He taught the Italian singers how to express the passions,
and reproduce the meaning of the words they sang--an art which,
according to the Roman, Pietro della Valle, was not previously known
to them.
The dry declamation of the first Italian operas, however, was not
supported by a sufficiently rich accompaniment to be enjoyable after
the first sense of novelty had passed away; and even the gifted
Monteverde's ingenious innovations in instrumental coloring and in
the free use of expressive discords, could not ward off a second
reaction, in favor of song pure and simple, which set in with
Scarlatti, the founder of the Neapolitan school, whose first opera was
produced a little over two centuries ago. From this time dates the
supremacy, in Italy, of the _bel canto_, or beautiful song, which,
however, gradually degenerated into mere circus music in which every
artistic aim was deliberately sacrificed to sensuous tone-revelry and
agility of execution, the voice being treated as a mere instrument,
without any regard for its higher prerogative of interpreting poetry
and heightening its effects.
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