certainly much that was raw and awkward has disappeared; and,
from a musical point of view, many details of refined phrasing
and expression are now more carefully attended to. They feel more
at home in the modern orchestra; which is indebted to their
master--Mendelssohn--for a particularly delicate and refined
development in the direction opened up by Weber's original
genius.

One thing however is wanting to these gentlemen, without which
they cannot be expected to achieve the needful reconstruction of
the orchestras, nor to enforce the needful reforms in the
institutions connected with them, viz., energy, self-confidence,
and personal power. In their case, unfortunately, reputation,
talent, culture, even faith, love and hope, are artificial. Each
of them was, and is, so busy with his personal affairs, and the
difficulty of maintaining his artificial position, that he cannot
occupy himself with measures of general import--measures which
might bring about a connected and consistent new order of things.
As a matter of fact, such an order of things cannot, and does not
concern the fraternity at all. They came to occupy the position
of those old fashioned German masters, because the power of the
latter had deteriorated and because they had shewn themselves
incapable to meet the wants of a new style; and it would appear
that they, in their turn, regard their position of to-day as
merely temporary--filling a gap in a period of transition. In the
face of the new ideals of German art, towards which all that is
noble in the nation begins to turn, they are evidently at a loss,
since these ideals are alien to their nature. In the presence of
certain technical difficulties inseparable from modern music they
have recourse to singular expedients. Meyerbeer, for instance,