Once a Week Volume 27 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 Excerpt: ...I disliked ten years ago, or the reverse.... It is impossible to know a work thoroughly on a first hearing--on a first intercourse with an artist to perceive the extent of his merits; but unless the work, from the first, produces a quick desire for better acquaintance--unless the artist, at first, displays some attribute or accomplishment that attracts--it may be only a damage done to taste, and a loss of time on subsequent occasions, to attempt to find beauty where none suggested itself, or charm in that which failed to charm originally. Such attempts, however laudable on the score of their patience and charity, are apt to end in the listener losing his discernment of good and evil, in his confusing what is mediocre with what is great, in his accepting pretensions on the terms of those advancing them, not according to the standard of artistic perfection." Than this nothing could be clearer; and the comparison between the written and the oral opinion indicates a tenacity to a judgment which looks as if the opinion were truth itself. On examination, however, it seems harsh and unjust. If no conversion is possible--and this is what the judgment amounts to--how can 'we reconcile the estimation in which Beethoven is held nowadays with the position he held years ago? To come down still later, have we not all remarked the tone of present criticism in comparison with the tone of criticism in vogue five years ago?-Schubert was tolerated as a song writer, but Schumann was rejected as a sceptic. It was the fashion to sneer at the germs of the innovation, and to believe the founders of the new-fangled school, men running mad after an idea. Now, on the contrary, all is changed; and no concert of any moment is considered satisfactory without at least one representa...