M. JULLIEN, like all innovators, is a

man of mind. His powers are those of a leader. A leader in military life is a character which has, under the barbarisms thus far degrading every country, our own not excepted, been the man of all others who has claimed and received popular suffrages; and, up to this time, artists, savans, inventors, and projectors, have sneaked like lacqueys round his person, accepting his favors as an imperial master, or joining in the roar of a presidential election, when all the values and splendors of civic and intellectual service are cast rudely and contemptuously aside. arts of peace have their leaders which require, to say the least, equal powers of direction with those of the field; and although the ignorant or the polite rabble may not recognize the fact, the qualities of a first-rate musical leader are as rare as those of the director of battles; requiring as much finesse, energy, endurance, comprehensiveness, action, diversity, as bloody heroship; to which must be added sensibility and romance, lyrical taste and feeling, that do not belong to the trade of havoc.

The

In assuming this rank for M. Jullien, we mean to be serious. We mean, simply and directly, to throw out hints, when necessary, to the reader, as to the real qualifications of lyrical leadership, and thus seek to extend a due appreciation of the intent and spirit of High Art.

Our notice shall give first some rough biographical details of M. Jullien's life: then, some account of the music which he plays; and to this we shall add a brief remark on the components of an orchestra, detailing the qualities, capacities, and combinations of the instruments, so far as is possible, with extremely limited means of musical notation. As many persons who read music never trouble their heads about an orchestra, a hasty analysis of one may neither be unprofitable nor uninteresting, but may superinduce a more positive consideration of the subject, as a noble entity, a great institution, a magnificent evidence of intellect and genius.

To begin with our narrative:-The father of M. Jullien was band-master in the Swiss guard prior to the French revolution. When his regiment was massacred, he was fortunate enough to evade the fate of his companions. Clearing the boundaries of France, he proceeded to Rome and became one of the pope's bodyguard. He married there; so the subject of our notice is half Italian in his descent. In infancy our M. Jullien did not

like music; but at the age of nine years he showed such aptitude in singing that he was exhibited as a prodigy, by his father, in various provincial towns of the South of France. He lost his voice, however, and then took to the study of the violin. He very soon excelled on this, and played at concerts in Italy. His father afterward fixed himself at Marseilles, and, with his son, under the patronage of Admiral de Cigny, entered the fleet of the Levant, and took part in the battle of Navarino. Young Jullien subsequently enlisted as a soldier; so it would seem that his worldly affairs were not prosperous. His regiment being on the Piedmontese frontier, he deserted in order to see his mother. After this he returned to his colonel, who, being a humane man, and sympathizing as a father in the filial feeling of Jullien, procured his exemption from a military execution.

Not long after this he purchased his discharge and proceeded to Paris. There he entered the Conservatory of Music, and his talents secured him the special regards of Cherubini, who privately directed his musical studies. When his course was completed, he obtained the directorship of certain public concerts, which gave him celebrity. Subsequently, he proceeded to England, and some twelve years ago turned Drury Lane Theatre into a promenade concert room. This was a genial innovation in art. The Times newspaper acknowledges the great services of M. Jullien in a social and moral point of view in thus putting fine music within the hearing and consideration of the masses, elevating their taste, suggesting new thoughts and affording fresh occupation for their leisure moments; diminishing the attraction of coarse habits, and proving thus a moral guide and instructor.

A person so educated as M. Jullien, would necessarily be capable of directing any and every style of music, and his talent led him to give all styles, from the waltz to the symphony. The waltz of this century is generally spoken lightly of in ordinary criticism, but it is as perfect a poem as the lyrics of Pindar, and, written by first-rate composers, is a circle of beauty complete in its parts: not long, but rich; not solemn, but full of grace, dignity and love. The very movement of three steps to the bar, one accented and two unaccented, gives a richochetting proportion that is indescribably graceful, compared with the double tramp of the ordinary march or quadrille. Then, too, the intense accents of the modern

school, the rainbow archings of the violinism of the orchestra, the dazzling rapidity of the small flute, the clarinet, the cornet,-all afford as large, or larger scope for genius than much serious music, whose dignity is dulness, and whose sacredness is the blind, stereotyped admiration of mere phantoms.

