IX

THE SYSTEMS OF HUCBALD AND GUIDO D'AREZZO--THE BEGINNING

OF COUNTERPOINT

We have seen that by order of Charlemagne, Ambrosian chant was

superseded by that of Gregory, and from any history of music

we may learn how he caused the Gregorian chant to be taught

to the exclusion of all other music. Although Notker, in the

monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland, and others developed the

Gregorian chant, until the time of Hucbald this music remained

mere wandering melody, without harmonic support of any kind.

Hucbald (840-930) was a monk of the monastery of St. Armand in

Flanders. As we know from our studies in notation, he was the

first to improve the notation by introducing a system of lines

and spaces, of which, however, the spaces only were utilized

for indicating the notes, viz.:

[Illustration]

His attempt to reconstruct the musical scale was afterwards

overshadowed by the system invented by Guido d'Arezzo, and it

is therefore unnecessary to describe it in detail. His great

contribution to progress was the discovery that more than one

sound could be played or sung simultaneously, thus creating a

composite sound, the effect which we call a chord. However,

in deciding which sounds should be allowed to be played or

sung together, he was influenced partly by the mysticism of

his age, and partly by a blind adherence to the remnants of

musical theory which had been handed down from the Greeks. As

Franco of Cologne, later (1200), in systematizing rhythm into

measure, was influenced by the idea of the Trinity in making

his [3/8] or [9/8] time _tempus perfectum_, and adopting for

its symbol the Pythagorean circle [O.] or [O], so Hucbald,

in choosing his series of concords or sounds that harmonize

well together, took the first three notes of the overtones of

every sonorous fundamental, or, to express it differently, of

the series of natural harmonics, that is to say, he admitted

the octave and fifth: [F: g, d g]. But from the fifth to the

octave gives the interval of the fourth, therefore he permitted

this combination also.

From the works of Boethius (_circa_ 400) and others, he had

derived and accepted the Pythagorean division of the scale,

making thirds and sixths dissonant intervals; and so his perfect

chord (from which our later triad gets its name of _perfect_)

was composed of a root, fifth or fourth, and octave.

Hucbald, as I have already explained, changed the Greek tone

system somewhat by arranging it in four regular disjunct

tetrachords, namely:

[F: (g, a, b-, c) (d e f g) G: (a b c' d') (e' f+' g' a')]

This system permitted the addition of a fifth to each note

indiscriminately, and the fifths would always be _perfect_; but

in regard to the octaves it was faulty, for obvious reasons. As

his system of notation consisted of merely writing T for tone

and S for semitone between the lines of his staff, it was only

necessary to change the order of these letters for the octave

at the beginning of each line. With the fourth, however,

this device was impossible, and therefore he laid down the

rule that when the voices proceeded in fourths, and a discord

(or augmented fourth) was unavoidable, the lower voice was to

remain on the same note until it could jump to another fourth

forming a perfect interval:

[F: {g b} {g b} {g a} {g b} {d a} {d g} {c f} {c e} {a, d} {g, c}]

This at least brought into the harmony an occasional third,

which gradually became a recognized factor in music.

We probably know that the year 1000 was generally accepted

as the time when the world was to come to an end. In the

_Bibliotheque Nationale_ in Paris there is a manuscript

containing the prophecy which had been handed down for many

centuries; also the signs for the notes to which it was to be

sung, viz.:

[Figure 07]

The text is:

The Judge will speak and the earth shall tremble

with awe. The stars shall be destroyed and the glory

of the moon shall die, the mountains shall be crushed

and the world with all in it shall utterly perish.

With the opening of the eleventh century, such was the relief

from this fear which had been oppressing Christendom, that even

the church reflected it in such strange rites as the _Feast

of Asses_ (January 14th), which was a burlesque of the Mass.

In this travesty of the Mass a young girl, dressed to

represent the Virgin, riding on an ass and carrying a child

in her arms, was conducted to the church door. Upon being

admitted and riding up the aisle to the altar, the girl

tethered the ass to the railing and sat on the steps until

the service was finished. The _Credo_, _Gloria_, etc., all

ended with a "hee-haw," and at the conclusion of the service

the officiating priest brayed three times, and was answered by

the congregation. The mixing of the vernacular with Latin in

this service is the first instance of the use of any language

but Latin in church music.

