The Flemish masters, who were the musical law-givers, had been using secular tunes for over a century, but only as stalking-horses for counterpoint; and when the Germans began to use their tunes, they, too, buried them beyond recognition in the contrapuntal mass.  The people were invited to sing paraphrases of the psalms to familiar tunes, it is true, but the choir’s polyphony went far to stifle the spirit of the melody.  Soon the free spirit which I have repeatedly referred to as Romanticism, and which was powerfully encouraged by the Reformation, prompted a style of composition in which the admired melody was lifted into relief.  This could not be done until the new style of writing invented by the creators of the opera (see Chapter VII.) came in, but as early as 1568 Dr. Lucas Ostrander published fifty hymns and psalms with music so arranged “that the congregation may join in singing them.”  This, then, is in outline the story of the beginning of modern hymnology, and it is recalled to the patrons of choral concerts whenever in Bach’s “Passion Music” or in Mendelssohn’s “St. Paul” the choir sings one of the marvellous old hymns of the German Church.

[Sidenote:  The Church and conservatism.]

[Sidenote:  Harmony and emotion.]

Choral music being bound up with the Church, it has naturally participated in the conservatism characteristic of the Church.  The severe old style has survived in the choral compositions of to-day, while instrumental music has grown to be almost a new thing within the century which is just closing.  It is the severe style established by Bach, however, not that of Palestrina.  In the Church compositions prior to 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.]