tivation in the part he assigns to Raphael in The Creation, which renders that voice the most prominent and striking, as well as the most frequent in the Oratorio. We have it on the authority of the late SIGNORA STORACE, who was at Vienna at the time, we believe, that this apparent predilection arose out of the casual incident of their being no tenor of eminence in that city, but a bass of great finish and excellence, when HAYDN composed his immortal work.Whatever may have been the cause, the effect is peculiarly fortunate for this description of vocalists, since they will no longer be doomed to bear the burden of the orchestra, and to plod on in strains "full of heaviness," and unentwined by those embellishments of fancy, which taste had so long allotted to companions who were raised through a preference of composers now found to be unjust, to the rank of superiors by an incalculable elevation. Though PERGOLESI and some other of the composers for the Italian Church and Opera had mixed more of elegance with their works than is to be found in those of HANDEL, in his Oratorios more especially, the flow of melody and fine air, which HAYDN introduced, appeared to create an entirely new style. GUGLIELMI* had indeed lightened the manner of his writings

* PIERRE GUGLIELMI, son of JAQUES GUGLIELMI, master of the chapel of the DUKE OF MODENA, was born at Massa di Carrara. He studied music under his father till he was 18, when he was sent to the conservatory of Loreto, at Naples. The celebrated DURANTE then directed this school, from whǝnce PICCINI, SACCHINI, CIMAROSA, MAIO, TRAJETTA, PAISTELLO, &c. have issued.

GUGLIELMI did not announce any great disposition for music, but Durante subjected him to the dry studies of counterpoint and composition. He left the conservatory at the age of 28, and composed, nearly directly, for the principal theatres of Italy, Comic and Serious Operas, in both of which he succeeded equally well. He was sent for to Vienna, to Madrid, to London, and returned to Naples, being then in his 50th year. It was at this epoch that his faculties acquired their greatest activity, and that his genius shed its greatest lustre. He found the theatre at Naples occupied by the great talents of PAISIELLO and CIMAROSA, who there disputed the palm. He revenged himself nobly on the latter, of whom he had cause to complain. He opposed a work to each work of his adversary, and constantly conquered him.

POPE PIUS VI offered GUGLIELMI, in 1793, the situation of master of the chapel of St. Peter. This retreat gave him (then 65) an opportunity of distinguishing himself in church music.

GUGLIELMI'S works are reckoned at more than two hundred. The best are the operas of Le Due Gemelle, La Pastorella Nobile, and among his oratorios, La Morte d'Oloferne, and Debora. ZINGARELLI looked upon this last as the chef d'oeuvre of GUGLIELMI. Musicians discover in this composer simple and elegant melodies, a clear and supported harmony, and whole pieces full of fancy and originality.

He died on the 19th of November, 1804, in his 77th year.

for the basses as well as CIMAROSA, PAISIELLO, and other Italians of the Neapolitan school the upils of DURANTE. But to HAYDN belongs he peculiar refinement which sufficed wholly to change the manner, from excellencies merely mechanical, to strong, impressive, and delicate expression. What these and other composers have done in small detached parts, he did as a whole. He combined, concentrated, & produced an entire character, (his Raphael) which we venture to say will establish for ever the practice of allotting to bass voices

* DOMINICA CIMAROSA was born at Naples in 1754, and died at Venice on the 11th of January, 1801, hardly 46 years old. He received his first lessons in music from APRILI, and entered the conservatory of Loretto, where he studied the principles of the school of DURANTE. In 1787 he went to Petersburgh, by the command of the Empress Catherine II. to compose some operas. The following are those which he composed in Italy, and which have been enthusiastically applauded in all the European theatres.

L'Italiana in Londra, 1779, Il Convito, I due Baroni, Gli inimici generosi, Hpittore paregino, 1782; Artaserse di Metastasio, 1785; Il Falegname, 1785, I duo supposti Conte, 1786; Volodimiro, La Ballerina amante, Le trame deluse, 1787; L'impresario in angustie, Il credulo, Il marito desperato, Il fanatico burlato, 1788; Il convitato di Pietra, 1789; Giannina e Bernardone, La Villanella riconosciuta, Le astuzzic femilini, 1790; Il matrimonio segreto, 1793; I traci amanti, Il matrimonio per sussurio; La Penelope, L'Olimpiade, Il sacrificio d' Abramo, 1794; Gli amante comici, 1797; Gli Orazi.

