total disregard of both? A person tolerably conversant with musical science, if he have mixed much in society, must be aware of the ignorance and presumption which may be said almost universally to prevail on the subject; in fact, it is scarcely hazarding too much to affirm that a larger portion of nonsense is uttered in conversation respecting Music than on any other topic. In proof of this assertion, I have myself repeatedly heard Mozart called heavy, Haydn dull, Rossini sublime, Beethoven's Fidelio very mediocre, Bellini's Puritani the most beautiful music in the world; in short, I have been doomed to hear nearly all the great composers abused, while the inferior were lauded to the skies. Good singers are decried when the piece they select happens to be beyond the comprehension of their self-constituted judges; bad music is pronounced delightful when well performed; merits are condemned as faults, and defects exalted into beauties.

But, it may be inquired, why so desirous of enlightening us?If we are pleased with bad music, and bored by that which is good, we have surely a right to the enjoyment of our own opinion and taste, while we leave you to the free and undisputed enjoyment of yours. True; but if it be possible to point out a mode by which a diminution of expenditure may be effected, and, at the same time, the gratification which you derive from Music incalculably augmented, will you not allow the attainment of these two important objects to be a subject worthy of consideration?

We have been denominated a nation of shopkeepers; as regards Music, however, our trading propensity cannot be said to have been successfully exercised or our schemes wisely planned; it is not a very business-like habit to expend largely, and passively to accept in return commodities of inferior quality. Now what adequate compensation, what profit, let me ask, does a lady herself derive from the consumption of three or four hours daily at the piano forte, during a period of ten or twelve years? or in what degree are her parents and friends remunerated for the time, attention, and money, expended to procure for her this highly-valued privilege? She has been taught to scramble through some half-dozen difficult concertos, and a proportionate number of airs, with variations, divertimentos, &c., written in the prevailing taste of the day; and it is to this fashionable "accomplishment" that she has

* This reminds us of the dancing-master in the Provincial Sketches, who began his musical instructions with "Hooke's Lessons" and ended with the "Battle of Prague," as the summum bonum of the art! mutatis mutandis; this, we fear, is too often the case in the present day.-EDS.

been allowed to sacrifice that precious time which ought either to have been devoted to the acquisition of useful knowledge, or to laying in a stock of health and strength indispensable to the fulfilment of the arduous duties of life.

This erroneous course, however specious in appearance, cannot even succeed in obtaining for its victim the applause on which she calculated; the concertos, however well adapted to show off a consummate master at a concert, are sadly misplaced when attempted by an amateur in the drawing-room, and the minor pieces are generally of so slight a texture as to be voted completely passées within a few short months of their publication. The ill-executed concertos weary, and the rondeaux, &c., have been heard to satiety on every barrel-organ. What is to be done? A collection of superior music is placed before her, or she is requested to take a part in a duet; but, alas! she dare not venture upon untried ground; music which she has not learned with her master is to her a sealed book. In theoretical knowledge she is still more lamentably deficient than in the practical; with the origin of the common chord, the diatonic scale, and the minor mode, she has no more acquaintance than with the laws of harmony or counterpoint. The probability, moreover, is that she has never even heard the names of composers who have been with justice considered as the Raphaels and Michael Angelos of the art.

Inferior models having been invariably placed before her, she is alike ignorant, theoretically and practically, of all that constitutes excellence in music; and the more perfect the composition the less qualified will she be found to understand or appreciate its merit. Under these disadvantageous and disheartening circumstances, she will either abandon the pursuit in despair or confine her practice to a miniature collection, in her own hand-writing, of the prettiest and newest waltzes. A favoured few may, no doubt, be found to whom this description of the usual routine of a musical education will be inapplicable, but it cannot reasonably be expected that these exceptions should be capable of producing any perceptible effect on public taste.

It will, I presume, be readily conceded that the mind of a person thus educated can be but slenderly provided with the knowledge requisite to form a correct judgment of a performance so complicated as that of a grand opera.

The gentlemen auditors may, in general, be said to be in a still more benighted state than the ladies: can it, then, be a subject for

VOL. VI.NO. XIX.

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marvel, is it not rather to be expected, that an opera should stand or fall, not according to its own intrinsic merits, but according to the perfection of voice and execution, and that its fate may even depend on the face and figure of the prima donna? Can it, under these circumstances, excite surprise that the Puritani should, night after night, attract crowded and admiring audiences, while Spontini's Vestale, Winter's Opferfest, Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable, and even Weber's Oberon, proved failures at the time they were produced, and are now nearly forgotten. Good music may undoubtedly, in some instances, meet with a favourable reception from the public-for instance, Beethoven's Fidelio; but the success of this opera may fairly be attributed to the splendid performance of Schræder Devrient, and subsequently to the equally excellent representation of a striking character by Malibran. But for these lucky accidents this opera might probably have been laid on the shelf with the others; the attraction lay in the singer and the actress, not in the music. Pasta performs in Norma and Anna Bolena, and immediately the demand for these two dullest of dull operas becomes universal. Malibran holds the mirror up to Nature in the Somnambula, and the call for the opera becomes so urgent that the publishers find considerable difficulty in supplying the requisite number of copies. The same observations may be applied, with equal truth, to the Puritani; it owes its success, in a great measure, to the performance of Grisi, Tamburini, Rubini, and Lablache. Had any of the highly-extolled operas been presented to the public with a piano-forte accompaniment previous to their performance, the music-sellers would not have been remunerated for the expense of publication.

