Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/174

162 The critics of his day justified them likewise by the example of the ancients and the French classics. They did not tell themselves that in order to decide if a thing is good one must not ask oneself whether it was good and full of vitality at some previous period, but whether if it is so to-day. Herein lies the radical defect of such art as Metastasio's. It is full of taste and intelligence, perfectly balanced, but scholarly and sophisticated; it lacks audacity and vigour.

No matter! Though it was doomed to perish, it bore within it many ideas of the future. And who knows whether its worst misfortune was not the defeat suffered by Jommelli, who, of all the musicians subjected to its influence, was the most audacious and travelled farthest on the paths which Metastasio had opened up? Jommelli, who has sometimes been called the Italian Gluck, marks Italy's supreme effort to retain her primacy in opera. He sought to accomplish the reformation of musical tragedy without breaking with the Italian tradition, revivifying it by novel elements and above all by the dramatic power of the orchestra. He was not supported in his own country; and in Germany he was a foreigner, as was Metastasio. They were defeated; and their defeat was Italy's. The Italian Gluck founded no school. It was the German Gluck who assured the victory not merely of a form of art, but of a race.