1 In London, “they have not yet discerned the difference between the Germans and the Bosch,” lamented a French critic in December 1916. In Paris, on the other hand, throughout the duration of World War I, this distinction was observed with rigor. Mozart, Beethoven and even Schumann were played regularly, but Wagner and all his successors, including such contemporaries as Strauss and Schoenberg met with complete ostracism. The establishment of this distinction, in terms of musical practices as well as in discourse, was not established without certain tensions and hesitation, which reflected as much the general ideological debates as the contradictory positions within the field of music. This article is a contribution to the study of this problem, taking advantage of work on music published in France during the Great War, notably by Michel Duchesneau, Jane Fulcher, Carlo Caballero, and Sophie-Anne Leterrier [1].

2 On August 8, 1914, the composer Vincent d'Indy wrote to his son Jean, who was a lieutenant in the dragoons at Luneville: “When I see all these fine regiments (the 76^th passed under our windows this morning at 4 am playing the 'Two Grenadiers' by Schumann) I burn to go with them!” [2] Three days earlier, he had asked the Minister of War “to be used in any military capacity whatsoever and as a combatant if possible,” concluding his letter: “I hope that you will consider the ardent desire of an old volunteer of 1870.” [3] It may be interesting to note that while he awaited the minister's reply, full of patriotic enthusiasm, it was the music of a German composer that idealized his warrior's dream. And one may well ask if the music was not entirely fanciful—the music of Schumann was not, as a rule, part of the French military repertoire. [4] All the same, this was not just any German music but Schumann's musical version of a famous poem by Heinrich Heine, which recounts a conversation between two veterans of the Russian Campaign on their way home after long captivity. In Germany, they learn the news of the fall of the Empire. For one, it means going home and a farewell to arms as he says “Das Lied ist aus” (the song is over). The other, weakened by the wounds that the terrible news has opened up again, feels death coming. A death from which one day, he says, “the roar of cannons and the sound of the hooves of whinnying horses” will bring him forth: “Dann steig’ ich gewaffnet hervor aus dem Grab—Den Kaiser, den Kaiser zu schützen (Then I'll leave my grave in arms / And I'll protect the Emperor, the Emperor).” [5] This is the last verse, in which the minor fourth of the original melody gives way to the major mode, quoting La Marseillaise. The lied, however, does not end here—there is an instrumental coda, a descending melody which, as if floundering about for a resting point, ends on only the third of the tonic.

3 One can interpret this inconclusive coda as the symbol of the literally ghostly character of patriotism beyond the grave. But also, and this is not contradictory, as the mark of the fragile progress of this work between the many upheavals of history. While in Heine's poem, which was written in around 1816, Germany appears as the place in which the defeated French soldiers come to awareness, the historical awareness of the Germans unleashed by the French invasion led the generation of Schumann—who composed his lied in 1840—to see in music a symbol of its national identity. This moment, when in France La Marseillaise took on an aggressive patriotism, in Germany marked the beginnings of a nationalist development which, in 1870, brought Richard Wagner's countrymen face to face with the soldiers of Emperor Napoleon III, among them the young Wagnerian Vincent d'Indy, who was a volunteer in the Parisian National Guard. After the Franco-Prussian war, while Wagner was writing his pamphlet Une capitulation, d'Indy produced his Histoire du 105e Bataillon de la Garde Nationale de Paris en l’année 1870-1871, par un engagé volontaire dudit bataillon âgé de 19 ans (History of the 105^th Battalion of the National Guard of Paris in the year 1870 to 1871, told by a 19 year-old volunteer of that battalion). In this brochure, the tone is resolute, but music often plays a role in humanizing the face of the enemy, for example, in the description of prisoners, happened upon after the battle of Val-Fleury, in which we see echoes of earlier travels to Germany, to discover Wagner:

4

This meeting was curious enough for me, because these men belonged to the 2^nd Regiment of the Bavarian guard whom I had seen during my visit to Munich in January last. I had even played at Schlesinger's, with officers of this regiment, whose sky-blue and silver uniforms were most striking to me. And it turns out that it was against precisely these troops that I fought! And, who knows, maybe one of my bullets had struck one of the very young officers whose hand I had shaken just a year before. [6]

5 In 1914, like Schumann's second grenadier, the roar of cannons and the sound of hooves awoke the soldier in Vincent d'Indy after a forty-year sleep. Not to defend the memory of the Emperor, of course (if in 1872 the young aristocrat volunteer had nothing to say about Napoleon III, by 1914 the anti-Dreyfus d'Indy was a staunch royalist), but to avenge the “sinister moments” of his youth and that capitulation that had brought him to “tears of rage.” Meanwhile, his relationship to contemporary German music had changed completely. In a country plagued by the “rule of militarism,” the god Richard Wagner had been dethroned by Mahler, Strauss, Bruckner, Weingartner, Siegfried Wagner and, adds d'Indy, “other more or less poisonous molds” the best known being “one named Schönberg.” All represent a German music which “is now mired in a sterile and megalomaniac decadence.” [7] This is what he said in June 1915, during one of the lectures he gave so often in service of the cause of French music, not having left for the front line. Even though his letter had solicited a reply from a civil servant of the ministry, inviting him to appear before a recruiting office, the fact that Vincent d'Indy was aged sixty-two at the beginning of hostilities, meant that he would pass World War I far from the frontline, like other composers of his generation including Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, and Camille Saint-Saëns, and unlike younger colleagues such as Florent Schmitt, Reynaldo Hahn and Maurice Ravel. In April 1916, in the Musical Courier of New York, he published an article whose headline—“D'Indy calls on America to free itself from German musical domination”—summed up the difficulty, even the torment, that the new situation had forced upon French musicians and music lovers. [8]

6 If the attitude of Vincent d'Indy towards German music during the Great War owes much to his own life, it is of course part of a collective experience. Throughout the conflict, the question was not only of interest to all actors in the French musical world, but also many other artists and intellectuals from non-musical disciplines, from Maurice Barrès and Léon Daudet to Joséphin Sar Peladan and Auguste Rodin. It even reverberated across the front pages of newspapers, for example with the series of articles entitled Germanophilie by Camille Saint-Saëns published in L'Echo de Paris from September 21, 1914, denouncing the guilty attachment of the French public to Goethe, Schiller, and Wagner—the latter, according to him, being “the most powerful machine ever used by Germany for the Germanization of the French soul.” [9]

7 As we see, for Saint-Saëns, rejection of German music was inseparable from rejection of German literature in the context of a general questioning of the Kultur of the enemy. In turn this gesture in the cultural domain was part of a blank refusal of all things German, from language courses in schools to more mundane objects stamped “made in Germany” which were occasionally surrounded by rumors of evil powers, as was the case with Maggi milk and Kub bouillon, which in August 1914 became the target of “patriotic” riots. [10] Thus thought on music was closely linked to the issue of the economic interests attached to it, some even going so far as to say that “the biggest culprit is commerce - not art.” [11] Alongside the programs of concert societies and institutions such as the opera, the publishing of books and classical scores, the manufacture of musical instruments, and the activity of enthusiasts and teachers were all directly affected, resulting in discussions that extended the pre-war debate into the cultural field in general. For example, Kenneth E. Silver reported, in reference to the Salon d'Automne of 1910, that “economic rivalry between France and Germany in the export of decorative arts was indeed, from the beginning, the fulcrum of the Munich Art controversy.” [12] In the fall of 1914, the opera director, Jacques Rouché, wrote in his diary that, as long as Wagner's place in music history cannot be denied, the debate on whether to play his music “is in truth completely divorced from the domain of music itself.”

