"I had read the 'Assomoir,' and had been much impressed by its
pyramid size, strength, height and decorative grandeur, and also
by the immense harmonic development of the idea; and the fugal
treatment of the different scenes had seemed to me astonishingly
new--the washhouse, for example: the fight motive is indicated,
then follows the development of side issues, then comes the fight
motive explained; it is broken off short, it flutters through a
web of progressive detail, the fight motive is again taken up,
and now it is worked out in all its fulness; it is worked up to
_crescendo_, another side issue is introduced, and again the theme
is given forth." ("Confessions of a Young Man.")]

One can have no difficulty in imagining how this story, furnished as it
must have been, with some very free action, was set to music in the
madrigal style. The contrast of moods provides an excellent background
for variety of musical movement and for a generous exercise of the
expressional skill which the composers of that period had acquired.
Lovers of the ballet of action will perceive that the scenario of
Striggio's musical comedy could also serve perfectly for that of a suite
of pantomimic dances.

Nor can the reader fail to discern in this story some of the germs of
the opera buffa. What is lacking here, to wit, the advancing of some
individual characters from the choral mass to the center of the stage,
was better accomplished in the earlier or more serious works. The
Orpheus of Poliziano was doubtless a striking figure in the minds of the
Mantuan audience of 1484. While perhaps there was a distinct decline in
directness of expression in the attempts of later lyric dramatists, the
departure was possibly not as large in the case of the serious writers
as in that of the humorists. We shall in all likelihood better
understand this after a survey of the labors of the dominant figure of
the artistic period of the humorous madrigal drama.

CHAPTER XIII

Vecchi and the Matured Madrigal Drama

The fully developed madrigal drama of the latter years of the sixteenth
century was an art form entirely dissimilar to anything known to the
modern stage, and, as we shall presently see, it was in itself a frank
confession of utter confusion in the search for a musical means of
individual expression. If no other evidence were at hand, the works of
Vecchi would be sufficient to prove that the logica