-year study of the fundamentals of
music, or what d' Indy generally referred to laconically as "le metier." Whereas
this was the one and only concern of the pedagogy at the Conservatoire, for
d'Indy it was merely the starting point from which one could eventually rise to
the level of "art." Moreover, the training in "le metier" did not start with harmony
or solfege as at the Conservatoire but simultaneously exposed the students to
harmony, counterpoint, and Gregorian chant. This premininary study also re-
quired that students participate in a choral ensemble, where they learned sacred
polyphony, from simple organum up through the works of Palestrina. For one
tenet of the Schola was that music be studied simultaneously from several points
of view—those of practical performance, analysis, and the history of musical aes-
thetics. Again, the ideological dimension that informed d'Indy's aesthetics was
never far from his actual pedagogy and helped to focus his reforms.
The next phase of study, as we have noted, was that which d'Indy referred to
as "art," which led students through the study of music up to the Baroque and to
the history of harmonic and tonal theory. Holding a quasi-Hegelian view of the
stages of the evolution of art toward the "higher" or more perfect, d' Indy implic-
itly applied this in his program of study: the "chain of tradition," he believed,
began with the "decorative" art of plainchant and was followed historically by
the "architectural" art of Renaissance polyphony; this, in turn, was succeeded by
the "expressive" art of the early seventeenth-century Italian masters of vocal

music, and particularly Monteverdi.57 D'Indy was, in effect, attempting to illus-
trate the historical logic of those values he, as opposed to those at the Conserva-
toire, emphasized in his teaching. Students then went on to study music for solo
instruments, including canon, fugue, suite, sonata, and variation forms; they sub-
sequently advanced to ensemble instrumental forms (including chamber music),
with a particular stress on the concerto, the symphony, and the symphonic poem.
The inclusion of the symphony was indeed unprecedented in musical educa-
tion in France, since it was considered by the Conservatoire to be an inherently
"lower" genre. But its position was reversed in d' Indy curriculum precisely be-
cause he did not conceive it as tied to the functional, mundane needs of the Third
Republic. In his teaching of the symphony, d' Indy emphasized, above all, the Vi-
ennese classics, perceiving Beethoven's symphonies, in particular, as the most ele-
vated examples of "musique pure"; hence, his model was based on Beethoven, al-
though in the distinctive manner in which d'Indy construed the composer and
thus the historical implications of his art. For d'Indy, as for Franck, the sym-
phony's status derived from his resolute belief that it was the most expressive
genre of all—able to communicate both feelings and ideas; as we shall shortly see,
these were of a moral and political nature, which made the symphony a hortatory
genre through which ultimately to "improve" society. For, once more, at the
Schola "Tradition" was conceived as a canon of great works imbued with the ca-
pacity to "teach" through the moralizing and elevating messages they were
thought to convey. Finally, in accordance with the early ideals of the Societe Na-
tionale, d' Indy perceived the symphony as a genre through which to better the
Germans on their own ground.58
The Schola versus "Dreyfusism artistique"

Predictably, by 1902, d'Indy was perceiving opposition to his elevation of the
symphony on the part of those musicians associated with the so-called Drey-
lusard Republic. In a letter to Guy Ropartz, of October 10, 1902, he points out
and complains of the low esteem in which Conservatoire students still held the
symphony: seeing it as a false or "bastardized" genre, they demean it, he claims,
to the greater glory of what he disdainfully terms, invoking Bruneau, "le verisme
boulevardier." Here d' Indy once again contraposes positivistic realism with a
larger, intuited "truth" that intellect or the senses can never grasp. He then ex-
plicitly attributes this denigration of the symphony to "Dreyfusisme artistique,"
adding that the results are no better here than in "Dreyfusisme politique."59 This
obsession with "artistic Dreyfusism," or with supposed Dreyfusard plots against
the Schola Cantorum, long remained prominent in d'Indy's correspondence.
Since d' Indy believed that a knowledge of elevating "musique pure" was fun-
damental to the study of "musique appliquee aux paroles," the latter was studied
only at the end of the program; it was when nearing completion of the Schola's
syllabus that students finally arrived at the genres considered central to the
Conservatoire—opera, oratorio, and cantata.60 Here, too, the works studied were
substantially different from those at the Paris Conservatoire, which was centered,
as we have seen, on the nineteenth-century repertoire. D'Indy's emphasis was on

the French pre-revolutionary and classic composers, beginning with Lully, whom
he considered "the creator of French dramatic music"; it also included Gluck and
Rameau, the latter having already caught the attention of the Societe Nationale de
Musique Francaise, which had hoped to renew interest in his work.
In his teaching of nineteenth-century opera, d'Indy was strongly influenced by
Wagner who, as we have noted, was his idol, as well as his model for operatic com-
position. Like Wagner, he considered most of the operas written in nineteenth-
century France to be "decadent"—servile and meretricious imitations of success-
ful Italian composers; like Wagner as well, he considered this the inevitable and
unfortunate result of the insidious Jewish influence that had harmed so many as-
pects of different national cultures. Clearly, d'Indy's musical anti-Semitism was the
result not only of his nationalist politics but also of both his Catholicism and his
careful reading of Wagner's writings. It was a powerful amalgam that went beyond
the Dreyfus Affair itself and remained prominent in his writings until his death
three decades later.61
D' Indy was as unrelenting as Wagner in his attack on Jewish composers too
heavily influenced by what he considered the meretrious Italian style of the day;
in his lectures at the Schola, he echoed Wagner's rhetoric by tracing the so-called
"style melodique judaique," leading up to its culmination in Meyerbeer. For
d'Indy, however, such a label could also be applied to non-Jewish composers who
had the bad taste, greed, or simple misfortune to come under this pernicious in-
fluence. And so, in the present, Massenet was ultimately the product of this
"ecole Judaique," but, since "real Jews," he claimed, had only material desires, he
allowed Massenet more "sensual feeling." In short, for d' Indy, all Jewish com-
posers were inherently not only superficial but derivative, as well as mercenary in
their art—in search only of financial gain.62
Wagner was clearly d'Indy's model for true operatic writing, for in his works
d'Indy saw the same "elevation' or moral message that he sought in the sym-
phony. And, given his admiration for the German symphonic school, it is not sur-
prising that he equally admired its application to opera, as embodied in Wag-
ner.63 But, again, it was not only the application of motivic or thematic and
formal techniques from the symphony to the opera that he admired—it was also
the communication of a larger social message.
D' Indy, unlike many other French nationalists, particularly those in the Ac-
tion Francaise, perceived no contradiction between his ardent nationalism and
his love of the German Wagner. But we must remember that his nationalism was
not only one that promoted the strength of France; it was also one that repre-
sented a specific notion of French identity: in this conception, France repre-
sented one aspect of a universal tradition, one that was lofty and pure, untainted
by less noble elements. Hence, d'Indy believed that the entry of another strain of
this great tradition, even from outside France, could have a salutary influence
upon French culture. Indeed it was Wagner himself who had urged him to help
renew his own national theater by restoring its tradition and thus by purging it of
the "contaminated" Jewish style.64
Wagners example, d'Indy believed, could help bring about this purgation,
and in this belief he was seconded by a fellow member of the league, Maurice Bar-
res. Both d'Indy and Barres perceived that Wagner's stress on the nation, on the
instincts over reason, and on the power and directive force of myth comple-
mented the ideals of the league; for it, too, stressed irrational attachment to the
traditions of the nation, to the primacy of feeling and instinct over abstract and
logical reasoning. Hence, both believed that the return to a purified national tra-
dition in opera could be achieved in part through the cleansing force of Wagner -
ian innovations.65 For Barres, Wagner's rejection of the formulae that encum-
bered civilization was a prelude to the rebirth that could now occur on national
soil; d' Indy shared this perception, but he added another dimension: Wagner's
music had more in common with Gregorian chant than with the tainted "Italo-
judaique" style. Both, according to d'Indy, represented a "discours libre," or a
quality of infinite and subtle variation, a freely unfolding musical phrase, as op-
posed to the Jewish and Conservatoire styles. D'Indy believed, with Barres, that
"authenticity" in art could come about only after "purgation" and the individual's
realization of the necessity of unity with an organic past.66
But this was not the only theme that d'Indy shared with other members of
the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise and that penetrated the discourse of the Schola
Cantorum: we find the league's characteristic emphasis on moral reform, as well
as on collective authority, both based fundamentally on tradition; we see con-
tinual articulation of the league's other mobilizing themes designed to incite
the passions of those who either adhered to or were sympathetic to it. These
prominently included anti-Masonism, as well as the attack on "cosmopolites" or
"meteques," which meant generally "half-breeds" but often, in this discourse,
specifically Jews. "Meteques," in the rhetoric of the league, were constantly being
accused of undermining France from within, or of both corrupting and manipu-
lating its political life. The league, as well as the Schola, opposed this manipula-
tion to "French solidarity" and to the spirit of generosity, or "bonhomie," and
brotherhood.67
This spirit, for d'Indy, was bivocal, for it not only carried an ideological mes-
sage but helped to define the school against the professional competitiveness of
the Conservatoire. Students at the Schola, he asserted (with clear anti-Semitic im-
plications) were pursuing lofty goals and would never be content to seek profit
from their art. As he put it, "laissons ce negoce aux trop nombreux Semites qui
encombrent la musique depuis que celle-ci est susceptible de devenir une affaire"
(let us leave this commerce to the too numerous Semites who have encumbered
music since it has been susceptible to becoming a business). The role of art was
rather to teach, to elevate the spirit of humanity or, as he phrased it, by quoting
Kundry at the end of Parsifal, "dienen," or to serve.68 Hence, his goal was to pro-
duce not "professionals" but "artists"—those with a "calling"—which led him to
abolish any formal competitions and to emphasize working collegially. D'Indy's
pedagogical paradigm derived from his conception of the Middle Ages, in which
art was collaborative and master and pupil were bound by mutual respect and
faith. Yet, as contemporaries noted, when d'Indy took over the school completely
himself, in 1903, he imposed a spirit of "camaraderie" and lofty "disinterested-
ness" along with military discipline.69
Other mobilizing themes of the league that run through d'Indy's rhetoric
prominently include the attack on anticlericalism and hence the defense of the
Catholic Church. During the Affair many members of the religious orders, as
well as prominent Catholics like d'Indy, had declared themselves to be anti-
Dreyfusards; hence, under the government of Waldeck-Rousseau the reprisal
against the Church began, together with that against the Republic's other "ene-
mies," the army and the Rightest leagues. The Republic now did not just subordi-
nate the military to civilian authority; by 1901 it had placed the religious orders
under the purview of the Chamber of Deputies.70 Thus the league was deeply
concerned with the defense of the Catholic Church and, simultaneously, with
"I'enseignement fibre," or religious as opposed to state education.
As we might expect, this theme appears abundantly in d'Indy's discourse,
which had all the more significance since the Schola, as of 1900, was housed in a
former convent on the Rue St.-Jacques. (Conveniently, moreover, this was located
within the realm of the student quarter, or the "Quartier Latin," which had be-
come the center of rightest political agitation.) D'Indy's lecture to inaugurate the
new location outlined the Schola's major concerns, in both a specifically artistic
and a larger ideological sense: entitled "Une Ecole d'art repondant aux besoins
modernes," its subtext was the anachronism of the state Conservatoire from the
perspective of nationalist conceptions. Here d'Indy stressed not "progress" but,
rather, his conception of "progression," or the "natural" transformations that the
art of music has undergone in time; he stressed the fact that even unconsciously
we proceed from the work of our predecessors, and observed that recent French
history confirmed that "Tradition" cannot be ignored with impunity.71
D' Indy thus here identified his specific musical goals with a larger nationalist
perspective or position concerning the political history of France. This identifica-
tion reemerged when he spoke of his comprehensive goals of leaving the Schola's
graduates "better armed for the modern combat."72 For d'Indy this meant imbu-
ing students with a sense of "natural" evolution, which, in his conception, ap-
plied simultaneously and inextricably to both politics and art.
But the nationalism in d'Indy's address was explicit as well as implicit, for he
went on to "declare war" on what he termed "particularism": by this he meant
those forces that undermined French solidarity, like the league, and in his speech
he referred to it specifically as "that unhealthy fruit of the Protestant deviation."73
Implied here, undoubtedly, is the Protestant stress on the individual conscience as
opposed to the instinctive adherence to tradition that French nationalists valued so
highly. And associating Protestants and Jews, from here he went on again to attack
Jewish art, which he asserted refuses to recognize the "logical chain of the past":
Cette tendance parait etre encore un dernier avatar de 1'ecole judaique, qui retarde
la marche de 1'art pendant une grande partie du XIXe siecle . . ,"74
(This tendency would seem to be yet a last metamorphosis of the Jewish school that
retarded the progression of art during a large part of the nineteenth century . . . )
D' Indy continued to play subtly on the dual political and artistic resonance of his
terms and concepts to the very end of this inaugural speech; lor he concluded by
THE NEW CULTURAL "WAR" AND THE FRENCH MUSICAL WORLD 3S
thanking those who had been "brave militants" and then went on to promise that
the work of the Schola would be to the glory of both the country and of art.
THE REPUBLIC'S FIRST RIPOSTE:

THE 1900 EXPOSITION AND MUSIC
D' Indy's perception of a "war" with both the "Dreyfusard Republic" and with its
national Conservatoire was expressed even more vehemently in his letters, as we
have seen. By 1900, convinced that the Schola was under attack from the Repub-
lic via the state institution, his sense of paranoia was rapidly reaching its peak. In
a letter of November 20, 1900, to his friend Guy Ropartz, he expressed his alarm
over what he termed "le nouveau Conservatoire Dreyfusard." By this he meant a
project to found what was apparently to be called the "College d'esthetique
sincere" that Alfred Bruneau, Gustave Charpentier, and Alfred Bachelier were
planning in Montmartre. As d'lndy put it, "Leur programme est sincerement co-
casse et il me semble que cette manifestation doit etre soutenue et encouragee par
Theodore [Dubois] afin de faire piege a la Schola. (Ils veulent la guerre, ils 1'au-
ront.)"75 (Their program is sincerely comical and it seems to me that this demon-
stration must be supported and encouraged by Theodore [Dubois] in order to set
a trap for the Schola. [If they want war, they will have it.]) D'Indy's sense of being
surrounded by politico-aesthetic plots is reflected in another letter to Guy
Ropartz, who was about to go to Lyon: on August 2, 1901, he warned Ropartz
about musical circles there, especially the alliance of Jews and Socialists around
Dreyfus, and urged them to "take precautions."76
D' Indy was correct in his perception that the Republic, in the wake of the
Dreyfus Affair, was not about to let the Schola's challenge go without a riposte.
Yet it was to respond in stages, beginning with the development of a musical dis-
course that was similarly bivocal, or simultaneously of political and artistic sig-
nificance. Indeed, the challenge of the Right had made the new government more
aware of the important role that French music could play in national education,
but according to its own conception. This first becomes clear in the context of the
musical programs that were an integral part of the Universal Exposition that was
held in Paris in 1900. They, too, were surrounded by discourse, but one that was
intended to affirm Republican power and in order to do so also assigned political
significance to composers, to genres, and to styles. Both these musical programs
and their concomitant exegetical texts were attempts to ensure that French taste
developed in accordance with Republican priorities, values, and ideals; for this
was the moment when, in the light of the challenge being posed by the political
Right, the Republic was determined to assume control of all aspects of French
culture.77 Hence, as we shall see, official policies in culture from this point on
were not conceived solely from Republican doctrine but emerged through a dia-
logue with the political opposition.
In order to understand the way in which French music was presented at the
Universal Exposition, we must, of course, also understand the latter's ideological
goals. Certainly, one of its aims was to promote an image of stability and progress
that was to be projected to the world in the aftermath of the traumatic Dreyfus
Affair. As opposed to the picture of a decaying and unjust nation that was dif-
fused in the domestic and foreign press, the Exposition was to present the coun-
try as devoted to "art, industry, pleasure, and peace." Indeed, Zola condemned
the event for attempting to divert and to tranquilize, since the Republic promptly
dropped the issue of the Affair, thus "strangling truth and justice."78 From this
perspective the Exposition could be seen as both a celebration of modernity and,
in the words of the President, Emile Loubet, "a symbol of harmony and peace."
And with special resonance, in light of the Affair, the Socialist Minister of Indus-
try, Alexandre Millerand, who was officially in charge of the Exposition, stressed
the role of science in triumphing over ignorance and misery. It thus seems plausi-
ble to interpret the Exposition as a quest for consolidation, as well as for stability
on the part of the new Republican government now legally in place.79
It is also important to see the Exposition and its musical programs in terms
of its attempt to justify and promulgate specifically Republican values and ideals,
for, in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair, the Republic did have a pressing symbolic
need—to project a positive purpose or vision that differentiated it from both its
predecessors and its enemies. As Maurice Agulhon has shown, the Republic had
been in search of a repertoire of themes, symbolic figures, and rituals that would
rival those of the monarchist camp; but, since its political principles were based
on ideas and not on a living incarnation in a monarch, it faced the problem of
translating intellectual abstractions into symbolic terms. One response was to de-
velop the cult of the "great man," in particular great literary and scientific figures
of the past as incarnations of the symbolic authority on which the Republic was
founded.80 It is important to realize, however, that, although a Pantheon of great
literary figures was already established—if interpreted in different ways from dif-
ferent political perspectives—this was not true of music: not yet being part of a
generally shared culture, the musical Pantheon and canon was by no means de-
fined and thus, in the context of the "cultural war," was at stake.
The Schola had already shown how music could be used integrally in this
battle, as well as in the conflict over public pedagogy, or within a Nationalist edu-
cational scheme. The Third Republic itself had long developed an interest in edu-
cation as a means of producing good French citizens, patriots in the proper Re-
publican mold. Now, after the Affair, "science and verite," or knowledge and
truth, with their Dreyfusard connotations, were intended to enlighten and thus
protect the nation: henceforth the Republic emphasized a socialist approach to
education, as seen in the "Universites Populaires" and other avenues for extend-
ing education and culture to French workers.81 With the challenge of the Schola,
as we shall see, the Republic would attempt to incorporate music into its educa-
tional scheme through different venues, and on several levels. Education was
thus one of the themes that would emerge in the musical discourse surrounding
the programs of French music presented at the 1900 Universal Exposition.
Another point of emphasis now, one that the Exposition could be used to
reaffirm, particularly in light of the Schola, was the growing anticlericalism of the
Republic. As we have noted, the government of Waldeck-Rousseau was deter-
mined to exact revenge, "to affirm the Republic and cow its enemies in the
THE NEW CULTURAL "WAR" AND THEF R E N C HMUSICAL WORLD 37
church, the army, the leagues, and the street." In 1900 Waldeck-Rousseau an-
nounced that the nation was now on the eve of "a decisive battle to snatch the fa-
vorite weapons of the reaction."82 He began immediately to diminish the powers
of those who had been the worst offenders within the church at the time of the
Dreyfus Affair—the Assumptionist order; for reasons of political timing, as soon
as the Exposition closed, a far more massive and intensive anticlerical campaign
was to ensue.
The other cultural theme of the Republic after the Affair that was to color the
Exposition and its musical discourse was the role of the revolutionary heritage in
national identity, for if the Affair had been "an epic struggle between Right and
Left for the political soul of France," for the Left, at the core of that soul lay the
French Revolution.83 Since the Revolution remained a point of reference for Re-
publican identity in France, the Republic had turned the memory of it into a
myth, as well as a cult. Indeed, one of the themes that we have already noted in
the Conservatoire was the primacy of the "individual" and the negation of sub-
servience to any established tradition.84 This was an idea that was to become
even more important and to gain a new emphasis in light of the growing compe-
tition with the Schola Cantorum. So, too, would the central Republican tenet of
social progress, or the necessity of change—the refusal to consider an established
order as indefinitely satisfactory. And finally, from the Revolution came the ap-
proach to culture as a secular, moralizing force, a means of establishing a Repub-
lican morality that was distinct from religious tradition.85
All of these goals and themes are pertinent to our understanding of the ideo-
logical aims of the cultural and specifically musical programs of the Universal Ex-
position of 1900, and they are especially significant for our comprehension not
only of the decisions made but also of the character of the official discourse that
surrounded and explained them. In this discourse we may glean a conception of
what constituted the "soul" of the nation, or an attempt, in answer to the Schola,
to define the "true" French identity in music.
The Role of French Composers

The inclusion of programs of French music at the Exposition was not automatic,
however: it was the result of a number of simultaneous pressures placed on Re-
publican officials. Here, typically, professional interests, Republican ideology, bu-
reaucratic structures, and political conjunctures were all to interact in an inextri-
cable manner. Initially, it appeared to the Exposition's officials that French, as
opposed to "exotic" foreign music, had very little to contribute to its larger politi-
cal goals; this was probably, in part, the result of the considerable success of the
programs of foreign and non-Western music in the Expositions of 1878 and
1889.86 Official plans were gradually revealed, and by 1898 musicians became
alarmed over the lack of provisions being made for the performance of French
music. This concern was by no means new, for we have noted the pressure that
musicians were putting on legislators in the 1890s for the performance of their
works. The so-called "groupe de la musique" included the composers Xavier
Leroux, Alfred Bruneau, Camille Erlanger, Gabriel Pierne, and Georges Hue.87
In response to such pressures, in the mid-1890s the Paris Opera began to

present a series of concerts devoted to the performance of new works by French
composers: these concerts were intended to help found a distinctive sense of the
"Ecole Franchise," or, as it was put at the time, of "une specificite musicale na-
tionale." Such efforts won the enthusiastic praise of the president of the Republic,
as well as the slightly more reserved or guarded approbation of Vincent d'Indy.88
By 1899 the agitation for further actions was mounting, but now because of the
pressure of nationalist agitation on the Left, as well as on the Right; although
their conceptions of what to perform were substantially different, both sides were
alarmed by the dominance of foreign works, particularly Wagner's, at the Opera.
The "rapporteur" of the budget of the Beaux-Arts, while recognizing the signifi-
cance of Wagner, nevertheless advised, "Il faut se garder cependant de se laisser
entrainer au-dela de ce qu'il convient par une race qui a ses conceptions person-
elles etrangeres aux notres"89 (It is necessary to prevent ourselves from being
pulled beyond what is appropriate by a race with its own personal conceptions
foreign to ours). He also went on to warn that French music indeed had powerful
adversaries and that, at the forthcoming Exposition, productions from all over
the world would be competing with the French: hence, in order for the French to
establish their artistic vitality, he urged the Opera's director to demonstrate the
important place held by France in the art of music.90
In addition to this rhetoric, which encouraged the activism of French com-
posers, another factor, as we have noted, was one stimulated by the Dreyfus Af-
fair. At the very moment when French musicians were persuaded to sign the peti-
tions being circulated by both sides, they chose to engage in this form of pressure
themselves. In 1898, the year of the Dreyfusard "Manifest des Intellectuels," they
submitted a petition requesting that a concert hall be reserved for the perfor-
mance of French music; since their request was not granted, they proceeded,
under the aggressive leadership of the composer Leon Gastinel, to take other,
more forceful measures. On August 2, 1898, Gastinel addressed a letter on the
subject to the head of the Commission generale of the Universal Exposition,
Picard; in it, he complained that the question of music was clearly unimportant
to the Commission, for it was being treated with far less concern than the other
fine arts.91
His letter did not go unanswered: in response, an open letter appeared in the
important newspaper Le Temps, which served as an official reply to the plaints of
French composers. Picard here abruptly changed his position, now proposing the
organization of "giant festivals" that would include the participation of choral
masses, as well as diverse grandiose ensembles. This was not a novel conception;
for the commemoration of Bastille Day in 1889, two thousand musicians had
been assembled to perform on the Champ de Mars.92 But the change of heart was
significant, and it indeed did have an explanation: a bureaucratic restructuring
that redefined the jurisdiction over the musical programs at the Exposition.
Now, all the decisions concerning musical performances at the Exposition
passed into the domain of the Ministere de 1' Instruction Publique et des Beaux-
Arts. The implications of this were important: the placing of an art within the ju-
risdiction of the bureaucracy concerned with teaching and the encouragement of
"letters" was an implicit acknowledgement of its role. For an art merited the pro-
tection of this ministry not because of the delectation it afforded the few but be-
cause it met a comprehensive need—the development of the aesthetic sense in
the Nation. The Republic maintained that the love of beauty was directly con-
nected with the progress of civilization and thus, by logical extension, with
French national glory.
Already, shortly after the founding of the Third Republic, the fine or visual
arts were entrusted to this ministerial authority. This meant that they were now
administered by the same bureaucracy that was in charge of the social sciences
and the humanities, which would influence the way they were approached. Al-
most from the start of the Republic, Gambetta was concerned with the problem of
symbolism: of how to incarnate 'l'ame francaise" in a coherent system of repre-
sentation. It was through the use of symbols that he and the Third Republic's
founders hoped to sacralize, immortalize, and unify "the memory of the na-
tion."93 The value of the art was thus historical, for it could be used to manifest
the "progress" that French culture had undergone in time, to the greater glory of
the nation itself. As we have seen, the leagues were ultimately to respond to such
cultural tactics with a counterdiscourse concerning artistic "tradition"—as op-
posed to "progress."
As early as 1871, a chair in the Archeology and History of Art was founded at
the Sorbonne—testimony to the belief in the role of the discipline in forging na-
tional memory. The foundation of such a chair was thus considered a means of
implementing the Republic's goal of creating a system of national values as articu-
lated through the symbolism of art; moreover, Republicans believed the disci-
pline would instruct the nation in its essence or identity by promulgating a sense
of the fundamental unity and power of French art. And the 1880s saw an even
greater emphasis on the social function of the arts, now as opposed to their asso-
ciations with the privileges of a sociocultural elite. One of the Republic's recur-
rent themes became the citizen's "right to culture," and thus the importance of
implementing and ensuring this right through administrative means.94 In the Re-
public, art was to serve a moral and a pedagogic end, as it had in the revolution-
ary period, by promoting the love of nature, of man, and of progress; by the
1890s the emphasis was on the social and historical aspects of art as a symbolic
representation of the cultural legitimacy of the regime.95 Again, this would be the
basis on which the leagues were to launch their attack on the Republic and on its
political legitimacy in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair; this, as we have seen, was
the point at which they introduced a powerful new cultural stake—one not yet
employed for these purposes by the Republic—the art of music.
Planning the Musical Programs

Much was to change in the Exposition's plans with the redefinition of the status
of music as it came under the aegis of the Ministere de 1'Instruction Publique. By
1898 a preponderant reason for these changes might well have been the growing
status of the Schola and the example that it set of propaganda through music.
Now, committees multiplied and special distinguished commissions were formed;
supporting staff was enlarged and a larger budget was both requested and ob-
tained. In addition, and as a consequence, music was assigned an ideological pro-
gram, one that we may construe in a dialogic relation with that of the Schola.
On December 4, 1899, the Minister of Public Instruction assembled an elite
committee of musicians—those with the most professional prestige in French
music. This meant that he was forced to include individuals who were hostile to
the Republic, but, since they were clearly in the minority, it was probably as-
sumed that their voice would, in fact, be small. Such an inclusion might also have
been an attempt to palliate or mollify and thus co-opt the "enemy" camp by offer-
ing it official recognition and a voice. The committee thus consisted of the major
figures of the Republican musical institutions; but, given the Schola's visible pres-
tige and success, it also included d'Indy:
The commission comprised (among others) the professor of music history at
the Conservatoire (and former anti-Dreyfusard) Bourgault-Ducoudray; the direc-
tor of the Conservatoire, Theodore Dubois; and the composers Bruneau, Faure,
Gigout, Guilmant, de Jonciere, Marty, Massenet, Paladilhe, Pierne, Pugno, Rety,
Reyer, Rousseau, Deschapelle, Bernheim, and (J.) Bizet. The critic for Le Temps,
Pierre Lalo, was quick to note its domination by members of the Institut and by
officials of the Conservatoire, as well as of the Parisian theaters.96 In an eloquent
discourse, the Minister charged this varied but distinguished group with an ambi-
tious and, given the political conjuncture, particularly daunting task: they were,
through the selection of examples to be performed, to provide, in effect, a history
of French music from its origins to the present day.
This had broad implications, one being the construction of an official canon,
based on a sense of filiation and affinity of those great works in the so-called
French school. Certainly the existence of the new Scholiste or nationalist canon
was a factor in the nature of the Minister's charge to the predominantly loyalist
Republican commission. The group set to work immediately, beginning with the
election of its officers: Saint-Saens as president, Dubois and Massenet as vice
presidents, Bruneau as "rapporteur," and Bizet as secretary. It was a formidable
task imposed on such a motley group—to arrive at the canon of great French
works and to define the criteria that identified and linked them. The commission
therefore adopted a method that seemed democratic as well as logical: Dubois
would propose a list of celebrated composers from different epochs, on which
each member was to vote, and to which each was free to add further suggestions.
Given the preponderant academic and official presence on the commission,
the results of the voting process, to contemporary observers, were indeed pre-
dictable. But the logic or the reasoning behind these preferences becomes clearer
when we examine the document produced by the "rapporteur" to explain their
choices. The largest number of votes (nineteen) went to Gluck, Berlioz, Delibes,
Lalo, Bizet, Lefebvre, and Messager; the next largest block (thirteen) was for
Thomas, David, Gounod, and Hillemacher; these were followed (with twelve
votes) by Jannequin, Lully, and Leroux and (with eleven votes) by Franck,
Guiraud, Godard, Chabrier, and Charpentier.97 As we might expect given the in-
clusion of some dissidents from outside the official musical world, not all mem-
bers of the group were pleased with the outcome; this was clearly the case with
d'Indy, who later wrote of his frustration in a letter of March 30, 1900, to Paul-
Marie Masson. Here he refers to his combat, together with Garbiel Faure, against
the bad intentions and obstructionist tactics of the "legumes officiels." Since this
was well after the commission met, it may well have referred not only to the vot-
ing but also to the subsequent concerts, in some of which d'Indy himself partici-
pated: he directed a number of programs performed by the Chanteurs de Saint-
Gervais in the historical reconstruction of a "petite eglise du Vieux Paris." As we
shall see, the musical programs, much to d'Indy's consternation, included little
symphonic music and consisted largely of operatic excerpts.98 Yet, as we may sur-
mise, to do otherwise at this particular point would have been to negate the prin-
ciples of the Conservatoire in favor of the renegade Schola Cantorum.
Alfred Bruneau's 'Report'

The results of the committee's voting required an ideological explanation, one
that was to be made explicit in a formal discourse and then to be printed at the
expense of the state. This was the task of the rapporteur, who, as we have noted,
was Alfred Bruneau, a figure by now identified closely with the ideals of the tri-
umphant "Dreyfusard Republic." Because of his role in the Dreyfus Affair,
Bruneau enjoyed a high level of prestige, a fact from which his career would con-
tinue for many years to reap the benefit. Having been made a Chevalier de la Le-
gion d'Honneur in 1895, he was subsequently promoted to the prestigious rank
of Officier in 1904; in 1911, as he explains in his Memoires, it was due to his con-
nection with Clemenceau, at the time of the Dreyfus Affair, that he was made In-
specteur General des Beaux-Arts. This would be followed by still more honors, all
ultimately deriving from the Dreyfus Affair: in 1919 Bruneau became Comman-
deur de la Legion d'Honneur, and in 1925 he was elected to the Academic des
Beaux-Arts. Such honors also facilitated his entry as a major music critic for such
important journals as Gil Blas, Le Figaro, and Le Matin.
Bruneau's report on the musical programs performed at the Exposition in
1900 undoubtedly solidified his position as a spokesman for the Republican mu-
sical aesthetic. For he clearly understood his charge to arrive at a musical dis-
course that would do for the Republic what d'Indy had done so effectively for its
political adversaries. This meant employing concepts, references, vocabulary, and
values that would have a similar resonance, making reference simultaneously to
both political and musical realms; moreover, an implicit expectation was that he
would further develop those Republican themes already ensconced by the 1880s
concerning the pedagogical and social role of art. In short, Bruneau was faced
with the task of refracting the government's goals and themes through the prism
of a musical discourse concerning the historical evolution of French musical
taste: he would have to generate musical symbols and meanings as powerful as
those of Vincent d'Indy and to relate the "master fictions" of Republican ideology
to music history and values." This meant not only defining his position against
that of the adversary within but simultaneously defining French musical values
against those of Germany, or the threat from without.
Although conceived as a book on French music and intended for a wide dis-
tribution, the report is presented in the guise of a formal statement to the Minis-
ter on French musical taste. Bruneau begins by acknowledging both the nobility
and difficulty of his task and credits the Minister with being the first to place
music on a level equal to the other arts, for it was he who wished to demonstrate
to the "multitude, which is less indifferent to beauty than is generally thought,"
the route that this illustrious art has followed from age to age. Bruneau also cred-
its the Minister not only with seeking to illuminate the past, but also with wish-
ing to clarify the path that will lead French music forward towards a promising
future. 100 The official context established, he proceeds to give an outline of
French music history that is, in every way, as selective and ideologically charged
as that of d'Indy.
Several themes run through Bruneau's sketch and determine his interpreta-
tion—themes that are patently drawn from Republican tradition, as well as from
recent Dreyfusard discourse. One is anticlericalism, which, in implicit contrast to
Scholiste ideology, implies that the history of music in France is completely inde-
pendent of the Roman Catholic Church. Hence, Bruneau's history pointedly be-
gins not with the Church and Gregorian chant but, rather, with a composer he
presents as consciously and independently ignoring it—the Trouvere Adam de la
Halle. For Bruneau, de la Halle is indeed the veritable founder of the "French
School," one that is characterized by independence, especially from any kind of
clerical constraints; moreover, his Le Jeu de Robin et Marion is, Bruneau boldly
claims, the point of departure for that quintessentially French dramatic genre,
Opera Comique. De la Halle, he argues, was already seeking the union of melody
and text, a goal he accomplished by deriving inspiration from popular sources—
from the "people" themselves. Thus, whenever his music becomes "difficult" or
mannered, it is because it has been subjected to the rigid rules of the "official
tonality" established by Pope Gregory. Gradually, Bruneau continues, the com-
poser freed himself from the constraint of these rules and was able to create with
complete and glorious independence of spirit and soul.101 The theme of indepen-
dence as a fundamental French artistic trait is one that was long to endure in Re-
publican musical discourse.
The other theme, of the "popular" as a source of inspiration for music—one of
a similar longevity—recurs in his discussion of Josquin's Missa I'homme arme.
(Josquin, who was born and died on the present Franco-Belgian border and who
spent a large part of his career in France, becomes, for Bruneau, a French com-
poser.) Here Bruneau delights in describing how the composer embroiders skill-
fully on a popular theme that, he claims, Josquin incorporated in order to echo the
"real" world outside.102 For Bruneau, this technique represents not the interpene-
tration of the sacred and the secular but the fundamentally French propensity for
the incorporation of nature and life in music. Already, we may perceive the tele-
ology in the report that would eventually culminate in what was considered the
Dreyfusard genre "par excellence," Naturalist opera. In addition, taking aim at the
Schola, Bruneau asserts that in this work Josquin transformed the "cold" and "dry"
technique of counterpoint into a medium of sincere expression. Like d'Indy, he ar-
gues for the principles of honesty and sincerity in art, but, as we can see, their con-
ceptions of the nature and manifestations of these qualities were distant.
Bruneau's bias towards secular music becomes even more evident and egre-
gious in his discussion of the secular chansons of Jannequin. Here the focus is on
Jannequin's adroit incorporation of Parisian street cries, which Bruneau presents
as a "tableau des moeurs" and hence an incipient Naturalism. He then proceeds
to argue that this is a constant in French music history—the inspiration from the
"popular" and the streets, from real life and even mundane events.
Bruneau's French tradition proceeds, like d'Indy's, to Lully, Rameau, and
Gluck but then centers on composers of the revolutionary period, who d' Indy's
survey studiously ignored. After crediting Gretry with the invention of the leit-
motif, he proceeds to praise Mehul, Gossec, Cherubim, and Lesueur and, in the
nineteenth century, Boieldieu and Berlioz. Unlike d'Indy, Bruneau places Berlioz
centrally within the tradition, claiming that it was he, not Wagner, who "rescued"
French music from its decadent "Italianism."103 After praising Felicien David,
Charles Gounod, and Ambroise Thomas, Bruneau recognizes the other composers
who received votes—Bizet, Delibes, Lalo, Chabrier, Chausson, and Franck. He pre-
sents Saint-Saens's symphonic poems as incarnations of French independence,
since, formally, they refuse to be "slaves" of tradition or placidly to follow routes al-
ready traced; French values, for Bruneau, as seen in Saint-Saens, include not only
measure and clarity (ideals that date back to the Societe Nationale) but also the
more Romantic characteristics of frankness, "heart," and audacity.104
When discussing contemporary music Bruneau, like d'Indy, could hardly
avoid the increasingly crucial question of German influence, particularly that of
Wagner; as a composer heavily influenced by Wagner, Bruneau had the difficult
task of defining not only the significance of Wagner's innovations but also that
which did not accord with French art. Like Zola, he stresses the independence
of musical form that Wagner brought, the perfect union of melody and text, the
fusion of voices and orchestra, and his "noblesse," "ampleur," and "eloquence."105
In his Musiques d'hier er de demain, which was published in 1900, Bruneau credits
Wagner with inaugurating a new musical theater of greater reason, rigor, and logic;
in the "drame lyrique," as developed by Wagner, the music, so closely united with
the word, imparts life, movement, and passional interest to human actions. This, of
course, relates to Bruneau's own conception of authentic musical theater as an art
of movement, of life, of expression, and in consequence of "truth." As we have
noted, Bruneau's rhetoric, in the context, was undoubtedly meant to be and, as we
shall see, immediately was, construed as invoking Republican values.
In this book, as in the Rapport, Bruneau is compelled to point out those fun-
damentally "Germanic" elements in Wagner's art that inherently distinguish it
from the French: this includes the length of his works, his abstract philosophy,
and his "idealistic" myths, as well as the symbols he employs which, for Bruneau,
are purely German. Yet Wagner, he asseverates, like d'Indy, has revealed the path
for "true" French art, although the explanation of what this implies differs sub-
stantially between the two. According to Bruneau (and d'Indy), Wagner showed
that the spirit of a people and the love of the soil inspire the noble and the grand,
and therefore the French must be true to "themselves." In contrast to d'Indy, who
believed in the importance of instinct as a primordial force that binds the French
people, Bruneau stresses the French propensity for "action" and not for "dreams."
The theme of the necessary proximity of art to life, to reality, and to action, a
theme that would be central to the aesthetics of the Left in France, runs through
Bruneau's Rapport. Bruneau argues that this is true in the present, since it pro-
vides the justification for his placing French Naturalist opera at the point of cul-
mination of the teleology he has traced; hence, it is in an opera performed in the
context of the Exposition, that of his friend, Gustave Charpentier, in which he
identifies the purest French traits. For Bruneau, Louise represents the latest and
most progressive incarnation of all those values he has associated with the Re-
publican or "authentic" French tradition. We shall see in chapter 2 the extent to
which Bruneau's interpretation and the influence it exerted was to affect the im-
mediate responses to Charpentier's opera; we shall also see not only how funda-
mentally wrong his construal was, but how this misreading affected the responses
to the opera by his political adversaries.
In Charpentier, Bruneau perceives not only a highly original composer, but,
even more important, a "passione de la verite et de 1'ideal."106 Again, "verite," a
word still charged by the discourse of the Dreyfusards, becomes here, as else-
where, Bruneau's highest term of artistic approbation. As he then elaborates,
since a composer feels emotion only from that which he has experienced, Char-
pentier chooses his artistic subjects from contemporary life; according to
Bruneau, the composer does not stop here—he proceeds to "elevate" his subjects
or to make them "musical," through the use of appropriate symbols. Hence, for
Bruneau, Louise represents the culmination of the true French tradition, not just
because of the values it incarnates, but because it employs Parisian street cries;
this conveniently allows him to trace a line of development directly from the
secular and "popular" tradition of Jannequin up to Charpentier.107
Because of the musical values he espouses, those rooted in his conception of
essential French traits, Bruneau is clearly confronted with a problem when he
turns to Claude Debussy. For, like so many others whom we shall examine, he
could construe Debussy's innovations only within the narrow framework of his
own aesthetic-political discourse. Although Bruneau observes that the composer's
musical talent is now beyond question, he finds such works as LApres-midi d'un
faune alarming in its implications for the future; for, he opines, in it Debussy is
heading in a dangerous direction—the work is ruined by harmonic overrefine-
ment, or continual modulation, and a "mollesse de facteur." Such qualities, of
course, are fundamentally contrary to his essential aesthetic criteria that a work
be "virile" and "human" in order to instill a durable emotion in the listener.108
Debussy's music was indeed to continue to perplex and alarm the aesthetic
spokesman not only for the Republic but also for many of its political adversaries.
It would not be until shortly before the First World War, when the Action
Francaise developed a coherent commentary on his works, that they would be
recognized, within its discourse, as "French."
Responses to Bruneau's 'Report'

As we might expect, the contestation of Bruneau's report was both immediate and
emphatic, in view of its importance in the battle over competing politico-
aesthetic conceptions. For again, this was the period of the nationalist assault on
the Republic's aesthetic ideals, perceived as symbolic incarnations of the values
that now informed its fundamental political creed. Bruneau's adversaries thus
acutely grasped and directly addressed his political subtext and, just as he, em-
ployed an ideological discourse that had emerged from the Dreyfus Affair. Al-
though their responses carried a political charge, perhaps the most damaging and
scathing review was one that professed to attack the report on purely professional
or musical terms. Shortly after the report was published in the format of a book, a
lengthy examination of it appeared in the important Revue d'histoire et de critique
musicale.109 This one was particularly damning since its author identified himself
only as "X," further qualified by the phrase "Ancien membre de la Commission";
moreover, he accuses Bruneau not only of venturing beyond the scope of his tal-
ents but of inaccuracy, error, and even consciously distorting the deliberations of
the commission.
The critic begins by professing deep embarrassment over his task, claiming
to have great esteem, for Bruneau's sincerity as an artist and for his "vaillance
artistique"; he distinguishes Bruneau the composer, whom he considers as wor-
thy of praise, from Bruneau the "critique-rapporteur," who merits only condem-
nation.110 He then explains his inability to remain silent on this important issue,
given the function and authority of the report, as an official document on French
musical taste; for, as we have noted, its implications in the context were consider-
able since it represented an "authorized" conception of French cultural and thus
political identity.
In order properly to evaluate the report as a statement on behalf of the com-
mission, the critic explains that he decided to review the "proces-verbaux," or
minutes, of the various meetings. Here he emphasizes the degree of dissension that
actually existed among the members, as well as particular cases in which specific
individuals (especially d' Indy) disagreed with the majority. One case in point, he
claims, is the session of June 5, in which d'Indy expressed his regret at the absence
of the works of Ropartz, Magnard, Dukas, and Rabaud in the symphonic pro-
grams;111 given such clues, the general style, and the nature of the argument that
follows, it is highly probable that d' Indy himself was the author of the review.
As we might expect, a particular concern of the review is what the critic sees as
the inaccuracies and distortions in its view of French music history. He begins with
the discussion of Adam de la Halle and points out how ridiculous it is to consider
Le Jeu de Robin et Marion as lying at the origins of Opera Comique. After noting
other historical errors, he then takes particular exception to the claim that de la
Halle's music written in the Gregorian modes was mannered, distorted, and "dif-
ficult"; he further disqualifies Bruneau's interpretation by observing that it was
on the basis of a modernized version of the work (one published in 1888, with a
piano accompaniment by Weckerlin) that Bruneau refers to the composer as a
"trouvere harmoniste et melodiste."112 The author also ridicules Bruneau for all
the periods his sketch of French music history ignores, such as the fifteenth cen-
tury and thus, by extension, the development of religious polyphony; moreover, in
the sixteenth century, the critic goes on to complain, the author primarily consid-
ers only jannequin, Josquin, and Goudimel. As he puts it, in high dudgeon:
Nous ne pouvons pas comprendre qu'un compositeur eminent, ancien eleve de Con-
servatoire de Paris, ancien Prix de Rome, investi d'un role officiel et ecrivant pour le
Ministre de 1'Instruction Publique un rapport destine a 1'Imprimerie Nationale, parle
de notre XVIe siecle musicale aussi legerement.113
(We cannot understand that an eminent composer, former student at the Paris Con-
servatoire, former Prix de Rome, invested with an official role and writing for the
Minister of Public Instruction a report destined for the national press, speaks so
lightly of our sixteenth century.)
The tactic here is subtle but trenchant and would recur among the critics of Re-
publican cultural institutions and their spokesmen much later in the 1930s: the
critic openly accuses an official spokesman for the state of distorting the nation's
great cultural patrimony or heritage through the grave sin of omission.
Given the probable identity of the author, it is not at all surprising that he is
particularly distressed by the patent anticlerical bias of the text; he attacks
Bruneau's classification of Jannequin as a "pantheist" in several chansons simply
because the word "berger" appears at the beginning of the collection. Here he
pointedly clarifies that in the context of the sixteenth century, this, in fact, signi-
fied nothing more than a "receuil de morceau choisis"114 (a collection of selected
pieces). Bruneau, he astutely perceives, is simply attempting to identify historical
antecedents for Realism in French music in order to justify it aesthetically in the
present; he incisively adds that the idea of employing realistic street cries, which
Bruneau presents as an essential French trait, was eclipsed for almost four hun-
dred years.
The critic then enumerates the important figures and subjects that Bruneau
ignores, with a particular emphasis on counterpoint and the growth of harmony
"from it." This, as we have seen, was one of d'Indy's peculiar conceptions, one
that, in order to disqualify the emphasis on harmony at the Conservatoire, he re-
iterated at the Schola. But the critic notes other lacunae, almost all of which were
subjects ignored at the Conservatoire while being important areas of study in the
contestatory program of the Schola Cantorum. He asks rhetorically, "what place
does the motet occupy in French music history? And what of the madrigal, dance
music, the cantata, and the symphony?115 Given the meanings that d'Indy had at-
tributed to these forms in his historical conception, these "disqualifications," in
such a context, were indeed ideologically pregnant. He also notes Bruneau's ap-
parent preference for the nineteenth century, a period that, as we have noted, was
stressed at the Conservatoire as opposed to the Schola.
Finally, singling in on the reality of Bruneau's political engagement, he notes
the composer's reference to the current "battle," but without directly implicating
himself; he then indirectly accuses Bruneau of cowardly hypocrisy, claiming that
by his indiscriminate praise of all in the present, he is no longer a "militant" but
rather an arbitrator.116 The review concludes with a discussion of the commis-
sion's decisions concerning the repertoire to be performed by the "orpheons, har-
monies," and "fanfares"; here the author complains that the "orpheons," or large
choruses of male workers, were, aside from one work by Rameau, not given an
historical repertoire. 117 D'Indy, who had long taken an interest in these societies,
as a paternalistic aristocrat, often vocally expressed his belief that the level of
their repertoire should be raised. Perhaps reflecting the Utopian social beliefs of
his formidable grandmother, d'Indy held that the different classes could be united
through a shared body of culture.118 Hence, he points out the need for an appro-
priate historical anthology for these groups, one that includes the masters of
vocal composition from its origin to the present, but his ideological interest (as a
member of the league) emerges when he explains the goal: to develop a taste for
the history of French music—and, implicitly, tradition—among this group.119
Such an attack on Bruneau was not isolated. Another anti-Dreyfusard mili-
tant—the powerful critic Henri Gauthier-Villars, or "Willy"—ridiculed the Rap-
port from a more explicitly political perspective. In the same journal, two years
later, Willy raised identical issues in an article pointedly and provocatively enti-
tled, "Qu'est ce que la musique francaise?"120 As we have noted, Willy supported
the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise in its condemnation of Dreyfus and signed the
petition that was circulated against him; during the Affair, when he perceived that
many Dreyfusards were also Wagnerians, he smugly recalled Wagner's anti-
Semitic remarks concerning Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer.121
Here, with obvious reference to the Affair, still an obsession for the Right, he
begins by referring to the view of French music history that is held by intellec-
tuals or, as he puts it facetiously, "gendelettres" [sic]. He claims that for this
group, French music history consists primarily of Adam, Auber, Gounoud, and
Thomas, implying by these names that they are Jewish, "popular," or official
composers. In the present, he continues, this "history" centers on Bruneau, Char-
pentier, Dubois, Hue, Massenet, and Saint-Saens—in other words, the official Re-
publican musical establishment. Willy then points out the combative nature of
such "men of letters," as well as their rapid reversal of position concerning the in-
fluence of Richard Wagner. This was probably intended to refer specifically to
Bruneau who, as we have seen, was in the process of qualifying his earlier Wag-
nerian enthusiasm.122
But the attack on what Willy considers to be a Dreyfusard aesthetic becomes
more blatant when he proceeds to parody what he refers to as the Republicans'
"Style parlementaire"; for example, when addressing the issue of "le genie
francais," they would claim to attempt to "verser quelques lumieres sur le debat
et porter la question sur son veritable terrain"123 (shed some light on the debate
and put the question on its true ground). Again, the implication is that to this
sensitive issue, one that is inherently intuitive and emotional, the parliamentary
Republic brings only pretentious and abstract logic. He then makes his point
even further by observing how officials at state ceremonies invariably praise the
same specific set of aesthetic qualities as being "truly French": for this group, the
essential "cachet" of "le genie francais" consists of moderation, balance, and rea-
son, and, as he implies, nothing more.
Willy then turns to works he considers to be "authentically French," prais-
ing, in particular, Vincent d'Indy and his early Wagnerian opera Fervaal; the
critic, an ardent Wagnerian, notes not only its "robust" nature but the clarity of
its themes, its logic, and its orchestration along with the variety and suppleness
of its rhythms. While agreeing with certain Republican conceptions of what is
distinctively French (those articulated at the founding of the Societe Nationale),

he emphasizes rhythmic fluidity, as at the Schola. Then, like d'Indy, he goes on to
deplore the gradual disappearance of the influence of Richard Wagner; Willy thus
considers anti-Wagnerian currents to be destructive, believing, similarly, that
Wagner, although German, had a "cleansing effect" on French music. Not sur-
prisingly, then, he concludes that the current and rightful leader of the so-called
"French School" in music is undoubtedly Vincent d'Indy.
SOURCES OF SUPPORT FOR THE SCHOLA
Willy, in a sense, was right, since, to the Republic's great consternation, the
Schola was perceptibly gaining in status, and specifically to the detriment of the
state Conservatoire. For some of its growing group of supporters the reasons
were primarily ideological, while for others, who attempted to minimize its ide-
ology, the reasons were fundamentally professional. As we shall see later in this
chapter, this separation was eventually to become impossible as the battle be-
tween the institutions escalated and was fought on ideological terrain; but in the
years immediately following the turn of the century, the Schola Cantorum devel-
oped a wide network of supporters and of journals to disseminate and explain its
aesthetic ideals. These included political, literary, and musical journals, and, in
several cases, the same writers were active simultaneously in all three categories.
But of central importance here is not only the intertextual references in all three
types of journals but the way they broadly disseminated the meanings that the
Schola applied to forms and to styles. Such a press provided an effective network
of intellectual influence and a circuit for establishing musical significations in
both the musical and the larger culture.
Despite its marginality, the Schola Cantorum was to have an enormous im-
pact, for it attracted a wide range of supporters from the far Left to the National-
ist Right. This was increasingly the case as the so-called Dreyfusard Republic
waxed more pragmatic and politically centrist, thus disappointing its former sup-
porters. It was at this point that the two political extreme positions on the Left
and the Right joined together in the pursuit of an ethical or "moral" conception
of art; music became a key subject for both, and hence intellectuals associated
with each position drew attention to this aspect of the Schola, in contrast to the
Conservatoire. Both sides were drawn to the Schola's coherent and convincing
aesthetic rhetoric, one that was unprecedented in educational institutions of
music in France and which contained elements that could be selectively used.
Not surprisingly, the artistic journal in which d'Indy participated, L'Occident,
played a central role in diffusing both his political and artistic beliefs. The Schola,
of course, did have publications aimed specifically at the French musical world,
the Tribune de Saint-Gervais and the Tablettes de la Schola, but L'Occident brought
these journals to the attention of a larger public by frequently making reference to
them or by publishing excerpts of articles from them. Significantly, L'Occident
proudly and unequivocally identified itself as the organ of Nationalist artists, or
"artistes vrais, et pas Dreyfusard." These included the adamantly anti-Dreyfusarcl
writer Maurice Barres (a dominant influence), as well as the equally committed

Edgar Degas and Maurice Denis.124 The latter became one of the Schola's strongest
artistic supporters and indeed articulated its political premises more lucidly than
even d'Indy himself. Later to collaborate with d'Indy on the production of his
"anti-Dreyfusard opera" La Legende de Saint Christophe, he was integral in explain-
ing and diffusing knowledge of the Schola's nature and goals. In his prewar lectures
and writings on the need for the renewal of religious art, Denis used the Schola as a
model for the kind of institution he would conceive for artists; for his ideal, like
d'lndy's, was the Middle Ages, when art was an "enseignement," serving simulta-
neously to express and to further the ineffable "foi collective."125
According to Denis, as well as d' Indy the Renaissance brought about an aes-
thetic decline, for artists full of "pride" and "rhetoric" then embraced individual-
ism and abstraction. The Renaissance thus initiated the decay of "craft," encour-
aging the mere manipulation of materials, or an excess of virtuosity devoid of
sincerity and cut off from tradition. Denis thus decried the reappearance of what
he termed "pagan," platonic tendencies in art, and the kind of "oriental" abstrac-
tion that the Occident had abandoned during the Middle Ages. Certainly, there
had been a vogue for the Orient, promoted by, among others, Symbolist circles,
which associated it with the "exotic" or mysterious. Yet "oriental" here, in the
specific context of Right-wing discourse, had become a frequent code word for
"Jewish," implying that it belonged to a different cultural world. For a massive
immigration of Jews began in 1905, and, as Paula Hyman has shown, the major-
ity, from Russia and Romania, chose to settle in Paris. Hence, while non-Jewish
immigrants generally remained on the Mediterranean coast or in the industrial-
ized north and east, Paris felt the strong presence of "exotic" immigrant Jews.
The Eastern Europeans, unlike the Sephardic Jews from the Levant or North
Africa, did not speak French and were not familiar with French culture or cus-
toms. Predominantly working class and impoverished, they were often singled
out by the prewar Right-wing press as "importers of inferior moral standards and
squalid living conditions." But the "Orient" also signified the "barbaric," in the
broadest sense, which embraced not just the Jews but equally Protestants and
Germans. (Significantly, the Masonic order was called the "Grand Orient de
France.") In short, the "Orient," for nationalists, was the "constructed" antithesis
to the West, or "Occident," and the French, the vehicle through which the latter
attempted to define what it was not.126
Denis thus considered the Schola to be a salutary artistic institution that
would help to reverse the noxious "oriental" trends of the day. But another im-
portant supporter of d'Indy who helped to spread his reputation, not only in the
musical world but beyond it, was Lionel de la Laurencie. Later to become the first
president of the Societe Francaise de Musicologie, La Laurencie was a frequent
contributor to nonmusical journals, including L'Occident. In an article tellingly
entitled "Un Musicien de chez nous," he relates d'lndy's principles concerning
form and technique to the social metaphors the journal's readers would surely ap-
preciate. 127 Undoubtedly attempting to evoke the promilitary sentiments of the
anti-Dreyfusards, La Laurencie explains d'lndy's concern with form by employing
explicitly martial imagery:
SO THE BATTLE IS ESTABLISHED
Veritable general d'armee, il regie les mouvements des masses sonores . . . et signe
des ordres de marche. . . . Sous sa direction, chacun trouve la place qui convient a
ses aptitudes, et son esprit methodique s'en va trier les gens et les choses, separant
1'ivraie du bon grain.128
(Veritable army general, he regulates the movements of the sonorous masses . . .
and signs the marching orders. . . . Under his direction, each finds the place that
suits its aptitudes, and his methodical spirit goes on to sort out men and things, sepa-
rating the rye grass from the wheat.)
Through this metaphor, La Laurencie confers d'Indy's approach with an intellec-

tual authority or legitimacy that would have been recognized or registered by the
journal's readers.
La Laurencie then goes on to develop the idea of the "occidental"—again as
opposed to the insidious "oriental"—but here applied specifically to the art of
music. After referring to d'Indy's doctrine as quintessentially "occidental," he ex-
plains that it was in the Occident that the principle of "association," the backbone
of the social body, was born: such a principle, he continues, extends to occidental
music, especially to polyphony, since vocal counterpoint is, in essence, an "asso-
ciation" of melodies. Why, he asks rhetorically, doesn't a voice, instead of follow-
ing its "liturgical shepherd" in a disciplined troupe, not leave it in distinct and or-
ganized corporations? It is because, he then explains, all are working together
toward the same ultimate end, although proceeding towards it by following dis-
tinctively different paths.129 As we shall see in chapter 3, the social theory that La
Laurencie is invoking here closely approximates one that the Ligue d'Action
Francaise would soon be propagating; for one of its goals was to reconcile the au-
thentic regional interests of France with those of the centralizing monarchy that
it still wished to restore. Hence the league would be quick to perceive this propin-
quity of idea and technique and to adopt this and other Scholist metaphors for its
ideological end.
Switching to a religious metaphor equally resonant for L'Occident's readers,
La Laurencie proceeds to discuss the Schola's concept of "la libre musique."
"Libre," or free, in this context refers to that which is outside the control of the
state, specifically to the Catholic Church, then under persecution by the Third
Republic. According to La Laurencie, the "libre musique" that d'Indy recom-
mends is one that employs supple rhythms as it aims at the "emancipation" of the
individual melody within the musical "body." Hence it is different from that of
the official Conservatoire as it proudly remains free of the stylistic standards im-
posed by the state institution. Finally, explicating or rationalizing the foreign in-
fluences in d'Indy's works, particularly that of Germany, La Laurencie explains
the occidental "synthesis" to his readers: once a foreign influence enters French
culture it is immediately synthesized into an intellectual amalgam that is charac-
teristic of the occidental world.130 Presumably, however, this does not apply to
the Jewish influence, which, according to d' Indy's dogma and that of the league,
could never become a part of this compound.
La Laurencie helped diffuse d'Indy's influence not only in artistic journals of
the Right but also in the Catholic press, similarly predisposed to his cultural doc-
THE NEW CULTURAL "WAR" AND THE FRENCH MUSICAL WORLD 51.
trine. The historical conjuncture was particularly felicitous in 1903 and 1904,
when Pope Pius X published his "Motu proprio" concerning religious music. The
rules he then imposed on Catholics—Gregorian chant and polyphony—corre-
sponded perfectly with the ideals that were promulgated at the Schola Cantorum.
Indeed, in the 1890s the Church had been developing an antimodern discourse
and concomitantly encouraging a return to the study of the Middle Ages. Given
these points of consonance with the Schola, it is thus by no means surprising that
the school itself collaborated in the Vatican's edition of Gregorian chant.131
D' Indy was thus now actively disseminating his ideas in Catholic circles, par-
ticularly since they apparently had been receptive to his anti-Semitic attacks; as
his contemporaries reported, such tirades were especially well received in the im-
passioned lectures that he delivered at the Institut Catholique. La Laurencie faith-
fully communicated this rhetoric in an article he published in the Catholic jour-
nal of art and literature Durendal, entitled "L'Oeuvre de Vincent d' Indy."132 La
Laurencie begins by noting (falsely) the elevated tastes of d'Indy's family, as well
as their intimate familiarity with the works of the classical masters; hence, d' Indy,
he asserts, frequented only the "temple" of great art and ignored the "byzantine
constructions" and flashy brilliance that attracted the public of his time. Ignoring
d'Indy's taste before he encountered the Franckiste circle, he claims that the com-
poser escaped the musical "contagion" of the Rossinian-Meyerbeerian school.133
As the reader will recall, for d' Indy this became the "Italo-judaique" school, a
conception that La Laurencie was now attempting sagaciously to ensconce in
Catholic circles; like d'lndy, he was seeking to instill a belief in a fundamental di-
chotomy between the morally instructive power of great art and the mere "plea-
sure" that the more base imparts.
Against this background. La Laurencie then explains d' Indy's disdain for the
Renaissance, with its stress on technique and the "materialization" of art as the
result; instead, he continues, d'Indy's artistic sympathies lie with pre-Renaissance
artists, or "les primitifs," who created the sculpted saints that ornament the great
cathedrals.134 Then, after recounting the birth of the Schola and detailing its ac-
complishments, L.a Laurencie proceeds to educate his public on the evils of the
state Conservatoire: here, he points out, music is taught in "bastardized manuals"
that are filled with "exemples d'ecole," thus teaching the students a style that is at
once both conventional and false. He also notes the poor attendance at the Con-
servatoire's class in music history, explaining that only on the basis of history can
one find a truly "scientific" doctrine. He ends with d'Indy's image of the spiral, al-
ways rising from that which came before: it is thus, he concludes, that true
progress builds fundamentally upon tradition.135
It was not only among anti-Dreyfusard and Catholic circles that La Laurencie
attempted to propagate the teachings of d'lndy and the Schola but also among ad-
vanced artistic circles: for in the important Belgian journal L'Art moderne, he
elaborated on the place of "d'Indysme" within the larger concerns and proclivities
of contemporary French society. Here his aesthetic and social propaganda, which
was based on the Schola's, was aimed not at educating the already converted but
rather at winning over a wider group. Hence, his goal in such a journal was to re-
late the Schola's teaching to the growing preoccupation of the Republic and the
S2 THE BATTLE IS ESTABLISHED
Left with defining a responsible "social" art. We shall shortly see how effective
this intellectual tactic actually was—how even committed Socialists at first inter-
preted the institution's goals as primarily "moral."
La Laurencie begins by noting the propensity in contemporary French soci-
ety for the proliferation of "dogmatic" or ideologically founded "schools" in all
the arts; among these he includes as examples not only of "Nationalist" and
"Christian" literature, in which, as we have seen, he himself participated, but also
Socialist literature.136 As La Laurencie observes, each bases itself on a different
kind of authority, but one common concern is art's contribution to the cause of
"progress." As we have noted, this could be construed in many different ways, on
the basis of varying fundamental conceptions of the social order. La Laurencie
here comments that of these various social ideologies one indeed is no longer
tenable in light of the tendencies that characterize the present: this ideology is
Liberalism, which La Laurencie here implicitly argues is as outdated in politics as
it is in art. For the current of contemporary French society is rather toward
"strong" opinions—a tendency, of course, into which the teaching of the Schola
perfectly fit; moreover, he continues, art is "liberating itself" through religious
feeling and thus increasingly its ultimate goal is pedagogical—in d'Indy's words,
to "teach." Here La Laurencie, like d'Indy's friend and biographer Leon Vallas,
compares d'Indy's teaching with that of the art historian who influenced him,
Emile Male, and he notes that Male's argument in his L'Art religieux au XIIIe siecle
is identical to d'Indy's: the goal of religious art is basically to "teach." He then
goes on to relate this to the theme now so widely heard in France—the social role
of art in educating the masses, hence the importance of exposing them to
"beauty." D'Indy, he concludes is thus by no means positioned on the cultural
margins, but is participating, in his own way, in the ineluctable current of the pre-
sent day137 We shall see in chapter 2, however, how fundamentally different
d'Indy's conception of this education of the people was from that of the Third Re-
public. But La Laurencie's desire here was to place d'Indy and the Schola in the
mainstream, thus obfuscating the anti-Republican character of his social thought.
The Schola and the Socialist Left

La Laurencie's argument concerning d' Indy's participation in true "social" art was
not unique but indeed was echoed by a major figure on the Socialist left. Again,
the criticism of Republican institutions was growing not only on the Right but on
the far Left, as the Dreyfusard "mystique" was transformed into a banal "poli-
tique." Critics of the Republic on the Left included not only prominent former
Dreyfusard writers such as Charles Peguy and Georges Sorel but a host of others
as well:138 one such figure was Camille Mauclair, whose writings continually
crossed several fields, thus further helping to obscure the boundaries that sepa-
rated politics, literature, and the arts. Having passed through an anarchist stage at
the time of his engagement with Symbolism, Mauclair then moved into Dreyfus-
ism and Socialism at the time of the Dreyfus Affair. 139
In 1901 Mauclair published an article on the Schola in La Revue, in which he
makes the reasons for his support of the musical institution immediately clear:
THE NEW CULTURAL "WAR" AN D THE FRENCH MUSICAL WORLD S3
the Schola Cantorum, for him, is first of all a "phenomene morale," for subtend-
ing it is no less than a new way of thinking about human emotions. According to
Mauclair, the younger generation of artists is in search of a moral education and,
as a result, is now unequivocally rejecting ''I'enseignement officiel"; the Schola is
thus an expression of the desire for a moral renovation in the musical world: it
heralds the advent of "I'ere nouvelle du spiritualisme musicale." This ideal ac-
corded perfectly with Mauclair's professed philosophy of art—that at the core of
its mysterious power ultimately lies the moral component.140
Such a connection is not surprising, given Mauclair's former background in
Anarchism, for it is just this position that was articulated in Anarchist journals
such as Le Libertaire. Here we encounter an overriding concern with how, given
modern aspirations and needs, one might define a new morality that is appropri-
ate to current society.141 Once defined, the journal's authors argue, this new
morality must then be spread, and the vehicle that they identify to do so most ef-
fectively is the art of music: for music, together with words, possesses a power of
penetration that allows it to contribute integrally to the birth and development of
a "new humanity." As we shall see in chapter 3, this position did not disappear
with the Anarchist movement but was rather later taken over and developed, if
slightly altered, by syndicalist circles. Here, probably because of the intrepreta-
tion of Wagner by the French Left, the journal presents music as thus capable of
providing a detailed "analysis" of moral problems that is "hautement libertaire."
Hence, opera was believed to propagate the social ideals that were central to An-
archism—the fundamental and essential feelings of independence and human
dignity. Already we may see that although this movement, like the Schola, es-
poused the moral power of music, it was with a very different conception of what
constitutes the "moral." Other articles in the journal further clarify its perspec-
tive, as well as the reasons opera was to play such an important role in the Anar-
chist social program. One of April 4—11, 1896, for example, points out that "le
spectacle" is one of the most important means through which to disseminate an
ideological message, for it exerts an overwhelming influence not only on the
ideals of a epoch but also and simultaneously on its feelings, thus making it all
the more effective.
Mauclair was clearly influenced by these currents in his panegyric of the
Schola, which he here attempts to present in the most favorable possible light. Ig-
noring d'Indy's combative rhetoric and incontrovertible dogma, Mauclair argues
that the institution innocently neither imposes nor opposes a thing.142 Rather, he
speaks of Charles Bordes and the way in which the inseparability of his artistic
convictions and Christian faith led him back to the purest sources of religious
music. Yet Mauclair points out that the small, elite group that initially attended
his concerts included those, like himself, who were drawn to both the symbolist
and Anarchist movements. He also notes the presence there of Franck's disciples,
of Mallarme's circles, and of the "habitues" of the "Salon de la libre esthetique" in
Brussels.143 As Mauclair observes, the atmosphere of these concerts, character-
ized by the primacy of feeling as well the absence of histrionics, was later trans-
ferred to the Schola Cantorum.
While not religious himself, Mauclair approved of the Schola's placing chant
in a position of honor and its attempt to raise the level of the organist's repertoire:
both, he believed, helped build the "moral fibre" of the performer, to make the art
of the soloist one of the "inner" as opposed to the "outer" world. It is from this
perspective that Mauclair draws attention to d'Indy's provocative inaugural ad-
dress, ignoring the other aspects of it not relevant to his points; he also praises
the Schola's venture in independent music publishing, its own influential attempt
to print and disseminate the repertoire that it taught. The result was a library that
he saw as a document of French music history, especially that aspect of it that was
studiously ignored by the Conservatoire's professors.144 Mauclair lauds the
Schola's journal, La Tribune de Saint Gervais, as well, for its serious historical pur-
pose and its distinguished group of contributors; these, he notes, include the
Conservatoire's professor of music history, Bourgault-Ducoudray as well as Andre
Pirro, Pierre Lalo, Adolphe Jullien, Julien Tiersot, Camille Benoist, and Camille
Bellaigue.145 He concludes that the Schola's prestige is such that it can invite the
participation of the leading scholars of music in the period in its journal. This un-
doubtedly did contribute to the institution's growing reputation, a fact that would
help determine the cultural counteroffensive of the Republic.
Finally, moving from the moral to the purely professional musical realm,
Mauclair eulogizes the unprecedented homogeneity and coherence of the Schola's
teaching.146 This he attributes to its founders—a distinguished and unpreten-
tious group who have proceeded with "rigorous logic" in the face of "official
timidity." For Mauclair, the principle underlying the Schola is exactly the oppo-
site of what he sees at the Conservatoire, where all the instruction is founded
solely on desiccated "formulae"; here anti-Dreyfusard rhetoric is indeed em-
ployed by a former Dreyfusard, now to the Left of the Republic, and hence closer
to the other extreme than to the center. Mauclair goes on to argue that at the
Schola the pedagogy issues from a highly "personal" reflection, but one that is
based on impartial study of the "great masters." "Chefs-d'oeuvres" at the Schola
are not those works that have been consecrated only by public success but are
works that have been heroically saved from oblivion by an intelligent minority.147
When turning to opera, Mauclair takes a position very much like that es-
poused by d'lndy for he supports the effort of the pupils of Franck to profit from
the Wagnerian "revolution"; like d'lndy, he believes that it is in this manner that
the French can thus "extinguish" the degenerate Italianism that unfortunately
characterizes so much contemporary virtuoso singing in France.148 Hence, Mau-
clair condemns the vocal instruction characteristic of the Conservatoire, which is
applicable primarily to the works of Meyerbeer, Gounod, and Donizetti.
Mauclair's conclusion resembles that of many of his contemporaries: the
Conservatoire, persisting in its perennial "routine," is now being surpassed by the
Schola, for underlying its "formulae" is a "fausse science," or a set of pedagogical
doctrines that have to do not with the interests of art but with those of the official
world. The deeper implication here appears to be the same as that made by
d'lndy, and Richard Wagner before him: artistic reform is contingent on prior re-
form of the state. The Conservatoire, Mauclair asseverates, is an institution with a
memory, but in a negative sense: it has neither learned nor forgotten anything
since its genesis in the First Republic.
THE NEW CULTURAL "WAR" AN D THE FRENCH MUSICAL WORLD 55
Other Initial Praise for the Schola

Mauclair's panegyric of the Schola was far from isolated; in fact, it was echoed in
other journals by more politically moderate and respected figures in the profes-
sional musical world; for the Schola, while undoubtedly serving the ideological
interests of the league, was implementing important reforms, as well as filling
gaping holes in "I'enseignement officiel." One who perceived the fact was Jean
Marnold, the powerful critic of the Mercure de France, the readership of which in-
cluded a highly cultivated intellectual elite. In 1902 he published an article on
"Le Conservatoire et la Schola," which opens by boldly proclaiming that the
Schola has become the artistic center of the musical world.149 He points out the
extent of its influence through its impressive concerts in Paris, as well as through
the trips to the provinces that its directors and pupils frequently make. In this
manner, he continues, they are rapidly disseminating not just musical knowledge
but the beneficent "cult" of the great musical masterpieces of the past. Although
later he and Mauclair would see this cult as neither beneficent or politically inno-
cent, both here perceive its goal, unlike the Conservatoire's, as simply to promote
great art.
Marnold proceeds to praise the public pedagogical role of the Schola, espe-
cially its concert programs, which served an adjacent instructional purpose; but
here there is no mention of the exegetical discourse that surrounded these con-
certs, or the attempt to imbue the works performed with a larger historical and
thus political meaning. Marnold observes that only at the Schola could one listen
to the cantatas of Bach and to Beethoven sonatas and quartets; learn the history of
the violin sonata through examples; or hear the works of Lully Rameau, and
Gluck.150 For Marnold, the Schola was thus the natural complement to the So-
ciete Nationale—the former opening the ears of the public to the treasures of the
past, and the latter creatively exploring their implications for the future. The two
organizations had, in fact, already largely fused, and not just in the person and
the interests of their common director, Vincent d'Indy. Physically, too, they were
joined, since frequently the concerts of the Societe Nationale took place in the
concert hall of the Schola Cantorum, in its new location.
Marnold, however, is not content to eulogize the Schola's director: he pro-
ceeds to vilify that of the Conservatoire, the hapless and beleaguered Theodore
Dubois. According to Marnold, it was Dubois's fear that the Schola and the So-
ciete Nationale would fuse that led him to forbid Conservatoire students to per-
form at any concerts held at the Schola. From this incident Marnold draws the
conclusion that considerations of a purely musical order were completely foreign
to the Conservatoire's stolid and pertinacious director. To buttress his claim, he
cites other examples of Dubois's intolerance and intransigence, especially his pur-
ported threats to expel students who collaborated in any way with the Schola.
Flence, as far as Marnold was concerned, any antagonisms between the institu-
tions did not come from the Schola: rather, it was Dubois who had belligerently
declared war. 151 The Schola was thus embattled and inherently in a defensive po-
sition since, in effect, it did not yet possess the symbolic legitimacy of the state
institution. To be a graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, Marnold points out,
means professional privileges; moreover, the Conservatoire had financial re-

sources not available to a private institution.
But Marnold expands even further on Dubois's "arbitrary hostility," citing
other incidents in which students who manifest any sympathy for the Schola
were threatened with dismissal. And his attack on Dubois includes his teaching
as well as his pedagogical texts, for Marnold calls into question even Dubois's ca-
pacity to teach his students both counterpoint and fugue. 152 Already these tech-
niques, given so much priority at the Schola, for the ideological reasons that we
have seen, were accruing palpable symbolic value. Hence Marnold condemns the
"artistic dictatorship" that he believed Dubois and the Conservatoire were exer-
cising over the musical life of the entire country. This charge also implied a cri-
tique, later to be made explicit by the Action Francaise, of the centralizing and
megalomaniac cultural power of the French state.
Such an indictment was certainly not out of place in the Mercure de France,
which espoused the socially conservative but politically antiauthoritarian views
of the Liberal Right.153 Indeed, in a final salvo, Marnold uses the Republic against
itself by citing a report on the Conservatoire made in the name of a prominent
government official: it is a report that explicitly denounces the unfortunate ef-
fects of inveterate routine and concludes, in a damaging contrast, with a pane-
gyric of the Schola Cantorum.134 So effective had been the multifarious rhetoric
of those diffusing the Schola's doctrine that it could be construed in a manner ac-
ceptable even to a state official.
THE BATTLE OVER F R E N C H MUSIC HISTORY
Not all concurred with these opinions, and, as we might expect, the Republic's re-
buttal to the Schola's attack on its educational system in music was immediate. It
eventually resulted in the appointment of a new Conservatoire director, Gabriel
Faure, as well as in a thorough reform of its pedagogy under his leadership. But,
most immediately, the Republic responded to the Schola's propagandistic efforts
in music history and aesthetics with similar ones conducted through its own in-
stitutional channels. Through various lecture series, palpably in dialogue with
those sponsored by the far Right, the Republic continued to elaborate a concep-
tion of French identity through musical discourse. And it did not just employ es-
tablished venues for scholarly lectures on music; it also developed new ones to
facilitate the spread of its own meanings or codes. We shall see in chapter 2 how
these efforts further contributed to a politicized atmosphere and a method of
reading or responding to works that few musicians in France could escape.
Perhaps the Republic's strongest network of propaganda, in addition to the
press it controlled, was its educational system, of which there were several differ-
ent levels. On almost all these levels, attempts that recall Bruneau's—to outline a
Republican history of music and culture—became the task of more professional
music historians. It was in this manner, through the escalating political and cul-
tural rivalry between the Republic and its critics, that the discipline of music
history began to flourish in France. Indeed, this had already been the case with
the International Congress of Music History, held in conjunction with the 1900
Exposition.
No one could escape awareness of the growing prominence and popularity of
the lectures on music history given by Pierre Aubry at the Institut Catholique and
by d'Indy, both there and at the Schola. Particularly well received was the Schola's
series of "historical concerts," intended to complement its teaching by illustrat-
ing a specific historical point. Such "themes" related to d'Indy's preoccupations
and included "La Symphonie pittoresque," "La Musique de scene en Allemagne,"
and "La Cantate funebre."155 "Pedagogical concerts," or those intended to teach
music history from a nationalist perspective, would eventually be appropriated
by the Republic during the years of the First World War. But the Schola also as-
sumed the lead by establishing a "chair," or permanent position, in music history
that was filled by a number of leading musical scholars. Among them was Andre
Pirro, the noted specialist on Bach, whose L'Esthetique de Bach was published in
1907, the year of his doctorate at the Sorbonne. Also included was Michel Brenet
(the pseudonym of Marie Bobilier), a widely recognized authority on French
music of the Ancien Regime.156
Serious studies in the history of music had begun at the Sorbonne in the
1890s but were soon to be intensified in the new ideological and political con-
text. The first scholar to receive a Docteur es [sic] Lettres at the state institution
for a thesis on a musical subject was Jules Combarieu, in 1893; he was followed
by Romain Rolland in 1895, and then by Maurice Emmanuel, in 1896, and Louis
Laloy, in 1904.157 Not surprisingly, it was these figures who now began to offer
lectures on the history of music under the auspices of Republican institutions,
and thus most open to the public. The two primary figures here were Jules Com-
barieu, who lectured at the College de France, and Romain Rolland, who deliv-
ered lectures at the Sorbonne.158
Remain Rolland and French Music History

Romain Rolland led the way by elaborating on the themes that Bruneau had al-
ready outlined, but in a more exacting, convincing, and consistently scholarly
manner. Like Bruneau, he helped establish attitudes, idioms, paradigms, and
themes that were to become integral to the musical discourse disseminated
through Republican institutions; but, like d'Indy and La Laurencie, he traversed
different cultural realms, propagating this discourse in journals and publications
associated with several fields. And he, too, was ideologically committed. Al-
though his feelings concerning the Dreyfus Affair were ambivalent, his political
sympathies were firmly with the Republic and the political Left. This did not pre-
vent his achieving a professional objectivity, however, one for which he was later
to be increasingly attacked, for Rolland attempted to mediate positions at a polit-
ically dangerous time. Although he was a Republican, he acknowledged d'Indy's
contribution and was an appreciator of German music, including the widely ac-
knowledged German masters of the past and embracing more controversial mod-
ern masters, such as Richard Strauss.
Rolland had a special interest in the period of the French Revolution, par-
ticularly in the kind of theater to which this event had given birth. As both a
writer and a scholar, he perceived such revolutionary theater as a revitalization of
true French dramatic tradition.159 This interest had led to Rolland's involvement
with the movement for popular theater centered around the Revue d'art drama-
tique, which attracted both Dreyfusards and Anarchist sympathizers. He became
increasingly convinced that art would be transformed not by "genius" but by the
"rise of the people" as a result of the contemporary democratic movement.160
These convictions were to inform his influential tract concerning the kind of the-
ater that was now required, The People's Theater, of 1903. It bears a close examina-
tion since his ideas were to influence not only his music history and his support
for Naturalist opera but also eventually the cultural politics of the Syndicalist
movement.
Like Bruneau, Rolland reacted strongly against what he perceived as the per-
nicious infiltration of "Wagnerian neomysticism" in contemporary France.
Rather than turning to Zola, being a scholar, he rather returned to the past,
specifically to the writings of Diderot, Mercier, and Rousseau. In addition, he ab-
sorbed the "Jacobin patriotism" of Chenier, as well as Michelet's stress on the po-
tential of theater for national reconciliation and education of the masses. And, fi-
nally, Gretry's Essay on Music, written during the Terror, provided Rolland with
aesthetic ideas, as well as with technical ones. These included Gretry's advice that
the author "paint with a broom"—or avoid both complex psychology and ob-
scure symbolism of any type.161 But Rolland then combined these suggestions
with his own personal interpretation of the implications of ancient Greek theater
for a modern democratic drama.
According to Rolland, a true "theater for the people" should be characterized
by "broad actions of great characters with general lines vigorously traced and ele-
mentary passions throbbing to a single and powerful rhythm." He further sug-
gested that spoken text be complemented by music, and specifically song, since
in a large theater spoken dialogue and individual gesture were less effective. In
addition, he believed that the emphasis should be on the strongest dramatic op-
positions, or on mass conflicts, articulated through group dialogues, and even
through double and triple choruses. Such theater, for Rolland, was integral to the
education of French workers, for it would help simultaneously to exercise both
their rational and their imaginative faculties; moreover, it would rouse the masses
to collective pride in their dignity, thus replacing popular newspapers, worthless
novels, and less exalted theater.162 Rolland's adaptation of the model of ancient
Greek theater was thus one that ignored its conservative and platonic implica-
tions, emphasizing not communal harmony but, rather, "manifestation"—or ex-
pression and involvement.
Rolland's lectures on music history at the Sorbonne reflect similar populist
themes and were to lead to a series of influential books on the great musicians of
the past. The most relevant studies within this context were his biographies of
Beethoven (volume 1, 1903) and Handel (1911), which treat the composers' lives
and works. In both biographies, the topical themes of heroism and combat are
prominent, as they were in Bruneau's works, with his argument that great com-
posers pursued "sincerity" and "truth," which often led them to suffer. Rolland
THE NEW CULTURAL "WAR" AN D THE FRENCH MUSICAL WORLD S9
applies this perspective to Beethoven, seeing him as the most heroic force in
modern art: "Il est le plus grand et le meilleur ami de ceux qui souffrent et qui
luttent" (He is the greatest and the best friend of those who suffer and fight). For
Rolland, however, the reference is less to the recent Dreyfus Affair than to the
large social injustices with which he was currently so concerned. Hence, he dis-
cusses Beethoven's "faith," although not in religion (in the manner of d'Indy) but
rather in his individual conscience and in his communication with nature. Here
again we glean the Republican themes of freedom of the individual spirit, as well
as the dictates of nature (or the "natural"), as opposed to the force of tradition (or
the mystic). This was precisely the point against which d'Indy would soon launch
an attack, presenting the composer rather as fundamentally motivated by reli-
gious faith.163
But the Republican ideas that we saw in Bruneau—of the individual and his
conscience as the source of great art—recur in Rolland's writings, not just on
Beethoven but also on Handel. Recalling Bruneau, Rolland begins by stressing
that Handel had no inclination whatever for mysticism and that, in general, "la
religion n'etait pas son affaire." He then emphasizes Handel's universality, as well
as his objectivity, presenting him as a true "European," however with a predomi-
nance of Latin culture.164 Most clearly in accordance with the ideology and aes-
thetic values held by Bruneau is his reference to the "popular" as a source of artis-
tic inspiration; for Rolland asserts that Handel "drank" from the roots of popular
music, and, indeed, from that of the simplest and the most realistic sort. And, like
Bruneau, he delights in citing the presence of popular street cries in Handel's
music—in this case, those that he purportedly heard on the streets of London.
From this, Rolland extrapolates that Handel was, above all, an "observer," thus
embodying the Naturalist values that Bruneau had promoted in his Rapport.165
IDEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE AT THE ECOLE DES

HAUTES ETUDES SOCIALES
Rolland also diffused his ideas and values through another influential lecture se-
ries, one that reached a small but intellectually powerful group, thus creating yet
another network through which to propagate a political conception of music his-
tory. It was sponsored by an institution that catered to a segment of the Parisian
intellectual and artistic elite, the influence of whom, because of their positions,
was considerable. Significantly, this institution had derived its impetus from the
Dreyfus Affair as the conception of an ardent Dreyfusard, Jeanne Weill, who used
the pseudonym Dick May.166 Called the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales, it
opened in November 1900, although it was, in fact, a reincarnation of an earlier
effort; for in 1895 a College Libre des Sciences Sociales had been born, based in
the Hotel des Societes Savantes and devoted to the study of economic and social
doctrines. May, its general secretary, had conceived the project the previous year,
as part of her dream of building a "young Sorbonne" that would address more
modern needs; she envisioned an institution that could respond to the moral cri-
sis occasioned by both the Panama affair and the threat of Boulangism. Such an
institution, she hoped, would give birth to a new democratic elite, one more fully
apprised of the most recent developments in the social sciences.167
May had also played an important role in the organization of the first Inter-
national Congress of the Social Sciences, which, like that on Music History, took
place in conjunction with the Universal Exposition of 1900. Both may be con-
strued as efforts to place these incipient disciplines under the auspices, and im-
plicitly under the control, of the Third Republic. In the case of the social sci-
ences, this constituted recognition of their place in the intellectual world, for
indeed they embodied an approach particularly consonant with intellectual Drey-
fusism. But the Congress also helped propagate the desire to further the contact
or rapprochement of intellectuals and workers in order to educate all citizens for
democracy. This effort, of course, was undoubtedly in implicit dialogue with the
ongoing efforts of the leagues, such as the Patrie Francaise, to educate workers in
their philosophy.
The ideal of a democratic elite that could accomplish the ambitious task of
disseminating a social education throughout society lay behind the new institu-
tion. The Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales thus received a government subven-
tion, being entirely in keeping with the social goal of the "Dreyfusard Republic."
It was indeed a sort of semiofficial educational institution since almost half its
lecturers were associated with the university system.168 Because the goal of the
institution was to bring university figures together with socialists and proletari-
ans, it was considered inherently Dreyfusard; beyond this, such a peripheral insti-
tution was designed to supplement university education—to provide a forum for
the presentation of new ideas not yet "authorized" for university instruction. Lo-
cated in a building just across from the Sorbonne, it was partially supported by
student fees, as well as by a regular society of "friends" of the institution. This al-
lowed the school to present about five hundred lectures per year, approximately
10 percent of which were delivered by a team of regular collaborators.
At first, the institution comprised three "schools"—"Morale," "Sociale," and
"Journalisme"—but in 1903-1904 it added that of "Art." The director of the new
"school" was Henry Marcel, the administrator of the Bibliotheque Nationale, who
envisioned it as filling in a gap in traditional French education. Although it
stressed the disciplines of both literary and art history, it added the study of con-
temporary literature, including literary criticism. And because this was a period
of proliferation of lectures on music history, particularly because of music's role
as a political stake, the school also included music. In the spring of 1902, Rolland
delivered a series of lectures at the institution stressing the revolutionary period,
in keeping with his intellectual emphasis.169 He was subsequently put in charge
of the study of music at the school and seized this opportunity to bring together
the leading scholars of music in France. Rolland used the institution as a forum
for exchange between the radically different approaches and opinions associated
with competing institutions or schools. The "ecole" was thus to provide another
nexus not only for the diffusion of musical discourses charged with ideological
implications but for a dialogue between them as well. It was in this manner,
through such institutions, that the musical culture interacted even more inte-
grally and consistently with intellectual and political cultures; such institutional
venues for the debate over musical values and historiography were an inseparable
part of the musical culture, which they would soon affect.
Rolland's goal was to imbue the study of music history with the same legiti-
macy as that enjoyed by the other arts by placing it in a broader social context.170
Implicitly, too, it was to rival the Schola, or to follow the lead that it had estab-
lished, by illustrating lectures with pedagogical concerts, or examples played at
the piano. Rolland had already initiated this practice in his lectures at the Sor-
bonne, a practice admissible now in light of the marked success that it had at the
Schola. But the pedagogical concerts here, or those with a specific intellectual
point, unlike those of the Schola, were of new works and introduced by the com-
posers themselves. The audience was presented with a wide range of positions—
those of the most renowned modern composers, some of whom agreed to come
and discuss their works in this intellectual context; these included composers
with hortatory tendencies, or those on the ideological extremes—Bruneau and
d'Indy—along with others, such as Paul Dukas, Maurice Ravel, and Claude De-
bussy. We shall see in chapters 2 and 4 the extent to which contemporary musi-
cians, including those named, became part of the dialogue over authentic French
values and, by extension, French national identity. It is also important to realize
the gap that such a venue filled when artists were prohibited from presenting
their "ideas" in the university system.171
Indeed, the school accrued so much prestige that, in effect, it became a seat
of alternative intellectual legitimization and recognition by the academic world.
This may well be why Vincent d'Indy agreed to speak at the school, despite its
initial political associations with a Dreyfusard intellectual stance. D'Indy, like
Sorel (who withdrew from the institution in 1906), while hostile to the academic
world, nevertheless sought a recognition by it.172 For d'Indy, moreover, this was
part of his "battle" for authorization of his principles by the intellectual elite,
given their exclusion in official circles. And, as we shall see, the paths of d'Indy
and Sorel were again to cross in their common embrace of National Socialism and
their rejection of the political center.
We may glean a sense of the nature of the musical discourse at this institu-
tion by examining Rolland's article for a publication that commemorated the
tenth year of its existence. In it Rolland speaks of the slow development of stud-
ies of music history in France and of the isolated efforts toward it, despite the pi-
oneering role of the Schola. The turning point, he argues, was the International
Congress on Music History in 1900, which served fundamentally to raise the con-
sciousness of French historians of music; in the following years, courses on
music history began to spread, including the "cours libres" at the Sorbonne and
the lectures at the Schola, the Ecole Normale Superieur, and the Institut
Catholique. While remaining silent on the ideological battle behind these lec-
tures, however, Rolland does speak of the institutions's desire to put such diverse
efforts in contact with each other.173
As we have noted, Rolland was one of the very few in the period who was
able to rise above ideological antagonisms on the basis of professional interests;
for him, it was to this higher end that the Ecole de Musique was founded at the
Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales, in May 1902. Its other goal was to present to
the public the musical treasures that historians of music had been uncovering in
their research over the course of the past twenty years. As Rolland explains, when
he was placed at the head of this "school," his goal was to show the intellectual
elite training the personnel in public schools the importance of the history of
music; specifically, he wished to establish its significance for understanding
human spirit and thus to claim for music its place in general history, which to
that point had been denied it in France.174 Implicit again was the fact that, while
this denial had taken place in the official domain, the gap was being filled aggres-
sively by the French Nationalist Right.
The Ecole, through Rolland, did manage to recruit as impressive a group of
lecturers on the subjects of music history and aesthetics as that at the Schola
Cantorum; these included Pierre Aubry and Andre Pirro (who also lectured at the
Schola), as well as a wide range of others on almost all aspects of music history.
Between the efforts of those associated with the Schola and the efforts of those at
the rival Republican institutions, no epoch of music history was being neglected.
• Theodore Reinach and Louis Laloy delivered lectures on Greek music, and
Laloy on Gregorian chant
• A. Gastoue and Pierre Aubry spoke on music in the Middle Ages
• Henry Expert and Michel Brenet lectured on the Renaissance
• Henri Quittard, Lionel de la Laurencie, Henry Prunieres, Paul-Marie Mas-
son, Andre Pirro, and Rolland spoke on the seventeenth century
• Pirro, Rolland, Charles Malherbes, Julien Tiersot, Paul-Marie Masson, and
Frederic Hellouin spoke on the eighteenth century
• Lecturing on the nineteenth century were Tiersot, Malherbes (on Berlioz),
d'Indy (on Franck), Paul Landormy Jean Chantavoine, Henri Lichten-
berger, Lionel Dauriac (on Wagner), Rolland, and Calvocoressi (on Russ-
ian music)
• Speaking on contemporary music were Louis Laloy (whose lectures, as we
shall see, were published in the Mercure musicale), and Paul Landormy (on
Belgian music)
Even more timely were Calvocoressi's monthly lectures (beginning in 1904) on

"Le Mois Musicale," which helped prepare for and influenced the reception of
specific works.
Other series of courses and lectures included those on non-Western and
Popular (or traditional) music, along with those on "Esthetique et technique mu-
sicale," in which d'Indy participated. It was through this manner, once more, that
the meanings, or associations, of forms and styles that he developed at the Schola
were disseminated even more broadly in Paris. Lectures such as d'Indy's "Analyze
de divers formes musicales—comment on fait une sonate" was here heard by an
influential elite.175 Moreover, the meanings or codes he propagated were spread
even further in the context of the "Salon" that the institution held periodically
and in which lecturers, professors, politicians, artists, and even workers mingled
freely.176 In chapters 2 and 3 we shall see the impact of this distinctive intellec-
tual context on French music critics and the manner in which they approached
their task. In addition, many of the lectures delivered in this institutional frame
were either published as books or as articles in significant musical or cultural
journals. Finally, such a context for sociability and intellectual exchanges was
undoubtedly not without influence on the composers who chose to participate in
it. Those who accepted the invitations to speak or present their music at the
Ecole included some of the most prominent figures in the French musical world
of the period. Bruneau, d'Indy, Debussy, Ravel, and Faure gave lectures, and
such prominent artists as Cortot, Vines, and Landowska participated in perfor-
mances.177 In such a context, these composers and artists could not help but see
that musical forms and styles were being argued for and were being legitimated in
terms of historical and political discourses. They could thus hardly escape an
awareness of the meanings adhering to style, and they could either work with
these significances or manipulate them in novel ways. But they were also aware
that there would be a price to pay for ignoring such significations by attempting
to communicate the unorthodox through them.
2
CREATIVE AND PROFESSIONAL

RESPONSES TO THE
POLITICIZATION OF MUSIC
D' INDY' S "IDEOLOGICAL MUSIC"
In chapter 1 we examined how French music was implicated in the torrid sym-
bolic battle that was launched by two nationalist leagues over the question of
French cultural identity and values. We saw that as a result of the central institu-
tional opposition between the Schola Cantorum and the Conservatoire, musical
culture was bisected into hostile camps. D'Indy and the nationalist Schola chal-
lenged the Republic's educational hegemony and established a discourse that re-
lated its conception of national identity to a canon and to style; the Republic re-
sponded with alacrity, defining its own set of meanings and values, as well as a
canon in the context of both the programs of the 1900 Exposition and academic
music history.
It was against the background of this conflict over historical conceptions,
pedagogical models, musical meanings, aesthetics, and the canon that composers
in France had henceforth to work. This chapter examines those figures who were
most prominently implicated in the battle—those who either attempted to in-
scribe ideology in their works or to whose works were attributed an ideological
content. In the first case, we examine those compositions through which d'Indy
avowedly sought to communicate an anti-Dreyfusard message—his opera La Le~
gende de Saint Christophe and his Second Symphony. In the second case, we see
64
RESPONSES TO THE POL1TICIZATION OF MUSIC 6S
how the context of performance of Charpentier's Louise, as well as its framing dis-
course, became an integral factor in the misconstrual of its meaning by critics.
Here we may observe how the latter applied the codes of meaning that were now
in wide use but had by no means been a factor when the polyvalent opera itself
was composed; we also see how Charpentier took advantage of this misconstrual
to further his own social program through music—his equally polyvalent "Oeu-
vre de Mimi Pinson."
Finally, we examine the case of an engaged but independent composer who
dared to cross the lines of battle and thus was inevitably to pay the professional
price. Alberic Magnard refused to accept the dominant stylistic code and com-
posed a work that had Dreyfusard content but employed an "anti-Dreyfusard
style." We see in this context that the French press here played a crucial role,
categorizing composers and often victimizing those who did not fall into ortho-
dox camps. The code of meaning they thus further disseminated was soon ap-
plied throughout the musical world, affecting not only institutional decisions but
also repertoire choices and financial support.
It is no surprise that d'Indy was among those who, in their compositions,
consciously manipulated the meanings that he himself helped develop and dif-
fuse at the Schola. For d'Indy, ideology could unequivocally be communicated
through music by means of styles and techniques that carried meanings within
the context, or, in the language of semiotics, the "interpretant." We see this not
only in his professed "anti-Dreyfusard opera," begun in these years, but also in
his symphonic music, particularly in his Symphony No. 2.
Written in the wake of the Affair—in the years 1902-1903, the symphony il-
lustrates d'Indy's distinctive sense of the educational role of the genre. As we have
noted, his ultimate model for the symphony was Beethoven, especially the Sym-
phony No. 5 as both he and Franck interpreted it—in terms of the conflict of
dark and light. "Darkness," for Franck and d'Indy, could signify such qualities as
doubt, evil, sadness, and fear; "light," by contrast, could suggest faith, goodness,
joy, and courage.1 Franck, of course, in such works as his D Minor Symphony re-
mained completely abstract, while d'Indy here assigned a political meaning to
this theme.
Here "X" is the theme of "modernism," or of destructive antitraditionalism,
while "Y" is the theme of tradition, which enters into a symphonic battle with
"X." Significantly, "X" outlines a tritone, since it consists of two ascending thirds
that are separated by a falling second. (The tritone, which as scholars knew, tradi-
tionally symbolizes "the devil in music," would also figure prominently in
d'Indy's depiction of the "Jew" in his so-called "drame anti-Juif.") "Y," to the con-
trary, is a lyrical motive that prominently features a bold and expressive ascend-
ing leap on the interval of a minor seventh.2 Romantic and expressive, it adheres
to Scholiste values, as defined against the nineteenth-century operatic and virtu-
osic models of the Conservatoire.
These motives appear cyclically throughout the work, generating others as
well, and thus the "combat" between them affects all the movements, with "Y"
(or "tradition") predictably triumphing over "X" ("modernity"). Metaphorically,
then, the symphony represents the triumph of traditional forces, not only in
music, as pursued by the Schola, but also in sociopolitical values. At first, d'Indy
did not comment publicly on the meanings of the motives, leaving it rather to his
allies in the anti-Dreyfusard press to make them explicit.3 Here again, specific
musical meaning was in large part contingent upon the surrounding texts and
discourse that served an exegetical role. Producing such commentary was the
task of d'Indy's friend and associate Rene de Castera in the journal L'Occident
which, as we have seen, proclaimed itself "anti-Dreyfusard." De Castera ex-
plained the significance of the two principle themes in the symphony to the jour-
nal's readers in the following explicit terms:
Le premier . . . dessinant un intervalle de triton (diabolus in musica) par une suite

de tierces alternativement mineures et majeures, a un caractere sombre et menacant
qui symbolise vaguement dans la pensee de I'auteur I'element moderne de mauvaise
influence.
Le second . . . , c'est I'element traditionnel, de bonne influence.4
(The first . . . , outlining the interval of the tritone (the devil in music) by a series of
thirds alternatively minor and major, has a somber and menacing character that in the
thought of the author vaguely symbolizes the bad influence of the modern element.
The second . . . , is the traditional element, the good influence.)
While de Castera points out that it is not really necessary to attribute specific
meanings to the themes, his commentary on the music did strive to instill them
in the minds of his readers.
D'Indy, however, was not content to limit his ideological zeal to an abstract
symphonic statement that relied on a commentary to make its meaning explicit.
He decided to write an opera which he described as his "drame antijuif," in a let-
ter of September, 1903, to his friend Pierre de Breville whom he recruited for the
Ligue de la Patrie Francaise.5 Although d'Indy began the opera, La Legende de
Saint Christophe, in 1903, he worked on it only sporadically until its completion
during the war, in 1915. In this, as in his previous operas, d'Indy followed Wag-
ner's example in being the composer and, in addition, serving as his own libret-
tist. As in his instrumental music, his operas stress the triumph of spiritual val-
ues, employing the themes of faith and redemption, and they incorporate
quotations from Gregorian chant. The selection of the legend of Saint Christo-
pher, and even the source to which d'Indy turned, relates not only to his political
preoccupations but also to Wagner's personal advice to him. To a French com-
poser, the Legende aurea, a thirteenth-century collection of the lives of saints, was
the closest thing to a collective mythos, or a legendary source. Wagner, in fact,
had already employed the very same source himself (together with several others)
in the heterogeneous libretto to Tannhauser.6
The product of a Dominican monk, known in France as Jacques de Voragine,
the Legende aurea was originally an attempt to popularize ecclesiastical doctrine,
but its distinctive contribution lay in its borrowing from popular culture—partic-
ularly from peasant beliefs and tales—for an added level of appeal. It was largely
owing to this deft intertwining of the popular and the clerical that the collection,
one of many lives of saints, gained immediate and enduring popularity. The text
RESPONSES TO THE POL1T1CIZATION OF MUSIC 67
was frequently reedited and retranslated, even from the time of Voragine, with no
fewer than seven French versions appearing between the thirteenth and the fif-
teenth centuries. It remained popular in nineteenth-century France, and perhaps
it is significant that the ardent Wagnerian Theodore de Wyzewa was one of those
who translated it.7
D'Indy had long been enchanted by the collection, particularly by the legend
of St. Christopher, which he had heard as a child from his governess and then
later studied in preparation for his baccalaureat. As an adult, he continued to col-
lect iconographic sources that depict the legend, some of which are included in
the original printed score.8 D'Indy apparently sought to appropriate the legend
for his political cause, to reshape the meaning of his beloved story as part of a
"grande entreprise politique." To appreciate the nature of his revisions, we must
review the original text and then examine the libretto, together with the scenic
indications in the printed score.
The tale in the Legende doree begins in Canaan, where Christophe, of giant
build and frightening appearance, believes he has found the greatest king in the
world. One day, a jongleur comes to perform for the king; one song concerns the
devil and causes the king, a devout Christian, to make the sign of the cross when-
ever the devil is mentioned. Christophe, deciding that the devil must be more
powerful than the king, determines to seek out and serve him; he soon finds the
devil and promptly pledges his service.
But the devil encounters a large cross in the road and turns to avoid it.
Christophe asks the reason, and, when the devil explains his fear, Christophe de-
cides to seek out and serve Jesus Christ. In his long search, he encounters a her-
mit who both instructs him in the faith and seeks a way for Christophe to serve
the cause of Christianity. The hermit decides that, because of Christopher's build,
he can help travelers across a dangerous river. One day Christophe hears the
voice of a child calling for help; he puts the child on his shoulder and starts to
ford, but as he does so, the child becomes increasingly heavy. When he reaches
the other side, the child announces that he is Christ and as proof tells Christophe
to plant his staff in the sand, saying that the next day it will be covered with flow-
ers and leaves. Christophe does so; the prophecy is fulfilled. He then proceeds to
Samos to help the Christians there.
God gives Christophe the ability to speak the Christians' language, and
Christophe exhorts the faithful to have courage. One of the heathen judges is an-
gered and strikes him in the face, but, as a Christian, Christophe will not take re-
venge; instead, he puts his staff in the earth and prays that God may make it
flower. On seeing the miracle performed, eight thousand people immediately
convert to Christianity. The king sends two hundred soldiers to take Christophe
away, but he manages to convert them as well, and together they go to the king.
The king is so terrified that he falls off his throne; Christophe accuses him of
being the devil's companion.
The king puts Christophe in prison and sends him two beautiful girls, Nicee
and Acquilina, to whom the king promises great rewards if they can lead
Christophe into sin. But Christophe converts them and has them and the people
destroy their idols. The two girls are punished by the king; Acquilina's bones are
broken by stones; Nicee is thrown into a fire and, after emerging from it un-
scathed, is promptly decapitated. Christophe is beaten, and a helmet of red hot
iron is placed on his head, but he remains unharmed. The king has him tied to a
stake and commands four hundred soldiers to pierce him with arrows; the arrows
remain in the air, but one returns and hits the king in the eye.
Christophe announces that his work is almost done, and he informs the king
that if the following day he moistens mud with his (Christophe's) blood and puts
it on his eye, he will see again. The king has Christophe decapitated, follows his
advice, and is indeed healed; he becomes a believer and orders those who blas-
pheme against God or Christians to be put to death.9
D'Indy designed his version of the legend not as an opera, but as a mystery
play, which would demonstrate aspects of what he termed the "Judeo-Dreyfusard
influence"—in particular, "orgeuil, jouissance," and "argent" (pride, pleasure,
and money), which he wished to present in conflict with goodness, faith, hope,
and charity.10 He projects this opposition onto the story and, by emphasizing the
section in which the giant seeks the greatest power on earth, manipulates ele-
ments of the legend, as he mixes genres and theatrical conventions.
Although d'Indy locates the action in France (in the Cevennes mountains,
which run through the region of his birth), the work begins in his version of
Venusberg. The preconversion giant—called Auferus—resembles Tannhauser
serving Venus, or, as he calls her, "La Reine de Volupte." This idyllic existence is
interrupted when the doors open and a sinister yellow light floods the room, re-
vealing a small man whom d'Indy describes in the printed score as pudgy and
jolly, with frizzy hair and a hooked nose. Behind him appear valets, their leather
sacks filled with gold. Those assembled comment on this "strange man," "not one
of us." Identified as "Le Roi de 1'Or," this new character explains that it is useless
for the "chevaliers d'amour" to defend the queen, because he has purchased their
weapons and their ministers. His valets proceed to throw handfuls of gold to the
crowd, which follows them outside. The Roi de l'Or promptly decides to buy all
the "beaux objets d'art" in the room and proudly claims to be immune to love (re-
calling Alberich in the Ring). Auferus converts to his service.
The next scene reveals the summer palace of the Roi de 1'Or. The walls, as
d'Indy describes them, are decorated with expensive paintings, and "quelques
meubles de mauvais gout" are strewn pell-mell among the precious objects. (The
king is clearly "bourgeois.") The king asks that a message be taken to his brother
in "la cite hanseatique" (clear ties to Germany), and he boasts of his palace as the
heritage of a noble family he has ruined. He observes that "ce pays teutonique est
bien vraiment le centre des affaires" (this Teutonic country is truly the center of
things), and in the ensuing dialogue claims proudly, "j'ai fait innocenter des
traitres" (I have had traitors declared innocent). (The king is clearly a Drey-
fusard.) Suddenly a goat's head appears, gradually growing to huge proportions;
the room fills with red light, and mephitic vapors exude from the goat's nostrils.
The gold in the room liquifies to yellow mud: the Prince du Mal has appeared,
and clearly the Roi de 1'Or is his ally. In the following scene the Prince du Mal
takes on more normal incarnation. Dressed like a "seigneur" from the past, he
chats amiably with the Roi de 1'Or, marveling at the way he deftly oppresses the
RESPONSES TO THE POLITICIZATION OF MUSIC 69
people while continually invoking liberty. (The prince is apparently not only a
traitor, a Dreyfusard, Jewish, and bourgeois, but a Republican as well.)
Next we experience a Wagnerian blending of drama and spectacle, a dra-
matic idea expressed through visual imagery or contrast, as the "armee de l'er-
reur" appears.11 D'Indy describes a series of clouds on the horizon (probably in-
spired by Baroque conventions), each of which contains a cortege replete with
emblems (suggesting Die Meistersinger). First are the "faux penseurs" who sing
"A bas les pretres! . . . Nous seuls savons penser librement ... a bas toute re-
ligion!" (Down with priests! . . . Only we know how to think freely . . .
down with all religion.) Next are the "faux savants," all wearing gold spectacles;
claiming science to be infallible, they chant contemporary scientific words with
obvious anachronism, thus fusing the present with the mythic past.
Next we see a large crowd carrying a red banner inscribed with the word
"Guerre"; this group sings "Haine aux puissants! Haine aux rois, haine aux
pretres! . . . Detruisons tout." (Hatred to the powerful! Hatred to Kings, hatred
to priests! Let us destroy everything.) They are followed by "les arrivistes
orgueilleux" and finally by "les faux artistes" (false, so obviously Dreyfusard).
These last carry shapeless blocks of stone, canvasses dotted with spots of bright
color, and bizarre oriental instruments that they seem unable to play. They sing
"Fauteurs d'un art tenu et rare, nous faisons la mode et nous la suivons. Que tout
soit abaisse a notre taille. Haine a 1'enthousiasme! Haine a l'art ideal! Plus de re-
gies, plus d'etudes, faisons petit, faisons original."12 (Fomenters of an art that is
thin and rare, we make fashion and we follow it. All should be lowered to our
size. Hatred to enthusiasm! Hatred to ideal art! No more rules, no more studies,
let's make things small and original.) Then they chant in unison, "Haine au
Christ! Haine a la Charite!" (Hatred to Christ! Hatred to Charity!)
The clouds fade to reveal the powerful image of a gothic tower surmounted
by a cross. Slowly, the entire "cathedrale triomphante" appears in full and glow-
ing light. (This is a powerful moment of Wagnerian "Verdichtung," or of scenic
contrast that "condenses the drama.")13 As the shadow of the cross gradually fills
the stage, the Prince du Mal declares that the cathedral must be destroyed. When
Auferus realizes that the Prince du Mal fears it, he sets out to find Jesus Christ,
who is evidently more powerful.
Act II takes place in the mountains. Near an overturned altar, a hermit kneels
in prayer before a cross of branches. This part of the story proceeds more or less
according to the legend, except that Auferus (now renamed Christophe) refuses
passage across the river to those representing his former masters—a lover, a mer-
chant, and an emperor, or "volupte, avarice, and orgeuil."
Act HI begins in the great hall of the Roi de 1'Or's winter palace; he has be-
come "le Grand Juge" and is counting his money. The Reine de Volupte is sent
into the prison to corrupt Christophe. He converts her and renames her Nicea.
The final scene takes place in "une grande place de la ville," decorated with vari-
ous monuments. In the background is a fire hung with pieces of iron. A "bour-
geois" brings his children to see the execution, and d'Indy instructs him to "rire
betement." But during the torture, the armor disintegrates on Christophe's body,
and the arrows shot at him do not reach their target. One returns to pierce the eye
of the Grand Judge, who emits a terrible cry and gasps that he is dying. (Signifi-
cantly, there is no mercy or redemption for d'Indy's Roi de 1'Or.) Christophe is
sentenced to be decapitated, but there is no violence to him on stage; we merely
hear his "chant triomphale" (a vocalise), broken momentarily by the fall of the
axe but then continuing even higher. Nicea, who has been present at the execu-
tion, enters, covered with blood. As light slowly pervades the scene, all sing
praises to the glory of God; the chorus ends with the words "Saint Christophe,
priez pour nous" (St. Christopher, pray for us).
The aspect of the opera that we must examine is the "poetic intent," Wagner's
term for the essence of the drama behind music and text, which is revealed
through their union. Significantly while Wagner expressed anti-Semitic beliefs in
his prose text Judaism in Music and a similar social analysis in Art and Revolution,
here they are part of the poetic intent. For these and other ideas inform the text,
as well as the musical style, through the use of the stylistic codes that were dif-
fused at the Schola Cantorum.
D'Indy's goal of renewing lyric drama after an epoch he termed "Italo-cos-
mopolite-judaique" had originally directed him toward the modified Wagnerian
music drama of Fervaal; in the Cours de composition he claims that L'Etranger was
more independent, less Wagnerian in concept and style, although he was still
deeply respectful of Wagner. In La Legende de Saint Christophe d'Indy sought a
more authentically French model, while still employing Wagnerian techniques
that served his specific dramatic purpose. Typically, his goal of renewal led him
back to the origins of opera, to what he claimed were its origins—not the Floren-
tine Camerata, but the medieval mystery play.
How much d'Indy really knew about the genre is uncertain, although the pre-
war period in France saw several scholarly explorations into the subject.14 D'Indy
obviously found in the mystery play not just the ritualistic but the didactic quali-
ties he thought best conveyed his specific political message. To highlight the di-
dacticism of the legend, however, and to reinforce his political points, d'Indy also
borrowed elements from the oratorio—a narrator and a chorus. But he labeled his
narrator the "historien," having him and the surrounding "choeur recitant,"
draped in white robes against a somber curtain, appear before the beginning of
each act and before the second scene in Act II.
In keeping with d'Indy's fundamentally moralistic approach to musical form,
even the very structure of the opera is didactic and symbolic. Apart from the pro-
logues, he divided the work strictly into threes—it consists not only of three acts,
but each of them contains three scenes. Although seemingly suggesting the trin-
ity in information circulated before the performance, d'Indy cryptically explained
that the "triptych form" was the only truly national one.15 Church and state thus
once again became one in d'Indy's mind, which identified the basic traits of
French culture specifically with the Catholic Church.
As always with d'Indy, the tonal structure of the work is equally strict and
symbolic, turning Wagner's associative use of tonalities into a rigid didactic sys-
tem; d'Indy ardently admired what he explicitly termed (and indeed distorted)
Wagner's "usage methodique des tonalites significatives." Typical of his uses of
Wagner, he sought a more systematic and intellectual approach, employing keys
RESPONSES TO THE POLITlCIZATION OF MUSIC 71
in association not only with feeling and situations, but also with characters or
specific objects.16
But perhaps the most symbolic and didactic element in this "drame mystere"
lay in the choice and manipulation of themes, which d'Indy carried to unprece-
dented extremes. Of the opera's twenty-four themes, seven are taken literally
from Gregorian chant, which, as we have seen, was one of d'Indy's preoccupa-
tions. D'Indy had occasionally employed chant in his previous operas, but here
the seven chants bring with them specific liturgical associations that are linked to
the drama: several are taken directly from the Common of Martyrs and from the
Common of Martyrs Who Are Not A Bishop.17 But the composer employs more
than just melodies in the interest of exegesis; there are also allusions to the mas-
ters admired at the Schola (and as interpreted at the Schola), in particular Bach
and Beethoven. These references, like the Renaissance motet style that he associ-
ated with "les primitifs," appear when the text refers to sincerity, spiritual probity,
and the certitude of faith. 18 They are emblematic of the "true tradition" in both a
musical and political sense, just as they were in d'Indy's teaching and writing at
the Schola Cantorum.
This rhetorical or strategic use of styles extends to the depiction of evil, prob-
ably the most pervasive thematic preoccupation in the opera. Not surprisingly,
d'Indy reserved for the Roi de I'Or the most devastating devices in his stylistic ar-
senal, making him repugnant musically as well as morally. The Roi is associated
with the same kind of jerky, uneven rhythms, suggesting physical deformity, as
Wagner's Aberich in The Ring; however, going far beyond Wagner's technique of
equating moral shiftiness with tonal ambiguity, d'Indy associates his villain with
the harshest of dissonances and the gravest of harmonic faults (see Ex. 2-1).19
Along with this, we find references to the "Italo-judaique" style, especially to the
squareness and monotony of rhythm that d'Indy associated with Meyerbeer. Al-
though used most consistently for the Roi de 1'Or, and (slightly less so) for the
Prince du Mal, some of these traits appear in connection with other social groups
that d'Indy wished to vilify: the bourgeoisie in the final act, the people whenever
misled, and the Emperor's evil soldiers. Open stylistic parody is reserved for the
comical "armee de 1'erreur," with the "faux artistes" depicted visually and musi-
cally through a caricature of impressionism (see Ex. 2-2). All these techniques
stand out against the background of a Wagnerian idiom, d'Indy's post-Wagnerian
harmonies and fluid rhythms forming the stylistic "ground" of the work.20
We might now pause to consider the message that d'Indy intended and its re-
lation to the philosophy of the league to which he was so close throughout these
years. It is one of antimaterialism and anti-Republicanism, directed against a
world he depicts as motivated by profit and controlled by a corrupt authority
structure. Against this greed and corruption are contraposed the values of duty,
sacrifice, and heroism, the purity of race and nation, and the primacy of the col-
lective and of social hierarchy. Many of these values indeed relate to those of the
Ligue de la Patrie Francaise, while others transcend the ideological and concep-
tual limits of the league. For the league's fundamental goal was that the tradi-
tional social hierarchy, led by those of both intelligence and property, oversee the
education of the masses to guarantee order. While d'Indy's interests and many of
EXAMPLE 2-1 Act I scene 2, Vincent d'Indy, La Legende de Saint Christophe. Paris:
Rouart, Lerolle et cie., 1918. By permission of the New York Public Library for the Per-
forming Arts.
his beliefs related closely to those of the league, they often went beyond them,
particularly as his position evolved after 1905. As we shall see in chapter 3, his
conception of the social order and of the place of art within it would lead him to
embrace nationalist movements with more "advanced" political tendencies.
D'Indy's relations with the league continued out of loyalty and for pragmatic
reasons, even after it became politically inactive, about 1907.21 However, the na-
ture of his relation with the organization was to change, an evolution we can see
through his letters to it, begun at the time of the Affair. The early ones proudly re-
RESPONSES TO THE POLITICIZATIONOF MUSIC 73
EX. 2-1 (Cont.)
port the prominent musicians he was able to recruit for the league and make ref-
erence to the lectures it sponsored (by figures such as Jules Lemaitre), as well as
to their mutual hatred for Dreyfusards like Zola. By 1902 d'Indy was writing let-
ters of appreciation to the league, complaining about the codirection of Charles
Bordes and apparently planning a reorganization of the school. The following
year, when he assumed the complete direction of the school himself, he was still
reporting to the league on its activities, as well as its budget; significantly, he
makes reference to the financial problems of the Schola and specifically to "cet
imbroglio dont nous suffrons tous."22 This undoubtedly referred to the serious
and embarrassing financial scandal in which the league found itself directly im-
plicated by 1903. The previous year, rumors had begun to circulate concerning
the diversion of funds on the part of the treasurer, Gabriel Syveton, who finally
committed suicide. Jules Lemaitre himself abandoned the league in the fall of
1904, and by 1905 its final liquidation had begun.23
Not surprisingly d'Indys letter to the league in early 1904 reflects his dis-
couragement over his inability to solicit new "subscriptions," despite his many
letters; they also report his horror over the financial state in which he found the
school, which clearly could not subsist on the basis of the fees that were paid by
the students. Although d'Indy did not sever his ties with the league despite the fi-
nancial scandal, now his letters simply report on his artistic activities, as well as
those of the Schola.24 The league had played an important role in both defining
and launching his project, but now he moved on ideologically to seek out other
bases of intellectual support.
As we have seen, d'Indy's artistic interests and goals were inseparable from
his political convictions, which initially most closely approximated those of the
league; we have also seen how he not only helped to attribute political meaning
to aspects of style through his teaching at the Schola but also applied these mean-
EXAMPLE 2-2 Act I scene 3, Vincent d'Indy, La Legende de Saint Christophe. Paris:
Rouart, Lerolle et cie., 1918. By permission of the New York Public Library for the Per-
forming Arts.
ings in his creative work. For d'Indy, there was thus no dissonance between the
styles he employed and the political significances attributed to them by contem-
poraries, largely because of his personal efforts; but this was by no means to be
true of all the composers who were drawn to d'Indy's teaching and to the Schola
without, however, espousing its political beliefs. In this context it is illuminating
to turn to the case of Alberic Magnard, which illustrates the plight of composers
who crossed the lines of battle within this culture. For although he, like d'Indy,
was associated institutionally with the Schola, he nevertheless sought to reject
the associations it assigned to genres and styles. Magnard, like d'Indy, did wish to
communicate a political message through his art, but the message, contrary to the
Schola's implicit ideology, was Drefusard.
MAGNARD'S "DREYFUSARD" COMPOSITIONS
D'Indy, a wealthy aristocrat, could confidently declare his political position

through art, especially since it was his sympathizers and disciples who explicated
his ideological intentions. But it was another composer also protected by wealth
and a powerful family who, although a Scholiste, wrote a work with a consciously
Dreyfusard message. This was not Alfred Bruneau, whose operas had been retro-
gressively labeled "Dreyfusard," in the context of the Affair, because of his associ-
ation with Emile Zola; it was, ironically, a colleagues and friend of d'Indy, and
eventually a member of the faculty of the Schola Cantorum, who attempted to
write a "Dreyfusard work." Even more ironically, he did so by applying a code
similar to that of d'Indy, one bom of the conception of symphonic music that was
espoused at the Schola. This bold individual who refused to accept the ideology
RESPONSES TO THE POLIT1CIZAT1ON OF MUSIC 75
EX, 2-2 (Cont.)
associated with the style he espoused was the son of the director of the Drey-
fusard paper Le Figaro. Alberic Magnard was indeed a singular figure within the
French music world, and he was to become, in spite of himself, no less than a na-
tional legend.
Magnard began his musical studies at the Paris Conservatoire, but, perhaps
because of his belief in the moral function of art, he grew disillusioned and de-
cided to leave; an admirer of Franck, while in Dubois's class he was immediately
drawn to the circle around the former, especially to Guy Ropartz, and eventually
began to study composition with d'Indy. The two shared many ideas concerning
musical form and aesthetics, and Magnard happily remained d'Indy's pupil for a
period of four years. Fundamentally a Romantic, like d'Indy, he approached
music as a representation of the inner life, but, being an idealist, he sought per-
fect order, as sustained by "beauty" and "justice." Music, for Magnard, was an art
of thought, but thought as expressed through tones, a belief that, as we have
seen, was generally shared at the Schola Cantorum. And, like the Scholistes, he
admired "great works," considering, like d'Indy, the best art to be that which is
fundamentally based, at least in spirit, on the classics. Hence his initial attraction
to the symphony in the early 1890s, marked in particular by his Second Sym-
phony, of 1892-1895, dedicated to Guy Ropartz.
When Magnard's father died, in 1894, Magnard became a critic for Le Figaro,
the paper with which his father had been associated. Here he was among those
helping to further the revival of Rameau, writing an article, "Pour Rameau,"
which convinced Durand to undertake his monumental edition of the composer.
When the Affair broke out, Magnard could not stand aside from the tumult and,
despite the fact that he was teaching counterpoint at the Schola, he declared him-
self a Dreyfusard.25 He became deeply absorbed in the fundamental issues sur-
rounding the Affair, resigning his commission as an officer because his beliefs
concerning them were so strong. Despite his strenuous disagreement with d'Indy
over the Affair, however, no official rupture ensued, although the nature of their
personal relationship was to change.
Like d'Indy, during the height of the Affair, Magnard's interest shifted to
opera, and to opera with a political message, although one opposite to that of
d'Indy. Between 1897 and 1901 Magnard worked on his first opera, Guercoeur,
which would be followed in 1902 by a symphonic work also inspired by the
Affair, his Hymne a la justice. The score of the opera (dedicated to the memory of
his father) was not published until 1904, and only the first act was performed in
his lifetime, at the Concerts du Chatelet, on December 18, 1910. The score was
published not by one of the major commercial firms but by one that called itself
"L'Emancipatrice" and that identified itself as an "Imprimerie Communiste."
The opening of the work takes place in a kind of platonic paradise, with the
principal divinity, "Verite," surrounded by "Bonte," "Beaute," and "Souffrance."
Like the philosophic-political operas of d'Indy and Charpentier, it is highly alle-
gorical, freely mingling elements of reality and fantasy. Like Charpentier's Louise,
it is concerned with illusion, but in Magnard's opera the misguided are the peo-
ple, who wrongly pursue their noble leader, Guercoeur, as a traitor. Here the ref-
erence to the Dreyfus Affair is subtle and indirect, but in the context of its later
performance and commentary, it could hardly be missed.26
In 1902 Magnard returned to symphonic composition with his Hymne e la
justice, which he had published at his own expense and dedicated to his friend,
Emile Galle, one of the first to sign the petition for Dreyfus and the future trea-
surer of the Ligue des Droits de I'Homme. The work was premiered in 1903 in
Nancy and later performed in Paris, in December 1904, at the Concerts Cortot
and, on January 13, 1907, at the Concerts Lamoureux. The basic symphonic
technique that Magnard employs in his Hymne a la justice is fundamentally the
same as that which we saw in d'Indy's Second Symphony: he utilizes two strongly
RESPONSES TO THE POLIT1CIZAT1ON OF MUSIC 77
opposed thematic ideas that, together with the critical commentary around the
work, carried specific symbolic connotations. Again, the exact construal de-
pended ultimately on a printed exegesis, as well as on what was perceived at the
time to be the relevant political context. Typical of such commentaries is one that
immediately followed the work's premiere, appearing in Le Liberal de l'Est on Jan-
uary 5, 1903:
The Hymne a la justice is a powerful work of indisputable originality. It has two very
different themes: the first, very violent and brutal, symbolizes the revolt of the op-
pressed; the second, very simple and soft, suggests a prayer and invocation to justice.
These two themes alternate and occasionally combine. The impression made by this
superb work is one of grandeur and rare musical power. The last part of this poem is
extremely beautiful: the strings rise gradually to evoke the supplications of the weak,
their appeal for Justice.27
If here a social rather than a political meaning was to be extracted, it was

nevertheless one that was still within the parameters of Dreyfusard discourse.
Magnard would not have objected to the more general construal of his work, and
indeed he continued to attempt to express his political beliefs through the
medium of music. We shall see how these developed, in chapter 4, as well as the
genres and themes through which he sought, with unabating fervor, to translate
them into musical terms. This would include another opera, one with the subject
of an heroic Jew, although it was not, in the end, to be construed by the press as a
"Dreyfusard opera." This was because the critical response in the period preced-
ing the First World War focused not on the content of the work but on its
Scholiste, or traditionalist, style. Magnard was not the only victim of this battle,
suffering distortion of his message on the basis of his style at the hands of a politi-
cized press. Another victim was a composer who, despite his neutrality in the
Dreyfus Affair, was both praised and attacked for writing "the" Dreyfusard opera,
on the evidence of genre and style.
C H A R P E N T I E R ' S LOUISE: ITS POLITICAL USES

AND CRITICAL MISREAD1NGS
As we have seen, in this musical culture it was not simply the interaction of mu-
sical text and performative context that determined responses but that of music
and the discourse around it. With no work, perhaps, is the semantic role of both
the performative context and the surrounding ideological discourse more evident
than in the case of Charpentier's Louise.28 A full understanding of the reception of
this opera at the time of its premiere is inseparable from an awareness of the ideo-
logical context we have traced. The discourse of both the Left and the Right were
applied in evaluating the work—both substantially distorting the composer's
original motivation and determining the opera's fate. As we saw with Bruneau's
Rapport, Louise became for contemporaries on the Left and the Right perhaps the
quintessential "Dreyfusard opera." But in order to understand its distortion by
both sides in 1900, we must begin by attempting to grasp the actual nature of this
complex work; in other words, we must try to understand the composer's original
conception, the language and genre through which he communicated it, and the
way in which both were now read.
Like many other works presented at the Opera Comique at the turn of the
century, Gustave Charpentier's Louise was far from a conventional "opera-
comique." Devoid of spoken dialogue, it relied rather on Wagnerian dramaturgy;
even its melodic style, as a whole, was distant from the theater's lyric traditions.
Charpentier himself proudly emphasized the opera's originality by abjuring tradi-
tional generic terms and boldly labeling it a "roman musical"; undoubtedly in-
spired by the influence of Emile Zola's novels on the opera's libretto, the appella-
tion was without precedent, even in earlier French Naturalist opera.
And yet, in jarring contrast to the composer's avowal of the work's innova-
tions, post-World War II scholarship has dismissed it as a sentimental melo-
drama in the tradition of "opera-comique."29 This was not the case in the decades
following the premiere in 1900, when it was presented in conjunction with the
Universal Exposition in Paris. Far from being dismissed as a maudlin or vapid
"comedie larmoyante," the work incited a debate based at once on aesthetic and
political grounds; such politicized responses concerned its subject along with its
musical style, which contemporaries equated with the new aesthetic of the tri-
umphant "Dreyfusard Republic." We must then explain this shift in perceptions
of its relation to innovation or convention from the standpoint of its complex
genre, which is both Wagnerian and novel-like in nature; only in this manner
may we understand its "Wirkungsgeschichte," or the manner in which the work
was subsequently used and read over time.
Louise, on one level, is a work about language, in both a textual and a musi-
cal sense, and thus one inherently subject to different social modes of reading.
For the languages employed here had one meaning in the context of the work's
composition and another as a result of the politicized discourse at the time of its
premiere. Charpentier's original goal was to use musical, verbal, and theatrical
language to construct a multilayered projection of his own psychosocial condi-
tion and value-tensions.30 It was in order to do this that he took the unprece-
dented step of turning to the genre of the novel as a paradigm, or guide, for his
operatic project. In understanding its novel-like aspects, the insights of Mikhail
Bakhtin are relevant, for, according to Bakhtin, the novel is characterized by the
depiction of "images of language," and these images suggest the different social
horizons—and thus the styles or modes of consciousness—characteristic of the
novel's various characters. From this perspective, each novel is a "system" of such
images of language and a dialogue between the social perspectives to which they
are ultimately bound. The novel is thus the opposite of myth, which implies a
transparency of language: it is characterized rather by linguistic plurality or by
this continual dialogue. As others have gone on to observe, the genre is thus in-
herently incompatible with either a totalitarian universe or a single "tyrannical
narrative."31
Despite its Wagnerian dramaturgy, Louise resembles a novel far more than
myth, for at its core is just such a system of "images of language." But, as we shall
see, this work "about" discourse, in the case of its discrepant readings, has been
interpreted "as" a discourse—its deep irony is thus not perceived. Our focus shall
ultimately be on the interaction of text (or work) and the context of reception, or
of the "performative context" with the work's polyvalent nature.32
To understand why Charpentier wrote an opera about language or conflict-
ing styles of speech, it is essential to explore his background and his resultant
complex social identity; indeed, the deeper message of Louise is truly autobio-
graphical in the most profound and thoroughgoing sense. As the eldest son,
Charpentier, as expected in the period, became an apprentice in the factory where
his father worked, in Tourcoing (near Lille), at the tender age of ten. At the same
time, however, his father, an amateur musician, was instructing him in "solfege,"
and at the age of eleven the boy took up the violin. The elder Charpentier was al-
ready an active participant in the amateur musical life of Tourcoing, which, like
nearby Lille, possessed many such musical organizations, including "harmonies"
and "Orpheons."33
The child's musical progress was rapid, and by 1877 (at the age of seventeen)
he had organized his own instrumental ensemble in Tourcoing. So impressed was
his employer that he helped to fund Charpentier's studies in harmony at the Lille
Conservatory and then aided him in obtaining a municipal subvention. With this
assistance, Charpentier was able, in 1879, to pass the entrance exams of the pres-
tigious Paris "Conservatoire National."34 But the musician's social identity was to
undergo an immediate disorientation upon his arrival in Paris, where he was now
cut off from his family nexus; he was forced, because of financial limitations, to
find lodging in Montmartre, then a socially intermediate realm where bohemians,
workers, and students mingled freely. Charpentier was struck by this mixture
and, in his letters home, described in detail the curious mingling of social groups
that he witnessed here; he even went so far as to recount, as realistically as possi-
ble, the nature of the conversations that he overheard among different groups.35
Charpentier himself was becoming confused about his identity, being sub-
jected to both educational and cultural contexts that were completely new. He
began to dress as a bohemian and, exhibiting his personal independence in other
ways as well, frequently experienced clashes with his Conservatoire professors.
Finally, after studying with several less demanding teachers, he found a sympa-
thetic and compatible personality in Massenet; now, while rebelling in behavior
and dress, Charpentier sought, in his composition, to conform to the prevailing
style and after two years won the Prix de Rome. But his success was evidently due
in part to his astuteness and initiative, for his letters to his parents also reveal the
program of study that he adopted: while dutifully pursuing his exercises in har-
mony, he spent his spare time in the Conservatoire library, where, as he describes
it, he went to learn the "formulae" of the masters.36 He specifically mentions his
study of Wagner, and also his careful reading of Goethe's Faust, and, feeling the
necessity of instructing himself in poetic techniques, he speaks of his desire,
when financially able, to buy a treatise on versification.37 Like so many other
Conservatoire students of humble origins, Charpentier felt inadequate when ap-
proaching dramatic music, armed with only a primary education.
Upon his arrival in Rome, Charpentier continued to find it difficult to adjust,
and again he rebelled in his outward demeanor while continuing to conform in
his music. Perhaps the most colorful incident occurred when he tried to escape
from his "prison" in Rome, returning to Paris and to the Universal Exposition in
1889. There he encountered Massenet, who was horrified and to whom Charpen-
tier facetiously explained that he was in Paris to prepare his candidacy as a
Boulangist deputy from Tourcoing. Massenet, of course, instructed him to be on
the next train back to Rome, and Charpentier dutifully complied—but only to
plot his next rebellion: upon his return, he plastered the walls of the Villa Medici
with posters that read, "Gustave Charpentier, Prix de Rome and Boulangiste, so-
licits the votes of the people of Tourcoing."
This gesture was probably inspired by Montmartre cabaret humor, as seen,
for example, in a poster of Rodolphe Salis (the founder of the Chat Noir) that ir-
reverently proclaimed "Boulanger c'est moi." In view of Charpentier's purported
"Boulangism," it is also important to note the assistance he received from General
Boulanger, through one of his teachers, Pessard; Boulanger helped arrange for the
musician to serve his mandatory military service at the Casserne du Chateau
d'Eau, in Paris, thereby allowing him to continue his Conservatoire studies. We
should also note that Boulanger was most popular among French workers, for he
helped them crystallize their discontent with politicians, developing a kind of
nationalism that appealed to the socially deprived.38
During this period Charpentier was known to don another provocative social
disguise—the garb of a Catholic priest, which he wore while wandering about the
streets of Rome. But this inclination toward social subversion assumed a consider-
ably more dangerous form, both before and after his stay in Rome, when he fre-
quented the Cafe du Delta, a known gathering place for Anarchists. That his con-
tact with them was direct is attested to by the fact that one of them gave him a
chanson, the music of which was an adaptation of the revolutionary "Ca ira" and
the "Carmagnole," the text of which referred explicitly to the recent Anarchist
bombings. Charpentier was later to incorporate fragments of it not only in Louise
but also in the later sequel to the work, entitled Julien; since Charpentier was al-
ready at work on Louise when he received this particular chanson, several scholars
have identified what seem to be references to Anarchism in the libretto.39
We might explain Charpentier's attraction to Anarchist circles on several lev-
els; here recent analyses of Anarchist cultural theories are particularly illuminat-
ing. Richard Sonn stresses that Anarchism was an antiparliamentary movement
like Boulangism, but one that went so far as to reject any politics or organized
means of social control. Hence, he argues, we cannot understand the movement
solely in political terms, since it was a cultural rebellion against both bourgeois
morality and its institutions of power. Particularly relevant for an understanding
of the subject of Louise are Sonn's observations that Anarchism opposed "the
bourgeois institution of marriage as a system of paternal authority" and rejected
"the orthodoxies of art and learning" as institutionalized in the academies, the
educational system, or any such hierarchical structure.40 By the early 1890s, An-
archist discourse suffused the French literary world and particularly symbolist
circles, for here there was a recognition of common social goals: it was the Anar-
chists who helped make the symbolist poets "more aware of the necessity of chal-
lenging the prevailing rules of prosody."41
RESPONSES TO THE POLITICIZATION OF MUSIC 8]
As a successful Conservatoire student, who had learned the appropriate "for-

mulae," yet at the same time viewed them suspiciously or objectively, Charpen-
tier began work on Louise. Moreover, he did so as a young man who was confused
in his social identity, eager to succeed in the system, and yet plagued by a sense of
having betrayed his origins—for he continued to be close to his family and to be
involved in the musical societies that were so important to it, those associated
with French workers. Two of the results we can see in Louise are a sense of self-
loathing or self-irony, and a simultaneous acceptance of and revolt against the
"languages" that he had learned. Like the literary "decadents" such as Hysmans,
he was to produce a work that manifests an "ironic distance"—that "performs an
implicit act of autocriticisrn and self-destruction through self-parody."42
In search of a libretto, Charpentier had initially contacted Massenet's editor.
Although a libretto was promised, it was never delivered, so Charpentier began to
work on his own. He was encouraged not only by the example of Wagner (which
had inspired two trips to Bayreuth) but by Massenet himself, who urged him to
create from his own individual experience. Having purportedly had an affair with
a young working girl named Louise, Charpentier designed a libretto about her af-
fair with a "poet" and the rebellion against her family to which it led. In writing
his libretto, Charpentier turned not to the now-fashionable Symbolist movement
but to Naturalism, which had impressed him through the theater of Ibsen and the
novels of Zola. And Naturalism was appropriate to his educational level as well,
since it was considered a literature of the "unlettered," and thus barred Zola from
the Academie.43
As we have already noted, there was a precedent for French Naturalist opera
in the works of Zola and Bruneau, but one that had led to an aesthetic impasse. It
is important to analyze this particular dilemma here, that of shifting aesthetic dis-
tance, for it was this that Charpentier would overcome. Bruneau had developed a
set of dramaturgical procedures adapted specifically to the setting of Naturalist
texts, while retaining others from French operatic tradition. Like the Russian Re-
alists, he attempted to translate the rhythms of the speech and the inflections of
the text as literally or naturalistically as possible into his music.44 But as we have
seen, Zola's operatic texts were hardly naturalistic in style, and thus the result was
less reminiscent of Mussorgsky than of Lully's settings of the verses of Quinault.
Like Lully's, Bruneau's line does not always mirror the inflections of the text ex-
actly; he also often heightens key words for rhetorical emphasis, usually by
means of leaps, and at times he attempts to imbue the vocal line with more musi-
cality or, recalling Wagner, to project an emotional component onto the text
through such lyric means.
Like Lully, Bruneau understood that such heightened rhetorical declama-
tion, despite a full orchestral accompaniment, required periodic points of relief;
so, as in Lully's operas, lyric interludes in "quadratic" or balanced antecedent-
consequent phrases frequently appear, ranging from small sections of several
measures to simple small-scale lyric arias. As Bruneau's critics immediately noted,
and at the time of the Affair would stress, his lyricism was influenced by that
of his teacher Massenet, and inappropriate in the context. Also for dramatic
relief—and again like Lully and Quinault—Zola and Bruneau employed scenes of
"spectacle," but bound to the action with some dramatic plausibility. In Zola's li-
bretti, such moments of spectacle serve an important function as vehicles for vi-
sually articulating the symbolic idea that underlies the plot. Thus, what is an ex-
tremely slow and subtle process in the novels here appears boldly telescoped and
within the context of French operatic convention. Perhaps the clearest example is
the ballet of Act III of Messidor, the story of which is a conflation of the novels La
Terre and Germinal. Called the "Ballet de la legende de l'or," it relates to a legend
to which reference is made in the text and hence, although highly unrealistic,
serves the plot as a "condensation" of its contents. Zola saw no contradiction in
employing "feerique" elements in a realistic drama because they represented the
very "real" realm of the imaginary and the "marvelous."45
Not all of Bruneau's procedures, however, were rooted in French operatic tra-
dition. From Wagner he learned that opera could break free of traditional forms
through the use of leitmotifs. Clearly Bruneau did not construe Wagner as had
the French Symbolists of the 1880s, who saw him as a "poet," the explorer of new
and subtle realms of sensations. In France, by the 1890s, there was a Wagner for
the Left and one for the Right; while the former dated back to the 1860s, the lat-
ter was the creation of d'Indy and Barres. As we saw in chapter 1, their view of
Wagner as the heroic liberator of collective instinct was felicitously consonant
with the political ideals of the Patrie Francaise. The Wagner of the Left had
evolved over several decades, from one associated with democratic collective "re-
lease" (under the Second Empire) to one linked to complete legibility, or "trans-
parent truth." Hence, for Bruneau, Wagner opened the way to a more concrete
and explicit statement and, through the use of leitmotifs, the possibility of mak-
ing all "visible," as the Naturalists had sought.46 Leitmotifs are thus omnipresent,
employed more consistently than in any French composer before, although used
more obviously and didactically than in Wagner and not in a "motivic web." As
we have noted, this was one of the points on which Zola's and Bruneau's operas
were denounced, from the time of the Dreyfus Affair, by anti-Dreyfusard writers
and critics. Other points concerned the mixture of naturalistic and conventional
elements, which caused constant and bewildering shifts in terms of levels of real-
ity in the works.
In Louise, Charpentier was able to resolve such illogical contrasts in style,
and thus in dramatic verisimilitude that had plagued the Zola-Bruneau operas.
He did this in part through his choice of subject—how individuals use and relate
to the socially defined and determining languages or discourses that surrounded
them. More specifically the opera concerns the distance between sincerity and
the conventions of expression of "high art," as well as the self-delusion that can
result from the appropriation of such a "foreign" language. This is the plight of
Charpentier's hero in the drama, Julien, with whom the composer identified as
someone who has begun to believe in the truth of his own florid rhetoric. Perhaps
in his student days, Charpentier, having discovered the "formulae" of the mas-
ters, just like his character Julien, had lost sight of both sincerity and truth.
Several scholars have noted the different levels of language employed in the
text of Louise: poetic language (rhymed verses, alliterations, and assonances), lit-
erary language (lyric prose), and "familiar" (colloquial) locutions. According to
RESPONSES TO THE POLITIClZATlON OF MUSIC 83
Manfred Kelkel, they are used to demonstrate the different social levels of the
characters: the poet julien, for example, expresses himself most often in literary
situations, in verse. Even when he employs more informal diction, it is always
"correct" in usage, corresponding with the cultural level that Julien represents.47
The same is true of the allegorical characters in Act III, such as the Pape des
Fous, who facetiously expresses himself in the "language of the Muses," or in
verse. Except in certain sections of Act III, the other characters from Montmartre
speak in popular or colloquial language—including the use of realistic street
cries. The exception is clearly Louise, who, although from a lower sociocultural
group, frequently expresses herself in the rhetorical manner of Julien.
This apparent inconsistency has been attributed to Charpentier's naivete and
to the rumor that, despite his disclaimers, he sought the advice of his literary
friends.48 Rather, we should see this as a calculated technique, one that takes us
to the core of the meaning of this "musical novel." For Louise is not only about
different social groups and their distinctive languages and thus about the conflict-
ing modes of consciousness that these locutions express; it is also about the cor-
ruption and illusion that ineluctably result from the appropriation of a language
that is inherently foreign and false. And here the tragic element of the opera dis-
cretely emerges: Julien not only deludes himself with his "poetry"—he deludes
and corrupts Louise.
In both text and music, Julien employs an idealistic, academic language, with
results that are consciously turgid, pretentious, and often also patently comic. The
vapid, vulgar quality characteristic of his poetic lines is appropriately mirrored in
his Leitmotifs, treated in a manner that is correspondingly crass (Ex. 2-3). As we
can see in the example at the opening of the opera, Julien's motive largely com-
prises intervallic leaps of the fourth and the third, the latter outlining a major triad.
Both rhythmically and intervallically it is as unsubtle and direct as Julien himself
and, as we soon see in the opera, as limited and repetitious. Charpentier's critics
later were to charge that Julien's motive never develops; we might add that, just like
Julien's character, it can only modulate. Its nature is harsh and intrusive, qualities
heightened by the garish orchestration: it is thus as incapable of responding to its
surroundings as Julien himself. As we see in Example 2-3, his musical line wanders
indulgently and obtrusively; being triadic, syllabic, and rhythmically square, it has
an empty, rhetorical ring.
Several contemporaries observed that the central conception of Louise, espe-
cially the ensembles, bears a strong resemblance to Die Meistersinger, which Char-
pentier saw five times in Bayreuth. But although both concern artistic convention
and the issue of "true" artistic expression, the distinctive feature of Louise is its
trenchant and omnipresent irony. This irony is highly personal and is articulated
most clearly in the atelier scene (sc. 2, second tableau of Act II) during Julien's
"Serenade." Here the poet becomes a curious synthesis of Walter and Beckmesser,
for the idealistic hero is controlled by conventions and completely consumed by il-
lusion. And it is also here that Julien briefly deludes the young girls in the atelier
who, in a manner that is poignantly ridiculous, appropriate his poetry and his lyri-
cism (see Ex. 2-4). Such lyricism not only is dramatically apt, but also, in a manner
recalling Tannhausei; helps provide the lyric interludes that are necessary for relief.
EXAMPLE 2-3 Act I scene 1, Gustave Charpentier, Louise. Paris: Heugel et cie., 1900.
By permission of the Lilly Library, Indiana University.
RESPONSES TO THE POLIT1C1ZATION OF MUSIC 85
EX. 2-3 (Cont.)
While the assimilation of Julien's mode of expression and illusions occurs

transiently and comically with the working girls, in the case of Louise it is a slow
and irreversible process. Like the girls in the atelier, but on a more extensive tem-
poral scale, she gradually abandons her more realistic declamation—and vision—
for Julien's poetic rhetoric. Indeed, in scene 1 of Act IV, her father comments with
horror, after hearing her impassioned declarations, "Ce n'est pas toi qui park par
ta bouche mechante . . . C'est une etrangere" (It isn't you who is speaking so
wretchedly from your mouth, it's a stranger). Louise's assimilation of Julien's lan-
guage and his sell-delusion, already incipient in the opening scene, culminates in
her aria "Depuis le jour": occurring at the beginning of Act III, it is the turning
EXAMPLE 2-4 Act II scene 2, Gustave Charpentier, Louise. Paris: Heugel et cie., 1900.
By permission of the Lilly Library Indiana University.
86
EX. 2-4 (Cont.)
87
EXAMPLE 2-5 Act III scene 1, Gustave Charpentier, Louise. Paris: Heugel et cie.,
1900. By permission of the Lilly Library, Indiana University.
RESPONSES TO THE POLITICIZATlON OF MUSIC 89
EX. 2-5 (Cont.)
point of the drama, and. contrary to common conceptions, its stylistic weakness
is clearly conscious and deliberate. Characterized by awkward accents and leaps,
both the intervallic structure and rhythms implicitly recall the omnipresent, in-
sidious influence of Julien (Ex. 2-5).
Louise's corruption continues in the love scene that follows her aria, one in
which she is completely consumed not only physically by her lover but by his
language (see Ex. 2-6). This consumption is mirrored in the rhythmic develop-
ment: a waltz rhythm subtly and gradually comes to dominate the scene as the
lyricism itself continually expands. And here a further borrowing of language
occurs, in particular of Wagnerian language, although less in the music than in
the text, which further emphasizes the stilted conventions of "high art." There
are continual references to "lumiere"; here, however, it is not to daylight but, sig-
nificantly, to the garish artificial illumination of the city. And the characters simi-
larly invoke a "love-death," but here we can see that it is merely profane as they
utter such explicit phrases as "mourir sous mes baisers."
It is significant that this inversion of Wagnerian meaning occurs just before a
more extensive and symbolic reversal—the fete (previously composed and inserted
into the opera) called "Le Couronnement de la Muse" (The Coronation
of the Muse), which here serves as the operatic spectacle. As in the operas of
Zola and Bruneau, it relives and yet relates to the drama, but in a "carnivalistic" in-
version of the kind of popular "fete" that the Republic had been encouraging. In
EXAMPLE 2-6 Act III scene 1, Gustave Charpentier, Louise. Paris: Heugel et cie.,
1900. By permission of the Lilly Library, Indiana University.
RESPONSES TO THE POLIT1CIZATION OF MUSIC 91
EX. 2-6 (Cont.)
these festivities, held on occasions like Bastille Day, spontaneous popular participa-
tion was common, as was pseudoclassical allegory and the symbolic use of a female
central figure. Here it was Marianne who stood for the Republic and the working
people of France; in the context of Charpentier's spectacle, she is the illusory "muse
of the people." Charpentier thus links his inversions of meaning in "high art" with
those of Republican ritual, which he apparently perceived as similarly false.49
A score of le Couronnement de la Muse had already been published in 1898, a
year after the first presentation of the work in Montmartre and the same year as
two more performances in Lille and in Paris.50 It was sold for the benefit of a
project entitled "1'Oeuvre des Muses," one of many attempts to bring theater to the
public, which would include both Charpentier's and Republican efforts. The "fete"
consists of four scenes, preceded by a march: (1) Le Ballet du Plaisir, (2) LAppari-
tion de la Beaute, (3) Le Couronnement de la Muse, and (4) La Souffrance Hu-
maine. The printed score explicitly defines the symbolism of the characters: the
"petits misereux," for example, symbolize "1'Avenir." It also explains the action, in
the manner of the following passage:
Durant les danses populaires sont survenus des groupes d'artistes. IIs apportent leurs
hommages a la Muse, fille du peuple, et glorifient en elle 1'inspiratrice de leurs oeu-
vres, elle enfin qui les guide vers la Beaute.
(During the popular dances, groups of artists appear. They bring their homage to the
muse, daughter of the people, and glorify in her the inspiration for their works, she
which guides them toward beauty.)
Charpentier, who crossed several cultures, was very well aware of how to
write a work that, on one level, could appeal to both the "people" and to the Re-
public, but he was also aware of how to make a far more trenchant statement
through the systematic use of reversals of normal social roles or expectations.
Here Bakhtin can once again illuminate Charpentier's technique, having coined
the term "carnivalization" to describe this reversal of conventional relations. For
carnival was traditionally associated with "social leveling," or "an equality of un-
equals"; the festival thus serves to release "the people from the imposed order of
daily life."x51 Such reversal is indeed what occurs at specific points in Charpen-
tier's "fete," as we can see in the text at the specific point where the beggars enter:
"Voici venir les divins gueux, aux longs cheveux, les jeunes dieux!" (Here come
the divine beggars with long hair, the young gods!) One meaning of this incon-
gruity may be that "la foule" that sings these lines is as insensitive and deluded as
Julien himself, as unable as he to see social reality. Charpentier appears to under-
score this interpretation in his elaboration at the bottom of the score:
Pour exprimer I'amere ironie des gaites humaines, impuissantes, helas, a nous faire
oublier I'eternelle misere, I'auteur a developpe en le raillant, le theme du 'Reve de
I'universel bonheur' des Impressions fausses.
(To express the bitter irony of human gaiety, unable, alas, to make us forget the eter-
nal misery, the author has developed, while making fun of, the theme of The Dream
of Universal Happiness' from Impressions fausses.)
The latter was a work that Charpentier had written in 1894-1895, inspired by Ver-
laine, and which he here, consistent with his preoccupations, mocks with irony.
In Louise, this ironic manipulation of language extends also to operatic con-
ventions, to which Charpentier continues to make reference in both the music
and the text. In the latter, he makes an incisive point about how distant such op-
eratic conventions were from the people and, indirectly, about the current Repub-
lican program (in which he himself participated), which sought to bring opera to
the "people." For Charpentier was actively involved in plans to establish an ex-
perimental "opera populaire," one that would attempt to make opera accessible
to the "humble" who were excluded from the Palais Gamier. But here again he
mocks himself, and at one point he has the "gamins" comment on the operas
they have seen and in which they obviously found no sense.
Throughout the work Charpentier pointedly invokes operatic conventions
when he wishes to demonstrate the insincerity or self-delusion of specific charac-

ters. For example, when Louise's mother (an unsympathetic figure) appears to
lure Louise home on the pretense of her father's illness, she does so in the guise of
the traditional messenger of death, and with an orchestration that recalls Wag-
ner's Erda. The one character who is spared in the opera, and whom many con-
temporaries found the most sympathetic, is Louise's father, the honest worker,
who is always sincere and direct. Although he sometimes resorts to an idiom, as
in the case of the lullaby to which he sings to Louise, it is guileless and part of his
culture, making him, for Charpentier, the positive model.
Musically, Wagnerian traits are evident, including the web of leitmotifs in the
later orchestral introductions and in the large symphonic sweep that characterizes
Act III; yet these are not the aspects of Wagner that are most central to the dramatic
point of Louise, for it is not the Wagner of the Ring that Charpentier is emulating
here—it is, rather, the composer of Die Meistersinger and Tannhauser. This is true
in the nature of the leitmotifs he employs; it is also evident is Wagner's way, within
the context of the drama, of incorporating separate numbers in the continual or-
chestral flow. Even more important, Charpentier has drawn from both operas (but
particularly from Tannhauser) the technique of conflating the subject of the work
(in the case of Die Meistersinger and Tannhauser singing contests, in the case of
Louise the use of the conventions of artistic expression) with the conventional
means of opera.52 In all these works, the composer thus overcomes illogical oper-
atic conventions through the choice of the very subject matter he employs in them;
moreover, Charpentier uses artistic and operatic conventions in the opera as the
languages or attributes of those characters who are controlled by or manipulate
conventional languages. This interaction of manners of expression, of discourse, is
the core of his musical novel, one about the way an artist can become deluded and
harm others through these false conventions; it is in precisely in this manner that
Charpentier arrives at a more complete operatic Naturalism, a more consistent aes-
thetic distance, than is found in the operas of Zola and Bruneau. And further in ac-
cordance with the Naturalist vision, he does not make a moral judgment; he offers
only a commentary (recalling Anarchist theories) concerning the corrupting
power of academic conventions. In his next opera, Julien, of 1913, as we shall see in
chapter 4, Charpentier follows the consequences of this delusion in the dissolution
of Julien and the concomitant fall of Louise.
The Politicized Reception of Louise

Few composers would have been displeased to have the premiere of their opera
occur within the context of a Universal Exposition, which brought a mammoth
potential audience.53 Charpentier was undoubtedly well aware of the suitability
of his work for the occasion, or for the ideological goals that we have discerned
lay behind the Exposition itself. It certainly praised the "common people," and
the characters' fascination with the city of Paris, although in the composer's mind
a tragedy, seemed good propaganda for the Republic and the city. Even more fe-
licitously, as we have seen, Charpentier's use of Parisian street cries accorded per-
fectly with the conception of French music that Bruneau now hoped to ensconce.
We have already seen Bruneau's attempt to slant interpretation of the work in

the context of his official report on the concerts presented at the Universal Exhi-
bition, but he expanded on its meaning even further in his book Musiques d'hier
et de demain, which, as we have noted, he published the year before the Rapport
appeared as a book. In the former he lavishes extensive praise on "Le Couron-
nement de la Muse," seeing it as the "ennoblement" of the official fete through
the beauty of "virile" music and feminine grace. For Bruneau, the work unites the
poetry of art, of work, and of rejoicing crowds, making it no less than a "reveil
heureux de I'esprit national" (the happy awakening of the national spirit). This
national spirit, of course, was one that was diametrically opposed to that which
was currently being stridently propounded by the clamorous anti-Dreyfusard
Right. According to Bruneau, it is indeed such art that the future requires—one
that brings happiness to those who suffer, ideas to those who produce, and glory
and beauty to those of imagination and contemplation.
These ideas were to be developed further by a more respected and exacting
scholar who would eventually become a major figure of the Republican musical
establishment, Maurice Emmanuel. His attempted propagandistic use of the
work, like that of Bruneau, distorted its meaning just as badly and also helped
prepare the nationalist reaction against it. Emmanuel's article "La Vie reelle en
musique" appeared in the Revue de Paris, a politically conservative although not
narrow-minded journal, in 1900.54 His task, for which he would later be re-
warded by the Republic, was formidable: to convince an inherently skeptical
readership of the legitimacy and value of Charpentier's work. His focus is thus on
the composer's attempt to avoid mysteries (in the medieval sense), legends (of
Germanic association), lies, and conventions, in order to define a "democratic"
music. Like Bruneau, he attempts to trace Charpentier's values back in French
history, but his focus here is on the decisive point of reference for Dreyfusards—
the French Revolution. Indeed, in the context of Charpentier's "fete," he draws
attention to the recent publication by the librarian of the Conservatoire, Constant
Pierre, Musique des fetes et ceremonies de la Revolution Francaise.55
Like the works of the Revolution, the message of Louise, according to Em-
manuel, is a moralizing one, concerning the destructive potential of mere sensual
pleasure. Yet he takes pains to legitimize the work further for his readers by
stressing its traditional and conventional elements—its classic harmonies and the
purity of its language, which place it within "les plus hautes traditions." Em-
manuel ends with an indictment of the conservative taste of the Academie des
Beaux-Arts, which, as we have seen, had been, on the whole, anti-Dreyfusard;
this reactionary group stolidly refused to recognize the opera, thus "infligeant un
dementi officiel au succes eclatant de I'ouvrage" (thus inflicting an official denial
of the stunning success of the work).56
Bruneau and Emmanuel were by no means the only critics associated with
the political Left who attempted to reduce the complex polyphony of Charpen-
tier's "novel" to Republican "myth." We find consistent support in journals and
from figures associated with the political Left, support based on principle or on
interpretations like those of Bruneau and Emmanuel. A review in Germinal, for
example, found the music to be stronger than the libretto (too highly influenced
RESPONSES TO THE POLITICIZAT1ON OF MUSIC 95
by Zola's novel Paris); yet it lauded the opera.57 For the Left, the main criterion
against which Charpentier's Louise was to be judged was whether it adhered to its
doctrinal conception of an authentic "art social": such an art was one that was
born from and placed at the service of collective life—meaning one that dealt
with the life of the city, the setting of the factory, the home, or the street. This was
indeed the period of a proliferation of works on "social art," which included
Lazare's L'Ecrivain et I'art social and George Sorel's La Valeur social de I'art.58
The original staging of the opera made it seem to conform to these ideals even
more, given the socially realistic costumes and the scenery it employed (see fig-
ures 2.1 and 2.2). The most prominent attempt to interpret the opera as conform-
ing to such conceptions was that of Camille Mauclair in his article "L'Artiste mod-
erne et son attitude sociologique." Charpentier himself was already familiar with
Mauclair's writing, having set several of his texts, including "Complainte" and
"Les Trois sorcieres," in the early 1890s.59
Here Mauclair, the former Dreyfusard and now a prominent Socialist writer,
presents the composer as a "fils du peuple" who reconciles Socialist beliefs with
the temperament of a great musician. Charpentier was not yet a Socialist, and, as
we have seen, despite the nature of his social projects he was not a Dreyfusard,
but rather, like Debussy, one who had signed the "Appel a I'Union." Mauclair, like
Bruneau, however, perceived the composer as contributing to the progressive
refinement of "l'ame populaire" by providing it with examples of taste and thus
leading it toward the "delicate and intellectual." Here again, we see the Drey-
fusard stress on the "intellectual," in addition to the Republican stress in the title
on a scientific, "sociological" vision. Yet, for Mauclair, the primary merit of Louise
was that it had finally and triumphantly brought the battles and desires of the
"humble" onto the prestigious operatic stage.60
FIGURE 2.1 The original production of Louise. By permission of the Lilly Library, In-
diana University.
FIGURE 2.2 The original production of Louise. By permission of the Lilly Library, In-
diana University.
Such rhetoric was eventually to cause a reaction among those who were not
sympathetic either to the aesthetic espoused or to the social and political vision
purportedly subtending these values. As we shall see later in this chapter, attacks
on the opera would crest by 1905, at the height of the battle concerning the so-
called Nationalistic reaction in art; even more immediately, fellow composers
such as the irascible Claude Debussy interpreted and criticized the work in the
light of the surrounding Leftist polemic. In a letter from Debussy to Pierre Louys
of February 5, 1900, it is clear that probably because of such commentary, De-
bussy had missed the work's deep irony:
He has taken the cries of Paris which are so delightfully human and picturesque and
like a rotten "Prix de Rome," he has turned them into sickly cantilena and harmonies
that, to be polite, we call parasitic. The sly dog! It's a thousand times more conven-
tional than Les Huguenots, of which the technique, although it may not appear so, is
the same. . . . And the man imagines he can express the soul of the poor! . . . It's
so sickly it is pitiful. Of course, M. Mendes discovers his Wagner in it and M. Bruneau
his Zola. And they call this a French work.61
Louys, an anti-Dreyfusard, would have appreciated the last remark, since nation-
alists at the time of the Dreyfus Affair had emphasized Zola's Italian ancestry.
But beyond the Dreyfusard discourse that positioned Louise at the pinnacle
of the French tradition, Debussy's negative opinions may also have been influ-
RESPONSES TO THE POLITCIZATION OF MUSIC 9?
enced by the interviews with Charpentier in the press. In these he stressed the so-
cial projects to which, as we shall soon see, he would turn immediately after the
opera's premiere, in part because of the way in which the work was read. His im-
mediate professional response was to take advantage of this misreading and to
promote his social goal through projects of a similarly polyvalent nature. The first
was the "Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson," a plan that he established in conjunction with
Parisian theater directors to distribute free tickets to young girls of the working
class and their families. The project ostensibly grew from Charpentier's widely
publicized distribution of free tickets to young Parisian seamstresses for the pre-
miere of Louise. This prompted the Dreyfusard Le Figaro to praise the composer's
"large" and "generous" theories, as opposed to those of the "artiste-aristocrate"
and the society snob. It goes on to present the work as triumphantly heralding no
less than "la conquete du drame lyrique par les idees philosophiques et sociales."
Moreover, the authors perceive Louise as the ultimate realization of Wagner's ideal
that the artist find inspiration in "la vie spontanee," as manifest in the people.62
Debussy, skeptical of such specious arguments, was also undoubtedly jealous
of the work's success, for some eighty performances the first year brought the the-
ater a handsome profit.63 Several years later, however, he was beginning to per-
ceive the composer's deep originality, observing in Gil Blas that "Charpentier's
music is entirely his own as far as fundamentals are concerned."64 But this more
penetrating analysis was a rare one in Charpentier's France, in which both adver-
saries as well as supporters projected an ideology onto the work.
THE "CONSERVATOIRE POPULAIRE DE MIMI PINSON"
Charpentier's reaction was, again, in the short term, pragmatic: like d'Indy, he
subsequently devoted his time to a socially prosletyzing school of music. But, like
his opera, his school could be construed on two very different levels or be seen to
serve two different social purposes, according to the perspective that one as-
sumed. Having crossed different cultural levels, Charpentier was well aware of
the diversity of ways in which cultural products and projects could be appropri-
ated, and he could thus play with and profit from this insight.
Sensitive to the political world and to the cultural projects now being fostered
not just by the Republic but by its adversaries on the Right, Charpentier devised
his own: situated ambiguously between Socialist and Republican visions of the
"people's" social and cultural needs, like his opera, it was a long-lived success. And
like d'Indy's Schola Cantorum, it was a concrete means to diffuse an ideological vi-
sion, and it simultaneously met a need or pragmatically filled in a gap. After the
popular success of Louise Charpentier perceived a lacuna in the Republican educa-
tional system and, indeed, in his own life and career; the triumph of the work, so
important and timely for the Republic, was to bring Charpentier, like Bruneau, a
series of premature official rewards. Made a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in
1900, he later became a Commandeur, and in 1902 he was elected to the Institut.
As we shall see in chapter 4, he became a victim of his own success—a success
based upon an ideological misreading—and was henceforth to produce very little.
His second opera, Julien, an artistic statement of disillusion, was only a "succes
d'estime" and thus subsequently little performed in France, but his multivalent
"fete," "The Coronation of the Muse," was, like Louise, to live on, being read on
only one of its levels and performed in cities throughout France.65
As we have noted, the decline in Charpentier's creativity immediately after
the success of Louise was made up for by his incipient project, called the "Oeuvre
de Mimi Pinson," and by a turn to musical journalism, which Charpentier saw as
a way to further his vision by other means. After the success of Louise, Charpen-
tier was asked to serve as a critic, undoubtedly through the efforts of his already
established colleague Alfred Bruneau. Not surprisingly, one of the works he
praised was Zola's and Bruneau's L'Ouragan, which elicited a personal letter of
thanks from Zola, on April 30, 1901. Like Bruneau again, Charpentier would
profit from association with Emile Zola, despite the fact that he had not politi-
cally declared himself a Dreyfusard. Here Zola, ostensibly with reference to their
common social interests, refers, in effect, simultaneously to their shared artistic
and political values:
C'est tres bon et tres doux, cette embrassade de deux freres d'armes qui combattent le
meme combat: celui de la verite et de la vie dans l'art. La victoire est certaine puisque
nos coeurs battent ensemble.66
(It is very good and sweet, this embrace of two brothers in arms who fight the same
battle: that of truth and of life in art. Victory is certain since our hearts beat together.)
Apparently these common values were soon applied to an artistic project in

which Zola and Charpentier participated but that proved to be abortive, for this
letter from Zola was written approximately five months after d'Indy made refer-
ence, as we have seen, in a letter to Guy Ropartz, to an institutional project of
Charpentier and Zola. Again, this was, as he phrased it, "le nouveau Conserva-
toire Dreyfusard sous le titre de 'College d'esthetique sincere' que Bruneau, Char-
pentier, Zola, et Bachelier installent a Montmartre"67 (The new Dreyfusard Con-
servatory under the title "The College of Sincere Aesthetics" that Bruneau,
Charpentier, Zola, and Bachelier are establishing in Montmartre). Only
ephemeral, it was one of many such plans for popular musical education in
which Charpentier was currently involved. For in the aftermath of the Dreyfus
Affair, popular education was a Republican priority, and various schemes to edu-
cate the "people" pullulated throughout France. As we shall see, music was inte-
grally involved in this larger project, perhaps in part because of the efforts of
d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum. Moreover, the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise was
currently developing or supporting a vast apparatus of institutions to inculcate its
values and ideas on several different educational levels. In response to this tactic,
as well as to the Affair, which had brought traditional cultural patterns into ques-
tion, the Republic was stressing that culture and learning could and should be
diffused to the masses.68 Now more than ever, it thus emphasized the spread of
education, as a means to produce good citizens, those who were ultimately capa-
ble of discerning "truth." But support for such ideas also came from other sectors,
particularly from Socialist intellectuals and leaders such as Jean Jaures. 69
This was the period of the flowering of the "Universites Populaires," a mas-
sive project of popular education, which included an introduction to the arts.
From this conceptual framework issued a whole series of musical projects, a con-
figuration of ideas and plans into which Charpentier's would perfectly fit. The
idea for the Universites Populaires was initially launched by a creative and ambi-
tious worker in the French printing industry. His project, which was designed to
bring intellectuals and militant workers together, began in October 1899 in the
faubourg Saint-Antoine. As a former worker now considered an "intellectual,"
Charpentier himself participated in the Universite Populaire du Faubourg Saint-
Antoine, serving as the vice president during the presidency of Anatole France.70
Accompanying this effort, particularly in the faubourg Saint-Antoine, was the de-
velopment of small theaters specifically designed to elevate and educate the
workers. Born of Socialist faith in the pedagogical potential of theater, they had
already begun to proliferate in the decade of the 1890s; indeed, one of Romain
Rolland's goals in his book Le Theatre du peuple was to draw attention to such ef-
forts that had not been endowed with official support.71
As we have noted, the government had considered the question of develop-
ing a "popular" opera within the larger context of widening access of the lower
classes to music.72 But a central problem here was determining the appropriate
kind of repertoire—one that would simultaneously elevate, instruct, and enter-
tain or "distract" the people. Another concern was the logistical issue of how to
make opera accessible to the workers, aside from the distribution of free tickets
on July 14. Despite this problem, the pressure to expand access to music, to the-
ater, and to opera was particularly great during the period when the Popular Uni-
versities flowered. As the "rapporteur" of the budget for the Beaux-Arts put it in
1901, "le public la est avide d'idees, il cherche au theatre la representation ou
I'explication de ses souffrances, de sa vie" (The audience there is avid for ideas, it
seeks in theater the representation or explication of its sufferings, of its life).
Hence the vigorous response of the Opera's director (between 1899 and 1906),
Pedro Gailhard, who proposed the establishment of a "theatre populaire."73 Gail-
hard was apparently sincere in his wish to provide the people with access to
opera, as we can see in his letter to the Ministre de I'Instruction Publique et des
Beaux-Arts et des Cultes on July 14, 1905. In it he complains that the audience
that attended free performances on the national holiday was indeed not that for
which such performances were originally intended; apparently, those who were
financially well-off had adopted the practice of paying the less privileged to stand
in line for them in order to obtain the free tickets. Gaillard overtly expressed his
outrage over the situation, going so far as to say that he found the practice to be
nothing short of "scandalous."74
Charpentier, probably for such reasons, had attempted to found a "people's
opera," to be subventioned by the city of Paris, although apparently without suc-
cess. He wrote to the Municipal Council of Paris, pointing out that the Opera and
the Opera Comique were essentially closed to the workers because of the limita-
tions of their income. But what he now desired was a theater that would create
the kind of "spectacle" that would help imbue French workers with both a vision
and hope: specifically, he envisioned
des fetes artistiques populaires, ou un plus grand nombre de spectateurs viberaient a

I'audition d'oeuvres grandioses ou seraient celebres le travail, la vie sociale, les aspira-
tions du peuple vers un avenir de justice et de bonte.
(popular artistic festivals, where a greater number of spectators would vibrate upon
hearing grandiose works in which work, social life, the aspirations of the people to-
wards a future of justice and goodness would be celebrated.)
It was for just such ideas that Charpentier would eventually be attacked on politi-
cal grounds during the First World War by the vociferous Action Francaise.75
Already wary of such a musical theater and its message at the turn of the cen-
tury, the government did support other efforts to help diffuse music to the lower
classes; it is within this context that we must attempt to understand the design of
Charpentier's project, as well as the larger social goal that he wished to achieve.
We must recall as well that the Schola offered free lectures and tuition for work-
ers, although from all accounts the turnout among this group was not great. The
goal of Republican projects, as at the Schola, was articulated in moral terms—an
emphasis that we have noted on the far Left as well as on the Right. This was true
of that project conceived in 1901 by a "chansonier" and entitled the "Oeuvre de
la Chanson Francaise," which was aimed at working-class women. Its purpose
was to provide free courses for working-class women and girls in which the stu-
dents would systematically be taught a new "melodie francaise" each week. Con-
ceived as a "moral project," it was intended to keep its innocent pupils away from
dangerous "mauvais spectacles," as well as from "frequentations malsaines." The
project, apparently successful, lasted for more than twenty years; in 1926 its lead-
ers felt justified in requesting an official subvention.76
This was not the only project with which Charpentier would be in dialogue, in
terms of its goal, as well as of the kind of art it diffused. Also founded in 1901, at a
moment of populist fervor and amid the cultural propaganda of the Right, was a
Societe de Vulgarisation Artistique. Entitled "L'Art Pour Tous," it was founded by
Louis Lumet, a pioneer in popular theater, and Edouard Massieux. It, too, would
eventually be supported by the Third Republic and incorporated into its network
of cultural institutions after the First World War. According to its original statutes,
the society's goal was the following: "Faire connaitre les richesses de nos collec-
tions publiques et privees, la beaute de nos musees et monuments, les decouvertes
de nos savants, la valeur de nos sites" (to make known the worth of our public and
private collections, the beauty of our museums and monuments, the discoveries of
our scholars, the value of our sites).77 Once again, the language and emphasis of
this statement recalls Bruneau's Rapport and its attempt to define the monuments
of French art in specifically Republican terms.
Its method was essentially the same as that of the contemporary Rightest
leagues such as the Patrie Francaise and the Action Frangaise, as well as the Insti-
tut Catholique: it would offer public lectures on French art and, when possible,
on the physical sites that it considered to illustrate that art most vividly, whether
in France or abroad. And, like institutions on the political Right, it also provided
evenings of art, literature, and music, as well as a lending library for further read-
ing. As we have seen, it had been the Right, in the period following the Dreyfus
RESPONSES TO THE POLITIC1ZATION OF MUSIC 101
Affair, that had established the utility of a discourse on art in further propagating
its ideological message.
Although Charpentier's ambitious cultural project, the "Oeuvre de Mimi Pin-
son," evinced an awareness of all these precedents, it developed from his unique
social vision. He knew well that high culture could be "appropriated" or used by
the people in order to meet their own specific needs, so different from those of the
bourgeoisie. For art served a very different kind of function in their lives and was
integrated into their experience in a highly distinctive way. His project was named
after a heroine of Alfred de Musset, a character who by this point had become em-
blematic of a young working-class woman, Mimi Pinson. As we have noted, the
initial project evolved from his widely publicized distribution of free tickets to
Parisian seamstresses and their families for the premiere of Louise. By 1901 it had
developed into a coherent social project on a much wider scale and involved sev-
eral different Parisian theaters. Already, Charpentier was exhibiting both the enter-
prise and the business acumen that would characterize his handling of the vast cul-
tural project he was to conceive. Here he succeeded in enlisting the participation of
Parisian theater directors, as well as directors of important business enterprises.78
Such an effort was not without precedent, for already in 1897 arguments
against the exclusivity of the Opera were being made within the Chamber of
Deputies. One project that in fact was proposed was to allocate 100,000 francs to
make free tickets available to the workers, using the model of the Socialist munic-
ipality of Lille.79 Charpentier, who had attended the Conservatory in Lille and re-
mained in close touch with the area, undoubtedly was well aware of the potential
of this significant precedent. Like d'Indy, he made no clear distinction between
his own professional musical projects and those that were ostensibly the products
of the contemporary political world. He learned from the Socialist Left, just as
d'Indy did from the nationalist Right, and both went on to develop unique cul-
tural syntheses of these two worlds.
From his original venture Charpentier began to develop an interlocking sys-
tem of projects grouped collectively under the rubric "L'Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson."
While some endured for almost three decades, others were never fully realized;
yet it is important to examine his total conception to understand his social vision.
For Charpentier's musical aesthetic and pedagogical goals were as completely in-
scribed in his social and subsequently political vision as were those of his neme-
sis, d'Indy. The "Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson," according to Charpentier's total con-
ception consisted of the following musical and social-service components:
1. Mimi Pinson au theatre: billets de theatre gratuits

2. Le Conservatoire Populaire de Mimi Pinson
3. La Chanson de Mimi Pinson: renovation des chants populaires
4. Les Concerts de Mimi Pinson
5. L'Image de Mimi Pinson: don de gravures et estampes artistiques
6. Le livre de Mimi Pinson: don de lectures instructives et distrayantes
7. Le Journal de Mimi Pinson
8. Les voyages de Mimi Pinson: voyages de vacances, excursions a prix
reduits
9. Offres et demandes d'emplois: les renseignements sont recus et donnes

aux cours du soir
10. Consultations medicales et judiciaires gratuites
11. La Maison de repos de Mimi Pinson
12. Le Theatre de Mimi Pinson80
Charpentier exhibited the same astuteness in explaining his goal in the

statutes of the project as he had in his culturally multivalent opera, for it too
could be variously construed. His rhetoric appealed to current Republican cul-
tural themes and to those of the Socialists, as well as of other groupings on the
political Left. As he put it:
Le but est d'associer en un meme et fraternel effort, pour leur relevement moral et in-
tellectuel, les ouvrieres et employees de magasins et ateliers parisiens. ... En meme
temps que par des lecons artistiques bien appropriees, I'Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson affine
le gout de ses adherents et leur montre le Beau, les detournant ainsi de tant de vulgar-
ites et de platitudes elle leur offre, par le jeu regulier de ses differentes sections, en-
couragements, distractions, aide materielle.81
(The goal is to bring together female workers and employees of Parisian stores and
workshops in the same fraternal effort for their moral and intellectual elevation. . . .
At the same time "L'Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson" refines the taste of its members and
shows them the beautiful by well-appropriated artistic lessons, thus turning them
away from the many vulgarities and platitudes, and offers them, by the regular inter-
play of its different sections, encouragements, distractions, and material aid.)
The emphasis on the importance of counteracting "vulgarities" and "plati-

tudes" may well refer not only to modern urban culture but to the propagandistic
efforts by the political Right. Here Charpentier offers female workers a cultural
exposure and association that had already long existed for their male class coun-
terparts in the "Orpheons" societies. But Charpentier goes even further, making
his "L'Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson" a comprehensive system of social aid and welfare
for French female workers. The concept that unites the project, and that recalls
Anarchist theory, as well as the moral of Louise, is the necessity of working-class
independence.
But again, as with the Schola, there was also a pragmatic aspect to his enter-
prise, for it filled a need simultaneously for those it attracted and for the com-
poser himself. It helped produce those performers needed in Charpentier's "open-
air spectacles," such as "The Coronation of the Muse," in which workers
themselves were to participate. Like Romain Rolland and Jules Michelet before
him, Charpentier believed that a spectacle for the people should, in fact, arise
from the people themselves. The Conservatoire drew young women from the
Parisian garment industry who learned to sing, to accompany voices on the harp
or piano, or to participate as dancers. It held classes twice a week, from 8 to
10 P.M., in classrooms made available to the conservatory by the city and state.
Charpentier established different sections of the school in workers' districts
RESPONSES TO THE POLITICIZAT1ON OF MUSIC 103
throughout Paris, with such a degree of success that many had to be turned away.
The project was not without its critics, however, including the dyspeptic Claude
Debussy, who commented acerbically on it in an article in Gil Blas in 1903:
For some time now there has been a widespread concern to develop in the hearts of
the people a taste for the arts in general and music in particular. ... I should men-
tion the Conservatoire de Mimi Pinson, where the young genius M. Gustave Charp-
entier preaches the ideas dear to his heart. In this way he instills the taste for freedom,
in life as well as in art in young girls whose likings would otherwise be limited by
. . . Paul Delmet . . . and Pierre Decaudelle. Now they know such names as Gluck
and A. Bruneau. . . . Instead of being impertinent bourgeoises they are fashioned
into nice young ladies.82
As we shall see in chapter 3, Debussy also brought a unique perspective to

the issue of "culture for the people" and took a considerable interest in it. For he,
too, crossed social levels, which resulted in a mixed identity and which helped
produce a complex art that could be construed in several ways. We shall shortly
examine the way in which Debussy's own art, like Charpentier's, was used for po-
litically propagandistic purposes and the unique nature of his response. But his
theory of how to bring art to the people was fundamentally different from Char-
pentier's, a difference that made it impossible for him to appreciate Charpentier's
scheme. Debussy did not advocate an independent workers' culture but advo-
cated instead the search for a common cultural thread that united the different
classes. What Debussy may have perceived was the pragmatic and egotistic ele-
ment in Charpentier's plan, his desire to train young women to participate in his
"popular spectacles." But another, more noble motivation might have been Char-
pentier's sense of falseness and guilt—of having abandoned his proper culture, a
preoccupation we saw in Louise. The development of this social project was thus
another way of resolving this tension and of helping to foster a culture that would
obviate a similar danger for others. Ironically, the success of Louise provided the
composer with an entree into the official world, which he used to devise a project
that both articulated and undermined its ideals. Only gradually would Charpen-
tier find a coherent political expression of the beliefs or inclinations he had dis-
covered through his art and through "Mimi Pinson."
POLITICIZATION IN REPERTOIRE CHOICES,

SUBVENTIONS, A N D JOURNALISM
Composers were not alone in their awareness of the: codes that penetrated the
French musical world or of the meanings that now adhered to works, to com-
posers, and to styles. It is also within this context that we may perhaps most fully
understand official institutional decisions in this period concerning the reper-
toire to be performed. In official institutions of music, the political could not
be separated from "professional" decisions, so firmly was this code of meaning
entrenched by 1905. And, given the Republic's defensive position, it is not sur-
prising that we may perceive a connection between works performed at the
Opera and the Republican musical discourse and canon.
A concern with presenting the great French operas of the past had already
arisen in the decade of the 1890s because of the increasing dominance of Wagner
at the Opera. But even earlier, in the 1870s, the Societe des Auteurs, Editeurs, et
Compositeurs de Musique expressed concern that not only French works of the
present but the French "classics"—Lully, Campra, and Rameau—were being
abandoned.83 After the Affair, with the new political nationalism of the anti-
Dreyfusard Right, this concern was to gain in importance, but accompanied by
concomitant issues: What works were indeed truly French? What was the French
"classic tradition" as it applied to music? And what were the proper aesthetic cri-
teria by which it should be defined?
At first, French Wagnerian composers were in an advantageous position since
they provided the answer to the question of how to respond to public taste while
promoting works by French composers. These included Chabrier (in 1899),
d'Indy (in 1903), Georges Hue (in 1901), Victorin Joncieres (in 1901), Erlanger,
and Bruneau.84 To these we may add those works with Wagnerian elements that
were premiered at the Opera Comique, particularly Charpentier's Louise, in 1900,
and Debussy's Pelleas, in 1902. Those selected for performance could all somehow
be construed as according with elements of the Republican theatrical aesthetic, as
articulated most fully by Bruneau. This even included Vincent d'Indy's L'Etranger,
in 1903, a work in which his Wagnerism is clearly attenuated and certain Verist
stylistic elements appear. While the work, for d'Indy, was an attempt to marry Sym-
bolism with a more modern settings, for the Opera it was opportunity to co-opt the
well-known but militant and troublesome composer. Hence the great care taken
with the production and the solicitous concern for the composer, which prompted
him to write a letter of thanks to the Opera's administration.85
But other works performed in this period could be construed within the
framework of the themes or points of emphasis characteristic of Dreyfusard dis-
course. The year 1900 saw the production not only of Louise at the Opera
Comique but also of Camille Erlanger's Le Juif Polonais; in 1904 Erlanger's opera
Le Fils de I'Etoile, to a libretto by the (Jewish) Dreyfusard Catulle Mendes, was
produced at the Opera. But another way to respond to the nationalist Right, as
well as to the Schola, was to revive works both had scorned as associated with the
"style italo-judaique." Meyerbeer's Le Prophete had brought financial profit at the
height of the Affair, in 1898, even surpassing that of Wagner's works. But there
was undoubtedly a symbolic element in the Opera's decision to perform his Les
Huguenots for the free performance of July 14, 1901. As the reader will recall,
most Protestants in France were Dreyfusards and identified their own religious
persecution with that which had plagued the Jews.86 There may well have been
symbolism, too, in the fact that on September 20, 1899, the Opera celebrated the
nomination of the Jewish composer and critic Ernest Reyer to the status of Grand
Officier de la Legion d'Honneur. Not only was his earlier opera Salammbo per-
formed at this point, but in January 1900, to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniver-
sary of the inauguration of the Palais Garnier, so was his opera Sigurd.87
RESPONSES TO THE POLITIClZATION OF MUSIC 105
Similarly revived in this period were the works of other composers in

Bruneau's canon, including those of the revolutionary period, which held such
symbolism for the Republic: Mehul's Joseph, for example, was performed in 1899,
the same year that Bruneau and Zola's Le Reve was presented in a free perfor-
mance. But composers revived now also included those who had been appropri-
ated by both the Left and the Right, within the framework of different discourses
and thus construed in different ways: this included Gluck, whom d'Indy per-
ceived as leading to Wagner, and whom his adversaries, on the other hand, con-
strued as inspiring the revolutionary rescue opera.
Hence in 1904, the Opera revived Gluck's Armide, which the "rapporteur" of
the budget of the Beaux-Arts justified in the following explicit terms: in mount-
ing Armide, he argued, the Opera "a fait revivre sur les programmes le nom d'un
mattre celebre qui en avait disparu depuis pres d'un siecle"88 (had revived on its
programs the name of a famous master who had disappeared from them for over
a century). Such rhetoric here would have been inconceivable without the chal-
lenge of the Schola Cantorum, to which the Republic was now responding in so
many subtle ways. For so successful had been the Schola in its subtle marriage of
ideology and professional innovation that the Republic had now to recognized or
co-opt most of its innovations and reforms. The Schola had, in effect, succeeded
in reversing the hierarchy of genres, and by 1904 the symphony was assuming
more symbolic importance than opera. This was to occur not only at the Conser-
vatoire, as we shall see in chapter 3, but also in official competitions and through
subventioned performance societies.
The Fondation Cressent, founded by a lawyer in 1869, had established an an-
nual competition in France for a large dramatic work: the prize was a sum of
money that allowed the winner to select the theater of his choice in Paris, in
which his work would be produced. But in 1904 the state introduced a funda-
mental change—one that completely ignored the founder's original intent. Given
the growing prestige of symphonic music, due largely to the efforts of the Schola
Cantorum, it changed the competition into one for a symphonic composition.89
The works ostensibly were to be judged not by the criteria instituted at the Schola
but by those associated with the Republic and its musical institutions; the jury
consisted largely of professors from the Conservatoire, members of the Academie,
and, eventually, previous winners of the prize. Significantly, the jury for the first
competition made a gesture toward conciliation by including d'Indy, along with
Faure, Gedalge, Hue, Bruneau, Widor, and Saint-Saens. As we might expect,
however, the first winner of the prize, Eugene Cools, was a student of Faure,
Widor, and Gedalge, thus setting a pattern for the future. 90
This was also the year that another important change was made, one that
further demonstrates the impact of the cultural discourse of both Right and Left.
There had long been debate over the subsidized "grands concerts," both because of
their social elitism (due to high ticket prices) and their limited repertoire. In the
Chamber of Deputies, those on the Left were going so far as to argue that the sub-
sidies should be canceled and given to organizations with a broader public. It was
within this context that the question of the performance of modern French works
once more became important, appealing to both "progressive" and nationalist
interests. The Colonne and Lamoureux Concerts were, from this point, required to
program three hours of new works by living French composers that had not been
performed before, as were other concert societies, including the Societe Nationale
and the Concerts Pasdeloup, along with the smaller Concerts Poulet.91
What Works Are Truly "French"?

