Chapter XII: New Forms: Vocal and Instrumental (1)

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.