By that I mean our art should be represented as it ought to be, so
that we may learn something from the result. But the French public does
nothing at such a time; it remains absorbed in its concerts at Paris,
where everyone knows everyone else so well that they are not able and do
not dare to criticise freely. And so our art is withering away in an
atmosphere of coteries, instead of seeking the open air and enjoying a
vigorous fight with foreign art. For the majority of our critics would
rather deny the existence of foreign art than try to understand it.
Never have I regretted their indifference more than I did at the
Strasburg festival, where, in spite of the unfavourable conditions in
which French art was represented through our own carelessness, I
realised what its force might have been if we had been interested
spectators in the fight.
* * * * *
Perfect eclecticism had been exercised in the making up of the
programme. One found mixed together the names of Mozart, Wagner, and
Brahms; Cesar Franck and Gustave Charpentier; Richard Strauss and
Mahler. There were French singers like Cazeneuve and Daraux, and French
and Italian virtuosi like Henri Marteau and Ferruccio Busoni, together
with German, Austrian, and Scandinavian artists.
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