mountain, whose top is covered with snow, seems to heighten, by the contrast of its icy coldness, the warm, luxurious life of the valley below. There are, of course, any amount of people in Pescia. There are swarms of priests, in their long cloaks and black hats, taking solemn exercise upon the pretty road that runs along the river bank. If you are there at the proper time-say five o'clock in the afternoon — you may see the good bishop of Pescia, who belongs to one of the glorious company of fat, oily men of God, and is accompanied by an emaciated priest (he is a poor relation, I guess), and a stout servant carrying a cloak. The emaciated priest reminds me of an inquiry I have long wished to send to the Editor of "Notes and Queries." It is this: Why are poor relations always lean? Or no! not that, for that question answers itself, but rather this Has anybody ever read, or seen, or heard of a fat poor relation? As no creature out of Tuscany ever heard of Pescia before, and as I may fairly claim to be the first illustrious traveller who has visited it and extended its fame to the New World, I deem it no egotism to entitle myself, The Renowned Original Discoverer and Modern Christopher Columbus of Pescia. Perhaps in so doing I may slightly transcend the strict bounds of propriety, but in the words of Mrs. Micawber, that I am mainly right both my reason and my judgment alike forbid me to doubt. As I write, I sit upon the terrace of the inn which overlooks the river and affords a fine view of the olive colored hills. My heart and head are full of Pescia, and yet at the same time the humming of some passer-by reminds me of the opera I heard the other night in Florence-the Traviata, or Violetta, as it is called in Italy. It was performed at the Pergola by a tolerable company, with one Carozzi Zucchi as prima donna, a fresh, noisy singer, who takes the part much better than the much over-rated Piccolomini, yet not near so well as our own Gazzaniga. The opera was superbly put upon the stage, the scenery being unsurpassed. Since my previous visit to Florence they had produced here Verdi's unfortunate Aroldo, of which I have previously had occasion to speak. The opera was performed just four times, which, according to the Florentine critics, was just four times oftener than it deserved. Indeed the fate of this opera is appalling. It has failed everywhere. At Parma it was played the oftenest, because it was written for the theatre there, and the good people felt a desire to deal gently with the poor thing. The Italian press unite in condemning it strongly, and the Impresarios who produced it at their various theatres have been obliged to fall back upon Traviata and Trovatore. The latter is now being played with great success in Leaning Tower Pisa, with Limberti (whose excellent performance I have alluded to in speaking of Pacini's opera, Elisa Velasco), one of the best tenors of Italy in the chief role. Talking about Trovatore, at once brings me back to first principles and Pescia. They are a musical people here, though not able to have an opera. To-day I took breakfast at the "Trovatore Eating House," and last night heard a serenade given to somebody in the next street. The selection was the Miserere scene of the favorite opera -a lugubrious choice, it must be confessed, but the effect of the solemn strains breaking upon the stillness of the night was very beautiful. Ah! but Pescia, a lovely spot at all times, assumes an almost magic beauty towards sunset. It is a rare pleasure to sit, as I do now upon the balcony overhanging the river, and see the golden sunlight falling upon the olive groves, and gilding the half hidden fronts of the mountain convents. It has left the valley below, and is gradually fading away from the lower parts of the mountains. At the same time the bells from the numerous convents commence an harmonious chiming, which mingles with the occasional whistle of the distant locomotive. One can see the smoke of a huge factory not far off, while near by are the slight wires of the telegraph. It is Italy, with all its beauty and romance, wedded to New England, with all its practical arts and sciences. I do not wait for the golden colors to fade away into the dim gray twilight, but leaving the balcony, go to the front of the house which looks out upon the noble wide street I have before mentioned. It is not long, but still forms a beautiful promenade, and at this time is crowded with the great majority of the inhabitants of Pescia, strolling either singly, in couples, or in groups, simply enjoying the delicious coolness of the hour, and the animated aspect of the scene. At one end stands a little church; they call it La Madonna della Piazza. The whole scene is lively and brilliant, and it only needs the music to remind one of the masquerade in Ernani. I do not know whether you have in Boston a Geographical or Historical Society, but if you are so fortunate, I trust the learned body will invite me to deliver before them the elaborate paper that I am pre paring, entitled: "Narrative of an Exploring Expedition into Pescia; with Statistics as to the Population thereof, their Modes of Dress, of Living and Eating. By Trovator, Esq." If you have not an Historical or Geographical Society, I can easily inform you what ingredients are necessary for its composition, and trust there is enough public spirit in Boston to act upon my hints and immediately form one. Here are the dramatis persona, carefully gathered from that of corresponding societies in New York: Eleven large gentlemen with gold spectacles. Three young men with white cravats. Six Orthodox Clergymen. Seven sleepy men. Two young misses, who giggle. Six literary ladies, who wear corkscrew curls. Six literary ladies, who do not wear corkscrew curls, and who will not speak to the other six literary ladies. One or two eminent travellors who have explored Communipaw, or some such terra incognita, and are prepared with papers" to read. A lean gentleman to act as Secretary. A fat gentleman to act as Chairman. A dimly lighted room, and some writing materials for the Secretary, and a glass of water for the speaker. Four newspaper reporters, who are much bored by the whole affair. Some sandwiches and mustard in an adjacent room. I need not assure you, that before such an intellectual body, it would give me great pleasure to read my Narrative of the Exploring Expedition into Pescia. Of course my services would be gratuitous, and I should only ask to be made an Honorary Member of the Society, and to have a lion's share of the sandwiches. The newspaper reporters should not either be allowed to go away sandwich-less, on the night when I read my valuable and instructive paper. take this method, through the columns of your excellent journal, to make known my desires. I A very nice little composition. The author has care- Rose of Castille Quadrilles. J. G. Callcott. 