Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/732

720 which met with but small success, notwithstanding that the heroine was undertaken by Mara. 'The Prize,' musical entertainment, first performed on his sister's benefit night, March 11, 1793; 'My Grandmother,' musical farce, produced Dec. 16, 1793; 'Lodoiska,' musical romance, the music partly adapted from Cherubini and Kreutzer, and partly composed by himself, performed June 9, 1794; 'The Glorious First of June,' occasional piece, produced July 2, 1794; and the 'Cherokee,' comic opera, first played Dec. 20, 1794, were all well received, as was also 'The Three and the Deuce,' musical drama, performed Sept. 2, 1795. On March 12, 1796, Colman's 'Iron Chest,' with Storace's music, was performed for the first time, and although the play, owing to accidental circumstances, failed to produce an immediately favourable impression, the music was rapturously received. But few however, if any, of the gratified and applauding auditors knew or thought that anxiety for the success of that music had impelled its composer to a course which had laid him upon his deathbed. He was then recovering from a severe attack of gout and fever; yet urged by a sense of duty, he determined, despite the entreaties of his family, to attend the first rehearsal. The consequence was fatal: he took cold, the gout attacked his stomach, and on March 19 he expired, at the early age of 33 years.

At the time of his death he had an opera, 'Mahmoud, or The Prince of Persia,' in preparation for Braham's debut in London. This work was left incomplete, but, by the assistance of Kelly, and the selection of some music by the composer's sister, A. S. Storace, it was fitted for performance and produced for the benefit of his widow and child, April 30, 1796, was well received, and performed many times. Storace's melodies are thoroughly English in character, whilst in his instrumentation the influence of Mozart and the Italian composers is evident. He was almost the first English composer who introduced into his works the modern finale, in which the business of the scene is carried on by concerted music. Some fine examples occur in his works. There is reason for believing that his early death delayed for many years the advance in that direction which might otherwise have been made. [ W. H. H. ]

STORM,. The endeavour to portray the strife of the elements has always had a fascination for composers. Most of the best-known efforts in this direction are catalogued in the article, and it only remains here to glance at the technical means by which the effect has been produced. These vary but little. In many musical tempests, especially the older ones, an agitated movement with plenty of tremolos and semiquaver passages is deemed sufficient to convey the idea, but many composers have sought accurately to imitate the sounds and even the aspect of nature during a storm, with varying success. Haydn has an exceedingly impressive movement in his 'Seasons.' The four bars of hesitating quavers before the storm bursts convey vividly the idea of the first few heavy drops of rain, an effect which Beethoven produces by rather different means in the opening of his inimitable movement in the Pastoral Symphony. With regard to this latter piece it should be noticed that its general idea is anticipated in the 'Prometheus' ballet-music introduction, some passages and modulations pursuing an identical course, the descending bass with double bowed violin figure above, and the latter bars especially. As to the famous passage which imitates lightning and thunder

we believe it has never yet been pointed out that the lightning comes after the thunder throughout; a rather startling violation of nature's laws, when one comes to think of it!

One grave absurdity should here be alluded to; namely, the imitating, by the appearance of a written passage on paper, the form of soundless objects! It is quite admissible to represent the howling of the wind by rising and falling chromatic scales, but to imitate a flash of lightning by a zigzag passage on the piccolo, as is done by Haydn (Seasons) and Wagner (Die Walküre); or, still worse, to depict the form of waves by broken chords and arpeggios, as is done by almost every composer, is an immemorial custom as ridiculous as was Mattheson's attempt to represent the rainbow round about the throne by quavers arranged in circular arcs, or the practice of the composers before Palestrina, who wrote the notes expressing blood in red and those expressing grass in green.

To the kettledrums has always been confided the task of imitating thunder. Rossini, in the 'William Tell' Overture, rather misses his effect by one long-continued roll; Beethoven's thunder in the Pastoral Symphony is realistic, and at the same time idealised, while Berlioz, in the 'Episode de la vie d'un artiste' is startlingly true to nature. Wagner presents us with several striking examples of storms. A storm at sea is vividly depicted by the Overture and other portions of the music to the 'Fliegender Holländer,' although the absurdity above alluded to, of a wave-passage, is here very prominent.

The most original treatment, perhaps, of a storm is in the prelude to 'Die Walküre.' Throughout this drama the weather is very bad, and there are various kinds of storms, but the first is a magnificent one. The tremolo D held by the violins and violas for nearly 70 bars against the rushing wind of the basses, 