His instrumentation was
more highly colored, his rhythms more varied than those of his
predecessor, and his sincerity of purpose more evident. In common with
other reformers he was accused of "sacrificing the pleasures of the ear
to vain harmonic speculations." Some of his many operas were written to
works of Racine. He died in 1764, in his eighty-first year.
A century earlier the English reached the culmination of their Golden
Age of musical productiveness in Henry Purcell, known as the most
original genius England has produced. His dramatic powers were fostered
by the popular masques with their gorgeous show of color and rhythm, and
in mere boyhood he wrote music for several of them. In 1677, when only
nineteen, he produced his first opera. He attempted no reform, but his
instinct for the true relation between the accents of speech and those
of melody and recitative seems to have been unerring. Saturated with
native English melody, tingling with fertile fancy and controlled by
education, whether he wrote for stage, church, or chamber, he evinced a
freshness and vigor, a breezy picturesqueness and a wealth of rhythmic
phrases and patterns, and many new orchestral devices.
Pages:
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210