One may
say, I think, that it is to-day the best in Paris. M. Chevillard is more
attracted by pure music than Lamoureux was; and he rightly finds that
dramatic music has been occupying too large a place in Parisian
concerts. In a letter published by the _Mercure de France_, in January,
1903, he reproaches the educators of public taste with having fostered a
liking for opera, and with not having awakened a respect for pure music:
"Any four bars from one of Mozart's quartettes have," he says, "a
greater educational value than a showy scene from an opera." No one in
Paris conducts classic works better than he, especially the works that
possess clean, plastic beauty; and in Germany itself it would be
difficult to find anyone who would give a more delicate interpretation
of some of Haendel's and Mozart's symphonic works. His orchestra has
kept, moreover, the superiority that it had already acquired in its
repertory of Wagner's works. But M. Chevillard has communicated a warmth
and energy of rhythm to it that it did not possess before. His
interpretations of Beethoven, even if they are somewhat superficial, are
very full of life. Like Lamoureux, he has hardly caught the spirit of
French romantic works--of Berlioz, and still less of Franck and his
school; and he seems to have but lukewarm sympathy for the more recent
developments of French music.
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