In France it is quite otherwise, and even the Germans write there in altogether a different style. In the French opera, as it is now constituted, there is an evident striving to appear characteristic, to heighten effect by all means known or possible. Much display, which frequently resembles the mere glitter of gold tinsel; a lavish expenditure of passages and bravura pieces, surpassing even the Italian; an activity of instruments which goes even beyond the Germans; male parts written in a vocal register enough to make physicians shudder: song-parts of an expression in the highest degree French, half chivalric, half Gascoigne ; a rhythm, which moves or runs in even pace with the country itself; a charlatanism in modulations from one key to another; a multitude of dramatic and very beautiful effects, little depth, almost no originality:-that is what I have discovered in reading* through the works of the most celebrated opera writers of our time. In Italy the national physiognomy, which from of old has mirrored itself most manifestly in the opera, lies in dilettantism, in the passion itself for music. As born musicians, connoisseurs in all that concerns execution, neither better nor worse judges of composition than the great mass of the public elsewhere, indifferent to the dramatic development, but, on the other hand, as distinguished orecchianti (possessors of a musical ear), the Italians desire nothing of an opera but euphony, with a strong dose of noise (which they loved less at one time), fluent roulades, a pleasant tickling of the senses, an intoxicating thrill, a voluptuous warmth. With them the music conforms to the climate. The people of the north, as we know, loved to warm themselves by their glowing sun; and, if to-day they cannot leave their homes to seek it, they try to supply this want by the glow of their music. From our remarks it follows, that of the four modes of indicating the local origin of an opera-all of which can be and are pledges of success with native audiences-there is not one, which, in the judgment of a foreign and impartial connoisseur, really 'enotes a fault, an imperfection, or, indeed, a negative in music. And yet most of the operas-we maintain, all of them-come themselves under some one of these categories. Moreover, there is no branch of art in which tastes and opinions are so different as in dramatic music; and there is none which has had so much to suffer from the times. There is only one opera which rises above all influences of time and local relations, and at an immeasurable height rules the remotest and most splendid regions of unmixed psychology. This no nation can claim as its exclusive property. The text is Italian, the subject Spanish, the composer German; for one must choose some language wherein to write a theatrical piece, the action must occur in some place, and the musician must be born somewhere. But, as regards the score, the approbation of the world-which agrees in recognizing it as the first masterpiece of the lyric stage, and a half-century, which seems only to have enhanced every one of its beautieshas settled, that it is neither exclusively German, nor Italian, Spanish, Russian, nor French. It is universal! All my readers have named this opera, and while they named it, they will have understood why I touched upon a subject which does not for a moment interrupt the thread of our historical consideration, because it is essentially connected with the goal to which I am tending. We shall now see what fate awaited the opera in France. long time passed for models in all Europe, and which even Italy borrowed of him. But soon the Italians got the start of him: they began to sing, while the French went on psalmodizing, for which we cannot reasonably reproach them. In music they were yet a people in its childhood; they wanted historical antecedents; they possessed neither composers nor singers; and for the little knowledge that was infused among them they were indebted to foreigners, whose debtors they have remained to our day for the sum-total of the advances, which have made their lyric-dramatic school illustrious in noble or serious operas. It was the fortune of this school to be born in the lap of barbarism, and to remain there for a long time through the want of native talents. When the Italians took that splendid upward flight, which placed them so high in melodic composition and in the art of singing, while it removed them more and more from the conditions of the drama, the French were not able to follow them. As an ingenious people, however, they made a virtue of necessity, and found a glory in wounding the ear from principle; out of variety and thirst for distinctions of all kinds, they honoured with the name of national music the newly-revived Florentine song-speech, which the Italians had long since given up, and which, moreover, was no music. But while the French naturalized among them this intolerable reciting manner, they closed a no less loyal compact with the rational principle, which had called the same into life. The idea of the founders of the lyricdrama could not become lost in the land of a Corneille and a Racine, as it did in Italy. Cast upon the then so-classic French ground, it lay long buried as a precious seed; at last it sprung up, and the harvest turned out all the fairer for the long time they had to wait for it. I am firmly convinced that the