Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/228

216

This detail gives us the measure of the musical freedom enjoyed in Berlin. An Italian pseudo-classicism reigned in a tyrannical fashion permitting neither change nor progress. Burney is scandalised by this tyranny.

We may add that Berlin was above all a city of musical professors and theorists, who assuredly did not permit themselves to discuss the king's taste, for they were all more or less officials, like the chiefest among them, Marpurg, who was director of the royal lottery and councillor to the Ministry of War. They avenged themselves upon this constraint by bitter disputes, and their squabbles did nothing to add to the liberty or the amenity of musical life in Berlin.

"Musical disputes," says Burney, "are accompanied in Berlin with more heat and animosity than anywhere else. Indeed, as there are more theorists than performers in this city,