ns its power, and destroys its sacred solitude and the treasures of
its thought.

You must not think that this excess of music existed in the old days in
Germany. In the time of the great classic masters, Germany had hardly
any institutions for the giving of regular concerts, and choral
performances were hardly known. In the Vienna of Mozart and Beethoven
there was only a single association that gave concerts, and no
_Chorvereine_ at all, and it was the same with other towns in Germany.
Does the wonderful spread of musical culture in Germany during the last
century correspond with its artistic creation? I do not think so; and
one feels the inequality between the two more every day.

Do you remember Goethe's ballad of _Der Zauberlehrling_ (_L'Apprenti
Sorcier_) which Dukas so cleverly made into music? There, in the absence
of his master, an apprentice set working some magic spells, and so
opened sluice-gates that no one could shut; and the house was flooded.

This is what Germany has done. She has let loose a flood of music, and
is about to be drowned in it.

CLAUDE DEBUSSY

PELLEAS ET MELISANDE

The first performance of _Pelleas et Melisande_ in Paris, on April 30th,
1902, was a very notable event in the history of French music; its
importance can only be compared with that of the first performance of
Lully's _Cadmus et Hermione_, Rameau's _Hippolyte et Aricie_, and
Quick's _Iphigenie en Aulide_; and it may be looked upon as one of the
three or four red-letter days in the calendar of our lyric stage.[199]

[Footnote 199: May I be allowed to say that I am trying to write this
study from a purely historical point of view, by eliminating all
personal feeling--which would be of no value here. As a matter of fact,
I am not a Debussyite; my sympathies are with quite another kind of art.
But I feel impelled to give homage to a great artist, whose work I am
able to judge with some impartiality.]

The success of _Pelleas et Melisande_ is due to many things. Some of
them are trivial, such as fashion, which has certainly played its part
here as it has in all other successes, though it is a relatively weak
part; some of them are more important, and arise from something innate
in the spirit of French genius; and there are also moral and aesthetic
reasons for its success, and, in the widest sense, purely musical
reasons.

* * * * *

In speaking of the moral reasons of the success of