Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (1798-1857), France’s preeminent philosopher and thinker of the 19th century. (1856 lithograph by Eugène Signol, after an 1852 oil painting by Antoine Etex.)
A true rarity in the Florent Schmitt catalogue of compositions is a work that he created in 1920 as a result of a commission from a philosophy society – the Trois chants en l’honneur d’Auguste Comte, Op. 71.
The 13-minute work is a vocal composition consisting of a central hymn bracketed on each side by an invocation, as follows:
I. Invocation pour la fête d’Aristote ou de la philosophie ancienne (Invocation for the Festival of Aristotle or Ancient Philosophy), for baritone and piano
II. Hymne pour la fête d’Aristote ou de la philosophie ancienne (Hymn for the Festival of Aristotle or Ancient Philosophy), for a cappella mixed chorus
III. Invocation pour la fête de la patrie (Invocation for the Celebration of the Fatherland), for mezzo-soprano, mixed chorus and piano
[Versions of the first and third numbers also exist for ten string players in lieu of the piano.]
The Musée Auguste Comte (10 rue Monsieur-le-Prince, 6th arr., Paris) is located in the former residence of the positivist philosopher and writer who lived there from 1841 until his death in 1857. The museum is maintained by the Association internationale Auguste Comte and includes an extensive research library containing first editions of Comte’s publications and other source materials. The museum is also a venue for a notable cultural program of musical, theatrical and related offerings.
A degree of mystery surrounds the commission and the circumstances of the work’s creation. Despite my best efforts including reaching out to the director of the Auguste Comte Museum in Paris, I have been unable to uncover relevant details regarding the occasion of the work’s premiere presentation.
What we do know is that the subject of the tribute, Auguste Comte, is arguably one of France’s “top ten” most significant thinkers and philosophers. Notably, Comte is the only one of them who was active during the 19th century – preceded in the previous three centuries by Michel Montaigne, René Descartes, Charles-Louis Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and then succeeded in the 20th century by Gaston Bachelard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Michel Foucault.
Comte is credited with formulating the doctrine of positivism — and as a mathematician as well as a philosopher and writer, he is often regarded as the first philosopher of science.
Comte’s ideas were also foundational to the development of sociology – a discipline whose name he himself coined. Comte divided sociology into two main streams: social statistics (the study of the forces that hold society together); and social dynamics (the study of the causes of social change).
This book about Auguste Comte’s experiences in Paris, primarily focused on his time at the École Polytechnique and his later life in the city, was authored by David Lebreure, an author and scholar who currently serves as director of the Musée Auguste Comte in Paris. Lebreure has also published a more recent book titled Amour, ordre et progrès (Love, Order, and Progress) which focuses in depth on Comte’s philosophy and ideas.
An important motivating factor in Comte’s development as a thinker was his attempt to understand and remedy the social disorders that had been caused or exacerbated by the French Revolution. It was an upheaval that had touched him personally, having been born at the time of the Revolution into a monarchist (and practicing Roman Catholic) family.
Comte sought to formulate a so-called “positivist” social doctrine based on science, and in so doing he was highly influential to other 19th century thinkers and authors including John Stuart Mill and George Eliot (nom de plume of Mary Ann Evans).
Comte’s life experiences, which included interaction with the Protestant theologian Daniel Encontre as well as a years-long, likely-never-consummated love affair with the poet Clotilde de Vaux who was separated from her husband but not divorced, led Comte to recognize the role of religion while also understanding its limitations. He came to view that knowledge from the past remains relevant to recent or new knowledge — and that what’s before our time guides the way things are in the present.
A vintage copy of La Toussaint, a slender volume of 13 poems penned by Jean-Baptiste Foucart and published in 1864, corresponds to the 13-month calendar system devised by Auguste Comte for his Religion of Humanity. Note the Comte quotation on the book’s cover: Les Morts gouvernent les vivants. (“The dead rule the living.”)
Consequently, Comte was concerned that society wasn’t yet prepared to depart from organized religion, instead remaining attracted to participating in the services and communities that religious practice offered. Accordingly, Comte’s social theories included his so-called “Religion of Humanity,” which presaged the development of non-theistic and secular humanist organizations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The cover page of a vintage copy of Auguste Comte’s Système de politique positive, housed at the archives of the Bibliothèque National de France.
Comte’s four volumes of Systeme de politique positive, published between 1851 and 1854, represented the culmination of theories he had developed and promulgated over the previous decades. These encompassed not only the physical sciences (mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology), but also the then-novel social sciences.
The motto Ordem e Progresso (Order and Progress), imprinted on the flag of Brazil, is inspired by Auguste Comte’s so-called “motto” of positivism. Several of the prominent figures involved in the military coup d’état that deposed the Empire of Brazil in 1889 and established a republic in its place were followers of the ideas of Comte.
He developed a systematic classification of all the sciences, distilled in his “motto” of positivism: L’amour pour principe et l’ordre pour base; le progrès pour but (“Love as the principle and order as the basis; progress as the goal.”)
