[69] Nicolo Isouard is a typical character of the time. He was born on the island of Malta, educated in Paris, showing unusual ability as a pianist, prepared for the navy and established in trade in Naples. Finally against his father’s wishes he became a composer. To spare his family disgrace he wrote under the name of Nicolo. He died in Paris in 1818.
[70] Gaetano Rossi (1780-1855), an Italian librettist, quite as prolific as Scribe and as popular as a text-writer among his own countrymen as the latter was in Paris, wrote the book of Semiramide. Among his texts were: Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix and Maria Padilla; Guecco’s La prova d’un opera seria; Mercadante’s Il Giuramento; Rossini’s Tancredi; and Meyerbeer’s Crociato in Egitto.
[71] Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) was the librettist de mode of the period. Aside from his novels he wrote over a hundred libretti, including Meyerbeer’s Robert, Les Huguenots, Le Prophète, and L’Africaine; Auber’s La Muette, Fra Diavolo, Le domino noir, Les diamants de la couronne; Halévy’s La Juive and Manon Lescault; Boieldieu’s Dame blanche; and Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes.
[72] Born, Rouen, 1775; died, near Paris, 1834.
[73] When only a boy of eleven he composed pretty airs which the décolletées nymphs of the Directory sang between waltzes at the soirées given by Barras, and he survived the fall of the Second Empire. Les pantins de Violette, a charming little score, was given at the Bouffes four days before he died.
CHAPTER VI
THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT: ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND ITS GROWTH
Modern music and modern history; characteristics of the music of the romantic period—Schubert and the German romantic movement in literature—Weber and the German reawakening—The Paris of 1830: French romanticism—Franz Liszt—Hector Berlioz—Chopin; Mendelssohn—Leipzig and Robert Schumann—Romanticism and classicism.
I
Modern history—the history of modern art and modern thought, as well as that of modern politics—dates from July 14, 1789, the capture of the Bastille at the hands of the Parisian mob. Carlyle says there is only one other real date in all history, and that is one without a date, lost in the mists of legends—the Trojan war. There is no political event, no war or rumor of war among the European nations of to-day which, when traced to its source, does not somehow flow from that howling rabble which sweated and cursed all day long before the prison—symbol of absolute artistocratic power—overpowered the handful of guards which defended it and made known to the king, through his minister, its message: ‘Sire, this is not an insurrection; it is a revolution!’