NEW FORMS: VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL
Résumé of the sixteenth century--Rhythm and form; the development of
harmony; figured bass--The organ style; canzona da sonar; ricercar;
toccata; sonata da chiesa; great organists--The genesis of violin
music; canzona and sonata--The sonata da camera; the suite--Music
for the harpsichord--The opera in the seventeenth century; Heinrich
Schütz.
During the sixteenth century a style of music attained perfection, and,
as we have seen, two composers, Palestrina and Orlando Lassus, put upon
it the final stamp of great personal genius. This style is known as the
vocal polyphonic style. The music was written for choruses and for the
most part was intended to be sung without accompaniment. Centuries of
endeavor had gone to its development, during which composers bore in
mind first and always a great ideal--the combination of many melodies
in one euphonious whole. The result was a texture of music so nicely
woven that in the mass of smooth flowing sound no one melody was
evident to the ear, though many melodies moved simultaneously forward
with seeming independence, each crossing and recrossing the others,
each free to sustain a note while the others moved above and below
it, all coming at certain points to dwell together in rich chords.
Intended only for service in the church, it was a music perfectly
expressive of a rapt and exalted state of religious devotion, from
which had been expelled all the elements that might disturb and excite,
all harsh intervals, all suddenness, all lively rhythm. It was woven
about the Latin text of the mass and of other rites and ceremonies
of the church; but except for this connection with words it was
without form and unconfined. Without rhythm and without symmetrical
form--the very foundations upon which most music rests--it seems like
an edifice floating in mid-air, without foundation, ethereal, mystical,
and perfect. Such a music could indeed be brought no further after
Palestrina and Lassus; but it left to the world a model of polyphonic
technique which was to aid in the development and enrichment of
subsequent music, and which has had an indirect influence upon every
great composer since that time.
The last years of the sixteenth century gave evidence of a rebellion
from the laws of polyphonic technique; yet the musicians are at first
not so much actuated by a feeling of rebellion against this established
form as by an enthusiasm for other kinds of music, which, during the
centuries when all musicians gave their most serious thought to the
development of polyphony, had been more or less neglected--kinds of
music in which solo melody and rhythm play a part. Peri, Caccini,
Cavalieri, and the other brilliant young men who, just before the
turn of the century, composed music in a so-called new style, are not
inventors of anything new, but experimenters with the simple kind
of music which must have endured among the people through all the
civilized ages of man. They sought to raise simple song into an art,
and their experiments turned the attention of all men to those branches
of music which had for centuries been considered beneath the dignity of
serious effort. At the start, spurred on by the desire to restore the
combination of music and poetry which had been practised by the Greeks,
they became intoxicated by the sheer beauty of the human voice in
single melody, and by the ever further discovery of the power of music
to express live, poignant, human emotions beyond the ascetic rapture
of religious devotion. Indeed, the desire to express new emotions
in melody and harmony and the sensuous delight in sound are the main
causes of the remarkable developments of the seventeenth century which
not only produced a new form of vocal music completely secular and
independent of the church, though still bound to words, but also firmly
established instrumental music untrammelled by words or adherence to
text, beautiful and noble in itself alone.
Inasmuch as the marvellously perfect technique of writing polyphonic
choruses for voices was suited only to the expression of the vague
ecstasy which had formed it, composers were forced to invent a new
technique and a new style of writing. The ways by which they arrived
at this new style form the subject of this chapter. It will be seen
that certain ones built directly upon the polyphonic style, that others
developed solo melody and the solo adorned and elaborated by many
devices; and that it was by a union of the two ways that at last the
new style was made worthy and sufficient.
I
At the beginning of the century music was, so to speak, taken out of
the church and set, free and weak, into the open world. At once social
fashion seized upon it. Opera, for instance, became almost at once
the fashion of the day. From the opening of the first public opera
house in Venice in 1637 opera composers had to write their music with
regard to popular success, in other words, with regard to what the
public wanted; and since the public came soon to worship the human
voice even more than the music, the composer and his works were often
at the mercy of the reigning favorite singer. Moreover, in the course
of the century, a race of virtuosi sprang into prominence, men who
thrilled and electrified by display of technical skill, and won the
public by amazement. Music which is written only with the aim of giving
the performer a chance to exhibit technical skill cannot be adjudged
great music, nor even good music; yet the influences of attempts at
virtuosity were of inestimable value to the growth of music in the
seventeenth century, and indeed have been so at all times, though they
often appear a fruitless, hollow sham. For the virtuoso discovers the
utmost capabilities of his instrument and thereby widens the field of
composition. In the seventeenth century, and in the eighteenth as well,
the composer and the virtuoso were one.
As we have already seen, in the church music of Palestrina and Lassus
there was no active rhythm. The recurrence of regular beats was as
far as possible disguised to avoid the excitement which a persistent,
marked rhythm must convey upon an audience, and which is out of place
in the mystical rites of the church. But in the seventeenth century
composers of vocal music made more and more use of marked rhythm as a
means of conveying emotional excitement; and instrumental composers,
finding out little by little how lifeless music for instruments was
when not animated by rhythm, made rhythm more and more persistent and
obvious in their work. Along with the recognition of the life-giving
power of rhythm came the appreciation of clearly balanced structural
form, which is only a broader kind of rhythm.
Melody, rhythm, and symmetrical form seem to us the very essentials
of music. It must be ever a source of wonder that for centuries
musicians gave themselves to the development of a style of music which
deliberately suppressed them. Yet those very musicians whose long
labors are summed up and glorified in the works of Palestrina and
Lassus laid the foundation upon which the art of modern music has been
built. The polyphonic style, animated by rhythm and molded to melody,
became counterpoint, which, though in a sense the 'mathematics’ of
music and in the hands of an uninspired composer as dry as dust, is
none the less the very essence of the art; and in the hands of a master
the power and glory of man’s mind in music. We shall see it prepared in
the course of the century for the hands of perhaps the greatest of all
composers, John Sebastian Bach.
Spreading gradually through all the music of the century came the
new warm force of harmony. In the works of Palestrina and Lassus the
appreciation of chords is often evident; but the attention of both was
mainly centred upon the interweaving of many melodies, and for the
most part the chords which resulted from the simultaneous sounding
of many voice parts were not regarded in relation to each other, nor
planned beforehand in a definite progression. The flow of the various
parts was theoretically never directed nor influenced by an harmonic
plan. Moreover, the vocal polyphony was written in the various types
of scales known as the ecclesiastical modes, types which owed their
peculiar characteristics to the position of the semi-tone steps
within the octave. A change in the course of a piece from one mode
to another--a modulation as we should say to-day--was most rarely
ventured. In other words, there was no change of key. The practice of
raising or lowering notes in the scales by sharps and flats in order
to avoid harsh dissonances, or to let parts glide by the interval of
a semi-tone into the chords of cadences, which practice was called
_musica ficta_, had by the middle of the sixteenth century softened
the rigor of the modes; yet during the first half of the seventeenth
century the modes were still held to differ from each other in æsthetic
qualities, and composers were still under the sway of the laws which
governed them. The modes broke down gradually, it is true, and traces
of their influence are found late in the seventeenth century; but by
the end of the century they had practically given way to the major and
minor keys upon which our greatest music has been based. The subtleties
of the modes were artificial. The popular music of the Middle Ages
shows an instinctive choice of modes nearest our present-day major and
minor scales.
