ascends; musicians, as a rule, are tempted to play an ascending passage with an increase of tone, and a descending one with a decrease.  With the fourth bar of the above passage we invariably got into a crescendo so that the sustained G flat of the fifth bar was given with an involuntary yet vehement accent, enough to spoil the peculiar tonal significance of that note.  The composer’s intention is clearly indicated; but it remains difficult to prove to a person whose musical feelings are not of a refined sort, that there is a great gap between a commonplace reading, and the reading meant by the composer:  no doubt both readings convey a sense of dissatisfaction, unrest, longing—­but the quality of these, the true sense of the passage, cannot be conveyed unless it is played as the master imagined it, and as I have not hitherto heard it given except by the Parisian musicians in 1839.  In connection with this I am conscious that the impression of dynamical monotony [Footnote:  i.e., a power of tone the degree of which remains unchanged.] (if I may risk such an apparently senseless expression for a difficult phenomenon) together with the unusually varied and ever irregular movement of intervals in the ascending figure entering on the prolonged G flat to be sung with such infinite delicacy, to which the G natural answers with equal delicacy, initiated me as by magic to the incomparable mystery of the spirit.  Keeping my further practical experience in view, I would ask how did the musicians of Paris arrive at so perfect a solution of the difficult problem?  By the most conscientious diligence.  They were not content with mutual admiration and congratulation (sich gegenseitig Complimente zu machen) nor did they assume that difficulties must disappear before them as a matter of course.  French musicians in the main belong to the Italian school; its influence upon them has been beneficial in as much as they have thus been taught to approach music mainly through the medium of the human voice.  The French idea of playing an instrument well is to be able to sing well upon it.  And (as already said) that superb orchestra sang the symphony.  The possibility of its being well sung implies that the true tempo had been found:  and this is the second point which impressed me at the time.  Old Habeneck was not the medium of any abstract aesthetical inspiration—­he was devoid of “genius:”  But he found the right tempo while persistently fixing the attention of his orchestra upon the melos [Footnote:  Melody in all its aspects.] Of the symphony.