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Updated: June 17, 2025
Heine told us that shortly after he and Spontini had taken their seats in the almost empty amphitheatre, and as soon as the Bacchus chorus had started, Spontini had said to him: 'C'est de la Berliner Sing-Academie, allons-nous-en. Through an open door a streak of light had fallen on a lonely figure behind one of the columns; Heine had recognised Mendelssohn, and concluded that he had overheard Spontini's remark.
Spontini, one of whose best operas was based on the life of that much mis-married enthusiast for divorce, John Milton, took to wife a member of the Érard family. In the outer world Spontini was famous for his despotism, his jealousy, his bad temper, and his excessive vanity. None of these qualities as a rule add much to home comfort, and yet, it is said that he lived happily with his wife.
I shall be every day, at three o'clock, at our home, in the Rue Spontini." At this moment, as she made a motion with her head to receive the cloak, she saw Dechartre with his hand on the knob of the door. He had heard. He looked at her with all the reproach and suffering that human eyes can contain. Then he went into the dim corridor.
After one of the choruses Spontini beckoned me to his side and whispered: 'Mais savez-vous, vos choeurs ne chantent pas mal'; whereupon Fischer, regarding this with suspicion, shouted out to me in a rage: 'What does the old hog want now? and I had some trouble to pacify the speedily converted enthusiast.
The art of Mozart had been forgotten; Weber scored cumbrously as was inevitable; Spontini and Marschner scored cumbrously also, partly because they could not help it, partly because they wanted to fill the theatre with sound. Wagner naturally followed them.
I also received an invitation with the Olliviers from the Erard family, at whose house I again met my old friend the widow of Spontini. We spent a rather charming evening there, during which, strange to say, I had to be responsible for the musical entertainment at the piano.
Thus Gluck was a German, as also was Meyerbeer, while Cherubini and Spontini were Italians. Henri Etienne Méhul was the son of a French soldier stationed at the Givet barracks, where he was born June 24, 1763. His early love of music secured for him instructions from the blind organist of the Franciscan church at that garrison town, under whom he made astonishing progress.
The Opera, too, under the direction of Gimerosa, had attained to an unwonted excellence; while Spontini and Boieldieu, in their separate walks, gave origin to the school so distinctly that of the Comic Opera.
It shows a variety of influences; it shows also that Wagner, before he was thirty, was, as I have already said, a perfect master of the tricks of the trade. In huge imposing effects he out-Meyerbeered Meyerbeer, out-Spontinied Spontini.
The pomp and outward show of that remarkable heavy-weight Spontini must have come as a relief after the Dresden opera-goer's ordinary fare; but Spontini, though he lays on his colours with a barbarian regal hand, never sparkles; he is altogether lacking in vivacity, elasticity; he had no gift for gracious or piquant melody.
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