CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



afterwards by its composer in memory of a 

 former patron, Pope Marcellus II. 



Palestrina was born in 1524. He received his 

 musical education in Rome, and spent most of 

 his life there holding different offices at different 

 times. As is the case with most composers of the 

 greatest genius, his works are as numerous as they 

 are noble, and a number of them are still per- 

 formed every year at Rome. His character seems 

 to have been a singularly beautiful one ; he was 

 among Roman Catholic Church musicians very 

 much what Sebastian Bach was among Lutherans. 

 His life, however, seems to have been, notwith- 

 standing his great musical successes, one con- 

 tinued struggle with poverty, but cheered for 

 many years by the companionship of a loving 

 wife. He died in 1594, in the arms of St Philippe 

 Neri, and lies buried in St Peter's with the epitaph 

 on his tomb : ' Joannes Petrus Aloysius Praenes- 

 tinus, Musicae Princeps.' 



The influence of Palestrina upon church music 

 was destined to be permanent. The aberrations 

 which he had been instrumental in rooting out 

 were never again allowed to disfigure the church 

 service, although for some years they were a con- 

 stant object of the attention of the provincial 

 synods of the Catholic Church. With the close of 

 the Second Period came also the end of the 

 Belgian school ; they had taught all they had to 

 teach, and the Italians had taken their place, all 

 countries being indebted to Italy for their music 

 for many years, with the sole exception of Eng- 

 land, where there was at that time an independ- 

 ent school of really great musicians. 



THE MADRIGAL. 



The madrigal, a form of composition which was 

 the principal work of whole generations of musi- 

 cians, seems to have been invented in the period 

 of which we are now speaking, although it is not 

 possible to name any one man as the inventor of 

 it It bore for many years much the same rela- 

 tion to the mass or church service as the opera 

 does now to the oratorio. A madrigal is a vocal 

 composition written in several parts, generally 

 four or five ; it has always a distinct melody or 

 tune, with well-marked rhythm, and in both these 

 respects it differed considerably from the mass of 

 contemporaneous ecclesiastical music. Its words 

 were almost always secular, often love-songs or 

 pastoral poetry, and in those which are still 

 known we very frequently find some proverb, or 

 epigram, or witty saying. Of the Italian mad- 

 rigalians, Luca Marenzio is the most celebrated. 

 He is said to have composed more than a thou- 

 sand, of which, however, none are now heard. 



THE ENGLISH SCHOOL. 



Among the English composers of this date are 

 to be found Tye (who set the Acts of the Apostles 

 to most charming music, some of which is still 

 sung to other words), Tallis, Farrant, and Byrd, as 

 writers of church music ; and Edwardes, Wilbye, 

 Weelkes, and Morley, as madrigalians. Dr Bull, 

 too, lived at this time, and Dowland, 



1 Whose heavenly touch 

 Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;'* 



710 



* Passionate Pilgrim. 



and greatest of all, Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625),. 

 some of whose anthems can still stand beside 

 Handel's choruses, and lose nothing by the com- 

 parison. It is worthy of a passing remark, that 

 while it cannot be claimed for these musicians 

 that they were greater or more original than their 

 Italian contemporaries, their works have certainly 

 lived longer. The old English madrigals are 

 familiar to all ; there cannot be a choral society 

 in the kingdom which does not include many of 

 them in its repertoire ; and anthems of the six- 

 teenth-century composers whom we have named 

 are still familiar as 'household words' in the 

 services of the church for which they were written, 

 and even far beyond its pale. 



It is known, from the amount of printed music 

 which was in circulation, that at the close of the 

 i6th century, musical culture was very general 

 throughout Europe. Notation had been improved 

 during the last two hundred years, but music was 

 still printed without either bars or expression 

 marks. This alone would make the reading and 

 performance of a piece of music infinitely more 

 difficult than with us ; but there was the super- 

 added difficulty, that in very many cases the 

 singers had to sharpen or flatten the notes for 

 themselves as they sang according to certain rules 

 without any indication from the music before 

 them. ' Hundreds of entire volumes of music of 

 the Second Period exist without a single sharp or 

 flat in them (accidental or other) from beginning 

 to end.' By this time, also, the construction of the 

 organ had been brought to some degree of per- 

 fection ; the pedal-board having been added to it 

 by Tedesco at the end of the isth century. The 

 chorale or hymn-tune of the Lutheran Church was 

 gradually developing itself into a form fit for the 

 genius of John Sebastian Bach to work upon. Its 

 melody in Luther's time had been in the tenor, but 

 it was found that this made it somewhat difficult 

 for the congregation to catch the tune and join in 

 it, and in 1586 we find a tune-book published by 

 Lucas Osiander in which the melody was given, 

 as it is now, to the treble. A little later, the great 

 organist Hassler also published a tune-book of 

 the same kind, endeavouring, as he said, 'so to- 

 harmonise the best known church tunes that the 

 chorale shall be distinctly heard throughout the 

 treble, and at the same time the congregation can 

 join in and sing too.' 



THE 'IONIAN MODE' AND 'FULL CLOSE.' 



The Third Period extends from 1600 to 1750 

 (of course the dates are only approximate), and 

 forms the transition from Palestrina to the modern 

 school ; it culminates in Bach and Handel, and, 

 with the exception of these two great names and 

 a few others, is remarkable rather for what it began 

 than for what it did. The oratorio dates from this 

 period, and the opera, and also instrumental music 

 in its separate existence. 



The two principal alterations in music itself, 

 independently of any special form, which were 

 effected during this period, were the adoption of 

 our ordinary major scale, which was at first called 

 the Ionian mode, and the use of the perfect 

 cadence, or full close. After all that we have said 

 about the modes, the first of these points will 

 require no further explanation. It had long been 

 used in secular music, especially dance-music, for 



