WE mean by gradation in music, as well as in the other fine arts, the progress from low to high, or from piano to forte, according to the laws of nature; which do not allow any sudden leap, but require a gradual and regular development. This gradation has become a law which no composer or player can pass by; since all truth and probability in musical representation depend upon it. It is double either external, physical; or internal, spiritual.

The first is the gradual rising and falling in the external appearance of musical pieces; the second is the rising and falling of the same, as affected by and corresponding to the rising and falling of our internal life, our feelings and passions. Music being considered not only as a play of sounds, but as the language of our feelings, must correspond with the claims which we make on language; that is, its contents must answer to the quantity and quality of the feelings which are represented; they must be distinctly perceived by its expression; in short, there must be truth in its representation, and the external form of music must correspond with its meaning. In our internal life nothing is done by leaps, but each succeeding sentiment is gradually developed from the former by defined laws; unless an external excitement removes the existing feeling, giving suddenly to the powers of the soul another direction; and in like manner musical thoughts must be gradually developed from the preceding ones, and have the same relation to each other that the affections of the soul have.

We further observe, that our emotions change every moment, being now stronger and now weaker, according to the importance of the ideas or images

VOL. XIV.-NEW SERIES, VOL. VII.

(Printed by John Leighton. 11, Johnson's Court, Fleet Street.)

D

which pass before our souls; and to this also the musical expression must correspond, in order to be true and really effective. A piece of music thus composed and represented, may, in composition and performance, truly be called expressive.

But even if we do not lay this high standard on music, but consider it merely as a play of tones, calculated and designed, by change and variety, to excite our senses, and by a gentle irritation of our nervous system, to create a feeling of pleasure and delight, we require of it this gradation, without which it would become tediously monotonous. For instance, the Eolian harp, which can only be considered as a pure play of tones, would soon tire us out by its monotony, if it did not give a constant rising and falling, an uninterrupted gradual change from low to high, from piano to forte.

STATE OF MUSIC IN RUSSIA.

(Continued from page 4.)

CHAMBER MUSIC.

AMATEURS abound at St. Petersburgh; but they seem to be confined to three instruments, the piano, violin and violoncello. Wind instruments are scarcely cultivated at all; and even singing is not in vogue; a circumstance which explains, in part, the languishing state of the lyric drama. Professors of the piano, violin and violoncello, may consider success as certain in this city: each of these has been represented, during last winter, by a great celebrity, Haenselt, Vieuxtemps, and Servais. Before I speak of these artists, I shall devote a few lines to the amateurs to be found among the Russian aristocracy.

In the first rank may be placed the two counts Michel and Mathieu Wilheourski. The former is a composer of considerable merit-not content with being the friend of Boieldieu and Cherubini, he has aspired to be their rival: some pieces from his pen have been published by MM. Schlesinger at Paris and Berlin, and received the stamp of public approbation. The Count Mathieu is a violoncellist of rare talent, and inferior to Servais alone.

The residence of these noblemen is the rendezvous of all the foreign artists, to whom it offers the most frank and cordial hospitality. There I have heard executed some quatuors of Mendelssohn, which, though of deserved reputation in Russia and Germany, are little known elsewhere, and the interpretation was worthy of the author. The Colonel Lwcf, of whom I have already spoken, is a violinist of the first order: such, indeed, is his merit, and that of Count Mathieu, on their respective instruments, that they have frequently replaced Vieuxtemps and Servais in these quatuors, without detriment to the effect. The great skill of amateurs will appear the more surprising when I add, that most of them are engaged in serious occupations that absorb much of their time. I cannot here omit to mention Prince Odoeski, an excellent musician and pianist; Princes Gregoire Wolkonski and Michel Kotchoubeï—the former a superior bass singer, the latter a tenor; and the two brothers, Pachkof, both clever musicians and singers. Were to speak of pianists in general, I should never end: suffice it to say, that the piano is at least as much cultivated as in Paris, with the difference arising from the absence of a middle class in Russian society.