8 Wagner's work passed into the public domain on January 1 1914, freeing French publishers and producers from any obligation to pay a fee to the Wagner family. That his “copyright does not enrich his heirs or Germany” was not enough to justify the prospect of lifting the ban introduced at the beginning of the war. It was clear to everyone, naturally including Rouché, that works of art were not like other goods. Given the generalized anti-Germanism, prudent attempts were made to make a clear distinction between trade and the exchange of works of the intellect: “Wagner is indigestible but marvelous [...]. I will no longer brush my teeth with Odol but I will not deprive myself of Schubert, Bach, or Beethoven.” [13] Nevertheless, in general, far from seeing art as a protected domain by not reducing it to economics, the dominant perception was, of course, that of its ideological and political dimensions. One may go as far as its outright military aspect, described, if only ironically by Debussy: “In 1870 they had Richard Wagner. In 1914 they have only Richard Strauss left!” [14]

9 Saint-Saëns, for example, loudly boasted his authorship of the phrase: “Art may have no homeland, but artists do!” [15] A rhetorical position on which Frédéric Masson raised the stakes saying that art was indeed a country, it was “the very essence of nationality”; to launch a threat at the Wagnerians, “France must be France, be made of the French of France, and must be scoured of any Frenchman or Frenchwoman 'made in Germany'.”  [16]Thus musical pleasure, readily acknowledged as the most intimate of aesthetic enjoyment, became the measure of loyalty to one's country - or of treason.

10 If, in public debate, music may not garner the prestige of literature, philosophy, or history, it nevertheless raises particular questions. In music, any evaluation of history or the philosophy of history leads to practical consequences: who should be played, and who should be avoided? The musical canon, which is the foundation of the legitimacy of a repertoire, is not only a history of music, it is a story recounted in the present tense—that of aesthetic experience—which itself is necessarily alien to history. This is even more true for a piece of instrumental music than for a literary or dramatic work, in which language is ever-present to indicate the particular character of cultural references.

11 Not to mention the fact that Wagnerism had already left this generation, which was now at the forefront of intellectual life—if not the frontline of the war—with the experience of a body of musical work becoming a total social fact, challenging, rightly or wrongly, all discursive registers of culture, including politics. This made Masson declare that Wagner was “a drug” and that Wagnerism was “the full expression of German culture,” and the reason why “Frenchmen suffering from Wagnerism surrender themselves voluntarily to Germany.” [17] It is this experience that would henceforth be sought as much in discussion of the specific problem of the interpretation of Wagner's works in Paris as in constituting a metaphorical register; allowing Maurice Barrès, for example, to name a work “The Valkyries and Our Young Heroes”—a chronicle in which he denounced Germany’s intention to “take over all means of destruction that exist.” [18] This can be compared with the statement by Sar Peladan, the mystical Rosicrucian, that “The gods have no country to call home upon earth, and Wagner is a god. The Bosch would be even better crushed to the rhythm of the Valkyries.” [19] The controversy surrounding Wagner was well enough known that even singers of the chanson poilue—a genre of humorous song inspired and popularized by the war effort—got involved with titles like La Walkyrie, la vache qui rit, which was among the biggest hits of the period. [20]

12 Between maintaining the status quo ante-bellum, in which musical life was unthinkable without the Germans and German music, [21] and expunging them entirely, as some did not hesitate to demand, the range of possibilities was endless. There was almost total ostracism in the first months—we will come back to this—but a certain consensus seems to have emerged. Its basis differed significantly from behavior observed in some Allied countries, such as England, where Wagner and Brahms were maintained in musical programs. The remark that London had “not yet discerned the difference between the Germans and the Bosch, between the divine masters of Romanticism and contemporary cads of Kultur”, inspired by a concert where pieces by Engelbert Humperdinck and Ferruccio Busoni were played, conversely quite accurately summarizes what was happening in Parisian concert halls. Indeed, the prevailing attitude was one of historical distinction illustrated by remarks made by Camille Mauclair in December 1916, already imagining conditions after the end of war. Their prognostic character is important, if we are to understand the relevance of these debates at a time when the severity of the conflict could make them appear trivial, perhaps inappropriate:

13

The task incumbent upon us all is to prepare the mission of our national mentality in a Europe which, delivered from obsessive Germanism, will once again demand of us the eternal rallying cry. Our recent music appears to be the only music consistent enough in its variety to replace the influence of the dreadful contemporary music of Germany, this music of sudden assaults, drilling masses, and “states of danger of war,” that has unleashed its heavy weapons upon us in an orchestra of Zeppelins and Krupps. We did not like it but we were impressed by it, as if its brutality was a bad omen. Some advised us to learn the lesson of power from it, even at the expense of our taste. We will have done with it, as with them, and more than ever we will keep intact our reverence for the great Germans of the pre-Kultur, for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann, with their innocence and humanity. [22]

14 Of course, this distinction between “innocent” Germans and the barbarians of the Kultur was no invention of the musicians, neither was it particularly new. Rather, it can be seen as an extension of the concept of “two Germanies” that had been recurrent in French debate since 1870, the idea of a contradiction between the humanist heritage—readily identified with Kant—and Prussian militarism, sometimes associated with the name of Hegel. [23] However, before the war, the German question came to feed a more general debate on classicism, conducted against the background of a program of moral regeneration of the French Nation. [24] The systematic questioning of Romanticism led to the rejection of many works, not without bias, and with a certain lack of precision, so difficult was the concept to rigorously define—to the point, for example, that the Nouvelle Revue Française “decides to name the works we love 'classics' and those we reject 'romantic'.” [25]

15 In music, the theory of the “two Germanies” had already informed, if only implicitly, denunciations of the “decadence” of German music that had marked the reception of contemporary composers since at least the turn of the century. The debate on classicism seems, on the other hand, to have taken on a particular form here, because the term could refer to Mozart and Beethoven, or to the “Latin” heritage, or to France before the revolution. However, it was far more difficult to extend it to Weber or Schumann, those “divine masters of Romanticism” who had nonetheless thoroughly penetrated the “classical” repertoire, and in whom the “Latin” virtues of clarity and balance were recognized. It was this persistent terminological ambiguity that gave rise to the possibility of describing Schubert's music as “classical.”

