rchestra, but of the fashion of the day that revels
in new sensations of startling effects, that are spent in portraying the
events of a story.

Berlioz was the first of a line of _virtuosi_ of the orchestra, a
pioneer in the art of weaving significant strains,--significant, that
is, apart from the music. He was seized with the passion of making a
pictured design with his orchestral colors. Music, it seems, did not
exist for Berlioz except for the telling of a story. His symphony is
often rather opera. A symphony, he forgot, is not a musical drama
without the scenery. This is just what is not a symphony. It is not the
literal story, but the pure musical utterance. Thus Berlioz's "Romeo and
Juliet" symphony is in its design more the literal story than is
Shakespeare's play. And yet there is ever a serious nobility, a heroic
reach in the art of Berlioz, where he stands almost alone among the
composers of his race. Here, probably, more than in his pictured
stories, lies the secret of his endurance. He was, other than his
followers, ever an idealist. And so, when we are on the point of
condemning him as a scene-painter, we suddenly come upon a stretch of
pure musical beauty, that flowed from the unconscious rapture of true
poet. As the bee sucks, so may we cull the stray beauty and the more
intimate meaning, despite and aside from this outer intent.

CHAPTER III

BERLIOZ. "ROMEO AND JULIET."

_DRAMATIC SYMPHONY_

In the sub-title we see the growing impulse towards graphic music. A
"dramatic symphony" is not promising. For, if music is the most
subjective expression of the arts, why should its highest form be used
to dramatize a drama? Without the aid of scene and actors, that were
needed by the original poet, the artisan in absolute tones attempts his
own theatric rendering. Clearly this symphony is one of those works of
art which within an incongruous form (like certain ancient pictures)
affords episodes of imperishable beauty.

Passing by the dramatic episodes that are strung on the thread of the
story, we dwell, according to our wont, on the stretches where a pure
musical utterance rises to a lofty height of pathos or of rarest
fantasy.

In the first scene of the Second Part is the clear intent of a direct
tonal expression, and there is a sustained thread of sincere sentiment.
The passion of Romeo shines in the purity rather than in the intensity
of feeling. The scene has a delicate series of moods, with