The reading of the score of Berlioz's _Requiem_ makes it appear singularly old-fashioned, but this is true of most of the romantic dramas, which, like the _Requiem_, show up better in actual performance. It is easy to rail at the vehemence of the Romanticists, but it is not so easy to equal the effect of _Hernani_, _Lucrece Borgia_ and the _Symphonie fantastique_ on the public. For with all their faults these works had a marvellous success. The truth is that their vehemence was sincere and not artificial. The Romanticists had faith in their works and there is nothing like faith to produce lasting results. Reicha and Leuseur were, as we know, Berlioz's instructors. Leuseur was the author of numerous works and wrote a good deal of church music. Some of his religious works were really beautiful, but he had strange obsessions. Berlioz greatly admired his master and could not help showing, especially in his earlier works, traces of this admiration. That is the reason for the syncopated and jerky passages without rhyme or reason and which can only be explained by his unconscious imitation of Leuseur's faults. In imitating a model the resemblances occur in the faults and not in the excellences, for the latter are inimitable. So the excellences of the _Requiem_ are not due to Leuseur but to Berlioz. He had already thrown off the trammels of school and shown all the richness of his vigorous originality to which the value of his scores is due. In his _Memoirs_ Berlioz related the tribulations of his _Requiem_. It was ordered by the government, laid aside for a time, and, finally, performed at the Invalides on the occasion of the capture of Constantine (in Algeria) and the funeral services of General Damremont. He was astonished at the lack of sympathy and even actual hostility that he encountered. It would have been more astonishing if he had experienced anything else. [Illustration: Hector Berlioz] We must remember that at this time Berton, who sang _Quand on est toujours vertuex, on aime a voir lever l'aurore_, passed for a great man. Beethoven's symphonies were a novelty, in Paris at least, and a scandal. Haydn's symphonies inspired a critic to write, "What a noise, what a noise!" Orchestras were merely collections of thirty or forty musicians. We can imagine, therefore, the stupefaction and horror when a young man, just out of school, demanded fifty violins, twenty violas, twenty violoncellos, eighteen contrabasses, four flutes, four oboes, four clarinets, eight bassoons, twelve horns, and a chorus of two hundred voices as a minimum. And that is not all. The _Tuba Mirum_ necessitates an addition of thirty-eight trumpets and trombones, divided into four orchestras and placed at the four cardinal points of the compass. Besides, there have to be eight pairs of drums, played by ten drummers, four tam-tams, and ten cymbals.