Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/222

 CHAPTER XIII

THE ORGAN STYLE

100. The Rising Importance of Instruments.—Although in all stages of musical progress instruments are interesting, in the formal evolution of the art they were long remitted to a strictly subordinate place, vocal music supplying the ideal norms of procedure. All the fundamental rules of composition were first laid down on vocal lines, all the earlier art-forms were vocal, and all the early masters became dominant because successful with vocal works. Experiments with instruments were made at first either to imitate vocal effects or for their mere support or incidental decoration. The entire theory and practice of artistic music up to the second half of the 16th century was vocal in basis and essence. As the 17th century approached, however, and much more as it proceeded, a new tendency asserted itself. Without giving up emphasis upon the voice as the primary musical implement, it was perceived how advantageously mechanical implements might also be used by themselves and in ways essentially unvocal. In consequence, instrumental music now shook itself clear and set out upon a vigorous development that had marvelous later consequences.

The new tendency had many causes. Perhaps chief of these was the mighty swing of interest from sacred to intensely secular music, with the exaltation of objective forms over subjective, and of whatever could excite and pique attention by its impact upon the listener rather than merely give outlet for the feeling of the composer or performer. But combined with this was the stimulus derived from the technical improvement of certain particular instruments. The taste of the time called for more impressive effects and more elaborate implements, and these implements and their effects in turn reacted powerfully upon taste.

The two classes of instruments that took the lead were those with a keyboard, especially the organ, and those sounded by a bow, that is, the entire viol family. The former were prominent because capable of concerted, polyphonic and massive effects, the latter because capable of the finest solo effects and because,