theatre. (Out-of-door music cannot be considered among these artistic
forms of aristocratic descent.) Once, and indeed at the time of its
invention, the term meant music designed especially for the
delectation of the most eminent patrons of the art--the kings and
nobles whose love for it gave it maintenance and encouragement. This
is implied by the term itself, which has the same etymology wherever
the form of music is cultivated. In Italian it is _Musica da Camera_;
in French, _Musique de Chambre_; in German, _Kammermusik_. All the
terms have a common root. The Greek [Greek: kamara] signified an arch,
a vaulted room, or a covered wagon. In the time of the Frankish kings
the word was applied to the room in the royal palace in which the
monarch's private property was kept, and in which he looked after his
private affairs. When royalty took up the cultivation of music it was
as a private, not as a court, function, and the concerts given for
the entertainment of the royal family took place in the king's
chamber, or private room. The musicians were nothing more nor less
than servants in the royal household. This relationship endured into
the present century. Haydn was a _Hausofficier_ of Prince Esterhazy.
As vice-chapelmaster he had to appear every morning in the Prince's
ante-room to receive orders concerning the dinner-music and other
entertainments of the day, and in the certificate of appointment his
conduct is regulated with a particularity which we, who remember him
and reverence his genius but have forgotten his master, think
humiliating in the extreme.

[Sidenote: _Beethoven's Chamber music._]

Out of this cultivation of music in the private chamber grew the
characteristics of Chamber music, which we must consider if we would
enjoy it ourselves and understand the great reverence which the great