And so the large and powerful and contained being that, after all, was
Berlioz has come to appreciation. For behind the fiery, the volcanic
Berlioz, behind the Byronic and fantastical composer, there was always
another, greater man. The history of the art of Berlioz is the history
of the gradual incarnation of that calm and majestic being, the gradual
triumph of that grander personality over the other, up to the final
unclosing and real presence in "Romeo" and the "Mass for the Dead." The
wild romanticist, the lover of the strange and the lurid and the
grotesque who created the "Symphonic Fantastique," never, perhaps,
became entirely abeyant. And some of the salt and flavor of Berlioz's
greater, more characteristic works, the tiny musical particles, for
instance, that compose the "Queen Mab" scherzo in "Romeo," or the
bizarre combination of flutes and trombones in the "Requiem," macabre as
the Orcagna frescoes in Pisa, are due his fantastical imaginings. But,
gradually, the deeper Berlioz came to predominate. That deeper spirit
was a being that rose out of a vast and lovely cavern of the human soul,
and was clothed in stately and in shining robes. It was a spirit that
could not readily build itself out into the world, so large and simple
it was, and had to wait long before it could find a worthy portal.
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