, he tried to make an opera like Gluck's and in spite of his
great efforts and his interesting inventions, he could not equal the
work of his formidable rival.

* * * * *

Although he was not a great musician, Offenbach had a surprising natural
instinct and made here and there curious discoveries in harmony. In
speaking of these discoveries I must go slightly into the theory of
harmony and resign myself to being understood only by those of my
readers who are more or less musicians. In a slight work, _Daphnis et
Chloe_, Offenbach risked a dominant eleventh without either introduction
or conclusion--an extraordinary audacity at the time. A short course in
harmony is necessary for the understanding of this. We must start with
the fact that, theoretically, all dissonances must be introduced and
concluded, which we cannot explain here, but this leading up to and away
from have for their purpose softening the harshness of the dissonance
which was greatly feared in bygone times. Take if you please, the simple
key of C natural. _Do_ is the keynote, _sol_ is the dominant. Place on
this dominant two-thirds--_si-re_--and you have the perfect dominant
chord. Add a third _fa_ and you have the famous dominant seventh, a
dissonance which to-day seems actually agreeable. Not so long ago they
thought that they ought to prepare for the dissonance. In the Sixteenth
Century it was not regarded as admissible at all, for one hears the two
notes _si_ and _fa_ simultaneously and this seems intolerable to the
ear. They used to call it the _Diabolus in musica_.

Palestrina was the first to employ it in an anthem. Opinions differ on
this, and certain students of harmony pretend that the chord which
Palestrina used only has the appearance of the dominant seventh. I do
not concur in this view. But however the case may be, the glory of
unchaining the devil in music belongs to Montreverde. That was the
beginning of modern music.

Later, a new third was superimposed and they dared the chord
_sol-si-re-fa-la_. The inventor is unknown, but Beethoven seems to have
been the first to make any considerable use of it. He used the chord in
such a way that, in spite of its current use to-day, in his works it
appears like something new and strange. This chord imposes its
characteristics on the second _motif_ of the first part of the _Symphony
in C minor_. This is what gives such amazing charm to the long colloquy
between the f