The secret of such phenomenal successes lies partly in the rapid advance toward the denouement, in a frank and rich melodious flow of catching phrases, but mainly in the fact that all these young composers belong to the class of musical realists. Their works, then, are powerful because they conform to the spirit of the age. Lastly, their authors have an instinctive knowledge of stage effect, which enables them to use to the best advantage the materials at their disposal.
We recognize in these products of the present time the possibilities of a great musical advance for Italy. The younger composers, unlike their predecessors, have zealously studied the technique of composition with truly international breadth of interest. It is also to be noted that this same generation has completely freed itself from the idolatrous worship of Wagner. Those phases of Wagner's genius which should not be imitated have been shunned, and the Italians have turned to the passionately melodious song-phrase, which is truly characteristic of their nature. They have returned, in a word, to their own feelings and their own inspirations, as well as to their own belief in the power of rapid stage action. Although elaborate musical workmanship has never been a prominent feature of Italian composers, much has nevertheless been done in later years to improve matters in this respect. There is therefore reason to hope, that, if once the system of musical education can be founded on a solid basis, the most gratifying results may follow in Italian music of the future. The inhabitants of the Apennine peninsula, with their sensuous nature, their musical language, and their overflowing love for singing and music in general, must perforce continue to cultivate an art without which their life as a nation would be incomplete.
_Reproduction of a steel engraving by Sichling, after an oil portrait by Haussmann, in 1746._]
The question of physical and mental heredity is one which at the present day not only challenges the investigation of the learned, but is actively discussed in the wider circles of cultivated society. No better example can be cited in support of the affirmative side of this question, than the family of Johann Sebastian Bach, in which, for the space of not less than two hundred and fifty years, musical talent of a high order was transmitted from one generation to another. Displaying itself for the first time in the sixteenth century, the gift grew more and more marked until it reached its culminating point in the subject of this memoir, but began to dwindle in his posterity and disappeared entirely in the last descendant of the race, who died in Berlin in 1845.