Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/202

190 heard several concerts given under his direction, says that "his symphonies were full of a spirit and a fire which were peculiar to him. The instrumental parts were well written; he did not leave a single instrument idle long; and the violins above all were given no time to rest." Burney complained of him—and the same complaint was afterwards made of Mozart—that his music had "too many notes and too many allegro passages. He seemed positively to gallop. The impetuosity of his genius impelled him forward in a series of rapid movements which, in the long run, fatigued both the orchestra and the audience." Burney nevertheless admires "the truly divine beauty" of some of his adagios.

The Milanese gave evidence of a very decided taste for this symphonic music. There were many concerts in Milan, not only public, but private, at which small orchestras of amateurs performed; at these concerts they played the symphonies of Sammartini and Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. It often happened even that a performance of opera was replaced by a concert. And even in opera the result of this preference for instrumental music was—to the scandal of the elderly admirers of Italian singing—that the orchestra was too numerous, too powerful, and the complicated accompaniments tended to conceal the melody and stifle the voices.

Thus the principal centres of instrumental music were Turin and Milan; for vocal music, Venice and Naples.

Bologna stood at the head of Italian music: the brain that reasoned and controlled, the city