myself to regenerate the art of music, and to fill the honourable
situation of _maitre de chapelle_ to the king of Belgium, as well as
director of the Conservatory of Music at Bruxelles, it was proper to
examine if I could be more useful to the art I with passion cultivate,
in endeavouring to suppress innovations, and in perfecting it, than
in remaining in the capital of France, where my labours might not be
followed by a beneficial result. To convince myself upon this point I
took a general view of the state of Belgium, as regards music, from
the middle age to the present, in order to ascertain whether I should
find the necessary elements for the work they demanded; that is, a
favourable organization for the culture of music in the Belgians, with
suitable disposition to develope, by study, this organization, if it
existed.
When the sensibility and genius of a people for the culture of the arts
is the question, it is difficult to anticipate the future, if history
has not informed us of the past. I own that the facts which I collected
gave me a high idea of the future fate of the art in this country, if
circumstances seconded the efforts I proposed to make. I shall cast a
hasty _coup d’œil_ on these facts, that the readers of the _Revue
Musicale_ may understand on what foundation I build the hope I have
formed in coming here to try a regeneration, which equally flatters my
self-esteem and patriotism.
In the fifteenth century a Belgian, ~Jean Tinctoris~, (or the
_Dyer_) of Niville, was the most learned theoretical musician of his
period, and, at the same time, one of the ablest composers. He wrote
many works on musical subjects, which have descended to us, and show
that ~Gaforio~, and all other Italian theorists of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, drew their science from him, and were his
scholars and imitators. Becoming _maestro di cappella_ to the king
of Naples, Ferdinand d’Arragon, he was founder of the oldest Italian
school of music; and composed masses and motets, which still exist, in
manuscript, in the library of the Sistine Chapel.
In the following century, Adrien Willaert, born at Bruges, was
_maestro di cappella_ of Saint Mark, at Venice, and there established
a musical school, where Zarlino was educated, the most learned of
Italian theorists, and Cyprien Rore, another Belgian, one of the
finest musicians of his time, who became _maestro di cappella_ to the
duke of Ferrara. Willaert also ranked among the best composers of his
day; and Zarlino signalized himself as the inventor of Church Music
in many parts. Cyprien Rore, of whom I have just spoken, Pierre de la
Rue, Clement, surnamed _non Papa_, Jacquet, or Jacques, of Berchem, so
called because he was born in the village of Berchem, near Antwerp,
Jacques of Turnhout, and a multitude of Belgic composers, occupied
places in all the European capitals as chapel-masters to kings and
princes, during the sixteenth and part of the seventeenth centuries.
At this period all the singers of the Pontifical chapel were engaged
from Belgium, and the greater part of the musicians in the service of
the king of Spain left that country. The most celebrated composer of
the latter half of the sixteenth century, who alone was qualified to
struggle for glory with Palestrina, and who, like him, was called _the
Prince of Musicians_, was _Roland de Lassus_[86], born at Mons; his
renown was equally great in Italy, Germany, France, and England. His
countryman and contemporary, Phillipe M. Mons, was likewise considered
as one of the most distinguished composers of his time, and his works
show that his reputation was deserved. I should never conclude, were
I to name all the Belgian musicians worthy of being reckoned amongst
the most able artists. You will observe that I do not mention many
other composers and theorists, who,--born in that part of Flanders,
reunited to France during the reigns of Louis XIII. and XIV., or in the
northern provinces under the dominion of Prussia,--belong nevertheless
to Belgium.
After the prosperous musical period of which I have just spoken,
Belgium passed successively under the dominion of various rulers, was
the theatre of all the plagues of war, and finished by losing its
nationality, and saw vanish the glory of her musicians. Notwithstanding
which, the genius of its inhabitants triumphed from time to time over
the circumstances in which they were placed.
In modern days, do we not see Gossec (born in a village near Walcourt)
convey the germ of a good school of harmony to France, after having
studied in the cathedral of Antwerp, and obtained a justly celebrated
name for the composition of symphony, before Haydn’s works were known
to the musical world? This same artist became one of the founders of
the _Conservatoire de Musique_ in France, and member of the Institute,
and powerfully contributed to the success of the French, from the part
he took in compiling various elementary works, and by the scholars he
produced. At the head of these Catel distinguished himself.
The most celebrated composer who shone in France in the eighteenth
century was a Belgian: you at once know that I mean Grétry, born at
Liege. The creation of a species which belongs to him, and more than
fifty operas, of which the greatest number are filled with excellent
things, either as respect melody or dramatic expression, speak more
than my praises can to his honour. At the present period, the musical
talent of the Belgians manifests itself in a way which leaves no doubt
of success for the future, when, by a proper mode of instruction, their
natural genius is well cultivated.
The _Conservatoire de Musique_ at Paris has furnished some young
Belgian composers to the Institute who are distinguished by their
works, or who have been favoured by government with a pension. Such
are MM. Mengal, Ermel, and Angelet. The Belgian violinists, among
whom we notice Bériot, Roberechts, Haumann, Ghys Massart, the young
Vieutemps, and many others, shine the first in rank of any in Europe.
Antwerp awards the palm to M. Chevillarch, one of the first violinists
of the present age. Young Servais promises fair to be another virtuoso
on that instrument. The Belgians have the honour to have given birth
to Drouet, the most astonishing of flutists. In fact, every species
of talent is daily produced by this ancient country of art. There is,
then, a guarantee for the musical regeneration about to be operated by
the government of Belgium. This is what I perceived, and sufficed to
convince me that my labours would not be bestowed on an ungrateful soil.
Belgium has re-conquered her nationality. Its government has secured
a return to civilization, and the restoration of arts, which have
long languished under foreign dominion. From this moment it gives the
country those means of instruction which were wanting. Shortly it will
secure, by adequate institutions, a succession of artists distinguished
by talent. Thus the Belgians will recover that high rank they once held
in art.
Such is my belief, and this has determined me to devote the rest of my
days to my native country.
~Fetis.~
MUSICAL METRONOMES.
_To the_ ~Editors~ _of the_ ~Harmonicon~.
~Gentlemen~, _Olive Mount Street, Liverpool_.
I notice in your valuable work, the _Harmonicon_, for May last,
a Report made to the [French] Academy of the Fine Arts, 20th of
October, 1832, by its Musical Committee, on the Third Metronome of
Maelzel.--With this report I am much pleased, and feel glad that so
small, yet very _useful a thing_ has received such attention from men
of scientific knowledge, in their endeavours to improve the system of
musical education. Their notice of the subject redounds greatly to
their credit.
My object in this communication is to furnish you with a paragraph from
the _Liverpool Mercury_, of Friday the 19th inst., upon what I consider
a very important matter, viz. Improved Musical Time Beaters.--It is
as follows:--‘Many of our musical readers are, no doubt, acquainted
with Maelzel’s Metronome, for ascertaining the time in which musical
pieces should be played. It is a very simple instrument, but is not
intended to accompany the player, as it is completely dumb. We would
not say anything in disparagement of any useful invention, but we
may be permitted, we trust, to observe, that every object attained
by Maelzel’s Metronome would be fully accomplished on a graduated
pendulum with a sliding ball, which might be sold for half-a-crown at
the utmost. Mr. Abbot, of Manchester, has very greatly improved upon
Maelzel’s instrument, by rendering it what it ought to be, not only
a time indicator, but a time beater. At the commencement of each bar
it gives a very audible beat. It will be found advertised under the
head “Musical Indicator,” in another part of our paper. In consequence
of some conversation we had with the inventor on the subject, we
trust that Mr. Abbot will construct some Indicators which shall not
only mark the beginning of the bar, but any sub-division of it. The
Musical Time-beater, invented many years ago by Mr. Egerton Smith,
of Liverpool, and simplified by Mr. Condliffe, of the same place,
possesses this advantage over every similar instrument previously or
subsequently introduced. It marks the beginning of the bar by a pretty
loud blow, and indicates also the component parts of the bar by minor
but audible beats, whether there be 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, or 12 in the bar.
The machine, however, is perhaps too complicated for common use, and we
should greatly prefer Mr. Abbot’s, if it gave the subdivisions of the
bar.’
I have seen Mr. Abbot’s Time Indicator; it is a simple, good
instrument, but not what it professes to be, in my humble opinion: it
beats every crotchet, or rather it is like a clock that beats, or ticks
loud and quick.
Mr. Smith’s invention, simplified by Mr. Condliffe, is greatly superior
to it in every respect. It gives a good beat at the beginning of every
bar, and generally divides the bar into its smaller proportions very
accurately. It is not so complicated as the above; is an excellent
contrivance, and the best that has ever yet appeared.
I am, Sir, your constant reader,
And humble Servant,
~L. T. Crossley.~
_July 22d, 1833._
BELLINI’S LAST OPERA.
A friendly correspondent, whose letter exhibits more gentlemanlike
politeness than musical judgment, has mildly reproached us for the
contempt we have expressed for the Italian opera, _I Capuleti e
Montecchi_. Of this work we hoped never to hear further mention, but
the grave remonstrance of our correspondent, who desires that his
communication may not be published, induces us to insert a critique,
a very just and able one, from the German _Iris_, of the 21st of June
last, by which our friend will perceive that foreign critics _do_
entertain the same opinion of this last production of Signor Bellini,
as that universally felt in London.
---- As to the opera itself,--says the German writer, M. Rellstab,--it
is like many other modern works, which we might find ample fault with,
if we found but a footing in any part which was good or beautiful,
so as to be able to separate the bad and to submit the latter to
criticism; but when a thing is awry on all sides,--if no part of it
display rationality of ideas, much less beauty, where is a poor critic
to begin? Begin? whether we start from above, from below, at angles
or across, whether we skim like a swallow over the work, weaknesses
will present themselves at every step. But suppose he has begun, where
is he to leave off? but no matter, let us venture upon the task. Why
is _everything_ to be censured? Why is criticism to demand absolute
perfection, since the art itself cannot arrive at it; and since the
greatest work of art must fall short of the desired perfection, at
least as far as regards an author who culls his labour to a strict
account? Goethe himself confesses unceremoniously, that a work of
art can never be finished: why should we, _Dii minorum gentium_, not
subscribe to that opinion? Why should criticism take into its head to
attain a greater perfection? No such thing! The reader therefore shall
be served with more critical aphorisms;--a critical thunderstorm, with
some flashes of lightning. But _ad rem_! The overture, a _charivari_
more destitute of ideas, a more unmeaning ding-dong of instruments, a
more mawkish whine of melody, has never reached my ears or eyes. Verily
the overture is invaluable! it is as if it were prefixed to the work as
a sort of board, with the warning ‘Here nothing is to be gained, a mere
triumph of insipidity is celebrating within.’ It is, indeed, a bold
thing to speak thus of a renowned man, who has the public so much on
his side. Honest Germans! Honest Viennese in particular!--for you more
especially constitute the public of Bellini--I have but a poor opinion
of you who can live tens of years without hearing Gluck, who can find
Mozart antiquated, and Beethoven’s _Fidelio_ and Weber’s _Euryanthe_
dull and tedious. From that which you reject and spurn, we may judge
to a nicety of the value of that which you choose. But let us proceed:
choruses, arias, recitativos, everything runs helter skelter, without
rhyme or reason, into each other, and at cross purposes. _Tebaldo_
sings like _Romeo_; _Romeo_ like _Lorenzo_; _Lorenzo_ like _Julia_;
the enemy like the friend; the happy like the miserable; the lover
like the deadly foe. How divine! how perfectly freed is the critic
from the odious task of entering into the sense and meaning of a work
of art! How heavenly a state of existence when the mind is absolved
from all exertion, when we may stretch our limbs comfortably, gape
away, and enjoy the _dolce far niente_! I myself had nearly fallen
into this pleasing state; I felt as if I had exclaimed, ‘Pursue your
musical sounds; blow on, whistle, fiddle, and drum away; drag the
melody through endless suspensions like a chain of sighs, then let it
rattle off like a Dutch alarm clock, which enhances the enjoyment of
sleep, because it just renders us conscious of being asleep. But how is
all this? How comes it that every thing penetrates but skin deep? How?
because the question was to write something which should not remind the
hearer that he possessed a heart or brains; or, in short, that he was
an intellectual being. But surely this problem might have been solved
by the composer in a less offensive manner. Fifths and octaves will
split the tympanum of a New Zealander, of a buffalo; will rupture the
asses’ skin of a drum itself. Oh, Signor Bellini, you really are going
beyond a joke with our poor ears! Faults and crudities are permitted,
we allow, but such lumps and clumps of faults which would make an
elephant stumble, such blocks, ought surely not to have been strewed
across my critical path. The public, it is true, regards them as genial
mountains, as aërolites dropped from the moon, or a something else
unheard of before. Ah, if they remained but unheard! if they were but
inaudible! but there are many abodes upon earth, and I will add, there
are many sorts of ears.
Dearest friend,--I hear my readers exclaim,--we perfectly perceive
that you will never cease censuring; but do pray begin to bestow
your praise too. Courteous readers of the _Iris_, the latter is more
difficult than to leave off finding fault. You fancy perhaps I need
only say the composer writes advantageously for the voice; really
that would be one of the most barefaced fibs that I could be guilty
of, according to my notion of what constitutes genuine song. True it
is, that he writes for vocal caricature, for the very destruction of
the vocal art, in which everything noble and beautiful stands a fair
chance to be thus ruined. Although there may be found, here and there,
singers who know how to transfer what is great and valuable in their
art, even to such specimens of its degeneracy and abuse. And this
indeed is the sole reason why the operas of such composers maintain
their ground in Italy; they afford opportunities to a singer destitute
of true feeling of showing his vocal volubility and execution, and of
creating astonishment by such means; while to the great singer they
present a field for compensating by his art, that which the brainless
author was incapable of producing. But in the eye and ear of the true
connoisseur, such productions must ever remain monsters. Bellini, and
still worse Rossini, laugh at the idea of expressing words or feelings
by means of music; inasmuch as the most insipid, commonplace ideas are
often resorted to, to depict situations of the most intense interest.
But let it not be thought, after all, that the composers or the public
intend to forego this requisite expression. Far from it. The singer is
expected to supply this desideratum, and thus coarse minds get hammered
into them that which is insupportable to a cultivated taste; in the
same manner as children or savages look upon a glaringly rouged and
tinselled doll as a decided beauty, while to a cultivated eye the sight
is revolting. In this doll, we no doubt trace the embryo of an attempt
at the beautiful, as much as in Bellini’s finales, which, like the
_papier maché_ busts in barbers’ shops, with their full blown cheeks
and inch deep rouge, are meant to represent loveliness.
_Jam satis!_ But is there really nothing whatever to be praised? For
the true judge in the art, _nothing_? Here and there we distinguish an
evanescent bubble, as it were, of some little melodic beginning, which
just proves that, as in the most obdurate being, the spark of what is
good is not totally extinct,--so in the most perverted taste, and in a
state of its greatest degeneracy, there will still lurk some remains of
the feeling for the beautiful inherent in our nature. Of this kind are
the Romance, however supported by the most clumsy harmony--the funeral
dirge of the young maidens, &c. &c. But enough: were I to begin to
enumerate the mere germs of what is good, I should have to do the same
with the full-leaved, full-blossomed weeds, in which case, my critique
would probably occupy the whole of the future numbers of the _Iris_ for
the remainder of the year.
REVIEW OF NEW MUSIC.
1. ~Anthem~, ‘Turn Thee again, O Lord!’ _the_ ~Gresham Prize
Composition~ (No. 2), _composed by_ ~Kellow J. Pye~, _of Exeter,
Member of the Royal Academy of Music_. (J. A. Novello.)
2. ~Cantata~, The Orphan’s Ode to the Patriots, _arranged, with
accompaniments for the Piano-forte and Harp, by the_ ~Lady
Dunstaffnage~. _The Music by_ ~Hummel~.
3. ~The Monthly Sacred Minstrel~, _edited by_ ~John Goss~. Nos. 6
and 7. (Cramer, Addison, and Beale.)
4. ~A Collection of Tunes~, &c., _adapted to the_ Hymns _in use by
the Wesleyan Methodist Societies, arranged in Classes, and designed
for Choirs and Congregations, by_ ~Thomas Hawkes~, _of Williton,
Somerset, Land Agent_. (Mason, _Paternoster Row_.)
Mr. Pye’s work is, in choir language, a full anthem with verse, for
soprano, alto, two tenors, and a base, in three movements: the first,
full, in ~D~ minor; the second verse, five voices, in ~F~; and the
third, a fugue in ~D~ major, full, for four voices. The whole, both
design and execution, is in the orthodox style of the latter end of the
seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Weldon and Croft
have been the composer’s models, but only so far as regards manner;
he has borrowed nothing, for though we cannot ascribe any positive
originality to this anthem--not any absolutely new thought,--yet the
author has made himself debtor to no one for a single passage that we
can recognise. The first movement is decidedly the best, it evinces
much musical learning without any of its pedantry: the fugue style is
adopted for effect, not for display; the harmony is rich without being
loaded, and the modulations are of that grave and becoming kind which
characterises the works of the composers whom we have just named; but
throughout the whole we feel a want of their melody. There is, however,
more of this essential ingredient in the verse, though it is not
over-abundant even here. The last movement is a fugue of two subjects,
sufficiently worked to satisfy those who delight in composition that
smells of the lamp, and not so laboured as to offend such as think
music an art to be addressed to the ear, rather than the eye.
Mr. Pye, a very young artist, has done himself much honour by this
composition. Will our choirs second his efforts, and encourage others
to proceed in the same course, by immediately adopting his anthem? They
ought, if they have any respect for talent, or if they consult the
interests of cathedral establishments.
* * * * *
Neither the title-page nor an advertisement, added to a large list
of subscribers, enable us to penetrate deep into the history of the
Cantata No. 2, which we at first took for a sacred composition, but
afterwards found to be an abominable _mésalliance_ of religion and
politics, beginning with a part of the fortieth chapter of the prophet
Isaiah, and ending with such profitless lines as the following:--
‘A Cumberland, Eldon, pillars of the nation,
Newcastle, and a Mansfield, who nobly filled their station,
As stars at midnight shone those orbs,’ &c. &c.
But the music, by Hummel, and in his best manner, is worthy of so much
of the poetry as is borrowed from the inspired writer, and far too good
for the uninspired verses that follow. The promoters of this work,
however, it seems, intend to make some provision for two orphans out
of the proceeds, and we hope that success will attend their benevolent
endeavours; wishing at the same time that they had been as fortunate in
their choice of words as in their music and number of subscribers.
* * * * *
No. 3 is a continuation of a work noticed before. In this appears the
Lord’s prayer, set to music by Mr. T. Cooke, who--we are sure very
unintentionally, but very unluckily--has, by his manner of setting,
turned it almost into burlesque, _e. g._
[Illustration: Thy king-dom come.]
Then we have a rest after ‘earth,’ but none after ‘heaven,’ so that
the reading is thus,--‘As it is in heaven give us this day our daily
bread;’ and ‘daily’ is made emphatic, (with a certain jerk,) instead of
the word ‘bread;’ thus--
[Illustration: dai-ly bread, our &c.]
After this comes ‘trespasses,’ with a strong accent on the third
syllable. The last fifteen words are so often repeated as to fill
two closely engraved pages, and the phrase, ‘for ever and ever,’ is
reiterated no less than ten times, the movement being marked _allegro
moderato_! Let us hope that but few, if any, will be found to misemploy
this fine, comprehensive, universal prayer, by singing it as thus set.
Indeed, we never wish to hear it _sung_ at all. The other pieces in
these numbers are, a very pleasing duet from Marcello’s Psalms; the
first stanza of Sir Walter Scott’s translation of _Dies Iræ_, well
set, particularly the first movement, by Mr. M’Murdie; and Millico’s
beautiful arietta, ‘Ho sparso tante lagrime,’ with English words
adapted to it.
* * * * *
No. 4 includes the greatest number of hymns we ever met with in one
collection. The volume, which takes a shape we can only describe by
its dimensions, is twelve inches wide by rather more than six deep,
consisting of nearly four hundred pages, which contain at least five
hundred tunes. These are selected from various works, and are all in
score, in four parts, for soprano, alto, tenor, and base; and as no
accompaniment is given, the want of a figured base will be felt by
the organist. For the middle parts a new character is used--something
in the form of a treble clef, and giving the same names to the staff;
the intention of which is, to save the trouble of directing the alto
and tenor to sing the notes an octave lower. The inventor of this is
a Mr. Gay, who disapproves the employment of the base clef for the
tenor voice, preferring the treble, or his own character. He assigns
no reason for this, and most probably has none to offer, unless he can
defend prejudice. But he is bound to show cause why such harmony as the
subjoined is to be allowed:--
[Illustration]
Such consecutive fifths, though false fifths, are much worse to the ear
than some successions of perfect ones. The crotchet ~A~ ought to have
fallen to ~G~. But the same gentleman--who it appears has ‘revised and
corrected’ this work--is answerable for a very extraordinary error, in
calling certain keys by their wrong names. For instance, he denominates
the key of ~B~ flat, ‘~B~ major;’ ~E~ flat, ‘~E~ major;’ and, _mirabile
dictu!_ gives the right name to the _real_ key of ~E~ major; thus
making the keys of ~E~ three flats and ~E~ four sharps, &c., the same
in denomination.
Of these numerous tunes, only the notes are inserted, we therefore
cannot tell how the words are adapted to them, or how accented; but,
with an exception or two, the harmony of such few as we have examined
is correct, and the parts sing well. The compiler, Mr. Hawkes, has
inserted some few of his own compositions, which show great taste, and
afford another proof of the progress making in musical knowledge by
amateurs. The work is printed in a remarkably neat, small, but clear
type, and we doubt not will prove of considerable utility to the large
class of persons for whose use it is published.
* * * * *
~The Passions~, _being_ ~Six Songs~, _each with a descriptive
Proem, and Graphic Illustrations: the Poetry by_ ~Jos. Lunn~;
_the Music by_ ~G. F. Stansbury~, ~T. Cooke~, ~J. Parry~, ~F. W.
Horncastle~, ~J. C. Clifton~, _and_ ~E. Taylor~. _The Illustrations
by_ ~R. J. Hamerton~. (Goulding and D’Almaine.)
The Passions are hazardous matters for poets, painters, and musicians
to meddle with in the way of art. Collins succeeded in them well; Le
Brun tolerably. Dr. Cooke set Collins’ Ode, but reaped no laurels from
his labours; and we are not aware that any other attempt to describe,
in musical language, these powerful emotions of the mind was ever
made till now; for those choruses called ‘The Passions,’ in Handel’s
_Solomon_, are improperly designated.
But what are the passions? Metaphysicians are by no means agreed on
this point. Nay, a distinguished writer goes so far as to allow but
one, self-love! and asserts that all the others are but modifications
of this. Mr. Lunn well observes, that ‘there are many affections,
attributes, &c., usually denominated passions, which have no claim
to that definite appellation.’ And he afterwards adds, ‘I am induced
to consider the six which I have chosen for my task,--namely, Love,
Joy, and Hope, and their opposites, Hate, Grief, and Despair, as the
roots, or bases; or, if the expression be admissible, the Cardinal
Passions, of which all the rest are ramifications, modifications, or
combinations.’ (_Introduction._)
It appears from the Preface to this volume, that two composers were
severally invited by Mr. Lunn to set his poetry to music, but that
one, after requiring many months to consider the subject, declined;
and the other was bound by engagements which prevented his undertaking
the task. The probability is, that the latter, Mr. Bishop, well knew
the difficulty of such an enterprise, and was not very willing to risk
his reputation in it. The other was blessed with more intrepidity, and
embarked in a work of a similar kind[87], though he had, in a modest
excuse, declared his incompetency to set the poetry of his friend.
Mr. Lunn, being thus deserted and disappointed, at length presented his
manuscript to the Melodists’ Club, six of whose members undertaking to
set the words, the volume under notice was produced.
The first, ~Love~, is an elegant composition in ~A~ flat, but much too
grave for the words, which, we should imagine, the author meant to be
set in a light, playful manner.
The second portrays ~Hate~ in the proem or exordium, but in the
song launches out into certain moral reflections on valour, and
the generosity springing from this, describing the passion by its
contraries; which we cannot but consider as injudicious, because at
variance with what was, or what ought to have been, the general design
of the poet, who, when he ceased to depict, should at least have
illustrated by resemblances, not opposites. Hence the composer, who has
well expressed the deadly passion, has been driven into a trumpety,
military style in his air, which, we must add, is quite of the common
theatrical kind.
Joy is the third, and, with the exception of a _pastoral_ movement,
which certainly is anything but suited to so active, so almost riotous
a passion, the composer has well designed his work, but wanted vigour
in the execution.
No. 4, ~Grief~, is evidently the work of a thinking composer, and of a
very good musician. There are some excellent points in this; but the
want of unity in the poem has necessarily influenced the composer. We
conceive that each passion should have stood alone, unweakened by any
adjunct. Here we have the pleasure of memory added to the pangs of
grief; thus both poetry and music are enfeebled.
The fifth, ~Hope~, is not lyrical poetry--the composer therefore must
not be blamed for having made little of it. He does not seem to have
spared effort, but his labour has been bestowed on an unfruitful soil.
Mr. Lunn’s ~Despair~ is nearly of the same cast as Virgil’s--
----Moriamur, et in media arma ruamus.
