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no National Music of the World. |
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wreath of black flowers, screamed so at the grand opera as to shock Horace Walpole,—the Madame Lais, whom Moore, I think, signalised in his ' Fudge Family' for like ear-piercing qualities, were long the types of French singers who entirely contented their public, and were commemorated by the wits and epigram writers—not as so many muses, but as so many nightingales. In old Italian scores, when the singer was to force out one of those violences to which Signor Verdi has hardened southern ears, the direction was ' tin nolo Francese,' a French scream. Times have changed with the singers of France.
These peculiarities cannot but have imparted a certain tone and cast to French melody on the one hand, while on the other the esprit rather than the fancy of the poets has encouraged in it turns, surprises, in which quaint and modish cleverness is more remarkable than natural beauty. And this not without grace, inasmuch as Watteau is graceful. There must be a corner kept for the world of revels at the Trianon, as well as for those in the Corso, by all who are not bowed, and braced and barred by their own narrowness into one form of Art. |
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