A still higher place must be assigned to another disciple and follower
of the school perfected by Piccini, Dominic Cimarosa, born in Naples
in 1754. His life down to his latter years was an uninterrupted flow of
prosperity. His mother, an humble washerwomen, 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 equaled 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 mean while 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," "II
Sacrificio d'Abramo," "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," Stendhal 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. Schluter, 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 favorite 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 honors to
be paid to him at Rome. Canova executed a marble bust of him, which was
placed in the gallery of the Capitol.