s so
sweet that Mozart might have written it.
Then in the Mozart selections, the "Dove sono" is an aria requiring to
be sung with a very pure tone and good style. All of Mozart's operatic
arias were intended for well-trained Italian singers having a refined
and high-bred style of singing. When so done, they are always
delightful. The Cherubino air is very fresh, and full of the charm of
youth and love. The trio of girls from "The Magic Flute" is given
because it is so taking, while involving a succession of implied
consecutive fifths. And the great trio, "On Thee Each Living Soul
Awaits," concludes the concert in a noble manner. If the resources of
the local society should happen to make it easy, it will afford an
admirable close to give along with this trio the two choruses,
"Achieved is the Glorious Work."
It is to be understood that the selections here offered from these two
great masters illustrate but a small part of their individualities.
The selection has been determined by the convenience of copies and the
likelihood of the resources in every place being equal to their
acceptable performance.
CHAPTER IV.
CHARACTERISTIC MOODS OF BEETHOVEN.
LUDVIG VAN BEETHOVEN.
Born December 16, 1770, at Bonn.
Died March 26, 1827, in Vienna.
Beethoven was the son of a very dissipated tenor singer of the chapel
of the Elector of Cologne, and the family had been musical for several
generations. The boy learned to play the viola and violin as well as
the piano while he was still very young indeed, and by the age of
eleven was regularly engaged as viola player in the orchestra and had
gained such proficiency upon the piano that it was popularly said of
him that he could have played a good part of Bach's "Well-tempered
Clavier" by heart. While still but a lad he succeeded informally to
the post of assistant conductor of the orchestra, and it was his duty
to prepare the music for the men, making the abridgments, emendations,
and rearrangements that might be advisable to adapt old music to the
then modern orchestra. In this way he gained, no doubt, much of his
marvelous acquaintance with orchestral effect. When he was fifteen he
was regularly appointed organist to the private chapel of the Elector,
and he was left in charge of the orchestra for months together in the
absence of the head director, Neefe.
[Illustration: Ludwig van Beethoven]
He began to compose by the time he was ten, but he d
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