I have already said that singing is not much in vogue; yet it arises from a scarcity of models, not of voices. The Countess Rossi (Sontag), resident here for some years past, might have given an impulse to this branch of the art-it is probable that, having been but recently admitted within the aristocratic pale, she is diffident as to dictating laws to her order, even those of the art whose banners she has quitted. Be it as it may, her influence has been null, though she has given some brilliant matinées musicales, when a select circle of her friends had

ample evidence that repose had done nothing to impair her admirable voice, whether as regards execution or power.

Among vocal amateurs may be mentioned Mdlle. de Bartenief, one of the ladies of honour, who possesses a ravishing voice; and one of the young princesses Labanof, once a pupil of Bordogni, whose only fault is too great timidity. Madame la Baronne Fuhrman is of Italian birth and education, and has only been resident here within a few months; but her talents are too remarkable to be passed over in silence. There are two professors of Italian singing, MM. Rubini and Soliva; their system is excellent, but, not being themselves singers, they lie under the disadvantage of inability to offer a model to their pupils. The number of German artists is very great-excellent musicians, but ever seeking to direct the public taste more towards instrumental than vocal music. Their influence is very remarkable. Far removed from their country, they have acquired here a national amour-propre scarcely found in Germany itself, and have succeeded in persuading the Russians to pin their faith to the supremacy of German music.

It remains for me to speak of the three celebrities that I have met at St. Petersburgh, Haenselt, Servais, and Vieuxtemps: the two latter have taken their departure, but the former will remain some time longer. It is difficult to say whether Haenselt is more distinguished as a player or as a composer. Some of

his magnificent studies are known to the Parisians; but he has a large quantity of manuscript, destined for publication hereafter in Paris. I can hardly describe his talent. Less brilliant than Liszt and Thalberg, his performances have a charm that is exclusively their own, and which enthralls the attention. His manners are original, and marked by a certain abrupt frankness, but without any of the charlatanism that courts notice by singularity of personal appearance.

A word on pianofortes themselves. There are few square ones to be found, and no upright whatever; the objection to the space occupied by grand pianos being here of little importance, from the size of the apartments. The best are manufactured by Wirth, and are excellent--inferior, indeed, to the London instruments of Erard alone.

Servais is well known to us for the beauty of his tone and the fire of his execution, both of which remain unimpaired, and will probably be appreciated next winter in Paris.

Vieuxtemps has been a pupil of De Beriot, and has at command all the purity and finish of his school: as is the case with his master, the musical fire that animates him is neither communicated to his countenance nor to his person. On this account I have heard him unjustly reproached with coldness. Hear him, however, with closed eyes, and say then if he has any superior in passionate expression. A violinist should not be a mountebank; nor has he any occasion to express by gestures the alternations of allegro furioso, innocente, scherzando, and other musical colouring.

But Vieuxtemps is still more remarkable as a composer. Among several unpublished pieces that I heard of his writing, I shall specify his last concerto in E major, which is a first-rate work, and is in fact a complete symphony with violin solo; for the tutti parts are at least as interesting as the rest. The scoring is rich and bold; the ideas new and elevated; and it is hardly conceivable that so great a work can have been imagined by one whose age does not exceed twenty

years.

Military music will form the subject of my next.

To be continued.)

SCHILLER'S SONG OF THE BELL.

(Concluded from page 22.)

THE master's next order leads to a reflection on the power of fire, followed by a description of its ravages, which is given to a chorus of course. The chorus begins in D minor; but changes to D major, while it describes the blessings showered down from heaven in the fertilizing rain; and, again, as it describes

the lightning striking the dwellings of men, and the ravages of the fiery element through the city, it branches off in various modulations, until, with the extinction of the flames, it dies away in D minor again. With how few means has the composer here produced a great effect. The rolling pianissimo passages for the violins at the description of the rain; the continued tolling of the alarm bell, by the basses, when the lightning has struck ;* the unison passages in quavers, repeated in different minor keys, picturing the flickering of the flames; the runs through the octave, rising a semitone at each bar, describing the rushing of the winds; all these give us a vivid picture of the dreadful spectacle which the words describe; and the whole comes to a solemn close in the slow unison passage, decrescendo, as the flames die away, introducing the words,

in a monotonous but doleful strain, that makes a feeling of desolation creep over the heart.

"In the empty ruin'd walls,

Dwells dark horror: "

what a feeling of horror is awakened by the three notes on the dominant A, with its minor seventh, falling back to the minor second to the same note; the whole growing fainter and fainter, till it dies away in the minor chord on the key note D.

