ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

THE SCHROEDER FAMILY.

To the Editor of the Musical World.

SIR,-The communication from Mr. Hill respecting the Schroeder family, which appeared in your Journal of Saturday last, demands an answer from me; and this answer I shall give (with your permission) through the medium of your columns. If I did not resort to the same medium in giving my reply to the previous calumnies of the Messrs. Chipp and this same Mr. Hill, it was not from any doubt of your willingness to give it insertion. But as it was very long, arising from the necessity of incorporating with it the letters which you had already printed, besides several others, and as I further considered it requisite that my whole statement should be brought at once before the reader, it did not appear to me probable that it would suit the arrangements of your Journal to print it in the manner I deemed requisite. Indeed, I am not sure but the communication I have now to make may exceed your limits; in which case I have to beg that you will have the courtesy to return it to me.

The editorial remark in your last number, founded on Mr. Hill's own statement, is perfectly just. You say :

"After two very attentive readings, we can really make out no case against Mr. Anderson in the communication from Mr. Hill, which appears in another part of our impression. It was not Mr. Anderson's fault that poor Herr Schroeder begot many children, and died insolvent. By no means; it was Herr Schroeder's. Nor, if Mr. Anderson paid £10 a-year out of his own pocket, for three consecutive years (as Mr. Hill himself informs us), towards defraying the educational expenses of Herr Schroeder's eldest son, at the Royal Academy of Music, can Mr. Anderson be fairly arraigned for claiming the sum of £30, as a just debt due to himself. At least, this seems to us the true logic of the matter."

You say that I cannot be fairly arraigned for claiming repayment of a just debt. This is supposing that I have done so. But I solemnly assure you that I never, at any time, even hinted to the late Mr. Schroeder that I wanted back the money I had paid for his son's education; and that I never claimed repayment of it to this day.

In entering upon a statement of my conduct with respect to the Schroeder family, I must premise that I do so with much reluctance; fearing, as I do, that my readers may imagine that I, like Mr. Hill, am anxious to bring my name into print, in order to boast of the little services I have been able to render to a talented youth, the son of a deceased member of the Queen's Private Band, for whom I always had a very high esteem: but Mr. Hill has compelled me to reply to his malignant and calumnious attack, which is written for the double purpose of making me appear to have unfeelingly withheld money due to a poor orphan family, and of exalting himself as the kind and benevolent being who had done everything to support them. Mr. Hill certainly did something, and let him have due credit for what he has done. But he only did that which he had volunteered to do, namely, seeing that the charities of that excellent institution, the Royal Society of Musicians, were properly distributed; and, if he had not done so, there are many others in the society who, with equally kind feelings, would bave stepped forward in the melancholy circumstances of the family. As a pretext for his attack upon me, Mr. Hill talks of the "Many reflections made upon his conduct for the part he had taken, and also upon the motives from which he had acted, in endeavouring to place the orphan children of the late Louis Schroeder in a way to help themselves." But what were those reflections? who ever heard of them? who made them? and who could have made them? What could have been said of Mr. Hill's conduct, but that it was creditable to him so far as it went, and that he would have deserved praise for it had he not

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been so eager to sound his own trumpet. When a man takes so much pains to proclaim his own good deeds to the world, without being called upon to do so, his conduct becomes vanity, not charity; and it becomes something worse when he mixes his own self-praise with detraction of others. I regret most sincerely that, owing to this statement of Mr. Hill's, I am compelled to make known to the public that I too have done some good actions to young Schroeder, which I would otherwise have kept to myself.

