One should notice the predilection of Steffani (like the great Italians of his time) for chromaticism and his contrapuntal taste. Steffani was one of the artists of the time nearest to the spirit of the ancient music, yet opening the way to the new, and it was characteristic that he was chosen as President of the Academy of Ancient Music of London, which took for its models the art of Palestrina and the Madrigalians of the end of the sixteenth century. I do not doubt that Handel learnt much, even in this, from Steffani.
[149] Henry Purcell was born about 1658, and died in 1695.
[150] See the Prelude or the Dance in Dioclesian and the overture to Bonduca.
[151] English art has never produced anything more worthy of being placed side by side with the masterpieces of the Italian art than the scene of Dido’s death.
[152] King Arthur: Grand Dance, or final Chaconne; Dioclesian: trio with final chorus.
[153] Particularly the famous song of St. George in King Arthur—“St. George, the patron of our isle, a soldier and a saint.”
[154] It was no longer French influence, which, very powerful at the time of the Stuarts, had very nearly disappeared during the Revolution of 1688; but the Italian.
[155] The celebrated pamphlet of the priest Jeremias Collier appeared in 1688: “A short view of the immorality and profaneness of the English stage with the sense of Antiquity,” had made an epoch because it expressed with an ardent conviction the hidden feelings of the nation. Dryden, the first, did humble penitence.
[156] See the Preface to his Amphion Britannicus in 1700. Blow died in 1708.
[157] There had been several efforts on the part of Italian opera companies in London under the Restoration of 1660 and 1674. None had succeeded, but certain Italians were installed in London, and had some success: about 1667 G. B. Draghi, about 1677 the violinist Niccolo Matteis, who spread the knowledge in English of the instrumental works of Vitali and of Bassani; the family of Italian singers, Pietro Reggio de Gênes, and the famous Siface (Francesco Grossi), who in 1687 was the first to give Scarlatti in London; Marguerita de l’Espine, who during 1692 gave Italian concerts; but it was in 1702 that the infatuation for the Italians commenced.