Note 30 — Chapter II · THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CLASSIC PERIOD

Riemann cites Scheibe in the Kritische Musikus to the effect that symphonies with drums and trumpets (or horns) were already common in 1754, but we may safely assume that they were not symphonies in our sense—orchestral sonatas—for it must be recalled that the word Sinfonia was applied to pieces of various kinds, from a note-against-note canzona (seventeenth century) to interludes in operas, oratorios, etc., and more especially to the Italian operatic overture as distinguished from the French. The German dance-suite, too, from 1650 on, had a first movement called Sinfonia, which was superseded by the overture (in the French style) soon after. In the early eighteenth century the prevailing orchestral piece was an overture, usually modelled after the Italian Sinfonia. Not this, indeed, but the chamber-sonata was the real forerunner of the symphony, as our text has just shown.