Nothing is truer. The _Societe Nationale_ is indeed a guest-chamber,
where for the past thirty years a guest-chamber art and guest-chamber
opinions have been formed; and from it some of the profoundest and most
poetic French music has been derived, such as Franck's and Debussy's
chamber-music. But its atmosphere is becoming daily more rarefied. That
is a danger. It is to be feared that this art and thought may be
absorbed by the decadent subtleties or pedantic scholasticism which is
apt to accompany all coteries--in short, that its music will be
salon-music rather than chamber-music. Even the Society itself seems to
have felt this at times; and at different periods has sought contact
with the general public, and put itself into direct communication with
it. "It becomes more and more necessary," wrote M. Saint-Saens, "that
French composers should find something intermediate between an intimate
hearing of their music and a performance of it before the general
public--something which would not be a speculative thing like a big
concert, but which would be analogous to the artistic attraction of an
exhibition of painting, and which would dare everything.
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