THE improvisatore nursed the infancy of both poetry and music. The latter did not grow to the stature of an art until the rude improvisations of its early guardians gave way to the systematic compositions of the Netherland masters. Systematic composition, however, presupposes the existence of three fundamental elements, none of which had assumed tangible form in the earliest days recorded in musical history. These elements are harmony, notation and measure. Huckbald, a Benedictine Monk of St. Armand in Flanders, is credited with being the first to formulate rules for harmony about 895 A. D. His ideas were crude and their results disagreeable to the modern ear. He used chiefly parallel fourths and fifths, but he employed another freer style in which a melody moved flexibly above a fixed bass—the earliest form of pedal point. Harmony was not invented by Huckbald, but he must be honored as the writer of the first treatise on the subject. The field once opened up was industriously cultivated, and by the time the era of the Netherland school began, had been productive of a rich harvest. Notation was also a plant of slow growth, but the employment of four lines in a staff, together with the spaces, was introduced by Guido of Arezzo, who died in 1050. The formulation of rules for measure was the work of Franco of Cologne, who flourished 1200 A. D. He adopted four characters to represent sounds of different lengths. These notes were the longa, ; the brevis, ; the duplex longa, and the semi brevis, . He also distinguished common from triple time, calling the latter "perfect." FÉtis quotes from the introduction to Franco's "Ars Cantus Mensurabilis" the following words: "We propose, therefore, to set forth in this volume this same measured music. We shall not refuse to make known the good ideas of others, nor to expose their mistakes; and if we have invented anything good, we shall support it with good arguments." FÉtis, however, makes this significant remark: "NÉanmoins le profond savoir qu'on remarque dans l'ouvrage de Francon, et l'obscuritÉ dans laquelle sont ensevelis et les noms et les oeuvres de ceux, auxquels il attribue la premiÈre invention de la musique mesurÉe, le feront À jamais regarder comme le premier auteure de cette importante dÉcouverte." [FÉtis, MÉmoire sur cette Question: "Quels out ÉtÉ les mÉrites des Neerlandais dans la musique," etc.—Question mise au concours pour l'annÉe 1828 par la quatrieme classe de l'Institut des Sciences, de Litterature et des Beaux Arts du Royaume des Pays-Bas.]

With harmony and measure governed by rules and the written page at hand as a conserving power, systematic composition became a possibility. The study of this art was the work of monks, who were the repositories of polite learning in the middle ages, and they naturally sought for their thematic material in the plain chant of the church. Their treatment of this chant was a natural outgrowth of the impromptu production of music which had preceded systematic composition and which clung to existence with great pertinacity. Guido of Arezzo had taught choristers the art of singing with such success that they began the long-honored custom of adding ornaments to their melodies. They carried this practice to such an extent that it became necessary for one singer to intone the melody while another sang the ornamental part. This adding of ornamental parts was called the art of discant; and when the monks took up scientific composition they simply added discants to the liturgical chants of the church. This was the beginning of counterpoint, the art of writing two or more melodies which shall proceed simultaneously without breaking the rules of harmony. The name "counterpoint" was early applied to it by Johannes de Muris, doctor of theology at the University of Paris in the beginning of the fourteenth century. This indicates that by his time the scientific setting of note against note had fully superseded discant, the fanciful elaboration of the singers.

It was in the hands of the great masters of the Netherland school that this counterpoint, the first species of scientific composition, was developed to its highest perfection. In the main the differences between their counterpoint and ours are due to the cramped harmony of their time, which was fettered by the employment of the Gregorian scales. The superiority of Bach's counterpoint over theirs from a technical point of view is the result of his mastery of chromatics and his perfection of the system of equal temperament. With the aesthetic superiority of his work we need not concern ourselves, for we must bear in mind the fact that most of the Netherland masters were absorbed in developing the technical construction of music, and had little to do with the exploration of its emotional possibility.

Systems are not completed in a day. Those writers on musical history who pass immediately from the labors of Franco to the Netherland masters ignore the long series of tentative works of the French composers who flourished between 1100 and 1370 A. D., and of the English composers who flourished between the same years. It is a well established fact that in England there were many writers who showed skill in the early contrapuntal forms. Johannes Tinctoris, a Netherlander, writing in 1460 A. D., went so far as to say that the source of counterpoint was among the English, of whom Dunstable was in his opinion the greatest light. Walter Odington, an Englishman, wrote a learned treatise on counterpoint in 1217, and some authorities accept him as the composer of the notable canonic composition, "Sumer is icumen in." It is pretty clearly established, however, that Odington was a disciple of the French school, while Dunstable, being a contemporary of Binchois, was of later birth than the early French composers. The writer of this paper is of the opinion that the line of contrapuntal development appears to join Flanders with France rather than with England, and he, therefore, prefers to consider chiefly the French school.

The Frenchman, Jean Perotin, then, about 1130 A. D., employed imitation, and one of his immediate successors, Jean de Garlande, says in his treatise on music that double counterpoint was known before his time. He says it is the repetition of the same phrase by different voices at different times. It is impracticable in this article to review in detail the achievements of the French school, but a summary of its work is necessary to a comprehension of the Netherland school. The Frenchmen possessed three kinds of harmonic combinations: the DÉchant (discant) or double, the triple and the quadruple, or in other words, contrapuntal compositions in two, three and four parts. Discants were of two kinds. In the first the cantus firmus, or fixed chant of the liturgy, was sung by one voice (called tenor—Latin, teneo, I hold—because it held the tune) while the other added a discant above it. In the second the discant was freely composed, and a lower part, or bass added.

Three-part compositions were of four kinds: fauxbourdon, motet, rondeau and conduit, the last three being written also in four parts. Fauxbourdon was simply a three-voiced chant, the parts having similar motion, the upper and lower being parallel sixths and the middle in fourths with the discant. In the motet each voice had a text of its own. The rondo was secular and was developed from the folk-music of the day. The conduit was uncertain in form, secular in character, and, like the rondo, was written for either voices or instruments. The early French masters made extensive use of the parallel movement of voices, yet had plainly no conception of harmony founded on chords. They show a much clearer purpose in their contrapuntal writings wherein the imitations are plainly devised according to rules. But the entire musical product of France between 1100 and 1250 was the cold, mathematical work of academicians, who nevertheless served the cause of the tone art by laying down indispensable laws. The last great master of this school, William of Machaut, who wrote the celebrated Coronation Mass for the crowning of Charles V., flourished between 1284 and 1369. Naturally enough the teachings of the French spread into the provinces of Belgium, and there grew up a school from which the Netherland masters rose. The most prominent early Belgian composer was Dufay (1350-1432). This writer introduced secular melodies into his masses, forbade the use of consecutive fifths, and freely used interrupted canonic part writing, in which the imitation appears only at occasional effective places. His works show evidences of a vague groping after euphonic beauty. Antoine de Busnois, who died in 1482, was the last of these early masters. His works abound in clever use of the devices of imitation and inversion. His canonic writing is more finished and his harmony bolder than Dufay's. The character of the music produced at this time has been well described by Mr. Rockstro. He says: "At this period, representing the infancy of art, the subject, or canto fermo, was almost invariably placed in the tenor and sung in long sustained notes, while two or more supplementary voices accompanied it with an elaborate counterpoint, written like the canto fermo itself in one or other of the ancient ecclesiastical modes, and consisting of fugal passages, points of imitation, or even canons, all suggested by the primary idea, and all working together for a common end."

Dufay was the connecting link between the French School and the great Netherland masters. At this time the Dutch led the world in painting, in the liberal arts and in commercial enterprise. Their skill in mechanics was unequalled, and we naturally expect to see their musicians further the development of musical technique. We must bear in mind facts to which the writer has had to refer elsewhere ("Story of Music," p. 21). "The general tendency of European thought at this time also had its bearing on the tone art. Scholasticism was in full sway, and such philosophers as Albertus Magnus, John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham were engaged in wondrous metaphysical hair-splitting, endeavoring to reduce Aristotelianism to a Christian basis by the application of the most vigorous logic. This spirit of scholasticism entered music, and contrapuntal science by too much learning was made mad." Yet the essential nature of music could not be wholly suppressed, and as the writers of the time acquired that marvellous mastery of musical material which came from their practice of counterpoint, they began to use their science as a means and not an end; and finally the masters of the Netherland school attained the loftiest heights of church composition. Various divisions of the periods of development of this school have been made. That adopted by the writer is Emil Naumann's with some alterations. It does not appear to be necessary to set the Dutch members of the school apart from the Belgians; and the writer, in his estimate of the comparative importance of the masters, agrees with Kiesewetter and FÉtis rather than with Naumann. The division of the school into four periods, as follows, seems to be a fair one:

Netherlands School (1425-1625 A. D.).

First Period, 1425-1512.

Chief masters: Ockeghem, Hobrecht, Brumel.

Second Period, 1455-1526.

Chief masters: Josquin des PrÈs, Jean Mouton.

Third Period, 1495-1572.

Chief masters: Gombert, Willaert, Goudimel, De Rore, Jannequin, Arkadelt.

Fourth Period, 1520-1625.

Chief masters: Orlando Lasso, Swelinck, De Monte.

