Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/108

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Other names in the series are Jehan Cousin, Guillaume Crespel, Jean Prioris, probably organist at St. Peter's in Rome from 1490 and in the French Chapel about 1507, and Jean Verbonnet, probably from about 1491 at Ferrara—the details of whose lives and works are not abundant.

Of the many other known contemporaries of Josquin, only a few can here be specified. Connected with Antwerp were Jacotin Godebrye (d. 1528), choirmaster as early as 1479, and Noël Baulduin (d. 1529), choirmaster in 1513-8. Possibly the earlier Philippe Basiron and the talented Jean Ghiselin also belong here. Mathieu Pipelare and Marbriano de Orto (d.c. 1516) are both well represented by existing works, but their careers are not known, except that the latter was in the Papal Chapel in 1484-94 and Burgundian choirmaster from 1505.


The further progress of the Netherland style was mainly under masters whose spheres of work were not only outside the Netherlands, but conditioned by new influences.

48. Folk-Music.—In immediate connection with the story of the perfecting of counterpoint by the Netherlanders should be set a sketch of the informal popular music that developed by its side, sometimes serving merely as a background for it, sometimes touching it with positive impetus. In the 15th century the expression of life in song and dance began to become influential, with results scattered through all the centuries since. A just estimate of the changes of the 16th century is impossible without some sense of the popular tendencies at work.

As far back as we may go in the story of European civilization we find traces of the use of song in common life. The same instinct for musical expression that is universal among uncivilized men persists in civilized conditions. Song springs forth spontaneously as the voice of the ordinary sentiments of domestic and communal life, embodying the feelings belonging to whatever occupies man's interest with intensity. It beguiles labor and loneliness, and enlivens all social festivity. It gives outlet to exuberant vitality, interacts with all sorts of bodily and mental effort, and brings to light that love for the beautiful and the ideal that is latent in healthy natures. It passes over readily into dancing—the rhythm and motion of the voice fitting closely with expressive movements of the body. It also turns easily to the use of whatever instruments the singer's wit suffices to fashion.