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618 The Musical Quarterly

nect both sacred and secular music to the Gluckian tradition. None
of the writings contains an extended discussion of exclusively sym-
phonic procedures, but there is an unmistakable emphasis on dra-
matic music's expressivity in which the instrumental component
finds increased importance. The operas themselves demonstrate
Le Sueur's significant contribution to the new instrumental operatic
style of his time.
Le Sueur's desire to particularize instrumental music where for
a time a text is not present leads him to suggest that there are cir-
cumstances in which the orchestra alone can express emotions or
sentiments. A modified doctrine of the affections seems implicit in
the following statement:
I think that there are circumstances in which music could alone portray a senti-
ment in such a manner that it would be impossible not to recognize it. That
would occur in a well characterized and well marked melody, one in which the
lively, reinforced colors could imply no nuance pertaining to a sentiment other
than that which one wished to express.6
Most of the sources consider the multiple responsibilities of in-
struments in orchestral settings that include voices. Orchestral pas-
sages assume their traditional role in the unification of structure by
acting as connective links between predominantly vocal sections of
opposite character.7 They also engage in active dialogue during ac-
companied recitatives in such a way that, in Le Sueur's words, "the
orchestra can make [us] guess what the singer has in his soul even
when he speaks no longer and is silent: an advantage that poetry
never enjoys."8
The latter assertion should be recalled when one meets a seem-
ingly contradictory statement of another orchestral role:
The singer must express the sentiments and the passions of the hero whom he is
representing on the stage, and the orchestral player must help him in portraying
the images. If the vocal is the poetic part of music, the orchestra is the picturesque
part.9
This delineation of functions according to medium constitutes Le
Sueur's response to the specific situations inherent in stage tableaux.
It is in no way representative of his total view. Failure to recognize

6 Le Sueur, Expose... Suite de l'essai, pp. 33-34, continuation from p. 31 of
note 1.
7 Ibid., p. 63.
8 Ibid., pp. 20-21.
9 Le Sueur, Lettre en rdponse et Guillard, p. 64.

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