'If we consider the frottole as contrapuntal exercises they appear very meagre. If, however, we consider them as attempts to free the _cantabile_ melody, the declamatory rhythm which is analogous to the verse metre, from the imitative web, and as an attempt to endow musical pieces with architectural symmetry in the construction of its consecutive (not simultaneous) elements they are significant phenomena.’--Ambros.
[111] The inscription _Cromatici, a note nere_ on the title page of some of di Rore’s madrigals, which has been thought to indicate the chromatic nature of these compositions, refers, as Riemann clearly shows (_Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_ II¹. 411), simply to the color of the notes, _croma_ being a current name for the eighth note since early times.
[112] _Musikgeschichte in Beispielen._ Excerpt, etc., in _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_, II¹. 407 ff.
[113] That these vocal compositions were often performed entirely by instruments is indicated by the direction which we meet frequently on sixteenth century title pages: 'practical for all instruments.’ The kind of instruments was not indicated and the choice was left to the direction of the performer. Not till the end of the century did musicians begin to discriminate and to recognize the value of instrumental timbre. In the _intermezzi_ arrangements of madrigals, etc., were often performed by many instruments, as for instance in those produced in 1565 by Striggio and Fr. Corteccia (d. 1571), who assembled an orchestra of 2 clavicembali, 4 violini, 1 liuto mezzano, 1 cornetto muto, 4 tromboni, 1 flauti diritti, 4 traverse, 1 liuto grosso, 1 sotto basso di viola, 1 soprano di viola, 4 liuti, 1 viola d’arco, 1 lirone, 1 traverso contralto, 1 flauto grande tenore, 1 trombone basso, 5 storte, 1 stortina, 2 cornetti ordinarii, 1 cornetto grosso, 1 dolzaina, 1 lira, 1 ribecchino, 2 tamburi.
Invention of music printing--The Reformation--The immediate successors of Josquin; Adrian Willaert and the Venetian school; Germany and England--Orlando di Lasso--Palestrina; his life--The Palestrina style; the culmination of vocal polyphony--Conclusion.
The deep vital forces which had for two hundred years been urging Italy to magnificent achievement broke through into music during the course of the sixteenth century. Music was, as she has always been, the last to respond to a general movement; but the response, when it came, entailed an entire reconstruction of the art. All through the century the process of reconstruction was active. It was, however, gradual in its working. Only toward the very end of the century a few bold explorers and experimenters turned their backs upon the past, cut loose from the old art of music and started in to build with new stone and new tools a new art. We have to do in this chapter with the old art; on the one hand, with influences which boldly altered it, and with new developments which were set free through these alterations; on the other, with its ultimate perfection and consequent end.