Hence it is that the Italian school came before the
German school. Even in Germany, a few generations ago, the Italian
school was so predominant that German composers of the first
rank--Gluck, Weber, and Beethoven--found it difficult to assert their
influence against it. In Vienna, during the season of 1823, the
Rossini furore was so great that none but Rossini's operas were sung;
and in Germany almost everyone of the three dozen big and little
potentates supported his own Italian operatic company. To-day you look
in vain through Germany or Austria for a single Italian company. The
few Italian operas that have remained on the repertory are sung in
German translations by German singers, and all of these operas
together hardly have as many performances in a year as a single one of
Wagner's.
Here is a revolution in taste which may well excite our astonishment,
and arouse our curiosity as to how it was brought about. It was
brought about by the courage and perseverance of a few composers who,
instead of stooping down to the crude taste of the _fioriture_-loving
public, elevated that taste until it was able to appreciate the poetic
and dramatic side of music; and it was brought about with the
assistance of German singers, notwithstanding the great disadvantages,
climatic and linguistic, under which these labor in comparison with
Italian singers.
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