subdues again tempests of passion and joy), but take less well-known pages, such as the Scherzetto chante de la reine Mab, or the Reveil de Juliette, and the music describing the death of the two lovers.[86] In the one what light grace there is, in the other what vibrating passion, and in both of them what freedom and apt expression of ideas.  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 during the last ten years great progress in music has been made in France.]