16 In any event, the critical point of the genealogy was elsewhere. According to Carlo Caballero, “the French public divided German music into three categories: the classics or 'sacred' works, contemporary works, and Wagner.” [26] And it was indeed the author of The Ride of the Valkyries who proved to be the stumbling block in discussions, less so in the practical domain—it seems that the ban was maintained unanimously during the conflict—than in that of competing visions of the history of music and therefore the history of German culture. Before discussing the details of these arguments, it will be useful to place them in a chronological context.

17 The outbreak of hostilities resulted in an immediate closure order on theaters and concert halls, which was not lifted until after the Battle of the Marne in November 1914. The Société des Concerts du Conservatoire resumed its activities in the Grand Amphitheater of the Sorbonne on November 29, initiating a series of daytime concerts (Matinées Nationales) featuring exclusively French music. Saint-Saëns, Albéric Magnard (who was killed by the Germans early in the war) and César Franck (Belgian, but incorporated into French music via the canon of the Schola Cantorum) were played on the first day. Ticket sales for these concerts, which often presented texts and compositions by artists departed for the war, went to the Œuvre Fraternelle des Artistes, an institution under the auspices of the Under-Secretariat of State for Fine Arts, which distributed the funds to the families of fighting or destitute artists.

18 “We have made good and beautiful music at the Sorbonne” wrote conductor André Messager in October 1915. “But I must admit that we have missed Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. [...] I am convinced, the French always being admirers of beauty above all, that we shall be able to reinstate these wonders of the seventeenth and eighteenth century musical art of Germany into our programs. [27] German composers reappeared by the end of 1915, not specifically drawing on the centuries quoted by Messager, but with the Third and Fifth symphonies of Beethoven which joined the French repertoire along with tributes to Russian and Romanian composers. [28] In March 1917, the orchestra of the Société des Concerts embarked on a tour of Switzerland. They did not hesitate to add Beethoven's Egmont Overture and the Eroica to works by Berlioz, d'Indy, Debussy and Rimsky-Korsakov, which drew this remark from a Lausanne journalist: “Rarely has this work been of such high significance as at this time and in this place, within range of German guns ... and interpreted by a French orchestra. [...] Such an evening is more useful to the cause of France than several volumes of propaganda literature.” [29]

19 The “Concerts Rouges” were a pioneering figure in this regard with a return to playing on January 17, 1915 in a hall in the Rue de Tournon, under the direction of Joseph Jamain “with an orchestra for which war had rendered recruitment difficult indeed.” [30] Since that date, the critic Jean Poueigh wrote in December 1916 that these musicians had “never stopped playing the symphonies of Beethoven, Haydn, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and others. Thus they preach by example against an irrational particularism which, if it had not been reacted against, would have diminished, with no benefit to anyone, an artistic heritage that we have the right to declare our own.”

20 The Lamoureux and Colonne orchestras started playing again in their turn, on December 6, 1914 at Salle Gaveau. Like other institutions, their numbers were severely depleted due to the many departures for the front—according to a report by the musicians' union Syndicat des artistes musiciens, no less than half of its four thousand members had joined the army since the first days of the war. [31] These prestigious rival institutions, led respectively by Camille Chevillard and Gabriel Pierné, decided to join forces under the name of the Association Colonne-Lamoureux, which was readily perceived as a good example of a blessed union. Initially their programs were devoid of works by German composers, although a good quarter of their efforts were dedicated to works from Allied countries. However, this attitude was to change during the fall of 1915. At the end of January 1916, a Beethoven symphony was played at Salle Gaveau, and another by Schumann on March 12, 1916. Another Beethoven symphony, the Eighth, was played at the end of a concert where works of Massenet and Franck were heard along with a piece by Gabriel Pierné entitled “Les Cathédrales,” in remembrance of the bombing of Reims Cathedral at the beginning of the conflict. [32]

21 Thus, we can say that none of the Parisian concert societies applied a strict ban on the works of German composers--with the exception of the Société Nationale, which was traditionally devoted to the French repertoire, and which waited in any case until November 10, 1917 to resume its public activities. [33] This attitude nevertheless only prevailed after a certain time; the inflection point, according to an observer of the period, being in September 1915: “Certain fears having been erased, we have seen the opéra-comique, Werther, reappear, despite its subject matter, as well as La Vie de Bohème, despite the attitudes of its composer. At the Colonne-Lamoureux concerts and even at the Matinées Nationales, Mozart and Beethoven have been heard... And immediately, revenues rose, the public flocked back: the future of these concerts is assured.” [34]

22 Although symphonic music concerts continued to cultivate the German classics with Beethoven, as always, at the forefront, the situation was very different in the field of opera. The Opéra-Comique had reopened on December 6, 1914 with Donizetti's La Fille du régiment, Vidal’s the Ballet des Nations, the Chant du départ, and La Marseillaise, a series of patriotic pieces which, beyond the Werther reported by Curzon, shows the general tone of the program. The Palais Garnier had a considerably more difficult time pursuing its activities. First, for practical reasons that paralyzed the functioning of the institution for some time: “I do not think it is possible to consider the regular operation of the Opera before the end of the war” wrote its director in the fall of 1914. “At present, too many dancers, singers, chorus line artists, musicians and machinists have been called to war.” [35] A significant role was played by economic factors, reported by Jacques Rouché in his diary entry of December 19: “Our repertoire can no longer include many works, like those of Wagner, which until only recently were the only sure source of profits, having such a significant and certain appeal.” Additionally the idea of reopening the opera faced political opposition at the highest level, which was communicated to the Director by the Under-Secretary for Fine Arts: “Monsieur Dalimier informed me during the hearing that the Council of Ministers is not in favor of the idea of reopening the opera.” Rouché's response was to organize “Music and Dance” matinées beginning February 16 at the Trocadero, which excluded all German composers. Only in the fall of 1915 could the director of the Opera announce the reopening of the Salle Palais Garnier for December 9, with a new matinee series “devoted to our theatrical music” [36] which, on December 16, included the opera-ballet Mademoiselle de Nantes. As noted by Jane Fulcher, the choice of music by Charpentier and Lully actually placed the opera within “a propaganda network” at the service of the “myth of French Classicism.” [37] This set the tone of the policy pursued by the institution until the end of the war.

23 In summary, the exclusion of German authors from theatrical music (the opera) seems to have been total—starting, of course, with the works of Wagner, who had monopolized the pre-war repertoire, and who, once war broke out, no-one seems even to have considered proposing. If there was at the time a “case for Beethoven”, it concerned the opportunity to play his works here and now, while war was being waged. The “case for Wagner”, however, was entirely limited to the possibility of playing him after the war.

