Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/364

 Between 1760 and 1780, however, came the revolution proclaimed and executed by Gluck, which aimed to uproot established traditions, to emancipate the opera from its long slavery to the mere concert ideal, and to make it again what its early progenitors had meant it to be, a true drama in music. Gluck reached his convictions by slow processes of study and reflection, and he advanced them by argument as well as by illustration, thus precipitating a violent discussion that extended over many years. But the time was ripe for new views, and they were consciously or unconsciously adopted by other composers after 1780. Foremost in this number was Mozart, whose effective period immediately succeeded that of Gluck.

One of the minor features of the period was the reversion in Germany to the old singspiel type, with its freedom to use spoken dialogue and its predilection for simple songs.

151. The Later Neapolitans.—The popularity of the concert-opera in the sensuous melodic style of southern Italy was upheld by a large number of prolific and often talented writers, and their works were in favor all over Europe. In one case, that of Piccinni, by the exigencies of a Parisian partisan debate this type was brought into direct and disastrous competition with the stronger ideas of Gluck, but elsewhere it encountered little opposition until about the time of the French Revolution (1792-5). After that time the Neapolitan school as such followed the Venetian and the Bolognese into oblivion, its best representatives, like Cherubini, becoming merged in new groups, characterized by tendencies that belong rather to the 19th century.

Several of the composers mentioned in secs. 125-126 continued at work after 1750—notably Jommelli (d. 1774) at Stuttgart and Naples, Duni (d. 1775) at Paris, Hasse (d. 1783) at Dresden and Vienna, Bernasconi (d. 1784) at Munich, and Galuppi (d. 1785) at St. Petersburg and Venice. At Paris, also, was the veteran Rameau (d. 1764), representing the best of the native French style (see sec. 127).

Tommaso Traetta (d. 1779), born in 1727 at Naples and trained for nine years under Durante, began as a church composer, but from 1751 became noted as an opera-writer, working in 1758-65 at Parma, then at Venice, and in 1768-75 at St. Petersburg (following Galuppi), with visits to Vienna (1759, '60), Munich (1767) and London (1775-6). As examples of his over 35 operas may be mentioned Ezio (1754, Rome), Ippolito ed Aricia (1759,