reminds one of Elsa and Lohengrin, only that the
sexes are reversed.) The queen of fairies is displeased with Ada's match with a common mortal, and desires a dissolution, which is refused. Before the expiry of the eight years, Arindal, incited by his companions, puts to Ada the fatal question, and the latter returns to Fairyland. After many vicissitudes, Arindal again finds his wife, who agrees to return to him, and to sacrifice to him her immortal fairy nature, if he swear that, whatever she may do, he will never curse her. By way of a first trial, she throws his two lovely children into the fire! He curses her not; but when he learns that Ada has led to victory his own country's foes, lie succumbs to
his patriotic rage, and heaps his maledictions on her head. Thereupon Ada is turned into a stone, and condemned to remain in that inert condition for a hundred years, but Arindal succeeds by a number of brave deeds, and by a mellowing song, in raising thie spell, and both are again admitted into Fairyland, where they live happily together ever after.'
The music is, if I may so express it, all tln-ough a struggle for truth ; the youth of twenty is still under the influence of the old masters, and of his contemporaries ; his wings are not full-grown yet, he tries to reach the lofty regions which his genius covets, but, weighed down by the conventional and traditional forms, he descends to the ground only to try again, now timidly and now boldly. Tlius in the first act, by far the weakest of the three, the vague shadows of Beethoven, Weber, Meyerbeer, and even Verdi appear, intermingle, vanish, and re-appear in fanciful succession. The long recitatives are awkward and laboured. Very much higher stands Act ii., every scene being lit up by flashes of genius ; it contains many treasures of original and independent thought, magnificent en- semble effects, a beautiful aria for soprano, a most catching duet in buffo style, and a grand finale. Act III., though marking perhaps a sliglit falling-oft", contains a most dramatic solo-scene (Arindal), and the pearl of the opera, a quintett with chorus, with- out orchestral accompaniment (a capella),a piece for the like of which I look in vain in the whole reper- toire of the operatic stage. It is of surpassing beauty. The overture, whichi has occasionally been heard in the concert-room, is more melodious than power- ful : it tells the love-story of Arindal and Ada in sweet accents, but loses itself at times in tedious reflections, closing, however, with a short but striking movement, suggesting strongly the Tannhiiuser music.
The opera has been put on the stage with a mag- nificence which simply baffles description, though I cannot help associating with this extravagant dis- play of the decorative arts my reminiscences of the 'cave' and the transformation scene of an English pantomime. All the parts were filled in a manner worthy of the high artistic reputation of our Munich Opera, and the orchestra, under the baton of Herr Fischer, was, as it always is, perfect. The house was crowded, enthusiastic, and grateful.
Emit. Clauss.
MUiNICH,/«/)' iSSS.
NOTTEBOHM'S 'BEETHOVENIANA.'
i.
TWENTY-FIVE years ago it seemed as if the Beetlioven literature, already voluminous and extensive, must in biographical detail have exhausted all available material, and in critical comment have done its best and also its worst. The accounts of eye and ear witnesses, the reminiscences of Beet- hoven's contemporaries, many of whom were at that time still living, and the traditions of the older generation of musicians, all combined to furnisli what appeared at the time to be a complete and reliable record of Beethoven's life and manner of working. As regards the outward events of his career this was actually the case, and the story of his life, overshadowed but never crushed by a terrible doom, had in it none of those elements of mystery and complication which in the lives of poets and artists are found to be so fascinating to the public and so profitable to the book-maker. The mass of evidence gathered in the interval by Thayer, Nottebohm, and others, has, however, thrown new, and in some ways unexpected, light on Beethoven's method of working, on the circum- stances which sometimes determined the character of his compositions, and the process by which these came into existence, points on which, prior to the publication of this evidence, the world had remained profoundly ignorant.
Most remarkable of all is the fact that the information on the subject now provided, made universally accessible by the publication of the sketch-books,come to us direct from Beethoven's own hand. It is significant, moreover, that Beethoven, the strong hater of shams and mock sentiment, should in this way also project his influence into the future, and scatter to the winds some of the most cherished popular delusions which had gathered around his memory.