The enthusiasm for melody in the seventeenth century at first allowed
to an accompaniment only simple chords, to be played by lute or spinet,
which very soon came to be regarded as harmonic progressions. These
chords were not the result of the interweaving of various melodies, but
were entities in themselves, and came to be appreciated as such. Freed
from the laws of counterpoint and calculated to aid in the expression
of keen emotion, sudden unprepared dissonances found their place in
music. Chords were contrasted, their beauty and power were perceived,
and they were studied and used for themselves. Moreover, it became
the custom to play a few chords as prelude to an instrumental piece,
and out of this custom there grew up in the course of the century a
type of instrumental music called a Prelude, which was hardly more
than an elaborate series of chords broken up in arpeggios, of which
no finer example can be mentioned than the first prelude in Bach’s
'Well-tempered Clavichord.’ Thus the rich beauty of harmony came into
music, the most subtle, the most colored, and the most profound of her
expressions.
Perhaps the most characteristic mark of the new school of composition,
and one which points suggestively to the way in which harmony
developed, is the employment of what is known as a Figured Bass. The
voice parts of the great polyphonic masterpieces were often printed
separately, rarely together in one score; but the first operas were
printed in score on two staffs, on the upper of which the melody was
recorded, and on the lower a single bass part, with figures and sharps
and flats written under the notes to indicate the chords of which these
notes were the foundation and which constituted the accompaniment. The
origin of this Figured Bass is doubtful. It is possibly the result
of the endeavors of Italian organists in the sixteenth century to
free themselves from the task of playing those pieces written in the
old style from a number of separately printed parts. Whatever its
origin, it was perfectly suited to the monodists and to those who
during the century wrote in the new style. It is indicative of the
way composers centred all their interest in the melody, leaving the
details of the accompaniment to the discretion and the taste of the
accompanist, thought of in this case as a single player, using lute,
harpsichord, organ, or any instrument upon which chords could be
played. Evidently only a most simple accompaniment was expected, one
which merely supported the melody with chords and attempted little or
no contrapuntal intricacies. In cases where the accompaniment was given
to a number of instruments the Figured Bass still served only for the
instrument which could play chords, though the single notes of it might
be reinforced by an instrument of low range such as the viol. For the
other instruments which were to enrich the harmonies and add touches
of orchestral color special parts were written. So the harpsichord
became the centre of the group of accompanying instruments, and later
the centre of the orchestra, apart from opera, supplying the harmonic
basis of the music in solid chords. It continued to hold its central
place until at the end of the next century Gluck took a definite stand
against it.
The bass part itself was at first considered only as the foundation
of the harmonies of the accompaniment. It was not, therefore, an
independent melody, and was not planned in any contrapuntal relation
with the melody above it. But before the end of the first decade of
the century composers began to give it movement and a character of its
own, sometimes treating it in definite contrapuntal relation with the
melody. Thus early did the composers of the new school turn to the
science of counterpoint for aid in the construction of their music;
thus early began the new and the old to work together.
The Figured Bass is significant, not only of the way composers came
to an appreciation of the value of an harmonic foundation in music,
and of how counterpoint came to the aid of the new music when it was
leaden and uninteresting; it points also to the slow development of
the orchestra, of the skill to write for groups of instruments in such
a way that they could stand independently without the bolstering of
the harpsichord or the organ. The orchestral style proper is the most
complex style in music and was the slowest to develop. The employment
of the Figured Bass is evidence of the inability of composers to master
it during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
II
Yet though the composers of the seventeenth century were unable to
master the problem of the orchestra, their accomplishments in the
development of instrumental music, especially of music for small groups
of string instruments, were most important. The achievements of the
organists may be considered first, because in them the tradition of the
polyphonic style most evidently perseveres, and because they were the
first to develop a suitable instrumental style. The organ had been used
in the churches from very early times and had been little by little
improved until by the middle of the sixteenth century it was capable of
great power of tone and of some beauty and delicacy as well. During
the sixteenth century music for the organ had been cultivated by three
great Venetian organists, Andrea Gabrieli (1510-1586), Claudio Merulo
(1533-1604), and Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612), nephew and pupil of
Andrea. All three were world famous in their day, and men came from
Germany, France, and England to hear them play and to study with them.
The organs in St. Mark’s cathedral were among the finest in Europe.
Venice was brilliantly to the fore in music, and these three great
organists were in the very front ranks of innovators. If their music
sounds to us antiquated now it is because it was hardly in the power
of three men in the span of half a century to develop a style of
music for the organ which would be suited to its special qualities.
It must not be forgotten that serious musicians had given relatively
little thought to instrumental music, and had spent their lives in the
perfecting of a style in vocal music. These three pioneers in organ
music, therefore, had first to discover what sort of music sounded
well on the organ. The problems were difficult, for not only was there
the question of instrumental style, but likewise the question of form,
since instrumental music, deprived of the continuity of a text to hold
it in some measure together, must be wrought into definite form or else
remain an inartistic chaos of sound. It can hardly be said that these
early organists invented any clear self-sufficient forms. In fact, all
form had to wait until the harmonic idea was clear in men’s minds,
until the middle of the next century. In the collections of their works
are to be found _ricercari_, _canzone da sonar_ and _toccatas_; but
none of these has definite form. The ricercar was a piece in polyphonic
imitative style, of serious character, ancestor of the instrumental
fugue but very strongly bound to the vocal style of the day. It
differed from the fugue in that it presented no clear so-called second
subject as foil or play-fellow to the main subject; and, moreover,
in that there was even no consistent main subject throughout the
piece, but a rambling from one to another suggested by it, and so on.
Rhythm was indeterminate and frequently changing and there was little
suggestion of a definite metrical structure of formal significance.
The canzona was originally no more than an arrangement for the
organ of a secular song in polyphonic style, of the kind made
popular in France in the period of the ars nova. (See Chap. IX.) The
characteristic feature of these songs or _chansons_ was a division of
the music, following the stanzas of the poem, into several sections
or strophes, some of which were in polyphonic style, others in simple
'note for note’ harmony; and in working them over for the organ
composers maintained the division. We shall see how composers for
other instruments worked upon the same plan, and how in this plan
lies the germ from which was to spring one of the so-called cyclic
forms of music--a piece in several distinct movements, called _sonata
da chiesa_, which was one of the direct ancestors of the symphony.
However, in the early canzona there was no actual splitting up into
movements, but only a series of rather distinct sections within the one
movement differing from each other in style and rhythm. The organists
used the canzona with rather more lightness than they ever displayed
in the treatment of the ricercar, and in an attempt to animate and
vary the simple song parts they hit upon not a few of those devices
of ornamentation which came to play a great part in instrumental
music of the eighteenth century. Andrea Gabrieli’s canzona, _Un gai
berger_, is an excellent example of the type, while the connection with
its prototype is still distinct. Though there is a canzona for organ
by Bach, the form never developed in organ music to any very great
importance. It was assimilated on the one hand by the ricercar and on
the other by the more brilliant toccata.
The toccata was from the first a piece for display, and more than any
other called the suitable organ style into being. The early toccatas
might be called ventures in virtuosity. In them composers broke free
little by little from the slow moving vocal style. They discovered how
much more rapidly their fingers could move than voices could sing, and
they learned to leap and run, so to speak, and gave over once for all
the slow pace of the vocal style, which, admirably suited to voices,
is intolerably heavy and dull upon instruments. The first attempts
amounted to little more than rapid running of scales over a foundation
of uninteresting chords; but by the end of the sixteenth century the
chords had become more interesting and other runs than simple scales
had been developed.
