Musicians of To-Day

Musicians of To-Day

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Musicians of To-Day, by Romain
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Title: Musicians of To-Day
Author: Romain Rolland
Commentator: Claude Landi
Translator: Mary Blaiklock
Release Date: August 7, 2005 [EBook #16467]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MUSICIANS OF TO-DAY ***

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MUSICIANS OF TO-DAY
BY

ROMAIN ROLLAND
AUTHOR OF "JEAN-CHRISTOPHE"
TRANSLATED BY
MARY BLAIKLOCK
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
CLAUDE LANDI
[Illustration: Decorative]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1915

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
BERLIOZ
WAGNER:
"Siegfried"
"Tristan"
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
VINCENT D'INDY
RICHARD STRAUSS

HUGO WOLF
DON LORENZO PEROSI
FRENCH AND GERMAN MUSIC
CLAUDE DEBUSSY:
"Pelléas et Mélisande"
THE AWAKENING: A SKETCH OF THE MUSICAL MOVEMENT
IN PARIS SINCE 1870
Paris and Music
Musical Institutions before 1870
New Musical Institutions
The Present Condition of French Music

INTRODUCTION
It is perhaps fitting that the series of volumes comprising _The
Musician's Bookshelf_ should be inaugurated by the present collection
of essays. To the majority of English readers the name of that strange
and forceful personality, Romain Rolland, is known only through his
magnificent, intimate record of an artist's life and aspirations,
embracing ten volumes, _Jean-Christophe_. This is not the place in
which to discuss that masterpiece. A few biographical facts concerning
the author may not, however, be out of place here.
Romain Rolland is forty-eight years old. He was born on January 29,
1866, at Clamecy (Nièvre), France. He came very early under the
influence of Tolstoy and Wagner and displayed a remarkable critical
faculty. In 1895 (at the age of twenty-nine) we find him awarded the
coveted Grand Prix of the Académie Française for his work _Histoire

de l'Opéra en Europe avant Lulli et Scarlatti_, and in the same year he
sustained, before the faculty of the Sorbonne--where he now occupies
the chair of musical criticism--a remarkable dissertation on The Origin
of _the Modern Lyrical Drama_--his thesis for the Doctorate. This, in
reality, is a vehement protest against the indifference for the Art of
Music which, up to that time, had always been displayed by the
University. In 1903 he published a remarkable Life of Beethoven,
followed by a Life of Hugo Wolf in 1905. The present volume, together
with its companion, _Musiciens d'Autrefois_, appeared in 1908. Both
form remarkable essays and reveal a consummate and most intimate
knowledge of the life and works of our great contemporaries. A just
estimate of a composer's work is not to be arrived at without a study of
his works and of the conditions under which these were produced. To
take, for instance, the case of but one of the composers treated in this
volume, Hector Berlioz. No composer has been so misunderstood, so
vilified as he, simply because those who have written about him, either
wilfully or through ignorance, have grossly misrepresented him.
The essay on Berlioz, in the present volume, reveals a true insight into
the personality of this unfortunate and great artist, and removes any
false misconceptions which unsympathetic and superficial handling
may have engendered. Indeed, the same introspective faculty is
displayed in all the other essays which form this volume, which, it is
believed, will prove of the greatest value not only to the professional
student, but also to the intelligent listener, for whom the present series
of volumes has been primarily planned. We hear much, nowadays, of
the value of "Musical Appreciation." It is high time that something was
done to educate our audiences and to dispel the hitherto prevalent
fallacy that Music need not be regarded seriously. We do not want
more creative artists, more executants; the world is full of them--good,
bad and indifferent--but we do want more intelligent listeners.
I do not think it is an exaggeration to assert that the majority of
listeners at a high-class concert or recital are absolutely bored. How can
it be otherwise, when the composers represented are mere names to
them? Why should the general public appreciate a Bach fugue, an
intricate symphony or a piece of chamber-music? Do we professional

musicians appreciate the technique of a wonderful piece of sculpture, of
an equally wonderful feat of engineering or even of a miraculous
surgical operation? It may be argued that an analogy between sculpture,
engineering, surgery and music is absurd, because the three former do
not appeal to the masses in the same manner as music does. Precisely:
it is because of this universal appeal on the part of music that the public
should