Undoubtedly _Ernani_ was an advance upon _Nabucco_ and _I Lombardi_. In 1848 this opera came again under the notice of the censor of the Athenæum, but it did not tend to alter his views respecting Verdi musically.
"It is not many years," we read, "since Signor Verdi was in this country, among the myriad strangers who are attracted by the 'season,' struggle vainly for a hearing, and retire unnoticed.... For new melody we have searched in vain; nor have we even found any varieties of form, indicating an original fancy at work as characteristically as in one of Pacini's or Mercadante's or Donizetti's better cavatinas. All seems worn and hackneyed and unmeaning.... '_Ernani! Ernani! involami_,' is a song of executive pretension, written apparently for one of those mezzo-soprano voices of extensive compass which poor Malibran brought into fashion. There is a good deal of what may be called pompous assurance, both in the _andantino_, and in the final movement, and an accomplished singer could doubtless work an encore with it. Signor Verdi's concerted music strikes us as a shade worthier and more individual than his songs.... We cannot conclude these brief remarks, incomplete for obvious reasons, as a judgment, without saying that flimsy as we fancy Signor Verdi's science, and devoid as he seems to be of that fresh and sweet melody, which we shall never cease to relish and welcome, there is a certain aspiration in his works which deserves recognition, and may lead him to produce compositions which will command success."[17]
This could hardly be styled encouraging criticism on a work which had, and has since been received with the greatest success throughout Italy, in Paris, and in London, and which has enjoyed a legitimate and fairly enduring popularity, remembering always how changeable a thing opera at its best is. Adolphe Adam, writing of _Ernani_ in Paris, has said, "Of all the operas of Verdi represented in Paris, _Ernani_ is the one which has obtained the most success. I cannot say why, for I am quite as fond of the others, and I do not think this success is to be attributed especially to the excellent execution it has received."[18] The obvious and only conclusion being that the music itself was the true operating force.