Dawn of Modern Music.
THE BEGINNING OF FREE EXPRESSION IN
SONG, OPERA, ORATORIO AND FREE
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.
CHAPTER XVII.
CONDITION OF MUSIC AT THE BEGINNING
OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
N justification of the name "apprentice period" for that part of the history of music ending with Palestrina as the representative of the finished art of the Netherlands (helped out, we may well enough admit, with no small measure of the original insight and genius of his own), a general view of the condition of music in all European countries at the beginning of the seventeenth century may well be taken. The fullness with which the details have already been treated renders it unnecessary to repeat them here, but it will be enough to recapitulate the principal features of the art thus far attained, adding thereto a number of incidents omitted. Upon the side of musical phraseology, then, we find in the north the attainment of a simple and expressive form of melody almost or quite up to the standard of modern taste. In the direction of the musically elaborative element we have the schools of the Netherlands and of Italy, in which absolutely everything of this kind was realized which modern art can show, saving perhaps the fugue, which involved questions of tonality belonging to a grade of taste and harmonic perception more advanced and refined than that as yet attained. It took nearly another century before the ecclesiastical keys were thoroughly disenchanted in the estimation of classical musicians. It was Bach who finally made true tonality the rule rather than the exception.
In the line of instruments the harp had had its day, its never ending tuning having been one of the most operative forces in the development of the ear. Its successor, the lute, equally weak in tenacity of intonation, but with greater artistic resources, had been fully tested in every direction. The organ had attained a very respectable size, even when measured according to modern ideas, and its influence in the direction of harmonic education had been well begun. The keyed instrument, of which our pianoforte is the living representative, had found its keyboard and a practical method of eliciting tones, which, whatever their weakness, were at least better than those of the lute, the chitarrone, the psaltery or harp. Best of all, the violin had found master hands able to shape it into a model graceful to the eye, and sonorous beyond anything else which the art of music can show. True, it was not until about sixty years later that the powers of this instrument in the direction of solos were fully recognized, or, indeed, brought before the public. This was the work of Corelli, whose sonatas were published in the third quarter of the century with which we are now dealing. The viol, the weaker predecessor of the violin, had made great headway, and Monteverde put himself on record in 1607, much to his credit, by placing it at the head of his orchestra.
Moreover, not only were the instruments of music in a condition creditable even in the light of modern ideas, but the popular taste for music was more lively and far-reaching than ever before. Everywhere in the civilized world the practice of music was the universal attribute of a gentleman. In Italy we shall find a circle composed of some of the best minds of the nation engaged in the regular study of classical learning, and in discussions having for their object the re-discovery of the art of ancient music, which the seekers wrongfully imagined to have been as far superior to the music then in vogue as the sculpture of the ancients had been superior to that of mediæval Italy. In no country was the art of music more highly esteemed, or, we may add, in a more advanced state than in England.
Richard Braithwaite, a writer of the reign of Elizabeth, formulated certain rules for the government of the house of an earl, in which the earl was "to keep five musicians, skillful in that commendable sweet science"; and they were required to teach "the earl's children to sing and to play upon the bass viol, the virginals, the lute, the bandour or cittern." When he gave great feasts, the musicians were "to play whilst the service was going to the table, upon sackbuts, cornets, shawms and such other instruments going with wind, and upon viols, violins or other broken music during repast." In barber shops they had lutes and virginals wherewith the gentlemen might amuse themselves while awaiting their turn. It was the same in reception rooms; musical instruments were provided as the surest method of enabling waiting guests to amuse themselves.
If it be asked why it was that in spite of this high esteem for music so little came out of its cultivation in England that was creditable upon the highest plane, according to the scales in which we are accustomed to weigh the music of Italy and Germany, the answer is not hard to find. It was in consequence of the little attention paid to musical learning in the highest sense, as compared with the learning and training in musicianship on the continent. English music died out, or grew small, for want of depth of earth. High ideals and thorough training in the technique are two prime conditions of a successful development of an art. Besides, the art of music suffered irreparable damage in England at the hands of the Puritans. The protectorate lasted long enough to put the art under an eclipse from which it did not fully emerge until nearly our own time.
A similar fondness for this form of art pervaded all European countries. In Italy music was the delight of the common people and the favorite pursuit of the great. In Germany the Reformation and the influence of Luther had set the people singing. The organ had attained an advanced state there, and other instruments of every sort were cultivated. It was the same in France. The love for music was universal. Hence the times were ripe for a great advance in art. There was concentrated upon music an attention which it has rarely enjoyed at any other period of its history, and the advances now to be mentioned were correspondingly abundant and striking.
The contrapuntal schools had done more to educate harmonic perception than is commonly supposed. All the devices of counterpoint, as we have them to-day, were invented by the various schools of this period, and brought to a high degree of perfection. But the learning had somewhat overshot its mark. The multiplicity of parts in the compositions of Willaert, and the other masters of the polyphonic schools, served for the cultivation of chord perception just as surely as if they had intentionally written chord successions without troubling themselves with imitative canon in any degree. For, when there were so many voice parts as ten, fifteen or twenty within the limits of the compass of the human organ, that is to say, mainly within the limits of two octaves and a half, the parts had no recourse but to cross continually, and since there was no aid afforded the ear by differences in tone color between one voice part and another, it necessarily followed that they fell upon the ear with the effect not of voice parts, in which the melody of each could be followed independently of the others, but rather as chord masses, in which here and there a prominent melodic phrase occasionally emerged, only to be lost the next moment by the prominence of a bit of the melody of some other voice. The effect of a composition of this kind was no other than that of a succession of chords, and the ear was as thoroughly educated to chord perception by this class of music as if the composer had intended only to write successions of chords. Still the training of these schools, while incidentally affording education to the ear upon the harmonic side, was thoroughly contrapuntal, and the study of every composer was to make something more elaborate than anything that had been written by his predecessors.
