Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843. Various
school" appears to be of more than doubtful parentage. Arne is stated to have crowded the airs, those of Mandane in particular, with all the Italian divisions and difficulties of the day, and to have incorporated with his own property all the best passages of the Italian and English composers of his time. With the exception of Comus and Artaxerxes, none of his pieces or operas met with great success; and he seems to be principally remembered by those compositions which were the least original. "Rule Britannia," by the combined effect of the sentiment of the words and the spirit and vivacity of the music, now become a national song, does not possess the merit of originality. Long before it was nationalized—if one may use such a word—by Englishmen, it was observed that in an Italian song, which may be seen at page 25 of Walsh's collection, the idea—nay, almost all the passages—of this melody might be found. In the well-known song, "Where the bee sucks, there lurk I," passages occur taken almost note for note from a cantabile by Lampugnani. According to Dr Burney, Arne may also claim the glory of having, by his compositions and instructions, formed an era in the musical history of his country. The former relates that music, which had previously stood still for near half a century, was greatly improved by Arne in his endeavours "to refine our melody and singing from the Italian;" and that English "taste and judgment, both in composition and performance, even at the playhouses, differed as much from those of twenty or thirty years ago, as the manners of a civilized people from those of savages." Dr Busby, on the other hand, remarks, that "it is a curious fact that the very father of a style, more natural and unaffected, more truly English, than that of any other master, should have been the first to deviate into foreign finery and finesse, and desert the native simplicity of his country." But it is by the compositions in which this degeneracy may be most particularly remarked, that Arne's name as a musician has been preserved. This fact has undoubtedly a double aspect. We may therefore, indeed, be permitted to ask,
"Who shall decide when doctors disagree?"
Either the public taste has erred, or the bastard Italian was superior to the genuine English. Either way there is something wrong, and it matters little whether we elevate the composer at the expense of the public, or whether we commend the national taste while we depreciate and decry the excellence of the music or the merit of the musician.
To Arne succeed several masters, many of whose compositions are still popular. Arnold, Boyce, Battishall, Shield, Horsley, Webbe, and Calcott, are the leading names of a numerous class who are chiefly remembered for their anthems and glees, amongst which may be found the chefs-d'œuvres of a school of which we shall more particularly speak hereafter. The dramatic compositions of these masters are, for the most part, consigned to oblivion; nor has any permanent impression been made upon the public, by a native opera, for many years. While our national school has been thus barren, the Italian opera has been long cultivated and esteemed. The first opera, performed wholly in Italian, was given at the Haymarket theatre in 1710. Handel began to write for this theatre in 1712, and continued to produce operas for many years. The Italian opera appears to have been in the most flourishing state about the years 1735 and 1736. London then possessed two lyric theatres, each managed by foreign composers, carrying on a bitter rivalry, and each backed by all the vocal and instrumental talent that could be found in Europe. Porpora, by Rousseau styled the immortal, at the Haymarket, and Handel at Covent-Garden—the former boasting the celebrated Farinelli and Cuzzoni among his performers, the latter supported by Caustini and Gizziello. The public, however, appears to have been surfeited by such prodigality; for Dr Burney observes, "at this time"—about 1737—"the rage for operas seems to have been very much diminished in our country; the fact was, that public curiosity being satisfied as to new compositions and singers, the English returned to their homely food, the Begger's Opera and ballad farces on the same plan, with eagerness and comfort." In 1741, Handel, after producing thirty-nine Italian lyric dramas, and after struggling against adversity, with a reduced establishment in a smaller theatre, was compelled by ruin to retire for ever from the direction of the Italian stage. The opera then passed into other hands, and was continued, with various success and few intermissions, down to the present time. It has been the means of introducing to our countrymen the works of an almost innumerable host of foreign composers. Bach, the first composer who observed the laws of contrast as a principle, Pergolisi, Gluck, Piccini, Paesiello, Cimarosa, Mozart, Rossini, and Bellini, are the principal names, among a long list of masters, of whom we might otherwise have remained in utter ignorance. Performers of every kind, singers of the highest excellence, have come among us; the powers and performances of Farinelli, Caffarelli, Pachierotti, Gabrielli, Mara, and others, are handed down by tradition, while all remember the great artists of still later times. These have been our preceptors in the art of song, and to them, and them alone, are we indebted for our knowledge of the singer's, powers; and but for their guidance and instruction, our native home-taught professors would have been centuries instead of years behind. It may, however, be some consolation to reflect, that we have not been alone in our pupilage; for Italy, herself the pupil of ancient Greece, has in her turn become the preceptress of the modern world in music, as well as the other branches of the fine arts, in all of which her supremacy has been universally acknowledged. Besides the native musicians whose names we have enumerated, many ephemeræ of the genus have fluttered their short hour, and been forgotten. On turning over the popular music of the early years of the present century, or the music which may, perhaps, have formed the delight and amusement of the last generation, the musician will marvel that such productions should have been ever tolerated. Native skill has undoubtedly advanced since this period; and however worthless much of our present music may be considered, it is nevertheless superior to most of the like productions of our immediate predecessors. We have some living composers whose works are not without some merit; but they can scarcely be placed even in the second class. Their compositions, when compared with the works of the great continental masters, are tame, spiritless, and insipid; we find in them no flashes of real genius, no harmonies that thrill the nerves, no melodies that ravish the sense, as they steal upon the ear. Effort is discernible throughout this music, the best of which is formed confessedly upon Italian models; and nowhere is the universal law, of the inferiority of all imitation, more apparent.
These observations apply with especial force to the dramatic music, or compositions of the English school. The term opera, is incorrectly used in England. The proper meaning of the word is, a musical drama, consisting of recitative airs and concerted pieces; without the intervention of spoken dialogue, it should consist of music, and music alone, from the beginning to the end. With us it has been popularly applied to what has been well characterized as "a jargon of alternate speech and song," outraging probability in a far higher degree than the opera properly so called, and singularly destructive of that illusion or deception in which the pleasure derived from dramatic representations principally consists. Music is in itself no mean vehicle of expression; but, when connected with speech or language, it gives a vast additional force and power to the expression of the particular passion or feeling which the words themselves contain. It appears, as one listens to an opera, as if the music were but a portion, or a necessary component part of the language of the beings who move before us on the scene. We learn to deem it part of their very nature and constitution; and it appears, that, through any other than the combined medium of speech and song, the passions, we see exhibited in such intensity, could not be adequately expressed. The breaking up of this illusion by the intervention of mere dialogue, is absolutely painful; there is a sudden sinking from the ideal to the real, which shocks the sense, and at once destroys the fabric of the imagination. Rousseau says of the lyric drama, that "the melodies must be separated by speech, but speech must be modified by music; the ideas should vary, but the language should remain the same. This language once adopted, if changed in the course of a piece, would be like speaking half in French and half in German. There is too great a dissimilarity between conversation and music, to pass at once from one to the other; it shocks both the ear and probability. Two characters in dialogue ought either to speak or sing; they cannot do alternately one and the other. Now, recitative is the means of union between melody and speech by whose aid, that which is merely dialogue becomes recital or narrative in the drama, and may be rendered without disturbing the course of melody." Recitative is peculiarly adapted to the expression of strong and violent emotion. The language of the passions is short, vivid, broken, and impetuous; the most abrupt transitions and modulations which are observed in nature, may be noted