one, sixteen string quartets, and a very large mass of chamber music
of other sorts. There are two masses, one opera, and above one hundred
songs.

* * * * *

As generally stated, the characteristic point of difference between
what we call the classical and the romantic in the art of music lies in
the feeling actuating the composer, and consequently embodied more or
less successfully in his music. In the older practice, especially that
of the Netherlandish contrapuntal composers of the sixteenth century,
the motive of composition was that of producing a musical piece more
elaborate, more imposing, or more sonorous than previous works; or,
perhaps, the more commonplace conception of producing a piece as good
as previous works. The purely musical (conceived from a technical
standpoint) remained the moving principle with the composer. With the
invention of opera, about 1597, A. D., and the active development which
followed for a century after, a new principle came into operation,
namely, the expression of dramatic contrasts and situations, and so at
length the expression of intense individuality--the working of strong
individualities under the clash of tragic situations.

Along with the invention and development of opera, during the period
here mentioned, the mastery of the violin was carried forward with
great results to the art of music. About 1685, Archangelo Corelli
published his first collection of pieces for the violin, and in these
are found what are practically about the first examples of a
well-developed lyric melody, of the kind we now mean when we speak of
"bel canto"--the type of melody made the very crux of the art of
Italian singing. This impassioned, sustained, and expressive melody
took with wonderful rapidity and was almost immediately adopted into
opera, the ideal of which in the beginning had been that of an artistic
and dramatically expressive delivery of the text. Now, melody as such
has little to do with the dramatic delivery of the text. In a
sustained melody--as in "Home, Sweet Home," to quote a simple type--it
is first of all a question of sustained sentiment; whereas in a
well-determined declamation it is first of all a matter of effective
delivery of the words and phrases from an elocutionary standpoint,
allowing the voice all the stops, interruptions, shocks, and variations
of intensity requisite for effective delivery. But by the time this
sustained melody