MUSICAL VARIETIES FROM ABROAD.
THE school for pianoforte-playing established in Paris by J. B. Cnaanta and ROSENHAIN, is serving the higher objects of the art, by opposing the prevailing rage for mechanism as the ultimate object of the student, and substituting in its place the fine delivery of a composition, taste and style. In every undertaking addressed to public patronage, the pro- bable success is to be estimated by a confessed want existing at a cer- tain juncture ; and in this point of view nothing certainly was ever better timed. Helm and CZERNY have been curing our bad fingers, but CRAMER and ROSENHAIN have undertaken a cure of souls. They rest not satisfied with technical excellence, with studies and exercises correctly and even admirably touched ; but would imbue their pupils with the spirit of fine composition, lead them into the sanctuary of the muse, and form artists. On certain days the pupils assemble to hear the masters perform ; when studies by CLEMENT!, CRAMER, MOSCHELER, CHOPIN, and ROSENMAIN, and many works of various schools, SCAR• LATTI, BACH, CLEMENT', MOZART, HUMMEL, BEETHOVEN, WEBER,
are brought before them. What this attempt at testhetic deve- lopment may produce, time will show. It is curious that Paris, which so long idolized mechanism, and first spread the contagion of that false taste, now sends us the remedy.
EDWARD HUMMEL, son of the celebrated composer, and not unknown in the musical circles of London, has lately produced his first dramatic composition at the Opera at Weimar. The " faint praise" of criticism is all that has attended this effort ; which, we fear, comes in aid of the
German proverb, " Great thers, little sons." But there s a more fa i remarkable instance than this of an artist oppressed by paternal repu- tation. There lives at present at Vienna, a man of about fifty-two years of age, who has never been able to emerge from the condition of
Thus, by way of example, I suppose a farmer bound to pay a given rent, and music-master, simply because he bears the great and redoubted name of growing ingood and propitious seaming 4 quarters (32 bushels) of wheat an W. A. MOZART. Under any other patronymic his diligence would acre on the land he may have under that crop, and obtaining saatmtehfearrametre have been rewarded and the mediocrity of his powers overlooked ; of 50s. per quarter when brought to market. He receives, therefore, under but with such a name he has been able to do nothing more than support such circumstances, 10/. per acre for his wheat produce. Now, the reputation of his father for amiability in private life. If young in bad years, by supposition will reap only 251 bushels, or abouth 20 per cent HUMMEL should prove a dramatic composer, he will be what his father less : and in consequence of a similar decrease of produce throughout the land, was not ; but to the son of MOZART, this must in any way be an impos-
sible event in music.
MEIVDELSSOHN has rivals in the field ; and, if not a man of excellent buyers of food is 60,000,000/. From some experience of this effect, the once temper, he may exclaim with logo, " 'fake mine office." THALBERG popular corn-average rent has, I believe, fallen into disuse. These figures of produce and price will vary in different situations and under different circum- has already commenced " Songs without Words" ; and now we hear stances, but they may pass as exhibitive of my meaning. that the Medea of Euripides, with female choruses by TAUBERT, has I take the landlord to be only a little better off than the farmer by the in- been given at the theatre in the Palace of Sans Souci at Berlin. The crease of price, and only because it is a reason to assign why he should be pen of AIENDF.I.SSOHN is in pure counterpoint unquestionably the first paid without any abatement ; and thus, conjointly, they gain but a small pro- of the day ; but in dramatic music he is to seek, and far from being a portion of the 60,000,000/. additional paid by the consumers for their food. dangerous competitor. In the absence of some predominating influ- I think this view to be nearly true when the farmers and landowners are ence— some master-mind—opera languishes in Germany, and the taken in the aggregate ; but of course individual exceptions occur. The heavy- land crops may fail while the light-land crops may be abundant; or the hay- feeble patient, deserted by those who should restore her energies, is vest of the South may be good and that of the North bad ; and so a fraction of left to the nostrums of quacks. There is a strong party in Berlin which the farmers and landowners may gain a greater part of the 60,000,000L addi- desires to see HANDEL'S oratorios placed upon the stage, as models of tional cost of food. But take them as a body, I do not think that in dear years dramatic ex pression. This project has been canvassed in certain the sellers of agricultural produce can be proved to have had transferred to circles in London ; where it was thought—saving the presence of the them, as additional gains, the whole loss incurred by the buyers by the rise in Lord Bishop—that Judas Maccabaus would snake a favourable corn- prices. mencement. How far, however, fugal development is consistent with I conclude, therefore, that Mr. COBDEN'S position is correct in the main, stage-effect, has been repeatedly tested in the present experimental age and that the industrial producers are deprived of an expenditure upon their of dramatic composition. It will never do the German theatre, in commodities of nearly the whole difference of cost in the food of the nation. the hands of MOZART and GLucx, was built up of melody ; and no fine 1 am, Sir, yours obediently, NOT A LEAGUER.
adaptations, not even the harmony of HANDEL'S choruses, will support
it, if this original and rare quality of composition be long denied.
