Palestrina the emotional power of harmony was but little
understood. The harmonies, indeed, were the accidents of the
interweaving of melodies. Palestrina was among the first to feel the
uplifting effect which might result from a simple sequence of pure
consonant harmonies, and the three chords which open his famous
"Stabat Mater"

[Sidenote: _Palestrina's "Stabat Mater."_]

[Sidenote: _Characteristics of his music._]

[Music illustration: Sta-bat ma-ter]

are a sign of his style as distinct in its way as the devices by means
of which Wagner stamps his individuality on his phrases. His melodies,
too, compared with the artificial _motivi_ of his predecessors, are
distinguished by grace, beauty, and expressiveness, while his command
of aetherial effects, due to the manner in which the voices are
combined, is absolutely without parallel from his day to this. Of the
mystery of pure beauty he enjoyed a wonderful revelation, and has
handed it down to us in such works as the "Stabat Mater," "Missa Papae
Marcelli," and the "Improperia."

[Sidenote: _Palestrina's music not dramatic._]

[Sidenote: _A churchman._]

[Sidenote: _Effect of the Reformation._]

This music must not be listened to with the notion in mind of dramatic
expression such as we almost instinctively feel to-day. Palestrina
does not seek to proclaim the varying sentiment which underlies his
texts. That leads to individual interpretation and is foreign to the
habits of churchmen in the old conception, when the individual was
completely resolved in the organization. He aimed to exalt the mystery
of the service, not to bring it down to popular comprehension and make
it a personal utterance. For such a design in music we must wait until
after the Reformation, when the ancient mysticism began to fall back
before the demands of reason, when the idea of the sole and sufficient
mediation of the Church lost some of its power in the face of the
growing conviction of intimate personal relationship between man and
his creator. Now idealism had to yield some of its dominion to
realism, and a more rugged art grew up in place of that which had
been so wonderfully sublimated by mysticism.

[Sidenote: _The source of beauty in Palestrina's music._]

It is in Bach, who came a century after Palestrina, that we find the
most eloquent musical proclamation of the new regime, and it is in no
sense disrespectful to the great German master if we feel that the
change in ideal