there is in it a warmth, a dramatic
life, and a strength in
all its effects, which are decidedly
not in the style of
Mozart. But Soliva, who is
a young man and full of the
warmest admiration for Mozart, has
imbibed certain tints of
his colouring.
The rest is too outrageously ridiculous to be quoted.
Whatever Beyle’s purely literary merits and
his achievements in fiction may be, I quite agree
with Berlioz, who remarks, a propos of this gentleman’s
Vie de Rossini, that he writes “les plus irritantes
stupidites sur la musique, dont il croyait avoir le
secret.” To which cutting dictum may be
added a no less cutting one of M. Lavoix fils, who,
although calling Beyle an “ecrivain d’esprit,”
applies to him the appellation of “fanfaron d’ignorance
en musique.” I would go a step farther
than either of these writers. Beyle is an ignorant
braggart, not only in music, but in art generally,
and such esprit as his art criticisms exhibit would
be even more common than it unfortunately now is,
if he were oftener equalled in conceit and arrogance.
The pillorying of a humbug is so laudable an object
that the reader will excuse the digression, which,
moreover, may show what miserable instruments a poor
biographer has sometimes to make use of. Another
informant, unknown to fame, but apparently more trustworthy,
furnishes us with an account of Soliva in Warsaw.
The writer in question disapproves of the Italian
master’s drill-method in teaching singing, and
says that as a composer his power of invention was
inferior to his power of construction; and, further,
that he was acquainted with the scores of the best
musicians of all times, and an expert in accompanying
on the pianoforte. As Elsner, Zywny, and the
pianist and composer Javurek have already been introduced
to the reader, I shall advert only to one other of
the older Warsaw musicians—namely, Charles
Kurpinski, the most talented and influential native
composer then living in Poland. To him and Elsner
is chiefly due the progress which Polish music made
in the first thirty years of this century. Kurpinski
came to Warsaw in 1810, was appointed second conductor
at the National Opera-house, afterwards rose to the
position of first conductor, was nominated maitre
de chapelle de la cour de Varsovie, was made a Knight
of the St. Stanislas Order, &c. He is said to
have learnt composition by diligently studying Mozart’s
scores, and in 1811 began to supply the theatre with
dramatic works. Besides masses, symphonies, &c.,
he composed twenty-four operas, and published also
some theoretical works and a sketch of the history
of the Polish opera. Kurpinski was by nature endowed
with fine musical qualities, uniting sensibility and
energy with easy productivity. Chopin did homage
to his distinguished countryman in introducing into
his Grande Fantaisie sur des airs polonais, Op. 13,
a theme of Kurpinski’s. Two younger men,
both born in 1800, must yet be mentioned to compete
the picture. One of them, Moritz Ernemann, a