How Music Developed

ge of Church

one-The advent of pure beauty-Work of Josquin des Prés-Attempts at expressio

ey acquired by such exercise so great a mastery of the materials of their art that in the second period they began to make serious attempts at writing beautiful music for beauty's sake. In the third period the possibilities of writing something different from church music began to be developed, and we find the Dutch masters attempting the description in tones of external phenomena by the process called tone-painting. This period also saw secular music taken into the fold of art, and began the pro

School (1425

on of contrapuntal technics. Chief

Attempts at pure beauty. Ch

nting and secular music. Chief masters: Gombert,

bservient to expression of religious feeling. C

kill; and during his life Okeghem was the most famous teacher of his day. His most noted pupil was Antoine Brumel (1460-1520), whose personal history is lost, though many of his masses and motets are preserved. Jacob Hobrecht (1430-) achieved great celebrity. Eight of his masses are extant. As I have said in another account of the Netherlands school, "It is the prevailing influence of one or two masters in each period that marks its extent. Its character was formed by that influence, and salient features of the style of each period may be fairly distinguished. The first period was marke

, OR CANON RE

d; play either for

iting "riddle" canons. In these only the subject was given, with the motto, "Ex una, plures," meaning that the musician must work out the other parts from the one; and then some hint as to the manner of working them out would be given, as, "Ad medium referas, pauses relinque priores." The working out of these riddle canons became a mania with Okeghem and his immediate successors; and the result was that they acquired an immense command over the technics of contrapuntal writing. But "the highest praise that can b

OF A MOTET

n's "History

Je-su Christ

of his works exists. There are in print nineteen masses, fifty secular pieces, and over one hundred and fifty motets. Josquin is the first genius in the development of music who had sufficient musical material already formulated to enable him to write freely. His works are notable for their elegance of style, and for the firm mastery of the difficult counterpoint of his time. Martin Luther, noting how he moulded seemingly inflexible material to his purpose, said, "Josquin is a master of the notes; they have to do as he wills; other composers must do as the notes will." Baini, the biographer of Palestrina, in describing the immense popularity of Josquin's compositions, says that there was "only Josquin in Italy, o

ently went to Paris, became a Protestant, and was killed in the massacre on St. Bartholomew's eve, Aug. 24, 1572. Cyprian di Rore was born in Brabant in 1516, and succeeded Willaert as chapel master of St. Mark's in Venice. He died in 1565. Clement Jannequin was a native of Flanders. Little is known of his life, but some of his compositions are extant. Willaert's work must first claim our attention. Finding two organs in St. Mark's he introduced antiphonal writing into the music of his time. He wrote some of his grand works for two choruses of four parts each, so that each chorus could answer the other across the church. He paid much less attention to rigid canonic style than his predecessors had

ominant. Dom

ones. It is necessary to speak of chromatic harmony here, because Cyprian di Rore made a special study of it, and his "Chromatic Madrigals," published in 1544, had a great influence upon the progress of music. The old church scales were essentially diatonic, and chromatic harmonies were not practicable in music written in those scales. Di Rore's madrigals were influential

is "Le Bataille" is a military picture in music. These remarkable descriptive pieces were written for four voices, unaccompanied, and in polyphonic style. After trying to tell some kind of a story in secular music they tried it in religious music. One of Willaert's motets, at any rate, tells the story of Susannah, and is plainly a forerunner of the oratorio. We have seen now how the first period of the Netherlands school brought contrapuntal technics to a high state of development, how the second period produced a genius and a desir

y of the great Palestrina, whose fame his far outshone. Lasso was celebrated all over Europe, was employed and honored by monarchs, and was called the "Prince of Music." He was one of the most prolific composers that ever lived. He is said to have written 2,500 works. Many of his compositions are in print today, and his quaintly

for two and three choirs, and other works for only two voices. His famous "Penitential Psalms" are for two voices, and are marvellously beautiful and pathetic. Yet some of Lasso's music is as old-fashioned and stiff as Okeghem's. Again he becomes almost modern in his employment of chromatics. But there is one notable feature of Lasso's work: it contains no parade of contrapuntal difficulti

usic and which made it an art more popular with the masses. One of these influences was the music of those very masses. The popular songs of the day had, as we have seen, long ago forced themselves upon the attention of the artistic composers. The time was now approa

Matona

A OF "MATON

ndo

Alto, Te

an

na mi-

-le-re

na mi-

-le-re

sot-to f

bu-on co

don

ri

on, do

don

ri

on, do