If the importance of an artist's personality is to be estimated by the influence he has exercised upon his contemporaries and upon posterity, then Cherubini towers immeasurably above all the musicians of his day. The French opera of the nineteenth century would not be worthy of mention without him, and he has given to the country of his adoption in every way far more than he ever received from it. His position with respect to Germany is an analogous one, and Italy alone has remained almost entirely unaffected by his music. If he received instruction from Haydn, Beethoven in his turn was a pupil of Cherubini. "Fidelio" could not have existed without the "Water Carrier," or the first movement of the B flat major Symphony without Cherubini's overtures. In many portions of Beethoven's masses, also, he followed the lead of Cherubini, whose C minor requiem he greatly admired.

The influence of our composer upon the exponents of the romantic opera in Germany was also very powerful. Spohr himself confessed that there were times when he ranked Cherubini above all others, Mozart not excepted. Weber found the form of his overture already prepared for him in "Anacréon"; the wonderful volume of sound in Cherubini's orchestral music, and the manner in which the color of the instruments is made to contribute to the dramatic effect, have been studied by no one in a more docile spirit than by Weber. With the lapse of time, indeed, it has almost gone so far that the Germans look upon the Italian as one of their own race. But the honor which is his due will never be fully paid to Cherubini till the whole musical world bows down in admiration before his artistic greatness.

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