PARKE'S MUSICAL MEMOIRS.* This book has greatly disappointed us. Of
Mr. PARKE we have no personal knowledge, and had therefore no previous means of ascertaining his powers of literary exertion ' • but we did anticipate that they would have been equal to the production of something either useful or entertaining. A man 'who appears to have moved in respectable musical circles for the last forty years, ought to have stored up better materials than the mere twaddle of these two volumes. If FIELD, the music-porter, were to indulge us with his " memoirs" or " reminiscences," we should expect something about as valuable as those of' Mr. PARKE. We conscientiously believe that HEDGLEY would produce a better work ; and we ad- vise some publisher to engage him for the purpose. Indeed, were any person, musical or unmusical, furnished with an Annual Re- gister or a file of newspapers, a few old concert and oratorio books, and above all, a Joe Miller, he would find no difficulty in compiling such " an account of the general state of music in England," as Mr. PARKE has supplied.
On many important points, and valuable institutions connected with the progress of musical taste in England, our author is either wholly silent, or his information is meagre, and often erroneous. Of the various societies which have had for their object the culti- vation of vocal music, scarcely one is mentioned; and even the Philharmonic Society, to whose existence may be attributed our present advance in the knowledge and practice of instrumental music, is introduced with the following brief notice :— " A new instrumental concert, by subscription, for nine nights, called
the Philharmonic,' so named, perhaps, after the Philharmonic Academy in Bologna was established this year at the Argyll Rooms ; in which so much talelit was displayed, that no doubt could be entertained of its future success."
But for this scanty information, ample amends is made by the lengthened ar d repeated details of every thing which relates to Vauxhall Gai de is. We have the history of the spot, the tenure by which it is held, the pedigrees of its successive proprietors, the principal singers, the number of encores, with the means employed to obtain them, the number of visitors on every particular night, the number of lamps and transparencies, the number of concertos (especially those for the oboe), the number of chickens devoured, and of bottles of wine disposed of on certain occasions, together with various other particulars equally well calculated to furnish the inquirer with "an account of the general state of music in England."
The critical remarks on the style and powers of different prin- cipal singers are miserably defective, commonplace, and sometimes absurd. The usual notice is, that A. or B. "sung very well," or was "greatly admired." Sometimes it extends a little farther; for instance, of Signora Borrim it is said, "Her voice would have been full, clear, and well-regulated, if it did not possess a tremu- lousness, the effect of weakness, and it had not great compass or flexibility"—i. e. "Her voice would have been full, clear, and well- regulated," if it had not been the reverse. Of the singing :a cer- tain air by MARA and by CATALAN!, MY. PARKE says, "Though it was quite opposite, yet they both arrived at the point of perfeel lion." BRAHAM'S name is thus introduced for the first time into the Memoirs—" Salomon's concert commenced on the 18th of February, in Hanover Square. The singers were Madame Mara and Mr. Braham." Our historian seems to have had a subject of much higher importance than Mr. BRAHAM'S first appearance in his view—no less, indeed, than his own darling oboe concerto ; which appears on this, as on every other occasion, to have been with him the prominent feature in the entertainment, "During the concert," he proceeds, "Salomon played a concerto on the violin, and / played one on the oboe, in which I introduced some of my newly-discovered high notes, particularly a shake on the upper D, which was highly applauded. On this occasion, the celebrated musical historian, Dr. Burney (a subscriber), whose vision was very imperfect, conceiving that my elder brother, Mr. John Parke, had played as heretofore, said to his wife, who was present, and who shortly after informed me of it, 'Mr. Parke, senior,t played very finely to-night : indeed I think I never on -any former occasion heard him display so much sweetness, taste, and bril- liancy.'" In short, every newspaper paragraph in which the author's name is incidentally mentioned, he has carefully preserved and industriously recorded: while the name of GRIESBACH, whose supremacy on the oboe every musician, Mr. PARKE excepted, has been proud to acknowledge, is dismissed with a single line. We should have expected, that in a history of the "general state of music in England," some notice would have been taken of the immense stride which our provincial Festivals have made; and especially that the exertions of Mr. MOORE of Birmingham, who was the first to aim at the grandeur and perfection which some of these meetings have attained, would not have been wholly unregarded. Such matters are not to Mr. PARKE'S taste ; in truth, we suspect that he knew nothing about them. Of Birming- ham he certainly speaks, but it is of Birmingham Vauxhall—a place in which, doubtless, he thought himself sufficiently occupied while amusing the unwashed artificers with the strains of his oboe. He appears to have been unusually delighted with this town, for the audience encored his accompaniment to a song, and he was "elegantly lodged and boarded for fourteen shillings a week !" Of the Yorkshire festival he does speak as follows:- * Musical Memoirs; comprising an Account of the General State of Music in England, from the first Commemoration of Handel, in 1784, to the year 1830. By W. T. Parke, Forty Years principal Oboist to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. 2 vols. London, 1830. t 'This single word "senior" betrays the manufacture of the pretended speech. Dr. Burney, in speaking to the wife of the performer, would have merely said, "Mr. Parke."—En.
