y cautious about
using the second and third "positions," but played continually with
their hands in the first position. This part of the music, therefore,
wholly lacked the freedom which it now has, and the whole progress of
this century was purely apprentice work in instrumental music, its
value lying in its establishing the principle, first, that
instrumental music might exist independently of vocal, and, second,
that it might enhance the expressiveness of vocal music when
associated with it. The groundwork of the two great forms of the
period next ensuing, the fugue and the sonata, had been laid, and a
certain amount of precedent established in favor of free composition
in dance and fantasia form. Meanwhile the pianoforte of the day, the
_clavicembalo_, as the Italians called it, had been considerably
improved. The present scale of music had been demonstrated by Zarlino,
and the ground prepared for the great geniuses whose coming made the
eighteenth century forever memorable as the blossoming time of musical
art.

Upon the whole, perhaps the most important part of the actual
accomplishment of this century was in musical theory. While musicians
for centuries had been employing the major and minor thirds, and the
triads as we now have them, the fact had remained unacknowledged in
musical theory, and the supposed authority of the Greeks still
remained binding upon all. Zarlino, however, made a new departure. He
not only assigned the true intervals of the major scale, according to
perfect intonation, but argued strongly for equal temperament, and
demonstrated the impossibility of chromatic music upon any other
basis. Purists may still continue to doubt whether this was an
absolute advantage to the art of music, since it carries with it the
necessity of having all harmonic relations something short of
perfection; but the immediate benefit to musical progress was
unquestionable, and according to all appearance the art of music is
irrevocably committed to the tempered scale of twelve tones in the
octave.

[Illustration]

Book Fourth.

THE

Flowering Time of Modern Music.

BACH, HAeNDEL, HAYDN, MOZART, BEETHOVEN. THE FUGUE AND THE SONATA.

CHAPTER XXII.

GENERAL VIEW OF MUSIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

It is not easy to characterize simply and clearly the nature of the
musical development which took place during the eighteenth century.
The blossoming of music was so manifold, so diversified,