Star.
London, England, 1828-09-10 00:00:00

roans at once messed it, and despised ;iu the time
of the Republic, there were indeed schools of music at
Rome, but they derived their risca celebrated pethint-
oss Irons the booth or Italia, When Nero exhibiteVarn-
lelf as a singer and auto plater on the staga,at Naples.
the musicians of that province assembled to'hear him,
and the number must have been prodigious ; for we
ate told that the Emperor, who.e-vices and follies soar.
all on a gigantic scale, selected fl thousand among the
best to be his househ, ld maicians, and clothed them in
a rich and uniform dress,
"In Rome itself,buwever, music had never been ho-;
soured or popular. The sanguinary combats of gladia-
tors and wild beasts were better stilted to the taste of that
vile and ferocious rabble. Their theatres, instead of re-
sounding to music, ran with blood; and it was owing to
the incteasing mania for these detestable spectacles, as
well as to the abuse of music under Nero, that we find
that beautiful art (rendered odious by its association with
such a monster) declared infamous atter his death, and,
by a public decree, banished fiom the city. Thus exiled
and degraded, music found a sanctuary among the early
Christians: and in the dark ages which followed, it
took refuge with the last vestiges of learning and civili-
sation in the monasteries. At this time it was purely
vocal; for musical instruments, from recalling to mind
their Pagan persecutors and the idolatrous sacrifices,
svere,by the primitive clergy, considered profane. The
exclusive use of vocal music in the Pope's chapel at
Rome is a'relic of this early prejudice.'

• •4 About .594, St.Giegory Made an aitt-mpt to testore
the music of the (leeks, and founded the first school
•of singing at Rome. which, however, was wholly de-
dicated to the service rf the Church. About the same
time Clods sent to Theodoric to beg of him a certain
Italian singer named Acorede; and a century later,
Charlemigne sent to Pope Adrian fit two famous Ita-
lian singers, Theodore and Benedict. for the instruction
of the Franks. It is amusing to find the French, in
that true national spirit of exclusion which has ever
been their distinguishing feature, petitioning even thus
early against the introduction of Italian music. Not.
withstanding thi=, schools of Italian singing were
established at Soissons and at Metz, about the Same
time,,by Boniface, while St. Dunstan introduced the
Italian chant into England.
The With of a mail of genius is an epoch in the
history of his art; and that of the Monk GuiJo d'Arezzo
(about 1200). t•nms an era in the progress of music.—
Guido would have been a remarkable man in any pro-
fessi..:. and at any period; in the solitude of his convent
be devoted the powers of his comprehensive mind to
music, and made the grand discovery of counterpoint,
pr the science of harmony, as distinguished from me-
lody: he also invented the present system of notation,
and gave those names to the sounds of the diatonic scale
still in use: ut. scat/. fa, sol, /a. ti. They were the
first syllables of t• e six fist lines of a hymn to St. John
the Baptist, written in monkish Latin, and seem to have
been adopted without any special reason, from the ca-
price of the musician.
•• But the rules of composition. as laid down by
GUIDO and hir immediate successorr, shackled music,
while slowly struggling through a second childhood,
and threw it into the hands of pedants. by whom the
graceful art of melody was totally neglected for the
abtruse and complicated science of harmony. The
musicians of the fifteenth century had n t, like the
' poets and painters of that time, the divine models
'left by antiquity to kindle and excite their genius.
Ariosto and Tasso —Michael Angelo. II ffielle, and
Correggio, had lived and died in the blaz ! lit their tame,
and music was still timidly feeling her w ly in the dark.
• For two centuries after ti e death of Guido d'Atezz we
• find no name cf any emin: nee or isAttence; at length
rose Pa'estrina. This wonderful man was the creator of
modem char h music, and carried to perfection the style
be crea ed ; those who have heard one of his masses
elevate° to the choir of St Peter's, by the most perfect
voices in the world, have heard what is divinest in mu-
sk; and after listening to his solemn and thrilling choral
• harmonies, they may turn to the spot where his re-
mains lie worthily sepulchred within that most glorious
of temples, and read on his tomb the noble and espies-
sir- epitaph, • Pakstina intake princeps: He died-in
1594. Though the genius of Palestritia was wholly
,consecrated to church music, yet, by bringing that style
• to perfection—by first adapting music to the expression
of a sentiment—by his grand compositions, full of sins-
' ?Deity, feeling, and imagination, which be intruluced
into the religious service, he led the way to another and
• a different style which sprung up immediately after his
sleatb—the music of the theatre.

, 18 Dramatic representations, interspersed with music
and songs, were already known; but, the recitative,
or musical parlance; svbich divtingu4hes the Upera, pro-
perly so called, from every other species of drama, was
a later invention, and dates horn the very year in which
• Palestrina died.

