Progress of Popular Music
Troubadours, jongleurs, minnesingers, and
meistersingers--Wagner's "Tannhäuser" and "Die Meistersinger"
as historical pictures--The German volkslied--The musical
guilds--The waits and the minstrels.
We saw that as far back as Dufay's time composers began to introduce
secular melodies into the mass. This was an evidence that the
ecclesiastical composers had been forced to make attempts to popularize
their works by a rude adoption of the melodies of the people. The
question, therefore, naturally arises: Who were the composers of the
secular music? Of course that is a question that cannot be answered very
definitely, but we do know who were the secular musicians of the time,
and we know that they were nearer the fundamental principles of modern
music than the churchmen were. The enormous mass of ecclesiastical music
produced in the middle ages was fit only for the worship of cathedrals.
It could never have been made to utter the notes of human passion, and
until some other style was found, the modern symphony, song, and opera
must have remained impossible. Church counterpoint survives to-day only
in church music and in the German fugue, a form of music which is
conspicuous for its intellectual rather than its emotional qualities.
The early secular musicians had no science at all, and very little art.
Their music was, therefore, simple and unpretentious, but it contained
the germs of our modern art forms, and it was bound in time to force its
way into the studies of the fathers.
The secular musicians of the early time were wanderers on the face of
Europe. They were the troubadours, jongleurs, minnesingers,
meistersingers, and minstrels.
The whole race of strolling musicians in the middle ages almost
certainly descended from the Roman comedians who were driven out of the
seven-hilled city when Alaric swept down upon it with fire and the
sword. They wandered into foreign lands to sing and pipe before the
Frankish chiefs, now their lords and masters. In the earliest days they
were simple vagabonds, whom the law did not allow redress for bodily
injury wantonly inflicted. In the latter half of the twelfth and the
early part of the thirteenth centuries these strolling musicians began
to be employed in the mysteries and miracle plays, and thus gradually
arose in the public estimation. Even before that time they had begun to
be taken into the service of the knightly troubadours and minnesingers
as accompanists, their French title being jongleurs.
Subsequently it became their business to go about singing the songs of
their masters, in short, to become their publishers. The troubadours
themselves were nobles, originally those of southeastern France. They
got their first inspiration from the folk songs, but their own songs
were distinguished by refinement and improved melody. These knightly
singers existed simultaneously with the jongleurs, who sang and played
for money. The most celebrated troubadours were King Thibaut, of Navarre
(1201-1253), and Adam de la Halle (1240-1286). It is a notable and
significant fact that the songs of the troubadours, like most of the
folk songs, ignored the church modes and moved in the modern major and
minor keys.
The last of the German minnesingers, Heinrich von Meissen, died in 1318,
but the celebrated Confrèrie de St. Julien des Ménestriers, of Paris,
lasted at any rate till 1741, for it is recorded that in that year Louis
XV. made Jean Pierre Guignon "le Roy des Violons." The songs of the
troubadours and wandering minstrels were the popular songs of the day of
Columbus, and in Spain the troubadours still survived. The character of
the music sung by these persons is well described by Fanny Raymond
Ritter in her "Essay on the Troubadours." She says:--
"The merit of the troubadours in furthering the progress of
music as an art was that they liberated melody from the fetters
of calculation, gave it the stamp of individuality, and bore it
on the wings of fancy into the domains of sentiment. They had
the further merit of introducing new and peculiar changes of
time, which, apparently irregular, were really forcible,
symmetrical, and original. It is also more than probable that
the troubadours received new ideas in regard to melody from the
East; as they found among the Arabs not only a different system
of tones, but many fanciful vocal ornaments then unknown in
Europe, and which they introduced in their own songs on their
return from the Crusades. But as harmony was in that day yet
undeveloped, the flowing vine of melody received little support
from it, and therefore often appears weak. The rules of
composition were then highly complicated and ill classified, yet
they were well understood by the best educated troubadours; and
though their earlier songs were stiff, closely resembling the
Gregorian chant in form and style, in some of the latter ones we
find graceful melodies that leave little to be desired, and that
possess more real variety and individuality of character than do
the words attached to them."
It is not a far cry from France to Germany across the Rhine, and the
chanson of the troubadour soon found its counterpart in the minnesong of
the fatherland. The era of the minnesinger has been divided into three
periods. The first, whose beginning is not definitely fixed, ended near
the close of the twelfth century. The second period comprised the last
decade of the twelfth century and the first half of the thirteenth. It
was the golden age of the minnesong, the age of Wagner's "Tannhäuser"
and the great Sängerkrieg at the Wartburg Castle, the age of the
Landgrave Hermann, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Walther von der
Vogelweide. This time has been made alive for us by the genius of
Wagner, whose contest in "Tannhäuser" introduces the actual personages
of the real story. The third period was that of decline. The fourteenth
century saw the gradual decrease of feudal power, and the burghers and
artisans dared to do what had hitherto been reserved for their lordly
masters. Thus the minnesong was supplanted by the meistersong, and the
meistersinger became the musical lawgiver of Germany.
The songs of the meistersingers were somewhat stiff and formal, yet not
lacking in melody, as that used by Wagner as the theme of his march goes
to show. Perhaps no better description of a meistersong could be given
here than that sung by "Kothner" in expounding the "Leges Tabulaturæ" to
"Walther von Stolzing":--
Each mastersinger-created stave
Its regular measurement must have,
By sundry regulations stated
And never violated.
