CHAPTER XV

THE EARLY ORGAN MASTERS

The old Italian masters: Landino to Frescobaldi--Early German masters; the forerunners of Bach; Hassler, Pachelbel, Buxtehude--J. S. Bach: the toccatas, the preludes and fugues, the sonatas and other works--The early French composers: Couperin and Rameau; Spain and Portugal; the Netherlands--The early English masters; Tye, Tallis, Byrd, Bull, Gibbons, etc.--Purcell; Handel.

I

Italy, which was the scene of the birth and infancy of so many of the forms and ideas out of which modern music was finally evolved, witnessed the first development of organ-playing also. The earliest existing information we possess regarding organists and organ-playing comes from Italy and reaches far back into the fourteenth century. Francesco Landino (1325-1390) of Florence is the first celebrated representative of Italian organists’ art. A contemporary writer gives the following enthusiastic account of his playing: ‘The whole assembly is excited by his organ-playing, the young dance and sing, the old hum with him; all are enchanted. He draws wonders from the little organ; the birds cease their song and in their astonishment draw near to listen.’[96]

The instrument with which Landino produced such astonishing effects and gained such a reputation was not the church organ (_organum magnum_), which was altogether too clumsy, but the little house organ, probably the ‘portative’ organ, called _ninfale_ in Italy (see