Italian education and his French
preferences formed an ore of new brilliancy and new depth of tone. His
style resembled none other. Fetis, his great admirer and friend and the
famous director of the Conservatoire at Brussels, insisted, and with
reason, on this distinction. His style was characterized by the
importance of the rhythmic element. His ballet music owes much of its
excellence to the picturesque variety of the rhythms.

Instead of the long involved overture he gave us the short distinctive
prelude which has been so successful. The preludes of _Robert_ and _Les
Huguenots_ were followed by the preludes of _Lohengrin_, _Faust_,
_Tristan_, _Romeo_, _La Traviata_, _Aida_, and many others which are
less famous. Verdi in his last two works and Richard Strauss in _Salome_
went even farther and suppressed the prelude--a none too agreeable
surprise. It is like a dinner without soup.

Meyerbeer gave us a foretaste of the famous _leit-motif_. We find it in
_Robert_ in the theme of the ballad, which the orchestra plays again
while Bertram goes towards the back of the stage. This should indicate
to the listener his satanic character. We find it in the Luther chant in
_Les Huguenots_ and also in the dream of _Le Prophete_ during Jean's
recitative. Here the orchestra with its modulated tone predicts the
future splendor of the cathedral scene, while a lute plays low notes,
embellished by a delicate weaving in of the violins, and produces a
remarkable and unprecedented effect. He introduced on the stage the
ensembles of wind instruments (I do not mean the brass) which are so
frequent in Mozart's great concertos. An illustration of this is the
entrance of Alice in the second act of _Robert_. An echo of this is
found in Elsa's entrance in the second act of _Lohengrin_. Another
illustration is the entrance of Berthe and Fides in the beginning of the
_Le Prophete_. In this case the author indicated a pantomime. This is
never played and so this pretty bit loses all its significance.

Meyerbeer ventured to use combinations in harmony which were considered
rash at that time. They pretend that the sensitiveness of the ear has
been developed since then, but in reality it has been dulled by having
to undergo the most violent discords.

The beautiful "progression" of the exorcism in the fourth act of _Le
Prophete_ was not accepted without some difficulty. I can still see
Gounod seated at a piano singing the debated passage and trying