w the beginning of
the modern methods of dramatic expression, and it is easy to believe
that a sudden change like that so well defined by Wagner, made with
her sweeping voice and accompanied by her plastic and powerful acting,
was really thrilling; but, I fancy, nevertheless, that only Beethoven
and the intensity of feeling which pervades the scene saved the
audience from a disturbing sense of the incongruity of the
performance.

[Sidenote: _Early forms._]

[Sidenote: _The dialogue of the Florentines._]

The development which has taken place in the recitative has not only
assisted in elevating opera to the dignity of a lyric drama by saving
us from alternate contemplation of the two spheres of ideality and
reality, but has also made the factor itself an eloquent vehicle of
dramatic expression. Save that it had to forego the help of the
instruments beyond a mere harmonic support, the _stilo
rappresentativo_, or _musica parlante_, as the Florentines called
their musical dialogue, approached the sustained recitative which we
hear in the oratorio and grand opera more closely than it did the
_recitative secco_. Ever and anon, already in the earliest works (the
"Eurydice" of Rinuccini as composed by both Peri and Caccini) there
are passages which sound like rudimentary melodies, but are charged
with vital dramatic expression. Note the following phrase from
_Orpheus's_ monologue on being left in the infernal regions by
_Venus_, from Peri's opera, performed A.D. 1600, in honor of the
marriage of Maria de' Medici to Henry IV. of France:

[Sidenote: _An example from Peri._]

[Music illustration:

_E voi, deh per pie-ta, del mio mar-ti-re
Che nel mi-se-ro cor di-mo-ra e-ter-no,
La-cri-ma-te al mio pian-to om-bre d'in-fer-no!_]

[Sidenote: _Development of the arioso._]

[Sidenote: _The aria supplanted._]

[Sidenote: _Music and action._]

Out of this style there grew within a decade something very near the
arioso, and for all the purposes of our argument we may accept the
melodic devices by which Wagner carries on the dialogue of his operas
as an uncircumscribed arioso superimposed upon a foundation of
orchestral harmony; for example, _Lohengrin's_ address to the swan,
_Elsa's_ account of her dream. The greater melodiousness of the
_recitativo stromentato_, and the aid of the orchestra when it began
to assert itself as a factor of independent value, soon enabled this
form of musical conversation to become