which Bach and Handel conceived their works. His, however, is the spirit
of his time and nation, as was also theirs. Those who have accepted
the "Matthew-Passion" as the culmination of what music can achieve in
religion, condemn this Requiem as theatrical, maintaining that its
melodies are constantly suggestive of opera and its more vigorously
dramatic moments of stage effect; but the composer does not view it in
the same way. He has written as an Italian Roman Catholic of to-day felt
inspired to write, and has made no pretence of attempting to write as
a German Lutheran wrote over one hundred and fifty years ago. That the
work is one of great power in its way, and often reaches a high point
of impressiveness, has never been denied. Whether it is religious music
or not cannot be determined except according to the prejudices of those
who believe, on the one hand, that it is, and of those who believe, on
the other, that it is not. Verdi and the majority of his countrymen are
of the former opinion, and there is no universally received principle
of musical art that can be brought forward to prove that they are in
error. It is an argument that must be settled on either side by race
partialities. Moreover, at what point a composer shall be checked in
interpreting his text as he best understands it, cannot be easily
decided. The Requiem was written to do honor to the memory of Verdi's
friend, Manzoni, and that the composer acquitted himself of his task in
a spirit of sincerity, both devotional and artistic, admits of no doubt.
It is an Italian Requiem, and was so intended to be; and, therefore, it
is useless, and something more, to find fault with it because it is not
German. Its ultimate fate will not be decided by the critics, but will
rest on the success or the failure of the appeal it makes to posterity.
Verdi, though he has left no permanent mark on his art, has been the
most popular opera composer of his time, and his extraordinary musical
growth toward the close of his career indicates that there was in him
a capacity for far higher work than he achieved. It is to be regretted
that he did not sooner fall into line with the musical spirit of the age;
nevertheless, he has made an honorable and dignified name in his art, and
one that must always be mentioned with veneration.
[Illustration: B. E. Woolf.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: MUSIC IN ITALY]
[Illustration]
MUSIC IN ITALY
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, the morning of a new and powerful
intellectual life began to dawn. Renewed industry and commerce created
wealth. In large and flourishing cities, the sense of liberty and of
independence from the pressure of feudal rule united citizens in powerful
corporations.
With wealth and liberty, literature, art and science found a favorable
field in which to fructify.
From Italy the new light spread over the other European countries. The
Italians, everywhere surrounded by the sublime remains of Greek and Roman
art, recovered first from the lethargy and confusion, caused by the great
immigration of Northern nations. In Bologna, Pisa, Padua, Parma, Naples
and other cities, universities and high schools were founded, where it
is said, thousands of students from all countries flocked to listen to
the teaching of great masters; and in this rich, inspiring and varied
spectacle, Dante was the noble central figure.
The development of music, in Italy, kept pace with that of literature,
and its first emanations were based on the music of ancient Greece, so
far as its few surviving musical hymns could be deciphered.
Greece disappeared as a nation after the Roman conquest, and its music
vanished at the same time. The musical revival was an entirely new
departure which dated from the appearance of the early Christian converts
at Rome, during the time of the Apostles. These neophytes tried to
introduce the old tunes which they had heard in the holy city. But such
strange melodies could not, of course, find ready adoption, and they were
suppressed during the general persecutions. They were, it is true, used
in the worship which was secretly carried on in the catacombs. Here they
survived, transmitted from generation to generation by oral communication
only, during the three centuries that preceded the formal recognition of
Christianity by the state.
As text and music were greatly corrupted through such transmission, Saint
Ambrose, bishop of Milan, made, about the year 384, a collection of the
sacred tunes then in use, trying to restore them to their original form;
and he appended to the collection a code of technical laws, in order to
prevent future corruptions of the music. Saint Gregory the Great made
many additions (590 A. D.) to the work of Saint Ambrose, and at the same
time tried to establish more comprehensive musical laws. He was the first
to revive, in their completeness, the eight modes used by the Greeks,
and which supplanted the four used in the time of Saint Ambrose. The
collection of Gregory included, also, many new tunes and hymns, together
with music to the antiphones for the entire ecclesiastical year. All this
he gave in an improved mode of musical notation (Semiography), and he
called this new collection "Antiphonar."
