Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg: His Short Biography and Aesthetic Representation of His Works

without granting them a long Sta viator siste pedem Stop, traveler, stay your foot; rarely does a mailed royal spirit, as in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, still walk across the stage—a firm chromatic phrase that seizes, shakes, and binds.

Not so Zumsteeg. With rare equality, with a just balance, he gave each part its due without sacrificing the individualité individuality of the art, whether in the whole or in the detail. Never did he sacrifice the power of harmony to the Lethe-flow of melody, never time to a fleeting expression, never grace to strict rule.

His melody is the true tone of a singing soul, of a speaking mind, which, when happy, does not lose itself in insane throat-warbling, nor in pain in artificial runs; in a word: his song is pure, true, living declamation that feels every emotion through and through, and proceeds hand in hand with dignity and grace, not hopping like a forest bird chirping from one branch to another.

Nevertheless, nothing is sacrificed in the melody. It is anything but stiff and hard; on the contrary: through its