A MUS ICAL TOUR THROUGH

THE LAND OF THE PAST

A MUSICAL TOURTHROUGH THE LAND

OF THE PAST

ROMAIN ROLLAND

TRANSLATED BY

BERNARD M IALL

AH O CIO Z

15 .

LONDONKEGAN PAUL

,TRENCH

,TRUBNER S: CO . ,

LTD.

BROADWAY HOUSE . 68 74 CARTER LANE, E C.

1922

PREFACE

THIS co llec tion of essays is a sequel to my first seriesof M usician s of the Past.* The greater number ofthese papers are devoted to an age of transitio n , inwhich th e feeling , the aesthetic and the fo rms o f ourmodern music were taking shape . In accordancewith a phenomenon common enough in histo ry, theyare not

,as a rule , the greatest artistic personalities

who become the pioneers of the future . The Jo hannSebastian Bachs tower too high above their time toinfluence it directly ; they stand outside their agethey shed their beams only at a distance . It is theTelemanns

,the Hasses , the Mannheim symphonists

who launch new movements . I have tried to makeTelemann live again in these pages . I shall speaklater o n of my love and admiration for Hasse .The world has been extremely un j ust to these

masters . In their life -time their fame was perhapsexcessive ; but the oblivio n into which they havesince fallen is surely much more 50 . Tho se whooriginate ideas

,the Te lemanns

,fo r instance

,and the

Mannheimers , have rarely the leisure to beprofound . They sow to the four winds let us begrateful to them for t he fruits which we gather

The majo rity o f these papers appeared in the Revue dc Paris(rst July, 1900 , 13th August, 1905 13th February, 1906 , 15th Apri l,

The article o n Pepys’

s Diary was in cluded in a vo lumeo f M élanges Hugo Rieman n , published 1909 . The study o f Te lemann is published fo r th e first time .

v i. Preface

to-day . Do not deman d o f them the perfe ct plen itude o f autumn

,fo r the se were th e capricious an d

fertile sprin g . To each his reward ! That of themusician s wh o we re th e inn o vato rs of the first halfo f th e e ighteenth century was ample en o ugh , sincethey prepared the way fo r Mo zart an d Beetho ven .

NOTE B Y TRANSLATOR

THE numerous quo tatio n s'

from Pepys’

s Diary. in theessay upo n the gen ial Caro lean amateur are takenfrom Mr . H . B . Wheatley ’s admirable editio n (ineight volumes , published by Messrs . G . BellSons . For various reaso ns , including the absenceof re ferences

, the far more numero us quo tatio n s fromthe wo rks o f Dr . Burn ey have been r e-tran slatedfrom the Fren ch o f the version employed by theauthor . E .M.

I I .III .IV.

VI .

VI I .

CONTENTS

PREFACEA HUMOROUS NOVEL BY AN E IGHTEENTHCENTURY MUS ICIAN

AN ENGLISH AMATEUR (PEPYS ’

S DIARY)A PORTRAIT OF HANDE I.THE ORIGINS OF THE CLASS IC STYLEIN E IGHTEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC

THE AUTOB IOGRAPHY OF A FORGOTTENMASTER : TELEMANN , THE SUCCESSFULRIVAL OF J. 5. EACH

METASTAS IO Z THE FORERUNNER OF

GLUCKA MUSICAL TOUR ACROSS EUROPE IN

THE E IGHTEENTH CENTURYI . ITALYI I . GERMANY

21 J ‘)

A HUMOROUS NOVEL BY AN EIGHTEENTHCENTURY MUSICIAN

TWO centuries ago the Germans were alreadyfillin g Naples

,Rome an d Venice with their prin ces ,

their merchants,their pilgrims

,the ir artists and

their tourists . But Italy was not then passive , asShe afterwards became . She exported fourfoldwhat was imported across her frontiers ; and shedid not fail to repay to Germany the visits whichshe received . She profited by the exhaustioncaused by the Thirty Year S ’ War to flood Bavaria ,Hesse

, Saxony, Thuringia and Austria with herworks of art and her artists . Music

,above

all , and the theatre were left to her . Cavalli ,Bernabei

, Steffani and To rri reigned in MunichB o n tempi an d Pallavicino in Dresden ; Cesti ,Draghi

,Zian i

,Bono ncini

, Caldara and G . Portain Vienna ; Vivaldi was Kappelmeister in HesseDarmstadt and Torelli in Brandenburg-Anspach .

Multitudes of libretto -writers and scene-painters ,of sopranos

,co ntraltos and castrati, of violinists

and harpsicho rd players,o f players on the lute ,

the flute,the guitar and in struments of every kind

,

followed these leaders . Their great engine of war wasthe Opera , the supreme creation of the Renaissancein its decline and their centre of propaganda was

2 A Mus ical Tour

Dresden , whose Italian theatre , founded in 1662 ,

enj oyed 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 madeno secret of the fact that they mean t t o make it abranch of the Dresden Opera , an d in a few yearsthey had carried their point . Opera music was nolonger content with the theatre ; it made its wayinto the Church , the last refuge of German thought .Its brilliant pathos soon superseded the seriousnessof the old masters ; the crowd thronged to thesedramatic recitals ; the Singers and pupils of theThomaskirche , deserting their posts , went over tothe other camp , and a void proceeded to formabout the last defenders of the national tradition .

There was in the Thomaskirche in those daysa Can tor (Kappelmeister) whose name was JohannKuhnau . This man , a most attractive type of abroadly developed genius , such as that heroic ageof art produced

,was

,says Mattheso n , very learned

in theology, j urisprudence , rhetoric , poetry, mathematics, foreign languages and music .” He haddefended theses in law ,

one of which was in Greek ;he was an advocate ; he cultivated Greek andHebraic philosophy, translated works from theFrench and Italian , and himself wrote original works ,both scientific and imaginative . Jacob Adlungsays that he did not know whether Kuhnau didgreater honour to music or to science .” AS amusician he is quite incontestably one of the pillarsof the o ld German art . Scheibe regarded him , with

A Humorous Novel 3

Keiser, Telemann and Handel , as one of the fourgreatest German composers of the century . Hedid indeed possess a depth of feeling , and at the sametime a beauty of form

,a grace compounded of

strength and lucidity,which even to-day would

make his name a household word—if society werecapable of taking a genuine interest in music withoutbeing urged

~ to do so by fashio n . Kuhnau wasone of the creators of the modern sonata he wrotesuites for the clavier which are models of spiritedgrace , occasionally tinged with reverie . He composed Some descriptive poems programme music—un der the title of B iblical S on alas ; cantatas ,sacred and profane and a Passion ,

which makes him,

if we are to tell the truth , n o t only the immediatepredecessor of Bach at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig

,

but also , in a great many respects , his indisputablemodel .Here are the terms in which he presents to thepublic one of his principal musical works . Theywill give some idea of his quiet

,benign graciousness

and his generous nature . He begs indulgence for thefantastic Spirit in which his charming sonatas werewritten (Clavier-Frachte an s 7 S on aten ) he saysthat he has employed the same liberty as thatemployed by Nature

,when

,hanging the fruits on

the trees , she gives one branch less or more thananother It did not take me long to producethem it was with me j ust as it is in certain countries where , thanks to the unusual heat , everythinggrows with such rapidity that the harvest may bereaped a month after sowing . While writing theseseven sonatas I experienced such eagerness thatwithout neglecting my other occupations I wroteone 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 merelyso that no o n e shall expect to find in them rareand exceptional qualities . It is true that we are notalways craving fo r extraordinary things we ofteneat the S implest fruits o f our fields with as muchpleasure as the rarest and most exquisite foreignfruits , although the latter may be very costly andcome from a great distance . I know there aregon r rn cts among the amateurs of music who willaccept nothing save that which comes from Franceor Italy—above all when fortune has permitted themto breathe the air of those countries . My fruits areat the disposal o f all those who do not find themto their taste have only to seek elsewhere . AS forthe critics

,they will not spare them ; but the

venom of the ignorant is powerless to inj ure themmore than a cool dew will harm ripened fruit .That same year (1700) Kuhnau published his nobleand expressive B iblische Historian ,

and a novelwhich we shall consider at greater length . Hewas thirty-three years of age . He stood alone inthe midst of Italians and Italianisers .” Hisfriends and pupils had deserted him . He witnessedthe decline of German music and made unavailingefforts to check its fall . In vain did he appeal tothe City Council to protect public education , j eopardised not only by the spell of foreign art but also bythe bait of cheap pleasures and easy profits

,which

debauched the youth of the Leipzig schools,drawing

them in flo cks to the Opera . The Council decidedagainst Kuhnau and in favour of success . On

Kuhnau ’s death in 1722 Italian opera was supremein Germany . It would seem that such inj usticeon the part of Fate must have filled the old master ’s

A Humorous Novel 5

heart with bitterness . But the artists of those daysdid not cu ltivate their melancholy ; and Kuhnauseems never to have lost his bantering geniality inrespect of hostile men and things . He knew theworld , and was not in the least surprised thatCharlatans should have precedence over honestmen .

“ 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 , andspends on them much more money than on the betterand choicer dishes which he is accustomed to seeon 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 meantimehe cheerfully avenged himself upon stupidity andignorance by exhibiting them in a satirical novelentitled Der Musicalische Quack-S alber (The M usical

Charlatan )This curio us book , published in Dresden in theyear 1700,

and very well known in the eighteenthcentury, was preserved for us by only two examples ,one in the Ro yal Library of Berlin and the other inthe City Library of Leipzig

,when Herr Kurt Benn

dorf conceived the idea of republishing it in HerrSauer ’s collections of Deutsche Literaturclenkniaeler .jWritten before its time

,in lively

,lucid German

,

under French influence,full of short

,vigorous

phrases , intermingled with French and Italianwords , this little volume can still be read withpleasure . It is full of good nature and Sparkling with

Der M usicalische Quack-S alber , n icht allein e den en vorstaendi

gen Liebhabern der M usic , son dern auch allen an dern welche in

dieser Kun st kein e son derbahre Wissen schaft haben , in ein en

kurtzweiligen un d angen ehmen H istorie zur Lust and E rgetzligkeit

beschrieben , von Johann Kuhn au .—Dresden , Anno 1700.

1Berlin , 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 co untenance . There is much to belearned from these many-coloured pictures ofseventeenth century life in Saxony . They Sheda light on one of the most interesting periods ofGerman history—the rapid co nvalescence of thecountry after th e Thirty Years ’ War , and the formation 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 spentscarcely a year in Italy

,and had filled a very humble

situation there,as copyist or famulus to a few

celebrated musician s ; but no more than this wasneeded to persuade him that the genius o f his mastershad descended upon him . He was very careful ,however

,to avoid putting the matter to the test

in Italy,knowing that he wo uld find it difficult

to get his pretensio ns accepted in Rome or Venicehe crossed the Alps

,relyin g upon the ingenuous

Simplicity of his compatriots and their servile respectfo r

_

all that was foreign .

He makes straight for Dresden,the centre of Italian

ism , the home of the Opera . He begins by travestying his name from an insultin g nickname appliedto his father (Theuer Af e—precious monkey) heevolves the name of a respectable Neapolitanfamily : Caraffa . On e o f the eccentricities of theage was to give German names a French or Latindisguise . Kuhnau castigates this absurdity withthe sturdy commonsense of a Mo liere . We may

A Humorous Novel 7

excuse those on whose backs these foreign appellations have been fastened by ridiculous parents ; theymay be forgiven fo r retain in g them . But those whoof their own initiative falsify their names and createa new race for themselves deserve the fate whichbefell the gentleman whose name was Rieben erbut who called himself Rapparius when he soughtas heir to claim his brother ’s estate

,the j udge

rej ected his claim,saying that in the petition which

he had addressed to him he had admitted himselfto be ‘ incontinent (Rapparius) , and thereforecould not lay claim to the inheritance . Many othermadmen 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 allin the French fashio n

,he wished to ensure that his

name Should match them . As a matter of facthis knowledge of French was confined to thesewords Monsieur

,j e suis votre tres humble servi

teur .

’ But it was absolutely essential that hisname should become French . And farther , as hehad a great desire to be a gentleman , he thoughtthat while he was changing his name there wouldbe no additional difficulty in adorning it a little bythe addition of the particle . He therefore calledhimself Jean de Jelme . But he had not reflected thatthe German pro n oun ciation would turn this intoS chand-S chelm (infamous scoundrel , dirty rascal)so that he was despised and derided by all .

I wish it were SO with all those who blush at theirGerman names and commit forgeries to Change themthey deserve that Germany Should blush for them inreturn and hurl them across her frontiers with other

Der M usicalische Quack-S alber , Ch . vii.

8 A Musical Tour

Kuhnau was as one crying in the wilderness . Itwas eno ugh for a Theuer Af e to baptize himselfCaraffa and to murder a few words o f Italian

,and

the musical world o f Dresden hastened to welcomehim . They were all of that absurd species whichbelieves that a compo ser is a S impleto n if he has notbeen to Italy, and that the air o f fo re ign co untriesendows an artist with every perfection

,after the

fashio n o f the Lusitanian winds,which

,according

to Pliny,fecundate Caraffa

,moreover ,

employs ingenious expedients to arouse and stimulatethe curiosity of the public . He has letters posted tohim from various quarters of Euro pe with so norousaddresses : A-ll

’

I llustr issimo S ign o re, il S ign or

Pietr o Carafi'

a, maestr o in comparabile di musica

or in German Dem Wohl-Edlen ,B esten un cl S in n

r eichen Herrn Pietro Carafia ,Hochberu

‘

hmten I taliaen

ischen M usico , un cl un vergleichlicken Virtuosen .

The address o f his lo dgin 'g is almost always forgotten

,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,

” “ theincomparable virtuoso . Thus in a few days no oneis ignorant of his name and he is popular beforehe has appeared .

* The Collegium M usicum ofDresden sends him a deputatio n , invites him toattend 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 inthem . Caraffa allows them to entreat him despitesome technical skill o n the theorbo and the guitarhis talent is more than indifferent . But he is careful not to squander it and discovers pretexts to

0p. cit., Ch. viii .

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10 A Musical Tour

player ’s lack of talent but their indulgence endeavours to find excuses for it . It is difficult to shaketheir confidence but as soon as a suspicion finds itsway into their worthy minds nothing can get it outagain . They inspect the bogus Italian , all unknownto him , with conscientious deliberation ; and then ,when they are at last co nvinced

,instead of becoming

indignant with the charlatan and expelling himfrom their midst , they enact a little comedy at hisexpense .They encourage him to lie

,to boast

,to exhibit

his foolish pretensions,and laugh in their S leeves

while feigning to admire him,until the moment

when Caraffa , in cons ternation , realises that they havebeen laughing at him for weeks . In this way theyinduce him

,despite his prudence

,to betray his in

Sign ificance , by showing them some of his worksand to ensure that he shall

-not have recourse to hisusual method o f composition , which is one of shameless 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

S ings,he beats time with ' his head and feet . No

working-man occupied in the most laborious tradetoils as he does . After an hour and a half of thisthe sweat is pouring over his face and back , and hehas not yet thought of a melody . Now he tries toset pen to paper he dips it in the ink ; he writes ,but always erases what he has written ; he spoilspaper , tears it up and begins again . He triesanother method ; he rises and marches furiouslyacross the room as though he intended to breakdown the doors and the walls ; this continues fora good quarter of an hour . Finally he resorts to the

A HumOl‘OUS Novel 11

superstition of unlucky gamblers,who believe

that in order to recapture their luck they mustchange their place and take another chair . He leavesthe table and the benches and sits on the plankfloo r . He had brought to his labours all the energiesof his body

,and never noticed that it was nearly

mid-day and that his lamp was still burning . Atlast the melodies of fo ur well-known songs occurredto him : B on soir jardin ier , Damon vin t en profondepen se'e, Un e belle dame habite en cc pays, Elle repose.

Having once suffered from his poverty he now suffersfrom abundance he does not know which of thesebeautiful airs will best adapt itself to the giventext

,and , above all , which would be the least recogn is

able . He is o n the point of settling the matter bycasting dice then he decides to blend them together,or rather to j uxtapose them .

” —We can imaginehow the musicians of Dresden delighted in thisabsurdity . At Leipzig , whither Caraffa goes next ,the citizens and students make Sport of him in acrueller fashion they set him and another ridiculo usmusician by the ears

,exciting them to burlesque

fury,and fin ally subj ecting both to the j udgment

of a grotesque tribunal,a mytholo gical and facetious

masquerade,by which the two S impletons are duped ,

and which recalls the Ceremony ” scene in theB ourgeois gen tilhomme . jDefeated , derided , scoffed at , Caraffa is not greatlyperturbed An y other man in his position wouldhave had a thousand reasons fo r being miserableon reflecting upon his precarious Situation and hisshame . Caraffa , forced to escape hurriedly fromDresden , is as little concerned as a charlatan who ,being unmasked in one country

,reflects : Bah !

Op. cit., Ch . M . 1" 0p. cit. , Ch . xlv .

-xlviii .

2 A Musica l Tourthere are other countries in the world ; if one islost there are ten to discover ! You have only to pushon , and it will be some little while before other townsdiscover your igno rance Thus o n e is sure of nevergoin g to bed supperless and o f always having a coatto one ’s Everywhere , as he j o urneys on ,he makes free with the table , the cellar an d the bedof the Can tors, organists and musicians of the pettyS tates , whom he dazzles by his boasting . Heexploits in wholesale fashion the absurd amateurs

,

the ignorant tradesmen who entertain artists in theirdesire to pass for connoisseurs . He instals himself inthe country houses of rustic squires who

,suffering

from tedium , are anything but exacting as regardsthe quality o f his music and his j ests he fil ls hispurse and his belly until the moment when he becomesaware that he is beginning to weary his hosts thenhe decamps

,promptly

,without demanding his

wages,but not without occasionally carrying o ff a

a few Silver spoons and forks . He despoils the poorvillage schoolmasters of their savings

,with the

promise of enabling them,in a year ’s time

,to become

kapellmeister at some princely Court and helaughs in the faces of his di es when they come tohim afterwards

,weeping and cursing , to demand

the return of their money . If one of them takesthe j est ill and lo dges a complaint

,that is his affair

Caraffa is acquainted with the delays of the Germanlaw -courts .Lastly

,the rascal has one support which never

fails him and consoles him for his mo r tifieatio n s :

the women . They are not always seductive, butthey are always seduced . Long before the KreutzerS onata, Kuhnau had noted the ravages which

Op. cit., Ch. xxv.

A Humorous Novel 13

muSIC and above all the performer, commits in thefeminine heart and he gives some amusing instances .The most mirth-pro vo king and the completest ofthese is that o f the Chatelaine of Riemelin (Hornitz) ,which I Should like to relate , if this story, moreGallic than Teutonic

,were not a little too undraped .

Its hero,moreover

,is not Caraffa but another lute

picker,the fo rmer playing but a secondary part

in it .

* But Caraffa is himself a Don Juan . Heconquers the hearts of the Roman ladies with asonata of his own composition . They raved overit ; it rained kisses and meaning glances . Neverwas my phiz thus feted . j Hardly has he arrivedin Leipzig but he turns the head of the prettiestgirl in the town—beautiful , impressionable , wealthyand a good musician she loses all j udgment and alldiscretion so soon as Caraffa begins to strum on theclavier and Sing with his raucous voice . Whenthe father, a substantial merchant , by name Pluto ,learns o f the intrigue , he is ready to burst with ragehe reviles his daughter and turns the rascal out ofhis house . None the less , the lovers continue tomeet

,by night

,in his garden ; there Caraffa sings

scenes from Orfeofl; comparing himself with its hero ;the girl is quite ready to play Eurydice and to escapefrom the house of Pluto but at the last momentthere appears , most seasonably, a strapping wenchof a j ailor ’s daughter whom Caraffa got with childduring a certain soj ourn of his in a Zittau prison towhich he was sentenced for swindling . She takesthe seducer by the throat , Shouting at the top ofher voice that he must marry her . In the midst of

0p. cit. , p . 28 . 1 cit. , p . I I .

10p. cit. , Ch . xxxix . , x lv . , 1.

14 A Musical Tour

the uproar the young Plutonian makes herescape , never to return .

These extravaganzas are enacted against a realbackground , accurately observed ; there are scenesfrom the law-courts and the fair

,with quacks in the

market place , peasants in the tavern , squires in theircountry houses , burgesses at table or engaged inbusiness ; and the language and manners of eachclass are always humorously recorded . In theforeground is the crowd of musicians and students .In each of these Saxon cities a Collegium Musicumis established . This is a society of all the musiciansin the town

,who meet regularly once or twice a

week in a special hall . Thither each repairs withhis instrument and two of the members

,by turns ,

make it their business to provide the Collegiumwith musical compositions concertos , sonatas ,madrigals and arias . At these meetings there arelong discussions on the art of music . They setgiven words to music ; they indulge in friendlyconversation . Sometimes the Collegium givesbanquets

,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 instrument and to Sing . They are , however , by no meansprofessional performers ; they are burgesses whohave other occupations . He in whose house theymeet in Dresden is the collector of taxes .*Music has likewise its place in the Un iversities andthe Collegia oratoria . At that of Leipzig we hear ofan Actus oratorius upo n music , which is concludedby an instrumental concert . Two students deliver

op. cit., Ch . xix.

A Humorous Novel 15

orations,one in celebration and the other in con

demn atio n of music . * It is not astonishing to hearmusic worthily praised by a great musician , but itis remarkable to find him making accusations whichstrike home and give evidence of a penetratingpurview of his age . Music

,he says , diverts us

from serious studies ; it deprives the country ofmany minds which have might been busied in itsservice . It is n o t without reason that the politiciansfavour music ; they do so for reasons of S tate .It diverts the people ’s thoughts it prevents themfrom examin in g the government ’s cards . Italyis an example o f this : her princes and ministers haveallowed her to become infected by quacks andmusicians so that they may carry on their businesswithout being disturbed .

”

T—And the example ofItaly is assuredly well chosen for if i t i s true thatby music she prolonged her glory and extended herinfluence over Europe , it was also by music and inmusic that she finally destroyed her moral andpolitical abilities . Of the Italy of the eighteenthcentury we might say, with a little modification ,what Ammienus Marcellinus said as long ago asthe period of the great invasions It is a pleasureresort . On e hears there n o th lng but music , andin every corner is the tin kling of strings . Insteadof thinkers one meets on ly S ingers

,and virtue has

made way for the virtuosi .”AS to what an Italian virtuoso might be about theyear 1700, and the mental vacuity of which he wascapable , Caraffa provides us with a striking example ,even though a trifle exaggerated . Nothing interestshim apart from music

,and all that interests him

in music is virtuosity . He is not acquainted withOp. cit. , p p 43

-

44. 10p. cit. , Ch . xliii .

16 A Musical Tour

the famous composers of this time ; he takes Rosenmiiller for an Italian . He is an ignoramus in respectof harmony he does not know what a con trapun tosemplice o doppio is .* He can talk only o f his lute ,his violin

,his guitar , and ab o ve all o f himself , himself ,

always himself . Whatever the subj ect of discussion,

whether war,or trade , or a fine sermon

,or a ' co ld in

the head , he always finds a means o f leadin g theconversation to himself , and always refers to himselfin the third person What does my Caraffa doPoor Caraffa ”

T“ Apart from his concerts the

rest of the world is a void . He scarcely knewwhether London and Stockholm were in Ho llandor in France , whether the north were ruled by theTurks and the Sublime Po rte were Spanish . Hisbrain was like a cupbo ard , one shelf of which co ntainsa few articles and the others none at all .” j: Inhim music had produced a mo nster . They aboundedin the Italy of the eighte°enth century . They arenot unknown even to-day and no country is withoutthem .

In the Germany of those days music had not quitethe same disadvantages . It found a counterweightin the philosophical o r ‘ literary studies to whichit was often a supplement . It was by no meanspractised as an empty amusement . The greatercomposers of the eighteenth century—Schli tz ,Kuhnau

,Handel— received a solid educatio n ; they

seriously studied j urisprudence,and it is a note

worthy fact that they seem to have hesitated forsome time befo re becoming musicians by pro fessio n .

An Italian virtuoso of the eighteenth century is

Op. cit., Ch . xix. 1Op. cit., Ch . xxvi.

1Op. cit., Ch . xlii .

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18 A Musical Tour

mathematics and physics , which are the basis ofmusic , welchegleicli zvokl tier Music fundamen tand he requires that he shall have meditated upon hisart , and Shall be acquainted with the theorists ofmusic , not only of his own time but of the past andespecially of antiquity ; he will not hear of hisfollowing Caraffa ’

s example , and . taking no interestin history and politics and the life of his own time .But these intellectual qualities would be nothingwithout moral qualities . A virtuoso will not fullydeserve the n o ble name of Virtu unless thevirtue of his art is embellished by the virtue ofhis life . As St . Augustin says Can tet vox, can tet

vita, can ten t 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 youplease the people rather than God

,or if you seek the

commendation of another human being rather thanthat of God

, you~ are selling your voice , and you make

it no longer yours but his . 1' Let the artist , then ,be modest before the face of God ; but let him atthe same time be conscious of his worth . A skilledmusician who is conscious of his skill should not betoo humble or live in a state of eclipse . It is notpermissible for him to seek obscurity and retirementif he has something to say to the world . A manwho has gifts and keeps them concealed gives proofof a poor character which does not trust the mightywings that God has given him wherewith to soaraloft . It is the action o f a craven , who dreads

Op. cit. , Ch . xlii.7 Si sic cantas, ut placeas Populo , magis quam Deo , v el

ut ab alio laudem quaeras , vo cem tuam vendis, e t facis earn n o n

tuam, sed suam.

’

A Humorous Novel‘

19

effort and perhaps there is in it likewise a certainamount of ill-feeling , an unconfessed j ealo usy whichis not willing to Share its treasures with others,as dying stags

,acco rding to Pliny, conceal and

bury their antlers that they may not serve asmedicine for human beings . Musical folk are onlytoo often constituted thus . Some of them

,when

they possess a fine compo sition , will part with thevery shirts on their backs rather than divulge anote of it . Let the artist beware of this sordideco nomy in respect o f his goo ds , his ideas , his energiesLet him scatter them generously about him ,

withoutbeing vain because of them , referrin g all glory to itsDivine so urce . Let him do all the good of whichhe is capable . If he receives no thanks (which isthe rule in this world) his clear conscience will behis reward ; it will give him a foretaste of thecelestial pleasure which awaits him after this life

,

when he will be summoned to the chapel of theAlmighty ’s castle (S chlosscapelle) where the angelsand the seraphim playmusic of a perfect

There is in these ideas,as in the whole book

,a

balanced judgment,a self-co nfiden ce ,

a hiddenstrength which explain the tranquillity with whichthe old German masters of the eighteenth centurysuch men as Sch iitz , Johann Christian Bach , JohannMichael Bach , Pachelbel and Buxtehude regardedthe future . They hadmeasured th e rest of the world ,and their own powers . They awaited their time .For Germany the hour has struck it is alre adya thing of the past . What a contrast between thefeverish excitement displayed by the German

0p. cit. , Ch. liii .

20 A Musical Tour

artists of the close of the nineteenth century andthe calm plenitude of bygone ages ! Victories thatare too complete consume the spirit of the victorswhen their first into xicatio n has abated they breakthe mainspring of the will

,depriving it of its motive

power . The triumphant genius of a Wagnerlaid waste the future of German music . The quietstrength of a Kuhnau embraced the idea of the futuredestinies of German art

,and the presentiment ,

as it were , of his great successor Johann SebastianBach .

AN ENGLISH AMATEUR(PEPYs

’ DIARY) .

NOTHING gives us a pleasanter idea of musical lifein the English society of the Restoration thanPepys ’ Diary . In this we perceive the place whichmusic held in the home of an intelligent citizen ofLondon .

Samuel Pepys is a well-known figure I will confine myself to recounting the principal events ofhis life . The son of a tailor, he was born in Londonin 1633 , and attached himself , to begin with , tothe fortunes of Lord Montagu

,

* Earl of Sandwich .

A Liberal,and in touch with the Republicans , after

Cromwell ’s death,under the Restoration

,he became

clerk to the Exch equer ,j and subsequently clerk ofthe Acts to the Admiralty . He retained this postuntil 1673 , and while holding it rendered great servicesto the English Navy ; with energetic probity herestored order

,economy and discipline therein

during the critical period of the Plague,the Fire of

London and the war with Ho lland . He was highlyesteemed by the Lord High Admiral

,the Duke of York

,

later James II . Nevertheless, he was calumniatedSir Edward Mon tagu , afterwards Earl o f Sandwich . His

mo ther married Pepys’ gran dfather (Tran slator ) .TIn th e Army Pay Office , under Sir Geo rge Down in g (Tran s

lator) .

22 A Musical Tourat the time of the Papist conspiracy

,accused of

Catholicism and sent to the Tower . He succeededin clearing himself and was re-appointed to theNavy Council . He remained Secretary to theAdmiralty

,and high in James ’ favour

,until 1688 .

After the expulsion of the S tuarts he retired fromthe Government , but his activity was unabateduntil his death in 1703 . He did not cease to interesthimself in letters , the arts and the sciences . In1684 he was appointed President of the RoyalSo ciety . He collaborated in various learned volumes .Magdalen College , Cambridge , possesses his collectiono f manuscripts : memoirs , engravings , documentsrelating to the Navy, and five volumes of old Englishballads collected by himself ; lastly, his Diary,in which he noted , in a shorthand of his own in v ention

,all that he did , day by day, from January,

1659 (1660) to May, 1669 . This Diary, with thatof his friend

,Evelyn

,is th e mo st lifelike collection

existing of contemporary data relating to theEngland of his period . In these pages I shallconsider the entries relating to music .

This Secretary to the Navy, this conscientiousstatesman , was a passionate lover of music ; tomusic he devoted a part of his days . He playedthe lute , the viol , the theorbo , the flageo let and therecorder

,

* and to some extent the spinet . I t wasthe custom

,among distinguished citizens

,to have

in their homes a collection of musical instruments ,A flute with a mo uth-piece , havin g eight ho les, on e o f which

is covered with a thin membran e — “

To Drumb leby’s , and

there did talk a great deal abo ut pipes, and did buy a reco rder,wh ich I do in ten d to le arn to play o n , th e so und o f it bein g,o f all so unds in th e wo rld , most pleasin g to me .

” —Pepys’ Diary,2nd April, 1668 .

An English Amateur 23

notably a case o f Six viols , in order to give concerts .Pepys had his little museum of instruments ; heflattered himself that they were the best in Englandand he played nearly all of them . His greatestpleasure was to S ing and to play the flageo let . Hecarried this flageo let about with him everywhere ,on his walks and in the eating-houses .Then Swan and I to a drin kin g-house n ear Temple-Bar ,where while h e wro te I played o n my flageo let till a dish o fpo ached eggs was go t r eady fo r us.

*

I came back by water playin g on my flageo let .

’

r

At night in to the garden to play o n my flageo let , it bein gmo o n shin e , where I staid a go o d whils tHe even ventured upon compositionWas all day in my chamber , compo sing some ayres, Godfo rgive me !

And his compositions—thanks to the composer'shigh position—enj oyed a great social success

,which

Pepys was n ot a little pr oudEventually he persuaded himself that his workswere excellentCaptain Down ing (who loves and un derstands musique)wo uld by all mean s have my so n g o f Beauty retire , " whichKn ipp has spread abroad , and h e exto ls it above anythin gh e ever heard and witho ut flattery I kn ow it is go od in itskind -

H

oth February, 1660 .

1'

3o th January, 1660 .

13rd April, 1661.- See also 17th February, 1659 , and 2o thJuly, 1664.

9 th February, 1662 .

22nd August, 1666 .

1'

oth November, 1666 cf . 9 th December, 1666 .

witho ut flattery I think it IS a very go od so ng.

”

24 A Musical Tour

He would solemnly induce actresses to practicehis songsAfter din n er I to teach Kn ipp my n ew re citative , o f It isde creed, ” o f whi ch sh e learn t a go o d part , an d I do well likeit and believe shall b e we ll pleased when sh e hath it all, and thatit will b e fo un d an agreeable thin g.

*

For the rest , as a person of importance , he did nottake the tro uble to write his accompaniments himselfhe had them written for himThen ce go in g away met Mr. Hin gsto n th e o rganist (my o ld

acquain tan ce) in th e Co urt, and I to o k him t o th e Dog Tavern ,

an d go t him to set me a bass t o my It is de creed ,” whi ch Ithin k will go well . He commen ds th e son g (says Pepysin gen uo usly) n o t kn owin g th e wo rds, but says th e ayr e isgo od, an d believes th e wo rds ar e plain ly expr essed j'By an d by comes Dr . Chi lde by appo in tmen t, and sat with

me all th e mo rn in g makin g me basses an d inward parts toseveral so n gs that I desired o f him .1

‘

He was also interested in the theory of musicTo my chamber with a go od fire , and there spen t o n e ho ur

o n Mo rley ’s In tro ductio n t o Musique , a very go od but un

methodical bo ok. §

Walked t o W o o lwich, all th e way readin g Playfo rd’

s

In tro duction to Musique , wherein are some thin gs verypr etty.”To Duck Lan e t o lo ok out fo r Mar san n e , in Fren ch, a man

that has wro te we ll o f musique , but it is n o t t o b e had, but Ihave given o rder fo r its bein g sen t fo r o ver, and I did herebuy Des Cartes

,h is little treatise o n Musiquexj

'

j'

Makin g th e b oy read t o me Des Cartes ’ bo ok o f Musickwhi ch I un derstan d n o t , n o r think h e did we ll that wr it it,tho ugh a mo st learn ed man it

14th November, 1666 . 22nd March , 1666 .

1'

19 th December, 16 66 . TT3rd April, 166 8 .

11sth April, 1667 . 11: 25th December, 1668 .

ro th March , 1666 .

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26 A Musical TourWith my wife and Deb . to th e King ’s Ho use , to see The

Virgin But that whi ch did please me

beyon d anythi n g in th e who le wo rld was th e win d-musiquewhen the an ge l comes down , which is so swee t that it ravishedme , and in deed , in a wo rd , did wrap up my so ul so that itmade me really Sick, j ust as I have fo rmerly been when in lovewith my wife ; that n e ither then , n o r all th e even in g go in ghome , and at home , I was able t o thin k o f anyt hin g, butremain ed all night tran spo rted , so as I co uld n o t be lievethat ever any musick hath that r eal comman d o ver th e so ulo f a man as thi s did upo n me .1

‘

But when he is dej ected,musi c 15 his consolation

At n ight home and to my flageo let . Played with pleasure ,but with a heavy heart, o n ly it pleased me to think how itmay please God I may live to spen d my time in the co un trywith plain n ess and pleasure , tho ugh but with little glo ry.S o to supper and t o bed iTho ugh my hear t is still heavy to think o f my po o r bro ther ,yet I co uld give way to my fan cy t o hear Mr s. T. M. play upo nthe

It must be admitted that Pepys had not very oftenoccasion to repair to this consolation

,for he was

not often melancho ly he regards music ratheras an unmixed delight

,the most perfect in life

I do co n sider that musick is all th e pleasure that I live fo rin the wo rld , and the greatest I can ever expect in the best o fmy life .

”

All those about him must Share his mania formusic and

,above all , his wife .

He had married her about the year 1655, when shewas only fifteen

,and he was twenty-three . He took

it into his head to teach her Singing, and he was somuch in love with her that he found his aptMassin ger’s . T27th February , 1668 . 11sth Jun e , 1667 .

16th March, 1664. 12th February, 1667 .

An Engl ish Amateur 27

beyond The first lessons werehighly successful both master and pupil were fullof enthusiasm .

Sat up late settin g my papers in o rder , and my mon ey also ,

and teaching my wife her music lesso n , in which I take gr eatpleasur ertS o home to my musique , and my wife and I sat sin gin g in

my chamber a go o d while to gether, and then to bed iSo far they had sung only unpretentious airs .But Mistress Pepys

,when She saw her husband

engaging a sin ging-master for Italian music, felther self-love wounded and wished to do the sameThis mo rnin g my wife an d I lay lo n g in b ed , and amo n g

o ther thin gs fe ll in to talk o f musique , and desired that Iwo uld let h er learn t o Sin g, whi ch I did co n sider, an d promisedh er sh e sho uld . S o befo re I ro se , wo rd was bro ught me thatmy sin gin g master, Mr . Go odgr o ome , was come t o teach me ;

and so she r o se and this mo rn in g began t o learn also . §

Here , then , we have her learning difficult Frenchand Italian airs What imprudence Pepysdoes his best to delude himself

,but in vain ; he is

forced to admit to himself that his wife has but littlemusical talent .S in gin g withmy wife , wh o hath late ly**begun to learn ,

and

I think wi ll come t o do somethin g, tho ugh h er eare is n o t go o d ,n o r I , I co n fess, have patien ce en o ugh to teach h er , o r hearh er sin g n ow and then a n o te o ut o f tun e , an d am to blame thatI can n o t bear with that in her whi ch is fit I Sho uld do withh er as a learn er , an d o n e that I desir e much co uld sin g, and so

sho uld en co urage her . This I was tro ubled at , fo r I do findthat I do put her out o f hear t, and make her fearfull to singbefo re me .1

"

j'

28th August, 1660 117th May, 166 1.

1oth S eptember, 1660 . I st October, 166 1.

Th e go o d Pepys was indulgen t ; his wife had been tak inglesso ns fo r fiv e years !113o th October, 1666 .

28 A Musical TourPepys had the more reason to discover that hiswife sang out o f tune in that he was able

,in his

own ho use,to make comparisons which were not

to her advantage . It was the custom to keepservants who had some pleasant accomplishment ;in the ho useholds of Pepys ’ friends we find

,

musicalservants who were true artists . Evans , who wasbutler to Lady Wright , was a master of the luteand used to give Pepys lessons . * Dutton

,wife

to the footman o f on e of his friends , was a magn ifi

cent singer . j It Was a po int of ho nour with Pepysthat his servants likewise should be skilled perfo rmers

,and as a goo d husband—not wholly dis

interested—he insisted that his wife Should havemaidservants who were as agreeable to look at asto hear .First of all came the pretty chambermaid , Ashwell ,who played the harpsichord . Pepys used to buymusical scores for her and taught her the principlesof her artUp t o teach Ashwell th e ro un ds o f time and o ther thin gs

o n th e tryangle , an d made h er take out a Psalm very well,she havin g a go od ear f and han d . §He makes the little servant danceAfter din n er all th e aftern o on fiddlin g upon my viallin

(whi ch I have n o t do n e man y a day) while Ashwe ll dan cedabo ve in my upper best chamber , whi ch is a rar e ro om for

But Ashwell is not enough . We find writingingenuously

25th January, 1659 .

