CHAPTER II.

DIFFERENT SCHOOLS CORRESPONDING WITH THE GROWTH OF MUSICAL ART.

The centuries see little change in the elements of the drama—Growth of opera concurrent with the progress of the art of music—Points of difference between early operas (Monteverde, etc.) and those of Scarlatti and later writers—Birth of the aria—England and France of the same date—Opera buffa—Musical empiricism—Gluck—His followers—Varying subjects treated—Italian opera —Abuses by the singers—Wagner and modern opera.

[Sidenote: =Little change in the Drama=]

The changes that have taken place in opera during the short three hundred years which constitute the life of modern music are far more prominent and important than those that have been undergone by the ordinary dramatic work: the arts of elocution, gesture, and stage action are very old ones, and have seen little radical change for many centuries. Great progress has been made through the use of modern mechanical devices and inventions in the mounting of all stage pieces—_i.e._, in the scenery employed, the lighting, and stage effects generally: these all appeal to the eye; but the appeal to the ear is not, in an ordinary dramatic work, more powerfully made than it was in the days of the Greek dramatist. But when music is added, then appeal to the ear of a most powerful kind takes place, and during the whole life of the youngest of the Arts the improvements and growth in musical technique and expression have been grafted upon opera with continuously progressive power and effect.

[Sidenote: =Growth concurrent with the progress of the Art of Music=]

Now, since opera has demanded for its representation an art that has been in a state of continuous growth, it will follow that the different classes of opera will closely correspond with the different styles and schools of music: we shall find therefore that the earliest operas were only able to employ crude and undeveloped music, none better being available; that as musical skill and knowledge grew, as additional instruments were added to the orchestra, as knowledge of forms developed, so all these improvements found their way into operatic music, with the result that the difference between say a seventeenth and an eighteenth century opera is a very wide one, while a vaster difference still may be seen between one of the eighteenth and one of the late nineteenth century.

We may briefly examine the causes of these differences, taking the dawn of all modern music (about 1600 A.D.) as the starting-point.

[Sidenote: =Points of difference=]

If we take the operas of the first few years of the seventeenth century, what do we find? That the form of tonality in use was the mode and not the scale; that time (_i.e._, measured music), as we now know it, did not exist; that harmony, as we now know it, did not exist; and that the instruments of the orchestra (although some have survived), were in the main instruments which have fallen into disuse, many of them having no modern counterparts. It needs little pointing out that this form of opera must have sounded very different to its successors.

[Sidenote: =Monteverde’s innovations=]

The next important innovations, generally accredited to =Monteverde=, include the dramatic effects of _pizzicato_ and _tremolo_ passages for the stringed instruments—devices which have been used with the happiest results by all composers of subsequent date. Such devices, unknown in church music anterior to this time, or even in the music written for instruments only without voices in the church style, are most effectively employed for the illustration of certain situations on the stage: the mere introduction of these alone is sufficient to separate this school of opera from that which preceded it.

[Sidenote: =Use of Orchestra=]

But Monteverde’s inventions or adoptions did not stop here, for it was he who first added many instruments to the orchestra; not only did he employ additional instruments, but he used them in such a way as to wed certain characters or situations to music in which certain sets of instruments were employed, thus anticipating the much later Wagnerian device of accompanying certain ideas by a fixed theme, or by particular combinations in the orchestra.

[Sidenote: =Adoption of Melody=]

So far the music of the opera was confined to recitative: that is, to the musical rendering of the dialogue without regular rhythm or melody. Another period of opera opened out altogether, when composers began to adapt portions of the dialogue to regular formal melody of a rhythmic nature, and in the diatonic scale, much as we now know it.

Credit for this is generally given to =Cavalli=, and his example was followed by a well-known early opera writer, =Alessandro Scarlatti=. The recitative of the latter took, too, a richer shape and form, inasmuch as it was now often accompanied by the whole of the orchestra, instead of merely by the continuous bass, completed by harpsichord harmonies.

[Sidenote: =Birth of the Aria=]

Scarlatti, however, may claim a more still important innovation, the adoption of set forms: his ideas were often cast into lyrical shapes, his solos were often arias of definite mould, and above all, he deliberately adopted the _Da Capo_ Aria in the majority of his works. This _Da Capo_ Aria would be described by a student of modern form as a “Ternary” movement, in so far as its first part was entirely repeated after the performance of a contrasted middle section. That Scarlatti’s invention killed itself by its own popularity is a matter to be spoken of elsewhere: suffice it to notice that the introduction of the “_Da Capo_” Aria brought into existence a new form of opera, different to all that had gone before.

[Sidenote: =England and France=]

Meanwhile opera was progressing in Germany, France, and England, each school having certain distinguishing characteristics. Purcell’s work in England was unlike that of any Continental opera composer, and his melodies have a boldness, freedom, and ring about them quite their own: English music of the period was a reflex of the national character, straightforward, honest, and vigorous. At the same time, Lully in France was developing quite another side of opera, by the introduction of the ballet, a form that has been retained till within quite recent times by the French.

