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Article: Music.(Commonplace Book)
- Article from:
- American Scholar
- Article date:
- January 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Phi Beta Kappa Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Then came Wagner's "Introduction to the Opera Lohengrin." I heard its opening movement at the rehearsal of a fortnight ago, supposed it was Hector Berlioz's Carnival Overture, and inferred that hector berlioz [sic] was experimenting on a new mechanical method. I did Hector B. an injustice. This "Introduction" was as bad as anything he ever wrote and vastly less entertaining. Wagner writes like an intoxified pig, Berlioz like a tipsy chimpanzee.
--GEORGE TEMPLETON STRONG, Diary, December 15, 1866
I think I was fourteen when the awareness of vocation came to me. I do not remember how the subject arose; but somehow, in conversation with my mother, father ...