FINB ARTS. 



not of our mind is but too evident from the duets before us, for 

 stranger and more lamentable vagaries, and a more pitiable murder- 

 ing of a fine work, it never fell to our lot to witness. To speak of 

 the arrangement alone, compare the small portion of the first finale, 

 which is here vouchsafed to us, with the admirable and elaborate 

 arrangement of the same finale by Dr. Crotch. The slovenliness 

 and want of efiect in the former will be seen in striking contrast 

 with the care and faithful rendering of the original which distin- 

 guish the latter. But what are we to say when we find the se- 

 cond finale (a piece of music, as well from its scientific arrangement 

 as from its dramatic treatment, every w^ay worthy of the chef d'oeuvre 

 it concludes) transformed, in the merciless hands of the arranger, 

 into a pot-pourri of favourite airs ! As if there were no composer 

 better fitted for his purpose — no inventor of favourite airs ready 

 made to his hand, without troubling him either to transpose or cur- 

 tail — no composer who writes with especial eye to the edification of 

 the young ladies, or none who never introduce into their composi- 

 tions anything heavier than a waltz, or at most a Javourite air ! 

 As long as there are such we would beg IMr. Watts to keep off his 

 unhallowed hands from Cimarosa, and from all who have written 

 for posterity. 



Six Grand Waltzes. By Miss Mounsev. Clementi, Collard, & 

 Collard, 26, Cheapside.* 



The Erl King. The poetry by Goethe, with an English transla- 

 tion by W. Bartholomew, Esq. The music by Miss Mounsey. — 

 J. A. Novello, 69, Dean- street, Soho. 



In these waltzes Miss Mounsey has escaped the Strauss mania, 

 which is beginning to make such great ravages, and has apparently 

 taken Beethoven for her model, without, how^ever, being in the 

 slightest degree amenable to the charge of imitating, still less of 

 copying, his phrases or ideas. They are beautiful, and sufficiently 

 ornamented without being flippant, the usual besetting sin of com- 

 positions of this class ; and being such they deserve the popularity 

 they have by this time, doubtless, obtained. 



The Erl King is a composition of a very superior order. The po- 

 etry presents considerable difficulties, not with regard to the lan- 

 guage, but to the feelings and emotions to be depicted. Over these 

 difficulties the fair composer has triumphed most completely. The 

 introduction is admirable, and most successfully pourtrays the dark 

 and stormy night in which the father is hiding with his "lovely 

 boy." The fears of the child, the blandishments of the " Erl King," 

 the horror of the father on discovering the terrible reality, are all 

 depicted with a power, a truth, and, at the same time, a ])oetic feel- 

 ing, which must be in the highest degree delightful to those who 

 wish to see, in the cultivators of art, that earnest striving after ideal 

 excellence, without which art degenerates into a mere idle and sen- 

 sual gratification. 



