4 FEBRUARY 1854, Page 29

Muir.

Nine Quartets for two Violins, Viola, and Violoncello. By J. L. Elkrton. (In score.) Nine Quartets for two Violins, Viola, and Violoncello. By J. L. Elkrton. (In score.) Mr. Ellerton is an amateur, who has been many years distinguished in our musical circles for his great attainments in the art. His station and circumstances have given him ample opportunities and means of culti- vating the genius with which nature has gifted him; and the fruits of his studies have been many compositions, both vocal and instrumental, of very high merit. The frequent instances of ability in amateur musicians (especially as composers) have often teen remarked : they have often rivalled the most eminent professional artists ; and indeed the amateur, when equally gifted by nature and better gifted by fortune, has some ad- vantages over the professor. With him, music is not a trade, a daily drudgery for daily bread ; he studies and practises the art for its own sake ; and ardour, enthusiasm, and the delight of conscious success, are incitements to the most laborious exertion. The love of music is as strong a motive as the love of gain. It is found, too, that a highly educated amateur has larger and broader views of the art itself than the person who must devote his utmost powers to acquire a reputation for proficiency in some single branch. It is not surprising, therefore, that amateurs, both in this and other countries, have distinguished themselves in some of the highest and most abstruse kinds of musical compositions. Of all forms of composition the instrumental quartet for stringed in- struments is the most severe and arduous. It has no adventitious aid from the charms of the human voice and association with poetry, nor from the blended tones of various classes of instruments. It is a dialogue which, to command attention, must be full of interesting matter—depth of thought, grace and refinement of language, animation, sentiment, and that endless variety of combination and response which can be obtained only by consummate mastery of all the resources of counterpoint. It is in the quartet that the greatest masters have put forth their highest powers ; and Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, have left models which even Spohr and Mendelssohn have been able only to approach. In Eng- land quartet-writing has been little cultivated : our professional musicians cannot devote themselves to a labour so arduous, engrossing, and unpro- fitable; and certainly no works of this class have been produced in this country which evince such a practised pen, and rise so near the level of the great German masters, as those of the amateur Mr. Ellerton. The quartets, of which this beautiful score edition is now before us,

are nine in number. They have been published separately at different times, and have long been in frequent use, and highly esteemed, in our best musical circles. In every movement, they show the clear, unem- barrassed style of the experienced artist, who has formed himself on the great masters, and by the " nulla dies sine lined " has acquired ease and readiness in the expression of his ideas. He has a distinct individuality of thought as well as phraseology, and many of his conceptions are new and original. A vein of graceful and expressive melody runs through all of them ; and his thorough knowledge of the instruments has enabled him to avoid awkward passages and useless difficulties. They are as satisfactory to the players as agreeable to the hearers. In all of them

minor, and it reminds us of Beethoven's quartet in the same key, in the greatness of its style, and its impassioned expression. These quartets, in short, are works of a very high order; and this valuable edition of them ought-to hold a prominent place in every library of classical music.