A musical tour through the land of the past

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A MUSICAL TOUR THROUGH
THE LAND OF THE PAST

* Lin

A MUSICAL TOUR

THROUGH THE LAND
OF THE PAST

BY

ROMAIN ROLLAND

TRANSLATED BY

BERNARD MIALL

LONDON :

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & Co., LTD.
BROADWAY HOUSE : 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.G.

1922

ML

310

PREFACE

THIS collection of essays is a sequel to my first series
of Musicians of the Past* The greater number of
these papers are devoted to an age of transition, in
which the feeling, the aesthetic and the forms of our
modern music were taking shape. In accordance
with a phenomenon common enough in history, they
are not, as a rule, the greatest artistic personalities
who become the pioneers of the future. The Johann
Sebastian Bachs tower too high above their time to
influence it directly ; they stand outside their age ;
they shed their beams only at a distance. It is the
Telemanns, the Hasses, the Mannheim symphonists
who launch new movements. I have tried to make
Telemann live again in these pages. I shall speak
later on of my love and admiration for Hasse.

The world has been extremely unjust to these
masters. In their life-time their fame was perhaps
excessive ; but the oblivion into which they have
since fallen is surely much more so. Those who
originate ideas, the Telemanns, for instance, and the
" Mannheimers," have rarely the leisure to be
profound. They sow to the four winds ; let us be
grateful to them for the fruits which we gather

* The majority of these papers appeared in the Revue de Paris
(ist July, 1900, I3th August, 190$, i$th February, 1906, i5th April,
1910). The article on " Pepys's Diary " was included in a volume
of Melanges Hugo Riemann, published 1909. The study of " Tele-
mann " is published for the first time.

VI.

Preface

to-day. Do not demand of them the perfect pleni-
tude of autumn, for these were the capricious and
fertile spring. To each his reward ! That of the
musicians who were the innovators of the first half
of the eighteenth century was ample enough, since
they prepared the way for Mozart and Beethoven.

R.R.

NOTE BY TRANSLATOR

THE numerous quotations from Pepys's Diary in the
essay upon the genial Carolean amateur are taken
from Mr. H. B. Wheatley's admirable edition (in
eight volumes, 1913), published by Messrs. G. Bell
& Sons. For various reasons, including the absence
of references, the far more numerous quotations from
the works of Dr. Burney have been re-translated
from the French of the version employed by the
author. B.M.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

PREFACE V.

I. A HUMOROUS NOVEL BY AN EIGHTEENTH-
CENTURY MUSICIAN I

II. AN ENGLISH AMATEUR (PEPYS'S DIARY) 21

III. A PORTRAIT OF HANDEL 45

IV. THE ORIGINS OF THE " CLASSIC " STYLE

IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC 69

V. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FORGOTTEN
MASTER : TELEMANN,THE SUCCESSFUL
RIVAL OF J. S. BACH 97

VI. METASTASIO I THE FORERUNNER OF

GLUCK - 145

VII. A MUSICAL TOUR ACROSS EUROPE IN

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY - 163

I. ITALY
II. GERMANY

A HUMOROUS NOVEL BY AN EIGHTEENTH-
CENTURY MUSICIAN

Two centuries ago the Germans were already
filling Naples, Rome and Venice with their princes,
their merchants, their pilgrims, their artists and
their tourists. But Italy was not then passive, as
she afterwards became. She exported fourfold
what was imported across her frontiers ; and she
did not fail to repay to Germany the visits which
she received. She profited by the exhaustion
caused by the Thirty Years' War to flood Bavaria,
Hesse, Saxony, Thuringia and Austria with her
works of art and her artists. Music, above
all, and the theatre were left to her. Cavalli,
Bernabei, Steffani and Torri reigned in Munich ;
Bontempi and Pallavicino in Dresden ; Cesti,
Draghi, Ziani, Bononcini, Caldara and G. Porta
in Vienna ; Vivaldi was Kappelmeister in Hesse-
Darmstadt and Torelli in Brandenburg-Anspach.
Multitudes of libretto-writers and scene-painters,
of sopranos, contraltos and castrati, of violinists
and harpsichord players, of players on the lute,
the flute, the guitar and instruments of every kind,
followed these leaders. Their great engine of war was
the Opera, the supreme creation of the Renaissance
in its decline ; and their centre of propaganda was

2 A Musical Tour

Dresden, whose Italian theatre, founded in 1662,
enjoyed a European celebrity for a whole century,
until the departure of Hasse. Leipzig, the old Saxon
city, by no means escaped the plague. In 1693,
the Opera proceeded to plant itself in the town, in
the very stronghold of German art ; its founders made
no secret of the fact that they meant to make it a
branch of the Dresden Opera, and in a few years
they had carried their point. Opera music was no
longer content with the theatre ; it made its way
into the Church, the last refuge of German thought.
Its brilliant pathos soon superseded the seriousness
of the old masters ; the crowd thronged to these
dramatic recitals ; the singers and pupils of the
Thomaskirche, deserting their posts, went over to
the other camp, and a void proceeded to form
about the last defenders of the national tradition.

There was in the Thomaskirche in those days
a Cantor (Kappelmeister) whose name was Johann
Kuhnau. This man, a most attractive type of a
broadly developed genius, such as that heroic age
of art produced, was, says Mattheson, " very learned
in theology, jurisprudence, rhetoric, poetry, mathe-
matics, foreign languages and music." He had
defended theses in law, one of which was in Greek ;
he was an advocate ; he cultivated Greek and
Hebraic philosophy, translated works from the
French and Italian, and himself wrote original works,
both scientific and imaginative. Jacob Adlung
says " that he did not know whether Kuhnau did
greater honour to music or to science." As a
musician he is quite incontestably one of the pillars
of the old German art. Scheibe regarded him, with

A Humorous Novel 3

Reiser, Telemann and Handel, as one of the four
greatest German composers of the century. He
did indeed possess a depth of feeling, and at the same
time a beauty of form, a grace compounded of
strength and lucidity, which even to-day would
make his name a household word — if society were
capable of taking a genuine interest in music without
being urged to do so by fashion. Kuhnau was
one of the creators of the modern sonata ; he wrote
" suites " for the clavier which are models of spirited
grace, occasionally tinged with reverie. He com-
posed some descriptive poems — " programme music "
— under the title of Biblical Sonatas ; cantatas,
sacred and profane ; and a Passion, which makes him,
if we are to tell the truth, not only the immediate
predecessor of Bach at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig,
but also, in a great many respects, his indisputable
model.

Here are the terms in which he presents to the
public one of his principal musical works. They
will give some idea of his quiet, benign graciousness
and his generous nature. He begs indulgence for the
fantastic spirit in which his charming sonatas were
written (Clavier-Fruchte aus 7 Sonaten) ; he says
that he has employed "the same liberty as that
employed by Nature, when, hanging the fruits on
the trees, she gives one branch less or more than
another ... It did not take me long to produce
them : it was with me just as it is in certain coun-
tries where, thanks to the unusual heat, everything
grows with such rapidity that the harvest may be
reaped a month after sowing. While writing these
seven sonatas I experienced such eagerness that
without neglecting my other occupations I wrote
one every day, so that this work, which I began on

4 A Musical Tour

a Monday, was completed by the Monday of the
following week. I mention this circumstance merely
so that no one shall expect to find in them rare
and exceptional qualities. It is true that we are not
always craving for extraordinary things ; we often
eat the simplest fruits of our fields with as much
pleasure as the rarest and most exquisite foreign
fruits, although the latter may be very costly and
come from a great distance. I know there are
gourmets among the amateurs of music who will
accept nothing save that which comes from France
or Italy — above all when fortune has permitted them
to breathe the air of those countries. My fruits are
at the disposal of all ; those who do not find them
to their taste have only to seek elsewhere. As for
the critics, they will not spare them ; but the
venom of the ignorant is powerless to injure them
more than a cool dew will harm ripened fruit."

That same year (1700) Kuhnau published his noble
and expressive Biblische Historien, and a novel
which we shall consider at greater length. He
was thirty-three years of age. He stood alone in
the midst of Italians and " Italianisers." His
friends and pupils had deserted him. He witnessed
the decline of German music and made unavailing
efforts to check its fall. In vain did he appeal to
the City Council to protect public education, jeopard-
ised not only by the spell of foreign art but also by
the bait of cheap pleasures and easy profits, which
debauched the youth of the Leipzig schools, drawing
them in flocks to the Opera. The Council decided
against Kuhnau and in favour of success. On
Kuhnau's death in 1722 Italian opera was supreme
in Germany. It would seem that such injustice
on the part of Fate must have filled the old master's

A Humorous Novel 5

heart with bitterness. But the artists of those days
did not cultivate their melancholy ; and Kuhnau
seems never to have lost his bantering geniality in
respect of hostile men and things. He knew the
world, and was not in the least surprised that
charlatans should have precedence over honest
men. " People behave, as regards the artists who
have newly arrived in a town, as they do in respect of
fresh herring ; everybody wants to eat them, and
spends on them much more money than on the better
and choicer dishes which he is accustomed to see
on his table." But as he was a believer, not only in
religion, but in art, he had no misgivings as to the
eventual triumph of his cause ; and in the meantime
he cheerfully avenged himself upon stupidity and
ignorance by exhibiting them in a satirical novel
entitled Der Musicalische Quack-Salber (The Musical
Charlatan).*

This curious book, published in Dresden in the
year 1700, and very well known in the eighteenth
century, was preserved for us by only two examples,
one in the Royal Library of Berlin and the other in
the City Library of Leipzig, when Herr Kurt Benn-
dorf conceived the idea of republishing it in Herr
Sauer's collections of Deutsche Liter aturdenkmaeler."\

Written before its time, in lively, lucid German,
under French influence, full of short, vigorous
phrases, intermingled with French and Italian
words, this little volume can still be read with
pleasure. It is full of good nature and sparkling with

* Der Musicalische Quack-Salber, nicht alleine denen vorstaendi-
gen Liebhabern der Music, sondern auch alien andern welche in
dieser Kunst keine sonderbahre Wissenschaft haben, in einen
kurtzweiligen und angenehmen Historie zur Lust und Ergetzligkeit
beschrieben, von Johann Kuhnau. — Dresden, Anno 1700.

f Berlin, Behr, 1900.

6 A Musical Tour

intelligence. Only a few touches of pedantry, the
malady of the period, now and again slightly mar
this endearing countenance. There is much to be
learned from these many-coloured pictures of
seventeenth century life in Saxony. They shed
a light on one of the most interesting periods of
German history — the rapid convalescence of the
country after the Thirty Years' War, and the forma-
tion of the great classic century of music.

The hero of the novel is a Suabian adventurer,
from the neighbourhood of Ulm, who, profiting
by Germany's infatuation for Italy, passed himself
off as an Italian in his own country. He had spent
scarcely a year in Italy, and had filled a very humble
situation there, as copyist or famulus to a few
celebrated musicians ; but no more than this was
needed to persuade him that the genius of his masters
had descended upon him. He was very careful,
however, to avoid putting the matter to the test
in Italy, knowing that he would find it difficult
to get his pretensions accepted in Rome or Venice ;
he crossed the Alps, relying upon the ingenuous
simplicity of his compatriots and their servile respect
for all that was foreign.

He makes straight for Dresden, the centre of Italian-
ism, the home of the Opera. He begins by travesty-
ing his name ; from an insulting nickname applied
to his father (Theuer Affe — precious monkey) he
evolves the name of a respectable Neapolitan
family : Caraffa. One of the eccentricities of the
age was to give German names a French or Latin
disguise. Kuhnau castigates this absurdity with
the sturdy commonsense of a Moli£re. "We may

A Humorous Novel 7

excuse those on whose backs these foreign appella-
tions have been fastened by ridiculous parents ; they
may be forgiven for retaining them. But those who
of their own initiative falsify their names and create
a new race for themselves deserve the fate which
befell the gentleman whose name was Riebener
but who called himself Rapparius : when he sought
as heir to claim his brother's estate, the judge
rejected his claim, saying that in the petition which
he had addressed to him he had admitted himself
to be 'incontinent* (Rapparius), and therefore
could not lay claim to the inheritance. Many other
madmen have disguised themselves in French names.
I used to know one whose name was Hans Jelme.
As his clothes and his manners and so forth were all
in the French fashion, he wished to ensure that his
name should match them. As a matter of fact
his knowledge of French was confined to these
words : ' Monsieur, je suis votre tres humble servi-
teur.' But it was absolutely essential that his
name should become French. And farther, as he
had a great desire to be a gentleman, he thought
that while he was changing his name there would
be no additional difficulty in adorning it a little by
the addition of the particle. He therefore called
himself Jean de Jelme. But he had not reflected that
the German pronounciation would turn this into
Schand-Schelm (infamous scoundrel, dirty rascal)
so that he was despised and derided by all.
I wish it were so with all those who blush at their
German names and commit forgeries to change them ;
they deserve that Germany should blush for them in
return and hurl them across her frontiers with other
forgers/'*

* Der Musicalische Quack-Salber, Ch. vii.

8 A Musical Tour

Kuhnau was as one crying in the wilderness. It
was enough for a Theuer Affe to baptize himself
Caraffa and to murder a few words of Italian, and
the musical world of Dresden hastened to welcome
him. " They were all of that absurd species which
believes that a composer is a simpleton if he has not
been to Italy, and that the air of foreign countries
endows an artist with every perfection, after the
fashion of the Lusitanian winds, which, according
to Pliny, fecundate mares/' * Caraffa, moreover,
employs ingenious expedients to arouse and stimulate
the curiosity of the public. He has letters posted to
him from various quarters of Europe with sonorous
addresses : All' Illustrissimo Signore, il Signor
Pietro Caraffa, maestro incomparabile di musica ;
or in German : Dem WoM-Edlen, Besten und Sinn-
reichen Herrn Pietro Caraffa, Hochberuhmten Italiaen-
ischen Musico, und unvergleichlichen Virtuosen.
The address of his lodging is almost always for-
gotten, as though by an oversight ; so that the postman
has to run from house to house, inquiring whether
anyone knows " the Orpheus of this age," " the
incomparable virtuoso.1' Thus in a few days no one
is ignorant of his name and he is popular before
he has appeared.* The Collegium Musicum of
Dresden sends him a deputation, invites him to
attend its sessions, addresses him in speeches of
emphatic welcome, such as are made on the entry
of a prince. Concerts are given in his honour.
Those responsible for them beg him to take part in
them. Caraffa allows them to entreat him ; despite
some technical skill on the theorbo and the guitar
his talent is more than indifferent. But he is care-
ful not to squander it and discovers pretexts to

* Op. cit., Ch. viii.

A Humorous Novel 9

postpone the moment of performing in public. He
has, he says, a marvellous voice, but he can sing
only Italian words ; and the Collegium has only
German scores. His powers as a violinist are unique,
but a jealous rival, attempting to assassinate him,
has crippled his hand by the stab of a dagger ; and
he must wait some months before he can use it.
He agrees, however, to accompany a concerto on
the harpsichord, having remarked that the score
was of the simplest. But in order to do him honour
he is given a difficult piece. Immediately he begins
to criticise the harpsichord ; it is to the incomparable
art of composition that he has applied all his genius.
If he amuses himself on occasion by strumming on
the clavier it is only because he is obliged to accom-
pany himself when he sings one of his compositions.
But this is one of his minor pastimes. Besides,
Italian music for the clavier is simple and has none
of those fantastic complications in which German
taste delights. After all this ado he sits at the harpsi-
chord, plays a few insipidly correct chords as a prelude,
and on the pretext that he has a cold he sets out
a couple of snuff-boxes, one on either hand. " When
he saw difficult passages for the right hand ahead of
of him he quietly took snuff from the right-hand
snuff-box. When the rapid passages were in the
bass he took snuff from the left-hand box ; In this
way the difficulties were always evaded ! " *

Kuhnau has given us a very good description of
the Saxon character, its admixture of candour and
shrewdness, its heavy, bantering geniality. These
worthy folk who go to hear Caraffa with a touching
and absurd desire to respect and admire him are too
good musicians not to be aware of the harpsichord-

* Op. cit.t Ch. ii.

io A Musical Tour

player's lack of talent ; but their indulgence endeav-
ours to find excuses for it. It is difficult to shake
their confidence ; but as soon as a suspicion finds its
way into their worthy minds nothing can get it out
again. They inspect the bogus Italian, all unknown
to him, with conscientious deliberation ; and then,
when they are at last convinced, instead of becoming
indignant with the charlatan and expelling him
from their midst, they enact a little comedy at his
expense.

They encourage him to lie, to boast, to exhibit
his foolish pretensions, and laugh in their sleeves
while feigning to admire him, until the moment
when Caraffa, in consternation, realises that they have
been laughing at him for weeks. In this way they
induce him, despite his prudence, to betray his in-
significance, by showing them some of his works ;
and to ensure that he shall not have recourse to his
usual method of composition, which is one of shame-
less copying, they succeed in shutting him into a
dressing-room and watching him from outside.
" Caraffa is working with all his might. He hums,
he drums with his hands, he raps on the table, he
sings, he beats time with his head and feet. No
working-man occupied in the most laborious trade
toils as he does. After an hour and a half of this
the sweat is pouring over his face and back, and he
has not yet thought of a melody. Now he tries to
set pen to paper ; he dips it in the ink ; he writes,
but always erases what he has written ; he spoils
paper, tears it up and begins again. He tries
another method ; he rises and marches furiously
across the room as though he intended to break
down the doors and the walls ; this continues for
a good quarter of an hour. Finally he resorts to the

A Humorous Novel n

superstition of unlucky gamblers, who believe
that in order to recapture their luck they must
change their place and take another chair. He leaves
the table and the benches and sits on the plank
floor. He had brought to his labours all the energies
of his body, and never noticed that it was nearly
mid-day and that his lamp was still burning. At
last the melodies of four well-known songs occurred
to him : Bonsoir jardinier, Damon vint en profonde
pense'e, Une belle dame habite en ce pays, Elle repose.
Having once suffered from his poverty he now suffers
from abundance ; he does not know which of these
beautiful airs will best adapt itself to the given
text, and, above all, which would be the least recognis-
able. He is on the point of settling the matter by
casting dice ; then he decides to blend them together,
or rather to juxtapose them/' * — We can imagine
how the musicians of Dresden delighted in this
absurdity. At Leipzig, whither Caraffa goes next,
the citizens and students make sport of him in a
crueller fashion ; they set him and another ridiculous
musician by the ears, exciting them to burlesque
fury, and finally subjecting both to the judgment
of a grotesque tribunal, a mythological and facetious
masquerade, by which the two simpletons are duped,
and which recalls the "Ceremony" scene in the
Bourgeois gentilhomme.\

Defeated, derided, scoffed at, Caraffa is not greatly
perturbed. " Any other man in his position would
have had a thousand reasons for being miserable
on reflecting upon his precarious situation and his
shame. Caraffa, forced to escape hurriedly from
Dresden, is as little concerned as a charlatan who,
being unmasked in one country, reflects : " Bah !

* Op. cit., Ch. xvii. f Op. cit.t Ch. xlv.-xlviii.

12 A Musical Tour

there are other countries in the world ; if one is
lost there are ten to discover ! You have only to push
on, and it will be some little while before other towns
discover your ignorance ! Thus one is sure of never
going to bed supperless and of always having a coat
to one's back/'* Everywhere, as he journeys on,
he makes free with the table, the cellar and the bed
of the Cantors, organists and musicians of the petty
States, whom he dazzles by his boasting. He
exploits in wholesale fashion the absurd amateurs,
the ignorant tradesmen who entertain artists in their
desire to pass for connoisseurs. He instals himself in
the country houses of rustic squires who, suffering
from tedium, are anything but exacting as regards
the quality of his music and his jests ; he fills his
purse and his belly until the moment when he becomes
aware that he is beginning to weary his hosts ; then
he decamps, promptly, without demanding his
wages, but not without occasionally carrying off a
a few silver spoons and forks. He despoils the poor
village schoolmasters of their savings, with the
promise of enabling them, in a year's time, to become
kapellmeister at some princely Court ; and he
laughs in the faces of his dupes when they come to
him afterwards, weeping and cursing, to demand
the return of their money. If one of them takes
the jest ill and lodges a complaint, that is his affair :
Caraffa is acquainted with the delays of the German
law-courts.

Lastly, the rascal has one support which never
fails him and consoles him for his mortifications :
the women. They are not always seductive, but
they are always seduced. Long before the Kreutzer
Sonata, Kuhnau had noted the ravages which

* Op. cit.t Ch. xxv.

A Humorous Novel 13

music, and above all the performer, commits in the
feminine heart ; and he gives some amusing instances.
The most mirth-provoking and the completest of
these is that of the chatelaine of Riemelin (Hornitz),
which I should like to relate, if this story, more
Gallic than Teutonic, were not a little too undraped.
Its hero, moreover, is not Caraffa but another lute-
picker, the former playing but a secondary part
in it.* But Caraffa is himself a Don Juan. He
conquers the hearts of the Roman ladies with a
sonata of his own composition. " They raved over
it ; it rained kisses and meaning glances. Never
was my phiz thus feted. "f Hardly has he arrived
in Leipzig but he turns the head of the prettiest
girl in the town — beautiful, impressionable, wealthy
and a good musician ; she loses all judgment and all
discretion so soon as Caraffa begins to strum on the
clavier and sing with his raucous voice. When
the father, a substantial merchant, by name Pluto,
learns of the intrigue, he is ready to burst with rage ;
he reviles his daughter and turns the rascal out of
his house. None the less, the lovers continue to
meet, by night, in his garden ; there Caraffa sings
scenes from Orfeo,% comparing himself with its hero ;
the girl is quite ready to play Eurydice and to escape
from the house of Pluto ; but at the last moment
there appears, most seasonably, a strapping wench
of a jailor's daughter whom Caraffa got with child
during a certain sojourn of his in a Zittau prison to
which he was sentenced for swindling. She takes
the seducer by the throat, shouting at the top of
her voice that he must marry her. In the midst of

* Op. cit., p. 28. f Op. cit., p. ii.

J Op. cit., Ch. xxxix., xlv., 1.

14 A Musical Tour

the uproar the young " Plutonian " makes her
escape, never to return.

* * *

These extravaganzas are enacted against a real
background, accurately observed ; there are scenes
from the law-courts and the fair, with quacks in the
market place, peasants in the tavern, squires in their
country houses, burgesses at table or engaged in
business ; and the language and manners of each
class are always humorously recorded. In the
foreground is the crowd of musicians and students.
In each of these Saxon cities a Collegium Musicum
is established. This is a society of all the musicians
in the town, who meet regularly once or twice a
week in a special hall. Thither each repairs with
his instrument ; and two of the members, by turns,
make it their business to provide the Collegium
with musical compositions : concertos, sonatas,
madrigals and arias. At these meetings there are
long discussions on the art of music. They set
given words to music ; they indulge in friendly
conversation. Sometimes the Collegium gives
banquets, at the close of which various compositions
are played, serious or humorous. It is the exception
if these musicians are unable both to play an instru-
ment and to sing. They are, however, by no means
professional performers ; they are burgesses who
have other occupations. He in whose house they
meet in Dresden is the collector of taxes.*

Music has likewise its place in the Universities and
the Collegia oratoria. At that of Leipzig we hear of
an Actus oratorius upon music, which is concluded
by an instrumental concert. Two students deliver

* Op. cit.t Ch. xix.

A Humorous Novel 15

orations, one in celebration and the other in con-
demnation of music.* It is not astonishing to hear
music worthily praised by a great musician, but it
is remarkable to find him making accusations which
strike home and give evidence of a penetrating
purview of his age. — " Music," he says, " diverts us
from serious studies ; it deprives the country of
many minds which have might been busied in its
service. It is not without reason that the politicians
favour music ; they do so for reasons of State.
It diverts the people's thoughts ; it prevents them
from examining the government's cards. Italy
is an example of this : her princes and ministers have
allowed her to become infected by quacks and
musicians so that they may carry on their business
without being disturbed." f — And the example of
Italy is assuredly well chosen ; for if it is true that
by music she prolonged her glory and extended her
influence over Europe, it was also by music and in
music that she finally destroyed her moral and
political abilities. Of the Italy of the eighteenth
century we might say, with a little modification,
what Ammienus Marcellinus said as long ago as
the period of the great invasions : " It is a pleasure
resort. One hears there nothing but music, and
in every corner is the tinkling of strings. Instead
of thinkers one meets only singers, and virtue has
made way for the virtuosi."

As to what an Italian virtuoso might be about the
year 1700, and the mental vacuity of which he was
capable, Caraffa provides us with a striking example,
even though a trifle exaggerated. Nothing interests
him apart from music, and all that interests him
in music is virtuosity. He is not acquainted with
* Op. cit., p.p 43-44. t Op. cit., Ch. xliii.

16 A Musical Tour

the famous composers of this time ; he takes Rosen-
miiller for an Italian. He is an ignoramus in respect
of harmony ; he does not know what a contrapunto
semplice o doppio is.* He can talk only of his lute,
his violin, his guitar, and above all of himself, himself,
always himself. Whatever the subject of discussion,
whether war, or trade, or a fine sermon, or a cold in
the head, he always finds a means of leading the
conversation to himself, and always refers to himself
in the third person : " What does my Caraffa do ? "
"Poor Caraffa l"f- Apart from his concerts the
rest of the world is a void. " He scarcely knew
whether London and Stockholm were in Holland
or in France, whether the north were ruled by the
Turks and the Sublime Porte were Spanish. His
brain was like a cupboard, one shelf of which contains
a few articles and the others none at all." } In
him music had produced a monster. They abounded
in the Italy of the eighteenth century. They are
not unknown even to-day ; and no country is without
them.

In the Germany of those days music had not quite
the same disadvantages. It found a counterweight
in the philosophical or literary studies to which
it was often a supplement. It was by no means
practised as an empty amusement. The greater
composers of the eighteenth century — Schutz,
Kuhnau, Handel — received a solid education ; they
seriously studied jurisprudence, and it is a note-
worthy fact that they seem to have hesitated for
some time before becoming musicians by profession.
An Italian virtuoso of the eighteenth century is

* Op. cit., Ch. xix. f Op. cit., Ch. xxvi.

J Op. cit.t Ch. xlii.

A Humorous Novel 17

merely a tinkling cymbal. In a German musician
reason retains its rights, even over music. But
this virile intelligence was beginning to allow itself
to be impaired by the seductions of Italy.

In Dresden and Leipzig, as in Florence and Rome,
Kuhnau saw princes becoming the patrons of the
sensuous and demoralising art which was the natural
ally of despotism. His novel affords us a proof
of the irresistible attraction which the Italian
virtuoso exercised upon all classes of society. When
Caraffa puts up at a country inn he is confident
of meeting with the same welcome as in the homes
of the wealthy city merchants.* The public taste
was sick.

But Kuhnau was too conscious of his strength
to be seriously alarmed. He sees the evil but laughs
at it, confident that it will run its course. His
unembittered optimism goes so far as to foresee the
conversion of the offenders. Caraffa, at the end
of the novel, is touched by the remonstrances of a
worthy priest, and amends his life ; and if this
repentance is not very probable in such a character
we owe to it, at all events, some noble pages in which
the author writes of the true virtuoso and the happy
musician : " Der wahre Virtuose tmd gluckselige
Musicus.""\

Of him he requires much. With regard to music,
he expects the composer to familiarise himself with
all instruments and the singer or the instrumentalist
(and above all the harpsichord-player) to be a trained
composer. But this professional education is not
enough. Kuhnau expects the composer to have
some general scientific knowledge, above all of

* Op. cit.y Ch. xxxviii. | Op. cit.t Ch. liii., Ixiv.

i8 A Musical Tour

mathematics and physics, which are the basis of
music, " welche gleichwohl der Music fundament ist; " *
and he requires that he shall have meditated upon his
art, and shall be acquainted with the theorists of
music, not only of his own time but of the past and
especially of antiquity ; he will not hear of his
following Caraffa's example, and taking no interest
in history and politics and the life of his own time.
But these intellectual qualities would be nothing
without moral qualities. A virtuoso will not fully
deserve the noble name of Virtu unless the
virtue of his art is embellished by the virtue of
his life. As St. Augustin says : " Cantet vox, cantet
vita, cantent facta." Let his work be consecrated,
not to success, but to the glory of God. He must
not think of the public, the public taste and public
applause. " If you sing in such wise that you
please the people rather than God, or if you seek the
commendation of another human being rather than
that of God, you are selling your voice, and you make
it no longer yours but his."f Let the artist, then,
be modest before the face of God ; but let him at
the same time be conscious of his worth. A skilled
musician who is conscious of his skill should not be
too humble or live in a state of eclipse. It is not
permissible for him to seek obscurity and retirement
if he has something to say to the world. A man
who has gifts and keeps them concealed gives proof
of a poor character which does not trust the mighty
wings that God has given him wherewith to soar
aloft. It is the action of a craven, who dreads

* Op. cit., Ch. xlii.

t " Si sic cantas, ut placeas Populo, magis quam Deo, vel
ut ab alio laudem quaeras, vocem tuam vendis, et facis earn non
tuam, sed suam."

A Humorous Novel 19

effort ; and perhaps there is in it likewise a certain
amount of ill-feeling, an unconfessed jealousy which
is not willing to share its treasures with others,
" as dying stags/' according to Pliny, " conceal and
bury their antlers that they may not serve as
medicine for human beings." Musical folk are only
too often constituted thus. Some of them, when
they possess a fine composition, will part with the
very shirts on their backs rather than divulge a
note of it. Let the artist beware of this sordid
economy in respect of his goods, his ideas, his energies !
Let him scatter them generously about him, without
being vain because of them, referring all glory to its
Divine source. Let him do all the good of which
he is capable. If he receives no thanks (which is
the rule in this world) his clear conscience will be
his reward ; it will give him a foretaste of the
celestial pleasure which awaits him after this life,
when he will be summoned to the chapel of the
Almighty's castle (Schlosscapelle) lt where the angels
and the seraphim play music of a perfect sweetness."*

There is in these ideas, as in the whole book, a
balanced judgment, a self-confidence, a hidden
strength which explain the tranquillity with which
the old German masters of the eighteenth century —
such men as Schiitz, Johann Christian Bach, Johann
Michael Bach, Pachelbel and Buxtehude regarded
the future. They had measured the rest of the world,
and their own powers. They awaited their time.

For Germany the hour has struck ; it is already
a thing of the past. What a contrast between the
feverish excitement displayed by the German

* Op. cit., Ch. liii.

20 A Musical Tour

artists of the close of the nineteenth century and
the calm plenitude of bygone ages ! Victories that
are too complete consume the spirit of the victors ;
when their first intoxication has abated they break
the mainspring of the will, depriving it of its motive
power. The triumphant genius of a Wagner
laid waste the future of German music. The quiet
strength of a Kuhnau embraced the idea of the future
destinies of German art, and the presentiment,
as it were, of his great successor : Johann Sebastian
Bach.

II

AN ENGLISH AMATEUR
(PEPYS' DIARY).

NOTHING gives us a pleasanter idea of musical life
in the English society of the Restoration than
Pepys' Diary. In this we perceive the place which
music held in the home of an intelligent citizen of
London.

Samuel Pepys is a well-known figure : I will con-
fine myself to recounting the principal events of
his life. The son of a tailor, he was born in London
in 1633, and attached himself, to begin with, to
the fortunes of Lord Montagu,* Earl of Sandwich.
A Liberal, and in touch with the Republicans, after
Cromweirs death, under the Restoration, he became
clerk to the Exchequer, f and subsequently clerk of
the Acts to the Admiralty. He retained this post
until 1673, and while holding it rendered great services
to the English Navy ; with energetic probity he
restored order, economy and discipline therein
during the critical period of the Plague, the Fire of
London and the war with Holland. He was highly
esteemed by the Lord High Admiral, the Duke of York,
later James II. Nevertheless, he was calumniated

* Sir Edward Montagu, afterwards Earl of Sandwich. His
mother married Pepys' grandfather (Translator).

f In the Army Pay Office, under Sir George Downing (Trans-
lator).

22 A Musical Tour

at the time of the Papist conspiracy, accused of
Catholicism and sent to the Tower. He succeeded
in clearing himself and was re-appointed to the
Navy Council. He remained Secretary to the
Admiralty, and high in James' favour, until 1688.
After the expulsion of the Stuarts he retired from
the Government, but his activity was unabated
until his death in 1703. He did not cease to interest
himself in letters, the arts and the sciences. In
1684 he was appointed President of the Royal
Society. He collaborated in various learned volumes.
Magdalen College, Cambridge, possesses his collection
of manuscripts : memoirs, engravings, documents
relating to the Navy, and five volumes of old English
ballads collected by himself; lastly, his Diary,
in which he noted, in a shorthand of his own inven-
tion, all that he did, day by day, from January,
1659 (1660) to May, 1669. This Diary, with that
of his friend, Evelyn, is the most lifelike collection
existing of contemporary data relating to the
England of his period. In these pages I shall
consider the entries relating to music.
* * *

This Secretary to the Navy, this conscientious
statesman, was a passionate lover of music ; to
music he devoted a part of his days. He played
the lute, the viol, the theorbo, the flageolet and the
recorder,* and to some extent the spinet. It was
the custom, among distinguished citizens, to have
in their homes a collection of musical instruments,

* A flute with a mouth-piece, having eight holes, one of which
is covered with a thin membrane : — " To Drumbleby's, and
there did talk a great deal about pipes, and did buy a recorder,
which I do intend to learn to play on, the sound of it being,
of all sounds in the world, most pleasing to me." — Pepys* Diary,
2nd April, 1668.

An English Amateur 23

notably a case of six viols, in order to give concerts.
Pepys had his little museum of instruments ; he
flattered himself that they were the best in England ;
and he played nearly all of them. His greatest
pleasure was to sing and to play the flageolet. He
carried this flageolet about with him everywhere,
on his walks and in the eating-houses.

Then Swan and I to a drinking-house near Temple-Bar,
where while he wrote I played on my flageolet till a dish of
poached eggs was got ready for us.*

I came back by water playing on my flageolet, f

At night into the garden to play on my flageolet, it being
moonshine, where I staid a good while. J

He even ventured upon composition :

Was all day in my chamber, composing some ayres, God
forgive me ! §

And his compositions — thanks to the composer's
high position — enjoyed a great social success, which
Pepys was " not a little proud of."**

Eventually he persuaded himself that his works
were excellent :

Captain Downing (who loves and understands musique)
would by all means have my song of " Beauty retire," which
Knipp has spread abroad, and he extols it above anything
he ever heard ; and without flattery I know it is good in its
kind, ft

* 9th February, 1660.
f 3oth January, 1660.

J 3rd April, 1661. — See also lyth February, 1659, and 2oth
July, 1664.

§ 9th February, 1662.
** 22nd August, 1666.

ft 9th November, 1666. cf. gth December, 1666. — "And
without flattery I think it is a very good song."

24 A Musical Tour

He would solemnly induce actresses to practice
his songs :

After dinner I to teach Knipp my new recitative, of " It is
decreed," of which she learnt a good part, and I do well like
it and believe shall be well pleased when she hath it all, and that
it will be found an agreeable thing.*

For the rest, as a person of importance, he did not
take the trouble to write his accompaniments himself ;
he had them written for him :

Thence going away met Mr. Kingston the organist (my old
acquaintance) in the Court, and I took him to the Dog Tavern,
and got him to set me a bass to my " It is decreed," which I
think will go well. He commends the song (says Pepys
ingenuously) not knowing the words, but says the ayre is
good, and believes the words are plainly expressed, f

By and by comes Dr. Childe by appointment, and sat with
me all the morning making me basses and inward parts to
several songs that I desired of him. J

He was also interested in the theory of music :

To my chamber with a good fire, and there spent one hour
on Morley's Introduction to Musique, a very good but un-
methodical book.§

Walked to Woolwich, all the way reading Playford's
" Introduction to Musique," wherein are some things very
pretty.**

To Duck Lane to look out for Marsanne, in French, a man
that has wrote well of musique, but it is not to be had, but I
have given order for its being sent for over, and I did here
buy Des Cartes, his little treatise on Musique. ff

Making the boy read to me Des Cartes' book of Musick —
which I understand not, nor think he did well that writ it,
though a most learned man.J$

* 1 4th November, 1666. ** 22nd March, 1666.

•f igih December, 1666. ff 3rd April, 1668.

J i5th April, 1667. JJ 25th December, 1668.
§ loth March, 1666.

An English Amateur 25

He took a notion to write down his own ideas
upon music. These, if we may believe him, were
something extraordinary ; he was inclined to think
that he held the key to the mystery of sounds :

Banister played on his flageolet, and I had a very good
discourse with him about musique, so confirming some of my
new notions about musique that it puts me upon a resolution
to go on and make a scheme and theory of musique not yet
ever made in the world.*

Made Tom to prick down some little conceits and notions
of mine, in musique, which do mightily encourage me to spend
some more thoughts about it ; for I fancy, upon good reason,
that I am in the right way of unfolding the mystery of this
matter, better than ever yet.f

Do not take the man for an empty egoist. What
is so delightful in him is the sincerity and the child-
like enthusiasm of his love of music. He loves it
only too well. He is afraid of it :

We sent for his sister's viall ... I played also, which
I have not done this long time before upon any instrument,
and at last broke up, and I to my office a little while, being
fearful of being too much taken with musique, for fear of
returning to my old dotage thereon, and so neglect my business
as I used to do.J

But he could not help himself : music was the
stronger.

God forgive me ! I do still see that my nature is not to be
quite conquered, but will esteem pleasure above all things,
though yet in the middle of it, it has reluctance after my
business, which is neglected by my following my pleasure.
However, musique and women I cannot but give way to, what-
ever my business is.§

He feels music so acutely that it makes him ill
at times :

* 2Qth March, 1668. J iyth February, 1663.

f nth January, 1669. § gth March, 1666.

26 A Musical Tour

With my wife and Deb. to the King's House, to see " The
Virgin Martyr."* . . . But that which did please me
beyond anything in the whole world was the wind-musique
when the angel comes down, which is so sweet that it ravished
me, and indeed, in a word, did wrap up my soul so that it
made me really sick, just as I have formerly been when in love
with my wife ; that neither then, nor all the evening going
home, and at home, I was able to think of anything, but
remained all night transported, so as I could not believe
that ever any musick hath that real command over the soul
of a man as this did upon me. f . . .

But when he is dejected, music is his consolation :

At night home and to my flageolet. Played with pleasure,
but with a heavy heart, only it pleased me to think how it
may please God I may live to spend my time in the country
with plainness and pleasure, though but with little glory.
So to supper and to bed.J

Though my heart is still heavy to think of my poor brother,
yet I could give way to my fancy to hear Mrs. T. M. play upon
the Harpsicon."§

It must be admitted that Pepys had not very often
occasion to repair to this consolation, for he was
not often melancholy ; he regards music rather
as an unmixed delight, the most perfect in life :

I do consider that musick is all the pleasure that I live for
in the world, and the greatest I can ever expect in the best of
my life.**

* * *

All those about him must share his mania for
music ; and, above all, his wife.

He had married her about the year 1655, when she
was only fifteen, and he was twenty-three. He took
it into his head to teach her singing, and he was so
much in love with her that he found his " apt

* Massinger's. t 27th February, 1668. J i5th June, 1667.

§ i6th March, 1664. ** I2th February, 1667.

An English Amateur 27

beyond imagination/'* The first lessons were
highly successful ; both master and pupil were full
of enthusiasm.

Sat up late setting my papers in order, and my money also,
and teaching my wife her music lesson, in which I take great
pleasure, f

So home to my musique, and my wife and I sat singing in
my chamber a good while together, and then to bed.$

So far they had sung only unpretentious airs.
But Mistress Pepys, when she saw her husband
engaging a singing-master for Italian music, felt
her self-love wounded and wished to do the same :

This morning my wife and I lay long in bed, and among
other things fell into talk of musique, and desired that I
would let her learn to sing, which I did consider, and promised
her she should. So before I rose, word was brought me that
my singing master, Mr. Goodgroome, was come to teach me ;
and so she rose and this morning began to learn also.§

Here, then, we have her learning difficult French
and Italian airs ! What imprudence ! . . . Pepys
does his best to delude himself, but in vain ; he is
forced to admit to himself that his wife has but little
musical talent.

Singing with my wife, who hath lately** begun to learn, and
I think will come to do something, though her eare is not good,
nor I, I confess, have patience enough to teach her, or hear
her sing now and then a note out of tune, and am to blame that
I cannot bear with that in her which is fit I should do with
her as a learner, and one that I desire much could sing, and so
should encourage her. This I was troubled at, for I do find
that I do put her out of heart, and make her fearfull to sing
before me. ft

* 28th August, 1660. J 1 7th May, 1661.

f 9th September, 1660. § ist October, 1661.

** The good Pepys was indulgent ; his wife had been taking
lessons for five years !

tf soth October, 1666.

28 A Musical Tour

Pepys had the more reason to discover that his
wife sang out of tune in that he was able, in his
own house, to make comparisons which were not
to her advantage. It was the custom to keep
servants who had some pleasant accomplishment ;
in the households of Pepys' friends we find musical
servants who were true artists. Evans, who was
butler to Lady Wright, was a master of the lute
and used to give Pepys lessons.* Button, wife
to the footman of one of his friends, was a magnifi-
cent singer, f It was a point of honour with Pepys
that his servants likewise should be skilled per-
formers, and as a good husband — not wholly dis-
interested— he insisted that his wife should have
maidservants who were as agreeable to look at as
to hear.

First of all came the pretty chambermaid, Ashwell,
who played the harpsichord. Pepys used to buy
musical scores for her and taught her the principles
of her art :

Up to teach Ashwell the rounds of time and other things
on the tryangle, and made her take out a Psalm very well,
she having a good earj and hand.§

He makes the little servant dance :

After dinner all the afternoon fiddling upon my viallin
(which I have not done many a day) while Ashwell danced
above in my upper best chamber, which is a rare room for
musique.**

But Ashwell is not enough. We find him writing
ingenuously :

* 25th January, 1659.
f 1 5th October, 1665.
J See above for what Pepys says of his wife.
§ 3rd May, 1663.
** 24th April, 1663.

An English Amateur 29

I am endeavouring to find a woman for her to my mind,
and above all one that understands musique, especially singing. *

He finds the rare bird eventually. Her name
is Mercer. At the same time he engages a little page,
a musician, sent him by his friend Captain Cooke,
master of the Chapel Royal, who had given him
four years' training. Pepys' delight is complete.

So back again home, and there my wife and Mercer and Tom
and I sat till eleven at night, singing and fiddling, and a great
joy it is to see me master of so much pleasure in my house,
that it is and will be still, I hope, a constant pleasure to me to
be at home. The girl plays pretty well upon the harpsicon,
but only ordinary tunes, but hath a good hand ; sings a little,
but hath a good voyce and eare. My boy, a brave boy, sings
finely, and is the most pleasant boy at present, while his
ignorant boy's tricks last, that ever I saw.f

He soon wearies of the page. But Mercer grows
more delightful every day.

At home I found Mercer playing upon herVyall, which is
a pretty instrument, and so I to the Vyall and singing till
late, and so to bed.J

About ill home, it being a fine moonshine, and so my
wife and Mercer come into the garden, and my business being
done, we sang till about twelve at night, with mighty pleasure
to ourselves and neighbours, by their casements opening,
and so home to supper and to bed. §

And after supper falling to singing with Mercer did however
sit up with her, she pleasing me with her singing of " Helpe,
helpe,"** till past midnight, ff

Poor Mistress Pepys is jealous :

Coming in I find my wife plainly dissatisfied with me, that
I can spend so much time with Mercer, teaching her to sing,

* 28th July, 1664.

f 2yth August, 1664

| 9th September, 1664; 22nd April, 1665 ; 28th September, 1667.

§ 5th May, 1666.
** By Lawes.
ft i2th July, 1666. See also igth June, 1666.

