In the nature of things music in the Church--the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox--had to adapt itself to the strict canons of the Liturgy. As the service became more and more elaborate and it was realized that music exerted a strong spiritualizing influence, its use was extended until it became one of the principal features in the Mass and required the participation of not only the regular clergy, but of numerous trained auxiliaries. Thus it came to pass that the Church, to satisfy its need for canonic music--that is, for music which met the liturgic requirements, preserved the dignity of the text and enhanced the devotional attitude--stimulated the efforts toward greater beauty, variety, and dignity of expression. Every monastery, every cathedral contributed something to this evolutionary process until this primary stage of choral development culminated in the work of Palestrina. This was accomplished by slow stages. The art of counterpoint, which forms the basis of this art-form, grew very gradually from the combination of two voices to that of three, four, or more and incidentally caused to be discovered certain art-forms, such as the canon and the fugue, based upon the principle of imitation, which have been employed by all the great masters of musical composition to the present day. Let us now, for a moment, leave this field of choral development and go into a small village in Russia. It is evening. The villagers are assembled under the spreading branches of an old linden tree whose blossoms perfume the still air as the moon rises above the forest. Presently one of the villagers intones a song. It is known to all, has been handed down from generation to generation. No one knows whence it came--it seems always to have been there and it is interwoven with the memories and emotions of all the people of the village and of the whole countryside. In a word--it is a folk-song. One after another the villagers join in, some in unison with the tune, but others, finding the range too high, endeavor to find tones which sound in pleasing consonance, and so, gradually, there is evolved a full harmony accompanying the melody of the song. Has anyone taught the villagers the science of harmony? Of course not, but, just as the beautiful melody grew out of the people’s hearts and in the course of generations molded itself into a perfect tune, so gradually the sense for good harmony grew and caused the elimination of unpleasing progressions. Sometimes such a song tells a story which is developed in many stanzas. Then a ‘foresinger’ will chant the stanzas and the villagers will sing a choral refrain, thus taking active part in the recital. This, then, is the other source of choral singing which, meeting the stream coming from the church, soon united with it and helped to create and to develop this form of musical art.