Franck
Belgian of Liege by birth, and Parisian only by adoption, Cesar Franck
nevertheless precipitated modern French music. The group of musicians
that,--at the moment when the great line of composers that has descended
in Germany since the days of Bach dwindled in Strauss and Mahler and
Reger,--revived the high tradition of French music, created a fresh and
original musical art, and at present, by virtue of the influence it
exercises on the new talents of other nations, has come well-nigh to
dominate the international musical situation, could scarcely have
attained existence had it not been for him. He assured the artistic
success not only of the men like Magnard and d'Indy and Dukas, whose art
shows obvious signs of his influence. Composers like Debussy and Ravel,
who appear to have arrived at maturity independently of him, have
nevertheless benefited immeasurably by his work. It is possible that had
he not emigrated from Liege and labored in the heart of France, they
would not have achieved any of their fullness of expression. For what
Berlioz was perhaps too premature and too eccentric and radical to bring
about,--the dissipation of the torpor that had weighed upon the musical
sense of his countrymen for a century, the reawakening of the
peculiarly French impulse to make music, not alone in single and
solitary individuals, but in a large and representative group, the
revival of a truly musical life in France,--this man, by virtue of the
peculiarities of his art, and particularly by virtue of his timeliness,
succeeded in effecting.
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