The last comic opera of CIMAROSA is L'imprudente fortunato, represented at Venice in 1800. L'Artemisia was never finished. The first act only was composed by CIMAROSA; other composers have endeavoured to add to it the two last, but without success. The public caused the curtain to be dropped in the middle of the second act.

All the operas of CIMAROSA are celebrated for their invention, the originality of the ideas, the richness of the accompaniments, and the disposition of the effects of the scene, and particularly in the buffo style. The principal part of his ideas are di prima interzione (first thoughts). One feels in hearing each piece, that they have been composed, as it were, at a stroke. The enthusiasm with which Il matrimonio segreto was received, cannot be conceived. In one word, this work fixed the mobility of the Italians.

CIMAROSA presided at the piano at the theatre of Naples during the first seven representations, a circumstance never before known. At Vienna, the Emperor being present at the first representation, invited the singers and musicians to a banquet, and on the same evening sent them back to the theatre, where they performed the piece a second time.

Many traits of modesty are related, which added to the glory of this great musician. A painter wishing to flatter him, said, that he looked upon him as superior to MOZART. Me, Sir! replied he rather rudely, what would you say to a man who told you that you were superior to RAPHAEL?

Amateurs are divided between MOZART and CIMAROSA, considered as dramatic composers. His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon one day asked GRETRY, what was the difference between them? Sire, replied GRETRY, CIMAROSA puts the statute on the theatre and the pedestal in the orchestra, instead of which MOZART puts the statue in the orchestra and the pedestal on the theatre,

passages of graceful melody, and such as will allow of considerable spontaneous ornament. Another circumstance which more forcibly recommend his improvements to our countrymen has been, that they came in an English dress. We consider the Oratorio as almost indigenous here, and it it be not absolutely so, there is no sort of composition that has been so old or so universal a favorite with the British public. Operas and Ballads flourish and decay; even those for a time the most popular, but the Oratorio has hitherto survived amidst every variety of science, and every change of fashion and opinion.

Perhaps it is to a cause, similar to that which originally turned the attention of the German Orpheus to a new style of embellishments for the bass, that we may attribute the beautiful compositions of DR CALLCOTT, DR. CROTCH, and MR. BISHOP for that voice, who appear to have followed in the path that HAYDN marked out, though each of our countrymen have preserved his own line of originality, distinct and separate. HAYDN himself scarcely excepted, we know of no author who has produced such songs as "Angel of life”. and "These as they change" by the former, not to enumerate the glorious basses with which his glees abound. These were probably elicited by the powers of MR. BARTLEMAN, as well as by the desire which composers could not fail to have of engaging the popularity of so favourite a singer in the performance of their works, and the obligation has in a measure been reciprocated, for if the talents of MR. BARTLEMAN bestowed a superior lustre upon songs of so pure, delightful, original, and expressive a cast, by the agency of the powerful apprehension with which he entered into the ideas of the composer, by the energy and polish with which he sung. Thes productions of English genius, we very truly assert, have assisted mainly in diversifying a style, by which it had been always found difficult to retain the public attention and regard, and in fixing in the general mind a firmer acquaintance with a new and more captivating grace of manner, than he could have ever done by his manner of singing HANDEL OF PURCELL, however excellent it intrinsically may be.

These may be reckoned among the triumphs of German and English music, and perhaps so far as national style is concerned, they are not among the least. We cannot venture to compare any modern instance of the advance in art with those of DR. CALLCOTT'S

in the songs we have above cited, and in such glees as, "Who comes so dark " and " Peace to the souls of the heroes." MR. STEVENS in "Some of my heroes are low" has gone along nearly passibus équis with the Doctor, and MR. HORSLEY has, since that, exceeded almost every other writer in the delicacy of expression, and the fine flowing melody of his glces. But it is to be observed, that this is a species of composition, in which the English have eminently excelled, and which has about it, really more of the true unborrowed nationality, than any other. In these pieces the bass appears almost uniformly in his new character, and in the commanding place and authority now conceded to him.

