“Are you not coming to hear Berlioz’s new thing?”
“I need not zat I go hear how sings should not be done,” he replied.
He was much worse after the concert, and sent for me.
“You go soon,” he said.
“It vill be zat you are cross off ze register of Conservatoire, zat your studies are finish. But it seem to me zat you should make visit to me. One goes not out of Conservatoire like out of a stable.”
I very nearly said:
“Why not, since we are treated like horses?” but luckily had the good sense merely to say that I had not the slightest intention of leaving Paris without saying farewell to him.
So to Rome, nolens volens, I had to go, useless as it seemed.
The Roman Academy may be of service to painters and sculptors, but, as far as music is concerned, it is lost time, considering the state of music in Italy. Neither is the life led by the students exactly conducive to study and progress.