Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/87

Rh model for all the class in which vocal melody and the art of singing had blossomed into perfection: the Italian opera. The oratorios of Telemann, Hasse and Graun and the masses of the period are in the style of opera. In his Musikalische Patriot (1728), Mattheson breaks a lance against the contrapuntal style of church music: here as elsewhere he wishes to establish "the theatrical style," because this style, according to him, enables the composer to attain better than any other the aim of religious music, which is "to excite virtuous emotions." All is, or should be, he says, theatrical, in the widest sense of the word theatralisch, which denotes the artistic imitation of nature. "All that produces an effect upon men is theatrical. … Music is theatrical. … The whole world is a gigantic theatre." This theatrical style will permeate the whole art of music, even in those of its departments that seem most remote from it, the Lied and instrumental music.