Karl Klauser

TOWARD the end of the Middle Ages, the morning of a new and powerful intellectual life began to dawn. Renewed industry and commerce created wealth. In large and flourishing cities, the sense of liberty and of independence from the pressure of feudal rule united citizens in powerful corporations.

With wealth and liberty, literature, art and science found a favorable field in which to fructify.

From Italy the new light spread over the other European countries. The Italians, everywhere surrounded by the sublime remains of Greek and Roman art, recovered first from the lethargy and confusion, caused by the great immigration of Northern nations. In Bologna, Pisa, Padua, Parma, Naples and other cities, universities and high schools were founded, where it is said, thousands of students from all countries flocked to listen to the teaching of great masters; and in this rich, inspiring and varied spectacle, Dante was the noble central figure.

The development of music, in Italy, kept pace with that of literature, and its first emanations were based on the music of ancient Greece, so far as its few surviving musical hymns could be deciphered.

Greece disappeared as a nation after the Roman conquest, and its music vanished at the same time. The musical revival was an entirely new departure which dated from the appearance of the early Christian converts at Rome, during the time of the Apostles. These neophytes tried to introduce the old tunes which they had heard in the holy city. But such strange melodies could not, of course, find ready adoption, and they were suppressed during the general persecutions. They were, it is true, used in the worship which was secretly carried on in the catacombs. Here they survived, transmitted from generation to generation by oral communication only, during the three centuries that preceded the formal recognition of Christianity by the state.

As text and music were greatly corrupted through such transmission, Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan, made, about the year 384, a collection of the sacred tunes then in use, trying to restore them to their original form; and he appended to the collection a code of technical laws, in order to prevent future corruptions of the music. Saint Gregory the Great made many additions (590 A. D.) to the work of Saint Ambrose, and at the same time tried to establish more comprehensive musical laws. He was the first to revive, in their completeness, the eight modes used by the Greeks, and which supplanted the four used in the time of Saint Ambrose. The collection of Gregory included, also, many new tunes and hymns, together with music to the antiphones for the entire ecclesiastical year. All this he gave in an improved mode of musical notation (Semiography), and he called this new collection "Antiphonar."

The next stage in musical development was the important work of Guido of Arezzo (1030), a Benedictine monk of Pomposa, who wrote voluminously on musical theory and on the condition of the music of his time. It has been the rule with historians of music to attribute to Guido many discoveries which were doubtless made by other monks. Thus, he is credited with the invention of counterpoint, solmisation, the staff, the hexachord, the harmonic or Guidonian hand (see page 137), and the monochord. It is doubtful if research will ever be able to establish with accuracy exactly what we owe to Guido, but it is certain that he invented solmisation, by applying to the diatonic scale certain syllables of a hymn dedicated to John the Baptist, and they introduced new light and greater facility into the study of music. The modification of Guido's solmisation by the substitution of the more vocal syllable "do" for "ut," has been generally adopted; but the French, whose u is, by nature, sufficiently vocal, have not felt the need of this change.

In the early middle ages the entire study and teaching of science and art, so far as it is known, was in the hands of the monks. They did their utmost to maintain a clear distinction between learned and popular music. Thus it happened that the folk-song, the utterance of the people, had its own line of development. The earliest attempts in writing learned music date from the time of Hucbald, a Benedictine monk of Flanders (840-930 A. D.) and of the staunchest of his followers, Jean Perotin; but Hucbald was not the inventor of counterpoint. The principle of imitation and the foundations of canon and fugue, were laid in Northern Europe; the first great school of composition was established in the Netherlands. Elsewhere in this work will be found a systematic and full treatment of this period. We need therefore only direct attention to that essay on the subject, which establishes the chronological connection of the Netherland masters with the great era of ecclesiastical music at Rome.

The first Roman school owes its salient characteristics to the marked preference accorded Flemish singers in the choir of the Sistine Chapel, at Rome. The founder of the school was the Belgian, Constanzo Festa, who obtained a place in the choir, in 1516. His compositions and those of his pupils show distinct traces of the influence of the successors of Josquin des PrÈs, but they possess sufficient individuality to prove the existence of innate genius of a very high order. Festa is believed to have been the first Italian composer who became a thorough master in counterpoint. But his Netherland tendencies did not prevent his foreshadowing that tenderness, purity and simplicity which distinguished the works of the great Italian masters who followed him.

The golden age of ecclesiastical music begins to dawn with the second Roman school and the appearance of Giovanni Pierluigi Sante Palestrina, one of the greatest and most original geniuses the world of art ever produced.

Numerous changes had taken place in musical style up to the time of Palestrina's appearance. When the rude forms of discant and organum, practiced by Hucbald and Guido of Arezzo, had been abandoned in consequence of the invention of counterpoint, the composers of the time, following the course of development already indicated, struck out in an entirely new art-form, called fugue. There were two kinds of fugue,—the free or unlimited, and the strict or limited. Both kinds still exist, but not under the same names. The former is now called real fugue, to distinguish it from modern deviations from the classical model. The latter kind we now call canon.

In earlier times the polyphonic styles, as well as the secular and ecclesiastic, had each enjoyed a separate existence and undergone a separate development; but the work of the Flemish masters did much to counteract these natural tendencies, and to bring, as it were, all musical grist to one mill. These writers not only made use of secular tunes, in order, as they thought, to give more variety to their music, but they often gave these tunes undue prominence, and thus rendered impossible a really artistic performance. We meet with innumerable masses based on secular themes, such as the first line of a well-known romance. "L'homme armÉ," for instance, a very popular song of the period, was thus used. It would be wrong, however, to attribute any irreverence to these composers. They were merely following the promptings of laudable and genuine artistic feelings, in employing that which should readily appeal to the musical sense of their listeners. Nor are we without examples of similar practices in other arts. In the works of the old Flemish painters, for instance, not only do we see anachronisms in their "Nativities," their "Marriages at Cana" or their "Festivals of Simon of Bethany," but the scene is laid in some well known inn; we find in the background a faithful copy of kitchen utensils of every description; and through an open door we descry the familiar face of a tradesman, or the portrait of the stout and coarse-looking innkeeper. It was a sign of the times, and no one dreamed of censuring the artist who thus worked. Those great painters threw on their canvas what they saw in every day life, never thinking that it should be otherwise; and the composers did likewise in their art. They used in an elaborate way the melodies most frequently heard; but in the course of time this manner of writing had disgraceful consequences. Musical degeneracy became so great and so general that it could only be termed musical debauchery. It was against absurdities such as these that the Council of Trent protested.

Pope Pius IV., having made thorough investigation, came to the conclusion that the style of music generally cultivated was open to serious objections. It was in 1564 that he convened a commission of cardinals to consider the evil and to prescribe a remedy. This commission was inclined to banish from the church all music except unisons and unaccompanied plain chant; but it was decided, before issuing such a far-reaching decree, to canvass the possibilities of introducing "modern" music which should be free from frivolity. After much deliberation, they commissioned Palestrina to write a mass in the purest attainable church style. The result of their bidding was the composition of the Missa PapÆ Marcelli. The success of this remarkable work far exceeded the high expectations that it had aroused. The Pope himself was present at the first performance in the Sistine Chapel, June 19, 1565. So moved was he by the work that, on leaving the church, he exclaimed: "This certainly must have been the harmony of the New Song which the apostle John heard sung in the heavenly Jerusalem, and of which this other John (Palestrina) has given us a foretaste in the Jerusalem on earth." And so it was formally determined that this mass should stand as a model for all church music thereafter to be composed.

GUIDONIAN HAND.

This composition by Palestrina, as well as very many others, not only displays a complete mastery of counterpoint and vocal style, but also deep religious feeling and a rare ability in writing for the human voice. The sterling value of his works cannot be overestimated. Their influence upon later periods has been immeasurable. Indeed, we may say without exaggeration, that never in art has such a mighty change taken place as that caused by the immortal Palestrina's reformatory efforts.

The earlier contrapuntists collected, stone by stone, the materials which served their successors as foundations for further work. Ockeghem was the first to use these fragments in a symmetrical way and to bequeath a systematic style of music-writing to his followers. Among these was Josquin des PrÈs, who attempted to vivify and to infuse blood into the hitherto lifeless counterpoint. But although his success was considerable, it was reserved for Palestrina to free his art from fetters, and to bestow upon it, as far as was possible, individuality. The most noteworthy of Palestrina's Roman contemporaries were Vittoria, Giovanni Maria and Bernar Nannini, Felice and Francesco Anerio, and the famous composer of madrigals Luca Marenzio. But other cities of Italy had also their schools, all, however, more or less under the influence of Palestrina. The most prominent was the Venetian school, founded by Adrian Willaert.

Adrian Willaert, born at Bruges in Flanders, in the year 1490, is said to have been a pupil of Jean Mouton, possibly also of Josquin des PrÈs himself. He first studied law at the university of Paris, which, however, he soon abandoned for music. As a young man of twenty-six he had already made a name in his own country with his compositions. It seems, however, that he was not successful in obtaining a position in Rome; he went, therefore, to try his fortune in Venice. He succeeded so well there that in 1527 he had already obtained the position of chapel-master in the church of St. Mark. Under Willaert's direction the music at St. Mark's became famous, and the office of chapel-master at that church reached a high point of eminence; and thence until the eighteenth century the place was occupied only by masters of the first rank. Willaert's influence as a composer and as a teacher of musical art and science was great and beneficial. He was the founder of the Venetian school of music from which sprang so many distinguished composers, theorists and singers. He was the first to introduce the double chorus in the antiphonal form. Up to his death (1562) he kept his position at St. Mark's. He was a pioneer in the broadest sense, for though his style was founded on that of Josquin and his disciples, he began almost where they left off. Willaert's introduction of double choruses in combination, at church service, led afterward to a style of music which his followers developed to its utmost limits, and which resulted in such monstrosities as masses for forty-eight voices. They, of course, were no more than cold, mathematical calculations, barren of intrinsic musical value.

Willaert, with his countrymen Arcadelt and Verdelot, was also the founder or promoter of the madrigal, as a highly refined style of music. Hitherto it had been a kind of wild-flower, a simple pastoral. But now it assumed more importance. The so-called "sacred madrigal" was an offshoot of this new style, and does not differ essentially from contemporary motets. At a later period the comic madrigal came into vogue, through Vecchi and others; and finally, the madrigal was introduced on the dramatic stage in the earliest beginnings of opera, and gave rise to the modern opera chorus. The most celebrated of Willaert's pupils were Cyprian de Rore, also Flemish by birth, Zarlino, the great theorist, Costanzo Porta, Nicolo Vincento (or Vincentino) and Delia Viola.

Cyprian de Rore was born at Mecheln. He was Willaert's successor at St. Mark's in 1563, and died at Parma two years later. His originality was manifested in his madrigals, which became so popular that the Italians called him "Il divino." De Rore did not hesitate to use chromatic intervals, and boldly entered upon the new path which his teacher had merely pointed out. Considerable opposition was made to this innovation at first; but soon other bold masters, such as Orlando Lasso and Luca Marenzio, adopted chromatic intervals in their writings. These masters deserve the honor of having prepared the way for the modern system of major and minor keys and the chromatic scale. They did more toward the attainment of a newer and higher type of music than all the speculations of learned theorists and scholars had been able to accomplish.

