The greatest contribution from this Venetian school was its important use of instrumental music as an independent art, thus giving music a great push forward. A composer whose motets and madrigals we still hear frequently is Jacob Arcadelt, a Netherlander, who spent most of his life in Italy, and shared with Willaert the glory of being one of the founders of the Venetian school. He was a singer at the court of Florence, singing master to the choir boys at St. Peter’s in Rome, and then he became a member of the Papal choir. The life of Claude Goudimel seems, from the little we know, to have been dramatic. He is supposed to have been in Rome where he taught Palestrina, the greatest composer of the age. One writer says that he never was in Rome and was not the teacher of Palestrina! Even his birthplace is disputed. What is certain, however, is that he met his death in the massacre of the Huguenots (Protestants) at Lyons in 1572. He wrote many settings of Calvinist Psalms by Clement Marot which work led to his being a victim of the massacre. SWEELINCK FOUNDS 17TH CENTURY ORGAN SCHOOL One of the last of the Netherland school was Jan Sweelinck (1562–1621), the greatest organist of his time. He had so many pupils from every country in Europe, that he became the founder of a very famous school of organists. Among them were Scheidt, Reinken of whom the story is told that Bach as a young boy walked miles to hear him play, and Buxtehude, a Dane, who was one of the greatest of the time of Bach. Sweelinck perfected the Organ Fugue which Bach later made more beautiful than any other composer. Sweelinck’s talent and work were so deeply appreciated in his home, Amsterdam, that the merchants of that city gave him a generous income for his old age. A splendid thing to have done! THE GREAT LASSUS