THE Overture to Tigrane, a serious opera performed at Berlin in 1799, is, we feel assured, totally unknown in this country. If its orchestral effect is at all equal to what the piano-forte arrangement leads us to expect, it cannot much longer remain a stranger to our concerts and theatres. Clearness and unity of design, and sweetness of melody, are its chief attributes; whether skilful contrivance of the parts and grandeur of effect are to be added to these, we cannot say, not having seen the score, or heard the composition performed by a band. Concerning the author we refer to the memoir in the present Number.

The Terzetto, by Sarti, is, in the original, set to the second verse of the 51st Psalm, ‘Amplius lava me,’—and to these Latin words is published by the Rev. C. J. Latrobe, in his excellent but voluminous and expensive collection of sacred music by foreign composers. Our arrangement is made from the score printed in Shield’s Harmony, a work become very scarce, where it appears to the verses now given; but this is the first time it has been published conjointly with English words and a piano-forte arrangement. The many beauties in this composition do not require to be pointed out.

The Arietta (as the author himself denominates it) by Beethoven is one of the very finest of his vocal productions. In the expression of deep passion it has never been excelled; and now rarely equalled! But it must be sung with the feeling that inspired the composer when he wrote it: coldness or tameness would prove fatal to so highly finished a piece of musical colouring.

This extraordinary composition is yet very little known in this country, and—still stranger to say—not much anywhere.

Palestrina’s name is known to all; his works to very few. Greatly and deservedly as they were esteemed in his day, and for ages after, most of them now seem dry, and, no doubt, are occasionally crude and uninteresting. The present specimen, however, we trust, will not be liable to either charge, except, perhaps, in the case of one or two notes, which, though somewhat harsh, we have not ventured to alter. The present terzetto—the air and harmony of which more resemble the music of recent date than any we ever met with of the same composer—is from a mass printed in two staves in an old German work in our possession. We have expanded it into what is called a vocal score.

Handel’s Suites de PiÈces are in few hands. The Chaconne[7], now given—the elegant melody of which, if only heard, can never want admirers—is followed by no less than sixty-two variations in the original work! We have selected a few of those we considered the best, and put the mark 8va alta over two, conceiving that the author might thus have written them, had the instruments in his day furnished the notes.

The Romance and Duet from Fortunatus require no further remark than what appears in our account of that new German Opera. Not having had time to obtain a good and adaptable translation of the original words, we have set others to them, which certainly suit the music.