The schools of the Netherlands came into prominence about 1425, and endured, with little loss of prestige, for two centuries, or until 1625. During this period there was a succession of eminent names in music in these countries, and a great progress was made in polyphony, and a transition begun out of that into harmony (which was in part accidental, owing to their outdoing themselves, as we shall see). Moreover, in the later times, quite a number of eminent men emigrated to foreign countries, and there kindled the sacred fires of the art, and set new causes in operation, leading to the development of national schools of great vigor. The three most eminent names in the category last referred to were those of Tinctor, who founded the school of Naples shortly before 1500; Willaert, who founded that of Venice soon after 1500, and Orlando Lassus, who founded that of Munich a trifle later. The great Palestrina himself was an outcome of these schools of the Netherlands, and, aside from the independent musical life in Spain, there was no strong cultivation of music anywhere in Europe during this period, which did not have its source in these schools of the Netherlands. The entire relation of these schools is perhaps better shown in the following table taken from Naumann, than is possible in any other manner:
THE NETHERLAND SCHOOL. (1425-1625 A.D.)
| Belgian School. | Dutch School. |
| First Period—1425-1512. | First Period—1430-1506. |
| OKEGHEM, Compère, Petrus, Platenis, Tinctor. | Hobrecht. |
| Second Period—1455-1526. | Second Period—1495-1570. |
| JOSQUIN DES PRÈS, Agricola, Mouton. | ARKADELT, Holländer. |
| Third Period—1495-1572. | Third Period—1440-1622. |
| GOMBERT, WILLAERT,
Goudimel, Clemens (non papa), Cyprian de Rore. | SCHWELINCK. |
| Fourth Period—1520-1625. | |
| ORLANDO LASSUS, Andreas Pavernage, Phillippus de Monte, Verdonck. |
The first composer of the Belgian branch of the Netherlandish school was Joannes Okeghem, who was a singer boy in the choir of the Antwerp cathedral in 1443, and is supposed to have been a pupil of Binchois. Directly after the date just mentioned he gave up his place at Antwerp, and entered the service of the king of France. For forty years he served three successive kings, having been in especial favor with Louis XI. He resigned his position at Tours soon after 1490, and lived in retirement until his death in 1513, at the age of nearly 100 years. Okeghem was a very ingenious and laborious composer, who carried the art of canonic imitation to a much finer point than had been reached before his time. He is generally credited with having composed a motette in thirty-six parts having almost all the devices later known as augmentation, diminution, inversion, retrograde, crab, etc. The thirty-six parts here mentioned, however, were not fully written out. Only six parts were written, the remainder being developed from these on the principle of a round, the successive choruses following each other at certain intervals, according to Latin directions printed with the music. The other composers belonging to this period were comparatively unimportant, with the exception of Johannes Tinctor, who was born about 1446 and died in 1511. Tinctor, after being educated to music in Belgium, emigrated to Naples. In early youth he studied law, and took the degree of doctor of jurisprudence, and afterward of theology; was admitted to the priesthood, and became a canon. He then entered the service of Ferdinand of Aragon, king of Naples, who appointed him chaplain and cantor. He founded a music school in Naples, and published a multitude of theoretical works of the nature of text books. He is entitled to the honorable distinction of having published the first musical dictionary of which we have any record. This book is without date, but is supposed to have been printed about 1475. None of the compositions of Tinctor have been printed, and his importance in music history ranks mainly upon the theoretical works which he composed, and his relation as founder of the Naples school.