30 A Musical Tour

and could never take the pains with her. Which I acknowledge ;
but it is because the girl do take musique mighty readily,
and she do not, and musique is the thing of the world that I
love most.*

Mercer, it seems, is sent away for a time ; but
Mistress Pepys does not gain much thereby.

Pepys is melancholy, f He finds that his wife
really sings very badly. Mercer returns, and the
singing parties begin again ; and Mistress Pepys'
jealousy likewise.

Walked home . .- . it being a little moonshine and
fair weather, and so into the garden, and, with Mercer, sang
till my wife put me in mind of its being a fast day, J and so I
was sorry for it, and stopped. §

Mistress Pepys makes desperate efforts to become
a musician ; she succeeds — very nearly — in singing
trills. Her husband loyally gives her credit for her
goodwill.

After dinner my wife and Barker** fell to singing, which
pleased me pretty well, my wife taking mighty pains and
proud that she shall come to trill and indeed I think she
will, ft

But virtue, alas, is not rewarded in this world ;
and the "poor wretch," as Pepys tells us, cannot
contrive to sing in tune :

Home to dinner, and before dinner making my wife to
sing. Poor wretch ! her ear is so bad that it made me angry,
till the poor wretch cried to see me so vexed at her, that I think
I shall not discourage her so much again. . . . for she
hath a great mind to learn, only to please me, and therefore
I am mighty unjust in discouraging her so much.JJ

* soth July, 1666.

f 23rd September, 1666.

I For the anniversary of the King's death.

§ 3oth January, 1667.

** Barker was a third servant. She too was a musician,
•ft yth February, 1667.
$t ist March, 1667.

An English Amateur 31

For some time Pepys constrains himself to patience.

I do think she will come to sing pretty well, and to trill
in time.*

Had her sing, which she begins to do with some pleasure
to me, more than I expected, f

To bed after hearing my wife sing, who is manifestly come
to be more musical in her eare than ever I thought she could
have been made, which rejoices me to the heart. J

But these appreciations are better evidence of
Pepys' kindliness than of his wife's talent. One day,
when he hears a bad singer (" what a beast she is
as to singing, not knowing how to sing one note in
tune ") this confession escapes him :

Worse than my wife a thousand times, so that it do a
little reconcile me to her.§

The plucky little woman, in her distress, despairing
of success, falls back on the flageolet.

In this Pepys encourages her. Perhaps she will
produce fewer false notes on the instrument. He
makes arrangements with a teacher, Greeting, and,
to encourage her, takes lessons himself.**

So to my house . . . and with my wife to practice
on the flageolet a little, and with great pleasure I see she can
readily hit her notes. ff

Walk an hour in the garden with my wife, whose growth
in musique do begin to please me mightily.JJ ,

Mightily pleases with my wife's playing on the flageolet,
she taking out any tune almost at first sight, and keeping time
to it, which pleased me mightily. §§

I to bed, being mightily pleased with my wife's playing so
well upon the flageolet, and I am resolved she shall learn to

* 1 2th March, 1667. ** 8th May, 1667.

f igth March and 6th May, 1667. ft I7th MaY» l667-

{ 7th May, 1667. jj i8th May, 1667.

§ 22nd January, 1668. §§ i2th September, 1667

32 A Musical Tour

play upon some instrument, for though her eare be bad yet
I see she will attain any thing to be done by her hand. *

Henceforth Pepys has a happy household. He
records how one August evening he made his wife
play the flageolet,

till I slept with great pleasure in bed.f

Do not imagine, however, that he has forgotten
his dear Mercer ! He continues to arrange singing
parties to include her — above all when his wife is
not present :

And by and by, it being now about nine o'clock at night,
I heard Mercer's voice, and my boy Tom's singing in the garden,
which pleased me mightily, I longing to see the girl, having not
seen her since my wife went ; and so into the garden to her
and sang, and then home to supper, and mightily pleased with
her company, in talking and singing, and so parted, and to
bed.J

Took a coach and called Mercer, and she and I to the Duke
of York's play-house, and there saw " The Tempest." "...
After the play done, I took Mercer by water to Spring Garden,
and there with great pleasure walked, and eat, and drank,
and sang, making people come about us, to hear us. §

Up by water and to Foxhall (Vauxhall), where we walked
a great while, . . . and it beginning to be dark, we to a
corner and sang, that everybody got about to hear us."**

Got Mercer, and she and I in the garden singing till ten at
night, ft

W. Howe, and a younger brother of his, come to dine with
me, and there comes Mercer, . . . and mighty merry,
and after dinner to sing psalms.Jt

* nth September, 1607.

f 1 3th August, 1668.

J 2gth April, 1668. See also loth May, 1668.

§ nth May, 1668.
** 1 4th May, 1668.
ft I5th May, 1668.
it 1 7th May, 1668.

An English Amateur 33

And I have said nothing of the other maid, Barker,
of whom Pepys says : " and I do clearly find that
as to manner of singing the latter do much the
better."*

All those who visit this musical household are
themselves performers : — Pepys' relatives, his
brother and sister-in-law, who play excellently on
the bass viol ;f and his friends, who are all musi-
cians, good or bad. The ladies play the lute, the viol
or the harpsichord ; sometimes they display so
much perseverance that they eventually tire their
hearers.

Went to hear Mrs. Turner's daughter . . . play upon
the harpsicon ; but, Lord ! it was enough to make any man
sick to hear her ; yet I was forced to commend her highly. $

Mr. Temple's wife fell to play on the harpsicon till she
tired everybody, that I left the house without taking leave,
and no creature left standing by to hear her. §

All the great personages of the day are able to
play and sing.** Pepys' patron, Lord Sandwich,
takes part with him in little concerts of chamber
musicff an(i composes anthems for three voices. JJ
Wherever one goes one hears music.

For example, at the eating-houses :

Carried my wife and Miss Pierce to Clothworkers' Hall,
to dinner, . . . Our entertainment very good, a brave

* 1 2th April, 1667.

f 1 8th December, 1662 and and February, 1667.

{ ist May, 1663.

§ xoth November, 1666.

** Scarcely an exception is to be met with. Lord Lauderdale
is one, but he is regarded as an eccentric, and possibly wishes to pass
for one (28th June, 1666).

ft 23rd April, 1660.

H i4th December, 1663.

4

34 A Musical Tour

hall, good company, and very good music. ... I was
pleased that I could find out a man by his voice, whom I had
never seen before, to be one that sang behind the curtaine
formerly at Sir W. Davenant's opera.*

And out of doors :

Walked in Spring Garden. . . . A great deal of company,
and the weather and garden pleasant. . . . But to hear
the nightingale and other birds, and here fiddles, and there
a harp.f . . .

In the country :

There was at a distance, under one of the trees on the
common, a company got together that sang. I, at the
distance, and so all the rest being a quarter of a mile off, took
them for Waytes, so I rode up to them, and found them only
voices, some citizens met by chance, that sung four or five
parts excellently. I have not been more pleased with a snapp
of musique, considering the circumstances of the time and
place, in all my life.J

At Bath (when the music is apparently part of
the treatment) he is

carried away, wrapped in a sheet, and in a chair, home ; and
there one after another thus carried, I staying above two
hours in the water, home to bed, sweating for an hour ; and
by and by comes musick to play to me, extraordinarily good as
ever I heard at London almost, or anywhere : 55. §

On board ship — on the vessel in which he crossed
the Channel with the fleet that brought Charles II.
back to England :

the Captain . . . did give us such musick upon the harp
by a fellow that he keeps on board, that I never expect to hear
the like again.**

And, in London, among the people. To Pepys'
house there comes

* 28th June, 1660. f 29*h May, 1667. J 2yth July, 1663.
§ 13 th June, 1668. ** soth April, 1660.

An English Amateur 35

a very little fellow, did sing a most excellent bass, and yet a
poor fellow, a working goldsmith, that goes without gloves to
his hands.

He acquits himself impeccably in a vocal quartet,
with Pepys and his friends.*

The theatre naturally fills a great place in the life
of this melomaniac. As a matter of fact Pepys
constrains himself for a time to go thither only once
a month, so that it shall not unduly distract him
from his business, and as a measure of economy. f
But he cannot wait for the second day in the month !

Took my wife out immediately to the King's Theatre, it
being a new month, and once a month I may go. J

And if we run through his entries we see that
the rule is soon infringed.

In any case, moreover, even if he takes a vow
not to visit the theatre oftener than once a month,
he does not forbid himself to summon the theatre
to his own house — that is, the folk of the theatre,
especially when they are young and pretty singers,
such as Mrs. Knipp, of the King's Theatre : —

this baggage§ . . . Knipp, who is pretty enough ; but
the most excellent, mad-humoured thing, and sings the noblest
that ever I heard in my life.** . . .

He passes the night in making her sing his airs,
which to him seem admirable, ff She rehearses her

* I5th September, 1667.

f And because of a lingering touch of Puritanism. But a
perusal of the Diary will show how quickly this feeling evaporated
when the ex-Commonwealth man had become the courtier of the
Stuarts.

J ist February, 1669.

§ 23rd February, 1666.
** 6th December, 1665.
ft 23rd February, 1666.

36 A Musical Tour

parts for him. She comes to speak to him in the
pit of the theatre,
after her song in the clouds.*

He goes with her by coach to Kensington, to the
Grotto. She sings :

and fine ladies listening to us ; with infinite pleasure, I
enjoyed myself ; so to the Tavern there . . . mighty
merry, and sang all the way to town, a most pleasant evening,
moonshine, and set them at her house in Covent Garden, and
I home, and to bed.f .

Ah, the pleasant evenings which Pepys enjoyed
in the company of these charming musicians : his
wife, his wife's friends, her servants, and the pretty
actresses ! Sometimes Knipp makes one of them
in her stage costume,
as a countrywoman with a straw hat.

Now my house is full, and four fiddlers that play well.
. . . So away with all my company down to the office,
and there fell to dancing . . . and then sang and then
danced, and then sang many things of three voices. . . .
Harris sung his Irish song — the strangest in itself, and the
prettiest sung by him, that ever I heard. . . . Our
Mercer unexpectedly did sing an Italian song I know not
. . . that did almost ravish me, and made me in love with
her more than ever with her singing. . . 4

Here the best company for musique I ever was in, in my
life, and wish I could live and die in it, both for musique and
the face of Mrs. Pierce, and my wife and Knipp. § ...

Pepys relishes his happiness ; at night, on his pillow,
he recounts to himself the details of these delightful
evenings :

thinking it to be one of the merriest enjoyments I must look
for in the world. ** . . .

* 1 7th April, 1668. t *7th April, 1668. { 24th January, 1667.
§ 6th December, 1665. ** 24th January, 1667.

An English Amateur 37

There is only one shadow on his felicity : music
is costly. Completing the description of one of these
enchanted evenings, he says :

Only the musique did not please me, they not being contented
with less than 303.*

Pepys does not like paying out money ; in which
particular he resembles many wealthy music-lovers
of his time and our own. Nothing distresses him
so much as giving money to an artist, as he ingen-
uously confesses :

Long with Mr. Berkenshaw in the morning at my musique
practice, finishing my song of " Gaze not on Swans," in two
parts, which pleases me well, and I did give him £5 for this
month or five weeks that he hath taught me, which is a great
deal of money and troubled me to part with it.f

So he contrives to quarrel with his teacher (in
such a fashion that the quarrel seems to be the
other's fault) so soon as he thinks that he has obtained
from him all that he wanted. J And when Mr.
Berkenshaw has fallen into the snare and broken
off his relations with Pepys the latter delights in
playing the airs which he has gently wormed out of
Mr. Berkenshaw during his lessons :

I find them most incomparable songs as he has set them,
of which I am not a little proud, because I am sure none in the
world has them but myself, not so much as he himself that
set them.§

When there is a question of defending his purse
against an artist he has all the wisdom of the
serpent. A performer on the viol comes to his
house and plays for him " some very fine thing
of his own/' Pepys is careful not to compliment
him too warmly :

* 24th January, 1667. J 27th February, 1662.
f 24th February, 1662. § i4th March, 1662.

38 A Musical Tour

for fear he should offer to copy them for me out, and so I be
forced to give or lend him something. *

It is not surprising that under these circumstances
music seems, to Pepys, the least costly of pleasures.!
Nor is it surprising that musicians should die of
starvation in this England, where all declare them-
selves to be passionate lovers of music. They are
in the position of those itinerant players who give
their performance before a country crowd. The
yokels look on and laugh — and turn away when
the collection is made.

Mr. Kingston the organist . . . says many of the
musique are ready to starve, they being five years behind-hand
for their wages ; nay, Evens, the famous man upon the Harp,
having not his equal in the world, did the other day die for
mere want, and was fain to be buried at the alms of the parish,
and carried to his grave in the dark at night without one linke,
but that Mr. Kingston met it by chance, and did give iad. to
buy two or three links. J

* * *

This is enough already to enlighten us as to the
superficiality of the English passion for music. We
shall be still further enlightened when we have
done our best to understand Pepys' musical judg-
ments and to ascertain the limits of his taste. How
narrow the man is !

Pepys does not care for the old style of singing. §
Nor does he care for part-singing :

I am more and more confirmed that singing with many
voices is not singing, but a sort of instrumental musique, the
sense of the words being lost by not being heard, and especially
as they set them with Fuges of words, one after another,
whereas singing proper, I think, should be but with one or two
voices at most and the counterpart.**

* 23rd January, 1664. J igth December, 1666.

f 8th January, 1663. § i6th January, 1660.

** i5th September, 1667. See also 2Qth June, 1668.

An English Amateur 39

He does not like the Italian masters :

They spent the whole evening singing the best piece of
musique counted on all hands in the world, made by Seignor
Charissimi, the famous master in Rome. Fine it was, indeed,
and too fine for me to judge of.*

I was not taken with this at all. . . . The composition
as to the musique part was exceedingly good, and this justness
in keeping time much before any that we have. . . .
Yet I do from my heart believe that I could set words in
English and make musique of them more agreeable . . .
than any Italian musique set for the voice, f . . .

Nor has he any love for Italian singers ; above
all, he detests the voices of the castrati. He ack-
nowledges only the excellent time and the con-
summate experience of these artists ; but in the
matter of taste they remain alien to him and he does
not attempt to understand them.J

Still less does he care for the contemporary English
school, the school of Cooke, which will at a later
date produce Pelham Humphrey, Wise, Blow, and
Purcell :

It was indeed both in performance and composition most
plainly below what I heard last night, § which I could not have
believed.**

Nor is he any fonder of French music :

Impartially I do not find any goodnesse in their ayres
(though very good) beyond ours when played by the same
hand, I observed in several of Baptiste's (the present great
composer) and our Bannister's. f|

* 22nd July, 1664.

f i6th February, 1667.

I He regards them with greater favour a little later, when he
hears them in the Queen's Chapel (2ist March, 1668). See p. 42.

§ He is referring to some Italian songs by Draghi.
** 1 3th February, 1667.
ft 1 8th June, 1666.

40 A Musical Tour

He detests the music of Charles II. 's French
master, Grebus (Grabu) :

God forgive me I I never was so little pleased with a
concert of musick in my life. *

And, generally speaking, all instrumental music
wearies him :

I must confess, whether it be that I hear it but seldom, or
that really voice is better, but so it is that I found no pleasure
at all in it, and methought two voyces were worth twenty of
itf

What a list of qualities eliminated ! What is left
him ? He has just told us ; one voice, or two at
most, accompanied or not with the lute, the theorbo
or the viol. And what are these voices to sing ?

Simple melodies, intelligently declaimed : such
as those of Lawes, the fashionable idol of the moment,
the composer whose name occurs most frequently
in the Diary. J As regards the theatre, Pepys appears
to have a special liking for the music of Lock, with
whom he was personally acquainted, § and that
of the composer who wrote the musical score for
Massinger's Virgin Martyr in 1668 — the music
that made him sick for pleasure. In church he is
still an admirer of Lock,** and he approves of
Ravenscroft's Psalms for four voices, although he
finds them very monotonous, ff

But at heart he prefers above everything the good
old English melodies :

* ist October, 1667.

f loth August, 1664.

J Pepys sings them constantly (March, April, May, June, Nov-
ember, 1660, iQth December, 1662, igth November, 1665, etc).

§ nth and i2th February, 1660. Pepys was acquainted also
with the elder Purcell.

** 2ist February, 1660.

ff November, December, 1664. But on this ground the Italians
get the better of him later.

An English Amateur 41

Mrs. Manuel . . . sings mightily well, and just after
the Italian manner, but yet do not please me like one of Mrs.
Knipp's songs, to a good English tune.*

Here I did hear Mrs. Manuel and one of the Italians . . .
sing well. But yet I confess I am not delighted so much with
it, as to admire it. ... and was more pleased to hear
Knipp sing two or three little English things that I understood,
though the composition of the other, and performance, was
very fine.f

But these airs must be strictly, purely English.
He does not approve even of the Scottish airs :

At supper there played one of their servants upon the
viallin some Scotch tunes only ; several, and the best of their
country, as they seemed to esteem them, by their praising and
admiring them ; but, Lord ! the strangest ayre that ever I
heard in my life, and all of one cast. $

We see that for Pepys music is restricted to a
narrow province. It is curious to find such a passion
for music combined with this poverty of task !
His taste has but one great quality ; its frankness.
Pepys is at least unassuming ; he does not seek
to be otherwise ; he says sincerely what he feels ;
his is the British commonsense which mistrusts
unreasonable infatuations. The reader will take
especial note of the instinctive distrust which he
displays in respect of Italian music, which was then
beginning its invasion of England. When he hears
it at the house of Lord Brouncker, one of the patrons
of the Italian musicians then in London, he observes,
amid the general enthusiasm :

The women sang well, but that which distinguishes all is
this, that in singing, the words are to be considered, and how
they are fitted with notes, and then the common accent of the

* 12th August, 1667.
f soth December, 1667.

I 28th July, 1666. See also his disdain of bagpipe music.
(24th March, 1668).

42 A Musical Tour

country is to be known and understood by the hearer, or he
will never be a good judge of the vocal musique of another
country, so that I was not taken with this at all, neither under-
standing the first, nor by practice reconciled to the latter, so
that their motions, and risings and fallings, though it may be
pleasing to an Italian, or one that understands the tongue,
yet to me it did not. . . .*

I am convinced more and more, that, as every nation has
a particular accent and tone in discourse, so as the tone of one
not to agree with or please the other, no more can the fashion
of singing to words, for that the better the words are set, the
more they take in of the ordinary tone of the country whose
language the song speaks, so that a song well composed by an
Englishman must be better to an Englishman than it can be
to a stranger, or than if set by a stranger in foreign words, f

This is full of good sense, and reminds us of what
Addison was to write some fifty years later. This
wholesome mistrust should have put the English
dilettanti and musicians on their guard against
foreign imitations, above all against Italian imita-
tions, which were about to prove so deadly to English
music. But Italian art was extremely vigorous,
and we have just seen within what narrow limits
English taste was restricted. It abandoned the
greater part of the field to foreign art, to shut itself
up in its little house ; a course of extreme imprud-
ence. Foreign music, once it had a foothold in
England, sought to complete its conquest. A few
of Pepys' remarks show that he himself was beginning
to give ground :

To the Queen's chapel, and there did hear the Italians sing ;
and indeed their musick did appear most admirable to me,
beyond anything of ours.J

* i6th February, 1667. See also nth February.

f yth April, 1667.

$ 2ist March, 1668. See also Pepys' opinions of Draghi, whom
he met at Lord Brouncker's, with Killigrew, who was striving to
establish Italian music in London, and sent to Italy for singers,
instrumentalists, and scene-painters (iath February, 1667).

An English Amateur 43

This is a confession of the approaching defeat
at the hands of the Italians, when English music
was to abdicate its position.

I have dwelt at some length on this Diary of an
English amateur at the Court of Charles II. I
have done so not merely for the amusement of reviv-
ing a few agreeable types which have not undergone
overmuch variation in a couple of centuries : — the
distinguished English gentleman, statesman and
artist, thoroughly sane and well-balanced, with
the quiet activity, the serenity of mind, the good
humour and the rather childlike optimism which
one often meets with north of the Channel ;
pleasantly gifted, as a musician, but superficial,
and seeking in music rather a wholesome pleasure,
as Milton advised * rather than a passion beyond
his control. And around him are other familiar
types : Mistress Pepys, the Englishwoman who is
determined to be a musician ; who perseveringly
labours at the keyboard, never becomes discouraged
" and has good fingers/' And there are others
too . . .

But it is not for this reason that I have under-
taken to ransack this Diary. It possesses a real
historical interest in that it is a barometer of
English musical taste about the year 1660 ; that is,
at the beginning of the golden age of English music.

* We know that Milton, in his famous treatise On Education,
speaking of scholars and athletic exercises, suggests that " the
interim of unsweating themselves regularly, and convenient rest
before meat, may, both with profit and delight, be taken up in
recreating and composing their travailed spirits with the solemn
and divine harmonies of music." He adds that music would
be still more appropriate after eating, " to assist and cherish
nature in her first concoction, and send their minds back to study
in good tune and satisfaction."

44 A Musical Tour

It enables us to understand why this golden age
did not last. Whatever the brilliance, and even,
at moments, the genius of the music of Purcell's
age, it had no roots ; above all, it had no soil wherein
to strike its roots. The most intelligent and most
highly educated public to be found in England,
and that which had the greatest love of art, was
sincerely interested only in an excessively restricted
class of music, which was based on and really derived
from poetry : a vocal chamber music for one or
two voices, consisting of dialogues, ballads, dances,
and poetic songs. Herein lay the essence and the
intimate savour of the musical soul of England.*
All British music that sought to be national had
perforce to find its inspiration herein ; and the
best that it has produced is perhaps in reality that
which, like certain pages of the delightful Purcell,
has best preserved its fragrance of tender poetry
and rustic grace. But this was a somewhat shallow
foundation, a very scanty soil for the art ; the
form of such music did not lend itself to extensive
development ; and the musical culture of the country,
though fairly widespread, yet always skin-deep,
would not have permitted of such development.

And beyond this small province of English songs
and ballads — which has remained almost intact
until our own days, — we see the dawn, in Pepys'
Diary, of the Italian invasion which was to submerge
the whole.

* I am not speaking here of English religious and choral music,
which, under the Restoration, produced works of great breadth,
and always retained a noble dignity of style, without possessing a
truly national character.

Ill

A PORTRAIT OF HANDEL

THEY used to call him the Great Bear. He was
gigantic : broad, corpulent, with big hands and
enormous feet ; his arms and thighs were stupend-
ous. His hands were so fat that the bones dis-
appeared in the flesh, forming dimples.* He walked
bow-legged, with a heavy, rolling gait, very erect,
with his head thrown back under its huge white
wig, whose curls rippled heavily over his shoulders.
He had a long horse-like face, which with age
became bovine and swamped in fat ; with pendant
cheeks and triple chin, the nose large, thick and
straight, the ears red and long. His gaze was very
direct ; there was a quizzical gleam in his bold eye,
a mocking twist at the corner of his large, finely-
cut mouth, f His air was impressive and jovial.

* When he played the harpsichord, says Burney, his fingers
were so bent and clubbed together that one could not detect any
movement ; it was as much as one could do to distinguish his
fingers.

f See the portrait engraved by W. Bromley after the painting by
Hudson. He is seated, with his legs wide apart and one fist on his
thigh ; he is holding a sheet of music ; the head is held high, the
eye ardent, the eye-brows very black under the white periwig,
all but bursting out of his tightly-fastened pourpoint, overflowing
with health, pride and energy.

No less interesting but much less known is the fine portrait
engraved by J. Houbraken, of Amsterdam, after the painting
by F. Kyte, in 1742. In this we see Handel under an exceptional
aspect, after the serious illness which proved nearly fatal, traces
of which are to be seen in his face. It is heavier, and fatigued,
and the eye is dull ; the figure is massive ; his energies seem asleep ;
he is like a great cat slumbering with open eyes ; but the old
quizzical gleam still twinkles in his drowsy gaze.

45

46 A Musical Tour

When he smiled — says Burney — " his heavy, stern
countenance was radiant with a flash of intelligence
and wit ; like the sun emerging from a cloud/'

He was full of humour. He had a "sly pseudo-
simplicity " which made the most solemn individuals
laugh though he himself showed an unsmiling face.
No one ever told a story better. " His happy way
of saying the simplest things differently from anyone
else gave them an amusing complexion. If his
English had been as good as Swift's, his bons mots
would have been equally abundant and of the same
kind." But " really to enjoy what he said one had
almost to know four languages : English, French,
Italian and German, all of which he mixed up
together."*

This medley of tongues was as much due to the
fashion in which his vagabond youth was moulded,
while he wandered through the countries of Western
Europe, as to his natural impetuosity, which; when
he sought a rejoinder, seized upon all the words
at his disposal. He was like Berlioz : musical
notation was too slow for him ; he would have needed
a shorthand to follow his thought ; at the beginning
of his great choral compositions he wrote the
motifs in full for all the parts ; as he proceeded
he would drop first one part, then another ; finally
he would retain only one voice, or he would even
end up with the bass alone ; he would pass at a
stroke to the end of the composition which he had
begun, postponing until later the completion of the
whole, and on the morrow of finishing one piece he

* This portrait is drawn from the paintings by Thornhill,
Hudson, Denner and Kyte, Roubillac's monument at West-
minster, and the descriptions of contemporaries, such as Matthe-
son, Burney, Hawkins and Coxe. See also the biographies of
Handel by Schoelcher and Chrysander.

A Portrait of Handel 47

would begin another, sometimes working on two,
if not three, simultaneously.*

He would never have had the patience of Gluck,
who began, before writing, by " going through each
of his acts, and then the whole piece ; which com-
monly cost him " — so he told Corancez — " a year, and
oftener than not a serious illness." — Handel used to
compose an act before he had learned how the piece
continued, and sometimes before the librettist had
time to write it.t

* As an example of this fever of creation, I shall take the two
years 1736-8, when Handel was ill and came near to dying. Here
is a summary of these years :

In January, 1736, he wrote Alexander's Feast. In February-
March, he conducted a season of oratorio. In April he wrote
Atalanta and the Wedding A nthem. In April and jMay he direccted
an opera season. Between the I4th August and the 7th Sep-
tember he wrote Giustino, and between the i5th September and
the 1 4th of October, Arminio. In November he directed an opera
season. Between the i8th November and the i8th January,
1737, he wrote Berenice. In February and March he directed a
double season of opera and oratorio.

In April he was stricken with paralysis ; during the whole of
the summer he seemed on the point of death. The baths of Aix-
la-Chapelle cured him. He returned to London early in November,

I737-

On the 1 5th of November he began Faramondo ; on the I7th
December he commenced the Funeral Anthem, which he had
performed at Westminster on the i7th ; by the 24th he had
completed Faramondo ; on the 25th he began Serse, which he
finished on the i4th February, 1738. On the 25th February
he gave the first performance of a new pasticcio : Alessandro
Severo. — And a few months later we find him writing Saul, which
occupies him from the 23rd July to the 27th September, 1738,
and beginning Israel in Egypt on the ist October, and completing
it on the 28th. During the same month of October he publishes
his first collection of Concertos for the Organ and delivers to the
publishers the collection of Seven Trios or Sonatas with Two Parts
and Accompaniments, op. 5.

Once more, the example that I have chosen is that of the two
years when Handel was most seriously ill, indeed sick almost unto
death ; and I defy the reader to find the least trace of his illness
in these compositions.

f The poet Rossi states, in his preface to Rinaldo, that Handel
barely gave him time to write the poem, and that the whole
work, words and music, was composed in a fortnight (1711). —

48 A Musical Tour

The urge to create was so tyrannical that it ended
by isolating him from the rest of the world. " He
never allowed himself to be interrupted by any
futile visit " says Hawkins, " and his impatience
to be delivered of the ideas which continually
flooded his mind kept him almost always shut up."
His brain was never idle ; and whatever he might
be doing, he was no longer conscious of his surround-
ings. He had a habit of speaking so loudly that
everybody learned what he was thinking. And
what exaltation, what tears, as he wrote ! He
sobbed aloud when he was composing the aria
He was despised. — " I have heard it said " reports
Shield, " that when his servant took him his choco-
late in the morning he was often surprised to see
him weeping and wetting with his tears the paper
on which he was writing." — With regard to the
Hallelujah chorus of the Messiah he himself cited
the words of St. Paul: "Whether I was in my
body or out of my body as I wrote it I know not.
God knows."

This huge mass of flesh was shaken by fits of fury.
He swore almost with every phrase. In the
orchestra, " when his great white periwig was seen
to quiver the musicians trembled." When his
choirs were inattentive he had a way of shouting
Chorus ! at them in a terrible voice that made
the public jump. Even at the rehearsals of his
oratorios at Carlton House, before the Prince of
Wales, if the Prince and Princess did not appear
punctually he took no trouble to conceal his anger ;

Belshazzar was composed as Ch. Jennius sent Handel the acts of
the poem, too slowly to suit the musician, who never ceased to
spur him on, and who, in despair of obtaining the libretto, wrote
that same summer, that he might have something to do, his
magnificent Herakles.

A Portrait of Handel 49

and if the ladies of the Court had the misfortune
to talk during the performance he was not satisfied
with cursing and swearing, but addressed them
furiously by name. " Chut, chut ! " the Princess
would say on these occasions, with her usual indul-
gence : " Handel is spiteful ! "

Spiteful he was not. " He was rough and
peremptory/' says Burney, " but entirely without
malevolence. There was, in his most violent fits
of anger, a touch of originality which, together
with his bad English, made them absolutely comical.
Like Lully and Gluck, he had the gift of command ;
and like them he combined an irascible violence
that overcame all opposition with a witty good-
nature which, though wounding to vanity, had the
power of healing the wounds which it had caused.
" At his rehearsals he was an arbitrary person ;
but his remarks and even his reprimands were full
of an extremely droll humour." At the time when
the opera in London was a field of battle between
the supporters of the Faustina and those of the
Cuzzoni, and when the two prime donne seized one
another by the hair in the middle of a performance,
patronised by the Princess of Wales, to the roars
of the house, a farce by Colley Gibber, who drama-
tised this historic bout of fisticuffs, represented
Handel as the only person who remained cool in the
midst of the uproar. "To my thinking "he said "one
should leave them to fight it out in peace. If you want
to make an end of it throw oil on the fire. When they
are tired their fury will abate of itself. ' ' And in order
that the battle should end the sooner he expedited it
with great blows on the kettledrum.*

* The Contre-Temps, or The Rival Queens, performed on the 27th
July, 1727, at Drury Lane.

50 A Musical Tour

Even when he flew into a rage people felt that
he was laughing in his sleeve. Thus, when he seized
the irascible Cuzzoni, who refused to sing one of
his airs, by the waist, and, carrying her to the
window, threatened to throw her into the street,
he said, with a bantering air : " Now, madame,
I know very well that you are a regular she-devil ;
but I'll make you realise that I am Beelzebub
the prince of devils ! "*

* * *

All his life he enjoyed a wonderful amount of
freedom. He hated all restrictions and avoided all
official appointments ; for we cannot so describe
his position of teacher to the princesses ; the import-
ant musical posts about the Court and the fat
pensions were never bestowed upon him, even
after his naturalisation as an English citizen ; they
were conferred upon indifferent composers. f He
took no pains to humour these ; he spoke of his
English colleagues with contemptuous sarcasm.
Indifferently educated, apart from music, J he despised
academics and academic musicians. He was not

* In the text cited by Mainwaring this is in French. — Handel
was fond of speaking French, of which he had a very good know-
ledge, and employed almost exclusively in his correspondence,
even with his family.

f He was professor of music to the royal princesses, with a
salary of ^200 — a salary lower, as Chrysander points out, than
that of the dancing-master, Anthony FAbbe", who received ^240,
and whose name always headed the list. Morice Green, organist
at Westminster and doctor of music, for whose benefit two
important musical posts were united in 1735 — the directorship
of the Court orchestra and that of the Chapel Royal, until then exer-
cised by John Eccles and Dr. Croft — drew a salary of ^400.

J But according to Hawkins he had been a diligent student.
His father had intended him for the law, and in 1703 Handel
was still inscribed on the rolls of the faculty of law at Halle, where
the famous Thomasius was his teacher. It was not until he had
passed his eighteenth year that he finally devoted himself to
music.

A Portrait of Handel 51

a doctor of Oxford University, although the degree
was offered to him. It is recorded that he com-
plained : " What the devil ! should I have had to
spend my money in order to be like those idiots ? *
Never in this world ! "

And later, in Dublin, where he was entitled Dr.
Handel on a placard, he was annoyed by the mistake
and promptly had it corrected on the programmes,
which announced him as Mr. Handel.

Although he was far from turning up his nose at
fame — speaking at some length in his last will and
testament of his burial at Westminster, and care-
fully settling the amount to which he wished to limit
the cost of his own monument — he had no respect
whatever for the opinions of the critics. Mattheson
was unable to obtain from him the data which he
needed to write his biography. His Rousseau-
like manners filled the courtiers with indignation.
The fashionable folk who had always been given
to inflicting boredom upon artists without any protest
from the latter resented the supercilious and un-
sociable fashion in which he kept them at a distance.
In 1719 the field-marshal Count Flemming wrote
to Mile, de Schulenburg, one of Handel's pupils :

Mademoiselle I — I had hoped to speak to M. Handel and
should have liked to offer him a few polite attentions on your
behalf, but there has been no opportunity ; I made use of your
name to induce him to come to my house, but on some occasions
he was not at home, while on others he was ill ; it seems to me
that he is rather crazy, which he ought not to be as far as I
am concerned, considering that I am a musician . . . and
that I am proud to be one of your most faithful servants,
Mademoiselle, who are the most agreeable of his pupils ; I
should have liked to tell you all this, so that you in your turn
might give lessons to your master, f

* His confreres, Pepusch and Greene.

t 6th October, 1719, Dresden. The original letter is in French.

52 A Musical Tour

In 1741, an anonymous letter to the London Daily
Post* speaks of " the declared displeasure of so many
gentlemen of rank and influence " in respect of
Handel's attitude toward them.

Excepting the single opera Radamisto, which he
dedicated to George I. — and this he did with dignity
— he set his face against the humiliating and profitable
custom of placing his compositions under the
patronage of some wealthy person ; and only
when he was in the last extremity, when poverty
and sickness had overwhelmed him, did he resolve
to give a " benefit " concert : " that fashion of
begging alms " as he called it.

From 1720 until his death in 1759 he was engaged
in an unending conflict with the public. Like Lully,
he managed a theatre, directed an Academy of Music
and sought to reform — or to form — the musical
taste of a nation. But he never had Lully 's powers
of control ; for Lully was an absolute monarch of
French music ; and if Handel relied, as he did, on
the king's favour, that favour was a long way from
being as important to him as it was to Lully. He
was in a country which did not obey the orders of
those in high places with docility ; a country which
was not enslaved to the State ; a free country, of
a critical, unruly temper ; and, apart from a
select few, anything but hospitable, and inimical
to foreigners. And he was a foreigner, and so was
his Hanoverian king, whose patronage compromised
him more than it benefited him.

He was surrounded by a crowd of bull-dogs with
terrible fangs, by unmusical men of letters, who
were likewise able to bite, by jealous colleagues,
arrogant virtuosi, cannibalistic theatrical companies,

* 4th April, 1741. — See Chrysander.

A Portrait of Handel 53

fashionable cliques, feminine plots and nationalistic
leagues. He was a prey to financial embarrass-
ments which grew daily more inextricable ; and he
was constantly compelled to write new composi-
tions to satisfy the curiosity of a public that nothing
ever did satisfy, that was really interested in nothing,
and to strive against the competition of harlequi-
nades and bearfights ; to write, and write, and write :
not an opera each year, as Lully did so peacefully,
but often two or three each winter, without counting
the compositions of other musicians which he was
forced to rehearse and conduct. What other genius
ever drove such a trade for twenty years ?

In this perpetual conflict he never made use of
concessions, compromises or discreet expedients ;
neither with his actresses nor their protectors, the
great nobles, nor the pamphleteers, nor all that
clique which makes the fortune of the theatres and
the fame or ruin of the artists. He held his own
against the aristocracy of London. The war was
bitter and merciless, and, on the part of his enemies,
ignobly fought ; there was no device, however
petty, that was not employed to drive him into
bankruptcy.

In 1733, after a long campaign in the Press and
the drawing-rooms of London, his enemies managed
to contrive that the concerts at which Handel
produced his first oratorios were given to empty
chairs ; they succeeded in killing them, and people
were already repeating, exultingly, that the dis-
couraged German was about to return to his own
country. In 1741, the fashionable cabal went so
far as to hire little street-arabs to tear down the
advertisements of Handel's concerts which were
posted up out of doors, and " made use of a thousand

54 A Musical Tour

expedients, equally pitiable, to cause him injury."*
Handel would very probably have left the United
Kingdom, but for the unexpected sympathy which
he found in Ireland, where he proceeded to spend
a year. — In 1745, after all his masterpieces, after
the Messiah, Samson, Belshazzar, and Herakles,
the cabal was reconstituted, and was even more
violent than before. Bolingbroke and Smollet
mention the tenacity with which certain ladies gave
tea-parties, entertainments and theatrical per-
formances— which were not usually given in Lent —
on the days when Handel's concerts were to take
place, in order to rob him of his audience. Horace
Walpole was greatly entertained by the fashion of
going to the Italian opera when Handel was giving
his oratorios. f

In short, Handel was ruined ; and although
he was victorious in the end the causes of his victory
were quite unconnected with art. To him there
happened in 1746 what happened to Beethoven in
1813, after he had written the Battle of Vittoria
and his patriotic songs for a Germany that had
risen against Napoleon : Handel suddenly became,
after the Battle of Culloden and his two patriotic
oratorios, the Occasional Oratorio and Judas Mace-
abacus, a national bard. From that moment his
cause was gained, and the cabal had to keep silence ;
he was a part of England's patrimony, and the
British lion walked beside him. But if after
this period England no longer grudged his fame
she nevertheless made him purchase it dearly ;
and it was no fault of the London public that he

* Letter of the gth April, 1741 to the London Daily Post.
See Schoelcher.

A Portrait of Handel 55

did not die, in the midst of his career, of poverty
and mortification. Twice he was bankrupt ;* and
once he was stricken down by apoplexy, amid the
ruins of his company. f But he always found his
feet again ; he never gave in. "To re-establish his
fortunes he need only have made certain concessions ;
but his character rebelled against such a course. {
He had a hatred of all that might restrict his liberty,
and was intractable in matters affecting the honour
of his art. He was not willing that he should
owe his fortune to any but himself." § An English
caricaturist represented him under the title of
" The Bewitching Brute," trampling underfoot a
banner on which was written : Pension, Privi-
lege, Nobility, Favours ; and in the face of disaster
he laughed with a laugh of a Cornelian Pantagruel.
Finding himself, on the evening of a concert, con-
fronted by an empty hall, he said : " My music
will sound the better so ! "

This masterful character, with its violence and
its transports of anger and of genius, was gov-
erned by a supreme self-control. In Handel that
tranquillity prevailed which is sometimes met
with in the offspring of certain sound, but late
marriages.** All his life he preserved this profound
serenity in his art. While his mother, whom he

* In 1735 and 1745.

t In 1737-

I Gentleman's Magazine, 1760.
§ Coxe.
** Handel's father was 63 years of age at the time of his son's

56 A Musical Tour

worshipped, lay dying he wrote Poro, that delight-
fully care-free opera.* The terrible year 1717,
when he lay at the point of death, in the depths of
a gulf of calamity, was preceded and followed by
two oratorios overflowing with joy and material
energy : Alexander's Feast (1736) and Saul (1738),
and also by the two sparkling operas, Giustino
(1736) with its pastoral fragrance, and Serse (1738),
in which a comic vein appears.

. La calma del cor, del sen, dell' alma,
says a song at the close of the serene Giustino.
And this was the time when Handel's mind
was strained to breaking-point by its load of
anxieties !

Herein the anti-psychologists, who claim that
the knowledge of an artist's life is of no value in the
understanding of his work, will find cause for
triumph, but they will do well to avoid a hasty
judgment ; for the very fact that Handel's art
was independent of his life is of capital importance
in the comprehension of his art. That a Beethoven
should find solace for his sufferings and his passions
in works of suffering and passion is easily under-
stood. But that Handel, a sick man, assailed by
anxieties, should find distraction in works expressing
joy and serenity presupposes an almost super-
human mental equilibrium. How natural it is
that Beethoven, endeavouring to write his Sym-
phony of Joy, should have been fascinated by

* The date of his mother's death was the 2yth of December,
1730 ; that of her burial, the 2nd of January, 1731. Compare
these dates with those inscribed by Handel on the manuscript
of Poro :

" Finished writing the first act of Poro : 23rd December, 1730.

Finished writing the second act: 3oth December, 1730.

Finished writing the third act: i6th January, 1731."

A Portrait of Handel 57

Handel !* He must have looked with envious eyes
upon the man who had attained that mastery over
things and self to which he himself was aspiring,
and which he was to achieve by an effort of impas-
sioned heroism. It is this effort that we admire : it
is indeed sublime. But is not the serenity with
which Handel retained his footing on these heights
equally sublime ? People are too much accustomed
to regard his serenity as the phlegmatic indifference
of an English athlete :

Gorge jusques aux dents de rouges aloyaux
Handel eclate en chants robustes et loyaux.f

No one had any suspicion of the nervous tension
or the superhuman determination which he must
have needed in order to sustain this tranquillity.
At times the machine broke down, and his magni-
ficent health of body and mind was shaken to the
roots. In 1737 Handel's friends believed that he
had permanently lost his reason. But this crisis
was not exceptional in his life. In 1745, when the
hostility of London society, implacable in its attacks
upon his Belshazzar and Herakles, ruined him for
the second time, his reason was again very near

* His perpetual expenditure of energy and his unremitting
labours explain Handel's morbid voracity. Contemporaries
jested in the most offensive manner concerning the ogre who
was accustomed to order dinners for three, and, when asked
where the party was, used to reply: "I am the party! " But
this terrific worker had of course to repair his exhausted
energies ; and after all this diet does not seem to have done him
any harm : we may therefore conclude that it was necessary to him.
As Mattheson told him, " it would be as irrelevant to measure
Handel's eating and drinking by those of ordinary men as to
demand that the table of a London merchant should be the same
as that of a Swiss peasant."

f " Gorged to the teeth with underdone sirloins,
Hand el bursts into vigorous and loyal song." — Maurice Boucher.

58 A Musical Tour

to giving way. The hazard of a correspondence
which has recently been published has afforded
us this information.* The Countess of Shaftesbury
wrote on the I3th of March, 1745 :

I went to , Alexander's Feast with a melancholy pleasure.
I wept tears of mortification at the sight of the great and
unfortunate Handel, crestfallen, gloomy, with fallen cheeks,
seated beside the harpsichord which he could not play ; it
made me sad to reflect that his light has burned itself out in
the service of music.

On the 29th of August of the same year the Rev.
William Harris wrote to his wife :

Met Handel in the street. Stopped him and reminded him
who I was, upon which I am sure it would have entertained
you to see his fantastic gestures. He spoke a great deal of the
precarious condition of his health.

This condition continued for seven or eight months.
On the 24th of October, Shaftesbury wrote to Harris :

Poor Handel looks a little better. I hope he will recover
completely, though his mind has been entirely deranged.

He did recover completely, since in November he
wrote his Occasional Oratorio, and soon afterwards
his Judas Maccabaeus. But we see what a gulf
perpetually yawned beneath him. It was only
by the skin of his teeth that he, the sanest of geniuses,
kept himself going, a hand's-breadth from insanity,
and I repeat that these sudden organic lesions have
been revealed only by the hazards of a correspond-
ence. There must have been many others of which
we know nothing. Let us remember this, and also
the fact that Handel's tranquillity concealed a
prodigious expenditure of emotion. The indifferent,
phlegmatic Handel is only the outer shell.

* W. B. Squire : Handel in 1745 (in the H. Riemann
Festschrift, 1909, Leipzig.)

