=A New Art Centre=.—The development of any art, and more especially
Music, requires the dominance of wealth, learning and general
civilizing forces, to form an epoch-marking school. Paris for a
time satisfactorily filled these conditions, and then gave place to
a school, stronger and better equipped: that of the Netherlands.
There were several reasons for this change in the centre of musical
activity. So long as Paris was dominant in wealth and civilization,
and so long as she maintained her supremacy in the intellectual fields
of the Church and university, so long did she retain the centre of
culture; but when her wealth became such as to produce degeneracy
in the taste for pure art, and love of show rather than real worth
became predominant, then her native pupils began to lose their
intellectual strength, and the pupils from foreign countries began
to furnish the real culture. The establishment of the Papal See at
Avignon in the south of France doubtless contributed to the supremacy
of France in music and the liberal arts. When the See was restored
to Rome, in 1377, Paris and her school of music were relegated to
the background. From this period on it was but a matter of time for
these pupils to carry the centre of musical culture from Paris to
a place possessing a foundation for musical growth, and a greater
number of strong minded scholars, and where political conditions were
favorable. The Netherlands surpassed Paris in all of these important
particulars, though not at the time when the Paris School ceased to be
of importance. There was a school of transition which filled the space
left between the important work of Paris and the supremacy of the
Netherlands; that school was the Gallo-Belgic, located northeast from
Paris on the borderline between France and Belgium, Tournay being the
centre. The school at Paris was occupied in acquiring material for use;
the school of the Netherlands developed polyphonic music emotionally;
the step from acquisition to arrangement of material was necessary
before emotional development could occur, and that was the work of the
Gallo-Belgic School. This school was located in the country of Hucbald
and Odo, who had built up there, a little while before, a system of
music which was the foundation of the polyphonic style, and which had
prepared the people for a culture of greater value and importance.
Thus we see that musical development followed the line of greatest
preparation, and utilized the preparatory work furnished by these two
men. And finally, it was a direct step toward the Netherlands which
were even then beginning the struggle in which they were victorious,
for supremacy in commerce, art, and music.
=Contribution of the Paris School=.—When the Paris school ceased to
be of utmost importance to the world of music it had bequeathed to
the later schools Measured Music, and its forms of Organum, Motet,
Conductus and Roundel, and the use of certain not unpleasing intervals,
though occasional consecutive fourths, fifths, and octaves appeared.
It was, then, the business of the Gallo-Belgic school to refine these
intervals, develop measured music, and so improve and develop these
old primary forms, eliminating some and evolving others, as to give
the school of the Netherlands, one century later, forms pleasing in
intervals and of sufficient unity and design to afford opportunity for
the infusion of the emotional. In the matter of intervals much was done
to develop and use the old ones, excepting the consecutive fourths and
fifths which were abolished never to appear again, and many new, or
previously unused intervals, were made use of. In the matter of forms,
we hear no more of the crude Organum and Conductus, but a little about
the Motet, and nothing at all in regard to the Roundel, as such. It
is, however, due entirely to this last form that polyphonic music
developed; though we hear no more of the Roundel, we do hear much in
regard to the Canon, and the Canon was but a highly developed species
of the Roundel.
=Imitation and the Canon=.—The use of Imitation, as we have seen,
gradually became more and more important. The old monks, in the very
beginning, imitated melody in the fourth and fifth; at the time of
the Paris school these melodies were combined with new ones making
Imitation with more than one melody, though the melody underwent no
real organic development. Now we see in the inception of the Canon a
development of real Imitation of only one melody, but given _Variety_
by use of the devices of Inversion, Augmentation, Diminution, etc. And
not only did this occur in the Canon, but we find it also in the other
forms, in a freer style, adding materially to the _Unity_. Imitation is
the foundation principle of polyphonic music, and this principle was
present in the crude efforts of the old monks, in the more intelligent
efforts of the Paris school, and now for the first time, receives, in
the Gallo-Belgic school, a partial recognition of its real value, and a
commensurate use.
[Music]
Naumann, History of Music, Vol. I, page 315, extract from a chanson by
Dufay. Figure 1 shows the principal melody, figure 2 shows the same
at the fifth below. The entire chanson is quoted in Naumann with the
various imitations fairly well marked; the student should refer to it.
=The Value of Imitation=.—We must understand, however, that mere
Imitation is in itself not a remarkable phenomenon. We imitate, more
or less unconsciously, in all arts, and even in our daily habits;
but this would be of no lasting importance did we not take that
imitation as a foundation for future development, as did the composers
of this school. And in these polyphonic schools the imitation was
unintentional, as a definite aid to the structure of a musical idea,
until it was seen that the _imitation_ must be _confined_ to _one
definite idea_ or melody. It was then that the original treatment of
melodic development began, and the various devices for developing
a melody, without changing its organic structure, inaugurated.
This marked the beginning of a school of musical art, a school of
definite, and not chance evolution; or in other words, arrangement and
development of the earlier acquired ideas.
