The orchestra is treated quite otherwise than in the opera seria. The individual peculiarity of each instrument is {OPERA BUFFA.} (224) brought out, and tone-colouring as a means of characterisation is delicately and skilfully employed. In Sandrina's cavatina (22), for instance, the fine effect of the oboe and bassoon in contrast to the violin is due to the individualities of the instruments; in Ramiro's song (18) the treatment of the bassoon is original; and in the first finale an oboe solo comes in with startling effect (the Munich oboist, Secchi, was very famous).[25] The horns are also frequently made the means of effective tone-colouring; twice (13, 26) four horns are employed in a minor key to heighten the effect of a dramatic climax. More important than these detached instances is the altered relation of the orchestra to the whole work.[26] It no longer serves as an accompaniment in the sense of sustaining the voices and filling up necessary pauses; it is no longer a mere adjunct to the vocal parts, but takes its share in the effective working of the whole, filling out details which the vocal parts leave imperfect, and obeying not so much the requirements of the vocalist as the conditions of artistic perfection. This altered relationship required an altered organisation; each component part of the orchestra must have a distinct existence, so that each, according to its place and kind, might contribute to the general effect. The single example of the treatment of the basses will serve to make this clear. Hitherto the basses had served merely as the fundamental of the melody, indispensable indeed, but often clumsy and insignificant; but here, without losing their character as the ground-work of harmonic elaboration, they have an independent movement; they serve not only to support the superincumbent mass, but their quickening power sets in motion and gives the impulse to its formation. By the side of these many excellencies the too great length of most of the pieces, especially of the songs, is felt as a defect throughout; a defect due, no doubt, to the taste of the time and to the youth of the composer. The influence of the broader form of the opera seria, and the pleasure of the {"IL RE PASTORE," 1775.} (225) public in the mere hearing of music, were combined with the fact that Mozart was not yet capable of that self-criticism which rejects all that is superfluous, even when it is good in itself. It may well be conceived that the opera was performed with extraordinary success in Munich (1775), and that it soon attained pre-eminence among the most admired contemporary comic operas. Nissen informs us that it made little effect in Frankfort (1789); the clumsy German adaptation may have been in part to blame for this; but the chief cause was doubtless the altered taste of the public, brought about by the French operettas and Mozart's "Entführung." FOOTNOTES: