208 ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE OPERA IN LONDON. 



pal defects in his style are repetition and 7va7it of purpose. His 

 theme is invariably repeated in the same key, without any other al- 

 teration than increase of noise in the accompaniment, until the 

 pleasure of the hearer becomes converted into weariness. On re- 

 solving to leave it, he presents us with commonplace phrases not 

 bearing in the most remote degree on the original idea, wanders at 

 random through various keys, pauses, then returns without prepa- 

 ration to his first melody, which he again repeats usque ad nauseam. 

 The accompaniment consists of the chords of the key-note, domi- 

 nant and subdominant, first piano and in crotchets, afterwards in- 

 creased to forte, with the whole power of the band ; the wind in- 

 struments are employed on every occasion, and generally inappro- 

 priately. That each instrument possesses a character peculiar to 

 itself, and is intended for a separate object, he appears not to sus- 

 pect ; they are by him employed en masse, and with the sole aim of 

 producing noise. Modulation he scarcely attempts, for to apply 

 that term to the desultory wanderings already described would be 

 an abuse of language ; neither can I recollect an instance in which 

 his vocal subject is answered by any corresponding idea in the in^ 

 stru mentation. Bellini resembles an orator who, instead of bring- 

 ing argument and illustration to support an assertion, contents him- 

 self with a repetition of the same idea in different words. The re- 

 petition of the first two or three phrases towards the conclusion of 

 a song produces, undoubtedly, a good effect ; but the repetition of 

 the whole of the first part is intolerable, and can only proceed from 

 want of science. Nor can it be pleaded in justification that Handel 

 and the Italian composers of his time always employed the da capo, 

 because those great masters scarcely wrote three successive bars in 

 the same key. The da capo is, moreover, one of the usages which 

 Gluck (the great reformer of the opera) exploded as inadmissible in 

 dramatic music, and every good composer for the stage has since 

 trodden in his steps, adapting the music to the situation, action, or 

 passion, which they undertake to illustrate. 



Bellini is the first who has openly set at defiance this maxim : he 

 has no plan, no purpose, no gradual rise of the music corresponding 

 to the development of the plot, no finale in which the composer con- 

 centrates his powers to raise to its acme an interest well-sustained 

 throughout, although varying in character with the passing scene. 

 Had Bellini been requested to render a reason for his choice of the 

 particular vocal passages which he appended to the original theme, 

 his only reply could have been, to suit the singer. In the majority 

 of instances, almost any other, in the same key and the same time. 



