wonderful energy enabled her for a time to disregard the consequences of this accident. She returned to Brussels, from whence she went to Aix-la-Chapelle, and gave two concerts there with de Bériot. In September she had come to England again, for the Manchester Festival,—at which her short, brilliant life came to an end. She had arrived, with her husband, after a rapid journey from Paris, on Sunday, September 11, 1836. On the following evening she sang in no less than 14 pieces. On the Tuesday, though weak and ill, she insisted on singing both morning and evening. On Wednesday, the 14th, her state was still more critical, but she contrived to sing the last sacred music in which she ever took part, 'Sing ye to the Lord,' with thrilling effect; but that same evening her last notes in public were heard, in the Duet, with Mme. Caradori Allan, 'Vanne se alberghi in petto,' from 'Andronico.' This was received with immense enthusiasm, the last movement was encored, and Malibran actually accomplished the task of repeating it. It was her last effort. While the concert-room still rang with applause, she was fainting in the arms of her friends; and, a few moments later, she was conveyed to her hotel. Here she died, after nine days of nervous fever, in the prostration which naturally followed upon the serious injuries her brain had received from the accident which had befallen her in the midst of a life of perpetual excitement. She died on Friday, Sept. 23, 1836, about 20 minutes before midnight, under the care of her own doctor, a homœopath, Belluomini, who had declined to act with the two regular physicians who had at first attended her. Two hours after her death, de Bériot was, with Belluomini, in a carriage on his way to Brussels, to secure the property of his late wife. She was buried on Oct. 1, in the south aisle of the collegiate church, Manchester. She was but 28 years of age when she died. Her remains were, soon afterwards, removed to Brussels, where they were re-interred in the cemetery of Lacken where a mausoleum was erected by de Bériot, containing a bust of the great singer by the celebrated sculptor Geefs.
It is difficult to appreciate the charm of a singer whom one has never heard. In the case of Maria Malibran, it is exceptionally difficult, for the charm seems to have consisted chiefly in the peculiarity of timbre and unusual extent of her voice, in her excitable temperament which prompted her to improvise passages of strange audacity upon the stage, and on her strong musical feeling which kept those improvisations nearly, but not quite, always within the bounds of good taste. That her voice was not faultless, either in quality or uniformity, seems certain. It was a contralto, having much of the soprano register super-added, and with an interval of dead notes intervening, to conceal which she used great ingenuity, with almost perfect success. It was, after all, her mind that helped to enslave her audience; without that mental originality, her defective vocal organ would have failed to please where, in fact, it provoked raptures. She was a phenomenal singer; and it is one misfortune of the present generation that she died too young for them to hear her.
Many portraits of Malibran have appeared, none very good. A large one, after Hayter, representing her with a harp, as 'Desdemona,' is usually accounted the best; but it is only indifferent. Another, by R. J. Lane, A.R.A., showing her made up as 'Fidalma,' and then, afterwards, in a stage-box, in her usual dress, is much better. It is this latter portrait which we have engraved.
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Several biographies have appeared of this extraordinary person, with anecdotes of whom it would be easy to fill a volume; that which was written by the Comtesse Merlin is little better than a romance. Malibran composed and published many nocturnes, songs, and chansonnettes; some of the unpublished pieces were collected and published by Troupenas at Paris under the name of 'Dernières Pensées musicales de Marie Félicité Garcia de Bériot,' in 4to.
[ J. M. ]
MALINCONIA, LA. The name attached by Beethoven to a very romantic intermezzo or introduction, of 44 bars length, between the Scherzo and the Finale of his Quartet in B♭, No. 6, op. 18. The time is Adagio, and the direction given is 'Questo pezzo si deve trattare colla più gran delicatezza.' The theme of the Malinconia appears twice in the Finale, much in the same way that the Andante does in that of the Quintet, op. 29.
[ G. ]
MANCANDO, 'failing,' or 'weak,' is used to denote a decrescendo, or lessening of tone, in an already soft passage. It occurs in the Scherzo of Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonata in E♭, op. 7, in the last variation of the Sonata in A♭, op. 26, and in the slow movement of the Quartet, op. 59, No. 2. It is also much used by Schumann and Chopin, and is almost always found in slow movements, although the first instance cited from Beethoven is an exception.
[ J. A. F. M. ]
