Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/226

214 unimaginable. It was the same despotic spirit that prevailed throughout the whole organisation of Prussia. An inquisitional and menacing supervision weighed upon music—for the king was a musician: a flautist, a virtuoso, a composer, as all had reason to know. Every afternoon, at Sans-Souci, from five to six o'clock, he gave a concert consisting of performances on the flute. The Court was invited by command, and listened piously to the three or four "long and difficult" concertos which it pleased the king to inflict upon them. There was no danger of his running short of these: Quantz had composed three hundred, expressly for these concerts; he was forbidden to publish any of them, and no one else might play them. Burney amiably observes that "these concertos had no doubt been composed in an age when people held their breath better; for in some of the difficult passages, as in the organ-points, his Majesty was obliged, against the rules, to take breath in order to finish the passage." The Court listened in resignation, and it was forbidden to betray the