AIR, WITH VARIATIONS-(Page 21), composed by MOZART. A part of the original work is omitted, experience showing that the whole is almost universally found too long. Such passages are transferred to the additional keys, which were not in use in Mozart's time, as it seems likely he would so have placed them, had he enjoyed the advantage possessed by us of an extended compass of the piano-forte.

MOVEMENTS FROM A TRIO-(Page 26).

The first and last movements of a Trio which forms the ninth of

XII. Sonate a due Violini e Violoncello, e Cembalo, se piace, Opera 3za, published in London about the year 1744. Some of these were afterwards enlarged into Concertos for a band of stringed instruments, and the fourth of the latter-from the ninth Sonate-is annually performed at the Ancient Concerts, where it is listened to with the attention which such originality, and melody so exquisite, will always command from an audience of real taste. The composer is

GIUSEPPE SAN MARTINI,

born at Milan, but a resident, during the greater part of his life, in London, where he arrived in 1723. He immediately made himself known as an admirable oboeist, at a concert given by him at the little theatre in the Haymarket, then called the French Theatre, from a company of French comedians being allowed to perform there, chiefly for the entertainment of George I., who was not sufficiently acquainted with our language, to derive any His success commanded amusement from the English drama.

an engagement, as first oboe, at the Italian Opera, where he continued to perform during the whole of Handel's management. In 1740 he entered the service of Frederic, Prince of Wales, and instructed the young princesses in music. Hereupon he quitted the Italian theatre, gave up playing in public, and devoted himself wholly to tuition. He died in 1750. As a composer,' says Dr. Burney, Martini possessed all the learning of the old school, with infinitely more invention, taste, and grace, than any other Italian of his time.'

6

JOSEPH WOELFL,

a native of Saltzburg, where he had his birth in 1772. He studied composition under Michael Haydn, and the piano-forte under his illustrious townsman, Mozart. In 1794 he made a musical tour, visiting Warsaw and Vienna, and in the latter city produced his first opera, Den Hollenberg, which was much He afterwards performed at Prague, Dresden, applauded. Berlin, Hamburg, &c., and came to England, where his performance excited the admiration of all connoisseurs; but his style was not of the popular kind. In 1801 he went to Paris, and there brought out an operetta, L'Amour Romanesque, which did not prove successful. He soon returned to this country, and remained in London till his death, in 1811. Woelfl's works are numerous, but the best are not calculated to please the many; and of those he wrote for the music-publishers, most betray an inability to trifle gracefully. Unfortunately, this able musician divided his attentions equally between Apollo and Bacchus; and to his libations in honour of the son of Semele his premature departure from this world is to be mainly attributed.

sometimes called GIORDANELLO, was born in Italy, in 1750. He came young to England, and was soon much engaged in teaching music. In 1779 he embarked in a foolish theatrical speculation, in Dublin, with Leoni, the soprano, and in four years became bankrupt. He composed two operas for the King's Theatre, Antigone and Artaserse; also an opera for the English stage. His songs, &c., were in great request during many years. We have seen only few of them; but if there are any now generally unknown, possessing the merit of the above, it is much to be regretted that they are not brought forth again into open day.

SONG (Page 30.)

Where'er you walk cool gales shall fan the glade;
Trees where you sit shall crowd into a shade;
Where'er you tread the blushing flowers shall rise,
And all things flourish where'er you turn your eyes.

From CONGREVE's drama of Semele. Jupiter sends two winged zephyrs' to convey Ino to the retreat of her sister, Semele, who sighs for a companion during the unavoidable absence of the god. In the above lines Jupiter announces a part of the happiness which the sisters shall enjoy together.

WILLIAM CONGREVE,

one of our greatest dramatic poets, second son of Richard Congreve, Esq., of Congreve, in Staffordshire, was born at Bardsa, near Leeds, in 1672, and died in 1729. Among his works are

The Judgment of Paris, a masque, set to music by Weldon, and Semele, an opera, set to music by HANDEL. To the above air of Handel, Dr. Arnold adapted sacred words, Lord, what is man?" and thus it forms a part of the pasticcio oratorio, The Redemption.

GLEE (Page 32.)

