THE GOLDEN AGE OF POLYPHONY
Invention of music printing--The Reformation--The immediate
successors of Josquin; Adrian Willaert and the Venetian school;
Germany and England--Orlando di Lasso--Palestrina; his life--The
Palestrina style; the culmination of vocal polyphony--Conclusion.
I
The deep vital forces which had for two hundred years been urging
Italy to magnificent achievement broke through into music during the
course of the sixteenth century. Music was, as she has always been,
the last to respond to a general movement; but the response, when it
came, entailed an entire reconstruction of the art. All through the
century the process of reconstruction was active. It was, however,
gradual in its working. Only toward the very end of the century a few
bold explorers and experimenters turned their backs upon the past, cut
loose from the old art of music and started in to build with new stone
and new tools a new art. We have to do in this chapter with the old
art; on the one hand, with influences which boldly altered it, and with
new developments which were set free through these alterations; on the
other, with its ultimate perfection and consequent end.
The invention of music-printing just before the beginning of the
century had a powerful influence upon the development of music. The
beautiful manuscripts in which early music has been preserved to us
were the work for the most part of monks, and are another evidence of
the restriction of music to the church. With the invention of printing
came a liberation from this restraint. Music circulated through the
lay society--all kinds of music, both secular and sacred--it stepped
from the dim vast cathedrals and went among the people and entered into
their homes and into their lives. The world of men and women welcomed
it and changed it, formed it to the expression of their joys and
sorrows. The superhuman intricacies of counterpoint and canon little by
little withered and fell by the way.
Ulrich Han, of Ingolstadt, in 1476 solved the problem of printing music
by means of movable types, but his invention seems to have languished
until other enterprising men took it up. In Italy this was done by
Ottaviano dei Petrucci, born in 1466 at Fossombrone, near Ancona.
Petrucci, one of the first monopolists in the business of printing
music, was, like Aldus Manutius, a man of good birth and fortune. Some
time before 1498 he had established himself at Venice, and obtained
from the municipal council the sole privilege, for twenty years, of
printing figured music (_canto figurato_), and music in the tablature
of the organ and lute. This meant that, so far as Venice was concerned,
all the published lamentations, frottole, motets, and masses were to
issue from Petrucci’s press.
His first publication in 1501 was a collection of ninety-six pieces,
most of them written for three or four voices, by Okeghem, Hobrecht,
Josquin, Isaak, and others. The printing was done by a double process:
first the staff, then the notes, in a small quarto, with fine black
ink. The parts stood opposite one another on the open page, thus:
soprano │ tenor
alto │ bass
The registry or 'fit’ of the notes was perfect, and the effect of the
whole was admirable.
This expensive double process, however, was superseded about five years
later by another, simpler one, involving only one impression. In 1511
Petrucci left his plant at Venice in the hands of others and returned
to Fossombrone. Two years later he obtained a patent from Pope Leo X
for all the printing in the papal states for a period of fifteen years.
Petrucci’s last publication, a collection of eighty-three motets, is
dated 1523. His works are rare and highly valued as antique specimens
of printing, and the man himself is also remembered for the standards
of neatness and precision which he established.
Pierre Attaignant is said to be the first to introduce music printing
by means of movable types into France. In the nine years from 1527 to
1533 Attaignant printed nineteen books of motets of various French
and foreign masters. These prints are also very rare and historically
important. His work was still going on in 1543, but it seems that
the famous Ballards were soon to take it up. The names not only of
printers, but of the engravers and founders of these first music types
are justly preserved. Pierre Hautin was engraver for Attaignant,
and Etienne Briard a founder at Avignon. Briard furnished the first
known specimens of round notes, in place of the usual quadrangular
shapes, and these were used for the first time in printing the works
of Carpentras in 1532. This, however, was an exception, as the round
notes were not generally introduced into print until about the year
1700. Le Bé was another well-known type founder. His types were of the
sort which printed notes and lines simultaneously. Each individual type
contained a note and a portion of the staff; but later Le Bé adopted
Petrucci’s method of double impressions.
Adrian Leroy, a lute player, singer, and composer, appears as the next
printer of renown in Paris after Attaignant. Leroy presently joined
forces with another follower of the craft named Ballard--incidentally
marrying the daughter of the house--and in 1552 the firm obtained a
patent as sole printers of music for King Henry II of France. This
patent, frequently renewed, remained in the Ballard family until it
was abolished by the French Revolution, more than two hundred years
later; and the types of Le Bé, printing both notes and lines at once,
purchased by Pierre Ballard in 1540 for fifty thousand livres, were
still in use in 1750. One cannot help suspecting that these types,
excellent as they must have been, grew old-fashioned long before they
were laid aside. But monopoly has its uses. There was no one to compete
on equal terms with the distinguished and influential Ballards; so
there was no use to them in making expensive changes in type.
For more than two centuries, then, the Ballard family held an important
place as printers of music in France. The famous Orlando di Lasso
visited them; Lully’s operas were printed by them, first from movable
types, later from copper plates. In the early days of the firm Leroy
himself wrote an instruction book for the lute, which was translated
into English in two different versions--one by a writer named F. K.
Gentleman. Leroy also wrote an instruction book for the 'guiterne’
(guitar) and a book of _airs de cour_ for the lute, in the dedication
of which he said that such airs were formerly known as _voix de ville_.
In England Thomas Tallis and his pupil, William Byrd, obtained in 1575
a monopoly for twenty years of all music printing done in the realm.
II
The invention of printing meant, as we have said, that music was no
longer centralized about the church. Yet it has to be granted that
one of the greatest impulses music has ever received came to it in
the early sixteenth century from a new religion; an impulse which,
destined to be checked for a while, though not killed, by the horrors
of religious warfare in the next century, was to gain thereafter ever
more and more strength and lead at last to truly magnificent heights in
the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. The new religious movement to which
we refer was the Protestant Reformation under the leadership of Martin
Luther.
We have said consciously that music received thereby a new impulse.
To hold that music was entirely reconstructed by Luther, that he
discarded all the forms and technique of music that had been up to that
time developed in the art, is quite as mistaken as to hold that he
wholly discarded the Roman ritual and built up a new and independent
service. The change which the Reformation brought to music was like the
change it brought to the service, far more one of spirit than one of
form. Luther’s reform was essentially to abolish the mediation of the
priesthood, to clear from the service in so far as possible all that
might stand between the worshipper and his God, to give freedom to the
intimate personal communion between God and man which the northerner
naturally feels and practises. In this respect Luther’s reform would
theoretically restore all music in the service to the congregation.
But Luther was dearly fond of music, of, so to speak, the best music.
His favorite composers were Josquin des Prés and Ludwig Senfl, both
contrapuntists of enormous skill. Their music was a worthy adornment
of the service. 'I am not of the opinion,’ he said, 'that on account
of the Gospel all the arts should be crushed out of existence as some
over-religious people pretend; but I would willingly see all the arts,
especially music, in the service of him who has created and given
them.’ Congregational singing is anything but an art; often, indeed,
is hardly music. Luther had no intention to dismiss trained choirs
from the churches and give over all the music of the service to the
untrained mass of worshippers. The trained choir therefore was retained
in all the Lutheran churches, which could afford to pay for one, and
music for these choirs--that is, artistic music, often music written by
Catholic composers in complicated contrapuntal style--held an honored
place in the Lutheran ritual.
The personal intimate spirit from which the reform drew life, however,
found an expression in music. To the congregation was allotted a
greater or less portion of song. It will be remembered that the early
Christians sang together and that not until the seventh century was the
privilege taken from them and restricted only to a trained choir. The
German people, as a matter of fact, seem never to have quite given up
their share in the musical part of the service. At some of the great
festival services they joined in the _Kyrie_ and in the _Alleluia_, and
very early it became the custom to insert German verses in the liturgy
at these places. Thus there developed a literature of German hymns,
sometimes partly German and partly Latin, as the following old Easter
hymn, obviously interpolated in the _Kyrie_:
'Christ ist erstanden
Von der Marter alle.
