Famous Composers and
their Works

Edited by
John Knowles Paine
Theodore Thomas and Karl Klauser

Illustrated

Boston
J. B. Millet Company
1906

Copyright, 1891, by
J. B. Millet Company.

This book is dedicated by the Publishers to

Henry L. Higginson

who has advanced the culture of music in America.

List of Contributors

The Illustrations

The originals of the illustrations reproduced for this work were collected from museums, conservatories, antiquaries, public and private libraries, and other authentic sources in England and on the Continent, by Mr. Arthur J. Mundy, who spent several months in making a special search.

The authorities in London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Vienna, Leipsic, Dresden, Berlin, and other places visited, gladly assisted in making the collection as complete as possible.

This material was placed in the hands of Mr. Karl Klauser, who made valuable additions to it from his private collection of authentic portraits. A lifelong study of this subject enabled him to contribute valuable notes and comments on the illustrations.

The ornamental half-titles, headpieces, and initials were designed by Mr. E. B. Bird, of Boston.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FULL-PAGE PLATES.

[INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS.]

(Titles set in small capital letters indicate full-page illustrations.)

PORTRAITS.

CARICATURES.

FAC-SIMILE MANUSCRIPTS.

BIRTHPLACES AND RESIDENCES.

MONUMENTS, STATUES, BUSTS, AND TOMBS.

MISCELLANEOUS.

ORLANDO LASSO

Reproduction of an engraving by C. Debluis, after an old German print in the "Cabinet des estampes" in Paris. It bears the inscription, "Orlandus Lassus, musicus excellens."

ORLANDO DI LASSO

OLAND DELATTRE is generally known by the Italian form of his name, Orlando di Lasso. He was the last great light of the famous school of Netherlands masters who were the real founders of modern musical art. The history of Lasso's career is tolerably well known to us, owing to the existence of Vinchant's "Annals of Hainault" and a sketch by Van Quickelberg published in 1565 in a biographical dictionary called "Heroum Prosopographia." Although the former author was born in 1580, and Lasso died in 1594 or 1595, he places the date of the composer's birth ten years earlier than Van Quickelberg. Fétis gives plausible reasons for accepting Vinchant's date, yet it is probable that Van Quickelberg got his data directly from the composer, of whom he was an intimate friend.

At any rate, he was born in Mons in 1520 or 1530 and at the age of seven began his education. Like all musically gifted persons, he displayed his inclination toward the tone art at an early age, and in his ninth year he began the study of music. At that period music meant counterpoint and church singing. Hence Lasso, being endowed with a fine voice, began his career as a boy chorister in the church of St. Nicolas in his native town. There he became celebrated for the beauty of his voice and was twice stolen but recovered by his parents. The third time the little song-bird was carried off, he consented to remain with Ferdinand Gonzague, viceroy of Sicily and at that time commander of the army of Charles V. When the war was over the lad went with Ferdinand to Sicily and afterward to Milan. Van Quickelberg says that after six years his voice broke and at the age of eighteen he was sent by his patron under charge of Constantin Castriotto to Naples with letters of recommendation to the Marquis of Terza. He became a member of that nobleman's household and remained with him three years. At the end of that time he went to Rome, where he stayed six months as the guest of the archbishop of Florence. He was then appointed chapel-master of the famous church of St. John Lateran. While serving there he was informed of the sickness of his parents, and, probably being somewhat conscience stricken, set out for Mons, where he arrived after his father and mother were dead.

He returned to Rome and soon afterward paid a visit to France and England in company with a noble amateur of music called Julius Caeser Brancaccio. From France he went to Antwerp, where he stayed until he went to Munich in 1557 to enter the service of Albert of Bavaria. The doubt as to the date of his birth makes the length of his residence in Rome uncertain. He was there either two years or twelve, according as he was born in 1520 or 1530. The invitation to Munich seems to show that Lasso had acquired a European reputation as a composer. Such a reputation would naturally have been acquired during a long period of service in the Lateran church. If, however, Lasso did remain in Rome twelve years and produce works which gave him European celebrity, they are lost. Nevertheless even Van Quickelberg's testimony goes to show that Lasso's fame as a composer and as a man had preceded him to Munich. The Duke Albert directed him to engage a number of singers for the ducal choir and take them with him to Munich. Albert V. was a lover of art, and he is credited with being highly pleased at the engagement of Lasso. Quickelberg says that report in the Bavarian capital "was busy as to the character and disposition of the man. He was credited with being a great artist and a high-minded gentleman, and the Munich folk were not to be disappointed. The brilliant wit of the master, his amiability of temper, the cheerfulness of his disposition, and the universality of his knowledge, combined to make him a favorite with all. With the duke and the duchess he was especially intimate, and owing to their favor was admitted to the highest social gatherings. His introduction to the court nobility resulted in his marriage in 1558 with Regina Welkinger, a maid of honor attendant on the duchess." [Naumann, History of Music, p. 376.]

ALBRECHT V.

Reproduced from an ancient prayer book.

It may be as well to add here that Lasso and his wife had six children, four sons and two daughters. Ferdinand and Rudolph, the eldest sons, became composers of some note. It was in 1562 that Lasso was made chapel-master to the Duke of Bavaria, thus attaining what was then esteemed as the highest prize in the musical world. He now had under his direction a fine body of singers and instrumentalists, for which a modern composer would have written not only masses, but cantatas and oratorios. We must bear in mind, however, that in Lasso's day church composers preferred the a capella style, and the art of orchestral accompaniment, as we understand it now, was unknown. When instruments were used in conjunction with voices they simply doubled the voice parts. Hence Lasso's great compositions are all written for an unaccompanied choir. It appears that Lasso served for five years as chamber musician before being made chapel-master, because Ludwig Daser was not quite old enough to be retired from the higher post and because the Duke wished Lasso to learn the language before assuming the responsibility of the mastership. In 1562, as stated, Daser was retired, and, as Van Quickelberg tells us, "the Duke, seeing that Master Orlando had by this time learnt the language and gained the good will of all by the propriety and gentleness of his behavior, and that his compositions (in number infinite) were universally liked, without loss of time elected him master of the chapel, to the evident pleasure of all."

From this time forward for several years Lasso was engaged in composing his most noted church works, among them being the famous "Penitential Psalms," which are still held in the highest esteem among lovers of pure old church music. He wrote also some of his finest Magnificats, as well as many pieces of secular music. His fame spread through Europe, and though Palestrina was his contemporary, it was Lasso who was spoken of as the "Prince of Musicians." He was also much praised as a conductor, and contemporary writers bear testimony to the fine precision and spirit with which the ducal choir sang under his direction. In 1570 the Emperor Maximilian honored the composer by making him a knight. The following year Pope Gregory XIII. conferred upon him the order of the Golden Spurs. The ceremony was performed with much pomp in the papal chapel at Munich by the chevaliers Cajetan and Mezzacosta. In the same year the composer made a visit to Paris, where he was received with every mark of distinction by Charles IX. This visit and the favor of the monarch have given rise to one of those pretty stories with which the history of music is dotted, but which unfortunately will not bear scrutiny. The story is that Charles IX., tormented by remorse for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, asked Lasso to write his Penitential Psalms as an expression of the kingly repentance. But dates, which are stubborn things, refuse to be reconciled with this story. These psalms were undoubtedly written at the request of Duke Albert. The first volume of them in manuscript is preserved in the Royal State Library at Munich, and it bears the date 1565. The massacre of St. Bartholomew took place in 1572. The value which Duke Albert set upon these compositions is shown by the manner in which he treated them. They were bound in the most costly manner, in morocco, with silver ornaments which alone cost seven hundred and sixty-four florins. The court painter, Hans Mielich, painted for them portraits of the Duke, Orlando, and of the persons who made the books. J. Sterndale Bennett, in his excellent article on Lasso in Grove's "Dictionary of Music," makes the suggestion that the production of these noble psalms so early in the composer's life at Munich points to the probability that his Roman sojourn was twelve years instead of two, and that he was, therefore, born in 1520 instead of 1530. The inference is hardly avoidable.

To return to the Paris visit, it may be deemed probable that one result of it was the erection of a new Academy of Music, authorized by the king in 1570. The only composition known to have been produced by Lasso in Paris was sent to Duke Albert as "some proof of my gratitude." In 1574 Lasso set out for Paris once more, but when he had gone as far as Frankfort he learned that King Charles IX. was dead; so he returned to Munich, where he resumed the work of composition with undiminished activity. Lasso never left Munich again and a detailed record of his life subsequent to 1575 would consist chiefly of a chronological catalogue of the works which he published. It may be said that he did not produce any large compositions in the years 1578-80. The Duke, who had confirmed him for life in his appointment on his return from Munich, had become ill, and in October, 1579, this generous and high-minded patron of the arts breathed his last.

This was a sad blow to Lasso, whose affection for his princely friend was surely sincere. It was fortunate for the composer's material welfare that Duke Albert's successor was a hearty admirer of his works. The substantial nature of his regard was shown in 1587, when, Lasso having begun to show signs of failing health, the new potentate gave him a country house at Geising on the Ammer. There the composer sought seclusion for a time from the bustle of court life. On April 15, he dedicated twenty-three new madrigals to Dr. Mermann, the court physician, and J. Sterndale Bennett sees in this an evidence of restored health and renewed activity. Near the end of the year, however, he asked to be relieved of some of his numerous duties. The Duke gave him permission to retire from his post and pass a part of each year at Geising with his family, but his salary was to be reduced to two hundred florins per annum. His son Ferdinand, however, was to be appointed a member of the choir at two hundred florins, and Rudolph was to be made organist at the same salary. For some reason Lasso was not satisfied with this arrangement, and so he resumed his labors.

STATUE OF LASSO IN MUNICH

Erected by Ludwig II.

It would be gratifying to be able to picture this great master approaching his end along the green pathway of a serene old age. Unfortunately this cannot be done. His declining years were marked by gloom and morbidity. He talked constantly of death, and became so peevish as to write to Duke William complaining that he had not done all for the composer that Duke Albert had promised. The devoted wife, Regina, united her efforts with those of Princess Maximiliana to remove the evil effects of this letter. The composer sank gradually and died at Munich on June 14, 1594. He was buried in the cemetery of the Franciscans, and his widow erected a fine monument to his memory in their church. According to Fétis this stone was two feet four inches high and four feet eight inches long. It had ornamental bas-reliefs representing the holy sepulchre, Lassus and his family at prayer, and the coat-of-arms conferred upon them by the Emperor Maximilian. The inscription on the base was as follows:

"Hic ille est Lassus, lassum qui recreat orbem,

Discordemque sua copulat harmonia."

Here lies he weary who a weary world refreshed,

And discord with his harmony enmeshed.

The reader will note the play on the word lassus, weary. The monument was removed when the Franciscan churchyard was dismantled in 1800, and in 1830 the stone disappeared from view. The world of art has to thank the "mad king" Ludwig, of Bavaria (to whom it owes debts of gratitude in connection with Wagner's career), for the erection of a life-size statue in bronze of Orlando Lasso. It stood originally next to the statue of Gluck near the Theatiner Church, but was afterward removed to the public promenade. There is another statue of Lasso at Mons, where he was born.

From portrait in the "Penitential Psalms," set by Lasso, in the Royal State Library at Munich.

Lasso was one of the most prolific composers that ever lived. He is said to have written no less than two thousand five hundred original works. A great number of these have been preserved, but the reader who is not able to decipher antique scores will undoubtedly be most interested in those which have been republished in modern form. These are as follows: his famous seven Penitential Psalms, edited by S. W. Dehn and published in Berlin in 1835; a "Regina coeli," "Salve Regina," "Angelus ad pastores," and "Miserere," Rochlitz's "Sammlung vorzüglicher Gesangstücke," Vol. I., published by Schott in 1838; a setting of the twenty-third Psalm as a motet for five voices, a "Quo properas" for ten voices, and a Magnificat for five, published at Berlin by Schlesinger; "Confirma hoc deus" for six voices, Berlin, Guttentag; six German chansons (four voices) and one dialogue (eight voices) in Dehn's "Sammlung alter Musik," Berlin, Crantz; twelve motets (four to eight voices) in Commer's collection published by Schott of Mainz; twenty motets in Proske's "Musica Divina"; the mass "Qual donna attende" (five voices) in Proske's selection of masses published at Ratisbon, 1856; the mass "Or sus à coup" (four voices), edited by Ferrenberg and published by Heberle at Cologne in 1847. Many more of his works have been edited and are ready for publication, but remain in MS. The above list is taken from Scribner's "Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians," and appears to be correct, as far as it goes. Naumann's "History of Music" contains a very beautiful "Adoramus te Christe," a chorale for four male voices. Lest the reader should fall into the error of supposing that the great bulk of Lasso's works were ecclesiastical, it should be mentioned that he wrote many German songs, fifty-nine canzonets, three hundred and seventy-one French songs, thirty-four Latin songs, and two hundred and thirty-three madrigals. Of these last, at least one—"Matrona, mia cara"—holds its own among the glees of to-day; and its quaint refrain of "Dong, dong, dong, derry, derry, dong, dong," haunts every ear that once has heard it.

To rightly appreciate the value of Lasso's music one must bear in mind the history of the great Netherlands school as a whole. Lasso was the perfect blossom of a plant of long growth. His earliest predecessors had been occupied in manufacturing musical materials, systematizing the old chaotic practice of the mere improvisers and establishing fundamental forms on which the superstructure of modern music was to be reared. In their efforts at perfecting these forms they had fallen into extravagances, often losing sight of the nature and purpose of music, of which at the best they had a very imperfect comprehension. Occasionally, at least once in each period of the existence of the school, a composer arose who urged forward the march of development. A host of imitators would follow, and in imitating the new forms and touches of a creative mind these men could fall back into mere formal ingenuity again, and stay there till another original thinker arose. The progress of musical art, therefore, might be likened to the rising of the ocean tide on the beach, moving forward in a series of waves, each followed by receding water.

ORLANDO DI LASSO.

