s was accompanied with a loss in sensuous charm, or
pure aesthetic beauty. Effect has had to yield to idea. It is in the
flow of the voices, the color effects which result from combination
and registers, the clarity of the harmonies, the reposefulness coming
from conscious ease of utterance, the loveliness of each individual
part, and the spiritual exaltation of the whole that the aesthetic
mystery of Palestrina's music lies.

[Sidenote: _Bach._]

Like Palestrina, Bach is the culmination of the musical practice of
his time, but, unlike Palestrina, he is also the starting-point of a
new development. With Bach the old contrapuntal art, now not vocal
merely but instrumental also and mixed, reaches its climax, and the
tendency sets in which leads to the highly complex and dramatic art of
to-day. Palestrina's art is Roman; the spirit of restfulness, of
celestial calm, of supernatural revelation and supernal beauty broods
over it. Bach's is Gothic--rugged, massive, upward striving, human. In
Palestrina's music the voice that speaks is the voice of angels; in
Bach's it is the voice of men.

[Sidenote: _Bach a German Protestant._]

[Sidenote: _Church and individual._]

[Sidenote: _Ingenuousness of feeling._]

Bach is the publisher of the truest, tenderest, deepest, and most
individual religious feeling. His music is peculiarly a hymning of the
religious sentiment of Protestant Germany, where salvation is to be
wrought out with fear and trembling by each individual through faith
and works rather than the agency of even a divinely constituted
Church. It reflects, with rare fidelity and clearness, the essential
qualities of the German people--their warm sympathy, profound
compassion, fervent love, and sturdy faith. As the Church fell into
the background and the individual came to the fore, religious music
took on the dramatic character which we find in the "Passion Music" of
Bach. Here the sufferings and death of the Saviour, none the less an
ineffable mystery, are depicted as the most poignant experience of
each individual believer, and with an ingenuousness that must forever
provoke the wonder of those who are unable to enter into the German
nature. The worshippers do not hesitate to say: "My Jesus,
good-night!" as they gather in fancy around His tomb and invoke sweet
rest for His weary limbs. The difference between such a proclamation
and the calm voice of the Church should be borne in mind when
comparing the music of P