Gaetano Donizetti

“ The pure musical beauty of the serenade, and of the quartett, one of the finest pieces of concerted music Donizetti ever wrote, were even more admired than the lively animated dialogue-scenes, which are in Donizetti's very best style; and the two pieces just specified, as well as the baritone's cavatina, Bella siccome un angelo, aided the general success of the work, not only by their own intrinsic merit, but also by the contrast they present to the comic conversational music, and the buffo airs of the bass. The music of Don Pasquale is probably the cleverest Donizetti ever wrote ”

“ In the hope that the mild influence of his native air might heal his distempered brain, he was sent to Bergamo, in 1848, but died in his brother’s arms April 8th. The inhabitants of the Peninsula were then at war with Austria, and the bells [Pg 206] that sounded the knell of Donizetti’s departure mingled their solemn peals with the roar of the cannon fired to celebrate the victory of Goïto.
His faithful valet, Antoine, wrote to Adolphe Adam, describing his obsequies:—“More than four thousand persons,” he relates, “were present at the ceremony. ”

“ As regards Lucrezia Borgia, though the singers of the drinking-song and the chanters of the burial service have the scene entirely to themselves, yet the contrast between reckless life and inevitable death is less striking in a work where music possesses no special significance than in one where music has been introduced for the sake of impressiveness in the single scene where it is employed. Taking it, however, for what it is worth, Donizetti's successor, Verdi, would doubtless have made more of it than Donizetti himself has done. ”

“ But Peppino said that in some respects Donizetti was a better man than Dante; he was smoother and better tempered, “and many things like this.” Peppino had been brought up, like every Italian, to worship Dante, but when he went to London and mastered the English language, when he began to read our literature and to think for himself, then he saw that Dante was “un falso idolo.” Every nation gets the poet she deserves and Italy has her faults; but what, asked Peppino, what has Italy done to deserve her dreary Dante? ”

“ Donizetti cannot be said to have contributed anything to the development of Italian opera except a simpler and less pretentious style than that of Rossini. Weak and watery as his grand operas appear to us now, they had a good influence at the time of their production. His opera buffa "Elisir d'Amore" is, when well performed, a very pleasing trifle. Donizetti had an excellent flow of melody, but he sacrificed dramatic truth to musical effectiveness at all times in his operas. ”

“ There are no melodies so rich and well fancied as those to be found in his later works; and in sense of dramatic form and effective instrumentation (always a faulty point with Donizetti) he displayed great progress at the last. It is, however, a noteworthy fact, that the latest Italian composers have shown themselves quite weak in composing expressly for the orchestra. No operatic overture since “William Tell” has been produced by this school of music, worthy to be rendered in a concert-room.
Donizetti lacked the dramatic instinct in conceiving his music. ”

“ Maria di Rohan, however, is not to be called dramatic simply because it contains one great dramatic part. What is more important is the fact that the music of the work is appropriate to the various personages and to the great situations of the piece. In portraying the original of the jealous husband, Donizetti exhibits all the earnestness and vigour of Verdi, whom, as before observed, he resembles more in Maria di Rohan than in any of his earlier works.
Donizetti's last opera was Catarina Cornaro, brought out at Naples in 1844. ”

“ Specially may this be said of Bellini, in many respects the greater of the two. There is scarcely to be found in music a more signal example to show that a marked individuality may rest on a narrow base. In justice to him, however, it may be said that his early death prevented him from doing full justice to his powers, for he had in him the material out of which the great artist is made. Let us first sketch the career of Donizetti, the author of sixty-four operas, besides a mass of other music, such as cantatas, ariettas, duets, church music, etc., in the short space of twenty-six years. ”

“ He climbed, monkey-like, or cat-like, not to abandon our former simile, to the top shelf, and had his claws on the Barber of Seville, when who should enter the library but Sigismondi.
The old man was fairly shocked at this perversity on the part of Gaetan Donizetti, reputed the best behaved student of the Academy. His morals would be corrupted, his young blood poisoned!—but fortunately the librarian had arrived in time, and he might yet be saved. ”