Nevertheless there was an influence in another direction. An art form was invented, which by the end of this period had established itself as the type of a musical form whenever the composer would arrive at something more spontaneous than could conveniently be attained by the way of a motette or conduit. That form was the madrigal. The meaning of the name is unknown. Some have derived it from Mary, and point to the sacred madrigals, many of which were composed by all the contrapuntal writers. Others have assigned a different origin for it, and it is not possible now to decide which is the true one. Enough if we find this form emerging from obscurity by the middle of the fifteenth century. The first writer of compositions under this title whose name is known to us was Busnois, and in the same collection are compositions of the same class by many other composers of the Netherlandish schools. A madrigal was a secular composition, generally devoted to love, but in polyphonic style, and in one of the ecclesiastical modes. They were always vocal down to the seventeenth century, but from that time forward they were generally marked for voices and instruments. One of the best composers of madrigals was Arkadelt, of the Netherlandish school. The success of the great Orlando Lassus in this school has already been mentioned, together with the name of one of the best known of his compositions in this line ([p. 167]).
The strange modulations, like that from F to E flat in one of Arkadelt's madrigals, are current incidents of the ecclesiastical mode in which they are written. Many of the secular works of this class are hardly to be distinguished from those intended for the Church, and some are to be met with, having two sets of words, one secular, occasionally almost profane; the other sacred, some hymn or other from the offices of divine service.
In England this school had a great currency, and the madrigals of the British writers of the seventeenth century are every whit as free and melodious as the best of those of the Italian school. The number of writers of this class of works was innumerable, so much so that we might well class it as the ruling art form of the century, just as the dramatic song was in the eighteenth century, the fugue in the last half of it, and the sonata in the beginning of the nineteenth. Everybody wrote madrigals who ever wrote music at all. According to the dates of collections published, the English followed the Italian composers. The earliest Italian compositions of this class are contained in three collections printed by Ottaviano di Petrucci, the inventor of the process of printing music from movable type. These collections were published in Venice, 1501-1503, and copies are still retained in the library at Bologna and at Vienna. The English cultivation of this form of composition became general toward the last of this century, and in the first part of the next ensuing, and it is but just to say that the English composers finally surpassed the continental in this school, and developed out of it a beautiful art genre of their own, the glee. Toward the latter part of the sixteenth century certain attempts were made in Italy at something resembling our opera, but in place of solo pieces by any of the performers there were madrigals. When Juliet, for example, would soliloquize upon the balcony, she did so in a madrigal, the remaining four parts being carried by chambermaids inside. When Romeo climbed the balcony and breathed his sweet vows to Juliet, one or two of his friends around the corner carried the missing melodies in which he sought to improvise his warm affection. The absurdity of the proceeding was manifest, but it needed yet another point of emphasis. There was a grand wedding in Venice in 1595, at which the music consisted of madrigals, all in slow time and minor key. The contradiction between the doleful music and the festive occasion was too plain to be ignored, and led, presently, to the invention of a totally different style of song of which later there is much to say.
The seventeenth century was one of the most memorable in the history of music, not so much, however, for what it fully accomplished as for the new ideas brought out and in part developed. The specific part of the general development of music which this century accomplished was the development of free melodic expression. While, as already noticed, the musical productions of the preceding centuries had manifested an increasing melodic force and propriety, the secret of genuine melodic expression had yet to be found. In the madrigal and motette the conditions were wholly unsuited to the development of this part of music. Instead of one prominent voice, in which the main interest of the production centered itself, the composer of that period had a certain number of equally important voice parts, all taking part in the development of the one leading idea of his piece. Melodically speaking, the standpoint was wrong and the situation false. Melody means individuality, individualism; the free representation of a personality in its own self-determined motion. At the point of the year 1600, speaking with sufficient exactness for ordinary purposes, the ruling standpoint of musical production changed, in the effort to rediscover the lost vocal forms of the Greek drama. The new problem was that of finding, for every moment and every speech of the drama, a form of utterance suitable to the sentiment and the occasion. Thus entered into music, through the ministry of self-forgetfulness, the most important principle which has actuated its later progress, the principle namely, of dramatic expression—in other words, the representative principle, the effort to represent in music something which until now had been outside of music. Out of this principle, co-operating with that other idea of two centuries later, the inherent interest of the individual, has grown the richness and manifold luxuriance of modern romantic music, together with the entire province of opera and oratorio. We have now to trace the steps which led to this great transformation in the art of music; and to illustrate the application of the new principles to the province of instrumental music, which had no beginning of genuine art value before this period. When examined with reference to the matured productions of the century next ensuing, those of the seventeenth appear quite as much like apprentice efforts as those of the latter part of the period covered in the preceding book of our story; but they have in them, however, the seeds of the later development, and stand to us, therefore, in the character of first fruits. To state it still more unmistakably, we have to trace in the operations of the seventeenth century the origin of dramatic song, the beginnings of free instrumental music, the discovery of the art of voice training and the formation of what is called the "old Italian school of singing," and the operation of the representative element in music, together with the new forms created through its entrance into art.
The musical movement of this century in its entirety was a part of the general operation of mind, which was now of great amplitude and spontaneity. The fervor of the Renaissance indeed had passed, having resulted in the creation of masterpieces of architecture, sculpture, painting and poetry during the previous two centuries. Music came to expression last of the forms of art, and when mental movement was less intense. For this reason the Italian mind failed to rule in it after the early beginnings in the new direction had been made. The representative element entered the art of music in Italy; but the mastery of its application, and the development of new forms fully completing the representation, were carried on by other nationalities where the mental movement still retained the pristine vigor of new impulses and rich vitality.
