martial song ("Hark! hark! methinks I hear"). The last scene is in the
throne-room, where Manuel announces he is king of Castile, and mounts
the throne singing a stirring song closely resembling, in its style,
the "Fair Land of Poland," in "The Bohemian Girl." Elvira expresses
her delight in a bravura air ("Oh, no! by Fortune blessed"), and the
curtain falls. The story of the opera is very complicated, and
sometimes tiresome; but the music is well sustained throughout,
especially the buffo numbers, while some of the ballads are among the
best ever written by an English composer.




BEETHOVEN.

Ludwig Von Beethoven, the greatest of composers, was born Dec. 17,
1770, at Bonn, Germany, his father being a court singer in the chapel
of the Elector of Cologne. He studied in Vienna with Haydn, with whom
he did not always agree, however, and afterwards with Albrechtsberger.
His first symphony appeared in 1801, his earlier symphonies, in what
is called his first period, being written in the Mozart style. His
only opera, "Fidelio," for which he wrote four overtures, was first
brought out in Vienna in 1805; his oratorio, "Christ on the Mount of
Olives," in 1812; and his colossal Ninth Symphony, with its choral
setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy," in 1824. In addition to his
symphonies, his opera, oratorios, and masses, and the immortal group
of sonatas for the piano, which were almost revelations in music, he
developed chamber music to an extent far beyond that reached by his
predecessors, Haydn and Mozart. His symphonies exhibit surprising
power, and a marvellous comprehension of the deeper feelings in life