which is perhaps, after all, "a heresy destined to disappear."[90]

[Footnote 89: _Ibid_. "A rare peculiarity," adds Schumann, "which
distinguishes nearly all his melodies." Schumann understands why Berlioz
often gives as an accompaniment to his melodies a simple bass, or chords
of the augmented and diminished fifth--ignoring the intermediate parts.]

[Footnote 90: "What will then remain of actual art? Perhaps Berlioz will
be its sole representative. Not having studied the pianoforte, he had an
instinctive aversion to counterpoint. He is in this respect the opposite
of Wagner, who was the embodiment of counterpoint, and drew the utmost
he could from its laws" (Saint-Saëns).]

How much finer, to my idea, are Berlioz's recitatives, with their long
and winding rhythms,[91] than Wagner's declamations, which--apart from
the climax of a subject, where the air breaks into bold and vigorous
phrases, whose influence elsewhere is often weak--limit themselves to
the quasi-notation of spoken inflections, and jar noisily against the
fine harmonies of the orchestra. Berlioz's orchestration, too, is of a
more delicate temper, and has a freer life than Wagner's, flowing in an
impetuous stream, and sweeping away everything in its course; it is also
less united and solid, but more flexible; its nature is undulating and
varied, and the thousand imperceptible impulses of the spirit and of
action are reflected there. It is a marvel of spontaneity and caprice.

[Footnote 91: Jacques Passy notes that with Berlioz the most frequent
phrases consist of twelve, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty bars. With
Wagner, phrases of eight bars are rare, those of four more common, those
of two still more so, while those of one bar are most frequent of all
(_Berlioz et Wagner_, article published in _Le Correspondant_, 10 June,