New-York tribune., 1905-12-11
USIC.
The Concerts of French Music.


The effort to popularize specifically French music
! of the utra-modern type which marked rhe second
coming of the Boston symphony Orchestra was
brought to conclusion at Carnegie Hall Sat
urday afternoon last. NJ. Vincent d'Indy. who
! had been brought from Paris for the sake OF
the propag ganda. again directed the performance
! Of the admirable band and again the programme
was devoted wholly to the music of the reyolu-
/ uonaries Unlike that OF Thursday however the
place OF honor was not this time reserved for the
! conductor It was given TO Ernest Chausson. but
I nothing less modern than music by Cesar
! Franck admitted to The list Franck is the
spiritual father of the Young school, their saint;
/ set It plain 2 pikestaff after excerpt
! from his Psyche" had been brought into com
! parison with symphony by Chausson. dirge by
Maynard two bits of scenic delineation by De
busy ('Nuages' and 'Fete," botn of which had
been introduced By Walter Damrosch earlier i'll
the season. and NJ dIndy's "Istar'' variations
which the Boston orchestra played here some six
years ago under Mr.. Gercke that the austere old
master leads all his inpetuous young disciples in
every element that enters into good writing. Only
in vagueness and cacophony of Utterance do they
surpass him. Nor is his, music s reminiscent
that Of his followers. The book of quotations was
opened again at Saturdays concert by Chausson,
whose second symphony was complete novelty IN
Ncw-York 1t reeks with daring dissonance and
mere reiteration Of phrase. Why have these yotHs
men no melodies plastic enough TO be developed
interestingly and logically? What IS the matter
with the good old scale? Are tnere thoughts
and feelings in the world to which the diatonc
series cannot give expression? Or is it imagined
that q new essence of beauty lies hidden in whole
tone progressons? Can cerebralisnl, of which
hear much in connection with this latter day music.
fnd utterdnce only in the unIovely, the unwonted,
the unexpected? Must natural sequence be forever
after taboo? Grant the ingenuity of the instru-
mentatlon in Debussys nocturues: might not the
same ingenuity have exercise in a composition
which did not contemn form and nationality of
harmonic procedure? Suppose We accept Cesar
Franck as great musician. worthy of place by
the side Of Bach. one of his admirers has said;
are we to assume that his genius is shared by all
of the young who failed to carry off prizes at
the Couservatoire, and therefore will have nothing
to do with the old manner of teaching or the man.
ner which satisfied Berlioz. Bizet Delibes, Mas
senet. Saint-Saens and Gounod? There is too much
literature in the young French school, too much
in the alleged poetical conceits which said to
lie at the bottom of the compositions, too much in
the laudation of another. These concerts have
too plainly disclosed a narrow purpose Even so
excellent man as NJ. d'Indy will suffer from the
too obvious propagandism: he would stand higher
in critical opinion had he not wearied ali of his
hearers on Saturday with the dreadful drge of
NJ Maynard and vexed not few
The concert closed with the 'Istar'' variations OF
NJ dIndy. Much is asked nowadays from those
who would follow the progress of the new music
of France and Germany. In this it is nothing
less than chapter of Assyran mythology. When
the work was first given here, in February 1899,
the programme book silent as TO the signif-
canoe of the title. and only those in the audience
who had read Delitzschs ''H0llenfahrt der Istar''
or the chapter in George Smiths 'ChaIdean Gene
sis were able to see the ingenious purpose of the
composer in turning the familiar form of theme
and variations end for end Istar an Oriental
love goddess of unspeakable antiquity who descend
ed into the underworld in search OF her husband
lover. Tammuz, On her VISIT she compelled by
each of the guardians of its portals to divest
herself of article of dress until she
passed through the last portal entirely nude. To
illustrate this series of adventures NJ. dIndy con-
Ceived the ingenious scheme of writing seven var-
ations on theme and playing the variations first
and the theme last. Only a fragment of the theme
is heard at first, and this is tricked out with a
great deal of scintillant ornament As the music
goes the meIodic foundation is augmented un-
til at last the theme stalks forth in its whole
stature and in complete nudity-a pompous unisono
of the strings and brass. A pity that NJ. d'Indy
did not find Assyrian scale II. E. K.