hearers of the old French opera looked for nothing in it but dramatic excitements and the dance; for, we cannot too often repeat it, the Florentine psalmodising, or, what is scarcely better, the recitative of Lulli and Rameau could never have inspired much interest in any one as music. It pleased in France as a sort of strengthening of the effect. Here they were accustomed to the shockingly false screech of the singer; the ear was as yet so uncultivated, that no one was offended by it; and hence this very scream, this urlo Francese (French howl) was received only as the exalted expression of the passions. That musical enjoyment, which the audiences sought not in the dramatic music, but which one cannot quite dispense with in the opera, they found in airs, which were danced to, in which there is always some rhythm and some melody, that is to say, something true and answering to the hearer's power of comprehension. Hence ballets and divertissements were always inseparable from musical tragedy. Even to-day they hold fast to these, while the friends of music would gladly dispense with such auxiliaries. The principle of lyric-dramatic truth prevailed thus from the outset in the grand opera: but foreigners never suspected it, since it was applied in almost as bad a manner as in the time of Giovanni Bardi. Foreigners, who understood something of music, did not comprehend this exhibition; they heard nothing but a long, monotonous jeremiad without melody or rhythm, in which it was impossible to distinguish the recitatives from the arioso, and which was rendered still more intolerable by an earsplitting execution, and gothic droning, laughable embellishThe difference in its fate among the Italians and the Frenchments, and bleating cadences. The natives, upon whom the is fully explained by the difference of the two peoples. The first were the most musical people in Europe; the second the best versed in literature of any in the seventeenth century. This fundamental distinction must have reversed the mutual relations between the three classes of producers, co-operating in the production of an opera, and have led each of the two nations to results diametrically opposite. When the musical drama was introduced into France under Cardinal Mazarin, there was as yet no French music. What Lulli had till then composed, was in about the same genre in which Peri and Caccini had written, to whom Lulli was superior only in his overtures and his dance airs, which for a *Did M. Oulibicheff never hear the French operas Guillaume Tell, La Muette de Portici, or Les Huguenots ?-ED. M.W. thing made quite a different and a purely dramatic impression, declared, with a contemptuous smile, that strangers were not up to the level of their opera. This state of things brought about, as we have already remarked, relation and consequences wholly the reverse of those which marked the development of the musical drama with the Italians. The poet, from whom the public expected its chief enjoyment, and who reaped glory from a well elaborated opera text as well as from a good tragedy, kept even pace with the composer, if he did not even get before him; the composer, for whom the choice of the poem or the kind of verse was the most indifferent matter in the world, since his music adapted itself equally well, that is to say, equally badly, to every kind, could not seriously fall out with the author of the words. Still less so with the singers. These possessed in the highest degree what was necessary to execute all that was not song; and since no one thought of offering them such, they took up a score with the same docility or the same indifference with which the composer took up the poem. What cared they whether the notes were put together so-and-so? Their art limited itself to the taking points of the French song: to the portamento, the amoroso, the trillo, &c.; and these tricks were employed throughout, as well as the scream. Thus, in France, poets, musicians, and singers, lived in sweetest harmony, one in their interests, their means, their end. The order in which we have named them, marked the degree of their respective consequence. With the Italians the relation was precisely the reverse, and transformed the poet into a hod-carrier, the maestro into a slave, and the singers into despots. Hence a contrasted and striking result in the history of the lyric theatre with these two nations. In Italy an opera never outlived the accidental assemblage of the singers for whom it was written; it lasted just one stagione, or theatrical "season." In France whole generations of singers succeeded one another in the poems of Quinault and the music of Lulli. It required no less a man than Gluck, to consign to the final repose of the grave this musical mummy, which had held possession of the throne of the grand opera since its foundation. In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, a troop of comic-opera singers brought into France the taste for the true music, which needs only to present itself to make proselytes at once; the men of sense, as Mozart used to express it, the real friends of music, felt at once that this was the enjoyment which they had vainly sought in the national opera; but such men were at that time rare in the land, and their enthusiasm, which with the French is always inseparable from the spirit of propagandism, had to encounter fearful opposition. The