Johannes Ockeghem, the most accomplished writer of the first period, was born between 1415 and 1430, probably at Termonde in East Flanders. It is likely that he studied music under Binchois, a contemporary of Dufay. At any rate an Ockeghem was one of the college of singers at the Antwerp cathedral in 1443, when Binchois was choir master. About 1444 the youth entered the service of Charles VII. of France, as a singer. He stood high in the favor of Louis XI., who made him treasurer of the church of St. Martin's at Tours. There Ockeghem passed the remainder of his life, retiring from active service about 1490. He died about 1513.

Octavio dei Petrucci, of Fossombrone, invented movable types for printing music in 1502, and obtained a patent for the exclusive use of the process for fifteen years in 1513. By that time the advance in the mastery of counterpoint had left Ockeghem somewhat out of fashion; and it is, therefore, not remarkable that Petrucci's earliest collections contain nothing by this master. Not till years after his death was any mass or motet of his given to the world. Then only one was printed entire. This was his "Missa cujusvis toni," which was plainly selected because of its science. Extracts from his "Missa Prolationum" were used in theoretical treatises; and, indeed, Ockeghem's music seems generally to have been cherished wholly on account of the technical instruction which might be derived from it. The list of his extant compositions, as given in Scribner's "Cyclopedia of Music," is as follows:

"Missa cujusvis toni," in Liber XV., missarum (Petreius, Louvain, 1538); six motets and a sequence (Petrucci, Venice, 1503); an enigmatic canon in S. Heyden's "Ars Canendi" and in Glarean's "Dodekachordon"; fragments of "Missa prolationum" in Heyden's book and in Bellermann's "Kontrapunkt"; mass "De plus en plus," MS. in Pontifical Chapel, Rome; two masses, "Pour quelque peine" and "Ecce ancilla Domini," in the Brussels Library; motets in MS. in Rome, Florence and Dijon; six masses, an Ave and some motets in Van der Straeten; Kyrie and Christe, from "Missa cujusvis toni" in Rochlitz.

This list is probably correct except the six motets and a sequence set down as published by Petrucci in 1503. Ambros, who is always trustworthy and who mentions all these works and also three songs ("D'ung aultre mer," "Aultre Venus" and "Rondo Royal") and a motet ("Alma redemptoris") in MS. at Florence, did not discover any publications by Petrucci. The enigmatical canon was solved by Kiesewetter, Burney, Hawkins and other historians; but the solution believed to be most nearly correct is that of the profound contrapuntist and excellent historian, FÉtis. Glareanus (Dodekachordon, p. 454) speaks also of a motet for thirty-six voices. This was, no doubt, originally written for six or nine voices, the other parts being derived from them by canons. It is not certain, however, that Ockeghem ever wrote such a work. The "Missa cujusvis toni" ("A mass in any tone," or scale, as we should say now) may have been written as an exercise for the master's pupils, as some historians conjecture, but it seems more probable that it was a natural outgrowth of the puzzle-building spirit of the time and of Ockeghem's especial fondness for displays of musical ingenuity. The peculiarity of the mass is that it employs in a remarkable manner all the church modes or scales. It was sung in Munich many years after Ockeghem's death and a corrected copy of it is still preserved in the chapel.

FÉtis says: "As a professor, Ockeghem was also very remarkable, for all the most celebrated musicians at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century were his pupils." In the "Complaint" written after his death by William Grespel, appear the following lines:

Antoine Brumel achieved the greatest distinction among these pupils. He was born about 1460 and died about 1520. His personal history is lost. The present age possesses, however, a fuller record of his work than it has of his master's. In one volume printed by Petrucci in 1503 and to be found in the Royal Library at Berlin, there are five of his masses. Another mass by this composer is in a volume of works by various writers, printed also by Petrucci. A copy of this composition is in the British Museum. A number of masses and motets of his are scattered through other collections of Petrucci's. Others exist in MS. in Munich. Brumel's motet, "O Domine Jesu Christe, pastor bone," quoted by Naumann, is written in a clear and dignified style, abounds in full chords, and contains only such passages of imitation as would readily suggest themselves. A better example of the style of the period is his canonic, "Laudate Dominum," given by Foskel and Kiesewetter.

Jacob Hobrecht, the principal Dutch master of the first Netherland period, was born about 1430, at Utrecht, where he subsequently became chapel-master. It does not appear on record anywhere that he was a pupil of Ockeghem, but he was unquestionably a disciple of that composer. He achieved celebrity in his life time and was honored with many distinctions. He wrote a mass for the choir of the Bruges Cathedral, and the whole body journeyed to Antwerp to pay him homage. It is stated that he also received a visit from Bishop Borbone of Cortona, leader of the papal choir. Hobrecht became chapel-master at Utrecht, about 1465, and had there a choir of seventy voices. A part of his life was spent in Florence at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent, where he met Josquin des PrÈs.

