Catherine Vadé.

ply its place, by factitious and unnatural beauties; it would be charged with frequent and regular modulations; but cold, graceless, and inexpreffive. Recourfe would be had to trills, ftops, fhakes, and other falfe graces; which would ferve only to render the fong more ridiculous, without rendering it lefs infipid.

A mufic attended with

mufic than others, and that there may be fome languages totally improper for any. Of the latter kind would be a language compofed of mixt founds, of mute, furd and nafal fyllables, of few fonorous vowels, and a great many confonants and articulations; and which might want fome of thofe effential conditions which I fhall fpeak of under the article of measure. For the fake of curiofity, let us enquire what would be the confequence of applying mufic to fuch a language.

In the first place, the want of force in the found of the vowels would oblige the composer to give a good deal to the notes, and becaufe the language would be furd, the mufic would be noify. In the fecond place, the hardness and fre quency of the confonants would oblige him to exclude a great number of words, to proceed on others only by elementary tones, fo that the mufic would be infipid and monotonous. For the fame reafon, it would be flow and tire fome, and when the movement should be ever fo little accelerated, its hafte would resemble that of an hard and angular body rolling along on the pavement.

As fuch a mufic would be deftitute of all agreeable melody, the

1

faint and inexpreffive; while its images, deftitute of all force and energy, defcribe but a few objects in a great number of notes, exactly like Gothic writing, the lines of which are full of strokes and characters, yet contain only two or three words, and but a very small quantity of meaning in a great space of paper.

The impoffibility of inventing agreeable fongs would oblige the compofers to turn all their thoughts to the fide of harmony; and for want of natural beauties to introduce thofe of arbitrary fashion, which have no other merit than lies in the delicacy of the execu. tion. Thus inftead of compofing good mufic, they would compofe difficult mufic; and to fupply the want of fimple melody, would multiply their accompany ments. would cost them much lefs trouble to lay a great many bad things one upon another, than to invent one good one.

It

In order to remove the infipidity, they would increase the confufon; they would imagine they were makicg mufic when they were only making a noife.

Another effect which would refult from this defect of melody, is, that the musicians, having only

falfe

falfe idea of it, would invent a melody of their own. Having nothing of true music, they would find no difficulty in multiplying its parts; because they would give that name to what was not fo; even to the thorough bass; to the unifon of which they would make no fcruple to recite the counter-tenour, under cover of a fort of accompanyment, whofe pretended melody would have no manner of relation to the vocal part of the fong. Wherever they faw notes they would find a tune, although in effect their tune would be nothing but a fucceffion of notes. Voces, prætereaque nihil. Let us proceed now to the measure, in the difpofition of which confifts the greater part of the beauty and expreffion of the fong.

Measure is to melody nearly what fyntax is to difcourfe; it is that which connects the words, diftinguishes the phrafes, and gives fenfe and confiftency to the whole. All mufic whose measure is not perceived, if the fault lie in the perfon who executes it, refembles writing in cypher, which requires one to have a key to explain it but if the mufic have no fenfible measure in itself, it is only a confused collection of words taken at hazard, and written without connection, in which the reader finds no fenfe, because the author gave them

none.

I have faid that every national mufic takes its principal character from the language which is peculiar to it; and I should have added, that it is the profody of that language which principally conftitutes its character. As vocal mufic long preceded the inftrumental, the latter hath always received from the former both its tune and time:

now the different measures of vocal mufic could arife only from the different methods of scanning a difcourfe, and placing the long and fhort fyllables with regard to each other. This is very evident in the Greek mufic, whofe measures were only fo many formula of the rythmi, furnished by the arrangements of long or fhort fyllables, and of thofe feet of which the language and its poetry were fufceptible. So that, although one may very well distinguish in the mufical rythmus, the measure of the profody, the measure of the verfe, and the measure of the tune, it cannot be doubted that the moft agreeable mufic, or at least that of the most complete cadence, would be that in which the three measures should concur as perfectly as poffible.

