Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/438

 *ment of picturesqueness was secured by employing sources like oriental tales, the many mediæval legends and myths, or the treasury of Teutonic folk-lore about the peopling of all nature with mystic beings, good and evil. But these materials were handled realistically as facts, not fictions, with a sincerity and earnestness that shows some sense of their symbolic quality. There was apt to be much that was fantastic and uncanny, certainly some air of mystery and wonder. But much was also made of the imaginative treatment of physical scenery and phenomena, and of homely, naïve human life—in each case seizing upon aspects that pique the fancy and stir the heart. The musical drama at once caught the new literary note, reacting with relief from the hollow ideas, worn-out sentiment and affected conventionality of the usual Italian opera. As against the latter, the new German opera came like a refreshing breeze from the open country, and a voice from a hearty and uncontaminated society. Of this musical movement Weber was not the founder. It was 'in the air' before his day. Indeed, the revival of the singspiel and the new recognition of the song are plain evidences of its existence. Weber's distinction lay in his eminent success in bringing the tendency to full-rounded artistic expression.

Without implying that the romantic opera had a fixed or regular method (which was precisely what it avoided), it is possible to make some statements about its usual features, which grew out of its untrammeled dramatic nature.

The strict recitative was rare, its place being taken, where necessary, by spoken dialogue; but declamatory passages might occur anywhere. The formal aria, though its outlines remain, was so disguised as to seem a free lyric or dramatic utterance, passing over constantly into the scena. The simple folk-song type of melody became more frequent—folk-like airs, not actual popular songs (as in the ballad-opera). Concerted passages, for soloists or chorus, abounded, not as set numbers by themselves, but as natural incidents in the action. In all these regards we see the desertion of the notion that the opera is a concert-form, made up of items devised for the behoof of star singers. The dramatic plan and ensemble are now supreme.

But the freshness of the type was nowhere more evident than in the handling of the instrumentation. The new resources of the orchestra were freely drawn upon to heighten the realism and impressiveness of the scenes, to set forth the sequence of emotions, to supply 'atmosphere.' To this end the overture was made significant, not as a detached set of movements in conventional form, but as a real prelude to the action,