Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/30

14 specimens of this kind remaining—almost all in the three movement-form, which was becoming the set order for symphonies. Setting aside those specially imitated from Vivaldi, there are at least twenty concertos by him for all sorts of solo instruments and combinations of solo instruments in this same form. It cannot therefore be doubted that some of the development of the symphony-form took place in this department. But Bach never to any noticeable extent yielded to the tendency to break the movements up into sections with corresponding tunes; and this distinguishes his work in a very marked manner from that of the generation of composers who followed him. His art belongs in reality to a different stratum from that which produced the greater forms of abstract instrumental music. It is probable that his form of art could not without some modification have produced the great orchestral symphonies. In order to get to these, composers had to go to a different, and for some time a decidedly lower, level. It was much the same process as had been gone through before. After Palestrina a backward move was necessary to make it possible to arrive at the art of Bach and Handel. After Bach men had to take up a lower line in order to get to Beethoven. In the latter case it was necessary to go through the elementary stages of defining the various contrasting sections of a movement, and finding that form of harmonic treatment which admitted the great effects of colour or varieties of tone in the mass, as well as in the separate lines of the counterpoint. Bach's position was so immensely high that several generations had to pass before men were able to follow on his lines and adopt his principles in harmonic music. The generation that followed him showed scarcely any trace of his influence. Even before be had passed away the new tendencies of music were strongly apparent, and much of the elementary work of the modern sonata form of art had been done on different lines from his own.

The 'Sinfonia avanti l'Opera' was clearly by this time sufficiently independent and complete to be appreciated without the opera, and without either name or programme to explain its meaning; and within a very short period the demand for these sinfonias became very great. Burney's tours in search of materials for his History, in France, Italy, Holland, and Germany, were made in 1770 and 72, before Haydn had written any of his greater symphonies, and while Mozart was still a boy. His allusions to independent 'symphonies' are very frequent. Among those whose works he mentions with most favour are Stamitz, Emmanuel Bach, Christian Bach, and Abel. Works of the kind by these composers and many others of note are to be seen in great numbers in sets of part-books in the British Museum. These furnish most excellent materials for judging of the status of the Symphony in the early stages of its independent existence. The two most important points which they illustrate are the development of instrumentation, and the definition of form. They appear to have been generally written in eight parts. Most of them are scored for two violins, viola, and bass; two hautboys, or two flutes, and two 'cors de chasse.' This is the case in the six symphonies of opus 3 of John Christian Bach; the six of Abel's opus 10, the six of Stamitz's opus 9, opus 13, and opus 16; also in a set of 'Overtures in 8 parts' by Arne, which must have been early in the field, as the licence from George II, printed in full at the beginning of the first violin part, is dated January $17 40⁄41$. The same orchestration is found in many symphonies by Galuppi, Ditters, Schwindl, and others. Wagenseil, who must have been the oldest of this group of composers (having been born in the 17th century, within six years after Handel, Scarlatti, and Bach), wrote several quite in the characteristic harmonic style, 'à 4 parties obligées avec Cors de Chasse ad libitum.' The treatment of the instruments in these early examples is rather crude and stiff. The violins are almost always playing, and the hautboys or flutes are only used to reinforce them at times as the 'ripieni' instruments did in the early concertos, while the horns serve to hold on the harmonies. The first stages of improvement are noticeable in such details as the independent treatment of the strings. In the 'symphonies before the opera' the violas were cared for so little that in many cases not more than half-a-dozen bars are written in, all the rest being merely 'col basso.' As examples of this in works of more or less illustrious writers may be mentioned the 'Sinfonias' to Jomelli's 'Passione' and 'Betulia Liberata,' Sacchini's 'Œdipus,' and Sarti's 'Giulio Sabino.' One of the many honours attributed to Stamitz by his admiring contemporaries was that he made the violas independent of the basses. This may seem a trivial detail, but it is only by such details, and the way in which they struck contemporary writers, that the character of the gradual progress in instrumental composition can now be understood.

The general outlines of the form were extremely regular. The three movements as above described were almost invariable, the first being a vigorous broad allegro, the second the sentimental slow movement, and the third the lively vivace. The progress of internal structure is at first chiefly noticeable in the first movement. In the early examples this is always condensed as much as possible, the balance of subjects is not very clearly realisable, and there is hardly ever a double bar or repeat of the first half of the movement. The divisions of key, the short 'working out' portion, and the recapitulation, are generally present, but not pointedly defined. Examples of this condition of things are supplied by some MS. symphonies by Paradisi in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, which in other respects possess excellent and characteristically modern traits. The first thing attained seems to have been the relative definition and balance of the two subjects. In Stamitz, Abel, J. C. Bach, and Wagenseil, this is already commonly met with. The following