What Church Music Imported from Greece
During the centuries when the Eastern nations were powerful the European
continent was inhabited by primitive men, who had gradually formed
tribes. They had rude songs, dances, and crude instruments. They used
their music in religious ceremonies, to celebrate war victories and
successful hunting expeditions, to sing to their sweethearts, and to
accompany their work in the fields and homes, much as the American
Indian did. Many manners and customs of the Anglo-Saxon (English),
Teutonic (German), Norse (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian), Celtic (Irish)
and Gallic (French) races may be traced back to these barbaric days, and
even the beginning of national schools of music may be found.
Although a thousand years passed between the Greek musical era and the
“Golden Age” of Christian Church music, much that happened in that time
is hidden in darkness. The nations and tribes were fighting for
existence and were developing into the nations which we know today.
Islam or the Mohammedan religion, and not Christianity, was the great
influence.
Julius Cæsar (100–44 B.C.), the great Roman General, conquered Gallia
(France), then invaded the land of the Teutons (Germany) and even
reached England. In parts of northern Europe, one still sees the remains
of great roadways, aqueducts or water works, and bridges, that the
Romans built during their invasions.
In the Cluny Museum in Paris is a great hall built as a bath by the
Romans. In Bath, England, the city was named for the ancient Roman baths
still existing, and you can see the pipe lines which carried the water.
DARK AGES
The world at that time was not a happy place in which to live. There was
constant warfare between the once powerful Roman Empire and these
barbaric tribes. The poorest people were oppressed and many were slaves,
bought and sold by the rich land owners and army leaders.
Into such a world was the child, Jesus, born—a world with little love
for humanity, little unselfishness, little sympathy for the down-trodden
and unhappy, few kind words for the poor or the sick, little justice and
less mercy. No wonder that His teachings brought new life and gave hope
to the people!
For several centuries following the birth of Christ, the world went
through a period called the Dark Ages. Rome, the city of glorious
victories and brilliant culture became the prey of the barbaric
tribes—Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Franks, Saxons, and Slavs,—until
it seemed that civilization would be wiped out and people would become
primitive again.
Music was saved during the Dark Ages through a small band of faithful
followers of Jesus Christ, who founded a church in His name. That their
music should have been made up of existing tunes and words is very
natural. Jesus, himself, brought up in the religion of the Hebrews,
often sang the Psalms of David. The beautiful traditional music of the
Jewish synagogues found its way into the services of the early Christian
Church, because many of the believers were Hebrews. Soon the Hebrew
Bible texts were translated into Latin—the everyday language of the
Romans, and as most of these early Christians lived in Rome, they
followed the rules of music the Romans learned from the Greeks. So, our
Church music was influenced both by the Hebrews and Greeks.
For about three hundred years the early Christians had to hold their
services in secret, as they were punished even by death when caught, for
not worshipping Jupiter and the Roman gods. They were not rich and
influential, but just humble folk to whom the teachings of Jesus came as
a joyous comfort. They had no beautiful palaces where they could hold
services, and at the same time hide from the Roman centurions, so they
worshipped in dark and secret places and could not have much music as it
would have attracted the attention of their enemies. The early
Christians shunned music, too, because it had been used for the wild
dances and festivals of their pagan oppressors. As they were poor and
uneducated, they had had little training and lacked money to buy
instruments, so all in all music had a hard time to keep alive.
From what we can gather, they chanted their Psalms much as did the
Hebrews and had responses which sounded like soft and monotonous
droning.
As time went on emperors like Constantine, began to take away the death
penalty from those believing in Christ and gradually as the Romans saw
the beauty of His teachings they became Christians in increasing
numbers. Many of these Romans came from the upper classes, and as Greek
was the language of culture they had had a thorough Greek education and
owned many instruments, so they brought their Greek musical inheritance
to the growing band.
Thus, the chants composed in Rome for the _kithara_ were the direct
ancestors of our Christian hymns. These early hymns were also a bridge
between the single melody line of the Orient and Greece and Rome, and
the many melody lines, called polyphonic music, of Europe.
