Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

98MUSICAL REVOLUTION OF DUrREZ\

less lively, less voluptuous, than those of Andalusia, but they produce a more profoundly pensive impression. There are some which mean to be gay, hut they are more melancholy than the others. The gypsies of Moscow sing, without instruments, pieces which possess originality; but when the meaning of the words that accompany this expressive and national music is not understood, much of the effect is lost.

Duprez has disgusted me with songs which eonvey ideas by sound only. His manner of intonating the music and accenting the words carries expression to the utmost verge that it is capable of reaching : the power of feeling is thus multiplied a hundredfold, and thought, borne on the wings of melody, soars to the farthest limits of human sensibility, which takes its spring in the confines where mind and body blend. Things that speak to mind only do not soar so far. Such is the achievement of Duprez in the field of poetical song: he has realised lyric tragedy, long so vainly sought in France by incompetent talents. To have thus succeeded in revolutionising the art, it was needful that the artist should know his profession better than did any other. Admiration of such a marvel inclines us to be hard to please, and often unjust as regards others. To neglect the power of words as a means of musical expression, is to reject the true poetry of vocal music ; it is to eon-fine the power, whose full capabilities had not been completely and systematically revealed to the French public until Duprez restored Guillaume Tell. These are the facts that procure for that great artist his place in the history of art.