marked _Lucio solo_, actually to write for a solo voice! By this we may understand what a revolution was necessary in men’s minds to accomplish the essential step to dramatic fidelity. The following is Romain Rolland’s pen picture of the most interesting exponent of the dramatic madrigal: 'Orazio Vecchi (b. Modena 1550; d. there 1605) was a man of the Renaissance. He possessed its superabundance of vigor, the desire for action, and a robust good humor. Chapel master at Modena, we find him on the highways and by-ways of Italy, indoors only to take part in brawls and _coltellate_. Commissioned as archdeacon of Correggio to correct the Gradual of the Roman Catholic church; he is occupied in 1591 with directing private and public masquerades in Modena. A writer of celebrated masses, he becomes at the same time the creator of _opera buffa_. Three times the Bishop of Reggio dismissed him from his function, but his reputation was enormous--the house of Este and the great Italian lords extended their favor to him, while his name spread to Austria, to Denmark and to Poland. At his death in 1605 he was regarded not only as one of the foremost musicians of the century and the inventor of musical comedy, but as one of the greatest geniuses of the age.’ Comedy is, indeed, his sphere; rarely does he ascend to the height of pathos or passion, though he amply proves himself capable of portraying earnest sentiment and sometimes pathos; but the question whether he merits the reputation of having created comic opera or not we shall leave to the judgment of the reader. First we shall let him speak for himself. 'I know well,’ he says, 'that peradventure some will consider my “caprices” as unworthy and light, but they should learn that as much grace, art and fidelity is required to trace a comic part as in representing an old reasoning sage.’ And elsewhere, 'Music is poetry by the same right as poetry itself.’ That the conscious purpose of his music was the expression of ideas is evident from these directions which preface his _Amfiparnasso_: 'Everything here has a precise purpose; it is necessary to find this, and only by expressing it well and intelligently will you give life to the performance.... The moral import [of the piece] is of less consequence than the simple comedy; since music appeals to the emotions rather than the intellect, I have been obliged to compress the development of the action into the smallest space, for speech is more rapid than song. Hence it is necessary to condense, contract, suppress detail and only to take the capital situations, the moments characteristic to the subject. The imagination must supply the rest.’