From a very early period in the rise of the Netherlands school a movement toward beauty and simplicity of form and expression can be traced. This movement came to its destination in Lasso. He did not, it is true, abandon the contrapuntal forms of his predecessors; but he wholly subordinated them to his purpose, and his purpose was plainly the expression of those feelings which belong to man's religious nature. He succeeded in keeping this purpose uppermost, no matter in what style he chose to write. Sometimes he composed simple chorales in which the voices moved simultaneously, and again he wrote hymns in four parts, adding a popular melody as a discant. He moved from either of these styles to the most complicated polyphonic manner of the Des Prés period without sacrifice of dignity, musical beauty or religious fervor. He wrote works for two and three choirs, and he wrote others for only two voices. In the Penitential Psalms he clearly demonstrated that a mass of voices and parts was not necessary to an attainment of impressive effect, for he showed that he could be most powerfully expressive and influential while employing the simplest of means. Some of his writing is extremely old-fashioned even for his time. It might have been handed down from the days of Ockeghem. Again he plunges boldly into the labyrinth of chromatics and makes one think he hears the voice of Cyprian de Rore. In short, we must concede that Lasso displayed in his constructive skill the versatility of a complete master, while through all his work there runs the never-failing current of personal influence that flows only from the masterful individuality of a real genius.

Interesting comparisons have been drawn between the style of Lasso and that of Palestrina. The fact is that in formal arrangement Palestrina's masses bear a close assemblance to the most modern of Lasso's works. It is only when the Flemish master is writing in the style of his predecessors that his construction ceases to bear resemblance to that of the Italian. Both excelled in one style—that in which the profundity of contrapuntal skill results in an appearance of simplicity and in a real conveyance of emotion. The difference between the men lies in the character of their musical thought, and that difference has been most excellently expressed by Ambros, who says: "The one (Palestrina) brings the angelic host to earth; the other raises man to eternal regions, both meeting in the realm of the ideal." Fétis, in his prize essay of 1828, says: "Too many writers in their eulogies of Lasso have called him the Prince of musicians of his age. Whatever be the respect which I have for that great man, I declare that I am not able to acquiesce in this exaggerated admiration. It is sufficient for the glory of Lasso that he equalled the reputation of a musician like Palestrina; it would be unjust to accord him the superiority. In examining the works of these two celebrated artists, one remarks the different qualities which they possess and which gives to them an individual physiognomy. The music of the former is graceful and elegant (for the time in which it was composed); but that of Palestrina has more force and seriousness. That of Lasso is more singable and shows greater imagination, but that of his rival is much more learned. In the motets and madrigals of Palestrina are effects of mass which are admirable; but the French songs of Lasso are full of most interesting details. In fine they deserve to be compared with one another; that is a eulogy of both."

Fétis's assertion that the music of Palestrina is the more learned is a trifle vague. The fact is that the learning of Palestrina's music is greater than that of Lasso's only because the former more successfully conceals itself. Nothing could be more lovely in its simplicity than Lasso's "Adoramus te" given by Naumann, but its simplicity is that of the chorale style. The "Regina Coeli" given by Rochlitz is a fine specimen of double counterpoint. The "Salve Regina," given by the same author, is in free chorale style and is written for solo quartet and chorus. The "Angelus ad pastores," while not strict in its counterpoint, is full of learned work, yet withal is not involved in style. The "Principal Parts of the 51st Psalm," also printed in Rochlitz's work, looks very much like a modern anthem, especially the "Gloria patri." The madrigals of Lasso are charming in their native humor and in the piquancy of their part writing.

The influence of Lasso upon later composers cannot well be separated from the general influence of his time, for the contrapuntal church style was the prevailing manner of composition throughout Europe. The Belgian, Italian, and German music of the time is all built on the model established by the Netherlands masters. But Lasso must be credited with having done almost as much as Palestrina toward showing how ecclesiastical music could be written in an artistic but wholly intelligible manner. The German writers who imitated him (Ludwig Senfl, Paul Gerhardt and others) in their Protestant chorals and motets led the way directly to the motets, cantatas and passion music of the Bach period, and Lasso through his influence on them contributed toward the development of the genius of the immortal Sebastian.

THE NETHERLAND MASTERS

HE improvisatore nursed the infancy of both poetry and music. The latter did not grow to the stature of an art until the rude improvisations of its early guardians gave way to the systematic compositions of the Netherland masters. Systematic composition, however, presupposes the existence of three fundamental elements, none of which had assumed tangible form in the earliest days recorded in musical history. These elements are harmony, notation and measure. Huckbald, a Benedictine Monk of St. Armand in Flanders, is credited with being the first to formulate rules for harmony about 895 A. D. His ideas were crude and their results disagreeable to the modern ear. He used chiefly parallel fourths and fifths, but he employed another freer style in which a melody moved flexibly above a fixed bass—the earliest form of pedal point. Harmony was not invented by Huckbald, but he must be honored as the writer of the first treatise on the subject. The field once opened up was industriously cultivated, and by the time the era of the Netherland school began, had been productive of a rich harvest. Notation was also a plant of slow growth, but the employment of four lines in a staff, together with the spaces, was introduced by Guido of Arezzo, who died in 1050. The formulation of rules for measure was the work of Franco of Cologne, who flourished 1200 A. D. He adopted four characters to represent sounds of different lengths. These notes were the longa,

; the brevis,

; the duplex longa,

and the semi brevis,

. He also distinguished common from triple time, calling the latter "perfect." Fétis quotes from the introduction to Franco's "Ars Cantus Mensurabilis" the following words: "We propose, therefore, to set forth in this volume this same measured music. We shall not refuse to make known the good ideas of others, nor to expose their mistakes; and if we have invented anything good, we shall support it with good arguments." Fétis, however, makes this significant remark: "Néanmoins le profond savoir qu'on remarque dans l'ouvrage de Francon, et l'obscurité dans laquelle sont ensevelis et les noms et les œuvres de ceux, auxquels il attribue la première invention de la musique mesurée, le feront à jamais regarder comme le premier auteure de cette importante découverte." [Fétis, Mémoire sur cette Question: "Quels out été les mérites des Neerlandais dans la musique," etc.—Question mise au concours pour l'année 1828 par la quatrieme classe de l'Institut des Sciences, de Litterature et des Beaux Arts du Royaume des Pays-Bas.]

With harmony and measure governed by rules and the written page at hand as a conserving power, systematic composition became a possibility. The study of this art was the work of monks, who were the repositories of polite learning in the middle ages, and they naturally sought for their thematic material in the plain chant of the church. Their treatment of this chant was a natural outgrowth of the impromptu production of music which had preceded systematic composition and which clung to existence with great pertinacity. Guido of Arezzo had taught choristers the art of singing with such success that they began the long-honored custom of adding ornaments to their melodies. They carried this practice to such an extent that it became necessary for one singer to intone the melody while another sang the ornamental part. This adding of ornamental parts was called the art of discant; and when the monks took up scientific composition they simply added discants to the liturgical chants of the church. This was the beginning of counterpoint, the art of writing two or more melodies which shall proceed simultaneously without breaking the rules of harmony. The name "counterpoint" was early applied to it by Johannes de Muris, doctor of theology at the University of Paris in the beginning of the fourteenth century. This indicates that by his time the scientific setting of note against note had fully superseded discant, the fanciful elaboration of the singers.

It was in the hands of the great masters of the Netherland school that this counterpoint, the first species of scientific composition, was developed to its highest perfection. In the main the differences between their counterpoint and ours are due to the cramped harmony of their time, which was fettered by the employment of the Gregorian scales. The superiority of Bach's counterpoint over theirs from a technical point of view is the result of his mastery of chromatics and his perfection of the system of equal temperament. With the aesthetic superiority of his work we need not concern ourselves, for we must bear in mind the fact that most of the Netherland masters were absorbed in developing the technical construction of music, and had little to do with the exploration of its emotional possibility.

Systems are not completed in a day. Those writers on musical history who pass immediately from the labors of Franco to the Netherland masters ignore the long series of tentative works of the French composers who flourished between 1100 and 1370 A. D., and of the English composers who flourished between the same years. It is a well established fact that in England there were many writers who showed skill in the early contrapuntal forms. Johannes Tinctoris, a Netherlander, writing in 1460 A. D., went so far as to say that the source of counterpoint was among the English, of whom Dunstable was in his opinion the greatest light. Walter Odington, an Englishman, wrote a learned treatise on counterpoint in 1217, and some authorities accept him as the composer of the notable canonic composition, "Sumer is icumen in." It is pretty clearly established, however, that Odington was a disciple of the French school, while Dunstable, being a contemporary of Binchois, was of later birth than the early French composers. The writer of this paper is of the opinion that the line of contrapuntal development appears to join Flanders with France rather than with England, and he, therefore, prefers to consider chiefly the French school.

The Frenchman, Jean Perotin, then, about 1130 A. D., employed imitation, and one of his immediate successors, Jean de Garlande, says in his treatise on music that double counterpoint was known before his time. He says it is the repetition of the same phrase by different voices at different times. It is impracticable in this article to review in detail the achievements of the French school, but a summary of its work is necessary to a comprehension of the Netherland school. The Frenchmen possessed three kinds of harmonic combinations: the Déchant (discant) or double, the triple and the quadruple, or in other words, contrapuntal compositions in two, three and four parts. Discants were of two kinds. In the first the cantus firmus, or fixed chant of the liturgy, was sung by one voice (called tenor—Latin, teneo, I hold—because it held the tune) while the other added a discant above it. In the second the discant was freely composed, and a lower part, or bass added.

Three-part compositions were of four kinds: fauxbourdon, motet, rondeau and conduit, the last three being written also in four parts. Fauxbourdon was simply a three-voiced chant, the parts having similar motion, the upper and lower being parallel sixths and the middle in fourths with the discant. In the motet each voice had a text of its own. The rondo was secular and was developed from the folk-music of the day. The conduit was uncertain in form, secular in character, and, like the rondo, was written for either voices or instruments. The early French masters made extensive use of the parallel movement of voices, yet had plainly no conception of harmony founded on chords. They show a much clearer purpose in their contrapuntal writings wherein the imitations are plainly devised according to rules. But the entire musical product of France between 1100 and 1250 was the cold, mathematical work of academicians, who nevertheless served the cause of the tone art by laying down indispensable laws. The last great master of this school, William of Machaut, who wrote the celebrated Coronation Mass for the crowning of Charles V., flourished between 1284 and 1369. Naturally enough the teachings of the French spread into the provinces of Belgium, and there grew up a school from which the Netherland masters rose. The most prominent early Belgian composer was Dufay (1350-1432). This writer introduced secular melodies into his masses, forbade the use of consecutive fifths, and freely used interrupted canonic part writing, in which the imitation appears only at occasional effective places. His works show evidences of a vague groping after euphonic beauty. Antoine de Busnois, who died in 1482, was the last of these early masters. His works abound in clever use of the devices of imitation and inversion. His canonic writing is more finished and his harmony bolder than Dufay's. The character of the music produced at this time has been well described by Mr. Rockstro. He says: "At this period, representing the infancy of art, the subject, or canto fermo, was almost invariably placed in the tenor and sung in long sustained notes, while two or more supplementary voices accompanied it with an elaborate counterpoint, written like the canto fermo itself in one or other of the ancient ecclesiastical modes, and consisting of fugal passages, points of imitation, or even canons, all suggested by the primary idea, and all working together for a common end."

Dufay was the connecting link between the French School and the great Netherland masters. At this time the Dutch led the world in painting, in the liberal arts and in commercial enterprise. Their skill in mechanics was unequalled, and we naturally expect to see their musicians further the development of musical technique. We must bear in mind facts to which the writer has had to refer elsewhere ("Story of Music," p. 21). "The general tendency of European thought at this time also had its bearing on the tone art. Scholasticism was in full sway, and such philosophers as Albertus Magnus, John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham were engaged in wondrous metaphysical hair-splitting, endeavoring to reduce Aristotelianism to a Christian basis by the application of the most vigorous logic. This spirit of scholasticism entered music, and contrapuntal science by too much learning was made mad." Yet the essential nature of music could not be wholly suppressed, and as the writers of the time acquired that marvellous mastery of musical material which came from their practice of counterpoint, they began to use their science as a means and not an end; and finally the masters of the Netherland school attained the loftiest heights of church composition. Various divisions of the periods of development of this school have been made. That adopted by the writer is Emil Naumann's with some alterations. It does not appear to be necessary to set the Dutch members of the school apart from the Belgians; and the writer, in his estimate of the comparative importance of the masters, agrees with Kiesewetter and Fétis rather than with Naumann. The division of the school into four periods, as follows, seems to be a fair one:

Netherlands School (1425-1625 A. D.).

First Period, 1425-1512.

Chief masters: Ockeghem, Hobrecht, Brumel.

Second Period, 1455-1526.

Chief masters: Josquin des Près, Jean Mouton.

Third Period, 1495-1572.

Chief masters: Gombert, Willaert, Goudimel, De Rore, Jannequin, Arkadelt.

Fourth Period, 1520-1625.

Chief masters: Orlando Lasso, Swelinck, De Monte.

Johannes Ockeghem, the most accomplished writer of the first period, was born between 1415 and 1430, probably at Termonde in East Flanders. It is likely that he studied music under Binchois, a contemporary of Dufay. At any rate an Ockeghem was one of the college of singers at the Antwerp cathedral in 1443, when Binchois was choir master. About 1444 the youth entered the service of Charles VII. of France, as a singer. He stood high in the favor of Louis XI., who made him treasurer of the church of St. Martin's at Tours. There Ockeghem passed the remainder of his life, retiring from active service about 1490. He died about 1513.

