Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/123

 institutions was the Church of St. Mark's, founded in the 9th century, and, from the 11th, famous as one of the richest and most splendid of cathedrals. Here the powerful patronage of the state developed a musical establishment that in the 16th century attained fame in all Europe.

The excellence of the music at St. Mark's first became notable in the 14th century. The successive organists after 1400 were Zuane (1406-19), Bernardino (1419-45), Bernardo di Stefanino Murer (1445-59), Bartolommeo Vielmis (1459-90 and later), Francesco d' Ana (1490-?), Zuan Maria (1504-7), Baldassare da Imola (1533-41), Jachet de Buus (1541-51), Annibale (1552-66), Merulo (1557-84), Andrea Gabrieli (1556-86), Giovanni Gabrieli (1585-1612), Vincenzo Bell'Haver (1586-88) and Gioseffo Guami (1588-91). From 1490 there were two organs, and the overlapping dates above signify terms of service beginning on the second organ and passing to the first. The list of choirmasters begins in 1491 and includes Pietro de Fossis, a Netherlander (1491-1525), Willaert (1527-62), De Rore (1559-65), Zarlino (1565-90) and Donato (1590-1603). From 1403 there was a special school for choristers.

The peculiar eminence of Venice in the early 16th century was due to the extraordinary genius of Willaert, choirmaster at St. Mark's for thirty-five years from 1527, who is commonly called the founder of the Venetian school. In all the technical mysteries of counterpoint he was fully as expert as his predecessors, while he excelled in interesting extensions of their style. Chief of these advances was the free use of double-choir effects, probably suggested by the fact that St. Mark's had two organs facing one another across the chancel. Antiphony of this kind involved important changes in current method—partition into sections, with some symmetry between them, more clear cadences, more massing of voices in pure harmony, conciser handling of the words, etc. Progress in all these was novel and a grateful addition to the older procedures. In general, emotional effects were pushed forward, with richer combinations of chords and more freedom with chromatic tones, while mere precision or intricacy of imitation was less prominent. In all this we see the working of the typical Italian love of color, warmth and sentiment. Though not the first to grasp the possibilities of the madrigal-form, Willaert was one of the first strong writers in it, exercising a dominant influence on its development (see sec. 69). For all these reasons Willaert is counted as, on the whole, the ablest master between Des Près and Palestrina.