Even in France, where people were much more stay-at-home, not caring greatly what was happening in Germany, it was realised that a revolution was taking place. As early as 1734, Séré de Rieux recorded Händel's victory over Germany.
Flavius, Tamerlan, Othon, Renaud, César,
Admete, Siroé, Rodelinde et Richard,
Éternel monuments dressés à sa mémoire.
Des Opéra Romains surpassèrent la gloire,
Venise lui peut-elle opposer un rival ?[1]
Grimm, who was a snob, and would have taken good care not to advertise a kinship that would have injured him in the eyes of the public, congratulates himself, in a letter to the Abbé Raynal in 1752, on being the compatriot of Hasse and Händel. Telemann was fêted in Paris in 1737; Hasse was no less warmly welcomed in 1750, and the Dauphin requested him to write the Te Deum for the accouchement of the Dauphiness. J. Stamitz obtained a triumphant reception for his first symphonies in Paris, about 1754–5. And soon after this the French newspapers made a crushing reference to Rameau, contrasting him with the German symphonists; or, to be exact, they said: "We shall not commit the injustice of comparing Rameau's overtures with the symphonies which Germany has given us during the last twelve or fifteen years."[2]
German music, then, had regained its position at the summit of European art; and the Germans realised it. In this national feeling all other differences were effaced; all German artists, to whatever group they belonged, set aside their causes of dispute; Germany united them without distinction of schools.