Octavio dei Petrucci, of Fossombrone, invented movable types for printing music in 1502, and obtained a patent for the exclusive use of the process for fifteen years in 1513. By that time the advance in the mastery of counterpoint had left Ockeghem somewhat out of fashion; and it is, therefore, not remarkable that Petrucci's earliest collections contain nothing by this master. Not till years after his death was any mass or motet of his given to the world. Then only one was printed entire. This was his "Missa cujusvis toni," which was plainly selected because of its science. Extracts from his "Missa Prolationum" were used in theoretical treatises; and, indeed, Ockeghem's music seems generally to have been cherished wholly on account of the technical instruction which might be derived from it. The list of his extant compositions, as given in Scribner's "Cyclopedia of Music," is as follows:

"Missa cujusvis toni," in Liber XV., missarum (Petreius, Louvain, 1538); six motets and a sequence (Petrucci, Venice, 1503); an enigmatic canon in S. Heyden's "Ars Canendi" and in Glarean's "Dodekachordon"; fragments of "Missa prolationum" in Heyden's book and in Bellermann's "Kontrapunkt"; mass "De plus en plus," MS. in Pontifical Chapel, Rome; two masses, "Pour quelque peine" and "Ecce ancilla Domini," in the Brussels Library; motets in MS. in Rome, Florence and Dijon; six masses, an Ave and some motets in Van der Straeten; Kyrie and Christe, from "Missa cujusvis toni" in Rochlitz.

This list is probably correct except the six motets and a sequence set down as published by Petrucci in 1503. Ambros, who is always trustworthy and who mentions all these works and also three songs ("D'ung aultre mer," "Aultre Venus" and "Rondo Royal") and a motet ("Alma redemptoris") in MS. at Florence, did not discover any publications by Petrucci. The enigmatical canon was solved by Kiesewetter, Burney, Hawkins and other historians; but the solution believed to be most nearly correct is that of the profound contrapuntist and excellent historian, Fétis. Glareanus (Dodekachordon, p. 454) speaks also of a motet for thirty-six voices. This was, no doubt, originally written for six or nine voices, the other parts being derived from them by canons. It is not certain, however, that Ockeghem ever wrote such a work. The "Missa cujusvis toni" ("A mass in any tone," or scale, as we should say now) may have been written as an exercise for the master's pupils, as some historians conjecture, but it seems more probable that it was a natural outgrowth of the puzzle-building spirit of the time and of Ockeghem's especial fondness for displays of musical ingenuity. The peculiarity of the mass is that it employs in a remarkable manner all the church modes or scales. It was sung in Munich many years after Ockeghem's death and a corrected copy of it is still preserved in the chapel.

Fétis says: "As a professor, Ockeghem was also very remarkable, for all the most celebrated musicians at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century were his pupils." In the "Complaint" written after his death by William Grespel, appear the following lines:

"Argicola, Verbonnet, Prioris,

Josquin des Près, Gaspard, Brumel, Compère,

Ne parlez plus de Joyeul chants, ne ris,

Mais composez un ne recorderis,

Pour lamentir nostre maîstre et bon père."

Antoine Brumel achieved the greatest distinction among these pupils. He was born about 1460 and died about 1520. His personal history is lost. The present age possesses, however, a fuller record of his work than it has of his master's. In one volume printed by Petrucci in 1503 and to be found in the Royal Library at Berlin, there are five of his masses. Another mass by this composer is in a volume of works by various writers, printed also by Petrucci. A copy of this composition is in the British Museum. A number of masses and motets of his are scattered through other collections of Petrucci's. Others exist in MS. in Munich. Brumel's motet, "O Domine Jesu Christe, pastor bone," quoted by Naumann, is written in a clear and dignified style, abounds in full chords, and contains only such passages of imitation as would readily suggest themselves. A better example of the style of the period is his canonic, "Laudate Dominum," given by Foskel and Kiesewetter.

Jacob Hobrecht, the principal Dutch master of the first Netherland period, was born about 1430, at Utrecht, where he subsequently became chapel-master. It does not appear on record anywhere that he was a pupil of Ockeghem, but he was unquestionably a disciple of that composer. He achieved celebrity in his life time and was honored with many distinctions. He wrote a mass for the choir of the Bruges Cathedral, and the whole body journeyed to Antwerp to pay him homage. It is stated that he also received a visit from Bishop Borbone of Cortona, leader of the papal choir. Hobrecht became chapel-master at Utrecht, about 1465, and had there a choir of seventy voices. A part of his life was spent in Florence at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent, where he met Josquin des Près.

The indefatigable Ambros goes into a careful discussion of eight masses of Hobrecht's, published in the Petrucci collections. Of these the best, known as the "Fortuna desperata," was published in modern notation at Amsterdam in 1870. Examples of Hobrecht's writing are also to be found in the works of Burney, Forkel, Kiesewetter, and Naumann. One of Hobrecht's musical feats was the composition of a mass in a single night. His works contain all the canonic inventions employed by Ockeghem, and are a mine of contrapuntal learning. Doubtless when sung by the trained cathedral choirs of their period, they were impressive to ears not attuned to modern tonality.

So much for the personal history of the most brilliant lights of the time. More instructive will be a review of the musical character of their work.

It is the prevailing influence of one or two masters in each period that marks its extent. Its character was formed by that influence, and salient features of the style of each period may be fairly distinguished. The first period was marked by the extreme development of the canon. Perhaps for the benefit of the reader who may not have studied counterpoint it would be well to give here one or two elementary definitions. Imitation, in the words of Sir Frederick A. Gore-Ouseley, is "a repetition, more or less exact, by one voice of a phrase or passage previously enunciated by another. If the imitation is absolutely exact as to intervals it becomes a canon." Canon is the most rigorous species of imitation. Naturally then, as imitation is the foundation of fugal writing, the first occupation of musicians was its perfection. Thus we see that the composers of the first period of the Netherland school were almost wholly engaged in exploring the resources of canonic composition, and the most celebrated of their number, Ockeghem, was he who displayed the greatest ingenuity in this style. To describe the various forms of canonic jugglery invented by Ockeghem and his contemporaries would weary the reader; but a few may be mentioned as examples of the craft exercised at that time.

First, there was the "cancriza," or backward movement of the cantus firmus, in which the melody was repeated interval by interval, beginning at the last note and moving toward the first. Second, there was the inverted canon, in which the inversion consisted of beginning at the original first note and proceeding with each interval reversed, so that a melody which had ascended would, in the inversion, descend. In the canon by augmentation the subject reappears in one of the subsidiary parts in notes twice as long as those in which it was originally announced. Conversely in the canon by diminution the subject is repeated in notes of smaller duration than those first used. These four forms are still extant and have been employed by most great composers of modern music from Bach to the present time. The canon by augmentation is often used in choral music, especially in the bass, with superb effect. Indeed all the varieties described are to be found in the music of Handel and Bach, the latter being a complete master of their use in instrumental as well as choral composition.

But the composers of the first Netherland period employed kinds of canonic writing which are now looked upon as mere curiosities. Among these were the repetition of the cantus firmus beginning with the second note and ending with the first; the repetition with the omission of all the rests; the perfect repetition of the whole melody; a repetition half forward and half backward; and another with the omission of all the shortest notes. Naumann is of the opinion that these forms "arose from an earnest desire to consolidate a system of part-writing which could only exist after a complete mastery had been obtained over all kinds of musical contrivances." Kiesewetter, also generous in his views, says that these writers excel their predecessors in possessing "a greater facility in counterpoint and fertility in invention; their compositions, moreover, being no longer mere premeditated submissions to the contrapuntal operation, but for the most part being indicative of thought and sketched out with manifest design, being also full of ingenious contrivances of an obligato counterpoint, at that time just discovered, such as augmentation, diminution, inversion, imitation; together with canons and fugues of the most manifold description."

Of Ockeghem in particular, Rochlitz ("Sammlung vorzüglicher Gesangstücke," Vol. I., p. 22) says: "His style was distinguished from that of his predecessors, especially Dufay, principally in two ways: it was more artistic and was not founded on well-known melodies, but in part on freely made melodic movements contrapuntally developed, which rendered the style richer and more varied."

This statement is undoubtedly true, and may be taken for all it is worth. But the prima facie evidence of the works of these masters is that the writers were bent on exhausting the resources of canonic ingenuity, that their private study was all devoted to the exploration of academic counterpoint, that they worked in slavish obedience to the contrapuntal formulas which they themselves had contrived, and that their most ambitious compositions were nothing more or less than brilliant specimens of technical skill. To this estimate of their work excellent support is given by the significant criticism of Martin Luther on the writing of Josquin des Près, chief master of the second period. The great reformer said: "Josquin is a master of the notes; they have to do as he wills, other composers must do as the notes will." Furthermore the Latin formulas used in noting canons in Ockeghem's day go far toward proving that it was the mechanical ingenuity of the form which appealed to the masters of that time. They were in the habit of putting forth a canonic subject with the general indication "Ex una plures," signifying that several parts were to be evolved from one, and a special direction, such as "Ad medium referas, pausas relinque priores," darkly hinting at the manner of the working out. These riddle canons date back to Dufay's time, but they were the special delight of Ockeghem and his contemporaries. The results of such practice could only be musical mathematics, yet the masters of this period performed a lasting service to art; for they laid down rules for this kind of composition and in their own works indicated the path by which artistic results might be reached by their successors. The highest praise that can be awarded to their works is that they are profound in their scholarship, not without evidences of taste in the selection of the formulas to be employed, and certainly imbued with a good deal of the dignity which would inevitably result from a skilful contrapuntal treatment of the church chant. Ambros finds evidences of design in one of Ockeghem's motets, from which he quotes, but the design is certainly not of the kind which would call for praise if discovered in contemporaneous music. Naumann, who is quite carried away by the improvement of the first Netherlands compositions over those of the French contrapuntists, is warm in his praise of these early canonists. He says:

"Almost at the beginning of the Netherland school, mechanical invention was made subservient to idea. It was no longer contrapuntal writing for counterpoint's sake. Excesses were toned down, and the desire unquestionable was that the contrapuntist's art should occupy its proper position as a means to an end. Euphony and beauty of expression were the objects of the composer. In part writing each voice was made to relate to the other in a manner totally unknown to the Paris masters. Such were the first beginnings of the 'canonic' form, and fugato system of writing, the herald of that scholarly class of compositions known as fugues, the end and aim of which it is to connect in the closest possible manner the various component parts. It was this complete mastery over counterpoint in all its varying details that gave to the tone-masters such unbounded artistic liberty. No longer was it necessary that they should, like the organists, cantors, and magisters of Paris and Tournay, exhibit their power over newly-acquired contrivances, but, as inheritors of a system of inventive skill, the devices and contrivances fell into their proper and natural channel, and were regarded as merely subordinate to a purer tonal expression of feelings than had hitherto been attempted. Henceforth counterpoint was but a means to an end, and art-music began to assume for the first time the characteristics of folk-music, i. e., the free, pure and natural outflow of heart and mind, with the invaluable addition, however, of intellectual manipulation."

Naumann's comments are the result of his overvaluation of the purely tentative labors of the early French school and his manifest eagerness to find grounds for laudation of the writers of the first Netherland period. It is a plain fact, to which all evidence points, that the man looked up to as the chief master of the period was a profound academician and that he was greater as a teacher than as a composer. That his successors did achieve something in the way of euphonic beauty and freedom of style is certainly true, as can be demonstrated by an examination of the works of Josquin des Près. Even the Dutchmen Hobrecht and Brumel sometimes struggled toward a simpler and purer musical expression than was to be attained through Ockeghem's canonic labyrinths, but the famous teacher's influence prevailed over the spirit of his time, and the musicians were, for the most part, like the Mastersingers, slaves of the contemporaneous leges tabulaturae. The unbounded delight which they took in the solution of riddle canons is a proof of the view they took of their art. Dr. Langhans, who is too calm a critic to be led into special pleading, says:

"The origin of the methods of notation which were in favor with the Netherlandic composers is to be sought in the fact that the newly acquired art of counterpoint was regarded preëminently as a means of exercising the sagacity of the composer as well as of the performer." The author continues pointing out that "at last there existed so many signs, not strictly belonging to notation, that a composition for many voices, even when these entered together, could be written down with but one series of notes, it being left to the sagacity of the performers to divine the composer's intention by means of the annexed signs."

Thus we see that the first period of the Netherland school was characterized by a search after ingenious forms, and this search was carried to such an extent that the composer, having found a new form, gave a hint at it and then invited the executant to do a little searching on his own account. The writer believes that his assertion that this was an era of pure mechanics in music is sound and is supported by sufficient evidence.

JOSQUIN DES PRÈS.

From Van der Straeten's "Musique aux pay bas," loaned by the Newberry Library, Chicago.

But it was an era of short duration. Although Ockeghem and his closest imitators carried the mechanical period up to 1512, it overlapped the beginning of the second period, in which euphony sought and found recognition in music. The chief master of the period, Josquin des Près (his name appears in different places as Jodocus a Prato and a Pratis), was the first real genius in the history of modern music.

Like Fétis, "I should never finish if I undertook to cite all the authorities who show the high esteem which Josquin des Près enjoyed in his day and after his death." Nothing more admirable has been written in regard to this master than that portion of Fétis's prize essay of 1828 which treats of him, and it would be a pleasure to give a full translation of it; but that is impracticable. On the authority of Duverdier, Ronsard, the poet, and others, Fétis shows that Josquin was born about 1450 in the province of Hainault, probably at Condé. His correct name, as shown by his epitaph, was Josse. Josquin comes from the Latinized form of Jossekin, a diminutive of his name. His early instruction in music he obtained as a choir boy in St. Quentin, where in his young manhood he became chapel master. St. Quentin is not far from Tours, and at the latter place lived Ockeghem. Thither went Josquin to study under the most famous master of the day. It is impossible to be sure at this time whether Josquin became chapel-master immediately after finishing his studies or first went to Italy. It is probable that his term of study under Ockeghem was a long one, for he became a perfect master of all his teacher's wonderful contrapuntal knowledge. Adam de Bolensa, author of a work dealing with the history of the choir of the papal chapel, says that Josquin was a singer there during the pontificate of Sixtus IV., which lasted from 1471 till 1484. While there he wrote several of his finest masses, of which the MSS. are still carefully preserved in the library of the Sistine chapel. Josquin had already achieved great distinction and was rapidly rising to the position of first composer of his day.

