his play is in part sung and in part
spoken.[3] It begins with this bit of Latin chant by Mary:

[Musical Notation]

[Footnote 3: See Robert Eitner's introduction to the First Part of
"Die Oper von ihren ersten Anfaengen bis zur Mitte des 18.
Jahrhunderts." Leipsic, 1881.]

The rest of the text is in old German. Here is a specimen of the
recitative or chant with the German text:

[Musical Notation]

These recitatives are in a style exactly like that of the early French
church plays.

As Coussemaker notes, one does not find in these plays the passions, the
intrigues nor the scenic movement found in the secular drama. What we do
find is calm simplicity of statement, elevation and nobility of thought,
purity of moral principles. The music designed to present these ideas in
a high light necessarily has an appropriate character. We do not find
here music of strongly marked rhythm and clearly defined measure,
suitable to the utterance of worldly emotions, but a melody resembling
the chant, written in the tonalities used in the church, but containing
a certain kind of prose rhythm and accentuation, such as exists in the
Gregorian music.

This was the inevitable march of development. The liturgical drama
originated, as has been shown, in the celebration of certain offices and
fetes, for which the music assumed a style of delivery clothed in
unwonted pomp. Characters and costumes and specially composed music soon
found their way into these ceremonies. The new music followed the old
lines and preserved the character of the liturgical chant. Gradually
these accessories rose to the importance of separate incidents and
finally to that of dramas. But they did not lose their original literary
and musical character.

In studying the development of a secular lyric drama, it is essential
that we keep in mind the nature of the music employed in the dramatic
ceremonials, and later in the frankly theatrical representations of the
church. The opera is a child of Italy and its direct ancestors must be
sought there. The first secular musical plays of France far antedated
the birth of the primitive lyric drama of Italy, and it requires
something more than scientific devotion to establish a close connection
between the two. But the early French ecclesiastical play is directly
related to that of Italy. Both were products of the Catholic Church.
Both employed the same texts and the same kind of music. They were
developed