This positivist temple in Porto Alegre, Brazil is one of the few remaining examples of Auguste Comte’s Religion of Humanity in concrete form. The doctrine was most influential in Brazil, where a number of positivist temples were built around the turn of the 20th century; the Porto Alegre temple is the last one in operation in the country. Thirteen steps lead up to the temple — one for each month of the calendar system that Comte had devised for his Religion of Humanity. The temple’s interior is reminiscent of Protestant churches, containing a pipe organ as well as a pulpit for delivering sermons and lectures. (2007 photo)
Comte is also credited with coining the term “altruism” – a notion of conduct that regards the well-being of others as the end-goal of moral action. He is also credited with making a measurable contribution to utopian literature.
Considering his prominent position in French philosophy, the idea of creating a musical tribute to Auguste Comte was certainly understandable – and indeed laudable. But the task posed challenges for Florent Schmitt as it might have for any composer. As Yves Hucher wrote about the commission in his 1953 biography of Schmitt:
“[The challenge was ] to ‘make musical’ what was as unpoetic as imaginable on the part of the positivist sect. But it was Schopenhauer who had said, ‘Music provides the pre-existing kernel — the most intimate substance of every apparent phenomenon, the very heart of things.’ A musician had to return the courtesy to a philosopher, even if he was a positivist to the highest degree!”
For Schmitt, the solution to the challenge was to pass over the writings of Comte himself in favor of finding inspiration in the poetic words of other writers who were followers of Comte’s precepts and teachings. As a voracious consumer of modern French literature and poetry, Schmitt was able to find and choose appropriate texts from three such writers – Jean Canora, Jean-Baptiste Foucart and René-François Sully-Prud’homme — for his three-part composition.
English translations of the chosen lyrics are as follows:
I. Invocation pour la fête d’Aristote ou de la philosophie ancienne
Jean Canora was the nom de plume of Louis Martin Casimir Prunières (1877-1912), a French writer, poet and man of letters. He was one of the founders of the Société des poètes modernes and was also active in the International Positivist Society and as a lecturer on positivism. In 1900 Prunières penned a poem for the inauguration of a statue of Auguste Comte, which may be the same verse selected by Florent Schmitt for his Invocation pour la fête d’Aristote. Prunières succumbed to appendicitis at the young age of just 34 years. An obituary published in the Revue positiviste internationale read: “In the person of Louis Prunières, member of the Executive Committee of our French Teaching Society … positivism has just lost one of its most brilliant and useful members.” This bronze medallion plaque bearing his likeness, created by Émile Brechot, was struck in 1914.
(Words by Jean Canora, from Poèmes, 1902)
Virgins, sow the flowers — women, raise the sheaves.
For here they come, the proud predecessors who guided the Master in his sacred labor.
Aristotle, genius forever venerated, powerful organizer of the laws of thought!
Pythagoras, through whom the army soared toward a noble idea of order and liberty!
Zeno, the stoic, whose malevolence taught one to live well,
And you, wise Socrates, who died full of love for the ungrateful crowds!
You were preparing the rise of human reason.
The first page of the score to Invocation pour la fête d’Aristote from Florent Schmitt’s Trois chants en l’honneur d’Auguste Comte.
II. Hymne pour la fête d’Aristote ou de la philosophie ancienne
French jurist, poet and playwright Jean-Baptiste Foucart (1823-1898) penned his slender book of verse La Toussaint (All Saints Day) in 1864. The front cover of the volume bears the following quotation from Auguste Comte: Les Morts gouvernent les vivants. (“The dead rule the living.”) Each of the 13 poems in La Toussaint corresponds to a month in the calendar system that Comte had devised for his Religion of Humanity. Florent Schmitt selected the third of the poems for his Hymne pour la fête d’Aristote. (Oil portrait by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, ca. 1860)
(Words by Jean-Baptiste Foucart, from La Toussaint, 1864)
Lift the part of the symbol that veils reality.
At the command of your word, let the all-god transform into entity.
Show the dawn of another faith, sages of Hellas, Pythagoras, Socrates, and you, charming Plato,
When near you the Stagyrite, after Thales, already meditates the state of reason.
Chase away the clouds of myths, sages of these vanished times.
You will become, through our homage, contemporaries of all ages.
You will become, through our homage, citizens of all countries.
The first page of the score to Hymne pour la fête d’Aristote from Florent Schmitt’s Trois chants en l’honneur d’Auguste Comte.
III. Invocation pour la fête de la patrie
René François Armand Sully-Prud’homme (1839-1907) was a French poet and essayist. Born in Paris, Prud’homme studied to be an engineer but later turned to poetry and philosophy, declaring it his intention to create “scientific poetry” for modern times. The Franco-Prussian War that had negatively affected Prud’homme’s health may have accelerated the shift away from the sentimental style of his early writings. Les Épaves (The Wrecks), his last book of poetry from which Florent Schmitt drew the text for his Invocation pour la fête de la patrie, appeared in 1908, after which Prud’homme turned to writing essays on aesthetics and philosophy. Prud’homme was the recipient of the very first Nobel Prize for Literature, awarded in 1901. In the words of the selection committee, the award was bestowed “in special recognition of his poetic composition which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection, and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect.”
