Books › The violin and its music, 1885 › scan 331
Scan 331
The violin and its music, 1885
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 306. See the scan on archive.org.
1Habeneck (presumably taking advantage of what appeared to him a favourable moment) placed his baton on the desk and took out his snuff-box and calmly took a pinch. Berlioz, aware of breakers ahead, rushed to the helm and saved the wreck of his work by beating time with his arm. Habeneck, when the danger was passed, said 'what a cold perspiration I was in! Without you we should have assuredly been lost.' Yes, said the composer, I know it well," accompanying his words with a facial expression betokening suspicion of Habeneck's honesty of purpose. The Violinist little dreamed that his weakness for snuff-taking would be construed in the pages of Berlioz's Mémoires into having been indulged in from base motives.
3The mention of Berlioz serves to remind me of his claim to be noticed as the composer of a Réverie and Caprice for Violin and Orchestra, which composition partakes largely of that remarkable character belonging to all his works. An anecdote in connection with this Réverie is perhaps worth relating. Some forty years since, Berlioz was in Leipzig, when, at Mendelssohn's suggestion, a concert was given in his honour in the Gewandhaus. Among the works given was the Réverie and Caprice, which was entrusted to one of the greatest German Violinists. After the piece was ended, amid the most enthusiastic applause, the Violinist turned to Mendelssohn and whispered, "I
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