“We wish to have free speech in music—­a sustained recitative, infinite variety, and, in short, complete liberty in musical utterance.  We wish for the triumph of natural music, so that it shall be as free and full of movement as speech, and as plastic and rhythmic as a classical dance.”

It was open war against the metrical art of the last three centuries, in the name of national tradition (more or less freely interpreted), of folk-song, and of Gregorian chant.  And “the constant and avowed purpose of all this campaign was the triumph of French music, and its cult."[259]

[Footnote 258:  There is no need to say that Rameau’s genius justified all this enthusiasm; but one cannot help believing that it was aroused, not so much on account of his musical genius as on account of his supposed championship of the French music of the past against foreign art; though that art was well adapted to the laws of French opera, as we may see for ourselves in Gluck’s case.]

[Footnote 259:  La Tribune de Saint-Gervais, September, 1903.]

This manifesto reflects in its own way the spirit of Debussy and his untrammelled musical impressionism; and though it shows a good deal of naivete and some intolerance, there was in it a strength of youthful enthusiasm that accorded with the great hopes of the time, and foretold glorious days to come and a splendid harvest of music.

Not many years have passed since then; yet the sky is already a little clouded, the light not quite so bright.  Hope has not failed; but it has not been fulfilled.  France is waiting, and is getting a little impatient.  But the impatience is unnecessary; for to found an art we must bring time to our aid; art must ripen tranquilly.  Yet tranquillity is what is most lacking in Parisian art.  The artists, instead of working steadily at their own tasks and uniting in a common aim, are given up to sterile disputes.  The young French school hardly exists any longer, as it has now split up into two or three parties.  To a fight against foreign art has succeeded a fight among themselves:  it is the deep-rooted evil of the country, this vain expenditure of force.  And most curious of all is the fact that the quarrel is not between the conservatives and the progressives in music, but between the two most advanced sections:  the Schola on the one hand, who, should it gain the victory, would through its dogmas and traditions inevitably develop the airs of a little academy; and, on the other hand, the independent party, whose most important representative is M. Debussy.  It is not for us to enter into the quarrel; we would only suggest to the parties in question that if any profit is to result from their misunderstanding, it will be derived by a third party—­the party in favour of routine, the party that has never lost favour with the great theatre-going public,—­a party that will soon make good the place it has lost if those who aim at defending art set about fighting one another.