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Updated: June 28, 2025
M. Chevillard had been asked to conduct, not one of the works of our recent masters, like Debussy or Dukas, whose style he renders to perfection, but Franck's Les Béatitudes, a work whose spirit he does not, to my mind, quite understand. The mystic tenderness of Franck escapes him, and he brings out only what is dramatic.
And so that performance of Les Béatitudes, though in many respects fine, left an imperfect idea of Franck's genius. But what seemed inconceivable, and what justly annoyed M. Chevillard, was that the whole of Les Béatitudes was not given, but only a section of them.
Then a pupil of Franck's, M. Henry Expert, who began his admirable works on Musical History in 1882, laid the foundation of the Société J.S. Bach, in order to spread the knowledge of ancient music written between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries.
His most important work is a suite of symphonies; and it was the fifth symphony of this suite that he conducted at the Strasburg festival. The first symphony, called Titan, was composed in 1894. The construction of the whole is on a massive and gigantic scale; and the melodies on which these works are built up are like rough-hewn blocks of not very good quality, but imposing by reason of their size, and by the obstinate repetition of their rhythmic design, which is maintained as if it were an obsession. This heaping-up of music both crude and learned in style, with harmonies that are sometimes clumsy and sometimes delicate, is worth considering on account of its bulk. The orchestration is heavy and noisy; and the brass dominates and roughly gilds the rather sombre colouring of the great edifice. The underlying idea of the composition is neo-classic, and rather spongy and diffuse. Its harmonic structure is composite: we get the style of Bach, Schubert, and Mendelssohn fighting that of Wagner and Bruckner; and, by a decided liking for canon form, it even recalls some of Franck's work. The whole is like a showy and expensive collection of bric-
III. i. II. vi. II. iv. IV. vi. Economie Politique, p. 30. Mélanges, p. 310. See for instance Green's History of the English People, i. 266. Summa, xc.-cviii. See Maurice's Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, i. 627, 628. Also Franck's Réformateurs et Publicistes de l'Europe, p. 48, etc. Defensor Pacis, Pt. I., ch. xii.
I would even venture to say that his Christ is simpler than Bach's; for Bach's thoughts are often led away by the interest of developing his subject, by certain habits of composition, and by repetitions and clever devices, which weaken his strength. In Franck's music we get Christ's speech itself, unadorned and in all its living force.
It is said no other modern organist, not excepting the most renowned players, could hold any comparison to him in this respect. Whether he played for the service, for his pupils or for some chosen musical guest, Franck's improvisations were always thoughtful and full of feeling. It was a matter of conscience to do his best always. "And his best was a sane, noble, sublime art."
Ambition grew with success; and from the Schola sprang the École Supérieure de Musique, under the direction of Franck's most famous pupil, M. Vincent d'Indy. This school, founded on a solid knowledge, not only of the classics, but of the primitives in music, took from its very beginning in 1900 a frankly national character, and was in some ways opposed to German art.
It was there, nearer our own time, that Saint-Saëns's Symphonie avec Orgue and César Franck's Symphonie were played for the first time. But for a long time the Conservatoire seemed to take its name too literally, and to restrict its sphere to that of a museum for classical music. The Symphony in C minor was performed by them in 1808; the Heroic in 1811.
A perusal of the Raggionamente of Pietro Aretino will confirm this statement, in its first premise, and the experiences of Sir Richard Burton in the India of Napier, and Harry Franck's, in Spain, in the present century, and those of any intelligent observer in the Orient, today, will but bear out this hypothesis.
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