This quasi-symbolical pantomime gave rise in time to the

mediaeval Passion Plays, or Mysteries, as they were called. That

these travesties of the Mass took different forms in various

countries is very evident when we remember the description

of the "Abbot of Unreason," in Scott's "Abbot." In England,

among other absurdities such as the "Pope of Fools," the "Ball

Dance," etc., they also had the festival of the "Boy Bishop,"

in which, between the sixth and twenty-eighth of December,

a boy was made to perform all the functions of a bishop.

It would seem that all this has but little bearing upon

the development of music. As a matter of fact it was a most

potent factor in it, for music was essentially and exclusively

a church property. By permitting the people to secularize

the church rites at certain seasons, it was inevitable that

church music would also become common property for a time,

with this difference, however, that the common people could

carry the tunes away with them, and the music would be the only

thing remaining as a recollection of the carnival. Indeed, the

prevalence of popular songs soon became such that writers of

church music began to use them instead of their being derived

from church music, as was originally the case. This continued to

such an extent that almost up to 1550 a mass was known by the

name of the popular song it was based upon, as, for instance,

the mass of the "Man in Armour," by Josquin des Pres, and those

entitled "_Je prends conge_" and "_Je veult cent mille ecus_."

Now we know that the _tempus perfectum_ was _par excellence_

[9/8] and [3/4] time. It was natural therefore that these first

church tunes should have been changed to dances in the hands

of the common people. Even in these dances it is interesting to

note that the same symbolic significance appears to be present,

for the earliest form of these dances was the "round song,"

or roundelay, and it was danced in a circle.

Duple time did not come into general use until the beginning of

the fourteenth century. About the same time, the organum (as it

was called) or system of harmonization of Hucbald was discarded,

and Johannes de Muris and Philippe de Vitry championed the

consonant quality of the third and sixth, both major and minor.

The fifth was retained as a consonant, but the fourth was

passed over in silence by the French school of writers, or

classed with the dissonants. Successive fifths were prohibited

as being too harshly dissonant, but successive fourths were

necessarily permitted, as it would be an impossibility to do

without them. Nevertheless, the fourth was still considered

a dissonance, and was permitted only between the upper parts

of the music. Thus the harsh consecutive passages in fifths

and fourths of the organum of Hucbald disappeared in favour

of the softer progressions of thirds and sixths.

In order to make clear how the new science of counterpoint

came into existence, I must again revert to Hucbald.[09]

Before his time, all "recognized" music was a more or less

melodious succession of tones, generally of the same length,

one syllable being sometimes used for many notes. He discovered

that a melody might be sung by several singers, each commencing

at a different pitch instead of all singing the same notes at

the same time. He also laid down rules as to how this was to

be done to produce the best effect. We remember why he chose

the fourth, fifth, and octave in preference to the third and

sixth. He called his system an "organum" or "diaphony," and

to sing according to his rules was called to "organize" or

"organate." We must remember that at that time fourths and

fifths were not always indicated in the written music; only

the melody, which was called the principal or subject. By

studying the rules prescribed for the organum, the singers

could add the proper intervals to the melody. We must keep

in mind, however, that later fourths were preferred to fifths

(being considered less harsh), and that the musical scale of

the period compelled the different voices to vary slightly,

that is to say, two voices could not sing exactly the same

melody at the interval of a fourth without the use of sharps

or flats; therefore one voice continued on the same note until

the awkward place was passed, and then proceeded in fourths

again with the other voice as before:

[G: {e' a'} {d' g'} {d' f+'} {d' e'}]

On account of the augmented fourth that would occur by a strict

adherence to the melodic structure of the subject, the following

would have been impossible: [G: {e' a'} {d' g'} ({c' f+'})]