good patriots, who had no ears, made it a duty to drive back the invasion of the foreign music; the grand opera caballed; the comic-opera singers were sent away. Their stay in France, nevertheless, bore its fruits. Young musicians of talent, Philidor, Monsigny, and Grétry, sought in their comic operas to imitate the style of the Serva padrona, which had so enchanted the amateurs in the Italian theatre. These happy attempts, which gradually accustomed the French ears to true music, feeble as they were, prepared the arrival of Gluck, whom musical tragedy awaited ere she stepped into the place of the false idol, which had represented her for more than a century and a half. (To be continued.) GIACOMO MEYERBEER. THE visit of the renowned composer of the Huguenots to London has naturally suggested that a brief notice of his life and works would not, at the present moment, be unacceptable to our readers. We have, therefore, taken, as a groundwork-the memoir of Meyerbeer in the Biographie Universelle des Musiciens of M. Fétis, and shall make such additions as we may find necessary hereafter, the work of the learned Belgian encyclopedist having been published in 1841. Giacomo Meyerbeer was born at Berlin, in 1794, of a wealthy and honourable family, the members of which had cultivated with success the arts and sciences. William, the second brother of Giacomo, is reckoned among the best astronomers of Germany, and has made himself known in the scientific world by a map of the moon which obtained the astronomical prize at the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Michael, another brother of the celebrated composer, who died in the flower of his age, was considered one of the most promising poets in all Germany. His tragedies, Paria and Struensée, gained wherever they were played the most flattering applause. As early as his fourth year the musical intelligence of Giacomo manifested itself by signs not to be mistaken. Catching up the tunes played by the street organs, he transferred them to the piano, and played Astonished to see so fortunate accompaniments with his left hand. a disposition in a child so young, his father determined to neglect musical education by confiding him to the care of Herr Lanska, an nothing to cultivate his abilities, and accordingly laid the basis of his excellent pianist, and pupil of Clementi, who, to the rational principles of mechanism inculcated in the school of that master, united the rare talent of being able to impart the knowledge he possessed to others. Young Meyerbeer made such rapid progress in his studies, that when only six years old he already figured conspicuously in the amateur concerts at Berlin; where three years later he was counted among the most accomplished pianists. The Gazette Musicale of Leipsic, in a notice of two concerts in the theatre, at which Meyerbeer performed (on the 17th November, 1803, and the 2nd of January, 1804), says that he gave very remarkable evidence of mechanical power and elegance of style. Abbé Vogler, an organist and theorist, then well-known which he observed in the improvisation of the child, he foretold that in all Germany, heard him at this period. Surprised at the originality menti visited Berlin, and the performances of the youthful Meyerbeer he would one day be a great musician. Some time afterwards, Clefilled him with so much interest, that, despite his constitutional aversion for teaching, he gave him instructions during the whole of his sojourn in the capital of Prussia. Before he was ten years of age, and although he had never received lessons in harmony, Meyerbeer had already composed many morceaux for the voice and the piano, without any other guide than his own instinct. Friends, whose judgments were to be relied upon, discovered in the boy the germs of a fine talent, and his parents decided on placing him under a master for composition. Their choice fell upon Bernard THE LATE AMATEUR PANTOMIME.-On Wednesday evening Anselm Weber, pupil of Vogler, and the chef d'orchestre of the Berlin last a most complete and elegant despatch-box was presented by Opera. An enthusiastic admirer of Gluck, passionately fond of the grand the members of the committee of the Amateur Pantomime to musical declamation of this artist, and thoroughly versed in the draMr. W. P. Hale, who had acted as secretary in the proceedings matic style, Bernard Weber was able to afford his pupil useful counsels in connected with the amateur performance at Drury Lane. This the aesthetic appliances of art; but, being a feeble harmonist, and not proelegant cadeau was presented by Mr. Charles Taylor to Mr. foundly versed in counterpoint and fugue, it was out of his power to guide Hale in a most kind and expressive manner, and Mr. Hale, in a him safely through these difficult studies, so that the young scholar was few words, "endeavoured" (however vainly and inexpressively) compelled for some time to wander far on the sea of speculation in his "to testify the sense he entertained of so kind and unlooked for endeavour to instruct himself. One day Meyerbeer carried a fugue to a testimonial of any services which he might have rendered his master, who, very much astonished, proclaimed it a chef-d'œuvre, most readily" (on his part) "in the cause of charity." and sent it to the Abbé Vogler in the hopes of obtaining for Meyerbeer, We can only say, that we hope Mr. Hale may long live to use the despatch-ceited pedant, who deceived everyone but Mozart. The answer, waited on the strength of it, the opinion and advice of that curiously conbox, and to fill it with State papers as a person high in office. PORTRAIT OF LINDLEY THE VIOLONCELLIST.