ending on the degree appropriate to fa might be brought within the
limits of the key of F by the singer changing B natural to B flat
wherever it occurred. Our information in regard to this practice is
extremely limited, and, in fact, rests upon two or three detached
hints. The signature was not employed until some centuries later.

As already mentioned in chapter XI, there was no measure notation for
a long time after Franco's death. The data are uncertain concerning
the exact time when the bar began to be used to mark the measure. Its
earliest use was that of marking the end of the music belonging to a
line of poetry. This is the same use as now made of the double bar in
vocal music. In fact, everything points to the progressive development
of music in all respects, and the development of what we might call
self-consciousness in musicians, whereby each succeeding generation
sought to place upon record a greater number of particulars concerning
their music, and to leave less and less to accident or tradition. This
progress has gone on until the present time, when two particulars of
our music are exactly recorded--the pitch and the rhythm. The exact
relation of every tone to the key note is ascertainable from our
musical notation, and the precise degree of rhythmic importance
appertaining to each tone according to its place in measure and in the
larger rhythms. We are still lame in the matter of expression, and in
pianoforte music also in regard to the application of the pedals. Here
our notation affords only a few detached suggestions. If the master
works of the modern school could be noted for expression as completely
as for pitch and rhythm, the labor of acquiring musical knowledge
would be very greatly diminished.

The four-line staff has remained in use in the Catholic Church until
the present time, and with it the square notes. It is generally called
Gregorian, and by many is supposed to have been invented by Gregory
the Great; but as a matter of fact, about six centuries elapsed after
his death before this square-note notation came into use. The
five-line staff came into use about 1500. Information is wanting as to
the causes which led to its adoption in preference to the four-line
notation so long in use. The clef for do (C clef) remained in use
until very lately, and is still used by many strict theorists, being
written upon the first line for the soprano, the fourth line for the
tenor, the third line for the alto. The G clef, also, when first
introduced, was often written upon the third or the first line; the F
clef, moreover, was not definitely established on the fourth line
until toward 1700. In the scores of Palestrina's work, now published
in complete form, there are pieces written with the soprano in the G
clef upon the first line, the alto in the C clef upon the second line,
the tenor in the C clef upon the fourth line, and the bass in the F
clef upon the third line. This, while affording the eye two familiar
clefs, the treble and the bass, places them in such a way as to
practically make it necessary for the modern reader to transpose every
note of the composition in all the parts, and, in fact, to effect a
transposition for each part upon principles peculiar to itself.

The progress of classification is distinctly seen in the use of seven
letters instead of fifteen, affording a tacit recognition of the most
essential underlying facts of harmony--_the equivalence of octaves_.
The staff, however, affords the eye no assistance at this point, since
the octaves of notes occupy relatively entirely different positions
upon it, the octave of a space being invariably a line, and the octave
of a line a space. Moreover, the octave of a bass line is always very
differently located when it falls upon the treble staff, and, _vice
versa_, the octave of a treble note falling in the bass is very
differently placed. If a notation had to be made anew it would no
doubt facilitate matters to make use of a staff so planned as to bring
out the equivalence of octaves more perfectly. A recent American
designer, Mrs. Wheeler, has proposed a double staff of six lines,
divided into two groups of three, for the treble and bass, thus
presenting for the piano score four groups of three lines each,
separated by smaller or larger intervals. Upon such a staff every tone
would fall in the same place upon the three lines in every octave, the
octave of the first line of the lower three would be the first line of
the second three, and so on.

This, however, is to anticipate. The smaller rhythmic divisions of the
measure were very little used in the old music which, if not sung in
slow time, was at least written in long notes, and the smaller
varieties of notes are the invention of a period perhaps rather later
than that at which we have now arrived. They belong to the elaborate
rhythmic construction of the music of Händel, Bach, Scarlatti and
Haydn.

CHAPTER XVI.

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. THE VIOLIN, ORGAN, ETC.

I.

During the entire period covered by the division of the story with
which we have been now for some time dealing, the influences operating
upon the tonal sense in the direction of harmonic perception had also
been highly stimulative to the sense of melody. All the devices of
counterpoint, with their two, three and four tones of the moving voice
against one of the _cantus fermus_, were so many incitations in the
direction of melodic cleverness. This influence was still further
strengthened by the constant effort of the composer to impart to each
voice as characteristic an individuality of movement as possible.
Hence there is a distinct gain in smoothness of melody, and there are
occasional appearances of truly expressive quality in this part of the
music, even in the most elaborate of the contrapuntal compositions.
Meanwhile the various forms of popular minstrelsy, whose general
course we have already traced, were powerfully appealing to this part
of the musical endowment of the hearers. But the great means of
cultivating an ear for melody, both in players and hearers, was the
violin, which, contemporaneously with the present point of our story,
had reached its mature form and nearly all of its tonal powers. In
fact, the tonal education of the mediæval musicians had been carried
forward in several directions by the instruments in use. The harp and
its influence upon the development of chord perceptions have already
received attention, but there was another instrument which, during the
period subsequent to about 1400, exerted even a more powerful
influence--I mean the lute. The lute and the violin appear in crude
forms at nearly the same time in Europe. The violin was the instrument
of the north, the lute of the south. Later they move together
geographically, sharing the popular suffrages. By the time of
Palestrina the lute had come to its full powers and most complete
form. Within twenty years after the death of Palestrina orchestral
music started upon the career which has never since stopped, the
violin at the head of the forces, thanks to the insight of the great
musical genius, Monteverde.

The lute belongs to the same class of instruments as the guitar,
differing from that, however, in important details of construction. It
has a pear-shaped body, composed of narrow pieces of bent wood glued
together; the sounding board is flat, and of fir. The neck is longer
or shorter, according to the variety of lute. It was strung with from
eight to eleven strings, which in the east were of silk, but in Europe
were catgut down to the end of the seventeenth century, when spun
strings were substituted for the bass. The finger board was marked by
frets, indicating the places at which the strings should be stopped.
There were four or more of the longest strings which were not upon the
finger board, and were never stopped. They were used for basses.
Melodically the instrument had little power, although its tone was
gentle and sweet. Its influence, like that of the guitar of the
present time, was in the direction of simple harmony, mainly
restricted to the nearest chords of the key. The essential point in
which the construction of the lute differed from that of the guitar,
was in the back, which in the latter is flat, so that ribs are
indispensable for preserving the rigidity of the body against the pull
of the strings. The lute body is very solid, from the mode of its
construction involving an application of the principle of the arch.
The standard appearance of the lute was the following:

[Illustration: Fig. 37.

THE LUTE IN ITS STANDARD FORM.

(From Grove's Dictionary.)]

The stringing and tuning varied much in different periods. According
to Prætorius, the lute had four open strings tuned according to the
scale in _a_ below. Later, a G was added above and below, and the
tuning was that at _b_.

[Music illustration]

Another authority--Baron--gives a tuning for an "eleven-course" lute,
as follows:

[Music illustration]

The F below the bass staff had ten frets, G eleven, and each of the
highest six strings twelve frets. The instrument thus had a compass of
three octaves and a half from the C below the bass. All the strings
were in pairs, two to each unison, excepting the upper two, which were
single. The instrument was a very troublesome one to keep in order.
Mattheson, who wrote in the latter part of the eighteenth century,
when the lute was still cultivated, said that a lutist of eighty years
must have spent nearly sixty in tuning his instrument. The pull of the
strings broke down the sounding board or belly, which had therefore to
be taken off and righted once in every two or three years. The lute
was derived from an Arabian or Persian instrument, of which the Arab
eoud, Fig. 24 (p. 113), was the latest representative.

The problem of locating the frets accurately upon the finger board was
one of the causes which led to close investigation into the
mathematical relation of the tones in the scale; and the directions
given for placing them by various Arab and other writers afford
precise and valuable information concerning their views of
intonation. The lute was made in a great variety of sizes, the largest
being what was called the arch lute, which was more than four feet
long from bottom to the end of the neck. This was employed by Corelli
for the basses of his violin sonatas, and Händel made similar use of
it. A diminutive lute has come down to our own days under the name of
Mandolin. It is strung with metal strings, however, and played with a
plectrum, whereas the mediæval lute was played with the fingers.
Monteverde employed still another variety of the lute in his
orchestra, called the Chitarrone, whence our word guitar. This was a
very large lute, with many strings, which were wire, and played,
therefore, with a plectrum. The chitarrone in the collection at South
Kensington has twelve strings upon the finger board, and eight bass
strings tuned by the pegs at the top of the long neck. It was used
mainly for basses. The guitar, of which a figure is omitted on account
of the familiarity of the instrument, was the Spanish form of the
lute, or the Spanish form which the Moorish lute took in that country.

The essential feature of the violin is the incitation of the vibration
by means of the bow. We do not know when or where this art was
discovered, but it is supposed to have been in the remote east, at a
very early period. The argument of Fétis, that since the Sanskrit has
four terms for bow, according to the material of which it was made,
therefore the art of the bow must have been known before the Sanskrit
ceased to be a spoken language, has little weight. For while it is
true that Sanskrit was not a spoken, or, more properly, a living,
language in ordinary life after about 1500 B.C., it is true, on the
other hand, that it remained in use as a language of religion and of
the learned down to times very recent. In that case there would
necessarily be additions made to it from time to time, as new concepts
came up for expression, in the same manner as additions were made to
Latin during the Middle Ages, and even in modern times. Still, all the
nations around Hindostan have the tradition that the art of playing
music by means of a bow is very old, the Ceylonese attributing the
invention to one of their kings who reigned about 5000 B.C. Their
ravanastron is very crude. (See page 72.) A similarly simple
instrument is in use to the present day in many parts of the east. The
Arab form of it, known as the rebec, is represented on p. 113, Fig.
23. It has two strings of silk, and is played with the point downward,
like a 'cello. It is not possible after this lapse of time to
determine which was the original form of the violin in Europe. Very
early we find the crwth in the hands of the Celtic players, as noticed
in chapter VI. The form given in Fig. 22 (p. 107) is rather late, most
likely, and somewhat of a degradation, since many of the elements of
the violin are wanting in it. The clumsy resonance body is of the same
width all the way, preventing the depression of one end of the bow in
order to avoid sounding adjacent strings. As the bridge of the crwth
was nearly flat, the adjacent strings were octaves, or related in such
a way that when sounding together chords were produced. Many have
supposed that all the strings were sounded together at each drawing of
the bow. This is not impossible, for in one of the sculptures on a
capital in the old church at Boscherville in Normandy a stringed
instrument is represented in which the tone is produced by a revolving
bow, on the principle of the hurdy-gurdy, whereby chords must have
been produced continually. (See p. 208.) The same carving has two
stringed instruments of the violin family, one held like a violin (No.
6), the other bass downward, like a 'cello (No. 1). These two figures
are fragments of the same carving. They are supposed to date from
about the eleventh century. Many similar representations occur, such
as the following from old manuscripts.

[Illustration: Fig. 38.]

These oval instruments had the same deficiency as the crwth, in
respect to indentations at the side of the instrument, for permitting
the depression of the bow. The oldest type of this instrument in use
appears to have been the form known as the rebec, the Arab form, which
came into Europe in the time of the crusades. According to certain
authorities this was the primitive type from which our violin was
derived. The form is better shown in the cut on page 196, which is
from an Italian painting of the thirteenth century.

The body of the rebec was pear-shaped. It was contemporaneous with
many other forms partaking of the shape of the guitar. From this came
the family of viols, which were very popular in England during the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The viol differed from the violin family proper in having a flat back
like a guitar, and rounded corners. The only individual of the viol
family which attained to artistic development was the viol da Gamba,
or bass viol, which was tuned like a lute, having six strings. This
instrument was a favorite with many amateurs until late in the
eighteenth century. (See p. 197.)

[Illustration: Fig. 39.

ANGEL PLAYING A REBEC.

(From an Italian painting of the thirteenth century.)]

Still more curious was the form of viol known as the barytone, which,
in addition to an outfit of six catgut strings upon the finger board,
was furnished with twenty-four wire strings, stretched close under the
sounding board, where they sounded by sympathetic vibration. This was
the instrument which Prince Esterhazy, Haydn's patron, so much
admired, and for which Haydn wrote more than 150 compositions. Its
form is shown in Fig. 41.

[Illustration: Fig. 40.

VIOL DA GAMBA.

(From Reissman's "History of German Music.")]

[Illustration: Fig. 41.

THE BARYTONE.]

