nging it to its highest
perfection; while in Palestrina we have the beginning of the modern
school and style, the distinctive trait of which may broadly be said to
be the use of melody and harmony of independent value under constant
governance of the principle of tonality. Before the time of
Palestrina--say A.D. 1550, he having been born about 1524 and having
died about 1594, which year closed the life of Orlandus Lassus, who was
born in 1520--before that time music was polyphonic. But it was not
merely, as that term implies, many-voiced, or in several parts; for
that it is now; but the parts moved without any aesthetic relation to
each other, and with the same independence of the aesthetic effect of
the whole. Their progression was according to certain rules; but these
conformed to, the object of the composer seemed to be to make his work
as intricate as possible. Certain figures--for they could hardly be
called melodies--one or two or three or more--were repeated again and
again and again by the various voices, each one going or seeming to go
its own way, entirely regardless of the others--regardless of anything
except the rules of the counterpoint of the day. The combining result
was a tangled skein of sound which could be unravelled only as it had
been put together, by rule. Instead of an emotional expression it was
an intellectual puzzle in sound. Moreover the whole composition was
without any bond of unity; it was, so to speak, and in its effect it
was really, in no particular key.

[4] For an able setting forth of the claims of Orlandus Lassus,
see Frederic Louis Ritter's excellent "History of Music," First
Series, published by Oliver Ditson & Co.

Upon music in this condition there came about three hundred years ago a
great change. Polyphonetic writing gave way, gradually but with some
rapidity, to the movement of parts in a harmony of independent absolute
beauty--that is, beauty, in the simple succession of its chords--and to
the union with this harmony of a leading melody, also valuable for its
independent, absolute beauty. Thus came into being what I have
heretofore called "absolute music," which has been known to the world
only about three hundred years, and in its full and complete
development only about one hundred and fifty. At the same time, with
this use of harmony and melody of absolute beauty and value, came in a
great controlling principle or law, upon the operation and influence o