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TUESDAY, MARCH 4tli. 



A Lecture, with Picanoforte Illustrations, on "The Develop- 

 ment of Pianoforte J^Iusic from Bach to Liszt," was delivere.l hy 

 C. Armbruster, Es(i. 



Of all the arts, Music is the only one, the high development 

 of which belongs entirely to modern times, and its best and richest 

 blossoms have been put forth on German soil. According to the 

 means by which Music is produced,.it is divided into three classes : 

 Vocal Music, Listrumental Music, and the comlnnation of the two. 

 Vocal Music attained a certain high degree of development while 

 Instrumental Music was still in its infancy. In Italy, in the 16th 

 Century, Vocal Music was already far advanced, but the subsequent 

 development of Music generally in Germany was of far greater 

 extent. Down to the 17th Century, Music as an art was ex- 

 clusively applied to the service of the Church; all the great 

 composers of the 1.5th and 16th Centuries, and even most of those 

 of the 17th Century, devoting their activity almost entirely to 

 Sacred Music. This is not very remarkable, as very much the same 

 thin- mioht be said of the beginnings of all the other arts, the 

 plastic art especially. It is true that instruments were then 

 occasionally used to accompany the singing, but their acconipam- 

 ments were anything but independent; and a combination of 

 several instruments for any higher musical artwork was still un- 

 known It was not until ^lusic began to emancipate itself from 

 the Church, and stage and solo singing began to develop, that 

 Instrumental ^lusic showed those first blossoms which at this day 

 have ripened into such wonderful fruits. 



There is one instrument, however, which possesses a literature 

 of older date. That instrument is the Organ, but it ought to be 

 considered rather as a combination of many and various instruments 

 than as a single one. It is natural that the organ should have 

 received the greatest share of attention, since the art itself was 

 devoted to the Service of the Church, and the Church was the only 

 place in which such an instrument could be found. The organ had 



