OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

RUSSIAN AND TURKISH MUSIC.

In the obscure period preceding the origin of the great civilizer, Peter I., the Muscovites knew scarcely more than one melody, to which different words were adapted according to the circumstances. "It served alike," says an old author, "the unhappy man for his lamentations; the drunkard for his bacchanalian song; the laborer for his diversion when overcome with weariness; the driver for encouragement to his horses; and the young for regulating their steps in the dance." Among the instruments that were used to accompany this universal melody we notice the goudok, a species of violin having three strings, of which the chanterelle was played pizzicata, while a very short bow was drawn over the other two strings. (These bass strings must have acted like a double pedal accompaniment—i.e. two immovable notes, for the performer had not, so far as we know, a third hand to vary the intonation.) Then there was the balalai-ka, a kind of guitar with two strings; the doutka an exact copy of the double pipes of antiquity; the gousli, or horizontal harp, approaching the zither or psalterion; the valinca, which was a species of bagpipe, etc. All of this was very primitive and a little savage. However, music was noticeably more advanced in the southern province of Ukraine. "Many of the inhabitants of this portion of the country went to Moscow or St. Petersburg, and entered the service of the nobles in the capacity of musicians. They had, and have still, very fine voices. They formed almost the entire choir of the imperial chapel.... The Ukrainians all love music and the dance, and seem to have no occupation more important than that of amusing themselves. They excel particularly on the bandora, with which they accompany their songs of a tender or lively character."

It was hardly until the time of Peter the Great—that is to say, in the early part of the last century—that European music was introduced into Russia. "The czar appointed a certain number of young men, who were taught to play on trumpets, kettle-drums, hautboys and bassoons; and so that the public might be in a state to judge of their progress, he commanded that every day at noon they should perform, some of them in the belfry of the Admiralty, the others in the belfry of the fortress.... While he was at table cornets à bouguin and sackbuts (trombones) were played. The violins and bass-viols were reserved for court balls." But it was not until the reign of the czarina Anne that a troupe of Italian singers established themselves at St. Petersburg. The first opera played by them in this capital was entitled Abiazare: the score was by the Florentine maëstro Araya, chapel-master of the court. It was to the empress Elizabeth, "née avec une âme sensible," that the town of Moscow owed the building of its first theatre. The opera with which it was inaugurated was La Clemenza di Tito, a poem of Metastasio's, the music by Hasse, with a prologue of Araya's entitled La Russia afflitta e riconsolata.

From this time on the musical part of Russia maintained uninterrupted relations with Italy. Araya's successors were Galuppi, Iraetta, Sarti, Cimarosa, Federico Ricci (author of Crispino e la Comare). We must add to the list Boieldieu, who in the first part of this century occupied the envied position of chapel-master to the czar.

And now let us pass over the Pruth. It would be difficult in an article of a few lines to give an exact idea of the Turkish music, for in order to do this it is necessary to treat the question from an acoustic point of view.

In fact, the Oriental gamut differs from ours very essentially, as it contains quarter tones. Our ears, educated to the semitone as minimum interval, cannot seize any melodious meaning in the midst of these heteroclite sounds. However, the Turkish music, well suited to the dance, is not lacking in rhythm. The principal instruments used to mark the time are the daul, or great drum; the tomboleh, or small drum; the kios, a brass drum; the triangle, etc.... As for the other instruments, they are—the sinekeman, a violin of large dimensions; the nei, flute made of a reed; the ghirif, little flute; the kânon, a psalterion with strings of catgut, which is particularly in favor in the harems, etc.... In Constantinople in 1828 (by Farlane) we read: "The music to which the dervishes perform their ambulatory rotations is made up of tambourines, small drums and Turkish flutes.... The dervishes begin singing a soft and slow melody while turning around: then the movement is gradually accelerated until it becomes a giddy whirl, lasting twelve or fifteen minutes. After a brief pause a second dance begins, then a third, more rapid and more savage, and the cries, Allah il Allah, la illa il Allah, are given louder and sharper than before." If our readers have any curiosity about this strange art, they have but to open the score of Oberon: they will find there two authentic Turkish airs, noted down almost textually by Weber—namely, the march of the patrol which ends the first act, and the dizzy round that makes the dénoûment of the piece, dragging the pasha and his suite into a choreographic vortex with the force of a whirlwind.—Condensed from an article by A. de Lasalle.

"LES NAUFRAGÉS DE CALAIS."

After the restoration of the monarchy in France on the 22d of July, 1815, a royal decree ordained the banishment of thirty-eight ex-members of the Convention who had voted for the death of Louis XVI. These unhappy regicides took refuge in the Low Countries, but the French government demanded their expulsion, and King William of Holland was reluctantly compelled to obey. Among these persons was Merlin of Douai, who had been Minister of Justice in 1795. On being refused an asylum on Dutch soil, he took passage on board the brig Alice for New York. She was wrecked off Flushing before reaching the Channel. Her passengers were saved, and relanded on the coast of Belgium. In this situation how vividly must Merlin have recalled a parallel event in which he played the part of an unjust and cruel judge, while his victims were two hundred and fifty shipwrecked noblemen escaping from the government of the Reign of Terror!