“ A bright English critic, whose style is as charming as his judgments are good, says, in his study of the Donizetti music, “I find myself thinking of his music as I do of Domenichino’s pictures of ‘St. Agnes’ and the ‘Rosario’ in the Bologna gallery, of the ‘Diana’ in the Borghese Palace at Rome, as pictures equable and skilful in the treatment of their subjects, neither devoid of beauty of form nor of colour, but which make neither the pulse quiver nor the eye wet ”

“ The fourth act is the most beautiful of all in its music and the most powerful in dramatic effect. The chorus of monks in the first scene ("Scaviam l'asilo") is remarkable for its religious character and solemnity. In the third scene occurs one of the tenderest and loveliest romanzas ever written ("Spirto gentil") , which Donizetti transferred to this work from his opera, "Le Duc d'Albe," which had not been performed, and the libretto of which was originally written by Scribe for Rossini. ”

“ With a gift for melody as facile as Bellini's, Donizetti is more dramatic, his harmonization less monotonous, and his orchestration more careful. This is shown by his choice of instruments for special effects, like the harp solo preceding the appearance of Lucia, the flute obligato in the mad scene in the opera of which she is the heroine, and the bassoons introducing "Una furtiva lagrima," in "L'Elisire d'Amore." He is a distinct factor in the evolution of Italian opera from Rossini to and including Verdi, from whom, in turn, the living Italian opera composers of note derive. ”

“ Lucretia Borgia, in black velvet, avenging an insult according to the rules of high art and to the music of Donizetti is very charming, no doubt; but we don't want our wives and daughters to learn how they may poison us without fear of detection. ”

“ Leonora's scena, too, "O mon Fernand," possesses, at least in the slow movement (the quick one being quite unworthy of it) , a certain amount of beauty. But the fourth act of La Favorita is worth all the rest of the opera, and it may well be regarded as the finest act Donizetti has composed. The calmness and purity of the tenor's air, "Ange si pur," and the passionate impulsiveness of the final duet for the despondent lovers, are eminently dramatic: the character of each piece being perfectly in accord with the situation. ”

“ Tonio, a Tyrolese, saved her life and fell in love with her. But just as they were about to be married the marchioness of Birkenfield claimed the foundling as her own daughter, and the sutler girl had to quit the regiment for the castle. After a time, the castle was taken by the French, and although the marchioness had promised Maria in marriage to another, she consented 403to her union with Tonio, who had risen to the rank of a field-officer.—Donizetti, La Figlia del Reggimento (an opera, 1840) . ”

“ More than that, Donizetti never produced a musical tragedy equal to Norma, nor a musical pastoral equal to La Sonnambula; while, dramatic considerations apart, he cannot be compared to Bellini as an inventor of melody. Indeed, it would be difficult in the whole range of opera to name three works which contain so many simple, tender, touching airs, of a refined character, yet possessing all the elements of popularity (in short, airs whose beauty is universally appreciable) as Norma, La Sonnambula, and I Puritani. The simplicity of Bellini's melodies is one of their chief characteristics ”

“ But exquisite as were, undoubtedly, Mme. Pasta's vocal exertions, her histrionic powers, if possible, surpassed them. It would be difficult for those who have seen her represent, in Donizetti's excellent opera, the unfortunate Amina, with a grandeur and a dignity above all praise, to conceive that she could so change (if the expression may be allowed) her nature as to enact the part of a simple country girl. But she has proved her powers to be unrivaled; she personates a simple rustic as easily as she identifies herself with Medea, Semiramide, Tancredi, and Anna Bolena. ”