A Portrait of Handel 59

Those who conceive of him thus have never
understood him, never penetrated his mind, which
was exalted by transports of enthusiasm, pride,
fury and joy ; which was, at times, almost halluci-
nated. But music, for him, was a serene region
which he would not allow the disorders of his life
to enter ; when he surrendered to it wholly he was,
despite himself, carried away by the delirium of
a visionary, as when the God of Moses and the
Prophets appeared to him in his Psalms and his
oratorios — or betrayed by his heart, in moments
of pity and compassion, that were yet without a
trace of sentimentality.*

He was, in his art, one of those men who, like
Goethe, regard their lives from a great distance,
a great height. Our modern sentimentality, which
displays itself with complacent indiscretion, is
disconcerted by this haughty reserve. In this
kingdom of art, inaccesible to the capricious chances
of life, it seems to us that the prevailing light is
sometimes too uniform. Here are the Elysian
Fields ; hither one retreats from the life of the world ;
here, often enough, one regrets it. But is there not
something affecting in the spectacle of this master,
serene amidst all his afflictions, his brow unlined
and his heart without a care ?

* * *

Such a man, who lived entirely for his art, was not
calculated to please women ; and he troubled his
head very little about them. None the less, they were
his warmest partisans and his most venemous adver-
saries. The English pamphleteers made merry over
one of his worshippers, who, under the pseudonym

* In the Funeral Anthem, the Foundling Anthem, and in certain
pages of his later works, Theodora and Jephthah.

60 A Musical Tour

of Ophelia, sent him, when his Julius Casar
was produced, a crown of laurel, with an enthusi-
astic poem in which she represented him as the
greatest of musicians, and also of the English
poets of his time. I have already alluded to those
fashionable dames who endeavoured, with hateful
animosity, to ruin him. Handel went his own way,
indifferent to worshippers and adversaries alike.

In Italy, when he was twenty years of age, he
had a few temporary love affairs, traces of which
survive in several of the Italian Cantatas.* There
is a rumour too of an affair which he is supposed to
have had at Hamburg when he was second violin
in the orchestra of the Opera. He was attracted
by one of his pupils, a girl of good family, and wanted
to marry her ; but the girl's mother declared that
she would never consent to her daughter's marriage
with a cat-gut scraper. Later, when the mother
was dead and Handel famous, it was suggested to
him that the obstacles were now removed ; but he
replied that the time had gone by ; and according
to his friend, Schmidt, who, like a good romantic
German, delights to embellish history, " the young
lady fell into a decline that ended her days/' In
London a little later there was a fresh project of
marriage with a lady in fashionable society ; once
more, she was one of his pupils ; but this aristocratic
person wanted him to abandon his profession.
Handel, indignant, " broke off the relations which
would have fettered his genius. "f Hawkins tells

* For example, in the cantata entitled, Partenza di G. F.
H&ndel, 1708.

f Above all he had a profound love for a sister who died in
1718, and for his mother, who died in 1730. Later his affection
was given to his sister's daughter, Johanna-Fridericka, ne'e Mich-
aelsen, to whom he left all his property.

A Portrait of Handel 61

us : " His sociable instincts were not very strong ;
whence it comes, no doubt, that he was a celibate
all his life ; it is asserted that he never had any
dealings with women." Schmidt, who knew
Handel very much better than Hawkins, protests .
that Handel was not unsociable, but that his frantic
craving for independence " made him afraid of
belittling himself, and that he had a dread of indis-
soluble ties."

In default of love he knew and faithfully practised
friendship. He inspired the most touching affec-
tion, such as that of Schmidt, who left his country
and his kin to follow him, in 1726, and never left
him again until his death. Some of his friends
were among the noblest intellects of the age : such
was the witty Dr. Arbuthnot, whose apparent
Epicurianism concealed a stoical disdain of man-
kind, and who, in his last letter to Swift, made this
admirable remark : "As for leaving, for the world's
sake, the path of virtue and honour, the world is
not worth it." Handel had moreover a profound
and pious feeling for the family, which was never
extinguished, and to which he gave expression in some
touching characters, such as Joseph, and the good
mother in Solomon.

But the finest, purest feeling of which he was
capable was his ardent charity. In a country
which witnessed, in the eighteenth century, a
magnificent impulse of human solidarity,* he was one
of those who were most sincerely devoted to the
cause of the unfortunate. His generosity was not

* It found expression in the foundation of hospitals and bene-
volent societies. This movement, which about the middle of the
eighteenth century had attained remarkable proportions all
over England, made itself felt with peculiar enthusiasm in
Ireland.

62 A Musical Tour

extended merely to this or that individual whom
he had personally known, such as the widow of his
old master, Lachow ; it was lavished continually
and abundantly in the interest of all charitable
undertakings, more especially in that of two such
organisations which made especial appeal to him :
the Society of Musicians and the Foundling
Hospital.

The Society of Musicians was founded in 1738
by a group of the principal artists in London, — artists
of all descriptions, for the assistance of indigent
musicians and their families. An aged musician
received a weekly allowance of ten shillings ; a
musician's widow, seven shillings. The Society also
undertook to give them decent burial. Handel,
embarrassed though he was, showed himself more
generous than his colleagues. On the 2oth March,
1739, he produced, for the benefit of the Society,
defraying all expenses, his Alexander's Feast, with
a new organ concerto especially written for the
occasion. On the 28th March, 1740, in the midst
of his worst difficulties, he produced Ads and
Galatea and the little Ode to St. Cecilia. On the
i8th March, 1741, he gave a gala performance —
for him a most onerous task — of Parnasso in Festa,
with scenery and costumes, and five concerti soli
executed by the most famous instrumentalists.
He left the Society the largest legacy which it
received — one of a thousand pounds.

As for the Foundling Hospital, founded in 1739
by an old sailor, Thomas Coram, " for the relief
and education of deserted children," " one may
say," writes Main waring, "that it owed its establish-
ment and its prosperity to Handel." In 1749,
Handel wrote for it his beautiful Anthem for the

A Portrait of Handel 63

Foundling Hospital.* In 1750, after the gift of an
organ to the Hospital, he was elected Governor.
We know that his Messiah was first performed,
and afterwards almost entirely reserved, for the
benefit of charitable undertakings. The first
performance in Dublin, on the I2th April, 1742,
was given for the benefit of the poor. The profits
of the concert were entirely divided between the
Society for the Relief of Debtor Prisoners, the
Infirmary for the Poorf and the Mercers' Hospital.
When the success of the Messiah was established
in London, — not without difficulty — in 1750,
Handel decided to give annual performances for the
benefit of the Foundling Hospital. Even after
he was blind he continued to direct these perform-
ances. Between 1750 and 1759, the date of Handel's
death, the Messiah earned for the Hospital a sum
of £6,955. Handel had forbidden his publisher,
Walsh, to publish any part of this work, the first
edition of which did not appear until 1763 ; and he
bequeathed to the Hospital a copy of the full score.
He had given another copy to the Dublin Society
for the Relief of Debtor Prisoners, with permission
to make use of it as often as the Society pleased
in the interest of their beneficiaries.

This love of the poor inspired Handel in some of
his most characteristic passages, such as certain
pages of the Foundling anthem, full of a touching
benevolence, or the pathetic evocation of the
orphans and foundlings, whose pure shrill voices
rise alone and without accompaniment in the midst

* In the Musical Times, ist May, 1902, a great deal of informa-
tion will be found relating to the Foundling Hospital and the part
which Handel took in its management.

f Founded in 1726, "by Six Surgeons."

64 A Musical Tour

of the triumphant chorus of the Funeral Anthem,
attesting to the beneficence of the dead Queen.

One year, almost to the day, before Handel's
death, there stands on the register of the Foundling
Hospital the name of a little Maria Augusta Handel,
born on the I5th April, 1758. She was a foundling to
whom he had given his name.

* * *

For him, charity was the true religion. He loved
God in the poor.

For the rest, he was by no means religious in the
strict sense of the word, — except at the close of his
life, after the loss of his sight had cut him off from
the society of his kind and isolated him almost
completely. Hawkins used to see him then, in the
last three years of his life, diligently attending the
services of his parish church. — St. George's, Hanover
Square — kneeling " and manifesting, by his gestures
and his attitude, the most fervent devotion."
During his last illness he said : "I wish I might
die on Good Friday, in the hope of joining my God,
my sweet Lord and Saviour, on the day of his
Resurrection."*

But during the greater part of his lifetime, when he
was in the fullness of his strength, he rarely attended
a place of worship. A Lutheran by birth, replying
ironically in Rome, where an attempt was made to
convert him, " that he was determined to die in the
communion in which he had been brought up,
whether it was true or false, "f he nevertheless
found no difficulty in conforming to the Anglican
form of worship, and was regarded as very much
of an unbeliever.

* He died on the following day, on Saturday morning,
f Mainwaring.

A Portrait of Handel 65

Whatever his faith, he was religious at heart.
He had a lofty conception of the moral obligations
of art. After the first performance in London of
the Messiah he said to a noble amateur : "I should
be sorry, my lord, if I gave pleasure to men ; my
aim is to make them better."*

During his lifetime " his moral character was
publicly acknowledged," as Beethovenf arrogantly
wrote of himself. Even at the period when he was
most discussed discerning admirers had realised
the moral and social value of his art. Some verses
which were published in the English newspapers
in 1745 praised the miraculous power which the
music of Saul possessed of alleviating suffering by
exalting it. A letter in the London Daily Post
for the I3th April, 1739, says that " a people which
appreciates the music of Israel in Egypt should have
nothing to fear on whatever occasion, though all
the might of an invasion were gathered against it."}

No music in the world gives forth so mighty
a faith. It is the faith that removes mountains,
and, like the rod of Moses, makes the eternal waters
gush forth from the rock of hardened souls. Certain
passages from his oratorios, certain cries of resurrec-
tion are living miracles, as of Lazarus rising from
the tomb. Thus, in the second act of Theodora, §

* Schoelcher.

t Letter to the Municipality of Vienna, ist February, 1819.

t The literal text is : " Though all the might of papistry were
gathered against us." — It seems that Handel himself was struck
by these words. Seven years later, when England was invaded
by Papist troops, and the army of the Pretender Charles Edward
was advancing to the gates of London, Handel, writing the Occa-
sional Oratorio, that grand epic hymn to the menaced mother-
country, and the God who defended her, reproduced, in the third
part of this composition, the finest pages of Israel.

§ " He beheld the young man who was sleeping."

66 A Musical Tour

God's thunderous command breaks through the
mournful slumber of death :

" Arise ! " cried His voice. And the young man arose.

Or again, in the Funeral Anthem, the intoxicated
cry, almost painful in its joy, of the immortal soul
that puts off the husk of the body and holds out
its arms to its God.*

But nothing approaches in moral grandeur the
chorus that closes the second act of Jephthah.
Nothing enables us better than the story of this
composition to gain an insight into Handel's
heroic faith.

When he began to write it, on the 2ist January,
1751, he was in perfect health, despite his sixty-six
years. He composed the first act in twelve days,
working without intermission. There is no trace of
care to be found in it. Never had his mind been
freer ; it was almost indifferent as to the subject
under treatment.! In the course of the second act
his sight became suddenly clouded. The writing,
so clear at the beginning, is now confused and
tremulous. { The music too assumes a mournful

* The chorus " But His glory endureth for ever" alternates
with the funeral chorus : " His body has gone to rest in the tomb."
The motive was borrowed by Handel from a motet by an old German
master of the sixteenth century, — his namesake Handel (Jakobus-
Gallus) : Ecce quomodo moritur Justus. But a single change of
rhythm suffices to give wings to the old chorale ; an ecstatic impulse
which suddenly breaks off, breathless with emotion, unable to
find further utterance. Eight times this cry rises in the course of
this composition.

f Several of Iphis' airs are built upon dance rhythms : in the
first act The Smiling Dawn, on the rhythm of a bourrte (an Auverg-
nian dance), and in the second act, Welcome as the Cheerful Light, on
a gavotte rhythm.

I The progress of the malady may be followed exactly on the
autograph manuscript, the facsimile of which was published by
Chrysander in the great Breitkopf collection in 1885.

A Portrait of Handel 67

character.* He had just begun the final chorus
of Act II. : How mysterious, 0 Lord, are Thy ways I
Hardly had he written the initial movement, a
largo with pathetic modulations, when he was forced
to stop. He has noted at the foot of the page :

" Have got so far, Wednesday, I3th February.
Prevented from continuing because of my left eye/'

He breaks off for ten days. On the eleventh he
writes on his manuscript :

" The 23rd February, am a little better. Resumed
work."

And he sets to music these words, which contain
a tragic allusion to his own misfortune :

Our joy is lost in grief ... as day is lost in night.

Laboriously, in five days' time — five days ! —
and formerly he could have written a whole act in
the time — he struggles on to the end of this sombre
chorus, which illumines, in the darkness that
envelops him, one of the grandest affirmations of
faith in time of suffering. On emerging from these
gloomy and tormented passages, a few voices (tenor
and bass) in unison murmur very softly

All that is . . .

* The change of tone begins in the second act, with the cry of
horror emitted by Jephthah when he sees his daughter coming to
meet him. There is to begin with a series of mournful airs sung
by Jephthah and the mother and betrothed of Iphis, and then a
quartette, in which Iphis' parents mingle their lamentations.
To their tears replies the pure voice of Iphis, who consoles them,
in a recitative which seems to open the gates of heaven ; then
follows an aria of great simplicity, full of a courageous resignation
which conceals the fear and the anguish that lie beneath it. The
emotion waxes more intense ; Jephthah sings a recitative which
reminds one of those of Agamemnon in Iphigenia in Aulis ; at
the close the recitative is interrupted, continuing in slower time,
growing faint with grief and horror ; certain phrases seem written
by Beethoven. At last bursts forth the chorus in the midst of which
Handel was stricken with blindness.

68 A Musical Tour

For a moment they hesitate, seeming to take
breath, and then all the voices together affirm with
unshakable conviction that all that is

. . . is good.

The heroism of Handel and his fearless music,
which breathes of courage and faith, is summed
up in this cry of the dying Hercules.

IV

THE ORIGINS OF THE " CLASSIC " STYLE
IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC.

EVERY musician will at once perceive the profound
differences which divide the so-called " classic " style
of the close of the eighteenth century from the
grand " pre-classic " style of J. S. Bach and Handel;
the one with its ample rhetoric, its strict deductions,
its scholarly polyphonic writing, its objective and
comprehensive spirit ; the other lucid, spontaneous,
melodious, reflecting the changing moods of individ-
ual minds which throw themselves wholly into their
work, presently arriving at the Rousseau-like
confessions of Beethoven and the Romantics. It
seems as though a longer period must have elapsed
between these two styles than the length of a man's
life.

Now let us note the dates : J. S. Bach died in
1750, Handel in 1759. C. H. Graun also died in
1759. And in 1759 Haydn performed his first
symphony. The date of Gluck's Orfeo is 1762 ;
that of P. E. Bach's earliest sonatas, 1742. The
ingenious protagonist of the new symphony, Johann
Stamitz, died before Handel — in 1757. Thus the
leaders of the two great artistic movements were
living at the same time. The style of Reiser,
Telemann, Hasse and the Mannheim symphonists,

70 A Musical Tour

which is the source of the great Viennese classics,
is contemporary with the works of J. S. Bach and
Handel. More, even in their lifetime it enjoyed
precedence over them. As early as 1737 (the
year following Handel's Alexander's Feast, and
preceding Saul and the whole series of the magni-
ficent oratorios), Frederic II. of Prussia, then
Crown Prince, wrote to the Prince of Orange :

"Handel's best days are over; his mind is exhausted and
his taste out of fashion."

And Frederic II. contrasted with this art, which
was now " out of fashion/' that of " his composer,"
as he describes C. H. Graun.

In 1722-3, when J. S. Bach applied for the post
of Cantor of St. Thomas's in Leipzig, in succession
to Kuhnau, Telemann was greatly preferred to him,
and it was only because the latter did not want the
post that it was given to Bach. This same Tele-
mann, in 1704, at the beginning of his career, when
he was as yet hardly known, outstripped the glorious
Kuhnau, so powerful already was the influence
of the new fashion. Subsequently the movement
only gained in strength. A poem by Zacharia,
which reflects with sufficient accuracy the opinion
of the most cultivated circles in Germany, The
Temple of Eternity, written in 1754, places Handel,
Hasse and Graun on the same level, celebrates
Telemann in terms which one might employ to-day
in speaking of J. S. Bach*, and when it comes to Bach

* " . . . But who is this old man, who with his nimble pen,'
full of a pious enthusiasm, enchants the Eternal Temple ? Listen I
How the waves of the sea are roaring ! How the mountains cry aloud
with joy and sing hymns unto the Lord I How harmonious an "Amen "
fills the devout heart with a sacred awe ! How the temples tremble with
the pious shout of Alleluia! Telemann, it is thou, thou, the father of
sacred music. ."

Eighteenth-Century Music 7*

and " his melodious sons," it finds nothing to glorify
in them but their skill as performers, as kings of
the organ and the clavier. This judgment is also
that of the historian Burney (1772). And assuredly
it is calculated to surprise us. But we must be on
our guard against facile indignation. There is
little merit in outpouring, from the height of the
two centuries which divide us from them, a
crushing disdain upon the contemporaries of Bach
and Handel who judged them so incorrectly. It is
more instructive to seek to understand them.

And in the first place let us note the attitude of
Bach and Handel in respect of their age. Neither
one nor the other affects the fatal pose of the mis-
understood genius, as so many of our great or little
great men of to-day have done. They did not
wax indignant ; they were even on excellent terms
with their luckier rivals. Bach and Hasse were
very good friends, full of mutual esteem. Tele-
mann, in his childhood, had formed a warm friend-
ship with Handel ; he was also on the best of terms
with Bach, who chose him as god-father to his son,
Philipp Emanuel. Bach entrusted the musical
training of another of his sons, his favourite, Wil-
helm Friedemann, to J. Gottlieb Graun. Here
was no trace of party spirit. On either side there
were gifted men who esteemed and liked one
another.

Let us try to bring to our consideration of them
the same generous spirit of equity and sympathy.
J. S. Bach and Handel will lose nothing of their
colossal stature thereby. But we may well be
surprised to find them surrounded by an abundance
of fine works, and of artists full of intelligence
and genius ; and it should not be impossible to

72 A Musical Tour

understand the reasons which their contempories
had for their preferences. Without speaking of the
individual value of these artists, which is often very
great, it is their spirit which leads the way to the
classic masterpieces of the close of the eighteenth
century. J. S. Bach and Handel are two mountains
which dominate but close a period. Telemann,
Hasse, Jommelli and the Mannheim symphonists
are the rivers which have made for themselves
a way towards the future. As these rivers have
poured themselves into greater rivers — Mozart,
Beethoven, — which have absorbed them, we have
forgotten them while still beholding the lofty
summits in the distance. But we must be grateful
to the innovators. They were full of vitality once
and they have handed it down to us.

The reader will remember the famous quarrel
between the Ancients and the Moderns, inaugurated
in France towards the close of the seventeenth
century by Charles Perrault and Fontenelle, who
opposed to the imitation of antiquity the Cartesian
ideal of progress, revived, twenty years later,
by Houdar de la Motte, in the name of reason and
of modern taste.

This quarrel extended beyond the personality of
those who began it. It corresponded with a universal
movement of European thought ; and we find
similar symptoms in all the greater western countries
and in all the arts. They are strikingly apparent
in German music. The generation of Reiser, Tele-
mann and Mattheson felt from childhood an
instinctive aversion from those who represented
antiquity in music, for the contrapuntists and

Eighteenth-Century Music 73

canonists. At the source of the movement is
Reiser, whose artistic influence over Hasse, Graun
and Mattheson* (as well as Handel, for that matter)
was profound and decisive. But the first to express
these feelings definitely, emphatically and repeatedly,
was Telemann.

As early as 1704, confronting the old musicologist
Printz, he assumed the attitude of Democritus
opposing Heraclitus :

He bitterly lamented the extravagances of the melodists
of to-day. As for me, I laughed at the unmelodious works
of the old writers.

In 1718 he quoted this French couplet in support
of his attitude :

Ne les &&ve pas (les anciens] dans un ouvrage saint,
Au rang oa dans ce temps les auteurs ont atteint.

This is a frank declaration for the moderns against
the ancients. And what do the moderns mean to
him ? The moderns are the melodists.

Singen is das Fundament ZUY Music in alien Dingen,
Wer die Composition ergreifft, muss in seinen Sdtzen singen.
(Song is the foundation of music in all things.
Who composes must sing in all that he writes.)

Telemann adds that a young artist must turn
to the school of the Italian and young German
melodists, not to that " of the old writers, who
write counterpoint till all is blue, but are devoid
of invention, and write for fifteen and twenty voices
obbligati, in which Diogenes himself with his lantern
would not find a drop of melody."

The greatest musical theorist of the age, Mattheson,
was of the same opinion. In his Critica Musica

* Graun, at Dresden, devoured the scores of Keiser. Hasse,
in 1772, still professed his unbounded admiration for this musician,
" one of the greatest the world has ever possessed." As for Matthe-
son, he was, in many respects, Reiser's mouthpiece.

74 A Musical Tour

(1772) he boasted " of having been, vanity apart,*
the first to insist emphatically and expressly upon
the importance of melody." . . . Before him,
he says, there was no musical composer " who did
not leap over this first, most excellent and most
beautiful element of music as a cock leaps over
burning coals."

If he was not the first, as he professed, he at
least made most noise about the matter. In 1713
he entered upon a violent battle in honour of melody
as against the Kontrapuntisten, who were represented
by an organist of Wolfenbiittel, Bokemeyer, as
learned and pugnacious as himself. Mattheson saw
nothing in canon and counterpoint but an intellectual
exercise, without power to touch the heart. To
move his adversary to repentence he chose as arbi-
trators Keiser, Heinichen and Telemann, who
pronounced in his favour. Bokemeyer declared
himself defeated and thanked Mattheson for having
converted him to melody, " as the sole and true
source of pure music. "f

Telemann said :

" Wer auf Instrumenten spielt muss des Singens
kiindig seyn. (Who plays on instruments must be
versed in song.)"

And Mattheson :

" Whatever music one is writing, vocal or instru-
mental, all should be cantabile."

This predominant importance given to cantabile
melody, to song, overthrew the barrier between
the different classes of music, by upholding as the

* There was, on the contrary, a good deal of vanity in his claim,
for it is evident from the foregoing quotations from Telemann,
and the example of Keiser, that he had no lack of forerunners.

| Bokemeyer was so convinced that he wrote a little treatise
on melody and sent it to Mattheson for the latter to correct.

Eighteenth-Century Music 75

model for all the class in which vocal melody and
the art of singing had blossomed into perfection :
the Italian opera. The oratorios of Telemann,
Hasse and Graun and the masses of the period are
in the style of opera.* In his Musikalische Patriot
(1728), Mattheson breaks a lance against the con-
trapuntal style of church music : here as elsewhere
he wishes to establish " the theatrical style," because
this style, according to him, enables the composer
to attain better than any other the aim of religious
music, which is " to excite virtuous emotions."
All is, or should be, he says, theatrical, in the widest
sense of the word theatralisch, which denotes the
artistic imitation of nature. " All that produces
an effect upon men is theatrical. . . . Music
is theatrical. . . . The whole world is a gigantic
theatre." This theatrical style will permeate the
whole art of music, even in those of its departments
that seem most remote from it, the Lied and instru-
mental music.

* Handel and J. S. Bach themselves were not immune from the
contagion. Not only did Handel write forty operas, but his oratorios,
his Psalms, his Te Deums abound in dramatic elements. As for
J. S. Bach, it is characteristic that he chose as the librettist of his
first cantatas Erdmann Neuminster, who wrote that a cantata
*' is nothing more than a fragment of an opera," and introduced
the religious cantata in operatic style into Germany. In upholding
religious cantatas of this kind, with lecitatives and arias, Bach
shocked a great many people. The pietists of Muhlhausen, when
he was Kapellmeister in 1708, forced him to resign, being offended
by his unduly frivolous cantatas, and because his church music
savoured of the concert-hall and the opera. We find reminiscences
of Keiser's operas in his most famous cantatas. Need we also recall
his profane cantatas, some mythological, others realistic and comic,
and the use which he made of considerable fragments of these com-
positions in his religious works ? He did not always perceive a definite
boundary between the profane and the religious style. Bach
and Handel were protected from the excesses of the operatic style
by theii choral and contrapuntal ingenuity, which harmonised
but ill with the opera of that period.

76 A Musical Tour

But this change of style would not have marked
a living progress if the opera itself, which was the
common model, had not been transformed, at the
same period, by the introduction of a new element
which was to develop with unexpected rapidity :
the symphonic element. What is lost as regards
vocal polyphony is regained in instrumental sym-
phony. The great conquest of Telemann, Hasse,
Graun and Jommelli in opera was the recitative
accompagnato, the recitative scene with dramatic
orchestration.* It was in this respect that they
were revolutionists in the musical world. Once
the orchestra was introduced into the drama it
gained and kept the upper hand. In vain did
people lament that the fine art of singing would
be ruined. Those who supported it as against the
old contrapuntal art did not fear to sacrifice it, at
need, to the orchestra. Jommelli, so respectful
of Metastasio in all other matters, opposed him
with regard to this one point with immovable
resolution. f One must read the complaints of the
old musicians : " One no longer hears the voice ;
the orchestra is deafening."

* I \vill not say that they invented it. The accompagnato goes
back to the earliest period of the Venetian opera and was used by
Lully in his later works. But from the time of Leonardo Vinci
and Hasse (about 1725-30) these great dramatic monologues, recited
with oichestra, underwent a magnificent development.

f Not that Metastasio was inimical to the recitativo stromentale.
He was too complete a poet-musician not to be conscious of its
dramatic effect. He plainly acknowledged, in certain of his
writings, the orchestra's power of interpreting the inward tragedy.

But this very power made him uneasy. The inward tragedy
threatened to overflow and swamp the action ; the poetry was in
danger of being drowned by the music ; and Metastasio, who had
so fine a feeling for the equilibrium of all the theatrical elements,
was bound to see that the proportion of the recitativo con strumenti
must be strictly limited in each act.

Eighteenth-Century Music 77

As early as 1740, at the performances of opera,
the audience could no longer understand the words
of the singers unless it followed them in the
libretto : the accompaniment smothered the voices.*
And the dramatic orchestra continued to develop
throughout the century. " The immoderate use
of the instrumental accompaniment " says Gerber,
" has become a general fashion." The orchestra
swamped the theatre to such an extent that at a
very early period it freed itself from it, and claimed
in itself to be theatre and drama. As early as
1738, Scheibe, who with Mattheson was the most
intelligent of the German musicologists, was writing
symphony-overtures, which expressed " the content
of the pieces/' after the fashion of Beethoven's
overtures for Coriolanus and Leonora.} I will not
speak of the descriptions in music which abounded
in Germany about 1720, as we see from Mattheson's
bantering remarks in his Critica Musica. The
movement came from Italy, where Vivaldi and
Locatelli, under the influence of the opera, were
writing programme concertos which were spreading
all over Europe %

* Lorenz Mizler : Musical Bibl., 1740, Leipzig, vol. ii., see p.
13, quoted by W. Krefeld : Das Orchester der Oper, 1898. See also
Mattheson : Die neueste Untersuching der Singspiele, 1744, Hamburg.

f Scheibe's overtures to Polyeuctes ein Martyrer and Mithridates.
C. H. Schmid, in his Chronologie des deutschen Theaters, 1755, Leipzig,
calls this attempt "one of the great memorable events of the year."
See Karl Mennicke : Hasse und die Briider Graun als Symphoniker,
1906, Leipzig.

J Such as the four concertos of Vivaldi devoted to the four seasons,
or the concertos La Tempesta, La Notte, etc. Each of the concertos
of the seasons illustrates a programme which is set forth in a sonnet.
I will refer the reader to the analysis of the charming concerto
of Autumn, by Herr Arnold Schering (Geschichte des instrumental
Konzerts, 1905, Breitkopf.) Herr Schering has traced the influence
of these works upon Graupner, at Darmstadt, and J. G. Werner,
Haydn's predecessor as Prince Esterhazy's Kapellmeister.

78 A Musical Tour

Then the influence of French music, " the subtle
imitator of nature "* became preponderant over
the development of Tonmalerei (painting by music)
in German musicf — but what I wish to point out
is that even the opponents of programme music,
those who like Mattheson scoffed at the extravag-
ance of the descriptions of battles and tempests,
of musical calendars, % of the puerile symbolism
which represented in counterpoint the first chapter
of St. Matthew, or the genealogical tree of the
Saviour, or which, to represent Christ's Twelve
Apostles, wrote as many parts, — even these attri-
buted to instrumental music the power of represent-
ing the life of the soul.

" One can very well represent merely with instru-
ments/1 says Mattheson, " greatness of soul, love,
jealousy, etc. One can represent all the passions of
the heart by simple harmonies and their concaten-
ation, without words, so that the hearer grasps
and understands the development, the meaning and
the ideas of the musical utterance as though it were
an actual spoken utterance " §

* Telemann, 1742.

For the French theorists of " imitation " in music, see the essay
by J. Ecorcheville : De Lulli d Rameau, I'Esthttique musicale de
1690 A 1730.

| None of the German critics, who mention, whether to praise
or blame, Telemann's passion for musical " paintings," fail to
attribute it to the influence of French music. And Telemann himself
boasted that he was in this the disciple of France.

J Example : an Instrumental-Kalendar in twelve months by
J. G. Werner. Everything is translated into music, even to the length
of the days and nights, which, being in February ten and fourteen
hours respectively, are expressed by the repetition of minuets of ten
and fourteen bars. — A. Schering suggests that Haydn has been
influenced by his predecessor in his earlier symphonies : Evening,
Morning, etc.

§ Die neueste Untersuchung der Singspiels, 1744. — Mattheson
here follows Keiser's traditions.

Eighteenth-Century Music 79

A little later, about 1767, in a letter to Philipp
Emmanuel Bach, the poet Gerstenberg, of Copen-
hagen, expressed with perfect lucidity the idea that
true instrumental music, and especially clavier
music, ought to give utterance to precise feelings and
subjects ; and he hoped that Philipp Emmanuel,
whom he described as " a musical Raphael " (ein
Raffael durch Tone) would realise this art.*

Musicians, then, had become plainly aware of the
expression and descriptive power of pure music ;
and we may say that certain German composers of
this period were intoxicated by the idea. Of these
was Telemann, for example, for whom Tonmalerei or
music-painting takes the foremost place.

But what we must plainly realise is that it was
not merely a literary movement that was in question,
seeking to introduce extra-musical elements into
music, making it a sort of painting or poetry. A
profound revelation was occurring in the heart
of music. The individual soul was becoming
emancipated from the impersonality of form. The
subjective element, the artist's personality, was
invading the art with an audacity that was absolutely
unprecedented. — It is true that we recognize the
personality of J. S. Bach and Handel in their powerful
works. But we know how rigorously these works
are unfolded, in accordance with the strictest laws,
which not only are not the laws of emotion, but
which evidently evade or contradict them of inten-
tion— for whether in the case of a fugue or an aria
da capo, they inevitably bring back the motives at
moments and in places determined upon beforehand,
whereas emotion requires the composer to continue

* O. Fischer : Zum muzikalischen Standpunkte des Nordischen
Dichterkreises (Sammelbande der I.M.G., January-March, 1904).

8o A Musical Tour

upon his path, and not to retrace his steps ; — and
which, on the other hand, dread fluctuations of
feeling, consenting to them only on condition that
they present themselves under symmetrical aspects,
contrasts of a somewhat stiff and mechanical nature
between the piano and the forte, the tutti and con-
certino ; in the form of " echoes," as they were called
in those days. It seemed inartistic to express one's
individual feeling in an immediate fashion ; one had
perforce to interpose between oneself and the public
a veil of beautiful and impersonal forms. Doubtless
the works of this period gained thereby their superb
appearance of lofty serenity, which hides the little
joys and little sorrows. But how much humanity
they lose thereby ! — This humanity gives musical
utterance to its cry of emancipation with the artists
of the new period. Obviously we cannot expect
that it will at the first step attain the palpitating
freedom of a Beethoven. Yet the roots of Beethoven's
art exist already, as has been shown,* in the Mann-
heim symphonies, in the work of that astonishing
Johann Stamitz, whose orchestral trios, written in
1750, mark a new period. Through him instru-
mental music became the supple garment of the
living soul, always in movement, perpetually chang-
ing, with its unexpected fluctuations and contrasts.
I do not wish to exaggerate. One can never
express in art an emotion in all its purity, but only
a more or less approximate image of it ; and the
progress of a language such as music is can only
approach the emotion more and more closely without

* See above all the works of the great musicologist, to whom
belongs the honour of having restored to the light of day Stamitz
and his school : Hugo Riemann, in his editions of the Sinfonien
der Pfalzbayerischen Schule, and his articles on Beethoven und die
Mannheimer (Die Musik, 1907-8),

Eighteenth-Century Music 81

ever attaining it. I shall not pretend, therefore
(for that would be absurd), that the new symphonists
broke the old framework and liberated thought from
the slavery of form ; on the contrary, they estab-
lished new forms ; and it was at this period that the
classic types of the sonata and the symphony, as
defined to-day in the schools of music, definitely
imposed themselves. But although to us these types
may have become superannuated, although our
modern emotions are inconvenienced and to some
extent hampered by them, although they have at
last assumed an appearance of scholastic con-
ventionality, we must reflect how free and vital
they appeared then, by comparison with the accus-
tomed forms and style. Moreover, we may affirm
that to the inventors of these new forms, or to those
who first made use of them, they seemed much
freer than to those who followed. They had not yet
become general ; they were still personal to their
creators, fashioned according to the laws of their
own thought, modelled on the very rhythm of their
breathing. I have no hesitation in saying that the
symphony of a Stamitz, though less rich, less
beautiful, less exuberant, is much more spontaneous
than that of a Haydn or a Mozart. It is made to
its own measure ; it creates its forms ; it does not
submit to them.

What impulsive creatures are these first symp-
honists of Mannheim ! To the indignation of the old
musicians, and above all the pontiffs of northern
Germany, they dare to shatter the aesthetic unity
of their work, to mix one style with another, and to
put into their compositions, as a critic observes,
" halting, unmelodious, base, burlesque and dis-
membered elements, and all the feverish paroxysms

7

82 A Musical Tour

of the continual alternation of the piano and the
forte."* They profit by all the recent conquests,
by the progress of the orchestra, by the audacious
harmonic researches of a Telemann, replying to the
scandalised old masters who tell him that one must
not go too far, that one must go " down to the
very depths if one wishes to deserve the name of
Master, f" They profit also by the new styles of
music, by the Singspiel which has just taken shape.
They boldly introduce the comic style into the
symphony, side by side with the serious style, at
the risk of scandalising Philipp Emmanuel Bach,
who sees in the eruption of the comic style (Sty I
so beliebte Komische) an element of decadence in
music J — a decadence which was to lead to Mozart. —
In short, their law is that of life and nature — the
same law which is about to permeate the whole art
of music, resuscitating the Lied, giving birth to the
Singspiel, and leading to those experiments in the
utmost freedom in theatrical music which are
known as Melodrama : free music united to free
speech.

For this great breath of liberation of the individual
soul we should be grateful ; it stirred the thought of
all Europe about the middle of the eighteenth
century, before expressing itself in action by the
French Revolution and in art by romanticism. If
the German music of that time is still far removed
from the rom antic spirit (although we already find
in it certain precursory signs) it is because it was

* Allg. deutsche Bibliothek, 1791 (quoted by Herr Mennicke
in Hasse und die Bmder Graun).

•f Letter from Telemann to C. H. Graun, i5th December, 1751.

J Autobiography, quoted by Nohl : Musiker Briefe, 1 867 ; and
by C. Mennicke.

Eighteenth-Century Music 83

secured from the excesses of artistic individualism
by two profound emotions : the consciousness of the
social obligations of art and a passionate patriotism.

We know how Germanic sentiment decayed in
German music at the close of the seventeenth
century. Abroad the most disdainful idea was
entertained of it. We may remember that in 1709
Lecerf de la Vi^ville, speaking of the Germans,
remarked that " their reputation in music is not
great," and that the Abbe de Chateauneuf admired
a German performer all the more because he came
from " a country that is not addicted to producing
men of fire and genius." The Germans subscribed
to this judgment ; and while their princes and
wealthy burgesses passed their time in travelling
through Italy and France and aping the manners of
Paris or Venice, Germany was full of French and
Italian musicians, who laid down the law, imposed
their style, and were " all the rage." I have already
given a summary of a novel by J. Kuhnau : The
Musical Charlatan, published in 1700, whose comic
hero is a German adventurer who passes himself
off as an Italian in order to exploit the snobbery
of his compatriots. He is the type of those Germans
of the period who denied their nationality in order
to share in the glory of the foreigners.

In the first twenty years of the Eighteenth century
an intellectual change was already making itself
felt. The musical generation which surrounded
Handel at Hamburg — Reiser, Telemann, Mattheson
— did not go to Italy ; it prided itself in not doing
so and was beginning to realise its own strength.
Handel himself at first refused to make the Italian

84 A Musical Tour

pilgrimage ; at the period when he was writing
his Almira at Hamburg he affected a great contempt
for Italian music. The failure of the Hamburg
opera compelled him, however, to make the classic
journey ; and once he was in Italy he surrendered
to the charm of the Latin Circe, like all those who
have once known her. Still, he took from her the
best part of her genius without impairing his own ;
and his victory in Italy, the triumph of his Agrippina
at Venice, in 1708, was of considerable effect in
restoring Germany's pride ; for the echo of this
success was immediately heard in his own country.
These remarks apply even more forcibly to the success
of his Rinaldo in London, in 1711. Think of it :
here was a North German who, as all Europe agreed,
had beaten the Italians on their own ground ! The
Italians themselves admitted it. The Italian scores
which he wrote in London were at once performed
in Italy. The poet, Barthold Feind, in 1715, told
his compatriots at Hamburg that the Italians called
Handel " I'Orfeo del nostro secolo " — " the Orpheus
of our age." " A rare honour," he adds, " for
no German is spoken of thus by an Italian or a
Frenchman, these gentry being accustomed to
scoffing at us."

With what rapidity and vehemence did the national
sentiment revive in German music during the
following years ! In 1728 Mattheson's Musikalische
Patriot exclaimed : " Fuori Barbari ! " " Out,
barbarians ! "

" Let the calling be forbidden to the aliens who
encompass us from east to west, and let them be
sent back across their savage Alps to purify them-
selves in the furnace of Etna ! "

In 1729 Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann published

Eighteenth-Century Music 85

some frantic pamphlets attacking the Italian Opern-
Quark.

Above all, Johann Adolf Scheibe was indefatig-
able in restoring the national pride: from 1737-40
by his Critischer Musicus, while in 1745 he states that
Bach, Handel, Telemann, Hasse and Graun, " to
the glory of our country, are putting all the foreign
composers, whoever they are, to shame . . .
We are no longer imitators of the Italians ; we may
with much better reason boast that the Italians
have at last become the imitators of the Germans.
Yes, we have at last discovered that good
taste in music of which Italy has never as yet offered
us the perfect model. . . . Good taste in music
(the taste of a Hasse or a Graun) is the peculiar
characteristic of the German intellect ; no other
nation can pride itself on this superiority. Morever,
the Germans have for a long time been the chief
masters of instrumental music, and they have
retained this supremacy."

Mizler and Marpurg express themselves to the
same effect. And the Italians accept these verdicts.
Antonio Lotti writes to Mizler, in 1738 :

" Miei compatrioti sono genii e non compositori,
ma la vera composizione si trova in Germania."*
" My countrymen are talented, but not composers ;
the true art of composition is found in Germany."

We see the change of front that has come about
in music. First we have the period of the great
Italians who triumphed in Germany ; then that
of the great Italianate Germans : Handel and
Hasse. And then the time of the Germanized
Italians, of whom Jommelli was one.

* Carl Mennicke inscribes this phrase of Lotti's at the beginning
of his Hasse und die Briider Graun.

86 A Musical Tour

Even in France, where people were much more
stay-at-home, not caring greatly what was happening
in Germany, it was realised that a revolution was
taking place. As early as 1734, Sere de Rieux
recorded Handel's victory over Germany.

Flavius, Tamerlan, Othon, Renaud, Cesar,
Admete, Siroe, Rodelinde et Richard,
Eternel monuments dress6s a sa memoire.
Des Opera Remains surpass e" rent la gloire,
Venise lui peut-elle opposer un rival ?*

Grimm, who was a snob, and would have taken
good care not to advertise a kinship that would
have injured him in the eyes of the public, con-
gratulates himself, in a letter to the Abbe Raynal
in 1752, on being the compatriot of Hasse and
Handel. Telemann was feted in Paris in 1737 ;
Hasse was no less warmly welcomed in 1750, and the
Dauphin requested him to write the Te Deum for
the accouchement of the Dauphiness. J. Stamitz
obtained a triumphant reception for his first sym-
phonies in Paris, about 1754-5. And soon after this
the French newspapers made a crushing reference
to Rameau, contrasting him with the German
symphonists ; or, to be exact, they said : " We shall
not commit the injustice of comparing Rameau's
overtures with the symphonies which Germany
has given us during the last twelve or fifteen years. "f

German music, then, had regained its position
at the summit of European art ; and the Germans
realised it. In this national feeling all other differ-
ences were effaced ; all German artists, to whatever
group they belonged, set aside their causes of dispute ;
Germany united them without distinction of schools.

* Epitre sur la Musique, 3d canto,
f Mercure de France, April, 1772.

Eighteenth-Century Music 87

Zacharia's verses which I quoted but now show
us, about the middle of the century, the leaders of
the new school and those of the old grouped together,
for the glory of Germany, in what he calls the
" Temple of Eternity:'

" . . . With joyous rapture the muse of
Germany beholds the artist hosts, and she blesses
their names, too numerous all to be contained
within the confines of this narrow poem, but which
Fame inscribes in immortal letters upon the columns
of the Temple of Eternity. . . . O Muse of
Germany, lay claim to the honour of having bound
thy brows with the laurel of music ! A multitude
of masters are thine, greater and more numerous
than those of France and alien lands. . .

These artists are classed by Zacharia in a very
different order to that which we should give them
to-day. But they are almost all there : and from
the sum total of their fame proceeds a pride intoxi-
cated by the musical empire of Germany.

It was not only the pride of the musicians that
was exalted, but also their patriotism. Patriotic
operas* were written. Even in the courts where
Italianate music prevailed, as in that of Frederick
II. at Berlin, we see C. H. Graun singing Frederick's
battles — Hochkirchen, Rossbach, Zorndorf — either
in sonatas or dramatic scenes, f Gluck wrote his

* The most famous of these is Gunther von Schwarzburg, by
Ignaz Holzbauer, one of the most melodious of German operas before
Mozart, who was himself inspired by it (1770, Mannheim.) — As early
as 1689, Steffani had written a Henrico Leone which was played at
the inauguration of the Hanover Opera, and on the fifth centenary
of the siege of Bardewick by Henry the Lion. — We may also mention
among compositions of this class a number of works by Schurmann,
Scheibe, etc.

f It is said that Graun died of mortification on learning of
Frederick's defeat at Ziillichau (1759).

88 A Musical Tour

Vaterlandslied (1700) and his Hermannschlacht to
words by Klopstock. Presently the young
Mozart, in his palpitating letters, written from
Paris in 1778, is moved to fury against the French
and Italians :

" My hands and feet are trembling with the ardent
desire to teach the French to acknowledge, esteem
and fear the Germans more and ever more."*

This exacerbated patriotism, which displeases us
in great artists like Mozart, because it makes them
grossly unjust to the genius of other races, had
at least the result of compelling them to emerge
from their atmosphere of arrogant individualism
or debilitated dilettantism. To German art, which
breathed a rarified atmosphere, and would have
perished of asphyxia had it not inhaled for two
hundred years the oxygen of religious faith, it
brought a rush of fresh air. These new musicians
did not write for themselves alone ; they wrote
for all their fellow-countrymen ; they wrote for
all men.

