Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/90

78 Then the influence of French music, "the subtle imitator of nature" became preponderant over the development of Tonmalerei (painting by music) in German music —but what I wish to point out is that even the opponents of programme music, those who like Mattheson scoffed at the extravagance of the descriptions of battles and tempests, of musical calendars, of the puerile symbolism which represented in counterpoint the first chapter of St. Matthew, or the genealogical tree of the Saviour, or which, to represent Christ's Twelve Apostles, wrote as many parts,—even these attributed to instrumental music the power of representing the life of the soul.

"One can very well represent merely with instruments," says Mattheson, "greatness of soul, love, jealousy, etc. One can represent all the passions of the heart by simple harmonies and their concatenation, without words, so that the hearer grasps and understands the development, the meaning and the ideas of the musical utterance as though it were an actual spoken utterance."