On the death of Sixtus IV. he betook himself to the court of Hercules d'Est, duke of Ferrara. Under the patronage of this nobleman he wrote his mass "Hercules dux Ferrariae" and his Miserere. In spite of the magnificence of the court of Ferrara and the opportunity of a permanent settlement, Josquin remained only a short time, and departed into France, where he at once obtained the favor of Louis XII. and became his premier chanteur. This, however, was not a post of such importance as the master deserved and he again sought a new patron. This time he entered the service of Maximilian I., the emperor of the Netherlands. This potentate made him provost in the cathedral of Condé, where he passed the remainder of his life, dying, as the epitaph in the choir of the cathedral shows, on August 27, 1521.

The most noted of Josquin's disciples was Jean Mouton, who died in 1522. He was so faithful a scholar that a motet of his was for a long time supposed to be the work of Josquin. He also wrote several psalms, but his masses and motets are his best works.

Josquin des Près attained greater celebrity in his lifetime than any other composer in the early centuries of modern music except Orlando di Lasso. Baini, the biographer of Palestrina, says there was "only Josquin in Italy, only Josquin in France, only Josquin in Germany; in Flanders, in Bohemia, in Hungaria, in Spain, only Josquin." Fétis says, "His superiority over his rivals, his fecundity and the great number of ingenious inventions which he spread through his works placed him far beyond comparison with other composers, who could do no better than become his imitators." A large number of Josquin's works exists yet and bears evidence to the justice of the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries. His printed compositions are nineteen masses, fifty secular pieces, and over one hundred and fifty motets. His finest masses are the "La sol fa re mi," "Ad fugam," "De Beata Virgine" and "Da Pacem." The Incarnatus of the last, in Naumann's judgment, has never been surpassed by any master of modern times.

Josquin, as already intimated, was the first composer who strove to make contrapuntal ingenuity a means and not an end, and he is, therefore, to be credited with the introduction of a new era in music. It must not be supposed that he was always wise, for he twice set to music the genealogy of Christ, a subject in which no romantic composer would seek for inspiration. Again he continued the practice of writing masses on the melodies of popular songs such as "L'Homme Armé," mingling the text of the song with the solemn words of the liturgy in a way which showed a lack of perfect artistic taste. Fétis's estimate of Josquin's genius is worthy of reproduction here. He says:

"If one examines the works of this composer, he is struck with the appearance of freedom which prevails in them in spite of the dry combinations which he was obliged to make in obedience to the taste of the time. He is credited with being the inventor of most of the scientific refinements which were at once adopted by the composers of all nations, and perfected by Palestrina and other Italian musicians. Canonic art is especially indebted to him, if not for its invention, at least for considerable development and perfection. He is the first who wrote regularly in more than two parts. Finally he introduced into music an air of elegance unknown before his time and which his successors did not always happily imitate. Moreover, he became the model which each one set for himself in the first half of the sixteenth century as the ne plus ultra of composition."

Ambros says: "In Josquin we have the first musician who creates a genial impression," and he calls attention to his employment of the dissonance to express emotion.

To summarize the whole matter, it appears, in spite of the hints of Fétis that Josquin was possibly the inventor of canonic art, that this composer was the first gifted musician who found the formal material of his art sufficiently developed to admit of his approaching self-expression through music. The earlier masters had given their time and study to the foundation of contrapuntal science. Josquin, having learned all that Ockeghem could teach him, was ready to begin in the vigor of his young manhood to use his science as a means and not an end. This accounts for the air of freedom, which, as Fétis notes, is a conspicuous merit of his work. Luther's comment, previously quoted, shows that this freedom must have been noticeable even to his contemporaries, though they could not perceive its reason nor estimate its value. Josquin, like all other great geniuses, was in advance of the ordinary minds of his time, and most of his contemporaries continued to work out the old contrapuntal puzzles in the old spirit. But the influence of Josquin made itself felt among the more gifted musicians of the day, and paved the way for the third period of the Netherland school, which, while boasting of no such genius as Josquin, was richer in results than the second.

The third period, extending from 1495 to 1572, was particularly rich in masters who advanced the development of musical art and whose names deserve to be remembered. Nicolas Gombert was born at Bruges and was in some capacity, not definitely known, in the service of Charles V. Herman Finck tells us ("Novi sunt inventores, in quibus est Nicolaus Gombert, Jusquini piae memoriae discipulus") that he was a pupil of Josquin, and he set to music a poem by Avidius on the death of Josquin. Burney deciphered this music and found that it was a servile imitation of the composer's master. Gombert was educated for the church, and he was a priest till the end of his life, though he acted as chapel-master. The records of his career are very scanty and it is probable that his life was uneventful. The latter part of his existence was passed in the enjoyment of a sinecure office under the king of the Netherlands.

ADRIAN WILLAERT.

From Van der Straeten's "Musique aux pay bas," loaned by the Newberry Library, Chicago.

Adrian Willaert, the most brilliant light of the third period, was born in Bruges in 1480. He was sent to Paris to study law, but his gift for music soon turned his mind to the study of counterpoint. It is uncertain whether he was a pupil of Josquin or of Mouton. On the completion of his studies he returned to Flanders, but soon departed to Rome. There he heard one of his own motets, "Verbum dulce et suave," performed as the work of Josquin. He promptly claimed it as his work, whereupon the papal choir refused to sing it again. Disgusted with such treatment, he shook the dust of the holy city from his feet, and went to Ferrara. He did not remain there long, however, and we soon afterward find him serving as cantor to King Lewis, of Bohemia and Hungary. In 1526 he went to Venice, and on Dec. 12, 1527, the doge Andrea Gritti appointed him chapel-master of St. Mark's. In Venice he remained till his death, Dec. 7, 1562. He became the head of a great vocal school, was the teacher of some of the most famous organists of his time, and wrote compositions which materially changed the character of all subsequent music, both religious and secular.

Claude Goudimel was born at Vaison, near Avignon, in 1510. His teacher is unknown. Between 1535 and 1540 he went to Rome, where he founded a music school, subsequently the most celebrated conservatory in Italy. He had many gifted pupils, among whom Palestrina has until recently been erroneously included. In 1555, Goudimel was settled in Paris as partner of the publisher Nicolaus du Chemin. The firm published Goudimel's setting of the odes of Horace, treated according to their metre, under the title "Horatii Flacci, poetae lyricae, odae omnes, quotquot carminum generibus differunt, ad rythmos musicos redactae." Goudimel's scholarly treatment of these odes shows that he was a man of classical education. In 1558 he wrote his last mass, and afterward became a Protestant. He became a marked man, and it is almost certain, despite Ambros's contention to the contrary, that he was one of the victims of the Huguenot massacre on the eve of St. Bartholomew, Aug. 24, 1572.

CYPRIAN DE RORE.

From Van der Straeten's "Musique aux pays bas," loaned by the Newberry Library, Chicago.

Cyprian de Rore was born at Malines, Brabant, in 1516. At an early age he went to Venice to study under Willaert, and became a chorister at St. Mark's. He soon rose to notice, and Willaert recommended him to the Duke of Ferrara, who took him into his service. In 1563 he succeeded Willaert as chapel-master of St. Mark's, but he remained in that post only a short time. In 1564 he was prefect of the choir of Ottaviano Farnese at Parma. He died in 1565.

Clement Jannequin was a native of Flanders, and probably a pupil—certainly a disciple—of Josquin. Of his life almost nothing is known, but fortunately many of his works are extant. Jacob Arcadelt was another distinguished master of this period. He was singing master of the boys at St. Peter's in 1539, and became one of the papal singers in 1540. In 1555 he entered the service of Cardinal Charles of Lorraine. With him he went to Paris where he probably remained till the end of his life.

The compositions of the masters of this period have been preserved in large numbers. So many of them are extant that it is hardly necessary to give a list of them. The most important are Gombert's "Pater Noster," his motet "Vita Dulcedo" and "Miserere," his "Bird Cantata" and "Le Berger et la Bergère"; Willaert's "Magnificat" for three choirs and his madrigals; Jannequin's "Cris de Paris" and "La Bataille"; Goudimel's masses—"Audi filia," "Le bien que j'ai" and "Sous le pont d'Avignon"; Cyprian de Rore's "Chromatic Madrigals," Arcadelt's "Pater Noster" for eight voices, his "Missa de Beata Virgine," and his madrigals.

The special features of this period were the development of secular music and the entrance of ecclesiastical music upon a transition from the dry canonic style of Ockeghem to the true emotional religious style of Palestrina. The change in church music should first engage our attention. In the Church of St. Mark there were, and still are, two organs facing each other. It is probable that this suggested to Willaert the advisability of dividing his choir into two parts. Having done this, it was natural that he should hit upon the plan of writing antiphonal music. Choruses in eight parts had been written before, but he was the first to construct them as two separate choruses of four parts each. Secondly, he began the practice of seeking for broad and grand effects of harmony instead of working out his voice parts according to strict canonic law. His chorals open with canonic progressions, but these are speedily interrupted by the entrance of common chords. The result is that in Willaert's compositions we find the foundations of modern polyphonic style. He had a fine feeling for harmonies and employed rich chords to excellent advantage. The earlier writers treated their voice parts independently; Willaert made special efforts to constitute harmony the foundation of his counterpoint. The development of each part was shaped so that it became one of the elements of the general harmonic effect. In order to accomplish this Willaert was obliged to adopt the modern chord forms and the fundamental chord relations of modern music—the tonic, dominant and subdominant. Claude Goudimel's church compositions show the influence of Willaert in an unmistakable manner, and through them the line of development to Palestrina is clearly marked. Palestrina was a great genius, an original thinker; but the clay which was ready for his moulding was a contrapuntal style in which chord harmonies were a vital part. This style was prepared for him by his master Goudimel under the influence of Willaert. The possibilities of modern style were revealed in another direction by De Rore's study of chromatics. His "Chromatic Madrigals," published in 1544 (eleven years before Palestrina's first masses), were very influential in drawing the attention of composers to the flexibility of style to be attained by throwing off the shackles of the old Gregorian scales.

It can hardly be doubted that two intellectual and spiritual movements influenced the development of religious music in the period of Willaert and his contemporaries. The first of these was the reawakening of interest in classical antiquity brought about by the influx of scholars from Constantinople after the fall of Rome's eastern empire in 1453. This reawakening is commonly known as the Renaissance, and its effects were felt in music much later than in other branches of art. "The reason of this," as Dr. Langhans with fine discernment points out, "is to be found proximately in the lack of a musical antique. While the poet, as also the painter, the sculptor and the architect, met at every step the masterpieces of their predecessors in antiquity, and found in them the stimulus and the pattern for their own creations, to the musician the direct connection with the past was denied." Nevertheless the proclamation by the eastern scholars of the chaste and simple beauty of antique art was bound to have an influence upon music, especially when the search for a new and purer style was urged by motives of ecclesiastical expediency. This impetus came from the second movement, the spiritual, namely, the Lutheran reformation.

Through the influence of Luther the rule of the church that the singing should be exclusively in the hands of a choir was abolished, and the practice of congregational singing arose. The elaborate contrapuntal music of the day was obviously impracticable for this kind of singing. Luther, therefore, "selected from the ancient Latin church songs such melodies as were rhythmically like the folk-song and hence especially likely to be caught up by the popular ear." Here we find the origin of the glorious German chorale, of our contemporaneous hymn. The first Lutheran hymn-book was published in 1524, and it is impossible to escape the conviction that the advent of this new and influential form of church music powerfully affected the style of all subsequent composers.

The development of secular music at this time is even more interesting and instructive than that of religious music, but it would require a chapter for its proper treatment; and as it was not long in abandoning the basis of counterpoint and entering: upon the free arioso style of the opera (in 1600), it may be dismissed briefly. The reader must understand that popular music in the form of folk-songs has existed from time immemorial. The Netherlands masters frequently employed the melodies of these songs (and the words, too) in their masses, which gave rise to abuses removed by the Council of Trent in 1565. In the third period of the Netherlands school, however, the masters of scientific music began to compose music for the general public, and the result was the madrigal form, which has survived till to-day. This was a natural result of Josquin's aiming at beauty in music. The next step after euphony was naturally toward expression, and the first attempts at expression were, of course, imitative. In other words the secular composers turned to nature and tried to imitate her sounds in music. These men were the first who practised what we may call tone-photography in contradistinction to tone-coloring, which goes deeper. When Beethoven introduced the cuckoo in the pastoral symphony he practised tone-photography. The works of Gombert and Jannequin abound in skilful writing of this kind. Gombert's "Bird Cantata" is a clever and humorous composition. Jannequin's "Cris de Paris" is a musical imitation of the street cries of a great city, and his "Le Battaille" is a picture of a battle. When we remember that these works were written for voices in four parts, we are astounded at the technical accomplishments of these old masters. This ambition to tell some kind of a story in music affected even the religious compositions of the day, and one of Willaert's motets tells the history of Susannah. This work was plainly the precursor of the oratorio form, which first took recognizable shape in Cavaliere's "L'Anima è Corpo," produced in 1600.

JAN PIETERS SWELINCK.

The fourth and last period of the Netherlands school was distinguished by two features: the production of a master whose genius eclipsed the brilliancy of all his predecessors and whose music was a logical outcome of their labors, and secondly, the completion of the mediæval development of counterpoint. The mission of the Netherland masters was ended, and new art-forms came to supersede the ecclesiastical canon. This now descended from its leadership of the musical army and took that place in the ranks which it maintained till the supremacy of Haydn and the sonata form.

As Orlando di Lasso, the mightiest of all the Netherland masters, is to be treated separately in this work, no outline of his life need be given here and his music will be discussed only in its general relation to the progress of his time. Jan Pieters Swelinck (born at Deventer in 1540, died at Amsterdam, 1621) was a pupil of Cyprian de Rore. Swelinck had already displayed ability as an organist when he set out for Venice to engage in advanced studies. He became one of the most famous organists of his day, but his vocal compositions show that he stood directly in the line of development of the school to which he belonged by birth. His settings of the psalms in four, five, six, seven and eight parts are written in strict a capella style. Swelinck is particularly interesting as being one of the founders of the polyphonic instrumental style, which succeeded the choral counterpoint, and a forerunner of Bach.

