suspense. It really is
as though the composer had had no other object in view than to produce
a baroque effect without troubling himself about musical truth or unity,
or about the capabilities of human voices which are swamped by this
flood of instrumental noise."

"Silence, my friend!" cried Gambara. "I am still under the spell of
that glorious chorus of hell, made still more terrible by the long
trumpets,--a new method of instrumentation. The broken _cadenzas_ which
give such force to Robert's scene, the _cavatina_ in the fourth act, the
_finale_ of the first, all hold me in the grip of a supernatural power.
No, not even Gluck's declamation ever produced so prodigious an effect,
and I am amazed by such skill and learning."

"Signor Maestro," said Andrea, smiling, "allow me to contradict you.
Gluck, before he wrote, reflected long; he calculated the chances,
and he decided on a plan which might be subsequently modified by his
inspirations as to detail, but hindered him from ever losing his way.
Hence his power of emphasis, his declamatory style thrilling with
life and truth. I quite agree with you that Meyerbeer's learning is
transcendent; but science is a defect when it evicts inspiration, and
it seems to me that we have in this opera the painful toil of a refined
craftsman who in his music has but picked up thousands of phrases out
of other operas, damned or forgotten, and appropriated them, while
extending, modifying, or condensing them. But he has fallen into the
error of all selectors of _centos_,--an abuse of good things. This
clever harvester of notes is lavish of discords, which, when too often
introduced, fatigue the ear till those great effects pall upon it which
a composer should husband with care to make the more effective use of
them when the situation requires it. These enharmonic passages recur
to satiety, and the abuse of the plagal cadence deprives it of its
religious solemnity.

"I know, of course, that every musician has certain forms to which he
drifts back in spite of himself; he should watch himself so as to avoid
that blunder. A picture in which there were no colors but blue and red
would be untrue to nature, and fatigue the eye. And thus the constantly
recurring rhythm in the score of _Robert le Diable_ makes the work, as
a whole, appear monotonous. As to the effect of the long trumpets, of
which you speak, it has long been known in Germany; and what Meyerbeer
offers us as a novelty was const