MUSIC. 



685 



the head of the art, as the best composer, not only 

 of his own, but of all preceding time. This position 

 he never lost, and through all succeeding ages he 

 must continue to be regarded as the successful re- 

 former of a barbarous era, and the father and founder 

 of a better school, which, from that day to this, 

 has been considered as the school of true taste. 

 His compositions were numerous, comprising nearly 

 all descriptions of the serious style now in use. 

 They are still extant, and are not unfrequently 

 performed in Italy by those who have a just rever- 

 ence for his genius and skill. They may not pos- 

 sess the flowing ease of some more modern produc- 

 tions, but they are of a kind which will never 

 cease to produce a strong effect upon men's minds 

 and hearts. It is a mistake to suppose that there 

 is a particular style of music which is adapted to a 

 particular period of the world. Music is a univer- 

 sal language, and what is able powerfully to affect 

 one generation of men will not fail to affect an- 

 other. There may be conceits and fancies in 

 fashion at certain periods or places, which soon pass 

 away, because they are not in good taste ; but that 

 which can interest and please in tone, imitation, or 

 harmony, will never cease to interest and please. 

 Palestrina had the merit and the glory of pointing 

 out the true path in which music should walk, the 

 true mode in which she must produce her effects; 

 and from his day to the present there has been but 

 one school of good music. Divided and subdivided 

 as the schools have nominally been, correct taste 

 is one and indivisible; and all must be conducted 

 by her guidance, or they cease to be schools of 

 music, and degenerate into academies of uproar. 

 There is, in reality, little to distinguish the so- 

 called different schools, but the different degrees 

 of attainment and genius of the authors who have 

 been educated at different places. The obstacles 

 which have obstructed the progress of some, and 

 the facilities which have surrounded others, may, 

 perhaps, be perceived; but all aim at the same ob- 

 ject by the same general means, and therefore be- 

 long to the same school. This deserves, in some 

 respects, to be called the school of Palestrina. He 

 pointed out the path in which music may go on for 

 ever improving; he taught men to explore that gar- 

 den of inexhaustible fertility, in which the plants 

 that he trained still live, and in which the succes- 

 sive brilliant productions of music will remain for 

 ever fresh and fair. We do not mean that it is 

 impossible to point out differences between the 

 composers of one nation and those of another, or 

 to deny that some are more successful in melody, 

 and some in harmony; but as we hold that both 

 are necessary to the production of the best music, 

 any defect in either must be counted as an imper- 

 fection in the author as a musical composer, to 

 whichever school, as it is called, he may belong. 



From the days of Palestrina until now, the musi- 

 cal taste and the musical productions of the civil- 

 ized world have increased in an accelerating ratio. 

 Invention has been applied, not only to the writ- 

 ing of music, but to the instruments by which it 

 is to be performed, and the art of execution on 

 those instruments ; so that each successive age has 

 reached a point, both in composition and perform- 

 ance, which was either not thought of, or deemed 

 unattainable, by its predecessor. Since his time, 

 too, another style of music has been introduced, 

 and become so much a favourite as almost to sup- 

 plant the more venerable music of the church, which 

 was the first to be brought to some degree of per- 



fection, and was the foundation of all that has suc- 

 ceeded. Towards the close of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury music began to appear in company with the 

 dramas, which were then popular; and, rude as the 

 first essays probably were, and imperfect as the in- 

 strumental accompaniment certainly was, the effect 

 produced upon the feelings of the audience was 

 great beyond any thing known in those days, and 

 was compared to that of the ancient Greek and 

 Roman dramas. 



The moralities and mysteries, the title under 

 which the drama first appeared in the middle ages, 

 were frequently performed by strolling companies 

 upon an ambulatory stage; and there is an interest- 

 ing account in Delia Valle, of the first secular 

 musical drama in Rome, which we shall extract 

 from Dr Burney. 



" The musical of my cart, or movable stage, 

 composed by Quagliati, (his master,) in my own 

 room, chiefly in the mariner he found most agree- 

 able to me, and performed in masks through the 

 streets of Rome during the Carnival of 1606, 

 was the first dramatic action, or representation 

 in music, that had ever been heard in that city. 

 Though no more than five voices, or five instru- 

 ments, were employed, the exact number which 

 an ambulant cart eould contain, yet these afforded 

 great variety; as, besides the dialogue of single 

 voices, sometimes two, or three, and, at last, all 

 the five sung together, which had an admirable 

 effect. The music of this piece, as may be seen 

 in the copies of it that were afterwards printed, 

 though dramatic, was not all in simple recitative, 

 which would have been tiresome, but ornamented 

 with beautiful passages, and movements in measure, 

 without deviating, however, from the true theatri- 

 cal style ; on which account it pleased extremely, 

 as was manifest from the prodigious concourse of 

 people it drew after it, who, so far from being 

 tired, heard it performed five or six several times. 

 There were some who even continued to follow 

 our cart to ten or twelve places where it stopped, 

 and who never quitted us as long as we remained 

 in the street, which was from four o'clock in the 

 evening till after midnight." 



The scholar will remark the curious coincidence 

 between the earliest dramatic representations of 

 Greece and of Italy; and the musician will cease 

 to wonder at the effects of ancient skill, when he 

 reflects upon those of Delia Valle's ambulatory 

 cart. It may be observed, that here is an early 

 mention of recitative, which seems to have been 

 coeval with the secular drama, and which corres- 

 ponds, in some degree, with what was originally 

 called chanting in sacred music. It is the chant- 

 ing of the theatre, with greater variety and ex- 

 pression than that of the church, but quite as far 

 removed from the graceful regularity of the air or 

 song. 



During the succeeding century the opera gradu- 

 ally assumed its regular form, and became an esta- 

 blished branch of public amusement. It was not, 

 however, till perfected by the dramatic genius of 

 Metastasio, that it assumed the high rank it has 

 since maintained in theatrical literature. The last 

 century was, in all respects, the most interesting 

 and important period, which has occurred in the 

 history of music. New branches of the art were 

 cultivated, while those previously known were 

 vastly developed and improved, by the genius of 

 the greatest composers the world has y>t seen. It 

 would be at once useless and uninteresting to in 



