206 ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE OPERA IN LONDON. 



tive and vice abhorrent to the feelings. How widely different the 

 course of modern Italian composers, has been demonstrated in speak- 

 ing of Rossini. 



The glaring absurdities of Italian operas, especially as conducted 

 in this country, have proved a main cause of the hostility or con- 

 tempt with which English writers have almost invariably treated 

 music. Ignorant alike of the art and the science, and incompetent 

 to form a judgment on the whole, they naturally drew their conclu- 

 sions from that part which came under their immediate observation ; 

 now an opinion formed concerning a whole, deduced from a part, 

 will rarely prove correct. The literary men of Germany, on the 

 contrary, whether personally conversant with music or not, always 

 treat the art with due respect, because they have witnessed its be- 

 neficial effects. Wyndham self-coraplacently vindicated his own 

 distaste for harmony by the assertion that four of England's great- 

 est men (of whom Pitt was one) had been insensible to its charms. 

 En revanche, I may cite Klopstock, Schiller, Goethe, and the two 

 Schlegels, men who, in true greatness, far outweigh any name ad- 

 duced by the British statesman. Authority, however, has but little 

 weight in permanently determining the rank which an art or sci- 

 ence is entitled to hold in the scale of knowledge ; a satisfactory 

 result can only be obtained by a consideration of the mental facul- 

 ties which it calls into action. Although the estimate might raise 

 the character of music to a higher rank than even its warmest ad- 

 mirers dream of, the present is not a proper time for such disquisi- 

 tion. My object has been to elucidate, in some degree, the princi- 

 ples which ought to guide true musical criticism ; cotemporary 

 popularity should not be for a moment admitted as evidence of 

 merit, and all great works must be not only technically correct, but 

 also written in conformity with every sesthetical requisite. 



In the compositions of Mozart, Cimarosa, and other writers of 

 the same school, melody and harmony, the vocal parts and the in- 

 strumentation, are so intimately blended that it would be difficult 

 to apply praise or censure to the one without involving the other in 

 the same sentence. In the modern Italian school, on the contrary, 

 the air and the accompaniment are so independent of each other 

 that no task can be more easy than to analyse their respective me- 

 rits. The distinction is also equally well marked between the 

 theme and its treatment. The neglect of adverting to this differ- 

 ence of character in the two schools will sufficiently account for the 

 opposite conclusions at which critics have arrived respecting the 

 merits of productions so universally known. The following remarks 



