eas. The language is
magnificent, of wonderful clearness and simplicity; not a word too much,
and not a word that does not reveal an unerring pen. In nearly all the
big works of Berlioz before 1845 (that is up to the _Damnation_) you
will find this nervous precision and sweeping liberty.

[Footnote 85: _Memoires_, II, 365.]

[Footnote 86: "This composition contains a dose of sublimity much too
strong for the ordinary public; and Berlioz, with the splendid insolence
of genius, advises the conductor, in a note, to turn the page and pass
it over" (Georges de Massougnes, _Berlioz_). This fine study by Georges
de Massougnes appeared in 1870, and is very much in advance of its
time.]

Then there is the freedom of his rhythms. Schumann, who was nearest to
Berlioz of all musicians of that time, and, therefore, best able to
understand him, had been struck by this since the composition of the
_Symphonic fantastique_,[87] He wrote:--

"The present age has certainly not produced a work in which similar
times and rhythms combined with dissimilar times and rhythms have
been more freely used. The second part of a phrase rarely
corresponds with the first, the reply to the question. This anomaly
is characteristic of Berlioz, and is natural to his southern
temperament."

Far from objecting to this, Schumann sees in it something necessary to
musical evolution.

"Apparently music is showing a tendency to go back to its
beginnings, to the time when the laws of rhythm did not yet trouble
her; it seems that she wishes to free herself, to regain an
utterance that is unconstrained, and raise herself to the dignity
of a sort of poetic language."

And Schumann quotes these words of Ernest Wagner: "He who shakes off the
tyranny of time and delivers us from it will, as far as one can see,
give back freedom to music."[88]

[Footnote 87: "Oh, how I love, honour, and reverence Schumann for having
written this article alone" (Hugo Wolf, 1884).]

[Footnote 88: _Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik_. See _Hector Berlioz und
Robert Schumann_. Berlioz was constantly righting for this freedom of
rhythm--for "those harmonies of rhythm," as he said. He wished to form a
Rhythm class at the Conservatoire (_Memoires_, II, 241), but such a
thing was not understood in France. Without being as backward as Italy
on this point, France is still resisting the emancipation of rhythm
(_Memoires_, II, 196). But dur