Romain Rolland

“ But the German metropolis of Italianism was Vienna. There reigned the monarch of the opera, the opera made man: Metastasio. Father of an innumerable progeny of operatic poems, each of which was set to music, not once, but twice, thrice, ten times, and by all the famous composers of the century, Metastasio was regarded by all the artists of Europe as a unique genius. "He has," says Burney, "all the feeling, all the soul and completeness of Racine with more originality." He was the first authority in the world on theatrical music. ”

“ As Burney says, "he had been liberal and advanced ... some twenty years previously."
It was much the same with Graun, and Karl Heinrich Graun was, with Hasse, the most famous name in German music in the days of Bach and Händel. [22] Marpurg calls him "the greatest ornament of the German muse, the master of pleasing melody ... tender, sweet, sympathetic, exalted, stately and terrible by turns. All the strokes of his pen were equally perfect. His genius was inexhaustible. Never has any man been more generally regretted by a whole nation, from the king to the least of his subjects." ”

“ We may at a pinch admit that a great man may remain absolutely unknown if the circumstances of his life are such that he is isolated and can neither publish his works nor force the public to give him a hearing. But we find it difficult to believe that he could be known and not recognised; that people should have had an indifferent and merely benevolent opinion of him; that they should have been unable to distinguish between him and the artists of the second rank by whom he was surrounded. ”

“ Burney is wedded to his own opinion, and both agree that "music must not be a large gathering where everybody speaks at once, so that there is no longer any conversation, nothing but wrangling and ill-breeding and noise. A sensible man should wait for the moment in conversation when he can put in his word with effect."—It was the school of pure melody, in the Italian style, that condemned the old German polyphony. ”

“ Burney, compelled to admit that the Italians in Germany were often much better paid than German artists who were superior to them, adds that for this reason "one must not blame the Germans unduly for endeavouring to disparage the merit of the great Italian masters, and to treat them with a severity and a disdain which are due merely to gross ignorance and stupidity."—"All are jealous of the Italians," he says elsewhere. ”

“ Even in Leipzig, in the holy city of the organ, the city of the great Johann Sebastian Bach, "despite all my investigations," says Burney, "I did not hear anyone play the organ well anywhere."
It would seem that with the exception of a few princely Courts, "where the arts," says Burney, "rendered power less insupportable, and intellectual diversions were perhaps as necessary as those of active life," the love of music was not nearly so ardent or so universal as in Italy. ”

“ His position and his salary were both unsatisfactory; he was obliged, day after day, to accompany the royal flautist on the harpsichord; and both Graun and Quantz, "whose style was absolutely opposed to that which he was striving to establish," were preferred to him. This explains why he was, later on, so delighted to find himself in the good town of Hamburg, which was devoid of interest in music and of taste, but was hospitable, good-natured and free. To an artist, anything—even ignorance—is better than despotism in matters of taste. ”

“ It is true that the more vigorous peoples always end by constraining chance and forcing it to take their side. But we cannot deny that there is such a thing as chance,
And in this instance it is plainly visible.
The Germans were not alone in developing the resources of instrumentation. The same tendencies were manifest in France and Italy. The conservatoires of Venice were devoting themselves to instrumental music, with successful results; the Italian virtuosi were everywhere famous, and the symphony had its birth in Milan. ”

“ If the leaders of German music—such as the Bachs, Rust, Gluck, Graun and Hasse—were affected to such an extent by the influence of Italian art, [35] how should German music hold out against the foreign spirit? Where was its genius to find salvation? ”

“ We see that in spite of Italianism the German genius had contrived to reserve to itself certain independent provinces in which it was able to grow in safety, until the day when, conscious of its power, it would give battle to the alien spirit and liberate itself from the yoke. ”

“ Mozart speaks of it with disgust: "It is one of the great reasons why Salzburg is hateful to me; this Court orchestra is so uncouth, so disorderly and so debauched! An honest man with decent manners cannot live with such people!" [6]
Even at Mannheim, which had the most perfect orchestra in Germany, the wind instruments—the bassoons and oboes—were not in tune.
As for the organ, it was torture to hear it played in Germany. In Berlin "the organs are big, clumsy, loaded with stops, noisy and out of tune." In Vienna, in the cathedral, "the organs are horribly out of tune." ”

“ The band of instrumentalists, famous all over Europe, was dispersed among foreign cities. "The poverty was general. Those artists who had not been dismissed were rarely paid. The greater part of the nobility and the bourgeoisie was so poor that it could not afford to have its children taught music. ... But for a wretched comic opera there was no other spectacle in Dresden save that of poverty." [9] There was the same devastation at Leipzig.
The citadels of Italianism in the second half of the century were Vienna, Munich and the towns on the banks of the Rhine. ”

“ Philipp Emmanuel speaks with irony of musical science, especially of canons, "which are always dry and pretentious." He regards it "as a defect of genius to abandon oneself to these dreary and insignificant studies." [30] He asks Burney whether the latter has met with any great contrapuntist in Italy. Burney replies in the negative. "Faith," says Philipp Emmanuel, "if you did find one it wouldn't be a very valuable discovery, for when one knows counterpoint there are other things too that are necessary to make a good composer." ”