We much prefer Spenser’s, who is found in
‘----darksome cave----
----low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullen mind;
His greasy locks, long growen, and unbound,
Disorder’d hung, about his shoulders round,
And hid his face; through which his hollow eyne
Look’d deadly dull, and stared as astound.’
The ‘proem’ to this, the actual description of the passion, is graphic;
and, if we may use the expression, is graphically set. A modulation
here is worth quoting:--
[Illustration:
On his bo-som swarth and lank,
Griz-zly tress-es harsh and dank.
LARGHETTO.]
But the rest of the song, though ably composed, is neither more nor
less than a moral to the tale, therefore objectionable in our eyes,
because abandoning that which ought to have been the sole object,--the
passion itself.
The lithographed illustrations have all considerable merit, that of
_Joy_ excepted: the work is very well brought out, and proves the
liberal views of the society.
* * * * *
PIANO FORTE.
1. ~Grand March~, composed by J. N. Hummel. (Cramer and Co.)
2. ~Second Fantaisie Elegante~, _sur des Motifs favoris de l’Opéra_
Fra Diavolo d’~Auber~, _par_ ~C. Czerny~. (Chappell.)
The first of these is one of those happy effusions of genius that
rarely occur, combining originality, most agreeable effect, and that
simplicity of construction as well as of notation, which places it
within reach of every tolerable player. It is in ~B~ minor, and
consists of but five pages.
* * * * *
No. 2 exhibits M. Czerny in a rational shape; he has here not only
selected some of the best airs from the popular opera of Auber, but
arranged them with taste, and in a manner that will exclude no ordinary
performer from benefiting by his fantasia.
* * * * *
1. Terpsichore in Vienna, a ~Divertimento~ _for the Piano-Forte and
Flute, composed by_ ~I. Moscheles~. (Chappell.)
2. ~Gems a la Pixis~, _the German Songs, sung by_ Mad. ~Pixis~,
_composed and arranged by_ ~J. P. Pixis~. Op. 124. (Dean.)
No. 1 is, we conclude, made up of German dance tunes, well blended,
and arranged in an easy familiar manner for both instruments, the
flute part being almost necessary as an accompaniment, if not what
is understood by the term _obbligato_. This is a gay, exhilarating
bagatelle; but some few passages, particularly for the left hand, show
that it is not intended for mere tyros; and it may, without any loss of
caste to the parties, be introduced by performers of the first class.
* * * * *
No. 2 are the very pretty airs sung so often in public last season by
Madlle. Pixis, and now very soberly arranged by the composer, making
three remarkably pleasing divertimentos, not difficult, short, and sure
to be admired by nearly every description of auditors. But the title is
curious, considered as coming from the author himself. Few persons have
the hardihood to speak of their own productions as ‘Gems;’ and that
they are _in the manner of_, or _à la_, Pixis, cannot be denied, seeing
that he composed them.
* * * * *
1. ~A First Pasticcio~, _consisting of an Introduction and Airs,
arranged by_ ~T. A. Rawlings~. (Monro and May.)
2. A Second, do. do. do.
3. ~Introduction and Rondo~, on ~Bishop’s~ _Cavatina_, ‘Fear, ne’er
assail me,’ _arranged by_ ~R. Andrews~. (Goulding and D’Almaine).
No. 1 is composed of Shield’s beautiful air, ‘The Streamlet,’ the march
in _Mosé_, ‘Il ne sont plus,’ and the Cobourg Waltz; No. 2, of three
Swiss airs. These are formed into very easy divertimentos, extremely
well adapted for young players; to be occasionally mixed, however, with
music of a better description than the Swiss and Cobourg productions.
* * * * *
We are not acquainted with the air of No. 3 in its original state, but
it makes a good rondo, and Mr. Andrews’ share in this entitles him to
some praise.
* * * * *
1. ~Grand Triumphal March~, _by_ ~J. D. Rohlffs~. Op. 1, No. 1.
(Cramer and Co.)
2. Polonaise, do. do. do. Op. 1, No. 2.
3. ~Trois Bagatelles~, _composées par_ ~Henry Lemoine~. Nos. 1, 2,
and 3. (Wessel and Co.)
No. 1 is clever, without showing much invention. His enharmonic
modulation is bold and effective.
* * * * *
No. 2 has cost a good deal of labour without making at all a
proportionate return.
* * * * *
The subjects of No. 3 are, the Gallope in _Faust_, a chansonnette of
Plantada, and an air in the ‘Sybarites of Florence,’ short and easy,
but not possessing much of an interesting kind.
* * * * *
DUETS, PIANO-FORTE.
1. ~Overture~ _to_ ~Rossini’s~ Semiramide, _arranged, with_ Flute,
Violin, and Violoncello _accompaniments_ (ad lib.), _by_ ~W.
Watts~. (Chappell.)
2. Les Jonquilles, ~Deux Rondeaux Mignons~, _composées par_ ~C.
Czerny~. (Wessel and Co.)
3. ~Chorus of Peasants~, _with Introductory Movement, from_
~Weber’s~ Euryanthe, _arranged by_ ~George Perry~. (Blackman.)
The overture to _Semiramide_, Rossini’s fine serious opera, is a
most effective work in almost any shape, but as a duet, and with the
accompaniments now added to the piano-forte part, it leaves nothing
to wish, when performed in private rooms, where loud wind instruments
are never heard to advantage, and a drum is unendurable. Mr. Watts’s
arrangement is full, but not crowded, and he has given more than
usual importance to his instrumental parts, which, however, are not
difficult, but form highly valuable additions to the composition.
* * * * *
No. 2 are, ‘Papataci,’ the everlastingly-hacked, worn-out trio from
_L’Italiana in Algeri_, and ‘Ah! se a me riede,’ from _Elisa e
Claudio_, both extremely well converted into duets, the second part
quite easy, the upper not so much so, but far from difficult, and both
moderate in length and agreeable in effect.
* * * * *
No. 3 is a clear arrangement of a chorus very popular in Germany now,
and which will be so here two or three years hence.
* * * * *
VOCAL.
1. ~Madrigal~, ‘Violets again are here,’ _for Five Voices, the
words by_ Mrs. ~E. L. Emmerson~; _the Music composed by_ ~Lord
Burghersh~. (Power.)
2. ~Madrigal~, ‘Troppo t’affidi,’ _as performed at the Gresham
Commemoration, 1833, the words by_ ~Strozzi~ (_sixteenth century_);
_composed by_ ~Lord Burghersh~. (J. A. Novello.)
3. ~Pastoral Glee~, ‘Sweet flowing river,’ _with accompaniments for
Flute, Clarionet, and Bassoon, or Piano Forte, composed by_ ~C.
Guynemer~. (J. A. Novello.)
From the time of the Prince of Venosa, who died in 1614, to the present
year, not a single instance of a noble composer of madrigals was to
be found, till Lord Burghersh produced No. 1 of the above, which was
first heard at Mr. Sale’s concert in May last. The decidedly favourable
manner in which madrigals were received last season, both at the
Ancient and Vocal Concerts, most likely induced the noble Lord to turn
his attention to this kind of music, and we are glad that it has found
so able and influential a patron. No. 1, in ~B~ flat, carries with it
internal evidence of having been wholly designed before any part of it
was committed to paper; the unity, so well sustained from beginning
to end, is an incontestable proof of this. Herein consists one of its
greatest merits, while the melody which flows through it is not less to
be admired. This is written in the true _stile madrigalesco_, a style
distinguished by its free imitations and double counterpoint, and the
effect of the whole is remarkably good; though to bring it fairly out
the singers must be on the alert, and give their earnest attention to
the unexpected transitions that occur. While we state how much this has
pleased us, we must confess that there are one or two points in which
we differ from the composer. Had, for instance, the diminished 7th
(page 10, bar 7) been resolved, we should have been better satisfied;
and wish that the piano-forte accompaniment (which should only be used
when singers require support) had continued with the voices throughout,
instead of being raised an octave above them in the latter part of the
composition.
* * * * *
No. 2 will please the most uncultivated hearers by the beauty of its
melody, and connoisseurs will discover that it possesses also other
claims to notice, founded on what is not so obvious to the uninitiated
in such compositions. The same consistency is observable in this
as in the preceding; the subjects all stand in a certain traceable
relationship to each other, and lead us to suppose that the whole was
struck off at a heat. This is an original work, and not less pleasing
than new. The ease and sweetness of the air will, of course, be most
generally noticed, but those who are alive to the charms of harmony may
find enough here to engage their attention very agreeably. In a word,
there are no commonplaces either in this or the former; both bear the
uncounterfeited stamp of true genius,--by which we mean, the union of
invention and taste.
* * * * *
No. 3 is a pastoral _quartet_, andantino, in six-eight time, the words
are set with judgment, the melody is flowing and happily imagined, the
inner parts are well written, and the whole produces that agreeable,
tranquillizing effect which, we conclude, was the main object of the
composer.
* * * * *
1. ~Recit.~ _and_ ~Air~, ‘Ah! che i giorni,’ _from_ ~Spohr’s~
_Opera_, Der Alchymist, _translated from the German by_ ~Edward
Taylor~. (Cramer and Co.)
2. ~Three German Songs~, _with English and German words, composed
by_ ~J. P. Pixis~. (Dean.)
3. ~Arietta~, _in_ ~Donizetti’s~ _opera_, Anna Bolena, _with graces
and embellishments by_ ~Signor Rubini~. (Willis and Co.)
No. 1 is a deeply expressive air in ~A~ flat, with an accompaniment
abounding in those riches of harmony which Spohr possesses in his
ample stores. This was sung by Mrs. Wood at a Philharmonic concert,
Mr. E. Taylor having very cleverly converted the German into Italian
for the occasion. It may be thought a bold thing to differ from the
author respecting the movement of his air, but it seems to us that in
using the words ‘_Allegro Vivace_,’--(we say nothing about the literal
meaning and tautology)--he either mistakes their power, or directs a
much greater degree of quickness than is favourable to good effect.
That time understood by the term _allegretto_, appears to us to be best
suited to both words and music. But, to say the truth, most of the
Italian words used in music are very barbarously perverted.
* * * * *
M. Pixis’ three songs, though imitations of Swiss airs, are the most
pleasing things that we have seen from his pen for a long time past.
They were sung by Madlle. Pixis, at the Queen’s palace this spring, and
pleased much.
These are for a mezzo-soprano, and though not very difficult, require
much flexibility of voice, as well as some skill to do them justice.
The airs are varied to the second and third stanzas, and the singer is
there called upon to exert herself. The English words are well adapted
to the melodies.
* * * * *
No. 3 is not distinguishable from at least a hundred airs of the same
kind that have been heard on the Italian stage within the last fifteen
years. Signor Rubini’s ‘Graces and Embellishments’ amount to little
beyond a turn or two, written at length; and we are thankful to him for
adding no more: if he had inserted only half that he sings, we never
could have got through one quarter of this arietta.
* * * * *
1. ~Duet~, Content, _written and composed by_ ~M. Virtue~.
(Goulding and D’Almaine.)
2. ~Ballad~, ‘She ne’er forgot him,’ _the words and music by_ G. M.
(Willis and Co.)
3. ~Canzonet~, ‘Adieu! my native shore;’ _the words by_ ~Lord
Byron~; _composed by_ ~John Lodge~, Esq. (Chappell.)
4. ~Ballad~, ‘Oh! do not say farewell,’ _composed and published as
the preceding_.
5. ~Song.~, ‘I’m just eighteen, and quite a man;’ _the poetry by_
~T. H. Bayly~, Esq.; _the Music by_ ~G. Linley~, Esq. (Chappell.)
6. ~Song~, ‘The wave of the ocean,’ _composed by_ Dr. ~John Smith~.
(Willis and Co.)
7. ~Air~, ‘Peaceful night,’ _composed by_ ~Henry R. Bishop~.
(Chappell.)
8. ~Song~, ‘Oh! music, what magic thy melody brings,’ _the poetry
by_ ~R. Folkestone Williams~, Esq.; _the music by_ ~Henry Smart~.
(Chappell.)
9. ~Ballad~, ‘Lady mine,’ _composed by_ ~William Forde~. (Cocks and
Co.)
10. ~Song~, ‘The honey-bird and the woodpecker,’ _set to music by_
~M. E. Williment~. (Boosey and Co.)
11. ~Cantata~, ‘Medora,’ _composed by_ ~Charles Goodban~. (Dean.)
12. ~Song~, ‘The Zephyr,’ _composed by_ ~C. L. Wrenshall~. (Dean.)
No. 1 is a very humble attempt at composition.
* * * * *
No. 2--which we rather think is by a fair amateur--is in the Scottish
style, simple, tender and pleasing.
* * * * *
No. 3 is a charming melody, well accompanied. Perhaps the music is a
little too tranquil for words which speak such ill-suppressed agony of
feeling.
* * * * *
No. 4 displays more elegance of taste than originality; but the poetry
is most correctly set, and the ballad being popularly composed, will
soon make its way.
