The ecclesiastical composers had undoubtedly made important contributions to technique. For one thing, the mere length of the works required gave them space in which to work out their technical devices completely. Secular music, with its swifter interplay of emotion, required a more compressed style, an art of vivid suggestion rather than of exhaustive discussion. From the beginning of the sixteenth century onwards music moves gradually faster and faster. Its development assumes in the listener a knowledge of what has gone before. Madrigals were arranged for the lute, just as nowadays operas are arranged for the pianoforte. A good deal had to be left out in the process of arrangement, but some acquaintance with the original might reasonably be presupposed. Music thus develops as an art of associative suggestion. Naturalism plays its part, probably under the influence of naturalistic painting. Often enough the results are ridiculous, but the general effect, viewed at the distance of time, was to enrich the musical language. The intimate association of music with poetry sometimes led the musician into dangerous paths. An interesting contrast is exhibited by Byrd and Marenzio. The Italian is vividly descriptive and illustrative; only his strong sense of key prevents his work from becoming fragmentary and disjointed as he follows every suggestion of his poet. Byrd is never literary; he is perhaps the greatest pure musician of the whole age. He represents the perfect Apollinian type, Marenzio the Dionysiac, and it is odd to find the Mediterranean romantic and the Northerner classical. VII