Mr. Novello carefully avoids such errors: there is a fitting soberness in his mass, a judicious avoidance of extremes, that prove his good sense; while the smoothness, the elegance of his airs, the richness of his harmony, and the able manner in which he has worked some of his subjects, are no less decisive proofs of his taste and skill as a musician. He certainly is not very energetic, nor does he evince much boldness of enterprise, but he is always correct; and, as a composer, gracefulness is one of his chief attributes.
Mr. Atter’s collection is of about seventy—hymns, we suppose they may be called; some few of which we have closely looked into, but must confess that we were deterred from going very far into the volume by what we met with in the early pages. The composer seems to possess a commendable share of industry, and a taste for melody, but we cannot say much in favour of his success as a harmonist; and, occasionally, his manner of setting words is not quite judicious. In the latter, however, he fails much less often than in the former; and upon the whole, so far as we have examined, Mr. A. appears to have entered into the intentions of the poets, and has expressed their sentiments with as much fidelity as musical effect will allow. Exceptions, nevertheless, occur, two of which we point out, lest the author should accuse us of being too general. At page 9, the emphasis is laid on ‘from’ instead of ‘caves:’ the preposition should have been set to the last quaver in the preceding bar. And at page 14, by means of rests after ‘we bless,’ the verb is made to act on the previous noun instead of the succeeding one. The repetition, too, of the words ‘flow down,’ and the bar of symphony between, will hardly fail to excite a smile.
Against the harmony we have to remonstrate before quitting even the second page. At the ninth bar of this is a chord of the sixth and fourth, which will displease most ears. But at page 11 is a chord of 7/4, which we should have set down as an error of the engraver, but that the voice part and accompaniment agree; and to ‘make the charm grow madder,’ the seventh rises to its resolution! But we persevered, and got on to the fifteenth page, when the following opening of a hymn convinced us that it would be needless to pursue our inquiry any further.
One word, however, as to originality, for which the composer, in his Preface, takes some credit to himself. Surely he is aware that his very first page holds forth to view an imitation of what is called The Evening Hymn; and the succeeding page will immediately call to recollection Haydn’s celebrated movement in A—that in his favourite old symphony in D.
- LAYS OF THE GERMAN MINSTRELS, T. OTTO, F. BUSSE, A. SCHNEIDER, and F. OTTO, with the original German Words, and a Translation, by W. BALL. Book I. (Ewer.)
- SONGS FOR LEISURE HOURS, composed by ROBERT E. BREWER. (Luff.)
FROM the title of the Lays, many may be led, and naturally enough, to suppose that the ‘Minstrels’ therein named are the poets and composers, as well as the performers, of them; but the executive part alone belongs to them, with the exception of one melody, the second, which claims Herr F. Otto as its author: the third is by Eisenhofer; the remaining four are anonymous.
The first, ‘The Sabbath Call’ (we give the English words only,) is a quartet for two tenors and two bases, entirely in the manner of our English glee, but with a piano-forte accompaniment. This is a pleasing piece of almost simple counterpoint, and would be effective, even if sung by voices only. The crotchet rest in the fifth bar of page 3 should have been omitted, and the two last quavers written as crotchets; the sense of the English words would then have been unbroken, and that of the German not affected.