[144] His singing was celebrated. If his voice was feeble, the purity and finish of his style, his delicate and chaste expression, were incomparable, if we are to believe Handel. [145] They caused in truth a grand gathering of singers. _Servius Stallius_ alone required twenty-five, of which six were sopranos (Nicer). _Op. cit._ [146] On the other hand, the symphonic pieces, and particularly the overtures, are in the Lully style, and afforded the models for Handel. The French style reigned in the orchestra at Hanover. Telemann says, "at Hanover is the art of French science." [147] Steffani seems to have written these duets as music master of the Court ladies, and several were composed for the Electress of Brandenburg, Sophia Dorothea. The poems were the work of the great lords, or the Italian Abbés. These duets were regarded in their time as masterpieces, and numerous copies were made of them. One finds the bibliography in the first volume of choice works of Steffani published by Breitkopf by A. Einstein and A. Zanberger. The Paris Conservatoire alone possesses six volumes of manuscript duets by Steffani. [148] See the airs _Lungi dall'idol_, _Occhi perche piangete_, and particularly _Forma un mare_, which offer a striking analogy to one of the more beautiful _lieder_ of Philip Heinrich Erlebach: _Meine Seufzer_ (published by Max Friedlander in his History of the Song of the Eighteenth Century). There is every reason to believe that Steffani afforded one of the models for Erlebach. One should notice the predilection of Steffani (like the great Italians of his time) for chromaticism and his contrapuntal taste. Steffani was one of the artists of the time nearest to the spirit of the ancient music, yet opening the way to the new, and it was characteristic that he was chosen as President of the Academy of Ancient Music of London, which took for its models the art of Palestrina and the Madrigalians of the end of the sixteenth century. I do not doubt that Handel learnt much, even in this, from Steffani. [149] Henry Purcell was born about 1658, and died in 1695. [150] See the Prelude or the Dance in _Dioclesian_ and the overture to _Bonduca_. [151] English art has never produced anything more worthy of being placed side by side with the masterpieces of the Italian art than the scene of Dido's death. [152] _King Arthur_: Grand Dance, or final Chaconne; _Dioclesian_: trio with final chorus. [153] Particularly the famous song of St. George in _King Arthur_--"St. George, the patron of our isle, a soldier and a saint." [154] It was no longer French influence, which, very powerful at the time of the Stuarts, had very nearly disappeared during the Revolution of 1688; but the Italian.