'Creation' itself. Not a trace of the 'failing power' of which the grand old man complained is to be found in any part of it. It is a model of descriptive writing; true to Nature in its minutest details, yet never insulting her by trivial attempts at outward imitation where artistic suggestion of the hidden truth was possible. It is this great quality, this depth of insight into the 'Soul of Nature,' which places Haydn's Tone-pictures so far above all meaner imitations. To this we owe our untiring interest in the Scenes depicted in the Oratorio; in the delicious softness of the opening Chorus, which seems actually to waft a perfumed breeze into the midst of the Concert-room; in the perfection of rustic happiness portrayed in the Song which describes the joy of the 'Impatient husbandman' 'impatient' only because he longs to hurry on from one 'joy' to another. These things all prove conclusively that Haydn's genius was not failing. Yet, in another sense, he was quite right and Van Swieten wrong: the labour of producing such Music was too great for his physical strength. The first performance of 'The Seasons' took place at the Schwartzenberg Palace, on the 24th of April, 1801. It was repeated on the 27th, and on the 1st of May; and on the 29th of May the Composer conducted a grand public performance at the Redoutensaal. Its success was as great as that of 'The Creation,' and Haydn was equally delighted with it; but he was never really himself again, and never attempted another great work. Strange that his last almost superhuman effort, though it cost so much, should in itself have exhibited no sign of the weakness which was soon to become so painfully apparent.
Haydn stands almost as much alone, with regard to his greatest works, as Handel: but, though it is impossible to class his Oratorios with those of any other writer, we must not suppose that, during his long life, the rest of the world was idle. In Italy, especially, we find traces of a rapid progress, the results of which will serve to illustrate the history of our Eleventh Period.[1]
We have already shown, in our Article Opera, that the principles set forth by Gluck found no direct response in Italy. Yet the productions of this epoch go far to prove that, even then, they were not without an indirect influence for good: an influence which is as clearly discernible—strange as it may seem to say so-in the writings of Piccinni himself, as in those of his contemporaries. When we last spoke of the Italian Oratorio, it had degenerated, like the Opera, into a mere Concert of attractive Airs. Now, in Italy, the progress of the Oratorio has, at all times, corresponded exactly with that of the Opera: and, to the manifest improvement observable in the Operas of this Period we must attribute the synchronous advance exhibited in its Oratorios. After Gluck had once opened the eyes of the artistic world to the value of dramatic truth, the Concert Opera, and the Concert Oratorio, became alike impossible, even among those who professedly held tbe reformer's views in the utmost abhorrence. Influenced, no doubt, in spite of himself, and probably quite unconsciously, Piccinni was one of the first who attempted to incorporate the Airs and Duets of the Concert Opera into a consistent whole; to enrich that whole with Concerted Movements and Choruses, worthy of a great Composer; and to bind its several elements together in such a way as to assist the development of the Drama which formed its raison d'étre, instead of, as heretofore, retarding it. His efforts to introduce a higher style and a more truly æsthetic Ideal, were nobly seconded by more than one of his most talented countrymen: and, that the improvement he thus effected in the construction of the Opera extended to the Oratorio also, is sufficiently proved by the fact that his own Oratorio, 'Jonathas,' produced in 1792, has always been regarded as one of the best, if not actually the greatest of his works. His most illustrious coadjutors in this great reform were—Salieri, whose best Oratorios were Metastasio's 'Passione di Gesù Cristo' and 'Gesù al limbo'; Zingarelli, whose 'Distruzzione di Gerusalemme' will be found, in the form of a MS. Score, in the Dragonetti Collection in the British Museum; and, lastly, Cimarosa, the greatest Italian Composer of the age, whose 'Sagrifizio d' Abramo' and 'Assalone'—the last of which will be also found among the Dragonetti MSS.—are models of dramatic truth, and the most touchingly pathetic expression.[2] It is true that these fascinating works almost entirely ignore the broad line of distinction which ought always to be drawn between Sacred Music and that which is of a purely sæcular character, in which respect they are not to be commended as models. On the other hand, they undoubtedly do, to a certain extent, illustrate the dramatic sense of the Sacred Narrative, though in too superficial, not to say too unworthy a spirit. We meet with the same fault, though perhaps not quite so prominently forced into notice, in the works of a once celebrated but now very unjustly forgotten German writer, Johann Gottlieb Naumann, who studied, for many years, in Italy, and, as Hasse had done before him, entirely abandoned himself to the seductions of the Italian style, with all its beauties and all its shortcomings: only, the Italian style he cultivated was a later one than that with which Hasse had some thirty years previously so completely identified himself. He wrote no unconnected strings of Concert Airs, but brought out the best points of the Period we are now considering, enriched Italian Melody with many beauties derived from the German style, and produced a long list of Oratorios, of which the best known were, 'La morte d'Abel,' 'Davidde nella valle di
- ↑ The word 'Period' is here used, as in our article Opera, rather for the purpose of indicating a definite style than a chronological epoch. Thus, several of the composers whose names we are about to mention in our Eleventh Period died before Haydn, while others survived him by more than a quarter of a century; but in no case had their works the slighest affinity with his, though they all bore the strongest possible class resemblance to each other. [See footnote, p. 505b of the present volume.]
- ↑ One of Madame Malibran's greatest successes was achieved in an Air from the 'Sagrifizio.'