Des sollen wir alle froh sein,
Christ soll unser Trost sein,
Kyrioleis.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!
Des sollen wir alle froh sein,
Christ soll unser Trost sein,
Kyrioleis.’
In connection with the mystery plays other hymns were written, such as
the following cradle-song, part German, part Latin and part nonsense:
'In dulci jubilo
Nun singet und sei froh.
Unser’s Herzens Wonne
Liegt in præsipio,
Und leuchtet als die Sonne.
Matris in gremio.
Alpha et O. Alpha et O.’
About these hymns there was woven a sort of religious folk music.
By the time of the Reformation there was a whole literature to draw
from and Luther needed only to organize and standardize many of the
hymns which had been familiar to the people for generations. To these
he added others of his own writing. The music was drawn from all
sources, practically none was especially composed. Luther had to aid
him in compiling his hymn-book two famous musicians, Konrad Rupff and
Johann Walther. In 1524 these two men were his guests for a period of
three weeks. Köstlin[114] writes: 'While Walther and Rupff sat at the
table bending over the music sheets with pen in hand, Father Luther
walked up and down the room, trying on his fife to ally the melodies
that flowed from his memory and his imagination with the poems he had
discovered, until he had made the verse melody a rhythmically finished,
well-rounded, strong, and compact whole.’ Here we have a picture of
the German hymn-tune, later called the _chorale_, in the process of
crystallization.
'The Devil does not need all the good tunes for himself,’ Luther wisely
remarked, and he drew from all sources, secular and sacred, for his
melodies. The same breadth of choice was likewise exercised by his
followers throughout the century: a song sung by the footsoldiers at
the battle of Pavia became the _Durch Adam’s Fall ist ganz verderbt_;
the chorale melody _Von Gott will ich nicht lassen_, can be traced to
an old love song, _Einmal tät ich Spazieren_; a love song, _Mein G’müt
ist mir verwirret von einer Jungfrau zart_, by Hans Leo Hassler, became
the choral melody to the funeral-hymn _Herzlich thut mich verlangen_,
and later the same melody was set to Paul Gerhardt’s hymn, _O Haupt
voll Blut und Wunden_, and in that form holds a leading part in Bach’s
St. Matthew Passion. Nor were the chorale tunes taken from Germany
alone. Favorite part-songs of Italy and France were appropriated and
set to German words.
The hymn-book compiled by Luther with the help of Rupff and Walther
was published in Wittenburg in 1524. It was intended for church use,
and that the compilers had the choir, not the congregation, in mind is
proved by the fact that all the tunes are contrapuntally set, with the
melody as _cantus firmus_ in the tenor, that is to say, in the middle
of the music, not soaring triumphantly aloft majestically to guide the
congregation. We have, therefore, in these chorales of Luther not a new
form but a new spirit. How great a part the congregation ever actually
took in them is open to discussion. Doubtless in those churches where
there was no skilled choir, congregational singing played an important
rôle; but it seems likely that in those churches where there was such
a choir, congregational singing was kept as much in the background as
possible. In 1586 Lukas Osiander published a set of fifty chorales,
'set contrapuntally in such a way that the whole Christian congregation
can always join in them.’ This was obviously a kind attempt to bring
the more or less neglected congregation into the musical part of the
service. In Osiander’s arrangements the melody is in the soprano. But
the setting is still too intricate for general use and the same rather
condescending, yet still lofty, attitude toward the congregation is
characteristic of all composers down to the time of Bach.
The question of just how the congregation sang those chorales allotted
to them is also in doubt. It is hardly possible that in the first half
of the sixteenth century the organ accompanied them. The organ was
still far too imperfect to attempt polyphonic playing such as would
afford a harmonic support to the singers, who, we may presume, sang
only in unison. It is more likely that the organ and the congregation
alternated, or that the choir and the congregation sang in turn. Toward
the end of the century attempts were made to have the choir lead the
congregation, and then later, in the course of time, the organ was
perfected and was used for accompaniment, coming soon to drown out
the choir, which had little chance to maintain a leadership over the
mass of singers on the one hand and the organ on the other. Thus the
organ finally took the leadership. In its new position it no longer
alternated with the congregation, and the skill which organists had had
an opportunity to show in the solo passages, alternating, in the old
days, with the congregation, was now concentrated upon the prelude. In
this way the foundation for a characteristically German art-form in
organ music, the _chorale-prelude_, was laid.
Though Luther was too much of a musician to be willing to give over
the music of the service to be mishandled by a crowd of untrained
singers, he none the less intended his chorale melodies to enter into
the lives of the German Protestants. Thus, while, on the one hand, we
have Luther’s own book and subsequent books in the same contrapuntal
style, on the other, we have hymn-books in which only the melody was
written and which carried the noble old tunes to every hearth and home
throughout Protestant Germany. The first 'house’ hymn-book appeared a
short while before Luther’s church book. It was compiled by Luther’s
friend, Justus Jonas, and was called the _Erfurt Enchiridion_. Among
the hymns contained in it were two old Latin hymns, already mentioned
in Chapter V, the _Veni redemptor gentium_, by St. Ambrose, and the
_Media in vita_, by Notker Balbulus, both, of course, done into German.
An interesting collection was published in Frankfurt in 1571 with the
preface: 'Street songs, cavalier songs, and mountain songs transformed
into Christian and moral songs, for the abolishing, in the course of
time, of the bad and vexatious practice of singing idle and shameful
songs in the streets, in fields, and at home, by substituting for them
good sacred and honest words.’ The chorale melodies, indeed, became
the property of the Germans. They were colored with the sentiment of
a whole race; they took on a nobility and a dignity, they seemed to
germinate new life, and, finally, they became the glory of a lofty art,
based on the skill of the Netherlanders, modified and adorned according
to a new style soon to be perfected by the Italians, and infused with
rich, warm life flowing from the very hearts of the German people.
The Protestant Reformation did not, then, at once alter the form
of church music in Germany. Other influences, sprung from Catholic
Italy, were to be far more powerful in that respect. Even the tendency
toward harmonic writing, toward emphasizing the progression of chords
rather than the interweaving of melodies, which the chorale melodies
undoubtedly furthered, was a tendency very evident in Italian church
music of the time, notably at Venice, was indeed a mark of the time.
The true significance of the Lutheran reform in the history of music is
that it laid music open to a flood of genuine strong feeling, personal,
intimate, intensely human feeling, which little by little during the
next two centuries, in spite of the horror and agony of persecution and
warfare, permeated every vein and artery of music, and filled them with
vital warmth and glowing color. During the Thirty Years’ War only the
hymn and the chorale melody escaped destruction in Germany, and these
survived because they were actually a part of the people and could
cease to exist only when the race had been stamped out.
In France and in England the Protestant movement had far less influence
upon music than in Germany. In France this seems to be explained by
the fact that the French had not, like the Germans, a literature of
native hymns, but had to construct their hymn-book from the Psalter,
and that they had a more slender stock of genuine folk-song to draw
upon. Zwingli, the leader of the Swiss Reformation, which was to win
the support of the Frenchman Calvin, was not in favor of music, and his
followers were ruthless in their destruction of organs and collections
of music. Calvin, on the other hand, had in regard to music more the
point of view of Luther. He drew freely from the Lutheran hymn-books
both melodies and words, but especially in favor of metrical versions
of the Psalms. These were set to music often excellent and finely
harmonized. Among the Calvinistic psalm writers Clement Marot is
most famous. It was he who, as court poet to Francis I, made several
versions of the Psalms into the style of ballads, which won great
popularity by their novelty and were set to gay tunes and sung by the
people at court. Subsequently, in forced exile at Geneva, he added
nineteen more to the collection of thirty he had already written, and
these were later supplemented and arranged in final form by Theodore de
Beza. Most conspicuous among the musicians connected with the movement
in France were Loys Bourgeois and Claude Goudimel. The latter may
have been a Netherlander and a pupil of Josquin. He was killed in the
massacre of St. Bartholomew in Lyons (1572). Bourgeois composed many
melodies himself to the Calvinistic hymns and set them more or less
simply in four parts. Goudimel, on the other hand, composed elaborate
settings in the style of motets with the melody, seldom his own, in the
tenor.
