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 92 MUSIC substitution of hammers for the quills that were used in the harpsichord, and the instru- ment so constructed took the name of forte piano. The invention has been ascribed ^to several different men, and by some authorities it is carried back to Bartolommeo Cristofali of Padua, harpsichord player to the court of Tuscany. Improvements were made by Schro- ter of Bohemia, Silbermann of Strasburg, and Stein of Augsburg; but the progress was quite slow. The piano used by Gluck was made by Pohlmann in 1772, and is still in existence. It is a small square instrument, 4 ft. long and 2 ft. wide, the wires being little more than threads, and so thin that a moderately hard blow would break them. The action is imper- fect, and the hammers are a few thicknesses of leather glued over the head of a horizontal jack working on a hinge. John Broadwood and sons became the leading English makers of pianofortes in the latter part of the century, and about the same time the house of Erard was founded in Paris; and Pleyel soon after established himself also in Paris as a piano- forte maker. John Broadwood's first patent bears date July 17, 1773. Among the cele- brated performers of this time were Tartini, Farinelli, and Dragonetti. Among composers born in the last century who came to their maturity and exerted their influence mainly in the present, may be named Oherubini, Beet- hoven, Spontini, Boieldieu, Hummel, Bishop, Auber, Spohr, Paganini, Weber, Herold, Ros- sini, Moscheles, Meyerbeer, Schubert, Merca- dante, Donizetti, and Halevy. Of the men born within the present century who have dis- tinguished themselves in the art, either as com- posers or executants, are Bellini, Adam, Berlioz, Herz, Balfe, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, David, Ole Bull, Thomas, Liszt, Hiller, Thalberg, Wagner, Ernst, Wallace, Verdi, Franz, Bennett, Gade, Gounod, Vieuxtemps, Raff, Rubinstein, and Joachim. Among these Beethoven beyond a doubt occupies the loftiest position in the art ; with him instrumental music reached its high- est point of development. Whatever form of music he touched he enlarged and ennobled ; under his hand the sonata was perfected and the symphony rose to its grandest proportions, culminating in the ninth, concerning which Wagner has said that with it " the last of sym- phonies had been written and the domain of instrumental music exhausted." His two mass- es and his single opera Fidelio are also among the noblest accomplishments of German art. A few years later than Beethoven, Spontini was born. Among the immediate successors of Mozart he holds an illustrious place. His style was noble and vigorous, his orchestral treatment admirable, and his dramatic instincts correct. In his Vestale and Fernando Cortes are many passages of true genius. Cherubini may be cited as a composer who particularly linked the styles of the close of the last cen- tury with those of this. He produced operas which are still represented, and he was equally successful in his sublime church music. He competed with Reicha, moreover, in his pro- found treatises on the fugue. In brilliant flu- ency Rossini excels all others who have written for the Italian opera ; but then it must be re- membered that he was preceded by Mozart, whose operas were written to Italian words, and with melodies identical in shape, in csesu- ral pauses, in syllabication, and in relation to the chords, with the Italian school of Paisiello, Piccini, and Cimarosa. Whatever tendency there may have been to avoid excessive orna- mentation in singing, and to maintain the theory of Gluck, was set aside for many years by Rossini. Mozart, who indulged occasion- ally in ultra-florid music, or several notes rap- idly sung to a syllable, was not brilliant in that department. Rossini was, and his ornate arabesque work not being of the old pattern, that is to say, merely roulades following a plain melody, but being integrated with the melody itself, he struck the secret of popu- larity, and swayed Europe musically. The voices, whether bass, tenor, contralto, or so- prano, were made to do this ornate work, lav- ished on serious and comic scenes alike; but with all this profusion of notes, there are ever present touches of severe simplicity. This was exemplified when he wrote for the French Grand Opera, and produced Guillaume Tell. Among Rossini's Italian contemporaries were Bellini and Donizetti. The romantic, tender, and impassioned strains of the former gave a new impulse to the Italian music, and estab- lished a greater popularity for it than it had hitherto enjoyed. The directness of his melo- dies, and his use of a few notes instead of many for masculine voices, enabled amateurs to seize hold of them who were unable to cope with the floridities of Rossini. In this new school Donizetti was the peer of Bellini, and the au- thor of Lucia and Lucrezia Borgia, with all his shortcomings, has never been surpassed in popularity. It remains only to speak of Verdi, and all the Italian composers of any decided influence in the art will have been referred to. This composer exhibits a perfect apprehension of climax, intuitive knowledge of stage busi- ness, and strong dramatic perception. His melodies are clear, strong, and well defined. In his earlier works his merits stood in strong contrast with certain vices of style, such ^ as overstraining the voice for effect, and noisy and empty unison passages. In his later works, such as the Alda and the " Requiem Mass," he has profited by the example of more painstaking composers, and produced works more carefully considered and of higher merit than his pre- vious compositions. Many of the operas pro- duced by composers for the French stage com- bine grace, brilliancy, breadth, and grandeur. Among these the works of Meyerbeer are con- spicuous. The Huguenots contains some of the finest music ever written for the operatic stage. It has been objected to Meyerbeer that his was too much the music of effect, that he