HISTORY OF MUSIC. 



which reason it had been called il modo lascivo, 

 and shunned by church musicians, but Palestrina 

 used it frequently, and after his time it gradually 

 came more and more into use. 



The mere use of the ' Ionian mode' was not of 

 itself, however, sufficient to change the old into 

 the new tonality; it required also what is now 

 known as the 'full close.' The most superficial 

 examination of any music written within the last 

 two centuries is sufficient to shew that one of its 

 distinguishing features is a succession of chords 

 invariably employed at the close of a piece or 

 movement, the first of these chords being that of 

 the 'dominant seventh,' and the second that of 

 the tonic, of the key in which the music is 

 written. The following are examples of the 

 perfect cadence in its usual form. This sequence 

 of chords has the property possessed by no other, 

 of defining the key in which it is played. The 

 distinguishing notes of every key are its fourth 

 and seventh ; that is to say that, given two notes 

 which stand in the relation respectively of fourth 

 and seventh to a third, then these two notes can 

 co-exist only in one key, just as only one straight 

 line can be drawn through any two points upon a 

 piece of paper. Thus the notes F and B can 



H 



II 



Fig. 4. 



occur together only in the key of C ; the notes 

 C and F sharp only in the key of G ; and so on. 

 In the chord of the dominant seventh, the first 

 chord in each of the examples above, both these 

 notes occur (E flat and A in the one case, C and 

 F sharp in the other) ; it is of itself, therefore, 

 sufficient to determine the key. When this chord 

 is followed by the chord of the tonic or key-note, 

 the ear is perfectly satisfied, and desires nothing 

 more. It seems strange to us, but is neverthe- 

 less true, and affords another illustration of the 

 fact that our sense of hearing has only reached its 

 present position by a gradual process, that this 

 progression was at first quite unused by the 

 ancients ; and even after some musicians had 

 ventured to introduce it, it was not at once ac- 

 cepted as welcome, but only slowly, and after 

 many years, made its way into favour with ortho- 

 dox musicians. Although the use of this cadence 

 seems at first sight but a small matter, yet its 

 influence upon music, by putting an end to that 

 vagueness of key which is noticeable in all pre- 

 vious compositions, but with which it cannot 

 co-exist, can scarcely be exaggerated. 



THE OPERA. 



The earliest operas (or dramas set to music) 

 seem to have been an attempt to put madrigals 

 or madrigalian music on the stage, and adapt it 

 in somewhat clumsy fashion to dramatic purposes. 

 In 1580, a number of Florentine gentlemen formed 

 themselves into a society for the ' revival of the 



musical declamation of the Greeks.' Their object 

 was the encouragement and development of dra- 

 matic music, it being assumed as a fact that Greek 

 musical art, if its real nature could only be dis- 

 covered or rediscovered, must have included just 

 that combination of music and poetry which they 

 wished to find. This little society did not revive 

 the Greek drama, for reasons which will be suffi- 

 ciently clear after what has been said on the sub- 

 ject, but they did establish the Italian opera a 

 far more important result for mankind. Vincent 

 Galileo, the father of the astronomer, was one 

 of the foremost members of the society, and 

 he seems to have invented recitative (a kind of 

 chanted recitation) under the impression that he 

 was merely reproducing a form which had been 

 used by the Greeks. Several small operas, in 

 which presumably recitative was introduced, fol- 

 lowed, but the first which stand out in any way 

 clearly to us at this distance of time are a pastoral, 

 Dafne, performed at the Corsi Palace in 1597, 

 and an opera, // Morte di Eurydice, performed 

 at Florence in 1600, on the marriage of Henry 

 IV. of France with Marie de Medici. The 

 music was composed by two musicians, Peri 

 and Caccini, of whom the former seems to have 

 been the more important. These two works are 

 the earliest complete operas they contained 

 almost all the forms now used, recitatives, airs, 

 choruses, and instrumental preludes, and were 

 accompanied by an orchestra consisting of a 

 harpsichord, guitar, lyre, and lute. 



No one musician of that epoch did more to 

 free music from the fetters of the theorists than 

 Claudio Monteverde, who was born about 1566, 

 and died at Venice 1650. He did not cer- 

 tainly invent the perfect cadence, but he used it 

 freely, as well as many other combinations and 

 progressions familiar enough to us, but bold and 

 startling to the precisians of the old school It 

 would be out of place here to enter in detail into 

 any of these innovations, most of them purely 

 technical ; it will suffice to say that they all tended 

 in the direction of the better defining of key, and of 

 using similar phrases more freely in different keys. 

 He strove hard also to make music more expres- 

 sive, and something more than a mere concatena- 

 tion of sounds, sweet but meaningless. Opera is 

 specially indebted to Monteverde for his develop- 

 ment of the orchestra. In his opera of Orfto, 

 produced in 1608, there was an orchestra of 36 per- 

 formers, and the score includes parts for 2 clavi- 

 chords, 10 violas, 2 double-basses, I harp with \two 

 rows of strings, 2 French violins, guitars, trum- 

 pets, trombones, &c. 



Two great composers of sacred music Cans- 

 simi (of whom more further on) and Viadana 

 followed in Monteverde's footsteps, both in giving 

 their music greater depth of expression, and in 

 still further freeing melody from contrapuntal 

 restraints. To the influence of both these men 

 opera was much indebted, although neither of 

 them wrote for the stage. Carissimi was, in h 

 old age, the teacher of Alessandro Scarlatti, who 

 was probably the most popular composer of his 

 day. Some of his works have been rcccntl; 

 revived in this country, but his chief honour lies 

 in having been the founder of the Neapolitan 

 school. Of this school it is scarcely too much t< 

 say, that it exercised a direct or indirect influence 

 on every composer who flourished within a century 



