Four - Interlude: The Poet Sings

Summary

We’re having great fun here, we’ve been introduced to a young man, recommended to us by M. Lascoux, he's called Chausson—it's not a particularly distinguished name, but he's an extremely good musician and very pleasant.

Thus wrote d’Indy to his wife on 27 August 1879 from Munich, where he was attending a season of the complete Ring cycle. A few days later, he wrote again of his new friends, this time from Nuremberg:

First, there's one called [Maurice] Bouchor, a poet whom Robert [de Bonnières] already knew; 2nd, his brother, a painter; 3rd, [Jules] de Brayer, a musician I’ve seen at Saint-Saëns's house in Paris; 4th, Ernest Chausson, whom I think I mentioned in my last letter: despite his unfortunate-sounding name, he appears a charming boy, he wants to be a musician despite everything, and is very prepared for it. He's very well-bred, a little timid[.]

For his part, Ernest Chausson wrote to his godmother Mme de Rayssac that he was ‘on familiar territory’ in Munich (though it was his first trip to that city), with ‘Bouchor, de Brayer, d’Indy—a very talented young musician—and Robert de Bonnières, a writer whom I’d seen, among other places, at Madame Fournel's last winter’.

For the rest of that trip, d’Indy and Chausson were in daily company. They decided to travel back to Munich together to hear Schumann's Manfred; although the performance was cancelled at the last moment, a day spent with Liszt offered ample compensation for the extra journey. By 4 September they were en route towards Switzerland, their carriage enlivened by two puppies that Chausson had acquired in Salzburg (‘they’ve already caused him more trouble than they’re worth’, d’Indy noted).

Snobbery, puppies, and all, these letters offer a priceless snapshot of the Wagnerian pilgrimages most French composers undertook during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. As chapter 5 explores in more detail, these journeys were to bear a rich musical harvest, one nourished not just by the influence of wagnérisme but by the meetings, conversations, and friendships that flourished on the Wagner trail. The most lasting legacy of Chausson’s first trip to Munich was thus not so much the Ring—which impressed and astonished, but did not overwhelm him—as his friendship with d’Indy, who was the first established composer to recognise his ambition and his talent.