Note 34 — PREFACE.

The passage is worth quoting entire for more than one reason. “Nor can we imagine the art is on the decline while so great a genius as Beethoven lives. This author, though less perfect in other respects than Haydn, exceeds him in power of imagination; and from recent specimens of his unbounded fancy it is to be expected that he will extend the art in a way never contemplated even by Haydn or Mozart. If we were inclined to push our speculations further upon this point we might refer to the very extraordinary discoveries that are now making in Russia in the department of instrumental music. In the course of twenty years it is probable that such effects will be produced in that country as will lead to the most important results in the science of sounds.”—W. Gardiner, in the translation of Stendhal’s “Letters on Haydn,” 2nd edition (London, 1818), page 3.