The Grand Mass in D major gave me certainly exquisite, although not quite unalloyed pleasure, for occasionally I could not help feeling that the composition diverges from the genuine church style, and thereby loses that unity of color which I prize so highly in other works of the master. The 'Ninth Symphony,' which followed afterwards, was given almost faultlessly, the soprano part in the choruses not only better than in London, but better than I have ever heard anywhere.