A musician can form as perfect an idea of a composition from looking over the score, as he would be enabled to do by playing it or hearing it performed. It would be, perhaps, requiring too much to expect that amateurs should attain the knowledge and experience requisite to enable them thus to judge; but it surely is compatible with the time usually allotted to this study, to expect that, from a good arrangement, with the voices in score and the instrumental parts compressed into a piano-forte accompaniment, they should be competent to pass a correct judgment in regard to the style of an opera, and its fitness for public performance. A really efficient musical education would enable the public to appreciate the intrinsic value of an opera, independently of adventitious circumstances ; it would render them capable of criticising its merits and defects more justly after having studied it at the piano, than the present

frequenters of the opera are competent to do after having heard it performed during the whole season.

Without entering at this moment into detail as to the precise system of instruction which would qualify the student to criticise correctly, I would take leave to suggest that the first step in the reform of musical education should be the abandonment of the pernicious custom of allowing masters to give to their pupils chiefly their own compositions, instead of forming their taste by an early acquaintance with the great models in each style. Every piece which is played, may be supposed to exert some degree of influence on the taste of the pupil; and should her practice have been confined either to the compositions of her instructor, or to the fashionable music of the day, she can only derive that scanty portion of pleasure from the study which their inferiority is capable of producing. In lieu of this meagre fare, would it not prove a more profitable, as well as more agreeable course, to introduce the pupil to the history and progress of Music, from the time of Josquin de Prez to the present day?—to explain the difference between the styles of the church, the opera, and the chamber, and to introduce her to the works of the greatest masters in each department ?* In order to accomplish this plan, it is by no means necessary that a young lady should devote a large portion of time to the study of church music or oratorios: judiciously selected specimens will be amply sufficient to impress her mind with tangible ideas of the meaning of the terms sublime, beautiful, ornamental, grand, pathetic, &c.

Her instrument being the piano-forte or harp, her practice should be chiefly among the classical composers for these instruments.† A

"It is certain that if the art is to remain an art, and not to be degraded into a mere idle amusement, more use must be made of classical works than has been done for some time past." If the Somnambula, Puritani, &c., are classical works, then, indeed, the art is in no danger of this degradation, in England at least.-EDS.

+ A familiarity with the higher walks of the art is not, in our opinion, to be acquired by the study of a few specimens, however judiciously selected, but is the result of an investigation and comparison of the different means by which this higher walk is attained. If, then, this familiarity be so desirable, we think that a certain and not an insignificant portion of the time of study should be allotted to this hitherto neglected department. We see no reason why a young lady should not be able to appreciate, according to their respective merits, Hosanna to the Son of David, as well as one of Mozart's sonatas. We grant it will be long ere she can even find equal pleasure in them; but until she sees in the former one of the sublimest monuments of

familiarity, however, with the higher walks of the art will ever prove of the greatest advantage to the performer, because it is on these models that the inferior styles are founded. I would also particularly recommend the study of the piano-forte works of the great vocal writers who have composed for that instrument; Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Himmel, Weber, Hummel, ought to be as familiar as the more fashionable and more flimsy compositions of the day.

manner.

The pupil should likewise be instructed in the elements of harmony, and the theory of sound: a knowledge of the former would accelerate the progress in execution, and give facility in playing at sight; while the latter, by demonstrating the connexion of Music with Nature, would impart an interest to the subject which can never be experienced by those who learn in the usual parrot-like * Theory and practice should never be separated; but each employed as an illustration of the other, instead of the absurd method commonly pursued of postponing the study of the theory to the finishing period of musical education, when the probability is that it will not be undertaken at all. The idea that children soon forget the names and properties of chords, originates in the irrational practice of teaching thorough-bass as a distinct branch, as an affair of semibreves, minims, and hard names to be committed to memory, but having no connexion with the music they are in the habit of practising. Were the instructor, in the course of his les

musical genius, and in the other a happy union of the beautiful and ornamental styles, she may have rapidity of execution, facility of playing at sight, even from score, and a cultivated taste, yet that taste, to be brought to perfection, requires still further cultivation.-Eds.

* What is commonly termed the theory of Music, is, we humbly conceive, no more theory than the art of executing a passage properly on any instrument. In acquiring a practical knowledge of Music, we can consider no one as having finished his studies unless his knowledge of composition be equal to his powers of execution; the one being as much a matter of practice as the other. Nor will the initiation of the pupil into the mysteries of the "harmony of the 6th," or the "resolution of the discord of the 4th," at all assist him in putting a correct base to an air, or in writing the parts of a psalm tune. The greatest masters never studied the rules as they are found in books, but derived them from the works of classical composers; and this, we maintain, is the true method in which a knowledge of these rules and the power of applying them is to be gained. Were this plan adopted, how much time, fatigue, and disgust might be spared on the part both of instructor and pupil, to say nothing of the more rapid progress, and the far deeper knowledge of the resources of the art which would be the inevitable consequence of such a course.-EDS.