The song composers of this period are those whose names we meet in the history of opera and oratorio, for it continued to be the part of every popular composer in the larger forms to maintain and broaden his reputation by means of small and popular pieces. Further, some of the best of the songs are taken from the larger works. Not all the arias were of the coloratura type. Often, especially in the seventeenth century, charming _canzoni_ and ariosos found their way into a long choral or stage work. The harmonic support (in many cases supplied by the modern editors from the original figured bass) is at the beginning simple and somewhat angular. But as the seventeenth century wears on we find Monteverdi’s great discovery of the unprepared dissonance working more freely into the texture of the accompaniment. The lower voices of the accompaniment become more connected and song-like as the _rappresentativo_ feeling gives way to the lyrical. And long before the end of the century the simpler vocal numbers begin to look very much like those of the early Handel operas. With Alessandro Scarlatti, working at the end of the century, the change from the madrigal style of Palestrina’s time is complete. In place of pure, motionless triads and solid, block-like architecture, we have the movement and flow of song in all the parts. Music becomes sharply differentiated in character by the nature of the emotion or feeling it is intended to express. What we miss, judging by modern standards, is a definite rise and fall of the feeling. The phrases seem too long, too little differentiated. There is no definite climax-point in the whole. There is too much linked sweetness. But this is precisely the virtue of the songs. They are the canonization of _bel canto_. They seek before all else perfect purity of tone and style.