In a plaintive recitative, in the same desolate minor key, is described the situation of him who has lost all :

"One look

In memory sad,

Of all he had,

Th' unhappy sufferer took."

Still he does not despair; because he

"Then found his heart might yet be glad,

However hard his lot to bear."

He sings the words of consolation in a sweet strain of resignation, in the major key; and all his "loved ones " join with him, repeating the words in canon. Then comes another solo of the master, during which the bell is cast. This is followed by some of the most beautiful parts of the whole composition. First the chorus,

"To the dark lap of mother earth
We now confide what we have made,"

in A flat major, and, in a strain of religious trust and resignation so pure and touching as to border a little on sadness, though it expresses confidence. But the key changes to the relative minor in F, the key of deep and heart-rending sorrow; and the chorus passes into a march-like movement in three-fourths time:

"Slow and heavy
Hear it swell."

We hear the death-knell tolling; we follow in the mournful procession; and at length listen to the story of the bereavement in a soprano recitative and air, which touches the heart with the deepest sympathy.

But the sadness of this scene is soon relieved; the poet introduces us to the rest and the pleasures of evening, after the labours of the day; and the com

The translation is here erroneous, owing to a misapprehension of the German word, which has a double meaning. Instead of

It should be,

Moaning round that tower's form
Comes the storm."

poser paints the scene in a soprano solo-which, by the way, should not be given to an alto voice, as it has been when performed at the Odeon; the G above the lines is too high for such a voice. This is a pastoral air, and in it Romberg has playfully imitated the bleating of the flock, and introduced a few measures of a dance but the scene changes; it becomes night; the melody passes into the minor key, and we hear the creaking of the city gates as they are shut. Then follows a short apostrophe to order

"Of common good the happy cause,"

in a duet for tenor and bass, with only a low-toned accompaniment of basses and bassoons, in C major. This is succeeded by a very effective chorus, "A thousand active hands combined,

For mutual aid with zealous heart."

This chorus is lively throughout; and the active bustle of business is depicted in the melody, by its rhythm of short periods, and by the character of its accompaniment. The rhythm is too apt to seduce the singer to give a rinforzando to the accented parts of the measure, giving all the force to them, and nearly dropping the unaccented parts. This is wrong: the accented notes are sufficiently felt of themselves, without any additional force; while mere mechanical accent always gives to music a vulgar expression. It also produces a merely mechanical effect, like giving a particular force to the accented syllables of the rhythm in reading or reciting a piece of poetry. The episode towards the close of this chorus is very effective—

The expression of the music here is that of dignified self respect, uttered with genuine independence and good will. The composer has expressed the fulness of the self-satisfaction, by coming to a full cadence with these words.

A rather sudden transition from the key of G to the softer one of E flat, leads to the beautiful quartett "Gentle peace;" a short strain, but, by its beautiful, clear, smooth, and flowing harmony, highly expressive of its soul-moving subject. It is worthy of his great masters, Haydn and Mozart. The chorus should, by all means come in pianissimo, leaving the four leading voices of the quartett to be distinctly heard above it.

The bell is now cast and cooled; and the master gives directions for breaking up the mould, with a laudable anxiety for the success of the casting. This solo leads from the above key of E flat, through F, in which it always occurs, to a chorus in B flat. This is made up of mere reflections, and is written in an easy, conversational strain. The tenor opens it with the remark,

"The master may destroy the mould,
With careful hand and judgment wise,"

and the bass answers,

"But woe! in streams of fire if roll'd,
The glowing metal seek the skies,"-

in the same subject, but minor. This thought seems to strike them, and introduces a train of reflections which are pursued by all in chorus, the different parts taking up the theme one after another. The chorus at length changes to G minor, in a more weighty movement; and a vivid picture of a popular riot and rebellion is given. Compare this with the previous one describing the ravages of a conflagration. In the former the key of D minor was well suited to express the destruction and consequent desolation; in this, the key of G minor is not less suited to the expression of the restless and violent feelings. The running passages for the violins in the accompaniment, well depict the restless floating to and fro of the mob. The modulation to the purer key of E flat, at the words,