SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
symphonies with scorn
Wagner, who treated his symphonies with scorn before he had even read them,[28] who certainly understood his genius, and who deliberately ignored him, threw himself into Berlioz’s arms when he met him in London in 1855. «He embraced him with fervour, and wept; and hardly had he left him when The Musical World published passages from his book, Oper und Drama, where he pulls Berlioz to pieces mercilessly.»[29] In France, the young Gounod, doli fabricator Epeus, as Berlioz called him, lavished flattering words upon him, but spent his time in finding fault with his compositions,[30] or in trying to supplant him at the theatre. At the Opera he was passed over in favour of a Prince Poniatowski.
[Footnote 28: Wagner, who had criticised Berlioz since 1840, and who published a detailed study of his works in his Oper und Drama in 1851, wrote to Liszt in 1855: «I own that it would interest me very much to make the acquaintance of Berlioz’s symphonies, and I should like to see the scores. If you have them, will you lend them to me?»]
[Footnote 29: See Berlioz’s letter, cited by J. Tiersot, Hector Berlioz et la société de son temps, p. 275.]
this was: Symphonies With Scorn
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