François Habeneck

On 1 June 1817, Habeneck became an assistant conductor (chef d'orchestre adjoint) of the Paris Opera, a post he held until 1 January 1819, when he was replaced by J.-J.

[2] During that time, he conducted the first performances of, among other operas, Robert le diable, La Juive, Les Huguenots and Benvenuto Cellini.

Subsequently, Wagner called, paid his due respects, and Meyerbeer promised a letter of introduction to both Henri Duponchel, the director of the Opéra, and Habeneck, its chief conductor.

[8] Nearly thirty years later, in his 1869 tract On Conducting, Wagner complains that the glaring weaknesses of German orchestras are a direct result of the poor quality of Kapellmeisters in their role as conductors.

Reflecting back on the late 1820s when Wagner lived in Leipzig, he recalls that every year the Gewandhaus orchestra performed Beethoven's 9th symphony as a matter of honour, despite it being a piece they couldn't manage.

As a teenager Wagner had, in 1831, had made a piano arrangement of the Ninth but the Gewandhaus performances threw him into such doubt and confusion about Beethoven's merit that he temporarily abandoned his own study of the composer.

[16] After the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festpielhaus had been laid in May 1872, the assembled throng retired to the Margrave Opera House where Wagner conducted a performance of the D minor symphony.

As I have pointed out elsewhere it is easier for French players than for German to penetrate the secret of performing these works: they were reared in the Italian school which regards melody, song, as the essence of all music.

If by this means truly committed musicians have found the right way of performing works of Beethoven hitherto considered incomprehensible...we can hope their methods become the norm.

[20]This central thought of Wagner's, derived from Habeneck's inspiring performance, influenced not only conductors in the nineteenth century but also Boulez (who concluded that what Wagner had to say about conducting, was correct and John Barbirolli who articulated that giving the true tempo and finding the work's melos was the key to the conductor in excelcis.