Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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218 SALVE EEGINA SAMARA
performed on his return from Rome at the Concerts
Populaires, March 22', 1874 ; a Stabat
Mater, given under the care of the Administration
dea Beaux -Arts (performed in London,
April 23, 1879, at one of Mme. Viard-Louis's
concerts) ; a setting of Ps. oxiii. for soli, chorus,
and orchestra ; and an air and variations for
strings, performed in 1877, all the last given
as the fruits of his residence in Italy. On his
return to Paris, he was appointed chorus master
at the Opera Populaire which it had been
attempted to establish at the TheS.tre du
Ch^telet, and he then wrote ballet music for
Grisar's 'Amours du Diable,' revived at this
theatre Nov. 18, 1874. Three years later he
made his real debut with his grand opera, ' Le
Bravo' (Theatre Lyrique, April 18, 1877), a
noisy and empty composition revealing the
true nature of the composer, who loves effect,
but is wanting in inspiration, style, and form,
and is wholly destitute of any fixed ideal.
His little ballet Fandango ' ' (Op^ra, Nov. 26,
1877), in which he made use of some highly
characteristic Spanish melodies, was a decided
advance in point of instrumentation ; but his
grand opera, 'Richard III.,' performed at St.
Petersburg, Dec. 21, 1883, was a dead failure,
and in ' Egmont, ' produced at the Opera Oomique,
Dec. 6, 1886, his chief faults, noisiness, and an
amalgamation of different styles, from that of
Meyerbeer to that of Verdi, were so predominant
that the work was only performed a few times.
Salvayre was commissioned to set to music
Dumas' drama La Dame ' de Monsorean,.' a
subject little fitted for musical treatment. It
was produced at the Opera, Jan. 30, 1888, and
was wholly unsuccessful. Salvayre, who has
the qualities of a good musician, in spite of his
repeated failures, was decorated with the L6gion
d'honneur in July 1880. A. J.
SALVE REGINA, one of the most celebrated
Latin antiphons. It does not belong to the
classical Gregorian plain-song, but both words
and music were written in the 10th century.
They have been ascribed to various authors,
but are with greatest probability assigned to
Hermann Contractus (1013-1054), the crippled
monk of St. Gall and Reichenau, composer and
writer on musical theory and practice. Originally
an independent antiphon, this was afterwards
assigned a special place of its own and became
one of the antiphons of the B.V.M. sung after
Compline. The music opens thus
K*^
jT
Sal - Te Be • gl lu mi- Be 'ri ' COT - di • se. etc.
and continues in pure Dorian classical style.
In this respect it is unlike the companion
antiphon Alma Sedemptoris mater, also attributed
to Hermann, which shows signs of modem
or popular tonality from the very start.
^^
P^ ^tt=^
-i-V
ma Be-demp-to - rie ma • ter, etc
The Salve Begina, text and music, became
speedily popular. The words were the subject
of sets of sermons by the end of the century,
and soon St. Bernard and others still more
widely established their popularity. In some
rites the antiphon was admitted into the Office
itself on one of the festivals of the Blessed
Virgin ; it was then naturally associated with
the First Tone. In the present Roman Breviary
the text has been altered, and many incorrect
forms of the music prevail. Apart from the
plain-song setting the words have frequently
been set in the motet style by Palestrina and
others. These antiphons of the B.V.M. were
among the earliest texts to be set in ' prick-song,
partly because elaboration was especially connected
with such services, and partly because
the antiphon at the close of Compline, being
extra-liturgical, gave scope for polyphonic treatment,
and in fact was among the first to develop
into an anthem ' ' in the modern sense of the
word. Their popularity has survived down to
the present time, and many composers great and
small have set the Salve Regina, the Alma
Medempioris, the Begina coeli, etc. vf. s. F.
SAMARA, Spibo, the son of a Greek father
and an English mother, was born at Corfu, Nov.
29, 1861. He began his musical education at
Athens under Enrico Stancampiano, a former
pupil of Mercadante, and afterwards studied
at the Paris Conservatoire, where his principal
master was Leo Delibcs. An introduction to
the publisher Sonzogno led to the production
of his first opera, ' Flora Mirabilis, ' which was
given at the Teatro Carcano, Milan, May 16,
1886. 'Flora Mirabilis,' which was written
to a fantastic libretto by Ferdinando Fontana
on a subject possibly suggested by the scene of
the flower-maidens in the recently produced
' Parsifal,' was a kind of compromise between
opera, ballet, and spectacle. The legendary
atmosphere of the tale appealed strongly to the
young composer's imagination, and his music,
though unequal, showed remarkable promise.
Unfortunately that promise has never been
'
redeemed. Flora Mirabilis, ' after a brief
period of popularity, dropped into oblivion,
and none of Samara's subsequent operas has
won anything like permanent
'
success. Medg6
(Rome, 1888), a revised edition of an opera
written before the production of 'Flora Mirabilis,'
was followed by Lionella ' ' (Milan, 1891).
In neither work were the hopes founded upon
'Flora Mirabilis' fulfilled. 'La Martire'
(Naples, 1894) may best be regarded as a concession
to the prevailing taste for squalid melodrama
which was engendered by the success of
Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana. ' ' The libretto
deals with the painful story of the sorrows and