Two men especially are important in the history of organ music of the
first half of the seventeenth century, Peter Sweelinck in Amsterdam
and Girolamo Frescobaldi in Rome, the one commonly accepted as the
first of the school of great organists of northern Europe, the other
strongly influential in forming the style of the organists of southern
Germany. The best of the northern and southern schools came to be
united in John Sebastian Bach, the greatest of all organists, for whose
music, therefore, Sweelinck and Frescobaldi may be said to have laid
foundations. Both were daring, brilliant performers and equally bold
and venturesome composers. Sweelinck was organist at the old church
in Amsterdam from about 1581 to the year of his death, 1621; and
Frescobaldi, considerably younger, organist at St. Peter’s in Rome from
1608 to 1628, and again later in life. In both cities crowds flocked to
the churches whenever these great men played.
Of Sweelinck’s music that has been preserved a great part shows
strongly the influence of the early Venetian organists, but as might
be expected he goes beyond them in instrumental effects; and in serious
works, not calculated merely to display the skill of the virtuoso,
he really creates a definite fugue form, independent of vocal style,
animated and impressive. As a performer he was excited to experiment
in effects which often led him into meaningless passage work, striking
perhaps in his day, but to our ears childish and quite lacking in
musical worth. But his influence was long felt and was the incentive to
ever bolder and bolder efforts to expand the range of organ technique.
The younger Italian was no less daring, but seems to have been gifted
with more sensitive instinct. He never offends by empty display; his
style is consistently higher than that of any other organist of his
day. His advance over his predecessors is most marked in his use of
animated rhythmical subjects which he developed more often in genuine
fugal style with answering counter subject and logical balanced form
than in the aimless style of the older ricercar. Moreover, the passage
work in his toccatas is built upon chord progressions which are very
nearly free of the old modal restrictions and which are impressive in
themselves and of genuine musical worth. Among works published in his
lifetime are a set of fantasias (1608), all but three of which are in
ricercar style, a set of toccatas (1614), a set of ricercari (1615),
which show a marked improvement in construction over earlier works, a
second book of toccatas in 1627, and in 1635 the most famous of all his
works, the _Fiori musicali_, which contained pieces in all styles known
at that time.
Among his pupils was the brilliant Saxon wanderer, John Jacob
Froberger, who was for many years organist at the court of Vienna,
for four years in Rome, two in Paris, later in London under romantic
circumstances of which he has himself left an account, and still again
in the Netherlands, in Halle, in Vienna, and in France, where he died
in 1657. In the work of such a man many influences are of course
evident, but in his organ compositions that of Frescobaldi is most
consistent, and thus the style of the Italian passes over into German
usage.
After the death of Frescobaldi the importance of organ music in
Italy steadily declined, but in Germany, both north and south, it
grew steadily greater. It was built up on the foundations laid by
the Italians themselves and by Sweelinck, who was strongly under
the influence of the Italians; but there entered into it an element
of purely German nature, the Protestant Chorale. These noble,
expressive old melodies, though of varied origin--some sprung from
the old plain-song melodies of the Roman ritual, others from the
folk songs of the people--had become the religious folk song of the
German Protestant. Upon them organists constructed a singularly lofty
and expressive form of music known as the Chorale Prelude, which
combined with the polyphonic skill--the remodelled heritage of the
old masters--the genuine serious feeling of the chorale. As the name
implies, the chorale prelude was played by the organist before the
congregation sang the chorale, and might be regarded as the organist’s
prologue inspired by a musical text. Two kinds of the prelude were
developed to a high state of musical excellence at the end of the
seventeenth century. In one the chorale melody was treated in flowing
contrapuntal style, appearing now in long notes, now in short, woven
into a smooth texture of sound; in the other the melody was often
brilliantly adorned with trills and turns and was made to stand boldly
forth over an accompaniment which often presented a vigorous counter
subject and which was filled with the most striking and daring devices
of the virtuoso. The former was more in keeping with the spirit of
the south German organists; one of whom, Johann Pachelbel,[135]
a Nuremberger, developed it richly. The other was fostered by the
vigorous daring organists of the north, among whom the Dane, Dietrich
Buxtehude,[136] stands out most conspicuously. We shall see later how
much Sebastian Bach was influenced by these two great organists.
At the end of the seventeenth century organ music was independent
of vocal style. Free of the old church modes, built solidly upon an
impressive, harmonic foundation, animated by strong rhythm and varied
by a thousand devices of virtuosity which had their being in the
nature of the instrument itself, it makes evident the great changes
which had come into music during the century. On the other hand, the
general employment of a polyphonic style, for which the organ is of all
instruments the best suited, and which moreover is in keeping with the
dignity and noble solemnity of the instrument, shows the perseverance
of those high principles of musical composition which had been first
established and glorified in the vocal works of Palestrina and Lassus.
And in the forms of Prelude, Toccata, Fugue, and Choral Prelude
composers had found suitable forms in which their musical ideas could
stand, apart from a text and self-sufficient as absolute music.
III
Inasmuch as the organ was the instrument for which the most suitable
style was clearly to be found in a modification of the old vocal
polyphony, organist-composers were spared much of the difficulty
which hindered composers who strove to write for other instruments,
or for combinations of instruments. We have seen that organ music,
set upon its way by the Italians, was dropped by them before the
middle of the century. All their interest in instrumental music came
very early in the century to be centred upon music for the violin and
instruments of that family. This is due to the fact that during that
century there arose in northern Italy families of violin makers who,
selecting generally the least clumsy of the types of bowed instruments,
and particularly the violin, with marvellous workmanship and natural
endowment of instinctive skill, developed them into instruments of a
sweetness, flexibility, and power of expression which can be rivalled
only by the human voice. The names of these violin makers have long
been famous in the world, and neither their skill nor their success
has ever since been matched. The first of them was Gasparo da Salo of
Brescia, who worked in the last half of the sixteenth century and a
little way into the seventeenth. Working a little later in Brescia was
Paolo Maggini. The centre of the industry soon shifted to the town of
Cremona, and it is in the list of the Cremonese makers that we find
the names of the Amati family, of whom the last and most famous was
Nicolo (d. 1648); the Guarneri family, of whom the last and greatest
was Joseph, who lived far into the eighteenth century; and the great
name of Antonio Stradivari, who, born about 1644, lived until 1737. The
violin itself was in use early in the century, mostly as soprano in a
group of viols. The rapid and remarkable perfection of it, however,
soon attracted almost the exclusive attention of composers; and it was
thus raised from a minor rôle in a group of instruments to be the head
of all instruments.
The earliest attempts of Italian composers to write violin music
were singularly childish and unsuccessful, and in most cases they
seem stupidly against the simplest principles of instrumental music.
But one must not forget that the only art of composition which had
been developed to a technical excellence was the art of vocal
polyphony, and that the only skill the first instrumental composers
had to bring to writing music for their instruments was the skill
which they had acquired in the study of polyphonic choruses. We have
seen that the early organ composers worked upon the same plan, but
whereas a polyphonic style is essentially suitable to the organ, and
the modifications of the vocal style necessary to convert it into a
style for the organ suggested themselves naturally and obviously, the
instrumental composers were face to face with a far more illusive
problem. They progressed by much the same steps as the organists, but
noticeably more slowly.
The form in which most of the earlier attempts were cast was the
canzona. This, as we have already seen in organ music, was modelled
upon the form of the French chanson of the sixteenth century, and its
characteristic feature was a division into several short sections not
actually cut off from each other, yet differing quite distinctly both
in rhythm and in treatment; some being in the polyphonic style, others
in a style of simple chords. The number of instruments might vary from
four to sixteen, but the majority of early canzonas were written for
four instruments, usually of the viol type. In a collection of canzonas
published in Venice in 1608 there is one, however, written for eight
trombones, and another for sixteen. The number of little sections in
the canzona also varied. The tendency at first was toward a great many,
ten or twelve; but with the general development of instrumental style
came the lengthening of the sections and a consequent reduction of
their number.