11sth October, 1665.

I S ee abo ve fo r what Pepys says o f his wife .

3rd May, 1663 .

24th April, 1663 .

An English Amateur 29

I am endeavo urin g to find a woman fo r h er to my mind ,and above all o n e that un derstan dsmusique , especially Sin gin g.

He finds the rare bird eventually . Her nameis Mercer . At the same time he en gages a little page ,a musician

,sent him by his friend Captain Cooke

,

master of the Chapel Royal , who had given himfour years ’ training . Pepys ’ delight is complete .S o back again home , and there my wife an dMercer an dTom

and I sat till e leven at n ight, Singin g and fiddlin g, an d a gr eatjoy it is t o see me master o f so much pleasure in my ho use ,that it is an d will b e still, I ho pe , a con stan t pleasure to me to

b e at home . Th e girl plays pretty well upo n th e harpsico n ,

but o n ly o rdin ary tun es, but hath a go o d han d sin gs a little ,but hath a go o d v oyce an d ear e . My boy, a brave b oy, Sin gsfin ely

, and is th e mo st pleasan t b oy at presen t, while hisign o ran t boy ’s tricks last, that ever I saw .T

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

At home I fo un d Mercer playin g upon h er Vyall, whi ch isa pretty in strumen t, and so I t o th e Vyall an d sin gin g tilllate ,

an d so t o b ed .1‘

Abo ut 11 I home , it be in g a fin e mo on shin e , and so mywife an d Mercer come in to th e garden ,

an d my busin ess beingdo n e , w e san g till abo ut twelve at n ight , with mighty pleasuret o o urse lves an d n e ighbo urs

,by the ir casemen ts o pen in g,

and so home t o supper an d t o b ed. §

An d after supper fallin g to sin gin g with Mercer did howeversit up with h er , sh e pleasin g me with h er Sin gin g o f Helpe ,

till past midn igh t fl '

Poor Mistress Pepys is j ealousComi n g in I fin d my wife plainly dissatisfied with me , thatI can spen d so much time with Mercer, teachin g her to sing,

2 8 th July, 1664.

1“27th August, 1664

19 th S eptember, 1664 ; 22nd April, 1665 28 th S eptember, 1667 .

5th May , 1666 .

By Lawes .

1112th July, 1666 . S ee also 19 th Jun e , 1666 .

30 A Musical Tourand co uld n ever take the pain swith her . Whi ch I ackn owledgebut it is because th e girl do take musique mighty readily,and she do n ot , and musique is th e thin g o f the wo rld that Ilove mo st . *Mercer, it seems , is sent away for a time ; but

Mistress Pepys do es not gain much thereby .

Pepys is melan ch o ly . j He finds that his wifereally sin gs very badly . Mercer returns

,and the

singing parties begin again ; and Mistress Pepys ’j ealousy likewise .Wa lked home it bein g a little mo on shin e and

fair weather, an d so in to th e garden ,and,with Mercer, san g

till my wife put me in min d o f its bein g a fast day, ;f and so Iwas so rry fo r i t, and stopped . §

Mistress Pepys makes desperate efforts to becomea musician She succeeds—very nearly—in Singingtrills . Her husband loyally gives her credit for hergoodwill .After din n er my wife and Barker** fell to sin gin g, whichpleased me pretty we ll, my wife takin g mighty pain s an d

pro ud that she shall come to tr ill and in deed I think Sh e

will j‘

r

But virtue , alas , is not rewarded in this worldand the poor wretch

,

” as Pepys tells us , cannotcontrive to sing in tuneHome t o din n er , an d befo re din n er makin g my wife to

sin g. Po o r wretch 1 h er ear is so bad that it made me an gry,till th e po o r wretch cr ied to see me so vexed at h er , that I thinkI shall n o t disco urage h er so much again . fo r Sh e

hath a great min d to learn ,o n ly t o please me , and therefo re

I am mighty un j ust in disco uragin g h er so much .1:j:

3o th July, 1666 .

123rd September, 1666 .

1Fo r th e anniversary o f th e King’s death.3o th Jan uary, 1667 .

Bark er was a thi rd servan t. She to o was a musician .

fl 7th February, 1667 .

11mt March , 1667 .

An Engl ish Amateu r 31

For some time Pepys constrains himself to patience .I do think she will come to Sin g pretty well, and to trill

in time .

*

Had her sing, which sh e begin s to do with some pleasureto me , mo re than I expected -

t

To b ed after h ear in g my wife sing, who is man ifestly come

to b e mo re musical in h er ear e than ever I tho ught she co uldhave been made , which rej o icesme to th e h eart i

But these appreciatio ns are better evidence ofPepys ’ kindliness than of his wife ’s talent . On e day,when he hears a bad sin ger what a beast she isas to singing

,not knowing how to sing one note in

tune ”) this confession escapes him :

Wo rse than my wife a tho usan d times, so that it do a

little recon cile me to her . §

The plucky little woman,in her distress , despairing

of success , falls back o n the flageo let .

In this Pepys encourages her . Perhaps she willproduce fewer false notes on the instrument . Hemakes arrangements with a teacher

,Greeting

,and ,

to encourage her,takes lesso ns

So to my ho use and with my wife t o practiceo n th e flageo let a little , an d with great pleasure I see she can

readily hit h er n o tes fl'

Walk an ho ur in the garden with my wife , who se growthin musique do begin to please me mightily i i

Mightily pleases with my wife ’

s playin g on the flageo let ,she takin g out any tun e almo st at first sight

, and keeping time

to it, whi ch pleased me

I to b ed, bein g mighti pleased with my wife ’

s playin g sowell upon th e flageo let , and I am reso lved sh e shall learn to

12th March, 1667 . 8 th May, 1667 .

119 th March and 6 th May, 1667 . f t 17th May, 1667 .

17 th May , 1667 . 1118 th May , 1667 .

22nd Jan uary, 1668 . 12th S eptember, 1667

32 A Musical Tour

play upon some in strumen t, fo r though her ear e b e had yet

I see she will attain any thin g to b e do n e by her han d . *

Henceforth Pepys has a happy household . Herecords how o n e August evening he made his wifeplay the flageo let ,till I slept with great pleasure in b edsjDo not imagine

,however

,that he has forgotten

his dear Mercer ! He continues to arrange sin gingparties to include her—above all when his wife isnot presentAnd by and by, it bein g n ow abo ut n in e o

’clo ck at night,I hear dMer cer ’s vo ice , andmy b oy Tom ’

s sin gin g in th e garden ,

whi ch pleased me mightily, I lo n gin g to see th e gir l, havin g n o tseen h er sin ce my wi fe wen t ; an d so in to th e garden to h er

and san g, an d then home t o supper, an d mightily pleased withh er compan y, in talkin g and sin gin g, and so parted, and t o

b ed. :t

To ok a co ach and called Mercer , and sh e an d I to the Dukeo f Yo rk ’s play-ho use , an d there saw Th e Tempest . ”After th e play do n e , I to ok Mercer by water t o Sprin g Gar den ,

and there with great pleasure walked, an d eat , and dran k,and san g, makin g peo ple come abo ut us, to hear us . §

Up by water and to Foxhall (Vauxhall) , where we walkeda great while , an d it beginnin g t o b e dark, w e t o a

co rn er and san g, that everybo dy go t abo ut to hearGo t Mer cer , and she and I in the garden sin gin g till ten at

W . Howe , an d a yo un ger bro ther o f his, come to din e withme , and there comes Mercer, and mighty merry,and after din n er to sin g psalms f t

11th S eptember, 1607 .

1'

13th August, 1668 .

129 th April, 166 8 . See also ro th May, 1668 .

11th May , 166 8 .

14th May , 1668 .

11'15th May , 1668 .

1117 th May,'

1668 .

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34 A Musical Tourhall , go o d compan y, and very go o d music . I waspleased that I co uld fin d o ut a man by his vo i ce ,

whom I hadn ever seen befo re , t o b e o n e that san g behind th e curtain e

fo rmerly at Sir W . Daven an t ’s o pera .

*

And out of doorsWalked in Sprin g Garden . A great deal o f company ,

and th e weather an d garden pleasan t . But t o hearth e n ightin gale an d o ther birds, an d here fiddles, and therea harp. j

'

In the countryThere was at a distan ce , un der o n e o f the trees o n th e

commo n , a compan y go t to gether that san g. I , at the

distan ce , an d so all th e rest be in g a quarter o f a mile o ff , to o kthem fo r Waytes, so I ro de up t o them ,

and fo un d them o n lyvo ices, some citizen s met by Chan ce , that sun g fo ur o r fiv eparts exce llen tly. I have n o t been mo re pleased with a sn appo f musique , co n siderin g th e circumstan ces o f th e time and

place , in all my life .1

At Bath (when the music is apparently part ofthe treatment) he iscarried away, wrapped in a sheet , an d in a chair, home and

there o n e after an o ther thus carr ied , I stayin g abo ve tw o

ho urs in th e water, home to b ed, sweatin g fo r an ho ur ; and

by an d by comes musick to play t o me , extrao rdin arily go o d asever I heard at Lo n do n a lmo st; o r an ywhere 5s . §

On board Ship—ou the vessel in which he crossedthe Channel with the fleet that brought Charles I I .back to Englandth e Captain did give us such musick upo n the harpby a fellow that h e keeps o n bo ard , that I n eve r expe ct to hearth e like again .

“

And,in LOn do n

,among the people . To Pepys ’

ho use there comes28 th Jun e , 1660 . 1

'

29 th May , 166 7 . 127 th July, 1663 .

13 th Jun e , 1668 . 3o th April , 1660 .

An English Amateur 35

a very little fe llow,did Sing a mo st exce llen t bass, and yet a

po o r fe llow, a wo rkin g go ldsmith, that go es witho ut gloves toh is hands .

He acquits himself impeccably in a vocal quartet ,with Pepys an d his friends . *The theatre naturally fills a great place in the lifeof this me lomaniac . AS a matter of fact Pepysconstrains himself fo r a time to go thithe r o n ly o n cea month

,so that it shall n o t un duly distract him

from his business and as a measure o f e co n omy . jBut he can no t wai t for the second day in the mo n thTo o k my wife o ut immediately t o th e Kin g ’

s Theatre , itbe in g a n ew mo n th, and o n ce a mo n th I may go !!

And if we run through his entries we see thatthe 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 fo rbid himself to summon the theatreto his own house—that is

,the folk o f the theatre ,

especially when they,

are yo un g an d pretty sin gers ,such as Mrs . Knipp , o f the Kin g ’s Theatrethis baggage § Kn ipp

,wh o is pretty en o ugh ; but

th e mo st exce llen t, mad-humo ured thin g, an d sin gs th e n o blestthat ever I heard in myHe passes the night in making her S ing his airs

,

which to him seem admirab leq‘

j She rehearses her15th S eptembe r, 1667 .

1’ And because o f a lin gerin g to uch o f Puritan ism . But ape rusal o f the Diary will Show h ow quick ly this fe e lin g evapo ratedwhen th e ex -Commo nwealth man had become th e co urtier o f th eS tuarts .

mt February , 1669 .

23rd February, 1666 .

6 th Decembe r, 1665.

7123rd February, 1666 .

36 A Mus ical Tour

parts for him . She comes to speak to him in thepit of the theatre .after h er son g in th e clo uds .

*

He goes with her by coach to Kensingto n,to the

Grotto . She sin gs :and fin e ladies listen in g

,

t o us ; with infin ite pleasure ,I

en j oyed myse lf ; so t o the Tavern theremerry, and san g all th e way t o town , a mo st pleasan t even ing,mo on shin e , and set them at her ho use in Co ven t Garden , and

I home ,and to b edxj

'

Ah,the pleasant evenings which Pepys enj oyed

in the company of these charming musicians : hiswife

,his wife ’s friends , her servants , and the pretty

actresses ! Sometimes Knipp makes one of themin her stage costume ,as a co un trywoman with a straw hat .

Now my ho use is full , and fo ur fiddlers that play well .S o away with all my compan y down to the o ffice ,

andthere fe ll to dan cin g and then san g and thendan ced, and then san g man y thin gs o f thre e vo ices.

Harris sun g his Irish so n g—th e stran gest in itse lf, and the

prettiest sun g by him,that ever I heard Our

Mercer un expe ctedly did sin g an Italian so n g I kn ow n o t

that did almo st ravish me, an d made me in lo ve wi th

h er mo re than ever with h er Sin gin g .1Here th e best compan y fo r musique I ever was in , in mylife , and wish I co uld live an d die in it , bo th fo r musique and

th e face o f Mrs . Pierce , and my wife and Kn ipp . §

Pepys relishes his happiness at night , on his pillow,

he recounts to himself the details of these delightfulevenin gsthin kin g it t o b e o n e o f th e merriest en j oymen ts I must lo okfo r in th e wo rld

17th April, 1668 . 1'

17th April, 1668 . 124th Jan uary, 1667 .

6 th December, 16 65. 24th Jan uary, 1667 .

An Engl ish Amateur 37

There is only one Shadow on his felicity : musicis costly . Completin g the descriptio n of on e of theseenchanted evenings , he saysOn ly th emusique did n o t pleaseme , they n o t being con ten tedwith less than 308 .

Pepys does not like payin g out money in whichparticular he resembles many wealthy music-lo verso f his time and o ur own . No thin g distresse s himso much as givin g money to an artist , as he ingenuously confessesLo n g with Mr . B erk en shaw in th e mo rn ing at my musiquepractice , fini shin g my so n g o f Gaze n o t o n Swan s,” in twoparts, whi ch pleases me we ll , an d I did give him g5 fo r thismo n th o r fiv e weeks that h e hath taught me , which is a greatdeal o f mon ey and tro ubled me t o part w ith it .

*

j

So he contrives to quarrel with his teacher (insuch a fashion that the quarrel seems to be theo ther ’s fault) so soon as he thinks that he has obtain edfrom him all that he And when Mr .

Be rk en shaw has fallen in to the snare and brokeno ff his relatio n s with Pepys the latter delights inplayin g the airs which he has gently wormed out ofMr . B e rk en shaw during his le ssonsI fin d them mo st in comparable so n gs as h e has set them,

o f whi ch I am n o t a little pro ud , be cause I am sure n o n e in th ewo rld has them but myse lf

,n o t so much as h e himself that

set them. §

When there is a questio n of de fending his purseagainst an artist he has all the wisdom of theserpent . A performer on the Vio l comes to hishouse and plays for' him some very fine thingof his own . Pepys is careful not to complimenthim too warmly :

24th Jan uary, 1667 . 1‘

27th February, 1662 .

124th February, 1662 . 14th March , 1662 .

38 A Musical Tourfo r fear h e Sho uld o ffer t o co py them fo r me o ut , and so I b efo rced to give o r len d h im somethin g.

*

It is not surprising that under these circumstancesmusic seems , to Pepys , the least costly of pleasures.

’

r

No r is it surprisin g that musician s Sho uld die ofstarvation in this En gland

,where all declare them

selves to be passion ate lo vers of music . They arein the position of those itin erant players who givetheir performance be fore a country crowd . Theyo kels lo o k on and laugh—and turn away whenthe collection is made .Mr. Hin gsto n th e o rgan ist says man y o f the

musique ar e ready t o starve,they bein g fiv e years behin d-han d

fo r th e ir wages n ay ,Even s

, th e famo us man upo n th e Harp ,havin g n o t his equal in th e wo rld ,

did th e o ther day die fo rmere wan t , an d w as fain t o b e buried at th e alms o f th e parish,and carried to h is grave in th e dark at n ight w itho ut o n e linke ,

but that Mr . Hin gsto n me t it by chan ce,an d did give 12d . to

buy two o r three lin k s iat a:

This is eno ugh already to enlighten us as to thesuperfic iality of the English pass io n for music . Weshall be still furthe r en lightened when we havedo ne o ur best to un derstand Pepys ’ musical j udgments and to ascertain the ' limits of his taste . How

narrow the man isPepys does not care for the old style of singing . §Nor does he care for part-sin gingI am mo re an d mo re co nfirmed that singin g with man yvo ices is n o t sin gin g, but a so rt o f in strumen tal musique , thesen se o f th e wo rds bein g lo st by n o t bein g heard , and especiallyas they set them with Fuges o f wo rds, o n e after an o ther,whereas sin gin g pro per , I thin k, Sho uld b e but with o n e o r twovo ices at mo st and th e

2 3rd Jan uary, 1664 . 119 th December, 1666 .

1 8th Jan uary, 1663 . 16th Jan uary, 1660 .

15th September, 166 7 . Se e also 29 th Jun e , 1668 .

An English Amateur 9

He does n o t like the Italian mastersThey spen t th e who le even in g singin g th e best piece o f

musique co un ted o n all han ds in th e wo rld , made by S eign o rCharissimi, th e famo us master in Rome . Fin e it was, indeed ,and to o fin e fo r me to j udge o f . *

I was n o t taken with thi s at all . Th e compo sitio nas t o th e musique part was exceedin gly go od , and this j ustn essin keepin g time much befo re any that we have .

Yet I do from my heart believe that I co uld set wo rds inEn glish and make musique o f them mo re agreeablethan any Italian musique set fo r th e v o ice ]

L

No r has he any lo ve for Italian singers ; aboveall , he detests the vo ices o f the castrati . He ackn owledges o n ly the excellent time an d the co n

summate experien ce of these artists ; but in thematter of taste they remain alien to him and he doesnot attempt to un derstandStill less do es he care fo r the co n temporary Englishschoo l

,the scho ol o f Co o ke

,which will at a later

date produce Pelham Humphrey,Wise

,Blow , and

PurcellIt was in deed bo th in perfo rman ce and compo sitio n mo stplain ly be low what I heard last n ight , § which I co uld n o t havebelieved .Nor is he any fo nder o f French musicImpartially I do n o t find any go odn esse in the ir ayres

(tho ugh very go o d) beyo nd o urs when played by th e same

hand, I o bserved in several o f Baptiste ’

s (the presen t greatcompo ser) and our B an n ister

’

s. j1'

2 2nd July, 1664.

1 16th February, 16 67 .

1He regards them with greater favo ur a little later, when hehears them in th e Queen ’s Chape l (2 1st March

, See p . 42 .

He is re ferrin g to some Italian so n gs by Draghi.13th February, 1667 .

17 18 th Jun e , 1666 .

40 A Musical TourHe detests the music of Charles II .

’

S Frenchmaster

,Grebus (Grabu)

God fo rgive me ! I n eve r was so little pleased with a

con cert o f musick in my life .

*

And,generally speaking

,all instrumental music

wearies himI must co n fess, whether it b e that I hear it but se ldom,

o r

that really vo ice is better, but so it is that I fo un d n o pleasureat all in it, an d metho ught two v oyces were wo rth twen ty o fit .T

What a list of qualities eliminated What is lefthim ! He has j ust told us ; one vo ice , or two atmost

,accompanied o r n o t with the lute , the theorbo

or the vio l . And what are these voices to S ingSimple me lodies , intelligently declaimed : suchas tho se of Lawes , the fashio nable idol of the moment ,the composer who se name occurs mo st frequentlyin the DiaryJ; As regardsthe theatre , Pepys appearsto have a special liking for the music o f Lock , withwhom he was person ally acquainted

, § and thatof the composer who wrote the musical score forMassin ger ’s Virgin M arty r in 1668—the musicthat made him sick for pleasure . In church he isstill an admirer of and he approves ofRaven scro ft

’

s Psalms for four voices,although he

finds them very monotonous .But at heart he prefers above everything the goodold English melodies

151: October, 1667 .

1’

l o th August, 1664 .

I Pepys sin gs them co n stan tly (March, April, May , Jun e , No v

ember, 1660 , 19 th Decembe r, 1662 , 19 th No vember, 1665, e tc) .r 1th an d 12 th February, 1660 . Pepys was acquain ted alsowith th e e lde r Purcell .z rst February, 1660 .

11No vember, De cembe r, 1664 . But o n this gro un d th e Italian sge t th e better o f him later.

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42 A Musical Tourco un try is t o b e kn own an d un dersto o d by th e b earer , o r h ewi ll n ever b e a go o d j udge o f th e vo cal musique o f an o therco un try, so that I was n o t taken with this at all, n e ither un derstan din g th e first, n o r by practice re co n ciled t o th e latter , sothat their mo tio n s, and risin gs an d fallin gs

,tho ugh it may b e

pleasin g t o an Italian , o r o n e that un derstan ds the to n gue ,

yet to me it did n o t .

I am co n vin ced mo re and mo re,that

, as every n atio n hasa particular accen t an d to n e in disco urse , so as the to n e o f o n en o t to agr ee with o r please th e o ther , n o mo re can th e fashio no f sin gin g t o wo rds, fo r that th e better th e wo rds ar e set , th e

mo re they take in o f th e o rdin ary to n e o f th e co un try who selan guage th e son g speaks , so that a so n g we ll compo sed by anEn glishman must b e better t o an En glishman than it can b eto a stran ger, o r than if set by a stran ger in fo reignThis is full o f goo d sense

,and remin ds us of what

Addison was t o write some fifty years later . Thiswho lesome mistrust Should have put the Englishdilettan ti and musicians on their guard againstforeign imitatio ns , abo ve all again st Italian imitations

,which were abo ut to pro ve so deadly to English

music . But Italian art was extremely vigo rous ,and we have j ust seen within what narrow limitsEn glish taste was restricted . It abandoned thegreater part of th e field to foreign art

,to shut itself

up in its little house a course o f extreme imprudence . Foreign music , once it had a fo otho ld inEngland sought to complete its co nquest . A fewo f Pepys remarks show that he himself was beginningto give ground :To th e Q ueen ’

s chape l, an d there did hear th e Ital ian s sin gand indeed their musick did appear mo st admirable to me ,

beyo n d an ythin g o f o urs ]:16th February, 166 7 . S e e also r 1th February.

1‘

7 th April, 166 7 .

:l: 2 1st March , 166 8 . S e e also Pepys ’ Opinio n s o f Draghi , whomh e me t at Lo rd B ro un ck e r ’s , with Killigrew, wh o was strivin g toe stablish Italian music in Lo ndo n ,

and sen t to Italy fo r sin gers ,instrumen talists , and scen e -pain ters (12 th February,

An English Amateur 43

This is a confession of the approachin g defeatat the hands of the Italians

,when English music

was to abdicate its po sition .

I have dwelt at some length on this Diary of anEnglish amateur at the Co urt of Charles I I . Ihave done so n o t merely fo r the amusement o f reviving a few agreeable types which have n o t undergoneovermuch variation in a couple o f centuries —thedistinguished English gentleman , statesman andartist

,thoroughly sane and well-balan ced , with

the quiet activity, the serenity o f min d , the go od

humour and the rather childlike o ptimism whicho n e often meets with no rth o f the Chan nel ;pleasantly gifted

,as a musician

,but superficial

,

and seeking in music rathe r a who lesome pleasure,

as Milton advised rather than a passio n beyon dhis contro l . And aroun d him are other familiartypes : Mistress Pepys , the En glishwoman who isdetermin ed to b e a musician ; who perseverin glylabours at the keyboard , neve r becomes discouragedand has good fingers . An d there are otherstooBut it is not for this reason that I have undertaken to ran sack this Diary . It possesses a realhistorical in terest in that it is a barometer o f

English musical taste about the year 1660 that is,

at the beginning of the golden age of English music .W e kn ow that Milto n ,

in h is famous treatise On Education ,

speakin g o f scho lars an d athle tic exercise s , suggests that “th e

in terim o f unsweatin g themse lves regularly, and convenien t re stbe fo re meat, may , bo th with profit and de light, b e tak en up inrecreatin g and compo sin g the ir travailed spirits with th e so lemnand divin e harmonie s o f music .” H e adds that music wo uldbe still mo re appropriate after eating, to assist an d cherishn ature in h e r first co n co ction ,

and send their minds back to studyin go o d tun e and satisfactio n .

”

44 A MusiCal Tour

It enables us to understand why this golden agedid not last . Whatever the brilliance , and even ,at moments

,the genius o f the music o f Purcell ’s

age,it had no roots above all

,

’ it had no soil whereinto strike its ro ots . The most intelligent an d mo sthighly educated public to be found in Englan d

,

and that which had the greatest love of art,was

Sincerely in terested only in an excessively restrictedclass o f music , which was based o n an d really derivedfrom poetry : a vo cal chamber music for o n e o r

two vo ices,con sistin g o f dialogues , ballads , dances ,

and poetic songs . Herein lay the essen ce and theintimate savour of th e musical soul of England .

*

All British music that so ught to be national hadperforce to fin d its inspiration herein ; and thebest that it has pro duced is perhaps in reality thatwhich

,like certain pages of the delightful Purcell

,

has best preserved its fragrance of tender po etryan d rustic grace . But this was a somewhat shallowfoundation

,a very scanty soil for the art ; the

form of such music did n o t lend itself to exten sivedevelopmen t and the musical culture of the country

,

though fairly widespread,yet always Skin-deep

,

would not have permitted of such development .And beyo nd this small province of English songsand ballads—which has remained almost intactuntil our own days , —we see the dawn , in Pepys ’Diary

,of the Italian invasion which was to submerge

the whole .

I am n o t speakin g here o f En glish re ligious and cho ral music ,which,under th e Resto ration ,

pro duced wo rk s o f great breadth ,and always re tain ed a n o ble dign ity o f style , witho ut possessin g atruly nation al characte r.

A PORTRAIT OF HANDEL

THEY used to call him the Great Bear . He wasgigantic : broad , corpulent , with big hands andenormo us fee t his arms and thighs were stupendous . His hands were SO fat that the bones disappeared in the flesh

,fo rmin g dimples .* He walked

bow-legged,with a heavy

,ro lling gait , very erect ,

with his head thrown back under its huge whitewig

,whose curls rippled heavily over his shoulders .

He had a lo n g horse- like face , which with agebecame bo vine and swamped in fat with pendantcheeks and triple chin

,the no se 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 co rn er of his large , fin elycut mo uth . j His air was impressive and j ovial .When h e played th e harpsicho rd , says Burn ey, his fin gers

were so ben t and clubbed to gether that o n e co uld n o t detect anymo vemen t ; it was as much as o n e co uld do to distin guish hisfin gers .

j S ee th e po rtrait en graved by W. Bromley after th e pain tin g byHudson . H e is seated , with his legs wide apart an d o n e fist o n his

thigh h e is ho ldin g a She e t o f music th e head is he ld high , th eeye arden t, th e eye

-brows ve ry black unde r the whi te pe riwig,all but burstin g out o f his tightly-fasten ed pourpo in t, overflowin gwith health, pride and en ergy .

No less interestin g but m uch less kn own is th e fin e po rtraiten graved by J . H o ub rak en , o f Amste rdam , after th e pain tin gby F. Kyte , in 1742 . In this w e se e Handel under an exceptio n alaspect, after th e se rio us illn ess which proved n early fatal , traceso f which are to b e se en in his face . It is heavier, and fatigued ,and th e eye is dull th e figure ismassive his en ergies seem asle eph e is lik e a great cat slumbe rin g with open eyes ; but th e o ld

quizzical gleam still twin k les in his drowsy gaze .

46 A M usical Tour

When he smiled—says Burney his heavy, sterncountenance was radiant with a flash of intelligenceand wit like the sun emergin g from a cloud .

”

He was full of humour . He had a S ly pseudosimplicity which made the mo st so lemn individualslaugh though he himse lf Showed an unsmiling face .No o n e ever told a sto ry be tte r . His happy wayof saying the S implest things differently from anyoneelse gave them an amusing complexio n . If hisEnglish had been as good as Swift ’s

,his bon s mots

would have been equally abundant and of the samekin d . But really to enj oy what he said one hadalmost to know four languages : English

,French

,

Italian and German,all of which he mixed up

This medley of tongues was as much due to thefashion in which his vagabond youth was moulded

,

while he wan dered through the countries o f WesternEurope

,as to his natural impetuosity

,which; when

he so ught a rej oin der,seized upon all the words

at his disposal . He was like Berlioz : musicalnotation was too slow for him ; he would have neededa shorthand to follow his thought at the beginningo f his great choral compositions he wrote themotifs in full for all the parts ; as he proceededhe wo uld drop first one part

,then another finally

he would retain only o n e voice ,or he would even

end up with the bass alone ; he would pass at astroke to the end of the compo sition which he hadbegun

,postponing un til later the completion of the

whole , and on the morrow of finishing one piece heThis po rtrait is drawn from th e pain tings by Tho rnhi ll ,

Hudso n , Denn er and Kyte , Ro ubillac’s mo numen t at Westminster, an d th e descriptio n s o f co n tempo rarie s , such as Mat th e

so n , Burn ey, Hawk ins and Coxe . S e e also th e bio graphie s o f

Hande l by S cho e lche r and Ch rysande r .

A Portrai t Of Handel 47

would begin another , sometimes working on two ,if n o t three , S imultan eously.

*

He would never have had the patien ce o f Gluck ,who began

,before writing

,by goin g through each

of his acts,and then the who le piece which com

mon ly cost him —So he to ld Co ran cez a year , andoftener than n o t a serious illness . —Han del used tocompo se an act be fo re he had learn ed how th e piececontinued , an d Sometimes before the librettist hadtime to write it sj

As an example o f this fever o f creatio n , I shall tak e th e twoyears 1736-8

,when Hande l was ill and came n ear to dyin g. H ere

is a summary o f these yearsIn January, 1736 , h e wro te Alexan der ’s Feast. In February

March , h e co nducted a seaso n o f o rato rio . In April h e wro teAtalan ta and the WeddingAn them. In April and iMay h e dire c c ted

an o pera season . Between th e 14th August and th e 7 th S eptembe r h e wro te Giustin o , and be twe en th e 15th S eptembe r andth e 14th o f Octo be r, Armin io . In November h e directed an o peraseason . Betwe en th e 18 th No vember and th e 18 th January,1737 , h e wro te B eren ice . In February and March h e directed ado uble season o f opera and o rato rio .

In April h e was strick en with paralysis durin g th e who le o f

the summer h e seemed o n th e po in t o f death . Th e baths o f Aixla-Chapelle cured him . H e return ed to Lo n do n early in No vember,1737On th e 15th o f November h e began Faramon do o n the 17th

December h e commen ced th e Fun eral An them, which h e had

pe rfo rmed at We stminster o n th e 17th ; by th e 24th h e had

completed Faramon do o n th e 25th h e began S erse , which h efinished o n th e 14th February, 1738 . On th e 25th Februaryh e gave th e first pe rfo rman ce o f a n ew pasticcio Alessan droS ever o .

-And a few mo n ths laterw e find him writin g S aul, whi cho ccupies him from th e 23rd July to th e 2 7th S eptember, 1738 ,and beginnin g I srael in Egypt o n th e 1st Octo ber, and completin git o n th e 2 8 th . Durin g th e same mo n th o f Octo ber h e publisheshis first co ll ection o f Con cer tos for the Organ and de live rs to the

publishers th e co lle ction o f S even Tr ios or S on atas with Two Partsand Accompan imen ts , op. 5.

On ce mo re , th e example that I have cho sen is that o f th e twoyears when Hande l was mo st se riously ill, inde ed sick almo st un todeath and I de fy th e reader to find th e least trace o f his illn essin these compo sitio ns .

1' Th e po et Ro ssi states , in his pre face to Rin aldo , that Hande lbarely gave him time to write th e po em , and that th e who lewo rk , wo rds and music, was compo sed in a fo rtn ight

48 A Musica l Tour

The urge to create was so tyrannical that it endedby isolating him from the rest of the world . Henever allowed himse lf to be interrupted by anyfutile visit says Hawkins

,and his impatience

to be de livered of the ideas which continuallyflooded his mind kept him almo st always shut up .

His brain was never idle ; and whatever he mightbe doing , he was no longer conscious of his surroun dings . He had a habit of speaking so lo udly thateverybody learned what he was thinking . Andwhat exaltation , what tears , as he wro te ! Hesobbed aloud when he was composing the ariaHe was despised. I have heard it said reportsShield , that when his servan t took him his chocolate in the mornin g he was often surprised to seehim weeping an d wetting with his tears the paperon which he was writin g .

—With regard to theHallelujah chorus of the

.

M essiah he himself Citedthe words of St . Paul : Whether I was -in mybody or out of my body as I wrote it I know n o t .

God kn ows .”This huge mass of flesh was shaken by fits of fury .

He swore almost with every phrase . In theorchestra

,when his great white periwig was seen

to quiver the musician s trembled . When hischoirs were in atten tive he had a way of shoutin gChorus ! at them in a terrible voice that madethe public j ump . Even at the rehearsals o f hisoratorios at Carlton House , before the Prin ce o f

Wales,if the Prince and Princess did not appear

punctually he took no trouble to conceal his an ger

B elshazzar was compo sed as Ch . Jenn in s sen t Hande l th e acts o f

th e po em , to o slowly to suit th e musician , wh o n ever ceased tospur him o n ,

and wh o , in de spair o f o btainin g th e libre tto , wro tethat same summer, that he might have somethin g to do , his

magnificen t H erakles.

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50 A Mus ical TourEven when he flew into a rage people felt thathe was laughing in his sleeve . Thus

,when he seized

the irascible Cuzzo n i, who refused to sin g one o f

his airs,by the waist , an d

,carrying her to the

window , threatened to throw her in to the street ,he said , with a bantering air : Now ,

madame,

I kn ow very well that yo u are a regular she-devilbut I ’ll make you realise that I am Beelzebubthe prince of devils

All his life he enj oyed a wonderful amount offreedom . He hated all restrictions and avoided allo fficial appointmen ts ; for we cannot so describehis positio n of teacher to the princesses the important musical posts about the Court and the fatpensions were never bestowed upon him

,even

after his naturalisation as an En glish citizen theywere confe rred upon indifferent c ompo se rs j Hetook no pains to humo ur these ; he spo ke of hisEn glish colleagues with contemptuous sarcasm .

Indifferently educated,apart from music

, i he despisedacademics an d academic musician s . He was n o t

In th e text cited by Mainwarin g this is in Fren ch—Hande lwas fo n d o f speakin g Fren ch , o f whi ch h e h ad a very go od kn owledge , and emplo yed almo st exclusively in his co rrespo nden ce ,even with his family.1He was pro fesso r o f music to th e royal prin cesses, with a

salary o f J£2o o -a salary lower, as Ch rysande r po in ts o u t,than

that o f th e dan cing-master, Antho n y l ’Abbé , wh o received £240 ,

and who se n ame always headed th e list. Mo ri ce Gre en , o rganistat Westmin ster and do cto r o f music, fo r who se ben efit twoimpo rtan t musical po sts were un ited in 1735

—th e directo rshipo f th e Co urt o rchestra and that o f th e Chape l Ro yal, un til then ex e rcised by John Eccles and Dr . Cro ft—drew a salary o f £400 .

1But acco rdin g to H awkin s h e had be en a diligen t studen t.His father h ad in tended him fo r th e law

,and in 1703 Han de l

was still in scribed o n th e ro lls o f th e faculty o f law at H alle , whereth e famo us Thomasin s was his teacher. It was n o t un til h e hadpassed his eighteen th year that h e fin ally devo ted himse lf tomusic.

A Portrait of Handel 51

a doctor of Oxford University , although the degreewas o ffered to him . It is recorded that he complained : What the devil ! Should I have had tospend my money in order to be like those idiotsNever in this worldAn d later, in Dublin , where he was entitled Dr .

Handel on a placard , he was annoyed by the mistakeand promptly had it corrected on the programmes ,which announced him as M r . H findel .

Although he was far from turnin g up his nose atfame—speakin g at some length in his last will andtestament of his burial at Westminster , and carefully settling the amount to which he wished to limitthe cost of his own monument—h e had no respectwhatever for the opinions of the critics . Mattheso n

was unable to o btain from him the data which heneeded to write his biography . His Ro usseaulike manners filled the courtiers with in dign atio n .

The fashio n able folk who had always been givento in flictin g boredom upon artists without any protestfrom the latter resented the supercilious an d un

sociable fashion in which he kept them at a distan ce .

In 1719 the field-marshal Co un t Flemmin g wro teto Mlle . de Schulenburg , o n e of Han del ’s pupilsMademo ise lle l—I had ho ped t o speak t o M. Han de l an dSho uld have liked to o ffer him a few po lite atten tion s o n yo urbehalf, but there has been n o o ppo rtun ity I made use o f yo urn ame t o in duce him t o come t o my ho use , but o n some o ccasio n sh e was n o t at home , while o n o thers h e was ill it seems to me

that he is rather crazy, which h e o ught n o t to b e as far as Iam con cern ed , co n sidering that I am a musician an d

that I am pro ud t o b e o n e o f yo ur mo st faithful servan ts,

Mademo iselle wh o ar e th e mo st agreeable o f his pupils ; Isho uld have liked t o tell you all this

,so that you in yo ur turn

might give lesso n s to yo ur master.1'H is confre

'

res, Pepusch and Gre en e .

1' 6 th October, 1719 , Dresden . The o rigin al le tter is in Fren ch .

52 A Musical Tour

In 1741, an anonymous letter to the London DailyPost" speaks of the declared displeasure of so manygentlemen of rank an d influence in respect ofHandel ’s attitude toward them .

Excepting the single Opera Radamisto , which hededicated to George I .

-and this he did with dignity—he set his face against the humiliating and profitablecustom of placing his compositions under thepatronage of some wealthy person and onlywhen he was in the last extremity

,when poverty

and sickness had Overwhelmed him , did he resolveto give a benefit concert that fashion ofbegging alms as he called it .From 1720 until his death in 1759 he was engagedin an unending conflict with the public . Like Lully,he managed a theatre

,directed an Academy of Music

and sought to reform—o r to form—the musicaltaste of a nation . But he never had Lully ’

s powersof control ; for Lully was an absolute monarch ofFrench music ; and if Handel relied , as he did , onthe king ’s favour

,that favour was a long way from

being as important to him as it was to Lully . Hewas in a country which did n o t obey the orders ofthose in high places with

.

docility a country whichwas not enslaved to the State ; a free country, ofa critical , unruly temper an d

,apart from a

select few,anythin g but hospitable

,and ln lml cal

to foreigners . An d he was a foreigner , and so washis Hanoverian kin g

,whose patronage compromised

him more than it benefited him .

