GIOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA PALESTRINA

JAN PIETERS SWELINCK.

The fourth and last period of the Netherlands school was distinguished by two features: the production of a master whose genius eclipsed the brilliancy of all his predecessors and whose music was a logical outcome of their labors, and secondly, the completion of the mediæval development of counterpoint. The mission of the Netherland masters was ended, and new art-forms came to supersede the ecclesiastical canon. This now descended from its leadership of the musical army and took that place in the ranks which it maintained till the supremacy of Haydn and the sonata form.

As Orlando di Lasso, the mightiest of all the Netherland masters, is to be treated separately in this work, no outline of his life need be given here and his music will be discussed only in its general relation to the progress of his time. Jan Pieters Swelinck (born at Deventer in 1540, died at Amsterdam, 1621) was a pupil of Cyprian de Rore. Swelinck had already displayed ability as an organist when he set out for Venice to engage in advanced studies. He became one of the most famous organists of his day, but his vocal compositions show that he stood directly in the line of development of the school to which he belonged by birth. His settings of the psalms in four, five, six, seven and eight parts are written in stricta capellastyle. Swelinck is particularly interesting as being one of the founders of the polyphonic instrumental style, which succeeded the choral counterpoint, and a forerunner of Bach.

Philip de Monte was born either at Mons or at Mechlin about 1521. He was treasurer and canon of the cathedral at Cambrai, and in 1594 he was prefect of the choir in the Court Chapel at Prague. He passed the remainder of his life there, and was held in high esteem. He was a prolific writer and besides masses and motets, nineteen books of his madrigals for five voices and eight books of French songs for six voices are extant. His works show the usual Netherlandic skill in counterpoint, some of them being extremely intricate.

We have seen how influences had begun work which was to destroy the empire ofa capellacounterpoint, but its reign was to go out in a blaze of glory lit by the torches of genius in the hands of Lasso and Palestrina. The despotism of ecclesiastical counterpoint over all art-music was indeed at the close of its career, yet the writer must not be understood as asserting that the development of counterpoint ended, for in the German fugue it found its highest and most perfect form. But it ceased to be the controlling power in music, giving way to modern melody built on scale and arpeggio passages and to the song-and dance-forms of the people. It may as well be said here that the technical possibilities of counterpoint were exhausted by the Netherland masters, and not even Johann Sebastian Bach, the most profound and original musical thinker the world has ever known, could invent a form of canonic writing which they had not practised. What he was chiefly instrumental in accomplishing (in a technical way) was the extension of canon into the perfect fugue, and the application of the polyphony of the Netherland masters to the organ, the clavichord and the orchestra, thus laying the foundations upon which rest the whole structure of the modern symphony and string quartet.

PHILIP DE MONTE.From Van der Straeten's "Musique aux pay bas," loaned by the Newberry Library, Chicago.

PHILIP DE MONTE.

From Van der Straeten's "Musique aux pay bas," loaned by the Newberry Library, Chicago.

The music of the other composers of the fourth period is but a reflection of that of Lasso, who was fully as great a genius as Palestrina. He had a perfect mastery of the whole science of counterpoint as it had been developed by the masters of the first two periods. He was equally a master of the simpler style which had gradually been asserting itself. He used these styles and their combinations according to the character of the text to which he was writing music. Some of his masses are Gothic in their wonderful tracery of intertwining parts. His famous "Penitential Psalms" surprise, move and conquer us by their beautiful, pathetic simplicity. The notable fact about all his music, and about that of his contemporaries, is the plain manifestation through it all of an absolute mastery of contrapuntal science and a settled employment of it for their own purposes of expression. And here arises the question, what kind of expression?

The music of Lasso, and some of that written by other composers of this period, shows that musicians had at last begun to lay hold of the real purpose of their art. Their music shows that they aimed at expression of themselves. They began to praise God personally, and musical science became in truth what it had been only in appearance so far as the composers were concerned—a real, earnestGloria Tibi. It is this which vitalizes Lasso's music and makes it acceptable to-day.

We have now reached the time after which the brilliancy of the Netherlands school speedily disappeared. The march of musical progress was transferred to Italy, where the seed sown by Willaert and De Rore in Venice was producing splendid fruit. Indeed the mission of the Netherlands school was at an end. It had given its life blood to the perfection of musical science and had completed its labors and achieved its loftiest glory by indicating the emotional power of music. We have seen that each of the four periods was marked by a step in the advancement of art, thus:

First period: Perfection of Contrapuntal Technics.Second period: Attempts at Euphony.Third period: Development of Tone-painting.Fourth period: Counterpoint made subservient to emotional expression.

In those four steps you have the history of music up to the close of the sixteenth century. Away back in the twelfth century we saw as through a glass darkly a horde of students thronging the streets of Paris and swallowing, in wild eagerness, all kinds of learning in scraps and lumps, with little order and less system. The Cathedral of Notre Dame and the University of Paris, the former glorified throughout Europe as the rose of Christendom, the latter celebrated even by Pope Alexander I., as "a tree of life in an earthly paradise," were their cloister and their shrine. Out of this motley multitude there breaks upon our vision one sober, industrious musician, Jean Perotin, striving to find the secret of law and order for tones. Evidently a man of method, an orderly, peaceable, mechanical, plodding sort of person was this Perotin, and he left us "imitation." This his successors took up and in a few short years developed double counterpoint. Five more centuries rolled away and counterpoint had passed the period of mechanical development and reached the loftiest heights of ecclesiastical expression. Orlando Lasso and Palestrina built great Gothic temples of music that will stand longer than Westminster Abbey. But still counterpoint meant canon and fugue. Then came the birth of opera. The labors of the Netherlanders ended, and music saw that her mission was to sing not alone man's love of God, but his love of woman, his fear, his joy, his despair—in short the unspeakable emotions of his boundless soul.

