the ingenuity of the director and the admirable scenic artists he employs has succeeded in making one forget this defect, and accomplished marvels.  No theatre in Paris has more artistic staging, and some of the scenery that has been designed lately is a masterpiece of its kind.  The Opera-Comique has also the advantage of excellent conductors, and one of them, M. Messager, who is now Director, has, by his clever interpretations, greatly contributed to the success of the works of the new school.

NEW MUSICAL INSTITUTIONS

1. The Societe Nationale

Before 1870, French music had already in the Opera and the Opera-Comique (without counting the various endeavours of the Theatre Lyrique) an outlet which was nearly enough for the needs of her dramatic productions.  Even when musical taste was most decadent, the works of Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, and Masse, had always upheld the name of French opera-comique.  But what was almost entirely lacking was an outlet for symphonic music and chamber-music.  “Before 1870,” wrote M. Saint-Saens in Harmonie et Melodie, “a French composer who was foolish enough to venture on to the ground of instrumental music had no other means of getting his works performed than by himself arranging a concert for them.”  Such was Berlioz’s case; for he had to gather together an orchestra and hire a room each time he wished to get a hearing for his great symphonies.  The financial result was often disastrous:  the performance of the Damnation de Faust in 1846 was, for example, a complete failure, and he had to give it up.  The Conservatoire, which was formerly more hospitable, rather reluctantly performed a portion of L’Enfance du Christ; but it gave young composers no encouragement.

The first man who attempted to make the symphony popular, M. Saint-Saens tells us in his Portraits et Souvenirs, was Seghers, a dissentient member of the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire, who during several years (1848-1854) was conductor of the Societe de Sainte-Cecile, which had its quarters in a room in the rue de la Chaussee d’Antin.  There he had performed Mendelssohn’s Symphonie Italienne, the overtures to Tannhaeuser and Manfred, Berlioz’s Fuite en Egypte, and Gounod’s and Bizet’s early, works.  But lack of money cut short his efforts.

Pasdeloup took up the work.  After having been conductor for the Societe des jeunes artistes du Conservatoire since 1851, in the Salle Herz, he founded, in 1861, at the Cirque d’Hiver, with the financial support of a rich moneylender, the first Concerts populaires de musique classique.  Unhappily, says M. Saint-Saens, Pasdeloup, even up to 1870, made an almost exclusive selection of German classical works.  He raised an impenetrable barrier before the young French school, and the only French works he played were symphonies by Gounod and Gouvy,