30 Spirited and brimful of melodic gems from Balfe's last, and many say best, Opera. Au Bord du Lac. Idylle. W. Kuhe. 25 This charming composer has here laid out a simple melody of but sixteen bars, made highly effective by an ever-changing accompaniment upon the note of the dominant, quickly repeated in the higher octaves, with frequent crossing of hands. Highly suggestive of a quiet, blue lake in rural seclusion, with a faint stroke of a distant bell now and then. J. Blumenthal. 25 La Pensée (A Thought). A dreamy, meditative composition of a quiet flow. Tantalizing Polka. 25 R. Herzog. 25 C. Strauss. 25 J. Ettling. 25 C. A. Ingraham. 25 J. W. Turner. 25 To-morrow I leave Pescia, perhaps forever, and in The above form a good collection of simple Dance Gems from La Traviata, arranged for two per- Three numbers of this Series have been issued, viz. : Homage to Verdi. Fantasia on airs from his principal Operas, for four performers on two pianos, by Duroc. 1.25 Yours ever, TROVATOR. This piece is excellently adapted to be performed at Exhibitions, in Seminaries, &c. It requires four players of not more than middling ability. The melodies, which are introduced, are of Verdi's best, and cannot but highly please the many friends, that this eminently successful composer has made everywhere. Chas. Grobe. 50 This Song of universal popularity appears here for the first time in an arrangement for the piano. Surely, there could not have been found a better hand for such arrangement than that of Charles Grobe ! WHOLE NO. 316. BOSTON, SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1858. Translated for this Journal. Robert Schumann. (From WASIELEWSKY'S Biography.) ROBERT SCHUMANN was a little above middle height, and slightly inclined to corpulency. In his healthful days there was in his bearing something elevated, noble, full of dignity and calmness; his gait on the contrary was usually slow, cautious, and a little indolent and shuffling.* Accordingly his eye was mostly sunk, half closed, and only lighted up in conversation with near friends, but then in the most agreeable and kindly manner. His countenance made a pleasant and goodhearted impression, without justifying the epithet of beautiful,-indeed one could scarcely speak of an intellectual physiognomy; the fine-cut mouth, commonly protruded a little. and puckered up as if to whistle, was, next to the eye, the most attractive feature of his full, round, rather fresh colored countenance. Over his short nose rose a high, freely springing, arched brow, remarkably expanded in breadth about the temples. Above all, his head, covered with dark brown, full and rather long hair, had something downright, altogether strong, and one might say fourcornered about it. His physiognomy had, with a certain shutup cast of features, for the most part a uniformly mild, benevolent expression. The rich soul's life did not mirror itself there so vividly, as in sanguine natures. When Schumann wore the friendly mien, which was not, to be sure, too often, he could exert a fascinating influence on those about him. While standing. long standing easily fatigued him — he held either both hands behind his back, or at any rate one hand, while with the other he musingly brushed his hair one side, or stroked his mouth or chin. If he sat deeply interested him, he only expressed him- In meeting strange and uncongenial per- In the family circle Schumann was seldom The outward life, which Schumann led or lay unoccupied, he often let the upraised during his last years, was very uniform and fingers of both hands play with one another. extremely regular. In the forenoon, until The manner of his intercourse with others about 12 o'clock, he worked. Then he usu VOL. XIII. No. 4. he dined, and then, after a short recreation, worked till 5 or 6. After that, he visited, commonly, some public place, or a private club, of which he was a member, to read the newspapers and drink a glass of beer or wine. At 8 o'clock he commonly went home to supper. Tea parties, so called, and evening parties and conscientious, although he almost never This ately felt and tried to make all right again. When there was difference of opinion, he commonly kept silent; but this was always a sure sign of his unproclaimed opposition, he thought right. To all malignity and on the ground of which he simply acted as and where it had once manifested itself to coarseness of feeling he was inexorably stern, him, he was evermore irreconcilable. Of Schumann's way of meeting his companions in Art (musicians and critics especially) I have already spoken in the course of this work; in this respect he was a model. There was no trace of jealousy or envy in was very simple. He spoke but little or not ally took a walk, accompanied by his wife him. He joyfully and warmly recognized what † Kapellmeister DORN communicates the following experi- long absence in the year 1843, there was music at his house (on at all, even when questions were asked him, and some near acquaintance.