[[Listen]]
and Gluck repeatedly, in the beautiful air of Rinaldo, in 'Armida':—
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Graun, in his cantata, 'Der Tod Jesu' (The Death of Jesus), introduces into the first chorale consecutive fifths upon the words "Zur Frevelthat entschlossen" (On evil deed resolved), thus:—
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Zur Fre-vel-that ent-schlos-sen.
which, no doubt, was considered by some musicians as remarkably appropriate to the words, although, probably, they could not have heard it in the performance, had they not previously seen it in notation. Not such whims only, but even oversights and misprints occurring in the works of eminent masters have found admirers, who regarded them as strokes of genius; while, on the other hand, some of the most original and surpassingly beautiful ideas were thought to be misprints, and attempts have actually been made by theorists to correct them.
A curious instance of a misprint which by many admirers of Beethoven has been accepted as a beautiful inspiration occurs in the scherzo of his C minor Symphony. To dispel all doubt of its being a misprint, Mendelssohn caused the publishers of the Symphony to make known a letter addressed to them by Beethoven in the year 1810, in which he says: "The following mistake I still find in the C minor Symphony, namely, in the third piece, in 3/4 time, where, after C major, the minor key recommences. It stands thus (I take at once the bass part):—