De Rore's successor at St. Mark's was Giuseppe Zarlino, the greatest musical theorist of the sixteenth century. Zarlino's specialty was the theory of music rather than composition; hence, it is rather difficult to form any idea of his talent as a composer, from the few compositions that are at hand. His great work on the principles of music entitled "Istituzioni harmoniche" holds a very high place in musical literature. Before his day, musicians avoided the third in the last chord of the final cadence of a composition; all pieces ending either with the simple octave, or the octave with the fifth. Orlando Lasso was the first to adopt this innovation in practical music, but he did not extend it to the minor third, which was not used at the close of a piece until far into the eighteenth century.

Zarlino justified the use of major and minor thirds and sixths as concords, by his so-called diatonic system of "tempered intervals," which was an improvement on the pure-fifth system of Pythagoras. This new system recognized large and small whole tones in the series of intervals comprising the diatonic scale.

The foundation of modern organ-playing was laid at Venice. The most celebrated organ-players of the sixteenth century were offshoots of the Venetian school. With regard to organ music of the Venetian masters, it consisted of short pieces, the form resembling that of the modern prelude. Free running passages and broken chords, with now and then some hints of stricter counterpoint, were the characteristics of this music. The titles indicated greater variety than the contents. Some of them were named: Ricercari, Symphonia, Praeambula, Toccata, Capriccio, Intermezzo, Canzone, and so on.

Von Winterfeld, a celebrated German author, gives, in his masterly work, "Giovanni Gabrieli and his Age," the following complete list of the organists of St. Mark's: De Berghem, Parrabosco, Claudio Merulo and Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli. These two last, Andrea and his nephew Giovanni, were the two greatest masters of the Venetian school.

Andrea Gabrieli was born in 1510, at Venice. He was appointed organist of the second organ at St. Mark's and held this position till his death (1586). He was a productive composer, and enriched church music by the accompaniments of various instruments. He was a remarkable organist, and was the teacher of Merulo, who was very famous as a composer and player on the organ.

Giovanni Gabrieli was born in 1540 and was appointed, in 1584, first organist at St. Mark's in place of Merulo. His genius was manifested in all branches of musical composition. His church music is as solemn and as elevated as that of Palestrina. Although he employed the church modes, he seemed to mould their rigid forms into a more modern expression than had hitherto been imparted to them. Ambros, another great musical historian says: "He prays and we pray with him." If we compare the same text with Palestrina, whose style is not less glorious, nor less elevating to the soul, we feel an immense difference; for Palestrina is the last purest sound of the older direction in music, while Gabrieli announces, in a wonderful manner, the coming musical emancipation of the individual. In unaccompanied vocal music he has never been equalled in the production of rich effects of musical coloring; in separating and massing together "choral harmonies." His compositions for two, three and four choruses are wonderful exhibitions of skill and judgment.

Giovanni della Croce was the last representative of the Venetian school, which died with him in 1609.

Florence, Naples, Bologna and Milan had also distinct polyphonic schools, all of which exercised a decided influence upon foreign schools, not only in their beginning but in their later development. Thus, the Venetian school had a great influence upon the schools of Nuremberg and Munich, the former founded by Hans Leo Hassler, a German, and the latter by the famous Netherlander, Orlando di Lasso (Roland de Lattre.) The influence extended even to Spain.

But these great workers were not destined long to enjoy that public favor which they so richly merited. New forms of composition and new means of expression were being carefully considered.

The rise in popularity of the monodic, the "one melody" style, involved a sudden decline of interest in the polyphonic school. It is impossible to give with exactness the date of the total disappearance of this later style of writing in Italy. With the gradual introduction of madrigals and through the influence of dramatic music, the hitherto accepted rules of musical construction were subjected to a great change. In the compositions in the old church modes we note, as distinctive traits, an unrelaxing adherence to diatonic scale progressions and a strict preservation of half-tone interval (mi-fa) in all the modes. By this usage each key required, of course, its own special harmonic treatment, and each of the cadences, or endings, differed in character from all the others. The distinctions between the various mediÆval keys were, indeed, far more strongly marked than are those which exist between the modern major and minor scales. These great differences led the older church composers to attribute to each of the modes distinct powers of expression; but just as no modern theorist has been able satisfactorily to explain the nature and character of the major and minor keys, so the mediÆval composers had widely diverging ideas concerning the modes, and employed them variously, according to their personal preferences.

Toward the end of the sixteenth century less strict laws came to be applied to the use of the old church modes, and gradually their peculiar diatonic was wholly lost. Through the efforts of the madrigalists, and especially through the agency of the masters of the Venetian school, the chromatic element became established in music, and the severity and harshness of the church modes greatly lessened.

The most common forms of secular music in Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were the Frottola, the Villotta or Villanella, and the Madrial or Madrigal. They were all part songs, more or less elaborate, according to the sentiment of the poetry. The Frottole were four-part songs, of a gay and trivial nature, generally popular street songs; but some of them were more earnest and sentimental, being set to good poetry (arcadica).

The Villotte or Villanelle were originally peasants' songs, as the name implies. They resembled the frottole, but were more extended and musicianly. The Villotte alla Napoletana were the most artistic songs of this class, but were often sung to frivolous words. The Madrigal was known as early as the fourteenth century, but it did not rise into universal prominence as the representative form of secular music before Willaert's day.

The word madrigal is derived from mandra, a flock, and denoted, originally, a shepherd's song (Pastorale). As formerly stated, early composers often selected for their masses Gregorian chants, or secular melodies. In the madrigal, however, the composition rested upon original invention, thus allowing more variety in form and contrapuntal treatment. In the madrigal, the composer's endeavor was to express through adequate music, the meaning of the poem: he followed closely, with appropriate motives, the sentiment of the different verses. Strict and elaborate canons and fugues were therefore out of place in the madrigal, in which, though seemingly simple in its construction, the composer found ample opportunity to display his mastery in contrapuntal writing. Great variety in rhythm, poetical expression, characteristic melodies, new and striking harmonies, were considered the necessary qualities of the madrigal. It was generally written in three, four, five, six and even more parts, though writing in five parts seems to have been most in favor and use.

The words of a madrigal generally consisted of twelve or fifteen lines, which had no fixed metre, so that the poem appeared more like a free, than a versified recitation. The closing lines often expressed some witty or happy thought like an epigram. The music was governed more strictly by the meaning of the words than it was in the mass, and the counterpoint was more simple and expressive. In some madrigals the voices were treated with exquisite refinement, in a delicate web of counterpoint. Others were composed in simple harmony, note against note. This latter style possessed a diatonic character, out of which the chromatic element of modern music could gradually be developed. The first hints of this new method we owe to Willaert.

Adrian Willaert is considered, if not as the inventor of the madrigal, at least as the composer by whom it was given its first artistic form. It may be regarded as the highest form of chamber-music of those days, written and composed for the refined and appreciative amateurs of the best social circles, principally in Venice and Rome. All composers of repute produced works in this favorite form; among others (beside the two most prominent, Willaert and Cyprian de Rore) Constanzo Porta, Constanzo Festa, Verdelot, Arcadelt, Orlandus Lassus, Orazio Vechi and Luca Marenzio, the last named being the best madrigalist of his time.

There were other favorite vocal forms of a more general character, which were composed according to a chosen metre, to which the poem was afterward set. The name given to this species of composition was modus (still to be found in the Portuguese term for folk-song, modinha) or aer, and from this source was derived the modern name, air or aria, which signifies the manner of singing (as we say a person has a certain air or manner), and does not refer, as many suppose it does, to the medium of song; that is, the sound of vibrating air.

These forms of secular song were inspired, undoubtedly, by the beautiful poetry which enriched Italian literature at that period,—the age of Dante, Petrarch, Torquato Tasso and Bocaccio.

Petrucci published (1504-1508) as many as eight books of Frottole, some nine hundred numbers in all. These are characteristic, though primitive examples of Italian music, and mark the essential difference between that and Flemish music. The latter, like the Gothic architecture of the North, was developed organically from germs or motives, while the former corresponds to simpler forms, the grand curves and arches of Roman churches, within whose walls the pure and elevated harmonies of Palestrina have resounded through the centuries. The innovations which resulted from these new ideas rapidly became popular, and in the course of time, old church modes fell permanently into disuse.

The last noteworthy representatives of the polyphonic school of the sixteenth century were Orlando di Lasso (Munich), Giovanni della Croce (Venice) and, chiefly, Gregorio Allegri.

Allegri, a beneficed priest attached to the cathedral at Fermo, and a member of the same family which produced the painter Coreggio, was a composer of much distinction. He was born at Rome about 1580, and died in 1652. He was instructed in music by G. M. Nannini. During his residence at Fermo he acted as chorister and composer for the cathedral. Certain motetti and concerti, published at this time, attracted the notice of Pope Urban VIII., and Allegri received from him, in 1629, the appointment to a vacancy among the cantori of the Apostolic Chapel. Allegri's name is chiefly associated with a Miserere in nine parts for two choirs, which has been sung annually in the Pontifical Chapel, during Holy Week. This is held to be one of the most beautiful compositions ever dedicated to the service of the Roman church. There was a time when it was so much treasured that to copy it was a crime punished by excommunication. But in various ways it came to be known outside the Sistine Chapel. Dr. Burney (1726-1814), the famous English historian of music, obtained a copy of it. Mozart, when a boy of fifteen, took down the notes while the choir sang it. Choron, the well known French musician, managed to insert it in his collection of pieces used in Rome during the Holy Week.

In the Sistine Chapel this Miserere has always excited the enthusiasm of musicians owing to a certain indescribable intensity of sadness that characterizes it, and to its perfect rhythmical adaptation to the words to which it is wedded.

We have now to deal with an epoch in the history of music which saw the culminations of a great reform. New artistic ideas manifested themselves, and thrust into the background the achievements of polyphonic science. The movement had its beginnings in Florence. There, at the palace of the Count Bardi, was formed a society of art connoisseurs, composed principally of men of noble birth. The fundamental purpose of this coterie was to reËstablish the Greek drama on a basis at once artistic and modern; but the final result of their experiments and discussions was the invention of the opera and the oratorio. Curiously enough, through the fact that only few musicians belonged to the Bardi circle, their ideas were able to make greater progress than they would otherwise have done; for professional musicians in that age were not willing to grant, even for purposes of dramatic expression, the smallest freedom in harmonic or contrapuntal treatment. Here, for the first time in the history of music, we may justly pay high tribute to dilettantism, since it was owing to the efforts of these ardent Florentine amateurs that two of the noblest and most popular branches of musical art were originated.

GREGORIO ALLEGRI.

From an engraving by C. Deblois. 1867.

