The bishop ascended and descended six times more and each time, after his homily, music was played.  My music was to be adapted to these ceremonies.

The problem of writing seven adagios to be performed consecutively, each one to last ten minutes, without wearying the audience, was not an easy one to solve, and I soon recognized the impossibility of making my music conform to the prescribed limits.

The work was written and printed without words.  Later the opportunity of adding them was offered, so the oratorio which Breitkopf and Haertel publish to-day is a complete work and, so far as the vocal part is concerned, entirely new.

     The kind reception which it has received among amateurs makes me
     hope that the entire public will welcome it with the same kindness.

Haydn feared to weary his hearers.  Our modern bards have no such vain scruple.

Michel Haydn, Joseph’s brother and the author of some highly esteemed religious compositions, has been generally credited with the addition of the vocal parts to the Seven Words.  Joseph Haydn did not say that this was the case, but it would seem that if he did the work himself he would have said so in his preface.

This vocal part, however, adds nothing to the value of the work.  And it is of no great consequence who the author of the arrangement for the quartet was.  At the time there were many amateurs who played on stringed instruments.  They used to meet frequently and everything in music was arranged for quartets just as now everything is arranged for piano duets.  Some of Beethoven’s sonatas were arranged in this form.  The piano killed the quartet, and it is a great pity, for the quartet is the purest form of instrumental music.  It is the first form—­the fountain of Hippocrene.  Now instrumental music drinks from every cup and the result is that many times it seems drunk.

To return to the Seven Words.  Their symphonic form is the only one worth considering.  They are eloquent enough without the aid of voices, for their charm penetrates.  Unlike the Creation and the Seasons they do not demand extraordinary means of execution, and nothing is easier than to give them.

The opera houses are closed on Good Friday, and it used to be the custom to give evening concerts, vaguely termed “Sacred Concerts,” because their programmes were made up wholly or in part of religious music.  This good custom has disappeared and with it the opportunity to give the public such delightful works as the Seven Words, and so many other things which harmonize with the character of the day.

At one of these Sacred Concerts, Pasdeloup presented on the same evening the Credo from Liszt’s Missa Solemnis and the one from Cherubini’s Messe du Sacre.  Liszt’s Credo was received with a storm of hisses, while Cherubini’s was praised to the skies.  I could not help thinking—­I was somewhat unjust, for Cherubini’s work has merit—­of the people of Jerusalem who acclaimed Barrabas and demanded the crucifixion of Jesus.