The waltz as now performed by great orchestras under leaders like Musard, Strauss, Lanner, and Jullien, is a lyric, specially marking the nineteenth century. It embraces instrumentation, melody, harmony, double counter-point, imitations, progress, climax, and a general dramatic drift and scope, that would adorn the best symphony, but which are not discovered by trumpery criticism, because coming without a swelling and swaggering name. This style of music, which is exactly rhythmed, each eight bars corresponding to four lines of poetry, and answering the symmetrical exigencies of the human heart by some mystic law yet unpenetrated, exposing in rapid utterance every shade of passion and emotion, bringing in broadest contrast the dazzling and unequalled splendors of a richly endowed modern orchestra-at one moment, the fierce and blasting roar of a company of artists discoursing from trumpets, horns, trombones, and tubas, either in stern unisons or ponderous harmonies-at another, the sober utterings of the bassoon, the sentimental wail of the hautboy, the aristocratic brilliancy of the clarionet, and the feathery spray of the flute-at another the whir of fiercely jabbering drums, or the resonant crash of colossal cymbals, and almost in the same breath, the sequence of the feminine or angelic portion of the orchestra, the vast structure of violinism from turret to foundation stone, from the harmonic innocence of the highest note to the black terrors of the lowest-these great orchestral divisions, separately and partially, or wholly combined, are all lavished with the exuberant hand of passionate and heroic genius, in the construction of the waltz of this epoch.

The diffusive and unequalled popularity of the modern dancing music has been the chief reason of the success of M. Jullien, and through the opening wedge of its attractions, he has, in England, drawn public attention to instrumental music. While making this branch of composition a prominent attraction of his concerts, he has presented, in connection with it, every other school of instrumental music, with equal breadth and depth of perception.

It must not be supposed that M. Jullien comes to this country because his popularity is waning or wasted in England. We are thus assured to the con

trary in the leading journal of Great Britain:

"The season just expired has been as remarkable for the excellence and variety of the performances as any of its predecessors, and has attracted even a larger and a more constant attendance on the part of the public, in spite of a succession of bad weather, which would have been fatal to the majority of speculations. It cannot, therefore, be said of M. Jullien, that he goes after having exhausted his public in this country. He goes in the meridian of his popularity; and there is every reason to suppose that he will be as much a favorite when he comes back as he has been up to the present moment. M. Jullien's reputation is less ephemeral than some people are disposed to think. He has not been simply a director of promenade concerts: he has not merely studied to amuse the masses (although his interests might have been supposed to lean entirely in that direction); he has done his best to improve them. The progress in music in England, during the last fifteen years has been remarkable. How far M. Jullien has had a hand in this it is not necessary to insist. It is enough that he has been able to provide one of the best entertainments ever offered to the public, at a price, which, until his time, was wholly unprecedented, and that he has increased its attraction and maintained its popularity season after season, for a long series of years; and last, not least, that with the utmost discretion and least possible obtrusiveness, he has continued to render it a means of gradually familiarizing the multitude with the masterpieces of a great and beautiful art, which for a long period had been exclusively enjoyed by a privileged few. Some years ago, what is called an teur of music' was by no means so common as at the present day; probably not one out of twenty at that time knew the difference between a bassoon and a trombone. The case is now very different: there are amateurs of music every where, and the various instruments of which an orchestra is composed are becoming as individually known to the eye and the ear of the crowd as the harp, the piano, and the fiddle. This is alone a great step; acquaintance with materials leads to the estimation of results; he who has learned to distinguish the instruments of the orchestra has made one step in the direction of understanding a symphony," etc.

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The leader is not alone. His staff is with him. Concerto players on every orchestral instrument, who number upwards of a score. Eminent in victories gained on the fields of Apollo, they come here to fight their battles over again. Welcome all! Welcome interpreters of language without words, of phrases that suggest every thing and prove nothing: of the voice of valor without boasting, of love without jealousy, of imagination without

falsehood, of religion without bigotry, of eternity without retribution. Welcome great lyrical artists, whose fame has filled Europe! How many dreary hours have been lightened by you! How many thousands have listened to your melodious breathings! How many pulses have quickened under your inspiring numbers!