24 In October 1915, André Messager justified the initial exclusion of German composers by the desire to “spare legitimate public sentiment.” “What ridiculous cowardice!” chimed a journalist of the Courrier musical in February 1917; “irrational particularism,” added Jean Poueigh; “a facile, supposedly patriotic attempt to raise the stakes”, said composer Gustave Samazeuilh. [38] The first two remarks suggest that those deciding the programs were a priori more open than their audiences, but that they feared their reactions—wrongly, as Messager observed, noting the absence of any hostile demonstration to German works performed at the Concerts Rouges. The other two comments seem to challenge a state of opinion related to circumstances, which was rapidly dropped. All are retrospective. The Courrier musical only started printing again in December 1916. La Musique pendant la guerre published its first issue in October 1915. The archives of musical associations stored in the National Library are very meager for all things related to that period. There is a lack of sources to inform us of the precise reasons for these exclusions when they occurred even if, of course, one can imagine that virtually no argument was necessary to avoid anything that conjured up the enemy. “We asked concerts simply to draw up a public inventory of our national wealth,” observed the same journalist who had earlier spoken of cowardice.

25 We do know that Camille Saint-Saëns called for German music to nolonger be played as early as September 1914. He was thus a pioneer, even extending his zeal with forays into more controversial areas—such as his advocacy of the prohibition of the Rakoczy March from the Damnation de Faust, by alleging that it was a “Hungarian Marseillaise”, tantamount to a symbol of an enemy country. It is also significant that, rather than accusing him of attacking a masterpiece of the French repertoire or reminding him of the rhetorical nature of Berlioz's quotation, he was answered that Rakoczy, far from being a representative of the Habsburg Empire, was “a staunch Hungarian patriot.” [39] But in any case the militant aggression of Saint-Saëns seems to have been relatively isolated at its beginnings, certainly in terms of public awareness.

26 In practice, the exclusion of Wagner's works was rigorous enough to be strictly observed even on the other side of the world. In November 1915, La Musique pendant la guerre published an interview with the Russian singer Félia Litvinne who, while expressing full enthusiasm for the Allied cause, commented that “They even gave me a great opportunity to sing Wagner in Buenos Aires. I refused, not only to avoid singing these works but because I consider it to be my duty here as long as France is at war, and as long as this horrible tragedy lasts. I will not sing Wagner, not even at home.” [40] Her attitude contrasts with that of André Messager, who at that very moment was on tour in Buenos Aires as a guest conductor during which he directed works by Wagner on three occasions. “The excuse he gives is this: In order to introduce French music into the orchestra's programs, I had to agree to play Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Brahms and Wagner,” his friend Madame de Saint-Marceaux noted in her diary of December 4, 1915. It was inevitably the Wagner that concentrated opprobrium in the salons.

27

In the evening Messager showed himself. He was accused of having conducted Wagner in Buenos Aires, which is true. It would have been better to have abstained but his crime did not have all the consequences it might have had. Messager is not a profound man and seems not to have understood the antipathy of leading an orchestra in Wagner as a Frenchman on neutral territory. Members of the Circle wanted to expel him, and musicians motivated by jealousy also threatened to make life very difficult for him. Happily for Messager, he never seems to have grasped the gravity of the situation (December 13, 1915).

28 A few months later, Messager announced a return to Buenos Aires: “His mentality is frightening. He does not understand the harm he is doing himself. If he does it again the whole world will turn its back on him” notes Madame de Saint-Marceaux on March 31, 1916. She seems to have succeeded in persuading him however, as two months later she was able to report “Messager is leaving again for Buenos Aires to give concerts. He promises me Wagner has been removed!” [41]

29 In any event, the incompleteness of available information does not erase the impression that the most aggressive discourse against German music flourished even as the exclusion of these works diminished in practice. In October 1915, the first issue of La Musique pendant la guerre edited by Charles Hayet and Francis Casadesus was published by the Comptoir général de musique. Its stated aim, which was printed on the cover, was to “be a historical document of the movement of Musical Art, work, and projects of Composers, Artists, and Directors of Opera and Symphonic Concerts during the war.” The editorial, entitled “What we want,” emphasizes the need to overcome petty disputes, to support the men on the front, and to ensure that music can exercise “its beneficent and comforting influence.” There is not a word about German music. In this first issue, apart from Messager lamenting how much he missed Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, only one of the contributors to the journal and the many musicians interviewed had anything to say on the subject, in this one case to agree with Camille Saint-Saëns and his “hatred for all things German.” [42]

30 The most eloquent argument in support of a total ban on German composers showed the defensive, or to be more precise, reactionary, nature of this discourse. This was an article published under the pseudonym “Arlès” in the same review on February 2, 1916, immediately after the first bombing of Paris, which coincided with the performance of a Beethoven symphony at the Matinées Nationales, and a Schumann symphony at the Colonne-Lamoureux concerts. It was entitled “Music and Zeppelins”

31 What welcome on such a day, would the Parisian public give these works? Musical directors will change their programs, I thought, they will not dare provoke a scandal playing German music to an audience still reeling from the tragic events of the previous night.

32 That very same evening the killers returned. These ghastly hunters had not yet shed enough blood—they needed new innocent victims. I tried the next day, after noting with satisfaction the negative result of the new raid, by which works (perhaps French) the German symphonies had been replaced. Thus was my saddened surprise upon seeing that nothing had changed, that the public, who had been subjected to bloody assault, had listened without raising an eyebrow, even applauding these works from a country whose soldiers had, that very same day, almost brought death to their own homes—it is mere luck that these spectators were spared. The bombs do not choose their victims.

33 I understand that Beethoven and Schumann are not contemporary. Germany, sweet romantic Germany of the last century was not what it is today but where does this great mistake, which we seem bent on making our doctrine, come from? Were the Germans in 1815 and in 1870 less ferocious than those we fight now? No, indeed, history and tradition are there to prove otherwise. [...] To the musicians and the French public! A little modesty! It is time to be nationalistic in all senses of the word. Without it, after playing Beethoven and Schumann on Sunday, we will play Schubert and Brahms and Malher [sic], and finally Wagner. And then when the peace is signed, we will once again see signatory names from the famous manifesto of the ninety-three German intellectuals posted in huge letters on our major concert halls and opera houses. [43]

34 By advocating nationalism “in every sense of the term,” which is reminiscent of the “integral nationalism” of Charles Maurras, “Arlès” gave fairly clear indications of his position within the French political spectrum. He thus joined the ranks of those who, like Jacques Maritain and other anti-Kantian Catholics, rejected the thesis of “two Germanies” advocated by Republican intellectuals. [44]As for the “Manifesto of the ninety-three”, he was surely referring to Felix Weingartner, who was omnipresent on the Parisian scene before the war in both concerts and opera, and the only musician, along with composer Humperdinck, to sign the document that was published in Le Temps, in France on October 13, 1914. The issue raised by this text—to which we shall return—cannot be reduced to this “critique of contemporaries”: “Had he been alive, Wagner would had signed the famous manifesto,” said Poueigh, for example, arguing in favor of banning his works. [45]

35 Also in February 1916, in articles by Charles Tenroc and Sylvio Lazzari, La Musique pendant la guerre launched the idea of creating a “League for the preponderance of French music in France and its intensive propagation abroad.” [46] After first calling itself the “Anti-German League” and the “National anti- Austro-German League for the defense of French economic interests”, it became a functioning body under the name of the “National League for the defense of French music, its prevalence in France, and its propagation abroad” or, more simply, the League for the Defense of French Music [47].