It was an English ladye bright,

(The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,)
And she would marry a Scottish knight,
For love will be the lord of all.
Blithely they saw the rising sun,

(When he shone fair on Carlisle wall,)
But they were sad ere the day was done,
Though love was still the lord of all,
Her sire gave her brooch and jewel fine,
Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall;

Her brother he gave but a flask of wine,
For ire that love was lord of all.

That wine she had not tasted well,

(The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,) When dead in her true love's arms she fell! For love was still the lord of all.

He pierced her brother to the heart,

Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall;
So perish all would true love part,

That love may still be lord of all.

And then he took the cross divine,

(Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,) And died for her sake in Palestine;

So love was still the lord of all.

Now all ye lovers that faithful prove,
(The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,)
Pray for their souls who died for love,
For love shall still be lord of all.

From The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto VI., stanzas 11 and 12, by

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.,

of whom it is only necessary to say, that Edinburgh had the honour of his birth, on the 15th of August, 1771; and that he died on the 12th of September, 1832.

The music has been composed purposely for THE MUSICAL LIBRARY, by

WILLIAM HORSLEY, MUS. BAC.,

of whom, as a contemporary, and living in London, we shall only state, that he was born in this metropolis; that owing to bad health he had reached his sixteenth year before he commenced his musical studies, which were prosecuted with but little assistance, the master under whom he was first placed having much neglected him; that he soon became acquainted with Dr. Callcott, whose example and conversation proved highly useful to him, and led to his first attempts at glee-writing. In 1798 Mr. Horsley suggested the formation of a society for the cultivation of English music, which was carried into effect, and by the late Mr. Webbe named Concentores Sodales, under which title it still exists. In 1800 he had the degree of bachelor of music conferred on him at Oxford. Shortly after, he was appointed organist of the Asylum, and subsequently of Belgrave Chapel. He has composed much of various kinds of music, but his glees, which are very numerous, are the works on which his reputation is chiefly founded. Of these, By Celia's arbour,' 'See the chariot at hand here of love,' 'Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,' &c., are known wherever this species of music is cultivated.

BEETHOVEN.

[The following article, from the Foreign Quarterly Review, though much read and justly admired at the time it first appeared, has never been sufficiently known to that body which it is so well calculated to improve, namely, the real, not pseudo, composers; who will do well to expend some of their midnight oil on one of the most philosophical, elegant, and instructive pieces of musical criticism that ever issued from the press of this, or any other, country.] THERE cannot be stronger evidence of the subtle nature of musical thought, than that out of the multitude of composers who strive and labour incessantly to gain honourable distinction in the art of music, so few are destined to exercise upon it a strong and permanent influence. By a long series only of successful efforts calculated to display the same genius in a variety

