understand how an author, who adheres to them, should fail of producing a Matrimonio Segreto.”
I must in this connexion, introduce a passage from the life of Handel. “The highest effort of genius here (in music) consists in direct violations of rule. The very first answer of the fugue in the overture to Mucius Scævola affords an instance of this kind. Geminiani, the strictest observer of rule, was so charmed with this direct transgression of it, that, on hearing its effect, he cried out, Quel semitono (meaning the f sharp) vale un mondo. That semitone is worth a world.”
I should exceedingly like to quote the passage on Haydn’s quartetts, and the comparison between the effect produced by one of his and one of Beethoven’s. But room always fails us in this little magazine. I cannot, however, omit a passage, which gave me singular pleasure, referring to Haydn’s opinion of the importance of the air. For the air is the thought of the piece, and ought never to be disparaged from a sense of the full flow of concord.
“Who would think it? This great man, under whose authority our miserable pedants of musicians, without genius, would fain shelter themselves, repeated incessantly; ‘Let your air be good, and your composition, whatever it be, will be so likewise, and will assuredly please.’
“‘It is the soul of music,’ continued he; ‘it is the life, the spirit, the essence of a composition. Without this, Tartini may find out the most singular and learned chords, but nothing is heard but a labored sound; which, though it may not offend the ear, leaves the head empty and the heart cold.’”
The following passage illustrates happily the principle.
“Art is called Art, because it is not Nature.”
“In music the best physical imitation is, perhaps, that which only just indicates its object; which shows it to us through a veil, and abstains from scrupulously representing nature exactly as she is. This kind of imitation is the perfection of the descriptive department. You are aware, my friend, that all the arts are founded to a certain degree on what is not
