Page:Anecdotes of Great Musicians.djvu/147

Rh  as that might appear. Händel had seventy-one and Haydn seventy-seven years in which to turn out these long arrays of compositions, while Mozart was cut off with thirty-five short years. But in those years his labor was unceasing; and as a result his catalogue shows between six hundred and seven hundred works, large and small. In the larger forms were forty-nine symphonies, twenty-three operas, twenty-eight masses and litanies, thirty-one string quartets, and fifty-five concertos; to say nothing of thirty-three sonatas for piano, forty-five for violin, and ninety sonatas and pieces for the organ.

The catalogue of Beethoven's works shows as many or more compositions than that of Haydn. If we reckon all the smaller numbers as individuals, we find over eight hundred and twenty-five works, of which some two hundred and fifty were vocal; but many of these were combined in sets, and frequently several would appear in the same opus. Of this number but one was an opera and only nine were symphonies; yet those are the "great nine" symphonies of the world.  

The stories told of the prime donne are so many and so wonderful, that it is with relief we turn to the career of some of the opposite sex.

The great quartet of singers,—Rubini, Tamburini, Mario, and Lablache,—who were on the stage the first half of this century, have hardly been excelled in musical history. Every one of these men was an artist of the highest ability, and the records of their feats of vocalism might well fill a volume.

Though not a great actor, the first of this quartet, Rubini, captured his audiences by pure feats of vocalism. His command of his voice was beyond description. On one occasion, however, he overstepped the bounds of nature. He was singing a passage where he had to attack and hold with great power a high B flat, and he