To Humbert Ferrand.
“October 1830.—You will be glad to hear that I am to be heard at the Opera. All thanks to Camille! In her slender form, witching grace, and musical genius I found Ariel personified. I have planned a tremendous overture, which I have submitted to the director. Ariel! Ariel! Camille! I bless, I adore, I love thee more than poor language can express. Give me a hundred musicians, a hundred and fifty voices, then can I tell thee all!
“That poor Ophelia comes again and again to my mind. She has lost more than six thousand francs in the Opéra Comique venture. She is still here, and met me the other day quite calmly. I was utterly miserable the whole evening, and went and told Ariel, who laughed at me tenderly.”
In spite of all my eloquence, I could not get out of that tiresome journey to Rome. But I would not leave Paris without having Sardanapalus performed properly, and for the third time my artist friends most generously offered me their aid, and Habeneck consented to conduct.
The day before the concert Liszt came to see me. We had not, so far, met. We began talking of Faust, which he had not read, but which he afterwards got to love as I did. We were so thoroughly sympathetic to each other that, from that day, our friendship neither faltered nor waned. At my concert everyone noticed his enthusiasm and vociferous applause.
As my work is exceedingly complicated, it is not surprising that the execution was by no means perfect; yet some parts of the Symphony made a sensation. The Scène aux Champs fell quite flat, and, on the advice of Ferdinand Hiller, I afterwards entirely rewrote it.
Sardanapalus was well done, and the Conflagration came off magnificently. It raised a conflagration in Paris too, in the shape of a war of musicians and critics.
Naturally the younger men—particularly those with that sixth sense, artistic instinct—were on my side, but Cherubini and his gang were wild with rage.
He happened to pass the concert-room doors as people were going in, and a friend stopped him, asking: