Medieval Religious Music

During the Dark Ages, two sources contributed toward the formation of our musical system. The fist,the religious, developed in the ritual of the early church, and acquired form and substance chiefly by the labors of the monks, cut off from worldly matters in the seclusion of the cloisters. The second, the secular, developed from the spontaneous songs and dances of the people, disseminated by wandering minstrels. The chief distinction between these two styles lay in the variety of rhythm peculiar to each. The rhythm of church music was verbal, dependent solely upon theexpression conveyed by the words themselves, which were thus made prominent over musical structure; the rhythm of secular music was that of gesture, corresponding to the physical movements of the dance, and therefore consisting of a series of pulsations, regular in time, and grouped into short and balancing periods. These two sources were of necessity quite distinct during the Dark Ages, extending to the twelfth century; but later, the thought intercoure incited by the Crusades caused them to react upon each other.

Early Christian Music

The new ideas of Christianity, arising in the midst of the profligacy of Rome, gave impetus to a style of music removed as far as possible from that employed in the corrupt society of the times. Owing to severe persecutions, notably by Nero, about 64 A.D., and Diocletian, about 303 A.D., the adherents of the new tenets were obliged to cover up all traces of their acts; and therefore few records of their music are preserved. We know that it was purely vocal; that it was spiritual and elevated in character; and tha tit was in the form of simple unison chants, to which the psalms were sung, probably antiphonally, as in the synagogues. As Christianity flourised espcially in Asia Minor, many melodies must have had a Greek origin; while Hebrew melodies were undoubtedly also transplanted into the church. That music was held in high esteem is witnessed by the honor paid to its patron Saint Cecilia, who died about 230, and by the testimony given in the writings of both Christian and non-Christian historians of the period. The spirit of Christianity, which centered the thought upon the joys of the furture life, early voiced itself in hymns, the first complete one of which is by Clement of Alexandria (d. 220 A.D.). Parts of liturgical songs, like the Floria in Excelsis, and the Te Deum, may have been written even earlier.

Establishment of Ritual

The dream of a Holy Catholic Church which had arisen in the second century was realized when Emperor Constantine (306-337) made Christianity the state religion. He and his mother erected magnificent churches, church government was centralized and slidified on the lines of the Roman constitution, and a service was elaborated, befitting the new status of Christianity. Congregational singing was curtailed, and finally abolished except for a few responses, by the Council of Laodicea, which about 367 decreed that music should be rendered by choirs alone. To supply these choirs, singing schools were established at Rome, whence teacher were sent to other countries, where they formed other schools. Under Charlemagne, important schools of this nature were located at Metz and Soissons. A liturgy, adequate for the demands of the sumptuous services, was worked out gradually, as to words and music,to its completion, probably in the eighth century. In this the mass was made the central feature, and the focus of most elaborately prescribed music.

Eastern and Western Church

After the division of the Roman Empire, in 395, church history divides into that of the Eastern and Western Churches, though the final schism did not occur till the eleventh century. An important contribution of the Greek church was the multitude of striking and devout hymns, written in the course of the first thirteen centuries, but culminating about 800. Many of these, like the Glorias and the magnificat, made their way into the services and private devotions of the Western church. Latin hymnody, equally important, flourished during the same period.

Music is the Eastern church developed on similar lines with that in the Western, though it tended twoard more Oriental ornamentation, and more diversity of style, owing to lack of central governmetn. The history of our music system follows, therefore, its progress in the Western church.

Plain Chant

The music adopted for the church ritual, probably founded upon the music used by the early Christians, consisted of more or less elaborate melodies sung in unison, in the form of intonations, to be rendered by priest or choir, and for the performance of which rigid rules were laid down. These melodies varied widely in style, according to their texts and the epoch in which they were written. The compass was small, rarely exceeding an octave. They were either syllabic or florid; in either case the melody was absolutely dependent upon the words of the text. In the former case each syllable was sung to but one note; in the latter, syllables were sometimes emphasized by various inflections of the voice, which, in certain places, as on the last syllable of Alleluia, were elaborated to the extent of a complete melody.