-A portrait of the packet arrived which was opened with intense eagerness. But, in lieu for with impatience, was a long time coming. At last a voluminous late eminent violoncellist is now being exhibited at Mr. of the expected praises, they found a sort of practical treatise on fugue, Walesby's Private Gallery of Art, Waterloo Place. The likeness written in the hand of Abbé Vogler, and divided into three parts. In is good, and the picture altogether well-painted. the first, the rules for the formation of this kind of music were exposed in a succinct manner. The second, entitled The Fugue of the Scholar, contained the composition of Meyerbeer, analysed in all its parts; the result of the examination showing that it was by no means correct. The third, The Fugue of the Master, contained a fugue by Vogler himself upon the subject and counter-subjects of Meyerbeer. This also was analysed bar by bar, with the reasons which had induced Vogler to adopt such a form and no other. HORNSEY CHORAL SOCIETY.-(From a Correspondent.)—The first concert of this society took place on Tuesday last. Mr. Charles Coningsby, the organist of Hornsey Church, and founder of the society, officiated as conductor. The programme consisted of two parts, the first of which was devoted exclusively to sacred music. In the course of the evening Mr. Coningsby performed on the piano a prelude and fugue of J. S. Bach, a rondo by Weber, and Beethoven's sonata pathétique. The chief feature of the concert was, of course, the vocal portion of the programme, which, considering the brief existence of the Society, was executed in a highly creditable manner, and much to the satisfaction of the musical inhabitants of Hornsey. Full of enthusiasm, Meyerbeer commenced writing a fugue in eight parts, based upon the principles of the Abbé Vogler, to whom he sent it when finished. This new attempt was not treated in the same man. ner by the pedant. "A splendid future lies before you,”—he wrote to Meyerbeer," Come and live near me. Hasten to Darmstadt; I will receive you as my son, and teach you to drink deep at the source of musical intelligence." The young musician never rested until he obtained leave from his parents to profit by this invitation. Meyerbeer was fifteen when he became the pupil of Vogler, who then enjoyed an unaccountable reputation, and had founded a school of composition, in which, among others, Winter had been instructed. Among the pupils, when Meyerbeer joined the school, were Carl Maria von Weber and Gaensbacher, subsequently chapel-master of St. Stephen's, at Vienna. Incessantly occupied with serious studies, the pupils of Vogler passed a monotonous life. After mass, which Weber, as a Roman Catholic, was obliged to serve, Vogler called together the scholars, gave them an oral lesson on counterpoint, and then made them compose pieces of church music upon given themes, the day ending with analyses of what each had written. Sometimes Vogler took Meyerbeer to the cathedral, where there were two organs, upon which they improvised together, each taking in turns the subject of a fugue and working it. In this manner, during two years, passed the technical education of the author of Robert le Diable. At the end of this time, Vogler closed his school, and visited with his pupils the principal towns of Germany. Be fore quitting Darmstadt, Meyerbeer, now seventeen years of age, was appointed composer to the Court. The Grand Duke accorded him this distinction after having heard his oratorio, Dieu et la Nature. This was not the only work he had written in the school of Vogler; he had also composed a great deal of religious music, some of which is remembered even at the present day.* operas of Nocolini, Farinelli, Pavesi, and others, which were then repre- CONVERSATIONS WITH FELIX MENDELSSOHN.* In such cases, a mirage takes place, and it is very seldom that, in the transit through, another individual, no peculiarity is lost and no foreign matter introduced.-THE SAME. I. The time for artistic activity had arrived for Meyerbeer. At eighteen he presented the public of Munich with his first dramatic work-La Fille de Jepthé. The subject, developed in three acts, was an oratorio rather than an opera. Filled with scholastic forms, drunk with Voglerism, the Wagnerism of the time, Meyerbeer had infused but little melodic charm into this composition; which, consequently, failed. At the same time, Meyerbeer, having obtained brilliant success as a pianist and improvisatore, resolved to go to Vienna, the city of pianists, and make himself heard there. The evening of his arrival he had the good fortune to hear Hummel, then in the meridian of his talents. The young artist comprehended at once the superiority of the Viennese, and unwilling to be vanquished, formed the resolution of not appearing in public until he had made himself a thorough proficient in those I NEVER possessed a good memory. Whenever I read, heard qualities in which his rival excelled him. To attain this end he shut or thought anything that struck me as worthy of being rememhimself up for six months, prosecuting his studies with great perse-bered, I