ment that, though Brahms is a fine workman, his music lacks
the power to touch the heart (faire vibrer le coeur). There is
no doubt that, in any question of Brahms versus d’Indy, such
has not been the verdict of outside opinion. D’Indy is admired
and respected, whereas Brahms has won the love of those who
know him; and the truth in the saying, “Securus judicat orbis
terrarum” is surely difficult to contravene. D’Indy’s melodies
can always be minutely analysed[288] and they justify the test;
but we submit that the great melodies of the world speak to us
in more direct fashion. For there is, in his music, a seriousness
which at times becomes somewhat austere. He seems so afraid
of writing pretty tunes or ear-tickling music, that we often miss
a sensuous, emotional warmth. He hates the commonplace, cul-
tivating the ideal and religion of beauty. Bruneau, himself a
noted French critic and composer, says, “No one will deny his
surprising technique or his unsurpassed gifts as an orchestral
writer, but we might easily wish him more spontaneity and less
dryness.” We cannot, however, miss the dignity and elevation
of style found in d’Indy’s works or fail to be impressed by their
wonderfully planned musical architecture. His music demands
study and familiarity and well repays such effort. D’Indy’s work,
as a teacher, centres about the “Schola Cantorum” so-called,
in which several talented American students from Harvard and
other Universities have already worked. Here all schools of com-
position are thoroughly studied, and the rigid and formal meth-
ods of the Conservatoire abandoned. D’Indy believes that the
materials for the structure of modern music are to be found in
the Fugue of Bach, and in the cyclical Sonata Form and the
free Air with Variations of Beethoven—these forms, by reason
of their inherent logic and simplicity, allowing scope for infi-
nite freedom of treatment. D’Indy is also a thoroughly modern
composer in that he is an artist in words as well as in notes.
His life of César Franck is a model of biographical style, and he
has recently published a life of Beethoven refreshingly different
from the stock narratives. In fine, d’Indy is a genius, in whom
the intellectual aspects of the art, rather than purely emotional
appeal, are clearly in the ascendant.
[Footnote 286: D’Indy’s significant contributions to operatic
and choral literature, such asFervaal,L’étranger,Le Chant de
la ClocheandLa Légende de St. Christophe, lie without our
province.]