But it seems
almost certain that Scarlatti was the first to use accompanied
recitative, a powerful means of dramatic expression in the hands of all
who followed him, while his genius advanced the science of
instrumentation to a point hitherto unknown.
Nevertheless, Scarlatti's efforts were almost exclusively addressed to
the development of the musical rather than the dramatic side of opera,
and he is largely responsible for the strait-jacket of convention in
which opera was confined during the greater part of the eighteenth
century, in fact until it was released by the genius of Gluck.
Handel's conquest of Italy was speedy and decisive. 'Rodrigo,' produced
at Florence in 1707, made him famous, and 'Agrippina' (Venice, 1708)
raised him almost to the rank of a god. At every pause in the
performance the theatre rang with shouts of 'Viva il caro Sassone,' and
the opera had an unbroken run of twenty-seven nights, a thing till then
unheard of. It did not take Handel long to learn all that Italy could
teach him. With his inexhaustible fertility of melody and his complete
command of every musical resource then known, he only needed to have his
German vigour tempered by Italian suppleness and grace to stand forth as
the foremost operatic composer of the age. His Italian training and his
theatrical experience gave him a thorough knowledge of the capabilities
of the human voice, and the practical common-sense which was always one
of his most striking characteristics prevented him from ever treating it
from the merely instrumental point of view, a pitfall into which many of
the great composers have fallen.
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