Even more prolific than Cimarosa was Paisiello (1741-1815), a composer whose works, though immensely popular in their day, did not possess individuality enough to defy the ravages of time.  Paisiello deserves to be remembered as the first man to write an opera on the tale of ’Il Barbiere di Siviglia.’  This work, though coldly received when it was first performed, ended by establishing so firm a hold upon the affections of the Italian public, that when Rossini tried to produce his opera on the same subject, the Romans refused to give it a hearing.

Paer (1771-1839) belongs chronologically to the next generation, but musically he has more in common with Paisiello than with Rossini.  His principal claim to immortality rests upon the fact that a performance of his opera ‘Eleonora’ inspired Beethoven with the idea of writing ‘Fidelio’; but although his serious efforts are comparatively worthless, many of his comic operas are exceedingly bright and attractive.  ’Le Maitre de Chapelle,’ which was written to a French libretto, is still performed with tolerable frequency in Paris.

It is hardly likely that the whirligig of time will ever bring Paisiello and his contemporaries into popularity again in England, but in Italy there has been of late years a remarkable revival of interest in the works of the eighteenth century.  Some years ago the Argentina Theatre in Rome devoted its winter season almost entirely to reproductions of the works of this school.  Many of these old-world little operas, whose very names had been forgotten, were received most cordially, some of them—­Paisiello’s ‘Scuffiara raggiratrice,’ for instance—­with genuine enthusiasm.

Wars and rumours of wars stunted musical development of all kinds in Germany during the earlier years of the eighteenth century.  After the death of Keiser in 1739, the glory departed from Hamburg, and opera seems to have lain under a cloud until the advent of Johann Adam Hiller (1728-1804), the inventor of the Singspiel.  Miller’s Singspiele were vaudevilles of a simple and humorous description interspersed with music, occasionally concerted numbers of a very simple description, but more often songs derived directly from the traditions of the German Lied.  These operettas were very popular, as the frequent editions of them which were called for, prove.  Yet, in spite of their success, it was felt by many of the composers who imitated him that the combination of dialogue and music was inartistic, and Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752-1814) attempted to solve the difficulty by relegating the music to a merely incidental position and conducting all the action of the piece by means of the dialogue.  Nevertheless the older form of the Singspiel retained its popularity, and, although founded upon incorrect aesthetic principles—­for no art, however ingenious, can fuse the convention of speech and the convention of song into an harmonious whole—­was the means in later times of giving to the world, in ‘Die Zauberfloete’ and ‘Fidelio,’ nobler music than had yet been consecrated to the service of the stage.