most celebrated of the Bayreuth artists, among others, that of Mme. Materna and Lilli Lehmann.  At the end of the season of 1897 Lamoureux wished to disband his orchestra in order to conduct concerts abroad.  But the members of the orchestra decided to remain together under the name of the Association des Concerts-Lamoureux, with Lamoureux’s son-in-law, M. Camille Chevillard, as conductor.  But Lamoureux was not long before he returned to the conductorship of the concerts, which had now returned to the Chateau-d’Eau theatre; and a few months before his death, in 1899, he conducted the first performance of Tristan at the Nouveau theatre.  And so he had the happiness of being present at the complete triumph of the cause for which he had fought so stubbornly for nearly twenty years.[220]

[Footnote 220:  My statements may be verified by the account published in the Revue Eolienne of January, 1902, by M. Leon Bourgeois, secretary of the Committee of the Association des Concerts-Lamoureux.]

Lamoureux’s performances of Wagner’s works have been among the best that have ever been given.  He had a regard for the work as a whole and a care for its details, to which the Colonne orchestra did not quite attain.  On the other hand, Lamoureux’s defect was the exuberant liveliness with which he interpreted compositions of a romantic nature.  He did not fully understand these works; and although he knew much more about classic art than his rival, he rendered its letter rather than its spirit, and paid such sedulous attention to detail that music like Beethoven’s lost its intensity and its life.  But both his talents and his defects fitted him to be an excellent interpreter of the young neo-Wagnerian school, the principal representatives of which in France were then M. Vincent d’Indy and M. Emmanuel Chabrier.  Lamoureux had need, to a certain extent, to be himself directed either by the living traditions of Bayreuth, or by the thought of modern and living composers; and the greatest service he rendered to French music was his creation, thanks to his extreme care for material perfection, of an orchestra that was marvellously equipped for symphonic music.

This seeking for perfection has been carried on by his successor, M. Camille Chevillard, whose orchestra is even more refined still.  One may say, I think, that it is to-day the best in Paris.  M. Chevillard is more attracted by pure music than Lamoureux was; and he rightly finds that dramatic music has been occupying too large a place in Parisian concerts.  In a letter published by the Mercure de France, in January, 1903, he reproaches the educators of public taste with having fostered a liking for opera, and with not having awakened a respect for pure music:  “Any four bars from one of Mozart’s quartettes have,” he says, “a greater educational value than a showy scene from an opera.”  No one in Paris conducts classic works better than he, especially the works that possess clean, plastic