personalities in their own day, and after them we see appear and multiply in France musicians devoted to the pursuit of a new and noble aim, and adding to the activities of their school by the conservation of their varied and long-lived works.

Among the masters of this period, César Franck is assuredly the one who played the most important part. We must take advantage of the occasion of his centenary to render him openly the tribute which is his due.

If it were solely a question of taking into account the name of his birthplace, César Franck's right to be called a Frenchman might be contested: he saw the light of day, in fact, beyond the borders of France. Yet what country is more French at heart as well as in language, than that which extends around Liège, through which flows the Meuse coming from the home of Joan of Arc; Liège, the capital of the Walloon land, after having been that of an ancient Gallic province, and which more recent historic sonvenirs have attached to France by ties even more binding. It was in Liège, in fact, that César Franck was born, on December 10, 1822. Incidentally, he did not live there long. His father, born in the same town, and the descendent of a family which originated, so it is said, in the Antwerp region (a line of descent analogous to that of Beethoven), had destined the boy from infancy to a musical career. To be more exact, it was the productive trade of the virtuoso for which he was intended, and, beginning as an infant prodigy, his parent saw to it that his musical studies were pushed as far as the resources of his native town-in which Grétry had been born some eighty-one years before-would permit. However, since it was not long before there was nothing left for the boy to learn (at the age of twelve he had already obtained all the honors and distinctions within the gift of the local conservatories to award), his father took him to Paris. From 1835, the date of his arrival, to the day of his death in 1890, the composer of the Béatitudes never, in any real sense of the word, left the French capital. It would be impossible to find a more perfected adoptive Frenchman. At the Paris Conservatoire he attended the classes in harmony, composition, piano and organ, winning distinction in all. From the first year on, in Paris, he played in public: an issue of the Moniteur of 1835 announces his participation at a concert in the Gymnase Musical. A little later, in 1839, he was allowed to play a concerto at one of the

Concerts du Conservatoire, and Berlioz, in giving an account of the performance, praises "the young virtuoso's genuine talent." At the time César Franck was sixteen years and three months of age. And we recall the programme of a concert given toward the end of December, 1840, in which he was "at the piano" from the beginning to the end of the affair, and where he played, besides numbers by Mendelssohn and Liszt (two young composers whose fame at that time was far from being firmly established), a Third Trio which he had composed, as well as a "Premier Caprice," also signed by him. He thus asserted his refusal to confine himself to the virtuoso rôle for which he had been intended; and his intention of playing the part of the creative artist as well, a part which he had chosen of his own free will, and to which he was vowed by the predestination of genius.

We shall return to these earlier Trios of César Franck, of which as was shown by the programme already mentioned-the Third Trio was composed and performed during the same month in which he reached his eighteenth birthday: in themselves alone they are the heralds of an entirely new style. And we shall also revert somewhat later to his first oratorio, Ruth, which was performed in the hall of the Conservatoire a few years afterward, in 1846. Yet at the same time he was writing and publishing, here and there, various piano pieces-fantasies, caprices, eclogues, transcriptions (on "God save the King"; on Polish airs, on motives from Dalayrac's Gulistan, Grétry's Lucile, etc.)which were purely virtuoso compositions, in the style of the day, and quite futile.

It is plain that he was still groping his way.

In fact, the pianist's career continued to be the one in which he mainly endeavored to shine and "make a name for himself." Nevertheless, he was beginning to devote himself to teaching and it was to this profession that he was destined, in the main, to dedicate his labors throughout his life. Little by little, he turned away from the vanities of his virtuoso successes.

An impromptu family event also played its part in changing the orientation of his life. At the beginning of the year 1848, at the age of twenty-five, he married.

Let us recall Mozart's marriage! His father, who in the beginning had been a careful guide, heedful of the first steps taken by the miraculously gifted boy, did not long delay in looking on him as a mere asset for exploitation. When, having reached manhood, Wolfgang wished to go his own way independently, and bear himself as a man, when he wished to choose a companion

for himself, Leopold Mozart vehemently protested, disturbed at the thought that another might reap where he thought he had sown for himself.

