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164 National Music of the World.
I do not recollect one respectable Italian waltz. The two which Signor Verdi has attempted in his operas are the most paltry of the paltry; and Signor Rossini's ' Guillaume Tell,' which contains a capital specimen of a waltz as sequel to a quick step, cannot be considered as an Italian opera. There is one excellent French specimen, by M. Gounod, but this is in the 'Fair-scene' from his 'Faust'—a proof how admirably he has caught up the character and colour of his subject; a tune for which I would give libraries of 'concealed melody' (we have absolutely lived to hear of such a curiosity), and of the doleful settings of dreamy words which have come to pass with our neighbours for songs. But this is the only essay in the waltz style by a Frenchman, which I remember as sufferable.15 Adam, a composer who had a taste for colour; Musard, who as managing a galoppe was as national as Strauss, and as inimitable, could make nothing of the rhythm. The South Germans are born waltzers, and the Northerns, not unwilling, are bred ones.
Space permits me to go no further in the separate specification of the threads (so to say), all of which, however, lying apart as they do, and belonging to
15 Conditions in the present day are somewhat different. — Ed. |
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