cantatas, oratorios, masses, etc.; seven symphonies for King Joseph of
Spain, and many miscellaneous pieces for the court of Russia."

Paisiello's style, according to Fetis, was characterized by great
simplicity and apparent facility. His few and unadorned notes, full of
grace, were yet deep and varied in their expression. In his simplicity
was the proof of his abundance. It was not necessary for him to have
recourse to musical artifice and complication to conceal poverty of
invention. His accompaniments were similar in character, clear and
picturesque, without pretense of elaboration. The latter not only
relieved and sustained the voice, but were full of original effects,
novel to his time. He was the author, too, of important improvements in
instrumental composition. He introduced the viola, clarinet, and bassoon
into the orchestra of the Italian opera. Though, voluminous both in
serious and comic opera, it was in the latter that he won his chief
laurels. His "Pazza per Amore" was one of the great Pasta's favorites,
and Catalani added largely to her reputation in the part of _La
Frascatana_. Several of Paisiello's comic operas still keep a dramatic
place on the German stage, where excellence is not sacrificed to
novelty.

VI.

A still higher place must be assigned to another disciple and follower
of the school perfected by Piccini, Dominic Cimarosa, born in Naples
in 1754. His life down to his latter years was an uninterrupted flow of
prosperity. His mother, an humble washerwomen, could do little for her
fatherless child, but an observant priest saw the promise of the lad,
and taught him till he was old enough to enter the Conservatory of
St. Maria di Loretto. His early works showed brilliant invention and
imagination, and the young Cimarosa, before he left the Conservatory,
had made himself a good violinist and singer. He worked hard, during a
musical apprenticeship of many years, to lay a solid foundation for
the fame which his teachers prophesied for him from the onset. Like
Paisiello, he was for several years attached to the court of Catherine
II. of Russia. He had already produced a number of pleasing works,
both serious and comic, for the Italian theatres, and his faculty of
production was equaled by the richness and variety of his scores.
During a period of four years spent at the imperial court of the North,
Cimarosa produced nearly five hundred works, great and small, and
only left the service of his mag