The Netherlands share other glories than that of having nursed the
most indomitable spirit of liberty known to mediæval Europe. The fine
as well as the industrial arts found among this remarkable people,
distinguished by Erasmus as possessed of the _patientia laboris_, an
eager and passionate culture. The early contributions of the Low
Countries to the growth of the pictorial art are well known to all.
But to most it will be a revelation that the Belgian school of music
was the great fructifying influence of the fifteenth century, to which
Italy and Germany owe a debt not easily measured. The art of
interweaving parts and that science of sound known as counterpoint
were placed by this school of musical scholars and workers on a solid
basis, which enabled the great composers who came after them to build
their beautiful tone fabrics in forms of imperishable beauty and
symmetry. For a long time most of the great Italian churches had
Belgian chapel-masters, and the value of their example and teachings
was vital in its relation to Italian music.
The last great master among the Belgians, and, after Palestrina, the
greatest of the sixteenth century, was Orlando di Lasso, born in
Hainault, in the year 1520. His life of a little more than three score
years and ten was divided between Italy and Germany. He left the deep
imprint of his severe style, though but a young man, on his Italian
_confrères_, and the young Palestrina owed to him much of the
largeness and beauty of form through which he poured his genius in the
creation of such works as have given him so distinct a place in
musical history. The pope created Orlando di Lasso Knight of the
Golden Spur, and sought to keep him in Italy. Unconcerned as to fame,
the gentle, peaceful musician lived for his art alone, and the
flattering expressions of the great were not so much enjoyed as
endured by him. A musical historian, Heimsoeth, says of him--"He is
the brilliant master of the North, great and sublime in sacred
composition, of inexhaustible invention, displaying much breadth,
variety, and depth in his treatment; he delights in full and powerful
harmonies, yet, after all--owing to an existence passed in journeys,
as well as service at court, and occupied at the same time with both
sacred and secular music--he came short of that lofty, solemn tone
which pervades the works of the great master of the South, Palestrina,
who, with advancing years, restricted himself more and more to church
music." Of the celebrated penitential psalms of Di Lasso, it is said
that Charles IX. of France ordered them to be written "in order to
obtain rest for his soul after the terrible massacre of St.
Bartholomew." Aside from his works, this musician has a claim on fame
through his lasting improvements in musical form and method. He
illuminated, and at the same time closed, the great epoch of Belgian
ascendancy, which had given three hundred musicians of great science
to the times in which they lived. So much has been said of Orlando di
Lasso, for he was the model and Mentor of the greatest of early church
composers, Palestrina.