The aria originally developed from the expansion of a single vocal melody, generally on the lines of what is known as binary form (see SONATA and SONATA FORMS). Accordingly, while the germs of aria form may be traceable in the highest developments of folk-song, the aria as a definite art-form could not exist before the middle of the 17th century; because up to that time the whole organization of music was based upon polyphonic principles which left no room for the development of melody for melody's sake. When at the beginning of the 17th century the Monodists (see HARMONY and MONTEVERDE) inaugurated a new era and showed in their first experiments the enormous possibilities latent in their new art of accompanying single voices by instruments, it was natural that for many years the mere suggestiveness and variety of their experiments should suffice to retain the attention of contemporary listeners, without any real artistic coherence in the works as wholes. But, even at the outset, mere novelty of harmony, however poignant its emotional expression, was felt by the profounder spirits of the new art to be an untrustworthy guide to progress. And Monteverde's famous lament of the deserted Ariadne is one of many early examples that appeal to an elementary sense of form by making the last phrase identical with the first. As instrumental music grew, and the modern sense of key became strong and consistent, composers felt themselves more and more able to appeal to that sense of harmonically consistent melody which has asserted itself in folk-music before the history of harmonic music may be said to have begun. The technique of solo singers grew as rapidly as that of solo players, and composers soon found their chief musical interest in doing justice to both. In Sir Hubert Parry's work, _The Music of the 17th Century (Oxford History of Music_, vol. iii.), will be found numerous illustrations of the early development of aria forms, from their first indications in Monteverde's instinctive struggles after coherence, to their complete maturity in the works of Alessandro Scarlatti. Entry: ARIA
ANTHEM, derived from the Gr. [Greek: antiphona], through the Saxon _antefn_, a word which originally had the same meaning as antiphony (q.v.). It is now, however, generally restricted to a form of church music, particularly in the service of the Church of England, in which it is appointed by the rubrics to follow the third collect at both morning and evening prayer, "in choirs and places where they sing." It is just as usual in this place to have an ordinary hymn as an anthem, which is a more elaborate composition than the congregational hymns. Several anthems are included in the English coronation service. The words are selected from Holy Scripture or in some cases from the Liturgy, and the music is generally more elaborate and varied than that of psalm or hymn tunes. Anthems may be written for solo voices only, for the full choir, or for both, and according to this distinction are called respectively _Verse, Full_, and _Full with Verse_. Though the anthem of the Church of England is analogous to the _motet_ of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches, both being written for a trained choir and not for the congregation, it is as a musical form essentially English in its origin and development. The English school of musicians has from the first devoted its chief attention to this form, and scarcely a composer of any note can be named who has not written several good anthems. Tallis, Tye, Byrd, and Farrant in the 16th century; Orlando Gibbons, Blow, and Purcell in the 17th, and Croft, Boyce, James Kent, James Nares, Benjamin Cooke, and Samuel Arnold in the 18th were famous<b> composers of anthems, and in more recent times the names are too numerous to mention. Entry: ANTHEM
LORELEI (from Old High Ger. _Lur_, connected with modern Ger. _lauern_, "to lurk," "be on the watch for," and equivalent to elf, and _lai_, "a rock"). The Lorelei is a rock in the Rhine near St Goar, which gives a remarkable echo, which may partly account for the legend. The tale appears in many forms, but is best known through Heinrich Heine's poem, beginning _Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten_. In the commonest form of the story the Lorelei is a maiden who threw herself into the Rhine in despair over a faithless lover, and became a siren whose voice lured fishermen to destruction. The 13th-century minnesinger, known as Der Marner, says that the Nibelungen treasure was hidden beneath the rock. The tale is obviously closely connected with the myth of Holda, queen of the elves. On the Main she sits combing her locks on the Hullenstein, and the man who sees her loses sight or reason, while he who listens is condemned to wander with her for ever. The legend, which Clemens Brentano claimed as his own invention when he wrote his poem "Zu Bacharach am Rheine" in his novel of _Godwi_ (1802), bears all the marks of popular mythology. In the 19th century it formed material for a great number of songs, dramatic sketches, operas and even tragedies, which are enumerated by Dr Hermann Seeliger in his _Loreleysage in Dichtung und Musik_ (Leipzig-Reudnitz, 1898). The favourite poem with composers was Heine's, set to music by some twenty-five musicians, the settings by Friedrich Silcher (from an old folk-song) and by Liszt being the most famous. Entry: LORELEI