So the old mathematical canon grew into a new kind of counterpoint, undreamed of by Ockeghem and Josquin, a free untrammeled counterpoint, which breaks upon us to-day in all varieties of works from the humblest to the greatest. Listen to Delibes' "Naila" waltz. There never was a truer piece of counterpoint written in the days of Josquin than that violoncello melody that glides in beneath the principal theme of the first strings, like a new dancer come upon the ball room floor. Turn to the wonderful prelude to "Die Meistersinger." Hear the melody that voices the love of Walter and Eva surging through the strings against the stiff and stately proclamation of the Masters' dignity by the bass. The two melodies proceed together. It is not canon, it is not fugue; but it is counterpoint—even Dr. Johannes de Muris, of the Paris University, would have passed it ascontrapunctus a penna. But it is modern counterpoint, not for itself, but for an ulterior purpose, the one glorious purpose of modern music, to reveal the soul of man. The music of to-day could not sustain its existence through twenty consecutive measures had it not been for the labors of those cloistered scholiasts of the middle ages, building note against note, like ants heaping up sand. Like the artist that rounded St. Peter's dome, they builded better than they knew, and left an inheritance which grew to fabulous wealth in the hands of their giant heirs Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The very body of Wagner's music is counterpoint, free counterpoint, not canon and fugue. And it is counterpoint with a soul in it, for every time two or more themes sound simultaneously the orchestra becomes so eloquent with rich meanings that its utterance throbs through the air like the magnetism of love. It was a happy time for the tone art when in the Autumn days of the fifteenth century the folk-song wooed and won the fugue.

Reproduction of a vigorous etching by F. Böttcher from portrait preserved in the Vatican library. Authentic portraits of Palestrina are extremely rare. This is doubtless the best.]

GIOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA PALESTRINA received his last name from the town of Palestrina, the ancient Praeneste, where he was born in the early part of the sixteenth century, the precise year being a matter of conjecture. 1514, 1524, 1528, and 1529, are the years variously ascribed to his birth by various biographers, but the most recently discovered evidence seems to point to 1524 as the most probable date. He was of humble parentage, which partially accounts for the lack of definite information about his earliest years, and as the public registers of the city of Palestrina were destroyed by the soldiery of the Duke of Alva, it is not likely that any reliable information regarding his ancestry or birth will ever be obtained. In accordance with the habit of the time, as the composer grew famous his name was latinized and became Johannes Petrus Aloysius Praenestinus. The lack of early biographical material regarding the man who became at once the culmination of the Flemish and the founder of the pure Italian school has led to the invention of many a doubtful tale regarding his beginnings in the art of music. He came to Rome (but four hours' travel from his native city) in 1540, and different anecdotes are told of the manner in which he began his musical studies. Many of these have been proved false by the researches of the learned Dr. Haberl, who has shown that Goudimel was not the teacher of Palestrina, although all previous authorities have stated this as a fact. The data concerning Palestrina, recently published by Dr. Haberl, will probably supersede the statements of Baini which have hitherto been accepted. It is probable that Palestrina returned to the city of his birth in 1544, and, at least temporarily, became organist and director in the cathedral there, and at this time (June 12th, 1547), married Lucrezia de Goris. Of this lady very little is known; she is said to have been in fairly good circumstances, and to have been a devoted wife to the master; she bore him four sons, three of whom died after having given some proof that they had inherited Palestrina's musical genius; she herself died in 1580. Some of the recent historians maintain that Palestrina had but three sons, of whom two died. In 1551 we find Palestrina in Rome asMaestro de' Putti(teacher of the boy singers) in the Capella Giulia in the Vatican, and in considerable repute, for he was allowed the title of "Maestro della Capella della Basilica Vaticana." While employed at this post he composed a set of four and five-voiced masses which were published in 1544 and dedicated to Pope Julius III. The work marks an epoch, for it was the first important one by any Italian composer, the Church having up to this time relied almost wholly upon the Flemish composers for her musical works. The Pope proved himself immediately grateful by appointing the composer one of the singers of the papal choir; this appointment was in violation of the rules of the church, for the singers were supposed to be celibates, and not only was Palestrina married, but his voice was not such as would have been chosen for the finest ecclesiastic choir of the world. To the credit of the composer, who was one of the most devout of Catholics, it must be said that he hesitated long before accepting a position to which he knew that he had no right, but finally, believing that the Pope knew better than he, Palestrina entered on his new duties, which brought with them a welcome increase of income. But Julius III. died six months after, and his successor, Marcellus II., died twenty-three days after becoming Pope. Marcellus was very well disposed towards Palestrina, and his death was a great blow to the composer. Paul IV. became sovereign pontiff in 1555. John Peter Caraffa (Paul IV.) was of different mould from his predecessors; haughty and imperious, he was active in promoting the power of the church over all nationsand thrones, but equally so in reforming it within; he would permit no married singers in his choir, and in less than a year after his appointment, Palestrina found himself dismissed from what promised to be a life position. The dismissal was tempered by the allowance of a pension of six scudi per month, but Palestrina, with a family dependent on his work, thought that it meant irretrievable ruin, and, almost broken-hearted, took to his bed with a severe attack of nervous fever. The sensitive character and innate modesty of the man were never better proven, for his reputation was even then far too great for the loss of any situation to ruin him. Already in October of the same year (1555) Palestrina was appointed director of the music of the Lateran Church, a position which, although less remunerative than that from which he had been dismissed, allowed him to retain the small annuity granted by the Pope. He remained here five and a half years (from October 1st, 1555, until February 1st, 1561) and during this epoch produced many important sacred works, among which were his volume ofImproperiaand a wonderful eight-voiced "Crux Fidelis" which he produced on Good Fridays with his choir. His set of four-voiced "Lamentations" also aided in spreading his fame as the leader of a new school, the pure school of Italian church-music. On March 1st, 1561, he entered upon the position of director of the music of the Church of St. Maria Maggiore, a post which he retained for ten years. It was while he was director here that the event occurred that spread his fame through all the Catholic nations of the earth. Church music had for a long time lapsed from the dignity which should have been its chief characteristic. The Flemish composers were in a large degree responsible for this; they had placed their ingenuity above religious earnestness, and in order to show their contrapuntal skill would frequently choose some well-known secular song as thecantus firmusof their masses, and weave their counterpoint around this as a core. Dozens of masses were written on the old Provençal song of "L'Homme Armé," Palestrina himself furnishing one, and it seemed to be a point of honor among the composers to see who could wreath the most brilliant counterpoint around this popular tune. Many of the melodies chosen were not even so dignified as this, and at times the Flemish composer would choose as hiscantus firmussome drinking song of his native land. In those days the melody was generally committed to the tenor part (the word comes from "teneo" and means "the holding part," that is the part that held the tune) and in order the better to show on what foundation they had built, the Flemings retained the original words in this part, whence it came to be no uncommon thing to hear the tenors roar out a bacchanalian song while the rest of the choir were intoning a "Kyrie," a "Gloria," a "Credo," or an "Agnus Dei." It is almost incredible that the custom lasted as long as it did, but at last, in 1562, the Cardinals were summoned together for the purification of all ecclesiastical matters, and the famous Council of Trent began to cut at the root of the evil. As is generally the case in all reactions, the reform seemed likely to go too far, for while all were united upon the abolition of secular words in the Mass, some maintained that the evil lay deeper yet, and attacked counterpoint itself as worldly and unfit for true religious music. These advocated nothing less than a return to the plain song or chant, a turning back of the hands of musical progress that might have been very serious in its results. Fortunately, however, the ablegates, and the envoys of the Emperor Ferdinand I., protested vigorously, and the whole matter was finally referred to a committee of eight cardinals, who very wisely chose eight of the papal singers to assist them in their deliberations. The sittings of this committee were held chiefly in 1563, and fortunately two of the number, Cardinals Vitellozo Vitellozzi and Carlo Borromeo (afterwards canonized) were men of especial musical culture. The works of Palestrina had been frequently cited during the debates, and now it was determined to commission him to write a mass which should prove to the world that the employment of counterpoint was consistent with the expression of the most earnest religious thought. Right nobly did Palestrina respond to the call. Too diffident of his own powers to trust the issue to a single work, he sent the cardinals three, of which the first two were dignified and effective, while the third was the celebrated "Mass of Pope Marcellus." He sent the works on their completion, in 1565, to Cardinal Borromeo, and theMissa Papae Marcelliwas soon after performed at the house of Cardinal Vitellozzi. It made its effect immediately, and soon after the Pope ordered an especial performance of it by the choir at the Apostolical chapel. It is odd to read of the honors which followed in its track; they took every shape but the one which Palestrinamost needed—a pecuniary result. The copyist of the papal chapel wrote out the parts in larger notes than were employed in other works, the Pope (Pius IV.) exclaimed on hearing the mass for the first time, that such must be the music that the angels chanted in the new Jerusalem, and when, a few years after (in 1567), Palestrina published this mass with some others and dedicated the volume to Philip II. of Spain, that eminent bigot sent the composer—his thanks!

PALESTRINA.From a portrait in Naumann's History of Music.

PALESTRINA.

From a portrait in Naumann's History of Music.

