That is the first pitfall; but there are many more that will beset us in
the attempt to understand Berlioz. To get at the man himself one must
break down a wall of prejudice and pedantry, of convention and
intellectual snobbery. In short, one must shake off nearly all current
ideas about his work if one wishes to extricate it from the dust that
has drifted about it for half a century.
Above all, one must not make the mistake of contrasting Berlioz with
Wagner, either by sacrificing Berlioz to that Germanic Odin, or by
forcibly trying to reconcile one to the other. For there are some who
condemn Berlioz in the name of Wagner's theories; and others who, not
liking the sacrifice, seek to make him a forerunner of Wagner, or kind
of elder brother, whose mission was to clear a way and prepare a road
for a genius greater than his own. Nothing is falser. To understand
Berlioz one must shake off the hypnotic influence of Bayreuth. Though
Wagner may have learnt something from Berlioz, the two composers have
nothing in common; their genius and their art are absolutely opposed;
each one has ploughed his furrow in a different field.
The Classical misunderstanding is quite as dangerous.
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