It is not easy within present limits to apportion the various steps by
which the violin reached its present form. The first eminent master
of violins, as distinguished from small viols, was the celebrated
Gaspar da Salo, who lived and worked at Brescia during the latter part
of the sixteenth century. The model varies, and the sound holes are
straight and flat. His violins are small and weak of tone, but his
tenors and basses are much sought for. His model was followed some
time later by Guarnerius. The real mastership in violin making was
attained at Cremona, in Lombardy, where were many religious houses
with elaborate services, and a surrounding population of wealth and
artistic instinct afforded the mechanic an appreciative public. It
was here early in the sixteenth century that we first find the Amati
family in the person of the oldest known violin maker, Andrea, from
whom Fétis quotes two instruments dated 1546 and 1551. One of them is
a rebec with three strings; the other is a small violin. They are a
distinct advance over the violins of the western school, but they stop
very far short of the modern instrument. The tone of his instruments
is clear and silvery, but not very powerful. The most eminent of the
Amatis was Nicolo, 1596-1684, a son of Geronimo and grandson of
Andrea. The outline is more graceful, the varnish deeper and richer,
and the proportions of his instruments better calculated. His
instruments have greater power and intensity of tone, and his tenors
and 'cellos are very famous. But the Cremona school came to a
culmination in the works of the pupil of Nicolo Amati--Antonio
Stradivari, 1649-1737. This great master of the violin pursued the
principles of the Amati construction down to about 1700, having then
been making violins for upwards of thirty-three years. After 1700 he
changed his principles of construction somewhat, and developed the
grand style distinguishing his later works. He marks the culminating
point of the art of violin making. It was he who perfected the model
of the violin and its fittings. The bridge in its present form, and
the sound holes, are cut exactly as he planned them, and no artist has
discovered a possibility of improving them. His main improvements
consisted (1) in lowering the height of the model--that is, the arch
of the belly; (2) in making the four corner blocks more massive, and
in giving greater curvature to the middle ribs; (3) in altering the
setting of the sound holes, giving them a decided inclination to each
other at the top; (4) in making the scroll more massive and permanent.
Every violin of Stradivari was a special study, modified in various
details according to the nature of the wood which he happened to have,
sometimes a trifle smaller, a trifle thicker in this place or the
other, or some other slight change accounted for not by
pre-established theory, but by adaptation to the peculiarities of the
wood in hand. According to Fétis, his wood was always selected with
reference to its tone-producing qualities--the fir of the belly always
giving a certain note, and the maple of the back a certain other note.
These peculiarities are not regarded as fully established. The tone of
the Stradivarius violin is full, musical and high-spirited. The small
number now in existence are held at extremely high prices. The usual
pattern is that represented in the following figure.

[Illustration: Fig. 42.

THE STRADIVARIUS VIOLIN.

(From Grove.)]

Stradivari established his own factory about 1680, and continued to
make instruments up to 1730. The violin of 1708 weighs three-quarters
of a pound. Besides making violins, this eminent artist also made
guitars, lutes, 'cellos and tenors. It is wholly uncertain to what
extent the peculiarities of the Stradivari instruments were matters of
deduction and how far accidental. But there can be no question that
the average excellence of his instruments, judging from the specimens
still in existence, was much greater than that of any other violin
maker.

Many other eminent artists made good violins in the century and a half
from the time of Andrea Amati and Gaspar da Salo to Stradivari, among
the most eminent being Maggini, of Brescia, whose violins are very
highly esteemed. Still, inasmuch as the finishing touches were put to
the instrument by Stradivarius, we need not linger to discuss the
minor makers.

II.

Before 1600 the organ had attained its maturity, and had become
furnished with its distinctive characteristics as we have it at the
present time. As this instrument, from the nature of its tone
qualities and its peculiar limitation to serious music of grave
rhythm, is naturally suited to the service of the Church, it has
remained till the present day in the province where it had already
firmly established itself at the time now under consideration. The
origin of the organ is very difficult to ascertain. There are traces
of some sort of wind instrument before the Christian era. The
so-called hydraulic organ was probably one in which water was used to
perfect the air-holding qualities of the wind chest, in the same
manner as now in gas holders. One of the earliest mediæval references
to organs is to that sent King Pepin, of France, father of
Charlemagne, in 742 by Constantine, emperor of Byzantium at that time.
This instrument, says the old chronicler, had brass pipes, blown with
bellows bags; it was struck with the hands and feet. It was the first
of this kind seen in France.

Prætorius says that the organ which Vitellianus set in church 300
years before Pepin, must have been the small instrument of fifteen
pipes, for which the wind was collected in twelve bellows bags.

According to Julianus, a Spanish bishop who flourished in 450, the
organ was in common use in churches at that time. In 822 an organ was
sent to Charlemagne by the Caliph Haroun Alraschid, made by an Arabian
maker. This instrument was placed in a church at Aix-la-Chapelle.
There were good organ builders in Venice as early as 822, and before
900 there was an organ in the cathedral at Munich. In the ninth
century organs had become common in England, and in the tenth the
English prelate, St. Dunstan, erected one in Malmesbury Abbey, of
which the pipes were of brass. The instruments of that time were
extremely crude.

[Illustration: Fig. 43.

(From Franchinus Gaffurius, "_Theorica Musica_," Milan, 1492.)]

From this time on there are many authentic remains in the way of
treatises on organ building and description of organs. The essential
elements of this instrument consist of pipes for producing sound, of
which a complete set, one pipe for each key of the keyboard, is called
a stop; bellows and wind chest for holding the wind, sliders or valves
for admitting it to the pipes, and keys for controlling the valves.

In his studies for a history of musical notation, Dr. Hugo Riemann
quotes an extract from an anonymous manuscript of the tenth century,
in which the author gives directions for a set of organ pipes. "Take
first," he says, "ten pipes of a proper dimension and of equal length
and size. Divide the first pipe into nine parts; eight of these will
be the length of the second. Dividing the length of this again into
nine parts, eight of these will be the proper length of the third;
dividing the first pipe into four parts, three of them will be the
length of the fourth; taking the first pipe as three parts, two of
them will be the length of the fifth; eight-ninths of this again will
give the proper length of the sixth; eight-ninths of this, the length
of the seventh; one-half the first, the length of the eighth, or
octave." This gives a major scale, with the Pythagorean third,
consisting of two great steps, which was too sharp to be consonant.
The semitone between the third and the fourth is too small, as is also
that between the seventh and eighth. The modern way of making the
pipes of smaller diameter as they become shorter, had evidently not
been thought of. Nevertheless, these directions are very important,
since they throw positive light upon the tuning of the various
intervals, the pipe lengths and proportions affording accurate
determinations of the musical relations intended.

[Illustration: Fig. 44.

PORTABLE ORGAN FROM THE PROCESSION IN HONOR OF MAXIMILIAN I.

(From Prætorius' "_Syntagma Musica_," about 1500 A.D.)]

The early organs were furnished with slides which the organist pulled
out when he wished to make a pipe speak, and pushed back to check its
utterance. The date of the invention of the valve is uncertain, but it
must have been about as soon as the power of the instrument was
increased by the addition of the second or third stop. Before this,
however, and perhaps for some little time after, there were many
organs in use, which were committed to the diaphony of Hucbald, having
in place of the diapason three ranks of pipes, speaking an octave and
the fifth between. Each of these combined sounds was treated in the
same way as simple ones are on other instruments, and if chords were
attempted upon them the effect must have been hideous indeed; but it
is probable that at this time the notes were played singly, and not in
chords, or at most in octaves. We do not know the date at which this
style of organ building ceased, but it is probably before the
thirteenth century. There is a manuscript of the fourteenth century in
the Royal Library at Madrid, stating that the clavier at that epoch
comprised as many as thirty-one keys, and that the larger pipes were
placed on one side, and small pipes in the center, the same as now.
The earliest chromatic keyboards known are those in the organ erected
at Halberstadt cathedral in 1361. This instrument had twenty-two keys,
fourteen diatonics and eight chromatics, extending from B natural up
to A; and twenty bellows blown by ten men. Its larger pipe B stood in
front, and was thirty-one Brunswick feet in length and three and a
half feet in circumference. This note would now be marked as a
semitone below the C of thirty-two feet. In this organ for the first
time a provision was made for using the soft stop independently of the
loud one. This result was obtained by means of three keyboards. The
keys were very wide, those of the upper and middle keyboards measuring
four inches from center to center. The sharps and flats were about two
and a half inches above the diatonic keys, and had a fall of about one
and a quarter inches. The mechanical features of the organ were very
greatly improved during the next century, but it was not until the old
organ in the Church of St. Ægidien in Brunswick that the sharps and
naturals were combined in one keyboard in the same manner as at
present. The keys were still very large, the naturals of the great
manual being about one and three-quarters inches in width. It was to
the organ at Halberstadt that pedals were added in 1495, but no pipes
were assigned to them. They merely pulled down the lower keys of the
manual.

[Illustration: Fig. 45.

BELLOWS BAGS IN THE ORGAN AT HALBERSTADT, AND METHOD OF BLOWING.

(Prætorius.)]

Some time before the beginning of the seventeenth century the organ
had acquired nearly the entire variety of tone that it has ever had.
The mechanism was rude, no doubt, and the voicing perhaps imperfect.
The tuning was by the unequal system, throwing the discords into
remote keys as much as possible. In Michael Prætorius' "_Syntagma
Musica_," the great source of information upon this part of the
history (published at Wolfenbüttel, 1618), he describes a number of
large organs. Among them he mentions the organ in the Church of St.
Mary at Danzig, built in 1585, having three manuals and pedal; there
were fifty-five stops. The balance must have been very bad, since
there were in the great organ three stops of sixteen feet, and only
three of eight feet. There was a mixture having twenty-four pipes to
each key, besides a "zimbel" in the same manual, having three ranks.

Prætorius also gives many other specifications of large organs of
three manuals, some with dates, some without. They belong mostly to
the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the number indicates
unmistakably the interest awakened in this part of the musical
furnishing of the large churches. Many points in these organs were
imperfect, but the foundation had been laid, and the general character
of the subsequent building settled. There was also a beginning of
virtuosity upon the organ, but this will come up for consideration at
a later point in the narrative.

[Illustration: Fig. 46.

SCULPTURED HEAD OF COLUMN, FOUND IN THE RUINS OF THE ABBEY OF ST.
GEORGE, AT BOSCHERVILLE, IN NORMANDY. ELEVENTH CENTURY.

(1) Three-stringed viol or rebec. (2) Two persons playing the
organistrum, a stringed instrument vibrated by means of a circular bow
or wheel, like the hurdy-gurdy. (3) Pandean pipes. (4) Apparently a
small harp. (5) Psaltery. (6) Rotta or crwth. (7) Acrobat. (8) Harp.
(9), (10) Instruments of percussion, perhaps bells.]

Book Third.

THE

Dawn of Modern Music.

THE BEGINNING OF FREE EXPRESSION IN SONG, OPERA, ORATORIO AND FREE
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.

CHAPTER XVII.

CONDITION OF MUSIC AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

In justification of the name "apprentice period" for that part of the
history of music ending with Palestrina as the representative of the
finished art of the Netherlands (helped out, we may well enough admit,
with no small measure of the original insight and genius of his own),
a general view of the condition of music in all European countries at
the beginning of the seventeenth century may well be taken. The
fullness with which the details have already been treated renders it
unnecessary to repeat them here, but it will be enough to recapitulate
the principal features of the art thus far attained, adding thereto a
number of incidents omitted. Upon the side of musical phraseology,
then, we find in the north the attainment of a simple and expressive
form of melody almost or quite up to the standard of modern taste. In
the direction of the musically elaborative element we have the schools
of the Netherlands and of Italy, in which absolutely everything of
this kind was realized which modern art can show, saving perhaps the
fugue, which involved questions of tonality belonging to a grade of
taste and harmonic perception more advanced and refined than that as
yet attained. It took nearly another century before the
ecclesiastical keys were thoroughly disenchanted in the estimation of
classical musicians. It was Bach who finally made true tonality the
rule rather than the exception.

In the line of instruments the harp had had its day, its never ending
tuning having been one of the most operative forces in the development
of the ear. Its successor, the lute, equally weak in tenacity of
intonation, but with greater artistic resources, had been fully tested
in every direction. The organ had attained a very respectable size,
even when measured according to modern ideas, and its influence in the
direction of harmonic education had been well begun. The keyed
instrument, of which our pianoforte is the living representative, had
found its keyboard and a practical method of eliciting tones, which,
whatever their weakness, were at least better than those of the lute,
the chitarrone, the psaltery or harp. Best of all, the violin had
found master hands able to shape it into a model graceful to the eye,
and sonorous beyond anything else which the art of music can show.
True, it was not until about sixty years later that the powers of this
instrument in the direction of solos were fully recognized, or,
indeed, brought before the public. This was the work of Corelli, whose
sonatas were published in the third quarter of the century with which
we are now dealing. The viol, the weaker predecessor of the violin,
had made great headway, and Monteverde put himself on record in 1607,
much to his credit, by placing it at the head of his orchestra.