The English, like the French, relied upon metrical versions of the
Psalms for their hymn-books. Furthermore, the beginning of the
Reformation in England was complicated with political motives and
the movement was, for a long time, simply a break from the Church of
Rome rather than an outburst of religious convictions. Yet after the
suppression of monasteries between 1536 and 1540 there was something
of the same destruction of organs and music which had wrought such
havoc in Switzerland, and a general condemnation of elaborate church
service. The first attempt at hymn tunes was the _Goostlie Psalmes_
of Coverdale, drawn largely from Lutheran sources. Under Edward VI
(1547-1553) began the organization of the Anglican Church and the
drafting of liturgies in English. The movement was checked by the reign
of Mary, but under Elizabeth resulted in a standard ritual which called
forth the best musical genius of the country. An elaborate setting of
the canticles, etc., used in morning and evening prayer was encouraged
and a new art-form, the musical flower of the English Reformation, the
anthem, resulted from the setting of the variable portions of these
services.
III
The great spirit of the Italian Renaissance, which was essentially a
spirit of freedom and joy in individuality, thus took shape in Germany,
England, and France, and laid a hand upon music as it had already done
in Italy. On every hand it scatters its seeds, which will take root and
later flower. Elements of form and design, rich chromatic alterations
of harmony, splendid dramatic effects of answering double choirs
are woven into the intricate web of Netherland polyphonic music,
touching it with color and fire, making it fertile with new and vast
developments. But all is gradual; the art grows slowly and only slowly
changes. Amid the turbulent restlessness, the experiment and daring,
the old ideal, the ideal of the monasteries and the great cathedrals,
still awaits perfection--the touch of Lassus and of Palestrina.
We have seen that Petrucci’s first publication of 1501 contained
ninety-six pieces, most of which were by Okeghem, Hobrecht, Josquin,
Isaak, and others, such as Ghiselin, La Rue, Alex. Agricola, Brumel,
Craen, by far the most part Netherlanders. This was in Venice. We
need no further evidence of the popularity of the Netherland art in
Italy. The Netherland style had become by this time the standard style
of Europe; and during the first quarter of the sixteenth century
Netherlanders still held sway over the development of music. There were
pupils of Josquin in the Netherlands, in France, in Spain, in Italy,
and in Germany. His music flowed over the face of Europe and his art
penetrated to all the courts and into all the cathedrals. And upon
all his pupils the spirit of the Renaissance was at work. Thousands
of madrigals, of love songs, drinking songs, and hunting songs came
crowding from their pens and jostled masses and motets in confusion.
Program music was in the air, songs of battle, songs of gossiping
women, of birds, of shepherds and of shepherdesses. It is hardly
surprising that music for the church began to take on colors more and
more brilliant. It is more surprising that the old ideal of exalted
polyphony still endured and still called men to its standard.
Some of the pupils of Josquin are worthy of separate mention.
Perhaps the most distinguished of them was Nicolas Gombert. He was a
Netherlander by birth. We find him in the service of the sovereign of
the Netherlands, later in the royal chapel at Brussels. In 1530 he
was master of the boys at the imperial chapel in Madrid, and afterward
probably first master in the same chapel. In 1556 he was back in his
own country again, where, a few years after, he died. A large number of
his works, from special editions of the sixteenth century, have come
down to us, and some of his manuscripts, like so many other treasures
of this period, are in the Munich library. His work for the church is
characterized by a gentle, harmonious beauty, and Fétis called him the
predecessor of Palestrina, especially on account of a beautiful _Pater
noster_, which is marked by a lofty religious sentiment. He was very
successful as a composer of motets, and, in his secular works, showed
a tendency toward tone-color effects--program music--especially in his
chansons, _Le berger et la bergère_, and _Le chant des oiseaux_.
Benedictus Ducis, another Netherlander and pupil of Josquin, born at
Bruges in 1480, was distinguished by the musical brotherhood of Antwerp
by being elected Prince of the Guild--the highest honor an artist could
achieve at that time in the Netherlands. Leaving Antwerp in 1515 he
appears to have visited Henry the Eighth of England, and later to have
been in Germany. There is some difficulty in distinguishing the works
of Ducis from those of Benedictus Appenzelder, owing to the peculiar
custom of the time of signing manuscripts only with the Christian
name. It is generally conceded, however, that Ducis composed a funeral
ode on the death of his master Josquin, also a motet for eight parts,
_Peccantem me quotidie_, passion music and settings of the Psalms, the
earnestness and nobility of which justify his fame.
Jean Mouton, another pupil, was born probably near Metz, in Lorraine,
became chapel singer to Louis XII and Francis I of France, then canon
of Thérouanne and afterward of St. Quentin. His works show him to be a
master of counterpoint and a worthy pupil of Josquin. Petrucci printed
five of his masses in 1508, and later more than twenty of his motets;
and Attaignant included his compositions in the third book of a famous
collection of masses published in 1532, and also in a collection of
motets which appeared somewhat earlier. A few masses in manuscript
are in the Munich library. A large number of his motets have been
preserved, justly valued for their artistic and effective qualities,
which in some instances closely resemble those of his master. His
pupil, Adrian Willaert, was one of the most gifted and one of the most
influential composers of the next generation. He may be regarded as
the founder of the Venetian school of composers, who played such a
brilliant part in the history of music during the sixteenth century,
who were experimenters and innovators, whose energy opened many a new
channel to the course of music. The influence of Josquin thus passed to
Venice.
Adrian Willaert, born probably in 1490 at Roulers, in Belgium, first
studied law in Paris. Afterward he adopted music as his profession and
became a pupil of Jean Mouton. In 1516 we find him travelling in Italy,
visiting Rome, Venice, and Ferrara. There is a story to the effect that
in Rome he heard a motet of his, the _Verbum dulce et suave_, sung by
the papal choir, whose members believed it to have been written by
Josquin; and that they refused to sing it again when they discovered
it to be by an unknown composer. If this story be true, it may be
added here that Willaert lived to see the day when his compositions
were considered entirely worthy of attention, even from the most
distinguished body of singers in Christendom.
That time was not yet come, however. Willaert left Italy, taking
service as chapel master to King Ludwig II, ruler of Hungary and
Bavaria; but in 1526 he was back again in Venice, where, in the
following year, he received the appointment as first chapel master of
the Basilica of St. Mark, at a salary of seventy ducats, about one
hundred and sixty dollars. This was later increased to two hundred
ducats, about four hundred and sixty dollars, which was considered a
princely income. For thirty-five years the master kept at his post,
although twice during that time, once in 1542 and again in 1556, a
longing for his native country drew him back to Belgium. It was his
hope, indeed, to spend his last years in Bruges; but he had taken root
too firmly in Italy. Friends, admirers, and patrons urged him to remain
in Venice, and it was there, in 1562, that he died.