The indefatigable Ambros goes into a careful discussion of eight masses of Hobrecht's, published in the Petrucci collections. Of these the best, known as the "Fortuna desperata," was published in modern notation at Amsterdam in 1870. Examples of Hobrecht's writing are also to be found in the works of Burney, Forkel, Kiesewetter, and Naumann. One of Hobrecht's musical feats was the composition of a mass in a single night. His works contain all the canonic inventions employed by Ockeghem, and are a mine of contrapuntal learning. Doubtless when sung by the trained cathedral choirs of their period, they were impressive to ears not attuned to modern tonality.

So much for the personal history of the most brilliant lights of the time. More instructive will be a review of the musical character of their work.

It is the prevailing influence of one or two masters in each period that marks its extent. Its character was formed by that influence, and salient features of the style of each period may be fairly distinguished. The first period was marked by the extreme development of the canon. Perhaps for the benefit of the reader who may not have studied counterpoint it would be well to give here one or two elementary definitions. Imitation, in the words of Sir Frederick A. Gore-Ouseley, is "a repetition, more or less exact, by one voice of a phrase or passage previously enunciated by another. If the imitation is absolutely exact as to intervals it becomes a canon." Canon is the most rigorous species of imitation. Naturally then, as imitation is the foundation of fugal writing, the first occupation of musicians was its perfection. Thus we see that the composers of the first period of the Netherland school were almost wholly engaged in exploring the resources of canonic composition, and the most celebrated of their number, Ockeghem, was he who displayed the greatest ingenuity in this style. To describe the various forms of canonic jugglery invented by Ockeghem and his contemporaries would weary the reader; but a few may be mentioned as examples of the craft exercised at that time.

First, there was the "cancriza," or backward movement of the cantus firmus, in which the melody was repeated interval by interval, beginning at the last note and moving toward the first. Second, there was the inverted canon, in which the inversion consisted of beginning at the original first note and proceeding with each interval reversed, so that a melody which had ascended would, in the inversion, descend. In the canon by augmentation the subject reappears in one of the subsidiary parts in notes twice as long as those in which it was originally announced. Conversely in the canon by diminution the subject is repeated in notes of smaller duration than those first used. These four forms are still extant and have been employed by most great composers of modern music from Bach to the present time. The canon by augmentation is often used in choral music, especially in the bass, with superb effect. Indeed all the varieties described are to be found in the music of Handel and Bach, the latter being a complete master of their use in instrumental as well as choral composition.

But the composers of the first Netherland period employed kinds of canonic writing which are now looked upon as mere curiosities. Among these were the repetition of the cantus firmus beginning with the second note and ending with the first; the repetition with the omission of all the rests; the perfect repetition of the whole melody; a repetition half forward and half backward; and another with the omission of all the shortest notes. Naumann is of the opinion that these forms "arose from an earnest desire to consolidate a system of part-writing which could only exist after a complete mastery had been obtained over all kinds of musical contrivances." Kiesewetter, also generous in his views, says that these writers excel their predecessors in possessing "a greater facility in counterpoint and fertility in invention; their compositions, moreover, being no longer mere premeditated submissions to the contrapuntal operation, but for the most part being indicative of thought and sketched out with manifest design, being also full of ingenious contrivances of an obligato counterpoint, at that time just discovered, such as augmentation, diminution, inversion, imitation; together with canons and fugues of the most manifold description."

Of Ockeghem in particular, Rochlitz ("Sammlung vorzÜglicher GesangstÜcke," Vol. I., p. 22) says: "His style was distinguished from that of his predecessors, especially Dufay, principally in two ways: it was more artistic and was not founded on well-known melodies, but in part on freely made melodic movements contrapuntally developed, which rendered the style richer and more varied."

