Even Gluck himself had been forgotten. First editions of his
orchestral scores, which it is impossible to find to-day, sold for a few
francs at the second-hand book shops. Rameau was never mentioned.
Delsarte, handsome, eloquent, and fascinating, wielded an almost
imperial sway over his little coterie of artists. Thanks to him the lamp
of our old French school was kept dimly burning until the day when
inherent justice permitted it to be revived. In this restricted world no
evening was complete without Delsarte. He would come in with some story
of frightful throat trouble to justify his chronic lack of voice, and,
then, without any voice at all but by a kind of magic, would put
shudders into the tones of Orpheus or Eurydice. I often played his
accompaniments and he always demanded _pianissimo_.
"But," I would say, "the author has indicated _forte_."
"That is true," he would answer, "but in those days the harpsichord had
little depth of tone."
It would have been easy to answer that the accompaniment was written for
the orchestra and not for the harpsichord.
Delsarte's execution, on account of the insufficiency of his vocal
powers, was often entirely different from what the author intended.
Furthermore, he was absolutely ignorant of the correct way to interpret
the appogiatures and other marks which are not used to-day.
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