§ At 1 o'clock * In the house, where Schumann for the most part wore felt shoes, he sometimes walked on tip-toe, without any outward occasion. I can speak, of course, only of the last years of his life, during which I knew him intimately. said to me in a mournful tone: Ah, we have not been able to was great, significant, and talented, particularly when he felt himself addressed by kindred elements. In the latter case he showed too, what must strike one in his thoroughly German tendency and way of thinking — an enthusiastic sympathy for foreign Art, although he was completely on his guard against the more recent dramatic music of France and Italy, and with regard to the latter never attained to a correct appreciation, based upon ‡ Schumann smoked very fine and strong cigars, which he objective intuition. During his last years he playfully called "little devils." If, on the way, he met his children, he would stop awhile, pull out his lorgnette and look at them a moment, saying in a friendly tone: "Now, you little dears!" then he would resume his former mien, and proceed upon his way as if nothing had occurred. sometimes expressed less interest for some certain works of these composers, in which he naturally was misunderstood by most; for the principal, immediate cause of such expressions was his sickness, although it is not to be doubted that, with advancing years, his habit of spinning in his own ideal world, gaining more and more the upperhand in him, had a certain share in it. two hundred years ago it was perfected in that great home of the beautiful-that mother of the ArtsItaly; and by an appropriate parallelism, the highest executive and poetic finish in violin performance of it has came out of the same land; Paganini exhausting wonder and admiration, and re-forming the school not only of the violin, but of others--the piano, harp, and all other instruments following more or less in the wide field of renovated virtuosoism opened by that great musical son of the South. The beauty of the violin consists in the fact that it can more delicately approach the sounds of youth and love-of the divine utterances of the voice as it comes from God, unsoiled by the lust, crime, coarse ambition, or aught of those deflections from natural sanctity, whose images people the abode of the damned, and give rise to the ecstasies of the Apocalypse, the Inferno, and the Paradise Lost. Fully viewed, the violin is the most Val-wonderful of all inventions, because it is most human -most soul-like. Under the hands of a great master it has the eloquence of poetry without the perfidy of misdirected eloquence. It expresses passionately every shade of emotion; love, grief, joy, lightness, weariness, hope, religion even. But it cannot be understood by flippant unbelievers. Of the same color, only deeper and more sentimental, is the violoncello, which is intensely elegiac, and refuses in the depths of expression to be otherwise than prophetic of that tragedy which underlies our being, and tells that man is cut down as the flower, and passes away as the Autumn's leaf. The genius of Bottesini lent to that sub-cellar of harmony, the double-bass, a new life. In the departed, the Art-world of our time has lost one of its most highly and richly endowed creative minds, one of its most consecrated priests. His life is alike valuable and instructive for the history of Art. uable through its restless striving for the highest, for the noblest, and the results which he attained,-instructive through the errors, with which he too, as more or less every earth-born being, had to pay his tribute to the Finite. But blessed is the man who has so striven and so erred, as he has done! Orchestration. * ** * * * * * * The composer is enabled to treat all these instruments by a certain mechanical means. He takes WM. H. FRY, in the New York Tribune, writing of the Musard concerts, gives the following description of the instruments that compose the modern Orches-music-paper with many lines or staves upon it, and tra. The public cannot understand that great lyrical gift of heaven, the orchestra-that second sun of poetry and lustre-without study. They must go and go again if they would appreciate its colors. Let the student of it, after he has mastered the more obvious melodies, or that which relates to form and idea-look to the coloring-the orchestration-and see what beauty and variety there are for every one who has taste, and a religious-we use the word advisedly-feeling for Art. First take the flute. That has a special temper and quality. The sound is divided into two parts-the lower register is full and heartfelt, the upper volatile and brilliant. Then next in orchestral order, among the instruments, is the hautboy, a reed instrument. This recalls at a moment's notice all that Greek, Roman, Israelite or mediæval poet has sung of herds and shepherds. The primitive sadness of expression; the loneliness; the melancholy; the simplicity of an eclogue are all therein. Corydon and Phillis and their lovers, none too happy, are there told by a few notes. Now come the clarionets, breathing of gallantry and war; and of love, but of that of courts and camps. This noble instrument sweeps through a wide range; the lower tier of notes being supernatural; the middle having a vital connection with that great index of the soul, the human voice; and the upper a bird-like sway and perch as pure as brilliant. Now come the trumpets: symbol of battle and glory; but whose sonority, and variety of notes in the scale, is more made use of than formerly, when a few imperious notes told its whole story. The horn-the mellow horn-sylvan echo the image of the chase, of manly sports, and health and joy following in their train. But the horn as now played gives the woes of that saddest of sad great stories, Edgar's blasted love. Witness the last act of Lucia; for the intensest wife-devotion, look at the use made of them in the soprano air of Fidelio. Following in orchestral order are the trombones. This is the most terrible and ghastly of instruments. Its quiet tones in the lower regions are in musical literature what the calm despair of Othello is after Desdemona is dead, and the end of the dreariest tale ever told approaches. In their loud prowess they are terrible, and are competently used by Mozart to paint the supernatural in Don Giovanni, where the statue speaks as hell yawns. There is yet a lower deep, in the ophicleide, or bass bugle, an instrument in the hands of its master now performing