582 



MUSIC, PROGRESS OF, IN 1888. 



panied by speech and often also by singing. 

 These entertainments were devised in the serv- 

 ice and for the pleasure of the courts ; and 

 princes, princesses, and courtiers took part in 

 the performances, which from that time forth 

 counted among the most brilliant festivities of 

 the splendor-loving courts of Europe, and often 

 were executed with an extravagance surpass- 

 ing all reasonable limits. The ballet reached 

 its true artistic development at the court of 

 France, for which Baltazarini, one of the fore- 

 most violinists of his time, composed his fa- 

 mous " Ballet Coraique de la Reine," in 1581, 

 for the wedding of the Due de Joyeuse. More 

 than eighty grand ballets were performed at 

 court during the reign of Henry IV, and in the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century the ballet 

 was essentially improved by Ottavio Rinuncini, 

 whom Maria de Medici patronized with royal 

 liberality. Umler Louis XIV, who often, and 

 as late as 1699 took part, with his courtiers, in 

 the performances, the ballet attained to great 

 perfection. A new epoch began for it with 

 the foundation of the grand opera through 

 Lully and Quinault, when dance and panto- 

 mime were required to heighten the sumptu- 

 ousness of their operas. The first attempt of 

 this kind, which the author called a pastorale, 

 was "Les Fetes de Bacchus et de 1' Amour," 

 given with extraordinary success in 1671, and 

 these ballet-operas, in which the dance was 

 entirely subordinate to the lyric part, were 

 much admired, until Antoine Houdart de la 

 Motte reformed it in 1697, by expressing the 

 dramatic action through the ballet itself. The 

 first work of this kind was "L'Europe Galante," 

 which, with the music by Campra, was per- 

 formed in 1697, and served as a model for the 

 time following. Through several modifica- 

 tions, the most important of which was made 

 by Oahussac in 1747, the ballet reached its 

 dramatic independence about the middle of the 

 eighteenth century, when Jean Georges No- 

 verre became its true creator as a special 

 branch of histrionic art, by separating it en- 

 tirely from the opera, and raising it to an in- 

 dependent performance enacted by dance, 

 pantomime, and music, divided into several 

 acts. A most peculiar and brilliant feature 

 were, in the beginning of this century, the 

 great pantomimic ballets of Vicenzo Galeotti, 

 royal ballet-master at Copenhagen, who, fol- 

 lowing in Noverre's path, went a step further, 

 subordinating the dance to the dramatic-plastic 

 principle, in the spirit of the antique panto- 

 mime. These gorgeous and ingenious crea- 

 tions became very little known outside of Den- 

 mark, and ceased there with Galeotti's death 

 in 1817. In a similar manner they were con- 

 tinned longest in Milan, which in the repre- 

 sentation of the grandest tableaux and the 

 daring attempts in pantomimic expression had 

 no equal. As rcg.irds the music to the ballet, 

 its function is not merely that of ordinary 

 dance music, to support the rhythmical mo- 

 tions, but it has to interpret situations, and 



lends a sort of language to the mimic and pan- 

 tomimic exhibition ; ample scope is therefore 

 given it for characteristic instrumentation, and 

 the description of various sentiments, and even 

 great musicians, like Gluck, Cherubim, and 

 Beethoven, have not deemed it beneath their 

 dignity to write ballet music, and have achieved 

 important results in this field. In the follow- 

 ing we enumerate the new ballets that have 

 made their appearance since 1876: 



1876: "Sylviaou La Nymphede Diane," myth- 

 ological ballet in three acts (four tableaux), by 

 Jules Barbier and Louis Merante, music by Leo 

 Delibes (Paris, Opera, June 14) ; the funda- 

 mental idea of this work is borrowed from 

 Tasso's pastoral "Aminta," which in the Italian 

 poet's florid language created such a sen*ation 

 (1572), but whose barren subject, transformed 

 and amplified in " Sylvia," could scarcely have 

 aroused great interest in its stale mythological 

 apparatus, if the composer had not succeeded 

 in producing such music as would not only as- 

 sume a more prominent part than usual in the 

 ballet, but hold its own even if severed from 

 the latter. Among the numbers that pleased 

 particularly were the waltz in the first act, the 

 introduction to the second, and the pizzicato 

 polka in the third act. " Madeleine," panto- 

 mimic ballet by Taglioni, music by Peter Lud- 

 wig Hertel (Berlin, Royal Opera House, in 

 March) ; there is much dramatic life and action 

 in this ballet, which in scenic effects, ensemble- 

 dances, and grouping must satisfy the most 

 fastidious taste. The music contributed much 

 to the success of the new work. " Les Fu- 

 meurs de Kiff," by Gaston Berardi, music by 

 Emile Matthieu (Brussels, Theatre de la Mon- 

 naie). 



1877: "Loreley," by Monplaisir, music by 

 Dall'Argine (Milan, Teatro delta Scala, in Janu- 

 ary), won great applause. "Le Fandango," by 

 Meilhac and Halevy, music by Salvayre (Paris, 

 Opera, November 26). 



1878 : " La Stella di Granata," by Marza- 

 gora (Rome, Teatro Apollo, in March). " Ein 

 gluckliches Ereigniss," by Taglioni, music by 

 Hertel (Berlin, Royal Theal re, in October), in- 

 troduces us to the circle of the famous Dutch 

 artists Jan Steen, Jan van Goyen, Rembrandt, 

 Hals, and Van der Heist, telling of merry and 

 interesting episodes in their lives ; the com- 

 poser has again successfully displayed his 

 charming talent as the great ballet-master's 

 musical accompanist. 



1879: "Yedda," music by Metra (Paris, 

 Opera, January 17). "Djellah oder die Tour- 

 isten in Indien" (Vienna, Opera House). 



1880: "Morgano," by Taglioni, music by 

 Hertel (Milan, Teatro della Scala). " Sieba," 

 in twelve tableaux, by Manzotti, music by 

 Venanzi and Marcuso (Trieste, Teatro Com- 

 munale, in March) ; the subject is taken from 

 the Edda ; Sieba is a Valkyria who falls in love 

 with Arnoldo, the young king of Thule, and in 

 consequence is renounced by Odin and loses 

 her immortality, but in the end finds her 