He was surroun ded by a crowd of bull-dogs withterrible fangs

,by unmusical men of letters , who

were likewise able to bite,by j ealous co lleagues ,

arrogant virtuosi, cannibalistic theatrical companies ,4th April, 1741.

-S e e Ch rysande r .

A Portrait of Handel 53

fashionable cliques,feminine plots and nationalistic

leagues . He was a prey to financial embarrassments which grew daily more inextricable and hewas constantly compelled to write new compositions to satisfy the curiosity of a public that nothingever did satisfy

,that was really interested in nothing ,

and to strive against the competition of harlequinades and b earfights to write , and write , and writenot an opera each year

,as Lully did so peacefully,

but often two or three each winter , without countingthe compositions of other musicians which he wasforced to rehearse and conduct . What other geniusever drove such a trade for twenty yearsIn this perpetual conflict he never made use ofconcessions , compromises or discreet expedientsneither with his actresses nor their protectors

,the

great nobles , nor the pamphleteers , nor all thatclique which makes the fortune of the theatres andthe fame or ruin of the art ists . He held his ownagainst the aristocracy of London . The war wasbitter and merciless , and,

on the part of his enemies ,ignobly fought ; there was no device , howeverpetty, that was not employed to drive him intobankruptcy .

In 1733 , after a long campaign in the Press andthe drawing-ro oms of London

,his enemies managed

to contrive that the concerts at which Handelproduced his first oratorios were given to emptychairs they succeeded in killing them

,and people

were already repeating,exultingly

,that the dis

couraged German was about to re turn to his owncountry. In 1741, the fashionable cabal went sofar as to hire little street-arabs to tear down theadvertisements of Handel ’s concerts which wereposted up out of doors

,and made use of a thousand

54 A Musical Tour

expedients,equally pitiable , to cause him

Handel would very probably have left the UnitedKingdom

,but for the unexpected sympathy which

he found in Ireland , where he proceeded to spenda year .—In 1745, after all his masterpieces , afterthe M essiah,

S amson , B elshazzar , and Herakles,

the cabal was reconstituted , and was even moreviolent than before . Bolingbroke and Smo llet

mention the tenacity with which certain ladies gavetea-parties

,entertainments and theatrical per

fo rman ces—which were not usually given in Lento n the days when Handel ’s concerts were to takeplace

,in order to rob him of his audience . Horace

Walpole was greatly entertained by the fashion ofgoing to the Italian opera when Handel was givinghis o rato rio s jIn short

,Handel was ruined ; and although

he was victorious in the end the causes o f his victorywere quite unconn ected with art . To him therehappened in 1746 what happened to Beethoven in1813 ,

after he had written the B attle of Vittoriaand his patriotic songs for a Germany that hadrisen against Napoleon Handel suddenly became ,after the B attle of Culloden and his two patrioticoratorios

,the Occasion al Oratorio and j udas M acc

abacus , a national bard . From that moment hi scause was gain ed

,and the cabal had to keep silence

he was a part of England ’s patrimony,and the

British lion walked beside him . But if afterthis period England no lon ger grudged his fameShe nevertheless made him purchase it dearly ;and it was no fault of the London public that he

Letter o f th e 9 th April, 1741 to the London Daily Po st.

1See S cho elcher .

A Portrait of Handel 55

did not die,in the midst o f his career, of poverty

an d mo rtificatio n . Twice he was ban krupt ando nce he was stricken down by apoplexy, amid theruins o f his company .j But he always found hisfeet again he never gave in . To re-establish hisfo rtunes he need only have made certain concessionsbut his character rebelled against such a course . j:He had a hatred of all that might restrict his liberty ,an d was intractable in matters affectin g the honourof his art . He was not willing that he shouldowe his fortune to an y but An Englishcaricaturist represented him un der the title ofThe Bewitching Brute

,trampling underfoot a

banner o n which was written : Pen sion , Privi

lege , Nobility , Favours ; and in the face o f disasterhe laughed with a laugh of a Co rnelian Pantagruel .Fin din g himself

,on the evening of a concert , con

fronted by an empty hall he said : My musicwill sound the better so !

This masterful character,with its violence and

its transports of anger an d o f genius , was go verned by a supreme self-contro l . In Handel thattranquillity prevailed which is sometimes metwith in the o ffspring of certain soun d

,but late

All his life he preserved this profoundserenity in his art . While his mother , whom he

In 1735 and 1745.

TIn 1737 .

i Gen tleman’

s M agazin e, 1760 .

Coxe .

father was 63 years o f age at th e his so n’

s

irt

56 A Musical Tourworshipped , lay dying he wrote Poro ,

that delightfully care-free opera .

* The terrible year 1717 ,

when he lay at the po int of death,in the depths o f

a gulf of calamity, was preceded an d followed bytwo oratorio s o verflowing with j oy an d materialenergy : Alexander ’s Feast (1736) and S auland also by the two sparkling operas

, Giustin o

(1736) with its pastoral fragrance , and S ersein 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 mindwas strained to breaking-point by its load ofanxietiesHe re in the anti-psychologists , who claim thatthe knowledge of an artist ’s life is of no value in theunderstanding of his work

,will find cause for

triumph,but they will do well to avoid a hasty

j udgment ; for the very' fact that Han delfs art

was independent of his life is o f capital importancein the comprehension of his art . That a BeethovenShould find so lace for his sufferings and his passionsin works of suffering and passio n is easily understood . But that Handel; a sick man , assailed byanxieties

,Should find distraction in wo rks expressing

j oy and serenity presupposes an almo st superhuman mental equilibrium . How natural it isthat Beethoven , endeavouring to write his Symphony of Joy , Should have been fascinated by

Th e date o f his mo ther’s death was th e 2 7th o f Decembe r,1730 ; that o f h er burial , th e 2nd o f Jan uary, 1731. Comparethese dates with tho se in scribed by Handel o n th e manuscripto f Poro

Fin ished writin g th e first ac t o f P010 23rd December, 1730.

Fin ished writi n g th e seco n d ac t : 3o th December, 1730Fin ished writin g th e third act : 16th January, 1731.

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58 A Musical Tourto giving way . The hazard of a corresponden cewhich has recently been published has affo rdedus this informatio n .

* The Coun tess o f Shaftesburywrote on the 13th o f March

,1745:

I wen t t o A lexander ’

s F east with a me lan cho ly pleasure .

I wept tears o f mo rtification at th e sight o f th e great andun fo rtun ate Han del , crestfallen ,

glo omy, with fallen Cheeks,seated beside th e harpsicho rd whi ch h e co uld n o t play ; itmade me sad t o refle ct that h is light has burn ed itself out inth e service o f music .On the 29th of August of the same year the Rev .

William Harris wrote to his wifeMet Handel in the street. S to pped him and r emin ded him

who I was, upo n whi ch I am sure it wo uld have en tertain edyou to see his fan tastic gestures. He spoke a gr eat deal o f theprecario us co n ditio n o f h is health.This condition continued for seven or eight months .

On the 24th o f October,Shafte sbury wrote to Harris

Po o r Han de l lo oks a little bett e r. I hope h e will re co vercompletely, tho ugh his min d has been en tire ly deranged .He did recover completely, since in November he

wrote his Occasion al Oratorio , and soon afterwardshis j udas M accabaeus. But we see what a gulfperpetually yawned beneath him . It was onlyby the skin of his teeth that he

,the sanest of geniuses

,

kept himself going , a b and ’s-breadth from insanity,and I repeat that these sudden organic lesions havebeen revealed o n ly by the hazards of a correspondence . There must have been many others of whichwe know nothing . Let us remember this

,and also

the fact that Handel ’s tranquillity concealed aprodigious expenditure of emotion . The indifferent ,phlegmatic Handel is only the outer Shell .W. B . Squire : Handel in 1745 (in th e H . Rieman n

Festschrift, 1909 , Leipzig.)

A Portrait of Handel 59

Those who conceive of him thus have neverunderstood him

,never pen etrated his mind , which

was exalted by transports of enthusiasm , pride ,fury and jo y which was , at times , almost hallucin ated . But music , for him ,

was a serene regionwhich 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 visio nary,as when the Go d of Moses and the

Prophets appeared to him in his Psalms and hisoratorios—o r betrayed by his heart

,in moments

of pity and compassio n , that were yet without atrace 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 , isdisconcerted by this haughty reserve . In thiskingdom of art , inacces ible to the capricious Chancesof life

,it seems to us that the prevailing light is

sometimes too uniform . Here are the ElysianFields hither one retreats from the life of the worldhere

,often enough , one regrets it . But is there not

something affecting in the spectacle of this master,

serene amidst all his affl ictio ns,his brow unlined

and his heart without a care P

Such a man , who lived entirely for his art , was notcalculated to please women and he troubled hishead very little about them . None the less , they werehis warmest partisans and his most venemous adversaries . The English pamphleteers made merry overone of his worshippers , who , under the pseudonym

In th e Fun eral An them, th e Foundling Anthem, and in certainpages o f his later wo rks, Theodora and j ephthah.

60 A Musical Tour

of Ophelia , sent him, when his j ulius Caesar

was produced , a crown of laurel , with an en thusi

astio poem in which She represented him as thegreatest of musicians , and also of the Englishpoets of his time . I have already alluded to thosefashionable 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 o f which

survive in several of the I talian Thereis a rumour too of an affair which he is supposed tohave had at Hamburg when he was second violinin the orchestra of the Opera . He was attractedby one of his pupils

,a girl of good family

,and wanted

to marry her ; but the girl ’s mother declared thatshe would never consent to her daughter ’s marriagewith a cat-gut scraper . Later

,when the mother

was dead and Handel famo il s, it was suggested tohim that the obstacles were now removed but hereplied that the time had gone by ; and accordingto his friend

, Schmidt , who , like a good romanticGerman , delights to embellish history, the younglady fell into a decline that ended her days .” InLondon a little later there was a fresh proj ect ofmarriage with a lady in fashionable society ; oncemore , She was one of his pupils but this aristocraticperson wanted him to abandon his profession .

Handel , indignant , broke o ff the relations whichwould have fettered his genius . j Hawkins tells

Fo r example , in the can tata en titled , Partenza di G. F .

Handel, 1708 .

1Above all h e h ad a pro found lo ve fo r a sister wh o died in1718 , and fo r his mo ther

,wh o died in 1730 . Later his affe ction

was given to his sister’s daughter, Johann a-Friderick a, n ée Michaelsen , to whom h e left all his property.

A Portrait of Handel 61

us His sociable instincts were not very strongwhence it comes

,no doubt , that he was a celibate

all his life ; it is asserted that he never had anydealings with women Schmidt , who knewHande l very much better than Hawkins , proteststhat Handel was not unsociable , but that his franticcraving for independence “ made him afraid ofbelittling himself , and that he had a dread of indissoluble ties .In default of love he knew and faithfully practisedfriendship . He in spired the mo st touching affec

tion,such as that of Schmidt , who left his country

and his kin to follow him , in 1726 , and never lefthim again until his death . Some of his friendswere among the noblest intellects of the age suchwas the witty Dr . Arbuthnot , whose apparentEpicurian ism co ncealed a stoical disdain of mankind

,and who , in his last letter to Swift , made this

admirable remark As for leavin g , for the world ’ssake

,the path of virtue and hono ur

,the world is

not worth it . Handel had moreover a profoundand pious feeling for the family

,which was never

extinguished,and to which he gave expression in some

touching characters , such as Joseph , and the goodmo ther in S olomon .

But the finest,purest feeling of which he was

capable was his ardent charity . In a countrywhich witnessed

,in the eighteenth century

,a

magnificent impulse of human so lidarity,

* h e was oneof those who were most sincerely devoted to thecause of the unfortunate . His generosity was notIt fo und expre ssio n in th e fo undatio n o f ho spitals and ben evo len t so cie tie s . This movemen t , which abo ut the midd le o f th e

e ighteen th cen tury had attain ed remark able pro po rtio ns allo ver Englan d , made itse lf felt with peculiar en thusiasm inIre lan d .

62 A Mus ical Tour

extended merely to this or that individual whomhe had personally kn own , such as the widow of hisold master

,Lachow it was lavished co n tin ually

and abundantly in the interest of all charitableundertakings

,mo re e specially in that of two such

organ isations which made especial appeal to him °

the Society of Musicians and the FoundlingHo spital .The Society of Musicians was founded in 1738

by a group of the prin cipal artists in London,—artists

of all descriptions,fo r the assistance of indigent

musicians and their families . An aged musicianreceived a weekly allowance of ten Shillings ; amusician ’s widow

,seven shillings . The Society also

undertook to give them decent burial . Handel ,embarrassed though he was , Showed himself moregenerous than his colleagues . On th e 2oth March ,1739 , he produced , fo r the benefit of the Society ,defraying all expen ses

,his Alexander ’s Feast, with

a n ew organ con certo especially written for theoccasion . On the 28 th March

,1740 ,

in the midstof his worst difficultie s , he produced Acis and

Galatea and the little Ode to S t . Cecilia . On the18th March , 1741,

he gave a gala performancefor him a most o nero us task—o f Parn asso in Festa ,

with scenery and co stumes,and five con certi soli

executed by the mo st famous in strumentalists .He left the S o ciety the largest legacy which itreceived—one of a thousand pounds .As for the Fo undling Hospital

,foun ded in 1739

by an old sailor,Thomas Co ram ,

fo r the reliefand education o f deserted children ,” “

o n e maysay

,writes Mainwarin g

,that it owed its establish

ment an d i ts prosperity to Handel . In 1749 ,

Handel wrote for it his beautiful An them f or the

A Portra it of Handel 63

Foundling Hospital .* In 1750 ,after the gift of an

o rgan to the Hospital,he was elected Governor .

We know that his M essiah was first performed ,and afterwards almo st en tire ly reserved , for thebenefit of charitable undertakin gs . The firstperfo rmance in Dublin

,o n the 12th April , 1742 ,

was given for the benefit o f the poo r . The pro fitsof the concert were entire ly divided be tween theSociety for the Relief of Debto r Prisoners , theInfirmary for the Po o r j' an d the Mercers ’ Hospital .When the success of the M essiah was establishedin London ,—n o t witho ut difficulty

—in 1750 ,

Handel decided to give an n ual performances fo r thebenefit of the Foundling Ho spital . Even afterhe was blind he con tinued to direct these performan ces . Between 1750 an d 1759 , the date of Handel ’sdeath , the M essiah earn ed for the Hospital a sumo f Handel had fo rbidden his publisher ,Walsh

,to publish any part o f this work , the first

edition of which did n o t appear un til 1763 and h ebequeathed to the Ho spital a Copy o f the full sco re .He had given an o ther copy to the Dublin So cietyfor the Re lief o f Debtor Prisoners

,with permission

to make use o f it as o ften as the So ciety pleasedin the interest of their ben eficiaries .This love of the poor inspired Handel in some ofhis most characteristic passages

,such as certain

page s of the Foundling an them ,full of a touchin g

ben evolence , or the pathetic evocation of theorphans and fo undlings

,who se pure shrill voice s

rise alon e and without accompaniment in the midst

In th e M usical Times, I st May , 1902 , a great deal o f in fo rmatio n will b e fo und re latin g to the Fo undlin g H o spital and th e partwhich Hande l to o k in its man ageme n t.1Fo unded in 1726 , by S ix Surgeo n s .

64 A Musica l Tour

of the triumphant chorus of the Fun eral An them,

attesting to the b en eficen ce of the dead Queen .

On e year , almost to the day, before Handel ’sdeath

,there stands on the register of the Foun dling

Hospital the name o f a little Maria Augusta Han del ,born on the I 5th April , 1758 . She was a foundling towhom he had given his name .

ii!

For him , charity was the true religion . He lovedGod in the poor .For the rest , he was by no means religious in thestrict sense of the wo rd ,—except at the clo se o f hislife , after the loss of his Sight had cut him o ff

“fromthe society of his kind and isolated him almostcompletely . Hawkins used to see him then , in thelast three years o f his life , diligently attending these rvices of his parish church —St . George ’s , Hano verSquare—knee ling and manifesting , by his gesturesand his attitude

,the most fervent devotion .

Durin g his last illness he said I wish I mightdie on Good Friday, in the hope of j o inin g my God ,

my sweet Lord and Saviour , on the day o f his

But during the greater part of his lifetime , when hewas in the fullness of his strength , he rare ly attendeda place of worship . A Lutheran by birth , replyingironically in Rome , where an attempt was made toconvert him , that he was determined to die in thecommunion in which he had been bro ught up ,whether it was true or false ,

”

j' he neverthe le ss

found no difficulty in conformin g to the Anglicanform of worship

,and was regarded as very much

of an unbeliever .He died o n the fo llowin g day, o n Saturday mo rn in g.

j Mainwarin g.

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66 A Mus ical Tour

God ’s thunderous command breaks through themournful slumber of death

Arise ! cr ied His vo ice . And th e yo un g man ar o se .

01 again , in the Fun eral An them,the intoxicated

cry,almost pain ful in its joy,

of the immortal soulthat puts o ff the husk of the body and holds outits arms to its God.

*

But nothing approaches in moral grandeur theChorus that closes the second act of j ephthah .

Nothing enables us better than the story of thiscomposition to gain an insight into Handel ’shero ic faith .

When he began to write it , on the 21st January ,1751,he was in perfect health

,despite his S ixty-six

years . He composed the first act in twelve days,

working without intermission . There is no trace ofcare to be found in it . .Never had his mind beenfreer ; it was almo st indifferent as to the subj ectunder treatmen t j In the course of the second acthis sight became suddenly clo uded . The writing ,so clear at the beginning , is now co nfused andtremulous . ;t The music too assumes a moumful

Th e cho rus But H i s glory en dureth for ever al tern ateswith th e fun eral cho rus : H is body has gon e to rest in the tomb .

”

Th e mo tive was bo rrowed by Han de l from amo tet by an o ld German

master o f th e Sixte en th cen tury, —h is n amesak e Han de l (Jak o busGallus) : E cce quomodo mo ritur justus . But a. sin gle chan ge o f

rhythm suffice s to give win gs to th e o ld chorale an e cstatic impulsewhich sudden ly bre ak s o ff , bre athle ss with emo tio n , un able to

find further utteran ce . Eight times this cry rises in th e co urse o f

this compo sitio n .

1S everal o f Iphis’ ai rs are built upo n dan ce rhythms : in th e

first act The Smiling D awn , o n th e rhythm o f a bour rée (an Auv e rgn ian dan ce ) , and in th e seco n d ac t , Welcome as the Cheerful Light, o na gavo tte rhythm.

1Th e pro gress o f th e malady may b e fo llowed exactly o n th e

auto graph man uscript, th e facsimile o f which w as published byCh rysander in th e great Breitk opf co llection in 1885.

A Portrait of Handel 67

character .* He had just begun the final cho rusof Act II . How myster ious, O Lord, are Thy ways !

Hardly had he written the initial mo vemen t , alargo with pathetic modulations , when he was fo rcedto sto p . He has noted at the fo ot of the pageHave go t so far, Wedn esday , 13th February .

Preven ted from con tinuing because of my left eye .He breaks o ff fo r ten days . On the eleventh hewrites on his manuscript :The 23rd February, am a little better . Resumed

work .

And he sets to music these words , which containa tragic allusion to his own misfortuneOur joy is lost in gr ief as day is lost in n ight.

Laboriously, in five days ’ time—five days land formerly he could have written a whole act inthe time—h e struggle s on to the end of this sombrechorus

,which illumines , in the darkness that

envelops him,one o f the grandest aflirmatio n s of

faith in time o f suffering . On emerging from thesegloomy and tormented passages , a few voices (tenorand bass) in unison murmur very softlyAll that is

The chan ge o f to n e begins in the second act , with th e cry o fho rro r emitted by Jephthah when h e see s h is daughter coming tome et him . There is to be gin wi th a se ri e s o f mo urn ful airs sun gby Jephthah and th e mo ther and be tro thed o f Iphis , and then a

quartette , in which Iphis ’ paren ts min gle the ir lamen tatio ns .

To their tears replies th e pure vo ice o f Iphis , who co n so les them ,

in a re citative which seems to o pen th e gate s o f heaven ; thenfo llows an aria o f gr eat simplicity, full o f a co urageo us re sign atio nwhich co n ceals th e fear and th e an guish that lie be n eath it. Th eemo tio n waxes mo re in tense ; Jephthah sin gs a re citative whichremin ds o n e o f tho se o f Agamemn o n in Iphigen ia in Aulis at

th e clo se th e recitative is in te rrupted , co n tin uin g in slower time ,growin g fain t with grie f and ho rro r ; certain phrases se em writtenby Be e thoven . At last bursts fo rth th e cho rus in th e midst o f whichHande l was strick en with blindn ess .

68 A Musical Tour

For a moment they hesitate,seeming to take

breath , and then all the voices together affirm withunshakable 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 .

THE ORIGINS OF THE CLASS IC STYLEIN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC.

EVERY musician will at once perceive the profounddifferences which divide the so -called classic styleof the close of the eighteenth century from thegrand pre-classic style of J . S . Bach and Handel ;the one with its ample rhetoric

,its strict deductions ,

its scholarly polyphonic writing,its obj ective and

comprehensive spirit the other lucid , spontaneous ,melodious , reflecting the changing moods of individual minds which throw themselves wholly into theirwork , presently arriving at the Rousseau-likeconfessions of Beethoven and the Romantics . Itseems as though a lo nger period must have elapsedbetween these two styles than the length of a man ’slife .Now l et us note the dates : J . S . Bach died in

1750 , Handel in 1759 . C. H . Graun also died in1759 . And in 1759 Haydn performed his firstsymphony . 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 wereliving at the same time . The style of Keiser,Telemann , Hasse and the Mannheim symphonists ,

69

70 A Musical Tour

which is the source of the great Viennese classics ,is contemporary with the wo rks of J . S . Bach andHandel . Mo re , even in their life time it enj oyedprecedence over them . As early as 1737 (theyear fo llowing Hande l ’s Alexander ’s Feast, andpreceding S aul and the whole series of the magnificen t orato rios) , Frederic II . of Prussia , thenCrown Prince , wrote to the Prince of OrangeHan de l ’s best days ar e o ver ; his mi n d is exhausted and

h is taste out o f fashio n .

”

And Frederic I I . contrasted with this art , whichwas now out of fashion , that of his composer,as he describes C. H . Graun .

In 1722-

3 , when J . S . Bach applied for the postof Can tor of St . Thomas ’s in Leipzig , in successionto Kuhnau

,Telemann was greatly pre ferred to him ,

and it was only because the latter did not want thepost that it was given to .Bach . This same Telemann

,in 1704,

at the beginning of his career , whenhe was as yet hardly known

,outstripped the glorious

Kuhnau,so powerful already was the influence

of the new fashion . Subsequently the movementonly gain ed in strength . A poem by Zacharia ,which reflects with suflicien t accuracy the opinionof the most cultivated circles in Germany , TheTemple of Etern ity ,

written in 1754, places Handel ,Hasse and Graun on the same level

,celebrates

Telemann in terms which one might employ to-dayin speaking of J . S . Bach* , and when it comes to Bach

B ut who is this o ld man , who with his n imble pen ,

‘

full of a pious en thusiasm, en chan ts the E tern al Temple 2 Listen !

H ow the waves of the sea are r oaring ! H ow the moun tain s cry aloud

with j oy an d sing hymn s un to the Lo rd ! H ow harmon ious an“

Amen

fills the devout heart with a sacred awe ! H ow the temples tr emble withthe pious shout of Alleluia ! Teleman n , it is thou, thou, the father ofsacr ed music.

Eighteenth-Century Music 71

and his melodious sons,

” it fin ds nothing to glorifyin them but their skill as performers , as kings ofthe organ and the clavier . This j udgment is alsothat o f the historian Burn ey And assuredlyit is calculated to surprise us . But we must be onour guard against facile indignation . There islittle merit in outpourin g

,from the height of the

two centuries which divide us from them , acrushin g disdain upon the co ntempo rarie s of Bachand Handel who j udged them so incorre ctly . It ismore instructive to seek to understan d them .

And in the first place le t us note the attitude ofBach and Handel in respect of their age . Neitherone n o r the other affects the fatal pose of the misunderstood genius

,as so many o f our great or little

great men of to-day have done . They did n o t

wax indignant they were even on excellent termswith their luckier rivals . Bach and Hasse werevery good - friends

,full of mutual esteem . Te le

mann , in his childhood , had formed a warm friendship with Handel he was also on the best o f termswith Bach

,who chose him as god-father to his so n ,

Philipp Emanuel . Bach entrusted the musicaltrain ing of another of his sons

,his favourite

,Wil

helm Friedemann,to J . Gottlieb Graun . Here

was n o trace of party spirit . On either side therewere gifted men who esteemed and liked oneanother .Let us try to bring to our consideration of themthe same generous spirit of equity and sympathy .

J . S . Bach and Handel will lose nothing o f theircolossal stature thereby . But we may we ll besurprised to find them surrounded by an abun dan ceof fine works

,and of artists full of inte lligence

and genius ; and it should not be impossible to

72 A Mus ical Tour

understand the reasons which their co n tempo ries

had for their preferences . Without speaking o f theindividual value of these artists

,which is often very

great , it is their spirit which leads the way to theclassic masterpieces o f the close of the eighteenthcentury . J . S . Bach and Handel are two mo untainswhich dominate but clo se a period . Te lemann ,Hasse , Jommelli and the Mannheim sympho nistsare the rivers which have made for themselvesa way towards the future . As these rivers havepo ured themselves into greater rivers—Mozart ,Beethoven ,—which have absorbed them , we haveforgotten them while still beholding the loftysummits in the distance . But we must be gratefulto the innovators . They were full of vitality onceand they have handed it down to us .

The reader will rememb°er the famous quarrelbetween the Ancients and the Moderns

,inaugurated

in France towards the close of the seventeenthcentury by Charles Perrault and Fontenelle , whoopposed to the imitation of antiquity the Cartesianideal of progress

,revived

,twenty years later

,

by Houdar de la Motte , in the name of reason andof modern taste .This quarrel extended beyond the personality oftho se who began it . It co rresponded with a universalmovement o f Euro pean thought ; and we findSimilar symptoms in all the greater western countrie sand in all the arts . They are strikingly apparentin German music . The generatio n of Ke iser, Teleman n and Mattheso n felt from childho od aninstinctive aversion from those who representedantiquity in music , for the contrapuntists and

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74 A Musical Tour

(1772) he boasted of having been , vanity apart ,*the first to insist emphatically and expre ssly uponthe importance of me lo dy .

” Be fo re him ,

he says,there was no musical compo ser who did

not leap over this first,most exce llent and most

beautiful element of music as a cock leaps overburning coals .”If he was not the first , as he professed , he at

least made most noise about the matter . In 1713he entered upo n a vio lent battle in ho nour of melo dyas against the Kon trapun tisten ,

who were representedby an organist of Wo lfenbutte l

,B o k emeyer , as

learned and pugnacious as himse lf . Mattheson sawnothing in cano n and co unterpoint but an inte llectualexercise

,without power to to uch the heart . To

move his adversary to r epen ten ce he cho se as arbitrato rs Keiser

,Hein ichen and Telemann , who

pro nounced in his favo ur . B o k emeyer declaredhimself defeated and thanked Mattheso n for havingconverted him to melo dy

,as the sole and true

source of pure music .

”

jTelemann saidWer auf Instrumenten spielt muss des Singens

kundig seyu . (Who plays on instruments must beversed in so ng .)And Mattheso n

Whatever music one is writing,vocal or in stru

mental , all Sho uld be can tabile .

”

This predominant impo rtance given to can tabilemelody

,to so ng

,o verthrew the barrier between

the diffe rent classes o f music,by upho lding as the

There was, o n th e co n trary, a go o d deal o f van ity in his claim,

fo r it is e viden t from th e fo rego in g quo tatio n s from Teleman n ,

and th e exam ple o f Ke iser, that h e had n o lack o f fo re runn ers.

j B o k emeyer was so co n vin ced that h e wro te a little treatiseo n melody and sen t it to Matth eso n fo r the latter to co rrect.

Eighteenth-Century Music 75

model for all the class in which vocal melody andthe art of singin g had blossomed into perfectionthe Italian opera . The orato rios of Telemann ,Hasse and Graun and the masses of the period arein the style of opera .

* In his M usikalische Patriot

Mattheso n breaks a lance against the contrapun tal style of church music here as elsewherehe wishes to establish the theatrical style ,” becausethis style

,according to him

,enables the compo ser

to attain better than an y o ther the aim of religiousmusic

,which is to excite virtuous emotio ns .”

All is,or should be , he says , theatr ical, in the widest

sense o f the word theatralisch which denotes theartistic imitation of nature . All that producesan effect upo n men is theatrical . Musicis theatrical . The who le world is a gigantictheatre .

” This theatrical style will permeate thewhole art of music

,even in tho se of its departments

that seem “ most remote from it,the Lied and in stru

mental music .

Han de l and J . S . Bach themselves were n o t immun e from the

co n tagio n . No t o nl ydid Hande lwrite fo rty o peras , but his o rato rio s ,his Psalms, his Te Deums abo und in dramatic e lemen ts . As fo r

J . S . Bach , it is characteristic that h e cho se as th e librettist o f hisfirst can tatas Erdman n Neumin ste r , who wro te that a can tata“is n o thin g mo re than a fragmen t o f an o pe ra,” and in tro duced

th e re ligio us can tata in ope ratic style in to Ge rman y. In upho ldin gre ligio us can tatas o f this k in d , with re citatives an d arias , Bachsho ck ed a great man y pe ople . Th e pietists o f Miih lhausen , whenhe was Kapellmeister in 1708 , fo rced him to r e sign , be in g o ff endedby his un duly frivo lo us can tatas , an d be cause his church musicsavo ured o f th e co n cert-hall an d th e Opera . W e find remin iscen ceso f Ke ise r’s ope ras in his mo st fam o us can tatas . N e ed w e al so re callhis pro fan e can tatas , some mytho lo gical , o the rs realisti c an d comic ,and th e use which h e made o f co n siderable fragmen ts o f th ese compo sitio ns in his re ligio uswo rks H e did n o t always perce ive a defini tebo undary be twe en th e pro fan e and th e re ligio us style . Bachan d Hande l we re pro tected from th e exce sses o f th e o pe ratic styleby their cho ral and co n trapun tal in gen uity, which harmon ised

but ill with th e ope ra o f that period .

76 A Musical Tour

But this change of style would not have markeda living progress if the o pera itself

,which was the

commo n mo de l,had not been transformed

,at the

same period , by the intro duction of a n ew elementwhich was to develo p with un expected rapidity :the symphonic element . What is lost as regardsvocal polyphony is regained in instrumental symphony . The great conquest of Telemann , Hasse ,Graun and Jommelli in o pera was the recitativo

accompagn ato , the recitative scene with dramaticorchestration .

* It was in this respect that theywere revolutionists in the musical world . Oncethe orchestra was introduced in to the drama itgain ed and kept the upper hand . In vain didpeople lament that the fin e art of Singing wouldbe ruin ed . Those who supported it as against theold co ntrapuntal art did n o t fear to sacrifice it , atneed

,to the orchestra . Jommelli, so respectful

of Metastasio in all other matters , opposed himwith regard to this o n e point with immovablereso lutio n j On e must read the complaints of theold musicians : On e no longer hears the voice ;the orchestra is deafening .”

I will no t say that they inven ted it . Th e accompagn ato go esback to th e earlie st period o f th e Ven etian opera and was used byLully in his later wo rks . But from th e time o f Leo n ardo Vin ciand Hasse (abo ut 1725-30) these great dramatic mo n o lo gues, recitedwith o rchestra , unde rwen t a magnificen t deve lopmen t .

1No t that Metastasio was inimical to the recitativo stromen tale .

He was to o complete a po et-musician n o t to b e co nscio us o f its

dramatic e ffect. H e plain ly ackn owledged , in ce rtain o f his

writin gs , th e o rchestra ’s power o f in te rpre tin g th e inward tr agedy .

But this very power made him un easy. Th e inward tragedythreaten ed to o verflow and swamp th e actio n th e po etry wa s indan ger o f bein g drown ed by th e music ; and Metastasio , wh o h ad

so fin e a fe elin g fo r th e equilibrium o f all th e theatrical e lemen ts ,was boun d to se e that th e pro po rtio n o f th e recitativo con strumen timust b e 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 wordsof the sin gers unless it followed them in thelibr etto the accompan iment smothered the voices .*And the dramatic orchestra continued to develo pthroughout the century . The immoderate useof the instrumental accompan iment says Gerber ,has become a general fashion . The orchestraswamped the theatre to such an extent that at avery early period it freed itself from it , and claimedin itself to be theatre and drama . As early as1738 , Scheibe , who with Mattheso n was the mostintelligent of the German musicolo gists , was writingsymphon y-overtures

,which expressed the content

of the pieces,

” after the fashion of Beethoven ’sovertures for Coriolanus and Leon ora . j I will notspeak of the descriptions in music which aboundedin Germany about 1720 ,

as we see from Mattheso n ’

s

banterin g remarks in his Cr itica M usica . Themovement came from Italy

,where Vivaldi and

Locatelli,under the influence of the opera , were

writing pro gramme concertos which were spreadingall over Europe t

Lo ren z Mizler : M usical B ibl. , 1740, Leipzig, v o l . ii. , see p .13 , quo ted by W . Kre fe ld Das Orchester der Oper , 189 8 . S ee also

Matth eso n Die n eueste Un tersuching der S ingspiele , 1744, Hamburg.f Sche ibe ’s o vertu res to Po lyeuctes ein M artyrer an d M ithr idates .

C. H . S chmid , in his Chron ologie des deutschen Theaters, 1755, Le ipzig,calls this attempt “ o n e o f th e gr eat memo rable even ts o f th e year.”S e e Karl Men n l ck e Hasse un d die B ritder Graun als Symphon iker ,1906 , Le ipzig.1Such as the fo ur co n certos o fVivaldi devo ted to the four seasons ,

o r the co n ce rto s La Tempesta , La N otte , e t c . Each o f th e co n ce rto so f th e seaso ns illustrates a pro gramme which is se t fo rth in a so nn et.I will re fer th e re ader to th e analysis o f th e charmin g co n ce rtoo f Autumn

, by H e rr Arn o ld Sche rin g (Geschichte des in strumen talKonzerts, 1905, Bre itk opf.) He rr S che rin g has trace d th e influen ceo f these wo rks upo n Graupn e r , at Darmstadt, and J . G . We rn er,H aydn ’

s predecesso r as Prin ce Esterhazy ’

s Kapellmeister .

78 A Mus ica l TourThen the influence of French music

,the subtle

imitato r of nature became prepo nderant overthe develo pment of Tonmaler ei (paintin g by music)in German music j—but what I wish to po int o utis that even the Oppo nen ts o f pro gramme music

,

those who like Matth eso n scoffed at the extrav agance of the des criptions of battle s and tempests

,

of musical calendars,1 o f the puerile symbo lism

which represented in co unterpo int the first chapterof St . Matthew ,

o r the genealo gical tree of theSaviour , o r which , to represent Christ ’s TwelveApostles

,wro te as man y parts

,

—even these attri

buted to instrumental music the power of representing the life of the so ul .

On e can very well represent merely with in struments

,

” says Mattheso n ,

“ greatness of soul,love

,

j ealousy,etc . On e can represent all the passio ns of

the heart by simple harmon iés an d their co n cat enatio n

,witho ut words , so that the hearer grasps

and understands the deve lo pment , the meaning andthe ideas of the musical utterance as though it werean actual spoken utterance

Telemann , 1742 .

Fo r th e Fren ch theo rists o f imitatio n in music, se e th e essayby J . E co r ch ev ille : De Lulli d Rameau, l

’

E sthétique musicale de1690 a 1730.

1' No ne o f th e Ge rman critics , who men tio n , whethe r to praise

o r blame , Te leman n’s passio n fo r musical pain tin gs, fail to

attri bute it to th e influen ce o f Fren ch music. An d Teleman n himselfbo asted that h e was in this th e disciple o f Fran ce .

1Example an I n strumen tal-Kalen dar in twelve mo nths byJ .G .We rn er. Everythin g is tran slated in to music, even to th e len gtho f th e days and nights, which , bein g in February ten and fo urte enho urs respe ctively, are expressed by th e repetitio n o f min uets o f ten

an d fo urte en bars .—A. Scherin g sugge sts that H aydn h as been

in fluen ced by his predecesso r in his earlier sympho n ies : E ven ing,M orn ing, e tc .

§ Die n eueste Un tersuchung der S ingspiels, i744.—Mattheson

here fo llows Keiser ’s traditions.

