their _tones_ and technique, and, as Couperin says, not in the least for the sake of their soul or content. Dance-suites and variations on songs, which as time went on gained in popularity, sharpened, here as elsewhere, the sense for form; but these never became the predominant class. The free form of the fantasia always ranked as the principal species of the higher clavier-pieces. In Frescobaldi we already see the process of crystallisation. His canzoni and fugues not only exhibit for the first time the good fugal style familiar to us, but also betray the modern sense for arrangement and method in their frequent division[59] into three movements, and in their progressive quickening of tempo. He it is also who reduces under a distinct law of arrangement the various movements of the whole instrumental fantasia. With Pasquini in the second half of the seventeenth century, we meet the visible line of demarcation between organ and clavier. Hitherto the organ had been in everything the predominant partner. The whole aspect of the clavier-pieces was that of the organ. The old Venetians had frequently written for it in three or four parts and brought the instrument into popularity. But even Frescobaldi had written no piece for clavier alone. Diruta, organist at Chioggia, the pupil of Merulo, wrote a dialogue between 1597 and 1609 on the best method of playing organ and clavier, and had of course drawn attention to the characteristic features of clavier-playing; but all his observations on holding the hands horizontal,[60] on the good and bad fingers (the second and fourth are the “good,” and fall on the strong accents of the bar), or on the ornamentations and their execution, are in the first instance written with reference to the organ. Indeed, he actually begins his book with a panegyric on that instrument. As a matter of fact the true emancipator of the Italian clavier was Pasquini. He wrote for the clavicymbal alone; in his figures and style of play he thus early showed a genuine sense for the clavier; he abandoned the practice of setting chord passages and runs in close juxtaposition, but elaborated out of the two the proper clavier style; he brought into strong connection with a theme the quicker and slower parts of his sonatas, and set them clearly over against each other; and he attempts, as in his Capriccio on the motive of the cuckoo’s song, to draw from the clavier all kinds of characteristic effects, still wild and confused, but full of the freshness of spring. [Illustration: Virginal in shape of a work-box.] [Illustration: The same opened, showing the instrument within, which can be taken out.] [Illustration: The instrument taken out. Constructed in 1631 by Valerius Perius Romanus. De Wit collection, Leipsic.]