The next stage in musical development was the important work of Guido of
Arezzo (1030), a Benedictine monk of Pomposa, who wrote voluminously on
musical theory and on the condition of the music of his time. It has been
the rule with historians of music to attribute to Guido many discoveries
which were doubtless made by other monks. Thus, he is credited with the
invention of counterpoint, solmisation, the staff, the hexachord, the
harmonic or Guidonian hand (see page 137), and the monochord. It is
doubtful if research will ever be able to establish with accuracy exactly
what we owe to Guido, but it is certain that he invented solmisation,
by applying to the diatonic scale certain syllables of a hymn dedicated
to John the Baptist, and they introduced new light and greater facility
into the study of music. The modification of Guido's solmisation by the
substitution of the more vocal syllable "do" for "ut," has been generally
adopted; but the French, whose u is, by nature, sufficiently vocal, have
not felt the need of this change.
In the early middle ages the entire study and teaching of science and
art, so far as it is known, was in the hands of the monks. They did their
utmost to maintain a clear distinction between learned and popular music.
Thus it happened that the folk-song, the utterance of the people, had its
own line of development. The earliest attempts in writing learned music
date from the time of Hucbald, a Benedictine monk of Flanders (840-930
A. D.) and of the staunchest of his followers, Jean Perotin; but Hucbald
was not the inventor of counterpoint. The principle of imitation and
the foundations of canon and fugue, were laid in Northern Europe; the
first great school of composition was established in the Netherlands.
Elsewhere in this work will be found a systematic and full treatment of
this period. We need therefore only direct attention to that essay on the
subject, which establishes the chronological connection of the Netherland
masters with the great era of ecclesiastical music at Rome.
The first Roman school owes its salient characteristics to the marked
preference accorded Flemish singers in the choir of the Sistine Chapel,
at Rome. The founder of the school was the Belgian, Constanzo Festa,
who obtained a place in the choir, in 1516. His compositions and those
of his pupils show distinct traces of the influence of the successors
of Josquin des Près, but they possess sufficient individuality to prove
the existence of innate genius of a very high order. Festa is believed
to have been the first Italian composer who became a thorough master
in counterpoint. But his Netherland tendencies did not prevent his
foreshadowing that tenderness, purity and simplicity which distinguished
the works of the great Italian masters who followed him.
The golden age of ecclesiastical music begins to dawn with the second
Roman school and the appearance of Giovanni Pierluigi Sante Palestrina,
one of the greatest and most original geniuses the world of art ever
produced.
Numerous changes had taken place in musical style up to the time of
Palestrina's appearance. When the rude forms of discant and organum,
practiced by Hucbald and Guido of Arezzo, had been abandoned in
consequence of the invention of counterpoint, the composers of the time,
following the course of development already indicated, struck out in an
entirely new art-form, called fugue. There were two kinds of fugue,--the
free or unlimited, and the strict or limited. Both kinds still exist,
but not under the same names. The former is now called real fugue, to
distinguish it from modern deviations from the classical model. The
latter kind we now call canon.
In earlier times the polyphonic styles, as well as the secular and
ecclesiastic, had each enjoyed a separate existence and undergone a
separate development; but the work of the Flemish masters did much to
counteract these natural tendencies, and to bring, as it were, all
musical grist to one mill. These writers not only made use of secular
tunes, in order, as they thought, to give more variety to their music,
but they often gave these tunes undue prominence, and thus rendered
impossible a really artistic performance. We meet with innumerable masses
based on secular themes, such as the first line of a well-known romance.
"L'homme armé," for instance, a very popular song of the period, was
thus used. It would be wrong, however, to attribute any irreverence to
these composers. They were merely following the promptings of laudable
and genuine artistic feelings, in employing that which should readily
appeal to the musical sense of their listeners. Nor are we without
examples of similar practices in other arts. In the works of the old
Flemish painters, for instance, not only do we see anachronisms in their
"Nativities," their "Marriages at Cana" or their "Festivals of Simon of
Bethany," but the scene is laid in some well known inn; we find in the
background a faithful copy of kitchen utensils of every description; and
through an open door we descry the familiar face of a tradesman, or the
portrait of the stout and coarse-looking innkeeper. It was a sign of
the times, and no one dreamed of censuring the artist who thus worked.
