Such jousts are very stirring, and may be of great service to all combatants.  But, unhappily, France was very indifferent in the matter.  It was the duty of our musicians and critics to attend an international encounter like this, and to see that the conditions of the combat were fair.  By that I mean our art should be represented as it ought to be, so that we may learn something from the result.  But the French public does nothing at such a time; it remains absorbed in its concerts at Paris, where everyone knows everyone else so well that they are not able and do not dare to criticise freely.  And so our art is withering away in an atmosphere of coteries, instead of seeking the open air and enjoying a vigorous fight with foreign art.  For the majority of our critics would rather deny the existence of foreign art than try to understand it.  Never have I regretted their indifference more than I did at the Strasburg festival, where, in spite of the unfavourable conditions in which French art was represented through our own carelessness, I realised what its force might have been if we had been interested spectators in the fight.

* * * * *

Perfect eclecticism had been exercised in the making up of the programme.  One found mixed together the names of Mozart, Wagner, and Brahms; Cesar Franck and Gustave Charpentier; Richard Strauss and Mahler.  There were French singers like Cazeneuve and Daraux, and French and Italian virtuosi like Henri Marteau and Ferruccio Busoni, together with German, Austrian, and Scandinavian artists.  The orchestra (the Strassbuerger Staedtische Orchester) and the choir, which was formed of different Chorvereine of Strasburg, were conducted by Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, and Camille Chevillard.  But the names of these famous Kapellmeister must not let us forget the man who was really the soul of the concerts—­Professor Ernst Muench, of Strasburg, an Alsatian, who conducted all the rehearsals, and who effaced himself at the last moment, and left all the honours to the conductors of foreign orchestras.  Professor Muench, who is also organist at Saint-Guillaume, has done more than anyone else for music in Strasburg, and has trained excellent choirs (the “Choeurs de Saint-Guillaume”) there, and organised splendid concerts of Bach’s music with the aid of another Alsatian, Albert Schweitzer, whose name is well known to musical historians.  The latter is director of the clerical college of St. Thomas (Thomasstift), a pastor, an organist, a professor at the University of Strasburg, and the author of interesting works on theology and philosophy.  Besides this he has written a now famous book, Jean-Sebastien Bach, which is doubly remarkable:  first, because it is written in French (though it was published in Leipzig by a professor of the University of Strasburg), and secondly, because it shows an harmonious blend of the French and German spirit, and gives fresh life to the study of Bach and the old classic art.  It was very interesting to me to make the acquaintance of these people, born on Alsatian soil, and representing the best Alsatian culture and all that was finest in the two civilisations.