All great intellectual currents have left their mark on the people
of Alsace-Lorraine; and so they have been destined to play the part
of mediator between different times and different peoples; and the
East and the West, the past and the present, meet here and join
hands. In such festivals as this, it is not a matter of gaining
aesthetic victories; it is a matter of bringing together all that
is great and noble and eternal in the art of different times and
different nations."
It was a splendid ambition for Alsace--the eternal field of battle--to
wish to inaugurate these European Olympian games. But in spite of good
intentions, this meeting of nations resulted in a fight, on musical
ground, between two civilisations and two arts--French art and German
art. For these two arts represent to-day all that is truly alive in
European music.
Such jousts are very stirring, and may be of great service to all
combatants. But, unhappily, France was very indifferent in the matter.
It was the duty of our musicians and critics to attend an international
encounter like this, and to see that the conditions of the combat were
fair.
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