Moreover, not only were the instruments of music in a condition
creditable even in the light of modern ideas, but the popular taste
for music was more lively and far-reaching than ever before.
Everywhere in the civilized world the practice of music was the
universal attribute of a gentleman. In Italy we shall find a circle
composed of some of the best minds of the nation engaged in the
regular study of classical learning, and in discussions having for
their object the re-discovery of the art of ancient music, which the
seekers wrongfully imagined to have been as far superior to the music
then in vogue as the sculpture of the ancients had been superior to
that of mediæval Italy. In no country was the art of music more highly
esteemed, or, we may add, in a more advanced state than in England.

Richard Braithwaite, a writer of the reign of Elizabeth, formulated
certain rules for the government of the house of an earl, in which the
earl was "to keep five musicians, skillful in that commendable sweet
science"; and they were required to teach "the earl's children to sing
and to play upon the bass viol, the virginals, the lute, the bandour
or cittern." When he gave great feasts, the musicians were "to play
whilst the service was going to the table, upon sackbuts, cornets,
shawms and such other instruments going with wind, and upon viols,
violins or other broken music during repast." In barber shops they had
lutes and virginals wherewith the gentlemen might amuse themselves
while awaiting their turn. It was the same in reception rooms; musical
instruments were provided as the surest method of enabling waiting
guests to amuse themselves.

If it be asked why it was that in spite of this high esteem for music
so little came out of its cultivation in England that was creditable
upon the highest plane, according to the scales in which we are
accustomed to weigh the music of Italy and Germany, the answer is not
hard to find. It was in consequence of the little attention paid to
musical learning in the highest sense, as compared with the learning
and training in musicianship on the continent. English music died out,
or grew small, for want of depth of earth. High ideals and thorough
training in the technique are two prime conditions of a successful
development of an art. Besides, the art of music suffered irreparable
damage in England at the hands of the Puritans. The protectorate
lasted long enough to put the art under an eclipse from which it did
not fully emerge until nearly our own time.

A similar fondness for this form of art pervaded all European
countries. In Italy music was the delight of the common people and the
favorite pursuit of the great. In Germany the Reformation and the
influence of Luther had set the people singing. The organ had attained
an advanced state there, and other instruments of every sort were
cultivated. It was the same in France. The love for music was
universal. Hence the times were ripe for a great advance in art. There
was concentrated upon music an attention which it has rarely enjoyed
at any other period of its history, and the advances now to be
mentioned were correspondingly abundant and striking.

The contrapuntal schools had done more to educate harmonic perception
than is commonly supposed. All the devices of counterpoint, as we have
them to-day, were invented by the various schools of this period, and
brought to a high degree of perfection. But the learning had somewhat
overshot its mark. The multiplicity of parts in the compositions of
Willaert, and the other masters of the polyphonic schools, served for
the cultivation of chord perception just as surely as if they had
intentionally written chord successions without troubling themselves
with imitative canon in any degree. For, when there were so many voice
parts as ten, fifteen or twenty within the limits of the compass of
the human organ, that is to say, mainly within the limits of two
octaves and a half, the parts had no recourse but to cross
continually, and since there was no aid afforded the ear by
differences in tone color between one voice part and another, it
necessarily followed that they fell upon the ear with the effect not
of voice parts, in which the melody of each could be followed
independently of the others, but rather as chord masses, in which here
and there a prominent melodic phrase occasionally emerged, only to be
lost the next moment by the prominence of a bit of the melody of some
other voice. The effect of a composition of this kind was no other
than that of a succession of chords, and the ear was as thoroughly
educated to chord perception by this class of music as if the composer
had intended only to write successions of chords. Still the training
of these schools, while incidentally affording education to the ear
upon the harmonic side, was thoroughly contrapuntal, and the study of
every composer was to make something more elaborate than anything that
had been written by his predecessors.

Nevertheless there was an influence in another direction. An art form
was invented, which by the end of this period had established itself
as the type of a musical form whenever the composer would arrive at
something more spontaneous than could conveniently be attained by the
way of a motette or conduit. That form was the madrigal. The meaning
of the name is unknown. Some have derived it from Mary, and point to
the sacred madrigals, many of which were composed by all the
contrapuntal writers. Others have assigned a different origin for it,
and it is not possible now to decide which is the true one. Enough if
we find this form emerging from obscurity by the middle of the
fifteenth century. The first writer of compositions under this title
whose name is known to us was Busnois, and in the same collection are
compositions of the same class by many other composers of the
Netherlandish schools. A madrigal was a secular composition, generally
devoted to love, but in polyphonic style, and in one of the
ecclesiastical modes. They were always vocal down to the seventeenth
century, but from that time forward they were generally marked for
voices and instruments. One of the best composers of madrigals was
Arkadelt, of the Netherlandish school. The success of the great
Orlando Lassus in this school has already been mentioned, together
with the name of one of the best known of his compositions in this
line (p. 167).

The strange modulations, like that from F to E flat in one of
Arkadelt's madrigals, are current incidents of the ecclesiastical mode
in which they are written. Many of the secular works of this class are
hardly to be distinguished from those intended for the Church, and
some are to be met with, having two sets of words, one secular,
occasionally almost profane; the other sacred, some hymn or other from
the offices of divine service.

In England this school had a great currency, and the madrigals of the
British writers of the seventeenth century are every whit as free and
melodious as the best of those of the Italian school. The number of
writers of this class of works was innumerable, so much so that we
might well class it as the ruling art form of the century, just as the
dramatic song was in the eighteenth century, the fugue in the last
half of it, and the sonata in the beginning of the nineteenth.
Everybody wrote madrigals who ever wrote music at all. According to
the dates of collections published, the English followed the Italian
composers. The earliest Italian compositions of this class are
contained in three collections printed by Ottaviano di Petrucci, the
inventor of the process of printing music from movable type. These
collections were published in Venice, 1501-1503, and copies are still
retained in the library at Bologna and at Vienna. The English
cultivation of this form of composition became general toward the last
of this century, and in the first part of the next ensuing, and it is
but just to say that the English composers finally surpassed the
continental in this school, and developed out of it a beautiful art
genre of their own, the glee. Toward the latter part of the sixteenth
century certain attempts were made in Italy at something resembling
our opera, but in place of solo pieces by any of the performers there
were madrigals. When Juliet, for example, would soliloquize upon the
balcony, she did so in a madrigal, the remaining four parts being
carried by chambermaids inside. When Romeo climbed the balcony and
breathed his sweet vows to Juliet, one or two of his friends around
the corner carried the missing melodies in which he sought to
improvise his warm affection. The absurdity of the proceeding was
manifest, but it needed yet another point of emphasis. There was a
grand wedding in Venice in 1595, at which the music consisted of
madrigals, all in slow time and minor key. The contradiction between
the doleful music and the festive occasion was too plain to be
ignored, and led, presently, to the invention of a totally different
style of song of which later there is much to say.

The seventeenth century was one of the most memorable in the history
of music, not so much, however, for what it fully accomplished as for
the new ideas brought out and in part developed. The specific part of
the general development of music which this century accomplished was
_the development of free melodic expression_. While, as already
noticed, the musical productions of the preceding centuries had
manifested an increasing melodic force and propriety, the secret of
genuine melodic expression had yet to be found. In the madrigal and
motette the conditions were wholly unsuited to the development of this
part of music. Instead of one prominent voice, in which the main
interest of the production centered itself, the composer of that
period had a certain number of equally important voice parts, all
taking part in the development of the one leading idea of his piece.
Melodically speaking, the standpoint was wrong and the situation
false. Melody means individuality, individualism; the free
representation of a personality in its own self-determined motion. At
the point of the year 1600, speaking with sufficient exactness for
ordinary purposes, the ruling standpoint of musical production
changed, in the effort to rediscover the lost vocal forms of the Greek
drama. The new problem was that of finding, for every moment and every
speech of the drama, a form of utterance suitable to the sentiment and
the occasion. Thus entered into music, through the ministry of
self-forgetfulness, the most important principle which has actuated
its later progress, the principle namely, of dramatic expression--in
other words, the _representative_ principle, the effort to represent
in music something which until now had been outside of music. Out of
this principle, co-operating with that other idea of two centuries
later, the inherent interest of the individual, has grown the richness
and manifold luxuriance of modern romantic music, together with the
entire province of opera and oratorio. We have now to trace the steps
which led to this great transformation in the art of music; and to
illustrate the application of the new principles to the province of
instrumental music, which had no beginning of genuine art value before
this period. When examined with reference to the matured productions
of the century next ensuing, those of the seventeenth appear quite as
much like apprentice efforts as those of the latter part of the period
covered in the preceding book of our story; but they have in them,
however, the seeds of the later development, and stand to us,
therefore, in the character of first fruits. To state it still more
unmistakably, we have to trace in the operations of the seventeenth
century the _origin of dramatic song_, the beginnings of _free
instrumental music_, the discovery of the _art of voice training_ and
the formation of what is called the "old Italian school of singing,"
and the operation of the representative element in music, together
with the new forms created through its entrance into art.

The musical movement of this century in its entirety was a part of the
general operation of mind, which was now of great amplitude and
spontaneity. The fervor of the Renaissance indeed had passed, having
resulted in the creation of masterpieces of architecture, sculpture,
painting and poetry during the previous two centuries. Music came to
expression last of the forms of art, and when mental movement was less
intense. For this reason the Italian mind failed to rule in it after
the early beginnings in the new direction had been made. The
representative element entered the art of music in Italy; but the
mastery of its application, and the development of new forms fully
completing the representation, were carried on by other nationalities
where the mental movement still retained the pristine vigor of new
impulses and rich vitality.

The city of Florence was the center where the drama and song-like
melody found its beginning. Almost immediately, however, Venice became
the home of music, and fostered the growth of dramatic song for more
than half a century. At this time, as for a century previous, Venice
was the most active intellectual center of Europe. Perhaps nothing
gives so clear a realization of this supremacy as the statistics of
books printed in the leading centers of Europe from 1470 to 1500. The
largest centers were Strassburg, with 526; Basle, 320; Leipsic, 351;
Nuremburg, 382; Cologne, 530; Paris, 751; Rome, 925; Bologna, 298;
Milan, 625, while Venice heads the list with 2,835. Toward the end of
the century, the appearance of the genius, Alexander Scarlatti,
effected the transference of the musical supremacy of Italy to Naples.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FIRST CENTURY OF ITALIAN OPERA AND DRAMATIC SONG.

During the last decade of the sixteenth century a company of
Florentine gentlemen were in the habit of meeting at the house of
Count Bardi for the study of ancient literature. Their attention had
concentrated itself upon the drama of the Greeks, and the one thing
which they sought to discover was the music of ancient tragedy, the
stately and measured intonation to which the great periods of
Æschylus, Euripides and Sophocles had been uttered. The alleged
fragments of Pindar's music since discovered by Athanasius Kircher (p.
69) were not yet known, and they had nothing whatever to guide their
researches beyond the mathematical computations of Ptolemy and the
other Greek writers. At length, one evening, Vincenzo Galilei, father
of the astronomer Galileo, presented himself with a monody. Taking a
scene from Dante's "_Purgatorio_" (the episode of Ugolini), he sang or
chanted it to music of his own production, with the accompaniment of
the viola played by himself. The assembly was in raptures. "Surely,"
they said, "_this_ must have been the style of the music of the famous
drama of Athens." Thereupon others set themselves to composing
monodies, which, as yet, were not arias, but something between a
recitative and an aria, having measure and a certain regularity of
tune, but in general the freedom of the chant. Among the number at
Count Bardi's was the poet Rinuccini, who prepared a drama called
"Dafne." The music of this was composed in part by an amateur named
Caccini, and in part by Jacopo Peri, all being members of this
studious circle meeting at the house of Count Bardi. "Dafne" was
performed in 1597 at the house of Count Corsi, with great success, but
the music has been lost, and nothing more definite is known about it.
This beginning of opera, for so it was, was also the beginning of
opera in Germany, as we shall presently see, for about twenty years
later a copy of "Dafne" was carried to Dresden for production there
before the court, but when the libretto had been translated into
German, it was found unsuited to the music of the Italian copy,
whereupon the Dresden director, Heinrich Schütz, wrote new music for
it, and thus became the composer of the first German opera ever
written. In 1600 the marriage of Catherine de Medici with Henry IV of
France was celebrated at Florence with great pomp, and Peri was
commissioned to undertake a new opera, for which Rinuccini composed
the text "Eurydice." The work was given with great _éclat_, and was
shortly after printed. Only one copy of the first edition is now known
to be in existence, and that, by a curious accident, is in the
Newberry Library at Chicago. The British Museum has a copy of the
second edition of 1608. The opera of "Eurydice" is short, the printed
copy containing only fifty-eight pages, and the music is almost
entirely recitative. There are two or three short choruses; there is
one orchestral interlude for three flutes, extending to about twenty
measures in all, but there is nothing like a finale or ensemble
piece. Nevertheless, this is the beginning, out of which afterward
grew the entire flower of Italian opera. On page 225 is an extract.