36 As Carlo Caballero noted, the league’s motto, “The music of France for the French”, seemed to echo that of the French National Anti-Semitic League founded in 1897: “France for the French.” [48] To understand the ideology of Tenroc, who was apparently the driving force of the group, note that towards the end of the war he published an article entitled “Musical nationalism,” which speaks of race and blood, “ethnic virtues” and the “racial temperament” of the French, which certainly brings him close to the most ethnocentric nationalism of the French intellectual world. [49] It should also be noted that the project of the league responded to the specific situation of the musical world, but was not without parallel in other artistic fields. In February 1917, a society for the defense and praise of French art was created, while a number of critics were striving to “demonstrate the chronic inferiority of German art.” [50]

37 All this being said, in the project of the league, the interweaving of patriotic ideals with economic interests was crucial: it was Gustave Lyon, the director of the piano manufacturer Pleyel, who had been put forward to become the league's first president. [51] Even though exports had grown in some Allied and neutral countries—Britain being an exception—production had dropped dramatically because of staff departures to the front lines, leading to the closure of the company's concert hall and justifying the idea of a battle to be fought in this arena. “The products of German art are harmful to our national spirit and must be considered as one with their trade; Teutonic craftsmanship must be proscribed as well” proclaimed the league’s first manifesto, advocating not only the rejection of all modern German music, but also the boycotting of Austrian and German soloists and other musicians, the exclusion of German equipment such as musical instruments, the abolishment of Austrian and German publications, and so on. [52]

38 These projects for the unification of patriotic efforts had to take into account particularly complex situations. In publishing, Alexis Rouart, President of the Chambre Syndicale of Music Merchants in France announced, shortly before the founding of the league, his decision to “establish a French Classic Edition which, if sold at the same price as the German editions, could compete with them on the French and foreign markets.” [53] In fact, before the war, the local publishing of German editions was often handled by French publishing houses and they consequently found themselves in a difficult position: The Peters edition of Mozart's sonatas, for example, was distributed by Durand, who nevertheless launched a “Durand edition” of these same works, which not only proved less competitive than the Peters edition on foreign markets, but also found itself in competition with three other “French” editions all launched in the same spirit of patriotic enthusiasm. These contradictions undoubtedly explain that even the plans of the Chambre Syndicale backfired, “a valiant attempt, made vain by the ill-will of some,” wrote Jean Poueigh. [54] There is no indication that Rouart participated in the activities of the league, organized by men close to the Comptoir général de Musique, a rival company.

39 On March 10, 1916, the inaugural meeting of the new association (constituted under the law of 1901) was held at the Salle Pleyel concert hall. Its statutes notably cited that: “Active members must be French or naturalized French for at least five years, while not being of Austro-German origin.” The league aligned itself partially to the position already assumed by the Association of Conductors, whose council—which included, among others, Chevillard and Pierné—had asked that only French artists be employed by subsidized theaters, with the possibility of using artists from Allied countries not exceeding 5% of the workforce, and “the total exclusion of all other foreigners be they enemy or neutral.” [55] The statutes of the league also specified that it “prohibits any political or religious discussion and any commercial transaction.” [56] Debate was perhaps not political, but it was nevertheless present from the outset— “Unanimously, with one abstention, the principle of opportunity has been adopted. Only Monsieur Henri Rabaud has expressed a contrary opinion, but as he is attending the meeting in an unofficial capacity, his vote has not been considered.” The minutes do not state Rabaud's objections. These initial disagreements seem to anticipate the difficulties the league would face. Everything suggests that it did not meet with its hoped-for success.

40 The proximity of the League for the Defense of French Music to the French music festivals organized by the review La Musique pendant la guerre from March 1916 onwards, can lead one to attribute an importance to the league that it is unlikely to have had in reality. [57]The first of these festivals, “exclusively for French composers (regardless of school, whether they had died in battle, were missing, wounded, prisoners, or currently in action)” took place in June 16, 1916 at Salle Gaveau, gathering an impressive number of individuals on the Committee of Honor, chaired by Saint-Saëns and the Undersecretary of State for Fine Arts, Dalimier. Also participating were d'Indy, Bruneau, Charpentier, Chevillard, Debussy, Dubois , Dukas, Fauré, Messager, Pierné, Rabaud, Vidal, Widor, Carraud, and Cortot, among others. Francis Casadesus acted as founding general secretary and the poet Saint Georges de Bouhélier as mentor. These concerts, supported by many organizations, the League of course, but also the French Society of Friends of Music, the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers, the Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music, the National Association of Former Students of the Conservatory of Music and Declamation of Paris, the Federation of Musical Artists of France, and the Chambre Syndicale of Musical Artists of Paris, [58] continued for some time with an undeniable success, and we note that it is within this framework that the state was most closely associated with initiatives started in the music world—as much as in the presence of its representative, Dalimier, as by the awarding of a major financial grant. In 1916, Alfred Cortot was appointed head of the official Music Propaganda service, attached to the Under-Secretariat of Fine Arts, where he took initiatives such as sending musicians abroad to spread French music. One example is d'Indy's series of concerts in Italy in October 1916. Cortot does not appear to have addressed the issue of German music. Until proven otherwise, it appears that the state thought it best to let the institutions directly concerned deal with it in their own way.

