With the commencement of the reformation, the music of Germany was lifted to a very elevated sphere, in being applied to the stately chorals which came into general use, through the efforts of Luther, who himself composed some of them. Luther had a most musical nature, which left its imprint upon his whole epoch. It is related of him, that he spent the largest part of the night before he appeared to define his doctrines before the Diet of Worms, playing on his lute, in order to give composure and firmness to his thoughts. He ranked music next to theology, and said:—“I am not ashamed to acknowledge, that next to divinity there is no study which I prize so highly as that of music.” With the reformation, the epoch of modern music may be said to begin. Of course there was both crudity and pedantry in the art, but the Meister-singers, although they yet existed centuries later, had ceased to exert an influence. There are but few curious facts, which are not generally known, from that age, to our own. Yet we think a brief sketch of the growth of some branches of our music, will not be uninteresting to the general reader, even if the facts have lost the relish of novelty. CHAPTER XXV. CURIOSITIES OF THE OPERA. MODERN COMPOSERS, AND CONCLUSION. Our series of sketches now draws towards its close. The rise of the many-voiced harmony in Italy, France, Germany, England, and the Netherlands, the contrapuntal works of Palestrina, Dufay, De Lattre, etc., come rather under the head of the history and science of music, than within the scope of a work which only endeavors to collect the curiosities of the art, and things not generally known. But in the rise and progress of the opera, we find some interesting facts which belong to our subject, and which bring our chain of sketches down to the music of our own times. The opera was the legitimate offspring of the Miracle plays of the Middle ages, which were only sacred operas or oratorios, wherein some events in the life of a holy personage were represented with songs and acting. The first opera (being exactly like a “mystery play,” except that the subject was a secular one) was “Orpheus,” by Angelo Poliziano, and was performed in Rome in 1480. The libretto was by Cardinal Riario (nephew of Pope Sixtus IV.) Pope Clement IX., wrote seven librettos for operas. All was not sung in these: they were rather tragedies with choruses.[279] In 1500 the popes possessed a theatre, with decorations and machinery. The paintings in this edifice were by Balthazar Peruzzi, who may be said to be the father of scene painting. His scenery is said to have been very realistic. Julian de Medicis, brother of Leon X., on being proclaimed a citizen of Rome gave public plays, and had a comedy of Plautus presented for two days, the music of which was much admired.