It will be supposed, from the wording of the title-page of No. 1, that the air is the composition of Mr. Rawlings, whereas it is the very melody that lately produced the controversy between the author and Mr. Gödbe, and to which our pages gave publicity. The best part of the air, in fact, is Stephen Storace’s, though it is very possible that Mr. George Linley, who claims it, had it floating in his memory, without being aware that it had any rightful owner. Mr. Rawlings has increased its dimensions by some exceedingly commonplace descant, and the guilt of employing the very base which we have above reprobated he shares in common with M. Adolphe Adam. The whole is easy and inoffensive, with the exception we mention.
To criticise No. 2 would be to break a butterfly on a wheel. A butterfly!—most of the papilio tribe are beautiful, a quality not at all perceptible in this one-part-milk-and-nine parts-water production, craving the reader’s pardon for so long a compound; which epithet, however, overrates the strength of the composition under notice.
- DIVERTIMENTO from BELLINI’s Pirata, arranged by W. Etherington. (Metzler.)
- RONDOLETTO, composed by T. M. MUDIE. (Cramer and Co.)
IN the first of these, three of the less commonly known airs in Il Pirata are woven together with some skill. The first pages are the best, though Mr. Etherington ought to have been aware that such reiterated triplets of the same notes as are introduced at page 2 are ill adapted to keyed instruments. Is this, we beg leave to ask, one of the works which the publisher sells to the profession, and to country traders, at a quarter of the marked price?
No. 2 is a mere bagatelle, but it is a pretty trifle, and a trait or two of originality may be traced amidst its unaffected simplicity.
DUETS, PIANO-FORTE.
- GRAND MARCH, The Knights-Templars, composed by the CHEVALIER SIGISMOND NEUKOMM. (Chappell.)
- The CHORUSES in HAYDN’s Creation, selected and arranged by W. WATTS. No. 5. (Cramer and Co.)
- FANTASIA sur des Motifs favoris de La Fiancée d’ AUBER, composée par C. CZERNY. Op. 247. (Chappell.)
No. 1 is a spirited composition, in which are some good effects, but so little of novelty of any kind is to be discovered in it, that it really may be considered as—what most modern things are—a compilation.
No. 2, the fifth of a set of six, from Haydn’s oratorio, is the chorus ‘Achieved is the glorious work,’ including the lovely trio, ‘On Thee each living soul awaits,’ arranged in Mr. Watts’s usual effective and sensible manner.