, find
it difficult to appreciate them, because they are not melodic in the
sense that most music is nowadays. In them the melody is not the
privileged possession of the soprano voice. All the voices stand on
an equal footing, and the composition consists of a weaving together,
according to scientific rules, of a number of voices--counterpoint as
it is called.

[Sidenote: _Homophonic hymns._]

[Sidenote: _Calvin's restrictive influence._]

Our hymn-tunes are homophonic, based upon a melody sung by one voice,
for which the other voices provide the harmony. This style of music
came into the Church through the German Reformation. Though Calvin was
a lover of music he restricted its practice among his followers to
unisonal psalmody, that is, to certain tunes adapted to the versified
psalms sung without accompaniment of harmony voices. On the adoption
of the Genevan psalter he gave the strictest injunction that neither
its text nor its melodies were to be altered.

"Those songs and melodies," said he, "which are composed for
the mere pleasure of the ear, and all they call ornamental
music, and songs for four parts, do not behoove the majesty
of the Church, and cannot fail greatly to displease God."

[Sidenote: _Luther and the German Church._]

Under the influence of the German reformers music was in a very
different case. Luther was not only an amateur musician, he was also
an ardent lover of scientific music. Josquin des Pres, a contemporary
of Columbus, was his greatest admiration; nevertheless, he was anxious
from the beginning of his work of Church establishment to have the
music of the German Church German in spirit and style. In 1525 he
wrote:

[Sidenote: _A German mass._]

"I should like to have a German mass, and I am indeed at
work on one; but I am anxious that it shall be truly German
in manner. I have no objection to a translated Latin text
and Latin notes; but they are neither proper nor just (_aber
es lautet nicht artig noch rechtschaffen_); text and notes,
accent, melodies, and demeanor must come from our mother
tongue and voice, else will it all be but a mimicry, like
that of the apes."

[Sidenote: _Secular tunes used._]

[Sidenote: _Congregational singing._]

In the Church music of the time, composed, as I have described, by a
scientific interweaving of voices, the composers had got into the
habit of utilizing secular melodies as the