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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: Gluck, before he wrote, reflected long; he calculated the chances, and
he decided on a plan which might be subsequently modified by his
inspirations as to detail, but hindered him from ever losing his way.
Hence his power of emphasis, his declamatory style thrilling with life
and truth. I quite agree with you that Meyerbeer's learning is
transcendent; but science is a defect when it evicts inspiration, and
it seems to me that we have in this opera the painful toil of a
refined craftsman who in his music has but picked up thousands of
phrases out of other operas, damned or forgotten, and appropriated
them, while extending, modifying, or condensing them. But he has
fallen into the error of all selectors of /centos/,--an abuse of good
Gambara |