This statement is undoubtedly true, and may be taken for all it is worth. But the prima facie evidence of the works of these masters is that the writers were bent on exhausting the resources of canonic ingenuity, that their private study was all devoted to the exploration of academic counterpoint, that they worked in slavish obedience to the contrapuntal formulas which they themselves had contrived, and that their most ambitious compositions were nothing more or less than brilliant specimens of technical skill. To this estimate of their work excellent support is given by the significant criticism of Martin Luther on the writing of Josquin des PrÈs, chief master of the second period. The great reformer said: "Josquin is a master of the notes; they have to do as he wills, other composers must do as the notes will." Furthermore the Latin formulas used in noting canons in Ockeghem's day go far toward proving that it was the mechanical ingenuity of the form which appealed to the masters of that time. They were in the habit of putting forth a canonic subject with the general indication "Ex una plures," signifying that several parts were to be evolved from one, and a special direction, such as "Ad medium referas, pausas relinque priores," darkly hinting at the manner of the working out. These riddle canons date back to Dufay's time, but they were the special delight of Ockeghem and his contemporaries. The results of such practice could only be musical mathematics, yet the masters of this period performed a lasting service to art; for they laid down rules for this kind of composition and in their own works indicated the path by which artistic results might be reached by their successors. The highest praise that can be awarded to their works is that they are profound in their scholarship, not without evidences of taste in the selection of the formulas to be employed, and certainly imbued with a good deal of the dignity which would inevitably result from a skilful contrapuntal treatment of the church chant. Ambros finds evidences of design in one of Ockeghem's motets, from which he quotes, but the design is certainly not of the kind which would call for praise if discovered in contemporaneous music. Naumann, who is quite carried away by the improvement of the first Netherlands compositions over those of the French contrapuntists, is warm in his praise of these early canonists. He says:

"Almost at the beginning of the Netherland school, mechanical invention was made subservient to idea. It was no longer contrapuntal writing for counterpoint's sake. Excesses were toned down, and the desire unquestionable was that the contrapuntist's art should occupy its proper position as a means to an end. Euphony and beauty of expression were the objects of the composer. In part writing each voice was made to relate to the other in a manner totally unknown to the Paris masters. Such were the first beginnings of the 'canonic' form, and fugato system of writing, the herald of that scholarly class of compositions known as fugues, the end and aim of which it is to connect in the closest possible manner the various component parts. It was this complete mastery over counterpoint in all its varying details that gave to the tone-masters such unbounded artistic liberty. No longer was it necessary that they should, like the organists, cantors, and magisters of Paris and Tournay, exhibit their power over newly-acquired contrivances, but, as inheritors of a system of inventive skill, the devices and contrivances fell into their proper and natural channel, and were regarded as merely subordinate to a purer tonal expression of feelings than had hitherto been attempted. Henceforth counterpoint was but a means to an end, and art-music began to assume for the first time the characteristics of folk-music, i. e., the free, pure and natural outflow of heart and mind, with the invaluable addition, however, of intellectual manipulation."

Naumann's comments are the result of his overvaluation of the purely tentative labors of the early French school and his manifest eagerness to find grounds for laudation of the writers of the first Netherland period. It is a plain fact, to which all evidence points, that the man looked up to as the chief master of the period was a profound academician and that he was greater as a teacher than as a composer. That his successors did achieve something in the way of euphonic beauty and freedom of style is certainly true, as can be demonstrated by an examination of the works of Josquin des PrÈs. Even the Dutchmen Hobrecht and Brumel sometimes struggled toward a simpler and purer musical expression than was to be attained through Ockeghem's canonic labyrinths, but the famous teacher's influence prevailed over the spirit of his time, and the musicians were, for the most part, like the Mastersingers, slaves of the contemporaneous leges tabulaturae. The unbounded delight which they took in the solution of riddle canons is a proof of the view they took of their art. Dr. Langhans, who is too calm a critic to be led into special pleading, says:

"The origin of the methods of notation which were in favor with the Netherlandic composers is to be sought in the fact that the newly acquired art of counterpoint was regarded preËminently as a means of exercising the sagacity of the composer as well as of the performer." The author continues pointing out that "at last there existed so many signs, not strictly belonging to notation, that a composition for many voices, even when these entered together, could be written down with but one series of notes, it being left to the sagacity of the performers to divine the composer's intention by means of the annexed signs."

Thus we see that the first period of the Netherland school was characterized by a search after ingenious forms, and this search was carried to such an extent that the composer, having found a new form, gave a hint at it and then invited the executant to do a little searching on his own account. The writer believes that his assertion that this was an era of pure mechanics in music is sound and is supported by sufficient evidence.

But it was an era of short duration. Although Ockeghem and his closest imitators carried the mechanical period up to 1512, it overlapped the beginning of the second period, in which euphony sought and found recognition in music. The chief master of the period, Josquin des PrÈs (his name appears in different places as Jodocus a Prato and a Pratis), was the first real genius in the history of modern music.