was obliged to enter it as quickly as possible in my verance and energy. After which he made his début and created an impression the recollection of which is not yet effaced. Moscheles, the celebrated composer and pianist, who was then at Vienna, was frequently heard to say, that if Meyerbeer would direct his talents to public performances, few pianists would have been able to compete with him. But views of a different nature occupied the thoughts of our hero. This is the place to mention a strange idea which had got into his head at the time (1813). The extraordinary success which the originality of his ideas and the novelty of their treatment had obtained, persuaded him into the belief that other pianists were anxious to deprive him of them, and so, to escape the imaginary danger, he decided upon deterring the publication of his pianoforte works. Pre-occupied subsequently with his composition for the theatre, Meyerbeer ceased to appear in public as a solo performer, and even neglected the pianoforte; so much so that he ended by forgetting the greatest part of his compositions for were lost to the art. the instrument, not having committed them to paper, and thus they The éclat which attended Meyerbeer's performances as a pianist in Vienna was the cause of his being entrusted, at the age of nineteen, with the composition of a comic opera for the Court Theatre, entitled Alcimeleck; ou, les deux Califes. Italian music, at that time, was alone in favour with M. de Metternich and the nobility; and the music of Alcimeleck being written in a style entirely different, like that of La Fille de Jephté, it was received with much indifference, and the result was again unfavourable to the fame of the composer. Salieri, who greatly esteemed the young musician, consoled him by the assurance that, in spite of the singular form of his subjects, he was not wanting in the happiest melodic invention, and that, not having studied the mechanism of the human voice sufficiently, he wrote badly for the singer. The Italian maestro further advised him to go to Italy and learn the art of writing for the voice, predicting success upon which his future as an operatic composer depended. Italian music, however, had but small attraction for Meyerbeer. The * Nothing but his genius saved Meyerbeer from being utterly ruined by Vogler.ED. M. W.] journal, and, as I had a great deal to enter, to do so in the fewest words. I now regret this brevity very much, since I have looked over the notes of my conversations with Mendelssohn, for the purpose of making some of them public. I find the general purport but not the particular expression. The deceased master, however, not only thought very exactly, but possessed the power of expressing his thoughts with precision, and often succeeded in hitting the right nail on the head in a very summary manner. The reader will, therefore, not receive Mendelssohn's thoughts in his words, but, unfortunately, only in mine. I am not aware whether any one can boast of having had long conversations with Mendelssohn, but, as far as my knowledge of him goes, he was not fond of them. In fact, smatterers and fine talkers tried in vain to engage his attention. He either escaped from his will, broke drily off. Many an unamiable judgment on his them by delicate turns, or, if they wished to detain him against works arose very probably from such refusals on his part to enter into conversation. People said that he was proud, and revenged themselves by attacks in the papers. I always liked speaking about our art with practical musicians better than with anyone else. Mere art-philosophers, even though they may be the most acute thinkers, cannot say a word on many points connected with the subject, either because they know nothing about them, or have not themselves any experience of them. That Mendelssohn had meditated earnestly on his art, no one doubts. This fact was apparent in every opinion he uttered concerning it. But he generally enunciated the results of his meditations in a few words, without entering into any especia! reasons. A proposal was once made that, in addition to directing the Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipsic, he should deliver lectures on music to the University. His answer was: "He did not think he possessed the necessary capability." He refused. He knew very well that he was perfectly capable, but he did not feel * By the author of Fliegende Blätter für Musik, Leipsic, 1853. inclined. He preferred composing to lecturing. But, however this may be, I flatter myself that I was one of those with whom he was fond of conversing upon art. The conversations between us which I now publish, do not, it is true, appear in exactly their original form. What, in some cases, is here given continuously, I was obliged to catch up at very distant moments of the conversation. As we were walking together on one occasion, we happened to speak about "school," and the contempt with which people now (i. e. then) began to speak of it, as a drag on genius. "This opinion" said Mendelssohn, bursting out, "is an insult both to reason and experience! What signification do such persons attach to the word 'school?' Let a man possess the very greatest musical genius-can he compose without a knowledge of the accords and the laws for their connection? Can he form a piece of music, without having studied the laws of form? Can