the graceful arabesques of the most simple piano
piece of to-day with the awkward and gargoyle-like figuration
of Beethoven and his predecessors. We may justly attribute this
to Liszt rather than to Chopin, whose nocturne embellishments
are but first cousins to those of the Englishman, John Field,
though naturally Chopin's Polish temperament gave his work that
grace and profusion of design which we have called orientalism.

XVI

THE MYSTERY AND MIRACLE PLAY

It is interesting to recall the origin of our words "treble"
and "discant." The latter was derived from the first attempts to
break away from the monotony of several persons singing the same
melody in unison, octaves, fifths, or fourths. In such cases
the original melody was called _cantus firmus_ (a term still
generally used in counterpoint to designate the given melody
of an exercise to which the student is to write other parts),
the new melody that was sung with it was called the _discant_,
and when a third part was added, it received the name _triplum_
or _treble_. As Ambros remarks, this forcible welding together
of different melodies, often well-known old tunes, secular
or derived from the church chants, was on a direct line with
the contemporary condition of the other arts. For instance,
on the portal to the left of the Cathedral of Saint Mark,
at Venice, is a relief, representing some Biblical scene,
which is entirely made up of fragments of some older sculptured
figures, placed together without regard to anatomy in much the
same brutal fashion that the melodies of the time were sung
together. The traces of this clumsy music-making extended down
to Palestrina's time, and became the germ of counterpoint,
canon, and fugue, constituting (apart from the folk song)
the only music known at that time.

This music, however, very soon developed into two styles, one
adopted by the church, the other, a secular style, furnishing
the musical texture both of opera and other secular music. The
opera, or rather the art form we know under that name (for the
name itself conveys nothing, for which reason Wagner coined the
term "music drama") broke away from the church in the guise of
Mysteries, as they were called in mediaeval times. A Mystery
(of which our modern oratorio is the direct descendant) was
a kind of drama illustrating some sacred subject, and the
earliest specimens laid the foundation for the Greek tragedy
and comedy. We still see a relic of this