ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE OPERA IN LONDON. 215 



" Besides being perfectly original \" Thus incidentally to intro- 

 duce so unqualified and positive a declaration, without an attempt 

 to support it by the shadow of a proof, is a mode of procedure far 

 from satisfactory or conclusive. So remarkable an assertion might 

 induce a suspicion that the reviewer was an entire stranger to the 

 classical Italian school of opera composers, beginning with Sacchini 

 and closing with Paer. Has he ever looked into the solfeggios of 

 Italian singing-masters ? If he had, these rash words could not 

 have escaped ; if he is conversant neither with the former nor the 

 latter, he is incompetent to form an opinion on the subject. Han- 

 del, Haydn, Mozart, are far from being perfectly original ;* these 

 great masters were not ashamed to acknowledge their obligations : 

 it is, therefore, mere waste of words to prove the mighty debt in- 

 curred to their predecessors by composers of a minor calibre. 



In regard to the improvement which it is alleged that Bellini 

 has effected in melody, there is only one feature in which it differs 

 from that of many composers belonging to the old school ; take, for 

 instance, Guglielmi. I allude to the showy manner in which he 

 adapts his words, partly by setting emphatic phrases to sonorous 

 though unmeaning successions of notes, and partly by taking the 

 utmost advantage of the sonorous nature of the Italian language, 

 in a repetition of the same word, and by this device to impart an 

 impassioned character to a melody which, if applied to English or 

 German words, or if performed on an instrument, would be divested 

 of this artificial and adventitious colouring. These contrivances, 

 although they may be blameless, will not contribute to the advance- 

 ment of the art, nor will mere " freedom from pedantry," especially 

 if it arise from positive ignorance, be of service to music any more 

 than improvement will accrue to literature from the writings of an 

 unpedantic, because uneducated, man. Mozart undermined pedan- 

 try by substituting for empty forms the graceful imaginations of 

 his glowing genius ; while the only equivalent offered by the mo- 

 dern Italians is exemption from too much learning. 



I confess ray inability to understand the reviewer when he dis- 

 courses of " that principle of the modern system which has been at 

 work ever since the refinement of melody became an object." This 



* In this fact lies one main argument for the study of classical composers 

 of former ages, of the works, not of one school, but of all. Dr. Crotch gives 

 a list of the^riters from whom Handel borrowed, or whom he imitated, 

 i'lozart repliSi to a friend who complimented him on the ease with which he 

 wrote, " I believe there is no good composer whose works I have not played 

 through manv times." 



