Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/234

222 again?" Is it so difficult to recognise in certain passages of his compositions reminiscences of these "little songs?" And who knows whether, in other circumstances, had he had a theatre at his disposal, he would not have gone with the tide, as the others did?

His sons offered no resistance to the movement. Italianism conquered them so thoroughly that one of them became—for a time—completely the Italian, under the name of Giovanni Bacchi. I am referring to Johann Christian Bach, the youngest of the family. He was fifteen years old at the time of his father's death, and had received at his hands a thorough musical training; he displayed a preference for the organ and the clavier. After his father's death he went to his brother Philipp Emmanuel in Berlin. There he found the Italianised opera of Graun and Hasse. The impression which it made upon him was so profound that he set out for Italy. He went to Bologna, and there this son of Johann Sebastian Bach placed himself under the discipline of Father Martini. For eight years, with Martini's assistance, he worked incessantly at the task of acquiring an Italian training and an Italian soul. At intervals he went to Naples, and there became a champion of the Neapolitan school of opera; and he produced a series of Italian operas based on poems by Metastasio, including Catone in Utica (1761) and Alessandro nelle Indie (1762), which enjoyed a great success. Burney said that "his airs were in the best Neapolitan taste."—But this is not all; having abjured his father's musical taste he likewise abjured his faith; the son of the great Bach became a Catholic. He