It was, of course, a matter of performing both new and older French works, and
also as we have seen, of defining which were aesthetically "truly French." Re-
sponses to this highly charged issue were to influence the reception of both Char-
pentier's Louise and Debussy's enigmatic Pelleas et Melisande. While these two
complex works were indeed multivalent in their social implications, Debussy's,
with its more innovative musical language, was to prove more of a critical chal-
lenge: perplexingly inconsistent in style from the standpoint of the discourses of
both the Left and the Right, Debussy's work would pose problems of "classifica-
tion" that would be resolved only as the composer's style evolved. In chapter 4 we
shall trace this evolution, as well as the gradual appropriation of Debussy's music,
by the nationalist Right, most notably by the Ligue de I'Action Francaise.
Determining if a work composed by a French artist was culturally authenti-
cally "French" became a major preoccupation in the press by 1904. Certainly, the
discourse of the nationalist Right had been essential in highlighting this issue,
but the Republic again was soon to riposte with its own distinctive concerns and
criteria. As factions continued to fight for hegemony, or for their definition of
what was "French" and hence what should be promoted, the "enquete," or survey
of musicians, began to flourish. Born of the Affair, the survey was a means for
prominent figures to assume the stance of "intellectuals" or judges and authori-
ties on a wide range of contemporary matters.92 As France's relations with Ger-
many deteriorated, the concern with German cultural influence and the threat it
posed to French identity and French "genius" began to intensify. Accordingly, be-
tween 1902 and 1903, in a series of installments in the Mercure de France, Jacques
Morland launched an extensive "Enquete sur I'influence Allemande." As we
might expect, spokesmen for the nationalist Right seized the occasion to define a
series of fundamental oppositions between French and German cultural traits.93
In 1903 the Enquete turned to the volatile subject of music; it surveyed
major figures in the musical world, including representatives of opposing per-
spectives. The powerful rhetoric of the Right by now had made it impossible not
to agree with the importance of attenuating German influence in music and re-
turning to the French tradition, but several figures (including Bruneau and
d'Indy) qualified this assertion with the caveat that Germanic influence could be
acceptable if it was assimilated with a distinctively French spirit.94 As we have
seen, however, there was little agreement over what this spirit comprised, and
thus the opposing attitudes within the political culture continued to resonate.
This fact becomes inescapably clear in another "enquete" the following year
on the essential nature of the French tradition. This one appeared in the conserv-
ative Republican Revue bleue. Conducted by Paul Landormy, it returned again to
the essential question raised in Bruneau's 1900 Rapport, as well as in the vigorous
criticism of it: it asked specifically what should be considered the beginning of

this tradition, and not only whom it included but also who should be "expelled."
Specifically, it raised the question of whether a "Romantic" composer such as
Berlioz could be considered as legitimately belonging within the French tradi-
tion. There was already much disagreement over whether Romanticism was in-
herently "French," an issue that would become only more heated when the Ac-
tion Francaise attacked the movement.95
The survey, entitled "LEtat actuel de la musique francaise," is important for
understanding several different aspects of the contentious musical culture. Not
only do the attitudes and associations articulated further explain institutional de-
cisions, but also, as we shall see in chapter 4, they illuminate creative choices. In
this survey we may again observe the political associations that by now adhered
not just to styles and to genres but, in many cases, to specific composers; hence,
when inclining to emulate a past master, composers were often responding both
to a line of musical development and to the contemporary associations it carried.
Seeking to relate to a canon through specific stylistic choices in this context was
considered a political gesture, an entry into the politicized aesthetic debate.96
Landormy begins the "enquete" by stating his own opinions, and it is here
that his inclination toward "d'Indysme," or Scholisme, becomes immediately
clear. He argues that proponents of "grand art," or of a music that is serious, se-
vere, powerful, and profound, "do exist" in France, implying that this is not the
official mainstream. Specifically, he credits the Schola with having originally
launched the "cri de guerre" against the slavery of routine and that of conven-
tional established forms;97 but, Landormy continues, in order to maintain the
"health" and ensure the future of French art, it is essential to continue to regain
contact with sincere impressions and profound emotion. This, of course, was
Scholiste rhetoric that Landormy was here diffusing, in an implicit critique of the
official aesthetic and institutional system.
As one might expect, d'Indy's response centered on the concept of a "great"
French art, but here he particularly underlines the importance of recognizing
"national" qualities.98 As he states once again, the French tradition comprises a
series of great musicians who have fought for artistic sincerity as opposed to mere
fashion or convention. Implicit here, of course, given the standard Scholiste dis-
course, is that this tradition excludes all Jewish composers, as well as composers
associated with the Conservatoire; hence, the cornerstones of his canon, as we
have already seen, are specific pre-revolutionary French composers—in particu-
lar, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Couperin, and Rameau. And here d'Indy further
propagates his theories of how this tradition was rudely broken by the "Italian"
invasion in the nineteenth century but revived by the Societe Nationale.
On the basis of his criteria for distinguishing what is "French," d'Indy, al-
though not hostile to Romanticism in art, finds Berlioz to be extraneous, his tal-
ent essentially not musical but literary; moreover, according to d'Indy, Berlioz was
neither precise nor concise, and, since he was little interested in form, his music
does not manifest the "essential French traits." D'Indy further observes, more-
over, how easily the Germans have adopted Berlioz, which is, he argues, further
testimony to his essentially "un-French" nature. Frenchness is thus defined not
by birth but by cultural qualities that can be derailed by contact with the non-
French, thus delegitimizing an artist's entire oeuvre. Significantly, long before his
colleagues, d'Indy perceives French traits in Debussy, whom he places in this tra-
dition because of the similarity of his techniques with those of other "French"
composers. This, however, was a point that would be continually contested in
France and was only gradually resolved in the period before and during the First
World War. D'Indy's frame of reference is Pelleas, in which he stresses the vocal
style, one that, as we shall see in chapter 3, for many signified a return to French
declamation of the past."
As we might expect, Alfred Bruneau similarly used Landormy's "enquete" as
a forum in which to propagate further the ideas he developed in his Rapport. On
the question of Berlioz, Bruneau asserts precisely the opposite of d'Indy: that it is
he who "saved" French music from the Italians, and his influence is still being
felt. By "French" he again intends that secular tradition that began with Adam de
la Halle and continued, most prominently, with Rameau, Mehul, and, later,
Boieldieu; for, once more, French music is essentially simple, a music that issues
from the "heart," with a direct if not always profound expression that is neverthe-
less "generous" and "frank." And denying d'Indy's assertion that symphonic
music is by no means "un-French," he argues (like Debussy) that the French go
against their own nature in attempting to be symphonic composers.
Yet, Bruneau continues, the German influence did have positive effects, since
Wagner's music helped make dramatic music in France even more solid; however,
he qualifies this by asserting that Wagner has now ceased to "act on" the French,
who are in the process of liberating themselves and becoming more "national" in
their art. In this context, contrary to d'Indy, he finds Debussy to be problematic
since, while he embodies some traits that are purely French, he is completely
lacking in others: although his musical language is simple, he is outside the
"great tradition" because he cultivates a musical style that is too "specialized," or
unique and thus "exceptional." As we shall see in chapter 3, uniqueness and
originality were to be recognized as "French" only gradually, with the devel-
opment of the aesthetic position associated with the "Liberal Right," but for
Bruneau here, Debussy remains a "temperament d'exception" and thus either in-
capable or unworthy of founding a tenable "school" in France.100 He finds d'Indy
to the contrary, however, too surrounded by ardent disciples, observing that art is
not a matter of erudition—knowledge of the history of form cannot suffice.
Bruneau, while denying that he himself belongs to a "coterie," goes on to
point out the social and aesthetic values that he shares with Gustave Charpentier:
"sympathie pour la vie, pour le peuple, pour tout ce qui est moderne aussi et qui
par la nous touche de plus pres" (sympathy for life, for the people, and for all that
is modern and hence which touches us the most closely). These aesthetic, social,
and political values, so distant from the hierarchy and traditionalism of the Right,
according to Bruneau have inspired a similar music in himself and Charpentier:
they both seek an expression of nature, of the real, and of the immediate or spon-
taneous, and to illuminate a philosophical position, a love of humanity. Finally, in
response to the question of the true role of the artist, Bruneau once again refers to
the still controversial example of the writer Emile Zola: "C'est a lui, c'est a ses
oeuvres, c'est a son amitie, c'est a ma collaboration avec ce grand homme que je
dois d'etre tout ce que je suis"101 (It is to him, to his works, to his friendship, to
my collaboration with this great man that I owe all that I am). These were bold
words indeed at a time when Zola, even after his death, continued to be a princi-
pal target of animadversions by the nationalist Right.
If Bruneau's position was clearly inseparable from his politico-aesthetic
stance, the same continued to be true of his ideological "confrere" on the Left,
Romain Rolland. In this survey, the latter asserts his profound belief that a "true"
French music cannot exist until the "people" have become musical, which is con-
tingent on social conditions. Here, again, his views on the music of the present
and the past in France provide him with a forum to develop his ideas about fun-
damental social reform; as he points out, there was once a great French music—
in the sixteenth century—but it can be reborn only if certain essential social con-
ditions are changed: there must be a broader education in music, which is itself
contingent on a fundamental amelioration of the social conditions of the major-
ity. Anticipating the rhetoric of the Popular Front and the Communist Party three
decades later, he argues that a true national school can arise only if the appropri-
ate changes in society are made. Rolland here echoes the Socialist belief that the
conditions of a country are those of its art and that art is universal and not the
monopoly of any one nation.102
The other notable figure interviewed in the survey was Debussy himself,
who, by 1904, was espousing an increasingly consistent nationalist perspective.
But, as we shall see in chapter 4 when we trace his tortuous intellectual evolu-
tion, while his nationalist rhetoric grew increasingly orthodox, his musical tradi-
tionalism remained unique; the school that developed around him would further
develop his singular conception concerning the true qualities of French music
that contemporary composers should strive to recapture. This "third" way, which
we shall examine in chapter 3 and which argued that music should not uplift or
instruct but simply "give pleasure," would become the position of the Liberal
Right. In the period around 1905, however, the two major stances continued to
be those represented by the nationalist Right and their adversaries in both the Re-
public and on the Socialist Left. This opposition was exacerbated by political
events: in 1905 the tensions between the poles peaked with the definitive separa-
tion of church and state in France.103
The "Nationalist Reaction" and Music

The political tensions articulated by this event were refracted once more through
the medium of critical debates over the question of the authentic French tradi-
tion. Again, through these debates, we may clearly perceive the associations now
carried not only by particular composers but also by specific genres and musical
styles. This is especially true of the prominent controversy between two major
critics, both of whom, characteristically, crossed over several professional worlds:
these were Louis Laloy representing a broadly nationalist perspective, and the
writer Camille Mauclair, representing the coalition of those who opposed it.
Laloy led the charge with a series of lectures at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes
Sociales, which, as we have seen, attempted to represent the major aesthetic and
social positions. Delivered in March and April of 1905, the lectures were subse-
quently spread to a specifically musical audience through their publication in the
Mercure musical as "Le Drame musicale moderne."104 Through the eventual pub-
lication of such lectures, the Ecole was able both to further its intellectual aspira-
tions and to have an impact on the musical culture. We have already noted
Laloy's dissertation on music at the Sorbonne, as well as his initial approbation
for d'Indy and the innovations of the Schola Cantorum; other aspects of his back-
ground, however, are important for an understanding of his style and approach in
these articles along with his wide network of intellectual influence.
Laloy, who was to become the close friend and intellectual guide of Claude
Debussy, had originally been a student of Bergson at the Lycee Henri IV; he then
went on to become a pupil of the politically conservative medieval scholar Joseph
Bedier at the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieur.105 An Agrege de lettres in
1897, he subsequently studied Greek music and poetry and eventually published
articles in the scholarly Revue de philologie. This was the context of his meeting
both Jules Combarieu and Romain Rolland, who encouraged him, like them, to
write a thesis on music for a Doctorat-es-Lettres. To further his knowledge of
music, and since he was unqualified to enter the Conservatoire, Laloy enrolled
instead in the Schola Cantorum in 1899. Here he studied counterpoint with
Pierre de Breville and eventually went on to study composition with Vincent
d'Indy himself. In 1904 Laloy both defended his thesis on Greek music at the Sor-
bonne and met the critic and writer on music Jean Marnold at Debussy's home; as
we shall see in chapter 3, Laloy's connection with the composer had become in-
creasingly close since the premiere of Pelleas and the appearance of his perceptive
and highly complimentary article on it. With Jean Marnold, Laloy then went on
to found the new musical journal the Mercure musical, which promoted "ad-
vanced" aesthetic, if socially conservative, views.106
In his lectures at the Ecole and in the subsequent articles based on them,
Laloy ostensibly attempted to relate to the institution's goals and themes: one was
to place the development of the art within the broader context of larger historical
and intellectual developments, and from this perspective then to assess them crit-
ically. Although the stated subject of the articles is contemporary French opera,
an important theme informing them is that ideological movements are determin-
ing its current directions; Laloy's specific goal is to condemn one direction that he
sees as artistically and, more important, politically noxious—"French Verism," or
Naturalist opera.
Laloy begins by distinguishing a new generation of French operatic com-
posers, one that includes, most prominently, Gustave Charpentier, Alfred
Bruneau, Vincent d'Indy, and Claude Debussy. Like his contemporaries, he at-
tempts to define an increasing distance from Wagner in all, but particularly a
more critical appropriation of the composer's ideas and innovations: as opposed
to the generation of the 1880s, these composers embrace the social essence of
Wagner's relorm, while adapting his philosophical ideas to their more immediate
political concerns. More specifically, according to Laloy, for this generation,
which reached prominence around 1895, it is a question of how to achieve this
RESPONSES TO THE POLITIClZATlON OF MUSIC 111
simultaneously in text and in musical style; for, given the premises of Wagnerian
reform, the ideological stance expressed in the language of the dramatic text de-
termines the nature of the melodic line. In other words, for these composers,
Wagnerian reform essentially implies that music must mirror the words of the
text in the manner of a "faithful photograph." Hence, in the wake of Wagner,
ideological expression in opera inheres not only in the nature and premises of the
text but also in the musical style that translates it. We may here recall the similar
ideas that had been expressed in the context of the highly politicized reviews of
Alfred Bruneau's Rapport.
What Laloy sees emerging as a result of the Wagnerian reform is a conflict
between competing literary-musical styles and their concomitant ideological as-
sociations: he thus proceeds to examine the antagonists, making no pretense of
being objective, despite the scholarly or intellectual context of the original lec-
tures. Certain trends he decries as baneful in both their political and aesthetic di-
mensions, and for him, as for "Willy," the most dangerous is French Verist, or
"Naturalist," opera. It is in this discussion that we may most clearly perceive the
way in which a coherent political perspective was by this time identified with
specific stylistic traits.
Operatic Naturalism as a genre for Laloy is a vehicle of ideology that, like its
literary counterpart, edits reality and imposes a theory of representation: despite
its pretense of being objective, Naturalism is biased in what it depicts, for it is
based not only on a false social vision but also on misleading conventions of rep-
resentation. Nothing, Laloy trenchantly argues, is "less spontaneous, more
strained and pedantic that this art which pretends to be inspired directly from na-
ture."107 Laloy perceives both a selective social positivism and aesthetic inconsis-
tencies resulting from the propagandistic use to which Naturalist opera is being
put. First, as the vehicle for specific ideas, the texts that the Naturalists employ
are ponderously didactic, being illogically studded with crude and blatant sym-
bols. These he condemns as especially inappropriate in nonmythological texts
and, thus, as theoretically incongruous as the musical leitmotifs that are intended
to convey them. Such an argument, we may recall, had been introduced to attack
the operas of Zola and Bruneau soon after the publication of "J'Accuse."
Laloy also perceives political didacticism in the style of the language; he con-
siders Zola's operatic texts to be pedantic, turgid, and overblown in diction. The
music naturally reflects this trait, particularly that of Alfred Bruneau, still the arch
incarnation of the Dreyfusard Republic in the musical world. For Laloy, Bruneau's
vocal style translates the weaknesses of the text, being similarly turgid and de-
clamatory, and his musical dramaturgy is academicized Wagnerism. The leitmotifs,
which, again, Laloy finds to be incongruous with a Naturalist text, are as "imper-
sonal" as the ideas they represent and as uninspired as their Conservatoire treat-
ment. Significantly, "impersonal" and "uninspired" frequently appear as deroga-
tory terms in the political rhetoric used by the nationalist Right to characterize the
Republic's programs. Here Laloy thus condemns the Conservatoire and its peda-
gogy and, along with it, the Republic's valuation of an objective or scientific social
vision. He then goes on to equate operatic Naturalism with the political self-image
of the current Republican regime—that of "la democratic triomphante."
Predictably, Laloy proceeds to ascribe certain attitudes and values to ele-

ments of style, as generated by their associations with Naturalism and the dis-
course of the Conservatoire: the Naturalist style in opera, for him, is what Roland
Barthes termed an "ecriture," or "le langage litteraire transforme par sa destina-
tion sociale"108 (literary language transformed by its social end): even when pur-
porting to be objective, words become both descriptions and judgments, and lan-
guage itself becomes "le signe suffisant de 1'engagement." As we have seen, in
Naturalist opera this applies not just to the literary text but, through the control-
ling power of language, to the musical values that convey it: from the subject and
style of the text evolve certain kinds of musical themes, a manner of treating
them, a style of declamation, and, concomitantly stylistic inconsistencies.
Despite his prolonged castigation of Emile Zola and Alfred Bruneau, for
Laloy the prime exemplar of this "ecriture" is Charpentier. It is thus on the opera
Louise that Laloy most fully unleashes his critical wrath, for the symbolism it car-
ried by now existed powerfully, and on several levels. Certainly all the ideologi-
cally charged, enthusiastic reviews of the work at the time of its premiere played a
role in forming these symbolic associations. But, just as one ideological screen
obscured the work's message for the political Left, another rendered it equally
opaque for Laloy, who could not see the irony. For him, Louise is emblematic of
all that is dangerous in Naturalist opera—the fallaciousness of its political pre-
suppositions, the distortions of its language, and the weaknesses of its aesthetic.
According to the critic, Charpentier has undergone a pernicious politiciza-
tion, which is acting on a subconscious level, distorting his vision and poisoning
his creativity. Although he admits that Charpentier is a better composer than Al-
fred Bruneau, he too is a prisoner of the Conservatoire, practicing an "art du sec-
ond main": his musical inspiration is nourished by the rules, formulae, and
recipes "de 1'ecole," and as a librettist he similarly perceives the world through an
ideological veil. Certainly, Charpentier's involvement in the "Oeuvre de Mimi
Pinson" and the publicity about it in the press played a role in encouraging this
perception.
For Laloy, Charpentier is incapable of truly perceiving the misery he attempts
to depict, since "cheap political journals have ruined his judgment and perverted
his sensibility." Thus distorted by indoctrination, the composer is in perpetual il-
lusion of himself and the world: he believes in the sincerity of feelings that are, in
fact, only cold rhetoric. In sum, Charpentier the "Naturalist" is biased and is in-
capable of criticism or irony: the product of an insidious indoctrination, Louise is
hence a "musique batarde."109 The irony, of course, is that Laloy was so blind to
the composer's own deep irony, just as had been the critics who originally warmly
praised Charpentier's opera.
While it seems odd that these points were made at an originally "Dreyfusard"
institution, we must recall that both the far Left and the Right had been receptive
to the Schola's ideas: this may have accounted for the invitation to d'Indy to pre-
sent his works and for the subsequent "d'Indyste" influence that is evident in its
published lectures. Not all the original supporters of the Schola—including
Laloy—were to remain true to the institution as it grew more militant, however.
This group also included Camille Mauclair, who assumed the task of responding
RESPONSES TO THE POLITICIZATION OP MUSIC 113
to Laloy and defending Charpentier in an anonymous letter to the journal. Laloy,

discerning the author, acerbically rejoined by denouncing "un etat d'esprit . . .
frequent dans les sectes socialistes et anti-clericales" (a state of mind frequent in
socialist and anticlerical sects). Mauclair's views were widely known at this point,
since he was currently engaged in defending his conception of "1'art social"
against those who were launching a reaction against it.110
Mauclair, however, was Laloy's target for yet another reason: on January 15,
1905, he had published a politically provocative essay. Entitled "La Reaction Na-
tionaliste en art et I'importance de I'homme de lettres," it appeared in the impor-
tant and widely read journal the Revue mondiale.111 In this highly perceptive arti-
cle, Mauclair identified a cultural reaction that cut across several fields, the result
of the current mutual influence of politicians and artists in France. Here we may
observe not only a complete articulation of Mauclair's aesthetic but also the way
in which he related the reaction in music to those occurring in politics, literature,
and painting. He assumes the same task as his nemesis Laloy, as he attempts to
explain how artistic styles had by now developed specific political associations in
France and he thus addresses the issue of how a political message is encoded in
style, making an even more explicit reference to the role of the Dreyfus Affair.
Mauclair immediately centers on the questions of national identity and tradi-
tion, emphasizing the current obsessive search for "origins" in both politics and
art. Clearly, the nationalism he is addressing is not the simple French chauvinism
that we saw in Bruneau but the antiliberal, antiparliamentary movement that as-
serted the political primacy of indigenous values.112 He then goes on to explore
the psychological appeal of the conflicting positions and, like Laloy also does,
their role in the success of particular operas in France. And once more like Laloy,
Mauclair distinguishes the generation of the 1890s, but here he differentiates it
from that which was integrally affected by the war of 1870. This was not a gen-
eration characterized by the fear, hesitation, and depression experienced by their
elders in the wake of the devastating defeat at the hands of the Germans; rather, it
was one that, in search of renewal, helped transform French musical taste by con-
sciously turning away from Wagner and his overwhelming artistic influence.
Mauclair pointedly observes that this was the generation affected by the Drey-
fus Affair, and hence one that proceeded to divide itself into hostile aesthetic
camps. He perceives this division as also relating to preexisting aesthetic divisions
in the musical world, between proponents of what he terms "elitist" and "social"
art.113 Predictably, it is in the former group, those who became "anti-Dreyfusards,"
that he discerns the current marked reactionary movement in artistic taste: it was
they who abruptly repudiated their former fascination with non-French art and
turned almost obsessively to the criterion of the "purely French." Hence the former
Wagnerians of the early 1890s became clamorously anti-Wagnerian—staunch de-
fenders of French taste conceived in terms of "measure" or of the "classic."114
Mauclair, of course, includes Barres as an integral part of this group, as well
as Maurice Denis, in whom he traces the same ideological evolution; both had
moved from individualism to a reactionary aesthetic posture, Denis now praising
Ingres and denouncing French Romantics like Delacroix and Berlioz. As Mauclair
incisively notes, Denis and other nationalist "converts" henceforth excised the
11.4 THE BATTLE IS ESTABLISHED
Romantic movement as a whole from the canon of the "truly French"; this entire
group of artists, he argues, terrified by their earlier audacities—by their former
"violent originality"—was now in search of discipline, dogma, and a norm.115
But what concerns Mauclair is that the influence of this group has spread, and
now almost everywhere one finds this obsession with "origins," this "I'inquietude
d'etre Francais."
It is against the model of classicism, as confected and then propagated by the
nationalist Right, that Mauclair, recalling Alfred Bruneau's discourse, proposes
his own "French classicism." It is one not based on the academic models of the
Greeks and Romans but one that springs from indigenous sources and is thus
characterized by "frank realism":116 Mauclair had already elaborated this point
of view in 1903, in an article in the Revue bleue entitled "Le Classicism et
I'academisme," in which he claimed that, far from representing an authentic, in-
digenous French style, academicism was only the continuation of a bastardized
"Italo-German" style. "True" classicism, to the contrary, was entirely free of for-
eign art—an authentic French style that sprang from life and addressed current
social needs. Here he finds another means to promote those values he shares with
Bruneau, by claiming them to be indigenous and, simultaneously, inherently clas-
sic. Significantly, however, Mauclair makes it clear that he does not reject the "oc-
cidental ideal," a concept originally stressed by the Right but becoming increas-
ingly legitimate; yet this ideal, he continues, is one in which Roman academicism
does not belong, and one that certainly does not exclude France's gothic and "re-
alist" past.117
Mauclair then points out that French "reactionaries" are motivated by fear of
"deracinement," the product of the "detestable" influx of political nationalism
into art. Politicians and artists, he argues, share an absorption with "origins" and
"race" and, indeed, have a pernicious influence on each other.118 As we saw
when examining the tactics of the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise, as well as the Re-
publican cultural response, Mauclair was here indeed correct: political and artis-
tic worlds no longer had clear lines of demarcation but were united by common
influential figures as well as suffused with a similar discourse. Mauclair argues
that the point of view associated with the nationalist Right is increasingly wide-
spread within the general culture: "On park chaque jour davantage tout recem-
ment d'une certaine tradition mysterieuse qu'on aurait perdue et qu'il faudrait a
tout prix retrouver pour sauver I'art francais d'une imminente decadence"119 (Re-
cently, one speaks more and more every day of a certain mysterious tradition that
would have been lost and that should be found again at all costs in order to save
French art from immediate decadence).
Mauclair explicitly includes musicians in this reactionary spirit, an observa-
tion that now impels him to repudiate the Schola that he had once highly praised:
now he perceives that the school has strayed from its original and noble goal as a
result of its unfortunate "ingestion" of a narrow Catholic spirit. The renaissance
of religious music—the one that issued from the spirit of Franck—has all too eas-
ily become a rallying point for reactionary clericalism. 120 As we shall see in chap-
ter 3 when examining the Schola in this period, Mauclair's perception was not
only correct, but shared by many sectors of the musical world.
Mauclair goes even further: he associates the Schola with a political stance
and with a specific social group. He elaborates the canon of the "snobbish" public
that supports the Schola Cantorum, as well as that promoted by the pupils of
Cesar Franck: it includes not. just the religious works that the school originally
championed but now Rameau, Gluck, and Mozart have become part of it as well.
According to Mauclair, the beatification of these composers is ideological: it does
not issue from an admiration of their music but from a pertinacious "esprit retro-
grad." Moreover, he perceives this political reaction as being responsible for the
vogue of anti-Wagnerism that is increasingly so pervasive in France. This bias,
Mauclair finds, has worked to the detriment of the realist and social drama, espe-
cially the Wagnerian-inspired operas of Bruneau and Charpentier.121 It also ex-
plains the success of Pelleas—the result not of its inherent value but of the in-
creasingly prominent argument that it is fundamentally anti-Wagnerian, As we
shall see in chapter 3, by now there were attempts to construe Debussy within the
aesthetic of the Right, an appropriation to which he did not object. For he was in-
deed, as Mauclair argued, a part of the group that was obsessed with the question
of the return to origins and to the purity of "true" French art.
Mauclair astutely perceived that between 1900 and 1905 French music was
absorbed into the cultural politics of both the nationalists and their opponents.
This was due in large part to the initiative of two nationalist leagues that were
born of the Dreyfus Affair, especially the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise. Both
leagues had sought to penetrate fields of culture by employing subtle new
means—developing or co-opting critics and sponsoring lectures, publications,
and institutions; through such venues they helped make musical legitimacy a po-
litical issue and engendered a new, coherent, and compelling discourse about the
art. This discourse brought new issues and concepts into musical aesthetics and
criticism and even, as we have seen, into the adjacent domains of music history
and pedagogy. In bringing new criteria and questions to music, the cultural poli-
tics of the nationalist Right thus transformed the way in which French music of
the present and past was both evaluated and discussed. It made the question of
"how to be French" of central importance in musical aesthetics and, by exten-
sion, made the definition of a canon of great French works a political stake.
Within this discourse, political values were translated into aesthetic terms and
thus aesthetic oppositions implicitly assumed political meaning.
As we have seen, the effect of this phenomenon on French musical culture
was direct and eventually extended to almost all aspects of the musical world.
The new tactics of the political culture politicized the musical culture, in part
through the medium of figures from both worlds like Rolland, d'Indy, La Lauren-
cie, and Mauclair. The result was a distinctive musical culture, one that was di-
vided and wrought with. tensions that were simultaneously musical (or profes-
sional) and ideological (or political). Although common themes ran through this
culture, it was far from homogeneous, being characterized by deep dissensions
and bifurcations that would only become greater.
Institutional decisions concerning music were fundamentally affected by this
context, especially by the political meanings that now adhered to musical styles;
but so, too, were composers, who were forced either to face or to "negotiate" with
these discourses and the musical meanings that they helped spread. Yet com-
posers learned to use the new politicized institutions and organs available to
them, although sometimes with unwonted consequences for their reputations or
connotations; however, some willingly addressed the larger social and political is-
sues that were becoming of central importance to the new politicized musical dis-
course. For again, political and musical cultures were no longer clearly distinct
but were bound by a common web of figures, institutions, concepts, questions,
and issues.
II
THE BATTLE ESCAIATES
AND IS WON
1905-1914
3
Proliferating Factions, Issues,

and Skirmishes
Between 1905 and World War I France experienced the increasing politicization
of almost all fields of culture, together with a proliferation of ideological group-
ings and political factions. The year 1905 marked the ending of the resolutely
anticlerical Combes ministry, the legal separation of Church and state, and a new
collaboration of Radicals and Moderates in the government. With the evolution
of the political situation, existing groups shifted their cultural emphasis, while
others entered the dialogue, introducing new social goals and their own aesthetic
conceptions. Movements of both the Right and the Left quickly learned how to
use French culture to expand the political debate and to communicate their dis-
tinctive political visions; they also introduced new means of infiltrating various
cultural realms, which resulted in an even more thorough "occupation" of the
arts in France. As cultural ideologies, discourses, and tactics proliferated among
competing French political factions, so did musical ideologies, along with associ-
ated musical programs. Now the boundaries between political initiatives using
music and those belonging to the "professional world" grew vague, and fre-
quently French musicians crossed the lines.
Increasingly active was the Action Francaise, which helped intensify attacks
on the Conservatoire through its vociferous and escalating denunciation of Re-
publican educational institutions. We shall see in this chapter that the reforms
undertaken by Gabriel Faure, appointed the new director in 1905, may be more
119
120 THE BATTLE ESCALATES AND IS WON
fully illuminated within this context; these changes, forced on the inert institu-
tion through the exigencies of cultural politics, balanced innovations from the
Schola with symbolically Republican practices.
This chapter also examines the new Socialist initiatives in popular involve-
ment in the arts (including music), which followed upon the unification of the
French Socialist Party in 1905. It then turns to the formation of a group that
united dissidents of the far Right and Left, defining its own musical aesthetic
under the banner of French National Socialism. Far from subsiding, the politi-
cization that we saw in Part 1 grew even more strident, and the borders between
French musical and political cultures were further effaced. Significantly, this was
the period when journalists were preoccupied with the war of the compositional
"chapelles," which made frequent intertextual reference to issues in other politi-
cized cultural fields; even when partisan, critics perceived and analyzed the ideo-
logical and professional interests behind its "Debussyste" and "d'Indyste" camps,
born ultimately of the institutional war.
THE ACTION FRANCAISE AND MUSIC
In the period after 1905, the cultural "war" against the Republic was no longer
led by the deliquescent Ligue de la Patrie Francaise. Now the more ideologically
coherent and truculent Ligue de I'Action Francaise assumed command of the bat-
tle and marshaled its forces on all cultural fronts. (Although the Action Francaise
had been founded as a movement and a journal in 1899, it technically became a
league only in 1905.) Perhaps more than any political grouping in the period pre-
ceding the First World War, this league controlled the discourse of cultural poli-
tics in France: it determined the major issues, and it continued, through a variety
of means, to assign specific political meanings or connotations to style in the arts.
Just like the Patrie Francaise, it focused the political debate on culture as it con-
tinued to emphasize the theme of "authentic" French traditions and values. But it
was specifically to stress the importance of preserving the classical tradition in
France in its pristine form, free of foreign cultural or racial elements.
As has already been well established, the role of the militantly Royalist Ac-
tion Francaise in the ideological renewal of the Right in France was seminal and
profound. Despite its relatively small membership, the impact of the league was
unequivocally large because of the appeal of its message to the "wealthy, well-
born, right-thinking classes." But it appealed to other groups as well, for the
movement could be seen in substantially different ways: if it was the guardian of
tradition for the established, for the young it was revolutionary, promising a rup-
ture with Republican ideology. A principal theme of its founder and leader,
Charles Maurras, was that the Republican-led France of the present was, in fact,
not representative of the "true France." Here he made a crucial distinction be-
tween the postrevolutionary "pays legal" and the virtual or quintessential, indige-
nous "pays reel";1 the latter, for Maurras, comprised at once a national and a re-
gional culture, thus endowing everyone with two "patries," each commanding
loyalty in different ways: while one's roots -were in one's own regional "petite
PROLIFERATING FACTIONS, ISSUES, AND SKIRMISHES .1.21
pays," one nevertheless shared the common destiny and potential of the nation—
of "greater France." But this conception would eventually lead to an inner ten-
sion within the league between advocates of the authoritarian centralization of
the ancien regime and the protectors of regional culture and rights.2
Like the pioneering Ligue de la Patrie Francaise, the Action Francaise simi-
larly avoided the conventional or legitimate channels of political action in
France; for the latter, however, this did not exclude violence or a direct physical
intervention whenever this seemed an effective means to make an emphatic po-
litical point. In 1908 it formed the Camelots du Roi, a violent action group of
young men who sold the movement's newspaper and were deployed on specific
occasions. The year this bellicose youth group was founded, the league engaged
in clamorous protest against the symbolically aggressive Republican act of trans-
ferring Zola's ashes to the Pantheon. In the course of this tumultuous event, Al-
fred Dreyfus, still a target, was physically attacked and shot in the arm by a polit-
ically radical journalist. Although this was not an act that was specifically
planned by the Action Francaise, Maurras publicly and belligerently expressed
his approbation of it. Significantly, this was the period when the league was ac-
tively seeking supporters not only in the upper but also in the middle and the
working classes.3
The league's other means of avoiding the conventional channels of politi-
cal action in France was its focus on the symbolic domain of culture. For Maur-
ras, the political and cultural ideologies of the league were not simply of equal
importance—they were inherently inseparable, for they had sprung originally
from the very same source. Maurras attributed his original political perceptions
to his initial search for the basic principles of order that he believed inhered in all
great art. As he put it, "We had seen the ruins in the realm of thought and taste
before noticing the social, military, economic, and diplomatic damage that gener-
ally results from democracy."4 For Maurras, beauty was dependent on order, and
order on a hierarchy of values; hierarchy, in turn, depended on an authority to
"define and endorse it." Since order, hierarchy, and authority in politics ought to
arise from tradition, that which similarly followed this tradition in literature
would be most successful. In other words, Maurras supported "absolutist" judg-
ments in art, with the aesthetic model being, above all, seventeenth-century
France. He thus equated classicism and traditionalism in general with his attempt
to restore the French monarchical state that had originally produced such supe-
rior art.5 This also meant a stress on "purity," a concerted attempt to extirpate all
those cultural elements perceived as "foreign" or not inherently "French."
The cultural network of the league was powerful, like that of the Patrie
Francaise, and embraced influential institutions, as well as important publica-
tions. The latter included the overtly ideological L'Action francaise along with
more subtle and scholarly publications with an impressive intellectual veneer.
One example was the prestigious Revue critique des idees et des livres, edited pri-
marily by those either affiliated with or sympathetic to the Action Francaise.
Founded in 1908., it became, in effect, the equivalent for the Right of what the
Nouvelle revue francaise would be for the Left. Like other journals of its kind, it
sought to join in solidarity those holding common opinions, and in doing so it
became a new sort of laboratory of ideas. Another venue through which to de-
velop and diffuse Rightest doctrine subtly was the Institut d'Action Francaise,
modeled on precedents like the Institut Catholique and the Ecole des Hautes
Etudes Sociales. Founded in 1906, the Institut d'Action Francaise was directed by
Louis Dimier, a teacher of rhetoric and classical language at the Institut
Catholique. Its goal was to organize lectures to be given by the principal theoreti-
cians of the movement; many of these lectures were subsequently published.6
The year after the Institut opened, the ambitious young literary critic Pierre
Lasserre delivered a series of lectures that attacked the Romantic movement.7 As
we have seen, the question of whether Romanticism was inherently French was
already well established and had begun to penetrate the musical world. Lasserre,
not originally a supporter of the political Right, had passed the agregation in phi-
losophy and then went on to specialize in the field of literature. But his thesis, Lc
Romantisme francais: Essai sur la revolution dans les sentiments et dans les idees au
XIXe siecle, had been poorly received at the recently "Republicanized" Sorbonne.
A subsequent convert to the Action Francaise, Lasserre, in 1907, published a
book, Le Romantisme francais, based on his thesis and lectures.8
Lasserre's argument is important since it would not only become typical of
the Action Francaise but also would have wide resonance in France, affecting
several fields, including music. He presents the position of classical philosophers
who argued against the encouragement of all that agitates the vague, wild, and
confused aspects of human consciousness. He points out that, rather, they advo-
cated order and hierarchy in the physical faculties—an order that subordinated
feeling to intelligence, imagination to reason, and the spontaneous to the reflec-
tive. Romanticism, Lasserre asserts, indulges in precisely the opposite values and
thus, as an artistic movement, is inherently inimical to society. He then goes on
characteristically to claim that the Germans have ravaged French culture and
taste, and even the national political order, by their exportation of "the Romantic
model"; for Romanticism affirms the Utopian vision of a social order in which all,
instead of being by nature unequal, are identical in their capabilities. He con-
cludes that Romanticism inherently favors decomposition, not just in the realm
of thought and feeling but, by extension, in the political world.9
As a spokesman for the Action Francaise, Lasserre by no means ignored the
art of music; rather, like his nemesis, Mauclair, he crossed easily from literature to
the other arts. Indeed, the Action Francaise was to take a substantial interest in
music and to use it more overtly in its ideological campaign than had the Ligue
de la Patrie Francaise. For the Action Francaise also perceived that music could
be a major stake in the symbolic battle and that, being nonobjective, it could be
used to combat the Republic's stress on logic. Both leagues perceived that music
might be a prime anti-Dreyfusard symbol, since, like tradition itself, its meaning
was necessarily ineffable and intuited. And so in the period, when the political
Right was generating powerful new symbols, both leagues took advantage of the
fact that music, for the Republic, was a vulnerable field.10 For the Action
Francaise, music would continue to serve as a valuable weapon in the larger con-
testation over political myths, or central collective values. And so it developed a
musical aesthetic that was inseparable from its political discourse, employing the
PROLIFERATING FACTIONS, ISSUES, AND SKIRMISHES 123
same system of concepts, meanings, values, and historical references. And this
discourse was eventually to have a substantial influence in French musical cul-
ture in the period immediately preceding, during, and after the First World War.
The Action Francaise, with its stress on the "classical" and on French as op-
posed to German "modes of thought," would promote a different range of styles
than the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise. We may see this clearly in Pierre Lasserre's
attack on Wagner as articulated most fully, perhaps, in his polemical book, based
on his thesis, Des Romantiques a nous.11 The critic castigates Wagner as an arch
Romantic, unlike those writers associated with the Patrie Francaise, such as Mau-
rice Barres. Lasserre attacks the composer's disingenuousness and what he calls
his "impurity," by which he means what he perceives as Wagner's constant quest
for an "artificial complexity."12 Lasserre elaborated this idea further in L'Esprit de
la musique francaise, a book that was published during the war but that was still
consistent with his prewar beliefs. Here, in this widely quoted volume, he de-
nounces Wagner as "opulent" and "sumptuous," suggesting that the possibility
that Wagner's Jewish stepfather was his real father accounts for the "eclat orien-
tal" of his style.13 In Des Romantiques a nous Lasserre contrasts Wagner's style
with the "purity" of that of Faure. But his other positive model is the Russian
composer, Modest Moussorgsky. The latter, he argues, is strongly and positively
marked by his national character and, as all the Russian "Five," is both "naif" and
"raffine"; for this was a group whose members opened their hearts to the "songs"
of the Russian soil—here implying not an irrational act but rather the instinct
passed on by their "race." He then concludes that the same kind of music cannot
possibly spring from every soil since each people, each race, formed by tradition
and blood, has its own kind of "song." As he puts it metaphorically (and as Mau-
rras himself was similarly to do) such a "song" essentially is "le chant de leur
ame, de leur pensee, de leur reve."14
It was undoubtedly because of d'Indy's Wagnerism that, while the Action
Francaise, in general, approved of the Schola and its traditionalism, it was hesi-
tant about d'Indy himself. Articles in the Revue critique des idles et des livres fre-
quently reported on the Schola's activities and discussed its teaching, as codified
in d'Indy's Cows de composition musicale. Moreover, August Serieyx, who taught
at the Schola and prepared the manuscript from the notes he took as a student,
was a founding member of the journal. L'Action francaise did praise d'Indy for his
efforts on behalf of the French musical past, hailing him as the energetic defender
of the "true" national tradition in music.15
Other members of the Action Francaise expressed themselves stridently on
the subject of music and especially on the topical question of who was an authen-
tically "French" composer. They were thus once more to bring to prominence the
question that had already been raised initially by the Societe Nationale de
Musique Francaise: "How does one write 'truly' French music?" The question of
what was "French" in music was henceforth to become a prime concern and
again was to be generated from its political nexus to the entire musical culture.
This would affect not only the significances carried by styles, forms, and tech-
niques, as already defined at. the Schola, but the question of whom the French
canon should embrace.
The prominent nationalist writer Leon Daudet was among the first to per-
ceive the way in which Debussy's music could be construed within the move-
ment's doctrine. In his Salons et journaux, Daudet deftly sketches the composer's
distinctive appearance and manner and pronounces Pdleas a "chef-d'oeuvre," a
judgment based on nationalist criteria. Anticipating articles on the composer in
Action francaise during the war, he pronounces Debussy a "classic" in the tradi-
tion of prerevolutionary France.16 In chapter 4 we shall see the extent to which
this was true and to which Debussy was not only beguiled by such discourse con-
cerning his music but began to adopt it himself. For as the prestige of the move-
ment mounted with the prewar nationalistic tide, it was to the advantage of an
"independent" or nonofficial composer to have such support.
The Action Francaise not only encouraged its members to comment on
music but also, like d'Indy and the Patrie Francaise, actively approached sympa-
thetic musicians. This was demonstrably the case with Louis Bourgault-
Ducoudray, a composer and a professor of music history at the Paris Conserva-
toire. Originally an anti-Dreyfusard before it was clear which faction would win
in the period following the Affair he attempted to rehabilitate himself with the
Republic. In 1903 he published an article in the Revue musicale on the then
timely subject "L'Enseignement de chant dans les lycees."17 Here he sounds like
Bruneau, stressing the importance of expressing "real," living, palpitating feelings
in music and, indeed, in every genre. And, like Bruneau, he emphasizes models
that are drawn from the revolutionary period, which, in the orthodox Republican
manner, becomes a central point of reference.
It was in this period, he argues, that the state first attempted to exalt "real"
human feelings and therefore to follow the models of Greek antiquity and the
Protestant Reformation.18 He goes on, however, (like d'Indy) to regret that the
repertoire of the workers's choral societies, or "Orpheons," is so inferior to that of
the other social classes: performing music of the "third order," such societies are
made to stand apart, in essence disqualified from being a member of the recog-
nized musical world. He argues that if all the classes are truly to share common
feelings, their access to the one art that is capable of expressing them should be
essentially the same; for the goal of all great art, he concludes, is in essence fun-
damentally political, being, in short, to "faire 1'unite dans le coeur d'une nation"
(arrive at unity in the heart of a nation).19 As we shall see later in this chapter,
such ideas were soon to be realized in France as they were taken up and politi-
cally adapted by the nascent Syndicalist movement. Although this group would
seek to appropriate the patrimony and "capital" of great art, it would do so in a
distinctive manner that precluded a facile or orthodox assimilation.
Bourgault-Ducoudray's reference to Republican themes was apparently only a
tactic intended to redeem his good standing in the Republican institution that
employed him, for sometime probably between 1905 and his death in 1910, he
expressed political ideas of a far different ideological nature. In an undated letter
to an unidentified correspondent, apparently associated with the Action
Francaise, he speaks of a visit from someone whom the correspondent had sent
to see him.20 (Bourgault-Ducoudray was apparently writing this letter upon the
specific request of the visitor, who had served as an intermediary in the ex-
PROLIFERATING FACTIONS, ISSUES, AND SKIRMISHES ]2S
change.) The purpose of the visit was to solicit Bourgault-Ducoudray's opinion

concerning the planning of a "seance musicale et litteraire" for the benefit of the
Action Francaise. Bourgault-Ducoudray responded by pointing out the difficulty
of such an undertaking in a season already so crammed with so many competing
concerts in Paris. But he eventually proceeded to give his larger philosophical
opinion of the venture and of the general idea of using concerts as a means of dif-
fusing nationalist propaganda:
Selon moi, 1'Action Francaise, comme la Patrie Francaise, devrait chercher dans I'art
et particulierement dans 1'art musical moins un moyen de recette qu'un moyen de
propagande par le sentiment. Puisque 1'idee de patrie est battue . . . il importe de
formuler avec toute la puissance qu'il comporte les augures du sentiment national. Je
lisais dans le Gaulois cette definition du Nationalisme: le sentiment profond, les tradi-
tions, les reves, les energies de toute une race. Savez-vous 1'unique moyen de for-
muler cela? C'est la musique chorale. . . . Organisez un culte musical de la patrie et
de la tradition francaise et donnez une audition de musique patriotique au Trocadero.
. . . Vous affirmerez avec une puissance de rayonnement incomparable 1'idee que
nous servons.
(In my opinion, the Action Francaise, like the Patrie Francaise, should seek in art,
and particularly in musical art, less a means of revenue than a means of propaganda
through feeling. Since the idea of the homeland is beaten ... it is important to for-
mulate with all the power it carries, the auguries of national feeling. I read in the
Gaulois this definition of nationalism: the deep feeling, the traditions, the dreams, the
energies of a whole race. Do you know the only means to formulate this? It is choral
music. . . . Organize a musical worship of the homeland and of the French tradition
and give a concert of patriotic music at the Trocadero. . . . You will affirm with an
incomparable power of influence the idea that we serve.)
The Action Francaise was indeed to follow Bourgault-Ducoudray's advice

concerning the use of music as a means of propaganda for the cult of French tra-
dition and nationalist sentiment; however, it would not be in the specific manner
that he advocated, for choral societies were to remain more characteristic vehicles
for the political Left. The Action Francaise preferred, in the arts, to concentrate
on "high" culture and, in posing as its protectors, to profit from the symbolic le-
gitimacy it brought: eventually it would sponsor concerts—in the period follow-
ing the First World War, when patriotic concerts had become common—through
the Schola d'Action Francaise.21
Other influential figures in music were close to the league in this period, in-
cluding the powerful critic of the conservative Revue des deux mondes Camille Bel-
laigue: not only was he sympathetic to it, but also later, when the movement was
officially censured by the Pope, Bellaigue, a representative of the latter, acted as
an intermediary between the two. Like the league, he was anti-German, and par-
ticularly anti-Wagnerian, which led them both to animosity toward anyone who
exhibited Wagner's influence, including Cesar Franck.22
The themes of the Action Francaise were to penetrate the musical world,
but not simply through the medium of musicians and music critics who were
sympathetic with or close to the movement; as we shall shortly see, the Action
Francaise propounded its beliefs through the writings of cultural critics whose
themes were related to or drawn from the movement. The issues such critics tar-
geted would become omnipresent in musical discourse, which more or less
overtly made intertextual reference to them. We shall later examine two cases—
that of the "new" or reformed Sorbonne and that of the current cultural tenden-
cies of French youth.
F R E N C H SOCIALIST INITIATIVES IN MUSIC
The political Left, as well, would continue to influence the musical world, partic-
ularly as the Third Republic itself grew more moderate or centrist in nature.23
The role of the Left would increase after 1905 as a result of the unification of the
Socialist Party in France, which previously had been splintered into competing
Guesdist and Jauresist factions. From this point on until the war, the party's
percentage of the popular vote would continue to grow, until it finally emerged
as the second largest political group in the chamber. Like the Right, the Left
would develop or recruit individuals who moved with ease between the political-
musical world and the more narrowly professional world of music. It, too, would
sponsor concerts as well as musical organizations that eventually would them-
selves form a part of the more comprehensive musical culture in France.
As the Republic became more moderate and abandoned its earlier Dreyfusard
cultural rhetoric, it was the Socialists who now maintained it, along with its asso-
ciated musical ideals; for they continued to emphasize the role of education as a
means toward "liberation," of achieving a free, untrammeled social consciousness
and intelligence. They sought not only the establishment of balance among the
different human faculties—leading to a free and conscious choice—but the culti-
vation of true human fraternity.24 It is also important to note that after 1905
French Socialism was both ideologically anticapitalist and pronouncedly antina-
tionalist. Indeed, this was to throw the party's aesthetic into strong relief against
the rising tide of nationalist feeling and associated themes in the center as on the
Right.
In literature, French Socialists still charged the writer with the task of educa-
tion, or the depiction of social realities using the specific means of the art; their
leader, Jaures, however, was eventually to articulate a related theme—that French
workers possessed an inherent right to partake of the national cultural heritage.25
But we shall see that, as far as the "musical heritage" was concerned, the Socialist
movement went about defining and appropriating it in a unique manner. This
would be particularly true in the chauvinistic prewar period, when French Social-
ists implacably equated great works with both universal and humanistic values.26
Camille Mauclair remained active in both the literary and the musical
worlds, elaborating his earlier social themes in literary, political, and musical
journals.27 But he was not alone among the Socialists in mediating the worlds of
politics and music, for figures based primarily in the musical world would serve a
similar function. Such was the case with J.-G. Prod'homme, the music historian
and specialist on Gluck and the long-time librarian of the Paris Opera. Still an ar-
dent Wagnerian at a time of mounting anti-Wagnerism among those in musical
circles, Prodhomme contributed articles on music to the Revue Socialiste.28
The most lucid statement, however, of the Socialists' developing aesthetic po-
sition with regard to the art of music may be found in Jean Richard's journal, LEf-
fort. A bimonthly revue of literature and the arts, it was also concerned with
music, and it is here that we find echoes of the rhetoric of Romain Rolland and
Alfred Bruneau. Like other political journals, it was aware of the major questions
in the musical world and, like they, helped contribute further to their definition
and assumed a stance on them. On June 15, 1910, for example, it cited two sur-
veys on prominent questions—the first, in the Paris journal, on the "pretendu re-
naissance classique" and the second, in the Revue du temps present, on the subject
that was presently bifurcating the musical world in France—that of "De-
bussysme." Both surveys concerned preoccupations associated largely with the
political center and Right, and L'Effort thus perceived them as evidence of the cur-
rent decadence because of their distance from more central concerns.
Like other political perspectives that we shall examine, the journal also per-
ceived contemporary criticism of the arts as itself a sign of social and political
"disorder"; it denounced current criticism, presenting it as essentially an arroga-
tion of power by a "critical establishment" that was using the wrong criteria for
evaluation. In a supplement of June 1, 1910, it specifically derided critics through
a political analogy, describing them as "artistic parliamentarians," a class of the
"elected," but without "electors." Significantly, this was a period of antiparlia-
mentary feeling on the part not only of the extreme Right but also of the far Left,
which was disillusioned with the evolution of the Republic. The three years
under the leadership of the Radical premier Georges Clemenceau, from 1906 to
1909, had evoked increasing labor agitation, eventually peaking, in 1909, in the
mythic general strike, which Clemenceau suppressed without mercy by calling in
French military troops. Hence the notable hostility in the contemporary Socialist
press not only toward the government but also toward the parliamentary model,
although French Socialists, in general, supported the Republic.
In the June 1, 1910, supplement, the author accuses critics of perceiving
themselves as invested with the mission of interpreting the thought of the "mas-
ters" of the past for the incompetent or uncomprehending masses.29 As we have
seen, this indeed was occurring, not only in the Republican political press but
also in contemporary lectures and books on music associated with the far Right.
Those within the musical world, as we shall shortly see, were similarly to de-
nounce this propagandistic effort, while, at the same time, participating in it.
L'Effort had its own perspective on the central question of what kind of the-
ater would meet the needs of the masses and on current proposals concerning it.
In 1910, Jean Richard published a series of articles entitled "Le Theatre du peu-
ple: critique d'une utopie," in which he addressed these timely issues. In them, he
sounds very much like Claude Debussy several years earlier, as we shall see in
chapter 4 when we examine his position in this politicized debate; for Richard as-
serts that the bourgeoisie is still far from being able to furnish the people with the
kind of theater they truly need; he then questions whether the bourgeoisie can, in
fact, ever share the same intellectual representations, feelings, and emotions as
the other social group.
Richard's subsequent point relates very closely to that which we perceived as
one of the central messages of Gustave Charpentier's "roman musical," Louise:
the people's approach to language, both in terms of modes of construal and as
modalities of usage, is fundamentally different from that of the upper classes. A
word enters the vocabulary of the "people" because of its subtle etymological as-
sociations, and they construe it distinctively, immediately translating it into terms
of "movement" or action. Any theater for the people must necessarily take ac-
count of this basic fact and must possess, in addition, what Richard here terms an
"odeur de foule." Finally, it must relate to contemporary enthusiasms or feelings
in the manner of Romain Rolland's monumental work Le 14 juillet.30 Rolland re-
mained an important figure in mediating the perspectives and concerns of the po-
litical Left and the musical world before World War I.
As L'Effort maintained its own paradigm of effective "people's theater," like
Mauclair, it also held a conception of what authentic French classicism com-
prised. Ironically, its conception closely resembles that of Wagner; both are im-
plicitly based on a similar conception of ancient Greek theater: "Les epoques
qu'on appelle classiques sont celles ou I'unanimite ideale dans la nation contraint
les artistes a produire des oeuvres animees de cette foi, et toutes penetrees de ces
mythes puissants" (The epochs that one calls classic are those in which the ideal
unanimity in a nation constrains artists to produce works that are animated with
this faith and penetrated by these powerful myths).31 Certainly, the French far
Left, after the compelling rhetoric of Georges Sorel, was as aware of the power of
the myth in unifying the nation as the far Right. But it was the basis of this unity
in the nation, or the content of its centrifugal myth, that remained a fundamental
point of contestation between the Left and the Right. Classicism was no longer
the question, nor was it exclusively the property of the French nationalist Right:
at issue, rather, was the values it embodied and the content of its myth.
The question of a "motivating" myth thus became a central concern of the
journal, and particularly Sorel's myth of "I'ame moderne" as articulated in his
Reflexions sur la violence. On June 15, 1910, L'Effort addressed the Sorelian myth,
agreeing with Sorel that the current motivating myth of the people was neither
that of the Republic nor that of equality and liberty but, rather, that of "la guerre
sociale," a myth that would eventually triumph and, in turn, inspire great art as
well.32 As we shall shortly see, another aspect of the Sorelian myth was indeed to
attract the attention and collaboration of a composer—Vincent d'Indy. D'Indy
was not attracted by Sorel's belief in the inevitability of social "war" but by his
faith in the fundamental, irrational, unifying power possessed by the nation.
L'Effort had little question concerning the qualities that constitute great art,
and its ideas recall those that Mauclair originally perceived in the Schola Canto-
rum: "Pour etre forte et grande, I'oeuvre doit enfin etre ecrite conscieusement,
avec probite" (To be strong and great, a work should be written conscientiously,
with probity). It goes on to specify that by "probity" it means sincerity of artistic
feeling, as well as, on the level of execution, sincerity or integrity of craft.33 Once
again, it is no coincidence that some of the ideas we find in the journal seem to
recall those of d'Indy and the Schola at the turn of the century; for, as we have
noted, it was at that point that the two political extremes on the Right and the
Left had joined forces against the mediocrity of the Republican center. This
would continue when d'Indy and other figures on the French nationalist Right at-
tempted, if briefly, to join their forces with those on the Socialist Left.
Given the fact that many of the journal's social ideas relate to those of the
"Dreyfusard Republic," it is not surprising that this was also true of artistic taste.
Both its prophetic populist ideas on theater and its musical interpretation and
taste resembled those of Romain Rolland. For example, an article of Novem-
ber 10, 1910, entitled "Un Poete" is a tribute to Beethoven that immediately re-
calls the approach of Romain Rolland: it praises many of the very same qualities
that Rolland had perceived, and its rhetoric recalls that of both the writer and Al-
fred Bruneau: "S'il ose I'y voir, il y trouvera tout: le style, la composition, la
grandeur sans emphase, la gaite sans fadeur, le pathetique sans effet, la variete la
plus prodigieuse et la source de 1'emotion" (If he dares to see it, he will find it all:
style, composition, grandeur without bombast, gaiety without tastelessness, the
pathetic without effect, the most prodigious variety and the source of emotion).34
Grandeur, gaiety, strong emotions, variety—as we have seen, these were pre-
cisely the values that Bruneau had initially promoted as essentially "French." In
addition, the journal points out the absence in Beethoven of anything that in-
hibits the directness of the statement, or of "La vie, la force, et la nature," once
again recalling Bruneau. And even more explicitly, another article, of March
1912, echoes Bruneau's Rapport of 1900 and the "credo" of his Dreyfusard aes-
thetic. Its subject is the utility of art and thus the necessity of its closeness to life,
art being, in essence, not a metaphysical, but a "human" manifestation.35 Like
Bruneau, it asserts that not only popular but also high art could be close to life,
while still elevating and educating, each according to its own distinct conception.
The Left in France continued to stress the necessity of effacing the boundaries be-
tween art and life, perceiving the two as essentially lying within a continuum.
In the period before the war, the Socialist daily E'Humanite propounded its
own specific views of what kind of culture to promote for the people. It was
interested in literature, of course—it serialized the works of Murger and de
Maupassant—but it also exhibited a sustained and substantial interest in both
theater and music. On January 16, 1913, it reported on a new kind of venture un-
dertaken by the theater of the soon-to-be director of the Opera—Jacques
Rouche's Theatre des Arts. The journal praised its "concerts illustres," with musi-
cians in period costumes acting out concerts from the historical past, while at the
same time performing the music. Recalling those of the Schola, each of the con-
certs served a pedagogic end by not only depicting the history of music, but sug-
gesting links between present and past. One concert on which the journal re-
ported attempted to exemplify a specific conception of the "true" French canon
by juxtaposing excerpts from works of Lully and Faure.36 L'Humanite approved of
this venture, for it attempted not just to assimilate the people to the culture of the
bourgeoisie but to educate them in the national patrimony, imbuing them with
awareness and, thus, power.
The journal, however, was not exclusively interested in increasing access to

high art: it also promoted programs of more popular art, recalling those born im-
mediately after the Affair. This included the "Chansons du Peuple," which per-
formed poetry and music from different regions of France, thus appropriating
French folklore for the workers, as opposed to its association with peasants by
the political Right.37 Held at the Maison Commune du 18eme goguette familiale,
it was to profit what was revealingly called the "Muse revolutionnaire du 18eme."
Recalling Charpentier's "Muse du Peuple," the journal announced that the "Ca-
marades de la Muse" was to present what the journal referred to as a "grand con-
cert de solidarite en faveur d'un camarade."
The Left, like the political Right (and specifically sympathizers like Bourgault-
Ducoudray), was thus planning concerts instinct with simultaneously pragmatic
and political ends; again recalling the projects of Charpentier, the journal also an-
nounced a "concert vocal" to be given by the Chambre Syndicale des Coiffeurs de
Paris, performed by "veritables artistes de tous genres."38 For the far Left, the idea
of the concert was still informed by nineteenth-century traditions that we may
trace to the influence of workers' clubs and the Utopian Socialist movement: it still
carried not just the association of fraternity and mutual aid but, in addition, the
Fourrierist metaphor of social harmony and cooperation. During the First World
War this model, along with that of the "patriotic" Right, would enter the main-
stream of French musical culture, affecting it in vital ways.39 But already, through
mediating figures such as Gustave Charpentier, the political-musical and profes-
sional musical cultures were beginning to fuse.
The "Fetes du People"

Another venture initiated now, and one with a distinctly political goal, would also
eventually be absorbed into the Third Republic's musical culture. This was the
Fetes du Peuple, which, like the long-lived L'Art Pour Tous, sought to propagate the
love of great works of art while simultaneously "aiding humanity." Associated with
the syndicalist movement and organized originally by the working class, its ul-
timate goal, like that of Socialism, was "I'affranchissement des hommes." Its meta-
phorical "heart," a chorale, was to provide a center not only for leisure and friend-
ship, but also, through the agency of music, for both culture and education.40
Like the Schola, the Fetes du Peuple is an apt illustration of the fluid move-
ment throughout this period between properly musical and political cultures: we
may trace the ideas behind it not only to intermediary figures such as Romain
Rolland but also to a young composer and protege of Gustave Charpentier. The
organization was born shortly before the outbreak of the First World War—in the
spring of 1914—from an idea of the composer Albert Doyen. Although formally a
student of Charles-Marie Widor at the Conservatoire, Doyen nevertheless consid-
ered his real masters to be Bruneau and Charpentier. Their examples and their
rhetoric were central to his project, which was eventually to have a substantial
resonance in both the political and musical cultures.
Doyen had assisted Charpentier in the "Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson," and in
1907 he met Romain Rolland in the circle of the Revue d'art dramatique. 41 But he
came to public attention when his "fete" Le Triomphe de la Liberte won the presti-
gious Concours de la Ville de Paris in 1913. Recalling Charpentier's earlier "fete
populaire," it is dedicated to the "people of Paris" and is based on the "fete" and
the text that concludes Rolland's play Le 14 juillet. For Doyen it became "la fete
du peuple d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, la fete du peuple eternel" (the celebration of
the people of yesterday and today, the celebration of the eternal people), who are
represented in the work by the continual presence of the "foule anonyme." In
order to suggest the crowd, he even included a line in the score for "les clameurs,
les murmures, les grondements, les soufflets et les cris" (clamors, murmurs, rum-
blings, whistles, and cries).42
It was fortunate for Doyen that Charpentier, now a member of the Institut,
served between 1910 and 1912 on the jury of the competition that was sponsored
by the city. Other members were drawn not only from the political world but
from the Academie, as well as from the official musical world: among them were
the Prefet de la Seine (the president), a Conseiller Municipal (vice president), Al-
fred Bruneau, and Albert Carre, director of the Opera Comique. Fortunately
again, Charpentier was the "rapporteur" for the group when Doyen won the
prize, and in his report we may witness the rhetoric with which he supported the
work. Charpentier begins by noting that pieces of many genres were submitted,
including a "poeme symphonique avec soli et choeurs, legendes, actions popu-
laires, comedies lyriques, drames, et melodrames."43 Clearly, by now, the influ-
ence of such figures as Rolland and d'Indy, and the opposing hortatory genres
that they established, were firmly established in the next generation.
Despite the range of the entries, however, according to Charpentier, it was
one work above all that seemed best to realize the idea behind the "concours":
this was Doyen's Le Triomphe de la Liberte, a work conceived for execution "en
plein air" and integrally incorporating both professional and nonprofessional per-
formers. After lauding its powerful musicality, its vast proportions, and its general
"enthusiasm," Charpentier goes on (recalling Bruneau) to draw attention to its
realistic elements: "En verite, son oeuvre est . . . bizarre, impulsive, indisci-
plinee, tourmentee, bariolee comme la foule d'emeute et de fete qu'elle veut
representer, enfantine et brutale comme 1'ame d'un peuple qui fait de I'histoire"
(In truth, his work is ... bizarre, impulsive, undisciplined, tormented, motley
like the crowd of a riot or a celebration that it wishes to represent, childish and
brutal like the soul of a people who make history).44 Charpentier, a master of
multiple meanings, as we have seen, here, in describing the work, was pointing
out not only its populist but also its Romantic traits: at a time when Romanticism
and all that it represented politically and socially was under attack by the Right,
he seized the occasion to support it through his encomium of the "fete."
As Charpentier perceived, Doyen was following in his footsteps, having de-
veloped certain political implications of his original conception, and was the per-
fect person to found such a venture. Legitimized by the professional musical
world, he was inspired not only by Charpentier's goals but also, as we have noted,
by those of another mediating figure, Romain Rolland. Doyen's ideas concerning
popular theater were prepared by those of Rolland, specifically his model as artic-
ulated in his earlier Theatre du peuple. At the same time, they were characterized
by an original appropriation of other ideas that had previously been associated

with d'Indy and the Schola Cantorum. While the "fetes" he proposed would be
"new," they could be based on traditional legends, as well as on medieval myster-
ies (recalling d'Indy's La Legende de Saint Christophe). As Doyen put it, they
would resemble "les mysteres qui rassemblaient le peuple de la ville sur les parvis
des Cathedrales, puisaient dans les Evangiles, La Legende doree, la vie des Saints"
(the mysteries that gathered the people of the city in the square in front of the
Cathedral, drawing from the Gospels, the Legende doree, the lives of the saints).
Doyen's ideas were drawn from a fund that was similar to those employed by
d'Indy himself—one that included both Wagner and the medieval past. But here
they are employed in the service of a distinctly different social vision: Doyen,
again like his mentor, was adept at both assimilation and "appropriation." Al-
though d'Indy's goal was submission to an ineffable authority, Doyen's was rather
a collective "liberation": the new "fetes" were to be vehicles of ideas that were
neither religious nor national but, rather, in the tradition of the political Left, es-
sentially universal and "human." Doyen, like d'Indy and Wagner, sought to create
a social ritual centered on music, although their ritual models were substantially
different in nature. While d'Indy's paradigm derived from a conservative concep-
tion of ancient Greek drama, Doyen's fused a more radical interpretation of such
drama with the example of the revolutionary "fete."
Doyen's "fetes" were to be characterized by the abandonment of individual
interests or intrigues, being synoptic or "synthetic," resembling a fresco as op-
posed to a painting. As in Rolland's model, his "fetes" were to be of vast propor-
tions—monumental works, destined for the "crowd" and requiring its participa-
tion. The result was compositions such as Doyen's Le Chant du Midi, which
employs characters that have no names and that are identified only as, for exam-
ple, "trois jeunes veuves" or "la mere douloureuse." Concomitantly, the visual
focus is on simple, decorative lines, but, as in Louise, the costumes employed are
distinctly of the present day, and, again as in portions of Louise, the action is to be
articulated in a Wagnerian manner, or in other words, by the orchestra, "tout in-
terieur et symphonique." But the principal actor is always "the people," which for
Doyen, as for Romain Rolland, was unquestionably the very fundament of any
true "popular art."45 Significantly, such ideas, drawn from stalwarts of the musi-
cal world like Doyen and Rolland, here enter the cultural politics of the French
Left. Eventually, however, they would migrate back to the domain of professional
musicians, as would occur most notably two decades later, during the Popular
Front.46
The first of the "Fetes du Peuple" took place on April 4, 1914; organized by
the Bataille Syndicaliste, it drew three thousand spectators to the Salle Wagram.
There they heard in juxtaposition readings from famous poems and performances
of musical works of the past and present (some with new words), which were to
be illuminated by such propinquity or substitution. As the Action Francaise had
already observed, a "soiree musicale et litteraire" could be a powerful means of
propaganda, combining the agency of ideas and feelings. Here the audience was
presented with readings from poems of Whitman and Verhaeren, along with the
"Hymne a I'universelle humanite," an adaptation of the finale of Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony to a poem of Maurice Boucher; it also heard Mehul's Hymne a

la Raison, from the revolutionary period, the final scene of Die Meistersinger,
Gustave Charpentier's Ronde des Compagnons (to a poem of Verlaine), Alfred
Bruneau's Les Mauvaises fenetres (to a poem of Catulle Mendes), and Albert
Doyen's Chant Triomphal (to a poem of Victor Hugo). Other programs included
readings from Maupassant and Valles, a Beethoven trio, a fragment of Doyen's Le
Triomphe de la Liberte, and the Hymne a la paix, based on the largo from Handel's
Xerces.47
Symphonic and operatic works were thus to be construed in a distinctive
way, becoming unique enunciations when performed in this specific manner and
context. Specifically, by supplying new texts to works that already belonged to
the national patrimony, Doyen was developing a way to appropriate them in the
workers' interests. Although the Right had led the way in the political appro-
priation of high culture and particularly music, now the Left followed suit, re-
sponding politically in kind: on the Left as on the Right, commentary or texts
surrounding the works performed helped shape the meaning or cultural connota-
tions they carried for a targeted audience. Both Right and Left used the works of
great composers like Beethoven and Wagner, but each in conjunction with a dif-
ferent discourse, for its own ideological goal. Neither side perceived the canon of
great works as transcendent or politically neutral—as abstract and isolated from
the concerns of political or social life.
This becomes clear in the period just before World War 1, when the "Fetes du
Peuple" performed "great" works in order to unite social groups in opposition to
the threat of combat. Thus even works such as Die Meistersinger become associ-
ated not with nationalism, despite explicit references in the text, but rather with
the universal solidarity of workers. French syndicalists argued that participation
in the war would destroy the "patrimony of humanity" that was represented by
these masterworks in favor of the interests of finance and industry. The "fetes"
brought together groups who were boldly opposed to the war, as well as, as in the
earlier Dreyfusard ideal, intellectuals and the "people." It was only after the war,
however, when the "Fetes du Peuple" were revived and in the context of the post-
war ideology of the Left, that these "fetes" achieved their most complete efflores-
cence. They became a part of the larger French musical culture, and, in the
1930s, they provided a model for the cultural programs of the Popular Front.48
THE NATIONAL-SOCIALIST MUSICAL AESTHETIC
In the prewar period, the boundaries between the political and the musical
worlds in France were further effaced by other notable musicians and political
groups. As we have noted earlier, this included a political grouping that was char-
acterized by the joining of factions from the Left and the Right against the center,
as at the turn of the century. By 1907, Georges Sorel, a former Marxist and a for-
mer Dreyfusard, now increasingly disillusioned with both Socialism and the Re-
public, was in search of a new direction: his hopes of a social renovation based on
his heroic vision of a "pure" new proletarian mass, with its "natural leaders,"
were beginning to crumble. Now he perceived the growing power and appeal of
the nationalist movement, which stood in such pronounced relief against what
appeared to be superannuated French Socialism. Sorel moved toward nationalism
and was promptly "discovered" by the Action Francaise. In 1909 it published one
of his articles and heralded him as the "brilliant and profound theoretician of
anti-democratic socialism."49
However, it was not the center but rather the "outer wing" of the Action
Francaise that briefly joined politically with Sorelian syndicalism; for, while both
detested "liberal democratic intellectualism and bourgeois culture," those from
the Action Francaise were dissatisfied with specific limitations of the move-
ment.50 This was the group that took issue with the implacable rationalism of the
league, maintaining that belief could not be fostered by intellectual constructions
or purely rational analysis. Rather, after the imposing paradigm of the Catholic
Church, belief was to be based on an irrational sense of purpose—here of na-
tional mission and destiny.51 We shall shortly see how the rejection of rationalism
(and, by extension, of classicism) and this espousal of the irrational would lead to
an endorsement of Romantic values.
These common beliefs resulted in a number of projected collaborative publi-
cations, beginning with the aborted La Cite francaise, which brought French syn-
dicalists and nationalists together. In the spring of 1911 it was followed by an-
other, more successful effort, L'Independance, with Sorel as the editor-in-chief and
an editorial board that included Vincent d'Indy. Its collaborators included not
just Maurice Barres and Maurice Denis (already in d'Indy's circle) but the writers
Paul Bourget and Francis Jammes. Clearly, the collaborators knew, having ob-
served the models of both Socialism and the rightist leagues, how important a
musical aesthetic could be to articulating an ideological cause. But although the
journal, calling itself "National-Socialist," was patriotic, nationalist, and anti-
Semitic, it did not espouse a coherent political stance.52 Still, it is not difficult to
discern what now attracted Vincent d'Indy to this particular political grouping, as
opposed to the Ligue de I'Action Francaise.
D'Indy, like Sorel, harbored a strong nostalgia for a distant past when individ-
uals were united by forces that transcended all rationally constituted "theories."53
Undoubtedly, Sorel's advocacy of the use of "warmly colored images," of the
heroic, and of "the ethics of infinite and mysterious obligation" appealed to
d'Indy.54 Unlike Barres, d'Indy was not reluctant to reject the Republic or, as we
gleaned from La Legende de Saint Christophe, to embrace the Sorelian belief in the
necessity of violence; d'Indy, like the members of this group, condemned the sen-
timentality and corruption of liberalism, believing in the ultimate importance of
faith in achieving political change. This common doctrine was further amplified
in an ideologically related journal, the Cahiers du cercle Proudhon, which counted
Georges Valois among its contributors. Here Valois expanded on Sorel's aesthetic
theories, and we may observe a strong resemblance to those articulated by Vin-
cent d'Indy; the ideal of both was a primitive purity, an antiintellectual art that is
rooted in collective, prerational emotions, as opposed to the individualism and
"intellectualism" of modern art. Aesthetics, from this perspective, was an integral
PROLIFERATING FACTIONS, ISSUES, AND SKIRMISHES 13S
branch of ethics, for the most important aspect of a work was the "moral" result
to which it led. This philosophy implied (recalling Wagner) a belief in the use of
the arts, including music, to instill collective values and, in doing so, to release
the latent national "energy."55 In addition, as Sorel's disciples stressed, he (like
d'Indy) condemned Renaissance art, which, he argued, had initially released dan-
gerous individualistic forces: "modern" art, as opposed to the "primitive," self-
ishly rejects the social and requires a technical knowledge that makes apprecia-
tion into a science of both reasoning and intellect. For Sorel, to the contrary, as
for Proudhon before, the principal value of all art is social, and one of its primary
goals is to ennoble manual labor.56
Sorel's aesthetic ideals were apparently one of the factors that drew d'Indy to
L'lndependance, together with the publicity for the Schola it provided. Alienated
by the anti-Romantic rhetoric of the Action Francaise but still in search of legiti-
mation from outside the state, he found the journal suitable to his purpose.
D'Indy thus used L'lndependance as he had L'Occident, to publicize the Schola's
ideas, activities, and publications to a sympathetic intellectual elite. In the issue
of March 15, 1911, for example, he reprinted an excerpt from the lecture given by
Blanche Selva on virtuosity, already published in Les Tablettes de la Schola. In it
the prominent Scholiste further develops d'Indy's ideas concerning honorable and
praiseworthy, as opposed to ignoble and meretricious, virtuosity.57 The former
variety seizes the performer's deepest feelings and thought; the latter is concerned
primarily with the "effect" and the remuneration it will bring. The readers of the
journal learned that, just as a piece of music does not become a "sonorous monu-
ment" unless it is generated from a rigorous logic and plan, a performance does
not become a "true interpretation" unless it arises from a similar foundation.58
This concept of structural probity was related to the Schola's ideal of "la grande
musique"—music not divorced from life but linked metaphorically to its ethical
dimensions. Such a conception was to remain within the aesthetic of those circles
that were either associated with "national socialism" or ideologically sympathetic
to it.59
The same issue of L'lndependance reported on a concert of motets, chansons,
and madrigals at the Schola and reprinted an article by Michel Brenet, originally
published in Les Tablettes de la Schola. In addition, it contained an excerpt from
d'Indy's book—or, more properly, his hagiography of his idol, Franck, which was
published in 1906. The excerpt reprinted stresses that Franck was not in search
of success but wished only to express his thoughts and feelings, to the best of his
ability, through his art; it also emphasizes the extent to which the composer, like
those who were unquestionably great, was a true believer, ultimately perceiving
the source of all art to be faith. This, as d'Indy argues, places Franck in the noble
line of development of figures running from Palestrina to both Bach and
Beethoven.60 Although d'Indy had originally implied that religious, as opposed to
social, faith was at the root of true art, the ambiguity of his reference to it here
was apt for the journal's purpose: for faith in its ideological context implied an in-
stinctual and irrational belief, an implication to which d'Indy was not averse, as
we perceived in his anti-Dreyfusard opera.
CULTURAL POLITICS IN FRENCH MUSICAL JOURNALISM
We have already noted the ideological infiltration of artistic criticism and the bat-
tle between opposing perspectives within this politicized culture. By 1910 such
politicization was pervasive in music criticism, with the Action Francaise as well
as the Socialist Left playing leading roles. Many observers were led to comment
on this phenomenon and to identify music criticism as another venue for politi-
cal propaganda. In music we see this most clearly in a book by Frederic Hellouin,
his Essai critique de la critique musicale, originally written as lectures at the Ecole
des Hautes Etudes Sociales. Hellouin, a respected and regular lecturer at the insti-
tution, spoke there on a number of musical topics between 1902 and 1909; his
subjects included various issues in eighteenth-century music, as well as "le Can-
tique musical" and "Les Nationalites musicales."61 But the lectures on music
criticism, as Hellouin points out, were the result of a course on the subject that
the School of Journalism offered, along with one on dramatic criticism. Ironically,
the approach that Hellouin decorticates—one that places aesthetic questions in a
political frame—had been furthered at the Ecole by "mediating" figures like
Laloy. Here Hellouin himself discreetly applies this very approach by (as Laloy)
castigating politicized criticism from an ideological perspective. Later in this
chapter we shall look at the role of the critics involved in the escalating battle
over politicized compositional factions.
Hellouin divides the major critics of music into a number of categories and
then proceeds to offer a studied opinion on each. The critics mentioned comprise
the "critiques litteraires—nonmusicales," such as Combarieu, and "musiciens in-
tuitifs," such as Fourcauld, Gauthier-Villars ("Willy"), Lalo, and d'Udine. It also
includes musicians such as Alfred Bruneau, about whom Hellouin, like d'Indy be-
fore him, has largely negative things to say. According to the author, the literary
aspect dominates Bruneau's judgment and, of course, in particular and unfortu-
nately, that of Emile Zola; again, like d'Indy, who ostensibly had an effect on the
Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales, he criticizes Bruneau as an historian, especially
his 1900 Rapport. He then proceeds, in effect, to disqualify the musician Bruneau
as a critic on the basis of the absence he perceives of any critical faculties and of a
true musical sensibility. He sounds very much like his colleague at the institu-
tion, Louis Laloy, when he describes Bruneau's style of writing as "heavy" or "en
mal d'eloquence."62
Not surprisingly, given the institutional context of the lectures, Hellouin pro-
ceeds, by contrast, to lavish praise on his colleague at the school, Laloy. Pointing
out his academic credentials, he also revealingly mentions Laloy's having had the
good fortune to study composition with d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum. But the
author finds other occasions to praise d'Indy and the Schola and to denounce "la
critique sociale," which he associates with the Left, especially with the Socialists.
He argues that this perspective approaches art in terms of its narrowly practical
end and hence judges music only in reference to its ultimate utility to the
"masses": treating music, above all, as an educational and social tool, it thus de-
prives the artist of any other more lofty artistic or aesthetic goal.63 As we have
seen, however, this charge was not entirely true, for the Socialists were not the
only group to approach and judge music in terms of its social utility. As we may
recall, Hellouin's colleague at the institution, Louis Laloy had made a similar
point in his lectures on opera and subsequent articles in 1905.
Laloy continued to diffuse the ideas that he had developed at the Ecole in the
musical and political press, as well as in his scholarly writings. He became a
prominent contributor to La Grande Revue and grew increasingly close to its edi-
tor, the powerful and ambitious Jacques Rouche. The latter was similarly an in-
termediary figure: soon to become the Opera's director, he had originally begun
to pursue a political and bureaucratic career. A former "Polytechnicien" and a
diplome de Sciences Politiques, he subsequently became an attache at the Min-
istere du Commerce. But a "beau mariage" had made Rouche the owner of a per-
fume firm, which allowed him to purchase a journal, the Grande Revue, in 1907.
Increasingly interested in the theater, in 1910 he published a book entitled L'Art
theatral moderne, which subsequently led to a theatrical venture: he took over the
Theatre des Arts between 1910 and 1913, an enterprise that would eventually re-
sult in his appointment as the Opera's new director.
Laloy became closely associated with Rouche at the Theatre des Arts and,
subsequently, at the Opera, as the Republic grew more "centrist." At the former
theater, Laloy was put in charge of the musical performances; in 1919 he assumed
the role of Secretaire general of the Opera.64 In addition, Laloy continued to con-
tribute to a number of journals that were associated with either the political cen-
ter or the moderate Right: these included the journal of theater and art entitled
Comoedia, begun in 1907 and thereafter steadily to grow in importance and influ-
ence.65 They also included another journal of the more moderate nationalist
Right, the venerable Gazette des Beaux-Arts, to which he contributed between
1905 and 1908. Ideologically, it was eminently compatible with the ideas Laloy
had expounded in the lectures on music that he delivered at the Ecole des Hautes
Etudes Sociales, for it advanced a conception of the "true" French spirit as one
that reconciled the Christian and the Greek, thus maintaining the ideals of mea-
sure, sobriety, and national solidarity.66 As we shall shortly see when we examine
Laloy's writings on Claude Debussy, he easily transferred his ideas, so compatible
with this press, to purely musical journals, but it is in the context of the more
general and politically conservative journals that these ideas, and thus the
aesthetic-political position that Laloy occupied, becomes the most fully coherent.
Considered a minor figure today, in his period Laloy was both influential and
highly respected by musicians and major intellectual figures. The aesthetic
spokesman for Claude Debussy in the period after 1903, he was highly thought of
by Rolland, his colleague at the Sorbonne and the Ecole; it was the open-minded
Rolland, who, already a contributor to the Grande Revue, had initially put Laloy
in touch with its owner, Jacques Rouche.67 Laloy's critical approach to music, one
that addressed aesthetic questions in music within both a cultural and a political
framework, was in great demand. Developed initially in the elitist context of in-
stitutions like the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales, it was to grow particularly
prominent as the nationalist tide mounted in France.
As the reader may recall, Laloy, having been associated with the Revue
musicale, went on to become a founding editor of the new Mercure musical; to-
gether with Jules Ecorcheville, he gradually transformed the journal into the
organ of the French section of the Societe Internationale de Musique. Called at
first the Mercure musical et bulletin francais de la Societe Internationale de Musique,
in 1912 it fused with Combarieu's Revue musicale and was renamed the Revue mu-
sicale S.I.M. (Societe Internationale de Musique).68 It was to become the most im-
portant musical journal of the prewar period, one that would continue to provide
a forum for the kind of discourse developed at the Ecole. But Laloy was also asso-
ciated with the parent journal of the Mercure musical, the Mercure de France,
which had gradually developed a distinctive political stance. Founded in 1890, it
originally had promoted the Symbolist aesthetic but had eventually waxed more
conservative, espousing a variety of traditional French humanism. Although arti-
cles on politics played a relatively minor role in the journal, a political orientation
became increasingly evident in its cultural posture: while it grew more socially
conservative and nationalistic, it maintained the importance of individual free-
dom and assumed an economically liberal stance, as did the liberal Right. This
position, while espousing traditional French values, recognized—unlike that of
more extreme nationalists—that these values could be realized in individual, ar-
tistically innovative ways. The Mercure thus became the journal that most fully
supported the music of Claude Debussy, and contributors included sympathetic
critics such as Jean Marnold and Emile Vuillermoz.69
Laloy was by no means the only critic who mediated between musical and
political presses and thus diffused values originally developed within the nexus
of French cultural politics; other figures whom we have already examined contin-
ued to play important roles and to influence not only institutional decisions but
musicians themselves. Camille Mauclair continued to write for journals in the
political press and for musical journals such as the Courrier musical. Thus, not
surprisingly, musical journals entered the fray and responded vigorously to state
policies on music in the period when these policies were being castigated in the
nationalist press.
The Revue musicale regularly published the yearly subvention amounts
awarded by the state to musical institutions and to specific concert series. The
journal was clearly not unaware of the major political issues concerning the so-
cial priorities that should determine the allocation of cultural funds. For exam-
ple, an article entitled "La Musique et I'Etat," published in 1910, argues (recalling
Mauclair) for the importance of maintaining the inexpensive tickets at the sub-
ventioned Colonne and Lamoureux concerts; in addition, it points out the value
of Charpentier's "Conservatoire Populaire de Mimi Pinson" and thus the social
importance of its continuing to receive a subvention. Moreover, it suggests that
the funds for this project can easily enough be found by using those previously
accorded the Ecole Niedermeyer, which the state had voted to suppress.70
But the article also evinces an interest in popular education in music, observ-
ing that between seven and eight thousand adults attend the singing classes held
in municipal schools; yet they meet as a collective group only once a year, which
is clearly inadequate in terms of either a musical or a social program. It therefore
encourages the efforts of 1'Association pour le developpement du [chant] choral,
under the direction of d'Estournelles de Constant in the Administration des
Beaux-Arts. Particularly revealing here is that the author goes on to praise the
specific kind of repertoire that is being promoted by this particular society: it in-
cludes the work not only of the great French musicians of the past, as advocated
by d'Indy, but of those who were inspired by the musicians of the First French
Republic.71 Here we may see one effect of the cultural politics of the Republic, in
response to that of the Right, as manifest within the musical world.
This close interaction of perspectives, concepts, and issues in the political
and musical press was not unique and was in fact characteristic of other kinds of
publications as well. The books that were published in the prewar decade are
similarly informed by intertextual references to the politicized cultural discourses
characteristic of this period. By 1905 writers who had been associated with the
Schola Cantorum were publishing important studies on the subject of music in
France. Of special significance here is Lionel de la Laurencie's still frequently
cited book, Le Gout musical en France, originally published in 1905.72 La Lauren-
cie was an advocate of d'Indy in the Catholic, the artistic, and the French musical
press, and he was to become the first president of the Societe Francaise de Musi-
cologie. In all of these contexts he would continue to serve as an advocate of the
ideals of the Schola, as well as, more subtly and by extension, of the nationalist
and traditionalist Right. Particularly evident here is the proximity of La Lauren-
cie's ideas and concepts to those that were currently being diffused by the Ligue
de 1'Action Francaise.
Perhaps the most striking feature of La Laurencie's book on French musical
taste is his prolonged attack on both Romanticism and the Italian stylistic influ-
ence. Here his rhetoric clearly resembles that of Vincent d'Indy, as well as that of
the Action Francaise advocates of classicism, such as Pierre Lasserre. La Lauren-
cie denounces the "absolute subjectivity" of Romantic individualism, its egoism,
its desire for "sensation," and its quest for immediate gratification; the latter, he
then argues, harmonizes perfectly with the sensualism of Italian music, which ex-
plains the great enthusiasm for it in the nineteenth century. Hence Rossini be-
comes a target, in terms that recall Lasserre's equation of Italian and Jewish influ-
ences, for La Laurencie denigrates his "oriental" ornamentation. As a positive
French model (if incongruously so, given his anti-Romantic stance), La Lauren-
cie defends Berlioz, although in an ingenious if specious manner: he points out
Berlioz's propensity for attempting to evoke extramusical associations through
music, which, undoubtedly with the clavecinistes in mind, he presents as a dis-
tinctive French trait.73
When discussing the present, La Laurencie admits that taste is deeply di-
vided and seems to be splitting off continuously in a multitude of different direc-
tions. We shall shortly see the extent to which this observation was true, as well
as the deeper intellectual and cultural tensions that ultimately lay behind it. La
Laurencie's own position, as well as its basis, becomes immediately clear, since,
like Laloy, he does not hide his own ideological and aesthetic inclinations: recall-
ing the "regionalist" theme that we noted within the Action Francaise, he ob-
serves with approbation that French folklore is inspiring some composers to the
discomfiture of others.74 But also evident, and not surprisingly, given his loyalty
to d'Indy and the Schola, is La Laurencie's antipathy towards the Conservatoire,
which emerges in his discussion of Debussy. He argues that Debussy had evaded
the tyranny of its desiccated scholasticism not only in the suppleness of his
melody and rhythm, but in the freedom we may perceive in his form. Hence La
Laurencie concludes: "Un souffle de liberte et de simplicite parait done agiter nos
tendances musicales, en meme temps qu'avec 1'aide franckiste, le classicisme
francais reprend ses droits, s'affirme constructeur et econome d'effort, partisan re-
solu des architectures solides et logiques"75 (A breath of liberty and simplicity
would thus seem to agitate our current musical tendencies at the same time as,
with the help of "franckisme," French classicism is again reclaiming its rights, af-
firming itself as constructive and economical in effort, a firm partisan of solid and
logical architecture).
La Laurencie thus attempts to claim Debussy for the nonofficial "indepen-
dents" and to equate French classicism with the qualities that were so highly val-
ued at the Schola Cantorum. This position was in implicit opposition to that of
Camille Mauclair, as was La Laurencie's perspective concerning attempts at a "so-
cial art." He notes a tendency in French musical taste to reflect "le mouvement so-
cial en le soumettant a une maniere de symbolisme democratique" (the social
movement, subjugating itself to some kind of democratic symbolism). But La Lau-
rencie then implies that social concerns are by no means the exclusive property of
the Left, which attempts to equate them categorically with its democratic goals.
While acknowledging the works of Charpentier and Bruneau, he lavishes praise on
d'Indy's LEtranger as truly singing the hymn of the humble, of "les petits." As in his
other writings, La Laurencie includes an encomium of the Schola, pointing out the
leadership it has assumed, particularly in the area of music history.76
INTERLOCKED BATTLES OVER THE NEW SORBONNEE"