at the Academy, having a colossal sentiment not elsewhere found. To this may also be added the whole range of Saxe-horns-the terrible depths of the bombardone-which come out so vastly in the massacre scenes of the Huguenots, where, especially in the duet of Raoul and Valentine, we have as grand painting as ever came from Shakespeare, Milton, or-never mind painters-people quarrel so about their rank. The percussion instruments, the battle-preaching sidedrums, the exultant cut-throat or jubilee, (as the case may be) cymbals; the various tempered kettle-drums -these we may not dwell upon, but come to the violin family. The violin is the king of instruments. Full places the instruments in this order-each one either filling out a measure with some sounds or resting the while; two flutes, two oboes, two clarionets, two bassoons, two trumpets, four horns, four trombones and tubas; instruments of percussion, and stringed instruments, the latter (more or less numerously doubled in practice) being the first violin, second violin, tenor violin, violoncello, and double bass. So ranged one under the other, lines at right angles, scored down from top to bottom, divide off the measures, and the leader of the orchestra at a glance can observe what each and every instrument is doing, and detect the slightest deflection from exactitude of inflection or expression. Each performer in the orchestra has only the notes of his own part, with such cues as may enable him" to attack" the notes at the proper moment after rests. Musard in New York. (From the Courier and Enquirer, April 13). Monsieur MUSARD was complimented by the assembling of a large audience at the Academy of Music last evening in spite of the rain. The house presented a very fine appearance, and Mr. ULLMAN had kept his promises, as he always has done, to the best of his ability. There were the "Monster Orchestra" in the "Octagonal Concert Room," the "Sounding Board," the "Twenty-Five Monster Candelabras;" there were the "Waiters in Livery," each with a sheaf of gratuitous fans in his hand large enough to fill Ceres' cornucopia ; and there were "the Evening Papers sold at the usual prices by Young Gentlemen in Uniform." We beg our readers to notice the delicate distinction between waiters in livery, and young gentlemen in uniform. But to Mr. MUSARD and his music. gains nothing by playing music which should be written for the violin. For instruments as for men, suum cuique. Of Mr. MUSARD'S music and of his orchestral effects we cannot speak highly; the former lacks melodic ideas; the latter originality and character. We heard nothing new last evening: and nothing old presented with the charm of a new rendering. Monsicur JULLIEN was a vulgar humbug; but he was a great conductor-a man almost of genius in his way: Mr. MUSARD appears to be a well bred gentleman, an accomplished musician, and a good conductornothing more. The evening passed off pleasantly, Mr. THALBERG adding the charm of his ever equable talent; and Madame D'ANGRI being quite radiant in a rosy robe which gave her the look of an enormous bouquet. Mr. Fry's Opera. MR. DWIGHT: The complaints of American composers, that they do not receive fair criticism from their countrymen, certainly appear to be in some measure justified when we read such thoughtless and indifferent comments as the following, on Mr. FRY'S opera of "Leonora," from the letter of one of your New York correspondents: Monday and Wednesday night Fry's "Leonora " was given. By a glimpse which I caught of the Journal (my copy has not yet reached me), I see that you have had a notice of it; not having read it through, I do not know how far it enters into details. I will say, therefore, what I have heard, that the opera is full of pleasing melodies, but also full of reminiscences; and that it is almost as impossible to execute as the Stabat Mater of the same composer. As a specimen, I was told that in one of the choruses the Sopranos have to commence on the high C! Now if anything is to be recorded about a work of this character, the first grand opera ever produced by an American, it should be something better than second-hand reports and manifestly unfair rumors. Your correspondent has not heard "Leonora," evidently knows nothing of it. Why, then, reproduce the stale objections which have so long been circulated, and yet give no currency to the many expressions of approval which have greeted the work? Permit me, as one quite familiar with "Leonora," to say that, although the "reminiscences" do exist, the 'impossibilities of execution" are all fabulous. There is not a passage of extreme difficulty throughout the opera; and, as the Stabat Mater is spoken of, I may mention that the difficulties in the performance of that work were most of them created by the ill will of musicians and conductors. The absurd statement that one of the choruses of "Leonora" commences on the high C for the sopranos, is not worth contradicting. Yours truly, E. H. H. Fine Arts. For Dwight's Journal of Music. The Athenæum Exhibition. I. The title of "British Art Collection" as applied to the pictures now on exhibition at the Athenæum Gallery has a somewhat limited meaning. Instead of the impartial and complete representative exhibition of the best Art of the Old and New English Schools of Painting, which it was the rumored design of the directors of this enterprise to furnish us, we have a collection incomplete, numerically and artistically, and evincing a decided partiality for representative excellence in the New School. Mr. MUSARD is of all the conductors that we have had the most unexceptionable in manner and appearance. He wields the baton with graceful ease and power, and without the slightest taint of affectation. Indeed his manner is so simple and to the purpose that it is no manner at all: he stands before his audience simply a well bred gentleman discharging his office to the best of his ability, and without a thought of the impression he is to produce, except through his orchestra: and this is the perfection of manner in a conductor, or in any one. And Mr. MUSARD also conducts well. His forces are well under