“You are mistaken, _caro_ Capraja,” said the duke. “There is a power in music more magical in its effects than that of the _roulade_.” “What is it?” queried Capraja. “The perfect accord of two voices, or of one voice and a violin, which is the instrument whose tone approaches the human voice most nearly.” Then follows a rhapsodic word duel between the old amateurs, each contending for his favorite form. And is it not, though purposely exaggerated, the same battle that is being fought to this very day between the formalists and sensationalists? Some of us adore absolute music and decry the sensualities of the music-drama. The war between the _roulade_ and the accord will never end. “Genovese’s voice seizes the very fibres,” cries Capraja. “And La Tinti’s attacks the blood,” rejoins the duke. Then follows a remarkable descriptive analysis of Rossini’s Moses in Egypt, by the wealthy and beautiful Duchess Cataneo, otherwise Massimilla Doni. It is cleverly done. The picture of the rising sun in the score in the key of C proves Balzac a poet as well as a musician. The prayer, so famous because of Thalberg’s piano transcription, is also described, and at the end this opera—better known to us as an oratorio—is pronounced superior to Don Giovanni!! Balzac, Balzac! There is a realistic account of a small riot in the opera house because Genovese, the tenor, sings out of tune. The Duke Cataneo rages monstrously, Capraja is furious. Both tone-voluptuaries are deprived of their accords and _roulades_. It turns out that the tenor is in love with the soprano, and once away from her presence proves his art by singing the air, Ombra adorata, by Crescentini. This he does at midnight on the Piazzetta, Venice. The Venetian scene setting is lovely. Genovese sings his sweetest. His listeners are rapt to paradise, but are tumbled earthwards when he asks in injured accents, “Am I a poor singer?” Listen to Balzac’s comments upon that phenomenon called a tenor singer: “One and all regretted that the instrument was not a celestial thing. Was that angelic music attributable solely to a feeling of wounded self-esteem? The singer felt nothing, he was no more thinking of the religious sentiments, the divine images which he created in their hearts, than the violin knows what Paganini makes it say. They had all fancied that they saw Venice raising her shroud and singing herself, yet it was simply a matter of a tenor’s _fiasco_.” Most operatic music is. The theory of the _roulade_ is further explained:—