=A Technical Principle=.—A little consideration will show how the
principle of Imitation was developed. The first step was to imitate a
melody at a lower or higher pitch and sing the two or more versions
_simultaneously_; the next step was to bring in the second and other
imitating voices _successively_, at the same or different pitch; thus
making the imitation more prominent. So long as composers confined
their efforts to using fixed melodies, they could not go far. When
they began to adapt well-known melodies and later to invent their
own it became possible to make a lengthy work, this leading to a
composition in which each of the accompanying voices imitated the
first; sometimes only two voices used imitation, the other having a
somewhat free part. A next step was to _vary_ the _imitation_, by
changing the motion of the imitating part; if the melody moved up,
the imitating part moved downward and _vice versa_; sometimes the
movement was reversed, the imitation beginning with the last note of
the phrase and proceeding to the first; sometimes it was made in notes
of smaller value (diminution), sometimes in larger (augmentation).
These and other devices were experimented with and worked out by the
Gallo-Belgic composers. One readily sees that this is _intellectual_
work, that it puts a premium on cleverness and lays expression aside.
Yet the technic of an art must first be acquired and the composers
of this period were doing this in working out a system of technic in
composition with Imitation as the foundation.
[Music]
Illustration from Naumann, “History of Music,” page 321, Vol. I,
showing at 1 and 2 the principal melody and its imitation, and at 3,
imitation and inversion. The student should examine the entire example
in Naumann.
=The Work of the Gallo-Belgic School=.—We note that many of the new
ideas came into being at this time, all of them, however, tending
toward the arranging of material or the preparing of it for the
emotional style. The Canon, and the principle of Imitation, developed
a set of strict rules which tended to produce more adequate command
of material and assisted in shaping the Fugue; though we, in our
own day, regard these rules as positively detrimental to the real
expression of emotion, yet they were necessary adjuncts to the real
command of _technic_. With Imitation came Counterpoint of a more
highly developed form; an inevitable step toward the fugal style of
the later polyphonic periods. And lastly came a use of _Folk-music
melodies_ and the _Leading Tone_, important because they foreshadow the
abandonment of the old Church Modes, and the _adoption of the Natural
Scale_. This marks the important point in the Gallo-Belgic school;
for with the introduction of the Natural Scale there came increasing
tendency for emotional expression, which could never have occurred had
the Church Modes retained their former position in music. The idea
of this preparation of material for emotional development cannot be
emphasized too strongly. Upon the Gallo-Belgic school rested the burden
of preparing this material for the later schools, so that these could
demonstrate to the world that while polyphonic music could not be
surpassed as a means of expressing certain impersonal, almost religious
emotions, it could not express to the fullest, the intimate, personal,
emotional ideas of the romantic composers.
=The Men=.—The men of this period are more important than any that have
yet been mentioned, and for that reason require more detailed study.
=H. de Zeelandia= (13—-1370), a native of Flanders, was a teacher and
composer, and author of a theoretical treatise with musical examples,
“De Musica”; with him the use of consecutive fourths, fifths and
octaves almost disappears, though it remained for a later composer to
abolish these entirely. =Guillaume Dufay= (1355-1435) was the one to
whom this reform must be finally accredited. He used in place of the
old church form of Cantus Firmus, the popular melodies of the people
with their tendency toward the Natural Scale and the use of the Leading
Tone and its decisive tonality; it may be said that these melodies
were not used in their entirety, or even in their original form, the
rhythm and meter oftentimes being altered so that the airs were hardly
recognizable, though the essential parts were there. It is Dufay who
is responsible for the first intelligent use of Imitation as a basis
for the Canon. =Gilles (Ægidius) Binchois= (1400-1465) was a noted
composer and, with Dufay, a joint founder of the Gallo-Belgic school.
He is said to have been a soldier before he entered the Church, and
must have been of a light-hearted disposition, as he was called “the
father of joyousness.” He was the teacher of Okeghem, Firmin Caron and
of Busnois. =Antoine de Busnois= (1440-1481) was the last famous master
of this school before it was merged into the school of the Netherlands.
In his works one can note a further progress in smoothness of style
and examples of well managed imitation. The character of the latter
is so scholarly and so clearly not a matter of improvisation that we
must consider him a man given to study and reflection, just the kind of
character to give scientific study to the principle of Imitation.
=The Importance of this School=.—This school occupied only a short
period of time (1360-1460), as compared to some of the other schools;
but in that time much was done. The material taken from the Paris
school was great and capable of being developed, though it was
encumbered by unusual intervals and a prejudice against the more
euphonious ones, and by a number of obsolete forms; so obsolete, in
fact, that with perhaps one exception, the Motet, none lasted until
the time of Bach. But the use of Imitation and Measured Music was
sufficient for the men of the Gallo-Belgic school, and with this
as a foundation, and the constantly-increasing tendency to use the
Folk-music and the Natural Scale, they succeeded in so arranging their
material that the men of the Netherlands had but to infuse emotion to
make it produce great music. Dufay and his contemporaries had done this
much: to create organically well-ordered tone combinations agreeable
both in melodic and harmonic relations. Both artists and public found
pleasure in the many transitions, the free use of suspensions, the
altered tones and chords borrowed from other scales, in the ensemble
of these methods which did not give rise in reality to chord-relations
as we understand them, yet suggested something of the kind, and
particularly were they pleased with the use of the variety-giving
changing notes. Because the Gallo-Belgic school did not invent new
forms, or develop old forms to a high degree of perfection, is no
reason why it should not be given a high rank among polyphonic schools,
for the process of refining and transition is often more difficult than
that of inventing.