he harmonize with instrumental accompaniments, without possessing a knowledge of instruments or a varied experience of their inexhaustible combinations? And is not all this 'school?" "Perhaps," interrupted I, "they do not allude, when designating 'school' a drag, to the technical facts that you adduce, but rather to the æsthetical nonsense, which does not advance the artist, but actually confuses him by its opposite demands, and may certainly lame his powers of creation." "No, no!" continued Mendelssohn. "They mean this same technical 'school.' I could name persons who afterwards sought in secret the thing they formerly despised, because they remarked that, with their genius, they only produced stupid trash. "Again, in an aesthetic point of view-can anyone, without knowing what does, in music, produce anything beautiful? Why do I alter a passage? Because it does not please me. Why does it not please me? Because it sins against some aesthetical law, which I have learnt from the study of the best models. If I did not know this law, I should not perceive the defect, but consider the passage a good passage. Name me only one really great master, not in music alone but in any other art, who has not most diligently gone through the 'school,' both technically and aesthetically speaking. When we have to lament the deficiencies in any celebrated artist, as is sometimes the case, what do we say He wants technical knowledge, or he is deficient in a perfectly certain insight into art-in a word, he is deficient in school. It would never enter the head of any painter, sculptor, or architect to regard'school' as an obstacle-a drag on genius. How comes it then that so many musicians entertain this stupid idea?" "You must confess, however," I replied, " that many an artist is completely master of school,' and yet does not create any important work of art, while many, who are very deficient in it, produce great things." "Ay, that is true," answered Mendelssohn, "school' cannot make talent, and, therefore, is of no use to him who does not possess the latter; but to make me believe that a man without 'school' can produce anything reasonable you must give me proofs, for I myself know none. A man may display talent, without possessing 'school,' but do not let him think of ever producing a true work of art. 'What a pity,' people say, 'that such and such an artist has studied so little,' or 'possesses so little real insight into art. How much more important his works would have been, had he only learnt more.' Persons whose talent has, from want of study, never come to anything, invented this phrase to console themselves for the reproaches of their own conscience, and other idlers adopted it after them." II. "How does it happen," Mendelssohn asked me on a subsequent occasion, "that you have become still as a composer? It strikes me that, for some years past, you have not published anything. That is a great mistake, as I have already told you. Your power of production can scarcely have been exhausted as yet, I should say ?" "Perhaps not," I replied. "But the wish for production is. A single opinion in a critical journal has frightened me, I believe, for ever, from composing, because, unfortunately, it struck me as just." "The deuce! And pray," enquired Mendelssohn, smiling, "what was this opinion?” "He possesses talent,'" I replied, "but will never strike out any new path.' "Hem! And did that frighten you?" he asked. "Certainly," I replied. "I found that everything I composed not only did not excel the best that was already written, but did not even come up to it by a good deal. I now, it is true, endeavoured to rise; I determined to write, from the first to the last idea, in a particularly original manner, and with the most unexpected beauty. But my imagination would not furnish what I demanded. It did not present me with a single thought that satisfied my heavy demands, or should have struck me as a pilgrim in a new path, and so the pen fell from my hand, and I gave up the task." "Yes-yes," said Mendelssohn, "I know what you mean. When you begin a composition you have a very grand idea of what you are about-and what you are determined to produce. The thoughts, for which you commence searching, are, in your dark presentiment of them, all far more beautiful than when they afterwards stand out upon paper. I once experienced a similar feeling, but I soon recovered myself. If we were only to adopt those thoughts which completely come up to our wishes, we should produce either nothing at all, or merely very little. From this motive I have even frequently thrown on one side and not finished works which I had begun." "That proves nothing, however," I replied. "All artists have left torsos behind them, in consequence of perceiving they had made a mistake." "That may be," replied Mendelssohn. "Such unfinished works used to depress me very much, and render me very timid about commencing another. I regretted the time that I had spent in vain. I was not, therefore, long in coming to a decision I have made myself a solemn promise never to abandon a work once commenced, but, on the contrary, to finish every one, however it may turn out. If it does not prove a work of art in the higher acceptation of the expression, it is, at any rate, an exercise in shaping and rendering ideas. This is the reason why I have composed so many things which have never been