In the year 1850, I informed His Royal Highness Prince Albert that young Schroeder possessed, in my opinion, considerable talent for the violoncello, and that I had been trying to get him into the Royal Academy of Music; but that his father was so poor that he could not afford to pay for his musical education. I asked the Prince if he would kindly allow me to draw £20 a-year from the band account towards the young man's education, to which the Prince most readily and kindly consented. I then agreed to pay the remainder of the requisite sum-£10 per annum -out of my own pocket. Mr. Williams was present at the time this arrangement was made, and Mr. Schroeder expressed himself most grateful. The youth was in the Royal Academy three years; he was taught the harp and violoncello; and the expense of his tuition was paid as abovementioned; and I repeat what I have said already, that I never even hinted to his father that I wanted back my money. When Mr. Schroeder died I was at Osborne; and the moment I heard of it I obtained the necessary authority to let the place be kept open and the duty performed by deputy; that young Schroeder should be directly taught the double bass, and, as soon as competent, take his father's place. But the youth preferred the violoncello, and I knew it was vain to force on him an instrument he did not like. I immediately came up to town, and appointed Mr. Nickel, Mr. Egerton, and Mr. Williams, together with the young man himself, to meet me at my house. They did so; and I requested Mr. Egerton to take charge of the boy, assuring him that I would be answerable that he should be paid. The gentlemen above named are ready to come forward and prove this.

When the band went to Windsor, I requested Mr. Egerton to bring the boy with him, and allowed him to play in the Band to keep him in practice, and merely as a supernumerary, the establishment being complete without him. I paid Mr. Egerton for his board, lodging, and washing; and Mr. Egerton is ready to come forward and state that he might have had the money from me weekly, if he liked. He got £5 from me when he asked for it, and the remainder when young Schroeder left him, having obtained an engagement at the Princess's Theatre. I have since had him at Windsor for the performances, for which I paid him four guineas. It is true I did not pay him liberally during the time he was playing as a supernumerary in the Band, because I had no right to engage him, and as I employed him in order to keep him in practice, and to support him till I could get him into some orchestra. The three-and-sixpence a-day paid to Mr. Egerton, may be, as Mr. Hill calls it, a miserable pittance; but it is at the rate of £64 per annum- not so very bad, considering that many respectable young men beginning the world contrive to live very decently upon less.

The most unjust part of Mr. Hills' letter is the following-I must request you to reprint it here, as it is a mass of the grossest falsehoods: "At the time of the father's death, there was owing to him twenty-five days of a quarter's wages, at the rate of £130 per annum-supper-money for some months, amounting in all to ten or eleven pounds, and a sum of £12 12s. was afterwards paid into the hands of the Master of the Private Band by the Honourable the Colonel C. B. Phipps at the end of the September quarter, it having been charged in the accounts as funeral expenses, although the Royal Society of Musicians had paid every charge connected with the funeral in August, immediately after application had been made by the son to the Society for the amount usually granted in such cases. This money, the £12 12s., etc., has remained in the hands of the Master of

the Private Band until a few days ago, when he suddenly discovered that the children might have a moral title, if not a legal one, to the money; he has paid to the eldest son the sum of ten guineas as for funeral expenses-the rest remains to be paid. During the severity of the winter, the children, from the scantiness of their wardrobe, required assistance in the shape of clothes, shoes, etc., their large claims to a charitable sympathy was pressed from time to time on the notice of the Master of the Private Band without effect, his reply to such appeals being: "The money ought to be paid to the creditors; the family owes me £40; the children are minors, and have no legal claim." When urged to return the money to the Honourable C. B. Phipps, state simply the circumstances of the children, and ask permission to apply some portion of it to their relief and benefit, he replied: "I cannot do that.”—“I must speak to my lawyer." It needs few expressions to say with how much pain and reprobation such an opinion, and such a resolution was received by those to whom it was uttered, and who had been doing everything, in their limited power, to alleviate the privations of the children."

Subsequently Mr. Hill says: "The Master of the Private Band has held the money before named until now, and doggedly refused to give one farthing to the children, in any way, until it was almost too late for any valuable purpose."

I certainly received the amount due to the late Mr. Schroeder, and should only have been too happy, as I have often stated to Mr. Hill, to have paid it all, and got rid of a troublesome business; but as Schroeder died considerably in debt, and there was no legal representative, I was strongly advised not to part with it, the children being all minors. When Mr. Hill says that I assigned as a reason for withholding the money that "the family owed me £40," he tells an untruth, and he knows it. He knows that I have never set up any claim of my own against the money in my hands. All I desired was to be able to pay it safely, without being liable to a demand for second payment from the creditors-a precaution taken by every man in the least conversant with business. It was Mr. Hill's own fault that this was not done. Had he taken my advice, and gone round to the creditors with the young man, and got them to sign a document releasing me from responsibility, everything might have been settled long ago. I frequently told Mr. Hill how anxious I was to get rid of the money, and others in the Band know that I was.

