44 



ON THE PRESENT STATE OP THE OPERA IN LONDON. 



familiarity, however, with the higher walks of the art will ever 

 prove of the greatest advantage to the performer, because it is on 

 these models that the inferior styles are founded. I would also par- 

 ticularly recommend the study of the piano-forte works of the great 

 vocal writers who have composed for that instrument ; Mozart, 

 Haydn, Beethoven, Himmel, Weber, Hummel, ought to be as fa- 

 miliar as the more fashionable and more flimsy compositions of the 

 day. 



The pupil should likewise be instructed in the elements of har- 

 mony, and the theory of sound : a knowledge of the former would 

 accelerate the progress in execution, and give facility in playing at 

 sight ; while the latter, by demonstrating the connexion of Music 

 with Nature, would impart an interest to the subject which can 

 never be experienced by those who learn in the usual parrot-like 

 manner. Theory* and practice should never be separated; but 

 each employed as an illustration of the other, instead of the absurd 

 method commonly pursued of postponing the study of the theory to 

 the finishing period of musical education, when the probability is 

 that it will not be undertaken at all. The idea that children soon 

 forget the names and properties of chords, originates in the irration- 

 al practice of teaching thorough-bass as a distinct branch, as an 

 affair of semibreves, minims, and hard names to be committed to 

 memory, but having no connexion with the music they are in the 

 habit of practising. Were the instructor, in the course of his les- 



musical genius, and in the other a happy union of the beautiful and orna- 

 mental styles, she may have rapidity of execution, facility of playing at sight, 

 even from score, and a cultivated taste, yet that taste, to be brought to per- 

 fection, requires still further cultivation. — Eds. 



• What is commonly termed the i^eory of Music, is, we humbly conceive, 

 no more theory than the art of executing a passage properly on any instru- 

 ment. In acquiring a practical knowledge of Music, we can consider no one 

 as having finished his studies unless his knowledge of composition be equal 

 to his powers of execution ; the one being as much a matter of practice as 

 the other. Nor will the initiation of the pupil into the mysteries of the 

 *' harmony of the 6th," or the " resolution of the discord of the 4th," at all 

 assist him in putting a correct base to an air, or in writing the parts of a 

 psalm tune. The greatest masters never studied the rules as they are found 

 in books, but derived them from the works of classical composers ; and this, 

 we maintain, is the true method in which a knowledge of these rules and the 

 power of applying them is to be gained. Were this plan adopted, how- 

 much time, fatigue, and disgust might be spared on the part both of instruc- 

 tor and pupil, to say nothing of the more rapid progress, and the far deeper 

 knowledge of the resources of the art which would be the inevitable conse- 

 quence of such a course — Eds. 