Like FÉtis, "I should never finish if I undertook to cite all the authorities who show the high esteem which Josquin des PrÈs enjoyed in his day and after his death." Nothing more admirable has been written in regard to this master than that portion of FÉtis's prize essay of 1828 which treats of him, and it would be a pleasure to give a full translation of it; but that is impracticable. On the authority of Duverdier, Ronsard, the poet, and others, FÉtis shows that Josquin was born about 1450 in the province of Hainault, probably at CondÉ. His correct name, as shown by his epitaph, was Josse. Josquin comes from the Latinized form of Jossekin, a diminutive of his name. His early instruction in music he obtained as a choir boy in St. Quentin, where in his young manhood he became chapel master. St. Quentin is not far from Tours, and at the latter place lived Ockeghem. Thither went Josquin to study under the most famous master of the day. It is impossible to be sure at this time whether Josquin became chapel-master immediately after finishing his studies or first went to Italy. It is probable that his term of study under Ockeghem was a long one, for he became a perfect master of all his teacher's wonderful contrapuntal knowledge. Adam de Bolensa, author of a work dealing with the history of the choir of the papal chapel, says that Josquin was a singer there during the pontificate of Sixtus IV., which lasted from 1471 till 1484. While there he wrote several of his finest masses, of which the MSS. are still carefully preserved in the library of the Sistine chapel. Josquin had already achieved great distinction and was rapidly rising to the position of first composer of his day.

On the death of Sixtus IV. he betook himself to the court of Hercules d'Est, duke of Ferrara. Under the patronage of this nobleman he wrote his mass "Hercules dux Ferrariae" and his Miserere. In spite of the magnificence of the court of Ferrara and the opportunity of a permanent settlement, Josquin remained only a short time, and departed into France, where he at once obtained the favor of Louis XII. and became his premier chanteur. This, however, was not a post of such importance as the master deserved and he again sought a new patron. This time he entered the service of Maximilian I., the emperor of the Netherlands. This potentate made him provost in the cathedral of CondÉ, where he passed the remainder of his life, dying, as the epitaph in the choir of the cathedral shows, on August 27, 1521.

The most noted of Josquin's disciples was Jean Mouton, who died in 1522. He was so faithful a scholar that a motet of his was for a long time supposed to be the work of Josquin. He also wrote several psalms, but his masses and motets are his best works.

Josquin des PrÈs attained greater celebrity in his lifetime than any other composer in the early centuries of modern music except Orlando di Lasso. Baini, the biographer of Palestrina, says there was "only Josquin in Italy, only Josquin in France, only Josquin in Germany; in Flanders, in Bohemia, in Hungaria, in Spain, only Josquin." FÉtis says, "His superiority over his rivals, his fecundity and the great number of ingenious inventions which he spread through his works placed him far beyond comparison with other composers, who could do no better than become his imitators." A large number of Josquin's works exists yet and bears evidence to the justice of the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries. His printed compositions are nineteen masses, fifty secular pieces, and over one hundred and fifty motets. His finest masses are the "La sol fa re mi," "Ad fugam," "De Beata Virgine" and "Da Pacem." The Incarnatus of the last, in Naumann's judgment, has never been surpassed by any master of modern times.

Josquin, as already intimated, was the first composer who strove to make contrapuntal ingenuity a means and not an end, and he is, therefore, to be credited with the introduction of a new era in music. It must not be supposed that he was always wise, for he twice set to music the genealogy of Christ, a subject in which no romantic composer would seek for inspiration. Again he continued the practice of writing masses on the melodies of popular songs such as "L'Homme ArmÉ," mingling the text of the song with the solemn words of the liturgy in a way which showed a lack of perfect artistic taste. FÉtis's estimate of Josquin's genius is worthy of reproduction here. He says:

"If one examines the works of this composer, he is struck with the appearance of freedom which prevails in them in spite of the dry combinations which he was obliged to make in obedience to the taste of the time. He is credited with being the inventor of most of the scientific refinements which were at once adopted by the composers of all nations, and perfected by Palestrina and other Italian musicians. Canonic art is especially indebted to him, if not for its invention, at least for considerable development and perfection. He is the first who wrote regularly in more than two parts. Finally he introduced into music an air of elegance unknown before his time and which his successors did not always happily imitate. Moreover, he became the model which each one set for himself in the first half of the sixteenth century as the ne plus ultra of composition."

Ambros says: "In Josquin we have the first musician who creates a genial impression," and he calls attention to his employment of the dissonance to express emotion.

To summarize the whole matter, it appears, in spite of the hints of FÉtis that Josquin was possibly the inventor of canonic art, that this composer was the first gifted musician who found the formal material of his art sufficiently developed to admit of his approaching self-expression through music. The earlier masters had given their time and study to the foundation of contrapuntal science. Josquin, having learned all that Ockeghem could teach him, was ready to begin in the vigor of his young manhood to use his science as a means and not an end. This accounts for the air of freedom, which, as FÉtis notes, is a conspicuous merit of his work. Luther's comment, previously quoted, shows that this freedom must have been noticeable even to his contemporaries, though they could not perceive its reason nor estimate its value. Josquin, like all other great geniuses, was in advance of the ordinary minds of his time, and most of his contemporaries continued to work out the old contrapuntal puzzles in the old spirit. But the influence of Josquin made itself felt among the more gifted musicians of the day, and paved the way for the third period of the Netherland school, which, while boasting of no such genius as Josquin, was richer in results than the second.

