As Orlando di Lasso, the mightiest of all the Netherland masters, is to be treated separately in this work, no outline of his life need be given here and his music will be discussed only in its general relation to the progress of his time. Jan Pieters Swelinck (born at Deventer in 1540, died at Amsterdam, 1621) was a pupil of Cyprian de Rore. Swelinck had already displayed ability as an organist when he set out for Venice to engage in advanced studies. He became one of the most famous organists of his day, but his vocal compositions show that he stood directly in the line of development of the school to which he belonged by birth. His settings of the psalms in four, five, six, seven and eight parts are written in strict _a capella_ style. Swelinck is particularly interesting as being one of the founders of the polyphonic instrumental style, which succeeded the choral counterpoint, and a forerunner of Bach. Philip de Monte was born either at Mons or at Mechlin about 1521. He was treasurer and canon of the cathedral at Cambrai, and in 1594 he was prefect of the choir in the Court Chapel at Prague. He passed the remainder of his life there, and was held in high esteem. He was a prolific writer and besides masses and motets, nineteen books of his madrigals for five voices and eight books of French songs for six voices are extant. His works show the usual Netherlandic skill in counterpoint, some of them being extremely intricate. We have seen how influences had begun work which was to destroy the empire of _a capella_ counterpoint, but its reign was to go out in a blaze of glory lit by the torches of genius in the hands of Lasso and Palestrina. The despotism of ecclesiastical counterpoint over all art-music was indeed at the close of its career, yet the writer must not be understood as asserting that the development of counterpoint ended, for in the German fugue it found its highest and most perfect form. But it ceased to be the controlling power in music, giving way to modern melody built on scale and arpeggio passages and to the song-and dance-forms of the people. It may as well be said here that the technical possibilities of counterpoint were exhausted by the Netherland masters, and not even Johann Sebastian Bach, the most profound and original musical thinker the world has ever known, could invent a form of canonic writing which they had not practised. What he was chiefly instrumental in accomplishing (in a technical way) was the extension of canon into the perfect fugue, and the application of the polyphony of the Netherland masters to the organ, the clavichord and the orchestra, thus laying the foundations upon which rest the whole structure of the modern symphony and string quartet. [Illustration: PHILIP DE MONTE. From Van der Straeten's "Musique aux pay bas," loaned by the Newberry Library, Chicago.]