As early as 1740, at the performances of opera, the audience could no longer understand the words of the singers unless it followed them in the libretto: the accompaniment smothered the voices.[1] And the dramatic orchestra continued to develop throughout the century. "The immoderate use of the instrumental accompaniment" says Gerber, "has become a general fashion." The orchestra swamped the theatre to such an extent that at a very early period it freed itself from it, and claimed in itself to be theatre and drama. As early as 1738, Scheibe, who with Mattheson was the most intelligent of the German musicologists, was writing symphony-overtures, which expressed "the content of the pieces," after the fashion of Beethoven's overtures for Coriolanus and Leonora.[2] I will not speak of the descriptions in music which abounded in Germany about 1720, as we see from Mattheson's bantering remarks in his Critica Musica. The movement came from Italy, where Vivaldi and Locatelli, under the influence of the opera, were writing programme concertos which were spreading all over Europe.[3]
- ↑ Lorenz Mizler: Musical Bibl., 1740, Leipzig, vol. ii., see p. 13, quoted by W. Krefeld: Das Orchester der Oper, 1898. See also Mattheson: Die neueste Untersuching der Singspiele, 1744, Hamburg.
- ↑ Scheibe's overtures to Polyeuctes ein Märtyrer and Mithridates. C. H. Schmid, in his Chronologie des deutschen Theaters, 1755, Leipzig, calls this attempt "one of the great memorable events of the year." See Karl Mennicke: Hasse und die Brüder Graun als Symphoniker, 1906, Leipzig.
- ↑ Such as the four concertos of Vivaldi devoted to the four seasons, or the concertos La Tempesta, La Notte, etc. Each of the concertos of the seasons illustrates a programme which is set forth in a sonnet. I will refer the reader to the analysis of the charming concerto of Autumn, by Herr Arnold Schering (Geschichte des instrumental Konzerts, 1905, Breitkopf.) Herr Schering has traced the influence of these works upon Graupner, at Darmstadt, and J. G. Werner, Haydn's predecessor as Prince Esterhazy's Kapellmeister.
