[26] See Strabo's Geography, Bohn edition, vol. ii. p. 120.
[27] The Bible Sonatas, together with Kuhnau's other piano works and his prose writings, may be had in vol. iv. of the Denkmäler Deutscher Tonkunst, carefully edited by Karl Päsler. Mr. Shedlock, in his book on The Pianoforte Sonata, gives a pretty full account of Kuhnau; but it is a pity he could not have found space for a complete translation of the preface to the Bible Sonatas.
[28] "He was and remained," says Wagner, "a prince's musical officer, with the duty of catering for the entertainment of his pomp-struck master.... Docile and devout, the peace of his kind and cheerful temper stayed unruffled till advanced old age; only the eye, that looks upon us from his portrait, is suffused with a gentle melancholy."
[29] See Ambros: Die Grenzen der Musik und Poesie (1885), iv. v.
[30] It is significant that even the sturdy, independent Gluck too fell a victim to princely patronage in the very middle of his career. After striking out for himself in Telemacco (1749) and La Clemenza di Tito (1750), and apparently being well on the way to the reform of the opera, he became, in 1754, Kapellmeister at Vienna. From that date to 1762, when Orfeo was produced, he wrote, not like Gluck, but like a court servant. See a pithy paragraph on the subject in Mr. Hadow's book, The Viennese Period (vol. v. of the Oxford History of Music), p. 90.
[31] The development of the opera, too, was an important factor. It was not till men had mastered dramatic musical expression in association with words that they could properly aim at the same kind of expression without words.
[32] Even Berlioz, in a weak moment, said he hoped that the music of the Symphonie fantastique would itself "have a musical interest, independent of the dramatic intention," though he insisted on the title, at any rate, of each movement being given to the audience. See his Preface to the Symphony.
[33] Here, and elsewhere in this article, I venture to make my quotations from Mr. W. Ashton Ellis's translation of Wagner's prose works.
[34] I am not, of course, agreeing with Wagner's criticism of Berlioz; it seems to me quite superficial and unilluminative, but to discuss it would be foreign to our present purpose.
[35] The reader will understand that I am not founding my case on the actual musical value of Ein Heldenleben; I am only using that work as an illustration of an æsthetic theory. In the actual Heldenleben there is rather more grit than I like; but there is no real need for it to have been put there. In the article on Strauss in the present volume I have tried to show how he has needlessly weakened his scheme by not keeping to the one piece of portraiture throughout.