e the merest puppets, or shadows of puppets; and there
was no reason why Julius Caesar should not be a male soprano and sing
charmingly feminine florid airs. In a word, there was no drama nor
pretence of drama in the old Italian form; and those who can accept
it as it is will find in many old Italian writers some perfect music
of its sort, and in the Italian operas of Handel the divinest songs
ever written--songs even more divine than Mozart's. But the childish
delight in lovely melodies and in absolute perfection of vocal art, at
its highest in the early part of the eighteenth century, died out
rapidly after 1750; and Italian opera became the medium of the
vulgarest instead of the most refined kind of ear-tickling. How Gluck
rebelled, and determined to "reform" the opera stage, and how in
reforming it he was impelled to a large extent by a desire to find a
medium through which he could express himself, are matters well enough
known to everyone nowadays. Like every other teacher, he left no
disciples; for Mozart, the next master of Italian opera, was a hundred
thousand miles away from him in intention, in method, and in
achievement. He commenced where Gluck ended his pre-Reformation
period; and all his life his intention was to please first, and only
in the second place to express himself. But so splendid were his
gifts, so inevitably did he fit the lovely word to the thrilling
thought, so lucky was he in the libretto of "Don Giovanni" (the
luckiest libretto ever devised), that he went clean ahead not only of
Gluck but of Beethoven and every composer who has written opera since.

His operas stand at the parting of the ways. In them we find the
fullest measure of dramatic truth combined with the most delicious
ear-tickling. But it is safe to say that Mozart is the only composer
of Italian operas who ever succeeded in combining the two things thus,
for in Gluck there is short measure of sheer beauty, and in
Handel--who used the oldest form--no attempt at drama. Mozart, like
Gluck, had no disciples--only the second-rate men have disciples; but
their example, and the tendency which they represented, had a curious
result. Before their time all opera-writers had been avowed
ear-ticklers. But after them, and especially after Mozart, the old
line of composers may be observed to have split up into two lines, the
one doing the old ear-tickling business, the other trying to express
dramatic movement, and their thought and feeling,