J'ai perdu tout mon bonheur;
J'ai perdu mon serviteur:
Colin me délaisse.
Hélas! il a pu changer!
Je voudrois n'y plus songer:
J'y songe sans cesse.
MADAME FAVART.
(Air: J'ai perdu mon äne.)
J'ons pardu mon ami!
Depis c' tems-là j'nons point dormi,
Je n' vivons pû qu'à d'mi.
J'ons pardu mon ami,
J'en ons le cour tout transi,
Je m' meurs de souci.
MOZART'S "BASTIEN ET BASTIENNE."
WEISKERN.
Mein liebster Freund hat mich verlassen,
Mit ihm ist Schlaf und Ruh dahin;
Ich weiss vor Leid mich nicht zu fassen,
Der Kummer schwächt mir Aug' und Sinn.
Vor Gram und Schmerz Erstarrt das Herz,
Und diese Noth Bringt mir den Tod.
The verses are equally tame and clumsy all the way through; and even taking into account the prevailing low standard of cultivation and taste, it is difficult to believe that this operetta could have been produced at a private house of any importance.[44]
Mozart has given his music a strictly pastoral character, indicated, wherever possible, by its outward form. The orchestral introduction (Intrada) an Allegro (3-4) of about seventy bars, begins with a pastoral theme—
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interrupted by quick passages for oboes and horns, plainly intended to express a disturbance of the peaceful shepherd's life; this passes into a tender pianissimo, prefiguring Bastienne's song. Holmes remarks that the subject reminds one of Beethoven's Sinfonia Eroica, and still more so as the overture proceeds; but no one, it is to THE FIRST OPERA IN VIENNA. be hoped, would think of an actual reminiscence. Both the melody and its accompaniment, particularly the holding down of the bass note or the fifth, often of both, are meant to suggest bagpipes.
