"Study Mozart," he was always saying; "study the 'Nozze de Figaro!'"
He was quite right. That work should be every musician's text-book. Mozart bears the same relation to Palestrina and Bach as the New Testament bears to the Old, in Holy Writ.
When Berton died, as he did a couple of months after I joined his class, Cherubini handed me over to Le Sueur, the composer of "Les Bardes," "La Caverne," and of many masses and oratorios.
He was a man of grave and reserved character, but fervent and almost biblical in inspiration, and devoted to sacred subjects. He looked like an old patriarch, with his tall figure and waxen complexion.
Le Sueur received me with the greatest kindness, almost amounting to paternal tenderness; he was very affectionate and warm-hearted. I was only under him, I regret to say, for nine or ten months; but the period, short as it was, was of incalculable benefit to me. The wise and high-minded counsels he bestowed on me entitle him to an honoured place in my memory and my grateful affection.
Under Halévy's guidance I re-learned the whole theory and practice of counterpoint and fugue; but although I worked hard, and gained my master's approval, I never won a prize at the Conservatoire. My one and constant aim was that Grand Prix de Rome, which I had sworn to win at any cost.
I was nearly nineteen when I first competed for it. I got the second prize.
On the death of Le Sueur I continued to study under Paër, his successor as Professor of Composition.
I tried again the following year. My poor mother was torn between hope and fear. This time it must be either the Grand Prix or nothing! Alas! it was the latter; and I was just twenty, the age when my military service was due.
However, the fact of my having won the second prize the year before entitled me to twelve months' grace, and gave me the chance of making a third and last effort.