Minister Merlin, having been written to to know what disposition it would be proper to make of the naufragés de Calais, as these unfortunates are called in history (since the law dooming to death emigrants who returned to France with arms in their hands did not seem to apply to persons shipwrecked while escaping), he answered with fierce brevity, "Wherever I find an enemy I kill him!" In spite of the Minister of Justice, however, public opinion in Calais was on the side of humanity. Delays were interposed, and one brave lawyer, Gorse by name, ventured to address a letter of remonstrance to the minister, which cost him his liberty, and would doubtless have brought him to the guillotine but for the fall of Robespierre.

Among the naufragés de Calais (all noblemen) was the duke de Choiseul-Saintville. He and his companions were transferred from jail to jail during the reign of the Directory. Sometimes they were threatened with courts-martial—sometimes they appeared to be forgotten. Several times they were tried in civil courts, and every time they were acquitted. But they were never set at liberty, and it is difficult to imagine what might have been their fate had not Bonaparte suddenly returned from Egypt. The news of his landing was hailed by all who were suffering from the weak tyrannies and unjust indecisions of the Directory. The naufragés especially saw in his sense of what was generous and just a hope of deliverance.

That deliverance came even sooner than they expected, thanks to the following letter, written by Stéphanie de Choiseul, a girl of fourteen, to the First Consul:

"Citizen General, First Consul:"

I hardly know how to address you, for I am writing without the knowledge of anybody, and I do not even know if you will get my letter. But every one is talking about you: every one is saying that you are so very great—that you are setting so much that has been wrong to rights—that you are doing things so very wonderful. When I hear this I feel confident you will not despise my prayers and tears. If what I am doing seems very extraordinary, pardon my boldness because I am so unhappy.

"You have no doubt heard of the naufragés de Calais, who have been tried and acquitted several times. Several times they have been on the point of being sent away from France and set at liberty, but each time the prospect has only resulted in their being more harshly treated than before. What crime have they committed? They were cast away on the French coast against their will. They were not bearing arms against their country. If you deign to read their defence you will be convinced of the justice of their cause. Alas! Citizen First Consul, my father is one of these unhappy persons. He is sick—he is dying in prison. In spite of any prejudice you may feel against him, you would take pity on him if you could know all he has suffered. He has been now nearly five years in prison, sent from dungeon to dungeon, sometimes confined with mad people, sometimes with criminals.

"After being eleven months imprisoned in the casemates of the citadel of Lille, he has been sent in chains to Ham, and cannot understand why his imprisonment has been made more strict than before. He is now alone, in solitary confinement. I have been torn from him in prison, and now I come imploring you upon my knees to let me go back to him, unless you will grant his liberty to my prayers.

"Take me, citizen general, as a hostage for my father. I will promise he shall submit to whatever conditions may be asked of him. If I may only be imprisoned in his stead, I shall be happy. I will answer for him: you may trust him wherever he may be permitted to live.

"Take pity on my grief: grant me this prayer. If you do, you will make amends to me for many sorrows, for I have lost upon the scaffold my nearest and dearest friends. I have no one left now but my father and my little brother. Take pity upon him and me. We will bless you every day if you do so. The endless gratitude of such poor children will surely do you good, and help in some way to make your life more happy. That gratitude will be always yours if you will save our father, who will die if you do not succor us.

"You are so great you will not despise our prayer. Be our deliverer, and be sure your name will never be uttered in our presence without being blessed from the very depths of our souls."

"Stéphanie Choiseul."

"Hourcourt (Vosges), 4 Frimaire, an VIII."

Immediately after the First Consul had read this letter the naufragés were set at liberty; that is, they were transported beyond the limits of France. Two years later, however, they were permitted to return by the act of general amnesty. Many, however, had already made their peace with the new government. The duke de Choiseul was of that number.

Twenty years later, as we have already seen, Merlin, the savage Minister of Justice who had refused pity to these unfortunate persons, was himself, by a similar shipwreck under similar circumstances, delivered over to the mercy of their friends. He had sententiously declared, "Wherever I find an enemy I kill him!" King William of Holland silenced one of his ministers who was urging him to take revenge on Merlin by very different words: "A hurricane has thrown him back upon our coast: shall I be more pitiless than winds and storms?"

Once again during the brief remainder of his days was Merlin to learn the lesson "noblesse oblige" by experiencing a generosity he had never shown. In 1820 his son, General Eugène Merlin, who had served with distinction under the Empire, but had made his submission to the government of the Restoration, was arrested on a charge of being implicated in a military conspiracy. The matter came before the Court of Peers. The duke de Choiseul, high in the favor of his king, sat as one of the judges. He believed the young man innocent, and took his defence upon himself, pleading his cause so warmly that General Eugène Merlin was acquitted.