* * * * *
No. 5 is the soliloquy of a very youthful dandy, the words
entertaining, and the music not inappropriate.
* * * * *
No. 6 is not less pleasing for being in the neglected rondo style. The
melody is good, and the words correctly set, both as regards meaning
and accent.
* * * * *
No. 7 has cost the composer some labour, we fear in vain, for it is not
calculated to become very popular; nevertheless, the hand of a musician
is conspicuous in every part of it.
* * * * *
No. 8 is a clever song, and the air has some novelty in it, therefore
a rarity. The accompaniment is full, and may alarm those who are apt
to take fright at double sharps; but it is ably composed. The poet’s
notion, that music is ‘the wine of the soul,’ is to us new: we know by
sad experience that it often operates as a narcotic, when not so noisy
as Bellini’s _Norma_.
* * * * *
No. 9 is respectable, but certainly boasts not a new thought; except,
indeed, the introduction of a solitary bar of nine quavers, which had
better have been omitted.
* * * * *
No. 10 is a sly attack on the slave system. If the arguments against it
had always been as feeble as the music of this song, real emancipation
would have even a poorer chance than it now has, when a trifle of
twenty millions is devoted to its accomplishment.
* * * * *
In No. 11 is a great deal more than we fear will be properly
appreciated. The composer will gain reputation by his _canzonet_--(_a
cantata_ implies recitative) but no profit.
* * * * *
No. 12 is pretty, but like a thousand other songs. Why such a runaway
ritornel? Is it an imitation of the West wind?
HARP.
1. ~The Bard~, _a fourth_ Sérénade du Troubadour, _with_ ad lib.
_accompaniments for Piano-forte, Flute, and Violoncello, composed
by_ ~F. C. Meyer~. Op. 54. (Chappell.)
2. ~A Third Scottish Gem~, _arranged with Variations, by_ ~T. H.
Wright~. (Chappell.)
The first of the above is in three short movements, besides a few
introductory arpeggios. A certain gracefulness characterizes this,
rather than originality or energy. It is, however, skilfully adapted
to harp-players, who, generally speaking, are not very desirous of
combating difficulties; and they have reason on their side, so far as
relates to those of execution; but difficulty arising from novelty,
from unexpected cadences and combinations, is of a totally different
kind, and ought to be encouraged whenever met with; which is but
seldom, we must allow.
* * * * *
No. 2 is a very lovely air, and, though Scotch, quite unknown to us, to
which are added four variations of the usual kind. An easy prelude in a
few arpeggioed chords, in fact, introduces the air; the whole filling
six pages only.
HARP AND PIANO-FORTE.
The favourite ~Airs~ _in the Ballet-Opera of_ La Bayadère,
_arranged by_ ~T. Labarre~. Op. 48. (Chappell.)
We have here the march in ~F~, with the airs, ‘Ainsi pour me
sauver la vie,’ and ‘Sois ma Bayadère,’ combined into a Fantaisie.
Neither of the parts is difficult, but the greatest responsibility
is thrown on that of the piano-forte, which indeed is just, for this
instrument possesses far more capability than the other. M. Labarre
has made a very pleasant piece out of these airs, and will do well to
select a few more for a similar purpose.
VIOLIN.
~Thema~, _with_ ~Variations~, _with an accompaniment for the
Piano-forte, composed by_ ~Henry G. Blagrove~, _Violinist to_ ~Her
Majesty~. (Boosey and Co.)
This consists of an introduction and an air in ~E~, with five
variations. The air is delicate and pleasing; the variations are of the
bravura kind for the violin, the piano-forte part being, as stated, a
mere accompaniment. We find no room here for censure, and should not be
justified in saying any great deal in the shape of praise.
VIOLONCELLO AND PIANO-FORTE.
1. ~Classical Selections~ _from eminent Authors, arranged as_
~Duets~, _by_ ~F. W. Crouch~. No. 1. (Chappell.)
2. Ditto. No. 2. Ditto.
Mr. Crouch has selected for No. 1 an andante, and a romance with three
variations, by Bideau; a romance by Bochsa and Duport; an allegro
by Bernard Romberg; and an air, andante, by Weber. No. 2 contains
an andante by Romberg; an air, with six variations, by Dotzauer; a
rondoletto by Beezwarzowsky, the latter preceded by an adagio; and an
allegretto by Weigl. Most of these are compositions of decided merit,
those of Romberg especially so. In point of difficulty they preserve
a just medium, but require performers possessing taste for both
instruments. In the violoncello part the arranger uses only the base
and treble clefs, which proves his good sense. He need not fear the
anathemas of the sticklers for ancient practices; such folks are daily
diminishing in number.
GUITAR AND PIANO-FORTE.
‘Jadis régnait en Normandie,’ _from_ ~Meyerbeer’s~ Robert,
_arranged as a Duet by_ ~M. Neuland~. Op. 13. (Chappell.)
Duets for these instruments are getting more and more into use, and M.
Neuland is well qualified to make arrangements of this kind, as the
present shows, which is a very excellent adaptation of the original,
clever, and popular air in an opera which will be better understood in
England a few years hence than it has yet been.
EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF A DILETTANTE.
[Concluded from page 178.]
_July 15th._ I broke off with some calculations, and a remark of Mr.
Madden, in his _Infirmities of Genius_, &c., concerning the longevity
of musicians. I now extract what he says of the temperament and
disposition of the same class of artists, though I do not agree with
him either in his premises or conclusions.--‘Music,’ says Mr. M., ‘is
to sensibility what language is to poetry--the mode of expressing
enthusiastic sentiments and exciting agreeable sensations. The
more imagination a composer is able to put into his music the more
powerfully he appeals to the feelings. Sensibility is the soul of
music, and pathos its most powerful attribute.
‘Pythagoras imagined that music was the soul of life itself, or that
harmony was the sum total of the faculties, and the necessary result of
the concert of these faculties and of the bodily functions.
‘Musical composition, then, demands extraordinary sensibility, an
enthusiastic imagination, an instinctive taste rather than deep
thought. The same qualities differently directed make the poet. Is it,
then, to be wondered at that we should find the poets and the musical
composers considerably shorter lived than the followers of all other
learned or scientific pursuits, whose sensibility is not exercised
by their studies, whose imaginations are not wearied by excessive
application and enthusiasm. The term “_genus irritabile_” deserves to
be transferred from the poetical to the musical tribe; for we take
it that an enraged musician is a much more common spectacle than an
irritated bard, and infinitely more rabid in his choler.
‘Generally speaking, musicians are the most intolerant of men to one
another,--the most captious,--the best humoured when flattered, and the
worst tempered at all other times. Music, like laudanum, appears to
soothe the senses when used in moderation, but the continual employment
of either flurries and excites the faculties, and often renders the
best-natured men in the world, petulant, irritable, and violent.’
Of the short-lived composers, Cimarosa died of corpulency, no
indication of an irritable state of mind; Lully, from an accident;
Mozart was weakly from his birth; Pergolesi lost his life in
consequence of a hemorrhage; Purcell, it is to be feared, from
imprudent indulgencies in conviviality; and Weber, from hereditary
consumption. Surely there is as much wear and tear of the body from
excited imagination in poets and painters as in musicians; but the two
former do not live so much in society, have not to breathe the foul air
of theatres, to bear heated rooms; and, generally speaking, they are
more cautious. As to the comparative professional jealousy of painters
and musicians, the former themselves admit their possession of it in
the greatest abundance. And with regard to temper, Mr. Madden must
have founded his calculations on some two or three unhappy instances:
had he drawn his inference from any general experience, it would have
been widely different. Poets and painters have commonly more cultivated
minds than musicians, and these may enable them better to control their
emotions; thus what is suppressed is by an easy mistake supposed not to
exist.
* * * * *
_20th._ The musical profession has lost a clever and highly respectable
member in Mr. Philip Knapton, of York, who died in June last, at an
early age. He was author of several popular compositions, both vocal
and instrumental: among the former, the songs, ‘There be none of
beauty’s daughters,’ and ‘When we two parted,’ will long prevent his
name from being forgotten by those who were unacquainted with his
personal merits.
* * * * *
_26th._ All who are interested in German literature have by this time
read the _Characteristics of Goethe_, either in the original, or as
admirably translated by Mrs. Austin; but many who have no leisure or
no inclination to look into publications of the kind, are anxious
to be acquainted with whatever relates to their own professional or
favourite pursuit: hence admirers of music will be pleased to meet with
the following notices concerning Zelter, who was not long since made
known to this country by a memoir of him, and an air, published in the
_Harmonicon_.
The intimacy of Zelter with Goethe was of the closest kind, as will
appear from the following extract of a letter to Mrs. Austin from
Prince Pückler-Muskau, dated June 25th, 1832. He says, ‘The celebrated
composer Zelter, one of Goethe’s most intimate friends, has died at
Berlin, literally of Goethe’s death. They wrote to each other regularly
every week (the correspondence will soon be published). Zelter was
in perfect health. But the first Saturday (the day on which he used
to receive his letters) after Goethe’s death, he became dejected and
silent: the second found him ill; and on the third, death softly led
him to rejoin his immortal friend.’
The great poet mentions his early acquaintance with his friend,--who
was divided between that which was then his profession, and that which
he wished it to be--in the following energetic language:--‘With Zelter,
too, my connexion became nearer; during his fortnight’s visit we had
mutually become much more intimate, in both an artistical and moral
sense. He found himself in a strange dilemma between a business[88]
which he had inherited, exercised from youth up, and mastered, and
which secured to him a maintenance, and an innate, powerful, resistless
passion for art, which unfolded the whole riches of the world of
sound out of his own soul,--carrying on the one, carried along by
the other,--possessing in the one an acquired dexterity, in the
other striving after a dexterity yet to be acquired: he stood not,
like Hercules, on the boundary between what was to be embraced and
what to be shunned; but he was drawn hither and thither by two muses
equally worthy of his homage; one of whom had already possession of
him, the other wished to win him to herself. With his honest, sturdy,
citizen-like earnestness, he was as much impressed with the necessity
of moral culture as that is akin to, nay, embodied with, æsthetic--and
the existence of perfection in the one, and not in the other, is not to
be thought of.’--(_Tag-und-Jahres Hefte_, 1803.)
The correspondence of these two friends, which it is supposed will
occupy many volumes, is preparing for the press, and anxiously expected
by the lovers of genius, who, in Germany, may be said to include nearly
all the adult population.
* * * * *
_August 5th._ In a work just published, under the title of--‘Exposition
of the False Medium excluding Men of Genius from the Public,’ is a
direct charge against the musical manager of a theatre, which, if not
met by a contradiction, will certainly be believed, and not much to the
glory of the party concerned. If true, the only apology to be offered
is, that this is the true country of Mammon; nowhere is pelf so eagerly
grasped at; notwithstanding which, nowhere are so ostentatiously
displayed the outward signs of a religion which makes the contempt of
riches, or in fact downright poverty, the condition on which future
happiness is to depend.
* * * * *
_6th._ Three more delightful volumes of Horace Walpole’s letters,
addressed nearly a century ago to Sir Horace Mann, have just been
published by Lord Dover, who only lived to see the work out!
The noble author, in a letter dated October 8th, 1741, thus mentions
an inclination in the public of that period to put down the Italian
opera. It is curious to remark the time of its opening. In those days
people went into the country in the spring, and returned to town in the
autumn. What Hottentots!
‘The Opera begins,’ he tells his friend, ‘the day after the King’s
birth-day. The directors have already laid out great sums. They talk
of a mob to silence the operas, as they did the French players, which
will be more difficult; for here half the young noblemen in town
are engaged, and they will not be so easily persuaded to humour the
taste of the mobility: in short, they have already retained several
eminent lawyers from the Bear Garden (boxers) to plead their defence.’
In a letter dated May 24th, 1743, he thus speaks of Handel’s first
oratorio.--‘Handel has set up an oratorio against the operas, and
succeeds. He has hired all the goddesses from farces, and the singers
of _Roast Beef_ from between the acts at both theatres, with a man with
one note in his voice, and a girl without ever a one; and so they sing,
and make brave hallelujahs; and the good company encore the recitative
(!) if it happens to have any cadence like what they call a tune.’
The song alluded to is ‘The Roast Beef of Old England,’ which the
galleries used always to call for between the acts. As to recitatives
having ‘any cadence like what they call a tune,’ I must confess that
I do not understand what is meant: unless, which is possible, the
satirical writer means to insinuate that the public of his day could
not distinguish between recitative and air.
In another letter of the same year, he writes,--
‘We are next Tuesday to have the _Miserere_ of Rome. It must be
curious! the finest piece of vocal music in the world to be performed
by three good voices, and forty bad ones, from Oxford, Canterbury, and
the farces!’ From this it appears that the chorus singers of his day
were brought from the country choirs to London; the metropolis, even
with the assistance of the chorus from the theatre, (the ‘_farces_’)
could not furnish forty voices!
