who bears a doubly famous name. This is tantamount to saying that his tastes were those of the generation of Italians who lived between the times of Alessandro Scarlatti and Pergolesi. He too, like Quantz, dated back to 1720.
In patronizing Graun and Quantz, Frederick was therefore merely an Italianate conservative, who sought to defend, against the fashion of the day, "the productions of an age which was regarded as the Augustan age of music; the age of Scarlatti, Vinci, Leo and Porpora, as well as that of the greatest singers, since when, he considered, music had degenerated." In the face of a denationalised Vienna it was not worth while to pose as the representative of German art. Frederick would not have been far from agreement, in fundamentals, with the most Italianate coterie of Vienna: that of Hasse and Metastasio.[1] There was one only difference between his taste and that of the Viennese coterie: namely, his favourites were not the equals of Hasse and Metastasio. "Admitting," says Burney, "that the period of art which the king prefers is the best, he has not chosen its best representatives."
I am wrong: there was one other difference. In Vienna, whatever the exigencies of the musical fashion, music had always been free; the authorities, anything but liberal in other matters, allowed the musicians and lovers of music liberty of taste. In Berlin they had to obey; no taste other than the king's was permitted.
The extent to which the meddling tyranny of Frederick the Great interfered with music is
- ↑ He allowed operas by Hasse to be performed in Berlin, but was a declared enemy of Gluck; he treated Alceste to the harshest criticism, as did Agricola, Kirnberger, Forkel, and all his regiment of theorists, who fell into step behind him.
