Not a single millionaire among the many in Paris is even thinking about doing something for classical music. No, any composer outside of theatrical scene attempting to write a substantial work in Paris is left completely to his own resources."

Thus wrote a bitter Hector Berlioz in 1854. About 30 years later, the music world in France had a completely different appearance. The defeat suffered in the French-Prussian war in 1870 had resulted in an upsurge of nationalism, of which music had reaped the benefits. In the concert hall, the reign of the German composers was slowly being usurped by the French composers. An important contributing factor was the founding of the Société Nationale de Musique in 1871. Proudly announcing its slogan 'Ars Gallica', this institute stimulated the composition and performance of French (instrumental) music. The Société brought about the first performances of new compositions by Chabrier, Debussy, Dukas, Ravel, Fauré, Franck and Lalo, to mention but a few. Furthermore, composers such as Jules Pasdeloup, Edouard Colonne (Concerts Colonne) and Charles Lamoureux (Concerts Lamoureux) placed a major role.
Vincent d'Indy was one of the composers who was urged by, among others, Camille Saint-Saëns – with whom he was often engaged in a polemic – to carry out research into the musical inheritance of France. He became a member of the Société Nationale the Musique from the very start. Subsequently, he came into contact with German music, thanks to his teacher César Franck. He fell completely under the spell of Richard Wagner's music, which resulted in the opera Fervaal; a work that is often referred to as the "French Parsifal". But he was also interested in French folk music, and in 1886 he began to collect folk melodies from the Ardèche, on which he subsequently based a number of compositions. For instance, his Symphonie cévenole – better known as the Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français – is based on a folk song from the Cévennes mountain range. Although d'Indy deliberately named the work a "symphony", it is actually a synthesis of piano concerto and symphony. Despite the piano part being written in a virtuoso style, it is nevertheless entirely embedded in the symphonic structure. During the same period, various other French composers were also experimenting with hybrid forms, of which the best-known example is undoubtedly César Franck's Variations symphoniques.
D'Indy clearly idolized César Franck, as is proven by the reverential biography he wrote in 1906. Many works by d'Indy also contain Franck's "germ-cell" technique, in which the composer developed the musical material from small motivic cells. In his Symphonie sur un chant français Montagnard, d'Indy also uses the cyclic principle. This technique – also learned from Franck – bases all the movements of a composition on the same thematic material. Of course, Franck did not invent this technology: rather, he distilled it from compositions written by Beethoven, among others. Perhaps this explains why d'Indy began his Symphonie sur un chant Montagnard français with a quote from the first bar of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, transposed into major.
The name Camille Saint-Saëns has already been mentioned. How could it not be? Saint-Saëns was undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in the French musical world during the second half of the nineteenth century. He was a child prodigy: at the age of two, he was already reading music; and just a year later, he started to write his first short musical pieces. His other studies included Latin, astronomy, astrology, geometry and archaeology. While still a child, he would climb down into the quarry in Meudon, chisel in hand, to chip out fossils for his collection; and later on, he used the money he had earned with a series of compositions for the harmonium to buy a telescope. And then, of course, there's the music. Saint-Saëns was only 10 years old when he first appeared as piano soloist with orchestra. Not surprisingly, he soon acquired great standing as a pianist, teacher and composer. Furthermore, his role as co-founder of the above-mentioned Société Nationale de Musique and his commitment to the music of younger French colleagues was of great significance. But he was not exclusively interested in contemporary music: for instance, he also published an edition of works by Jean Philippe Rameau (a 'hobby' which he happened to share with d'Indy, who later published editions of works by Rameau, Gluck and Monteverdi).
Therefore, it is all the more amazing that nowadays only a handful of works by this all-rounder – who in his own words produced compositions "the same way an apple tree produces apples" – are to be seen with any regularity on the music stands. As far as symphonies are concerned, it is almost exclusively his Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony) dating from 1886 that is performed. Most music fans probably do not even know that Saint-Saëns composed as many as five symphonies, of which only three are numbered. He wrote his first symphony, in A major, as early as 1850: it forms part of a group of works written by the 15-year-old boy between his enrolment at the Paris Conservatoire and the actual start of his composition lessons with Fromental Halévy. In 1856, he entered his Symphony in F (Urbs Roma) in a composition competition organized by the Société Sainte-Cécile in Bordeaux: however, although he won first prize in the competition, he withdrew the work after its performance.
Saint-Saëns had already written his first numbered symphony three years previously, in 1853. This composition showed such exceptional maturity and possessed such a unique sound, that upon first hearing the work, it never even occurred to Berlioz and Gounod – who had no idea at the time who had written it – that the talented young student was the composer. He wrote his Symphony No. 2 in 1859, and here we hear a truly mature composer at work. Yet the work is still imbued with the spirit of Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Beethoven is present in the dominance of the form – not without reason was Saint-Saëns known as the French Classicist 'par excellence' – and the light touch of the Finale is reminiscent of Mendelssohn. After a dramatic slow introduction, the entire first movement is dominated by the first fugue theme, which is written in 6/8 time. The slow movement could have served as a model for the slow movement of the Symphony by César Franck. The Scherzo merges into a trio, after which, surprisingly, the Scherzo is not repeated: according to the traditional theory of musical form, this should have been the case. The Finale is formed by a whirling tarantella.
Like Saint-Saëns, Ernest Chausson was also introduced at a young age into the main cultural circles in Paris. He was born into a "high-society" family, and thus came into contact with major artists such as Odilon Redon and Vincent d'Indy in the salons of Mme. Jobert and Mme. Saint-Cyr de Rayssac. But despite Chausson's obvious musical talents, his parents had destined him for a different career, and in October 1875, he began to read law. Upon graduation however – and with the encouragement of Mme. de Rayssac – he went on to study music with Jules Massenet and César Franck. In 1881, he quit his official studies, and began to discover for himself the intricacies of composition. However, driven by perfectionism and the fear of being considered an 'amateur', he continued to refine his scores incessantly. Arthur Hoérée Chausson was once referred to as "the link between two innovators". On the one hand, the influence of his teacher César Franck is omnipresent in almost all his compositions. On the other, traces of music by his friend Claude Debussy are also discernible. Furthermore, the music of Richard Wagner – like d'Indy, Chausson also made several trips to Germany to attend performances of the composer's music dramas – left an indelible stamp on his style, in particular on his opera Le Roi Arthus (1886-1895).
In 1886, Chausson was appointed secretary of the Société Nationale de Musique; and three years later, he completed a symphony, styled after that of his teacher, César Franck. An assignment from the conductor Edouard Colonne in 1897 resulted in the symphonic poem Soir de fête. At the time, the composer was fascinated by symbolist writers, such as Maurice Maeterlinck (whose poems he set to music in the song cycle Serres chaudes, 1893 – 1896), and Russian authors, such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev (who provided the literary basis for his famous Poème for violin and orchestra in 1896). Yet the work Chausson wrote for the conductor Colonne – and likewise, his symphonic poem Solitude dans les bois, which he completed in 1886, but destroyed immediately – is not based on a specific literary source. For the free form of the genre– unlike the strict symphonic form – gave him the liberty to follow his own path, composing sound impressions to his heart's content. And indeed, the term 'impressionism' can be most suitably applied to the Soir de fête, in which Chausson appears to subject all musical elements to the orchestral colours. The mainstay of the work is based on original ideas for the orchestration as well as surprising twists and turns in the harmony, more indicative of Debussy than of Franck. Paul Dukas characterized this music aptly as "not a purely musical work, since it bears a title, nor a programmatic fantasy, as no programme is involved: rather, it is a kind of character sketch."

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