It may be here said, that the virtual abandonment of the ballet at Covent Garden, except as an accessory to grand Opera, or merely as filling half an hour in an evening's performance, makes further record of dances and divertissements unnecessary.—Interest in dancing seems for the present to have died out in London.—In fact, wherever a strong and wholesome taste for dramatic music increases;—the other entertainment must hold a secondary place,—unless some new Genius should appear, like Mdlle. Taglioni, to delight us with her modest and poetical grace,—or like Mdlle. Fanny Elssler, by her union of brilliant execution and admirable pantomime.

The foregoing list of operas will show an increase of the tendency towards works of the German school. In its second season, however, the Italianized version of “Der Freischütz” proved unattractive, in spite of the appearance of Signor Tamberlik in the tenor part.—Nor could the same artist's excellent singing as Florestan overcome the apathy of the public to the version of “Fidelio,” performed in Covent Garden for the first time.—The audience encored one of the magnificent four “Leonora” overtures prefixed to the second act; but the performance, as a whole, was, somehow, not right—not German;—careful, but languid.—Madame Castellan did her utmost to be womanly; but she was neither sufficiently intense nor touching as Leonora, and the music tore her voice—an organ which had never been altogether regulated.

It is impossible to forget the odd events of this season, by which the ruin of Italian Opera, in the Haymarket, was pushed a substantial step forward. There was great apparent bustle—small real result.

Three new operas were produced.—The worthiest of these was Signor Costa's “Don Carlos” which opera had, nevertheless, not the good fortune to please the public.—Everyone knows the honours paid to a prophet in his own country; but there may have been other reasons why a work, so conscientiously written in the Italian style, was denied a place on the stage.—Elsewhere, the general possibility of any great conductor being a great composer, has been considered. An inventor must have the strength of a Hercules, and the self-abstraction of a Simon Stylites, who, having dealt with the inventions of others incessantly, can give to his own fantasies and creations any remarkable individuality and freshness.—Then, the story of “Don Carlos” is a singularly gloomy and painful one for an opera-book. The contriver of words and situations for music has no power of redeeming the oppressive sorrow of its incidents—as a Schiller could do for the spoken drama, by the elevated nobility of his De Posa.—Divested of subtleties of character, the play becomes a strained melodrama, without any redeeming novelty of situation.

The “old house” then, was fairly beaten out of the field by the new one. And, after all that had been whispered, and asserted, and published in print, the Italian Opera in Covent Garden had entirely superseded the house in the Haymarket, with all its traditional Fashion.—How certain persons had clung to this, with a constancy peculiar to loyal England, can hardly be believed. They had sworn (and, I am convinced, honestly,) that to drive five minutes further towards so vulgar a locality was impossible,—forgetting how the play-houses there had been mobbed by persons of taste, intelligence, and rank, to see John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons.—They had overlooked in their own dear domain the extinction of Fop's Alley,—and such sights in the pit as misbehaviours which would have made a chapter on manners in Mrs. Trollope's American experiences. They had endured bad music—they had defended inferior performances—on the plea that it would not do for any manager to yield to the dictation of a subordinate (the onus of the new establishment having been conveniently laid on Signor Costa's separation from the theatre). They had appealed to this and to the other printed praise of every performer, male or female, who had appeared in turn;—while, also, they had virtually declared that, when “one particular star” had vanished, the entertainment was no longer worth frequenting.—But there was no questioning the fact that, long before 1853 set in, the tide, fashionable and unfashionable, had turned to Covent Garden to hear great musical performances—and that in 1853 “the dear old house” was closed.

Neither of Donizetti's new operas had any success. Not a bar of “Fausta” lives; and only a song and a duett from “Roberto Devereux” are remembered. Queen Elizabeth has never been fortunate as an opera heroine : neither (by-the-way) has been Mary Stuart.

