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172 National Music of the World.
Then this male part-singing was somewhat urged on the multitude by the position of the German woman, which generally, during the days when cultivated music was taking its national form, was not that of man's companion, so much as of his slave : tenderly treated—honoured, it may be but not associated in all his pleasures, as woman in Italy and in France and England had been from an earlier period. After the period of the Minnesingers had passed, and the relics of knighthood had been destroyed or crumbled to dust of themselves, it was long ere anything analogous to the donna of Italy or the bel esprit of France could be found in the literature and the intercourse of people who owned the German tongue; especially in those middle-classes who gave it its great composers, or whose festivities unconsciously shaped a form of popular music in accordance with their manners. The youth's habit of wandering apprenticeship, unaccompanied, it may be remarked, by much taste for manly exerÂcise, was followed up in married life by the man's habit of enjoying his pleasures away from home. While the willing wife remained beside the stove within the small wholesome circle of household cares, and in the less wholesome atmosphere of intercourse |
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