The Birth of Counterpoint
The great French school of contrapuntists--What counterpoint
is, and how it began--Canons and the famous "Sumer is icumen
in"--Character of the French music--he masses of Machaut and
Tournay--The Gallo-Belgic school and Dufay's improvements.
There is one peculiarity of the early attempts at writing in several
melodious parts which must now be brought to the attention of the
reader, and which is very difficult to explain to a person not versed in
musical laws. Instead of writing free melodies to accompany the fixed
chants, the early composers took up the practice of making the tune
serve as its own accompaniment by the employment of a number of
ingenious devices, all included in the art of counterpoint. I shall
presently endeavor to explain the nature of this style of writing; but
as it began in France, we must first note the historical facts in
connection with the development of musical art in that country. The
reader will remember that Charlemagne established schools for the
cultivation of the Roman chant in many French towns. History shows us
that the connection between France and the Roman Church grew closer and
closer until, under Philip the Fair, the State dominated; and in the
beginning of the fourteenth century the papal court was removed by the
king to Avignon. In the twelfth century the University of Paris became
the centre of study in Europe. It was natural in these circumstances
that the cultivation of Roman Catholic church music should have
flourished in Paris, and that, about 1100 A. D., a distinct school of
French composers should have developed. This school flourished until
1370, and there has descended to us a knowledge of nearly five hundred
composers who belonged to it. It would be impossible and useless to
attempt to tell the reader all about these composers. What I desire to
do is to point out what this school accomplished in the development of
music.
Counterpoint is to-day the art of constructing two or more melodies
which can be sung or played simultaneously without breaking the rules of
harmony. Originally, however, it was the art of adding parts above or
below a part already selected. It originated, as we have seen, in the
practice of the descanters. A part improvised by a descanter came to
be called _contrapunctus a mente_ (a counterpoint out of the head),
while an additional part written by a composer was called _contrapunctus
a penna_ (a counterpoint from the pen). As musicians acquired skill in
the construction of these additional parts, they began to introduce new
devices, and to write with greater and greater freedom. The more free
their writing was, the further it tended to depart from parallel motion.
In the course of time some one hit upon the musical device called
"imitation," which means the repetition in a secondary part (say the
bass) of some passage already heard in the principal part (the treble)
while that principal part is still going on. The result of this device
is that one portion of a melody is made to serve as the second voice to
another portion of it. Who first hit upon this device, no one knows; but
the earliest example of it which has been preserved is found in the
"Posui adjutorum" of Perotin, one of the first of the French school of
writers. Here is the passage; and by giving it careful study the reader
will be able to understand the fundamental principle of canon, fugue,
and all the polyphonic forms:--
[Music: 1st Voice, 2nd Voice, Canon Form.]
I think that even a reader who is not a musician can understand this. A
is the first half of a melody, and B is the second half. While the first
voice is singing the first half, the second voice sings the second half
as the alto part of the first half. In order to make the first half act
as alto in the second half, the composer had to push the second voice
one bar ahead of the first voice, and then to add three extra notes to A
in order to make a conclusion to his alto part. There are two imitations
in this bit: the second half of the part sung by the first voice
imitates the first half of the second voice part, and the second half of
the second voice part imitates the first half of the first voice part.
By extending and developing such imitation as this, composers came to
write in "double counterpoint," which means the construction of two
parts in such a way that their different portions can be transferred
from one to the other just as they are in the selection from Perotin.
The reader will see at once that composing in this manner required a
great deal of calculation, and was a constant tax on the ingenuity of
the musician. In its early stages it prevented any attempt at making
music expressive, and reduced composition to a mere exercise of
scientific skill. But it forced the composers to a close study of the
materials of their art, and they acquired a great mastery over them and
constantly learned more and more about the possibilities of music.
Double counterpoint, which is at the foundation of the most rigid forms
of polyphonic writing, was generally known in the French school at least
as early as the thirteenth century, but the example from Perotin seems
to show that at least some of the composers knew it much earlier. This
might account for the existence of the celebrated example of early
English polyphony, a "canon" called "Sumer is icumen in." This was
discovered by Sir John Hawkins, who wrote a history of music in 1776.
Its manuscript was copied by a monk of Reading, John of Forneste, in
1228, and it must have been composed shortly before that time. The fact
that Walter Odington, an Englishman, wrote a treatise on music in 1230,
when the only famous school was that of Paris, leads me to believe that
these early English composers were disciples of the French. But it is
certain that the composer of "Sumer is icumen in" was a greater master
of counterpoint than his teachers, because this "canon" is the finest
specimen of polyphonic writing that has come down to us from those early
times. Here is its beginning:--
[Music: "Sumer is icumen in" for Six Voices.]