The third period, extending from 1495 to 1572, was particularly rich in masters who advanced the development of musical art and whose names deserve to be remembered. Nicolas Gombert was born at Bruges and was in some capacity, not definitely known, in the service of Charles V. Herman Finck tells us ("Novi sunt inventores, in quibus est Nicolaus Gombert, Jusquini piae memoriae discipulus") that he was a pupil of Josquin, and he set to music a poem by Avidius on the death of Josquin. Burney deciphered this music and found that it was a servile imitation of the composer's master. Gombert was educated for the church, and he was a priest till the end of his life, though he acted as chapel-master. The records of his career are very scanty and it is probable that his life was uneventful. The latter part of his existence was passed in the enjoyment of a sinecure office under the king of the Netherlands.

Adrian Willaert, the most brilliant light of the third period, was born in Bruges in 1480. He was sent to Paris to study law, but his gift for music soon turned his mind to the study of counterpoint. It is uncertain whether he was a pupil of Josquin or of Mouton. On the completion of his studies he returned to Flanders, but soon departed to Rome. There he heard one of his own motets, "Verbum dulce et suave," performed as the work of Josquin. He promptly claimed it as his work, whereupon the papal choir refused to sing it again. Disgusted with such treatment, he shook the dust of the holy city from his feet, and went to Ferrara. He did not remain there long, however, and we soon afterward find him serving as cantor to King Lewis, of Bohemia and Hungary. In 1526 he went to Venice, and on Dec. 12, 1527, the doge Andrea Gritti appointed him chapel-master of St. Mark's. In Venice he remained till his death, Dec. 7, 1562. He became the head of a great vocal school, was the teacher of some of the most famous organists of his time, and wrote compositions which materially changed the character of all subsequent music, both religious and secular.

Claude Goudimel was born at Vaison, near Avignon, in 1510. His teacher is unknown. Between 1535 and 1540 he went to Rome, where he founded a music school, subsequently the most celebrated conservatory in Italy. He had many gifted pupils, among whom Palestrina has until recently been erroneously included. In 1555, Goudimel was settled in Paris as partner of the publisher Nicolaus du Chemin. The firm published Goudimel's setting of the odes of Horace, treated according to their metre, under the title "Horatii Flacci, poetae lyricae, odae omnes, quotquot carminum generibus differunt, ad rythmos musicos redactae." Goudimel's scholarly treatment of these odes shows that he was a man of classical education. In 1558 he wrote his last mass, and afterward became a Protestant. He became a marked man, and it is almost certain, despite Ambros's contention to the contrary, that he was one of the victims of the Huguenot massacre on the eve of St. Bartholomew, Aug. 24, 1572.

Cyprian de Rore was born at Malines, Brabant, in 1516. At an early age he went to Venice to study under Willaert, and became a chorister at St. Mark's. He soon rose to notice, and Willaert recommended him to the Duke of Ferrara, who took him into his service. In 1563 he succeeded Willaert as chapel-master of St. Mark's, but he remained in that post only a short time. In 1564 he was prefect of the choir of Ottaviano Farnese at Parma. He died in 1565.

Clement Jannequin was a native of Flanders, and probably a pupil—certainly a disciple—of Josquin. Of his life almost nothing is known, but fortunately many of his works are extant. Jacob Arcadelt was another distinguished master of this period. He was singing master of the boys at St. Peter's in 1539, and became one of the papal singers in 1540. In 1555 he entered the service of Cardinal Charles of Lorraine. With him he went to Paris where he probably remained till the end of his life.

The compositions of the masters of this period have been preserved in large numbers. So many of them are extant that it is hardly necessary to give a list of them. The most important are Gombert's "Pater Noster," his motet "Vita Dulcedo" and "Miserere," his "Bird Cantata" and "Le Berger et la BergÈre"; Willaert's "Magnificat" for three choirs and his madrigals; Jannequin's "Cris de Paris" and "La Bataille"; Goudimel's masses—"Audi filia," "Le bien que j'ai" and "Sous le pont d'Avignon"; Cyprian de Rore's "Chromatic Madrigals," Arcadelt's "Pater Noster" for eight voices, his "Missa de Beata Virgine," and his madrigals.

