ed that fact when I was concluding the first part of the
_Adagio_ in Liszt's great _Fantaisie_ in the beautiful Victoria Hall in
Geneva. The pipe which brought in the water burst and the organ was
mute. I have always thought, perhaps wrongly, that malice had something
to do with the accident.

This Liszt _Fantaisie_ is the most extraordinary piece for the organ
there is. It lasts forty minutes and the interest is sustained
throughout. Just as Mozart in his _Fantaisie et Sonate in C minor_
foresaw the modern piano, so Liszt, writing this _Fantaisie_ more than
half a century ago, appears to have foreseen the instrument of a
thousand resources which we have to-day.

Let us have the courage to admit, however, that these resources are only
partly utilized as they can or should be. To draw from a great
instrument all its possibilities, to begin with, one must understand it
thoroughly, and that understanding cannot be gained over night. The
organ, as we have seen, is a collection of an indefinite number of
instruments. It places before the organist extraordinary means of
expressing himself. No two of these instruments are precisely alike. The
organ is only a theme with innumerable variations, determined by the
place in which it is to be installed, by the amount of money at the
builder's disposal, by his inventiveness, and, often, by his personal
whims. As a result time is required for the organist to learn his
instrument thoroughly. After this he is as free as the fish in the sea,
and his only preoccupation is the music. Then, to play freely with the
colors on his vast palette, there is but one way--he must plunge boldly
into improvisation.

Now improvisation is the particular glory of the French school, but it
has been injured seriously of late by the influence of the German
school. Under the pretext that an improvisation is not so good as one of
Sebastian Bach's or Mendelssohn's masterpieces, young organists have
stopped improvising.

That point of view is harmful because it is absolutely false; it is
simply the negation of eloquence. Consider what the legislative hall,
the lecture room and the court would be like if nothing but set pieces
were delivered. We are familiar with the fact that many an orator and
lawyer, who is brilliant when he talks, becomes dry as dust when he
tries to write. The same thing happens in music. Lefebure-Wely was a
wonderful improviser (I can say this emphatically, for I heard him) but
he lef