A typical canzona of this period is one for four instruments by
Giovanni Battista Grillo.[137] It is made up of ten sections. The
first, in common time, is but seven measures long, and is in the style
of the ricercar, i. e. built upon an imitation of short motives. The
second section is in triple time, in the general style of a galliard,
a dance form of the time, and is eleven measures long. The third
section is again in common time and in the style of a ricercar, and is
twenty measures long. The fourth has ten measures, in the slow common
time of the pavan; the fifth, eight measures in the triple time of
the galliard; the sixth, six measures in the style of the pavan; the
seventh, thirteen measures in galliard style. The eighth and ninth are
repetitions of the first and second, and the whole series is brought to
a close by a short coda of five measures. Those sections which are in
polyphonic style are more or less closely related to each thematically.
It will be observed that, of the ten sections, seven are made up of an
irregular number of measures and cannot give to our ears an impression
of rhythmical structure. One should notice, too, the return of the
first two sections at the end, which gives some primitive balance to
the little piece as a whole.
The obvious weakness in such a form of movement lies in the division
into so many little sections, no one of which is long enough to claim
the serious attention of a listener. True enough, the early works of
the instrumental composers show very few rhythmically animated themes
which could suggest any considerable treatment and development; but in
the few cases where such themes do appear there is not space enough in
a section for the composer to do anything with them, and they drop out
of the piece almost as soon as they have awakened in the listener the
desire to hear more of them.
The natural development was toward the extension of the section,
therefore, until each made the impression of a definite and
well-balanced whole; and from that it was but a step to cutting off
the sections one from the other by pauses. That is what happened.
The canzona grew from a movement in many little sections to the ripe
form of a piece in four distinct movements to which by the middle of
the century was given the name _sonata da chiesa_. Among the first
to write sonatas of this type was Giovanni Legrenzi, who published
a set of them in 1655. Legrenzi is one of the most gifted composers
of the time, not only of operas, in connection with which his name
is most often heard, but of instrumental music as well, of which the
sonatas just mentioned are excellent examples. The last of them is well
planned and interesting throughout. The first movement is an excellent
well-knit fugue, built upon a definite rhythmical subject against
which two interesting and varied counter subjects are set. All these
subjects have vigor and distinct individuality, and they are treated
with a skill which is proof of Legrenzi’s instinct for the instrumental
style. The second movement is in the dignified rhythm of the sarabande,
a dance form of the day; the third is a short adagio, leading to
the last, which is lively and rapid, but rather loose in structure,
recalling the old-style ricercar.
However, the sonatas of Legrenzi are often in more than four movements,
and the credit of giving the _sonata da chiesa_ its definite and
lasting form belongs to Giovanni Battista Vitali, in whose collection
of them, published in 1667, there is at last a regularity of plan in
the number and arrangement of movements. The scheme is practically
tripartite. There are two fast movements in common time and in fugal
style, one at the beginning and one at the end; and between them a
movement generally in simple harmonic style and in triple time. There
are also a few very slow measures either before or after the middle
movement or at the beginning of the sonata as introduction to the
first fast movement. The two fast movements are frequently in thematic
relation to each other. Here we have the form made ready for the later
masters, of which we shall see them make use. Compared with the canzona
of the first half of the century, Vitali’s work shows a striking,
sudden advance, not only in clearness of form, but in instrumental
style. Not much is known of his life, but his works show that he was
a player of brilliant skill, one of the first of the virtuoso violin
composers.
Though the _sonata da chiesa_ was descended directly from the old
_canzona da sonar_ and is therefore connected with the old music, it
was greatly affected on the way by influences not remotely connected
with the old polyphonic style. In the preceding pages it has been shown
how the cultivation of the monodic style led to the cultivation of the
technique of the human voice. Already in the works of Caccini, himself
a great singer, there appear passages for the solo voice intended to
show off its flexibility and technique. The influence of the monodic
style made itself felt at once in violin music, and prompted the
cultivation of a form of solo music which had little or nothing to do
with the polyphonic canzona. No pieces have come down to us from the
first ten years of the century which were written for the violin alone
with accompaniment of Figured Bass for lute or harpsichord; but there
are many written for two violins, which, in that they play seldom
together but pursue a sort of dialogue in music, may be said to belong
to the monodic style. The early pieces in this manner are under the
influence of the new vocal style. Passages of any lively movement are
written after the manner of Caccini’s newly discovered vocal agilities.
But very soon the suitable violin style began to make its appearance,
and we come across passages which could not have been sung, but which
were suggested by the nature of the instrument for which they were
intended. The early efforts were called sonatas. Like the canzona,
they were given special names, for example, Salvatore Rossi’s sonata on
the air of the Romanesca, and another on the air of Ruggiero, both of
which are no more than a series of variations over two melodies both
well known in their day. The practice of composing variations over a
bass part which remained unchanged or was only very slightly adorned
in a few cases and was called a ground bass or _basso ostinato_, was
most common throughout the entire seventeenth century. No manner of
securing an effect of form and symmetry could have been simpler, and
no other form could have spurred composers more effectively toward the
discovery of trills, turns, runs, and other ornaments within the power
of instruments as a very means of saving themselves from the deadly
monotony of a few phrases reiterated inexorably again and again in the
bass. That the practice even of extemporizing variations--or divisions,
as they were called--on a ground bass was much in vogue, as the
improvisation of descant over the _cantus firmus_ was in the early days
of church polyphony, is witnessed by the famous work of the English
musician, Christopher Sympson, entitled, the 'Division Violist,’ which
appeared in 1659, and which was intended to teach the art. Sympson
says, 'A Ground, subject, or bass, call it what you please, is pricked
down in two several papers, one for him who is to play the Ground upon
an organ, harpsichord, or what other instrument may be apt for that
purpose, the other for him that plays upon the viol, who, having the
said Ground before his eyes as his theme or subject, plays such variety
of descant or division in concordance thereto as his skill and present
invention do then suggest unto him.’
The true instrumental monody makes its first appearance in 1617 in the
works of Biagio Marini, the first famous violinist. In the first of his
publications--a set of pieces called _Affetti musicali_, printed in
1617 in Venice, where Marini was then playing in the orchestra of St.
Mark’s--there are two pieces called _Sinfonie_ for violin (or cornet)
with Figured Bass, which may be said to represent the point where two
distinct styles of instrumental music begin to diverge; one proceeding
directly from these to pieces of widely developed solo music, the
other developing through the canzona and works of that kind to modern
orchestral music. This first work of Marini presents many innovations,
the bowing is suggested by slurs, use is made of the tremolo (seven
years before Monteverdi’s _Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda_, in
which it was long held to have appeared first);[138] and there are many
passages of double stopping.
Another composer of the early times is Francesco Turini, writing
trio-sonatas in the style of Salvatore Rossi, for two violins and a
Figured Bass; and the works of Giovanni Battista Fontana (1641) show
ever further development, not only in violin technique, but in the
construction of music as well. Treading so carefully over new ground,
the early composers seldom let themselves go in melodies of any long
sweep but restrained themselves to short phrases, just as in writing
canzonas for groups of instruments they held fast by short sections;
but, in the works of Fontana, long, smooth phrases of well-balanced
melody give proof of the rapidity with which the art was progressing
and the confidence that was coming in the treatment of music for the
violin. In the works of a contemporary, Tarquinio Merula, there is
often even a lively humorous free swing. So the first half of the
seventeenth century brought an understanding of the character of the
violin as a solo instrument, and of its special treatment and of some
of the possibilities of virtuosity that lay within it; and through the
cultivation of the solo sonata--direct offspring of the early monodic
style--there grew up an art of composing long, smooth, expressive
melodies for the violin which, exerting an influence upon the canzona
of polyphonic birth, was to aid in freeing it from its restriction to
short motives and in setting it upon its way toward the _sonata da
chiesa_ of Corelli and the symphonies of Beethoven.