Philip de Monte was born either at Mons or at Mechlin about 1521. He was treasurer and canon of the cathedral at Cambrai, and in 1594 he was prefect of the choir in the Court Chapel at Prague. He passed the remainder of his life there, and was held in high esteem. He was a prolific writer and besides masses and motets, nineteen books of his madrigals for five voices and eight books of French songs for six voices are extant. His works show the usual Netherlandic skill in counterpoint, some of them being extremely intricate.

We have seen how influences had begun work which was to destroy the empire of a capella counterpoint, but its reign was to go out in a blaze of glory lit by the torches of genius in the hands of Lasso and Palestrina. The despotism of ecclesiastical counterpoint over all art-music was indeed at the close of its career, yet the writer must not be understood as asserting that the development of counterpoint ended, for in the German fugue it found its highest and most perfect form. But it ceased to be the controlling power in music, giving way to modern melody built on scale and arpeggio passages and to the song-and dance-forms of the people. It may as well be said here that the technical possibilities of counterpoint were exhausted by the Netherland masters, and not even Johann Sebastian Bach, the most profound and original musical thinker the world has ever known, could invent a form of canonic writing which they had not practised. What he was chiefly instrumental in accomplishing (in a technical way) was the extension of canon into the perfect fugue, and the application of the polyphony of the Netherland masters to the organ, the clavichord and the orchestra, thus laying the foundations upon which rest the whole structure of the modern symphony and string quartet.

PHILIP DE MONTE.

From Van der Straeten's "Musique aux pay bas," loaned by the Newberry Library, Chicago.

The music of the other composers of the fourth period is but a reflection of that of Lasso, who was fully as great a genius as Palestrina. He had a perfect mastery of the whole science of counterpoint as it had been developed by the masters of the first two periods. He was equally a master of the simpler style which had gradually been asserting itself. He used these styles and their combinations according to the character of the text to which he was writing music. Some of his masses are Gothic in their wonderful tracery of intertwining parts. His famous "Penitential Psalms" surprise, move and conquer us by their beautiful, pathetic simplicity. The notable fact about all his music, and about that of his contemporaries, is the plain manifestation through it all of an absolute mastery of contrapuntal science and a settled employment of it for their own purposes of expression. And here arises the question, what kind of expression?

The music of Lasso, and some of that written by other composers of this period, shows that musicians had at last begun to lay hold of the real purpose of their art. Their music shows that they aimed at expression of themselves. They began to praise God personally, and musical science became in truth what it had been only in appearance so far as the composers were concerned—a real, earnest Gloria Tibi. It is this which vitalizes Lasso's music and makes it acceptable to-day.

We have now reached the time after which the brilliancy of the Netherlands school speedily disappeared. The march of musical progress was transferred to Italy, where the seed sown by Willaert and De Rore in Venice was producing splendid fruit. Indeed the mission of the Netherlands school was at an end. It had given its life blood to the perfection of musical science and had completed its labors and achieved its loftiest glory by indicating the emotional power of music. We have seen that each of the four periods was marked by a step in the advancement of art, thus:

First period: Perfection of Contrapuntal Technics.
Second period: Attempts at Euphony.
Third period: Development of Tone-painting.
Fourth period: Counterpoint made subservient to emotional expression.

In those four steps you have the history of music up to the close of the sixteenth century. Away back in the twelfth century we saw as through a glass darkly a horde of students thronging the streets of Paris and swallowing, in wild eagerness, all kinds of learning in scraps and lumps, with little order and less system. The Cathedral of Notre Dame and the University of Paris, the former glorified throughout Europe as the rose of Christendom, the latter celebrated even by Pope Alexander I., as "a tree of life in an earthly paradise," were their cloister and their shrine. Out of this motley multitude there breaks upon our vision one sober, industrious musician, Jean Perotin, striving to find the secret of law and order for tones. Evidently a man of method, an orderly, peaceable, mechanical, plodding sort of person was this Perotin, and he left us "imitation." This his successors took up and in a few short years developed double counterpoint. Five more centuries rolled away and counterpoint had passed the period of mechanical development and reached the loftiest heights of ecclesiastical expression. Orlando Lasso and Palestrina built great Gothic temples of music that will stand longer than Westminster Abbey. But still counterpoint meant canon and fugue. Then came the birth of opera. The labors of the Netherlanders ended, and music saw that her mission was to sing not alone man's love of God, but his love of woman, his fear, his joy, his despair—in short the unspeakable emotions of his boundless soul.

So the old mathematical canon grew into a new kind of counterpoint, undreamed of by Ockeghem and Josquin, a free untrammeled counterpoint, which breaks upon us to-day in all varieties of works from the humblest to the greatest. Listen to Delibes' "Naila" waltz. There never was a truer piece of counterpoint written in the days of Josquin than that violoncello melody that glides in beneath the principal theme of the first strings, like a new dancer come upon the ball room floor. Turn to the wonderful prelude to "Die Meistersinger." Hear the melody that voices the love of Walter and Eva surging through the strings against the stiff and stately proclamation of the Masters' dignity by the bass. The two melodies proceed together. It is not canon, it is not fugue; but it is counterpoint—even Dr. Johannes de Muris, of the Paris University, would have passed it as contrapunctus a penna. But it is modern counterpoint, not for itself, but for an ulterior purpose, the one glorious purpose of modern music, to reveal the soul of man. The music of to-day could not sustain its existence through twenty consecutive measures had it not been for the labors of those cloistered scholiasts of the middle ages, building note against note, like ants heaping up sand. Like the artist that rounded St. Peter's dome, they builded better than they knew, and left an inheritance which grew to fabulous wealth in the hands of their giant heirs Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The very body of Wagner's music is counterpoint, free counterpoint, not canon and fugue. And it is counterpoint with a soul in it, for every time two or more themes sound simultaneously the orchestra becomes so eloquent with rich meanings that its utterance throbs through the air like the magnetism of love. It was a happy time for the tone art when in the Autumn days of the fifteenth century the folk-song wooed and won the fugue.

Reproduction of a vigorous etching by F. Böttcher from portrait preserved in the Vatican library. Authentic portraits of Palestrina are extremely rare. This is doubtless the best.]

GIOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA PALESTRINA

IOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA PALESTRINA received his last name from the town of Palestrina, the ancient Praeneste, where he was born in the early part of the sixteenth century, the precise year being a matter of conjecture. 1514, 1524, 1528, and 1529, are the years variously ascribed to his birth by various biographers, but the most recently discovered evidence seems to point to 1524 as the most probable date. He was of humble parentage, which partially accounts for the lack of definite information about his earliest years, and as the public registers of the city of Palestrina were destroyed by the soldiery of the Duke of Alva, it is not likely that any reliable information regarding his ancestry or birth will ever be obtained. In accordance with the habit of the time, as the composer grew famous his name was latinized and became Johannes Petrus Aloysius Praenestinus. The lack of early biographical material regarding the man who became at once the culmination of the Flemish and the founder of the pure Italian school has led to the invention of many a doubtful tale regarding his beginnings in the art of music. He came to Rome (but four hours' travel from his native city) in 1540, and different anecdotes are told of the manner in which he began his musical studies. Many of these have been proved false by the researches of the learned Dr. Haberl, who has shown that Goudimel was not the teacher of Palestrina, although all previous authorities have stated this as a fact. The data concerning Palestrina, recently published by Dr. Haberl, will probably supersede the statements of Baini which have hitherto been accepted. It is probable that Palestrina returned to the city of his birth in 1544, and, at least temporarily, became organist and director in the cathedral there, and at this time (June 12th, 1547), married Lucrezia de Goris. Of this lady very little is known; she is said to have been in fairly good circumstances, and to have been a devoted wife to the master; she bore him four sons, three of whom died after having given some proof that they had inherited Palestrina's musical genius; she herself died in 1580. Some of the recent historians maintain that Palestrina had but three sons, of whom two died. In 1551 we find Palestrina in Rome as Maestro de' Putti (teacher of the boy singers) in the Capella Giulia in the Vatican, and in considerable repute, for he was allowed the title of "Maestro della Capella della Basilica Vaticana." While employed at this post he composed a set of four and five-voiced masses which were published in 1544 and dedicated to Pope Julius III. The work marks an epoch, for it was the first important one by any Italian composer, the Church having up to this time relied almost wholly upon the Flemish composers for her musical works. The Pope proved himself immediately grateful by appointing the composer one of the singers of the papal choir; this appointment was in violation of the rules of the church, for the singers were supposed to be celibates, and not only was Palestrina married, but his voice was not such as would have been chosen for the finest ecclesiastic choir of the world. To the credit of the composer, who was one of the most devout of Catholics, it must be said that he hesitated long before accepting a position to which he knew that he had no right, but finally, believing that the Pope knew better than he, Palestrina entered on his new duties, which brought with them a welcome increase of income. But Julius III. died six months after, and his successor, Marcellus II., died twenty-three days after becoming Pope. Marcellus was very well disposed towards Palestrina, and his death was a great blow to the composer. Paul IV. became sovereign pontiff in 1555. John Peter Caraffa (Paul IV.) was of different mould from his predecessors; haughty and imperious, he was active in promoting the power of the church over all nations and thrones, but equally so in reforming it within; he would permit no married singers in his choir, and in less than a year after his appointment, Palestrina found himself dismissed from what promised to be a life position. The dismissal was tempered by the allowance of a pension of six scudi per month, but Palestrina, with a family dependent on his work, thought that it meant irretrievable ruin, and, almost broken-hearted, took to his bed with a severe attack of nervous fever. The sensitive character and innate modesty of the man were never better proven, for his reputation was even then far too great for the loss of any situation to ruin him. Already in October of the same year (1555) Palestrina was appointed director of the music of the Lateran Church, a position which, although less remunerative than that from which he had been dismissed, allowed him to retain the small annuity granted by the Pope. He remained here five and a half years (from October 1st, 1555, until February 1st, 1561) and during this epoch produced many important sacred works, among which were his volume of Improperia and a wonderful eight-voiced "Crux Fidelis" which he produced on Good Fridays with his choir. His set of four-voiced "Lamentations" also aided in spreading his fame as the leader of a new school, the pure school of Italian church-music. On March 1st, 1561, he entered upon the position of director of the music of the Church of St. Maria Maggiore, a post which he retained for ten years. It was while he was director here that the event occurred that spread his fame through all the Catholic nations of the earth. Church music had for a long time lapsed from the dignity which should have been its chief characteristic. The Flemish composers were in a large degree responsible for this; they had placed their ingenuity above religious earnestness, and in order to show their contrapuntal skill would frequently choose some well-known secular song as the cantus firmus of their masses, and weave their counterpoint around this as a core. Dozens of masses were written on the old Provençal song of "L'Homme Armé," Palestrina himself furnishing one, and it seemed to be a point of honor among the composers to see who could wreath the most brilliant counterpoint around this popular tune. Many of the melodies chosen were not even so dignified as this, and at times the Flemish composer would choose as his cantus firmus some drinking song of his native land. In those days the melody was generally committed to the tenor part (the word comes from "teneo" and means "the holding part," that is the part that held the tune) and in order the better to show on what foundation they had built, the Flemings retained the original words in this part, whence it came to be no uncommon thing to hear the tenors roar out a bacchanalian song while the rest of the choir were intoning a "Kyrie," a "Gloria," a "Credo," or an "Agnus Dei." It is almost incredible that the custom lasted as long as it did, but at last, in 1562, the Cardinals were summoned together for the purification of all ecclesiastical matters, and the famous Council of Trent began to cut at the root of the evil. As is generally the case in all reactions, the reform seemed likely to go too far, for while all were united upon the abolition of secular words in the Mass, some maintained that the evil lay deeper yet, and attacked counterpoint itself as worldly and unfit for true religious music. These advocated nothing less than a return to the plain song or chant, a turning back of the hands of musical progress that might have been very serious in its results. Fortunately, however, the ablegates, and the envoys of the Emperor Ferdinand I., protested vigorously, and the whole matter was finally referred to a committee of eight cardinals, who very wisely chose eight of the papal singers to assist them in their deliberations. The sittings of this committee were held chiefly in 1563, and fortunately two of the number, Cardinals Vitellozo Vitellozzi and Carlo Borromeo (afterwards canonized) were men of especial musical culture. The works of Palestrina had been frequently cited during the debates, and now it was determined to commission him to write a mass which should prove to the world that the employment of counterpoint was consistent with the expression of the most earnest religious thought. Right nobly did Palestrina respond to the call. Too diffident of his own powers to trust the issue to a single work, he sent the cardinals three, of which the first two were dignified and effective, while the third was the celebrated "Mass of Pope Marcellus." He sent the works on their completion, in 1565, to Cardinal Borromeo, and the Missa Papae Marcelli was soon after performed at the house of Cardinal Vitellozzi. It made its effect immediately, and soon after the Pope ordered an especial performance of it by the choir at the Apostolical chapel. It is odd to read of the honors which followed in its track; they took every shape but the one which Palestrina most needed—a pecuniary result. The copyist of the papal chapel wrote out the parts in larger notes than were employed in other works, the Pope (Pius IV.) exclaimed on hearing the mass for the first time, that such must be the music that the angels chanted in the new Jerusalem, and when, a few years after (in 1567), Palestrina published this mass with some others and dedicated the volume to Philip II. of Spain, that eminent bigot sent the composer—his thanks!

PALESTRINA.

From a portrait in Naumann's History of Music.