In 325 A.D., Emperor Constantine made Christianity the national religion
of Rome. He also founded the Christian Church in Byzantium, later called
Constantinople, and all through the Dark Ages, in many parts of Europe,
the cathedrals and church schools were the only gleam of learning in a
time of darkness and struggle.
After the Roman Empire reached its greatest height, in the 2nd century,
it gradually grew weaker and during the 4th and 5th centuries, the
Goths, Vandals and Huns drove the government from Rome to
Constantinople. In the 7th century Mohammedanism rose and swept over
Syria, Egypt and North Africa, and reached Spain in the 8th century.
ANSWERING MUSIC
It is related that St. Ignatius (49–107 A.D.) one of the early Christian
fathers, had a vision in which he heard the Heavenly choirs praising the
Holy Trinity, in alternating chants, and he was so impressed by it, that
he introduced into the Church the idea of two choirs of singers
answering each other.
In singing the Psalms of David, the Hebrews used this idea of antiphonal
music. (Anti—against, phonal—sounding: antiphonal—sounding against each
other.) We see it too in the Greek choruses, in the Roman kitharoedic
chants (chants accompanied by the _kithara_), and now in the early
Christian hymns. From this antiphonal music to the later polyphony
(poly—many, phony—sounds: many voices or parts) is a natural step. Here
again is an instance of the influence of one nation on another.
THE PATRON SAINT OF MUSIC
Among the martyrs to the cause of the Christian faith, was St. Cecilia,
a member of a noble Roman family, who was put to death for becoming a
Christian about 177 A.D. She is believed to be buried in the Roman
catacombs (underground burial chambers) and is the patron saint of
music, and she is supposed to have invented the organ.
It was St. Ambrose (333–397 A.D.) who worked out the first system for
church music and put it on a foundation that lasted for two hundred
years.
GREEK MODES AS MODELS
St. Ambrose built scales modeled on the old Greek modes and they were
given Greek names, but somehow the names became mixed so that the mode
called by Ambrose, Dorian (from D to D on the white keys of the piano)
was the Greek Phrygian; and the Phrygian (E to E) of Ambrose was called
Dorian by the Greeks; F to F is the Lydian mode; G to G, the Mixolydian.
These were the four authentic _Ecclesiastical_ or _Church Modes_.
St. Ambrose felt it his duty to make over the church music because
popular street songs had crept in with the Hebrew Psalms and Greek and
Roman chants! It was much the same effect as if you entered a church and
heard the organ and choir performing “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” This is
a funny comparison because it is said that a part of “Yes, We Have No
Bananas” is stolen from Handel’s great “Hallelujah” Chorus from the
oratorio _The Messiah_.
About this time, schools were formed to train singers in these new hymns
and church services, and a way to write down the music composed by St.
Ambrose and his followers was needed. The Greek letters had been used in
Rome, but now a new system called _neumes_ appeared; this word comes
from the Greek and means “breath” and the neumes simply marked where one
should breathe in chanting the hymns. There were eight signs with Latin
names which gave full directions when to raise and lower the voice.
The system of Neumes notation looks like our present day shorthand and
was a help, though, should we use it now we would think it anything but
a help.
While the Neumes writing showed how to mark the time, it had a serious
shortcoming, because it did not outline the melody exactly. It indicated
whether the melody rose or fell, but just how much was a question not
definitely shown. An unfamiliar chant could not be sung until the
notation had been worked out. It took five years for a choir singer to
be able to sing the music!
When the singers sang solos, they ornamented the songs and sang anything
they pleased! This made variety but it must also have caused much
confusion! The people may have learned this ornamental singing of the
Arab, from _The Gloss_. (Page 59.)
The next step was the Gregorian chant which even today is sung in the
Roman Catholic Churches.
To the four authentic scales of St. Ambrose, St. Gregory who was Pope
from 590 to 604 added four more called _plagal_. He did not invent these
scales but based them on the old Greek and Ambrosian modes. To each
authentic scale, he added a plagal scale starting four tones below it,
and to the name of the authentic mode is added the prefix _hypo_.
