No. 7 is composed with taste, but laboured; it was not ‘struck out at a heat.’
The English words of No. 8 are well set to the Welsh air which furnished a melody, much more than a century ago, to Gay’s ‘Cease your funning.’ What success Mr. Parry has had with his Cambrian poetry in union with the melody, it is not in our power to say, we having no cunning in his native language.
No. 9 is as agreeable as most Swiss airs are, and so like many that all the world have heard, that, unless it had been sent to us as new, we should have believed it to be of three or four years’ standing at least. In fact, hear half a dozen of these Helvetic melodies, and you hear them all; there is a prodigious family likeness in them. M. Stockhausen is over-productive; he wants some musical Malthus to curb him.
PIANO-FORTE AND FLUTE.
- OVERTURE to Fidelio, arranged for two Flutes and Piano, by J. CLINTON and A. BRAND. (Wessel and Co.)
- CARAFA’s AIR, ‘O cara Memoria,’ with concertante Variations by J. CZERNY. Op. 16. (Hill.)
- INTRODUCTION and VARIATIONS on the Romance in WEBER’s Euryanthe, by F. KUHLAU. (Hill.)
The first of the above is the overture in E now played, not that originally written for the opera. Considered as arranged for the piano-forte, with accompaniments for two flutes, there is nothing ridiculous in this,—indeed the effect of it is good; but when called a trio, a smile is drawn from us:—the overture to Fidelio as a trio for two flutes and piano!