, its
delicate picture of first love. In Berlioz's music, at last, it found a
worthy rival. For the musician, too, had within him some of the
graciousness and highness and sweetness of spirit the poet manifested so
sovereignly.

But it is chiefly in the "Requiem" that Berlioz revealed himself in all
the grandeur and might of his being. For in it all the aristocratic
coolness and terseness of "La Damnation de Faust" and of "Harold en
Italie," all the fresco-like calm of "Les Troyens a Carthage," find
their freest, richest expression. "Were I to be threatened with the
destruction of all that I have ever composed," wrote Berlioz on the eve
of his death, "it would be for that work that I would beg life." And he
was correct in the estimation of its value. It is indeed one of the
great edifices of tone. For the course of events which demanded of
Berlioz the work had supplied him with a function commensurate with his
powers, and permitted him to register himself immortally. He was called
by his country to write a mass for a commemoration service in the church
of the Invalides. That gold-domed building, consecrated to the memory of
the host of the fallen, to the countless soldiers slain in the wars of
the monarchy and the republic and the empire, and soon to become the
tomb of Napoleon, had need of its officiant. And so the genius of
Berlioz arose and came. The "Requiem" is the speech of a great and
classic soul, molded by the calm light and fruitful soil of the
Mediterranean. For all its "Babylonian and Ninevitish" bulk, it is full
of the Latin calm, the Latin repose, the Latin resignation. The simple
tone, quiet for all its energy, the golden sweetness of the "Sanctus,"
the naked acceptance of all the facts of death, are the language of one
who had within him an attitude at once primitive and grand, an attitude
that we have almost come to ignore. Listening to the Mass, we find
ourselves feeling as though some _vates_ of a Mediterranean folk were
come in rapt and lofty mood to offer sacrifice, to pacify the living, to
celebrate with fitting rites the unnumbered multitudes of the heroic
dead. There are some compositions that seem to find the common ground
of all men throughout the ages. And to the company of such works of art,
the grand Mass for the Dead of Hector Berlioz belongs.

Still, the commission to write the "Requiem" was but a momentary
welcoming extended to Berlioz. The age in which he lived was unprepared
for his a