In Germany, also, the effect of the numerous students who had gone down to Venice in the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th, was beginning to make itself felt. Luther's influence had established the chorale as a sturdy root whence much sacred music was to grow. Per haps the three men who most helped the growth of Germany's sacred music in its earliest post Lutheran stages were the "three Ss,"— Schutz (1585-1672), Scheidt (1587-1654) and Schein (1586-1630), who not only helped Italian music in the Fatherland, but elevated the style of or gan-playing far above anything that Italy had done. Musical settings of the Passion began to appear in Germany, and the oratorio took a nobler path than in Italy, even before the ap pearance of Bach and Handel. To Germany also was due the new arrangement of part music, which took the melody out of the tenor voice, where it had always been in the Flemish and old Italian music, and placed it in the soprano, a change due to the choral-singing of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Out of the great musical epoch at the be ginning of the 17th century there came also a radical change of notation. The notation of Franco of Cologne had been improved by the invention of many additional rhythms and the employment of smaller notes. In the music of Palestrina and of Orlando di Lasso, that is to say up to 1594, one finds some half-dozen tonalities (keys) employed, and notes and rests down to l6ths. But one does not yet discover a rational division of music into measures. This great advance came shortly after 1600, with the new monody, the declamatory music of the early operas, and with this came also, for the first time, the use of terms of tempo and of expression. Even the grouping of notes was invented in the latter part of the 17th century, so that this epoch saw the establishment of the greater part of our present notation system. Music of the better class, printed after 1700, is without any very important difference from that printed to-day.
And now the procession of the tone-masters who are prized by the modern world begins. Bach (1685-1750) and Handel (1685-1759) were so exactly contemporaneous that many speak of them as if they had been the Siamese twins of music. Yet their influence was very divergent Bach leaned toward the old school of pure counterpoint; Handel was impelled toward modern dramatic effects. They faced different ways. Handel led toward orchestral experi ments and was more directly melodic than Bach. We owe to him the noblest form of oratorio, which, by the way, he did not attempt seriously until after his 50th year.
To Bach we owe debts far more varied and even greater. He reconciled the old diatonic style of composition with the newer more mod ulatory school; by his great organ works and his clavichord fugues he founded modern tech nique; he was the father of the best school of organ-playing; he composed the greatest mass (that in B minor) which the world possesses, and also the noblest Passion music, and he was absolutely the inventor of freedom of modula tion. Before his time, by what is called "mean
temperament," it was possible to modulate into some three or four major and minor keys. Bach in 1722 gave to the world the first book of his °Well-tempered Clavichord.° the com poser's declaration of independence —"We hold that all keys are created free and equal!" (See TEMPERAMENT). In 1740 he wrote the second book, riveting the great reform.
Opera in the meantime had lost its opening splendor. Intoxicated by the success of the new style of music the composers began to be lieve that poetry was a secondary matter in the wedding of the arts, and in allowing their music to pursue an independent path all dra matic purport was soon lost. A reformer was needed and he soon came. Gluck (1714-87) began a crusade against the meaningless char acter of many of the beautiful melodies of the Italian opera. In 1776 his opera of 'Orpheus' (which still holds the stage) began the dramatic school of operatic music. Beethoven followed in this path, and Mozart managed to reconcile melodic grace and dramatic content.
In carrying this sketch to its conclusion we must now trace three intertwining paths— piano music, orchestral music and operatic and other vocal music. Naturally we shall be able to allude only to epoch-making composers.
In 1709 Cristofori, an Italian, invented the pianoforte. The instrument was at first neg lected. Bach thought it fit only for rondos. Mozart used the spinet, as did Haydn. It was Beethoven who first turned the tide toward the new instrument. Instrumental technique grew up in the train of the new invention. Domen ico Scarlatti (1683-1757) led toward a piano style while writing for the spinet. In 1752 Philipp Em. Bach published the first valuable book of technique, which could be applied to the piano, to the clavichord, or the spinet.
The classical piano sonata grew gradually from a combination of the ideas of the suite and of the first movement of the old sonata as established by Corelli. Haydn first established it, Mozart improved it and Beethoven brought it to its culmination. The symphony was but a larger form of sonata, for orchestra, and the same process of evolution took place. Seldom has a form reached its zenith more quickly; from the first symphony, composed by Haydn (in three movements and for eight instruments only) in 1759, to the tremendous ninth sym phony of Beethoven, composed in 1824, is but 65 years, yet these years contain all that is pertinent to the birth, growth and climax of every form of sonata,— in which we include classical chamber music, string nuartettes, quintettes, etc., and orchestral works such as symphonies and concertos.