What we call a section is two stanzas;
For each the self-same melody answers:
A stanza several lines doth blend,
And each line with a rhyme must end.
Then come we to the "After Song,"
Which must be also some lines long,
And have its especial melody,
Which from the other diff'rent must be.
So staves and sections of such measure
A mastersong may have at pleasure.
He who a new song can outpour
Which in four syllables--not more--
Another strain doth plagiarize,
He may obtain the master prize.
In Germany, too, flourished the folk song. Who wrote the old volkslieder
no one knows, but many of them have been preserved to us. The "Limburg
Chronicle" contains a number in use between 1347 and 1380, and the
"Locheimer Liederbuch" is a collection dated 1452. H. de Zeelandia, in
his "Lehrcompendium," gives many in vogue in the first half of the
fifteenth century. The essential features of the volkslieder are
clearness and symmetry of melody and firmness of rhythm. The early ones
also display a constant tendency to escape from the fetters of the
ecclesiastical modes. In fact to them is due the final development of
modern tonality.
The German church music of the time, from which developed the chorale,
was founded on the volkslied. The familiar example of "Isbruck, ich muss
dich lassen," set in four parts by Heinrich Isaak in 1475, and adapted
after the Reformation by Dr. Hesse as "O Welt, ich muss dich lassen,"
was but the continuation of the practice of Heinrich von Laufenberg, who
in the fifteenth century set sacred words to secular tunes continually.
This brief review of the state of music in Germany in the time of the
Netherlands school shows us that the volkslied and the meistersong were
the ruling powers, and that there was as yet no foreshadowing of the
mighty art which has since developed in the land of the Teutons.
In these days existed also the musical guilds which were the forerunners
of the continental town orchestras. As far back as the thirteenth
century the strolling musicians began to gather in towns, and there they
formed societies for the protection of their common interests. Some of
them became town pipers, and in the fifteenth century some were made
town and corporation trumpeters. One result of the work of the guilds at
this time was that musicians began to acquire some of the rights of
citizenship. The guilds were accustomed to place themselves under the
patronage of some noble, who selected from the guild a "piper king." It
was his business to see that "no player, whether he be piper, drummer,
fiddler, trumpeter, or performer on any instrument, be allowed to accept
engagements of any kind, whether in towns, villages, or hamlets, unless
he had previously enrolled himself a member of the guild." At irregular
intervals a court was assembled, consisting of a mayor, four masters,
twelve ordinary members, and a beadle, whose business it was to mete out
punishment to guild offenders. These guilds were simply the musical
protective unions of the day. Outside of the German nations, where these
guilds did not exist, the ordinary musician was a stroller, with hardly
any legal rights and no consideration. His occupation was regarded as
menial, and the servants of the knights treated him with contempt. The
jongleur who played the accompaniments for the troubadour, or even sang
his songs when the master had no voice, was regarded as a servant and
nothing more. The idea of any musician being entitled to the
consideration of an artist, except the great church composers, would
have been scouted.
In England the strolling musician was represented by the minstrel and
the waits, and his status was about the same as it was on the Continent.
In a somewhat better case were those who were under the protection of
some prince or noble. For instance, the children of the chapel ate in
the chapel hall with the yeomen of the vestry and were well cared for.
They were the young students of choir singing, instructed by a master of
song, who was appointed by the dean of the chapel. These children we
find as a part of the household establishment of Edward IV., who died in
1483.
The musicians of the Church were in much better circumstances. As far
back as the time of William the Conqueror we find that Hereford
Cathedral had endowments which included support for seven choristers. We
find similar endowments granted to St. Gregory's in 1363; to Wells in
1347; to the collegiate churches of Southwell, in Nottinghamshire; to
Beverley, in Yorkshire, and Westminster. At Oxford, New College had an
endowment for sixteen choristers, and Magdalen, All Souls', and St.
John's had similar funds. Nearer to Okeghem's day the famous Dick
Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, in 1424 founded an endowment for
choristers in the Church of St. Michael Royal, which he built.
Nevertheless, the first recorded case of a salaried organist is that of
Leonard Fitz Simon, organist of Trinity College, Oxford, about 1580, at
20s. per year.
Here are two examples of the popular music of the early times,--the
first a song by King Thibaut of Navarre, and the second the first part
of the old meistersong used by Wagner in "Die Meistersinger":--
[Music: Thibaut Meistersong.]
By THIBAUT OF NAVARRE.
L'au trier per la ma-ti-née
ent'r un bos et un ver-gier
Une pas-to-re ai tro-vé-e
chant-ant pour son en-voi-sier
et di-sait un son pre-mier
chi mi tient-li mais d'a-mour
Tan-tost cel-le par-en-tor
Ka je loi de frai-nier
si li dis sans de-lai-er
Belle, diex vous
doint bon jour.
[Music: Die Meistersinger.]
Ge-ne-sis am
neun und zwan-zig-sten
uns be-richt wie Ja-cob floh
vor sein bru-der E-sau
ent-wicht.
The reader will note that in the first of these there is a clearly
marked rhythmic movement of the simplest kind. The tune is distinctly in
the modern key of G major, and it is not polyphonic. The second tune is
in F major and while its rhythm is not clearly indicated, it is plainly
not a polyphonic composition. The directness of this kind of music and
its suitability to the expression of simple feelings were bound to make
themselves felt sooner or later in music. We are now to examine into the
causes which led to the simplification of church music and forced
composers to turn their attention more and more to the music of the
people.