The brief career of Pergolesi (1710-1736) was consummated during the interim dating approximately from Gluck's birth to Haydn's. His fame is confined not alone to his sacred works, such as the Stabat Mater, but to his dramatic productions as well, of which the finest example is, of course, "La serva padrona," of opera-buffa propinquities. His proclivity for employing an orchestra of strings alone, as exemplified in the above mentioned representative works, was fortunate in that thereby he was able to concentrate his thoughts upon finish and detail, such as served as a valuable model for the period in which he was living, when string writing was as yet at an immature stage. IV. =Germany.= In Germany itself Italian influences predominated, and interest was centered chiefly upon the opera, in connection with which Scarlatti's tenets of writing for the orchestra were diligently copied. German dramatic activity paved the way to the establishment in 1678 of a permanent opera house in Hamburg, which enjoyed uninterrupted existence for sixty years. Most prominent among the composers for and directors of this enterprise were Theile (1646), Keiser (1674), Mattheson (1681), and Telemann (likewise 1681). Of these, Keiser accrued the greatest temporary popularity by reason of his prolific and sensational though shallow versatility. His orchestration, which was of the lightest kind, included various alternating groups of instruments. Fétis states that Keiser employed in his opera "Frédegonde" sometimes the strings alone, or the clavichord together with plucked stringed instruments and a bass. Again, the voice was accompanied by a single violin, an oboe and a bass, oboes alone, or a flute and viols. These combinations present nothing new; they were but in accordance with the customs of the times. Telemann also was possessed of a reputation sufficient to overshadow in his day that of Bach. Though the importance of his activity has since been reduced to insignificance, credit is at least due to him, not alone for his dramatic writings, but also for his contribution to concert and chamber music, which frequently revealed strong German tendencies, all too rare in the midst of Neapolitan sovereignty. So-called symphonies, overtures, concertos, quartets and the like are included in Telemann's exhaustless list of compositions, and in view of his intimacy with Bach, these works must have wielded at least transitory influence upon the experimental stage of that master's instrumentation and orchestral form. Händel likewise for three years devoted his energies to writing operas for the Hamburg stage; but this was in his youthful days, and, as has been already intimated, these attempts were but puerile and can have no possible bearing upon the art of orchestration.