• .•• ••• ••• •••
. .
" In England, Italian, music wag loved and cultivated
very early, aid London was the nest capital. after
• Vienna, which established and .sopported an Italian
opera.. Bat as we never du things by halves, we had,
loon afterwards, two opposition houses. The first cons-
• pony of Italian singers journeyed here in the reign of
Charles the Second; they were brought by Killegrew
hoe Vesice, about 1668 ; but they did not perform
whole operas, only merely detached scenes in recitative,
and sot in any public Theatre, as it appears, but in the
• 'houses of the Nobility. There were in the same reign.
tw• or three abortive attempts to establish English
• operas in the French style ; but, happily, the taste of the
public rejected them. This was the state of the lyrical
drama in Europe, from 1650 to 1700. From this fatter
period we may date the golden age of Italian music, and
ass gradual diffusion through the whole civilised world.
“ The man destined to give a new impulse to the
Musical genius of his country, and new-create the Ita-
lian opera,w•as Alessandro Scarlatti, born atNaples,l6so
" Scathed, like some of the early Italian painters,
• Perugia° for instance, is less interesting to os for the
sake of his own works, the style of which is out of date,
than for the innovations he introduced, and the scholars
he prepared. He was the 6: st who composed a grand
anima (to his opera of Akstaxdro, at flume); before
Outlaw the overture had been merely a few bars of
symphony, without any connection ill feeling or subject
with the piece it introduced. He invented the recite-
tive obbligatct, which lent inch energy, such expres-
t We have met that the Opera in its idiocy consisted entirely
*lmitative. Airs were introduced as mere accessories, sad in-
created ie number, and importune as singing became mere cold.
vated as as art. This wan between 1680 sad 1710. do complete is
the revelation, that a modern Opera is merely a &accession of aln
conseetad by a few Mass of recitative. The preponderance of the
eft:kedge In the old Opus mast have been terribly contemn.'
bet ks almost total lainishaatat from the modern Opera is a owl-
- Ike ft the taste of the day, which will we, we bore. a mere
(sillies. ',eV/ even of me *on Mort* cal give a recitative.pmes
rely; they slur it yew merely as so many notes connecting the
Amuse Airs Pasts, indeed. ensue in it, as she does M every
ably else, gad watid rave to es, were the reef wanting, that a
piece el recitative Ilaely acceateiseiwl,. coed delivered with doe
teetiwg, eiatlelatioe, sad esptessieep Is the most perfect, mists&
taryond escaisitc vehicle ter a glen *Milian that can be cog•
ceived. Mete weeds ace cold In comparing. Lae Mr the wow

den to the Weighted chant or shorts tecitatii/, hie
therto is use; he also introduced theila Cep. The first
liais opera ewer performed in this country, was. the
jape a Deatdrio of Scarlaiti, composed by him at
Naples, in 1694, and sung hese in 1708.—1 n ihis opera
Nicolini (called 17 his poetical ciiuntryman 'L'Anfinne
dell' udito e.i %teen della vista), Valentini, and Mar-
sacita (the first Italian leniale .inger who ever app-ared
"On an English stage) sung their pasts in Italian, and
Mrs. Toils and the other pritnimers sang in English:).
Thus the Italian opera may literally be .aid to have
Melted into England on one leg. Ttre Mpectotor made
itseit merry on the subject of this tl.eatiic.il !label; it
is, however, consoling to think, that when the Italian
lyrical drama was intr. (limed into some of the cities in
Germ •tiy, it was accompanied by the same absuidity.
The first opera pert°, med entirely in Italian, and by
Italian singers on cur stage, was Handers Rinaldo, pro
duced in 1711."
don is too often diVidea between the sentiment and the execution
and voice of the singer. Tartini relates, that In a certain Opus
given while he was at AncOsa, there wound two lines of recita-
tive with a simple bass accompaniment, which produced a most
extraordinary effect upon the auditors. They looked each other
in the face withuseort of affright,—• per la etidente mutaitione di
Colore chi si faceva in ciaschedutto.' The expresion was not of
pathos, but of disdain, and coned a cold, shuddering, a tingling
horror through the blood—(un term rigors freddo Hell' sangue)
—which was always, after the brat pertormance, ushered in by a
breathless and fearful silence on the part of the audience. As
beautiful instances of the recitativo oblilgato,we might mention the
fine scene in Li Citmenta di Tito, ' Ah cbe *mania; and the list
recitative of Tancredi, • 0 purls, doter e ingrate, —in which Rossini
has used his orchestra like a man at genius, the wised instruments
sighing forth those conflicting feelings which %well in the bosuns of
Taneredi, and which words alone could not express
t There was a musical drama, • after the Italian manner,' per.
formed in London in 1701—ut was entitled Arsinne, 9ueen of
Cyprus. and was a translation from an old Italian Opera—k was
set to music by Clayton. and sung wholly in Raiglisbs and by Eng-
lish singers.—See Burrsey, vol. iii.