The Press. — London, England, 1854-06-17 00:00:00

JUNE 17, 1854. day a mass of Babel-like confusion. The greater part of the modern critics and artists think and talk, but do not study; and, for the want of that power of perception which is only to be acquired by constant contemplation of the best models, they have acquired an over weening confidence in their own powers and a most unjust conception of the works of the old masters. Equally unsatisfactory, though from a different cause, are our musical criti cisms. The taste for music in this country is very much in advance of the taste for the other branches of the fine arts. The classical masters are much in vogue ; classical compb sitions, whether opera, symphony, or chamber music, are daily gaining ground in public fa vour; while the lovers of archaism, extrava gance, and exaggeration are in a large minority. Notwithstanding this, musical criticism gra dually gets worse and worse, and the decay of this branch of literature can only be ascribed to the class of persons employed in its produc tion, and will never be remedied until the present system becomes extinct, and a new one; On sounder principles, organised and es tablished. Under these circumstances, every encouragement should be given to gentlemen Of extensive knowledge and independence of mind who come forward to join the ranks of the musical critics ; and a hearty welcome is at least due to Mr. Chorley on his public ac ceptance of the arduous undertaking In the book before us a chapter or more is devoted to each Gertnan school of music— coMPosers,instrumentalists and singers coming in for the share of praise or abuse. Although the involved sentences and the strange ex pressions which are to be found in almost every paragraph will hardly allow us to say that the subject is pleasantly handled, yet, when Mr. Chorley is free from the pressure of that mass of crotchets which must be admitted to constitute his rock ahead in literary life, he is an instructive and interesting com panion. His remarks upon the various artists now gone by, and upon the court influences of the last century, are full of valuable matter; and the chapter entitled "Beethoven as an Influence," though slightly redolent of truisms, is upon the whole a very excellent criticism. We must, however, warn our readers against accepting Mr. Chorley as a guide when his prejudices are con cerned. Take, for instance, his violent ad miration for Gluck. Admitting as we do the composer's original genius and rare inspi ration, we never can admit, as contended by Mr. ChorleY, that he was Mozart's superior in the highest forms of musical drama. Gliick's operas are of infinite beauty, but they smack too much of the morbid taste for dead-alive classicality so prevalent during the last cen tury to become popular in the present day. To compare them with Mozart's operas is an insult to the memory of the man we wish to revere, for they have no pretensions to that freshness of nature and giantlike strength which have always rendered Don Giovanni and Le Nozze such pearls of price to theatrical managers. But Mr. Chorley's depreciation of Mozart does not end here. He delivers him self of the following sentiments : No more exact parallel can be made than the one which designates Mozart the Raphael of his art We can go backward from Mozart to Bach and Handel. We can go forward from him to Beethoven. We can con descend (if it please the purists so to state the case) from Don Juan and Figaro, to Guillaume Tell and Il Barbiere ;" but some of us cannot return from any of these masters to Mozart without feeling as if some of the brightness so long thought incomparable had passed away from our divinity , that while, as a mingler of many powers he has no peer—if regarded either as a subduer, as an awakener, or as a charmer by mirth—there are separate stars of the first magnitude larger than his star. Is it possible to read these remarks with common patience ? Mr. Chorley designates with rgason Mozart as the Raphael of music, and then gravely tells us that he has been beaten in turn by every great composer. Does Mr. Cher- My think Raphael equally unfortunate ? that any works having greater interest than the " Stanze" among frescoes, and the " Madonna di S. Sisto" (to whose holy and spiritual smile a reference is made—vol. i., p. 337), among Pasel pictures, can be cited ? No. Ra phael, like Mozart, was too deeply imbued with the spirit of beauty to attempt anything absolutely colossal to the eye; butthe absence THE PRESS. in both these great artists of the power, or rather practice, of exaggeration can never be mistaken for weakness except by those men who (we use Mr. Chorley's own words, as applied to the genus pre-Raphaelite) are " gnarled and per verse." Mr. Chorley is very hard upon Dr. Spohr— unduly so, seeing how he lauds the composi tions of Meyerbeer, Liszt, Moscheles, and Chopin. Mr. Chorley's crotchets would not even allow him to visit Cassel, the shrine "of " the talent, of the patriarch, of German compo " tuition." Nevertheless he gives a chapter to the said patriarch's dispraise, and labours Roundly to prove his music mechanical and without melody, with what success we leave posterity to decide. As regards the merits and demerits of dra matic singers Mr. Chorley is barely a respect able critic. Oh the Amina of Jenny Lind he bestows the higheSt praise : her acting in the last scene suggested Ophelia to his mind " the " most mournful" and almost the sweetest of Shakspeake's creations ; and yet he is of opi nion that she is a genius of the second order only. Still less do we reaped his judgment when he tells us that Mile. Lind was weak and con ventlonal in Norind. Weak she may have been, but Conventional she certainly was not : her failure, if any, in the tart is to be attri buted to the substitution of tender emotion for that violence and coarseness with which Mme. Grisi has identified the part in the eyes of a London audience. We have always held, erroneously no doubt, that Norma was one of Mlle. Lind's most successful impersonations ; and we have some satisfaction in knowing that this opinion is entertained by one of the greatest authorities of the day, an eminent artist whose comparatively recent retirement from the stage has left a void not easily to be filled tit). Neither can ive pass over in si lence his attack on poor Jenny for singing Mozart's songs in the Nozze according to the literal text. In this course she was per fectly justified first, because the melo dies and cadences are almost always written with reference to the sense; and, secondly, because the instrumental as well as the vocal effects cannot be rendered unless the composer's text be adhered to. For our own part we consider Mlle. Lind