Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/139

Rh Telemann, mischievously, amuses himself by riddling this version.

"The harmony" he says "is, until half way through, harsh and depressing; the words, despite their diversity, are rendered in the same fashion, which is fatiguing to the ear… There is, in the second bar, a pause which interrupts the meaning; in the seventh, a fault of prosody; rendre au jour in four syllables…" Then follow very accurate observations as to the manner in which a Frenchman "recites" a question—quite differently from an Italian—and the pronounciationpronunciation [sic] of various French words, which Graun had not properly grasped—the "privileged words" which should, in French, be vocalised in a particular fashion: "Triompher, voler, chanter, lire, gloire, victoire." (Here Telemann smiles a little ironical smile.) "As for the changes of time, they offer no difficulty whatever to a Frenchman. All this flows and effervesces and sparkles like champagne. … French recitatives, you say, are not liked in any part of the world. I know nothing about that, because the histories say nothing about it. But what I do know is that I have been acquainted with German, English, Russian and Polish singers, and even a couple of Jews, who used to sing to me by heart whole scenes of Atys, Bellérophon, etc. I imagine that this was because it pleased them. On the other hand, I have never met anyone who has said anything of the Welches but: "It is beautiful, it is excellent, it is incomparable, but I have not found it possible to remember any of it. …" He adds that if he himself commonly wrote his recitatives "in the Welche fashion, it was to follow the movement," but that he has composed whole cycles of sacred