Each authentic mode and its _hypo_ are related.
Here is a table of these related modes, and their names:
[Illustration:
_After a painting by Garofalo, National Gallery at Rome._
_Saint Cecilia—Patron Saint of Music._
(_Holding a portative organ._)
]
[Illustration:
_After a painting by Maxence, in Paris._
_Book of Peace._
]
AUTHENTIC SCALES OR MODES PLAGAL SCALES OR MODES
(St. Ambrose’s Scales) (St. Gregory’s Scales)
I. Dorian: II. Hypo-Dorian:
d ef͡ g a bc͡ d a bc͡ d ef͡ g a
III. Phrygian: IV. Hypo-Phrygian:
ef͡ g a bc͡ d e bc͡ d ef͡ g a b
V. Lydian: VI. Hypo-Lydian:
f g a bc͡ d ef͡ c d ef͡ g a bc͡
VII. Mixo-Lydian: VIII. Hypo-Mixo-Lydian:
g a bc͡ d ef͡ g d ef͡ g a bc͡ d
We have marked the half-steps _bc͡_ and _ef͡_, and in every mode they
fall on different degrees of the scale. This shifting of the half-steps
tells us the name of the mode.
In order to try to give you a definite idea of how the church modes
worked, we have written the familiar national hymn _America_ in each
mode (see page 74). Play them, and you will see how one differs from the
other.
Katherine Ruth Heyman has used a similar idea in her little book _The
Relation of Ultramodern to Archaic Music_ in explaining Greek Modes.
It took many years to establish this music and it was not until the time
of Charlemagne (742–814) that it became a real system called Plain Chant
or Plain-song (from the Latin, _cantus planus_).
Pope Gregory founded the _Schola Cantorum_, school of singers, at Rome,
and with these trained people he tried to establish for all Christian
churches, a way to sing systematically and well. They studied nine
years, and everything had to be memorized, for only the leader had a
song book. Books were written by hand and were hard to get. The teacher
had a monochord, the instrument invented by Pythagoras, to give the
pitch, for all the singing was done without accompaniment. The singing
must have improved greatly after Gregory became Pope, for before his
reform, music had become a stunt with no solemnity, and people in the
churches waved handkerchiefs if the stunt pleased them!
[Illustration: AMERICA]
A LONG JOURNEY
At any rate the Gregorian chant flourished and was so loved that
Benedict Biscop, and other monks interested in music, came from far-off
England to learn the chant invented by St. Gregory. A long journey! In
675 Biscop sent to Rome for singers and built monasteries very close to
a pagan temple, where the Anglo-Saxons still worshipped the Roman Sun
god, Apollo, also god of music. These he filled with beautiful relics,
paintings and stained glass windows, Bibles and service books
illuminated in gold and color, which he brought from Rome.
Bringing things from Rome may sound easy to you, but fancy the travel
and inconvenience when there were no steamships, no railroads, no
aeroplanes, but only Roman roads, which however marvelous, were long and
wearisome by foot or by horse, or mule and rude wagons. This shows how
much the people of Britain desired music and beauty in their church
services.
VENERABLE BEDE
About this time, there lived a man in England so loved and respected
that he was called the Venerable Bede. Although music had no such
variety, melody and richness as today, just see what the Venerable Bede
says about it: “Music is the most worthy, courteous, pleasant, joyous
and lovely of all knowledge; it makes a man gentlemanly in his demeanor,
pleasant, courteous, joyous, lovely, for it acts upon his feelings.
Music encourages us to bear the heaviest afflictions, administers
consolation in every difficulty, refreshes the broken spirit, removes
headache and cures crossness and melancholy.”
Isn’t it remarkable for a man to have said this so long ago, when
scientists, today, have just _begun_ to think that music may have a
power of healing ills of the mind and of the body! Truly—“there is
nothing new under the sun!”
So Bede used the plain chant of Gregory and through his influence,
spread this dignified music throughout England, and wherever a monastery
was founded, a music school was started.