the best singer of Mozart we have ever heard in this country, and the incompetency of Mr. Chorley as a vocal critic becomes apparent when we find him holding up Mme. Sontag, and such a third rate as Mlle. Zerr, as exponents of the true tradition of singing Mozart. We well remember the effect, almost electrical, that Mlle. Lind's singing of " Deh vieni non tardar " produced on her audience, a wonder ful contrast to the cold, unimpassioned manner in which this touching simple melody was de livered a few months afterwards by Mme. Son tag, so disguised with graceless roulades and unmeaning ornaments that had Mozart been present he Might with propriety have uttered Roshini's well-known criticism, " Non conosco pin la mia musica." Equally untrue is it, notwithstanding the alleged authority of Mendelssohn, that Mlle. Lind sang bad music the best. We will ven ture to affirm that she never achieved greater triumphs than on the two occasions when she sang in The Creation and Elijah in Exeter-hall. Her execution of the music will be ever remem bered by all the performers, from the conduc tor down to the youngest choir-boy, as one of the most powerful and affecting exhibitions of vocal talent the world ever witnessed. The last chapter, entitled " The Last Days of Mendelssohn," devoted to un account of a visit paid to the composer in Switzerland, is charmingly written, and by far the most agreeable portion of the work. It is with feel ings of sincere admiration for Mr. Chorley's literary talents that wo give the following ex tract, which, intetesting as it is to those who were personal strangers to the composer, must be doubly so to those who were on terms of friendship with him:— It was a grey, sullen, cold day, with passing showers, making an awning necessary for the boat ; for by boat only could we get to Ringenberg. There is something curiously secluded and quiet in the aspect of its little grey church. . . That day the church door chanced to be open; and the organ was socewible. It is the work of a Venetian 569 maker—not super•excellent in tone, it may be suppose d but its pretty, gay looking case, nevertheless, gives & certain air of splendour and fascination to that remote place of peasant worship. A peasant boy was presently found willing, for a few batzrn, to blow the bellows as long as Mendelssohn liked ; and he sat down,—l have since learned for the last time that he ever sat down to an organ,—for the pleasure of his three auditors. It seems to me now as if he never could have played more nobly. After one or two movements by Sebastian Bach, he began an improvisation in C minor, which took the canonical tOrtu of s prelude and fugue ; his fancy kindling as he went on, and his face lit np by that serene and elevated smile, the highest and most beautiful of its many expressions, which all who knew him must remember,—while he drew forth those lung and rich chains of sound which "bring all heaven before the eyes," as old Milton sang. I feel, when I think of this organ playing, as if I had taken leave of the greatest music for ever ; since, in that exercise of his art, the amount of science he would bring was alum:tea by a radiant fancy, often dispensed with on like occasions; the want of which is supposed to be disguised by the glory of the sound, and the skilful intertexttire of the parts. More perfectly, every genial sympathy, every sense of calm practical approval, could not be gratified. There was the true, gracious, gifted man, old in experience, but young in the quickness of his sensibilities, to be heard—that day, it seems to me, more remarkably than ever. Ile was giving and receiving pleasure without parade ; and from a store which had never been fuller of the highest thoughts and the richest fancies. Such things must come to an end ; but they are never to be forgotten. Mr. Chorley tells us in his preface that it has been his fortune or misfortune to undergo very few conversions. It has been his misfor tune. If he will only reason more and trust less to himself he may yet achieve great things. Theologia Germanica. Translated from the German by Susanna Winkworth. London: Longmans. Tuts little book was edited by Dr. Pfeiffer and translated from the German by Susanna Winkworth, whilst tho Rev. Charles Kingsley, in a short preface, answers for its orthodoxy, and the Chevalier Bunsen addresses to tile translator a letter stating what to him ap pears to be the bearing of this work in particular upon the present dangers and prospects of Christianity, as well as upon the eternal interests of religion in the heart of every man and woman. The brief work thus heralded does not make its appearance for the first time. Ori ginally discovered and published by Luther in the year 1510, it ran through seventeen edi tions in his lifetime, and since then more than forty have appeared in Germany alone, whilst many translations have been made into French, Flemish, and Latin. Its circulation and in fluence are not surprising. Luther classed it amongst the highest of uninspired books, and said, "that, next to the Bible and St. Au " gustine, no book hath ever come into my " hands whence I have learnt, or would wish " to learn, more of what God, and Christ, and " man, and all things ate." The Chevalier Bunsen differs only from Luther in ranking it before St. Augustine and immediately next to the Bible. Like several other works which have largely influenced mankind, the name df the author is unknown, but we learn from the original preface that he was a Knight of St. John, " a priest and a warden in the house " of the Teutonic order in Frankfort," and " a wise, understanding, faithful, righteous " man." He belonged to that class of religion ists which sprung up in Germany in the four teenth century, and were known by the name of the "Friends of God"; and this title they based on the words of Scripture, " Henceforth " I call you not servants . . . but . . friends." The Friends of God were born of the times. The mind of the world was moving, at first slowly, hesitatingly, and as loth to renounce obedience to, and cast off reverence for, that which had been heretofore deemed authori tative and holy. But the Vicar of God, known to be profligate as a man, was also suspected of infidelity as a priest, and, it was currently rumoured, derided in private the most sacred doctrines of the Church over which he ruled. A little later, and the civilised world saw rival popes fulminating excommunications one against the other ; spiritual generated tempo ral strife, and, both mingling together, spread raging over Europe. For nine years in the early part of the four teenth century Germany was convulsed by a struggle for the imperial crown. The rivals were Frederick of Austzia and Louis of Bavaria;