In March, 1746, Horace Walpole thus speaks of the Italian opera, and of
Gluck, the celebrated composer:--
‘The opera flourishes more than in any latter years; the composer is
Gluck, a German; he is to have a benefit, at which he is to play on a
set of drinking-glasses, which he modulates with water. I think I have
heard you speak of having seen some such thing.’
The Chevalier Gluck exhibiting on the musical glasses! There must be a
mistake in this; some other person, surely, was engaged by the great
composer for this purpose.
But a few months later in the same year, the same writer is in another
story. The anecdote is curious for half a dozen reasons:--
‘Lord Middlesex[89] took the opportunity of a rivalship between his
own mistress, the Nardi, and the Violetta, (a German, afterwards Mrs.
Garrick,) the finest and most admired dancer in the world, to involve
the whole menage of the opera in the quarrel, and has paid nobody;
but like a true lord of the treasury, has shut up his own exchequer.
The principal man-dancer was arrested for debt; to the composer his
lordship gave a bad note, not payable in two years, besides amercing
him entirely three hundred pounds, on pretence of his siding with the
Violetta.’
* * * * *
_9th._ The annexed advertisement--for such it undoubtedly is--appears
in the _Morning Post_ of to-day. This paper would never have inserted
it unless paid for, I am convinced:--
‘Bochsa, with Mr. and Mrs. R. Bishop, Phillips, and Mori, is going
in a few days to Leamington and Malvern, and to the Isle of Wight,
to give some concerts, under the patronage of their Royal Highnesses
the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria. The success which that
distinguished harpist met with last season in the provinces, while
exhibiting his new harp effects, has perhaps induced him to try the
experiment again.’
Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, Mr. H. Phillips, and Mr. Mori, must feel highly
dignified, and equally gratified, at being thus announced as the train
of M. Bochsa,--as his _tail_!--to use a term applied, rather vulgarly,
to a small parliamentary party; and the Duchess of Kent and Princess
Victoria will not, I should suppose, be very well pleased at such use
being made of their names.
* * * * *
_11th._ In the _Observer_ of this date is the following paragraph:--
‘It has been a mystery to many how Laporte has been able, under
such accumulating losses, to carry on his season to its present
termination, by which the subscribers, if we mistake not, are losers
by several nights. It seems now generally admitted that he has paid
scarcely anybody in full--that he has disbursed as far as his means
by subscription and the takings at the doors went, and that his
performers, giving him credit for good intentions, as well as for a
large sum of money, have agreed to take bills at long dates, to be
paid (if he can) out of the receipts of next season. This arrangement
presumes that Laporte will continue his speculations at the King’s
Theatre next season, which, we have some reason to know, may be
questionable.’
I doubt the reality of M. Laporte’s _great_ losses, though the losses
of the subscribers, in almost every way, admit of no doubt.
* * * * *
_18th._ The Sunday evening performances of _entirely sacred music_
at the Apollonicon Rooms in St. Martin’s Lane, have been stopped, by
order of the Bishop of London, on the plea of money being taken for
admission. Does not the poor curate serve two or three churches on a
Sunday for money?--do not many public singers exercise their callings
in various churches on a Sunday for profit?--In fact, do not the whole
of the clergy labour more or less on that day with a view to gain?
And is it not better that people should listen to sacred music on
a Sabbath evening, after every place of worship is closed, than be
compelled to wander about the streets for amusement, or be driven into
places where drinking is a necessary condition of their admittance?
Surely our bishops, some of them at least, have not read the History
of Puritanism, or else they have read unprofitably. Do they not know
that should ‘over-righteousness’ once more gain the ascendancy in this
country, episcopacy would be the earliest of its victims?
* * * * *
_25th._ It appears from the _Spectator_ of this day, that _The Deluge_,
an oratorio composed by F. Schneider, was rehearsed on the 19th at
the Hanover-square Rooms, preparatory to its performance at the
ensuing festival at Norwich. The writer of the notice, a good critic,
says, it ‘more than realizes our anticipations of its excellence: it
combines the choral grandeur of the school of Bach and Handel with the
instrumental richness of Haydn. _The Deluge_ is a subject which affords
an ample field for musical expression, and admits of every variety of
vocal and instrumental combination. The parts which particularly struck
us were,--a double chorus in ~E~ flat; a song, in which the instruments
describe the rushing and roaring of the waters; a chorus in ~C~,
terminating with a fugue on two subjects; a terzetto in ~A~; and the
concluding chorus.’
Compositions of this class, when really excellent, ought to be
the grand, nay almost the only, object of all musical festivals,
considering the great vocal and instrumental force now usually
assembled on such occasions; and they would actually cost less to
perform than a train of vapid Italian airs of the living school--of the
school of Mercadante, Bellini, &c., which, if they must be heard, would
succeed much better--that is, would produce less intolerable effect,
accompanied by a piano-forte, violoncello, flute, and horn, than by the
finest band that can be assembled. The power of the orchestra, like the
physical strength of a mob, only increases the evil when badly employed.
FOREIGN MUSICAL REPORT.
VIENNA.
Our winter season was abundantly rich in concerts. Bernhard Romberg,
the king of violoncellists, introduced himself to the public in the
_Hof-Operntheater_, with two concertinos, a fantasia on Norwegian
mountain airs, and a humorous melodic tableau, under the title of
the _Masked Ball_, consisting of the following subdivisions. A.
Introduction. B. Inclination for a dance. Tuning. Beginning of the
dance. C. Dispute among the dancers. Peace and good order are enjoined.
Tender endeavours at reconciliation. D. Music in the supper-room.
E. Short interruption. Promenade in the _Seufzer-Allee_, ‘Avenue of
Sighs.’ F. Crowding to the ball-room. Galoppade. Merry conclusion.
Even those who are not particularly fond of the picturesque in music,
could not help being pleased with the characteristic conception of the
individual component parts of this medley, their ingenious combination
into a consistent whole, and lastly, with the high skill and unique
talent displayed by the master; for Romberg, although advanced in
years, still continues to be the same great artist as hitherto, his
instrument sings as sweetly as before, he playfully dallies with the
most deterring difficulties, and will probably remain unexcelled for
a long time to come. Mr. M. Schmidt, trombone player to the Electoral
Chapel of Hesse Cassel, has visited us for the second time, on his
return from Italy, and excited not only renewed admiration by his own
performance, but also by the talents of a son, who fully promises to
equal his father. Mr. Joachim Hoffman has brought out a new symphony
of his composition, with which the theorist will scarcely be able to
find fault; but the spirit of the present day demands imagination and
inventive power, and is not satisfied with a mere learned combination
of cold, dry, scholastic phrases.
The concerts of Messrs. Lewy, Krähmer and his lady, and of Miss
Salamon, were very well attended; the first-named gentleman displayed
his whole skill in a divertimento with the piano, by Thalberg; in a
concerted duet between bassoon and piano; and also in a vocal piece,
sung by Madlle. Heinefetter, accompanied by the same instruments. This
mode of accompaniment with the tinkling of a piano, and a little horn,
violoncello, or bassoon ‘sauce,’ which is gaining daily more ground
in all Musical Academies--these pretty sort of instrumental duos and
trios, however pleasant in a room, begin to be vastly tiresome and
sickening in concerts. Mr. Krähmer and his lady played a concertante
for the oboe and clarinet, with great taste, also solo variations on
the czakan. Madame K. also played a violin rondo of Kreutzer, with
a masculine power of bow, and the most vigorous precision; and in
Beethoven’s Adelaide, which she gave on the clarinet with the greatest
tenderness and feeling, we missed nothing but the text of the poem. A
Polish family of artists, of the name of Kontsky, consisting of five
branches, has created a great sensation here. Eugenie is a pleasing,
cultivated singer. Anton, a pupil of Field, is a fine pianist, and
instructor of his younger brother Stanislaus, who is only ten years
old; Carl, who wields the violin with the hand of a master, is again
the teacher of his younger brother Apollinar, who, although but seven
years old, already creates surprise by his performance.
The _Tonkünstler Societät_ (Society of Musicians) has brought out
a new oratorio entitled _Jephtha’s Gelubde_, (The Vow of Jephtha,)
composed by the court organist Assmayr. The poem is somewhat homely,
but the composer has done all that could reasonably be expected,
and has shown himself particularly conversant with the fugue style.
The individuals of the orchestra and chorus establishments of the
_Kärnthnerthortheater_ have opened series of four subscription
concerts, under the title of the _Künstler Verein_ (union of artists).
Among a variety of classic works of Beethoven, Mozart, C. M. von Weber,
Cherubini, &c., some compositions of Mr. Lachner, their director,
consisting of a symphony, a duet from his Cantata, ‘The four ages of
mankind,’ together with some other works of his, were received with
high approbation.
Although Vienna may justly boast of excellence in musical performances
at all times, all parties nevertheless concur in opinion, that these
performances excelled all previous ones, and that a composer may
consider himself fortunate, if his works are seized with such deep
feeling, and executed with such zeal, and a union of such masterly
skill. The two movements from Beethoven’s last Mass, hitherto unknown
to the public, appeared somewhat strange in their effect. The violin
solo in this Mass, played by Mayseder with a rich bell-like tone, yet
unembellished, raised expectations which were not realized: no one
ventured an expression of censure, all was silent. This indeed was the
most prudent course; and a critical judge observed very properly, ‘We
hear all that this immortal master produced in the latest period of his
active career, without being able to understand and relish his novel
conceptions, because we have not yet arrived at the point of view from
which the work is to be surveyed and judged of. We hear it for a second
time, and individual passages begin to become luminous and clear; we
hear it frequently, and then only we are struck with admiration and
astonishment. Beethoven has made giant strides in advance of all of us:
he will be better understood by a succeeding generation.’
The _Concerts Spirituels_ were also of first-rate excellence. It would
be superfluous to notice the numerous classic compositions of Mozart,
Cherubini, Beethoven, C. M. von Weber, Vogler, and other great masters,
which constituted the rich bills of fare; but a new _Te Deum laudamus_,
by Tomascheck, must not be passed over in silence, although its merit
can only be critically judged of when it shall have been published; it
is grand and original, like every thing else produced by this great
master.--Our Dance-Orpheus, Strauss, has lately launched a new set of
waltzes, for the christening of which the whole of the Vienna public
were invited to stand godfathers and godmothers. These waltzes were
to be produced for the first time for his own benefit. Every visitor,
on paying for his admission, had the privilege of giving in any title
which he might like best. At the awful hour of midnight lots were drawn
for the title to be adopted, and chance decreed it to be _Tausend
Sapperments Walzer_[90], under which name the new-born child has
already begun its terrestrial career.
BERLIN.
The month of May, which was here unusually warm, presented many
interesting musical occurrences. The first of these was the performance
of Haydn’s ever beautiful oratorio ‘The Seasons,’ produced by our
general director of music, Spontini, on the boards of the Royal Opera
Theatre, with the assistance of the whole of the solo and chorus
singers of that establishment, and of the whole Royal Chapel, for the
benefit of the charitable musical institution bearing his name. The
performance was grand and effective in the extreme, though here and
there some of the _Tempi_ were rather hurried; a crowded audience
expressed their delight at the masterly manner in which this classical
composition was executed.
The Royal Opera distinguished itself by the excellent performance of
_Ferdinand Cortez_, _Castle Candra_, _The Vestal Virgin_, _Alcidor_,
and a new opera entitled _Hans Heiling_; the text by Edward Devrient,
the singer, and the music by Henry Marschner, Kapell Meister, who
attended in person. The success of this opera was not brilliant, but
certainly honourable to the composer: its value, however, stands
higher in our estimation than in that of the generality of the public;
the reason is, it requires in many parts a serious, deep power of
conception on the part of the audience; it takes for granted a sense,
and a degree of cultivation for what is noble, which the major part
of the theatrical public does not possess, which expects, for the
most part, to be amused with senseless vulgarity, or, as is the case
with Spontini’s newest operas, to be excited by tasteless splendour
and noise. Marschner’s opera is calculated for a more civilized
audience, and, by the few that belong to that class, its merit is fully
acknowledged.
The music is varied in point of invention, highly intellectual
in faithfully expressing the import of the poetry, and admirably
instrumentalised. The poem contains many situations eminently
susceptible of musical expression, some borrowed from the awful realms
of the romantic, others taken from the more cheerful domain of pleasure
and joviality; and in both respects, the composer has satisfied the
expectation of the judicious critic.
In the _Vestale_, Mademoiselle Stephan, whose vocal talent develops
itself more and more, and who, in the short space of six months, has
made a very marked progress in scientific cultivation, sang very
successfully the part of Julia, in which she had the advantage of
Spontini’s own instruction; although, in a dramatic point of view,
greater freedom of action might have been desirable. This defect,
however, will no doubt be removed by further practice and experience.
