Before his time the orchestra, as a means of dramatic expression and coloring, was not appreciated, although Gluck pointed out the way. Under Mozart it became more symphonic and massive in character. The solo instruments became refined organs of feeling, giving color and sensuous beauty to the vocal parts. The orchestration intensified the dramatic fire of the scene from beginning to end. In his operas every feeling of the heart finds utterance. A divine harmony and classic purity of form distinguish his dramatic music, as, indeed, all his music, from the little minuets which he composed as a child to his last operas and symphonies. During the time of Gluck and Mozart the German operetta came into existence. Mozart’s “Entführung” (Belmont and Constanza) is the noblest example of this style. This new form of musical drama was suggested by the French comic opera. It adopted the spoken dialogue for the less dramatic moments of the play. It resembled, however, the French operetta only externally, and soon developed a genuine German character. This new species of musical play sought to do that which the brilliant and conventional Italian opera could not accomplish, namely, interest the great masses of the people. This was at first possible only through inartistic exaggeration of the realities of life, and by the introduction of humorous elements of a distinctly coarse kind. But the general demand for musical plays of this class gradually attracted to their composition writers of real musical and dramatic ability.
Johann Adam Hiller (1728–1804) was the first German who became prominent as a composer of operettas. “Lottchen at Court,” “Rustic Affection,” and “The Hunt” are his principal operettas. The last named was given not less than forty times during a short theatre season in Berlin in 1771. Even before this time the operetta had become so generally popular that a writer had had occasion to remark that tragedies and legitimate comedies were being driven to the wall. Yet there was one serious obstacle to the operetta’s rapid artistic development. The good singers were monopolized by theatres giving Italian opera, and operetta managers had to take what was left.
Vienna soon began to acquire the prominence in operetta performances for which it is distinguished at the present day. In 1778, the erection by Joseph II. of the “Deutsches Nationalsingspiel” was a sign of the growing popularity of this new form of entertainment, and gave a powerful incentive to the composers of such works. Operettas of Gluck, Mozart, Salieri, Umlauf, Schenck and others attained great popularity here. In 1786, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf scored a signal success with his “Doctor and Apothecary.” This versatile musician soon became a favorite of the entire nation. Born at Vienna in 1739, he first became prominent as a violinist. Later his symphonies, concertos, quartets, oratorios, etc., became well known. In all these forms, however, he was surpassed by others. He possessed, it is true, much cleverness, but his counterpoint was not faultless, and he wrote too much and too superficially. In comedy and farce he took the lead. His melodies are lively and flowing, characteristic and very catching. He learned much from Haydn, but something also from French composers. His “Doctor and Apothecary,” “Jeremiah Knicker,” and “Red Riding Hood” gained for him great popularity. In all, he wrote twenty-eight such works. His autobiography, published in 1801, two years after his death, is also a work of remarkable freshness and interest.
In Gotha, the conductor, George Benda (1721–99), produced operas which became popular in Germany. His melodramas, in which the text was spoken to the accompaniment of fitting music, were novelties, and became even more favorably known. Munich was identified with more serious undertakings in dramatic music through Peter von Winter (1754–1825), Court Kapellmeister. This once highly esteemed master composed numerous operas, the most popular of which were “The Labyrinth,” “Marie of Mantalban,” and “Unterbrochene Opferfest.” The last is still occasionally performed. Likewise Mannheim—which from Mozart’s time until to-day has been devoted to the highest interests of music—became the scene of serious operatic endeavors. Ignaz Holzbauer (1711–83) wrote several operas during his conductorship of the theatre in that city.
The most prominent of the composers who succeeded Dittersdorf was Johann Friedrich Reichardt, whose interesting literary work, “Letters of an Observant Traveller,” is full of useful information. Born in 1752, he became orchestral conductor to Frederick the Great in 1775, and was salt-inspector in a town near Halle, at the time of his death in 1814. He was liberally educated, travelled much, and was acquainted with many of the prominent persons of his time. Few of his works have lived, and those which have survived are chiefly songs. He produced, however, an enormous amount of music. His imagination was not equal to his understanding or his artistic intentions, and, indeed, he was to a great extent a mere copyist. A single new form is due to him, the “Liederspiel,” the musical part of which, as the name suggests, consists only of songs.
The development of the opera in Germany, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, has now been traced, and next we will turn our attention to the progress of instrumental music after Sebastian Bach.
No more remarkable instance of lack of appreciation of a great man’s genius has ever been known than that furnished by the history of Bach’s works. The reasons for this are perhaps twofold. Like Shakespeare, Bach must have been ignorant of the supreme excellence of his artistic creations. Hence, like many other great men, he occupied himself little with the dissemination of his works, except those used in teaching. Not only the musical world, but even Bach’s immediate family and pupils were unable to appreciate his significance and to use his compositions in a way most advantageous to the development of music. It would indeed be interesting to know what difference it might have made in the development of music in Germany if Haydn, and especially Mozart, had enjoyed opportunities of intimate acquaintance with Bach’s works.[[24]]
JOHANN FRIEDRICH REICHARDT.
Only a few of his organ compositions, the “Well-Tempered Clavichord” and some of his other clavier music, seem to have been generally known in Haydn’s and Mozart’s time. It was only indirectly through his sons and other pupils that his powerful influence on instrumental music was then felt.