A Toccata of Galupp's corresponds with Caliban. Here we have the low, sensuous, the fleshly school, with no outlook beyond the amusements of the immediate present; the scene, a ball-room in Venice. We hear the light foolish talk, scarcely lulled as the musician begins. "I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!" For the roar of the fugue we have a music like the thin chirp of a cricket, wonderfully imitated in the monosyllabic verse, a sort of grownup baby language, full of affectations; a silly, inane music which brings before us a ghastly vision of dead men and women, for whom life had no meaning at all. "Did young people take their pleasure, when the sea was warm in May? Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to midday, When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say? Then they left you for their pleasure, till in due time, one by one, And lastly there is Abt Vogler, the music of faith grand and mighty, which evokes the sense of spiritual presences, 66 Claiming each slave of the sound at a touch, as when Solomon willed building up a world of real harmony-a world true because ideal. "Ah, one and all how they helped, would dispart now, and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise," We are no longer shut in, as at Saxe-Gotha, in a church in which the lights are dying out one by one. We are watching a glorious cathedral grow before our eyes, and the glory is ever spreading, and the light is ever increasing, ascending higher and higher, until earth and heaven become one, and the bounds of space and time are lost in an eternal present. "For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire When a great illumination surprises a festal night), Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight." The lights are climbing from earth to the sky; we see terrace above terrace shine forth, and the lights are spirits ascending heavenward, even as in Jacob's vision of the angels, ascending ere they descended, and forming, as they lose themselves in the sky, a vision of a Church triumphant, such as Dante beheld in Paradise. "And another would mount and march like the excellent minion he was, Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, And the music ascends up and up, until the sense of effort is gone, for the highest pinnacle of earthly endeavour is reached, and then the soul sinks into the infinite and is lost, yet lives in the life and light of heaven. "The emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion to scale the sky : For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.” All is then seen not as it is to sense, but as it exists truly in the Divine idea, one day to come forth from the region of being to the region of consciousness. All the possibilities, which to us are not, but which truly are, the Divine ideas, one day to become existent in the visible. "Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow, Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, Lured now to begin and live." All that too is seen as existing, which to us was, and is not, but which truly is. "Or else the wonderful dead who have passed through the body and gone, But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new." And as the vision of the Infinite opens around, it becomes clear that no energy is lost, no true effort vain, for all life and energy are Divine, "evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound." The music of a holy life may die out on earth, but it exists for ever in the Eternal, the Unchanging, because it is the Divine idea. "All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by." But is it true, as some say, that the teaching of these earlier poems is superseded by that of the later, and so the poet has destroyed his own work? To me it seems that in the later poems there is a more restful faith than in the earlier; a belief less vehement, and therefore less struggling. Is there not a deep significance in the beautiful story of Alcestis (Balaustion's Adventure); a real consciousness which needs. not proof in Prospice, in some passages of the Ring and the Book, in A Wall, and in the beautiful prologue and epilogue of Fifine. The vehement questionings of La Saisiaz, what are they but the cries of a present grief, which we all utter, as we see some loved friend pass out of sight. We cry to the whirlwind, "Wherefore? whereto?" No answer comes, but the heart replies. "Traversed heart must tell its story uncommented on: no less In this present life as failure, count misfortune's worst assaults I grant that in the later poems he cares less to formulate. As we climb higher and our vision widens, that which once seemed the whole truth now takes its place as part only of a larger, more embracing unity. In our individual lives, as in the world's history, we follow the sun in his course; but horizons change, and we never reach the land of light; truth recedes, but it is to tempt us onward; the crystal spheres of the world's childhood are broken, and if for a moment the soul futters down and stands panting upon some solid cliff, she rises thence having plumed her pinions for a longer flight; she returns again and again only to renew her strength, and at last, in all the might of a great trust in the All-good, she wings her flight into the infinite unknown. This utter trust is proved only when we can go forth, as the faithful of old, not knowing whither we go. "truth is truth in each degree; Thunderpealed by God to nature, whispered by my soul to me. Nay, the weakness turns to