Taste of the Public
performer and to make the audience wonder how it was all done.
These were the pieces that filled the programmes at public concerts. Even at the London Philharmonic Concert in 1847, Ciardi chose as his solo hisTaste of
the Day own fantasia on Lucia de Lammermoor, and at a concert at the Argyle Rooms on June 24th, 1829 (at which Mendelssohn's overture to Midsummer Night's Dream was seasonably performed for the first time in England, conducted by Mendelssohn in person), Drouet played his own variations on an air from one of Weber's operas and on God Save the King. As a sample of the criticism of the day let me quote Mr. James' description of the last-named solo:—
"Here we have an abundance of difficulty in each variation. The first is made of running passages, and requires every note to be distinctly articulated; and it is, perhaps, the most arduous of the whole five, for no performance short of perfection can make it effective. The air is preserved most admirably throughout, and yet there is nothing far-fetched, or that baffles the instrument to accomplish. The third variation is one of quite a different character. It is composed of octaves, and abounds with chromatic passages. The flute executes the one with the greatest precision, and there is no instrument in use among us which can accomplish the other with finer effect. The last variation of this distinguished piece is admirably calculated for the display of the instrument. It might be called a solfeggio passage; for the upper notes give distinctly the air, while an accompaniment is going on in the under ones. . . . In this piece we have almost every difficulty, in three octaves, which music is capable of comprehending."
The following very amusing description of this "here we go up, up, up, and here we go down, down, down"109
