A Popular History of the Art of Music

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Monteverde had already for some time been a resident in Venice as
director of the music at St. Mark's, where his salary had originally
been established at 300 ducats per annum, and a house in the canon's
close. In 1616 his salary was raised to 500 ducats, and he gave
himself up entirely to the service of the republic. The first opera
house was erected in 1637 and was followed within a few years by two
other opera houses in Venice. In these places Monteverde's subsequent
works were produced. The greater number of his manuscripts are
hopelessly lost. We possess only eight books of madrigals, a volume of
canzonettes, the complete edition of "Orpheus," and a quantity of
church music.

The new path opened by this great composer was followed assiduously by
a multitude of Italian musicians. Among these the more distinguished
names are those of Cavalli, who wrote thirty-four operas for Venice
alone, Legrenzi and Cesti. The latter wrote six operas, some of which
were very successful. By 1699 there were eleven theaters in Venice at
which operas were habitually given; at Rome there were three; in
Bologna one; and in Naples one. It would take us too far to discuss in
detail the successive steps in the history during this century, since
in the nature of the case, an individual work like an opera can with
difficulty rise above the popular musical phraseology of the day, the
object being immediate success with a public largely uncultivated.
Hence, popular operas for the most part are short-lived, rarely
retaining their popularity more than thirty years.

The greatest genius in opera in this century after Monteverde was
Alessandro Scarlatti, of Naples, the principal of the conservatory
there, and, we might say, the inventor of the Italian art of
singing--_bel canto_. For as there had been no monody, so there had
been no solo singing, and as the operas of the first three-quarters of
this century, in spite of the improvements of Monteverde, consisted
mostly of recitative, there was still no singing in the modern
acceptation of the term. Scarlatti introduced new forms. To the
_recitativo secco_, or unaccompanied recitative, which until now had
been the principal dependence for the movement of the drama, he added
the _recitativo stromentato_, or accompanied recitative, in which the
instruments afforded a dramatic coloring for the text of the singer.
To these, again, he added a third element, the aria. The first he
employed for the ordinary business of the stage; the second for the
expression of deep pathos; the third for strongly individualized
soliloquy. These three types of vocal delivery remain valid, and are
still used by composers in the same way as by Scarlatti. His first
opera was produced in Rome at the palace of Christina, ex-queen of
Sweden, in 1680. This was followed by 108 others, the most of which
were produced in Naples. The most celebrated of these were "_Pompei_"
(Naples, 1684), "_La Theodora_" (Rome, 1693), "_Il Triompho de la
Liberta_" (Venice, 1707) and, most celebrated of all, "_La Principessa
Fidele_." In addition to this he wrote a large number of cantatas,
more or less dramatic in character. Scarlatti not only created the
aria, calling for sustained and impassioned singing, but also
invented or discovered methods of training singers to perform these
numbers successfully. He was the founder of the Italian school of
singing, and the external model upon which it was based undoubtedly
was furnished by the violin which, having been perfected by the Amati,
as already noted in the previous chapter, and its solo capacities
having been brought out by Archangelo Corelli, whose first violin
sonatas were published a few years before Scarlatti's first opera, had
now established a standard of melodic phrasing and impassioned
delivery superior to anything which had previously been known. It was
a pupil of Scarlatti, Nicolo Porpora (1686-1766), who carried forward
the work begun by his master. Porpora was even a greater teacher of
singing than Scarlatti himself, and his pupils became the leading
singers in Europe during the first quarter of the eighteenth century.
The progress of vocal cultivation was remarkably helped by the fact
that at this time women were not permitted to appear upon the stage,
all the female parts being taken by male sopranos, _castrati_. These
artificial sopranos, having no other career before them than that of
operatic singing, devoted themselves vigorously to the technique of
their art, and were efficient agents in awakening a taste for florid
singing impossible for ordinary or untrained voices. Women did not
appear upon the stage in opera until toward the middle of this
century. Haendel, in London, had male sopranos such as Farinelli,
Senesimo, and the earlier of the female sopranos, of whom the vicious
Cuzzoni was a shining example. The artistic merits of Porpora have
been greatly exaggerated by certain writers, notably by Mme. George
Sand in her "_Consuelo_," where he figures as one of the greatest and
most devoted of artists. Her work, however, has the excellence of
affording a very good representation of the artistic end proposed by
the Italian masters of singing in their best moments. Porpora spent
the early part of his life in Naples, but afterward he resided for
some time in Dresden, Vienna, Rome and Venice, being principal of a
conservatory in the latter place. In the latter years of his life
(1736) he was invited to London to compose operas in competition with
Haendel, in which calling he but poorly succeeded. Porpora represents
the ideal which has ruled Italian opera from his time to the present,
the ideal, namely, of the pleasing, the well sounding, and the vocally
agreeable. He is responsible for the fanciful roulades, the long arias
and the many features of this part of dramatic music which please the
unthinking, but mark such a wide departure from the severe and noble,
if narrow, ideal of the original inventors of this form of art.