Eighteenth-Century Music 79

A little later,about 1767 , in a letter to Philipp

Emman uel Bach , the poet Gerstenberg , of Co penhagen

,expressed with perfect lucidity the idea that

true instrumental music , and espe cially claviermusic

,ought to give utterance to precise fee lings and

subj ects ; and he ho ped that Philipp Emmanuel ,whom he described as a musical Raphael ” (einRaf ael durch TOn e) wo uld realise this art . *Musicians

,then

,had become plainly aware of the

expressio n and descriptive power of pure music ;and we may say that certain German composers ofthis period were intoxicated by the idea . Of thesewas Te lemann , fo r example , fo r whom Tonmalerei ormusic-paintin g takes the foremost place .But what we must plainly realise is that it wasnot merely a literary movement that was in questio n ,seeking to introduce extra-musical elements intomusic , making it a sort of painting or poetry . Apro fo und revelation was occurring in the heartof music . The individual so ul was becomingemancipated from the impersonality of form . Thesubj ective element , the artist ’s perso nality, wasinvading th e art with an audacity that was abso lutelyunprecedented—It is true that we reco gnize thepersonality o f J . S . Bach and Handel in the ir powerfulworks . But we know how rigorously these worksare unfolded , in acco rdance with the strictest laws ,which n o t only are not the laws of emotio n

,but

which evidently evade or contradict them of imtentio n—for whe ther in the case of a fugue or an aria

da capo , they inevitably bring back the motives atmoments and in place s determined upo n befo rehand ,whereas emotion requires the compo ser to contin ue

O. Fische r : Zum musikalischen S tan dpun kte des N ordischen

Dichterkreises (S ammelba‘

n de der I .M .G., Jan uary-March,

80 A Musical Tour

upon his path , and not to retrace his steps -andwhich

,on the other hand

,dread fluctuatio ns of

feeling , consenting to them only on con dition thatthey present themse lves unde r symmetrical aspects

,

co ntrasts of a somewhat stiff and mechanical naturebetween the pian o and the forte , the tutti and con

cerlin a in the fo rm o f echo es ,” as they were calledin those days . It seemed inartistic to express one ’sindividual fee ling in an immediate fashion o n e hadperfo rce to in terpo se between o neself and the publica veil of beautiful and imperso nal forms . Doubtlessthe works of this perio d gained thereby their superbappearance of lofty serenity

,which hides the little

j oys and little sorrows . But how much humanitythey lose thereby —This humanity gives musicalutterance to its cry of emancipatio n with the artistsof the new perio d . Obvio usly we cannot expectthat it will at the first step attain th e palpitatingfreedomof a Beethoven . Yet the ro ots of Beetho ven ’sart exist already, as has been shown , * in the Mannheim symphonies , in the wo rk of that asto nishingJohann Stamitz, who se orchestral trio s , written in1750 ,

mark a new period . Through him in stru

mental music became the supple garment o f theliving soul

,always in movement

,perpetually chang

ing,with its un expected fluctuations and co ntrasts .I do not wish to exaggerate . On e can neve rexpress in art an emo tio n in all its purity , but onlya more or less approximate image of it ; and theprogress of a language such as music is can onlyapproach the emotion more and mo re closely without

S e e abo ve all th e wo rk s o f th e great musico lo gist, to whombelo n gs th e ho n o ur o f havin g resto red to th e light o f day S tamitz

an d his scho o l : Hugo Rieman n, in his editio n s o f th e S inf on ien

der Pfalzbayerischen S chule , an d his articles on B eethoven und die

M an n heimer (Die M usik , 1907

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82 A Musical Touro f the continual alternation of the pian o and the

They pro fit by all the recent conquests ,by the pro gress o f the orchestra , by the audaciousharmonic researches o f a Telemann

,replyin g to the

scandalised old maste rs who tell him that one mustn o t go to o far , that o n e must go down to theve ry depths if o n e wishes to deserve the name ofMastor . t” They profit also by the new styles ofmusic , by the S ingspiel which has j ust taken Shape .They bo ldly in troduce the comic style into thesympho ny

,side by S ide with the serio us style , at

the risk o f scandalising Philipp Emmanuel Bach,

who sees in the eruptio n o f the comic style (S tylso beliebte Komische) an element of decadence inmusic i—a de caden ce which was to lead to Mo zart .In sho rt

,their law is that of life and nature—the

same law which is about to permeate the whole artof music

,resuscitatin g the oLied, giving birth to the

S ingspiel, and leadin g to tho se experiments in theutmo st freedom in theatrical music which areknown as M elodrama : free music united to freespeech .

For this great breath of liberation of the individualsoul we should be grateful it stirred the tho ught o fall Europe abo ut the middle of the eighteenthcentury

,befo re expressing itself in action by the

French Revo lutio n and in art by romanticism . Ifthe German music of that time is still far removedfrom the rom antic Spirit (although we already findin it certain precursory signs) it is because it was

Allg. deutsche B ibliothek , 179 1 (quo ted by Herr Menn ick e

in H asse un d die B riider Oman ) .

1Letter from Te lemann to C. H. Graun , 1sth Decembe r, 1751.

1Autobio gr aphy, quot ed by Nohl : M usiker B riefe, 186 7 ; and

by C. Men nick e .

Eighteen th-Century Music 83

secured from the excesses of artistic individualismby two profound emotions the conscio usness of thesocial obligations of art and a passionate patriotism .

We know how Germanic sentiment decayed inGerman music at the close of the seventeenthcentury . Abroad the mo st disdainful idea wasentertained o f it . We may remember that in 1709Le cerf de la Viéville ,

speakin g of the Germans ,remarked that the ir reputation in music is notgreat

,and that the Abbé de Chateauneuf admired

a German pe rformer all the more because he camefrom a country that is n o t addi cted to pro ducin gmen of fire an d genius . The Germans subscribedto this j udgment ; and while their princes andwealthy burgesses passed their time in trave llingthrough Italy and France and aping the manners ofParis or Venice , Germany was full of French andItalian musicians , who laid down the law , imposedtheir style

,and were all the rage . I have already

given a summary of a novel by J . Kuhnau : TheM usical Charlatan ,

published in 1700 ,whose comic

hero is a German adventurer who passes himselfo ff as an Italian in order to explo it the sno bberyof his compatrio ts . He is the type o f those Germansof the period who denied their nationality in orderto share in the glory o f the fo reigners .In the first twen ty years of the Eighteenth centuryan intelle ctual change was already making itselffelt . The musical generation which surro undedHandel at Hamburg—Keise r

,Te lemann , Mattheso n

—did n o t go to Italy it prided itself in n o t do ingso 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 writinghis Almira at Hamburg he affected a great contemptfor Italian music . The failure of the Hamburgopera compelled him

,however

,to make the classic

j ourney ; and once he was in Italy he surrenderedto the charm of the Latin Circe , like all those whohave once known her . Still , he took from her thebest part o f her genius without impairing his ownand his victory in Italy

,the triumph of his Agrippina

at Venice , in 1708 ,was of co nsiderable effect in

restoring Germany ’s pride ; for the echo of thissuccess was immediately heard in his own country .

These remarks apply even more forcibly to the successof his Rin aldo in London , in 1711. Think of it :here was a No rth German who

,as all Europe agreed ,

had beaten the Italian s on their own gro und TheItalians themselves admitted it . The Italian scoreswhich he wrote in Londo n‘ were at once performedin Italy . The poet

,Barthold Fe ind

,in 1715, told

his compatriots at Hamburg that the Italians calledHande l l

’

Orfeo del n ostr o secolo the Orpheusof our age . A rare honour

,he adds , for

no German is spoken of thus by an Italian or aFrenchman , these gentry being accustomed tosco fling at us .Withwhat rapidity and vehemence did the nationalsentiment revive in German music during thefollowing years In 1728 Mattheso n

’

s M usikalische

Patriot exclaimed : Fuori B arbar i ! Out ,

barbariansLet the calling be forbidden to the aliens who

encompass us from east to west , and let them besent back across their savage Alps to purify themselves in the furnace of EtnaIn 1729 Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann published

Eighteen th-Centu ry Music 85

some frantic pamphlets attacking the Italian OpernQuark .

Above all,Jo hann Ado lf Scheibe was indefatig

able in restoring the national pride : from 1737-

40

by his Critischer M usicus,while in 1745he states thatBach

,Handel , Telemann , Hasse and Graun ,

tothe glory of our co untry, are putting all the foreigncompo sers

,whoever they are , to shame

We are no longer imitators of the Italians ; we maywith much better reason boast that the Italianshave at last become the imitato rs of the Germans .

Yes,we have at last discovered that good

taste in music of which Italy has never as yet offeredus the perfect mo de l . Good taste in music(the taste o f a Hasse or a Graun) is the peculiarcharacteristic of the German intellect ; no o thernation can pride itself on this superiority . Morever

,

the Germans have for a long time been the chiefmasters of instrumental music

,and they have

retained this supremacy .

Mizler and Marpurg express themselves to thesame effect . And the Italians accept these verdicts .Antonio Lotti writes to Mizler

,in 1738

M iei compatrioti son o gen ii e n on compositori,ma la vera composizion e si tr ova in

My countrymen are talented , but n o t compo sersthe true art of composition is fo un d in German y .

”

We see the change of front that has come aboutin music . First we have the period of the greatItalians who triumphed in Germany ; then thatof the great Italianate Germans : Handel andHasse . And then the time of the GermanizedItalians , of whom Jommelli was one .Car l Mennick e inscri bes this phrase o f Lo tti ’s at th e beginnin g

o f his H asse und di e B rilder Graun .

86 A Musical Tour

Even in France , where people were much morestay-at -home , n o t caring greatly what was happeningin Germany , it was realised that a revo lutio n wastaking place . As early as 1734, Séré de Rieuxrecorded Han de l ’s victo ry o ver Germany .

Flavius, Tamer lan , Othon ,Ren aud

,César

,Admete , S ir o é , R o delinde e t Ri chard ,E tern el mo n umen ts dressés a sa mémo ire .

Des Opéra Romain s surpasser en t la glo ire ,Ven ise lui peut-elle o ppo ser n u rival

Grimm,who was a snob , and would have taken

good care not to advertise a k inship that wouldhave inj ured 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 andHandel . Telemann was fated in Paris in 1737 ;Hasse was no less warmly welcomed in 1750 ,

and theDauphin requested him to write the Te Deum fo r

the accouchement of the Dauphiness . J . Stamitz

obtained a triumphant reception for his first symphonies in Paris , about 1754-5. And soon after thisthe French newspapers made a crushing referenceto Rameau

,contrasting him with the German

symphonists or , to be exact , they said : We shallnot commit the inj ustice of comparing Rameau

’

s

overtures with the symphonies which Germanyhas given us during the last twelve or fifteen years . jGerman music

,then

,had regained its positio n

at the summit o f Euro pean art and the Germansrealised it . In this natio nal feeling all other differen ces were effaced all German artists , to whatevergro up they be lo nged , set aside their causes of disputeGermany united them without di stinction of schools .

Epitre sur la M usique, 3d can to .

1' M ercure de Fran ce, April, 1772 .

Eighteen th-Century Music 87

Zacharia ’s verses which I quoted but now showus

,about the middle o f the century , the leaders of

the n ew schoo l and tho se of the old grouped to ge ther ,for the glo ry of Germany

,in what he calls the

Temple of Etern ity .

”

With j oyous rapture the muse ofGermany beholds the artist ho sts

,and she blesses

the ir n ames, to o numerous all to be con tained

within the confin es o f this narrow po em , but whichFame inscribes in immortal letters upon th e co lumnsof the Temple of Etern ity . O Muse ofGermany , lay claim to the honour of having bo un dthy brows with the laurel of music ! A multitudeof masters are thine

,greater and more numerous

than those o f Fran ce and alien lands .These artists ar e classed by Zacharia in a verydifferent orde r to that which we should give themto-day . But they are almost all there : and fromthe sum to tal of the ir fame proceeds a pride in to xicated by the musical empire of Germany .

It was not only the pride of the musicians thatwas exalted , but also their patrio tism . Patrio ticoperas* were written . Even in the co urts whe reItalianate music prevailed

,as in that o f Frederick

II . at Berlin , we see C. H . Graun singing Frede rick ’sbattles—Hochkirchen , Rossbach , Zo rndo rf—eithe rin sonatas or dramatic scen es j Gluck wrote his

Th e mo st famous o f these is Gun ther von S chwarzburg, byIgn az Ho lzbaue r, o n e o f th e mo stme lodious o f Ge rman Operas be fo reMo zart, who w as himse lf inspired by it (1770 ,

Man nhe im .) —As e arlyas 168 9 , S tefl ani had written a H en r ico L eo n e which was played at

th e in auguratio n o f the H an o ver Ope ra ,and o n th e fifth cen ten ary

o f th e siege o f B ardewick byH enry th e Lio n .—W e may also men tio n

amo n g compo sitio ns o f this class a n umber o f wo rk s by S churman n ,

S cheibe , e tc .

1' It is said that Graun died o f mo rtificatio n o n learn in g o fFrederick ’

s de feat at Zii llichau

88 A Musical TourVaterlandslied (1700) and his Herman n schlacht towords by Klo pstock . Presently the yo ungMozart , in his palpitating letters , written fromParis in 1778 , is moved to fury against the Frenchand Italians

My hands and feet are trembling with the ardentdesire to teach the French to acknowledge

,esteem

and fear the Germans more and everThi s exacerbated patrio tism , which displeases usin great artists like Mozart , because it makes themgro ssly unj ust to the genius of other races

,had

at least the result of compelling them to emergefrom their atmosphere o f arro gant individualismor debilitated dile ttantism . To German art , whichbreathed a rarified atmosphere , and would haveperished of asphyxia had it not inhaled fo r twohundred years the oxygen of re ligio us faith

,it

brought a rush of fresh air : These new musiciansdid not write fo r themselves alone ; they wrotefor all their fellow-coun trymen ; they wrote forall men .

And here German patrio tism found itself in harmony with the theories of the philoso phers oftho se days Art was no lo nger to b e th e appanageof a se lect few ; it was the pro perty of all . Suchwas the Cr edo of the new perio d ; and we find itrepeated in every key :He who can benefit many says Telemann

,

To his father, 3 rst July, 1778 . S e e S chubart : pre face to th eM usicalische Rhapsodien ,

17 86 , S tuttgart Th e German ear ,however accustom ed to th e co o in g o f fo reign so n g, can n o t but hearth e beauty in a popular so n g that issue s from th e heart. And tho u ,so n g o f th e Fatherlan d h ow do st tho u uplift th e so ul when po e tan d compo ser are patrio ts , and their emo tio n s min gle lik e drops o f dewin th e Calyx o f a flowe r ! I myse lf, twen ty ye ars ago , wo rk edmiracles with th e Kriegsliedern o f Gleim se t to music by Bach.Hun dreds o f people befo re whom I played these so ngs can testifyto this .

”

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90 A Musical Tourus make songs that are neither S0 poetical that thefair Singers canno t understand them nor so commonplace and empty that intelligent folk cannot readthem .

”

The principles which he then sets forth areexorbitant .* They led, none the less , to a crop ofsongs in the popular style

, im Volkston ; and theabsolute master of this style

,the Mo zart of the

popular Lied, Jo hann Abraham Peter Schulz , tellsus , in the preface to one o f his charming collectionsof songs im Volkston (1784)I have endeavo ured to be as Simple and in telli

gib le as po ssible . Yes,I have even sought to give

all my inventio ns the appearance of things alreadyknown— o n the condi tio n , of co urse , that this appearance must not be a reality .

”

These are precisely Mattheson’

s ideas . Sideby side with these me lodies in the popular stylethere was an in credible outgrowth o f socialmusic—Lieder geselliger Freude, Deutsche Gesa

‘

nge

for all ages , fo r the two sexes , for German men ,”for Children , for the fair sex (f lir ’s scho

‘

n e Geschlecht) ,jetc . Music had become eminently sociable .Moreo ver , the leaders of the new school didwo nders in the matte r of diffusing the knowledgeand lo ve of it o n every hand . Co nsider the greatperiodical concerts which were then established .

Abo ut 1715,Te lemann began to give public per

fo rman ces at th e Collegium M usicum which he hadfo unded in Hamburg . It was more particularly

That th e melodies Sho uld b e accessible to all and sho uld o ff ern o difficultie s to th e learn er, such as vo cal o rn amen ts , fio ritoripassage s , and o ther cumbe rsome trifles , th e legacy o f th e Ope raticstyle ; that th e me lo die s sho uld retain their full mean in g and all

their charm even witho ut accompaniment, witho ut any bass, e tc .

1' See Reichardt

’s Lieder .

Eighteenth-Century Mus ic 91

after 1722 that he organised regular public concertsat Hamburg . These were held twice a week , onMo n days and Thursdays

,at four o ’clock . The

price of admission was one flo rin eight groschen .

At these concerts,Telemann co nducted all sorts of

compositions—instrumental music,cantatas and

oratorios . These concerts,attended by the most

distinguished perso ns of the city , clo sely fo llowedby the critics

,directed with care and punctuality ,

became so flo urishing that in 1761 a fine hall wasin augurated

,comfortable and well warmed

,whe re

music fo und a home o f its own . This was mo re thanParis had had the generosity to offer her musiciansuntil quite recently . Jo hann Adam Hiller , wh o

taught Me fe , who in turn taught Bee thovenHiller

,one of the champio ns of the po pular style

in the Lied and the theatre,in which he fo unded

the German comic Ope ra , contributed greatly, asdid Te lemann

,to diffuse a knowledge of music

thro ugho ut the nation,by conducting

,from 1763

o nwards , the Liebhaber-k onzerte (Concerts fo r

Music- lovers) , at Leipzig , where the famous Gewandhauskonzerte 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 quiteun expected : this national mo vement includes anumber o f foreign elements . The new style , whichto o k shape in Germany in the course of theeighteenth century

,and subsequently blo ssomed

forth into the Viennese classics,is in reality far less

pure ly German than the style of J . S . Bach . YetBach ’s style was less purely German than is commo n ly admi tted , for Bach had assimilated something

92 A Mus ical Tour

of French and Italian art ; but in him the basishad remained echt deutsche—genuinely German .

—Itwas otherwise with the n ewmusicians . The musicalrevolution which was fully accomplished from about1750 onwards , and which ended in the supremacy ofGerman music

,was—however strange it seems

the product of fo reign movements . The moreperspicacious historians of music , such as HugoRiemann

,have clearly perceived this but have not

dwelt upon it . Yet it should be emphasised . Itis no insignificant fact that the leaders of the newinstrumental music of Germany , the first sympho n ists of Mannheim ,

Jo hann S tamitz , Piltz andZar th ,

should be natives of Bo hemia , as were thereformer of German o pera

,Gluck , and the creator

of the melodrama and the tragic German S ingspiel,George Benda . The impetuosity , the spontaneousimpulse and the naturalness of the new sympho nywere a contribution of the Czechs and Italians toGerman music . Nor was it a matter o f indifferencethat this new music should have found its focus andits centre in Paris

,where the first editions of the

Mannheim symphonies appeared whither J . Stamitz

went to co nduct his works and found in Go sse can immediate disciple : in France , where otherof the Mannheim mas ters had established themselves

,Richter at Strasbourg , and Bech at Bord

eaux . The critics of northern Germany who werehostile to the movement were completely consciousof the importance o f these facts . They qualifiedthese symphonies as symphonies in the recentoutlandish manner and their authors as musician s in the Parisian fashio n .

”

jAllgemein e deutsche B ibliothek , quo ted by Men n ick e .

j Hiller, 1766 .

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94 A Musical Tourpioneer of the new style declares

,in his Auto

bio graphy (1729)As fo r my styles in music (he do es not say my

style) , these are we ll-known . First there was thePolish style , then the French style , and above allthe Italian style , in which I have written mostpro fusely .

”

I cannot,in these hasty notes , which are merely

the outlines o f a series o f lectures , lay especial stressupon certain influences

,more particularly on that

o f Polish music,which has been taken too little

into account,though its style furn ished many

inspiratio ns to the German masters of that period .

*

But what I wish to make clear j ust n ow is that theleaders of the new German school

,though imbued

with a very profo und sense of natio nality,were

steeped in fo reign influences which had crossed allparts of the German fro n tier’fi Czech ,

Polish , French ,and Italian . This was not an accident ; it was anecessity . German music , despite its power , hadalways had a sluggish circulation . The musicof other countries—ours , for example—has chiefly

Teleman n ,who became acquain ted with Po lish music, at So ranand at Ple ise , in all its true barbari c beauty,” do es n o t fo rget, withhis customary fran kn ess , whi ch renders him so sympathetic, to te lluswhat h e owe s to it . No o n e co uld eve r co n ce ive what an extrao rdin ary imagin atio n this music reveals . Anyo n e wh o to o kn o tes co uld o btain ,

in a we ek ,a sto re o f ide aswhi ch wo uld last him

fo r th e rest o f his life . In Sho rt , there is a great deal that is go o d inthis music, if o n e k n ows h ow to pro fit by it . Itwas o f greatse rvice to me subsequen tly, even in man y a serio us compo sitio n .

At a later period I wro te in this style lo ng co n certo s and trio s whichI then gave an Ital ian dress .

H errMax S chn eide r h as po in ted out traces o f this Po lish music inTe leman n

’

s M ethodical S on atas an d hi s Klein e Kammer -M usic . Itwas mo re particularly by way o f S axo n y, who se Electo r was Kin go f Po lan d , that this music spread thro ugh Ge rman y. Even an

Italian ate Ge rman lik e H asse was affected by it ; h e speaks , in a

conversatio n with Burn ey, o f this Po lish music, genuin ely n atural ,and o ften very tender and delicate .

Eighteenth-Century Music 95

need o f nourishment , of fuel to feed the machine .It was n o t fuel that was lacking in German music ,but air . It certainly was not poo r in the eighteenthcentury ; it was rathe r too rich , embarrassedby its wealth ; the chimn ey was choked , and thefire might well have died out , but fo r the greatcurrent of air which Te lemann , Hasse , S tamitzand their like

,let in thro ugh the door—o r all the

do o rs open upon France,Poland Italy and Bo hemia .

So uth Germany and the Rh ln eland,Mannheim ,

Stuttgart and Vienna were th e centres in which thenew art was elabo rated we see this plainly enoughfrom the j ealo usy o f No rth German y , which wasfo r a long time hostile to the new movement . *It is not with the paltry idea o f belitt ling the greatness of the classic German art of the close of theeighteenth cen tury that I am po inting out whatit owes to fo re ign influences and elements . It wasnecessary that this Sho uld be so , in order that thisart Should quickly become universal

,as it did . A

narrow and self-regarding sense of nationalism hasnever brought an art to supremacy . Quite onthe contrary

,it would very soon result in its dying

of consumptio n . If an art is to be strong and vitalit must not timoro usly take refuge in a sectit must not seek She lter in a hotho use

,like those

wretched trees which are grown in tubs ; it mustgrow in a free so il and extend its roots unhinderedwherever they can drink in life . The soul mustabso rb all the substance of the wo rld . It will neverthe less retain its racial chara cteristics ; but itsrace will not waste away and become exhausted

,

Owin g to th e ho stility and th e persisten t silen ce which th en o rthe rn critics o bse rved in respe ct o f th e Man nheim productions,we kn ew n o thin g o f these latt e r un til quite re cen tly, altho ugh we oweto them Haydn and Mo zart, and pro bably Bee thoven .

96 A Musical Tour

as it would if it fed only upon itself a new life istransfused into it , and by the addition o f thealien elements which it has assimilated it will givethis new life a power of universal irradiation . Urbis

Orbis . The other races recognise themselves init , and n o t not only do they bow to its victorythey love it and enter into fellowship with it . Thisvictory becomes the greatest victory to which anart or a nation can lay claim a victory of humanity .

Of such victories,which are always rare

,o n e of

the noblest example s is , in music , the classic Germanart of the close of the eighteenth century . This arthas become the property, the food of all ; of allEuropeans

,because all races have collaborated in

it,all have put something of themselves into it .

The reaso n why Gluck and Mozart are so dear to usis that they be long to us , to all o f us . Germany ,France and Italy have all contributed to createtheir spirit and their

Th e first lecture o f a series dealin g with th e histo ry o f musicgiven in th e Faculty o f Letters o f Paris, 1909-10 .—Revue musi cale

S .I .M February, 19 10 .

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98 A Mus ical Tour

to understand . He has been immolated by the piouszeal of the Bach enthusiasts , such as Bitter , Wolfrum ,

or our friend A . Schweitzer , who does n o t realisethat Bach transcribed whole cantatas by Telemannwith his own hand . It is possible not to realisethis but if one admires Bach the mere fact that hisopinion of Telemann was so high should give usfood for reflection . Winterfeld alone , in the past ,has made a careful study of Telemann ’s religio uscompositions and perceived his historical importancein the development of the religio us cantata—Someyears ago the musicologists began to revise theirresponsible decree of history . In 1907 HerrMax Schneider published in the Den kmaler du

Ton kun st in Deutschland two of Te lemann ’s lastworks Der Tag des Ger ichts (The Day of Judgment)and I n o , accompanying them by an excellent histo rical notice . Herr Curt -Ottzen n , for his part ,has written a sho rt and S lightly superficial studyentitled Teleman n als Opern kompon ist ein B eitragzur Geschichte Hamburger Oper (1902 , Berlin ) , andadded to it a musical album of fragments fromTelemann ’s operas , comic and otherwise . *

There is no lack of data as to Telemann ’s life .He himself took the trouble to write three narrativ es of his career , in 1718 , in 1729 and in 1739 .

This taste fo r autobiography is a sign of the timesit is to be found in other German musicians o f theperiod

,and it coincides with the publicatio n of

H err Hugo Rieman n h as published an in strumen tal trio o f

Te leman n’

s in his fin e co llectio n : Collegium M usicam. Th e pre faceto H err Max S chn e ider’s-vo lume o f D en kmdler co n tains a small

bibliography o f this subject—I have pro fited large ly by hi s labo urs .

A Forgotten Master 99

the first Lexicons,Dictionaries and Histories of

Musician s by Walther and Mattheso n . Compare,

with the delight which the artists of the new periodderive from describin g themselves , the in differenceof a Bach or a Handel , who does not even replyto the series of bio graphical queries sent him byMattheso n . It was n o t that Bach and Handelwere less proud than Telemann

,Ho lzbauer and

their like . They were very much prouder . Buttheir pride was to display their art and conceal theirpersonality . The new period no longer distinguishesone from the othe r . Art becomes the reflection ofpe rsonality . Telemann , anticipating his critics ,excuses himself , at the Close o f his 1718 narrative ,for having said too much about himself . He wouldnot have it thought , he says , that he was seekingto praise himself :I can bear witness before the whole world that

apart from the legitimate self-respect which everyone should possess I have no fo olish pride . All th osewho know me will bear me out in this . If I speaka great deal about my work it is not to aggrandizemyself fo r it is a law to which all are subj ect thatnothing can be attained witho ut toil .

N il sin e magno

Vita labo re dedit mo r tali .bus

But my intention has been to show those whowish to study music that o n e canno t go far in thisinexhaustible science wi tho ut a mighty effort .He therefore believes , as peo ple in his time didbelieve

,that his life may be as interesting and as

useful to the student as his work . But apart fromall these motives he takes infinite pleasure in writin gof himself . His ingenuous confessions are full o f

100 A Mus ica l Tour

good humour, drollery and exuberance ; he stuffsthem with quotations in every language

,verses

of his own co nco ctio n,and moral anecdotes ; he

conceals nothing ; after the death of his firstwife he writes in verse the story of his lo ve

,his

betrothal , his marriage ; of his wife ’s illness andher death ; he spares us no details he insists ontaking the world into his confidence as regardshis j oys and so rrows . How far is all this fromHandel and the S ilence in which he wrapped hisgrieving heart while he wrote the serene music ofPoro in the days when h e had j ust lost his motherThe personality of the artist demands its place inthe sun it displays itself with indiscreet satisfaction . We shall not complain of this it is to thischange of mind

,to this disappearance of the moral

constraint that weighed upon the expression ofpersonal emotion that we Owe the free and livingmusic of the close of the century

,and the passionate

utterances of Beethoven .

Georg Philipp Tel ’emann was born at Madgeburg,

on the 14th of March , 1681. He was the son andgrandson of Lutheran pastors . He was not yet fouryears old when he lost his father . At an early age hedisplayed a remarkable facility in all subj ectsGreek

,Latin , music . The neighbours diverted

themselves by listening to the little fellow, whoplayed on the violin , the zither and the flute . Hehad a great lo ve of German poetry—a very excep

tion al characteristic in the German musicians o fhis time . While still quite yo ung—o n e o f the yo ungeststudents in the co llege—he was cho sen by the

Can tor as his assistant in the teaching o f singing .

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102 A Musical Tour

that the master who was to have written a cantatafor a po pular fate in th e mountains fell ill . Thechild pro fited by th e opportunity . He wro te thecomposition and co nducted the orche stra . He wasthirteen years of age ,

and he was so small thata little bench had to b e made fo r him

,to lift him up

,

so that the members of the orchestra could see him .

The wo rthy mountaineers,says Telemann

,

touched by my appearance rather than my harmonies , carried me in triumph on their Shoulders .”The head-master of the school

,flattered by his

success , authorised Telemann t o cultivate his music ,declaring that after all this study was not in co n sistent with that o i geometry

,and even that there was

a relatio nship between the two sciences . The boyprofited by this permissio n to neglect his geometryhe returned to the clavier and studied thoroughbass , who se rules he himself. formulated and wrotedown fo r

,

” he says,I did not as yet know that

there were books on the subj ect .”When about seventeen years of age he proceededto the gymnasium at Hildesheim

,where he studied

logic and altho ugh he co uld n o t endure the B arbaraCelaren t he acquitted himself brilliantly . But aboveall he made great progress in his musical education .

He was always compo sing . Not a day went bysin e lin ea . He wrote church and instrumentalmusic principally . His models were Steffani ,Ro senmiiller , Co relli and Caldara . He acquireda taste for the style of the new German and Italianmasters

,for their manner

,full o f invention

can tabile , and at the same time close ly wrought .Their wo rks co nfirmed his instinctive preferencefor expressive melo dy and his antipathy fo r the oldcontrapuntal style . A lucky chance favoured him.

A Forgotten Master 103

He was n o t far distant from Hanove r and Wo lfenb iittel, whose famous chapels were centres of the newstyle . He went thither often . In Hanover helearn ed the French manner ; at Wo lfen b iit tel thetheatrical style o f Venice . The two courts hadexce llent orchestras , and Telemann zealously investigated the character of the various instruments .I Should perhaps have become a mo re skilfulinstrumentalist

,he says

,if I had n o t fe lt such a

burning eagerness to learn,in addition to the

clavier,vio lin and flute

, the o boe,the German flute ,

the reed-pipe,the Viol de gamba , etc down

to the bass viol and the Quint-Po saune (bass trombone) . —This is a very mode rn characteristic thecomposer do e s no t seek to become a skilled perfo rmeron 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 necessityof this study for the composer .At Hildesheim he wrote cantatas for the Catholic

Church,although he was a co nvinced Lutheran .

He also set to music some dramatic essays by o n e ofhis professors

,a species o f comic-ope ra , in which

the recitatives were spo ken and the arias sung .Howeve r , he was twenty years of age ; and hismothe r (like Handel ’s father) would n o t hear of hisbecoming a musician . Te lemann (like Handel) didnot rebel against the will of the family . In 1701

he went to Leipzig with the firm intention o f studying law there . Why should it have befallen thathe had to pass through Halle

,where he very fittingly

made the acquain tance of Han de l , aged sixteen ,who , although he was supposed to be fo llowing thelectures in the Faculty of Law ,

had contrived to gethimself appointed organist

,and had acquired in the

0 104 A Musical Tourcity a musical reputation astonishing in one of hisage ! The two boys struck up a friendship . Butthey had to part . Te lemann ’s heart was heavyas h e continued his j ourney . However , he adheredto his purpose and arrived in Leipzig . But the po orb oy fell into temptatio n after temptatio n . He hadhired a room in commo n with another student .The first thing he saw o n entering was that musicalinstruments were hanging on all th e walls

,in every

corner of the room . His companion was a me lomaniac and every day he inflicted upon Teleman nthe torture of playin g to him ; and Telemannhero ically concealed the fact that he was a musician .

The end was inevitable . On e day Telemann ~co uldn o t refrain from Showing one of his compositio ns

,

a psalm,to his room-mate . (To tell the truth , he

pro tests that his friend found the compo sition in histrunk) . The friend found not hing better to do thanto divulge the secret . The psalm was played inSt . Thomas ’s Church . The burgomaster , enraptured ,sent for Telemann

,gave him a present of

money,and commissioned him to write a compo

sitio n for the church every fortn ight . This was toomuch . Telemann wrote to his mother that hecould no longer ho ld out ; he could do no more ,he must write music . His mother sent him herblessin g

,and at last Telemann had the right to be

a musician .

We see with what repugnance the German familiesof tho se days regarded the idea of allowing theirsons to embrace the musical career and it is curiousthat so many great musicians—Schlitz , Handel ,Kuhnau

,Te lemann— sho uld have been obliged to

begin by studying philosophy or law . However, thistraining does not seem to have done the composers

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106 A Musica l Tour

taste . To exasperate him more completely,Tele

mann succeeded in obtaining the directorship ofthe opera

,al tho ugh this was

,as a general rule

,

irreco ncilable with the post o f organ ist . And allthe studen ts flo cked to him

,attracted at o n ce by

his youthful fame,by the lure of the theatre

,

and by gain . They deserted Kuhnau , wh o com

plained bitterly . In a letter of the 9th December,1704, he protested that in co nsequence of theappointment of a new organist who is to producethe operas hence fo rth

,the students

,who have

hitherto j oined the church choir gratuito usly,and

have been partly trained by me,n ow that they can

be sure of earning something in the opera are leavingthe choir to assist the operiste .

’ —But hisprotest was in vain and Te lemann won the day .

Thus at the very beginn in g of his career Telemann de feated the glorious Kuhnau , before outShin ing Bach . So powerful was the tide of the newmusical fashionFor that matter

,Telemann knew how to profit

by his luck and how to enable others to pro fit byit . There was nothing of the intriguer abo ut himand we canno t even say that it was ambition thaturged him to accept all the po sts which he securedduring his long career ; it was an extrao rdinaryactivity and a feverish need of exercising it . AtLeipzig he worked assiduously

,taking Kuhnau

for his model in the matter of fugues * and perfectinghimself in melo dy by working in collaboratio n withHandel . j

' At the same time he founded at Leipzig,As h e says, th e excellen t Herr Kuhn au’s pen assisted me in

fugues and co un terpo in ts .

”

1They wro te to o n e an o ther and exchan ged compo sitio n s,mutually cri ticisin g them.

A Forgotten Master 107

in conj unction with the students , a Collegium

M usicum,which gave concert s that were a prelude ,

as it were,to the great periodical public con certs

in which he was to take the in itiative later inHamburg .

I n 1705he was called to Sorau , between Fran kfo rto n -Oder and Breslau , as Kapellmeister to a wealthyno bleman

,Graf Erdmann von Promn itz . The

little princely court was extremely brilliant . TheGraf had re cen tly returned from France and was alo ver of Fren ch music . Teleman n proceeded towrite French o vertures ; he read , pen in hand , theworks o f Lully

,Campra and o ther good artists .”

I applied myself almost entirely to this style,

so that in two years I wrote as man y as two hundredovertures .With the French style

,Telemann learned the

Po lish style while at So rau . The Court sometimesrepaired for a few months to a residence of theCo unt ’s in Upper Silesia : at Plesse , or in Cracow.

There Telemann became acquainted with the Po lishand Hanak* music in all its true and barbaricbeauty . It was played in certain hostelries by fourinstruments : a very shrill violin , a Polish bagpipe ,a Quin t-Posaun e (bass trombone) and a Regal (smallorgan) . In larger assemblies there was no Regal,but the other in struments were rein forced . I haveheard as man y as thirty-six bagpipes and eightvio lins together . No one could conceive whatextraordinary fantasie s the pipers or the violin istsinvent when they are improvisin g while the dancersare resting . Anyone who too k no tes might in a weekobtain a store o f ideas that would last him for therest of his life . In short , there is a great deal that is

The H an aks are th e Mo ravian Czechs .

108 A Musical Tour

good in this music if o n e knows how to pro fit byit . I fo und this o f service to me later on ,even in the case o f many serio us compositions .

I have written long co ncertos and trio s inthis style

,which I then gave an Italian dress

,making

Adagio altern ate with Allegro .

Here,then

,we see po pular music beginning

frankly to permeate the scho larly style . Germanmusic recruits itself by steeping itself in the musicof the races which surro und the German fro ntier ;it is about to bo rrow from them something o f

their natural spo ntaneity,their freshness of in ven

tion , and to them it will in time owe a renewedyouth .

From Sorau Telemann proceeded to the Courtat Eisenach

,where he again found himself in a

musical enviro nment permeated by French influences .The Kapellmeister was a . virtuo so of Europeancelebrity

,Pantaleon Heben streit , the in ventor of

an in s trument called by his name o f Pan taleon orPan talon—a sort of improved dulcimer

,

* a forerunner o i our mo dern piano . Pantaleon , who hadwo n the applause of Lo uis ! IV. ,

had an unusualskill in compo sition and in the French style ; andthe Eisen ach o rchestra was “ installed as far aspossible in the French manner . Telemann evenClaims that it surpassed the orchestra of the ParisOpera . Here he completed his French education .

- As a matter of fact,there was

,in Teleman n ’s

life,a great deal mo re o f French musical training

and Po lish,and Italian—but above a ll French

than of German . Telemann wrote , at Eisenach ,a quantity of concerto s in the French style and a

H eb en st reit’s in strumen t h ad gut andmetal strin gs, which were

struck with small mallets . (Tran s.)

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110 A Musical Tour

do not know where I saw her for the first time .What I do know is that instantly I lo v edh ’

er

I told myself : S he must be mine . ButGod said to me : Tho u must first be anotherJaco b (that is thou must win her by toil and bytears) .For years he sighed for her . She seemed unfeelin g .

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 goingto break ! She seemed as indifferent as ever .It was only at the last moment

,when he was leaving

Sorau , flying befo re the Swedish invasion,that She

allowed him to read her heart .I bade her Good night ! fo r the last time .

But what was that farewell about to teach meI saw that her eyes were weeping

,and I heard

(ah , what joy Farewell,my Telemann

,

do not forget me ! —I departed in an ecstasy ofj oy, despite the perils of a j ourneyThen follow love- letters . Then the return , theasking in marriage

,the betrothal .

How all this happened I myself knOw not .Now they are married . It is a life of uncloudedhappiness

,despite the di fficulties of life and a

meagre diet .In our eyes it was a royal table

the table on which there was rarely more than onedish .

”

It was a f aithful lo ve , with no dissensions .And now they have a dear little child

I am trembling in every limbI pass through hours of unendurable suffering .Six days after the birth o f the child she was inexcellent health , gay and j esting as usual . But he

A Forgotten Master 111

had strange presentiments . He had to concealhimself , to weep .

When the night fell she began to complain .

She asked for a priest It was as though I wasdreaming . I could not believe it , I did not wish togo in search of him . But as She insisted I went atlast . 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 protestedher love with a touching tenderness . Instead ofreplying

,I wept bitterly . The priest came

Then I learned what it was to pray . Her dearmouth was a door to heaven . Jesus alo ne was herconsolation . Jesus alone was her life . Jesus alone washer salvation . She never ceased to call upon Him .

His Name never left her lips until death was uponher tongue . She was holding my handand said to me : I thank thee a thousand timesfor thy faithful love . Thy heart is mine . I takeit with me to Heaven . They wishedher to sleep . She refused , S inging , in her beautifulvoice : I will not fo rsake Jesus , He loves me andI love Him . I will not forsake Jesus . ’ She sang ,j oyously

,with arms outstretched and smiling face .

