MUSIC 



4020 



MUSIC 



ments ballads of their own composition, occu- 

 pied an enviable social position. Later came 

 the minstrels and the troubadours, with their 

 ballads and their love songs, into which there 

 crept during the time of the Crusades new 

 ;1 forms brought from the Orient. 



To-day the complaint is sometimes heard 

 that sacred music has been lowered by a too 

 close similarity to the undignified popular music 

 of the time, but this is not the first age in which 

 the Church has accepted suggestions from secu- 

 lar music. Far back in medieval times a writer 

 of a mass would frequently take as his theme 

 the air of some popular song, and references are 

 found to masses which bear the far-from-sacred 

 titles of The Red Noses, The Armed Man, or 

 Farewell, My Lover. 



Growth toward Modernism. In the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth centuries the Dutch were the fore- 

 most musicians of Europe, paying especial at- 

 tention to counterpoint the arrangement of 

 one or several independent parts, or voices, in 

 harmony with a given melody. It was a Dutch- 

 man who made popular the madrigal, that 

 during the sixteenth and early seventeenth cen- 

 turies swept over Europe. The madrigal was 

 a love-lyric written for from three to eight 

 voices, in counterpoint, and usually unaccom- 

 panied. Every composer wrote madrigals, every 

 singer sang them ; and it is said that sight read- 

 ing was a more widespread accomplishment 

 among the educated than it is to-day, for a 

 great invention had made possible the spread 

 of published music the application of movable 

 type to music-printing. 



Meanwhile Italy had produced the first great 

 musical genius the "father of modern music," 

 Palestrina. It is almost impossible to over- 

 estimate his influence on the progress of the 

 art, so thorough was his knowledge of all its 

 principles, so elevated were his compositions. 

 Even he, however, knew nothing of our very 

 common phase of modern music the writing 

 of accompaniments, properly so called. To be 

 sure, there were musical instruments in plenty, 

 the organ, the clavichord, the spinet, the violin, 

 the flute and the guitar; but when these were 

 used with the voice they played just the notes 

 which were sung not an independent accom- 

 paniment. 



The first opera which has a real claim to that 

 title, though it by no means meets all the 

 demands of modern opera composition, was 

 written by Peri, and was produced at Florence 

 in 1600. The same year saw the first oratorio, 

 and both types of composition made steady 



and rapid advance. Indeed, by the eighteenth 

 century most of the essential elements were 

 present, and music bade fair to become the 

 very popular art it has been since that time. 

 The principles of harmony were well under- 

 stood, and "part" music had been freed from 

 the harshness which distinguished its earlier 

 phases; a satisfactory notation had been uni- 

 versally accepted; instruments were plenty and 

 were gradually being brought to greater per- 

 fection; and, best of all, the popular imagina- 

 tion had been touched and a boundless enthu- 

 siasm created. 



The Modern Period. Since the eighteenth 

 century each country of note has had its own 

 musical history, differing as distinctly as has thr 

 political history. And yet no country could 

 have progressed as it has done if it had failed 

 to take advantage of the advance made in 

 other countries. Throughout much of the 

 modern period Germany has maintained a 

 supremacy in the musical world, and a list of 

 its great composers constitutes a veritable his- 

 tory of music. What, for instance, would the 

 story of music be without the names of Bach, 

 Handel, Haydn, Gluck or Mozart; without 

 that supreme master, Beethoven; or, in the 

 later period, without Schumann, Schubert, 

 Mendelssohn, Liszt, Wagner and Brahms? In 

 every field of musical endeavor German com- 

 posers left their mark, instrumental music of 

 every sort, song, opera, oratorio, all being en- 

 riched by them. Strength, dignity, emotional 

 depth these are the chief characteristics of the 

 German school. 



Italy's chief contributions have been to 

 opera, and sweetness and beauty of melody 

 have been the aim of most of its composers. 

 Some of the most exquisite and well-known 

 melodies in the world are from the operas of 

 Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi and Mas- 

 cagni. Of more modern Italian composers the 

 best known are perhaps Puccini and Wolf-Fer- 

 rari. France, too, found its chief musical joy 

 in the opera, and the names of Cherubini, 

 Auber, Halevy, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet and 

 Saint-Sacns stand high in the list of composers. 

 These are the three chief musical countries, 

 but that does not mean that other nations 

 have made no important contributions to the 

 art. England, while it has produced nothing 

 of note in the field of grand opera, has excel- 

 lent dramatic music of a lighter character, as 

 the names of Balfe, Barnett, Macfarren and 

 Sullivan testify; while eminent composers in 

 other fields have been Bennett, Barnby, Stainer, 



