id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.
THE DAWN OF INDEPENDENT INSTRUMENTATION.

I.

The awakening interest for instrumental music received its incentive from two distinctive sources—the organ, and accompaniment to solo singing. As a natural corollary to centuries of ecclesiastical supremacy in musical composition, the organ had taken first rank among instruments and was, comparatively speaking, the most advanced, both as to mechanical construction and correlative technique of its performers. Hence the organ was destined to become a spontaneous yet covert connecting link between pure choral and pure instrumental music.

The initiative in this progression is due to the direct heirs of the Flemish School—the Venetian organists. Both Andreas Gabrieli (1510), pupil of Willaert, and Merulo (1533) had begun to add ornamental embellishments to their accompaniments, and although coherence was lacking, the step once taken led to extended experiments. Thus the treatment of further instruments employed in religious worship instinctively received more careful attention. Little by little composers awoke to the realization that the servile imitation of a capella polyphonic choral writing hitherto employed, was unsuited to the characteristics of differentiated individual instruments or combinations of instruments. True, the artistic value of these early attempts was but small, and would almost appear as an incompatibility, taking into consideration the fact that their authors were erudite in the subtleties of canonical device. Nevertheless, several tangible results are to be noted. As has been said, instrumental writing acquired a certain amount of individuality. Through search for balance of tone there was inaugurated a selective process as to the permanent value of each specific genre of an instrument. Instrumental adaptation of choral imitation led to contrast. Expansibility of musical thought was quickened. Thus Flemish influence was kept alive in that the incipient forms of their Venetian disciples, inherited by the subsequent violinist-composers, matured into the cyclic sonata.

Conspicuous are the organ works of Frescobaldi (1583-1644), the great predecessor of Bach. His labors also directly influenced subsequent clavier music as developed by Kuhnau in the following century. Credit is due to Giovanni Gabrieli (1587) for systematic attempts at orchestration and a distinctive style of writing for the violin. This latter, however, had to wait for the development of technique, which, as we shall see, was concurrent with the progress of solo singing. And thus the year 1600, epoch-making in the rehabilitation of the drama, can be likewise referred to as a general starting point for independent instrumentation.

II.

The second and more powerful incentive that instrumentation received was from monody, in connection with which its function as accompaniment in simplified form was demonstrated. The fons et origo of declamatory recitative are, of course, to be traced to the attempted reforms of the Florentine camerata. Monody was the cradle of opera and oratorio, and became in turn the foster child of her progeny. Now these histrionic roots were diversified and far reaching.

In the first place, during the two centuries preceding the era under discussion, the miracle plays and representations of similar purport had had recourse to musical support, though of a nature disjointed and irrelevant.

Secondly, the efforts of the troubadours, minstrels, and minnesingers embodied solo-singing to instrumental accompaniment, and contained elements of the dramatic.

Lastly, a newly awakened veneration for everything pertaining to classic Greece revealed the nobility of her drama. This was the causa vera to be espoused! And the evolution of this renaissance, which reached a climax in 1600, must be traced to the history of the Medici.

Toward the close of the fifteenth century, when three generations of that family had brought Florence to the height of her glory, art had received a new impulse under the fostering care of Lorenzo. Moreover, science had acquired the doctrines of the Greek scholars fleeing from Turkish oppression. And the brief interim of asceticism under the sway of the Dominican monk, Savanarola, was followed by the restoration to power of the Medici. A non-clerical influence in all matters pertaining to art made itself felt, and the founding of the Platonic Academy by Cosimo the Great added fuel to the already existing predilection for the drama as exploited by the Ancients.

Hence the aim of the amateur poet and composer, Bardi, and his coterie was to produce a drama which should faithfully conform to the purity and idealism of classic models. And they sought diligently for a clue to original renditions of Attic tragedy, the Dorian choral lyrics, the song-lyrics of Anacreon, Sappho. But their conception thereof was based on a fallacy, so that were one to judge the fruits of their labors solely for their intrinsic value, the verdict would be disappointing.

On the other hand, the step they took was a gigantic one forward in its revolutionary after-results. For the quintessence of recitative and lyrical solo was contained in Galilei's and Caccini's declamatory recitatives with accompaniment of lute or viol; in Peri's and Caccini's "Dafne" and "Euridice"—the first genuine music dramas in the monodic style; in Cavalieri's allegory or incipient oratorio "L'Anima e Corpo." All these attempts were infinitely more expressive and effective than the sombre selections with which A. Gabrieli and Merulo had been wont to enliven festive secular occasions. Bardi and Corsi, in the face of conservatism and skepticism, had sought to reinstate the principles founded upon the Greek Dithyramb. Inspired by the enthusiasm of these two amateurs, the professionals, Peri and Cavalieri, succeeded simultaneously in discovering two rational operatic designs, capable of sequent dramatic treatment.

Finally, the very nature of the monodic principle was inseparable from instrumental accompaniment, and the primary causes that led to monody, namely, expression and dramatic effect, would in themselves insist upon a keener appreciation for instrumental combination as to selection, distribution of parts, dynamics, color-scheme. This is borne out to a limited extent in the later works of both Peri and Cavalieri, whose instrumentation, though crude, paved the way for their greater contemporary and eventual successor, Monteverde. Even though the bulk of the figured bass accompaniment was assigned to the harpsichord, "Euridice" called into requisition one viol, three flutes, and a triplet of instruments of the lute variety. Cavalieri made use of practically the same combination, and even recommended that a violin should duplicate the vocal melody throughout.

In contradistinction to these essays at dramatic scoring should be mentioned the instrumentation of Striggio (1535), whose intermezzi or comedies interspersed with music were written in the madrigal style. Nor should the concertante sacred song of Viadana (1564) or the instrumental effects of Gibbons (1583) be overlooked. But Striggio, some thirty odd years before "Euridice" was produced, had not only forestalled but surpassed his immediate successors by the employment of an orchestra of which more than half were stringed instruments; again, seven of these were played with a bow. So that, considering the primitive methods then in use, the constitution of Striggio's orchestra was unique. It consisted of six lutes, seven viols, two