Europe and Asia amalgamate, contrast, at every step, the perpetual triumph of man over the inhospitality of nature; finally the grand outline of the czar himself, so differently estimated, so singularly appreciated.

Having been a pupil of Boieldieu, who composed his best works at the court of Alexander, I had heard much of this remarkable country; the two first pieces that I presented to the theatre, Pierre et Catherine, and Danilowa were on Russian subjects; my mania for visiting Russia dates from my childhood. It was then with eagerness that I accepted Mme. Taglioni's invitation to come to St. Petersburgh and compose a ballet; I felt as a schoolboy on the eve of a month's vacation. My object being to communicate my musical observations only, I shall not speak of the ordinary details of travel, nor enlarge on the magnificence of St. Petersburgh, on the affable and condescending dignity of the imperial family, or on the providential discovery of a relation of whose existence I was ignorant, and to whom I was indebted for my recovery from a cruel malady within a month after my arrival.

I shall divide music at St. Petersburgh into four distinct categories: sacred, operatic, military, and chamber music. Sacred music occupies the highest rank, this species alone possessing individual character apart from that of other nations. The Greek ritual admits of no kind of instrument in the churches. The choristers of the emperor's chapel sing no music but that of the office, and practice has given them an inconceivable skill in intonating with truth and precision without accompaniment. But the peculiar feature of their performance consists in the employment of double bass voices, whose compass is from the lowest A of the piano to C above the lines, and which produce an incredible effect by doubling the ordinary bass parts.

The ordinary limit of bass voices may be fixed at E flat, the D being rare; one may, however, imagine that voices of greater depth are to be found among us, only that we take no pains to develop them. A young bass singer directs all his studies to the attainment of the higher notes of the diapason. What use, in fact, can he make of such grave pedal tones? He designedly sacrifices them to the acquisition of the scale of ordinary bassi cantanti. Now Russia is the only country that offers a certain provision for a double bass singer-the possession of such notes, combined with a knowledge of music, insures a pension for life from the autocrat of the Russias. These living contrabassi never quit the chapel; isolated, they would be found intolerably heavy, but their effect en masse is admirable. The first time that I heard mass in the chapel I was affected in a manner before unknown and could not restrain my tears; but when the allegro commenced, and these electrifying voices sent forth all the artillery of their lungs, I trembled in cold perspiration. The sensation was altogether strange, and entirely different from any that might be produced by the most formidable orchestra. The tenor voices fall short of the perfection of the basses, but are satisfactory, and among the boys are to be found some pleasing soprani. The tenor, Ivanhoff, was a member of the chapel, but having been sent to Italy and terminating his studies by an unexpected fugue improvisée, the administration is fearful of his example being followed. The direction is entrusted to M. le Colonel Lwoff, a very skilful composer and violinist.

The execution of the choir being unrivalled in the world, it were to be desired that the music should be of equal excellence, but this is not the case. Nearly all the pieces are of the last century, and are written by a certain Bertiensky, an author of undoubted talent but little invention. His music is well written, but all in the fugued style, and the melodies are devoid of originality. The plain chants cannot be very ancient, if we may judge by chords of the dominant seventh, often without preparation and by other intervals of modern origin. One of the most remarkable offices is that for Lent and the Holy Week: the grand duke Michel had the complaisance to command a performance for my benefit. In fine, the czar's chapel is an institution unique in the world, and if Russian music were of equal superiority in other branches this would be the most musical country in Europe.

Theatrical music at St. Petersburgh is the least flourishing of any, and it is difficult to understand why the operatic orchestra and vocalists should be so

feeble, when we find such magnificent chapel singers and such excellent military bands. There are three theatres-the Grand Theatre, where the ballet and Russian or German operas are performed; the Theatre Michel, dedicated to slighter German operas, and to French drama and vaudeville; finally, the Alexandrine Theatre, where Russian pieces only are played-this latter does not fall within our province; all are supported by the government at immense expense, but the Alexandrine only commands adequate receipts. The Grand Theatre is one of the finest edifices in Europe, the interior is larger than our opera, and combines beauty with simplicity; in lieu of our pit benches there are commodious arm-chairs, the first rows of which are always filled by the élite of the Russian aristocracy; a large central box is assigned to the court, but is usually occupied by the maids of honour, the emperor and empress taking a small side box with private entrance. Since the arrival of Mme. Taglioni, who concentrates in herself all the attention of the fashionable world, the opera has lost all its importance; and the ballet, now mounted with imperial magnificence, forms the sole attraction at this theatre. The corps de ballet is numerous, and is supplied by the pupils of a school attached to the theatre under the direction of Messrs. Taglioni and Titus. It has produced some good female dancers-the best are Mesdames Smirnova and Andrianova who are indeed worthy of our academy. Unfortunately the ladies are not remarkable for personal charms. The operatic répertoire is composed of translations of French and Italian operas, and of half a dozen German, two of which are by Weber and four by Mozart. Robert le Diable and La Muette had once the power of attracting crowds; on an unlucky day Mme. Taglioni was placed therein, and the result has been that without her they are now played to empty benches.