The new style thus invented was known to the Italians as _il stilo
rappresentivo_, or the representative style, that is to say, the
dramatic style, and there is some dispute as to the real author of the
invention. About the same time with the production of "Eurydice," a
Florentine musician, Emilio del Cavaliere, wrote the music to a sacred
drama, of which the text had been composed for him by Laura
Guidiccioni, the title being "_La Rappresentazione del Anima e del
Corpo_." The piece was an allegorical one, very elaborate in its
structure, and written throughout in the representative style, of
which Cavaliere claimed to be the inventor. This oratorio, which was
the first ever written, was produced at the oratory of St. Maria in
Vallicella, in the month of February, ten months before the appearance
of "Eurydice" at Florence. It is evident, therefore, that if the style
had been in any manner derived from the Florentine experiments already
noted, it must have been from the earlier opera "Dafne" and not from
"Eurydice." The principal characters were "_Il Tempo_" (time), "_La
Vita_" (life), "_Il Mondo_" (the world), etc. The orchestra consisted
of one lira doppia, one clavicembalo, one chitarrone and two flutes.
No part is written for violin. At one part of the performance there
was a ballet. The whole was performed in church, as already noticed,
as a part of religious service.

Seven years later we enter upon the second period of the opera, when,
on the occasion of the marriage of Francesco Gongeaza with Margherita,
Infanta of Savoy, Rinuccini prepared the libretti for two operas,
entitled "Dafne" and "Arianna," the second of which was set to music
by Claudio Monteverde, the ducal musical director, a man of
extraordinary genius. The first of these operas has long since been
forgotten, but Monteverde made a prodigious effect with his. The scene
where Ariadne bewails the departure of her faithless lover affected
the audience to tears. Monteverde was immediately commissioned to
write another opera, for which he took the subject of "_Orfeo_," and,
being himself an accomplished violinist, he made an important addition
to the orchestral appointments previously attempted in opera. The
instruments used were the following:

      2 Gravicembani.
      2 Contrabassi de viola.
     10 Viole da brazzo.
      1 Arpa doppio.
      2 Violini piccolo alla Francese.
      2 Chitaroni.
      2 Organi de Legno.
      2 Bassa da Gamba.
      4 Tromboni.
      1 Regale.
      2 Cornetti.
      1 Flautino alla vigesima secunda.
      1 Clarino, con 3 trombi sordine.

[Music illustration: FLUTE TRIO AND SCENE.

(From the first opera, "Eurydice" (1600). Jacopo Peri.)

     Nel pur' ar-dor del-la più bel-la stel-la
     au-rea sa-cel-la di bel foc' accen-di
     E qui dis-cen-di su l'au-ra-te plu-me, etc.]

A very decided attempt is made in this work at orchestra coloring,
each character being furnished with a combination of instruments
appropriate to his place in the drama. These works were not given in
public, but only in palaces for the great, and it was not for more
than twenty years that a public opera house was erected in Venice. In
1624 Monteverde at the instance of Girolamo Mocenigo composed an
intermezzo, "_Il Combatimento di Tancredi e Clorinda_," in which he
introduced for the first time two important orchestral effects: The
_pizzicati_ (plucking the strings with the fingers) and the
_tremolo_. These occur in the scene where Clorinda, disguised as a
knight, fights a duel with her lover Tancredi, who, not knowing his
opponent, gives her a fatal wound. The strokes of the sword are
accompanied by the _pizzicati_ of the violins, and the suspense when
Clorinda falls is characterized by the tremolo--two devices universal
in melodrama to the present day.

Monteverde had already for some time been a resident in Venice as
director of the music at St. Mark's, where his salary had originally
been established at 300 ducats per annum, and a house in the canon's
close. In 1616 his salary was raised to 500 ducats, and he gave
himself up entirely to the service of the republic. The first opera
house was erected in 1637 and was followed within a few years by two
other opera houses in Venice. In these places Monteverde's subsequent
works were produced. The greater number of his manuscripts are
hopelessly lost. We possess only eight books of madrigals, a volume of
canzonettes, the complete edition of "Orpheus," and a quantity of
church music.

The new path opened by this great composer was followed assiduously by
a multitude of Italian musicians. Among these the more distinguished
names are those of Cavalli, who wrote thirty-four operas for Venice
alone, Legrenzi and Cesti. The latter wrote six operas, some of which
were very successful. By 1699 there were eleven theaters in Venice at
which operas were habitually given; at Rome there were three; in
Bologna one; and in Naples one. It would take us too far to discuss in
detail the successive steps in the history during this century, since
in the nature of the case, an individual work like an opera can with
difficulty rise above the popular musical phraseology of the day, the
object being immediate success with a public largely uncultivated.
Hence, popular operas for the most part are short-lived, rarely
retaining their popularity more than thirty years.

The greatest genius in opera in this century after Monteverde was
Alessandro Scarlatti, of Naples, the principal of the conservatory
there, and, we might say, the inventor of the Italian art of
singing--_bel canto_. For as there had been no monody, so there had
been no solo singing, and as the operas of the first three-quarters of
this century, in spite of the improvements of Monteverde, consisted
mostly of recitative, there was still no singing in the modern
acceptation of the term. Scarlatti introduced new forms. To the
_recitativo secco_, or unaccompanied recitative, which until now had
been the principal dependence for the movement of the drama, he added
the _recitativo stromentato_, or accompanied recitative, in which the
instruments afforded a dramatic coloring for the text of the singer.
To these, again, he added a third element, the aria. The first he
employed for the ordinary business of the stage; the second for the
expression of deep pathos; the third for strongly individualized
soliloquy. These three types of vocal delivery remain valid, and are
still used by composers in the same way as by Scarlatti. His first
opera was produced in Rome at the palace of Christina, ex-queen of
Sweden, in 1680. This was followed by 108 others, the most of which
were produced in Naples. The most celebrated of these were "_Pompei_"
(Naples, 1684), "_La Theodora_" (Rome, 1693), "_Il Triompho de la
Liberta_" (Venice, 1707) and, most celebrated of all, "_La Principessa
Fidele_." In addition to this he wrote a large number of cantatas,
more or less dramatic in character. Scarlatti not only created the
aria, calling for sustained and impassioned singing, but also
invented or discovered methods of training singers to perform these
numbers successfully. He was the founder of the Italian school of
singing, and the external model upon which it was based undoubtedly
was furnished by the violin which, having been perfected by the Amati,
as already noted in the previous chapter, and its solo capacities
having been brought out by Archangelo Corelli, whose first violin
sonatas were published a few years before Scarlatti's first opera, had
now established a standard of melodic phrasing and impassioned
delivery superior to anything which had previously been known. It was
a pupil of Scarlatti, Nicolo Porpora (1686-1766), who carried forward
the work begun by his master. Porpora was even a greater teacher of
singing than Scarlatti himself, and his pupils became the leading
singers in Europe during the first quarter of the eighteenth century.
The progress of vocal cultivation was remarkably helped by the fact
that at this time women were not permitted to appear upon the stage,
all the female parts being taken by male sopranos, _castrati_. These
artificial sopranos, having no other career before them than that of
operatic singing, devoted themselves vigorously to the technique of
their art, and were efficient agents in awakening a taste for florid
singing impossible for ordinary or untrained voices. Women did not
appear upon the stage in opera until toward the middle of this
century. Händel, in London, had male sopranos such as Farinelli,
Senesimo, and the earlier of the female sopranos, of whom the vicious
Cuzzoni was a shining example. The artistic merits of Porpora have
been greatly exaggerated by certain writers, notably by Mme. George
Sand in her "_Consuelo_," where he figures as one of the greatest and
most devoted of artists. Her work, however, has the excellence of
affording a very good representation of the artistic end proposed by
the Italian masters of singing in their best moments. Porpora spent
the early part of his life in Naples, but afterward he resided for
some time in Dresden, Vienna, Rome and Venice, being principal of a
conservatory in the latter place. In the latter years of his life
(1736) he was invited to London to compose operas in competition with
Händel, in which calling he but poorly succeeded. Porpora represents
the ideal which has ruled Italian opera from his time to the present,
the ideal, namely, of the pleasing, the well sounding, and the vocally
agreeable. He is responsible for the fanciful roulades, the long arias
and the many features of this part of dramatic music which please the
unthinking, but mark such a wide departure from the severe and noble,
if narrow, ideal of the original inventors of this form of art.

It is to be regretted that the limits of the present work do not
permit the introduction of selections of music sufficiently extended
for illustrating the finer modifications of style effected by the
successive masters named in the text. The brief extracts following are
taken from the excellent lectures of the late John Hullah upon
"Transitional Periods in Musical History." The same valuable and
suggestive work contains a number of more extended selections from
these and other little known masters of the period, for which reason
the book forms a useful addition to the library of teachers, schools,
etc. Other illustrations will be found in Gevaert's "_Les Gloires
d'Italie_" ("The Glories of Italy"). There are sixty arias in this
collection, all well edited, and chosen for their effectiveness for
public performance at the present day.

[Music illustration: ARIA PARLANTE.--"LASCIATE MI MORIR."

(From the opera "Ariadne," 1607. Monteverde.)

     La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re,
     La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re,
     E che vo-le-te voi che mi con-for-ti in co-sì du-re sor-te, in co-sì
       gran mar-ti-re?
     La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re,
     La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re.]

[Music illustration: EXTRACT FROM SONG, "VAGHE STELLE."

(From the opera "Erismena," 1655. Francesco Cavalli.)

     Va-ghe stel-le, Lu-ci-bel-le,
     Non dor-mi-te, non dor-mi-te.
     Va-ghe stel-le, Lu-ci-bel-le,
     Non dor-mi-te, non dor-mi-te.]

[Music illustration: ARIA.--"LASCIAMI PIANGERE."

(From a cantata. Alessandro Scarlatti.)

     La-scia-mi, la-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io sò per-chè io sò, io sò, io sò
       per-chè.
     La-scia-mi pian-ge-re, la-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io sò per-chè,
       per-chè, ch'io sò perchè,
     La-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io sò per-chè, io sò, io sò, io sò per-chè.
     Del-le mie la-gri-me
     La sor-te per-fi-da
     Sa-zia non è, sa-zia non è.
     Del-le mie la-gri-me
     La sor-te per-fi-da
     Sa-zia non è,
     Del-le mie la-gri-me
     La sor-te per-fi-da
     Sa-zia non è nò, nò, nò, nò, nò, sa-zia non è.
     _Da capo._ La-scia-mi....]

CHAPTER XIX.

BEGINNINGS OF OPERA IN FRANCE AND GERMANY.

I.

From Florence the art of dramatic song spread to all other parts of
the world, yet not so rapidly as would have been supposed. For it was
not until nearly half of the century had already elapsed that opera
made a beginning in France, the country where ruled the unfortunate
princess for whose nuptials the first opera had been written. French
opera grew out of the ballet. This term, which at present is
restricted to entertainments in which dancing is the principal
feature, and the story is entirely told in pantomime, had formerly a
more extended signification. It was equivalent to the English term
"Mask," a play in which dancing, songs and even dialogue found place.
This light and sprightly form of drama has been favored in France from
a remote period. As early as the first quarter of the seventeenth
century Antoine Boesset (1585-1643) composed ballets for the
entertainments of the king, Louis XIII. His son succeeded him at the
court of Louis XIV. Some of the ballets of the elder Boesset were
produced in 1635, and in these we must find the beginnings of French
opera, if indeed we do not go back still farther, and find it in the
play of "Robin and Marian," written by Adam de la Halle. In fact,
dramatic entertainment has been indigenous in France from an early
date, and it is by no means easy to say that at any particular moment
the line was crossed where modern opera begins. The ballets of Boesset
were, no doubt, slight upon the dramatic side, having even less of
serious intention in the music than the lightest of comic opera of the
present day.

The impulse to grand opera came from a different quarter. A sagacious
cleric, the Abbé Perrin, heard, either at Florence or in Paris, from
the company of Italian singers brought over in 1645, Peri's
"Eurydice," which made a great impression upon him, and he suggested
to a musician of his acquaintance, Robert Cambert, the production of
another work in similar style. Several things in this account appear
strange, but strangest of all, the total ignorance that prevailed in
Paris of the vast development that had been made in Italian opera by
Monteverde and the other Italians, during the forty years since Peri's
experiment had been first composed. With the leisurely movement of the
times, the new work of the French composers was produced in 1659. This
was "_La Pastorale_," performed with the greatest applause at the
chateau of Issy. This was followed by several other works in similar
style, "Ariane," "Adonis" and the like, and in 1669 Perrin secured a
patent giving him a monopoly of operatic performances in France for a
period of years.

