Labels and Agendas: The Jeune école Française in Brussels and Paris, 1888–1893

The end of the nineteenth century in Brussels and Paris saw the emergence of a riveting controversy surrounding the Jeune école française, a group of French and Belgian composers comprising primarily of César Franck’s disciples, including the group’s promoter, Vincent d’Indy. Seen by the French musical press as nothing more than the school of the Belgian-born Franck, the group’s avant-garde, Wagnerian ideals were significantly overshadowed by the successful reception of Bizet, Massenet, and Delibes, all of whom were hailed by the Parisian press as true proponents of the New French School. While the progressive aesthetics of d’Indy’s Jeune école secured the group’s influential position in Brussels’s avant-garde movement, the Belgian press was quick to question the group’s nationalist label, pronouncing it “no more French than by virtue of its name.” This criticism increased with the passing of Franck, whose status as a Belgian-French composer became a site of bitter conflict.

Drawing from concert programs presented at Les XX in Brussels and the Société nationale in Paris as well as press articles from major Parisian and Belgian revues between 1888 and 1893, this paper will explore the contradicting critical reception of the Jeune école from artistic and nationalist viewpoints. Furthermore, conflicting agendas behind the programming decisions of the Société nationale and Les XX reveal significant problems of musical and national identity arising from the delicate socio-cultural position occupied by the Jeune école in fin-de-siècle Belgium and France.