composition of a new order, whereby Cherubini
has placed himself above all musicians who have as yet written in
the concerted style of church music. Superior to the masses of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven, and the masters of the Neapolitan school, that of
Cherubini is as remarkable for originality of idea as for perfection in
art." Picchiante, a distinguished critic, sums up the impressions made
by this great work in the following eloquent and vigorous passage: "All
the musical science of the good age of religious music, the sixteenth
century of the Christian era, was summed up in Palestrina, who
flourished at that time, and by its aid he put into form noble and
sublime conceptions. With the grave Gregorian melody, learnedly
elaborated in vigorous counterpoint and reduced to greater clearness and
elegance without instrumental aid, Palestrina knew how to awaken among
his hearers mysterious, grand, deep, vague sensations, that seemed
caused by the objects of an unknown world, or by superior powers in
the human imagination. With the same profound thoughtfulness of the old
Catholic music, enriched by the perfection which art has attained in two
centuries, and with all the means which a composer nowadays can make
use of, Cherubini perfected another conception, and this consisted in
utilizing the style adapted to dramatic composition when narrating the
church text, by which means he was able to succeed in depicting man in
his various vicissitudes, now rising to the praises of Divinity, now
gazing on the Supreme Power, now suppliant and prostrate. So that, while
Palestrina's music places God before man, that of Cherubini places man
before God." Adolphe Adam puts the comparison more epigrammatically in
saying: "If Palestrina had lived in our own times, he would have been
Cherubini." The masters of the old Roman school of church music had
received it as an emanation of pure sentiment, with no tinge of human
warmth and color. Cherubini, on the contrary, aimed to make his music
express the dramatic passion of the words, and in the realization of
this he brought to bear all the resources of a musical science unequaled
except perhaps by Beethoven. The noble masses in F and D were also
written in 1809 and stamped themselves on public judgment as no less
powerful works of genius and knowledge.

Some of Cherubini's friends in 1809 tried to reconcile the composer
with the Emperor, and in furtherance of this an opera was written
anonymou