The Russian opera has little more influence on the public than the German the répertoire is the same with different language and performers. The first tenor, Leonof, is Russian only by birth, having been educated in France. He is a natural son of Field the pianist; with much musical knowledge, but very limited powers, he is called upon to fill the posts of Rubini in the Puritani, and of Nourrit in Robert. The prima donna is an acquaintance of ours, we have heard her at the Opera Comique as Mdlle. Verteuil; on returning to her native country she took the name of Soloviova (which is a diminution of the Russian word for nightingale) and her compatriots have been gallant enough to ratify the baptism. She has a pretty voice and great execution, but being an indifferent musician sings very unequally, and the public has not sufficient discrimination to applaud in the right place. Another prima donna, Mdlie. Stephanova, is not without merit; the bass is Petrorf, and his wife Petrova the contralto. There being but one bass in the company, the latter singer undertakes Tamburini's part in the Puritani; it follows that the famous unison duet is sung in octaves, and the morceaux d'ensemble suffer from misplacement of harmony. The conductor is M. Cavot, an Italian by birth, and a man of considerable talent.

The Russians possess but a single national opera, it is called All for the Czar. The plot is simple; the action taking place during one of the old RussoPolish wars-a peasant devotes himself to save the czar, who has taken refuge from pursuit in the mountains. He simulates treachery, and offers himself to the Poles as a guide to the retreat of their enemy, and having conducted them into an inextricable labyrinth of defiles, avows the act and dies under the Polish swords, crying "Vive le Czar!

(To be continued.)

ROSSINI AND HIS OPERAS.

That Rossini is possessed of genius and musical invention cannot be denied, but they are not guided by good taste, and may be deemed too fanciful; neither are they inexhaustible, for he is so rapid and so copious a writer, that his imagination seems already to be nearly drained, as no one is so great a plagiarist of himself. His compositions are so similar, and bear so strong a stamp of peculiarity and mannerism, that while it is impossible not to recognise instantly a

piece of music as his, it is frequently difficult to distinguish one from another. At least, I frankly confess my inability to do so, and that very few of his compositions remain in my memory. This great sameness is of course augmented in no slight degree by the style now in vogue. If a single piece of music (or what is to be considered as such) is to contain as many different subjects as would make three or four, the composer's imagination must be wonderfully fertile indeed if the same ideas did not often recur, as the demand for new is at least quadrupled.

Of all the operas of Rossini that have been performed here, that of La Gazza Ladra is most peculiarly liable to all the objections I have made to the new style of drama, of which it is the most striking example. Its finales, and many of its very numerous pezzi concertati are uncommonly loud, and the lavish use made of the noisy instruments appears to my judgment singularly inappropriate to the subject, which, though it might have been rendered touching, is far from calling for such warlike accompaniments. Nothing can be more absurd than the manner in which this simple story is represented in the Italian piece (taken, as well as the English one on the same subject, from La Pie Voleuse), or than to see a young peasant servant girl, accused of a petty theft, led to trial and execution under a guard of soldiers, with military music. But this is a melo-drama, in which it is not merely allowable, but almost necessary to violate truth, nature, and probability. This can have been done only to afford the composer an opportunity of indulging his taste for the fortissimo.

The opera of Tancredi is much liked by his admirers, and there are certainly two or three very good and pleasing pieces of music in it; but when the principal, or at least the favourite, song of a first man of an heroic opera is not only capable of being converted into a quadrille, but appears better adapted to that purpose than any other, all idea of its propriety and fitness for its situation must be totally put out of the question. Yet such is the case with the famous air, " Di tanti palpiti," which, though pleasing in itself, is composed extremely in the style of a real French contredanse. But not this only has been so converted; half of Rossini's operas are turned into quadrilles; nay, even Mosé in Egitto, a sacred oratorio. Were it possible so to convert Handel's, we should deem it a profanation. But what shall we think of the judgment of that composer who could set solemn words to music so light and trivial as to allow of it? I have often heard it seriously remarked, that his operas sound best when thus performed without the voices. Strange praise for vocal music, which I have ever considered as the finest vehicle for feeling and for passion, and as giving greater expression to words than can otherwise be conveyed; therefore, when it is really good, they must be inseparably united. At the same time I must allow there is truth in the remark, for Rossini gives so much importance to the orchestra, and so labours his accompaniments, that the vocal part is really often the least prominent, and overwhelmed, not supported.

