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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: is an art conceived in the very bowels of nature.
"Music is subject to physical and mathematical laws. Physical laws are
but little known, mathematics are well understood; and it is since
their relations have been studied, that the harmony has been created
to which we owe the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Rossini,
grand geniuses, whose music is undoubtedly nearer to perfection than
that of their precursors, though their genius, too, is unquestionable.
The old masters could sing, but they had not art and science at their
command,--a noble alliance which enables us to merge into one the
finest melody and the power of harmony.
"Now, if a knowledge of mathematical laws gave us these four great
 Gambara |