A still higher place must be assigned to another disciple and follower
of the school perfected by Piccini, DOMINIC CIMAROSA, born in Naples
in 1749. His life down to his latter years was an uninterrupted flow
of prosperity. His mother, a humble washerwoman, could do little for
her fatherless child, but an observant priest saw the promise of the
lad, and taught him till he was old enough to enter the Conservatory
of St. Maria di Loretto. His early works showed brilliant invention
and imagination, and the young Cimarosa, before he left the
Conservatory, had made himself a good violinist and singer. He worked
hard, during a musical apprenticeship of many years, to lay a solid
foundation for the fame which his teachers prophesied for him from the
onset. Like Paisiello, he was for several years attached to the court
of Catherine II. of Russia. He had already produced a number of
pleasing works, both serious and comic, for the Italian theatres, and
his faculty of production was equalled by the richness and variety of
his scores. During a period of four years spent at the imperial court
of the North, Cimarosa produced nearly five hundred works, great and
small, and only left the service of his magnificent patroness, who was
no less passionately fond of art than she was great as a ruler and
dissolute as a woman, because the severe climate affected his health,
for he was a typical Italian in his temperament.
He was arrested in his southward journey by the urgent persuasions of
the Emperor Leopold, who made him chapel-master, with a salary of
twelve thousand florins. The taste for the Italian school was still
paramount at the musical capital of Austria. Though such composers as
Haydn, Salieri, and young Mozart, who had commenced to be welcomed as
an unexampled prodigy, were in Vienna, the court preferred the suave
and shallow beauties of Italian music to their own serious German
school, which was commencing to send down such deep roots into the
popular heart.
Cimarosa produced "Il Matrimonio Segreto" (The Secret Marriage), his
finest opera, for his new patron. The libretto was founded on a
forgotten French operetta, which again was adapted from Garrick and
Colman's "Clandestine Marriage." The emperor could not attend the
first representation, but a brilliant audience hailed it with delight.
Leopold made amends, though, on the second night, for he stood in his
box, and said, aloud--
"Bravo, Cimarosa, bravissimo! The whole opera is admirable,
delightful, enchanting! I did not applaud, that I might not lose a
single note of this masterpiece. You have heard it twice, and I must
have the same pleasure before I go to bed. Singers and musicians, pass
into the next room. Cimarosa will come, too, and preside at the
banquet prepared for you. When you have had sufficient rest, we will
begin again. I encore the whole opera, and in the meanwhile let us
applaud it as it deserves."
The emperor gave the signal, and, midst a thunderstorm of plaudits,
the musicians passed into their midnight feast. There is no record of
any other such compliment, except that to the Latin dramatist,
Plautus, whose "Eunuchus" was performed twice on the same day.
Yet the same Viennese public, six years before, had actually hissed
Mozart's "Nozze di Figaro," which shares with Rossini's "Il Barbiere"
the greatest rank in comic opera, and has retained, to this day, its
perennial freshness and interest. Cimarosa himself did not share the
opinion of his admirers in respect to Mozart. A certain Viennese
painter attempted to flatter him, by decrying Mozart's music in
comparison with his own. The following retort shows the nobility of
genius--"I, sir? What would you call the man who would seek to assure
you that you were superior to Raphael?" Another acute rejoinder, on
the respective merits of Mozart and Cimarosa, was made by the French
composer, Grétry, in answer to a criticism by Napoleon, when first
consul, that great man affecting to be a _dilettante_ in music--
"Sire, Cimarosa puts the statue on the theatre and the pedestal in the
orchestra, instead of which Mozart puts the statue in the orchestra
and the pedestal on the theatre."
The composer's hitherto brilliant career was doomed to a gloomy close.
On returning to Naples, at the Emperor Leopold's death, Cimarosa
produced several of his finest works; among which musical students
place first--"Il Matrimonio per Susurro," "La Penelope,"
"L'Olimpiade," "Il Sacrificio d'Abrama," "Gli Amanti Comici," and "Gli
Orazi." These were performed almost simultaneously in the theatres of
Paris, Naples, and Vienna. Cimarosa attached himself warmly to the
French cause in Italy, and when the Bourbons finally triumphed the
musician suffered their bitterest resentment. He narrowly escaped with
his life, and languished for a long time in a dungeon, so closely
immured that it was for a long time believed by his friends that his
head had fallen on the block.
At length released, he quitted the Neapolitan territory, only to die
at Venice in a few months, "in consequence," Stendhall says, in his
_Life of Rossini_, "of the barbarous treatment he had met with in the
prison into which he had been thrown by Queen Caroline." He died
January 11, 1801.
Cimarosa's genius embraced both the tragic and comic schools of
composition. He may be specially called a genuine master of musical
comedy. He was the finest example of the school perfected by Piccini,
and was indeed the link between the old Italian opera and the new
development of which Rossini is such a brilliant exponent. Schlüter,
in his _History of Music_, says of him--"Like Mozart, he excels in
those parts of an opera which decide its merits as a work of art, the
_ensembles_ and _finale_. His admirable and by no means antiquated
opera, 'Il Matrimonio Segreto' (the charming offspring of his 'secret
marriage' with the Mozart opera) is a model of exquisite and graceful
comedy. The overture bears a striking resemblance to that of 'Figaro,'
and the instrumentation of the whole opera is highly characteristic,
though not so prominent as in Mozart. Especially delightful are the
secret love-scenes, written evidently _con amore_, the composer having
practised them many a time in his youth."
This opera is still performed in many parts of Europe to delighted
audiences, and is ranked by competent critics as the third finest
comic opera extant, Mozart and Rossini only surpassing him in their
masterpieces. It was a great favourite with Lablache, and its
magnificent performance by Grisi, Mario, Tamburini, and the king of
bassos, is a gala reminiscence of English and French opera-goers.
We quote an opinion also from another able authority--"The drama of
'Gli Orazi' is taken from Corneille's tragedy, 'Les Horaces.' The
music is full of noble simplicity, beautiful melody, and strong
expression. In the airs dramatic truth is never sacrificed to vocal
display, and the concerted pieces are grand, broad, and effective.
Taken as a whole, the piece is free from antiquated and obsolete
forms; and it wants nothing but an orchestral score of greater
fullness and variety to satisfy the modern ear. It is still frequently
performed in Germany, though in France and England, and even in its
native country, it seems to be forgotten."
Cardinal Consalvi, Cimarosa's friend, caused splendid funeral honours
to be paid to him at Rome. Canova executed a marble bust of him, which
was placed in the gallery of the Capitol.
_ROSSINI._