IV
The importance of rhythm in instrumental music has already been pointed
out. We have mentioned the part it played in the transformation of the
heavy canzona into the _sonata da chiesa_, giving life and character to
the themes, and structural regularity to the sections. We have now to
consider the development of another cyclic form of music, the Suite,
called in Italy the _sonata da camera_, which had its very being in
rhythm. The orthodox suite at the end of the seventeenth century was
a series of four short pieces, all of which were in the same key,
each having the name of a dance, and differing from the others in its
rhythm. The origin of the suite, therefore, is to be sought in the
cultivation of dance music, which is essentially rhythmical music, and
in the combination of several short dances in a sequence.
The remarkable English collections of music for the harpsichord or
virginal already alluded to contain many dance tunes. In the treatment
of them, however, as we have said, composers showed the influence of
the polyphonic style to such an extent that they frequently disguised
or even suppressed the characteristic rhythms as far as possible
by cross accents and polyphonic intricacies. Yet that the English
composers of that time, great men like William Byrd, John Bull, and
Thomas Morley, were conscious of the contrasting characters of various
dance rhythms, and of the pleasant effect of playing a dance in one
time after a dance in another, is shown by a passage in Morley’s famous
book, 'Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music’ (1597), which
describes the effect to be got by alternating a pavan and a galliard,
'the first of which was a kind of staid musick ordained for grave
dancing, and the other a lighter and more stirring kind of dancing.’
But the practice of stringing dance tunes together antedates Morley’s
book by nearly a century, if not more. Among the first pieces of
music ever printed were sets of dance tunes for the lute, which were
printed by Petrucci in Venice in 1508. Some of these sets consisted
of a pavan followed by other dances--_saltarello_ and _piva_--which
were thematically related to it; and throughout the sixteenth century
many such embryo suites made their appearance. In the early lute music
of the time the rhythmical element was quite obvious, clearly because
the polyphonic style could not be reproduced upon the lute. Indeed
music for the lute is the first instrumental music which presents a
definite special instrumental style, and this because by its nature the
instrument was quite unfitted for polyphony. The separate pieces in
the early suites were often thematically related; they were, in fact,
variation suites, built up upon the same theme presented in various
rhythms. Toward the end of the century it became customary to print
together many pieces of the same kind, so that one encounters sets of
pavans, of galliards, of _passamezzi_, of _courantes_, etc. Thereby the
stringing together of dances of different types in the order of a suite
disappears from printed music, though doubtless players of the lute and
of the harpsichord chose single dances from the various collections and
put and played them together according to their own taste.
In Italy the interest, newly aroused early in the seventeenth century,
in toccatas and ricercari for the organ, and in the canzona and solo
sonata for other instruments, banished for a time interest in the
combination of dance tunes; but German and English composers accepted
the canzona very slowly, and all through the century gave themselves
conspicuously to the combination and development of dance tunes, at
first for an _ensemble_ of instruments, and later for the harpsichord.
They early broke away from the restrictions of church modes and built
up their pieces over a clear harmonic foundation generally richer and
more varied than the harmonies of the Italians. But in these early
suites, too, there is the same rhythmical hesitation which has been
found characteristic of all early instrumental music, and the metrical
structure of the various dances is often irregular and unbalanced,
so strong were the old polyphonic traditions and the mistrust of
liveliness.
Of the old dance tunes two are almost invariably present in the suite
up to the middle of the century, the pavan and the galliard. The pavan
was a broad, stately kind of music in common time, and was generally
divided into three sections, of which the first was in simple harmonic
style, and the second and third more contrapuntal. The galliard, on the
other hand, was in triple time, and was always set in simple harmonic
style. Here is the same principle of construction as that upon which
the instrumental canzonas were built--pieces of polyphonic style
contrasted with those of a simpler kind.
At what time the pavan and the galliard gave way to the _allemande_ and
_courante_, which are the nucleus of the orthodox suite, has yet to
be determined, but at the end of the century the suites of the great
German and English writers present uniformly four standard movements,
of which the arrangement is allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue.
The origin of the allemande is unknown. It was always in common time
and was of stately though not slow movement. Of the courantes there
were two distinct types, one called French and the other Italian, both
in triple time and both rapid, but the former complex and full of cross
accents and the latter simple and gay. The sarabande was of Spanish
or Moorish origin and was in slow triple time with the rhythmical
peculiarity of a dwelling or accent upon the second beat of the
measure. It differed from the other movements in that it was invariably
in harmonic style; and its rich though simple chords and the quiet
dignity of its movements have expressed many of the deepest and most
emotional thoughts of the great masters, Purcell, Handel, and Bach.
The gigue was lively and usually in six-eight time. It was the only
dance of British origin to find a central place in the suite, which is
remarkable in view of the fact that the English masters were among the
first to work with the suite form. Between the sarabande and the gigue
it was customary to insert one or more extra dances, of which those
most frequently met with are the _minuet_, _gavotte_, _bourrée_, etc.
At the beginning of the suite was often a prelude in the form of the
early canzona, and called 'sonata’ or 'symphony.’
Each movement was divided into two nearly equal parts, and each
of these parts was repeated. The first began in the tonic key and
modulated to the dominant; the second began in the dominant and
modulated back to the tonic. Thus there was an harmonic basis which
in these movements, as in the movements of the perfected _sonata da
chiesa_ of the Italians, was an essential element of the design. The
division of the definite movements, which was from the beginning one of
the features of the suite, probably had some influence upon the Italian
composers and led them to the step of cutting the canzona, too, into
definite movements.
All through the century composers in England and in Germany were
experimenting with these combinations of dance tunes for groups of
instruments. Among the English experimenters should be mentioned
Matthew Locke with his collection of suites for strings called 'The
Little Consort of Three Parts’ (1656), each of which contains a pavan,
an ayre, a 'corant,’ and a sarabande; and Benjamin Rogers, one of the
most famous composers of his day. Among the Germans, Johann Jacob
Löwen with his _Sinfonien_ (1658), which are sets of dance tunes,
and Dietrich Becker with 'Musical Spring Fruit’ (1658), among which
is a suite made up in the conventional order of allemande, courante,
sarabande, and gigue. One cannot but be astonished to find how closely
the suite of the northern masters and the canzona of the Italians kept
pace with one another. As proof one has only to note that Becker’s work
with its orthodox suite is but a year later than Vitali’s first _sonata
da chiesa_.
Thus by the beginning of the last quarter of the century musicians had
developed an instrument style for groups of string instruments and for
the organ; they had devised fitting forms independent of words for
their musical ideas, they had studied melody and acquired the art of
handling it, and they had admitted the stir of rhythm into their most
serious work, thereby giving it an animation which would have been
summarily condemned a century before. There still lacked men of the
highest order of genius to take up the work thus prepared for them.
