Masters of French Music   By: Arthur Hervey (1855-1922)

A SERIES OF BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES

=Masters of Contemporary Music.=

WITH PORTRAITS, &C.

=MASTERS OF ENGLISH MUSIC.= By CHARLES WILLEBY, Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s.

=MASTERS OF GERMAN MUSIC.= By J. A. FULLER MAITLAND, Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s.

[ In the Press.

[Illustration: CH. GOUNOD

Frontispiece. ]

Masters of French Music

BY

ARTHUR HERVEY

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON OSGOOD, McILVAINE & CO. 45 ALBEMARLE STREET 1894

THIS LITTLE VOLUME

IS

BY SPECIAL PERMISSION

DEDICATED TO

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE PRINCESS OF WALES

PREFACE

The reader who turns to these pages with the idea of finding therein a large and exhaustive account of the composers mentioned, with a technical analysis of their works, will, I fear, be disappointed. My intention has been a far more modest one.

The dimensions of this volume would not have allowed me to devote that amount of space to each composer that might be considered due to his merits.

The object I have had in view has been to give an account of their lives and to draw attention to the tendencies exhibited in their works.

The French can boast a splendid musical record, particularly as regards the opera. Paris was for many years the centre towards which foreign artists were wont to gravitate. It was here that Gluck laid the seeds of his musical reforms; that Cherubini and Spontini lived and brought out their best works; it was the influence of French taste that caused Rossini to forsake the inartistic devices of his earlier Italian operas and write "Guillaume Tell," his masterpiece; it was for Paris that Meyerbeer composed "Robert le Diable," "Les Huguenots," "Le Prophète," and "L'Africaine;" that Donizetti wrote the "Favorite," and Verdi, "Don Carlos." It was Paris that Wagner had in his mind when he composed his "Rienzi."

Then if we cast a glance at their native composers what treasures of melody, what grace, and what innate dramatic feeling do we not find in the works of Méhul, Boïeldieu, Auber, Hérold, Adam, Halévy, and others whose operas during the first half of the present century were heard all over Europe.

Of a different type to the above we meet the Titanic figure of Berlioz, whose influence has been so great over the younger generation of composers and whose orchestral innovations have borne such fruit. In the present volume I am only dealing with living composers, otherwise there are four who occupy prominent places in the records of contemporary music whose names would have been included, Bizet, Lalo, César Franck, and Léo Delibes.

Bizet, the gifted author of "Carmen," the inspired musician who wrote "L'Arlésienne," snatched away at the very moment when his genius was beginning to meet with recognition. Who knows what he might not have done had he lived! As it is, "Carmen" is probably the most generally popular opera that has been written by a Frenchman since Gounod produced his "Faust," and Bizet was only thirty seven years of age when he died!

Edouard Lalo, whose death occurred last year (1892), had to wait a long time before his merits received the recognition to which they were entitled. His popularity in France may be said to date from the time when his opera, "Le Roi d'Ys," was first produced at the Opéra Comique some five years ago, when the composer had reached his sixtieth year. An opera of his entitled "Fiesque," composed many years previously, was accepted by one manager after another, but some circumstance invariably occurred to prevent its being brought out. His ballet "Namouna" contains much that is both charming and original, yet it failed to captivate the public of the Paris Opéra when it was produced.