About the eighth century the custom arose of giving words to these ornamental notes, which the congrregation were allowed to take up as a response. These responses wre called Sequences, and, as a form of popular song, they multiplied greatly. The "Dies Irae" and the "Stabat Mater" are examples of these.

The entire process of intoning described above was called "Plain Chant", "Choral" or "Gregorian Chant", from Gregory the Great, to whom its compilation was for a long time erroneously ascribed.

Gregorian Modes

The scales selected as basis for the Plain Chant wre named "Gregorian Modes", also after Pope Gregory, and were modelled after Greek modes, with which they were supposed, probably erroneously, to be identical. The original Authentic modes, four in number, were named respectively Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixo-Lydian. Later, to give greater compass, four Plagal modes were added, each a fourth below its corresponding Authentic, and these were named from the originals by prefixing the word "Hypo". After 800, four other modes were also adopted, but did not attain equal importance. Modes consisted of successions of whole and half tones, corresponding to intervals found in our major scale; and in each mode the final, or starting note, and the dominant, or reciting note, received prominence. In the Authentics the finals were the lowest notes; in the Plagals they were the fourth of each scale. The dominant was the fifth of each Authentic, and a third below that in its relative Plagal, ecept that B was always changed to C.

If the melody went ot or above the sixth note above the final, the mode was Authentic; otherwise it was Plagal. Each note had especial emotional significance, though the lines thus drawn were not absolute; thus, the Dorian was grave, the Hype-Dorian mournful (both used in the "Dies Irae"; the Phrygian was exulting, the Hype-Phrygian harmonious (both used in the "Te Deum"); the Lydian was gladdening, the hypo-Lydian devout; the Mixo-Lydian was angelic (in the "Gloria"), the Hypo_Mixo_Lydian was sweet.

Neumes

Notation was originally by letters, as in the Greek system; but in this, the use of the first fifteen letters of the alphabet (omitting J) was simplified by Boethius (par. 19) to a double use of A to G, in capitals for the lower octave, and small letters for the upper, while the latter were doubles (aa, bb, cc) for the still higher octave afterwards added.

In the eighth century a system of so-called Neumes was invented, consistin gof a number of graphic signs places over words to suggest the trend of the melody. Especially important were the virga /, meaning a rising inflection of the voice; the punctum \, a downward; the podatus, resembling a checkmark, down and then up, the clivis, up and down,; the torculus, down, up, down; the porrectus, up, down, up; the scandious, up three notes; and the climacus, down three notes. From these, various combinations were formed, denoting more complicated inflections.

The need of more definiteness, however, led to the adoption of a red starting line, about 900, th which the initial sound letter was prefixed, to show the pitch of the note on the line. Next, a yellow line was also drawn, and afterward two black lines were added, completing the four-lined staff, adequate for the compass of the Gregorian modes. Letters, still prefixed to indicate the pitch, afterwards became clef or key signs. Neumes also took more definite shape for use on this staff, until they arrived at the "square notation" of the fifteenth century.

Guido d'Arezzo

A Benedictine monk of Arezzo named Guido (died cir. 1050) was prominent in these reforms, whence he is sometimes called the "father of music". To him have been ascribed inventions probablhy perfected by himself, though incited by former musicians. One such invention was that of solmisation, or the process of reading scales by the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, taken originally from the initial syllables of the lines of an ancient hymn to John the Baptist, which began on successively higher degrees of the scale. Another divided the entire scale into seven interchangeable hexachords, or groups of six notes each, beginning on G, c, f, g, c, f, g. The lowest of these started with a foundational G, or Gamma, called Gamma ut, whence the name Gamut, afterward applied to the entire scale compass. To effect the proper sequence of inervals in these scales, which always required a semitone between the third and fourth notes, B was made a moveable note, sometimes marked B rotundum (B flat, whence our flat), sometimes B quadratum (B natural, whence our natural). Later the seventh note was fixed in the scale and took the syllable si, the first leters of the words Saint Iean, to whom the hymn was dedicated. The system thus evolved was extremely complicated for the singers, and for simplicity there was used in the singing schools a curious device, known as the Guidonian Hand, by which each finger joint represented certain syllables of the hexachords.

