Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/105

HISTORY.] MUSIC 93 (1694-1746) wrote largely for the stage, but is most prized for his church music, which is of a character so different from his other productions that he is entitled to the twofold estimation of being a light and a severe com poser. Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783), though born iu the neighbourhood of Hamburg, wrote all his many operas, except the first, to Italian words for Italian singers, and may therefore be best classed among the composers of that country, where also he received his musical education. His excellence as a tenor singer, his skill as a clavecinist, and his marriage to Faustina Bordogni, the renowned vocalist, all helped to bring him and his music into note. His remark, when at the age of eighty he superintended the production of his last opera at Milan coincidently with Mozart s bringing out of his Ascanio in Alba when fourteen years old, that " this youngster will surpass us all," says as much for his penetration as for the diffidence of one who had passed a long life with success. Giovanni Battista Gesi (1710-1736), being born at Pergola, was called by his schoolmates II Pergolese, and is known by all the world under this instead of his family name. Little acknow ledged while he lived, he accomplished during his almost momentary career such work as places his name among those of the most famous of his countrymen. His comic opera La Serva Padrona, little noticed when first given in Naples, had such success when reproduced in Paris that it was shortly afterwards played in every country in Europe. If this piece did not initiate it confirmed the application of music as much to subjects of real as of heroic life, and therefore, though slight in structure and brief in extent, it is historically conspicuous. This and his setting of the Stabat Mater for female voices, which occupied him during his last illness, are the compositions by which he is best remembered. Nicolo Jomelli (1714-1774) was born and died in the Neapolitan territory ; he pro duced many operas in Naples, several in Rome, Bologna, and Venice, and he held for fifteen years an engagement in Stuttgart, where his genius was active ; he is particularly esteemed for his expression of sentiment, in which quality some of his critics account him the forerunner of Mozart ; much as he wrote for the stage, his predilection was for church music, but the amount of his erudition or his power to apply it scarcely justified this preference. This com poser may close the present list, as being the first to break through the example of Alessandro Scarlatti, and to write airs without the "Da Capo" which general approval of that example had rendered conventional if not indispensable. The plan claims respect as proving and fulfilling design, but it is inconsistent with truthful treatment of a subject which naturally proceeds in a continuous course and does not admit of the plenary recapitulation of feeling that has already been developed after this has passed into a different direction ; as a matter of effect, the " Da Capo " is rarely charming and often tedious, it is less inappropriate in instrumental than vocal music, and even there some modified allusion to previously stated ideas is far more interesting than the unqualified restatement of what has already been set forth. One characteristic must be named that marks the whole period under present survey the subordination of dramatic propriety to the display of vocal specialities ; these were classified in distinct orders, and custom became tyrannic in exacting that every singer in an opera should have an aria of each class, and that the story must be so conducted as to admit of their timely or untimely introduction. The entire action of the Italian opera of the period is conducted in spoken recitative, with few exceptions of accompanied reci tative in the most impassioned situations, and the arias or rhythmical portions of the work are episodical, being expatiative or reflective on the circumstances. The volu bility that then was esteemed the main, if not the highest, qualification of a vocalist had its imperative exercise in all works for the stage, and the original purpose of dramatic music was thus foiled in making the business of the scene to wait upon the exhibition of the representative. Instrumental music now began to assume the importance which at present it holds by universal suffrage. Composi tions for the organ by Italian and German masters had been numerous, but executancy on bowed instruments was little advanced, and music written for them was accord ingly limited in its style and construction. Vivaldi has been named as a pioneer in the art of design, and to the precedent set by him must be attributed the power of unfolding and arranging musical thought which gives to the orchestral and chamber works of after time a supreme position as intellectual and imaginative exercises. The name of Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) figures prominently Corelli. in the annals of violin playing, but, whatever the merit of his tone and his style, he employed but a limited portion of his instrument s compass ; and this is proved by his writ ings, wherein the parts for the violin never proceed above D on the first string, the highest note in the third position ; it is even said that he refused to play, as im possible, a passage which extended to A in altissimo in the overture to Handel s Trionfo del Tempo, and took serious offence when the composer played the note in evidence of its practicability. His compositions are still highly esteemed ; they consist of concertos a term which at the time defined concerted pieces for a band, not, as now, pieces for a solo player with orchestral accompani ment and sonatas, some for one, some for two violins with a bass ; they are melodious, but their harmony is not always pure, and, strange to say, though they were written in Italy, where the laws of rhythm and accent were first established, these are slighted in the music ; indeed, the longevity of Corelli s works must be due to some other cause than their merit. Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) greatly advanced theTartini. art of the violinist, as is testified by his compositions for the instrument and his treatise on its capabilities, and is further proved by the eminence of many of his pupils. Tartini contributed to science as well as to art in his discovery (1714) of "resultant tones," often called "Tartini s tones," and yet some writers ascribe the first perception of the phenomenon to Storge, a German, who described it sixteen years later. The phenomenon is this : when any two notes are produced steadily and with great intensity, a third note is heard, whose vibration number is the difference of those of the two primary notes. It follows from this that any two consecutive members of a harmonic series have the fundamental of that series for F their difference tone thus, p, the fourth and fifth harmonic, produce C, the prime or generator, at the interval of two pi octaves under the lower of those two notes; ^, the third and fifth harmonic, produce C, the second harmonic, at the interval of a 5th under the lower of those two notes. The discoverer was wont to tell his pupils that their double- stopping was not in tune unless they could hear the third note ; and our own distinguished player and teacher Henry Blagrove (1811-1872) gave the same admonition. The phenomenon has other than technical significance ; an ex periment by the Rev. Sir F. A. G. Ouseley showed that two pipes, tuned by measurement to so acute a pitch as to render the notes of both inaudible by human ears, when blown together produce the difference tone of the inaudible primaries, and this verifies the fact of the infinite upward range of sound which transcends the perceptive power of human organs. The obverse of this fact is that of any sound being deepened by an 8th if the length of the string