The special features of this period were the development of secular music and the entrance of ecclesiastical music upon a transition from the dry canonic style of Ockeghem to the true emotional religious style of Palestrina. The change in church music should first engage our attention. In the Church of St. Mark there were, and still are, two organs facing each other. It is probable that this suggested to Willaert the advisability of dividing his choir into two parts. Having done this, it was natural that he should hit upon the plan of writing antiphonal music. Choruses in eight parts had been written before, but he was the first to construct them as two separate choruses of four parts each. Secondly, he began the practice of seeking for broad and grand effects of harmony instead of working out his voice parts according to strict canonic law. His chorals open with canonic progressions, but these are speedily interrupted by the entrance of common chords. The result is that in Willaert's compositions we find the foundations of modern polyphonic style. He had a fine feeling for harmonies and employed rich chords to excellent advantage. The earlier writers treated their voice parts independently; Willaert made special efforts to constitute harmony the foundation of his counterpoint. The development of each part was shaped so that it became one of the elements of the general harmonic effect. In order to accomplish this Willaert was obliged to adopt the modern chord forms and the fundamental chord relations of modern music—the tonic, dominant and subdominant. Claude Goudimel's church compositions show the influence of Willaert in an unmistakable manner, and through them the line of development to Palestrina is clearly marked. Palestrina was a great genius, an original thinker; but the clay which was ready for his moulding was a contrapuntal style in which chord harmonies were a vital part. This style was prepared for him by his master Goudimel under the influence of Willaert. The possibilities of modern style were revealed in another direction by De Rore's study of chromatics. His "Chromatic Madrigals," published in 1544 (eleven years before Palestrina's first masses), were very influential in drawing the attention of composers to the flexibility of style to be attained by throwing off the shackles of the old Gregorian scales.

It can hardly be doubted that two intellectual and spiritual movements influenced the development of religious music in the period of Willaert and his contemporaries. The first of these was the reawakening of interest in classical antiquity brought about by the influx of scholars from Constantinople after the fall of Rome's eastern empire in 1453. This reawakening is commonly known as the Renaissance, and its effects were felt in music much later than in other branches of art. "The reason of this," as Dr. Langhans with fine discernment points out, "is to be found proximately in the lack of a musical antique. While the poet, as also the painter, the sculptor and the architect, met at every step the masterpieces of their predecessors in antiquity, and found in them the stimulus and the pattern for their own creations, to the musician the direct connection with the past was denied." Nevertheless the proclamation by the eastern scholars of the chaste and simple beauty of antique art was bound to have an influence upon music, especially when the search for a new and purer style was urged by motives of ecclesiastical expediency. This impetus came from the second movement, the spiritual, namely, the Lutheran reformation.

Through the influence of Luther the rule of the church that the singing should be exclusively in the hands of a choir was abolished, and the practice of congregational singing arose. The elaborate contrapuntal music of the day was obviously impracticable for this kind of singing. Luther, therefore, "selected from the ancient Latin church songs such melodies as were rhythmically like the folk-song and hence especially likely to be caught up by the popular ear." Here we find the origin of the glorious German chorale, of our contemporaneous hymn. The first Lutheran hymn-book was published in 1524, and it is impossible to escape the conviction that the advent of this new and influential form of church music powerfully affected the style of all subsequent composers.

The development of secular music at this time is even more interesting and instructive than that of religious music, but it would require a chapter for its proper treatment; and as it was not long in abandoning the basis of counterpoint and entering: upon the free arioso style of the opera (in 1600), it may be dismissed briefly. The reader must understand that popular music in the form of folk-songs has existed from time immemorial. The Netherlands masters frequently employed the melodies of these songs (and the words, too) in their masses, which gave rise to abuses removed by the Council of Trent in 1565. In the third period of the Netherlands school, however, the masters of scientific music began to compose music for the general public, and the result was the madrigal form, which has survived till to-day. This was a natural result of Josquin's aiming at beauty in music. The next step after euphony was naturally toward expression, and the first attempts at expression were, of course, imitative. In other words the secular composers turned to nature and tried to imitate her sounds in music. These men were the first who practised what we may call tone-photography in contradistinction to tone-coloring, which goes deeper. When Beethoven introduced the cuckoo in the pastoral symphony he practised tone-photography. The works of Gombert and Jannequin abound in skilful writing of this kind. Gombert's "Bird Cantata" is a clever and humorous composition. Jannequin's "Cris de Paris" is a musical imitation of the street cries of a great city, and his "Le Battaille" is a picture of a battle. When we remember that these works were written for voices in four parts, we are astounded at the technical accomplishments of these old masters. This ambition to tell some kind of a story in music affected even the religious compositions of the day, and one of Willaert's motets tells the history of Susannah. This work was plainly the precursor of the oratorio form, which first took recognizable shape in Cavaliere's "L'Anima È Corpo," produced in 1600.

JAN PIETERS SWELINCK.