At this point it is fitting that we examine the dazzling orchestration of MEYERBEER (1791-1861), for his career is, of course, inseparably allied with the evolution of French opera. As the most famous representative of French romantic and historic grand opera, Meyerbeer would appear, at first sight, to have embraced in his operas every conceivable meretricious device for the sensational and the spectacular. He was above all an eclectic, modelling his works largely after those of Spontini, being likewise strongly influenced by Weber, combining German harmony, Italian melody, and French rhythm. His was a marked departure from the school of Gluck--so much so, that he has been accused of "playing with dynamic effects" and writing "hollow" music that cannot withstand æsthetic analysis. In a large measure such censure is merited, but it is manifestly an error in judgment to declare as one writer does that his productions are comprised of but "dazzling effects, glaring contrasts, and clever instrumental devices." True, the contents of his operas are certainly an alternating mixture of the grandiose and the paltry, but as for orchestration, none have surpassed him in judicious distribution of sonorous masses, in forceful dramatic effects, richness of details, and successful application of the individual characteristics of each instrument. Again, the consistent recurrence of a specific tone-color as the annotator to a dramatic personage contains the germ of the _Leit-motiv_. And for ever varying resource of instrumentation few can excel him! And no composer before him was his peer as a dramatic painter.