Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Æolian Music

1882; Volume: 23; Issue: 474 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3355798

2397-5326

Carl Engel,

Linguistics and language evolution

Little one, thou desirest, no doubt, to write the things it taught."On another occasion Fetis preoperas ?" sented Rossini with his work " Esquisse de ItHistoire "AssuredIy.Do you think I want to pass my life de l'Harmonie," saying, "You will not read it, but in accompanying singers like your Carpani ?"I cannot put the book into better hands than those ';XAlell, when thou thinkest thyself capable, let me of the man who has been a creator in harmony.' knoxv.T promise thee a libretto and an engage-Rossini smiled, andsaid nothingat thetime,butafter ment." a few days observed to his friend, " I have read your Cavalli, as we shall discover in good time, kept his book with much interest....If I had had you for a word, and made the bright boy's oSence a steppingmastern my dear Fetis, I should have been that which stone to fame.is called a learned musician, for I had a taste for the Our young hero is now a student at the Bologna styleoftheoldcomposers.The keenest pleasurethat Lyceum, and one of no common sort, if the following music ever gave me was experienced on hearing some summary of his attainments may he accepted as true: pieces by Palestrina at the Pontifical Chapel, in I8I2." He was master of all the secrets of the art of sing-But I had at Bologna a --who, when I asked the ing in such fashion as to be able to teach them to the reason of that which he made me do, pointed to the best artists in Italy.He could reduce full scores for authority of the schools.I sent him to the rightthe keyboard at Erst sight.He was a most finished about, and have consulted only my own taste."accompanist, and most capable of following and There is reason to believe, from what we know of anticipating the changes of time desired by the Rossini's doings at the Lyceum, that the foregoing tessingers.He had composed by instinct little duets timony is true-at least, in the sense that he was nof for two horns; a number of pieces for the voice and the mere melodist often described to us.For conclupianoforte; and, without having learnt a rule of counsive proof of the fact it almost suffices to mention terpoint, had written ' Demetrio e Polibio,' in which that Mattei often styled his brilliant pupil the '; little thequartet isastriking proofoftheinsightofgenius. German."Thanks to a friend Rossini made ac-The manner in which Rossini has combined the quaintance with the scores of Haydn and Mozart voices in that movement shows in eSect all that he and instinctively ilt that here was a higher order of had divined of the difficult art which he had not music than that which, in Italy, was cribbed, cabined been taught.As a pianist he played for his own and confined by the supremacy of the vocalist.The gratification a great number of concertos, sonatas, German masters gave him sisions of a new world and pieces of all sorts both by Italian and German full of vast possibilities for the genius which masters,andthatwhichheonceplayedhekeptintact eagerly longed to make it a reality Thenceforth in his memorar.He knew the horn, as we have he knew what to study, and lacked no stimulus already seen, and in the course of some lessons to the task.When free from Mattei's intolerable given to him by Rastrelli he mastered enough of formulas, and released from Cavedagni's violoncello the mechanism of the king of instruments to be cIass, the " little German ' might have been found able to continue his study alone....He learned practising Haydn and Mozart with some of his fellowalso to play a little on several wind instruments, but pupils or writing out full scores of their works from without masters.Some hints that he obtained from the parts; or, perhaps, busy at the town library with virtuosi sufficed, and when he had acquired the em-the compositions of a period before Italian art had bouchure and thefingering he troubled no further.sunkbeneaththefeetofmerevocalists.Itmayhave Hissoleobjectwastoknowenoughforgoodwriting." been that the lad's "pastorsand masters" looked Such was the youth, gifted, ardent, and ambitious, doubtfully upon his tendency to leave the orthodox whom Father Mattei took into his class.That worthy Italian fold, but they were just enough to commit to pedant found Gioacchino an enfant {errible, of the sort him, as the best student of the year (I808), the task of which Berlio2 must have been to another swallower composing a cantata for public performance.Thus of formulas, Lesueur.Mattei, as the pupil of Father came into being " Pianto d} Armonia per la morte Martini, and a prominent representative of his school, d} Orfei," a work for soli, chorus and orchestra, procould boast an authoritative position by inheritance, duced with success at Bologna on August II.After but in person he was simply the incarnation of this event, Rossini remained some months at the musical 4'red tape.'?He once published a manual Lyceuttl, and then, according to certain authorities which treated harmony in six pages and counter left abruptly, not to say rudely.We are told by the point in eight." Do this, and this," he said in effect, biographers in question how, Mattei having pointed " but don't do that, and that ;" and if a pupil asked out to his pupils that they knew enough to write " Why ?77 he was told that the rule enjoined, or operas, but not sacred music, Rossin; seized his hat the rule forbade, and had to be content with the exclaiming, "Venerable master, as my onlyambition answer.Imagine our vivacious and audacious lad is to write operas, I thank you with most profound under such a man-a young Pegasus with clipped gratitude for all the trouble you have taken " and vings describing circles in a mill !But Rossini did left the class never to return.M. Azevedo cails this not break out into open rebellion.Perhaps he re-a legend, and avers that, after haning studied fugue membered the blacksmith's shop, but, at any rate, he for ISve months subsequent to the production of his laboriously worked at the cut-and-dried lessons of his Cantata, the young man absented himself more and master, all the time acquiring, no doubt, some of the more often from the Lyceum, and thus gently broke contempt for scholasticism with which certain writers the bonds that had become intolerably irksome.have credited him.This was unfortunate, since it Rossini, his pupilage over, now fairly launched himgave some colour for a charge only founded on fact self upon the sea of life.to a very limited extent.The authority of Fetis may (To be continued.)be brought forward here.That musical historiographer tells us how, on one occasion Rossini said to GOLIAN MUSIC '; I should ha^re had a taste for cultivating the strict BY CARD ENGEL.forms of music, if a master able to explain the reason PERHAPS most musicians will be of opinion that of the rules had taught me counterpoint; but when I the wild and mysterious sounds of nature, of which I asked NIattei for information, he always responded, purpose to give some account, ought not to be called ' It is the custom to write thus.'He disgusted me music, since they do not emanate from the human