was heard in London, in 1827; French versions were Mlle. Angelique Bertin’s “Faust” (Paris, 1831), and M. de Pellaert’s (Brussels, 1834); Italian versions were “Fausta,” by Donizetti (Mme. Pasta and Signor Donzelli sang in it in Naples in 1832), “Fausto,” by Gordigiano (Florence, 1837), and “Il Fausto arrivo,” by Raimondi (Naples, 1837); the Polish Faust, Twardowsky, is the hero of a Russian opera by Verstowsky (Moscow, 1831), and of a Polish opera by J. von Zaitz (Agram, 1880).  How often the subject has served for operettas, cantatas, overtures, symphonies, etc., need not be discussed here.  Berlioz’s “Dramatic Legend,” entitled “La Damnation de Faust,” tricked out with stage pictures by Raoul Gunsbourg, was performed as an opera at Monte Carlo in 1903, and in New York at the Metropolitan and Manhattan opera-houses in the seasons 1906-1907 and 1907-1908, respectively; but the experiment was unsuccessful, both artistically and financially.

I have said that there is no reason to question Gounod’s statement that it was he who conceived the idea of writing the opera whose popularity is without parallel in the musical history of the Faust legend; but, if I could do so without reflecting upon his character, I should like to believe a story which says that it was Barbier who proposed the subject to Gounod after Meyerbeer, to whom he first suggested it, had declined the collaboration.  I should like to believe this, because it is highly honorable to Meyerbeer’s artistic character, which has been much maligned by critics and historians of music since Wagner set an example in that direction. “‘Faust,’” Meyerbeer is reported to have replied to Barbier’s invitation, “is the ark of the covenant, a sanctuary not to be approached with profane music.”  For the composer who did not hesitate to make an opera out of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, this answer is more than creditable.  The Germans, who have either felt or affected great indignation at the want of reverence for their great poet shown by the authors of “Faust” and “Mignon,” ought to admire Meyerbeer in a special degree for the moral loftiness of his determination and the dignified beauty of its expression.  Composers like Kreutzer, Reissiger, Pierson, Lassen, and Prince Radziwill have written incidental music for Goethe’s tragedy without reflecting that possibly they were profaning the sanctuary; but Meyerbeer, compared with whom they were pygmies, withheld his hand, and thereby brought himself into sympathetic association with the only musician that ever lived who was completely equipped for so magnificent a task.  That musician was Beethoven, to whom Rochlitz bore a commission for music to “Faust” from Breitkopf and Hartel in 1822.  The Titan read the proposition and cried out:  “Ha! that would be a piece of work!  Something might come of that!” but declined the task because he had the choral symphony and other large plans on his mind.