It was probably on account of this mass, however, that Palestrina came back to the papal choir. He did not come as a singer this time, but a new office was created for him, that of "Composer to the Pontifical Choir." It may be mentioned here that none of the different positions which Palestrina occupied took him out of the reach of pecuniary cares, and he never received an adequate recompense for his labors; yet one may doubt whether he ever suffered absolute poverty; his wife is said by some historians, to have been well-to-do, and the friendship of different cardinals could not have been without some pecuniary results. Palestrina was blessed with many true and steadfast admirers who must have atoned in some degree for the jealousies of his brother-musicians. His wife was devoted to him, the cardinal D'Este was a friend, in addition to the two cardinals already mentioned; but the great solace of his career was the close companionship of the most musical and devout of priests, Filippo Neri, who has since been made saint by the church. As this priest was the founder of the oratorio it is not too much to imagine that Palestrina may have helped him with advice and music and thus have assisted at the birth of the loftiest religious form of later times. Yet in the midst of all his work, and in the enjoyment of all his companionships, the life of Palestrina is in startling contrast with the brilliant and well-rewarded career of his contemporary, Orlando di Lasso. If ever the Catholic church desires to canonize a musical composer, it will find devoutness, humility, and many other saintly characteristics in Palestrina. The great pang of his life was the loss of his promising boys just as they began to prove to him that his musical instruction had planted seeds in fertile soil. The one son who outlived him seems to have been a sordid and heartless wretch in vivid contrast to the character of his father, whose compositions he recklessly scattered from mercenary motives. Yet the life of Palestrina must have had its moments of sunshine. Probably the most striking of these occurred in 1575, the jubilee year, when, as a compliment to their distinguished townsman, 1500 singers from the city of Palestrina entered Rome, divided into three companies, singing the works of the composer, while he, marching at the head of the vocal army, directed the musical proceedings. In 1571, after the death of Animuccia (a pupil of Claudio Goudimel), Palestrina became leader of the choir of St. Peter's and soon after he became a teacher in the music school which his friend Giovanni Maria Nanini opened in Rome, a school which gave rise to many composers, and which established the early Italian composition on a firmer basis than ever before. In 1593 Palestrina became musical director to Cardinal Aldobrandini, but he was now an old man and his death ensued soon after; but his activity continued unabated almost up to his decease; even to his very last days he produced works which remain monuments of his energy. In January, 1594, he published thirty "Spiritual Madrigals" for five voices, in praise of the Holy Virgin, and this was his last work, for he died less than a month later. He had already begun another work, a volume of masses to be dedicated to Clement VIII., when he was attacked by pleurisy; the disease hastened to a fatal ending, for he was ill but a week, receiving extreme unction January 29th and dying February 2d, 1594, in the arms of his friend Philip Neri; his most famous contemporary,Orlando di Lasso, died just four months later, so that the end of the Flemish school, and the brilliant beginning of the Italian church school come very close together.

Of the character of Palestrina's music we shall speak below, but it may be stated here that there has never existed a composer at once so prolific and so sustainedly powerful. The mere list of his compositions would take considerable space, for he composed 93 masses for from four to eight voices, 179 motettes, 45 sets of hymns for the entire year, 3 books of "Lamentations," 3 books of Litanies, 2 books of Magnificats, 4 books of Madrigals, a wonderful Stabat Mater, and very much more that is unclassified. A list that is absolutely stupendous when the character of the works is remembered. Through the enterprise of Messrs. Breitkopf & Härtel all of these works will soon have appeared in print.

Palestrina is buried in St Peter's in the chapel of Sts. Simon and Judas. The simple inscription on his tomb runs:

Johannes Petrus Aloysius Praenestinus,Musicæ Princeps.

It is but natural to find the old Italian writers showering down laudatory adjectives on Palestrina. Undoubtedly Palestrina and Di Lasso, whose careers are almost exactly contemporaneous, were the two chief composers of the 16th century, and it is equally undoubted that of these two Palestrina was much the more earnest and serious; but one may receive with some degree of caution such phrases as "the light and glory of music," "the Prince of Music," and "the Father of Music," all of which may be found in the early commentaries on his works. It must be borne in mind that Palestrina lived at a time when music was still largely a mathematical science, when the art (so far as it was an art) tended almost wholly towards the intellectual, and when the emotional side, which is so important an element with the moderns, was scarcely recognized. It is an odd coincidence that the very year in which the two great composers of intellectual polyphony died (1594) saw the birth of the emotional school in the shape of the first opera, "Dafne." We must not search for great emotional display in the modern sense, even in the "Lamentations" or the "Stabat Mater" of Palestrina, but if we judge his works from the standard of dignity and a pure leading of the voices even in the most intricate passages, we shall find them to be most perfect models, and it was through the complex progressions of the old counterpoint that our modern style was evolved; Palestrina and Di Lasso were the ploughmen who made the harvest of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Wagner, possible. The lack of definite rhythm (for the ancient counterpoint was the least rhythmic expression of music) is sometimes a stumbling-block in the way of modern appreciation of some of Palestrina's work, but the devout student of Bach will soon find himself an admirer of the pure and lofty vein of the older master. Krause, the historian, says: "I am convinced that this school possesses a permanent value for all time. The greatest art connoisseurs of the new school pay the greatest homage to the Palestrina style." Thibaut describes Palestrina as deeper than Di Lasso, and as such a master of the old church modes and of the pure school (in which the triad was the foundation of everything and the seventh chords were not admitted) that calmness and repose are to be found in a greater degree in his works than in the compositions of any other composer. Palestrina has been called the "Homer of Music," and there is something in his stately style that makes the phrase a fitting one.

PALESTRINA.From a portrait by Schnorr, engraved by Amsler and re-engraved by Deblois. This portrait has evidently been suggestedby the Vatican portrait. (See frontispiece.) Authentic portraits of Palestrina are extremely rare.

PALESTRINA.

From a portrait by Schnorr, engraved by Amsler and re-engraved by Deblois. This portrait has evidently been suggestedby the Vatican portrait. (See frontispiece.) Authentic portraits of Palestrina are extremely rare.

