execution of orchestral music: it comprises MOVEMENT and
SUSTAINED tone, with a DEFINITE DEGREE OF POWER. [Footnote: ("An
dieser Stelle ist es mir, bei oft in meinem spateren Leben
erneueter Erinnerung, recht klar geworden, worauf es beim
Orchestervortrag ankommt, weil sie die BEWEGUNG und den
GEHALTENEN TON, zugleich mit dem Gesetz der DYNAMIK in sich
schliesst.")] The masterly execution of this passage by the Paris
orchestra consisted in the fact that they played it EXACTLY as it
is written. Neither at Dresden, nor in London [Footnote: Concert
of the Philharmonic Society, 26th March, 1855.] when, in after
years, I had occasion to prepare a performance of the symphony,
did I succeed in getting rid of the annoying irregularity which
arises from the change of bow and change of strings. Still less
could I suppress an involuntary accentuation as the passage
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