The Basilica of St. Mark was already ancient when Willaert came to
Venice. Founded in 830 to receive the relics of the second Evangelist
brought from Alexandria, rebuilt a hundred and fifty years later,
it had received its permanent form about the middle of the eleventh
century. Five hundred years had but increased its beauty and added
mellowness and historic interest to its charm. Externally, its domes
and pinnacles, its encrusted marbles and pillars, its bronze horses
and many-colored arches constitute a unique and splendid monument of
history. Within its walls, statues, columns crowned with capitals
from Greece and Byzantium, and rich mosaics blend in a beauty at once
impressive and magnificent. The interior is not large, two hundred and
five by one hundred and sixty-four feet; but it is particularly well
adapted to the use of the two organs, which are placed opposite each
other.
This circumstance suggested to Willaert the device of dividing his
choir so as to contrast the mass effect of the united voices with
antiphonal singing. With this device, happily carried into effect,
there developed in time, under Willaert’s hands, a new style of
composition for two choirs. It was this style which continued in
vogue for more than a century and formed the standard and became the
peculiar characteristic of the Venetian school.
In his early experiments with the divided choir Willaert made use of
the Psalms, whose poetical form, with the parallel half-verses and
refrains, seemed especially adapted to antiphonal rendering. Following
these, he composed hymns and masses, not after the manner of the eight
or ten-part compositions known in the Netherlands, but works specially
adapted to the double choir, each part complete in itself, each
combining with or opposing the other, and yet creating an impression of
unity and centralization. This was actually a new artistic creation,
and by reason of it Willaert became almost the idol of the Venetians.
They called his lovely music 'liquid gold,’ adapted his name to 'Messer
Adriano,’ honored him with verses and public addresses, and, in his old
age, besought him to leave his ashes to the city in which his artistic
triumphs had been achieved.
Willaert’s experiments with double choir effects had a profound and
lasting influence upon the development of music. In the first place,
owing to this, devices of imitation and canonic progression which had
so long been the most prominent feature of ecclesiastical and secular
music, became secondary in importance to chord progressions. The
reason is obvious. To get the best effect with two answering choirs
the sections which each sings must not be long and complicated, but
relatively short and clear cut, otherwise the effect of balance or
of echo is lost; and in these relatively short sections there is
hardly time to accomplish elaborate polyphonic development. Even if
there were, the polyphonic effects are far too subtle to be easily
recognized in echo or answer. The tendency in writing music for two
choirs was therefore toward a simple style, clearly balanced, with
certain definite harmonic relationships which could not fail to be
recognized when repeated. The composers of the Venetian school were
almost within reach of the harmonic idea of music, which rose clearly
to supremacy only late in the next century. They were actually breaking
away from the ecclesiastical modes, not only by thus trying to write in
a simple harmonic style, which was founded nearly on our ideas of tonic
and dominant, but also by enriching their harmonies with chromatic
variations. Willaert thus stands out as one of the founders of what
has been called the coloristic or chromatic school of the sixteenth
century. In his music, and even more in the music of his followers,
the old modes are constantly altered and with them the practice of
_musica ficta_, already mentioned, reaches its height.[115] It meant
the crumbling of the model system. It must not, however, be supposed
that Willaert abandoned entirely the traditions of the Netherlanders
and that he gave up writing in the complicated style altogether. He,
indeed, employed imitation and canon, but more casually; often only
at the entrance of short alternating sections. His voice parts then
proceeded in 'solid chord pillars,’ as Naumann has happily said, in a
style markedly in advance of the old contrapuntal conceptions. In him
therefore we have a brilliant example of the old style worked upon by
new impulses, by the spirit of the Renaissance, the desire for rich
color and varied, beautiful form.
Willaert was an industrious composer, and his works go far toward
making the period from 1450 to 1550 'the golden century of the
Netherlands.’ Masses, motets, psalms and hymns, madrigals and _canzone_
are all well-represented. One unusual composition, for five voices,
in the form of a narrative based on the Bible story Susannah, seems
like an early prophecy of the sacred cantata, although the treatment
is severely hymnlike and not dramatic. As a writer of madrigals and of
_frottole_ Willaert’s position is discussed in another chapter; though
it may be said in passing that in these, as in his sacred music, his
individuality is marked, and his knowledge and musical skill evident.
Though a northerner by birth, Willaert became the founder of a school
characteristically Italian, and his work seemed, to his contemporaries,
to embody the very spirit of Venetian life, in its richness and
variety. He brought to the Italians the inheritance of the Netherland
art, turned it into new and interesting channels, and revealed to later
masters what possibilities of color lay hidden under the strictness of
its laws.
Upon the death of Willaert, his pupil, Cipriano di Rore,[116] was
appointed to the high office at St. Mark’s. Works of di Rore, including
madrigals, motets, masses, psalms, and a Passion according to St. John,
were held in high esteem by his contemporaries, especially in Munich,
where they were frequently performed under the direction of Lassus.
Duke Albert of Bavaria caused a handsome copy of a collection of his
church compositions, graced by a portrait of the composer, to be placed
in the Munich library, where it still remains.
Following di Rore at St. Mark’s came Gioseffo Zarlino,[117] a member
of the order of Franciscan monks, also a pupil of Willaert, and a
theorist of great importance. Few of his compositions have survived,
but his theoretical writing, _Instituzioni harmoniche_, _Dimostrazioni
harmoniche_, and _Sopplimenti musicali_, remain in an edition of
Zarlino’s collected works published in four volumes in 1589. There
are also in manuscript French, German, and Dutch translations of the
_Instituzioni_, which contain, besides an important discussion of the
third, and the major and minor consonant triad, a clear explanation of
double counterpoint in the octave, twelfth, and in contrary motion;
of canon and double canon in the unison, octave, and upper and under
fifth, with numerous examples based upon the same _cantus firmus_.
Baldasarro Donati and Giovanni della Croce, both distinguished
musicians, in turn succeeded Zarlino as _maestro di capella_ at St.
Mark’s.
Elsewhere in Italy important composers appear, native Italians
who bring to the Netherland art the Italian gift of melody and
sweetness. Constanzo Festa,[118] a Florentine, occupies an especially
important place. Riemann says of him, 'He can be looked upon as the
predecessor of Palestrina, with whose style his own has many points
of similarity. He was the first Italian contrapuntist of importance,
and gives a foretaste of the beauties which were to spring from the
union of Netherland art with Italian feeling for euphony and melody.’
Constanzo Porta, a pupil of Willaert, was successively _maestro_ of
the Franciscan monastery at Padua, and of churches at Ravenna, Osimo,
and Loreto. Gafori (or Gafurius, 1451-1522), cantor and master of
the boys at Milan cathedral, left many theoretical writings of great
value. Arcadelt, already mentioned as a writer of madrigals, composed
a volume of masses, published both in Venice and by Ballard and Leroy
in Paris in 1557. Jacob Clemens, better known by the name of Clemens
non Papa, to distinguish him from the pope--a fact which attests, in a
jocular way, his popularity--was a Netherlander, and one of the most
famous composers of the epoch between Josquin and Palestrina, leaving
to posterity a large number of masses, motets, and chansons, besides
four books of hymns and psalms, the melodies of which were taken from
Netherland folk song.
Meantime in Germany we find also musicians of distinction, though as
yet none of the very first rank. One of the oldest of these was Adam
von Fulda, a learned monk, known both as a composer and theorist,
and the author of at least one highly esteemed motet, _O vera lux et
gloria_. Heinrich Finck, Thomas Stolzer, Ludwig Senfl, and Heinrich
Isaak all deserve an honorable place in the history of German music of
the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Isaak, though for
some time considered a German, was born in the Netherlands, probably
about 1450, and was one of the most learned of the contemporaries of
Josquin. He lived for a time in Ferrara, afterward becoming organist at
the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent. From this post he went to Rome,
and finally entered the service of the Emperor Maximilian I at Vienna.
Petrucci printed five of his masses in 1506, and included many of
his other compositions in collections published early in the century.
