which Beethoven
used in his "Pastoral" symphony, as Berlioz used in his "Fantastic," as
Gounod used in his "Faust," and that thus at least one element of the
instrumental embodiment of Poliziano's story has come down to us.

CHAPTER X

From Frottola Drama to Madrigal

With such a simple and dignified beginning as that of the "Orfeo" how
came the lyric drama of the next century to wander into such sensuous
luxuriance, such spectacular extravagance of both action and music? In
the drama of Poliziano the means employed, as well as the ends sought,
were artistic and full of suggestions as to possible methods of
development. But whereas the opera in the seventeenth century suffered
from contact with the public, the lyric drama of the sixteenth was led
into paths of dalliance by the dominant taste of splendor-loving courts.
The character of this taste encouraged the development of the musical
apparatus of the lyric drama toward opulent complexity, and the medium
for this was found in the rapidly growing madrigal, which soon ruled the
realm of secular music. In it the frottola, raised to an art form and
equipped with the wealth of contrapuntal device, passed almost
insensibly into a new life. Berlioz says that it takes a long time to
discover musical Mediterraneans and still longer to learn to navigate
them. The madrigal was a musical Mediterranean. It was the song of the
people touched by the culture of the church. It was the priestly art of
cathedral music transferred to the service of human emotion.

The Italian madrigal had a specifically Italian character. It followed
the path of sensuous dalliance trod by the people of Boccaccio's tales.
It differentiated itself from the secular song of the northern musicians
as clearly as the architecture of Venice distinguished itself from all
other Gothic art. Even in that era those characteristics which
subsequently defined the racial and temperamental differences between
the musical art of northern Europe and that of Italy were fully
perceptible. The north moved steadily toward instrumental polyphony,
Italy toward the individual utterance of the solo voice. That her first
experiments were made in the popular madrigal form was to be expected.
The "Orfeo" of Poliziano and his unknown musical associates set the
model for a century. In the course of that century the irresistible
drift of Italian art feeling, retarded as it was by the supreme vogue of
musicians trained in th