lation of Goethe's masterpiece; the opera is sure
to attract, for it is a fresh, interesting work, with a copious flow of
melody and lovely instrumentation."

Henry Chorley in his "Thirty Years' Musical Recollections," writing of
the year 1851, says: "To a few hearers, since then grown into a European
public, neither the warmest welcome nor the most bleak indifference
could alter the conviction that among the composers who have appeared
during the last twenty-five years, M. Gounod was the most promising one,
as showing the greatest combination of sterling science, beauty of idea,
freshness of fancy, and individuality. Before a note of 'Sappho' was
written, certain sacred Roman Catholic compositions and some exquisite
settings of French verse had made it clear to some of the acutest judges
and profoundest musicians living, that in him at last something true and
new had come--may I not say, the most poetical of French musicians that
has till now written?" The same genial and acute critic, in further
discussing the envy, jealousy, and prejudice that Gounod awakened in
certain musical quarters, writes in still more decided strains: "The
fact has to be swallowed and digested that already the composer of
'Sappho,' the choruses to 'Ulysse,' 'Le Medecin malgre lui,' 'Faust,'
'Philemon et Baucis,' a superb Cecilian mass, two excellent symphonies,
and half a hundred songs and romances, which may be ranged not far from
Schubert's and above any others existing in France, is one of the very
few individuals left to whom musical Europe is now looking for its
pleasure." Surely it is enough praise for a great musician that, in the
domain of opera, church music, symphony, and song, he has risen above
all others of his time in one direction, and in all been surpassed by
none.

It was not till "Faust" was produced that Gounod's genius evinced its
highest capacity. For nineteen years the exquisite melodies of this
great work have rung in the ears of civilization without losing one whit
of the power with which they first fascinated the lovers of music. The
verdict which the aged Moscheles passed in his Leipsic home--Moscheles,
the friend of Beethoven, Weber, Schumann, and Mendelssohn; which was
reechoed by the patriarchal Rossini, who came from his Passy retirement
to offer his congratulations; which Auber took up again, as with tears
of joy in his eyes he led Gounod, the ex-pupil of the Conservatory,
through the halls wherein had been laid