“ He was the founder of two institutions for decayed musicians and their widows, the 'Scuola caritatevole di Musica,' and the 'Pio Institute di Bergamo.' He had been blind for some years before his ' death, which took place on Dec. 2, 1845. The city of Bergamo erected a monument to him in 1852, and in 1875 his remains and those of Donizetti were removed with much ceremony to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. The most celebrated of his operas are 'Lodoïska' (1795 [App. p.715 "1800"] ) , 'Ginevra di Scozia' (1801) , 'Medea' (1812 [App. p.715 "1813"] ) , and 'Rosa bianca e Rosa rossa' (1814) . ”

“ I shall be told that it is certainly an exaggeration or at least inappropriate, to talk of romanticism in connection with Bellini and Donizetti, especially as those musicians, who do not appear to have possessed more general culture than the clarinettist in their orchestra, must have been to a large extent strangers to the movement of ideas in their own day. ”

“ Even more lacking in exact and extended musical science than Donizetti, he could express what came within his range with a simple vigor, grasp, and beauty, which make him a truly dramatic composer. In addition to this, a matter which many great composers ignore, Bellini had extraordinary skill in writing music for the voice, not that which merely gave opportunity for executive trickery and embellishment, but the genuine accents of passion, pathos, and tenderness, in forms best adapted to be easily and effectively delivered. ”

“ Italians have the trick of writing well for the singer. But they are open confessions of a fear of becoming tuneful in the old Italian style of Donizetti and Rossini. These young men seem to be constantly on the verge of writing in the aria form and of avoiding it only by thrusting in some unnatural modulation or some unexpected cadence. They seem to be striving for an endless melody, like Wagner's, which is not congenial to them. ”

“ But to return to Lucrezia Borgia, which, with Lucia and La Favorite, may be ranked amongst the most successful of Donizetti's productions. The favour with which Lucrezia is received by audiences of all kinds may be explained, in addition to the merit of much of the music, by the manner in which the principal parts are distributed, so that the cast, to be efficient, must always include four leading singers, each of whom has been well-provided for by the composer. ”

“ When the Lucia of the evening is Patti, Nilsson, or Albani, and the Edgardo is no one in particular, the final scene of course falls flat; no one, indeed, stops to hear it. But the case was quite different when the part of Edgardo was filled by a great dramatic vocalist, like Duprez, or in later days by Mario.
In 1835 Donizetti visited Paris, and there brought out his Marino Faliero, remembered for a time by several pretty pieces, including, in particular, the opening chorus for the workmen in the arsenal, and a chorus of gondoliers at the beginning of the second act. ”

“ The score is saturated with Neapolitan folk-song. I say Neapolitan rather than Italian, because the mixed population of Naples has introduced the elements which it would be rash to define as always Italian, or even Latin. While doing this the composer surrendered himself unreservedly and frankly to other influences. That is one of the things which make him admirable in the estimation of latter-day critics. In "Le Donne Curiose" he is most lovingly frank in his companionship with Mozart. In "II Segreto" there is a combination of all the styles that prevailed from Mozart to Donizetti. ”

“ Yes, laugh if you will, ye high-bred and high-born denizens of a richer sphere, whose ears, attuned to the rhythm of Metastasio, softly borne on the strains of Donizetti, can scarce pardon the intrusion of your native tongue in the everyday concerns of life—smile if it so please ye; but from the lips of a lovely woman, a little, a very little of the brogue is most seductive. Whether the subject be grave or gay, whether mirth or melancholy be the mood, like the varnish upon a picture, it brings out all the colour into strong effect, brightening the lights, and deepening the shadows ”

“ No one has a right to say that Mozart failed because he did not achieve what Beethoven did. Mozart accomplished all that could be accomplished with the resources of musical art in his day, and he himself enormously enlarged those resources. That is the achievement of a genius. Every one has a right to say that Donizetti and Bellini failed because they not only did not succeed in accomplishing all that it was possible to accomplish in opera in their time, but deliberately ignored the fundamental principles of the art and also the immense advances in its technic made by Gluck and Mozart. ”