Chorus:
Su-mer is i-cu-men in . . .
Lhu-de sing Cuc-cu,
Grow-eth sed, and blow-eth med,
And springth the w-de nu . . .
Sing Cuc-cu . . .
I urge the reader to give careful attention to the remarkable
interweaving of the first four voice parts. At the fifth bar of the
melody, in the first voice, the second voice enters with the beginning
of the air. When the second voice reaches the fifth bar of the air, the
third voice comes in, and at the same time the first voice begins the
second half of the melody. When the third voice reaches the fifth bar of
the first half of the air, the fourth voice comes in, and the second
voice begins the second half. And so it goes on, the entrances always
being made according to the rule established at the start, and each
voice singing the tune without the alteration of a single interval to
make it fit into the scheme. Rigid imitation of this kind is called
"canon." In this particular canon the two lowest voices have a bass in
two parts, written in double counterpoint, which they sing over and over
again all the way through. A constantly repeated bass is called a "basso
ostinato," and this is the first example of it.
This kind of writing possessed the merit of high organization, without
which there can be no work of art. One might search in vain for
evidences of artistic design in the early Gregorian chant, while in such
works as those of the early Frenchmen and their English disciples they
confront one in every measure. The result was that these writers
developed several kinds of contrapuntal writing. But it must be admitted
that their work was cold and mathematical, being wholly the result of
ingenious calculation. Furthermore it must be borne in mind that they
had no conception whatever of music as a means of expression. In a vague
way they felt its suitability to the worship of their churches, and its
Gothic complexity did indeed harmonize well with ecclesiastical
architecture. But it never occurred to the composers of the French
school to try to make music beautiful for its own sake. They were too
busy exploring the resources of their art, and their _materia musica_
was as yet too scanty to allow them to treat their art with the command
of mastership. But they served well the cause of music by discovering
many of its essential rules, and by formulating in their treatises much
of its fundamental theory. It is not at all surprising that in the last
period of this school we meet with a large work. The last important
master of the school was William of Machaut, who flourished between 1284
and 1369, and wrote the mass for the coronation of Charles V. of France.
The teachings of the French spread into Belgium, and there arose a
school called the Gallo-Belgic. The first evidence of its existence is
found in the mass of Tournay, sung by the choristers of the Tournay
cathedral. Its composer is unknown, but it was written about 1330. It is
in three parts, the tenor (voice carrying the fixed chant) in the
middle, the descant (or counterpoint) above, and a bass below. It is not
nearly so well developed in its polyphony as "Sumer is icumen in" or the
works of the Frenchmen. Two of its voices move always in parallel
fourths or fifths (as in Hucbald's "organum") and the other has a
contrary motion. The most famous composer of the Gallo-Belgic school was
William Dufay, born 1400, died 1474. He almost wholly abandoned the use
of parallel fourths and fifths, which did so much to restrict
composition, and he also adopted the open-note notation, which had made
its appearance in France in the closing years of the French school.
Dufay used the following notes:--
[Music: | Greater | Lesser|
| Semi- | Semi- |
Large| Long| Breve| Semi-Breve| Minim| minim | minim | Semi-croma |
-----+-----+------+-----------+------+---------+-------+------------+
breve| semi-breve| minim| crotchet| quaver| semi-quaver|]
I have placed under Dufay's notes their present equivalents, with the
names. Dufay is the first composer of whom it is known that he made
earnest efforts toward a more plastic style of composition than that
previously in vogue. This was undoubtedly due to the considerable
development of the art of composition. In his search after a freer
style, he abandoned the strict "canon," and used "imitation" only here
and there in his works. Furthermore, he discerned the musical worth of
the songs of the people, and in doing so paved the way for the exertion
of a large influence by folk-song upon artistic composition. His method
of using the popular songs, however, was as bad as it was remarkable. In
composing a mass he would substitute in place of the fixed chant of the
liturgy some popular air; and he put the words in along with it,
probably because the words of the liturgy could not be sung to the tune.
Hence, in three masses by Dufay, still extant, the melodies and texts of
three songs of his day are found. One of these songs, "L'Omme Armée,"
became such a favorite that for more than a century nearly every
prominent composer wrote a contrapuntal mass around it. This abuse had
finally to be checked by the authorities of the Church. Dufay did
another thing, of more benefit to music. He wrote some music in a very
simple style, in which there were passages of pure chord harmony, such
as we use in our music to-day. As an example of this, I quote the
beginning of a fragment of one of his masses, reproduced in Naumann's
"History of Music":--
[Music: Dufay Mass]
Before Dufay's death the Gallo-Belgic school began to be overshadowed by
that of the Netherlands, with which the art of writing unaccompanied
church counterpoint reached its climax. To this school we must now turn
our attention.