Triomphe que j’aime! 
    Ta frayeur extreme
    Va malgre toi-meme
    Te livrer a moi!

But when Scribe abandoned his reed-pipes and essayed the lyre, he gave Meyerbeer this,

     J’ai voulu les punir ...Tu les as surpasses!

And Meyerbeer made it,

     J’ai voulu les punir ...  Et tu les as surpasses!

which was hardly encouraging.

Meyerbeer had other manias as well.  Perhaps the most notable was to give to the voice musical schemes which belong by rights to the instruments.  So in the first act of Le Prophete, after the chorus sings, Veille sur nous, instead of stopping to breathe and prepare for the following phrase, he makes it repeat abruptly, Sur nous!  Sur nous! in unison with the orchestral notes which are, to say the least, a ritornello.

Again, in the great cathedral scene, instead of letting the orchestra bring out through the voices the musical expression of Fides sobs:  Et toi, tu ne me connais pas, he puts both the instruments and the voices in the same time and on words which do not harmonize with the music at all.

I need not speak of his immoderate love for the bassoon, an admirable instrument, but one which it is hardly prudent to abuse.

But so far we have spoken only of trifles.  Meyerbeer’s music, as a witty woman once remarked to me, is like stage scenery—­it should not be scrutinized too closely.  It would be hard to find a better characterization.  Meyerbeer belonged to the theater and sought above everything else theatrical effects.  But that does not mean that he was indifferent to details.  He was a wealthy man and he used to indemnify the theaters for the extra expense he occasioned them.  He multiplied rehearsals by trying different versions with the orchestra so as to choose between them.  He did not cast his work in bronze, as so many do, and present it to the public ne varietur. He was continually feeling his way, recasting, and seeking the better which very often was the enemy of good.  As the result of his continual researches he too frequently turned good ideas into inferior ones.  Note for example, in L’Etoile du Nord, the passage, Enfants de l’Ukraine fils du desert.  The opening passage is lofty, determined and picturesque, but it ends most disagreeably.

He always lived alone with no fixed place of abode.  He was at Spa in the summer and on the Mediterranean in the winter; in large cities only as business drew him.  He had no financial worries and he lived only to continue his Penelope-like work, which showed a great love of perfection, although he did not find the best way of attaining it.  They have tried to place this conscientious artist in the list of seekers of success, but such men are not ordinarily accustomed to work like this.

Since I have used the word artist, it is proper to stop for a moment.  Unlike Gluck and Berlioz, who were greater artists than musicians, Meyerbeer was more a musician than an artist.  As a result, he often used the most refined and learned means to achieve a very ordinary artistic result.  But there is no reason why he should be brought to task for results which they do not even remark in the works of so many others.