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the varieties of what has been called Chamber-music." It is a mistake to imagine that the complication of harmony has been a taste gradually acquired. It was a phrenzy sudden and irresistible, both from its novelty and from the real effects it is capable of producing. Those with the truest feeling of musical expression were naturally more or less captivated, like others, by the excitement of harmonious accompaniment. Those whose feelings were in the ear alone, rushed forward to claim pre-eminence for the elaborate and injurious additions which excited with such effect their grosser sensations. Science too was formally enlisted in the service; and mathematicians, with neither ear nor feeling, eagerly caught at consequence in a department where they had never dreamed of shining. The elegantlyturned sentiment of Heinsius, "Harmonia pater est numerus," was carried to its full extent. Some of the wonderfully elaborate movements of the early harmonists shew the extremes to which this mania carried them. Doubtless these harmonies were crude and harsh, and often barbarous, and later science has done much in sweetening their discordant chords, and refining their awkward modulations. Still as the knowledge of harmonies has extended, it is undeniable that harmonious composition has, upon the whole, been simplified. Hasse, Vinci, and Sebastian Bach, and then Handel, began to improve and polish the melody so neglected by their predecessors; and, as Dr Burney expresses it, to "thin the accompaniments" that, like untrimmed underwood, choked up and smothered what they were meant to adorn.

We have heard many complaints of the modern rage for musical accomplishment. Men of more refined taste have joined Mr Cobbett in vituperating that indiscriminating thirst for sound, which would send honest farmers' daughters to make a villainous noise on the piano." But this is comparatively nothing to the extent to which musical education was carried during the reigns of Elizabeth and James. The class through which it was possible to extend it was, of course, at that period much smaller than at present. But where it did form any part of education, and it did so of that of every gentleman, it seems to have

been pushed to a great extreme. Few persons of a certain rank were then to be found who could not play, and with superior execution, on at least one instrument; and, where nature permitted, take a part in vocal compositions; the awkward and forced complexities of which, certainly did not tend to diminish their difficulty, however they might detract from their real merit. This fever of harmonies had subsided in England, until the establishment of the Italian opera, and the celebrity of Handel, in some sort revived it. The quarrels of the furious partisans of Faustina and Cuzzoni, and the homage paid to Nicolini, and afterwards to Farinelli, are strong symptoms of what is called the revival of music in England. A great step, however, was gained. Throughout the musical world, melody, forgotten and despised so long, began again to be attended to. Corelli and others are known to have been so far sensible of the excellence of some of the old airs, both of their own and of other countries, as to have made them the ground-work of many of their sonatas. From about this period, the national melodies of Italy, of Scotland, and of Ireland, may, it is said, be traced in the compositions of the best masters.

Some of the most celebrated operatic songs now known, have the same origin. And if a single instance may suffice, I may mention, that the far-famed "Nel cor piu" is taken, almost note for note, from an old Sicilian ballad. The success of the opera was an acknowledgment that songs are essentially dramatic; and it is confessed, in words at least, that, to the finished musician, feeling and expression are as necessary as science.

If such be a tolerably correct sketch of the progress of this art; and if, as the course of events has seemed to indicate, the hypothesis of Rousseau be founded in truth, a key is afforded to the explanation of the many anonialies which music, in its modern practice, presents. That natural melody should be both neglected and depraved, appears to have been inevitable. The difficulties against which it has to struggle, are immoveable and overpowering. It is a most unequal conflict, to set Mr Coleridge's boy," with his " pipe of sycamore," be bis "notes as strangely moving" as they will, against the crash of a whole orchestra. Expressive melody

