To-day Berlioz is at the topmost height of fame, and this renown he has achieved by one work. To the whole musical world he is the composer of _La Damnation de Faust_, and neither _Romeo et Juliette_, nor _L’Enfance du Christ_, nor the _Requiem_, each a masterpiece in its way, has obtained the widespread success of the first-named work. It is singular that a purely orchestral composition, _La Symphony Fantastique_, should be accorded a second rank in the general judgment. Strictly speaking, this symphony and _La Damnation_ present, outside the music written by him for the stage, the quintessence of Berlioz’s genius. They are the two poles between which his affluent inspiration oscillates. In the former of these scores is to be found all the romantic exuberance of youth; the fury of a latent rebellion against discipline and yet wholly master of itself; a dazzling wealth of instrumentation; a poetic and delightful coloring. In the other, of which the style is more varied, burst forth a passion, an irony, a burning heat, a prodigious intuition of the effects of vast numbers, a fantastic raillery, a power of dramatic expression without equal. It is none the less true that genius radiates from many pages of his other works: the _Pilgrim’s March_ in _Harold_: the _Offertory_ and the _Tuba Mirum_ in the _Requiem_; the _Repose of the Holy Family_ in _L’Enfance du Christ_; the _Night of the Ball_, and the _Love Scene_ from _Roméo et Juliette_; the nocturne-duet from _Béatrice et Bénédict_; the love-duet, the quintet and the septet in _Les Troyens_ are all bright inspirations among creations of the highest worth, that met with great favor, although the works of which they are a part had not the power to win the masses as they were won by _La Symphonie Fantastique_ and _La Damnation de Faust_. These last gratify the public taste (using the term in its broadest acceptation) because they are not merely concert music, but have a close affinity with the stage, in the dramatic stories they illustrate. I believe that the minute descriptive programme which Berlioz has attached to _La Symphonie Fantastique_ has been largely instrumental in assuring the success of this work with a public that mentally follows the imaginary drama, step by step as the orchestra depicts the various episodes; now melodramatic, now rustic, now loving, sanguinary and demoniac. Such is still more the case with _La Damnation de Faust_. Berlioz’s work has certainly benefited by the attention drawn to Goethe’s poem by M. Gounod’s opera; the great mass of the public knew nothing of the original when _La Damnation_ was first heard by them in 1846. Nowadays music lovers everywhere are equally well informed on this point; they understood, from the time that the opera was given, the meaning of what was recited to them by Berlioz’s singers, clad in black dress suits and white neckties; they filled in the gaps in his libretto from what the