Transcriber's Note: The spelling has been harmonized. Obvious printer
errors have been repaired. "Arianna" was first performed in 1608.
HOW MUSIC DEVELOPED
_A Critical and Explanatory Account of the Growth of Modern Music_
BY
W. J. HENDERSON
_Author of_
"THE STORY OF MUSIC," "PRELUDES AND STUDIES,"
AND "WHAT IS GOOD MUSIC?"
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1898_
BY FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.
Printed in the United States of America.
TO
CHARLES BAMBURGH
Table of Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE BEGINNING OF MODERN MUSIC 1
II. HARMONY, NOTATION, AND MEASURE 12
III. THE BIRTH OF COUNTERPOINT 23
IV. THE GOLDEN AGE OF CHURCH COUNTERPOINT 38
V. PROGRESS OF POPULAR MUSIC 54
VI. THE SIMPLIFICATION OF MUSIC 66
VII. THE EVOLUTION OF THE PIANO 83
VIII. THE EVOLUTION OF PIANO PLAYING 101
IX. CLIMAX OF THE POLYPHONIC PIANO STYLE 116
X. MONOPHONIC STYLE AND THE SONATA 126
XI. EVOLUTION OF THE ORCHESTRA 147
XII. THE CLASSIC ORCHESTRAL COMPOSERS 158
XIII. THE ROMANTIC ORCHESTRAL COMPOSERS 171
XIV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHAMBER MUSIC 186
XV. THE BIRTH OF ORATORIO 199
XVI. WORK OF HANDEL AND BACH 208
XVII. HAYDN AND MENDELSSOHN 220
XVIII. THE BIRTH OF OPERA 234
XIX. ITALIAN OPERA TO HANDEL'S TIME 253
XX. ITALIAN OPERA TO VERDI 276
XXI. BEGINNINGS OF FRENCH OPERA 290
XXII. REFORMS OF GLUCK 312
XXIII. MEYERBEER AND HIS INFLUENCE 324
XXIV. GERMAN OPERA TO MOZART 336
XXV. WEBER AND BEETHOVEN 348
XXVI. WAGNER AND THE MUSIC DRAMA 357
XXVII. THE LESSONS OF MUSICAL HISTORY 380
* * * * *
INDEX 395
How Music Developed
Chapter I
The Beginning of Modern Music
Descent of the Roman Chant from the kithara songs of the
Romans and thence from those of the Greeks--First appearance
of modern melody--Steps toward the formation of a musical
system--Ambrosian and Gregorian chants--Their character--Nokter
Balbulus and sequences--Spread of the Roman chant--Nature of
music at this period.
In reading any history of the development of music as an art one must
ever bear in mind the fact that music was also developing at the same
time as a popular mode of expression, and that the two processes were
separate. The cultivation of modern music as an art was begun by the
medieval priests of the Roman Catholic Church, who were endeavoring to
arrange a liturgy for their service, and it is due to this fact that for
several centuries the only artistic music was that of the Church, and
that it was controlled by influences which barely touched the popular
songs of the times. In the course of years the two kinds of music came
together, and important changes were made. But any account of the
development of modern music as an art is compelled to begin with the
story of the medieval chant.
In the beginning the chants of the Christian Church, from which the
medieval chant was developed, were without system. They were a
heterogeneous mass of music derived wholly from sources which chanced to
be near at hand. The early Christians in Judea must naturally have
borrowed their music from the worship of their forefathers, who were
mostly Jews. The Christians in Greece naturally adapted Greek music to
their requirements, while those in Rome made use of the Roman kithara
(lyre) songs, which in their turn were borrowed from the Greeks. Christ
and the apostles at the Last Supper chanted one of the old Hebrew
psalms. Saint Paul speaks also of "hymns and spiritual songs," by one of
which designations he certainly means the hymns of the early Christians
founded on Roman lyre songs. It is also on record that the Christian
communities of Alexandria as early as 180 A. D. were in the habit of
repeating the chant of the Last Supper with an accompaniment of flutes,
and Pliny, the Younger (62-110 A. D.), describes the custom of singing
hymns to the glory of Christ.
