pted at
that time the method of singing most of these pieces very softly and
with an extreme slowness so that in the long-sustained notes the singers
were forced to divide their task by some taking up the sound when the
others were out of breath. Consonant chords thus presented evidently
produced music which was very agreeable to the ear, but unquestionably
the author could not recognize his work in such rendering. Quite
different was the method of the singers in the Sistine Chapel when I
heard them for the first time in Rome in 1855 when they sung the "Sicut
Cervus" of Palestrina. They roared in a head-splitting way without the
least regard for the pleasure of the listener, or for the meaning of the
words they sang. It is difficult to believe that this music was ever
composed to be executed in such a barbarous manner, which, it seems to
me, differs completely from our musical conceptions; and it is a great
mistake also in modern editions of such music to introduce delicate
shadings or nuances and even employ the words "very expressive."

Palestrina has had his admirers among French literary writers. We recall
the scene created by Octave Feuillet in "M. de Camors." M. de Camors is
at his window; a lady is at the piano; a gentleman at the cello, and
another lady sings the Mass of Palestrina which I have referred to
above. Such a way of playing this music is simply out of the question.
Feuillet had obtained his inspiration for this from a fanciful painting
which he had seen somewhere.

Expression was introduced into music by the chord of the dominant
seventh, the invention of which is attributed to Monteverde. However,
Palestrina had already employed that chord in his "Adoremus," but
probably without understanding its importance or divining its future.

Before this invention the interval of three whole tones (Triton) was
considered an intolerable dissonance and was called "the devil in
music." The dominant seventh has been the open door to all
dissonances and to the domain of expression. It was a death blow to that
learned music of the sixteenth century; it was the arrival of the reign
of melody--of the development of the art of singing. Very often the song
or the solo instrument would be accompanied by a simple, ciphered bass,
the ciphers indicating the chords which he who accompanied should play
as well as he could, either on the harpsichord or the theorbe. The
theorbe was an admirable instrument which is now to be fo