ABSTRACT
The rise of opera, of instrumental music, and in fact of secular music as a separate entity gave a new complexion to the whole world of music. The circumstances of the new departure would surprise us were they not repeated in almost every revolution of the kind. The founders of the secular school were resolved to make an entirely fresh start. Their primitive efforts owed nothing to the work of their predecessors. They had ready to hand a musical organisation of exquisite complexity and consummate finish. They ignored it altogether. For all the influence that he exerted upon Peri and Cavalieri, Palestrina might never have existed. Music like architecture depends for its effect upon the beauty of ordered design and proportion. Even then operas were given mainly in Italian, and the style of the music was for the most part thoroughly Italian, though occasionally modified by German influence in minor details.