The Venerable Bede writes that Ethelbert of Kent, King of Britain, was a
worshipper of Odin and Thor, Norse gods, but he married a French
Princess who was a Christian. One day, writes the Venerable Bede, forty
monks led in solemn procession by St. Augustine, passed before the king
singing a chant. After hearing this marvelous hymn, he became a
Christian and gave permission to the English to become worshippers of
Christ instead of Norse and Druid gods. This hymn which converted
Ethelbert in 597 A.D. was sung thirteen hundred years later (1897) in
the same place, Canterbury, by another group of Benedictine monks!
At first the songs were sung unaccompanied, but later as in the time of
David, the Church allowed instruments. The lyre and the harp were used
first but the cymbals and the dulcimer, somewhat like our zither, were
considered too noisy.
The Venerable Bede called music made by instruments _artificial_ music,
and that of the human voice, _natural_ music. Whether at that time the
viol, the drum, the organ or the psaltery (an instrument like the
dulcimer) were used in the Church, is not known positively.
After Bede’s death, Alcuin, a monk and musician, continued his work. He
was appointed by Charlemagne, Emperor of France, to teach music in the
schools of Germany and France to spread the use of the Gregorian chant.
A CURIOUS MUSIC SYSTEM
In 900 A.D. an important thing happened, by which the reading and
learning of music was much simplified. A red line was drawn straight
across the page and this line represented “F” the tone on the fourth
line of the bass staff. The _neumes_ written on this red line were “F”
and the others above or below, were of higher or lower pitch. This
worked so well, that they placed a yellow line above the red line and
this they called “C.” These two lines were the beginnings of our five
line staff, but much happened between the two-line days and the five.
At this time people did not sing in parts, known as they are to
us—soprano, alto, tenor, bass, but everybody sang the same tune, that
is, sang in unison, and when men and women or men and boys sang
together, the men’s voices sounded an octave lower than the women’s and
the boy’s. Some voices have naturally a high range and others low, and
no doubt in these plain chant melodies the singers who could not reach
all the tones comfortably, dropped unconsciously to a lower pitch, and
in that way, made a second part. Soon the composers made this melody in
the medium range of the voice a part of their pieces instead of trusting
the singers to make it up as they went along. The principal tune sung or
carried by most of the singers was given the name _tenor_ (from the
Latin _teneo_, to hold or carry). We use the same word to indicate the
man’s voice of high range.
HUCBALD AND ORGANUM
Hucbald (840–930), a Flemish monk, first wrote a second part, always a
fifth above or a fourth below the tenor or “subject.” (The Latin name
for the subject is _cantus firmus_—fixed song.) Hucbald probably used
the fifth and fourth because they were perfect intervals, and all others
except the octave, were imperfect. There were often four parts including
the _cantus firmus_, for two parts were doubled. This succession of
fourths and fifths sounds very crude and ugly (just try the example),
but these people of the Middle Ages must have liked it, for it lasted
several centuries and was an attempt at making chords. This music was
called _organum_ or _diaphony_ (dia-two, phony-sound: two sounds). As
early as 1100, singers tried out new effects with the added parts and
introduced a few imperfect intervals, thirds and sixths, and tried
singing occasionally in contrary motion to the subject,—this was called
_discant_ from a Greek word meaning discord. Maybe at first it sounded
discordant but soon it came to mean any part outside of the _cantus
firmus_ or subject. (See musical illustrations.)
[Illustration: Organum (IXth and Xth Centuries)]
[Illustration: Diaphony]
[Illustration:
Discant (XIIth Century)
Example of Organum, Diaphony, Discant
]
There was also a kind of diaphony in which a third voice was written as
a bass, a fifth below the _cantus firmus_, but it was actually sung an
octave higher than it was written and sounded much better that way. As
it was not a bass at all it received the name of false bass or _faux
bourdon_. This was the beginning of chords such as we use.
So, Hucbald started the science of harmony,—the study of chords. Hucbald
called this _ars organum_—the art of organating or organizing.
