Un critique musical et musicologue à l’écoute de son temps : Louis Schneider et Claude Debussy (1895-1934)
Résumé
Louis Schneider was never part of the inner circle of devoted music critics who supported Debussy during his lifetime. While he is best remembered for publishing his statements about Pelléas in the Revue musicale at the time of its premiere in 1902, Schneider makes only few appearances in Debussy’s Correspondance: only one letter from Debussy to him in 1910 is extant. Conversely, his negative review of La Mer, which earned him acerbic comments from the composer, makes him appear among the composer’s most ferocious detractors in the literature on Debussy. Also known as the author of the first monograph on Massenet, Schneider, however, regularly and often reviewed Debussy’s music favorably. He followed Debussy’s work from the 1890s until the composer’s death and ultimately came to be reasonably well acquainted with him. Though never an intimate, he was nonetheless the first to interview him for the press in 1895, and in 1910 he gave a talk in the composer’s presence. This article, through a close examination of little-known documents, describes the relationship between both men and puts into question the image patiently assembled by the composer’s panegyrists, from whom Schneider markedly cultivated his difference by refusing to fall into hagiography. His taste led him to follow composers from all horizons, from Massenet to Strauss. Debussy carefully refrained from antagonizing one of the great figures of contemporary music criticism, with a view to the greater benefits for his own career and the dissemination of his music.