It was probably on account of this mass, however, that Palestrina came back to the papal choir. He did not come as a singer this time, but a new office was created for him, that of "Composer to the Pontifical Choir." It may be mentioned here that none of the different positions which Palestrina occupied took him out of the reach of pecuniary cares, and he never received an adequate recompense for his labors; yet one may doubt whether he ever suffered absolute poverty; his wife is said by some historians, to have been well-to-do, and the friendship of different cardinals could not have been without some pecuniary results. Palestrina was blessed with many true and steadfast admirers who must have atoned in some degree for the jealousies of his brother-musicians. His wife was devoted to him, the cardinal D'Este was a friend, in addition to the two cardinals already mentioned; but the great solace of his career was the close companionship of the most musical and devout of priests, Filippo Neri, who has since been made saint by the church. As this priest was the founder of the oratorio it is not too much to imagine that Palestrina may have helped him with advice and music and thus have assisted at the birth of the loftiest religious form of later times. Yet in the midst of all his work, and in the enjoyment of all his companionships, the life of Palestrina is in startling contrast with the brilliant and well-rewarded career of his contemporary, Orlando di Lasso. If ever the Catholic church desires to canonize a musical composer, it will find devoutness, humility, and many other saintly characteristics in Palestrina. The great pang of his life was the loss of his promising boys just as they began to prove to him that his musical instruction had planted seeds in fertile soil. The one son who outlived him seems to have been a sordid and heartless wretch in vivid contrast to the character of his father, whose compositions he recklessly scattered from mercenary motives. Yet the life of Palestrina must have had its moments of sunshine. Probably the most striking of these occurred in 1575, the jubilee year, when, as a compliment to their distinguished townsman, 1500 singers from the city of Palestrina entered Rome, divided into three companies, singing the works of the composer, while he, marching at the head of the vocal army, directed the musical proceedings. In 1571, after the death of Animuccia (a pupil of Claudio Goudimel), Palestrina became leader of the choir of St. Peter's and soon after he became a teacher in the music school which his friend Giovanni Maria Nanini opened in Rome, a school which gave rise to many composers, and which established the early Italian composition on a firmer basis than ever before. In 1593 Palestrina became musical director to Cardinal Aldobrandini, but he was now an old man and his death ensued soon after; but his activity continued unabated almost up to his decease; even to his very last days he produced works which remain monuments of his energy. In January, 1594, he published thirty "Spiritual Madrigals" for five voices, in praise of the Holy Virgin, and this was his last work, for he died less than a month later. He had already begun another work, a volume of masses to be dedicated to Clement VIII., when he was attacked by pleurisy; the disease hastened to a fatal ending, for he was ill but a week, receiving extreme unction January 29th and dying February 2d, 1594, in the arms of his friend Philip Neri; his most famous contemporary, Orlando di Lasso, died just four months later, so that the end of the Flemish school, and the brilliant beginning of the Italian church school come very close together.

Of the character of Palestrina's music we shall speak below, but it may be stated here that there has never existed a composer at once so prolific and so sustainedly powerful. The mere list of his compositions would take considerable space, for he composed 93 masses for from four to eight voices, 179 motettes, 45 sets of hymns for the entire year, 3 books of "Lamentations," 3 books of Litanies, 2 books of Magnificats, 4 books of Madrigals, a wonderful Stabat Mater, and very much more that is unclassified. A list that is absolutely stupendous when the character of the works is remembered. Through the enterprise of Messrs. Breitkopf & Härtel all of these works will soon have appeared in print.

Palestrina is buried in St Peter's in the chapel of Sts. Simon and Judas. The simple inscription on his tomb runs:

Johannes Petrus Aloysius Praenestinus,
Musicæ Princeps.

It is but natural to find the old Italian writers showering down laudatory adjectives on Palestrina. Undoubtedly Palestrina and Di Lasso, whose careers are almost exactly contemporaneous, were the two chief composers of the 16th century, and it is equally undoubted that of these two Palestrina was much the more earnest and serious; but one may receive with some degree of caution such phrases as "the light and glory of music," "the Prince of Music," and "the Father of Music," all of which may be found in the early commentaries on his works. It must be borne in mind that Palestrina lived at a time when music was still largely a mathematical science, when the art (so far as it was an art) tended almost wholly towards the intellectual, and when the emotional side, which is so important an element with the moderns, was scarcely recognized. It is an odd coincidence that the very year in which the two great composers of intellectual polyphony died (1594) saw the birth of the emotional school in the shape of the first opera, "Dafne." We must not search for great emotional display in the modern sense, even in the "Lamentations" or the "Stabat Mater" of Palestrina, but if we judge his works from the standard of dignity and a pure leading of the voices even in the most intricate passages, we shall find them to be most perfect models, and it was through the complex progressions of the old counterpoint that our modern style was evolved; Palestrina and Di Lasso were the ploughmen who made the harvest of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Wagner, possible. The lack of definite rhythm (for the ancient counterpoint was the least rhythmic expression of music) is sometimes a stumbling-block in the way of modern appreciation of some of Palestrina's work, but the devout student of Bach will soon find himself an admirer of the pure and lofty vein of the older master. Krause, the historian, says: "I am convinced that this school possesses a permanent value for all time. The greatest art connoisseurs of the new school pay the greatest homage to the Palestrina style." Thibaut describes Palestrina as deeper than Di Lasso, and as such a master of the old church modes and of the pure school (in which the triad was the foundation of everything and the seventh chords were not admitted) that calmness and repose are to be found in a greater degree in his works than in the compositions of any other composer. Palestrina has been called the "Homer of Music," and there is something in his stately style that makes the phrase a fitting one.

PALESTRINA.

From a portrait by Schnorr, engraved by Amsler and re-engraved by Deblois. This portrait has evidently been suggested
by the Vatican portrait. (See frontispiece.) Authentic portraits of Palestrina are extremely rare.

Baini, who in the early part of this century was the successor in office of the great composer, being musical director of the papal choir at Rome, was probably the ablest and most enthusiastic student of the works of Palestrina that ever existed, and his great work, "Memorie storicho-critiche della vita e delle opere di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina" (Rome, 1828. Two volumes), spite of a degree of partisanship and consequent lack of appreciation of the work of some of the Flemish composers, will probably always remain the bucket through which the waters of the well of Palestrina are best attainable. No man ever had as good opportunities of access to the master's works, and no one could have employed those opportunities better. He, with extreme exactness, classifies the works of the master into ten groups or styles. It would be both unnecessary and prolix to follow him through all of these; more practical for the general musician is the summing up of Hauptmann (whose essay is founded on Baini), who says, "Baini's ten styles may become bewildering to many, but three styles of composition may be readily recognized on close acquaintance with his works. In the first style he approaches the school of his predecessors the Netherlanders (the Flemish school), and this is shown to our ears by a lack of harmony; the melodies go on their course beside each other, without blending into harmonious unity; harmonically judged they are dry, heavy, and inflexible, and they are continuously canonic or fugated. The second style is, on the contrary, in simultaneous progressions, like our chorales. Here the voices are, as a matter of course, always singable, but the conditions of the melody are, as the harmonies of the preceding, rather negative, and the composer is not turned aside by any ill-sounding effects. The third style is the uniting of the foregoing two in the best and most beautiful manner that can be achieved in this sphere, and it is this school that has placed Palestrina in so high a rank for all time; in this style is the Mass of Pope Marcellus composed. There are however, beautiful specimens of the second style in existence, as, for example, the Improperia, which always refreshes me by its simplicity."

In the use of chorale-like simplicity, Palestrina causes the commentator involuntarily to draw a comparison between him and John Sebastian Bach. The parallel could be drawn more closely than many of the ancient ones of Plutarch, for not only were both composers polyphonic in their musical vein, but both were actuated by the sincerest religious feeling in their largest compositions. Palestrina may stand as the typical Catholic, as Bach represents the earnest Protestant, in music.

Unquestionably the earliest vein of Palestrina's composition was influenced by his Flemish training, and he returned to this florid and ingenious style in later time when he set the old melody of "L'Homme Armé" as a Mass. This was a very natural proceeding. We have alluded above to the custom of setting masses around a secular core, using some popular melody as cantus firmus, as practised by the Netherlanders. When Palestrina chose the above-named melody, he entered deliberately into the lists with them; so many of his predecessors had used the self-same cantus that "L'Homme Armé" became in some degree a challenge and a specimen of competitive composition; skill and complexity were to rule in such a mass, and it is sufficient to say that Palestrina overtopped his competitors in these, and therefore the object of this work was attained. It may stand as the best example of the first school.

The Improperia are a series of antiphons and responses which, on the morning of Good Friday, take the place of the daily Mass of the Catholic church. They represent the remonstrances of the suffering Savior with the people for their ingratitude for his benefits, whence the title "Improperia," i. e. "the Reproaches." We have stated that the old pure school did not portray emotion in the modern style; one may not find in these "Reproaches" of Palestrina the entirely human style of a Luzzi's "Ave Maria" or the operatic manner of a Rossini's "Stabat Mater," but the simple combination of dignity with sorrow is nevertheless far more effective and suitable to the religious service; it is therefore not surprising to find these Improperia (the first revelation of the genius of Palestrina) still retained in annual use in the Papal Chapel, and we may class them as Hauptmann did, as the best example of Palestrina's second manner. Mendelssohn held them to be Palestrina's most beautiful work, and the poet Goethe was also greatly moved by them.

The Mass of Pope Marcellus has been cited as the best example of the master's third style, and at the same time the culmination of his powers. This Mass is in the so-called Hypo-Ionian mode (although the "Crucifixus" and "Benedictus" are Mixo-Lydian), and is probably the noblest example of the employment of the church modes in the pure style. Although the work is most intricate, Palestrina has here achieved that most difficult feat, the art of concealing art. It presents all the old fugal artifices, and the "Agnus Dei" is a close and ingenious canon. It is written for six voices, soprano, alto, two tenors, and two basses. This in itself was an unusual combination of voices and gave opportunities for great antiphonal effect, between the lower voices, and these opportunities are so well used that the effect of a double choir is frequently attained.

Baini calls the "Kyrie" devout; the "Gloria" animated; the "Credo" majestic; the "Sanctus" angelic; and the "Agnus Dei" prayerful; but it is doubtful if the modern auditor will perceive all these distinctions in listening to the work. Of its dignity and loftiness, however, there can be no question. One can observe readily how close to the composer's heart was the injunction that the words should be clearly understood; in the most important phrases we find counterpoint of the first order (note against note), while in passages where the same words are often repeated Palestrina employed the most beautiful contrapuntal imitations. The voices are so interwoven that wonderful chords greet us in almost every phrase, yet so free from unnecessary dissonance are these, and so clearly founded on the progressions of the triads, that the effect of simplicity is attained even in the midst of the displays of greatest musical skill. It is true that one can find effective chords in the works of the Flemish school, but on examining these closely it will be seen that they have been "filled in," and do not arise spontaneously from the contrapuntal progressions, while with Palestrina the leading of the voices is never disturbed in the slightest degree for the sake of the chord-formation, but all the harmonic effects grow out of the melodic construction of the various parts, or of the musical imitations introduced between the voices. It remains to be stated that the great musical historian Ambros has thrown doubt upon the origin of the Mass just described, and asseverates that not only was it not written as a model at the request of the committee of cardinals, but that there was really no occasion for any especial reform in the matter of church music at the time that it was produced. The weight of authority and the consensus of opinion, however, are here entirely against the eminent German scholar, and the facts as above stated are now almost universally conceded.

In all of Palestrina's church music one cannot fail to notice that he discards the chromatic progressions which his predecessors and contemporaries used so freely; he did this from a devout desire to keep the church modes intact, and if at times, because of this self-denial, he lost some effects of emotional display, on the whole his works gain much in purity and dignity in consequence.

If in Palestrina's Masses we find the beginning of chord-effect, the true principles of harmonic beauty, in his motettes and madrigals one can discern the first masterly touches of the employment of rhythm. Rhythm could only reach its true culmination in the homophony which came at a later epoch, but one can trace a distinct effort in this direction in the shorter and lighter works of the master, who thus may be regarded as a connecting link between the old and the new schools.

In the matter of the old triad-construction of his chords, however, he was inflexible; Des Prés and Di Lasso might use dissonances to express passion, but he held this kind of passion as too human to enter into his pure church-music. Monteverde soon after brought in the free use of the seventh-chords, yet the careful student will find these slyly introduced in many a work of the 16th century; he will however, find few such attempts in Palestrina.

How earnestly this composer regarded his art, and how deeply he felt its responsibilities may be gathered from his own words:—

"Music exerts a great influence upon the minds of mankind, and is intended not only to cheer these, but also to guide and to control them, a statement which has not only been made by the ancients, but which is found equally true to-day. The sharper blame, therefore, do those deserve who misemploy so great and splendid a gift of God in light or unworthy things, and thereby excite men, who of themselves are inclined to all evil, to sin and misdoing. As regards myself, I have from youth been affrighted at such misuse, and anxiously have I avoided giving forth anything which could lead anyone to become more wicked or godless. All the more should I, now that I have attained to riper years, and am not far removed from old age, place my entire thoughts on lofty, earnest things such as are worthy of a Christian."

With these words does Palestrina dedicate his first book of Motettes to Cardinal d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and no historian or reviewer could give a truer summing up of Palestrina's character and its influence on his music than he has here done for himself.

VIEW OF THE TOWN OF PALESTRINA—THE ANCIENT PRAENESTE

Birthplace of Palestrina, who received his surname from this place.

[CLAUDIO MONTEVERDE]

N Claudio Monteverde we have to do with one of those composers who mark an epoch in art. Starting apparently in full touch with the ideas of the generation into which they happen to be born, such masters acquire originality as they proceed, and, guided entirely by the depth and reliability of their own intuitions, almost imperceptibly digress from the methods in vogue, and at the end leave the world a rich heritage of thoroughly original and enjoyable works. Such a genius adorned the beginning of the sixteenth century in Josquin des Près, another was the richly gifted Orlando Lasso, and in later times many such have appeared; the epoch of modern romantic music being peculiarly rich in them.

Claudio Monteverde was born at Cremona, in Lombardy, in the year 1568. He was the son of poor parents. From earliest childhood he manifested a love of music, and very soon became proficient upon the viola, which even then had become perfected, through the work of Andrea Amati and Gaspar da Salo.