The serious opera of Mosé in Egitto (performed here under the name of Pietro L'Eremita) is much better than the former which I have named, and contains some very fine pieces; and I must exempt from all censure his Turco in Italia, which is a light, lively, and thoroughly pleasant opera buffa. The Barbiere di Seviglia, La Cenerentola, L'Italiani in Algeri, and Elisabetta, have also been performed the first with success, the others with little or none.

So entirely did Rossini engross the stage, that the operas of no other masters were ever to be heard, with the exception of those of Mozart, and of his, only Don Giovanni and Le Nozze de Figaro were often repeated. La Clemenza di Tito was occasionally revived, but met with less success. It is singular how every other composer, past and present, were totally put aside, and those two alone named or thought of.-Earl Mount Edgecumbe.

CORRESPONDENCE.

A NATIONAL OPERA.

To the Editor of the Musical World.

SIR,-The result of our hasty glance at the present state of music, quoad creative power, in Germany is this: among a host of celebrities, but three first-rate composers are to be found, viz., Mendelssohn, Spohr, and Molique: and one second-rate operatic composer, (all the rest being veritably third, fourth, and fifth-rate) viz., Marschner, a clever imitator of Weber, to whom as a musician, he is, perhaps, superior, but as a man of genius, vastly inferior. As a body of composers, (and I always understand the state of music, nationally speaking, to depend on the excellence of the composers) they have no advantage over the English school, and in ten years I confidently predict, they will be much in the rear; for Mendelssohns and Spohrs are not of every-day growth, and among the jeunesse of Germany, there is nothing like the promise displayed in our own country. Let us now look to France. What do we encounter there? a national opera, at least, and that is nine-tenths of the battle. But where are the national composers? Rossini is an Italian; Meyerbeer a German: Cherubini an Italian; and these have been the main support of the national opera!! what a mockery! Auber, it is true, is a composer of distinguished genius; but even he, according to report, is a naturalized Spaniard, though it would be dangerous to say this to a Frenchman.* What has Auber done, allowing him to be, in the fullest sense of the word, a French composer? His Muette, Fra Diavolo, Le Fiancee, Gustave, L'Estocq, &c., are delicious specimens of a certain style, and a style entirely of Auber's creation. Therefore, it will be argued, the French assuredly have a school of music, whereas the English have not. On the contrary, the French have, so to speak, a mannerism; so have the Italians, Germans, Spaniards, Scotch, and Irish: but is this to be called a school? or is it not rather a desecration of the name? I understand when a country is said to possess a school of music, that it shall be able to show a variety of fine works of every kind, in the great, and only true school, of nature. The tournure of national jigs, or the colouring of eight-bar tunes, ancient or modern, has nothing whatever, in my estimation, to do with a school of music, which should wholly depend on the existence of imperishable works of art.

What, then, can the French show to support their claim to the possession of what is virtually a school of music. In old times their national opera was supported by Gluck and Piccini, as it is now by Rossini and Meyerbeer. It is true that Grétry was a Frenchman by language, (a Savoyard by birth) and Grétry founded the French opera. He was succeeded by Boieldieu, and the numerous operas of these two eminent writers form (with those of Méhul by far the greatest of all the French composers) the chief groundwork of the claims of our neighbours to the real entity of a national opera. But I argue that a higher branch of music than the operatic is a necessary concomitant to those materials which justify the right to assume the existence of a national school. My first question would be, what great sinfonists have you? my second, what great church composers? Have the French a Beethoven? no; but they have a Méhul. Have they a Handel? no; but they have a Lesueur. Have they a Haydn? no; but they have an Onslow (an Englishman, nevertheless, by birth). But we are speaking of the present state of music in France, and Méhul† has been dead many years; Lesueur is an old man, and strictly speaking, Onslow ought not to be allowed in argument as a French composer, though his excessive dryness would prevent his being a great honour to any school. To come, then, to the point, what is there at present in France among the youth and promise of the land? Simply a host of miserable mimics of the worst vices of Auber; a race of mad pianists, following the erratic vagaries of Liszt and Chopin; and a tribe of still madder instrumentalists, imitators of the Paganini-apotheosized Berlioz. Look first at the operaticcomposers. Herold, the best of them, was but an imitator of Auber, with a dash of the modern German to make him disagreeable. Halévy is another Auberist, with a German tincture, whose abilities are not equal to those of our own Balfe. The national opera virtually depends on the "few and far between" operas of Meyerbeer, and the occasional hasty crudities which Auber has latterly condescended to produce, dividing his favours between the Academie and the Opera Comique. Benvenuto Cellini, the one dramatic *The Society of British Musicians rejected John Cramer (glorious John!) from their body, because he was a month old when he came to England; what becomes of the Frenchification of Auber at this

rate.

It is a curious fact that the French nationality was so unbounded and so sincere, that their greatest composer, Méhul, was compelled to produce his best opera under an Italian soubriquet, his own name not being disclosed till the opera received the most brilliant success; so great at that time was the prejudice against French composers. The English are now where the French were then.