Manuscript works are in the Munich, Brussels, and Vienna libraries. His
part songs were considered models of their kind, and are not lacking
in interest even to-day. It is to Isaak we are indebted for the lovely
_Inspruck, ich muss dich lassen_, used as a hymn by the followers of
Luther, and by Sebastian Bach in the St. Matthew Passion.
Ludwig Senfl (born 1492, died about 1555), a pupil and the successor
of Isaak at the court chapel of Maximilian I at Vienna, was later
chapel-master at Munich. According to Riemann, Senfl was one of
the most distinguished, if not the most important, of the German
contrapuntists of the sixteenth century. He is further remembered
as a friend of Luther. A great number of his compositions are
preserved, among them being masses, motets, odes, songs, and hymns for
congregational singing.
The work of the brilliant Clement Jannequin in Paris was largely
secular and will be treated in another chapter. It may be remarked in
passing that types of composition perfected by him were to have great
influence upon instrumental music before the end of the century. In
England John Merbecke (d. 1585), Christopher Tye (d. 1572), Thomas
Tallis (d. 1585), and William Byrd (d. 1623) match the Netherlands in
skill and bring to their music not only the spirit of the new age,
but the peculiar melodiousness which has always characterized English
music. The works of Tallis became great favorites and in the famous
English collections of music for the virginals toward the end of the
century several of his vocal works appeared as transcriptions. Byrd
must be ranked as one of the most daring composers of the time. Though
he conformed to the new religion he remained at heart a Catholic, and
his great works are akin to those of the greatest Catholic composers
on the continent. He has, indeed, been called the Lassus of England.
Here, too, must be mentioned, though belonging almost more to the next
century, Thomas Morley (d. 1602), John Dowland (d. 1626), and perhaps
the greatest of all English composers except Henry Purcell, Orlando
Gibbons (d. 1625). All these men were composing at the end of the
century, especially madrigals and other secular forms famous not only
for their great technical skill, but for their remarkable sweetness
and expressiveness. They were all, moreover, skillful instrumentalists
and brought music for the harpsichord to a state far advanced beyond
anything on the continent. John Bull (d. 1628) was not only a master of
the art of counterpoint but a virtuoso on both organ and harpsichord,
whose match could be found only in Andrea and Giovanni Gabrielli in
Venice.
Everywhere the Renaissance spirit was at work, but prosperous Venice
stands out clearly as the centre of the new movement which so colored
and remodelled music. Effects of double choirs, chromatic harmonies,
tendencies toward definiteness of form, and even the combination of
voices and instruments within the church itself, all marks of the
changes which were affecting the development of music, all signs of
the liberation of music from the sway of the church and of its closer
relationship with passionate active life, are first found in the works
of the composers who were connected with St. Mark’s cathedral. But
these men were really pioneers and the results of their innovations,
though radical and far-reaching, were hardly foreseen. They sowed
seeds, so to speak, which were to grow and flower long after their
death. We have now to consider how the art of the Netherlanders grew
to a present perfection in the works of two men--Orlando di Lasso and
Pierluigi da Palestrina--both of whom, but particularly the latter,
pursued an ideal untouched by the modern forces playing upon music
about them; an ideal which, moreover, they attained and by attaining
brought to an end the first great period in the history of European
music.
IV
Orlando di Lasso[119] was born in the town of Mons, in Hainault,
probably in 1530. The Flemish form of the name, Roland de Lattre, seems
to have been abandoned early in favor of the Italian. The fate of the
musically gifted boy, both during and long after the Middle Ages,
was a choir school; and accordingly Orlando was entered as chorister
in the local church of St. Nicholas. A writer named Van Quickelberg,
giving an account of Lasso in 1565, says that he quickly came to a good
understanding of music, and that the beauty of his voice caused him
to be twice stolen from the school in which he lived with the other
choristers. Twice also his 'good parents’ rescued him; but, finally
(at the age of twelve), he became attached to the suite of Ferdinand
of Gonzaga, Viceroy of Sicily, with whom he travelled to Italy.
Orlando stayed for some time in Naples, Rome, and Milan, continuing
his studies, and then seems to have undertaken a long journey through
France and England. By the year 1555 he was settled in Antwerp and
rather widely known as a composer. Two years later Albert V, duke
of Bavaria, called him to serve as chamber musician at his court in
Munich. Duke Albert was a liberal man, a connoisseur of art, and, oddly
enough, a man of some fame both in the athletic and in the religious
world. He founded the famous royal library of Munich, to which we have
had frequent occasion to refer, and enriched it during his lifetime
with many valuable manuscripts and objects of art.
At first Lasso, being unfamiliar with the German language, filled
rather a subordinate position among the duke’s musicians; but in 1562
he was appointed master of the chapel, which included both the choir
and an orchestra. From this year on, up to the time when the illness
attacked him which resulted in his death, his career was one of
ever-increasing success and prosperity. He was called the 'Prince of
Musicians.’ In 1570 he was ennobled by the Emperor Maximilian II, and
in the year following Pope Gregory XIII decorated him with the Order
of the Golden Spur. On visiting Paris he was received with great favor
by King Charles IX; while at home Duke Albert assured him his salary
for life and appointed three of his sons to honorable positions in the
chapel. The successor of Albert, Duke Wilhelm II, not only confirmed
Lasso in his position, but presented him, in appreciation of his
services, with a house and garden, and also made suitable provision for
his wife. Neither the favor of royalty nor the admiration of princes,
however, could render him immune to ill fortune. His last few years
were clouded by mental trouble and melancholia. In June, 1594, he died,
and was buried in the cemetery of the Franciscans. The monastery has
been destroyed, but the monument to Lasso was preserved and now stands
in the garden of the Academy of Fine Art in Munich.
Although the name of Lasso is not so well known to the world to-day
as that of Palestrina, his career was a remarkable one. In the
oft-mentioned Munich library, among other works of the master, is a
manuscript copy of his most famous work, the 'Penitential Psalms,’
written between 1562 and 1565, but not published until some time later.
At the performance of these psalms Duke Albert was so impressed and
affected that he caused a manuscript copy to be made and placed
in his library. It was richly ornamented by the court painter, Hans
Mielich, and other artists, and magnificently bound in leather.[120]
Duke Albert was perhaps an exceptional patron; but, granting that to be
the case, Lasso’s career shows how honorable was the position held by a
great musician in his century.
[Illustration: ORLANDO di LASSO.]
In the duke’s chapel were upward of ninety singers and players, several
of them composers of merit, all of them musicians of ability. The
choir singing was well balanced, and correct in pitch, even through
the longest compositions. The general order of the ducal service was
for the wind and brass instruments of the orchestra to accompany the
mass on Sundays, and festival days, and, on the occasion of a banquet,
to play during the earlier courses of the dinner. The strings, under
Morari as conductor, then enlivened the remainder of the feast until
the dessert, when Lasso and his choir of picked voices would finish
the entertainment with quartets, trios, or pieces for the full choir.
For chamber music, all the instruments would combine. The duke and
his family were keenly interested in Lasso’s work, passionately
fond of music in itself and proud of the celebrity of their chapel
master. It is one of the instances where reverence and appreciation
came to the artist during his lifetime; and it is not to be doubted
that these fortunate circumstances had a tremendous influence on the
master’s work. His industry and fertility were prodigious. Compositions
amounting to two thousand or more are accredited to him--masses,
motets, magnificats, passion music, frottole, chansons and psalms.
There are two hundred and thirty madrigals alone. Following the lead
of Willaert, he sometimes used the divided choir and composed for it,
and also showed himself not indifferent to the growing taste for psalm
singing.