Meanwhile a certain ambitious and unscrupulous youngster was feeling
his way to a position where he might make himself recognized. It was
the youthful violinist, Jean Baptiste Lulli, the illegitimate son of a
Florentine gentleman, his dates being about 1633-1687. Lulli had been
taught the rudiments of knowledge, including that of the violin, by a
kind-hearted priest of his native city, and, when yet a mere lad, made
his way to Paris in the suite of the duke of Guise. Once in Paris his
way was open. Gifted with a quick wit, a total absence of principle or
honor, but of insatiable ambition, he made his way from one position
to another, and at length had been so prominent as a composer of dance
music, and leader of the king's violins, as to have opportunity to
distinguish himself by composing the music for the ballet of
"_Alcidiane_," and others, in which Louis XIV himself danced. Lulli's
ambition was still farther stimulated and his style influenced by the
study of the music of Cavalli, for several of whose operas he composed
ballets, upon the occasion of their production in France.

Within thirteen years he produced no less than thirty ballets. In
these he himself took part with considerable success as dancer and
comic actor. The success of Cambert and Perrin's operas of "_Pomone_"
and "The Pains and Pleasures of Love" (1671) awakened in him the
desire of supplanting them in the regard of the king. After intrigues
creditable neither to himself nor to the powers influenced by them, he
succeeded in this same year in having the patent of Perrin set aside,
and a new one issued, giving him the sole right of producing operas in
France for a period of years. Then ensued a career of operatic
productivity most creditable and influential from every point of view.
In the space of fourteen years Lulli produced twenty operas, or
_divertissements_, of which the best, perhaps, were "_Alceste_," 1674,
"_Thesée_," 1675, "_Amadis de Gaule_," 1684, and "Roland," 1685. Lulli
made certain improvements upon the Italian models, which he
originally followed, making the recitative more stately, and employing
the accompanying orchestra for purposes of dramatic coloration. He was
a great master of the stage, and introduced his effects with
consummate judgment. His declamation of the text was most excellent,
and in this respect his operas have served as models in the traditions
of the French stage from that time until now. As a musician, however,
he was clever rather than deep, and the music is often monotonous and
rather stilted. Nevertheless, his operas held the stage for many years
after the death of their author, and occasional revivals have taken
place at intervals, even after the advance in taste and musical
knowledge had effectually quenched their ability to please a popular
audience. His "Roland" was performed as an incident in the regular
season at Paris as late as 1778, when Gluck's "Orpheus" had already
been heard. The example of Lulli's music given on pages 240 and 241 is
from this work. The melody is vigorous and appropriate.

The most commendable feature of this beginning of opera in France was
the attention given to the musical treatment of the vernacular of the
country. The principle once recognized, that opera not in the
vernacular of the country can never have more than an incidental and
adventitious importance, has always been maintained in France. The
_Académie de Musique_, for which the patent was granted to Perrin, and
transferred to Lulli, has been maintained with few interruptions ever
since, and has been the home of a native French opera, constantly
increasing in vigor, originality and interest. Italian opera has been
fashionable in Paris for brief periods, and as the amusement of the
fashionable world, but the native opera has nearly always held the
place of honor in the affections of the people, and the foreign works
produced there have been translated into the French language.

[Music illustration: SONG.--"ROLAND, COUREZ AUX ARMES."

(From the opera "Roland," 1685. J.B. Lulli.)

     Ro-land, cou-rez aux ar-mes, aux ar-mes, cou-rez aux ar-mes,
     Que la gloi-re a de charm-es, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es;
     L'a-mour de ses di-vins ap-pas, Fait vi-vreau de-là du tré-pas,
     L'a-mour de ses di-vins ap-pas, Fait vi-vreau de-là du tré-pas.
     Ro-land, cou-rez aux ar-mes, aux ar-mes, cou-rez aux ar-mes,
     Que la gloi-re a de charm-es, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es.]

II.

In Germany the contrary was the case for more than a century later.
The first operatic performance, indeed, was given in the German
language. A copy of Peri's "Dafne" was sent to Dresden and as a
preparation for performance the text was translated, but it was found
impossible to adapt the German words to the Italian recitative, owing
to the different structure of the German sentences, bringing the
emphasis in totally different places. In this stress the local master,
Heinrich Schütz, was called upon to compose new music, which he did,
and the work was given in 1627. This beginning of German opera,
however, was totally accidental. All that was intended was the
repetition of the famous Italian work. Nor did the persons concerned
appear to recognize the importance and high significance of the act in
which they had co-operated, for no other German operas were given
there or elsewhere until much later. Schütz, moreover, did not pursue
the career of an operatic composer, but turned his attention mainly to
church music and oratorio, in which department he highly distinguished
himself, as we will presently have occasion to examine farther.

It was not until the beginning of the century next ensuing, that
German opera began to take root and grow. The beginning was made in
the free city of Hamburg, which was at that time the richest and most
independent city of Germany, and, being remote from the centers of
political disturbance, it suffered less from the thirty years' war
than most other parts of the country. The prime mover here was
Reinhard Keiser (1673-1739), born at Weissenfels, near Leipsic, and
educated at the Thomas School. His attention had been directed to
dramatic music early, and at the age of nineteen he was commissioned
to write a pastoral, "_Ismene_," for the court of Brunswick. The
success of this gained him another libretto, "_Basilius_," also
composed with success. He removed to Hamburg in 1694, and for forty
years remained a favorite with the public, composing for that theater
no less than 116 operas, of which the first, "Irene," was produced in
1697. In 1700 he opened a series of popular concerts, the prototypes
of the star combinations of the present day. In these entertainments
the greatest virtuosi were heard, the most popular and best singers,
and the newest and best music. His direction of the opera did not
begin until 1703; here also he proved himself a master. The place of
this composer in the history of art is mainly an adventitious one,
depending upon the chronological circumstance of his preceding others
in the same field, rather than upon the more important reason of his
having set a style, or established an ideal, for later masters. His
operas subsided into farce, the serious element being almost wholly
lacking, and, according to Riemann, the last of them shows no
improvement over the first. Their only merit is that they are not
imitations of the Italian nor upon mythological subjects, but from
common life. In his later life he devoted himself to the composition
of church music, in which department he accomplished notable, if
somewhat conventional, success. The Hamburg theater furnished a field
for another somewhat famous figure in musical history, that of Johann
Mattheson, a singularly versatile and gifted man, a native of that
city (1681-1764). After a liberal education, in which his musical
taste and talent became distinguished at an early age, he appeared on
the stage as singer, and in one of his own operas, after singing his
rôle upon the stage, came back into the orchestra in order to conduct
from the harpsichord the performance, until his rôle required him
again upon the stage. Indeed, it was this eccentricity which
occasioned a quarrel between him and Händel, who resented the
implication that he himself was incapable of carrying on the
performance. Mattheson composed a large number of works, including
many church cantatas of the style made more celebrated in the works of
Sebastian Bach, later, the intention of these works having been to
render the church services more interesting by affording the
congregation a practical place in the exercises. Mattheson is best
known at the present time by his "Complete Orchestral Director," a
compilation of musical knowledge and notions, intended for the
instruction of those intending to act in this capacity.

CHAPTER XX.

THE PROGRESS OF ORATORIO.

I.

As already noticed in the previous chapter, the oratorio had its
origin at the same time as opera, both being phases of the _stilo
rappresentativo_, or the effort to afford musical utterance to
dramatic poetry--at first merely a solemn and impressive utterance,
later, as the possibilities of the new phase of art unfolded
themselves, a descriptive utterance, in which the music colored and
emphasized the moods of the text and the situation. The idea of
oratorio was not new. All through the Middle Ages they seem to have
had miracle plays in the Church, as accessories of the less solemn
services, and as means of instruction in biblical history. The
mediæval plays had very plain music, which followed entirely the
cadences of the plain song, and made no attempt at representing the
dramatic situation or the feelings growing out of it. All that the
music sought to do was to afford a decorous utterance, having in it,
from association with the cadence of the music of the Church,
something impressive, yet not in any manner growing out of the drama
to which it was set. The Florentine music drama was something entirely
different from this, or soon became so, and in oratorio this was just
as apparent as in opera, although the opportunities of vocal display
were not made so much of.

The modern oratorio exists in two types: The dramatic cantata, of
which the form and general idea were established by Carissimi; and the
church cantata, which differed from the Italian type chiefly in being
of a more exclusively religious character, and of having occasional
opportunities for the congregation to join in a chorale. The former of
these types was established by Giacomo Carissimi (1604-1674), who was
born near Rome, and held his first musical position as director at
Assisi, but presently obtained the directorship at the Church of St.
Apollinaris in Rome, where he served all the remainder of his long and
active life. Without having been a genius of the first order, it was
Carissimi's good fortune to exercise an important influence upon the
course of musical progress, particularly in the direction of oratorio,
in which all the more attractive elements came from his innovations.
Carissimi was a prolific composer, having constant occasion for new
and pleasing attractions for the musical service of the rich and
important Jesuit church, where he held his appointment. These
compositions are of every sort, but cantatas form the larger portion,
consisting of passages of Scripture set in consecutive form, with due
alternation of solo and chorus, in a style at once pleasing and
dramatically appropriate. The majority of his compositions have been
lost, many of them going to the waste paper baskets when the Jesuits
were suppressed. Enough remain, however, to indicate the interest and
importance of his work. Moreover, there, is another curious commentary
upon the value of his music, in the fact that Händel took twelve
measures well nigh bodily out of one of the choruses in Carissimi's
"Jephthah," and incorporated them in "Hear Jacob's God" in his own
"Samson." Mr. Hullah gives an excellent aria from this work, but it
is too long for insertion here. The more important of Carissimi's
innovations were in the direction of pleasing qualities in the
accompaniments, and agreeable rhythms. He was teacher of several of
the most important Italian musicians of the following generation,
among them being Bassani, Cesti, Buononcini and Alessandro Scarlatti.

[Illustration: Fig. 47.

HEINRICH SCHÜTZ.]

II.

The other type of oratorio received important assistance toward full
realization in Germany, at the hands of Mattheson, as already noticed,
and from those of Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), who, after preliminary
studies in Italy, where he acquired the Italian representative style
from Gabrieli in Venice, in 1609, three years later returned to
Germany, and in 1615 was appointed chapel master to the elector of
Saxony, a position which he held with slight interruptions until his
death, at the advanced age already indicated. Notice has already been
taken in a former chapter of his appearance in the field of opera
composition, in setting new music to Rinuccini's "Dafne," on account
of the German words being incapable of adaptation to the music of
Peri. But before this he had demonstrated his versatility and talent
in the production of certain settings of the psalms of David, in the
form of motettes for eight and more voices. In his second work, an
oratorio upon the "Resurrection," he shows the same striving after a
freer dramatic expression. His great work "_Symphoniæ Sacræ_,"
consists of cantatas for voices, with instrumental accompaniments, in
which the instrumental part shows serious effort after dramatic
coloration. The first of his works in this style was the "Last Seven
Words" (1645), which contained the distinguishing marks of all the
later Passion music. It consisted of a narrative, reflections,
chorales, and the words of the Lord Himself. Many years later he
produced his great Passions (1665-1666), and in these he accomplishes
as much of the dramatic expression as possible by means of choruses,
which are highly dramatic in style and very spirited. The voluminous
works of this master have now been reprinted, and some of them possess
a degree of interest warranting their occasional presentation. Schütz
occupies an intermediate position between the masters of the old
school, with whom the traditions of ecclesiastical modes governed
everything, and those who have passed entirely beyond them and
polyphony, into modern monody. The music of Schütz is always
polyphonic, but there is much of dramatic feeling in it, nevertheless.
He was one of those clear-headed, practical masters, who, without
being geniuses in the intuitive sense, nevertheless contrive to
impress themselves upon the subsequent activity in their province,
chiefly through their sagacity in seizing new forms and bringing them
into practicable perfection. Into the forms of the Passion, as Schütz
created it, Bach poured the wealth of his devotion and his
inspiration; so later Beethoven put into the symphony form, created to
his hand by the somewhat mechanical Haydn, the amplitude of his
musical imagination, which, but for this preparatory work of the
lesser master, would have been driven to the creation of entirely new
forms for his thoughts, not only hampering the composer, but--which
would have been equally unfavorable to his success--depriving him of
an audience prepared to appreciate the greatness of the new genius
through their previous training in the same general style.

CHAPTER XXI.

BEGINNINGS OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.

