EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF A DILETTANTE.
[Resumed from [page 89].]
(The three following Notices were omitted by our Printer in last Number.)
3d (of March). I find the following sensible critical remarks among my papers; they were copied from a weekly work (the Court Magazine, I think) some months ago, and have since escaped my notice. The opinions are worthy of being widely extended.
‘Melody is of two kinds; one which is affected by the prevailing taste or fashion, and is made up of the particular graces and embellishments of the day; and the other, broad, flowing, majestic, bearing the stamp of no particular period, and without ornament; but composed principally of long notes, upon which the sentiment is encrusted and cannot be mistaken—adorned with all the vigour and effect of striking and appropriate harmony and instrumentation. The latter is the real classic melody: classic, because it is imperishable, as being the noble and unsophisticated expression of never-varying truth. It is like those pictures of the old masters which will be relished in all ages, because they represent that which must be understood by all generations of men. Handel, the immortal Handel, whose works will never perish, produced much of the first kind of melody, which is now overlooked and forgotten: but his rich and pure streams of the second kind flow freely, to delight and refresh with their beauties the present generation, as they will the remotest generations to come. Cimarosa has very little of the first kind; Mozart and Beethoven none; Meyerbeer a great deal in his Italian operas, but none in his German and French. All these masters have written for posterity.’
10th (of March). The Halifax Guardian states that ‘the fifty-third performance of the Halifax Quarterly Choral Society took place, in the Old Assembly Room, Talbot Inn, on Tuesday evening last. The music consisted of a selection from The Seasons of Haydn, and the whole of Beethoven’s Mount of Olives. There was a full attendance of performers, vocal and instrumental; the orchestra was led by Mr. White of Leeds, under whose able guidance the above sublime and beautiful compositions were performed with a degree of precision and spirit which is frequently wanting in concerts of much higher pretensions. Miss Milnes, the principal soprano, has not only a beautiful voice, but much execution and a pure taste; and Mr. Carter, the principal tenor, is also entitled to very high praise. The style and expression with which he sang the deeply pathetic recitative and air that open The Mount of Olives, were admirable. The other solo parts were exceedingly well performed; and we only regret that our limits do not allow us, on the present occasion, to do the singers justice. The choruses were given with great correctness, and the ensemble was excellent: the points were taken up with a decision that showed how much at home the singers were in their parts. The effect, in particular, of the grand choral fugue, which concludes The Mount of Olives, was magnificent. It is very gratifying to see this society so spiritedly conducted. It is of such standing that it may be considered in the vigour of manhood. May it be long before it shall betray any of the infirmities of old age!’
19th (of March). It has just been determined, by the most influential gentlemen of Liverpool, to have a grand musical festival in that town early in October. Let us hope that this will encourage other enterprises of the kind and raise the drooping spirits of our orchestral performers, whose time lay unprofitably on their hands during the whole of the last summer and autumn.
April 6th. One of those paragraphs which the dealer in small wares furnishes to the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ tells us, this day, that ‘Poor Giovanni, many years stage manager at the Italian Opera-House, is, we regret to hear, in the work-house. He was, in his position at the theatre, a man of modest, unassuming manners, and a great favourite behind the scenes. It is to be lamented that foreigners, who are so liberally paid by the public for the exertion of their talents in the London theatres, do not institute a fund for the support of their indigent brethren.’ Now true as it may be that Signor di Giovanni has been obliged to seek such a refuge, it was not at all necessary to add a pang to his misery by publishing it to all the world. Had the writer recommended a subscription to be opened for the relief of this unfortunate servant of the fashionable portion of the public, he might have done some good; none could arise from a mere gossiping paragraph. Di Giovanni was not at any time stage-manager; he never arrived at any higher office than that of deputy. Other parts of the article are not less incorrect. As to a fund, it was once begun, and a per centage on the salaries of the performers raised something to commence with. This was never heard of after the retreat of Mr. Waters to Calais.
10th. In an account of the Rev. Robert Hall, by Olinthus Gregory, recently published, is the following anecdote, or, indeed, two-fold anecdote, which adds further testimony to the effect produced by the music in Westminster Abbey at the far-famed Commemoration:—
‘Robert Hall,’ it is stated, ‘was at the Commemoration of Handel in 1784, and present at that extraordinary scene when George III. stood up at one part of the performance with tears in his eyes.’ Nothing ever affected him more strongly; ‘It seemed,’ he said, ‘like a great act of national assent to the fundamental truths of religion.’
It was at one of the grand performances in the same venerable building, a few years after, that Haydn was observed sitting in a corner under a side gallery, weeping like a child, and he declared that he had never before been so powerfully affected by music.
15th. The influences of the Influenza were strikingly evinced at the Philharmonic Concert this evening. More than a third of the subscribers were absent; and of those present, one half at least, judging from the symptoms they exhibited, would have been better at home. The orchestra, too, lost some of its best performers.
15th. At the rehearsal of the Ancient Concert this morning, Signor Rubini, keeping his seat, and with his hat on, began to sing an aria. Lord Burghersh, the director, hinted that it was usual to treat so many subscribing auditors as were present with rather more respect. The Signor then contrived to rise; but a gentle intimation from the same quarter, that the Signor would be heard to greater advantage without his hat, received no attention whatever. Now this really should not be wondered at in a country where every thing has a money value. Signor Rubini is making 6000l. or 7000l. per annum by his engagements, to which we sensible English largely contribute. Such an income is superior to that of most baronets, nay, of many lords; Signor R.’s rank here, consequently, is equal or superior to theirs, according to the money difference; ergo he has a right, in his Britannic Majesty’s dominions, where wealth is every thing, to rehearse seated, and with his beaver firmly fixed on a head from which issues a voice that commands (O mores!) a revenue which many an English nobleman, many a German prince, will hear of with astonishment and envy.
16th. The daily press is beginning to manifest some reasonable dissatisfaction at the sordid propensities of the Baron of the Single-string. Had it decried his absurdities (absurdities, however, well calculated for the meridian of London) two years ago, it might have prevented his proving ungrateful, and caused a great deal of money to reach the pockets of English performers, who wanted it, instead of flowing into the coffers of a stranger who had no real occasion for it, and did not deserve one-tenth of what he received. The Globe of this evening tells us that ‘the munificent support which M. Paganini met with in London does not appear to have softened his heart towards English artists. He was applied to a short time since to lend the aid of his talents, in union with all the French and Italian performers of eminence in Paris, to support a benefit advertised by Miss Smithson, in the hope of retrieving some of the losses arising from the failure of her speculation there, and her unfortunate accident, which still confines her to her bed. He refused, on the plea of ill-health. This was very well. The benefit was comparatively a failure, being only sufficient to pay one-fifth of the debts due by Miss Smithson to the English actors, who have been in a state little short of starvation, and are even unable to return to England. Another benefit, in which Mars, Duchesnois, and all the other artists came forward in the handsomest manner, is announced for to-morrow. Paganini, who is well enough to play to-morrow night at the Opera [the French Opera] for himself, has been again applied to, and now refuses flatly, saying, that the failure of Miss Smithson’s speculation is nothing to him. This should not be forgotten when he re-visits London.’
But it will be forgotten: the English public have lost those patriotic feelings which once distinguished them, in so far as relates to foreign performers. The Signor, however, will not reap another rich harvest here, he may be assured. Though some futile attempt will be made to deny the truth of the foregoing statement, it will be made in vain; the rage is over; our eyes as well as our ears are now opened; the pretended enthusiasts—for affectation has had much to do with the matter—will no longer be able to cry up the Witches’ Dance, the Friars’ Hymn, &c. as prodigies of art; they will not be listened to if they again endeavour to deafen us with the wonders of sounds almost inaudible, and nearly, if not quite, inappreciable: we are grown a little wiser, and have found out, that in proportion as two legs to a body are preferable to half the number, so four strings to a fiddle are better than one.
22d. In the Revue Musicale, M. Fétis lately, with much apparent justice, severely criticised a new Italian opera by a Sig. Ricci, called Chiara di Rosemberg: he even proceeded so far as to say, that music has declined in Italy, and that there is little hope of its revival in a country where such a work as Ricci’s could meet with success. This has brought upon him the vengeance of the editor of L’ Eco, an Italian literary journal published at Milan, who not very temperately exclaims: ‘It needed all the effrontery that is often met with in the French journals, to deny superiority in an art to a country which claims as its own a Rossini, a Bellini, a Mercadante, a Pacini, a Donizzetti, a Ricci, and many other composers; to a country which has a right to triumph in a Pasta, a Tosi, a Rubini, a Donzelli, a Lablache, a Tamburini, &c. Nothing, in truth, but the most stupid ignorance or the blackest malignity could assert of such a country of artists, that “the decline of music in Italy is complete.”’ M. Fétis has well answered the attack, and shown that the critic who can place Bellini, Mercadante, &c., by the side of Rossini—who can put Pasta on a level with Tosi, must be wholly incapable of discussing a question which requires some knowledge of music, and some power of judging between good and bad performers. The Milan editor may rave as he will, but he may be assured, that M. Fétis speaks the opinion of every real and unbiassed critic.