world in the
latter part of the nineteenth century had its pioneer and true leader in
Cesar Franck.[A] It was he who gave it a stamp and a tradition.

[Footnote A: If language and association, as against the place of birth,
may define nationality, we have in Cesar Franck another worthy
expression of French art in the symphony. He was born at Liege in 1822;
he died in 1890.]

The novelty of his style, together with the lateness of his acclaim (of
which it was the probable cause), have marked him as more modern than
others who were born long after him.

The works of Franck, in other lines of oratorio and chamber music, show
a clear personality, quite apart from a prevailing modern spirit. A
certain charm of settled melancholy seems to inhere in his wonted style.
A mystic is Franck in his dominant moods, with a special sense and power
for subtle harmonic process, ever groping in a spiritual discontent with
defined tonality.

A glance at the detail of his art discloses Franck as one of the main
harmonists of his age, with Wagner and Grieg. Only, his harmonic manner
was blended if not balanced by a stronger, sounder counterpoint than
either of the others. But with all the originality of his style we
cannot escape a sense of the stereotype, that indeed inheres in all
music that depends mainly on an harmonic process. His harmonic ideas,
that often seem inconsequential, in the main merely surprise rather than
move or please. The enharmonic principle is almost too predominant,--an
element that ought never to be more than occasional. For it is founded
not upon ideal, natural harmony, but upon a conventional compromise, an
expedient compelled by the limitation of instruments. This over-stress
appears far stronger in the music of Franck's followers, above all in
their frequent use of the whole tone "scale" which can have no other
_rationale_ than a violent extension of the enharmonic principle.[A]
With a certain quality of kaleidoscope, there is besides (in the
harmonic manner of Cesar Franck) an infinitesimal kind of progress in
smallest steps. It is a dangerous form of ingenuity, to which the
French are perhaps most prone,--an originality mainly in details.

[Footnote A: Absolute harmony would count many more than the semitones
of which our music takes cognizance. For purpose of convenience on the
keyboard the semitonal raising of one note is merged in the lowering of
the next higher degree in the scale. However charming for