AND THE PARIS CONSERVATOIRE
The battle between the Conservatoire and the Schola that we may perceive in La
Laurencie's remarks was by no means abating in this period but was growing even
more intense. One of the reasons for this increasing intensity was, again, the cur-
rent war being waged in cultural politics and especially the renewed assault on
Republican educational institutions. The nationalist Right perceived the French
educational system—from primary schools through university education—as a
conduit for Republican ideology and thus made it a target. Once again, the ques-
tions raised and the positions assumed in this particular skirmish were to be re-
fracted through the concerns of the musical world by mediating figures.
The issue in French education was the Republican reform of the venerable
Sorbonne, an attempt simultaneously to update and to democratize the kind of
education it offered. This reform had been met immediately with hostility on the
part of the traditionalist Right, which assumed the posture of the implacable pro-
tector of the humanistic disciplines. One of the sallies in this war was led by the
tireless Pierre Lasserre, in a series of lectures at the Institut d'Action Frangaise in
1908 and f909; in 1912 these lectures were published as a book, under the title
of La Doctrine officielle de I'universite: Critique du haui enstignement de I'Etat,
defense et theories des humanites classiques. Only the previous year, under the
pseudonym "Agathon," Henri Massis and Gabriel de Trade had published a re-
lated attack: entitled LEsprit de la Nouvelle Sorbonne: La Crise de la culture clas-
sique, la crise du francais, it consisted of a collection of articles that had appeared
in the journal LOpinion in 1910.77
A primary target of the Right was current literary history as it was now being
taught by Gustave Lanson, whose intellectual bias was both Republican and de-
mocratic. This perspective determined his selection of "great" French writers,
just as it had determined Bruneau's pantheon of truly great French composers.
For Lanson such a canon was intended to implement the creation of a new na-
tional bond, an integrated community that celebrated the same aesthetic and po-
litical values.78 We have already noted attempts shortly after the turn of the cen-
tury to arrive at a similar goal through the implementation of Republican musical
programs. Now "Agathon" was to charge that Lanson, together with historians
such as Seignebos and Lavisse, was not teaching his students to honor the "true"
French cultural and political heroes; moreover, he was "sullying" his students by
teaching them "scientific" or scholarly techniques, such as documentary and lit-
erary criticism—a charge in which most of the Academie and Institut concurred.
The authors condemned not only the current emphasis on "research teams"—a
democratic approach to knowledge—but also the democratization of knowledge
itself: the end result of such reforms, they charged, would eventually be a cultural
leveling and thus a lowering, they would "faire de notre culture une culture de
pauvres" (make of our culture a culture of the poor).79
Perhaps most seriously, the authors accuse the Sorbonne of dispensing "la
science Germanique," especially German philology, thus triggering reaction
among the "truly French"; they incisively note that this reaction is coming from
both political extremes—from Socialists (many of whom were former "Nor-
maliens") and from the neomonarchist defenders of classical culture. Moreover,
the authors boldly claim support for their positions from the journals Le Temps
and Le Journal des debats, as well as from many of the students presently at the
Sorbonne.
The book does attempt to explain the Sorbonne's rationale for adapting its
teaching in the direction of the practical and utilitarian to meet the needs of the
modern age: "education de 1'esprit par les sciences, veritables humanites mod-
ernes; developpement democratique de notre societe incompatible avec la culture
litteraire et philosophique"80 (education of the mind by the sciences, the verita-
ble modern humanities; the democratic development of our society, incompatible
with literary and philosophic culture). But they then pose the central question,
one that would be prominent in prewar cultural politics: Is such a teaching in
conformity with the qualities of our race? They here explain that in every nation
there is a "reserve" or a "capital" of intellectual forms that it is incumbent on the
system of higher education to maintain. "Our French genius," they continue,
"which comprises order, clarity, and taste, was one that was acquired and tested
over centuries and hence must necessarily be maintained." [11 conclusion, they
aver, "nous defendons la culture de 1'intelligence contre la culture de la memoire,
1'effort spirituel centre le labour materiel"81 (we defend the culture of intelligence
against the culture of memorization, the spiritual effort against material labor).
For "Agathon," minute research in source studies, chronology, and bibliographic
techniques has gradually obscured the substance of "true" French education, im-
perilling no less than the future of the race itself; the transfer of a scientific ap-
proach to French literary studies has led French students both to fear and to dis-
qualify all that is original and individual.82
Even before "Agathon"'s diatribe, d'Indy had begun his systematic assault on
all state educational institutions through which a knowledge of music was dis-
pensed. This attack was only to escalate under the impact of the question of the
"Nouvelle Sorbonne," the discourse of which he appropriately adapted to the
case of his own profession. In 1904 the Schola's journal, Les Tablettes de la Schola,
published a warning to all young musicians, one that it would henceforth im-
placably repeat: "N'entrez pas a la Sorbonne pour ecouter les inutiles verbiages
universitaires, mais pour contempler dans l'hemicycle le pur chef-d'oeuvre de
Puvis de Chavannes, qui ne fut jamais membre d'aucune academie" (Don't go to
the Sorbonne to listen to the useless university verbiage, but to contemplate in
the hemicycle the pure masterpiece of Puvis de Chavannes, who was never a
member of any academy). The warning included the courses and lectures at not
only the Faculte des Lettres but also the Faculte des Sciences, the Ecole des
Chartes, and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales (before it invited d'Indy). Sig-
nificantly, this warning was reprinted for all to see and for some to condemn in
the Revue musicale, a journal that was generally sympathetic to the Republic in
1905.83
In addition, this was the period when the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise, al-
though in decline, was targeting the issue of the defense of religious education.
Its last large public gathering, in fact, took place in 1907 and included a lecture
by Maurice Barres on the topical subject of "Les Mauvais instituteurs." This meet-
ing was the prelude to the league's campaign to launch numerous associations for
the defense of Catholic educational institutions, now under Republican attack.
D'Indy, still in touch with the league, was quoted as saying, in a book on state ad-
ministration published in 1910, "Je considere 1'enseignement des arts par 1'Etat
comme une simple monstruosite"84 (I consider the teaching of the arts by the
state a simple monstrosity).
The Republic was well aware of the politicized campaign against the Conser-
vatoire, and particularly of the prestige of the Schola, which indeed had instituted
important reforms; it finally responded in 1905, but typically in a manner that
was indirect or implicitly in dialogue with its ideological opponents. This was the
year that Theodore Dubois, the much maligned director of the Conservatoire, re-
signed from the position he had occupied since 1896 and was replaced by Gabriel
Faure. Dubois's resignation has been frequently attributed to the so-called scan-
dal Ravel, when Ravel (Faure's pupil), already a recognized composer, was not
chosen as a finalist in the Prix de Rome on the grounds of "harmonic errors."
This event threw the pedagogical intransigence of the institution into strong re-
lief but was itself probably not the immediate cause of Dubois's resignation. For
the Prix de Rome was awarded in May and Dubois, now increasingly ostracized,
had already announced his impending retirement from his position the previous
March.85
The question of Dubois's replacement was a delicate one indeed, for it was in-
separable from the central issue of the future evolution of music in France. On the
surface Faure seemed an unlikely choice: he was not a graduate of the Conserva-
toire, not a Prix de Rome winner, and not a member of the Institut de France.86 But
within the context that we have seen, there were other factors to recommend him
as someone who could help resolve the still escalating battle between the Conser-
vatoire and the Schola Cantorum. Moreover, the political conjuncture is signi-
ficant, for 1905 was the year not only of the separation of church and state but
also of important ministerial changes. In January 1905, the ardently anticlerical
Prime Minister, Combes, was replaced by the former Minister of Finance, Maurice
Rouvier. With this change came the creation of the Sous-secretariat d'Etat des
Beaux-Arts, which replaced the former administrative category of Directeur des
Beaux-Arts. The painter Dujardin-Beaumetz now became Sous-secretaire d'Etat
des Beaux-Arts, and it was he who named Bonnet and Faure as the directors of the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Conservatoire, respectively.87
THE CONSERVATOIRE S RESPONSE THROUGH FAURE
The rationale behind Faure's selection becomes clearer if we examine the address
of Dujardin-Beaumetz to the Conservatoire students and faculty in August 1905.
Implicit in his statement are references to the Schola's innovations—innovations
that, as we shall see, Faure was well prepared to adapt for the Conservatoire. In-
deed, such official appropriation of innovations that challenged the state institu-
tion was an effective means of disarming opponents and critics of the beleaguered
Conservatoire. Hence, as Dujardin-Beaumetz told the assembly, "If the Conserva-
toire is to preserve the old traditions which are the foundation on which innova-
tors' explorations are now based, let us not forget that the artist needs support
from the past and not regrets."88 He then went on to stress the importance of a
"stricter, more solid, and more diversified" education and to request specific re-
forms within the program of the Conservatoire's instruction. As we can see, it
took the pressures of cultural politics to implement at last the reforms that d'Indy
and others had proposed in 1894.
By now the Schola and its supporters controlled the dialogue between insti-
tutions, since they had defined the terms of the challenge and thus forced the
Conservatoire to respond in kind; the key question for the latter would be which
of its institutional traditions to preserve, or how to make concessions while still
symbolically affirming the principles underlying its identity. No one, perhaps,
was better equipped than Faure to undertake this task, on the basis of his back-
ground and training—and because of his temperament and personality as well.
Faure came from a family that, while not wealthy, was nevertheless culti-
vated; his mother was of the "petite noblesse," and his father became the director
of the local Ecole Normale. One brother became a prefect, another an officer in
144 THE BATTL.E ESCALATES AND IS WON
the Marine, and the third, following his father's earlier occupation, an Inspecteur
de 1'Academie.89 Years later, in a letter to his friend and mentor Paul Leon, Faure
described the impact of his background on his comportment as the Conserva-
toire's director:
Je dois vous avouer . . . qu'eleve sous le Second Empire, fils, frere, et beau-frere
d'universitaires, j'ai grandi dans le respect de la hierarchie a un point que vous ne
sauriez imaginer. Converser avec un ministre me cause encore aujourd'hui un profond
emoi."
(I must confess . . . that student during the Second Empire, son, brother, brother-in-
law of academics, 1 grew up with the respect for hierarchy to a point that you wouldn't
imagine. To converse with a minister causes me still today profound agitation.)
Always a moderator, Faure would prove to be the consummate conciliator in

the musical world, able to befriend both sides and to win their confidence and
cooperation.
His training, in addition, was ideal for the task that he now faced. Faure had
attended Niedermeyer's Ecole de Musique Classique et Religieuse. Founded in
1853, with a state subvention, by the Swiss composer and teacher Louis Nieder-
meyer, the school was intended to train church musicians—organists, and choir-
masters.90 Niedermeyer's focus, like d'Indys later, was on the masterpieces of the
past, especially those dating from the period between the fifteenth and the eigh-
teenth centuries. Hence, the core of the curriculum centered on Palestrina, Las-
sus, Bach, and Handel, as well as the illustrious school of "clavicinistes" in
France.
Just as at the Schola later, the students at the Ecole Niedermeyer received in-
tensive instruction in plainchant and in modal harmonization; it too was a school
concerned with education of its students in a broader sense, although not from
the standpoint of ideological indoctrination, as was the case at the Schola Canto-
rum. Recruiting its pupils young and keeping them as boarders, the school used
the clergy of Saint-Louis d'Antin as faculty to teach them academic subjects, in-
cluding Latin, history, geography, and literature.91 Faure had entered the school
in 1854, at the age of nine, and remained there eleven years, during which time
he formed a strong bond with Camille Saint-Saens. The latter, a teacher at the
school, had become a powerful figure in French music by 1905 and was doubt-
less important in Faure's appointment as the Conservatoire's director.
In addition, Faure had social contacts that probably aided him as well, since he
frequented important salons in which government officials and high society min-
gled. Since 1871 he had been a regular at Saint-Saens's salon, and later he fre-
quented those of Mme. de Saint-Morceaux and the Princesse Edmond de Polignac;
moreover, he was present in the Clemenceau's salon, together with other former
Dreyfusards and Republican politicians.92 Besides these connections, Faure had
the distinction of having been chief organist at the Madeleine since 1896 and of
succeeding Massenet as a composition teacher at the Conservatoire. And he had al-
ready held positions in the educational bureaucracy, having been an Inspecteur des
Beaux-Arts as well as an inspector of the provincial conservatories.93
Faure himself was apparently delighted with the new appointment, writing
to Martin Loeffler of his joy over the unanimous approbation of his election; mu-
sical conservatives applauded, it, and, he proudly added, so did those musicians
who held the most "advanced" positions. As an article on his appointment in the
Revue d'histoire et de critique musicale confirmed shortly after the event, "II n'a pas
d'ennemies."94 Faure's first statements indicate how clearly he understood his
implicit charge of absorbing the Schola's innovations without sacrificing any of
the Conservatoire's basic principles or symbols:
I want to be the auxiliary to an art that is at once classical and modern, which sacri-
fices neither current taste to established tradition nor tradition to the vagaries of cur-
rent style. But that which I advocate above all else is liberalism: I don't want to ex-
clude any serious ideas. I am not biased toward any one school and censure no genre
that is the product of a well-conceived doctrine."95
But, as we shall shortly see, Faure would soon have a substantial amount to say
about the spread of musical "dogma" that he considered to be a danger.
Paul Leon, at the time in the cabinet of Dujardin-Beaumetz, later recalled
how Faure was able to subtly impose his will despite opposition. Leon remarked
on how he succeeded in bringing in new talent, as well as in giving the institution
the new breath of life that it so badly needed. In his letters to Leon, Faure indeed
sounds very much like Vincent d'Indy when speaking of his desire to make both
singers and composers into more "complete artists"; as Leon pointed out, once
again recalling the Schola's standing challenge, this new education was no longer
aimed at merely forming "premiers prix." Faure, he reported, was determined not
only to enlarge the repertoire of works performed but also to teach the students
to execute them with a higher degree of historical accuracy.96
Until this point, as we have noted, Conservatoire students took harmony be-
fore being admitted to the composition classes in which they learned counter-
point and fugue. This was the basis for the charge that students at the Conserva-
toire approached the analysis of music primarily in terms of chord progressions
and little more. In response, Dujardin-Beaumetz, in his address to the institution,
proposed those very reforms that had been recommended and rejected in 1892
and 1896: after a year of harmony, both harmony and counterpoint would
be taught simultaneously, and, to implement this decision, two new classes in
counterpoint were to be created. To encourage an historical approach to the
analysis of form (again, as at the Schola), Dujardin-Beaumetz requested that
Bourgault-Ducoudray create a new class for students of harmony and composi-
tion that would analyze forms within their historical succession, or in terms of
"schools";97 moreover, once more as at the Schola, this would be accompanied by
the creation of an ensemble class that would provide live illustrations of the his-
torical repertoire.
Finally addressing the other issue so often raised by the Conservatoire's
critics, he asked the teachers of voice to "no longer consider the theater as the
only purpose of study"; instead, he proposed the inclusion of classical arias, Ger-
man, Italian, and French cantatas, and the lieder of Schubert and Schumann—
once more as at the Schola. The canon taught at the Conservatoire was thus to in-
clude such composers as Monteverdi, Peri, Caccini, Bach, Beethoven, Weber,
Schumann, Lully, Rameau, and Gluck.98 The implications of this inclusion were
profound, not only because of the role of the Conservatoire in perpetuating a
canon but because of its role within the configuration of state institutions: it was
Conservatoire students who would teach later generations in France, would hold
the major positions in French musical institutions, and would serve on official
committees and juries.
The other important change now made in the Conservatoire's program of
study, one that was similarly inconceivable without the Schola's challenge, was
the inclusion of the symphony. But, while the symphony would now be taught, it
would be presented in a different way, in the context of a discourse that differed
substantially from that of the Schola: it could be included as a genre only if its
symbolic connotations were substantially changed or if the social and political as-
sociations that it carried were thoroughly redefined. As Brian Hart has shown, for
Scholistes the symphony was inherently both a solemn and a spiritual genre, the
purpose of which was to convey metaphorical ideas or concepts through the
medium of tones. Hence, they approached sonata form as well as the sonata cycle
in the manner of Franck—as a struggle between dark and light, with the final tri-
umph of light, or good. Indeed, Scholistes as well as Franckists before considered
the symphony the equivalent in the sphere of absolute music of the philosophical
Wagnerian music drama."
As we have seen, the source of these beliefs was Franck's and d'Indy's con-
strual of Beethoven, who they believed had made the symphony a medium of
self-revelation. The symphony was henceforth an expressive vehicle—a means
not only to convey the composer's thoughts and feelings but also, in so doing,
eventually to both educate and edify its listeners. We find testimony to current
perceptions of the symphony in such terms in Romain Rolland's fictional picture
of the Schola Cantorum in his novel Jean Christophe, where he implies that the
Schola produced what he refers to as "doctoral symphonies," or symphonies so
completely imbued with ideas that they resembled Sorbonne theses. Indeed, for
the Schola it was the symphony that, in a period of tension or trouble, could con-
vey uplifting messages of faith and inspiration to the masses.100
Under Faure the Conservatoire no longer derided the symphony or excluded
it completely from its curriculum as it had before; yet it did attribute very differ-
ent purposes and qualities to the form, defining as well as teaching it in a funda-
mentally different way. Before Faure, the Conservatoire treated the symphony as
it treated the fugue—as an exercise to establish professional skill, but not as a liv-
ing genre; once it was recognized as a "legitimate" genre, however, the Conserva-
toire did acknowledge its "meaning," although it conceived this in a manner dis-
tant from that of the Schola Cantorum. The symphony was not a philosophical
medium conveying ideas or moral lessons, but either a vehicle of sensual sounds
or a metaphorical "celebration of nature"; if a symphony was "French," it was by
virtue of its emphasis on balance, clarity, and logic or of the specific musical quo-
tations that it employed. 101
As we shall see, the battle between these conceptions was exacerbated by the
major critics, who tended to espouse one or the other institutions's symphonic
models. Pierre Lalo, Gaston Carraud, and Paul Landormy were quite clearly sup-
porters of the philosophical "expressive," Scholiste paradigm of the symphony;
Julien Tiersot and Jean Marnold, by contrast, promoted the Conservatoire's em-
phasis on the way it could display French qualities of balance, order, clarity, and
logic.102
Despite the Conservatoire's reforms, the onslaught did not abate, and during
the period of "Agathon's" attack the state institution was once more a target. Now
the major charge was that the Conservatoire's reforms were neither sincere nor
profound, but only illusory, touching the mere surface of the institution's ap-
proach. In 1910 Jules Combarieu, who firmly believed that the institution should
not discard its roots in the French Revolution, nevertheless impugned it directly:
he charged that its pedagogy was still outdated, immobilized in practices that
were contrary not only to reason but, by now, to public opinion as well.103 As he
pointed out, so widely spread was the perception of its weakness that the journal
Comoedia launched a survey entitled "Y a-t-il lieu de reformer le Conservatoire?"
As he notes, among the responses was the accusation that the counterpoint it
taught was not really counterpoint but, in essence, still simply the progression of
chords.104
As several of the respondents to the survey charged, the students at the Con-
servatoire (unlike those of the Schola) never analyzed the real contrapuntal mas-
terpieces of the past; as Combarieu observed in a subsequent article, although
music is not a science like geometry, the Conservatoire persisted in treating it as
such, teaching the same immutable rules. He concluded that, despite all the criti-
cism and the resultant so-called reform, the emphasis at the institution remained
the competitions at the end of the year.105 Combarieu, of course, as a lecturer at
the elite College de France, could speak from a protected position that was
unique to his institution: unlike the university, which was so directly affected by
the Republic's politics, the College, while state-funded, provided a realm of ideo-
logical liberty for its professors. It also provided a broad public forum and thus
played a unique intellectual role, since the lectures delivered there were not just
free but open to the general public. Combarieu was indeed the first to lecture on
music at the august institution since the Revolutionary period, and, as we shall
soon see, his role was to be significant.106 Here, as an advocate of the Republic,
his concern was to make it more competitive, less vulnerable to Nationalist at-
tacks, hence his ingenuously critical tone.
NEW COUNTERATTACKS ON THE SCHOLA
Most others, even those in less protected positions than Combarieu, were far less
temperate in their remarks, feeling obliged ideologically to support one or the
other of the institutions. By this point, many were openly hostile not only to
the Schola Cantorum but also to the cultural, social, and political ideology that
they now perceived it as supporting. This was particularly the case with Emile
Vuillermoz, a former student at the Conservatoire, a defender of its reform, and a
proponent of Debussy and Ravel. Originally from Lyon, Vuillermoz had been
Faure's pupil at the Conservatoire, as well as a close collaborator with (a ghost
writer for) the music critic "Willy."107
By no means a defender of the Left, Vuillermoz could accommodate his posi-
tion easily to the aesthetics of the "centrist" coalition and particularly that of the
"liberal Right." Hence, he was very much at home in the circle of the Mercure de
France, where he published an incendiary article, "La Schola et le Conservatoire,"
in 1909. This was not his first attack on the Schola: already in March and June of
1906 he had published a scathing satire of it in the Mercure musical. The latter is
facetiously written from the standpoint of music historian in the twenty-first cen-
tury, in which France is now a socialist state, with the Beaux-Arts subsumed by
the "Chambre Syndicale." Its fictional point of departure is the task assigned to
historians of assembling a dictionary, both biographical and critical, of major
French musicians over the past two centuries. Predictably, France is still arguing
over who represents "the true French tradition," and specifically whether Roman-
tic composers such as Berlioz ought to occupy a place in its canon. Vuillermoz
presents d'Indy "historically" as a "riche amateur" who founded the "Ecole des
Chanteurs," a school that propagated "dogma," especially the importance of rig-
orous form. Its pupils accordingly consisted of "les timides, les amateurs, les fils
de famille et les gens refuses aux examens d'entree au Conservatoire"108 (the
timid, amateurs, sons of notable families, and those refused at the examinations
for entry into the Conservatoire).
Vuillermoz points out that d'Indy had the valuable aid of the press, in par-
ticular of a powerful critic from the nobility ("Gaulthier de Villars"), one from
the bourgeoisie (Pierre Lalo), and the third from the "basse populaire" ("Willy's"
fictitious "1'Ouvreuse"). Mocking the Schola's ideal of professional "desinteresse-
ment" and "noblesse," he derides its students by referring to them as "refractaires
a toute sensation musicale." He goes on to speak of how they gradually extended
their influence throughout the French musical world, infiltrating commissions,
committees, and juries through a powerful organization. And he emphatically re-
minds his readers of the significance of the fact that this school flourished at the
very moment of the "loi sur les congregations religieuses et sur la separation de
1'Eglise et de 1'Etat" (the laws on the religious congregations and the separation of
church and state). Making the connection even more explicit, he refers to "les
manifestations politiques des pretendus eleves de musique en certaines circon-
stances historiques"109 (the political demonstrations of so-called music students
in certain historical circumstances). In this piece Vuillermoz boldly dared to ex-
pose what he and others now perceived as a fundamentally political project that
was clothed symbolically in the garb of an art.
Vuillermoz was to go even further in his subsequent article of 1909, the point
of departure of which is his response to Marnold's "Le Conservatoire et la
Schola," of 1902. While Marnold's article had cast the Paris Conservatoire in an
unfavorable light, Vuillermoz now reverses the terms, charging the Schola with
being pedantic and rigid. And not only that: he now accuses it of incarnating a re-
actionary spirit in its artistic approach, as well as in its more fundamental politi-
cal intentions. 110 Vuillermoz openly charges d'Indy with attempting to challenge
"1'enseignement officiel" by conceiving his institution implicitly as a criticism of

the Conservatoire. But, he immediately points out, d'Indy's critique is, in fact,
probably unfair, for the Conservatoire is not the rigid, immobile institution that
the Scholistes claim; it is, to the contrary, a "multitude of small and autonomous
living cells" that are capable of creating a "prodigiously abundant musical nour-
ishment." This biological metaphor, of course, was intended to associate the Con-
servatoire not only with the "scientific" but also with "life," as implicitly opposed
to a desiccated tradition. Vuillermoz further suggests a Darwinist argument in his
defense of the competitive system, which, as he argues, serves to "weed out" the
mediocre and to promote only true talent.111
One of the author's primary points is the Schola's excessive devotion to the
past, which, he contends, alienates musicians from the influence of their own
time: an overzealous reverence for tradition distorts its students' sensibilities and
judgment and ultimately ends up by instilling them with anachronistic artistic as-
pirations. They are taught to denigrate all that is modern and to hold in reverence
all that is associated with the past, especially the sacred period of the Middle
Ages. Its students thus learn to speak with horror of the artists of the Renaissance
period—those who had the audacity to break with the Christian tradition and to
return to pagan antiquity. From here, Vuillermoz condemns the way in which
Scholistes persecute, throughout music history, "tous les compositeurs presumes
circoncis," distinguishing the Semitic from all others.112
Finally, the mania for history, he charges, has another unfortunate conse-
quence: it has imbued the Schola's students with a kind of "fetichisme de la forme."
Since they are trained to study the development of "musical molds" throughout the
ages, they accord a preponderate place to what is, in fact, a mere accessory to cre-
ation. The "masters" of the Schola, he continues, are concerned not with the
beauty of a theme but only with the academic correctness of the form or the "plan"
employed in the work: in sum, they denigrate "1'acte brutal de la creation, ce
spasme cerebral, cette exaltation emincee qu'accompagne souvent une sorte
d'orgeuil quasi sexuel"113 (the brutal act of creation, this cerebral spasm, this thin
exaltation that is often accompanied by a quasi sexual arrogance).
But form for Vuillermoz is not the only aspect of musical language that the
political and philosophical doctrine of the Schola has imbued with a social mean-
ing. Harmony, too, is condemned there on the same basis as originality or creativ-
ity—for its pure sensuality, considered again to be a socially dangerous trait. Yet
Vuillermoz does admit that the Conservatoire makes the mistake of presenting
conventions as natural laws, and hence its "science" of harmony is an "orgeuil un
peu pueril"; this does not, however, justify its total exclusion from the Schola, or
d'Indy's dismissal of harmony as "the simultaneous emission of several different
melodies." Arguing as a Conservatoire graduate, Vuillermoz claims that to deny
the phenomenon of chords is to annihilate the "soul" of music, the living force
that assures its development over time: counterpoint, to the contrary, he argues,
is a technique that does not "progress"—a "procede artificiel d'elocution," per-
fected by Bach, it is no means of expression for the present. Harmony, by con-
trast, is capable of being enriched each day as, one by one, music lifts the "veils"
that enshroud the true "natural" phenomenon. And so Vuillermoz apodictically
concludes that to deny the objective phenomenon of harmony is, in fact, tanta-
mount to denying the very phenomenon of nature itself.114 As we shall shortly
see, this "scientific" argument was to be carried much further by Vuillermoz's
friends and colleagues who founded the renegade Societe Musicale Independante.
The core of Vuillermoz's attack on the Schola is reserved for the end of the ar-
ticle, where he turns to the linkage between d'Indy's political convictions and his
theories of art. Vuillermoz observes that the teaching at the Schola is burdened
with "une foule de considerations morales, politiques, religieuses, et sociales du
plus facheux effet" (a host of moral, political, religious, and social considerations,
with the most deplorable effect). He charges that the Schola is collectively and of-
ficially not only nationalist but also anti-Semitic, as well as ideologically anti-
Dreyfusard. And hence, with puerile ostentation it has committed the unpardon-
able error of subordinating aesthetic questions to preoccupations that ought to
remain outside of Music.115 The Schola, of course, as we have seen, was by no
means alone in this "error," for we may also perceive a cultural politics informing
Vuillermoz's critique.
Although it appeared in the intellectual and literary Mercure de France,
Vuillermoz's article elicited immediate responses in a range of purely musical
journals. Le Monde musical soon published three articles, all of which, in some
way, responded to or commented on the specific points that Vuillermoz had
made. One, by Louis Combes, that appeared on October 15, 1909, corroborated
many of the critic's claims and similarly undertook the Conservatoire's defense.
Combes contrasted the artistic freedom and creativity offered by the Conserva-
toire with the cerebral and pedantic uniformity demanded by the Schola Canto-
rum, and he repeated Vuillermoz's biological metaphor when referring to the
"natural selection of talent" as opposed to the military metaphor that he and
others employed for the Schola. The Scholistes, he argued, "accepterent tous le
meme ideal, celui de leur generalissime et s'appliquerent a le realiser
methodiquement" (all accepted the same ideal, that of their general, and at-
tempted to realize it methodically).116 The implication of the military metaphor,
in the context of the discourse of cultural politics, is that the Schola advocated
such military authority, in the manner of the nationalist Right.
In the interval that separated the publication of Vuillermoz's two articles,
Louis Laloy had joined the chorus of the Schola's detractors, using La Grande
revue to articulate his new perspective. In an article of 1907, entitled "Les Partis
musicaux," he labels d'Indy a "Gothic"—someone who is driven by reason and
classification.117 He excoriates d'Indy's propensity for moral allegory along with
the spirit of the Schola in general, which he compares to that of a religious sect.
At the Schola everything is made sacred and mystical, and only works in confor-
mity with its ritual canon are considered to merit praise. Finally, Laloy refers to
the artificial works that emerge from the "laboratories" of the rue Saint Jacques,
asking facetiously, "LArt a-t-il vraiment d'autre but que de faire souffrir?" 118
(Does art truly have another end than to make us suffer?).
Other critics seized the occasion to comment on d'Indy's biases when the sec-
ond volume of his Cours de composition musicale appeared in 1910. The Revue
musicale stressed his willful manipulations of numerous historical facts, espe-
daily his attempt to force music history into his own intellectual molds. This in-
cluded his preoccupation with the cyclic sonata, which he traces back to
Beethoven and then follows through to its culmination in Cesar Franck. Also im-
pugned is his tendency to slight many important forms and styles in the interest
of his fetishistic models and his stress on religious vocal polyphony.119
As tensions between the institutions mounted in tandem with the ambient
battles over the official educational system, Faure responded true to form: always
the conciliator, he now attempted to achieve a minimal degree of reconciliation
with the Schola, at least on a symbolic level. In 1912 he invited d'Indy, still at the
head of the Schola, to teach a class at the Conservatoire on the seemingly neutral
subject of orchestration.120 Typical of the prudent and oblique tactics of Faure, it
had the effect of co-opting d'Indy without affecting any fundamental issues. But,
by .1913, under the impact of Faure's reforms, the Conservatoire had, in many re-
spects, co-opted the pedagogy of the Schola Cantorum. By this point students
were required to pass a preliminary examination in fugue in order to gain admit-
tance to a class in composition, and courses in the history of music were no
longer simply optional (and thus unattended) but, as at the Schola Cantorum, re-
quired of all students. Finally, the repertoire taught to the performers, especially
to the singers, no longer drew exclusively or even primarily on that of the theater.
Yet distrust of the Schola remained, as we may discern in an article of 1913 by the
teacher, composer, and former Dreyfusard Charles Koechlin. Here he not only
refers to aspects of the Schola's teaching as dangerous but, like others, empha-
sizes its dogmaticism, based on both ideological and religious beliefs.121
Scholars Join the Battle

The battle with the Schola Cantorum continued in other venues as well, includ-
ing lectures on music delivered at both the Sorbonne and the College de France.
For the Schola's conception of music history could not go unchallenged any more
than could its idiosyncratic approach to musical education and to performance.
Now, however, the more "centrist" Republic, which was waxing conservative,
sought an appropriate spokesman for its concomitant artistic ideals. It found one
in Louis Laloy, whose profile in the French academic world was increasingly
prominent, who thus undertook this specific intellectual charge: not only did he
take over Rolland's position at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales, but in 1906
he became "charge de cours de l'art" at the Sorbonne, lecturing on music history.
As we might expect, here he concentrated on the now central issue of the
"French tradition," with an emphasis on opera between the periods of Lully and
Rameau.122 Laloy, however, employed the latter composer in an ingenious way—
to defend both the Conservatoire and Debussy's style as a model for French
youth. Laloy undertook the defense of harmony (and, implicitly, of Debussy's
musical style) in his book Rameau, undoubtedly based on his earlier lectures.
Here he thus attempts to valorize Debussy by linking him to a concept of the
French tradition that recalls the rhetoric of "Agathon."
After arguing that harmony is the invariable and absolute "truth" of music,
Laloy characterizes Rameau's oeuvre as "la musique de raison"; moreover, he as-
serts, since Rameau's work has remained in the repertoire (which, as we have
noted, was not entirely the case), he has achieved the status of "classic."123 As we
shall shortly see, by placing Debussy in the canon that leads back to Rameau,
Laloy was able to construe the former as definitely in the French classic tradition;
as we shall see in chapter 4, not only did the composer openly embrace this argu-
ment but also, indeed, he later attempted to manifest it creatively in specific
works.
Laloy's efforts on behalf of the Conservatoire (and hence the more conserva-
tive Republic) did not go unnoticed, and neither did they go unrewarded by offi-
cial recompense. In 1910 the faculte des lettres of the Sorbonne took a vote on
who would replace Rolland in his courses on music history while he was away on
leave. The candidates were Laloy and Andre Pirro, who, as we have noted, had
held the chair of music history at the Schola Cantorum. In preparing for the vote,
Rolland presented the credentials of both but, remaining professionally objective,
refused to state his own personal preference. He did, however, observe Laloy's re-
markable literary talent, the fact that he was an excellent hellenist and gifted in
languages, knowing German, Russian, and Chinese. He further noted Laloy's po-
sition as critic for La Grande revue, as well as his very "modernist" tendencies as
the critical representative of "Debussysme."124 Laloy's influence in the larger in-
tellectual world was undoubtedly considered an asset, as was his association with
"progressive" tendencies.
When speaking of Pirro, Rolland observed that his thesis and subsequent
writings represented the most substantial scholarship done on Bach since that of
Spitta. He continued, however, that although Pirro had renewed the study of
Bach, he was modest, isolated, and less known in France than in Germany, where
his value was acutely appreciated. Given the complicated network of power
within the French university system, as well as the mounting tensions with Ger-
many, this was not to be in Pirro's favor. Rolland concluded, however, that both of
the candidates had certainly proved themselves not only very good teachers, but,
in general, excellent lecturers.
The noted sociologist and leading figure of "la nouvelle Sorbonne," Emile
Durkheim, as we might expect, supported Louis Laloy; he pointed out that Laloy
had already taught as an assistant, which would make a refusal of him now seem to
be a disapprobation. But three others supported Pirro, and Durkheim, apparently
worried, then suggested a compromise position—that the two alternate lectures.
When the vote was finally taken, however, it was, predictably, in Laloy's favor,
given the current attacks on the Schola and Pirro's former association with it.
The Conservatoire also found a defense in Combarieu's lectures at the Col-
lege de France, despite his objective and guarded criticism of it. His lectures were
further diffused through their publication in the Revue musicale, making them an
important and influential forum that reached a considerable audience. Com-
barieu, the former organizer of the Congres d'Histoire Musicale, of 1900, gave
one series of lectures on "LOrganisation des etudes d'histoire musicale en France
dans le second moitie du XIXe siecle." 125 In his talks, undoubtedly in answer
to the Schola, he pointed out that all the fertile innovations in such studies were
the result of "a keen sense of the French genius and of the unity in France's
political history." Combarieu presented the Conservatoire as the incarnation of

this awareness, pointing out its conception in opposition to the monarchist
Opera, and hence its suppression during the Restoration, as a source of Republi-
can propaganda. 126
In his subsequent lectures, Combarieu offered suggestions for the present
day, particularly concerning the way in which musical instruction could serve
the Republic. Probably with the Schola, as well as suggestions like those of
Bourgault-Ducoudray and the Action Francaise, in mind, he recommended the
use of music in national primary education; through instruction in singing on a
national scale one might act directly on "1'esprit publique," as in the revolution-
ary period, and thus help to form the right kind of "sentiment national."
Combarieus conception of this emerges in another one of his lectures on
music history, and also subsequently published in the Revue musicale. It too is
staunchly anti-Scholiste, sounding in places like Bruneau's Rapport, for it simi-
larly traces the origins of music back to the "chanson populaire."127 Moreover,
his treatment of Beethoven resembles that of Bruneau and Romain Rolland, for he
presents the composer as the incarnation of the universalistic, humanitarian, Re-
publican ideal. As we shall see in chapter 4, d'Indy, infuriated by such interpreta-
tions, was soon to publish a book on the master that stressed the role of his reli-
gious faith.
POLITICIZATION IN THE WAR OF THE CHAPELLESES"
The battle launched by the Right on official Republican educational institutions

was by no means the only one whose reverberations were felt and refracted by the
musical world; other battles of cultural politics waged initially by the nationalist
Right had profound implications for the musical culture, whose tone they help to
set. Once more, these battles interacted in a complex manner with the profes-
sional concerns and divisions in the field that already existed; this was certainly
the case with the famous "Guerre des Chapelles," the war between compositional
"camps," to which a substantial literature in France was immediately devoted.
Again, as in the battle between educational institutions that we have seen, this
battle for professional hegemony was subtended by far deeper value-tensions.
Here, too, the discourses of politics, literature, and music interpenetrated, once
more through the medium of intermediary figures who cut across them all. In-
deed, the word employed now to describe the hostile factions, with their conflict-
ing configurations of beliefs and values, originated in the literary world.
The term "chapelle," which now entered general usage to describe the antag-
onistic factions vying for leadership in the professional world of music, first ap-
peared in literature. In 1920 Pierre Lasserre, in Les Chapelles litteraires, addressed
the phenomenon, which, he argued, had existed for the past twenty years. What
he describes here are parties of zealots, grouped around certain major figures and
acting with a tyranny and intolerance reminiscent of religious sects: their tactics
consist of emphasizing certain politicized values associated with an author and
often, in doing so, obscuring the writer's actual source of merit. 128
In the field of music, the "chapelles" were similarly grouped around ma-
jor figures, and the question of aesthetic legitimacy was linked to more compre-
hensive political values. With the approach of war, all factions were arguing in
the name of "true" French tradition, while maintaining different political and
cultural conceptions of it. The values of each camp were related to the po-
litical realm in a manner more subtle or indirect than that in the field of lit-
erature, which deals with "ideas." Still, no one could escape awareness of the
"spirit of violent combativity" that pervaded the musical world and was immor-
talized by Romain Rolland in his novel Jean Christophe.129 Each "chapelle" was
associated not only with the advocacy of certain values but also with their as-
sociated styles and forms, as well as with specific historical canons or models.
As we shall see in chapter 4, hardly a composer could avoid being critically
being "classed," and often wrongly so, on the basis of style, by a polarized press.
This would have a significant impact on the decisions that composers in this pe-
riod would make and on the creative tactics employed by some to confound such
classifications.
The "Debussystes"
As we might expect, one "chapelle" was grouped around d'Indy and the Schola
and the other around Claude Debussy, now the idol of young Conservatoire stu-
dents. In this context, the battle between educational institutions reappeared, but
now with a new set of galvanizing issues, questions, and aesthetic conceptions.
The question of Claude Debussy, of his "legitimacy" as a French composer, was
clearly the central issue, eliciting responses on all sides. Mauclair remained a cen-
tral figure in the battle over Debussy, bringing the issue to a head in a contro-
versial article published in 1905. Entitled "Le Debussyste" and published in the
Courrier musical, its focus is on the fanatical adulation of the composer on the
part of young Conservatoire students. He was by no means alone in this percep-
tion, for Leon Vallas as well observed that it was the rebellious Conservatoire stu-
dents who idolized him, despite the reserve of their professors. Although the
Conservatoire did not officially recognize Debussy's harmonic language, it did at
least consider him an advocate of their "vertical" conception of music. It was thus
the institution's opposition to the "horizontal" or contrapuntal conception associ-
ated with the Schola Cantorum that led to its recognition of Debussy.
What now concerned Mauclair was the frenetic manner in which young
Conservatoire students defended and vaunted their idol, often to the detriment of
other fine composers. It was becoming increasingly characteristic of this group,
after the example of Debussy himself, to deride Berlioz and Wagner along with
Beethoven.130 While Mauclair distanced himself from such fanaticism, he did
point out his appreciation of Debussy, having been among the first to hear him
perform Pelleas at the piano in 1893. However, it was not in the opera that the
writer perceived the best of Debussy's work but rather in the composer's more re-
cent work, which he considered more "healthy." Already in Pelleas, however,
Mauclair perceived certain elements of the composer's new style—a simplicity
and clarity that would elevate him to the status of a model or guide. In chapter 4
we shall examine the impetus for this evolution and the way in which it related to
values diametrically opposed to those of Mauclair.
What now alarmed the writer was the way in which his nemesis, the re-
doubtable Louis Laloy was explicating this new stylistic phase. Once more, it was
a question of the values that he was reading into the style—values that Mauclair
still equated with the menacing "nationalist reaction." Again, as we shall see in
chapter 4, Laloy's interpretation was to prove in keeping with the image that the
composer apparently wished to project of himself. Mauclair's key point of con-
tention was whether Laloy's academic credentials endowed him with the "compe-
tence" to pronounce upon the deeper intentions informing Debussy's art. As a
man of letters, he did not admit that Laloy had more of a right than he to speak of
the larger cultural meaning of Debussy's musical style; he thus proceeds to belit-
tle Laloy by referring to him as a "professor" and by observing that, in France,
where diplomas are valued, art is considered a consequence of "instruction."131
He thus exacted his revenge on Laloy, who, in the earlier debate over "Verism,"
had made a scathing reference to Mauclair's "universal incompetence." Mauclair
concludes ironically by noting that apparently Debussy himself is not "compe-
tent" to understand the intentions being imputed by Laloy to his art.
The debate over the interpretation and evaluation of Debussy became so
heated that, in the same year, Emile Vuillermoz published an article about this so-
called affaire in the Mercure musical. Again implying the deep divisions of values
underlying opposing sides, as well as their ultimate sources, he refers here to
music's "Dreyfus Affair"; moreover, Vuillermoz perceives these deep conflicts over
values as homologous, and he proceeds facetiously to carry the analogy to the
point of confounding the two "affairs":
II se peut que les traites d'histoire ancienne enseignent un jour qu'un chef de musique
militaire, nomme Achille Dreyfussy, fut accuse de haute trahison par un expert en
harmonie qui avait etudie de pres son ecriture.
(One day treatises on ancient history might teach that a chief of military music,
named Achille Dreyfussy, was accused of high treason by an expert in harmony who
studied his writing closely.)
Vuillermoz reveals his allegiance to Louis Laloy, his colleague in the journal,
through his own dismissal of the position represented in the debate by Mauclair.
He equates the latter's diatribe with that of another writer of the Left of whom he
disapproves and whom he considers dangerous, the author of Pelleastres, the
fashionable novelist, Jean Lorrain.
The author of a damning social characterization of Debussy's followers as
aesthetes, Lorrain indeed had begun as one, modeling himself after Oscar
Wilde,132 but, once "reformed," he venomously targeted those who were unre-
pentant, focusing his attention briefly on the ardent young followers of Claude
Debussy. In his articles and subsequent book, published in 1909, Lorrain dev-
astatingly portrays the group of fanatics that coalesced around Pelleas et Meli-
sande. He observes that it was the. same group that attended Lugne Poe's
premieres, that praised the nostalgic melodies of Grieg and the "learned orches-
1S6 THE BATTLE ESCALATES AND IS WON
tration" of d'Indy's Fervaal; as Lorrain goes on to argue, what drew them to De-
bussy was, in effect, nothing more than the self-indulgent titillation of the senses
they derived. For him, such quasi-sexual pleasure was simply the latest delight of
a group he disdainfully characterizes and dismisses as both "snobs" and insincere
"poseurs."
Lorrain then proceeds to contrast this group with those who had worshiped
Wagner, for the latter were, he argues, sincere and drawn from all social classes.
The "religion" of Claude Debussy, in contrast, for Lorrain, is much more elegant:
its members are of "le monde" and accordingly occupy the most expensive
seats.133 Although Lorrain was not a man of the Right but of the Left, he shared
the traditionalist's moral probity and disdain for the merely sensual. The picture
that he painted of Debussy's followers is one they would have to combat, in part
through the development of their own coherent social rhetoric; once articulated,
it would enter in dialogue with the other positions around it, each seeking to pro-
vide a political and philosophical justification for an aesthetic preference.
Here the way was prepared, once more, by the omnipresent Louis Laloy, who
became the spokesman and defender for the group that was labeled "De-
bussystes." He would soon be joined by both Emile Vuillermoz and Jean Mar-
nold, after the latter's apostasy and renunciation of his former Scholiste sympa-
thies.134 As the reader will recall, Laloy published an article on the subject of
"musical parties" in Jacques Rouche's La Grande revue in December 1907; here
Laloy, like Vuillermoz, but in a less facetious tone, remarks on the way in which
French political culture has ineluctably impinged on French musical life. For
him, this is manifest in the spirit of "parties" and their increasingly fierce opposi-
tion, which, in the musical world, is refracted into the opposition of d'Indysme
and Debussysme. (Since the opponents of Debussy on the Left did not propose an
alternative model—other than the German Wagner—Laloy omits them as a com-
positional "party")
I have noted Laloy's attack on the Schola, especially on its atavism and
pedantry; in the article, this becomes the foil against which he presents Claude
Debussy. As opposed to d'Indy's passion for reason, "classification," and moral al-
legory, Debussy composes music that is, for Laloy, the opposite in almost every
sense: "Elle se presente seule, sans garanties, sans argument, forte de sa grace
unique et d'une intime cohesion qui dispense des appuis des theories" (It pre-
sents itself alone, without guarantees, without argument, strong in its unique
grace, and of an intimate cohesion that does without the support of theories). Ac-
cording to Laloy, Debussy's only logic is that of sounds and harmonies; his
achievement is to have "discovered" the true character of chords and to have con-
nected them according to their inherent "laws."135
Like Vuillermoz, Laloy, in essence, preserved and further elaborated the sci-
entific rhetoric of the Conservatoire, in opposition to that of the Schola; such
rhetoric, however, bore increasingly less relation to that of their idol who, as we
shall see in chapter 4, attempted increasingly to disassociate himself from "De-
bussysme." But the circle around Debussy used it to differentiate itself from the
Schola, which it represented as dogmatic and moralistic, less interested in music
than in political goals. Hence, they argued, the Schola, being a school of ama-
teurs, devoid of talent, who could only follow rigid rules, condemned genius,
novelty, and the original. Debussy and the Conservatoire, in contrast, represented
precisely the opposite: genius, independence, purely musical goals, and liberal-
ism of approach. Despite their disclaimers of political allegiance, it is by no
means a coincidence that the movement's major spokesmen published in those
journals that were associated with the "liberal Right."
Like the adherents of other positions, the Debussystes held their own con-
ception of the French tradition and began to discuss it more articulately as the
Nationalists tide mounted before the war. They agreed with Debussy, who in this
period was arguing that the French tradition was one of clarity, concision, ele-
gance, simplicity, and a desire to please the senses. It thus characteristically val-
ued pleasure, the "picturesque" or descriptive, a pagan sensuality, independence,
grace, charm, and wit, or humor.136 These, consequently, were the qualities they
perceived in the works within their own French canon, one that they did, in fact,
share with their idol, Debussy. It centered on the secular masters from the six-
teenth through the eighteenth centuries, especially Jannequin, le Jeune,
Couperin, and, of course, Rameau. It did not admit any composer of either for-
eign influence or blood, which excluded not only Gluck but also Cesar Franck,
dismissed as "Beige."
Debussy and his followers emphasized Couperin and the "clavecinistes,"
who, in general, were excluded by the camps around both Bruneau and d'Indy;
while the Schola denigrated most of the popular nineteenth-century composers,
the Debussystes pointedly honored Gounod, Bizet, Lalo, and Massenet.137 As we
might expect, they emphatically excluded those figures and genres that were too
closely or exclusively associated with the pedagogy of the Schola Cantorum: this
prominently included the symphony, which the Debussysts continued to revile,
even after it won some degree of legitimization at the Conservatoire. Their pri-
mary argument against it was that the genre was not a legitimate one for French
composers because it was neither historically nor endemically "French."
For Debussy and his supporters, such as Laloy and Vuillermoz, the sym-
phony embodied none of the traits that they believed defined the authentic
French tradition in music. Not only did it value form over content, but the kind
of content that ii embodied was overly intellectual and moralistic, abjuring the
sensuous play of sounds.138 Instead of emphasizing freedom and "the natural,"
it encouraged personal emotional confessions and required adherence to rigid
rules, which curtailed the composer's individual choice. Here, clearly, the
Scholiste propaganda concerning the nature of the symphony had been so power-
ful that the Debussystes conceived its model as synonymous with the genre itself,
but, given the growing importance of tradition, it was necessary to acknowledge
the fact that there had been a tradition, if minor, of symphonic composition in
France. Hence, according to Charles Koechlin, who decades later repeated these
views, while the French did not slight tradition, they abandoned what they con-
sidered too dogmatic or narrow; he, like his Debussyste colleagues, argued that
the authentic French tradition is essentially one of freedom, of continual renewal
and invention. 139
Again, this point of view precluded an acceptance of the symphony—and es-
pecially the Scholiste conception of it—as an appropriate vehicle for French com-
posers. Vuillermoz explicitly argued that the symphony was by now not only ob-
solete but also an essentially Germanic genre more suited to ideas than to art. In
addition, in the hands of ardent Scholistes it was a medium of nefarious propa-
ganda, or, more specifically, of Nationalist, authoritarian, and Catholic ideology.
As Vuillermoz later expressed it:
The connoisseur of symphonies loves order and discipline above all. ... It pleasesS
him to see art renounce its attitude of eternal rebellion. The symphonic formula is an
acquiescence to social order. The partisans of authority have always been instinctively
grateful to artists who have consented to this profession of faith and hostile to those
who have refused to carry out this rite.140
Although this description was written after the war, it reflects the opinions
held by Vuillermoz and his Debussyste colleagues throughout the prewar period.
It was these fundamental disagreements over values, genres, and styles that fos-
tered a growing perception of the persistence of antagonistic "poles" within
French music. This appearance was further reinforced by those who continued to
pit the "horizontal" conception of music, as disseminated at the Schola, against
the "verticalism" of the Conservatoire.141 In 1909, in the widely read Le Monde
musical, Alfred Casella published an article on the subject of "Musiques horizon-
tales et musiques verticales."142 Here he perceptively analyzes the basis of the
conflict between "harmonistes" and "contrapuntistes" as deriving from the pro-
found incompatibility of the Debussyste and the d'Indyste aesthetics. As we have
seen, these conflicting sets of values had a deeper foundation, one extending ulti-
mately to the level of conflicting political and cultural models. It was for this very
reason that, despite the attempts of Casella and others to effect a reconciliation of
hostile positions, this did not, in fact occur; for, again, it was not a matter of
purely artistic logic or taste, so inextricably were aesthetic and political stances in
France by now intertwined.
The "Case" of Debussy

Further testimony to this fact emerged the following year, in 1910, when two
books on the rancorous divisions with the French musical world appeared. One
was by two journalists, C. Francis Caillard and Jose de Berys, the latter of whom
was associated with the moderate Republican Le Radical. Entitled Le Cas Debussy
and aimed at a broad potential audience, its principal subject was the legitimacy
of Debussy's style from the perspective of what is "French."
Here we see even more clearly the intertextual references to larger ideological
issues that the question of the legitimacy of Debussy's musical style evoked. The
authors begin by drawing attention to the current acrimonious battle, aptly and
incisively comparing it with the famous eighteenth-century musical "Querelles":
"On se rend compte que jamais peut-etre dans 1'histoire musicale de la France ne
s'etait elevee polemique plus curieuse . . . plus passionnee . . . depuis la le-
gendaire querelle des Gluckistes et Piccinistes."
(One realizes that never perhaps in French musical history had a more curious . . .
more passionate . . . polemic arisen since the legendary quarrel between the Gluck-
istes and Piccinistes.)
Indeed, in both cases political and artistic ideologies had become inseparable,
and hence conflicting political ideals were fought out obliquely around the art.
Le Cas Debussy begins by juxtaposing an unpublished interview with De-
bussy and an article by Raphael Cor, "M. Claude Debussy et le snobisme contem-
porain." The latter, which appeared in the Revue du temps present in October
1909, was, like Lorrain's Pelleastres, an act of cultural politics, similarly attempt-
ing to delegitimize Debussy as "French" by associating him with contemporary
"snobisme" or "le monde." In the interview juxtaposed with the article, Debussy
claims that there are no more "chefs-d'ecole," which leads the authors to insinu-
ate that the composer has hypocritically assumed precisely such a stance; more-
over, they claim that the "school" he heads is indeed the most intransigent group
of composers that has ever been known in the history of French music.143 As we
have seen, this was the impression often given by Debussy's defenders in the
press, although Debussy himself remained aloof and abjured such a "school." The
article by Raphael Cor sets the tone for the rest of the book, being in essence a
scathing critique of the Debussyste social clique; like Lorrain, its author clearly
holds Wagnerian sympathies, is inclined to the political Left, and admires Gus-
tave Charpentier's Louise. Resembling other spokesmen for this aesthetic-political
position (such as Mauclair), he condemns Debussy for avoiding what he terms a
truly "musical result"; for all real art, Cor continued, is both a rich and passionate
experience, one that Debussy repudiates in search of only minute and rare
sonorities.144 This criticism recalls d'Indy's cruel satire of the Debussystes in the
tableau of the "Faux Artistes" in La Legende de Saint-Christophe. Here again, the
Left and the Right, in search of a moral and "substantial" art, are joined in their
critique of a more independent or "liberal" approach.
According to the book's authors, it was on the basis of the article's "success"
that they then undertook a survey, which was published in the Revue du temps
present. This, they explain, was inspired by one conducted on the occasion of the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Wagner and that appeared in 1908 in
LEclair.145 The authors of the poll had asked the most notable living composers
in France for their opinions on the other key question of the moment—the influ-
ence of Wagner on French music; now, Caillard and de Berys argue, it is time to
consider Claude Debussy and to question contemporaries on the advisability of
his becoming a "chef-d'ecole." Once more, the deeper implications concern the
future of French music and the legitimacy of Debussy's art as a potential major in-
fluence upon it.
The authors posed the following specific questions to those they approached:
Quelle est Pimportance reelle et quel doit etre le role de M. Claude Debussy dans
1'evolution musicale contemporaine? Est-il une individualite originale, seulement ac-
cidentelle? Represente-t-il une nouveaute feconde, une iormule et une direction sus-
ceptibles de faire ecole, et doit-il faire ecole?
(What is the real importance and what should be the role of Mr. Claude Debussy in
the evolution of contemporary music? Is he an original individuality, only accidental?
Does he represent a fecund novelty, a formula or a direction that is capable of found-
ing a school, and should he found a school?)
The question of leadership was tied not only to that of "schools" in general but to
the now central question of a representative "national school"; as we have seen,
the future direction of the nation's culture, including its art was an increasingly
pivotal question in the cultural politics of contemporary France.
Tied to this issue as well was that of French youth and its cultural proclivi-
ties, a question that entered into complex counterpoint with that of Debussy's
musical influence. The culture of the next generation was increasingly a pro-
found concern, and the battle over it would grow only more intense in the years
preceding the war. One of the forms that this battle assumed was that of "genera-
tional portraiture," descriptions and explanations of the cultural tendencies of
French youth. In 1912 the two Rightist sympathizers Henri Massis and Alfred de
Tarde published a survey of French youth in the Parisian daily LOpinion. It was
subsequently published in the form of a book the following year, which bore the
bold and arresting title Lesjeunes gens d'aujourd'hui (The young people of today).
The survey was not innocent: as Massis and de Tarde later admitted, it was an act
of cultural politics—it had a specific ideological goal. They wished to influence
French youth by offering an "image" of themselves that imbued them with moti-
vation, as well as with a "sense of power and pride."146 This image, as we might
expect, given their book on the "new Sorbonne," was closely associated with the
nationalist ideology of the far Right. Here they contended that French youth, on
the basis of those they polled, admired such contemporary figures as Maurras,
Bergson, and Peguy, as well as Sorel.147
Similarly, Caillard and de Berys attempted to show, on the basis of their inter-
views, that Debussy's position in the canon was fragile and his influence on youth
not substantial. The individuals surveyed included critics and those with a pro-
fessional background in music along with literary personalities, especially those
concerned with the direction of French art. Maurice Barres, however, demurred,
commenting that Debussy was too great an artist for someone so ignorant of the
field to pose as one of his "judges." Given Barres's Wagnerism, a negative re-
sponse was probably expected, although as we shall see in chapter 4, by this
point Debussy was philosophically close to Barres. Camille Bellaigue responded
as could be expected: "J'estime cette importance minimale et je souhaite que le
role soit aussi"148 (I appraise this importance as minimal, and I hope that its role
is also). Again, Bellaigue, a man of the Right, was expressing an aesthetic view
that accorded with that of the political Left, as against the dangerous "liberal" or
center Right.
Mauclair, too, was predictable, commenting, "le Debussysme est un sno-
bisme haissable ... la genialite [de Debussy] ne suffit pas a constituer un genie GEN
complet, puissant, et humain" (Debussysme is a detestable snobism . . . [De-
bussy's] cleverness does not suffice to constitute a complete, powerful, and
human genius). Debussy's music was still being judged through a discourse that
had been developed originally by figures like Bruneau in the wake of the Dreyfus
Affair. Romain Rolland also supported the authors, commenting, through the fic-
titious personage of Jean Christophe, "Je n'aime pas beaucoup toute votre
musique frangaise d'aujourd'hui et je ne suis pas fou de votre Debussy"149 (I
don't like all of your French contemporary music a lot, and I'm not mad about
your Debussy). Although Rolland was open-minded, given his strong apprecia-
tion of German music and his socioaesthetic ideals, this position is hardly sur-
prising. "Willy's" response was similarly predictable because of his support of the
Schola Cantorum; indeed, he begins by quoting d'Indy on the "haute valeur" of
Debussy. But he then proceeds to praise d'Indy as the composer who has re-
mained "completement fidele a notre tradition musicale francaise" and whom no
one can accuse of incompetence or snobbism.150 The nature of the French tradi-
tion was still the principal issue, and lying behind the different conceptions of it
remained conflicting cultural and political conceptions of France.
The "Societe Musical Independante"

The polarity in French music, the "guerre des chapelles," was not merely a per-
ception of critics; indeed, so deep was the rift that it led to a secession from the
Societe Nationale de Musique. A number of younger composers, particularly
those who admired Debussy, had long complained about the repeated rejection of
their works for the society's programs; given d'lndy's leadership and the domi-
nance of his fellow Scholistes, there seemed to be no choice but to found a rival
"Debussyste" performance society. This was the Societe Musicale Independante,
which professed to have no dogma, and thus to be open to all musical works of
authentic merit. But, in fact, this was not really true, for a larger socioaesthetic
and political position did indeed emerge within the writings of its members and
associates. They, too, attempted to "appropriate" composers in support of their
common aesthetic cause, even those whose aesthetic and political views were, in
fact, substantially different.
The society's founding members included Charles Koechlin, Louis Laloy
Jean Marnold, Emile Vuillermoz, Maurice Ravel, and Jean Hure. As we shall
shortly see, it was the latter who would reveal the larger sociopolitical presuppo-
sitions that implicitly underlay their aesthetic within this dialogic context. Faure
agreed to become president of the society, despite the fact that he still felt a loy-
alty to the Societe Nationale, which had done so much for his career. But it was to
promote young talent, particularly his former Conservatoire pupils, that Faure
nevertheless reluctantly acquiesced and took on the new post. Debussy, however,
remained aloof and avoided serving on its juries, not liking the tone of the soci-
ety, which he perceived as too "mondain." Ironically, he agreed with critics like
Lorrain, Caillard, and de Berys that the social milieu of the so-called Debussystes
was high society, or "le monde." Indeed, the Societe Musicale Independante, ac-
tively cultivated "le tout Paris" by distributing tickets and thus ensuring a firm
basis of social support. And, like Faure, Debussy himself (as opposed to his ar-
dent admirers) was not hostile to either the Societe Nationale or to its leader, Vin-
cent d'Indy.151
PERCEPTIONS OF THE C O N F L I C T I N G MUSICAL "DOGMAS"
For the founders of the new society, hostility to the opposing faction extended
from the aesthetic level to the social and political presuppositions beneath it.
This we may perceive in Jean Hure's analysis of the battle between the "chapelles"
and their contentious philosophies, his Dogmes musicaux of 1909. The book was
one of several analyses by musicians in both opposing factions of the fractious
state of the French musical world and its ultimate ideological basis. In all of these
we may observe the way in which purely technical or professional issues were
laden with deeper layers of cultural and political associations and conflicts. Here,
denying that the Debussyste position was itself a "dogma," Hure attempts to
identify such creeds, the ways they are spread, and their ideological foundations.
In a sense, Hure's analysis resembles that of Massis and de Trade in their own
minute dissection of the ideological roots of the "Nouvelle Sorbonne"; for it is in
the same critical spirit that Hure "exposes" not only the political basis of support
for the teachings of the Paris Conservatoire but for the Schola Cantorum as well.
As we shall see, his expose was also informed by a specific professional goal—
to lay the intellectual foundations for a new school of music he was currently
planning.152
As we might expect, Hure both criticizes and supports the Paris Conserva-
toire, speaking on behalf of its most aesthetically "advanced" former students.
This, in part, explains the preface to the book, by Gabriel Faure, whose interest
here was ostensibly in defending the institution of which he was in charge. Rein-
forcing the argument of the Conservatoire's defenders concerning its "liberalism,"
he impugns "le regie etroite et accepte sans controle" as inimical to creative ge-
nius. Undoubtedly with the Schola in mind, he then identifies such "eternal rou-
tine" not with the Conservatoire but with fear and hate of progress and the
new.153
Faure also emphasizes the seriousness of the current problem of "dogma,"
observing the important place that music occupies in contemporary intellectual
preoccupations. Here, perhaps, he is referring to the omnipresent discussions of
music in almost all the major contemporary French political and cultural publi-
cations. He thereby affirms the usefulness of the book at a time when so many
people, without either preparation or predisposition, have become interested in
the art. The implication, which Hure develops, is that, depending on how it is
taught or from what ideological angle, the knowledge of music can, in fact, be
dangerous. Faure goes on to point out the value of a book that argues that the
purported "laws" of music are really based on exceptions and badly generalized
by ignorant theoreticians. Clearly, the Schola Cantorum with its curious and el-
liptical music history, as codified in d'Indy's idiosyncratic Cours de composition
musicale, is intended here. But, once more, Faure qualifies his comments by ob-
serving that one should not confuse such "laws" with the fundamental principles
of order that guide the creator of a work of art.154
Hure begins his book by explaining precisely what he means by "dogma":
any affirmation imposed as an absolute truth, but without exact verification. He
then facetiously characterizes the Conservatoire's dogma as the simplistic convic-
tion that a musician is basically someone who has learned solfege, harmony, and
counterpoint. From this perspective, he observes, the physical senses count for
nothing; indeed, "geometric calculation" or literary inspiration are considered far
more important. But to this he adds the new dogma of Conservatoire students—
which transcends even Debussyste beliefs—that harmonic writing is "le langage
naturel des musiciens avides de sonorites savoureuses"155 (the natural language
of musicians avid for savory sonorities). Hure then distinguishes his own "scien-
tific" position against this view by discussing his plans for a study on the topic of
"les lois naturelles de la musique": in it he intends to trace what he calls "the
natural progression of hearing" as it develops in each individual, according to the
degrees of auditory comprehension. Like the other Debussysts, Hure attempts to
provide his aesthetic with a covert ideological foundation, citing "science" as his
authority.
It is on the basis of a more rigorous "science" that he attacks the orthodoxies
of Conservatoire instruction, sounding very much like Claude Debussy when a
skeptical and recalcitrant student. Debussy, like Hure, questioned the practice of
teaching only major and minor scales, to the complete exclusion of both the
church and the oriental modes.156 In addition, both challenged the convention of
ordinarily limiting chords to four or five notes along with the conventions of con-
trapuntal writing that they were taught. Hure asks why certain rhythms are "au-
thorized" in contrapuntal textures, observing that the "contrepoint d'ecole" is not
that of Palestrina and Bach but rather that of Franck. Based on the major and
minor modes, it studiously ignored those of the church and admits neither ab-
solute diatonicism nor the chromaticism of Wagner.157 Once again Hure recalls
the young Debussy when he discusses the peril to the composer's spontaneity and
imagination of the conventional Conservatoire instruction; both are aware that
the young composer, after having learned all the exigent "rules" of modulation,
form, and style, is finally granted his freedom, only to find that he has lost it.
Hure then attempts to situate this "official" approach within the social and
political world that, he argues, is responsible for maintaining it. For him it
is "1'esthetique officielle, bourgeoise, Festhetique du public eclaire, aux gouts
moderes, du public centre droite et centre gauche (the official bourgeois aes-
thetic, the aesthetic of the enlightened public, of moderate taste, of the Right cen-
ter and Left center public)."158 This indeed was the position of the Republic by
the time of Hure's book, for it was inching ever closer toward the position occu-
pied by the more moderate Right.
Hure has no sympathy for Naturalism, and, although he professes to admire
Louise, like Debussy he argues that music, by nature, is antithetical to social real-
ity.159 His aversion to the orthodox Left is patent in the course of his discussion
of the "dangerous" musical instruction that is currently being dispensed from
above to "le peuple." Seeing such free courses in music as tantamount to mere in-
doctrination, he claims that the naive audience that attends them is essentially
"told" what to think. Hure proceeds to deride such partisan attempts to "initiate"
the people to art, which, he argues, only serves to alienate them from their own
essential nature, For Hure, such politicized socialization in music distorts what
he perceives as the social and cultural "essence" of the people, which must be
164 THE BATTLE ESCALATES AND 1S WON
maintained. Now "les gens du peuple" no longer compose "sublime chansons"

and no longer work ably with their hands as they did in the Middle Ages; rather,
they possess the dubious distinction of knowing, for example, that Wagner,
Michelangelo, Phidias, Racine, and Homer were true men of genius. Hure con-
cludes that dogmas are not only the refuge of the timid and pedantic, but, in
France, they are equally the refuge of those without power.160
Hure then proceeds to a discussion of the controversial Schola Cantorum
and the aesthetic, social, and political philosophy on which he believes it is
based. Although he appreciates the merits of its many pedagogical innovations,
he still considers the school to be dangerous on the basis of its philosophical
foundations. Hure objects especially to the school's "artificial" view of music his-
tory as a series of transformations over time that are born of human will. This, he
challenges, precludes acknowledgment of all "instinct" on the part of the artist
and, moreover, teaches the student to follow abstract "laws" instead of the ear.161
Hure deplores d'Indy's projection of philosophy onto music, as well as his
naivete in concocting a formula for the fabrication of musical "masterworks."
Like others before him, he ridicules the blindness and pretension of those at the
Schola who pretended to be the "depositories" of the teaching and aesthetic of
the dead masters. Just as Debussy does, Hure argues to the contrary that the
"greats" should be seen as exceptions, and most certainly not as providing simpli-
fied models for students to follow. Finally, he condemns those associated with
such teaching as inimical to nature, since they have replaced it with qualities that
are artificially derived from intellect, deduction, and reasoning. Yet, as we have
noted, Debussystes, including Hure, were not categorically hostile to tradition,
although they maintained a distinctive conception of it. Hure lauds the Schola's
efforts to develop an historical approach but points out that d'Indy was not alone
in stressing the importance of music history.162
Hure, then, does not disapprove of the fact that students at the Schola begin
by learning to write monodic melodies free of the major and minor modes or that
they proceed to learn counterpoint from an historical perspective, first in the
form of simple organum and then later advancing to motets and chorales. Only
after this background, he observes, does the student finally learn and gain per-
spective on tonal counterpoint by proceeding to write both canons and fugues.163
For Hure, however, the conclusions that the Schola draws from this teaching
are wrong, once again being narrowly based on its particular philosophical and
social dogma. Such dogma, however, is spread by the press, which Hure, like Hel-
louin, perceives as contributing integrally to the escalating phenomenon of
"chapelles." Here he particularly draws attention to those dual figures who cross
cultural domains and attempt to apply their psychological, philosophical, or liter-
ary doctrines to the criticism of music. Indeed, he sounds like his colleague Laloy
when he acerbically observes that to be a critic of music it can suffice simply to be
a brilliant "hommes de lettres." Such criticism, he continues, is self-referential,
referring constantly either to a "dogma" of music history or simply to other criti-
cal writings; for it is from such texts that the critic appropriates a vocabulary, a
critical code, or the "catechism" of the specific "religion" that he will then pro-
ceed to profess. 164
But Hure does not neglect to expose his own aesthetic philosophy, one that,
as noted, was itself erected on an ideological foundation. He argues that the trans-
formations of musical style in the past were the result not of human intent but of
the development of "hearing," or the human ear. From this he deduces that edu-
cation in music should serve primarily to perfect the ear through the study of
sonorous sensations, moving from the simplest to the most complex: the student
may study the masters, but it is from this study that he will learn that the poly-
phonic style is incompatible with contemporary, more complex harmonies.165
Students will also learn that "charm," or the force of a piece of music, does
not derive exclusively from the form or mold in which it is written: rather, he
argues (recalling Debussy), the idea and the form interact, form being, in essence,
"l'ensemble des moyens employes pour obtenir, l'emotion esthetique" (all the
means employed to obtain the aesthetic emotion). Terms like "sonate," Hure
argues, again as Debussy does (in distinction to the Schola), should be employed
in their original historical sense—as a medium-sized composition of "musique
pure." And finally, again like Debussy and as once again distinct from the Schola,
he opines that there should be no distinction between "le style eleve, le style
familier" and "le style bas." In other words, he opposes the Schola's conception of
"la grande musique," with all the moral, social, and ideological implications it
carried.166
Underlying all Hure's arguments is a conception of the "natural order," one
that in several respects, but especially aesthetically, recalls Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. With Rousseauistic nostalgia, Hure speaks of the "coins de Bretagne,"
not yet deformed by modern civilization, where there are still "melodistes de
genie." He argues that these are "true" musicians, people whose innate musicality
has been allowed to develop unencumbered and according to "natural laws." As a
typical Debussyste, he continues that the "true" musician is one who possesses
not just a perfect ear but a "noble sensuality" as well. l67 Yet his conception of the
natural, as we can see, was not itself value-free, uniformed by a larger social and
cultural perspective—like the other chapelles. For Hure and the majority of the
Debussystes, it most closely approximated that of the liberal Right, being socially
conservative while maintaining the importance of personal freedom or "liberty."
Hure was by no means the only one to attempt to understand the French mu-
sical world in terms of its conflicting musical, social, political, and cultural ide-
ologies. Others were equally concerned with how the different parts of this cul-
ture interacted and how even its most seemingly technical conceptions ultimately
arose from an ideological base. One was the composer Deodat de Severac, who,
on January 15, 1908, published an article in the Courrier musical entitled "La
Centralisation et les petites chapelles." In it he attempts to analyze not only the
characteristics of the predominant "chapelles" but also the reasons for their exis-
tence within the French musical world.
The provenance of the article is revealing: it was based on the "thesis" that
Severac was obliged to write when he terminated his studies at the Schola in
1907. In competition with official institutions, the Schola required a thesis,
which it considered an equivalent, although less extensive, of a doctoral thesis at
the Sorbonne. Such studies were not without impact, as we may perceive by the
fact that Severac was able to publish an adaptation of his in a major musical jour-
nal. D'Indy's requirement, moreover, was a manner of developing an "alternative"
musicology, one that addressed the issues of interest to the Schola, and from its
distinct perspective. The impact of this on the Societe Francaise de Musicologie
would be direct, since many of its early members would come from the circle
around the Schola Cantorum.168
The article is undoubtedly an adaptation of the thesis; although many of its
conceptions derive from the Schola, it is highly critical of the institution itself.
Severac himself never fit the mold of the institution completely, being an ardent
admirer of Claude Debussy, whose music strongly influenced his style. Hence he
refers to "Scholistes" as reactionaries and, like Emile Vuillermoz, points out their
compulsive adulation of "musical architecture," considered as an end in itself.
And he mocks the singular preoccupation at the Schola with cyclic themes,
which (recalling the words of Rolland) they treat as a "sujet de these mecanique
rationnelle."169
Although otherwise critical of the Schola, Severac does not neglect to men-
tion its strengths: its artistic probity, its contempt for vulgarity, its horror of all
histrionics. But he does point out that despite the fact that it represents the
"chapelle de droite," it nevertheless has not given rise to any serious regional cur-
rent.170 Severac then describes d'Indy facetiously as a "monk of the Middle Ages"
who propounds the great classical traditions as well as the necessity of a "disci-
pline severe": his "dogma" is that art must progress ineluctably along the path
that the "great" or classical masters of the past have already firmly established.
But Severac notes d'lndy's peculiar conception of this classical tradition—his re-
duction of it to certain contrapuntal procedures and unchanging tonal "laws"; it
is a conception that places an inordinate priority on formal definition, or, once
more, what d'Indy refers to as "architectural beauty in music."171
In his analysis of d'lndy's place in the French musical world, Severac, like
several others, considers him under the rubric of "independent," as opposed to
"official"; the former are those who work outside the context of state-sponsored
institutions and thus must seek both financing and symbolic legitimacy through
other channels. This rubric includes "chapelles" of the Right and the Left, with
d'Indy clearly being the leader of what Severac and others commonly termed "la
chapelle de droite." In contrast, Severac considers Claude Debussy to be—despite
his Conservatoire background and young Conservatoire admirers—the "officiat-
ing priest" of the independent "chapelle de gauche." Debussy, as its leader,
preaches the love of music in itself, although his followers reduce his creed to the
simple primacy of harmony.172 As chapter 4, shows, they distorted a great more
than this, and indeed Debussy disavowed the role of leader and belief in this
"chapelle."
Severac astutely identifies the reasons for these divisions in the musical cul-
ture that force those outside state institutions to seek sponsors in the "elegant"
world; it is the latter, he argues, who further encourage such factionalization by
displaying a pronounced propensity for one "chapelle" or dogma over the other.
As we have seen, this "elegant world" indeed included those with manifest, politi-
cal sympathies and those with a proclivity for cultural politics. This was certainly
PROLIFERATING FACTIONS, ISSUES. AND SKIRMISHES 167
true of amateurs who supported the Schola Cantorum—socialites who had previ-
ously been members of organizations like the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise.
Severac correctly perceived that independents are forced to identify with a par-
ticular clique—to don a "uniform" or a label that indicates their position. And
this position or association with a "chapelle" is construed immediately as indica-
tive not only of a composer's aesthetic, but of his ideological stance. Severac also
perceives that if a composer refuses to assume a position, he entertains the peril
of having a label assigned him by his enemies or his friends: through a mere ges-
ture, a word, or even the use of a particular form, the composer finds that he is
immediately categorized or classed in a camp, and without recourse. Chapter 4
describes the extent to which Severac's perceptions were true and the tactics to
which this situation led among composers who were "mis-classed."
The Role of "Salons"

Significantly, as Severac implies, the salons were not a realm apart, above the an-
tagonisms between "chapelles" and the cultural politics that underlay them; the
"elegant world" of the Parisian salons could not avoid awareness of the debates in
the press, the meanings it propagated, or the "labels" it assigned French com-
posers. Moreover, many salons had been infiltrated by proponents of different po-
litical positions who, like d'Indy, found them a useful medium to pursue their
cultural politics. Hence there was a simultaneously social, political, and cultural
logic to the musical taste of important patrons who held salons in Paris.
Aside from Scholiste salons and those frequented by major Dreyfusard fig-
ures, perhaps the clearest example of this phenomenon is that of the Princess de
Polignac. Originally an American (nee Wineretta Singer) and thus although an
aristocrat outside the "mold," she was further marginalized by being a homosex-
ual married to another homosexual. Although she was not overtly political, it was
nonetheless clear at the time of the Affair that she was not an anti-Dreyfusard and
that she believed in the innocence of Dreyfus. Indeed, not all French nobles were
hostile to the Republic or held atavistic artistic tastes: some, like the princess, in-
clined far more towards the artistic progressivism of the liberal Right.173
Hence the princess (unlike her husband) was no d'Indyste; her salon seemed
to favor the opposing "chapelle" and included those with ties to the official
world, such as Faure. Other salons similarly favored composers in the "chapelle"
associated with the "Debussystes," as opposed to the Naturalists or "bien pen-
sant" supporters of d'Indy. The "Debussyste salons" included that of Ida and Cipa
Godebski, which welcomed such figures as Ravel, Faure, Roussel, and Satie.
Misia Sert, as well, encouraged the nonofficial Debussystes, in addition to major
figures such as Faure, Debussy, and Ravel. Chausson's salon, on the other hand,
was palpably d'Indyste, receiving personalities such as Franck, Chabrier, d'Indy,
Dukas, and Duparc. 174 Several of its members, as already noted, had been suc-
cessfully recruited by d'Indy for the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise at the time of the
Dreyfus Affair.
Severac was undoubtedly correct in arguing that the salons and the
"chapelles" were closely intertwined and equally unavoidable for "independent"
composers who were forced to navigate within them. His analysis of the "official
composers" and their situation is equally penetrating, if more overtly influenced
by the cultural perspective of the nationalist Right. The "officials," he explains,
are those associated with Republican musical institutions; "protected" by the
state, they are obliged to provide appropriate music for official occasions. His de-
scription of such occasions is scathing. For Severac they consist of such events as
the inauguration of a statue of a "grand citoyen" to the greater glory of "la de-
mocratie triomphante." His political sympathies become even more overt in his
dyspeptic analysis of the education of young, potential French official composers
at the Paris Conservatoire. He describes the plight of students from the French re-
gional conservatories who learn their harmony, win a prize, and are sent to study
in Paris, where their personalities are promptly extinguished.175
For Severac, the result of such state protection is to distance young musi-
cians from identity with their own region, and thus with the source of their iden-
tity. He holds the regional conservatories partly responsible as well, since they
have no true regional characteristics but only prepare their students to go to the
capital. It is in this context that Severac's political sympathies become explicit, for
he cites Barres's charge that such uniform instruction forces student pensioners of
the state "a se deraciner"; moreover, Severac explicitly identifies the historical
roots of such disdain for regional traditions in France as the destructive and
malevolent French Revolution. His cultural and political values here appear to
approximate those of that branch of the Action Francaise that emphasized the re-
gional, as opposed to the centralizing force of a monarchy; indeed, Severac's
larger discourse and analysis, as we have seen, are conceptually bound to those of
the monarchist league and, more generally, the nationalist Right.
As noted, the intertextual references in Severac's discourse were not unique
but were increasingly characteristic of contemporary French writings on music.
In part, this was the result of the more aggressive cultural tactics employed
throughout the political world, which were helping transform the musical cul-
ture. The fact that that world was losing autonomy, as so many analysts now per-
ceived, was to have a direct impact on the experience and decisions of French
composers.
4
Responses of French Composers to the