Baini, who in the early part of this century was the successor in office of the great composer, being musical director of the papal choir at Rome, was probably the ablest and most enthusiastic student of the works of Palestrina that ever existed, and his great work, "Memorie storicho-critiche della vita e delle opere di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina" (Rome, 1828. Two volumes), spite of a degree of partisanship and consequent lack of appreciation of the work of some of the Flemish composers, will probably always remain the bucket through which the waters of the well of Palestrina are best attainable. No man ever had as good opportunities of access to the master's works, and no one could have employed those opportunities better. He, with extreme exactness, classifies the works of the master into ten groups or styles. It would be both unnecessary and prolix to follow him through all of these; more practical for the general musician is the summing up of Hauptmann (whose essay is founded on Baini), who says, "Baini's ten styles may become bewildering to many, but three styles of composition may be readily recognized on close acquaintance with his works. In the first style he approaches the school of his predecessors the Netherlanders (the Flemish school), and this is shown to our ears by a lack of harmony; the melodies go on their course beside each other, without blending into harmonious unity; harmonically judged they are dry, heavy, and inflexible, and they are continuously canonic or fugated. The second style is, on the contrary, in simultaneous progressions, like our chorales. Here the voices are, as a matter of course, always singable, but the conditions of the melody are, as the harmonies of the preceding, rather negative, and the composer is not turned aside by any ill-sounding effects. The third style is the uniting of the foregoing two in the best and most beautiful manner that can be achieved in this sphere, and it is this school that has placed Palestrina in so high a rank for all time; in this style is the Mass of Pope Marcellus composed. There are however, beautiful specimens of the second style in existence, as, for example, theImproperia, which always refreshes me by its simplicity."

In the use of chorale-like simplicity, Palestrina causes the commentator involuntarily to draw a comparison between him and John Sebastian Bach. The parallel could be drawn more closely than many of the ancient ones of Plutarch, for not only were both composers polyphonic in their musical vein, but both were actuated by the sincerest religious feeling in their largest compositions. Palestrina may stand as the typical Catholic, as Bach represents the earnest Protestant, in music.

Unquestionably the earliest vein of Palestrina's composition was influenced by his Flemish training, and he returned to this florid and ingenious style in later time when he set the old melody of "L'Homme Armé" as a Mass. This was a very natural proceeding. We have alluded above to the custom of setting masses around a secular core, using some popular melody ascantus firmus, as practised by the Netherlanders. When Palestrina chose the above-named melody, he entered deliberately into the lists with them; so many of his predecessors had used the self-samecantusthat "L'Homme Armé" became in some degree a challenge and a specimen of competitive composition; skill and complexity were to rule in such a mass, and it is sufficient to say that Palestrina overtopped his competitors in these, and therefore the object of this work was attained. It may stand as the best example of the first school.

TheImproperiaare a series of antiphons and responses which, on the morning of Good Friday, take the place of the daily Mass of the Catholic church. They represent the remonstrances of the suffering Savior with the people for their ingratitude for his benefits, whence the title "Improperia," i. e. "the Reproaches." We have stated that the old pure school did not portray emotion in the modern style; one may not find in these "Reproaches" of Palestrina the entirely human style of a Luzzi's "Ave Maria" or the operatic manner of a Rossini's "Stabat Mater," but the simple combination of dignity with sorrow is nevertheless far more effective and suitable to the religious service; it is therefore not surprising to find theseImproperia(the first revelation of the genius of Palestrina) still retained in annual use in the Papal Chapel, and we may class them as Hauptmann did, as the best example of Palestrina's second manner. Mendelssohn held them to be Palestrina's most beautiful work, and the poet Goethe was also greatly moved by them.

The Mass of Pope Marcellus has been cited as the best example of the master's third style, and at the same time the culmination of his powers. This Mass is in the so-called Hypo-Ionian mode (although the "Crucifixus" and "Benedictus" are Mixo-Lydian), and is probably the noblest example of the employment of the church modes in the pure style. Although the work is most intricate, Palestrina has here achieved that most difficult feat, the art of concealing art. It presents all the old fugal artifices, and the "Agnus Dei" is a close and ingenious canon. It is written for six voices, soprano, alto, two tenors, and two basses. This in itself was an unusual combination of voices and gave opportunities for great antiphonal effect, between the lower voices, and these opportunities are so well used that the effect of a double choir is frequently attained.

Baini calls the "Kyrie" devout; the "Gloria"animated; the "Credo" majestic; the "Sanctus" angelic; and the "Agnus Dei" prayerful; but it is doubtful if the modern auditor will perceive all these distinctions in listening to the work. Of its dignity and loftiness, however, there can be no question. One can observe readily how close to the composer's heart was the injunction that the words should be clearly understood; in the most important phrases we find counterpoint of the first order (note against note), while in passages where the same words are often repeated Palestrina employed the most beautiful contrapuntal imitations. The voices are so interwoven that wonderful chords greet us in almost every phrase, yet so free from unnecessary dissonance are these, and so clearly founded on the progressions of the triads, that the effect of simplicity is attained even in the midst of the displays of greatest musical skill. It is true that one can find effective chords in the works of the Flemish school, but on examining these closely it will be seen that they have been "filled in," and do not arise spontaneously from the contrapuntal progressions, while with Palestrina the leading of the voices is never disturbed in the slightest degree for the sake of the chord-formation, but all the harmonic effects grow out of the melodic construction of the various parts, or of the musical imitations introduced between the voices. It remains to be stated that the great musical historian Ambros has thrown doubt upon the origin of the Mass just described, and asseverates that not only was it not written as a model at the request of the committee of cardinals, but that there was really no occasion for any especial reform in the matter of church music at the time that it was produced. The weight of authority and the consensus of opinion, however, are here entirely against the eminent German scholar, and the facts as above stated are now almost universally conceded.