The city of Florence was the center where the drama and song-like melody found its beginning. Almost immediately, however, Venice became the home of music, and fostered the growth of dramatic song for more than half a century. At this time, as for a century previous, Venice was the most active intellectual center of Europe. Perhaps nothing gives so clear a realization of this supremacy as the statistics of books printed in the leading centers of Europe from 1470 to 1500. The largest centers were Strassburg, with 526; Basle, 320; Leipsic, 351; Nuremburg, 382; Cologne, 530; Paris, 751; Rome, 925; Bologna, 298; Milan, 625, while Venice heads the list with 2,835. Toward the end of the century, the appearance of the genius, Alexander Scarlatti, effected the transference of the musical supremacy of Italy to Naples.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FIRST CENTURY OF ITALIAN OPERA AND
DRAMATIC SONG.
URING the last decade of the sixteenth century a company of Florentine gentlemen were in the habit of meeting at the house of Count Bardi for the study of ancient literature. Their attention had concentrated itself upon the drama of the Greeks, and the one thing which they sought to discover was the music of ancient tragedy, the stately and measured intonation to which the great periods of Æschylus, Euripides and Sophocles had been uttered. The alleged fragments of Pindar's music since discovered by Athanasius Kircher ([p. 69]) were not yet known, and they had nothing whatever to guide their researches beyond the mathematical computations of Ptolemy and the other Greek writers. At length, one evening, Vincenzo Galilei, father of the astronomer Galileo, presented himself with a monody. Taking a scene from Dante's "Purgatorio" (the episode of Ugolini), he sang or chanted it to music of his own production, with the accompaniment of the viola played by himself. The assembly was in raptures. "Surely," they said, "this must have been the style of the music of the famous drama of Athens." Thereupon others set themselves to composing monodies, which, as yet, were not arias, but something between a recitative and an aria, having measure and a certain regularity of tune, but in general the freedom of the chant. Among the number at Count Bardi's was the poet Rinuccini, who prepared a drama called "Dafne." The music of this was composed in part by an amateur named Caccini, and in part by Jacopo Peri, all being members of this studious circle meeting at the house of Count Bardi. "Dafne" was performed in 1597 at the house of Count Corsi, with great success, but the music has been lost, and nothing more definite is known about it. This beginning of opera, for so it was, was also the beginning of opera in Germany, as we shall presently see, for about twenty years later a copy of "Dafne" was carried to Dresden for production there before the court, but when the libretto had been translated into German, it was found unsuited to the music of the Italian copy, whereupon the Dresden director, Heinrich Schütz, wrote new music for it, and thus became the composer of the first German opera ever written. In 1600 the marriage of Catherine de Medici with Henry IV of France was celebrated at Florence with great pomp, and Peri was commissioned to undertake a new opera, for which Rinuccini composed the text "Eurydice." The work was given with great éclat, and was shortly after printed. Only one copy of the first edition is now known to be in existence, and that, by a curious accident, is in the Newberry Library at Chicago. The British Museum has a copy of the second edition of 1608. The opera of "Eurydice" is short, the printed copy containing only fifty-eight pages, and the music is almost entirely recitative. There are two or three short choruses; there is one orchestral interlude for three flutes, extending to about twenty measures in all, but there is nothing like a finale or ensemble piece. Nevertheless, this is the beginning, out of which afterward grew the entire flower of Italian opera. On [page 225] is an [extract].
[From the first opera, "Eurydice" (1600). Jacopo Peri.]
The new style thus invented was known to the Italians as il stilo rappresentivo, or the representative style, that is to say, the dramatic style, and there is some dispute as to the real author of the invention. About the same time with the production of "Eurydice," a Florentine musician, Emilio del Cavaliere, wrote the music to a sacred drama, of which the text had been composed for him by Laura Guidiccioni, the title being "La Rappresentazione del Anima e del Corpo." The piece was an allegorical one, very elaborate in its structure, and written throughout in the representative style, of which Cavaliere claimed to be the inventor. This oratorio, which was the first ever written, was produced at the oratory of St. Maria in Vallicella, in the month of February, ten months before the appearance of "Eurydice" at Florence. It is evident, therefore, that if the style had been in any manner derived from the Florentine experiments already noted, it must have been from the earlier opera "Dafne" and not from "Eurydice." The principal characters were "Il Tempo" (time), "La Vita" (life), "Il Mondo" (the world), etc. The orchestra consisted of one lira doppia, one clavicembalo, one chitarrone and two flutes. No part is written for violin. At one part of the performance there was a ballet. The whole was performed in church, as already noticed, as a part of religious service.
Seven years later we enter upon the second period of the opera, when, on the occasion of the marriage of Francesco Gongeaza with Margherita, Infanta of Savoy, Rinuccini prepared the libretti for two operas, entitled "Dafne" and "Arianna," the second of which was set to music by Claudio Monteverde, the ducal musical director, a man of extraordinary genius. The first of these operas has long since been forgotten, but Monteverde made a prodigious effect with his. The scene where Ariadne bewails the departure of her faithless lover affected the audience to tears. Monteverde was immediately commissioned to write another opera, for which he took the subject of "Orfeo," and, being himself an accomplished violinist, he made an important addition to the orchestral appointments previously attempted in opera. The instruments used were the following:
2 Gravicembani.
2 Contrabassi de viola.
10 Viole da brazzo.
1 Arpa doppio.
2 Violini piccolo alla Francese.
2 Chitaroni.
2 Organi de Legno.
2 Bassa da Gamba.
4 Tromboni.
1 Regale.
2 Cornetti.
1 Flautino alla vigesima secunda.
1 Clarino, con 3 trombi sordine.
A very decided attempt is made in this work at orchestra coloring, each character being furnished with a combination of instruments appropriate to his place in the drama. These works were not given in public, but only in palaces for the great, and it was not for more than twenty years that a public opera house was erected in Venice. In 1624 Monteverde at the instance of Girolamo Mocenigo composed an intermezzo, "Il Combatimento di Tancredi e Clorinda," in which he introduced for the first time two important orchestral effects: The pizzicati (plucking the strings with the fingers) and the tremolo. These occur in the scene where Clorinda, disguised as a knight, fights a duel with her lover Tancredi, who, not knowing his opponent, gives her a fatal wound. The strokes of the sword are accompanied by the pizzicati of the violins, and the suspense when Clorinda falls is characterized by the tremolo—two devices universal in melodrama to the present day.
