The road that stretches before us is long and difficult. But if we turn
our heads and look back over the way we have come we may take heart.
Which of us does not feel a little glow of pride at the thought of what
has been done in the last thirty years? Here is a town where, before
1870, music had fallen to the most miserable depths, which to-day teems
with concerts and schools of music--a town where one of the first
symphonic schools in Europe has sprung from nothing, a town where an
enthusiastic concert-going public has been formed, possessing among its
members some great critics with broad interests and a fine, free
spirit--all this is the pride of France. And we have, too, a little band
of musicians; among them, in the first rank, that great painter of
dreams, Claude Debussy; that master of constructive art, Dukas; that
impassioned thinker, Alberic Magnard; that ironic poet, Ravel; and those
delicate and finished writers, Albert Roussel and Deodat de Severac;
without mention of the younger musicians who are in the vanguard of
their art. And all this poetic force, though not the most vigorous, is
the most original in Europe to-day.
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