The psalms in the early Church were chanted antiphonally; that is, one
verse was sung by one part of the congregation and answered by another
with the next verse, or they were chanted by priest and congregation
alternately. Of course there could not have been any high artistic
endeavor in such music, because it must have been within the capacity of
the least skilled performers. There could not have been any fixed system
in the Church until its various branches in the vast Roman empire were
unified under a Christian emperor, Constantine (306-337 A. D.). Under
him art and architecture began to serve the Church, and it is about this
time that we begin to discover attempts at the formation of a system in
church music. Four distinct steps are traceable:--
_First._ A. D. 314.--Pope Sylvester founded singing-schools at
Rome.
_Second._ A. D. 350.--Flavian and Diodorus made antiphonal
chanting of the psalms a required part of the church service at
Antioch.
_Third._ A. D. 367.--The Council of Laodicea forbade
congregational singing, and confined the service to a trained
choir.
_Fourth._ A. D. 384 (about).--St. Ambrose brought together the
inharmonious elements in the church liturgy and formulated a
general system of chanting known as the Ambrosian chant.
The foundation of singing-schools produced choristers who were able to
meet the requirements of the improved music, for that was beyond the
narrow powers of the early congregations. The reader will readily see
how the first three steps toward the formation of a system were logical.
But differences in practice naturally crept in, and the work of Ambrose
appears to have been one of regulation. He founded his system on four of
the ancient Greek scales, which were, of course, at the base of all the
Greek and Roman tunes then used in the Church. It is unnecessary to go
into any extended account of Greek music in order to get an idea of the
character of the Ambrosian chant, but it is needful to give the subject
some consideration, because Greek music influenced modern music for
several centuries. All modern major scales are formed thus: two whole
intervals followed by one-half interval (a semitone), then three whole
intervals followed by a half. For example, take the scales of C and G:--
[Music C scale: 1 2 ½ 1 2 3 ½]
[Music G scale: 1 2 ½ 1 2 3 ½]
The Greek scales were formed on a wholly different principle. The
foundation of the system was the tetrachord, which always contained, as
its name implies, four notes. Between some two of these there was always
a half-interval, and the scale was named according to the position of
that semitone. The Doric scale had the semitone at the beginning of each
tetrachord, the Phrygian in the middle, and the Lydian at the top,
thus:--
DORIC. [Music: ½ 1 2 3 ½ 1 2 3]
PHRYGIAN. [Music: 1 ½ 1 2 3 ½ 1 2]
LYDIAN. [Music: 1 2 ½ 1 2 3 ½ 1]
The reader will understand that every scale was divided into two
tetrachords, each having its semitone in the same position. There were,
of course, several other scales, but these are sufficient to illustrate
the subject. The peculiarity of the sound of chants founded on these
ancient scales to our modern ears is what we call the "lack of
tonality." Our scales are all determined by the semitone between the
seventh and eighth notes, called the leading note. The scale of G, for
instance, cannot exist without the F sharp. Our ears have been trained
to expect that progression, and so these old Greek scales do not seem to
us to be in any key at all, and when we wish to describe a tune that has
apparently no beginning, end, or rhythm, we say it sounds like a chant.
For several centuries all modern music written by the scientific
composers suffered from this lack of tonality, while much of the popular
music of the people was written in the modern major and minor keys. Any
musician will see that the old Lydian scale was our scale of C major.
The ancient Æolian scale was almost the same as our scale of A minor.
From these two our modern scales developed themselves among the people
who were not busy trying to build church liturgies out of Greek music.
Not much is known about the musical character of the Ambrosian chant
except that contemporary writers regarded it as very sweet and solemn.
One important fact has come down to us, namely, that the Ambrosian chant
was metrical. This means that it followed the prosodial quantity of the
syllables in the Latin text of the liturgy. A long syllable had a long
note, and a short syllable a short note. From this peculiarity the chant
obtained the name of _cantus firmus_, or fixed chant. It was, however,
speedily merged in what is called the Gregorian chant. This has
generally been attributed to Pope Gregory (590-604 A. D.); but recent
investigations go to prove that he did little beyond issuing rules as to
its use and for its regulation. The church chant, however, was changed
in character in the time of Gregory, and one of the most fruitful
alterations was the abandonment of its metrical character. The tones no
longer had a determined length; and this abolished from the church music
of the time the last vestige of rhythm. It furthermore left the singers
free to do as they pleased, and so gave rise to abuses which seemed to
be injurious to music, but which really led to good results, as we shall
see. In form, the Gregorian chant was divided into five parts: the
"intonation," which was the introductory phrase of the first half of the
verse; the "recitation" of the principal part of that half on a single
note; the "mediation," which finished the first half of the verse and
formed the connecting link between it and the second half; the
"recitation," which began the second half; and the "termination," which
ended the verse.
