3rd. A Manchester paper of a few days ago, relates the following ‘SINGULAR EFFECT OF MUSIC.’ At the Cheetham-hill Glee-club, on Monday evening, during the performance of “Non nobis, Domine,” which was sung by about forty voices, a tumbler glass which stood upon a table in the room, broke into a thousand pieces, as if shattered by an explosion of gunpowder. When Dragonetti heard this paragraph read, he exclaimed, in his patois,—‘it vas no maraviglia du tout dat de canon made great noise, and cassée de glass[6].’
But a Lady’s Magazine for last November relates something much more marvellous than the foregoing: it tells us that one single man, by only breathing into a glass, shivered it to pieces! Even this is as nothing compared to the power ascribed to Lablache in the same article. The whole is a choice specimen of literary composition, of appropriate words, and of scientific knowledge.—
‘The voice of Lablache,’ says the writer, ‘has lost the usual extent of base voices—from sol to mi. With the exception of the two extreme notes, his voice sounds equally on all points. It rings like a bell by the force of its vibrations, and not by the action or contraction of the gullet. The sound escapes as freely from his breast as from the pipe of an organ of eight feet. Some of our readers may have heard of the fine voice of Cheron. After Cheron had been singing, he would, after refreshing himself with sugared water, breathe in the empty glass, and the fragile crystal flew in a thousand fragments; but if the Italian Hercules chose to send forth his re in a salon, with the strength of volume he can give, all the glass in the room would fly in shivers.’
Let us express a fervent wish that Signor Lablache may never exhibit his full powers in the Hanover Square Rooms, where there are valuable mirrors and chandeliers. But it is still more earnestly to be hoped that nothing may tempt him to utter his re in Hancock’s, or in Collins’s warehouse: his single note there would do more damage than one of the new French bombs:—the pranks of a mad bull in a china-shop would be harmlessness itself compared to the desolation which the Italian’s D would produce in the splendid show-rooms of either of those great manufacturers.
5th. I have often laughed at Paganini’s single-string feats, and regretted the waste of his talent on witches’ dances, the clucking of hens, &c., but I quite agree with him that there is a philosophy of the violin, though many people, judging too hastily, will smile at the expression. I am led to this remark by the Court Journal of the 1st of this month, where a writer, who has published Recollections of Paganini, states, under the date of July 2, 1831, that he had read to the violinist some remarks on his playing which appeared in the Harmonicon. ‘I explained to him,’ it is said, ‘how eloquently they (the we of the Harmonicon) had spoken of the truth of his intonation,’ &c. &c. ‘And’—interposed Paganini, with a triumphant smile, as if to anticipate what they ought to have been most eloquent upon—‘della filosofia del violino.’
Perhaps the authority of Paganini may lead some musicians, who are his admirers, to think that there actually is a philosophy in their art. As this philosophy is what many of them do not very well understand, the vainest and most obtuse among the number have pretended to ridicule it, and, like the fox in the fable, affected to despise what they could not attain. But the schoolmaster is abroad, and musical men, who do not advance with the rest of the world, will soon sink to their proper level. They must begin to reason as well as play, or contempt will be their lot. Much good would ensue from philosophising a little on music, for its principles—I mean the principles which practical men ought to understand—are founded on a purely philosophical basis. But how few, even of the best composers, to say nothing of mere performers, have devoted the least attention to this subject! Is the Royal Academy in Tenterden-Street beginning at last to think of it?—I fear not.
The writer of the article alluded to in the following, will, no doubt, be glad to see his error corrected. A few days after the above conversation, the author of the Recollections tells us, ‘When I called on the Signor, he requested me to translate him an article in the Harmonicon, relative to his talent. He paid great attention to it as I proceeded. To the assertion about his using his thumb, to make some of the stops on his instrument, he gave a direct contradiction, but said, “Let them believe it: as I have so many notes, they think I have plenty to do for ten fingers.” He was greatly diverted with the joke of his performing on strings supposed to have been extracted from the intestinal system of a certain illustrious prelate, and thus rendering his notes infallible.’
16th.—It has been said, that empire began in the east and will end in the west. Bishop Berkeley’s prophecy is—