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Updated: June 14, 2025
Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Humperdinck, Goldmark, Richard Strauss, Paderewski, and all the others have followed in Wagner's footsteps. Such, briefly told, is the story of Richard Wagner and Modern Music. The "music of the future" has become the music of the present. What the future will bring no one can tell. Croakers say, as they have always said, that the race of giants has died out.
Another criticism is made against Massenet. He was superficial, they say, and lacked depth. Depth, as we know, is very much the fashion. It is true that Massenet was not profound, but that is of little consequence. Just as there are many mansions in our Father's house, so there are many in Apollo's. Art is vast.
He really is a genius; but, as so often happens, geniuses don't have pocket-money." I answered: "Please tell him to come and see me. I have some music I wish to have transposed. Do you think that he would be willing to do it?" "Certainly; he would be glad to do anything," was the answer. The next day a pale young man presented himself. "You are Monsieur Massenet?" I inquired.
Again he came across the unfamiliar, the strange, the obviously distinguished Grieg's "Arabian Dance"; "Es war ein Traum" by Lassen; "Elegie" by Massenet; "Otidi" by Davydoff; "Nymphs and Shepherds" by Purcell things whose very titles smacked of color and beauty. Gluck, Sgambati, Rossini, Tschaikowsky the Italian Scarlatti Eugene marvelled at what he did not know about music.
In the purely orchestral parts of the work the composer seems to have escaped from convention altogether, and has written music instinct with weird suggestion and unearthly force. Puccini's next opera, 'Edgar' , was a failure, but in 'Manon Lescaut' he once more achieved success. His treatment of the Abbé Prévost's romance, as may well be imagined, differs in toto from that of Massenet.
For thirty years the man had to struggle with his medium and his environment before he was even able to do his genius justice. Indeed, up to the year 1850, he produced little of importance at all. The trios recall Meyerbeer; the cantata "Ruth," with which this his first period of composition closes, has a sweetness of the sort afterward identified with the name of Massenet.
Our friends are now so few and far between that it is not difficult to know whom to choose or where to find them. The result was a miscellaneous company, as you will see: Mr. Washburn, Auber, Massenet, Beaumont, and Delsarte. Our family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Moulton, Henry, Mademoiselle Wissembourg, and myself. Mrs.
He asked permission to keep on his calotte, which I fancy had not left his skull since the Revolution of 1848. Massenet, who had come in from the country for the day to confer with his editor, received our invitation just in time to dress and join us. What a genius he is! Massenet always calls Auber le Maitre, and Auber calls him le cher enfant. I wished they could have gone on forever.
But the fact remained that Cavalleria Rusticana flourished at the Opera Comique, and Pagliacci at the Opera: Massenet and Gounod were more frequently performed than anybody else, and the musical trinity Mignon, Les Huguenots, and Faust had safely crossed the bar of the thousandth performance. But these were only trivial accidents: there was no need to go and see them.
Doubtless they were some sober married women out for a lark. Upon leaving the car they did not at once go into the Casino, but directed their steps toward the terraces, for the band was playing. They sat in the shadow of the statue of Massenet, and near-by the rasp of a cricket broke in upon the music.
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