Donizetti and Bellini were peculiarly moulded by the great genius of
Rossini, but in their best works they show individuality, color, 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
humor. 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 heauties
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 vigor, 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
sublile 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 fertilizes Nature, it
beyond all doubt included appreciation of truth, no less than instinct
for beauty."