We find among the friends of Count Bardi the foremost men of the time. The count himself was a gifted poet and composer. Corsi, who afterward became president of the society, was a man of great learning. Ottavio Rinuccini, a highly accomplished poet, supplied the libretti for the first two operas ever performed. Pietro Strozzi was also a poet and composer with advanced ideas. Emilio del Cavalieri, the creator and inventor of the oratorio, was "ducal superintendent of fine arts." Prominent in the society was also Vincenzo Galilei, father of the immortal astronomer, and himself a distinguished composer and clever mathematician. He and Battista Doni were the society's chief representatives in the literary war carried on with the celebrated Zarlino, who furiously condemned the new ideas, and prophesied the ruin of musical art if such innovations should be permanently adopted.

The credit of having introduced a new, fresh and enlivening element into the artistic attempts of the Bardi society is to be attributed chiefly to Giulio Caccini and Vincenzo Galilei. The former was a composer, a singer, and a writer on musical matters. He was generally considered to be the staunchest defender of the new art. In his much discussed work "Nuove Musiche," he places himself in the front rank of the battle and urgently demands the recognition of solo song, so heartily despised by the professional musicians of the time. Caccini, whose own singing gave his hearers intense delight, felt that this department of the art could never reach individual development while the Palestrina style of composition prevailed. He had little theoretical knowledge of music; but, following the example of Galilei, who was the first to use recitative in his musical productions, Caccini enlarged and improved this form, and sung his compositions to the Bardi society. His only accompaniment was the theorbo, a species of lute, but his efforts gained enthusiastic approval. From the small beginnings thus made he passed, in company with Galilei, to the composition of long dramatic scenes, the text being furnished by Count Bardi. This gave to the effort in the direction of reform a new and unexpected significance. Galilei's chief endeavor in his artistic experiments was to introduce the popular element into composition; for, as he insisted, music was not simply the scientific occupation of a few learned men, but belonged to the whole world. Hence, almost all his music is homophonous. No doubt unison vocal music, with little or no accompaniment, had been heard in the canzonetta, villanella, and other forms of popular melody, ages before the birth of Galilei. That the recognition of what we call now the "leading-note" as an essential element of melody was no new thing, may be gathered from the words of Zarlino, who, writing in 1558, says: "Even Nature herself has provided for these things; for not only those skilled in music, but also the contadini (peasants), who sing without any art at all, proceed by the interval of the semitone in forming their closes." The germs of this new element, destined to work one of the most sweeping revolutions known in the history of art, are evidently in all the early attempts of the monodists. In exchange for the contrapuntal glories of the sixteenth century, the composers of the seventeenth offered the graces of symmetrical form, hitherto unknown. The idea was not thrown away on their successors. It was not long before symmetrical form was cultivated in association with a new system, not of counterpoint, as it is sometimes erroneously called, but of part-writings based on the principles of modern harmony, and eminently adapted to the requirements of instrumental music. Thus, in such slight indications of regular phrasing, reiterated figures and prearranged plan as are shown in Caccini's unpretending little arias, we may recognize the origin of much that delights us in the grandest creations of modern musical genius.

The Bardi society wholly failed to attain that for which it struggled,—a revival of the Hellenic drama; but, in the same way that their contemporaries, the alchemists, failed to find a formula for making gold and yet discovered a new science, so these connoisseurs, while failing to impart Greek character to their productions, gave new individuality to music, and introduced into it many important things.

The first embodiment, in large form, of the new ideas was accomplished by Jacopo Peri in his opera, "Daphne," privately performed at the Palazzo Corsi, in 1597. Later works were the "Conte Ugolino" of Galilei, and three operas by Emilio del Cavalieri, entitled "Il Satiro," "La Disperazione di Fileno," and "Il Giuoco della Cieca." The musical style of these compositions was called "lo stile representativo" or "musica parlante." The first publicly performed outcome of this little society's activity was Peri's opera, "Euridice." The text was by Ottavio Rinuccini, the renowned poet of the Bardi coterie. Both Caccini and Peri wrote music to it; but the work of the latter was preferred, and it was given for the first time on the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. of France and Maria di Medici, in December, 1600.

It was, however, as a result of Monteverde's great genius that the opera, as such, was definitely established. The name "opera" was first used in 1650. Before that time a musical drama of this kind had been known as "melodramma" or "dramma per musica." Monteverde determined certain laws and rules which have ever since served to determine the outlines of the opera form. This great artist was born in 1586 in Cremona, and pursued his first musical studies under the Cremonese theoretician, Ingegneri. It was, perhaps, the too strict discipline of this master that caused Monteverde to throw off the fetters which scholastic pedagogy was accustomed to impose on rising genius. His first published compositions were two madrigals, which gave evidence of revolutionary tendencies. In the works of similar form which followed, however, he wholly cast aside the many cherished traditions of the Palestrina style, and drew on himself the condemnation of all the orthodox musicians of his time. The great theorist, Artusi, author of "Delle Imperfezione della Musica Moderna" (Venice, 1600) was, at first, a spirited advocate of the ideas of Galilei and the Florentine school. Later, on the publication of Monteverde's six volumes of madrigals, he declared himself as decidedly opposed to the plan of renewing the Greek drama, and wrote biting articles against Monteverde in particular. He condemned this composer's violations of the laws of harmony and counterpoint, and, indeed, went so far as to deny him all musical talent. Monteverde was unmoved and uninfluenced by this adverse criticism. He felt himself irresistibly drawn to the composition of homophonic and dramatic music, and felt that artistic ideals could be realized only by a total disregard of the existing canons of musical art.

Another ducal marriage, that of Francesco Gonzaga, son of the Duke of Mantua, brought to Rinuccini the command to write a new libretto. The poet, full of inspiration, produced two texts, one of which, "Arianna," was composed by Monteverde and achieved great success. The Duke of Mantua then proved to be the general protector of the new art, for we note that he commanded Monteverde to write operas for different occasions. "Orfeo" (1608), "Combattimento di Tancredi" (1613), "Le nozze d' Enea," "Il Ritorno d' Ulisse" are all occasional works of the great reformer. Monteverde died in 1643, and was buried in the Chiesa dei Frari.

The great success of Monteverde's works turned the tide of composition towards the creation of operas, and the popularity of these productions soon suggested the desirability of erecting theatres which should be chiefly devoted to the presentation of opera. The first opera house was built in Venice in 1637, and was called the Teatro di San Cassiano. The owners of it were Benedetto Ferrari and Francesco Mannelli, who wrote respectively the libretti and the music to the first two operas represented there. Francesco Cavalli, Monteverde's favorite pupil, also composed operas for this theatre. Two other opera houses were built at Venice within a short space of time. For these theatres operatic novelties were supplied in rapid succession. The names of the composers were Carlo Pallavicini, D. Giovanni Legrenzi, Antonio Sartorio, and Marc Antonio Cesti. Cavalli was a very prolific writer, having composed between 1639 and 1665 not less than thirty-four operas. The best among them were "Il Giasone" (1649) and "L' Erismera" (1665), of which the manuscripts are preserved in the library of St. Mark at Venice. Legrenzi wrote seventeen operas, the most successful being "Achille in Scyro" (1664) and "I due Cesari" (1683). Opera became more and more fashionable; and, as Venice was one of the greatest musical centres as well as one of the most popular pleasure resorts, the city of the laguna possessed, before the end of the seventeenth century, no less than eleven opera houses, all of which were filled to overflowing whenever performances were given. In Rome, the first opera house, known as the "Torre di Nona," was opened in 1671 with Cavalli's "Giasone"; the second, "La scala dei Signori Capranica," was inaugurated in 1679. A third theatre was that of the Palazzo Alberti (1696.)

From these musical centres, the love for opera soon spread to Naples, to Bologna, to Padua, and other places. The courts at Vienna, Dresden and Paris sought to cultivate a taste for Italian opera, and huge theatres were built for this purpose. Ottavio Rinuccini, the poet, went to France in the suite of Maria di Medici, and made an unsuccessful attempt to introduce Italian opera. It was not until the time of Jean Baptiste Lully, an Italian by birth, that the new art-form attained a firm foothold in France.

Meanwhile, the oratorio, which, as has already been said, came into existence almost as early as the opera, was also becoming very popular. This species of sacred composition was the direct descendant of the mysteries and miracle-plays of the middle ages. These mysteries were primarily intended for the instruction of the masses in biblical history. The dramatic facts and occurrences of the Scriptures were treated, it is true, in a rather coarse manner, but the rugged poetry which many of these works contain has not been justly appreciated by either moralists or historians. A remnant of these ancient works is still to be found in the periodical representations at Oberammergau, and some prominent composers of the present epoch have tried to revive this old form of art. We transcribe from the preface of the miracle-play, "Maria Magdalena," produced with great success at Berlin and several important English centres, the following sentences: Mysteries, or miracle-plays, were representations of dramatic scenes borrowed from the Bible, and were performed in the Middle Ages, chiefly by roving Franciscans. This brotherhood, wandering from hamlet to hamlet, from place to place, saw in these shows, performed often with great pomp in churches or public squares, the most effectual means of spreading abroad the principles of the Christian religion. At first, the dramas rested upon a purely declamatory basis, but at the end of the fifteenth century choral songs with incidental solos, accompanied by the organ and other instruments, became incorporated in the representations. We find the embryos of musical mysteries in 1289 at Friuli and at 1343 at Padua. In France, too, these performances were called mysteries, and in Spain "autos sacramentales." Lope de Vega wrote a great number of these holy dramas. It was the universal custom at that epoch for the spectators, previous to the beginning of the drama, to recite some antiphons having connection with the action of the play.

We may regard it as a very striking coincidence, that in the same year which witnessed the production of Peri's "Euridice" at Florence, the first oratorio was performed at Rome, in the church of S. Maria in Valicella, then recently built by St. Philip Neri, the founder of the congregation of the Oratorians. St. Philip, a friend of Palestrina, was a firm believer in the power of sacred music, and its utility as a means of exciting healthy devotional feeling. For the purpose of encouraging a general love for it, he warmly supported the guild or brotherhood called the Laudisti. On certain solemn occasions this order paraded the streets singing hymns of a melodious character, called "laudi spirituali," one of which—"Alia trinitÀ beata"—is still to be heard as a popular hymn-tune. It was probably in the oratory attached to the new church, that the first oratorio was performed, in the month of February, 1600; and it is certain that it was from the name of the edifice that this form of composition derived its name.

The title of the first oratorio was "La Rappresentazione dell' Anima e del Corpo" (The representation of the Soul and the Body). The words were by Laura Guidiccioni and the music by Emilio del Cavalieri. The subject was allegorical, and the style of the music was that of the monodic school, a style wholly declamatory and recognizing no distinction whatever between recitative and air. The inventor and the early masters of the oratorio treated this "sacred drama" more in the manner of the miracle-plays than in that of classical tragedy.

