in
Germany. And, finally, the French section of the _Societe Internationale
de Musique_, which was founded in 1899 in Berlin to establish
communication between the scholars of all countries, found so favourable
a ground with us that the number of its adherents in Paris alone is now
over one hundred.

* * * * *

6. _Music and the People_

Thus music had almost come back to its own, as far as the higher kind of
teaching and the intellectual world were concerned. It remained for a
place to be found for it in other kinds of teaching; for there, and
especially in secondary education, its advance was less sure. It
remained for us to make it enter into the life of the nation and into
the people's education. This was a difficult task, for in France art has
always had an aristocratic character; and it was a task in which neither
the State nor musicians were very interested. The Republic still
continued to regard music as something outside the people. There had
even been opposition shown during the last thirty years towards any
attempt at popular musical education. In the old days of the Pasdeloup
concerts one could pay seventy-five centimes for the cheapest places,
and have a seat for that; but at some of the symphony concerts to-day
the cheapest seats are two and four francs. And so the people that
sometimes came to the Pasdeloup concerts never come at all to the big
concerts to-day.

And that is why one should applaud the enterprise of Victor Charpentier,
who, in March, 1905, founded a Symphonic Society of amateurs called
_L'Orchestre_, to give free hearings for the benefit of the people. And
in that Paris, where forty years ago one would have had a good deal of
trouble to get together two or three amateur quartettes, Victor
Charpentier has been able to count on one hundred and fifty good
performers,[240] who under his direction, or that of Saint-Saens or
Gabriel Faure, have already given seventeen free concerts, of which ten
were given at the Trocadero.[241] It is to be hoped that the State will
help forward such a generous work for the people in a rather more
practical way than it has done up till now.[242]

[Footnote 240: There are ninety violins, fifteen violas, and fifteen
violoncellos. Unfortunately it is much more difficult to get recruits
for the wood wind and brass.]

[Footnote 241: They have performed classical music of composers like
Bach, Haendel, Gluck, Rameau, and Beethoven