*

effort of Berlioz, was damned most irrevocably; and, if it resemble his instrumental compositions, it well deserved its fate, in spite of his friend, Jules Janin, and the feuilletons of the Journal des Debats. So low, indeed, is the ability of producing good operas in France at present, that they are compelled to revive Spontini's Fernand Cortez, and what is worse, to admit such a contemptible production as the Stradella of Niedermayer; and what is worse than all, to employ a twenty-fifth rate Italian composer to produce an opera, on the scene of the triumphs of Guillaume Tell, Robert le Diable, and La Muette de Portici, National opera forsooth!-national fiddlestick !--As for the pianists, they have, in turns, made their appearance in London, and one by one have lionized for a space, and then died a natural death, and laid themselves quietly in the tomb of oblivion, where there is no fear of their being disturbed. It is a singular proof of the ephemeral nature of such unmusic, such hypercharlatanism, that the once omnipotent Henri Herz, the pet of the aristocracy, the idolized of all coteries comme il faut, has been some weeks in London with scarcely an engagement, except at the concert of the Misses Badger, given at that notable house (public) “The Horns," at Kennington!! oh, Henri Herz! Henri Herz! how art thou failen ! As composers it would be absurd to analyze them; their music, with a few exceptions, by Chopin and Hiller, is downright nonsense. Monsieur Liszt will not condescend in his amusing fantasias to shadow forth any thing like a skeleton of rhythm, or the phantasm of a subject; it might be just as well unbarred, as (thank Heaven) it is unplayable. We do not find the young ladies uniting their Liszt and their bread and butter, as was the case with that more come-at-able humbug, Thalberg. Of sinfonists the French have two: Berlioz, and a young man called Keber. The former (musically speaking) is a lunatic, and his estimation in Paris, as a classical composer, shows at once the low state of musical appreciation in that great city of quacks. His music is simply and undisguisedly nonsense, without an attempt at plan of any kind; he is, in fact, a kind of orchestral Liszt ; than which I could name nothing more intensely disagreeable. Keber is a young man of decided promise, but as yet he has not effected enough to procure for him a European celebrity. Auber, then, is the only legitimate French composer, and he is more matter of history than reality, for his latter works are exceedingly trivial. I need not, after this, attempt to show that the English beat the French completely out of the field; even at the present moment, as musical composers, with no advantages whatever, on their side, while the French can boast of a splendid theatre, a magnificent orchestra, and the best dramatic singers in the world. As for the Italians, their deplorable state is so well known that I would not disgrace England by drawing a comparison between the two nations. Their only composers worthy of the name are unable to exist in the degraded land of their nativity; Cherubini, Spontini, and Rossini, are compelled to depend on foreign patronage, and to produce their works on foreign soils! The wretched tribe of Rossinists, with Bellini at the head, and Persiani at the tail, are only tolerable when they literally pillage their great prototype; the instant they trust to themselves, they are as crude and helpless as the merest tyros. Enough of them.

I have a word to say to your correspondent, "A Dramatic Composer (as he once fancied himself.") His surprise at the sweeping exclusion of all but two composers from the list of capables, was, I need not say, shared by me; but I think him wholly unjustified in making the absurdity of "A Lover of Music" the pretence for an unmerited and vituperative Philippic against that ever-maligned establishment the Royal Academy of Music. I see no reason whatever for imagining that any member of that institution would condescend to have written such a letter. I am quite sure that Bennett and Macfarren, on reading it, would exclaim inwardly, "Heaven save us from our friends!" But to clear the argu. ment of the brambles that your dramatic friend has sophisticated round its naked simplicity, I must beg to differ entirely with almost all his assertions, except literally the main point of his letter, viz., the fallacy of "A Lover of Music's" assertion. In the first place, if we have two really good operatic composers, I doubt our being obliged "to shut up before a season be concluded: simply because we possess what no other country at present surpasses, as I have already attempted to show. I take it that the "Lover" rather wished to maintain that Messrs. Bennett and Macfarren were the only composers capable of writing a great opera, which is quite another thing from the mere act of writing an opera. Even then I agree with your correspondent in the untruth of his position. In the second place, whatever may be launched at the head of the unfortunate Devil's Opera, it is assuredly the best English opera yet produced. It is the best for the best of all reasons, because it is the clearest in design; there is no patchiness; no more fiddling; no filling up by tromolandos, while the bass descends semitonically; no mystery about nothing; no very tiresome movements d'ensemble, in 12-8 time par excellence; no unnecessary modulations, introduced for want of ideas, and for lack of the power of all powers in a composer, viz., that of prolonging and working out his ideas. This I am aware is what Les Martyrs, by Donizetti, a huge mass of unwieldy crudities and childish inefficiencies.