printed, and which never shall be." "Yes, yes," I replied, "I could certainly produce a great many works like those of the last kind, but those which would appear to me as successful, and as striking out a new path, would be wanting. Again, it is not everyone who can work as you do, without troubling himself as to whether what he is engaged on will bring him in anything or not. A person like myself, on whose pen the existence of his family mostly depends, commits a sin if he writes a single stroke without the hope of recompense. It is laudable to sacrifice one's self as an artist, but it is wrong to make a family suffer for it." "Granted-unreservedly," exclaimed Mendelssohn eagerly, "if a man renounces artisticity from a deliberate conviction of the insufficiency of his artistic skill. Your reason for not writing, however, simply because you cannot strike out a new path, iswith all respect-not reasonable. What is the real meaning of this phrase? To open a way that no one has ever trod before you? In the first place, it is indispensable that this new way should conduct to much more beautiful and charming regions of art than those with which we are already acquainted. Everyone is capable of simply cutting out a new road, provided he can handle a shovel and use his legs. But, in every higher acceptation of the phrase, I deny point blank that there are any new paths, because there are no more new provinces of art. They were all discovered long since. New paths! What a mischievous demon is this notion for every artist who delivers himself up to it! No artist has ever really entered upon a new path. At the very best, he only did his work an almost imperceptible shade better than his predecessor. Who is to open these new paths? Only the greatest geniuses, I suppose! But tell me, now-did Beethoven open a new road totally different from that followed by Mozart? Do Beethoven's symphonies pursue completely new paths? I say that they do not. I can't perceive between Beethoven's first symphony and Mozart's last any superiority in the way of unusual artistic worth or extraor dinary effect. The former pleases me, and the latter pleases me. If I hear Beethoven's in D major to-day, I feel happy; and if, tomorrow I hear that of Mozart in C major, with the fugue at the end,I feel happy, too. I do not think of any new path, when I hear Beethoven, nor does he remind me of one. What an opera is Fidelio! I do not pretend that every thought in it pleases me completely, but I should like to know what other opera can produce a deeper effect or more charming artistic enjoyment. Can you find a single piece in it with which Beethoven struck out a new path? I cannot. I see in the score, and hear everywhere in the performance, Cherubini's dramatic style of melody. It is true Beethoven did not copy it servilely, but it was always floating before him as his most favourite model." "And Beethoven's last period," I enquired, "his last quartets-his ninth symphony-his mass? Here there can be no comparison either between him and Mozart, or any other artist, before or after?" "That may be true in a certain sense," continued Mendelssohn, warmly. "His forms are broader, his style is more polyphonous and artificial, the thoughts, as a rule, more gloomy and melancholy, even when intended to be merry, the instrumentation more full-he has gone a little further on the old road, but he has not opened a new one. Now let us be frank-whither has he conducted us to really more beautiful regions? Do we, as artists, experience delight of an absolutely higher order, on hearing the ninth symphony, than on hearing most of his others? As far as I am concerned, I frankly say: I do not! If I hear it, I pass a happy hour, but the symphony in C minor affords one quite as great delight-my pleasure at hearing the former being, perhaps, really not quite so undisturbed and pure as it is when listening to the latter." 7. "LA ROSE," Impromptu. J. Ascher. 8. 23 33 SOUVENIR DE VENISE," Caprice. A. Schloesser. 9. "L'ECLAIR," Second Mazurka. A. Schloesser. 10. "LA ROMANZA," "LA NAPOLITANA," Deux Morceaux Caractéristiques. Francesco. 11. "GERALDINE," Mazurka. Thomas Baker. The reputation but lately acquired by Mrs. Joseph Robinson in London, as a pianist (at the seventh meeting of the Musical Union), will suffice to draw the attention of critics to her compositions, which, although very few of them are published, are, we understand, sufficiently numerous. The specimen before us (No. 1) is a favourable example of the lady's talent, and shows that she can write as well as play. The Haymakers may scem a fantastic title, but we can assure our readers that the poetical idea is happily suggested by the music. The Caprice Pastorale consists of a single movement, presto scherzando-a sort of moto perpetuo, with short intervals of repose of which kind Mendelssohn and Sterndale Bennett have produced several examples. The first and principal theme, in A minor, etc., is rather a rapid figure in semiquavers than a defined subject; but it is developed at length, and gives the dominant colouring to the piece. The second theme-a pretty pastoral melody, just such as Steibelt might have imagined-which first appears in A and then in F, forms the only point of relief to the continual flow of semi-quavers. (Here, we suppose, the "Haymakers" refresh themselves with a draught of beer or cider.) The whole terminates