It is to be regretted that the limits of the present work do not
permit the introduction of selections of music sufficiently extended
for illustrating the finer modifications of style effected by the
successive masters named in the text. The brief extracts following are
taken from the excellent lectures of the late John Hullah upon
"Transitional Periods in Musical History." The same valuable and
suggestive work contains a number of more extended selections from
these and other little known masters of the period, for which reason
the book forms a useful addition to the library of teachers, schools,
etc. Other illustrations will be found in Gevaert's "_Les Gloires
d'Italie_" ("The Glories of Italy"). There are sixty arias in this
collection, all well edited, and chosen for their effectiveness for
public performance at the present day.

[Music illustration: ARIA PARLANTE.--"LASCIATE MI MORIR."

(From the opera "Ariadne," 1607. Monteverde.)

La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re,
La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re,
E che vo-le-te voi che mi con-for-ti in co-si du-re sor-te, in co-si
gran mar-ti-re?
La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re,
La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re.]

[Music illustration: EXTRACT FROM SONG, "VAGHE STELLE."

(From the opera "Erismena," 1655. Francesco Cavalli.)

Va-ghe stel-le, Lu-ci-bel-le,
Non dor-mi-te, non dor-mi-te.
Va-ghe stel-le, Lu-ci-bel-le,
Non dor-mi-te, non dor-mi-te.]

[Music illustration: ARIA.--"LASCIAMI PIANGERE."

(From a cantata. Alessandro Scarlatti.)

La-scia-mi, la-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io so per-che io so, io so, io so
per-che.
La-scia-mi pian-ge-re, la-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io so per-che,
per-che, ch'io so perche,
La-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io so per-che, io so, io so, io so per-che.
Del-le mie la-gri-me
La sor-te per-fi-da
Sa-zia non e, sa-zia non e.
Del-le mie la-gri-me
La sor-te per-fi-da
Sa-zia non e,
Del-le mie la-gri-me
La sor-te per-fi-da
Sa-zia non e no, no, no, no, no, sa-zia non e.
_Da capo._ La-scia-mi....]

CHAPTER XIX.

BEGINNINGS OF OPERA IN FRANCE AND GERMANY.

I.

From Florence the art of dramatic song spread to all other parts of
the world, yet not so rapidly as would have been supposed. For it was
not until nearly half of the century had already elapsed that opera
made a beginning in France, the country where ruled the unfortunate
princess for whose nuptials the first opera had been written. French
opera grew out of the ballet. This term, which at present is
restricted to entertainments in which dancing is the principal
feature, and the story is entirely told in pantomime, had formerly a
more extended signification. It was equivalent to the English term
"Mask," a play in which dancing, songs and even dialogue found place.
This light and sprightly form of drama has been favored in France from
a remote period. As early as the first quarter of the seventeenth
century Antoine Boesset (1585-1643) composed ballets for the
entertainments of the king, Louis XIII. His son succeeded him at the
court of Louis XIV. Some of the ballets of the elder Boesset were
produced in 1635, and in these we must find the beginnings of French
opera, if indeed we do not go back still farther, and find it in the
play of "Robin and Marian," written by Adam de la Halle. In fact,
dramatic entertainment has been indigenous in France from an early
date, and it is by no means easy to say that at any particular moment
the line was crossed where modern opera begins. The ballets of Boesset
were, no doubt, slight upon the dramatic side, having even less of
serious intention in the music than the lightest of comic opera of the
present day.

