structure of musical movements. The only form in which a definite principle of procedure was maintained from beginning. to end was the canon (which the old masters called Fuga), in which different voices sang the same melody throughout the movement a little after one another (see p. 97). The device has occasionally been made interesting by clever treatment, in spite of its drawbacks; but this does not nullify the fact that it is inherently mechanical and inartistic by reason of its rigidity and monotony. Of definite principles of design beyond this elementary device these early composers had but few. Their treatment of musical figures and melodic material is singularly vague. The familiar modern practice of using a definite subject throughout a considerable portion of a movement, or at certain definite points which have a structural importance, is hardly to be met with at all. The voices which entered one after another naturally commenced singing the same words to phrases of melody which resembled each other. But composers' ideas of identity of subject-matter were singularly elastic, and even if the first half-dozen notes presented similar contours in each voice part successively, the melodic forms soon melted into something else, and from that point the movement wandered on its devious way without further reference to its initial phrases. A few cases occur in which composers use a well-defined figure throughout in constant reiteration artistically disposed; but such are accidents of the composer's mood, and any system in such things was quite foreign to their aims. The same is the case with all principles of structure either in general or in detail. Occasionally composers produced striking effects by sequences, and by giving parallel passages to different groups of voices or balancing choirs; but such devices were not of general application. Occasionally also the beginning and end of a movement were made to correspond; but that, too, was extremely rare. common modern practice of repeating phrases at long intervals apart is an abstract musical conception, and its systematic use in art is the result of the development of instrumental form in later times.

The

In no respect is the universal absence of definiteness and

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variety more noticeable than in the actual musical material or "subjects." Throughout the whole range of the old sacred choral music these are almost without decisive significance. It is true that composers adopted such innocent devices as a long descending scale-passage to express the descent into hell, and a formula which might be traced into a cross for the crucifixus,” and a slow passage of simple reiterated chords to express the awe of the worshipper at the thought of the incarnation, and so on in parallel cases; but the position occupied by subject-matter and figure in their scheme of art is altogether different from that which it occupies in the modern scheme. The subject, indeed, barely stands out from its context at all. It is as though the art was still in too nebulous a state for the essential elements to have crystallised into separate and definite entities. This is chiefly the result of the absence of rhythm, without which every melodic contour is to a certain extent wanting in complete definiteness and force. In the matter of expression again the same absence of definiteness and variety is noticeable, partly in consequence of the limited and uniform nature of the scales. As each com.. plete piece of music was subject to the rule of some special mode, all the sentiments contained in it were restricted by the characteristics of the mode employed. If it was what a modern musician would call minor in character, the musical expression for the "Gloria" had to be got out of it as well as that for the "Miserere." And though the use of accidentals modified modal restrictions to a certain extent, the modifications were not sufficiently general to obviate the fact that in detail a piece of music had to follow the rule and character of the mode rather than the sentiment of the words. Indeed, this is so far the rule that the attempt to introduce direct expression into the scheme at the expense of modal purity was among the immediate causes of the rapid decay and collapse of the whole system of the old art.

In close connection with the limits of expression were the limitations of the actual chord material or harmonies. No great force of expression could be obtained without more powerful dissonance than the scheme allowed. The scheme

was based on consonant harmonies; and the discords, which were mild in character and comparatively rare in use, were no more than artificial modifications of the chain of concords. The incisive striking upon a discord without preliminary was a thing quite alien to the style; and nothing is more decisive as a sign of the approaching end of pure choral music than the appearance of even the slightest and mildest discord without artificial preparation.

In the general aspect of music of the choral time the same homogeneousness prevails. Sacred music, by the end of the period, was subdivided into mass music, motets, hymns, psalms, and many other titles; but as far as style was concerned the distinctions were more nominal than real, for the difference between one and the other was very slight indeed. The main subdivision of the period was into sacred and secular music. But the higher class of secular music was very much like sacred music in methods, and not very different even in style ; while the branches of lighter secular music, which differed most from the highest artistic forms in their more rhythmical character and harmonic structure, were as yet limited both in range and development.

The chief points which were gained in this period were a very fine and delicate perception of the qualities of chords when sung by voices, and wonderful skill in manipulating the melodic progressions of the separate voice parts so as to obtain very subtle gradations of variety in the succession of these chords. While they were achieving these matters, composers unconsciously developed a feeling for the classification of such chords in connection with certain tonal centres. The almost universal practice of the "musica ficta" which entailed the modification of the modes by accidentals, brought the effect of tonality more and more into prominence, especially in the cadences; and by these processes the basis was formed for the new departures which ensued; and with the help of the insignificant attempts at instrumental music, which were made even while the art of unaccompanied choral music was at its highest perfection, the materials which formed the groundwork and footing of the structure of the latest modern art were supplied.

CHAPTER VI

THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC

WITHOUT taking into consideration the many external causes which influenced and modified the character of various arts about the end of the sixteenth century, it might have been foreseen that a new departure in music was inevitable on internal and artistic grounds alone. The range of the art had been extremely limited so far; and though its limitations had conduced to the development of singularly perfect results, such advantages could not prevent men from wearying of apparent monotony, and becoming restive under restrictions which seemed to be hindrances to the fullest expression of their musical ideals. A reaction, such as in analogous situations in ordinary life drives men accustomed to ease and refinement of surroundings to court hardship, danger, and privation, drove men of the highest taste and refinement, and such as were most thoroughly in touch with the spirit and movement of their age, to cut themselves adrift from the traditions of a perfectly mature art to cast aside the principles which the accumulated observations and efforts of past generations had brought to an admirable practical issue -and adopt a kind of music which was formless, crude, and chaotic.

The higher type of conservative mind instinctively feels that such wellbeing as society enjoys, and all the wealth of artistic technique, and the skill by which men achieve all they do well, are the fruits of the experiences and intelligent efforts of previous generations. To a mind so constituted a sweeping rejection of the judgment of ancestry is like cutting away the very ground upon which things are built;

and the immediate result of sweeping reforms generally justifies conservative forecasts. To the conservative musician of the early days of the seventeenth century the projects of the enthusiasts who founded modern music must have appeared, as radical reforms generally do, to be based on misconceptions--an outrage against all the best grounded principles of art, and the offspring of brains which were childishly regardless of the most obvious consequences. The reformers, with the hopefulness characteristic of enthusiasts, thought they could dispense with all the fruits of past experience, and develop a new art on the basis of pure theoretic speculation. They gave up the subtleties of polyphonic writing and the devices which were natural to choral music; the beautiful effects obtainable by skilful combinations of voice parts; the traditions of a noble style, and the restrictions which made it consistent and mature; and they thought to make a new heaven and a new earth where secular expression should be free and eloquent without reference to past artistic experience as a guide to the artistic means.

But they had to adopt unconsciously much that their predecessors had built up for them. It was as often happens in revolutions, when new constitutions have to be built out of the wisdom of those whose heads have been cut off. Even the earliest experiments were based upon a crude application of chord effects of which they could have had no conception without the development of choral polyphony which their predecessors had laboriously achieved. Their first experiments were essentially steps made in the dark; and the first results that they achieved had the usual aspects of such steps in reform, and look purely infantile and absolutely ineffective by the side of the artistic works which they were meant to supersede. But nevertheless the event proved the reformers to be perfectly right. For unless they had ventured as they did, and had been as blind as reformers sometimes need to be to immediate consequences, the ultimate building up of the marvellously rich and complicated edifice of modern art could never have been achieved. The conservatives were