Another factor also contributed to retard the artistic development of opera.  All these arias had to be constructed and sung according to certain customs.  Thus, the fiery, minor aria was always sung by the villain, the so-called colorature arias by the tall, majestic heroine, etc.

All this seems childish to us, but it was certainly a powerful factor in making fame for a composer.  For, as has been said, while a modern composer writes two or three different operas, Hasse wrote one hundred versions of one.  This also had its effect on instrumental music, and, in a way, is also the direct cause of that monstrosity known as “variations” (Haendel wrote sixty-six on one theme.) In our days we often hear the bitter complaint that opera singers are no longer what they used to be, and that the great art of singing has been lost.  If we look back to the period under consideration, we cannot but admit that there is much truth in the contention.  In the first place, an opera singer of those days was necessarily an actor of great resource, a thorough musician, a composer, and a marvellous technician.  In addition to this, operas were always written for individuals.  Thus, all of Hasse’s were designed for Faustina’s voice; and by examining the music, we can tell exactly what the good and bad points of her voice were, such was the care with which it was written.

Before we leave the subject of Hasse and his operas, I wish to refer briefly to a statement found in all histories and books on music.  We find it stated that all this music was sung and played either loud or soft; with no gradual transitions from one to the other.  The existence of that gradual swelling or diminishing of the tone in music which we call crescendo and diminuendo, is invariably denied, and its first use is attributed to Jommelli, director of the opera at Mannheim, in 1760.  Thus we are asked to believe that Faustina sang either piano or forte, and still was an intensely dramatic singer.

This seems to me to require no comment; especially as, already in 1676, Matthew Locke, an English writer, uses the [<] sign for the gradual transition from soft to loud.  For obvious reasons there could be no such transition in harpsichord music, and this is why, when the same instrument was provided with hammers instead of quills, the name was changed to pianoforte, to indicate its power to modify the tone from soft to loud.

Naturally Haendel, who was a man of despotic tendencies, could not long submit to the caprices of opera singers.  After innumerable conflicts with them, we find him turning back to one of the older forms of opera, the oratorio.