Thus we find the first instance of the use of thirds, and also

of oblique motion as opposed to the earlier inevitable parallel

motion of the voices. This necessary freedom in singing the

organum or diaphony led to the attempt to sing two _different_

melodies, one against the other--"note against note," or

"point counter point,"[10] point or _punct_ being the name

for the written note. There being now two distinct melodies,

both had to be _noted_ instead of leaving it to the singers

to add their parts extemporaneously, according to the rules of

the organum, as they had done previously. Already earlier than

this (in 1100), owing to the tendency to discard consecutive

fourths and fifths, the intermovement of the voices, from

being parallel and oblique, became _contrary_, thus avoiding

the parallel succession of intervals. The name "organum" was

dropped and the new system became known as tenor and descant,

the tenor being the principal or foundation melody, and the

descant or descants (for there could be as many as there

were parts or voices to the music) taking the place of the

organum. The difference between _discantus_ and _diaphony_

was that the latter consisted of several parts or voices,

which, however, were more or less exact reproductions, at

different pitch, of the principal or given melody, while the

former was composed of entirely different melodic and rhythmic

material. This gave rise to the science of counterpoint, which,

as I have said, consists of the trick of making a number

of voices sing different melodies at the same time without

violating certain given rules. The given melody or "principal"

soon acquired the name of _cantus firmus_, and the other parts

were each called _contrapunctus_,[11] as before they had been

called tenor and descant. These names were first used by Gerson,

Chancellor of Notre Dame, Paris, about 1400.

In the meantime (about 1300-1375), the occasional use of thirds

and sixths in the diaphonies previously explained led to an

entirely different kind of singing, called _falso bordone_

or _faux bourdon_ (_bordonizare_, "to drone," comes from a

kind of pedal in organum that first brought the third into

use). This system, contrary to the old organum, consisted of

using only thirds and sixths together, excluding the fourth

and fifth entirely, except in the first and last bars. This

innovation has been ascribed to the Flemish singers attached

to the Papal Choir (about 1377), when Pope Gregory XI returned

from Avignon to Rome. In the British Museum, however, there

are manuscripts dating from the previous century, showing

that the _faux bourdon_ had already commenced to make its way

against the old systems of Hucbald and Guido. The combination

of the _faux bourdon_ and the remnant of the organum gives us

the foundation for our modern tone system. The old rules,

making plagal motion of the different voices preferable to

parallel motion, and contrary motion preferable to either,

still hold good in our works on theory; so also in regard to

the rules forbidding consecutive fifths and octaves, leaving

the question of the fourth in doubt.

To sum up, we may say, therefore, that up to the sixteenth

century, all music was composed of the slender material of

thirds, sixths, fifths, and octaves, fourths being permitted

only _between_ the voices; consecutive successions of fourths,

however, were permitted, a license not allowed in the use of

fifths or octaves. This leads us directly to a consideration

of the laws of counterpoint and fugue, laws that have remained

practically unchanged up to the present, with the one difference

that, instead of being restricted to the meagre material of

the so-called consonants, the growing use of what were once

called dissonant chords, such as the dominant seventh, ninth,

diminished seventh, and latterly the so-called altered chords,

has brought new riches to the art.

Instead of going at once into a consideration of the laws

of counterpoint, it will be well to take up the development

of the instrumental resources of the time. There were three

distinct types of music: the ecclesiastical type (which of

course predominated) found its expression in melodies sung

by church choirs, four or more melodies being sometimes sung

simultaneously, in accordance with certain fixed rules,

as I have already explained. These melodies or chants

were often accompanied by the organ, of which we will speak

later. The second type was purely instrumental, and served as

an accompaniment for the dance, or consisted of _fanfares_

(ceremonial horn signals), or hunting signals. The third

type was that of the so-called _trouveres_ or _troubadours_,

with their _jongleurs_, and the minnesingers, and, later, the

mastersingers. All these "minstrels," as we may call them,

accompanied their singing by some instrument, generally one

of the lute type or the psaltery.

[09] There is much question as to Hucbald's organum. That

actually these dissonances were used even up to 1500 is

proved by Franco Gafurius of Milan, who mentions a Litany

for the Dead (_De Profundis_) much used at that time:

[G: {f' g'} {f' g'} {g' a'} {g' a'} {g' c''} {e' a'} {f' g'}]

[W: De profundis, etc.]

[10] Counterpoint is first mentioned by Muris (1300).

[11] Only principal (tenor or cantus firmus) was sung to words.

X