The broad distinction between the mediÆval miracle play—which, for a long time, had been popular in Italy, France, Spain, England and Germany—and the oratorio, was that while in the former the dialogue was spoken, in the latter it was recited to musical notes. The oratorio, in fact, as invented by Emilio del Cavalieri was neither more nor less than an opera, based on a sacred subject; and in Italy it never assumed any other form. Other attempts of the same epoch were made by Kapsberger, a German living in Rome: also by Loreto Michelangiolo Capellina, "Il lamento di S. Maria Vergine" (1627); by Stefano Landi, "S. Alessio" (1634); and by Michelangiolo Rossi "Erminio sul Giordano" (1637). The most successful, however, was Domenico Mazzocchi's "Repentimento di S. Maria Maddalena."

Another important composer in this epoch, and connected chiefly with the early evolution of oratorio style, was Ludovico Viadana (Mantua) who wrote concerti da chiesa (church-concertos), pieces for one or more voices with an organ-bass, and thus introduced into chamber music the newly invented monody of Caccini. He is also the first prominent writer who used the basso continuo, so called because it continues with the upper chief melody and gives it a steadfast, harmonic basis. The long-cherished belief that Viadana was the inventor of this device is erroneous.

The early efforts of Monteverde and Cavalli prepared the way for a later generation of composers, whose works are even now regarded as masterpieces of a style of composition none the less beautiful because no longer cultivated. The most prominent composers of the brilliant period which followed the inauguration of the monodic school were Carissimi, Colonna, Alessandro Stradella, Francesco and Luigi de Rossi, and, greatest of all, Alessandro Scarlatti, of whom a special biographical account is included in the present work. Giacomo Carissimi (born in 1604 at Monino, died in 1674 at Rome) devoted himself chiefly to the composition of sacred music. His works are characterized by sweetness and grace, combined with a richness of instrumental accompaniment very much in advance of the age. His chief compositions are the oratorios "Jefte" and "Iona." Giovanni Paolo Colonna (born in 1640 at Brescia, died in 1695 at Bologna) wrote sacred music of a massive, dignified character, and in every way worthy the school to which it belongs. The manuscript of an "offertorium defunctorum," by Colonna, for eight voices, is in the library of the Royal College of Music in London. This master trained a large number of talented pupils (the Bolognese school), among others, Clari, the composer of many fine works and especially of a collection of charming vocal duets and trios; Giovanni Bononcini, a rival of Handel, in London; and Perti, Aldovrandini, Passarini, Pasquale, and the celebrated composer and historian, Padre Martini.

Alessandro Stradella, whose name has been so frequently mentioned in connection with a fatal love-adventure, wrote many operas and oratorios. The aria "PietÀ, signore," attributed to him, is not of his composition. For a long time it was thought to have been written by Alessandro Scarlatti; but it is evidently in the style of Francesco di Rossi, a canon of Bari, who died in 1688.

Rossi wrote the operas "Il Sejano," "Clorilda," "Mitrane." The beautiful aria "Ah! rendimi," well known to all singers, is from his opera "Mitrane." Luigi Rossi, of whose presence in Rome we hear as early as the year 1620, was also a very talented composer. His only known opera is "Il palazzo incantato." But none of these composers rivalled, either in talent or reputation, their great contemporary, Alessandro Scarlatti, who was born in 1659 at Trapani in Sicily and died in 1725 at Naples. He was a pupil of Carissimi. The secret of his great power lay in his recognition of the true value of counterpoint. He was wise enough to see that the art for which Peri and Monteverde had expressed their undisguised contempt, formed the technical basis of all true greatness in music. Scarlatti was considered the most learned musician, as well as the greatest genius of the age. His power of production was almost incredible. His first opera, "L'Onesta nell Amore" (1680), was followed by no less than a hundred and fourteen other operas. He is known to have written two hundred masses, and far more than that number of cantatas. Very few of these were printed, and the majority have been consequently lost. Signs of rapid progress are everywhere apparent in these operas,—most of all in the recitative and the form of the aria. Scarlatti is supposed to be the inventor of the recitative obligato (with accompaniment) and the da capo (repetition of a musical movement). His son, Domenico Scarlatti, of whom we shall have later to speak, became one of the greatest harpsicord players on record. Alessandro's greatest contemporaries in Germany were the older members of the Bach family, who steadily made advances in musical art, more especially in the higher branches of sacred music, culminating in the great Sebastian Bach.

BENEDETTO MARCELLO.

Reproduction of a lithograph portrait.

The followers of Scarlatti during the earlier years of the eighteenth century, claim our admiration, not so much on account of their inventive power, as on the ground that they made progress in matters of technical perfection. Nevertheless, the century gave birth to some composers whose genius was not merely great in comparison with the talent displayed by contemporary writers, but so truly great in itself that it seems impossible they should ever be forgotten.

Among the Italian followers of Scarlatti was the favorite pupil of Legrenzi, Antonio Lotti (1667-1740). He invested the form left by Scarlatti with a melodious grace so modern in character that some of his arias, e. g. "Pur dicesti," are still regarded as standard compositions. He wrote more than twenty operas. In 1756 he was elected maestro di capella at St. Mark's, and in the same year he was commissioned by the Venetian Republic to compose, in honor of the Doge's wedding the Adriatic, the famous "Madrigale per il Bucintoro," entitled "Spirito di Dio."

Antonio Caldara (1678-1736) was also a pupil of Legrenzi, at the time when Lotti studied with him. In 1714 he went to Mantua as maestro di capella, and later in the same capacity to Vienna. He wrote ninety-six operas, of which the most successful was "Temistocle." His finest composition is a Crucifixus for sixteen voices, still very often sung in prominent churches. Among Lotti's pupils was Baldassare Galuppi(1706-1786), who wrote fifty-four operas, and a great deal of delightful chamber-music.

Another pupil of Caldara, and a prominent figure in musical history, was Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739). He was a Venetian nobleman and musical amateur who, though possessing the musical ability of neither Lotti or Caldara, nevertheless succeeded, by hard work, by keen artistic zeal and by literary mastery, in winning fame for himself even outside his native country. His masterpiece, the paraphrases of fifty psalms set to music, at once brought him to the attention of all the prominent musicians of his time, and established his reputation. The library of St. Mark in Venice has a manuscript "Teoria musicale" by him; the court library has many autographs and other works of Marcello, including the cantatas "Addio di Ettone," "Clorie Daliso" and "La Stravaganza." Marcello's satirical pamphlet, "Il teatro alla moda," is a valuable source of information concerning society life in Venice toward the middle of the eighteenth century. Rossini borrowed one of the principal themes of his overture to the "Siege of Corinth" from Marcello's twenty-first psalm.

While the Palestrina epoch was called the "Golden age of ecclesiastical music," the Neapolitan dramatic school, founded by Alessandro Scarlatti, covers a period in the eighteenth century which is called the "Second golden age of Italian music." Almost all of these prominent composers were pupils of Alessandro Scarlatti. Francesco Durante (1684-1755) was a highly accomplished musician, and one of the best writers of the age. His sacred compositions, which are numberless, are as graceful as they are tempered with true dignity of style.

PADRE J. B. MARTINI.

Reproduction of a lithograph portrait.

Emanuele d' Astorga (1688-1736) was celebrated as a singer and as a composer, and also for his romantic and rather melancholy life. His "Stabat mater," is a composition full of religious fervor and sweet pathos, as well as original in form and melodic invention. Leonardo Leo (1694-1741), who was superior to Astorga, wrote about fifty operas (one for the debut of the soprano Caffarelli), many masses, and a famous Miserere for eight voices. Francesco Feo (1699-1750) was a noble and learned master, who wrote the operas "Ipermestra" and "Andromache."

Lionardo da Vinci (1690-1732), who is sometimes confounded with the great painter of the same name, wrote the operas "Silla" and "Siface." A love quarrel caused his untimely death by assassination.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1737) was a pupil of Greco, Durante, and Feo. As an opera composer his only success was "La Serva Padrona," an intermezzo which was performed in nearly every theatre in Europe. Among Pergolesi's productions as a church composer, the "Stabat Mater," for two female voices with a string-quartet accompaniment, enjoyed for a while extraordinary popularity.

Nicolo Jomelli's (1714-1774) tender and pathetic style rendered him exceedingly popular, both in Italy and in Germany. He wrote sacred and dramatic music. Mozart said of Jomelli: "He is so brilliant in his own particular way that none of us will be able to put him aside: but he should not have attempted to compose church-music in the old style." Nothwithstanding this judgment by Mozart, it is an undeniable fact that Jomelli was the only composer of his time who treated the ecclesiastical style in an almost perfect manner.

Giovanni Paisiello (1741-1815) showed his true greatness most clearly on the stage, and attained a reputation so enduring that his best opera, "Il barbiere di Siviglia," produced at St. Petersburg in 1777, was only after great opposition displaced to make room for Rossini's masterpiece of the same name.

Nicolo Porpora (1686-1766) was very celebrated as a teacher of singing, but also enjoyed, for some time, great popularity as an opera composer.

One of the most important scientific musicians of the eighteenth century was Padre Martini, who was born at Bologna in 1706. He was first taught music by his father, Antonio Maria. He learned singing and violin playing in his youth, and had lessons in counterpoint from Antonio Riccieri, a castrato of Vincenzo and a composer of merit. In 1725, after having been ordained, he became maestro di capella of the church of San Francesco in Bologna. He thus gradually acquired an extraordinary and comprehensive mass of knowledge, with an amount of literary information far in advance of his musical contemporaries. His library was unusually complete for the time. He possessed, for instance, ten copies of Guido of Arezzo's very rare Micrologos. Scientific men of all countries took pleasure in sending him books.

It was chiefly in the development of means and details of expression that music was advancing during this period. The art of singing, too, was receiving much attention. The head of the Neapolitan school, Aless. Scarlatti, in addition to his mastery of counterpoint and fugue, was also a great vocal artist, and all his successors tried to cultivate the art of bel canto. This art of purified and unsophisticated singing was the foundation-stone in the career of all dramatic composers, and hence their great ability to write in a wholly singable style.

GIOVANNI PAISIELLO.

From an engraving in ClÉment's "Musiciens CÉlÈbres."

The climax of bel canto was reached when the celebrated vocal artist, Pistocchi, founded at Bologna his training school for vocalists. Many of his earlier pupils were the celebrities and stars of the London Italian opera, during the brilliant epoch in which Handel wrote for that stage. Among them were the male soprano Senesino, and Sgra. Cuzzoni and Faustina Hasse, wife of the opera composer. But the medal had also its reverse. Haughtiness and boundless conceit were prominent characteristics of these artists. Everybody knows how Handel, not always sweet of temper, treated Cuzzoni, who whimsically refused to take a part in a new opera unless the composer would rewrite it for her. As if endowed with superhuman strength, he seized her, held her out of a window, and threatened to drop her if she did not consent to sing the part as written. But those who had not at their command such violent means to subdue singers, had repeatedly to suffer from their tyrannies.