V
One style of instrumental music is still to be discussed, namely, that
for the harpsichord. This instrument had been brought to a high state
of perfection by the family of Ruckers in Antwerp about the turn of
the sixteenth century. It was known by various names--clavecin in
France, harpsichord in England, clavicembalo in Italy, and was made in
various forms and sizes. Though a keyboard instrument, it can hardly be
considered an ancestor of the piano, for the tones of it were caused by
the plucking of the strings, by jacks attached to levers operated by
the keys and not by the pressing or striking of them. Such variety of
tone shading as could be got from it was chiefly through the working of
stops, which brought a new series of strings into play, or of pedals,
which dampened the strings; and the larger harpsichords were furnished
with two or more manuals which operated upon separate sets of strings.
The extraordinary output of music for the virginals in England just
before the beginning and during the first few years of the century gave
way to interest in 'Fancies,’ and later in suites for strings, and the
Germans were absorbed in music for the organ or for an ensemble of
strings. The Italians were given almost wholly to the cultivation of
music for the violin. To the French must be given the credit of having
developed the art of the harpsichord to a high state of excellence
and beauty during the course of the first half of the century. The
Germans were content to publish some pieces for the 'harpsichord _or_
organ,’ the Italians likewise; the French were the first to realize the
fundamental differences between the two instruments. A great deal is
due to the influence of the famous French lutenists of the mid-century,
among whom Denys Gaultier deserves first mention. His collection of
pieces called _La rhétorique des dieux_ is one of the most charming
records of music in Europe during the seventeenth century. While
composers for organ, for groups of string instruments, and even for
the voice, were still struggling with problems of style and form,
these little pieces made their appearance, in which there is no trace
of experiment nor hesitation, but complete mastery of a style both
delicate and in every way suitable. The lute still held its place as
the most generally used of all instruments during the greater part of
the century, not only as accompaniment to voices and as foundation for
groups of instruments, but as a solo instrument. Even works by Corelli
at the very end of the century are written over a Figured Bass, which
may be played either by harpsichord or lute. That it at last gave way
to the harpsichord is probably owing to the great difficulty of playing
it. After the time of Gaultier, special cultivation of it rapidly
waned, but Gaultier had lasting influence upon subsequent composers for
the harpsichord, both in France and Germany. _La rhétorique des dieux_
contains many sets of little pieces, most of which conform to the style
of dance pieces then cultivated, all bearing fanciful names such as
_Phæton foudroyé_, _Diana_, _Ulysses_, _Mars superbe_, _Juno, ou La
jalouse_, _La coquette virtuose_, etc. They are light and graceful and
quite free of the heaviness of the polyphonic style.
The first of the great French composers for the harpsichord was Jacques
Champion Chambonnières, brilliant son of a family of musicians. His two
books of pieces published in 1670 contain several sets of dances which
are arranged in the order already established as orthodox; allemande,
courante, sarabande, and gigue. The place of the allemande is sometimes
taken by two pavans, several of the courantes are followed by doubles,
and sometimes a minuet or a galliard takes the place of the gigue.
The style is obviously influenced by Gaultier’s music for the lute,
and is marked by perfect ease and an elegant clearness and grace. And
like Gaultier’s pieces, many of them have dainty, fanciful names, such
as _Iris la toute belle_, _L’entretien des dieux_, _Jeunes zéphirs_,
etc. Already in the preface to these sets of pieces we come across
directions for playing those little ornaments which were to become one
of the most characteristic features of music for the harpsichord in the
next century, and the subject of many a treatise.
In Germany harpsichord music was set free from organ music by
Froberger, whose works for the organ we have already mentioned. Though
his harpsichord pieces first appeared in print in 1693 and 1696,
several manuscripts bear the date of 1649; and one upon the death of
Ferdinand IV must belong near 1654. Froberger must have seen something
of Gaultier and Chambonnières while he was in Paris, but the fact that
none of his pieces bore names after the fashion of the French composers
shows that he did not wish to be considered an imitator of them, and
indeed his style is still rather heavy and compact and more akin to the
early English style than to the light transparent style of the French.
VI
The history of opera during the seventeenth century is brilliantly
fascinating because it reflects so much the social life of those times;
yet the contribution of opera composers to the art of music is not
great. We have seen in a previous chapter what Monteverdi accomplished
for opera; that he had a grasp and comprehension of those principles of
opera upon which Gluck and Wagner later based their music dramas; that
his music, though often rashly experimental and crude, on the other
hand was often genuinely dramatic and strong in emotional feeling.
But even before his death composers of opera had turned their backs
upon the road toward which Monteverdi had pointed, and were well
started on their way toward an opera in which all dramatic power, all
genuine feeling was to be stifled in a mass of formal vocalism and
scenic display. Upon opera more than upon any other form of music the
influence of fashion and public taste made itself felt. The rush of
opera into a state of utter falseness was indeed headlong. Let us
quote from Dr. Burney’s history. After stating that during the years
between 1662 and 1680 there were nearly a hundred different operas
performed in Venice alone, and giving the names of many composers now
quite forgotten, he says: 'During this period it seldom happens indeed
that the names of poets, composers, or singers are recorded in printed
copies of these dramas, though that of the machinist is never omitted;
and much greater care seems to have been taken to amuse the eye than
the ears or the intellect of those who attended these spectacles.’
He gives a list of the paraphernalia used in the performance of an
opera on the subject of _Berenice_ at Padua in 1680. The list includes
choruses of one hundred virgins, one hundred soldiers, one hundred
horsemen in iron armor, forty cornets of horse, six trumpeters on
horse-back, six drummers, six ensigns, six trombones, six flutes, six
minstrels playing on Turkish instruments, six others on octave flutes,
six pages, three sergeants, six cymballists, twelve huntsmen, twelve
grooms, six coachmen for the triumph, six others for the procession,
two lions led by two Turks, two elephants by two others, Berenice’s
triumphal car drawn by four horses, six other cars with prisoners and
spoils drawn by twelve horses, and six coaches for the procession.
Among the scenes in the first act was a vast plain with two triumphal
arches, another with pavilions and tents, a square prepared for the
entrance of triumph; in act two, Berenice’s royal apartments; in act
three, a royal dressing-room, completely furnished, stables with one
hundred live horses, and besides representations of every species of
chase, as of wild boar, stag, deer, and bears. Obviously in such a
spectacle true dramatic art and true musicianship found little place.
Yet some of the opera composers of the century should not pass
unnoticed even in a general history of music. Their operas, it is true,
are now no longer heard, are indeed practically forgotten, but their
efforts invented new vocal forms which have held a prominent place in
the art of music, not only in opera.
Opera may be said to have originated in Florence, but it was soon
transplanted from the city of its birth, and after the year 1600 the
historian finds little of importance in Florentine opera to claim his
attention. In 1608 Marco da Gagliano made another musical setting of
Rinuccini’s _Dafne_, which had been set by Peri into the first opera.
It may be remarked that Peri generously placed Gagliano above himself.
Gagliano wrote a preface to his _Dafne_ in which he gave as his
definition of opera, 'a true entertainment for princes, more pleasing
than any other, for it unites in itself all the finest pleasures,
invention, the arrangement of a subject, ideas, style, sweetness of
rhyme, the art of music, concord of voices and instruments, refinement
and delicacy of song, graceful dances and movements; and it may be
said that painting also plays a great part in the perspective and the
costumes; so much so that not only the intelligence but all the noblest
feelings are charmed by the most pleasing arts which have been invented
by the genius of man.’ This is a high ideal of opera, not unworthy to
stand beside Wagner’s; but the spirit of the age cared little enough
about charming the intelligence, and the next opera of importance in
Florence, _Ruggiero_, written by Francesca Caccini, daughter of Giulio
Caccini, is little more than a spectacle. Gagliano’s _Flora_ (1624)
closes the Florentine period.