It was a matter of no common interest to be allowed to hear Cimarosa's “Gli Orazi,” though the tragedy was only executed “after a fashion.” But the hearing of the opera—when due allowance was afforded for all drawbacks—revealed the vast change which had passed over musical Drama, since that operatic setting of Corneille's play had been written. The music—the final duett excepted—seemed, on its revival, pleasing, but feeble beyond the power of acting to animate; telling of a time when the pleasure of the ear was cared for on the Opera-stage, without any close reference to dramatic truth or dignity. The old heroes and heroines stepped the boards rather than presented characters. Lord Mount-Edgecumbe recollects how the Gabrielli, (in her day more talked of than Mademoiselle Lind), “tucked up her hoop,” as Dido, ere she sidled into the flames of Carthage.—Even Malibran's sister, full of young dramatic fervour, could do nothing for the heroine, as draped by Cimarosa, analogous to that which Rachel did, when she electrified all Paris in the revival of the formal “Les Horaces” of Corneille. “Gli Orazi” is a weak opera—let it be taken how it will.

This was a bad and disappointing season, marked with little novelty worth commemorating.—Donizetti's “Gemma di Vergy,” and Signor Mercadante's “Elena da Feltre,” were new to our Italian stage. Neither produced the slightest sensation. The latter had been more fortunate in an English dress, owing to the remarkable acting and singing of Miss Adelaide Kemble.

And here, seeing that a young English lady, in spite of the disadvantages of a translated version, and of comrades unused to Italian music, could gain a success for an unknown opera in London—which an Italian prima donna, in all the plenitude of promise and power—I mean Madame Frezzolini—was unable to do—a word or two are not misplaced, in a chronicle of great singers, regarding another great interpreter.

Such was Miss Adelaide Kemble: a musical artist in right of resolution, rather than liberal nature. Her voice, originally limited, had been moulded, rendered flexible, and extended in compass, by study and incessant practice, till it became capable of every inflexion, of every possible brilliancy.—More honest singing than its owner's I have never heard,—add to this, command of four languages and four styles of music, and poetical aspiration borne out by intellectual culture, by habitual commerce with all that is most refined and most thoughtful;—and the result could only be what it was—the greatest English singer (though not the best of this century), a poetical and thoughtful artist, whose name will never be lost so long as the art of dramatic singing is spoken of.

Music! daughter of the Muses! how shall we penetrate thy nature deeply enough to arrive at a clear perception of the purpose and duties of our calling, and to lead with certainty those that are confided to our guidance?

Or are we already fully acquainted with the powers and destiny that dwell in this heavenly child? Do we know all that it can offer and give, all that it will demand and take from us? Is it sufficient that music has been made and heard centuries before we were born, and that all of us have heard and made music from our earliest childhood?

If this ordinary external observation is sufficient to lead us to a clear and full understanding, whence all the doubts and uncertainties of which we are witness? whence that narrowness of plan and idea which we cannot even conceal from ourselves? Whence all this contradiction, these bitter quarrels, about the most simple and most pressing questions that relate to our calling? Whence the internal uncertainty of so many honest teachers and artists; this disinclination to acknowledge the merits of others, this exclusiveness and secret enmity of which we see such frequent examples in the musical world?

This book—an attempt to disseminate in a wider circle the fruits of many years' experience and observation—was commenced with the pen at a time when Europe, with a few individual exceptions, did not seem to perceive in the Oriental question anything more than a vexatious misunderstanding, or, at most, the outburst of a fire which might, it was thought, be easily and with certainty kept within a circumscribed locality. The work has been concluded, however, under the thunders of cannon, which roll, like the deep voice of prophecy, from Sebastopol even to the extreme verges of Europe.

But what have these prognostics of mighty revolutions to do with a little book on the cultivation of the most timid of all arts?

Even though, in the midst of these mighty events, of which we have as yet seen only the beginning, the art of sound be but as the thoughtless lark that once fluttered timidly in the ashy rain of Vesuvius, which covered the doomed cities with a soil productive of new germs of life; and even though this book be of no greater weight than a stalk of grass or a feather in the nest of the lark; still, reader, whatever be our position and whatever our vocation, we must comprehend that in our persons and with our labours we do not exist for ourselves, but in connexion and living intercourse with the world to which we belong. Nothing exists by and for itself; everything exercises a certain amount of influence upon all things around, and is affected by them in return.