Organum

The first attempts at combining sounds are involved in obscurity. A form of such union called the drone bass, in whcih one part sang a continuous bass note to another moving part, was of great antiquity; and, owing to the varied compass of voices, octave singing must always have existed where voices were used togehter. For the same reason, a habit of singing the lower voices below the upper at a distance of a fifth or fourth came into use in medieval times. This custom was recorded in the treatises of various musicians who lived in the tenth and eleventh centuries, receiving the equivalent titles of organum and diaphony. According as one, two or three parts wre added to the original melody at distances of fourths, fifths and octaves from each other, the organum was called duplum, triplum, or quadruplum.

Discant

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the harshness and monotonhy of this primitive style was somewhat modified by the introduction of other intervals, called symphonies, and by the addition of some variety in respect to rhythm. Taking a known melody, either religious or secular, as basis, or cantus firmus, the composer wrote an additional part to be sung with it, but differing if rhythm, and involving, besides fourths and fifths, unisons, octaves, and a few so called dissonances. The name discant, or "singing apart", was given to this process, and the additional melody was called the discanting part.

Counterpoint

The more definite assertion of the important principle of contrast naturally followed. It was discovered that a melody which was opposed note against note to the cantus offered great possibilities for the development of this principle; and musicians eagerly attached the new problems thus presented. Thus, after 1200, the new science of Counterpoint (punctum contra punctum), as it came to be called, grew rapidly, and the succeeding three centruies witnessed an unparalleled struggle over material which, from a formless and crude mass, was finally brought into a malleable and shapely condition. Beginning by adding a single melody to the given cantus, composers experimented with the conjunction of three, four, and sometimes many more parts, treating the wrok as an intellectual subtley, in which the adherence to arbitrary rule was of paramount importance. A peculiar phase was reached when two familiar melodies were, so to speak, rubbed togehter, by modifying rhythms, and mby making changes absolutely necessary to eliminate the harshet dissonances. To secure unity, the principle of repetition was hit upon. A phrase stated in the original voice was repeated in another, and from this device the form of the Canon emerged, in which one voice imitates anohter, note for note, at a given distance.

Musica Ficta

Singers themselves contributed not a little to the resources of the new science by experimenting on their own account. Prominent vocalists delighted in varying their parts, as written, by embellishments, or by extemporizing chromatic notes to soften the harsh effect of som eof the intervals. This musica ficta, "false music", as it was called, at first frowned upon by composers, finally made its way into authorized usage, and resulted in smoother writing for voices, as well as in the employment of accidentals, thus paving the way for modulation.

Mensural Notation

With part-writing came the necessity for expressing time values in notation, and to Franco, a musician of uncertain data who wrote a valuable treatise on the subject, is credited the invention of a vehicle for this purpose. It is certain that about his time a system of notes came into use modelled after the neumes, but expressing time values. These were:

A difficulty which complicated mensural notation for a long time was the regulation of note values to allow their use in both triple and duple metre. At first a maxima equalled three longae in triple time, and two longae in duple time, with proportional uses of the other notes; and it was much later before the device of the dot was invented. The sign of a circle placed at the beginning of the staff indicated perfect or triple time, regarded as a symbol of the Holy Trinity; which a broken circle indicated imperfect duple time. A line of diminuation drawn throught eh circle reduced the measure one half its value.

By the fifteenth century the five lined staff was employed for vocal writing; and in the same century notes with white heads, modelled after the black ones, appeared. Lozenges shaped black notes with stems finally served for the shorter notes, as follows:

Red notes were also in use, although their exact character is disputed. Accidentals were soon employed, though bars and braces did not exist till 1600. The influence of the neumes was shown in the complicated ligatures, which were still employed for groups of notes, to represent voice inflections.