The beginning of instrumental music, apart from vocal, is to be found
in the latter part of the sixteenth century, but the main advances
toward freedom of style and spontaneous expression were made during
the seventeenth, and, as we might expect, originally in Italy, where
the art of music was more prosperous, and incitations to advance were
more numerous and diversified. Upon all accounts the honor of the
first place in the account of this part of the development of modern
music is to be given to Andreas Gabrieli (1510-1586), who from a
singing boy in the choir of St. Mark's, under the direction of Adrian
Willaert, succeeded in 1566 to the position of second organist, where
his fame attracted many pupils. Among the numberless compositions
emanating from his pen were masses, madrigals, and a considerable
variety of pieces for organ alone, bearing the names of "_Canzone_,"
"_Ricerari_," "_Concerte_," and five-voiced _Sonatas_, the latter
printed in 1586, being perhaps the earliest application of this now
celebrated name to instrumental compositions. The pieces of Gabrieli
were mostly imitations of compositions for the voice, fugal in style,
and with never among them a melody fully carried out. Among the pupils
of Andreas Gabrieli were Hans Leo Hassler, the celebrated Dresden
composer, and Swelinck, the equally celebrated Netherlandish organist,
of whom there is more to be said.

The beginning of organ composition, and the higher art of organ
playing, made by Andreas Gabrieli, was carried much farther by his
nephew and pupil, Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612), who, born and trained
at Venice, early entered the service of its great cathedral, and in
1585 succeeded Claudio Merulo as first organist of the same. As a
composer Giovanni Gabrieli continued the double-chorus effects which
had been such a feature of the St. Mark's liturgy since the time of
Willaert, but especially he distinguished himself in improving the
style of organ playing, and in giving it a freedom and almost secular
character somewhat surprising for the times. A large number of his
compositions of all sorts are in print, very many "for voices or
instruments." The alternative affords a good idea of the subordinate
position still occupied by instrumental music, but a beginning had
been made, which later was to lead to great things.

[Illustration: Fig. 48.

JEAN PIETERS SWELINCK.]

The art of organ playing found its next great exponents in Holland and
Germany, all of them having been pupils of the Venetian master. The
most celebrated of these, considered purely as an organist, was Jean
Pieters Swelinck (1560-1621), who was born at Deventer in Holland, and
died at Amsterdam. He was more celebrated as a performer and
improviser than for the instrumental pieces he published. Among his
pupils was the celebrated Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654), organist at
Halle, who is memorable as the first who made artistic use of the
chorale. Scheidt is also famous as the author of a book upon organ
tabulature, or the notation for organ, which in Germany at this period
was different from that of the piano, and in fact much resembled the
tabulature for the lute, from which it was derived. It consists of a
combination of lines and signs, by the aid of which the organist was
supposed to be capable of deciphering the intentions of the composer.
No especial importance appears to have been attached to the difference
of notation for instruments and voices in this period. And in fact,
until our own times certain instruments, the viola, for example, have
had their own notation, different from the voices, and different from
that of other instruments. Another celebrated German organist of this
period was Johann Hermann Schein, who, with Scheidt and Swelinck,
constituted the three great German musical S's of the sixteenth
century. Schein (1586-1630) was appointed cantor of the Leipsic St.
Thomas school in 1615, and worked there as above. His numberless
compositions are more free in style than the average of the century,
and a number of them are distinctly secular. Nevertheless, in the
development of instrumental music he had but small part, not being one
of the highly gifted original geniuses who impress themselves upon
following generations. The great German master of this period was
Schütz, chapel master at Dresden, whose career forms part of the
story of the oratorio, a form of music which he had so large a share
in shaping into its present form.

[Illustration: Fig. 49.

SAMUEL SCHEIDT.]

II.

In order to come once more into the path of musical empire, we must
return again to Italy, where there was an organist at St. Peter's, who
had in him the elements of greatness and originality. Girolamo
Frescobaldi (1587-1640) was organist of St. Peter's at Rome from
1615. His education had been in part acquired in Italy, and in part in
the Netherlands. As a virtuoso he attained an extraordinary success,
and one of his recitals is reputed to have been attended by as many as
30,000 people. He distinguished himself as composer no less than as
organist, and particularly by his compositions in free style. His
Ricerari, Concertos and Canzones were all protests against the bondage
of instrumental music to the fetters of vocal forms. It was the
compositions of this master, together with those of Froberger, that
Sebastian Bach desired to have, and which, in fact, he stole out of
his brother's book case, and copied in the moonlight nights.

It would take us too far were we to enumerate all the composers who
distinguished themselves in this century, no one of them succeeding in
composing anything satisfactory to this later generation, but all
contributing something toward the liberation of instrumental music,
and all adding something to its too limited resources. Among these
names were those of Johann Kasper Kerl, organist at St. Stephen's
church in Vienna, who, after having served with distinction at Munich,
returned later and died at Vienna in 1690. Another of these German
masters, also one of those whose compositions Bach wished to study,
was Johann Pachelbel, of Nuremberg (1635-1706). In 1674 he was
assistant organist at Vienna, in 1677 organist at Eisenach, and soon
back to Nuremberg a few years later. His multifarious works for organ,
among which we find a variety of forms, were perhaps the chief model
upon which Sebastian Bach formed his style. He especially excelled in
improvising choral variations, and in fanciful and musicianly
treatment of themes proposed by the hearer. Yet another name of this
epoch, that of George Muffat, is now almost forgotten. He studied in
France, and formed his style upon that of the French. A later master,
also very influential in the style of Sebastian Bach, was Dietrich
Buxtehude (1637-1707). For nearly forty years he was organist at the
Church of St. Mary at Lübeck, where he was so celebrated that the
young Sebastian Bach made a journey on foot there in order to hear and
master the principles of his art. Buxtehude wrote a great number of
pieces in free style for the organ, and, while his works have little
value to modern ears, there is no doubt that this master was an
important influence upon the enfranchisement of instrumental music.
Among all these Netherlandish organists few are better known by name
at the present day than Johann Adam Reinken (1623-1722), who was born
at Deventer, Holland, and after the proper elementary and finishing
studies, succeeded his master, Scheidemann, as organist at Hamburg.
Here his fame was so great that the young Bach made two journeys there
on foot, in order to hear him. He was a virtuoso of a high order, and
his style exercised considerable influence over that of Bach.

[Illustration: Fig. 50.

JOHANN ADAM REINKEN.]

III.

Return we now to Italy, where the violin led also to an important
development of instrumental music, having in it the promise of the
best that we have had since. In Fusignano, near Imola, was born in
1653 Archangelo Corelli, who became the first of violin virtuosi, and
the first of composers for the instrument, and for violins in
combination with other members of the same family, and so of our
string quartette. He died in 1713 at Rome. Of his boyhood there is
little known. About 1680 he appears in high favor at the court of
Munich. In 1681 he was again in Rome, where he appears to have found a
friend in Cardinal Ottoboni, in whose palace he died. His period of
creative activity extended from 1683, when he began the publication of
his forty-eight three-voiced sonatas, for two violins, in four numbers
of twelve sonatas each. He also composed many other sonatas for the
violin, for violin and piano, and for other instruments. These
epoch-marking works are held in high esteem at the present time, and
are in constant use for purposes of instruction.

Meanwhile the orchestra had been steadily enriched through the
competition of successive operatic composers, each exerting himself to
produce more effect than the preceding. In this way new combinations
of tone color were contrived, and now and then introduced in a
fortunate manner, and effects of greater sonority were attained
through the greater number of instruments, and the more expert use of
those they had. In the present state of knowledge it would be very
difficult, if not impossible, to trace the successive steps of this
progress, and to give proper credit to each composer for his own
contribution to the general stock. At best, the orchestra at the end
of this century was somewhat meager. The violin and the other members
of its family had taken their places somewhat as we now have them, but
the number of basses and tenors was much less than at present, their
place being filled by the archlute and the harpsichord. The trumpet
was occasionally employed, the flute, the oboe, and very rarely the
trombone. The conductor at the harpsichord, playing from a figured
bass, filled in chords according to his own judgment of the effect
required. Nothing approaching the smoothness and discreet coloration
of the orchestra of the present day, or even of the Haydn orchestra,
existed at this time. The violin players were very cautious about
using the second and third "positions," but played continually with
their hands in the first position. This part of the music, therefore,
wholly lacked the freedom which it now has, and the whole progress of
this century was purely apprentice work in instrumental music, its
value lying in its establishing the principle, first, that
instrumental music might exist independently of vocal, and, second,
that it might enhance the expressiveness of vocal music when
associated with it. The groundwork of the two great forms of the
period next ensuing, the fugue and the sonata, had been laid, and a
certain amount of precedent established in favor of free composition
in dance and fantasia form. Meanwhile the pianoforte of the day, the
_clavicembalo_, as the Italians called it, had been considerably
improved. The present scale of music had been demonstrated by Zarlino,
and the ground prepared for the great geniuses whose coming made the
eighteenth century forever memorable as the blossoming time of musical
art.

Upon the whole, perhaps the most important part of the actual
accomplishment of this century was in musical theory. While musicians
for centuries had been employing the major and minor thirds, and the
triads as we now have them, the fact had remained unacknowledged in
musical theory, and the supposed authority of the Greeks still
remained binding upon all. Zarlino, however, made a new departure. He
not only assigned the true intervals of the major scale, according to
perfect intonation, but argued strongly for equal temperament, and
demonstrated the impossibility of chromatic music upon any other
basis. Purists may still continue to doubt whether this was an
absolute advantage to the art of music, since it carries with it the
necessity of having all harmonic relations something short of
perfection; but the immediate benefit to musical progress was
unquestionable, and according to all appearance the art of music is
irrevocably committed to the tempered scale of twelve tones in the
octave.

Book Fourth.

THE

Flowering Time of Modern Music.

BACH, HÄNDEL, HAYDN, MOZART, BEETHOVEN. THE FUGUE AND THE SONATA.

CHAPTER XXII.

GENERAL VIEW OF MUSIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

It is not easy to characterize simply and clearly the nature of the
musical development which took place during the eighteenth century.
The blossoming of music was so manifold, so diversified, so
irrepressible in every direction, that there was not one single
province of it, wherein new and masterly creations were not brought
out. The central figures of this period were those of the two Colossi,
Bach and Händel; after them Haydn, the master of genial proportion and
taste; Mozart, the melodist of ineffable sweetness, and finally at the
end of the century, the great master, Beethoven. In opera we have the
entire work of that great reformer, the Chevalier Gluck, and a
succession of Italian composers who enlarged the boundaries of the
Italian music-drama in every direction, but especially in the
direction of the impassioned and sensational. Add to these influences,
already sufficiently diversified, that of a succession of brilliant
virtuosi upon the leading instruments, whereby the resources of all
the effective musical apparatuses were more fully explored and
illustrated, with the final result of affording the poetic composer
additional means of bringing his ideas to a more effective
expression--and we have the general features of a period in music so
luxuriant that in it we might easily lose ourselves; nor can we easily
form a clear idea of the entire movement as the expression of a single
underlying spiritual impulse. Yet such in its inner apprehension it
most assuredly was.

Upon the whole, all the improvements of the time arrange themselves
into two categories, namely: The better proportion, contrast, and more
agreeable succession of moments in art works; and, second, the more
ample means for intense expression. In the department of form, indeed,
there was a very important transition made between the first half of
the century and the last. The typical form of the first part of this
division was the fugue, which came to a perfection under the hands of
Bach and Händel, far beyond anything to be found in the form
previously. The fugue was the creation of this epoch, and while based
upon the general idea of canonic imitation, after the Netherlandish
ideal, it differed from their productions in several highly
significant respects. While all of a fugue is contained within the
original subject, and the counter-subject, which accompanies it at
every repetition, it has an element of tonality in it which places it
upon an immensely higher plane of musical art than any form known, or
possible, before the obsolescence of the ecclesiastical modes.
Moreover, the fugue has opportunities for episode, which enable it to
acquire variety to a degree impossible for any form developed earlier;
and which, when these opportunities were fresh, afforded composers a
field for the display of fancy which was practically free. This, one
may still realize by comparing the different fugues in Bach's "Well
Tempered Clavier" with each other, and with those of any other
collection. It is impossible to detect anywhere the point where the
inspiration of the composer felt itself bound by the restrictions of
this form. It was for Bach and Händel practically a free form. And the
few other contemporaneous geniuses of a high order either experienced
the same freedom in it, or found ways of evading its strictness by the
production of various styles of fancy pieces, which, while conforming
to the fugue form in their main features, were nevertheless free
enough to be received by the musical public of that day with
substantially the same satisfaction as a fantasia would have been
received a century later. Roughly speaking, Bach and Händel exhausted
the fugue. While Bach displayed his mental activity in almost every
province of music, and like some one since, of whom it has been much
less truthfully said, "touched nothing which he did not adorn," he was
all his life a writer of fugues. His preludes are not fugues, and
their number almost equals that of the fugues; but the operative
principles were not essentially different--merely the applications of
thematic development were different. Yet strange as it may seem,
within thirty years from his death it became impossible to write
fugues, and at the same time be free. Why was this?

