Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 1.djvu/535

FIGURED BASS. of the notes of the harmony above it stood still, it was common to indicate this by a line drawn from the figures indicating the notes which remained stationary to the place where they moved again, and if the notes happened to be such as were usually left to be understood by the player, the lines were drawn over the bass from the point in which it began to move under the implied chord. Whenever the bass was to be unaccompanied by harmony, the words 'Tasto Solo' were written.

The figures were usually written in their numerical order, though for special purposes they might be reversed when the composer required a particular disposition of the notes, and similar emergencies often caused the 8 or the 5 or the 3 to be inserted if it was indispensable that the notes represented by those figures should not be missed out. [ C. H. H. P. ]

FILLE DU REGIMENT, LA. Opera in 2 acts; words by Bayard and St. Georges; music by Donizetti. Produced at the Opéra comique Feb. 11, 1840. In London, as La Figlia di Reggimento, at Her Majesty's (Jenny Lind) May 27, 1847; and as The Daughter of the Regiment (Fitzball) at Surrey Theatre Dec. 21, 47.

FILTSCH,, born about 1830 [App. p.636 "July 8, 1830"] at Hermannstadt, Siebenbürgen, Hungary. He appears to have received his earliest regular instruction on the piano from Mittag at Vienna. In 1842 he was in Paris, studying under Chopin and Liszt. In the summer of 43 he came to London (at the same time with Ernst, Halle, Sivori, Dreyschock, and Spohr) [App. p.636 "Omit the parenthesis in lines 7–8, as several of the artists there mentioned had either been in London before, or came later."], and appeared twice in public, once on June 14, at St. James's Theatre, between two of the plays, and again on July 4, at a Matinée of his own at the Hanover Square Rooms. On the latter occasion, besides the Scherzo in B minor and other pieces of Chopin, he played a Prelude and Fugue of Bach's and a piece in A from the 'Temperaments' of Mendelssohn. In the last of these he was peculiarly happy. 'Presto de Mendelssohn,' said Spohr, the moment he saw Filtsch seated at the piano at Sir G. Smart's a few nights after. He also played at Buckingham Palace before the Queen and Prince Albert. He was then 13 years old, and his playing is described as most remarkable both for execution and expression&mdash;full at once of vigour and feeling, poetry and passion. (See the Musical Examiner for June 17 and July 8, 1843.) Every one who met him seems to have loved him. He was 'le petit' in Paris, and 'little Filtsch' in London. According to the enthusiastic von Lenz, Chopin said that he played his music better than he himself, while Liszt on one occasion exclaimed 'Quand ce petit voyagera je fermerai boutique.' (Lenz, 'Grosse P.F. Virtuosen,' p. 36; 'Beethoven et ses 3 Styles,' i. 229.) But he was not destined to fulfil the promise of so brilliant a childhood&mdash;the blade was too keen for the scabbard; and, as Moscheles warned him, he practised too much for his strength; consumption showed itself, and he died at Venice on May 11, 1845. [ G. ]

FINALE. (1) The last movement of a symphony, sonata, concerto, or other instrumental composition. (2) The piece of music with which any of the acts of an opera are brought to a close.

(1) The finales of the first great master of the symphony, Haydn, though developed with extraordinary skill and inexhaustible invention, are mostly of a somewhat playful character. Though their treatment is learned, their subjects are often trite. They are almost uniformly cast in the 'rondo,' as contradistinguished from the 'sonata' form. The finales of more recent masters exhibit a somewhat severer purpose, and are cast in forms for which, seeing their variety, no name has been, or seems likely to be, devised. In the finale to Mozart's so-called 'Jupiter Symphony' every conceivable contrapuntal resource is employed, with a freedom unsurpassed by the greatest masters of fugue, to give effect to ideas such as have been vouchsafed to few other composers. In those of Beethoven the great musical poet goes 'from strength to strength,' and having, as he would seem to have thought, exhausted all the capabilities for effect of the instrumental orchestra, brings the chorus to bear on his latest symphony&mdash;a colossal monument of the invention, and command of invention, of its composer; surpassing in scale, variety, and effect all former and indeed subsequent efforts of the kind.

(2) In the earlier operas, of whatever nation, each act was commonly terminated by an aria or at the most duet, constructed rather to exhibit the powers of the singer or singers employed in it, than to carry on or even emphasise the action. The last act was sometimes brought to a close with a chorus, generally brief and always of the simplest character. The finale proper&mdash;the great concerted piece in the course of which the interest of each act culminates&mdash;is a modern addition to the musical drama, having its origin in the earlier Italian opera buffa of the last century. The principal masters of this delightful variety of musical composition were Leo, Pergolesi, the Italianised German Hasse, and Logroscino; and it is in the operas of the last of these, otherwise greatly distinguished for their inventiveness and spirit, that the finale first appears, though in a somewhat primitive form. To Piccinni its development, if not its perfectionment, is subsequently due. His opera 'La Cecchina, ossia la Buona Figliuola' owed much of its extraordinary popularity to the introduction of finales in which the action was carried on, and which were first enlivened to the ear by the varieties of key and of rhythm given to the successive movements, and to the eye by the entrances and exits of the different persons of the drama.

Two of the finest specimens of this class form large portions of Mozart's 'Nozze di Figaro.' One of them&mdash;that to the second or, as it is commonly performed, the first act&mdash;consists of no less than eight movements, as various in character as are the nine personages who are concerned in it, and whose several accusations, 