“ It was at Lukavec, near Pilsen, that Haydn, director of music in the private chapel of Count Morzin, wrote his first symphony in 1759. Lastly, the greatest German violinist, Franz Benda, who was, with Philipp Emmanuel Bach, the only musician in Berlin who dared to possess a style of his own, independently of Graun and the Italianisers, was also a Bohemian.
Thanks to these schools and these natural faculties, instrumental music was cultivated throughout Germany, even in Vienna and Munich, preeminently the centres of Italian opera. ”

“ This detail gives us the measure of the musical freedom enjoyed in Berlin. An Italian pseudo-classicism reigned in a tyrannical fashion permitting neither change nor progress. Burney is scandalised by this tyranny.
"Thus," he says, "music is stationary in this country, and will be so long as his Majesty allows the artists no more liberty in this art than he grants in matters of civil government, striving to be at the same time the sovereign of the lives, fortunes and interests of his subjects, and the supervisor of the least of their pleasures." ”

“ It may seem strange to speak of good fortune in respect of an event in which intelligence and determination evidently played a great part. However, we must allow here, as always in history, for chance, for the co-operation of circumstances, which now favour, now oppose the evolution of a people. ”

“ Burney concludes that the Germans must owe their knowledge of music not to nature but to study. [8]
He will gradually change his opinion, on discovering the hidden wealth, the originality, the powerful vitality of German art. He will come to realise the superiority of German instrumental music. He will even take pleasure in German singing, and will prefer it to any others, Italian excepted. ”

“ Leopold Mozart had, it is true, settled at Salzburg, but in 1763 he made a journey to Augsburg, with his little boy, aged seven; and Teodor de Wyzewa has shown that it was there, in all probability, that Mozart "began to initiate himself into the free and majestic beauty of Italy." [14]
Munich was almost an Italian city. It had Italian comic-opera houses and Italian concerts and the most famous Italian singers and performers. The sister of the Elector of Bavaria, the Dowager Electress of Saxony, was a pupil of Porpora and had composed Italian operas, words and music. ”

“ Music seemed the principal object in life." The Mannheim orchestra "contained, by itself, perhaps more distinguished virtuosi and composers than any other in Europe; it was an army of generals."
This company of the elect, which also earned the admiration of Leopold Mozart and his son, used to give celebrated concerts. It was at these concerts that Stamitz, since 1745 first concert-master and musical director of the Prince's chamber music, made the first experiments in the German symphony. ”

“ It is true that this remark occurs at the end of a sentence in which Burney remarks that the Germans also furiously attacked one another. Every town was divided into jealous factions. "Everyone is jealous of everyone else, and all are jealous of the Italians." ”

“ Arne, in England, were sung by all classes of the people, and some of them in the streets." Hiller gave the plebeian characters in his operas simple Lieder to sing, and these Lieder became as popular in Germany as the vaudeville in France. "To-day," says Burney, "the taste for burlette (farces) is so general and so pronounced that there is some reason to fear, as sober individuals do, that it may destroy the taste for good music, and above all for music of a more exalted style." But far from destroying it, these popular Lieder were one of the sources of the new German opera. ”

“ In Germany it meant evolution. Consequently the development of the orchestra assured Germany of victory, while it contributed to the decadence of Italian music. Burney complains that the Italian operatic orchestras had become too numerous and that their noise forced the singers to bawl. "All the chiaroscuro of music is lost; the half-tints and the background disappear; one hears only the noisy parts, which were intended to provide a foil for the rest." Consequently the Italian voices are being spoiled, and Italy is losing her prerogative of il bel canto, of which she was justly so proud. ”

“ He said that if he often had occasion to force himself to work thus he would grow young again. He is fifty-nine years of age. He is rather short of stature; his hair and eyes are black and his complexion brown; he is full of fire and is of a very gay and vivacious temper."
Burney was convinced that Philipp Emmanuel was not only one of the greatest composers for the harpsichord, but "the best and most skilful artist in the matter of expression. ... He could play in every style, but he confined himself more especially to the emotional style. ”

“ It is worth noting that Hiller's chief pupil was Christian Gottlob Neefe, Beethoven's master. ↑ Hasse and Metastasio, the last representatives of the pure Italian tradition, had foreseen this danger. Metastasio, in his conversations with Burney, complained forcibly of the progress of instrumental music in opera. ↑ "As much art as you like," Hoffmann used to tell his compatriots, "provided it is always combined with nature; and even in the marriage of art and nature the lady must always wear the breeches." ”

“ And in truth there is hardly a more beautiful melodic pattern than Hasse's; only Mozart is perhaps his equal in this respect. The oblivion into which this admirable artist has fallen is one of the worst examples of historical injustice, and we shall endeavour some day to repair it. ↑ Burney's portrait of Gluck is one of the best that we have of this great man.
Burney was introduced to him by the British Ambassador Extraordinary, Lord Stormont,—and the introduction was not superfluous, for "Gluck was of as fierce a temper as Händel, of whom we know that everyone was afraid. ... ”