Among the twenty-six leading players who accompany Jullien from Europe, the most distinguished are Bottesinion the Contrabass, Reichert the Flute, Wuille, Clarinet, Collinet the Flageolet. Hughes on the Ophicleide, Koenig on the Cornet. These, and some of the others, have no superiors in Europe. The remainder of the performers have been engaged by Jullien from among the splendid body of resident musicians of New-York, and all these are worthy to form part of any-the best orchestra. The number of M. Jullien's orchestra is one hundred and two. They are distributed as follow: 3 flutes; 1 flageolet; 2 hautboys; 2 clarionets; 2 bassoons; 4 trumpets; 3 cornets; 4 horns; 4 trombones; 2 ophicleides; 2 pairs of kettle drums; 5 snare drums; 1 pair of cymbals; 1 bassdrum; 17 first violins; 16 second violins; 12 violas; 10 violoncellos, and 11 double basses.

The improvement in the fabrication of musical instruments is as good a test as any other of the advance of civilization. We enjoy a musical instrument perfectly played upon, and without thinking any too much of the hard toil necessary to establish such skill, we seldom think at all of the immense labor through successive ages, necessary to the mere mechanism of such a medium of sound and expression. In the contemplation of the mechanical agencies, equally with the mathematical and lyrical grandeurs of his calling, the artist finds its dignity. The most subtle cunning in wood, iron, brass, copper, gold, ivory-and not only in the forms of physical beauty which belong to the painter's or sculptor's skill, but in the intangible glories of sonorous combinations exactly balanced, and derived from the music of the spheres, from, the Omnipotent Voice as it courses through the Universe these all are involved in the fabriIcation of musical instruments. How gradual has been the growth of the artistie ingenuity necessary to the production of these instruments may be judged from the single fact, that the Piano-Forte has undergone eight hundred distinct changes of combination, proportion and shape: these do not include the special fancies of this or that maker, but the steps of improvement simply. A history, therefore, of the Piano-Forte would fill a large VOL. II.-28

volume. So, too, in writing of the Violin. it would require many pages to trace the various changes from savage or barbarous attempts at its formation, to the great and magical mimic of humanity. with its four little strings, each one under the hand of a master, sobbing with the anguish of a breaking heart, or bounding with the pulse of delectated love.

The individual distinctive beauty of each instrument singly taken, and in its combination, forms a world of beauty. But what attention is ordinarily paid to an orchestra? What means are taken to inspire a love of its resources? What can generalization do without the practical illustration necessary to understand it?

Art must not be approached as a mere amusement. There lies the error. Art is advertised in the newspapers along with knife-swallowers, fire-eaters, magic-tricksters, and low farce, as an amusement. But not so will God inspire the artist. He must shut himself in his closet and commune with the spirit of Beauty and Truth, and then can he discourse with a tongue of fire-then can his language be myriad-formed, then can he wield the lyre with prophetic inspiration.

When we look at the culminated splendors of Grecian Art, in the proportions of a Parthenon, we are struck with the fact that grace and strength go together, and that the beauty of the base is commensurate with its evident ability to sustain the pillar, and that of the pillar to sustain the whole building. In looking at an orchestra, we must bear in mind the same necessities of proportion. An orchestra has certain requirements equally consistent with force and beauty. Nothing but an uncultivated taste can dispense with these. When the advertisements speak of a grand orchestra, they are almost invariably devoid of truth. The smallest number of a grand orchestra is sixty, and then the hall wherein they play should not be very large. Eighty and upwards, however, are necessary to the greatest effects. An orchestra of eighty was only heard on three occasions last winter in this city, for the first time in our national history, a smaller number than that having been the limit theretofore. M. Jullien's orchestra, numbering one hundred and two performers, is the largest, therefore, yet heard in this city, or country.

The centre of the orchestra-that which round all the rest revolves, is the stringed instruments-that is, the violins, violas, violoncellos, and double basses. The harmonies and effects of these stringed instruments, find their original model in the treatment of four solo stringed in

struments; two violins, a viola, and a violoncello, giving perfect harmony, and building up the school of quartet music. All the notes that are found in the orchestra, and a few more, can be counted in the piano-forte of seven octaves.

