The

Mr. Surette's lectures are designed to interest and in struct the same audiences which listen to lectures on other subjects, and are not meant for musical people alone. The subjects are treated simply and clearly, and there have been repeated assurances that the lectures are understood by persons who possess no musical knowledge whatever. development of Music is traced through the great movements which we call Classic and Romantic. By comparison with Literature and Painting, and by showing the relation between Art and Civilization in each of these periods, a clear idea is obtained of the causes which combined to produce these two great schools of composers. But the greatest practical benefit of the lectures lies not so much in their historical qualities as in the help they afford the listener in appreciating and understanding Music-they teach him how to listen.

The different compositions played or sung in connection with each lecture are first given in detail, the lecturer showing how the musical ideas are arranged in relation to each other, what their characteristic qualities are and how they reflect the composer's personality and the general thought of the time. These things are susceptible of being explained without the use of technical terms, and experience has shown that great music, presented to an audience in this manner, never fails to interest and delight them.

The stereopticon views which are shown at the close of the lecture consist of portraits of the great composers, and of scenes connected with their lives as well as of reproductions of paintings, etc., by which the comparisons drawn between the different Arts are enforced. While they add to the popular interest of the lectures, they are of real value also in showing how composers lived and worked.

The Mason and Hamlin Company will, if desired, furnish Mr. Surette a Grand Piano for his lectures.

LECTURE I.

BEGINNINGS OF THE ART OF COMPOSITION.

Ballads, Madrigals, and Masses.

For general reference, consult Sir George Grove's "Dictionary of Music and Musicians." London: Macmillan & Co., John K. Paine's "Famous Composers and Their Works." Boston J. B. Millet Co., "The Evolution of the Art of Music," by C. H. H. Parry. New York: D. Appleton & Co. And "Studies in Modern Music," by Hadow, Vol. I., Chapter I. Macmillan.

Folk Songs.-The common songs of the people existed many centuries before there was any system of musical notation: the sower, the hunter, the warrior chanted his simple melody long before art was born.

But even in the crudest specimens of these Folk Songs there is an unconscious attempt at something like Form. All music depends largely on repetition for its logical effect on the mind, and in the most primitive songs one little phrase would be repeated over and over again. In the more mature specimens, however, the phrases are perfectly balanced.

(Reference :-Chapter on Folk Songs in Mr. Parry's book.)

Counterpoint.-The primitive chants of the Christian Church were sung in unison and to the accompaniment of a single sustained note. This music was entirely separated from that of the people and was cold and austere as compared with the spontaneous Folk Song and Dance Tune.

Musical notation was somewhat systematized in the twelfth century, the notes being written diamond-shaped or pointed. When the device of writing two melodies together was adopted, which was the result of varying that sustained accompaniment note until it, too, became a melody, the term "Counterpoint," or point against point, was invented to describe it.

Beginning with the simplest form of two melodies only, Counterpoint developed into an intricate system in which four, five, or six melodies were ingeniously combined.

Though it satisfied the formality of the worship of that time, it lacked humanity. It belonged to the priest, not to the people.

Madrigals, also, were written in this many-voiced or Polyphonic style. There was but little distinction in the music of the different countries where the Roman Catholic Church held sway.

This religious-polyphonic school flourished from about 1400 to 1600. Its great names are Dufay, born in Flanders in 1380, Okenheim, de Lasso (also Flemish), Byrd and Gibbon (in England), Edwards and Dowland (English Madrigal writers), and Palestrina, the most famous man in the early history of music, who was born near Rome in 1514 and died in 1594.

(Reference :-Article on Counterpoint in Grove's Dictionary.)

Instrumental Music.-Owing to the slow development of instruments, vocal music largely predominated during the early period of the history of composition. The violin was developed a long time before keyed instruments like the piano came into general use, but no great facility of technique was attained for many generations.

The clavichord and harpsichord had so little capacity for sustaining tone that composers surrounded their melodies with all sorts of ornamentation. All music written for these Instruments was based at first on either the dance tunes or the songs of the people.

The Reformation.-During the sixteenth century the Reformation in Germany and England had gathered such force as to effect life on every side. Composers no longer wrote Masses but turned towards something more human.

The Chorale took the place of the Mass, and, as that offered little scope for musical ideas, men turned towards secular music. The melodies themselves, as they began to be written for their own sake rather than for dancing, were changed in various ways-made more expressive and interesting-were idealized.

Form.-The necessity for some well-ordered system by which long instrumental pieces could be made clear and logical impelled composers to try various devices to this end, just as in the early unwritten songs men strove unconsciously to produce by repetition some continuity of idea.

The commonest plan was to have two strains, the first one repeated at the end of the second, making a piece in three parts, as A. B. A.; this was varied in many ways.

The Rondo.-This form consisted in one melody repeated several times with short interludes. It was derived from the " Round.'

The Variation.-By repeating the melody with ornamentations and changes of different kinds, but without interludes, another form was arrived at.

The Suite. The desire for continuity and greater scope led composers to put several of these dance tunes together into what were called Suites. There was no connection between the different parts; each was independent of the rest, but they were all in the same key.

These several forms were prototypes of the Sonata and Symphony.

EXERCISES FOR STUDENTS.

(If possible, cite some particular passage in Music by way of illustration.) I. Give some account of the Folk Song.

II. What effect did the use of Contrapuntal writing have on the art of Composition?

III. What is Form in Music?

LECTURE II.

BACH AND HANDEL.
Italian Opera. The Oratorio.

Decline of Italian
Church Music.

After Palestrina's death church music in Italy deteriorated, and within a few years the rise of Opera

in Florence turned composers towards that more attractive form of the art.

The great freedom which Opera permitted in the way of melody and general style, and the release from the bondage of strict polyphony, were causes enough for an entire transference of effort from sacred to secular music.

The Great German Instrumental School.

But in Germany the conservative character of the people kept them more in the beaten tracks, and they were less drawn to Opera because they were less a nation of singers than the Italians. The Germans were slow to take up new ideas; with, perhaps, less enthusiasm than the people of Italy they had logical methods of thought and action which served them well at this time. It was a crucial period in the history of German music, for here begins the great school which has supremely influenced the whole musical world.

Instrumental Polyphony.-For a century men of whom we hear nothing now were preparing the way for the two great masters, Bach and Handel. Both of these men were surrounded by a group of composers who were writing in their style but without their genius.

This condition is to be found in literature and painting; Shakespeare and the group of dramatists who were his contemporaries furnish a good illustration.

For a hundred years Germany had been preparing for her great men; she clung to the tradition of polyphony but was no longer hampered by the limitations of voices.

Dance tunes even were written in the polyphonic style; Rondos and other forms were used; but the form that lent itself most readily to this kind of treatment was the Fugue (from fuga, a flight).

The Fugue.-The Fugue sprang from very small beginnings. At first a simple passage between two voices, in which one imitated (pursued) the other after a short interval, it developed into an intricate form where many voices or parts were used (they are called "voices" even in instrumental Fugues).