lute, the oboe and the clarinets, which always surprises
and arouses the listener, in the _andante_ of the same symphony. Fetis
in his _Traite d'Harmonie_ inveighed against this delightful passage. He
admits that people like it, but, according to him, the author had no
right to write it and the listener has no right to admire it. Scholars
often have strange ideas.

Then Richard Wagner came along and the reign of the ninth dominant took
the place of the seventh. That is what gives _Tannhauser_, and
_Lohengrin_ their exciting character, which is dear to those who demand
in music above everything else the pleasure due to shocks to the nervous
system. Imitators have fallen foul of this easy procedure, and with a
laughable naivete imagine that in this way they can easily equal Wagner.
And they have succeeded in making this valuable chord absolutely banal.

[Illustration: Jacques Offenbach]

By adding still another third we have the dominant eleventh. Offenbach
used this, but it has played but a small part since then. Beyond that we
cannot go, for a third more and we are back to the basic note, two
octaves away.

But innovations in harmony are rare in Offenbach's work. What makes him
interesting is his fertility in invention of melodies and few have
equaled him in this. He improvised constantly and with incredible
rapidity. His manuscripts give the impression of having been done with
the point of a needle. There is nothing useless anywhere in them. He
used abbreviations as much as he could and the simplicity of his harmony
helped him here. As a result he was able to produce his light works in
an exceedingly short time.

He had the luck to attach Madame Ugalde to his company. Her powers had
already begun to decline but she was still brilliant. While she was
giving a spectacular revival of _Orphee aux Enfers_, he wrote _Les
Bavards_ for her. He was inspired by the hope of an unusual
interpretation and he so surpassed himself that he produced a small
masterpiece. A revival of this work would certainly be successful if
that were possible, but the peculiar merits of the creatrix of the role
would be necessary and I do not see her like anywhere.

It is strange but true that Offenbach lost all his good qualities as
soon as he took himself seriously. But he was not the only case of this
in the history of music. Cramer and Clementi wrote studies and exercises
which are marvels of style, but their sonatas and concertos are tireso