In all of Palestrina's church music one cannot fail to notice that he discards the chromatic progressions which his predecessors and contemporaries used so freely; he did this from a devout desire to keep the church modes intact, and if at times, because of this self-denial, he lost some effects of emotional display, on the whole his works gain much in purity and dignity in consequence.

If in Palestrina's Masses we find the beginning of chord-effect, the true principles of harmonic beauty, in his motettes and madrigals one can discern the first masterly touches of the employment of rhythm. Rhythm could only reach its true culmination in the homophony which came at a later epoch, but one can trace a distinct effort in this direction in the shorter and lighter works of the master, who thus may be regarded as a connecting link between the old and the new schools.

In the matter of the old triad-construction of his chords, however, he was inflexible; Des Prés and Di Lasso might use dissonances to express passion, but he held this kind of passion as too human to enter into his pure church-music. Monteverde soon after brought in the free use of the seventh-chords, yet the careful student will find these slyly introduced in many a work of the 16th century; he will however, find few such attempts in Palestrina.

How earnestly this composer regarded his art, and how deeply he felt its responsibilities may be gathered from his own words:—

"Music exerts a great influence upon the minds of mankind, and is intended not only to cheer these, but also to guide and to control them, a statement which has not only been made by the ancients, but which is found equally true to-day. The sharper blame, therefore, do those deserve who misemploy so great and splendid a gift of God in light or unworthy things, and thereby excite men, who of themselves are inclined to all evil, to sin and misdoing. As regards myself, I have from youth been affrighted at such misuse, and anxiously have I avoided giving forth anything which could lead anyone to become more wicked or godless. All the more should I, now that I have attained to riper years, and am not far removed from old age, place my entire thoughts on lofty, earnest things such as are worthy of a Christian."

With these words does Palestrina dedicate his first book of Motettes to Cardinal d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and no historian or reviewer could give a truer summing up of Palestrina's character and its influence on his music than he has here done for himself.

VIEW OF THE TOWN OF PALESTRINA—THE ANCIENT PRAENESTEBirthplace of Palestrina, who received his surname from this place.

VIEW OF THE TOWN OF PALESTRINA—THE ANCIENT PRAENESTE

Birthplace of Palestrina, who received his surname from this place.

IN Claudio Monteverde we have to do with one of those composers who mark an epoch in art. Starting apparently in full touch with the ideas of the generation into which they happen to be born, such masters acquire originality as they proceed, and, guided entirely by the depth and reliability of their own intuitions, almost imperceptibly digress from the methods in vogue, and at the end leave the world a rich heritage of thoroughly original and enjoyable works. Such a genius adorned the beginning of the sixteenth century in Josquin des Près, another was the richly gifted Orlando Lasso, and in later times many such have appeared; the epoch of modern romantic music being peculiarly rich in them.

Claudio Monteverde was born at Cremona, in Lombardy, in the year 1568. He was the son of poor parents. From earliest childhood he manifested a love of music, and very soon became proficient upon the viola, which even then had become perfected, through the work of Andrea Amati and Gaspar da Salo.

While still a boy, Monteverde was engaged as viola player in the private orchestra of the Duke of Mantua, and there his talent became so evident that the ducal music director, Messer Marc Antonio Ingeneri, taught him counterpoint and the art of composition as it was then practised. Under this stimulation, Monteverde published his first composition at the age of sixteen, in the year 1584. They were called "Canzonettas for three voices," and were printed at Venice. Quite naturally, considering the youth of the composer, these compositions do not show the originality which later rendered his works famous. Their more noticeable peculiarity, judging them from the standpoint of their own day, was a degree of laxity, at times approaching carelessness, in counterpoint. It is evident even thus early that Monteverde's ear for melody enabled him to tolerate harmonic faults between the voices which, without this appreciation of melodious flow, would have been highly disagreeable.

His position in the service of the prince was by no means a sinecure. A letter of his brother, Giulio Cæsar Monteverde, declares that he was incessantly occupied, not alone with the music of the church, but also with that for chamber concerts, ballets, and all sorts of divertissements, making constant demands upon the fertility of the overflowing invention of the young musician. He seems to have been in a somewhat personal relation to the Duke, and all through life he evinced his attachment to members of the Gonzaga family.

His first book of madrigals was published in 1587, when the young composer had reached the age of eighteen. Five other books followed them, dated 1593, 1594, 1597, 1599, and finally 1614. All these were printed at Venice, which was then the chief book-making city of Europe. In a later portion of this discourse the innovations characterizing the third book of madrigals will be more fully considered. Meanwhile Monteverde appears to have steadily advanced in his art, and in the favor of the prince. The brother's letter, already mentioned, is authority for the statement that in 1599 he spent some months at the baths of Spa, and brought back from thence certain traits of the French style.

Very soon after the publication of the third book of madrigals, Monteverde found a critic. A certain Canon Artusi, of St. Saviour, in Bologna, published a brochure upon "The Imperfection of Modern Music," taking for his text one of the madrigals in Monteverde's third book.

This led to further communications from Monteverde himself, prefixed to one of his later volumes, in which he declares that "harmony is the ladyof the words" (signora della orazione), meaning thereby that the composer must first consider the dramatic needs of his text, and only thereafter permit himself to be governed by those of music as such.

