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Musical Courier 1895-03-20: Vol 30 Iss 784, 1895
60 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 9. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE MUSICAL COURIER.
3vidual action, thought and emotion, thus creating a centre of interest around which the action of a drama could revolve with coherent and intelligent meaning. Galilei created the first solo songs in dramatic scenes accompanied by a single instrument. This form was perfected by Monteverde. The first authentic opera, originally called stile rappresentivo, is accredited to Jacopo Peri's Daphne, performed in Florence in 1600. Peri invented thoroughbass and first employed it in Eurydice. In 1608 Florence, Mantua, Bologna and Venice were the centres of the new art form, which in 1650 became known as opera in music or opera.
5Claudio Monteverde (1568-1643) was chapelmaster at St. Mark's, Venice. He introduced the use of discords, especially the dominant seventh, and the use of pizzicato and tremolo for orchestral instruments. His operas, Tancredi, L'Adone and L'Incarnazione di Poppea are bold and original, and they exemplified the capabilities of the orchestra to provide tone coloring. He gave to the stringed instruments the important place in the orchestra which they have ever since maintained. Prominent among the pupils and followers of Monteverde was Francesco Cavalli or Calletti Bruni (1599-1678). He introduced ariettas and duets in place of the choruses, developed the recitative form of Monteverde, and is credited with assigning the solo soprano and alto parts of the opera to male voices. Other masters of this period are Cesti of Tuscany (1620-1669), Rosetti, Sacrati, Legrenzi, Ziani, Pallavicini and Draghi of Ferrara, Forelli of Verona, Vitali, who introduced variations, and Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), who perfected the sonata form originated by Gabrielli.
7The opera was originally performed in palaces. In 1637 the first public opera house was built at Venice, and in 1684 Venice had eleven opera houses. The new school of art spread to Rome, Naples, Bologna, Padua, Germany and France.
9The oratorio originated from the Miracle plays or mysteries. The first oratorio was performed in Rome in 1600 in the oratory of the Church of St. Maria in Vallicella. It was composed by Emilio del Caveliere, and was called L'Anima e Corpo. It was written in the monodic form and was declamatory throughout. The followers of Caveliere were Vittorio Loretto, Cappellini, Laudi, Domenico Mazzocchio and Giacomo Carrissimi, who did much to perfect the oratorio.
11A school of sacred music was founded at Venice by Giovanni Legrenzi (1625-1690), which was perfected by Lotti (1667-1740). They adapted sacred music to the progressive spirit of the age. Caldara, a follower of Lotti, wrote beautiful madrigals and oratorios of merit.
13Alessandro Scarlatti was as noted for the number of his compositions as for their merit. He composed 115 operas, many oratorios and works for the Church. He is credited with having improved the form of the aria, with inventing the da capo and originating the accompanied recitative. The sinfonia, or Italian overture, is often associated with his name. He was famous as an artist and teacher. His son, Domenico Scarlatti, was a popular harpsichord player and composer. He also wrote operas, church music and piano music which is still prized.
15Toward the middle of the eighteenth century vast modifications in the opera were germinated, which ripened before its close into noble maturity. The opera had become a fixed institution in Italy and the best esteemed public entertainment. Italy claims the gift of enchanting melody, but neglects the resources of harmony. Italian composers of this century, although possessing much melodic fluency, were universally crippled by the dominating mannerism of the times and the paramount sway of the singers, who have been likened to spoiled children; art was thus made the slave of its servants, until emancipation was performed by Gluck. The dramatic oratorio was transferred from the church to the secular stage and became in every respect a sacred opera.
17Buononcini (1672-1750) visited London, where he opposed Händel, and the rivalry between the Italian and the German composer is notable in the history of the time.
19Porpora (1686-1776) owes his fame more to the success of his pupils in singing than to the merit of his numerous compositions. Farinelli and Caffarelli were the most distinguished of his pupils.
21Tartini (1692-1770) advanced the art of the violinist; he contributed to science as well as to art in his discovery in 1714 of resultant tones, often called Tartini's tones.
23Leonardo Leo (1694-1746) wrote largely for the stage, but is most prized for his church music.
25Padre Martini (1706-1784) made a deep impression on music, owing to the depth of his knowledge of mathematics and other branches of learning, all of which he brought to bear upon his musical studies. He composed for the church and theatre, chamber music and pieces for the organ. He published three volumes of a "History of Music." He was revered by the musicians of all lands for the penetration with which he discovered the excellence of the boy Mozart and the encouragement that aided largely to confirm the self-reliance of this everlasting prodigy.
