Instrumental music had not yet taken an independent place in art.

The lute, the trumpet, or the stops of the organ, followed and imitated the voice; and thus in this confusion a choir of stringed and wind instruments was placed in competition with the singing choir.[205] It would appear that the composer frequently gave but a ground-sketch of his plan, without troubling himself to distribute written parts to the executants.

The efflorescences, excursuses and episodes to which I have alluded, were supplied by artists whom long training in this kind of music enabled to perform their separate sallies and to execute their several antics within certain limits of recognized license.

But since each vied with the other to produce striking effects, the choir rivaling the orchestra, the tenor competing with the bass, the organ with the viol, it followed that the din of their accumulated efforts was not unjustly compared to that made by a 'sty of grunting pigs,' the builders of the Tower of Babel, or the 'squalling of cats in January.'[206] 'All their happiness,' writes a contemporary critic, 'consisted in keeping the bass singer to the fugue, while at the same time one voice was shouting out _Sanctus_, another _Sabaoth_, a third _gloria tua_, with howlings, bellowings and squealings that cannot be described.' [Footnote 205: While the choir was singing, the orchestra was playing concerted pieces called _ricercari_, in which the vocal parts were reproduced.] [Footnote 206: See the original passages from contemporary writers quoted by Baini, vol.i.pp.

102-104.