Monteverde had already for some time been a resident in Venice as director of the music at St. Mark's, where his salary had originally been established at 300 ducats per annum, and a house in the canon's close. In 1616 his salary was raised to 500 ducats, and he gave himself up entirely to the service of the republic. The first opera house was erected in 1637 and was followed within a few years by two other opera houses in Venice. In these places Monteverde's subsequent works were produced. The greater number of his manuscripts are hopelessly lost. We possess only eight books of madrigals, a volume of canzonettes, the complete edition of "Orpheus," and a quantity of church music.
The new path opened by this great composer was followed assiduously by a multitude of Italian musicians. Among these the more distinguished names are those of Cavalli, who wrote thirty-four operas for Venice alone, Legrenzi and Cesti. The latter wrote six operas, some of which were very successful. By 1699 there were eleven theaters in Venice at which operas were habitually given; at Rome there were three; in Bologna one; and in Naples one. It would take us too far to discuss in detail the successive steps in the history during this century, since in the nature of the case, an individual work like an opera can with difficulty rise above the popular musical phraseology of the day, the object being immediate success with a public largely uncultivated. Hence, popular operas for the most part are short-lived, rarely retaining their popularity more than thirty years.
The greatest genius in opera in this century after Monteverde was Alessandro Scarlatti, of Naples, the principal of the conservatory there, and, we might say, the inventor of the Italian art of singing—bel canto. For as there had been no monody, so there had been no solo singing, and as the operas of the first three-quarters of this century, in spite of the improvements of Monteverde, consisted mostly of recitative, there was still no singing in the modern acceptation of the term. Scarlatti introduced new forms. To the recitativo secco, or unaccompanied recitative, which until now had been the principal dependence for the movement of the drama, he added the recitativo stromentato, or accompanied recitative, in which the instruments afforded a dramatic coloring for the text of the singer. To these, again, he added a third element, the aria. The first he employed for the ordinary business of the stage; the second for the expression of deep pathos; the third for strongly individualized soliloquy. These three types of vocal delivery remain valid, and are still used by composers in the same way as by Scarlatti. His first opera was produced in Rome at the palace of Christina, ex-queen of Sweden, in 1680. This was followed by 108 others, the most of which were produced in Naples. The most celebrated of these were "Pompei" (Naples, 1684), "La Theodora" (Rome, 1693), "Il Triompho de la Liberta" (Venice, 1707) and, most celebrated of all, "La Principessa Fidele." In addition to this he wrote a large number of cantatas, more or less dramatic in character. Scarlatti not only created the aria, calling for sustained and impassioned singing, but also invented or discovered methods of training singers to perform these numbers successfully. He was the founder of the Italian school of singing, and the external model upon which it was based undoubtedly was furnished by the violin which, having been perfected by the Amati, as already noted in the [previous chapter], and its solo capacities having been brought out by Archangelo Corelli, whose first violin sonatas were published a few years before Scarlatti's first opera, had now established a standard of melodic phrasing and impassioned delivery superior to anything which had previously been known. It was a pupil of Scarlatti, Nicolo Porpora (1686-1766), who carried forward the work begun by his master. Porpora was even a greater teacher of singing than Scarlatti himself, and his pupils became the leading singers in Europe during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The progress of vocal cultivation was remarkably helped by the fact that at this time women were not permitted to appear upon the stage, all the female parts being taken by male sopranos, castrati. These artificial sopranos, having no other career before them than that of operatic singing, devoted themselves vigorously to the technique of their art, and were efficient agents in awakening a taste for florid singing impossible for ordinary or untrained voices. Women did not appear upon the stage in opera until toward the middle of this century. Händel, in London, had male sopranos such as Farinelli, Senesimo, and the earlier of the female sopranos, of whom the vicious Cuzzoni was a shining example. The artistic merits of Porpora have been greatly exaggerated by certain writers, notably by Mme. George Sand in her "Consuelo," where he figures as one of the greatest and most devoted of artists. Her work, however, has the excellence of affording a very good representation of the artistic end proposed by the Italian masters of singing in their best moments. Porpora spent the early part of his life in Naples, but afterward he resided for some time in Dresden, Vienna, Rome and Venice, being principal of a conservatory in the latter place. In the latter years of his life (1736) he was invited to London to compose operas in competition with Händel, in which calling he but poorly succeeded. Porpora represents the ideal which has ruled Italian opera from his time to the present, the ideal, namely, of the pleasing, the well sounding, and the vocally agreeable. He is responsible for the fanciful roulades, the long arias and the many features of this part of dramatic music which please the unthinking, but mark such a wide departure from the severe and noble, if narrow, ideal of the original inventors of this form of art.
It is to be regretted that the limits of the present work do not permit the introduction of selections of music sufficiently extended for illustrating the finer modifications of style effected by the successive masters named in the text. The brief extracts following are taken from the excellent lectures of the late John Hullah upon "Transitional Periods in Musical History." The same valuable and suggestive work contains a number of more extended selections from these and other little known masters of the period, for which reason the book forms a useful addition to the library of teachers, schools, etc. Other illustrations will be found in Gevaert's "Les Gloires d'Italie" ("The Glories of Italy"). There are sixty arias in this collection, all well edited, and chosen for their effectiveness for public performance at the present day.