Mr. Hill says, in the passage already quoted, that, in addition to the sum due to Mr. Schroeder at the time of his death, a sum of £12 12s. was afterwards paid to me by the Hon. Colonel Phipps, it having been charged in the accounts as funeral expenses, although the Royal Society of Musicians had paid every charge connected with the funeral; that this sum remained in my hands till a few days ago, when I suddenly discovered that the children might have a moral if not a legal claim to the money, and that then I paid to the eldest son the sum of ten guineas as for funeral expenses. What will be thought of Mr. Hill's veracity, when it is known that the sum of ten guineas, said to have been paid to the eldest son for funeral expenses, was paid to him in order to repay Mr. Hill himself for the violoncello which he had bought for the young man. This violoncello story is rather curious. "Young Schroeder," says Mr. Hill, "had no instrument to play upon, and was not likely to have it in his power to purchase one. I obtained for him

a violoncello, for which I paid ten guineas, and he agreed to pay me a few shillings at a time from his earnings." While coolly writing this, Mr. Hill had himself been repaid for the violoncello by means of money furnished by me! I challenge him to deny the fact; which, however, he entirely suppresses, while at the same time he asserts that this ten guineas was on account of funeral expenses-an assertion of the false. hood of which he was perfectly aware, as the money went into his own pocket!

As to the funeral expenses advanced by the Royal Society of Musicians, this sum, being £10 11s. (not £12 12s. as stated by Mr. Hill), together with all other sums I had in my hands, has been paid into the hands of Mr. Egerton, he having signed a deed exonerating me from further responsibility to the creditors, which I wished Mr. Hill to sign; but he made so many objections and difficulties, though he has abused me for not paying the money at my own risk, that I would not trouble myself about him any longer.

I repeat that, in this affair, as in others, Mr. Hill has acted towards me with the greatest duplicity. I have always shewn him every possible

kindness and attention, as all the Band can bear witness, with the exception of the clique he has stirred up against me. His conduct to me, no doubt, arises from his dissatisfaction with the arrangement respecting his salary-an arrangement deliberately proposed and entered into by himself. But I now find that he has been constantly complaining of it to others of the Band, though he never adopted the honourable and straightforward course of speaking to me openly on the subject.

Such then, sir, is the man who has always received, and acknowledged to have received, great and uniform kindness from me.

Such is the man to whose delicate health during the whole of the last severe winter, I paid unremitting attention, studying his comfort in every way, and apportioning a part of my own room at Windsor for him to dress in.

Such is the man who has gratefully acknowledged my kindness in offering him the use of my cottage in the Isle of Wight, in the hope that milder air might be of benefit to him-who has expressed his thankfulness for "my friendship and generosity which he is honoured with," and who has signed his letters “with the purest sincerity, yours most truly, Hy. Hill." I am, sir, your obedient servant,

To the Editor of the Musical World.

DEAR SIR.-The "Great Alboni Concert," as it was announced, but "sell" would have been the most appropriate word (for assuredly a greater "sell" never took place) came off last Thursday. The Assembly Rooms was literally crammed; indeed a better, or more numerous audience could not have been anticipated under any circumstances, but oh! what a falling off was there. To begin with, after all the people were comfortably seated, every light went out, leaving the whole company in perfect darkness; secondly, about half an hour after the concert should have commenced according to announcement, an ominous “Bulletin" or, as one of our papers facetiously calls it, a "stereotyped apology" was circulated. Well, sir, when the concert did commence Signor Li Calsi played "something" on the pianoforte which was not announced, and omitted Thalberg's Fantasia on Don Pasquale which was announced; secondly, Madame Alboni, who was announced to sing five times, and as it was ostentatiously announced in the before-mentioned "Bulletin," would not depart from the programme, made her appearance thrice, I cannot say "sang" twice. Really, sir, the public deserve better treatment. Even the very person who announced the concert (Mr. Andrews) has felt himself called upon to publish a sort of semi-apology (as may be seen on reference to the Looker-on) for not knowing what was patent (at least so I have heard) to all connected with the "affair." I trust, sir, you will use your influence in preventing a repetition of such an infliction.-Yours truly, Cheltenham, June 2, 1855.

