St. Nicholas Tune by Orlandus Lassus
in which each line represents a chord, with the melody at the top. This is how Harmony, or the science of chords, came into use as we know it now.
Among Willaert’s pupils were Cyprian de Rore of Antwerp, who succeeded his master at St. Mark’s, and most of his works were madrigals which gained him much fame in Italy. He was one of the first to use the chromatic scale (scale in semi-tones like black and white keys on the piano).
An Italian, Zarlino, pupil of Willaert, must be mentioned here, not as a writer of music but as the author of three most important books on harmony and theory. These books seem to have been very much needed for they were reprinted many times. Another Italian pupil of Willaert was Andrea Gabrieli, like his master, also an organist at St. Mark’s.
The greatest contribution from this Venetian school was its important use of instrumental music as an independent art, thus giving music a great push forward.
A composer whose motets and madrigals we still hear frequently is Jacob Arcadelt, a Netherlander, who spent most of his life in Italy, and shared with Willaert the glory of being one of the founders of the Venetian school. He was a singer at the court of Florence, singing master to the choir boys at St. Peter’s in Rome, and then he became a member of the Papal choir.
The life of Claude Goudimel seems, from the little we know, to have been dramatic. He is supposed to have been in Rome where he taught Palestrina, the greatest composer of the age. One writer says that he never was in Rome and was not the teacher of Palestrina! Even his birthplace is disputed. What is certain, however, is that he met his death in the massacre of the Huguenots (Protestants) at Lyons in 1572. He wrote many settings of Calvinist Psalms by Clement Marot which work led to his being a victim of the massacre.