Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/258

 246 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE wonderful sympathy with the sentiment, and give the- deep expression which is wanting to the words ; so that, as the Nuremberger John Ott expresses it, ' the listener pauses to consider the deep meaning.' The melody, for instance, which Heinrich Isaak composed for the song attributed to the Emperor Maximilian, ' Innsbriick ! I must leave thee,' is of world-wide fame. The air by the same composer to the words ' My only joy in the wide world ' is a pearl of priceless worth, and will always remain an expression of all that is most sweet and tender in the German national character. Heinrich Finck's songs are also pervaded by this same earnest, religious tone. German humour asserted its sway in music just as much as in sculpture and painting. Every shade and degree was represented, from the most roguish merri- ment to the bitterest satire, as may be seen in such specimens as Malm's ' Es wolt ein alt Man auf die Bulschaft gan ' (An old man would a-wooing go) ; Isaak's- song of the ' Peasant's Little Daughter ' ; Senfl's ' Laub, gras, und bliih,' and Finck's peasants' drinking song, ' Der Ludel und der Hensel.' What makes all the music of this period so pecu- liarly delightful is its healthy piety, manly energy and vigour, constantly allied with tender sentiment and hearty enjoyment of life — the same qualities which pervade the works of the masters of the plastic arts. As the new figurate * music was developed the desire became ever stronger to perfect the material of 1 The term ' figurate music ' (Figuralmusik) is used to distinguish the music that was capable of being combined into many parts by a rudi- mentary kind of counterpoint from the unrhythmic, unisonous plain song or canto formo of the Church, which it had begun to supersede.