Traditionalist Victory in Politics and Music
As discussed in chapter 3, in the decade before World War I political ideology

and musical values were no longer discrete: the two realms had fused. In chap-
ter 4 I examine the implications of this fusion as the war loomed ominously
ahead, and French nationalists and conservatives banded together, achieving
hegemony in both politics and culture. Musical life was profoundly to feel the im-
pact of this dual dominance, particularly in the areas of the repertoire and canon,
as well as in criticism and music history; moreover, the major French composers
were henceforth expected to respond in their art to increasingly traditionalist ex-
pectations, the general desire to seek "roots" in the past.
However, they responded differently: Charpentier's political disillusionment
led to further engagement in leftist cultural programs, while dlndy's triumph
only reinforced his bellicosity. The situation of those who refused simple dogma
was now even more professionally difficult and some proceeded, for various rea-
sons, to thwart expectations by manipulating stylistic codes. Debussy, for exam-
ple, found it creatively impossible to subordinate his own musical interests and
inclinations to his increasingly nationalist, right-wing ideology. Although his po-
litical sympathies did not determine the character of his music, they nevertheless
affected it from now on in subtle ways. For, while his style was not orthodox, ad-
hering narrowly to conservative codes and expectations, his nationalism was an
impetus to his deep creativity, providing him with an "identity."
169
Satie's clever games with current musical meanings, on the other hand, led
him to the creation of a polysemic style that could be appropriated ideologically
in multiple ways. Although he was implicitly opposed to nationalism (he joined
the Socialist Party), a nationalist but modernist journal of the "liberal Right" ap-
propriated him for its cause. Finally, I examine other composers who fit into nei-
ther "chapelle" and who continued, with recalcitrance, to assert their right to dif-
fer, against the political tide. For, despite critical retribution, opposition to the
imminent traditionalist victory perdured, provoking conciliatory mediators to
prepare for a wartime musical "union sacree." But, as they would discover, viru-
lent passions persisted and would explode in the final vociferous and violent skir-
mish of the war—over Le Sacre du printemps.
DEBUSSY S NATIONALISM
If Gustave Charpentier was a victim of the politicized battle over Naturalism, De-
bussy was victimized by the more subtly politicized "guerre des chapelles." The
deep-seated ideological differences that underlay different aesthetic positions led
to a blindness toward and even to a distortion of his art. For, as we have seen, the
question of Debussy's influence and its implications for contemporary French
youth had been a polarizing question in the vitriolic "camp war." Yet Debussy's
music was still evolving, and, as he himself was painfully aware, by the height of
the "guerre des chapelles," it was distant from the Debussystes' dogma. While the
reasons for this aesthetic and stylistic evolution are by no means simple, they are
not without logic or coherence when we examine all the relevant contexts.
Camille Mauclair was correct in his psychological and political analysis of
the "nationalist reaction" and in his perception of the place of Debussy's concep-
tions and tendencies within it. His comparison of Debussy with Barres and his
movement from the "culte du moi" to the larger "moi collectif" illuminates the
composer's critical writings; it also helps explain the evolution of Debussy's ideas
and the tensions they engendered in his creativity, which we may discern within
the music itself. While doctrinaire in his prose and in his purely verbal utterance,
Debussy, the most subtle of artists, found it impossible to be doctrinaire in his art.
His aesthetic proclivities, together with his search for a social identity, led him to-
ward a political dogmatism, the limits of which he would transcend in his music.
This resulted in his highly problematic relationship to the nationalist musical
dogma, which equated certain stylistic orthodoxies with a set of political and so-
cial values.
Like Charpentier, Debussy's social identity was highly complex, a fact that
influenced his early explorations, as well as his later artistic search for "roots."
Both artists came from outside the culture that fostered the artistic language they
learned, and both remained objective toward it, seeking something more "au-
thentic"; while achieving eventual success in the state-sponsored academic sys-
tem, they both retained an emotional, ironic distance from it and the musical lan-
guage it taught. Finally, both sought to escape marginality through larger political
and cultural doctrines as a way to anchor their identities and consequently their
RESPONSES TO THE TRADITIONALIST VICTORY 171
creativity and art. Debussy, like Charpentier, was well aware of the social mean-
ings carried by artistic styles or languages, and he too could not resist subverting
such dogma: he maintained a creative objectivity toward the political position to
which he gradually inclined by continuing to play with orthodoxies—now the
meanings assigned to style.
We cannot fully understand Debussy and the later development of his music
apart from his place in the politicized musical culture that surrounded him after
Pelleas; hence, we must attempt to situate him within it and from this perspective
to examine the evolution of his ideas, his professional status, and, finally, his mu-
sical style. As noted, he took a stand on almost all the major issues, but we must
compare his response in prose with the one we find in his music. Since the ten-
sions between his political beliefs and his creative needs impelled his style, we
must begin by examining his ideological evolution and its psychological roots. In
the case of Debussy it is essential to recognize his social liminality—his inability
to identify fully with any one cultural level or social group: his deep originality,
his inability to imbibe a constituted language, culture, or dogma—even that of
the nationalism he professed—emanates fundamentally from this source.
Like Charpentier, Debussy's social origins were, according to contempo-
raries, "modest," although he did not come from "le peuple," or from a properly
working-class background.1 His father had successive occupations; he was at dif-
ferent times a soldier in the infantry, a simple adventurer, and, finally, later, a
small merchant of faience. Politically, Debussy's father was apparently sympa-
thetic to Anarchism, having participated in the Commune and having subse-
quently been sent to prison for four years. It could well have been this fact that
led Debussy, even after his transformation into an ardent nationalist to declare,
when war broke out, that he had no "esprit militaire."2
The composer's brother was an agricultural worker, as well as a cesspool
cleaner, and his sister, Adele, was an employee in a lingerie company. The only
member of his family to rise in social status was his aunt, who became the mis-
tress of the rich Achille Arosa and opened a "maison de couture."3 Debussy's first
exposure to music came when he served as a choirboy in his family's church,
where, according to his sister, he formed his first conceptions of music. This has
led to speculation that his later horror of the cadential formulae that he encoun-
tered at the Conservatoire derived from this early exposure to chant. Later, in-
deed, he became a fervent admirer of the "Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais," and in
1893 he made a trip to Solemnes in order to hear plainchant performed. His other
important exposure to music and art as a child was the theater, where, despite
their limited means, his family frequently took him.4 This experience may lie at
the origins of his emphatic views on "people's theater" and his insight into how
the lower classes experience drama and spectacle.
But when Debussy entered the Conservatoire, his general manner was far
from refined, and his fellow students noted his "gaucherie," or his extraordinary
social awkwardness: it was clear that he, like Gustave Charpentier, did not come
from a social or cultural milieu comparable to that of the majority of the other
students.5 But they also noted that, in spite of his origins, he had developed an
aristocratic taste, a marked preference for the delicate and fine and particularly
for "objets d'art." Although he was by no means a docile student, rather continu-
ally questioning all he was taught, a number of professors admired his talent, par-
ticularly Marmontel, Bazille, and Guiraud.6 Thus, like Charpentier, despite a so-
cial marginality and rebellious streak, he succeeded in the system, winning the
Second Prix de Rome in 1883 and the Premier Prix in 1884.
Debussy arrived at the Villa Medici in 1885 and immediately began to write
M. Vasnier, an architect who had become his mentor. Clearly feeling the need for
social and intellectual refinement, he had frequented the comfortable, bourgeois
Vasnier family while a student in Paris. But in his letters Debussy constantly
speaks of his isolation from his comrades, who, he claimed, accused him unfairly
of always wanting to stand apart; moreover, he complained that they wrongly ac-
cused him of espousing ideas drawn from the brasseries of the boulevard Saint-
Michel which, in this period, implied Anarchism. (Since, as we have noted, part
of the Anarchist creed was to question all constituted cultural authority, as indeed
did Debussy, this may have underlain the charge.) While thus isolated in Rome,
Debussy explored the music performed in the churches, becoming enamored of
what he termed the "pure and simple" style of Palestrina and Lassus;7 in particu-
lar, he marveled at the fact that, in their hands, counterpoint was not "forbid-
ding" but rather served to underlay the feelings expressed in the words.
Another manifestation of Debussy's desire to explore modes of expression
that lay outside those that the Conservatoire recognized was his interest in the
music of Chabrier. It was in this period that he, as so many subsequent com-
posers in France were to do, studied and performed the music of this non-
Conservatoire or "amateur" composer. While a Prix de Rome, Debussy was sys-
tematically rejecting his training, constantly revising those works that seemed to
be marked too strongly by his formal instruction. This included his Fantaisie pour
piano et orchestre, which Debussy now repudiated because of what he saw of its
"predictable" developments and contrapuntal "scaffolding."8
His desire to reopen his imagination led him, in addition, to two other inter-
ests: the music of Wagner and the Javanese gamelan, which he heard at the Uni-
versal Exposition of 1889. Debussy went to Bayreuth in 1888 and 1889 and
began an opera, Rodrique et Chimene, to the libretto of a Wagnerian, Catulle
Mendes, in 1890. But already by 1889 he was beginning to grow disillusioned
with Wagner, perceiving him as the last of the "classics"—not a stylistic begin-
ning, but rather an end.9 What fascinated Debussy now were alternative means of
the development of musical ideas, those that had nothing to do with his conven-
tional and constricting Conservatoire training. As Maurice Emmanuel (a fellow
student) recounts, he argued, for example, that a development should not have to
be "cette amplification materielle, cette rhetorique de professionnel faconne par
d'excellentes lecons" (this material amplification, this rhetoric of a professional,
shaped by excellent lessons) but could be conceived in a more "universal" and
psychological sense.10
Upon his return to Paris, Debussy was, more than ever, aware of the insuffi-
ciency of his "general culture," and he set about to expand it by exploring others.
But now he rejected the "moeurs bourgeois" of his former friends the Vasniers
in favor of (like Charpentier) the "bohemian" literary circles in Montmartre.
Although having an "entree" into the official and bourgeois words through the
Prix de Rome, Debussy peremptorily turned away, rejecting all for which it stood.
His desire now was to acquire a "culture," but conclusively not that of "society,"
in which he clearly felt he did not and could not belong. His intermediary now, in
this new social transformation was Edmond Bailly an editor and the owner of the
bookstore and gathering place called "L'Art Independant." The culture that De-
bussy encountered here was far different from that to which he had been exposed
through his perfunctory primary education and through his contact with the Vas-
niers. To "improve himself," Debussy was, according to contemporaries, an avid
reader, always ready to form an opinion on almost every subject.11
During this stage of his search for an artistic, social, and cultural identity, De-
bussy's closest friendships began to undergo yet another transformation. It was
now, in the early 1890s, that he formed a friendship with Erik Satie, then in his
own "bohemian" phase and working as a pianist in Montmartre cabarets.12 De-
bussy was also close to Pierre Louys, who, as a writer, was highly influential in di-
recting his reading and forming his literary taste in this period. Louys had strong
political opinions, as well as virulent anti-Semitic feelings, which crystallized
during the Dreyfus Affair in an anti-Dreyfusard stance. In addition, Debussy was
friends with Robert Godet, who not only was an ardent Wagnerian but also in-
tractably espoused Houston Stuart Chamberlin's racist views.13
Yet Debussy remained open-minded, for, in the later 1890s, during the pe-
riod of the composition of Pelleas, his friends included Mauclair and other figures
on the Left.14 During the period of the Affair, while Debussy was at work on Pel-
leas, he remained politically ambivalent, in a period of transition, although his
friends chose opposing sides. Rene Peter, who, like Camille Mauclair and De-
bussy's first wife, was a Dreyfusard, persuaded Debussy to hear Anatole France
and Jean Jaures speak in support of Dreyfus;15 but Debussy remained noncom-
mittal, and the most decisive stance that he was able to take was, as already
noted, to sign the petition circulated by the Comite de l'Appel a 1'Union. It ap-
peared in the conservative Republican Le Temps, which moved from an anti-Drey-
fusard position to a reevaluation—not an unusual phenomenon during the Affair,
which sometimes cut across poitical categories. Debussy read its editorials assid-
uously during the years of the Affair, and would continue to read and then sub-
scribe to this conservative or centrist paper. His unwillingness to assume a firm
stance in the Affair is undoubtedly related to his crisis of professional and social
identity—his still liminal position between social worlds, as reflected in the wide
diversity of his freinds.
Until the production of Pelleas, Debussy was far from financially secure and,
according to Rene Peter, was "as much a Montmartre bohemian as a man of the
world." Despite his increasing reputation, he still remained ill at ease in society,
generally reserved and avoiding conversation, except with his closest friends.16
But he was, as an "independent" had to be, a frequenter of important salons, in-
cluding those of Misia Sert and of the "Franckist" Ernest Chausson.17 Yet De-
bussy affirmed his social origins by marrying Lilly Texier, a "fille du peuple," and
by continuing to live an essentially simple, unsophisticated life. l8
This was a period of deep sell-searching and uncertainly for Debussy, as re-
fleeted not only in his contacts, friends, and political sympathies but also in his
art. He continued his attempt to "escape" or disengage himself from his previous
influences, in the realm of music, as well as in larger artistic movements. As so
many texts have recounted, musically he exploited sources outside the Western
tradition, particularly the new rhythmic, melodic, and structural ideas he en-
countered in his exposure to the Javanese gamelan, in 1889. In addition, he
turned back in time to elude the orthodoxies of "Conservatoire language," find-
ing a compatible model in eighteenth-century France in his Suite Bergamasque, of
1890. Already, his aesthetic sensibility was leading him toward a paradigm for
which he would later find intellectual justification, in his search for cultural
"roots." But the decisive influence on Debussy in this seminal stylistic period was
the aesthetic direction provided by his exposure first to the pre-Raphaelites and
then to the Symbolists; both movements had conclusively rejected the conven-
tions of academic rhetoric, one turning toward the distant past and the other ex-
ploring an entirely new mode of discourse.
Debussy inclined, in particular, to the muted poetic values of the Symbolists,
to their "nonintellectual" emphasis, their desire for suggestion as opposed to
statement. This would bear fruit in the work often said to herald his first matu-
rity, the Prelude a I'apres-midi d'unfaune, of 1894, based on Mallarme. Here we see
a coherent language both defined against contemporary conventional musical
discourse and guided by a new set of consistent aesthetic goals. Now he is no
longer interested in the traditional development of ideas or in any mere stereo-
typed form but attempts to redefine the relationship of musical elements in the
definition of form. Hence his turn to a continually evolving melody or motivic
idea that guides all other dimensions and itself helps determine the formal shape.
Debussy here exploits the sonorous as opposed to the "tension-building" effects
of chords and avoids emphatic climaxes in order to follow the evolution of the
melody and the musical "moment."19
Debussy was in the process of a thorough "revolution," reinventing not only
his musical language but also his personal and social beliefs. His search for self-
definition in this period emerges most clearly in his one dramatic effort—the
only play that Debussy ever wrote. It is in Freres en art, the play that he coau-
thored with Rene Peter between 1897 and 1903, that we may observe his evolv-
ing social and political perspective. In this highly autobiographical work, the
ironic distance that the author still manages to assume regarding his presumed
self-presentation recalls Gustave Charpentier's Louise; like Louise, it contains am-
biguous references to Anarchism, or rather an ambivalent attitude toward specific
aspects of Anarchist theory.
Like Charpentier, Debussy could not help but encounter Anarchist ideas in
the literary and social circles in which he moved in Montmartre in the 1890s; as
we have seen, his father had been known to espouse Anarchist beliefs, although
later in life Debussy claimed to have loved, but never shared any ideas with, his
father. Debussy most certainly came into contact with Anarchist ideas in the cir-
cle of the Revue blanche, where he spent six months as a critic in 1901. The issue
of Anarchism thus becomes the, reason for the author's ironic attitude toward his
own self-depiction (recalling Louise), here as the Anarchist hero. Debussy, like
Charpentier, expresses his disorientation and self-irony through an ambiguous

artist-hero with whom he ostensibly identifies. Significantly, the period of the
play's composition spans that period of time when Debussy began to seek the cer-
titude of "tradition" in both his political views and his art.
The theme of the play is a "brotherhood," the proposed communal sharing of
collective income by artists from different fields, to promote unity as opposed to
competition. It has already been posited that the painter Maltravers is Debussy
himself and that his mistress in the play, Marie, is Lilly Texier; also proposed is
the theory that, ashamed of his humble origins, Debussy could express himself
freely on culture only through a character like Maltravers.20 In addition, we
should note the particular significance of the hero's name, which literally means
"crosses badly," implying perhaps a reference to both culture and class. Maltra-
vers's ideas indeed resemble those of Anarchism, especially his desire to destroy
all libraries, which contain only "changing aspects of the same human truth"; in
addition, a concern of the group is to develop a taste for their "revolutionary" art,
not among the bourgeoisie but among the as yet "uncomprehending masses."21
We shall see how well acquainted and concerned Debussy was with the issue
that was currently raging in cultural politics concerning the people and art. He
indeed was to sound like Maltravers in his commentary on the subject so person-
ally sensitive to him, the relationship that existed between culture and class.
Here, according to the character:
I also believe that from this melting-pot of suffering and hatred, and only from this
strength represented by the people, will the most beautiful works arise. The only
problem is that the common people do not like art ... they feel rather like intrud-trdd-
ers or poor relatives! You see traces of this in almost all Anarchist schemes which
apply to them: the propagation of art is not included.22
In the play, the goals of liberty, equality, and fraternity that are idealistically
professed by this group prove to be difficult to realize in the actual world.23 The
emphasis on this problem may well have related to Debussy's own perception of
the inherent contradictions in Anarchist theory from the standpoint of creative
artists. For Anarchism was characterized by a rejection of partisan struggles, as
well as of any means of organized control by a constituted structure of social au-
thority; hence, many artists abetted the movement solely because they perceived
it as a theoretical justification for complete artistic autonomy. Such autonomy
from the "market" requires the kind of solidarity or independent organization
that is attempted by the "Freres en Art"; yet this inevitably eventuates in its own
authority structure—again, one that is imposed, as opposed to rising from simple
consensus within.24 In this skeptical attitude were the seeds of Debussy's later
propensity for a conservative social model based on instinctual or prerational
bonds. This is where he would finally locate the sources of an "authentic" culture
that transcended the boundaries of social class and undercut all academic con-
vention. Eventually he was to find in this model, now being propagated by the
nationalist Right, both creative inspiration and the answer to his problem of so-
cial and cultural identity.25
Debussy's Transition in Pelleas

The tensions we have noted in Debussy between his search for an identity or cul-
tural "order" and his need to explore his own sensibility appear in several early
works. This is particularly true of his opera Pelleas et Melisande, in which Wag-
nerian influence is both present and countered by specific elements of traditional
French style. Many analyses of the opera exist, and so my purpose here is simply
to relate the tensions within the work to their construal within the context of
French cultural politics. As we shall see, one position in particular would soon
approximate Debussy's own arguments (as it developed after 1902) concerning
the implications of the French tradition for modern art.
Debussy discovered Maurice Maeterlinck's play in 1892, and by 1893 he had
decided to write an opera based upon it. His first version of Pelleas et Melisande
was completed by 1895, and another in 1897, the year it was accepted at the
Opera Comique. But Debussy thereafter persisted in continually "improving" the
manuscript, even during the final period of the dress rehearsals in 1902.26 Given
what we have observed about the tension in Debussy's personality, the reason for
his attraction to the thematic material of the play here becomes particularly clear:
one of the work's major themes is the proper nature of the connection between
the individual's own inherent inclinations and search for truth and the demands
or needs of society. Another, as opposed to the passion at the heart of Tristan und
Isolde, is the isolation of the individual trying to comprehend the unknown, or
"fate," and his lack of an intimate "connection."27
In his search for artistic "truth," or for the most appropriate musical means
through which to translate Maeterlinck's play, he arrived at a singular stylistic so-
lution: in order to allow the characters to express themselves naturally as "real
people," to capture their true humanity, he developed a vocal declamation that re-
calls the distant French past. One of Maeterlinck's aims was, through the use of a
more natural diction, to suggest the mysterious realm beneath the apparent reali-
ties of existence. Since Debussy's goal was to set the French language as authenti-
cally or naturally as possible, he turned to that composer whom he considered
the last master of French musical parody, Rameau.28 As opposed to the height-
ened, declamatory style of both Lully and Gluck—whose native language was not
French—Debussy emulated the subtlety and grace of Rameau; moreover, as in
the French tradition, he gives primacy to the text, which is here set almost ex-
actly, with the exception of a few omissions. The musical development is never
allowed to obscure the meaning or flow of the text, once more placing Debussy
firmly within the French operatic tradition.29
Yet, elements of Wagnerian musical dramaturgy are indeed present in the
work, if transformed or adapted to Debussy's specific dramatic intent. Like Wag-
ner, in search of both psychological and musical continuity as well as the integra-
tion of dramatic levels, he employs a kind of "leitmotif." But his are substantially
different in nature from those that Wagner characteristically employs; they are
primarily rhythmic, intervallically more subtle, and more psychological in their
associations, which they gradually absorb; moreover, the only consistently sym-
phonic development of these motives occurs in the interludes between the
scenes, composed during the rehearsals to allow for scene changes and to trans-
form the ambience. In general, his motives, unlike those of either Wagnerian or
Naturalist opera, serve not to clarify meaning but to enhance its fundamental am-
biguity; as in the French tradition, the orchestra remains subordinate to the text,
hut still in a Wagnerian manner, reinforcing the multiple dimensions of its mean-
ing. As Laloy astutely observed, it often serves to reveal what the characters in the
play experience but do not consciously understand; it simultaneously creates a
mood, largely by the reiteration of motives (especially rhythmic, recalling Mus-
sorgsky), as well as through the harmonies and timbres.30
The Critical "Processing" of Pelleas

In Pelleas et Melisande, French critics were confronted by a stylistically complex
and novel work that they proceeded to "process" or interpret according to the
principal critical discourses: hence, the logic of their responses relates to these in-
tellectual frameworks, as well as to the contemporary issues of cultural politics
that we have already examined.31 As we have noted, however, like so much of
Debussy's subsequent works, Pelleas confounded the dogma of the existing fac-
tions, leading to a curious and inconsistent reaction. Hence, again, in 1902 De-
bussy's "place" was far from clear and his classification as an authentically
"French" composer not yet secure. Unlike Louise, the work could not be easily
appropriated for a "side," so inimical was its language to a simple reduction to
the standards of any one discourse. The case of Pelleas reveals how inconsistently
and willfully critics espousing the current ideological perspectives could "con-
struct" or even distort the work.
The performative context of the opera also may well have played a significant
role in predisposing certain critics to a specific politicized reading of it. For Pel-
leas was presented (with the financial aid of a Jewish aristocrat) along with a se-
ries of works that were part of Bruneau's purportedly "true" French canon. It was
perhaps in an attempt to "rehabilitate" himself in the "Dreyfusard Republic" that
the former anti-Dreyfusard director of the theater, Carre, presented Bruneau's
I'Ouragan and Le Reve and Charpentier's Louise.32 Yet within the Dreyfusard Le
Figaro, views concerning Debussy's work were divided, so complex, novel, and
seemingly contradictory was its style. Eugene d'Harcourt found the "vagueness"
of the opera to be alarming and ended by asking for a "conception plus saine de
1'art musical"; however, another critic for the paper, H. Bauer, emphasized the
presence of an element we have seen in the Dreyfusard aesthetie—the originality
of the work.33
Others, such as Arthur Pugin, writing in Le Menestrel, saw Debussy's innova-
tions as "dangerous" and even labeled him an "Anarchist in music." This is not
surprising considering Anarchist cultural theories, which, as we have seen,
stressed the importance of deconstructing the dominant language.34 Yet there
were critics who, like Raymond Bouyer, also employed the aesthetic perspective
that was associated with the Dreyfusard Left in order to criticize Debussy, as
would Mauclair and Lorrain. In an article entitled "Le Debussysme et 1'evolution
musicale." published in the Revue musicale, he, as many others, compares De-
hussy with Richard Wagner. Here Bouyer argues that, far from having defeated or
exorcised Wagner, he has merely transposed the "German giant" "dans un ton
plus fin." He concludes that Debussy is to Wagner essentially what Maeterlinck is
to Shakespeare: "une petite ombre qui parle bas aux pieds du grand maitre" (a
small shadow that speaks softly at the feet of the great master).35 Bouyer's per-
spective and argument is far more explicit in a review that he published the pre-
ceding month in the Republican journal La Nouvelle revue: here he openly pits
the Scholistes and fellow neo-Wagnerians against the "naturistes," implying both
Debussy and his young acolytes.36 Bouyer, however, does credit Debussy with
being far more concerned with reality and truth than with lyric beauty in his
declamation, and he makes a point of noting that the critics associated with the
Schola thus perceive the work's connection with the early operas of Claudio Mon-
teverdi. D'Indy, in LOceident, did compare Debussy's treatment of the text with
that of early Florentine opera and praised its solid thematic construction: but he
censured its harmonic departures, decrying an aesthetic of "sensation" and con-
cluding that it was an "inferior art"—beautiful, but nevertheless "dangerous."
Indeed, Debussy's attempt to recapture traditional French declamation won
the praise of both Right and Left, if for very different reasons: one side saw the
anti-Dreyfusard turn to the past or to the "great tradition," while the other per-
ceived the Dreyfusard values of realistic depiction and "truth." As Bouyer notes,
both sides were concerned with the now central question of whether "classical"
elements—considered truly French—were present in the opera. Once more, Left
and Right agreed on the inherent value of the classic, some critics from both sides
perceiving it as present in the work, but according to substantially different con-
ceptions. Perceptively, Bouyer observes that, if there is classicism, it inheres not
in the form but rather in the rejection of now hackneyed formulae or cliches. As
Maurice Emmanuel points out, other critics on both sides agreed: Andre Hallays
cited his avoidance of prolixity and Paul Dukas a classicism that no "system" can
teach. Hallays, writing in the conservative Revue de Paris, expressed his approba-
tion for Debussy's use of such refined understatement in the following terms:
Si M. Debussy n'est point un musicien classique au sens qu'on entend ce mot dans les
conservatoires, il n'en a pas moins le gout vraiment classique d'un art concis, sans
emphase, ni verbiage.37
(If M. Debussy is not a classical musician in the sense that one understands the word
in the conservatories, he has no less the truly classical taste for a concise art, without
emphasis or verbiage.)
Yet some journals of the Right, employing similar criteria for the "truly
French," emphasized the opera's seeming lack of classical qualities. La Libre pa-
role criticized the work for its "perpetual cacophony"; for Bellaigue, in the Revue
des deux mondes, it was devoid of melody, motives, and rhythm. Louis de Four-
caud, a professor at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts and a critic for Le
Gaulois, found only a craving for novelty, an indulgence in cerebral subtleties,
and hence a doctrine of "complete negation." Here again, tar Left and Right
agreed in their quest for a more "substantial" and thus what they considered to be
RES PONSES TO THE TRADITIONALIST VICTORY 179
a more healthy or moral" art. Bouyer, in the end, reveals that he does not wish
Debussy to head a "school," so distant are his theatrical values from those the
critic considers "truly French":
Un impressionnisme assez morne et peu theatral va-t-il aider, par un detour, a la re-
vanche de notre art, a la resurrection de la papillonnante musique francaise, recem-
ment alourdi par tant de plagiats?38
(Will a rather gloomy and un-theatrical impressionism help, by a detour, the revenge
of our art, the resurrection of French music which has flitted about, recently weighted
down with so many plagiarisms?)
Other critics of the Left perceived different features in Pelleas and were able
to construe it within the framework of Bruneau's canon of French works. Julien
Benda, for example, writing in the Revue bleue, supported the opera enthusiasti-
cally on the basis of its human, true, and logical qualities.39 Still others, writing
in journals associated with the political Left, praised the opera on the basis of its
reality in the treatment of the French language. This was the case of Camille
Sainte-Croix in the Dreyfusard La Petite Republique, who emphasized the fluidity
and richness of the rhythms that followed the inflections of the language so faith-
fully.40 Here the stress is less on its "classic" features than its realism, the same
quality the journal had praised in the operas of Zola and Bruneau.
Debussy and "Tradition"

Despite these dissensions, however, after the premiere of Pelleas a group of sup-
porters construed Debussy's music as "traditionalist," to which the composer did
not object. One of these was Jacques Durand, the important Parisian editor of
music, who, himself a self-avowed traditionalist, had no doubt as to where De-
bussy belonged: it was on the basis of the success of Pelleas and his perception of
the work as belonging firmly within the French tradition that he offered to pub-
lish all of Debussy's music. For, as he avers in his memoirs, the central question
posed was whether or how it might renew ties to the lost "French tradition," and
for him it had.41
Although Debussy would increasingly encourage this interpretation, he com-
plicated the critical construals of the work by making statements about it that ap-
pealed to both factions. Writing in the Dreyfusard Le Figaro, he stressed his desire
to be realistic in the declamation but still implicitly distanced himself from Char-
pentier and Bruneau: "The characters in this drama endeavor to sing like real per-
sons, and not in an arbitrary language built on antiquated traditions . . . the
feelings of a character cannot be continually expressed in melody."42 Yet, in a sur-
vey that was published in the journal Musica in 1902, on the question of the di-
rection of French music, his emphasis was on classical traits: "Perhaps in the end
we will see the light and achieve conciseness of expression and form—the funda-
mental qualities of French genius."43 From now on the renewal of contact with
"French genius," conceived as "classic," was Debussy's continual preoccupation
one that would crest during World War I. The theme of the "truly French," ini-
180 THE BATTLE ESCAEATES AND IS WON
tially introduced into the discourse by the cultural politics of the Right, was now
to provide him with a major source of creative direction. For it allowed Debussy
to transcend his sense of social and cultural marginality, of participating in, and
yet not belonging to any one strata or world; indeed, as he rose in status and class
through his success and a second marriage while becoming even more ill at ease
in his surroundings, this theme became a virtual obsession. And, concomitantly,
no less than an artistic transformation was to follow the social, political, psycho-
logical, and aesthetic metamorphosis that he now experienced.
Debussy was becoming aware of the political or ideological implications of the
emerging aesthetic basis or "roots" of his own artistic creativity. The surrounding
discourse of cultural politics associated with the French nationalist Right would
provide him with both the conceptual and emotional grounding that he sought.
This may well have been abetted by his contact with figures like Pierre Louys and
by his increasing proximity to the circle of the Schola and the Societe Nationale. In
1903 he became one of the music critics for the journal Gil Blas, together with the
writer Colette, with whom he was henceforth in frequent contact. They were min-
gling in the same salons, which included the most prominent figures associated
with the Schola Cantorum—Pierre de Breville, Vincent d'Indy, Louis de Serres, and
Charles Bordes.44 Colette, along with her husband, "Willy," praised the efforts of
the Schola Cantorum; Debussy did as well, but in a more selective or guarded man-
ner. Although disliking the dogmatism and religious atmosphere of the school, he
admired its restoration of Rameau, but complained that it had no idea of how to
perform him correctly.45 However, in 1903, he wrote enthusiastically about
d'Indy's L'Etranger and its curious but powerful combination of Symbolist elements
with a Naturalist setting: "The work is an admirable lesson to those who believe in
that crude, imported style which reduces music to dust under a pile of realism."46
For Debussy, again, Naturalism, even in its French adaptation, was not inherently
French but fundamentally an Italian import.
It is also significant to note that, despite the "Debussystes," Debussy re-
mained close to the Societe Nationale, which continued often to perform his
works; indeed, important premieres of his music took place under its auspices
between 1889 and 1917, or until the end of his active career.47 The polarity his
supporters wished to create was indeed not present in Debussy, who, like Faure,
chose not to alienate the important d'Indyste camp. And, as Charles Koechlin
later made a specific point of noting, Debussy, by personality, was drawn to the
Schola's contemplative atmosphere: being "peu mondain," and thus not at home
in the circle of the Societe Musicale Independante, he preferred the "meditative,"
serious aura of the Schola, free of "snobism" and devoted to "art."48
The theme of foreign importations now became dominant in Debussy's writ-
ings, manifesting itself increasingly in relentless attacks on Gluck and praise of
Rameau. According to Debussy (and Laloy), the former, whose nationality was
not French, had not mastered the language, did not write "French music," and
had no place within the French canon:
You turn French into an accented language when it is really a language of nuances.
(Yes, I know you are German.) Rameau was lyrical, and that suits the French spirit
from all points of view. We should have continued this tradition of lyricism before,
not waited for a century to pass before we discovered it. ... Finally, you have been
the subject of all the many varied and false interpretations people give to the word
"classical."49
Debussy was astutely aware of the principal themes of cultural politics and of the
stakes currently involved in defining the true French "classic tradition"; for him,
as indeed for his politicized culture, this was to remain perhaps the most promi-
nent issue in French music, one that would culminate during the war.
But the other theme of cultural politics to which he was especially sensitive
now, for social reasons we have already noted, was the question of "people's the-
ater." In 1903 Debussy, more than ever, was caught between cultures and, in a
more personal or immediate sense, caught between two women and two "lives":
although married to a "femme du peuple," Lilly Texier, he was romantically in-
volved with the wealthy and cultivated Emma Bardac. In 1903 the subject of
"people's theater" was especially timely, given the recent publication of Romain
Rolland's book Le Theatre du peuple. As we have noted, this was the year when
Debussy had nothing but caustic criticism for Charpentier's educational venture,
the Conservatoire Populaire de Mimi Pinson.50 But he also made reference to his
own involvement with current attempts to "take art to the people" and was far
from sanguine about the results. Speaking perhaps from his early experience De-
bussy observed: "In general, the people who make such efforts act with the kind
of condescending good will that ordinary people feel to be both forced and artifi-
cial. . . . It's dishonest! There is an instinctive feeling of envy hovering over this
vision of luxury brought for a single moment into their dull lives."51
On the question of "people's theater," Debussy had clearly defined ideas,
which drew on the more conservative models we have noted of a "democratic"
open-air theater. According to Debussy, the ideal kind of theater for the "peo-
ple" would be modeled not on the revolutionary fete but on the drama of the
ancient Greeks, according to his specific conception: "In Euripides, Sophocles,
and Aeschylus, do we not find all the great human emotions drawn in such
simple lines, and with such naturally tragic effects that they could be understood
by the most virgin and cultivated minds?" His ideal is enlightenment and com-
mon understanding as opposed to "manifestation" or participation, a blurring
of the boundaries between art and actual life. Debussy concludes by proposing
that we "rediscover tragedy and enhance its primitive musical accompaniment
with all the resources of the modern orchestra and chorus and innumerable
bodies."52
Debussy was even more specific concerning the theatrical environment he
envisaged and about the role or responsibility of the state in helping to realize
this vision: such a theater was to be "a cheerful room where everyone would feel
at home. . . . And seats should be entirely free—If need be, a loan must be
raised: never would such a loan have been made for nobler reasons, nor so much
in the national interest."53 Again, for Debussy, unlike Charpentier, the final goal
was not a "people's culture" but a reconciliation of cultures in the interest of na-
tional harmony: his identity was now increasingly to be vested in the nation as a
means to unite and reconcile the maze of social levels, cultures, and experiences
through which he had passed.
Debussy's solution, as we have seen, was by no means unique in the period,
as Mauclair had observed in his article on the nationalist reaction in art. His in-
clusion of Debussy and Barres within the same grouping was insightful, for this
particular analogy does explain a great deal about the composer. Just as Mauclair
implied, Debussy had gradually moved from the egotistical "culte du moi" to a
conception of the encompassing "moi collectif"; like Barres's characters in his se-
ries of Le Culte du moi novels, he attempted to escape from his "unattached per-
sonality," untethered from a social or cultural identity. For both, earlier attempts
at escape had included intuition, mysticism, sensuality, and "pure art," but all of
them, having proved futile, were eventually to lead to another solution: both De-
bussy and Barres were to find an answer in the rediscovery of a national identity
and the concomitant conception of the heritage of a "race."
Like Barres, Debussy turned from doubt to the certainties provided by his-
tory, from the cult of the individual to that of the nation and the collectivity. Both
believed that the "self" must recognize the cultural identify that precedes and de-
fines it, positively embracing this identity in order to be fully "realized."54 But an
inconsistency emerged in the composer, for, while professing the primacy of na-
tional values and the "truly French," he continued to praise the intuitive freedom
of the individual artist. He thus departed from the Scholistes' belief in the con-
straints implied by tradition, construing it rather in terms of the creative instincts
that were inherent in a national "race." For Debussy, as we shall see, the implica-
tion would be that, after removing "impure" or foreign elements, being true to
oneself was being true to one's race. But ironically, for Debussy, highly influenced
by non-Western music, "purity" did not require the extirpation of the non-
Occidental; while arguing for a "truly French music" he not only avoided heading
a school but independently pursued his individual freedom and highly personal
aesthetic inclinations.55 An undying proponent of the "natural," of the model or
dictates of nature, Debussy came, philosophically, to confound this with the in-
stinct that is determined by race or blood.
By 1903 Debussy's lite was undergoing a substantial transformation again,
from both a personal and social and a professional perspective. This was the year
that he received the distinction of election to the Legion of Honor as a result of
the efforts of Jules Combarieu, at the time the Chef de Cabinet at the Ministere de
1'Education.56 This was to bring him more prominence and a stature in the pro-
fession that was continually to grow; by the time of the war, his influence was ri-
valed only by that of d'Indy. In 1904 further changes transpired: Debussy's life
was fundamentally transformed when he abandoned his wife, Lilly (leaving her
resourceless), to live with Emma Bardac. One immediate effect of this action was
to cut him off from most of his friends, who generally disapproved of his heart-
less treatment of the now nearly destitute Lilly. This included Pierre Louys, who
not only sympathized with Lilly's plight, but also, as a rabid anti-Semite, disap-
proved of the Jewish Emma Bardac. The one exception was Louis Laloy, whom he
had known since the premiere of Pelleas and who now became increasingly close
to and influential on the composer. Already, this friendship was influencing the
musical journals that Debussy read, for by 1905 he was an appreciator of the Mer-
cure musical, of which Laloy was an editor. And it was to Laloy that he expressed
his frustration with Landormy's survey of 1904, complaining that this "soi-disant
musicien" apparently did not hear what he said.57
Laloy was to prove of invaluable help as Debussy's style began to change,
serving as a mediator between the composer and the dismayed "Debussystes"; by
1905 it was clear that traditional procedures were reappearing in Debussy's work
and that now he was no longer making any attempts whatsoever to expurgate
them. This was a particular embarrassment to his younger supporters like Hure,
who had emulated the composer's attacks on traditional forms and his advocacy
of those modeled on the musical content. The first crisis transpired with the pre-
miere of La Mer in 1905, when critics promptly drew attention to Debussy's re-
turn to more traditional compositional procedures. Although Debussy pointedly
subtitled the work "Three Symphonic Sketches," many of the commentators on
the work perceived concessions to symphonic form. By avoiding the rubric of
"symphony," despite his use of symphonic processes, Debussy was consciously
avoiding the undesired associations of the genre. This meant not only those of
the Schola—tradition, the metaphysical, and the Germanic—but also those of the
rival Conservatoire: architecture, balance, and logic. Yet elements of both models
are present—a cyclic theme unifies the entire work; the first movement loosely
adheres to a sonata-like scheme in its key relations; the second movement sug-
gests an ABA structure (defined by key); and the third is a kind of rondo in its use
of a recurring refrain.58
But while the work does employ traditional procedures, it is by no means
anachronistic: for Debussy, the past was always an inspiration for contemporary
artistic creativity. Here, as in his subsequent compositions, he drew from a fund
of traditional techniques, while preserving those compositional elements that
were most unique to himself. He also sought to preserve what he construed as
traditional French values—the quest for elegance, pleasure, and "color"—yet he
inimitably made them his own; for just as powerful as the emotional and intellec-
tual pull of tradition for Debussy was a creative drive that impelled him to appro-
priate it in his own way. Past models, for Debussy, served to stimulate imagina-
tion; in La Mer, for example, they are used only where they are metaphorically
appropriate to the subject.59 From the beginning of the work we find elements al-
ready integral to Debussy's style, particularly those that he had previously derived
from his study of gamelan music. This is suggested in the constant textural shifts
and the complex stratification, as well as the pentatonic pitch material. And, de-
spite the presence of some traditional procedures such as conventional imitation,
the themes themselves are antimelodic and subject to constant reinterpretation
and variation.60
Debussy, having had the audacity to cross the lines of antithetical dogma,
now required a "defense," a task that was promptly assumed by Laloy. In 1908
Laloy published an ingenious article in La Grande revue that justified Debussy's
increasing traditionalism by invoking his authentic "French roots." Indeed, since
the premiere of Pelieas, Laloy had stressed what he perceived as profoundly
French and deeply traditionalist aspects of Debussy's style. Writing of Pelleas, he
observed, "II a retrouve en lui par un de ces efforts d'intuition qui font les chefs-
d'oeuvre, un peu de la vieille ame de notre race"61 (He has rediscovered in him-
self by one of the efforts of intuition that make masterpieces a little of the old soul
of our race). Laloy presents La Mer as a conflation of symphony and symphonic
poem, but with emphasis on the latter, which allowed for "inspiration," as op-
posed to "rules." He then argues that this enables Debussy to employ symphonic
processes that are useful to his purposes, yet without strict adherence to "tradi-
tion."62 Clearly Laloy, like Debussy, understood the current connotations of the
symphony in France, as propagated by both "chapelles," and wished to dissociate
Debussy from them.
Laloy, as Debussy's apologist, here argues for a logical evolution in Debussy's
style, claiming the new direction surprises only those ignorant of the "secret so-
lidity" of his work. He then goes even further in his linkage of Debussy to "true"
tradition by proposing that there has not been a comparable master in France
since Frangois Couperin. Debussy's "youth" is over, he continues, and this has re-
sulted inevitably in not only greater maturity and equilibrium but a reconciliation
with real "life":63 his style is now tight, determined, affirmative, and full; it has,
in sum, followed a necessary evolution to the point of becoming "classic." Here
Laloy draws a direct comparison with tendencies both in literature and in visual
art—with their proclivity toward a greater "construction" as well as probity of de-
sign. Debussy, he claims, is thus within the line of evolution of all French art, of
what is "truly" French—moving toward an essentially classic model.64 Signifi-
cantly, Laloy's argument was not distant from that of the Action Francaise, which
held that the laws of equilibrium are the condition of true or "classic" art. As we
may recall, it also argued that a work must contain an interior harmony, an ele-
mentary truth which the Romantic revolt had either disdained or simply forgot.
Debussy was pleased with Laloy's interpretation and explication of his work,
as becomes clear in a letter to Laloy of April 29, 1909. Here he states directly and
succinctly, "Vous etes le seul qui sachiez ce qu'est Claude Debussy, sans grosse
caisse ni broderies"63 (You are the only one who knows who Claude Debussy is,
without bass drums or embroideries). Debussy himself had no qualms about ad-
mitting that his musical style had changed, and indeed he always welcomed the
thought of undergoing stylistic evolution. As he put it revealingly, "There is no
greater pleasure than going to the depth of oneself, setting one's whole being in
motion to seek for new and hidden treasures. What a joy to find something new
within oneself; something that surprises even ourselves."66 Debussy's goal re-RE
mained to seek an identity by adhering to instinct, which he came increasingly to
identify with pure "French blood." This, as we have noted, would cause conster-
nation among his followers, who preferred that he remain in the earlier style that
they admired and had made the focus of a cult. The problem, however, would
grow even more intense in the course of the next few years as the war between
the contentious "chapelles" escalated and reached its peak.
By 1906 Debussy was chafing against the barriers of the opposing cliques, a
frustration on which he elaborated at length in several different letters. On March
10, 1906, he wrote to Louis Laloy, reflecting on the aesthetic result of the perni-
cious battle of values now in full force: "La musique est presentement divisee en tas
de petites republiques oil chacun s'evertue a crier plus fort" (Music is presently di-
vided into so many little republics where each struggles to cry louder). He also re-
marks to Laloy about the amount being written on music and on the fact that now
artists themselves feel compelled to expand at length on aesthetic issues.67 He
himself, of course, was by no means exempt from this very trend or aloof from the
issues and battles being propagated by figures like Mauclair and Laloy. Debussy
understood well how the politics of this musical culture worked and passed the
benefit of his knowledge on to his stepson and pupil, Raoul Bardac. In a letter to
Raoul of 1906, he explains the reality of these cliques and their power, attempting
to comfort him after having a piece rejected by the Societe Nationale. This hap-
pened, he explains, because Raoul does not belong to one of the "parties"; how-
ever, pointing out their "nullity," he presents this as an advantage.68
Debussy thus seized every possible occasion to confound the established
"parties," including that of his own admirers, from association with whom he
fled. By 1907 his tastes were becoming increasingly distant from those of this
group in terms of musical style, as well as in literature and drama. Now he con-
sidered composing a version of the old Tristan legend—but one that did not "de-
form" the historical nature and legendary character of the story. It was undoubt-
edly through Laloy, a former pupil of the politically conservative medievalist
Joseph Bedier, that he discovered Bedier's adaptation of the legend of Tristan and
Isolde. Although the project never succeeded, it nevertheless remained in De-
bussy's thoughts as a serious possibility for an opera over the next several years.
In 1909 he was working on a libretto for the opera himself and was still con-
cerned with the plans for it as late as 1912. Debussy's "rivalry," as a Frenchman,
with Wagner was still alive, as it had been in his Pelleas and in humorous refer-
ence to the composer in works like his "Golliwog's Cakewalk."69
Now, more than ever, Debussy was absorbed by the question of an "authentic
tradition," as shown in his writings and interviews, as well as his musical lan-
guage and style. His interest in Rameau grew increasingly strong, further encour-
aged, perhaps, by the promotion of Rameau at the Schola and by the studies of his
friend Laloy. Yet the sources of this emulation were deeper than a mere admira-
tion for Rameau's style: by invoking it, Debussy was identifying himself with the
cultural values for which Rameau stood. Within the rhetoric being propagated by
d'Indy, Laloy, the Monarchist press, and Debussy himself, Rameau represented the
"purest," unadulterated French tradition. This, of course, was to ignore the
strong Italian influence on Rameau's style and his ability to integrate the tech-
niques and innovations of other great European composers. But if Rameau for
them all was a "myth," essential to the tactics of their cultural politics, he was for
Debussy an "instrumental" myth that stimulated his creative imagination. Again,
typically, Debussy sought intellectual confirmation for what was already emerg-
ing in his own creative personality and aesthetic. This perhaps accounts for his
virtual identification with Rameau, his tendency to view himself as the great com-
poser's modern reincarnation.
In a letter to Laloy of 1906, Debussy is explicit about his perception of the
cultural meaning of Rameau's musical style. He contrasts Rameau's "gout parfait"
and "elegance stricte" with contemporary taste, which he perceives as sullied and
characterizes disdainfully as "cette melasse cosmopolite" (this cosmopolitan

murk).70 As we have seen, such terminology was currently being popularized by,
among other groups, the Action Frangaise, and denoted the "un-French," the im-
pure, and, often, specifically the Jewish. As with his interests in non-Western
music, Debussy here overlooked the contradiction inherent in the fact that this
statement came from someone who was married to a Jewish woman. For his cre-
ativity required the myth, as a source of identity and direction; like d'Indy's, his
anti-Semitism was "de principe" and could overlook Jewish friends.
Debussy's conviction that his "national instinct" was that of Rameau appears
not just in his critical writings but in his creative work as well. In 1907, as part of
the first volume of his series of Images for piano, Debussy included a small piece
entitled explicitly, "Hommage a Rameau." The work is neither a parody nor a
syntactical imitation of eighteenth-century style but rather an attempt to reinter-
pret Rameau's musical values in Debussy's own idiom. The stately rhythm, the
punctilious attention to sonority and color, the graceful and expressive melodic
treatment, the texture—all evoke the eighteenth-century master's style. But De-
bussy's identification with Rameau was both technical and aesthetic, as he would
later make explicit in his articles on Rameau before the war. In them he praises
Rameau's discovery of harmonic "moments" to caress the ear, as opposed to the
mere propagation of easily understood academic formulae. As Debussy observes,
"Rameau's major contribution to music was that he knew how to find a sensibility
within the harmony itself; and that he succeeded in capturing effects of color and
certain nuances that, before his time, musicians did not clearly understand."71
Rameau thus provides a justification or Debussy's own musical values, which he
was now increasingly attempting to identify as quintessentially "French."
The past for Debussy was a source not of nostalgia but of inspiration: his goal
was to grasp the mood and character of its music within his personal style. Hence
orthodoxy or respect for the "rules" derived from the "masters" as taught at the
Schola, its concern with rediscovering great "laws," was never tenable for De-
bussy. His hatred of orthodoxy, as we have seen, was bound to his social liminal-
ity, his inability to identify with a culture, class, or dogma—his quest for "free-
dom." And yet, he required a conceptual base, a set of values capacious enough to
suggest a direction, to "root" his personality—and this is what French national-
ism provided. But Debussy's brand of nationalism, as it emerged in his creative
work, was as unique and personal as his interpretation of its primary musical
icon, Rameau.
Models and Inspirations

There were, however, other figures in Debussy's nationalist Pantheon, figures
through which he expressed his political engagement and explored his artistic
"roots," It was amid the atmosphere of nationalist agitation and the concomitant
political tensions that, in 1908, Debussy completed his Trois chansons de Charles
d'Orleans. The work, in fact, was begun in the period when the Schola was pro-
viding the artistic lead in the return to the music of the past, in part, for political
reasons. Debussy had already set the first two poems in 1898, but he did not re-
turn to complete and publish the set until 1908. It had taken ten years for the
psychological and political moment again to be right, although after Pelleas De-
bussy had been rediscovering French poets of the distant past. His two "Rondels"
of 1904 are set to texts of Charles d'Orleans and his Promenoir des deux amants to
poems by the seventeenth-century French poet Tristan Lhermite.
The Trois chansons, ostensibly inspired by the high Renaissance masters, are
set for unaccompanied chorus, but in a provocatively inconsistent style; although
its harmonic language is clearly not that of the Renaissance period, its contrapun-
tal texture—which shocked the Debussystes—most unashamedly is.72 The first
of the pieces is motet-like in style, employing imitation and modal harmonies;
the second (of 1908) suggests Jannequin and employs Renaissance word-paint-
ing; the third, more chromatic and varied in texture, displays Debussy's knowl-
edge of the historical evolution of music and is closer to the late madrigal style.73
Here, as in his previous works, Debussy consciously illustrates the way in which
the past need not be a rigid model but can be a living source of inspiration for the
present.
Debussy had much to say about the wrong kinds of uses of the past, both in
his letters and criticism and in his incisive musical commentary. Despite his "tra-
ditionalism," Debussy's opposition to dogma or "chapelles" was to become even
stronger as the tensions between the "camps" grew ever more intense. This be-
comes particularly evident in his controversial Images lor orchestra, which was
composed between the years 1905 and 1912.74 In 1908, while at work on the
score, Debussy wrote to his editor, Jacques Durand, describing what he was at-
tempting to do stylistically in the work:
J'essaie de faire "autre chose"—en quelque sorte, des realties—ce que les imbeciles
appellent "impressionnisme," terme aussi mal employe que possible, surtout par les
critiques d'art qui n'hesitent pas a en affubler Turner, le plus beau createur de mystere
qui soit en art.75
(I'm trying to do "something else"—in a sense, realities—what imbeciles call "impres-
sionism," a term as badly employed as possible, above all by art critics who do not
hesitate to attach Turner to it, the most beautiful creator of mystery in art that there
is.)
Debussy no more liked the label "impressionist" now than he had earlier in
that phase of his career when he concentrated on setting French Symbolist texts.
The "realities" here were of several sorts, relating not only to the subjects but also
to the suggestive material incorporated, as well as to the resonant techniques em-
ployed. Each of the pieces refer to a country, or more properly to a "national-
ity"—to England in "Gigues," to Spain in "Iberia," and to France in "Rondes du
Printemps." "Gigues" employs material that relates to a traditional Northumber-
land song, "The Keel Row," although in an untraditional manner, distorted by un-
expected modulation.76 Most provocative of all is his treatment of the material
used in the "Rondes du Printemps," which represents and mocks all that Debussy
deplored in contemporary French culture. One element of this was its lack of
"purity"; the work begins with an inscription from material that is not French but
is drawn from an old Tuscan song.77 He then does introduce an authentic old
French popular song entitled "Nous n'irons plus au bois," just as the Scholistes
had long recommended: but Debussy proceeds to put it tortuously through the
various "academic" procedures that were emphasized at the Schola, particularly
rhythmic transformations.78 Throughout the work he thus uses, and distorts, ma-
terial that was either systematically banned by nationalists (like himself) or rec-
ommended by the less imaginative.
Debussy's projection of an ironic attitude in his music angered several
groups, including the Debussystes and, as we might expect, the Scholistes. Gas-
ton Carraud responded immediately by devoting an article to the question of the
evolution of Debussy's musical style in the Revue S.I.M. Here he observes that,
ever since Pelleas, Debussy has disappointed his original supporters, and, indeed,
a different group is now gaining enthusiasm for his work.79 As we might antici-
pate, one of these—Laloy—leaped to Debussy's defense, writing also in the Revue
S.I.M., in August-September, 1910. Once again he acknowledges the fact that De-
bussy's style has substantially changed but argues that his recent works have all
been examples of a new, more "substantial" type of art.80
Debussy's irony in returning to the use of blatantly academic techniques may
have been a satire of the Schola, but, once again like Charpentier, they were also a
cruel self-irony. Indeed, this was the period of Debussy's increasing reconciliation
with those very academic and official institutions that he had once so vocifer-
ously denounced. They were, after all, unequivocally a part of the nation's tradi-
tion and culture, and, as the nation veered to the center and the Right, Debussy
became less aloof toward them. In February 1909, through the concerted efforts
of Gabriel Faure, he was appointed to the Conseil Superieur of the musical sec-
tion of the Conservatoire.81 Part of his responsibility was to adjudicate competi-
tions, and it was within this context that he wrote the clarinet piece for the 1910
competition. The irony is that only two years before, in a public interview, De-
bussy had condemned the state for instituting competitions in almost every field,
including music.82 This, of course, had long been a theme of the cultural politics
of the Right in France, which believed in a natural hierarchy, as opposed to "ca-
reers open to talent." This competitive system was indeed how Debussy, not in
the hierarchy by either privilege or birth, had been educated in music and
achieved his first acclaim. Now he was both "outside" and "inside," as he had
been in some manner throughout his life, sharing the experiences but not the
culture of the group into which he had moved.
By 1911 Debussy was also serving on an important jury—that of the Cres-
cent Prize, awarded for symphonic composition, a genre that he had professed to
despise. Other members of the jury included official composers such as Faure,
Bruneau, Vidal, Dukas, Erlanger, and Gedalge. Moreover, it was Debussy himself,
together with Paul Vidal, who agreed to play the works at the piano for the other
members of the jury to hear. Two years later he again served on the jury and once
more agreed to read the works submitted at the keyboard, this time with Gabriel
Pierne.83 Perhaps in Debussy's mind such active participation was a significant
way in which he could help determine the future direction of French music, a
subject now of great personal concern.
Throughout this period Debussy's efforts at "self-improvement" continued,

and, given his recent interests and roles, it is no surprise that his reading matter
changed. By 1906 he was reporting to Laloy (who may have been guiding his
choices) that he was engrossed in reading the work of Paul Simon. Simon, a
philosopher and politician of the late nineteenth century, was the author of a
number of books on the condition of the working class. This indeed would be in
keeping with the range of interests that Debussy had exhibited when discussing
the timely question of the "people's theater," three years before. By 1909 he was
reading the English conservative thinker Thomas Carlyle, to whom he made ref-
erence in a letter to Andre Caplet on August 25, 1909. In the letter he speaks, in
part facetiously, of reading this early-nineteenth-century social philosopher as
part of "le traitement que je dois suivre chaque matin"84 (part of the treatment
that I must follow every morning).
The following year Debussy returned to the poets of France's distant past,
this time to Francois Villon, the French Humanist of the fifteenth century. In his
Trois ballades de Francois Villon he once again blithely ignores the doctrinal or-
thodoxies of the warring "chapelles," regardless of the price he would pay. He
employs both modality and counterpoint associated with the Schola Cantorum,
but in order to set the kind of text—from the Renaissance—that it would have
decried. And, to complicate matters further, he concerned himself with the ap-
pearance of the score, directing that the typescript itself be evocative of the fif-
teenth century.85 But while critics like Emile Vuillermoz were castigating the
overzealous concern with tradition, or the "anachronistic aspirations" of the
Schola, Debussy was evoking the past musically in his own way. He thus was
carefully positioning himself between the two poles of the French musical
world—those who wished to recreate or return to the past, building carefully
upon it, and the young iconoclasts of the S.M.I.
But Debussy's strategies in the period of the wars between ideologies and mu-
sical "camps" grew even more devious and caused no end of dissention among
French critics. This was particularly true of his provocative "pseudoreligious"
work, Le Martyr de Saint Sebastien, which he composed in 1911. The piece was
the product of a collaboration with the politically reactionary Italian poet
Gabrielle d'Annunzio, to whom Debussy now became close. Although the com-
mission for it was from the Russian dancer Ida Rubenstein, Debussy's motivation
to participate came in part from his attraction to the poet. But Debussy was prob-
ably also drawn to the project because of the occasion it provided to invoke the
Renaissance contrapuntal style, an object of admiration since his stay in Rome.86
Sounding like a Scholiste, Debussy declared in an interview in Excelsior that true
religious music ceased to exist after the sixteenth century. After this, he said, the
"fresh, child-like souls of the time" disappeared, along with their "untainted fer-
vor in music free from worldliness."87
Was he being facetious here, or at least disingenuous? Indeed his invocation
of religion, not out of belief, but as a means of social conservation, recalls the Ac-
tion Francaise. Maurraus, a rationalist, held a similar position, although there
were apparently limits to what the league would tolerate in terms of patently
"sacrilegious behavior." Le Martyr received a largely negative review in Action
Francaise's affiliated journal, the Revue critique des idees et des livres, in 1911,
upon its premiere: it disapproved not only of d'Annunzio (who was an ardent
Wagnerian) but particularly of the woman who commissioned and danced the
work, Ida Rubenstein, who was Jewish. The journal not only condemned the
dancing as sacrilegious but went on to denounce the fact that it was "subven-
tionne par les Juifs."88
Yet critics close to Action Francaise did not criticize Debussy, and indeed from
this point on the movement was increasingly to laud the composer's work. Writing
in the Catholic La Croix illustree, the Abbe E Brun, whose works were later per-
formed at the Schola d'Action Francaise, praised Le Martyr's musical style. In par-
ticular, he drew attention to the frequent use of Gregorian models and paid hom-
mage to the composer's "lofty conception" of religious music.89 Debussy's music
had finally found its own bastion of ideological support, although occasionally
sympathetic Republican critics would continue to interpret similar qualities in dif-
ferent ways. But, significantly, Debussy would not object to French nationalist sup-
port for his art; indeed, his own rhetoric came now increasingly to approximate
that of the Action Francaise. Just as for Vincent d'Indy, the aesthetic and the ideo-
logical realms became more and more inextricably intertwined for Debussy as he
matured. But again, this did not compel Debussy to follow the musical dogma that
institutions such as the Schola had developed from a nationalist position.
Despite the praise for Debussy in the right-wing Catholic press, however, Le
Martyr, as a piece for the stage, ultimately did not meet with the Church's ap-
proval. Objecting not simply to the text but to the representation of the saint by a
woman and a Jew, the Archbishop of Paris condemned it as "offensive to Chris-
tian consciousness."90 Beyond its condemnation by the Church, the other aspect
of the work that drew attention and commentary from the contemporary press
was its pronounced return to "tradition." Paul de Stoecklin, in the Courrier musi-
cal, pointed out: "And now he is writing tonal music with characteristic themes,
full of common chords that recalls Parsifal." Those who had considered Debussy's
earlier work to be "too insubstantial" were, to the contrary, pleased, particularly
Alfred Bruneau (in Le Matin) and Gaston Carraud (in La Libertl).91 As with Pel-
leas, the very same qualities were being construed in critical frameworks that
were diametrically opposed, each tied to a distinct ideological creed.
Debussy as "Classic"
From this point on, the press was increasingly to emphasize Debussy's "classic
qualities," although the composer had his own distinctive conception of what the
"classic" comprised. In 1908, when asked why he was so hostile to the "classics,"
Debussy replied by raising the still volatile issues of what, precisely, "classic"
means: "What do you call classics? . . . most of these are classics in spite of
themselves, and that quality has been forced upon them without their knowl-
edge, consent, or even expectation."92 Clearly, for Debussy, a composer to whom
"classic" qualities were being attributed by a number of different groups, this was
a highly sensitive issue. By 1912 Emile Vuillermoz (recalling Louis Laloy before)
was referring to Debussy in the Revue S.l.M. as the "petit fils de Rameau." 93
Although Debussy would not object to being placed in this canon because of
all that it represented culturally, there were other canons that apparently he did
not wish to enter. The very same year an attempt was made to make Debussy aca-
demically acceptable by construing his harmonic language as being built on a rec-
ognized, traditional foundation. In 1912 Rene Lenormand sent his soon to be
published book Etude sur I'harmonie moderne to a number of the composers he
discussed for their commentary. Debussy, while not negative about the author's
treatment of him, was clearly guarded and notably unenthusiastic about the
book.94 He now found himself in the midst of a concerted attempt once more to
categorize his music, to impose an inappropriate intellectual order upon it.
But it was continually resisting such order. Works like his two books of Pre-
ludes for piano (1910 and 1913) recall Rameau and Couperin in stressing tradi-
tionally French pictorial qualities. At times (unnationalistically), however, they
evoke the Orient and Spain in an advanced, if heterogeneous harmonic idiom,
which includes the use of bitonality. This tension with nationalist orthodoxy
would continue to activate his works and become prominent in his wartime com-
positions such as the Etudes for piano and the sonatas (which fall outside the
range of this study).
The unfortunate attempt to force one-sided coherence on his oeuvre was, in
part, the result of the desire to justify it as "French," within the context of the
current politicized discourses. As we have seen, this was already highly problem-
atic at the turn of the century, when Debussy seemed to fit into none of the cate-
gorical conceptions of the "French." But now, given his change in style and his
own rhetoric (as well as that of Laloy), there was no question that he deserved
this label—the problem was the conceptual limitations it imposed. As we saw, in
each of the "camps" this label involved a process of exclusion, of an excision of
those elements of his style that lay outside their conception of "the French."
Debussy himself could see that, despite his own pronounced nationalist sym-
pathies, these discursive systems that attempted to "construct" him as an artist
led to a "selection" that continued to distort his style.95 But they equally distorted
his aesthetic, for to argue that his music belonged in the canon implied that he
considered it to be concert music in the "grand" tradition. This was a conception
that Debussy deplored, as he persisted in attacking "la grande musique," or the
"serious" music in traditional form, as propagated at the Schola Cantorum. Given
his background and his confused identity, in social and cultural terms, it is not
difficult to see why this conception was such an anathema to him: it represented
a body of works on a specific cultural "level," imbued with all the other undesir-
able traits that this, in turn, implied. Hence Debussy, as well as the "Debussytes,"
following in the master's footsteps, praised the "galant" and graceful, the desire
"humbly to please," as distinctively French.96 As we recall, this challenged the
original goals of the Societe Nationale de Musique Frangaise, which attempted to
disprove the German slander that the French were essentially "frivolous." For
Debussy, the desire to please belonged to no one cultural level: it was the prop-
erty of the national spirit and hence made no such class distinctions.
The label of "classic" also implied that Debussy was a staunch traditionalist,
which, as we have seen, was true, but in a highly individual sense. Once more,
his traditionalism transcended "schools," and it never prevented him from identi-
fying with the spirit and values of the past through his own unique technical
means. Debussy's response to Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps is revealing,
for, in the midst of his turn to the past, it illuminates his reaction to truly radical
innovation. In 1912 he wrote to Stravinsky concerning the latter's recent perfor-
mance of the work at the piano, for selected company, at the home of Laloy:
Cela me hante comme un beau cauchemar et j'essaie vraiment d'en retrouver la terri-
ble impression. C'est pourquoi j'en attends la representation comme un enfant gour-
mand auquel on aurait promis des confitures.97
(It haunts me like a beautiful nightmare, and I truly try to recapture the terrible im-
pression. That is why I await the performance like a gluttonous child to whom sweets
have been promised.)
Either Debussy was being disingenuous and manipulative—which was not

atypical—or his position did change when he experienced the performance, as
we shall soon see.
But the positive tone of Debussy's letter might also have been influenced by
the significant fact that he was enclosing the proofs for his own ballet commis-
sioned by Diaghilev, entitled Jeux. Although Debussy had been unhappy with
Nijinsky's choreography of L'Apres-midi d'un faune the previous year, Laloy, who
admired Diaghilev and Stravinsky, encouraged the connection.98 Jeux provided
Debussy with the opportunity to rival Stravinsky, and once more to refute the "im-
pressionist" label, to confound his followers and to explore a new path. For De-
bussy, creativity was a constant process of "self-reinvention," and of finding new
ways or techniques to realize those values he believed to be "French." Confronted
by to those who considered the "classic"—the very essence of "Frenchness"—to
be inseparable from specific procedures and forms, he could prove precisely the
opposite.
Debussy's style in the work is a world apart from that of Le Martyr de Saint
Sebastien, for here he investigates a new set of radically experimental harmonic
and orchestral techniques. Indeed, his tendency throughout this period was ei-
ther to maintain a high tension between tradition and innivation in a work or to
jump forward after having grounded himself in the past. In the course of Jeux, for
example, he superimposes major and minor seconds which briefly, at least, seem
to generate a kind of polytonal effect." Moreover, the orchestration employs not
only pointallistic effects but also woodwind timbres and even folklike themes
that recall Le Sacre du printemps.
Jeux premiered at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees on May 15, 1913, and,
predictably, given the direction of taste toward the "traditional," it was not a
success. As we have noted, in the acrimonious battle between the warring
"chapelles," as the threat of war approached, the traditionalists were clearly in the
ascendance. For Debussy, himself a part of the nationalist aesthetic and political
tide, Jeux was to remain a bold but isolated technical experiment. Although he
did not cease to experiment harmonically during the war, as he had before, it
would generally be within the framework of genres that were anchored in the
RESPONSES TO THE TRADITIONALISI VICTORY 193
past. Indeed, the same year as jeux, Debussy retreated, producing his Trois poemes
de Stephane Mollarme, in which he returns to broad melodic outlines in the vocal
part. Yet, despite the fact that the second song employs a slow minuet rhythm in
the accompaniment, he pointedly defined his traditionalism, once more, against
that of the Schola's dogma. According to Leon Vallas, the biographer and a per-
sonal friend of Debussy, he quipped, "I venture to say that they do not stock this
article on the rue Saint-Jacques."100
Debussy's musical traditionalism was unique—rooted not in the re-use of
forms but rather in what Laloy incisively described as an instinctive conception
of what was "French." In other words, descending into himself, in the deepest
and most fundamental sense, was for Debussy, as for Barres, a descent into the
basic characteristics of his nationality, or "race." Hence, some of his verbal utter-
ances, clearly within the framework of nationalist discourse, do bear a loose rela-
tion to the concepts being realized in his art. In his political ideas we find a recur-
ring emphasis on race, that which issues from what he considered to be
unalloyed or "pure French blood." As we have seen, this was the only sense in
which Debussy was able to feel that he belonged to a larger cultural unit or col-
lective group identity. Indeed, well before the war, discussions of race and music
were pervasive in nationalistic circles, especially among partisans of the Action
Francaise. Already it was treating race not as a simple synonym for national fea-
tures (as in previous periods) but as a synthesis of culture and blood.
We may perceive this tendency in Debussy's private correspondence concern-
ing Paul Dukas's successful opera, Ariane et Barbe bleue. In a letter of May 8,
1907, to Dukas, he praises the work, while in another, this one to Jacques Durand
the following year, his response is different. In the latter, Debussy notes Pierre
Lalo's attack on the "invertebrate descendants of Pelleas." But what disgruntles
him here is the nature of Lalo's praise for Dukas. The critic apparently referred to
Ariane et Barbe bleue as a positive embodiment of "les qualites essentielles de
1'esprit de 1'art frangais" (the essential qualities of the spirit of French art). De-
bussy feels compelled to point out:
Ce que je trouve de plus penible dans cette histoire, c'est la bassesse des moyens em-
ployes et qu'en somme le 'bon Juif soit defendu par le "mauvais Jesuite."101
(What I find the most distressing in this matter is the baseness of the means em-
ployed and that in sum the "good Jew" is defended by the "bad Jesuit.")
By 1912, in a letter to Vittorio Gui, Debussy's attitude is clearer. Here he remarks

that the opera is a "chef-d'oeuvre, mais ce n'est pas un chef-d'oeuvre de musique
francaise"102 (a masterpiece, but not a masterpiece of French music). Perhaps be-
cause of his marriage to a Jewish woman, Debussy would not say in public that
he did not believe art by a French Jew to be "French" but could confide such feel-
ings in private.
The theme of race became predominant in Debussy's writings immediately
preceding the war, which were often published in the Revue musicale S.I.M. In
1913, for example, apropos of the influence of Cesar Franck, whom Debussy con-
sidered not French but Flemish, he made the following trenchant comment:
Croire que les qualites particulieres au genie d'une race sont transmissibles a une
autre race, sans dommage, est une erreur qui a fausse notre musique assez souvent.
(To believe that the qualities particular to the genius of a race are transmissible to an-
other race, without damage, is an error that has falsified our music often enough.)
Once more, this sounds very much like the rhetoric being diffused by the Action
Francaise, particularly his remark that the French should return "au rythme de
notre pensee."103 The league, as we have seen, like so many French nationalist
groups, maintained that the French had a distinct style of thought that was a
basic attribute of their blood or "race." This had been a major issue in the debate
over the "Nouvelle Sorbonne," and here it was recurring, this time in the context
of creativity or art.
Debussy's ambiguous conception of race, which fused national cultural traits
with "blood," or genetic characteristics, was not unique and would not soon dis-
appear. It would become even more widely spread in the course of the First
World War, when nationalist fervor reached its highest pitch, extending to even
more groups.104 Debussy was to end his life no longer on the cultural margins,
the peripheries of several different social groups, but in the center of his national
culture. He had finally located an identity, one that would provide direction for
his later style without hindering his compulsive need to remain free of all consti-
tuted cultural dogma.
SATIE 'S CREATIVE POLITICS
The case of Erik Satie provides a highly illuminating comparison, for we may
identify important parallels with and differences from that of Claude Debussy.
Satie suffered from many of the problems that afflicted his friend Debussy—prob-
lems endemic to the social, cultural, and musical worlds in which they both
lived. Like Debussy, he was to suffer from a "liminal" social identity, as well as
from exposure to a plurality of cultures, to none of which he felt he belonged. His
cultural alienation similarly led to an inherent antagonism toward any kind of au-
thority structure or dogmatic point of view. Satie also preferred to say "something
other," to avoid all dogma, in the interest of maintaining a perspective on the
relative, an objective vision. But he too would be victimized by the "guerre des
chapelles," the misrepresentation of his art by those factions that wished to use it
to prove their own aesthetic point.
Like Debussy, Satie's response would be an ironic "play" with musical mean-
ings and codes to express his own distance from the dogma of the contentious
"chapelles."105 He too would manipulate the connotations of specific styles, par-
ticularly at that moment when the battle reached its height and the Traditionalist
victory seemed certain. Finally, like Debussy, Satie defined his own version of a
political stance, and the stylistic tactics he devised to articulate it would also be
unique. Both composers drew creative inspiration from the inherent tension be-
tween their independent, "unrooted" personalities and the musical dogma their
political orientations implied. For Satie, as for Claude Debussy, the context of this
musical culture in the period preceding the war illuminates the seeming para-
doxes of his life and his art.
From the very beginning, Erik Satie lived between several different worlds,
none of which provided him with a firm emotional or cultural base. He was born
in Normandy (in Honfleur) of an English, Protestant mother and a Catholic, An-
glophile father, who was a maritime broker by profession. Erik's mother died
when he was four, and his grandparents took custody of the child and raised him
themselves while his father went off to settle and work in Paris. Since the child
had been baptized an Anglican, they promptly had him re-baptized a Catholic;
even though his grandmother was pious, his grandfather was an "unbeliever."
Perhaps the strongest influence on the child was an eccentric uncle known as
"Seabird," who, together with the boy's quixotic father, probably served as a
prominent role model.106
Like Debussy's, Satie's first exposure to music was through the Catholic
Church, where both were introduced at a very young age to chant, and thus to
the Gregorian modes. As soon as he was old enough, Erik was sent to the local
church for piano lessons with its organist, who had been a pupil of Louis Nieder-
meyer. But Erik's young life would soon undergo a series of jolting ruptures, be-
ginning with the death of his grandmother in 1878 and the consequent religious
conversion of his grandfather. Now Erik was sent to live with his father, still in
Paris, who, disillusioned with traditional education, decided to undertake the
child's education himself. He accomplished this by taking Erik to lectures and
classes at the College de France and later engaging a tutor to instruct him pri-
vately in Latin and Greek.
The child's idyllic life was jolted once more when, in 1879, his father married
a piano teacher and former student at the Paris Conservatoire. This has led to
some speculation that, since Satie soon came to hate her, his subsequent defiance
and distrust of the Conservatoire stemmed ultimately from this source.107 Erik
was sent to the Conservatoire (in 1879) to study piano and solfege, and he finally
graduated to the study of harmony in 1885. In 1886, however, he was forced to
leave Paris for Arras to serve his mandatory military service in the Thirty-third
Infantry Division. Unable to adjust to the experience, he solved the problem by
bringing on an illness through exposing himself, while almost naked, to extreme
cold temperatures. He became so sick as to obtain a prompt release, and by 1887
he was composing and published his first work—a set of waltzes.108
This was easily accomplished, for now both his parents were involved with
music, having opened their own school of music, a venture that, however,
quickly failed. They subsequently purchased a stationery store, to which they
added a counter for music, but his father soon abandoned this venture to become
a publisher of music. This allowed him to publish some of the early songs that
Erik had written, along with cafe-concert tunes and some compositions of Erik's
friends. Already Satie, like Debussy, cared little for the notion of cultural levels, or
for the notion of a serious "grande musique," as opposed to the "petite." But
none of father Satie's enterprises yielded a financial profit and so in time the elder
Satie lost his modest inheritance, just as the younger was soon to do.109
By 1887, Erik had discovered "bohemian" culture and began frequenting the
Chat Noir cabaret, becoming its second pianist in 1891. A strong influence on
him now was D.-V Fumet, a pupil of Franck who had lost his scholarship be-
cause of his "advanced" musical and political ideas, which included Anarchist
sympathies. Also highly influential on Satie in this period was a young writer of
Spanish origin who called himself J.-P. Contamine de Latour. It was the latter who
introduced Satie to the work of Gustave Flaubert, as well as to the Rosicrucian
movement, led by Josephin Peladon.110 Satie, raised to be independent and auto-
didactic, now spent much of his time at the Bibliotheque Nationale, reading Vio-
let le Due on Gothic architecture. For he, like Satie, had a purely secular interest
in the Gothic style; the architect, a left-wing Republican (of the early Third Re-
public), was attracted to its inherent rationality.
For Satie the appeal was precisely the opposite, although again without
religious connotations: it was the mystical, atemporal quality of medieval music
that so drew him. Works like Ogives suggest Gregorian chant, although some-
what facetiously—imitating its fluid rhythm, its texture of solo and response,
and its lack of cadential articulation. This "faux naivete" also appears in his
Gymnopedies, written in 1888 (under the influence of Flaubert's Salambo) and his
Gnossiennes of 1889.111 These works were followed by a move to "bohemian"
Montmartre in 1890, where Satie met Debussy at the Auberge de Clou and soon
also met Peladon. Now he began to set Peladon's texts, beginning with his Wag-
nerian-influenced drama Le Fils des etoiles, for which Satie wrote the incidental
music. The following year he wrote more music for the so-called Sar Peladon, but
now specifically for his Rosicrucian movement, Sonneries de la Rose-Croix. At the
same time, however, as Debussy was also eventually to do, Satie considered set-
ting his own unique version of the old Tristan legend. But for Satie, this was Le
Bdtard de Tristan, an opera that he began to plan, but apparently never completed,
to the text by Albert Trinchant.112
Satie, however, did complete a purportedly Christian ballet, Uspud, already
again seeking out the inherently contradictory, with the whimsical Contamine de
Latour. In the first of many provocative gestures and challenges to official institu-
tions, Satie boldly sent the ballet to the current director of the Opera, Bertrand.
However, the composer experienced the humiliation of not even receiving an ac-
knowledgment of the work, and he promptly proceeded to challenge the director
of the Opera to a duel. Moreover, he subsequently published the work with a
false announcement on the title page that it had been performed at the Paris
opera in 1892. But this behavior, however eccentric, was not completely unique:
Satie had models, first in Peladon himself, who had proposed his own works to
the Comedie Francaise.113 Another source was surely the culture of the Mont-
martre cabarets and the peculiar brand of cabaret humor that Satie had promptly
absorbed. Characteristic of such humor was the practice of lavishing praise on
one's own achievement, as well as of assuming the pose of a moralist lamenting
the depravity of the world. But most characteristic was a parody of the academic
world, and indeed of every kind of official cultural pedantry. Long before Satie,
humorists, prominent among whom was Alphonse Allais, were systematically en-
gaging in this particular brand ol cabaret humor.114
We can see a similar pose reflected in several of Satie's projects, as well as in
specific acts or gestures throughout the 1890s, In 1892, for example, he founded
his own facetious church, the so-called Eglise Metropolitaine de 1'Art de Jesus Con-
ducteur. His stated goal was to combat those "who have neither convictions nor
beliefs, not a thought in their souls or a principle in their hearts." This was a par-
ticularly trenchant irony for the nihilistic Satie, whose only "culture" at the time
was that of cabaret humor, or farcical absurdity. Just as ridiculous is his diatribe
against the culprits who were supposedly behind what he pompously denounced
as "the aesthetic and moral decadence of our times." Compounding the farce was
his "excommunication" of those whom he considered to be his "enemies," includ-
ing Lugne Poe, Alexandre Natanson, and the music critic "Willy."115 The latter was
undoubtedly included for having publically reproached Satie for being the musi-
cian officially associated with the "Sar" Peladon. This was only the beginning of a
series of hostile confrontations and bitter exchanges between the two men, whose
political and cultural stances would grow diametrically opposed.116
Like his father, Satie soon managed to deplete his modest inheritance
through a series of short-lived fanciful ventures, none of which ever yielded a
profit. While still presiding over his "church," he published a series of accompa-
nying pamphlets, as well as a facetious paper titled the Carticulaire de I'Eglise. He
also participated in a literary circle grouped around the journal Le Coeur, edited
by Jules Bois and devoted to "esoterisme" in literature, science, and art. But then,
in 1895, followed a brief period of seemingly authentic religious conversion (re-
calling that of his grandfather) during which Satie published his Messe des pau-
vres for organ.117 Here, as in the ballet Uspud, the upper line is derived from an-
cient Greek modes, and the progression of chords is essentially free of established
tonal conventions. And here, too, there is no development in any traditional aca-
demic sense; it is replaced instead with simple repetition, and symmetry alone
defines the form.118 Satie was clearly outside the culture that propagated aca-
demic conventions and was absorbed by the mysticism that Mauclair had seen as
the earliest escape from "le culte de moi." His eventual path, like Debussy's,
would lead him toward an engagement with the social and political world, al-
though from a diametrically opposed perspective.
Satie, too, was going through a social transformation in this period: his finan-
cial status was declining so precipitously that he was forced to move outside
Paris. His new home was the working-class suburb of Arceuil, an environment to
which he gradually grew close and that would eventually provide him with an-
other element in his cultural alloy. This move was accompanied by two changes
of "costume," changes that were both a part of his social "poses" and, like De-
bussy, a quest for a public social identity. He switched from a "bohemian" cos-
tume to one of grey velours, but by 1900 he had switched once more to his
henceforth distinguishing garb: in the midst of this workers' suburb, he assumed
the costume that has been variously described as that of a "petit fonctionnaire"
and that of a teacher of physics at a provincial lycee.119 For Satie, social identity,
like musical language and prose, was to be a game, although a serious one, be-
neath the seeming facade of simple farce. All were a means to question or test
current ideas of reality and representation; eventually, through such "play," he,
like Debussy, would confound established dogma.
Satie's compositions now were varied and ignored the distinctions of cultural
"levels": he wrote chansons for the popular Vincent Hyspa, as well as for "la reine
de la valse lente," Paulette Darty.120 But the most significant and revealing work
of this period is his Genevieve de Brabant, written with "Lord Cheminot"—alias
Contamine de Latour—in 1899. This was the first of Satie's works in which he
played a new game of "style," one that would become more complex as he dis-
covered the meanings born of cultural politics. Here, the game is to go back and
forth between the styles associated with "la grande" and "la petite musique," like
Debussy effacing the rationale of the distinction. But, for Satie, this juxtaposition
of styles from "high" and "popular" art would eventually involve a game of cita-
tions that carried a deeper cultural meaning.
It has been speculated that Satie and de Latour were inspired by the concert
version of Schumann's Genoveva, performed in the Salle d'Harcourt in 1894. It
has also been suggested that another motivation for Satie was Debussy's Pelleas et
Melisande, with which Satie may have felt competitive in this period. Indeed,
both composers were interested in Maurice Maeterlinck, and both had already
expressed a desire to make an opera out of his earlier successful play, La Princesse
Maltine.121 There are, in fact, striking points of resemblance between Genevieve
and Debussy's Pelleas, including the setting—a forest in the Middle Ages—and
the character of a vulnerable long-haired young woman victimized by male cru-
elty. In addition, it even employs the same names—phonetically—for the villain,
who here is Golo; and both Maeterlinck and "Lord Cheminot" borrowed their
principal characters from popular tradition.122
But Satie's work roots itself more thoroughly in a newer or more recent ver-
sion of this tradition. The text itself, both in style as well as in visual presenta-
tion, evokes a common kind of fin-de-siecle French popular imagery. But the
other predominant influence here is the humor of the cabaret, which appears un-
equivocally in a number of the specific techniques employed. As in cabaret the-
ater, facts are presented in the opposite order from that in which they occurred,
and there are deliberate departures from the historical realities referred to in the
work. There are even departures in the legend, especially the end of the story,
which depicts not the heroine's pathetic death but, rather, her "rehabilitation."123
Most startling of all is the musical style, in which, with studied incongruity,
Satie moves between reference to chant-like melodies and those that ineluctably
suggest Jacques Offenbach (who composed his own Genevieve de Brabant). Why
does he juxtapose citations of styles that are thus deprived of their original signi-
ficance? What is the real intent or purpose of this odd concatenation? Here an
analogy is illuminating—an analogy with a genre that was used in the culture to
which Satie had been introduced as a child—that of ancient Greece. The ancient
Greeks developed a literary genre referred to as "Meneppian discourse," which
employs a series of citations from texts that are intended to avoid any unequivo-
cal or "fixed" meaning: as distinct from the postmodern play with styles, original-
ity, and citation, the expressive goal is to suggest the distance of the author from
these sources and, consequently, from his own text; this indicates a profound cul-
tural alienation. Later, when Satie's stylistic resources were to expand—at the
time of the "guerre des chapelles"—another aspect of the attraction of this genre
would emerge. For it was conceived as being a form of literature that was inher-
ently inimical to any kind of authoritarian or ideologically dogmatic society.124
From Satie's pseudoreligious phase, when he invoked styles with a parodistic in-
tent, he had moved on to an alternative manner of expressing distance, alien-
ation, and the relative.
This was also the period when the tunes and practices commonly associated
with the cabaret milieu were another source of inspiration for Satie. One such
practice, which he was later to carry to a new extreme (as would Debussy as
well), was the use of well-known tunes in new satirical or unusual contexts. This
included old chansons such as "Maman les p'tits bateaux," and also revolutionary
chansons like "La Carmagnole" and numbers from operetta and opera. All com-
mon cultural property (although belonging to different contexts of that culture),
they could be creatively mingled into a complex new compound. In this objective
manipulation of common references and in his use of mundane materials in dis-
orienting, abstract ways, he anticipates the cubist painters. Compositions such as
Satie's Trois morceaux en forme de poire of 1903 (a facetious response to the charge
that his work had no form) mix melodies drawn from this "popular" reper-
toire with new or original tunes.125 In addition, the appearance of Satie's scores
now owe much to his roots in the cabaret milieu, especially his practice of pro-
viding a running verbal commentary over the staves of the score. Characteristic
of Chat Noir scores that were intended to accompany shadow plays are descrip-
tions of the action or characters, together with illustration, running over the
music.126
By 1905 Satie apparently believed that he had exhausted this vein or that he
needed another fund of material and techniques to enrich his style and his "com-
mentary." It has been posited that he grew tired of being dismissed as a "naif," or
an amateur composer; now, wishing for greater professional respect, he decided,
at age thirty-nine, to resume his education. But it is particularly important to be
aware of how Satie chose to do this: not by the logical method for someone his
age—engaging a private instructor—but by making the provocative gesture of en-
rolling in the Schola Cantorum, at the height of the controversy over it, and,
moreover, to study counterpoint.
Numerous colleagues tried to dissuade him, including Debussy and the pro-
fessor with whom he was to study at the Schola, Albert Roussel.127 The latter,
who saw Satie as a musician of true quality, with a new and rich musical sense,
argued that he already possessed a "metier" and thus had nothing to learn. But
Satie persisted, and, according to Roussel, this "prodigious musician" became, at
the Schola, a tractable, docile, and assiduous student.128 Satie got along well per-
sonally with d'Indy, whom he apparently grew to like, as he himself indicated
when reflecting on his experiences at the Schola: "Avec d'Indy j'ai beaucoup tra-
vaille et je conserve le meilleur souvenir des sept annees aupres de cet homme, si
bon et si simple"129 (With d'Indy I worked very hard and I retain the best mem-
ory of those seven years with this man, so good and so simple). Again, it is not
clear whether Satie was here being facetious or accentuating the irony of d'Indy's
caring personality toward individuals, as opposed to his ideology.
There is, however, little question as to the facetious nature of the works that
Satie promptly proceeded to compose upon his graduation from the Schola Can-
torum. Roussel himself was to admonish Satie not to write "ironiquement," a ten-
dency he immediately perceived in works that Satie composed in this period.130
And in 1908 Debussy was to write Francesco de Lacerda, commenting:
Votre ami E. Satie vient de terminer une fugue ou 1'ennui se dissimule derriere des
harmonies malveillantes, dans quoi vous rencontrez la marque de cette discipline si
particuliere a retablissement cite plus haul.131
(Your friend E. Satie has just finished a fugue where boredom dissimulates itself be-
hind malicious harmonies, in which you will recognize the mark of that discipline so
peculiar to the establishment cited above.)
Satie was indeed simultaneously referring to and defying the rules of the Schola,
just as Debussy was to do in his own orchestral Images. Both were able through
such means to confound not only the Schola but also, by employing its associated
techniques, those "chapelles" that were hostile to it.
For Satie, the new stylistic references that he could now deploy allowed him
to comment on an even wider spectrum of the cultural and musical world around
him. But these references were to join with the techniques or languages he had
learned in the cabaret, in particular, the running written commentaries and the
use of humorous titles.132 Such titles can often be read as Satie's own personal
commentary on the dogma that Hure and others had denounced or satirized in
prose: the Preludes flasques (pour en chien), for example, makes fun of Scholiste
training—of its rhetoric of "elevation" and of formal rigor, as well as its favored
techniques. Not only is the implicit message that such formal training is more ap-
propriate to a dog, but the titles and techniques of the pieces betray Satie's per-
spective on this "chapelle." "Voix d'interieur" has a double meaning within the
context of the Schola's dogma—it refers not only to the proper behavior of a dog
in the house but to the Schola's doctrine of art as an inner "calling." Further rein-
forcing the message of such "spiritual" associations is the facetious chorale that
Satie prominently includes in the composition.
The following "Idylle canine" is a revealing contradiction in terms, for this
"scholiste idyl" is, in fact, a rigorous two-part invention. "Avec camaraderie"
probably also makes fun of the doctrine so dear to d'lndy and the Schola of
cooperation as opposed to competition among pupils. But despite its popular-
sounding theme, it is cast in a kind of sonata form, complete with the requisite
"scholastic" modulation to the dominant key. Just as telling is Satie's Veritable
preludes flasques pour un chien, which contains a parody of the Baroque style, so
central to the Schola's canon. "Severe reprimande" includes a citation from an ap-
propriately severe chorale, and "On joue" plays facetiously with a simple contra-
puntal texture. Incongruously combining the atmosphere of the Schola and that
of the cabaret, the work is studded with Latin annotations, once more presented
in a mock solemn manner.133
In such works Satie is toying with a phenomenon later to absorb psychoana-
lysts like Jacques Lacan—how meanings become "attached" to objects that are, in
fact, multivalent. What interested Satie was the conjuncture in an object of mean-
ings from different aspects of his culture, which could give rise to new meanings,
an ability to say something "other." In his life as well, Satie pursued this goal of
destabilizing established meanings by combining elements that were seemingly
radically opposed to articulate something "else." This is perhaps the context in
which to understand Satie's otherwise enigmatic decision in this period to join
the French Radical Socialist Party. This decision, too, was both an ideological ges-
ture and a rejection of dogma, for the nature of Satie's contribution to the party
was by no means orthodox.
Satie became a member of the Comite Radical et Radical-Socialiste d'Arceuil
Cachan, the largest French party, in 1908.134 Significantly, this was the year that
he completed his studies at the nationalistic Schola, armed with an official
diploma in counterpoint and a new fund of stylistic references. The question of
why Satie was persuaded to join the party is indeed complex, but one essential
fact to remember is his fascination with contradiction and illusion. For Satie, in
both his life and his music, this was a manner of maintaining objectivity, of re-
maining apart, free of established identities, in order to question all authority and
orthodoxy. Now, in the context of the "guerre des chapelles," he was able to do
just that—by using ambiguity and irony to cast light on the battle and on the
deeper conflicts behind it.
Satie had chosen to join the largest and most important political party in
France between 1901 and 1914, the first large party on a national scale.135 Per-
haps in a deep psychological sense, being a member endowed him with power—
a power he certainly did not possess in any other aspect of his life. But we must
also remember that he joined a political party of "social illusion"—something
that, as we have seen, already deeply attracted Satie. Its very name was adopted
by the left-wing Radical Republicans in an attempt to manifest an awareness of
the current "social question," and thereby to garner working-class votes.136 In
other words, it sought to impart the illusion that it was of the Left, despite the
fact that its conception of equality was political, and indeed not social. Again, as
with the Schola, Satie may well have sought to undermine from within, or to ac-
complish his own personal goal in the context of an atmosphere inimical to it.
But yet another possible source of appeal of the party for Satie, after his expe-
rience at the Schola, was its emphasis on "laicity." A major component of its doc-
trine was the strict separation of Church and state, making it all the more ironic
that it could recruit a member fresh from the Schola Cantorum.137 But "laicity"
was ostensibly the aspect that here attracted Satie: although it was not formally
incorporated in the party's principles, it informed its cultural program, to which
Satie was drawn. While he never missed a meeting of the party, he did not partic-
ipate in any of them but merely sat in a corner smoking and listening attentively
to the speakers' discourses. What stimulated him to activity, however, was the
party's program of "patronage laique," a system of clubs for youth devoted to de-
veloping lay education and culture. Within this context, Satie's adopted "cos-
tume" assumes all the more social sense, since such "patronages" typically were
the projects of provincial "instituteurs": they were an oblique, extracurricular
means of opposing the insidious influence of the cure and the Church on the cul-
ture and values of French youth. 138
After his experience at the Schola and his exposure to its subtle diffusion of
ideology through musical pedagogy, Satie may now have found such a cultural
undertaking to be particularly resonant. Hence Satie, the "mauvais eleve" of the
Conservatoire Nationale and the quiet, observant pupil of the Schola, undertook
his own pedagogical enterprise. Here, he had the additional model—either per-
versely or nostalgically—of his whimsical, quixotic parents and their own short-
lived school of music. If Charpentier had undertaken to introduce the seam-
stresses of Paris to music, Satie now took it upon himself to do so for the children
of Arceuil-Cachan: not only did he teach them solfege on Sunday mornings, at
10 A.M. (a time when good Catholic children were in church), but also he orga-
nized inexpensive concerts and fetes for them. Indeed, it was here that he suc-
ceeded in gaining the recognition denied him in the "legitimate" musical world,
from which he, like d'Indy before, had resolutely turned away. Both had inclined
instead to the cultural projects of the French political world, thereby making
their own unique contributions to the complex dialogue of cultural politics. It
was through this political-cultural world that, in 1909, Satie received Palmes
Academiques for "services civiques," awarded by the Prefect of the Seine.
There was even an official ceremony, duly reported by the local paper, in which
Satie's songs "Je te veux" and "Tendrement" were performed, apparently to an en-
thusiastic response.139 So multivalent were Satie's works (like those of Gustave
Charpentier) that they could be appropriated on different levels and, as we shall
soon see, from different ideological perspectives. Satie was apparently pleased with
his reception in Arceuil, having, like Charpentier and Debussy, no respect for strati-
fied cultural "levels"; he subsequently expanded his program of cultural politics
through music (as had both Charpentier and d'Indy) to include regional "patron-
ages larques." Like Charpentier and d'Indy once more, Satie's political and profes-
sional interests and motivation in such an undertaking were here indeed indistin-
guishable. He even became, if briefly, a contributor to Arceuil's paper, writing a
regular column on his activities entitled "Quinzaine des Societes." Eventually, how-
ever, as his works were rediscovered by the musical culture as part of the ongoing
"guerre des chapelles," he withdrew from his program of cultural politics—at least
overtly. But he still continued to contribute what he could to the children of Arceuil
taking them on short outings to expose them directly to the riches of the cultural
world.140 This perhaps was Satie's response to the Republic's similar programs for
adults, of which he, like Debussy and Charpentier, was certainly well aware.
Despite his distance from the musical dogma, immediately after his years at the
Schola, Satie, like Debussy, was inevitably drawn into the acidulous internecine
quarrels of the "camps." He became a victim of a group of supporters who selfishly
wished to enshrine an earlier phase of his style for their own purposes, thus ignor-
ing his recent evolution. For Satie, as for Debussy, it was the clique of "Debussystes"
associated with the Societe Musicale Independante who wished to "reclaim" him
from the Schola. Satie was deeply irritated by this anti-d'Indyste tactic and later re-
sponded by mouthing pseudo-Scholiste dogma, but, of course, facetiously:
En musique je vois quatre phases importantes: Contrepoint—formule primitive—

Harmonie—reglementation sonore—Resonance—impressionnisme musical—Neo-O
contrepoint—nouvelle formule. Chacune de ces phases correspond a une evolution

de 1'esprit humain.141
(In music, I see four important phases: Counterpoint—primitive formula—Har-
mony—sonorous reglementation—Resonance—musical impressionism—Nee-coun-
terpoint—new formula. Each of these phases corresponds to an evolution of the
human spirit.)
Satie here subtly accentuated one point shared by Scholiste and Debussyste
dogma—their arguments based on "evolution," although conceived in philo-
sophically opposite ways.
But the S.M.I, persisted in its efforts, and on January 16, 1911, it performed
Satie's early compositions for its elite and sophisticated audience. The program
notes, which attempted to appropriate his style for the Debussyste faction, em-
phasized the boldness, novelty, and influence of Satie's harmonic language. In ad-
dition, on March 25, 1911, for a concert of the Cercle Musical that was devoted to
Satie, Debussy conducted his orchestral version of the early Gymnopedies; more-
over, the "progressive" or Debussyste press abetted this appropriation through an
article by Calvocoressi, in the Guide du concert and one by Jules Ecorcheville, in
the Revue musicale S.I.M.142
Nevertheless, Satie recalcitrantly continued to compose in his "post-Schola"
style, and he now incorporated references to both popular and historical musical
idioms. In addition, he included reference to the Debussyste "chapelle" in his De-
scriptions automatiques of 1913, the very title of which was an anti-impressionist
gesture, although, it was more anti-Debussyste than anti-Debussy.143 Signifi-
cantly, the piece entitled "Sur une lanterne" (On a street lamp) makes reference to
a revolutionary chanson that includes the phrase "les aristocrates a la lanterne"
(or, hang the aristocrats).144 Perhaps this juxtaposition of references was also
meant to suggest that, in Satie's view, from the perspective of Arceuil, the De-
bussystes represented the artistic "elite."
In his Choses vues a droite et a gauche (sans lunettes) of 1914, Satie once more
satirizes the other "chapelle" and its dogma—that of d'Indy and the Schola. The
piece includes a "Hypocritical chorale," a "Groping fugue," and a "Muscular fan-
tasy," all obvious parodies of Scholiste ideas, characteristics, and themes.145 With
his Embryons desseches, Satie enters into yet another key issue of contemporary
musical and cultural politics—that of the proper definition and role of the musi-
cal "classics." Here we see his irreverent conception: an exposition and conven-
tional re-exposition; no development, but a grandiose finale, consisting of the
same cadential chords repeated to absurdity. Moreover, in the section where
he depicts "le grand gemissement des crustaces en famille" (the great creaking of
the crustaceans in a family), we find a literal quotation from a funeral march
of Chopin. For Satie the classics, conceived as such, are themselves "dessicated
embryos"—now a foreign idiom, and ridiculous in a modern creative context, al-
though solemnly invoked as canonic models at the Schola.146
If Satie could not escape attempts at appropriation by "chapelles" and their
dogma, neither could he escape those of current politicized cultural journals. A
case in point is that of Montjoie!, a self-proclaimed "organe de I'lmperialisme
artistique francaise," progressive artistically, but with a strongly nationalist bent.

