Gluck for the Paris version were retained. This is now definitively
adopted at the Opera-Comique.)]

Again, discrepancies exist between various published copies of the
same work, arising from the fact that sometimes the editors of these
revisions may have mistaken the intentions of the composer. Or,
influenced by pardonable human vanity, they may have felt impelled to
collaborate more directly with the composer, by adding something of
their own.

There is valid reason for the additional accompaniments, with which
Mozart has enriched the original scores of Handel's _Messiah_ and
_Alexander's Feast_; and we have evidence of the skill, and can divine
the reverence, with which these additions were accomplished. But how
fatal would have been the results, had the delicate task been
attempted by one in whom these qualities were lacking! Also, there is
every excuse for the additions made to Gluck's _Armide_ by Meyerbeer
for the Opera of Berlin; and we have the direct testimony of
Saint-Saens, who has examined this rescoring, as to the rare ability
and artistic discretion with which the work has been done.[4]

[Footnote 4: See _Echo de Paris_, _op. cit._]

From this evidence it appears that in the score as left by Gluck, the
trombones do not appear at all in _Armide_. The drums, and stranger
still, the flutes, are heard only at rare intervals; while the whole
orchestration--sometimes a pale sketch of the composer's
intentions--shows a haste and lack of care in marked contrast with the
pains bestowed on the scoring of _Alceste_, _Iphigenie_, and _Orphee_.
The revisions and additions spoken of were undertaken by highly
competent authorities, actuated only by the wish to restore in its
purity the idea of the composer; and who to zeal, added the more
valuable quality of discretion.

Ancient music, owing to the development of and changes in the
instruments for which it was composed, can rarely be given as written
by the author. Even if the instruments of modern invention be
eliminated, the orchestra of to-day is not the orchestra of Handel.
The oboe, for example, has so gained in penetrating power that one
instrument to each part now suffices; in Handel's time the feeble tone
of the oboe rendered a considerable number necessary. The perfection
of certain instruments, too, is the cause of modifications in the
music written for them. The limited compass of the pianoforte, for
example, was certainly the sole reason why Beethoven