Hucbald also invented a system of writing music on a staff. It was not a
staff such as we use today for he wrote in the spaces the initials T and
S. T meant that the singer was to sing a whole tone, S, a semitone or
half-step. He used a six line staff and wrote words in script instead of
notes like this:
[Illustration: Staff]
GUIDO D’AREZZO AND HIS ADDITIONS TO MUSIC
The next great name in music history is Guido d’Arezzo, a Benedictine
monk (995–1050), famous for his valuable additions to music.
He invented the four-line staff, using both lines and spaces and giving
a definite place on the staff to each sound:
Yellow line C————————————
Black line .............
Red line F————————————
Black line .............
In the Middle Ages, the men did most of the singing so the music was
written in a range to suit their voices. C is middle C, and F the bass
clef.
All music had to be written by hand and the monks made wonderful
parchment copies of works composed for the church services. They soon
grew careless about the yellow lines and red lines, so Guido placed the
letters C and F at the beginning of the lines instead of using the
colored lines.
Sometimes there were three lines to a staff, sometimes four, five, and
even eleven! The use of clefs showing which line was C or F, made
reading of music much easier. At the end of the 16th century the
question of the number of lines to the staff was definitely decided,
then they used four lines for the plain chant and five for all secular
music. By calling the fifth line of the eleven, middle C, two staffs of
five lines resulted—the grand staff of today.
Here is a table to show you how clefs grew:
[Illustration: (from Vincent d’Indy’s “Cours de Composition Musicale”)]
Hucbald built his scales in groups of four tones like the Greek
tetrachords but Guido extended this tetrachord to a hexachord or
six-toned scale, and by overlapping the hexachords, he built a series of
scales to which he gave the name, _gamut_, because it started on the G
which is the first note of our grand staff (lowest line, bass clef) and
the Greek word for G is “Gamma.”
F G ab͡♭ c d }
½ step }
C D EF͡ G a } This was repeated starting
½ step } an octave higher.
G A BC͡ D E }
½ step }
(Read from lowest line up.)
In the lowest hexachord, the B is natural, in the second hexachord there
is no B and in the third hexachord, the B is flattened. Our sign (♭) for
flat comes from the fact that this B was called a round B and the sign
(♮) for natural was called a square B. The sharp (♯) came from the
natural and both meant at first raising the tone a half-step.
Guido once heard the monks in the monastery of Arezzo singing a hymn in
honor of St. John the Baptist. He noticed that each line of the Latin
poem began on ascending notes of the scale,—the first line on C, the
second on D, and so on up to the sixth on A. It gave him the idea to
call each degree of the hexachord by the first syllable of the line of
the Latin hymn, thus:
_Ut_queant laxis,
_Re_sonare fibris,
_Mi_ra gestorum,
_Fam_uli tuorum,
_Sol_ve polluti,
_Lab_ia reatum.
HYMN TO ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST
[Illustration: _UT que-ant la-xis RE-so ne-re fi-bris, MI ra ges-to-rum
FA-mu-li tu o rum, SOL ve pol-lu ti LA bi a re a tumB͡C, Sancte
Io-es-nes_]
Here is a translation:
Grant that the unworthy lips of Thy servant
May be gifted with due harmony,
Let the tones of my voice
Sing the praises of Thy wonders.
We still call our scale degrees _ut_ (frequently changed to _do_), _re_,
_mi_, _fa_, _sol_, _la_. The French today use these syllables instead of
the letters of the alphabet, and Guido is known as the man who
originated this solmization (the word taken from the syllables _sol_ and
_mi_).
Where did the syllable _si_, the seventh degree of the scale, come from?
This hymn was written to St. John and in Latin his name is _Sancte
Ioannes_, the initials of which form the syllable _si_ which came into
use long after Guido’s time.
This system was very difficult for the singers to learn as it was quite
new to them, so Guido used his hand as a guide to the singers. Each
joint represented a different syllable and tone, and a new scale began
on every fourth tone. Look at the Guidonian hand on the next page.
Guido was so great a teacher and musician that he was given credit for
inventing much that already existed. He gathered all the knowledge he
could find into a book, that was sent to the monasteries and music
schools. He put in much that never before had been written down,
explained many things that had never been clear, and added much that was
new and useful.
