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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
MUSIC AND THE DRAMA.
There always existed strong impulses
among the very early races of men which led
towards a reproduction of great events of
a nation, with its heroes, its visible and in-
visible gods, whether singly or in connec-
tion with others, which served for the en-
joyment of an audience.
Such performances were the primitive
elements of the drama. The drama as-
sociated itself aside from its poetical na-
ture, its mimic action and costumes, with
music and the dance.
This union of arts, when it appears in
classic Greece in the time of Pericles, 478-
429, B.C., Aeschylus, 525-456, B.C., was
then capable of arousing the most intense
passion in the hearts of her people and also
marks the corner-stone of the musical
drama of our present era. In the last third
6f the sixteenth century a number of
learned men met in the house of Count
Bardi of Tuscany, in Italy, to consider how
they could best revive the drama of the
ancients. They strove to reproduce the
tragedies of Aeschylus, by stage repre-
sentation. For the purpose of having them
thoroughly understood, scenic effects and
also music were required. Though music
was supplied to it, the play proved unsuc-
cessful.
This failure of the drama was the
success of the tonal art. It called for an
entirely new kind of music; the dramatic,
and it came from essays in the direction
that the opera first made its appearance.
It must be stated that even at an earlier
time, dramatic musical performances took
place in Italy, and especially when certain
symbolic ceremonies from the life of Christ
and his apostles were enacted, but were
found to lose their poetical value. Such a
combination of poetry and music as seen
upon the stage is really the origin of the
lyric drama.
In 1440 a play upon a public street in
Rome by order of Pope Eugene took place,
called the "conversion of the apostle St.
Paul," with musical declamation and sing-
ing of chorals composed by Francesco
Baverine. The first opera, Orfeo by An-
gelo Politiano, was performed in Florence
in 1475 and five years later a musical trag-
edy, text by Cardinal Riasse, wasperfomed
in Rome.
Thus the musical muse stepped out of
the religious walls of the monastery upon
the public market place, or into the jug-
glers' booth, so as to reappear rejuvenated
one century later as opera upon the stage,
and as oratorio in the church. While the
world was pregnant with great events that
would interest the people, there were also
great poets who could dramatize such sub-
jects, there were also men and women who
could impersonate and act these characters
successfully. The art of painting had
reached a high state of perfection under
such men as Perugino, Rafael, Michalo
Angelo and others whose influence upon
the decorative art had to be felt, while the
terpsichorean art was also fully developed.
In addition the classical style in architect-
ure, the romanesque, andgothic, had risen
to its highest pinnacle and would therefore
offer itself as the auditorium for the ser-
vice of the lyric drama.
Not so with music; this art lay yet in the
cradle of its early youth. The musical
sound of the human voice akin to the word
began to lend its music to such accents and
rhythms and with its soulful tones became
its copartner. While the word could fully
express all that can be seen or manifested
through our senses, the voice enshrined in
the divinity of music pronounced the un-
seen spiritual world. The vibrating string
of the lyre was struck to accompany song
and so the lyric song was born. This was
the state of the great lyric drama until the
human mind began to grasp to greater
means, to the lute, the harp, the viols, the
harpiscord, flute, trumpet and the instru-
ments of percussion.
The work of Count Bardi had many fol-
lowers and represents such men as Corsi,
Pietro, Strossi and Vincenso Galilei, com-
poser, lutenist, mathematician and littera-
teur. Galilei was the father of the great
astronomer and philosopher. Emilio del
Cavaliere and others appear. "Daphne,"
by Tacobo Peri in 1594, poetry by Prinuc-
cini, is called the first opera and was con-
sidered a great success. ''Eurydice" by
the same composer was performed in 1600
at the marriage of Henry the Fourth of
France with Maria de Medici at Florence.
The composer sang the part of Orpheus,
ladies and gentlemen of the highest fami-
lies in Italy rendering the other characters.
The most important dramatic composer
of the seventeenth century is Claudia Mon-
teverdo, 1568-1651. The orchestral effects
used in his operas are of importance, as
they strive to increase the dramatic effects,
something not being obtained by the voice
alone. Alesandro Scarlatti was also a
prolific opera composer and the predecessor
of Rossini. Lulli, born 1633, Rameau and
others were composers until we reach the
advent of Gluck, who raises the lyric drama
to a great height which centers in Mozart.
The work of the composers of the ro-
mantic school such as Weber, Meyerbeer,
Auber, Gounod and of the Italians Rossini,
Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi, need no
further mention until we come to Richard
Wagner. One of the constitutional parts of
the opera is the recitative or the musical
dialogue. It serves to express musically
the passionate stanzas of the poet pertain-
ing to the material, while the song or aria
finds expression in the lyric element. The
duet, terset and quartet displays in har-
monics and divergent characteristics that
would be infeasible when spoken.
The preludes of the orchestra in the
opera were charming the ear with their
tone coloring, and so arose the opera to a
great height when it took into its service
all and everything that existed in the
realms of the fine arts.
Looking upon this democratic govern-
ment of arts, it would appear that the
opera would represent the greatest ideal in
the art world, as it combines these arts,
which, taken singly and alone, would be
weaklings. This, however, is not the case,
and it remains to prove the evil of this
conglomeration of the arts.
The purpose of the drama is simply to
personify in a more vivid way the charac-
ters of a poem or story, not only in words,
but in action and scenery. All the inten-
tions of the poet are therefore carried out,
and in listening to it the intellect as well
as the emotion is excited. This in itself
is a strictly artistic performance as far as
the drama is concerned. In the oratorio,
however, we do not avail ourselves of the
stage and its actors, but simply find delight
in the sound and the work of the orches-
tra. Can anybody dispute the great de-
light that is created when listening to a
sinfonie, when it is the orchestra simply
and alone which leads us into the very
depths of the divine art?
Now, while the drama, the oratorio and
the sinfonie have sufficient power when
brought before us independently of one
another, will they increase in their inten-
sity when conjoined they appear in the
opera, and if they do not enhance the art
forms, what are the reasons thereof?
The history of the opera shows that
there was never a time when it could satis-
fy the art seeker.
It was essential in the early days of the
opera to convert the dialogue into the reci-
tative, so as to express musically certain
situations that could not be given in the dia-
logue. This did not satisfy, however, and
recourse was taken to the aria, which can
express more the lyrical emotions aside
from displaying the virtuosity of the
singer. The chorus and other concerted
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