[Sidenote: =Opera Buffa=]

Handel, although the success of his operas killed, for the time being, all English-born ideas, added little or nothing to the forms of Scarlatti; he practically left opera where he found it, nor were his works as widely known on the Continent as in England. More importance may be attached to the rise, on the Continent, of a lighter form of opera, entitled “Opera Buffa,” in contradistinction to which opera proper received the title of “Opera Seria.” This delightful type had its rise in the _intermezzo_ played between the acts of a dramatic piece, and only gradually obtained a separate existence: from the early attempts of Pergolesi and others there sprung an entirely new class of work, which had great influence on the history of opera generally.

Another step towards the now universally known form of opera was made when Logroscino invented the Concerted Finale, bringing several of his characters on to the stage at the same time, and giving them a simultaneous share in the music.

[Sidenote: =Musical Empiricism=]

Let us notice that all these improvements effected _in the music_ gradually led composers away from the true object of its use in opera, namely, that of enhancing the general effect produced; the music began to be looked upon as so important and so interesting on its own account that all dramatic considerations were allowed to lapse. Meanwhile the personalities of the singers, as opposed to that of the characters they were personating, and their vocal abilities were thrust forward to the exclusion of almost all else.

[Sidenote: =Gluck=]

This brought about an entire change of method, the dramatic and far-seeing composer Gluck remodelling opera entirely, and endeavouring to bring it, with the added resources made possible by the improvements in musical technique, into line with the consistent ideas of the Florentine amateurs, who endeavoured to reproduce opera on the model of the ancient Greeks.

[Sidenote: =Gluck’s Followers=]

Gluck’s reforms had a very wide influence upon the history of opera, which will be more fully dwelt upon in another place; an influence that may be traced in the magnificent efforts of the group of German masters that followed in the general lines laid down by him in their adherence to dramatic truth and fitness. Moreover, these composers, the greatest that the world has ever known, were developing the resources of music of all kinds, and their achievements in the field of composition generally were reflected in their writings for the stage. Consequently, we find in the operas of Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert an advance in musical technique corresponding with the rapid strides which the art of music as a whole was then making.

[Sidenote: =Varying Subjects Treated=]

And again, their varied and diverse temperaments led them into widely different directions in their search for libretti, a point in which they were followed by Spohr, Marschner, Cherubini, Spontini, and others. The whole range of the field of opera was widening out, and the subjects selected for treatment were no longer solely classical or cast into classic mould, but included the romantic, the chivalrous, the supernatural, the plebeian, and other types of plot and character; these wide differences were of course reflected in the music.

Another point to be noticed about this period of opera is that the orchestra employed began to settle down into definite shape, the constituent instruments being those which form what we now call the classical orchestra. These instruments are such as are to be found (with one or two exceptions) in the orchestra of to-day, and such operas therefore admit of reproduction at the present time, because, although other instruments have been added to those which form the ordinary classical orchestra, no radical changes in methods of scoring have taken place since the time of Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber.

[Sidenote: =Italian Opera=]

Opera had now become so many-sided an art form that it will be impossible in this brief _resumé_ of its history to follow it through all its varieties; the principal of these were the “Opera Comique” of the French, the Ballad Opera of the English, and the melodic and tuneful form of Italian opera, which claims Rossini as its shining light, and which, by its other sons, Donizetti and Bellini, attracted and riveted public attention in Europe for so long.

[Sidenote: =Abuses by the Singers=]

In the Italian form of opera, the aggressive and encroaching qualities of the _prime donne_ threw certain portions of the music (_i.e._, their own arias and songs) into such prominence as to dwarf all else. Abuses were again to the fore; the solo singers, male as well as female, made the opera; plot, action, suitability, dramatic fitness—all mattered little so long as there were plenty of flourishes, vocal cadenzas, and roulades.

[Sidenote: =Wagner=]

As in the days of Gluck, a strong man arose to revolutionize the whole trend of things, to turn the music back into its proper channel, to stop its overwhelmingly preponderant importance, and to restore harmony among the arts employed for the proper rendering of musical drama. This man was Wagner, beyond whose achievements opera has as yet moved no step. His methods of orchestration, his additions to the ordinary orchestra, his devices of guiding themes, and of the continual employment of song-like (although unrhythmic) melody, known as _Melos_, constitute so many new features in the history of opera.

Modern opera, since his time, has presented us with nothing sufficiently fresh to justify for itself the claim to have had any radical influence in operatic development. The resources of the technique of the art, the increased freedom with which remote discords and far-fetched modulations are attacked, the greater facility exhibited by composers in welding various themes together, and in their use of the orchestra, are only a following of the principles and practices of Wagner. Since his mighty operas were produced there is no epoch-making event to chronicle.

Thus, side by side with the development and progress of the composition and practice of music, opera has developed and progressed, from the days of the simple monodic school, to the complex polyphony of the twentieth century. This has been briefly, and without detail, demonstrated above; and we now turn to a more analytical examination of the various phases of opera. Before doing this, however, it will be as well to examine a little more deeply into the causes of the somewhat frequent checks in its history, which we have cursorily mentioned, and of the reforms and uprootings of the abuses which have constantly hindered its growth: a brief enquiry into those abuses will help us more clearly to understand what opera really should be, and also how much is due to those stalwart heroes of opera who have defied the whole of the civilized world in their efforts to establish, or to re-establish, it upon a proper basis.