Upon the death of the ducal music director, Ingeneri, Monteverde succeeded to the place. This appears to have been in 1603, according to the preface to the sixth set of his madrigals (in 1614), in which he speaks of having been in the service of the Duke of Mantua ten years.

The famous "representative style," in other words, dramatic music, had already been discovered, as recounted at greater length in the essay upon Italy. It is sufficient for our present purpose to compare the dates. It was about 1595 that Vincenzo Gallilei intoned at Count Bardi's his epoch-making monologue upon "Ugolino," and in 1597 the first opera, "Dafne," was privately performed at the house of Count Corsi. In 1600 the first opera, "Eurydice," the poem by Rinuccini and music by Jacopo Peri, was publicly performed upon the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV., of France, to Catherine de Medici. This work has the double honor of having been the first opera ever publicly performed and the first opera ever printed. A copy of the original edition of A. D. 1600 is now in the Newberry Library of Chicago. The fundamental problem of the new style was that of furnishing appropriate musical cadences for the impressive utterance of the words of the text. Hence the musical handling of "Eurydice" is very meagre. There is only one short instrumental ritornello, and only one short aria, of sixteen measures. Almost the entire remainder of the work is in a rather stiff and formal recitative. No attempt is made at instrumental coloring. The accompaniment is simply intended to support the voices and assure the singers of their pitch, quite after the ideas advanced by Artistoxenos, and applied universally in Greek tragedy. The tonality in "Eurydice" is almost wholly minor.

Whether Monteverde had opportunity of seeing any of these performances we have no means of knowing. At all events he may well have possessed a copy of the published "Eurydice." And so it was no doubt with pleasure that in 1607, upon the occasion of the marriage of Francesco Gonzeaga with Margherita, Infanta of Savoy, he received a commission to prepare a "dramma per musica" for the festivities. The subject chosen was "Arianna" (Ariadne), the text prepared by Rinuccini. In this work for the first time Monteverde had opportunity to give free rein to his powers. No doubt he realized that he had to present his work before hearers who had attended upon the performances of "Eurydice," and were full of its novel effects. One of his own singers, Rasi, had been engaged in the Florentine performances. The effect of "Arianna" was extraordinary, even prodigious. The aria of the deserted Ariadne,Lasciatemi morir, melted the hearers to tears. Monteverde's rival, Marco da Gagliano, who had also been commissioned to prepare a new setting of "Dafne" for the same occasion, was astonished like all the rest. G. B. Doni, in his treatise upon "Scenic Music," holds Monteverde's aria for a master-work indeed. Such was the entrance of the master into the new style. "Arianna" had a long life. As late as 1640 it was played in the theatre of S. Mose, in Venice. The success of this work naturally led to others in the new style. Hence, one year later, another opera, "Orfeo," the text by a writer not now known, and a "Ballo del Ingrate," in which, Ambros says, the music, "in spite of the ancient gods, who figure in the text, stands for the first time in the magic glow of the romantic."

Monteverde was now in the fullness of his powers. He had reached the age of forty-six. He was at once the most original of all Italian musicians of the time, and the most distinguished. Hence upon the death, in 1614, of Giulo Cæsare Martinengo, the musical director of St. Mark's, in Venice, Monteverde was called to the place, which both by reason of its celebrity as already the appurtenance of great composers for two centuries, and on account of its relation to the official life of Venice, was perhaps the most desirable one in the whole world. The salary paid the deceased conductor had been two hundred ducats yearly; that of Monteverde was made three hundred at the start, and in addition a sum of fifty ducats for expenses of removing from Mantua. In 1616 the salary was raised again to four hundred ducats, and later he was awarded the free use of a house in the canon's close. Valuable gratuities were voted him upon several occasions, as one hundred ducats, Dec. 14, 1642, one hundred and fifty in 1629, etc. Honors came fast upon him. When hewas invited to Bologna, in order to direct the music for some festivity, a delegation of distinguished citizens met him a long way out upon the route, and orations and formal recognitions of the honor done the city by his accepting the invitation had full place, according to the imposing forms of the time.

In spite of the distinction which Monteverde had gained in the musical dramas already mentioned, it was not for several years after entering upon his duties at St. Mark's that he found opportunity to pursue his ideal. Between 1614 and 1624 he appeared only as church composer, excepting now and then when he produced music for a statefête, for as yet there was no public opera house in the world. In the year 1637 the first one was erected at Venice, in the parish of S. Cassiano. But previously, in 1624, the senator Girolamo Moncenigo invited Monteverde to compose a new work in the representative style, which accordingly he did, and it was privately performed in the Moncenigo palace. It was called "Il Combatimento di Tancredi e Clorinda," an intermezzo. The story was taken from Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered," and represented Clorinda going in search of her lover, Tancred, in disguise of a young knight. Through some misunderstanding a duel between them was unavoidable, and at the moment when the swords flash and the strokes make grim accents in the pretty love story, Monteverde had the happy thought of introducing the pizzicato effect with the strings; and later when Clorinda falls, mortally wounded, the suspense is indicated by the still usual orchestral means, the tremolo. These striking effects, however, were by no means Monteverde's chief claim to memory for this work, for throughout, if we may believe the hearers (the music having disappeared), the music accurately reproduced and interpreted the feeling of the story, and the hearers were intensely absorbed, and at the critical moment moved to tears.