(Words by René-François Sully-Prud’homme, from Les Épaves, 1900)
Here, before the wonders and works of a god similar, which through his arms and his vigils calls forth the human race.
Oh, my sisters, what a dream of sublime and sweet truce, like a dawn rising within us!
A paradise tomorrow if, weaned from blood and tears and relieved from the weight of arms, the people, free from alarm, walked hand in hand.
In the guardian city that nourishes and enlightens, if each one felt his mother and embraced her in turn —
If he could recognize himself in the sighs he penetrates, having nothing left but to let the justice of love be born.
O my sisters, what a dream of sublime and sweet truce!
Dream of the torment: May France brood over it in her ardent breast and endeavor to bring it to life!
The first page of the score to Invocation pour la fête de la patrie, from Florent Schmitt’s Trois chants en l’honneur d’Auguste Comte.
Taken as a group, the three Auguste Comte Chants are representative of the inventiveness that colors nearly all of Florent Schmitt’s vocal and choral compositions — and they’re further notable in that they were created at a time when the composer was nearing the end of his transition from the ethos of late-Romanticism to a more contemporary style of writing.
The first Invocation, featuring a solo baritone in lieu of a chorus, features the most direct writing and adheres closely to the tonal tradition, while the Hymne, scored for a cappella chorus, is more complex, introducing polytonal elements — as does the third number (Invocation pour la fête de la patrie) as well. But the stirring words of the latter number inspired Schmitt to create fervent and thrilling music that approaches his earlier Hymne à l’été (1914) in its sense of ecstasy.
In the century since its creation, the fortunes of Florent Schmitt’s Auguste Comte Chants have proven to be elusive — even from the earliest years of its existence. Indeed, I have been unsuccessful in discovering the date and location of its premiere performance, although presumably this happened in Paris in 1920 or 1921.
Germaine Léontine Angélique Lubin (1890-1979) was a French dramatic soprano who studied with Félia Litvinne, Lilli Lehmann and Marie Gutheil-Schoder. In her early career she performed the mélodies of Gabriel Fauré with the composer accompanying her on the piano. Lubin sang at both the Opéra-Comique and Paris Opéra, where she created operatic roles for Vincent d’Indy, Darius Milhaud and Henri Sauguet as well as starred in the 1935 revival of Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-bleue. Lubin was also recognized for her Richard Strauss and Wagnerian operatic roles. In later life she taught privately in Paris, where one of her most notable students was the soprano Régine Crespin.
Information overall about subsequent performances of the music is scant, although we do know that the third and longest number (Invocation pour la fête de la patrie) was presented in concert in Lyon in 1923, in a performance that featured the noted French soprano Germaine Lubin. And while I have seen newspaper references to the second number (Hymne pour la fête d’Aristote ou de la philosophie ancienne) being broadcast over French Radio several times in the mid-1930s, I have found no evidence of any of the three numbers being performed anywhere in the modern era.
Florent Schmitt, pictured at about the time he composed Trois chants en l’honneur d’Auguste Comte (1920), photographed by two French brothers, Henri Manuel (1874-1947) and Gaston Manuel (1880-1967). In the interwar period, the G. L. Manuel Frères studio portrayed ‘tout’ Paris: Auguste Rodin, Mistinguett, Joséphine Baker, Aristide Bruant, Colette, Jules Renard, Yvonne Printemps and the most famous composers.
Fortunately the score, which was published by Durand in 1921, remains in print to this day. But with so little “performance history” and nary a single commercial recording having ever been made, the composition has remained virtually unknown throughout its century-long existence.
This situation has now been redressed at least somewhat with the preparation of digitally created audio files of the Auguste Comte Chants that have now been uploaded to YouTube. To that end we have the music channel of Yoichi Dake, an amateur choral singer in Japan, to thank for this labor of love. As Mr. Dake has written to me:
“I think that all of Florent Schmitt’s works are quite difficult to perform, and accompanists may also have a hard time with them. Nevertheless, they are wonderful pieces and it would be splendid if they could be performed as the composer intended. Unfortunately, the skills of my local chorus wouldn’t qualify, but I am praying that competent choirs elsewhere will be able to take up this music.”
To ease the challenge of practicing and preparing Schmitt’s Auguste Comte Chants, Mr. Dake has helpfully prepared and uploaded separate digital renditions of each of the three numbers that encompass the full choral parts and accompaniment, along with companion individual uploads in which each of the choral parts (or the solo vocalist) is highlighted.
Displayed below are the “full rehearsal” uploads of each of the three Auguste Comte Chants. While the digital renditions lack the musicality and dynamics of an actual performance, all of the notes and the sometimes-tricky rhythmic elements are accurately presented – and in that sense these uploads go a long way towards providing choir directors and singers with useful practice tools to prepare the music for performance.
Give all three of the Auguste Comte Chants a listen; I think you’ll find that they are highly interesting and effective choral settings — and that each of them would make a worthy addition to the choral repertoire. They could be presented individually or as a set — with the third number in particular seemingly tailor-made for instant audience appeal.