All this money was left to the pastry-cook's
daughter.
"Genovese," he was saying, "will do wonders. Whether he really
understands the great end of music, or acts only on instinct, I know
not; but he is the first singer who ever satisfied me. I shall not die
without hearing a _cadenza_ executed as I have heard them in my
dreams, waking with a feeling as though the sounds were floating in
the air. The clear _cadenza_ is the highest achievement of art; it is
the arabesque, decorating the finest room in the house; a shade too
little and it is nothing, a touch too much and all is confusion. Its
task is to awake in the soul a thousand dormant ideas; it flies up and
sweeps through space, scattering seeds in the air to be taken in by
our ears and blossom in our heart. Believe me, in painting his
Saint-Cecilia, Raphael gave the preference to music over poetry. And he
was right; music appeals to the heart, whereas writing is addressed to
the intellect; it communicates ideas directly, like a perfume. The
singer's voice impinges not on the mind, not on the memory of
happiness, but on the first principle of thought; it stirs the
elements of sensation.
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