ABSTRACT
Viewed from a modern standpoint the development of music is like the resolution of a series of discords, each period of experiment and endeavour ending in a perfect consonance, after which progress is only possible upon a fresh path. The manifold struggles of the early composers towards a perfect method of expression culminated in Palestrina. He represents the ideal at which they had aimed. Little is known of Palestrina's birth and upbringing, and even of his later life only meagre records survive. The position of a musician in the sixteenth century was very different from what it is now. Palestrina was by universal consent the greatest composer of his time, yet his position during the greater part of his life was little more exalted than that of a servant. Palestrina received all the honours that at that time could fall to the lot of a musician.