And here German patriotism found itself in har-
mony with the theories of the " philosophers " of
those days : Art was no longer to be the appanage
of a select few ; it was the property of all. Such
was the Credo of the new period ; and we find it
repeated in every key :

" He who can benefit many" says Telemann,

* To his father, 315! July, 1778. See Schubart : preface to the
Musicalische Rhapsodien, 1786, Stuttgart :.." The German ear,
however accustomed to the cooing of foreign song, cannot but hear
the beauty in a popular song that issues from the heart. And thou,
song of the Fatherland ! how dost thou uplift the soul when poet
and composer are patriots, and their emotions mingle like drops of dew
in the calyx of a flower! I myself, twenty years ago, worked
miracles with the Kriegsliedern of Gleim set to music by Bach.
Hundreds of people before whom I played these songs can testify
to this."

Eighteenth-Century Music 89

" does better than he who writes only for a small
number."

. . . Wev vielen nutzen kan,
Thut besser als wer nur fur wenige was schreibet. . . .

Now, to be beneficial, Telemann continues, one
must be readily understood by all. Consequently
the first law is to be simple, easy, lucid :

" I have always thought highly of facility," he
says. " Music should not be a labour, an occult
science, a sort of black magic. . .

Mattheson, writing his Vollkommene Kapell-
meister (1739), which is the Code of the new style,
the musical manual of the new school, requires the
composer to put great art on one side, or at least that
he shall conceal it ; the problem is to write difficult
music in an easy manner. He even says that the
musician, if he wishes to write a good melody,
should endeavour to ensure that the theme shall
have "an indefinite quality with which everybody
is already familiar." (Of course, he is not speaking
of expressions already employed which seem so
natural that everybody thinks he is familiar with
them). — As models of this melodic Leichtigkeit
he recommends the study of the French.

The same ideas are expressed by the men at the
head of the Berlin school of the Lied, whose Boileau
was the poet Ramler. In his preface to his Oden
mil Melodien (1753-5) Ramler recommends the
example of France to his fellow-countrymen. In
France, he says, everyone sings, in all classes of
society :

' We Germans study music everywhere ; but
our melodies are not like these songs that pass
without difficulty from mouth to mouth. . . .
One should write for all. We live in society. Let

go A Musical Tour

us make songs that are neither so poetical that the
fair singers cannot understand them nor so common-
place and empty that intelligent folk cannot read
them."

The principles which he then sets forth are
exorbitant.* They led, none the less, to a crop of
songs in the popular style, im Volkston ; and the
absolute master of this style, the Mozart of the
popular Lied, Johann Abraham Peter Schulz, tells
us, in the preface to one of his charming collections
of songs im Volkston (1784) :

" I have endeavoured to be as simple and intelli-
gible as possible. Yes, I have even sought to give
all my inventions the appearance of things already
known — on the condition, of course, that this appear-
ance must not be a reality."

These are precisely Mattheson's ideas. Side
by side with these melodies in the popular style
there was an incredible outgrowth of " social "
music — Lieder geselliger Freude, Deutsche Gesdnge
for all ages, for the two sexes, " for German men,"
for children, for the fair sex (fur's schone Geschlecht),^
etc. Music had become eminently sociable.

Moreover, the leaders of the new school did
wonders in the matter of diffusing the knowledge
and love of it on every hand. Consider the great
periodical concerts which were then established.
About 1715, Telemann began to give public per-
formances at the Collegium Musicum which he had
founded in Hamburg. It was more particularly

* That the melodies should be accessible to all and should offer
no difficulties to the learner, such as vocal ornaments, fioritori
passages, and other cumbersome trifles, the legacy of the operatic
style ; that the melodies should retain their full meaning and all
their charm even without accompaniment, without any bass, etc.

f See Reichardt's Lieder.

Eighteenth-Century Music 91

after 1722 that he organised regular public concerts
at Hamburg. These were held twice a week, on
Mondays and Thursdays, at four o'clock. The
price of admission was one florin eight groschen.
At these concerts, Telemann conducted all sorts of
compositions — instrumental music, cantatas and
oratorios. These concerts, attended by the most
distinguished persons of the city, closely followed
by the critics, directed with care and punctuality,
became so flourishing that in 1761 a fine hall was
inaugurated, comfortable and well warmed, where
music found a home of its own. This was more than
Paris had had the generosity to offer her musicians
until quite recently. Johann Adam Hiller, who
taught Mefe, who in turn taught Beethoven —
Hiller, one of the champions of the popular style
in the Lied and the theatre, in which he founded
the German comic opera, contributed greatly, as
did Telemann, to diffuse a knowledge of music
throughout the nation, by conducting, from 1763
onwards, the Liebhaber-konzerte (Concerts for
Music-lovers), at Leipzig, where the famous Gewand-
hauskonzerte were given at a later date.
* * *

Here, then, we have a great musical movement,
which is at once national and democratic.

But it has another characteristic which is quite
unexpected : this national movement includes a
number of foreign elements. The new style, which
took shape in Germany in the course of the
eighteenth century, and subsequently blossomed
forth into the Viennese classics, is in reality far less
purely German than the style of J. S. Bach. Yet
Bach's style was less purely German than is com-
monly admitted, for Bach had assimilated something

92 A Musical Tour

of French and Italian art ; but in him the basis
had remained echt deutsche — genuinely German. — It
was otherwise with the new musicians. The musical
revolution which was fully accomplished from about
1750 onwards, and which ended in the supremacy of
German music, was — however strange it seems —
the product of foreign movements. The more
perspicacious historians of music, such as Hugo
Riemann, have clearly perceived this but have not
dwelt upon it. Yet it should be emphasised. It
is no insignificant fact that the leaders of the new
instrumental music of Germany, the first symp-
honists of Mannheim, Johann Stamitz, Filtz and
Zarth, should be natives of Bohemia, as were the
reformer of German opera, Gluck, and the creator
of the melodrama and the tragic German Singspiel,
George Benda. The impetuosity, the spontaneous
impulse and the naturalness of the new symphony
were a contribution of the Czechs and Italians to
German music. Nor was it a matter of indifference
that this new music should have found its focus and
its centre in Paris, where the first editions of the
Mannheim symphonies appeared ; whither J. Stamitz
went to conduct his works and found in Gossec
an immediate disciple : in France, where other
of the Mannheim masters had established them-
selves, Richter at Strasbourg, and Bech at Bord-
eaux. The critics of northern Germany who were
hostile to the movement were completely conscious
of the importance of these facts. They qualified
these symphonies as " symphonies in the recent
outlandish manner "* and their authors as " musi-
cians in the Parisian fashion/'f

* Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, quoted by Mennicke.
f Hiller, 1766.

Eighteenth-Century Music 93

These affinities with the peoples of the West
and South are manifested not only in the symphony.
Jommelli's operas at Stuttgart (and at a later date
Gluck's) were transformed and revivified by the
influence of the French opera, which his master,
Duke Karl Eugen, imposed upon him as a model.
The Singspiel, the German comic opera, had its
cradle in Paris, where Weiss saw and heard Favart's
little works, and was by him transplanted into
Germany. The new German Lied was inspired
by French examples, as was expressly stated by
Ramler and Schulz, the latter of whom continued
to write Lieder with French words. Telemann's
training was more French than German. He had
made the acquaintance of French music firstly in
Hanover, about 1698 or 1699, when he was at the
Hildesheim gymnasium ; secondly in 1705 at
Soran, when he fed, he tells us, " on the works of
Tully, Campra and other good masters " and
" devoted himself almost entirely to their style, so
that in two years he wrote as many as 200 French
overtures " ; and thirdly at Eisenach, the home of
J. S. Bach, which (let us remember) was, about
1708-9, a centre of French music : Pantaleone
Hebenstreit having " arranged the chapel of the
Duke in the French manner/' succeeding so well
that, if we are to believe Telemann, " it surpassed
the famous orchestra of the Paris Opera." A
journey to Paris in 1737 finally turned the German
Telemann into a French musician ; and while his
works remained on the repertoire of the oratorio
singers of Paris, he himself, at Hamburg, was carry-
ing on an enthusiastic propaganda in favour of
French music. We see a characteristic peculiarity
of the period in the tranquillity with which the

94 A Musical Tour

pioneer of the new style declares, in his Auto-
biography (1729) :

" As for my styles in music (he does not say my
style), these are well-known. First there was the
Polish style, then the French style, and above all
the Italian style, in which I have written most
profusely."

I cannot, in these hasty notes, which are merely
the outlines of a series of lectures, lay especial stress
upon certain influences, more particularly on that
of Polish music, which has been taken too little
into account, though its style furnished many
inspirations to the German masters of that period.*
But what I wish to make clear just now is that the
leaders of the new German school, though imbued
with a very profound sense of nationality, were
steeped in foreign influences which had crossed all
parts of the German frontier — Czech, Polish, French,
and Italian. This was not an accident ; it was a
necessity. German music, despite its power, had
always had a sluggish circulation. The music
of other countries — ours, for example — has chiefly

* Telemann, who became acquainted with Polish music, at Soran
and at Pleise, " in all its true barbaric beauty," does not forget, with
his customary frankness, which renders him so sympathetic, to tell
us what he owes to it. " No one could ever conceive what an extra-
ordinary imagination this music reveals. . . Anyone who took
notes could obtain, in a week, a store of ideas which would last him
for the rest of his life. In short, there is a great deal that is good in
this music, if one knows how to profit by it. . . It was of great
service to me subsequently, even in many a serious composition. .
At a later period I wrote in this style long concertos and trios which
I then gave an Italian dress."

Herr Max Schneider has pointed out traces of this Polish music in
Telemann's Methodical Sonatas and his Kleine Kammer-Music. It
was more particularly by way of Saxony, whose Elector was King
of Poland, that this music spread through Germany. Even an
Italianate German like Hasse was affected by it ; he speaks, in a
conversation with Burney, of " this Polish music, genuinely natural,
and often very tender and delicate."

Eighteenth-Century Music 95

need of nourishment, of fuel to feed the machine.
It was not fuel that was lacking in German music,
but air. It certainly was not poor in the eighteenth
century ; it was rather too rich, embarrassed
by its wealth ; the chimney was choked, and the
fire might well have died out, but for the great
current of air which Telemann, Hasse, Stamitz
and their like, let in through the door — or all the
doors open upon France, Poland, Italy and Bohemia.
South Germany and the Rhineland, Mannheim,
Stuttgart and Vienna were the centres in which the
new art was elaborated ; we see this plainly enough
from the jealousy of North Germany, which was
for a long time hostile to the new movement.*
It is not with the paltry idea of belittling the great-
ness of the classic German art of the close of the
eighteenth century that I am pointing out what
it owes to foreign influences and elements. It was
necessary that this should be so, in order that this
art should quickly become universal, as it did. A
narrow and self-regarding sense of nationalism has
never brought an art to supremacy. Quite on
the contrary, it would very soon result in its dying
of consumption. If an art is to be strong and vital
it must not timorously take refuge in a sect ;
it must not seek shelter in a hothouse, like those
wretched trees which are grown in tubs ; it must
grow in a free soil and extend its roots unhindered
wherever they can drink in life. The soul must
absorb all the substance of the world. It will never-
theless retain its racial characteristics ; but its
race will not waste away and become exhausted,

* Owing to the hostility and the persistent silence which the
northern critics observed in respect of the Mannheim productions,
we knew nothing of these latter until quite recently, although we owe
to them Haydn and Mozart, and probably Beethoven.

96 A Musical Tour

as it would if it fed only upon itself ; a new life is
transfused into it, and by the addition of the
alien elements which it has assimilated it will give
this new life a power of universal irradiation. Urbis —
Orbis. The other races recognise themselves in
it, and not not only do they bow to its victory :
they love it and enter into fellowship with it. This
victory becomes the greatest victory to which an
art or a nation can lay claim : a victory of humanity.
Of such victories, which are always rare, one of
the noblest examples is, in music, the classic German
art of the close of the eighteenth century. This art
has become the property, the food of all; of all
Europeans, because all races have collaborated in
it, all have put something of themselves into it.
The reason why Gluck and Mozart are so dear to us
is that they belong to us, to all of us. Germany,
France and Italy have all contributed to create
their spirit and their race.*

* The first lecture of a series dealing with the history of music
given in the Faculty of Letters of Paris, 1909-10. — Revue musicalc
S.I.M., February, 1910.

V.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FORGOTTEN
MASTER

TELEMANN, THE SUCCESSFUL RIVAL OF J. S BACH.

HISTORY is the most partial of the sciences. When
it becomes enamoured of a man it loves him jealously ;
it will not even hear of others. Since the day when
the greatness of Johann Sebastian Bach was admit-
ted all that was great in his lifetime has become
less than nothing. The world has hardly been able
to forgive Handel for the impertinence of having
had as great a genius as Bach's and a much greater
success. The rest have fallen into dust ; and there
is no dust so dry as that of Telemann, whom posterity
has forced to pay for the insolent victory which
he won over Bach in his lifetime. This man, whose
music was admired in every country in Europe,
from France to Russia, and whom Schubart called
" the peerless master," whom the austere Mattheson
declared to be the only musician who was above
all praise,* is to-day forgotten and despised. No
one attempts to make his acquaintance. He is
judged by hearsay, by sayings which are attributed
to him but whose meaning no one takes the trouble

* Ein Lulli wird geriihmt ; Corelli l&sst sich loben ;

Nur Telemann allein ist ubers Lob erhoben.
*' A Lulli fame has won ; Corelli may be praised ;
But Telemann alone above all praise is raised.'*

97 8

98 A Musical Tour

to understand. He has been immolated by the pious
zeal of the Bach enthusiasts, such as Bitter, Wolfram,
or our friend A. Schweitzer, who does not realise
that Bach transcribed whole cantatas by Telemann
with his own hand. It is possible not to realise
this ; but if one admires Bach the mere fact that his
opinion of Telemann was so high should give us
food for reflection. Winterfeld alone, in the past,
has made a careful study of Telemann's religious
compositions and perceived his historical importance
in the development of the religious cantata. — Some
years ago the musicologists began to revise the
irresponsible decree of history. In 1907 Herr
Max Schneider published in the Denkmaler du
Tonkunst in Deutschland two of Telemann's -last
works : Der Tag des Gerichts (The Day of Judgment)
and Ino, accompanying them by an excellent his-
torical notice. Herr Curt Ottzenn, for his part,
has written a short and slightly superficial study
entitled Telemann als Opern komponist : ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte Hamburger Oper (1902, Berlin), and
added to it a musical album of fragments from
Telemann's operas, comic and otherwise.*

There is no lack of data as to Telemann's life.
He himself took the trouble to write three narra-
tives of his career, in 1718, in 1729 and in 1739.

This taste for autobiography is a sign of the times :
it is to be found in other German musicians of the
period, and it coincides with the publication of

* Herr Hugo Riemann has published an instrumental trio of
Telemann's in his fine collection : Collegium Musicum. The preface
to Herr Max Schneider's volume of Denkmaler contains a small
bibliography of this subject. — I have profited largely by his labours.

A Forgotten Master 99

the first Lexicons, Dictionaries and Histories of
Musicians by Walther and Mattheson. Compare,
with the delight which the artists of the new period
derive from describing themselves, the indifference
of a Bach or a Handel, who does not even reply
to the series of biographical queries sent him by
Mattheson. It was not that Bach and Handel
were less proud than Telemann, Holzbauer and
their like. They were very much prouder. But
their pride was to display their art and conceal their
personality. The new period no longer distinguishes
one from the other. Art becomes the reflection of
personality. Telemann, anticipating his critics,
excuses himself, at the close of his 1718 narrative,
for having said too much about himself. He would
not have it thought, he says, that he was seeking
to praise himself :

" I can bear witness before the whole world that
apart from the legitimate self-respect which every-
one should possess I have no foolish pride. All those
who know me will bear me out in this. If I speak
a great deal about my work it is not to aggrandize
myself ; for it is a law to which all are subject that
nothing can be attained without toil. . . .

. . . Nil sine magno
Vita labor e dedit mortalibus.

But my intention has been to show those who
wish to study music that one cannot go far in this
inexhaustible science without a mighty effort. . ."

He therefore believes, as people in his time did
believe, that his life may be as interesting and as
useful to the student as his work. But apart from
all these motives he takes infinite pleasure in writing
of himself. His ingenuous confessions are full of

ioo A Musical Tour

good humour, drollery and exuberance ; he stuffs
them with quotations in every language, verses
of his own concoction, and moral anecdotes ; he
conceals nothing; after the death of his first
wife he writes in verse the story of his love, his
betrothal, his marriage ; of his wife's illness and
her death ; he spares us no details ; he insists on
taking the world into his confidence as regards
his joys and sorrows. How far is all this from
Handel and the silence in which he wrapped his
grieving heart while he wrote the serene music of
Poro in the days when he had just lost his mother !
The personality of the artist demands its place in
the sun ; it displays itself with indiscreet satisfac-
tion. We shall not complain of this ; it is to this
change of mind, to this disappearance of the moral
constraint that weighed upon the expression of
personal emotion that we owe the free and living
music of the close of the century, and the passionate
utterances of Beethoven.

Georg Philipp Telemann was born at Madgeburg,
on the I4th of March, 1681. He was the son and
grandson of Lutheran pastors. He was not yet four
years old when he lost his father. At an early age he
displayed a remarkable facility in all subjects :
Greek, Latin, music. The neighbours diverted
themselves by listening to the little fellow, who
played on the violin, the zither and the flute. He
had a great love of German poetry — a very excep-
tional characteristic in the German musicians of
his time. While still quite young — one of the youngest
students in the college — he was chosen by the
Cantor as his assistant in the teaching of singing.

A Forgotten Master 101

He took some lessons on the clavier, but was lacking
in patience ; his master was an organist with a
somewhat archaic style. Little Telemann had no
respect for the past. "The most joyful music"
he says, " was already running in my head. After
a fortnight's martyrdom I left my master, and since
then I have learned nothing as regards music."
(He means, of course, that he learned nothing from
a teacher, for he learned a great deal by himself,
from books).

He was not yet twelve years of age when he began
to compose. The Cantor, whom he assisted, wrote
music. The child did not fail to read his scores in
secret ; and he used to think how glorious it was to
make up such beautiful things. He too began to
write music, without confiding the fact to anyone ;
he had his compositions submitted to the Cantor
under a pseudonym, and had the joy of hearing
them praised — and better still, sung — in church,
and even in the streets. He grew bolder. An
operatic libretto came his way ; he set it to music.
O, happiness ! The opera was performed in a theatre
and the young author even filled one of the parts !

" Ah ! but what a storm I drew upon my head
with my opera ! " he writes. " The enemies of
music came in a host to see my mother and repre-
sented to her that I should become a charlatan,
a tight-rope walker, a mummer, a trainer of monkeys,
etc. ... if music were not prohibited ! No
sooner said than done ; they took from me my notes,
my instruments, and with them half my life."

To punish him farther he was sent to a distant
school in the Harz mountains, at Zellerfeld. There
he did extremely well in geometry. But the devil
did not abandon his rights over him. It happened

102 A Musical Tour

that the master who was to have written a cantata
for a popular fete in the mountains fell ill. The
child profited by the opportunity. He wrote the
composition and conducted the orchestra. He was
thirteen years of age, and he was so small that
a little bench had to be made for him, to lift him up,
so that the members of the orchestra could see him.
' The worthy mountaineers/' says Telemann,
" touched by my appearance rather than my har-
monies, carried me in triumph on their shoulders."
The head-master of the school, flattered by his
success, authorised Telemann to cultivate his music,
declaring that after all this study was not inconsis-
tent with that of geometry, and even that there was
a relationship between the two sciences. The boy
profited by this permission to neglect his geometry ;
he returned to the clavier and studied thorough-
bass, whose rules he himself formulated and wrote
down ; " for/' he says, " I did not as yet know that
there were books on the subject."

When about seventeen years of age he proceeded
to the gymnasium at Hildesheim, where he studied
logic ; and although he could not endure the Barbara
Celarent he acquitted himself brilliantly. But above
all he made great progress in his musical education.
He was always composing. Not a day went by
sine linea. He wrote church and instrumental
music principally. His models were Steffani,
Rosenmiiller, Corelli and Caldara. He acquired
a taste for the style of the new German and Italian
masters, " for their manner, full of invention,
cantabile, and at the same time closely wrought/'

Their works confirmed his instinctive preference
for expressive melody and his antipathy for the old
contrapuntal style. A lucky chance favoured him.

A Forgotten Master 103

He was not far distant from Hanover and Wolfen-
biittel, whose famous chapels were centres of the new
style. He went thither often. In Hanover he
learned the French manner ; at Wolfenbiittel the
theatrical style of Venice. The two courts had
excellent orchestras, and Telemann zealously in-
vestigated the character of the various instruments. —
" I should perhaps have become a more skilful
instrumentalist/' he says, " if I had not felt such a
burning eagerness to learn, in addition to the
clavier, violin and flute, the oboe, the German flute,
the reed-pipe, the viol de gamba, etc . . . down
to the bass viol and the Quint-Posaune (bass trom-
bone)."— This is a very modern characteristic ; the
composer does not seek to become a skilled performer
on one instrument, as Bach and Handel on the organ
and the clavier, but to learn the resources of all the
instruments. And Telemann insists on the necessity
of this study for the composer.

At Hildesheim he wrote cantatas for the Catholic
Church, although he was a convinced Lutheran.
He also set to music some dramatic essays by one of
his professors, a species of comic-opera, in which
the recitatives were spoken and the arias sung.

However, he was twenty years of age ; and his
mother (like Handel's father) would not hear of his
becoming a musician. Telemann (like Handel) did
not rebel against the will of the family. In 1701
he went to Leipzig with the firm intention of study-
ing law there. Why should it have befallen that
he had to pass through Halle, where he very fittingly
made the acquaintance of Handel, aged sixteen,
who, although he was supposed to be following the
lectures in the Faculty of Law, had contrived to get
himself appointed organist, and had acquired in the

104 A Musical Tour

city a musical reputation astonishing in one of his
age? The two boys struck up a friendship. But
they had to part. Telemann's heart was heavy
as he continued his journey. However, he adhered
to his purpose and arrived in Leipzig. But the poor
boy fell into temptation after temptation. He had
hired a room in common with another student.
The first thing he saw on entering was that musical
instruments were hanging on all the walls, in every
corner of the room. His companion was a melo-
maniac ; and every day he inflicted upon Telemann
the torture of playing to him ; and Telemann
heroically concealed the fact that he was a musician.
The end was inevitable. One day Telemann could
not refrain from showing one of his compositions,
a psalm, to his room-mate. (To tell the truth, he
protests that his friend found the composition in his
trunk). The friend found nothing better to do than
to divulge the secret. The psalm was played in
St. Thomas's Church. The burgomaster, enraptured,
sent for Telemann, gave him a present of
money, and commissioned him to write a compo-
sition for the church every fortnight. This was too
much. Telemann wrote to his mother that he
could no longer hold out ; he could do no more,
he must write music. His mother sent him her
blessing, and at last Telemann had the right to be
a musician.

We see with what repugnance the German families
of those days regarded the idea of allowing their
sons to embrace the musical career ; and it is curious
that so many great musicians — Schutz, Handel,
Kuhnau, Telemann — should have been obliged to
begin by studying philosophy or law. However, this
training does not seem to have done the composers

A Forgotten Master 105

any harm, and those of to-day, whose culture (even
in the case of the best educated) is so indifferent,
would do well to consider these examples, which
prove that a general education may very well be
reconciled with musical knowledge and may even
enrich it. Telemann, for his part, certainly owed to
his literary cultivation one of the highest musical
qualities — his modern feeling for poetry in music,
whether interpreted by lyrical declamation or trans-
posed into symphonic description.

During his stay at Leipzig Telemann found himself
competing with Kuhnau, and although he professed —
or so he tells us — the greatest respect for " the
magnificent qualities " of " this extraordinary
man/' he caused him a great deal of mortification.
Kuhnau, who was in the prime of life, was indignant
that a little law-student should have been commis-
sioned to write a fortnightly composition for St.
Thomas's, of wlrch church he was Cantor. It was
indeed somewhat uncivil to him ; and this fact
shows how far the new style responded to the general
taste, since at the mere sight of a single short com-
position the preference was given to an unqualified
student over a celebrated master. And this was not
all. In 1704 Telemann was selected as organist
and Kappelmeister to the Neue Kirche (since then the
Matthaiikirche) with the proviso " that he might
at need conduct the choir of St. Thomas's Church
also, and thus there would be available a capable
person when a change was made." For this read
" when Herr Kuhnau died ; " for he was weakly
and in indifferent health ; the authorities were
anticipating his death — which, however, he con-
trived to postpone until 1722. It will be understood
that Kuhnau found the whole proceeding in bad

106 A Musical Tour

taste. To exasperate him more completely, Tele-
mann succeeded in obtaining the directorship of
the opera, although this was, as a general rule,
irreconcilable with the post of organist. And all
the students flocked to him, attracted at once by
his youthful fame, by the lure of the theatre,
and by gain. They deserted Kuhnau, who com-
plained bitterly. In a letter of the gth December,
1704, he protested that " in consequence of the
appointment of a new organist who is to produce
the operas henceforth, the students, who have
hitherto joined the church choir gratuitously, and
have been partly trained by me, now that they can
be sure of earning something in the opera are leaving
the choir to assist the ' operiste.' " — But his
protest was in vain and Telemann won the day.

Thus at the very beginning of his career Tele-
mann defeated the glorious Kuhnau, before out-
shining Bach. So powerful was the tide of the new
musical fashion !

For that matter, Telemann knew how to profit
by his luck and how to enable others to profit by
it. There was nothing of the intriguer about him ;
and we cannot even say that it was ambition that
urged him to accept all the posts which he secured
during his long career ; it was an extraordinary
activity and a feverish need of exercising it. At
Leipzig he worked assiduously, taking Kuhnau
for his model in the matter of fugues* and perfecting
himself in melody by working in collaboration with
Handel. f At the same time he founded at Leipzig,

* As he says, " the excellent Herr Kuhnau's pen assisted me in
fugues and counterpoints."

f They wrote to one another and exchanged compositions,
mutually criticising them.

A Forgotten Master 107

in conjunction with the students, a Collegium
Musicum, which gave concerts that were a prelude,
as it were, to the great periodical public concerts
in which he was to take the initiative later in
Hamburg.

In 1705 he was called to Sorau, between Frankfort-
on-Oder and Breslau, as Kapellmeister to a wealthy
nobleman, Graf Erdmann von Promnitz. The
little princely court was extremely brilliant. The
Graf had recently returned from France and was a
lover of French music. Telemann proceeded to
write French overtures ; he read, pen in hand, the
works of " Lully, Campra and other good artists."
— " I applied myself almost entirely to this style,
so that in two years I wrote as many as two hundred
overtures."

With the French style, Telemann learned the
Polish style while at Sorau. The Court sometimes
repaired for a few months to a residence of the
Count's in Upper Silesia : at Plesse, or in Cracow.
There Telemann became acquainted " with the Polish
and Hanak* music in all its true and barbaric
beauty. It was played in certain hostelries by four
instruments : a very shrill violin, a Polish bagpipe,
a Quint-Posaune (bass trombone) and a Regal (small
organ). In larger assemblies there was no Regal,
but the other instruments were reinforced. I have
heard as many as thirty-six bagpipes and eight
violins together. No one could conceive what
extraordinary fantasies the pipers or the violinists
invent when they are improvising while the dancers
are resting. Anyone who took notes might in a week
obtain a store of ideas that would last him for the
rest of his life. In short, there is a great deal that is

* The Hanaks are the Moravian Czechs.

io8 A Musical Tour

good in this music if one knows how to profit by
it. ... I found this of service to me later on,
even in the case of many serious compositions.
. . . I have written long concertos and trios in
this style, which I then gave an Italian dress, making
Adagio alternate with Allegro."

Here, then, we see popular music beginning
frankly to permeate the scholarly style. German
music recruits itself by steeping itself in the music
of the races which surround the German frontier ;
it is about to borrow from them something of
their natural spontaneity, their freshness of inven-
tion, and to them it will in time owe a renewed
youth.

From Sorau Telemann proceeded to the Court
at Eisenach, where he again found himself in a
musical environment permeated by French influences.
The Kapellmeister was a virtuoso of European
celebrity, Pantaleon Hebenstreit, the inventor of
an instrument called by his name of Pantaleon or
Pantalon — a sort of improved dulcimer,* a fore-
runner of our modern piano. Pantaleon, who had
won the applause of Louis XIV., had an unusual
skill in composition and in the French style ; and
the Eisenach orchestra was " installed as far as
possible in the French manner/' Telemann even
claims " that it surpassed the orchestra of the Paris
Opera.'' Here he completed his French education.
— As a matter of fact, there was, in Telemann's
life, a great deal more of French musical training —
and Polish, and Italian — but above all French —
than of German. Telemann wrote, at Eisenach,
a quantity of concertos in the French style and a

* Hebenstreit's instrument had gut and metal strings, which were
struck with small mallets. (Trans.)

A Forgotten Master 109

considerable number of sonatas (with from two to
nine parts), trios, serenades, and cantatas with
Italian or German words, in which he gave a great
deal of importance to the accompanying music.
Above all he valued his religious music.

It was at Eisenach, where Johann Bernhard
Bach was organist, that Telemann entered into
relations with Johann Sebastian Bach, and in
1714 he was godfather to one of his sons, Philipp
Emmanuel. He was also on friendly terms with the
pastor-poet Neumeister, protagonist of the religious
cantata in operatic style, and one of J. S. Bach's
favourite librettists. — Eventually that happened
at Eisenach which profoundly influenced his char-
acter. He lost, early in 1711, his young wife, whom
he had married at Sorau, at the end of 1709. He
has related the story of these events in a long poem
entitled : " Poetic Thoughts, by which her desolate
husband, Georg Philipp Telemann, seeks to honour
the ashes of his wife, Louisa, whom he loved with
all his heart, 1711."*

This poem, although much too diffuse and some-
what indiscreetly sentimental, is full of a tender
emotion that is like a strain of beautiful music.

" Thus I have seen thee dead, my well-beloved !
Can it be that I still draw breath ? "

He tells us how they met, how he had loved her :

" We met first in a foreign land. I was not think-
ing of her ; she knew nothing of me. . . I

* Telemann's first wife, Amalia Luisa Juliana, was the daughter
of the Kapellmeister, Daniel Eberlin — a very curious person, to judge
by the curriculum vitae traced by his son-in-law. He had been a
captain of the pontifical troops in Morea, then librarian at Nuremberg,
then Kapellmeister at Cassel ; subsequently he was Hofmeister of
the pages, private secretary, controller of the mint, banker (at
Hamburg), etc., and finally captain of militia at Cassel. He was a
learned contrapuntist, a good violinist, and published some trios.

no A Musical Tour

do not know where I saw her for the first time.
What I do know is that instantly I loved her .
I told myself : She must be mine. . . . But
God said to me : Thou must first be another
Jacob (that is : thou must win her by toil and by
tears)."

For years he sighed for her. She seemed unfeeling.
How he suffered, once, when she was seriously ill !
. And at another time when they were seeking
to marry her ! He thought " that his heart was going
to break ! " She seemed as indifferent as ever.
It was only at the last moment, when he was leaving
Sorau, flying before the Swedish invasion, that she
allowed him to read her heart. . . .

" I bade her Good night ! for the last time.
But what was that farewell about to teach me ?
I saw that her eyes were weeping, and I heard
. . . (ah, what joy ! ) : ' Farewell, my Telemann,
do not forget me ! ' — I departed in an ecstasy of
joy, despite the perils of a journey . . ."

Then follow love-letters. Then the return, the
asking in marriage, the betrothal. . . .

" How all this happened I myself know not. . ."

Now they are married. It is a life of unclouded
happiness, despite the difficulties of life and a
meagre diet.

" . . . . In our eyes it was a royal table —
the table on which there was rarely more than one
dish."

It was a faithful love, with no dissensions.
And now they have a dear little child :

" . . . . I am trembling in every limb.
I pass through hours of unendurable suffering. . . ."

Six days after the birth of the child she was in
excellent health, gay and jesting as usual. But he

A Forgotten Master m

had strange presentiments. He had to conceal
himself, to weep.

" When the night fell she began to complain/'
She asked for a priest. " It was as though I was
dreaming. I could not believe it, I did not wish to
go in search of him. But as she insisted I went at
last." She said : " My beloved, my dear Telemann,
I pray thee, from the bottom of my heart, to forgive
me if ever I have made thee suffer." She protested
her love with a touching tenderness. " Instead of
replying, I wept bitterly. . . . The priest came
Then I learned what it was to pray. Her dear
mouth was a door to heaven. Jesus alone was her
consolation . Jesus alone was her life . Jesus alone was
her salvation." She never ceased to call upon Him.
" His Name never left her lips until death was upon
her tongue. . . . She was holding my hand
and said to me : 'I thank thee a thousand times
for thy faithful love. Thy heart is mine. I take
it with me to Heaven. . . / They wished
her to sleep. She refused, singing, in her beautiful
voice : ' I will not forsake Jesus, He loves me and
I love Him. I will not forsake Jesus/ She sang,
joyously, with arms outstretched and smiling face.
. . . " Fatigue overcame her. She fell into a
sleep, in which she remained for two hours. My
grief had partly disappeared ; consoled, I awaited
a happy day. Her sweet repose was broken ; she
began, in a faint voice : ' My Jesus has spoken to
me in a dream/ . . then she complained that the
lights were no longer as bright as before. She
bowed her head and fell asleep happily in
Christ. . . ."

And now what can he say ? " If I say : ' the
sky crushed me, the air stifled me, there was a

ii2 A Musical Tour

roaring in my ears as of a tempest, a black cloud
was before my eyes, my hands and my heart were
trembling like leaves, my feet refused to bear me.
. . . When I have told all this in full, shall I have
even touched my grief ? — Enough ! No one can
know what this suffering is but he who has experi-
enced it."

And he ends with these words : " Mein Engel,
gute nacht \ " (My angel, good-night). . . .

This touching narrative, which is permeated
by a sorrowful faith, makes us feel that Telemann,
too, as he tells us, " became, at Eisenach, another
man, in Christ." But, however deep the wound,
his temperament was too active and too versatile
to allow him to shut himself up with his regrets ;
three years later the inconsolable husband was
married again to a wife who was to prove in every
respect a contrast to his first.

He had left Eisenach. Despite his excellent
situation at Court, his longing for change impelled
him to accept, in 1712, the proposals which reached
him from Frankfort-on- Maine.

" How," he says, " did I come to the land of these
Republicans, among whom, by all one hears, learning
is of so little value —

Oti le docte savoir ne leur semble plus rien,
Ou Ton hasarde tout pour acquerir du bien ?*

" How is that I was able to leave a Court so select
as that of Eisenach ? There is a proverb which says :
He who wishes to live in all security should live in
a Republic. And although I had nothing to fear
at the moment I did not wish to find that at Court —

* Telemann had a mania for quoting French verses, and, like
many foreigners, he preferred them bad.

A Forgotten Master 113

" An matin 1'air pour nous est tranquille et serein,
Mais sombre vers le soir et de nuages plein."*

He had no cause to regret his decision. He was
appointed Kapellmeister of several churches in
Frankfort. He also accepted the curious post of
intendant to a society of Frankfort noblemen
which assembled in the palace of Frauenstein ;
here he had to busy himself with matters quite other
than musical ; he superintended the finances,
provided for banquets, maintained a Tabakskolleg-
ium, etc. This was quite in accordance with the
customs of the age : Telemann was not lowering
himself in accepting the position ; far from that,
he thereby became a member of the most distin-
guished circle in the city, and he founded there, in
1713, a great Collegium Musicum, which met in the
Frauenstein Palace every Thursday, from Michael-
mas to Easter, for purposes of amusement and to
contribute to the improvement of music. These
concerts were not private ; strangers were invited
to them. Telemann undertook to provide the
music for them : sonatas for solo violin with
harpsichord ; chamber music ; trios for violin, oboe or
flute and bassoon or bass viol ; five oratorios on the
life of David ; several Passions, one of which, based
on Brocke's famous poem, and performed in April
1716, in the Hauptkirche at Frankfort, was a great
musical event ; an incalculable number of occasional
pieces; twenty "nuptial serenades/' "all the
verses of which were mine/' says Telemann ; " but
I should not re-write them, owing to their licence
and their wit, which was not unduly Attic." These
nuptial serenades had arias in honour of each

* " In the morning the skies above us are peaceful and serene,
But at night gloomy and full of clouds."

ii4 A Musical Tour

toast proposed. The order of the toasts was the
following : —

1. To his Catholic Majesty, the Roman
Emperor.

2. To the Roman Empress.

3. To Prince Eugene.

4. To the Duke of Marlborough.

5. To the Magistrates.

6. To a sound and early peace and a flourishing
commerce.

7. To the young bride.

8. To the husband.

9. To the happy pair.

(And the married pair must indeed have been
happy, I should think, after this ninth bumper !)

This was, then, the period of the wars against
Louis XIV., and peace was very near. Telemann
wrote a cantata for the peace (3rd March, 1715).
He also wrote one for the Emperor's victories at
Semlin and Peterwardein, and one for the peace of
Passarowitz (1718), to say nothing of princely
birthdays.

In 1721 he left Frankfort for Hamburg, where
he was appointed Kappellmeister and Cantor at the
Johanneum. The nomadic musician was at length
to form a lasting connection, a post which he retained
until his death, nearly half a century later. Then,
in 1723, he was on the point of migrating again,
to act as successor to Kuhnau, who had at last died
at Leipzig. He had been chosen unanimously,
but Hamburg, rather than lose him, accepted all
the conditions that Telemann imposed. A little
later, in 1729, he had some idea of going to Russia,
where it had been proposed he should found a German
" chapel." " But the amenities of Hamburg and

A Forgotten Master 115

my intentions of settling down quietly at last,"
he says, " triumphed over my curiosity."

" Settling down quietly ..." But for
Telemann quietness was quite a relative term.
He was entrusted with the direction of the musical
education given at the Gymnasium and the Johann-
eum (singing and history of music, lectures being
given almost daily). — He had to provide music for
the five principal churches in Hamburg, not counting
the cathedral, the Dom, where Mattheson ruled.*
He was musical director of the Hamburg Opera,
which had greatly declined, but was put on its feet
again in 1722. The post was no sinecure. The
cliques which favoured the various singers were
almost as violent as at the London Opera-house
under Handel ; and the battles of the pen were no
less scurrilous. They did not spare Telemann, who
saw his conjugal misfortunes unveiled, and his wife's
inclination for Swedish officers. His musical inven-
tion does not seem to have suffered thereby, for
a whole series of operas, comic and otherwise, dates
from this period, and all are sparkling with invention
and good humour.

But this was by no means enough for him ; as
soon as he arrived in Hamburg he had founded a
Collegium Musicum and public concerts. Despite
the city elders, who wanted to forbid the Cantor to
allow his music to be played in a public tavern and
to produce therein operas and comedies and other
" entertainments inciting to luxury," he persisted
and had his way. The concerts which he founded

* For the jubilee rejoicings of June, 1730, in honour of the second
centenary of the Confession of Augsburg, a hundred performers made
music in the five churches. All the compositions executed were by
Telemann, who, although he was ill, directed everything himself. He
wrote ten cantatas for these celebrations alone.

n6 A Musical Tour

continued until our own days. At first they were
held in the barracks of the town guard, twice a week,
on Mondays and Thursdays, at four o'clock. The
price of admission was one florin eight groschen.
At these concerts Telemann produced all those works
of his, sacred or profane, public or private, which
had already been performed elsewhere, not to
speak of works especially written for the concerts :
psalms, oratorios, cantatas and instrumental pieces.
He rarely conducted other music than his own.*
These concerts, attended by the elite of the city,
and closely followed by the critics, were conducted
with care and punctuality, and flourished exceed-
ingly. In 1761 a fine hall was opened for them,
comfortable and well warmed.

Nor was this all : in 1728 he founded the first
musical journal published in Germany, f He
retained his title of Kapellmeister of Saxony ; he
provided Eisenach with the usual Tafelmusik and
with compositions for the Court festivals. He had
undertaken, on leaving Frankfort, to send certain
sacred compositions thither every three years in
exchange for the freedom of the city which had
been conferred upon him. He had been Kapell-
meister of Bayreuth since 1726, and sent thither
a yearly opera and instrumental music. Lastly,
music being insufficient to appease his thirst for
activity, he accepted the post of correspondent
to the Eisenach Court ; writing letters containing

* He made no exception, it seems, but for Handel, whose Passion
he conducted in 1722, and some of his Vocal and Instrumental Pieces,
in 1755 ; and for Graun, whose Death of Jesus he produced in 1756.

f Der Getreue Music-Meister. In this he published pieces by
contemporary masters : among others, by Pisendel, Zelenka, Corner
and J. S. Bach (a canon for four voices). He himself published in it
a series of arias from his operas.

A Forgotten Master 117

news of all that happened in the North. When
he was ill he dictated to his son.

Who will reckon up the total sum of his work ?
In twenty years alone of his life (roughly from
1720 to 1740) he produced — it is his own rough
estimate — twelve complete cycles of sacred music
for all the Sundays and feast-days of the year ;*
nineteen Passions, whose poems too were often
from his pen ; twenty operas and comic operas ;
twenty oratorios, forty serenades, six hundred
overtures, trios, concertos, clavier pieces, etc. ;
seven hundred airs, etc., etc.

This fabulous activity was interrupted by only
one journey, which was the dream of his whole life.
It was to Paris. More than once he had been invited
thither by the Parisian virtuosi, who admired his
works. He arrived in Paris at Michaelmas, 1737,
and remained there for eight months. Blavet,
Guignon, the younger Forcroy and Edouardf played
his quartets "in an admirable manner/' he tells
us. " These performances impressed the Court
and the city and quickly won for me an almost
universal favour, which was enhanced by a perfect
courtesy." He profited by it to have these quartets
and six sonatas engraved. J On the 25th of March,
1738, the Concert Spirituel gave his seventy-first
Psalm with five voices and orchestra. He wrote
in Paris a French cantata, Polypheme, and a comic
symphony based on a popular song — Pere Barnabas.
" And I departed," he says, " fully satisfied, in the
hope of returning."

* Thirty-nine were found at his death.

f Blavet played the flute, Guignon the violin, Forcroy the viol da
gamba and Edouard the 'cello.

J Compositions of Telemann's had been produced in Paris as early
as 1736. (See Michel Brenet.)

us A Musical Tour

He remained faithful to Paris, and Paris remained
faithful to him. His music continued to be engraved
in France and to be performed at the Concert
Spirituel. Telemann, on his side, spoke with
enthusiasm of his visit, and fought the cause of
French music in Germany. The Hamburgische
Berichte von gelehrten Sachen says in 1737 : " Herr
Telemann will greatly oblige the connoisseurs of
music if, as he promises, he will describe the present
condition of music in Paris, as he came to know
it by his own experience, and if he will in this way
seek to make French music, which he has done so
much to make the fashion, even more highly valued
in Germany than it is." — Telemann began to carry
out this design. In a preface dated 1742 he
announces that he has already put on paper " a
good part " of the account of his visit, and that
only the lack of time has hitherto prevented him
from completing it. It is all the more desirable to
publish it, he says, in that he hopes to dispose
" to some extent of the prejudices which are here
and there entertained against French music." Un-
fortunately it is not known what has become of
these notes.

In his old age this excellent man divided his
heart between two passions : music and flowers.
Letters of his are extant dating from 1742 in which
he asks for flowers ; he is, he says, " insatiable
where hyacinths and tulips are concerned ; and greedy
for ranunculi, and especially for anemones." — He
suffered in his old age : from weakness of the legs
and failing sight. But his musical activity and his
good humour were never impaired. On the score
of some airs written in 1762 he wrote some verses :

" With an ink too thick, with foul pens, with bad

A Forgotten Master 119

sight, in gloomy weather, under a dim lamp I have
composed these pages. Do not scold me for it ! "

His ablest musical compositions date from the
last years of his life, when he was more than eighty
years of age.* In 1767, the year of his death, he
published yet another theoretical work and wrote
a Passion. He died in Hamburg on the 25th June,
1767, overburdened with years and with glory.