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Sound in music, is caused by equal vibrations. The lowest note of the grand organ gives thirty-two vibrations in each second of time. Eight notes, or an octave above that, gives the lowest bass note of a seven octave piano-forte. A string of just half the proportions of this lowest note, will give twice its vibrations, which are sixty-four to the second, that is to say, one hundred and twenty-eight. Another string of half the proportions of this gives another octave above, marked by double the last number of vibrations, or two hundred and fifty-six. So going on halving the proportions of the strings, we get double the vibrations thus: 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 49096, 8192. These mathematical proportions are conformable to the claims of music as a science. measured in the same proportion produce the same results of grave, medium, and acute octaves. So, too, the pipe of the human voice. The larger the string, or tube, the graver or deeper the sound, and the reverse. Hence the deep voice of man, compared with the high tones of woman, or the piping treble of childhood. Sexual differences in voice are based on octaves. These octaves differ in pitch, but they are sympathetic unisons-an identity with a difference, if the paradox may be allowed. The masculine voice singing a note or air, gives it actually an octave below the feminine voice. The differences in the pitch of instruments are simply imitations of the pitch of the human voice, and the value of an instrument is its resemblance to the expression of the voice. Hence the superiority of the violin family of instruments. Without instruments, however, the grand mathematical truths of music could never have been discovered, nor the world know that a science as wide as that which calculates an eclipse, or draws a parallax, lies in the tremblings of a violin string.

The instruments of the Creator, the different voices, the Bass, Baritone, Tenor for the masculine; and the Contralto, Mezzo-Soprano, and Soprano, for the feminine, are the originals, then, of the orchestra.

The orchestral instruments, however, are more copious in mere notes, while so much inferior in tone to the voice.

When a composer wishes to write for the orchestra, he takes music paper with a large number of musical staves, or groups of five parallel lines on them. He divides the musical measures, each one of equal time, by drawing down lines at right

angles to the five line staves. This is called scoring; hence the term SCORE or FULL SCORE. The various instruments occupy different staves, which sometimes are as many as thirty or forty on a page; and the labor of the composer, therefore, in writing out the notes of each part may be taken as much more arduous than the work of the literary man. As for the power to combine all the sounds of the instruments in his mind's ear, and know beforehand how each one will come forth separately and together--that is a gift, and can never be taught. The best mode of grouping the instruments is as follows; first wooden wind instruments - then brass-then pulsatile-then stringed. Let the reader imagine the following list of instruments written on a sheet of music paper, cach one followed by its notes, and the whole divided, as described above, by vertical lines, marking the measure, and he will have the score, from which the leader is enabled to tell what each man in the orchestra is doing, and how he is to be directed:

Small or Octave Flute; Grand Flute; Hautboys; Clarionets; Bassoons; Trumpets, Horns; Trombones; Tubas; Kettle Drums; Bass Drum; Violins; Violas; Violoncellos; Double Basses,

When a composer has written out his score, it is the business of the copyist to extract each separate part from the mass, so that the flute player shall only have his part on his desk, the hautboy player only his part, and so on. This often requires much skill, and good copyists are rare. Among the masters of their profession in this city may be cited Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Meyer, and Mr. Unger, who are almost infallible in whatever intricacy of detail. The human voice is much more generally under than over two octaves, while the range of instruments is more than that, as will appear by the following:-The lowest G on a seven octave piano-forte, or the fifth note from the last, is the lowest note of the double bass. In the orchestra seldom over two octaves are used for the double bass. The pitch of the violoncello is one octave above the double bass, but as it has four strings, or one string more than the double bass, it really begins on C, four notes above the lowest note of the double bass. It can play three octaves and upwards. The viola is precisely one octave in pitch above the violoncello, and gives from C three octaves and upwards. The violins are a fifth above the viola, and give from G three octaves and upwards. The octave flute is one octave higher than the grand flute, which begins on C, four notes above the lowest note of the violin, and gives three oc