Another celebrated work of Monteverde was a solemn requiem which he composed in 1621, for the funeral services in honor of Cosmos II., in the church S. Giovanni e S. Paulo. Concerning this, the opera librettist, Giuol Strozzi, writes complimentarily if not clearly, that the music "depicted grief in the Mixolydian tone, the happy discovery of Sappho; and theDies Iræand the well intonedDe Profundis, by their novelty and mastery, awakened in the hearers the greatest wonder."

From this time onward, Monteverde composed often in the new style. In 1627 he composed for the court of Parma five intermezzi; in 1629, for the birthday of Vito Morisini, a cantata, "Il Rosajo fiorito"; and in 1630, for the marriage of the daughter of his patron, the senator Moncenigo, to Lorenzo Giustiniani, he wrote to a poem by Strozzi, "Proserpina Rapita." Here again the enthusiasm of the hearers was unbounded. The magic combination of drama and song in choruses, dances, and orchestration was magical. Unfortunately almost all the operatic and church compositions of Monteverde have been lost. But his continual progress in the art of orchestration is shown now and then in the chance allusions of his contemporaries. Thus we are told that in 1631, upon the day when the votive church S. Maria della Salute was opened by the Doge (in memory of the stay of the plague), a solemn service was also held in St. Mark's, when a great effect was made in theGloriaandCredoby the resounding trombones.

As soon as a public opera house was opened in Venice, the demands upon Monteverde's talent as opera composer became more frequent. Thus followed one important work after another, until almost the end of his long and honored life. In 1642, at the age of seventy-four, he produced his last opera, "L'Incoronazione di Poppea," which had the customary effect of novelty and nobility.

Monteverde had been happily married while still living in Mantua. He had two sons, one of whom became a priest, the other a physician. Upon the death of his wife he entered the church, and took holy orders, so that from the age of sixty-five to the close of his life he was priest as well as composer and musical director. In person he seems to have been tall, rather meagre in figure, and the few existing portraits represent him as serious, perhaps even ascetic, in face. After a short illness, Monteverde died, in 1643. His funeral was held in St. Mark's, under the musical direction of his pupil, Giovanni Rovetta. But a second and more formal service was held on the 15th of December, 1643, in the Frari church, under the direction of another of his pupils, Giambattista Marinoni, musical director at the cathedral of Padua. The great master was buried in the Frari church, in a chapel at the left of the choir. No stone bears his name to mark the spot.

Monteverde's position in the world of art might almost be designated as that of "father of theopera." For, while it is true that he did not himself directly discover this great form of applied music, he certainly was the first to produce dramatic works characterized by the same general ideas as those which prevail at the present day. The connection of Jacopo Peri with opera was altogether fleeting and temporary, having been limited to the two works already mentioned. Monteverde, who was already a vigorous and fully established musician and composer at the time of Peri's first attempt, took hold of the new art form with such vigor and readiness, and with such truth of insight, that he must always stand in the place of honor. Peri's conception of the musical part of opera was rather small and limited. What he sought was a truthful declamation of the text in the matter of cadence and emphasis. To this Monteverde added a deeper insight into the feeling pervading the dramatic situation. This gave the key-note to his music, whether that of the voices, or of voices and instruments together.

This honor belongs still more incontestably to Monteverde when it is remembered what innovations he made in the general points of musical structure and instrumentation, both of which place his fame in the strongest possible light as that of a master. In his earliest canzonettas the defects are those of a half-taught composer, rather than of one deliberately marking out a new path. But in the third book of madrigals there are innovations which have been pointed out by all critical writers upon the history of harmony, especially by Choron and Fétis. In the madrigal "Stracciami pur il côre" (the music of which is given entire in Burney's "History of Music," Vol. III.), the rhythm has more movement, the metrical form is better, there are natural cadences, and prolonged dissonances of a materially different character to anything preceding them. Fétis mentions, at the wordsnon puo morir d'amore, double dissonances, arising by suspension of 9—4, 9—7—4, 6—5—4, the latter having an extremely disagreeable effect. Modern tonality is anticipated by the use of the leading tone. In his fifth book of madrigals he gives free rein to his ideas, and introduces dissonances without preparation, especially the seventh and ninth on the dominant. There is also a diminished seventh. He thus possessed the means of a rational harmonic accentuation and dramatic characterization.

In the department of orchestration, Monteverde may properly be considered the originator of the art, and here again we come upon one of those accidental connections, or harmonies, between the man and his environment which impart to art-history so much the character of a chapter in development. It was Monteverde who first placed the violin in its place of honor in the orchestra. Peri's orchestra contained two tenor-viols, but no violin. While still retaining the chittarone, or large guitars, cembali, or harpsichord, Monteverde had two bass-viols, ten tenor-viols (his own instrument, with whose possibilities he was acquainted), two violi da gamba (a tenor-viol with frets), one double harp, two small French violins, four trombones, a regal or small reed organ (for sustaining tones), one small octave flute, one clarion, and three trumpets with mutes. From the complete loss of anything like orchestral scores or individual parts, it has been surmised that these players exercised their own judgment as to what and when to play. This, however, appears impossible. Otherwise the peculiar effects graphically employed for dramatic coloration would not have been produced. Such effects as the pizzicati and tremolo of violins in "Tancred", and the trombone effects in the mass, mentioned above, do not come by the happy chance of players putting in notes at their unregulated wills. The characteristic difference between the orchestra of Monteverde and Peri was in the possession of means of prolonging tones, and thereby rendering the music impressive and pathetic. Without the stringed instruments this would forever have remained impossible.

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