Sometimes his name was written Gui or Guion. When he lived people had no
last names but were called by the name of their native towns; as Guido
was born in Arezzo, a town of Tuscany, he was called Guido d’Arezzo;
Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter, was born in the village of Vinci;
and the great Italian composer Pierluigi da Palestrina came from
Palestrina.
Guido’s work was considered revolutionary and not in accord with the old
ways which the church fathers reverenced. Because of plots against him,
he was cast into prison. But the Pope, realizing his greatness and
value, saved him. The inventors of new ideas always suffer!
[Illustration: Hand]
MENSURAL MUSIC OR TIMED MUSIC
Before Guido invented it, there had been no system of counting time.
If you are studying music, you know all about time signatures and what
metre a piece is in, from the ¾, ⁶⁄₈, ⁹⁄₈, ²⁄₄, ⁴⁄₄ or sign Ⅽ at the
beginning of the composition, but you probably do not know how or when
these signs came into use. In the Gregorian plain song and in Organum,
there was practically no variety of rhythm and no need for showing time
or marking off the music into measures. The accents fell quite naturally
according to the words that were sung, much as you would recite poetry.
But as music grew up and became more difficult, it was necessary for a
chorus singing in three or four different parts, to sing in time as well
as in tune, in order, at least, to start and finish together!
The first metre that was used was triple (three beats to the measure).
It was called perfect and was indicated by a perfect circle, ○, the
symbol of the Holy Trinity and of perfection. Duple metre (two beats to
the measure) was imperfect and was indicated by an incomplete circle, Ϲ.
Our sign for common time (four beats to the measure), Ϲ comes from this
incomplete circle. ⁹⁄₈ was written ☉; ¾ was ○; ⁶⁄₈ was Ͼ; and ⁴⁄₄ was Ϲ.
A monk named Franco, from Cologne, on the Rhine, early in the twelfth
century, invented these time signatures, and notes which in themselves
indicated different time values. Hucbald’s neumes were no longer suited
to the new music, and besides time signatures it became necessary to
have a music language showing very clearly and definitely the composer’s
rhythm.
FRANCO’S NOTATION OUR NOTATION
▬ (maxima) = ⬭ (whole note)
▜ (longa) = ᑯ (half note)
◼ (brevis) = ♩ (quarter note)
◆ (semi-brevis) = ♪ (eighth note)
Franco used four kinds of notes. Here they are translated into the time
values of today.
ORGANS
In the 10th century, organs came into use in the churches, but they were
ungainly and crude, sounding only a few tones, and were probably only
used to keep the singers on pitch. The organ had been invented long
before this, and had been used in Greece and Egypt. It was built on the
principle of Pan’s Pipes and was very simple. There were many portable
organs, called portatives, small enough to be carried about.
One organ (not a portative!) at Winchester, England, had four hundred
pipes and twenty-six pairs of bellows. It took seventy men to pump air
into it and two men to play it by pounding on a key with their fists or
elbows. The tone was so loud that it could be heard all over the town.
Fancy that!
During these centuries, music was growing slowly but surely. Out of
_organum_ and _discant_ and _faux bourdon_, arose a style called
counterpoint, in which three, four or more melodies were sung at the
same time. The writing of _counterpoint_, or line over line, is like a
basket weave for the different melodies weave in and out like pieces of
willow or raffia forming the basket. Later will come the _chorale_,
written in chords or up and down music like a colonnade or series of
columns. Keep this picture in mind. (St. Nicolas Tune, Chapter XI.) The
word _point_ means _note_ so _counterpoint_ means _note against note_.
The word was first applied in the 13th century to very crude and
discordant part-writing. But, little by little the monks learned how to
combine melodies beautifully and harmoniously and we still use many of
their rules.
Gradually great schools of church music flourished in France, Germany,
Spain, England, Italy and the Netherlands in the 14th, 15th and 16th
centuries.
Bit by bit this vast musical structure was built. It did not grow
quickly; each new idea took centuries to become a part of music, and as
often the idea was not good, it took a long time to replace it.