Those great painters threw on their canvas what they saw in every day
life, never thinking that it should be otherwise; and the composers did
likewise in their art. They used in an elaborate way the melodies most
frequently heard; but in the course of time this manner of writing had
disgraceful consequences. Musical degeneracy became so great and so
general that it could only be termed musical debauchery. It was against
absurdities such as these that the Council of Trent protested.
Pope Pius IV., having made thorough investigation, came to the conclusion
that the style of music generally cultivated was open to serious
objections. It was in 1564 that he convened a commission of cardinals to
consider the evil and to prescribe a remedy. This commission was inclined
to banish from the church all music except unisons and unaccompanied
plain chant; but it was decided, before issuing such a far-reaching
decree, to canvass the possibilities of introducing "modern" music which
should be free from frivolity. After much deliberation, they commissioned
Palestrina to write a mass in the purest attainable church style. The
result of their bidding was the composition of the Missa Papæ Marcelli.
The success of this remarkable work far exceeded the high expectations
that it had aroused. The Pope himself was present at the first
performance in the Sistine Chapel, June 19, 1565. So moved was he by the
work that, on leaving the church, he exclaimed: "This certainly must
have been the harmony of the New Song which the apostle John heard sung
in the heavenly Jerusalem, and of which this other John (Palestrina) has
given us a foretaste in the Jerusalem on earth." And so it was formally
determined that this mass should stand as a model for all church music
thereafter to be composed.
[Illustration: GUIDONIAN HAND.]
This composition by Palestrina, as well as very many others, not only
displays a complete mastery of counterpoint and vocal style, but also
deep religious feeling and a rare ability in writing for the human voice.
The sterling value of his works cannot be overestimated. Their influence
upon later periods has been immeasurable. Indeed, we may say without
exaggeration, that never in art has such a mighty change taken place as
that caused by the immortal Palestrina's reformatory efforts.
The earlier contrapuntists collected, stone by stone, the materials
which served their successors as foundations for further work. Ockeghem
was the first to use these fragments in a symmetrical way and to
bequeath a systematic style of music-writing to his followers. Among
these was Josquin des Près, who attempted to vivify and to infuse blood
into the hitherto lifeless counterpoint. But although his success was
considerable, it was reserved for Palestrina to free his art from
fetters, and to bestow upon it, as far as was possible, individuality.
The most noteworthy of Palestrina's Roman contemporaries were Vittoria,
Giovanni Maria and Bernar Nannini, Felice and Francesco Anerio, and the
famous composer of madrigals Luca Marenzio. But other cities of Italy had
also their schools, all, however, more or less under the influence of
Palestrina. The most prominent was the Venetian school, founded by Adrian
Willaert.
Adrian Willaert, born at Bruges in Flanders, in the year 1490, is said
to have been a pupil of Jean Mouton, possibly also of Josquin des Près
himself. He first studied law at the university of Paris, which, however,
he soon abandoned for music. As a young man of twenty-six he had already
made a name in his own country with his compositions. It seems, however,
that he was not successful in obtaining a position in Rome; he went,
therefore, to try his fortune in Venice. He succeeded so well there that
in 1527 he had already obtained the position of chapel-master in the
church of St. Mark. Under Willaert's direction the music at St. Mark's
became famous, and the office of chapel-master at that church reached a
high point of eminence; and thence until the eighteenth century the place
was occupied only by masters of the first rank. Willaert's influence as
a composer and as a teacher of musical art and science was great and
beneficial. He was the founder of the Venetian school of music from which
sprang so many distinguished composers, theorists and singers. He was
the first to introduce the double chorus in the antiphonal form. Up to
his death (1562) he kept his position at St. Mark's. He was a pioneer in
the broadest sense, for though his style was founded on that of Josquin
and his disciples, he began almost where they left off. Willaert's
introduction of double choruses in combination, at church service, led
afterward to a style of music which his followers developed to its
utmost limits, and which resulted in such monstrosities as masses for
forty-eight voices. They, of course, were no more than cold, mathematical
calculations, barren of intrinsic musical value.