“ Fatigue overcame her . She fell into aS leep , in which she remained for two hours . Mygrief had partly disappeared ; co nsoled , I awaiteda happy day . Her sweet repose was broken ; She

b egan , ,

in a faint voice ° My Jesus has spoken tome in a dream .

’ then she complained that thelights were no longer as bright as befo re . She

bowed her head and fell asleep happily inChrist .And now what can he say ! If I say : ‘ thesky crushed me , the air stifled me , there was a

112 A Musical Tour

roaring in my ears as of a tempest,a black cloud

was befo re my eyes,my hands and my heart were

tremblin g like leaves , my feet refused to bear me .When I have to ld all this In full

,Shall I have

even touched my grief -Enough ! No one canknow what this suffering is but he who has experien c ed it .”And he ends with these words : M ein Engel,

gute n acht (My angel , good-night) .This touching narrative

,which is permeated

by a sorrowful faith makes us feel that Teleman n ,to o ,as he tells us , became , at Eisenach , another

man,in Christ .” But , however deep the wound ,

his temperament was too active and to o versatileto allow him to shut himself up with his regrets ;three years later the inconso lable husband wasmarried again to a wife wh o was to prove’ in everyrespect a contrast to his fi rst .He had left Eisenach . Despite his excellentsituation at Court , his longing for change impelledhim to accept , in 1712 ,

the proposals which reachedhim from Frankfo rt-o n -Main e .

How,

” he says,did I come to the land of these

Republicans,among whom

,by all one hears , learning

is of so little valueOfi le do cte savo ir n o leur semble plus ri en ,

Ofi l’

o n hasarde to ut po ur acquérir du bienHow is that I was able to leave a Court so select

as that of Eisenach There is a proverb which saysHe who wishes to live in all security Sho uld live ina Republic . And although I had no thin g to fearat the moment I did not wish to find that at Co urt

Telemann had a mania fo r quo ting Fren ch verses, and, lik emany fo reign ers, h e pre ferred them bad.

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A Musical Tour

toast proposed . The order of the toasts was thefo llowin g

1. To his Catholic Maj esty,the Roman

Empero r .To th e Roman Empress .To Prince Eugén e .

To the Duke o f Marlborough .

To the Magistrates .To a sound and early peace and a flo urishingcommerce .

7 . To the young bride .8 . To the husband .

9 . To the happy pair .(And the married pai r must indeed have beenhappy, I should think , after this ninth bumper !)This was

,then

,the period o f the wars against

Louis ! IV. ,and peace was very n ear . Telemann

wro te a cantata for the peace (3rd March ,He also wro te one for the Empero r ’s victories atSemlin and Peterwardein

,and one for the peace o f

Passarowitz to say nothing of princelybirthdays .In 1721 he left Frankfort for Hamburg , wherehe was appointed Kappellmeister an d Can tor at theJohan n eum. The nomadic musician was at lengthto form a lasting co nnection

,a post which he retained

until his death,nearly half a century later . Then ,

in 1723 ,he was o n the po int of migratin g again

,

to act as successor to Kuhnau , who had at last diedat Leipzig . He had been chosen unanimously,but Hamburg

,rather than lose him

,accepted all

the co nditions that Telemann impo sed . A littlelater

,in 1729 ,

he had some idea of going to Russia ,where it had been propo sed he sho uld fo und a Germanchapel . But the amenities of Hamburg and

Sh

in

-P

E”

5°

A Forgotten Master 115

my in tentions of settling down quietly at last ,he says

,triumphed over my curiosity

Settling down quietly But forTelemann quietness was quite a relative term .

He was entrusted with the direction of the musicaleducation given at the Gymn asium and the Jo hanneum (singing and history of music , lectures beinggiven almost daily) .—He had to provide music forthe five principal churches in Hamburg

,not counting

the cathedral,the Dom,

where Mattheso n ruled .

*

He was musical directo r of the Hamburg Opera ,which had greatly declined

,but was put on its feet

again in 1722 . The post was no sinecure . Thecliques which favo ured the vario us sin gers werealmost as violent as at the London Opera-houseunder Handel and the battles of the pen were noless scurrilous . They did n o t spare Telemann , whosaw his conj ugal misfortun es unveiled

,and his wife ’s

inclinatio n fo r Swedish officers . His musical in vention do es not seem to have suffered thereby

,for

a whole series of operas , comic and otherwise , datesfrom this period , and all are sparkling with in ventionand goo d humour .But this was by n o means enough for him ; assoon as he arrived in Hamburg he had founded aCollegium M usicum and public concerts . Despitethe city elders , who wanted to forbid the Can tor toallow his music to be played in a public tavern andto produce therein Operas and comedies and otherentertainments inciting to luxury

,he persisted

and had his way . The concerts which he foundedFo r the j ubile e re jo icin gs o f Jun e , 1730 ,

in ho no ur o f the se co ndcen ten ary o f the Co n fessio n o f Augsburg, a hundred pe rfo rme rsmademusic in th e fiv e churches . All th e compo sitio ns exe cuted we re byTe lemann , wh o , altho ugh h e was ill , dire cted eve rythin g himse lf. H ewro te ten can tatas fo r these ce lebratio ns alo n e .

116 A Musical Tour

continued until our own days . At first they wereheld in the barracks of the town guard

,twice a week

,

on Mondays and Thursdays , at four o ’clock . Theprice of admission was o n e flo rin eight groschen .

At these concerts Telemann produced all tho se wo rksof his , sacred or profane , public or private , whichhad already been performed elsewhere

,not to

speak of works especially written fo r the concertspsalms , oratorios , cantatas and instrumental pieces .He rarely conducted other music than his own .

*

These concerts , atten ded by th e élite o f the city,

and closely followed by the critics , were conductedwith 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 fo unded the firstmusical j ournal published in Germanyj Heretained his title of Kapellmeister o f Saxo ny ; heprovided Eisenach with the usual Tafelmusik andwith compo sitions fo r the Co urt festivals . He hadundertaken , on leaving Frankfort , to send certainsacred compositions thither every three years inexchange for the freedom of the city which hadbeen conferred upon him . He had been Kapellmeister of Bayreuth S ince 1726 , and sent thithera yearly opera and instrumental music . Lastly ,music bein g in sufficien t to appease his thirst foractivity

,he accepted the post of cor respondent

to the Eisenach Co urt ; writing letters co n tainingH e made n o exceptio n , it seems , but fo r Hande l, who se Passion

h e co nducted in 172 2 , and some o f his Vocal an d I n strumen tal Pieces ,in 1755 and fo r Graun , who se Death of esus h e pro duced in 1756 .

1' Der Getreue M usie-M eister . In this h e published pieces by

co n tempo rarymasters amo n g o thers , by Pisende l, Ze len k a, Garn erand J . S . Bach (a can o n fo r fo ur vo ices) . H e himse lf published in ita series o f arias from his operas .

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118 A Mus ical Tour

He remained faithful to Paris,and Paris remained

faithful to him . His music co ntinued to be engravedin France and to be perfo rmed at the Con cert

Spirituel . Telemann , o n his S ide,spoke with

enthusiasm of his visit , and fought the cause ofFrench music in Germany . The Hamburgische

B erichte von gelehrten S achen says in 1737 : HerrTe lemann will greatly o blige the conno isseurs ofmusic if , as he promises , he will describe the presentconditio n 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 carryout this design . In a preface dated 1742 heannounces that he has already put on paper agood part of the account of his visit

,and that

only the lack o f time has h itherto prevented himfrom completing it . It is all the more desirable topublish it

,he says , in that he hopes to dispose

to some extent of the prej udices which are hereand there entertained against French music .” Um

fortunately it is not known what has become ofthese notes .In his old age this excellent man divided hisheart between two passions : music and flowers .Letters of his are extant dating from 1742 in whichhe asks fo r flowers ; he is , he says , “ insatiablewhere hyacinths and tulips are concerned ; and greedyfo r ranunculi , and especially for anemones . —He

suffered in his old age : from weakn ess of the legsand failing S ight . But his musical activity and hisgood humo ur were never impaired . On the scoreof some airs written in 1762 he wrote some versesWith an ink too thick

,with foul pens , with bad

A Forgotten Master 119

S ight , in glo omy weather , under a dim lamp I havecomposed these pages . Do not sco ld me fo r itHis ablest musical compositio ns date from thelast years of his life

,when he was more than eighty

years of age . * In 1767 , the year of his death , hepublished yet an o ther theoretical work and wrotea 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 .1h

Let us sum up this long career and seek to determine its principal outlines . Whatever our Opin ionof the quality of his work

,it is impossible not to be

struck by its phenomenal quantity,1' and the prodigions vitality of a man who

,from his tenth

(to hiseighty-sixth year

,wro te music with indefatigable j oy

and enthusiasm without prej udice to a hundred otheroccupations .From first to last this vitality remained fresh andenthusiastic . What is so unusual in Telemann isthat at no moment of his life did he begin to growold and conservative he was always advancing

,

with youth . We have seen that at the very beginningof his career he was attracted by the new art—theart of melody—and did not conceal his antipathyfor “ fossils .

Such are the two can tatas published by Herr Schn eider : DerTag des Gerichts (176 1 o r 176 2 ) and I n o

7 EvenTelemann ’

s admirersmade certain reservatio ns, durin g hislife time , as re gards his abno rmal pro ductivity, which was witho utlimits and without res ite . Hande l used to say , j estin gly, thatTelemann wo uld write alpie ce o f churchmusic as quick lyas o n e writesa le tte r. Graun wro te to Te leman n in 1752 I cann o t agre ewithyo ur sayin g : There is n o thin g n ew to be discovered in me lody. ’In the majo rity o f Fren ch compo se rs I certain ly be lieve thatme lo dyis indeed exh austed , but n o t in a Te lemann , if o n ly h e wo uldn o twearhimse lf o ut by writin g to o much ! And Ebe lin g said , in 1778

H e wo uld have be en greater if h e had n o t wri tten with such facility,and with such in credible immoderatio n .

”

120 A Musical TourIn 1718 , he quotes , as expressing his own ideas ,these sorry French verses

Ne les eleve pas (les an cien s) dan s nu o uvrage sain t,

Au ran g o fi dan s ce temps les auteurs o n t attein t .Plus féco n de auj o urd ’hui, la musique divin eD

’

un ar t labo rieux étale la do ctrin e ,Don t o n vo it chaque j o ur s ’ac cr o itre les pr ogr és .

These lines express his attitude . He is a mode rn,

in the great quarrel between the ancients and themoderns and he believes in progress . On e

must never say to art : Thou shalt go n o farther .On e is always going farther , and one should alwaysgo farther .” If there is no lo nger anything n ew

to be found in melo dy, he writes to the timorousGraun

,it must be sought in

Graun,the arch- conservative , is alarmed

To seek fresh combinations in harmo ny is,to

my mind,to seek new letters in a language . Our

modern professo rs are rather abolishing aYes

,

” writes Te lemann , they tell me thatone must n o t go to o far . And I reply that one mustgo to the very depths if one wo uld deserve the nameof a true master . This what I wished to j ustify inin my system o f I n tervals, and fo r this I expect n o treproaches

,but rather a gratias, at least in the

future .This audacious innovator amazed even his fellowin novators , such as Scheibe . Scheibe

,in the

preface to his Treatise on I n tervals (1739) says thathis acquaintance with Te lemann at Hamburgconvinced him still more complete ly of the truth ofhis system : fo r , he writes , I fo und in thisgreat man ’s composition very frequent intervalsof an unaccustomed character which I had for a

15th December, 1751. 1'14th January, 1752.

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122 A Musical Tournot describe . Graun

,on the contrary

,had far too

delicate a taste to fall into this erro r ; as a resultof the reserve with which he treated this subj ect herarely or never wrote descriptive music

,but as a rule

contented himself with an agreeable melody .

”

He is convinced that Graun has indeed a muchmore refined sense of beauty . But Telemann has amuch greater sense of life .A distinguished critic of this period

, Christ-DanielEbeling , professor in the Hamburg Johann eum,

wrote Shortly after Telemann ’S death :His capital defect—a defect which

he acquired from the French—is his passion formusical descriptions . He employed them sometimes in quite a wrong way adhering to the expression of a word and forgetting the general feeling

he also attempted to describe things thatno music can express . But no one canpaint with a more powerful touch and is better ableto delight the imagination when these beautiesare i n their proper place .It must not be forgo tten that Handel

,in his time ,

encountered the same criticism from the Germans .Peter Schulz wrote in 1772I cannot understand how a man of Handel ’s

talents co uld so far lower himself and his art as toendeavour 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 disgustingthings . On e could not imagine a more absurdabuse 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 wo rld mayHamburg: Un terhaltungen , 1770.

A Forgotten Master 123

prove by A B that any musical descriptio n is absurd and that Handel , like Berlioz andRichard S trauss at a later date , sinned again stgo od taste and against music itself ; nothing canalter the fact that the hailstorm chorus inI srael in Egypt is a masterpiece , and that one couldno mo re resist its whirlwind of sound than that ofthe M arch of Rakokczy or that of the battle inHelden leben . But without enterin g upon a uselessdiscussion (for music ignores these discussions , andthe public follows suit , disregarding the disputants)what sho uld he remarked here is that in Telemann ’scase the influence of France was noted in his life-time .AS we have learned from his biography, he hadby no means lacked o pportunities of becomingacquainted with French music . On the whole; hismusical 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 , in1709 , with Pantaleon Hebenstreit , he had foundhimself in an environment of French art

,and had

applied himself to writing in the French style .His j ourney to Paris in 1737 finally made of him aFrenchman in Germany, devoted to the cause ofFrench music , and a passionate propagandist .He made it the fashion inAnd if he thought of publishing his impressionsof this visit to Paris this was

,by his own confession

,

in order that he might attack the current prej udicesin respect of French music

,and exhibit it “ in

its true beauty, as a subtle imitator of nature .A very curious document shows us how remarkable was Telemann ’s knowledge of the French style .

Hamburgische B eri chte von gelehrten S achen , 1737 .

124 A Musica l Tour

This is a co rrespo ndence with Graun,in 1751

-2 ,

on the subj ect o f Rameau .

* Graun had sentTelemann a long le tter in which he severely criticisedthe recitatives in Castor and Pollux . He blamed thelack of naturalness

,the false into nations

,the ar ioso

intro duced in appro priately in the recitative,the

changes of time made with insufficient motive ,which , he says , cause di fficulties for the singerand the accompanist ; for they are not natural .And I hold it to be a capital rule that o n e should notintroduce any unnatural di fficulty without an urgentreason .

” In Short,he declares that French

recitative singing sounds to him like the howling ofa dog ;1' that French recitative pleases nowhere ,save merely in France

,as he has fo und by experience ,

all his life long and he derides ‘

Rameau . Rameau

,whom the Parisians call the great Rameau

,

the honour of France . He must haveended by believing it himself fo r according to Hassehe says that he cannot write anything bad .

I sho uld much like to know where o n e is to find hisrhetorical

,philosophical and mathematical science

in melody or in polyphony ! I confessthat I have made little o r no study of mathematicsI had no oppo rtunity of doing so in my youth ;but my experience has shown me that the mathematical composers accomplish nothing o f anyvalue . Witness Euler , who used to write falseharmoniesTe lemann replies 1Most nobly born

,most honourable Sir and my

Published by H err Max S chn eider.1 . Fren ch sin gin g is no thing but a con tin ual bark in g,uppo r tab le to an y unprej udiced ear (J . J . Rousseau, Lettre

sur la musique fran caise) .

115th December, 1751.

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126 A Musical TourIn this example

,he says

,the dominant

emotion is imperious , arising from the wordsDign e de Jupiter méme / The composer has not onlyexpressed this passion , but has also rendered theaccessory emotio ns , as he progresses . The wordI nfortun é is rendered with tenderness . Ressa s

citer ,’ by a rollin g trill . L

’

armcher cm tombeau isstately . M

’

empécker ,’ a retardation . Triom

pher is given proudly ; ‘

d 03 qu’

z’

l aime tenderly .

M éme’ is exalted . Dign e ’ is expressive of

release , etc . As fo r the accompaniment,

without being insipid , it could not be other than itis . - How does our Italian comport himself !—The Italian was Graun

,who had aspired to

correct and r e-write the passage from Rameau ;and here is his version

A Forgotten Master 127

Telemann,mischievously

,amuses himself by

riddling this version .

The harmony ” he says is , until half waythrough

,harsh and depressing ; the words , despite

their diversity,are rendered in the same fashion ,

which is fatiguing to the ear . There is , inthe second bar

,a pause which interrupts the mean

ing in the seventh,a fault of prosody rendrc da

jam" in four syllables . Then follow very

accurate observations as to the manner in whicha Frenchman recites a question—quite differentlyfrom an Italian—an d the pro n oun ciatio n of variousFrench words

,which Graun had n o t properly grasped

—the privileged words which should in French ,be vocalised in a particular fashion : Triompher,voler, chanter , rire , gloire , victoire . (Here Telemann smiles a little ironical smile . ) As for thechanges of t ime , they offer n o difficulty whatever toa Frenchman . All this flows and effervesces andsparkles like champagne . French recitatives, you say, are n o t 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 thatI have been acquainted with German

,En glish

,

Russian and Po lish singers,and even a couple of

Jews , who used to sing to me by heart whole scenesof Atys, B ellérophon ,

etc . I imagine that this wasbecause it pleased them . On the other hand

,I

have never met anyone who has said anything ofthe Welches but : It is beautiful

,it is excellent

,

it is incomparable , but I have not found it po ssibleto remember any of it . He adds that ifhe himself commonly wrote his recitatives in theWelche fashion , it was to follow the mo vement ,”but that he has composed whole c ycles of sacred

128 A Mus ical Tour

music and Passion s in the French style . Lastly,he

ends with a pro fession of faith in favour of audacio usharmonies , j ustifying himse lf by the example of theFrench

,who applauded them .

Graun , somewhat piqued , * replies . He proteststhat Telemann has been j ust a little spiteful in defending Rameau

’

s recitative . for,he says

,

you attribute to him a very frivo lous intentio nin claimin g that the expression o f the word infortun éshould be tender . I thin k if the word were bienkom oux

,the expression would be equally proper .To express resurrectio n by a ro llin g trill ’

1s to me something quite novel . In all theresurrections of which there is mentio n in theScriptures one does not find anywhere that anythinghas been rolled You thin k the musicalphrase for l

’

armcher cm tombeau magnificent .If the phrase said memedan s lo tombeau it wouldbe still better . You find tenderness ina co qu

’

il aime .

’ If it were (2 co qu’

il hait’ it

would be equally suitable . As fo r the suppo sedsublimity o f the wo rd méme, I

.

imagine a plaintiveFrench howl

,because it is necessary to utter two

syllables on a high note , which is always shrill , evenwith the best sin ger .And having noted certain defects o f Rameau

’

s

My dear friend , it seems to me that you are alittle too partial to this natio n ; otherwise youwould n o t so readily overlook such capital defects ,or that false rheto ric of which the music of the

ho nour of France is full .”Then

,passing on to the criticisms addressed to

himselfAs for our Italian

,

’ my dear friend , as a go od14th Jan uary, 1752 .

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I 3O A Musical Toursuch artists as Graun , of adopting an insipid idealof vague and abstract beauty .

At the same time,he imported into German music

the qualities of impulsive an imation,of clear

,lively

,

nimble expression found in Po lish music and the newItalian music . This was not a work of supererogationGerman music , despite its power , was beginning tosmell rather musty . It would have been in dangerof asphyxiation but for the great draughts of freshair which men like Telemann let into it throughthe open doors o f France

,Poland and Italy—until

Johann Stamitz Opened what was perhaps the mo stimportant - the door of Bohemia . If we wish tounderstand the extraordin ary blaze o f music thatillumin ed Germany from the time of Haydn

,Mozart

an d Beethoven,we must have some acquaintance

with those who prepared this magnificen t beaconwe must watch the lighting of the fire . Withoutthis the great classics would seem a miracle

,whereas

they are , on the contrary, the logical conclusion ofa whole century of genius .

I am about to show the reader some o f the pathswhich Telemann opened to German music .In the theatre

,to begin with

,even those who

were most unj ust to him reco gnised his gifts as ahumorist . He seems to have been the principalinitiator of German comic opera . No doubt wefind comic touches here and there in Keiser itwas 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 characterwere given comic Lieder with a simple accompan iment (often in unison) or none . Handel himself

A Forgotten Master 131

obeyed this tradition in his Almira , performed atHamburg . There is also a rumour of a S ingspielby Keiser

,datin g back to 1710, entitled Leipzig

Fair , and other performances of the same naturewere given at that time . But the comic style wasnot really sanctioned in German music until Telemann ’s works were written the only opera boufi

’e

of Keiser ’s which has come down to us—Jodeletis subsequent to Telemann ’s works and is

certainly inspired by them . Telemann had the comicspirit . He began by writing , in accordance with thetaste of the time

,little comic Lieder fo r the clown

in opera . * But this was not en ough fo r him . Hehad a waggish tendency

,as Herr Ottzen n has noted ,

to show the comic side of a figure or a situation inwhich the librettist had seen nothing that was notserious . And he was extremely skilful in delineatingcomic characters . His first opera

,performed in

Hamburg : The Patien t S ocrates (Der geduldige

S okrates) contains some capital scenes . The subj ectis the story of So crates ’ domestic misfortu nes .Considering that o n e bad wife was n o t enough

,

the librettist has genero usly allowed him two,who

quarrel on the stage , while Socrates has to appeasethem . The duet of the scolds in the second act j isamusing , and would still please an audience to-day .

The comic movement took definite shape moreespecially after 1724,

as far as Hamburg is co ncerned .

The opera was beginnin g to grow tedious ; andattempts were made to import from Italy the comic

Fo r example , fo rTurpino in Der S ieg der S chon heit whichrepresen ts th e invasio n o f Rome by th e Vandals . H err Ottzennhas published a comic aria from this o pe ra in the S upplement o f hismo no graph Teleman n als Opern kompon ist.

f 0p. cit. , S upplemen t, p. 5.

132 A Musical Tourin termezzi 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 galan te were perfo rmed in Hamburg,and some from Lully

’

s Pourceaugn ac . Telemannwrote some comic dances in the French manner

,

*

and in the fo llowing year he produced an in termezzo in the Italian manner : Pimpin on e oder die

ungleiche Heirat (Pimpin on e, or the I ll-assorted

M ar r iage) , whose subj ect is precisely the same asthat of La S erva padr on a

,which was written four

years later . The style of the music also is closelyakin to that of Pergolesi . Who is the commonmodel ! Surely an Italian ; perhaps LeonardoVinci

,whose first comic operas date from 1720 .

In any case , we have here a curious example of therapidity with which subj ects and styles migratedfrom one end of Europe to the other

,and of Tele

mann ’s skill in assimulating fo reign genius .The German text of this prophetic counterpart of

La S erva padr on a is by Praetorius . There are ‘

two

characters : Pimpin on e and Vespetta . There arethree scenes . There is no orchestral prelude . Atthe rise of the curtain Vespetta sings a delightfullittle aria in which she enumerates her qualities aschamb ermaidj The music , full of humour, is ofa purely Neapolitan style ; Pergo lesian beforePergolesi . It has all the nervous vivacity of Neapo litan music , the little broken mo vements , the suddenhalts

,the fits and starts , the bantering responses of

the orchestra , which emphasises or contradicts thelist of Vespetta ’

s virtues :A comic Chacon n e and a N iais, in his Damon S ee p . 41

o f Ot tzenn’s wo rk .

1See Ottzenn , Supplement, p . 31.

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I 34 A Musical Tourto German thought and speech

,to combine it with

the little Lieder,full of goo d-natured buffoonery,

which he sometimes emplo ys . But , after all , thefirst step has been taken . And the nimble , sparklingstyle o f Vinci o r Pergo lesi will never be forgottenby German music its animatio n wi ll stimulate thetoo solemn gaiety of the great Bach ’s fellow-countrymen . No t o n ly will it contribute to the formationof the German S ingspiel it will even brighten withits laughter the new symphonic style of Mannheimand Vienna .I must pass over Te lemann ’s other comic in ter

mezzi La Capricciosa,Les Amours de Vespetti

(the second part o f Pimpin o n e ) , e tc . I will merelymention

,in pass ing

,a Don Quixote (1735) which

contains some charmin g airs and well-drawncharacters .But we have here only one aspect of Telemann ’stheatrical talents the o ther mask— that of tragedy—has been unduly overloo ked . Even the onehistorian who has made a study of his operas—HerrCurt Ottzen n—do es not su fficiently insist upon thisaspect of his art . When his feverish craving to writeallows him to reflect upon what he is do ing

,Telemann

is capable of anything,even of being profound .

Not only do his o peras contain beautiful seriousarias

,but—Which is more unusual—beautiful

cho ruses . On e , in the third act of S okrates (1721)T,representing the feast of Adonis

,is amazingly

S ee o n p . 44 o f Ott zen n’

s S upplemen t, th e first ar ia from D on

Quixote, quie tly stubbo rn and in fatuated , wi th flo urishes o n th e

Vio lin s whi ch celebrate th e hero ’

s future explo its . Th e libretto isS chi eb le r

’

s later o n h e w as o n e o f th e librettists o f J . A. H iller, th egreat writer o f Ge rman S ingspiele .

1' N o te also th e quin tets in S o k rates (th e disciples and Aristophan es, o r th e disciples and th e se rvan t Pitho ) .

A Forgotten Master 135

modern in style . * The orchestra includes threeclar in i sordin ati (deep-toned muflled trumpets) ,two oboes

,which play a plaintive melody in long

drawn note s,two violins

,a viol and the saxhorn

senza cembalo . Its so nor ity is extremely fine .Telemann really obtain ed the fusion of the varioussonorous groups

,

” which until then had hardlybeen attempted . The piece is full of serene emotion ,which has already the neo-antique purity of Gluck .

It might b e a cho rus from Alceste, and the harmonyis full of expression .

We find al so in Telemann a romantic note,a

poetical feeling for Nature,which is not unkn own

in Han del , but which is perhaps more refin ed inTelemann—when he really does his best—fo r hissensitiveness is of a more modern type . Thus ,the nightingale aria sun g by. Mirtilla in Damon(I 729)Tstands out , amid the innumerable nightinggale arias Of the period , by reason of its subtleimpressionism .

“

r

Telemann ’s Operas are not sufficient to j udgehim by. Those which have been preserved untilour day, which are eight in number—together withLa S eren ata and Don Quichott der Lowen r itter—wereall written at Hamburg , within a period Of no greatlength—between 1721 and In the fiftyyears that followed Telemann greatly developedhis powers and we sho uld be unj ust to him if wedid not estimate his capacity by the works of the

See pp . 7 -10 o f Ottzen n’

s S upplemen t.

1' p . 2 7-2 8 o f Ottzenn ’

s S upplemen t.

1With th e exceptio n o f Don Quichott, th e date o f which is 1738 .

136 A Musical Tourlatter half or even the clo se of his life

,fo r only in

these do es he give his full measure .In default Of operas we have

,as far as this period

is concerned , orato rios and dramatic cantatas .Those published by Herr Max Schneider in theDenhmaler der Ton kun st—Der Tag des Gerichts

(The Day of Judgment) and I n o—are almost asinteresting to study

,with regard to the history of

the musical drama,as the operas of Rameau and

Gluck .

The poem Of the Day of Judgmen t*

ein S ing

gedicht voll starker B ewegungen”

(a libretto full ofstrenuous action)—was written by an ex-pupil OfTelemann ’s at the Hamburg Gymnasium , PastorAhler . He was a free pasto r, by n o means a pietist .At the opening of this work the faithful are awaitingthe arrival Of the Christ ; the unbelievers are deriding them

,like good eighteent h-century philosophers ,

in the name of science and reaso n . After a prefatoryM editation

,rather weak and abstract

,the cata

clysm commences . The waves rise the stars shinethe planets falter and fall ; the angel appears andthe trumpet sounds . Behold the Christ ! Hecalls His faithful to Him , and their chorus sings Hispraises ; and He hurls into the abyss the sinners ,who howl aloud . The fourth part describes thej oys Of the blessed—From the second part to thefourth the work consists Of

‘

a mighty crescendo ,and we may say that the third and fourth parts arereally one whole

,closely bound together, without

interruption . After the second M editation thereis no longer a pause between the sections ; themusic flows on

,a single current , to the end . Even

the airs da capo , frequently employed at the outset ,First perfo rmed o n th e 17th o f March, 1762 .

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138 A Musical Toursometimes fo und combined with a severity of formwhich to Telemann ’s thinking was already archaic . *For him the importan ce of the composition did notreside in its form

,but in the descriptive scenes

and dramatic choruses .The cantata I n o constitutes a much greateradvance upon the path of musical drama . Thepoem by Ramler

,who contributed to the resurrec

tion of the German Lied,is a masterpiece . It was

published in 1765. Several composers set it tomusic : among others

, J . C. F . Bach Of Biick eburg,

Kirnb erger , and the Abbé Vogler . Even a modernmusician would find it an excellent subj ect for acantata—the reader may remember the legend of Ino ,daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia

,sister o f Semele ,

and Dionysos ’ foster-mother . She wedded the heroAthamas

,who

,when Juno destroyed his reason ,

killed one of his sons,and sought to kill the other .

Ino fled with the child,an d,still pursued , threw

herself into the sea,which welcomed her and there

she became Leucothea,the White

,white as the

foam of the waves . —Ram1er ’s po em shows Inoonly, from the beginning to the end it is an overwhelming part

,fo r a continual expenditure Of emo

tio n is required . In the beginning she arrivesrunning over the rocks overlooking the sea she nolonger has strength to fly

,but invokes the gods .

She perceives Athamas and hears his shouts , and flingsherself into the waves . A soft and peaceful sympho ny welcomes her thither . Ino expresses herastonishment but her child has escaped from herarms she believes him lost

,calls him , and invokes

death . She sees the chorus of the Tritons and theS e e th e two arias o f Christ (pp . 73 and 8 2 ) which are bo th

beautiful and dignified witho ut any inward pro fundity.

A Forgotten Master 139

Nereids,who are upholding him ; she describes her

fantastic j ourney at the bottom of the sea ; coralsand pearls attach themselves to her tresses ; theTritons dance around her

,saluting her go ddess

under the name of Leuco thea . Suddenly Ino seesthe ocean go ds returnin g

,running and raising their

arms Neptune arrives in his car , the go lden tridentin his hand

,his horses snorting in terror . A hymn

to the glory of God closes the cantata .

These magnificent Hellenic visions lent themselvesto the plastic and poetical imagination of a musician .

Telemann ’s music is worthy of the poem . It isa marvellous thing that a man mo re than eightyyears of age should have written a compo sitio nfull of such freshness and passio n . It belo ngsplainly to the category of musical dramas . Whileit is very likely that Gluck in fluenced Telemann ’sI n o* it may well be that I n o , in its turn , taught Gluckmany valuable lessons . Many of its pages willcompare with the most famous dramatic recitativesof Alcestis or Iphigen ia in Aulis . With the veryfirst bass one is flung in to the thick of the action .

A maj e stic,rather heavy en ergy

,like that of Gluck

,

animates the first aria .1' The o rchestral passages

describing Ino ’s terro r,the arrival of Athamas

,

and Ino ’s leap into the sea,possess a picturesque

power astonishing in that period . At the clo sewe seem to see the waves Opening to receive Ino

,

who sinks to the depths,while the sea closes up oncemo re . The serene symphony which depicts theuntro ubled kingdom of the ocean possesses a Handelian beauty. But nothing in this cantata , and , to

date o f Gluck ’s Orfeo is 1764, and that o f the firstAlcestis,I 7

1Abo ve all th e se co nd part o f th e aria . Se e p . 129 o f theDen kmdler .

I 40 A‘

Musical Tourmy mind , nothing in the who le of Telemann ’s workexcels the scene of Ino ’s despair when she believesthat she has lost h e r so n .

* These pages are worthyof Beethoven

,while in the orchestral accompan i

ment there are some touches that remind o n e ofBerlioz . The intensity and freedom Of the emotionalpassages are unique . The man capable of writingsuch pages was a great musician and deserving offame rather than the Oblivion into which he hasfallen to-day .

The rest o f the composition contains nothing thatrises to these heights

,although it is by n o means

lacking in beauty . As in The Day of Judgmen t,the beautiful passages mutually enhance one another

,

either by concatenation o r by Thepass1o n ate lamentations o f In o are followed by anair in time

,which describes the dance of the

Nereids round the child . Then fo llows the voyageacross the waters

,the buoyant waves that bear

up the divine trave llers,

” and some little dancersin a pleasing style introduce a brief perio d ofrepose in the midst o f the song M ein t 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 theappearance of Neptune . Finally the compositionends with an aria in bravura ,

which anticipates theGermanised style of Ro ssini as we find it

,during the

first twenty years of the nine teenth century, inWeber

,and even

,to some extent , in Beethoven

During the entire course of this wo rk there is n o t asingle interruption of the music , not a singlepp . 138

-140 .

1All th e compo n en t parts fo rm an un bro k en chain from begin n in gto end .

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142 A Musical Tourthe first part being len to , the second vivamen te andthe third len to , the vivamen te movement having afreely fugued character, while the slow movemento f the beginning is usually repro duced at the end) .The French o verture was intro duced into Germanyin 1679 (Steffani) and 1680 (Cousser ) ; it reachedits apogee in Te lemann ’s days

,during the first

twenty years of the eighteenth century . We haveseen that Telemann cultivated this instrumental fo rmwith predilection about 1704

-5, when he becameacquainted

,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 forcertain of his Hamburg operas .*This does not deter him from the occasionalemployment of the “ Italian overture ” (first vivamen te, second len to , third vivarnen te) . —He called thisform of composition a con certo , because he employedin it a first violin con certan t. We have a ratherdelightful example in the overture to Damen (1729) jwhose style is analogous to that of Handel ’s con certigrossi, which date from 1738

-

9 . It will be no tedthat the third part (vivace 3/ 8 ) is a da capo , of whichthe middle portion is in the minor key .

Telemann also wrote,for his operas , instrumental

pieces in which French influences are perceptibleabove all in the dances ,1which are sometimes sung .

Among the other orchestral forms which heattempted is the instrumental trio , the Trio-S on ata ,

Th e rather in differen t overture to S ocrates (172 1) is o f this type .

1S e e Ottzen n’s S upplemen t , p . 18 et. seq.

1A certain n umber will b e fo und in Ottzen n’

s co lle ctio n : a

S arabande an d a Gigue (p . 2 9 ) a Gavotte (p . Le N iais (p . a

B ourre'

e , a Chaconne , a Passacaille , e tc .

A Forgotten Maste r 143

as the Germans call it . It held a very importantplace in music from the middle of the seventeenthto the middle of the eighteenth century , and contributed very largely to the development of thesonata fo rm . Telemann devoted himsel f to thisform of compo sition more especially at Eisenach ,in 1708 ; and he says that nothing of all that hewrote was as much appreciated as these sonatas .I so contrived

,

” he says , that the second partseemed to be the first

,while the bass was a natural

melody,fo rming

,with the other parts

,an appro

priate harmony, which developed with each note insuch a way that it seemed as though it could not beotherwise . Many sought to persuade me thatI had displayed the best of my powers in thesecompositions .”—Herr Hugo Riemann has publishedone of these trios in his Collegium M usicum co llec

tion . This trio , in mi B maj or , extracted fromTelemann ’s Tafelmusik ,

is in four movementsfirst , afiettuoso , secon d , vivace 3/ 8 ; third , grave ,

fourth , allegro 2 4 . The second and fourth movementsare in two parts , with repetition . The first andsecond movements tend to link themselves togetherafter the fashion of the grave and fugue of the Frenchoverture . The form is still that of the sonata witha single theme , beside which a secondary design isfaintly beginnin g to show itself . We are still closeto the point where the sonata type emerges fromthe suite ; but the themes are already modern incharacter ; many o f them , above all the themes ofthe grave movement , are definitely Italian : onemight say Pergo lesian . By his tendency to individual expressio n in instrumental music

,Telemann

influenced Jo hann Friedrich Fasch of Zab st,but

here the disciple greatly surpassed the master .

144

has of late years drawn the attention of musiclo vers

,was one of the ablest masters of the Trio

S onata ,

* and one of the initiators of the modernsymphonic style . It will be seen , therefore , that inevery province o f music—theatrical , ecclesiastical,and instrumental—Telemann stands at the source ofthe great modern movements .

This was a trio fo r strin gs with co n tin uo us bass- that is , therewe re in all fo ur instrumen ts .

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146 A Musical Tourof the poetical reformation which was to makehim famous . The hazards of his emotional life ,skillfully explo ited

,were of no little service in the

completion of his poetico -musical education . Itwas a singer who had the merit of disco vering him .

Signor E . Celani has told the story in an articleentitled : I l primo amore di P . M etastasio .

* Met

astasio’

s first love was the daughter of the composer

,Fran cesco Gasparini

,the pupil of Corelli

and Pasquini,the man who had mastered better

than any other the science of il bel can to and whoformed the most famous singers ; the teacher ofLa Faustina and Benedetto Marcello . They metin Rome in 1718

-19 . Gasparini wished to marryMetastasio to his daughter

,Rosalia

,whom Metas

tasio has sung under the name of Nice ; andSignor Celani has discovered the draft o f the marriagecontract

,which was drawn up in April 1719 . But an

unforeseen obstacle supervened . Metastasio leftfor Naples in May,

and Ro salia married another .At Naples

,Metastasio met the woman whose

influence upon his artistic career was to be decisiveLa Romanina (Marianna Benti) a famous singer,the wife of a certain Bulgarelli . Metastasio wasat that time clerk to an advo cate . His employerhated poetry , which did not prevent Metastasio fromwriting po ems

,cantatas

,and serenades which

appeared under ano ther name . In 1721 he wrote ,for the birthday of a member of the Imperial family,a cantata : Gli orte Esperiei, which was se t to musicby Porpora La Romanina

,who was passing through

Naples,sang the part of Venus in this cantata .

Th e performance was extremely succe ssful ; La

Romanina in sisted on making the young poet ’sRivista musicale I talian a, 1904.