A new element came into music, incompatible with fugue, requiring a
different form of expression, and incapable of combination with fugue.
That element was the people's song, with its symmetrical cadences and
its universal intelligibility. Let the reader take any one of the
Mozart sonatas, and play the first melody he finds--he will
immediately see that here is something for which no place could have
been found in a fugue, nor yet in its complement, the prelude of
Bach's days. The same is true of many similar passages in the sonatas
of Haydn. Music had now found the missing half of its dual nature. For
we must know that in the same manner as the thematic or fugal element
in music represents the play of musical fantasy, turning over musical
ideas intellectually or seriously; so there is a spontaneous melody,
into which no thought of developing an idea enters. The melody flows
or soars like the song of a bird, because it is the free expression,
not of musical fantasy, as such (the unconscious play of tonal fancy),
but the flow of _melody_, _song_, the soaring of spirit in some one
particular direction, floating upon buoyant pinions, and in directions
well conceived and sure. The symmetry of the people's song follows as
a natural part of the progress. The spontaneous element of the music
of the northern harpers now found its way into the musical productions
of the highest geniuses. Henceforth the fugue subsides from its
pre-eminence, and remains possible only as a highly specialized
department of the general art of musical composition, useful and
necessary at times, but nevermore the expression of the unfettered
fancy of the musical mind.

The discovery of the secret of musical contrast, in the types of
development, the _thematic_ and the _lyric_, led to the creation of a
new form, in which they mutually contrast with and help each other.
That form was the Sonata, which having been begun earlier, was
developed further by the sons of Bach, but which received its
characteristic touches from the hands of Haydn and Mozart. This was
the crowning glory of the eighteenth century--the sonata. A form had
been created, into which the greatest of masters was even then
beginning to breathe his mighty soul, producing thereby a succession
of master works, which stand without parallel in the realm of music.

CHAPTER XXIII.

JOHN SEBASTIAN BACH.

All things considered, the most remarkable figure of this period was
that of the great John Sebastian Bach, who was born at Eisenach, in
Prussia, in 1685, and died at Leipsic in 1750. It is scarcely too much
to say that this great man has exercised more influence upon the
development of music than any other composer who has ever lived. In
his own day he led a quiet, uneventful life, at first as student, then
as court musician at Weimar, where he played the violin; later as
organist at Arnstadt, a small village near Weimar, and still later as
director of music in the St. Thomas church and school at Leipsic. In
the sixty-five years of his life, Bach produced an enormous number of
compositions, of which about half were in fugue form, a form which was
at its prime at the beginning of this century and which Bach carried
to the farthest point in the direction of freedom and spontaneity
which it ever reached.

[Illustration: Fig. 51.

JOHN SEBASTIAN BACH.]

It is the remarkable glory of Bach to have rendered his compositions
indispensable to thorough mastery in three different provinces of
musical effort. The modern art of violin playing rests upon two works,
the six sonatas of Bach for violin solo, and the Caprices of Paganini.
The former contain everything that belongs to the classical, the
latter everything that belongs to the sensational. In organ playing
the foundation is Bach, and Bach alone. Nine-tenths of organ playing
is comprised in the Bach works. Upon the piano his influence has been
little less. While it is true that at least four works are necessary
for making a pianist of the modern school, viz., the "Well Tempered
Clavier," of Bach; the "_Gradus ad Parnassum_," of Clementi; the
"Studies," of Chopin, and the Rhapsodies, of Liszt, the works of Bach
form, on the whole, considerably more than one-third of this
preparation. Nor has the influence of Bach been confined to the
province of technical instruction alone. On the contrary, all
composers since his time have felt the stimulus of his great tone
poems, and Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin and Wagner found him the most
productive of great masters.

The life of Bach need not long detain us. A musician of the tenth
generation, member of a family which occupies a liberal space in
German encyclopedias of music, art and literature, Sebastian Bach led
the life of a teacher, productive artist and virtuoso, mainly within
the limits of the comparatively unimportant provincial city of
Leipsic. His three wives in succession and his twenty-one children
were the domestic incidents which bound him to his home. Here he
trained his choir, taught his pupils, composed those master works
which modern musicians try in vain to equal, and the even tenor of his
life was broken in upon by very few incidents of a sensational kind.
We do not understand that Bach was a virtuoso upon the violin,
although no other master has required more of that greatest of musical
instruments. Upon the piano and organ the case is different. Bach's
piano was the clavier, upon which he was the greatest virtuoso of his
time. His touch was clear and liquid, his technique unbounded, and his
musical fantasy absolutely without limit. Hence in improvisation or in
the performance of previously arranged numbers he never failed to
delight his audience. It was the same upon the organ. The art of
obligato pedal playing he brought to a point which it had never before
reached and scarcely afterward surpassed. He comprehended the full
extent of organ technique, and with the exception of a few tricks of
quasi-orchestral imitation, made possible in modern organs, he covered
the entire ground of organ playing in a manner at once solid and
brilliant. Many stories are told of his capacity in this direction,
but the general characterization already given is sufficient. He was a
master of the first order. The common impression that he played
habitually upon the full organ is undoubtedly erroneous. He made ample
use of registration to the fullest extent practicable on the organs of
his day.

The most remarkable feature of the career of Bach is his productivity
in the line of choral works. As leader of the music in the St. Thomas
church, he had under his control two organs, two choirs, the children
of the school and an orchestra. For these resources he composed a
succession of cantatas, every feast day in the ecclesiastical year
being represented by from one to five separate works. The total number
of these cantatas reaches more than 230. Some of them are short, ten
or fifteen minutes long, but most of them are from thirty to forty
minutes, and some of them reach an hour. Their treasures have been but
imperfectly explored, although most of them are now in print. In the
course of his ministrations at Leipsic he produced five great Passion
oratorios for Good Friday in Holy Week. The greatest of these was the
Passion of St. Matthew, so named from the source of its text. This
work occupies about two hours in performance. It is in two parts, and
the sermon was supposed to intervene. It consists of recitative, arias
and choruses, some of which are extremely elaborate and highly
dramatic. The other Passions are less fortunate. Nevertheless they
contain many beautiful and highly dramatic moments. Bach's oratorios
belong to the category of church works, as distinguished from those
intended for concert purposes. This is seen especially in the
treatment of the chorale, in which he expects the congregation to
co-operate. In one direction Bach was subject to serious limitation.
His knowledge of the voice, and his consideration for its convenience,
were far below the standard of composers of the same time educated in
Italy. In his works, while many passages are very impressive, and
while the melody and harmony are always appropriate to the matter in
hand, the intervals and especially the convenience of the different
registers of the voice are very imperfectly considered, for which
reason his works have not been performed to anything like the extent
to which their musical interest would otherwise have carried them.
This is especially true of the greatest of all, the Passion according
to St. Matthew. It was first performed on Good Friday, 1729, in the
St. Thomas church at Leipsic, and it does not appear to have been
given again until 1829, when Mendelssohn brought it out. Since that
time it has been given almost every year in Leipsic, and more or less
frequently in all the musical centers of the world, but its
elaboration is very great and its vocal treatment unsatisfactory to
solo voices, for which reason it succeeds only under the inspiration
of an artistic and enthusiastic leader. In fact, all the great works
of Bach are more or less in the category of classics, which are well
spoken of and seldom consulted. While, in Beethoven's time, the whole
of the "Well Tempered Clavier" was not thought too much for an
ambitious youngster, at the present time there are few pianists who
play half a dozen of these pieces. The easier inventions for two
parts, some of the suites, several gavottes, modernized from his
violin and chamber music, and a very few of his other pieces for the
clavier, are habitually played.

It would be unjust to close the account of this great artist without
mentioning what we might call the prophetic element in his works. The
great bulk of Bach's compositions are in two forms, the Prelude and
the Fugue. The fugue came to perfection in his hands. It was an
application of the Netherlandish art of canonic imitation, combined
with modern tonality. In a fugue the first voice gives the subject in
the tonic, the second voice answers in the dominant, the third voice
comes again in the tonic, and the fourth voice, if there be one, again
in the dominant. Then ensues a digression into some key upon what
theorists call the dominant side, when one or two voices give out the
subject and answer it again, always in the tonic and dominant of the
new key. Then more or less modulating matter, thematically developed
out of some leading motive of the subject, and again the principal
material of the theme, with one or more answers. The final close is
preceded by a more or less elaborate pedal point upon the dominant of
the principal key, after which the subject comes in. With very few
exceptions the fugues of Bach are in modern tonality, the major key or
the modern minor, with their usual relatives.

The prelude is a less closely organized composition. Sometimes it is
purely harmonic in its interest, like the first of the "Well Tempered
Clavier." At other times it is highly melodic, like the preludes in C
sharp major and minor of the first book of the Clavier, and, as a
rule, the prelude either treats its motives in a somewhat lyric manner
or dispenses with the melodic material altogether. Thus the prelude
and fugue mutually complete each other. But it is a great mistake to
regard Bach as a writer of fugues alone. He was also very free in
fantasies, and one of his pianoforte works, concerning the origin of
which nothing whatever is known, the "Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue,"
is one of the four or five greatest compositions that exist for this
instrument. The remarkable thing about this fantasia is the freedom of
its treatment and the facility with which it lends itself to virtuoso
handling, as distinguished from the rather limited treatment of the
piano usual in Bach's works. The second part of the fantasia is
occupied by a succession of recitatives of an extremely graphic and
poetic character. Melodically and harmonically these recitatives are
thoroughly modern and dramatic, the latter element being very forcibly
represented by the succession of diminished sevenths on which the
phrases of the recitative end. The fugue following is long, highly
diversified and extremely climactic in its interest. In other parts of
his work Bach has left fantasies of a more descriptive character. He
has, for instance, a hunting scene with various incidents of a
realistic character, and in general he shows himself in his piano
works a man of wide range of mind and extremely vigorous musical
fantasy.

In the department of concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, his
works are very rich. There are a large number for piano, quite a
number for organ, several for two and three pianos, with orchestra,
and various other combinations of instruments, such as two violins and
'cellos, and so on. In these each solo player has an equal chance with
the other, and solos and accompaniment work together understandingly
for mutual ends. The most noticeable feature of his elaborate works is
the rhythm, which is vigorous, highly organized and extremely
effective. In the department of harmony, it is believed by almost all
close observers that no combination of tones since made by any writer
is without a precedent in the works of Bach; the strange chords of
Schumann and Wagner find their prototypes in the works of this great
Leipsic master. Melodically considered, Bach was a genius of the
highest order. Not only did he make this impression upon his own time
and upon the great masters of the next two generations, but many of
his airs have attained genuine popularity within the present
generation, and are played with more real satisfaction than most other
works that we have. This is the more remarkable because from the time
of his first residence in Leipsic when he was only twenty-four years
old he went out of that city but a few times, and heard very little
music but his own. He was three times married, and had twenty-one
children, many of whom were musical. Three of his sons became eminent,
and the principal episode of his later life was his visit to Potsdam,
where his son, Carl Phillip Emanuel, was musician to Frederick the
Great. Here he was received with the utmost informality by the king
and made to play and improvise upon all the pianos and organs in the
palace and the adjacent churches. As a reminiscence of this visit he
produced a fugue upon a subject given by Frederick himself, written
for six real parts. This work was called the "Musical Offering," and
was dedicated to Frederick the Great. In his later years Bach became
blind from having over-exerted his eyes in childhood and in later
life. He died on Good Friday in 1750.

CHAPTER XXIV.

GEO. FREDERICK HÄNDEL.

The companion figure to Bach, in this epoch, was that of George
Frederick Händel, who was born at the little town of Halle in the same
year as Bach, 1685, and died in London in 1759. Händel's father was a
physician, and although the boy showed considerable aptitude for music
his father did not think favorably of his pursuing it as a vocation;
but the fates were too strong for him. When George Frederick was about
eight years old, he managed to go with his father to the court of the
duke of Saxe Weissenfels, some distance away, where an older brother
was in service. Here he obtained access to the organ in the chapel,
and was overheard by the duke, who recognized the boy's talent, and,
with the authority inherent in princely rank, admonished the father
that on no account was he to thwart so gifted an inclination.
Accordingly the youngster had lessons in music upon the clavier, the
organ and the violin, the three standard instruments of the time. The
older Händel died, and before he was nineteen George Frederick made
his way to Hamburg, which was then one of the musical centers of
Germany. Here he obtained an engagement in the theater orchestra as
_ripieno_ violin, a sort of fifth wheel in the orchestral chariot,
its duty being that of filling in missing parts. The boy was then
rather more than six feet high, heavy and awkward. He was an
indifferent violinist, and the other players were disposed to make a
butt of him, although he was known to be an accomplished
harpsichordist. It happened presently, however, that the leader of the
orchestra, who presided at the harpsichord, fell sick, and Händel,
being at the same time the best harpsichordist and the poorest
violinist of all, was placed at the head. He carried the rehearsals
and the performances through with such spirit that it resulted in his
being made assistant director, and two works of his were presently
performed--"Almira" and "Nero." The first made a great hit and was
retained in performance for several weeks. The Italian ambassador
immediately recognized the talent of the young man, and offered to
take him to Italy in his suite, but Händel declined, preferring to go
with his own money, which, after the production of "Nero," and its
successful run of several weeks, he was able to do.

