No. 5 also exhibits numerous errors in emphasis, beautiful as is the air. In fact, as the words are now adapted, a singer would stand a fair chance of being laughed at who should perform this air.
The sixth and seventh of these call for no remark.
No. 8 sets off with some promise of novelty, but the composer, in modulating from F to E minor, gets quite out of his depth, and is engulphed in fifths of so abominable a kind, that we cannot allow them to pass without a remark.
PIANO-FORTE AND VIOLIN.
GRAN DUO CONCERTANTE, on Airs from MEYERBEER’s Robert le Diable; the Piano-forte part by KALKBRENNER, the Violin part by LAFONT. (Chappell.)
THIS is a composition in which two first-rate artists have united their talents, and requires performers of nearly equal rank to execute it in a fit and proper manner. It is a work remarkable for its brilliancy, which appears to have been the principal aim of the writers, for the greater part is of this cast; though an expressive adagio in B minor, and one variation of the same kind in F minor, operate as seasonable contrasts and reliefs. The bulk of this consists of an air in C, (we do not recollect its title,) with, in point of fact, five variations, though only numbered as two. The first of these requires a violinist expert in double stops; and if the pianist cannot run demisemiquavers in thirds, with one hand, in quick time, he had better at once decline all share in the concertante.