me thing may be entirely good or entirely bad,
according to the use one makes of it, or the reasons one has for making
use of it. Sound and sonority are secondary to thought, and thought is
secondary to feeling and passion." (These opinions were given with
reference to Wagner's concerts in Paris, in 1860, and are taken from _A
travers chants_, p. 312.)

Compare Beethoven's words: "There is no rule that one may not break for
the advancement of beauty."]

"I am for free music. Yes, I want music to be proudly free, to be
victorious, to be supreme. I want her to take all she can, so that
there may be no more Alps or Pyrenees for her. But she must
achieve her victories by fighting in person, and not rely upon her
lieutenants. I should like her to have, if possible, good verse
drawn up in order of battle; but, like Napoleon, she must face the
fire herself, and, like Alexander, march in the front ranks of the
phalanx. She is so powerful that in some cases she would conquer
unaided; for she has the right to say with Medea: 'I, myself, am
enough.'"

Berlioz protested vigorously against Gluck's impious theory[82] and
Wagner's "crime" in making music the slave of speech. Music is the
highest poetry and knows no master.[83] It was for Berlioz, therefore,
continually to increase the power of expression in pure music.

[Footnote 82: Is it necessary to recall the _epitre dedicatoire_ of
_Alceste_ in 1769, and Gluck's declaration that he "sought to bring
music to its true function--that of helping poetry to strengthen the
expression of the emotions and the interest of a situation ... and to
make it what fine colouring and the happy arrangement of light and shade
are to a skilful drawing"?]

[Footnote 83: This revolutionary theory was already Mozart's: "Music
should reign supreme and make one forget everything else.... In an opera
it is absolutely necessary that Poetry should be Music's obedient
daughter" (Letter to his father, 13 October, 1781). Despairing probably
at being unable to obtain this obedience, Mozart thought seriously of
breaking up the form of opera, and of putting in its place, in 1778, a
sort of melodrama (of which Rousseau had given an example in 1773),
which he called "duodrama," where music and poetry were loosely
associated, yet not dependent on each other, but went side by side on
two parallel roads (Letter of 12 November, 1778).]

And while Wagner, who was m