of attitudes, by fresh difficulties proposed and vanquished in never-ending succession, can the composer create an era in his art; and fortunate would it be for hundreds, if patience and perseverance would ensure high fame; but of a host of people who have endured the constant thought, toil, and irritation which are incident to the musician's profession, the name of one alone shall ring throughout Europe, while all the others are condemned to languish in some obscure corner of a biographical dictionary. Many an artist is awakened out of the agreeable dream of ambition at a time of life when it is too late to begin any thing fresh, and then first becomes fully aware of the unpleasing truth that he has no genius-in the true signification of the word—that he has mistaken his talents and mis-spent his time-that nature intended him for an admirer of the beautiful, but not for a creator of it. Others, more happy, dream out their lives, and die in the delusion that they possess invention. Seeing that nature has so much more bountifully bestowed a susceptibility to musical beauty, and a desire to communicate impressions (which provoke men to attempt composition) than the romantic genius, (the power of investing common things with something rich and strange, which should be its sole warrant), it would have been a kind of cruelty in her to deny all reward to the plodding patience and industry, and the respectable talent, by which the bulk of artists in every age is distinguished. Accordingly there is a second or third-rate immortality, a niche among the Dii minorum gentium for those who, having spent their lives in straining after excellence, have been now and then happy enough to hit the mark. The contemplation of such spirits as Mozart and Beethoven renders the musician's devotion to his art a very pure and refined feeling, totally divested of any selfish consideration; for these men, proposing to themselves objects far beyond any that had entered the imagination of other artists, and succeeding as marvellously in the completion of their designs as in their conception, while they elevated music into a grander and more intellectual art, necessarily made its cultivation more difficult, and placed it farther out of the reach of such as should follow them. Yet who would basely wish a note unwritten in any work of these masters, for the sake of an additional chance for himself? who is there, indeed, who does not feel grateful to them for having made failure honourable? It is characteristic of the epochs created by both these artists, that at their decease music seemed to have run its course; originality of melody, design, and style, seemed exhausted, and nothing remained for future times, save the imitation, at a humble distance, of their too perfect models. But the temporary stagnation which is to be observed at certain periods of musical history lasts only until nature is pleased to present us with a man of genius. Thus we find that the resources of instrumental music, which seemed to be dissipated by Mozart, received fresh vigour from Beethoven: Weber also opened a new vein of interest in the dramatic style, and excited passion afresh, without interfering with any of those discoveries which peculiarly belong to the great head and master of the modern German school. The inference is obvious; whenever an artist asserts that the springs of harmony and melody have run dry, it is a sure proof of his own short-sightedness and want of invention, and the truly original and beautiful styles which are from time to time invented, even in these days, must, we fear, put to the blush the most disappointed man who would fain console himself at the expense of the art. It would save much bitterness and many after-repinings, now that the musical profession is often adopted from motives of vanity, even unaccompanied by love, that the young artist should seriously consider how great a thing it is to be a composer. Has he the power to get rid of himself? Is he free of the ideal world, and does he live apart, in communion with fancies akin to the most subtle refinements of poetry? Without the faculty of abstraction, all his sensibility, industry, and patience will but leave him one of those small geniuses who hover perpetually in the same track, and seek in vain to break loose from the enchanted circle which confines their ideas. He may be a Beethoven or a Mozart for once in his life, but he will have spent himself in the effort. It is the inexhaustible variety of these masters, their perpetual welling up of subjects of most unlike resemblance," which is the wonder of their genius, and shows that they have been

"List'ning to what unshorn Apollo sings

To the touch of golden wires."

Weber, in some measure, lets us into the secret of this variety, when he asserts that he never saw a beautiful landscape that did not produce in his mind a train of corresponding musical associ

ations. A universal sympathy, and the faculty of expressing it in forms as multifarious as the aspects of nature-remote ideas instinct with truth-the power of awakening in a phrase of melody a long train of dormant feelings which seem before to have wanted their true expression; these are qualities sufficient to account for the rarity of high musical genius, and especially so when it becomes necessary to suppose them refined by a tedious education, and an experience in the details of art the most painfully minute. The herd of musicians are but the almsmen of the great masters *, and exist upon their superfluous wealth; they are the dogs eating the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table. How many has not Mozart, Beethoven, and even Weber set up? An acquaintance with musicians, great and small, and a thorough intimacy with the difficulties of composition, are necessary to the estimate of Beethoven-a meteor, at the brilliancy of whose track Europe has hardly yet recovered its amazement. Fancy and feeling were in him full to overflowing! The characteristics of his genius are an almost unprecedented exuberance of imagination, and a peculiarly penetrating and searching quality of melody. Within himself he possessed all variety. At one time charming by a noble simplicity which impressed the most unpractised ear; at another, running into extremes of the wild and fantastic, which mystified even educated musicians, no composer ever more embarrassed and divided the judgment, and it is not surprising to find that among the more vulgar of practical musicians, Beethoven was actually supposed to be a madman, with occasional lucid intervals! This notion prevailed here about fifteen years ago, upon the appearance of some trios for the piano-forte, violin, and bass, in a style so unprecedented, and at that time so extravagant, that good people, aided by vague rumours of the eccentric life of the author, retailed here by travellers from Vienna, hastened to the short, easy, and charitable conclusion that the author was lunatic. But there is more between heaven and earth than is dreamt of in their philosophy." Music is now in a state to afford a clue to the meaning of elaborate compositions which before seemed to be one labyrinth of inextricable doubt and error; and we would fain hope that such of Beethoven's later works as still remain incomprehensible are only conceived in some exalted region of the fancy beyond the flight of ordinary imagination. When the solution of difficulties is found in the gradual refinement and progress of an intellectual taste, such a deduction surely is not unreasonable, and we confidently expect that time will dispel the mists which yet envelop the composer's meaning in his posthumous quartets, his last grand mass, and his symphony, with a chorus-works in which he has pushed to extremity the usual license and audacity of his harmony, and which have produced a vast deal of debate and many ingenious hypotheses. We are sticklers for the orthodoxy of the canons of composition, certainly not from any affection for pedantic mysteries, but because we believe them to be founded on the principles of correct taste and feeling. Beethoven, though accounting himself free from the restraint of rules, has not so often abused this liberty as to become chargeable with constant incorrectness, and we apprehend no favourable argument will be drawn from him by those who would have the laws of harmony revised, if not repealed. His musical education was solid and scientific, and it was after being a graduate in the systems of the schools that his style was formed. If, in the indulgence of so vast an imagination, in the pursuit of ideal beauty, and of surprising and grand effects, he risked every thing towards the emotion he would create, with comparatively few trespasses upon rules, he is only another proof of the propriety of their institution, though we admit that no one among the great composers has better shown when, and how far, they may give way with advantage. Among the crowd of Beethoven's imitators, there are some who ape the extravagancies of his imagination, purely that they may conceal their defects of real science, and who are wild only from inability to produce what is correct, symmetrical, and beautiful, Indeed, to many artists, the lustre of Beethoven's effects has proved but a will-o'-the-wisp-they have followed its guidance, and have been left in the mire. Some of these, supposing that the true secret of the composer's fascination lay in the ugliness of a passage on its first hearing, and remembering that Beethoven's symphonies were not liked at first, and now are liked, concluded that repetition not only wore off the first impression, but even changed it entirely. They, therefore, congratulated themselves when they had made a good hideous composition, and

