The Eighteenth Century — A Summing-up

There was then, an extraordinary proliferation of songs in the second half of the century: thousands of works by composers ranging from the greatest of the age to shallow dilettanti. They virtually all aimed at a simple and technically undemanding style, reacting against the complexities of opera and cantata and apparently distrusting the capabilities of amateur performers. Only gradually, in the latter decades of the century, did any significant movement towards a richer and more demanding style of song occur — and even here a fairly simple type of strophic song continued to dominate.