Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/166

154 this idea was rather an intuition of genius whose fruits he never troubled to pluck.

The merit of having grasped the importance of this invention and of having utilised it in a logical and reasonable manner seems to belong to Hasse, working under Metastasio's influence, as Herr Hermann Abert has demonstrated. Beginning with Cleofide (1731), in which the second act closes with a great scene in recitativo accompagnato, a bold piece of work, Hasse employs accompagnati for curtains and the crises of the action: visions, apparitions, laments, invocations and tumultuous emotions. In the Clemenza di Tito (1738) Herr Abert calls attention to six accompagnati, five of which are reserved for the two principal male characters, depicting their inward anguish; the sixth, which is apportioned to a secondary character, describes the burning of the Capitol. Two of these great orchestral recitatives are not followed by an aria.—In the Didone abbandonata of 1743 especial note should be taken of the tragic dénouement, which (like so many other instances ) gives the lie to the inaccurate tradition that all operas before Gluck's days were compelled by the fashion to end happily. The whole drama is gathered up into this final scene, which is full of a sober violence and a tense emotion.

What part did Metastasio play in the erection of this poetico-musical architecture which reserves the orchestral recitative for the great moments of the action? We shall discover this from a memorable letter which he wrote to Hasse on the