The Seven Penitential Psalms, composed at the duke’s request, are
for five voices, some numbers with two separate movements for each
verse, the final movement, _Sic erat_, for six voices. Each psalm
is a composition of some length, though modern ideas as to their
tempi, and therefore as to the time required for their performance,
show considerable variation. 'It is not true that Lasso composed the
Penitential Psalms to soothe the remorse of Charles IX, after the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, but it is more than probable that they
were sung before that unhappy monarch, and his musical sense must
indeed have been dull, if he found no consolation and hope expressed
in them. This is no everyday music, which may charm at all seasons, or
in all moods; but there are times when we find ourselves forgetting
the antique forms of expression, passing the strange combinations
of sounds, almost losing ourselves in a new-found grave delight,
till the last few moments of the psalm--always of a more vigorous
character--gradually recall us as from a beautiful dream which “waking
we can scarce remember”.... So unobtrusive is its character that we
can fancy the worshippers hearing it by the hour, passive rather than
active listeners, with no thought of the human mind that fashioned its
form. Yet the art is there, for there is no monotony in the sequence of
the movements. Every variety that can be naturally obtained by changes
of key, contrasted effects of repose and activity, or distribution
of voices, are here; but these changes are so quietly and naturally
introduced, and the startling contrasts now called “dramatic” so
entirely avoided, that the composer’s part seems only to have been
to deliver faithfully a divine message, without attracting notice to
himself.’[121]
De Lasso’s secular compositions are placed by critics almost
unanimously even above his ecclesiastical work. The madrigals and
chansons reveal force and variety of treatment, bold experiments with
chromatics, a freer modulation and a keen sympathy for the popular
elements of music. 'Lasso shed lustre on, and at the same time closed,
the great epoch of the Belgian ascendancy, which, during the space
of two hundred years, had given to the world nearly three hundred
musicians of marvellous science.’[122] The decline and fall of the
Netherland school, which began with the death of its last great master,
Lasso, are ascribed by Fétis to the political disturbances and wars
of the sixteenth and succeeding centuries. But it seems more probable
that the intricacies of the contrapuntal art created a desire for
simpler methods. The genius of Italy and Germany, upon whose soil the
last Netherland masters flourished, supplied the very qualities which
brought the art to perfection.
V
It has already been related how, even as early as 1322, the liberties
which careless, ignorant, or sacrilegious singers took with the Roman
service had called forth denunciations from the papal chair. The
genius of the Netherland schools, dominating church music as it did
for a space of two hundred years, was, like Janus, two-faced. On the
one hand, it developed a musical technique so complete and perfect in
form that any further progress without an entire change of principle
seemed impossible; and, on the other, it fostered a dry, mathematical
correctness that led, at its worst, to an utter disregard of expression
and feeling. Only the genius of a Josquin or a Lasso rendered learning
subservient to beauty of expression and carried out the true mission of
art.
In Rome, however, no master had yet appeared who was great enough to
force into the background all the unsanctioned innovations by which
unscrupulous musicians sought to reach the popular taste. From the
time of the return of the popes from Avignon (1377) Roman church
music had been a continual source of dissatisfaction to the Curia. As
has been pointed out, the plain-chant became more and more overladen
with contrapuntal embellishments; the mass sometimes exhibited a
labored canon worked over a long, slow _cantus firmus_, the different
voices singing different sets of words entirely unconnected with each
other. Sometimes, again, the ritual was enlivened by texts beginning
with the words _Baisez moy; Adieu, mes amours_; or the much tortured
_Omme armé_, of which the tunes were as worldly as the text. If
these objections were lacking, another was likely to be present in
the absurdly elaborate style, which rendered the words of so little
importance that they might as well not have existed at all. The mass,
'bristling with inept and distracting artifices,’ had lost all relation
to the service it was supposed to illustrate. 'It was usual for the
most solemn phrases of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, or Agnus Dei to blend
along the aisles of the basilica with the unedifying refrains of the
lewd chansons of Flanders and Provence.’[123] In this manner the
beautiful ritual was either degraded by pedants into a mere learned
conundrum, or by idlers into a sacrilegious and profane exercise; and
the reproofs of popes and councils had, so far, not availed to keep out
these signs of deterioration, much less to lift church music to the
level of the sister arts.
In this situation the Council of Trent was forced to recognize the
degradation of music and to take up the question of a thorough and
complete reform. In 1564 Pope Pius IV authorized a commission of eight
cardinals to carry out the resolution of the council, whose complaints
were mainly upon the two points indicated above--first, the melodies
of the _canti firmi_ were not only secular, but sung to secular words,
while the other parts often sang something else; secondly, the style
had become so excessively florid as to obscure the words, even when
suitable, and render them of no account. Some of the members of the
council, it is claimed, declared that it was better to forbid polyphony
altogether than to suffer the existing abuses to continue. In the
passionate desire for the purification of the ritual even Josquin’s
works had been abandoned, not because of any lack of admiration for
them, but because he shared necessarily in the general condemnation of
all music not Gregorian. A modest and devoted composer, however, had
already attracted the attention of two of the members of the pope’s
commission, Cardinals Borromeo and Vitellozzi, and it was to him they
now turned in their need.
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born in 1526[124] of humble
parentage in Praeneste, or Palestrina, a town in the campagna four
hours from Rome. Early in life he came to the Imperial city, studied
with one of the excellent masters resident there, and then returned to
his native town to become organist in the cathedral. In 1547 he married
the daughter of a tradesman, by whom he had several children. In 1551
Pope Julius III called him to Rome as choirmaster of the St. Giulia
Chapel at St. Peter’s, where he succeeded Arcadelt. Three years later,
after the publication of a volume of masses, dedicated to the pope,
Palestrina received an appointment as singer in the papal choir. He had
a poor voice, he was a layman, and married. Each one of these reasons
was sufficient, according to the constitution of the Roman College,
to forbid his appointment, and Palestrina hesitated in his acceptance
of the post. Not wishing, however, to offend his powerful patron, and
naturally desirous of obtaining a permanent position, he resigned his
office at the St. Giulia chapel and entered the pontifical choir. This
appointment was supposed to be for life, and the young singer may well
have felt discouraged when, after four years, a reforming pope, Paul
IV, dismissed him with two other married men. In place of his salary
as singer the pope awarded him a pension of six scudi (less than six
dollars) a month. With a wife and family such a reduction of income
seemed nothing less than ruin to Palestrina, and, stricken with nervous
fever, he took to his bed. A little more courage, however, might have
served him better; for his dismissal did not spell ruin. In two months
he was invited to fill the post of choir master at the Lateran, and his
fortunes again brightened. He was able to keep his pension, together
with the salary accorded him in his new position. After six years
he was transferred to the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he
remained for ten years, his monthly salary being about sixteen dollars.
In 1571 he was reappointed to his old office of chapel master at the
Vatican.
Palestrina was chapel master at the Santa Maria Maggiore at the time
of the appointment of the commission for the reform of church music.
The Cardinals Borromeo and Vitellozzi, both active members, recommended
that one more trial be made to harmonize religious requirements with
the better taste of the people. A story has prevailed for centuries
that Palestrina was requested to write a mass which should serve as a
model of what the music of the sacred office should be, and that he
submitted three works, which were first performed with great care at
the house of Cardinal Vitellozzi, before a group of clergy and singers.
There was an immediate and enthusiastic verdict in favor of the
compositions. The first two were good, and were sufficiently praised;
but the third, the _Missa Papæ Marcelli_, as it was afterward called in
honor of an earlier pope, was felt to be the epitome of all that was
noble and dignified in ecclesiastical music, the crown and glory of
the service itself. It was first sung in the papal chapel in 1565. In
appreciation of the noble work, Palestrina was made official composer
to the pontifical choir--a post created especially for him--and
succeeding popes confirmed him in his office as long as he lived.