Willaert, with his countrymen Arcadelt and Verdelot, was also the founder
or promoter of the madrigal, as a highly refined style of music. Hitherto
it had been a kind of wild-flower, a simple pastoral. But now it assumed
more importance. The so-called "sacred madrigal" was an offshoot of this
new style, and does not differ essentially from contemporary motets. At
a later period the comic madrigal came into vogue, through Vecchi and
others; and finally, the madrigal was introduced on the dramatic stage
in the earliest beginnings of opera, and gave rise to the modern opera
chorus. The most celebrated of Willaert's pupils were Cyprian de Rore,
also Flemish by birth, Zarlino, the great theorist, Costanzo Porta,
Nicolo Vincento (or Vincentino) and Delia Viola.
Cyprian de Rore was born at Mecheln. He was Willaert's successor at St.
Mark's in 1563, and died at Parma two years later. His originality was
manifested in his madrigals, which became so popular that the Italians
called him "Il divino." De Rore did not hesitate to use chromatic
intervals, and boldly entered upon the new path which his teacher had
merely pointed out. Considerable opposition was made to this innovation
at first; but soon other bold masters, such as Orlando Lasso and Luca
Marenzio, adopted chromatic intervals in their writings. These masters
deserve the honor of having prepared the way for the modern system of
major and minor keys and the chromatic scale. They did more toward the
attainment of a newer and higher type of music than all the speculations
of learned theorists and scholars had been able to accomplish.
De Rore's successor at St. Mark's was Giuseppe Zarlino, the greatest
musical theorist of the sixteenth century. Zarlino's specialty was the
theory of music rather than composition; hence, it is rather difficult
to form any idea of his talent as a composer, from the few compositions
that are at hand. His great work on the principles of music entitled
"Istituzioni harmoniche" holds a very high place in musical literature.
Before his day, musicians avoided the third in the last chord of the
final cadence of a composition; all pieces ending either with the simple
octave, or the octave with the fifth. Orlando Lasso was the first to
adopt this innovation in practical music, but he did not extend it to the
minor third, which was not used at the close of a piece until far into
the eighteenth century.
Zarlino justified the use of major and minor thirds and sixths as
concords, by his so-called diatonic system of "tempered intervals," which
was an improvement on the pure-fifth system of Pythagoras. This new
system recognized large and small whole tones in the series of intervals
comprising the diatonic scale.
The foundation of modern organ-playing was laid at Venice. The most
celebrated organ-players of the sixteenth century were offshoots of the
Venetian school. With regard to organ music of the Venetian masters,
it consisted of short pieces, the form resembling that of the modern
prelude. Free running passages and broken chords, with now and then some
hints of stricter counterpoint, were the characteristics of this music.
The titles indicated greater variety than the contents. Some of them were
named: Ricercari, Symphonia, Praeambula, Toccata, Capriccio, Intermezzo,
Canzone, and so on.
Von Winterfeld, a celebrated German author, gives, in his masterly
work, "Giovanni Gabrieli and his Age," the following complete list of
the organists of St. Mark's: De Berghem, Parrabosco, Claudio Merulo and
Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli. These two last, Andrea and his nephew
Giovanni, were the two greatest masters of the Venetian school.
Andrea Gabrieli was born in 1510, at Venice. He was appointed organist
of the second organ at St. Mark's and held this position till his death
(1586). He was a productive composer, and enriched church music by the
accompaniments of various instruments. He was a remarkable organist, and
was the teacher of Merulo, who was very famous as a composer and player
on the organ.
