aphrased 'Memoirs of Music and
Musicians') are superior appreciations of musicians and interpreters and
performances in opera-house and concert-hall, expressed with grace and
taste in the _feuilletonist's_ best manner. In the Journal des Debats,
year by year, he wrote himself down indisputably among the great French
critics; and he never misused his critical post to make it a lever for
his own advantage. His great treatise on Orchestration is a standard
work not displaced by Gevaert or more recent authorities. He was not
only a musical intelligence of enormous capacity: he offers perhaps as
typical an embodiment of the French artistic temperament as can be
pointed out.

THE ITALIAN RACE AS MUSICIANS AND AUDITORS

From Berlioz's Autobiography

It appears, however,--so at least I am assured,--that the Italians do
occasionally listen. But at any rate, music to the Milanese, no less
than to the Neapolitans, Romans, Florentines, and Genoese, means nothing
but an air, a duet, or a trio, well sung. For anything beyond this they
feel simply aversion or indifference. Perhaps these antipathies are
mainly due to the wretched performance of their choruses and orchestras,
which effectually prevents their knowing anything good outside the
beaten track they have so long followed. Possibly, too, they may to a
certain extent understand the flights of men of genius, if these latter
are careful not to give too rude a shock to their rooted predilections.
The great success of 'Guillaume Tell' at Florence supports this opinion,
and even Spontini's sublime 'Vestale' obtained a series of brilliant
representations at Naples some twenty-five years ago. Moreover, in those
towns which are under the Austrian rule, you will see the people rush
after a military band, and listen with avidity to the beautiful German
melodies, so unlike their usual insipid cavatinas. Nevertheless, in
general it is impossible to disguise the fact that the Italians as a
nation really appreciate only the material effects of music, and
distinguish nothing but its exterior forms.

Indeed, I am much inclined to regard them as more inaccessible to the
poetical side of art, and to any conceptions at all above the common,
than any other European nation. To the Italians music is a sensual
pleasure, and nothing more. For this most beautiful form of expression
they have scarcely more respect than for the culinary art. In fact, they
like music which they can take in at first h