His Purgatory has no punishments nor any
griefs save the awaiting, the long and painful awaiting, of eternal
happiness. There is a processional in which the fugue and melody
alternate in the most felicitous manner. There are sighs and plaints,
all haunting in their extreme expressiveness, a great variety beneath an
appearance of monotony, and from time to time two wailing notes. These
notes are always the same, as the chorus gives them as a plaint, and
they are both affecting and artistic. At the end comes a dim ray of
light and hope. This is the only one in the work save the Amen at the
end, for Faith and Hope should not be looked for here. The supplications
sound like prayers which do not expect to be answered. No one would dare
to describe this work as profane, but whether it is religious or not is
a question. As Boschot has said, what it expresses above all is terror
in the presence of annihilation.

When the _Requiem_ was played at the Trocadero, the audience was greatly
impressed and filed out slowly. They did not say, "What a masterpiece!"
but "What an orchestra leader!" Nowadays people go to see a conductor
direct the orchestra just as they go to hear a tenor, and they arrogate
to themselves the right to judge the conductors as they do the tenors.
But what a fine sport it is! The qualities of an orchestra conductor
which the public appreciates are his elegance, his gestures, his
precision, and the expressiveness of his mimicry, all of which are more
often directed at the audience than at the orchestra. But all these
things are of secondary consideration. What makes up an orchestra
conductor's worth are the excellence of execution he obtains from the
musicians and the perfect interpretation of the author's meaning--which
the audience does not understand. If such an important detail as the
author's meaning is obscured and slighted, if a work is disfigured by
absurd movements and by an expression which is entirely different from
what the author wanted, the public may be dazzled and an execrable
conductor, provided his poses are good, may fascinate his audience and
be praised to the skies.

Formerly the conductor never saluted his audience. The understanding was
that the work and not the conductor was applauded. The Italians and
Germans changed all that. Lamoureux was the first to introduce this
exotic custom in France. The public was a little surprised at first, but
they soon got used to it. In Italy the conductor