his time. He held that German legend, for
German opera, was that which every German man,
averse to Italian sorceries, ought to prepare
himself to undertake. With a singularly sober and
restricted fancy, his elected subjects were
fantastic or romantic. He had a hankering after
the popular tale of " Der Freischütz" long ere
Weber thought of setting the same—after the
picturesque legend of " Tännhauser" (versionised,
in a thousand forms, as the temptation
of Spirit by Sensual allurement), something like
half a century ere Wagner was thought of.
His first stage attempt was the " Owl Queen,"
"Alruna," to be followed by "Faust,"
"Beauty and the Beast," "The Widow of
Malabar," " Pietro von Abano," " The Alchymist,"
"A Crusader's Story," every one of
these subjects demanding vivacity of local
colour. Yet, save in the supernatural music of
Spohr's "Faust" (not Goethe's "Faust,"
recollect, but based on a tawdry melodrama), and
the opening of the Indian opera "Jessonda,"
nothing of the kind was effected by him. It
must be further said that solid as is the mass of
vocal music written by Spohr, not one popular
melody from his pen could be named. It cannot,
however, be assumed that with Spohr this
avoidance of popularity was on system. He was
naturally arid, trite, and short of breath as a
tune-maker; commanding a certain solemnity
and richness of harmony peculiar to himself,
and a monotony in his manner of procedure
which for a time will pass for originality of
constructive power with the student, till he
discovers that there is one form of progression, one
series of chords elect, one close, as wearisomely
to be met with Spohr's operas, as the veriest
Italian platitudes which the Germans took the
field against. It is obvious, too, that Spohr had no
objection to such vocal parade as he could
make. Cunigunda's great song, " Si lo sento,"
in " Faust," the well-known duet in " Jessonda,"
many pieces of music in " Zemira and Azor,"
are florid, though of no common difficulty, as
having been written by one who had never
studied the uses of the human voice in the only
real school—that of Italy. A clever singer, as
whimsically quaint in her phraseology as she
was clever, once characterised the florid songs
in Handel's oratorios as demanding "devout
agility" on the part of the singer. Spohr's
bravura music calls for a power of " heavy
caracoling" which makes it ungracious, only partially
effective, and possibly more difficult to execute
with finish, than any music of the kind which
can be set before the show singer.

All this said and sung—two of Spohr's operas,
"Faust" and " Jessonda," keep the stage in
Germany; though at the time present they do so
under conditions of traditional endurance rather
than warm welcome. There is in them a certain
imposition of stateliness, an individuality (and
be it for better for worse, that quality has a
value of its own), a respectability (so to say)
bespeaking a man of worth, on most complacent
terms with himself,—which cannot hinder their
being felt dull, it is true, but which command a
fair and favourable construction; and should do
so, till the world of artists and connoisseurs shall
become utterly lawless in its desire for new
sensations, and utterly stupid in confounding
impudent barren folly with thought and idea too
profound to be relished by those not initiated.
Heavy as Spohr's operas are, extracts from them
can be heard from time to time,—and they are up-
borne, so to say, by the wide and well-earned and
permanent reputation won by their maker as a
special master of his instrument, the Violin.
Viewed in this light, Spohr may be characterised
as having been for Germany what Bach was for
the Organ. And it would amount to ingratitude,
no less than injustice, if it were not added, that
he was beloved by the many pupils whom he
gathered round him, none of whom—and some
score could be named—passed from under his
hands without having had instilled into them
true, earnest principles, and that well-based
knowledge of technical effect on which, for basis,
any fabric, however wondrous, fantastic, or
daring, can be built. As a violin master, Spohr
was not to be surpassed; as a composer,
especially of vocal and dramatic music, we cannot
call to mind a single follower who has imitated
his manner.

A greater contrast could not be named in the
persons of two men, both famous in German art,
both of whom influenced it more or less largely,
than betwixt Spohr and Weber. In their education,
in their lives, in their works, in their successes,
no two men could stand further apart—
the one as an orderly man and musician, the
other, in comparison, a waif and stray, whose
gipsy genius somehow seduced and enthralled
his German world (and the world, also, beyond
the confines of Germany) as no composer of
German opera has been enabled to do, before
or since Weber's time.

What a pity it is that the lives of musicians
are so ill written, being generally as they are
richer in incident than those of the painters!
The complaint laid by the stupid against the class,
as merely consisting of colourless, characterless,
frivolous folk; when taken away from the
absorbing egotism of their display, useless as
members of society, and performing the duties of
life indifferently—has been largely alimented by
the dulness, in place of just and appreciating
record, of the library of musical biographies.
Herr Crysander's Life of Handel, " a dungeon"
of little facts and dates (to use the Scotch phrase),
is not to be endured, because of its utter heaviness.
Dr. Schmid's Memoir of Gluck (a capital
subject) is no less leaden, though mercifully more
compendious. The four awful volumes by Dr.
Jahn devoted to Mozart, call for a patience little
short of his who has to drive a tunnel through
a granite rock. Beethoven is without a decent
biography as yet; the want possibly to be
supplied by the enthusiastic American collector,
Mr. Thayer, who is known to have ransacked
every corner of Europe, where material might
exist during some twenty years. We have been
recalled to this disappointment and poverty by
turning to the high-flown life of Weber the other