His stay at Vienna is memorable for his intercourse with Beethoven, who had a profound admiration for him which he could neither realize nor reciprocate. It is too much to expect that the mighty genius of Beethoven, which broke through all rules in vindication of the principles underlying them, would be comprehensible to a mind like Cherubini's, in which, while the creative faculties were finely developed, the critical faculty was atrophied and its place supplied by a mere disciplinary code inadequate even as a basis for the analysis of his own works. On the other hand, it would be impossible to exaggerate the influence _Les Deux Journées_ had on the lighter parts of Beethoven's _Fidelio_. Cherubini's librettist was also the author of the libretto from which _Fidelio_ was adapted, and Cherubini's score was a constant object of Beethoven's study, not only before the production of the first version of _Fidelio_, as _Leonore_, but also throughout Beethoven's life. Cherubini's record of his impressions of Beethoven as a man is contained in the single phrase, "Il était toujours brusque," which at least shows a fine freedom from self-consciousness on the part of the man whose only remark on being told of the death of Brod, the famous oboist, was, "Ah, he hadn't much tone" ("Ah, petit son"). Of the overture to _Leonore_ Cherubini only remarked that he could not tell what key it was in, and of Beethoven's later style he observed, "It makes me sneeze." Beethoven's brusqueness, notorious as it was, did not prevent him from assuring Cherubini that he considered him the greatest composer of the age and that he loved him and honoured him. In 1806 Haydn had just sent out his pathetic "visiting card" announcing that he was past work; Weber was still sowing wild oats, and Schubert was only nine years old. We need not, then, be surprised at Beethoven's judgment. And though we must regret that Cherubini's disposition prevented him from understanding Beethoven, it would be by no means true to say that he was uninfluenced at least by the sheer grandeur of the scale which Beethoven had by that time established as the permanent standard for musical art. Grandeur of proportion was, in fact, eminently characteristic of both composers, and the colossal structure of such a movement as the duet _Perfides ennemis_ in _Médée_ is almost inconceivable without the example of Beethoven's C minor trio, op. 1, No. 3, published two years before it; while the cavatina _Eterno iddio_ in _Faniska_ is not only worthy of Beethoven but surprisingly like him in style. Entry: CHERUBINI
GLEE, a musical term for a part-song of a particular kind. The word, as well as the thing, is essentially confined to England. The technical meaning has been explained in different ways; but there is little doubt of its derivation through the ordinary sense of the word (i.e. merriment, entertainment) from the A.S. _gleov_, _gleo_, corresponding to Lat. _gaudium_, _delectamentum_, hence _ludus musicus_; on the other hand, a musical "glee" is by no means necessarily a merry composition. Gleeman (A.S. "gleo-man") is translated simply as "musicus" or "cantor," to which the less distinguished titles of "mimus, jocista, scurra," are frequently added in old dictionaries. The accomplishments and social position of the gleeman seem to have been as varied as those of the Provençal "joglar." There are early examples of the word "glee" being used as synonymous with harmony or concerted music. The former explanation, for instance, is given in the _Promptorium parvulorum_, a work of the 15th century. Glee in its present meaning signifies, broadly speaking, a piece of concerted vocal music, generally unaccompanied, and for male voices, though exceptions are found to the last two restrictions. The number of voices ought not to be less than three. As regards musical form, the glee is little distinguished from the catch,--the two terms being often used indiscriminately for the same song; but there is a distinct difference between it and the madrigal--one of the earliest forms of concerted music known in England. While the madrigal does not show a distinction of contrasted movements, this feature is absolutely necessary in the glee. In the madrigal the movement of the voices is strictly contrapuntal, while the more modern form allows of freer treatment and more compact harmonies. Differences of tonality are fully explained by the development of the art, for while the madrigal reached its acme in Queen Elizabeth's time, the glee proper was little known before the Commonwealth; and its most famous representatives belong to the 18th century and the first quarter of the 19th. Among the numerous collections of the innumerable pieces of this kind, only one of the earliest and most famous may be mentioned, _Catch that Catch can, a Choice Collection of Catches, Rounds and Canons, for three and four voices_, published by John Hilton in 1652. The name "glee," however, appears for the first time in John Playford's _Musical Companion_, published twenty-one years afterwards, and reprinted again and again, with additions by later composers--Henry Purcell, William Croft and John Blow among the number. The originator of the glee in its modern form was Dr Arne, born in 1710. Among later English musicians<b> famous for their glees, catches and part-songs, the following may be mentioned:--Attwood, Boyce, Bishop, Crotch, Callcott, Shield, Stevens, Horsley, Webb and Knyvett. The convivial character of the glee led, in the 18th century, to the formation of various societies, which offered prizes and medals for the best compositions of the kind and assembled for social and artistic purposes. The most famous amongst these--The Glee Club--was founded in 1787, and at first used to meet at the house of Mr Robert Smith, in St Paul's churchyard. This club was dissolved in 1857. A similar society--The Catch Club--was formed in 1761 and is still in existence. Entry: GLEE
