Wohlbekannten," etc.] whose jubilee we have recently celebrated--
such people, I say, are in the right position to warn the public
against "the absurdities of a mistaken idealism"--and "to point
towards that which is artistically genuine, true and eternally
valid, as an antidote to all sorts of half-true or half-mad
doctrines and maxims." [Footnote: (See Eduard Bernsdorf in
Signale fur die musicalishe Welt, No. 67, 1869).]

As I have related, a number of Viennese amateurs who attended a
performance of this poor maltreated overture, heard it rendered
in a very different manner. The effect of that performance is
still felt at Vienna. People asserted that they could hardly
recognize the piece, and wanted to know what I had done to it.
They could not conceive how the novel and surprising effect at
the close had been produced, and scarcely credited my assertion
that a moderate tempo was the sole cause. The musicians in the
orchestra, however, might have divulged a little secret, namely
this:--in the fourth bar of the powerful and brilliant entrata I
interpreted the sign >, which in the score might be mistaken for
a timid and senseless accent, as a mark of diminuendo [Figure:
diminuendo sign] assuredly in accordance with the composer's
intentions--thus we reached a more moderate degree of force, and
the opening bars of the theme were at once distinguished by a
softer inflection, which, I now could easily permit to swell to
fortissimo--thus the warm and tender motive, gorgeously supported
by the full orchestra, appeared happy and glorified.

Our Capellmeisters are not particularly pleased at a success such
as this.