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Later Bach developed counterpoint very much more in the modern way. He did with polyphony for the piano and organ much the same as Palestrina did for the voice. There have never lived greater masters than these in the art of polyphonic music. There is still another form of writing which is neither strictly harmonic, nor strictly contrapuntal, it is a combination of both.
The strongest and most original of his immediate predecessors, Pelham Humphries, influenced him chiefly by showing him the possibility of throwing off the shackles of the dead and done with. The contrapuntal formulas and prosaic melodic contours, to be used so magnificently by Handel, were never allowed to harden and fossilise in Purcell's music.
After it was built up and men had got, so to say, a grip of music and no longer merely groped, Beethoven and Wagner went back to the freedom and indifference to rule of the first composers; and the mere fact of their having done so should show us that the rules were nothing in themselves, nothing, that is, save temporary guide-posts or landmarks which the contrapuntal men set up for their own private use while they were exploring the unknown fields of music.
The opening notes of 'Lohengrin' indeed prove incontestably the increased power and facility with which Wagner had learnt to wield his orchestra since the days of 'Tannhäuser. The prelude to 'Lohengrin' a mighty web of sound woven of one single theme is, besides being a miracle of contrapuntal ingenuity, one of the most poetical of Wagner's many exquisite conceptions.
Gluck's place in musical history is peculiar and well marked, he entered the field of operatic composition when it was hampered with a great variety of dry forms, and utterly without soul and poetic spirit. The object of composers seemed to be to show mere contrapuntal learning, or to furnish singers opportunity to display vocal agility.
The words are set to an old German church melody "Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein" around which the orchestral instruments weave a contrapuntal web of wondrous beauty. At the gates Pamina joins her lover and accompanies him on his journey, which is happily achieved with the help of the flute. Meanwhile Papageno is pardoned his loquacity, but told that he shall never feel the joy of the elect.
Bruckner, Mahler's teacher, is also incessantly reflected by these works, by the choral themes which Mahler is so fond of embodying in his compositions, and, more particularly, by the length and involutions of so many of the themes of his later symphonies. For, like Bruckner's, they appear chosen with an eye to their serviceability for contrapuntal deformation and dissection.
The first movement begins solemnly, but breaks into an appassionato. All four instruments have an equal voice in the parley, and all the outbursts are emotional rather than contrapuntal. A climax of tremendous power is attained. The second movement omits the piano for a beautiful adagio.
"Wasn't it well sung?" and she was seized with nervousness, and instead of speaking to him about his basses as she had intended, she asked him about the trebles. "They are the worst part of the choir. That contrapuntal music can only be sung by those who can sing at sight. The piano has destroyed the modern ear. I daresay it has spoilt your ear." "My ear is all right, I think."
The dance forms, together with very simple fugues and contrapuntal studies, and a few 'free' exercises in songs and short pieces, will be as far as the majority of children will get in the study of composition. But there will always be a few in each class who will be eager and able to go farther, and to begin the study of sonata form.
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