While still a boy, Monteverde was engaged as viola player in the private orchestra of the Duke of Mantua, and there his talent became so evident that the ducal music director, Messer Marc Antonio Ingeneri, taught him counterpoint and the art of composition as it was then practised. Under this stimulation, Monteverde published his first composition at the age of sixteen, in the year 1584. They were called "Canzonettas for three voices," and were printed at Venice. Quite naturally, considering the youth of the composer, these compositions do not show the originality which later rendered his works famous. Their more noticeable peculiarity, judging them from the standpoint of their own day, was a degree of laxity, at times approaching carelessness, in counterpoint. It is evident even thus early that Monteverde's ear for melody enabled him to tolerate harmonic faults between the voices which, without this appreciation of melodious flow, would have been highly disagreeable.

His position in the service of the prince was by no means a sinecure. A letter of his brother, Giulio Cæsar Monteverde, declares that he was incessantly occupied, not alone with the music of the church, but also with that for chamber concerts, ballets, and all sorts of divertissements, making constant demands upon the fertility of the overflowing invention of the young musician. He seems to have been in a somewhat personal relation to the Duke, and all through life he evinced his attachment to members of the Gonzaga family.

His first book of madrigals was published in 1587, when the young composer had reached the age of eighteen. Five other books followed them, dated 1593, 1594, 1597, 1599, and finally 1614. All these were printed at Venice, which was then the chief book-making city of Europe. In a later portion of this discourse the innovations characterizing the third book of madrigals will be more fully considered. Meanwhile Monteverde appears to have steadily advanced in his art, and in the favor of the prince. The brother's letter, already mentioned, is authority for the statement that in 1599 he spent some months at the baths of Spa, and brought back from thence certain traits of the French style.

Very soon after the publication of the third book of madrigals, Monteverde found a critic. A certain Canon Artusi, of St. Saviour, in Bologna, published a brochure upon "The Imperfection of Modern Music," taking for his text one of the madrigals in Monteverde's third book.

This led to further communications from Monteverde himself, prefixed to one of his later volumes, in which he declares that "harmony is the lady of the words" (signora della orazione), meaning thereby that the composer must first consider the dramatic needs of his text, and only thereafter permit himself to be governed by those of music as such.

Upon the death of the ducal music director, Ingeneri, Monteverde succeeded to the place. This appears to have been in 1603, according to the preface to the sixth set of his madrigals (in 1614), in which he speaks of having been in the service of the Duke of Mantua ten years.

The famous "representative style," in other words, dramatic music, had already been discovered, as recounted at greater length in the essay upon Italy. It is sufficient for our present purpose to compare the dates. It was about 1595 that Vincenzo Gallilei intoned at Count Bardi's his epoch-making monologue upon "Ugolino," and in 1597 the first opera, "Dafne," was privately performed at the house of Count Corsi. In 1600 the first opera, "Eurydice," the poem by Rinuccini and music by Jacopo Peri, was publicly performed upon the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV., of France, to Catherine de Medici. This work has the double honor of having been the first opera ever publicly performed and the first opera ever printed. A copy of the original edition of A. D. 1600 is now in the Newberry Library of Chicago. The fundamental problem of the new style was that of furnishing appropriate musical cadences for the impressive utterance of the words of the text. Hence the musical handling of "Eurydice" is very meagre. There is only one short instrumental ritornello, and only one short aria, of sixteen measures. Almost the entire remainder of the work is in a rather stiff and formal recitative. No attempt is made at instrumental coloring. The accompaniment is simply intended to support the voices and assure the singers of their pitch, quite after the ideas advanced by Artistoxenos, and applied universally in Greek tragedy. The tonality in "Eurydice" is almost wholly minor.

Whether Monteverde had opportunity of seeing any of these performances we have no means of knowing. At all events he may well have possessed a copy of the published "Eurydice." And so it was no doubt with pleasure that in 1607, upon the occasion of the marriage of Francesco Gonzeaga with Margherita, Infanta of Savoy, he received a commission to prepare a "dramma per musica" for the festivities. The subject chosen was "Arianna" (Ariadne), the text prepared by Rinuccini. In this work for the first time Monteverde had opportunity to give free rein to his powers. No doubt he realized that he had to present his work before hearers who had attended upon the performances of "Eurydice," and were full of its novel effects. One of his own singers, Rasi, had been engaged in the Florentine performances. The effect of "Arianna" was extraordinary, even prodigious. The aria of the deserted Ariadne, Lasciatemi morir, melted the hearers to tears. Monteverde's rival, Marco da Gagliano, who had also been commissioned to prepare a new setting of "Dafne" for the same occasion, was astonished like all the rest. G. B. Doni, in his treatise upon "Scenic Music," holds Monteverde's aria for a master-work indeed. Such was the entrance of the master into the new style. "Arianna" had a long life. As late as 1640 it was played in the theatre of S. Mose, in Venice. The success of this work naturally led to others in the new style. Hence, one year later, another opera, "Orfeo," the text by a writer not now known, and a "Ballo del Ingrate," in which, Ambros says, the music, "in spite of the ancient gods, who figure in the text, stands for the first time in the magic glow of the romantic."

Monteverde was now in the fullness of his powers. He had reached the age of forty-six. He was at once the most original of all Italian musicians of the time, and the most distinguished. Hence upon the death, in 1614, of Giulo Cæsare Martinengo, the musical director of St. Mark's, in Venice, Monteverde was called to the place, which both by reason of its celebrity as already the appurtenance of great composers for two centuries, and on account of its relation to the official life of Venice, was perhaps the most desirable one in the whole world. The salary paid the deceased conductor had been two hundred ducats yearly; that of Monteverde was made three hundred at the start, and in addition a sum of fifty ducats for expenses of removing from Mantua. In 1616 the salary was raised again to four hundred ducats, and later he was awarded the free use of a house in the canon's close. Valuable gratuities were voted him upon several occasions, as one hundred ducats, Dec. 14, 1642, one hundred and fifty in 1629, etc. Honors came fast upon him. When he was invited to Bologna, in order to direct the music for some festivity, a delegation of distinguished citizens met him a long way out upon the route, and orations and formal recognitions of the honor done the city by his accepting the invitation had full place, according to the imposing forms of the time.

In spite of the distinction which Monteverde had gained in the musical dramas already mentioned, it was not for several years after entering upon his duties at St. Mark's that he found opportunity to pursue his ideal. Between 1614 and 1624 he appeared only as church composer, excepting now and then when he produced music for a state fête, for as yet there was no public opera house in the world. In the year 1637 the first one was erected at Venice, in the parish of S. Cassiano. But previously, in 1624, the senator Girolamo Moncenigo invited Monteverde to compose a new work in the representative style, which accordingly he did, and it was privately performed in the Moncenigo palace. It was called "Il Combatimento di Tancredi e Clorinda," an intermezzo. The story was taken from Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered," and represented Clorinda going in search of her lover, Tancred, in disguise of a young knight. Through some misunderstanding a duel between them was unavoidable, and at the moment when the swords flash and the strokes make grim accents in the pretty love story, Monteverde had the happy thought of introducing the pizzicato effect with the strings; and later when Clorinda falls, mortally wounded, the suspense is indicated by the still usual orchestral means, the tremolo. These striking effects, however, were by no means Monteverde's chief claim to memory for this work, for throughout, if we may believe the hearers (the music having disappeared), the music accurately reproduced and interpreted the feeling of the story, and the hearers were intensely absorbed, and at the critical moment moved to tears.

Another celebrated work of Monteverde was a solemn requiem which he composed in 1621, for the funeral services in honor of Cosmos II., in the church S. Giovanni e S. Paulo. Concerning this, the opera librettist, Giuol Strozzi, writes complimentarily if not clearly, that the music "depicted grief in the Mixolydian tone, the happy discovery of Sappho; and the Dies Iræ and the well intoned De Profundis, by their novelty and mastery, awakened in the hearers the greatest wonder."

From this time onward, Monteverde composed often in the new style. In 1627 he composed for the court of Parma five intermezzi; in 1629, for the birthday of Vito Morisini, a cantata, "Il Rosajo fiorito"; and in 1630, for the marriage of the daughter of his patron, the senator Moncenigo, to Lorenzo Giustiniani, he wrote to a poem by Strozzi, "Proserpina Rapita." Here again the enthusiasm of the hearers was unbounded. The magic combination of drama and song in choruses, dances, and orchestration was magical. Unfortunately almost all the operatic and church compositions of Monteverde have been lost. But his continual progress in the art of orchestration is shown now and then in the chance allusions of his contemporaries. Thus we are told that in 1631, upon the day when the votive church S. Maria della Salute was opened by the Doge (in memory of the stay of the plague), a solemn service was also held in St. Mark's, when a great effect was made in the Gloria and Credo by the resounding trombones.

As soon as a public opera house was opened in Venice, the demands upon Monteverde's talent as opera composer became more frequent. Thus followed one important work after another, until almost the end of his long and honored life. In 1642, at the age of seventy-four, he produced his last opera, "L'Incoronazione di Poppea," which had the customary effect of novelty and nobility.

Monteverde had been happily married while still living in Mantua. He had two sons, one of whom became a priest, the other a physician. Upon the death of his wife he entered the church, and took holy orders, so that from the age of sixty-five to the close of his life he was priest as well as composer and musical director. In person he seems to have been tall, rather meagre in figure, and the few existing portraits represent him as serious, perhaps even ascetic, in face. After a short illness, Monteverde died, in 1643. His funeral was held in St. Mark's, under the musical direction of his pupil, Giovanni Rovetta. But a second and more formal service was held on the 15th of December, 1643, in the Frari church, under the direction of another of his pupils, Giambattista Marinoni, musical director at the cathedral of Padua. The great master was buried in the Frari church, in a chapel at the left of the choir. No stone bears his name to mark the spot.

Monteverde's position in the world of art might almost be designated as that of "father of the opera." For, while it is true that he did not himself directly discover this great form of applied music, he certainly was the first to produce dramatic works characterized by the same general ideas as those which prevail at the present day. The connection of Jacopo Peri with opera was altogether fleeting and temporary, having been limited to the two works already mentioned. Monteverde, who was already a vigorous and fully established musician and composer at the time of Peri's first attempt, took hold of the new art form with such vigor and readiness, and with such truth of insight, that he must always stand in the place of honor. Peri's conception of the musical part of opera was rather small and limited. What he sought was a truthful declamation of the text in the matter of cadence and emphasis. To this Monteverde added a deeper insight into the feeling pervading the dramatic situation. This gave the key-note to his music, whether that of the voices, or of voices and instruments together.

This honor belongs still more incontestably to Monteverde when it is remembered what innovations he made in the general points of musical structure and instrumentation, both of which place his fame in the strongest possible light as that of a master. In his earliest canzonettas the defects are those of a half-taught composer, rather than of one deliberately marking out a new path. But in the third book of madrigals there are innovations which have been pointed out by all critical writers upon the history of harmony, especially by Choron and Fétis. In the madrigal "Stracciami pur il côre" (the music of which is given entire in Burney's "History of Music," Vol. III.), the rhythm has more movement, the metrical form is better, there are natural cadences, and prolonged dissonances of a materially different character to anything preceding them. Fétis mentions, at the words non puo morir d'amore, double dissonances, arising by suspension of 9—4, 9—7—4, 6—5—4, the latter having an extremely disagreeable effect. Modern tonality is anticipated by the use of the leading tone. In his fifth book of madrigals he gives free rein to his ideas, and introduces dissonances without preparation, especially the seventh and ninth on the dominant. There is also a diminished seventh. He thus possessed the means of a rational harmonic accentuation and dramatic characterization.

In the department of orchestration, Monteverde may properly be considered the originator of the art, and here again we come upon one of those accidental connections, or harmonies, between the man and his environment which impart to art-history so much the character of a chapter in development. It was Monteverde who first placed the violin in its place of honor in the orchestra. Peri's orchestra contained two tenor-viols, but no violin. While still retaining the chittarone, or large guitars, cembali, or harpsichord, Monteverde had two bass-viols, ten tenor-viols (his own instrument, with whose possibilities he was acquainted), two violi da gamba (a tenor-viol with frets), one double harp, two small French violins, four trombones, a regal or small reed organ (for sustaining tones), one small octave flute, one clarion, and three trumpets with mutes. From the complete loss of anything like orchestral scores or individual parts, it has been surmised that these players exercised their own judgment as to what and when to play. This, however, appears impossible. Otherwise the peculiar effects graphically employed for dramatic coloration would not have been produced. Such effects as the pizzicati and tremolo of violins in "Tancred", and the trombone effects in the mass, mentioned above, do not come by the happy chance of players putting in notes at their unregulated wills. The characteristic difference between the orchestra of Monteverde and Peri was in the possession of means of prolonging tones, and thereby rendering the music impressive and pathetic. Without the stringed instruments this would forever have remained impossible.

A. SCARLATTI

From a rare print loaned for reproduction by Mr. C. Weikert of New York.

ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI

HERE has never been in the musical history of the world such another blossoming into song as took place in Italy after the invention of the representative style. The great master, Monteverde, lived to see the opening of the first public opera houses, and by the end of the century there were theatres devoted to the musical drama in almost every city of Italy. Monteverde was succeeded by several composers, in part contemporaries of each other, among whom the most eminent names were those of Cesti, Lotti, and Legrenzi. All the tuneful instincts of the Italian nation came to expression in the new form of art, and the theatres vied with each other in obtaining the composition of new works by the best masters available. In these there were two national instincts operative: that for the drama, and that for tune. Hence we begin to find, very early in the development, the merely declamatory consideration which ruled Peri, and the additional element of musical characterization which led Monteverde into many new paths, giving place to the merely tuneful, and delaying the drama until an aria had time to fully complete itself.

In its earliest forms the aria gained in symmetry and tunefulness, without seriously hampering the dramatic movement. Soon, however, the voice began to attract attention to itself, and in the illustration of its previously forgotten talents the action of the drama was still further delayed.

