SECT. IV.
X. What good-disposed ears can, in sacred chants, endure those enormous breaks, and lascivious inflections, which offend against the rules of decency, and are contrary to those of music? I speak of those flights and wanderings, which seem as if they had been studied, and which the voice takes by straying from the subject of the melody; of those languishing falls from one point to another, that run not only through the semi-tone, but also through all the intermediate comas, and are transitions, which are not contained in art, nor does Nature allow them.
XI. Experience shews, that the changes which the voice makes in the chant, by running through small intervals (such passages containing in themselves a degree of effeminate softness, if not a lascivious tendency), are apt to produce in the minds of hearers, an effect, correspondent to such sort of ideas, and impress on the fancy certain confused images, which represent nothing good. On this account, many of the antients, and particularly the Lacedæmonians, reprobated as pernicious to youth, the sort of music called Chromatic, which by the introduction of B-flatts, and sostenutos, divides the octave into smaller intervals than the natural ones. Hear what Cicero says of this: Chromaticum creditur repudiatum pridem fuisse genus, quod adolescentum remolesccrent eo genere animi; Lacedæmones improbasse ferentur. (Lib. 1. Tuscul. Quæst.) It may be supposed, they would have found more reason for prohibiting the Enharmonic also; which, by the addition of more flats and sostenutos, and by being joined to the two other sorts, the Diatonic and Chromatic, which must necessarily precede it, and by making the interval less still, divides the octave into a greater number of points: in consequence of which combination (the voice, by sometimes deviating from the natural point, through spaces which are yet shorter, that is to say, the minor semi-tones) there results a music, more soft and effeminate than the Chromatic.
XII. Is it not much to be lamented, that the Christians don’t use the same precaution the antients did, to prevent music from perverting the manners of youth? But we are so far from doing this, that already no music is allowed to be good, in which there is not introduced at every turn, both in the human voice, and in the instruments, points, which they call foreign, and which pass through all parts of the diapason, from the natural point to the accidental one; and this is the mode. There is no doubt but these transitions, managed with moderation, art and genius, produce an admirable effect; because they mark the expression of the words with more vivacity and spirit, than the pure diatonic progressions; and there results from so contriving things, a more delicate and expressive music. But the composers who are capable of doing this, are very few, and those few are the occasion of an infinite number of others losing and exposing themselves; who, by endeavouring to imitate them, for want of talents and address to manage the business, fail in the attempt, and form with their foreign introductions, a ridiculous music, which sometimes is insipid, and at others harsh; and when they mistake the least, there results from their labours, an unmeaning softness, and lascivious delicacy, which has no good effect on the mind, because there is no expression in it, capable of exciting any noble emotion. If, notwithstanding all that is objected to it, composers are desirous such music should go down, because it is the fashion, let them apply it to the use of the theatres and concert rooms; but don’t let them introduce it into the churches, as fashions were never contrived or calculated for them; and if the divine offices do not admit of change of modes, either in vestments or rites, why should they be admitted in musical compositions?
XIII. The case is, that this change of modes, contains at the bottom a certain venom, which Cicero gives an admirable description of; for he remarks, that in Greece, with the same pace manners declined towards corruption, music declined from its antient majesty, towards an affected softness; either because an effeminate music corrupted the integrity of men’s minds, or because a vitiated and depraved music debauches their taste, and inclines them to relish those bastard melodies, which, as symbols of, are best suited to their perverted manners: Civitatumque hoc multarum in Græcia interfuit, antiquum vocum servare modum: quarum mores lapsi, ad mollitiem pariter sunt immutati in cantibus; aut hac dulcedine, corruptelaque depraviti, ut quidam putant: aut cum severitas morum ob olia vitia cecidisset, tum fuit in auribus, animisque mutatis etiam huic mutationi locus. (Lib. 2. de Legibus.) So that the taste for this effeminate music, is the effect or cause of some relaxation in the mind. I would not however be understood to say, that all those who have a taste for such music, are tainted with this defect. Many of strict and incorruptible virtue, whom no vitiated music can warp, seem to approve it; but they in general do this, because they hear it is the fashion: and even many, though in reality they do not relish it, are led to say they do, only because they would not be looked upon as people wedded to, and prejudiced in favour of antiquated customs, and as persons, who are not possessed of faculties, capable of relishing the fine taste of the moderns.