Indeed, as vocal art came to be more and more the central point of interest in the opera, consideration for the composer grew less and less; and, finally, he became simply the slave of the almost musically-ignorant vocalists. He was obliged to modify his compositions to their satisfaction, whether the changes were in accord with good taste or not. In the operas of the eighteenth century the musical work was esteemed valuable only in proportion as it offered opportunities for vocal display. The composer, in many cases, gave no more than a skeleton of the aria, and the singers were left free to add any embellishments that would display their vocal abilities to the best advantage. Nevertheless names like those of Cuzzoni, Faustina, Durastanti, Frasi, Strada, La Francesina, Nicolini, Senesino, Bernacchi and Carestini lent brilliancy to the epoch. They were all favorite singers in Handel's day. They were great singers when he engaged them, and he no doubt made them greater. In like manner, Porpora, notwithstanding the weakness of his operas, created the school which produced Caffarelli and Farinelli. The Italians may, with just pride, dwell on the fact that the great majority of the prominent singers of the nineteenth century were pupils of Italian masters, such singers, for instance, as Mesdames Mara, Catalani, Pasta, Malibran, Sontag, Grisi and Persiani; the great tenors Manuel Garcia, Rubini and Mario, and the incomparable bassi Lablache and Tamburini, all of whom owed their faultless method to the purely vocal style of the music in which it was their ambition to excel.

But, in spite of its grace and its richly melodious flow, there were serious faults in the older opera of Italy. There was, in the first place, insincerity in dramatic expression.

As eminent representatives of the closing days of this brilliant period of Italian opera, we may mention Nicola Piccinni, Domenico Cimarosa, and Nicolo Zingarelli. Piccinni (1728-1810) gained greater fame than any of his precursors. It was at Rome in 1760 that he produced "Cecchina la buona figluola," perhaps the most popular buffo opera that was ever written, and which for years had an extraordinary vogue. Among many improvements Piccinni introduced in his operas, were the extension of the duet, hitherto treated in a conventional undramatic way, and the variety and importance given to the finale in many movements, the invention of which, however, is due to Logroscino. His fame was equalled by his industry. In the year 1761, alone, he wrote six operas, three serious and three comic. Through the appearance of a rival and former pupil of his, Anfossi, who also won great success with comic operas, he fell seriously ill, and after his recovery he was induced by his friends to leave Italy and go to Paris, which he did in 1776. After this, a surprising change of style took place when he wrote the French operas, "Roland" and "Atys," both of which were successful. Then followed the famous contests between Gluckists and Piccinnists, an episode which has been treated in detail in the special article on Gluck.

DOMENICO CIMAROSA.

From an engraving by C. Deblois, 1867.

Logroscino, another celebrated opera-composer, built his finale upon only one subject or theme; Piccinni, on the contrary, chose several contrasting movements in different keys, and thus gave more dramatic motion and effect to his finales.

Domenico Cimarosa, born at Naples about the year 1749, is said to have been educated under Sacchini, Piccinni and Fenaroli, an eminent Italian theorist at the conservatorio di S. Maria di Loreto. The influence of his genius upon modern Italian opera was so great and so long-continued, that he must be considered as one of the foremost of Italian operatic composers. Up to 1780 he had written about fourteen operas. He then became the acknowledged rival of Paisiello, although their merits were of a different order. Cimarosa's flow of melody was already more genial and infinitely less restrained than Paisiello's, and the concerted movements of the latter bear no comparison with those of his younger rival. By invitation of the Empress Catherine II., Cimarosa went to St. Petersburg in 1787. He remained until 1791, and he produced about six operas in the Russian metropolis. His greatest triumph, however, was achieved in Vienna, where he became court conductor, with the "Matrimonio segreto," one of the finest masterpieces of Italian opera. Subsequently he returned to Naples, and was accorded every possible honor by king Fernando. But he was imprudent enough to join the French terrorists at the outbreak of the revolution, and accordingly he fell into disgrace and was condemned to death. Escaping, he fled to Venice, where he died in 1801. Cimarosa was a prominent genius in the opera buffa, so excellent a master, indeed, that it is scarcely possible to class his works with any others than the masterpieces of Mozart and Rossini's "Barbiere." Beside his operas, seventy-six in all, Cimarosa composed several oratorios, cantatas and masses, which were much admired in their day. His real talent lay in comedy, in his sparkling wit and unfailing good humor. His invention was inexhaustible in the representation of that overflowing and yet naÏve liveliness, that merry, teasing loquacity, which is the distinguishing feature of the genuine Italian buffo style. His chief musical excellence lay in the vocal parts, but the orchestra is delicately and effectually handled, and some of his ensembles are real masterpieces.

Nicolo Zingarelli (1752-1837), whose "Romeo e Giulietta" was so much admired, was unsurpassed in purity of style and refinement of detail. Zingarelli was director of the Conservatory at Naples, and later held a similar position in Milan. Among his numerous pupils the most celebrated was the "swan of Catania," Vincenzo Bellini. All these masters contributed something towards the perfection of outward form, which Italian opera was gradually assuming.

Vincenzo Bellini (1802-1835) was undoubtedly one of the most gifted as well as one of the most popular Italian composers of this century. He studied with Zingarelli at Naples, Mercadante being his class-mate. After some more or less fortunate attempts in opera-writing, he scored a full success with the "Montecchi e Capuletti" in 1830, Pasta appearing. His two greatest successes, however, were "La Sonnambula" (1831, Milan) and "Norma" (1832), with Pasta as heroine. Each of these creations found its way in an incredibly short space of time to every opera house in Europe. Bellini later went to Paris, where he produced "I Puritani" in 1835, with Mme. Grisi and MM. Rubini, Tamburini and Lablache. This was no less a success than the popular works which had preceded it. The excitement attendant upon the production of the latter work was more than Bellini's delicate constitution could endure, and eight months after its performance he died, at Puteaux, near Paris.

Gaetano Donizetti (1798-1848), one of the most prolific writers of the school of the first half of this century, also studied at Naples with Zingarelli. In 1830 he scored his first triumph with "Anna Bolena" (Pasta, Lablache). Rubini sang in it, and a large number of comic and serious operas followed; among them being "L' elisir d' amore" (1832), "Lucrezia Borgia" (1824), "Lucia di Lammermoor" (1835), the last written expressly for the celebrated Madame Persiani and the French tenor Duprez. These are his best operas, and none of his later works were able to win the great popularity attained by them. His last work, "Catarina Cornaro," was produced at Naples in 1844. Soon after, his health broke down completely, and in 1848 he died of paralysis at Bergamo, his native place.

But the glory of the two last mentioned composers was far surpassed by that of their great rival Gioacchino Rossini (born at Pesaro, 1792, died at Passy, near Paris, 1868.) Son of roaming musicians, he became early acquainted with stage-life, and after some incomplete studies, he ventured to write an opera, "La Cambiale di Matrimonio" (1810, Venice). Two others followed, and with the fourth, "La Pietra di Paragone," he scored a great success at Milan. In 1813 "Tancredi" was given and created a furore, making for him a world-wide reputation. "Il Barbiere di Siviglia," the greatest masterpiece of opera buffa, was a fiasco at Rome (1816). "La Cenerentola" (1817), "La Gazza ladra" (1817) and "Moise in Egitto" (1818) were his greatest successful operas. He went afterwards to Vienna, where he was received with enthusiasm, and succeeded in making the Viennese quite forget that they had Beethoven living among them. In 1825 he settled in Paris and produced "Guillaume Tell." After this he wrote no more for the stage, but in 1842 he completed his exquisite "Stabat Mater," and in 1864 "La Messe Solennelle." To the end of his life he possessed the art not only of attaining popularity, but of gaining the affections of all with whom he came in contact.

It may not be without interest to quote some sentences of the celebrated French writer EugÈne de Mirecourt (in "Les Contemporains") to show in what quite different ways French people of the time gave their opinion about Rossini. Mirecourt says: "In spite of his immense musical genius we do not accord him the feu sacrÉ. He never cared for any dignity in his talent, nor had he any pride in his art. God gave him melody, and he might have sung like the nightingale, which warbles among the branches of the tree, but Gioacchino did not care for that sort of thing. He aspired only to become a millionaire as quickly as possible. At the top of every sixteenth note he saw a gold coin, and hence he wrote as many semiquavers as he was able." Another characteristic incident may be mentioned, which will show Rossini in another light. Nourrit, the celebrated French tenor, who created the part of "Arnold" in William Tell, suggested that Rossini should make an addition to the score, writing a new duet between Matilda and Arnold, and trying to emulate in it the celebrated duo from "The Huguenots." Rossini, as he had finished the full score of the opera, did not see his way clear to comply with Nourrit's wish, and his letter to the great tenor is significant. He writes: "I have finished completely my 'William Tell.' And it was a very hard work, I may say, not because of the many notes with which I filled the staves, but for the emotion, for the continuous keeping up of a high-pitched excitement during the composition. There are many who firmly believe in my fa presto way, in my careless writing, because they have seen me, over and over again, laughing, joking, perhaps also attending to the cooking of a dish of savory maccaroni with tomato sauce; and they think I could write serious music, while talking and gossiping with my friends; but they are all sadly mistaken. When the heart's fibre is touched, I am moved, I suffer agony, I weep." And I think whoever listens with unbiassed feeling, to the strains of Arnold's aria, or to the many other musical inspirations, must be capable of distinguishing the composer of the "Barbiere" from that other one who wrote "Guglielmo Tell."

Although we of the nineteenth century think of Italy chiefly as an opera-producing country, we must not forget that she was, in earlier days, identified with important phases in the development of instrumental music. Not only were the piano and violin invented in Italy, but the latter instrument was brought in that country to the highest possible degree of perfection; and the achievements of Italian organists are of primary importance in the history of music. The art of harpsichord, or pianoforte, playing could claim, at the end of the seventeenth century, worthy and ingenious performers and composers. The greatest among all was Domenico Scarlatti, born in 1683. He was a pupil of his father and of Gasparrini, at Naples. He was the first composer who studied the peculiar characteristics of the free style of harpsichord music. His bold innovations were by no means appreciated in Italy, for Dr. Burney remarks in his "State of Music in France and Italy," that the harpsichord was so little cultivated that it had not affected the organ, which was still played in the grand old traditional style. After having composed many operas for Naples, Scarlatti went to Venice, where he made the acquaintance of Handel. Later, in Rome, Cardinal Ottoboni held a kind of competition between the two masters which was undecided in respect to the harpsichord; but when it came to the organ, Scarlatti was the first to acknowledge his rival's superiority, and to declare that he had no idea that such playing as Handel's existed. The two became fast friends from that day. They remained together till Handel left Italy, and met again in London in 1720. Though the technique of pianoforte playing owes so much to Domenico Scarlatti, he did little toward the development of the sonata. Other distinguished performers and composers at the same time, were Durante, Paradies, Porpora, Gasparrini and Alberti.

