The story of this array of drums is rather interesting. Reicha, Berlioz's first teacher, had the original idea of playing drum taps in chords of three or four beats. In order to try out this effect, he composed a choral piece, _L'Harmonie des Spheres_, which was published in connection with his _Traite d'Harmonie_. But Reicha's genius did not suffice for this task. He was a good musician, but no more than that. His choral piece was insignificant and remained a dead letter. Berlioz took this lost effect and used it in his _Tuba Mirum_. However, it must be confessed that this effect does not come up to expectations. In a church or a concert hall we hear a confused and terrifying mingling of sounds, and from time to time we note a change in the depth of tone but we are unable to distinguish the pitch of the chords. I shall never forget the impression this _Tuba Mirum_ made on me when I first heard it at St. Eustache under Berlioz's own direction. It amounted to an absolute neglect of the author's directions. The beginning of the work is marked _moderato_, later, as the brass comes in, the movement is quickened and becomes _andante maestro_. Most of the time the _moderato_ was interpreted as an _allegro_, and the _andante maestro_ as a simple _moderato_. If the terrific fanfare did not become, as some one ventured to call it, a "Setting Out for the Hunt," it might well have been the accompaniment for a sovereign's entrance to his capital. In order to give this fanfare its grandiose character, the author did not take easy refuge in the wailings of a minor key, but he burst into the splendors of a major key. A certain grandeur of movement alone can preserve its gigantesque quality and impression of power. Granting all his good intentions, in trying to give us a suggestion of the last judgment by his accumulation of brass, drums, cymbals, and tam-tams, Berlioz makes us think of Thor among the giants trying to empty the drinking-horn which was filled from the sea, and only succeeding in lowering it a little. Yet even that was an accomplishment. Berlioz spoke scornfully of Mozart's _Tuba Mirum_ with its single trombone. "One trombone," he exclaimed, "when a hundred would be none too many!" Berlioz wanted to make us really hear the trumpets of the archangels. Mozart with the seven notes of his one trombone suggested the same idea and the suggestion is sufficient.