o have founded a new art, which reflected the
spirit of the race, and was freer and suppler than the Wagnerian art.
These ideas, which were seized upon and enlarged by the press, brought
about rather quickly a conviction in French artists of France's
superiority in music. Is that conviction justified? The future alone can
tell us. But one may see by this brief outline of events how real is the
evolution of the musical spirit in France since 1870, in spite of the
apparent contradictions of fashion which appear on the surface of art.
It is the spirit of France that is, after long oppression and by a
patient but eager initiation, realising its power and wishing to
dominate in its turn.

I wanted at first to trace the broad line of the movement which for the
last thirty years has been affecting French music; and now I shall
consider the musical institutions that have had their share in this
movement. You will not be surprised if I ignore some of the most
celebrated, which have lost their interest in it, in order that I may
consider those that are the true authors of our regeneration.

MUSICAL INSTITUTIONS BEFORE 1870

It is not by any means the oldest and most celebrated musical
institutions which have taken the largest share in this evolution of
music in the last thirty years.

The _Academie des Beaux-Arts_, where six chairs are reserved for the
musical section, could have played a very important part in the musical
organisation of France by the authority of its name, and by the many
prizes that it gives for composition and criticism, especially by the
_Prix de Rome_, which it awards every year. But it does not play its
part well, partly because of the antiquated statutes that govern it, by
which a handful of musicians are associated with a great number of
painters, sculptors, and architects, who are ignorant of music and mock
at the musicians, as they did in the time of Berlioz; and partly because
it is the custom of the Academy that the little group of musicians shall
be trained in a very conservative way. One of the names of these
musicians is justly celebrated--that of M. Saint-Saens; but there are
others whose fame is of poorer quality, and others still who have no
fame at all. And the whole forms a little group, which though it does
not put any actual obstacles in the way of the progress of art, yet does
not look upon it favourably, but remains rather apart in an indifferent
or even hostile spirit.

The _Co