It
remained for us to make it enter into the life of the nation and into
the people's education. This was a difficult task, for in France art has
always had an aristocratic character; and it was a task in which neither
the State nor musicians were very interested. The Republic still
continued to regard music as something outside the people. There had
even been opposition shown during the last thirty years towards any
attempt at popular musical education. In the old days of the Pasdeloup
concerts one could pay seventy-five centimes for the cheapest places,
and have a seat for that; but at some of the symphony concerts to-day
the cheapest seats are two and four francs. And so the people that
sometimes came to the Pasdeloup concerts never come at all to the big
concerts to-day.
And that is why one should applaud the enterprise of Victor Charpentier,
who, in March, 1905, founded a Symphonic Society of amateurs called
_L'Orchestre_, to give free hearings for the benefit of the people. And
in that Paris, where forty years ago one would have had a good deal of
trouble to get together two or three amateur quartettes, Victor
Charpentier has been able to count on one hundred and fifty good
performers,[240] who under his direction, or that of Saint-Saens or
Gabriel Faure, have already given seventeen free concerts, of which ten
were given at the Trocadero.
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