It was one of many such journals of art that served as conduits for French nation-
alist ideas through an aesthetic discourse, if interpreting "tradition" in various
ways.147 The tone of the journal was aristocratic, and its politics were not only
nationalist but also anti-Semitic and antidemocratic. Its ideological sympathies
were announced by its title, which it borrowed directly from the traditional "cri
de guerre" of the early kings of France. But while it placed great emphasis on the
"pure" or the "real" artists of France's past, it, unlike the Action Francaise, pro-
moted "advanced" artistic tastes.148 Its director, Riciutto Canudo, did not es-
pouse a classical artistic doctrine or any other kind of narrow ideology or aesthet-
ics. Hence, Montjoie!, although to the Right, was not slavishly tied to tradition
but encouraged artists to salvage only that part of the past that truly merited
preservation. This led to an attack on all official institutions (as we saw in the Ac-
tion Frangaise), but the journal then went on to exalt such qualities as "life, force,
energy, and will." Yet, like the Schola, it emphasized discipline, unselfishness, no-
bility, and spirituality, as well as the doctrine that all true art must emerge from
the melting pot of the "collective."149
Ironically, Canudo, a political nationalist, was an Italian who had settled in
Paris and engaged in multiple professions including poet, novelist, and commenta-
tor on music. Already presciently anticipating wartime aesthetic orthodoxies,
Canudo considered France to be perhaps the pinnacle of the "latin" cultures. He
bridged several artistic worlds through the salons that were regularly held by the
journal, which included such "advanced" artistic figures as Leger, Cendrars, Satie,
and Varese. Because of its musical contingent, as well as the interests of its editor,
the journal included articles on music in addition to short extracts from actual
scores: it published works of Florent Schmitt, Stravinsky, Albert Roussel, and Satie,
whose Les Pantins dansant appeared in issues number 11 and 12. Apparently, the
journal's authors were impervious to Satie's sophisticated play with signification
and his modernist self-consciousness about how the construction of meaning
occurs.150 Florent Schmitt wrote an article entitled "Erik Satie" in which he
praised the composer and attacked the Institut de France for completely ignoring
him. Probably realizing the utility of such promotion, Satie did not clearly distance
himself, despite the radically different politics and aesthetics that he professed. His
answer, however, was soon forthcoming, and once more with trenchant irony, in
the period of his greatest political and aesthetic subversion—the First World War.
This more overt politicization was heralded by Satie's response to the assassination
of Jean Jaures on July 31, 1914: he joined the internationalist French Socialist
party.151 Revealingly, this was his immediate reaction to the simultaneous vic-
tory of the Traditionalist and the nationalist factions in the intertwined realms of
French politics and art.
CHARPENTIER 'S DISILLUSIONMENT AND POLITICS
The other composer who responded publicly to the assassination of the Socialist
leader was Gustave Charpentier, who prepared the music that was performed at
Jaures's funeral. 152 Charpentier had grown disillusioned with the social programs
of the Third Republic, with which he astutely identified immediately after the
success of Louise. Like Satie, the greater his success, the greater his distrust of un-
equivocal "truth," which would become pronounced in both composers during
the war. Moreover, for both, this distrust was to lead not to renunciation of politi-
cal engagement but to an identification with another contemporary French ideo-
logical solution. But Charpentier's artistic response, like those of Debussy and
Satie, was subtle, even if his political response, at least as overtly stated, was most
certainly not.
It was undoubtedly in large part because of the continuing success of his
opera Louise that Charpentier was elected to the Institut de France in 1912, suc-
ceeding his teacher, Massenet; but this supreme recognition occurred during the
period when he was completing an opera, Julien, that would be far more difficult
to misinterpret or appropriate with simplistic optimism. The sequel to Louise,
Julien concerns the later, disappointing life of the poet and his "muse," with
whom he now lives, disillusioned, in a less than idyllic "menage."153 Irony again
is prominent, for the work, revealingly, is prefaced by an epigram that Charpen-
tier drew from Alfred de Musset's Romantic Confession d'un enfant du siecle: "Vous
cherchez autour de vous comme une esperance . . . et la destinee qui vous
raille vous repondra par une bouteille de vin du peuple et une courtisane" (You
look around you for something like a hope . . . and destiny that mocks you will
reply with a bottle of cheap wine and a courtesan).
The setting is an artist's room in the Villa Medici in Rome, for Julien, now
successful, has apparently succeeded in winning the Prix de Rome. He quickly
falls asleep, and the entire first act transpires supposedly in Julien's dreams, in the
so-called fanciful "Pays du Reve." Here Louise and Julien together with the
"poetes dechus" (dethroned poets), confront the abyss, and futilely invoke inspi-
ration of the "divine flame." As in Louise, the conventions of literature and high
art are again invoked in connection with Julien's blindness and falsehood, the
lack of the authentic and sincere. Julien here prays against the background of the
celestial sounds of harps, while a psalmodizing or monotone chorus simultane-
ously prays to beauty.
The second act depicts a "paysage slovaque," while the third is set in Bre-
tagne, amid ruins undoubtedly intended to be suggestive of hopelessness. The
fourth act takes place in Paris, once more equated with debauchery, as becomes
patently clear in a lascivious dance by a prostitute. Here, in addition, another
popular carnival crowd appears, but one in which students and prostitutes to-
gether sybaritically praise absinthe and wine. Once more, Carnival is associated
with the reversal of social expectations—with the same alliance of people and
poets that leftist critics had praised in Louise. But now, with poignant irony, they
drunkenly sing of "la splendeur du vrai"; the work concludes as Julien collapses,
and the vision of the Temple of Beauty disappears. Such art is not a true art for
the people but is a delusion-inducing opiate, purveyed by figures like Julien,
whose conception of culture can only do harm. 154
Like Debussy Charpentier was now in search of a political identity or an ideo-
logical orientation that would provide new direction for his art. For both com-
posers, apparent disillusion with Anarchist cultural liberties was leading toward a
search for certainty within an established doctrinal frame. But while Debussy es-
caped the "culte du moi" by embracing the "moi collectif" of the Right, Charpen-
tier rather turned to the collectivism of the Socialist Left. Indeed, this was to be the
solution of many former Dreyfusards, who now found the ideological seat of their
ideals not in the Republic but in the Socialist Party. As we have noted, this was the
period when Charpentier supported the political-cultural efforts of his ambitious
protege, the young composer, Albert Doyen. Apparently, more than ever he be-
lieved in an art that would incorporate the people, who would construe it in their
own manner, as opposed to an art imposed on them by those of a different class.
Self-sufficiency was still his aim, just as it was in his project to create a protective
system for female workers, his "Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson."
D' I N D Y 'S TRIUMPH AND HIS E N D U R I N G OBSESSIONS
As we have noted, this was the period when Vincent d'Indy was at work on his
own allegorical and political opera, entitled La Legende de Saint Christophe. We
have also seen his ideological evolution toward new groups and journals such as
I'Independance, which joined together the nationalist visions of the extreme Right
and Left. In the period before the war, d'Indy continued to move between two
cultural worlds, those of music and politics, and he had a palpable influence on
both. But his older preoccupations remained—those that had originally emerged
from the Dreyfus Affair, and especially the politicized cultural war that had in-
vaded French musical culture. Despite the immenent "traditionalist" victory,
d'Indy could not move beyond the original political obsessions that had first
helped to focus his artistic creed.
In 1907 he was still absorbed with the same issues and themes, as we may see
in a letter to Guy Ropartz of August 7, 1907. Ropartz was considering artistic col-
laboration with the Conservatoire in Strasbourg, and d'Indy advised him to go
ahead but to be wary of the many Protestants. He considered Protestantism dan-
gerous from both a political and an artistic point of view, citing Schweitzer's treat-
ment of Bach, which he believed made the composer into a sectarian. Such peo-
ple, d'Indy warns, are adroit as well as dangerous: moreover, he claims, since the
Affair they have done much harm to France. D'Indy goes on to observe, sounding
already like "Agathon," that they continue to do harm through the university, of
which they are now in control. He urges Ropartz in the letter to distrust all
Protestants—and indeed to distrust them even more than the menacing Germans
themselves.155 This was consistent with his belief that there was more danger
within France from those who were not "truly French" than from the so-called
enemy from without.
As we have noted, despite his new involvements in "advanced" political
groups, d'Indy continued to correspond with members of the Ligue de la Patrie
Francaise. Although by this point it was effectively defunct, he was still sending
letters to it in November 1912, reporting on his activities in Brussels and at the
Schola.156 D'Indy, now unequivocally powerful in both the politicized and the
"legitimate" musical worlds, continued to move between the two with both dex-
terity and skill: by 1912 he was teaching at the Conservatoire and the Schola, and
he was omnipresent on important juries such as the Concours Cressent.
As the leader of one of the "chapelles" or "poles," d'Indy, like Debussy, was
also a frequent contributor to the important Revue musicale S.I.M. Here he em-
ployed political rhetoric that indeed would not be out of place in the various
journals of the Action Francaise or other proximate nationalist groups. We find
intertextual reference to their common mobilizing political themes, which were
now becoming increasingly legitimized as the threat of war approached. For ex-
ample, he asks:
Comment se fait-il qu'en art nous ayons laisse s'egarer ce bon sens qui pendant si
longtemps, de Montaigne a Moliere et Beaumarchais, de Rameau a Gluck et Mehul a
sauvegarde 1'originalite de notre creation francaise?
(How is it that in art we have let go astray this common sense that for so long, from
Montaigne to Moliere and Beaumarchais, from Rameau to Gluck and Mehul has safe-
guarded the originality of French creation?)
He observes that the reasons are complex but posits that they could be attribut-
able to "meteques," whose promiscuity "a detruit le veritable esprit de notre
pays"157 (has destroyed the true spirit of our country). As we can see, the leaders
of both "poles" of independents before the war were arguing for the purity of the
French tradition using terms popularized by the Action Francaise.
The following year d'Indy turned to another substantial symbolic stake in the
war of the dogma or "chapelles"—the proper intellectual interpretation of
Beethoven. After Remain Rolland's La Vie de Beethoven of 1903, other, more re-
cent books had appeared that further provoked the response of d'Indy. In 1905
Raymond Bouyer published Le Secret de Beethoven, and in 1906 Jean Chantavoine
also published a book on the composer.158 In 1913 d'Indy answered with his
long-awaited Beethoven (completed in 1911), which he conceived, in part, as a
refutation of Rolland's book. Whereas Rolland presented the composer as heroic,
a friend of the suffering, motivated by a humanitarian and civic faith, for d'Indy
this faith was religious, as seen in such works as the Missa Solemnis:
Musique liturgique, non . . . mais musique religieuse au premier chef, de plus,

musique essentiellement Catholique. Nous sommes bien eloignes de suspecter la
bonne foi de ceux des historiens de Beethoven qui ont pretendu attacher a ce monu-
ment unique de Fart religieux un sens simplement philosophique, faire de cette Messe
une oeuvre en dehors de la foi chretienne, une manifestation de "libre examen."159
(Liturgical music, no ... but religious music in the highest degree, moreover, es-
sentially Catholic music. We are far from suspecting the good faith of those historians
of Beethoven who pretended to attach to this unique monument of religious art a sim-
ple philosophic sense, to make of this mass a work outside of Christian faith, a mani-
festation of free thought.)
THE DILEMMA OF THE I N D E P E N D E N T S : M A G N A R D ,

RAVEL, ROPARTZ, AND ROUSSEL
Clearly, the oppositions defined at the turn of the century were still in place, and
the "chapelles" deeply engaged with them, as their contentiousness peaked in the
years preceding World War 1. This was not problematic for d'Indy, whose aes-
thetic continued to coincide with his politics, following the boundaries defined
by the "camps," but this was not the case for several prominent Scholistes. It is
important to examine these composers together, along with the equally indepen-
dent Maurice Ravel, for all of them confounded the dogma so obstreperously pro-
claimed by the litigious "chapelles." Alberic Magnard, Guy Ropartz, and Albert
Roussel, together with Ravel, provoked critical passions in the period that defy
explanation apart from this context.
Magnard and the "Chapelles"

As we have already seen, Magnard had been deeply involved in the Dreyfus Affair
and, although he was a Scholiste, had staunchly supported the Dreyfusards. Not
surprisingly, given his uncompromising nature and his subsequent refusal to ad-
here to the ideological orthodoxies of the existing "chapelles," Magnard's music
was little performed. He demonstrably paid the price for his defiance and pertina-
cious independence, his highly personal melange of the beliefs and techniques of
different cliques. But if one can give credence to Gaston Carraud's impassioned
book on Magnard, written after the war and the composer's "heroic" death (de-
fending his home against the Germans), his social ideas were indeed complex.
For according to Carraud, Magnard believed himself to be "democratic," but, in
fact, this was less the case than the composer actually thought: although claiming
to be sanguine toward French workers and peasants, by 1909, in a letter to
Ropartz he was complaining of their power or, as he put it, "la tyrannie ouvriere."
This was perhaps a reference to the attempted general strike by French workers
in 1909, which brought down the premiership of Georges Clemenceau that year.
Apparently Magnard's interest in the lower classes was fundamentally paternalis-
tic, that of someone who espoused an idealism that was protected by the privilege
of wealth. Yet his idealism persisted and led to further complications for him and
the reception of his works in the politicized musical world of the prewar period.
In 1911 his opera Berenice, was performed at the Opera Comique, which, in
fact, had made a specific request to perform the work. 160 Berenice was based on
an original play of Racine, but the story was inherently provocative in the context
of early-twentieth-century France. It concerns the emperor's lover, Berenice, who
is Jewish, and whom for this very reason the people of Rome do no want as em-
press on the throne. In the end, however, Berenice performs the noble and altru-
istic act of sacrificing her love for the emperor in the Roman people's political in-
terest. Within the cadre of the nationalist Right, and even of the Schola itself, a
noble or altruistic Jew was considered an anomaly, an inherent contradiction.
Hence the quandary of the nationalist, press, which, while approving of Mag-
nard's musical style, nevertheless faced the problem of the content of the libretto.
The Revue francaise politique et litteraire (the continuation of Les Annales de la Pa-
trie Francaise, the journal of the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise) solved the problem
by limiting its comments to the musical style. After noting that the work's sim-
plicity ostensibly upset some of the listeners, it goes on implicitly to contrast
Magnard's music with music written in the "Italo-Judaique" style:
On a pu sentir la a quel point les grandes oeuvres italiennes, en alterant le gout du

public, ont desservi 1'ecole francaise et la musique tout entier.161
(One could feel to which extent the great Italian works, in altering public taste, have
harmed the French school and all of music.)
Ultimately, for this press, Magnard's "message" inhered in his style and his associ-
ation with the Schola Cantorum, as opposed to the ideas expressed in the text.
The Case of Maurice Ravel

If Magnard was the positive stylistic model for the Revue francaise politique et lit-
teraire, Ravel was a model of all it condemned in contemporary French musical
style. Ravel, too, was caught in the crossfire between the conflicting "chapelles"
and labeled a "Debussyste" despite his personal tensions with Debussy himself.
On February 11, f912, the Revue francaise politique et litteraire attacked Ravel's
Ma mere I'oye, currently being presented at Rouche's Theatre des Arts. Its critic
dismisses the work as no more than an "amusement d'artiste raffine," under the
influence of Faure and Debussy, as opposed to the "noblesse" of Vincent d'Indy.
Ravel had incurred the wrath of the Schola and its sympathizers by boldly con-
fronting them, even when it was clear that this faction was assuming the hege-
monic professional position. Although his political engagement would not come
until during and after the war, Ravel was already outspoken concerning the
dogma that he found so repellent: on numerous occasions, in private letters as
well as in published articles, he made it clear how insidious he believed the
Schola's aesthetic and social doctrines to be.
Already, in a letter to Jean Marnold in 1906, Ravel referred to the Scholistes
dismissively as "morose followers of this neo-Christianity":162 by 1912 he was
voicing his negative opinions concerning Franck and "Franckism," and its later
incarnation, Scholisme, in the Revue S.I.M. Here he attacks a symphony by Henri
Witowsky, a prominent "scholiste," as well as the founder of an important branch
of the Schola Cantorum in Lyon. In the article Ravel treats "scholisme" as an
equivalent of academicism, much in the same manner as did Debussy and Satie
creatively in their prewar compositions. In his description of the Witkowski
work, Ravel notes:
Quelques suites breves de notes, traites par des precedes d'ecole: augmentations, ren-
versements, constituant le principe de la melodie. L'harmonie est presque toujours le
resultat de rencontres contrapuntiques. Le rythme, de deformations industrieuses. De
sorte que ces trois elements de la musique, dont la conception devrait etre simultanee
et avant tout instinctive, sont ici elabores separernent et unis par un travail purement
intellectuel, dirait-on.163
(Short series of notes, treated by academic procedures: augmentation, reversal, con-

stituting the principle of the melody. The harmony is almost always the result of con-
trapuntal encounters. The rhythm, of industrious deformations. With the result that
the three elements of music, of which the conception should be simultaneous, and
above all, instinctive, are here elaborated separately and united by what one would
call a purely intellectual work.)
Here Ravel sounds like a good Debussyste and member of the Societe Musi-
cale Independante, a group that, as we have seen, was systematically hostile to
the Scholiste conception. Although Ravel himself considered writing a symphony
at several points, like Debussy, he could never bring himself to do so, undoubt-
edly because of the connotations that it now carried. As we saw in Vuillermoz,
the symphony, for the Debussyste "chapelle," was equated with "reactionary poli-
tics, autobiography, and slavish adherence to rules."164
Like Debussy, one of Ravel's "countermodels" was the music of Emmanuel
Chabrier, which he affectionately parodied in a collection of "pastiches": "A la
maniere de Chabrier" begins with the very kind of false solemnity that Chabrier
himself loved to present and then proceed to ridicule.165 But his other idol was
Claude Debussy, whose music Ravel defended despite the fact that Debussy was re-
served about some of his rival's works. When Ravel's Histoires naturelles was at-
tacked by the Scholistes in 1907, Debussy, who found it artificial and chimerical, did
not come to his ally's aid,166 but when Debussy's Images was censured by Pierre Lalo
and Gaston Carraud, Ravel leapt to Debussy's defense in the Cahiers d'aujourd'hui.
Here, in 1913, he published an article, "A-propos des Images de Claude Debussy," in
which he addressed the issue of the "guerre des chapelles" and the role of critics.
Ravel recounts the fact that there are presently two major "schools" in
France—that of the disciples of Franck and that of the followers of Debussy. He
also points out the adherence of critics like Lalo and Carraud to such factions as
well, a fact that, as we have seen, both Hellouin and Hure had noted. As Ravel ad-
vances, their sympathy for the Schola undoubtedly accounts for their anomalous
opinions concerning the historical place of the music of Claude Debussy. Ravel
then observes that, although they were both originally partisans of Pelleas, de-
scribing the work as sublime, they considered it not "French" but an "exception."
However, he adds, a group of younger composers by no means sees his work as
exceptional or an aberration within French music, one leading ultimately to an
aesthetic impasse.167
Ravel particularly takes exception to Carraud's observation that, subsequent
to Pelleas, Debussy's earlier clique of admirers was replaced by a substantially dif-
ferent group. Carraud characterized the former as "les musiciens et les sensibles,"
specifically intending by the latter designation both painters and men of letters.
Ravel incisively notes that this thus makes him a "litteraire" or a painter, as it
does Stravinsky, Florent Schmitt, Roger Ducasse, and Albert Roussel.168 He, un-
like some Debussystes, by no means objected to Debussy's evolution, despite the
attempt of certain critics to claim it for the nationalist camp; even after Ravel later
assumed a political stance, he abhorred the categorical and remained "indepen-
dent," if not in politics, then in art, like Debussy.
Ropartz's Defiance
Such independence of spirit was also characteristic of another figure, although
one who was drawn aesthetically to the opposing scholiste "chapelle." This was
Guy Ropartz, who incarnated the same contradictions as his friend, Magnard—
aesthetic attraction to a style considered inimical to the philosophy he professed.
Ropartz, although a staunch "Franckiste," a devout Catholic, and a friend of
d'Indy, was not a Scholiste in the strict sense of the word. And yet he did espouse
some of the same ideas as d'Indy, particularly the belief that "one can think in
music the same way as one can think in prose and in verse."169 Apparently, after
the Affair, d'Indy saw Ropartz as ripe for conversion, as we gleaned from a num-
ber of letters of d'Indy to Ropartz throughout this period. Recall that in 1902 he
wrote to Ropartz complaining about the "Naturistes"' condemnation of the sym-
phony, equating this view with "artistic Dreyfusism."170 A year before, d'Indy had
warned Ropartz about musicians in Lyon, cautioning him about the Jewish-
Socialist alliance around Dreyfus and urging him to "take precautions." 171
But d'Indy's warning were futile, for in 1905 Ropartz was at work on his Sym-
phony No. 3 in which he sought to express ideas that could be construed as both
"Dreyfusard" and Socialist. It is a symphony with a text by the composer, which
opens each of the movements: after the texted section (with soloists and chorus)
comes the instrumental "commentary," in a tradition form. 172 An excerpt from
the text makes Ropartz's ideological position abundantly clear, for it invokes
those terms and concepts that were the stock of the Dreyfusards:
Aimons-nous les uns les autres! La justice et la verite, la paix et la bonte se partagent
la terre. Aimons-nous les uns les autres! L'Humanite transformee monte vers la cite de
joie et d'ideale liberte ou les rois ne sont plus, ni les maitres, ou 1'unique loi d'amour a
remplace les lois desormais inutiles!
O Nature, maintenant sois en fete! . . . Et toi, Soleil, leve-toi radieux! Unis ta
lumiere eclatante aux feux de 1'ideal soleil de Verite, de Justice, et d'Amour.173
(Let us love each other! Justice and truth, peace and goodness share the earth. Let us
love each other! Transformed humanity rises toward the city of joy and ideal liberty
where there are no more kings or masters, where the one law of love has replaced the
henceforth useless laws!
O Nature, now be in celebration! . . . And you, sun, raise yourself radiantly!
Unite your brilliant light with the fire of the ideal sun of truth, of justice, and of love.)
The invocation of nature, justice, truth, and egalitarianism in the year of the
separation of Church and state was rife with ideological implications. Hostile
critics were quick to perceive the clues and to respond in kind, as shown in the
review of the work by Pierre Lalo in Le Temps in 1907. Once more, as an appreci-
ator of the Schola, it was not the style to which he objected but the ideas ex-
pressed, which were in clear contradiction with the stylistic "code." Lalo com-
pares the text with those of Zola, perceiving in both the same utopianism, the
same "false amplitude," and the same "superficial banality."174 Clearly, the mem-
ory of Dreyfusard rhetoric was still vivid and the anti-Dreyfusard discourse still
very much alive in critics who held nationalist political sympathies.
But in addition to recalling that the references to Zola derived from the Af-
fair, we must remember that the French Socialist Party had been founded in
1905. Hence, it is not surprising that Lalo would see the reflection of these two
influences—those that d'Indy particularly dreaded—Socialism and Dreyfusism.
Nor is it surprising that Guy Ropartz, like Debussy and Ravel as well as Magnard,
would suffer from critics during the zenith of the "guerre des chapelles"; for,
as Severac acutely perceived, every composer was expected to take a stance. To
assume one with a foot in each camp only incited the militant French critics
to rage.175
Tensions in Roussel
The other composer to feel the strain of attraction to the style associated with the
Schola but not to its dogma or political ideology was Albert Roussel. Like Mag-
nard, his background was patrician, and, like him as well, he began a career (as
befitting his class) in the military, which he later abandoned for music. But, like
Gustave Charpentier, he originally came from Tourcoing, although from the op-
posite end of the social spectrum—that of the wealthy industrialists. His family
was part owner of a firm that was known for manufacturing carpets and tapes-
tries; Tourcoing, as we have noted, had long been associated with the textile
trade. Roussel's family was also prominent in the city because of its civic service;
his grandfather had served as mayor of Tourcoing.176
Roussel was sent to the Ecole Naval but simultaneously studied music pri-
vately with a former pupil of the traditionalist Ecole Niedermeyer. He imbued
Roussel with a love of the German classics, as well as with a skill in contrapuntal
writing and a mastery of traditional forms. In 1898 Roussel was introduced by a
friend of Giguet to Vincent d'Indy, which led to his formal enrollment in the
flourishing Schola Cantorum. For the next nine years, Roussel attended classes in
composition, as well as in orchestration and, of course, in the history of music. It
has been postulated that it was not d'Indy's ideology but his personal qualities,
and his impressive knowledge of music, that had initially attracted Roussel.
Roussel never approved of the sectarian atmosphere and dogma of the Schola,
and it was perhaps for this reason that he was never an intimate friend of
d'Indy177
Out of respect for Roussel's abilities, d'Indy appointed him professor of coun-
terpoint in 1902, during the period of his own studies, which were completed in
1908. In 1914, however, Roussel resigned from the Schola Cantorum, sensing
that further association with it would be detrimental to his independence. More-
over, he felt himself growing away from d'Indy's principles, although this did not
eventuate in a personal rupture between the two composers.178 Always respectful
of talent, d'Indy never imposed his judgment on such accomplished figures, even
if he personally disliked the artistic result. Eventually, Roussel became the cham-
pion of those young French composers in the 1920s and early 1930s whom
d'Indy would most vociferously denounce. And, in the course of the political po-
larization of the 1930s, Roussel would publicly defend those political ideals that
the Schola had earlier so stridently attacked. 179
FINAL ATTEMPTS AT A R E C O N C I L I A T I O N
In the period preceding the war, the theme of French music as a manifestation of
the "ame nationale," or of the cultural qualities of the "French race," became in-
creasingly common. By now, this and related ideas, appropriated and adapted
from the nationalist Right, were widely considered tenable and, within the chang-
ing political climate, legitimate. With the assumption of power by Poincare in
1912 came an emphasis on the military and on authority, as well as on tradition
and order. As Barres himself was led to comment triumphantly in 1913, "our ter-
minology can be rejected, our doctrines are being realized."180
Yet as the inevitability of war became clearer, the polarization of musical aes-
thetics and factions reached its apogee, a situation many now perceived as bale-
ful; even before the formal declaration of "Union sacree" during the war, the be-
lief in the importance of French solidarity in all areas was widely spread. We see
this in much of the musical discourse, now consumed with the problem of recon-
ciling or justifying the aesthetic polarities within the French musical world.
Characteristic of this attempt is the collection edited by Paul-Marie Masson,
entitled Rapport sur la musique francaise contemporaine of 1913. Masson, an
"agrege," was a professor "charge de conferences" on the history of music at the
Institut Francais de Florence (an annex of the Universite de Grenoble). The vol-
ume he edited was the result of papers that were presented at the Congres de
Musique sponsored by the Section d'histoire musicale de l'Institut Francais de
Florence and held in conjunction with the Exposition Internationale de Rome.
In the volume, Masson attempts to trace the development of French music
from the advent of the Third Republic in 1870 to the present. His major concern
is to explain certain tendencies once rejected as "un-French" as indeed French,
although representing a recessive strain of the "ame nationale." This, however,
does not include all stylistic tendencies, as we shall see, only those associated
with the so-called independants. Masson begins by attempting to justify the
d'Indyste faction and the particular formal and stylistic proclivities widely associ-
ated with it. We can see this in his treatment of the growth of "la musique pure"
in France, which he presents as fostered by an intellectual elite, interested in the
relation of music to the unconscious. As he argues, this was also the group that in
literature fostered the reaction against Naturalism, helping to propagate the taste
for mystery and the irrational being promoted by the Symbolist writers. In this
manner, Masson also justifies the French taste of the period for Wagner, but he
explains that the French have gradually recognized his true historical place. In
the end (like Debussy), they have perceived that he was, in fact, a "musicien clas-
sique," in the line of development that began with Beethoven and ran through
Carl Maria von Weber.181
According to the author, today one may perceive a rejection of both those
procedures and modes of feeling that do not accord with the qualities of the
French "race." In his attempt to reconcile the two dominant poles or "chapelles"
as both authentically French, he perceives each as embodying different aspects of
these traits. D'Indy turned to the past in order to arrive at musical forms that
could provide inspiration for the present, while still maintaining essential French
qualities; Debussy, on the other hand, turned decisively away from Wagner and
embraced instead those profoundly French qualities of "la mesure" and "la
clarte." Here we may perceive the effect of Laloy's explication of the historical
basis of Debussy's style that, as we have seen, was also propagated by the Action
Francaise. To present these antipodes as complementary aspects of the French
national character, Masson designates them, respectively, "musique contempla-
tion" and "musique discours." Both are essentially French, for both exhibit those
inherent French traits of "la discretion et la sobriete dans I'expression des senti-
ments personnels, I'horreur du Iyrisme intemperant ou declamatoire" (a discre-
tion and sobriety in the expression of personal feelings, a horror of intemperate
or declamatory lyricism).182 Already, the way is being prepared for the wartime
conceptual orthodoxy of French music as inherently classic or as an embodiment
of these traits. Such qualities are in implicit distinction to contemporary German
music and to that French strain represented by Charpentier and Bruneau—who
are thus not "truly French." This faction, once dominant, was increasingly dis-
credited with the cresting of the French nationalist tide and its doctrinal concep-
tion of the proper attributes of the "French race."
For Masson, it is now "la musique impressionniste" that embodies the
French desire for "verite," for inspiration from nature as opposed to the inner
passions. Coining yet more labels, he opposes the impressionist "musique des
choses" to its complement in the French national character, the Scholiste "la
musique de I'homme." Although Masson admits that at present impressionist
tendencies are dominant among young composers, he posits that a reaction will
soon occur, as it already has in both painting and poetry.183 He was indeed cor-
rect, for even before the advent of war, an attempt to reorient French public taste
toward the past was already well under way.
SCHOLISME AND THE MUSICAL MAINSTREAM
The increasingly pervasive nationalist climate in France was having a substantial

impact on the shifting hegemony in the musical culture in favor of the supporters
of tradition. As nationalistic rhetoric escalated with the imminent approach of war,
the stress was on tradition as the root of French values, which were now under
ostensible threat; hence, arguments that were originally the province of extreme
nationalist groups were becoming more common, especially after Poincare's as-
cension to power in 1912. The network of cultural meanings and values generated
by the French nationalist leagues thus penetrated the musical world even further
in the shadow of crisis and war. Within this context we may perceive an attempt on
the part of official culture to promote Scholiste or d'Indyste values, particularly
when examining concert programs. Cesar Franck was now much performed at the
major concert societies, which had the delicate task of reconciling official exigen-
cies with public taste.184 And d'Indy, at the height of his influence, was promoted
from Chevalier to the prestigious level of Officier de la Legion d'Honneur in 1912.
In addition to this honorific reward, his early opera Fervaal, which had premiered
not in Paris but in Brussels, was presented at the Paris Opera.
D'Indy's influence by now extended to most domains of the French musical

world—to scholarship, to pedagogy, to compositional models, and to repertoire.
It was perhaps because of the Schola's success in legitimizing the symphony as
"French"—an appropriate genre for French composers—that symphonic pre-
mieres proliferated as nationalism crested. No fewer than eight such premieres
took place in the 1911-1912 season, with the Concerts Lamoureux promoting
Scholiste works and the Concerts Colonne, the Conservatoire's model.185 This
may also have been closely related to the fact that government officials were be-
coming increasingly punctilious concerning the so-called three-hour rule. The
Lamoureux and Colonne concert societies annually received a subvention of
15,000 francs from the state, but with an important stipulation: within their sea-
sons of concerts, they were required to perform at least three hours of modern
French music by living composers that had never been presented before.186
By 1910, however, there were official complaints that, if the rule was gener-
ally respected to the letter, it was honored far less so in spirit. Often conductors
would simply select a number of very short works, of fifteen minutes each, and
then cunningly tally them up collectively at the end of the year. This desperate at-
tempt of the concert societies to balance official strictures with public taste was
finally thwarted unequivocally by the government in 1910: it now imposed the
stipulation that the Cahier des Charges of the societies proscribe the inclusion of
works of less than half an hour to count toward the total three hours.187 The re-
sult, as we might expect, and as the government undoubtedly wished, is that, by
the 1911-1912 season, symphonies by French composers were appearing on con-
cert programs.
D'Indy's influence can also be seen in the choice of societies that were sup-
ported, if only nominally or honorifically, in the period preceding World War I.
The meanings that he helped establish concerning repertoires as well as genres,
and which he had spread through the intellectual network that he cultivated,
were being generally applied. The major points of emphasis in the subventioned
or recognized concert societies were now the "classics" (as defined at the Schola)
and the revival of the music of the distant past. Also evident, however, was the
continuing interest of the Republic in the diffusion of culture and hence in those
organizations striving to make music accessible to many more listeners. Societies
such as the Concerts de I'Art Pour Tous, for example, continued to receive sub-
ventions, as did Charpentier's burgeoning "Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson."188
But an emphasis on history was perceptible, a stress on tradition, on redis-
covery of the musical classics by foreign as well as by French composers of the
historical past. Once more, the rhetoric of the Action Francaise, as well as that of
the Schola, was now palpably affecting both the peripheral and the mainstream
musical cultures. For example, in 1910 the Societe J. S. Bach was awarded
the honorific sum of 200 francs and the Societe Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven 600
francs. In addition, the larger societies manifested an interest in the historical
repertoire and attempted to diffuse this older repertoire to a greater number of lis-
teners. This was the case, for instance, with the Concerts Symphoniques du Tro-
cadero, which were placed under the musical direction of Alfred Cassella. The
concerts were historical in emphasis, devoted to works, both well known and not
216 THE THE BATTLE ESCALATES AND IS WON
so well known, that had been written in the period between 1700 and 1900.
Ticket prices were low enough for a less affluent public to attend—the very kind
of public that frequented the lectures of L'Art Pour Tous.189 Here the idea of a
"musical museum" was designed to serve a political role by fostering those values
that the more conservative Republic now sought to diffuse.
The themes of nationalism and traditionalism were being actively imple-
mented elsewhere in the official French musical world well before the outbreak of
the First World War. This was clearly the case with the Opera, which found itself
pulled between the dominant nationalist rhetoric and the insatiable public de-
mand for Wagner. By 1910, as at the turn of the century, the concern with the
domination of Wagner's works was acute, as becomes clear in the deliberations
over the budget to be allocated the Opera.190 It may well be that French Wagner-
ian operas such as d'Indy's Fervaal were being selected for performance in order
to counter the German Wagnerian threat; nevertheless, Wagner's La Crepuscule
des dieux was performed in 1908, followed by L'Or du Rhin in 1909 and Parsifal in
1914.
To resist this "invasion" further, the Opera's Cahier des Charges became in-
creasingly strict, stipulating the performance of even more of the great masters of
France's past. As the reader will recall, this emphasis on great French composers
of opera, such as Lully, Rameau, and Gluck, had been stimulated initially by the
Schola Cantorum.191 Already, in response to it and to the fear of Wagnerian dom-
inance, in 1901 the Minister of Education and Fine Arts had changed article 11 of
the Cahiers des Charges: now, instead of requiring two premiers by French com-
posers—one of which was to be in three to five acts—it required six premieres in
one to three acts. This trend was to strengthen and to culminate during the war,
when the Cahier required seventeen new works, fourteen of which were to be by
French composers. This was probably also a reflection of the pressure being
placed on the chamber by the "groupe de la musique," still actively protecting the
interests of French composers.192 Here, political, economic, and purely profes-
sional concerns would merge and together further foster the resuscitation of nu-
merous French musical masterworks.
THE LAST SKIRMISH: LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS
Tensions before the war were to increase still further because of two factors: Ger-
man political aggression and the untimely centenary of Wagner's birth.193 This
was decidedly not the moment for an aggressively modernist work—one by a
non-French composer who was rapidly achieving success in Paris. Given the in-
creasingly dominant aesthetic discourse of tradition, there was only one small
politico-aesthetic space in which to legitimize such a style. This we can perceive
most clearly in examining the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet Le Sacre du prin-
temps, which, in effect, brought the acrimonious "guerre des chapelles" to a head.
It became the final battleground in the war over French "traditionalism," a war
that the modernists or Debussystes were now on the verge of conclusively losing.
By this point, as we have seen, cultural, political, and musical attitudes had
achieved so intimate a fusion that no one aspect could be easily separated from
the others: French musical culture was by now a tightly strung field of cultural
and political tensions that were ineluctably to explode under the detonating im-
pact of The Rite of Spring.
The story of the work's tumultuous premiere is, by now, well known: the re-
sponse of its opponents was violent, the uproar so great as to drown out the
music. Physical blows ensued between the ballet's supporters and detractors, as-
sembled in the newly opened and architecturally modernist Theatre des Champs-
Elysees. The reasons for such violent emotions are not difficult to discern if we
examine their verbal articulation by both sides in the contemporary press. As we
might well expect, the "families of reception" of the work largely adhered to the
established rhetorics or perspectives characteristic of the different "chapelles."
Georges Auric was to remark in the early 1920s that the battle was fought around
the "prejuges d'ecoles," each with their own aesthetic polemics and "supersti-
tions."194 Scholistes and traditionalists, of course, were quick to respond with
condemnations in print, which ranged from the restrained to the violent, mirror-
ing the dynamics of the premiere itself.195 In the Revue musicale S.I.M., d'Indy,
making fun of his habitual adversaries, pronounced the work "un chef-d'oeuvre
selon les rites de la petite eglise moderniste" (a masterpiece according to the rites
of the small modernist church). This view was seconded by d'Indy's biographer
and friend Leon Vallas in his negative review published in the Revue francaise de
musique.196 Modernism, it is important to note, by this point had derogatory con-
notations: it was associated with Germany and then, throughout the war, with
the even more capacious epithet "Boche."
As we have noted, Debussy read Le Sacre at the piano with Stravinsky in
1912 and responded to it in a polite, guardedly positive manner; while sitting
with Misia Sert, a supporter of the Rissian Ballet's impresario, Serge Diaghilev, at
the premiere, he is quoted as exclaiming, "It is terrifying—I don't understand
it!"197 Similarly, Debussy's faithful editor, the self-proclaimed traditionalist
Jacques Durand, had essentially the same reaction to Stravinsky's aggressive
score. He was later, in retrospect, to blame the "unfortunate" postwar directions
taken by younger French composers on the destructive influence of Stravinsky's
Le Sacre. He observed that each time French music is in full efflorescence, a
"disruptive" movement comes from "outside" and promptly proceeds to demol-
ish it.198
Nevertheless, there was a vociferous circle that supported Stravinsky's work,
one drawn from essentially the same ideological groupings and social circles that
backed the Ballets Russes financially. Once more, this was the "liberal Right," or
that strain of the Right in France that had descended not from the "Ultras" of the
Restoration but from the nineteenth-century "Orleanism." As we have already
noted, this group was philosophically economically liberal, but, unlike those of
the Left, it remained conservative in its basic social conceptions. Although "patri-
otic" and nationalist, its judgments in art were not "absolutist" but tended rather
to emphasize freedom, as opposed to official restraints.199 This group included a
significant portion of the French aristocracy and embraced such figures as the
Comtesse de Greffuhle, one of the supporters of the Ballets Russes. Other such
figures in this circle included Misia Sert, the Comtesse de Chevigne, and, as we
have already seen, the prominent Princess de Polignac.200
Musically, Le Sucre's supporters came from the group that had been De-
bussystes and included Maurice Ravel, who was enthusiastically present at the
ballet's premiere. According to reports, when Ravel exclaimed, "Genie, genie" and
then turned to quiet a neighbor so that he could hear the music, he was taunted
as a "sale Juif."201 So strongly had the discourse of the extreme nationalist Right,
including the Schola, equated "modernism" with Judaism that this was an auto-
matic conservative response. Jean Marnold, a spokesman for the liberal, aestheti-
cally progressive Right, was predictably highly positive about the work in the
Mercure de France. Equally supportive was another Debussyste, Emile Vuillermoz,
writing in both Le Journal and the Revue musicale S.I.M.202 Similarly enthusiastic
about the score was Florent Schmitt, whose article in La France reveals part of its
appeal for this group of composers. Schmitt refers to Stravinsky as no less than
the "Messiah" that composers in France have been awaiting ever since the time of
Wagner.203 Far less threatening than the German, Wagner, he was still someone
from outside the narrow disputes within the French musical world, who could
lead the way out of the impasse. Louis Laloy, who was becoming more progres-
sive in his aesthetic taste than his long-time close friend Claude Debussy, was also
positive about the work. Even before the war, Laloy was praising cabarets and
music hall for their "actuality" and social realism, which, however, did not
threaten the social order.204
In the Revue musicale S.I.M. on May 1, 1914, Laloy comments on Stravinsky's
statement about Le Sacre, "J'ai accompli une oeuvre de foi." Laloy then continues:
Cette foi, il nous I'a communiquee. Avec lui nous avons celebre les mysteres de la
Mere eternelle, nous avons contemple sans horreur le sacrifice humain et nous nous
sommes partages les chairs egorges.205
(He has communicated this faith to us. With him we have celebrated the mysteries of
the eternal mother, we have contemplated human sacrifice without horror, and we
have shared the bloody flesh.)
Laloy's lurid imagery inescapably suggests a psychological preparation for war

and adumbrates his particularly virulent strain of wartime chauvinism. Such im-
agery was soon to become common in the musical discourse during the war, par-
ticularly in the writings of both Laloy and his friend Debussy.
It was from a similar perspective that the journal Montjoie! immediately
lauded the work, and even published a page (dedicated to its editor) from the bal-
let's score.206 Canudo published this excerpt together with an article by Stravin-
sky, enticingly entitled "Ce que j'ai voulu exprimer dans Le Sacre du printemps."
In it Stravinsky emphasizes his interest in the fundamental forces of nature—its
cyclicity and universality, as well as its own "essential rhythms." The same issue
of the journal published an article on the work by Roland-Manuel that particu-
larly praises its rhythmic power and pronounces the ballet "superbly new."207
Given the ideological inclinations of Montjoie!, which we have seen, the work, ac-
cording to such interpretations, was entirely consonant with its basic values: it
RESPONSES TO THE TRADITIONALJST VICTORY 219
was rooted in the "collectivity," but not in a narrow, academic sense, and, al-
though foreign, it could be construed as stimulating French national values.
Important figures of the younger generation who were based in both litera-
ture and in music greeted Le Sucre as a way out of the impasse between the two
equally desiccated "chapelles": for Jacques Rivieres, writing in the Nouvelle revue
franfaise, Le Sacre was "le premier chef-d'oeuvre que nous puissions opposer a
ceux de I'impressionnisme"208 (the first masterpiece that we can oppose to those
of impressionism). Later, in the early 1920s (in the same journal), Georges Auric
expressed a similar view of what the new work appeared to offer young com-
posers: it represented clearer or franker values, as opposed not only to "le bon
gout" associated with the Schola Cantorum but to an impressionism that was
now "demeaned."209
As we can see, impressionism was under attack, not only by the powerful
and older traditionalist faction but also by the younger generation of composers.
The dialectic of the dominant "chapelles"—that of tradition and harmonic "ex-
ploration"—was no longer of interest to French youth, who saw it as inimical to
the "truly modern."210 But they were shortly to find that with the advent of the
First World War there was no politico-cultural position for such a conception of
the musically modern. It would have to become subversive by outwardly adopt-
ing popular or traditional forms, and be framed by a rhetoric that would construe
it as in keeping with the "French tradition." By the time of the outbreak of war, a
traditionalist musical discourse was firmly in place, having gradually moved from
a peripheral to a hegemonic position. In this move, it had followed the political
trajectory of the Republic itself—from the Dreyfusard Republic to one that was
centrist, or conservative and nationalist. This more nationalistic stance drew inte-
grally on the discourse of two Rightist leagues, which, as we have seen, had
helped transform both musical discourse and culture. Through this discourse
musical and political values in France had become inseparable, a fact that af-
fected every aspect of French musical life and would continue to do so through-
out the war.
CONCLUSION
Music is inscribed in the historical landscape in a vast variety of ways and has as-
sumed myriad social meanings dependent, in part, on its specific location.1 As we
have seen, in France it shifted its position in the cultural terrain as a result of the
seismic shifts in political culture following the earthquake of the Dreyfus Affair.
As a result of this shift, the French musical world shared a common border with
the political, for the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise, through d'lndy launched an in-
vasion of the musical culture. Music, which had been associated with centralized
power since the days of Louis XIV, now became as implicitly ideological as it had
been in the days of the "Querelle des Bouffons."2
The distinctive mechanism of this ideological penetration was the genesis of
a new musical discourse at d'Indy's Schola Cantorum, centered on the criterion of
the "authentically French." Its power lay in the way in which it articulated an
otherwise ineffable fusion of aesthetic, moral, and political concepts, as opposed
to rationalist Republican rhetoric. Moreover, while nationalist writers impreg-
nated their fiction with ideological concepts, writers on music, beginning at the
Schola, assigned political meanings to styles and forms. The Republic was quick
to follow suit, ascribing political meanings to musical styles and defining a new
canon of French works through its own powerful institutional channels. The re-
sult was a structural opposition between nationalist and republican institutions
of music, which created a professional confrontation without equal in either lit-
221
222 CONCLUSION
erature or the visual arts; but as in these two fields, this nationalist incursion into
the art was fundamentally to redefine the critical standards by which French
music was henceforth judged.
As in Augustan literature in England, style became freighted with political
meaning, affecting music in various ways, as it enlarged the territory of ideologi-
cal debate.3 The fact that politics absorbed French music symbolically, making it
political, inevitably led to a loss of autonomy in the professional musical world.
As the sharp distinctions between the musical world and the political world in
France collapsed, so too did musicians' ability to define their own proper aes-
thetic criteria. However, the dynamics were complex, for the political, ideological
incursion served to buttress and polarize professional and aesthetic divisions that
were already incipient. But, from then on, major questions in French music were
subtended by deep political roots, resulting in dissensions that transcended the
realm of purely aesthetic debate: yet larger ideological issues here assumed a
unique dimension when refracted through the prism of this particular aesthetic
discourse.
The use of music as a symbolic tool in both challenging and legitimizing
power had positive and negative musical results, limiting options but stimulating
change. The Republic entered into a dialogic relation with its political adver-
saries. It did not conceive its program from an ideological blueprint; it responded
to an aggressive challenge.4 In this way, political power implemented decisive
change in order to answer a threat to its symbolic legitimacy from an indepen-
dently legitimized opposition. We have seen the development of rival musical in-
stitutions in France, for both professional and political reasons that cannot be
separated within this context. We have also seen the manner in which such con-
testation forced changes in the educational system, redefined priorities in the
awarding of subventions, and stimulated the growth of French music history. But
here there was not even a pretense of the "scholastic," or artistic and scholarly
objectivity and professional disinterest that the arts as well as the academy have
subsequently claimed. This politicization of music history led to the formulation
of rival canons that would eventually fuse for political reasons and to a new con-
ception of the "classic."5
The question of the traditional values to be reflected in the musical canon
was both academic and political, for in France the two domains were structurally
fused. Hence, the redefinition and final institutional installation of a canon in
France was linked not to a conviction as to music's autonomy but to political
contestation over "national traits." The moral dimension of the canon was thus
fundamentally ideological, since moral values were inextricably implicated in
contestation over the "authentically French." Canon formation in this period is
inexplicable apart from the political realm; the academic, critical, and institu-
tional networks involved were all thoroughly politicized. The same holds true for
the reinterpretation of already canonic composers in France, as we saw in the dis-
pute over ideological constructions of Beethoven between the Left and the Right.
Such politico-aesthetic confrontations were equally to impinge on French
composers, exerting discernible pressures and affecting artistic motivations and
career choices. Most perceived that their professional stakes were not without a
CONCLUSION 223
political dimension—that the value-tensions they confronted were simultane-

ously both professional and political. They responded in various ways. Many
willingly accepted existing divisions and espoused the ideology that was consid-
ered the cognate of their musical style. Some, far from isolating themselves her-
metically from the surrounding political dissension, developed artistic-social
projects or engaged in prose that addressed the ideological issues. Others reacted
independently and attempted to ignore the existing stylistic codes, although, as
they were well aware, there was a professional price to pay. Just as in French lit-
erature, with writers such as Leon Blum, there were those who were attracted aes-
thetically to the Right but rejected it politically, although in music the profes-
sional consequences were severe.6
As we have seen, in the aftermath of the Dreyfus Affair, most musicians, like
their colleagues in the other arts, considered themselves to be responsible and en-
gaged "intellectuals." As such, and as a result of the discourse around them, they
perceived the relation between the aesthetic dimension and the institutional, po-
litical, and social orders. They responded in accordance with the positions they
had assumed in both the professional and social worlds—-and as a result of the
political identities that most of them arduously defined. While some, like d'Indy
and Charpentier, espoused an established ideological position, others, like De-
bussy and Satie, assumed a unique and individual perspective. But none of them
attempted to serve "social truth" by pristine isolation or perceived the necessity
of complete transcendence of the encroaching political world.7
In their work, however, the stronger composers did not mirror their politi-
cized projects or prose but responded to ideologically generated meanings
through the matrix of their aesthetic sensibilities. As in visual art, their subtler re-
sponses are no longer transparent to us today without a thorough knowledge of
the codes and contexts in which they worked, and thus how they were "read."8
Composers were well aware of the existence of meanings behind both forms and
styles, and they well knew that powerful critics and commentators were "initi-
ated," propagating and applying the "code." Some composers, realizing that
forms, techniques, and styles could address political values within this structure
of meaning, responded to them in ingenious ways. This was the case, as we have
seen, with Satie and Charpentier, whose polyvalence and bivocality extended
equally to their educational "projects."
Knowing that such meanings existed, if for a small but influential elite, other
composers felt compelled to engage them in order to make a socially "authentic"
statement; they recognized the possibility of misconstrual (as in the case of the
defiant Magnard) but also of communicating a positive message (as in the case of
Ropartz). Whether they worked within or consciously against the system of
meaning, they knew that their message would interact with its structures—that it
provided a communicative context. Hence, again, to read simple homologies or
metaphors into specific forms and styles, to impose our own sense of their mean-
ing, is to ignore what these composers sought, even if unsuccessfully, to say. The
culture reveals these meanings through the surrounding musical discourse, one
that, as we have seen, was pervasive in the musical world. Within this context, as
well, we have noted that the so-called anxiety of influence—the sense of relation
224 CONCLUSION
to overpowering predecessors—necessarily carried with it an ideological di-

mension.9 To assume a position via a canon meant to assume an ideological
stance, one that could be highly complex, as demonstrated by the case of Claude
Debussy.
Artistic and political goals were not easily sundered during this period, as we
have observed in the careers of composers, in the commentary around them, and
in the bases of their support. But, again, political intentions were by no mean in-
imical to artistic excellence, for the great composers arrived at a balance between
particular interests and aesthetic demands.10 It is for precisely this reason that
such works can still be enjoyed today, for the tensions within them work simulta-
neously on political and abstract planes.
Finally, all these insights help us see and explain the apparent "regression" in
French music before the war—in the attempts to reconcile the two musical
"poles." Hegemony—power—in the musical world had grown inseparable from
political hegemony, so fused had these cultural areas become through the tactics
ultimately born of the leagues. Well before the First World War, the turn to the
"classic" had already begun, stimulated by the political mythology of those na-
tionalists who now held power. There was thus no break between the cultural
politics practiced before the war and the wartime turn to the neoclassical ideal as
the "official" French style. By then the more conservative Republic had appropri-
ated the musical rhetoric of the nationalist Right, one that had been developing in
France since the period following the Dreyfus Affair. French music thus became
integral to the forging of a national "memory" or myth, a sense of indigenous
French values that helped define the nation's true "soul."11 Hence, the concept of
a national style and of the "classic" repertoire or canon originally stemmed from
political contestation, and eventually from an attempt at a resolution. As we have
seen, the technical, aesthetic, social, economic, and political dimensions of this
process cannot be easily separated, so intricately were they intertwined. Politics
did not "determine" musical direction, but it helped to shape it in various ways,
and the political culture was, in turn, itself affected.
French Music and Political Culture

As Jean-Francois Sirinelli and Eric Vigne have aptly put it, political culture consists
not of "pure ideas" but, rather, of what they term a complex "alchemy." It com-
prises "sieves" and "relays," or various means of transmission and circulation of a
given ideology, which inherently modify what began as intellectual or conceptual.
It is these carriers of political culture that have become new objects of historical
study—these forms and networks of circulation of language, historical memories,
and a conception of the world. As Sirinelli and Vigne convincingly argue in the
context of the French Right, political "relays" consisted of such vehicles as jour-
nals, the publishing world, and the press. Equally central to this phenomenon were
networks of "sociability," such as, in this period, salons, which brought together
major figures in different cultural spheres. Thus political doctrine circulated
through several fields, including, most prominently, literature and history, as well
as the visual arts. This created zones of "contact" or "osmosis" between politics
CONCLUSION 225
and culture, which came to share common values and beliefs, historical references,
and canonic texts. The effect of this was profound; indeed, as Christophe Charle
has shown, at the time of the Affair the involvement of French literary figures
helped to recast the issues and realign factions.12
But, as we have seen, in this period these networks of sociability included
musicians, who entered as engaged intellectuals or were later recruited in the af-
termath of the Dreyfus Affair. Music thus also became a "carrier" or sieve for the
political culture, charged, through its own symbolic means, with the representa-
tion of a political ideology. As part of the "complex alchemy" of the political cul-
ture, its role was distinct: it helped both to elevate and to vulgarize certain key
concepts for a variety of political groups. It enlarged the terms and the territory of
political debate in France, and it helped prepare for the dominant traditionalism
and sense of national memory during World War I. In the course of the war, it
would become a symbolic medium of political communication, a means to
"imagine the community" and to reference in myth the political principles for
which the war was being fought. l3 Music thus continued to be a key zone of con-
tact or osmosis between politics and culture, affecting music as integrally as it did
French political culture. This did not end with the war: the symbolic battle that
we have traced during the seminal period under study here would continue
throughout the iriterwar period. As we may conclude, the merger of artistic and
political cultures is not just the characteristic of totalitarian or absolutist states—
it can transpire through contestation in democracies.
Comparisons
In comparison with other countries that enlisted music for nationalistic purposes
in this period or earlier, France was in the vanguard, for here the dynamics were
changing. In nineteenth-century Germany, Italy, and central Europe, music was a
symbol of national culture's contest against foreign political domination; in Rus-
sia and Britain, it was against foreign cultural domination. In France, however,
with its political and cultural centralization, music became a symbol within an in-
ternal struggle over conflicting notions of identity and the legitimate state.
Through a conscious ideological program carefully crafted by two nationalist
leagues, music was pulled into the vortex of political-symbolic contestation
within France. Here political values and meanings were associated with musical
genres, forms, styles, and conflicting canons through a central institutional ma-
trix. Composers either became politicized as professional and political bound-
aries disappeared or found their music construed politically on the basis of con-
text and style.
Neither a comparable engagement of composers in internal politics nor the
appropriation of existing music by factions was to occur elsewhere before the war
and the political confrontation of the inter-war period. A political battle between
tradition and innovation would appear in Weimar Germany as the state actively
sought to reshape society, and to this end employed the arts. 14 Acquiescence or
symbolic resistance would similarly become the choices for composers in Europe
(and the Soviet Union) during the period of totalitarian domination. Composers,
226 CONCLUSION
again, would either comply with the current stylistic meanings and codes, forged
within the political discourse, or resist, either openly or more subtly. Many, too,
like Richard Strauss, would find themselves courted and then victimized, seeing
all too clearly that professional success carried an impossible political price.15
In France, political contestation through music would crest in the interwar
period, although, as I shall show in a subsequent study, it would continue surrep-
titiously during the Vichy regime. Indeed, certain elements of the symbolic battle
have visibly resurged in postwar France, most recently through the vociferous
cultural initiatives of the Front National. Jean-Marie Le Pen's nationalist and
racist movement, while focusing publicly on the blacklisting of books, has not
neglected music, even holding its own "festivals" of French music. Like the two
leagues at the turn of the century, it has contested political legitimacy through
culture, using an argument rooted once more in the criterion of the "authenti-
cally French." Significantly, the government has again riposted; the first state-
ment of purpose by the Minister of Culture in the Jospin government, Catherine
Trautmann, was to "combat" the movement.
The lesson provided by the period we have studied is that political action
through culture can be threatening to the symbolic legitimacy of a regime and, as
such, cannot be ignored. The American Right and Left today have become all too
aware of this fact, particularly in the case of conservative attacks on funding by
the National Endowment for the Arts. In the domain of cultural tactics, then, na-
tionalist leagues in France led the way, redrawing the country's cultural geogra-
phy to make its politics and culture adjacent.
Lucien Febvre once remarked that his attempt to place French history in a
larger social context stemmed from the need of French youth in his generation to
recapture what they perceived as "reality." His goal was thus to avoid the "distor-
tion" that resulted from the erection of artificial boundaries between areas or sec-
tors of society on the basis of disciplinary divisions.16 The goal of this study has
been to show that the same is true of French music: if we are to explain its evolu-
tion in full, we must place it within the appropriate interacting contexts. In the
period that we have examined, the musical and political worlds in France were
not distinct, their boundaries as clearly demarcated as they appear to be today. To
return to Huizinga's terms, it was on this distinctive historic terrain that the
"forms" and "functions" of music and politics merged, redefining the French cul-
tural landscape.17
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. On the conflicts emanating from the French Revolution, see Timothy Tackett, Be-
coming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of the French National Assembly and the Emergence of a
Revolutionary Culture (1789-1790) (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996),
p. 313 ff. On the Dreyfus Affair and its impact, see Pierre Birnbaum, ed., La France de I'Af-
faire Dreyfus (Paris: Fayard, 1994); Jean-Denis Bredin, The Affair: the Case of Alfred Dreyfus
(New York: G. Braziller, 1986); Robert Hoffman, More Than a Trial: The Struggle for Cap-
tain Dreyfus (New York: Free Press, 1980), and Douglas Johnson, France and the Dreyfus
Affair (London: Blanford Press, 1966).
The Boulanger and the Panama scandals were essential in preparing the political re-
alignment and oppositions that would crystalize in the course of the Affair and henceforth
bifurcate French politics. The Boulanger crisis occurred in 1889, when the wily General
Georges Boulanger, backed by the political Left, secretly sought the support of a new
French Right. Although the general was exposed and disgraced, the incident did articulate
the powerful rise of an urban Right that decisively appropriated the symbolic value of "pa-
triotism" from the Jacobin Left. In addition, this new Right, as opposed to the more tradi-
tionalist Right of wealth and social authority, was not only chauvinistic but also authori-
tarian, demagogic, and violent. On this subject see Gordon Wright, France in Modern
Times (New York: Rand McNally, 1974), p. 247.
Then came the Panama Scandal in 1892, when the supporters of Ferdinand de
Lesseps attempted to raise a loan for the Panama Canal using bribes to politicians and
227
228 NOTES TO PAGES 4-5
journalists. When the scandal became public, the violently anti-Semitic journalist Alfred
Drumont (author of La France Juive, 1886) attacked the Jewish agents involved. Despite
Drumont's defamation, the so-called scandal ended abruptly in f893 with an official
whitewash, thus disillusioning the supporters of the Moderate government. The result of
the scandal was not only further to articulae a political shift of forces but also to speed the
development of a leftward trend in Third Republic politics. This was followed by the Drey-
fus Affair, the force of which was so protound that the memory of it, and the passions
it ignited, have endured almost to the present. On the Panama Scandal, see Wright,
pp. 250-251.
2. The Ligue de la Patrie Francaise was born in January 1899; soon a group within it,
seeking a firmer doctrinal foundation, seceded to join Charles Maurras, who founded the
journal Action francaise the same year. (The Action Francaise technically became a league
later, in 1905.)
As Serge Berstein observes, the nationalist "Right" in France now embraced those po-
litical groups that rejected not only parliamentary democracy but also laicity and rational-
ism; henceforth nationalism in France was no longer associated with the Republican Left,
as it had been until the Boulanger crisis and the Affair but was now repositioned on the
political Right. A "Republican," from this point on, was a solid supporter of parliament
and laicity, a defender of the individual's rights, and distrustful of the army because of its
degree of autonomy from the state. See Serge Berstein, "La Ligue," in Jean-Francois
Sirinelli, ed., Histoire des droites en France Vol. 2 Cultures (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), pp. 64,
77. Most Republicans thus construed the Affair mythically as a contest, which they had
triumphantly won, between the forces of righteousness and progress, as opposed to na-
tionalist bigotry and obscurantism. See Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times, p. 254.
3. As Berstein points out in "La Ligue," pp. 65—69 and 81—84, the leagues were origi-
nal political organizations in France, conceived with the appearance of a new populist
Right which recruited primarily among French workers and "petits-bourgeois." Their anti-
parliamentary attitude is further explained by the fact that the parliament was the center
of political power in the Third Republic (as in the Fourth).
4. Berstein, "La Ligue," p. 82.
5. Jean-Frangois Sirinelli and Eric Vigne, "Introduction. Des cultures politiques," in
Jean-Francois Sirinelli, ed., Histoire des droites en France Vol. 2, p. 7. It is important also to
note that, as opposed to the more populist leagues, the membership of these two was
largely bourgeois, as well as aristocratic, which had an impact on their substantial funding.
6. On the concept of new modes of political intervention and action in France at this
time, see Christophe Charle, Naissance des "intellectuels" 1880-1900 (Paris: Les Editions
du Minuit, 1990), p. 230. On the recruitment of intellectuals in the Patrie Francaise, see
Berstein, "La Ligue," p. 82. As he notes, its membership impressively included twenty-six
members of the Academie Francaise, as well as prominent members of the Institut de
France and the College de France. Both the Academie and the university had a significant
number of members who, while not anti-Republican, remained faithful to a conservative
conception of the Republic.
7. The Patrie Francaise included the leadership and sponsorship of prominent figures
in the literary world, such as the poet Francois Coppee, the critic Jules Lemaitre (who had
an important column in the Revue des deux mondes), and the writer Fernand Brunetiere.
See Berstein, "La Ligue," p. 82.
8. See, for example, Eugen Weber's classic Action Francaise: Royalism and Reaction
in Twentieth-Century France (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962); Her-
man Lebovic's True France. The Wars over Cultural Identity 1900—1945 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor-
nell University Press, 1992); and Jean-Francois Sirinelli, "Litteralure et politique: Le
NOTES TO PAGES 5-8 229
cas Burdeau-Bouteille," Revue historique CCXXII (1985) Vol. I: 91-111, and Olivier
Corpet, "La Revue," in Jean-Francois Sirinelli, ed., Histoire des droites en France Vol. 2,
pp. 161-212.
9. David Carroll, French Literary Fascism. Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, and the Ide-
ology of Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 35, 73. Carroll ex-
plicitly draws the connection between nationalist and later fascist ideas concerning the fu-
sion of artistic and political causes; see pp. 6-7.
10. Ibid., pp. 83, 72.
11. Ibid., pp. 40, 16. The politicizing of art and literature, of course, was not new to
this period in France: after an attempt to depoliticize literature during the Second Empire,
its repoliticization was again under way with the Third Republic and escalated in the
1880s (with writers like Zola on the Left and Bourget, Barres, and Brunetiere on the
Right), culminating with the Dreyfus Affair. On this subject, see Christophe Charle, Nais-
sance des "intellectuels" as well as his La Crise litteraire a I'epoque du naturalisme. Roman,
theatre, politique (Paris: Presses de I'Ecole Normale Superieure, 1979).
12. Jean-Francois Sirinelli and Eric Vigne, "Introduction. Des Cultures politiques," p. 3.
13. See especially Christopher Green, Cubism and its Enemies. Modern Movements and
Reaction in French Art, 1916-1928 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), and Kenneth
Silver, Esprit de Corps. The Art of the Parisian Avant-Garde and the First World War (Prince-
ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989). Both books consider the prewar background
as well as the war and its aftermath.
14. For treatment of various aspects of this phenomenon, see Charles B. Paul,
"Rameau, d'Indy, and French Nationalism," Musical Quarterly Vol. LVIII/1 (Jan. 1972):
46-56; Jan Pasler, "Paris: Conflicting Notions of Progress," in Jim Samson, ed., Music, So-
ciety, and the Late Romantic Era (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991), pp. 389-416;
and Michel Faure, Musique et societe du Second Empire aux annees vingt (Paris: Flammarion,
1985).
15. For a wide-ranging treatment of the effect of the politicization of music during
the French Revolution, see Malcolm Boyd, ed., Music and the French Revolution (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
16. On the use of politically charged images at the time of the Dreyfus Affair and
after, see Norman L. Kleeblatt, ed., The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, and Justice (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1988).
17. The concept of bivocal forms comes from Abner Cohen, who uses it to describe
"an ambiguous unity of cultural and political significance." On this and the anthropologi-
cal use of Freudian "primary process thought," see Myron J. Aronoff, ed., Political Anthro-
pology Vol. 2 Culture and Political Change (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books,
1983), p. 118 ff.
18. Pierre Bourdieu has discussed the concept of "symbolic domination" and "sym-
bolic violence" in many of his books but most recently, and perhaps most relevantly here,
in Meditations pascaliennes (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1997). See especially pages 206-214.
19. As Gordon Wright points out, in France in Modern Times, p. 258, the coalition
was "welded together" by the Dreyfus Affair. The "Gouvernement de Defense Republi-
caine" lasted from June 1899 to June 1902.
20. Such "essentialism" is characteristic of many, although not all, Marxist and neo-
Marxist writers—those who deernphasize the historical aspect. This tendency has been par-
ticularly prevalent in studies of politics and music. On the more anthropological approach
to the "construction of meaning" that is becoming prominent in historical writing today, see
James McMillan, "Social History, 'New Cultural History,' and the Rediscovery of Politics:
Some Recent Works on Modern France," Journal of Modern History 66 (Dec. 1994): 758.
21. This is one solution to the problem that Charles Rosen perceptively points out of
the current opposite alternatives of "master narratives" (in the manner of Adorno) and de-
construction. See his review-article "Did Beethoven Have All the Luck?" New York Review
of Books Nov. 14, 1996: 57-63.
22. I have taken this concept of an artistic culture from Priscilla Parkhurst Clark, Lit-
erary France. The Making of a Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987),
pp. 8-12.
23. The role of both Saint-Saens and Ravel in French cultural politics does become
more central during the First World War, particularly that of Ravel in the inter-war period,
as I shall show in a subsequent study.
24. On this development, see James McMillan, "Social History, 'New Cultural His-
tory,' and the Rediscovery of Politics," p. 757 ff.
25. This conception of the loss of professional autonomy within a field, or "champ,"
comes from Pierre Bourdieu, "The Market of Symbolic Goods," Poetics Vol. 14 (1985): 17.
26. See Johan Huizinga, Men and Ideas: History, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
trans. James S. Holmes and Hans von Marie (New York: Harper and Row, 1959). Also see
Pierre Bourdieu, Roger Chartier, and Robert Darnton, "Dialogue a propos de I'histoire cul-
turelle," Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 59 (Sept. 1985): 86-93.
CHAPTER 1
1. See Pierre Birnbaum, ed., La France de I'Affaire Dreyfus (Paris: Gallimard, 1994),
especially Birnbaum's Introduction, pp. 7-15, and the article by Jean Estebe, "Un Theatre
politique renouvele," pp. 19-55. On France immediately alter the affair, see also Eugen
Weber, France: Fin-de-Siecle (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1986) and Madeleine Re-
berioux, La Republique Radicale? 1898-1914 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1975). Concerning
the political and social changes brought about by the affair, see also Christophe Charle, La
Naissance des "intellectuels" 1880-1900 (Paris: Les Editions du Minuit, 1990).
2. In 1899 the Radical Republicans replaced the more moderate "Opportunists,"
largely as a result of the Affair. See R. D. Anderson, France 1870-1914 (London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1977), p. 5. On the Right and its incursion into the realm of French cul-
ture see Herman Lebovics, True France. The Wars over Cultural Identity 1900-1945 (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992).
3. Dreyfus himself had been "pardoned" in 1899 by the President, Emile Loubet, but
was not to be formally acquitted until 1906. See Richard D. Mandell, Paris 1900: The Great
World's Fair (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), p. 102.
4. On the origins of the leagues in the 1880s and their increasing prominence at the
time of the affair, because of their ability to express political aspirations that traditional po-
litical channels could not, see Serge Berstein, La France des annees 30 (Paris: Armand
Colin, 1988), p. 61. See also Jean-Pierre Rioux, Nationalisime de conservatisme. La Ligue de
la Patrie Francaise (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977).
5. On the relation between the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise and the Ligue de I'Action
Francaise see Jean-Pierre Rioux, Nationalisme et conservatisme. La Ligue de la Patrie
Francaise.
6. On the intellectual impact of Wagner in Europe, including France, see David Large
and William Weber, eds., Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1984).
7. Christophe Charle, La Naissance des "intellectuels," 1880-1900, pp. 65, 107, 131.
8. See Frederique Paturcau, Le Palais Gamier dans la societe parisienne 1875—1914
(Liege: Margada, 1991), pp. 186, 274. She makes specific reference to the "groupe de la
musique," which included Xavier Leroux, Alfred Bruneau, Camille Erlanger, Gabriel
Pierne, and Georges Hue.
9. I am greatly indebted to Christophe Charle, who brought these petitions to my at-
tention and lent me his own photocopies of them.
10. I am most grateful to Sabina Ratner, who generously provided me with this mate-
rial, which will appear in her forthcoming biography of Saint-Saens, to be published by the
Editions du Seuil, Paris. The remark of Colonne is contained in a letter of Sept. 3, 1898, to
Castillon de Beauxhostes, as cited in Jacqueline Gachet's Les Representations lyriques aux
arenes de Beziers de 1898 a 1911 (Universite Paris IV, These de Doctorat, 3e cycle, n.d.).
The letter from Saint-Saens concerning the chanson and the league is that of April 24,
1899, written from the Hotel de la Regence, in Algiers. It is contained on the catalogue of
Saint-Saens's autograph letters, of Dec. 1986, no. 298.
11. Rioux, Nationalisme et conservatisme, p. 11.
12. Alfred Bruneau, "Souvenirs inedits," Revue international de musique francaise Vol.
7 (Feb. 1989): 8; and Frederique Patureau, Le Palais Gamier dans la societe parisienne,
p. 225. The Second Grand Prix de Rome did not confer the same "consecration" as the
Premier Prix.
13. Alfred Bruneau, A I'Ombre d'un grand coeur (Paris: Charpentier, 1932), p. 10. This
style he denounces as "le regne tyrannique de la cavatine, des couplets a vocalises, des for-
mules commodement modifiable au gre des intrepretations virtuoses." Ironically, Vincent
d'Indy, too, along with the group around Cesar Franck, would also share these beliefs, al-
though for different reasons and seeking a different solution.
14. Jean-Max Guieu, Le Theatre lyrique d'Emile Zola (Paris: Fishbacher, 1983),
p. 112. When Bruneau met Zola, the latter had already promised Bruneau's teacher,
Massenet, the rights to La Faute d'Abbe Mouret.
15. Alfred Bruneau, A L'Ombre d'un grand coeur, p. 10.
16. Zola's political opinions were already well known in France, especially since the
appearance of his article "Pour les Juifs," in Le Figaro, on May 16, 1896. But with the arti-
cle "J'Accuse," he effectively "relaunched" the affair, making it a public and political issue.
See Christophe Charle, La Naissance des "intellectuels," p. 162. To demonstrate solidarity
with Zola, Bruneau signed the "Protestation" in favor of Col. Picquart, of Nov. 28, 1898.
On Bruneau's popularity to this point, see Marie-Christine Casale-Monsimet, "L'Affaire
Dreyfus et la critique musicale," Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 28 (Feb.
1982): 63-65. Bruneau discusses the demonstrations against the operas in AI'Ombred'un
grand coeur. On this subject also see Adolphe Boschot, La Vie et les oeuvres d'Alfred Bruneau
(Paris: Fasquelles, 1937), pp. 19-20.
17. On the anti-Dreyfusard belief in "Tradition," as established by "ancestors," see
Jean-Pierre Rioux, Nationalisme et conservatisme, p. 36.
18. Casale-Monsimet, "L'Affaire Dreyfus et la critique musicale," p. 62.
19. See Robert Hoffmann, More Than a Trial: The Struggle over Captain Dreyfus (New
York: Free Press, 1963), pp. 149, 162.
20. On the French nobility and anti-Dreyfusism, see Rioux, Nationalisme et conser-
vatisme, p. 46.
21. Leon Vallas, Vincent d'lndy 2 Vols. (Paris: Albin Michel, 1950), p. 18.
22. Rioux, pp. 45, 114—115. On Utopian socialism and its relation to music in
France, see Jane F. Fulcher, "Music and the Communal Order: The Vision of Utopian So-
cialism in France," Current Musicology (Summer 1979): 27-35.
23. Joseph Canteloube, Vincent d'lndy (Paris: Henri Laurens, 1951), p. 11, and Leon
Vallas, Vincent d'lndy, p. 22.
24. Vallas, pp. 28, 56.
25. Ibid., pp. 56, 72.

26. Canteloube, Vincent d'lndy, pp. 17, 20.
27. Vallas, pp. 13, 87-92.
28. Ibid., p. 1.3.
29. Canteloube, pp. 22-23.
30. On the impact of the Franco-Prussian war on French music, see Martin Cooper,
French Music from the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Faure (London: Oxford University
Press, 1951).
31. Canteloube, p. 26. Michael Strasser is currently completing a detailed study of
the founding and history of the Societe Nationale de Musique Francaise as a dissertation at
the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
32. Canteloube, pp. 29, 32.
33. Ibid., pp. 35—40. This is also the period when d'lndy appears in Fantin-Latour's
portrait of the major French Wagnerian composers and critics, including Chabrier,
Adolphe Jullien, and Camille Benoit.
34. Vallas, pp. 20 and 26. On the "Ralliement," see Edward Tannenbaum, The Action
Francaise: Die-hard Reactionaries in Twentieth-Century France (New York: Wiley, 1962),
p. 15, and R. D. Anderson, France 1870-1914, p. 5.
35. Vallas, p. 26.
36. Vallas, pp. 26-27, and Vincent d'lndy, La Schola Cantorum en 1925 (Paris: Bloud
et Gay, 1927), p. 48.
37. On Wagner and his perception of the revolution in Dresden, see Carl E. Schorske,
"Wagner and Morris: The Quest lor the Grail," in The Critical Spirit; Essays in Honor of
Herbert Marcuse ed. by Kurt H. Wolff and Barrington Moore (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967).
On the role of Right-wing "intellectuals" and aristocrats in the Affair, see Christophe
Charle, Naissance des "intellectuels," pp. 184 and 224.
38. D'lndy, La Schola Cantorum en 1925, p. 48.
39. Ibid., p. 128. On the background of religious music in nineteenth-century
France, see Daniele Pistone, La Musique en France de la Revolution a 1900 (Paris: Honore
Champion, 1979), pp. 131-132, 142. As Debussy wittily recounted in Gil Blas, on Feb. 2,
1903, Bordes originally organized a series of concerts lor Holy Week to perform Renais-
sance choral music, at this point not often heard in France; given the poverty of contem-
porary religious music, the concerts were such a success that the ranking clergy con-
demned them for having "distracted the faithful." See Francois Lesure, ed., Debussy on
Music (New York: Knopf, 1977), p. 110.
40. See Gail Hilson Woldu, Gabriel Faure as Director of the Conservatoire National
de Musique et de Declamation, 1902-1920, Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1983,
pp. 43-45.
41. See Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1989), p. 56.
42. Georges Favre, Compositeurs francais meconnus. Ernest Guiraud et ses amis: Emile
Paladilhe et Theodore Dubois (Paris: La Pensee Universelle, 1983), p. 101.
43. Ibid., p. 114.
44. Gail Hilson Woldu, Gabriel Faure as Director of the Conservatoire National, p. 84.
45. On the Conservatoire, see Gail Hilson Woldu, "Gabriel Faure, directeur du Con-
servatoire: les reformes de 1905," Revue de musicologie Vol. 70/2 (1984): 119-228. On the
Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire and the performance of the "classic" repertoire in
France, see William Weber, Music and the Middle Class: The Social Structure of Concert Life
in London, Paris, and Vienna (London: Crooms Helm, 1975), pp. 69—73.
46. Myriam Chimenes, "Le Budget de la musique sous la IIIe Republique," in La
Musique. Du theorique au politique eds. Hugues Dufourt and Joel-Marie Fauquet (Paris:
Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1991), p. 279.
47. Rioux, pp. 28-29, and Pascal Ory, "Le Salon," in Jean-Francois Sirinelli, ed., His-
toire des droites en France Vol. 2 Cultures (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), pp. 124-125.
48. Ibid., pp. 56-60. Also see Marc Martin, "Les Journalistes et I'Affaire Dreyfus," in
L'Affaire Dreyfus et le tournant du siecle (1894-1910), pp. 110-115, eds. Laurent Gervereau
and Christophe Prochasson (Paris: Musee d'Histoire Contemporaine-BDIC, 1994).
49. See Gabriel Aubray, "Les Ecrivains et la Nation," Annales de la Patrie Francaise
Vol. 1 (May 1, 1900): 19-20. On Barres's view, see David Carroll, French Literary Fascism.
Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, and the Ideology of Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1995).
50. Rioux, pp. 52-55.
51. See d'Indy's letters to the league of June 13, 1899, and October 20, 1902, Lettres
Autographes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Departement de la Musique. And see Serge Berstein,
"La Ligue," in Jean-Francois Sirinelli, ed., Histoire des droites en France Vol. 2, pp. 81, 83.
52. Brian Hart, The Symphony in Theory and Practice in France 1900-1914, Ph.D.
Dissertation, Indiana University, 1.994, pp. 78-81.
53. Vincent d'Indy, "Une Ecole d'art repondant aux besoins modernes," La Tribune de
Saint-Gervais Nov. 1900, p. 311.
54. Paul Bertrand, Le Monde de la musique (Geneve: La Palatine, 1947), p. 75, and
Francois Lesure, ed., Debussy on Music, p. 111.
55. See Christophe Charle, "Noblesses et elites en France au debut du XXe siecle," in
Noblesses Europeens au XIXe siecle (Paris: Collection de I'Ecole Francaise de Rome 107,
1988), p. 410.
56. Marcel Proust, Le Cote des Guermantes I (Paris: Gallimard, 1954), pp. 38, 129.
57. D'Indy, "Une Ecole d'art," p. 311, and Brian Hart, The Symphony in Theory and
Practice in France, p. 81.
58. Hart, pp. 82-89.
59. D'Indy, Lettres Autographes, Departement de la Musique, Bibliotheque Nationale.
This letter was very kindly brought to the attention of Brian Hart by Michael Strasser, and
Dr. Hart generously shared it with me.
60. Hart, p. 82. And see d'Indy's Cows de composition musicale 2 Vols. (Paris: Durand
et Fils); Vol. I, published in 1903, is based on d'Indy's lectures of 1897-98 and covers the
first year of "Art"; Vol. II, Book I, published in 1909, is based on his lectures of 1899-1900
and covers the second year of "Art"; Vol. II, Book II, published in 1933, is based on the lec-
tures of 1901-1902 and covers the third year of "Art." All the volumes are based on the
notes of d'Indy's student, Auguste Serieyx, most of which d'Indy himself later supervised;
Guy de Lioncourt edited the final volume in 1950, which covers years four and five. Again,
I am indebted to Brian Hart for this clarification.
61. Rioux, p. 40. Here it is important to note that d'Indy diverged with the Ligue de
la Patrie Frangaise, which was, in fact, attempting to discourage the anti-Semitism so
prominent in Catholic circles.
62. See d'Indy, "Une Ecole d'art," p. 311. It is significant to note that this was a mo-
ment of great popularity for Meyerbeer: in 1898, for example, Le Prophete was the most fi-
nancially successful opera produced at the Paris Opera. See Frederique Patureau, Le Palais
Garnier dans la societe parisienne 1875-1914 (Liege: Margada, 1991), p. 283.
63. Robert Orledge, "D'Indy, Vincent," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Mu-
sicians, vol. 9, pp. 221-222. Edited by Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980).
64. Canteloube, p. 29.
65. Zeev Sternhell, Maurice: Barres et le nationalisme francais (Paris: Armand Colin,
1972), p. 23. As Sternhell points out, Barres's ideas on Wagner may be found in his DM
Sang, de la volupte, et de la mort. See also Claude Digeon, La Crise Allemand de la pensee
francaise 1870-1914 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959), p. 413.
66. Romain Rolland, Musiciens d'aujourd'hui (Paris: Hachette, 1912), p. 273, Stern-
hell, Maurice Barres, p. 4, and David Carroll, French Literary Fascism, p. 21.
67. On the "mobilizing" themes of the league, see Rioux, pp. 37, 48-49, and 62.
68. D'Indy, "Une Ecole d'art," pp. 303-305.
69. Ibid., p. 312, and Vallas, Vincent d'Indy, p. 58.
70. Rioux, p. 76; Eugen Weber, Action Francaise: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-
Century France (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962), p. 18, and Jack Roth,
The Cult of Violence: Sorel and the Sorelians (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1980), p. 19.
71. This point is discussed at length by Brian Hart in "La Mer and the Meaning of the
Symphony in Twentieth-Century France." Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the
American Musicological Society, Pittsburgh, 1983.
72. D'Indy, "Une Ecole d'art," p. 305.
73. Ibid., pp. 310-311.
74. Ibid., p. 311.
75. Vincent d'Indy, Lettres Autographes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Departement de la
Musique. This was the same month that d'Indy's inaugural lecture for the Schola's new
building, "Une Ecole d'art . . . ," was published in La Tribune de Saint-Gervais.
76. Vincent d'Indy, Lettres Autographes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Departement de la
Musique.
77. David James Fisher, "Romain Rolland the Ideology and Aesthetics of the French
People's Theater," Theater Quarterly Vol. 9/33 (Spring 1979), p. 95. This is as opposed to
the view of Antoine Compagnon that the Third Republic had a sense of the strict limita-
tions of its cultural competence, particularly in the field of art. See his article, "Utopie
d'une Republique athenienne," Le Debat Vol. 70 (May-Aug. 1992): 42.
78. Richard Mandell, Paris 1900: The Great World's Fair (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press), p. 92, and Eugen Weber, France: Fin-de-Siecle, pp. 124, 238. On the ideo-
logical goals of the previous exposition, in 1889, see Lebovics, True France, p. 53.
79. Robert Hoffman, More Than a Trial, p. 152; Eugen Weber, France: Fin-de-Siecle,
p. 124; Mandel, Paris 1900, pp. 90-91; and Rene Remond, Les Droits en France (Paris:
Aubier Montaigne, 1982), p. 148.
80. See Christophe Charle, "La Science et les savants: le debut de 1'age d'or?" in LAf-
faire Dreyfus et le tournant du siecle, pp. 66-71.
81. Madeleine Reberioux, La Republique Radical?, p. 37. As Frederique Patureau
points out in Le Palais Gamier dans la societe parisienne, p. 390, the attempt on the part of
the Republic to make art available to the lower social classes in the 1880s, seemed to be a
logical outgrowth of the principles of the French Revolution.
82. Eugen Weber, Action Francaise, p. 18, and Mandell, Paris 1900, p. 103.
83. Julian Jackson, The Popular Front in France: Defending Democracy 1934-38 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 2.
84. Anderson, France, p. 89.
85. Jean Touchard, La Gauche en France depuis 1900 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1968),
p. 28, and Anderson, p. 3.
86. Elaine Brody, Paris: The Musical Kaleidoscope 1870-1925 (New York: George
Braziller, 1987), p. 94.
87. Patureau, p. 274. This activism might well have been stimulated by earlier Re-
publican initiatives, lor in 1877 the government sponsored two provincial concert soci-
NOTES TO PAGES 38-41 23S
eties devoted to the propagation on French music, in addition to a subvention for the So-
ciete Nationale.
88. Patureau, pp. 433-435. In a letter to his friend Marcel Labey, d'Indy expresses his
opinion that the concerts were "serious" and should not be dismissed; he then gives Labey
advice as to whom to contact concerning a performance of his work. See the letter of July
21, 1895, from d'Indy to Labey, Lettres Autographes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Departement
de la Musique. An impetus for the Opera Concerts may have been Edouard Colonne's se-
ries of "national" and historical concerts in the 1870s and '80s, as Jan Pasler discusses in
"Building a Public for Orchestral Music: Les Concerts Colonne," paper read at the confer-
ence "Concert et Public: Mutation de la Vie Musicale en Europe de 1780 a 1914," Gottin-
gen, Germany, Max-Planck-Institut fur Geschichte, June 27-29, 1996. But it is important
to realize that here, in the context of firmly establishing "patriotism" and the Republic, in
the 1870s and early '80s, the political implications were entirely different, and the dialogic
element was not yet present.
It is important to note that, even before this, the state had the means of actively pro-
moting new French musical works without resorting to official commissions: one way was
through such prizes as that of the Fondation Cressent, the jury of which included major
academic figures. The other, as we shall see, was to make the subventioning of concert so-
cieties dependent on the performance of new French works. See Chimenes, "Le Budget de
la musique," pp. 53-55. Hence, despite the fact that music was bureaucratically tied to the
academic as opposed to the "officiel" system, the latter continually interacted with the for-
mer, and thus exerted an indirect influence on the definition of aesthetic legitimacy.
89. Patureau, p. 275.
90. Ibid., pp. 433-435.
91. Leon Gastinel, Influence des Expositions Universelles et Internationales sur I'art mu-
sical francais autre-fois, au-jourd'hui, demain (Paris: Imprimerie de la Poste, n.d.), p. 50.
92. Ibid., p. 11, and Elaine Brody, Paris: The Musical Kaleidoscope, p. 93.
93. This is as opposed to the Second Empire, when the arts were placed under the
Ministry of the Interior. See Marie-Claude Genet-Delacroix, "Esthetique officiel et art na-
tional sous la Troisieme Republique," Le Mouvement social Vol. 131 (April-June 1985):
111-114.
94. Ibid. Also see Marie-Claude Genet-Delacroix, Art et Etat sous la IIIe Republique. Le
Systeme des Beaux-arts 1870-1940 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1992).
95. To quote the official legislation of 1896, concerning the conservation of artistic
monuments: "L'histoire des origines d'un pays, de sa civilization, de son genie, . . . est
ecrite dans ses monuments. . . . La preoccupation de conserver les objets d'art, temoins
du temps passe, repond done a un sentiment national." Genet-Delacroix, "Esthetique offi-
ciel," p. 111.
96. The names are as listed in the review of Bruneau's report, in the Revue d'histoire
el de critique musicale. (March 1901), by "X," "Ancien membre de la commission,"
pp. 110-111. And see Pierre Lalo in Le Temps (June 12, 1900).
97. For the remainder of the voting, see the review of Bruneau's "report" by "X,"
pp. 111-112.
98. The letter of d'Indy to Paul-Marie Masson, of March 30, 1900, is in the Lettres Au-
tographes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Departement de la Musique. As Brian Hart points out,
in The Symphony in Theory and Practice, pp. 278—282, several critics, including Pierre Lalo
in Le Temps (June 12, 1900), complained of the lack of symphonic music in the programs.
99. On the concept of master fictions, see Sean Wilentz, ed., Rites of Power: Symbol-
ism, Ritual, and Politics Since the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1985), p. 3.
100. Alfred Bruneau, La Musique francaise. Rapport sur la musique en France du