Fugues, with their repetitions and new aspects of one subject, are much discussion. admirably adapted to symbolize eternity in church music : but the lyric drama, which is a poetical representation of life and truthful AIR. COBDEN'S NEW THEORY OF THE IMPROVEMENT
emotion, will not endure the formal process of the guida and riposta. IN TRADE. And yet it grieves us to meet with no one favourable report of the TO THE EDITOR OF TIDE SPECTATOR. modern German opera that does not relate in some sort to the science Edinburgh, 9th November 1843. of harmony—to the choruses, the modulation, or orchestral effects. The Sin—I perceive that the opinion expressed by me in the letter published in road to these is so beaten, so sure, so mechanical, and is so much the Your number of the 14th October, with regard to Mr. COBDEN'S theory of the resort of every fresh aspirant, that we can scarcely contemplate the revival in trade, has excited some attention. In your last number there are two letters directed to this subject, as well as an article by yourself. I am glad of this, time when truth, novelty, and genius shall again go hand in hand in an opera song. has hitherto been somewhat neglected, or at least mixed up and confused with An organ performance, for the benefit of the Deaf and Dumb Insti- other subjects not necessarily connected with it,—viz. the circumstances which tution, was lately given in the church of St. Nicholas, Leipsic, by C. F. cause the people of a country to be kept in constant employment, and those con- BEcKER, assisted by his pupil, Mademoiselle LALLEMART. The pieces sidered abstractedly from the question of profits of trade or the wages of labour. consisted of fugues, preludes, and trios, for two claviers and pedal, by Of course, I am quite aware that the prosperity of a nation depends in a great BAcsi, KREBS, EBERLIN, and the concert-giver, BECKER, who is a well- degree upon the inhabitants being able to manufacture, or obtain by exchange, known organist and musical antiquary. The greatest curiosity of the the different commodities they require with the least possible coat of labour to day was BACH'S Ricercare, in six parts, on a theme given to him by the themselves; and I fully admit the principle laid down by your correspondent King of Prussia. This was executed by BECKER and his pupil with " A Constant Reader," with regard to the disadvantages of a people being required to cultivate sterile soil in order to obtain food. But there is another great power and effect ; the young lady exhibiting unequivocal symp- element also necessary to the prosperity of a nation ; and that is, the people toms of a strong natural genius for the strange instrument to which she being kept in constant employment : and I wish to be allowed to discuss this has devoted herself. Germany is, perhaps, the only country in which branch of political economy entirely by itaelf. a solo-performing organist can travel and reckon upon his artiGtic ex- England, unfortunately, is of all the countries in the world, most subject to ploits for the means of living. This fact alone would prove the greater the evils arising from the is, population being thrown out of work. diffusion of taste. It is to this that the celebrated IlEssE owes the Conti- Notwithstanding our immense superiority in all the arts and sciences—notwith- nental reputation he has been enabled to acquire; and now a new standing our overflowing capital, our command of machinery, and the skill and celebrity from the North of Germany, in the person of FERDINAND industry of our artisans, and the cheapness of production arising from those VOGEL of Berlin, threatens for the time to push him from his stool, advantages which enables an English workman, in almost every department of The powers of this artist in composition and performance have already industry, to produce as much as two workmen in most other countries—not- borne him with great applause as far as Christiana ; a terra incognita to cial crisis, during which a great part of our working population are thrown ab- our musical countrymen, but one that possesses several fine old organs. solutely idle; while in other countries, not possessed of a tenth part of our The Conservatorio of Leipsic, founded last Easter, proceeds in the wealth nor any thing like our civilization, we see the people going on in a re- most favourable manner, and numbers already about fifty pupils. The gular jog-trot sort of manner, never very prosperous, but never reduced to the autumnal concerts at this place, which are the more interesting here state of depression and misery to which our manufacturing labourers are so from the favourable opening they have afforded to English talent both frequently brought. in composition and performance, have during the last season been con- These commercial crises are accounted for by different parties in different ducted by FERDINAND HILLER instead of MENDELSSOHN. The latter has, ways. One class of economists impute them entirely to over-production. To however, played ; and he opened the first concert, on the 1st of October, this doctrine I cannot subscribe ; as I conceive that over-production could never with his excellent G minor Concerto. Leipsic seems to be the nucleus exist under a proper state of things, and that every improvement in the arts of German amateurism, and to possess a more enlarged and active musi- which economizes labour and increases production ought to add to the pros- perity of the mass of the people. The League Free-traders, again, impute these cal spirit than is elsewhere found, crises to the want of a sufficient extent of foreign trade—at least, such was Mrs. BISHOP reposes herself, after the fatigues of her campaign in their doctrine last year ; as a proof of which, I refer you again to Mr. COB- Russia, in the South of Italy. Her first appearance in the Sonnambula DEN'S very clever speech, delivered at Manchester on the 20th August 1842, in at Naples was not very fortunate ; the principal pieces having been al- which he distinctly lays it down that it is foreign commerce alone which can ready heard in two concerts that she had previously given. She was, give constant work to the manufacturers, and that cheap corn, if bought from however, engaged for two months ; and then proceeded to other engage- the English farmer, would have very little effect in affording employment. ments at the Valle and Apollo theatres at Rome, where ste at present From this opinion, as to the absolute necessity of our foreign trade being remains. AL Booms is still performing on the harp with all his greatly extended in order to keep our artisans in constant work, I must also ancient fire. We hear nothing of new compositions from him with beg leave to differ. new effects ; but we should not be surprised, if in the atmosphere of The new theory, however, of Mr. COBDEN, and to which it is the object of the Eternal City his muse should take a Magdalen turn, or that we this letter alone to refer, is that the present revival in trade is to be attributed entirely to the cheapness arising from the two last abundant harvests ; which, should get from him a grand fantasia on subjects from the Gregorian by enabling the consumer of corn to have more money to spend on other things,
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