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It is a question, whether one air, during the last hundred years, has been composed by a professed musician, with any direct and intentional reference to any principle in nature, upon which musical expression can be founded. Strong as the assertion may seem, the chances are, that he who embraces music as a profession, and goes through an elaborate musical education, is less likely than other men to produce a naturally expressive combination of sound. This is no paradox, whatever may be thought of it. The fact is, that the harmonists have exterminated the melodists, as the great missal thrush does the common mavis. race of bards, half poets half musicians, has disappeared, because it is next to impossible that such a being should continue to exist; nor, if he could, would he dare to bring forward one original composition. Ranking amongst the profounder studies, constituting a lucrative branch of trade, and giving employment to thousands, harmony must go nigh to overturn melody, by its very weight and momentum, if by nothing else. It is all-pervading. Now, who does not know how difficult it is for the greatest poetical genius to free himself, in any considerable degree, of those common-places and idioms which long custom, and eternal repetition of versifiers, have made a habit almost as inevitable as a natural tendency. In music this is ten times worse. The common-place " musical phrases," as they are styled, which have spread themselves everywhere through the medium of the voluminous and endless compositions of science, have of necessity become almost a part of the nature of every one who is possessed of a musical ear. They fly abroad" upon the wings of the wind," like the feathered seeds of the thistle or dandelion. There is no avoiding them. We hear them by day and by night; in the theatre, in the street, in the church, in the ball-room. Like

Pharaoh's plagues, they follow us into our very chambers. The difficulty of original composition is thus increased a hundred-fold, and the most determined cultivator of simple, expressive melody, will find himself, at every step, sliding into some of the innumerable artificial turns or modulations with which constant custom has indelibly impressed his imagination. Should a composer of expressive airs, in a style similar to that of the old melodies, exist at this moment, he would be denied the very name of musician. He would be hooted at by nine out of ten, and for three or four different reasons. He would be told that his music required no execution; he would hear it called simple stuff that a child might play or sing; he would be twitted with monotony of key; he would be reproached with not concluding upon the key-note, and with a score of other offences against rules of which he and nature knew nothing. He would be accused, as every musician who has dared to verge towards simplicity has been, of want of science. This was the fate of Piccini, of Pleyell, and of Shield. The constant craving for variety and for difficulty-the superior extent of the class of those who are affected by harmony only-and the consequent multiplicity of its professor's publications, exhibitions, and gains, must probably always give scientific music a preponderance. He only can be celebrated, who either distinguishes himself in elaborate composition, or in the performance of almost impossibilities of vocal or instrumental execution.

That no alteration can take place in the present state of music, it would be presumption to say. That, since the invention of counterpoint, it has altered materially, though slowly, cannot be doubted. The advances, too, towards natural expression, however faint or sophisticated, are such as prove some recognizance of that principle of poetical imitation which seems to be the foundation of musical expression. That much of modern practice is totally inconsistent, and at direct variance with that principle, is true. It may be difficult to imagine how it has happened that, admitting so much, the whole has not followed-but the fact is so.

If we look over a collection of modern music, we shall find, that, in the management of the time, the principle

been, upon As in nature, slowly, and joy dern compositions, de old airs, the vivaces quickly, and the affetuosos more slowly. As in nature, we find, that passion hurries particular words and tones, although the general effect is plaintive and slow, so in the old pathetic airs we find that semiquavers to the extent of two or four at once, are generally and judiciously used. In modern music, the same principle seems to be decidedly admitted; but pushed by a love of novelty and of execution to an excess which, far o'erstepping the modesty of nature, of course totally mars the effect originally intended. To the exaggerations of the stage may be traced many of the corruptions of musical expression; and it seems to be probable, that the introduction of long hurried hubbubs of passages into airs essentially slow, has been much encouraged by theatrical performances. Be this as it may, it would be an easy matter to point out a score or two of scientific adagios and largos which a person, unable to read music, and not having the real notes as written, and the divisions of the bars in his mind's eye, would never discover to be in essentially slow time. The only effect of such composition upon unlearned hearers, is to surprise and confound them. As to touching the finer feelings, the thing is out of the question; indeed, the evident in tention of the composer is to take advantage of the slowness of the time, in order to exhibit his own skill and that of the performer, in running through divisions and sub-divisions. In the management of piano and forte the same principle of imitation may be traced, however faintly. All natural "discourses" of passion are alternations of softness swelling into loud ness, and loudness dying into softness, as the gusts of feeling rise and fall. In expressive pathetic airs the imitation is accordingly true to nature. But in modern compositions, especially of the "lengthy sort," though the practice remain, and in full forcethe reason for it is gone. Ask a musician why such a fortè and such a piano are marked, and he only answers you with some vague and indefinite appeal to taste or to precedent. He calls it "light and shade;" but what

