Another branch of the mass was sent by the Neapolitan school into Austria, and here the results, although unsatisfactory to the better taste of the present time, were far nobler and more fruitful than in Italy and France. The group of Austrian church composers, represented by the two Haydns, Mozart, Eybler, Neukomm, Sechter and others of the period, created a form of church music which partook of much of the dry, formal, pedantic spirit of the day, in which regularity of form, scientific correctness, and a conscious propriety of manner were often more considered than emotional fervor. Certain conventions, such as a florid contrapuntal treatment of the Kyrie with its slow introduction followed by an Allegro, the fugues at the Cum Sanctu Spiritu and the Et Vitam, the regular alternation of solo and chorus numbers, give the typical Austrian mass a somewhat rigid, perfunctory air, and in practice produce the effect which always results when expression becomes stereotyped and form is exalted over substance. Mozart’s masses, with the exception of the beautiful Requiem (which was his last work and belongs in a different category), were the production of his boyhood, written before his genius became self-assertive and under conditions distinctly unfavorable to the free exercise of the imagination. The masses of Joseph Haydn stand somewhat apart from the strict Austrian school, for although as a rule they conform externally to the local conventions, they are far more individual and possess a freedom and buoyancy that are decidedly personal. It has become the fashion among the sterner critics of church music to condemn Haydn’s masses without qualification, as conspicuous examples of the degradation of taste in religious art which is one of the depressing legacies of the eighteenth century. Much of this censure is deserved, for Haydn too often loses sight of the law which demands that music should reinforce, and not contradict, the meaning and purpose of the text. Haydn’s mass style is often indistinguishable from his oratorio style. His colorature arias are flippant, often introduced at such solemn moments as to be offensive. Even where the voice part is subdued to an appropriate solemnity, the desired impression is frequently destroyed by some tawdry flourish in the orchestra. The brilliancy of the choruses is often pompous and hollow. Haydn’s genius was primarily instrumental; he was the virtual creator of the modern symphony and string quartet; his musical forms and modes of expression were drawn from two diverse sources which it was his great mission to conciliate and idealize, _viz._, the Italian aristocratic opera, and the dance and song of the common people. An extraordinary sense of form and an instinctive sympathy with whatever is spontaneous, genial, and racy made him what he was. The joviality of his nature was irrepressible. To write music of a sombre cast was out of his power.