[Music: Intonation=Bar 1. Recitation=Bar 2. Mediation=Bar 3, Bar 4.
Recitation=Bar 5. Termination=Bar 6, Bar 7, Bar 8.]
Gregory arranged the mass in its present form, and prescribed a special
introit for each psalm, and probably one for each division of the mass.
The famous old anonymous hymns, the Te Deum, Magnificat, Benedictus,
etc., had taken their place in the church service in its very earliest
days; and the mass had gradually been formed by selection and
arrangement of these. Another form which gradually grew up in the Church
was the Sequence. This had its origin in a desire to allow the
congregation more opportunity to take part in the musical service. In
their oldest and purest form these sequences consisted of ornamental
passages intoned on a single vowel,--as the final "a" of "jubila." These
sequences illustrate in a striking manner that freedom from control of
text which came so conspicuously into music in Gregory's time. This
freedom, while it led to abuses of the church ritual, gave music a
certain amount of independence as an art, and enabled it to develop more
rapidly than it could have done had it been tied fast to the text.
Nokter Balbulus, a monk of the famous convent of St. Gall, Switzerland,
is said to have popularized the sequences in the ninth century by
writing thirty-five special ones. Some of these are still used in the
Roman Church. The convent of St. Gall, to which Nokter belonged, was a
famous centre of musical culture in the eighth, ninth, and tenth
centuries. The writing of special words for sequences was followed by
others than Nokter; and in the end these reduced themselves to these
five well-known texts: Dies Iræ, Stabat Mater, Victimæ Paschali, Veni
Sancte Spiritus, and Lauda Sion.
The Roman chant soon spread through Europe. The successor of Gregory was
acknowledged by the Western nations as the Supreme Head of the united
Church, and this, of course, tended to a general use of the same ritual.
In 604 Roman singers were sent to England, and in 660 monks went to
teach the Gregorian chant in Brittany. Paris had become the capital of
France not long before that, and the Gallic service was now remodelled
on that of Rome. The Roman ritual was introduced into Germany by Saint
Boniface in 744, and it was probably made known at St. Gall about the
same time. Charlemagne, in the eighth century, founded schools of music
on Gregory's plan at Dijon, Cambray, Lyons, Orléans, and other French
cities, and also at Regensburg, Würzburg, Mainz, and other German
places.
The general introduction of the Gregorian chant established the melodic
basis of modern music. It will be well for the reader to bear in mind
that the three elementary constituents of music are melody, harmony, and
rhythm. Melody is produced by the successive sounding of single tones of
different pitch. Harmony is produced by the simultaneous sounding of
single notes of different pitch. When those notes are united according
to rule we call the result a chord. Rhythm is the regular recurrence of
long and short beats. Now, if the reader has comprehended the account
given of the early Roman chant, he will perceive that it embodied only
one of the elements of music, namely, melody. There was no harmony,
because everything was sung in one part. It was simply a plain chant;
and when the organ first came into use to accompany it, the instrument
played the same succession of single notes as the voices sang. This fact
must be kept clearly in mind in order to understand the next steps in
the development of modern music. In the beginning there was only melody;
and that was like the earth before the creation, without form and void.
There was no musical rhythm in either the Ambrosian chant, which
followed the prosodial quantity of the words, nor in the Gregorian,
which did not follow it. The text was prose; consequently it did not
have a regular recurrence of long and short syllables, as poetry does,
and therefore the music, following the text, could not have rhythm. All
that existed in the beginning of the modern tone art was the raising and
lowering of the voice through a certain number of intervals. How harmony
and rhythm made their appearance in the early stages of the art, and
what forms they took, must next be related.