“Corelli’s _Gavottes_, _Sarabandes_ and other pieces with the form and rhythm of dances, do not materially differ from similar productions of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, although, like everything that he wrote, they are distinguished by great earnestness and dignity of style and are especially well adapted to the instrument. He was not so much an innovator as a reformer; he did not introduce new striking effects; it cannot be denied that his technique was a limited one—he never goes beyond the third position—but, by rigidly excluding everything that appeared to him contrary to the nature of the instrument, and by adopting and using in the best possible way everything in the existing technique which he considered conformable to the nature of the violin, he not only hindered a threatened development in the wrong direction, but also gave to this branch of art a sound and solid basis, which his successors could, and did, build upon successfully.”[50] Burney tells us that “After the publication of Corelli’s works, the violin seems to have increased in favor all over Europe. There was hardly a town in Italy, about the beginning of the present century (the Eighteenth), where some distinguished performer on that instrument did not reside.” The next link in our chain is Scarlatti. Alessandro Scarlatti was born in Trapani, Sicily, in 1659. We find him at a comparatively early age settled in Naples, where he was celebrated as a singer, and a performer on the harp and the harpsichord and as a composer of operas. He was the chief of the Neapolitan School. Modern critics have proved that on his ideas the great Gluck built his musical edifice. Scarlatti was a prolific composer. He wrote one hundred and fifteen operas and two hundred masses, besides oratorios, cantatas and other works. He is of importance to the Orchestra because of the new way he wrote for the instruments. He made the accompaniment of vocal recitative of new importance and gave the Orchestra a great part to do throughout the entire opera. The strings formed the groundwork of his Orchestra; and he also used oboes, flutes, bassoons, trumpets, drums and horns (the latter an innovation). [Illustration: CONCERT BY SCARLATTI, TARTINI, MARTINI, LOCATELLI, AND LANZETTI] Scarlatti was the creator of modern opera, and the “Father of Classical Music,” the forerunner of Gluck, Mozart and Haydn and many others. Dr. Burney put the debt that great composers owe to Scarlatti concisely when he said: “I find part of Scarlatti’s property among the stolen goods of all the best composers of the first forty years of the present century.” With regard to his treatment of the violoncello, Dr. Burney says: