A symphony, properly speaking, is an elaborate work like the sonata, divided into movements, but arranged chiefly with a view to orchestration. Any number of instruments may be used, and solos for different instruments are introduced. Sometimes voices are added, as in the famous Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. This is often called the Choral Symphony. The first writer of genuine symphonies was Boccherini, and Haydn brought them nearer to the form in which we have them. Mozart did a little more, and Beethoven perfected them.
Boccherini's music is often very dull, yet someway I like to think of him, and to hear his symphonies. He must have been a very interesting man to know. He was kindly, good-humored, and generous, and in the last century he played divinely on the 'cello. Often he was very poor; he led a wandering life, and wrote some delicious bits of music to pay for his dinner. In those days musical opportunities were rare, and yet good musicians often lived and died unappreciated. We of to-day owe poor, gentle Boccherini a great deal. I well remember a dull day in London, when at the house of a famous artist I heard some of his music rehearsed by the greatest musicians in the world. They were preparing for a concert, and asked a few friends to hear this impromptu practice. I thought how glad poor Boccherini (who died in 1805, fairly tired of his cruel life) would have been to hear such musicians render his work. Somehow it seemed to shut out all the fog and cheerlessness of the square below the window in which I sat.
[THE LAST OF THE ICE.]
"That's the end of the skating for this winter," said Jerry McDonald, mournfully.
"It'd have lasted three weeks longer," growled Put Giddings, "if it hadn't been for Captain Myers and his old steamer." And Pat Farrel added:
"What for did he come alongshore and smash the best ice there was left? It's foine big pieces he made of it, but they're no good for skatin'."
Either old Captain Myers was a man with no heart for fun of that kind, or he thought there had been enough of it that winter, for he had driven the hard nose of his steamer right through the smooth surface of the cove below toward the spot where he made his landings in the summer, and there was no such thing as saying too much for the style in which he had smashed the ice. There was just a narrow strip left right close to the beach, and there was no good skating to be had on that.
"There's lots of it," said Jerry, "but it won't freeze to bear again. It'd be rougher'n ploughed ground if it did."