"
The talent of young Francois once established, he left the inhospitable
house where he had been so misunderstood, and was taken into the family
of an old musician, "Father Bambini," as Delsarte loved to call him.
Here, finding it in the order of facts, I must repeat almost literally a
page from the little work quoted before.
Father Bambini was one of those old-fashioned masters, who treat their
art with love and veneration. He gave concerts at which he was at once
performer and audience, judge and client. Delsarte was sometimes
present. He saw the good man take up a Gluck score as one handles a
sacred book; he surprised him pressing it to his heart, or to his head,
as if to win a blessing from the great soul which poured itself forth in
these immortal compositions.
Here we most assuredly have the foundation of the unlimited admiration
which our great artist felt for the author of "Alcestis" and of
"Iphigenia." Everyone knows that it was Delsarte who drew Gluck from the
oblivion in which he had languished since the beginning of the century.
Delsarte alone could have revived him, his assured and majestic talent
being amply capable of correctly interpreting those colossal works.
Delsarte is the equivalent of Gluck, and, if we may say so, the
_incarnation of his thought_. When the artist sang a part in those lyric
tragedies of which Gretry says: "They are the very expression of truth,"
it seemed as if the illustrious chevalier lived again in him to win
better comprehension than ever before and to be avenged at last for all
the injustice and bad taste from which he had suffered.
Pages:
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246