The art of music undergoes change, as does language, because it adapts
itself to the expression of changing views of life. “Everything new,”
says Frazer, “is apt to excite the awe and dread of the savage.” The
active and exploring temperament seeks new experiences intellectual
as well as physical; the temperament that is sedentary and passive
shelters itself behind what is already well established. It dreads
novelty and dreads it particularly in music――that is, if it is
susceptible to music at all――for the very reason that music is the most
immediate means of expressing innermost experiences such as mankind
often fears to express in the more easily misinterpreted medium of
words. Music has at all times been strangely associated with fear. From
the earliest days it was the confederate of magic and religion. Even
in classical Greece it was regarded as a thing of danger if not kept
under the severest control. Sir Henry Hadow has pointed out that in the
whole of classical Greek literature there is not a word of what we can
call musical criticism, that is, criticism of music simply as an art
in itself. But although moralists discussed it from a strictly ethical
point of view, their very fear of it shows how powerful must have been
its influence on those who enjoyed it. The absence of critical writings
does not necessarily imply an absence of artistic feeling or artistic
discrimination. It is a matter of common knowledge that the Greek word
for “music” covered a far wider field than the word does to-day. Music
was to the Greeks practically inseparable from poetry, so that we find
on the one hand that their poetry absorbs much of the inventive skill
which we now consider to be more appropriate to music, and on the other
hand that music comes in for a good deal of the ethical censure which
is more likely to be due to the poetry. Fortunately artists have at all
times been reluctant to submit to the tyranny of moralists.
Although practical experience may force us to admit that the perpetual
change to which music has been subjected during the course of centuries
makes it impossible for us to arrive even after prolonged study of
documents at a complete understanding of the art of the remoter past,
it is nevertheless interesting to make the attempt for the sake of
deepening historical knowledge. If we cannot enter into the life of
our ancestors without studying their arts as well as their politics,
we must certainly pay as careful an attention to their music as we do
to their architecture or their painting. The historians of music have
only recently begun to set forth in a tentative way the evolution of
musical forms. They have paid little or no attention to the varying
relations of music to the other arts and to life in general. Nor have
they considered seriously the history of musical appreciation. But if
we are to understand the significance of music at various periods it
is obviously of interest to discover at what date music began to be
regarded as an independent art――independent, that is, not merely of
poetry, but also of magic, religion or ethics. And this will further
lead us to the closely connected question of its varying psychological
appeal.
The rough division, suggested in a previous chapter, of that appeal
into the three aspects, physical, emotional and intellectual, will at
least serve to provide us with an experimental basis. If we find it
unsatisfactory we shall at least hope to make our minds clearer as
to its real nature in the process of submitting it to a historical
test. There is, too, another well-known classification of artistic
experience under the adjectives “Dionysiac” and “Apollinian.” The
latter coincides, if I understand it aright, more or less with what
I have called the “intellectual” appreciation of music; but the
“Dionysiac” view of music seems to require more searching analysis. It
is clear that the Dionysiac view of music must be very much the older,
as well as the commoner, of the two. The remoteness of Greek art of
all kinds has caused most people to regard it in a very chilly light,
although modern archæology has gone some way towards correcting this
view. But it is highly probable that even to the more intellectual of
Greek music-lovers music (using the word in our normal sense) was more
frankly a matter of physical sensation than cultivated musicians, at
any rate in England, would willingly admit it to be for themselves.
It was pre-eminently vocal, and as the Greeks were a Mediterranean
people with a very clear and concrete outlook on life, its appeal to
them might be more reasonably compared with that of opera to South
Italians. To people vividly conscious of all physical things singing
naturally implies intensification of the personality――including
the physical personality――of the singer. This will account for
Plato’s intimate conjunction of music with bodily conditions and his
consequent apprehension of its possible danger to morals. Evidently,
too, the associational appeal of music was then already recognized
and deliberately exploited by composers, though here it is difficult
to separate clearly musical from purely rhythmical and poetical
associations.
The Romans seem to have regarded music merely as an amusement. There
are plenty of people in all countries to-day, even in Germany itself,
who take the Roman view of music. It does not necessarily preclude
the view of music as an art by those who practise it for the mere
amusement of others, although it tends to lower standards because it
inevitably encourages commercialism. Among the early Christians we at
once perceive a return to the fear of music as a dangerous thing. It
could only be tolerated as the “handmaid of the Church”; but though
that doctrine is still being preached, musicians have rebelled more
and more resolutely against the acceptance of the ancillary position.
St. Augustine’s famous description of the effect that music had on him
shows how apprehensive he was lest music should become a more potent
influence than dogma. Others, less sensitively susceptible to the voice
of music than Augustine, speak of it as a thing purely subservient.