Giovanni Gabrieli was born in 1540 and was appointed, in 1584, first
organist at St. Mark's in place of Merulo. His genius was manifested in
all branches of musical composition. His church music is as solemn and as
elevated as that of Palestrina. Although he employed the church modes, he
seemed to mould their rigid forms into a more modern expression than had
hitherto been imparted to them. Ambros, another great musical historian
says: "He prays and we pray with him." If we compare the same text with
Palestrina, whose style is not less glorious, nor less elevating to the
soul, we feel an immense difference; for Palestrina is the last purest
sound of the older direction in music, while Gabrieli announces, in a
wonderful manner, the coming musical emancipation of the individual. In
unaccompanied vocal music he has never been equalled in the production
of rich effects of musical coloring; in separating and massing together
"choral harmonies." His compositions for two, three and four choruses are
wonderful exhibitions of skill and judgment.
Giovanni della Croce was the last representative of the Venetian school,
which died with him in 1609.
Florence, Naples, Bologna and Milan had also distinct polyphonic schools,
all of which exercised a decided influence upon foreign schools, not only
in their beginning but in their later development. Thus, the Venetian
school had a great influence upon the schools of Nuremberg and Munich,
the former founded by Hans Leo Hassler, a German, and the latter by the
famous Netherlander, Orlando di Lasso (Roland de Lattre.) The influence
extended even to Spain.
But these great workers were not destined long to enjoy that public favor
which they so richly merited. New forms of composition and new means of
expression were being carefully considered.
The rise in popularity of the monodic, the "one melody" style, involved
a sudden decline of interest in the polyphonic school. It is impossible
to give with exactness the date of the total disappearance of this later
style of writing in Italy. With the gradual introduction of madrigals
and through the influence of dramatic music, the hitherto accepted
rules of musical construction were subjected to a great change. In the
compositions in the old church modes we note, as distinctive traits,
an unrelaxing adherence to diatonic scale progressions and a strict
preservation of half-tone interval (mi-fa) in all the modes. By this
usage each key required, of course, its own special harmonic treatment,
and each of the cadences, or endings, differed in character from all
the others. The distinctions between the various mediæval keys were,
indeed, far more strongly marked than are those which exist between the
modern major and minor scales. These great differences led the older
church composers to attribute to each of the modes distinct powers of
expression; but just as no modern theorist has been able satisfactorily
to explain the nature and character of the major and minor keys, so the
mediæval composers had widely diverging ideas concerning the modes, and
employed them variously, according to their personal preferences.
Toward the end of the sixteenth century less strict laws came to be
applied to the use of the old church modes, and gradually their peculiar
diatonic was wholly lost. Through the efforts of the madrigalists, and
especially through the agency of the masters of the Venetian school,
the chromatic element became established in music, and the severity and
harshness of the church modes greatly lessened.
The most common forms of secular music in Italy during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries were the Frottola, the Villotta or Villanella,
and the Madrial or Madrigal. They were all part songs, more or less
elaborate, according to the sentiment of the poetry. The Frottole were
four-part songs, of a gay and trivial nature, generally popular street
songs; but some of them were more earnest and sentimental, being set to
good poetry (arcadica).
The Villotte or Villanelle were originally peasants' songs, as the
name implies. They resembled the frottole, but were more extended and
musicianly. The Villotte alla Napoletana were the most artistic songs
of this class, but were often sung to frivolous words. The Madrigal
was known as early as the fourteenth century, but it did not rise into
universal prominence as the representative form of secular music before
Willaert's day.
The word madrigal is derived from mandra, a flock, and denoted,
originally, a shepherd's song (Pastorale). As formerly stated, early
composers often selected for their masses Gregorian chants, or secular
melodies. In the madrigal, however, the composition rested upon original
invention, thus allowing more variety in form and contrapuntal treatment.
In the madrigal, the composer's endeavor was to express through adequate
music, the meaning of the poem: he followed closely, with appropriate
motives, the sentiment of the different verses. Strict and elaborate
canons and fugues were therefore out of place in the madrigal, in which,
though seemingly simple in its construction, the composer found ample
opportunity to display his mastery in contrapuntal writing. Great variety
in rhythm, poetical expression, characteristic melodies, new and striking
harmonies, were considered the necessary qualities of the madrigal. It
was generally written in three, four, five, six and even more parts,
though writing in five parts seems to have been most in favor and use.