27Giovanni Gesi (1710-1736) was called Il Pergolese, from his birthplace. Little acknowledged while he lived, he produced such compositions as place his name among those of the most famous of his countrymen. His comic opera, La Serva Padrona, little noticed when first given in Naples, had such success when produced in Paris that it was shortly afterward played in every country in Europe. This work is historically conspicuous, for confirming if not initiating the application of music to subjects of real life, as much as to the heroic. His Stabat Mater is also famous.
29The piano was invented at Padua by Christofori in 1711. This instrument may be styled the voice of the musician; it is the only means whereby unaided he can give complete utterance to his thoughts, and the only vehicle for the communication of musical ideas in their entirety.
31Nicolo Jomeli (1714-1774) produced many operas in Naples, Rome, Bologna and Venice. He is particularly esteemed for his expression of sentiment, for which some of his critics account him the forerunner of Mozart.
33Characteristic of the opera at this period is the subordination of dramatic propriety to the display of vocal specialties. Gluck (1714-1787), a Bohemian by birth and a wanderer by habit, was a grand reformer or restorer of dramatic musical art; he not only revived the principles enunciated in Florence on the threshold of the seventeenth century, but he fully forestalled by this revival all that is good in what is to-day denoted by the cant term "music of the future." In Italy Gluck gained the importance of pure melody; in France he learned the value of dramatic declamation, and Germany gave him harmony. He aimed to distinguish his dramatis personae by assigning music of different character to each, and he strove to make the whole of the music appropriate to the individuals, to the situation in which they were placed, and to the words they uttered. He did not neglect rhythmical melody, and, while he did not neglect design, he constructed his plans according to the situation, and the materials with which he had to deal. After sixteen years of preparation he effected a revolution and prepared the way for Wagner. As was the custom of his age, he went to Italy to extend his art experience and to complete his education. There he produced so many meritorious works in the style of the time as to establish a high reputation. In Paris, Gluck's representative work in the new model, Orfeo ed Euridice, was brought out with extraordinary success; but other forces concurred with musical merit in Gluck's Parisian triumphs. Marie Antoinette, whom he had taught in singing, now became an ardent partisan of her former teacher. Madame Du Barry held a rival court to that of the young princess, of whom her jealousy was evinced by every possible means. Accordingly she invited to Paris the Italian musician Nicola Piccini (1728-1800), and strove to establish him in opposition to the German master. This musical warfare much resembled that of about forty years earlier between Händel and Buononcini in London; but the Parisian feud was waged with far the greater violence. Piccini's music is marked by the melodic grace for which his country claims pre-eminence; Gluck's muse is more distinguished. Piccini's Figliuola passed from its birthplace, Rome, to every European capital.
35The progress of opera in Italy kept pace with its activity in other countries. Important contributors were Giovanni Paisiello (1741-1815) and Cimarosa (1749-1801); both wrote extensively and impressed art with their specialties. Of vastly greater importance in the future was Mozart, who produced many Italian operas and brought dramatic music the most nearly to perfection, in fitness to the scene, delineation of character and technical design.
37Cherubini is eminently entitled to a first place among those who are acknowledged as the great masters of the renaissance period of musical art. He was born at Florence in 1760 and died in Paris in 1842. His compositions are Armida, La Finta Principessa, Gulio Sabino, Iphigénie en Aulide, Demophon, Lodoiska, Media (one of the most striking masterpieces of idealism in musical achievements), Les Deux Journées, funeral cantata in honor of Haydn's memory, a mass in F and in D, coronation mass, &c. He was created an officer of the Legion of Honor by Charles X. of France. He held the position of director of the Paris Conservatory for twenty years.
39Spontini, the celebrated Italian dramatic composer, was born in 1774 and died in 1851. In 1808 he turned his attention to Paris, where he was destined to achieve his highest fame and to establish for himself a place among the greatest masters of creative genius. Up to this time he had written eleven comic and three serious operas. After the brilliant success of Milton, which was performed sixty times, he was made court composer. In his work, the Vestale, he erected an imperishable monument to his own fame, and established a distinct feature of musical drama, in an embodiment of heroism into artistic musical expression. The operas of Olympia and Ferdinand Cortez followed. In 1819 he was made director of the Royal Opera in Berlin. Spontini's highest efforts were devoted to the embodiment in music of the grandest forms of the heroic and the tragic; representing the surging contentions of uprising masses with imposing power, and yet in chaste and classic beauty.