ARIA PARLANTE.—"LASCIATE MI MORIR."
[From the opera "Ariadne," 1607. Monteverde.]
EXTRACT FROM SONG, "VAGHE STELLE."
[From the opera "Erismena," 1655. Francesco Cavalli.]
[From a cantata. Alessandro Scarlatti.]
CHAPTER XIX.
BEGINNINGS OF OPERA IN FRANCE AND
GERMANY.
I.
ROM Florence the art of dramatic song spread to all other parts of the world, yet not so rapidly as would have been supposed. For it was not until nearly half of the century had already elapsed that opera made a beginning in France, the country where ruled the unfortunate princess for whose nuptials the first opera had been written. French opera grew out of the ballet. This term, which at present is restricted to entertainments in which dancing is the principal feature, and the story is entirely told in pantomime, had formerly a more extended signification. It was equivalent to the English term "Mask," a play in which dancing, songs and even dialogue found place. This light and sprightly form of drama has been favored in France from a remote period. As early as the first quarter of the seventeenth century Antoine Boesset (1585-1643) composed ballets for the entertainments of the king, Louis XIII. His son succeeded him at the court of Louis XIV. Some of the ballets of the elder Boesset were produced in 1635, and in these we must find the beginnings of French opera, if indeed we do not go back still farther, and find it in the play of "Robin and Marian," written by Adam de la Halle. In fact, dramatic entertainment has been indigenous in France from an early date, and it is by no means easy to say that at any particular moment the line was crossed where modern opera begins. The ballets of Boesset were, no doubt, slight upon the dramatic side, having even less of serious intention in the music than the lightest of comic opera of the present day.
The impulse to grand opera came from a different quarter. A sagacious cleric, the Abbé Perrin, heard, either at Florence or in Paris, from the company of Italian singers brought over in 1645, Peri's "Eurydice," which made a great impression upon him, and he suggested to a musician of his acquaintance, Robert Cambert, the production of another work in similar style. Several things in this account appear strange, but strangest of all, the total ignorance that prevailed in Paris of the vast development that had been made in Italian opera by Monteverde and the other Italians, during the forty years since Peri's experiment had been first composed. With the leisurely movement of the times, the new work of the French composers was produced in 1659. This was "La Pastorale," performed with the greatest applause at the chateau of Issy. This was followed by several other works in similar style, "Ariane," "Adonis" and the like, and in 1669 Perrin secured a patent giving him a monopoly of operatic performances in France for a period of years.
Meanwhile a certain ambitious and unscrupulous youngster was feeling his way to a position where he might make himself recognized. It was the youthful violinist, Jean Baptiste Lulli, the illegitimate son of a Florentine gentleman, his dates being about 1633-1687. Lulli had been taught the rudiments of knowledge, including that of the violin, by a kind-hearted priest of his native city, and, when yet a mere lad, made his way to Paris in the suite of the duke of Guise. Once in Paris his way was open. Gifted with a quick wit, a total absence of principle or honor, but of insatiable ambition, he made his way from one position to another, and at length had been so prominent as a composer of dance music, and leader of the king's violins, as to have opportunity to distinguish himself by composing the music for the ballet of "Alcidiane," and others, in which Louis XIV himself danced. Lulli's ambition was still farther stimulated and his style influenced by the study of the music of Cavalli, for several of whose operas he composed ballets, upon the occasion of their production in France.
Within thirteen years he produced no less than thirty ballets. In these he himself took part with considerable success as dancer and comic actor. The success of Cambert and Perrin's operas of "Pomone" and "The Pains and Pleasures of Love" (1671) awakened in him the desire of supplanting them in the regard of the king. After intrigues creditable neither to himself nor to the powers influenced by them, he succeeded in this same year in having the patent of Perrin set aside, and a new one issued, giving him the sole right of producing operas in France for a period of years. Then ensued a career of operatic productivity most creditable and influential from every point of view. In the space of fourteen years Lulli produced twenty operas, or divertissements, of which the best, perhaps, were "Alceste," 1674, "Thesée," 1675, "Amadis de Gaule," 1684, and "Roland," 1685. Lulli made certain improvements upon the Italian models, which he originally followed, making the recitative more stately, and employing the accompanying orchestra for purposes of dramatic coloration. He was a great master of the stage, and introduced his effects with consummate judgment. His declamation of the text was most excellent, and in this respect his operas have served as models in the traditions of the French stage from that time until now. As a musician, however, he was clever rather than deep, and the music is often monotonous and rather stilted. Nevertheless, his operas held the stage for many years after the death of their author, and occasional revivals have taken place at intervals, even after the advance in taste and musical knowledge had effectually quenched their ability to please a popular audience. His "Roland" was performed as an incident in the regular season at Paris as late as 1778, when Gluck's "Orpheus" had already been heard. The example of Lulli's music given on [pages 240 and 241] is from this work. The melody is vigorous and appropriate.
The most commendable feature of this beginning of opera in France was the attention given to the musical treatment of the vernacular of the country. The principle once recognized, that opera not in the vernacular of the country can never have more than an incidental and adventitious importance, has always been maintained in France. The Académie de Musique, for which the patent was granted to Perrin, and transferred to Lulli, has been maintained with few interruptions ever since, and has been the home of a native French opera, constantly increasing in vigor, originality and interest. Italian opera has been fashionable in Paris for brief periods, and as the amusement of the fashionable world, but the native opera has nearly always held the place of honor in the affections of the people, and the foreign works produced there have been translated into the French language.
SONG.—"ROLAND, COUREZ AUX ARMES."
[From the opera "Roland," 1685. J.B. Lulli.]
II.
