Music Gets a Reprimand—Reformation and Rebirth of Learning—How the
Reforms Came to Be
Here is a little reminder of how music grew:
A scale came into use in Greece about 700 B.C.
It was separated into modes by the Greeks about 400 B.C.
It was adopted by the Romans and by the early Christians and was used
until the 10th century A.D. with little change.
450 years before the Christian era was the Golden Age of Pericles in
Greece.
450 years after the Christian era was the beginning of the Dark Ages.
Harmony was first attempted in 900 A.D.
Between 900 A.D. and 1400, music made little headway.
Music has travelled along two roads,—the Church road and the People’s
road; they often crossed each other and became very much mixed up. You
remember how popular songs had found their way into church music at the
time of St. Gregory, and how the people took melodies from the masses,
put profane words to them, and sang them in the taverns, at the street
corners, in the tournaments and at work.
Early in the 15th century folk songs had again invaded the Church to the
point that masses were known by the names of the folk songs from which
they were taken. This led to a very important reform, as a result of
which Palestrina, the greatest composer of the “Golden Age of Catholic
Church Music,” wrote his beautiful masses and motets, and Luther, the
founder of the Protestant faith, made up hymns that are still sung and
loved throughout Christendom.
Many things happened between 1400 and 1600, the period called the
Renaissance, or rebirth of the ancient Greek and Roman learning. At this
time the people in Italy (later in Spain, France, England and Germany),
awakened to study after the Dark Ages of war and conquest. Now the
people tried to bring back the literature, drama, music, and sculpture
of the Greeks and Romans. Read this list of men whose genius developed
through the new learning: Hans Memling, the Flemish painter; Albrecht
Dürer, the German painter and wood and copper engraver; Hans Holbein,
the German painter; Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist, engineer and
scientist, probably the most gifted man of all time; Michael Angelo, the
Italian sculptor and poet; Raphael, Correggio and Titian, Italian
painters; Cervantes, the Spanish dramatist, author of _Don Quixote_;
Edmund Spenser of England, who wrote _The Faery Queen_; Copernicus, the
astronomer and Christopher Columbus.
INVENTION OF PRINTING
But the greatest event of this time was Gutenberg’s invention of
printing (1455) which has spread learning over the face of the earth.
Soon people were able to get books cheaper than the hand written
scrolls. Until this great moment the monks had been writing by hand all
books and music scores. Only the great and wealthy owned them, and very
few could read or write, for what would be the sense of learning to read
if one had nothing to read? So the invention of printing awakened the
desire to know how to read books and to learn poetry, which sharpened
people’s minds and enlightened them. 12,000 volumes were printed from
1463 to 1471 where perhaps a hundred had been written before.
The first press (wooden type) was set up by Charles VII (1459) in the
Sorbonne in Paris, one of the greatest institutions of learning in the
world which still attracts students from all countries. The first music
was printed (1501 or 1502) by Ottaviano dei Petrucci in Venice, and were
three or four books of motets by Italian, French, Flemish and German
composers. Music was benefited by being printed clearly and many changes
were made to make it easier to read. Up to this time it was worse than
cross-word puzzles! It seemed to be the object of the composers before
the Renaissance to make music look just as difficult as it possibly
could, and there are many examples of enigmatical canons which were used
in the spirit of games and could be solved only by those having the key
to the puzzles.
But now the printers who were learned men in those days, simplified the
notation, and did away with many useless signs. People began to read it
more easily, and music became more popular. After Ottaviano died,
Antonio Gardane and his sons founded a publishing house in Venice, which
was most useful to composers. Then Paris and Antwerp began to have fine
printers, and in 1542 Ballard was made sole printer of music to the King
and nearly all the music through Louis XIV’s time (1638–1715) was
printed by his descendants. Late in the 17th century the measures were
separated by bars as they are today, and when metal was used for type
instead of wood, the old square note became oval like ours.
At the beginning of the Renaissance Church music was again mixed with
the most vulgar words from popular songs. “The bowsprit got mixed with
the rudder sometimes”—as in _The Hunting of the Snark_.
At this time the people were beginning to think and read for themselves,
and to question whether the Church had the right to dictate to and
control them as it had been doing. They thought, too, that many of the
church officers were not good enough, and by degrees the people
protesting, broke away from the Roman Church and formed others. Through
this protest the Protestant church won its name; this is known as the
Reformation. With the new church came the need for new services, new
music and new ways of singing.
