Their skill in mechanics was
unequalled, and we naturally expect to see their musicians further the
development of musical technic."
The Dutch musicians at first
revelled in the exercise of mechanical ingenuity in the construction of
intricate contrapuntal music.
In the first period of their
great school they acquired by such exercise so great a mastery of the materials
of their art that in the second period they began to make serious attempts at
writing beautiful music for beauty's sake.
In the third period the
possibilities of writing something different from church music began to be
developed, and we find the Dutch masters attempting the description in tones of
external phenomena by the process called tone-painting.
This period also saw secular
music taken into the fold of art, and began the production of madrigals and
other secular songs.
In the fourth period the dry
old science of counterpoint was so completely conquered that the composers of
the time were able to make it the vehicle of the purest expression of religious
devotion the world has yet found, and church music passed through its golden
age.
On account of these facts
let us consider this great school, which had more influence on the development
of music than any other school in the history of music, under the following
heads:
Netherlands School (1425-1625 A. D.).
First Period
(1425-1512).—Perfection of contrapuntal technics. Chief masters: Okeghem,
Hobrecht, Brumel.
Second Period
(1455-1526).—Attempts at pure beauty. Chief master, Josquin des Prés.
Third Period
(1495-1572).—Development of tone-painting and secular music. Chief masters:
Gombert, Willaert, Goudimel, Di Rore, Jannequin, Arcadelt.
[Pg 40]Fourth Period
(1520-1625).—Counterpoint made subservient to expression of religious feeling.
Chief masters: Orlando Lasso, Swelinck, De Monte.
The reader will note that
the division of these periods is not based on chronological, but artistic
grounds; and hence, in respect of years, they overlap.
The most famous writer of
the first period was Johannes Okeghem, born between 1415 and 1430, in East
Flanders.
He studied under Binchois, a
contemporary of Dufay, at Antwerp, was a singer in the service of Charles VII.
of France in 1444, was made by Louis XI. Treasurer of the Cathedral of St.
Martin's at Tours, and died there about 1513.
A considerable quantity of
his music has been preserved.
It is notable chiefly for
its technical skill; and during his life Okeghem was the most famous teacher of
his day.
His most noted pupil was
Antoine Brumel (1460-1520), whose personal history is lost, though many of his
masses and motets are preserved.
Jacob Hobrecht (1430-)
achieved great celebrity.
Eight of his masses are
extant.
As I have said in another
account of the Netherlands school, "It is the prevailing influence of one
or two masters in each period that marks its extent. Its character was formed
by that influence, and salient features of the style of each period may be
fairly distinguished. The first period was marked by the extreme development of
the 'canon."
I have already endeavored to
explain the nature of canonic writing.
If the reader will bear in
mind that it is the most rigid form of imitation, requiring the original melody
to be imitated throughout in the subsidiary parts, he will not go astray.
Okeghem and his
contemporaries completely explored the resources of canonic writing.
They invented all kinds of
canons.
They originated the 'crab'
canon, in which the part sung by the second voice was the first voice part
written backwards.
You can sing or play this
through forward and then backward, and its counterpoint remains correct.
They had also the inverted
canon, in which the second part consisted of the first part turned upside down.
The canon by augmentation
makes the melody appear in a subsidiary part in notes longer than those in
which it appeared in the principal part; and the canon by diminution is formed
on the opposite principle.
These old musical
puzzle-workers had other forms far more complicated, and they took great
delight in writing "riddle" canons.
In these only the subject
was given, with the motto, "Ex una, plures," meaning that the
musician must work out the other parts from the one; and then some hint as to
the manner of working them out would be given, as, "Ad medium referas,
pauses relinque priores."
The working out of these
riddle canons became a mania with Okeghem and his immediate successors; and the
result was that they acquired an immense command over the technics of
contrapuntal writing.
But "the highest praise
that can be awarded to their works is that they are profound in their
scholarship, not without evidences of taste in the selection of the formulas to
be employed, and certainly imbued with a good deal of the dignity which would
inevitably result from a skilful contrapuntal treatment of the church
chant."
It is, however, of singular
significance in the history of this period that some of the works of both
Hobrecht and Brumel show a tendency toward some conception of chord harmonies.
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