In Germany the contrary was the case for more than a century later. The first operatic performance, indeed, was given in the German language. A copy of Peri's "Dafne" was sent to Dresden and as a preparation for performance the text was translated, but it was found impossible to adapt the German words to the Italian recitative, owing to the different structure of the German sentences, bringing the emphasis in totally different places. In this stress the local master, Heinrich Schütz, was called upon to compose new music, which he did, and the work was given in 1627. This beginning of German opera, however, was totally accidental. All that was intended was the repetition of the famous Italian work. Nor did the persons concerned appear to recognize the importance and high significance of the act in which they had co-operated, for no other German operas were given there or elsewhere until much later. Schütz, moreover, did not pursue the career of an operatic composer, but turned his attention mainly to church music and oratorio, in which department he highly distinguished himself, as we will presently have occasion to examine farther.
It was not until the beginning of the century next ensuing, that German opera began to take root and grow. The beginning was made in the free city of Hamburg, which was at that time the richest and most independent city of Germany, and, being remote from the centers of political disturbance, it suffered less from the thirty years' war than most other parts of the country. The prime mover here was Reinhard Keiser (1673-1739), born at Weissenfels, near Leipsic, and educated at the Thomas School. His attention had been directed to dramatic music early, and at the age of nineteen he was commissioned to write a pastoral, "Ismene," for the court of Brunswick. The success of this gained him another libretto, "Basilius," also composed with success. He removed to Hamburg in 1694, and for forty years remained a favorite with the public, composing for that theater no less than 116 operas, of which the first, "Irene," was produced in 1697. In 1700 he opened a series of popular concerts, the prototypes of the star combinations of the present day. In these entertainments the greatest virtuosi were heard, the most popular and best singers, and the newest and best music. His direction of the opera did not begin until 1703; here also he proved himself a master. The place of this composer in the history of art is mainly an adventitious one, depending upon the chronological circumstance of his preceding others in the same field, rather than upon the more important reason of his having set a style, or established an ideal, for later masters. His operas subsided into farce, the serious element being almost wholly lacking, and, according to Riemann, the last of them shows no improvement over the first. Their only merit is that they are not imitations of the Italian nor upon mythological subjects, but from common life. In his later life he devoted himself to the composition of church music, in which department he accomplished notable, if somewhat conventional, success. The Hamburg theater furnished a field for another somewhat famous figure in musical history, that of Johann Mattheson, a singularly versatile and gifted man, a native of that city (1681-1764). After a liberal education, in which his musical taste and talent became distinguished at an early age, he appeared on the stage as singer, and in one of his own operas, after singing his rôle upon the stage, came back into the orchestra in order to conduct from the harpsichord the performance, until his rôle required him again upon the stage. Indeed, it was this eccentricity which occasioned a quarrel between him and Händel, who resented the implication that he himself was incapable of carrying on the performance. Mattheson composed a large number of works, including many church cantatas of the style made more celebrated in the works of Sebastian Bach, later, the intention of these works having been to render the church services more interesting by affording the congregation a practical place in the exercises. Mattheson is best known at the present time by his "Complete Orchestral Director," a compilation of musical knowledge and notions, intended for the instruction of those intending to act in this capacity.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PROGRESS OF ORATORIO.
I.
S already noticed in the [previous chapter], the oratorio had its origin at the same time as opera, both being phases of the stilo rappresentativo, or the effort to afford musical utterance to dramatic poetry—at first merely a solemn and impressive utterance, later, as the possibilities of the new phase of art unfolded themselves, a descriptive utterance, in which the music colored and emphasized the moods of the text and the situation. The idea of oratorio was not new. All through the Middle Ages they seem to have had miracle plays in the Church, as accessories of the less solemn services, and as means of instruction in biblical history. The mediæval plays had very plain music, which followed entirely the cadences of the plain song, and made no attempt at representing the dramatic situation or the feelings growing out of it. All that the music sought to do was to afford a decorous utterance, having in it, from association with the cadence of the music of the Church, something impressive, yet not in any manner growing out of the drama to which it was set. The Florentine music drama was something entirely different from this, or soon became so, and in oratorio this was just as apparent as in opera, although the opportunities of vocal display were not made so much of.
The modern oratorio exists in two types: The dramatic cantata, of which the form and general idea were established by Carissimi; and the church cantata, which differed from the Italian type chiefly in being of a more exclusively religious character, and of having occasional opportunities for the congregation to join in a chorale. The former of these types was established by Giacomo Carissimi (1604-1674), who was born near Rome, and held his first musical position as director at Assisi, but presently obtained the directorship at the Church of St. Apollinaris in Rome, where he served all the remainder of his long and active life. Without having been a genius of the first order, it was Carissimi's good fortune to exercise an important influence upon the course of musical progress, particularly in the direction of oratorio, in which all the more attractive elements came from his innovations. Carissimi was a prolific composer, having constant occasion for new and pleasing attractions for the musical service of the rich and important Jesuit church, where he held his appointment. These compositions are of every sort, but cantatas form the larger portion, consisting of passages of Scripture set in consecutive form, with due alternation of solo and chorus, in a style at once pleasing and dramatically appropriate. The majority of his compositions have been lost, many of them going to the waste paper baskets when the Jesuits were suppressed. Enough remain, however, to indicate the interest and importance of his work. Moreover, there, is another curious commentary upon the value of his music, in the fact that Händel took twelve measures well nigh bodily out of one of the choruses in Carissimi's "Jephthah," and incorporated them in "Hear Jacob's God" in his own "Samson." Mr. Hullah gives an excellent aria from this work, but it is too long for insertion here. The more important of Carissimi's innovations were in the direction of pleasing qualities in the accompaniments, and agreeable rhythms. He was teacher of several of the most important Italian musicians of the following generation, among them being Bassani, Cesti, Buononcini and Alessandro Scarlatti.
Fig. 47.
HEINRICH SCHÜTZ.
II.
