In studying this remarkable fragment, the reader will not only note the striking unprepared dissonances of measures 2, 5, 11 and 13 (the latter peculiarly poignant), but if he will take the trouble to compare the effect of the passage as a whole with that of the bit of Palestrina given in Fig. III., he will be amazed at the increase in expressiveness, especially if it be remembered that “Arianna” was produced probably in 1607, or only thirteen years after Palestrina’s death. The “Lament” is reported to have moved everyone who heard it to tears. Its pathos is largely due to the skilful way in which harsh dissonances are made to alternate with the consonances into which they naturally and inevitably lead--a process which, though not directly expressive of the facts of human emotion, in the sense in which the word is directly symbolic of the thing which usage has coupled with it, is yet indirectly and generally expressive, in that it reproduces in tones a series of impressions identical with the series of feelings we everywhere experience in actual life. Pain linked to pleasure by an organic bond--that is the universal experience of everyone who cherishes an ideal, since an ideal is a yearning for something which now is not, but which must eventually come to be. The melodic character of the “Lament” is as impressive as its harmonic style. In its short and poignant phrases the accent of passion is unmistakably heard. And this is true not only of Monteverde’s work as a whole, but of that of all the other composers of the Florentine “new music.” As early as the year 1600 Jacopo Peri wrote an opera on the subject of Euridice, to be performed at the wedding of Henry IV of France to Maria Medici. A study of the passages in which he tried to express the grief of Orpheus at the loss of Euridice, and his joy in their reunion, brings home forcibly to the mind the advance that composers had even at that time made in eloquence of expression. They are as follows: [Music: score] [Illustration: FIGURE V. TWO PASSAGES FROM PERI’S “EURIDICE.”] _O mio core O mio speme O pace O vita Ohime Chi mi t’ha tolto Chimi t’ha tolto Ohime...... deve segita_ [Illustration] _Gioite al canto mio selve frondo se Gioite amati coli e d’ogni intorno. Ecco rimbombi dalle valle ascose._