O. P.

MISS ARABELLA GODDARD has been playing with great success at Venice. She is now at Florence, whence she proceeds to Turin, Genoa, Milan, and Sienna.

MESSRS. H. AND R. BLAGROVE gave a concert on Monday evening at the Hanover Square Rooms. They were assisted by Miss Dolby, who sung Mercadante's aria, “Grazie clementi,' and Haydn's "Spirit Song ;" and Mr. Sims Reeve, who sung an aria from Weber's Euryanthe, and a song by Molique, in which served applause for his performance of Mendelssohn's violin he was encored. Mr. Henry Blagrove received great and deconcerto, and Mr. Richard Blagrove in a solo on the concertina, on airs from the Prophète and the Huguenots, was greatly admired by the lovers of that instrument. The room was fully attended, and the concert gave entire satisfaction. The orchestra, though small, was highly efficient, and was conducted by Herr Molique,

with admirable skill.

remained standing, naked and cold, in their old shape, awaiting the next guest who should fix his temporary home within them. Mozart is of great importance only generally for the history of music, but in no way, especially, for the history of opera, as a separate branch of art. Opera, which in its unnatural existence was bound to no laws really necessary for its life, might fall, as an opportune prey, to the share of the first musical adventurer that presented himself. We can here altogether pass by, unnoticed, the unedifying sight offered by the artistic creations of the so-called successors of Mozart. A considerable number of composers imagined that Mozart's operatic style was something to be imitated in its form, thus naturally losing sight of the fact that the form was of itself nothing, but Mozart's musical genius exactly everything; no one however, has ever succeeded in imitating the creations of the mind by mere pedantic arrangements.

One thing alone remained to be enunciated in these forms if Mozart developed, with the most unclouded naïveté, their purely musical value to the highest perfection, the real foundation of the whole system of opera was still, agreeably to the source from which it sprang, to be made known in the most unmysterious and naked publicity in the same forms; the world was still to be informed, plainly and frankly, to what aspirations and what demands upon art, opera was indebted for its origin and existence; and that these aspirations were not in any way directed to real drama, but to a kind of enjoyment-seasoned by the apparatus of the theatre-in no wise seizing and inwardly vivifying, but merely intoxicating and superficially amusing. In Italy, where opera arose from such an aspiration -as yet unconsciously-it was destined, also, to be finally satisfied with full consciousness.

We must here examine more closely the constitution of the air (aria).

As long as "airs" continue to be composed, the fundamental characteristic of this form of art will always have to prove itself an absolutely musical one. The national song sprang from a close and simultaneous working of the art of poetry and the art of music, which had grown up together in intimate alliance-from an art, which, in opposition to the purposely plastic art of civilization, almost the only one understood by us, we scarcely feel inclined to call an art, but which we might, perhaps, designate as the involuntary exposition of national feeling by artistic means. In this case, verbal and musical poetry are one and the same thing. The people never think of singing their songs without a text; without verbal verse no melody could exist for them. If, in process of time, and from modifications of the parent race the melody varies, the verbal verse varies in just the same manner; for the people, a separation, no matter of what description, is unintelligible; the two form together one whole, appertaining to itself, like man and wife. The creature of luxury heard this national song only from a distance; from his lordly palace he listened to the passing reapers, and the sole portion of the song that penetrated into his glittering halls was the melody, while the words died away, as far as he was concerned, below. If the melody was the entrancing odour of the flower, and the verse its body, with all its delicate organs of generation, the man brought up in luxury, and merely wishing to enjoy partially with his olfactory nerves, without at the same time enjoying with his eye as well, extracted this odour from the flower, and artificially distilled from it the perfume, which he drew off into phials, in order that he might carry it about with him, as he liked, and moisten with it himself and his magnificent apparel, whenever it suited his fancy to do so. Again, in order to gratify himself with a sight of the flower, he would have been obliged to go nearer; to descend from his palace into the glade; to force his way through branches, twigs, and leaves; and for this the noble and comfort-loving individual in question did not feel the least inclination. With the fragrant substratum he now sprinkled, also, the dreary wearisomeness of his life, and the hollowness and nullity of the sensations of his heart, the artificial plant that sprang from this unnatural impregnation being nought else than the operatic air. However varied and arbitrary the combinations into which it might be forced, it re