Metastasio 147

acquaintance,and fell in love with him . She was

thirty-fiv e years of age , and he was twenty-three .She was not beautiful ;* her features were stronglymarked and rather masculine , but she was extremelykind in a sensual sort of way , and highly intelligent .She gathered together in her house at Naples all themost distin guished artists : Hasse , Leo

, Vinci ,Palma

, Scarlatti , Po rpora , Pergo lesi , Farinelli . Inthis circle Metastasio completed his poetico-musicaleducatio n

,than ks to the conversation of these men ,

the lessons which he received from Po rpora , andabove all the advice

,intuition and artistic experience

of La Romanin a . For her he wrote his first melodrama

,Didon e abbandonata which , by its

Racine-like charm and emotio n , marks a date in thehistory of Italian opera . La Romanina was thetriumphant in terpreter of his earliest poems

,among

others of S ir ae, which almost all the great Europeancomposers were to set to music .After 1727 they went to Rome . There the threeled a singular family life Metastasio

,La Romanina

and the husband,Bulgarelli . La Romanina despised

her husband,but lavished a j ealous and passion ate

love on Metastasio . The old sto ry, so often repeated ,had its inevitable climax . Me tastasio turned hisback upon Italy . In 1730 he was summoned toVienna as poeta Cesareo . He left Rome , conferringupon his cara M arian n a full powers to administer

,

alienate , sell , exchan ge or con vert his propertyand his income

,witho ut rendering him any account .

La Romanina could not endure his departurethree mo nths later she set out for Vienna . She

did not succeed in getting farther than Venice .Ce lan i

’

s article co n tain s repro ductio ns o f two small po rtraits ,whi ch in clin e to verge upo n cari cature (pp . 250 an d 2

148 A Musical TourA contemporary writes It is said that theDidon e abbandonata is largely the story of Metastasioand La Romanina . Metastasio feared that shemight cause him annoyance in Vienna , and that hisreputation would suffer thereby . He o btained anorder of the Court which forbade La Romaninato enter the Imperial domains . La Romanina wasfurious , and , in her rage , attempted to kill herselfby stabbing herself in the breast . The wound wasnot mortal , but she died shortly afterwards ofmisery and despair .Some letters written by her to the Abbé Riva ,who served as intermediary

,display the unfortunate

woman ’ s passion . Here is a peculiarly movingpassage , written at Venice on the 12th of August ,1730, doubtless after her attempted suicide , whenshe had given her promise to behave sensibly

Since you still retain so much friendship for myFriend,j keep him safe for me , stand by him , makehim as happy as you can

,and believe that I have

no other thought in the world and if I am sometimesdisconsolate it is because I am only too conscious ofhis merit , and because to be forced to live apart fromhim is the greatest grief than I can suffer . ButI am so determined not to forfeit his esteem that Iwill patiently endure the tyranny of him whopermits such cruelty ; I assure you that I will doeverything that I am allowed to do to please mydearest friend and to keep him I will do all that Ican to keep myself in good health , simply in orderthat I may not grieve him .

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

Lessin g, librarian at Wo lfenb ii t tel (see Celan i) .pour l

’

Ami . (Tran s .)

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150 A Musical Tourthe parts are reversed . It is the Italian Quinaultwho composes poems at the harpsichord

,already

tracing the outline o f the melo dy which is to clothethem .

-In a letter of the I sth o f April,1750,

Metastasio ,

sending to the Principessa di Belmo nte Caffarello

’

s setting of a po em of his , Partenza di Nice,adds : Caffarello realised the defects of my composition —(which gives us to understand that hehad written o n e) “ he has had compassion on thewords and has clad them in better —Inanother letter of the same year (21st February, 1750)to the same lady, he saysYour Excellency knows that I can write nothing

that is to be sung witho ut imagining the music forit (good or bad) . The poem that I am sending youwas written to the music that accompanies it . Itis

,in truth

,a very simple compositio n but if the

singer will sing it with the expressio n that I haveimagined it will be found that it contains all that isneeded to seco nd the words . All that can be addedto it

,though it be of the choicest , may assuredly

win more applause fo r the musician,but will cer

tain ly give less pleasure to lovingNever did Metastasio give his po ems to a friendwithout adding the musical settin g . Consequentlywe have not the right to j udge his verses separately

,

deprived of the melo dy intended fo r them,of which he

had,as Marmo n tel says , the presen timen t.”1'—Music

seemed to him all the more indispensable to poetryUnpublished letters which appeared in th e Nuova Autologia,

v o l . 77 , and are quo ted by Jo le -Maria Baro ni , in his essay o n th e

Lirica musicale di M etastasio (Rivista musicale I talian a,

j I bid.

1 A talen t without which it is impo ssible fo r a po et to write an

aria prope rly is th e presen timen t o f th e so n g, that is , o f th e characte rwhich th e melody sho uld po ssess, th e compass demanded and th e

appropriate mood .” (Marmo n tel.

Metastasio 151

because he was living in a Teutonic country where hisItalian tongue possessed its full power only whenthe charm o f music made it penetrate the alienmind . He wrote in 1760 to Count Florio Fromthe earliest years of my transplan tatio n into thiscountry I have been co nvinced that our poetry cantake roo t here o nly in so far as music and acting arecombined with it .Thus his poetry was written for music and theat

t ical representation . We may imagin e how it musthave charmed all the Italian and Italianate musiciansof the century . According to Marmon tel, all themusicians had surrendered to To beginwith , they were delighted by the music of his verse .Then they fo und in him a very pleasant

,

but quite inflexible guide . Hasse constituted himselfhis pupil . Jommelli used to say that he had learnedmore from Metastasio than from Durante

,Leo ,

Feo and Father Martini—that is,from all his masters .

Not only did his verses,in which he wo uld allow

no alteration,lend themselves marvellously to

melody , inspiring and even evoking it , so to speakthey very often suggested the motive of the air tothe composer .1

Sign o r Fran cesco Pio van o , who is preparin g a biblio graphyo f Metastasio , estimates that as man y as compo sitions werewritten fo r th e po e t’s ve rses .

j Burn ey has drawn a de lightful po rtrait o f Metastasio , whomhe saw in Vienn a. His co nversatio n is described as lucid , fluen t andvivacio us . H e was gay and agreeable , full o f charm and had

extreme ly go od mann ers . He n ever disagre ed with an ybo dy, partlyo ut o f in do len ce and partly o ut o f po h ten ess . He n ever repliedto an e rro n eous statemen t. He did n o t care fo r discussio n . He

displayed the same tranquillity, the same gen tle harmo ny that wefind in his writin gs , in which reaso n co n tro ls everythin g ; n everfren zy, even in the passio ns .

”

f Burney re co rds a co nversation between Metastasio an d an En glish visito r. The En glishman ask ed whetherMetas tas io had ever se to n e o f his o pe ras to music . Metastasio replied that h e had n o t , butth at he had o ften given th e compo ser th e mo tives o f hisme lo dies

152 A Musical TourJole-Maria Baroni , in an essay on the Lirica

musicale di M etastasio ,* makes a brief analysis of

the various poetico-musical forms of which he writescanzon ette, can tate and arie . Here I will confinemyself to indicating the musical reforms whichMetastasio accomplished .

To him we owe the restoration of the chorus inItalian opera . In this respect he was guided by themusical traditions which had been preserved inVienna . While the chorus had become obsoleteas far as the Italian operas were co ncerned , theViennese masters , J . J . Fux and Carlo Agostin oBabia

,had obstinately retained its employment .

Metastasio took advantage of this survival,and

handled the chorus with an art unknown before histime . He was careful only to intro duce the chorusat such moments when it was natural andnecessary to the action of the drama . We feel thatin writing his choruses he often took as his modelthe solemn simplicity of the ancient tragediesxl'It was in the same spirit that those composers whowere friends of Metastasio ’s

,and influenced by him

,

as was Hasse , treated the chorus in music . Whosoever will turn to the magnificent chorus of thepriests in Hasse ’s Olimpiade (1756) will marvel atthe full development of the neo-antique stylesimple

,tragic , and religious—the mon opo ly o r in v en

tion of which has been only too often attributedto Gluck .

But it was in the recitative that Metastasio and hiscomposers introduced the greatest improvements .The Italian opera at that time was an ill-balancedRivista musicale I talian a, 1905.

1Fo r example , in th e Olimpiade , La Clemen za di Tito , Achillein S ciro that is to say in th e wo rks o f his maturity.

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154 A Musical Tourthis idea was rather an intuition of genius whosefruits he never tro ubled to pluck .

The merit of having grasped the importanceof this invention and of having utilised it in alogical and reasonable manner seems to belong toHasse , working under Metastasio ’s influence , asHerr Hermann Abert has demonstrated .

* Beginningwith Cleofide (1731) ,Tin which the second actcloses with a great scene in recitativo accompagn ato ,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) HerrAbert calls attention to six accompagnati, five ofwhich are reserved for the two principal male charac ters, depicting their inward anguish ; the sixth ,which is apportioned to a secondary character,describes the burning of the Capitol . Two of thesegreat orchestral recitatives are not followed byan aria .

—In the Didon e abbandonata of 1743 especialnote should be taken of the tragic de'nouemen t,which (like so many other in stan cesi ) gives thelie to the inaccurate tradition that all operas beforeGluck ’s days were compelled by the fashion to endhappily . The whole drama is gathered up into thisfinal scene

,which is full of a sober violence and a

tense emotion .

What part did Metastasio play in the erectionof this poetico-musical architecture which reservesthe orchestral recitative for the great momentsof the action ! We shall discover this from ‘ amemorable letter which he wrote to Hasse on the

N icollo I omelli als Opern kompon ist, 1908 , Halle .

1' Perfo rmed in Dresde n ,

in th e presen ce o f J . S . Bach1: S ee Hande l’s Tamerlan o and Hasse

’

s Piramo e Tisbe .

Metastasio 155

20th of October, 1749 , in connection with his Attilio

Regolo ; a letter to which we may usefully referthe reader . ‘ Never did poet supervise more closelythe work of the compo ser—o r determine , beforehand ,with greater defin iten ess the musical form adaptedto each scene .After a somewhat lengthy preamble , exquisitein its courtesy

,in which Metastasio apologises for

offering advice to Hasse,he begins by explaining

the characters of his drama z—Regulus , the Romanhero , superior to human passio ns , equable andserene . “ I sho uld find it displeasing ,” hesays

,if his singing

,and the music that accompanies

it , were ever hurried , save in two or three passagesof the work . The Consul Manlius , a greatman , too inclined to emulation ; Hamilcar, anAfrican who understands nothing of the Romanmaxims of honesty and j ustice

,but who finally comes

to envy those who believe in them Barce, a beautiful 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 knowthat the brush does not always follow the outlineconceived by the mind . It is for you ,

no less excellent as an artist than perfect as a friend , to clothemy characters with such masterly skill that theyshall possess a marked in dividuality ; if not by reasonof the outlines of their features

,at least by reason

of their garments and adommen ts .

Then having laid stress on the importance ofthe reci tatives enlivened by the instruments ,”

This lette r, which is in cluded in th e Opere postume del sig. Ab.

Pietr o M etastasi o (179 3 , Vien n a , v o l. w as reproduced by H e rrCarl Men nick e in his wo rk o n Hasse und die B ru

’

der Graun a ls

Symphon iker , 1906 , Le ipzig.

156 A Musical Tourthat is , the accompagnati, he indicates where andhow they should b e emplo yed 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

lineA che ven go Ah sin o a quan do

After the words a che vengo the instrumentsmay begin to make themselves heard

,and

,some

times silent , sometimes accompanying the voice ,and sometime r inforzando , give warmth to a speechwhich is already in itself impassioned . I should beglad if they did not desert Attilio until the line

La barbara o r qual e ! Cartago , o Roma !

I think , moreover, that it is well to be on one ’sguard against the mistake of making the singer waitlonger than the accompaniment itself demands . Allthe passion of the speech would be chilled and theinstruments , instead o f animating , would weaken therecitative , which would be like a picture cut intosections and thrust into the background in whichcase it would be better that there should be no aecompan imen t .

”

The same recommendation is made in respectof the seventh scene o f Act I I insist once againthat the actor should not be compelled to wait forthe music

,and that the dramatic passion of the play

should not be chilled in this way ; I wish to see itincrease from scene to scene .”A little farther on , after Manlius ’ words

T’

ac ch eta : si vien e .

a brief symphony seems to me necessary togive the Consul and the S enators time to take theirseats , and in order that Regulus may arrive withouthaste and take time to reflect . The character of this

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A Musical TourThis outcry should be extremely loud

,firstly

because truth requires that it should be so , andfurther , in order to give value to the silence whichis then imposed upo n the tumultuous populace bythe mere presence of Regulus . Theinstruments should be silent when the other characters are speaking on the other hand

,they accom

pany Regulus co ntinually in this scene themodulations and movements should be made tovary, not in accordance with the mere words , as isdone 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

cumstan ces, express (or conceal) j oy or sorrow,

wrath or compassion . I am fully convinced that anartist such as yourself will be able to contrive alarge number of instrumental recitatives withoutfatiguing the hearers : in the first place , becauseyou will carefully avoid allowing things to drag ,as I have so insistently advised you ; and moreespecially because you possess in perfection the artof varying and alternating the pian o , the forte ,the r inforzi, the staccati or congiun ti concatenations ,the ritardi, the pauses , the arpeggios , the tremo lo s ,and above all those unexpected modulations whosesecret resources you alo ne understand .

Do you think I have done with annoying youNot yet I sho uld like the final chorusto be one o f those which , thanks to you , have giventhe public the desire

,hither to xun kn own , to listen to

them . I should like you to make it obvious thatthis chorus is n o t an accessory but a very necessarypart of the tragedy and the catastrophe with whichit closes .

Metastasio 159

And Metastasio brings his minute recommenda

tion to an end o nly,he says , because he is tired ;

by no means because he has said everything . Doubtless subsequent conversatio ns commented upon andcompleted this letter .

13

Let us sum up the advice here given . We shallnote1. The supremacy of poetry over music Theoutlines of their features refers to poetry . Theirgarments and ado rnments are represented bymusic . Gluck did not express himself very differently .

2 . The importance given to the drama , theadvice of the craftsman not to delay the actor ’sdelivery so that there may not be gaps in the dialogue .This is the condemnatio n of the useless aria . Themusic is subordinated to the scenic effect .3 . The psycholo gical character attributed to theorchestra . The symphony which expresses thereflections , doubts and pe rplexities of Regulus ”

The admitted power of goo d music to interpret not only the words , but the hidden so ul , whoseemotions often differ completely from the expressionOf them—in a word

,the inner tragedy .

All this , I repeat , is in accordance with Gluck ’sideas . Why then are Metastasio and his composersalways represented as Opposed to Gluck ’s reformof the Opera ! This letter was written in 1749 ,

ata date when Gluck had n o t as yet the least presentiment of his reform .

* We perceive from it that allGluck began h is career in 1742 ; h e re turn ed from En gland in

1746 ; and i n 1749 h e had n o t ye t written—I will n o t say hisdedicato ry epistle to Alceste ,Wt h IS dated twen ty ye ars late rbut even his re ally significan t Italian o pe ras ; th e date o f Ezio 18

1750 , and that o f La Clemenza di Tito , 1752

160 A Musical Tourartists of all the camps were moved by the samepreoccupatio ns and were working at the same task .

Only the formula adopted was not in all cases thesame . Metastasio

,a lover of it bel can to , and one

of the last to preserve its true tradition,

* was unwilling to sacrifice it . An d what musician wouldreproach him for this ! He wished the voicepoetry and music—always to be the centre of thepicture ; he distrusted the excessive develo pmentof the orchestra of those days he found it all themore dangero us in that he was conscious of itsstrength and endeavoured to harness it in the serviceof his ideal of musical tragedy

,harmoniously propor

tion edq‘ 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 eighteenthcentury

,but a heavy

,emphatic

,paraded , shouted

utterance and it needed to be shouted , to dominatethe din of the orchestra ! Compare a scene fromGluck ’s Armida with the corresponding scene inLully

’

s Armida ,

°

1 in these two lyric tragedieswhat a difference of declamation ! In Gluck thedeclamation is slower ; there is repetition ; theorchestra roars and mutters the voice is that of aGreek tragic mask : it bellowsIn Lully

,and even more in Metastasio ’s musical

Burn ey , in Vienn a, heard an excellen t sin ger, Mlle . Martin etz ,to whom Me tastasio h ad taught sin gin g. H e adds that Metastasiowas o n e o f the las t wh o un de rsto o d th e traditio n o f th e Old Italianbel can to , o f Pisto cchi

’s an d B ern acchi

’

s scho o l. We might add , o fFran cesco Gasparin i’s .

f La esatta propo rzion e de llo stile drammatico propo rio dell ’Ope ra in musica, as Arteaga says , wh o re fers to this quality asMe tastasio ’

s chie f characteristic, that which made him superio r toall o the r artists .

I In the scen e in which Armida in vo k es Hatred .

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162 A Musical TourThe critics of his day j ustified them likewiseby the example of the ancients and the Frenchclassics . They did n o t tell themselves that in orderto decide if a thing is good one must not ask o neselfwhether it was go od and full of vitality at someprevious period

,but whether if it is so to-day .

Herein lies the radical defect of such art as Metastasio

’

s . It is full of taste and intelligence , perfectlybalanced

,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 . Andwho knows whether its worst misfortune was notthe defeat suffered by Jommelli, who , of all themusicians subj ected to its influence

,was the most

audacious and travelled farthest on the pathswhich Metastasio had opened up ! Jommelli, whohas sometimes been called the Italian Gluck , marksItaly ’s supreme effort to retain her primacy in Opera .He sought to accomplish the reformatio n of musicaltragedy without breaking with the Italian tradition ,revivifying it by novel elements and above all bythe dramatic power of the orchestra . He was notsupported in his own country ; and in Germanyhe was a foreigner, as was Metastasio . Theywere defeated ; and their defeat was Italy ’s . TheItalian Gluck founded no school . It was the GermanGluck who assured the victory not merely of a formof art , but of a race .

A MUSICAL TOUR ACROSS EUROPEIN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

ITALYDURING the whole of the eighteenth century asduring the seventeenth , Italy was the land of music .Her musicians enj o yed

,throughout Europe , a superi

o rity comparable to that of the French writersand philosophers .” Italy was the great marketfor singers

,instrumentalists , virtuosi , composers

and operas . She exported them by the hundred toEngland

,Germany and Spain . She herself con

sumed prodigious quantities of them , for herappetite for music was insatiable , and she wasalways asking for more . The most famous masterso f Germany—Handel , Hasse , Gluck , Mozart—cameto put themselves to school with her and some ofthem left the country more uncompromisinglyItalian than the Italians . The English melomaniacs invaded Italy ; one saw them travellingfrom city to city, following the singers and operaticcompanies , passing the Carnival in Naples , HolyWeek in Rome , the Ascension in Venice , the summermonths in Padua and Vicenza

,the autumn in Milan

and the winter in Florence fo r years on end theymade the same tour , without ever tiring of it . Yet

163

I 64 A Musical Tourthey need hardly have disturbed themselves inorder to hear Italian opera

,for they had Italy in

London . England was so tho roughly conqueredby the Italian taste from the beginning of thecentury that the historian Burney made thisstrange reflectio n—which , in his mouth , was praise ofhis own country :

The yo un g En glish compo sers, witho ut havin g been in

Italy, lapse less frequen tly in to the En glish style than th e

yo un g Fren ch compo sers, who have spen t years in Italy, lapse ,in spite o f all, in to th e Fren ch style .

In other words , he congratulates the Englishmusicians for succeeding in denationalising themselves better than the French . This was due tothe excellent Italian companies then in Londonperforming opera and opera bufia ,

directed by suchmasters as Handel , Buononcini , Porpora and Galuppi . Burney, in his infatuation for Italy, co ncludedthat England was consequently a fitter schoo l thanFrance for the formatio n of a young composer .This observation was , unknown to Burney, somewhat flattering to France , which was , in fact , of allthe nations , that which Oppo sed the most obstinateresistance to Italian influence . This influence wasbrought to bear no less upon Parisian society andParisian artists ; and Italianism ,

which found avigorous support among the philosophers ofthe Encyclopaedia—Diderot , Grimm ,

and above allRousseau—gave rise to a po sitive warfare in themusical wo rld

,and in the end it was partly

victorious ; for in the second half of the centurywe may say that French music was a prey whichwas divided up like a co nquered territory

,between

three great fo reign artists an Italian , Piccin n i ;

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166 A Musical TourM usic . Strongly Italianate in matters of taste

,

but honest and impartial,he had the good fortune to

be personally acquainted with the leading musiciansof his day in Italy

,with Jommelli, Galuppi ,

Pic cin n i,Father Martini and Sammartini in

Germany,with Gluck, Hasse , Kirn b erger , and PhilippEmmanuel Bach ; in France , with Gretry , Rousseauand the philosophers . Certain of the portraitswhich he has drawn of these men are the most lifelike pictures of them extant .In the following pages we follow the steps ofBurney and many another illustrious travellerwho made the pilgrimage to Italy about the middle ofthe eighteenth century .

*

Scarcely had they entered Italy when they becamepossessed of the musical passion which was devouring a whole nation . This passio n was n o lessardent among the populace than amidst the elect .

Th e vio lin s, th e in strumen tal perfo rmers,and th e sin gin g

sto p us in th e streets,” writes th e Abbé Co yer, in 1763 . On e

Mo n tesquieu trave lled in Italy in 1728-29 (Voyages , Bo rdeaux,

1894) th e Presiden t de Bro sses in 1739-

40 (Lettres familier es écritesd’I talie) Gro sley, in 1758 (Observations sur I talie) Lalan de in

1765-66 (Voyages en I talie , VIII . Vo l. : in 12 -mo , Ven ice ,

Go e the , in 1786-8 7 (I talian ische Reise) Mo ratin , in 1793-9 6 (Obras

postumas, Madrid ,B urn ey

’s famo us Tour dated from 1770

-72 , and h as be en des

c ri bed by him in his two wo rks Thepresen t state ofM usic in Fran ce and

I taly (1771) and Thepresen t state of M usic in Germany , the N etherlands

an d Un ited Provin ces almo st immediately translated in toFren ch .Th e readermay also con sult th e letters o fMo zart, who made threejo urn eys thro ugh Italy (1769 -71, 1771, 1772 Th e M émoires o fGrétry, wh o spen t e ight years in Rome , from 1759

-1767 , th e Auto

biography o f Karl Ditters v o n Dittersdo rf, who accompan ied Gluckin to Italy—to say n o thin g o f th e n umero us studies o f tho se Ge rman

musician s who travelled in Italy, such as Ruet, Johan n ChristianBach, e tc .I o btain ed much valuable in fo rmation from an in terestin g wo rkby Sign o r Giuseppe Ro be rti La M uszca in I talia n el secolo ! VI I I .

secon do le impression i di viaggiatori stran ieri (Rivista musicaleI talian a,

Across Europe I 67

hears , in the public places ,a sho emaker , a blacksmith , a

cabin et-maker singing an ar ia in several parts with a co rr ect

n ess and taste whi ch they ow e to n ature and th e habit o flisten ing to harmo n ists fo rmed by art .

”

In Florence and Genoa the merchants and artisanscombined

,on Sundays and fete-days , to form

various societies of Laudisti or psalm-singers . Theyused to walk about the country together, singingmusic in three parts .In Venice if two persons are walking togetherarm in arm

,says Burney

,it seems as tho ugh

they converse only in song . All the songs there aresung as duets .” In the Piazza di San Marcosays Grosley a man from the dregs of the people ,a shoemaker

,a blacksmith

,in the clothes proper

to his calling,strikes up an ai r other people of his

sort , j o ining 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 Northerncountries .”From the fifteenth century onwards popularmusical performances were given yearly in theTuscan countryside ; and the popular genius Of

Naples and Calabria expressed itself in songs whichwere not disdained by the musicians : Piccinn i

and Paisiello exploited them to their advantage .But the wonderful thing was the ardent delightwhich the people displayed in listening to music .When the Italians admire a thing ” writes

Burney, they seem on the point of dying of apleasure too great for their senses At a symphonyconcert given in the open arr

,in Rome

,in 1758 ,

the Abbé Mo rellet states that the people wereswooning . On e heard groans o f : 0 ben edetto , o

che gusto , piacer di morir / (O blessed ! O what

68 A Musical Tourdelight 1 On e could die o f the rapture —A littlelater

,in 1781, the Englishman , Moore , who was

present at a musical spectacle in Rome,no tes

that the public remained with folded hands andeyes half-clo sed

,ho lding its breath . A young

girl began to cry out,from the middle of the

parterra : O Dio ! dove son o ! I l piacere mi famor ir e (O God , where am I ! I am dying ofdelight !) Some performances were interrupted bythe so bs of the audience .Music held such a position in Italy that themelomaniac Burney himself saw a danger to thenatio n in the passion which it aroused . Toj udge by the number of musical establishmentsand public perfo rmances o n e might accuse Italyof cultivating music to excess .

The musical superiority of Italy was due notmerely to her natural taste fo r music

,but to the

excellence o f the musical training given throughoutthe peninsula .The most brilliant centre of this artistic culturewas Naples . It was the current Opinion in Burney ’5days that the farther south one went the morerefined was the musical taste encountered . Italysays Grosley

,may be compared with a tuning

fork of which Naples sounds the octave . Presidentde Brosses

,the Abb é ‘

Coyer , an d above all Lalande,express the same Opinion . Music ,” writes Lalande“ is the triumph of the Neapolitans . It seems thatin this country the fibres of the ear are more sensitive ,mo re harmonic , more son orous than in the rest ofEurope the whole nation sings gestures , theinflexio n of the voice , the cadence of the syllables ,

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170 A Musical TourBurney, is the post of honour for composers , theRomans being regarded as the severest j udges ofmusic in Italy . It is considered that an artistwho has had a success in Rome has nothing to fearfrom the severity of the critics in other cities .

ll‘

The first emotion produced by Neapolitanmusic on foreign travellers was rather surprise thanpleasure . Those who were more sincere

,or finer

j udges , were even disappointed at the outset .They found , as Burney did , that the execution wascareless , or the time and the pitch were equally atfault , or the voices were harsh , or there was a naturalbrutality, something immoderate , a taste ,”according to Grosley

,for the capricious and

extravagant .” The records of the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries are agreed upon this point .A French traveller

, J .

’

J . Bouchard , states , in1632 :

Th e Neapo litan music is especially strik in g by reason o f its

cheerful an d fan tastic mo vemen ts . Its style o f so n g, quitediff eren t from th e Roman , is dazzlin g an d as it were hardn o t in deed really t o o gay,

but fan tastic and harebrain ed ,pleasin g o n ly by its quick, giddy and fan tastic movemen t itis a mixture Of Fren ch an d S icilian me lo dy“ fo r th e rest, mo stextravagan t in r espect o f con tin uity and un ifo rmity, whi ch itdo es n o t respect in the least ; run n in g, then stoppin g sho rt ,j umpin g from low to high and high to low ,

fo rcin g the vo i cet o th e utmo st , then sudden ly restrain in g it and 1t is r eallyby these altern ation s o f high and low , piano and forte, thatNeapo litan sin gin g is recogn ised .

And Burney,in 1770 ,

writes :Th e Neapo litan sin gin g in th e streets is much less

agreeable , altho ugh mo re o r igin al than e lsewhere . It is a

That is, acco rding to Bo uchard , o f th e galan t style and th e

dramatic style .

Across Europe 171

sin gular kind o f music , as barbaro us in its mo dulation s, and as

differen t from that o f all the rest o f E uro pe , as S co ttish musicThe ar tisti c sin gin g has an en ergy, a fire , whi ch o n e

do es n o t perhaps mee t with in any o ther part o f the wo rld ,an d whi ch compen sates fo r the lack o f taste an d delicacy. Thisman n er o f executio n is so passion ate that it is almo st fren zied .It is owin g to this impetuo sity o f temper that it is an o rdinarythin g to see a Neapo litan compo ser , star tin g with a gen tle and

so be r mo vemen t , set the o rchestra o n fire be fo re h e has fin ished .Th e Neapo litan s, like tho ro ughbred ho rses, are im

patien t o f the bit . In the ir co n servato ires they find it difli cultto o btain pathetic and graceful effects and in gen eral thecompo sers o f th e Neapo litan scho o l en deavo ur less than tho se o fo ther par ts o f Italy to Obtain the delicate and studied graces.

’

But if the characteristics of Neapo litan singinghad remained almost the same from the seventeenthto the eighteenth century

,its value had altered

greatly . In Bouchard ’s day Neapo litan music wasbehind that of the rest of Italy . In Burn ey’

s timethe Neapolitan composers were renowned not onlyfor their n atural 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 itsfamous conservatoires for the musical trainingof po or children . An admirable idea

,which our

modern democracies have neither conceived norrevived .

Of these conservatoires , or Collegn di musica ,

there were four of the highest standing1. The Collegio de ’ poveri di Gesu Cristo (college of

th e poor of Jesus Christ) , founded in 1589 , by aCalabrian of the third order of St . Francis

,Marcello

Fo ssataro di Nicotera , who gave harbour to poor

172 A Musical Tourlittle children dying of cold and hunger . Childrenof 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—Pergolesi was trained .

2 . The Collegio di S an On ofr io a Capuan a ,founded

about 1600, by the friars of San Onofrio fo r

orphans of Capua and the co untry round about .The number of scholars varied from ninety to ahundred and fifty . They wore a white cassockand grey cymar .3 . The Collegio de S an ta M ar ia di Loreto , foundedin 1537 by a protono tary apostolic of Spanishnationality

,Giovanni di Tappia

,

“ to receive thesons of the poo rest citizens and educate them inreligion and the fine arts .” This very large collegecontained at first as many as eight hun dred children ,boys and girls . Then , about the middle of theeighteenth century

,it ceased receivin g girls and

began to teach music exclusively . When Burneyvisited it there were two hundred children . Theywore a white casso ck and cymar .4. The Collegio de la Pieta

‘

de Turchin i, foundedat the end of the sixteenth century by a confraternitywhich accepted the poor children of the quarter .In the middle of the eighteenth century there werea hundred pupils . They wore a blue cassock andcymar . The most celebrated Neapo litan composerswere professo rs in this college . Francesco Provenzalewas one o f the first masters in this co llege .Each of these co nservatoires had two headmasters : one to correct compositions , the other toteach singing . These were also assistant masters(maestri scolari) fo r each instrument . The children ,

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I 74 A Musical TourM. Gilbert whom Lalande met with , who was workingfor the ben efit of France .They recruited composers also . The two mostfamous Neapolitan compo sers of the middle of theeighteenth century—Jommelli and Piccin n i- wererecruited

,the one

, Jommelli, for Germany, where heremained for fifteen years at S tuttgart the other,Piccin n i, for Paris , where he was set up in oppositionto Gluck . He died there after having been professorat the Royal School of S inging and Declamation , andInspector of the Paris Conservatoire . These twomen formed a perfect contrast . Piccinn i, small ,thin

,pale

,with a tired face

,extremely polished,

gentle and vehement at the same time , rather seriousas 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 dialectcould not be transplanted beyond the limits of hisnative country , where they were all the rage but ,as the Abbé Galian i said , it was really impossiblethat this style of music should find its way intoFrance since it did not even reach Rome . On e hadto be a Neapolitan to appreciate the masterlystate of perfection to which Piccin n i had broughtcomic opera in Naples .” —Jommelli, on the contrary,was appreciated abroad better than in Naples .The Neapolitans resented the fact that he had becomeunduly Germanised at Stuttgart . Physically hewas like a German musician . He was an extremelycorpulent man , says Burney ; his face remindedme of Handel ’s . But he is much more polished andpleasant in his manners .” A true artist , exaltedand emotional

,but a trifle heavy

,he brought back

from Germany a love of harmony and compact

Across Europe 175

orchestration he contributed in no small degree tothe revolution which was brought about in his timein Neapolitan Opera

,in which the orchestra began to

rage and roar to the detriment of the singers , whowere compelled to shout . As for the music ,” saysBurney

,all the Chiaroscuro is lost ; the half

shades and the background disappear ; one hearso nly the noisy parts .

T

Venice was distinguished from Naples by the

delicacy of its taste . In place of the Neapolitanconservatoires it had its famous conservatoires forwomen ; the Pietd, the M endican ti, the I ncurabiliand the Ospedaletto di S . Giovan n i e Paolo .

These were hospitals for foundlings,under the

patronage of the leading aristocratic families of thecity. Young girls were kept there until theirmarriage

,and were given a thorough musical edu

cation . Music says Grosley, was the principalpart of an education which seemed more adaptedto form Lais and Aspasias than nuns or mothersof families .” But it must not be supposed that allwere musicians . At the Pietd barely seventy outof a thousand were such ; in each of the otherhospitals forty to fifty . But nothing was left undoneto attract musical pupils thither ; and it was a

common practice to admit children who were notorphans provided they

.

had fine voices . They werebrought thither from all Venetia : from Padua ,Verona , Brescia and Ferrara . The professors wereat the Pietd, Furlan etto at the M endican ti, Be rtoniat the Ospedaletto , Sacchin i at the I n curabili,Galuppi , who followed Hasse . The rivalry thatexisted be tween these illustrious composers excited

I 76 A Musical Tourthe emulation of the pupils . Each conservatoirehad five or six assistant masters for singing andinstrumental music ; and the elder girls , in turn ,taught the youngest . The pupils learned not onlyto sing but to play all in struments the violin

,the

harpsichord , eve n the horn and the bass viol .Burney says that they were able , as a rule , to playseveral instruments and that they changed fromone to another with facility . These women ’sorchestras gave public concerts every Saturdayand Sunday evening . They were one of the principalattractions , o f Venice and no foreign traveller whovisited the city has failed to describe them for us .They were as pleasant to loo k at as to hear .Nothing could be more delightful says Presidentde Brosses , than to see a young and pretty nun ina white habit

,with a bunch of pomegranate -flowers

over one ear,conduct the orchestra and beat time

with all the grace and accuracy imaginable . Headds that fo r fine execution and as conductorof an orchestra the daughter of Venice is secondto none . Some o f these fair musicians werefamed all over Italy ; and Venice used to besplit into hostile camps in support of this orthat singer .But the somewhat fantastic tales of galan t travel

lers might give us a false impression of the seriousnature of the musical training given in these co nservato ires . Burney

,who carefully inspected

them,speaks of their learning with admiration .

The best of the schools was the I n curabili, whichwas directed by Galuppi . Galuppi was then seventyyears of age but he was still lively and alert , andthe fire in him burned even brighter as he grew older .He was very slender

,with small face full of

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I 78 A Musical Tourprincipal organs , and four lesser orchestras distributed ,in twos , between the aisles , each group beingsupported by two small organs . This was in theVenetian tradition : it dated from the Gabrieli

,

from the sixteenth century.

Apart from the conservatoires and the churches,

numerous concerts or academies were held inprivate houses . In these the nobility took part .Noble ladies performed on the harpsichord

,playing

concertos . Sometimes festivals were organised inhonour of a musician : Burney was present ata Marcello concert . These musical eveningswere often prolonged far into the night . Burneyrecords that four conservatoire concerts and severalprivate academies were held on the sameevening .The concerts did no harm to the theatres

,which

in Venice as in Naples con stituted the city ’s chieftitle to musical fame . For a long time they werethe foremo st theatres of Italy .

At the Carnival of 1769 , seven opera-houses wereopen simultaneously ; three giving serio usopera (opera seria) and four comic opera (operabufi

’a) , without speaking of fo ur theatres producing

comedy ; all were full , night after night .A last detail gives evidence o f the liberality andthe truly democratic spirit that inspired these Italiancities . The go ndo liers enj oyed free admission tothe theatre and when a box belonging to a noblefamily was not o ccupied the director of the operaallowed the gondoliers to instal themselves therein .

”

Burney sees here,correctly enough , one of the reasons

of the distinguished manner in which the menof the people sing in Ven ice as compared with menof the same class elsewhere .” Nowhere was there

Across Europe I 79

better music in Italy ; nowhere was it mo re widelyspread among the peo ple .

it ll!

All around these two operatic capitals—Venicewith its seven theatres

,Naples with its fo ur or

five—o f which the San Carlo , one of the largestin Europe

,had an orchestra of eighty performers “

—the o pera was flourishing in all the cities of Italyin Rome

,with her famous theatres—the Argentina ,

the Aliberti,the Capranica ; in Milan and Turin ,

whose opera houses gave daily performances , durin gthe season

,save o n Fridays , and where stupendous

actions were represented , such as battles fought bycavalry ;1 at Parma , where sto od the Farnesetheatre

,the most luxurious in Italy ; at Piacenza ,

Reggio,Pisa

,and Lucca , which , according to

Lalande , possessed the most perfect orchestrathroughout all Tuscany

,and all Venetia , and at

Vicenza and Verona,which city

,writes Edmund

Rolfe , was mad over opera .

”1 It was the great

national passion . The Abbé Coyer, in 1763 , was inNaples during a famine the rage for spectacles wasnot diminished thereby.

Let us enter one of these Opera-houses . Theperformance begins , as a rule , at eight o ’clock ,and ends about half-past twelve . § The cost o f

the places in the parterre is a paule ’"(Sixpence

Marquis d ’

Orbe ssan , Voyage d’

I talie , 1749-

50 (M élanges bistariques et cr itiques , To ulo use ,f Edmun d Ro lfe , in 176 1 Contin en tal Diary , published by E .

Neville Ro lfe (Naples,I To say n o thin g o f th e lesser cities , where o n e always fo undgo o d o rchestras an d go o d compan ies .

5Lalan de (1765, at Parma) .Burn ey.—Th e Italian Ope ra-ho use s we re gen e rally leased to an

asso ciatio n o f n oblemen , each o f whom subscribed fo r o n e bo x ,and

sub -le t th e rest by th e year, re se rvin g the parterra an d th e uppe rgalle ry o n ly (at Milan an d Turin , fo r example ) .