Many illustrations of these generalized statements might be cited, but those following later are perhaps sufficient for showing the point which had been reached in the development when the great genius Alessandro Scarlatti appeared.

Born in Trajano, Sicily, and gifted with the music-loving organization of the Sicilians, Alessandro Scarlatti seems to have made his way to Rome at an early age. It is uncertain where he obtained his musical education. Some writers credit him to Pavian masters, others to Carissimi at Rome. It is quite likely that he may have received instruction at both places, while the greater part of his equipment as composer he may have acquired by his own exertions. Nothing at all is known of his first thirty years. But from the assertion of the Marquis of Villerosa (in his work upon the Neapolitan composers) that Scarlatti was a fine singer, a virtuoso upon the harp, and an excellent composer when he first came to Naples, we are at liberty to suppose that he gained a musical livelihood by exercising the first two of these talents. He must have made very thorough studies as composer, for there are several of his works (hereafter cited) which show that he was proficient in all the learning of the ecclesiastical schools.

At length, in 1680, he emerges from the obscurity through the performance of his first opera, "L'Onesta del' Amore," at the palace of the ex-queen of Sweden, Christina, in Rome. The work pleased, and the young composer seems to have been taken into the service of the queen, where he remained until her death, which took place in 1688. Nothing is known of this opera beyond the fact of its performance. Even the influence it may have had on the fortunes of the young composer is inferential, for there is no evidence that he may not have been in her employ previously. The next reliable glimpse we have of him is in the performance of his opera "Pompeo" in January, 1684.

Then for nine years we lose sight of him again until January, 1693, when an oratorio of his, "I Dolore di Maria, sempre Virgine," was written for the congregation of the "seven griefs," at San Luigi di Palazzo. In the same year, also, his opera of "Teodora" was played at Rome. Other indications combine to show that Scarlatti must have rapidly gained in popular estimation during these years, whose record for the present, at least, seems so hopelessly lost.

ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI.

From an engraving of a portrait by Solimène, published in Naples, 1819.

One year later, namely, on Jan. 6, 1694, Scarlatti was appointed musical director of the royal chapel at Naples, where his first work seems to have been the production of Legrenzi's "Odoacre," with certain adaptations and additions of his own. In a prefatory note to the published edition, Scarlatti says: "The airs rewritten by the editor are distinguished by an asterisk, to the end that their faults should not prejudice the reputation of Legrenzi, whose immortal glory is an object of the editor's unlimited respect." Nevertheless, it may be remarked in passing, this respect did not prevent him from making important changes in the work,—changes which he must have believed improvements, and likely to render the performances more successful. Apparently the modesty of the young composer was technical and verbal rather than anything deeper.

There is every indication that Scarlatti found the Neapolitan position very much to his taste. As yet we are without a carefully prepared biography, and little is known of this part of his career beyond the names and times of performance of the operas, which followed each other rapidly, at the rate of at least three a year during his entire productive career. Among those of the first ten years at Naples, the following are to be mentioned: "Pirro e Demetri," 1697; "Il Prigionero Fortunato," 1698; and "Laodicea e Berenice," 1701. During this period he was director of the conservatory of San Onofrio.

Here, moreover, he at least inspired the teaching of the voice, for it was at this school, under Scarlatti's direction, that many of the most eminent singers of the first quarter of the eighteenth century were educated. Among the names mentioned in this connection are those of Farinelli, Senesimo, and Mme. Faustina Hasse. It is probable that Scarlatti himself taught singing, in support of which reasons will be mentioned later.

At this time Naples was in considerable disturbance of a political kind, and in 1703 the situation became insupportable to Scarlatti, who thereupon turned his steps once more towards Rome, where he was appointed assistant musical director of Santa Maria Maggiore, in 1703. Four years later, upon the death of the musical director, Antoine Foggia, he was made full director. He was also made the musical director at the palace of the distinguished and magnificent Cardinal Ottoboni.

He had now come to the full measure of his powers and popularity. One of his celebrated works, "Il Caduta de Decemviri," was played in 1706; another, "Il Trionfo della Liberta," was played at Venice in 1707. He composed with the greatest spontaneity. Burney, the musical historian, mentions seeing the manuscripts of thirty-five cantatas by Scarlatti, which he composed at Tivoli, in the month of October, 1704, while on a visit to his friend, André Adami, chaplain singer in the pontifical chapel. These works were dated, and the dates show that they were written at the rate of one a day. Quanz, the celebrated flute player, visited Naples in 1725, when Scarlatti was a very old man, and met him several times. He mentions a certain wealthy amateur who had collected four hundred manuscript compositions of Scarlatti.

It was during the Roman residence that the young Handel formed the acquaintance of the two Scarlattis, for the son Domenico was by this time the very first clavier virtuoso in Italy. Handel was so much interested that he accompanied the Scarlattis upon their return to Naples, where the master resumed his position as court musical director, in 1709. Handel remained in Naples, studying the cantata style of Scarlatti, until the spring of the following year.

In his later residence at Naples his activity continued, but the very names of many of his works are now lost. Among the most important of these may be mentioned the opera of "Tigrane," which was played in 1715. Another, "Griselda," was produced in 1721. In addition to the direction of the conservatory of San Onofrio, he appears to have taught musical composition at the two other conservatories, of Dei Poveri and Di Loreto. His activity as composer continued almost to the end of his long and honored life. He died Oct. 24, 1725.

The total number of Scarlatti's secular operas was more than one hundred and fifteen. He composed many oratorios, among which may be mentioned "I Dolore di Maria," "Il Sacrafizio d'Abramo," "Il Martirio di S. Teodosia," "La Concezzione della Beata Virgine," "La Sposa di Sacra Cantici," "S. Fillipo Neri," "La Virgine Addolorata," etc. There were about two hundred masses, and more than four hundred secular cantatas. The latter are semi-dramatic settings of short texts for a single voice, with accompaniments for clavier, or combinations of instruments for chamber use. The vast number of pieces of the latter class, together with many other compositions nearly allied to them (chamber duets for voice and light accompaniment, etc.), can only be regarded as having been occasioned by special circumstances in the way of facilities for performance. For it must be remembered that nearly all of these works demand of the singer a degree of virtuosity which was then extremely rare, and to be found perhaps scarcely at all outside the pupils of Scarlatti himself. The solution is to be found in the fact already mentioned that the master himself was a fine singer. Furthermore he had a daughter, La Flaminia, who seems to have been a singularly gifted creature. Bernardo de Domenice, in Vol. IV. of his "Vite d'Pittori, Scultori, ed Archetetti napolitain" (Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects of Naples), is quoted by Florimo, in his "La Scuola Musicale di Napoli" (Marano, 1880), as saying of Francesco Solimene, that he was a lover of music, and in the habit of spending much time at the house of Scarlatti, whose daughter La Flaminia was a wonderful singer, full of dramatic fervor and gifted with a magnificent voice. It would seem, therefore, that these works may have been composed primarily for his own satisfaction and for the pleasure of his own family circle.

In respect to the facility with which he composed, as well as in the agreeable manner of writing for the voice, Scarlatti was the true founder of later Italian opera, his principles of composition having been almost universally followed until past the middle of the present century. But unlike some of the modern Italians, Scarlatti's ease of production rested upon most thorough attainments in counterpoint and the technical mastery of material. His great masses are monuments of learning, and by good judges are counted worthy of being placed beside those most honored in the annals of ecclesiastical music. Among the most celebrated of these works are a four-voice requiem, an "Ave Regina Cælorum" for two voices and organ, a great four-voice canon, a five-voice mass with orchestra, a great pastoral mass for two choirs, eleven voices, with orchestra and organ, and a famous motette, "Tu es Petrus," for two choirs. This was sung at the coronation of Napoleon I. by a choir of thirty papal singers, specially imported for the purpose.

The greater part of the works of Scarlatti are lost, or lie concealed in the archives of the religious houses for which many of them were composed. The archives of the Royal College of Music at Naples contain fifty works of his, among which there are seven of his operas.

Fac-simile autograph manuscript written by Scarlatti. Original is in the British Museum.

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It is by no means easy at the present day to discriminate between the musical reforms which Scarlatti actually invented himself, and those which tradition has somewhat generously attributed to him, but which were in fact the fortunate discoveries of earlier composers soon forgotten. Speaking in general terms, between Scarlatti and Monteverde a full century intervened, a century of such feverish musical activity as the world has scarcely ever seen equalled. Many gifted men took up the representative style where Monteverde left it, and small reforms were continually introduced. Scarlatti is credited with having made the aria more symmetrical by introducing the da capo after the middle part. He is also held by some to have invented, or greatly perfected, the Italian art of singing, and to have introduced running divisions for the display of the technique of the singers. In this point he is the forerunner of the later Italian composers. It is not at all easy to define the precise limitations between Scarlatti's work and that of the other composers, famous in their times, but now almost forgotten. Few of their works are now accessible, and the extracts in such collections as Gevaert's "Les Gloires de l'Italie" may have been edited with the additions required for modern ideas. But so far as I feel justified in drawing conclusions from the evidence accessible, the following are among the more important facts in the case:—

In Peri's "Eurydice" the aria occupies the smallest possible place. Giulio Caccini, his amateur co-worker, has an aria published in 1600 from "Nymphes des Ondes," called Fere selvagge che per monti errato, which is in the key of G, moderato, two periods, eight and six measures. The air by Peri, already mentioned, was sixteen measures, in sustained tones, symmetrical, and fulfilling the proper place of aria, which is that of emphasizing and idealizing an important moment in the drama. Gavaert's collection contains one by Marco Gagliano, a duet for two voices, Alma mea dove ten vai, which is in the key of D minor, and runs in thirds in the regulation Italian style. It is evident that here we have not to do with the representative style, but with a folks song more or less idealized. A cantata for solo voice, by Luigi Rossi, 1640, printed in Gevaert's collection, had the theme resumed after the middle part, in a manner quite equivalent to the da capo. This song also is notable for the amount of vocal running work which it contains (an interesting circumstance, considering the comparatively early period of its production after the discovery of the representative style); in this there are from eight to sixteen notes to a syllable, sixteenths in common time. Even the recitative in the dramatic part of this cantata has the pyrotechnic divisions. Cavalli, an aria from whose "Giasone" appears in Gevaert's collection (1649), seems to have held rather a meagre idea of the possibility of the aria. One of the more interesting of these early specimens is the aria or canzone, Farci pazzo da caterna, which is practically a duet with its own accompaniment, the voice answering the leading motive in the bass. It is somewhat defective in symmetry, but its general effect is admirable.

Scarlatti was far more richly endowed than these composers, both by nature and by art. In the Newberry Library, Chicago, there is one opera of Scarlatti's complete, "La Rosaura" (Edition of the German Society for Musical Research), which was probably produced between 1689 and 1692. As compared with the operas by Monteverde, the melody of this work is much more free. There is a largo prelude and aria of Climene in the second scene, with a string introduction, beautifully done. The violin part is very noble and effective. The second part of the aria is in A minor and other keys, ending in C minor, after which there is a da capo, bringing back the main aria. I know not whether this da capo was written by Scarlatti, or was an addition by the later editor; but inasmuch as the date of this opera so closely coincides with that of "Teodora" (1693), generally regarded as the first example of the da capo, this may well enough be an earlier case, unknown to the former writers. In the fifth scene there are some running divisions which are extended to considerable length, the word "spasso," for instance, having seven beats of common time, sixteenths. Throughout this work minor tonality preponderates very much, all the airs being in minor, and only one or two of the ritournelli being in major. Rosaura has a good air in the second act, and there is a remarkably fine piece of work for violin solo, lute, and 'cello, the cembale being silent.

M. Fétis says that in "Il Cadute de' Decemviri," played in 1705, "All the airs have a sentiment corresponding with the words, and a taking originality. Many have a solo violin with two other violin parts. In the second act an air of touching expression is accompanied by violin solo, with obbligati 'celli, and bass alone. The piece is full of strange harmonies and bold modulations, and is of exquisite beauty."

It was Scarlatti's good fortune to be active as a composer at the very time when the violin had received its finishing touches at the hands of the later Amati and Antonio Stradivarius. The first great violin virtuoso, Archangelo Corelli, had published his epoch-marking works during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Scarlatti appears to have entered into the new musical world thus opened with ever fresh enjoyment and a rare intelligence. Fétis says that in "Laodicea e Berenice" (1701) he wrote an air with obbligato for violin and 'cello, the former having been intended for Corelli; but upon its proving impossible to secure Corelli, the air had to be given up because there was no violinist sufficiently skilled to play it.

In "Tigrane" (1715) the orchestra consisted of violins, violas, 'celli, basses, two horns, two oboes, which was an unprecedented number at that time. In "La Caduta de Decemviri" (1706) the air Ma, il ben mio che fa was accompanied by violins in four parts, with admirable effect. Obbligato solos are also frequent.

Scarlatti also made a mark as teacher of singing. By many he is regarded as the founder of the Italian art of singing. This may well enough have been the case. A great singer himself, a fine musician in every respect, and fully imbued with the concept of cantabile melody, as shown in the violin effects already mentioned as frequent in his operas, nothing could be more natural than that he should put the two ideas together, and seek to discover a method of training through which the human voice would be capable of similarly noble effects, with the added element of inherent vitality. According to tradition, he accomplished his task. At all events it was his pupil, Nicolo Porpora, who brought the art of sustained song to its highest perfection. Besides Porpora, who was perhaps his greatest pupil (and his eminent son, Domenico Scarlatti, who was great composer as well as virtuoso upon the clavier), the most celebrated of Scarlatti's pupils were Logroscino, Durante, and Hasse.

Considering the importance of the period when Scarlatti flourished, and his own prominence both in the eyes of his contemporaries and in the history of art, it is surprising that his biography has never been exhaustively written. Such a work, carried out in the spirit of Spitta's "Bach," would amount to a history of the creation and growth of Italian opera, and would be of vast interest.