Gerolamo Frescobaldi was the greatest and most important of all Italian organists. He was born, 1587, at Ferrara, and studied under Alessandro Milleville, also a native of Ferrara. Quadrio tells us that he possessed a singularly beautiful voice, and it is certain that while still a youth, he enjoyed a great reputation both as singer and organist. In 1516 he went to Rome, and before long was appointed regular organist at St. Peter's. His first performance there, according to Baini, attracted an audience of thirty thousand persons. Frohberger, the great German organist and composer, was Frescobaldi's pupil from 1637 to 1641, and thus the noble style of Italian organ playing was handed on to other schools. His compositions are important and give us a high idea of his powers. He was the first to play fugues on the organ. His works consist chiefly of organ-compositions, which even to-day are considered worthy the attention of students of that instrument. Other great Italian masters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, distinguished and gifted composers for the organ, were Girolamo, Parabosco, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, and Merulo.

The early history of the stringed instruments in Italy is one of the most important episodes in the general history of the art. The famous Italian makers have earned a well deserved immortality, and never were their instruments as highly prized as now. The parent of the violin was the rebec, specimens of which may still be seen in numerous museums. We find indications of the use of the rebec in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In manuscripts of that period it is represented as not unlike the mandolin in form, with trefoil sound-holes, and a carved head in the place of the modern scroll. It was fitted with three strings and was played with a bow of somewhat rounded form.

The leading-spirit of the Amati family was Andrea Amati (1520-1577), whose improvements upon the stringed instruments made at Brescia by Maggini and Gasparo da Salo, the most celebrated artists of the still older Brescian school, prepared the way for that perfection that was so soon to be attained. Andrea's brother, the elder Nicolo, confined his attention chiefly to the bass viol. Antonio (1565-1670) and Geronimo, Andrea's two sons, carried out their father's ideas with intelligence and zeal; but the greatest genius of all was Geronimo's son, the second Nicolo (1596-1648), whose best works are simply priceless. Under his son, another Geronimo, the celebrity of the house declined, never to rise again.

Another famous family of Cremonese artists was that of the Guarneri. The founder of the house, Andreas Guarnerius, whose instruments bear dates from 1650 to 1695, was a pupil of Nicolo Amati. The greatest of the family was Joseph, surnamed del GesÙ (1683-1745), a nephew of the venerable Andreas, and so excellent a maker that one of his violins can scarcely be bought at the present day for less than twenty-five hundred dollars. We may add, as a matter of interest, that Joachim, when in London, received the present of a Guarnerius valued at more than six thousand dollars; that Sarasate uses an instrument, granted him for life, but belonging to the Spanish crown, worth fifteen thousand dollars; and that a similar price was paid by Mr. Crawford Leith, of Scotland, for the celebrated "Messiah Stradivarius." This violin is the product of another famous Cremonese maker, the last and greatest artist of the school, Antonio Stradivarius (1649-1737), whose instruments have equal value with those of his fellow townsmen Nicolo Amati and Joseph Guarnerius.

The first famous Italian violin virtuoso was Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713). He settled permanently in Rome in 1683, and found there a happy home in the palace of Cardinal Ottoboni, whose concerts he conducted up to the time of his death. His violin playing was characterized by a refinement of taste which no other performer of the day was able to equal, and the same quality embodied in his compositions render them still delightful, although the technique demanded for their performance would now be regarded as infantile. Among his numerous pupils the most eminent were Geminiani, Locatelli, Somis, Baptiste and Castrucci.

Of equal significance was Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1745). His fame rests on various grounds. He was one of the greatest violinists of all times, an eminent composer, and a scientific writer on musical physics. His contemporaries agree in crediting him with all the qualities that make a great player, a fine tone, unlimited command of fingerboard and bow, perfect intonation in double stops, a brilliant trill and double-trill, which he executed equally well with all the fingers. He was also a remarkably good teacher, as is evidenced by the large number of excellent pupils he sent forth and of which the most eminent are, Nardini, Bini, Manfredi, Ferrari, Graun and Lahoussaye. Some of these have borne enthusiastic testimony to Tartini's rare merits and powers as a teacher, to his unremitting zeal and personal devotion to his scholars, many of whom were linked to him by bonds of intimate friendship to the close of his life.

The importance of the influence of Italy on the earlier forms of composition was not less important than that which she wielded in other branches. The sonata, as its name indicates, is of Italian origin. For a long time the composition of sonatas was cultivated almost exclusively by the violinists. Corelli and Tartini are its principal inventors and representatives. Although they looked upon it mainly as an opportunity to display their technical accomplishments, nevertheless, the musical ability of these two violinists was so great that they constantly sought a noble classical form for their thoughts, and gave to the composition a harmonic construction which corresponds to the most advanced ideas of the time.

As has already been said, the chief remarkable phenomenon in the development of the sonata among the masters of the violin, was the rapidity with which a firm structure in respect to harmony and the relation of keys was produced. The delicate instinct of Corelli and of some of those who followed him, divined and grasped the effect and importance of the effects of certain keys in connection with others distantly or closely related, and the extended and consistent working out of this principle produced those very works which have made their composers renowned far and wide.

The Italian violinist cultivated principally the "intermediate type" which joins the earlier and later sonata style, and in which the first or principal theme appears at the beginning of the first half and reappears near the end, quite in accordance with the custom of our own day. As a noteworthy example of this style, the tempo di gavotta of the eighth sonata, in Corelli's opera seconda, may be named. Among other good examples are the last movement in Tartini's fourth sonata (Op. 1) and the last movement of that in D minor; also the last movement of Geminiani's sonata in C minor, some parts of Vivaldi's sonata in A major, and some sections also of Nardini's sonatas.

Pietro Locatelli (born in 1693 at Bergamo, died in 1764 at Amsterdam) became, at the most tender age, a pupil of Corelli, at Rome. He travelled and settled finally in Amsterdam. He was a very original virtuoso, and the first who introduced extremely difficult violin passages into his compositions. He is therefore generally called the forerunner of Paganini.

Francesco Geminiani (born in 1680 at Lucca, died in 1761 at Dublin), a pupil of Corelli at Rome, also studied composition there with no less a master than Scarlatti. He possessed an extraordinarily lively temperament, which, according to the testimony of contemporary writers, showed itself strongly in his performances. In 1714 he went to England, where he became very popular, and was received into the house of Lord Essex, who became his pupil.

One of the great names among Italian violinists and composers of sonatas is that of Antonio Vivaldi. He forms, so to speak, the connecting link between the perfection of Italian sonata and the beginning of the cultivation of the same form in Germany.

A brilliant comet appeared in the musical heavens, however, that most celebrated and most eccentric of all Italian violinists, Nicolo Paganini (1784-1839). The extraordinary power of this artist's playing could have had its source only in genius of the first order. If genius, as Michael Angelo justly said, is the power of taking infinite pains, Paganini certainly possessed it in a very high degree; for his power of concentration and perseverance were unexampled. Mere perfection of technique, however, would never have thrown the whole of musical Europe into such ecstasies. With the first notes his audience was spell-bound. There was in him—though certainly not the evil spirit suspected by the superstitious—a demoniac element, which irresistibly took hold of those that came under the sway of his tone. Moscheles, the great pianist, remarks: "His constant and daring flights, his newly discovered flageolet-tones, his gift of fusing and beautifying subjects of wholly opposite natures—all these phases of genius so completely bewildered my musical perceptions that for days afterwards my head was on fire and my brain reeled." He was no mere virtuoso. There was something in his playing that defied description or imitation; and he certainly had, in a high degree, originality and character, the two qualities which distinguish the man of genius from the man of talent.

A star of second magnitude as a violinist, but nevertheless noteworthy, was J. B. Viotti (1735-1824), who wrote many classical concertos for his instrument, but afterward gave up playing altogether. Giardini, Pugnani, Campagnoli and many others, living in various musical countries, made names for themselves as performers and composers.

As has already been remarked, Scarlatti was the principal representative in the development of the form of the clavier sonata. Scarlatti, but a few years older than J. Sebastian Bach, has the same distinguishing marks as his great contemporary. He holds himself firmly to a clearly determined form, conditioned by musical laws. The principal difference between the two composers is that Scarlatti was inclined to make the brilliant technique which he possessed as virtuoso the real object of the composition, while in the case of Bach, even in things of lesser dimensions, introspection and artistic intensity manifested themselves. Nevertheless, the flowing and dazzling manner of writing which Scarlatti possessed and which was the result of his Italian temperament, must have often served Sebastian Bach as a model. Scarlatti's form inclines more toward that of the etude than of the true sonata. It was through Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785), a pupil of Lotti and a very talented composer, that the piano sonata received characteristic expression. In his works after the manner of Corelli and Tartini, the display and passage work appeared only as a subordinate element. In comparing Galuppi's celebrated sonata in D major with similar works of Scarlatti, we perceive the great difference between the two masters.

The sonata's greatest companion-piece, the symphony, also came into existence through the efforts of Italian musicians. The word sinfonia first appears with a very uncertain meaning. In general, it was used to mark the distinction between vocal and instrumental movements in cantatas, in sacred music, and, later, in opera. At the beginning of the seventeenth century we find the word used for the first time in large vocal works, and applied to interludes, ritornelle and preludes. This became the general custom when opera was introduced, and the short instrumental prelude was always entitled symphony. This last species of composition is, indeed, to be considered as the origin of our classical symphonic form. Not all the early operas had instrumental introductions, although Jacopo Peri himself made use of them. In his "Eurydice" there is a symphony for three flutes! Monteverde considerably enlarged the form, but seemed to find in it no characteristic expression of his ideas. At that time the form consisted of three parts, a slow movement, a quicker movement, and again a slow movement. This form of the symphony had really no artistic connection with the opera which followed, but was only a musical piece to inform the hearers that the performance was about to begin. Later, however, came works with more marked and pertinent character, which bore the names, overture and toccata. Finally, through the introduction of ballet-melodies, the symphony became of a livelier nature. At the same time, the word symphony gained more significance, and, as its inner construction kept pace with the modest beginning of the sonata form, it became visibly more artistic, more musical and of a more clearly-defined form. We early come in contact, however, with a different kind of sinfonia, invented by an Italian who had become identified with the French school. This form corresponds more nearly to the overture of the present day. Jean Baptiste Lully first used this form. It consisted of a slow, dignified movement, followed by one of light, French style, and closing with a slow movement, which, however, was of less serious character than the first.

The next manifestation of the overture form resembled still more closely our symphony of to-day, in that it began and ended with quick movements. The middle movement was an andante. It is difficult to decide which of the Italian composers first used this form. The details of the development of the separate movements were, in comparison with earlier works of similar character, more careful and more strict. Evidences of the purely musical interest in the perfection of form thus manifested themselves, and the artistic arrangement of ideas made the work much more comprehensible to the public. From its earliest day, this species of composition has borne a clearly defined resemblance to our modern orchestral works, and, under the formative influence of the multitude of composers who used it, the sinfonia italiana made rapid progress towards perfection. By the beginning of the eighteenth century there was that unanimity of ideas among composers which indicates that a musical form exists as an independent thing. We find perhaps the best specimens of these "symphonies" in the overtures to "Catone in Utica" by Lionardo da Vinci and to "Il Mondo alla Riversa" by Galuppi, the latter of which was given one year before Joseph Haydn wrote his first symphony. Another excellent specimen is the overture to the "Bidone" of Piccinni; and, indeed, we find the form in use by Mozart in his first attempt at opera, "La Finta Semplice."

