Note (return) — PART I.

In the physical sciences, we have surpassed the nations who excelled in music; in war we have equalled their most glorious feats; in poetry and oratory we are not inferior. Shall not our future history also tell of triumphs in the tuneful art? We believe that sooner or later, the time will surely come when our country in her turn will boast of masters in the art, whose memories will ever be preserved and hallowed. But whatever the future may bring forth, the marvellous accounts of the powers of ancient music will meet with little indulgence from modern scepticism. At present such effects are unknown among us, and therefore unintelligible. Among the early Greeks, for many centuries, the several characters of poet, musician, lawgiver, and philosopher, were combined in the same individual; and it is probable that the music of that period consisted principally of recitative or musical declamation. This species of composition, so utterly neglected and unknown to the English school, possesses great powers of expression, both when in its simple form and when accompanied. A modern example of the effects it is capable of is recorded by Tartini. He relates, in the following terms, as one of many similar instances which had come under his observation:—"In the 14th year of the present century, (the 18th,) in the opera they were performing at Ancona, there was at the beginning of the 3d act a line of recitative, unaccompanied by any instruments but the bass, by which, equally among the professors and the audience, was raised such and so great a commotion of mind, that all looked in one another's faces, on account of the evident change of colour which took place in each. The effect was not that of grief, (I very well remember that the words expressed indignation,) but that of a certain congealing and coldness of the blood, which completely disturbed the mind. Thirteen times was the drama repeated, and the same effect always followed universally; a palpable sign of which was the deep previous silence with which the audience prepared themselves to enjoy its effects."14