In that curious series of anecdotes which Berlioz collected under the title, “Les Grotesques de la Musique,” I discovered an account of a performance of a _Miserere_ of Mercadante at the church of San Pietro in Naples, in the presence of a cardinal and his suite. The cardinal several times expressed his pleasure, and the congregation at two points, the _Redde Mihi_ and the _Benigne fac, Domine_, broke in with applause and insisted upon repetitions! Berlioz also describes a rehearsal of Grétry’s _La Rosière de Salency_ at the Odéon, when that theatre was devoted to opera. The members of the orchestra were overcome with a sense of the ridiculous nature of the music they were performing and made strange sounds the while they played. The _chef d’orchestre_ attempted to keep his face straight, and Berlioz thought he was scandalized by the scene. A little later, however, he found himself laughing harder than anybody else. The memory of this occasion gave him the inspiration some time later of arranging a concert of works of this order (in which, he assured himself, the music of the masters abounded), without forewarning the public of his purpose. He prepared the programme, including therein this same overture of Grétry’s, then a celebrated English air _Arm, Ye Brave_, a “sonata _diabolique_” for the violin, the quartet from a French opera in which this passage occurred: “J’aime assez les Hollandaises, Les Persanes, les Anglaises, Mais je préfère des Françaises L’esprit, la grâce et la gaîté,” an instrumental march, the finale of the first act of an opera, a fugue on _Kyrie Eleison_ from a Requiem Mass in which the music suggested anything but the words, variations for the bassoon on the melody of _Au Clair de la Lune_, and a symphony. Unfortunately for the trial of the experiment the rehearsal was never concluded. The executants got no further than the third number before they became positively hysterical. The public performance was never given, but Berlioz assures us that the average symphony concert audience would have taken the programme seriously and asked for more! It may be considered certain that in his choice of pieces Berlioz was making game of some of his contemporaries....