The impulse to grand opera came from a different quarter. A sagacious
cleric, the Abbe Perrin, heard, either at Florence or in Paris, from
the company of Italian singers brought over in 1645, Peri's
"Eurydice," which made a great impression upon him, and he suggested
to a musician of his acquaintance, Robert Cambert, the production of
another work in similar style. Several things in this account appear
strange, but strangest of all, the total ignorance that prevailed in
Paris of the vast development that had been made in Italian opera by
Monteverde and the other Italians, during the forty years since Peri's
experiment had been first composed. With the leisurely movement of the
times, the new work of the French composers was produced in 1659. This
was "_La Pastorale_," performed with the greatest applause at the
chateau of Issy. This was followed by several other works in similar
style, "Ariane," "Adonis" and the like, and in 1669 Perrin secured a
patent giving him a monopoly of operatic performances in France for a
period of years.

Meanwhile a certain ambitious and unscrupulous youngster was feeling
his way to a position where he might make himself recognized. It was
the youthful violinist, Jean Baptiste Lulli, the illegitimate son of a
Florentine gentleman, his dates being about 1633-1687. Lulli had been
taught the rudiments of knowledge, including that of the violin, by a
kind-hearted priest of his native city, and, when yet a mere lad, made
his way to Paris in the suite of the duke of Guise. Once in Paris his
way was open. Gifted with a quick wit, a total absence of principle or
honor, but of insatiable ambition, he made his way from one position
to another, and at length had been so prominent as a composer of dance
music, and leader of the king's violins, as to have opportunity to
distinguish himself by composing the music for the ballet of
"_Alcidiane_," and others, in which Louis XIV himself danced. Lulli's
ambition was still farther stimulated and his style influenced by the
study of the music of Cavalli, for several of whose operas he composed
ballets, upon the occasion of their production in France.

Within thirteen years he produced no less than thirty ballets. In
these he himself took part with considerable success as dancer and
comic actor. The success of Cambert and Perrin's operas of "_Pomone_"
and "The Pains and Pleasures of Love" (1671) awakened in him the
desire of supplanting them in the regard of the king. After intrigues
creditable neither to himself nor to the powers influenced by them, he
succeeded in this same year in having the patent of Perrin set aside,
and a new one issued, giving him the sole right of producing operas in
France for a period of years. Then ensued a career of operatic
productivity most creditable and influential from every point of view.
In the space of fourteen years Lulli produced twenty operas, or
_divertissements_, of which the best, perhaps, were "_Alceste_," 1674,
"_Thesee_," 1675, "_Amadis de Gaule_," 1684, and "Roland," 1685. Lulli
made certain improvements upon the Italian models, which he
originally followed, making the recitative more stately, and employing
the accompanying orchestra for purposes of dramatic coloration. He was
a great master of the stage, and introduced his effects with
consummate judgment. His declamation of the text was most excellent,
and in this respect his operas have served as models in the traditions
of the French stage from that time until now. As a musician, however,
he was clever rather than deep, and the music is often monotonous and
rather stilted. Nevertheless, his operas held the stage for many years
after the death of their author, and occasional revivals have taken
place at intervals, even after the advance in taste and musical
knowledge had effectually quenched their ability to please a popular
audience. His "Roland" was performed as an incident in the regular
season at Paris as late as 1778, when Gluck's "Orpheus" had already
been heard. The example of Lulli's music given on pages 240 and 241 is
from this work. The melody is vigorous and appropriate.

The most commendable feature of this beginning of opera in France was
the attention given to the musical treatment of the vernacular of the
country. The principle once recognized, that opera not in the
vernacular of the country can never have more than an incidental and
adventitious importance, has always been maintained in France. The
_Academie de Musique_, for which the patent was granted to Perrin, and
transferred to Lulli, has been maintained with few interruptions ever
since, and has been the home of a native French opera, constantly
increasing in vigor, originality and interest. Italian opera has been
fashionable in Paris for brief periods, and as the amusement of the
fashionable world, but the native opera has nearly always held the
place of honor in the affections of the people, and the foreign works
produced there have been translated into the French language.

[Music illustration: SONG.--"ROLAND, COUREZ AUX ARMES."

(From the opera "Roland," 1685. J.B. Lulli.)

Ro-land, cou-rez aux ar-mes, aux ar-mes, cou-rez aux ar-mes,
Que la gloi-re a de charm-es, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es;
L'a-mour de ses di-vins ap-pas, Fait vi-vreau de-la du tre-pas,
L'a-mour de ses di-vins ap-pas, Fait vi-vreau de-la du tre-pas.
Ro-land, cou-rez aux ar-mes, aux ar-mes, cou-rez aux ar-mes,
Que la gloi-re a de charm-es, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es.]

II.

