64. Lassus and the South German Masters.—In the 16th century Bavaria was almost as potent a factor in the Empire as Austria. Religiously it was strongly Catholic in sympathy and in close communication with Italy. Some of its cities, like Nuremberg, Augsburg and Ulm, were musically known throughout Europe, not only as Meistersinger centres, but as headquarters of music-printing and instrument-making. About 1550 Munich rose to eminence under the culture-loving Dukes Albrecht and Wilhelm. Furthermore, here as elsewhere, the native power of German genius was beginning to compete on equal terms with that of the Netherlands. Even Protestant Württemberg and other states to the west, though less active, were not without worthy musicians.
In the early development of South German music are seen certain
musical traits that are more or less distinctive of all German music.
Perhaps most valuable among these is a remarkable sincerity and directness
of sentiment, heartfelt and wholesome, combined with imaginative
and creative energy. From the outset German composers realized the
unequaled capacity of music for the real embodiment of human life on all
its sides, and strove to fuse together in their works the intellectuality of
the Netherland school with their own richness of experience and phantasy.
In illustration, it is enough to adduce the German fondness for the
song-type, from the homely folk-song with its artless earnestness up to
the studied part-song. The religious bent of the German mind, also, is exceptional
in its heartiness of conviction, its independence and its practicality.
Hence, while the mere working out of forms suited to the mediæval
ritual was elsewhere accomplished, the broader application of music
to religious utterance was first conceived in the atmosphere of German life.
Even in the 16th century, when music was acquiring its first self-consciousness
as an art, the later German leadership in it can already be
descried, asserting itself in both vocal and instrumental writing.
Historically, it was important that so gifted an artist as
Orlandus Lassus was brought to spend the productive part
of his career in Germany. His genius towered above that of
all his contemporaries except Palestrina. Both were in full
command of the resources of polyphonic construction, and both
aspired to compositions of the grandest magnitude and quality.
But the differences between them are noteworthy. Lassus exhibited
the greater breadth and fertility, though he was not
as essentially ideal in purely ritual music. His warmth of
human feeling and readiness of sympathy made his impress
upon progress wider and more genial. He was more truly a