41 Regarding the festivals of French music, we observe that their principle was a further sign of the decline of the consensus that had predominated at the beginning of the conflict. The name of the series showed that, in the middle of 1916, not every concert was necessarily devoted to “French music.” Moreover, in the list of supporters, the names of Ravel, Schmitt and Koechlin are missing; figures of the Independent Musical Society which, towards the end of the year, was then taken over by the Société Nationale, led “in the name of a Union Sacrée” by d'Indy and his friends. [59] Not that we should suspect all members of the Independent Musical Society of being hostile to a nationalist approach: Jean Huré, for example, delivered a “defense and praise of French music” to show “how our composers from the beginning until today, have served as models and inspiration for exotic musicians,” exploring “Gallic” and “Celtic” music and the Middle Ages when “only popular song [...] permitted the national genius to be glimpsed.” [60] One of his pieces was played at the fourth of these festivals on June 17, 1917. As for Ravel, his love for classic French heritage, as demonstrated by the Tombeau de Couperin dedicated to soldiers who died in battle, made him somewhat suspicious of charity towards the enemy. It remains that their attitude towards contemporary German music was far from aligned with the abhorrence of Saint-Saëns and the leaders of the League. Requested to become a member, Ravel sent his negative answer from the battle front, protesting against the banishment of contemporary German composers:

42

It would be dangerous for French composers to systematically ignore the productions of their foreign colleagues, thus forming a sort of national coterie. Our musical art, so rich in the present age, would soon degenerate and find itself locked into stereotypical formulas. It does not matter to me that Schoenberg, for example, is an Austrian citizen. He is no less a musician of high value, whose highly interesting research has had a wonderful influence upon many composers in Allied countries, and even at home. [61]

43 Actually, in contrast with the celebrities who supported the festivals, the provisional commission of the League for the Defense of French Music, appointed on the occasion of the first assembly, contained no leading names—not even that of Gustave Lyon—but rather those of critics or secondary figures such as Tenroc, Poueigh, Derouville, Diodet, Prévost, and Soyer. The league, like La Musique pendant la guerre, seems to have run out of steam fairly rapidly, as the lack of state support shows. In August 1916, Francis Casadesus had proposed bringing the “French concert associations” together in a committee of union and action that he hoped to see attached to Cortot's propaganda service. Cortot seems not even to have responded to the proposal. [62]

44 The failure of these attempts undoubtedly fueled some resentment against what the review did not hesitate to call “German propaganda in France during the war” in its last issue, published in May 1917. [63]The thesis of the “enemy within” applied to music could lead to expressions loaded with threats, which Francis Casadesus introduced, citing Clemenceau--“Let Verdun be a salutary example for all of us!”

45

Will we be forced to do in the realm of our art that which our soldiers have done on the battlefield? Will we have enough power over ourselves to face up to those who, for years, have helped German music to penetrate our homeland; those who, by unconscious snobbery or by venal interests, have made themselves its champions and its propagators; those who placed it in the forefront, who implanted it in our theaters and our concerts to the point that French music, when there was any, seemed to be the foreigner? Will we have the courage to tell them that even if they are French in name, they are in no way French of heart? Shall we forget the evil they have done to our national art through fantasy or greed just because they have thrown us a few scraps of the favors or gold that they harvested slavishly or foolishly by obeying an organization from the far bank of the Rhine who sought only our own disarray? Will we not bring them to order when timidly— timidly, now that the Allied armies are showing them an outcome of the war utterly different from that which they had expected—they begin to argue that our concerts and our theaters cannot forgo the German repertoire? [64]

46 Casadesus is careful not to name names. However, note that in June 1917, Saint-Saens published his article “The musical danger” in the Écho de Paris, denouncing a “movement in favor of German music” because, he says, “musical luminaries and others besides, it seems, are working together to impose the resumption of a Wagnerian repertoire upon the public.” Vincent d'Indy is the only person named, being the author of a statement reproduced by Saint-Saens: “The beautiful is always beautiful, wherever it comes from. Banning Wagner would be to behave like the Bosch themselves.” [65] D'Indy's real opinion of his opponent is shown in his correspondence: “This man is old, and such a member of the establishment that we won't have to heed his ranting much longer!” [66] D'Indy was nevertheless forced to defend himself: “I do not know if the pro-Wagnerian plot [...] exists anywhere but in the imagination of your distinguished colleague but, in any case, what I can say is that it is absolutely nothing to do with me.” [67]

47 The dividing line is clear: Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann-- yes; Brahms and Wagner, and their successors Strauss, Mahler, and Schoenberg-- no. The question is how this distinction was determined. During the war, in all areas, philosophy of history was readily debated to explain German barbarism, notably in replying to the ninety-three intellectuals who had thrown down the gauntlet: “Believe that we will conduct this war until the end as a nation of culture, that the legacy of a Goethe, a Beethoven, or a Kant is as sacred as home and land.” In the Echo de Paris, Georges Dumesnil published a “brief response to the German intellectuals,” explaining that “those whose names they invoke” are “very unfortunately chosen”:

48

Does the legacy of Beethoven belong to Germany? No more than his origins do. Beethoven was Flemish, and the civilization of Flanders, an old province of the kingdom of France, is entirely Catholic. The genius of Beethoven is based on a Mozart, so very Italian, and on Bach. But we know today that the art of the German kappelmeisters, which flourished with Bach, has its root in old French music.” [68]

49 As for Beethoven, his Flemish origins had been evoked since well before the First World War in order to “de-Germanize” him and bring him closer to French culture. A Belgian author, at the turn of the century went further: La Vie de Beethoven by Romain Rolland, one of the main works of the Beethoven cult in France, was published in 1902. It is worth noting, furthermore, that during the war certain notable Beethoven cultists distanced themselves from Romain Rolland's pacifist attitude, to enlist the composer symbolically in the fight against Germany. The musicologist and corporal Jean Chantavoine, for example, on November 21, 1915 wrote the following from the front line:

50

I have just played—badly as it happens—a few Beethoven sonatas for violin and piano with a friend. An invisible orchestra added a few bass beats from time to time, which the Germans undoubtedly got wind of. [69]

51 Although Beethoven was the most often played German composer in France during the conflict, as had been the case since the 1830s, it does not appear that the rather limited argument of his Belgian “naturalization” was decisive in this choice. It is, rather, an overview of German and European history that repeatedly surfaces in the writings of commentators. The critic Albert Bertelin, noting the poor reception of Brahms in France, borrowed a phrase from Brahms himself, identifying him as the first echt deutsch composer:

52 The influence of the age of Louis XIV threw its light on the whole of Europe, and on Germany in particular. [...] In his youth, Bach spent many nights reading the works of our harpsichordists and later he himself wrote the Suites françaises.

53 It was at this time that most classic German musicians were born or grew up—Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber, while others born later were contemporaries of the Napoleonic era. [...] It appears to me that the German musical works of the eighteenth and the first two thirds of the nineteenth century were subject to varying degrees of influence by our classical culture and this is why they were so accessible to French listeners despite the clearly Germanic essence of the themes on which they were based.

54 But, gradually, during the nineteenth century, Germany obeying the voice of the patriots who wanted to shake off the foreign yoke, managed to free itself from the strong hold that our arts and literature had exercised upon it. [...] If Schumann, already to a lesser degree than his predecessors, was still under French influence, Brahms completely escaped it, and is the first in a series of musicians whose works become ever more foreign to us. The gap separating the two races is widening every day. The need to dominate, to oppress, and a megalomania attached to a foolish pride have given Germany a bombastic and empty art of music[...]. This art, which is so representative of their current state of mind, is the inescapable consequence of their “Kultur.” [70]

55 Thus all the grandeur of German classical music was a direct result of what it owed to French culture - specifically classical French culture, which found itself there described as a kind of cultural matrix of German Romanticism. This discourse on the French or Latin tradition, which coincided with the rediscovery of Rameau and Couperin, was rather patrimonial and anti-modernist, in accordance with the desire Poueigh expressed to annex Bach, Haydn, and even Mendelssohn to the canon of French national heritage.

56 Some preferred to advance the idea, which was already common before the war, of the influence of the French Revolution: “At that time of old Germany,” writes Maurice Donnay, “Beethoven, like many Germans, was breathing the intoxicating air of freedom blowing from France.” [71] In a similar vein, Saint-Saëns wrote in Germanophilie, having excoriated Goethe and Schiller: “We must not forget, however, that Schiller, in his Ode to Joy, set to music in Beethoven's Ninth symphony, sang to universal fraternity. And since the war, the Ninth symphony has been blacklisted in Germany.” [72]If the enormity of this last sentence is very clear, its discursive logic is placed in the wake of the dominant idea of a battle between a universalist French civilization and a particularist Kultur. This consensus was unable to silence ideological or personal differences, which could be seen in the dispute which, throughout the duration of the conflict, opposed Saint-Saëns, who was linked to the republican political tradition, and d'Indy, the royalist Catholic who was close to the friends of Charles Maurras.

57 In this quarrel of individuals, part of the problem was the defense by d'Indy of the role played by César Franck in the Société Nationale in the 1870s, which had led to the removal of its founder Saint-Saëns. But it is the “Cas Wagner” (case for Wagner, the title of a collection by Jean Marnold published after the war) which is to be found at the center of the debates. Nietzsche did not play a major role despite some isolated attempts to involve his writings against Wagner or, on a different plane, against German nationalism. It is Wagner who constituted the core of the first articles by Saint-Saëns, in which he apprehended the racism of Howard Stewart Chamberlain, notably in the phrase “The importance of each nation depends upon the amount of German blood it contains.” The Cas Wagner was the center of d'Indy's conference “French Music and German music,” in April 16, 1915, at which he denounced “the absurd campaign being conducted for some time against the author Parsifal”- while reserving a unique position for him in a mythical story of the decadence of German music: “Wagner was the last of the German musicians in the classical and traditional order. Following Wagner, German degeneration has been accentuated in a most frightening way.” Following him, but not without him, because “having himself contributed significantly to the progress of art by the greatness of his views and the beauty of his music, Wagner nevertheless took part in a movement that gradually plunged German music into the vast abyss in which it is sunk today.”

58 Thus, Wagner’s position is both crucial and ambiguous, demonstrating the difficulty, even torment of this Wagnerian patriot, the director of the Schola Cantorum. But his argument is not only a tribute to the artistic work of Wagner: he even rather boldly wrote in Une Capitulation that “Wagner has not insulted France.”

59

Of insults against France, there is no trace. There are merely a few somewhat childish tirades aimed at Victor Hugo, the Opera of Paris and Emile Perrin, its director. Then, after an apotheosis of Offenbach, who has just played a waltz on his trombone and after a ballet of opera rats, we finally find some very bitter taunts indeed... against whom? Against the directors of German theaters who, instead of promoting the arts at home, rushed headlong to Paris to snatch up pieces by the latest fashionable Parisian authors.
And this is the capitulation of the title... the capitulation of German theaters before our French pieces, all seasoned with dreadful French puns. There is not enough here to whip a Hussard de la Mort! [73]

60 D'Indy added: “We should be grateful to Richard Wagner, for he did our art the greatest of services, forever ridding it of the Italian yoke, and we can say that it is thanks to him that our French music has recovered and become what it is today.” Thus, it was precisely the nationalism of Wagner that, for d'Indy, made him an exemplar in a time of war.

61 Saint-Saëns thought it regrettable that d'Indy's patriotism “does not command him to wait until the Germans have ceased to trample our land and destroy our cathedrals before exalting their music, and does not stop him pleading extenuating circumstances for Une Capitulation” (of which a new translation had been published for uniquely polemical purposes). [74] In June 1917, in the article “The musical danger” in which he denounced the “movement in favor of German music,” Saint-Saëns also commented, rather naively, “Ah! they think differently in Italy! Lately I wanted to play a concert of Mozart's music in Rome and they opposed it. They want nothing German or Austrian.” This allowed d'Indy to prove his point: “Mozart… poured insults far more scurrilous upon France than the insignificant pleasantries dotted around the innocent and stupid Capitulation of R. Wagner.” He did not neglect to recall in passing the “Blue Max” and the “Kaiser's handshake” both received long ago by the author of the Carnival of the Animals. Thus, the dispute between Saint-Saëns and d'Indy around Wagner hides another around Mozart, which is probably less newsworthy, but possibly significant for the teaching of the history of music in France, especially given the spread of the anti-Mozart credo by the Schola Cantorum. It is, in any case, a bizarre spectacle to see these two illustrious former Wagnerians eviscerating each other in public over a future that was entirely uncertain. It is worth repeating that the controversy never turned on the possibility of Wagner being played anew in France after a victory—of which no-one was ever in any doubt. In response to the question “Should we play Wagner after the war? “The composer Charles-Marie Widor had said in April 1916:

62

If we had been beaten, probably the rancor of the past would have been revived
and this mythology from across the Rhine would have seemed unbearable...
But after the victory?
You conclude... [75]

63 The Wagner debate was not only important for political and historical reasons, but also because of its implications for contemporary music. The praise for “Germans of the pre-Kultur” by Camille Mauclair, mentioned above, ended with this comment: “They sometimes spoke of him with painful disrespect, even those who praised the canonical symphonies to us, committing our young people to limit themselves increasingly to an evanescent music, as if to affirm our abdication of all power.” [76] The nationalist position of Mauclair is marked by his commitment to local aesthetic discussions, namely his hatred of Debussy and the avant-garde movement. Contemporary German music was even more repugnant to him as it appeared to come to the aid of the aesthetics he rejected most—those of the Fauves and the Cubists, or those who would built “tiny altars to the divine false note and the exquisite dissonance,” as he later commented. Faced with contemporary “degeneration”, whether French or German, the classical masters are a guarantee of humanity and innocence, but also of heroism, the model of art for after the war:

64

Because humanity will have suffered, because heroism, pain, sacrifice, and grief will have raised a huge wave of passions, because this flood of pathos will have been enough to inspire ten Beethovens. [...] The man who sets our torment to music and writes our Ninth is perhaps even as I speak a feverish adolescent, at some high crossroads in an unknown city street, whose lamp burns until the dawn, and all are unaware—but he knows.