It seems as though the situation was analogous when César Franck married. Having shaken off a tyranny which burdened him, having resolved to liberate himself and follow the road which appeared to be marked out for him, he changed his mode of life and pursued a different course, one dictated by his own free will.

Through his marriage he entered an artist family, one with many members, and which included (together with himself, and as well before his marriage as after) a really unusual number of distinguished and, in some instances, even famous personages. The young girl whom he married was the daughter of Mme. Desmousseaux, a member of the Comédie Française, and who, by parentage and ancestry, belonged to a family of artists whose reputation harked back as far as the middle of the eighteenth century: a real aristocracy of art. The founder of the dynasty had been the artist Anselme. He founded a line of tragedians who, for three ensuing generations, played the repertoire under the stage name of Baptiste (Baptiste Senior, Junior, Nephew, Uncle, etc.), and Mme. Desmousseaux herself assumed the name before her marriage. The most celebrated among them, Baptiste Senior, was leading man during the age of Voltaire, while Gluck was living in Paris. The family of César Franck has reserved a portrait of the composer of Armide, sketched in crayon, it is said, by himself and which is characteristically like him and full of life. They were related to Monvel, the dramatic author and comedian, himself the father of the most famous actress known in the annals of the Théâtre-Français, Mlle. Mars. Another branch of the same genealogical tree had produced Mme. Dorval, the interpreter of the great romantic dramas. Less resplendent was the name of Féréol, a singer at the Opéra-Comique: nevertheless, it was that of a meritorious artist, whose name is remembered in connection with several important creations, and who has occupied a place in the same genealogy. Adolphe Nourrit, the illustrious tenor of the Opéra in 1830, was also a relative by marriage, one of his daughters becoming a Boutet de Monvel, a name which connects the family with the Monvels of the eighteenth century, and has been borne by a great number of descendents, either in their own right or as a result of its having increased and multiplied in consequence of new unions. Thus the name has continued to win honor in the multiple domains of intellectual life: in the arts, in science, and in pedagogy. César Franck

remained on the most friendly footing with the greater part of his wife's relatives until his death. As to the new family which he himself established, it could not be better described than by the well-known phrase which has been applied to the happy peoples of the earth: it was one of those which have no history. From the day of their union to the day of the artist's death-a period of well-nigh forty-three years-husband and wife lived in a discreet and untroubled intimacy, surrounded, in the course of the passing years, by their children and grandchildren. Madame César Franck long survived her husband, whose posthumous fame she was able to witness, since she died only a few years ago, on the eve of becoming a centenarian.

Thus César Franck's life was lived almost altogether in the calm and quiet of the family atmosphere.

The time of his marriage was marked for him by another change of direction and one which applied to the plastic features of his art. Here, too, the change was in the nature of a liberation. We must again mention that at this time he was only twenty-five years of age, a time when many are just beginning their career. He, however, already had a past. He broke resolutely with it, or, at any rate, found it impossible to trace a dividing line between what was worth keeping and that which he might as well discard. Into the first class fell the Trios and the oratorio Ruth, together with some essays in vocal melody; but whatever might be considered as belonging to the virtuoso genus pure and simple was rejected.

He did lose a little time, however, in a tentative which owing to the nature of his genius was predestined to failure: he wrote an opera, the Valet de ferme, which, after causing him much anxiety and toil, was not performed, and which, later on, he did not think worthy of himself. Momentarily discouraged by this check, he would appear to have given up composition, and for a period of ten years published no work of any sort, no matter how unpretentious.

Yet he was only gathering his energies, preparing himself for another departure which was to lead him into regions altogether different, regions new and unexplored.

For the moment his only preoccupation seems to have been providing his family and himself with the material necessities of life. To do so he had recourse, first of all, to teaching, which profession remained until his death his principal occupation. As an artist, on the other hand, an evolution was taking place. Without neglecting his piano he, nevertheless, resolutely began to