XXXIII. What we have hitherto said of the irregularity and disorders
of church music, does not extend to chants in the vulgar tongue
only, but to psalms, masses, lamentations, and other parts of divine
service, because the modes in fashion, have been introduced into them
all. I have, in printed lamentations, seen the changes of the airs
characterised in the same terms, which are used to describe them in
comic music. Here you read _grave_, there _ayroso_, and in another
place _andante_. What, can’t we admit of all the music being grave,
even in a lamentation? And is it necessary to introduce light comedy
airs into the representation of the most afflicting mysteries? If grief
could find a place in heaven, Jeremiah would lament afresh, at seeing
such music applied to his songs of mourning. Is it impossible, that in
those complainings, where every letter is a sigh, corresponding with,
and expressive of the various sensations, arising from the subjects
of his lamentation; either the ruin of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans,
the destruction of the world for sin, the affliction of the church
militant for the persecution of its martyrs; and, to sum up the whole,
the anguish and sufferings of our Redeemer, for the salvation of
mankind. I say, can the feelings produced by such sad and distressing
calamities, be expressed with airy tunes and recitatives? In the
mournful songs of Jeremiah, which some expositors call the Alphabet of
the Penitents, should we hear the sound of festive airs and serenades?
With how much more reason than him, ought we to exclaim here in the
language of Seneca, when he censured Ovid, for having introduced
into the description of so tragical an event as that of Deucalion’s
flood, a verse which savoured of gallantry: _Non est res satis sobria
lascivire devorato orbe terrarum._ The Cythara of Nero, while Rome was
burning, had not so harsh a sound, as the harmony of dances in the
representation of such affecting mysteries.
XXXIV. And besides offending in this particular against the rules of
reason, they sin also against the laws of music, which prescribe, that
the tone of the chant, should be suited to the meaning of the words;
and therefore, when the language is solemn and expressive of sorrow,
the tone of the music should be grave and affecting.
XXXV. It is true, that against this rule, which is one of the most
cardinal, musicians very frequently sin in all sorts of compositions,
some from being deficient, and others by exceeding. Those fall into
the error of deficiency, who form music without any attention to the
spirit or meaning of the words to which they apply it; but hardly any
fall into those gross mistakes, except such as scarce deserve the name
of composers, and who are capable of doing nothing more, than racking
or weaving together, shreds and strips, of the compositions of other
musicians.
XXXVI. Those err by exceeding or doing too much, who regulate their
music with a puerile nicety, to correspond with the distinct or
separate signification of each word, taken or standing by itself,
without having regard to the meaning of the whole context. An example
produced by father Kircher to illustrate this abuse, will explain what
I mean. He instanced the manner, in which a composer had set to music
the following verse: _Mors festinat luctuosa_; to the words _mors_ and
_luctuosa_, he applied a mournful solfa; but to the word _festinat_,
which stood in the middle between them, as it seemed to him, to signify
vivacity or quickness, he appropriated a career of allegros, that would
have caused the most sluggish nag who heard them, to bound about and
give cabriols.
XXXVII. I saw something as bad, or indeed even worse than this, in
one of the lamentations I cited before; where to the music adapted
to express the following sentence: _Deposita est vehementer non
habens consolatorem_, was marked ayroso. How ill-suited is an airy
movement, to express the lamentable fall of Jerusalem, and also that
of all mankind bowed down and crippled with the weight of their sins;
which misfortune, was aggravated with the additional and distressing
circumstance, of their being destitute of comfort under the calamity?
But the blame of all this, was imputable to the adverb _vehementer_,
because to express vehemence, appeared to the composer to require a
lively movement; and thus, when he came to that word in the sentence,
he quickened his pace, and upon the adverb _vehementer_, expended in
rapid notes, music to the amount of forty crotchets; but the word,
in the sense it was there used, was intended to signify the same as
_gravissime_, and to express with energy, the degree of grief and
sadness, occasioned by the fall of Jerusalem, which, crippled and bore
down with the crushing weight of its sins, came to the ground, temple,
walls, and houses, all together.
XXXVIII. Nobody was more guilty of this fault, than the celebrated
Duron, and he committed it to such a degree, that sometimes in the same
couplet, just as the signification of the words of the verse varied,
taken separately or by themselves, he would vary the affectations of
the chant, six or eight times; and although it required great address
and ability to do this, which he in reality was possessed of; such an
exertion of his talents was ill applied.