*Mozart, who never wrote any thing superfluous, compliments, in a letter, one of his acquaintance for composing with his own ideas-as if this were a singular virtue in musical authors.

AULD ROBIN GRAY.

To the Editor of the Musical Library. SIR,-The interest I feel in the Musical Library must be my apology for intruding on your notice. I take every opportunity of promoting the circulation and success of that work, and if the following contribution is at all acceptable, it is much at your service. It is the last copy ever written by the composer, the late Rev. Mr. Leeves, of Auld Robin Gray.' I had the pleasure of instructing Miss Leeves in music, which gave me the opportunity of many conversations with her father on the subject of this beautiful and most pathetic ballad, in which I often repeated my regret at never having seen a copy of the simple air, as at first written. In consequence of this, Mr. Leeves was good enough to favour me with the enclosed manuscript, containing his own melody and base, preceded by some remarks as to the manner of singing and accompanying the melody.

Ashburne, Dec. 4, 1834.

I am, &c.

ANDREW LODEr.

We are much indebted to Mr. Loder for the communication of so interesting a musical document, which only the pressure of temporary a relic, we insert the original air in this SUPPLEMENT, rather than in the matter has prevented our attending to earlier. As a musical curiosity, MUSICAL LIBRARY, the latter being confined to compositions of a particular class, or rank; and so simple and unaccompanied a ballad would have been out of its natural place among such works.

The principle,' says Mr. Leeves, on which the ballad of Auld Robin Gray is intended to be founded, is, to give an idea of its being the impressive recital of a Scottish lassie; and an expression of feelings excited by a recollection of events therein related. The accompaniment, then, ought to be simple, and not too much charged with harmonies: nor should the air itself be loaded with frequent appoggiaturas, which, by connecting the passages, militate against that broken narration, which marks the language of true distress."

SPOHR'S JESSONDA, OR THE RAJAH'S WIFE. THERE seems to be an inclination on the continent to do justice to this opera; it has been revived lately in many parts of Germany, and may perhaps at length be heard in London. The following account of it, published some years ago in a foreign journal, will be interesting to musical readers, if it do not prove still more serviceable by leading to its production, in some shape, at one of our now numerous lyric theatres.

The story is taken from Lemieres' Veuve du Malabar, and possesses considerable interest and stage effect. The scene is at Goa, on the coast of Malabar, and the outline of the story is as follows:-Jessonda, the young widow of a deceased Rajah, is, after the manner of the country, devoted to the flames. Having been forced to accept the hand of the Rajah, and though she had previously pledged her love to a Portuguese officer, whom the chance of war had thrown upon these shores, she advances reluctantly to meet her fate. The Portuguese are at this time besieging the