Washington sentinel., 1853-11-12
O. 0 NJ m umitate6.
American Music.

Music?n You speak such sentiments rs /
have long felt, but in which ! have found few
musical people to agree When we see such a
constant and general tendency to cultivate and
initiate foreign music, to the exclusion of our
our own, it may well be asked ,ohy the fact is
so?
The criticism of your Virginia friend on
some portions of Ole Bulls concert was asjlst
as it was curt and pointed Strakosch's per-
iormances are, mainly, of the "hy-fa-lu-tin" or
der; and Ole himself is, to certain limited
extent, fairly chargeable with the same prac-
tice.
As long as the demand for this kind Of en-
tertainment continues, there will, of necessity,
be supply. There seems to be an almost uni
versal disposition among Americans to culti-
vate and practice the "hy-fa-lu-tinn music Of
European composers, and at the same time to
ignore the simple and beautiful airs of our own
land. You may call Of an evening on any of
your lady acquaintance who play the piano,
and ten to one you will be treated to some
"terzetti" or brilliant "fantasa from an ope-
ra, which has no real music or feeling what
ever, and the only merit Of which will be its diff
ficulty of execution. This, however, is not the
fault to be complained Of The fashionable
music is well enough in its way, but there is too
much Of 1t.
Throughout the evening you will hear moth
ing but selections (not the best) from "Don
Giovanni" or some new composition OF Prof.
Piggisqueaki-a jolting, Jerking "polka," or
| fashionable aria from the Italian. 1t is so in
the coneert-room, in any of the cities of our
| land. 1t is one continuous stream of the same
artificial constrained, scientific" music, copied
| from the German or Italian school, In all
cases, the performers and listeners profess to
be greatly interested and delighted in efforts
which to my ear have no melody, or rythmical
proportion and harmony to compare with the
simple Scotch airs sung by Dempster, or the
songs Of Braham or Russell. That unworthy
disposition to ape things foreign, which is so
general among the Americans as to excite re-
mark among candid and intelligent Europeans
who visit our shores, is in no respect more con-
spicuous than in our music. Our concert-rooms
are nightly crowded with eager listeners to a
style of music which, whatever merit may be
claimed for it by those whose ears are sufficient
ly cultivated" to appreciate its beauties, GER
tainly cannot be considered natural. / am in
clined to think there is a good deal of fashiona
BILE hypocrisy III this business; that desire to
be thought TO be musical critics has as much to
do with the applause of many, at concerts and
at the opera, as any real appreciation and en-
ioyment Of the performances.
How many have | seen, listening to the notes
of Alboni, Parodi, Beneventano, or Strakosch,
and trying earnestly to be enraptured, who
| would, were they to follow the honest dictates
of their nature, receive far more genuine salts
faction in hearing some true and real melody
like those with whose simple pathos and natu
raj music Dempster melts his auditors to
tears, or convulses them with mirth and laugh
ter What true spontaneous, real pleasure
does any one feel in sitting under tornado of
vocal sounds, hurled forth in language of
which the audience do not comprehend
single word, and expressing an al, (or melody
which must be received on trust? For do
not believe that any considerable portion of
the audience can appreciate any connecting
thread of melody, or rythmica1 relation and
effect in the excruciatingly scientific bellowings
am shriekings of the so-called Italian and Ger
man arfistes who are SO popular in this country.
But this is matter of small consequence to
those who love to ape foreign nansic as well as
foreign fashions, and whose raptnrous applause
is,apparently, alwaps in the ratio of the incom-
prehensibility of the performance.
| find no fault with those who seeing real
beauties in the operate music of Europe, are
led to cultivate a better acquaintance with such
compositions. There are thousands of such
persons, men and women, who find a real graf
iGcation in mastering the admired passages
from Mendelssohn or Rossini, and their pro-
duction in the concert-room or the parlor is
legitimate source of pleasure, affording the best
of all entertainments for leisure evening.
Such singers as Signors Beletti, Salvi, Bene-
ventano, Marini Revere, Vietti, and dozen
otherr equally well known and professedly ad-
mired, are, undoubtedly, possessed Of rare gifts.
Their power of welding and displaying in its
best estate that noblest and most spiritual of
all the manifestations of music-the human
voice-is, beyond question, an attribute of the
highest order, and one which, if properly used,
should entitle its possessor to the esteem and
gratitude of all men, for the reason that it con-
tributes greatly to their happiness by exciting
and gratifying one of their most exalted facul-
ties-the sense of harmony. No truer or loftier
pleasure can be experienced than that afforded
by grand concert of rich, full, weltrained
and harmonious voices, in which all the parts
of the music are adequately represented. In
so far as this effect is attained by them, / es-
TEEN and admire the d,7istes as fully and sin
cerely as any one.
1t is a simple effect and one which, like all
natural blessings, is capable of being appreci-
ated by all people. The heart beats respon-
sivey and spontaneously to true music, whether
it rolls in majestic and solemn symphony from
the grand orchestra Of the Forest where the
winds are the performers in the wild winter
nights, or pours itself out in surging waves of
melody, when we listen to the noble and ac-
cording strains of the human voice in concert
But, for The natural and simple sense, it must
present some corresponding attribute of sim
plicity and truth, or it cannot be appreciated
That is to say, there must be melody of one
sort or another-there must be meaning in
the music--a mutual relationship and adjust
ment of the harmonies-a purport and charac
ter must be expressed; it must in short, be
true music, or it cannot be .fcH, however much
it may be applauded. Your Virginia friend
felt this want of true melody when he said "If
they had only given us a little more Of Street
Home or some such music, with their hyialutin,
] should have liked it better" That is the idea
precisely. The natural taste is for feeling and
melody in music-not for the compositions that
go artifcially and stiltedly along, like great
Shanghai fowl, that walks as if its legs were
asleep: This kind of singing and playing is,
doubt not all that its most ardent admirers
olo,n, +Lo of n; a,