The other type of oratorio received important assistance toward full realization in Germany, at the hands of Mattheson, as already noticed, and from those of Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), who, after preliminary studies in Italy, where he acquired the Italian representative style from Gabrieli in Venice, in 1609, three years later returned to Germany, and in 1615 was appointed chapel master to the elector of Saxony, a position which he held with slight interruptions until his death, at the advanced age already indicated. Notice has already been taken in a [former chapter] of his appearance in the field of opera composition, in setting new music to Rinuccini's "Dafne," on account of the German words being incapable of adaptation to the music of Peri. But before this he had demonstrated his versatility and talent in the production of certain settings of the psalms of David, in the form of motettes for eight and more voices. In his second work, an oratorio upon the "Resurrection," he shows the same striving after a freer dramatic expression. His great work "Symphoniæ Sacræ," consists of cantatas for voices, with instrumental accompaniments, in which the instrumental part shows serious effort after dramatic coloration. The first of his works in this style was the "Last Seven Words" (1645), which contained the distinguishing marks of all the later Passion music. It consisted of a narrative, reflections, chorales, and the words of the Lord Himself. Many years later he produced his great Passions (1665-1666), and in these he accomplishes as much of the dramatic expression as possible by means of choruses, which are highly dramatic in style and very spirited. The voluminous works of this master have now been reprinted, and some of them possess a degree of interest warranting their occasional presentation. Schütz occupies an intermediate position between the masters of the old school, with whom the traditions of ecclesiastical modes governed everything, and those who have passed entirely beyond them and polyphony, into modern monody. The music of Schütz is always polyphonic, but there is much of dramatic feeling in it, nevertheless. He was one of those clear-headed, practical masters, who, without being geniuses in the intuitive sense, nevertheless contrive to impress themselves upon the subsequent activity in their province, chiefly through their sagacity in seizing new forms and bringing them into practicable perfection. Into the forms of the Passion, as Schütz created it, Bach poured the wealth of his devotion and his inspiration; so later Beethoven put into the symphony form, created to his hand by the somewhat mechanical Haydn, the amplitude of his musical imagination, which, but for this preparatory work of the lesser master, would have been driven to the creation of entirely new forms for his thoughts, not only hampering the composer, but—which would have been equally unfavorable to his success—depriving him of an audience prepared to appreciate the greatness of the new genius through their previous training in the same general style.
CHAPTER XXI.
BEGINNINGS OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.
HE beginning of instrumental music, apart from vocal, is to be found in the latter part of the sixteenth century, but the main advances toward freedom of style and spontaneous expression were made during the seventeenth, and, as we might expect, originally in Italy, where the art of music was more prosperous, and incitations to advance were more numerous and diversified. Upon all accounts the honor of the first place in the account of this part of the development of modern music is to be given to Andreas Gabrieli (1510-1586), who from a singing boy in the choir of St. Mark's, under the direction of Adrian Willaert, succeeded in 1566 to the position of second organist, where his fame attracted many pupils. Among the numberless compositions emanating from his pen were masses, madrigals, and a considerable variety of pieces for organ alone, bearing the names of "Canzone," "Ricerari," "Concerte," and five-voiced Sonatas, the latter printed in 1586, being perhaps the earliest application of this now celebrated name to instrumental compositions. The pieces of Gabrieli were mostly imitations of compositions for the voice, fugal in style, and with never among them a melody fully carried out. Among the pupils of Andreas Gabrieli were Hans Leo Hassler, the celebrated Dresden composer, and Swelinck, the equally celebrated Netherlandish organist, of whom there is more to be said.
The beginning of organ composition, and the higher art of organ playing, made by Andreas Gabrieli, was carried much farther by his nephew and pupil, Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612), who, born and trained at Venice, early entered the service of its great cathedral, and in 1585 succeeded Claudio Merulo as first organist of the same. As a composer Giovanni Gabrieli continued the double-chorus effects which had been such a feature of the St. Mark's liturgy since the time of Willaert, but especially he distinguished himself in improving the style of organ playing, and in giving it a freedom and almost secular character somewhat surprising for the times. A large number of his compositions of all sorts are in print, very many "for voices or instruments." The alternative affords a good idea of the subordinate position still occupied by instrumental music, but a beginning had been made, which later was to lead to great things.
Fig. 48.
JEAN PIETERS SWELINCK.
The art of organ playing found its next great exponents in Holland and Germany, all of them having been pupils of the Venetian master. The most celebrated of these, considered purely as an organist, was Jean Pieters Swelinck (1560-1621), who was born at Deventer in Holland, and died at Amsterdam. He was more celebrated as a performer and improviser than for the instrumental pieces he published. Among his pupils was the celebrated Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654), organist at Halle, who is memorable as the first who made artistic use of the chorale. Scheidt is also famous as the author of a book upon organ tabulature, or the notation for organ, which in Germany at this period was different from that of the piano, and in fact much resembled the tabulature for the lute, from which it was derived. It consists of a combination of lines and signs, by the aid of which the organist was supposed to be capable of deciphering the intentions of the composer. No especial importance appears to have been attached to the difference of notation for instruments and voices in this period. And in fact, until our own times certain instruments, the viola, for example, have had their own notation, different from the voices, and different from that of other instruments. Another celebrated German organist of this period was Johann Hermann Schein, who, with Scheidt and Swelinck, constituted the three great German musical S's of the sixteenth century. Schein (1586-1630) was appointed cantor of the Leipsic St. Thomas school in 1615, and worked there as above. His numberless compositions are more free in style than the average of the century, and a number of them are distinctly secular. Nevertheless, in the development of instrumental music he had but small part, not being one of the highly gifted original geniuses who impress themselves upon following generations. The great German master of this period was Schütz, chapel master at Dresden, whose career forms part of the story of the oratorio, a form of music which he had so large a share in shaping into its present form.
Fig. 49.
SAMUEL SCHEIDT.
II.