his control; his power appearing in the most striking manner in his acceleration and retardation of time by imperceptible degrees. His orchestra is a very fine one; well balanced; having fine solo players for the principal wind instruments, and a body of strings superior in volume and quality of tone to that of any orchestra that we have had. His cornet player, (who, by the way, we opine has not voyaged far of late,) is a very accomplished artist, with a pure tone completely under his control, and remarkable executive ability. In the Rondo Celestine, he played the melody It is to be regretted that the collection was not and the variations almost entirely through with re- originally formed upon a more exclusive basis, and peated notes by double tongueing. The repetition allowed to comprehend only the truly best works of was very distinct and accurate; but we must own that the effect was not worth the effort. The beauty the various schools of English Art. Many of the of the trumpet is its clear, penetrating tone; and it | artists of this country, who have not been abroad and This explanation of the surprise which many persons experience at the character of the exhibition, is based partly upon internal evidence furnished by the pictures themselves, and partly upon a merely verbal familiarity with the masters in English Art whose names do not appear in the catalogue. have a very limited acquaintance with other than native Art, entertain a theoretical preference for the unpretentious, solid and forcible painting of the French School, as opposed to the obtrusive, shuffling, and weak manner which is supposed to characterize the Old School of the English: and since the manner or method may be said to constitute the costume of the body of Art, it would have been a source of much gratification and perhaps more profit to them to see English Art in its best clothes. A second provocation to regret is furnished in the losses which the collection has suffered since its arrival in this country; losses for which the recent importations offer us inadequate compensation. HOLMAN HUNT'S "Light of the World," embodying more than any other picture in the collection, perhaps, the intense thought and severe power of the New School; the best works of HUGHES; the five pictures by TURNER, illustrating four distinct periods of his career; WM. HUNT'S, of the Water Color Society; J. D. HARDING's, and many others of nearly equal importance have been picked off by purchase or sent back to England. Thus denuded of its chief attractions, it has come to us. Let us not complain, but gratefully "keep what we've got, and catch what we can" of the good things that have escaped re-shipment and the liberal appropriations of New York and Philadelphia. Meantime, let us see what we have got worth the keeping, and from this learn the better what to catch hereafter. Before entering upon the search, however, I wish to make a confession of a partial blindness concerning the nature, capabilities, and limitations of Art, from which I suffer in common with many other guessers, both great and small, who, riding upon its circumference, never catch more than a glimpse of the axis on which it turns, or the law of its revolution. Every great Art-instinct is a law unto itself, and its fortunate possessor measures his life in simple selfobedience. Men of weak instincts are affiliated by the stronger, and become mediums of inspiration at second-hand. The great man and his media form what is called a School of Art. A little time of peace and united worship, and heresies creep in. Excommunicated by the law of individual integrity and the canons of the school, the heretics in turn become ex pounders of the new-born and only true faith. Thus Art moves, progressively or otherwise; its vitality dependent upon perfect individualism. What Art is from individual stand-points we are allowed to see; the stand-point from which it can be truly scanned and measured has not yet been found. To the popular apprehension, Art is a kaleidoscope, of which artists are the bead-shakers, knowing not what forms will be assumed nor the law of their changes. A few years ago, Mr. RUSKIN, the most ardent and strong-eyed explorer the world has ever seen, discovered that Art was only rightly to be seen from a nut-shell. He accordingly procured one of ample dimensions, fitted up its interior to suit his convenience, mounted therein a powerful periscopic lens, and commenced his explorations. The horizon of true Art very soon began to sensibly diminish, and whole schools of "shallow absurdities " were revealed under every movement of his glass. People caught the infection of his bold daring, and "true" and "false Art" became familiar words. Inspired with the new principle of faith by the remarkable energy and genius of Mr. Ruskin, some young men of England practically declared themselves in open revolution. With "Truth, and God's work as it really is for a motto-nobler to the mind and heart of man than any for many years before uttered by the high priests of Art-it is not strange that Pre-Raphaelitism should have made some progress. The leaders of this revolution, now called great, would have risen to greatness in any faith. That they should not have achieved great deeds under the quickening influence of this fresh, virgin faith, would furnish the only occasion for surprise. Meanwhile, Mr. Ruskin continues his observations. Day by day the boundaries of true Art diminish as her long-considered high priests are dragged from their altars, and with all their possessions cast out forevermore unto conventional inanity and falsehood. Driven to the extreme apparent limit of compression, nothing remains to be done but to determine Truth's meridional position and to compute its exact area. At every adjustment of his glass for the final observation, Mr. Ruskin discovers a slight wavering in those lines which should be limned with as firm and clear a stroke as marks the hill-tops against an evening sky. He reluctantly increases the angle of his observations to include these oscillations. With a single concession his control is lost. His "truth of