41It is seldom that any one man can claim the distinction of having it universally conceded that in the whole world there is not nor ever has been his equal; but such is the reputation of Paganini. His was the perfection of art. He was born at Genoa in 1784. He made his first appearance in violin playing on the concert stage at the age of nine and his triumph was overwhelming. At the age of ten he had written twenty-four fugues and a number of other compositions which were so difficult that no one but himself could play them. For forty years Paganini's art dazzled the world like a brilliant meteor, and its light continues to shine. Paganini's secrets, if he had any, died with him. He enriched the art of violin playing in many ways. The use of harmonics was first made by him; also the tremolo for the left hand, and staccato and pizzicato, were perfected by him. A few of his compositions are in existence. He died in 1840.
43Rossini, the sweet swan of Pesaro, was born in 1792. His reputation as the first Italian composer of his time was established when he brought out Semiramide in 1823. He had already written thirty-seven operas, of which Il Tancredi was his first serious work. It stamped him as the reformer and the head of the Italian school, and it marked his first departure from established custom. His L'Italiana in Algerie introduced the crescendo which signalizes all his works. His Barber of Seville is probably the best specimen of Italian opera-buffa in existence. His next operas are Moses in Egypt and Zelmira. He finally made Paris his home, and Charles X. made him director of Italian opera. His greatest work is William Tell; it is emotional and highly dramatic, yet simple. His celebrated Stabat Mater gave a religious tone to his later life. Rapidity was one of his marvelous powers; he usually wrote an opera in six weeks, and the Barber of Seville was written in eight days. After enjoying an ever increasing fame, Rossini died November 13, 1868. Thus ended the career of Italy's pride, while the history of her modern opera began, whose hidden harmonies he espied, and by his genius tuned to the chivalry of that land of beauty and romance.
45The distinguished and prolific composer of light opera, Donizetti (1790-1848), although highly gifted with melody and with sparkling sentiment, as well as with a certain amount of dramatic ability, cannot be accredited with asserting a style. Among sixty-three popular operas he has won deserved distinction by his still popular Lucrezia Borgia, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Favorita and Don Pasquale.
47Bellini (1802-1835) was one of the most celebrated of Italian opera composers. The distinguishing feature of his career was the instinct of romance embodied in simple and expressive melodies, which contrasted strongly with the florid superficiality which had grown into all operatic work, and then altogether the fashion in Italy. In his masterpiece, La Sonnambula, he established his highest ideal. His other famous operas are Il Pirata, Romeo and Juliet and I Puritani.
49Few composers in the history of music have had the fortune to work across so great a transition in the style of dramatic composition as is shown between the earlier and later works of the great Italian master Verdi. He was born in 1818. His earliest operas to become famous were Nabuchadnezzar and Ernani. Of a higher standard of work, in which his brilliant success was established, is his Rigoletto; his popular operas, Il Trovatore, La Traviata and Masked Ball, appeal to the popular ear, and their fame rests upon the pleasing buoyancy and effectiveness of their melodies. Judged by the rules of strict art, they are lacking in harmonic treatment and contain some defects in contrapuntal form and dramatic effect. In Aida, the work of his latest period, he showed that his genius was superior to these weaknesses, and he gave to the world a production of a dramatic ambition rarely realized in the Italian school. Verdi possessed a reserve of resource of which the musical world never dreamed; his great Requiem Mass is a masterpiece, and an imperishable monument to his genius; it displays a mastery of polyphonic harmony. In 1889 Verdi composed another great work, his Otello, which is one of the most elevated conceptions in Italian opera.
51His last great work is Falstaff, a comic opera which will live as long as the Meistersinger, Barber of Seville or the Marriage of Figaro; it possesses the grace and humor of Mozart and the dignity of Wagner. In this work the old time Verdi is recognized in the treatment of the voice, while in the treatment of the orchestra he is recognized as the Verdi of Aida and Otello in a merry mood; it is Italian in coloring and full of romance and sentiment and fairly sparkles with joyousness.
53Mascagni, the composer of Cavalleria Rusticana, is a native of Leghorn. He possesses a high-strung, nervous temperament. The first performance of Cavalleria Rusticana produced a perfect furore in Rome, and the new genius was hailed with the greatest enthusiasm.
55Italy, from the earliest times, has been the seminary of musical art for the whole musical world; and while the supremacy of music has passed from Italy to Germany, Italy, as the birthplace of modern church music, and the cradle of modern music in its infancy, where it received its most poetical development, and where it was first cultivated as a medium for the expression of faith, belief and feeling, is entitled to the love and esteem of all true lovers of the Divine Art.
57H. SHERWOOD VINING.
59A. von Weber.—A. von Weber, a descendant of the composer of Der Freischütz, has been appointed kapellmeister of the opera house at Dortmund.
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