Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/238

226 In these German masters, conscious of their superiority, there gradually developed a desire, avowed or unconfessed, to conquer Italy with her own weapons. We are struck by the Germanic pride which we perceive increasing in Gluck and Mozart. And these brilliant Italianisers are the first to try their powers in the German Lied.

Even in the theatre we see the German language reconquering its place. Burney, who, after calling attention to the musical qualities of the language, was at first astonished that more use was not made of it in the theatre, very soon realised that musical compositions in the German language were beginning to spread through Saxony and in the north of the Empire. Since the middle of the century the poet Christian Felix Weisse and the musicians Standfuss and Johann Adam Hiller were composing, at Leipzig, in imitation of the English operetta and the comic operas of Favart, German operettas (Singspiele), the first example of which (1752) (Der Teufel ist los, oder die verwandelten Weiber). "The Devil is loose, or the Gossips Transformed," was soon followed by a quality of similar works.