In the same way, the story of music from the beginning of the seventeenth century up to Beethoven, or throughout that section of its history in which we are at present interested, was essentially the story of a renaissance, or novel artistic development, under the spur of idealism. Looking at it from the vantage-point now reached, we easily trace its evolution through the several regular stages. In the Florentine reformers’ abandonment of old conventions and their half-conscious aspiration towards a new utterance, we discern the first stage of the movement, that of the novel impulse; in the steadfast and efficient delving away at technical methods, at the involutions of harmony, counterpoint, and form, which characterized many of the later composers of the seventeenth century, and occupied much of the attention of even such men as Haydn and Mozart, we trace the second stage, that of equipment; and in the glorious works of Beethoven, who set the keystone in the arch, we find the stage of consummation and fulfilment. Springing from the foundation of the mystical art of Palestrina much as modern Italian painting sprang from the foundation of mediæval religious delineation, the art of Pure Music reached, in the masterpieces of Beethoven, its maturity. Now, as we saw in the first chapter, the mature art of Pure Music, which may be defined as the art of combining pure tones, without words, into forms expressive of our fundamental emotional life, and congruous with one another, or beautiful, necessarily possesses three kinds of value, or modes of effect, to which we have assigned the descriptive labels “sensuous,” “expressive,” and “æsthetic.” Music has sensuous value in proportion to the actual physical gratification afforded us by the tones that compose it; it has expressive value proportional to the degree in which it excites in us, by association and suggestion, the fundamental emotions or feelings; it has æsthetic value proportional to its success in assimilating or organizing all its various effects into clear unity, thus giving us that sense of ordered richness which we call beauty. If it be true, then, that music, during the seventeenth century, under the spur of the idealistic or modern spirit, developed from a primitive into a mature art, it is obvious that this development must have rested on progress made in all three kinds of effect; and it becomes a matter of much interest to trace at least some of the chief phases of this three-fold blossoming. In the remaining portion of the present chapter, accordingly, we shall study the most striking features of the progress made during the seventeenth century in sensuous charm and in expressive power; and in the following chapter we shall examine those principles of pure music which underlie its highest, most indispensable quality of all--that of beauty, or final unity and harmony of impression.