Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/104

92 MUSIC [HISTOKY. 1764), a native of Dijon, who made his mark on history. He wrote many operas and ballets which are held in less esteem than those of Lully, some cantatas and sacred pieces, and a large number of compositions for the organ and clavecin, but, notwithstanding the merit of these and their success, it is more as a theorist than as an artist that he is now regarded. He published several treatises, embracing principles of performance as well as rules of harmony and a system of composition, and the original views these enunciate have obtained high regard. He distinguishes what he styles the " basse continue " from what he names the " basse fondamentale " in tracing inverted chords to their roots, and differs in this from writers on counter point who treated only of intervals from each actual bass Chord of note. Thus he looked in the direction of later theories the llth. O f fundamental harmony, but scarcely obtained sight of the object. He speaks of a chord of the llth apart from the suspension of the 4th ; but his examples show this to be the double suspension of the 9th and 4th, to be resolved on the root and minor 3d of a chord of the prepared 7th, which further has to be resolved on a chord whose root stands at a 4th . above its own, ( and so this chord, 1 having nothing j exceptional in / structure or treat- ^ Chord of ment, needs no distinctive title. Another point is indeed the add- original, and has obtained somewhat wide acceptance ; this ed 6th. - g j^g theory of the chord he defines as the "great 6th," which is named the " added 6th " by his English followers. It consists of a common chord (usually of the subdominant) with a 6th added, and its resolution is on the chord whose root is at a 4th below that of the discord, the 5th in the former chord being retained as the root in the latter. Against this view it may be urged that all harmonic in tervals are at uneven numbers from the generator, the even numbers standing for the octaves above any of these, as , n xt or e ^ se f r their inversions, as q ~ ,., and hence loo o I the 6th (D in the above example) is not an original but an inverted interval ; further, whatever note may be added in a column of harmony does not affect the concordance or discordance of the notes below it, but is itself the dis cordant element in the chord, whereas the addition of the 6th to a common chord changes its concordant 5ths into a discord, and therefore the 6th must be otherwise traced. Other theorists have, more in the direction of truth, defined this chord as a first inversion, reckoning the 6th from the bass as the inverted root, but giving no account of its exceptional resolution. It was not till the following cen tury that the theory for this chord was propounded with the seeming of truth, showing that the 7th below its given bass (G under the F in the above) is the real generator, and showing this to be an incomplete inversion of the chord of the llth, of which Rameau invented but mis applied the name. The subject will be more fully discussed when the period is treated to which this last theory belongs. Marcello. Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739) was a Venetian of wealthy parentage. He was pressed by his father into the pursuit of the law, and held lucrative appointments in his profession, but his love was for music, and in music he has some renown, partly for his compositions, the best known of which are the settings for one or more voices of fifty of the Psalms in an Italian version, and partly for his writ ings on music, especially a satirical pamphlet, II Teatro alia moda (1720), as remarkable for the justice with which it censures the corruptions that cankered dramatic art as for its humour. This treatise quotes the principles of the Florentine assumed musical revival in 1600, and is regarded as the precursor of the practical reform effected by Gluck. The renowned Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) isRous- often accredited as a musical theorist because of his several seau. publications on the subject, especially his Dictionnaire de Musique, which was finished in 1764, licensed in 1765, but not published till 1768. Its repute must have been gained by the grace of his language rather than by the soundness of his views, which are elegantly stated but rarely stable when they look to either side of the beaten track of accepted principles. He wrote violently against French music and the French language as a musical medium, being promi nent in the literary disputes known as the " Guerre des Bouffons," but recanted when Gluck s genius was exercised on French opera. Rousseau produced some slight musical dramas, but proof has been adduced that they were the works of other hands. Padre Martini (1706-1784) worked to far higher purpose Martini, than the last named, and the deeper impression he made on music is due to the depth of his knowledge. He was a mathematician and a scholar in other branches of learn ing, all of which he brought to bear upon his musical studies. He composed for the church and for the theatre vocal and instrumental chamber music, and pieces for the organ. He enunciated no new theory, but rendered great service by the collected publication of many art rarities exemplifying the musicianship of earlier times, and proving his ability to estimate their merit by the inclusion of a large number of canons of his own, which latter are pre sented in the enigmatic form of ancient use wherein the primary part or parts alone are given, and the reader has to discover the canon that fixes the period and the interval at which the response is to enter. He issued at different dates three volumes of a History of Music, and did not live to com plete the fourth, which would have brought the subject only down to the Middle Ages. He was revered by the musicians of all lands, and he is honoured by those of our own time for the penetration with which he discovered the excellence of the boy Mozart, and the encouragement that aided largely to confirm the self-reliance of this everlasting prodigy. German opera owes its birth to Reinhard Reiser ofKeiser Weissenfels (1673-1739). His first dramatic effort, Ismene, and his was produced at the court of Brunswick. Success induced "^ c "~ him to further exertion in the same field, and its con tinuance enabled him to undertake the management of the Hamburg theatre, in which, between 1694 and 1734, he produced 116 operas. Even these were but a portion of his works, for he wrote several dramatic oratorios, and made more than one setting of The Passion, which last preceded the compositions of the class by Handel and Bach. Little of his music survived him, but his influence on the art of his country was enduring. Matthison dis tinguished himself in Reiser s theatre, which also was the scene of the young Handel s first dramatic essays. Rarl Heinrich Graun, a singer, and Johann Friedrich Agricola belong to the next generation of writers of German opera, both of Avhom won large renown. It is now time to revert to dramatic music in Italy. Progress Giovanni Battista Buononcini (1672-1750) and his brother p f mnsic Marc Antonio were famed in and out of their own m y country. They both visited London, where the former opposed Handel, and the rivalry between the Italian and the German musician is notable in the history of the time. Nicola Antonio Porpora (1686-1767) owes his fame more to the success of his pupils in singing, of whom Farinelli and Caffarelli were the most distinguished, than to the merit of his numerous compositions. Leonardo Leo