ter_ the voice
("_dopo la parola_"). These words appear in many scores of the Italian
operas, even of the present day. But when they do not, the musical
director is supposed to be familiar with the custom. The following,
therefore, is the authentic mode of performing the passage in
question:

[Music: The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness]

Apart from these defects in the rendering of the ancient classics, it
would be unjust not to acknowledge the great artistic merit and value
of the performances, given--as Oratorio should be--in the church. To
hear _l'Enfance du Christ_ (Berlioz) as performed at the Sorbonne,
with its particular facilities for obtaining the _ppp_ effects of the
distant or receding angelic chorus, is to be impressed to a degree
impossible of attainment in the concert-room.

Let those purists who resent any "tampering"--as they term it--with
the composers' music listen to the following phrase, sung as it is
printed in the ordinary editions:

[Music: the first-fruits _of_ them that sleep.]

Then let them hear it given according to the authentic and accepted
tradition, and say which of the two versions most faithfully
interprets the composer's meaning.

[Music: the first-fruits of _them_ that sleep.]

* * * * *

Let us now consider alterations which do not appear in the printed
editions, and yet may have been made or sanctioned by the composer.

In comparison with painting and sculpture, music and the literature of
the theatre are not self-sufficing arts. They require an interpreter.
Before a dramatic work can exist completely, scenery, and actors to
give it voice and gesture, are necessary; before music can be anything
more than hieroglyphics, the signs must be transmuted into sound by
singers or instrumentalists. Wagner embodied this truth in his
pathetic reference to _Lohengrin_: "When ill, miserable and
despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eye fell on the score of
my _Lohengrin_, which I had totally forgotten. Suddenly I felt
something like compassion lest the music might never sound from off
the death-pale paper." In other words, _Lohengrin_, though finished in
every detail, was merely potential music. To make it anything more,
the aid of singers and orchestra are essential.

Composers and dramatic authors, in fact, _create_ their art-works; but
it is their interpreters--actors, singers, instrumentalists--who
_animate_ them, who breathe life