But while the English music has thus attained a rank not before known, and does indeed owe to these, its later preservers, all the distinction that remains to national composers in our concerts, novelties at present, perhaps the most fashinable, have made their way to the orchestra. These are the songs and concerted pieces of the Italian Comic Opera. For the last two or three years scarcely a miscellaneous bill has been seen in the metropolis, that has not drawn nearly a moiety of its contents from this source. At the moment we are writing, a newspaper lies before us, announcing the monstrous anomaly of SIGNOR AMBROGETTI singing the song of "Non piu andrai" from MOZART's Comic Opera of Figaro, in the course of an Oratorio at Drury-lane Theatre, while this amusement is substituting for the regular drama, during the season of Lent.— We cannot select a case, which so pointedly marks the growing taste, for nothing can be more repugnant to the propriety and feeling, which we should be induced to pre-suppose, would govern the selection upon such an occasion.† These songs and duetts are generally for a bass voice, and they have been rendered more popular by the delightful conjoint execution of MR. and MRS LACY. We say more popular, for while we confess the prejudice, we cannot but admit that there is undoubtedly a consentaneous feeling of enjoyment, that never fails to accompany our attention to a fellow

*We may instance "By Celia's arbour" a composition, which in the expressive as well as scientific management of the parts, and in the attributes we have cited, is certainly not excelled by any writer, ancient or modern.

+ This reminds us that at a sacred performance in a Country Church in Suffolk, given more than 20 years ago, at the opening of a new organ. RICHARDS, late of the Bath theatre, played a violin concerto upon the well known air of Corporal Casey. The writer was present.

countryman, in preference to foreigners. We have a sort of vague impression, that we are less removed from native habits, that we are more at home, more at case. MRS. LACY has long been esteemed for her beautiful pronunciation of Italian, and her purity of manner, MR. LACY has, however, by study in Italy, so entirely mastered both the language and the style of singing, that he has appeared to superior advantage, even by the side of the most approved Italians who have visited our shores.*

Such have been the varieties which have contributed to transmute the originally heavy, and in this sense monotonous tone of bass singing, into the polished, affecting, and graceful manner, which at present enables the performer to introduce almost every species of or nament in use, where such ornament was never heard before, and the legitimate bass voice may now add pathos to solemnity, lightness to power, and passages of elegance to the divisions, to which we can as sign no other name than mechanical. But in the But in the progress of these metamorphoses, there has been no small danger of the real and genuine bass voice disappearing altogether. For inasmuch as the passages of expression and execution, which composers, consulting a pleasing, more perhaps than the natural defect, have now allotted to these parts, requires a facility which at first appears unattainable, so lighter voices have been substituted, and almost all the singers who have sustained bass parts of late years with reputation, have been Barytones, or of a compass which gives the high notes with greater sweetness and ease, and the low notes more feebly,† a voice in short between tenor and bass.

* We do not think the Opera has for the last 25 years been at all famous for its basses. MORELLI was about that time in high repute, but he could not be said to be a good orchestra singer. ROVEDINO was powerful, but coarse and unfinished, and NALDI had almost as little to recommend him in concert.

+In the works of PURCELL and CROFT, we find the bass parts descending to E D, and in some anthems even lower notes are, we believe, to be found, Now we observe, that even where the low F occurs, the composer generally appends a little note an octave higher in the staff, thus tacitly admitting the probability of the singer not being able to sustain the lower tone. One of the anthems to which we allude was produced by a very curious series of incident, which Sir John Hawkins thus relates :

The King (Charles the second) had given orders for building a yacht, which, as soon as it was finished, he named The Fubbs in honour of the Duchess of Portsmouth, who, we may suppose, was in her person rather full and plump.— · The sculptors and painters apply this epithet to children, and say, for instance, of the boys of FIAMMENGO, that they are fubby. Soon after the vessel was