GROVE, SIR GEORGE (1820-1900), English writer on music, was born at Clapham on the 13th of August 1820. He was articled to a civil engineer, and worked for two years in a factory near Glasgow. In 1841 and 1845 he was employed in the West Indies, erecting lighthouses in Jamaica and Bermuda. In 1849 he became secretary to the Society of Arts, and in 1852 to the Crystal Palace. In this capacity his natural love of music and enthusiasm for the art found a splendid opening, and he threw all the weight of his influence into the task of promoting the best music of all schools in connexion with the weekly and daily concerts at Sydenham, which had a long and honourable career under the direction of Mr (afterwards Sir) August Manns. Without Sir George Grove that eminent conductor would hardly have succeeded in doing what he did to encourage young composers and to educate the British public in music. Grove's analyses of the Beethoven symphonies, and the other works presented at the concerts, set the pattern of what such things should be; and it was as a result of these, and of the fact that he was editor of _Macmillan's Magazine_ from 1868 to 1883, that the scheme of his famous _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, published from 1878 to 1889 (new edition, edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland, 1904-1907), was conceived and executed. His own articles in that work on Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schubert are monuments of a special kind of learning, and that the rest of the book is a little thrown out of balance owing to their great length is hardly to be regretted. Long before this he had contributed to the _Dictionary of the Bible_, and had promoted the foundation of the Palestine Exploration Fund. On a journey to Vienna, undertaken in the company of his lifelong friend, Sir Arthur Sullivan, the important discovery of a large number of compositions by Schubert was made, including the music to _Rosamunde_. When the Royal College of Music was founded in 1882 he was appointed its first director, receiving the honour of knighthood. He brought the new institution into line with the most useful European conservatoriums. On the completion of the new buildings in 1894 he resigned the directorship, but retained an active interest in the institution to the end of his life. He died at Sydenham on the 28th of May 1900. Entry: GROVE
But the two most widely celebrated of all this class of compositions--works which have exercised the talents of the greatest musical<b> composers, and of innumerable translators in almost all languages--are the "Dies Irae" ("That day of wrath, that dreadful day"), by Thomas of Celano, the companion and biographer of St Francis of Assisi, and the "Stabat Mater dolorosa" ("By the cross sad vigil keeping") of Jacopone, or Jacobus de Benedictis, a Franciscan humorist and reformer, who was persecuted by Pope Boniface VIII. for his satires on the prelacy of the time, and died in 1306. Besides these, the 13th century produced the famous sequence "Lauda Sion salvatorem" ("Sion, lift thy voice and sing"), and the four other well-known sacramental hymns of St Thomas Aquinas, viz. "Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium" ("Sing, my tongue, the Saviour's glory"), "Verbum supernum prodiens" ("The Word, descending from above"--not to be confounded with the Ambrosian hymn from which it borrowed the first line), "Sacris solemniis juncta sint gaudia" ("Let us with hearts renewed our grateful homage pay"), and "Adoro Te devote, latens Deitas" ("O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore Thee")--a group of remarkable compositions, written by him for the then new festival of Corpus Christi, of which he induced Pope Urban IV. (1261-1265) to decree the observance. In these (of which all but "Adoro Te devote" passed rapidly into breviaries and missals) the doctrine of transubstantiation is set forth with a wonderful degree of scholastic precision; and they exercised, probably, a not unimportant influence upon the general reception of that dogma. They are undoubtedly works of genius, powerful in thought, feeling and expression. Entry: 4
