Counterpoint, literally point against point, is the art of so composing music in parts that several parts move simultaneously, making harmony by their combination.  During the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the masters of counterpoint shaped the musical materials in use to-day.  So anxious were they to attain perfection of form they often lost sight of the spirit which alone can give vitality to musical utterances.  The great Bach infused this into his fugues, the highest manifestation of the contrapuntal, or polyphonic music of old.

Meanwhile the growth of the individual led to the growth of monophony in music, in which one voice stands out prominently, with an accompaniment of other voices.  Its instrumental flower was reached in the symphony.  Melody reigns supreme in monophonic music.  Both the canon and the fugue form a commonwealth, in which all voices are rated alike.  Viewed rightly, this suits the modern democratic instinct, and there is to-day a tendency to return to polyphonic writing.  It is individuality in union.  In the hands of genius it affords the most refined kind of harmony.

A thorough knowledge of counterpoint shows the mistake of regarding it merely as a dull relic of a dead past.  It is a living reality that, if correctly studied, leads to a solid, dignified, flowing style, rich in design, and independent in its individuality.  Counterpoint, said a critic in the London Musical News, shows the student how to make a harmonic phrase like a well-shaped tree, of which every bough, twig and leaf secures for itself the greatest independence, the fullest measure of light and air.  Composer, interpreter and listener may all profit by a comprehension of counterpoint.

From its infancy modern music has been affected by two perpetually warring factors, the Classical and the Romantic.  The first demands reverence for established ideals of formal beauty; the second, striking a note of revolt, compels recognition of new ideals.  As in all other departments of art and life, progress in music comes through the continual conflict between the conservative and the radical forces.  A position viewed as hazardous and unsuitable in one age, becomes the accepted position of the next, and those who have been denounced as musical heretics come to be regarded as musical heroes.  Very often the untutored public, trusting to natural instincts, will be in advance of the learned critic in accepting some startling innovation.  Old laws may pass away, new laws may come, but the eternal verities on which all manifestations of Truth and Beauty are based can never cease to be.