strength and triumphs in a strength beyond: 'Mine is but man's truest answer-how were it did God respond?' I shall no more dare to mimic such response in futile speech, Pass off human lisp as echo of the sphere-song out of reach." "Only a learner, Quick one or slow one, Just a discerner, I would teach no one." (Pisgah Sights.) The lesson taught in the earlier poem of Saul is repeated in the latest, that the Divine love shed abroad in our hearts is the witness for a Divine love which we can trust for ever and ever; and it is the strength of this inner consciousness, the witness of the Spirit, that has enabled the poet-seers of all ages to sing loud above the storm-waves their Gloria in excelsis. "Soul that canst soar! Body may slumber, Body shall cumber Soul-flight no more. "Waft of soul's wing! What lies above? XVII. AN ACCOUNT OF ABBÉ VOGLER. (FROM FÉTIS & NISARD.) BY MISS ELEANOR MARX. THE Abbé George Joseph Vogler was born at Würzburg (Bavaria) on the 15th June, 1749. His father, a musical instrument maker, had the boy taught the clavecin, but George soon surpassed his master. Alone," and without any instruction, he learnt to play upon several instruments, and also invented a new system of fingering, which he subsequently taught in his schools. Abt Vogler began his humanities in the Jesuit College of his native town, and concluded his studies at the Jesuit Seminary of Bamberg. In 1771 he went to Mannheim, where he obtained permission to compose a ballet for the Court Theatre. Charles Theodore, the Elector Palatine, now became his patron, and at his own expense sent Vogler to study counterpoint under the direction of Father Martini at Bologna. Vogler, however, soon wearied of the old teacher's slow method, and with characteristic impatience left him after six weeks. He now proceeded to Padua, and while studying theology there, also took lessons in harmony and musical composition with Father Valotti. This time the pupil proved more persevering, and remained with his instructor for five months. Valotti's system of harmony delighted Vogler, who founded his own system upon it. His theological studies. ended, Vogler set out for Rome, where he was ordained priest. In spite of his youth, the Abbé seems to have already enjoyed a certain reputation, for he met with a most sympathetic reception in the Eternal City. He was even made "apostolic protonotary, chamberlain to the Pope, chevalier of the Golden Spur, and member of the Academy of 'Arcades' (?)." In 1775 he returned to Mannheim, where his first act was to open a School of Music. He now published several works: 1 an exposition of his Theory of Music and Composition (Tonwissenschaft und A complete list is given in Nisard's Vie de L'Abbé Vogler. BROWNING, 3. Tonsetzkunst); on the art of forming the voice (Stimmbildungskunst), &c. These publications raised a critical storm against Vogler, who was accused of "charlatanism," and of not producing in his famous school the wonderful results he had predicted. Nevertheless, this school did produce some illustrious musicians. The names of Winter, Knecht, and Ritter speak for themselves. During the latter years of his residence at Mannheim, Vogler had been appointed chaplain and second kappel-meister, and at this period composed a "Miserere," of which Mozart speaks very slightingly. Indeed Mozart is so bitter that one is tempted to accept M. Fétis' suggestion that he owed the Abbé some personal grudge. In 1779 Charles Theodore succeeded to the Electorate of Bavaria, and settled down at Munich, whither Vogler followed him. Towards 1780 Vogler had composed a little opera, The Merchant of Smyrna, an overture and some entr'actes to Hamlet; Ino, a ballet, and Lampredo, a melodrama. In 1781 his opera Albert III. was produced at the Court Theatre of Munich. This did not meet with the admiration its composer had anticipated, and he shortly after resigned his posts of chaplain and master of the choir. There is some doubt as to Vogler's next movements, but it is probable that, tired of being a continual butt for the German critics, he went abroad to appeal to the musicians of other nations. At any rate he was in Paris in 1783, and his comic opera La Kermesse was brought out, but failed so signally that the performance could not be concluded. After this failure Vogler travelled in Spain, Greece, and the East, returning to Europe in 1786, when he proceeded to Sweden, and was there appointed Kapel-meister1 to the King. About this time Vogler had the "musical instrument of his invention," which he called an "Orchestrion," constructed.2 In 1789 Vogler himself performed upon his "instrument" at Amsterdam, but with no success. Certain enthusiastic admirers exalted the orchestrion above the most beautiful organs of Holland, with the result that other critics had recourse to violent accusations in order to depreciate Vogler's invention. The latter now went to London with his organ, and in January 1790 gave a series of concerts. These proved eminently successful; the Abbé realized some £1200 (30,000 francs), and made a name He 1 It is difficult to say what Vogler's functions as kappel-meister were. might have been simply the director of the church choir, or, as is probable, director also of the orchestra, and charged with superintending all the musical productions at Court. 2 This was a very compact organ, in which four key-boards of five octaves each, and a pedal board of thirty-six keys, with swell complete, were packed into a cube of nine feet, See Fétis's Biographie Universelle des Musiciens.— G. Grove. |