mained constantly unfruitful and always itself alone; what it was and could not avoid being:-a mere musical substratum. The entire aërial body of the air evaporated into the melody, which was sung, and, at last, fiddled and blown, without the least notice being taken of the fact that a verbal verse, or even a verbal sense, existed beneath it. The more the odour, however, was subjected, in order to supply it with materials for corporal adherence, to all kinds of experiments, the most pompous of which was the serious pretence of the drama, the more did people feel it was weakened by all this mixing with what was hard, and foreign to it, and even that it lost a portion of its voluptuous strength and loveliness. The individual who restored to this odour, unnatural as it was, a body, which, though an imitation, imitated as deceptively as possible the natural one that once poured forth, from its natural abundance, into the air, the said odour, as the spirit of its being; the wonderfully skilful manufacturer of artificial flowers, which he formed of velvet and silk, and painted with deceptive colours, moistening their dry calices with the said substratum of perfume, so that odour began to exhale from them almost as from a real flower-this great artist was Joachimo Rossini. In the case of Mozart, the melodic odour of which we have been speaking had found so nourishing a soil in a noble, healthy, artistic example of humanity, perfectly consonant to itself, that it forced out again the beautiful flower of true art, which carries us away in the most fervent rapture of the soul. But, even in the case of Mozart, it found this nourishment only when what was allied to him, what was healthy and purely human, presented itself as poetry to be wedded with his completely musical nature, and it was almost a mere fortunate chance that this circumstance repeatedly fell to his lot. When Mozart was abandoned by this fructifying god, the artificial element of the odour could only succeed in maintaining itself, and that artificially, with great exertion, and without true and necessary life. The melody, at whatever expense it might be cherished, sickened of the cold, lifeless spirit of formality, the only inheritance that this victim of an early death could leave his heirs, since precisely what he took with him in death was—his life.

What Rossini, in the first blush of his luxuriant youth beheld around him, was the harvest of death. If he looked upon the serious French, so-called, dramatic opera, he recognised with the penetrating glance of the zest for life inherent to youth, a trickedout corpse, which even Spontini, striding forward in magnificent solitude, was no longer able to animate, because as if for his own glorification-he was already embalming himself alive. Impelled by a bold instinct for life, Rossini tore the mask from the face of this pompous corpse, as if to discover the ground of its future life; through all the magnificence of the garments which proudly enveloped it, he discovered, this-the true ground of the life even in the case of this personage that carried itself so highly-melody. If he cast a glance on native Italian opera, and the work of Mozart's heirs, he again beheld nothing but death-death in empty forms-when melody rose up before him as their life-downright melody, without any pretence of character, which would have appeared in his eyes altogether hypocritical, when he looked on all the unfinished, violent and half things that had sprung from himself.

But Rossini wanted to live, and he perceived very clearly that, in order to be able to do so, he must live with those who possessed ears to hear him. Absolute melody had struck him as the sole vital principle in opera; he had only, therefore, to observe carefully what kind of melody he must adopt in order to be heard. Completely passing over all the rubbish in the shape of scores, he directed his powers of listening to where the people sang without notes, and what he heard there was what, in the whole range of opera, the ear retained in a more involuntary manner than anything else; the naked, ear-pleasing, absolute melodic melody, that is to say-melody which is precisely melody and nothing more; which glides into our ears, we know not wherefore; which we repeat, we know not wherefore; which we adopt to-day instead of that of yesterday, and which we forget again to-morrow, without, again, knowing wherefore; which has a melancholy sound when we are merry, and a merry one when we are out of sorts, and which, notwithstanding, we