65 Mauclair's attack on the avant-garde was not original. Silver remarks “Cubism in particular, one of the clearest expressions of the modern mind, was considered the avant-garde enemy”—an attack against “Kubisme” of which Prochasson and Rasmussen emphasize the anti-Semitic dimension, and which was especially related to the role of Kahnweiler. [77] Plentiful opportunities arose to make an almost terrorist use of this kind of argument—seen, for example, in the accusations of “Bosch Art” made during the creation of Parade, the ballet by Satie, Cocteau and Picasso. [78]

66 Local aesthetic issues also arose in the defense of Schoenberg in Ravel's letter (quoted above). It appeared with force during controversies which, beginning in 1917, accompanied the failure of the Independent Music Society and the Societé Nationale to reconcile their differences. On January 15 of that year, d'Indy published an article in Le Courrier musical asserting that aesthetic differences, comparable to the raiment of priests of different nationalities and religious orders for “the celebration of the same office,” need not be an argument against “fraternal union, free of ulterior motives, between all the 'poets of sound' of our country.” This does not prevent him drawing up an ironic “charge sheet” of the modern style represented by the Independent Music Society, slipping in for example that “a third would not be afraid to exhibit themselves in pajamas of two superimposed tones (Bosch style), another would proudly sport a coat, shining with the absence of any form or tone.” [79] This earned him a reply from Charles Koechlin, presumed author of the remark: “We do not have the same aesthetic” which d'Indy had admonished in his article “Esthétique”. Koechlin's reply:—“Fashion doesn't influence me. [...] I will not deny myself, when the opportunity comes along, to superimpose two or three tones, and I am very interested in the atonal compositions of Mr. Schoenberg.” And further:

67

I counter the epithet “Bosch style” applied to “garments made in superimposed tones.” Of course we find the origins in Bach, Beethoven, and Haydn (in whose work I know there are some rather inexplicable B-flats). But for the moderns, well before the Hungarians Bartok and Kodaly (Schoenberg is atonal), Alfred Bruneau composed his Dream—which has remained so young since 1890—in a moving and admirable example of the polytonal style (la douleur de l’Évêque). What is peculiar to the Germans is the character of their music, not the process. The superposition of two tones in itself has nothing Bosch about it. We can draw from such tones musical effects compatible with our own national qualities. It would be regrettable to discredit these effects by slurring them as Bosch. [80]

68 Koechlin's article ends with the remark that d'Indy's crticism of a “strange uniform cut by a stuttering tailor” (referring to the stuttering repetition of musical phrases) could be applied, above all to Debussy, the “King of the stammer.” This phrase is consistent with the feeling, which was in the majority at the time, and that even d'Indy was not in a position to refute, that Debussy was now the leader in musical progress at the international level. Moreover, Koechlin found an ally in the person of Jean Marnold, a critic at the Mercure de France and a great supporter of Debussy, who was happy to remind d'Indy of Hugo Riemann’s influence on teaching at the Schola Cantorum. [81] But the reluctance of Ravel and Koechlin to follow the anti-modernists in their loathing of the avant-garde, even if it was German, not only shows that their conception of musical nationalism was politically less dogmatic than that of their colleagues, but also that they had realized that the field of modern music, like it or not, was an international space in which Schoenberg was already a presence impossible to ignore. In September 1916, a Viennese newspaper stated “Schoenberg is today undoubtedly the most often played living Austrian composer in neutral countries,” which was, according to the journalist, a compensation for the “boycott of his compositions in England, France and Russia.” [82]

69 On December 1, 1918, the musicologist Julien Tiersot wrote in Le Courrier musical: “We have, for three winters, seen the return of the usual routine of our earlier musical life, hardly disturbed by the elimination of contemporary German music. With only this difference, the concerts from 1915 to 1918 looked a lot like those of 1913 to 1914, and one could deduce that there has been little change in the world of music in France—there are merely a couple of pages of Wagner fewer.” [83] The study of the situation after the war being beyond the scope of this article, we simply note that, after the Armistice, the “difference” observed by Tiersot seems to have faded quite quickly. In November 1919, Florent Schmitt noted that “people demand Wagner without knowing why,” adding: “I cannot think without a shudder of the countless overtures of Lohengrin and Rienzi that the war, as its only merit, at least spared us for some time.” [84] As we see, the antipathy toward Wagner remained, but Schmitt's argument was far from an appeal to patriotism, as was invariably the case during the conflict.

70 Wagner's return to Paris was, however, complete and irrevocable just a few days later, under the baton of Camille Chevillard. In 1915, Jean Marnold had rebelled against the boycott advocated by Saint-Saëns, saying that “it would only contrive to make his return more triumphant and overwhelming.” On December 15, 1919, the critic Antoine Mariotte had to observe the “striking confirmation” of this prophecy, reporting Wagner’s triumph at the Concerts Colonne, greeted by “ten minutes” of ovations, “We crowded in to hear the religious scene of Parsifal and truly we never saw such a busy concert. The immense Châtelet refused entry to many people.” [85] Two weeks earlier, the same critic had given an account of the first performance of a work by Wagner after the war—probably an overture—at a concert where a composition by Gabriel Dupont was also played, which he associated with Stravinsky's Petrouchka, seeing there a “taste of what will be the music of our grand-children, the music of future musicians.” He concluded with these words: “Ah! Play Wagner, then, play him, if he must deliver us from the Russian disease!” [86]

71 Of course, it would surely be wrong to reduce Wagner's return to Parisian concert halls to such anti-modernist bravado. Nevertheless, this comment is in agreement with Jane Fulcher describing a post-war musical world “substantially different from the accepted image of the modernist roaring twenties” as it is characterized by the triumph of the conservative paradigm tied to the praise of French classicism. [87] However, in March 1920, the name of Schoenberg appeared in the program of a concert of “Foreign music” organized by the Group of Six at the Galerie Montaigne. [88] During the 1920s, just as before the war, German composers--both classical and contemporary--emerged as essential references in French aesthetic debates, regardless of the positioning of the different participants who listened to them or evoked their names, who rejected them or admired them. It would be unwise to conclude that the war changed nothing. If, as reported by Myriam Chimènes, Alfred Cortot would remember his experience of 1914–1918 when taking up his role in the Vichy government, [89] we can say that it is the very notion of “musical propaganda”—a manner of articulating musical heritage and cultural policy—that took on its modern form during the First World War. Also, in awaiting deeper examination, we note that the bombing of Bayreuth retrospectively inspired Camille Mauclair at the beginning of 1919 to express the following words, in which one feels the inertia of the nationalist rhetoric of years just passed, but also a sign that a certain French Wagnerism had definitely survived:

72

Bayreuth is and always will be no more than the cenotaph of Wagnerism, a crumbling and abandoned altar, from which even Germany itself has turned the last pilgrims away. The less noble part of Wagner is buried there, his pride as a theorist and an imperialist of the arts. His music has escaped from the prison of his system, which falls with Bayreuth and the Empire, both born with Sedan and of the desire to magnify the German era. [90]