The musicians of the century—Henry Purcell and music in England—Italy: Alessandro Scarlatti; Arcangelo Corelli; Domenico Scarlatti—The beginnings of French opera: the Ballet-comique de la reine; Cambert and Perrin—Jean Baptiste Lully—Couperin and Rameau—Music in Germany: Keiser, Mattheson, and the Hamburg opera; precursors of Bach.
Three-quarters of the seventeenth century produced hardly more than experimental music. The enthusiasm of the Italians found on every hand new ways for the development of music and they were in every branch the innovators and the bold discoverers. In every country of Europe their influence was felt, their guidance followed. They were the models for the time. And, at the end of the century, what they had sown bore fruit, both in their own country and in England, Holland, Germany, and France. At the end of the century lasting achievement takes the place of experiment, there are a dozen composers in every branch of music who no longer speak with hesitation but with certainty, whose music is well built and clear and free in style. Their activities pass well into the next century, but they are firmly rooted in the seventeenth, and their work should be regarded as the harvest of that time of sowing. Growing among them were the greatest of all composers, John Sebastian Bach, and his great compeer Georg Friedrich Handel.
England alone produced a truly great composer whose lifetime fell within the century, Henry Purcell.
After an old engraving.