The whole representation of this excellent opera was masterly, and
had the most powerful effect on the audience. Mlle. Lehman, as
High-priestess, Messrs. Bader and Devrient, as Licinius and Cinna, as
also the choruses, ballet, and orchestra, under the spirited conduct
of the composer, contributed essentially to this result.
Concerts we also had in abundance. In one of these, given for the
benefit of the _Friederich Stift_, (Frederick’s Institution,) the two
singers, Demlles. Carl and Hoffman, appeared for the first time in
public since their return to their native country. Demlle. Carl, whose
fame had more particularly reached us from Turin and Madrid, evinced
great progress in the cultivation of a good Italian vocal method. Her
sonorous voice is flexible, and particularly pleasing in the _mezza
voce_ of the higher notes, which she intonates with the greatest
precision and purity. Her style of execution is particularly calculated
for the compositions of Nicolini, Rossini, and Pacini, but would gain
considerably by a more intense degree of feeling and expression.
Demlle. Hoffman had less opportunity of displaying to advantage her
_mezzo soprano_ voice in a duetto buffo than in an aria of Donizetti:
upon the whole, however, it seemed as if this vocalist, who in her
style and action has adopted the lively character of the southern
inhabitants of Europe, had paid leas attention to the display of her
beautiful lower notes, and, on the other hand, had devoted more care
and study to the developement of her higher scale. A decisive judgment,
however, upon the merits of these two singers can probably only be
formed after we shall have seen them on the boards in their respective
dramatic walks.
On the 15th May, the anniversary of Zelter’s death, forty members
of the Singing Academy, which he directed for so many years with
unexampled zeal and success, sang over his grave, at six o’clock in the
morning, two sacred hymns, _Wen hab ich sonst, als dich allein_, (Whom
have I else but thee alone,) and _Wie herrlich ist die neue Welt_, (How
beautiful is the new world,) by way of testifying their respect for his
memory; on which occasion the pillars of the iron railing around his
tomb were tastefully decorated with garlands of fresh flowers.
Madame _Caradori Allan_ gave a concert in the saloon of the playhouse.
‘This singer’ (a Berlin critic states) ‘does not possess a very strong
voice, but it is uncommonly clear, vibrating, and silvery, if we may
use the expression, and has received a high degree of cultivation.
Madame Caradori’s style is that of the purest modern school, exempt
from its faults: she executed all passages gracefully, and with taste;
and in individual perfections, such as trills, divisions, &c. she has
attained a degree of excellence which few singers before her could
boast of. These qualifications, united to a graceful exterior, totally
free from the _coquettrie précieuse_ of most female singers of repute,
gained this artist the applause of the public in an extraordinary
degree.’
In the same concert played Mademoiselle Josephine Eder, from Vienna, a
young pianist of great talent and skill.
Madame Schechner Waagen, whose absence we had to regret during the
space of four years, reappeared on our boards in Gluck’s _Iphigenia_.
Her voice does not possess the power it had six years ago, but it is
quite the same as we found it in 1829, when a particular change took
place in its quality, and it gained in gracefulness what it lost in
point of strength. This lady has since made her appearance in the part
of Fidelio: the effect, particularly in the second act, was truly
overwhelming.
It is a long time since we have seen an audience wrapt in such
enthusiasm.
PRAGUE.
In Demlle. Josephine Eder, a young pianist from Vienna, whose concert
was attended by a numerous and highly respectable audience, we found a
youthful talent of superior order; and we have every reason to confirm
the report which had preceded her, as regards the brilliant hopes for
the future, which the high degree of her present cultivation is fully
calculated to justify.
Demlle. Eder played a pianoforte concerto by Thalberg; and at the
conclusion of the concert, variations by Franz Stadler upon a theme
from the opera _Die Braut_, (_La Fiancée_,) and showed nut only a
great sureness in conquering difficult passages, which however were
not too frequent in either of these compositions, but still more an
ease, mellowness, precision, and expression, united to pure feeling
and refined taste, which even now entitle her to a distinguished place
among competitors of a more advanced age. The fact of this young lady’s
coming from Vienna might almost have been inferred, by her selecting
the overture from _Fidelio_, by Beethoven.
With us Auber, Bellini, and Lindpainter, are now the order of the
day. Bernhard Romberg has again visited us, and furnished to our
musical public three very agreeable evenings by his unequalled skill;
a circumstance the more welcome, as our Opera, in consequence of the
indisposition of Mde. Podhorsky and Mr. Drake, is in a state of utter
depression, and reduced to the representation of the most miserable
farces and trash.
Mr. Romberg played in his first concert a concertino for the
violoncello in ~G~ minor, written in his usual pleasant and cheerful
style; and at the conclusion, the _Masked Ball_, a humorous piece for
the violoncello. In his second concert Mr. Romberg again treated us
with a couple of his newest compositions, viz. a second new concertino;
and at the close of the evening a fantasia upon Norwegian rural
national airs, which, however attractive, do not equal his Polish and
Swedish national melodies.
BRESLAU.
Our music-director, Mr. Mosevins, whose influence on the taste of the
public, and especially of the singers of our city, is universally
and gratefully acknowledged, has gained a fresh claim on our thanks
by the production of Handel’s oratorio of _Samson_, on the eve of
Palm Sunday, in which the vocal solo pieces, as well as the choruses,
were chiefly performed by amateurs; the execution showed a careful
and zealous rehearsal, and was received with universal satisfaction.
In the Passion week we had abundance of musical performances. On
Ash Wednesday, Graun’s _Versöhnungslerden Christi_, (the Redeeming
Sufferings of Christ,) under the direction of Mr. Siegert; on Holy
Thursday, Haydn’s _Creation_; on Good Friday, Graun’s _Tod Jesu_ (the
Death of Jesus); all these performances, however, were more or less
deteriorated by the prevailing epidemic, the influenza. A variety of
_obligato_ cough accompaniments between the songs were, alas! too
prevalent. Of our theatre we have but little to report. Herold’s
_Zampa_ was received with approbation. Meyerbeer’s _Robert the Devil_
did not meet with success. Madame Piehl is, since the departure of
Demlle. Wüst, our first and last singer. In the Autumn the meeting of
natural philosophers to be held here is to derive additional interest
by a musical festival, at which Handel’s _Jephtha_, and several vocal
compositions of Spohr, Mozart, Hesse, and other eminent masters, are to
be produced.
BREMEN.
We have the pleasing task of reporting upon the performances of Demlle.
Henriette Grabau, who, together with her brother Mr. A. Grabau, and
Mr. Ullrich, (both members of the Leipzig orchestra,) delighted our
musical public with two concerts. This lady’s voice has gained greatly
in sureness and volume; her execution is pure and finished; she unites
the Italian florid style to solid German song, so that she may be
justly pronounced a classic vocalist. Mr. A. Grabau, as violoncellist,
has also earned considerable applause; his endeavours to attain still
higher perfection in his art will not fail to be crowned with success,
for he possesses every qualification to arrive at first-rate eminence;
he has a fine melodious tone, great versatility and strength of bow,
and a true feeling and inspiration for the beautiful. A similar
judgment may be passed on the violinist Mr. Ullrich, whose playing
met with deserved approbation, and warrants the highest hopes for the
future.
In conclusion, we have to mention a composition of our worthy Mr. Riem,
performed by our Vocal Academy, at a country trip, which takes place
every year in the fine season. It celebrates the charms of the month
of May; and consists of eight parts with two quartet solo voices, so
skilfully interlaced, so sweet, cheerful, and lively, that it would be
impossible to imagine anything more attractive for such an occasion.
It is a true lovely picture of delightful May, and excited universal
interest.
KARLSRUHE.
The Musik Verein (Musical Union), established about 1820, for the
performance of sacred compositions, continues in a state of flourishing
activity. Only the more ancient Italian and German compositions for the
church are performed;--no operas. Among the former the pious labours of
Palestrina, Durante, Bach, Handel, and Feska, are particularly attended
to.
PARIS.
_Don Giovanni_ is about to be represented at the _Académie Royale de
Musique_ with all the theatrical pomp end excellence of execution which
are habitual to this theatre. Mad. Damoreau is to be the _Zerlina_,
Madlle. Dorus _Donna Anna_, and Madlle. Falcon _Donna Elvira_; Nourrit
represents _Don Giovanni_, Alexis Dupont _Ottavio_, Levasseur,
_Leporello_, and Dabadie _Mazetto_.
[We are assured that the artistes who have just finished their
engagements at the King’s Theatre, London, are thoroughly discouraged,
and that few of them feel disposed to return another year to the
capital of England. They complain of the deceptions which have for four
or five years been practised on them. But these deceptions have not
surprised us, for it is long since that we predicted what has at length
happened. _Revue Musicale._]
THE DRAMA.
~King’s Theatre.~
This theatre closed on Saturday the 10th of last month, with Paer’s
_Agnese_, his finest work, in which the principal part, _Uberto_, was
most ably performed by Sig. Tamburini. Of the rest we will in mercy say
nothing.
Thus has terminated a season eminently distinguished by the performance
of operas thoroughly worn out, and the production of two imported fresh
from Italy, which proved less endurable than the hacks that preceded
them. Nearly half the subscription nights passed with scarcely a
tolerable performer on the stage; and for the other moiety, that is
from Easter, twice as many performers were engaged as could be properly
employed. This is called liberal and judicious management! But there
is not much difficulty in being liberal when performers are sent off
with bills at enormously long dates; and it is perfectly easy to gain a
character for skilful management, if bringing out old operas badly, and
new ones utterly destitute of every kind of merit, is thought worthy of
praise.
The _Observer_ has replied in the following article to a remark made in
our last Number:--
‘Laporte’s total losses this season are said considerably to exceed
30,000_l._, but even including the 10,000_l._ he sacrificed to his
unfortunate Covent Garden speculation, we cannot help thinking there
is an exaggeration in the account. Some time since we mentioned the
nightly expenses of the Opera as nearly 1,000_l._, a statement which
has since been disputed by the Editor of _the Harmonicon_, who contends
that they are not more than 750_l._; but he is obviously referring to
the year 1819, and seems not to take into view the increased charges in
all the departments since that date. We are quite ready to admit that
they ought certainly not to exceed 750_l._; and a stop must be put to
the exorbitant demands of foreign singers and dancers.’
Our contemporary has forgotten that he stated the nightly expenses
of the theatre at _considerably more_ than 1000_l._; but no matter.
He is extremely mistaken in supposing that our estimate of 750_l._
a night was made on the expenditure of 1819. The entire expenses of
that season--a very wretched one--did not amount to 410_l._ nightly.
And we will add, for the information of the writer in the _Observer_,
that in the season of 1817, when the most complete company that
ever performed on the Italian stage was engaged, the whole of the
disbursements, of all and every kind, did not exceed 430_l._ a night.
We are aware that the increased rent is now to be added; and for this,
and other advances, we made much more than ample allowance: 650_l._
would have been nearer the mark than the larger sum. In some important
departments, the expenses are less now than in the year to which we
allude: the present mode of lighting with gas instead of wax, is a
diminution of many hundred pounds; and in 1817 the lowest sum paid to
the orchestral performers was eighteen shillings per night: do not
several now take twelve, or even less? And during the best part of the
season, are not some discharged for the evening, in order to admit
auditors at fifteen shillings or a guinea each, thus saving the pay of
performers, and gaining by filling their places with company? What, we
would further ask, has been the cost of scenery, dresses, decorations,
copying, &c. this season? Any frequenter of the Opera will answer,
little more than half the usual sum, and less than half of what was
due to the subscribers and the public. For, let it be borne in mind,
the subscription was _three hundred guineas_ for a box that cannot
conveniently hold four persons, and rarely contains so many, though six
tickets are issued for it; that is more than a guinea and a half per
night for each person actually seated!
M. Laporte’s losses, it has been said, considerably exceed
30,000_l._!--whoever reported this might as well have added another
cypher, and made the sum three hundred thousand. That he lost much by
Covent Garden there can be no doubt; but if he has very materially
suffered by the King’s Theatre, why go on with it? With the increasing
unwillingness to pay so enormously for boxes,--with the spirit of
emigration so active,--when the public have found out that stalls
are better in every respect than boxes, and cost a family about
three-fourths less,--and when unskilful management is pretty sure to
co-operate with all these causes,--what possible chance is there that
the ensuing season will be better than the last? It must be worse;
and with this prospect before him, M. Laporte would not risk another,
should his losses by the Italian Opera have amounted to one-half, or
even one-fourth of the most moderate sum reported.
It is easy to understand why statements of extraordinary losses are
authorised, or, at least, why they remain uncontradicted. The King’s
Theatre has always had the reputation of being a losing concern, but
it is easy to show that most of those who have held it for the last
fifty years have made money, much money, by it. And it is not very
difficult to prove that, with tolerable management and a fair rent, it
might always, upon an average of three years, be made a most profitable
undertaking for the lessee, and a place of elegant amusement, highly
creditable and useful to the metropolis of a great empire.