Art," compressed beyond bearing, breaks out in open rebellion, and recaptures those very places it had recently so helplessly abandoned. Nothing daunted, Mr. Ruskin continues to sweep the horizon of Art with his fearful lens. Seeking truth with a faith that will not be denied, he finds it floating in the way of his vision whichever way he turns; but until he can lay bare the heart and soul of man, and proclaim the absolute law of their being, truth of Art will evade his pursuit. Yet Mr. Ruskin's labors have not been in vain. He has taught us of the fulness of a diviner beauty in nature, than we had ever before known; he has opened to us familiar intercourse with an inspiring, vitalizing Art-genius in himself, which makes us nearly cease to regret that he has yet found no absolute. Of the fact that he has not yet written the indestructible law of Art, the world is fast becoming conscious, albeit, with a daily increasing sense of indebtedness to him, which nothing but a universal faith in the noble dignity of Art can ever cancel. We have then no absolute principles of Art-criticism. Men bend the art of a picture to meet the demands of their own nature, and just in proportion to the concentrated power of their Art-instincts, their rules of criticism are limited and despotic. This said, I hardly need caution the reader against giving a too ready credence to the criticisms, general and particular, which I propose offering upon the character of this exhibition. Every lover of Art had best heed his own intuitions and follow their lead to the end. If his faith be genuine and pure, his errors will not embitter his experience; and as in the spontaneity of his experience lies its verity and almost only relish, let him cultivate a self-trust which no arrogance shall poison nor false reverence betray. MESOS. My Diary. No. 3. April 16. The great satisfaction, amounting to enthusiasm, which I have heard expressed by many persons, with the Concert of last Saturday evening, recalls an idea already several times presented, but which it is to be hoped may bear being thrust forward once more. "Line upon line and precept upon precept," you know. It is encouraging to find, here and there, one who does not look upon the "idea" as entirely visionary, and who would join in carrying it into operation; and with such encouragement, I once more broach the subject of an annual series of orchestral and vocal Academy concerts of former years, though upon a concerts combined, after the manner of the Boston grander scale, to correspond with the increased demands of our musical public. 1. Is it not high time that the lovers of orchestral music should combine to secure beyond a peradventure their annual symphonic feasts? that at a point, where within easy reach of the concert room there is a population of some 300,000 persons, there should be an adequate and thoroughly organized orchestra, for the performance of the grandest symphonies? That this orchestra should be placed upon a permanent basis, and its conductor relieved from the anxieties and labors and risks of undertaking as a private speculation its series of concerts? That after some twentyfive years of symphonic music, we should cease to be satisfied with half rehearsed performances by half an orchestra? All honor to the men who have taken the burden upon their shoulders during the last few years, and infinite thanks for what they have given us; but is it not time to afford them the means of giving us more and better? Musicians, no more than lawyers, physicians, or merchants, can afford to give away their time; but make the time spent in rehearsal equivalent to the same time spent in lesson giving, and they would gladly study a symphony of Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven until all the finest effects and most delicate points of expression should come out. Beethoven wrote for sixty-four instruments; this number we ought to have and could easily obtain, would the public will it. Let it speak the creative word and call such an orchestra into existence. 2. There is a strong love for choral music in our community. Except in England, nowhere in the world do grand choral porformances draw such audiences as in Boston. This may seem a strange statement to many, who remember the number of empty seats in the Music Hall at the oratorios this winterbut it is true. I have heard "Samson" in Germany, when the audience was less in number than the performers! But there are multitudes of people who gladly hear a choral performance of half an hour to an hour in length, but weary of an entire oratorio. For this class appropriate music should be given somewhere, as on Saturday evening the Lobgesang was given, to their great enjoyment. But while catering for their tastes, we should at the same time be doing a work of the highest importance to the progress of music and musical taste; for some of the sublimest and most beautiful ideas of the greatest composers are to be found in works, which would occupy but a small part of an evening's performance. 3. It is also high time that some means should be afforded, especially to musical students, to judge of various styles and eras of music by hearing specimens of them adequately performed. Ninety-nine out or every hundred are obliged to take upon trust, that Bach, his predecessors,contemporaries and immediate successors, really wrote interesting, pleasing, and beautiful music, as well as that, which for its learning appeals principally to the scientific musician for appreciation. In fact, much music two hundred years old is as fresh and comprehensible by the ordinary hearer as a melody by Rossini or Bellini. It would afford a promiscuous audience as much pleasure, after once becoming a little familiar. What delicious works the old Italian composers wrote for the female choirs of nunneries! And all this is a sealed book to us it would be like giving an audience a new musical sense to produce some specimens of it. Had we any school, society, or association of any kind, to give us historical concerts, or concerts of ancient music, I would not urge the point; but the field is open, and three or four specimens of old vocal masters in the course of a season, would be a decided attraction to our symphony concerts. 