New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1850-11-27
JENNY LIND AND ITALIAN MUSIC.


TOO remarkable in our musical history, 10 suffer
us to allow her departure without anything
turtherthan our usual daily notices Her triumph
with the mass OF listeners has probably been
almost entire throughout the month at Tripler
Hall Bat the more cultivated class was some.
what disappointed at Castle Garden in Whist was
called passionate power, and isperhaps scarce.
~ vet ready TO acknowledge it, And it is to that
feeling that we wish now especially to address
ourselves for the reason that we consider Jenny
Lind to be one of the greatest OF lyrical artists,
which could not be- ii she lacked what is most
vital and profound in all dramatic representation,
namely, passion The question of voice and Yo
cszation is here left aside. The most sceptical
have probably discovered that the one is OF singu-
lar purity, sweetness and strength, although not
with certain shades ofhsrshness and even hard.
ness at times, and that the other is elaborated to
adegree ofperfection which is simply wonderful,
and which, best of all, is entirely submitted to the
conception and sentiment ofthe music
The first disappointment in Jenny Linds sing.
ing was natural, not only because she did not
really sing as well as she could, owing to a ner-
vous embarrassment but because our critical mu
knows very little of any other. Uuhappily the
cultivated class of amateurs among us is not so
much educated in music an art, as it is in tho
mere science. Hence you will observe its criti-
csm cngs to the details of singing, constantly
regards the vocalzaton, and speaks little of the
artistic result achieved by those means Ia fact
looks very much surprised when it hears that
such shake meant nothing-that the singing was
fauess but the artistic effect ridiculous as if the
two remarks inconsonant. Moreover this
class Of amateurs is educated in technical Italian
manner, by second-rate singers or by artists past
their prime and invountarily it demanded the
same style in Jenny Lind and as Truli surpassed
Tedesco and Stehanoni surpassed Truth, it antici
pated in Jenny Lind an apotheosis of the three
kind of completer Tedesco or Stefanoni in the last
perfection Jenny Lind came and sang, and was
utterly unlike anything else. She suggested A
new standard but nobody knowing the standard,
everyone retreated upon the old one and declared
that she did not sing Norma as well as Gris--
nay. not 80 we'll as Stefan oni The truth was, all
the time, that here was an original genlus-no
more to be passed upon by the Old ideas than the
position Of Correggio was to be determined or
even suspected by the yenetians
For this exclusive cultivation of certain style
OF Italian music had really enslaved u.s. The
saloons were only echoes OF the stage. What
Boso or Benedict sang to night at Astor Place,
was sung at a hundred pianos to morrow night, in
as many other places-a practice, it should seem,
as manestly foolish, as if all amateurs of paint
ing should be forever copying in little the AS
sumption or the TRANSPORTATION. New York mu-
steal taste whirled in small vortex of operas,
and fancied it was rolling in the orbit OF the mu-
steal world. The result was a relish for one kind
of music rendered in one manner. Parents grew
moist-eyed over Lucrezia Borgia, who thought it
immoral to allow their daughters to ace Don
Giovanni But further and deeper the result
was a narrowing of our musical capacity ana OF
our view of the generosity and grandeur of must
cal art. Artists of popgun calibre excited
u.s. We fell into raptures at shallow extrav
agance and called it bandly and with tears,
beautiful passion" while the most thrilling and
awful grandeurs of music did not smite our souls,
but rolled, like the earthquake of Thrasimene,
"unheededly away
We find no fault with this fact. Although
knowledge is one OF the things to be predcated
of college of Swans, we will not be too strin-
gent. But while there is no quarrel with the
fact there is great Discrimination on our part to
submit to judgments based upon such opportuni-
ties and which sums itself up in saying-the
profoundest music is passionate Italian music is
most passionate and Italians only can sing Italian
music Argal-Jenny Lind is pleasant Concert
singer of Swedish ballads and generally Of light
music but not great musical artist
L. But what is passionate music OF course
very few OF the social critics, who decide ec
cathedra upon passionate singing have ever pro-
posed to themselves this question. Yet they evil
IDENTITY mean something and their idea, by tho tone
of their remarks and their Illustrations, results
simply in path0s. Jenny Lind doesn move us'
is one of the forms Of the objection. "Trulfi's
Iucrezia and Lucia are full of beautiful passion
is another form of the same. And here let us re-
mark that we are speaking now to the GLAZING
and interests OF Art and that personal prefer
ences are to fade from the readers as they have
faded from the critics mind.
But Pathos, strictly speaking, is not Passion
although it may be part OF its expression any
more than tears are grief
,. Decentralization music to which we are al
ways pointed as test, is not to be characterized
as passionate out as pathetic. Passion does not
first of all draw tears but it shakes the aOul With
cold and awful thrills 1t $50 far as it may be
descrbed--a state of intensity Of Whatever emo
.ion, although we usually confne it to sexual
love, as the proioundest Of all, and that internally
is quite beyond and bene ath the feeling that can
express itself in tears. Superficial sorrow vseeps,
but the stung soul is hushed into awful stiffness.
Rachel is, perhaps, the most purely passionate o.
actors But there IS not so much use OF the nnou
choir as Of the riaaiYrelte when she is playing
Women become pale and faint, but these are few
parts of the stream of feeling SO shallow that it