The great opera composers of the nineteenth century were of one mind touching the greatness of "Don Giovanni." Beethoven was horrified by its licentious libretto, but tradition says that he kept before him on his writing-table a transcript of the music for the trombones in the second finale of the opera. Shortly after Mme. Viardot-Garcia came into possession of the autograph score of the masterpiece, Rossini called upon her and asked for the privilege of looking at it, adding, "I want to bow the knee before this sacred relic." After poring over a few pages, he placed his hands on the book and said, solemnly: "He is the greatest, the master of them all; the only composer who had as much science as he had genius, and as much genius as he had science." On another occasion he said to a questioner: "Vous voulez connaître celui de mes ouvrages que j'aime le mieux; eh bien, c'est 'Don Giovanni.'" Gounod celebrated the centenary of the opera by writing a commentary on it which he dedicated to young composers and artists called upon to take part in performances of the opera. In the preface of his book he characterizes it as "an unequalled and immortal masterpiece," the "apogee of the lyrical drama," a "wondrous example of truth, beauty of form, appropriateness of characterization, deep insight into the drama, purity of style, richness and restraint in instrumentation, charm and tenderness in the love passages, and power in pathos"--in one word, a "finished model of dramatic music." And then he added: "The score of 'Don Giovanni' has exercised the influence of a revelation upon the whole of my life; it has been and remains for me a kind of incarnation of dramatic and musical impeccability. I regard it as a work without blemish, of uninterrupted perfection, and this commentary is but the humble testimony of my Veneration and gratitude for the genius to whom I owe the purest and most permanent joys of my life as a musician." In his "Autobiographical Sketch" Wagner confesses that as a lad he cared only for "Die Zauberflöte," and that "Don Giovanni" was distasteful to him on account of the Italian text, which seemed to him rubbish. But in "Oper und Drama" he says: "Is it possible to find anything more perfect than every piece in 'Don Juan'? . . . Oh, how doubly dear and above all honor is Mozart to me that it was not possible for him to invent music for 'Tito' like that of 'Don Giovanni,' for 'Cosi fan tutte' like that of 'Figaro'! How shamefully would it have desecrated music!" And again: "Where else has music won so infinitely rich an individuality, been able to characterize so surely, so definitely, and in such exuberant plenitude, as here?" {1}