4. But what music could a choral body obtain, were it disposed to aid in carrying out the "idea?" The psalms, hymns, motets and cantatas, sacred and secular- -some even comic-of Bach, amount to hundreds in number. I am not familiar enough with his works to select from them, but there are musicians in Boston, who are. One or two of his motets in eight parts would not be bad to hear. Of Handel we never hear his stupendous "Dettingen Te Deum," Funeral Anthem, 66 Alexander's Feast," nor "Acis and Galatea." True, no one but FORMES could sing Polyphemus in the last named work, but perhaps he might be obtained. Who knows? Who among us has heard any of Mozart's splen did cantatas and motets? The Ne palvis et civis superla? Splendente Te? Davidde penitent? "Lord, before thy throne?" "Lord, look down upon me?" "God! to Thee be praise and honor?" and so forth. Then from Haydn we would gladly hear "The Seven Words," "Insanæ et vanæ curæ," "The Storm," or one of his sacred cantatas, the very titles to which are unknown here, but which, with full orchestral score, were long since published at Leipzig. Beethoven will give us his Vienna cantata with an adapted text, "Praise of Music," the piano-forte fantasia with orchestra and chorus, the music to the "Ruins of Athens," the "Calm at sea and prosperous voyage," the Song of Sacrifice (soprano solo, chorus and orchestra), the Terzetto: "Tremate, empi tremate!" the "Christ on the Mount of Olives." Mendelssohn embarrasses us with his richness. Of course the fragments "Christus" and " "Lorelei " would want a place upon one or two programmes. Of his works not known here, I may mention as suited to our plan, Op. 39, three motets for treble voices, composed for a convent at Rouen; Op. 78, three Psalms for chorus of 8 parts; Op. 51, the 14th Psalm for chorus in 8 parts with orchestra; Cantata from Schiller's poem "To the Sons of Art," male voices, quartet and chorus, and brass instruments and quantities more! - Schubert offers a fine variety from which to select, and some readers will remember a beautiful specimen of his works sung at a private concert recently. Another of his works which would be very attractive is the Psalm 23d for two soprani and two alti. But, sufficient of this- perhaps too much. 5. The plan, as before explained, would be to organize a series of ten concerts, at each of which a symphony, and a psalm, cantata or other choral performance, would be the two leading features, the rest of the programme to be filled by miscellaneous music, orchestral and choral, solo, instrumental and vocal. A generous subscription on the part of the public would enable the directors to make them the grand concerts of the winter, and to employ whatever re markable solo singers or instrumentists should visit America. 6. To whom can we look as the proper "powers that be" to put a plan of this nature and extent in execution? My own thoughts turn to that Society which established chamber concerts as an annual necessity with us: the Harvard Musical Association, in connection with our old and well-known Handel and Haydn Society, and perhaps the Music Hall Association. It is of equal importance to all these bodies, and to the individuals composing them, that a really effective orchestra should be established upon a firm basis, and the musical taste and knowledge of the public should be cultivated still higher than at present. Can these three bodies, whose existence was originally based upon the idea of improvement and progress, devise a better school? I am not ignorant that the entire chorus of the Handel and Haydn could seldom be obtained for Saturday night concerts; but I feel very confident that voices to the number of 150 or 200 could be obtained, and that so many members would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity thus presented of studying new music and extending their acquaintance with the great masters in their compositions of less extent than complete oratorios. They would gladly renew their acquaintance with Rossini's Stabat Mater and Mozart's Requiem, which are not too long for the second part of a concert, provided a symphony like Beethoven's first or one of Haydn's were played in the first. It does seem to me that the public would sustain an enterprise of this kind, for it is a case where individual emolument is not an object, where the proceeds, if by a possibility there should be any above the expenses, would go for the advancement of the art, and one in which the initiative would be taken by men and associations in which it could confide. Next year, April 30th, is the centennial anniversary of the death of HANDEL. It is to be hoped that the Society called by his name will pay due observance to the day. How fine a record in the Art history of Boston would be the successful issue of the plan herein proposed, the season closing with a festival equal or superior to that of which the recollection is so pleasing. These observations, though crude and hastily written, are the result of long thought and much conversation with others, and of a belief that "the plot is a good plot." observable, in the general effect, a sort of thinness of voice, which may be owing either to the defective room or to the fact that the individual singers have not paid due attention to vocalization; for no number of their voices combined can result in producing a full, round volume of tone. As to the soloists, no great Formes-d'Angri-like exhibitions of singing were expected; nor was one disposed to draw invidious comparisons. It was upon them that the disadvantages of the place of the performance told the most. The want of resonance in the room affected the pitch in a few cases quite unfavorably; but I can think of no means by which, at a second performance, the evil could be remedied, April 16.