XIIIe siecle au XXe siecle. La Musique a Paris en 1900 au theatre, au concert, a I'Exposi-
tion. (Paris: Bibliotheque Charpentier, 1901), pp. 1-7. He does, however, acknowledge a
precedent: in 1879 the Commission des Grandes Auditions attempted, in the course of ten
concerts (conducted by Eduard Colonne), to sum up and characterize the development of
the "French School" in music since 1830.
101. Ibid., p. 11.
102. Ibid., p. 13.
103. Ibid., p. 73.
104. Ibid., pp. 20-24.
105. Ibid., pp. 147-148.
106. Ibid., p. 154.
107. Ibid., p. 50.
108. Ibid., p. 242.
109. It appeared in March 1901.
110. Review of the "Rapport" by "X," Revue d'histoire et de critique musicale (March
1901), p. 110.
111. Ibid., p. 112.
112. Ibid., p. 114.
113. Ibid., p. 115. Here he goes on to point out that Bruneau then proceeds to make
matters even worse by leaping across other important periods in order to arrive at Lully
and Gluck.
114. Ibid., p. 115.
115. Ibid., pp. 115-116.
116. Ibid., p. 118.
117. Ibid., pp. 117-118.
118. Vallas, D'lndy, p. 20. D'Indy presided over competitions between Orpheon
groups in the 1880s.
119. Review of Bruneau's "Rapport" by "X," p. 118.
120. "Willy" [Henri Gaulthier-Villars], "Qu'est ce que la musique francaise?" Revue
d'histoire et de critique musicale (March 1903): 123-127.
121. Francois Caradec, Feu Willy (Paris: J. J. Pauvet, 1984), pp. 5, 107.
122. Willy, "Qu'est ce que la musique francaise?" p. 123.
123. Ibid., p. 124.
124. Vallas, p. 50. And see Olivier Corpet, "La revue," in Jean-Francois Sirinelly ed.,
Histoire des droites en France Vol. 2, p. 166.
125. Maurice Denis, Nouvelles theories sur I'art moderne: sur I'art sacree 1914-1921
(Paris: Rouart et Watelin, 1921), p. 239. On the Context for Denis's conservative artistic
views, see Michael Marlais, Conservative Echoes in Fin-de-Siede Parisian Art Criticism (Uni-
versity Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992).
126. See Jane E Fulcher, "D'Indy's 'Drame anti-Juif and Its Meaning in Paris, 1920,"
Cambridge Opera Journal Vol. II/2: 295-319. On Jews in Paris and their association with
the "oriental," see Paula Hyman, From Dreyfus to Vichy: The Remaking of French Jewry,
1906-1939 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), pp. 63-64, 66, and 68. Also see
David Carroll, French Literary Fascism, pp. 32, 75.
127. Lionel de la Laurencie, "Un Musicien de chez nous," L'Occident 1904: 1—10.
128. Ibid., p. 3.
129. Ibid., p. 7.
130. Ibid., p. 10.
51
131. Vallas, p. 56. The "Motu proprio" is reporduced in the appendix to Nicolas
Slominsky's Music Since 1900 (New York: Schirmer, 1994).
132. Vallas, p. 42, and Lionel de la Laurencie, "L'Oeuvre de Vincent d'Indy," Durendel.
Revue Catholique d'art et de litterature (April 1902): 204-215.
133. La Laurencie, "L'Oeuvre de Vincent d'Indy," p. 205.
134. Ibid., p. 206.
135. Ibid., pp. 214-315.
136. Lionel de la Laurencie, "Le d'Indysme," L'Art moderne (Feb. 5, 1903), p. 49.
137. Ibid., pp. 50-51.
138. On the disillusionment of former Dreyfusards and the decline of the "Republi-
can mystique," see Antoine Compagnon, La Troisieme Republique des lettres. De Flaubert a
Proust (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1983), p. 121.
139. Mauclair was a signer of the Dreyfusard Manifest des Intellectuels. On his ear-
lier anarchist period, see Eugen Weber, France: Fin-de-Siecle, p. 119.
140. Camille Mauclair, "La Schola Cantorum et I'education morale des musiciens,"
La Revue (Aug. 1901): 245, 253-54, 256.
141. See Le Libertaire (Feb. 8-15, 1896).
142. Mauclair, "La Schola Cantorum . . . ," p. 256.
143. Ibid., pp. 246, 256.
144. Ibid., pp. 242, 247-248.
145. Ibid., p. 251.
146. Ibid., p. 250.
147. Ibid., p. 251.
148. Ibid., p. 252.
149. Jean Marnold, "Le Conservatoire et la Schola," Mercure de France (1902):
105-115.
150. Ibid., pp. 105-106. Other examples of rarely performed repertoire that he cites
include the works of the "clavecinistes" and organists of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the works of Carissimi, the lieder of Schubert and Schumann, the organ
chorales of Bach and Franck, and Mozart's Requiem.
151. Ibid., pp. 107-108.
152. Ibid., p. 111. In order to expand on Dubois's purported intolerance, Marnold re-
counts the reputed incident that occurred while Dubois was still teaching a class in har-
mony, when one of the students brought a score of Parsifal into the room. It caused such a
commotion among the students that Dubois is said to have forbade the student to ever
bring it into the institution again.
153. On the "liberal Right," see Rene Remond, Les Droites en France (Paris: Aubier
Montaigne, 1982).
154. Marnold, "Le Conservatoire et la Schola," p. 112.
155. Lionel de la Laurencie, "Le Mouvement musicographique," Le Mercure musical
(June 1907): 659.
156. Her books include Les Concerts en France sous I'ancien regime (1900), and La
Musique de la Sainte-Chapelle du Palais (1910).
157. See Michel Brenet, "La Musicologie," in Rapport sur la musique francaise contem-
poraine, pp. 18-19, ed. by Paul-Marie Masson (Rome: Armam et Stein, 1913).
158. It was Jules Combarieu who organized the "Congress" on music history, held in
conjunction with the 1900 Universal Exposition. Another scholar, who specialized in edu-
cation, Lionel Dauriac, was given "cours libres" to teach at the Sorbonne.
159. David Jam.es Fisher, "Romain Rolland and the Ideology and Aesthetics of the
French People's Theater," p. 87, and see Romain Rolland's Theatre de la Revolution (Paris:
Albin Michel, 1972).
160. Fisher, "Romain Rolland . . . ," pp. 84, 87.
161. Ibid., pp. 85-86, 97.
162. Ibid., p. 97. As Fisher points out, after 1904 Rolland enlarged his conceptions
further by studying Rousseau's writings on festivals and David's on revolutionary theater
and pantomime. He would be further influenced by his own personal experience of mod-
ern spectacles on Lausanne, Switzerland.
163. Romain Rolland, La Vie de Beethoven Vol. I (Paris: Hachette, 1903), pp. 98-99.
D'Indy's perspective on Beethoven is discussed in chapter 4.
164. Romain Rolland, Haendel (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1911), pp. 17, 140.
165. Ibid., p. 142.
166. Christophe Prochasson, "Sur I'environement intellectuel de Georges Sorel:
L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales (1899-1911)," Cahiers Georges Sorel 3 (1985): 17. She
was the sister of the historian Georges Weill.
167. Ibid. The College Libre des Sciences Sociales was directed successively by
Theodore Franck-Brentano; the doctor Eugene Dalbert; and the "progressiste" deputy of the
Seine-et-Marne Paul Deschanel. As Prochasson points out, it was based on the principle of
theoretical plurality and offered lectures in economics, sociology, philosophy, and history.
168. Ibid., pp. 17-20. The institution received a subvention of 12,000 francs, as
voted by Parliament in 1900-01. When it opened in November 1900, its president was
Emile Boutroux, its director Emile Duclaux, and its three "administrators" were (the edi-
tor) Felix Alcan, Charles Gueryesi, and Georges Sorel. Its Comite de direction was com-
posed of fifty-five members, half of whom were university figures. They included the his-
torians Alphonse Aulard and Ernest Lavisse, the sociologist Gabriel de Tarde, and the
"Directeur de Travail," Arthur Fontaine. Prochasson, "Sur 1'environement intellectuel de
Georges Sorel," pp. 21-25.
169. Ibid., pp. 26-28, and David James Fisher, Romain Rolland and the Politics of In-
tellectual Engagement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 93.
170. Prochasson, pp. 28-29.
171. See Marie-Claude Genet-Delacroix, "Esthetique officiel et art national sous la
Troisieme Republique," as well as Art et Etat sous la IIIe Republique,
172. On Sorel, see Prochasson, pp. 30-33. Sorel gave only two lectures at the institu-
tion—one in 1901, on "Valeur morale de I'art," and one, in 1903, on Marx.
173. Romain Rolland, "Musique," in L'Ecole des Haues Etudes Sociales 1900-1910
(Paris: Felix Alcan, 1911), pp. 69-70.
174. Ibid. As Rolland points out, there were regular courses that ran from year to
year as well as isolated lectures on various subjects.
175. Ibid., pp. 71-74. Julien Tiersot lectured on the "Chanson populaire"; Maurice
Emmanuel (who was associated with the Conservatoire) spoke on "Musique tonale clas-
sique: fugue, sonate, symphonie"; and Hellouin lectured on "Les Nationalites musicales"
and "La Critique musicale."
176. On the "salon," see Prochasson, pp. 26-28.
177. Rolland, in L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales, pp. 75-76. Lists of the works pre-
sented in the concerts are given on p. 77-78.
CHAPTER 2
1. See Brian Hart, The Symphony in Theory and Practice in France 1900-1914, Ph.D.
Dissertation, Indiana University, 1994, pp. 82-103, 433-434.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Rene de Castera, "La Symphonie en si bemol de M. Vincent d'Indy," L'Occident
(March 1904): 174-175.
5. Letter of Sept. 17, 1903, from d'Indy to Pierre de Breville, as cited by Vallas, Vin-
cent d'Indy 2 vols. (Paris: Albin Michel, 1950), Vol. II, p. 327. Vallas, who provides much of
the information on this period of d'Indy's life, was a close friend of the composer from
1900 on. In 1902 he helped to found a branch of the Schola Cantorum in Lyon, together
with Georges Wittokowski. See Christian Goubault, La Critique musicale dans la presse
francaise de 1870 a 1914 (Geneve-Paris: Editions Slatkine, 1984), p. 78.
6. Adolphe Boschot, Chez les musiciens (Paris: Plon, 1922), p. 208. Massenet also
used it in Thais; in literature, it was used by such figures as Flaubert and Anatole France.
7. Alain Boureau, La Legende doree: Le system narratif de Jacques de Voragine (Paris,
1984), pp. 7-14. Theodore de Wyzewa was one of the editors of the Revue Wagnerienne.
8. Vallas, Vincent d'Indy, p. 326. The score was published by Rouart, Lerolle, et Cie. in
1918.
9. My synopsis is based on the French translation of the Legende Aurea published by
Editions Rombaldi in Paris, 1942.
10. Vallas, p. 327.
11. This idea is developed by Reinhard Strohm in "Dramatic Time and Operatic
Form in Wagner's Tannhauser," Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 1977: 1-10.
12. As we shall see, the reference here is to Conservatoire students who supported
Debussy.
13. See Reinhard Strohm, "Dramatic Time and Operatic Form in Wagner's Tannhauser."
14. Rene Dumesnil, La Musique en France entre deux guerres 1919-1939 (Geneve: Edi-
tions du Milieu du Monde, 1946), p. 86. For such scholarly research on the mystery play,
see Gustave Cohen, Histoire de la mise en scene dans le theatre religieux francais du moyen
age (Paris: Honore Champion, 1926).
15. Vallas, p. 328. However, d'Indy, in his Cours de composition musical Vol. I (Paris:
Durand et Fils, 1903), p. 202, points out that Fervaal is in three acts, each with three
scenes, and instead of interpreting this structure nationalistically, he describes its plan here
as a "vaste lied."
16. See d'Indy's later Richard Wagner et son influence sur l'art musical aujourd'hui (Paris:
Librairie Delagrave, 1930), p. 48. Vallas discusses tonal structure and d'Indy's symbolic use
of keys in great detail (p. 326 ff.), noting the larger movement from B minor to B major, as
well as the use of G for "gold." He lays out d'Indy's own diagram of the tonal plan, as does
Fernand Biron, in Le Chant gregorien dans I'enseignement et les oeuvres musicales de Vincent
d'Indy (Ottawa: Les Editions de 1'Universite d'Ottawa, 1941), p. 166.
17. These borrowings are analyzed and discussed in detail by Vallas (pp. 336-338)
and Biron (pp. 171-172). Gregorian themes are used to symbolize the Cross (through a
chant that makes reference to it) as well as "Priere," "I'Oracle," and "la Mort Chretienne."
18. As Vallas, among others, notes (p. 335), d'Indy makes musical reference to Bach's
Passions and to Beethoven's Mass; he also posits the influence of Debussy's Le Martyr de
Saint Sebastien (premiered as d'Indy was nearing the completion of the score) on d'Indy's
conception of a "modern" spiritualistic style (p. 341).
19. Where Wagner used the tritone judiciously for its "devilish" connotations, d'Indy
employs it repeatedly, together with consecutive perfect fourths.
20. Vallas, pp. 335-336.
21. See Jean-Pierre Rioux, Nationalisme et conservatisme. La Ligue de la Patrie
Francaise (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977), pp. 109, 114-115.
22. In an undated letter to the league, d'Indy reports that he has recruited Ernest
Chausson and Pierre de Breville. Also see his letter to the league of June 13, 1899, in
d'Indy, Lettres Autographes, Bibliotheque National, Departement de la Musique. And see
the letters of October 20, 1902 and October 30, 1903, as well as other letters dated 1903.
23. Rioux, Nationalisme et conservatisme, pp. 107-108.
24. See, for example, the letters of March 12, 1909, and November 24, 1912, Lettres
Autographes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Departement de la Musique.
25. Gaston Carraud, La Vie, I'oeuvre, et la mart d'Alberic Magnard (Paris: Rouart,
Lerolle, et Cie., 1921), pp. 24-48, 100, 113, 118.
26. Ibid., pp. 89-91.
27. As cited by Frederic Malmazet in his notes to the cassette recording of Magnard's
Hymne a la Justice; and see Carraud, pp. 82-83, 125.
28. On performative context, see Richard Bauman, Verbal Art as performance (Rowley,
Mass.: Newbury House, 1977).
29. Martin Cooper refers to it as a "cross between the middle class 'comedie larmoy-
ante' of the eighteenth century and a sentimental defense of free love, set against a preten-
tious mythical background," in French Music from the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Faure
(London: Oxford University Press, 1951), p. 111. Another indication of how misunder-
stood this work has been in the English-speaking world is that from the time of the first
English edition, its subtitle, "Roman musical," has been incorrectly translated as "a musi-
cal romance," which reflects the misconstrual of its content. There have, however, been
composers outside France who immediately appreciated the work, among them Richard
Strauss. On his praise of the opera, see Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy: His Life and Mind
(London: Cassell and Comp., Ltd., 1965), p. 90. Another composer who appreciated and
even emulated it was Leos Janacek; on his attraction to and use of the work, see Jaroslav
Vogel, Leos Janacek (Kassel: Alkor-Edition, 1958). As Vogel points out, it was after Charp-
entier's example that Janacek wrote a libretto originally called "Fragments of a Novel from
Life" and called the first version an "opera novel." He also observes that the choice of the
story as well as the first part of The Excursions of Mr. Broucek could also have been inspired
by Louise. Janacek had seen Charpentier's opera at the national theater in 1903.
30. I am greatly indebted to Carl E. Schorske for this observation.
31. Tzvetan Todorov, Mikhail Bakhtine. Le Principe dialogique (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1981), pp. 95, 103-104; and Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach
to Literature and An (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), p. 73.
32. Again, see Richard Bauman, Verbal Art as Performance, as well as his Story, Perfor-
mance, and Event. Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1986).
33. Tourcoing was (and is) an industrial center, closely connected to the textile trade.
See Basil Dean, Albert Roussel (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1961), p. 1; and see Gustave
Charpentier: Lettres inedits a ses parents, ed. by Francoise Andrieux (Paris: Presses Univer-
sitaires de France, 1984), pp. 11-13. On the history of the "Orpheons," see Jane Fulcher,
"The Orpheon Societies: 'Music for the Workers' in Second-Empire France," International
Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music Vol. 10 (1979): 47-56.
34. Charpentier, Lettres, p. 13. His first courses in composition were not rigorous
enough to help him win the Prix de Rome, but he was exposed to Wagner.
35. Charpentier, pp. 65-67.
36. "J'y puise dans la lecture des chefs d'oeuvres des maltres un stock de formules qui
me serviront quand je me mettrai a la composition." Ibid., p. 54.
37. Ibid., p. 73.
38. Ibid., p. 86; and Jean Touchard, La Gauche en France depuis 1900 (Paris: Editions
du Seuil, 1968), p. 28; Rene Remond, Les Droites en France (Paris: Aubier Montaigne,
1982), pp. 150-153; and Edward R. Tannenbaum, The Action Tannenbaum, The Action Francaise: Die-har
Die-hard Reac-
tionaries in Twentieth-Century France (New York: Wiley, 1962), p. 8.
39. See Manfred Kelkel, Naturalisme, verisme, et realisme dans I'opera de 1890 a 1930
(Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1984), pp. 20, 180-190. As Kelkel points out, the
years when Louise was composed (c. 1889-92) coincided with the heated debates over An-
archism. This was the period of the Anarchist laws and the press campaign of the Socialists
against them, for fear that they would help the government to silence opposition in the
press. Like Kelkel, but in more detail, Steven Huebner identifies several Anarchist chan-
sons in Louise in his paper read at the National meeting of the American Musicological So-
ciety in Minneapolis, 1994, "Between Anarchism and the Box Office: Gustave Charpen-
tier's Louise."
40. Richard Sonn, Anarchism and Cultural Politics in Fin-de-Siecle France (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1989), p. 4.
41. Ibid., pp. 5-7. Sonn also notes the significance of the location of the Anarchist
press in both the Latin Quarter and Montmartre, which further facilitated this exchange.
42. Joseph Halpern, "Decadent Narrative: A Rebours," Stanford French Review Vol. II/l
(Spring 1978): 91.
43. Zola had never passed his Baccalaureat, and Charpentier had only a primary edu-
cation. On the hostility of the Academy to Naturalism, see Christophe Charle, La Crise lit-
teraire a I'epoque du Naturalisme: Roman, theatre, et politique (Paris: Presses de 1'Ecole Nor-
male Superieur, 1979). There are, of course, symbolic elements in Louise, as in late Zola,
but it is clearly Naturalism that supplies the generic model.
44. See Richard Taruskin, Opera and Drama in Russia as Preached and Practiced in the
1860s (Ann Arbor, Mich.: U.M.I. Research Press, 1981).
45. On Wagner's use of dramatic condensation through scenic contrast, see Reinhad
Strohm, "Dramatic Time and Operatic Form in Wagner's Tannhauser." See also Jean-Max
Guieu, Le Theatre lyrique d'Emile Zola (Paris: Fishbacher, 1983), p. 156. As Guieu points
out (p. 157), Zola was raised in Aix, a region quite marked by the "legende doree" and the
cult of saints, which was highly developed. Bruneau expands on his own theories of lyric
drama in his Musiques d'hier et de demain (Paris: Charpentier, 1900). And in Le Figaro, on
February 7, 1900, Bruneau wrote of Louise, "Ah! quelle joie j'eprouve a annoncer cette
eclatante victoire de la musique, de notre musique!" as cited in Johann Trillig, Unter-
suchung zur Rezeption Claude Debussys in der zeitgenossischen Musikkritik (Tutzing: Hans
Schneider, 1983), p. 62.
46. See, for example, the Revue Wagnerienne, as well as Leon Guichard, La Musique et
les lettres en France au temps du Wagnerisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963).
Also see Jane F. Fulcher, "Wagner as Democrat and Realist in France," Stanford French Re-
view Spring 1981.
47. Kelkel, Naturalisme, verisme, et realisme, p. 179.
48. Ibid., p. 176.
49. On the Republican "fete," see Charles Rearick, Pleasures of the Belle Epoque: En-
tertainment and Festivity in Turn-of-the-Century France (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1985).
50. The score was published in Paris by M. Delanchy, and sold for the benefit of the
charitable "L'Oeuvre des Muses."
51. Naomi Ritter, Art as Spectacle: Images of the Entertainer since Romanticism (Co-
lumbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989), p. 202.
52. See Strohm, "Dramatic Time and Operatic Form."
53. On the special prestige and desirability of having a work premiere in connection
with the Universal Exposition, see Frederique Patureau, Le Palais Gamier dans la societe
parisienne 1875-1914 (Liege: Margada, 1991), p. 189.
54. Maurice Emmanuel, "La Vie reele en musique," Revue de Paris (June 15, 1900):
841-883. Emmanuel was a student at the Paris Conservatoire at the same time as Debussy
and went on to become a professor of music history there in 1909, after having written a
thesis on ancient Greek drama and served as Maitre de Chapelle at Sainte Clotilde. See
Maurice Emmanuel, "Lettres inedites," Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 11
(June 1983): 8.
55. Constant Pierre's book was published in Paris by the Imprimerie Nationale in
1.899.
56. Emmanuel, "La Vie reele an musique," pp. 863, 882.
57. Germinal, January 15, 1900.
58. J. E. Flower, Literature and the Left in France. Society, Politics, and the Novel Since
the Late Nineteenth Century (Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1983), p. 5.
59. Camille Mauclair, "L'Artiste moderne et son attitude sociologique," La Grande
revue April 1902. In his "Memoires," located in the manuscript material on Charpentier at
the Bibliotheque Nationale, Departement de la Musique, Charpentier recalls his friend
Mauclair on April 27, 1952, as follows: "Qui n'a pas son Violon d'Ingres. Mon ami, C.
Mauclair en eu de tout facons, j'ai de lui un pastel admirable. . . . Vincent d'lndy: Schola
Cantorum."
60. Mauclair, "L'Artiste moderne et son attitude sociologique," p. 141.
61. As cited in Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy, pp. 67-68. Charpentier recalls De-
bussy's behavior toward him in his "Memoires" (cited in note 59), on April 24, 1952: "De-
bussy dans reunion d'artistes, hommages sur le front, confidences affectueuses—le tout
bien different de ce que ses lettres, helas, si peu genereuses, si injustes, proclament. (Le
lecture de certaines lettres privees, ecrites apres 1900, I'annee de Louise, ne sauraient I'ef-
facer de mon souvenir.) Nulle jalousie m'y apparet."
62. Interview with Charpentier by Eugene Allard and Louis Vauxcelle in Le Figaro
(Oct. 23, 1900). For many, the comparison was naturally with Wagner. The critic for the
Revue bleue, for example, on February 10, 1900, p. 188, praised Charpentier for not having
attempted "a faire un Wotan." As cited in Trillig, Untersuchung zur rezeption Claude De-
bussys, p. 627.
63. Paul Gerbod, "La Scene lyrique parisienne en 1900," Revue Internationale de
musique frangcaise Vol. 12 (Nov. 1983): 17.
64. Claude Debussy, Debussy on Music, eds. Francoise Lesure and Richard L. Smith
(New York: Knopf, 1977), p. 183.
65. On the receipts gained by Le Couronnement de la muse, see Kelkel, Naturalisme,
verisme, realisme, p. 200.
66. This letter is contained in Charpentier's manuscripts, Souvenirs. Lettres. Poesies,
at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Departement de la Musique.
67. Letter to Guy Ropartz of November 20, 1900, in d'lndy Lettres Autographes, Bib-
liotheque Nationale, Departement de la Musique.
68. David James Fisher, "Romain Rolland and the Ideology and Aesthetics of French
People's Theater," Theater Quarterly Vol. 9/23 (Spring 1979), p. 83.
69. See Pierre Nora's article in the collection he edited, Les Lieux du memoire. Vol. II,
La Nation (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), p. 327, and Madeleine Reberioux, La Republique Radi-
cale? 1898-1914 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1975), p. 37.
70. Lucien Mercier, Les Universiles populaires 1899-1914: Education populaire et
mouvement ouvrier au debut du siecle (Paris: Les Edition Ouvrieres, 1986), p. 15, and Char-
pentier, lettres inedits, p. 13.
71. As Frederick Brown points out in Theater and Revolution: the Culture of the French
Stage (New York: Viking, 1981), p. 179, these efforts were the projects of "cultural mis-
sionaries" such as Louis Lumet and Henri Dugel. They included the Theare du Cirque, the
Theatre du Peuple, the Theatre Populaire de Belleville, the Theatre de la rue de Tocque-
ville, and the Theatre d'Avant-Garde de Menilmontant.
72. For earlier attempts to found a "popular opera," see Jane F, Fulcher, The Nation's
Image: French Grand Opera as Politics and Politicized Art (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1987, pp. 113-119.
73. Gerbod, "La Scene lyrique parisienne en 1900," pp. 16-23.
74. F 21 4669, letter from Gailhard to the Ministre de 1'Instruction Publique," July
14, 1905. Paris, Archives Nationales.
75. As cited in Kelkel, p. 50. Responses to Charpentier during the war will be treated
in my forthcoming study, "Music and Political Culture in France from the First to the Sec-
ond World Wars."
76. F 21 4552 #2, letter from the Oeuvre de la Chanson Francaise, of May 20, 1926,
requesting an official subvention. Paris, Archives Nationales.
77. By the mid-1920s, the President d'Honneur was Paul Leon, Director of the
Beaux-Arts. Its statutes are articulated in a pamphlet entitled "L'Art Pour Tous," in F 21
455 #3. Paris, Archives Nationales.
78. A. Mangeot, "L'Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson," Le Monde musical (1902): 317. The
combination of pragmatism and idealism was indeed characteristic of Charpentier's per-
sonality, as one of his contemporaries, Paul Bertrand, recalled: "Anime d'un esprit precis,
clairvoyante, realiste, fouillant avec une instinctive mefiance I'interlocuteur, de son regard
d'acier, ordonne avec minutie attentif a ses comptes en liaison constant avec son conseil. Il
veillait a ce qu'on n'oubliat de l'appeler 'Maitre,' et cela non par vanite, mais parce qu'il
n'avait pas le droit de negliger les avantages tangible qui impliquait ce titre." Paul
Bertrand, Le Monde de la musique (Geneve: La Palatine, 1947), p. 57. As Kelkel points out
(p. 200), Charpentier brought the same qualities to his social projects, particularly as co-
founder and President d'Honneur of the Syndicat des Artistes Musiciens.
79. Myriam Chimenes, "Le Budget de la musique sous la IIIe Republique," in La
Musique du theorique au politique, eds. Hugues Dufourt and Joel-Marie Fauquet (Paris: Aux
Amateurs de Livres, 1987), p. 270.
80. During the war it would be completed by "L'Ouvroir (Lady's Working Party) de
Mimi Pinson," "Les Infermieres de Mimi Pinson," and "La Cocarde de Mimi Pinson." The
latter was subventioned by the Conseil Municipal, Le Conseil General, and Le Ministre de
1'Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts and had branches in different towns throughout
France. See Charpentier, Souvenirs. Lettres. Poesies.
81. Ibid.
82. Debussy, Debussy on Music, p. 129.
83. Patureau, Le Palais Gamier dans la societe parisienne, p. 186. As she points out, pre-
senting French operas of the past was not at first specified in the Cahier des Charges but had
become standard practice. She also observes that the number of new works required by the
Cahier was a direct result of opinions expressed in the Chamber of Deputies and in the musi-
cal world, particularly by the Societe des Auteurs, Editeurs, et Compositeurs de Musique.
Concerning the proposal of specific works, she points out (p. 182) that ministers, deputies, or
senators could and did act as advocates for particular composers; the final decision, however,
generally lay with the Director of the Opera (apart from those works of Prix de Rome com-
posers, which he was required to perform) (p. 178). All works to be presented at the Opera
had then to be studied and approved, if unofficially, by the Ministre des Beaux-Arts. By 1896,
there was clearly a concern that a score belong to "la tradition classique francaise" (p. 68).
244 NOTES TO PAGES .104-108
84. Ibid., p. 254.

85. Ibid., p. 167.
86. Again, as Patureau points out (p. 404), it was ultimately the director who chose
the works to be performed; but we have seen how sensitive Gailhard was to the Third Re-
public's priorities. Paladilhe's Patrie! had been given in 1898 and Mehul's Joseph in 1899;
Bruneau's Le Reve was presented at a free performance in 1899, and Rossini's Guillaume Tell
in 1906. On the role of the Protestants in France during the Affair, see Andre Encreve, "La
Petite musique huguenote," pp. 451-504, in La France de I'Affaire Dreyfus, ed. Pierre Birn-
baum (Paris: Gallimard, 1994).
87. Patureau, p. 208. She notes, as well, that the French composers most frequently
performed at the Opera were those appointed to all the major commissions and who were
generally members of the Institut and the Legion d'Honneur. Most had studied at the Con-
servatoire and had won the Prix de Rome: performance at the Opera was thus the ultimate
consecration. She also points out that bargains were frequently struck. For example, in
1899, the Ministre des Beaux-Arts, upon the advice of one of his commissioners (A. Bern-
heim), agreed to count the revival of Berlioz's Le Prise de Troie as a new work if the director
of the Opera would revive Massenet's Le Cid and Paladilhe's Patrie! before December 31,
1900. The director accepted this offer. Ibid., pp. 162, 229, 231.
88. Ibid., p. 244.
89. Miriam Chimenes, "La Princesse Edmond de Polignac et la creation musicale," in
La Musique et le pouvoir, eds. Hugues Dufourt and Joel-Marie Fauquet (Paris: Aux Ama-
teurs de Livres, 1987), p. 135. These included symphonies, orchestral suites, symphonic
poems—even those with soloists and chorus. It continued until 1932.
90. Ibid., p. 136. The winners were generally Prix de Rome recipients and students in
the classes of the members of the jury.
91. Ibid., and see Brian Hart, The Symphony in Theory and Practice in France,
pp. 299-312.
92. See Christophe Charle, Naissance des "intellectuels" 1880-1900 (Paris: Minuit,
1990).
93. Morland's "Enquete" appeared in the Mercure de France in November and Decem-
ber 1902, and January 1903. Also see Claude Digeon, La Crise Allemande de la pensee
francaise 1870-1914 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959), pp. 463-464.
94. In Morland's "Enquete," Bruneau praised German influence and said he believed
French composers would continue to be nurtured by the work of the old German masters.
According to Debussy, German influence was harmful only on those "esprits susceptibles
d'etre domestiques." D'Indy opined: "Je vois rien de reprehensible a cela et ce libre
echange internationale. . . ." He continued that if French composers used foreign proce-
dures, the results would necessarily be "French." But in the survey, all agreed on the need
to move away from German influence—to return to the "sources" of the "French Tradi-
tion."
95. Paul Landormy, "L'Etat actuel de la musique Francaise," Revue bleue (Jan.-June
1904): 394-397; 421-426.
96. This view is opposed to that of J. Peter Burkholder, presented in a number of arti-
cles but perhaps most specifically in "Museum Pieces: the Historicist Mainstream in Music
of the Last Hundred Years," Journal of Musicology Vol. 2 (Spring 1983): 115-134. Burk-
holder sees the relation of composers to the "canon" as highly personal or professional, es-
sentially devoid of sociopolitical resonance. This was clearly not the case in France.
97. Landormy, "L'Etat actuel de la musique Francaise," p. 425.
98. Ibid., p. 394.
99. Ibid., pp. 394-395.
100. Ibid., p. 396. On the Liberal Right in France, see Rene Remond, Les Droites en
France (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1982).
101. Landormy, "L'Etat actuel," p. 396.
102. Ibid., p. 424.
103. On the political ramifications of the separation of Church and State in France,
see Eugen Weber, Action Francaise: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-Century France
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962).
104. The Mercure musical, of which Laloy was an editor, was closely associated with
the Mercure de France. His articles were published on May 1, July 1, and August 1, 1905.
105. Christian Goubault, La Critique musicale dans la presse francaise de 1870 a 1914,
p. 106.
106. In its opening statement, the editors of the Mercure musical professed to wish to
do for music what the Mercure de France, which was equally socially conservative but aes-
thetically liberal (approximating the position of the Liberal Right) had done for literature.
See Johann Trillig, Untersuchung zur Rezeption Claude Debussys in der zeitgenossischen
Musikkritik (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1983), p. 123.
107. Louis Laloy, "Le Drame musical moderne," Le Mercure de France (1905): 84.
108. Roland Barthes, Le Degre zero de I'ecriture (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1953), p. 24.
109. Laloy, p. 175.
110. Goubault, La Critique musicale, p. 109. Mauclair had denounced the reaction
against social art in an article in La Revue on March 15, 1906, on Alfred Bruneau.
111. It appeared on January 15, 1905: 151-174.
112. On this distinction, see Raoul Girardet, Le Nationalism francais 1871.-1914
(Paris: Armand Colin, 1966), pp. 8-11.
113. Camille Mauclair, "La Reaction Nationaliste en art et I'ignorance de 1'homme de
lettres," La Revue mondiale (Jan. 15, 1905): 151-152.
114. Ibid., p. 155.
115. Ibid., pp. 157-158.
116. Ibid., p. 160.
117. Ibid., p. 161; and see Camille Mauclair, "Le Classicisme et 1'academisme," La
Revue bleue (March 15, 1903): 340.
118. Mauclair, "La Reaction Nationaliste," p. 162.
119. Ibid., p. 163.
120. Ibid., pp. 155-156.
121. Ibid., p. 156.
CHAPTER 3
1. On the attempt of the Right to renew the terms of political debate, see Eugen
Weber, Action Francaise: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-Century France (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962) and Eugen Weber and Hans Roger, eds., The Euro-
pean Right: A Historical Profile (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965). On the
concept of a "true" as opposed to a merely "legal" France, see Herman Lebovics, True
France. The Wars over Cultural Identity (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992), esp.
pp. 138 ff. Also see Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times, (New York: Rand McNally,
1974), pp. 267-268, and Jean-Francois Sirinelli and Eric Vigne, "Introduction. Des cul-
tures politiques," in Jean-Francois Sirinelli, ed., Histoire des droites en France Vol. 2 Cul-
tures (Paris: Gallirnard, 1992), pp. 7-8.
2. Ibid., p. 10. And see Victor Nguyen, Aux origines de l' Action Francaise. Intelligence
et politique a l'aube de XXe siecle (Paris: Fayard, 1991).
3. Joel Blatt, "Relatives and Rivals: The Response of the Action Francaise to Italian
Fascism," European Studies Review Vol. II/3 (July 1981): 266-267.
4. Eugen Weber, Action Francaise, p. 9.
5. Ibid., pp. 10-11; Lebovics, True France, p. 10; and Jack Roth, The Cult of Violence:
Sore! and the Sorelians (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 126.
6. See Eugen Weber, Action Francaise, pp. 36 ff. and Edward Tannenbau, The Action
Francaise: Die-hard Reactionaries in Twentieth-Century France (New York: Wiley, 1962). See
also Pascal Fouche, "L'Edition 1914-1992," in Sirinelli, ed., Histoire des droites en France
Vol. 2, pp. 260-261, and Olivier Corpet, "La revue," ibid., p. 168.
7. Tannenbaum, The Action Francaise, p. 88. Lasserre was also to contribute articles
on literary criticism and the arts to the daily Action Francaise. Ibid., p. 93.
8. Antoine Compagnon, La Troisieme Republique des lettres. De Flaubert a Proust
(Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1983), p. 19. Portions of Lasserre's book had already appeared in
the Revue de I'action francaise, which he edited. He became the literary critic for the daily
I'Action francaise in 1908.
9. Pierre Lasserre, Le Romantisme francais (Paris: Societe du Mercure de France,
1908), pp. VIII-XII, 515-543. Maurras had emphasized the weak, "feminine" quality of
Romanticism in his L'Avenir de I'intdligence (1905).
10. On the concept of symbols and how they are generated, see Garth Gillian, From
Sign to Symbol (New York: Harvester Press, 1982), esp. p. 29 ff.
11. Pierre Lasserre, Des Romantiques a nous (Paris: La Nouvelle Revue Critique,
1927). Although he had left the Action Francaise by this point, his ideas had not essen-
tially changed.
12. Ibid., p. 193.
13. Pierre Lasserre, L'Esprit de la musique francaise (Paris: Payot, 1917), p. 236.
14. Lasserre, Des Romantiques a nous, pp. 143-144, 154, and 193. And see Charles
Maurras, La Musique interieur (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1925).
15. See, for example, the praise of the paper Action francaise for d'Indy's efforts on the
part of the French musical past, in Sept. 1908, pp. 257 ff. Also see the Revue critique des
idees et des livres July—Sept. 1908, on d'Indy's Cours de composition musicale. In noting the
Action Francaise's reserve for certain aspects of d'Indy's teaching, I differ from the position
presented by Charles B. Paul in his article "Rameau, d'Indy, and French Nationalism," Mu-
sical Quarterly Vol. 58/1 (Jan. 1972): 46-56.
16. See Leon Daudet, Salons et journaux. Souvenirs des milieux litteraires, politiques,
artistiques, et medicaux de 1880 a 1908 (Paris: Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1917),
pp. 307-308.
17. Louis Bourgault-Ducoudray, "L'Enseignement du chant dans les lycees," Revue
musicale 1903: 723-727.
18. Ibid., p. 723.
19. Ibid., p. 727.
20. This letter, contained in the Lettres Autographes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Departe-
merit de la Musique, was generously brought to my attention by Michael Strasser.
21. Ibid. The Schola d'Action Francaise was active in the early 1920s.
22. Christian Goubault, La Critique musicale dans la presse francaise de 1870 a 1914
(Geneve-Paris: Editions Slatkine, 1984), p. 51.
23. On the political evolution of the Republic in these years, see Madeleine Reberi-
oux, La Republique radicale? 1898-1914 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1975). Also see Gordon
Wright, France in Modern Times, pp. 264-265.
24. Eugene Mittler, Des Rapports entre le Socialisme, le Syndicalisme, et la Franc-
Mafonnerie (Paris: Imprimerie Induslrielle, 1911), pp. 13-24.
25. See Madeleine Reberioux's "Presentation" to the issue on "Critique litteraire et

socialisme," Le Mouvement social Vol. 59 (April-June 1967): 3-28. See also Lebovics, True
France, p. 139.
26. J. E. Flower, Writers and Politics in Modem France 1909—1961 (London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1977), p. 9.
27. Le Courrier musical was among the musical journals for which he wrote. See
Goubault, La Critique musicale, pp. 56-58.
28. Ibid.
29. L'Effort (June 1, 1910), p. 2. See Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times, p. 265.
30. Ibid., p. 4.
31. L'Effort (June 15, 1910), pp. 3-4. And see Wright, France in Modern Times,
p. 293.
32. Ibid. L'Effort welcomed the contribution of syndicalists such as Gustave Herve,
who, like Sorel, was gradually embracing a "national" conception of socialism. See Herve's
"Reflections sur 1'art," in the issue of Sept. 1912.
33. "Les Necessites actuelles de 1'art," LEffort (Jan. 11, 1910), p. 50.
34. LEffort (Nov. 10, 1910), p. 38. Indeed, the issue of Sept. 12, 1912, includes an ex-
cerpt from Rolland's novel Jean Christophe.
35. "De 1'Utilite en art: Pour en finir avec 1'art pour l'art," 'Effort (March 1912).
36. L'Humanite (Jan. 16, 1913). Louis Laloy undoubtedly had a role in these concerts,
since he was assisting Rouche at the theater at the time and orchestrated the Faure piece.
37. See Lebovics, True France.
38. L'Humanite (Jan. 12, 1913).
39. See Jane E Fulcher, The Nation's Image: French Grand Opera as Politics and Politi-
cized Art (New York: Camnbridge University Press, 1987), pp. 141-144.
40. Jean Marguerite, Les Fetes du peuple: I'Oeuvre, les moyens, le but (Paris: Les Fetes
du Peuple, 1921). One could enroll in the organization at the Bourse de Travail.
41. Ibid., pp. 32-33. The Fetes du Peuple in Lyon was led by another Conservatoire
student, Cesar Geoffroy. Ibid., p. 53. On Albert Doyen, see Christophe Prochasson and
Anne Rasmussen, Au nom de la Patrie: Les inlellectuels et la premiere guerre mondiale
(1910-1919) (Paris: Editions de la Decouverte, 1996), pp. 51-52, 149, 234, and 278. Pro-
chasson places Doyen within the "milieu de Creteil" before the war, together with social-
ists, "vitalistes," and revolutionary syndicalists.
42. Ibid., p. 47.
43. Gustave Charpentier, Rapport. Ville de Paris. Concours musical de 1910-12, p. 3.
He notes that Bruneau was the "rapporteur" for the competition in 1900.
44. Ibid.
45. Marguerite, Les Fetes du peuple, pp. 46-48. On the original Republican model of
the "fete," see Mona Ozouf, Festivals of the French Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1988). On the more conservative, nationalistic model of the outdoor
"fete," particularly the ideas proposed in the 1880s by Deroulede, see Elinor Olin, "Festi-
vals de plein-air: Cultural Nationalism in fin-de-diecle France," paper delivered at the an-
nual meeting of the American Musicological Society, Minneapolis, 1994.
46. See my article "Cultural Politics and Musical Aesthetics in France on the Eve of
the Second World War," in Journal of Musicology Vol. 8 no. 4 (Fall 1995): 425-453.
47. Marguerite, p. 4.
48. Ibid., p. 8, and Flower, Writers and Politics, p. 7.
49. Pierre Andrieu, "Fascism 1913," Combat 1936: 25. As Andrieu points out, on
April 4, 1910, Action Francaise published another article by Sorel, "Le reveil de la charite
de Jeanne d'Arc de Peguy." It hence referred to Sorel as "le plus penetrant des sociologues
francais." And see Jack Roth, The Cult of Violence: Sorel and the Sorelians (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1980), p. 90.
50. Zeev Sternhell, Ni Droite ni Gauche. L'Ideologie fasciste en France (Paris: Editions
du Seuil, 1983), p. 7.
51. Roth, The Cult of Violence, p. 117.
52. Andrieu, "Fascism 1913," p. 25. As Andrieu points out, this led to the subse-
quent formation of the "cercle d'eludes" and the eventual development of the Cahiers du
Cercle Proudhon by Henri Lagrange, Georges Valois, and Gilbert Maire, among others. Also
see Eugen Weber, Action Francaise, p. 74. Sorel left I'lndependance in 1913, and the journal
disappeared soon after. See Olivier Corpet, "La revue," in Jean-Francois Sirinelli, ed., His-
toire des droites en France Vol. 2, pp. 167-168.
53. See James Joll, The Anarchists (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1980).
54. Roth, pp. 108-109.
55. Ibid.
56. Review of Sorel's La Valeur social de I'art in the Cahiers du Cercle Proudhon 1912.
57. The lectures had been delivered at Saint-Jean de Lez on October 13, 1910, and
published in the Tablettes de la Schola in the issue of Oct.-Nov. 1910.
58. L'lndependance (March 15, 1911), p. 12.
59. The issue of the ethical dimension of lyric expression, or its ability pragmatically
to "affect" its audience was suggested to me by Steven Winspur's paper, "The Pragmatic
Force of Lyric," delivered at the Conference on "Mallarme": Music, Art, and Letters," Indi-
ana University, 1994.
60. L'Independance (March 15, 1911), pp. 37-41.
61. Romain Rolland in L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales 1900-1910 (no editor given)
(Paris: Felix Alcan, 1911). While Hellouin's book is discussed in Johann Trillig's Unter-
suchung zur Rezeption Claude Debussys in der zeitgenossischen Musikkritik (Tutzing: Hans
Schneider, 1983), pp. 100-102, it is completely apart from its intellectual context. In addi-
tion, Calvocoressi gave lectures on music criticism at the Ecole, which were published in
the Courrier musical on Nov. 1, 1910.
62. Frederic Hellouin, Essai de critique de la critique musicale (Paris: A. Joanin et Cie.,
1906), pp. 144-149.
63. Ibid., pp. 159-160, 214.
64. Goubault, La Critique musicale dans la presse francaise, p. 109.
65. Ibid., p. 39.
66. See Madeleine Reberioux, "1913: LArt et la reflection sur I'art," Annales E.S.C.
Vol. 29/4 (July-Aug. 1974): 913-924. (Also see note 69.)
67. Goubault, La Critique musicale dans la presse francaise, pp. 106-109.
68. Ibid., pp. 79-80.
69. On the Mercure de France (as well as the art criticism in other journals, including
the Gazette des Beaux-Arts), see Liliane Brion-Guerry, ed., L'Annee 1913. Les Formes esthe-
tiques de I'ouvre d'art a la veille de la premiere guerre mondiale (Paris: Klincksieck, 1971),
pp. 2076-2080, 1094.
70. As we shall see, in the context of Faure's education, the Ecole Niedermeyer, al-
though founded in the Second Empire with state funds, was the immediate predecessor of,
and in some ways the model for, the later Schola Cantorum. Begun by the Swiss Louis Nie-
dermeyer, it was called an "Ecole de Musique Religieuse et Classique," like the Schola,
propagating both the religious and "classic" German repertory.
71. "La Musique et 1'Etat," Revue musicale (1910): 536-537.
72. Lionel de la Laurencie, Le Gout musical en France (Geneve: Slatkine Reprints,
1970). In 1907 Andre Pirro, who had also been associated with the Schola, published his
L'EsthetiquedeJean-SebastienBach (Paris: Fishbacher).
73. La Laurencie, Le Gout musical, pp. 303-306.
74. Ibid., p. 353.
75. Ibid., pp. 353-354.
76. Ibid., pp. 354-355.
77. Antoine Compagnon, La Troisieme Republique des lettres. De Flaubert a Proust
(Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1983), pp. 119, 142. Henri Massis was to become an influential
proponent of Maurras, but in the prewar period he was also partially linked to Barresian
ideology. See Jean-Francois Sirinelli, ed., Histoire des droites en France Vol. II, p. 4.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid., pp. 136-137, and Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 6.
80. Agathon [Henri Massis and Gabriel de Tarde], L'Esprit de la nouvelle Sorbonne.
La Crise de la culture classique. La Crise du francais (Paris: Mercure de France, 1911),
pp. 8-11.
81. Ibid., pp. 17-18.
82. Ibid., pp. 21-24.
83. As cited in Zakone, "Les ennemis de la Schola," Revue musicale (1905): 83.
84. Jean-Pierre Rioux, Nationalisme et conservatisme. La Ligue de la Patrie Francaise
(Paris: Beauchesne, 1977), pp. 109-110, and Jean Desache, De L'Intervention administrative
dans I'art musical (Paris: Librairie de la Societe de Recueil Sirey, 1910), p. 16.
85. Gail Hilson Woldu, Gabriel Faure as Director of the Conservatoire National de
Musique et de Declamation, 1905-1920, Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1983, p. 4.
86. Ibid., p. 1. See also Gail Hilson Woldu, "Gabriel Faure, directeur du Conserva-
toire: Les reformes de 1905," Revue de musicologie Vol. 70/1 (1984): 119-128.
87. Paul Leon, Du Palais-Royal au Palais-Bourbon (Paris: Albin-Michel, 1947),
pp. 83-97.
88. Woldu, Gabriel Faure as Director of the Conservatoire, pp. 58-59.
89. Ibid., pp. 69-70, and Andre Coeuroy, La Musique /rancaise moderne (Paris: Li-
brairie Delagrave, 1924), p. 24; see also Charles Koechlin, Gabriel Faure (Paris: Felix
Alcan, 1927), p. 5.
90. Woldu (in her dissertation) discusses Niedermeyer's school as itself a successor
to Charon's pioneering but abortive Ecole de Musique Classique et Religieuse, after the
revolutionary period (pp. 18—20).
91. Ibid., pp. 17-18. Woldu also notes the impact of Faure's training on his style
(pp. 21-22), especially on his modal tendencies.
92. Jean-Michel Nectoux, "Gabriel Faure," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, Vol. 6 (London: Macmillan, 1980), pp. 418-419. See also Fi-
amme Nicolodi, "Alfredo Casella et 1'avant-garde parisienne au debut du XXe siecle,"
Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 78 (Nov. 1985), p. 87. For further informa-
tion on Faure and Parisian salons, see Nectoux's introduction to Gabriel Faure, Correspon-
dence, ed. Jean-Michel Nectoux (Paris: Flammarion, 1980), pp. 194-200.
93. Michel Faure, Musique et societe du Second Empire aux annees vingt (Paris: Flam-
marion, 1985), p. 69. See also Coeuroy, La Musique francaise moderne, p. 24.
94. Gabriel Faure, Correspondence, p. 253; and see Revue d'histoire et de critique musi-
cale (July 1905). Faure had been appointed director in June.
95. Woldu, Gabriel Faure, p. 11.
96. Paul Leon, Du Palais Royal . . . , pp. 97-99.
97. Woldu, pp. 59, 84.
2SO NOTES TO PAGES 146-1S3
98. Ibid., p. 59.

99. See Brion-Guerry, ed., Annee 1913, pp. 15-17, and Brian Hart, The Symphony
in Theory and Practice in France 1900-1914, Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, 1994,
pp. 95-98.
100. Hart, The Symphony, pp. 82-89.
101. See ibid., pp. 68-78, 113-125.
102. See ibid., 135-140.
103. Jules Combarieu, "L'Enseignement musicale du Conservatoire," Revue musicale
(1910): 498.
104. According to Charles Koechlin, as of 1913 the Conservatoire still taught coun-
terpoint according to Cherubim's treatise. See Paul-Marie Masson, ed., Rapport sur la
musique francaise contemporaine (Rome: Armam et Stein, 1913), p. 141.
105. Combarieu, "L'Enseignement musicale . . . ,": 498-501.
106. Rollo Meyers, Modern French Music (Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1971), p. 140; and
Christophe Charle, "Le College de France" in Les Lieux du memoire 11. La Nation, ed. Pierre
Nora (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), pp. 389-390, 398.
107. Goubault, La Critique musicale, p. 82. In his youth, Vuillermoz was in a coterie
of young musicians known as "Les Apaches," which also included Maurice Ravel.
108. Emile Vuillermoz, "Le Dictionnaire," Le Mecure musical (March 1, 1906): 549.
109. Ibid., pp. 551, 553.
110. Emile Vuillermoz, "La Schola et le Conservatoire," Mercure de France (1909): 235.
111. Ibid., p. 236.
112. Ibid., p. 241.
113. Ibid., pp. 237-238. He refers specifically to the Anthologie des primitifs religieux,
published by the Schola, as a collection of motets "d'une platitude inegalable et d'une
morne laideur."
114. Ibid., pp. 239-240.
115. Ibid., pp. 240-241.
116. Louis Combes, "La Schola et le Conservatoire," Le Monde musical (Oct. 15,
1909): 276. Two other articles in the same issue argue for a fusion of the "Schools" of har-
mony and counterpoint in the future, one by Alfred Casella anbd the other by L. Lambinet.
117. Louis Laloy, "Les Parties musicaux en France," La Grande Revue (Dec. 25,
1907): 792.
118. Ibid., pp. 794-795. Satie's rhetoric concerning the Schola was strikingly similar
in this period, as we shall see in chapter 4.
119. Revue of the second volume of d'lndy's Cours de composition musicale in the
Revue musicale 1910, pp. 184-185.
120. Later, from 1914 to 1929, d'Indy would also teach a class on conducting at the
Conservatoire.
121. In the Rapport sur la musique francaise, p. 146.
122. Brenet in the Rapport, pp. 18-19.
123. Louis Laloy, Rameau (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1919), p. 110.
124. AJ 16 4751—Proces Verbaux, Faculte des Lettres, 22/7/1910. I am very grateful
to Christophe Charle for generously supplying me with this information.
125. These lectures were published in the Revue musicale in 1906 and 1907.
126. Jules Combarieu, "L'Organisation des etudes d'histoire musicale en France dans
la second moitie du XIXe siecle," Revue musicale (1906): 502.
127. Jules Combarieu, "Comment la musique s'est-elle formee?" Revue, musicale
(1910): 488^496.
128. Pierre Lasserre, Les Chapelles litteraire. Claudel, Jammes, Peguy (Paris: Gamier
Freres, 1920), pp. IX-XI.
129. See especially, La Foire sur la place, and Leon Vallas, Claude Debussy et son temps
(Paris: Felix Alcan, 1932), p. 152.
130. Ibid., pp. 148-150, and Camille Mauclair, "La Debussyste," Le Courrier musical
(Sept. 15, 1905): 501-502.
131. Ibid., p. 503.
132. Michel de Cossart, The Food of Love: Princesse Edmond de Polignac and Her Salon
(1865-1943) (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978), p. 59.
133. Jean Lorrain, Pelleastres: Le poison de la litterature (Paris: A. Merceant, 1909),
pp. 25-26.
134. Later, Laloy did not deny having been a so-called Debussyste, and he spoke of
having banded together with Emile Vuillermoz and Jean Marnold, the latter having "con-
verted" from "Scholisme" to "Debussysme." See Louis Laloy, La Musique retrouvee
1902-1927 (Paris: Plon, 1928), p. 129, and Vallas, Debussy, p. 182.
135. Louis Laloy, "Les Parties musicaux en France," pp. 795-796.
136. See Brian Hart, The Symphony in Theory and Practice, pp. 167-180.
137. Ibid., pp. 180-184. Also see G. Jean-Aubry, La Musique /rancaise aujourd'hui
(Paris: Librairie Academique Perrin et Cie., 1916), which contains a preface by Claude De-
bussy, describing his conception of "the French tradition."
138. Hart, pp. 176-187. Laloy reflects the Debussyste perspective on the symphony
in "Les Parties musicaux."
139. See Charles Koechlin, "Les Tendences de la musique moderne francaise," in En-
cyclopedie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire eds. Albert Lavignac and Lionel de
la Laurencie, Pt. 2 Vol. I, "Tendances de la musique; Technique generale" (Paris: Dela-
grave, 1925), p. 122.
140. As cited (and translated) in Hart, p. 186. For the full discussion, see Emile
Vuillermoz, "La Symphonie," in Cinquante ans de musique francaise (1874-1925) 2 Vols.
ed. Ladislas Rohozinski (Paris: Les Editions Musicales de la Librairie de France, 1925), I:
323-388.
141. On the "poles" in French music, see Jean Chantavoine in the Courrier musical
(May 15, 1908): 313-314, and Goubault, La Critique musicale, p. 101.
142. Alfred Casella, "Musiques horizontales et musiques verticales," Le Monde musi-
cal (Oct. 30, 1909).
143. C. Caillard and Jose de Berys, Le Cas Debussy (Paris: Bibliotheque du Temps
Present, 1910), pp. 1-2.
144. Raphael Cor, "M. Claude Debussy et le snobisme contemporain," in Le Cas De-
bussy, pp. 24-25.
145. The article had appeared on February 19 and 21, 1908, and the survey in
1909.
146. Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1979), p. 39.
147. Ibid., p. 9.
148. Caillard and de Berys, pp. 55, 67.
149. Ibid., pp. 88-90, 96.
150. Ibid., p. 104.
151. Charles Koechlin, "Souvenirs sur Debussy, la Schola, et la S.M.I.," Revue musi-
cale (Nov. 1934): 244-247; and Teresa Davidian, "Debussy, d'Indy, and the Societe Na-
tionale," Journal of Musicological Research Vol. 1.1/4 (Sept. 1991): 293; also see Michel
2S2 NOTES TO PAGES 162-168
Duchesneau, "Maurice Ravel et la Societe Musicale Independente: 'Projet mirifique de con-

certs scandaleux,'" Revue de Musicologie Vol. 80/2 (1994): 251-281.
152. See Rapport sur la musique francaise, pp. 63, 147. Hure went on to found the
short-lived prewar Ecole Normale de Musique. Hure was a composer and organist at St.
Severin.
153. Gabriel Faure, "Preface" to Jean Hure's Dogmes musicaux (1904-1907) (Paris:
Editions du Monde Musical, 1909), p. 5.
154. Ibid., pp. 5-6.
155. Hure, Dogmes musicaux, pp. 1, 138, 111.
156. Ibid., pp. 53-54.
157. Ibid., p. 58.
158. Ibid., and p. 381. On the views of the young Debussy, see Maurice Emmanuel,
Pelleas et Melisande de Debussy (Paris: Editions Mallote, 1950).
159. Hure, p. 339. Undoubtedly with Pelleas in mind, Hure argues (p. 288) that a
composer should be free to present "une fresque theatrale denuee d'action, de mouvement
meme."
160. Ibid., p. 31.
161. Ibid., pp. 61,65,66.
162. Ibid., pp. 11-18. Concerning this issue, Hure cites his own article (pp. 61-62),
his "Lettre sur 1'education musicale," which appeared in Angers artiste in February 1900.
163. Ibid.
164. Ibid., p. 25.
165. Ibid., pp. 65-67.
166. Ibid., pp. 141, 165, 173, 177.
167. Ibid., pp. 67, 46, 41.
168. See Christian Goubault, "Les Chapelles musicales francaises ou la querelle des
'gros-boutiens' et des 'petits-boutiens,'" Revue internationale de musique jrancaise Vol. 5
(June 1981): 99-100, and Rapport sur la musique francaise, p. 145.
169. Deodat de Severac, "La Centralization et les petites chapelles musicales," Le
Courrier musical (Jan. 1908): 41.
170. Ibid., pp. 37-38.
171. Ibid., p. 58.
172. Ibid., pp. 38-39. Another such analytic study of the functioning of the French
musical world by a partisan, if not student, of the Schola is M. Daubresse'e Le Musicien
dans la societe moderne (Paris: Le Monde Musical, 1914). Originally a series of lectures
given for LAction Sociale de la Femme, in 1911, its language and conceptions are
Scholiste, and it includes an encomium to the Schola. Specifically, it praises the equality of
the treatment of the sexes at the Schola, where men and women of equal rank in the or-
chestra receive identical remuneration (pp. 84-85).
173. Michel de Cossart, The Food of Love, p. 68. Also see Christophe Charle, "No-
blesses et elites en France au debut du XXe siecle," Noblesses europeens au XIXe siecle
(Paris: Collection de I'Ecole Francaise de Rome 107), p. 422. Charle notes the tendency of
some aristocrats to return to the "State" as the Republic stabilized. The Princesse de Poli-
gnac, although "aristocratic," was no great supporter of the Schola and became an early
supporter of the S.M.I.
174. Myriam Chimenes, "La Princesse Edmond de Polignac et la creation musicale,"
in La Musique et le pouvoir, eds. Hugues Dugourt and Joel-Marie Fauquet (Paris: Aux Ama-
teurs de Livres, 1987), p. 139.
175. Severac, "La Centralizaion el les petites chapelles," p. 37.
CHAPTER 4
1. Gabriel Pierne, Paul Vidal, Henry Prunieres, Maurice Emmanuael, and Henri de
Regnier, La Jeunesse de Claude Debussy (Paris: Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Francaise,
1926), p. 14.
2. See Claude Debussy, Debussy on Music, eds. Francois Lesure and Richard L. Smith
(New York: Knopf, 1977), p. 257, and Michel Faure, Musique et societe, due Second Empire
aux annees vingt (Paris: Flammarion), pp. 36, 75.
3. Faure, Musique et societe, p. 36.
4. Julia d'Almendra, "Debussy et le mouvement modal dans la musique du XXe sie-
cle," in Debussy et revolution de la musique au XXe siecle, ed. Edith Weber (Paris: Editions
du Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 1965), pp. 110-111, and La Jeunesse de
Claude Debussy, p. 11.
5. La Jeunesse de Claude Debussy, p. 10, and Faure, Musique et societe, p. 20.
6. La jeunesse de Claude Debussy, p. 11, and Rene Dumesnil, Portraits de musiciens
francaise (Paris: Plon, 1938), p. 36.
7. La Jeunesse de Claude Debussy, pp. 32-33.
8. Leon Vallas, Claude Debussy et son temps (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1932), p. 89, and La
Jeunesse de Claude Debussy, p. 47. See also Teresa Davidian, "Debussy, d'Indy, and the So-
ciete Nationale," Journal of Musicological Research Vol. 11/4 (Sept. 1991), p. 285, on the
Fantaisie for piano.
9. Davidian, "Debussy, d'Indy, and the Societe Nationale," pp. 292-293.
10. Dumesnil, Portraits, pp. 34-35.
11. La Jeunesse de Claude Debussy, p. 50; Vallas, Debussy, pp. 74-76; and Jacques Du-
rand, Quelques souvenirs d'un editeur de musique Vol. 2 (Paris: Durand et Fils, 1925),
p. 125.
12. It was in 1892 that Debussy orchestrated Satie's Gymnopedies. See Edward Lock-
speiser, Debussy (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1980), p. 64.
13. Faure, Musique el societe, p. 77.
14. His friends included Arthur Fontaine, who held a high position in the "Direction
du Travail" under Millerand and was among the group for whom Debussy read Pelleas at
the piano. See Faure, p. 33-
15. Robert Orledge, on the other hand, argues for Debussy's "intense left-wing ideals
in the years between the composition and performance of Pelleas." See Robert Orledge,
Debussy and the Theater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 238. Accord-
ing to Lockspeiser, however, at the time of the Affair, Debussy, along with most of his
friends, "instinctively sided with the nationalists." Lockspeiser, Debussy, p. 73.
16. Lockspeiser, p. 73; Vallas, Debussy, p. 152; and Jacques Durand, Quelques sou-
venirs, p. 125.
17. Myriam Chimenes, "La Princesse Edmond de Polignac et la creation musicale,"
in La Musique et le pouvoir, eds. Hugues Dufourt and Joel-Marie Fauquet (Paris: Aux Ama-
teurs de Livres, 1987), p. 139. It was in Chausson's Salon that he played fragments from
Pelleas.
18. Lockspeiser, p. 77.
19. On Debussy's style in the Prelude a I'apres-midi d'une faune, see William Austin,
Music in the Twentieth century (New York: Norton, 1966), pp. 14-18.
20. On the collaboration with Peter on the play, see Debussy on Music, p. 7, and Orledge,
Debussy and the Theater, p. 241. As Orledge points out (p. 242), Rene Peter published ex-
cerpts from the first version of the play, which dated from c. 1897, and was approached by a
2S4 NOTES TO PAGES 17S-1.77
theater director concerning its production. But Debussy did not want to make his debut in
the theater with a nonmusical work before Pelleas, so they postponed the project. A later ver-
sion, the so-called Meyer manuscript, which probably dates from around 1903, contains re-
visions that suggest it was written after Debussy decided to leave his wife, Lilly Texier, for
Emma Bardac. No more of the play was to be published. I tried repeatedly throughout the re-
search and writing of this book (between 1987 and 1995) to see the manuscript of Freres en
art that is listed in the holdings of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Departement de la Musique. I
received the repeated firm reply each time that it was at the bindery and upon further in-
quiries was told that no microfilm had been made of it. Let us hope that this valuable manu-
script will eventually return to the library's collection and be made accessible to scholars.
As opposed to the theory that the play contains ambiguous references to Anarchism,
we find the statement in Debussy on Music (p. 9) that Debussy's writings here were "the
first major outpouring of anarchist ideas in music." But we also find the significant point
(pp. 7-8) that, while associated with the Revue Blanche, Debussy came into contact with
Felix Feneon, who was known for his Anarchist beliefs and who was tried and acquitted as
an Anarchist.
21. Some have seen a reference to the pre-Raphaelite "brotherhood," which received
much attention in France in the 1890s, while others perceive reference to Anarchist
unions. See Debussy on Music, p. 8, and Orledge, pp. 241-243.
22. Orledge, p. 242. Also see Debussy on Music, p. 9.
23. Orledge, p. 243.
24. Ibid., p. 242.
25. On the response of Anarchists to academic and other cultural conventions, see
Richard Sonn, Anarchism and Cultural Politics in Fin-de-Siecle France (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 1989), pp. 3-4. On the relation of painters to Anarchist politics, see
Theda Shapiro, Painters and Politics. The European Avant-Garde and Society 1900—1925
(New York: Elsevier, 1976). Despite his initial attraction to Anarchist theories of culture,
Debussy's ultimate realization of the contradictions inherent in Anarchism for artists may
explain the conundrum of his leaving the Revue Blanche, for which he gave the simple ex-
cuse of "nervous strain." See Debussy on Music, p. 11.
26. Lockspeiser, Debussy, pp. 53-57.
27. On Debussy's initial attraction to the play, as well as his compositional process,
see David Grayson, The Genesis of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande (Ann Arbor, Mich.: U.M.I.
Research Press, 1986).
28. See Orledge's discussion of the opera in Debussy and the Theater, as well as Mau-
rice Emmanuel, Pelleas et Melisande de Debussy (Paris: Editions Malotte, 1950).
29. Joseph Kerman discusses this aspect of the opera extensively in Opera as Drama
(New York: Vintage, 1959).
30. On Debussy's treatment of the motives in Pelleas, see Emmanuel, as well as Louis
Laloy, Debussy (Paris: Dorbon, 1909), p. 24 ff.; Robin Holloway, Debussy and Wagner (Lon-
don: E. Eulenburg, 1979); and Donald J. Grout, A Short History of Opera (New York: Co-
lumbia University Press, 1965), p. 449.
31. This is as opposed to the viewpoint presented by Jan Pasler in "Pelleas and
Power: Forces behind the Reception of Debussy's Opera," 19-Century Music Vol. 10/3
(Spring 1987): 243-264.
32. As the reader will recall, Carre had taken a clear stance during the Affair by sign-
ing the petition against Dreyfus circulated by the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise.
33. See Pasler, "Pelleas and Power," as well as the discussion of responses to the
opera in Vallas, Claude Debussy, Lockspeiser, Debussy, and Rene Peter, Claude Debussy
(Paris: Gallimard, 1944).
NOTES TO PAGES 177-182 2SS
34. Again, on Anarchist theories of culture, see Richard Sonn, Anarchism and Cultural
Politics.
35. Raymond Bouyer, "Le Debussysme et 1'evolution musical (1901-1902)," La
Revue musicale (Oct. 1902): 422.
36. Bouyer published his article in La Nouvelle revue on September 15, 1902:
278-280. And see Christian Goubault, "Les Chapelles musicales francaises ou la querelle
des 'gros-boutiens' et des 'petits-boutiens,"' Revue Internationale, de musique francaise Vol. 5
(June 1981): 100.
37. See Emmanuel, pp. 6, 61 ff., 216.
38. La Revue Musicale (1902): 422-423, 427-429.
39. See Johann Trillig, Untersuchung zur Rezeption Claude Debussys in der zeitgenos-
sischen Musikkritik (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1983), p. 324.
40. Vallas, p. 130.
41. Jacques Durand, Quelques souvenirs, p. 121.
42. Vallas, p. 137.
43. Debussy on Music, pp. 84-85.
44. See Christian Goubault, "Colette et Debussy: Compagnons de chaine en Gil Blas
en 1903," Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 17 (June 1985): 77. Debussy was
already apparently friendly with Pierre de Breville by 1900, as indicated by a series of let-
ters to Breville that address him as "cher ami." Lettres Autographes, Bibliotheque Nationale,
Departement de la Musique.
45. In a letter of September 5, 1908, to Francisco de Lacerda, Debussy makes ironic
reference to the "parfum de sacristie" and the "discipline" at the Schola. Claude Debussy,
Letters, eds. Francois Lesure and Roger Nichols (Boston: Faber, 1987), pp. 77, 83.
46. Debussy on Music, p. 89.
47. Davidian, "Debussy, d'lndy and the Societe Nationale," p. 289.
48. Charles Koechlin, "Souvenirs sur Debussy, la Schola, et la S.M.I.," La Revue musi-
cale (Nov. 1934): 241-242.
49. Debussy on Music, pp. 124-125.
50. See Debussy on Music, p. 129, which reprints the article that appeared in Gil Blas
on March 2, 1903.
52. Ibid., p. 131. Here Debussy praises Claudel's translation of Agamemnon. If some
of these ideas resemble those of Romain Rolland, it may very well be because of Louis
Laloy. Now close to Debussy and Rolland, he was particularly influential in the shaping of
Debussy's ideas and readings from this point on. Francois Lesure and Richard L. Smith
also perceive the impact of Rolland's ideas concerning popular spectacle on Debussy and
point out, as well, that in a later edition of Le Theatre de peuple, Rolland included De-
bussy's articles on the subject in Gil Blas in the bibliography. See Debussy on Music,
pp. 71-72.
53. Ibid., p. 132.
54. On early Barres, see Jerrold Siegel, Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics, and the
Boundaries of Bourgeois Life 1830-1930 (New York: Viking, 1986), p. 283. In his early pe-
riod, Barres collaborated with Mauclair on Le Cocard, which presented "the idea of conti-
nuity" as "the principle obstacle to a sane society" and posited instead the "autonomy of
each generation." See Zeev Sternhell, Maurice Barres et le nationalisme francais (Paris: Ar-
mand Colin, 1972), pp. 43-44, 183. On Barres's idea of the "self," see David Carroll,
French Literary Fascism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 24.
55. In Gil Bias, on June 28, 1903, Debussy refers to the destructive force of "tradi-
tions cosmopolites."
56. Vallas, p. 159. As Jacques Durand recalls, in Quelques souvenirs (p. 126), on the
hundredth performance of Pelleas, Albert Carre, the director of the Opera Comique, orga-
nized a banquet. When the moment for official toasts arrived, a representative of the gov-
ernment was obliged to speak. He celebrated not only the work and its author but the
eclectic artistic tastes of the Ministry, since it had just given the "rosette" to d'Indy and
Charles Leloq.
57. Claude Debussy, Letters, pp. 141-142 (letter from Debussy to Laloy of August 8,
1904). See also the letter to Laloy of April 3, 1904 (p. 131).
58. Brian Hart, "La Mer and the Meaning of the Symphony in Early 20th-century
France," paper delivered at the national meeting of the American Musicological Society,
Pittsburgh, 1992, pp. 1-3, 15-16.
59. Ibid.
60. For a more complete analysis, see David Cox, Debussy. Orchestral Music (Lon-
don: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1974), as well as Brian Hart, The Symphony in
Theory and Practice in France 1900-1914, Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, 1994,
pp. 366-378.
61. Emmanuel, p. 63.
62. Hart, The Symphony in Theory and Practice, pp. 367-368, and Louis Laloy, "La
Nouvelle maniere de Claude Debussy," La Grande revue (Feb. 10, 1908): 533.
63. Laloy, "La Nouvelle maniere," pp. 530-531.
64. Ibid., p. 533.
65. Christian Goubault, "Les Chapelles musicales francaises," p. 106. As he notes,
Debussy dedicated the second piece of the second collection of the Images for piano, "Et la
lune descend sur le temple qui fut," to Laloy, who was an expert in sinology.
67. Debussy, Letters, p. 148.
68. Ibid., p. 146 (see letter of Feb. 24, 1.906).
69. Vallas, p. 220, and Orledge, Debussy and the Theater, p. 252. This was also the pe-
riod of the Children's Corner Suite (1908). Many historians have pointed out the playful or
ironic references to Wagner in "The Golliwog's Cakewalk."
70. Letter to Louis Laloy, of September 10, 1906, in Debussy, Letters, p. 154.
71. Debussy on Music, p. 255. It is significant to note that Debussy had already been
drawn to eighteenth-century forms in his Suite Bergamasque of 1890 and in Pour le piano of
1901. He was, in addition, attracted to the style of the entire school of French "calvecin-
istes," who had similarly reconciled the demands of programmatic suggestion and musical
structure. Their clarity and delicacy, their attention to and structural use of sonority, as
well as their finesse in both rhythm and ornamentation similarly inspired his work. The
"Hommage a Rameau" is perhaps the most personal statement of his identification with
this tradition, evincing his emotional commitment to it, and particularly to Rameau's har-
monic sensibility, through the plangent chromatic harmony it incorporates.
72. Vallas, p. 183.
73. The best discussion of Debussy's so-called ancient style may be found in Arthur
Wenk's Claude Debussy and the Poets (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976),
p. 102 ff.
74. "Gigues" was composed in 1900-2, "Iberia," 1905-8, and "Rondes de prin-
temps," 1905-10. A review of the work by Lalo, which made Debussy extremely unhappy,
appeared in Le Temps on August 18, 1909. See his letter to Caplet of August 25, 1909, in
Debussy, Letters, p. 186.
75. Letter to Jacques Durand of March 1908, Debussy, Letters, p. 169.
76. Cox, Debussy. Orchestral Music, p. 38.
77. Ibid., p. 43.

78. Vallas, p. 202.
79. Ibid., p. 198. Also see Trillig, Untersuchung zur Rezeption Claude Debussys, p. 324.
80. Vallas, p. 199.
81. Ibid., p. 190.
82. The interview appeared in Harper's Weekly. See Debussy on Music, p. 238.
83. See Hart, The Symphony in Theory and Practice, pp. 337-338.
84. Debussy, Letters, p. 185. (Letter to Andre Caplet of August 25, 1909.)
85. Vallas, p. 213.
86. Ibid., p. 223.
88. Revue critique des idees et des livres Vol. 13 (1911): 624.
89. Vallas, p. 232.
90. Ibid., p. 223.
91. Ibid., pp. 229-230.
92. Debussy on Music, p. 222 (from the interview with Harper's Weekly).
93. Christian Goubault, La Critique musicale dans la presse francaise de 1870 a 1914
(Geneve-Paris: Slatkine, 1984), p. 161.
94. Letter to Rene Lenormand of July 25, 1912, in Debussy, Letters, p. 237, and Val-
las, p. 203.
95. On the concept of the "author" and his "oeuvre," see Michel Foucault, L'Ordre du
discours (Paris: Gallimard, 1971). I am grateful to Roger Chartier for this insight.
96. See Hart, The Symphony in Theory and Practice, p. 178 ff., as well as Severac's
characterization of the "Debussyste" camp in "La Centralization et les petites chapelles
musicales," Le Courrier musical (Jan. 1908): 1-6, 37-43, 142-144.
97. Debussy letter to Stravinsky of November 5, 1912 in Debussy, Letters, p. 233.
98. In a letter to Robert Godet of January 4, 1913, Debussy expressed the opinion
that Stravinsky was using him to "climb the ladder" from the top of which to "explode his
grenades." Ibid., p. 269. In addition, Debussy was unhappy about the influence of the eu-
rhythmies of Jacques Dalcroze on Nijinsky, considering Dalcroze as "an enemy of music."
See Vallas, p. 234, the letter to Robert Godet of June 9, 1913 in Debussy, Letters,
pp. 238-239, and Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, Misia: the Life of Misia Sert (New York:
Knopf, 1980), p. 143.
99. See Vallas, p. 237, as well as Cox, Debussy. Orchestral Music.
100. Vallas, pp. 241-242.
101. Debussy's letters to Paul Dukas of May 8, 1907, and to Jacques Durand of March
24, 1908, in Debussy, Letters, pp. 155, 170.
102. Debussy letter to Vittorio Gui of February 25, 1912, ibid., p. 223.
103. Revue musicale S.l.M. (1913): 50.
104. Debussy's attitudes within the musical and political culture of the First World
War will be treated in my next study, "Music and Political Culture in France from the First
to the Second World War."
105. My approach here is in contrast to the interpretation of Satie's musical semiol-
ogy in most other studies, perhaps the most recent of which is Alan M. Gillmor's Erik Satie
(Boston: Twayne, 1988), p. 158 ff.
106. Pierre-Daniel Templier, Erik Satie (Paris: Rieder, 1932), pp. 4-5, and Anne Rey,
Erik Satie (Bourges: Tardy Quercy Auvergne, 1974), p. 13.
107. Templier, Satie, pp. 5-6, and Rey, Satie, p. 11.
108. Templier, pp. 7, 10.
109. Ibid., pp. 9-10.
2S8 NOTES TO PAGES 196-201
110. Rey, p. 14, and William Austin, Music in the Twentieth Century, p. 162.
111. Rey, pp. 22-23, and see Jerrold Siegel, Bohemian Paris, p. 328.
112. Templier, pp. 10-13, 15.
113. Ibid., p. 15, and Rey, p. 36.
114. See Nancy Perloff, Art and the Everyday. Popular Entertainment and the Circle of
Erik Satie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 81-83. As she points out, waiters at the
Chat Noir, for example, wore the costumes of Academicians until the Institut forbade it in
1892.
115. Templier, p. 19.
116. In 1895, Willy accused Satie in the journal Chat Noir of being "affamee de
reclame." Satie finally found the opportunity to confront him in 1904, at the Concerts
Lamoureux, where he physically attacked the critic. Willy responded in kind, and Satie
was promptly expelled by municipal guards. See Francois Caradec, Feu Willy (Paris:
J. J. Pauvet, 1984), pp. 44-49.
117. Templier, p. 20, and Rey, p. 44.
118. Rey, pp. 45-48.
119. Templier, p. 22, and Ornella Volta, "Le Rideau se leve sur un os," Revue Interna-
tionale de musique francaise Vol. 23 (June 1987): 63, Jean Cocteau, Professional Secrets. An
Autobiography of Jean Cocteau, ed. Robert Phelps (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
1979), p. 81. Jean Wiener described Satie's dress in these years as that of "un professeur de
physique au lycee de Troyes." See Rey, p. 7.
121. Volta, "Le Rideau se leve," pp. 16, 23, 25. The work was one of those found by
Milhaud in Satie's room after his death. It was first performed in 1926, at the Theatre des
Champs-Elysees, as part of a festival organized as an homage to his memory, by the Count
Etienne de Beaumont. Satie's sense of competition with Debussy was to increase with the
completion of Pelleas, when he was moved to remark, "Ou je trouve autre chose, ou je suis
perdu."
122. Ibid., p. 24.
123. Ibid., pp. 21, 23. Allan Gillmor sees the work as coming out of the cabaret mi-
lieu. See Gillmor, Satie, p. 151.
124. See Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), pp. 80-81, 84-85.
125. Gillmor, Satie, p. 151. He also notes that figures such as Vincent Hyspa, Satie's
collaborator, made reference to composers like Offenbach and Massenet. Satie was not the
only "serious" composer to write for the Chat Noir: in 1889, Camille Saint-Saens pub-
lished his "Les Cloches de soir," written for the cabaret.
126. See, for example, G. Fregerolla's "La Marche a 1'etoile," of 1889.
127. Debussy tried to convince him that it was too late in life for such a radical
change—although he himself was undergoing one. See Paul Landormy La Musique
francaise de Franck a Debussy (Paris: Gallimard, 1948), p. 57.
128. Albert Roussel, Lettres et ecrits, ed. Nicole Labelle (Paris: Flammarion, 1987),
p. 208.
129. Erik Satie, Ecrits, ed. Ornella Volta (Paris: Champ Libre, 1981), p. 80.
130. Rey, p. 67.
131. Debussy letter to Francisco de Lacerda, September 5, 1908 in Debussy, Letters,
p. 174.
132. Rey, p. 78.
133. Ibid., p. 70.
134. Ornella Volta, Erik Satie (Paris: Seghers, 1979), p. 109.
NOTES TO PAGES 201-208 2S9
135. Jean Touchard, La Gauche en France depuis 1900 (Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1968), pp. 42-43.
136. R. D. Anderson, France 1870-1914. Politics and Society (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1977), p. 16, and Edward Tannenbaum, The Action Francaise: Die-hard Reac-
tionaries in Twentieth-Century France (New York: Wiley, 1962), p. 11.
137. Daniel Mayeur, Pour une histoire de la Gauche (Paris: Plon, 1969), p. 26.
138. Ibid.
140. Templier, pp. 30-31. This recalls the efforts of programs such as "L'Art Pour Tous."
141. Satie, Ecrits, p. 164. This passage appears to be a parody of the opening of
d'Indy's Cows de composition musicale.
142. Gillmor, p. 144.
143. Rey, pp. 70-71.
144. Gillmor, p. 59.
145. Ibid., p. 183.
146. Rey, p. 71.
147. Liliane Brion-Guerry, ed., L'Annee 1913. Les formes esthetiques de I'oeuvre d'art a
la veille de la premiere guerre modiale (Paris: Klincksieck, 1971), p. 1105. And see Olivier
Corpet, "La revue," in Jean-Francois Sirinelli, ed., Histoire des droites en France Vol. 2 Cul-
tures (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), p. 170.
148. Ibid., p. 1106.
149. Ibid., p. 1109. In issue #4 it published a composition of Florent Schmitt, and in
#9-10 one by Albert Roussel.
150. Ibid., pp. 1110-1111. And see John E. Toews, "Intellectual History after the Lin-
guistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience," American
Historical Review Vol. 92/4 (Oct. 1987): 150. Also see Olivier Corpet, "La revue," p. 171.
151. See Robert Orledge, Satie the Composer (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1990).
152. See Avner Ben-Amos, "La Pantheonization de Jean Jaures," Terrain Vol. 15 (Oct.
1990): 49-64.
153. The complete scenario is described in Adolphe Boschot, Chez les musiciens
(Paris: Plon, 1922), pp. 178-179.
154. Jalien: ou la vie du poete. Poeme lyrique en un prologue, quatre actes, et huit
tableaux. Poeme et musique de Gustave Charpentier. (Paris: Max Esching, Editeur, 1913).
The score is dedicated to "J. Paul-Boncoeur, en fermete et reconnaissante affection." And
see Manfred Kelkel, Naturalisme, verisme, et realisme dans I'opera de 1890 a 1930 (Paris: Li-
brairie PhilosophiqueJ. Vrin, 1984), pp. 203, 208, 240.
155. Letter from d'Indy to Guy Ropartz of August 7, 1907. Lettres Autographes, Bib-
liotheque Nationale, Departement de la Musique.
156. Letter from d'Indy to the Ligue de la Patrie Francaise, of November 29, 1912.
On the fate ol the league, see Jean-Pierre Rioux, Nationalisme et Conservatisme. La Ligue de
la Patrie Francaise (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977), p. 109.
157. Ironically, as cited by Bernard Champigneulle, Les Plus beaux ecrits des grands
musiciens (Paris: La Colombe, 1946), p. 393.
158. See Danielle Pistone, "Beethoven et Paris. Reperes historiques et evocations
contemporaines," Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 1.2 (Feb. 1987): 22. Also
see Leo Schrade, Beethoven in France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1942).
159. Vincent d'Indy, Beethoven (Paris: Henri Laurens, 1913), p. 137.
160. Gaston Carraud, La Vic, I'oeuvre, et la mort d'Alberic Magnard (Paris: Rouart,
Lerolle, et Cie., 1921), pp. 68 and 83.
260 NOTES TO PAGES 209-21.5
161. La Revue francaise politique et litteraire (Jan. 14, 1912), p. 445.

162. Letter from Ravel to Jean Marnold of February 7, 1906 in A Ravel Reader: Corre-
spondence, Articles, Interviews trans, and ed., Arbie Orenstein (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1990), p. 80.
163. The article appeared in February 1912. As cited in Marcel Marnat, Maurice Ravel
(Paris: Fayard, 1986), pp. 364-375.
164. Brian Hart, "La Mer and the Meaning of the Symphony in Early Twentieth-
Century France," and Hart, The Symphony in Theory and Practice, pp. 184-186.
165. Marnat, Ravel, pp. 351-352.
166. Debussy, Letters, p. 157.
167. Maurice Ravel, "A Propos des Images de Claude Debussy," Les Cahiers d'aujour-
d'hui (1913): 135-136.
168. Ibid., p. 137. It is perhaps significant that this issue of the journal also contains
a highly critical review of "Agathon's" Les Jeunes gens d'aujourd'hui. It is also significant
that Ravel had long felt animosity toward Gaston Carraud, the great supporter of
Scholisme.
169. Hart, "La Mer and the Meaning of the Symphony," p. 5.
170. D'Indy, letter to Guy Ropartz of October 10, 1902. Lettres Autographes, Biblio-
theque Nationale, Departement de la Musique.
171. D'Indy, letter to Guy Ropartz of August 2, 1901. Ibid.
172. Hart, The Symphony, pp. 225-242.
173. Ibid., pp. 228-229.
174. The review appeared on February 10, 1907. As cited by Hart, "La Mer and the
Meaning of the Symphony."
175. See Deodat de Severac, "La Centralisation et les petites chapelles musicales," Le
Comrier musical (Jan. 1908): 1-6, 37-43, 142-144.
176. Basil Dean, Albert Roussd (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1961), p. 1.
177. Ibid., pp. 3-8. Roussel was thus part of the first "graduating class" at the Schola,
together with August Serieyx and Deodat de Severac.
178. Ibid., pp. 8—9, 12—13. As we have noted, Roussel was a teacher of Erik Satie,
who grew to admire him greatly. While at the Schola, he also taught Roland-Manuel and
Edgar Varese.
179. See my "Musical Style, Meaning, and Politics in France in the 1930s," The Jour-
nal ofMusicology Vol. 8 #4 (Fall 1995): 425-453.
180. Eugen Weber, The Nationalist Revival in France 1905-1914 (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1959), pp. 126, 154.
181. Paul-Marie Masson, ed., Rapport sur la musique/rancaise contemporaine (Rome:
Armam et Stein, 1913), pp. 7-8. As this collection makes clear, in general, French musi-
cians had difficulty coming to terms with post-1870 German composers, but with excep-
tions, one case being Richard Strauss, seen by some as influenced by Berlioz. Musicians,
like Debussy, however, appreciated neither.
182. Ibid., p. 10.
183. Ibid., p. 13.
184. On the large concert societies, or "grand concerts," see Hart, The Symphony in
Theory and Practice, pp. 282-289.
185. Ibid.
186. See Myriam Chimenes, "Le Budget de la musique sous la Hie Republique," in La
Musique du theorique au politique, eds. Hugues Dufourt and Joel-Marie Eauquet (Paris: Aux
Amateurs de Livres, 1991), p. 289.
187. Ibid., pp. 294-295.
188. The sums received were often modest, but they did confer recognition and sta-
tus: the "Concerts de 1'Art Pour Tous" received eighteen hundred francs, the "Oeuvre de la
Chanson Francaise" three hundred francs, and the "Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson" one thou-
sand francs. And as Frederique Patureau notes in Le Palais Gamier dans la societe parisi-
enne 1875-1914 (Liege: Margada, 1991), p. 435, the Chamber of Deputies, through the
Minister of Fine Arts, imposed a more vigorous politics of reduced-price performances at
the Opera.
189. Fiamme Nicoldi, "Alfredo Casella et 1'avant-garde parisienne au debut du XXe
siecle," Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 78 (Nov. 1985): 85.
190. Patureau, Le Palais Gamier, pp. 185, 434.
191. For example, Gluck's Amide was performed in 1905, and Rameau's Hippolyte et
Aricie in 1908.
192. Patureau, p. 434. Also see Jan Pasler, "Paris: Conflicting Notions of Progress," in
Music, Society, and the Late Romantic Era, ed. Jim Samson (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice
Hall, 1991), p. 394.
193. See Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring. The Great War and the Birth of the Modem
Age (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dinnys, 1989), p. 49. As Eksteins points out, both Tristan
and The Ring were performed at this time.
194. Auric made this observation in Les Nouvelles litteraires on January 6, 1923, as
cited in Jean Wiener, Allegro appassionato (Paris: Pierre Belfond, 1978), p. 273. On the riot
at the premiere of the work, see Robert Siohan, Stravinsky, trans. Eric Walter White (New
York: Grossman, 1970), p. 45.
195. See Francois Lesure, ed., Dossiers de press Tome I. Igor Stravinsky. Le Sacre du
printemps (Geneve: Minkoff, 1980).
196. As cited in Christian Goubault, La Critique musicale dans la presse francaise,
p. 426; and see Dossiers de presse, pp. 27-30.
197. Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, Misia: the Life o/Misia Serf, p. 151.
198. Jacques Durand, Quelques souvenirs, pp. 48-49.
199. See Rene Remond, Les Droites en France (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1982), and
Herman Lebovics, True France. The Wars over Cultural Identity 1900-1945 (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 10.
200. On the specific works that they supported, see Patureau, p. 340, and Chimenes,
"La Princesse Edmond de Polignac et la creation musicale," in La Musique et le pouvoir,
eds. Hugues Dufourt and Joel-Marie Fauquet (Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1987),
p. 140.
201. Marnat, Ravel, p. 539. Significantly, this was the year that Ravel completed his
Melodies hebraiques; unlike Debussy, Ravel had no tolerance for anti-Semitism, a stance
that would become even more accentuated in the years after the war.
202. See the Mercure de France October 1, 1913. On Marnold's response, see Trillig,
p. 133. For Vuillermoz's response, see the Dossiers de presse, pp. 35-38.
203. Dossiers de presse, pp. 23-24.
204. Louis Laloy, "Cabarets et music halls," Revue musicale S.l.M. (1913): 53-56.
205. See the Dossiers de presse, pp. 51-52.
206. Cannudo frequently gave receptions in association with the journal, which were
attended by a motley international group. See Rene Chalupt, Ravel au mirroir de ses lettres
(Paris: Robert Lafont, 1956), p. 68.
207. Dossiers de presse, pp. 13-15. On the motivations of both Stravinsky and
Diaghilev, see Eksteins, Rites oj Spring, pp. 3—40. Also see Brion-Guerry, LAnnee 1913,
p. 1107.
208. Dossiers de presse, p. 39.
209. Georges Auric, in Les Nouvelles litteraires January 6, 1923, as cited in Wiener,
Allegro appassionato, p. 72.
210. This is as opposed to the view presented by Jan Pasler in "Paris: Conflicting No-
tions of Progress," p. 406.
CONCLUSION
1. This metaphor and concept has been developed extensively as well as suggestively
by Edward Said in his Musical Elaborations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).
2. The "Querelle des Bouffons," or the ideologically charged "war" between tradi-
tional French (Baroque) and "modern" (early Classical) Italian music in the mid-
eighteenth century, has been treated in myriad sources. For a summary and perspective
on the issues involved, see Jane F. Fulcher, "Melody and Morality: Rousseau's Influence on
French Music Criticism," International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music
Vol. 11:1 (1980): 45-57.
3. See Howard Erskin-Hill, The Augustan Idea in English Literature (London: Edward
Arnold, 1983). On the politicization ol the musical canon in eighteenth-century England,
see William Weber, The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study in
Canon, Ritual, and Ideology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
4. This is as opposed to the perspective presented by Antoine Compagnon in
"EUtopie d'une republique athenienne," Le Debat Vol. 70 (May-August 1992): 42-48.
5. On the concept of the "scholastic" realm, as opposed to the "practical," see Pierre
Bourdieu, Meditations pascalienness (Paris: Le Seuil, 1997), especially pp. 22-23.
The perspective on canon formation here is different from what Philip Bohlman sees
today; for him, politics is synonymous with academic politics. See Catherine Bergeron and
Philip Bohlman, eds., Disciplining Music: Musicology and Its Canons (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 203-204. It is also opposed to the phenomenon that Kather-
ine Ellis perceives in Music Criticism in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), pp. 3-6, concerning the canon and the criteria of autonomy and
moral values, as well as the network that defined canonicity. As I have argued in this study,
the 'incipient' canon that arose in the first half of the nineteenth century was not institu-
tionalized in the Conservatoire and was performed only for a very limited audience. The
gradual politicization of the "classics," as the concept developed in nineteenth-century
France and thus the contestation over their interpretation, was perceptively traced by Leo
Schrade in Beethoven in Paris (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1942). Significantly, it
was a German emigre scholar in wartime who was so attuned to this phenomenon.
6. I am grateful to William Cohen for bringing Blum's case to my attention and for
the reference to Joel Colton, Leon Blum, Humanist in Politics (New York: Knopf, 1966).
7. On the idea of great art serving social truth through isolation, see Theodor W
Adorno, Philosophy of Modern Music, trans. Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Bloomster
(London: Sheed and Ward, 1973, p. 21 ff.
8. See Linda Nochlin, "Degas and the Dreyfus Affair: Portrait of the Artist as Anti-
Semite," in Norman L. Kleeblatt, ed., The Dreyfus Affair. Art, Truth, and Justice (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987), pp. 96-116.
9. See Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence (New York: Oxford University Press,
1973).
10. The issue of the relationship between artistic excellence and political engagement
is developed by Robert von Hallberg in his Introduction to the issue "Politics and Poetic
Value," Critical Inquiry Vol. 13/3 (Spring 1987): 415-420.
11. On neo-classicism and its role during the First World War, see Kenneth Silver,
Esprit de Corps. The Art of the Parisian Avant-Garde and the First World War (Princeton,
N J.: Princeton University Press, 1989). The concept of "national memory" has been devel-
oped extensively in the series edited by Pierre Nora, Les Lieux de memoire. See especially
Vol. 2 La Nation (Paris: Gallimard, 1986).
12. Jean-Francois Sirinelli and Eric Vigne, "Introduction. Des cultures politiques," in
Jean-Francois Sirinelli, ed., Histoire des droites en France Vol. 2 Cultures (Paris: Gallimard,
1992), pp. 1-3, 9-10. On the role of writers in the Dreyfus Affair see Christophe Charle,
Naissance des "intellectuels" (1880-1900) (Paris: Editions du Minuit, 1990), and his La
Crise litteraire a I'epoque du naturalisme. Roman, theatre, politique (Paris: Presses de FEcole
Normale Superieure, 1979).
13. On the concept of "imagining" a national community, see Benedict Anderson,
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York:
Verso, 1983). And on referencing the war in myth, see Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring. The
Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dinnys, 1989).
14. This is not to ignore the politicized war between tradition and innovation, or be-
tween the "music of the past" and the "music of the future" in mid-nineteenth-century Ger-
many and Austria; but it is important to note that its political dynamics were different—
it was transnational and did not involve centralized state institutions to the same extent, or
the overt backing of specific political groups. On the new situation in Weimar Germany, see
Peter Fritzsche, "Did Weimar Fail?" Journal of Modern History Vol. 68 (Sept. 1996):
629-656. On music during the Weimar Republic, see Bryan Gilliam, ed., Music and Perfor-
mance during the Weimar Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). See also
Michael H. Kater, "The Revenge of the Fathers: The Demise of Modern Music at the End of
the Weimar Republic," German Studies Review 15 (1992): 295-315. On the interwar period
in France, see Jane E Fulcher, "Musical Style, Meaning, and Politics in France on the Eve of
the Second World War," Journal of Musicology Vol. 13 (Fall 1995): 425-453, as well as Jane
F. Fulcher, "The Preparation for Vichy: Anti-Semitism in French Musical Culture between
the Two World Wars," Musical Quarterly Vol. 71 (Fall 1995): 458-475.
15. See Leon Botstein, "The Enigmas of Richard Strauss: A Revisionist View," in
Bryan Gilliam, ed., Richard Strauss and His World (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1992), pp. 3-32.
16. Jane F. Fulcher, "Current Perspectives on Culture and the Meaning of Cultural
History Today," Stanford French Review (Spring 1985): 91-104.
17. See Johan Huizinga, Men and Ideas: History, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance
trans. James S. Holmes and Hans von Marie (New York: Harper and Row, 1959).
Bibliography
ARCHIVAL SERIES AND MANUSCRIPT SOURCES
AJ 13—Archives of the Paris Opera. The complete inventory is available in the

Archives du Theatre Nationale de I'Opera. A] 13 1 a
1466. Inventaire. Compiled by Brigitte Labot-
Pussin, Conservateur. Paris: Archives Nationales:
diffuse par la Documentation Francaise, 1977.
AJ 16 4747-4758. Registres de deliberations de la faculte des lettres
de Paris 1881-1940). Paris: Archives Nationales.
F 21-Beaux Arts. Paris: Archives Nationales.
F 7-Police Archives. Paris: Archives Nationales.
Bibliotheque de 1'Opera-Fonds Rouche.
Bibliotheque Nationale. Departement de la Musique. Gustave Charpen-
tier. Souvenirs, Lettres, Poesies.
Bibliotheque Nationale. Erik Satie. Manuscrits.
Bibliotheque Nationale. Claude Debussy; Vincent d'Indy. Lettres Auto-
graphes.
BOOKS AND ARTICLES
Abbate, Carolyn. "Tristan in the Composition of Pelleas." 19th-century Music Vol. 5/2 (Fall
1981): 117-141.
Adamson, Walter. Avant-garde Florence: From Modernism to Fascism. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1993.
265
266 BIBLIOGRAPHY
. Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Antonio Gramsci's Political and Cultural

Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
"The Language of Opposition in Early Twentieth-century Italy: Rhetorical Conti-
nuities between Pre-War Florentine Avant-gardism and Mussolini's Fascism." Journal
of Modem History Vol. 64/1 (March 1992): 22-51.
Agathon [Henri Massis and Gabriel de Tarde]. L'Esprit de la nouvelle Sorbonne. La Crise de
la culture classique. La Crise du francais. Paris: Mercure de France, 1911.
Agulhon, Maurice. "Conflits et contradictions dans la France d'aujourd'hui." Annales
E.S.C. Vol. 42/3 (May-June 1987): 595-610.
. The French Republic: 1879-1992. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1993.
. Marianne au combat: Llmagerie et la symbolisme republicaine de 1789 a 1880. Paris:
Flammarion, 1979.
. Marianne au pouvoir: L'lmagerie et la symbolisme republicaine de 1880 a 1940.
Paris: Flammarion, 1989.
. "La Place des symboles dans 1'histoire d'apres 1'exemple de la Republique
Francaise." Bulletin de la Societe d'Histoire Moderne Vol. 3 (1980): 9-15.
-. "Politics and Images in Post-Revolutionary France." In Rites of Power: Symbolism,
Ritual, and Politics since the Middle Ages, pp. 177-205. Ed. Sean Wilentz. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.
Allard, Eugene, and Louis Vauxelles. "Gustave Charpentier." Le Figaro, 23 Oct. 1900.
Almendra, Julia d'. "Debussy et le mouvement modal dans la musique du XXe siecle." In
Debussy et revolution de la musique au XXe siecle, pp. 104-129. Ed. Edith Weber. Paris:
Editions du Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 1965.
Althusser, Louis. Politics and History: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx. London:
NLB, 1972.
Amacher, Richard E., and Victor Large, eds. New Perspectives in German Literary Criticism.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nation-
alism. New York: Verso, 1983.
Anderson, R. D. France 1870-1914. Politics and Society. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1977.
Antiff, Mark. Inventing Bergson: Cultural Politics and the Parisian Avant-garde. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Appleby, Joyce, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacobs, eds. Telling the Truth about History. New
York: Norton, 1994.
Aronoff, Myron J., ed. Political Anthropology. Vol. 2. Culture and Political Change. New
Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1983.
Atkin, Nicholas, and Frank Tallatt, eds. Religion, Society, and Politics in France since 1789.
London: Hambledon Press, 1991.
Attali, Jacques. Bruits: Essai sur I'economie politique de la musique. Paris: Presses Universi-
taires de France, 1977.
Austin, William. "Debussy, Wagner, and Some Others." 19th-century Music Vol. 6/1 (Sum-
mer 1982): 82-91.
. Music in the Twentieth Century. New York: Norton, 1966.
Bach-Sisley, J. M. Boucher, H. Focillon, et al. Pour la musique francaise. Douze causeries.
Zurich: Editions Cres, 1917.
Badie, Bertrand, and Pierre Birnbaum. Sociologie de I'Etat. Paris: Berard Grasset, 1978.
Bakhtine, Mikhail. Le Marxisme et la philosophie du langgage. Paris: Les Editions du Minuit,
1977.
. La Poetique de Dostoievsky. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 267
Balandier, Georges. Anlhropologie politique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976.

