At the present time it is difficult to regard Alfred Bruneau (born 1857) as a pioneer. His style is extremely thin and his melody seems at first glance to be cut from the same piece as Massenet’s. But it is as an innovator that Bruneau is chiefly valued in France. In the early nineties, when Debussy was still an unknown experimenter (a ‘crazy man,’ like all radical innovators in their early years), he was thrilling Paris with his strange, new expressive harmonies, accurately delineating moods and suggesting colors. His operas, to librettos or adaptations from Zola, were a new thing in France. He experimented largely with unconventional harmonies and phrases for the voice which fell into no known category. Paris was at first puzzled, but quickly caught the idea. This was because, while Bruneau’s music was truly an innovation and absolutely in line with the work of the new French school, it was based on an idiom that France knew well and was managed so cautiously that the novelties were clear to the audience without being painful. By this time Bruneau seems little more than a composer of a past generation. Yet we must give him full credit for courage, for artistic feeling, and for considerable musical creativeness. His songs are not many. The _Lieds de France_ (words by Catulle Mendès) are simple lyrics somewhat in the older traditional style of French songs, executed with a wealth of the most delicate suggestion of color. ‘The Gay Vagabond’ is in Bruneau’s most typical style--a clear-cut and flowing melody over the simplest of chords, with the unusual features so discreetly written that at first hearing they hardly seem to be there at all. Paul Vidal (born 1863) is only by courtesy included in the present chapter. He has escaped the curse of the old French school but his talent lies not at all in the field of innovation. He is a born lyricist, spontaneous, fresh, graceful. He is master of more than one style, as his settings of Shakespeare’s lyrics prove. The ‘Winter Song,’ from ‘Love’s Labor Lost,’ preserves a certain archaic flavor that is charming. The _Psaume nuptial_ is grandiose but not pompous, an invigorating piece of honest music. In the children’s song, ‘The Play Leader,’ Vidal attempts the descriptive, with a liberal use of dissonance and modern harmony, but it is evident that he has no natural turn toward the new style. Yet the song is dainty and picturesque. The _Ariette_ ‘Were I a Sunbeam’ and the ‘Address to the Well Beloved,’ as well as a more recent song, ‘Loving,’ are well worth knowing for their simple musicianly beauty, and _Madame la fée_ is a model of delicate lyricism. In his more ambitious mood Vidal is represented by ‘Thine Eyes.’ But he is a composer to whom we turn not for stimulation in technical matters, but for simple beauty. His songs are in that class which can hardly enter into a history at all, but are delightful byways to turn to for mere pleasure.