For not only--with a few rare and generous exceptions--do the more
aristocratic sections of society ignore the education of the people, but
they ignore the very existence of the people's soul. Here and there, a
composer--such as Bizet and M. Saint-Saens, or M. d'Indy and his
disciples--will build up symphonies and rhapsodies and very difficult
pieces for the piano on the popular airs of Auvergne, Provence, or the
Cevennes; but that is only a whim of theirs, a little ingenious pastime
for clever artists, such as the Flemish masters of the fifteenth century
indulged in when they decorated popular airs with polyphonic
elaborations. In spite of the advance of the democratic spirit, musical
art--or at least all that counts in musical art--has never been more
aristocratic than it is to-day. Probably the phenomenon is not peculiar
to music, and shows itself more or less in other arts; but in no other
art is it so dangerous, for no other has roots less firmly fixed in the
soil of France. And it is no consolation to tell oneself that this is
according to the great French traditions, which have nearly always been
aristocratic. Traditions, great and small, are menaced to-day; the axe
is ready for them.
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