Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/112

 his works should be performed. Even supposing the musical public were, for some weeks or some months, puzzled by a style so far removed from what they are now accustomed to, a little persistence and perseverance is all that would be required. It was forthcoming for the German Wagner, and it will be forthcoming for the Frenchman Rameau.

To tell the truth this necessity of a period of resistance, experiment and initiation, has no terrors for me. On the contrary my conviction is that prompt and magnificent success awaits the musical society that sets out upon this royal road. To-day is not yesterday: tomorrow will be less so. But for the achievement of these great victories, the superior quality of the executants, the precision and discipline of the execution will not go far, unless the soul of an enthusiast penetrate and inspire with its breath the glowing mass of sound. What will be needed is the soul of a leader, who has not been so weighed down by twenty years' servitude in German music, as to be unable to glow with enthusiasm for this music that is so light and so living in its splendour. If this condition be realised, the public after hearing one or two acts of Castor or Dardanus, the second or the fifth act of Hippolytus, or the first chorus of the Indes Galantes, or any of many other pieces taken from the vast treasure house of airs, dances and descriptive pages, will not merely applaud; it will be roused.

I have no misgivings. Our conductors ask nothing better than to be turned in this direction. It is true