custom
to give evening concerts, vaguely termed "Sacred Concerts," because
their programmes were made up wholly or in part of religious music. This
good custom has disappeared and with it the opportunity to give the
public such delightful works as the _Seven Words_, and so many other
things which harmonize with the character of the day.

At one of these Sacred Concerts, Pasdeloup presented on the same evening
the _Credo_ from Liszt's _Missa Solemnis_ and the one from Cherubini's
_Messe du Sacre_. Liszt's _Credo_ was received with a storm of hisses,
while Cherubini's was praised to the skies. I could not help thinking--I
was somewhat unjust, for Cherubini's work has merit--of the people of
Jerusalem who acclaimed Barrabas and demanded the crucifixion of Jesus.

To-day Liszt's _Credo_ is received with wild applause--Victor Hugo did
his part-while Cherubini's is never revived.

CHAPTER XII

THE LISZT CENTENARY AT HEIDELBERG (1912)

The Liszt centenary was celebrated everywhere with elaborate
festivities, perhaps most notably at Budapest where the _Missa Solemnis_
was sung in the great cathedral--that alone would have been sufficient
glory for the composer. At Weimar, which, during his lifetime, Liszt
made a sort of musical Mecca, they gave a performance of his deeply
charming oratorio _Die Legende von der Heiligen Elisabeth_. The festival
at Heidelberg was of special interest as it was organized by the General
Association of German Musicians which Liszt had founded fifty years
before. Each year this society gives in a different city a festival
which lasts several days. It admits foreign members and I was once a
member as Berlioz's successor on Liszt's own invitation. Disagreements
separated us, and I had had no relation with the society for a number
of years when they asked me to take part in this festival. A refusal
would have been misunderstood and I had to accept, although the idea of
performing at my age alongside such _virtuosi_ as Risler, Busoni, and
Friedheim, in the height of their talent, was not encouraging.

The festival lasted four days and there were six concerts--four with the
orchestra and a chorus. They gave the oratorio _Christus_, an enormous
work which takes up all the time allowed for one concert; the Dante and
Faust symphonies, and the symphonic poems _Ce qu'on entend sur la
montagne_ and _Tasso_, to mention only the most important works.

The oratorio _Christus_ lacks the fine unity of