French Musicians
French Musicians: P.-M.-V. d’Indy (1851). (phot.: Reutlinger). C. Erlanger (1863). (phot. Lauga). Published by Quinzaine Musicale, Librairie Hachette, Paris. Posted in October 1906.
P.-M.-V. d’Indy (1851): Pupil of [César] Franck. Acclaimed symphonic composer, head of the Young French school. Principal works: The Enchanted Forest, Wallenstein; The Song of the Bell; Istar; Fervaal (1898); Medea.
C. Erlanger (1863): Creator of musical drama and rising star among the French composers. Principal works: Julian the Hospitaller; Kermaria; Six Russian poems; Carnivalesque Serenade; The Polish Jew.
Given that he went on to lament “the nauseating Judaeo-Dreyfusard influence” in France, it seems all the more remarkable that the non-Jewish aristocrat, composer and passionate Wagnerian Vincent d’Indy (1851–1931) collaborated with Samuel Naumbourg (1817–1880)—appointed in 1845 as First Cantor at the synagogue on Rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, until 1874 the principal Ashkenazi synagogue in the French capital—on the first modern edition, published in 1877, of the works of the (to the best of our knowledge) most significant early modern Jewish composer, Salomone Rossi (ca. 1570–ca. 1630), who played a leading role in the musical affairs of the court of the Gonzagas in the Italian city of Mantua.
As well as pursuing his career as a secular composer, Camille Erlanger (1863–1919) also directed, from 1895 until at least 1900, the choir at the synagogue on Rue des Tournelles. His opera The Polish Jew was based on the eponymous play by the successful non-Jewish author duo, Erckmann-Chatrian (Émile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian). It portrays a wholesome folk community effectively colluding in a cover up of the fact that one of their dignitaries obtained his wealth by robbing and murdering a Polish Jew passing through the region. Not until another Polish Jew uncannily resembling the murder victim comes along is any kind of accountability established. None too surprisingly this was one of Erckmann-Chatrian’s less successful works. Reviewing Erlanger’s opera for the Neue Freie Presse, the prominent Jewish critic Julius Korngold (1860–1945) praised its portrayal of the main protagonist as being reprehensible through and through and confessing his crime only under duress, yet he felt that Erlanger’s setting had not in fact added anything indispensable to the play.
The Reutlingers were a family of Jewish photographers based in Paris who moved to the French capital from the German city of Karlsruhe. The (non-Jewish) family of (Alfred) Jules Lauga (1862–after 1936) moved from Metz to the French capital following the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71. His studio (Photographie des 4 Bébes) specialized on baby photographs. The photographer Adolphe Lauga (?1876–1899) was his nephew.