He was more than eighty-six years of age.
* * *

Let us sum up this long career and seek to deter-
mine its principal outlines. Whatever our opinion
of the quality of his work, it is impossible not to be
struck by its phenomenal quantity, f and the prodi-
gious vitality of a man who, from his tenth to his
eighty-sixth year, wrote music with indefatigable joy
and enthusiasm without prejudice to a hundred other
occupations.

From first to last this vitality remained fresh and
enthusiastic. What is so unusual in Telemann is
that at no moment of his life did he begin to grow
old and conservative ; he was always advancing,
with youth. We have seen that at the very beginning
of his career he was attracted by the new art — the
art of melody — and did not conceal his antipathy
for " fossils."

* Such are the two cantatas published by Herr Schneider : Der
Tag des Gerichts (1761 or 1762) and Ino (1765).

f EvenTelemann's admirers made certain reservations, during his
lifetime, as regards his abnormal productivity, which was without
limits and without respite. Handel used to say, jestingly, that
Telemann would write a piece of church music as quickly as one writes
a letter. Graun wrote to Telemann in 1752 : " I cannot agree with
your saying : ' There is nothing new to be discovered in melody.'
In the majority of French composers I certainly believe that melody
is indeed exhausted, but not in a Telemann, if only he would not wear
himself out by writing too much ! " And Ebeh'ng said, in 1778 :
" He would have been greater if he had not written with such facility,
and with such incredible immoderation."

120 A Musical Tour

In 1718, he quotes, as expressing his own ideas,
these sorry French verses :

" Ne les el eve pas (les anciens) dans un ouvrage saint,
AU rang od dans ce temps les auteurs ont atteint.
Plus feconde aujourd'hui, la musique divine
D'un art laborieux etale la doctrine,
Dont on voit chaque jour s'accroltre les progress."

These lines express his attitude. He is a modern,
in the great quarrel between the ancients and the
moderns ; and he believes in progress. " One
must never say to art : Thou shaft go no farther.
One is always going farther, and one should always
go farther." — " If there is no longer anything new
to be found in melody," he writes to the timorous
Graun, " it must be sought in harmony."*

Graun, the arch-conservative, is alarmed :

" To seek fresh combinations in harmony is, to
my mind, to seek new letters in a language. Our
modern professors are rather abolishing a few."f

" Yes," writes Telemann, " they tell me that

one must not go too far. And I reply that one must
go to the very depths if one would deserve the name
of a true master. This what I wished to justify in
in my system of Intervals, and for this I expect not
reproaches, but rather a gratias, at least in the
future."

This audacious innovator amazed even his fellow-
innovators, such as Scheibe. Scheibe, in the
preface to his Treatise on Intervals (1739) says that
his acquaintance with Telemann at Hamburg
convinced him still more completely of the truth of
his system : " for," he writes, " I found in this
great man's composition very frequent intervals
of an unaccustomed character which I had for a

* i5th December, 1751. f i4th January, 1752.

A Forgotten Master

long time included in my series of intervals, but
which I myself did not yet believe to be practicable,
never having met with them in the work of other
composers. ... All the intervals which occur
in my system were employed by Telemann in the
most graceful manner, and in a fashion so expressive,
so moving, so exactly appropriate to the degree
of emotion, that it is impossible to find any fault
with them short of finding fault with Nature herself."

Another department of music in which he was
an enthusiastic innovator was Tonmalerei, or musical
description. In this he acquired a wo rid- wide
reputation, even while he offended the prejudices
of his countrymen ; for the Germans had little
liking for this descriptive music, the taste for which
came from France ; but the most austere critics could
not resist the power of certain of these pictures. Herr
Max Schneider has discovered in a work of Lessing's*
the following opinion of Philipp Emmanuel Bach :

" Herr Bach, who has succeeded Telemann at
Hamburg, was his intimate friend ; however, I have
heard him criticise him very impartially. . . .
' Telemann/ he used to say, ' is a great painter ;
he has given striking proofs of this above all in one
of his Jahrg&nge (cycles of sacred music for all the
feast days of the year), which is known here under
the name of Der Zellische (The Zelle cycle). Among
other things he played for me an air in which he
expressed the amazement and terror caused by the
apparition of a spirit ; even without the words,
which were wretched, one immediately understood
what it was that the music sought to express. But
Telemann often exceeded his aims. He was guilty
of bad taste in depicting subjects which music should
* Kollektaneen zur Liter atur, Vienna, 1804.

122 A Musical Tour

not describe. Graun, on the contrary, had far too
delicate a taste to fall into this error ; as a result
of the reserve with which he treated this subject he
rarely or never wrote descriptive music, but as a rule
contented himself with an agreeable melody/'

He is convinced that Graun has indeed a much
more refined sense of beauty. But Telemann has a
much greater sense of life.

A distinguished critic of this period, Christ-Daniel
Ebeling, professor in the Hamburg Johanneum,
wrote shortly after Telemann's death :*

11 . . . His capital defect — a defect which
he acquired from the French — is his passion for
musical descriptions. He employed them some-
times in quite a wrong way ; adhering to the expres-
sion of a word and forgetting the general feeling;
. . . he also attempted to describe things that
no music can express. . . . But no one can
paint with a more powerful touch and is better able
to delight the imagination when these beauties
are in their proper place. . . ."

It must not be forgotten that Handel, in his time,
encountered the same criticism from the Germans.
Peter Schulz wrote in 1772 :

" I cannot understand how a man of Handel's
talents could so far lower himself and his art as to
endeavour to depict, by means of musical notes, in an
oratorio on the Plagues of Egypt, the locusts hopping,
the swarming of the lice and other equally disgusting
things. One could not imagine a more absurd
abuse of art."

The worthy Peter Schulz is a delightful musician,
and he may be right, in theory, but of what use are
theories ? All the aestheticians in the world may

* Hamburge Unterhaltungen, 1770.

A Forgotten Master 123

prove by A + B that any musical descrip-
tion is absurd and that Handel, like Berlioz and
Richard Strauss at a later date, sinned against
good taste and against music itself ; nothing can
alter the fact that the " hailstorm chorus " in
Israel in Egypt is a masterpiece, and that one could
no more resist its whirlwind of sound than that of
the March of Rakokczy or that of the battle in
Heldenleben. But without entering upon a useless
discussion (for music ignores these discussions, and
the public follows suit, disregarding the disputants)
what should be remarked here is that in Telemann's
case the influence of France was noted in his life-time.

As we have learned from his biography, he had
by no means lacked opportunities of becoming
acquainted with French music. On the whole, his
musical education was more French than German.
First at Hanover, at the Hildesheim gymnasium,
when he was about seventeen years of age, a second
time at Sorau in 1705, and a third at Eisenach, in
1709, with Pantaleon Hebenstreit, he had found
himself in an environment of French art, and had
applied himself to writing in the French style.
His journey to Paris in 1737 finally made of him a
Frenchman in Germany, devoted to the cause of
French music, and a passionate propagandist.
" He made it the fashion in Germany."*

And if he thought of publishing his impressions
of this visit to Paris this was, by his own confession,
in order that he might " attack the current prejudices
in respect of French music," and exhibit it " in
its true beauty, as a subtle imitator of nature."

A very curious document shows us how remark-
able was Telemann's knowledge of the French style.

* Hamburgische Benchte von gelehrien Sachen, 1737.

124 A Musical Tour

This is a correspondence with Graun, in 1751-2,
on the subject of Rameau.* Graun had sent
Telemann a long letter in which he severely criticised
the recitatives in Castor and Pollux. He blamed the
lack of naturalness, the false intonations, the arioso
introduced inappropriately in the recitative, the
changes of time made with insufficient motive,
which, he says, " cause difficulties for the singer
and the accompanist ; for they are not natural.
And I hold it to be a capital rule that one should not
introduce any unnatural difficulty without an urgent
reason/' In short, he declares that " French
recitative singing sounds to him like the howling of
a dog ;f that French recitative pleases nowhere,
save merely in France, as he has found by experience,
all his life long ; " and he derides Rameau. " Ram-
eau, whom the Parisians call the great Rameau,
the honour of France. ... He must have
ended by believing it himself : for according to Hasse
he says that he cannot write anything bad. . . .
I should much like to know where one is to find his
rhetorical, philosophical and mathematical science ;
in melody or in polyphony ? . . . I confess
that I have made little or no study of mathematics ;
I had no opportunity of doing so in my youth ;
but my experience has shown me that the mathe-
matical composers accomplish nothing of any
value. Witness Euler, who used to write false
harmonies . . ."

Telemann replies : f

" Most nobly born, most honourable Sir and my

* Published by Herr Max Schneider.

f . . . " French singing is nothing but a continual barking,
insupportable to any unprejudiced ear" (J. J. Rousseau, Lettre
sur la musiquefrancaise).

J 1 5th December, 1751.

A Forgotten Master 125

very worthy friend . . . so we are to measure
swords ! You claim that the recitative of the
Welches* is more reasonable than that of the French.
I say that both alike are worthless, if we seek in them
a resemblance to speech ; and if you insist upon it,
I will willingly and peaceably subscribe to the
mandate that in future all the nations shall sing
recitative in the Italian fashion. . . But as for the
musical examples which you give me, you are com-
pletely mistaken. For the greater number of these
passages of Rameau which you criticise bear witness
to no little discernment in the art of diction."

Whereupon he takes the passage from Rameau
cited by Graun :f

tc*i»«t r r

//7/brfo.

Cf/?e/nf, /a/vffcA free/ fan.

i

Jj.J. .J-N.3 I

H H

*=*

TT — ^? — «? — f — r — r r r —

\ — ! — f~t — HT — ; 1

_yfc/-r. e/ej j/e/u e./re /a/>..

Jqk k V' E£f=

^fcy, /e /Te/x/re 0uj0t/r. a ce ou'//

m

* That is, the Italians. f Cos/oy «/ Pollux, Act II., Scene 5.

126

A Musical Tour

" In this example," he says, " the dominant
emotion is imperious, arising from the words :
Digne de Jupiter meme I The composer has not only
expressed this passion, but has also rendered the
accessory emotions, as he progresses. The word
' Infortund ' is rendered with tenderness. ' Ressus-
citer,' by a rolling trill. ' L'arracher au tombeau ' is
stately. ' M'empecher,' a retardation. ' Triom-
pher' is given proudly; *d ce qu'il aime ' tenderly.
' Meme ' is exalted. ' Digne ' is expressive of
release, etc. ... As for the accompaniment,
without being insipid, it could not be other than it
is. — How does ' our Italian ' comport himself ? "
— The ' Italian ' was Graun, who had aspired to
correct and re-write the passage from Rameau ;
and here is his version :

/tes/t/rer

/am. _

A Forgotten Master 127

Telemann, mischievously, amuses himself by
riddling this version.

" The harmony " he says " is, until half way
through, harsh and depressing ; the words, despite
their diversity, are rendered in the same fashion,
which is fatiguing to the ear. . . There is, in
the second bar, a pause which interrupts the mean-
ing ; in the seventh, a fault of prosody ; ' rendre au
jour ' in four syllables. . ." Then follow very
accurate observations as to the manner in which
a Frenchman " recites " a question — quite differently
from an Italian — and the pronounciation of various
French words, which Graun had not properly grasped
— the " privileged words " which should, in French,
be vocalised in a particular fashion : " Triompher,
voler, chanter, lire, gloire, victoire." (Here Tele-
mann smiles a little ironical smile.) " As for the
changes of time, they offer no difficulty whatever to
a Frenchman. All this flows and effervesces and
sparkles like champagne. . . . French recita-
tives, you say, are not liked in any part of the world.
I know nothing about that, because the histories
say nothing about it. But what I do know is that
I have been acquainted with German, English,
Russian and Polish singers, and even a couple of
Jews, who used to sing to me by heart whole scenes
of Atys, Belldrophon, etc. I imagine that this was
because it pleased them. On the other hand, I
have never met anyone who has said anything of
the Welches but : " It is beautiful, it is excellent,
it is incomparable, but I have not found it possible
to remember any of it. . . ." He adds that if
he himself commonly wrote his recitatives " in the
Welche fashion, it was to follow the movement,"
but that he has composed whole cycles of sacred

A Musical Tour

music and Passions in the French style. Lastly, he
ends with a profession of faith in favour of audacious
harmonies, justifying himself by the example of the
French, who applauded them.

Graun, somewhat piqued,* replies. He protests
that Telemann has been just a little spiteful in defend-
ing Rameau's recitative. . . " for/' he says,
" you attribute to him a very frivolous intention
in claiming that the expression of the word infortune
should be tender. I think if the word were bien-
heureux, the expression would be equally proper.
. . . To express resurrection by a ' rolling trill '
is to me something quite novel. . . In all the
resurrections of which there is mention in the
Scriptures one does not find anywhere that anything
has been ' rolled ' . . . You think the musical
phrase for ' Varr acker au tombeau ' magnificent.
If the phrase said : ' mettre dans le tombeau ' it would
be still better. . . . You find tenderness in
' a ce qu'il aime.' If it were ' d ce qu'il hail ' it
would be equally suitable. As for the supposed
sublimity of the word meme, I imagine a plaintive
French howl, because it is necessary to utter two
syllables on a high note, which is always shrill, even
with the best singer. . . ."

And having noted certain defects of Rameau's :
" My dear friend, it seems to me that you are a
little too partial to this nation ; otherwise you
would not so readily overlook such capital defects,
or that false rhetoric of which the music of ' the
honour of France ' is full."

Then, passing on to the criticisms addressed to
himself :

" As for ' our Italian,' my dear friend, as a good

January, 1752.

A Forgotten Master 129

German, which I am, as you yourself are, I seek to
express the general meaning of the words, and I
avoid the utterance of isolated words when it does
not come about in a natural manner. ... I
prefer to adhere to routine, which is wise. The
crescendo gradation of musical recitative seems
to me a true imitation of a man speaking, who
raises his voice in speaking/ '

He admits, not without difficulty, that he went
astray in counting the syllables of the French verse,
and he has this curious excuse :

" French actors recite their poetry as if it were
prose, without exactly counting the syllables."*

We have not Telemann's reply : but a letter
from Graun, of the I5th of May, 1756, shows us that
fours years later they were still discussing Rameau's
recitative, and that neither of them had surrendered
his opinion.

This aesthetic duel between two of the most famous
German musicians of the eighteenth century bears
witness in both of them to a painstaking acquaint-
ance with French music and the French language.
Telemann reveals himself — as he was all his life —
the champion of French art in Germany. The phrase
which he employs to characterise " French music,
that subtle imitator of nature," is also a fitting
term to describe his own music. He did much to
introduce the French qualities of intelligence and
exact expression into German music, which, without
these elements, would have been in danger, with

* Graun's observations referred to the school of Baron, who broke
the rhythm of verse until one could no longer distinguish whether it
were verse or prose — and even more to Dumesnil, then famous,
who recited poetical tirades with a volubility that scandalised the
purists.

10

i3° A Musical Tour

such artists as Graun, of adopting an insipid ideal
of vague and abstract beauty.

At the same time, he imported into German music
the qualities of impulsive animation, of clear, lively,
nimble expression found in Polish music and the new
Italian music. This was not a work of supererogation :
German music, despite its power, was beginning to
smell rather musty. It would have been in danger
of asphyxiation but for the great draughts of fresh
air which men like Telemann let into it through
the open doors of France, Poland and Italy — until
Johann Stamitz opened what was perhaps the most
important — the door of Bohemia. If we wish to
understand the extraordinary blaze of music that
illumined Germany from the time of Haydn, Mozart
and Beethoven, we must have some acquaintance
with those who prepared this magnificent beacon;
we must watch the lighting of the fire. Without
this the great classics would seem a miracle, whereas
they are, on the contrary, the logical conclusion of
a whole century of genius.

I am about to show the reader some of the paths
which Telemann opened to German music.

In the theatre, to begin with, even those who
were most unjust to him recognised his gifts as a
humorist. He seems to have been the principal
initiator of German comic opera. No doubt we
find comic touches here and there in Reiser ; it
was a theatrical custom in Hamburg that a clown,
a comic servant, should figure in all the productions,
even in the musical tragedies ; and to this character
were given comic Lieder with a simple accompani-
ment (often in unison) or none. Handel himself

A Forgotten Master 13*

obeyed this tradition in his Almira, performed at
Hamburg. There is also a rumour of a Singspiel
by Reiser, dating back to 1710, entitled Leipzig
Fair, and other performances of the same nature
were given at that time. But the comic style was
not really sanctioned in German music until Tele-
mann's works were written ; the only opera bouffe
of Reiser's which has come down to us — Jodelet
(1726), is subsequent to Telemann's works and is
certainly inspired by them. Telemann had the comic
spirit. He began by writing, in accordance with the
taste of the time, little comic Lieder for the clown
in opera.* But this was not enough for him. He
had a waggish tendency, as Herr Ottzenn has noted,
to show the comic side of a figure or a situation in
which the librettist had seen nothing that was not
serious. And he was extremely skilful in delineating
comic characters. His first opera, performed in
Hamburg : The Patient Socrates (Der geduldige
Sokrates) contains some capital scenes. The subject
is the story of Socrates' domestic misfortunes.
Considering that one bad wife was not enough,
the librettist has generously allowed him two, who
quarrel on the stage, while Socrates has to appease
them. The duet of the scolds in the second actf is
amusing, and would still please an audience to-day.
The comic movement took definite shape more
especially after 1724, as far as Hamburg is concerned.
The opera was beginning to grow tedious ; and
attempts were made to import from Italy the comic

* For example, for Turpino in Der Sieg der Schonheit (1722), which
represents the invasion of Rome by the Vandals. Herr Ottzenn
has published a comic aria from this opera in the Supplement of his
monograph : Telemann als Opernkomponist.

t Op. cit., Supplement, p. 5.

A Musical Tour

intermezzi wihch were then in their first novelty.
Comic French ballets were mingled with these.
At the carnival of 1724 some passages from Campra's
L' Europe galante were performed in Hamburg,
and some from Lully's Pourceaugnac. Telemann
wrote some comic dances in the French manner,*
and in the following year he produced an inter-
mezzo in the Italian manner: Pimpinone oder die
ungleiche Heirat (Pimpinone, or the Ill-assorted
Marriage), whose subject is precisely the same as
that of La Serva padrona, which was written four
years later. The style of the music also is closely
akin to that of Pergolesi. Who is the common
model ? Surely an Italian ; perhaps Leonardo
Vinci, whose first comic operas date from 1720.
In any case, we have here a curious example of the
rapidity with which subjects and styles migrated
from one end of Europe to the other, and of Tele-
mann's skill in assimulating foreign genius.

The German text of this prophetic counterpart of
La Serva padrona is by Praetorius. There are two
characters : Pimpinone and Vespetta. There are
three scenes. There is no orchestral prelude. At
the rise of the curtain Vespetta sings a delightful
little aria in which she enumerates her qualities as
chambermaid. f The music, full of humour, is of
a purely Neapolitan style ; Pergolesian before
Pergolesi. It has all the nervous vivacity of Neapol-
itan music, the little broken movements, the sudden
halts, the fits and starts, the bantering responses of
the orchestra, which emphasises or contradicts the
list of Vespetta's virtues :

* A comic Chaconne and a Niais, in his Damon (1724). See p. 41
of Ottzenn's work.

| See Ottzenn, Supplement, p. 31.

A Forgotten Master 133

" Son da bene, son sincera, non ambisco, non
pretendo "...

Pimpinone appears. Vespetta, in a German aria,
begins to wheedle the old man ; in the middle of her
song three breves a parte express his satisfaction.
A duet, in which the two characters employ the same
motive, ends the first scene or intermezzo. In the
second, Vespetta begs forgiveness for a trifling fault,
and she sets about it in such a way that she is
praised.

Finally she brings Pimpinone to the point of pro-
posing that she shall become Pimpinona. But she
needs a great deal of persuasion. In the third
intermezzo she has become the mistress. Pergolesi
did not go as far as this, in which he showed his
tact ; for the story becomes less amusing. But
the Hamburg public would not have been contented
without a vigorous use of the stick. So Vespetta
rules, leaving Pimpinone not the least vestige of
liberty. He appears alone, lamenting his misfortune.
He describes a conversation between his wife and a
gossip of hers — imitating the two voices — and then
a dispute between himself and his wife, in which
he has not the last word. Vespetta appears, and
there is a fresh dispute. In a final duet Pimpinone,
beaten by his wife, whimpers while Vespetta
bursts into shouts of laughter.* This is one of the
first examples of the duet in which the two characters
are delineated in an individual manner, which is
comic by reason of their very unlikeness. Handel,
great though he was as a theatrical composer, never
really attempted this new form of art.

Telemann's comic style is still, of course, too
Italian ; he has yet to assimilate it more closely

* See Ottzenn, Supplement, p. 35.

A Musical Tour

to German thought and speech, to combine it with
the little Lieder, full of good-natured buffoonery,
which he sometimes employs. But, after all, the
first step has been taken. And the nimble, sparkling
style of Vinci or Pergolesi will never be forgotten
by German music ; its animation will stimulate the
too solemn gaiety of the great Bach's fellow-country-
men. Not only will it contribute to the formation
of the German Singspiel ; it will even brighten with
its laughter the new symphonic style of Mannheim
and Vienna.

I must pass over Telemann's other comic inter-
mezzi : La Capricciosa, Les Amours de Vespetti
(the second part of Pimpinone), etc. I will merely
mention, in passing, a Don Quixote (1735) which
contains some charming airs and well-drawn
characters.*

But we have here only one aspect of Telemann's
theatrical talents ; the other mask — that of tragedy
— has been unduly overlooked. Even the one
historian who has made a study of his operas — Herr
Curt Ottzenn — does not sufficiently insist upon this
aspect of his art. When his feverish craving to write
allows him to reflect upon what he is doing, Telemann
is capable of anything, even of being profound.
Not only do his operas contain beautiful serious
arias, but — which is more unusual — beautiful
choruses. One, in the third act of Sokrates (1721) f,
representing the feast of Adonis, is amazingly

* See on p. 44 of Ottzenn's Supplement, the first aria from Don
Quixote, quietly stubborn and infatuated, with flourishes on the
violins which celebrate the hero's future exploits. The libretto is
Schiebler's ; later on he was one of the librettists of J. A. Hiller, the
great writer of German Singspiele.

f Note also the quintets in Sokrates : (the disciples and Aristo-
phanes, or the disciples and the servant Pitho).

A Forgotten Master 135

modern in style.* The orchestra includes three
clarini sordinati (deep-toned muffled trumpets),
two oboes, which play a plaintive melody in long-
drawn notes, two violins, a viol and the saxhorn
senza cembalo. Its sonority is extremely fine.
" Telemann really obtained the fusion of the various
sonorous groups," which until then had hardly
been attempted. The piece is full of serene emotion,
which has already the neo-antique purity of Gluck.
It might be a chorus from Alceste, and the harmony
is full of expression.

We find also in Telemann a romantic note, a
poetical feeling for Nature, which is not unknown
in Handel, but which is perhaps more refined in
Telemann — when he really does his best — for his
sensitiveness is of a more modern type. Thus,
the " nightingale aria " sung by Mirtilla in Damon
(1729)1 stands out, amid the innumerable " nighting-
gale arias " of the period, by reason of its subtle
impressionism.

Telemann's operas are not sufficient to judge
him by. Those which have been preserved until
our day, which are eight in number — together with
La Serenata and Don Quichott der Lowenritter — were
all written at Hamburg, within a period of no great
length — between 1721 and 17294 In the fifty
years that followed Telemann greatly developed
his powers ; and we should be unjust to him if we
did not estimate his capacity by the works of the

* See pp. 7-10 of Ottzenn's Supplement.

f p. 27-28 of Ottzenn's Supplement.

J With the exception of Don Quichott, the date of which is 1738.

i36 A Musical Tour

latter half or even the close of his life, for only in
these does he give his full measure.

In default of operas we have, as far as this period
is concerned, oratorios and dramatic cantatas.
Those published by Herr Max Schneider in the
Denkmaler der Tonkunst — Der Tag des Gerichts
(The Day of Judgment) and Ino — are almost as
interesting to study, with regard to the history of
the musical drama, as the operas of Rameau and
Gluck.

The poem of the Day of Judgment* — " ein Sing-
gedicht voll starker Bewegungen " (a libretto full of
strenuous action) — was written by an ex-pupil of
Telemann's at the Hamburg Gymnasium, Pastor
Abler. He was a free pastor, by no means a pietist.
At the opening of this work the faithful are awaiting
the arrival of the Christ ; the unbelievers are derid-
ing them, like good eighteenth-century philosophers,
in the name of science and reason. After a prefatory
Meditation, rather weak and abstract, the cata-
clysm commences. The waves rise : the stars shine ;
the planets falter and fall ; the angel appears and
the trumpet sounds. Behold the Christ ! He
calls His faithful to Him, and their chorus sings His
praises ; and He hurls into the abyss the sinners,
who howl aloud. The fourth part describes the
joys of the blessed. — From the second part to the
fourth the work consists of a mighty crescendo,
and we may say that the third and fourth parts are
really one whole, closely bound together, without
interruption. " After the second Meditation there
is no longer a pause between the sections ; the
music flows on, a single current, to the end. Even
the airs da capo, frequently employed at the outset,

* First performed on the lyth of March, 1762.

A Forgotten Master 137

disappear, or are no longer employed, except in a
very sober fashion, at moments when the drama
is not opposed to them."*

Recitatives, airs, chorales and choruses are con-
founded, interpenetrating one another,! so that
their values are made apparent by contrast, doubling
their dramatic effect. J Telemann applied himself
with a joyful heart to a subject that afforded him
opportunity for such sumptuous descriptions : the
crepitations and tumultuous surgings of the violins
in the chorus which opens the second part : Es
rauscht, so rasseln stark rollende Wagen, with its
dramatic, almost Beethovian climax ; the recital
of the prodigious events foretelling the end of the
world, the flames bursting from the earth, the impet-
uous cohorts of the clouds, the shattering of the
harmony of the spheres, the moon forsaking her
orbit, the rising ocean, and lastly the trumpet
of the Judgment. The most impressive of all these
choruses is that of the sinners hurled into hell,
with its syncopation of terror and the rumbling of
the orchestra§. — There is no lack of charming airs,
above all in the last portion,** but they are less original
than the accompanied recitatives with descriptive
passages on the orchestra. This is the style of
Handel or J. S. Bach, liberated from the strictness
of contrapuntal writing. The new art of melody is

* Max. Schneider.

t See Jesus' song, which is linked up with that of the faithful.

* For example, the dramatic chorus : A ch Hulfe, which is empha-
sised by the juxtaposition of a Gregorian chorale, calm and
monotonous.

§ Denkmdler, p. 77.

** For example, the aria with viol de gamba: Ein ew'ger Palm
(p. 92), the aria with two violins : Heil I wenn urn des Erwurgten
(p. 96) ; or the aria with the large oboe and bassoon : Ich bin Erwacht
(p. 105).

138 A Musical Tour

sometimes found combined with a severity of form
which to Telemann's thinking was already archaic.*
For him the importance of the composition did not
reside in its form, but in the descriptive scenes
and dramatic choruses.

The cantata Ino constitutes a much greater
advance upon the path of musical drama. The
poem by Ramler, who contributed to the resurrec-
tion of the German Lied, is a masterpiece. It was
published in 1765. Several composers set it to
music : among others, J. C. F. Bach of Biickeburg,
Kirnberger, and the Abbe* Vogler. Even a modern
musician would find it an excellent subject for a
cantata — the reader may remember the legend of Ino,
daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, sister of Semele,
and Dionysos' foster-mother. She wedded the hero
Athamas, who, when Juno destroyed his reason,
killed one of his sons, and sought to kill the other.
Ino fled with the child, and, still pursued, threw
herself into the sea, which welcomed her ; and there
she became Leucothea, " the White," white as the
foam of the waves. — Ramler's poem shows Ino
only, from the beginning to the end ; it is an over-
whelming part, for a continual expenditure of emo-
tion is required. In the beginning she arrives
running over the rocks overlooking the sea ; she no
longer has strength to fly, but invokes the gods.
She perceives Athamas and hears his shouts, and flings
herself into the waves. A soft and peaceful sym-
phony welcomes her thither. Ino expresses her
astonishment ; but her child has escaped from her
arms ; she believes him lost, calls him, and invokes
death. She sees the chorus of the Tritons and the

* See the two arias of Christ (pp. 73 and 82) which are both
beautiful and dignified without any inward profundity.

A Forgotten Master 139

Nereids, who are upholding him ; she describes her
fantastic journey at the bottom of the sea ; corals
and pearls attach themselves to her tresses ; the
Tritons dance around her, saluting her goddess
under the name of Leucothea. Suddenly Ino sees
the ocean gods returning, running and raising their
arms ; Neptune arrives in his car, the golden trident
in his hand, his horses snorting in terror. A hymn
to the glory of God closes the cantata.

These magnificent Hellenic visions lent themselves
to the plastic and poetical imagination of a musician.
Telemann's music is worthy of the poem. It is
a marvellous thing that a man more than eighty
years of age should have written a composition
full of such freshness and passion. It belongs
plainly to the category of musical dramas. While
it is very likely that Gluck influenced Telemann's
Ino* it may well be that Ino, in its turn, taught Gluck
many valuable lessons. Many of its pages will
compare with the most famous dramatic recitatives
of Alcestis or Iphigenia in Aulis. With the very
first bass one is flung into the thick of the action.
A majestic, rather heavy energy, like that of Gluck,
animates the first aria.\ The orchestral passages
describing Ino's terror, the arrival of Athamas,
and Ino's leap into the sea, possess a picturesque
power astonishing in that period. At the close
we seem to see the waves opening to receive Ino,
who sinks to the depths, while the sea closes up once
more. The serene symphony which depicts the
untroubled kingdom of the ocean possesses a Handel-
ian beauty. But nothing in this cantata, and, to

* The date of Gluck's Orjeois 1764, and that of the fast Alcestis,
1769.

f Above all the second part of the aria. See p. 129 of the
Denktnaler.

A Musical Tour

my mind, nothing in the whole of Telemann's work
excels the scene of Ino's despair when she believes
that she has lost her son.* These pages are worthy
of Beethoven, while in the orchestral accompani-
ment there are some touches that remind one of
Berlioz. The intensity and freedom of the emotional
passages are unique. The man capable of writing
such pages was a great musician and deserving of
fame rather than the oblivion into which he has
fallen to-day.

The rest of the composition contains nothing that
rises to these heights, although it is by no means
lacking in beauty. As in The Day of Judgment,
the beautiful passages mutually enhance one another,
either by concatenation or by contrast, f The
passionate lamentations of Ino are followed by an
air in 9/8 time, which describes the dance of the
Nereids round the child. Then follows the voyage
across the waters, the buoyant waves that bear
up " the divine travellers," and some little dancers
in " a pleasing style " introduce a brief period of
repose in the midst of the song Meint ihr mich —
a delightful aria with two flutes and muted violins,
rather in the vocal and instrumental style of Hasse.
A powerful instrumental recitative evokes the
appearance of Neptune. Finally the composition
ends with an aria in bravura, which anticipates the
Germanised style of Rossini as we find it, during the
first twenty years of the nineteenth century, in
Weber, and even, to some extent, in Beethoven. —
During the entire course of this work there is not a
single interruption of the music, not a single

* pp. 138-140.

f All the component parts form an unbroken chain from beginning
to end.

A Forgotten Master 14*

recitativo secco. The music flows steadily onward and
follows the movement of the poem. There are only
two airs da capo, at the beginning and at the end.

When we read such compositions we are abashed
at having so long been ignorant of Telemann, and
at the same time we are annoyed with him for not
employing his talent as he might have done — as he
should have done. It makes us indignant to find
platitudes and trivial nonsense side by side with
passages of perfect beauty. If Telemann had been
more careful of his genius, if he had not written so
much, accepted so many tasks, his name would
perhaps have left a deeper mark on history than
that of Gluck ; in any case he would have shared the
latter 's fame. But here we perceive the moral
justice of certain of the decrees of history ; it is not
enough to be a talented artist ; it is not enough even
to add application to talent — (for who worked harder
than Telemann ?) — there must be character. Gluck,
with much less music than half a score of other
German composers of the eighteenth century —
than Hasse, Graun, or Telemann, for example
— achieved where the others amassed material
(and he did not utilise even a tenth part of it).
The fact is that he imposed a sovereign discipline
upon his art and his genius. He was a man. The
others were merely musicians. And this, even in
music, is not enough.

NOTE.

There should be room for a study of Telemann's
place in the history of instrumental music. — He
was one of the champions in Germany of the " French
overture." — (This is the name given to the sym-
phony in three movements as written by Lully,

142 A Musical Tour

the first part being lento, the second vivamente and
the third lento, the vivamente movement having a
freely fugued character, while the slow movement
of the beginning is usually reproduced at the end).
The " French overture " was introduced into Germany
in 1679 (Steffani) and 1680 (Cousser) ; it reached
its apogee in Telemann's days, during the first
twenty years of the eighteenth century. We have
seen that Telemann cultivated this instrumental form
with predilection about 1704-5, when he became
acquainted, in the house of the Graf von Promnitz,
at Sorau, with the works of Lully and Campra.
He then wrote 200 " French overtures " in two years.
Again, he employed this form of composition for
certain of his Hamburg operas.*

This does not deter him from the occasional
employment of the "Italian overture" (first viva-
mente, second lento, third vivamente). — He called this
form of composition a concerto, because he employed
in it a first violin concertant. We have a rather
delightful example in the overture to Damen (1729) f,
whose style is analogous to that of Handel's concerti
grossi, which date from 1738-9. It will be noted
that the third part (vivace 3/8) is a da capo, of which
the middle portion is in the minor key.

Telemann also wrote, for his operas, instrumental
pieces in which French influences are perceptible —
above all in the dances, { which are sometimes sung.

Among the other orchestral forms which he
attempted is the instrumental trio, the Trio-Sonata,

* The rather indifferent overture to Socrates (1721) is of this type,
f See Ottzenn's Supplement, p. 18 et. seq.

I A certain number will be found in Ottzenn's collection : a
Sarabande and a Gigue (p. 29) a Gavotte (p. 30), Le Niais (p. 41), a
Bourree, a Chaconne, a Passacaille, etc.

A Forgotten Master ?43

as the Germans call it. It held a very important
place in music from the middle of the seventeenth
to the middle of the eighteenth century, and con-
tributed very largely to the development of the
sonata form. Telemann devoted himself to this
form of composition more especially at Eisenach,
in 1708 ; and he says that nothing of all that he
wrote was as much appreciated as these sonatas.
" I so contrived/1 he says, " that the second part
seemed to be the first, while the bass was a natural
melody, forming, with the other parts, an appro-
priate harmony, which developed with each note in
such a way that it seemed as though it could not be
otherwise. Many sought to persuade me that
I had displayed the best of my powers in these
compositions." — Herr Hugo Riemann has published
one of these trios in his Collegium Musicum collec-
tion. This trio, in mi B major, extracted from
Telemann 's Tafelmusik, is in four movements :
first, affettuoso, second, vivace 3/8 ; third, grave ;
fourth, allegro 2/4. The second and fourth mo vements
are in two parts, with repetition. The first and
second movements tend to link themselves together
after the fashion of the grave and fugue of the French
overture. The form is still that of the sonata with
a single theme, beside which a secondary design is
faintly beginning to show itself. We are still close
to the point where the sonata type emerges from
the suite ; but the themes are already modern in
character ; many of them, above all the themes of
the grave movement, are definitely Italian: one
might say Pergolesian. By his tendency to indivi-
dual expression in instrumental music, Telemann
influenced Johann Friedrich Fasch of Zabst, but
here the disciple greatly surpassed the master.

H4 A Musical Tour

Fasch, to whom Herr Riemann, greatly to his credit,
has of late years drawn the attention of music-
lovers, was one of the ablest masters of the Trio-
Sonata* and one of the initiators of the modern
sjnnphonic style. It will be seen, therefore, that in
every province of music — theatrical, ecclesiastical,
and instrumental — Telemann stands at the source of
the great modern movements.

* This was a trio for strings with continuous bass — that is, there
were in all four instruments.

VI

METASTASIO :

THE FORERUNNER OF GLUCK.

NOT one of the great musicians or poet-musicians
of the eighteenth century was indifferent to the
problems of the lyric drama. All laboured to perfect
it, or to establish it on new foundations. It
would be an injustice to attribute the reform of
opera to Gluck alone. Handel, Hasse, Vinci,
Rameau, Telemann, Graun, Jommelli, and many
others gave time and thought to the matter.
Metastasio himself, who is often represented as the
chief obstacle to the establishment of the modern
lyric drama, because he was opposed to Gluck,
was no less anxious than Gluck (although in another
fashion) to introduce into opera all the physiological
and dramatic truth that was compatible with
beauty of expression.

It may perhaps be profitable to recall how the
talent of this poet was formed — the most musical
writer ever known : " the man," Burney ventures
to say, " whose writings have probably contributed
more to the perfection of vocal melody and music
in general than the united efforts of all the great
European composers."

From the time of his first beginnings as a child
prodigy, the study of music had given him the idea

145 11

?46 A Musical Tour

of the poetical reformation which was to make
him famous. The hazards of his emotional life,
skillfully exploited, were of no little service in the
completion of his poetico-musical education. It
was a singer who had the merit of discovering him.
Signer E. Celani has told the story in an article
entitled: // primo amore di P. Metastasio.* Met-
astasio's first love was the daughter of the com-
poser, Francesco Gasparini, the pupil of Corelli
and Pasquini, the man who had mastered better
than any other the science of il bel canto and who
formed the most famous singers ; the teacher of
La Faustina and Benedetto Marcello. They met
in Rome in 1718-19. Gasparini wished to marry
Metastasio to his daughter, Rosalia, whom Metas-
tasio has sung under the name of Nice ; and
Signor Celani has discovered the draft of the marriage
contract, which was drawn up in April 1719. But an
unforeseen obstacle supervened. Metastasio left
for Naples in May, and Rosalia married another.

At Naples, Metastasio met the woman whose
influence upon his artistic career was to be decisive :
La Romanina (Marianna Benti) a famous singer,
the wife of a certain Bulgarelli. Metastasio was
at that time clerk to an advocate. His employer
hated poetry, which did not prevent Metastasio from
writing poems, cantatas, and serenades which
appeared under another name. In 1721 he wrote,
for the birthday of a member of the Imperial family,
a cantata : Gli orte Esperiei, which was set to music
by Porpora : La Romanina, who was passing through
Naples, sang the part of Venus in this cantata.
The performance was extremely successful ; La
Romanina insisted on making the young poet's

* Rivista musicale Italiana, 1904.

Metastasio 147

acquaintance, and fell in love with him. She was
thirty-five years of age, and he was twenty-three.
She was not beautiful;* her features were strongly
marked and rather masculine, but she was extremely
kind in a sensual sort of way, and highly intelligent.
She gathered together in her house at Naples all the
most distinguished artists : Hasse, Leo, Vinci,
Palma, Scarlatti, Porpora, Pergolesi, Farinelli. In
this circle Metastasio completed his poetico-musical
education, thanks to the conversation of these men,
the lessons which he received from Porpora, and
above all the advice, intuition and artistic experience
of La Romanina. For her he wrote his first melo-
drama, Didone abbandonata (1724), which, by its
Racine-like charm and emotion, marks a date in the
history of Italian opera. La Romanina was the
triumphant interpreter of his earliest poems, among
others of Siroe, which almost all the great European
composers were to set to music.

After 1727 they went to Rome. There the three
led a singular family life : Metastasio, La Romanina
and the husband, Bulgarelli. La Romanina despised
her husband, but lavished a jealous^ and passionate
love on Metastasio. The old story, so often repeated,
had its inevitable climax. Metastasio turned his
back upon Italy. In 1730 he was summoned to
Vienna as poeta Cesareo. He left Rome, conferring
upon his cara Marianna full powers to administer,
alienate, sell, exchange or convert his property
and his income, without rendering him any account.
La Romanina could not endure his departure ;
three months later she set out for Vienna. She
did not succeed in getting farther than Venice.

* Celani's article contains reproductions of two small portraits,
which incline to verge upon caricature (pp. 250 and 252.).

148 A Musical Tour

A contemporary writes :* "It is said that the
Didone abbandonata is largely the story of Metastasio
and La Romanina. Metastasio feared that she
might cause him annoyance in Vienna, and that his
reputation would suffer thereby. He obtained an
order of the Court which forbade La Romanina
to enter the Imperial domains. La Romanina was
furious, and, in her rage, attempted to kill herself
by stabbing herself in the breast. The wound was
not mortal, but she died shortly afterwards of
misery and despair."

Some letters written by her to the Abbe* Riva,
who served as intermediary, display the unfortunate
woman's passion. Here is a peculiarly moving
passage, written at Venice on the I2th of August,
1730, doubtless after her attempted suicide, when
she had given her promise to behave sensibly :

" Since you still retain so much friendship for my
Friend, f keep him safe for me, stand by him, make
him as happy as you can, and believe that I have
no other thought in the world ; and if I am sometimes
disconsolate it is because I am only too conscious of
his merit, and because to be forced to live apart from
him is the greatest grief than I can suffer. But
I am so determined not to forfeit his esteem that I
will patiently endure the tyranny of him who
permits such cruelty ; I assure you that I will do
everything that I am allowed to do to please my
dearest friend and to keep him ; I will do all that I
can to keep myself in good health, simply in order
that I may not grieve him. . . ."

She lived a life of misery for four years longer.
Metastasio replied to her impassioned letters with

* Lessing, librarian at Wolfenbuttel (see Celani).
f " . . . pour VAmi. . ." (Trans.)

Metastasio H9

serene politeness. La Romanina's reproaches
seemed to him " punctual and inevitable, like a
quartan fever." She died on the 26th February,
1734, in Rome, at the age of forty-eight, her love
offering Metastasio the supreme affront of naming
him residuary legatee. — " This," she said, " I do
not merely in token of my gratitude for his advice
and his help in my misfortunes and my long illness,
but also in order that he may more conveniently
devote himself to those studies which have won so
much fame for him." — Metastasio, blushing at this
generosity, renounced his inheritance in favour of
Bulgarelli, and suffered bitter remorse on thinking
of " la povera e generosa Marianna " . . . "I
have no longer any hope that I shall succeed in con-
soling myself ; and I believe the rest of my life will
be savourless and sorrowful." (i3th March, 1734.)

Such was this love-story, which is closely bound
up with the destinies of music, since it was owing to
the influence of this woman that Metastasio became
the Racine of Italian opera. The echo of La Roman-
ina's voice is still heard in his verses, " which are so
liquid and musical," says Andres/' that it seems as
though one could read them only by singing them."
* * *

This quality of his poetry, as of vocal melody set
to words, impressed his contemporaries. Mar-
montel remarked that " Metastasio arranged the
phrases, the rests, the harmonies and all the parts of
his airs as though he sang them himself."

And he did indeed sing them. When composing
his dramas he used to sit at the harpsichord, and he
often wrote the music for his own verses. We are
reminded of Lully singing at the harpsichord the
poems of Quinault, and remodelling them. Here

A Musical Tour

the parts are reversed. It is the Italian Quinault
who composes poems at the harpsichord, already
tracing the outline of the melody which is to clothe
them. — In a letter of the I5th of April, 1750, Metas-
tasio, sending to the Principessa di Belmonte Caff-
arello's setting of a poem of his, Partenza di Nice,
adds : " Caffarello realised the defects of my com-
position " — (which gives us to understand that he
had written one) ; — " he has had compassion on the
words and has clad them in better stuff."* — In
another letter of the same year (2ist February, 1750)
to the same lady, he says :

" Your Excellency knows that I can write nothing
that is to be sung without imagining the music for
it (good or bad). The poem that I am sending you
was written to the music that accompanies it. It
is, in truth, a very simple composition ; but if the
singer will sing it with the expression that I have
imagined it will be found that it contains all that is
needed to second the words. All that can be added
to it, though it be of the choicest, may assuredly
win more applause for the musician, but will cer-
tainly give less pleasure to loving hearts."!