MARTIN LUTHER, THE REFORMER
“Truth to Nature” was the _slogan_ of the Renaissance.
In 1453, the Mohammedans captured Constantinople, and the Christian
Church which had been there since the end of the 4th century, was driven
out. Many of the learned Christians fled to Central Europe and brought
with them a knowledge of Greek literature and art which they taught to
the people.
Christopher Columbus, in his search for a passage to India, found a new
continent, and in the same way these seekers for “Truth to Nature,”
although they may not have found exactly what they were looking for,
certainly opened gates that swept men and women towards knowledge,
appreciation, refinement and culture.
The outstanding person in the Reformation of the Church was Martin
Luther (1483–1546) who interests us specially for what he did for the
growth of music. Luther was a priest of the Catholic Church, but he was
also a German; he believed in a national life free from Church
government, and in singing hymns in the language of the people instead
of in Latin, in order that the words could be understood. He spoke and
wrote openly against certain actions of the Church and for this he was
put out of the Church of Rome. But, very soon, he had enough followers
to start a church of his own, and one of the first things he did was to
make a new music for it. Up to this time the only music in Germany had
been some hymns translated from the Latin into the “vernacular,” the
language of the people, the songs of the Minnesingers and
Meistersingers, and a rich crop of folksongs that had appeared in the
14th century. There were also a few composers who had learned to write
counterpoint in the Netherlands, Heinrich Isaak, Ludwig Senfl and
Heinrich Fink, and they, too, influenced the music of the Reformation.
Luther, a musician himself, knew the love that his countrymen had for
their hymns translated into German and for the folksongs, and realized
that singing in which the congregation took part would be a power in the
church. He had to gather material for new hymns simple enough for the
people to sing, and besides he needed new music to replace the Mass. The
result of his work is the _chorale_, the foundation of the great German
school of music of the 18th and 19th centuries. He was helped in the
work of creating these hymns by Johann Walther and Conrad Rupf. The
first hymnal (1524) was selected from some of the finest Catholic hymns,
Gregorian and Ambrosian melodies, dignified folk-melodies, and some
original chorales by Luther himself.
He played the tunes of his chorales on a flute, and Walther wrote them
down. He wrote to a friend, “I wish after the example of the Prophets
and ancient Fathers of the Church, to make German Psalms for the people,
and that is to say, sacred hymns, so that the word of God may dwell
among the people by means of song also.” The strength and beauty of
these hymns can be seen in _Ein’ Feste Burg ist unser Gott_ (A Mighty
Fortress is Our God).
The hymns were harmonized in four parts. They were usually sung in
unison (all singing the same thing) with the accompaniment of the organ
or a group of instruments. This great change, or revolt, broke the
backbone of polyphonic music, freed the spirit of the people, and first
brought into use modern scales (major and minor, as we know them).
Curiously enough, this Reformed Church Music also brought about the
“Golden Age of Catholic Music” with Palestrina as its leading composer.
PALESTRINA—PRINCE OF MUSIC
Martin Luther had hoped to reform the Church but instead founded a new
one (another example of Columbus seeking a passage to India). But this
action of Luther’s was a challenge to the Mother-Church, and steps were
taken to reform many customs and practices in the Church itself. As we
have pointed out many times, popular tunes with vulgar words had crept
into the Church services. These works composed for the Church were used
to show the skill of the composer rather than to express the love of
God. Questions dealing with the reforms for purifying the services of
the Church were taken up by the Council of Trent, a gathering of the
learned Church men and the Catholic kings. The council lasted for twenty
years (1542 or 3–1562). Fancy that for a club meeting! Towards the end
of its long session, the council decided that all music in the “impure
mode” (in popular style), should be banished from the Church. They
decided, and we cannot see why they waited so long, that the Mass with
popular airs and words not approved by the Church fathers should be
prohibited. Palestrina had both the genius and the understanding to meet
the requirements, and his compositions for the Church are the highest
achievement of the 16th century.
