Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/157



one of the great musicians or poet-musicians of the eighteenth century was indifferent to the problems of the lyric drama. All laboured to perfect it, or to establish it on new foundations. It would be an injustice to attribute the reform of opera to Gluck alone. Händel, Hasse, Vinci, Rameau, Telemann, Graun, Jommelli, and many others gave time and thought to the matter. Metastasio himself, who is often represented as the chief obstacle to the establishment of the modern lyric drama, because he was opposed to Gluck, was no less anxious than Gluck (although in another fashion) to introduce into opera all the physiological and dramatic truth that was compatible with beauty of expression.

It may perhaps be profitable to recall how the talent of this poet was formed—the most musical writer ever known: "the man," Burney ventures to say, "whose writings have probably contributed more to the perfection of vocal melody and music in general than the united efforts of all the great European composers."

From the time of his first beginnings as a child prodigy, the study of music had given him the idea Rh