Never did Metastasio give his poems to a friend
without adding the musical setting. Consequently
we have not the right to judge his verses separately,
deprived of the melody intended for them, of which he
had, as Marmontel says, "the presentiment. "$ — Music
seemed to him all the more indispensable to poetry

* Unpublished letters which appeared in the Nuova Autologia,
vol. 77, and are quoted by Jole-Maria Baroni, in his essay on the
Lirica musicale di Metastasio (Rivista musicals Italiana, 1905).

f Ibid.

% " A talent without which it is impossible for a poet to write an
aria properly is the presentiment of the song, that is, of the character
which the melody should possess, the compass demanded and the
appropriate mood." (Marmontel.)

Metastasio

because he was living in a Teutonic country where his
Italian tongue possessed its full power only when
the charm of music made it penetrate the alien
mind. He wrote in 1760 to Count Florio : " From
the earliest years of my transplantation into this
country I have been convinced that our poetry can
take root here only in so far as music and acting are
combined with it."

Thus his poetry was written for music and theat-
rical representation. We may imagine how it must
have charmed all the Italian and Italianate musicians
of the century. According to Marmontel, " all the
musicians had surrendered to him."* To begin
with, they were delighted by the music of his verse.
Then they found in him a very pleasant, polite, f
but quite inflexible guide. Hasse constituted himself
his pupil. Jommelli used to say that he had learned
more from Metastasio than from Durante, Leo,
Feo and Father Martini — that is, from all his masters.
Not only did his verses, in which he would allow
no alteration, lend themselves marvellously to
melody, inspiring and even evoking it, so to speak :
they very often suggested the motive of the air to
the composer. J

* Signer Francesco Piovano, who is preparing a bibliography
of Metastasio, estimates that as many as 1,200 compositions were
written for the poet's verses.

f Burney has drawn a delightful portrait of Metastasio, whom
he saw in Vienna. His conversation is described as lucid, fluent and
vivacious. He was gay and agreeable, full of charm and had
extremely good manners. He never disagreed with anybody, partly
out of indolence and partly out of politeness. He never replied
to an erroneous statement. He did not care for discussion. " He
displayed the same tranquillity, the same gentle harmony that we
find in his writings, in which reason controls everything; never
frenzy, even in the passions."

I Burney records a conversation between Metastasio and an Eng-
lish visitor. The Englishman asked whether Metastasio had ever set
one of his operas to music. Metastasio replied that he had not, but
that he had often given the composer the motives of his melodies.

A Musical Tour

Jole-Maria Baroni, in an essay on the Lirica
musicale di Metastasio,* makes a brief analysis of
the various poetico-musical forms of which he writes :
canzonette, cantate and arie. Here I will confine
myself to indicating the musical reforms which
Metastasio accomplished.

To him we owe the restoration of the chorus in
Italian opera. In this respect he was guided by the
musical traditions which had been preserved in
Vienna. While the chorus had become obsolete
as far as the Italian operas were concerned, the
Viennese masters, J. J. Fux and Carlo Agostino
Babia, had obstinately retained its employment.
Metastasio took advantage of this survival, and
handled the chorus with an art unknown before his
time. He was careful only to introduce the chorus
at such moments when it was natural and
necessary to the action of the drama. We feel that
in writing his choruses he often took as his model
the solemn simplicity of the ancient tragedies. f
It was in the same spirit that those composers who
were friends of Metastasio's, and influenced by him,
as was Hasse, treated the chorus in music. Who-
soever will turn to the magnificent chorus of the
priests in Hasse's Olimpiade (1756) will marvel at
the full development of the neo-antique style —
simple, tragic, and religious — the monopoly or inven-
tion of which has been only too often attributed
to Gluck.

But it was in the recitative that Metastasio and his
composers introduced the greatest improvements.

The Italian opera at that time was an ill-balanced

* Rivista musicale Italiana, 1905.

f For example, in the Olimpiade, La Clemenza di Tito, Achilla
in Scirq : that is to say in the works of his maturity.

Metastasio 153

assemblage of recitativo secco and arie. The rccita-
tivo secco was a monotonous and very rapid chant,
not very greatly diverging from ordinary speech,
and unrolling its interminable length to the accom-
paniment of the harpsichord solo, supported a few
bass notes. The musician paid very little heed to it,
reserving his powers for the ana, in which his technical
skill and that of the interpreter were given free
scope. The poet, on the other hand, retained an
affection for the recitative, as it enabled the audience
to hear his verses fairly distinctly. This rough and
ready compromise satisfied no one. The poet and
the composer were sacrificed in turn, and there was
seldom or never a true partnership between them.
However, since the second half of the seventeenth
century an intermediate form had found its way into
opera : a form which was gradually to assume the
most prominent position, and which has retained that
position (shall I say unfortunately ? ) in the modern
lyrical drama : this was the recitative accompanied
by the orchestra, the recitativo stromentale, or to give
it a shorter and more popular title, the accom-
pagnato. Lully employed it to excellent effect in
his later operas.* But in Italian opera the accom-
pagnato did not become permanently established
until the days of Handel f and Leonardo da Vinci
(1690-1732). The latter, whom President de Brossesf
called the Italian Lully, had already conceived the
idea of employing the accompagnato at the climax
of the dramatic action, in order to depict the passions
excited to the state of frenzy. However, in his case

* Triomphe de r Amour (1680), Per see (1682), and Phatthon (1683).

f Julio Cesare (1724), Tamerlano (1724), Admeto (1727).

I First President of the Parliament of Burgundy ; a geographer
and writer upon various languages, fetish worship, archaeological
subjects, etc. (Trans.)

?54 A Musical Tour

this idea was rather an intuition of genius whose
fruits he never troubled to pluck.

The merit of having grasped the importance
of this invention and of having utilised it in a
logical and reasonable manner seems to belong to
Hasse, working under Metastasio's influence, as
Herr Hermann Abert has demonstrated.* Beginning
with Cleofide (1731),! in which the second act
closes with a great scene in recitative* accompagnato,
a bold piece of work, Hasse employs accompagnati
for curtains and the crises of the action : visions,
apparitions, laments, invocations and tumultuous
emotions. In the Clemenza di Tito (1738) Herr
Abert calls attention to six accompagnati, five of
which are reserved for the two principal male char-
acters, depicting their inward anguish ; the sixth,
which is apportioned to a secondary character,
describes the burning of the Capitol. Two of these
great orchestral recitatives are not followed by
an aria. — In the Didone abbandonata of 1743 especial
note should be taken of the tragic denouement,
which (like so many other instances!) gives the
lie to the inaccurate tradition that all operas before
Gluck's days were compelled by the fashion to end
happily. The whole drama is gathered up into this
final scene, which is full of a sober violence and a
tense emotion.

What part did Metastasio play in the erection
of this poetico-musical architecture which reserves
the orchestral recitative for the great moments
of the action ? We shall discover this from a
memorable letter which he wrote to Hasse on the

* Nicollo lomelli als Opernkomponist, 1908, Halle,
f Performed in Dresden, in the presence of J. S. Bach.
See Handel's Tamerlano and Hasse's Piramo e Tisbe.

Metastasio 155

2oth of October, 1749, in connection with his Attilio
Regolo ; a letter to which we may usefully refer
the reader.* Never did poet supervise more closely
the work of the composer — or determine, beforehand,
with greater definiteness the musical form adapted
to each scene.

After a somewhat lengthy preamble, exquisite
in its courtesy, in which Metastasio apologises for
offering advice to Hasse, he begins by explaining
the characters of his drama : — Regulus, the Roman
hero, superior to human passions, equable and
serene. . . . "I should find it displeasing/' he
says, " if his singing, and the music that accompanies
it, were ever hurried, save in two or three passages
of the work. . . ." " The Consul Manlius, a great
man, too inclined to emulation ; Hamilcar, an
African who understands nothing of the Roman
maxims of honesty and justice, but who finally comes
to envy those who believe in them ; Barce*, a beauti-
ful and passionate African woman, of an amorous
nature, solely pre-occupied with Hamilcar." . . .
etc. " Such are, generally speaking, the portraits
which I have endeavoured to draw. But you know
that the brush does not always follow the outline
conceived by the mind. It is for you, no less excel-
lent as an artist than perfect as a friend, to clothe
my characters with such masterly skill that they
shall possess a marked individuality ; if not by reason
of the outlines of their features, at least by reason
of their garments and adornments."

Then, having laid stress on the importance of
the recitatives " enlivened by the instruments/'

* This letter, which is included in the Opere postutne del sig. Ab.
Pietro Metastasio (1793, Vienna, vol. I.), was reproduced by Herr
Carl Mennicke in his work on Hasse und die Briider Graun als
Symphoniker, 1906, Leipzig.

156 A Musical Tour

that is, the accompagnati, he indicates where and
how they should be employed in his drama.

" In the first act I perceive two places where the
instruments may assist me. The first is Attilio's
harangue to Manlius, in the second scene, from the
line :

A che vengo ! Ah sino a quando . . .

" After the words a che vengo the instruments
may begin to make themselves heard, and, some-
times silent, sometimes accompanying the voice,
and sometime rinforzando, give warmth to a speech
which is already in itself impassioned. I should be
glad if they did not desert Attilio until the line :
La barbara or qual £ ? Cartago, o Roma ?

" I think, moreover, that it is well to be on one's
guard against the mistake of making the singer wait
longer than the accompaniment itself demands. All
the passion of the speech would be chilled ; and the
instruments, instead of animating, would weaken the
recitative, which would be like a picture cut into
sections and thrust into the background ; in which
case it would be better that there should be no accom-
paniment."

The same recommendation is made in respect
of the seventh scene of Act I. : "I insist once again
that the actor should not be compelled to wait for
the music, and that the dramatic passion of the play
should not be chilled in this way ; I wish to see it
increase from scene to scene."

A little farther on, after Manlius' words :

T'accheta : si viene. . . .

"... a brief symphony seems to me necessary to
give the Consul and the Senators time to take their
seats, and in order that Regulus may arrive without
haste and take time to reflect. The character of this

Metastasio ?57

symphony should be majestic, slow, and, if possible,
it should be interrupted, to express Regulus' state
of mind when he reflects that he is returning as a
slave to the place where he was lately consul. In
one of these interruptions of the symphony I should
like Hamilcar to speak the two lines :

Regolo, a che t'arresti e forse nuovo
Per te questo soggiorno ?

and the symphony should not end before Regulus'
reply :

Penso qual ne parlii, qual vi ritorno.

In the second act two instrumental recitatives
are required. In one of these scenes, " Regulus
should remain seated as far as the words :
Ah no. De'vili questo 6 il linguaggio.

" He will speak the rest standing. ... If,
as a result of the arrangement of the scene, Regulus
cannot immediately seat himself, he should move
slowly towards his seat, halting from time to time
and apparently immersed in serious meditation ;
it would then be necessary that the orchestra should
precede and support him until he is seated.

" All his speeches — reflections, doubts, hesitations —
will give an opportunity for a few bars of instru-
mental music with unexpected modulations. Directly
he rises the music should express resolution and
energy. And tedium must always be avoided ..."

For the third act : "I should like no instruments
to be employed in the recitatives before the last
scene — although they might suitably be employed
in two other scenes ; but it seems to me that one
should be sparing of such an effect."

This last scene is preceded by a violent tumult on
the part of the people, who shout :
Resti, Regolo, resti . . .

158 A Musical Tour

" This outcry should be extremely loud, firstly
because truth requires that it should be so, and
further, in order to give value to the silence which
is then imposed upon the tumultuous populace by
the mere presence of Regulus. . . . The
instruments should be silent when the other char-
acters are speaking ; on the other hand, they accom-
pany Regulus continually in this scene ; the
modulations and movements should be made to
vary, not in accordance with the mere words, as is
done by other writers of music, but in accordance
with the inner emotion, as is done by the great
musicians, your peers. For you know as well as
I that the same words may, according to the cir-
cumstances, express (or conceal) joy or sorrow,
wrath or compassion. I am fully convinced that an
artist such as yourself will be able to contrive a
large number of instrumental recitatives without
fatiguing the hearers : in the first place, because
you will carefully avoid allowing things to drag,
as I have so insistently advised you ; and more
especially because you possess in perfection the art
of varying and alternating the piano, the forte,
the rinforzi, the staccati or congiunti concatenations,
the ritardi, the pauses, the arpeggios, the tremolos,
and above all those unexpected modulations whose
secret resources you alone understand. . . ."

" Do you think I have done with annoying you ?
Not yet ... I should like the final chorus
to be one of those which, thanks to you, have given
the public the desire, hitherto unknown, to listen to
them. I should like you to make it obvious that
this chorus is not an accessory but a very necessary
part of the tragedy and the catastrophe with which
it closes."

Metastasio 159

And Metastasio brings his minute recommenda-
tion to an end only, he says, because he is tired ;
by no means because he has said everything. Doubt-
less subsequent conversations commented upon and

completed this letter.

» * «

Let us sum up the advice here given. We shall
note :

1. The supremacy of poetry over music. ' The
outlines of their features " refers to poetry. ' Their
garments and adornments " are represented by
music. Gluck did not express himself very differ-
ently.

2. The importance given to the drama, the
advice of the craftsman not to delay the actor's
delivery so that there may not be gaps in the dialogue.
This is the condemnation of the useless aria. The
music is subordinated to the scenic effect.

3. The psychological character attributed to the
orchestra. " The symphony which expresses the
reflections, doubts and perplexities of Regulus "
. . . The admitted power of good music to inter-
pret not only the words, but the hidden soul, whose
emotions often differ completely from the expression
of them — in a word, the inner tragedy.

All this, I repeat, is in accordance with Gluck's
ideas. Why then are Metastasio and his composers
always represented as opposed to Gluck's reform
of the opera ? This letter was written in 1749, at
a date when Gluck had not as yet the least presenti-
ment of his reform.* We perceive from it that all

* Gluck began his career in 1742 ; he returned from England in
1746; and in 1749 he had not yet written — I will cot say his
dedicatory epistle to Alceste, which is dated twenty-years later (1769),
but even his really significant Italian operas ; the date of Ezio is
1750, and that of La Clemenza di Tito, 1752.

160 A Musical Tour

artists of all the camps were moved by the same
preoccupations and were working at the same task.
Only the formula adopted was not in all cases the
same. Metastasio, a lover of il bel canto, and one
of the last to preserve its true tradition,* was un-
willing to sacrifice it. And what musician would
reproach him for this ? He wished the voice —
poetry and music — always to be the centre of the
picture ; he distrusted the excessive development
of the orchestra of those days ; he found it all the
more dangerous in that he was conscious of its
strength and endeavoured to harness it in the service
of his ideal of musical tragedy, harmoniously propor-
tioned, f We must be truthful ; under Gluck the
drama gained much, but poetry nothing. You
will no longer find in him, or in Jommelli, the Racin-
ian declamation, which was yet further softened
and refined during the course of the eighteenth
century, but a heavy, emphatic, paraded, shouted
utterance : and it needed to be shouted, to dominate
the din of the orchestra ! Compare a scene from
Gluck's Armida with the corresponding scene in
Lully's Armida ; \ in these two lyric tragedies
what a difference of declamation ! In Gluck the
declamation is slower ; there is repetition ; the
orchestra roars and mutters ; the voice is that of a
Greek tragic mask : it bellows.

In Lully, and even more in Metastasio 's musical

* Burney, in Vienna, heard an excellent singer, Mile. Martinetz,
to whom Metastasio had taught singing. He adds that Metastasio
was one of the last who understood the tradition of the old Italian
bel canto, of Pistocchi's and Bernacchi's school. We might add, of
Francesco Gasparini's.

f " La esatta proporzione dello stile drammatico proporio dell'
Opera in musica," as Arteaga says, who refers to this quality as
Metastasio's chief characteristic, that which made him superior to
all other artists.

J In the scene in which Armida invokes Hatred.

Metastasio 161

collaborators, the voice was that of a great actor
of the period ; it obeyed certain conventions of
good taste, moderation and natural delivery, in
the sense in which the word natural was in those
days understood by society (for naturalness varies
according to the period ; different societies and
different ages set different limits to it). — The
misunderstanding between these two schools was
based far less upon fundamentals than upon the
manner of expressing them. Everybody was
agreed in admitting that opera was tragedy
expressed in music. But everybody was not agreed
as to what tragedy ought to be. On the one hand
were the disciples of Racine ; on the other the
romantics, born before their time.

Let us add that what matters most in art is not
theory but the man who applies it. Gluck sought
to reform the musical drama. So did Metastasio ;
so, in Berlin, did Algarotti, Graun and Frederick II.
himself. But there are various ways of seeking
to do this, and there is such a thing as temperament.
Gluck's temperament was that of a revolutionist,
intelligent and audacious, who could at need be
brutal ; who cared nothing for " what people would
say " and turned the conventions topsy-turvy.
Metastasio's was that of a man of the world who
respected the established usages. He stuffed his
operatic libretti with frigid sentences and finical
comparisons ; and to justify them he referred to
the example of the Greeks and Romans ; he in-
formed Calsabigi that such methods " had always
constituted the chief attraction of eloquence, sacred
and profane/'*

* ** Han fatto sempre una gran partefinora della sacra e della prof ana
eloquenza."

162 A Musical Tour

The critics of his day justified them likewise
by the example of the ancients and the French
classics. They did not tell themselves that in order
to decide if a thing is good one must not ask oneself
whether it was good and full of vitality at some
previous period, but whether if it is so to-day.
Herein lies the radical defect of such art as Metas-
tasio's. It is full of taste and intelligence, perfectly
balanced, but scholarly and sophisticated ; it lacks
audacity and vigour.

No matter ! Though it was doomed to perish,
it bore within it many ideas of the future. And
who knows whether its worst misfortune was not
the defeat suffered by Jommelli, who, of all the
musicians subjected to its influence, was the most
audacious and travelled farthest on the paths
which Metastasio had opened up ? Jommelli, who
has sometimes been called the Italian Gluck, marks
Italy's supreme effort to retain her primacy in opera.
He sought to accomplish the reformation of musical
tragedy without breaking with the Italian tradition,
revivifying it by novel elements and above all by
the dramatic power of the orchestra. He was not
supported in his own country ; and in Germany
he was a foreigner, as was Metastasio. They
were defeated ; and their defeat was Italy's. The
Italian Gluck founded no school. It was the German
Gluck who assured the victory not merely of a form
of art, but of a race.

VII

A MUSICAL TOUR ACROSS EUROPE
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

ITALY

DURING the whole of the eighteenth century as
during the seventeenth, Italy was the land of music.
Her musicians enjoyed, throughout Europe, a superi-
ority comparable to that of the French writers
and " philosophers." Italy was the great market
for singers, instrumentalists, virtuosi, composers
and operas. She exported them by the hundred to
England, Germany and Spain. She herself con-
sumed prodigious quantities of them, for her
appetite for music was insatiable, and she was
always asking for more. The most famous masters
of Germany — Handel, Hasse, Gluck, Mozart — came
to put themselves to school with her ; and some of
them left the country more uncompromisingly
Italian than the Italians. The English melo-
maniacs invaded Italy ; one saw them travelling
from city to city, following the singers and operatic
companies, passing the Carnival in Naples, Holy
Week in Rome, the Ascension in Venice, the summer
months in Padua and Vicenza, the autumn in Milan
and the winter in Florence ; for years on end they
made the same tour, without ever tiring of it. Yet

163

164 A Musical Tour

they need hardly have disturbed themselves in
order to hear Italian opera, for they had Italy in
London. England was so thoroughly conquered
by the Italian taste from the beginning of the
century that the historian Burney made this
strange reflection — which, in his mouth, was praise of
his own country :

" The young English composers, without having been in
Italy, lapse less frequently into the English style than the
young French composers, who have spent years in Italy, lapse,
in spite of all, into the French style."

In other words, he congratulates the English
musicians for succeeding in denationalising them-
selves better than the French. This was due to
the excellent Italian companies then in London
performing opera and opera buffa, directed by such
masters as Handel, Buononcini, Porpora and Gal-
uppi. Burney, in his infatuation for Italy, concluded
that " England was consequently a fitter school than
France for the formation of a young composer. "

This observation was, unknown to Burney, some-
what flattering to France, which was, in fact, of all
the nations, that which opposed the most obstinate
resistance to Italian influence. This influence was
brought to bear no less upon Parisian society and
Parisian artists ; and Italianism, which found a
vigorous support among the " philosophers " of
the Encyclopaedia — Diderot, Grimm, and above all
Rousseau — gave rise to a positive warfare in the
musical world, and in the end it was partly
victorious ; for in the second half of the century
we may say that French music was a prey which
was divided up like a conquered territory, between
three great foreign artists : an Italian, Piccinni;

Across Europe 165

an Italianate German, Gluck ; and an Italianate
Belgian, Gr^try.

The other nations had not held out so long before
succumbing. Spain had been an Italian colony,
as far as music is concerned, since an Italian operatic
company had been established there in 1703, and
especially since the arrival, in 1737, of the famous
virtuoso, Farinelli, who was all-powerful with
Philip V., whose fits of insanity he calmed by his
singing. The best Spanish composers, having taken
Italian names, became, like Terradellas, Kapell-
meisters in Rome, or, like Avossa (Abos), professors
in the conservatoires of Naples ; unless, like Martini
(Martin y Soler) they went forth to carry Italianism
into the other European countries.

Even the northern countries of Europe were
affected by the Italian invasion ; and in Russia we
find Galuppi, Sarli, Paisiello and Cimarosa establish-
ing themselves and founding schools, conservatoires
and opera-houses.

It will readily be understood that a country which
thus radiated art all over Europe was regarded by
Europe as a musical Holy Land. So Italy was,
in the eighteenth century, a land of pilgrimage for
the musicians of all nations. Many of them have
recorded their impressions ; and some of these
descriptions of journeys, signed by such names as
Montesquieu, President de Brosses, Pierre- Jean
Grosley de Troyes, the scientist Lalande, Goethe,
the Spanish poet, Don Leandro de Moratin, etc.,
are full of witty and profound observations. The
most curious of these works is perhaps that of the
Englishman, Charles Burney, who, with unwearying
patience, crossed Europe by short stages to collect
the necessary materials for his great History of

166 A Musical Tour

Music. Strongly Italianate in matters of taste,
but honest and impartial, he had the good fortune to
be personally acquainted with the leading musicians
of his day ; in Italy, with Jommelli, Galuppi,
Piccinni, Father Martini and Sammartini ; in
Germany, with Gluck, Hasse, Kirnberger, and Philipp-
Emmanuel Bach ; in France, with Gretry, Rousseau
and the philosophers. Certain of the portraits
which he has drawn of these men are the most life-
like pictures of them extant.

In the following pages we follow the steps of
Burney and many another illustrious traveller
who made the pilgrimage to Italy about the middle of
the eighteenth century.*

Scarcely had they entered Italy when they became
possessed of the musical passion which was devour-
ing a whole nation. This passion was no less
ardent among the populace than amidst the elect.

" The violins, the instrumental performers, and the singing
stop us in the streets," writes the Abbe Coyer, in 1763. " One

* Montesquieu travelled in Italy in 1728-29 (Voyages, Bordeaux,
1894) ; the President de Brasses in 1739-40 (Lettr es familieres forties
d'ltalie) ; Grosley, in 1758 (Observations sur Italic) ; Lalande in
1765-66 (Voyages en Italie, VIII. Vol.: in i2-mo, Venice, 1769);
Goethe, in 1786-87 (Italianische Reise) ; Moratin, in 1793-96 (Obras
postumas, Madrid, 1867).

Burney's famous Tour dated from 1770-72, and has been des-
cribed by him in his two works : The present state of Music in France and
Italy (1771) and The present state of Music in Germany, the Netherlands
and United Provinces (1773), almost immediately translated into
French.

The reader may also consult the letters of Mozart, who made three
journeys through Italy (1769-71, 1771, 1772-73), The M&moives of
Gr6try, who spent eight years in Rome, from 1759-1767, the Auto-
biography of Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, who accompanied Gluck
into Italy — to say nothing of the numerous studies of those German
musicians who travelled in Italy, such as Ruet, Johann Christian
Bach, etc.

I obtained much valuable information from an interesting work
by Signer Giuseppe Robert! : La Musica in Italia nel secolo XVIII.
secondo le impressioni di viaggiatori stranieri (Rivista musicale
I tali an a, 1901).

Across Europe 167

hears, in the public places, a shoemaker, a blacksmith, a
cabinet-maker singing an aria in several parts with a correct-
ness and taste which they owe to nature and the habit of
listening to harmonists formed by art."

In Florence and Genoa the merchants and artisans
combined, on Sundays and fete-days, to form
various societies of Laudisti or psalm-singers. They
used to walk about the country together, singing
music in three parts.

In Venice " if two persons are walking together
arm in arm," says Burney, " it seems as though
they converse only in song. All the songs there are
sung as duets." — " In the Piazza di San Marco "
says Grosley " a man from the dregs of the people,
a shoemaker, a blacksmith, in the clothes proper
to his calling, strikes up an air ; other people of his
sort, joining him, sing this air in several parts with
an accuracy, a precision and a taste which one
hardly encounters in the best society of our Northern
countries."

From the fifteenth century onwards popular
musical performances were given yearly in the
Tuscan countryside ; and the popular genius of
Naples and Calabria expressed itself in songs which
were not disdained by the musicians : Piccinni
and Paisiello exploited them to their advantage.

But the wonderful thing was the ardent delight
which the people displayed in listening to music.

" When the Italians admire a thing " writes
Burney, " they seem on the point of dying of a
pleasure too great for their senses." At a symphony
concert given in the open air, in Rome, in 1758,
the Abbe* Morellet states that the people " were
swooning. One heard groans of : 0 benedetto, o
che gusto, piacer di morir ! (O blessed ! O what

168 A Musical Tour

delight ! One could die of the rapture ! ")— A little
later, in 1781, the Englishman, Moore, who was
present at a " musical spectacle " in Rome, notes
that " the public remained with folded hands and
eyes half-closed, holding its breath. A young
girl began to cry out, from the middle of the
parterra : 0 Dio ! dove sono ? II placer e mi fa
morire ! " (O God, where am I ? I am dying of
delight !) Some performances were interrupted by
the sobs of the audience.

Music held such a position in Italy that the
melomaniac Burney himself saw a danger to the
nation in the passion which it aroused. " To
judge by the number of musical establishments
and public performances one might accuse Italy
of cultivating music to excess/'

The musical superiority of Italy was due not
merely to her natural taste for music, but to the
excellence of the musical training given throughout
the peninsula.

The most brilliant centre of this artistic culture
was Naples. It was the current opinion in Burney 's
days that the farther south one went the more
refined was the musical taste encountered. " Italy "
says Grosley, " may be compared with a tuning-
fork of which Naples sounds the octave." President
de Brosses, the Abbe Coyer, and above all Lalande,
express the same opinion. " Music," writes Lalande
" is the triumph of the Neapolitans. It seems that
in this country the fibres of the ear are more sensitive,
more harmonic, more sonorous than in the rest of
Europe ; the whole nation sings ; gestures, the
inflexion of the voice, the cadence of the syllables,

Across Europe 169

conversation— everything there expresses and exhales
music. Naples is the principal source of music."

Burney reacts against this opinion, which in his
day was no longer quite accurate, and must always
have been a little exaggerated. " More confidence
is reposed in the art of the Neapolitans than they
deserve to-day," he says, " notwithstanding the
right they may have had to this celebrity in times
past." And he claims the first place for Venice.
Without going into the question of the pre-eminence
of either city, we may say that Venice and Naples
were, in the eighteenth century, the great semin-
aries of vocal music, not only for Italy but for
Europe. Each was the seat of a famous school of
opera ; that of Venice, the earliest in point of date,
which had sprung from Monteverdi, counted such
names as Cavalli and Segrenzi in the seventeenth
century, Marcello and Galuppi in the eighteenth ;
while that of Naples, which had come into being
a little later (at the end of the seventeenth century)
with Francesco Provenzale, had, by the eighteenth
century, what with the school of Alessandro Scar-
latti and its innumerable adherents, and that of
Pergolesi, established its incontestable superiority
in respect of dramatic music. Venice and Naples
also contained the most clebrated conservatoires in
Italy.

In addition to these two metropolitan centres
of opera, Lombardy was a centre of instrumental
music ; Bologna was famous for its theorists ; and
Rome, in the complex of this artistic organisation,
played her part of capital, less by reason of the
superiority of individual production than by the
sovereign judgment which Rome arrogated to
herself in respect of works of art. " Rome " says

170 A Musical Tour

Burney, " is the post of honour for composers, the
Romans being regarded as the severest judges of
music in Italy. It is considered that an artist
who has had a success in Rome has nothing to fear
from the severity of the critics in other cities."

The first emotion produced by Neapolitan
music on foreign travellers was rather surprise than
pleasure. Those who were more sincere, or finer
judges, were even disappointed at the outset.
They found, as Burney did, that the execution was
careless, or the time and the pitch were equally at
fault, or the voices were harsh, or there was a natural
brutality, something immoderate, " a taste,"
according to Grosley, " for the capricious and
extravagant." The records of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries are agreed upon this point.
A French traveller, J. J. Bouchard, states, in
1632 :

The Neapolitan music is especially striking by reason of its
cheerful and fantastic movements. Its style of song, quite
different from the Roman, is dazzling and as it were hard ;
not indeed really too gay, but fantastic and harebrained,
pleasing only by its quick, giddy and fantastic movement ; it
is a mixture of French and Sicilian melody* ; for the rest, most
extravagant in respect of continuity and uniformity, which it
does not respect in the least ; running, then stopping short,
jumping from low to high and high to low, forcing the voice
to the utmost, then suddenly restraining it ; and it is really
by these alternations of high and low, piano and forte, that
Neapolitan singing is recognised.

And Burney, in 1770, writes :

" The Neapolitan singing in the streets is much less
agreeable, although more original than elsewhere. It is a

* That is, according to Bouchard, of the galant style and the
dramatic style.

Across Europe

singular kind of music, as barbarous in its modulations, and as
different from that of all the rest of Europe, as Scottish music
. . . The artistic singing has an energy, a fire, which one
does not perhaps meet with in any other part of the world,
and which compensates for the lack of taste and delicacy. This
manner of execution is so passionate that it is almost frenzied.
It is owing to this impetuosity of temper that it is an ordinary
thing to see a Neapolitan composer, starting with a gentle and
sober movement, set the orchestra on fire before he has finished.
. . . The Neapolitans, like thoroughbred horses, are im-
patient of the bit. In their conservatoires they find it difficult
to obtain pathetic and graceful effects ; and in general the
composers of the Neapolitan school endeavour less than those of
other parts of Italy to obtain the delicate and studied graces."

But if the characteristics of Neapolitan singing
had remained almost the same from the seventeenth
to the eighteenth century, its value had altered
greatly. In Bouchard's day Neapolitan music was
behind that of the rest of Italy. In Burney's time
the Neapolitan composers were renowned not only
for their natural genius, but for their science. And
here we see what artistic institutions may do, not
indeed to transform a race, but to make it produce
what it has in reserve, and what, but for them,
would probably never have sprung from the soil.

These institutions, in the case of Naples, were its
famous conservatoires for the musical training
of poor children. An admirable idea, which our
modern democracies have neither conceived nor
revived.

Of these conservatoires, or Collegii di musica,
there were four of the highest standing :

I. The Collegia de* poveri di Gesu Cristo (college of
the poor of Jesus Christ), founded in 1589, by a
Calabrian of the third order of St. Francis, Marcello
Fossataro di Nicotera, who gave harbour to poor

172 A Musical Tour

little children dying of cold and hunger. Children
of all nations were admitted, from seven to eleven
years of age. There were a hundred of them.
They wore a red cassock and sky-blue cymar.
In this college — and we need say no more — Per-
golesi was trained.

2. The Collegio di San Onofrio a Capuana, founded
about 1600, by the friars of San Onofrio for
orphans of Capua and the country round about.
The number of scholars varied from ninety to a
hundred and fifty. They wore a white cassock
and grey cymar.

3. The Collegio de Santa Maria di Loreto, founded
in 1537 by a protonotary apostolic of Spanish
nationality, Giovanni di Tappia, "to receive the
sons of the poorest citizens and educate them in
religion and the fine arts/' This very large college
contained at first as many as eight hundred children,
boys and girls. Then, about the middle of the
eighteenth century, it ceased receiving girls and
began to teach music exclusively. When Burney
visited it there were two hundred children. They
wore a white cassock and cymar.

4. The Collegio de la Pietd de Turchini, founded
at the end of the sixteenth century by a confraternity
which accepted the poor children of the quarter.
In the middle of the eighteenth century there were
a hundred pupils. They wore a blue cassock and
cymar. The most celebrated Neapolitan composers
were professors in this college. Francesco Provenzale
was one of the first masters in this college.

Each of these conservatoires had two head-
masters : one to correct compositions, the other to
teach singing. These were also assistant masters
(maestri scolari) for each instrument. The children,

Across Europe 173

as a rule, remained in the college for eight years.
If, after a few years' training, they did not prove to
be sufficiently talented, they were sent away. A
certain number were received as paying boarders.
The best pupils were retained, after this period of
training, to become teachers in their turn.

Burney gives a picturesque description of a visit
to the Collegia di San Onofrio :

On the first-floor landing a clarinet was pegging
away ; on the second-floor landing a horn was
bellowing. In a common room seven or eight
harpsichords, a still larger number of violins and
some voices were performing each a different com-
position, while other pupils were writing. The beds
served as tables for the harpsichords. In a second
room the violoncellos were assembled ; in a third,
the flutes and oboes. The clarinets and horns had
no other place than on the stairs. In the upper
part of the house, and quite apart from the other
children, sixteen young castrati had warmer rooms
on account of the delicacy of their voices. All
these little musicians were working unremittingly
from rising (two hours before daybreak in winter)
to going to bed (about eight o'clock in the evening) ;
they had only an hour and a half for rest and
dinner and a few days' vacation in the autumn.

These conservatoires, which were a mine of opera
singers and composers for all Europe, were already
nearing their decline in Burney's day. Their
most brilliant period seems to have been in the first
thirty years of the eighteenth century, in the life-
time of Alessandro Scarlatti.

There were in Naples foreign musical agents
whose sole business it was to recruit musicians and
sopranos for their managements. Such was a certain

174 A Musical Tour

M. Gilbert whom Lalande met with, who was working
for the benefit of France.

They recruited composers also. The two most
famous Neapolitan composers of the middle of the
eighteenth century — Jommelli and Piccinni — were
recruited, the one, Jommelli, for Germany, where he
remained for fifteen years at Stuttgart ; the other,
Piccinni, for Paris, where he was set up in opposition
to Gluck. He died there after having been professor
at the Royal School of Singing and Declamation, and
Inspector of the Paris Conservatoire. These two
men formed a perfect contrast. Piccinni, small,
thin, pale, with a tired face, extremely polished,
gentle and vehement at the same time, rather serious
as to the outer man, with an affectionate heart,
impressionable to excess, was above all inimitable in
musical comedy, and it was a misfortune for him
that his little comic operas in the Neapolitan dialect
could not be transplanted beyond the limits of his
native country, where they were all the rage ; but,
as the Abbe Galiani said, " it was really impossible
that this style of music should find its way into
France since it did not even reach Rome. One had
to be a Neapolitan to appreciate the masterly
state of perfection to which Piccinni had brought
comic opera in Naples." — Jommelli, on the contrary,
was appreciated abroad better than in Naples.
The Neapolitans resented the fact that he had become
unduly Germanised at Stuttgart. Physically he
was like a German musician. " He was an extremely
corpulent man/' says Burney ; "his face reminded
me of Handel's. But he is much more polished and
pleasant in his manners." A true artist, exalted
and emotional, but a trifle heavy, he brought back
from Germany a love of harmony and compact

Across Europe *75

orchestration ; he contributed in no small degree to
the revolution which was brought about in his time
in Neapolitan opera, in which the orchestra began to
rage and roar to the detriment of the singers, who
were compelled to shout. " As for the music," says
Burney, " all the chiaroscuro is lost ; the half-
shades and the background disappear ; one hears
only the noisy parts."

Venice was distinguished from Naples by the
delicacy of its taste. In place of the Neapolitan
conservatoires it had its famous conservatoires for
women ; the Pietd, the Mendicanti, the Incurabili
and the Ospedaletto di S. Giovanni e Paolo.

These were hospitals for foundlings, under the
patronage of the leading aristocratic families of the
city. Young girls were kept there until their
marriage, and were given a thorough musical edu-
cation. " Music " says Grosley, " was the principal
part of an education which seemed more adapted
to form Lais and Aspasias than nuns or mothers
of families." But it must not be supposed that all
were musicians. At the Pietd barely seventy out
of a thousand were such ; in each of the other
hospitals forty to fifty. But nothing was left undone
to attract musical pupils thither ; and it was a
common practice to admit children who were not
orphans provided they had fine voices. They were
brought thither from all Venetia : from Padua,
Verona, Brescia and Ferrara. The professors were :
at the Pietd t Furlanetto ; at the Mendicanti, Bertoni ;
at the Ospedaletto, Sacchini ; at the Incurabili,
Galuppi, who followed Hasse. The rivalry that
existed between these illustrious composers excited

176 A Musical Tour

the emulation of the pupils. Each conservatoire
had five or six assistant masters for singing and
instrumental music ; and the elder girls, in turn,
taught the youngest. The pupils learned not only
to sing but to play all instruments ; the violin, the
harpsichord, even the horn and the bass viol.
Burney says that they were able, as a rule, to play
several instruments and that they changed from
one to another with facility. These women's
orchestras gave public concerts every Saturday
and Sunday evening. They were one of the principal
attractions of Venice ; and no foreign traveller who
visited the city has failed to describe them for us.
They were as pleasant to look at as to hear.
'• " Nothing could be more delightful " says President
de Brosses, " than to see a young and pretty nun in
a white habit, with a bunch of pomegranate-flowers
over one ear, conduct the orchestra and beat time
with all the grace and accuracy imaginable." He
adds that " for fine execution and as conductor
of an orchestra the daughter of Venice is second
to none." Some of these fair musicians were
famed all over Italy ; and Venice used to be
split into hostile camps in support of this or
that singer.

But the somewhat fantastic tales of galant travel-
lers might give us a false impression of the serious
nature of the musical training given in these con-
servatoires. Burney, who carefully inspected
them, speaks of their learning with admiration.
The best of the schools was the Incurabili, which
was directed by Galuppi. Galuppi was then seventy
years of age ; but he was still lively and alert, and
the fire in him burned even brighter as he grew older.
He was very slender, with small face full of

Across Europe 177

intelligence. His conversation sparkled with wit.
His manners were distinguished, and he had a love
of all the arts ; he owned some magnificent canvases
by Veronese. His character was esteemed no less
than his talents ; he had a numerous family and
lived a quiet, respectable life. As a composer he
was one of the last representatives of the old Venetian
tradition; one of those brilliant and impulsive
geniuses in whom imagination, natural talents and
scholarship are allied with a fascinating brilliance.
A true Italian, full of the classic spirit, he defined
good music, in his conversation with Burney, as
" beauty, limpidity and good modulation."
" Extremely busy in Venice, where he combined the
functions of senior choirmaster of St. Mark's
and the Incur dbili and organist in aristocratic
houses with that of a composer of operas, he
neglected none of his duties and his conservatoire
was a model of good behaviour." " The orchestra,"
says Burney, " was subjected to the strictest dis-
cipline. None of the performers appeared eager
to shine ; all remained in that sort of subordina-
tion which a servant is required to observe in respect
of his master." The artists gave evidence of great
technical skill ; but their taste was always pure and
Galuppi's art was to be detected in the least cadences
of his pupils. He trained them in all styles of
music, sacred or profane ; and the concerts which
he directed lent themselves to the most varied
vocal and instrumental combinations. It was not
unusual, in Venice, to employ, in a church, two
orchestras, two organs and two choirs, one echoing the
other ; and Burney heard, in St Mark's, under
Galuppi's direction, a mass with six orchestras :
two large orchestras in the galleries of the two

is

178 A Musical Tour

principal organs, and four lesser orchestras distributed,
in twos, between the aisles, each group being
supported by two small organs. This was in the
Venetian tradition : it dated from the Gabrieli,
from the sixteenth century.

Apart from the conservatoires and the churches,
numerous concerts or " academies " were held in
private houses. In these the nobility took part.
Noble ladies performed on the harpsichord, playing
concertos. Sometimes festivals were organised in
honour of a musician : Burney was present at
a " Marcello " concert. These musical " evenings "
were often prolonged far into the night. Burney
records that four conservatoire concerts and several
private " academies " were held on the same
evening.

The concerts did no harm to the theatres, which
in Venice as in Naples constituted the city's chief
title to musical fame. For a long time they were
the foremost theatres of Italy.

At the Carnival of 1769, seven opera-houses were
open simultaneously ; three giving " serious "
opera (opera seria) and four comic opera (opera
buff a), without speaking of four theatres producing
comedy ; all were full, night after night.

A last detail gives evidence of the liberality and
the truly democratic spirit that inspired these Italian
cities. The gondoliers enjoyed free admission to
the theatre ; and " when a box belonging to a noble
family was not occupied the director of the opera
allowed the gondoliers to instal themselves therein.11
Burney sees here, correctly enough, one of the reasons
of " the distinguished manner in which the men
of the people sing in Venice as compared with men
of the same class elsewhere." Nowhere was there

Across Europe 179

better music in Italy ; nowhere was it more widely

spread among the people.

* * *

All around these two operatic capitals — Venice
with its seven theatres, Naples with its four or
five— of which the San Carlo, one of the largest
in Europe, had an orchestra of eighty performers*
— the opera was flourishing in all the cities of Italy :
in Rome, with her famous theatres — the Argentina,
the Aliberti, the Capranica ; in Milan and Turin,
whose opera houses gave daily performances, during
the season, save on Fridays, and where stupendous
actions were represented, such as battles fought by
cavalry ;f at Parma, where stood the Farnese
theatre, the most luxurious in Italy ; at Piacenza,
Reggio, Pisa, and Lucca, which, according to
Lalande, possessed " the most perfect orchestra ; "
throughout all Tuscany, and all Venetia, and at
Vicenza and Verona, which city, writes Edmund
Rolfe, " was mad over opera. "J It was the great
national passion. The Abbe Coyer, in 1763, was in
Naples during a famine ; the rage for spectacles was
not diminished thereby.

Let us enter one of these opera-houses. The
performance begins, as a rule, at eight o'clock,
and ends about half-past twelve. § The cost of
the places in the parterre is a paule** (sixpence

* Marquis d'Orbessan, Voyage $ Italic, 1749-50 (Melanges histor-
iques et critiques, Toulouse, 1768.)

f Edmund Rolfe, in 1761 : Continental Diary, published by E.
Neville Rolfe (Naples, 1897).

I To say nothing of the lesser cities, where one always found
good orchestras and good companies.

§ Lalande (1765, at Parma).

** Burney. — The Italian opera-houses ^ere generally leased to an
association of noblemen, each of whom subscribed for one box, and
sub-let the rest by the year, reserving the parterra and the upper
gallery only (at Milan and Turin, for example).

i8o A Musical Tour

English) unless admission is free, as is often the
case in Venice and Naples. The public is noisy
and inattentive ; it would seem that the peculiar
pleasure of the theatre, dramatic emotion, counts
for very little. The audience chats at its ease during
part of the performance. Visits are paid from box
to box. At Milan " each box opens out of a complete
apartment, having a room with a fireplace and all
possible conveniences, whether for the preparation
of refreshments or for a game of cards. On the fourth
floor a faro-table is kept open on either side of the
building as long as the opera continues."* — " At
Bologna the ladies make themselves thoroughly
at home ; they talk, or rather scream, during the
performance, from one box to that facing it, stand-
ing up, clapping and shouting Bravo \ As for the men,
they are more moderate ; when an act is finished,
and it has pleased them, they content themselves
with shouting until it is performed again.' 'f In
Milan "it is by no means enough that everybody
should enter into conversation, shouting at the top
of his voice, or that one should applaud, by yelling,
not the singing, but the singers, as soon as they
appear and all the time they are singing. . . .