Barres, Maurice. Les Deracines. Paris: Felix Juvien, n.d.
. Un Homme libre. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1988.
. Le Jardin de Berenice. Paris: Perrin, 1891.
Barrows, Susanna. Distorting Minors: Visions of the Crowd in Late Nineteenth-century
France. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981.
Barthes, Roland. Le Degre zero de I'ecriture. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1953.
. Le Grain de la voix: Entretiens 1962-1980. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1981.
Bauman, Richard. Story, Performance, and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
. Verbal Art as Performance. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, 1977.
Beaufils, Marcel. Wagner et le Wagnerisme. Paris: Aubier, 1946.
Bedier, Joseph. Le Roman de Tristan. Paris: L'Edition d'art, 1946.
Bellaigue, Camille. Portraits and Silhouettes of Musicians. Trans. Ellen Orr. New York:
Dodd, Mead, 1898.
. Notes breves. Paris: Librairie Ch. Delagrave, 1914.
. Souvenirs de musique et de musiciens. Paris: Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1921.
Bellanger, Claude. Histoire generale de la presse francaise. 2 Vols. Paris: Presses Universi-
taires de France, 1969.
Ben-Amos, Avner. "La Pantheonisation de Jean Jaures." Terrain Vol. 15 (Oct. 1990):
49-64.
Benedict, Ruth. Patterns of Culture. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1934.
Benoist, Luc. Signes, symboles, et mythes. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1975.
de Bercy, Anne, and Armand Ziwes. A Montmartre le soir. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1975.
Bergeron, Catherine, and Philip Bolman, eds. Disciplining Music: Musicology and Its
Canons. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Bernard, Elisabeth. "La Musique symphonique." Revue Internationale de musique francaise
Vol. 12 (Nov. 1983): 39-48.
Berr, Henri. Peut-on refaire I'unite morale de la France? Paris: Armand Colin, 1901.
Berstein, Serge, and Pierre Milza. Histoire de la France au XXe siecle. Brussels: Editions
Complexe, 1994.
Berstein, Serge. Histoire du Parti Radical. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sci-
ences Politiques, 1980.
Bertrand, Paul. Le Monde de la musique. Geneva: Le Palatine, 1947.
Birnbaum, Pierre. La Logique de I'Etat. Paris: Fayrad, 1982.
, ed. La France de I'Affaire Dreyfus. Paris: Gallimard, 1994.
. Un mythe politique: "La Republique juive". Paris: Fayard, 1988.
. "States, Ideologies, and Collective Action in Western Europe." International Social
Science Journal Vol. 32/4 (1980): 671-686.
Biron, Fernand. Le Chant gregorien dans I'enseignement et les oeuvres musicales de Vincent
d'lndy. Ottawa: Les Editions de 1'Universite d'Ottawa, 1941.
Blatt, Joel. "Relatives and Rivals: The Response of the Action Francaise to Italian Fascism."
European Studies Review Vol. 2/3 (July 1981): 263-292.
Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Bonnet, Jean-Claude, and Philippe Roger, eds. La Legends de la Revolution Francaise au XXe
siecle. Paris: Flammarion, 1988.
Boschot, Adolphe. Chez les musiciens. Paris: Plon, 1922.
. La Vie et les oeuvres d'Alfred Bruneau. Paris: Fasquelle Editeurs, 1937.
Bossuet, Pierre. Histoire administrative des rapports des theatres et de I'Etat. Paris: Im-
primerie Henri Jouve, 1909.
268 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Botstein, Leon. "Listening through Reading: Musical Literacy and the Concert Audience."
19th-century Music Vol. 16/2 (Fall 1992): 129-145.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Ce one parler veut dire. L'Economie des echanges linguistiques. Paris: Fa-
yard, 1982.
. "Champ du pouvoir, champ intellectuel, et habitus de class." Scolies Vol. 1 (1971):
7-26.
. "Champ intellectuel et projet createur." Les Temps modernes Vol. 22/246 (1966):
865-906.
. "Le Champ litteraire." Actes de la recherche en sciences societies Vol. 89 (Sept.
1991): 3-46.
. Chases dites. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1987.
. Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1984.
. "Flaubert's Point of View." Critical Inquiry Vol. 14/3 (Spring 1988): 539-562.
. "The Market of Symbolic Goods." Poetics Vol. 14 (1985): 13-44.
. Meditations pascaliennes. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1997.
. "Penser la politique." Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales Vols. 71-72 (March
1988): 2-3.
. Les Regies de Van. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1992.
Bourdieu, Pierre, Roger Chartier, and Robert Darnton. "Dialogue a propos de 1'histoire cul-
turelle." Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales Vol. 59 (Sept. 1985): 86-93.
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. Reproduction in Education, Society, and Cul-
ture. Trans. Richard Nice. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1970.
Boussel, Patrice. L'Affaire Dreyfus et la presse. Paris: Armand Colin, 1960.
Bouyer, Raymond. "Le Debussysme et 1'evolution musicale (1901-1902)." La Revue musi-
cale (Oct. 1902): 421-429.
Boyd, Malcolm, ed. Music and the French Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992.
Bredin, Jean-Denis. The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus. New York: Braziller, 1986.
Bres, Sophie. "Le Scandal Ravel des 1905." Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 14
(June 1984): 41-50.
Brion-Guerry Liliane, ed. L'Annee 1913. Les formes esthetiques de I'oeuvre d'art a la veille de
la premiere guerre mondiale. Paris: Klincksieck, 1971.
Briscoe, James. "The Compositions of Debussy's Formative Years." Ph.D. Dissertation.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1979.
Brody, Elaine. Paris: The Musical Kaleidoscope 1870-1925. New York: Braziller, 1987.
Brombert, Victor. The Intellectual Hero: Studies in the French Novel 1880-1955. New York:
Lippincott, 1960.
Brown, Frederick. Theater and Revolution: The Culture of the French Stage. New York:
Viking, 1981.
Bruneau, Alfred. A I'Ombre d'un grand coeur. Paris: Bibliotheque Charpentier, 1932.
. La Musique francaise. Rapport sur la musique en France au XIIIe au XXe siecle. La
Musique a Paris en 1900 au theatre, au concert, a 1'Exposition. Paris: Bibliotheque
Charpentier, 1901.
Musiques d'hier el de demain. Paris: Bibliotheque Charpentier, 1900.
Bruneau, Alfred. "Souvenirs inedits." Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 7 (Feb.
1982): 8-82.
Brunei, Nathalie. "Musique germanique et modernisme musicale en France a 1'aube du
XXe siecle." Revue internationale de musique francaise Vol. 18 (Nov. 1985): 47-57.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 269
Buell, Lawrence. New England Literary Culture: From Revolution through Renaissance. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Cahut, Alberic. La Liberte du theatre. Paris: Dujarrir, 1902.
Callaird, C., and Jose de Berys. Le Cas Debussy. Paris: Bibliotheque du Temps Present,
1910.
Calvocoressi, M. D. L'Etranger (de V. d'Indy). Paris: Editions du Courrier Musical, n.d.
Canteloube, Joseph. Vincent d'Indy. Paris: Henri Laurens, 1951.
Caradec, Francois. Feu Willy. Paris: J. J. Pauvet, 1984.
Carlson, Marvin. The French Stage in the Nineteenth Century. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow
Press, 1972.
. Theories of the Theater: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Pres-
ent. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Carraud, Gaston. La Vie, I'oeuvre, et la mort d'Alberic Magnard. Paris: Rouart, Lerolle, 1921.
Carroll, David. French Literary Fascsim. Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, and the Ideology of Cul-
ture. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Carter, Lawson A. Zola and the Theater. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1963.
Casale-Monsimet, Marie-Christine. "L'Allaire Dreyfus et la critique musicale." Revue inter-
nationale de musique francaise Vol. 28 (Feb. 1989): 57-69.
Casella, Alfred. "Musiques horizentales et musiques verticales." Le Monde musical Vol. 30
(Oct. 1909): 291-292.
Castera, Rene de. "La Symphonic en si bemol de M. Vincent d'Indy." L'Occident (March
1904): 172-178.
Chaitin, Gilbert. "The Politics of the Contingent." Unpublished manuscript.
Chalupt, Rene. Ravel au mirroir de ses lettres. Paris: Robert Lafont, 1956.
Champigneulle, Bernard. Les Plus beaux ecrits des grands musiciens. Paris: La Colombe,
1946.
Charette, Jacqueline. Claude Debussy through his Letters. New York: Vintage, 1990.
Charle, Christophe. "Champ litteraire et champ du pouvoir: les ecrivains et 1'Aflaire Drey-
fus." Annales E.S.C. Vol. 32/6 (March-April 1977): 240-264.
. La Crise litteraire a I'epoque du Naturalisme. Roman, theatre, et politique. Paris:
Presses de 1'Ecole Normale Superieur, 1979.
. Les Elites de la Republique 1800-1900. Paris: Fayard, 1987.
. Naissance des "intellectuels" 1880-1900. Paris: Les Editions du Minuit, 1990.
. "Noblesses et elites en France au debut du XXe siecle." In Noblesses europeens au
XIXe siecle, pp. 407-433. Paris: Collection de 1'Ecole Francaise de Rome 107, 1988.
-. La Republique des universitaires 1870-1940. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1994.
Charpentier, Gustave. Lettres inedites a ses parents. Ed. Francoise Andrieux. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1984.
. Rapport. Ville de Paris. Concours musical de 1910-1912. Paris: Imprimerie Paul
Dupont, 1914.
Chartier, Roger. "Le Monde comme representation." Annales E.S.C. Vol. 44/6 (Nov.-Dec.
1989): 1505-1520.
Chimenes, Myriarn. "Le Budget de la musique sous la Hie Republique." In La Musique du
theorique au politique, pp. 261-312. Ed. Hugues Dufourt and Joel-Marie Fauquet.
Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1991.
. "La Princesse Edmond de Polignac et la creation musicale." In La Musique et le
pouvoir, pp. 125-145. Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1987.
Clark, Priscilla Parkhurst. Literary France: The Making of a Culture. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1987.
270 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Clark, Terry N. Prophets and Patrons: The French University and the Emergence of the Social
Sciences. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973.
Cocteau, Jean. Professional Secrets: An Autobiography of Jean Cocteau. Ed. Robert Phelps.
New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1979.
Coeuroy, Andre. Appels d'Orphee. Paris: Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Critique, 1926.
. La Musique franfaise moderne. Paris: Librairie Delagrave, 1924.
Cohen, Gustave. Histoire de la mise en scene dans le theatre religieux francais du moyen age.
Paris: Honore Champion, 1926.
Cohen, William. "Symbols and Power: Statues in Nineteenth-century Provincial France."
Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 31/3 (July 1989): 491-513.
Cole, David. The Theatrical Event. Middleton, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1975.
Collaer, Paul. A History of Modern Music. New York: World, 1955.
Colton, Joel. Leon Blum, Humanist in Politics. New York: Knopf, 1966.
Combarieu, Jules. "LEnseignement musical au Conservatoire et la pedagogic moderne."
Revue musicale (1910): 498-501.
Combes, Louis. "La Schola et le Conservatoire." Le Monde musical Vol. 15 (Oct. 1909):
276-278.
Compagnon, Antoine. La Troisieme Republique des lettres: De Flaubert a Proust. Paris: Edi-
tions du Seuil, 1983.
. "L'Utopie d'une republique athenienne." Le Debat Vol. 70 (May-Aug. 1992):
42-48.
Cooper, Martin. French Music from the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Faure. London: Ox-
ford University Press, 1951.
Cossart, Michel de. The Food of Love: Princesse Edmond de Polignac and Her Salon
(1865-1943). London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978.
Cot, Jean-Pierre, and Jean-Pierre Mounier. Pour une sociologie politique. 2 Vols. Paris: Edi-
tions du Seuil, 1974.
Cox, David. Debussy. Orchestral Music. London: British Broadcasting Corp., 1974.
Craft, Robert. "Jews and Geniuses." New York Review of Books (Feb. 16, 1989): 35-37.
Crubellier, Maurice. Histoire culturelle de la France XlX-XXe siecles. Paris: Armand Colin,
1974.
Curzon, Henri de. L'Oeuvre de Richard Wagner a Paris et ses interpretes 1850-1914. Paris:
Maurice Senart, 1920.
Dahlhaus, Carl. Between Romanticism and Modernism. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1980.
. Richard Wagner's Music Dramas. Trans. Mary Whittall. Cambridge: Cambridge
Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History.
New York: Basic Books, 1984.
. "The Symbolic Element in History." Journal of Modern History Vol. 58/1 (March
1986): 218-234.
Daubresse, M. Le Musicien dans le societe moderne. Paris: Le Monde Musical, 1914.
Daudet, Leon. Ecrivians et artistes. Vol. 7. Paris: Editions du Capitole, 1929.
. Salons et journaux. Souvenirs des milieux litteraires, politiques, artistiques, et
medicaux de 1880 a 1908. Paris: Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1917.
Davidian, Teresa. "Debussy, d'lndy and the Societe Nationale." Journal of Musicological Re-
search Vol. 11/4 (Sept. 1991): 285-301.
Dean, Basil. Albert Roussel. London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1961.
Debussy, Claude. Debussy on Music. Ed. Francois Lesure and Richard L. Smith. New York:
Knopf, 1977.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 271
. "Du Gout." Revue musical S.I.M. (1913): 47-49.

. Letters. Ed. Francois Lesure and Roger Nichols. Boston: Faber, 1987.
. M. Croche Anti-dilettante. Paris: Gallimard, 1926.
Decaunes, Luc, and M. L. Cavalier. Reformes et projects de reforme de renseignemenlfrancais de
la Revolution a nos jours. Paris: Publication de 1'Institut Pedagogique Nationale, 1962.
Delmas, Marc. Gustave Charpentier et le lyrisme francais. Paris: Delagrave, 1931.
Desache, Jean. De L'Intervention administrative dans I'art musical. Paris-Librairie de la So-
ciete de Recueil Sirey, 1910.
Demuth, Norman. Cesar Franck. London: Dennis Dobson, 1949.
. Ravel. London:]. M. Dent, 1947.
. Vincent d'Indy, 1851-1931: A Champion of Classicism. London: Rocklifl, 1951.
Dietschy, Marcel. "The Family and Childhood of Claude Debussy." Musical Quarterly
Vol. 46 (1960): 301-314.
Digeon, Claude. La Crise allemande de la pensee francaise. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1959.
Donard, Veronique. "La Musique religieuse d'inspiration Catholique a Paris en 1900."
Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 12 (Nov. 1983): 79-86.
Douglass, Mary. How Institutions Think. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986.
Dreyfus, Alfred. Souvenirs et correspondence. Publiees par son fils, Paris: Grasset, 1936.
Duchesneau, Michel. "Maurice Ravel et la Societe Musicale Independente: Projet mirifique
de concerts scandaleux." Revue de musicologie Vol. 80/20 (1994): 251-281.
Duclert, Vincet. "L'Affaire Dreyfus et le tournant critique." Annales: Histoire, Sciences So-
cialesVol. 50/3 (May-June 1995): 563-578.
Dufourcq, Norbert. La Musique franfaise. Paris: Editions A. et J. Picard, 1970.
Dufourt, Hugues, and Joel-Marie Fauquet, eds. La Musique. Du Theorique au politique.
Paris: Aux Amateurs du Livre, 1991.
Dumesnil, Rene. La Musique contemporaine en France. 2 Vols. Paris: Armand Colin, 1949.
. La Musique en France entredeuxbguerres 1919-1939. Geneve: Editions du Milieu du
Monde, 1946.
-. Portraits des musiciens francais. Paris: Plon, 1938.
Dunsby, Jonathan. "Music and Semiotics: The Nattiez Phase." Musical Quarterly Vol. 49/1
(Winter 1983): 27-43.
Durand, Jacques. Quelques souvenirs d'un editeur de musique. 2e serie (1910-1924). Paris:
A. Durand et Fils, 1925.
Durkheim, Emile. Le Socialisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1971.
Eckhardt-Baker, Ursula von. Frankreichs Musik zwischen Romantik und Moderne. Vol. 2.
Studien zur Musikgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Regensburg: Gustave Bosse, 1965.
L'Ecole des Hautes Eludes Sociales 1900-1910 (No author or editor given). Paris: Felix
Alcan, 1911.
Edelman, Murray. From Art to Politics: How Artistic Creations Shape Political Conceptions.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Egbert, Donald. Social Radicalism and the Arts. New York: Knopf, 1970.
Eksteins, Modris. Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modem Age. Toronto:
Lester and Orpen Dinnys, 1989.
Ellis, Katherine. Music Criticism in Nineteenth-century France. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1995.
Elwitt, Sanford. The Making of the Third Republic: Class and Politics in France 1869-1884.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975.
Emmanuel, Maurice. "Lettres inedites." Revue internationale de musique francaise Vol. 11
(June 1983): 79-92.
272 BIBLIOGRAPHY
. Pelleas et Melisande de Debussy. Paris: Editions Mallote, 1950.

. "La Vie reelle en musique." Revue de Paris Vol. 15 (June 1900): 841-883.
Encyclopedie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire. Vol. 2, Pedagogie, ecoles, con-
certs-theatres. Paris: Delagrave, 1931.
Ermath, Michael. "Intellectual History as Philosophical Anthropology: Bernard Groe-
thusysen's Transformation of Traditional 'Geistesgeschichte'." Journal of Modern His-
tory Vol. 65/4 (Dec. 1993): 673-705.
Erskin-Hill, Howard. The Augustan Idea in English Literature. London: Edward Arnold,
1983.
Faure, Gabriel. Correspondence. Ed. Jean-Michel Nectoux. Paris: Flammarion, 1980.
. Opinions musicales. Paris: Les Editions Rieder, 1930.
Faure, Michel. Musique et sociele du Second Empire aux annees vingt. Paris: Flammarion,
1985.
Favre, Georges. Compositeurs franfais meconnus. Ernest Guiraud et ses amis: Emile Paladilhe
et Theodore Dubois. Paris: Le Pensee Universelle, 1983.
. Musique et naturalisme: Alfred Bruneau et Emile Zola. Paris: Le Pensee Universelle,
1982.
Fernandez, James. "The Mission of Metaphor in Expressive Culture." Current Anthropology
Vol. 15/2 (June 1974): 119-145.
Fisher, David James. "The Origins of the French Popular Theater." Journal of Contempo-
rary History Vol. 12 (1977): 461-497.
. "Romain Rolland and the Ideology and Aesthetics of the French People's Theater."
Theater Quarterly Vol. 9/33 (Spring 1979).
-. Romain Rolland and the Politics of Intellectual Engagement. Berkeley: University of
Flower, J. E. Literature and the Left in France: Society, Politics, and the Novel since the Late
Nineteenth Century. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1983.
. Writers and Politics in Modern France 1909-1961. London: Hodder and Stoughton,
1977.
Foucault, Michel. L'Ordre du discours. Paris: Gallimard, 1971.
Fox, Daniel M. "Artists in the Modern State: The Nineteenth-century Background." Jour-
nal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Vol. 22/2 (Winter 1963): 135-140, 143-148.
Franck, Joseph. "The Voices of Mikhail Bakhtin." New York Review of Books (Oct. 23,
1986): 56-60.
Fritzsche, Peter. "Did Weimar Fail?" Journal of Modern History Vol. 68 (Sept. 1996):
629-656.
Fulcher, Jane E "Musical Style, Meaning, and Politics in France on the Eve of the Second
World War. "Journal of Musicology Vol. 13 (Fall 1995): 425-453.
. The Nation's Image: French Grand Opera as Politics and Politicized Art. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1987.
"The Preparation for Vichy: Anti-Semitism in French Musical Culture between
the Two World Wars." Musical Quarterly Vol. 71 (Fall 1995): 458-475.
Gamboni, Dario. "Odilon Redon et ses critiques: Une lutte pour la production de la
valeur." Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales Vols. 66-67 (March 1987): 25-34.
Gastinel, Leon. Influence des Expositions Universelles et Internationales sur I'art musical
francais autrefois, aujourd'hui, demain. Paris: Imprimerie de la Poste, n.d.
Gauthier-Villars, Henri. "Qu'est ce que la musique francaise?" Revue d'histoire et de critique
musicale (March 1903): 123-127.
. La Ronde des blanches. Paris: Librairie Moliere, 1901.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 273
Geertz, Clifford. "Art as a Cultural System." Modern Language Notes Vol. 91 (1976):
1473-1499.
. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973.
Genet-Delacroix, Marie-Claude. Art et Etat sous la IIIe Republique: Le Systeme des Beaux-
Arts 1870-1940. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1992.
. "Esthetique officiel et art national sous la Troisieme Republique." Le Mouvement
social Vol. 131 (April-June 1985): 105-210.
Gervereau, Laurent, and Christophe Prochasson, eds. EAffaire Dreyfus et le toumant du sie-
de (1894-1910). Paris: Musee d'Histoire Contemporaine-BDIC, 1994.
Gildea, Robert. The Past in French History. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994.
Gillian, Garth. From Sign to Symbol. Harvester Press, 1982.
Gillmor, Alan M. Erik Satie. Boston: Twayne, 1988.
. "Erik Satie and the Concept of the Avant-Garde." Musical Quarterly Vol. 49/1
(Winter 1983): 104-119.
Girardet, Raoul, ed. Le Nationalism francais 1871-1914. Paris: Armand Colin, 1966.
Goguel, Francois. La Politique des parties sous la Hie Republique. Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1946.
Gold, Arthur, and Robert Fizdale. Misia: the Life ofMisia Sert. New York: Knopf, 1980.
Golea, Antoine. Georges Auric. Paris: Ventadour, n.d.
Goss, Madeleine. Bolero: The Life of Maurice Ravel. Trans. Margaret Crosland. New York:
Grove, 1959.
Gossett, Philip. "Up from Beethoven." New York Review of Books (Oct. 26, 1989): 21-26.
Goubault, Christian. "Les Chapelles musicales franchises ou la querelle des 'gros-boutiens'
et des 'petits-boutiens'." Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 5 (June 1981):
99-112.
. Claude Debussy. Paris: H. Champion, 1986.
. "Colette et Debussy: Compagnons de chaine en Gil Bias en 1903." Revue interna-
tionale de musique francaise Vol. 17 (June 1985): 75-86.
La Critique musicale dans la presse /rancaise de 1870 a 1914. Geneva: Editions
Slatkine, 1984.
Gourret, Jean. Ces Hommes qui ontfait I'Opera 1669-1984. Paris: Albatros, 1984.
Grayson, David. The Genesis of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Re-
search Press, 1986.
Green, Christopher. Cubism and Its Enemies. Modern Movements and Reaction in French Art,
1916-1928. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987.
Green, Nancy L. The Pletzl of Paris: Jewish Immigrant Workers in the Belle Epoque. New
York: Holmes and Meuer, 1986.
Griffiths, Richard. Revolution a rebours: Le renouveau catholique et la litterature en France de
1870 a 1914. Paris: Desclie de Brawer, 1971.
. The Uses of Abuse: Polemical Language in the Dreyfus Affair. New York: Berg, 1991.
Grout, Donald. A Short History of Opera. New York: Columbia University Press, 1965.
Guichard, Leon. La Musique et les lettres en France au temps dy Wagnerisme. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1963.
Guieu, Jean-Max. Le Theatre lyrique d'Emile Zola. Paris: Fishbacher, 1983.
Hahn, Reynaldo. Themes varies. Paris: J. B. Janin, 1946.
Hallberg, Robert von. "Introduction" to the issue on "Politics and Poetic Value." Critical
Inquiry Vol. 13/3 (Spring 1987): 415-420.
Halperin, Joan U. Felix Fe.neon and the Language of Art Criticism. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI
Research Press, 1980.
274 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hamilton, Alastair. The Appeal of Fascism: A Study of Intellectuals and Fascsim 1919-1945.
New York: Avon, 1973.
Harding, James. Erik Satie. New York: Praeger, 1975.
Hart, Brian. "The Symphony in Theory and Practice in France, 1900-1914". Ph.D. Disser-
tation. Indiana University, 1994.
Haskell, Francis. "Thanks for the Memory." New York Review of Books (Dec. 8, 1988):
48-51.
Hellouin, Frederic. Essai de critique de la critique musicale. Paris: A. Joanin, 1906.
Hemmings, E W. J. Culture and Society in France 1848-1898. London: B. T. Balsford, 1971.
Herbert, Eugenia W. The Artist and Social Reform in France and Belgium 1885-1898. New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1961.
Hervey, Arthur. French Music in the 19th Century. London: Grant Richards, 1903.
Hill, Edward B. Modern French Music. Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1924.
Himonet, Andre. Louise de C. Charpentier. Paris: Paul Mellotee, 1992.
Hirsbrunner, Theo. Debussy und seine Zeit. Bern: Laaber, 1981.
. Die Musik in Frankreich im 20.Jahrhundert. Bern: Laaber, 1995.
. Igor Stravinsky in Paris. Bern: Laaber, 1982.
. "Richard Wagner's Influence on French Opera: Towards an Invisible Theater." IMS
Congress Report. Berkeley, 1977.
Hobsbawm, Eric. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terrence Ranger, eds. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1983.
Hoffman, Robert. More Than a Trial: The Struggle over Captain Dreyfus. New York: Free
Press, 1980.
Hoffmann, Stanley, ed. In Search of France. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963.
Holloway, Robin. Debussy and Wagner. London: E. Eulenburg, 1979.
Huebner, Steven. "Between Anarchism and the Box Office: Gustave Charpentier's Louise."
Paper read at the national meeting of the American Musicological Society, Minneapo-
lis, 1994.
Huizinga, Johan. Men and Ideas: History, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Trans. James
S. Holmes and Hans von Marie. New York: Harper and Row, 1959.
Hunt, Lynn. Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. Berkeley: University of
Hunt, Lynn, ed. The New Cultural History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
Hure, jean. Dogmes musicaux (.1904-1907). Paris: Editions du Monde Musical, 1909.
Hyman, Paula. From Dreyfus to Vichy: The Remaking of French Jewry, 1906-1939. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1979.
. "The Dreyfus Affair: The Visual and the Historical." Journal of Modern History Vol.
61/1 (March 1989): 88-109.
d'lndy, Jacques. Visage inconnu de Vincent d'lndy. Marseille: Fondation Paul Richard, n.d.
d'lndy, Vincent. Beethoven. Paris: Henri Laurens, 1913.
. Cesar Franck. Trans. Rosa Newrnarch. New York: Dover, 1965.
. Cours de composition musicale. Vols. 1 and 2. Paris: A. Durand et Fils, 1903 and
1909.
. "Une Ecole d'art repondant aux besoins modernes." La Tribune de Saint-Gervais
(Nov. 1900): 303-314.
. Emmanuel Chabrier et Paul Dukas. Paris: Ileugel, 1920.
. Richard Wagner et son influence sur Van musical aujourd'hui. Paris: Librairie Dela-
grave, 1930.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 275
. "La Schola Cantorum." In Encyclopedic de la musique et dictionnaire du Conserva-

toire. Ed. Albert Lavignac and Lionel de la Laurencie. Part 2, Vol. 6, Pedagogic, ecoles,
concerts, theatres, pp. 3622-25. Paris: Delagrave, 1931.
-. La Schola Cantorum en 1925. Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1927.
Iser, Wolfgang. The Implied Reader. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1974.
Irvine, William D. The Boulanger Affair Reconsidered: Royalism, Boulangism, and the Origins
of the Radical Right in France. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Jackson, A. B. La Revue blanche (1889-1903). Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1960.
Jameson, Frederick. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1981.
Jarocinski, Stefan. Debussy: Impressionism and Symbolism. Trans. Rollo Meyers. London:
Eulenburg, 1976.
Jaures, Jean. La Classe Ouvriere. Ed. Madeleine Reberioux. Paris: Maspero, 1976.
Jelavich, Peter. Munich and Theatrical Modernism: Politics, Play-writing, and Performance
1890-1914. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Johnson, Douglas. France and the Dreyfus Affair. London: Blanford Press, 1966.
Joll, James. The Anarchists. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.
. "Klingsor's Apprentices." New York Review of Books (April 27, 1989): 53-56.
Julliard, Jacques. Fernand Pelloutier et les origines su syndicalisme d'action directe. Paris:
Editions du Seuil, 1971.
Kaes, Rene. Images de la culture chez les ouvriers/rancais. Paris: Editions Cujas, n.d.
Kahane, Marline, and Nicole Wilde, eds. Wagner et la France. Paris: Bibliotheque Na-
tionale, Editions Herscher. 1983.
Katz, Jacob. From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism 1700-1933. Cambridge: Harvard
Kelkel, Manfred. Naturalisme, verisme, et realisme dans I'opera de 1890 a 1930. Paris: Li-
brairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1984.
. "Oeuvres du repertoire et creations choreographiques a Paris en 1900." Revue in-
ternationale de. musiaue francaise Vol. 12 (Nov. 1983): 27-37.
Kendall, Alan. The Tender Tyrant. Nadia Boulanger. A. Life Devoted to Music. London: Mac-
dould and Jane's, 1976.
Kerman, Joseph. Opera as Drama. New York: Vintage, 1959.
. "Wagner and Wagnerism." New York Review of Books (Dec. 22, 1983): 27-37.
Kleeblatt, Norman L., ed. The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, and Justice. Berkeley: University of
Knights, L. C. Public Voices: Literature and Politics with Special Reference to the Seventeenth
Century. London: Chatto and Windus, 1971.
Koechlin, Charles. Gabriel Faure. Paris: Felix Alcan, 1927.
. "Souvenirs sur Debussy, la Schola, et la S.M.I." La Revue musicale (Nov. 1934):
241-251.
Kristeva, Julia. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. New York:
La Capra, Dominick. Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language. Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1983.
LaClau, Ernesto. "Universalism, Particularism, and the Question of Identity." October Vol.
61 (1992): 83-90.
Laitin, David. Politics, Language, and Thought: The Somali Experience. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1977.
La Laurencie, Lionel de. "Le d'Indysme." LArt moderne Vol. 5 (Feb. 1903): 49—52.
. Le Gout musical en France. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1970. (First edition, 1905.)
276 BIBLIOGRAPHY
. "Le Mouvement musicographique." Le Mercure musical (June 1907): 657-661.

. "Un musicien de chez nous." EOccident 1904.
. "LOeuvre de Vincent d'Indy." Durendal: Revue Catholique d'art et de litterature
(April 1902): 204-215.
Lalo, Pierre. LaMusique 1898-1899. Paris: Rouart, Lerolle, 1900.
Laloy, Louis. "Cabarets et Music-Hall." Revue musical S.l.M. (1913): 53-56.
. Debussy. Paris: Dorbon, 1909.
. "Le Drame musical moderne." Le Mercure musical, 1905.
. La Musique retrouvee 1902-1927. Paris: Plon, 1928.
. "Une Nouvelle ecole de musique: le cours de M. Vincent d'Indy." Revue d'histoire
et de critique musicale (Nov. 1901): 393-398.
. "La Nouvelle maniere de Claude Debussy." La Grande revue Vol. 10 (Feb. 1908):
530-535.
. "Les Parties musicaux en France." La Grande revue Vol. 25 (Dec. 1907): 790-799.
. Rameau. Paris: Felix Alcan, 1919.
Landormy, Paul. "LEtat actuel de la musique francaise." Revue bleue (Jan.-June 1904):
394-397; 421-426.
. La Musique franfaise de Franck a Debussy. Paris: Gallimard, 1948.
Lanson, Gustave. Histoire de la litterature franfaise. Paris: Hachette, 1906.
Large, David, and William Weber, eds. Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics. Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Lasserre, Pierre. Les Chapelles litteraires. Claudel, Jammes, Peguy. Paris: Gamier Freres,
1920.
. LEsprit de la musique franfaise. Paris: Payot, 1917.
. Philosophie du gout musical. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1922.
. Le Romantismefranfais. Paris: Societe du Mercure de France, 1908.
. Des Romantiques a nous. Paris: La Nouvelle Revue Critique, 1927.
Lavignac, Albert, ed. Encyclopedie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire. Paris: C.
Delagrave, 1913-31.
. Notions scolaires de musique. Paris: Henri Lemoine, 1908.
. Le Voyage artistique a Bayreuth. Geneva: Minkoff Reprints, 1973. (First edition,
1897.)
Le Goff, Jacques, and Pierre Nora, eds. Faire de I'histoire. Paris: Gallimard, 1974.
Lebovics, Herman. The Alliance of Iron and Wheat in the Third French Republic 1870-1914:
Origins of the New Conservativism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1988.
. True France: The Wars over Cultural Identity 1900-1945. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1992.
Lemattre, Jules. EOeuvre de la Patrie Francaise. Discours-programme du 13 Novembre,
1899. Paris: Editions L.PE, 1899.
Leon, Paul. Du Palais-Royal au Palais-Bourbon. Paris: Albin-Michel, 1947.
Lepenies, Wolf. Les Trois cultures: Entre science et litterature; I'avenement de la sociologie.
Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de rHomme, 1990.
Lequin, Yves, ed. La Mosaique, France: Histoire des strangers el /'immigration. Paris:
Larousse, 1988.
Lesure, Francois, ed. Claude Debussy. Lettres. Paris: Hermann, 1980.
. Claude Debussy avant Pelleas, ou les annees symbolistes. Paris: Klinckieck, 1992.
. Debussy on Music. New York: Knopf, 1977.
. Dossiers de presse. Vol. 1. Igor Stravinsky: Le Sucre du printemps. Geneva: Minkoff,
1980.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 277
Levin, Harry. The Gates of Horn. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Lippman, Edward. A History of Western Musical Aesthetics. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1992.
Locke, Robert R. French Legitimists and the Politics of Moral Order in the Early Third Repub-
lic. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974.
Lockspeiser, Edward. Debussy. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1980.
. Debussy: His Life and Mind. London: Cassel, 1965.
. The Literary Clef: An Anthology of Letters and Writings by French Composers. Lon-
don: John Calder, 1958.
Lorrain, Jean. Pelleastres: Le Poison de la litterature. Paris: A. Merceant, 1909.
Mandell, Richard D. Paris 1900: The Great World's Fair. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1967.
Manevy, Raymond. La Presse de la Ille Republique. Paris: J. Foret, 1955.
Mangeot, A. "L'Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson." Le Monde musical (1902): 317-318.
Marcuse, Herbert. The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1977.
Margadant, Ted W. "Primary Schools and Youth Groups in Pre-War Paris: The Petit As."
Journal of Contemporary History Vol. 13/2 (April 1978): 323-336.
Marguerite, Jean. Les Fetes du Peuple: L'Oeuvre, les moyens, le but. Paris: Les Fetes du Peu-
ple, 1921.
Marlais, Michael. Conservative Echoes in Fin-de-Siecle Parisian Art Criticism. University
Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992.
Marnat, Marcel. Maurice Ravel. Paris: Fayard, 1986.
Marnold, Jean. "Le Conservatoire et la Schola." Mercure de France (1902): 105-115.
Massis, Henri. Maurras et notre temps. Paris: La Palatine, 1951.
Masson, Paul-Marie, ed. Rapport sur la musique francaise contemporaine. Rome: Armam et
Stein, 1913.
Mauclair, Camille. "La Debussyste." LeCourrier musical Vol. 15 (Sept. 1905): 501-505.
. "La Reaction Nationaliste en art et Fignorance de 1'homme de lettres." La Revue
mondiale (Jan. 15, 1905): 151-174.
. "La Schola Cantorum et 1'education morale des musiciens." La Revue (Aug. 1901):
245-256.
-. Servitude et grandeur litteraire. Paris: Ollendorff, n.d.
Maurras, Charles. La Musique inlerieur. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1925.
Mayeur, Daniel. Pour une histoire de la Gauche. Paris: Plon, 1969.
Mayeur, Jean-Marie. La Vie politique sous la Troisieme Republique. Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1984.
Mayeur, Jean-Marie, and Madeleine Reberioux. The Third Republic from its Origins to the
Great War. Trans. J. R. Foster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
McGrath, William. Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
. "'Volksseelenpolitik' and Psychological Rebirth: Mahler and Hofmannsthal." Jour-
nal of Interdisciplinary History Vol. 4 (Summer 1973): 53-71.
McMillan, James E From Dreyfus to DeGaulle: Politics in France 1898-1969. London: Ed-
ward Arnold, 1985.
. "Social History, 'New Cultural History,' and the Rediscovery of Politics: Some
Recent Works on Modern France." Journal of Modern History 66 (Dec. 1994):
755-772.
. Twentieth-Century France: Politics and Society, 1898-1991. New York: Routledge,
Chapman, and Hall, 1992.
278 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mehlman, Jeffrey. Legacies of Anti-Semitism in France. Minneapolis: University of Min-

nesota Press, 1983.
Mellon, Stanley. The Political Uses of History: A Study of Historians in the French Restoration.
Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1958.
Menard, Louis. "Eliot and the Jews." New York Review of Books June 6, 1996: 34-41.
Mercanton, Jacques. Poesie et religion dans I'oeuvre de Maurice Barres. Lausanne: E Rouge,
1940.
Mercier, Lucien. Les Universites populaires 1899-1914: Education populaire et movement ou-
vrier au debut du siecle. Paris: Les Editions Ouvrieres, 1986.
Merriam, Alan. The Anthropology of Music. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1964.
Meyer, Leonard B. Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.
Meyers, Rollo. Modern French Music. Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1971.
Milza, Pierre. Fascismefranc.ais: Passe et present. Paris: Flammerion, 1987.
Ministere de Commerce, de I'Industrie, et des Colonies. Expositions Universelle de 1889 a
Paris. Direction General de I'Exploitation. Auditions musicales. Paris: Imprimerie Na-
tionale, 1889.
Mittler, Eugene. Des Rapports entre le Socialisme, le Syndicalisme, et la Franc-Mafonnerie.
Paris: Imprimerie Industrielle, 1911.
Monsaigneon, Bruno. Mademoiselle. Conversations with Nadia Boulanger. Trans. Robyn
Marsack. Manchester, Eng.: Carcanet, 1985.
Mosse, George. The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements
in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich. New York: Howard Fer-
tig, 1975.
. "The Political Culture of Italian Futurism: A General Perspective." Journal of Con-
temporary History Vol. 25 (1990): 253-68.
Nattiez, Jacques. Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music. Trans. Carolyn Abbate.
Nectoux, Jean-Michel. Gabriel Faure: A Musical Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991.
Newcomb, Anthony. "The Birth of Music out of the Spirit of Drama: An Essay in Wagner-
ian Formal Analysis." 19th-century Music Vol. 5/1 (Summer 1981): 38-66.
Nguyen, Victor. Aux origines de I'Action Francaise: Intelligence et politique a I'aube du XXe
siecle. Paris: Fayard, 1991.
Nichols, Roger. Debussy. London: Oxford University Press, 1973.
. Ravel. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1977.
Nicolodi, Fiamme. "Alfredo Casella et I'avant-garde parisienne au debut du XXe siecle."
Revue internationale de musique francaise Vol. 78 (Nov. 1985): 83-92.
Niess, Robert J. Julien Benda. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956.
Nochlin, Linda. "Degas and the Dreyfus Affair: A Portrait of the Artist as Anti-Semite." In
The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, and Justice, pp. 96-116. Ed. Norman L. Kleeblatt. Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1987.
Nora, Pierre, ed. Les Lieux du memoire. Vol. 2. La Nation. Paris: Gallimard, 1986.
Norris, Christopher, ed. Music and the Politics of Culture. New York: St. Martin's, 1989.
Noske, Frits. French Song from Berlioz to Duparc. Trans. Rita Benton. New York: Dover, 1970.
Olin, Elinor. "Festivals de plein-air: Cultural Nationalism in fin-de-siecle France." Paper
delivered at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, Minneapolis,
1994.
Olivera, Philippe. La Librairie Valois (1928-1932). Memoire presente a ITnstitut d'Etudes
Politiques de Paris. Paris, 1989.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 279
Orenstein, Arbie. Ravel. Man and Musician. New York: Columbia University Press, 1975.
Orledge, Robert. Debussy and the Theater. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
. Satie the Composer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
. Satie Remembered. Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, 1995.
Ory, Pascal. Les Expositions Universelles de Paris. Paris: Ramsay, 1982.
Ory Pascal, and Jean-Francois Sirinelli. Les intellectuels en France de I'Affaire Dreyfus a nos
jours. Paris: A. Colin, 1986.
Ozouf, Mona. Festivals of the French Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1988.
Parks, Richard. The Music of Claude Debussy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1989.
Pasler, Jan. "Paris: Conflicting Notions of Progress." In Music, Society, and the Late Roman-
tic Era, pp. 389-416. Ed. Jim Samson. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991.
. "Pelleas and Power: Forces behind the Reception of Debussy's Opera." 19th-cen-
tury Music Vol. 10/3 (Spring 1987): 243-264.
Patureau, Frederique. Le Palais Gamier dans la societe parisienne 1875-1914. Liege: Mar-
gada, 1991.
Paul, Charles B. "Rameau, d'Indy, and French Nationalism." Musical Quarterly Vol. 58/1
Qan. 1972): 46-56.
Paxton, Robert. "Radicals." New York Review of Books (June 23, 1994): 51-54.
Perloff, Nancy. Art and the Everyday: Popular Entertainment and the Circle of Erik Satie. Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1991.
Peter, Jean-Pierre. "Dimensions de I'Affaire Dreyfus." Annales E..S.C. Vol. 16/6 (Nov.-Dec.
1961): 1141-1167.
Peter, Rene. Claude Debussy. Paris: Gallimard, 1944.
. Le Theatre et la vie sous la Troisieme Republique. Paris: Sanctandreana, 1945.
Philipps, Harvey. "Friend of the Working Girl." Opera News Vol. 6 (March 1971): 28-30.
Pierne, Gabriel, Paul Vidal, Henry Prunieres, Maurice Emmanuel, and Henri de Regnier.
Lajeunesse de Claude Debussy. Paris: Editions de Nouvelle Revue Francaise, 1926.
Pierre, Constant. "Le Conservatoire National de Musique." La Revue musicale Vol. 15 (July
1903): 313-324.
. Le Conservatoire Nationale de Musique et de Declamation: Documents historiques et
administratifs. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1900.
-. B. Sarretle et les origines du Conservatoire Nationale de Musique et de Declamation.
Paris: Delalaine Freres, 1895.
Pirro, Andre. L'Esthetique de Jean-Sebastian Bach. Paris: Fishbacher, 1907.
Pistone, Danielle. "Beethoven et Paris: Reperes et evocations contemporaines." Revue Inter-
nationale de musique fran^aise Vol. 12 (Feb. 1987): 7-31.
. La Musique en France de la Revolution a 1900. Paris: Honore Champion, 1979.
. "Paris et la musique 1890-1900." Revue Internationale de musique frant;aise Vol. 28
(Feb. 1989): 7-53.
-. "Wagner et Paris (1839-1900)." Revue internationale de musique franfaise Vol. 1/1
(Feb. 1980): 7-84.
Pocock, J. G. A. Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History. New
York: Atheneum, 1971.
Poggioli, Renato. The Theory of the Avant-Garde. Trans. Gerald Fitzgerald. Cambridge,
Mass.: Belknap Press, 1968.
Prado, Sharon S. "The Decadent Aesthetic in France 1880-1914: Musical Manifestations
in the Works of Debussy and His Contemporaries." Ph.D. Dissertation. University of
Cincinnati, 1994.
280 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Prochasson, Christophe. Les anne.es electriques 1880-1910. Paris: Editions de La Decou-

verte, 1991.
. Les Intdlectuels, le socialisms, et la guerre. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1992.
. "Sur le cas Maurras: biographie et histoire des idees politiques." Annales: Histoire,
Sciences Sociales Vol. 50/3 (May-June 1995): 579-587.
. "Sur 1'environment intellectuel de Georges Sorel: L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes So-
ciales (1899-1911)." Cahiers Georges Sorel Vol. 3 (1985): 16-38.
Prochasson, Christophe, and Anne Rasmussen. Au nom de la patrie. Les intellectuels et la
Premiere Guerre Mondiale (1910-1919). Paris: Editions de la Decouverte, 1996.
Prod'homme, J.-G. Richard Wagner et la France. Paris: Maurice Senart, 1921.
Ravel, Maurice. "A Propos des Images de Claude Debussy." Les Cahiers d'aujourd'hui
(1913): 133-138.
. A Ravel Reader: Correspondence, Articles, Interviews. Trans., ed. Arbie Orenstein.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
Raymond, Marcel. From Baudelaire to Surrealism. London: Methuen, 1970.
Rearick, Charles. Pleasures of the Belle Epoque: Entertainment and Festivity in Turn-of-the-
Century France. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985.
Reberioux, Madeleine. "1913: L'Art et la reflection sur 1'art." Annales E.S.C. Vol. 29/4
(July-Aug. 1974): 913-924.
. "Histoire, historiens, et Dreyfusisme." Revue historique Vol. 518 (April-June
1976): 407-432.
. "Presentation." [Issue on "Critique litteraire et socialisme."] Le Mouvement sociale
Vol. 59 (April-June 1967): 3-28.
-. La Republique radicale? 1898-1914. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1975.
Reddy, William. Money and Liberty in Modern Europe: A Critique of Historical Understand-
ing. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Remond, Rene. La Droite en France de 1815 a nos jours. Paris: Aubier, 1954.
. Les Droites en France. Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1982.
. La Vie politique en France depuis 1789. Paris: A. Colin, 1965.
Rey, Anne. Erik Satie. Bourges: Tardy Quercy Auvergne, 1974.
Ricoeur, Paul. Interpretation Theory. Discourse and the Symbols of Meaning. Forth Worth:
Texas Christian University Press, 1976.
Riffaterre, Michael. "Decadent Features in Maeterlinck's Poetry." Language and Style Vol.
7/1 (Winter 1974): 3-16.
Ringer, Fritz. Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective,
1890-1920. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Rioux, Jean-Pierre. Nationalisme et conservatisme: La Ligue de la Patrie Franfaise. Paris:
Beauchesne, 1977.
Rioux, Jean-Pierre, and Jean-Francois Sirinelli. Pour une histoire culturelle. Paris: Le Seuil,
1997.
Roche-Pezard, Fanette. "Creation artistique et ideologic politique: futurisme et fascisme."
Cahiers d'histoire de Tart contemporaine (May 1974): 4-11.
Rohoninski, L., ed. Cinquante ans de musique franfaise de 1874 a 1925. Paris: Les Editions
Musicales de la Librairie de France, 1925.
Roland-Manuel. Ravel. Paris: Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Critique, 1938.
Rolland, Romain. Essays on Music. New York: Allen, Towne, and Heath, 1948.
. Haendel, Paris: Felix Alcan, 1911.
.Jean Christophe. Paris: Albin Michel, 1931.
. Musiciens d'aujourd'hui. Paris: Hachette, 1912.
. Theatre de la Revolution. Paris: Albin Michel, 1972.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 281
. La Vie de Beethoven. Paris: Hachette, 1903.

Rosen, Charles. "Did Beethoven Have All the Luck?" New York Review of Books November
14, 1996: 57-63.
Rosentiel, Leonie. Nadia Boulanger: A Life in Music. New York: Norton, 1982.
Rostand, Claude. La Musique franfaise contemporaine. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1952.
Roth, Jack. The Cult of Violence: Sore! and the Sorelians. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1980.
Roussel, Albert. Lettres et ecrits. Ed. Nicole Labelle. Paris: Flammarion, 1987.
Rouviere, Balsan de la. "Le Conservatoire." Revue musicale (1911): 403-407.
Said, Edward W Musical Elaborations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
"Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, and Commentary." Critical Inquiry
Vol. 9/1 (Sept. 1982).
Saint-Saens, Camille. Outspoken Essays on Music. Trans. Fred Rothwell. London: Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1922.
Saint-Saens-Faure. Correspondence. Ed. Jean-Michel Nectoux. Paris: Association des Amis
de Gabriel Faure, 1971.
Samazeuilh, Gustave. Musiciens de mon temps: Chroniques et souvenirs. Paris: Marcel
Daubin, 1947.
Sapir, David J., and Christopher J. Crocker, eds. The Social Use of Metaphor: Essays
on the Anthropology of Rhetoric. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1977.
Sapir, Edward. Anthropologie. Vol. 1. Culture et personality. Trans. Christian Baudelt and
Pierre Clinquart. Paris: Minuit, 1967.
Satie, Erik. Ecrits. Ed. Ornella Volta. Paris: Champ Libre, 1981.
. Exposition organisee par la Bibliotheque Nationale. Paris: Bibliotheque Nationale,
1966.
Schmitz, E. Robert. The Piano Works of Claude Debussy. New York: Dover, 1950.
Schorske, Carl E. Fin-de-Siede Vienna: Politics and Culture. New York: Knopf, 1980.
Schorske, Carl E. "La Formation et revolution de Gustave Mahler." Actes de la recherche en
sciences sociales Vol. 100 (Dec. 1993): 5-15.
. "Revolt in Vienna." New York Review of Books Vol. 29 (May 1986): 24-28.
Schrade, Leo. Beethoven in Paris. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1942.
Scott, John A. Republican Ideas and the Liberal Tradition in France 1870-1914. New York:
Sedgwick, Alexander. The Ralliement in French Politics 1890-1898. Cambridge: Harvard
Seigel, Jerrold. Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics, and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life
1830-1930. New York: Viking, 1986.
Selva, Blanche. Quelque mots sur la sonate. Paris: Paul Delaplane, 1914.
Severac, Deodat de. "La Centralisation et les petites chapelles musicales." Le Courrier mu-
sical (Jan. 1908): 1-6; 37-43; 142-144.
Shapiro, Theda. Painters and Politics: The European Avant-Garde and Society 1900-1925.
New York: Elsevier, 1976.
Shattuck, Roger. The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France 1885 to World
War 1. New York: Vintage, 1968.
. "Catching Up with the Avant-Garde." New York Review of Books Dec. 18, 1986:
66-74.
. The Innocent Eye: On Modern Literature and the Arts. New York: Washington
Square Press, 1986.
282 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Silver, Kenneth. Esprit de Corps: The Art of the Parisian Avant-Garde and the First World
War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Siohan, Robert. Stravinsky. Trans. Eric Walter White. New York: Grossman, 1970.
Sirinelli, Jean-Francois. Intellectuels et passions francaises: Manifestes et petitions. Paris: Fa-
yard, 1990.
. "Litterature et politique: Le Cas Burdeau-Bouteille." Revue historiaue Vol. 272/1
(1985): 91-111.
, ed. Histoire des droites. Vol. 2. Cultures. Paris: Gallimard, 1992.
Slominsky, Nicolas. Music since 1900. New York: Schirmer, 1994.
Smith, Oivia. The Politics of Language 1791-1819. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.
Societe des Auteurs, Compositeurs, et Editeurs de Musique. Maurice Ravel 1875-1975.
Paris: SACEM, 1975.
Sonn, Richard D. Anarchism and Cultural Politics in Fin-de-Siede France. Lincoln: Univer-
sity ol Nebraska Press, 1989.
Sorel, Georges. La Revolution Drey fusienne. Paris: Librairie des Sciences Sociales, 1911.
Soucy Robert. "Barres and French Fascism." French Historical Studies Vol. 5/1 (Spring
1967): 67-97.
Speck, W. A. Society and Literature in England 1700-1760. London: Gill and Macmillan,
1983.
Spies, Andre. "French Opera during the Belle Epoque: A Study in the Social History of
Ideas." Ph.D. Dissertation. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1986.
Starobinski, Jean. "La Litterature: La texte et 1'interprete." In Faire de I'histoire, pp.
225-244. Ed. Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora. Paris: Gallimard, 1974.
Steegmuller, Francis. Cocteau: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970.
Steinberg, Michael. The Meaning of the Salzburg Festival: Austria as Theater and Ideology
1890-1938. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990.
Sternhell, Zeev. The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution.
Trans. David Maisel. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994.
. La Droite revolutionnaire. Paris: Le Seuil, 1971.
. Maurice Barres et le nationalisme francais. Paris: Armand Colin, 1972.
. Ni Droite ni Gauche: UIdeologic fasciste en France. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1983.
Sterns, Peter N. Revolutionary Syndicalism and French Labor: A Cause without Rebels. New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1971.
Stone, Judith E Sons of the Revolution: Radical Democrats in France 1862-1914. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996.
Strohm, Rheinhard. "Dramatic Time and Operatic Form in Wagner's Tannhduser." Proceed-
ings of the Royal Musical Association (1977): 1-10.
Subotnik, Rose. "The Role of Ideology in the Study of Western Music." Journal of Musicol-
ogy Vol. 2 (Winter 1983): 1-12.
Suleiman, Ezra N. Politics, Power, and Bureaucracy in France: The Administrative Elite.
Swart, Koenraad W. The Sense of Decadence in Nineteenth-century France. The Hague: Mar-
tins Nijhoff, 1964.
Tackett, Timothy. Becoming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of the French National Assembly
and the Emergence of a Revolutionary Culture (1789-1790). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
Taine, Hippolyte. The Ideal in Art. New York: Holt and Williams, 1872.
. Philosophic de Tart. Paris: Ganner Bailiere, 1965.
Tannenbaum, Edward. The Action Francaise: Die-hard Reactionaries in Twentieth-century
France. New York: Wiley, 1962.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 283
Taruskin, Richard. "The Dark Side of Modern Music." New Republic (Sept. 5, 1988):
28-34.
Taylor, Una. Maurice Maeterlinck: A Critical Study. New York: Kennikat Press, 1968.
Templier, Pierre-Daniel. Erik Satie. Paris: Les Editions Rieder, 1932.
Thomson, Andrew. The Life and Times of Charles-Marie Widor, 1844-1.937. New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1987.
. Vincent d'lndy and His World. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.
Tiersot, Julien. Une Demi-siede de musique francaise 1870-1914. Paris: Felix Alcan, 1924.
Todorov, Tzventan. Mikhail Bakhtine: Le Principe dialogique. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1981.
Toews, John E. "Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning
and the Irreducibility of Experience." American Historical Review Vol. 92/4 (Oct.
1987): 879-907.
Tosi, Guy. Debussy et d'Annunzio: Correspondence inedite. Paris: Denoel, 1948.
Touchard, Jean. La Gauche en France depuis 1900. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1968.
Trillig, Johann. Untersuchung zur Rezeption Claude Debussys in der zeitgenossischen
Musihkritik. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1983.
Vallas, Leon. Claude Debussy et son temps. Paris: Felix Alcan, 1932.
. Vincent d'lndy. 2 Vols. Paris: Albin Michel, 1950.
Veeser, H. Aramm, ed. The New Historicism. New York: Routledge, 1989.
Vendler, Helen. "The Medley Is the Message." New York Review of Books (May 8, 1986):
44-50.
Vincens, Charles. "Wagner et Wagnerisme au point de vue francais." In Memoires de
I'Academie des Sciences, Lettres, et Beaux-Arts de Marseille. Marseille: Barlatier, 1904.
Volta, Ornella. Erik Satie. Paris: Seghers, 1979.
. Erik Satie. Ecrits. Paris: Editions Champ Libre, 1977.
. "Le Rideau se leve sur un os." Revue Internationale de musique francaise Vol. 23
(June 1987): 7-98.
Vuillermoz, Emile. Claude Debussy. Paris: Heugel, 1920.
. "Le Dictionnaire." Le Mercure musical March 1, 1906 and June 15, 1906: 547-555.
—. Musiques d'aujourd'hui. Paris: G. Cres, 1923.
. "La Schola et le Conservatoire." Mercure de France (1909): 234-243.
. "Une Tasse de the." Le Mercure musicale Vol. 15 (Nov. 1905): 505-510.
Weber, Edith, ed. Debussy et Devolution de la musique au XXe siecle. Paris: Editions du Cen-
tre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 1965.
Weber, Eugen. Action Francaise: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-century France. Stan-
ford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962.
. France: Fin-de-Siecle. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1986.
. The Nationalist Revival in France 1905-1914. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1959.
-. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France 1870-1914. Stanford,
Calif: Stanford University Press, 1976.
Weber, Eugen, and Hans Rogger, eds. The European Right: A Historical Profile. Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1965.
Weber, William. Music and the Middle Class: The Social Structure of Concert Life in London,
Paris, and Vienna. London: Crooms Helm, 1975.
. The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-century England: A Study in Canon, Rit-
ual, and Ideology. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
Weisz, George. The Emergence of Modern Universities in France, 1863—1914. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Wenk, Arthur. Claude Debussy and the Poets. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
284 BIBLIOGRAPHY
. Claude Debussy and Twentieth-century Music. Boston: Twayne, 1983.

Widor, Charles-Marie. Fondations: Portraits de Massenet a Paladilhe. Paris: J. Durand et fils,
1927.
Wilentz, Sean, ed. Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual, and Politics since the Middle Ages.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.
Wilkins, Nigel, ed. and trans. The Writings of Erik Satie. London: Eulenburg Books, 1980.
Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Winock, Michel. Edouard Drumont et Cie: Antisemitisme et fascism en France. Paris: Le
Seuil, 1982.
, ed. Histoire de I'extreme droite en France. Paris: Le Seuil, 1993.
Winspur, Steven. "The Pragmatic Force of Lyric." Paper delivered at the conference on
"Mallarme: Music, An, and Letters." Indiana University, 1994.
Winzer, Dieter. Claude Debussy und die franzosische musikalische Tradition. Wiesbaden:
BreitkopfundHartel, 1981.
Wohl, Robert. The Generation of 1914. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.
Woldu, Gail Hilson. "Gabriel Faure as Director of the Conservatoire National de Musique
et de Declamation, 1905-1920." Ph.D. Dissertation. Yale University, 1983.
. "Gabriel Faure, directeur du Conservatoire: les reformes de 1905." Revue de musi-
cologie Vol 70/2 (1984): 119-228.
Wright, Gordon. France in Modern Times. New York: Rand McNally, 1974.
Wuthnow, Robert. Communities of Discourses: Ideology and Social Structure in the Reforma-
tion, the Enlightenment, and European Socialism, Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1989.
Zakone, Constant. "Les Ennemies de la Schola." Revue musicale Vol. 1 (Feb. 1905): 83.
Zammito, John. "Are We Being Theoretical Yet? The New Historicism, the Philosophy of
Flistory, and Practicing Historians." Journal of Modern History Vol. 65/4 (Dec. 1993):
783-814.
Zeldin, Theodore. France 1848-1945. Oxford: Clarendon, 1973.
Zevaes, Alexandre. LAffaire Dreyfus. Paris: Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Critique, 1931.
Zola, Emile. Oeuvres completes. No. 40. La Republique en marche II. Chroniques parlemen-
taires 19 septembre 1871-4 mm. 1872. Paris: Fasquelles, 1969.
. La Republique et la litterature. Paris: G. Charpentier, 1879.
. Le Reve. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1975.
. Le Roman experimental. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1971.
. La Verite en marche. Paris: Bibliotheque Charpentier, 1901.
Index
Academie Francaise, 21, 100, 105, 107, Auberge de Clou, 196

131, 132, 141, 193 Aubry, Pierre, 57, 62
Action Francaise Auric, Georges, 217, 219
and Debussy, 188-190
and dlndy, 134-136 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 55, 57, 71, 135
and music, 119-1.26 and the Conservatoire, 144-146
and Scholisme, 214-215 Bachelier, Alfred, 35, 98
Adam, Adolphe, 47 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 78, 92
Agathon, 141-142, 147, 151, 206 Ballets Russes, 217
Agulhon, Maurice, 36 Bardac, Emma, 181-182
Allais, Alphonse, 196 Bardac, Raoul, 185
Anarchism, 21, 53, 80 Barres, Maurice, 5, 7, 11, 28-29
and Debussy, 171-175 and Debussy, 170, 182, 193
Annales de la Patrie Francaise, 28, 209 and d'Indy, 16-17
Annunzio, d', Gabrielle, 189-190 Barthes, Rolland, 112
Appel a 1'Union, II, 18, 95, 173 Bayreuth, 23, 83
Arceuil, 197, 201-203 Bedier, Joseph, 185
Art Independant, C, 173 Beethoven, van, Ludwig, 8, 31, 55, 58-59
Art moderns, 11, 51 and the Fetes du Peuple, 132-133
Art Pour Tous, 130, 215, 216 Bellaigue, Camille, 54, 125, 160, 178
Assumptionist Order, 37 Benda, Julien, 179
Auber, D. F .H., 47 Bergson, Henri, 110, 160
28S
286 INDEX
Berlioz, Hector, 40, 43, 62, 107-108 Charpentier, Gustave

Berys, Jose de, 158-159, 160 Le Courronnement de la Muse, 89, 91, 94,
Bizet, Georges, 23, 40, 43, 157 98
Boieldieu, Francois, 43, 108 and Debussy, 169-188
Bois, Jules, 197 Julien, 93, 98, 205
Bordes, Charles, 26, 53, 73, 180 Louise, 77-93
Boulanger scandal, 227 n. 1 and politics, 204-206
Boulangism, 59, 80 Charpentier, Marc-Antoine, 107
Bourgault-Ducoudray, Louis, 18, 40, 54, Chat Noir, 80, 196, 199
130, 145, 153 Chausson, Ernest, 29, 43, 167, 173
and the Action Francaise, 124-125 Chavannes, Puvis de, 142
Bourget, Paul, 134 Cherubini, Luigi, 43
Bouyer, Raymond, 177-179, 207 Chevigne, de, Comtesse, 218
Brenet, Michel [Marie Bobilier], 57, 62, Chopin, Frederic, 203
135 Clemenceau, 41, 127
Breville, Pierre de, 18, 29, 66, 110, 180 Coeur, Le, 197
Bruneau, Alired Colette, 180
and criticism, 103-109 College de France, 21, 147, 151, 152,
Messidor, 12-20, 82 195
and Nationalism, 110-115 Colonne, Edouard, 18, 215
Wuragan, 19, 98, 177 Colonne Concerts, 23, 106, 138
LeReve, 19, 105, 177 Combarieu, Jules, 57, 110, 136, 147,
and Socialism, 127-133 152-153, 182
and the Universal Exposition of 1900, Combes, Emile, 9, 119, 143
35-47 Combes, Louis, 150
Brunetiere, Ferdinand, 16, 21 Comedie Francaise, 196
Comoedia, 137, 147
Cahiers d'aujourd'hui, 210 Concerts Symphoniques du Trocadero, 215
Cahiers du Cercle Proudhon, 134 Conservatoire National de Musique
Caillard, C. Francis, 158-160 attacks on, 140-143
Camelots du Roi, 121 and Charpentier, 79-81
Canudo, Riciutto, 204, 218 and Debussy, 170-172
Caplet, Andre, 189 and Faure, 143-147
Carlyle, Thomas, 189 and d'lndy 21-25
Carraud, Gaston, 147, 188, 190, 208, 210 and Nationalism, 110-112
Carre, Albert, 18, 131 and the Schola, 30-33, 54-56, 147-151
Carroll, David, 5 Conservatoire Populaire de Mimi Pinson,
Casella, Alfred, 158, 215 138, 181
Castera, de, Rene, 66 Contamine de Latour, J.-R, 196, 198
Catholic Church, 34, 50-51, 70, 134, Cools, Eugene, 105
195 Cor, Raphael, 159
Cendrars, Blaise, 204 Cortot, Alfred, 63
Cercle musical, 203 Couperin, Francois, 107, 157, 184, 191
Chabrier, Emmanuel, 40, 43, 104, 167, Courrier musical, 138, 154, 165, 190
172,210 Cressent Prize, 105, 188, 207
Chamberlin, Houston Stuart, 173
Chansons du Peuple, 130 Darty, Paulette, 198
Chanlavoine, Jean, 62, 207 Daudet, Leon, ] 24
Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais, 26, 171 Dauriac, Lionel, 18, 62
Charle, Christophe, 1 7, 225 David, Felicien, 40, 43
INDEX 287
Debussy, Claude Exposition Universelle, 1889, 24, 37, 41,

L'Apres-midi d'un faune, 44, 174, 192 60, 80, 172
and criticism, 108-110, 158-161 Exposition Universelle, 1900, 7, 17, 35-38,
and Debussystes, 154-158 44, 64, 78, 93-94
Freres en art, 174-175
Images (Orchestra), 187, 200, 210 Faure, Garbriel
La Mer, 183-184 and the Conservatoire, 142-148
Le Martyr de Saint Sebastien, 189-190 and the Societe Musicale Independante,
Pelleas et Melisande, 176-179, 182- 161-162
183 Febvre, Lucien, 226
Trois chansons de Charles d'Orleans, Figaro, Le, 41, 75-76, 97, 177, 179
186-187 Flaubert, Gustave, 196
Debussystes, 154-158 Fourcaud, de, Louis, 178
Degas, Edgar, 49 France, La, 218
Delacroix, Eugene, 113 France, Anatole, 18, 99, 173
Delibes, Leo, 40, 43 Franck, Cesar, 31, 40, 43, 53-54
Denis, Maurice, 49, 113, 134 and d'Indy, 22-23
Delmet, Paul, 103 Franco-Prussian War, 22
Diaghilev, Serge, 217 French Revolution, 6, 16, 37, 57, 94, 147,
Dimier, Louis, 122 168
Donizetti, Gaetano, 54 Freud, Sigmund, 7
Doyen, Albert, 130-133, 206 Front National, 226
Dreyfus Affair, 3-6 Fumet, D.-V, 196
and French musicians, 17-21
Republican response, 35-39 Gailhard, Pedro, 99
Dubarry, Alfred, 20 Galle, Emile, 76
Dubois, Theodore, 26-27, 35, 40, 47, 55, Gambetta, Leon, 39
75,142-143 Gastinel, Leon, 38
Ducasse, Roger, 210 Gaulois, Le, 28, 125, 178
Dujardin-Beaumetz, 143, 145 Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 137
Dukas, Paul, 45, 61, 167, 178, 188, 193 Gil Blas, 30, 41,97, 103, 180
Duparc, Henri, 22-23, 167 Gluck, Christophe Willibald, 22, 32, 40,
Durand, Jacques, 29, 76, 179, 187, 193, 43, 55, 103, 105, 146
217 Godebski, Cipa and Ida, 167
Durendal, 51 Godet, Robert, 173
Durkheim, Emile, 152 Gossec, Francois Joseph, 43
Gounod, Charles, 40, 43, 47, 57, 157
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 143 Grande revue, La, 137, 150, 152, 156, 183
Echo de Paris, L, 28 Greffuhle, de, Comtesse, 217
Eclair, L, 28, 159 Gregorian chant, 26, 33, 51, 62, 66, 71,
Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales, 59-63, 144, 196
109-110, 136-137 Gretry, Andre Ernest Modest, 43, 58
Ecole Niedermeyer, 138, 144, 212 Grieg, Edvard, 155
Ecole Normale Superieur, 61 Gui, Vittorio, 193
Ecorcheville, Jules, 138, 203 Guilmant, Alexandre, 26, 40
Effort, L, 127-128
Emmanuel, Maurice, 57, 94, 172, 178 Hallays, Andre, 178
Erlanger, Camille, 37, 104, 188 Halle, de la, Adam, 42, 45, 108
Excellsior, 189 Handel, George Frideric, 58-59, 133, 144
Expert, Henry 62 Harcourt, d', Eugene, 177
288 INDEX
Hart, Brian, 146 La Laurencie, de, Lionel, 49-52, 62, 115,

Hellouin, Frederic, 62, 136-137, 164, 210 139-140
Hue, Georges, 37, 47, 104-105 Lalo, Edouard, 23, 40, 43, 57
Hugo, Victor, 133 Lalo, Pierre, 54, 136, 147, 193, 210, 211
Huizinga, Johan, 12, 226 Laloy Louis
Humanite, L', 129 and the "chapelles," 153-158
Hurejean, 161-165, 183, 210 and the Conservatoire, 151-153
Hyman, Paula, 49 on contemporary opera, 110-113
Hyspa, Vincent, 198 and Debussy, 180-192
and journalism, 136-139
impressionism, 71, 187, 214, 219 Lamoureux Concerts, 76, 106, 138, 215
Independence, L, 134-135, 206 Landormy, Paul, 62, 106-107, 147, 183
Indy, d', Vincent Landowska, Wanda, 63
Cours de composition musicale, 70, 123, Lanson, Gustave, 141
150 Lasserre, Pierre, 122-123, 139-140, 153
and the Dreyfus Affair, 16-24 Lavignac, Albert, 21
LEtranger, 70, 104, 140, 148, 150, 162, Legende doree, 67, 132
180 Leger, Fernand, 204
Fervaal, 47, 64, 66-74, 132, 134 Legion d'Honneur, 97, 104, 182
La Legende de Saint Christophe, 49, 64, Lamattre, Jules, 16, 73
66-74, 132, 134 Lenormand, Rene, 191
and National-Socialism, 133-135 Leon, Paul, 144-145
and the Schola, 24-26, 28-31 Le Pen, Jean-Marie, 226
supporters, 48-56 Leroux, Xavier, 37
Symphony #2, 64-66, 74 Liberal de I'Est, Le, 77
Institut d'Action Francaise, 122 Liberal Right, 56, 148, 157, 217-218
Institut Catholique, 57, 61, 100, 122 Libertaire, Le, 53, 190
Institut Francais de Florence, 213 Libre parole, La, 20, 28, 178
Institut de France, 97, 131, 140-141, Lichtenberger, Henri, 62
205 Ligue de la Patrie Francaise
International Congress of Music History, and the Action Francaise, 120-125
1900, 57, 61, 152 and the Dreyfus Affair, 4-6
Intransigeant, L, 28 and d'Indy, 16-21
Ligue des Droits de I'Homme, 18, 76
Jammes, Francis, 134 Lille, 79, 101
Jannequin, Clement, 40, 43-45, 1.57, 187 Lorrain.Jean, 155-156, 159, 161, 177
Jaures, Jean, 98, 126, 173, 204-205 Loubet, Emile, 36
Javanese gamelan, 172, 174, 183 Louys, Pierre, 96, 173, 180, 182
Joncieres, Victorin, 104 Loynes, de, Comtesse, 28
Jospin, Lionel, 226 Lully, Jean-Baptiste, 32, 40, 43, 55, 81,
Josquin des Prez, 42, 45 104, 146
Jourdain, Frantz, 19 Lumet, Louis, 100
Journal des debats, 141
Julien, Adolphe, 54 Maeterlick, Maurice, 176,178, 198
Magnard, Alberic
Kelkel, Manfred, 83 Berenice, 208-209
Koechlin, Charles, 18, 151, 157, 161, 180 and the Dreyfus Affair, 74-77
Guercoeur, 76
Lacan, Jacques, 200 Hymne a la justice, 76-77
Lacerda, de, Francesco, 200 Male, Fmile, 52
INDEX 289
Malherbes, Charles, 62 National-Socialists, 9, 61, 120, 133-135

Mallarme, Stephane, 53 Natrualism, 81, 93, 112, 163,170, 180, 213
Manifest des Intellectuels, 18, 38 Naturalist opera, 42, 44, 78, 110-112, 177
Marcel, Henry, 60 Niedermeyer, Louis, 25, 144, 195
Marianne, 91 Nouvelle revue, 178, 219
Marnold, Jean, 55-56, 110, 138, 147-148, Nouvelle revue francaise, 121
156,161,209,218
Marxism, 21 Occident, L', 48, 50, 66, 135, 178
Masonic order, 49 O'Divy [Jean Drault ] ,20
Massenet, Jules, 23, 32, 40, 79, 80, 144, Oeuvre de la Chanson Francaise, 100
157, 205 Oeuvre de Mimi Pinson, 65, 97-98, 101,
Massis, Henri, 141, 160 112, 130, 215
Masson, Paul-Marie, 41, 62, 213-214 Offenbach, Jacques, 198
Matin, Le, 41,190 Opera Comique, 42, 78, 99, 104, 131, 176,
Mauclair, Camille 208
and Debussy, 159-160 Opinion, L, 160
and Laloy, 113-115 orpheon societies, 46, 79, 102, 124
and Socialism
Maupassant, de, Guy, 129, 133 Palestrina, da, Giovanni Pierluigi, 30, 135,
Maurras, Charles, 5, 120-121, 160, 189 144, 163, 172
May, Dick [Jeanne Weill], 59 Panama affair, 59, 227 n.l
Mehul, Etienne Nicolas, 43, 105, 108, 133, Paris Commune, 22, 171
207 Paris journal, 127
Mendelssohn, Felix, 22, 47 Paris Opera, 38, 104-105, 127, 196, 214,
Mendes, Catulle, 96, 104, 133, 172 216
Meneppian discourse, 198 Pasdeloup Concerts, 23, 106
Menestrel, Le, 177 patronage laique 201
Mercure de France, 55-56, 106, 138, 148, Peguy, Charles, 52, 160
150,218 Peladon ,Josephin, 196, 197
Mercure musicale, 62, 110, 137-138, 148, Peter Rene 173, 174
155, 183 Petite Republique, 20, 179
Messager, Andre, 40 Pierne, Gabriel, 37, 40, 188
Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 22, 32, 47, 54, 71 Pirro, Andre, 54, 57, 62, 152
Les Huguenots, 96, 104 Poincare, Raymond, 213-214
Le Prophete, 104 Polignac, de, Princesse Edmond, 144, 167,
Michelet, Jules, 102 218
Millerand, Alexandre, 36 Popular Front, 109, 132, 133
Monde musical, Le, 150, 158 Presse, La, 128
Monteverdi, Claudio, 31, 146, 178 Prix de Rome, 80 ,96, 142, 172-173, 205
Montjoid, 203-204, 218 Prod'homme, J.-G., 126
Montmartre, 79-80, 83, 98, 172-174, 196 Protestantism, 34, 49, 104, 206
Morland, Jacques, 106 Proust, Marcel, 18, 30
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 115 Prunieres, Henry, 18, 62
Musica, 179
Mussel, de Alfred, 101, 205 Querelle des Bouffons, 221
Mussorgsky, Modest, 81, 123, 177 Quittard, Henri, 62
Napoleon, 2] Radical, Le, 158

Natanson, Alexandre, 197 Radical-Socialist Party, 11, 201
National Endowment for the Arts, 226 Ralliement, 24
290 INDEX
Rameau, Jean-Phillippe Rouche, Jacques, 129, 137, 156, 209

and the Conservatoire, 27 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 58
and Debussy, 151-152 Roussel, Albert
and the Schola, 32, 43-46 and Montjoie!, 204
Ravel, Maurice and salons, 167
and the "chappelles," 209-212 and Satie, 199-200
and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes So- and the Schola, 212
ciales, 61-63 Rouvier, Maurice, 143
Prix de Rome scandal, 142 Rubenstein, Ida, 189, 190
Reinach, Theodore, 62
Revue, La, 52 Saint-Croix, Camille, 179
Revue d'arl dramatique, 130 Saint-Saens, Camille, 10, 18, 23, 40, 43,
Revue blanche, 174 47, 105, 144
Revue bleue, 106, 114, 179 Saint-Simonian movement, 21
Revue critique des idees et des livres, 121, Salis, Rodolphe, 80
123, 190 salons, 167-168
Revue des deux mondes, 125, 178 Satie, Erik
Revue francaise de musique, 217 and Debussy, 173
Revue d' histoire et de critique musicale, 45, early development, 194-198
145 and the Radical-Socialist Party, 201
Revue d'art dramatique, 58 and the Schola, 199-200
Revue francaise politique et litteraire, 209 and the Societe Musicale Independante,
Revue mondiale, 113 202-203
Revue musicale, 124, 138, 142, 150, and the Socialist Party, 204
152-153 Schmitt, Florent, 204, 210, 218
Revue musicale S.I.M., 138, 188, 190, 193, Schola d'Action Francaise, 21
203, 207, 209, 217-218 Schola Cantorum
Revue de Paris, 94, 178 counteridentity, 28-30
Revue de philologie, 110 curriculum, 30-31
Revue Socialiste, 127 versus "Dreyfusism artistique," 31-35
Revue du temps present, 127, 159 early praise, 55-56
Revue universelle, 177 and the Socialist Left, 52-56
Reyer, Ernest, 40, 104 Schumann, Robert, 22, 146
Richard, Jean, 127 Schweitzer, Albert, 206
Rivieres, Jacques, 219 Seignebos, Charles, 141
Roland-Manuel, 218 Selva, Blanche, 135
Rolland, Romain Serieyx, August, 123
and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes So- Serres, de, Louis, 180
ciales, 60-62 Sert, Misia, 173, 217-218
and French music history, 57-59 Severac, de, Deodat, 165-168, 212
and Socialism, 127-132 Simon, Paul, 189
and the Sorbonne, 151—154 Sirinelli, Jean-Francois, 224
Le Theatre dupeuple, 58, 99, 131, 181 Socialist Party, 9, 120, 126, 204, 206, 212
Romanticism, 107, 114, 122, 139 Societe des Auteurs, Editeurs, et Composi-
Rosicrucian movement, 196 teurs de Musique, 104
Ropartz, Guy Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire, 27
and d'Indy, 206-208 Societe Francaise de Musicologie, 49, 139,
and the Left, 211-212 166
and the Schola, 31-35 Societe Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, 215
Rossini, Gioacchino, 22, 1 39 SocieteJ. S. Bach, 215
INDEX 291
Societe Musicale Independante, 150, 161, Valois, Georges, 134

180, 202-203, 210 Vallas, Leon, 52, 193
Societe Nationale de Musique Francaise, Varese, Edgar, 204
23-24, 27, 31-32, 43, 48, 55, Vasnier family, 172-173
106-107 Verlaine, Paul, 92, 133
Solemnes, 171 Vichy Regime, 226
Sonn, Richard, 80 Vidal, Paul, 188
Sorbonne, the Vigne, Eric, 224
attacks on, 151-153 Villon, Francois, 189
and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes So- Vines, Ricardo, 63
ciales, 59-61 Viollet le Due, 196
and Romain Rolland, 57-59 Voragine, de, Jacques, 66-67
Sorel, Georges, 52, 95, 128, 133-135, 160 Vuillermoz, Emile, 130, 147-150, 155-
Soviet Union, 225 158, 161, 166, 189-190, 218
Stoecklin, de, Paul, 190
Strauss, Richard, 57, 226 Wagner, Richard
Stravinsky, Igor, 204, 210 and Charpentier, 81-82, 93
Le Sacre du printemps, 11, 170, 192, and the French Left, 53-54, 133
216-219 and d'Indy, 23-24, 32-33
Symbolist movement, 52, 81-82 Laloy on, 110-111
Syndicalism, 58, 124 and the Paris Opera, 104-105
Syveton, Gabriel, 73 and "Willy," 47-48
Waldeck-Rousseau, Pierre Marie, 7, 34,
Tablettes de. la Schola, 48, 135 36-37
Tackett, Timothy, 3 Weber, von, Carl Maria, 146, 213
Tarde, Gabriel, 141, 160 Weber, William, 27
Temps, Le, 38, 141, 173, 211 Weimar Republic, 225
Texier, Lilly, 173, 175, 181-182 Whitman, Walt, 132
Theatre des Arts, 129, 137, 209 Widor, Charles-Marie, 23, 105,
Theatre, des Champs-Elysees, 192, 217 130
Thomas, Ambroise, 24, 40, 43 Willy [Henri Gauthier-Villars], 18, 47-48,
Tiersot, Julien, 18, 54, 62, 147 111, 136,148,161, 180
Tourcoing, 79-80, 212 Witowski, Henri, 209
Trautman, Catherine, 226 Wyzewa, de, Theodore, 67
Trinchant, Albert, 196
Tribune de Saint-Gervais, 48, 54 Zola, Emile
and Charpentier, 95-96
Union sacree, 213 and the Dreyfus Affair, 18-19
Universites Populaires, 36, 99 "J'accuse," 4, 20, 111
Utopian Socialism, 130 operas with Bruneau, 81-82, 108-
109

French Cultural Politics and Music. From The Dreyfus Affair To The First World War - Jane F. FULCHER PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

French Cultural Politics and Music. From The Dreyfus Affair To The First World War - Jane F. FULCHER PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

French Cultural Politics and Music. From The Dreyfus Affair To The First World War - Jane F. FULCHER PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

FRENCH CULTURAL

POLITICS & MUSIC

From the Dreyfus Affair

New York Oxford

Copyright © 1999 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicalion Data

I am deeply grateful to many friends and colleagues in musicology history, sociol-

I The Battle Is Established: Musicians Enter, 1898-1905

1 The New "Cultural War" and the French Musical World, 15

2 Creative and Professional Responses to the Politicization of Music, 64

3 Proliferating Factions, Issues, and Skirmishes, 119

4. Responses of French Composers to the Traditionalist Victory in

This book is about a phenomenon of central importance to cultural studies and,

umphed, they were not founded on complete consensus, especially concerning

the Ligue anti-Semitique: as opposed to political parties, which proposed a

F R E N C H NATIONALIST LEAGUES AND MUSIC

CONTENT AND ORGANIZATION

directly to the battle or to the growing politicization they experienced throughout

nificance was constructed, on all its levels, by contemporaries. Certainly, we can-

THE NEW CULTURAL "WAR" AND

THE DREYFUS AFFAIR AND FRENCH MUSICIANS

The Engagement of French Musicians

D'Indy and the Dreyfus Affair

D'INDY, ANTI-DREYFUSISM, AND THE SCHOLA

The Conservatoire and Its Traditions

The Schola's Counteridentity

message should be either direct or explicit, for he saw art as an idealization, a

The Schola's Curriculum

the "expressive" art of the early seventeenth-century Italian masters of vocal

The Schola versus "Dreyfusism artistique"

as we have seen, on the nineteenth-century repertoire. D'Indy's emphasis was on

THE REPUBLIC'S FIRST RIPOSTE:

The Role of French Composers

In response to such pressures, in the mid-1890s the Paris Opera began to

Planning the Musical Programs

Alfred Bruneau's 'Report'

Responses to Bruneau's 'Report'

distinctively French (those articulated at the founding of the Societe Nationale),

SOURCES OF SUPPORT FOR THE SCHOLA

writer Maurice Barres (a dominant influence), as well as the equally committed

Through this metaphor, La Laurencie confers d'Indy's approach with an intellec-

The Schola and the Socialist Left

Other Initial Praise for the Schola

means professional privileges; moreover, the Conservatoire had financial re-

THE BATTLE OVER F R E N C H MUSIC HISTORY

Remain Rolland and French Music History

IDEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE AT THE ECOLE DES

Even more timely were Calvocoressi's monthly lectures (beginning in 1904) on

CREATIVE AND PROFESSIONAL

D' INDY' S "IDEOLOGICAL MUSIC"

Le premier . . . dessinant un intervalle de triton (diabolus in musica) par une suite

EX. 2-1 (Cont.)

MAGNARD'S "DREYFUSARD" COMPOSITIONS

D'Indy, a wealthy aristocrat, could confidently declare his political position

EX, 2-2 (Cont.)

If here a social rather than a political meaning was to be extracted, it was

C H A R P E N T I E R ' S LOUISE: ITS POLITICAL USES

As a successful Conservatoire student, who had learned the appropriate "for-