214 ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE OPERA IN LONDON. 



equally beautiful, dramatic, and satisfactory in musical treatment. 

 With one striking instance of strife between sense and sound, I take 

 leave of this opera. At the conclusion of the second act Elvino 

 spurns Amina, in consequence of her supposed guilt, while the rest of 

 the dramatis personse are engaged in moderating the violence of his 

 rage, or endeavouring to impart consolation to the distracted and 

 injured girl. In this scene, so awful to the spectator, his feelings 

 are outraged by the levity of the musical treatment, which is a com- 

 monplace Italian motivo, with triplets in the accompaniment ; while 

 the chorus bawls to the same tune, and the orchestra increases, by 

 its vociferation, the merriment of a strain fit only to accompany a 

 ballet. And yet the discerning critic in the Edinburgh Review in- 

 forms us that " Bellini, more than any other author since the days 

 of Mozart, addresses us in the simple, unadorned, and unaffected 

 language of feeling and nature !" This is the first time that any 

 one has ventured on a comparison of the quackery of Bellini with 

 the music of Mozart ; it may be hoped that it will be the last.* 



But the reviewer has further information in store. " His style 

 is eminently chaste, and entirely free from that species of meretri- 

 cious embellishment which, repeated as it is, usque ad nauseam, 

 throughout the works of Rossini, so much disfigures his music. 

 Besides being perfectly original (! ! !), it is more graceful, flowing, 

 and infinitely more impassioned. In this respect, and in its freedom 

 from all pedantry, we regard the music of Bellini as a decided ad- 

 vance in the progress of the art, and a still further development of 

 that principle of the modern system which has been at work ever 

 since the refinement of melody became an object of attention." 



That the style of Bellini is totally devoid of meretricious embel- 

 lishment — L e., ornament neither suited to the subject nor founded 

 on the structure of the harmony — may admit not only of doubt but 

 of denial. It is, however, not ornament in itself which constitutes 

 a defect, but the ad libitum and gratuitous character imparted to it. 

 Mozart has introduced ornament, with no sparing hand, into the 

 Zauberfiote, but it there forms a part of the melody, and even con- 

 duces to grandeur of effect, as in the songs of the Queen of Night 

 in that opera. 



• Some of my readers may feel surprise that I pass over the Puntani 

 without a detailed notice ; but such notice could only consist of an enumera- 

 tion of the defects before mentioned as characteristic of this author. Not- 

 withstanding the perfect performance and the beauty of some of the melo- 

 dies, I never experienced weariness so intolerable in listening to any other 

 opera. 