180 A Musical TourEnglish) unless admission is free , as is often thecase in Venic e and Naples . The public is noisyand inattentive ; it would seem that the peculiarpleasure Of the theatre , dramatic emo tion , co untsfor very little . The audience chats at its ease duringpart of the performance . Visits are paid from boxto box . At Milan each box opens out of a completeapartment , having a room with a fireplace and allpossible conveniences , whether fo r the preparationof refreshments or for a game of cards . On the fourthfloor a faro-table is kept open on either side of thebuilding as long as the o pera AtBologna the ladies make themselves thoroughlyat home ; they talk , or rather scream ,

during theperformance

,from one b o x to that fac1ng 1t , stand

ing up,clapping and sho uting B ravo As for the men ,

they are more moderate ; when an act is finished ,and it has pleased them , they content themselveswith sho uting until it is perfo rmed again . T InMilan it is by no means enough that everybodyshould enter into conversatio n , shouting at the topof 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,wi th which they beat the benches as hard

as they can , by way of admiration . They have colleagues in the boxes of the fifth tier

,who , at this signal ,

throw down thousands o f leaflets co ntaining a son ettoprinted in praise of the sign ora or the virtuoso whohas j ust been singing . All the occupants of theboxes lean half o ut o f them to catch the se leafle tsthe parter ra capers about and the scene closes with

Burn ey.1Letter s o f Presiden t de Bro sses

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182 A Musical Tourcontrary, in the interpretation of emotion , in accordance with the genius of the language ; and thepassages mo st relished in Italy are the simplestand most affecting , the passionate , tender, touching airs , adapted to theatrical expression and calculated to display the capacities of the actor

,

” suchas are found in . Scarlatti

,Vinci

,and Pergolesi .

These are naturally the very passages which it ismost difficult to send abroad

,since the merit

of these scraps of tragedy consists in accuracy ofexpression ,” which one cannot realise withoutknowing the language .Thus we find in the Italian public of the eighteenthcentury an extreme indifference to dramatic action ,to the play ; in this superb heedlessness of thesubj ect they will even give the second or third actof the opera before the first when it suits somepersonage who cannot spend the whole evening inthe theatre . Don Leandro de Mo ratin , the Spanishpoet , sees , at the opera , Dido dying on her pyrethen , in the following act , Dido comes to life againand welcomes ZEn eas . But this same public that isso disdainful of drama becomes furiously en thusi

astio over a dramatic passage divorced from theaction .

The fact is that it is above all lyrical , but with alyrical quality that has nothing abstract about itwhich is applied to particular passions and cases .The Italian refers everything to himself . It isneither the action nor the characters that interesthim . It is the passions ; he embraces them all ;

he experiences them all in his own person . Hencethe frenzied exaltation into which the opera throwshim at certain moments . In no other countryhas the love of the opera this passionate quality,

Across Europe 183

be cause no other nation displays this personal andegoistical character . The Italian does not go tothe opera-house to see the heroes of opera , but tosee himself

,to hear himself

,to caress and inflame

his passions . All else is indifferent to him .

What intensity must the art possess that is kindledby these burnin g hearts ! But what a danger ishere ! For everything in art that is not subj ectedto the imitation or the control of nature , all thatdepends merely upon inspiration o r inward exaltation

,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 aflame is subj ect to momentary eclipses or to totaldi sappearance ; and if , during these phases ofspiritual slumber

,scrupulous and laborious talent ,

Observation and reason do not take the place ofgenius the result is absolute nullity . This remarkmay be only too readily verified among Italiansof all ages . Their artists , even their indifferent ones ,have often more genius than many famous andgenerously endowed Northern artists ; but thisgenius is squandered over mere nothings , or drowses ,or goes astray ; and when it is no longer at homethe house is empty .

The salvation of the Italian music of the eighteenthcentury should have been found in a style of musicwhich it had j ust created : the opera bufia, thein termezzo , which , at its point of departure , inVinci and Pergolesi

,is based on the humorous

observation of the Italian character . The Italians ,who are pre-eminently given to a bantering style ofhumour

,have left veritable masterpieces of this

description . President de Brosses was right to

I 84 A Musical Tourspeak with enthusiasm o f these little comedies .The less serious the style , he informs us , “ thegreater the success of Italian music fo r it exhalesthe spiri t o f gaiety and is in its element .” And hewrites

,j ust after seeing La S erva Padron a : It

is not true that one can die of laughter ; for if itwere I should certainly have died o f it , despite thegrief which I felt to think that my merrimentprevented me from hearing as much as I couldhave 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 unimportantentertainments , and they would have blushed toplace them in the same rank as the musical tragedies .Co nstantly , in history, this unintelligent hierarchyof styles has caused indifferent works in a noblestyle to be prized mo re . highly than admirablewo rks in a less exalted style . In President deBrosses ’ day

,the pre'cieux et pre'cieuses of Italy

affected to de spise the opera bufia and laughed atde Brosses ’ infatuatio n fo r these farces .” Con

sequently these excellent little compo sitions weresoo n o verlooked ; and abuses as great as those tobe found in opera made their way into the in termezzi the same improbability and the samecarelessness in respect of the action . Burney iscompelled to admit that if one takes away themusic o f a French comic opera it remains a pleasantcomedy

,while without music the Italian comic

opera is insupportable . At the close of the centuryMo ratin laments the absurdity of this class of compositio n . Yet this was the period o i Cimarosa ,Paisiello

,Guglielmi

, Andrao zzi, Fio raven ti andmany others . What might n o t these lesser masters

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A Musical Tourfact that Titus Livius was born there . Peoplevisited his ho use

,later his tomb

,with the fervour

of pilgrims to Mecca .” No less famous as composerand 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 consecrateduntil he had won Tartini ’s approbation . Of all

the musicians of his country he was pre-eminent inmatters of taste , and he above all was unprej udicedin respect of the artistic merits of other nations .He is polite , complaisant , without pride andwithout eccentricity says De Brosses ; heargues like an angel

,and without partiality

,as to

the different merits of French and Italian musicI was quite as much pleased by his conversation asby his playing .” His playing had little thatwas dazzling about it ; .f o r this virtuoso had ahorror of empty virtuosity . When Italian violinistscame to him that he might listen to their tricksof style, “ he would listen coldly and then sayThat is brill iant that is lively that is very good ,but , ’ he would add , placing his hand over his heart ,‘ it has nothing to say to me here . ’ His style wasremarkable for the extreme distinctness with whichevery note was sounded one never lost theleast of them —and for its intense feeling . Until hisdeath Tartini modestly filled a place in the orchestraof the S an ta at Padua .In addition to this great name there are othersthat have retained a legitimate fame even downto our own days . In Venice there was Vivaldi ;he too was known to De Brosses ; he promptlybecame one of the Frenchman ’s most intimatefriends

,in order says the latter to sell me his

Across Europe I 87

concertos at a very dear rate . He is nu

vecchio , who composes with the most prodigiousfury . I have heard him undertake to composea concerto with all its parts more rapidly than acopyist could copy it .” Already he was no longergreatly esteemed in his own country , wherefashion was everything where his works had beenheard to o long , and where the music Of the previousyear no longer paid .

” But one compensation wasleft him that of being a model for Johann SebastianBach .

The other violinists of the same period—Nardini ,Tartin i ’s best pupil ; Veracin i, whose compositionswere noted for their profundity

,and in whom some

have seen a precursor of Beethoven ; Nazzari andPugn an i

—had the same sober and expressive qualities ,avoiding rather than striving for effect . Burneywrites of Nardini that he should please rather thansurprise and President de Brosses says ofVeracin i that his playing was accurate , noble ,scholarly and precise

,but somewhat lacking in

grace .”The art of the harpsichord had already had itsmasters

,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 wasGaluppi . But even in Burn ey’

s time its decadencewas 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 in strument is used only to accompany the voice ; an d atpresent it is so greatly neglected

,as much by the

188 A Musical Tourcomposers as by the players , that it is di fficult tosay which are worse

,the instruments or tho se who

play on them .

-The art of the organist had beenbetter preserved since o ld Fr esco baldi

’

s day . Butin spite of way in which Burney and Grosley havepraised the Italian organists

,we may accept as correct

the verdict of Rust,who says that the Italians

seemed to thin k it impossible to give real pleasureby playing on instruments actuated by a keyboard .

”

Here we recognise their expressive genius,which

found its favourite instruments in the voice and theviolin .

*

But what was of more importance than the greatvirtuosi

, so numerous in Northern Italy, was thegeneral taste for symphonic music . The Lombardand Piedmontese orchestras were famous . Themost celebrated was that of Turin

,which included

Pugn an i, Veracin i, Sernis an d the Besozzi . Therewas symphonic music in the Chapel Royalevery morning

,from eleven o ’clock to noon ; the

king ’s orchestra was divided into three groupswhich were distributed in these galleries at somedistance one from ano ther . The understandingbetween them was so excellent that they had no needof anyone to beat time . This custom ,

which wasgeneral in Italy

,naturally struck foreign travellers .

The composer says Grosley applies himselfWin d instrumen ts were to some exten t n eglected . Alessan dro

S carlatti , who was with difficulty persuaded by Hasse to gran tan in terview to th e famo us flautist Quan tz, in 1725, said to him :

My so n , yo u ar e aware o f my an tipathy fo r win d in strumen ts ;they ar e n eve r in tun e .

”(Quan tz himse lf repeats this remark to

Burn ey) . -In 177 1 Mo zart disco vered that fo r th e great festival o fSan Pe tro n io at Bo lo gn a it was n ece ssary to sen d to Lucca fo r thetrumpe ts , and that they were de testable .

—Go od win d -in strumen tswere hardly to be fo und save in Ven ice and th e n o rth o f Italy.Turin bo asted o f th e two bro thers Beso zzi, o n e o f whom played th eobo e and th e o ther th e basso on they were kn own all over Europe .

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190 A Musical Tourheard several concerts given under his direction

,

says that his symphonies were full of a spirit anda fire which were peculiar to him . The in strumental parts were well written ; he did not leavea single instrument idle long ; and the violinsabove all were given no time to rest . Burneycomplained of him—and the same complaint wasafterwards made o f Mozart—that his music hadto o many notes and too many allegro passages .He seemed positively to gallop . The impetuosityof his genius impelled him forward in a series ofrapid movements which , in the long run fatiguedboth the orchestra and the audience . Burneynevertheless admires the truly divine beautyof some of his adagios .The Milanese gave evidence of a very decidedtaste for this symphonic music . There were manyconcerts in Milan

, n o t only public , but private ,at which small orchestras of amateurs perfo rmed ;at these concerts they played the symphonies ofSammartini and Jo hann Christian Bach , the youngestson of Johann Sebastian Bach . It often happenedeven that a performance of Opera was replaced by aconcert . And even in opera the result of thispreference for instrumental music was—to thescandal of the elderly admirers of Italian singingthat the o rchestra was to o numerous , too powerful ,and the complicated accompaniments tended toconceal the melody and stifle the voices .

Thus the principal centres of instrumental musicwere Turin and Milan ; for vocal music , Veniceand Naples .Bologna stood at the head of Italian musicthe brain that reasoned and controlled , the city

Across Europe I 9I

of theorists and academicians . There dwelt theprincipal musical authority of eighteenth-centuryItaly

,the authority reco gnised at once by the

Italians and by the masters o f all Euro pe by Gluck ,Jo hann Christian Bach and Mo zart—Father Martini .This Franciscan monk

,cho irmaster 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 counterpoint and an impassioned colle cto r , who gatheredabo ut him

,in his library of seventeen thousand

volumes,the musical knowledge o f the period .

This he generously shared with all those who appliedto him

,for he was full of kindliness his was one of

those pure and serene souls which are to be foundamong the old Italian artists . He was greatlybeloved and musicians were constantly appealin gto his Wisdom ,

whether in writing or by visiting himin Bolo gna . Burney speaks of him with affection

He is advan ced in age an d in b ad hea lth . He has a dis

tr essin g co ugh his legs are swo llen an d his who le appearan ceis that o f a sickman . On e can n o t , by readin g his bo o ks , fo rman idea o f th e character o f this go o d and wo rthy man . His

character is such that it in spires n o t o n ly respe ct , but affectio n .

W ith the purity o f his life an d the simplicity.

o f his mann ersh e combin es gai ety, kindn ess and philan thro py. I have n everliked anyo n e so we ll after so slight an acquain tan ce . I was n omo re reserved with him at th e end o f a few ho urs than I sho uldhave be en with an o ld fr ien d o r a be lo ved bro ther.”Bologna boasted also of the principal musicalacademy in Italy ; the Philharmonic Society ,founded in 1666 , into which Italian and foreignmasters held it an honour to be received . Thelittle Mozart was admitted to it after a competition

,

in which , so the legend reco rds , he was secretlyassisted by the worthy Father Martini . It was

I 9 A Musical Tourthe same with Gretry , who do es not conceal thefact in his memo irs . The Philharmonic S o cietydiscussed questio ns of theory and musical science ;and it gave a yearly festival at which the newwo rks of Bolognese compo sers were perfo rmed .

This festival , which was a solemn affair, was heldin the church of San Giovanni in Mo nte

,where

the S an ta Cecilia of Raphael was at that timeexhibited . The orchestra and the choirs includeda hundred musician s ; each composer co nductedhis own works . All the musical critics Of Italy werepresent at these performances of church andinstrumental music, by which reputatio ns weremade . Burney, at one of these festivals , met LeopoldMozart and his son , the little German whoseprecocious and almost supernatural talents

,

” hetells us , asto nished us in Londo n some years agowhen he was little more than a baby . Thisyoung man

,

” he adds farther o n,

“

who has surprisedEurope by his executio n and his precocious knowledge

,is also a very able master of his

Lastly,Rome exercised a dictatorship over the

whole of Italian music .Rome boasted a speciality in the religious musicof the Sistine Chapel , which was then , however ,in a state o f decline , owing to the competitio n o f

the theatres,which by their large salaries attracted

the best artistsj Rome had her great co llectionsBurn ey is am o n g th e mo st disdain ful critics o f Mo zart’s sister

Mariann e . Th e youn g person se ems to have attain ed h e r highestdeve lopmen t, which is n o thin g very wo n de rful an d if I may j udgeby th e o rchestral music o f h e r compo sitio n that I have heard , it ispremature ly ripen ed fruit which is extrao rdin ary rather thanexce llen t.”1' As pe rso ns o f distin guished me rit attached to th e Sistin eChape l find little en co uragemen t there , th e music is begin nin g to b eless exce llen t there is a perceptible fallin g o ff . The result is

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I 94 A Musical TourTh e Roman s, saysGretry, have a habit o f sho utin g, in

the theatre , durin g a compo sitio n in whi ch the o rchestrapredomin ates : B rava la viola , brava il fago tto , brava l

’

oboe !

(Bravo vio lin , bravo basso on , bravo obo e If it is a me lodi o usan d po etical so n g that pleases them they address themse lves toth e autho r, o r they sigh an d weep but they also have a

terrible man ia fo r sho utin g, o n e after an o ther B ravo S acchin i,

bravo Cimarosa , bravo Paisiello at th e perfo rman ce o f o peras byo ther compo sers ; a pun ishmen t we ll calculated t o suppressth e crime o f plagiarism.

”

With what brutality this popular j ustice was sometimes executed we learn from the sto ry o f poorPergo lesi

,who

,says tradition

,at the first per

fo rman ce o f his Olimpiade, received , amidst a stormof hooting

,an orange

,full in his face . And this

fact is a sufficient proo f that the Roman publicwas not infallible . But it laid claim to in fallibility .

Faithful to its traditio ns , it arrogated to itself anempire over musicTu regere imperio populos, Roman e , memen to .

No one fo und anything surprising in this : theprivilege of the Roman public was admitted.

Rome,capital of the wo rld ,” wro te Amadeo

Mozart in one of his letters,in 1770 .

Such , in its broad outlines , was the fabric ofItalian music in the eighteenth century . We perceivewhat abundan ce , what vitality it displayed . Itsgreatest danger—that to which it succumbedwas its very exuberance . It had n o time to recollectitself , to meditate upon its past . It was eaten upby its mania fo r novelty .

*

I am speak in g o f th e public taste . Th e cult o f th e pas t wascherished by a small elite . And apart from ather Martin i and hislibrary o f seven teen tho usan d vo lumes , Italy had n o lack o f co llecto rs ,such as Pro fesso r Campio ni , o f Flo ren ce ,who co llected the madrigalso f th e sixteen th and seven teen th cen turies th e sin ger, Mazzan ti ,

Across Europe 195

You men tio n Car issimi , wro te De Bro sses . Fo r

Go d ’s sake be car eful n o t to speak o f him here , un der penalty o fbe in g regarded as a dun ce ; tho se who succeeded him havelo n g been regarded as o ut o f fash io n IThe same writer

,ravished by hearing a famous

sin ger in Naples— it S en esin o perceived withastonishment that the people of the coun try wereby no means satisfied . They complained that hesang in a stile an tico . Yo u must unde rs tand thatthe taste in music changes here at least every tenyears .”Burney is still more po sitiveIn Italy they treat an o pera a lready heard like a last

year ’

s alman ack. There is a rage fo r n o ve lty it hassometimes been the cause o f th e revo lutio n swhich o n e o bser ve sin Italian music it o ften gives rise t o stran ge con cetti . It leadscompo se rs to seek n o ve lty at an y co st . Th e simplicity o f theo f Rome , who made a co llectio n o f everythin g re latin g to Palestrin ath e Abbe Orsin i an d the Chevalie r San tare lli, o f Rome ,who co llectedall do cumen ts re latin g to bygo n e o pera and o rato rio . (Burn ey) .The o ld style was al so in some degre e prese rved in th e churchmusic. Burn ey o ften n o te s , in Milan , B rescia ,Vicen za, Flo ren ce , e tc . ,

that th e church music was in the o ld style , full o f fugues .

”

It is true that a great deal o f pro fan e music was executed in th echurches , such as that described by th e Chevalie rGo udar in an amusin g n arrative (L ’

E spion Chin ois, 1765) I wen t recen tly, in Bo lo gn a,to what they call here a gran d musical mass . On en terin g th echurch I tho ught at first that Imust be at the o pe ra. In tro ductions ,sympho nies, min ue ts , rigado o n s , airs fo r th e so lo vo ice , duets ,cho ruses , accompan ied by drums , trumpe ts , k ettledrums , hun tin gho rns , o bo es , vio lin s , fifes , flageo le ts : in a wo rd , all that go es tomak e th e music o f a play was emplo yed in this music . It w as a

mas terpie ce o f impiety . If the compo se r had wished to write a

mass fo r th e goddess o f pleasure h e co uld n o t have emplo yed mo remo vin g so unds n o r mo re lascivio us modulatio ns .

”

But Burn ey assures us that “ it was o n ly on feast-days that o n ecould hear this style o f mo de rn music in the churches . On o rdin arydays, ‘

in th e cathedral churches, the music was o f th e Old sty le ,and so lemn and in the parish churches it was simply plain -so n g,sometimes with the o rgan but mo re o ften witho ut.”Neve rtheless , in a cen tury and a co un try as irreligio us as Italy

was in th e i 8 th cen tury, church music co uld n o t be a sufficien tcoun te rweight to pro fan e music, which was led away by the thirstfo r n ovelty.

196 A Musical Touro ldmasters do es n o t please th e public . It do es n o t sufficien tlytickle th e pampered taste o f these spo ilt chi ldren , wh o can n o

lo n ger take pleasure save inThis in con stancy of taste

,this perpetual restless

ness,was the reaso n why no music worthy of mention

was being printed in Italy .

Musica l compo sitio n s last such a sho rt time , an d th e

vo gue o f n o ve lties is so great , that th e few co pieswhi ch might b er equired ar e n o t wo rth th e expen se o f en gravin g o r prin tin g.

Th e ar t o f en gravin g music , mo reo ve r, appears to b e en tire lylo st . On e fin ds n o thin g in all Italy resemblin g a musi cpublisher ’s .

’

T

Burney is even beginning to foresee,in the midst

of the artistic splendour which he lo ves,the complete

and by no means distant disappearance of Italianmusic . He be lieves , in truth , that the stupendousenergy expended upon it will be tran sformed , thatit will create other arts

Th e lan guage and gen ius o f th e Italian s ar e so r ich an d so

fer tile that when they ar e weary o f music—which will witho ut ado ubt happen very so o n ,

from very excess o f en j oymen t—thissame man ia fo r n o ve lty, which has made them pass so quicklyfrom o n e style o f compo sitio n t o an o ther , an d which Oftenmakes them chan ge from a better style to a wo rse , will fo rcethem to se ek amusemen t in a theatre w itho ut music I

Burn ey’

s prediction was only partly realised .

Italy has since then attempted , n o t without success ,to establish a theatre without music .” She has ,above all

,spent the best of her en ergies

,apart from

the theatre an d music,in h er political conflicts

,in

the wonderful epopee o f her Risorgimen to ,in which

all that was great and generous in the nation wasexpended and o ften sacrificed in a spirit o f exaltation .

H ere Burn ey is re fe rrin g mo re especially to th e N eapo litan s.

TBurn ey : in Ven ice .

1Burney : in Bo logn a.

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198 A Musical Tourwere past when a Roman chronicler said of thestudents of the German College in RomeIf by chan ce th ese studen ts had to make music in publi c

it is certain that it wo uld b e a Teuto n ic music , fit to excitelaughter an d t o fill th e hearers with merrimen t .The time was even past— though not very remotewhen Lecerf de la Vieville made careless mentionof the German s “ whose reputatio n in music is n o tgreat

, 1” and the Abbe de Chateauneuf co ngratu

lated a German performer on the dulcimer all themo re because he came from a country not likelyto produce men of brilliance and talent . ”1By 1780 Saxony had produced Handel andJohann Sebastian Bach . She had Gluck andPhilipp Emman uel Bach . Yet she was still enduring the crushing yoke o f Italy . Although certainof her musicians

,who were becoming co nscious of

their power,suffered this domination with impat

ien ce ,they were n o t as yet su fficiently united to end

it . The gifts o f fascinatio n po ssessed by their rivalswere too great ; the Italian art was t oo comple te ,whatever its deficiency of ideas . It showed up ina crude light the awkwardness

,the dullness , the

faults o f taste which are not lacking in the Germanmasters and Often repel him who examines theworks of artists of the second rank .

The English trave ller Burney,who

,in his notes

on Germany ,§ finally pays a very great tribute toChro n icle o f Father Casto rio (1630) cited H en ri Quittard in his

pre face to th e S acred H istories o f Carissimi, published by th e S cholaCan torum.

1Comparison de la musique franpai se cl de la musique italien n e

(1705)i; Abbé de Chateaun euf, Dialogue sur la musique des an cien s

(I 7o stCharles Burn ey : The Present S tate of M usic in Germany , the

N etherlan ds and Un itedProvin ces (1773) Fren ch tran slatio n o f th e

same perio d .

Across Europe I 99

the greatness of German music,is none the less

co ntinually sho cked by the clumsiness of musicalperforman ce s ; he gn ashes his teeth over the illtuned in struments

,the inharmonious organs , the

shriekin g vo ices .On e do es n o t find in Ge rman street musician s th e same

de licacy o f ear wh ich I have me t with in th e same class o f

perso n s in Italy.

”

In the musical schools o f Saxony and Austriathe playin g of the pupils is gen erally hard andclumsy .

At Leipzig the sin gers pro duce mere ly a disagreeable no ise

,a yelpin g

,when the high no te s are taken ;

a sort o f stricken shriek,instead of emitting the vo ice

while dimin ishing o r swe lling the ton e .In Berlin the in strumental school makes hardlyany use of forte and pian o . Each performer simplyvies with his neighbour. The chief aim o f the Berlinmusician is to play lo uder than he . Thereis no gradatio n n o attentio n to the natureof the to ne pro duced by the in struments , whichhave o nly a certain degree of power when producinga musical note

,after which there is nothing but a

noise .At Salzburg the very large orchestra of the PrinceArchbisho p was remarkable chiefly for its inelegan ce and its noise .” Mo zart speaks of it withdisgust It is one of the great reaso ns why Salzburgis hate ful to me this Court orchestra is so uncouth ,so disorderly and so debauched ! An honest manwith decent manners cannot live with such people 1 1'Burn ey in Vienn a .

1Le tter from Mo zart to his father (9 th July, The be stmusician at Salzburg, almo st a genius , Michae l Haydn , had j ust be enplayin g th e o rgan while abomin ably drunk .

200 A Musical TourEven at Mannheim , which had the most perfectorchestra in Germany

,the wind instruments

the bassoons an d o bo e s—were n o t in tune .As for the o rgan , it was torture to hear it playedin Germany . In Berlin th e o rgans are big , clumsy ,loaded with sto ps , noisy and out of tune .” InVienna

,in the cathedral

,the o rgans are ho rribly

out of tune Even in Leipzig,in the ho ly city o f

the organ , the city o f the great Jo hann SebastianBach , despite all my investigations ,” says Burney ,I did not hear anyone play the organ well an ywhere .It would seem that with the exception of a fewprince ly Co urts , where the arts , says Burney ,rendered power less insuppo rtable

,and in tellectual

diversio n s were perhaps as ne cessary as those o f

active life , the love of music was not nearly soardent or so universal as in Italy .

During the first weeks of his tour Burney wasdisappo inted

Trave llin g alo n g th e banks o f th e Rhi n e ,from Co lo gn e t o

Co blen tz , I was pe culiarly surprised t o fin d n o trace o f thatpassio n fo r music whi ch th e German s ar e said t o po ssess,especially o n th e Rhin e .

* At Co blen tz ,fo r example , altho ugh

it was S un day, an d th e streets were filled with crowds o f peo ple ,I did n o t hear a sin gle vo ice o r in strumen t , as is usual in mo stRoman Catho lic co un tr ies.

”

Hamburg,lately famed for its opera

,the first and

most celebrated in Germany, has become a musicalBoeo tia . Philipp Emmanue l Bach feels lo st there .When Burney go e s to se e him , Bach tells himYou have come here fifty years to o late .

And in a j estin g to n e that conceals a littlebitterness and shame , he adds :Burn ey passed through Bo nn some time after Beethoven ’

s

death .

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202 A Musical Tourwere Munich , Dresden and Vienna . The greatestItalian masters—Cavalli , Cesti , Draghi , Bo n tempi,Bernabei

,To rri

,Pallavicino

, Caldara,Porpo ra

,

Vivaldi , Torelli , Ve racin i—had so j ourned thereand reigned supreme . Dresden abo ve all displayeda dazzling e fllo resc en ce of Italianism during thefirst half of the eighteenth cen tury

,in the days

when Lotti , Po rpo ra and Hasse , the most Italianateof the Germans

,directed the Opera .

But in 1760 Dresden was barbarously devastatedby Frederick the Great

,who applied himself to

effacing its splendo ur fo r goo d and all . He methodically destroyed by his artillery

,during the siege o f

the city,all its monuments

,churches

,palaces ,

statues and gardens . When Burney passed throughit the city was no mo re than a heap of rubbish .

Saxony was ruined,and fo r a lo ng time to come

played no further part in m usical histo ry . Thetheatre was clo sed fo r reaso ns of economy . Theband of instrumentalists , famous all o ver Europe ,was dispersed amo ng fo reign cities . The povertywas gen eral . Tho se artists who had not been dismissed were rarely paid . The greater part o f thenobility and the bourgeoisie was so po o r that itcould not affo rd to have its children taught music .

But fo r a wretched comic o pera there wasno other spectacle in Dresden save that ofThere was the same devastatio n at Leipzig .

The citadels o f Italianism in the second half o fthe century were Vienna

,Munich and the towns

on the banks o f the Rhine .At Bonn

,when Burn ey was making his tour ,

the band of musicians maintained by the ElectorBurn ey adds that n o t a bo at was to be se en o n th e Elbe , an d that

fo r thre e years n o o ats had been given to th e ho rses, no r hair-powderto the so ldiers.

Across Europe 203

of Cologne was almo st wholly composed of Italians ,under the direction o f the Kapellmeister Lucchesi ,a composer well kn own in Tuscany .

At Coblen tz , where Italian operas were oftenperformed

,the Kapellmeister was Sales o f Brescia .

Darmstadt had fo rmerly been distinguished bythe presence o f Vivaldi , the Co urt violinist .Mannheim and Schwetzingen , the summer residence of the Electo r Palatin e , had Italian Operahouses . That of Mannheim was able to containfive thousand perso n s the staging was sumptuous ,and the company mo re n umerous than at the Pariso r Lo ndon Opera-houses . Almost all th e performerswere Italian . Of the two Kapellmeisters one ,To eschi, was Italian , an d the other

, ChristianCan n abich ,

had been sent to Italy at the Elector ’sexpense to study un der Jommelli.

At Stuttgart and at Ludwigsburg,where the Duke

of Wiirtemb erg was in conflict with his subj ects ,on account o f his extravagant passion for music

,

*

Jommelli was fifteen years Kapellmeister and directorof the Italian o pera .1

' The theatre was enormo usit co uld be o pened at the back

,thus forming

,when

required , an open -air amphitheatre,which was some

times filled by the po pulace,expressly for the purpose

of o btain ing effects of perspective . All the operabufi

’a singers were Italian . The orchestra included

numerous Italians , and in particular some famousThe W iirtemb e rge rs had pro tested in th e Diet o f th e Empire

against their so ve reign ’

s pro digality ; they accused him o f ruinin g th eco un try by his music. H is me loman ia w as compared with Ne ro ’

s

in his craze fo r thin gs Italian th e Duk e had bo ys castrated at

S tuttgart by tw o surgeo ns from Bo lo gn a. Burn ey spe ak s with co ntemptuo us pity o f this prin ce ,

“ half o f who se subj ects are theatri calmusicians , vio lin ists and so ldiers, and th e o ther half beggars ando utcasts .

”

1' An o ther Italian , Bo ro n i , succe eded him .

204 A Musical Tourviolinists : Nardin i

,Baglioni

,Lo lli an d Ferrari .

Jommelli,write s Leo po ld Mo zart

,is taking

all imaginable pains to clo se the Co urt to Germans .In additio n to his salary of four thousand

flo rin s,the upkeep o f four ho rses

,lighting

,and fuel

,

he has a house in Stuttgart an d an other at Ludwigsburg. Add to this that he has un

limited power over his musician s . Wouldyou like a proo f Of th e degree of his partiality fo rpeo ple of his own nation Just think of it—h e andhis compatriots

,o f whom his ho use is always full

,

have gon e to th e length of declaring,in respect o f

our Wo lfgang,

* that it was an in credible thin g thata child o f German birth could possess such passionand an imatio n .

”

j'

Augsburg , which had n ever ceased to be in touchwith Ven ice and Upper Italy ; Augsburg , whereItalian influence had permeated architecture and thearts o f design in the time o f th e Ren n aissan c e

Augsburg,which was th e native city o f Han s Burgk

mair an d th e Ho lbein s , was also the cradle o f theMo zarts . Leopo ld Mo zart had

,it is true

,se ttled at

Salzburg , but in 1763 he made a j o urney to Augsburg

,with his little b oy ,

aged seven an d Teodor deWyzewa has shown that it was there , in all probability

,that Mo zart began to initiate himself into

the free and maj estic beauty o f Italy .

”

1‘

Th e little Mo zart.1 r i th July, 1763 . Lette r from Leopo ld Mo zart to H aguen aue r

o f Salzburg, published by Nissen , reproduced byTeodo r de Wyzewa.

1A publisher o f music, J . J . Lo tti , was at that time publishin g agreat deal o f Italian music at Augsburg an d Wyzewa remark s thato n e o f his publicatio n s , th e Thirty ar ias for organ and harpsicho rd,by Guiseppi An to n io Pagan e lli , o f Padua (1756 ) h ad a ve ry greatresemblan ce to th e first so n ata which th e litt le Mo zart wro te inBrusse ls, o n th e i 4th Octo be r, 1763 , a few we ek s after passin gthro ugh Augsbo urg. (T. de Wyzew a

, Les pr emiers voyages deM ozart,

Revue des Deux-M on des, 1st Novembe r,

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206 A Musical Toursupremacy o ver them . Nothing better shows theItalianisation of Germany better than this factthe mo st famous representative of Italian operachose as his residence n o t Rome or Venice butVienna

,where h e held his court . Po et Laureate

to the Empero r,he disdained to learn the lan guage

of the co untry in which he lived he kn ew only threeor four words of it j ust what he needed

,as he said ,

to save his life that is,to make himself under

stood by his servants . Wo rshipped by Germany,

he did not conceal his disdain of her .

His right hand in Vienna,his prin cipal inter

preter in music,was the composer Hasse

,the mo st

Italianate of German musicians . * Adopted byItaly , baptised by her il S asson e (the Saxo n) , thepupil of Scarlatti and Porpo ra

,Hasse had acquired

a sort of Italian chauvin ism that surpassed thatof the Italians themselves . °He wo uld not hear of anyother music and he was ready to fall upon Presidentde Brosses when the latter

,while in Rome , attempted

to uphold the superio rity of Francois Lalande in thematter of church music .I saw , says De Bro sses , my man ready to suffo cate fo r

anger again st Lalan de and h i s suppo rters . He was a lreadyexhibitin g a display o f chr omatics, an d if Faustin a , his wife ,j

'

had n o t thr ust herse lf between us h e wo uld in a momen thave seized me with a semi-quaver and crushed me with a

diesig.

”

We may say that the German Hasse was , aboutthe middle of the eighteenth century, the favo uriteJohan n Ado lph Hasse , bo rn at Bergedo rf, n ear Hamburg, in

169 9 ; died in Veni ce , 1782 . He w as th e greatestmaste r o f th e o pe raat Dresden , t e

-o rgan isin g and directin g it from 173 1 to 1763 . H e

wro te mo re than a hundred ope ras .

THasse married the mo st famo us Italian songstress o f his time ,La. Faustin a (Bo rdoni ) .

Across Europe 207

Italian compo ser of opera ser ia in Germany , England ,and Italy even . He had set to music all Metastasio ’sOperatic libretti, with a single exception—some ofthem three or four times

,and all at least twice ;

and although one could n o t possibly say thatMetastasio wo rked slowly , * Hasse did n o t fin d thathe wrote quickly enough an d to pass the time hecomposed the music for vario us o peras by Apo stoloZeno . The number of his wo rks was so great thathe confessed that he might very well fail to recognise them if they were shown to him he derivedmore pleasure

,he said

,in creatin g than in preserving

what he had written and he compared himself withtho se fertile an imals whose o ffspring are destro yedin the act of birth or left to the mercy of chance .”1'

Me tas tas io used to bo ast o f havin g written his be st drama,

Hypermn estre , in n in e days . Achilles in S cyros was written , se t to

music, staged an d perfo rmed within eighteen days .

1‘ Burn ey gives us an exce llen t po rtrait o f this great compo ser,who se fame , in th e eighte en th cen tury, was far greater than that

o f Bach . H e w as eve rywhere regarded as th e compo ser who , in

respe ct o f vo cal music , was clo sest to n ature , mo st grace ful and mo stj udicio us, and also as th e mo st fe rtile o f livin g autho rs .

”H e was

tall and stro n gly built. His face must have be en han dsome and

fin e ly chise lled . H e se emed Olde r than Faustin a, wh o was small,dark , witty and an imated , altho ugh h e was ten years th e yo un ger.He was ve ry quie t an d kindly in man n er. He was talk ative and fullo f commo nsense equally devo id o f pride an d pre j udice ; h e spo k eill o f n o o n e o n th e co n trary, h e did j ustice to th e talen ts o f severalo f his rivals . H e had an infini te respect fo r Phillip Emman ue l Bach ,and spo k e o f Hande l o n ly with revere n ce , but h e declared that h e hadbee n unduly ambitio us to parade his talen ts , to wo rk o ut his par tsand subj ects , and that h e was o ver-fo n d o f n o ise . Faustin a addedthat his vo ice parts were Often un co uth . Abo ve all b e admired th e o ldKeiser, “

o n e o f th e greatestmusician s th e wo rld has eve r po ssessed ,and Alessan d ro S carlatti , th e greatest harmon ist o f Italy, that is ,o f th e who le wo rld .” On th e o ther hand , h e found Duran te harshand gro tes que , co arse and barbaro us .

” When Burn ey saw Hasse allhis bo o ks , man uscripts and pe rso n al be lo n gin gs had be en burn ed in1760 , durin g th e bombardmen t o f Dresden by th e Kin g o f Prussia,at th e momen t when th e compo se r was abo ut to have th e comple teedition o f his wo rks en graved at the co st o f th e Kin g o f Po land .But this disas ter had n o t afl ected his serenity . He is so pleasan t ,so easy in his we lcome , that I fe lt as much at my ease with him,

208 A Musical TourThis illustrious representative of Italian operain German was , it is true ,

beginning to b e discussed .

About 1760 an o ther party, an d a very zealo us one,

was fo rmed in Vien n a in Oppo sitio n to Me tastasioand Hasse . But who were its leaders Ran iero daCalsab igi o f Leghorn—yet anothe r Italian —thelibrettist of Orfeo and Alceste and Gluck— n o lessItalian ate than Hasse

,a pupil o f Sammartin i ’s

in Milan , the autho r o f two sco re dramatic wo rksin the Italian style

,who professed all his life

,to

write Italian o peras . *— Such were the Opposing

afte r a quarte r o f an hour, as tho ugh I had kn own him a sco re o fyears .

” Burn ey, wh o “owed to h is wo rks a gre at part o f the

pleasure whichmusic h ad affo rded h im sin ce his childho o d compareshim with Raphae l, an d lik en s his rival Gluck to Miche l An ge lo .

And in truth there i s hard ly a mo re beautiful me lo dic patte rn thanHasse

’

5 ; o n ly Mo zart is perhaps his equal in this respect. Th eo blivio n in to which this admirable artist h as fallen is o n e o f th e

wo rst examples o f histo rical in j ustice , an d we shall endeavo ur some

day to repair it .Burn ey’s po rtrai t o f Gluck is o n e o f th e be st that we have o f

this great man .

