THE art of musical composition is an English invention. From the earliest dawn of history the necessary materials had been accumulating; but the secret of using them so as to create a structural art more than equal to any other art in its emotional power still lay hidden. In the Middle Ages the ecclesiastics of Western Europe began to perceive that something of hitherto unknown capabilities might be created; but during three or four centuries they could not exactly discover how to set about what they intuitively felt might be done. They were groping for a new art of which they had an inkling only. At last the secret was discovered in England by John Dunstable, who, by making each voice-part independent, raised music to the rank of a structural art, about 1400–20; and there is some reason to believe that we owe this to the patronage of the hero-king Henry V. Instrumental music first became artistic a little later, and this was accomplished by making it a specialised independent art, expressing what vocal music cannot express; and here again the achievement was one of English invention. Something had indeed been apparently attempted in Germany for the organ; but the specifically-instrumental florid style was, as far as we know, first adopted by Hugh Aston about 1500–20.