" Besides this, the gentlemen in the parterre have
long sticks, with which they beat the benches as hard
as they can, by way of admiration. They have collea-
gues in the boxes of the fifth tier, who, at this signal,
throw down thousands of leaflets containing a sonetto
printed in praise of the signora or the virtuoso who
has just been singing. All the occupants of the
boxes lean half out of them to catch these leaflets ;
the parterra capers about and the scene closes with

* Burney.

f Letters of President de Brasses (1739).

Across Europe

a general ' Ah ! ' as though they were admiring a
Midsummer Night bonfire."*

This description, a trifle exaggerated, is none the
less not so very unlike certain Italian performances of
the present day. A French or German spectator
present at such scenes would be inclined to doubt
the sincerity of the emotion which the Italian
public professes to experience at the opera ; he
would conclude that the pleasure of going to the
theatre was, for these people, simply the pleasure of
finding themselves in a crowd. — Nothing of the kind.
All this uproar is suddenly hushed at certain passages
of the work. — "They listen, they go into ecstasies
only when the arietta is sung/' says the Abbe* Coyer.
" I am wrong : they pay attention also to the
recitatives obbligati, more moving than the ariette."
At these moments, " however slight the nuances,
none escapes these Italian ears ; they seize them,
feel them, savour them with a relish which is as a
foretaste of the joys of Paradise/'

Let us not suppose that these are " concert
pieces/' valued solely for their beauty of form.
They are, in most cases, expressive and sometimes
highly dramatic passages. President de Brosses
reproaches the French for judging Italian music
before they have heard it in Italy. " One must be
perfectly acquainted with the language and able to
enter into the meaning of the words. In Paris
we hear dainty Italian minuets or great arias loaded
with roulades ; and we pretend that Italian music,
in other respects melodious, is capable of nothing
better than playing with syllables, and is lacking
in the expression characteristic of the emotion. . . /'
Nothing could be more mistaken ; it excels, on the

* Letters of President de Brosses (1739).

182 A Musical Tour

contrary, in the interpretation of emotion, in accord-
ance with the genius of the language ; and the
passages most relished in Italy are the simplest
and most affecting, " the passionate, tender, touch-
ing airs, adapted to theatrical expression and cal-
culated to display the capacities of the actor," such
as are found in Scarlatti, Vinci, and Pergolesi.
These are naturally the very passages which it is
most difficult to send abroad, " since the merit
of these scraps of tragedy consists in accuracy of
expression," which one cannot realise without
knowing the language.

Thus we find in the Italian public of the eighteenth
century an extreme indifference to dramatic action,
to the play ; in this superb heedlessness of the
subject they will even give the second or third act
of the opera before the first when it suits some
personage who cannot spend the whole evening in
the theatre. Don Leandro de Moratin, the Spanish
poet, sees, at the opera, Dido dying on her pyre ;
then, in the following act, Dido comes to life again
and welcomes JEne&s. But this same public that is
so disdainful of drama becomes furiously enthusi-
astic over a dramatic passage divorced from the
action.

The fact is that it is above all lyrical, but with a
lyrical quality that has nothing abstract about it ;
which is applied to particular passions and cases.
The Italian refers everything to himself. It is
neither the action nor the characters that interest
him. It is the passions ; he embraces them all ;
he experiences them all in his own person. Hence
the frenzied exaltation into which the opera throws
him at certain moments. In no other country
has the love of the opera this passionate quality,

Across Europe 183

because no other nation displays this personal and
egoistical character. The Italian does not go to
the opera-house to see the heroes of opera, but to
see himself, to hear himself, to caress and inflame
his passions. All else is indifferent to him.

What intensity must the art possess that is kindled
by these burning hearts ! But what a danger is
here ! For everything in art that is not subjected
to the imitation or the control of nature, all that
depends merely upon inspiration or inward exalta-
tion, all in short that presupposes genius or passion,
is essentially unstable, for genius and passion are
always exceptional, even in the man of genius,
even in the man of passionate feeling. Such a
flame is subject to momentary eclipses or to total
disappearance ; and if, during these phases of
spiritual slumber, scrupulous and laborious talent,
observation and reason do not take the place of
genius the result is absolute nullity. This remark
may be only too readily verified among Italians
of all ages. Their artists, even their indifferent ones,
have often more genius than many famous and
generously endowed Northern artists ; but this
genius is squandered over mere nothings, or drowses,
or goes astray ; and when it is no longer at home
the house is empty. . . .

The salvation of the Italian music of the eighteenth
century should have been found in a style of music
which it had just created : the opera buff a, the
intermezzo, which, at its point of departure, in
Vinci and Pergolesi, is based on the humorous
observation of the Italian character. The Italians,
who are pre-eminently given to a bantering style of
humour, have left veritable masterpieces of this
description. President de Brosses was right to

184 A Musical Tour

speak with enthusiasm of these little comedies.
"The less serious the style/' he informs us, "the
greater the success of Italian music ; for it exhales
the spirit of gaiety and is in its element/' And he
writes, just after seeing La Serva Padrona : "It
is not true that one can die of laughter ; for if it
were I should certainly have died of it, despite the
grief which I felt to think that my merriment
prevented me from hearing as much as I could
have wished of the heavenly music of this farce."

But, as always happens, the men of taste, the
musicians, entirely failed to rate these works at their
true value ; they regarded them as unimportant
entertainments, and they would have blushed to
place them in the same rank as the musical tragedies.
Constantly, in history, this unintelligent hierarchy
of styles has caused indifferent works in a noble
style to be prized more highly than admirable
works in a less exalted style. In President de
Brosses' day, the prdcieux et prdcieuses of Italy
affected to despise the opera buffa and laughed at
" de Brosses' infatuation for these farces." Con-
sequently these excellent little compositions were
soon overlooked ; and abuses as great as those to
be found in opera made their way into the inter-
mezzi : the same improbability and the same
carelessness in respect of the action. Burney is
compelled to admit that " if one takes away the
music of a French comic opera it remains a pleasant
comedy, while without music the Italian comic
opera is insupportable." At the close of the century
Moratin laments the absurdity of this class of com-
position. Yet this was the period of Cimarosa,
Paisiello, Guglielmi, Andraozzi, Fioraventi and
many others. What might not these lesser masters

Across Europe 185

have done with stricter discipline and more con-
scientious poets !

In Venice, as we have seen, this passion for the
opera was combined with a very ardent love of
instrumental music, which at this period did not
exist in Naples. This had always been so since
the Renaissance ; and even at the beginning of the
seventeenth century this characteristic distinguished
the opera of the Venetian Monteverdi from Neapoli-
tan, Florentine or Roman opera.

In a general fashion, we may say that the North of
Italy — Venetia, Lombardy, Piedmont — was in the
eighteenth century a paradise of instrumental
music.

It was a country of great instrumentalists, and
above all of violinists. The art of the violin was
peculiarly Italian. Endowed with a natural sense of
the harmony of form, lovers of beautiful melodic
outline, creators of the dramatic monody, the
Italians ought to have excelled in music for the
violin. " No one in Europe " says M. Pirro* " can
write, as they do, with the lucidity and expressive-
ness which it demands." Corelli and Vivaldi were
the models of the German masters. The golden
age of Italian violin music was the period 1720-
1750, the age of Locatelli, Tartini, Vivaldi and
Francesco- Maria Veracini. Great composers and
performers, these masters were distinguished by
the severity of their taste.

The most famous of these was Tartini of Padua.
" Padua," says Burney, "is no less famed for the
fact that Tartini lived and died there than for the

* Pirro, L'Orgue de Bach (Paris, Fischbacher, 1895).

i86 A Musical Tour

fact that Titus Livius was born there. People
visited his house, later his tomb, " with the fervour
of pilgrims to Mecca." No less famous as composer
and theorist than as performer, and one of the
creators of the science of modern harmony, Tartini
was one of the musical authorities of his century.
No Italian virtuoso regarded himself as consecrated
until he had won Tartini's approbation. Of all
the musicians of his country he was pre-eminent in
matters of taste, and he above all was unprejudiced
in respect of the artistic merits of other nations.
" He is polite, complaisant, without pride and
without eccentricity " says De Brosses ; "he
argues like an angel, and without partiality, as to
the different merits of French and Italian music
I was quite as much pleased by his conversation as
by his playing." — " His playing had little that
was dazzling about it ; " for this virtuoso had a
horror of empty virtuosity. When Italian violinists
came to him that he might listen to their tricks
of style, "he would listen coldly and then say:
' That is brilliant ; that is lively ; that is very good,
but,1 he would add, placing his hand over his heart,
' it has nothing to say to me here.' " His style was
remarkable for the extreme distinctness with which
every note was sounded — " one never lost the
least of them " — and for its intense feeling. Until his
death Tartini modestly filled a place in the orchestra
of the Santo at Padua.

In addition to this great name there are others
that have retained a legitimate fame even down
to our own days. In Venice there was Vivaldi ;
he too was known to De Brosses ; he promptly
became one of the Frenchman's most intimate
friends, " in order " says the latter " to sell me his

Across Europe 187

concertos at a very dear rate. . . He is an
vecchio, who composes with the most prodigious
fury. I have heard him undertake to compose
a concerto with all its parts more rapidly than a
copyist could copy it." Already he was no longer
greatly esteemed in his own country, " where
fashion was everything ; where his works had been
heard too long, and where the music of the previous
year no longer paid/' But one compensation was
left him ; that of being a model for Johann Sebastian
Bach.

The other violinists of the same period — Nardini,
Tartini's best pupil ; Veracini, whose compositions
were noted for their profundity, and in whom some
have seen a precursor of Beethoven ; Nazzari and
Pugnani — had the same sober and expressive qualities,
avoiding rather than striving for effect. Burney
writes of Nardini " that he should please rather than
surprise ; " and President de Brosses says of
Veracini that " his playing was accurate, noble,
scholarly and precise, but somewhat lacking in
grace."

The art of the harpsichord had already had its
masters, such as Domenico Zipoli, a contemporary
and rival of Handel, and Domenico Scarlatti, a
precursor of genius, who opened up new paths on
which Philipp Emmanuel Bach was to follow him.
A master who won even greater fame for the art was
Galuppi. But even in Burney's time its decadence
was perceptible. " To tell the truth," he says,
"I have not met with a great harpsichord-player, nor
with an original composer for this instrument, in all
Italy. The reason of this is that here the instru-
ment is used only to accompany the voice; and at
present it is so greatly neglected, as much by the

i88 A Musical Tour

composers as by the players, that it is difficult to
say which are worse, the instruments or those who
play on them." — The art of the organist had been
better preserved since old Frescobaldi's day. But
in spite of way in which Burney and Grosley have
praised the Italian organists, we may accept as correct
the verdict of Rust, who says that " the Italians
seemed to think it impossible to give real pleasure
by playing on instruments actuated by a keyboard."
Here we recognise their expressive genius, which
found its favourite instruments in the voice and the
violin.*

But what was of more importance than the great
virtuosi, so numerous in Northern Italy, was the
general taste for symphonic music. The Lombard
and Piedmontese orchestras were famous. The
most celebrated was that of Turin, which included
Pugnani, Veracini, Sernis and the Besozzi. There
was " symphonic music " in the Chapel Royal
every morning, from eleven o'clock to noon ; the
king's orchestra was divided into three groups
which were distributed in these galleries at some
distance one from another. The understanding
between them was so excellent that they had no need
of anyone to beat time. This custom, which was
general in Italy, naturally struck foreign travellers.
" The composer " says Grosley " applies himself

* Wind instruments were to some extent neglected. Alessandro
Scarlatti, who was with difficulty persuaded by Hasse to grant
an interview to the famous flautist Quantz, in 1725, said to him :
" My son, you are aware of my antipathy for wind instruments ;
they are never in tune.'' (Quantz himself repeats this remark to
Burney). — In 1771 Mozart discovered that for the great festival of
San Petronio at Bologna it was necessary to send to Lucca for the
trumpets, and that they were detestable. — Good wind-instruments
were hardly to be found save in Venice and the north of Italy.
Turin boasted of the two brothers Besozzi, one of whom played the
oboe and the other the bassoon ; they were known all over Europe.

Across Europe 189

merely to encouraging the players by voice or
gesture, as the commander of an army encourages
troops about to charge. All this music, despite
the variety and complication of its parts, is executed
without any beating of time." And this proves,
no doubt, that the variety and complication of this
music were not as yet very great, or it could not
have been accorded such liberty ; but it is also
a proof of the experience and the musical spirit of
the Italian orchestras.* It is enough to consider
the French orchestras of those days, which did not
play more difficult music, but which none the less
had to be conducted by great sweeps of the baton
— and stamping of the feet. — " These people "
writes De Brosses " greatly excel us in accuracy.
Their orchestras have a great feeling for gradations
of tone and chiaroscuro. A hundred string and wind
instruments will accompany voices without smother-
ing them."t

In Milan above all symphonic music was greatly
esteemed. We might almost say that it originated
in Milan, for there dwelt one of the two or three
men who may lay claim to the glory of having
created the symphony, in the modern sense of the
word — and he was, I believe, that one of the three
whose titles to this fame were most considerable. J
He was G. B. Sammartini, Haydn's precursor and
model. He was chapel-master to almost half the
churches in Milan and for them he composed innumer-
able symphonic pieces. Burney, who knew him and

* It seems that this custom had become obsolete by the end
of the century. Goethe complains, at Vicenza (1786) "of the
accursed beating by the maestro, which I had thought peculiar to
France."

f This was no longer so in Burney's time, when the orchestra
was tending to dominate the voices.

I The two others are Gossec (France) and Stamitz (Germany).

A Musical Tour

heard several concerts given under his direction,
says that " his symphonies were full of a spirit and
a fire which were peculiar to him. The instru-
mental parts were well written ; he did not leave
a single instrument idle long ; and the violins
above all were given no time to rest." Burney
complained of him — and the same complaint was
afterwards made of Mozart — that his music had
" too many notes and too many allegro passages.
He seemed positively to gallop. The impetuosity
of his genius impelled him forward in a series of
rapid movements which, in the long run, fatigued
both the orchestra and the audience/1 Burney
nevertheless admires " the truly divine beauty "
of some of his adagios.

The Milanese gave evidence of a very decided
taste for this symphonic music. There were many
concerts in Milan, not only public, but private,
at which small orchestras of amateurs performed ;
at these concerts they played the symphonies of
Sammartini and Johann Christian Bach, the youngest
son of Johann Sebastian Bach. It often happened
even that a performance of opera was replaced by a
concert. And even in opera the result of this
preference for instrumental music was — to the
scandal of the elderly admirers of Italian singing —
that the orchestra was too numerous, too powerful,
and the complicated accompaniments tended to

conceal the melody and stifle the voices.
* * «

Thus the principal centres of instrumental music
were Turin and Milan ; for vocal music, Venice
and Naples.

Bologna stood at the head of Italian music :
the brain that reasoned and controlled, the city

Across Europe 19*

of theorists and academicians. There dwelt the
principal musical authority of eighteenth-century
Italy, the authority recognised at once by the
Italians and by the masters of all Europe ; by Gluck,
Johann Christian Bach and Mozart — Father Martini.
This Franciscan monk, choirmaster of the church
of his order in Bologna, was a pleasant and scholarly
composer, whose work exhibited a certain rococo
grace; a learned historian, a master of counter-
point and an impassioned collector, who gathered
about him, in his library of seventeen thousand
volumes, the musical knowledge of the period.
This he generously shared with all those who applied
to him, for he was full of kindliness ; his was one of
those pure and serene souls which are to be found
among the old Italian artists. He was greatly
beloved, and musicians were constantly appealing
to his wisdom, whether in writing or by visiting him
in Bologna. Burney speaks of him with affection :

" He is advanced in age and in bad health. He has a dis-
tressing cough ; his legs are swollen and his whole appearance
is that of a sick man. One cannot, by reading his books, form
an idea of the character of this good and worthy man. His
character is such that it inspires not only respect, but affection.
With the purity of his life and the simplicity of his manners
he combines gaiety, kindness and philanthropy. I have never
liked anyone so well after so slight an acquaintance. I was no
more reserved with him at the end of a few hours than I should
have been with an old friend or a beloved brother."

Bologna boasted also of the principal musical
academy in Italy ; the Philharmonic Society,
founded in 1666, into which Italian and foreign
masters held it an honour to be received. The
little Mozart was admitted to it after a competition,
in which, so the legend records, he was secretly
assisted by the worthy Father Martini. It was

A Musical Tour

the same with Gretry, who does not conceal the
fact in his memoirs. The Philharmonic Society
discussed questions of theory and musical science ;
and it gave a yearly festival at which the new
works of Bolognese composers were performed.
This festival, which was a solemn affair, was held
in the church of San Giovanni in Monte, where
the Santa Cecilia of Raphael was at that time
exhibited. The orchestra and the choirs included
a hundred musicians ; each composer conducted
his own works. All the musical critics of Italy were
present at these performances of church and
instrumental music, by which reputations were
made. Burney, at one of these festivals, met Leopold
Mozart " and his son, the little German whose
precocious and almost supernatural talents," he
tells us, " astonished us in London some years ago
when he was little more than a baby. . . . This
young man," he adds farther on, "who has surprised
Europe by his execution and his precocious know-
ledge, is also a very able master of his instrument."*

Lastly, Rome exercised a dictatorship over the
whole of Italian music.

Rome boasted a speciality in the religious music
of the Sistine Chapel, which was then, however,
in a state of decline, owing to the competition of
the theatres, which by their large salaries attracted
the best artists. f Rome had her great collections

* Burney is among the most disdainful critics of Mozart's sister
Marianne. " The young person seems to have attained her highest
development, which is nothing very wonderful ; and if I may judge
by the orchestral music of her composition that I have heard, it is
prematurely ripened fruit which is extraordinary rather than
excellent."

f "As persons of distinguished merit attached to the Sistine
Chapel find little encouragement there, the music is beginning to be
less excellent ; there is a perceptible falling off. . . The result is

Across Europe 193

of ancient music. She had her seven or eight
famous theatres, among others the Argentina and
the Aliberti for opera seria and the Capranica for
opera buff a.

Above all, Rome, thanks to the attraction which
her fame, her traditions and her eternal charm
have always possessed for cultivated minds, had
a public of rare musical competence, a truly sover-
eign public, which was aware of its own value,
perhaps too much so, and pronounced its judgments
without appeal,

" There are in Rome," writes Gretry, " a number of amateurs,
of old abbes, who, by their wise criticism, restrain the young
composer who allows himself to be carried away beyond the
boundaries of his art. So when a composer has succeeded in
Naples, Venice or even Bologna, they say to themselves :
' We must see him in Rome. '. "

The performances of new operas in Rome were
terrible ordeals for the composers ; verdicts were
promulgated which claimed to be final, and the
judges brought to these verdicts the passion of the
Italian temperament. The fight was on from the
very beginning of the evening. If the music was
condemned the hearers were capable of distinguish-
ing between the composer and the singers ; they
hissed the maestro and applauded the artists. Or
it was the singer who was hissed, while the com-
poser was carried in triumph on to the stage.

bound to be the gradual decline of this noble establishment, the home
of ancient music, as well as the graceful simplicity that made the
reputation of this chapel." (Burney). — A friend of Burney's, who
had spent twenty years in Rome, had warned him that the Papal
choir no longer enjoyed its erstwhile superiority. Formerly the
musicians attached to the Pope's service were the best paid. But
" their salary has remained the same. Meanwhile, living has become
dearer. The result is that the musicians are obliged, in order to live,
to add another profession to that of singing, which loses thereby,
while the musical execution in the theatres improves daily."

14

194 A Musical Tour

" The Romans," says Gre try, " have a habit of shouting, in
the theatre, during a composition in which the orchestra
predominates : Brava la viola, brava il fagotto, brava I'oboe !
(Bravo violin, bravo bassoon, bravo oboe !). If it is a melodious
and poetical song that pleases them they address themselves to
the author, or they sigh and weep ; but they also have a
terrible mania for shouting, one after another : Bravo Sacchini,
bravo Cimarosa, bravo Paisiello ! at the performance of operas by
other composers ; a punishment well calculated to suppress
the crime of plagiarism."

With what brutality this popular justice was some-
times executed we learn from the story of poor
Pergolesi, who, says tradition, at the first per-
formance of his Olimpiade, received, amidst a storm
of hooting, an orange, full in his face. And this
fact is a sufficient proof that the Roman public
was not infallible. But it laid claim to infallibility.
Faithful to its traditions, it arrogated to itself an
empire over music :

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento. . . .

No one found anything surprising in this : the
privilege of the Roman public was admitted.
" Rome, capital of the world," wrote " Amadeo
Mozart " in one of his letters, in 1770.
* * *

Such, in its broad outlines, was the fabric of
Italian music in the eighteenth century. We perceive
what abundance, what vitality it displayed. Its
greatest danger — that to which it succumbed —
was its very exuberance. It had no time to recollect
itself, to meditate upon its past. It was eaten up
by its mania for novelty.*

* I am speaking of the public taste. The cult of the past was
cherished by a small ilite. And apart from Father Martini and his
library of seventeen thousand volumes, Italy had no lack of collectors,
such as Professor Campioni, of Florence, who collected the madrigals
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; the singer, Mazzanti,

Across Europe 195

" You mention Carissimi," wrote De Brosses. " For
God's sake be careful not to speak of him here, under penalty of
being regarded as a dunce ; those who succeeded him have
long been regarded as out of fashion ! "

The same writer, ravished by hearing a famous
singer in Naples — il Senesino — " perceived with
astonishment that the people of the country were
by no means satisfied. They complained that he
sang in a stile antico. You must understand that
the taste in music changes here at least every ten
years/'

Burney is still more positive :

" In Italy they treat an opera already heard like a last
year's almanack. . . . There is a rage for novelty ; it has
sometimes been the cause of the revolutions which one observes
in Italian music ; it often gives rise to strange concetti. It leads
composers to seek novelty at any cost. The simplicity of the

of Rome, who made a collection of everything relating to Palestrina ;
the Abbe Orsini and the Chevalier Santarelli, of Rome, who collected
all documents relating to bygone opera and oratorio. (Burney).
The old style was also in some degree preserved in the church
music. Burney often notes, in Milan, Brescia,Vicenza, Florence, etc.,
that the church music was " in the old style, full of fugues."

It is true that a great deal of profane music was executed in the
churches, such as that described by the Chevalier Goudar in an amus-
ing narrative (UEspion Chinois, 1765) : " I went recently, in Bologna,
to what they call here a grand musical mass. On entering the
church I thought at first that I must be at the opera. In troductions,
symphonies, minuets, rigadoons, airs for the solo voice, duets,
choruses, accompanied by drums, trumpets, kettledrums, hunting
horns, oboes, violins, fifes, flageolets : in a word, all that goes to
make the music of a play was employed in this music. It was a
masterpiece of impiety. If the composer had wished to write a
mass for the goddess of pleasure he could not have employed more
moving sounds nor more lascivious modulations."

But Burney assures us that " it was only on feast-days that one
could hear this style of modern music in the churches. On ordinary
days, in the cathedral churches, the music was of the old style,
and solemn ; and in the parish churches it was simply plain-song,
sometimes with the organ but more often without.*'

Nevertheless, in a century and a country as irreligious as Italy
was in the i8th century, church music could not be a sufficient
counterweight to profane music, which was led away by the thirst
for novelty.

i96 A Musical Tour

old masters does not please the public. It does not sufficiently
tickle the pampered taste of these spoilt children, who can no
longer take pleasure save in astonishment."*

This inconstancy of taste, this perpetual restless-
ness, was the reason why no music worthy of mention
was being printed in Italy.

" Musical compositions last such a short time, and the
vogue of novelties is so great, that the few copies which might be
required are not worth the expense of engraving or printing. . .
The art of engraving music, moreover, appears to be entirely
lost. One finds nothing in all Italy resembling a music
publisher's."!

Burney is even beginning to foresee, in the midst
of the artistic splendour which he loves, the complete
and by no means distant disappearance of Italian
music. He believes, in truth, that the stupendous
energy expended upon it will be transformed, that
it will create other arts :

" The language and genius of the Italians are so rich and so
fertile that when they are weary of music — which will without a
doubt happen very soon, from very excess of enjoyment — this
same mania for novelty, which has made them pass so quickly
from one style of composition to another, and which often
makes them change from a better style to a worse, will force
them to seek amusement in a theatre without music ! " J

Burney 's prediction was only partly realised.
Italy has since then attempted, not without success,
to establish " a theatre without music." She has,
above all, spent the best of her energies, apart from
the theatre and music, in her political conflicts, in
the wonderful epopde of her Risorgimento, in which
all that was great and generous in the nation was
expended and often sacrificed in a spirit of exaltation.

* Here Burney is referring more especially to the Neapolitans,
f Burney : in Venice.
I Burney : in Bologna.

Across Europe 197

But Burney has plainly perceived the secret of this
Italian music, the principle of its life, its greatness
and its death ; the Italy of the eighteenth century
is all for the present moment ; for her there is no
longer past or future. She reserves nothing ; she
is burning herself up.

What a difference between this thriftless Italy and
the wise economy of France and Germany at the
same period ! — Germany slowly and silently amass-
ing her stores of science, of poetry, of artistic genius ;
France patiently, slowly, parsimoniously setting
aside her musical possessions, as the French peasant
hoards his cash in the famous woollen stocking ! —
And so they will find themselves young, vigorous
and, as it were, renewed when Italy will be exhausted
by her extravagant expenditure of energy.

Blame her who will I Even though the virtues
of domestic economy are worthy of all esteem, all
my sympathies are for the art that gives itself
without counting the cost. It is the charm of this
Italian music of the eighteenth century that it
spends itself with both hands without recking of
the future. No matter if beauty be not lasting :
what does matter is that it shall have been as beauti-
ful as possible. Of the fugitive radiance of the
beautiful dead centuries a joy and a light remain
for ever in the heart.

II.

GERMANY

DESPITE a century and a half of great musicians,
Germany, about the year 1750, was far from having
won, in the musical judgment of Europe, the position
that she holds to-day. It is true that those days

198 A Musical Tour

were past when a Roman chronicler said of the
students of the German College in Rome :

" If by chance these students had to make music in public
it is certain that it would be a Teutonic music, fit to excite
laughter and to fill the hearers with merriment."*

The time was even past — though not very remote —
when Lecerf de la Vieville made careless mention
of the Germans " whose reputation in music is not
great, "f and the Abbe de Chateauneuf congratu-
lated a German performer on the dulcimer " all the
more because he came from a country not likely
to produce men of brilliance and talent.'1}

By 1780 Saxony had produced Handel and
Johann Sebastian Bach. She had Gluck and
Philipp Emmanuel Bach. Yet she was still endur-
ing the crushing yoke of Italy. Although certain
of her musicians, who were becoming conscious of
their power, suffered this domination with impat-
ience, they were not as yet sufficiently united to end
it. The gifts of fascination possessed by their rivals
were too great ; the Italian art was too complete,
whatever its deficiency of ideas. It showed up in
a crude light the awkwardness, the dullness, the
faults of taste which are not lacking in the German
masters and often repel him who examines the
works of artists of the second rank.

The English traveller Burney, who, in his notes
on Germany, § finally pays a very great tribute to

* Chronicle of Father Castorio (1630) cited Henri Quittard in his
preface to the Sacred Histories of Carissimi, published by the Schola
Cantorum.

Comparison de la musique francaise et de la musique italienne

).

Abbe de Ch&teauneuf, Dialogue sur la musique des anciens

§ Charles Burney : The Present State of Music in Germany, the
Netherlands and United Provinces (1773) : — French translation of the
same period.

Across Europe 199

the greatness of German music, is none the less
continually shocked by the clumsiness of musical
performances ; he gnashes his teeth over the ill-
tuned instruments, the inharmonious organs, the
shrieking voices.

" One does not find in German street musicians the same
delicacy of ear which I have met with in the same class of
persons in Italy." *

In the musical schools of Saxony and Austria
" the playing of the pupils is generally hard and
clumsy."

At Leipzig the singers produce merely a disagree-
able noise, a yelping, when the high notes are taken ;
a sort of stricken shriek, instead of emitting the voice
while diminishing or swelling the tone.

In Berlin the instrumental school " makes hardly
any use of forte and piano. Each performer simply
vies with his neighbour. The chief aim of the Berlin
musician is to play louder than he. . . There
is no gradation ... no attention to the nature
of the tone produced by the instruments, which
have only a certain degree of power when producing
a musical note, after which there is nothing but a
noise."

At Salzburg the very large orchestra of the Prince
Archbishop " was remarkable chiefly for its in-
elegance and its noise." Mozart speaks of it with
disgust : " It is one of the great reasons why Salzburg
is hateful to me ; this Court orchestra is so uncouth,
so disorderly and so debauched ! An honest man
with decent manners cannot live with such people ! "f

* Burney in Vienna.

f Letter from Mozart to his father (gth July, 1778). The best
musician at Salzburg, almost a genius, Michael Haydn, had just been
playing the organ while abominably drunk.

200 A Musical Tour

Even at Mannheim, which had the most perfect
orchestra in Germany, the wind instruments —
the bassoons and oboes — were not in tune.

As for the organ, it was torture to hear it played
in Germany. In Berlin " the organs are big, clumsy,
loaded with stops, noisy and out of tune." In
Vienna, in the cathedral, " the organs are horribly
out of tune." Even in Leipzig, in the holy city of
the organ, the city of the great Johann Sebastian
Bach, " despite all my investigations/' says Burney,
" I did not hear anyone play the organ well any-
where/'

It would seem that with the exception of a few
princely Courts, " where the arts," says Burney,
" rendered power less insupportable, and intellectual
diversions were perhaps as necessary as those of
active life," the love of music was not nearly so
ardent or so universal as in Italy.

During the first weeks of his tour Burney was
disappointed :

" Travelling along the banks of the Rhine, from Cologne to
Coblentz, I was peculiarly surprised to find no trace of that
passion for music which the Germans are said to possess,
especially on the Rhine. * At Coblentz, for example, although
it was Sunday, and the streets were filled with crowds of people,
I did not hear a single voice or instrument, as is usual in most
Roman Catholic countries."

Hamburg, lately famed for its opera, the first and
most celebrated in Germany, has become a musical
Bceotia. Philipp Emmanuel Bach feels lost there.
When Burney goes to see him, Bach tells him :
" You have come here fifty years too late."

And in a jesting tone that conceals a little
bitterness and shame, he adds :

* Burney passed through Bonn some time after Beethoven's
death.

Across Europe 201

" Good-bye to music ! The Hamburgers are good people,
and I enjoy here a tranquillity and independence that I
should not have in a Court. At the age of fifty I abandoned all
ambition. ' Let us eat and drink,' I said, for 'to-morrow we
shall sleep.' And here I am, reconciled with my position,
except when I meet men of taste and intellect who ca n appre-
ciate a better music than that we produce here ; then I blush
for myself and for my good friends the Hamburgers.'"

Burney concludes that the Germans must owe
their knowledge of music not to nature but to study.*

He will gradually change his opinion, on discover-
ing the hidden wealth, the originality, the powerful
vitality of German art. He will come to realise the
superiority of German instrumental music. He
will even take pleasure in German singing, and
will prefer it to any others, Italian excepted. But
his first impressions make it clear enough that the
choice spirits of the period, the princes and amateurs,
favoured the Italians at the expense of their own
compatriots, with an exaggeration that even the
Italianate Burney recognised.

* * *

Italian music had several centres in the heart of
Germany. These, in the seventeenth century,

* Burney, in Dresden. Let us note the vulgarity of the popular
spectacles in Germany, and even in Vienna, where Burney records
programmes of barbarous amusements like the following : " i. Fight
between mastiffs and a wild Hungarian bull, surrounded by fire ;
that is, having fire fixed under the tail and crackers to the ears and
horns. 2. Fight between a wild boar and mastiffs. 3. Fight between
a large bear and mastiffs. 4. Fight between a savage wolf and
beagles. 5. Fight between a wild Hungarian bull and savage famish-
dogs. 6. Fight between a bear and hounds. 7. Fight between a
wild boar and mastiffs protected by iron armour. 8. Fight between
a tiger and mastiffs. Fight between an infuriated bear, not having
eaten for a week, and a young wild bull, which he will eat alive on
the spot — or assisted by a wolf."

Two or three thousand persons, among whom were women of
quality, used to witness these fights, which were frequently arranged
in an amphitheatre in Vienna. Such were the spectacles which
delighted the eyes of the audiences of Haydn and Mozart.

202 A Musical Tour

were Munich, Dresden and Vienna. The greatest
Italian masters — Cavalli, Cesti, Draghi, Bontempi,
Bernabei, Torn, Pallavicino, Caldara, Porpora,
Vivaldi, Torelli, Veracini — had sojourned there
and reigned supreme. Dresden above all displayed
a dazzling efflorescence of Italianism during the
first half of the eighteenth century, in the days
when Lotti, Porpora and Hasse, the most Italianate
of the Germans, directed the opera.

But in 1760 Dresden was barbarously devastated
by Frederick the Great, who applied himself to
effacing its splendour for good and all. He methodic-
ally destroyed by his artillery, during the siege of
the city, all its monuments, churches, palaces,
statues and gardens. When Burney passed through
it the city was no more than a heap of rubbish.
Saxony was ruined, and for a long time to come
played no further part in musical history. " The
theatre was closed for reasons of economy." The
band of instrumentalists, famous all over Europe,
was dispersed among foreign cities. " The poverty
was general. Those artists who had not been dis-
missed were rarely paid. The greater part of the
nobility and the bourgeoisie was so poor that it
could not afford to have its children taught music.
But for a wretched comic opera there was
no other spectacle in Dresden save that of poverty/'*
There was the same devastation at Leipzig.

The citadels of Italianism in the second half of
the century were Vienna, Munich and the towns
on the banks of the Rhine.

At Bonn, when Burney was making his tour,
the band of musicians maintained by the Elector

* Burney adds that not a boat was to be seen on the Elbe, and that
for three years no oats had been given to the horses, nor hair-powder
to the soldiers.

Across Europe 203

of Cologne was almost wholly composed of Italians,
under the direction of the Kapellmeister Lucchesi,
a composer well known in Tuscany.

At Coblentz, where Italian operas were often
performed, the Kapellmeister was Sales of Brescia.

Darmstadt had formerly been distinguished by
the presence of Vivaldi, the Court violinist.

Mannheim and Schwetzingen, the summer resi-
dence of the Elector Palatine, had Italian opera-
houses. That of Mannheim was able to contain
five thousand persons ; the staging was sumptuous,
and the company more numerous than at the Paris
or London opera-houses. Almost all the performers
were Italian. Of the two Kapellmeisters one,
Toeschi, was Italian, and the other, Christian
Cannabich, had been sent to Italy at the Elector's
expense to study under Jommelli.

At Stuttgart and at Ludwigsburg, where the Duke
of Wiirtemberg was in conflict with his subjects,
on account of his extravagant passion for music,*
Jommelli was fifteen years Kapellmeister and director
of the Italian opera. f The theatre was enormous ;
it could be opened at the back, thus forming, when
required, an open-air amphitheatre, "which was some-
times filled by the populace, expressly for the purpose
of obtaining effects of perspective." All the opera
buff a singers were Italian. The orchestra included
numerous Italians, and in particular some famous

* The Wiirtembergers had protested in the Diet of the Empire
against their sovereign's prodigality ; they accused him of ruining the
country by his music. His melomania was compared with Nero's ;
in his craze for things Italian the Duke had boys castrated at
Stuttgart by two surgeons from Bologna. Burney speaks with con-
temptuous pity of this prince, "half of whose subjects are theatrical
musicians, violinists and soldiers, and the other half beggars and
outcasts."

t Another Italian, Boroni, succeeded him.

204 A Musical Tour

violinists : Nardini, Baglioni, Lolli and Ferrari.
" Jommelli," writes Leopold Mozart, " is taking
all imaginable pains to close the Court to Germans.
. In addition to his salary of four thousand
florins, the upkeep of four horses, lighting, and fuel,
he has a house in Stuttgart and another at Lud-
wigsburg. . . . Add to this that he has un-
limited power over his musicians. . . . Would
you like a proof of the degree of his partiality for
people of his own nation ? Just think of it — he and
his compatriots, of whom his house is always full,
have gone to the length of declaring, in respect of
our Wolfgang,* that it was an incredible thing that
a child of German birth could possess such passion
and animation. "f

Augsburg, which had never ceased to be in touch
with Venice and Upper Italy; Augsburg, where
Italian influence had permeated architecture and the
arts of design in the time of the Rennaissance —
Augsburg, which was the native city of Hans Burgk-
mair and the Holbeins, was also the cradle of the
Mozarts. Leopold Mozart had, it is true, settled at
Salzburg, but in 1763 he made a journey to Augs-
burg, with his little boy, aged seven ; and Teodor de
Wyzewa has shown that it was there, in all prob-
ability, that Mozart " began to initiate himself into
the free and majestic beauty of Italy/'J

* The little Mozart.

f nth July, 1763. Letter from Leopold Mozart to Haguenauer
of Salzburg, published by Nissen, reproduced by Teodor de Wyzewa.

% A publisher of music, J. J. Lotti, was at that time publishing a
great deal of Italian music at Augsburg ; and Wyzewa remarks that
one of his publications, the Thirty arias for organ and harpsichord,
by Guiseppi Antonio Paganelli, of Padua (1756) had a very great
resemblance to the first sonata which the little Mozart wrote in
Brussels, on the I4th October, 1763, a few weeks after passing
through Augsbourg. (T. de Wyzewa, Les premiers voyages de Mozart,
Revue des Deux-Mondes, ist November, 1904.)

Across Europe 205

Munich was almost an Italian city. It had
Italian comic-opera houses and Italian concerts
and the most famous Italian singers and performers.
The sister of the Elector of Bavaria, the Dowager
Electress of Saxony, was a pupil of Porpora and
had composed Italian operas, words and music.
The Elector was himself an excellent virtuoso and
a fairly good composer.

Scarcely had he entered Austria but Burney
noted " the corrupt, factitious, Italianised melody
which one hears in the towns of this vast empire."

Salzburg, whose musical life is described by
Teodor de Wyzewa in some charming pages devoted
to La Jeunesse de Mozart, was half Italian in
music, as in architecture. About 1700 a writer of
bad opere buffe, Lischietti, of Naples, was Kapell-
meister there.

But the German metropolis of Italianism was
Vienna. There reigned the monarch of the opera,
the opera made man : Metastasio. Father of an
innumerable progeny of operatic poems, each of
which was set to music, not once, but twice, thrice,
ten times, and by all the famous composers of the
century, Metastasio was regarded by all the artists
of Europe as a unique genius. " He has," says
Burney, " all the feeling, all the soul and complete-
ness of Racine with more originality." He was the
first authority in the world on theatrical music.
" This great poet," says Burney again, " whose
writings perhaps contributed more to the perfection
of vocal melody, and consequently of music in
general, than the united efforts of all the composers
of Europe," let it be understood that he sometimes
gave the musicians the motive or subject of their
airs ; and he arrogated to himself a protective

2o6 A Musical Tour

supremacy over them. Nothing better shows the
Italianisation of Germany better than this fact ;
the most famous representative of Italian opera
chose as his residence not Rome or Venice but
Vienna, where he held his court. Poet Laureate
to the Emperor, he disdained to learn the language
of the country in which he lived ; he knew only three
or four words of it ; just what he needed, as he said,
' to save his life ' ; that is, to make himself under-
stood by his servants. Worshipped by Germany,
he did not conceal his disdain of her.

His right hand in Vienna, his principal inter-
preter in music, was the composer Hasse, the most
Italianate of German musicians.* Adopted by
Italy, baptised by her il Sassone (the Saxon), the
pupil of Scarlatti and Porpora, Hasse had acquired
a sort of Italian chauvinism that surpassed that
of the Italians themselves. He would not hear of any
other music ; and he was ready to fall upon President
de Brosses when the latter, while in Rome, attempted
to uphold the superiority of Frangois Lalande in the
matter of church music.

" I saw," says De Brosses, " my man ready to suffocate for
anger against Lalande and his supporters. He was already
exhibiting a display of chromatics, and if Faustina, his wife,f
had not thrust herself between us he would in a moment
have seized me with a semi-quaver and crushed me with a
diesig."

We may say that the German Hasse was, about
the middle of the eighteenth century, the favourite

* Johann Adolph Hasse, born at Bergedorf, near Hamburg, in
1699 ; died in Venice, 1782. He was the greatest master of the opera
at Dresden, re-organising and directing it from 1731 to 1763. He
wrote more than a hundred operas.

t Hasse married the most famous Italian songstress of his time,
La Faustina (Bordoni).

Across Europe 207

Italian composer of opera seria in Germany, England,
and Italy even. He had set to music all Metastasio's
operatic libretti, with a single exception — some of
them three or four times, and all at least twice ;
and although one could not possibly say that
Metastasio worked slowly,* Hasse did not find that
he wrote quickly enough ; and to pass the time he
composed the music for various operas by Apostolo
Zeno. The number of his works was so great that
he confessed that " he might very well fail to recog-
nise them if they were shown to him ; " he derived
more pleasure, he said, in creating than in preserving
what he had written ; and he compared himself with
" those fertile animals whose offspring are destroyed
in the act of birth or left to the mercy of chance. "f

* Metastasio used to boast of having written his best drama,
Hypermnestre, in nine days. Achilles in Scyros was written, set to
music, staged and performed within eighteen days.

f Burney gives us an excellent portrait of this great composer,
whose fame, in the eighteenth century, was far greater than that
of Bach. He was everywhere regarded as the composer who, " in
respect of vocal music, was closest to nature, most graceful and most
judicious, and also as the most fertile of living authors." " He was
tall and strongly built. His face must have been handsome and
finely chiselled. He seemed older than Faustina, who was small,
dark, witty and animated, although he was ten years the younger.
He was very quiet and kindly in manner. He was talkative and full
of commonsense ; equally devoid of pride and prejudice ; he spoke
ill of no one ; on the contrary, he did justice to the talents of several
of his rivals. He had an infinite respect for Phillip Emmanuel Bach,
and spoke of Handel only with reverence, but he declared that he had
been unduly ambitious to parade his talents, to work out his parts
and subjects, and that he was over-fond of noise. Faustina added
that his voice parts were often uncouth. Above all he admired the old
Keiser, "one of the greatest musicians the world has ever possessed,"
and Alessandro Scarlatti, " the greatest harmonist of Italy, that is,
of the whole world." On the other hand, he found Durante " harsh
and grotesque, coarse and barbarous." When Burney saw Hasse all
his books, manuscripts and personal belongings had been burned in
1760, during the bombardment of Dresden by the King of Prussia,
at the moment when the composer was about to have the complete
edition of his works engraved at the cost of the King of Poland.
But this disaster had not affected his serenity. " He is so pleasant,
so easy in his welcome, that I felt as much at my ease with him,

208 A Musical Tour

This illustrious representative of Italian opera
in German was, it is true, beginning to be discussed.
About 1760 another party, and a very zealous one,
was formed in Vienna in opposition to Metastasio
and Hasse. But who were its leaders ? Raniero da
Calsabigi of Leghorn — yet another Italian ! — the
librettist of Orfeo and Alceste ; and Gluck — no less
Italianate than Hasse, a pupil of Sammartini's
in Milan, the author of two score dramatic works
in the Italian style, who professed all his life, to
write Italian operas.* — Such were the opposing

after a quarter of an hour, as though I had known him a score of
years." Burney, who "owed to his works a great part of the
pleasure .yhich music had afforded him since his childhood " compares
him with Raphael, and likens his rival Gluck to Michel Angelo.
And in truth there is hardly a more beautiful melodic pattern than
Hasse's ; only Mozart is perhaps his equal in this respect. The
oblivion into which this admirable artist has fallen is one of the
worst examples of historical injustice, and we shall endeavour some
day to repair it.

