With a people that
has ancient musical traditions, as Germany has, music is the vehicle for
the words and impresses them in the heart; but in France's case it is
truer to say that the words have brought the music of Haendel and
Beethoven into the hearts of French school-children. The great thing is
that the music has really got hold of them, and that now one may hear
the provincial Ecoles Normales performing choruses from _Fidelio, The
Messiah_, Schumann's _Faust_, or Bach cantatas.[248] The honour of this
remarkable achievement, which no one could have believed possible twenty
years ago, belongs almost entirely to M. Maurice Buchor.[249]
[Footnote 247: The _Poeme_ has been published in four parts:--I. _De la
naissance au mariage_ ("From Birth to Marriage"); II. _La Cite_ ("The
City"); III. _De l'age viril jusqu'a la mort_ ("From Manhood to Death");
IV. _L'Ideal_ ("Ideals"). 1900-1906.]
[Footnote 248: The last chorus of _Fidelio_ has been recently sung by
one hundred and seventy school-children at Douai; a grand chorus from
_The Messiah_ by the Ecoles Normales of Angouleme and Valence; and the
great choral scene and the last part of Schumann's _Faust_ by the two
Ecoles Normales of Limoges.
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