Contemporaneously with the sinfonia there were cultivated, especially in Germany by Bach and Handel, two other art forms of orchestral character: the suite and the concerto grosso. The former was a succession of loosely connected dance movements, such as allemande, courante, gavotte, bourree, passacaglia, passepied, sarabande, etc. The concerto grosso was a species of enlarged sonata for orchestra, which, by means of incidental solos for separate instruments, afforded the various players opportunity to give evidence of their abilities as soloists. Handel wrote many such concertos. These two forms, combined with the technical and musical development of the sinfonia italiana, congealed finally into the form of our classic symphony. The honor of having first given the stamp to this form falls to Sammartini, a Milanese conductor. His symphonies had three separate movements: allegro, andante, allegro. Haydn took Sammartini as a model in everything. He perfected the symphony by bringing the instrumental development to really artistic significance, and by adding another movement, the minuet. Contemporaries of Haydn, Stamitz, Wagenseil, Emanuel Bach, had also attempted the composition of symphonies after the model of Sammartini; but none of them reached the degree of excellence attained by Haydn, although their works, in certain technical respects, were not without influence on Haydn's style.

With the exception of Boccherini and Cherubini, scarcely a single prominent Italian composer gave any attention to the composition of symphonies. This might naturally be expected in view of the enormous popularity of operatic and vocal music. It was not until the later decades of the nineteenth century that certain more or less successful attempts were made by Italians in this field of composition. The two composers who have gained greatest honor in this connection have been the Roman Sgambati, a pupil of Liszt, and the excellent Neapolitan musician, Martucci, at present director of the conservatory in Bologna. Both these artists have composed symphonic works of a high order of merit. It is hardly to be expected, however, that the Italians will ever make lasting contributions to a species of composition so wholly foreign to the natural tendencies of their national character.

But let us resume the record of things operatic in Italy. It will be remembered that we traced the growth of the opera from its beginning under the hand of Peri, through its development by Scarlatti, Legrenzi, Logroscino, Jomelli, Pergolesi, Salieri and Piccinni, its ennoblement by Gluck, on to its perfection as a purely Italian production, through the genius of Cimarosa. The last-named composer invested his works with a charm which has never been surpassed, and glorified its outward form with a symmetrical grace which raises his compositions more nearly than those of any other composer to the height of Mozart.

We have now to mention another great Italian master of the age, who, though belonging chronologically to a group which we will discuss later, may properly be mentioned here, as he forms the last link of the chain of composers of the Neapolitan school. We refer to Luigi Carlo Z. S. Cherubini. As he, however, passed so many of his active years in France, it is impossible to think of him apart from the country of his adoption. A special article concerning this great master by Dr. Philipp Spitta, will be found on page ninety-three of this work.

Among the other Italian composers of the same period who devoted themselves to the cultivation of French grand opera, and opera comique, are the following: A. M. G. Sacchini (1734-1786) settled in Paris about 1784. Under the patronage of Queen Marie Antoinette, he brought out two of his Italian operas, "Rinaldi" and "Il gran Cid."

Ferdinando PaËr (1771-1839) lived in Italy, Dresden, Vienna and Paris. In the last-named city he succeeded Spontini as the director of the Opera Italien. His most popular work was "Agnese."

Michele Caraffa (1785-1864) studied at Paris under Cherubini. His best operas are "Masaniello," not to be confounded with Auber's popular opera of the same name, and "La prison d'Edimbourg."

Gasparo Luigi Pacifico Spontini (1774-1851), after having written some unimportant operas in Italy, settled at Paris in 1803. In 1807 his masterpiece, "La Vestale," with which he won the great state-prize of 10,000 francs, was produced at the Academie Nationale with brilliant and well-merited success. His next opera, "Fernando Cortez" (1809), was received with still greater enthusiasm. Bitterly disappointed by the failure of his third opera, "Olympia" (1819), he accepted a permanent engagement offered by King Frederic William III. of Prussia. At Berlin his operas in a revised form were given at the Royal Opera with great success, and "Olympia" thus had its artistic rehabilitation. Some weeks later—the 18th of June, 1821—the first performance of Weber's "FreischÜtz" took place at the same theatre, and its unheard-of success was gall and bitterness to Spontini, whose jealous temper could brook the presence of no possible rival. Accordingly he tried, by every means that lay within his power, to crush the gifted composer, whom he chose to regard as his personal enemy; but of course the "FreischÜtz" and its author were unassailable. Spontini afterwards wrote "Nurmahal," "Alcidor," and, in 1827, "Agnes von Hohenstaufen." The performance of the latter began a long series of personal attacks in which Spontini defended himself ably, but which made his life in Berlin unpleasant. His second term of ten years ended about the time of the king's death, in 1840, and two years later he returned to Paris. He died in 1851, at his birthplace, Majolati, in Italy, to whose poor, with that of Jesi, he left his money.

Several lesser lights of the same epoch are worthy of mention. Valentino Fioravanti (1770-1837), who wrote "Le cantatrice villane," a delightful opera buffa. This work was held for a long time in high esteem. Giovanni Piccinni (1796-1867) wrote a large number of operas, among which the best known are "Tasso" and "Nicolo de' Lapi." Saverio Mercadante (1797-1870) was one of the best and most learned composers of the Italian school, whom at the beginning of his musical career they used to call "Il Beethoven italiano." His first work, a cantata for the Teatro del Fondo (1818), was followed by another, "L'Apoteosi d'Ercole," produced at San Carlo (1819) with extraordinary success. In the same year he produced his first opera buffa, "Violenza e costanza," and after this came several serious operas, of which "Elisa e Claudio" (Milan, 1822) was the most successful. From this period Mercadante steadily maintained his reputation as an operatic writer, and the verdict of Italy in his favor was endorsed by Vienna in 1824. He passed the years 1827 and 1828 in Madrid, 1829 in Cadiz, and in 1831 returned to Naples. In 1833 he became Generali's successor as chapel-master at the cathedral of Novara. In 1836 he composed and superintended the production of "I Briganti" in Paris. But the two operas with which he made a decided hit were: "Il Giuramento" (Milan, 1837) and "Il Bravo" (Naples, 1838); both had long and successful runs in the most important theatres. In the opera buffa, "I due illustri rivali," he changed his style, working the accents strongly with the brass instruments. In this respect he set an example which unfortunately has been widely followed, for the continued and injudicious use of the brass instruments in the orchestra led a great many of Italian operatic composers to ruin. In 1840 he became director of the conservatory at Naples, a position which he held up to his death (1870). Though he lost an eye when at Novara, he continued to compose by dictation; but he became totally blind in 1862. His influence with regard to sensible musical development, especially in the dramatic scenes and recitatives of opera, has been undoubtedly a great one, and we owe it to him alone, if since his appearance Italian composers no longer adhere to poor accompaniments and insignificant musical phrasing.

Of Luigi Ricci (1805-1859) and his brother Federigo (1809-1877) it is scarcely necessary to speak, although their opera "Crispino e la Comare" has been given in all the principal theatres of Europe and America.

The brilliant period of Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini is linked with the present by the life-work of one who was their contemporary, and is also still with us, Verdi, the Nestor of all living Italian musicians. Born in 1814, the author of "Ernani," "Il Trovatore," "La Traviata," "Rigoletto," "Un ballo in maschera," "AÏda," "Otello" and "Falstaff" may be regarded as the most successful and most talented of Italian composers of the present time. The variety of styles in which he has written operas shows the breadth of his genius, and his Requiem Mass, written in memory of the great Italian poet, Alessandro Manzoni, is a sacred work of great dramatic power. Full details concerning his life and work will be found in the special article devoted to him.

Quite a number of second rate composers, whose names, however, have to be mentioned for the sake of completeness, appear now on the horizon. Some of these were able to please their contemporaries for a considerable length of time. First of all, and to be thought of in intimate connection with Mercadante, is Lauro Rossi. He was director of the conservatory at Milan, and afterwards at Naples, and retired finally to his native place Macerata. He wrote many opere buffe, among which, "Il Domino Nero" and "La Figlia di Figaro" were very popular. His last work, of more ambitious character, was "La Contessa di Mons" (libretto after Sardou), which met with an uncertain success.

Besides him, Enrico Petrella and Antonio Cagnoni are to be placed. The former, a genuine Neapolitan in the truest sense of the word, a musical "lazzarone" without much refinement, but full of the "frase italiana," wrote a large number of operas, some of them winning the greatest popularity. Cagnoni is on a higher level as a composer, but cannot be numbered among the stars of first magnitude. He wrote most of his operas for a great and popular Italian artist, the famous basso-cantante, Alessandro Bottero. This singer's ability was quite unique, and it is very probable that now when he is no more, Cagnoni's operas also will soon be forgotten. Chief among his works are "Papa Martin," "Michele Perrin," "Don Bucefalo," all of which enjoyed immense popularity. He also composed "Claudia," "Francesco da Rimini." Some of his operas are in the true buffo style, while the others are in the semi-serio.

Of the younger school of Italian operatic composers, we have to mention three names particularly: Arrigo Boito, Amilcare Ponchielli and Carlos Gomez. The last named is a Brazilian by birth, but he studied at the conservatory at Milan, and his operas have been brought out at Italian theatres. We may therefore include his name among Italian composers. As there is a special article in this work dealing with Arrigo Boito, we need only mention the great influence his appearance has had upon the development of modern Italian opera. He has produced only one work, "Mefistofele." His methods in dramatic music are striking and convincing. In spite of his earnestness of purpose, his work does not lack in popularity and power, and one is scarcely surprised at the fact of its immense success wherever it has been performed.

Quite a clique of "avveniristi" (futurists, or followers of Wagner), chiefly composed of the very best national talent, suddenly sprang up and sought to introduce the new art and the ideas of the German prophet. The nation at large did not sympathize with these proceedings. Many thought that such a movement threatened detriment to Italian art. Hence, they longed for a great national operatic composer and hailed with delight and enthusiasm the appearance of Amilcare Ponchielli, who brought with him everything which was demanded by the conservative party. The peculiar story of this composer should be briefly told. Born at Cremona, he became a pupil at the conservatory at Milan, together with Cagnoni and Boito. He distinguished himself greatly by writing a beautiful cantata for the graduation exercises, and everybody regarded him as the pride of the institution. Of course, his chief aim was to write an opera; and, lacking money to pay for a text by a well known author, he found an obscure poet who willingly arranged a libretto out of Manzoni's celebrated novel: "I promessi sposi" (The Betrothed). The opera when produced was a complete failure, and poor Ponchielli was only too glad to accept the position of band-master in a wretched village near Cremona, where he had leisure to meditate on the fortunes of operatic composition. Nothing was heard of him for many years. He was supposed to be writing marches and transcriptions of operas for his own band. Suddenly, after twenty years, an unknown benefactor offered him the means to give the same opera again, but thoroughly revised and elaborated, at the Teatro dal Verme in Milan. The success, of which the writer happened to be a witness, was immense, and at the same time was not without spontaneity. The Italianissimi found in this opera all they desired: a rich vein of melody, strong dramatic accents, and the whole machinery of the Italian stage action of former times. Ponchielli was at once placed beside Verdi. Up to his untimely death in 1882, he produced several other operas, which, however, with a single exception, did not meet with genuine success. The titles were: "I Lituani," "Il figliuol prodigo," "Gioconda" and "Marion Delorme." He also wrote some graceful and sparkling music to a ballet, "Le due Gemelle" (The Twins).