with a coda of three pages, which, except that it is in A minor, is entirely independent of the rest. The faults of this piece are chiefly of construction. The second theme would have been better first in F, and then in A, instead of vice versa. The coda should, in some way, have referred, or been brought back, to the original subject; and a little more variety might have been given to the left hand, in the way of passages springing out of the principal theme; since, as it stands, the right hand monopolises all the running traits of semi-quavers. Never mind: for all this, The Haymakers is a charming and a very clever piece, and may be practised hard with grea advantage; for, although it well deserves the trouble, it is by no means easy to play. No. 2 ("The Isis Waltzes"). The difference between these waltzes of Mr. Borrow and those of Srauss, Lanner, and Jullien, lies in the fact of the former being very unrhythmical, while the latter are essentially rhythmical. Mr. Borrow seems to have no apprehension at all indeed of that pointed species of rhythm and measure which imparts the principal charm to dance music, and without which it cannot be easily danced to. Mr. Gerald Stanley's "Merry Legs" (No. 3) has rhythm, if it has nothing else; but the "octaves" (page 3, lines 1 and 2, bars 2) are more Scotch than agreeable. On the whole, we have heard some worse "Schottisches"-but a great many better. No. 4 ("The Happy Return") is brilliant enough, but it is not at all original, neither is it well written-the octaves between bass and treble in lines four and five of the last page, among other examples, to wit. The new theme, in the minor key, at page 5, is very dreary, and should be expunged. The best part of the whole is the variation in triplets (page 2-3)-which, nevertheless, is as old as the hills, and as stale as possible. The "Three Romances" (No. 5) by Mr. Edmund Chipp (dedicated, by the way, to Mrs. Anderson-tempora mutantur et nos mutamur, etc.) though trifles, are such trifles as none but a well educated musician, and one of sentiment, too, could write. The absorbing influence of Mendelssohn-whose genius seems to be a lamp, by the light of which our cleverest and most thoughtful musicians will persist in (or perhaps cannot help) composing-is manifest here, as in a hundred other things of the kind. The diatonic harmony of Bach has also exercised an evident influence upon Mr. Chipp. Originality, therefore, is not one of the qualities to be recognised in these little pieces. But, on the other hand, they are so finished (the two last especially, in B flat and E flatgems, in company of which the first is scarcely worthy to be found) that no connoisseur who once takes them up will lay them aside in a hurry. Except the want of originality alluded to, Mr. Chipp can only be accused of one fault-that is, judging him from these Romances. He shows a tendency to obscure his melody, and torture its rhythmical cadence, in order to suit the harmony in which he clothes it, and which has evidently more fascination for him than the pure fountain whence all tune must flow. This is a frequent mistake of the imitators of Mendelssohn, one of whose great charms was the easy and natural flow of his themes, which, however he might adorn and enrich, he never lost sight of, or muffled up. Mr. Chipp must strive to resist the temptations of the glittering jack-a-lantern that wiles young composers to their destruction. Let him study the vocal music of Mozart and Rossini. What would he think of a costumier who should so dress up a beautiful woman that neither her shape nor her face could be seen? Meadelssohn universally avoided this pernicious error; but, strange to say, his imitators are always falling into it. Can they see nothing in the greatest modern master but his manner? ̧ Except the return to the first key: and theme (page 3, line 2, bars 2 and 3), we can find nothing to remark in the " Mélodie" of Mr. Cusins (No. 6) dedicated to Mrs. Anderson. We have some idea, moreover, of having seen the same "point" elsewhere (in one of Mr. Sterndale Bennett's pieces ?); but as we are not sure, we give Mr. Cusins the benefit of the doubt. The general character of the "Mélodie" may be described as the insipid-pretty-a compound very often applicable to modern music. any pretensions to importance, is a which is likely to find admirers. There No. 7 ("La Rose")-without sparkling little trifle à la valse, is nothing new in it to describe. No. 8 ("Souvenir de Venise") is a kind of rambling air de ballet with two or three uninteresting subjects, tossed, as it were in a blanket, from one key to another, until t he whole comes to a dreary climax. Is this all Herr Schloesser has to tell us about Venice, in the language off music? If so, he has been the re to little purpose; or, at any rate, he is but a very so-so composer, and nothing of a poet. No. 9 (“L'Éclair"). A brilliant and dashing mazurka, will especially please young ladies who are fond of sliding along the keys with. em finger, since it is in the key of C major, and there are plenty of op i scales, glissando. The episode, in F and other keys, is somewhat dull ; but take it for all in all Herr Sc. hloesser is more at home in the ba lroom than among the "stones o ! Venice." No. 10, ("La Napolitana"), ("La Romana" has not come o hand) is a laboured and lengthy movement, à la Tarentella, with not a spar |