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If the works of Gluck in general and Orphée in particular have had a happy influence on our musical taste, a passage from this last work has been a noxious influence, the famous chorus of the demons "Quel est l'audacieux qui dans ces sombres lieux ose porter ses pas?" In the old days French opera was based on declamation and it was scrupulously respected even in the arias.
And they sing: Quel est l'auDAcieux Qui dans ces SOMbres lieux Ose porTER ses pas Et devant LE trepas Ne frémit pas? As French is not strongly accented such faults are tolerated. Gluck's theme impressed itself on the memory, so that he dealt a terrific blow to the purity of prosody. We gradually became so disinterested in this that by Auber's time scarcely any attention was paid to it.
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