" The Yorkshire grand musical festival, held in York Minster, took place on the 23d of September, ang the three following days, under the patronage of the Archbishop of YorkInd a long list of nobles. Madame Catalan', Miss Stephens, Mr. Braham, Mr. Vaughan, and Mr. Sapio, sang with great effect ; and the while of the performances went off in the best pos- sible style. The influx of company into the city of York was uncommonly great, and the inhabitants did not evince any lack of self-love in their mode of letting lodgings to the Londoners. They were strangers, and they took them in.' The Minster, on the days of performance, from the ele- gance of the dresses, and the beauty of the ladies, presented a scene truly fascinating."
This is a specimen of musical criticism, just such as one might expect from a Cockney traveller ; but it is far surpassed by the following delectable piece of ignorance and impudence. (It is scarcely necessary to remark, that no such song, recitative, or chorus, as "All they that walk," exists in the Messiah.) "Of the accompaniments to Handel's Messiah,' by Mozart, I wish to say a word or two. It is not my intention to discuss the subject at length; but in giving it as my opinion that the accompariiments are not genuine, I shall state a few reasons in support of that opinion, leaving to others the enjoyment of their own. In the first place, as singers of first-rate ability were easily to be obtained at the time it is said hecomposed them, it appears to me that an elegant writer like Mozart would not have fallen into the old and exploded style of fettering the voice, by making the wind instruments play the theme with the singers. That Handel, in some in- stances, had recourse to the same expedient, I allow ; but it is well known that he was at times compelled to this by the difficulty he experienced in procuring singers of sufficient ability to do without that aid. In the next place, I think Mozart would not have put harmony on such a sub- ject as All they that walk ;' because the great effect produced by its con- sisting chiefly of octaves (the sublime of music, according to Dr. Crotch) would have deterred him from sullying his judgment by making any ad- dition to it. In the pastoral symphony there is also a redundancy of har- mony, which complicates its beautiful. and characteristic simplicity, and consequently neutralizes its effect. But the strongest conviction i feel as to the posthuincius forgery is, that Mozart being a man of consummate genius, and possessing a liberal mind, could not have -affected to look down on such a composer as Handel, and casting aside all the courtesies of society, take up his pen for the purpose of depreciating the fame of a great master, under the mask of amending a work that had passed the ordeal of criticism for nearly a century amidst universal admiration, and had been stamped with the indelible mark of supreme excellence."
It is curious to observe the process by which the empty bladder • of these Memoirs is distended into a portly size. Every joke, pun, witticism, or anecdote, good or bad, connected however remotely with music or musicians, which a diligent research into jest-Woks would supply, is here served up again. Then we have a dozen pages about the Fire King and MICHAEL BOA!, a life of 'MOZART, another of HAYDN, of GLITCH, &c. copied from•the biographical Dictionary, of Musicians, or some such work ; and finally, in order to " make tha-gruel thick and slab," the two volumes are effected by such interesting detailk as the following. . "I passedmy thrle at Maigate Veasantly enough; early;-' walking oix the cliffs and the pier, and reading the London mewspaperts at Garner's library. At the latter, I frequently met an Irish officer, of a very animated and agreeable disposition. That gentleman one morning, whilst reading a newspaper, suddenly exclaimed, By my faith, and there is another old friend gone !—Poor Callan !—Well, we must all attend the roll-call !' After a short pause, the tear, which had stood glistening in his eve, fell ; when, rallying his spirits, he added, On thy conscience,! have lately read of so many deceased'old friends in the newspapers, that I should not feel at all.surprised if I was one day to read an account, of the death of myself l' On the Morning of the day I left Margate, I met on the pier Mr. Broughton, an elderly gentleman I had known and re- spected for several years. He was a man of placid and amiable disposi- tion; and though his close attention to business had somewhat marred the correctness of his phraseology, he was nevertheless a very estimable. character, and, strange to say, although a citizen, had never before Visited the sea-coast ! Whilst walking on the new ,pier, which had not low, been finished, I described to him the violence of that storm which had rent asunder the former one, and which thereby rendered a new one indispensable ; observing also, that the new pier being much wider and longer than the old one, was considered to be a great improvement : to which he replied, in his mild way, 'It is an improvement indeed—it is an improvement for the better He had scarcely uttered those words when our attention was arrested by a general rush of the promenaders to the upper end of the pier. They were attracted, as it appeared, by a large ship with all her canvass set, coming before the wind in fine style towards the harbour. My friend was much struck with her majestic and beautiful appearance ; and having expressed his admiration repeatedly, at length ejaculated, 'How wonderful are the works of Nature !'—My time for departing from Margate being nearly arrived, I took leave of my friend, and repaired to my lodgings, where the stage-coach calling for me, I got into it, and set out on my journey to London."
It might be expected that all this dulness would be atoned for by the author's accuracy. No such thing—he is not only stupid, but careless. His book is full of blunders, and cannot be trusted as to the most trifling facts. He does not even spell correctly names which ought to be as familiar to him as his own—for ex- ample, Atwood, Linley (meaning Robert Lindley), Calcot, Guig- lielmi, Pucita, Harpur (meaning our present tromba prima), Wilma% &c. And in order to complete the worthlessness of his Memoirs, they disclose a pitiful malignity, that manifests itself in exposing, after their death, the weaknesses and follies of his pro- fessional brethren, which the author had treasured up while par- taking of their hospitalities.
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