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160 National Music of the World.
The Poles had every sort of instrument, and great musical schools, less largely fed by assistance from Italy than any contemporaries of which traces are to be found. Of late, they have sent out players on certain instruments, the violin and pianoforte, to every coiner of the earth : such as Duranowski, who is said to have suggested his effects to Paganini, and Lipinski, just dead; and not merely men of such high standing, but a host of trained executants ready for subordinate occupation. M. Sowinski, in his book, mentions that so lately as 1833-34 there was a large and rich military band at Bourges, in France, entirely composed of exiled Poles. If they have been less eminent as vocal writers and composers, the fault may have lain in their language, which, with its heaps of consonants—the letter z being especially prominent—outvies in every line of their verse the exceptional names satirically introduced by Milton into his well-known ' Tetrachordon' sonnet.
Then there is the National Music of Bohemia, with a distinct character of its own, and an original power which has engraven deep traces on the works of what may be called cultivated artists. The extent and reality of this have been overlooked, because the |
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