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Before that time vocal music was generally polyphonic, that is, for several voices; and a contrapuntal style of music had been introduced into Italy from the Netherlands, which was so complicated and artificial that the poetic text had no chance whatever of asserting its rights and being understood.
The rigorous, polyphonic style of his illustrious father was succeeded by the lyrical and singing element, which, if fantastic and daring, had a sweet, bright charm very fascinating. He writes in one of his treatises: "Methinks music ought appeal directly to the heart, and in this no performer on the piano-forte will succeed by merely thumping and drumming, or by continual arpeggio playing.
Not at all bad; but as some one said of G. K. Chesterton, it would be unfair to apply to wit the test of truth. It is better to remember Coleridge's remark on poetry: "The opposite of poetry is not prose but science; the opposite of prose is not poetry but verse." Perhaps we could say of the polyphonic people that they are well versed in prose.
It does not require profound consideration to bring us to the opinion that the method of Vecchi was in part an attempt to overcome the innate defect of the polyphonic style in this matter of intelligibility.
Whatever the troubadours and minnesingers may have done toward establishing a metrical melodic form of monophonic character was soon obliterated by the swift popularity of part singing and the immense vogue of the secular songs of the polyphonic composers.
We shall in another place in this work examine the methods of the lutenists and singers of the fifteenth century in adapting polyphonic compositions to delivery by a single voice with accompaniment of an instrument. It was in this manner of singing that Baccio Ugolino was an expert.
His impressions of nature, life and literature he imprisoned in tones. He was a profound student of Bach, to whom he traced "the power of combination, poetry and humor in the new music." Infusing his own vital emotions into polyphonic forms he gave the piano far grander tone-pictures than those of Couperin.
In answer to Eleanor's doubts and misgivings, he assured her in polyphonic prose that he knew her far better than she knew herself, and that he would be "content to wait at the feet of little Galatea, asking nothing, giving all, until the happy day when she should wake to life and love and the consciousness that she was wholly and happily his."
Yet as the melody grows to larger utterance, the fulness of polyphonic art brings a beauty of tender sentiment, rising to a moving climax, where the horns lead the song in the heart of the madrigal chorus, and the strings alone sing the expressive answer. A third phrase now appears, where lies the main poetry of the movement. Gentle swaying calls of
With the production of 'Euridice' the history of opera may be said to begin; but if the new art-form had depended only upon the efforts of Peri and his friends, it must soon have languished and died. With all their enthusiasm, the little band of Florentines had too slight an acquaintance with the science of music to give proper effect to the ideas which they originated. Peri built the ship, but it was reserved for the genius of Claudio Monteverde to launch it upon a wider ocean than his predecessor could have dreamed of. Monteverde had been trained in the polyphonic school of Palestrina, but his genius had never acquiesced in the rules and restrictions in which the older masters delighted. He was a poor contrapuntist, and his madrigals are chiefly interesting as a proof of how ill the novel harmonies of which he was the discoverer accorded with the severe purity of the older school But in the new art he found the field his genius required. What had been weakness and license in the madrigal became strength and beauty in the opera. The new wine was put into new bottles, and both were preserved. Monteverde produced his 'Arianna' in 1607, and his 'Orfeo' in 1608, and with these two works started opera upon the path of development which was to culminate in the works of Wagner. 'Arianna, which, according to Marco da Gagliano, himself a rival composer of high ability, 'visibly moved all the theatre to tears, is lost to us save for a few quotations; but 'Orfeo' is in existence, and has recently been reprinted in Germany. A glance at the score shows what a gulf separates this work from Peri's treatment of the same story. Monteverde, with his orchestra of thirty-nine instruments brass, wood, and strings complete his rich and brilliant harmonies, sounding so strangely beautiful to ears accustomed only to the severity of the polyphonic school, and his delicious and affecting melodies, sometimes rising almost to the dignity of an aria, must have seemed something more than human to the eager Venetians as they listened for the first time to music as rich in colour as the gleaming marbles of the C
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