The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-17 00:00:00

7,259

MEMORANDA.
BY GEORGE

OF
J. 0.

"Notes, notes, forsooth, and noting!"
SHAILSPERE,

" Nunc est libendum—nunc pods
Libero pulsanda tellus."
HAYDN.
Like many men of ardent imagination and honourable
ambition, Haydn was destined to await for many a
weary day the time when his fame as a composer should
be established, not only in a commercial point of view,
but as an adequate return for his mental industry. One
of his earliest bargains for the copyright of his compo-
sitions was made with Forster (ot the famous firm ot
Croysaill and Forster), the violoncello maker. The
agreement was drawn up and entered into on behalf of
Haydn by Count von Sweiten, with John Ashley the
elder on the part of Forster, and was couched in the fol-
lowing terms:—" Whereas Joseph Haydn of Vienna is
about to sell certain musical compositions to William
Forster of London, and as the said Joseph Haydn is a
composer of no celebrity, he agrees to furnish the said
William Forster with sonatas, quartetts, and sinfonias
at hall the usual price that is demanded by authors of
repute for such compositions!" We really do not know
which to admire the most—the easy and quiet way in
which Haydn endured the indignity of such an agree-
went, or the meansouled display of the two Englishmen
—Arcades ambo—who could dictate to a man of intellect
and genius so humiliating a proposal, though Haydn
might well plead the same reason us the poor famished
Apothecary— •
" My poverty and not my will consents."
FRENCH IDEAS OF ENGLISH MUSICAL
TASTE.
In La France Musicale (the leading musical organ in
Paiis), some ten years agone, the satirical editor (M.
Fe is) amuses its readers, at our national expense,
with the following imaginary syllabus of a concert in
England, as conveying a general and correct notion of
the standard of our taste at the time, and through the
quizzical tone in which it is wiitten it is easy to perceive
that the implied reproach on us is really intended, and
perhaps the whole statement fully believed, to be what it
is supposed to depicture
"Premier morceau—Variations sur le God Save'
Second morceau—Fantasie sur le 'Rule Britannia'
Troisieme morceau—Caprice cur le God Save' 11
Quatrieme morceau—Variations sur le Rule Britannia'!
Cinquiene morceau Potpourri sur le' God Save' at Rule
Britannia' !
Sixieme morceau—Divertissement sur le God Save' I!!
Septieme morceau—lmprovisatien sur le 'Rule Britannia?! ! ! !
Huitieme morceau—!!Melange sur le' God Save' et le 'Rule
Britannia'l I !"

GIULIA GRISI.
A PANEGYRIC ON HER PERFOISMANCE OF ELENA IN
" LA DONNA DEL LAG.:,)
Fair Lady of the Lake I Oh! it is thine
With sweetest airs to ravish mortal ears;
Which float around the Spirit's inroo,t shrine
In smiles embowered, or bedewed with tears!
Nov like to breezes indistinct and soft
Rippling the margin of the argent tide;
Thou like the dashing surge which throws aloft
The thunder of its effervescent pride,
Thy voice falls on the sense in accents low
'fill sorrow seems to pause and hold her breath;
Or, like the trumpet-blast, in tons of woe
Till the brain lain would bury life in death!
" Oh ! mattutini alhori!"—hush---oh! say
Is it a seraph singing i' the air?
" Ciel, quell destin terribile"—away!
Beeak, thou poor heart!—thy home is with despair!
But hark! those sounds of rapture, love and jay!
As "tuna effettz" from her throat she pours
Forgotten grief can now no more alloy;
And wE?—we listen and her joy is ours
Sweet melody! oh doubly sweet from thee
Who lurest all hearts captive to thy feet;
Queen of the Lyre! to thee we bow the knee
And Homage worships at Perfection's seat!
Oh! linger yet!—but wherefore?—when the ear
Treasures up fondly in its favourite cell
Thy heart-qirung music—and Remembrance dear
Dwells there for aye!—so DIVA, fare thee well!
August, 1847. G. J. 0. A.