In Germany the contrary was the case for more than a century later.
The first operatic performance, indeed, was given in the German
language. A copy of Peri's "Dafne" was sent to Dresden and as a
preparation for performance the text was translated, but it was found
impossible to adapt the German words to the Italian recitative, owing
to the different structure of the German sentences, bringing the
emphasis in totally different places. In this stress the local master,
Heinrich Schuetz, was called upon to compose new music, which he did,
and the work was given in 1627. This beginning of German opera,
however, was totally accidental. All that was intended was the
repetition of the famous Italian work. Nor did the persons concerned
appear to recognize the importance and high significance of the act in
which they had co-operated, for no other German operas were given
there or elsewhere until much later. Schuetz, moreover, did not pursue
the career of an operatic composer, but turned his attention mainly to
church music and oratorio, in which department he highly distinguished
himself, as we will presently have occasion to examine farther.

It was not until the beginning of the century next ensuing, that
German opera began to take root and grow. The beginning was made in
the free city of Hamburg, which was at that time the richest and most
independent city of Germany, and, being remote from the centers of
political disturbance, it suffered less from the thirty years' war
than most other parts of the country. The prime mover here was
Reinhard Keiser (1673-1739), born at Weissenfels, near Leipsic, and
educated at the Thomas School. His attention had been directed to
dramatic music early, and at the age of nineteen he was commissioned
to write a pastoral, "_Ismene_," for the court of Brunswick. The
success of this gained him another libretto, "_Basilius_," also
composed with success. He removed to Hamburg in 1694, and for forty
years remained a favorite with the public, composing for that theater
no less than 116 operas, of which the first, "Irene," was produced in
1697. In 1700 he opened a series of popular concerts, the prototypes
of the star combinations of the present day. In these entertainments
the greatest virtuosi were heard, the most popular and best singers,
and the newest and best music. His direction of the opera did not
begin until 1703; here also he proved himself a master. The place of
this composer in the history of art is mainly an adventitious one,
depending upon the chronological circumstance of his preceding others
in the same field, rather than upon the more important reason of his
having set a style, or established an ideal, for later masters. His
operas subsided into farce, the serious element being almost wholly
lacking, and, according to Riemann, the last of them shows no
improvement over the first. Their only merit is that they are not
imitations of the Italian nor upon mythological subjects, but from
common life. In his later life he devoted himself to the composition
of church music, in which department he accomplished notable, if
somewhat conventional, success. The Hamburg theater furnished a field
for another somewhat famous figure in musical history, that of Johann
Mattheson, a singularly versatile and gifted man, a native of that
city (1681-1764). After a liberal education, in which his musical
taste and talent became distinguished at an early age, he appeared on
the stage as singer, and in one of his own operas, after singing his
role upon the stage, came back into the orchestra in order to conduct
from the harpsichord the performance, until his role required him
again upon the stage. Indeed, it was this eccentricity which
occasioned a quarrel between him and Haendel, who resented the
implication that he himself was incapable of carrying on the
performance. Mattheson composed a large number of works, including
many church cantatas of the style made more celebrated in the works of
Sebastian Bach, later, the intention of these works having been to
render the church services more interesting by affording the
congregation a practical place in the exercises. Mattheson is best
known at the present time by his "Complete Orchestral Director," a
compilation of musical knowledge and notions, intended for the
instruction of those intending to act in this capacity.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XX.

THE PROGRESS OF ORATORIO.

I.

As already noticed in the previous chapter, the oratorio had its
origin at the same time as opera, both being phases of the _stilo
rappresentativo_, or the effort to afford musical utterance to
dramatic poetry--at first merely a solemn and impressive utterance,
later, as the possibilities of the new phase of art unfolded
themselves, a descriptive utterance, in which the music colored and
emphasized the moods of the text and the situation. The idea of
oratorio was not new. All through the Middle Ages they seem to have
had miracle plays in the Church, as accessories of the less solemn
services, and as means of instruction in biblical history. The
mediaeval plays had very plain music, which followed entirely the
cadences of the plain song, and made no attempt at representing the
dramatic situation or the feelings growing out of it. All that the
music sought to do was to afford a decorous utterance, having in it,
from association with the cadence of the music of the Church,
something impressive, yet not in any manner growing out of the drama
to which it was set. The Florentine music drama was something entirely
different from this, or soon became so, and in oratorio this was just
as apparent as in opera, although the opportunities of vocal display
were not made so much of.

