SACRED AND SECULAR SUBJECTS.
It was the fate of Rossini to have to write a certain number of
complimentary cantatas, two of which were composed and executed in the
year 1819; one in honour of the King of Naples, the other to
congratulate his visitor the Emperor of Austria.
Rossini did not admit the principle of nationality in music, which he
divided generally into good music and bad. He also seems to have held
that music had no politics, and he composed with the greatest
impartiality works for the liberal, and for the monarchical and
conservative side. He is known to have written a patriotic hymn at
Bologna in 1815. Cimarosa had been thrown into prison (where, according
to some writers, he was poisoned) for a similar performance; but
Cimarosa doubtless went to work with greater earnestness than Rossini,
and doubtless did not limit the expression of his political opinions to
music alone.
In 1820 Rossini produced a patriotic cantata at Naples during the
temporary success of the Liberals; and in 1823 composed "Il Vero
Omaggio," a cantata performed at Verona during the Congress at which
liberal ideas played no great part.
In 1847 he addressed his "Stanzas" to Pius IX., and he had previously
made his peace with the Church by composing a mass, which was performed
at Naples in 1819--the year of the two cantatas. It is noticeable that
the various pieces contained in this religious work (apparently the one
which figures in several catalogues with the date of 1832 erroneously
attached to it) were all founded on motives from Rossini's operas.
This was the mass which, according to some enthusiastic Neapolitan
priest, could not fail, in spite of all his sins, to open to Rossini the
gates of Paradise. "Knock with that," he said, "and St. Peter cannot
refuse you."
Handel, in a similar manner, transferred several of his operatic airs to
oratorios. Music serves admirably to heighten the effect of a dramatic
situation, or to give force and intensity to the expression of words;
but the same music may often be allied with equal advantage to words of
very different shades of meaning. Thus the same music may be made to
depict sentiments, feelings, even passions (grief, remorse, ardent
longing), which belong equally to a religious and to a secular order of
ideas. Gluck knew as well as Piccini and all the Italian composers, that
an overture written specially for one opera might, without disadvantage,
be prefixed to another. Gluck's overture to "Armide" was originally the
overture to "Telemacco," and he borrowed both from the said "Telemacco"
and from his "Clemenza di Tito," to enrich the score of "Iphigénie en
Aulide."
Paisiello, when he was Napoleon's chapel master, used to compose a mass
every two months or oftener--he produced fourteen in two years. He
received a thousand francs apiece for them, and it is said that after
making use of numerous pieces of church music which he had written for
Italy, he went for his motives to his serious and even his comic operas.
One can recall many love songs of an elevated character, those of
Mozart and of Schubert for instance, songs of a mournful and regretful
character, songs of a sentimental and slightly passionate cast, which
only require to be united to religious words to acquire religious
character.
It is of course essential for the success of music thus transferred from
secular to religious compositions, that it shall be heard for the first
time as part of the latter.