It is interesting to recall the origin of our words "treble"
and "discant." The latter was derived from the first attempts to
break away from the monotony of several persons singing the same
melody in unison, octaves, fifths, or fourths. In such cases
the original melody was called _cantus firmus_ (a term still
generally used in counterpoint to designate the given melody
of an exercise to which the student is to write other parts),
the new melody that was sung with it was called the _discant_,
and when a third part was added, it received the name _triplum_
or _treble_. As Ambros remarks, this forcible welding together
of different melodies, often well-known old tunes, secular
or derived from the church chants, was on a direct line with
the contemporary condition of the other arts. For instance,
on the portal to the left of the Cathedral of Saint Mark,
at Venice, is a relief, representing some Biblical scene,
which is entirely made up of fragments of some older sculptured
figures, placed together without regard to anatomy in much the
same brutal fashion that the melodies of the time were sung
together. The traces of this clumsy music-making extended down
to Palestrina's time, and became the germ of counterpoint,
canon, and fugue, constituting (apart from the folk song)
the only music known at that time.
This music, however, very soon developed into two styles, one
adopted by the church, the other, a secular style, furnishing
the musical texture both of opera and other secular music. The
opera, or rather the art form we know under that name (for the
name itself conveys nothing, for which reason Wagner coined the
term "music drama") broke away from the church in the guise of
Mysteries, as they were called in mediaeval times. A Mystery
(of which our modern oratorio is the direct descendant) was
a kind of drama illustrating some sacred subject, and the
earliest specimens laid the foundation for the Greek tragedy
and comedy. We still see a relic of this primitive art form
in the Oberammergau Passion Play.
We read of the efforts made, as early as the fifth century,
to hold the people to the church; among other devices employed
was that of illustrating the subjects of the services by the
priests performing the offices being dressed in an appropriate
costume. Little by little the popular songs of the people
crept into the church service among the regular ecclesiastical
chants, thus foreshadowing the beginnings of modern opera;
for after a while, special Latin texts were substituted for
the regular service, the mimetic part of which degenerated
into the most extraordinary license as, for instance, in the
"Feast of Asses" (January 14) which may be called a burlesque
of the mass, and which has been described in a former chapter.
With this mixture of the vernacular and the official Latin,[14]
these Miracle and Passion Plays, as well as the Mysteries and
Moralities (as different forms of this ecclesiastical mumming
were called) began to be given in other places besides the
churches.
In addition to this combination of singing and acting, the
_tenson_ or poetic debate (which was one form of the troubadour
songs, and one very often _acted_ by the jongleurs) probably
also did its part towards giving stability to this new art
form. The earliest specimen of it, in its purely secular aspect,
is a small work entitled "Robin et Marian," by Adam de la Hale,
a well-known troubadour (called "the humpback," born at Arras
in the south of France in 1240), who followed in the train of
that ferocious Duke Charles of Anjou, who beheaded Konradin,
the last of the Hohenstaufens, in 1268, and Manfred, both of
them minnesingers.
As the Mystery was the direct ancestor of our oratorio, so was
the little pastoral of Adam de la Hale the germ of the modern
French vaudeville. One of its melodies is said to be sung to
this day in some parts of southern France.
The entire object in this little play being that both words and
action should be perfectly understood, it is obvious that as
little as possible should be going on during the singing. Thus,
such melodies as we find in these old pastoral plays would be
accompanied by short notes, serving merely to give the pitch
and tonality, which would gradually develop into chords,
thus laying the foundation for harmony.
If, on the other hand, we look at the "church play" of the
same period, the Mystery, and remember that it was sung by
men accustomed to singing the _organum_ of Hucbald, we have
a clue as to what it was and what it led up to. For while
one part or voice of the music would give a melody (copied
from or at any rate resembling the Gregorian chant or the
sequences of Notker of Tubilo), the other voices would sing
songs in the vernacular, and, strangest of all, one voice
would repeat some Latin word, or even a "nonsense word"
(to use Edward Lear's term) but much more slowly than the
other voices. Thus the needs of the Mystery were as well met
by incipient counterpoint on the one hand, as, on the other,
the secular song-play engendered the sense of harmony.
That the early secular forerunner of opera, as represented by
"Robin et Marian," was still, to a certain degree, controlled
by the church is clear if we remember that at that time the
only methods of noting music were entirely in the hands of the
clergy. The notation for the lute, for instance, was invented
about 1460 to 1500. Thus, we can say that the recording of
secular music was not free from church influence until some
time after the sixteenth century.
This primitive "opera" music was thus fettered by difficulty of
notation and the influence of the ecclesiastical rules until
perhaps about 1600, when the first real opera began to find a
place in Italy. Jacopo Peri and Caccini were among the first
workers in the comparatively new form, and they both took
the same subject, _Eurydice_. Of the former the following
two short excerpts will suffice; the first is where Orpheus
bewails his fate; in the second he expresses his joy at bringing
Eurydice back to earth. Caccini's opera was perhaps the first
to introduce the many useless ornaments that, up to the middle
of this century, were characteristic of Italian opera.