unless a man is strong enough to force them to listen to what they have at first no mind for; and even then the public have, as it were, a casting vote.

It cannot be pretended that all the causes of the different aspects of opera in different countries can be conclusively shown; but the general and familiar facts are strangely in accordance with the general traits of national character which are commonly observed. The Italians appear to have been the most spontaneously gifted with artistic capabilities of any nation in Europe. In painting they occupy almost the whole field of the greatest and most perfect art; especially of the art produced in the times when simple beauty of form and colour was the main object of artists. In music too they started every form of modern art. Opera, oratorio, cantata, symphony, organ music, violin music, all sprang into life under their auspices. But in every branch they stopped half-way, when the possibilities of art were but half explored, and left it to other nations to gather the fruit of the tree which they had planted. Numbers of causes combine to make this invariable result. One of the most prominent is curiously illustrated by the history of opera. The Italians are generally reputed to be on the average very receptive and quickly excitable. The eagerness of composers for sympathetic response is found in the same quarters as quick receptiveness of audiences to the music that suits them. The impressions which are quickly produced do not always spring from the most artistic qualities. But the Italian composer cannot take note of that; he is passionately eager for sympathy and applause, and is impelled to use all the most obvious incitements to obtain them, without consideration of their fitness. The way in which Italian opera composers resort to the most direct means to excite their audiences is a commonplace of everyday observation. The type of opera aria, which was polished and made more and more perfectly adapted to the requirements of the singer from Scarlatti's time to Mozart's, was ultimately degraded, under the influence of this eagerness for applause, into the obvious, catchy opera tunes which are the most familiar features of the works of the early

part of this century. The good artistic work which used to be put into the accompaniment, and was often written in a contrapuntal form by the composers of the best time, degenerated into worthless jigging formulas, like the accompaniments to dance tunes, which have neither artistic

purpose nor characteristic relevancy to the situation. The blustering and raging of brass instruments when there is no excuse for it in the dramatic situation, and such tricks as the whirling Rossinian crescendo (which is like a dance of dervishes all about nothing), produce physical excitement without any simultaneous exaltation of higher faculties. These and many more features of the same calibre are the fruits of the excessive eagerness in the composer for immediate sympathetic response from his audience. He has no power to be selfdependent, or to take his own view of what is worthy of art or what is not, or of what represents his own identity. The thirst for the passionate joy of a popular triumph must have its satisfaction. What men constantly set themselves to obtain they generally succeed in obtaining; and the objects of Italian opera composers have been abundantly achieved. The furore of Italian operatic triumphs, such as the Rossini fever after Tancredi, surpasses anything recorded or conceivable in connection with any other branch of art. The opera tunes of Bellini, Donizetti, and the early works of Verdi have appealed to the largest public ever addressed by a musician; and that was till recently the sum of their contribution towards the modern development of their art. In respect of the details of workmanship of which their public were not likely to take much notice, such as the orchestration, they were careless and coarse; and the advance made from the standard of Mozart all round until recent times was made backwards.

The Italians emphasised the musical means of appealing to their audiences from the first; the French, on the other hand, always had more feeling for the drama, and stage effect, and ballet. Though the stories of Roland, Armide, Phaeton, and the other subjects Lulli used are somewhat formal in their method of presentation, they are made quite intelligible, and

the sitaations are often very good, and very well treated. In that sense, indeed, Lulli's work is more genuine than Scarlatti's. The same aspect of things continues throughout the history of French opera. French audiences seem to have been capable of being impressed by the pathos, tragedy, and human interest. and beauty of the situations. Their minds seem to have been projected more towards the subject than the music. Gluck's dramatic purpose found a response in Paris that he failed to find even in Vienna, where Italian traditions prevailed. Things would seem to have bid fair in the end for French opera. When Italians came under French influence they did good work. French influence helped Cherubini to achieve his great operatic successes. Perhaps the enigmatical relation between his reputed character and his actual work may have been somewhat owing to Parisian influence. Personally he appeared to be endowed with all the pride, reserve, and narrowness of a pedant, yet his Overture to Anacreon is as genial as the ancient poet himself may be assumed to have been, and expresses all the fragrance and sparkle of the wine of which he sang with such enthusiasm. He was cold and hard and devoid of sympathetic human nature, but nevertheless he devised the tragic intensity of his opera Medea with unquestionable success.

In later days the influence exerted by French taste upon Rossini is even more notable and pregnant with meaning. After his wild triumphs in Italy he came into contact with the French operatic traditions, and they at once brought out whatever there was of real dramatic sincerity in his constitution. "William Tell," the one work which he wrote for a Parisian audience, puts him in quite a new light; for under the influence of a more genuinely dramatic impulse even his artistic work improved; the orchestration becomes quite interesting, the type of musical ideas is better, and they are better expressed, and the general feeling of the whole is more sincere and rich in feeling.

In light comic operettas and operatic comedies the acute sympathy of the French with the stage produced the happiest results of all. In this line the French took their cue from the

ness.

Italian opera buffa, which had been introduced a little before Gluck's time, and became very noticeable by reason of the ferment of controversy that it produced. Once rooted in the soil and cultivated by French composers, it was found to be even more at home than in Italy. The quick wit, and the sense of finish—even the element of the superficial which the French cultivate with so much interest and care-all told to make the product peculiarly happy. A special style was developed, which in the hands of many coniposers was singularly refined, neat, and perfectly artistic. The music is merry, and attains the true comedy vein without descending to buffoonery; carelessly gay, without being inartistic in detail. In the early days no doubt the resources of art were not very carefully used; and however excellent the spirit and wit of Grétry, it cannot be pretended that he attempted to deal with the inner and less obvious phases of his work with any artistic complete He professedly contemned musicianship, and in a sense he was right. The typical pedant never shows more truly the inherent stupidity of his nature than when he obtrudes conscious artistic contrivance into light subjects. But the perfect mastery of artistic resource does not obtrude its artistic contrivances. It uses them so well that they are perfectly merged in the general effect. The fact that Bach was the most perfect master of artistic contrivance did not prevent his writing perfectly gay dance tunes; and Mozart's careful education in the mysteries of his craft enabled him to write his comic scenes in a fully artistic manner, without putting up sign-posts to tell people when to look out for a piece of artistic skill. In that respect Grétry was wrong, and his successors much wiser. For men like Auber and Bizet and Gounod, and other still living representatives of this branch of art, use the resources of their orchestra with most consummate skill at the lightest moments; just hitting the balance of art and gaiety to a nicety; while the rounding and articulation of their phraseology, the variety and clearness of their ideas, and the excellence of their design, up to the point required in such work, is truly admirable. In no other branch of music is the French genius so completely at home and

happy. Even in the coarser types of the same family of operetta, which have become rather popular in recent times, the composers who set the licentious and unwholesomely suggestive dialogue at least caught something of the spirit of their more refined brethren, and showed a skill of instrumental resource and a neatness of musical expression and treatment which are surprising in relation to such subjects. Whenever the play aims at real human interest, and the capacity of the composer for looking at it as human interest is equal to the demand, French effort, even in the more serious branch of opera, produces eminently sincere and artistic results. But in the more serious subjects it has been generally happiest in very reserved phases like those illustrated by Cherubini and Méhul. The dangerous susceptibility of the French nature to specious show and mere external effect seems peculiarly liable to mislead them when it comes to great or imposing occasions. The French are so devoted to "style" that they omit to notice that it is a thing which may be very successfully cultivated to disguise inherent depravity and falseness. It seems to be chiefly owing to this weakness that the result of their enthusiasm for musical drama does not come nearer to the complete solution of the problem of opera. At all events, the most imposing result obtained in the direction of French opera is strictly in accordance with those characteristics of the nation which have persisted so long that they were even noticed by the conquering Romans.

The influence is apparent even in Lulli's and Rameau's work. The spectacular side is carefully attended to, and forms a conspicuous element in the sum total. Gluck had to submit, and to satisfy the taste to a certain extent; and its effect is even more noticeable in the works of his successor, Spontini. In many ways, however, French influence had an excellent effect upon the latter composer. His operas are

singularly full of true dramatic expression; the details of orchestral effect are worked out with marvellous care, and are extremely rich and full of variety for the time when he wrote. The scores are marked almost as fully and carefully as Wag ner's, and the inner and outer phrases are thoroughly articu