Great Italian and French Composers

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Great Italian and French
Composers

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Title: Great Italian and French Composers
Author: George T. Ferris
Release Date: January 4, 2006 [EBook #17462]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT
ITALIAN AND FRENCH COMPOSERS ***

Produced by David Widger

GREAT

ITALIAN AND FRENCH
COMPOSERS
BY
GEORGE T. FERRIS

Copyright, 1878, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

NOTE.
The task of compressing into one small volume suitable sketches of the
more famous Italian and French composers has been, in view of the
extent of the field and the wealth of material, a somewhat embarrassing
one, especially as the purpose was to make the sketches of interest to
the general music-loving public, and not merely to the critic and the
scholar. The plan pursued has been to devote the bulk of space to
composers of the higher rank, and to pass over those less known with
such brief mention as sufficed to outline their lives and fix their place
in the history of music. In gathering the facts embodied in these
musical sketches, the author acknowledges his obligations to the
following works: Hullah's "History of Modern Music"; Fétis's
"Biographie Universelle des Musiciens"; Clementi's "Biographie des
Musiciens"; Hogarth's "History of the Opera"; Sutherland Edwards's
"History of the Opera"; Schlüter's "History of Music"; Chorley's
"Thirty Years' Musical Reminiscences"; Stendhalls "Vie de Rossini";
Bellasys's "Memorials of Cherubini"; Grove's "Musical Dictionary";
Crowest's "Musical Anecdotes"; and the various articles in the standard
cyclopædias.
"The Great Italian and French Composers" is a companion work to
"The Great German Composers," which was published earlier in the
series in which the present volume appears.

CONTENTS.
Palestrixa
Piccini, Paisiello, and Cimarosa
Rossini
Donizetti and Bellini
Verdi
Cherubini and his Predecessors
Meiül, Spontini, and Halévy
Boïeldieu and Auber
Meyerbeer
Gounod and Thomas
Berlioz

THE GREAT ITALIAN AND FRENCH COMPOSERS.

PALESTRINA.
I.
The Netherlands share other glories than that of having nursed the most
indomitable spirit of liberty known to mediteval Europe. The fine as
well as the industrial arts found among this remarkable people,
distinguished by Erasmus as possessed of the patientia laboris, an
eager and passionate culture. The early contributions of the Low

Countries to the growth of the pictorial art are well known to all. But to
most it will be a revelation that the Belgian school of music was the
great fructifying influence of the fifteenth century, to which Italy and
Germany owe a debt not easily measured. The art of interweaving parts
and that science of sound known as counterpoint were placed by this
school of musical scholars and workers on a solid basis, which enabled
the great composers who came after them to build their beautiful tone
fabrics in forms of imperishable beauty and symmetry. For a long time
most of the great Italian churches had Belgian chapel-masters, and the
value of their example and teachings was vital in its relation to Italian
music.
The last great master among the Belgians, and, after Palestrina, the
greatest of the sixteenth century, was Orlando di Lasso, born in
Hainault, in the year 1520. His life of a little more than three score
years and ten was divided between Italy and Germany. He left the deep
imprint of his severe style, though but a young man, on his Italian
_confrères_, and the young Palestrina owed to him much of the
largeness and beauty of form through which he poured his genius in the
creation of such works as have given him so distinct a place in musical
history. The pope created Orlando di Lasso Knight of the Golden Spur,
and sought to keep him in Italy. Unconcerned as to fame, the gentle,
peaceful musician lived for his art alone, and the flattering expressions
of the great were not so much enjoyed as endured by him. A musical
historian, Heimsoeth, says of him: "He is the brilliant master of the
North, great and sublime in sacred composition, of inexhaustible
invention, displaying much breadth, variety, and depth in his treatment;
he delights in full and powerful harmonies, yet, after all--owing to an
existence passed in journeys, as well as service at court, and occupied
at the same time with both sacred and secular music--he came short of
that lofty, solemn tone which pervades the works of the great master of
the South, Palestrina, who with advancing years restricted himself more
and more to church music."