Many of his fellow-workers could never bring
themselves to look upon him as one of themselves, because he had the
boldness to see in art something other than the means of earning a
living. Indeed, Cesar Franck was not of them; and they made him feel
this." But the young students made no mistake about the matter. "At this
time," M. d'Indy also tells us,[222] "that is to say from 1872 to 1876,
the three courses of Advanced Musical Composition were given by three
professors who were not at all fitted for their work. One was Victor
Masse, a composer of simple light operas and a man with no understanding
of a symphony, who was very frequently ill and had to entrust his
teaching to one of his pupils; another was Henri Reber, an oldish
musician with narrow and dogmatic ideas; and the third was Francois
Bazin, who was not capable of distinguishing in his pupil's fugues a
false answer from a true one, and whose highest title to glory is
derived from a composition called _Le Voyage en Chine_. So it is not
surprising that Cesar Franck's teaching, founded on that of Bach and
Beethoven, but admitting, as well, imagination and all new and liberal
ideas, did, at that time, draw to him all young minds that had lofty
ambitions and that were really in love with their art.
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