Johann Sebastian Bach was baptized at Eisenach on the 23rd of March 1685. His parents died in his tenth year, and his elder brother, Johann Christoph, organist at Ohrdruf, took charge of him and taught him music. The elder brother is said to have been jealous of Sebastian's talent, and to have forbidden him access to a manuscript volume of works by Froberger, Buxtehude and other great organists. Every night for six months Sebastian got up, put his hand through the lattice of the bookcase, and copied the volume out by moonlight, to the permanent ruin of his eyesight (as is shown by all the extant portraits of him at a later age and by the blindness of his last years). When he had finished, his brother discovered the copy and took it away from him. In 1700 Sebastian, now fifteen and thrown on his own resources by the death of his brother, went to Lüneburg, where his beautiful soprano voice obtained him an appointment at the school of St Michael as chorister. He seems, however, to have worked more at instrumental than at vocal music. Apart from the choristers' routine, his position provided only for his general education, and we know little about his definite musical instructors. In any case he owed his musical development mainly to his own incessant study of classical and contemporary composers, such as Frescobaldi (_c._ 1587), Caspar Kerl (1628-1693), Buxtehude, Froberger, Muffat the elder, Pachelbel and probably Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741), the author of the _Gradus ad Parnassum_ on which all later classical composers were trained. A prettier and no less authentic story than that of his brother's forbidden organ-volume tells how, on his return from one of the many holiday expeditions which Bach made to Hamburg on foot to hear the great Dutch organist Reinken, he sat outside an inn longing for the dinner he could not afford, when two herring-heads were flung out of the window, and he found in each of them a ducat with which he promptly paid his way, not home, but back to Hamburg. At Hamburg, also, Keiser was laying the foundations of German opera on a splendid scale which must have fired Bach's imagination though it never directly influenced his style. On the other hand Keiser's church music was of immense importance in his development. In Celle the famous _Hofkapelle_ brought the influence of French music to bear upon Bach's art, an influence which inspired nearly all his works in suite-form and to which his many autograph copies of Couperin's music bear testimony. Indeed, there is no branch of music, from Palestrina onwards, conceivably accessible in Bach's time, of which we do not find specimens carefully copied in his own handwriting. On the other hand, when Bach, at the age of nineteen, became organist at Arnstadt, he found Lübeck within easy distance, and there, in October 1705, he went to hear Buxtehude, whose organ works show so close an affinity to Bach's style that only their lack of coherence as wholes reveals to the attentive listener that with all their nobility they are not by Bach himself. Bach's enthusiasm for Buxtehude caused him to outstay his leave by three months, and this, together with his [v.03 p.0125] habit of astonishing the congregation by the way he harmonized the chorales got him into trouble. But he was already too great an ornament to be lightly dismissed; and though his answers to the complaints of the authorities (every word of which makes amusing reading in the archives of the church) were spirited rather than satisfactory, and the _consistorium_ had to add to their complaints the grave scandal of his allowing a "strange maiden" to sing in the church,[1] Bach was able to maintain his position at Arnstadt until he obtained the organistship of St Blasius in Mühlhausen in 1707. Here he married his cousin, easily identified with the "strange maiden" of Arnstadt; and here he wrote his first great church cantatas, _Aus der Tiefe_, _Gott ist mein König_ and _Gottes Zeit_. Entry: BACH
JOMMELLI, NICCOLA (1714-1774), Italian composer, was born at Aversa near Naples on the 10th of September 1714. He received his musical education at two of the famous >music schools of that capital, being a pupil of the Conservatorio de' poveri di Gesù Cristo under Feo, and also of the Conservatorio della pietà dei Turchini under Prota, Mancini and Leo. His first opera, _L'Errore amoroso_, was successfully produced at Naples (under a pseudonym) when Jommelli was only twenty-three. Three years afterwards he went to Rome to bring out two new operas, and thence to Bologna, where he profited by the advice of Padre Martini, the greatest contrapuntist of his age. In the meantime Jommelli's fame began to spread beyond the limits of his country, and in 1748 he went for the first time to Vienna, where one of his finest operas, _Didone_, was produced. Three years later he returned to Italy, and in 1753 he obtained the post of chapel-master to the duke of Württemberg at Stuttgart, which city he made his home for a number of years. In the same year he had ten commissions to write operas for princely courts. In Stuttgart he permitted no operas but his own to be produced, and he modified his style in accordance with German taste, so much that, when after an absence of fifteen years he returned to Naples, his countrymen hissed two of his operas off the stage. He retired in consequence to his native village, and only occasionally emerged from his solitude to take part in the musical life of the capital. His death took place on the 25th of August 1774, his last composition being the celebrated _Miserere_, a setting for two female voices of Saverio Mattei's Italian paraphrase of Psalm li. Jommelli is the most representative composer of the generation following Leo and Durante. He approaches very closely to Mozart in his style, and is important as one of the composers who, by welding together German and Italian characteristics, helped to form the musical language of the great composers of the classical period of Vienna. Entry: JOMMELLI