Carlos A. Gomez is quite opposite in type and style. The late emperor of Brazil took a special interest in the promising boy, and sent him in 1865 to Italy, that he might pursue his musical studies. He was a pupil of Lauro Rossi and Mazzuccato, both directors of the conservatory at Milan. This native of Brazil was full of ideas of exotic flavor, and he selected for his opera a plot which gave him ample opportunity to display his racy, national talent. His first opera, "Guarany," deals with a Peruvian story, and the most happy numbers in it are those where AimorÈ, king of the Aztecs, and his followers appear on the stage. Gomez in these fragments simply outdoes Meyerbeer in his "Africana," which hitherto has been considered the acme of savage music. Although delightfully successful in this respect the composer was not able to make the rest of his opera of equal merit. The work had only a comparatively short run. Gomez's succeeding operas, far better in musical workmanship, "Fosca" and "Maria Tudor," were failures, but a third, lighter in character, "Salvator Rosa," was a great success, and contains many sparkling and bright numbers, among them the celebrated song, "Mia Piccerella." His last opera, "Condor," given a short time ago at La Scala, did not fulfil the expectations that were formed regarding it. Gomez went several times to Brazil, where all his operas were given. He was a pensionnaire of the late emperor Dom Pedro, who gave him annually, up to the time of his dethronement, 10,000 francs out of his private purse.

Filippo Marchetti, another modern composer, was very fortunate with his "Ruy Blas" (after Victor Hugo). This opera had one of the longest runs on record, and by royalty from it alone Marchetti soon became a very wealthy man. His other works, "Giulietta e Romeo," "Gustave Wasa" and "Don Juan d'Austria," were dismal failures and of no special physiognomy whatever. Marchetti, a favorite of the queen of Italy, is now president of the Accademia di S. Cecilia in Rome.

Bottesini, the celebrated double bass virtuoso, belongs also to this group of composers. His first opera, "Ali Baba," was very successful when given, but did not maintain itself in public favor. "Ero e Leandro," a second opera of his, did not prove a great success.

Of the younger generation we have to mention Coronaro, who wrote "La creola," and who is now professor of composition at the conservatory in Milan. His younger brother, living in Vicenza, was the winner in a late competition for the Sonzogno prizes, which, as everybody knows, brought Mascagni from obscurity to celebrity.

Alfredo Catalani is one of the most gifted and remarkable Italian composers of this period. His musical and general culture is refined in the highest degree. He was a pupil, first, of Bazin in Paris, and afterward, strange coincidence of names, of Bazzini, in Milan. He gave his operas chiefly at Milan (La Scala) or Turin (Teatro Regio). The best among them are "Dejanice" and "Wally," which, however, were not very popular with the public. But Catalani is by far the best musician among all the living Italian opera composers.

Alfredo Smareglia, a Dalmatian by birth, and a pupil of the conservatory at Milan, excited great expectations by the production at this institution of a symphonic poem, "Leonora," founded upon Burger's ballad. He subsequently wrote the operas "Preciosa" and "Il vassalo di Szigeth," the latter of which was given successfully at the opera house at Vienna, and afterwards at the Metropolitan in New York. Smareglia, who is as industrious as he is highly talented, is now writing a new opera to be given at Vienna.

Alberto Franchetti, a grandson of the rich Jewish banker Rothschild, is a composer of unusual talent and with daring, striking ideas, which are not always successfully realized. His curriculum vitÆ reminds one very much of that of Meyerbeer. Educated in music at the conservatory at Dresden, under the celebrated DrÆseke, he soon distinguished himself by the production of a symphony in E, which has been performed in many prominent orchestral concerts. After this he wrote the opera "Asrael," a curious mixture, an empirical Italian salad, composed of all that has been and is. He shows, however, in this work a decided talent for the stage, though the symphonic element is rather too prominent. This opera, also, has been given at the Metropolitan opera house in New York. Chiefly influenced by the mannerisms of Wagner, without fully catching his spirit, and never forgetting his severe German musical education, Franchetti is an original figure in the modern history of Italian music. He received the honorable commission of the municipality of Genoa to compose the music to the opera "Christopher Columbus," which was performed at the Teatro Carlo Felice in connection with the Columbian centennial festivities and won a great success.

The Wagnerian enthusiasm in Italy is, however, more of an outward manifestation than an inner power in the life and feelings of the inhabitants of the Apennine peninsula. Even if the fascinating and intoxicating orchestral coloring of the great Bayreuth master is not without effect on the sensuous Italian, his music cannot be fully understood until a regular and thorough study of the classic composers, including Schumann, shall have become a second nature with the Italians. Meanwhile the realists, having invaded literary and artistic France, found their way over the Alps, and many ardent emulators of their methods are to be found among Italian artists. Cremona and Domenico Morelli among the painters, and the two daring Sicilian authors, Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana, have been the chief representatives of the movement. About 1878, Verga published a volume of Sicilian peasant sketches, powerful and attractive, imbued with the warm and realistic coloring of his native soil. Curiously enough, these clever little sketches, which bear in themselves the germ of effective libretti, had never been made to serve for operatic plots, probably on account of their small dimensions and too realistic contents, until a strange contingency led many young composers to make use of them. The music publisher, Sonzogno of Milan, a man of great wealth and enterprise, having for a considerable time been aware of the fruitless attempts of young national composers to produce their operas, instituted a competition for short operas in one act. About ten of the competitors went to Verga's rich novel-collection for the plot of their musical compositions. As everybody knows, Pietro Mascagni was the fortunate winner with his now world-famous "Cavalleria rusticana." The subject is a happy one for a one-act opera. Within a very short space of time a powerful dramatic action, with all the glowing and varied Southern coloring, takes place. It is the old, old story, already a thousand times told, of love's conquest and faithlessness, and the natural tragic consequences. The scene is laid in a country of daggers and stiletti. There is no practical use in applying the critical dissecting knife to prove that the enormous success with which the "Cavalleria" met was disproportionate to the real value of the work. We think that never since the beginning of opera has a work by a youthful composer had such a large and international popularity, bringing at the same time nearly an independent fortune to the composer. Before Mascagni competed for the Sonzogno prize his little family was actually starving, and he had not money enough to hire the piano so necessary to the exercise of his profession.

The particular and very uncertain success of Mascagni's second opera, "Amico Fritz," was a great disappointment to those who had looked upon the young author as a coming king in the realm of opera. But the great triumph of his third work, "I Rantzau," produced at Florence in November, 1892, has revived the hope that Mascagni is not merely a lucky child of fortune, but that he possesses an out-spoken musical and dramatic individuality. That he is only an opera composer is beyond a doubt. The sudden changes in stage situation, the sharp contrasts, and, above all, the musical scene-painting which he does with coarse but sure brush, these are factors whose fitness to the genius of Mascagni stamps him as wholly in the trend of his theatrical talent. The chief significance of the new opera, "I Rantzau," lies, in our opinion, in the fact that Mascagni has at last composed something which seems to be the product of a personal and characteristic style.

There are two other composers whose reputations are still young, one of whom, Giordano, has been brought to public attention through the Sonzogno competition. The other, Leoncavallo, a man of literary as well as musical gifts, was able to choose the most practical way of introducing himself as an operatic composer, by paying the expenses of the performance of his opera, "I Pagliacci," at the Teatro del Verme in Milan. The work had an almost unparalleled success. We may well believe that this opera will, in the course of time, enjoy even greater popularity than attended its fortunate twin sister, "Cavalleria Rusticana." Leoncavallo himself wrote the text of his opera. Giordano treated another sketch of the Verga collection. In this work, "Malavita," he displays all the qualities required by an operatic composer—rapid musical development, broadly melodious phrasing, great variety of coloring, and vivid, sparkling rhythm, both in vocal and instrumental writing. There is every hope that Giordano, if his further artistic and musical development should fully realize its brilliant promise, may one day rank among the most prominent of Italian stage composers. But neither Mascagni nor Giordano can reach the surprising and striking originality found in Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci." W. von Sachs, a well-known New York critic, attended in Vienna a performance of "Pagliacci," and we have from him the opinion that Ruggero Leoncavallo may be called the head of the new Milanese school of composers. The plot, founded partly on the "Drama Nuevo" of Estibanez, and in its essential details not unlike the French play "Tabarin," presents the oft tried experiment of a play within a play. The hero is a mountebank who, deceived by his faithless wife, enacts in earnest the mimic scenes of jealousy. The principal characters, five in number, as in the "Cavalleria," belong, with one exception, to a company of strolling players, who, in the typical roles of the old Italian comedia dell' arte, tell in pantomime the familiar tale of deception, jealousy and revenge. There is to be noted in the condensed, picturesque action of this opera, an evident attempt to reproduce the more striking characteristics of Mascagni's work. Many of the latter's distinguishing musical methods are used, though without sacrifice of originality of musical idea. Like Mascagni, Leoncavallo has more than a superficial acquaintance with Wagner's works, and the great master's example can surely be traced to the fact that he, too, is the author of his own libretto. In each of these most modern operas of "Cavalleria," "Tilda," "Malavita" and "Pagliacci," a keen striving after the new realistic is to be observed. Each work has met with unqualified success, and this success has been certified by the approbation of such a critical body of judges as gathered at Vienna on the occasion of the Theatrical Exhibition.

The secret of such phenomenal successes lies partly in the rapid advance toward the denouement, in a frank and rich melodious flow of catching phrases, but mainly in the fact that all these young composers belong to the class of musical realists. Their works, then, are powerful because they conform to the spirit of the age. Lastly, their authors have an instinctive knowledge of stage effect, which enables them to use to the best advantage the materials at their disposal.

We recognize in these products of the present time the possibilities of a great musical advance for Italy. The younger composers, unlike their predecessors, have zealously studied the technique of composition with truly international breadth of interest. It is also to be noted that this same generation has completely freed itself from the idolatrous worship of Wagner. Those phases of Wagner's genius which should not be imitated have been shunned, and the Italians have turned to the passionately melodious song-phrase, which is truly characteristic of their nature. They have returned, in a word, to their own feelings and their own inspirations, as well as to their own belief in the power of rapid stage action. Although elaborate musical workmanship has never been a prominent feature of Italian composers, much has nevertheless been done in later years to improve matters in this respect. There is therefore reason to hope, that, if once the system of musical education can be founded on a solid basis, the most gratifying results may follow in Italian music of the future. The inhabitants of the Apennine peninsula, with their sensuous nature, their musical language, and their overflowing love for singing and music in general, must perforce continue to cultivate an art without which their life as a nation would be incomplete.