The story of the commission of cardinals and the musical reforms
instituted by the Council of Trent has been so emphasized by some
historians as to represent Palestrina as the 'savior’ without whose
services church music would virtually have ceased to exist. Such
a view, however, requires some modification. Church music was not
'saved’ by Palestrina in any such sense, though its debt to him is,
nevertheless, almost inestimable. There was never any intention on
the part of the cardinals to abolish it altogether from the church;
but they had long been seeking a form and a style which should be
intelligible, acceptable both to the devotee and the layman of
cultivated musical taste, and suitable to the office which it holds in
the sacred service. Ambros goes so far as to deny that there was any
cause for such wholesale purification; but, in view of the facts cited,
this is evidently an error. That the evil was widespread is proved by
the action that provincial synods took, in following the example of the
Council of Trent, Milan and Cambrai in 1565, Constance and Augsburg in
1567, Namur and Mechlin in 1570.
From the time of Josquin attempts had been made by one and another
of the masters mentioned in this chapter to make a more suitable
connection between text and melody, to simplify the contrapuntal
writing, and to put expression into their art. To some extent, as has
been seen, they accomplished their purpose. Josquin, Festa, Gombert,
Morales, Rore, and especially Willaert and Lasso, have all left
evidences of their noble endeavor in this direction. It was left to
Palestrina, however, to achieve a high level of style, the excellence
of which was reached by the other masters only in isolated instances;
and to prove to the cardinals that the music of the church could be
lifted to its true dignity. He differs, not in form, but in æsthetic
principle, from his contemporaries; but it is precisely that difference
which raised Palestrina to the pinnacle of fame.
The outward facts of his later life offer little that need detain the
reader. Among his patrons were popes and princes, but they did not,
on the whole, distinguish themselves by kindness or generosity to the
musician. Jealousy among members of the choir with which he was so long
connected was a constant source of unpleasantness, and his faithful
work was meagrely rewarded. His largest regular earnings amounted to
something like thirty dollars a month, and he apparently never dreamed
of any revenue from the sale of his works. Indeed, it is unlikely that
any very substantial reward ever came to him with his added honors as
a composer. Neither could he have added much to his gains by teaching,
for in the whole course of his life he taught but seven private pupils,
three of whom were his own sons. Continuous poverty was accompanied by
domestic griefs of the deepest kind. Three sons, all giving promise of
inheriting the father’s intellect and genius, died one after another;
the wife with whom he was especially happy died in 1580; and the one
remaining son became a profligate and worthless spendthrift. It may
be added that not long after the death of his first wife he married a
wealthy widow and so was well provided for till the end of his life.
[Illustration: PIERLUIGI da PALESTRINA.]
One event in the master’s life stands out in contrast to the general
sadness. In 1575, the year of Jubilee, fifteen hundred singers,
belonging to two confraternities of his native town, made a pilgrimage
to Rome, and utilized the occasion to do him honor. Dividing themselves
into three choruses, with priests, laymen, boys, and women among their
number, and with Palestrina himself at their head, they entered Rome in
a solemn and ceremonial procession, singing the music of their great
townsman. This was perhaps the only public honor Palestrina received
during his lifetime.
Among the friends of his later life were S. Filippo Neri, his
confessor, a favorite pupil named Guidetti, Ippolito d’Este, and
Giacomo Buoncompagni, a nephew of Pope Gregory XIII. The activity of
his early years continued almost to the very end. The record of the
second half of his life is but a long catalogue of his publications.
Whole collections of magnificent works were dedicated to popes,
cardinals, or princes, some of whom returned the honor with scant
courtesy. The last of these was a collection of thirty _madrigali
spirituali_ for five voices, in honor of the Virgin, dedicated to the
grand-duchess of Tuscany, wife of Ferdinand de’ Medici. Baini and Dr.
Burney are full of praises for these last productions. While he was
eagerly at work on another volume--seven masses to be dedicated to Pope
Clement VII--he was taken ill and died, February 2, 1594, comforted and
cared for to the end, not by his mean and worthless son, but by his
saintly friend, Filippo Neri. By order of the Curia he was buried with
all the honor of a cardinal or prince in the Basilica of the Vatican,
while the citizens of Rome, high and low, followed him in sorrow to his
grave.
VI
The immense number of Palestrina’s works is astonishing even in
that age of prodigious workers. The list appended to a prospectus
of a proposed 'selected’ edition of his works mentions ninety-three
masses, one hundred and nineteen motets, forty-five hymns, sixty-eight
offertories, three volumes of Lamentations; of litanies three books,
of Magnificats two books, of madrigals four books--all of which are
but a portion of his labors. The mass for Holy Thursday, _Fratres ego
enim accepi_, the mass for the assumption of the Virgin, _Assumpta est
Maria in coelum_, the motet, _Surge illuminare Jerusalem_, and the
_Stabat Mater_ for two choirs, are still in use in the papal chapel.
The _Improperia_, (reproaches of the Lord to an ungrateful people),
performed for the first time in 1560, immediately obtained a great
renown, and were added at once by Pope Pius IV to the collection of
the apostolic chapel. This work also has been repeated in the Sistine
chapel yearly on Good Friday up to the present time. Its performance
made a profound impression upon both Goethe and Mendelssohn. The
latter thus describes the singing of the pontifical choristers in the
rendition of this work: 'They understood how to bring out and place
each delicate trait in the most favorable light, without giving it
undue prominence; one chord gently melted into another. The ceremony,
at the same time, is solemn and imposing; deep silence prevails in
the chapel, only broken by the reëchoing “Holy,” sung with unvarying
sweetness and expression.’
The _Missa Papæ Marcelli_, which proved so important an instrument
in the history of church music, is written for six voices, soprano,
alto, two tenors, and two basses. Immediately upon its production
its popularity became very great. Cardinals quoted poetry in its
praise; the pope commanded that a special performance be given in
the apostolic chapel, and that it be transcribed into the chapel
collection in unusually large characters. Baini compares its grandeur
to that of Thirty-third Canto of the Inferno. Curious legends as to
its origin sprang up, and unauthorized 'arrangements’ went through
several editions. A poor adaptation for four voices was made by Anerio,
and others for eight and twelve voices by other followers of the
Roman school. It is perhaps the best known example of the celebrated
Palestrina style.
In a classification of Palestrina’s work the German writer Hauptmann
distinguishes three styles, corresponding generally to the master’s
very early, adolescent, and mature years. The first shows markedly the
influence of his Netherland predecessors and teachers. The melodies
move along independently without 'melting into chords,’ and the
predominating character is fugal and canonic. In this phase of his work
he was still influenced by the 'evil fashion’ of the period, which for
the most part subordinated the true meaning of the music to the display
of contrapuntal science. This quality is shown occasionally, also, in
later compositions, as, for example, in the mass with the well-worn
_L’omme armé_ theme, wherein he boldly met the Flemish composers on
their own ground and proved that he could write as learned counterpoint
as they. In these examples he seems intentionally to have adopted the
florid style of his predecessors, overlaying the theme with erudite
contrapuntal figures, and rendering it elaborate and difficult.
The mass _Assumpta est Maria_ may be said to illustrate the second
style, which is in marked contrast to his preceding work. The music
is much less elaborate, the voices proceeding, for the most part,
simultaneously in smoothly flowing phrases. The third, that known as
the Palestrina style, illustrated so famously by the Pope Marcellus
mass, is a combination of all that was best in the Netherland and
Italian schools. It is a vocal style in simple counterpoint, mostly
note against note, with only a moderate use of imitation, and an
avoidance of chromatics, violent contrasts, and everything approaching
the dramatic. At first he followed the custom of using secular tunes
for sacred works; but in his best period he almost invariably employed
the ancient plain-song melodies in connection with the proper sacred
text. Many of his _canti firmi_ are placed in the soprano instead of
in the tenor voice. Strict attention is shown to syllabic declamation,
and to a simple, singable arrangement of the voice parts, which is
frequently based upon a succession of pure triads. The harmony is
gentle and serene, and the devices for obtaining contrasts and tone
color are conspicuous by their absence; while the whole is imbued with
sincerity, devotion, and a great sense of beauty. Thibaut, a Frenchman,
says of him, 'He is so completely master of the ancient ecclesiastical
modes, and of the treatment of the simple triad, that repose and
enjoyment are to be found in his works in a greater degree than in
those of any other master.’