The second period of the Belgian school has the great name of Josquin des Près, who was born about the middle of the fifteenth century, probably at St. Quentin, in Hainault. He was a pupil of Okeghem; was chapel master in his native town, and in 1471 was a musician at the papal court of Sixtus IV. This great master is to be remembered as the first of the Netherlandish school whose works still have vitality. He was a man of genius and of musical feeling. Martin Luther said of him that "Other composers make their music where their notes take them [referring to their canonic devices]; but Josquin takes his music where he wills." Baini, the biographer of Palestrina, speaks of him as having been the idol of Europe. He says: "They sing only Josquin in Italy; Josquin alone in France; only Josquin in Germany; in Flanders, in Hungary, in Bohemia, in Spain—only Josquin." ("Si canta il solo Jusquino in Italia; il solo Jusquino in Francia; il solo Jusquino in Germania," etc.) Josquin was a musician of ready wit, and many amusing stories are told of the skill with which he overcame obstacles. Among others it is told that while he was at the French court the courtier to whom he applied for promotion always put him off with the answer, "Lascia fare mi." Weary of waiting, Josquin composed a mass upon the subject la, sol, fa, re, mi, repeated over and over in mimicry of the oft repeated answer. The king was so much amused that he at once promised Josquin a position, but his memory not having proved faithful, Josquin appealed to him with a motette: "Portio mea non est in terra viventium" ("My portion is not in the land of the living"); and "Memor esto verbi tui" ("Remember thy words"). Another anecdote of similar readiness is that of the motette which the king, who was a very bad singer, asked Josquin to write, with a part in it for the royal voice. Josquin composed a very elaborate motette, full of all sorts of canonic devices, and in the center of the score one part with the same note repeated over and over, the one good note of the king's voice—the inscription being "Vox regis" ("voice of the king"). It will be too much to claim Josquin as a composer of expressive music. The mere fact of his having written motettes upon the genealogies in the first chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke sufficiently defines the importance he attached to the words. Speaking of Josquin's treatment of effects, it is recorded of him that a single word is sometimes scattered through a whole page of notes, showing that he attached no importance to the words whatever. One of the most beautiful of his pieces was a dirge written upon the death of Okeghem. Owing to the good fortune of the invention of music printing from movable types, in 1498, when Josquin was at the height of his powers, a large number of his works have come down to modern times.
In the corresponding period of the Dutch school the name of Jacob Arkadelt is to be remembered, who, although not a composer of the first order, was nevertheless a man of decided power, and is known to us through a number of his works still existing in considerable freshness. Arkadelt was a singing master to the boys in St. Peter's in Rome in 1539, and was admitted to the college of papal singers in 1540. About 1555 he entered the service of Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, duke of Guise, and went to Paris, where probably he died. Besides a large number of motettes and masses, he was one of the most famous of the Venetian school of madrigal writers, a form of composition of which it will be in order to speak later. One of the most pleasing of Arkadelt's compositions is an Ave Maria which is often played and sung at the present day.
The third period of the Netherlandish school embraced four very eminent names—Gombert, Willaert, Goudimel and Cyprian de Rore. The three latter were successively chapel masters at the cathedral of St. Mark's in Venice, and were eminent lights of the Venetian school. It is a significant indication of the commercial decadence of the Netherlands, which had now set in, that all the composers of this period distinguished themselves in foreign countries. Nicholas Gombert, a pupil of Josquin, became master of singers, and afterward directed the music at the royal chapel in Madrid from 1530. He was a prolific composer of masses, motettes, chansons and other works. Of the remaining members of this period mention will be made in connection with the account of the music in St. Mark's, where they all distinguished themselves.
The most gifted of all these Netherlandish masters was Orlando de Lassus, who was born in Belgium, educated at Antwerp, spent some time in Italy, and finally settled at Munich, where he lived for about forty years, as musical director and composer. The compositions of this great man fill many volumes. He distinguished himself in every province of music, being equally at home in secular madrigals—quite a number of which are heard even at the present day with satisfaction—masses and other heavy church compositions, and instrumental works. He was a cultivated man of the world who held an honored position at court and made a great mark in the community. He founded the school at Munich which, with rare good fortune, has occupied a distinguished position ever since, and has been, and still is, one of the most important musical centers in Europe, as all who are acquainted with the history of Richard Wagner, or the reputation of the present incumbent, the Master Rheinberger, will readily see. In Lassus we begin to have the spontaneity of the modern composer. The quaintness of the Middle Ages still lingers to some extent, and learning he had in plenty when it suited him to use it, but he was also capable of very simple and direct melodic expression and quaint and very fascinating harmony. While the tonality is still vague, like that of the church modes, the music itself is thoroughly chordal in character, and evidently planned with reference to the direct expression of the text. A large number of madrigals have come down to us from this great master; among them is the one called "Matona, Lovely Maiden," which is one of the most beautiful part songs in existence. The life of Lassus was full of dignity and honor. He was extremely popular in Munich and in all other parts of Europe. He is to be considered the first great genius in the art of music.
Fig. 30.