Reforms, and the reasons thereof—Monteverde’s influence—Musical innovations—The stage discards music of the ecclesiastical order—The beauty of Scarlatti’s arias—Their weakness—Gluck—Gluck’s explanation of his reforms—Triumph of his methods—Another retrogression—Rossini—Wagner—The leit-motif—Influence on subsequent composers—Will further reforms become necessary, and what shape will they take? [Sidenote: =Reforms=] The word reformer is here used in its original sense, for each of the composers named in the heading to this chapter had very considerable influence in the reconstitution and re-casting of the structure of opera in his day. These were the men who, perhaps more than all others, were not content to leave opera in the groove in which they found it: for at the respective periods in which they lived opera had drifted into grooves, and it was the influence of these composers that arrested its progress in the various wrong directions in which they found it drifting; they set themselves first of all to stem the currents that were carrying opera astray, and then constructed new works as examples of what could and should be done. Hence we call them the reformers, and may now examine into the achievements of each of them in turn, noticing the condition of things that prevailed when they first entered the field, their influence upon it, and the result of their work. [Sidenote: =Monteverde’s Influence=] First of all, Monteverde. So many innovations are connected with his name, that he would appear to have been a reformer of music in general; it is not certain, however, that all that history credits him with is really his due. But this is certain, that opera before his time was a very different thing to opera subsequent to that period. The efforts of the early Florentine amateurs, the Palazzo Bardi enthusiasts, of whom more anon, had been towards the production of opera on the lines of the ancient Greek play. This was opera as Monteverde found it. He, original thinker and worker that he was, applied the same daring innovations to his operatic music which he had employed in his compositions for the church. These consisted mainly in an utter disregard for the principles of strict counterpoint, and a free use of unprepared discords. [Sidenote: =Musical Innovations=]