1890.] on Evolution in Music. 61 



simple process of giving a very expressive phrase to a singer in a 

 specially interesting situation, following it by a phrase which is more 

 or less contrasted with it, and then going back to the first phrase again; 

 a process which contains in miniature the design of that aria form 

 which afterwards became so universal that it pervaded all operatic 

 literature, and became a perfect plague from its constant recurrence. 



The opening of public opera houses in Venice in 1637, and the 

 great success which attended the venture, and its rapid extension, 

 gave composers great opportunities, and enabled them to make 

 rapid progress in defining the contents of their works. The in- 

 troductory instrumental summons to attention, which in Monte- 

 verde's hands was a noisy clatter of braying instruments, all on 

 one chord, developed into the neat little overture of Alessandro 

 Scarlatti, which was of momentous importance as the immediate 

 origin of our modern symphony ; and the texture of the opera itself 

 progressed to a stage in which the arias obtained a distinct and per- 

 manent (though too prominent) form, and alternated throughout with 

 recitatives and ritornellos, and an occasional chorus. Unfortunately, 

 progress was stayed here for a long time, through the indolent care- 

 lessness of operatic audiences, who used the performances even then 

 as fashionable opportunities for gathering and talking, and only cared 

 to listen to the prominent singers ; and even composers as great as 

 Handel fell in with the apparently inevitable too complacently ; and 

 though great skill was evolved in giving variety to the respective 

 arias, and in giving them a definite and contrasting dramatic cha- 

 racter, the scheme was so monotonous that it has condemned the 

 operatic works of all composers till the end of Handel's time to irre- 

 mediable oblivion. This tame acquiescence in the bad taste of the 

 public has been their curse, and ours too ; for though even Alessandro 

 Scarlatti's operas contain fine music, and Handel's hundreds of things 

 which are really splendid, the desperate monotony of the design 

 makes them utterly unendurable as wholes to an average audience ; 

 and even as historical studies, it would take the strongest and most 

 obstinate patience to sit out one of them with attention. 



The development of oratorio, up to a little before Handel's time, had 

 followed much the same lines as opera. The admirable skill and judg- 

 ment of Carissimi had at first used the opportunities which the oratorio 

 form affords with a success which was full of hopeful auguries ; and 

 his work was followed up with great power by Stradella. They both 

 gave the form a high degree of variety, by introducing large and 

 broad choruses among their solos, and by devising great variety of plan 

 even in their solo music. But the blight of the star system fell upon 

 oratorio likewise in Italy, and for a time it degenerated into the same 

 monotonous scheme of alternate arias and recitatives as the opera; 

 and it was not till this form of art became the cherished favourite of 

 much more earnest and patient nations, that the oratorio developed 

 into the noble plan and the large and well-defined proportions which 

 we find in the few great masterpieces of oratorio art from Handel and 