rule is there for the distribution of light and shade over a surface where no intelligible form, no natural picture is delineated. We may indeed "marble" such a surface; but if the lights were shadowed and the shadows lightened-if the ffs were turned into pps, and the pps into ffs, what dif ference could it make? It is easy to give emphasis to that which is destitute of meaning, just as a boy reading Latin "nonsense-verses" at school, applies to them the same intonations that he is taught to give to a line of Virgil. This is only a trick, however, to make that look something like sense, which in reality is devoid of it, and if the emphasis were reversed, it would do just as well. The most glaring instance, perhaps, of the united use and abuse of imitation in modern scientific musical expression, is the "shake." The shake is in rea lity a poetical heightening of that tremulous effect of the voice which is always produced, especially at the close of a sentence where the tone begins to drop, by intense feeling. In accordance with this law, in all music the shake is introduced towards the close of a passage, which usually descends. The natural shake is any thing but that which musicians call a perfect shake. It is a tremulous imperfect vibration, and not a violent and distinct oscillation between two tones, which is a matter of most difficult vocal acquirement. In nature it rarely occupies more time than would be required for a crotchet in a common time Andante movement. In modern compositions, however, it is no unusual thing for it to occupy a whole bar of four crotchets-nay, two such bars and upon exaggerations like these composers pride themselves.

So thoroughly forgotten are the natural reasons upon which these monstrosities have been originally built, that in treatises on musical composi tion they are not even attempted to be accounted for. The reader may look in vain for any intellectual explanation of the origin of piano and of forte, or of shakes or trills, or retardations, or pauses. He is taught by experience to expect the occurrence of such things in certain places, and after passages of a certain description but why, he is not told and he need not enquire. In the well-known book of Avison, the foundation of musical expression

is hardly once attempted to be evolved, and for the detection of the very principle on which the treatise professes 1 to hinge, we are referred-to nature? no-but to the scores of Geminiani, Crescembini and Corelli ! Mr Ralph in his pamphlet does nearly the same thing. Dr Burney at times seems to recognize the origin of expression in melody in the imitation of nature, but generally contradicts himself in the next page, floundering between the effects of melody and harmony; sometimes speaking of them as dis tinet things, and sometimes confounding them together.* Both in the

practice and theory of vocal and instrumental performers, the same ignorance, or neglect, of any resort to nature for the explanation of melodious meaning, is exhibited. Seientific singing and playing constantly degenerate into a display of trickery

Eating up the farme Blythe and merry, by th As a little country lass Then he replies," Hear the As he trudges thro' the grounds, out zounds! Yonder beast has broke my mounds; If the parish has no pounds, Kill, and give him to the hounds." then Da Capo, both join in repeating the last stanza; and this tacked to a tolerable tune will serve you for a couple of months-you observe." In the same spirit of ridicule Sir Richard Steele makes Trim, in his comedy of the Funeral, sing Campley's Cheque for three hundred pounds; repeating, "hundred-hundred-hundred-because there are three huudred;" a better reason than can be given for most With indifferrepetitions in music. ence to expression bad taste necessarily of musical people, we shall every where comes in. If we criticise the practice We are called to attend to exhibitions find that vagueness and inconsistency of the voice and hand, which have as little reference to natural intonation as which always are the result of a want the twirls of a high French ballet of reference to first principles. Thus have to graceful motion. Of the in- a celebrated vocalist of the day, in difference of most professional singers the Bewildered Maid," gives the that marvellously mawkish ballad, to the meaning of the airs they sing, their indifference to the quality of the words is a stubborn evidence. They will as soon attach doggrel trash to a favourite tune as the effusions of our best poets. A glaring instance of this is the stuff which Mr Braham and others are content to tack to the melody of Robin Adair, although the best song-writers which this country or perhaps any other ever producedBurns and Moore have written beautiful and appropriate songs to this air. Foote, in his Commissary, has admirably ridiculed this piece of ill taste. Hear Dr Catgut's account of the approved mode of writing a comic opera: "Last week, in a ramble to Dulwich, I made these rhymes into a duet for a new comic opera I have upon the stocks. Mind for I look upon the words as a model for that kind of writing."

