DUETS, PIANO-FORTE.

  1. GRAND MARCH, The Knights-Templars, composed by the CHEVALIER SIGISMOND NEUKOMM. (Chappell.)
  2. The CHORUSES in HAYDN’s Creation, selected and arranged by W. WATTS. No. 5. (Cramer and Co.)
  3. FANTASIA sur des Motifs favoris de La Fiancée d’ AUBER, composée par C. CZERNY. Op. 247. (Chappell.)

No. 1 is a spirited composition, in which are some good effects, but so little of novelty of any kind is to be discovered in it, that it really may be considered as—what most modern things are—a compilation.

No. 2, the fifth of a set of six, from Haydn’s oratorio, is the chorus ‘Achieved is the glorious work,’ including the lovely trio, ‘On Thee each living soul awaits,’ arranged in Mr. Watts’s usual effective and sensible manner.

No. 3, though confessedly made up of subjects by Auber, is modestly claimed by M. Czerny as his own composition. The assurance of some few musicians seems to have no bounds, but we really believe that it is attributable to want of understanding, to no worse cause, therefore make great allowances for it; though we deem it prudent to mention the matter, in order to warn others from being guilty of the like weakness. Here are certainly dove-tailed together some of the best airs in the opera, and a brilliant duet is fabricated out of them, but the present arranger can very seldom refrain from exhibiting his musical folly, and has now filled too many pages with passages quite irrelevant, exceedingly difficult to players in general, and producing no satisfactory result. Let the reader not overlook one remarkable fact recorded on the title-page of this publication,—it is M. Czerny’s two-hundred and forty-seventh work! And he is still quite a young man. What a treasure to the stationer! What a labourer for the cheesemonger!

THE MUSICAL SCRAP BOOK, edited by FINLAY DUN. No. 1. 1 vol. 4to. (Edinburgh, Wood and Co.)

THIS is a collection of ‘original and selected songs, ballads, &c. for the voice, and polonaises, quadrilles, &c. for the piano-forte.’ Why it should be called a Scrap-book we cannot positively say, seeing that all the pieces it contains are entire, not fragments. Perhaps it is so named for pretty much the same reason that a multitude of leaves covered with music-printer’s blackest ink was not long since called an Album.—Lucus a non lucendo. But we forgive the misnomer, and look to the body of the work, which, in thirty-two pages, comprises some rather agreeable trifles, both vocal and instrumental, and three or four much too feeble to be at all pleasant. But to make up for these, we have the lovely andante from Mozart’s second violin quartet, arranged for the piano-forte, and a very sweet ballad by Marschner. The work is brought out in a neat respectable manner, and intended as a quarterly publication.