The modern oratorio exists in two types: The dramatic cantata, of
which the form and general idea were established by Carissimi; and the
church cantata, which differed from the Italian type chiefly in being
of a more exclusively religious character, and of having occasional
opportunities for the congregation to join in a chorale. The former of
these types was established by Giacomo Carissimi (1604-1674), who was
born near Rome, and held his first musical position as director at
Assisi, but presently obtained the directorship at the Church of St.
Apollinaris in Rome, where he served all the remainder of his long and
active life. Without having been a genius of the first order, it was
Carissimi's good fortune to exercise an important influence upon the
course of musical progress, particularly in the direction of oratorio,
in which all the more attractive elements came from his innovations.
Carissimi was a prolific composer, having constant occasion for new
and pleasing attractions for the musical service of the rich and
important Jesuit church, where he held his appointment. These
compositions are of every sort, but cantatas form the larger portion,
consisting of passages of Scripture set in consecutive form, with due
alternation of solo and chorus, in a style at once pleasing and
dramatically appropriate. The majority of his compositions have been
lost, many of them going to the waste paper baskets when the Jesuits
were suppressed. Enough remain, however, to indicate the interest and
importance of his work. Moreover, there, is another curious commentary
upon the value of his music, in the fact that Haendel took twelve
measures well nigh bodily out of one of the choruses in Carissimi's
"Jephthah," and incorporated them in "Hear Jacob's God" in his own
"Samson." Mr. Hullah gives an excellent aria from this work, but it
is too long for insertion here. The more important of Carissimi's
innovations were in the direction of pleasing qualities in the
accompaniments, and agreeable rhythms. He was teacher of several of
the most important Italian musicians of the following generation,
among them being Bassani, Cesti, Buononcini and Alessandro Scarlatti.

[Illustration: Fig. 47.

HEINRICH SCHUeTZ.]

II.

The other type of oratorio received important assistance toward full
realization in Germany, at the hands of Mattheson, as already noticed,
and from those of Heinrich Schuetz (1585-1672), who, after preliminary
studies in Italy, where he acquired the Italian representative style
from Gabrieli in Venice, in 1609, three years later returned to
Germany, and in 1615 was appointed chapel master to the elector of
Saxony, a position which he held with slight interruptions until his
death, at the advanced age already indicated. Notice has already been
taken in a former chapter of his appearance in the field of opera
composition, in setting new music to Rinuccini's "Dafne," on account
of the German words being incapable of adaptation to the music of
Peri. But before this he had demonstrated his versatility and talent
in the production of certain settings of the psalms of David, in the
form of motettes for eight and more voices. In his second work, an
oratorio upon the "Resurrection," he shows the same striving after a
freer dramatic expression. His great work "_Symphoniae Sacrae_,"
consists of cantatas for voices, with instrumental accompaniments, in
which the instrumental part shows serious effort after dramatic
coloration. The first of his works in this style was the "Last Seven
Words" (1645), which contained the distinguishing marks of all the
later Passion music. It consisted of a narrative, reflections,
chorales, and the words of the Lord Himself. Many years later he
produced his great Passions (1665-1666), and in these he accomplishes
as much of the dramatic expression as possible by means of choruses,
which are highly dramatic in style and very spirited. The voluminous
works of this master have now been reprinted, and some of them possess
a degree of interest warranting their occasional presentation. Schuetz
occupies an intermediate position between the masters of the old
school, with whom the traditions of ecclesiastical modes governed
everything, and those who have passed entirely beyond them and
polyphony, into modern monody. The music of Schuetz is always
polyphonic, but there is much of dramatic feeling in it, nevertheless.
He was one of those clear-headed, practical masters, who, without
being geniuses in the intuitive sense, nevertheless contrive to
impress themselves upon the subsequent activity in their province,
chiefly through their sagacity in seizing new forms and bringing them
into practicable perfection. Into the forms of the Passion, as Schuetz
created it, Bach poured the wealth of his devotion and his
inspiration; so later Beethoven put into the symphony form, created to
his hand by the somewhat mechanical Haydn, the amplitude of his
musical imagination, which, but for this preparatory work of the
lesser master, would have been driven to the creation of entirely new
forms for his thoughts, not only hampering the composer, but--which
would have been equally unfavorable to his success--depriving him of
an audience prepared to appreciate the greatness of the new genius
through their previous training in the same general style.

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