In Rome the opera was for many years influenced by the oratorio,
that is to say, the texts chosen were oftenest either spiritual or
allegorical, following the style of Cavalieri’s _Rappresentazione_,
which has already been treated in the previous chapter. Opera and
oratorio were hardly different in form. The influence of the church
was strong and decidedly conservative. The most important opera
composers in Rome, Stefano Landi and Agazzari, were both in the
service of the church, and were, as a matter of fact, primarily church
composers. Moreover, there was no public opera in Rome until after the
middle of the century. Performances were given under the patronage and
at the palaces of cardinals, among them Corsini, Colonna, Rospigliosi,
and Barberini. Landi’s two operas, _Orfeo_ (1619), and _San Alessio_
(1634), are both made up of comic and tragic elements. In _Orfeo_ there
is a Lethe drinking song for Charon, one of the first comedy scenes
in opera, and in _San Alessio_, which deals with a story of Christ,
there are buffoons. These comedy scenes seem to show a reaction against
the ecclesiastical influence. Among the musicians in the service of
Cardinal Barberini was Luigi Rossi, one of the most admired and best
beloved musicians of his day. He was summoned to Paris by Mazarin in
1646 with twenty singers, among them eight male soprani, and in Paris
wrote his most famous opera, 'The Marriage of Orpheus and Eurydice.’
Upon his return to Rome he wrote another opera, _Il palagio d’Atlante_,
and an oratorio, 'Joseph.’ In general it may be said that the influence
of the church was too strong for opera at Rome, and the so-called Roman
school of the seventeenth century has its place only in the development
of the _cantata_ and the oratorio.
Venice was the centre of operatic music during the greater part of
the century. Thither, as we have seen, Monteverdi had been called in
1613 as choirmaster at St. Mark’s, and there he wrote _Tancredi_, 'The
Return of Ulysses,’ and _L’incoronazione di Poppea_, all of which, by
the color of their orchestration, their genuine dramatic feeling, and
their remarkable strength of harmony, left a standard for opera which
was nowhere equalled throughout the century. The first opera house
in Europe was built in Venice in 1637. Others quickly followed in the
same city. Thus here the opera ceased to be a private amusement for
the rich nobility and became a public diversion; and composers were
consequently forced to take at once into consideration the desires
and the taste of the public. No longer free under a rich patronage
to experiment, they were obliged to write works for which a popular
success might be expected. Furthermore, the financial managers of the
opera were by no means willing to pay high salaries and secure the
services of the best musicians for the orchestra. Composers could count
upon but little skill in the playing of their accompaniments, and,
had they been inclined to write elaborately for the orchestra, would
have been deterred from so doing by the knowledge that their music
would have been mishandled. Thereupon it is hardly surprising that
composers quickly lost interest in a detailed workmanship which would
have passed unnoticed by the careless ears of the age, that they strove
for breadth of effect, at the sacrifice of artistic perfection, that
they neglected their accompaniments and the resources of the orchestra
and centred their attention wholly upon the voice parts, upon melody
for which alone the public had interest. The standards of Monteverdi
were forgotten or ignored even before his death. His greatest pupil and
his successor, Francesco Cabetti-Bruni, called Cavalli (1599-1676),
never lost entirely what he learned from his master. In his operas,
of which 'Jason’ (1649), 'Serse’ (1660), and _Ercole amante_ (1662)
are most often cited, and were in his own day the most famous, the
dramatic element never wholly disappears. But, whereas Monteverdi
intensified the plays which he set to music by sudden, often harsh,
effects, Cavalli tended always toward smoothness. Monteverdi’s style is
pointed and concentrated, full of fire, Cavalli’s flowing and diluted.
It was to his interest to make the most of dramatic scenes, to expand
them to proportions which could not fail to claim the attention of his
audiences. Therefore it happens that the recitative, which was the
usual medium of musical expression in the early operas, was at places
in his opera broadened into more or less sustained melody. The dramatic
value of a situation was no longer tersely emphasized by a sharp
interval in the voice part or a few harsh chords in the accompaniment,
but was extended throughout a long passage tending to become more
and more lyrical. In this fashion the _aria_ was prefigured in the
operas of Cavalli, and so it grew and was perfected and became the
characteristic mark of the Italian opera.
The form became stereotyped. There was usually an orchestral
introduction, anticipating the melody. This was followed by the first
section of the aria, usually broad, flowing melody within the limits of
the tonic key. After this came an orchestral _ritornel_, and then the
second section of the aria, usually in a more broken and sometimes more
agitated style, and in a contrasting key. This section was followed
by another orchestral ritornel and the return of the first section
complete. It became the custom to write the words _da capo_ at the end
of the second section, directing the singer to return to the beginning
and start over again, singing to a sign placed at the end of the first
section. The form is, of course, stiff, but it is not by any means
essentially ugly. The recapitulation of the first section gives a sense
of balance and proportion to the song as a whole, which is necessary in
any work of art. This very balance, however, is in direct opposition
to dramatic effect. The action of a drama must move forward. To return
in scenes of great feeling to a point already passed and repeat what
has already once been sung checks all action and brings the play to a
standstill. Yet in the course of the century arias came to occupy the
predominant part in opera. Before the end of the century they were
classified into various kinds, and a composer was not only forced to
incorporate a certain number of each kind into his opera, but to allot
to each singer his or her proper share of them. The old _dramma per
musica_ became a thing of the past, the new opera merely a series of
songs arbitrarily joined by a few measures of indifferent accompanied
or unaccompanied recitative.
As we have said, signs of this development are already apparent in
the operas of Cavalli, pupil of Monteverdi. Cavalli achieved immense
popular success. His fame spread over Europe. He was summoned to France
in 1660 and again in 1662 and required to furnish operas for the court
of Louis XIV. Lully, whose work we shall consider in the next chapter,
was already in control of music at the court, and was commissioned to
add ballet music to the operas of Cavalli to season them to the French
taste; and in this way had the chance to study Cavalli’s music and to
appropriate from it all that was worth continuing. Through Cavalli the
influence of Monteverdi therefore passed into France.
It is not in melody alone that Cavalli’s works reflect the spirit
of his time. The orchestral parts are carelessly treated. There are
instrumental passages for which no special instruments are even
designated. There is the same love of show and spectacle which was
already evident in the works of England and the ballets of France
and in the late Florentine opera. Elaborate scenes and complicated
stage machines are constantly employed. There are pompous allegorical
prologues and final ballets, and scenes of buffoonery mingled with the
classic theme.
All this is far more striking in the works of a later famous composer
of the Venetian school, Marc’ Antonio Cesti (1620-1669). Cesti’s most
famous operas were _La Dori_ (1663) and _Il pomo d’oro_ (1667). The
latter was written after Cesti had gone to Vienna for the marriage
of Leopold I and Margareta of Spain. It was produced with the most
extravagant splendor. The prologue was sung by characters representing
Spain, Italy, Hungary, Bohemia, and even America. There were five acts
and sixty-seven scenes. The voice parts are smooth and melodious, but
the orchestra is carelessly handled. Giovanni Legrenzi (1625-1690)
alone stands conspicuous among the Venetian composers for any attention
to orchestral effects. Most of his operas were written between 1675 and
1684 while he was at the head of one of the Venetian conservatories and
second choirmaster at St. Mark’s, and nearly all of them were produced
in Venice. He seems to have presided over a sort of academy which met
at his house. Among his pupils the most famous in the next generation
were Lotti, Caldara, and Galuppi.