ROSSINI.
The celebrated air in Tancredi " Di tanti palpiti" is
called in Italy the aria di rizi, and this term originated
thus:—Rossini—the great scene painter, as Beethoven
allied him—bad composed for Tancredi a grand mor-
ceau d'entrie which Signora Malinotte, the prima donna,
had rejected. The cantatrice having declared that she
would not sing it only two days before the announced
performance of the opera, the then young composer
returned to his hotel in despair, but, nevertheless, set
down at table to his repast with a but little lessened ap-
petite. At that time, as is well known it is now, most din-
ners commence with a dish of rice, which is but slightly
cooked, so that only four minutes before it is ser►ed up
the cook is accustomed to put the important question,
"Bisognomettere i rizi?" The query was put to Rossini,
the rice put to the fire, and before it was ready he had
written this famous air. This is the Italian version of
the story, and hence the nomenclature aria di rizi. But
there is another anecdote in circulation among the
Italian cognoscenti, which, if true, bruises on the heel of
Rossini sorely, and destroys at once his claim to the
authorship of this, ono of his most charming and most
popular melodies. A composer, much esteemed at Flo-
rence during the first half of the eighteenth century, by
name Barron', lost all at once, like our lamented, oar
illustrious Beethoven, his hearing. All the physicians of
the place were in turn consulted, but if we may credit
the facetious Boileau, Florence was never celebrated for
a successful cultivation of the Art of which Hippocrates
may be considered the presiding genius, for he says
somewhere,

" Dans Florence jadis vivait un medecin
Savant hilbleur, dit on, et célèbre assassin ;"
which may admit of the following paraphrase:
"In Florence, a physician once there lived
Who more by killing than by saving thrived ;"
and though Barroni came across many of these saran,
the extreme unction was rendered unnecessary in his
case, and in despair of meeting with a cure he set out on
a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Misericorde at Loretti, a
very fashionable procedure in those golden days. There,
it is related, a miracle was wrought on his behalf, but
whether from the effects of his pilgrimage I must leave
in nubibus. Nevertheless he recovered, somehow or
another, his sense of hearing, for which interposition on
his behalf he composed a choral hymn in praise of the
Holy Mother. This, under the title of " Litanie della
Santa Casa," was performed on the 15th of August,
1737, for the first time. This litany is repeated annually
at the feast of the Annunciation; and it is strenuously
asserted by Rossini's detractors that he, when at the
Notre Dame de Loretto was so powerfully struck by the
beauty of the cantilena that he noted it down and intro-
duced it into his Tancredi. " When Greek meets
Greek," &c., is well understood. So even let the Ros-
sinists and Anti-Rossinists urge and support their
several arguments pro and con. as they best can. I
think myself the air bears almost indisputable evidence
of being the production of Rossini—though I must add,

A MUSICIAN.
ALLNIANN.

No. 11.
HANDEL.
This immortal composer possessed hands of an ex-
traordinary size, so fat, indeed, were they that the
knuckles,
,which generally appear convex, were like
those of a chubby child, dimpled, so as to be rendered
concave; and yet his touch was so smooth that his fingers
seemed—like the fabled Centaur was believed to have
partaken as much of the nature of horse as man—a
portion of the keys themselves, so gentle and yet bring-
ing out each note so distinctly and with such perfect
aplomb. He was accustomed to wear a white wig of an
enormous size, eclipsing by far Lablache's famous Don
Pasquale peruke—and when all went on satisfactorily
in the orchestra it had a certain vibration or nod, which
manifested its wearer's inward satisfaction and approvaL
It is said that the leader always kept an anxious look-out
at this point d'attraction4and unless this gyratory move-
ment were visible, nice observers were always sure that
his " inward man" was irritated.
If all accounts are true, Handel had not a little of the
bon vivant in his composition. An amusing anecdote is
related of his love of good cheer both liquid and solid.
During the oratorio season he used frequently to invite
the principal performers engaged on his sublime crea-
tions to his house in Brook-street. One evening, being
at dinner, it was observed the composer frequently ex-
claimed, " Och! I haf de taught!" Whenever this oc-
curred the company, out of deference to his genius, and
naturally unwilling that, from civility or etiquette to
them, the public should lose anything of so much value
as his musical ideas, always begged that he would retire
and commit them to paper. With this request, after a
proper display of reluctance and hesitation on each oc-
casion, our composer so frequently complied, that the
suspicions of some of them became at length aroused,
and one of the most curious among them unluckily
peeped through the keyhole into the adjoining room,
wherein he perceived at once the object for which Handel
had "de taught," and this was nothing less than a hamper
of choice Burgundy which, as was subsequently dis-
covered, had been only just presented to him by his
friend and patron, Lord Radnor; our bon vivant not
being, we suppose, quite content with the " humble
port" which he placed before his guests, was quaffing
magnum after magnum of this more treasured beverage.
And if not from the effects of his " potations pottle
deep," quite plenus veteris Bacchi, was, nevertheless, suf-
ficiently so, to judge from his gyrations, to realise the
lines of Ovid: