and utilise the additional information acquired in the interval (pp. xxv.-xxviii.).
The book which is the result of this combination of toil, intelligence, ability, knowledge, and affectionate devotion, could only have been successful by the addition to these qualities of a remarkable amount of literary tact and skill. The plan of the work is one which few English authors could by any possibility adopt. It is immense; at first sight its plan is bewildering. The book is not a Life of Mozart so much as an Encyclopaedia of musical art and biography. It opens with a minute account of Mozart's father, and of his method and his works, amounting to sixteen pages. Not only have we the narrative of the life of Mozart himself from his cradle to his grave in the smallest particulars, with a detailed examination of each work—in the case of the operas, both text and music, amounting in single operas to forty, fifty, and even ninety pages—but we have the history of the rise and progress of each branch of music that Mozart touched—and he touched them all—up to the date of his life. Witness the long notices of the Opera, the Oratorio, and Church music, and the chapter on Instrumental music in Vol. I.; the account of the French Opera, and of Lully, Rameau, Gluck, and Piccinni, in Vol. II. We have also full accounts of the social and musical condition of the various cities visited by Mozart, such as Paris, Mannheim, Salzburg, Munich, and Vienna; and biographical notices, longer or shorter, of every person with whom Mozart came into contact, or whom his biographer has occasion to mention.
Such a work may well be called an Encyclopaedia; and to have steered through this ocean of material as Jahn has PREFACE. done, never losing the thread of the narrative, and maintaining the interest in the hero throughout, implies no ordinary tact and skill; for the book is remarkably readable, and there are few pages which are not enlivened by some anecdote or lifelike touch. Nor is it less remarkable for accuracy than for the other qualities already mentioned. The writer has used it constantly for many years, and has never yet discovered a mistake of any moment. Perhaps it would have been better if the secondary treatises of which we have spoken had been relegated to Appendixes; but this is directly opposed to the German method, and we must accept the work as we have it. There are indeed already nineteen Appendixes to the original work, as follows i. Family documents. 2. Marianne Mozart. 3. Testimonials, eulogistic poems, articles, &c. 4. Dedications. 5. Mozart's letters on his journeys. 6. Text of his church music. 7. Arrangements and adaptations of ditto. 8. His cousins. 9. Mozart as a comic poet. 10. Mozart and Vogler. 11. A letter of Leopold Mozart's. 12. Mozart's letters on the death of his mother. 13. The choruses for "King Thamos." 14. The text of "Idomeneo." 15. Alterations in that opera. 16. Mozart's letters to his wife. 17. The Requiem. 18. Mozart's residences in Vienna. 19. Portraits. Of these it has been considered necessary to retain only Nos. 2, 7, and 19, which form Appendixes 1, 2, and 3 of the present edition. Another has been added: namely, a classified list of the whole of his works, according to the complete edition now in course of publication, with the references to the invaluable Catalogue of Köchel. With these exceptions the English translation is exactly in accordance with the German original.
A word of special praise is due to Miss Townsend, the translator, who has performed her laborious task with great accuracy and intelligence, and has established an additional claim on the gratitude of the student by her exhaustive Index, in which the original work is very deficient.
The new branch of musical literature, founded by Holmes and Jahn, already shows some considerable monuments. Passing by the voluminous and accurate thematic catalogues of Mozart by the Ritter von Köchel (1862), of Weber by Jahns (1871), and of Beethoven and Schubert by Nottebohm (1868 and 1874), works which properly belong to a separate department of the subject—we already possess the Life of Handel by Chrysander (vol. i., 1858; II., 1860; III., 1867), that of Beethoven by A. W. Thayer (vol. i., 1866; II., 1872; III., 1879), that of Haydn by C. F. Pohl (vol. i., 1875; II., 1882)—all three still in progress—and that of Bach by Spitta (vol. i., 1873; II., 1880). But these laborious and conscientious works, while they rival and even surpass Jahn in their wide range and the manner in which they embalm every minute particular relating to the subject, are far behind him in lucidity, and in the ease with which he handles his vast materials. In these respects, as might be expected from his literary position, Otto Jahn stands hitherto quite alone.
GEORGE GROVE.
February 23, 1882.