After thefe ecclairciffements, I return to my hypothefis, and fuppofe that the language, I have been fpeaking of, fhould have a defective profody, indiftinct, inexact, and without precifion; that its long and fhort fyllables fhould have no fimple relations with regard to time or number, fo as to render its rythmus agreeable, exact, and regular; that its long fyllables should be fome shorter, and others longer than others; that its short ones fhould in like manner be more or lefs fhort; that it should have many neither fhort nor long; and that the differences between the one and the other should be indeterminate and almoft incommenfurable. It is clear that the national mufic, being obliged to receive into its meafure the irregularities of the profo dy, would have fuch measure of courfe vague, unequal, and hardly perceptible; that its recitative would in particular partake of this

irre.

irregularity; that it would be very difficult to make the force of the notes and fyllables agree; that the measure would be obliged to be perpetually changed, and that the verfes never could be fet to an exact and flowing measure; that even in the measured airs, the movements would be all unnatural and void of precifion; that if to this defect be added ever fo little delay in time, the very idea of its inequality would be entirely loft both in the finger and the auditor; and that, in fine, the measure not being perceived, nor its returns equal, it could be fubject only to the caprice of the mufician, who might hurry or retard it as he pleased: fo that it would be impoffible to keep up a concert without fomebody to mark the time to all, according to the fancy or convenience of some leader.

Hence it is that fingers contract fuch an habit of altering the time, that they frequently do it defigned ly even in thofe pieces, where the compofer has happily rendered it perceptible. To mark the time would be thought a fault in compofition, and to follow it would be another in the tafle of finging; thus defects would pafs for beauties, and beauties for defects: errors would be established as rules; and to compofe mufic to the taste of the nation, it would be necessary to apply carefully to thofe things which would difpleafe every other people in the world.

Thus, whatever art might be ufed to hide the defects of fuch mufic, it would be impoffible it should be pleafing to any other ears than those of the natives of the country where it fhould be in vogue. By dint of suffering con

ftant reproaches against their bad taste, and by hearing real mufic in a language more favourable to it, they would at length endeavour to make their own resemble it in doing which, however, they would only deprive it of its real character, and the little accordance it might have with the language for which it was conftructed. If they should thus endeavour to unnaturalize their finging, they would render it harfh, rough, and almost unutterable: if they contented themselves with ornamenting it with any other than fuch accompanyments as were peculiarly adapted to it, they would only betray its infipidity by an inevitable contraft: they would deprive their mufic of the only beauty it was fufceptible of, in taking from all its parts that uniformity of character by which it was conftituted; and, by accuftoming their ears to difdain the finging only to liften to the fymphony, they would in time reduce the voices only to a mere accompany ment of the accompanyments.

Thus we fee by what means the mufic of fuch a nation would be divided into vocal and inftrumental; and thus we see how by giving fuch different characters to the two fpecies of it, they make a monfrous compound of them when united.

The fymphony would keep time; and the finging would fuffer no reftraint; fo that the fingers and the fymphonists in the orchestra would be perpetually at variance, and putting one another out. This uncertainty, and the mixture of the two characters, would introduce in the manner of accompanyment, fuch a tameness and infipidity that the fymphonists would

get

:

get fuch a habit, that they would not be able even to execute the beft mufic with spirit and energy. In playing that like their own, they would totally enervate it; they would play the foft ftrong and the ftrong foft, nor would they know one of the varieties of these two terms. As to the others rinforzando, dolce*, rifoluto, con gufto, spiritofo, foftenuto, con brio, they would have no words for them in their language, and that of expreffion would be totally void of meaning. They would fubftitute a number of trifling, cold, and flovenly ornaments, in the place of the mafterly ftroke of the bow and however numerous their orchestra, it would have no effect, or none but what was very difagreeable. As the execution would be always fluggish, and the fymphonifts are ever more folicitous to play finely, than to play in time, they would be hardly ever together; they would never be able to give an exact and just note, nor to execute any thing in that character. Foreigners would be almoft all of them aftonished to find an orchestra, boasted of as the first in Europe, hardly worthy to play at a booth in a fairt. It would be naturally expected that fuch muficians fhould get an averfion to that mufic which thus difgraced their own; and that adding ill will to bad tafte, they would put in execution the defign of decrying it,

with as ill fuccefs as it was abfurdly premeditated.

On a contrary fuppofition to the foregoing, I might eafily deduce all the qualities of a real music, formed to move, to imitate, to please, and to convey to the heart the most delicate impreffions of harmony: but as this would lead me too far from my present subject, and particularly from our generally received notions of things, I fhall confine myself to a few obfervations on the Italian mufic; which may enable us to form a better judgment of our own.

If it be asked what language will admit of the best grammar, I anfwer that of the people who reason best; and if it be asked what nation fhould have the best music, I should answer that whofe language is best adapted to mufic. This is what I have already established, and shall have farther occafion to confirm it during the courfe of this letter. Now, if there be in Europe a language adapted to mufic, it is certainly the Italian; for that language is foft, fonorous, harmonious, and more accented than any other; which four qualities are precifely thofe which are most proper for finging.

The Italians pretend, that our [the French] melody is fat and void of tune;" all other nations also unanimously confirm their judgment in this particular. On our

part,