e
amateurs, although it sprang from a desire to revive the ancient Greek
drama, in which music was united with poetry, represents at the same
time a reaction against this unintelligible Netherland style. The new
opera at first went to the opposite extreme, making the distinct
declamation of the text its principal object and neglecting vocal
ornamentation, and even melody, on purpose. The famous vocalist and
teacher, Caccini, although he taught his pupils how to sing trills and
roulades, declared that they were not essential to good singing, but
merely a means of tickling the ear, and, therefore, generally to be
avoided. 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.

This period of Italian song prevailed throughout Europe until the time
of Rossini. And in all the annals of music there is nothing quite so
strange as the extraordinary craze which existed during this time for
_the instrumental style of vocalism_. A special class of singers--the
male sopranists--was artificially created, in order to secure the most
dazzling results in brilliant, ornamental vocalization. Various kinds
of trills, grace notes, runs, and other species of _fioriture_, or
vocal somersaults, were introduced in every song, in such profusion
that the song itself was at last barely recognizable; and this kind of
stuff the audiences of that time applauded frantically. Everybody has
heard of the vulgar circus tr