-A contrast last Sunday evening, Haydn's "Creation" in Boston, sung by a chorus of except, perhaps, by accompanying the Soprano airs with a quartet of stringed instruments, or by a good pianoforte ;-possibly, taking away the veil from the two or three hundred, with orchestra, Formes, Perring, and two of the best Boston Soprani; last evening, the same work, sung by a country choir of fifty-organ's face might be a gain. In the style of performance there might be some improvement; particuone or two members, with organ, and amateurs for the larly in recitative - the most difficult branch of the solos. Vocal art. At the best concerts, and from the finest To be more particular. The choir of the Congregational church in Holliston, formerly under the charge of our friend Bullard, numbers some sixty members, and has been in the habit of practising and singing in public occasionally, music of a higher order and more difficult than their ordinary psalmody, and at length has been able to achieve an entire work by a great master. At present their conductor is Mr. W. L. Payson;- the organist, quite a young man for so severe a task, is Mr. Geo. E. Whiting. The gentlemen and ladies who sang the solos, with the exception of a tenor from Worcester, and a bass from another society, are all members of the choir, and, as I understand, not one of them a professional musician or singer. These performers labored under certain disadvantages, which would have ruined their attempt had they not, through long practice, learned in some meas ure to accommodate themselves to them. First, the - form of the church in which they sang is bad for music; it is quite large-long, broad, but too low. A broad gallery runs along the sides, and this, with the space allotted to the singers, is far too much elevated from the floor. It must be a hard place to sing in when empty, as at rehearsals; now imagine the place densely packed, even to the passageways, and it is obvious that all reverberation, all resonance will be at once killed; the tone-waves are instantly absorbed. Then the organ, which is quite a large one for the place—one of Holbrook's reaches up close to the ceiling, and has a screen front lined with three or four thicknesses of mosquito netting; consequently the organ pipes speak somewhat as a choir of women would sing with their veils drawn over their faces. Several persons asked me how I liked the instrument. I could only say, that I did not know, for I had not heard it. I should not feel competent to judge of Formes if he sang with a thick veil over his face. Of course there was no flood of tone pervading the choir and carrying them along with it, keeping everything in harmonious blending of voices, and the choir had to look out for itself, letting the organ- in a measure - go its own way. Well; I was surprised and gratified at the success of the performance. If it had been done positively in a bad manner, or in such a way as to prove that the work was entirely beyond their powers, I would have passed over it in silence; but it was so well done, as to be worthy of some kind notice of the points, wherein at a second performance, there may be an improvement made, and I notice them the more, in the hope of giving some valuable hints to other of our country choirs and singing societies. The chorus singing was remarkably prompt, and energetic in taking up the difficult parts. In their zeal and good will, however, the tenor, - which was rather too strong for other parts as heard where I sat, hurried the time a little, and forced the choruses into too rapid a movement at the close. There was also singers, one hears more airs well sung, than recitatives well recited. The tendency always is to sing them. They are not to be sung- but to be reciteddeclaimed-the time, the accent, emphasis and mainly the cadence-all are left to the taste and feeling of the singer. The composer gives him only the pitch and general directions as to the use of his voice; all the niceties upon which the recitative depends for its beauty, the vocalist must supply. For the nonce, the singer must become an orator. He must study his text, and if any feeling is expressed in it, he must find it out, and devise means of expressing it. One may take a certain passage very slow and it will sound well; another the same passage fast, and it will sound well, provided in each case the vocalist has a feeling and sense of his text. No rules can be given. Of all our singers, now in Boston, I like Mr. Wetherbee best in recitative, and would suggest that Holliston send him a pupil or two. The general culture of the voice under a good instructor would soon remove the few faults which were noticable in the performance of the airs. So much of critical notice, which is written in the kindest spirit; for, if there be any one thing for which this writer has labored more than another, it is to urge on the time when in our country towns and villages, the magnificent music of Handel, Haydn, and Mozart shall drive away negro songs, sentimental ditties, and all sorts of mere trash, and the country choir shall begin to share in the pleasure with which the oratorio societies of our large cities work upon the "Messiah," "Elijah," "Creation," ReSamson," Mozart's " To the Holliston choir, indiquiem" and their like. vidually and collectively, God speed! Musical Correspondence. cent. PHILADELPHIA, APRIL 20. — Since Monday, 12th instant, our present opera season has been convalesOur "right-angled village," (for which harmlessly facetious soubriquet, see the New York Herald of any date,) has been thrilled with a triple sensation in the production of "Maria di Rohan," the debut of RONCONI, and the first performance in this city of Wm. Tell." Your last number contained an admir ably judicious critique upon Ronconi's Chevreuse in Maria di Rohan, clipped from the evening Bulletin, for the most part an excellent and reliable musical authority in this latitude. In fact, Ronconi's transcendant histrionic achievements have taken the public and the press willing captives; and while the accomplished connoisseur ignores his invariably false intonation, and the many other defects of his voice, he bows in homage to the flashing of that diminutive gray eye, which, in every impassioned scene, seems lighted with the inward fires of a pent-up volcano, or the concentration into |