We have seen that contrapuntal treatment, so-called, owed its origin to the nature of the organ. Vocal music, at the time of which we speak, felt the same influence and followed the same form. Now, if we open one of the vocal and orchestral scores of Bach, we shall see that while he gives the instruments more freedom than his predecessors, in consequence of their largely increased powers and the proportional increased ability of the executants of his day, yet the contrapuntal influence is everywhere visible. It was the period of strict form. As we count back such cycles, it was but a relatively short time since music had been "without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep," artistically speaking. Music was a serious matter. They revelled in fugue, and even danced contrapuntally. Although not a direct influence, perhaps, is not this state of things, after all, a sufficient proof of the absolutism of the organ in a derived manner,--the regal sway of the king of instruments at this period? Bach breathed new life into these dry and purely scientific forms, and it is his greatest glory that in many, if not all, of his profoundest works, his genius enabled him to unite the emotional and æsthetic element with the purely intellectual and scientific.
While the improvement of the organ, as respects both tone, mechanism and general capabilities, continued, and still continues at the present day, it is noteworthy that from the time of Bach, of all others, the influence of the organ upon music at large began to diminish. From this point we have to consider the decline of this influence, showing that music began to emancipate itself, each instrument claiming and receiving its own especial rights and treatment, long before a similar dawn of liberty began in the political world. Two reasons conduced to this change.
First, the requirements of music, which found no prototype in the organ of that day. As the instruments were then built, they possessed but little variety of tone, the swelling or diminishing of which was an impossibility; nor had the organist any mechanical assistance whatever to enable him to vary the combinations of stops.
Second, the invention of the harpsichord. This instrument, the _avant-courier_ of the pianoforte, to which we have already referred, had already become sufficiently popular to make its own peculiar influence felt. This consisted in the power of crescendo and diminuendo according to the force exerted by the player, and a light touch which offered no impediment to rapid execution, besides certain other effects through its characteristic tone impossible upon the organ.