If I have succeeded in conveying to my readers a general idea of the nature and development of our art, there remains only one thing to be done, in order to enable us to come to a clear understanding respecting the end and means of musical culture. We have to examine the present state of our art, and endeavour to discover its future course of development. Once more—and for the last time—I must bespeak the patience of the more lively amongst my brother artists, who are inclined to look upon every thing as useless which does not promise to lead to an immediate practical result; the more so, as I shall have to direct their attention to many wellknown matters. Let them remember how many hours they have been obliged to spend over their “finger exercises” and “schools of agility!”

There is scarcely any sphere of science or art in which so much has been done, and so many labourers been at work as in music. In Germany, particularly, treasures and stores of all kinds, gathered from all times and all countries, have been accumulated to an almost inconceivable extent. To what purpose shall we apply these treasures, and what shall we do afterwards?

The sources whence all these riches have sprung, supply us with an answer to these questions.

Amongst the sources of musical art, there are two—the national song and church music—which have, at all times, been the most prolific.

It was the mystery of art which we endeavoured to fathom in our last investigation. Those amongst my fellow labourers who do not live “from hand to mouth,” who are not satisfied with merely trotting over the ground of their daily work, but look about and before them, will not require to be told that an investigation of such a nature cannot be successfully carried out, unless we enter as deeply into the matter as our powers permit.

The mystery of art consists in that perfect blending of the spiritual and material elements,—of the inner life with the outer world—in that embodiment of the spirit, and spiritualization of sensual things which calls forth the energy of will and power which we have designated by the term of “creative love.” It is impossible to contemplate this mystery of art without being forcibly reminded of that of the Hindoos and other nations of antiquity respecting the incarnation of divinity,—the appearance of the Supreme Spirit in human or animal shape, and the assumption of the divine nature by beings born mortal and finite. Both mysteries refer to the commencement of all things; they touch upon the insoluble enigma of man's existence. Is man a twofold being, consisting of an immortal, creative, and governing spirit, and a perishable body serving as its temporal abode and obedient organ?

Where do we stand? Whither are we going in our art? May we expect of it new revelations, a new circle of ideas, and a new phase of development; or what destiny awaits it in the further existence of nations?

To these questions we have been led by the contemplation of the present state of music.

But it may be asked: Are we, short-sighted mortals, able to penetrate the future? May not those apparitions which we persuade ourselves to be signs of the future turn out mere idle dreams, possibly to be convicted of their fallacy by the very next day, and laughed to scorn, with all their cares and hopes and preparations, by the bright splendour of to-morrow's rising sun?

I ask, in reply: Can we evade this question of the future? Is it possible for us, even if we had the wish, to confine our thoughts to that moment of time which we term the present; and which, whilst we are naming it, disappears already in the stream of the past; leaving us to the next moment of time, which just now belonged to the future, but has become present, until it shall have passed away as swiftly as the former? To him who labours, the future is an inseparable continuation of the present: his work of yesterday was intended for to-day, and continues to live, together with him and the work which this day has brought forth.

At a time like the present, when all the relations of Europe are disturbed, when all minds are excited, and all interests—whether of a political, religious, social, or industrial nature—are left unsatisfied and anxiously waiting to be appeased: at such a time, the lover and disciple of art cannot refrain from asking questions, like those which are now so common—“What is our present position? What have we got, and what do we wish to obtain? What is needful for us, and whither are we going, or towards what are we drawn by the force of necessity?” In our art, too, as all will be ready to acknowledge, much has been achieved and great things gained. Not only has its number of votaries infinitely increased, but it has also assumed, in two directions, a character too important to be overlooked, and sufficiently complex to require a thorough examination.

One of these directions is that towards the past. The creations of our forefathers are now no longer known only to the learned, nor lie dormant in rare and inaccessible libraries; they have again come to life, like those grains of wheat which, after four thousand years' concealment in the hands of Egyptian mummies, were sown in our soil and brought forth fruit. The works of Bach, Eckard, Schütz, the Gabrielis, Palestrina, and Lattre, have again become accessible to every lover of music, and have been frequently performed and analysed.