The Project Gutenberg EBook of Musicians of To-Day, by Romain Rolland

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Title: Musicians of To-Day

Author: Romain Rolland

Commentator: Claude Landi

Translator: Mary Blaiklock

Release Date: August 7, 2005 [EBook #16467]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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MUSICIANS OF TO-DAY

BY

ROMAIN ROLLAND

AUTHOR OF "JEAN-CHRISTOPHE"

TRANSLATED BY

MARY BLAIKLOCK

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

CLAUDE LANDI

[Illustration: Decorative]

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1915

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

BERLIOZ

WAGNER:

"Siegfried"

"Tristan"

CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS

VINCENT D'INDY

RICHARD STRAUSS

HUGO WOLF

DON LORENZO PEROSI

FRENCH AND GERMAN MUSIC

CLAUDE DEBUSSY:

"Pelleas et Melisande"

THE AWAKENING: A SKETCH OF THE MUSICAL MOVEMENT IN PARIS SINCE 1870

Paris and Music

Musical Institutions before 1870

New Musical Institutions

The Present Condition of French Music

INTRODUCTION

It is perhaps fitting that the series of volumes comprising _The
Musician's Bookshelf_ should be inaugurated by the present collection of
essays. To the majority of English readers the name of that strange and
forceful personality, Romain Rolland, is known only through his
magnificent, intimate record of an artist's life and aspirations,
embracing ten volumes, _Jean-Christophe_. This is not the place in which
to discuss that masterpiece. A few biographical facts concerning the
author may not, however, be out of place here.

Romain Rolland is forty-eight years old. He was born on January 29,
1866, at Clamecy (Nievre), France. He came very early under the
influence of Tolstoy and Wagner and displayed a remarkable critical
faculty. In 1895 (at the age of twenty-nine) we find him awarded the
coveted Grand Prix of the Academie Francaise for his work _Histoire de
l'Opera en Europe avant Lulli et Scarlatti_, and in the same year he
sustained, before the faculty of the Sorbonne--where he now occupies the
chair of musical crit