Donizetti and Bellini were peculiarly moulded by the great genius of
Rossini, but in their best works they show individuality, colour, and
special creative activity. The former composer, one of the most
affluent in the annals of music, seemed to become more fresh in his
fancies with increased production. He is an example of how little the
skill and touch, belonging to unceasing work, should be despised in
comparison with what is called inspiration. Donizetti arrived at his
freshest creations at a time when there seemed but little left for him
except the trite and threadbare. There are no melodies so rich and
well fancied as those to be found in his later works; and in sense of
dramatic form and effective instrumentation (always a faulty point
with Donizetti) he displayed great progress at the last. It is,
however, a noteworthy fact, that the latest Italian composers have
shown themselves quite weak in composing expressly for the orchestra.
No operatic overture since "William Tell" has been produced by this
school of music, worthy to be rendered in a concert-room.
Donizetti lacked the dramatic instinct in conceiving his music. In
attempting it he became hollow and theatric; and beautiful as are the
melodies and concerted pieces in "Lucia," where the subject ought to
inspire a vivid dramatic nature with such telling effects, it is in
the latter sense one of the most disappointing of operas.
He redeemed himself for the nonce, however, in the fourth act of "La
Favorita," where there is enough musical and dramatic beauty to
condone the sins of the other three acts. The solemn and affecting
church chant, the passionate romance for the tenor, the great closing
duet in which the ecstasy of despair rises to that of exaltation, the
resistless sweep of the rhythm--all mark one of the most effective
single acts ever written. He showed himself here worthy of
companionship with Rossini and Meyerbeer.
In his comic operas, "L'Elisir d'Amore," "La Fille du Regiment," and
"Don Pasquale," there is a continual well-spring of sunny, bubbling
humour. They are slight, brilliant, and catching, everything that
pedantry condemns, and the popular taste delights in. Mendelssohn, the
last of the German classical composers, admired "L'Elisir," so much
that he said he would have liked to have written it himself. It may be
said that while Donizetti lacks grand conceptions, or even great
beauties for the most part, his operas contain so much that is
agreeable, so many excellent opportunities for vocal display, such
harmony between sound and situation, that he will probably retain a
hold on the stage when much greater composers are only known to the
general public by name.
Bellini, with less fertility and grace, possessed far more
picturesqueness and intensity. His powers of imagination transcended
his command over the working tools of his art. Even more lacking in
exact and extended musical science than Donizetti, he could express
what came within his range with a simple vigour, grasp, and beauty,
which make him a truly dramatic composer. In addition to this, a
matter which many great composers ignore, Bellini had extraordinary
skill in writing music for the voice, not that which merely gave
opportunity for executive trickery and embellishment, but the genuine
accents of passion, pathos, and tenderness, in forms best adapted to
be easily and effectively delivered.
He had no flexibility, no command over mirthful inspiration, such as
we hear in Mozart, Rossini, or even Donizetti. But his monotone is in
subtile _rapport_ with the graver aspects of nature and life. Chorley
sums up this characteristic of Bellini in the following words:--
"In spite of the inexperience with which the instrumental score is
filled up, the opening scene of 'Norma' in the dim druidical wood
bears the true character of ancient sylvan antiquity. There is
daybreak again--a fresh tone of reveille--in the prelude to 'I
Puritani.' If Bellini's genius was not versatile in its means of
expression, if it had not gathered all the appliances by which science
fertilises Nature, it beyond all doubt included appreciation of truth,
no less than instinct for beauty."
_VERDI._