Burn ey w as in tro duced to him by the British Ambassado rExtrao rdin ary, Lo rd S to rmo n t,—an d th e in tro ductio n was n o t

superfluo us, fo r “Gluck w as o f as fierce a temper as Han de l, o f

whom w e k n ow that eve ryo n e w as afraid . H e was livin gwi th his wi fe an d a yo un g n iece , a remark able musician . H e w as

comfo rtably lo dged in we ll furni shed ro oms . H e was

ho rribly scarred by small pox . H is face was ugly an d h e h ad an

ugly scowl.” But Burn ey had th e go o d fo rtun e to find him in an

un usually go od tempe r. Gluck san g. Altho ugh h e hadlittle vo ice h e pro duced a great eff ect. With a wealth o f accompanimen t h e combin ed en ergy, an impe tuo us fashio n o f de alin g withth e allegr o passages , an d a j udicio us expre ssiven e ss in th e slowmovemen ts in sho rt , h e so cleverly co n cealed what was de fectivein his vo ice that o n e fo rgo t that h e had n o n e . H e san g n e arly allAlceste , several passages from Paris an d H elen and a few airs fromRacin e ’s Iphigen i a, which h e had j ust finished wri tin g. He

did all this from memo ry, witho ut a sin gle written n o te , wi thprodigio us facility. H e ro se very late . It was his custom to writeall n ight and rest in th e mo rn in g.”Burn eyme t him again at a din n er-party given by Lo rd S to rmo n t.Gluck was his n eighbo ur at table . R en dered expan sive by thebumpe rs h e had drain ed , Gluck co nfided to Burn ey that h e had j ustreceived from th e Electo r Palatin e a tun o f exce llen t win e , in to ken o f

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210 A Musical Tourneither Gluck nor Calsabigi had any more idea thanthe Olde r men of dethro ning Italian music andreplacin g it by ano ther style . In his preface toPar ide ed Elen a ,

written in 1770 , after Alceste ,Gluck speaks o nly of destroying the abuses whichhave found their way into Italian opera and are

degrading it .Viennese society was divided between these twoItalianate co teries

,which exhibited o nly the merest

shade of difference . The whole Imperial familywas musical . The four Archduchesses played andsang in Metastasio ’s o peras

,set to music alternately

by Hasse and by Gluck . The Empress sang and hadeven acted formerly on the boards of the Courttheatre . Salieri had j ust been appointed composerto the Chamber and director of the Italian theatreand he remained con ductor of the Court orchestrauntil 1824,

an Obstacle in the way of Germancomposers

,and of Mo zart in particular .

Vienna,then

,even into the nin e teenth century ,

remained a centre of Italian art in Germany . Inthe days of Beetho ven and Weber

,Ro ssini ’s Tan cred

was enough to ruin the painfully erected fabric o f

German music ; and we know with what unjustviolence Wagn er spoke of this city—unfaithful , inhis opinion , to the Germanic spirit : Viennadoes not that say everything ! Every trace of GermanProtestan tism effaced ; even the national accentlost

,Italianised

i t

In o pposition to the Germany of the South and theancient capital o f the Holy Roman Empire , the newcapital of the future German Empire , Berlin , wasalready growing in importance .

Richard Wagn er, B eethoven , 18 70 .

Across Europ 211

The music of this country writes Burneyin Berlin

,is more truly German than that of

an y other part of the Empire .” Frede rick the

Great had set his heart upon German isin g it ; hewould allow no operas to be performed in his Statesother than those of his favo urite Graun andthe Saxon Agrico la and a few—only a few—Of

Hasse ’s . But o bserve how diflicult it was for Germantaste to liberate itself These operas were Italianoperas

,and the king co uld not even imagine that

there could be any obj ect in singing in any otherlanguage than Italian .

A German singer he used to say . I wouldas soon hear my ho rse neighAnd who were these German composers , whoseexclusive and in tolerant protector he had appoin tedhimself ! so that Burney was j ustified in saying :The names of Graun and Quantz are sacred inBerlin

,and more respected than those of Luther and

Calvin . There are man y schisms but the hereticsare fo rced to keep silent . For in this land of universal tolerance in matters o f religion ,

whosoever shoulddare to profess o ther musical dogmas than those ofGraun and Quantz might count quite certainly onbeing persecutedJ . J . Quan tz , who was composer and musicianin ordinary to the Ro yal chamber

,and also taught

the King to play the flute,had the taste which

people had fo rty years ago —that is,the Italian

taste . He had travelled extensively in Italy . Hewas of the school of Vivaldi

,Gasparini

,Alessandro

Frederick the Great had , mo reo ver, a vio len t an tipathy fo rsacred music. It was eno ugh ,” Agrico la to ld Burn ey, “ that acomposer sho uld have wri tt en an an them o r an o rato rio , fo r the kin gto regard his tas te as debased and o ut o f fashio n .

”

212 A Musical TourScarlatti and Lotti , and for him the golden age

o f music was the age of these musical fo rbears .As Burney says , he had been liberal an d advanced

some twen ty 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 Bachand Handel . * Marpurg calls him the greatestornament of the German muse

,the master of

pleasing melody tender,sweet

,sympa

thetic , exalted , stately and terrible by turns . All thestrokes of his pen were equally perfect . His geniuswas inexhaustible . Never has any man been moregenerally regretted by a whole nation

,from the

kin g to the least of his subj ects .”

Graun - says Burn ey mo re so be rly w as, thirty yearsago , a compo ser o f grace ful simplici ty, havin g been the firstamon g th e German s t o r en o irn ce th e fugue and all suchlabo ured in ven tio n s !A po o r compliment to us , who have since thenreturned with such sin gular affection to all suchlaboured inventions But for an Italianatemusician this was the best o f compliments . Graun ,indeed

,had applied himse lf to acclimatising

,in

Berlin,the Italian o peratic style

,and in particular

the style of Leonardo Vinci , that compo ser o f geniusKarl H ein rich Graun was bo rn in 170 1 at Wah ren b riick , in

S axo ny, and died in 1759 . H e en tered th e se rvice o f Frede ri ck th eGreat in 1735. H e o rgan ised th e Opera in Berlin ,

and wro te fo r ittw en ty-seven wo rk s . Frede rick th e Great w as o n several o ccasio nshis co llabo rato r h e furn ished himwith th e libretti o f F ratelli N emici,after Racin e M er ope , after Vo ltaire Co r iolan oS illa (1753) and M ontezuma (175 This last wo rk—an an ti-clericalo pera—in which Frede rick wished to show, as h e wro te to Algaro tti,that even th e o pera may serve to re fo rm mo rals an d de stro y superstitio n s ,

”has be en republished by H err Albrecht Mayer-Rein ach, in

th e co llectio n o f Den kmaler deutscher Ton kunst (Leipzig, Breitk opf,

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214 A Musical Tourunimaginable . It was the same despotic spirit thatprevailed throughout the whole organisation ofPrussia . * An in quisitional and menacing superv1510n weighed upon music—for the king was amusician : a flautist , a virtuoso , a composer, as allhad reason to know . Every afternoon , at SansSouci , from five to six O

’clock,he gave a concert

consisting of performances o n the flute . The Courtwas invited by command

,and listened piously to

the three or four long and di fficult concertoswhich it pleased the king to inflict upon them .

There was no danger of his running short of theseQuantz had composed three hundred , expresslyfor these concerts ; he was forbidden to publishany of them

,and no one else might play them .

Burney amiably observes that these concertoshad no doubt been compo sed in an age when peopleheld their breath better for in some of the di fficultpassages

,as in the organ-points

,his Maj esty was

obliged,against the rules

,to take breath in order

to finish the passage .”1' The Court listened inresignation

,and it was forbidden to betray the

It sho uld be n o ted how a stran ger, even o n e with th e highestre commen datio n s, was received in the Prussian capital. Burn ey tellsus o f h is arrival in Berlin . Despite his passpo rt and a previousin spe ctio n by th e customs o fli cials o n th e Prussian fro n tie r, h e was ledlik e a priso n er to th e Berlin custom-ho use , an d left shiverin g therefo r tw o ho urs in th e rain y co urtyard while th e least o f his effects werebein g examin ed . Ve ry differen t was th e Austrian custom-ho use ,where yo un g Mo zart, at th e age o f seven ,

disarmed th e o fli cials byplayin g them a min uet o n his little vio lin . But th e mo st in crediblepart o f B urn ey ’

s n arrative is th e acco un t o f his visit to Po tsdam .

At th e pri n cipal en tran ce and then at each do o r in th e palace h e wassubj ected to an in terro gato ry which was, he says, quite th e mo stcurio us thin g that had happen ed to him durin g his trave ls. It co uldn o t have been mo re rigo ro us at th e po stern gate o f a besieged city.1' Burn ey admits e lsewhere that h e played with great

precisio n , a clean and unifo rm attack , brillian t fin ge rin g, a pure and

simple taste , a great n eatn ess o f executio n , and equal pe rfectio n inall his pieces. His shak es are go o d , but to o lo n g and to o studied .

”

Across Europe 215

least sign Of approbation . The contrary ev en tu

ality had not be en foreseen . Only the gigan ticQuantz , worthy , in respect of stature , to figure ino n e Of the Kin g Of Prussia ’s regiments , * had theprivilege of shouting bravo to his royal pupil , aftereach solo , or when the concert was finished .

”

But without lin gering o ver these well-knownfacts let us see how the royal flautist endeavouredto rule

,by blows of his stick

,the whole musical

world o f Berlin,and especially the opera .

Certainly he had done go od . From the death ofFrederick I . (1713) to 1742 ,

Berlin had had no opera .1'Immediately upon his accession Frederick II . builtone of the greatest o pera houses in existence , withthe inscription : Fredericus Rex Apollin i cl M usis .

He got together an orchestra Of fifty performers ,engaged Italian singers and French dancers , andprided himself upo n having a company which inBerlin was said to be the best in Europe . Theking bore all the expenses of the opera , andadmission was gratuitous to all who were decentlyclothed which made it possible

,after all , to exclude

the popular element,even from the parterre . I

But although the artists were royally paid I fancythey earned their salaries . Their situation was byno means restful .

The appe aran ce o f this o ldmusician was o f un usual maj estyTh e so n o f Hercule s h e j ustly seems

By his bro ad sho ulders and gigan ti c limbs .

j Frederick -William I:had suppressed plays and o rche stra bythis simple n o te Devil tak e them 1I At Man nh eim and Schwe tzin gen all th e subj ects o f the Electo r

Palatin e we re admitted to the o pe ra, and wen t to the Electo r’sco n ce rts which fact, acco rdin g to Burn ey, did n o little to fo rm th e

j udgmen t and establish th e decided taste fo r music which o ne findsth ro ugho ut th e Electo rate .

”

216 A Musical TourTh e kin g says Burn ey, sto o d always behin d the

Kapellmeister ; wi th his eyes o n the sco re , which h e fo llowed, so

that o n e might truthfully say that h e played th e part o f dire cto rgen eral . In th e o pera-ho use , as in th e camp,h e

was a strict Observer o f disciplin e . Atten tively o bserv in g theo rchestra an d th e stage ,

h e n o ted th e least sign o f n egligen ce inth e music o r th e mo vemen ts o f th e perfo rmers and repriman dedth e culprit . An d if any member o f th e Italian compan y daredt o in frin ge this disciplin e , by addin g t o o r subtractin g fromhis part , o r by alterin g th e least passage , h e was subsequen tlyo rdered by th e kin g t o apply himse lf strictly t o th e exe cutiono f th e n o tes written by th e compo ser, under penalty of corporal

pun ishmen t .

”

This detail gives us the measure of the musicalfreedom enj oyed in Berlin . An Italian pseudoclassicism reigned in a tyran nical fashion permittingneither change nor progress . Burney is scandalisedby this tyranny .

Thus, h e says, musi c is statio n ary in this co un try,an d will b e so lo n g as his Maj esty allows th e artists n o mo reliberty in this art than h e gran ts in matters o f civil go vernmen t ,strivin g t o b e at th e same time th e so vere ign o f th e lives

,fo r

tun es an d in terests o f his subj e cts, an d th e superviso r o f the

least o f the ir pleasures .

We may add that Berlin was above all a city ofmusical pro fessors and theo rists

,who assuredly

did not permit themselves to discuss the king ’staste

,fo r they were all more or less o flicials , like the

chie fest amo ng them ,Marpurg,

who was director ofthe royal lo ttery and councillor to the Ministry ofWar . They avenged themse lves upo n this constraintby bitter disputes , and their squabbles did nothingto add to the liberty or the amenity of musical lifein Berlin .

Musical disputes, says Burn ey, are accompan ied inBerlin with mo re heat and an imo sity than an ywhere e lse .

In deed, as there are mo r e theo rists than perfo rmers in this city,

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218 A Musical Touris it that his name finds so little space in Burn ey’

s

notes and in his picture of Germany !We have here a fine example of the diversity ofthe j udgments pronounced upo n a genius by hiscontemporaries and by posterity ! At a distance oftwo centuries it seems to us impossible that he shouldnot have he ld a predominant position in the musicalworld o f his period . We may at a pinch admitthat a great man may remain absolutely unknownif the circumstan ces of his life are such that he isiso lated and can neither publish his wo rks nor forcethe public to give him a hearing . But we find itdi fficult to believe that he could be known and notrecognised ; that people should have had an indifferentand merely benevolent opinion of him ; that theyshould have been unable to distinguish betweenhim and the artists of the second ran k by whomhe was surrounded . Yet such things are constantlyhappening .Shakespeare was never completely ignored orunrecognised . M . Jusserand has shown thatLouis ! IV. had his plays in his library and that theywere read in France in the seventeenth century .

The public of his own time appreciated him , but notmore than it appreciated many other dramatistsand less than it appreciated some . Addison ,who was acquainted with his works , fo rgot , in1694,

to mention him in his Accoun t of the B est

English Poets .

It was almost the same with Johann SebastianBach . He had a respectable reputation among themusicians of his time

,but this celebrity never

extended beyond a restricted circle . His life inLeipzig was di fficult , straitened , almost povertystricken

,and he was a victim of the persecutions of

Across Europe 219

the Thomasschule , whose council did not regr et hisdeath

,and

, like the Leipzig newspapers , did noteven 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 .Fortun ately Bach had trained a number of scholarlypupils

,to say nothing o f his sons

,who cherished a

pious recollection of his teaching . But how was heknown twenty years after his death ! As a greatorganist and a masterly teacher . Burney remembershim when he passes through Leipzig , but only tocite the Opinion Of Quantz , wh o said o f Bach thatthis able artist had brought the art of playing theorgan to the highest degree of perfection . He adds

In additio n t o the exce llen t and very n umero us compositio ns which h e wro te fo r the church, this autho r has publisheda bo o k o f pre ludes and fugues fo r th e o rgan , o n two , thr ee o r

four difl eren t mo tives, in modo r ecto et con trar io , and in ea ch o f

the twen ty-fo ur mo des . All th e o rgan ists existin g to -day inGerman y were train ed in his scho o l , j ust as mo st o f th e harpsicho rd-playe rs and pian ists have been tr ain ed in that o f his so n ,

th e admirable Karl Phi lipp Emman ue l Bach, who has lon gbeen so we ll-kn own .

Observe the position of the epithet admirable .In 1770 the admirable Bach is Philipp EmmanuelBach . He is the great man of the family . AndBurney goes into raptures over the fashion in whichthis sublime musician had contrived to trainhimself . *

Despite the absurdity o f compari n g h im with , an d pre ferrin ghim to his fathe r, Philipp Emman ue l Bach was n o n e the le ss a musician o f gen ius , who lack ed o n ly a character, o r at all e ven ts a wil l,equal to the he ight o f musical inspiratio n . But a so rt o f disco uragemen t and lethargy paralysed his admirable powe rs, and it is ame lan cho ly sight to se e in him,

at ce rtai n momen ts , as it we re the soulo f a Be etho ven , strugglin g in th e bo nds o f a straitened life , giving 06flashes o f genius and then re lapsing in to apathy.

220 A Musical TourHow did he fo rm hi s style It is difficult t o say . He had

n either inherited it n o r acquired it from his father, who was his,so le maste r fo r that wo rthy musician ,

whom n o o n e has

equalled in kn owledge and in ven tio n ,th o ught it n e cessary t o

con cen trate in hi s own tw o han ds all th e harmo n y o f which h eco uld avail himse lf an d un do ubtedly in his system h e sacrificedme lo dy and expressio n .

Nothing could be more characteristic than thepromptitude with which the son s of Jo hann Sebastian—who

,for that matter

,venerated him—denied his

B urn ey’

s po rtrait o f him is th e be st ever drawn . I can n o t resistth e temptatio n o f quo tin g some part o f it .

Philipp Emman ue l Bach h ad in vited Burn ey to din e with him.Burn ey was shown up “in to a music-ro om , large and e legan tly

ado rn edwith pictures , drawin gs and en graved po rtrai ts o f mo re thana hundred an d fifty famo us musician s , o f whom severalwere En glish,and some po rtraits in o il o f his father and gran dfather. PhilippEmman ue l sat down to hi s S ilberman n harpsicho rd . He played threeo r fo ur ve ry difli cult pieces with all th e de licacy, accuracy and passio nfo r which h e was so j ustly distin guished amo n g h is compatrio ts.

In th e pathe tic and ten der moveme n ts h e se emed to draw from his

in strumen t cries o f grie f and lamen tatio n , such as he alo n e co uldproduce . Th e din n er w as go o d , e legan t an d cheerful. There we repre sen t three o r fo ur frien ds , we ll-bred people , an d his family FrauBach, his e lder so n ,

a studen t (a law -studen t—th e yo un ge r was a

pain te r) and his daughter. After din n er Phihpp Emman ue l playedagain

,almo st un in te rrupted ly, un til e leven O ’clo ck at n ight. H e

became an imated to th e po in t o f appearin g to b e in spired . H is eyeswere fixed , th e lower lip dro o pin g, and his who le body was so ak edin pe rspirati o n . H e said that if h e Often h ad o ccasio n to fo rce himse lf to wo rk thus h e wo uld grow yo un g again . H e is fifty

-n in e ye arso f age . H e is rather sho rt o f sta ture his hair and eyes are blackand his complexio n brown h e is full o f fire and is o f a ve ry gay and

vivacio us tempe r.”Burn ey was co nvin ced that Philipp Emman ue l was n o t o n ly o n e

o f th e greatest compo sers fo r th e harpsicho rd , but th e best andmo st sk ilful artist in th e matter o f expressio n . H e co uldplay in eve ry style , but h e co n fin ed himse lf mo re e specially to th eemo tio n al style . H e w as a learn ed writer, even mo re so than hisfather when h e cho se to be so , e specially in th e variety o f his mo dulatio n s .

” Burn ey compared him with Domeni co Scarlatti Bo th ,bein g so n s o f ce lebrated compo se rs , dared to attempt n ew paths . I t

is o n ly n ow that th e ear is becomin g accustomed to Domen icoScarlatti . Philipp Emman uel Bach se emed lik ewise to have o ut

stripped his pe riod . H is style is so o ut o f th e commo n thato n e has to b e in some degre e accustomed to it in o rder to appreciateit.” And Burn ey, j ustly en o ugh, reco gn ised , in his inspired passages,the effusio n s o f a cultivated gen ius.

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222 A Musical Touragain ! Is it so difficult to recognise in certainpassages of his compositio ns reminiscences o f theselittle songs P An d who knows whether , in othercircumstances

,had he had a theatre at his dispo sal

,he

would not have go ne with the tide,as the others did !

His sons o ffered n o resistance to the movement .Italianism conquered them so tho roughly that oneof them became—fo r a time—completely theItalian , under the name of Giovan n i B accki. Iam referring to Johann Christian Bach , the youn gestof the family . He was fifteen years old at thetime of his father ’s death

,and had received at his

hands a thorough musical trainin g ; he displayeda preference for the o rgan and the clavier . Afterhis father ’s death he went to his brother PhilippEmmanuel in Berlin . There he found the Italianised o pera of Graun and Hasse . The impressionwhich it made upon hini was so profound that heset out for Italy . He went to Bolo gn a , an d therethis so n of Johann Sebastian Bach placed himselfunder the disciplin e of Father Martin i . * Fo r eightyears

,with Martini ’s assistance

,he worked in cessantly

at the task of acquiring an Italian training andan Italian soul . At intervals he went to Naples ,and there became a champion of the Neapo litanschool o f opera and he pro duced a series of Italiano peras based on poems by Metastasio , includingCaton e in Utica (1761) and Alessandro n elle I ndie

which en j o yed a great success . Burneysaid that his airs were in the best Neapo litantaste . —But this is n o t all ; having abj ured hisfather ’s musical taste he likewise abj ured his faiththe son of the great Bach became a Catho lic . He

We learn o f this trainin g from thirty-o n e letters w ritten byJohann Christian to Father Martin i.

Across Europe 223

was appointed organist in the Duomo of Milan ,under an Italian It would be difiicult tomentio n a more categorical example of the conquesto f the Germanic spirit by Italy .

And we are n o t speaking of second-rate men ,having no other claim to our attention than the factthat they were the sons of a great man . JohannSebastian ’s sons were themselves great artists ,whom history has n o t placed in their proper rank .

Like the maj ority of the musicians of this transitionperiod

,they have been unduly sacrificed to those

who preceded them and tho se who fo llowed 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 ’

In dyas one of the first direct fo rerunners o f Beethoven .

Johann Christian is hardly less important ; fromhim derives not Beethoven , but Mo zart j'Another remarkable musician

,who , even more

than Philipp Emmanuel,was the precurso r—one

might almost say the model—o f Beethoven , in hisgreat so natas and variatio ns : Frederick WilhelmRust , a friend of Goethe ’s , musical directo r to PrinceLeopo ld III . of Anhalt , at Dessau , was seducedlike the rest by the Italian charm .1 He j ourneyed to

Se e Max Schwartz, j ohan n Christian B ach, 190 1.

1' Max S chwartz po in ts o ut th e direct influen ce o f JohannChristian Bach upo n clavie rmusic an d o pera ,

and abo ve all upo n th efirst o f Mo zart’s sympho nies . Mo zart o fte n speaks o f Johan nChristian in h is lette rs . He de clares that he “

lo ve s him with all his

heart that h e h as a pro fo un d e ste em fo r him.

”Ce rtain airs

o f Johann Christian ’s used to haun t him . H e applied himse lf to

rivallin g him, to writi n g fresh me lodie s to the same wo rds .

I See Wilhe lm Ho saus : Frede rick Wi lkelm Rust Rusthad be en a pupil o f Jo han n S ebastian ’

s e lde s t so n—Wilhe lmFriedman n—who had bes t

,pre se rved h is father’s traditio ns . He alsotoo k lesso ns from Phip Emman ue l. It is o nly o f late that hisartistic impo rtan ce has be en revealed , than ks to the publications o fsome o f his compositi o ns by o n e o f his descendan ts .

224 A Musical TourItaly and remained there for two years

,assiduously

visiting the opera-ho uses and making the acquain tance o f the prin cipal teachers—Martin i

,Nardin i

,

Pugn an i, Farine lli , and , abo ve all , Tartini , fromwhom he learn ed a great deal ; and this so j o urnin Italy had a decisive e ffect upon his artistic educatio n . Thirty years late r

,in 1792 ,

he once mo rerelated his remin iscen ces of trave l in one o f hissonatas , the S on ata italian o .

If the leaders o f German music—such as the Bachs,

Rust , Gluck , Graun and Hasse—were affectedto such an exten t by th e influence o f Italian art

,

"l

how should Germanmusic ho ld out again st the fo re ignspirit ! Where was its genius to find salvation

a: a: as

To begin with , it was inevitable that the mass oflesser musician s

,the musical plebs o f Germany ,

tho se who had n o t the fn ean s to go to Italy an dItalianise themse lve s , suffered from their humiliating situatio n and th e pre ference given to theItalians . Burney , compelled to admit that theItalians in G erman y were often much bette r paidthan German artists wh o were superio r to them ,

adds that fo r this reaso n o n e must n o t blame theGermans unduly fo r endeavo uring to disparage themerit o f the great Italian masters , and to treat themwith a severity and a disdain which are due mere lyto gross ign o ran ce an d stupidity .

” All are j ealousof the Italians

,

” he says elsewhere . It is true thatI do n o t speak o f th e yo un g musician s o f th e fo llowin g period

o f Haydn ,

‘

a pupil o f Po rpo ra’

s an d a brillian t imitato r o f S ammartini—o i Mo zart, wh o durin g th e first part o f h is life w as a pure Italianan d who se first o peraswe re pe rfo rmed an d acclaimed in Italy. Hasse ,

o n th e o the r han d,wh o w as in imical to Gluck be cause h e did n o t

co n sider him sufficien tly faithful to th e true Italian traditio n , lovedand admired Mo zart, in whom h e saw his mo re fo rtun ate o r greatersuccesso r.

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226 A Musical TourIn these German masters

,conscious o f their superi

o rity , the re gradually deve lo ped a desire , avowedo r un co nfessed

,to co nque r Italy with h e r own

weapo ns . We are struck by th e German ic pridewhich we perceive increasing in Gluck an d Mo zart .And these brilliant Italianisers ar e the first to trytheir powe rs in the German Lied.

*

Even in the theatre we see the German languagereco n que rin g its place T Burney, who , afte r callingattentio n to the musical qualities o f th e lan guage ,was at first asto nished that more use was n o t madeof it in the theatre

,very so o n realised that musical

compo sition s ”in th e German language were beginnin gto spread thro ugh Saxo n y and in th e north o f th e

Empire . Since th e middle o f th e cen tury the po etChristian Fe lix Weisse an d the musician s S tan dfuss and Jo hann Adam Hiller we re compo sin g,at Le ipzig

,in imitatio n “

o f the En glish o pere ttaand th e comic operas o f Fav ar t , German o pere ttas(S ingspiele) , th e first example o f which (1752 )(Der Teufel ist los ,

oder die verwandelten Weiber ) .The Devil is lo ose

, or the Gossips Tran sformed,

was so o n fo llowed by a quality of similar wo rks .

Gluck , as e arly as 1770 , se t th e o des o f Klopsto ck to music.1At th e H amburg o pera-ho use o peras h ad be en pe rfo rmed in th e

German to n gue at th e end o f th e s eve n te en th cen tury. But fromth e Open in g years o f th e e ighte en th cen tury Ke iser an d'

Han de l h adse t th e example o f mixin g Italian wo rds with Ge rman in th e same

o pera an d sho rtly afte rwards Italian had in vaded everythin g.Music by S tandfuss an d Hille r. Th e same piece h ad been

produced , un succe ssfully, in Berlin , in 1743 , as adapted from anEn glish o peretta by Co ff ey, with th e o rigin al En glish me lodie s—D er

Teufel i st los h ad a se co n d part,which

,played in 1759 , unde r th etitle o f D er lustige S chuster (The M er ry Cobbler ) w as very po pular.

These S ingspiele were th e rage in Ge rm an y fo r twe n ty yea rs o n e

might say that th ey we re th e o pera o f th e lowe r middle classe s o f

German y. It is wo rth n o tin g th at H ill er’s chi e f pupil was ChristianGo ttlo b N e efe

,Be etho ven ’

s maste r.

Across Europe 227

The music,says Burney

,was so natural and

so agreeable that the favo urite airs , like tho se o f

Dr . Arne ,in England

,were sung by all classes

of the peo ple,an d some of them in the stre e ts .

Hille r gave the plebeian characters in his o perassimple Lieder to sing , an d the se Lieder became aspo pular in Germany as the vaudeville in France .To -day

,

” says Burney,the taste for bar lette

(farces) is so gen eral and so pro noun ced that there issome reason to fear

,as so ber in dividuals do ,

that itmay de stro y the taste fo r go o d music

,and abo ve

all for music of a mo re exalted style .

” But far fromdestro yin g it , the se po pular Lieder were o n e o f theso urces o f the new German o pe ra .

But the capital fact which was to be the salvationof Ge rman music was th e sudden deve lo pmentof in strumental music at this j un cture . At themoment when Germany seemed to be abj urin g

,

with vo cal po lypho ny and the infinite reso urce sof the co n trapuntal style

, the old German mann er ,her very perso n ality—at the moment when sheseemed to be abando ning the e ffo rt to expre ss hercomplex and lo gical so ul

,to ado pt the Latin style

o f sentiment,she had the go o d fo rtun e to fin d

,in

the sudden o utgrowth of in strumen tal music,the

equivalent,and mo re

,o f what she had lo st .

It may seem strange to speak of go o d fo rtunein re spe ct of an event in which inte lligence an d

de termin atio n evidently played a great part .However , we must allow he re , as always in histo ry ,fo r chan ce

,fo r the co -o peratio n o f circumstance s

,

which n ow favo ur,n ow o ppo se the evo lutio n o f a

peo ple . It is true that the mo re vigo ro us peoplesalways end by co nstraining chance and fo rcin g it

163

A Musical Tourto take their side . But we cannot deny that thereis such a thing as chance

,

And in this instance it is plainly visible .The Germans were not alone in developing theresources of instrumentation . The same tendencieswere manifest in France and Italy . The conservato ires of Ven ice were devotin g themselves to in st rumen tal music , with successful results ; the Italianvirtuosi were everywhere famous

,and the symphony

had its birth in Milan . But symphonic musicharmo n ised but ill with the Italian genius

,which was

essentially methodical , lucid and definite , a thing ofclear outlines . At all events , to transform thisgenius and adapt it to the no vel conditio ns wouldhave necessitated an effort of which Italian music

,

overwo rked,exhausted and indolent

,was no longer

capable . In Italy the change would have meant arevolutio n . In Germany it meant evolution .

Co nsequently the deve lo pment of the orchestraassured Germany of victo ry

,while it contributed

to the decadence of Italian music . Burn ey complains that the Italian operatic orchestras hadbecome too numero us and that their no ise forced thesin gers to bawl . All the Chiaroscur o of musicis lo st the half-tints and the background disappearone hears o nly the noisy parts , which were intendedto provide a fo il for the rest .” Consequen tly theItalian vo ices are being spoiled , and Italy is lo singher prerogative of il bel can to

,o f which she was

j ustly so pro ud . A useless sacrifice ; for whilereno uncin g her own inimitable qualities she canno tacquire qualitie s and a style which are alien to her . *

Hasse an d Me tastasio , th e last repre sen tatives o f the pureItalian traditio n ,h ad fo rese en this dan ge r. Me tastasio , in his co n

v ersatio n s with Burn ey, complain ed fo rcibly o f the pro gress o f instrumen tal music in o pera.

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230 A Musical Tourthey sho uld make their pro gress kn own to thepublic that main tain ed them . In Dresden thecity was divided into wards o r quarters , and thePoo r Scho lars , divided into ban ds o f sixteen , seventeen o r eighteen , had to sing , in turns , be fo re thedo o rs o f th e ho uses o f each quarter . They madeup little cho irs and o rchestras—vio lins

,

’ce llo s ,o boes , ho rns and basso o ns . Wealthy familiessubscribed to the scho o ls in o rder that thePo or Scho lars should play befo re their ho uses onceor twice a week . They were even engaged fo rprivate en tertainments

,or fo r funerals . Lastly,

they had to take part in the re ligious ceremo nies o fSunday . It was a hard pro fessio n

,an d an irksome

o bligatio n to sing in the streets in winter,however

inclement the weather . These Po o r Scho lars wereafterwards appo inted as scho o lmasters in the parishscho o ls

,o n co nditio n that they knew enough o f

Gre ek and Latin and th e o rgan . Th e mo st distin guish ed were sent to certain o f th e Universities

,

such as Leipzig and Wittenburg,where mo re than

three hundred po o r studen ts were main tained .

They were allowed to devo te themselves to musico r to the science s .Some o f the prince ly Courts had musical fo undatio ns fo r po o r children . Th e Duke o f Wur temb erghad installed at Ludwigsburg and So litude

,in

o n e o f his summer palaces , two conservato ires , fo rthe educatio n o f two hundred bo ys and a hundredgirls o f th e po o rer classes . On e of his favouriteamusements was to be pre sent at the ir le sso ns .”In additio n to the se schoo ls fo r poo r childrenthe communal scho o ls gave a co nsiderable amounto f attentio n to music , especially to instrumentalmusic . Such was the rule in Austria , Saxony,

Across Europe 231

Mo ravia,and abo ve all in Bohemia . Burn ey

reco rds that eve ry village in Bohemia had apublic scho o l where the children were taught musicj ust as they were taught to read and write . He

in spected some o f them . At Czaslau , near Co llin ,he fo un d a class o f yo un g children o f bo th sexeso ccupied in reading

,writing

,and playin g the vio lin ,

the o bo e , the basso o n and o ther instrumen ts . The

o rgan ist o f the church , who improvised magnifice n t ly o n a so rry little o rgan

,had

,in a small

ro om,fo ur harpsicho rds

,o n which his small pupils

practised .

” At Budin,n ear Lo b eschutz ,

mo re thana hun dred children o f bo th sexe s were taught music ,sin gin g an d playin g in th e Church .

Un happily th e skill thus acquired was stifled bypo verty .

“

The maj o rity o f these children werede stined fo r in ferio r situatio ns o f a menial o r

domestic nature,and music remained for them

simply a private recreatio n ; which is perhaps ,after all

,

” says Burn ey philo so phically the bestand mo st ho no urable use to which music co uldbe applied . The rest entered the service o f wealthylan down ers

,who with these servan ts made up

o rche stras and gave co ncerts . The no bility o f

Bo hemia made th e mistake o f detachin g themselvesun duly from its in terestin g peasantry

,livin g fo r the

greate r part o f the year in Vienn a,If the

Bo hemians , says Burney , had the advantagesen j o yed by the Italians they wo uld surpass them .

They are perhaps th e mo st musical race in allEuro pe .” They excelled abo ve all in the playin go f win d- instrumen ts wo o d-win d toward the Saxo nfro ntier and brass in the directio n o f Mo ravia .

It was o n e of these Bo hemian scho o ls that trainedthe re fo rmer o f in strumen tal music

, the creator

232 A Musical Tourof the sympho ny

, Stamitz ,born at Teuchen b rod,

the so n o f the Kan to r o f the church there . It was inthese scho o ls that Gluck received his earliest musicaltraining . It was at Lukavec

,near Pilsen

,that

Haydn , director of music in the private chape l o fCount Mo rzin , wrote his first sympho ny in 1759 .

Lastly, the greatest German vio linist , Franz Benda ,who was , with Philipp Emmanuel Bach , the o nlymusician in Berlin wh o dared to po ssess a style ofhis own ,

in dependen tly of Graun and the Italianisers ,was also a Bo hemian .

Thanks to these schools and these natural faculties,

instrumental music was cultivated thro ugho utGermany, even in Vienna and Munich , preeminently the centres o f Italian o pera . We sayno thing o f princely virtuosi : of the flute-playingkin g in Berlin ; of the ’cellist who was Emperorof Austria ; o f the princely violinists , the E lectorof Bavaria and the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburgof the ro yal pianists

,the Duke o f Wii r temburg

and the Elector of Saxony, the latter o f whom ,by

the way , was so timid in society , says Burney,that the Electress

,his wife herself had scarcely

ever heard him ! No r do we insistupo n the alarming co nsumption o f co ncertos o n thepart o f the German dilettan ti ; an average of threeor four concertos to the co ncert in Berlin , while inDresden five or six were given in a single evening !

But the nascent symphony was puttingfo rth its shoots on every side . Vienna had averitable e fflo rescen ce o f symphonists ; amongwhom the naturalistic Hoffmann* and the imaginative

As much art as you lik e , Hofiman n used to tell his compatrio ts , pro vided it is always combin ed with n ature an d even in th emarriage o f art and n ature th e ladymust always wear th e breeches .

”

(Burn ey.)

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234 A Musical TourIt was here , says Burn ey, that S tamitz , fo r th e first

time ,ven tured t o cro ss th e bo un daries o f th e o rdin ary o peratic

o vertures, whi ch un til th en h ad mere ly served t o challen geatten tio n an d impo se silen ce . This brillian t an d

in gen io us musician created th e mo dern sympho n ic style byth e additio n o f th e maj estic e ffe cts o f light an d shade whi ch h eused t o en rich it . First all th e vario us e ffe cts were tested wh ichco uld b e pro duced by th e combin atio n o f n o tes an d to n es ;then a practical un derstan din g o f th e cr escen do an d dimin uen do

was acquired in th e o rchestra an d th epian o ,whi ch un til then

had been employed o n ly as syn o nym o us with e cho ,be came ,

with th e fo r te , an abun dan t so urce o f co lo urs whi ch have the irgamut o f shades in music j ust as r ed an d blue have in pain tin g .

”

This is n o t the place to in sist o n this fact it isenough to no te in passing the o riginality and thefertile audacity o f the experiments made by thefascin atin g Stamitz

,who t o -day is so little and so

imperfectly kn own , altho ugh , as Burney tells us ,h e was regarded in his day. “ as ano ther Shakespeare ,

wh o o vercame all di fficulties and carried th e art o fmusic farthe r than any had ever do ne befo re histime a genius all in ventio n , all fire ,

all co ntrast inthe live ly mo vements , with a tender , gracio us an dseductive me lo dy , simple an d rich accompan imen ts

,

and everywhere the sublime e ffects pro duced byenthusiasm

,but in a style n o t always su fficien tly

We see that in spite o f Italianism th e Germangenius had co n trived to reserve to itse lf certainindependent pro vin ces in which it was able to grow1Lastly w e may m en tio n a fo rm o f in strumen tal music in which

th e German s w ere past mas ters , a fo rm whi ch they impo sed upo nth e re st o f Euro pe military music. In Fran ce ,

acco rdin g toBurn ey, in th e se co n d half o f th e cen tury, th e sco re s o f th e marchesan d even th e musician s in man y o f th e garriso n s were Ge rman .

”

On e o f th e be st military ban ds w as that o f Darmstad t ; Burn eyte lls us that it co n sisted o f fo ur o bo es ,.

fo ur clario n e t tes, six trumpe ts ,fo ur basso o n s , fo ur ho rn s and Six bugles .

Across Europe 235

in safety,until the day when

,conscious of its power,

it wo uld give battle to the alien spirit and libe rateitself from the yo ke . No ne the le ss it is true thatabo ut the middle o f the eighteen th cen tury ItalianOpe ra was supreme in Ge rmany , and the leade rs ofGerman music

,those who were afterwards to be its

foremo st liberators,were all witho ut exceptio n

pro fo undly Italian ised . And magn ificent as wasthe developmen t of German music in Haydn ,

Mo zart ,Beethoven and the ir succe sso rs

,it is permissible to

be lieve that this was not the no rmal develo pmentof German music as it wo uld have been had thelatter

,in taking shape

,re lied on ly upo n its own

reso urces,drawin g o nly upo n its own capital .

From the ove rwhelming triumph o f the Italianopera o ver the German y o f the eighteen th centurythere has remain ed , thro ugh the centuries , theinde lible mark of Italian feeling and the Italianstyle , which is perceptible even in the mosttho ro ughly German masters o f o ur own perio d .

It wo uld n o t be di fficult to pro ve that Wagner ’swork is full of Italian isms ; that the melo dio usand expressive lan guage of Richard Strauss is ,to a great extent

,fun damen tally Italian . A victo ry

such as that of the Italy of the eighteenth cen turyover German y leave s its in delible traces upon thehistory of the people that has suffered it .

Prin ted in Great B r itain b y Headley B ro thers, Ash fo rd, Ken t , an d

x8 , DeVOn sh lre S tr eet, E .C .