Stéphanie de Choiseul married when she grew up, and became duchesse de Marmier.

E.W.L.

REALISTIC ART.

Seldom now-a-days does an "old master" appear in the catalogues of art-sales or private galleries, the genuine article having grown too scarce and the fictitious too abundant. What the buyer looks for is a picture younger than himself, as full of the fashion of his own day as his coat or his hat. The painter must have some celebrity, and that must have at least six or eight years to grow in. Allowing for that necessary age, the newer the artist the better his work. The period has every confidence in itself, and does not care to look back for guidance and instruction in the principles of beauty and taste.

Naturally, this state of things implies realism in the selection and treatment of subjects. There is no time to idealize. The pencil must seize what is at hand, and serve it up on the spot. Landscapes and figures are flat copies of what the artist sees, and are labelled with their true names. Lorettes, contadine and odalisques are presented to us as such, and not as goddesses, heroines or saints. A ravine in Algeria, Norway or the Rocky Mountains, a sugar-camp in Maine or a wreck at Long Branch, are equally undisguised in their shape and title. The successors of Wilson and Turner no longer compose or combine. They have stopped clipping Nature into bits and sewing her together again like a patchwork quilt. The scenes we meet with on the walls are real scenes, to a tree or a ripple, and the title tells us so. Some liberties are taken with the clouds, and an artificial drapery of light and shade is thrown over the solid objects. Appropriate figures, too, are injected, by way of making up some sort of story and showing that the place is inhabited. But plain, faithful copying, as of an advanced drawing-school turned out of doors, and not pretending to be anything else, is the rule.

Not yet is a representation of Ajax or Ariadne, a satyr or a nymph, labelled "Portrait of a Gentleman" or "of a Lady," as the case may be. That may come ere long, with the names, given and family, of the individuals so honored. Till then we do without the Homeric characters altogether, and get Smith and Jones, their spouses and progeny, in dresses and situations they may be readily conceived as filling.

All this implies a reign of truth. Truth is a good thing, and nowhere a better thing than in art. But literal truth is prosaic, and the Gradgrind school of art has a tendency to lower us to the hardest kind of facts. Stationary subjects are the choice of the copyist. Asses, ponds, weeds, bottles, melons, young chickens (dead), oysters and decayed trees commend themselves as capital sitters. It is disheartening to the amateur to see his gallery gradually assuming the similitude of a common or a junk-shop. However, an ultra-realistic style cannot prevail long. Human nature cannot bear it, and will insist on springing from earth into a purer, thinner and more impalpable air. A craving for the imaginative will assert itself; and when it does so art will be all the stronger for the discipline and study through which it is now passing.

ARTISTIC JENKINSISM.

Who was it that, his soul hot within him at the undue predominance of the dead languages in the English university curriculum, declared that the system of facts with which the British graduate of the present day was the most familiar was the intrigues of the heathen gods?

We think of this Thersites sometimes when our eyes light, in big double-sheeted daily or fashionable monthly, on a column or two, fresh from over the water, of exhaustive minutiæ of the daily life, walk and conversation of French artists, playwrights, actors and actresses. Matter of this sort was not wont to be so absorbingly interesting to the American reader. The time was not very long since when a very little of it went a great way with him—when the domestic troubles of Madame de Caux and the personal habits of M. Sardou would not have been considered worth as many lines as they now get paragraphs. Even such assiduously advertised affairs as the relations of De Musset and George Sand, and Rachel's patronage of her pets among the gilded youth, created no contemporary sensation comparable to that consequent upon their resuscitation. And we were none the worse for missing such topics, although they were rather less unworthy of study than the corresponding gossip of to-day. Literature, the drama, music and pictorial art on the Continent were certainly not at a lower standard fifteen or twenty years ago than now. The inner halo around their leading lights was not less attractive or less deserving of micrometric analysis. No first-class name has been added to their number in either walk, nor are the individual careers of the second-class characters who have succeeded them at all more fruitful in salient traits for instruction or entertainment.

It is a familiar theory that the creative age dies out as the critical age gains strength—that when we grow nice, finical and blasé as to the quality of our intellectual aliment, we prove thereby the enfeeblement of our intellectual appetite and digestion. At present, the circumstances point to our having gone a step farther still, and attained the hypercritical stage. Our attention now has degenerated into a study of the dishes wherein the aforesaid food is served—their lustre, fabric, style and "crackle," a craze in flesh-and-blood ceramics. We never get tired of holding them up to the light and minutely mapping all their flaws and beauties, with each shade of color and glaze, superficial and iridescent or struck through and solid.

There may be something in the fierce light that beats upon a literary or artistic throne beneficial alike to subject and monarch. But here there are too many thrones, and the light is too fierce. Let us have a selection of potentates to be illuminated, and let us turn down the gas a little.

E.B.