The GRANDE MORCEAUX which follow are the embodiment of the various instructions contained in this volume: they will be found to contain all the articulations, all the difficulties, of which I have in turn already given the solution. They will also be found to contain melodiøs calculated to form the taste of the student, and to render it as complete and as perfect as possible.
At that point, my task of professor (employing as I now do the WRITTEN instead of the SPOKEN word) will end. There are things which appear clear enough when uttered VIVA VOCE, but which cannot be committed to paper without engendering confusion and obscurity, or without appearing puerile.
There are other things of so elevated and subtle a nature, that neither speech nor writing can clearly explain them. They are felt, they are conceived, but they are NOT to be explained, and yet these things constitute the elevated style, the GRANDE ECOLE which it is my ambition to institute for the cornet, even as they already exist for singing and the various kinds of instruments.
Such of my readers as may wish to arrive
at this exalted pitch of perfection, should, above all things, endeavor
to hear good music, well interpreted. They must seek out, amid singers
and instrumentalists, the most illustrious models; and this practice having
purified their taste, developed their sentiments, and brought them as near
as possible to the beautiful, may perhaps reveal to them the innate spark
which may some day be destined to illume their talent, and render them
worthy of being, in their turn, cited and imitated in the future.