A musical tour through the land of the past/Preface

by Romain Rolland

 

 

PREFACE

This collection of essays is a sequel to my first series of Musicians of the Past.^[1] The greater number of these papers are devoted to an age of transition, in which the feeling, the æsthetic and the forms of our modern music were taking shape. In accordance with a phenomenon common enough in history, they are not, as a rule, the greatest artistic personalities who become the pioneers of the future. The Johann Sebastian Bachs tower too high above their time to influence it directly; they stand outside their age; they shed their beams only at a distance. It is the Telemanns, the Hasses, the Mannheim symphonists who launch new movements. I have tried to make Telemann live again in these pages. I shall speak later on of my love and admiration for Hasse.

The world has been extremely unjust to these masters. In their life-time their fame was perhaps excessive; but the oblivion into which they have since fallen is surely much more so. Those who originate ideas, the Telemanns, for instance, and the "Mannheimers," have rarely the leisure to be profound. They sow to the four winds; let us be grateful to them for the fruits which we gather to-day. Do not demand of them the perfect plenitude of autumn, for these were the capricious and fertile spring. To each his reward! That of the musicians who were the innovators of the first half of the eighteenth century was ample enough, since they prepared the way for Mozart and Beethoven. R.R.

 

NOTE BY TRANSLATOR

The numerous quotations from Pepys's Diary in the essay upon the genial Carolean amateur are taken from Mr. H. B. Wheatley's admirable edition (in eight volumes, 1913), published by Messrs. G. Bell & Sons. For various reasons, including the absence of references, the far more numerous quotations from the works of Dr. Burney have been re-translated from the French of the version employed by the author. B.M.

 

1. The majority of these papers appeared in the Revue de Paris (1st July, 1900, 13th August, 1905, 13th February, 1906, 15th April, 1910). The article on "Pepys's Diary" was included in a volume of Mélanges Hugo Riemann, published 1909. The study of "Telemann" is published for the first time.