the Devil, has been naturally the largest;—and
the two first contributions to be mentioned have
both enjoyed a certain reputation. The first, by
Spohr, was composed in the year 1813, on a
melodrama even more coarse and flaring than
certain French and English travesties to be seen
of late years (in which, nevertheless, there has
been some awkward attempt to keep near the
feeling of Goethe's metaphysical drama). A
more stupid opera-book is hardly in being than
the one Spohr contented himself with for his
third stage essay—Alruna (never represented)
and Der Zweikampf having preceded Faust.—
Spohr's music palls on the taste sooner than
might have been expected from the works of a
man showing so much individuality and self-
respect as he did. It is too highly finished,
too sugared, too mannered. And yet the high
merit of his Faust, in more than one respect, is
not to be disputed. His opera was in advance
of its time, as treating a northern supernatural
subject. The stalwart, handsome violinist's
Brocken music was projected before the Wolf's
Glen was painted by Weber.— It is odd,
however, that one in whom fantasy was so weak as
Spohr, should so perpetually have tormented
himself to be fantastic. His Brocken music
might belong to some grassy slope at the foot of
any Alp, with the herds and their herdfolk going
home in the tranquil shine of evening.—What
is good in Spohr's Faust are the overture—the
opening duet between Faust, and the Evil One,
with the minuet to which the curtain rises;—the
duet where Faust first meets Margaret—the great
air of parade for Cunigunda, a stalking prima
donna after the old pattern—the scene with
chorus for Ugo, her lover, a no less superfluous
personage—the song for Mephistopheles, which,
when dressed with Italian words, as "Va
sbramando," Lablache used to sing so incomparably—
and the great song for Faust, made no less
acceptable to our public by the exceptional voice
and impassioned execution of Herr Pischek.
Then his Torch-dance, or Polonoise, is stately;
but Spohr is never vulgar. In spite, however,
of the merit of the pieces mentioned,—by no
means all those that could be named,— in spite
of a rich and peculiar treatment of the orchestra,
the tediousness of Spohr's Faust is too heavy and
soporific to be forgiven by this restless generation
of ours. The opera remains on the German stage
but without the breath of life in it—and though
frequently tried in England, even when England's
Spohr-worship was at its height, and when it
was thought a sin to whisper a word in question
of the absolute perfection of all or any German
music, as a whole it has been in this country
barely endured with respect.

The second musical illustration adverted to—
by Prince Antony Radzivill, one of the many
distinguished amateurs to whom Poland has given
birth,—an ample gracing of the first part of
Goethe's Faust,—to the extent of five-and-
twenty pieces of music—enjoys a select rather
than a general reputation, having long been kept
within the walls of the once famed Singing
Academy at Berlin. The music is sincerely praised
by those who know it, as well made, respectable
and befitting a refined gentleman; but it has not
wandered wide, as great Faust-music would
and assuredly should have done, in Goethe's
kingdom. The poet himself, who possibly had
more desire than power to appreciate other arts
than his own, seems to have been only partially
satisfied with this Radzivill music; since Eckermann
tells us that he spoke of M. Meyerbeer as
the one living composer who, perhaps, could have
worked out his intentions. A vain fancy!—
Something analogous in situation, so far as hero and
villain of the legend are concerned, has been
illustrated by the astute Berlin composer in his
"Robert," but the music of this is too flimsy and
flaring to approach the depths of the characters,
and the sublimity of certain of the situations of
the German tragedy.

A dozen years ago, it pleased M. Berlioz to take
the play in hand. Some of his best music is in
his Faust Cantata, but with it, some of his most
eccentric extravagances. He has fairly followed
many of the well-known incidents of Goethe's
drama; treating Faust in a weak and entangled
fashion,—giving to Mephistopheles something of
the sulphurous sarcasm which belongs to that
mocking tempter; but entirely unsuccessful with
Margaret. His opening villagers' round in this
Cantata is pleasant—his "Song of the Flea" is
quaint, animated, and musically ingenious, and
his chorus and dance of Sylphs are full of
beautiful fantasy; though, owing to the writer's
peculiar manner of working the same, is
perversely shut up, where a simpler display would
have quadrupled its value. But the demon that
tempts this strange Faust-composer to his
misdoing, inspired him with the brilliant idea of
writing a diabolical chorus, in Pandemonium, to
a gibberish of his own devising, and to set the
ghastly ride of the Doctor and his familiar with
an absurd and headlong ugliness of vehemence,
outdoing any example of the kind that occurs
to me in the works of any other musician, living
or dead—Herr Wagner's hideous Venus music
in his Tannhauser—the legend of the haunted hill
so deliciously told by Tieck—not forgotten. Then
in this Faust Cantata M. Berlioz, with the view,
it may be, of painting every variety of action and
life, has used a wild rebel-tune of Hungary, the
Ragoczy March;—the same air which, a quarter
of a century ago, the Austrian authorities forbade
to be published according to the transcript by M.
Liszt, which he played in his salad days with such
an inciting spirit. Dangerous as the March may
be, when exploding among those fiery folk, the
Magyar nobles and gentry—on its being stripped
of association there is not much to recommend
it beyond its marked rhythm. For this reason,
possibly, it may have been picked out by M.
Berlioz as a contrast to his own vaguely
perplexed themes and measures.

Dr. Liszt, too, has bethought him of the subject,
and has given birth to a Faust Symphony, wherein