In order to come once more into the path of musical empire, we must return again to Italy, where there was an organist at St. Peter's, who had in him the elements of greatness and originality. Girolamo Frescobaldi (1587-1640) was organist of St. Peter's at Rome from 1615. His education had been in part acquired in Italy, and in part in the Netherlands. As a virtuoso he attained an extraordinary success, and one of his recitals is reputed to have been attended by as many as 30,000 people. He distinguished himself as composer no less than as organist, and particularly by his compositions in free style. His Ricerari, Concertos and Canzones were all protests against the bondage of instrumental music to the fetters of vocal forms. It was the compositions of this master, together with those of Froberger, that Sebastian Bach desired to have, and which, in fact, he stole out of his brother's book case, and copied in the moonlight nights.
It would take us too far were we to enumerate all the composers who distinguished themselves in this century, no one of them succeeding in composing anything satisfactory to this later generation, but all contributing something toward the liberation of instrumental music, and all adding something to its too limited resources. Among these names were those of Johann Kasper Kerl, organist at St. Stephen's church in Vienna, who, after having served with distinction at Munich, returned later and died at Vienna in 1690. Another of these German masters, also one of those whose compositions Bach wished to study, was Johann Pachelbel, of Nuremberg (1635-1706). In 1674 he was assistant organist at Vienna, in 1677 organist at Eisenach, and soon back to Nuremberg a few years later. His multifarious works for organ, among which we find a variety of forms, were perhaps the chief model upon which Sebastian Bach formed his style. He especially excelled in improvising choral variations, and in fanciful and musicianly treatment of themes proposed by the hearer. Yet another name of this epoch, that of George Muffat, is now almost forgotten. He studied in France, and formed his style upon that of the French. A later master, also very influential in the style of Sebastian Bach, was Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707). For nearly forty years he was organist at the Church of St. Mary at Lübeck, where he was so celebrated that the young Sebastian Bach made a journey on foot there in order to hear and master the principles of his art. Buxtehude wrote a great number of pieces in free style for the organ, and, while his works have little value to modern ears, there is no doubt that this master was an important influence upon the enfranchisement of instrumental music. Among all these Netherlandish organists few are better known by name at the present day than Johann Adam Reinken (1623-1722), who was born at Deventer, Holland, and after the proper elementary and finishing studies, succeeded his master, Scheidemann, as organist at Hamburg. Here his fame was so great that the young Bach made two journeys there on foot, in order to hear him. He was a virtuoso of a high order, and his style exercised considerable influence over that of Bach.
Fig. 50.
JOHANN ADAM REINKEN.
III.
Return we now to Italy, where the violin led also to an important development of instrumental music, having in it the promise of the best that we have had since. In Fusignano, near Imola, was born in 1653 Archangelo Corelli, who became the first of violin virtuosi, and the first of composers for the instrument, and for violins in combination with other members of the same family, and so of our string quartette. He died in 1713 at Rome. Of his boyhood there is little known. About 1680 he appears in high favor at the court of Munich. In 1681 he was again in Rome, where he appears to have found a friend in Cardinal Ottoboni, in whose palace he died. His period of creative activity extended from 1683, when he began the publication of his forty-eight three-voiced sonatas, for two violins, in four numbers of twelve sonatas each. He also composed many other sonatas for the violin, for violin and piano, and for other instruments. These epoch-marking works are held in high esteem at the present time, and are in constant use for purposes of instruction.
Meanwhile the orchestra had been steadily enriched through the competition of successive operatic composers, each exerting himself to produce more effect than the preceding. In this way new combinations of tone color were contrived, and now and then introduced in a fortunate manner, and effects of greater sonority were attained through the greater number of instruments, and the more expert use of those they had. In the present state of knowledge it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to trace the successive steps of this progress, and to give proper credit to each composer for his own contribution to the general stock. At best, the orchestra at the end of this century was somewhat meager. The violin and the other members of its family had taken their places somewhat as we now have them, but the number of basses and tenors was much less than at present, their place being filled by the archlute and the harpsichord. The trumpet was occasionally employed, the flute, the oboe, and very rarely the trombone. The conductor at the harpsichord, playing from a figured bass, filled in chords according to his own judgment of the effect required. Nothing approaching the smoothness and discreet coloration of the orchestra of the present day, or even of the Haydn orchestra, existed at this time. The violin players were very cautious about using the second and third "positions," but played continually with their hands in the first position. This part of the music, therefore, wholly lacked the freedom which it now has, and the whole progress of this century was purely apprentice work in instrumental music, its value lying in its establishing the principle, first, that instrumental music might exist independently of vocal, and, second, that it might enhance the expressiveness of vocal music when associated with it. The groundwork of the two great forms of the period next ensuing, the fugue and the sonata, had been laid, and a certain amount of precedent established in favor of free composition in dance and fantasia form. Meanwhile the pianoforte of the day, the clavicembalo, as the Italians called it, had been considerably improved. The present scale of music had been demonstrated by Zarlino, and the ground prepared for the great geniuses whose coming made the eighteenth century forever memorable as the blossoming time of musical art.
Upon the whole, perhaps the most important part of the actual accomplishment of this century was in musical theory. While musicians for centuries had been employing the major and minor thirds, and the triads as we now have them, the fact had remained unacknowledged in musical theory, and the supposed authority of the Greeks still remained binding upon all. Zarlino, however, made a new departure. He not only assigned the true intervals of the major scale, according to perfect intonation, but argued strongly for equal temperament, and demonstrated the impossibility of chromatic music upon any other basis. Purists may still continue to doubt whether this was an absolute advantage to the art of music, since it carries with it the necessity of having all harmonic relations something short of perfection; but the immediate benefit to musical progress was unquestionable, and according to all appearance the art of music is irrevocably committed to the tempered scale of twelve tones in the octave.