Contrasts and similarities between the lives of di Lasso and Palestrina
suggest themselves at once. The one a northerner, aristocratic, famous,
successful, rich, welcomed in the most courtly and cultured circles of
Europe, encouraged and richly rewarded in all his endeavors: the other
a southerner, poor, burdened with sorrows and difficulties throughout
his life, pursuing his calling without regard to favor or disfavor.
Yet they were alike in their prodigious activity, in their lovable and
gentle natures, and in their devotion to the Catholic Mother Church.
Both were rich in genius--the northerner more emotional, more sensuous
in harmony, more dramatic, the southerner more calm and serene in the
beauty of his work. Palestrina seems to have stood apart, untouched
both by the swarming intellectual novelties of the time, and by the
revolutionary spirit within the church. Great of intellect indeed he
must have been, for he conquered a vast field of learning, and reached
a point where his art was objective, universal, and perfect according
to its type.
With the death of Palestrina the first great period of what we may
call modern music, in distinction from the music of the ancients,
which was purely melodic, came practically to perfection which was
an end. A few distinguished composers carried on for a while the
traditions of the vocal polyphonic style, now perfect, chief among
whom were Giovanni Nanino (d. 1607), Thomas Luis de Vittoria (d. _ca._
1613), Felice Anerio (d. 1614), and Giovanni Anerio (d. _ca._ 1620),
possibly the brother of Felice; but new and powerful influences were
at work to turn men’s minds from this perfection and rapidly so to
modify the style itself that the characteristics and the spirit of it
vanished. It had grown up within the church, it was apt only to the
expression of exalted religious rapture, and even before the century
which brought about its flawless perfection the more passionate spirit
of man was seeking to express itself. Such a spirit brought color and
fire and dramatic vigor to music, even to music of the church such
as we have seen in Venice; and such emotional force the exquisitely
adjusted mechanism of polyphony was in no way suited to express.
We must remember that it was essentially religious music and that
pronounced rhythm and sharp dissonances were consciously avoided;
furthermore, that at its best it was to be sung without accompaniment
and that a conjunct, smooth movement of the voice parts was necessary
since singers in choir without accompaniment cannot be sure to sing
wide or unnatural intervals exactly. Since rhythm, dissonance, and
sudden leaps or turns in melody are the chief means whereby music
can express emotional agitation, the Palestrina style was not even
remotely suitable to the new and active spirit spread abroad through
the influence of the Italian Renaissance, which had discovered new
worlds, new arts, new sciences, new life. The delicate and infinitely
complicated structure could not but be rent and distorted. Luther with
his chorales, the English with their new service and the coming of the
Elizabethan age, even Willaert in catholic, rich Venice with his two
organs and his double choirs had forecast the end of the Palestrina
style.
Several features of this marvellous style were destined to disappear
simply with the natural growth of music. In the first place the
polyphonic ideal, in its highest, strictest sense--the submersion of
many melodies in a river of sound in which no melody is evident, the
complete suppression of individual personal utterance--was a mediæval
and essentially intellectual ideal. It could not long maintain its hold
against the inborn natural desire of the individual to sing out his own
personal feelings. For it meant the suppression of melody, an unnatural
restraint. In the second place, from the time when two melodies were
first joined the knowledge and appreciation of harmony were bound
to grow--that is, the knowledge of the effect of dissonances and
consonances following each other, and it needed but a matter of time
for men to come to plan music with the end of producing such effects
in a definite sequence. Now in polyphony the consideration of the
progression of chords was entirely secondary to the ideal of writing
several independent voice parts. Of course the influence of the church
modes was strong in delaying the development of the harmonic bases
of music, they were iron bands about harmony and they quite fettered
modulation, for it was forbidden to pass in the course of a piece from
one mode to another. But here again the Palestrina style is related to
the scholasticism of the Middle Ages. The ecclesiastical modes were
in general closely connected with the philosophy of æsthetics, on the
one hand, and with mathematics, on the other; and all the popular music
which has been preserved from the Middle Ages shows an unmistakable and
deeply significant choice of those modes only which resemble our own
major and minor.
In the suppression of individual emotion, in the banishment of rhythm
and other active startling elements of music in order to produce
the effect of vagueness and mystery, in the limitation of music to
ecclesiastical modes, the Palestrina style is the flower of the spirit
of the Middle Ages, of a spirit that in the lifetime of Palestrina
himself was already dissipating in thin air. He stands looking backward
upon the centuries which had given him birth, while on every hand the
activities of man were urging impetuously forward. To the new aims,
therefore, we must now turn our attention.
F. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[114] _Luther als Vater des evangelischen Kirchenliedes._
[115] _Musica ficta_ is music in which the ecclesiastical modes,
theoretically never to be altered, are freely varied by chromatics,
that is to say, in which the diatonic or natural notes of the modes are
raised and lowered by sharps and flats, either to enrich the harmony
or to facilitate the _leading_ of the voice parts. The instinct so to
alter notes that they may glide or lead, so to speak, into certain
chords is almost fundamental. The same instinct was equally powerful
in another direction in forming scales even among semi-civilized
races, only in scales, which are _melodic_ formulæ, the instinct is
to glide downward to a final note, as, for instance, in the Dorian
tetrachord of the Greeks, whereas in harmonic music the instinct is to
glide upward. The so-called _leading tone_ in our scale is the result
of harmonic instinct, and its final establishment in the scale is
certainly heralded in _musica ficta_. A comparison of the so-called
natural and harmonic minor scales in our own system will, perhaps, make
the matter clear to the reader lacking technical knowledge. The natural
A-minor scale comprises on the keyboard the white notes from A to a.
In the harmonic minor, that is to say, in the minor scale so altered
as to be suitable for the purposes of harmony, the G is raised a half
tone by a sharp and therefore _leads_ irresistibly to the A above it.
This sharping of the G augments the natural interval from F to G, and,
since this augmented interval is hard to sing, the F, too, is sometimes
sharped, and the scale then becomes what we call the melodic minor.
Nothing could be more indicative than this 'melodic’ compromise of the
power harmony has exercised over the development of music, for rather
than do without the _leading_ tone, which is itself an alteration of
the natural scale, we alter the scale still further. Our melodic minor
scale is therefore constructed to square with the harmonic need, a
queer paradox. Before harmony came to influence composers the true
melodic alteration of this scale of white notes between A and a would
have been the flatting or lowering of the B, so that the melody might
attain its most natural end on the lowest note of the scale by a
gliding half-step. It should be noted that relatively few indications
of chromatic alterations in _musica ficta_ were written in the score.
Singers were given a special training to enable them to recognize
when such alterations were necessary, and to alter correctly. Thus in
connection with _musica ficta_ elaborate rules were formulated which
are not distantly removed from our own rules of harmony.
[116] _Cf._ Chap. IX, p. 275.
[117] Born 1517 at Chioggia, in Venetia; died 1590 at Venice.
[118] _Cf._ Chap. IX, p. 274.
[119] Also called Orlandus de Lassus.
[120] This work contains the portrait which we reproduce herewith, and
which, taken in connection with its setting and the history of the man,
is of uncommon interest.
[121] J. R. Sterndale-Bennett, in Grove’s Dictionary.
[122] Kiesewetter: _Musikgeschichte_.
[123] Grove: Article on 'Palestrina.’
[124] Riemann: _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_, II¹.