You will read in many histories of music that Palestrina was asked to
write three masses to be sung before a group of Cardinals, in order to
find out whether or not any composer could write music fit for the
Church. These three masses were considered so fine, that he was claimed
as the one who saved Church music. This would have been a great honor,
but it did not happen, and was only a legend to show Palestrina’s
greatness. No doubt Palestrina wrote more carefully and beautifully on
account of the decision of the Council of Trent, and was so great a
composer that all vocal polyphonic music of the 16th century is said to
be in the “Palestrinian” style.
Now this Palestrina was Giovanni Pierluigi, born in a humble home at
Palestrina, a suburb of Rome. In English his name would be John
Pierluigi of Palestrina. The year of his birth was about 1525 or 1526.
He probably was a choir boy and was trained in music in one of the
churches of Rome. You may hear that the Chapel master of Santa Marie
Maggiore heard him singing on the road and picked him out for his music
school, but this may be only one of many legends told of him. Even the
name of his teacher is uncertain, some say that it was Goudimel, others
that it was Gaudio or Claudio Mell, and still others that it was
Cimello. However, his teacher’s name seems to have had the letters “mel”
in it, and all the rest is guess work. Before he was twenty, he played
the organ in a church at Palestrina, sang in the daily service, taught
singing and music, and shortly after was married.
In 1551 he became chapel master in the Capella Giulia (Julia Chapel) in
the Vatican. His first published volume of five masses (1554) he
dedicated to the Pope, Julius III. There had been many volumes of sacred
music dedicated to the popes, but they had always been the work of
musicians of the northern school, Hollanders or Belgians. This volume of
Palestrina’s was the first by an Italian composer to be written for a
pope. As a reward, the Pope made him one of the twenty-four singers of
his private chapel, but not having a good voice, and not being a priest,
the next Pope dismissed him. But in 1571 he was again made chapel master
in the Vatican.
It was the custom in those days for musicians to dedicate works not only
to popes, but to rich and powerful nobles, monarchs, or other church
officials. These attentions were often rewarded with gifts of money,
positions at court or in the chapels. This “patronage,” as it was
called, made it possible for composers to do their best work. This was
not only the case in music, but in poetry, painting and sculpture.
Palestrina was kept busy dedicating his music to popes, for he lived
during the reigns of at least twelve.
After the Council of Trent, one of his masses was recommended as a
model, so it is said, of what church music should be. He was again
granted the pay of singer in the Pontifical Choir, as he had been years
before, but this time, due to his well-known skill, he did not lose his
post when other popes succeeded in office. Many of his masses in
manuscript are now in the Vatican library.
In 1575, fifteen hundred singers from Palestrina,—priests, laymen, boys
and women, marched into Rome singing Giovanni Pierluigi’s music, with
the great composer leading them. This shows, that he was appreciated.
He was asked to revise some of the old church music and while he tried,
he so hated to change the work of other composers whom he respected,
that he never finished the task. It was like asking Stravinsky to put
up-to-date harmonies into Beethoven.
A list of his compositions published by Breitkopf and Haertel include 93
Masses, 179 Motets, and 45 Hymns for the year, 68 Offertories, 3 books
of Lamentations, 3 books of Litanies, 2 books of Magnificats, 4 books of
Madrigals. A big list, isn’t it? But his activities covered a long
period, and he composed to the time of his death (1594).
He had very few pupils whose names have come down to us.
Palestrina never had great wealth, and some biographers make him seem
poverty-stricken and suffering. At any rate, he was granted his heart’s
desire, to compose as much as he wanted to, and even if he was poor, he
had the joy of success and the glory of being recognized as the greatest
composer of his time in Italy. His works have outlived many other
schools of composition, and today are looked upon as models of beauty
and of masterly workmanship.
Palestrina was honored by burial in St. Peter’s, and on his tombstone
are the words “Princeps Musicæ” (Prince of Music).
You must not think that Palestrina was the only famous Italian composer
of the 16th century, for Constanza Festa who died before Palestrina did
his important work is called the first Italian master of the polyphonic
school. There were also Animuccia, Andrea Gabrieli, and Andrea’s nephew
Giovanni Gabrieli. Giovanni was a Venetian, and the Venetians loved rich
coloring in everything, even in their music. Gabrieli tried to get it by
using cornets, trombones and violins with the organ, which at that time
could not make a _crescendo_, that is, its volume could not be
increased, but as these instruments could all be played soft or loud
with _crescendo_ effects, he created a color or quality that never had
been before.