Independently of Rousseau's experiment, it had occurred to Brandes in 1772 at Weimar to adapt Gerstenberg's cantate "Ariadne" as a melodrama for his wife, who was an excellent actress, but no musician. Schweitzer undertook the composition, but owing to the interruption caused by his "Alceste" he did not finish it.[34] When Brandes removed to Gotha in 1775, he transferred "Ariadne" to Georg Benda, with whose music it was then produced.[35] The extraordinary success it met with suggested to Gotter the idea of writing the melodrama "Medea" for Madame Seyler, the rival of Madame Brandes; this also was composed by Benda.[36] The success of the melodramas was universal and extraordinary.[37] Critics might object to the principle as they pleased,[38] the public was not to be reasoned out of its enthusiasm, which was shared even by many connoisseurs.[39] That the success wras mainly due to Benda's expressive music, which all joined in praising, admits of no doubt, and none of his successors have been able to produce a similar effect.[40] Mozart's idea of substituting melodrama for accompanied recitative in German opera was a kindred one (Vol. II., p. 74), and the same idea is evident in other directions.[41] It is put into practice in "Zaide." Two important monologues are melodramatically treated; one by Gomaz at the beginning of the first, and another by Soliman at the beginning of {COURT SERVICE IN SALZBURG.} (124) the second act.[42] Benda's composition has evidently been taken as a model; the music in short periods, often only in detached chords, follows each turn of the monologue, and seeks to give expression to the lightest shades of sentiment. The musical treatment is essentially different from that of obbligato recitative, where the independent instrumental passages are connected partly by the recitative itself, which is always sung, partly by the harmonies of the accompaniment; in the melodrama, on the other hand, every passage, even the smallest, is treated as distinctly apart. In the recitatives, again, which are sung, the lighter shades of sentiment may be rendered by cadence, rhythm, or harmony, without the intervention of any instrumental passages. In the melodrama this is impossible, and in order to accentuate details, the continuity of the dialogue must be sacrificed; another decided and almost inevitable drawback is the dependence upon details for characterisation, which is thereby often out of proportion. In this way, spoken dialogue loses its chief means of effect--that is, its continuity of idea--while nothing is gained for musical unity, which ought to make up for all deficiencies by the steady maintenance of a sustained mood. For, impelled as Mozart might be by his nature to gather into a whole the shattered members of this musical representation by means of rhythmical combinations and harmonic progressions, this was only possible to a limited degree, and musical construction in its proper