Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/82

70 which is the source of the great Viennese classics, is contemporary with the works of J. S. Bach and Händel. More, even in their lifetime it enjoyed precedence over them. As early as 1737 (the year following Händel's Alexander's Feast, and preceding Saul and the whole series of the magnificent oratorios), Frederic II. of Prussia, then Crown Prince, wrote to the Prince of Orange:

And Frederic II. contrasted with this art, which was now "out of fashion," that of "his composer," as he describes C. H. Graun.

In 1722–3, when J. S. Bach applied for the post of Cantor of St. Thomas's in Leipzig, in succession to Kuhnau, Telemann was greatly preferred to him, and it was only because the latter did not want the post that it was given to Bach. This same Telemann, in 1704, at the beginning of his career, when he was as yet hardly known, outstripped the glorious Kuhnau, so powerful already was the influence of the new fashion. Subsequently the movement only gained in strength. A poem by Zacharia, which reflects with sufficient accuracy the opinion of the most cultivated circles in Germany, The Temple of Eternity, written in 1754, places Händel, Hasse and Graun on the same level, celebrates Telemann in terms which one might employ to-day in speaking of J. S. Bach, and when it comes to Bach