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This fine intellectual culture is not, however, the most remarkable of M. d'Indy's characteristics, though it may have been the most remarked. Other musicians share this culture with him; and his real distinction lies in his moral and almost religious qualities, and it is this side of him that gives him an unusual interest for us among other contemporary artists.
Protestantism is made responsible for the extremes of individualism; and Judaism, for the absurdities of its customs and the weakness of its moral sense. I do not know which of the two is the more soundly belaboured; the second has the privilege of being so, not only in writing, but in pictures. The worst of it is, these antipathies are apt to spoil the fairness of M. d'Indy's artistic judgment.
Nothing helps one to grasp the essence of M. d'Indy's personality more than his last dramatic work. His personality shows itself plainly in all his compositions, but nowhere is it more evident than in L'Étranger. Poem and music by M. Vincent d'Indy. Played for the first time at Brussels in the Théâtre de la Monnaie, 7 January, 1903.
By turns it gratefully and warmly received M. Bruneau's Le Rêve , M. d'Indy's Fervaal , M. Gustave Charpentier's Louise all of which seemed like works of liberation. But, as a matter of fact, these lyric dramas were by no means free from foreign influences, and especially from Wagnerian influences.
D'Indy's foolish war symphony, the works of Henry Hadley, of Rachmaninoff, of David Stanley Smith, even of Dvorsky, that person who exists as little in the field of composition as he does in Biarritz, have received and do receive the attention of our powerful ones.
They have revived Monteverde's Orfeo and his Incoronazione di Poppea, which had been forgotten these three centuries; and it was following an interest created by repeated performances of Rameau at the Schola that Dardanus was performed at Dijon under M. d'Indy's direction, Castor et Pollux at Montpellier under M. Charles Bordes' direction, and that in 1908 the Opera at Paris gave Hippolyte et Aricie.
"There are two qualities," says M. d'Indy, on the last page of Cours de Composition, "which a master should try to encourage and develop in the spirit of the pupil, for without them science is useless; these qualities are an unselfish love of art and enthusiasm for good work." And these two virtues radiate from M. d'Indy's personality as they do from his writings; that is his power.
Of the younger men the most prominent are Vincent d'Indy, Gustave Charpentier, and Claude Debussy. Vincent d'Indy's 'Fervaal' was produced at Brussels in 1897 and was given in Paris shortly afterwards.
Saint-Saëns was director with Bussine until 1886. But from 1881 the influence of Franck and his disciples became more and more felt; and Saint-Saëns began to lose interest in the efforts of the new school. In 1886 there was a division of opinion about a proposition of Vincent d'Indy's to introduce the works of classical masters and foreign composers into the programmes.
It is not all light in that soul; but the light that is there does not affect us less because it shines from afar, "Dans un écartement de nuages, qui laisse Voir au-dessus des mers la céleste allégresse...." And so Franck seems to me to differ from M. d'Indy in that he has not the latter's urgent desire for clearness. Clearness is the distinguishing quality of M. d'Indy's mind.
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