Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/92

80 upon his path, and not to retrace his steps;—and which, on the other hand, dread fluctuations of feeling, consenting to them only on condition that they present themselves under symmetrical aspects, contrasts of a somewhat stiff and mechanical nature between the piano and the forte, the tutti and concertino; in the form of "echoes," as they were called in those days. It seemed inartistic to express one's individual feeling in an immediate fashion; one had perforce to interpose between oneself and the public a veil of beautiful and impersonal forms. Doubtless the works of this period gained thereby their superb appearance of lofty serenity, which hides the little joys and little sorrows. But how much humanity they lose thereby!—This humanity gives musical utterance to its cry of emancipation with the artists of the new period. Obviously we cannot expect that it will at the first step attain the palpitating freedom of a Beethoven. Yet the roots of Beethoven's art exist already, as has been shown, in the Mannheim symphonies, in the work of that astonishing Johann Stamitz, whose orchestral trios, written in 1750, mark a new period. Through him instrumental music became the supple garment of the living soul, always in movement, perpetually changing, with its unexpected fluctuations and contrasts.

I do not wish to exaggerate. One can never express in art an emotion in all its purity, but only a more or less approximate image of it; and the progress of a language such as music is can only approach the emotion more and more closely without