taves above. The hautboy gives two octaves and a half beginning on the same C. The clarionets begin six notes lower than the hautboys, and go over three octaves. The bassoons have the same pitch as the violoncello. The trumpet begins generally on the G of the violin, and gives about two octaves. The horns are an octave below the trumpet. The trombones are three, alto, tenor, and bass; answering to the contralto, tenor, and bass voice, but with greater compass. The tubas or sax horns answer in pitch to other brass instruments. There are some other instruments, such as the English horn, which is a larger hautboy. There is also a bass clarionet, and a double bass bassoon. The tympani, or kettle drums, are tuned to the first and fifth of the scale, being the intervals most in demand. For example, in the scale of C-namely, C, D, E, F, G, A, B-the kettle drums would be C, G: in the scale of G-namely, G, A, B, C, D, E, F-they would be G, D; and so with other scales. The wind instruments can give but one note at a time; but the violin can give two notes, and three or four if the bow be drawn suddenly across the string, when the rapidity of the sequence of the notes stands in the place of a simultaneous expression. It is usual in an orchestra to have but two flutes, two hautboys, two clarionets, two bassoons, two trumpets, four horns, two or three trombones, one pair of drums: but the stringed instruments to this proportion may be forty violins, twenty violas, thirty violoncellos and double basses; these more or less. All classical music, which means music of a certain age and rank, is so written for the orchestra since the time of Haydn's later works, except that in them but two horns are written, and the trombones seldom. The ability of performers to do more and better things on their instruments, has greatly increased during this century. In Handel's time orchestration was miserably poor: his scores, as such, have but feeble interest. Haydn advanced it immensely. Rossini added to its powers. The solo performances of instruments in overtures was never really brilliant up to Rossini's courageous innovation. There is, for example, no prominent solo writing in Don Giovanni, by Mozart; it is smooth and elegant generalization. Rossini was the first to write for four horns in an overture; the effect is surpassing when we use the improved instruments, with valves giving all the half tones. The violin school was vastly roused by Paganini; and the piano-innovations of Thalberg, and Liszt, are copies of the immense graspings and combinations of the great Italian's genius. Beethoven intro

duced new effects for the violoncello giving it a singing or passionate cantabile expression. Clarionets were not introduced into English orchestras till about 1780. Flutes have been much improved, and, indeed, excepting violins, it would be impossible to name an instrument that has not been regenerated within a few years. As cities grow in size, and players increase in number, it will be possible to break in upon the old conventionalisms of the orchestra more and more. For certain effects there might be twenty flutes, thirty trumpets, forty clarionets, and so forth. Military bands have been improved prodigiously of late years. Besides cornets, tubas, etc., there is the improvement of numbers, many of the Austrian military bands now number eighty to one hundred players. We once heard all the bands of Paris play together, al fresco; amounting to 1800 performers. The bands in this country are yet too small, though their improvement under Dodworth and Noll has quite equalled our progress in other things.

The orchestra, however, having stringed and bowed instruments, possesses the great point of expression. The reader having followed us through our analysis, may judge of the skill and talent required to direct such a vast body of musicians, so that they shall speak to the life the thoughts of the composer; observing the nicest points of intonation, and the most flexible requirements of musical coloring; that they shall at one moment be like an infant's breathing, and the next like a tropical storm; at one moment like the sigh of love, at the next like the crash of armed hosts; or that they shall, as the ocean tempest, begin from a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, and little by little augment in intensity-crescendo poco a poco-until they boil over in lyrical wrath -strike, foam, and thunder aloft until the concave rings and the ground shakes. Or, that during whole hours they shall follow all the caprices, whims, and zig-zag of the singer on the stage; seconding every word, never too loud or too feeble, but always lieges to musical order and law. So to direct them requires the skill of a Jullien. To appreciate such an orchestra, as the colossal exponent of passion and emotion, of the art of wordless eloquence and celestial purity, will be one of the noblest efforts in the big steps of popular progress. Understood rightly, it will widen the range of our objects of praise both in men and things.

We have not spoken of M. Jullien as a composer, because a critique on his work, would lead us too far into technical matter on this occasion, as we have