* Burney's portrait of Gluck is one of the best that we have of
this great man.

Burney was introduced to him by the British Ambassador
Extraordinary, Lord Stormont, — and the introduction was not
superfluous, for " Gluck was of as fierce a temper as Handel, of
whom we know that everyone was afraid. ... He was living
with his wife and a young niece, a remarkable musician. He was
comfortably lodged in well-furnished rooms. ... He was
horribly scarred by small-pox. His face was ugly and he had an
ugly scowl." But Burney had the good fortune to find him in " an
unusually good temper. . . . Gluck sang. Although he had
little voice he produced a great effect. With a wealth of accom-
paniment he combined energy, an impetuous fashion of dealing with
the allegro passages, and a judicious expressiveness in the slow
movements ; in short, he so cleverly concealed what was defective
in his voice that one forgot that he had none. He sang nearly all
Alceste, several passages from Paris and Helen and a few airs from
Racine's Iphigenia, which he had just finished writing. ... He
did all this from memory, without a single written note, with
prodigious facility. He rose very late. It was his custom to write
all night and rest in the morning."

Burney met him again at a dinner-party given by Lord Stormont.
Gluck was his neighbour at table. Rendered expansive by the
bumpers he had drained, Gluck confided to Burney that he had just
received from the Elector Palatine a tun of excellent wine, in token of

Across Europe 209

camps ; and between them there was no question of
the superiority of Italian opera : that was contested
by neither ; the only point at issue was whether
certain reforms should or should not be introduced
into opera. " The school of Hasse and Metastasio,"
says Burney, " regarded all innovation as charla-
tanry and remained attached to the old form of
musical drama, in which the poet and the musician
demanded equal attention on the part of the specta-
tors— the poet in the recitative and narrative and
the composer in the airs, duets and choruses. — The
school of Gluck and Calsabigi devoted themselves
rather to scenic effects, to the propriety of the
characters, to simplicity of diction and musical
execution, rather than to what they called flowery
descriptions, superfluous comparisons, a cold and
sententious morality, with tedious symphonies and
long musical developments." — Here we have the
whole difference ; at bottom it is a question of age,
not of race or style. Hasse and Metastasio were old ;
they complained that there had been no good
music written since the days of their youth. But

gratitude for one of his comic operas ; the prince had been delighted
to learn that the music was that " of an honest German who loved a
good old wine." He boasted freely of his fashion of leading an
orchestra, " in which he was as formidable as Handel. He said that
he had never known any to rebel, although he forced the musicians
to give up all other occupations for the opera, and often made them
rehearse parts of his operas twenty or thirty times." He spoke
to Burney of his stay in England, " to which he attributed entirely
the study which he had made of nature for his dramatic compo-
sitions." He was there at the time of Handel's glory ; there had
been no room for him, and the people were greatly incensed against
foreigners. It was only with difficulty that Gluck's Caduta del
Giganti had been performed ; and it had been a failure. Gluck had
been struck by the fact " that naturalness and simplicity acted most
strongly upon the spectators, and since then he had endeavoured
never to depart from them. It may be remarked " — says Burney —
" that the majority of the airs in Orfeo&re as simple and natural as
English ballads."

16

210 A Musical Tour

neither Gluck nor Calsabigi had any more idea than
the older men of dethroning Italian music and
replacing it by another style. In his preface to
Paride ed Elena, written in 1770, after Alceste,
Gluck speaks only of " destroying the abuses which
have found their way into Italian opera and are
degrading it."

Viennese society was divided between these two
Italianate coteries, which exhibited only the merest
shade of difference. The whole Imperial family
was musical. The four Archduchesses played and
sang in Metastasio's operas, set to music alternately
by Hasse and by Gluck. The Empress sang and had
even acted formerly on the boards of the Court
theatre. Salieri had just been appointed composer
to the Chamber and director of the Italian theatre ;
and he remained conductor of the Court orchestra
until 1824, an obstacle in the way of German
composers, and of Mozart in particular.

Vienna, then, even into the nineteenth century,
remained a centre of Italian art in Germany. In
the days of Beethoven and Weber, Rossini's Tancred
was enough to ruin the painfully erected fabric of
German music ; and we know with what unjust
violence Wagner spoke of this city — unfaithful, in
his opinion, to the Germanic spirit : " Vienna —
does not that say everything ? Every trace of German
Protestantism effaced ; even the national accent
lost, Italianised ! " *

* * *

In opposition to the Germany of the South and the
ancient capital of the Holy Roman Empire, the new
capital of the future German Empire, Berlin, was
already growing in importance.

* Richard Wagner, Beethoven, 1870.

Across Europe 211

" The music of this country " writes Burney
in Berlin, " is more truly German than that of
any other part of the Empire." Frederick the
Great had set his heart upon Germanising it ; he
would allow no operas to be performed in his States
other than those of his favourite Graun and
the Saxon Agricola and a few — only a few — of
Hasse's. But observe how difficult it was for German
taste to liberate itself ! These operas were Italian
operas, and the king could not even imagine that
there could be any object in singing in any other
language than Italian.

" A German singer ! " he used to say. " I would
as soon hear my horse neigh ! "*

And who were these German composers, whose
exclusive and intolerant protector he had appointed
himself ? so that Burney was justified in saying :
" The names of Graun and Quantz are sacred in
Berlin, and more respected than those of Luther and
Calvin. There are many schisms ; but the heretics
are forced to keep silent. For in this land of univer-
sal tolerance in matters of religion, whosoever should
dare to profess other musical dogmas than those of
Graun and Quantz might count quite certainly on
being persecuted . . ."

J. J. Quantz, who was composer and musician
in ordinary to the Royal chamber, and also taught
the King to play the flute, " had the taste which
people had forty years ago " — that is, the Italian
taste. He had travelled extensively in Italy. He
was of the school of Vivaldi, Gasparini, Alessandro

* Frederick the Great had, moreover, a violent antipathy for
sacred music. " It was enough," Agricola told Burney, " that a
composer should have written an anthem or an oratorio, for the king
to regard his taste as debased and out of fashion."

212 A Musical Tour

Scarlatti and Lotti, and for him the golden age
of music was the age of these musical forbears.
As Burney says, " he had been liberal and advanced
. . . some twenty years previously."
It was much the same with Graun, and Karl
Heinrich Graun was, with Hasse, the most
famous name in German music in the days of Bach
and Handel.* Marpurg calls him " the greatest
ornament of the German muse, the master of
pleasing melody . . . tender, sweet, sympa-
thetic, exalted, stately and terrible by turns. All the
strokes of his pen were equally perfect. His genius
was inexhaustible. Never has any man been more
generally regretted by a whole nation, from the
king to the least of his subjects."

" Graun " — says Burney more soberly — "was, thirty years
ago, a composer of graceful simplicity, having been the first
among the Germans to renounce the fugue and all such
laboured inventions ! "

A poor compliment to us, who have since then
returned with such singular affection to " all such
laboured inventions ! " But for an Italianate
musician this was the best of compliments. Graun,
indeed, had applied himself to acclimatising, in
Berlin, the Italian operatic style, and in particular
the style of Leonardo Vinci, that composer of genius

* Karl Heinrich Graun was born in 1701 at Wahrenbriick, in
Saxony, and died in 1759. He entered the service of Frederick the
Great in 1735. He organised the opera in Berlin, and wrote for it
twenty-seven works. Frederick the Great was on several occasions
his collaborator ; he furnished him with the libretti of Fratelli Nemici,
after Racine (1750), Mevope, after Voltaire (1756), Coriolano (1749),
Silla (1753) and Montezuma (1755). This last work — an anti-clerical
opera — in which Frederick wished to show, as he wrote to Algarotti,
"that even the opera may serve to reform morals and destroy super-
stitions," has been republished by Herr Albrecht Mayer-Reinach, in
the collection of Denktn&ler deutscher Tonkunst (Leipzig, Breitkopf,
1904).

Across Europe 213

who bears a doubly famous name. This is tanta-
mount to saying that his tastes were those of the
generation of Italians who lived between the times
of Alessandro Scarlatti and Pergolesi. He too,
like Quantz, dated back to 1720.

In patronizing Graun and Quantz, Frederick
was therefore merely an Italianate conservative,
who sought to defend, against the fashion of the
day, "the productions of an age which was regarded
as the Augustan age of music ; the age of Scarlatti,
Vinci, Leo and Porpora, as well as that of the greatest
singers, since when, he considered, music had
degenerated." In the face of a denationalised
Vienna it was not worth while to pose as the repre-
sentative of German art. Frederick would not have
been far from agreement, in fundamentals, with the
most Italianate coterie of Vienna : that of Hasse and
Metastasio.* There was one only difference between
his taste and that of the Viennese coterie : namely,
his favourites were not the equals of Hasse and
Metastasio. " Admitting," says Burney, " that
the period of art which the king prefers is the best,
he has not chosen its best representatives."

I am wrong : there was one other difference.
In Vienna, whatever the exigencies of the musical
fashion, music had always been free ; the authori-
ties, anything but liberal in other matters, allowed
the musicians and lovers of music liberty of taste.
In Berlin they had to obey ; no taste other than
the king's was permitted.

The extent to which the meddling tyranny of
Frederick the Great interfered with music is

* He allowed operas by Hasse to be performed in Berlin, but was a
declared enemy of Gluck ; he treated Alcests to the harshest criticism,
as did Agricola, Kirnberger, Forkel, and all his regiment of
theorists, who fell into step behind him.

214 A Musical Tour

unimaginable. It was the same despotic spirit that
prevailed throughout the whole organisation of
Prussia.* An inquisitional and menacing super-
vision weighed upon music — for the king was a
musician : a flautist, a virtuoso, a composer, as all
had reason to know. Every afternoon, at Sans-
Souci, from five to six o'clock, he gave a concert
consisting of performances on the flute. The Court
was invited by command, and listened piously to
the three or four " long and difficult " concertos
which it pleased the king to inflict upon them.
There was no danger of his running short of these :
Quantz had composed three hundred, expressly
for these concerts ; he was forbidden to publish
any of them, and no one else might play them.
Burney amiably observes that " these concertos
had no doubt been composed in an age when people
held their breath better ; for in some of the difficult
passages, as in the organ-points, his Majesty was
obliged, against the rules, to take breath in order
to finish the passage. "f The Court listened in
resignation, and it was forbidden to betray the

* It should be noted how a stranger, even one with the highest
recommendations, was received in the Prussian capital. Burney tells
us of his arrival in Berlin. Despite his passport and a previous
inspection by the customs officials on the Prussian frontier, he was led
like a prisoner to the Berlin custom-house, and left shivering there
for two hours in the rainy courtyard while the least of his effects were
being examined. Very different was the Austrian custom-house,
where young Mozart, at the age of seven, disarmed the officials by
playing them a minuet on his little violin. But the most incredible
part of Burney's narrative is the account of his visit to Potsdam.
At the principal entrance and then at each door in the palace he was
subjected to an interrogatory which was, he says, quite the most
curious thing that had happened to him during his travels. " It could
not have been more rigorous at the postern gate of a besieged city.'*

f Burney admits elsewhere that he played with "great
precision, a clean and uniform attack, brilliant fingering, a pure and
simple taste, a great neatness of execution, and equal perfection in
all his pieces. His shakes are good, but too long and too studied."

Across Europe 215

least sign of approbation. The contrary eventu-
ality had not been foreseen. Only the gigantic
Quantz, worthy, in respect of stature, to figure in
one of the King of Prussia's regiments,* " had the
privilege of shouting bravo to his royal pupil, after
each solo, or when the concert was finished."

But without lingering over these well-known
facts let us see how the royal flautist endeavoured
to rule, by blows of his stick, the whole musical
world of Berlin, and especially the opera.

Certainly he had done good. From the death of
Frederick I. (1713) to 1742, Berlin had had no opera, f
Immediately upon his accession Frederick II. built
one of the greatest opera houses in existence, with
the inscription : Fredericus Rex Apollini et Musis.
He got together an orchestra of fifty performers,
engaged Italian singers and French dancers, and
prided himself upon having a company which in
Berlin was said to be the best in Europe. The
king bore all the expenses of the opera, and
admission was gratuitous to all who were decently
clothed ; which made it possible, after all, to exclude
the popular element, even from the parterre. J

But although the artists were royally paid I fancy
they earned their salaries. Their situation was by
no means restful.

* The appearance of this old musician was of unusual majesty :
" The son of Hercules he justly seems
By his broad shoulders and gigantic limbs."

f Frederick- William I. had suppressed plays and orchestra by
this simple note • " Devil take them ! "

\ At Mannheim and Schwetzingen all the subjects of the Elector
Palatine were admitted to the opera, and went to the Elector's
concerts ; which fact, according to Burney, did no little " to form the
judgment and establish the decided taste for music which one finds
throughout the Electorate."

216 A Musical Tour

" The king " says Burney, " stood always behind the
Kapellmeister, with his eyes on the score, which he folio wed, so
that one might truthfully say that he played the part of director-
general. ... In the opera-house, as in the camp, he
was a strict observer of discipline. Attentively observing the
orchestra and the stage, he noted the least sign of negligence in
the music or the movements of the performers and reprimanded
the culprit. And if any member of the Italian company dared
to infringe this discipline, by adding to or subtracting from
his part, or by altering the least passage, he was subsequently
ordered by the king to apply himself strictly to the execution
of the notes written by the composer, under penally of corporal
punishment."

This detail gives us the measure of the musical
freedom enjoyed in Berlin. An Italian pseudo-
classicism reigned in a tyrannical fashion permitting
neither change nor progress. Burney is scandalised
by this tyranny.

" Thus," he says, " music is stationary in this country,
and will be so long as his Majesty allows the artists no more
liberty in this art than he grants in matters of civil government,
striving to be at the same time the sovereign of the lives, for-
tunes and interests of his subjects, and the supervisor of the
least of their pleasures."

We may add that Berlin was above all a city of
musical professors and theorists, who assuredly
did not permit themselves to discuss the king's
taste, for they were all more or less officials, like the
chiefest among them, Marpurg, who was director of
the royal lottery and councillor to the Ministry of
War. They avenged themselves upon this constraint
by bitter disputes, and their squabbles did nothing
to add to the liberty or the amenity of musical life
in Berlin.

" Musical disputes," says Burney, " are accompanied in
Berlin with more heat and animosity than anywhere else.
Indeed, as there are more theorists than performers in this city,

Across Europe 217

there are also more critics, which is not calculated to purify the
taste nor to feed the imagination of the artists."

Those whose tempers required freedom could
not endure Berlin. If Philipp Emmanuel Bach
remained in the city from 1740 to 1767 it was
much against his will. The poor fellow could not
leave Berlin — he was not allowed to do so ; and he
suffered in his taste and his self-respect. His position
and his salary were both unsatisfactory ; he was
obliged, day after day, to accompany the royal
flautist on the harpsichord ; and both Graun and
Quantz, " whose style was absolutely opposed to
that which he was striving to establish/' were
preferred to him. This explains why he was, later on,
so delighted to find himself in the good town of
Hamburg, which was devoid of interest in music
and of taste, but was hospitable, good-natured and
free. To an artist, anything — even ignorance —
is better than despotism in matters of taste.

Such, then, at first sight, was the musical culture
of the great German cities. Italian opera was
supreme, and Burney closed his observations of
Germany with these words :

" To sum up : the points of comparison between the melodic
style of the Germans and that of the Italians are as numerous as
the analogies of taste offered by the majority of the composers
and artists of these two countries. The reason for this resides
in the relations obtaining between the Empire and its extensive
possessions beyond the Alps, and also in the Italian opera-
houses which have almost always existed in Vienna, Munich,
Dresden, Berlin, Mannheim, Brunswick, Stuttgart, Cassel.etc."

But had not Germany lately produced the
eminently German genius, the vast and profound
achievements of Johann Sebastian Bach ? How

2i8 A Musical Tour

is it that his name finds so little space in Burney's
notes and in his picture of Germany ?

We have here a fine example of the diversity of
the judgments pronounced upon a genius by his
contemporaries and by posterity ! At a distance of
two centuries it seems to us impossible that he should
not have held a predominant position in the musical
world of his period. We may at a pinch admit
that a great man may remain absolutely unknown
if the circumstances of his life are such that he is
isolated and can neither publish his works nor force
the public to give him a hearing. But we find it
difficult to believe that he could be known and not
recognised ; that people should have had an indifferent
and merely benevolent opinion of him; that they
should have been unable to distinguish between
him and the artists of the second rank by whom
he was surrounded. Yet such things are constantly
happening.

Shakespeare was never completely ignored or
unrecognised. M. Jusserand has shown that
Louis XIV. had his plays in his library and that they
were read in France in the seventeenth century.
The public of his own time appreciated him, but not
more than it appreciated many other dramatists
and less than it appreciated some. Addison,
who was acquainted with his works, forgot, in
1694, to mention him in his Account of the Best
English Poets.

It was almost the same with Johann Sebastian
Bach. He had a respectable reputation among the
musicians of his time, but this celebrity never
extended beyond a restricted circle. His life in
Leipzig was difficult, straitened, almost poverty-
stricken, and he was a victim of the persecutions of

Across Europe 2*9

the Thomasschule, whose council did not regret his
death, and, like the Leipzig newspapers, did not
even mention it in its annual opening address.
It refused the small customary pension to his widow,
who died in 1760 in a condition of indigence.
Fortunately Bach had trained a number of scholarly
pupils, to say nothing of his sons, who cherished a
pious recollection of his teaching. But how was he
known twenty years after his death ? As a great
organist and a masterly teacher. Burney remembers
him when he passes through Leipzig, but only to
cite the opinion of Quantz, who said of Bach " that
this able artist had brought the art of playing the
organ to the highest degree of perfection/' He adds :

" In addition to the excellent and very numerous compo-
sitions which he wrote for the church, this author has published
a book of preludes and fugues for the organ, on two, three or
four different motives, in modo recto et contrario, and in each of
the twenty-four modes. All the organists existing to-day in
Germany were trained in his school, just as most of the harpsi-
chord-players and pianists have been trained in that of his son,
the admirable Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, who has long
been so well-known. ' '

Observe the position of the epithet " admirable."
In 1770 the " admirable Bach " is Philipp Emmanuel
Bach. He is the great man of the family. And
Burney goes into raptures over the fashion in which
" this sublime musician " had contrived to train
himself.*

* Despite the absurdity of comparing him with, and preferring
him to his father, Philipp Emmanuel Bach was none the less a music-
ian of genius, who lacked only a character, or at all events a will,
equal to the height of musical inspiration. But a sort of dis-
couragement and lethargy paralysed his admirable powers, and it is a
melancholy sight to see in him, at certain moments, as it were the soul
of a Beethoven, struggling in the bonds of a straitened life, giving off
flashes of genius and then relapsing into apathy.

220 A Musical Tour

" How did he form his style ? It is difficult to say. He had
neither inherited it nor acquired it from his father, who was his
sole master ; for that worthy musician, whom no one has
equalled in knowledge and invention, thought it necessary to
concentrate in his own two hands all the harmony of which he
could avail himself ; and undoubtedly in his system he sacrificed
melody and expression. "

Nothing could be more characteristic than the
promptitude with which the sons of Johann Sebastian
— who, for that matter, venerated him — denied his

Burney's portrait of him is the best ever drawn. I cannot resist
the temptation of quoting some part of it.

Philipp Emmanuel Bach had invited Burney to dine with him.
Burney was shown up " into a music-room, large and elegantly
adorned with pictures, drawings and engraved portraits of more than
a hundred and fifty famous musicians, of whom several were English,
and some portraits in oil of his father and grandfather. Philipp
Emmanuel sat down to his Silbermann harpsichord. He played three
or four very difficult pieces with all the delicacy, accuracy and passion
for which he was so justly distinguished among his compatriots.
In the pathetic and tender movements he seemed to draw from his
instrument cries of grief and lamentation, such as he alone could
produce. The dinner was good, elegant and cheerful. There were
present three or four friends, well-bred people, and his family ; Frau
Bach, his elder son, a student (a law-student — the younger was a
painter) and his daughter. After dinner Philipp Emmanuel played
again, almost uninterruptedly, until eleven o'clock at night. He
became animated to the point of appearing to be inspired. His eyes
were fixed, the lower lip drooping, and his whole body was soaked
in perspiration. He said that if he often had occasion to force him-
self to work thus he would grow young again. He is fifty-nine years
of age. He is rather short of stature ; his hair and eyes are black
and his complexion brown ; he is full of fire and is of a very gay and
vivacious temper."

Burney was convinced that Philipp Emmanuel was not only one
of the greatest composers for the harpsichord, but "the best and
most skiltul artist in the matter of expression. . . He could
play in every style, but he confined himself more especially to the
emotional style. He was a learned writer, even more so than his
father when he chose to be so, especially in the variety of his modu-
lations." Burney compared him with Domenico Scarlatti : " Both,
being sons of celebrated composers, dared to attempt new paths. It
is only now that the ear is becoming accustomed to Domenico
Scarlatti. Philipp Emmanuel Bach seemed likewise to have out-
stripped his period. . . . His style is so out of the common that
one has to be in some degree accustomed to it in order to appreciate
it." And Burney, justly enough, recognised, in his inspired passages,
" the effusions of a cultivated genius."

Across Europe 221

taste and his principles. Philipp Emmanuel speaks
with irony of musical science, especially of canons,
" which are always dry and pretentious." He regards
it " as a defect of genius to abandon oneself to these
dreary and insignificant studies."* He asks Burney
whether the latter has met with any great contra-
puntist in Italy. Burney replies in the negative.
" Faith," says Philipp Emmanuel, " if you did
find one it wouldn't be a very valuable discovery,
for when one knows counterpoint there are other
things too that are necessary to make a good
composer."

Burney is wedded to his own opinion, and both
agree that " music must not be a large gathering
where everybody speaks at once, so that there is
no longer any conversation, nothing but wrangling
and ill-breeding and noise. A sensible man should
wait for the moment in conversation when he can
put in his word with effect." — It was the school of pure
melody, in the Italian style, that condemned the
old German polyphony. Italianism had permeated
even the Bach family.

Johann Sebastian himself was possibly not
indifferent to the charm of Italian opera. According
to his historian, Forkel, he relished the work of
Caldara, Hasse and Graun. He was a friend of
Hasse's and La Faustina's ; and in Leipzig or
Dresden he often went, with his elder son, to hear
the Italian opera. He used laughingly to apologise
for the pleasure which he took in these little
escapades. " Friedmann," he would say, " shall
we go and hear those pretty little Dresden songs

• This opinion acquires a particular meaning when we read, a
little farther on, that " Johann Sebastian Bach had pitilessly forced
him to spend the first few years of his life " in such studies.

222 A Musical Tour

again ? " Is it so difficult to recognise in certain
passages of his compositions reminiscences of these
" little songs ? " And who knows whether, in other
circumstances, had he had a theatre at his disposal, he
would not have gone with the tide, as the others did ?

His sons offered no resistance to the movement.
Italianism conquered them so thoroughly that one
of them became — for a time — completely the
Italian, under the name of Giovanni Bacchi. I
am referring to Johann Christian Bach, the youngest
of the family. He was fifteen years old at the
time of his father's death, and had received at his
hands a thorough musical training ; he displayed
a preference for the organ and the clavier. After
his father's death he went to his brother Philipp
Emmanuel in Berlin. There he found the Italian-
ised opera of Graun and Hasse. The impression
which it made upon him was so profound that he
set out for Italy. He went to Bologna, and there
this son of Johann Sebastian Bach placed himself
under the discipline of Father Martini.* For eight
years, with Martini's assistance, he worked incessantly
at the task of acquiring an Italian training and
an Italian soul. At intervals he went to Naples,
and there became a champion of the Neapolitan
school of opera ; and he produced a series of Italian
operas based on poems by Metastasio, including
Catone in Utica (1761) and Alessandro nelle Indie
(1762), which enjoyed a great success. Burney
said that " his airs were in the best Neapolitan
taste." — But this is not all ; having abjured his
father's musical taste he likewise abjured his faith ;
the son of the great Bach became a Catholic. He

* We learn of this training from thirty-one letters written by
Johann Christian to Father Martini.

Across Europe 223

was appointed organist in the Duomo of Milan,
under an Italian name.* It would be difficult to
mention a more categorical example of the conquest
of the Germanic spirit by Italy.

And we are not speaking of second-rate men,
having no other claim to our attention than the fact
that they were the sons of a great man. Johann
Sebastian's sons were themselves great artists,
whom history has not placed in their proper rank.
Like the majority of the musicians of this transition
period, they have been unduly sacrificed to those
who preceded them and those who followed them.
Philipp Emmanuel, far in advance of his time
and very imperfectly understood, excepting by a
few, has rightly been described by M. Vincent d'Indy
as one of the first direct forerunners of Beethoven.
Johann Christian is hardly less important ; from
him derives not Beethoven, but Mozart, f

Another remarkable musician, who, even more
than Philipp Emmanuel, was the precursor — one
might almost say the model — of Beethoven, in his
great sonatas and variations : Frederick Wilhelm
Rust, a friend of Goethe's, musical director to Prince
Leopold III. of Anhalt, at Dessau, was seduced
like the rest by the Italian charm. J He journeyed to

• See Max Schwartz, Johann Christian Bach, 1901.

t Max Schwartz points out the direct influence of Johann
Christian Bach upon clavier music and opera, and above all upon the
first of Mozart's symphonies. Mozart often speaks of Johann
Christian in his letters. He declares that he " loves him with all his
heart " ; that he has " a profound esteem for him." Certain airs
of Johann Christian's used to haunt him. He applied himself to
rivalling him, to writing fresh melodies to the same words.

J See Wilhelm Hosaus : Frederick Wilhelm Rust (1882). Rust
had been a pupil of Johann Sebastian's eldest son — Wilhelm
Friedmann — who had best^reserved his father's traditions. He also
took lessons from Philipp Emmanuel. It is only of late that his
artistic importance has been revealed, thanks to the publications of
some of his compositions by one of his descendants.

224 A Musical Tour

Italy and remained there for two years, assiduously
visiting the opera-houses and making the acquaint-
ance of the principal teachers — Martini, Nardini,
Pugnani, Farinelli, and, above all, Tartini, from
whom he learned a great deal ; and this sojourn
in Italy had a decisive effect upon his artistic edu-
cation. Thirty years later, in 1792, he once more
related his reminiscences of travel in one of his
sonatas, the Sonata italiano.

If the leaders of German music — such as the Bachs,
Rust, Gluck, Graun and Hasse — were affected
to such an extent by the influence of Italian art,*
how should German music hold out against the foreign
spirit ? Where was its genius to find salvation ?
* * *

To begin with, it was inevitable that the mass of
lesser musicians, the musical phis of Germany,
those who had not the means to go to Italy and
Italianise themselves, suffered from their humiliat-
ing situation and the preference given to the
Italians. Burney, compelled to admit that the
Italians in Germany were often much better paid
than German artists who were superior to them,
adds that for this reason " one must not blame the
Germans unduly for endeavouring to disparage the
merit of the great Italian masters, and to treat them
with a severity and a disdain which are due merely
to gross ignorance and stupidity/' — " All are jealous
of the Italians," he says elsewhere. It is true that

* I do not speak of the young musicians of the following period —
of Haydn, a pupil of Porpora's and a brilliant imitator ot Sammartini
— of Mozart, who during the first part of his life was a pure Italian
and whose first operas were performed and acclaim ed in Ita ly. Hasse,
on the other hand, who was inimical to Gluck because he did not
consider him sufficiently faithful to the true Italian tradition, loved
and admired Mozart, in whom he saw his more fortunate or greater
successor.

Across Europe 225

this remark occurs at the end of a sentence in which
Burney remarks that the Germans also furiously
attacked one another. Every town was divided
into jealous factions. " Everyone is jealous of
everyone else, and all are jealous of the Italians."
This lack of union was to be as disastrous to the
Germans in art as in politics ; it rendered them
all the more incapable of defending themselves
against the foreign invasion, inasmuch as their
leaders, the Glucks and Mozarts of the profession,
seemed to have gone over to the enemy.

But to the popular taste Italianism remained all
but unknown. The catalogues of the Frankfurt and
Leipzig fairs of the eighteenth century afford us
proof of this.* In these great European markets,
in which music occupied an important place, Italian
opera, so to speak, scarcely showed it self, f Of
German religious music there was abundance :
Lutheran canticles, oratorios, Passions, and above
all the collections of Lieder and Liedlein, the
eternal and inviolable refuge of German thought.

On the other hand, it is a remarkable fact that
Italian opera and Italian music were represented
in Europe, about the middle of the eighteenth
century, not by Italians, but by Germans ; by
Gluck in Vienna, Johann Christian Bach in London,
Graun in Berlin and Hasse in Italy itself. How
could it be otherwise than that a new spirit should
find its way into this Germanised Italianism ?

* The catalogues of the Frankfurt and Leipzig fairs, from 1564
to 1759, were published by Dr. Albert Gohler: Verzeichniss der in
den Frankfurter und Leipzig?* M^sskatalogen der Jahre 1564 bis 1759,
angezeigten Musikalien,ang'fertigt und mit Vorschlagen zur Forderung
der musikalischen Biicherbeschreibung begleitet, von Dr. Albert Gohler
(Leipzig, Kahnt, 1902, in 8vo.) See also an interesting article by
Michel Breuet in the Tribune de Saint-Gervais (May-June, 1904).

f Nor did French music, nor the work of the great Bach.

16

226 A Musical Tour

In these German masters, conscious of their superi-
ority, there gradually developed a desire, avowed
or unconfessed, to conquer Italy with her own
weapons. We are struck by the Germanic pride
which we perceive increasing in Gluck and Mozart.
And these brilliant Italianisers are the first to try
their powers in the German Lied.*

Even in the theatre we see the German language
reconquering its place. f Burney, who, after calling
attention to the musical qualities of the language,
was at first astonished that more use was not made
of it in the theatre, very soon realised that musical
compositions In the German language were beginning
to spread through Saxony and in the north of the
Empire. Since the middle of the century the poet
Christian Felix Weisse and the musicians Stand-
fuss and Johann Adam Hiller were composing,
at Leipzig, in imitation of the English operetta
and the comic operas of Favart, German operettas
(Singspiele) , the first example of which (1752)
(Der Teufel ist los, oder die verwandelten Weiber).
" The Devil is loose, or the Gossips Transformed/'^
was soon followed by a quality of similar works.

* Gluck, as early as 1770, set the odes of Klopstock to music.

f At the Hamburg opera-house operas had been performed in the
German tongue at the end of the seventeenth century. But from
the opening years of the eighteenth century Keiser and Handel bad
set the example of mixing Italian words with German in the same
opera ; and shortly afterwards Italian had invaded everything.

§ Music by Standfuss and Hiller. The same piece had been
produced, unsuccessfully, in Berlin, in 1743, as adapted from an
English operetta by Coffey, with the original English melodies. — Der
Teufel ist los had a second part, which, played in 1759, under the
title of Der lustige Schuster (7 he Merry Cobbler) was very popular.
These Singspiele were the rage in Germany for twenty years ; one
might say that they were the opera of the lower middle classes of
Germany. It is worth noting that Killer's chief pupil was Christian
Gottlob Neefe, Beethoven's master.

Across Europe 227

" The music/' says Burney, " was so natural and
so agreeable that the favourite airs, like those of
Dr. Arne, in England, were sung by all classes
of the people, and some of them in the streets."
Hiller gave the plebeian characters in his operas
simple Lieder to sing, and these Lieder became as
popular in Germany as the vaudeville in France.
" To-day/' says Burney, " the taste for burlette
(farces) is so general and so pronounced that there is
some reason to fear, as sober individuals do, that it
may destroy the taste for good music, and above
all for music of a more exalted style/' But far from
destroying it, these popular Lieder were one of the
sources of the new German opera.
* * *

But the capital fact which was to be the salvation
of German music was the sudden development
of instrumental music at this juncture. At the
moment when Germany seemed to be abjuring,
with vocal polyphony and the infinite resources
of the contrapuntal style, the old German manner,
her very personality — at the moment when she
seemed to be abandoning the effort to express her
complex and logical soul, to adopt the Latin style
of sentiment, she had the good fortune to find, in
the sudden outgrowth of instrumental music, the
equivalent, and more, of what she had lost.

It may seem strange to speak of good fortune
in respect of an event in which intelligence and
determination evidently played a great part.
However, we must allow here, as always in history,
for chance, for the co-operation of circumstances,
which now favour, now oppose the evolution of a
people. It is true that the more vigorous peoples
always end by constraining chance and forcing it

16a

228 A Musical Tour

to take their side. But we cannot deny that there
is such a thing as chance,

And in this instance it is plainly visible.

The Germans were not alone in developing the
resources of instrumentation. The same tendencies
were manifest in France and Italy. The conserva-
toires of Venice were devoting themselves to instru-
mental music, with successful results ; the Italian
virtuosi were everywhere famous, and the symphony
had its birth in Milan. But symphonic music
harmonised but ill with the Italian genius, which was
essentially methodical, lucid and definite, a thing of
clear outlines. At all events, to transform this
genius and adapt it to the novel conditions would
have necessitated an effort of which Italian music,
overworked, exhausted and indolent, was no longer
capable. In Italy the change would have meant a
revolution. In Germany it meant evolution.
Consequently the development of the orchestra
assured Germany of victory, while it contributed
to the decadence of Italian music. Burney com-
plains that the Italian operatic orchestras had
become too numerous and that their noise forced the
singers to bawl. " All the chiaroscuro of music
is lost ; the half-tints and the background disappear ;
one hears only the noisy parts, which were intended
to provide a foil for the rest." Consequently the
Italian voices are being spoiled, and Italy is losing
her prerogative of il bel canto, of which she was
justly so proud. A useless sacrifice ; for while
renouncing her own inimitable qualities she cannot
acquire qualities and a style which are alien to her.*

* Hasse and Metastasio, the last representatives of the pure
Italian tradition, had foreseen this danger. Metastasio, in his con-
versations with Burney, complained forcibly of the progress of instru-
mental music in opera.

Across Europe 229

The Germans, on the other hand, are quite at
home in the nascent symphony. Their natural
taste for instrumental music, the necessity in which
numbers of the little German Courts found themselves
of confining themselves to such music, as the
result of a strict application of the principles of the
Reformed Church, which forbade them to main-
tain an opera-house, the gregarious instinct which
impelled the German musicians to unite in small
societies, in small " colleges," in order to play
together, instead of practising the individualism
of the Italian virtuosi — all these things — every-
thing, in short — even to the comparative inferiority of
German singing, was bound to contribute to the uni-
versal development of instrumental music in Germany.
Nowhere in Europe were there more schools in which
it was taught, or more good orchestras.

One of the most curious musical institutions in
Germany was that of the " Poor Scholars," which
corresponded (save that they were on a less generous
scale) with the conservatoires for poor children
in Naples. These Scholars, troops of whom Burney
met in the streets of Frankfort, Munich, Dresden
and Berlin, had in each city of the Empire " a
school confided to the Jesuits, where they were
taught to play instruments and to sing." The
Munich school contained eighty children from
eleven to twelve years of age. Before being
admitted they had already to be able to play an
instrument or to give signs of a marked vocation
for music. They were kept at school until their
twentieth year. They were boarded, fed, and taught,
but not clothed. They had partly to earn their
living by singing or playing in the streets. This
was an absolute obligation upon them, " so that

230 A Musical Tour

they should make their progress known to the
public that maintained them/' — In Dresden the
city was divided into wards or quarters, and the
Poor Scholars, divided into bands of sixteen, seven-
teen or eighteen, had to sing, in turns, before the
doors of the houses of each quarter. They made
up little choirs and orchestras — violins, 'cellos,
oboes, horns and bassoons. Wealthy families
subscribed to the schools in order that the
Poor Scholars should play before their houses once
or twice a week. They were even engaged for
private entertainments, or for funerals. Lastly,
they had to take part in the religious ceremonies of
Sunday. It was a hard profession, and an irksome
obligation to sing in the streets in winter, however
inclement the weather. These Poor Scholars were
afterwards appointed as schoolmasters in the parish
schools, on condition that they knew enough of
Greek and Latin and the organ. The most dis-
tinguished were sent to certain of the Universities,
such as Leipzig and Wittenburg, where more than
three hundred poor students were maintained.
They were allowed to devote themselves to music
or to the sciences.

Some of the princely Courts had musical founda-
tions for poor children. The Duke of Wurtemberg
had installed at Ludwigsburg and " Solitude," in
one of his summer palaces, two conservatoires, for
the education of two hundred boys and a hundred
girls of the poorer classes. " One of his favourite
amusements was to be present at their lessons."

In addition to these schools for poor children
the communal schools gave a considerable amount
of attention to music, especially to instrumental
music. Such was the rule in Austria, Saxony,

Across Europe 231

Moravia, and above all in Bohemia. Burney
records that every village in Bohemia had a
public school where the children were taught music
just as they were taught to read and write. He
inspected some of them. At Czaslau, near Collin,
he found " a class of young children of both sexes
occupied in reading, writing, and playing the violin,
the oboe, the bassoon and other instruments. The
organist of the church, who improvised magni-
ficently on a sorry little organ, had, in a small
room, four harpsichords, on which his smalt pupils
practised." At Budin, near Lobeschutz, more than
a hundred children of both sexes were taught music,
singing and playing in the Church.

Unhappily the skill thus acquired was stifled by
poverty. " The majority of these children were
destined for inferior situations of a menial or
domestic nature, and music remained for them
simply a private recreation ; which is perhaps,
after all," says Burney philosophically " the best
and most honourable use to which music could
be applied." The rest entered the service of wealthy
landowners, who with these servants made up
orchestras and gave concerts. The nobility of
Bohemia made the mistake of detaching themselves
unduly from its interesting peasantry, living for the
greater part of the year in Vienna, " If the
Bohemians," says Burney, " had the advantages
enjoyed by the Italians they would surpass them.
They are perhaps the most musical race in all
Europe." They excelled above all in the playing
of wind-instruments : wood-wind toward the Saxon
frontier and brass in the direction of Moravia. —
It was one of these Bohemian schools that trained
the reformer of instrumental music, the creator

232 A Musical Tour

of the symphony, Stamitz, born at Teuchenbrod,
the son of the Kantor of the church there. It was in
these schools that Gluck received his earliest musical
training. It was at Lukavec, near Pilsen, that
Haydn, director of music in the private chapel of
Count Morzin, wrote his first symphony in 1759.
Lastly, the greatest German violinist, Franz Benda,
who was, with Philipp Emmanuel Bach, the only
musician in Berlin who dared to possess a style of
his own, independently of Graun and the Italianisers,
was also a Bohemian.

Thanks to these schools and these natural faculties,
instrumental music was cultivated throughout
Germany, even in Vienna and Munich, pre-
eminently the centres of Italian opera. We say
nothing of princely virtuosi : of the flute-playing
king in Berlin ; of the 'cellist who was Emperor
of Austria ; of the princely violinists, the -Elector
of Bavaria and the Prince- Archbishop of Salzburg ;
of the royal pianists, the Duke of Wiirtemburg
and the Elector of Saxony, the latter of whom, by
the way, was " so timid in society," says Burney,
" that the Electress, his wife, herself had scarcely
ever heard him ! . . . ." Nor do we insist
upon the alarming consumption of concertos on the
part of the German dilettanti ; an average of three
or four concertos to the concert in Berlin, while in
Dresden five or six were given in a single evening !
. . . But the nascent symphony was putting
forth its shoots on every side. Vienna had a
veritable efflorescence of symphonists ; among
whom the naturalistic Hoffmann* and the imaginative

* " As much art as you like," Hoffmann used to tell his compa-
triots, " provided it is always combined with nature ; and even in the
marriage of art and nature the lady must always wear the breeches."
(Burney.)

Across Europe 233

Vasshall, with Ditters, Huber, Gusmanand the youth-
ful Haydn, who had just made his first appearance,
were singled out for praise. This music found an
enthusiastic public in Vienna. Teodor von Wyzewa
has described the Court music and " table music "
of the Archbishop of Salzburg ; three concert-
masters were responsible in turn for preparing the
programmes of these orchestras and for conducting
the performances. The work of Leopold Mozart
shows what a quantity of instrumental music was
demanded by the every-day life of these little
German Courts. — To this we may add the private
concerts and the serenades sung or played in the
streets to the order of wealthy burghers.

The centre of instrumental music in Germany
was in those days Mannheim — or, during the summer
months, Schwetzingen, at a distance of some seven
or eight miles from Mannheim. Schwetzingen,
which was only a village, was apparently inhabited,
says Burney, solely by a colony of musicians.
" Here it was a violinist who was practising ; in
the next house a flautist ; there an oboe, a bassoon,
a clarionette, a 'cello, or a concert of several
instruments combined. Music seemed the principal
object in life." The Mannheim orchestra " con-
tained, by itself, perhaps more distinguished
virtuosi and composers than any other in Europe ;
it was an army of generals."

This company of the elect, which also earned
the admiration of Leopold Mozart and his son,
used to give celebrated concerts. It was at these
concerts that Stamitz, since 1745 first concert-
master and musical director of the Prince's chamber
music, made the first experiments in the German
symphony.

234 A Musical Tour

" It was here," says Burney, " that Stamitz, for the first
time, ventured to cross the boundaries of the ordinary operatic
overtures, which until then had merely served to challenge
attention and impose silence. . . . This brilliant and
ingenious musician created the modern symphonic style by
the addition of the majestic effects of light and shade which he
used to enrich it. First all the various effects were tested which
could be produced by the combination of notes and tones ;
then a practical understanding of the crescendo and diminuendo
was acquired in the orchestra ; and the piano, which until then
had been employed only as synonymous with echo, became,
with the forte, an abundant source of colours which have their
gamut of shades in music just as red and blue have in painting."

This is not the place to insist on this fact ; it is
enough to note in passing the originality and the
fertile audacity of the experiments made by the
fascinating Stamitz, who to-day is so little and so
imperfectly known, although, as Burney tells us,
he was regarded in his day "as another Shakespeare,
who overcame all difficulties and carried the art of
music farther than any had ever done before his
time ; a genius all invention, all fire, all contrast in
the lively movements, with a tender, gracious and
seductive melody, simple and rich accompaniments,
and everywhere the sublime effects produced by
enthusiasm, but in a style not always sufficiently

polished/'*

* * *

We see that in spite of Italianism the German
genius had contrived to reserve to itself certain
independent provinces in which it was able to grow

f Lastly we may mention a form of instrumental music in which
the Germans were past masters, a form which they imposed upon
the rest of Europe : military music. In France, according to
Burney, in the second half of the century, " the scores of the marches
and even the musicians in many of the garrisons were German."
One of the best military bands was that of Darmstadt ; Burney
tells us that it consisted of four oboes, four clarionettes, six trumpets,
four bassoons, four horns and six bugles.

Across Europe 235

in safety, until the day when, conscious of its power,
it would give battle to the alien spirit and liberate
itself from the yoke. None the less it is true that
about the middle of the eighteenth century Italian
opera was supreme in Germany, and the leaders of
German music, those who were afterwards to be its
foremost liberators, were all without exception
profoundly Italianised. And magnificent as was
the development of German music in Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven and their successors, it is permissible to
believe that this was not the normal development
of German music as it would have been had the
latter, in taking shape, relied only upon its own
resources, drawing only upon its own capital.

From the overwhelming triumph of the Italian
opera over the Germany of the eighteenth century
there has remained, through the centuries, the
indelible mark of Italian feeling and the Italian
style, which is perceptible even in the most
thoroughly German masters of our own period.
It would not be difficult to prove that Wagner's
work is full of Italianisms ; that the melodious
and expressive language of Richard Strauss is,
to a great extent, fundamentally Italian. A victory
such as that of the Italy of the eighteenth century
over Germany leaves its indelible traces upon the
history of the people that has suffered it.

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390 A musical tour through

R6433 the land of the past

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