Mendelssohn vs. Wagner

[Josquin des Prez]

Rob's Opus 1²

[Chaszz]

Cato the Elder was an ancient Roman patrician farmer of the old school, tough, flinty and thrifty. He decried the decline of morals in the Rome of his day. As censor, he removed numerous senators from office for bad conduct. He ended his every speech in the Senate with the warning, "Carthage must be destroyed!" Known to wring the last penny from every situation, he sold his old slaves when they could no longer work, instead of letting them hang around the household and drowse.in the sun as a reward for a lifetime's work, as other farmers did.  

When he attended a performance of Parsifal in 151 BC, his 83rd year, his personality underwent a great transfiguration. Throwing away his cane on leaving the theatre, declaring he had seen the light, he became a benefactor of humanity, freed all his slaves and set them up in business, founded a soup kitchen and a hostel for the poor, and became greatly beloved by all the lower classes. He endowed a Wagner theatre, and gave up Mendelssohn.

(You can look it up in Plutarch.)