The list of composers who wrote for the opera houses in Venice is
long. Their fertility was enormous. The public demanded novelty and
only a few operas won a permanent place in its favor. The opera season
was carnival time, during the weeks between Epiphany and Lent, though
there were often short seasons in the fall and in the late spring. All
operas must end happily, and the comic element was never absent. For
the greater part of the century the Venetian opera was the favorite of
all Europe. After 1670, however, opera began to flourish in Naples, and
by the beginning of the next century the Neapolitan opera was supreme.
Here in Naples the victory of the singers was complete. Composers were
at their mercy and the public fawned upon them. Bearing in mind that
the opera began with the attempts of a few brilliant young Florentines
to restore the Greek drama, in which, so far as we know, recitative
and chorus were the chief musical adjuncts, we cannot but be amazed to
note the state to which it had come by the end of the century. The
chorus had been abandoned except for massed effects at the end of the
acts, recitative had been cut down as much as possible, and the aria
was supreme. Even the arias were distorted or inflated with technical
devices to show off the skill of the singers. Of dramatic feeling
there was none and of genuine music scarcely a note that has survived
the test of time. Practically all of the more than seven hundred
operas written between 1607 and 1700 have sunk into oblivion. Many
have even perished utterly. As Burney says, often enough the name of
the composer of an opera was unmentioned. A century of endeavor might
well be reckoned as futilely spent, but that it left a model of smooth
recitative, of eminently suitable vocal style and the standard of the
perfected aria.
But such an opera as this was what the public wanted, not only in
Italy, but in Germany, France, and England as well. Except for the
opera in Hamburg there was no attempt at a national opera in Germany
during the century. For the most part composers, librettists, and
singers were Italian. Heinrich Schütz has the fame of having written
the first German opera. The music was burned in 1760. The text was the
oft-set _Dafne_ of Rinuccini, translated into German. Remembering that
Schütz had received his education in Venice between 1609 and 1612, at a
time when the new style was in the air, we may surmise that his music
was in the Italian style of the first period of opera, full of dramatic
feeling. _Daphne_ was performed in 1627 at the castle of Hartenfels
near Torgau in Saxony for the marriage of Princess Sophie of Saxony and
George II of Hesse-Darmstadt. Opera was introduced in Munich in 1657 by
Kaspar Kerll, writing to Italian texts. In Dresden opera was from the
start (1662) Italian. There was no opera in Berlin before 1700.
The French received the Italians coldly at first, but their opera,
or rather the ballet from which their opera developed, depended for
effect largely upon display. In England the theatres were closed by
the Puritans between 1642 and 1660, and there was no opera before
Purcell’s 'Dido and Æneas’ (1688-1690). But both before and after the
commonwealth a form of dramatic entertainment called the 'masque’ was
in great favor and attracted the attention of a number of composers.
The masque resembled the French ballet, which seems to have come from
the same source; but it far excelled its French counterpart in literary
workmanship and skill. Like the French ballet, however, it was wholly a
private amusement. People of rank and fashion took part in it, usually
disguised. It was generally based on a mythological story and was
made up of dialogue, songs, and dancing, and was always extravagantly
staged. Among the composers who set music to various masques throughout
the century should be mentioned Thomas Campion (d. 1620), Nicholas
Lanier (d. 1666), who is said to have introduced recitative into
England; the brothers William and Henry Lawes, the latter of whom set
Milton’s 'Comus’ to music in 1634; Matthew Locke (d. 1677); and Pelham
Humphrey (d. 1674). The masque can hardly be said to have developed
into opera. The one very great composer England produced during the
century, Henry Purcell, was influenced by it, but his one opera 'Dido
and Æneas’ is almost the only English opera, and immediately after his
death Italian opera flooded London to the exclusion of any other that
might have grown out of the masque.
Meanwhile the oratorio, which sprang into life together with the opera,
had been generally neglected. The first real oratorio, Cavalieri’s
_Rappresentazione di anima e di corpo_, given in Rome in 1600, did not
differ, except in subject matter, from an opera. The personages in the
allegory were all acted; there were scenery and costumes. The same is
true of the oratorio of Steffano Landi and Luigi Rossi. The form began
to differ from the form of the opera only with the works of Giacomo
Carissimi, one of the most famous composers of the century. He was
born near Rome about 1604, was probably trained in Rome, and held the
post of choirmaster at S. Apollinari in Rome from 1628 until his death
in 1674. Trained in Rome and living most of his life there, Carissimi
was under the conservative influence of the church and all his music
shows a musicianship far above that of any of his contemporaries, and
more allied to the lofty perfection of the old polyphonic style. On the
other hand, he did not fail to avail himself of the results of the new
movement. Though in his masses he is a master of smooth part writing,
not unworthy to stand beside Palestrina, in the choruses of his
oratorios, when there is agitated or dramatic feeling to be expressed,
he uses with equal ease a style broken and pointed with rhythm, which
is wholly in keeping with the dramatic ideals of Monteverdi and none
the less careful and artistic. In this certain 'high seriousness’ of
his work Carissimi is in sharp contrast with most of the composers of
his age, who, carried high on the wave of the reactionary movement,
often refused to subject themselves to the discipline of any genuine
musical training and composed merely in a sketchy, unfinished way.
All Carissimi’s work is marked by great finish. He was one of the
few composers of the century who worked seriously to improve the new
recitative style and his influence in this regard was far-reaching.
Then, too, his treatment of orchestral accompaniments was anything but
vague and indefinite. He was the first to differentiate the oratorio
from the opera. In all his oratorios, of which 'Jephtha’ and 'Jonah’
are the most famous, the story is sung in recitative by a 'Narrator.’
There is no action, nor scenery nor costumes, and the chorus is given a
far more important part in the scheme than it ever found in opera. It
was upon the foundation laid by Carissimi that Handel, nearly a century
later, built up his own great oratorio.
Carissimi was, moreover, the first to perfect a form of music known as
the _cantata_, consisting of recitative and arias for solo voice with
figured bass accompaniment, a sort of vocal chamber music which was
also suitable for use in the church. The form was further developed by
Alessandro Scarlatti, and later by Handel.
In Germany the growths of both the oratorio and the cantata were
greatly influenced by the more serious religious temper of the people
and by the intimate personal religious sentiment which was the outcome
of the Reformation. Naturally, the church music of the German composers
was affected by the Italian schools, notably that of Venice, and by
the general movement toward solo and concert style and the opera.
But the chorales which, we have already seen, led to a form of organ
music distinctively German colored all German Protestant religious
music with a spirit that was completely wanting in Italian music of
the same age. The chorale was incorporated into oratorios and into
cantatas. The congregation was given a voice, shared in the musical
expression of most profound and yet most intimate devotional feeling.
By far the greatest of German composers of this time was Heinrich
Schütz (1585-1672), whose _Dafne_ has already been mentioned. Most of
his works were sacred. In the oratorio style belong the 'Resurrection’
(1623), the 'Seven Words’ (1645) and four settings of the story of
the Passion, settings of the Psalms (1619) and the _Symphoniæ sacræ_
(1629-1650). All these works, though full of dramatic feeling, are
intensely religious, and foreshadow the great cantatas and the Passion
of Johann Sebastian Bach, both in their richness of harmony and in
their genuineness of feeling.
L. H.
FOOTNOTES:
[135] B., Nürnberg, 1653; d. there, 1706. See Vol. XI.
[136] B., Helsingör, 1637; d. 1707. See Vol. XI.
[137] See Riemann: _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_, II², p. 127.
[138] See Riemann: _Op. cit._, II², 100 Cf. Chap. IX, p. 245.