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Nay, I have been told, on inquiring why a forte was to be followed by a piano in the repetition of the two dotted crotchets in "Fly not yet," that it was an echo! In Bombet's Lives of Haydn and Mozart, some notable specimens of musical criticism occur. The best, perhaps, is the chuckling self-satisfied way in which he favours us with the edifying anecdote of Mozart's composing the admired overture to

In his account of the performances at Westminster Abbey, in commemoration of Handel, he talks of the sublimity of effect produced by the multitude of voices and instruments, as if it were something peculiar to the music; forgetting that this kind of sublimity is common to all loud sounds, whether arising from shouting, from thunder, from the firing of cannon, the waves of the sea, or Don Quixote's fulling mills.

Don Juan whilst drunk and sleepy. He absolutely hugs himself on the idea of having discovered, in the leading passage, a striking resemblance to the half-yawn half-snore which the nodding composer might be supposed to emit at intervals. Now, what, in the name of common-sense, has this to do with Don Juan? or in what way could it be a suitable overture to the exploits of that fiery hero, or, indeed, to those of any body else, unless the celebrated journal of Drunken Barnaby be dramatized and brought upon the stage.

If we inquire into the particulars of the admiration expressed for airs and songs in general, we continually discover either that the difficulty and trick of the execution, or the general smoothness and harmony of the accompaniments, are the sole grounds. They are taken for the excitement rather than for the meaning-pretty much as the Indian convert is said to have taken the sacrament, wishing "it had been brandy." Songs are often said to be good, when well sung; a qualification of praise which seems to mean, that the difficulty of getting through them is the real induce ment for hearing any one make the attempt. With an expressive air, if the singer can give the meaning, it is nearly sufficient. In music, as in every thing else, even an involuntary exhibition of skill which draws attention from the subject to the performer, is disadvantageous. In modern singing, however, this rule is reversed. Every convenient pause is occupied by a cadence, which is neither more nor less than a barefaced display of the talents of the performer. In the midst of the most pathetic appeal we are to break off and listen to the melodious vaulting of Madame or Signor. It is just as if Mr Kean were to fill up the intervals of his be-play in tragedy by leaping through the back-scene, because he can play Harlequin as well as Othello. Now all this goes to prove, that the gratification of what is often called musical taste, is, at bottom, that of mere curiosity; but it remains to be shown why curiosity is to be confounded with a feeling of the effects of music. Would they who flocked to hear Catalani sing Rode's violin variations, have felt the same pleasure in hearing them played upon a barrel-organ, or upon the violin even of Rode himself? Certainly not. It was the difficulty of the attempt, then, that was the motive

for listening; and curiosity was the passion to be gratified. We go to hear the human voice do what it never did before, for the same reason that we go to see human legs and arms do what they never did before. We admire him who runs highest upon the musical scale, upon precisely the same principle that we applaud the Indian jugglers twirling their balls, or Mr Ireland leaping over a pole thirty feet high.

The observation may be fanciful; but it is an odd fact, that musicians, in the modern acceptation of the term, have failed in securing that respect and hold upon the imagination which the obscurer bards seem to have enjoyed. Shakespeare never brings them upon the stage but to ridicule them; and "a fiddler, a minikin-scraper, a pum-pum!" are no unusual epithets with the older dramatists. It is remarkable, too, that of those to whom nature has allotted a share of sensibility above the common portion of mankind, very many have been known to prefer simple airs to more scientific compositions. Accustomed to delight in and to analyse the fluctuations and combinations of the passions, they have been delighted, above all others, with natural, and at the same time poetical intonation. Burns was so; so is Moore;-so was Madam de Stael;— so was Jackson of Exeter,—at once author, painter, and musician. This last, indeed, drew upon him the wrath of the musical reviewers of his day, who accused him of attempting, in his Treatise, to include all good compositions in the class of mere Elegies," as they styled pathetic airs. Buona parte had similar predilections; and was reproached by the irritable Cherubini, with having no other idea of a serious opera, than its being a succession of grave andante movements. The Emperor, no doubt, was rather too domineering a critic. After telling the unfortunate composer, that his most elaborate complications of semiquavers "had no meaning," he used to take the liberty of striking his pen through them, and insisting upon a hard

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"And hapless situation for a Bard. It was perhaps too much for human nature in any shape;-but had Napoleon never played the tyrant elsewhere, the world would have had no great reason to complain. In pur

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