h
any sense of musical expression could listen to a quartet in which four
characters, animated by totally conflicting passions, should
successively employ the same melodious phrase to express such different
words as these: "O, toi que j'adore!" "Quelle terreur me glace!" "Mon
coeur bat de plaisir!" "La fureur me transporte!" To suppose that music
is a language so vague that the natural inflections of fury will serve
equally well for fear, joy, and love, only proves the absence of that
sense which to others makes the varieties of expression in music as
incontestable a reality as the existence of the sun.... I regard the
course taken by Italian composers as the inevitable result of the
instincts of the public, which react more or less on the composers
themselves.

THE FAMOUS "SNUFF-BOX TREACHERY"

From the Autobiography

Now for another intrigue, still more cleverly contrived, the black
depths of which I hardly dare fathom. I incriminate no one; I simply
give the naked facts, without the smallest commentary, but with
scrupulous exactness. General Bernard having himself informed me that my
Requiem was to be performed on certain conditions, ... I was about to
begin my rehearsals when I was sent for by the Director of the
Beaux-Arts.

"You know," said he, "that Habeneck has been commissioned to conduct all
the great official musical festivals?" ("Come, good!" thought I: "here
is another tile for my devoted head.") "It is true that you are now in
the habit of conducting the performance of your works yourself; but
Habeneck is an old man" (another tile), "and I happen to know that he
will be deeply hurt if he does not preside at your Requiem. What terms
are you on with him?"

"What terms? We have quarreled. I hardly know why. For three years he
has not spoken to me. I am not aware of his motives, and indeed have not
cared to ask. He began by rudely refusing to conduct one of my concerts.
His behavior towards me has been as inexplicable as it is uncivil.
However, as I see plainly that he wishes on the present occasion to
figure at Marshal Damremont's ceremony, and as it would evidently be
agreeable to you, I consent to give up the baton to him, on condition
that I have at least one full rehearsal."

"Agreed," replied the Director; "I will let him know about it."

The rehearsals were accordingly conducted with great care. Habeneck
spoke to me as if our relations with each other had never been
interrupted, and all seem