THE MUSIC OF THE PRESENT NUMBER.
The Movement by Haydn is from his _Œuvre_ 41^{me}., published at least
forty years ago in Paris, and scarcely known here: the beauty of the
melody, and the original manner in which it is treated, will not fail
to strike our readers, and excite their surprise at its having been so
long neglected.
* * * * *
The Minuet of Handel, from the fifth of his twelve Grand Concertos, is
known to the frequenters of the Ancient Concerts, and to none else!
Wonder is often expressed, on the exhumation of such music, that it
so long should have remained buried; but the wonder on this subject
will at once cease, when it is considered that music is now a _trade_,
carried on between professors and the shops.
* * * * *
The Andante of Beethoven has found its way to few piano fortes in
England. It is one of the composer’s early works, written when his
genius was in full vigour, and before he had got into the habit of
crowding his pages with passages which only few can execute.
* * * * *
We are not aware that any one composition by Kirnberger has ever before
been printed in this country. In fact, he was more distinguished as
a theorist than as a composer: as the former he ranks, among those
who read on the subject of music, who really study the science, as
the greatest writer Germany ever produced. The present trifle is from
Reichardt’s _Musicalisches Kunstmagazin_, there set to German words.
Kirnberger, born at Saalfeld in 1721, was a pupil of Sebastian Bach,
and died at Berlin in 1783. To him the world is indebted for most of
the articles on music in the first volume of Sulzer’s _Theory of the
Fine Arts_.
* * * * *
The lovely quartet of Mozart is from one of his Motets.
* * * * *
The Song presented to us by Mr. Satchell is new, and, in our opinion, a
most happy imitation of the best Scottish style.
* * * * *
Very little of Buononcini’s music is now known any where: the
formidable antagonist of Handel, the subject of Swift’s famous epigram,
would be, but for the latter, forgotten. The arietta, however, now
published for the first time in England, is alone sufficient to show
that he possessed an elegant taste for melody. Giovanni Buononcini was
born at Modena, about the year 1661, Dr. Burney conjectures. In 1748 he
was invited to Vienna, by the Emperor of Germany, and composed an opera
to celebrate the peace of Aix la Chapelle! The time of his death is not
known, but it is supposed that he attained nearly 100 years.
London: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke Street, Lambeth.
ADDRESS.
With this Number the ~Harmonicon~ ceases,--at least for the present:
whether or not it will ever be revived, depends on circumstances on
which it would be utterly in vain now to calculate. A new era has
commenced in many things: publications at a cost which enables the
great mass of the people to enjoy the advantages resulting from a
knowledge of literature and science, absorb almost the exclusive
patronage of all classes; and the increased, and still increasing,
cultivation of music, its diffusion among those who formerly considered
it as an accomplishment only adapted to the more wealthy portion of
society, seem to demand that the best productions of the art should
be furnished on even less expensive terms than those on which the
~Harmonicon~ has been circulated. Hence, a cheaper work has been
announced. We yield to what it would be idle to oppose, and wish the
projected publication,--advertised in our present Number, and which it
appears will in some measure follow our plan, but be issued at a price
rendered impossible by our sale,--every success it may deserve, and its
proprietors can desire.
It has been observed, that to perform for the last time any action,
unattended by suffering or guilt, is affecting and painful, and we
cannot add these last words without sensibly feeling the truth of the
remark. We cannot take leave of those to whom we have so long addressed
ourselves without an emotion of sorrow. To such as have favoured us
with their friendly communications,--(indeed we have had to complain
of very few of a different description,)--we offer our grateful
acknowledgments; and in respectfully bidding our readers farewell,
indulge a belief that, during a long period of eleven years, we have
not incurred their disapprobation by any intentional neglect, and that
nothing has ever fallen from our pen which will be likely to leave an
unfavourable impression on their minds--at parting.
THE EDITOR.
PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION,
THE MUSICAL LIBRARY;
TO APPEAR IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE FOURPENCE; AND MONTHLY PARTS, PRICE
TWO SHILLINGS.
The principle which has been so extensively applied in Literature and
the Graphic Art, of producing works at the lowest possible point of
cheapness without any abandonment of the qualities by which the popular
knowledge and taste may be advanced, has yet a wide field for its
employment in the department of ~Music~. This most delightful
of the arts was never so generally cultivated in this country as at
the present moment. The Pianoforte, especially, contributes to the
recreation and enjoyment of thousands of families throughout the United
Kingdom, and in our colonial possessions. And yet the publications
by which this taste ought to be kept up and improved are sold at a
price which, in many cases, amounts to a prohibition. An article in
universal demand is charged at the same rate, if not much higher, than
was paid for it when it was sought for only by the luxurious few. The
consequence has been that the musical taste of the country has not
grown in an exact proportion with the musical appetite. It has been
directed, in a great measure, by an interested tutelage; while the real
guides, the great classical masters of the art, have been rendered in a
remarkable degree inaccessible.
The design of the Musical Library is to afford the same advantage to
amateurs in music that the lovers of literature are deriving from the
cheap publications for the advancement of real knowledge, that are now
distributed through every part of the empire, and are within the reach
of persons of every condition. It is proposed to publish a Collection
of Music, both vocal and for the piano-forte, by the best masters,
ancient and modern: the ancient in a state adapted to the improved
condition of our musical instruments; and the modern the best, and
only the best, that the continent of Europe and our own country can
supply. We shall revive and put into an inviting form the compositions
of the older classical masters, now only known to a few connoisseurs,
keeping in mind the saying of a famous French _modiste_,--‘nothing so
new as that which is forgotten;’ and thus endeavour to spread widely a
taste for what is excellent in the various departments of the art, and
available to the purposes of private society. At the same time it will
be our further object to naturalise the confessedly good productions of
the newest foreign composers, especially of the German masters, by the
adaptation of English words to their best vocal compositions; and also
by publishing movements, or extracts complete in themselves, from such
of their instrumental works as are of a length not suited either to
such a publication as ours is intended to be, or to the habits of the
people of this country. It is also our design, occasionally, to engage
composers of the first eminence to supply us with new compositions;
and we shall never neglect an opportunity of giving currency to such
productions of real genius as may be offered to us by those who have
no means of securing extensive circulation to them, and who might
be deterred from publishing them on their own account, from the
difficulties they have to encounter, and the number of chances against
them of ever obtaining a fair hearing.
In the prosecution of these objects, which we may not unjustly consider
likely to advance our national enjoyments, we propose to issue a
~Number~ once every week, of eight music-folio Pages, to contain
generally one Vocal and one Piano-forte piece at least in each, but
depending on the length of the composition. The Price of each Number
will be Fourpence.
A ~Part~, containing four or five Numbers of Music, according to
the number of Saturdays, will be published monthly. To these numbers
will be added a _Monthly Supplement_ of letter-press, comprising
musical news, foreign and domestic; notices of new music; critical
accounts of the more important public musical performances; with
memoirs of the lives, and remarks upon the works, of eminent composers,
and especially of the authors whose productions are published in the
“Musical Library.” The price of each Monthly Part, consisting of
forty-eight folio pages, will be Two Shillings.
* * * * *
LONDON:--CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE STREET, AND 13, PALL-MALL EAST.
_Orders are received by all Booksellers, and Wholesale by the Agents of
“The Penny Magazine.”_
FOOTNOTES:
[1] All, except the first and last paragraphs, from Gerber’s
_Historisch-Biographisches_ Lexicon.
[2] In the tenth Number of this work (for October, 1823) we published a
lovely quartet from Righini’s _Enea nel Lazio_. And the present Number
contains his overture to _Tigrane_, which, if the score at all realizes
the expectations excited by the piano-forte adaptation, ought to have
been familiar to our orchestras long ago.--(_Editor._)
[3] In a work entitled _Historical Memoirs of Armagh_, by J. Stuart,
I find a charge against Handel that is stronger than any alleged by
Dr. Brown, and which I should feel it improper not to notice before I
quit the subject. Mr. Stuart says (p. 548)--‘Some objections may be
made to the church music composed by that eminent master, inasmuch as
it is sometimes discordant with the meaning of the passages for which
it is written. Thus, _exempli gratia_, in an anthem which comprises
the following sentences taken from the Psalmist, the sentiments of
David and the music of Handel are both sublime; but the rhythmus of
the latter does not correspond with the emphasis necessary for the
true enunciation of the former:--“_Who_ is the King of Glory? The
Lord of Hosts, _He_ is the King of Glory”--in singing this sublime
interrogatory and response, the emphasis is unnaturally laid on the
verb _is_; thus: Who _is_ the King of Glory, the Lord of Hosts, He _is_
the King of Glory. As the question and answer are often repeated, the
impression made on the mind of the hearer is, that the respondents are
warmly maintaining the claim of the Deity to pre-eminence in glory,
which the querists seem obstinately to doubt. Thus the music and the
sense of the passage are at variance, and the meaning is sacrificed to
the sound.’
[4] See musical portion of the present number.
[5] This Air is given in the German work with the critical
article, but, if we are entitled to judge from an arrangement,
is much over-praised by the writer, in a paragraph which we have
omitted.--_Editor._
[6] It was no wonder at all that the cannon made a great noise, and
broke the glass.
[7] The _Chaconne_ is an ancient, slow dance. M. Ginguené thinks
that the word originally was written _ciecona_, but gives rather a
far-fetched reason for this supposition.
[8] The fact is, that his voice which had for years past been much
impaired, had now almost entirely deserted him.--_Editor._
[9] If they omitted their roulades, it must have been for the purpose
of enabling Rubini to introduce his own, for no singer was ever so
absurdly prodigal of them as this. And as to his ‘elocutionary style,’
he must have acquired it very recently; he shewed no symptom of it so
late as May last.--_Editor._
[10] This remark was, probably, aimed at the composer of _Der
Freischütz_, of whom Beethoven was somewhat jealous, rather than at
Mozart.--(_Editor._)
[11] A few years before his death, Beethoven received Arnold’s
edition of Handel’s works in score, as a present from M. Stumpff, the
well-known harp-maker, from which period his admiration of that great
composer seemed to have no bounds.--(_Editor._)
[12] _Manu propria_, with his own hand.
[13] The same civilizing improvements may also have been the means
of giving the swans lessons in singing, a possibility which our
correspondent seems to have overlooked.--_Editor._
[14] For the conditions, see _Harmonicon_, &c.
[15] But M. de Camus has talked of the _pizzicato_ of the voice! (page
61) a term never before applied to anything of a musical kind, except
stringed instruments, and the exact meaning of which he perhaps had not
duly considered.
[16] We shall give this song, with a full piano-forte accompaniment, in
our ensuing number. _Editor._
[17] Published in 8vo. from the original Manuscript, by André of
Offenbach, who vouches for its authenticity, which, in fact, has never
been called in doubt.
[18] ‘Asseyez-vous, mai enfans.’--‘Il n’y a pas de quoi, mon seigneur.’
[19] Balfe is of Irish birth, and his history somewhat romantic. While
yet a boy he played a violin concerto at a theatrical benefit in
London, but without any marked success. To sing, however, was always
the object of his ambition; and, not having the means of achieving his
purpose in any other way, he actually walked to Italy, that he might
have an opportunity of hearing and imitating the great singers of that
country. A few years ago he returned, for a short time, to London, when
we had an opportunity of hearing him in the great Scena of _Assur_,
from _Semiramide_, as well as in a rondeau of his own composition, and
some other pieces. His voice was then a bass of two octaves compass,
from ~F~ to ~F~, combining great power, and very considerable facility
of execution. If his subsequent improvement has been in equal ratio
to the advances he had made when we heard him; if he has realized the
prospects which his voice and style then held out,--the United Kingdom
may, at no distant period, claim the first bass singer of the day, as
she can already boast of having produced the greatest soprano and tenor
of their times.
[20] This opera, our readers are well aware, entirely failed in London;
it was hissed off the stage! (_Editor._)
[21] This was printed some time ago in our work, by consent of the
author, who would not allow any other part of the sonata to be
republished, fearing that the sale of his Opera VII. would be injured!
We give it again, that the sonata may appear in an entire state.
[22] _Account of the Commemoration of Handel_, page 61.
[23] _Ibid._
[24] _Present State of Music in Germany_, vol. i. p. 346. (1773.)
[25] _Ibid._
[26] It was with great difficulty, and only through the most resolute
perseverance, that a director of the Philharmonic Society, who had
early obtained a copy of this symphony, succeeded in getting it
performed at the Philharmonic Concerts.--_Editor._
[27] From his _Studien in Generalbasse Contrapuncte_, &c. See p. 6 of
our number for January last.
