and 'Cortez' (1809), ire among the finest that have been written for the
stage; they are remarkable for naturalness and sublimeness, qualities
lost sight of in the noisy instrumentation of his later works."

Halévy, trained under the influences of Cherubini, was largely inspired
by that great master's musical purism and reverence for the higher laws
of his art. Halévy's powerful sense of the dramatic always influenced
his methods and sympathies. Not being a composer of creative
imagination, however, the melodramatic element is more prominent than
the purely tragic or comic. His music shows remarkable resources in the
production of brilliant and captivating though always tasteful effects,
which rather please the senses and the fancy than stir the heart and
imagination. Here and there scattered through his works, notably so
in "La Juive," are touches of emotion and grandeur; but Halévy must
be characterized as a composer who is rather distinguished for the
brilliancy, vigor, and completeness of his art than for the higher
creative power, which belongs in such preeminent degree to men like
Rossini and Weber, or even to Auber, Meyerbeer, and Gounod. It is
nevertheless true that Halévy composed works which will retain a high
rank in French art. "La Juive," "Guido," "La Reine de Chypre," and
"Charles VI." are noble lyric dramas, full of beauties, though it is
said they can never be seen to the best advantage off the French stage.
Halévy's genius and taste in music bear much the same relation to the
French stage as do those of Verdi to the Italian stage; though the
former composer is conceded by critics to be a greater purist in musical
form, if he rarely equals the Italian composer in the splendid bursts
of musical passion with which the latter redeems so much that is
meretricious and false, and the charming melody which Verdi shares with
his countrymen.