How Music Developed

ification

formation-The Council of Trent-Palestrina and his music-Last days of the Roman an

the words of the mass as mere pegs to hang tunes on, and the tremendous complexity of the huge polyphonic works was such that the words could not be distinguished. One part would be singing "gloria in excelsis" while another was thundering "et in terra pax," and there was such a jumble of words and music that, while it was all very imposing, it was not comprehens

arning in Italy after a la

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f musical learning

oral hymn and cong

, oratory, and poetry was reopened to the Italian mind. Its effects were wide and general. One of them was to lead to the study of the New Testament in the original tongue, and this study very speedily demonstrated the unworthiness of the Latin Vulgate used by the Church. Any blow at Latin was a blow at the authority of Rome. The whole Italian system of worship had been built upon the Vulgate, which was in the language authorized in the Roman Church throughout western Europe, and us

racted readers. Hence the mass of the Roman Catholic laity became readers as well as listeners. The whole system of worship had been based on the existence of a non-reading publ

miliar. The force and beauty of simplicity were brought home to the people by the very examples which awoke in them a desire for imaginative life and personal expression. The Renaissance led to a clearer, stronger, more eloquent style in all art, and in time it was bound to make i

ours of the song-forms. The elementary attraction of pure rhythm grew in potency as composers realized more clearly that it was one of the fundamental components of music; and with a recognition of this fact came that of the deeper significance of chord harmony. The folk-song itself had always clung to the major and minor scales, and had not often employed the purely ecclesias

been founded in Venice, Rome, and other cities, and as far back as Willaert's day it was fashionable for young ladies of good family to learn to play the monochord, one of the precursors of the piano. The music written for the

line with such work was his revival of congregational singing, which had been generally unpractised since the days of Ambrose. The first Lutheran hymn-book was published in 1524. Luther employed many extant folk songs and caused new tunes like them to be written. He is said to have written "A stronghold sure." These Luther

in chant of Gregory, and the other that the music of the time be preserved, but its style simplified. The Council of Trent (1562) discussed the matter, and in 1563 Pope Pius IX. appointed a commission of eight cardinals to take measures of reform. Cardinals Borromeo and Vitellozzi, appointed as a sub-committee,

nd there was nothing new in its style. The mass is simply a model of all that was best in Palestrina's day. It embodied all that was noblest in the polyphonic style developed by the Netherlands school. Its melody is pure, sweet, and fluent, and its expressive capacity perfectly adapted to the devotional spirit of the text. Palestrina's contemporaries, such as Lasso, and some of his predecessors, wrote in the same style. Lasso's "Penitential Psalms" are much simpler in style than this mass.

ovanni Pierluigi Sante, and he was called Palestrina from the place of his nativity. The date of his birth is uncertain, but it was probably 1514. The portrait of him in the pontifical chapel at Rome has an inscription to the effect that he died in 1594, aged eighty. He was the son of poor peasants and got his first musical instruction as a choir singer. In 1540 he went to Rome and became a student in Claude Goudimel's conservatory. At the age of thirty he published his first compositions, and some of them are still heard in the Sistine Chapel occasionally. [6.1] He had previously served a short period as organist

e in the Papal Chapel, and there is a determined movement on the part of some of the clergy for their restor

e attention to the development of fluent, beautiful, and expressive melody. The merit of Palestrina's work was that it carried this style to perfection. His compositions became the models for succeeding composers, and indeed they remain to this day unequalled as examples of pure church music. In Palestrina's music one must note the absence of rhythmic effects, of modern tonality, and of the note of passion. Palestrina paid little attention to folk-music, but sought to attain simplicity of style by preser

matic music of Di Rore. The chief masters of the Roman school were Nanini, Vittoria, Anerio, and Allegri. Giovanni Maria Nanini was born in 1540 and died in 1607. He was a coworker with Palestrina, and was the teacher of many of the succeeding composers. His "Hodie nobis c?lorum Rex" is still sung at Christmas in the Papal Chapel. Tommaso Ludovico da Vittoria was born about 1540, and died about 1604. He is regarded as one of the greatest of Palestrina's successors. A goodly number of his works has been preserved. His Requiem, written for the funeral of the Empress Maria (1603), is conceded to be his greatest production, and is one of the most notable compositions of that period. "Technically considered, it is a marvellous blending of old independent movement of parts with modern dissonances and

olins, two cornets, and four trombones. This work of Giovanni Gabrieli's fairly marks the termination of the era of a capella (unaccompanied) polyphonic church music. The opera had been born, and so had the oratorio, and church music began to borrow ideas from them. Giovanni Legrenzi (1625-1690) increased Gabrieli's orchestra to nineteen violins, two violas, three viole da gamba, four theorboes (lutes of large size), two cornets, one bassoon, and three trombones. Antonio Lotti (1667-1740) was an opera writer as well

His works do not equal those of his contemporaries in inspiration,-he was neither a Lasso nor a Palestrina,-but he had a large command of polyphonic technic. One of his notable works was a motet, entitled "Spem in alium non habui," written for eight choirs of five voices each, in antiphonal style. His

ng a definite subject [part of a distinct tune] throughout a considerable portion of a movement, or at certain definite points which have a structural importance, was hardly employed at all. The voices, which entered one after another, naturally commenced singing the same words to phrases of melody which resembled each other. But composers' ideas of identity of subject matter were singularly elastic, and even if the first half-dozen notes presented similar contours in each voice part successively, the melodic forms soon melted into something else, and from that point the movement wandered on its dev