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It appears as if, proud of having played off this highest triumph of feeling, he left the spectators to their astonishment at witnessing the chirping of the passions in the recitatives rising at last in the air, to the fuller nightingale tones. At present we require in an opera more frequent duos and trios, and a crashing finale.
Gluck never sought to change the musical forms in use in opera. He retained the old recitatives, airs, concerted numbers, and choruses; not Handel himself clung more firmly to the old forms and formalities than Gluck did in Orpheus and Iphigenia.
When the subjects are serious or melancholy, after such recitatives or improvised lamentations, they have a sort of lisping infantile manner of speaking, which they vary by light silvery laughs, little interjectional cries, short musical pauses upon the higher notes, from which they descend by one knows not what chromatic scale of demi and quarter tones to rest upon some low note; and again pursue the varied, brusque and original modulations which astonish the ear not accustomed to such lovely warblings, to which they sometimes give that air of caressing irony, of cunning mockery, peculiar to the song of some birds.
He found Cambert's operas popular in Paris, and instead of attempting any radical reforms, he adhered to the form which he found ready made, only developing the orchestra to an extent which was then unknown, and adding dignity and passion to the airs and recitatives. Lulli's industry was extraordinary.
Keiser's music lacks the suavity of the Italian school, but his recitatives are vigorous and powerful, and seem to foreshadow the triumphs which the German school was afterwards to win in declamatory music. In spite of the ludicrous mixture of German and Italian there is a good deal of dramatic power in the music, and the airs show how early Handel's wonderful gift of melody had developed.
One of the bass soloists took, with the tenor, the soprano and the alto alternating, most of the narrative; and another bass solo took the words of Jesus, whenever these occur in the sad story. The arias and recitatives were finely given, but no effect was comparable to that of the grand chorus.
Others might sing an air better, but no one could give to either airs or recitatives accentuation more pure or more impassioned, action more dramatic, and by-play more eloquent. Some one complimenting her on the vivid truth with which she embodied her part, "I really experience it," she said; "in a death-scene I actually feel as if I were dead."
By keeping up the tempi of the recitatives I had chiefly intended to shorten the duration of the performance, but I see now that you had already done the right thing, and therefore remain astounded at my own error as to the length of the opera, which is certainly detrimental.
Care will be taken that the opera is properly mounted. Zigesar is full of enthusiasm for your genius, and will work with a will. The corrected score has been sent at once to the copyists, and in six weeks the work will be rehearsed comme il faut. The theatrical season begins with Verdi's "Hernani," after which Spohr's "Faust," with new recitatives, will follow soon.
According to Whitman, on the other hand, "the time has arrived to essentially break down the barriers of form between Prose and Poetry ... for the most cogent purposes of those great inland states, and for Texas, and California, and Oregon"; a statement which is among the happiest achievements of American humour. He calls his verses "recitatives," in easily followed allusion to a musical form.
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