[28] Those, says the learned Albrechtsberger, who would dive deep into
such subtleties, which, he remarks, are now little valued, may consult
the second part of the _Traité de la Fugue_, &c. of Marpurg.
[29] Here the second voice comes in, beginning from the commencement.
[30] The third voice comes in here, beginning from the commencement.
[31] The Author should have used the past tense; Canons are no longer
written in this stenographic manner.--_Editor._
[32] Among these pamphlets may be mentioned ~Remarks upon Church
Reform~, by the Rev. Edw. Burton, Regius Professor of Divinity.
~Letters on Church Reform~, by the Rev. C. Girdlestone. Principles
of Church Reform, by the Rev. Dr. Arnold. A Plan for abolishing
Pluralities, by the Rev. G. Townsend, Prebendary of Durham. A few Words
on the Episcopal Church and Cathedral Clergy of England, by the Rev. W.
L. Bowles. Remarks on the prospective and past Benefits of Cathedral
Institutions in the promotion of sound Religious Knowledge, by Edward
Bouverie Pusey, Canon of Christ Church. A ~Letter~ to ~Lord Henley~, by
the Hon. and Rev. ~A. P. Perceval~.
[33] Lord Henley, Plan, p. 17.
[34] At Oxford, these benefits are not merely past and prospective.
The three choral schools of Christ Church, St. Mary Magdalen, and New
College, are conducted on a liberal and judicious plan, in accordance
with the will of the founder. In those of the sister university, every
inferior scale of education has been adopted.
[35] Gal. iv. 26.
[36] 2 Heb. viii. 5.
[37] Exod. xv. 20, 21.
[38] Judges v. 1.
[39] Rev. xiv.
[40] Ut vero pueros supradictos habeat capitulum rite institutos,
tam morum modestia, quam canendi peritia, vobanus et statuimus, ut
unus, qui sit honestæ famæ, vitæ probæ, et cantandi peritus, ipsis
pueris choro destinatis, præficiatur magister et rector chori, qui
eis docendis et instituendis organis suo tempore pulsandis aliisque
ecclesiasticis muniis in choro obeundis studiose vacabit, qui congruam
habeat operæ suæ mercedem annuam per capitulum designandam et per
dictum receptorem exolvendam.
Prospiciat etiam puerorum salute: quorum et in literis, et in mensa
et convictu, educationem et liberalem institutionem illius fidei et
industriæ committimus. (Qui si negligens, aut in munere suo fungendo
desidiosus, aut in salute puerorum et recta eorum educatione, (ut
verbum Dei postulat) minime providus et circumspectus inveniatur, post
trinam admonitionem nisi resipuerit ab officiis deponatur et privetur.)
[41] Query, _moonlit flowers_?
[42] ‘Maria illuminatrix, sine Stella maris.’--_Isidor._
[43] Pacchierotti had not yet visited England.
[44] Afterward, Lord Cardigan.
[45] Afterwards Lord Malmsbury.
[46] Printed in an early number of the Harmonicon.
[47] By the way--though it is not common to descend from the artist
to his instrument--the piano-forte played on by Mr. Cramer (one of
Broadwood’s) was the most powerful and rich-toned we ever heard. Had
the alteration in the orchestra anything to do with the effect produced?
[48] We do not forget the song of ‘Mad Tom’ introduced in the first
concert, but scarcely feel warranted in considering it a legitimate
production of this great composer; indeed, it has never generally been
received as such, though not wanting in strong points of resemblance.
[49] The practice of beating time with the bow was introduced into this
country by M. Spohr, and he, being a great musician as well as leader,
has been, of course, imitated, for we are most industrious imitators
of what is foreign: and, in truth, quackery is so much the order of
the day, that without a due share of it success is hardly to be hoped
for. How many small persons, singers, _soi-disant_ composers, &c., are
now-a-days raised to something like importance by grossly open as well
as artful and disguised _charlatanerie_ and puffing!--(_Editor._)
[50] By the Countess of Tankerville.
[51] Afterwards George the Fourth.
[52] There is some great mistake in this. From the year of the
Commemoration it was resolved to enlarge, not contract, the scale,
and each succeeding season saw an augmentation, till the number of
performers was gradually increased from between 500 and 600, to nearly
1000. (_Editor of Harmonicon._)
[53] We cannot understand by what process of reasoning the author of
this article would set about to prove that the hero of a lyric drama
should have a base in preference to a tenor voice. We admit that he
should not on any account be a soprano; that it would be better that he
be not an alto; but here our objections cease. (_Editor of Harmonicon._)
[54] ‘The reason that moved the king to this act of munificence was
a singular one. The parish had chosen him their churchwarden, and he
executed the office for two months; but at the end thereof he grew
tired of it, as he well might, and presented the parish with that noble
instrument which is now in the church.’--_Hawkins’s Hist._ v. 60.
[55] ‘In the time of the Duke of Somerset’s chancellorship at
Cambridge, during the discontents of several members of that university
at the rigour of his government and paucity of his patronage,
Tudway, himself a malecontent, and joining in the clamour, said,
“The chancellor rides us all, _without a bit in our mouths_.” Nor
did the wicked sin of punning quit him even in sickness; for having
been dangerously ill of a quinsy, and unable, for some time, to
swallow food, the physician who attended him, after long debates and
difficulties, at length turning to Mrs. Tudway, said, “Courage Madam!
the doctor will get up Mayhill yet--he has been able to swallow some
nourishment.” On which he exclaimed, “Don’t mind him, my dear, one
_swallow_ does not make a summer.”’--_Burney’s Hist._ iii. 459 note.
[56] In our next number, we shall give a very clever article from the
‘Westminster Review,’ on the subject of Harmonics, which really leaves
nothing more to be said on the subject, and saves us the trouble of
analysing the works now before us.
[57] The son of John Christopher Schmidt, Handel’s copyist and managing
man. Dr. Burney has given a list of four oratorios composed by Smith,
but takes no notice of _Gideon_, which is not mentioned in either his
or Hawkins’s History of Music.
[58] Hawkins’s Hist., v. 407.
[59] Burney’s Hist., iii. 619.
[60] Dr. Philip Hayes was, with the exception of Bright, the Essex
miller, the most corpulent man of his time, and his obesity, instead of
being the result of good temper, was the cause of rather an irritable
disposition; but he was an honourable man, and perfectly master of
what is commonly called the theory of music. He died very suddenly in
London, in 1797, aged about fifty-eight years, and was interred in St.
Paul’s Cathedral, the gentlemen of the King’s Chapel, and the choirs of
St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey, attending the funeral.
[61] From the Restoration in 1660 to the year 1805, but seven persons
filled the office of Master of the Children; they were, Captain Henry
Cook, Pelham Humphrey, Dr. Blow, Dr. Croft, Bernard Gates, Dr. Nares,
and Dr. Ayrton. (_Editor._)
[62] These consist of two complete Services, each comprising a Te Deum,
Jubilate, Nicene Creed, Kyrie Eleison, Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis,
and several Anthems. (_Editor._)
[63] ‘Instructions to my Daughter, for playing on the Enharmonic
Guitar, by a Member of the University of Cambridge.’
[64] Agreeing with our correspondent as to the paramount importance
of melody, we differ from him most materially on other points. We say
this, lest it should be inferred from our silence that our opinion on
German music generally, and on that of Handel and Mozart in particular,
is in unison with the sentiments Mr. D. Walker has here avowed. If he
had only said that the accompaniments to vocal music are too commonly
injurious, because almost always played too loud, we should at once
have agreed with him.--(_Editor._)
[65] In more vulgar minds, the combinations of harmony and the power
of the orchestra excite also notions of pomp and majesty, because such
minds are more readily excited in this way by noise than by nature and
truth; and the same persons would be more delighted by a large picture,
or a large palace, than by a small one, however exquisite.
[66] Or, I may add, than the beautiful and simple forms of their
letters with those hooks and angles with which Gothic taste has
decorated them and made them truly its own.
[67] The words and accompaniments are by John Crosse, Esq. F.S.A. late
of Hull; and the whole, in score, appears in our volume for 1825, p.
229.--_Editor._
[68] How much good music is to be found in our libraries, that is
utterly unknown to the public! It is a curious fact, that an entire
opera by Haydn, the full score in his own hand-writing, and which not
only has never been performed, but has never been seen, except by very
few persons, is now in the possession of a gentleman in London! It was
composed for the King’s Theatre, but never paid for, therefore never
delivered.--_Editor._
[69] The composer’s intention is, to bring to mind this consolatory
promise, by a musical phrase familiar to all lovers of Handel’s sublime
_Messiah_.
[70] The musical critic in the _Examiner_ makes himself merry with
our opinion of ~Rubini’s~ singing. To differ from so profound a judge
is, no doubt, a proof of great hardihood, not to say presumption, but
our temerity is not without other abettors besides the _Spectator_;
a Sunday print of the very day on which the _Examiner_ is pleased to
be jocular, had the boldness to handle the Signor rather roughly; and
two, if not three, other papers--not contemptible ones--have been
rash enough to hint that he is not quite so perfect a singer as a few
French journals and our facetious friend so unhesitatingly assert.
Moreover, if the sprightly critic will condescend to consult some of
those who have made music the chief study of their lives, and have a
due portion of cerebral matter in their craniums, he will find that
our opinion is tolerably well backed though certainly it differs much
from that entertained by many members of ~Crockford’s~, and by divers
lady-singers who are deeply learned in the opera songs of the last
dozen years.
[71] We have inadvertently stated this to be from the 4th _Grand_
Concerto.
[72] Treatise on the Construction, Preservation, Repair, and
Improvement of the Violin, and all Bow-Instruments, together with
a Dissertation on the most eminent Makers, pointing out the surest
marks by which a genuine Instrument may be distinguished, by Jacob
Augustus Otto, Instrument Maker at the Court of the Arch-Duke of
Weimar. Translated from the German, with Notes and Additions, by Thomas
Fardely, of Leeds. 66 pages in 8vo. (Longman, Rees, Orme and Co.) 1833.
[73] _Repairing a damaged one_ would have been a more logical
expression; but whether the author or his translator is answerable for
the phrase, we cannot pretend to say.
[74] What _mathematics_ had to do in the matter, we cannot guess.
(_Reviewer._)
[75] An amateur of Liverpool.
[76] Of Liverpool.
[77]
J’allai à elle dans la prairie
Avec la vielle et l’archet.
[78] The melody of this is founded, the composer tells us in a note, on
the chimes of St. Mary’s clock, at Cambridge, which are as follows:--
[Illustration]
This tune was invented by the Rev. Dr. Jowett; and the drolls of
the University, from the moment or its birth, called it _Jowett’s
jig_.--_Editor._
[79] Since the above was _set up_, we have discovered that this is not
a new composition, though it may have been newly published. It is now
too late conveniently to take out the article.--(_Editor._)
[80] Master Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley, son of the Right Honourable
Sir Gore Ouseley.
[81] He is, however, still living.
[82] In his _Præceptiones Musices Poeticæ_: see Ravenscroft’s _Brief
Discourse_, 1614, p. 1.
[83] Memoirs of Dr. W. Hayes, Dr. Arne, Lord Mornington, Dr. Cooke, Dr.
Nares, and Dr. Callcott, will be found dispersed throughout the eleven
volumes of the _Harmonicon_.
[84] In a memoir of Mr. Spofforth, written by a friend, and prefixed to
a collection of his glees now publishing, it is stated that he became
actually organist of Lincoln Cathedral, an error which the author will
doubtless be happy to rectify.
[85] Outre-meuse, at Liége.
[86] Orlando di Lasso, as the Italians and English call him.--_Editor._
[87] A circumstance which had escaped our recollection when we stated
this to be the first attempt since Dr. Cooke’s.
[88] Zelter was brought up as a builder. It may be interesting to
mention, that Felix Mendelssohn was his pupil. Goethe speaks of ‘the
incredible talent of Zelter’s most astonishing pupil.’ This was written
when Mr. Mendelssohn was a child.--_Translator._
[89] ‘Charles Sackville, eldest son of Lionel, Duke of Dorset, a Lord
of the Treasury,’ (in 1746).
[90] ‘Sapperment’ is a very common and rather homely German exclamation
of sudden surprise, scarcely susceptible of translation, but somewhat
similar to the English word ‘zounds.’ The Germans, moreover, as Mr.
Russell correctly states in his Travels, observe a regular degree of
_decimal_ gradation in the use of their ‘Sapperment;’ viz.--Sapperment
(simply) 1 Sap, _Hundert Sapperment_, 100 ditto. _Tausend Sapperment_,
1,000 ditto. _Hundert Tausend Sapperment_, 100,000 ditto: which latter
term, as may be supposed, is only applicable to a state of amazement
a hundred thousand times greater than what would be expressed by the
simple exclamation of ‘Sapperment.’ The Germans are a calculating
people, even in their oaths.