[Illustration: Fig. 52.

GEORGE FREDERICK HÄNDEL.

1685-1759.]

Accordingly we find him in Italy, in 1710, first at Naples, where he
made the acquaintance of the greatest harpsichord player of that time,
Domenico Scarlatti. The style of the young German was so charming, and
so different from that of the great Italian player, that he
immediately became a favorite, and was called _Il Caro Sassone_ ("The
dear Saxon"). He produced an opera in Naples with good success.
Afterward he produced others at Rome and Venice. In a few years he was
back at Hanover, where he was made musical director to the Elector
George, who afterward became George I of England. Here, presently, he
took a vacation in order to visit London, where he found things so
much to his liking that he remained, having good employment under
Queen Anne, and a public anxious to hear his Italian operas. Presently
Queen Anne died and George the First came over to reign as king. This
was altogether a different matter, for Händel had his unsettled
account with the elector of Hanover, upon whom he had so cavalierly
turned his back. The peace was finally made, however, by a set of
compositions very celebrated in England under the name of "The Water
Music." When King George was going from Whitehall to Westminster in
his barge, Händel followed with a company of musicians, playing a
succession of pieces, which the king knew well enough for a production
of his truant capellmeister. Accordingly he received him once more
into favor, and Händel went on with his work.

For upwards of twenty years, Händel pursued his course in London as a
composer of Italian operas, of which the number reached about forty.
During the greater part of his time he had his own theater, and
employed the singers from Italy and elsewhere, producing his works in
the best manner of his time. His operas were somewhat conventional in
their treatment, but every one of them contained good points. Here and
there a chorus, occasionally a recitative, now and then an
aria--always something to repay a careful hearing, and occasionally a
master effect, such as only genius of the first order could produce.
His education during this period was exactly opposite to that of Bach.
Bach lived in Leipsic all his life, and, being in a position from
which only a decided fault of his own could discharge him, he
consulted no one's taste but his own, writing his music from within,
and adapting it to his forces in hand, or not adapting it, as it
pleased him. Händel, on the other hand, had always the public. He
commenced as an operatic composer. As an operatic composer he
succeeded in Hamburg, and as an operatic composer he succeeded in
Italy. The same career held him in London. There was always an
audience to be moved, to be affected, to be pleased, and there were
always singers of high talents to carry out his conceptions. Hence his
whole training was in the direction of smoothness, facility, pleasing
quality. Nevertheless, there came an end to the popularity of Händel.
A most shabby _pasticcio_ called the "Beggar's Opera," was the
immediate cause of his downfall. This queer compilation was made up of
old ballad tunes, with hastily improvised words, and the merest thread
of a story, and included some tunes of Händel's own. This being
produced at an opposition house, took the town. The result was that
Händel was bankrupted for the second time, owing more than £75,000.

Some time before this he had held the position of private musical
director to the earl of Chandos, who had a chapel in connection with
his palace, a short distance out of London, as it then was. In this
place Händel had already produced a number of elaborate anthems and
one oratorio--"Esther." In the stress of his present circumstances,
after a few weeks, he remembered the oratorio of "Esther," and
immediately brought it out in an enlarged form. The effect was
enormous. Whatever the English taste might be for opera, for oratorio
their recognition was irrepressible. "Esther" brought him a great deal
of money, and he presently wrote other oratorios with such good effect
that in a very few years he had completely paid up the enormous
indebtedness of his operatic ventures. At length, in 1741, he composed
his master work--the "Messiah." This epoch-marking composition was
improvised in less than a fortnight, a rate of speed calling for about
three numbers per day. The work was produced in Dublin for charitable
purposes. It had the advantage of a text containing the most beautiful
and impressive passages of Scripture relating to the Messiah, a
circumstance which no doubt inspired the beauty of the music, and
added to the early popularity of the work. In later times it is
perhaps not too much to say that the music has been equally useful to
the text, in keeping its place in the consciousness of successive
generations of Christians. In this beautiful master work we have the
result of the whole of Händel's training. The work is very cleverly
arranged in a succession of recitatives, arias and choruses, following
each other in a highly dramatic and effective manner. There are
certain passages in the "Messiah" which have never been surpassed for
tender and poetic expression. Among these are the "Behold and See if
There Be Any Sorrow Like His Sorrow," "Come unto Him," and "He was
Despised." In the direction of sublimity nothing grander can be found
than the "Hallelujah," "Worthy is the Lamb," "Lift up Your Heads," nor
anything more dramatically impressive than the splendid burst at the
words, "Wonderful," "Counsellor." The work, as a whole, while
containing mannerisms in the roulades of such choruses as "He shall
Purify," and "For unto Us," marks the highest point reached in the
direction of oratorio; for, while Händel himself surpassed its
sublimity in "Israel in Egypt," and Bach its dramatic qualities in the
thunder and lightning chorus in the St. Matthew Passion; and
Mendelssohn its melodiousness in his "Elijah"; for a balance of good
qualities, and for even and sustained inspiration throughout, the
"Messiah" is justly entitled to the rank which, by common consent, it
holds as the most complete master work which oratorio can show.

In the "Israel in Egypt" Händel illustrates a different phase of his
talent. This curious work is composed almost entirely of choruses, the
most of which are for two choirs, very elaborately treated. Among them
all, the two which perhaps stand out pre-eminent are "The Horse and
His Rider" and the "Hailstone," two colossal works, as dramatic as
they are imposing. The masterly effect of the Händelian chorus rests
upon the combination of good qualities such as no other master has
accomplished to the same extent. They are extremely well written for
the voice, with an accurate appreciation of the effect of different
registers and masses, the melodic ideas are smooth and vigorous, and
the harmonic treatment as forcible as possible, without ever
controlling the composer further than it suited his artistic purpose
to go. Bach very often commences a fugue which he feels obliged to
finish, losing thereby the opportunity of a dramatic effect. Händel
perfects his fugue only when the dramatic effect will be improved by
so doing, and in this respect he makes a distinct gain over his great
contemporary at Leipsic. The total list of the Händel works comprises
the following: Two Italian oratorios; nineteen English oratorios; five
Te Deums; six psalms; twenty anthems; three German operas; one English
opera; thirty-nine Italian operas; two Italian serenatas, two English
serenatas; one Italian intermezzo, "Terpsichore"; four odes;
twenty-four chamber duets; ninety-four cantatas; seven French songs;
thirty-three concertos; nineteen English songs; sixteen Italian airs;
twenty-four sonatas.

Händel was never married; nor, so far as we know, ever in love. He had
among his friends some of the most eminent writers of his day, such as
Addison, Pope, Dean Swift and others. His later years were so
successful that when he died his fortune of above £50,000 was left for
charitable purposes. This was after he had paid all of the
indebtedness incurred in his earlier bankruptcy. It would be a mistake
to dismiss this great master without some notice of his harpsichord
and organ playing. As a teacher of the princesses of the royal family,
he produced many suites and lessons for the harpsichord, in one of
which, as an unnoticed incident, occur the air and variations since so
universally popular under the name of "The Harmonious Blacksmith." It
is not known to whom the composer was indebted for the name generally
applied to this extremely broad air, and clever variations. Very
likely some music publisher was the unknown poet. As an organist
Händel was both great and popular. In the middle of his oratorios he
used to play an organ concerto with orchestra. Of these compositions
he wrote a very large number. They are always fresh and hearty in
style, well written for organ, and with a very flowing pedal part.
Händel appears to have played the pedals upon a somewhat different
plan from that of Bach. Bach is generally supposed to have used his
toes for the most part, employing the heel only for an occasional note
where the toes were insufficient. Händel seems to have used toe and
heel habitually in almost equal proportion.

It is a curious feature of the later part of Händel's career that he
brought out his oratorios in costume. Several of the original bills
are extant, in which an oratorio is promised "with new cloathes."
"Esther" is said to have been given with complete stage appointment at
Chandos, like an opera; but the Lord Chamberlain prohibited future
representations of the kind on account of the supposed sacredness of
the subject. Afterward the characters were costumed, and the stage
set, but there was no action. While Händel was German by birth, his
long residence in England and his habitual writing for the last ten or
fifteen years of his life oratorios in the English language, made
him, to all intents and purposes, an English composer. For nearly a
century he stood to the English school as a model of everything that
was good and great, to such an extent that very little of original
value was accomplished in that country, and when, by lapse of time and
a deeper self-consciousness on the part of English musicians, this
influence had begun to wane, a new German composer came in the person
of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who, in turn, became a popular idol,
and for many years a barrier to original effort.

The influence of Händel upon the later course of music is by no means
so marked as that of Bach. Nevertheless, he was one of the great tone
poets of all times, and his works form an indispensable part of the
literature of music. It was his good fortune to embody certain types
of melody and harmony with a clearness and effectiveness that no other
composer has equaled. The oratorio, in particular, not only fulfilled
itself in Händel, but we might almost say _completed_ itself there,
for very little of decided originality has been produced in this
department since. The Händelian operas have been mostly forgotten for
many years, but they contain gems of melody in the solo and chorus
parts which have still a future. His first opera, "Almira," was
revived at Hamburg a few years ago with remarkable effect, and it is
not at all unlikely that extracts from many of the other works will
eventually find their way into the current repertory of the singer, as
many of the arias already have.

CHAPTER XXV.

EMANUEL BACH; HAYDN; THE SONATA.

I.

None of the sons of Bach inherited the commanding genius of their
father, although four of them showed talent above the average of
musicians of their day, and one of them distinguished himself and
exercised an important influence upon the subsequent course of
pianoforte music. The most gifted of Bach's sons was Wilhelm
Friedmann, the eldest (1710-1784), who was especially educated by his
father for a musician. He turned out badly, however, his enormous
talents not being able to save him from the natural consequences of a
dissolute life. He died in Berlin in the greatest degradation and
want. This Bach wrote comparatively few compositions, owing to his
invincible repugnance to the labor of putting them upon paper; he was
famous as an improviser, and certain pieces of his in the Berlin
library are considered to manifest musical gifts of a high order.
Johann Christian (1735-1782), the eleventh son, known as the Milanese
or London Bach, devoted himself to the lighter forms of music, and
after having served some years as organist of the cathedral at Milan,
and having distinguished himself by certain operas successfully
produced in Italy, he removed to London, where he led an easy and
enjoyable life. He was an elegant and fluent writer for the
pianoforte. The one son of Bach who is commonly regarded as having
left a mark upon the later course of music was Carl Philip Emanuel
(1714-1788), the third son, commonly known as the Berlin or Hamburg
Bach. His father intended him for a philosopher, and had him educated
accordingly in the Leipsic and Frankfort universities, but his love
for music and the thorough grounding in it he had at home eventually
determined him in this direction. While in the Frankfort University he
conducted a singing society, which naturally led to his exercising
himself in composition. Presently he gave up law for music, and going
to Berlin he obtained an appointment as "Kammer-musiker" to Frederick
the Great, his especial business being that of accompanying the king
in his flute concertos. The seven years' war having put an end to
these duties, he migrated to Hamburg, where he held honorable
appointments as organist and conductor until his death. He wrote in a
tasteful and free, but somewhat superficial, style; and while his
compositions bear favorable comparison with those of other musicians
of his time, they are by no means of a commanding nature like those of
his father. There were, however, two reasons for this, wholly aside
from the question of less ability in the younger composer. One of
these is to be found in the free form which Emanuel Bach began to
develop. Sebastian Bach had the advantage of writing his greatest
works in a form which had been prepared for him, without having been
exhausted. The technique of fugue had been created before his time,
but its possibilities in the direction of freedom and spontaneity had
never been illustrated. Bach proceeded to do this for the fugue form,
and, it may be added, did it with such amplitude that no composer has
been able to write a free and original fugue since. The son
recognizing both that the fugue had been exhausted as a free art-form,
and feeling no doubt that something more intuitively intelligible than
fugue was possible, addressed himself to composition in the free
style, in which the means of producing effects had not yet been
mastered. The thematic use of material had been acquired, or was
easily inferable from the fugue, but the proper manner of contrasting
that material with other, calculated to relieve the attention and at
the same time intensify the interest, remained for later explorers.
The missing contrast was the lyric element, but it was not until the
next generation of composers that it came into pianoforte music in
satisfactory form. Accordingly the sonatas of Emanuel Bach sound dry