Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/94

82 of the continual alternation of the piano and the forte." They profit by all the recent conquests, by the progress of the orchestra, by the audacious harmonic researches of a Telemann, replying to the scandalised old masters who tell him that one must not go too far, that one must go "down to the very depths if one wishes to deserve the name of Master. " They profit also by the new styles of music, by the Singspiel which has just taken shape. They boldly introduce the comic style into the symphony, side by side with the serious style, at the risk of scandalising Philipp Emmanuel Bach, who sees in the eruption of the comic style (Styl so beliebte Komische) an element of decadence in music —a decadence which was to lead to Mozart.—In short, their law is that of life and nature—the same law which is about to permeate the whole art of music, resuscitating the Lied, giving birth to the Singspiel, and leading to those experiments in the utmost freedom in theatrical music which are known as Melodrama: free music united to free speech.

For this great breath of liberation of the individual soul we should be grateful; it stirred the thought of all Europe about the middle of the eighteenth century, before expressing itself in action by the French Revolution and in art by romanticism. If the German music of that time is still far removed from the romantic spirit (although we already find in it certain precursory signs) it is because it was