The most illuminating phrase is that of St. Basil who compares the
use of music in association with doctrine to the physician’s use of
honey to disguise the unpleasant taste of his medicines. Yet it is
clear that during the first thousand years of the Christian era there
was developed in the shadow of the Church an art of music which was
highly sophisticated and self-conscious. The ecclesiastical view of
music had at least this to be said for it, that it caused music to be
written down. It had for ritual reasons to be definitely fixed in an
authoritative record, whereas the music of the profane world, composed
for the delight of the moment, was not recorded and has therefore been
lost for ever.
V
The mediaeval development of musical notation has an important bearing
on the history of music as an art. It brought music into direct contact
with the graphic arts and must have helped to suggest that the melodies
written in a book were no less beautiful and no less permanent than
the pictures which illustrated the text. The monks who invented
notation in order to preserve liturgical music intact and uncorrupted
from the vain errors of sinful man did as a matter of fact thereby
provide him with the means of developing his error scientifically. It
occurred to someone that secular music could be recorded in notes as
well as sacred. The alphabet ceased to be practically a monopoly of
the Church. The social status of the musician rose as soon as notation
made it clear that the composition of a piece of music could be a
thing apart from its performance. When music can be read from notes
its hearers inevitably begin to realize that the individual performer
has no exclusive property in it. His voice may have lost none of its
thrill, but the listener knows now that interpretation is not the same
thing as spontaneous creation. If a song or a dance tune is thought
worth the trouble of writing out, it means that it is held to be worth
preserving. The musician who made it begins to take rank with the
learned clerk instead of being classed with tumblers and acrobats,
rogues and vagabonds. The cultured amateur makes his appearance in the
ages of chivalry.
Music, considered as a fine art, belongs to the privileged classes
alone. No doubt the illiterate people had their songs and dances, but
the ordered progress of musical development was of necessity carried
on mainly by those who could read and write. It is in this period
that the musical styles of East and West are sharply differentiated by
the discovery of the principle of harmony. Harmony, the simultaneous
sounding of two or more different notes, is so indispensable a part of
music to-day that many people find it almost impossible to conceive
of an art of music based on melody alone. The most unlearned are so
accustomed to the sounds of harmonic music that although their natural
instinct inclines them first towards pure melody it may be doubted
whether they can recall an ordinary tune without at least some vague
half-conscious recollection of a harmonic basis to it. This suspicion
is confirmed by the fact that many tunes have become widely popular
in which the melody has at moments no significance apart from the
underlying harmonies.
The early history of harmonic experiment is still a matter of
controversy; but whether it came from the Netherlands, from England or
from Scandinavia, it undoubtedly originated in the North of Europe,
and for several generations the chief focus of musical development was
centred in Flanders. This geographical factor has its significance.
Melodic music is individualistic, harmony is co-operative. When two
voices sing different notes simultaneously in a piece of music, they
are obliged to show a certain consideration for one another. In the
first place they must not try to shout each other down. Secondly, they
must agree to accept some common system of rhythm and pace, if there
is to be ordered principle of consonance between them. And if their
music is to be pleasing in its general effect, they must accommodate
their voices one to the other so that they blend agreeably. Each of
these points involves a certain self-sacrifice and subordination of
the individual to the community which is fundamentally irksome to
the Mediterranean temperament. The distinction between composer and
performer becomes sharper than ever. The history of musical composition
from the time of _Sumer is icumen in_ (1260) to that of Josquin des
Prés (c. 1445–1521) shows the persistent effort of musicians to
curb the recalcitrant independence of the individual parts in the
interests of harmony and order. The writing down of music no doubt
helped considerably towards this. The tradition of extemporary singing,
even in harmony, was kept up for a very long time, but it is obvious
that awkwardnesses which might be overlooked at a single _impromptu_
performance would be submitted to criticism and correction when they
had been set down on paper. The Netherland school of the fifteenth
century devoted much study to intricate technical devices, and we see
here the most conspicuous example in early times of music in which
emotion is completely sacrificed to mechanical ingenuity. It need
hardly be said that this elaborate art was employed exclusively in
the service of the Church. The extreme examples of it can hardly
have afforded any listener the opportunity of enjoying the sensuous
pleasure of sound, either in single voices or in the combinations of
its harmony. Nor can we imagine that it was a type of music which
evoked associative images. A product of the intellect it certainly was;
but Apollo must have been as little responsible for its inspiration as
Dionysus. It was discipline; and at any rate its poverty of melodic
invention, its passionless indifference to sensuous beauty and its
rigid obedience to rule may have represented the three monastic virtues.