CHAPTER I PALESTRINA-POLYPHONIC MUSIC INCE the human voice is older than any instru Sment, the earliest music was, of course, exclusively was, vocal; and until about five hundred years ago there was very little of any other kind. Before that time musical instruments were too imperfect to admit of anything that would now be called playing, and they were used merely to support the voices by sounding the same tones. And as the instruments were so very imperfect, composers of course wrote only for voices. Until about the fourteenth century the singing was almost always in unison-that is, all the voices sang the same part, the higher voices an octave above the lower; but about that time began the development of what is called counterpoint. Counterpoint is the art of adding to a given melody one, or two, or any number of other melodies, so constructed that they shall all sound well when heard together. The notes used to be called points, and counter means against, so when one set of notes, or points, was written against another it was called point against point -counterpoint. At first this art of counterpoint flourished chiefly in the Netherlands; but it was afterwards transplanted |