I
We have already discussed the origins of polyphony and the condition of secular popular music in the dim periods of the Middle Ages. We shall confine ourselves in this chapter for the most part to the development of polyphony, the art of music within the church, not because it was only within the church that polyphony was perfected, but because the art can be most easily and consistently traced in church music. None of the great composers whose importance we shall discuss restricted himself only to religious music, but all gave the greater part of their energy thereto, and most of the available knowledge of music from 1300 to 1600 is related to the church. It must not be forgotten, on the other hand, that secular music exerted a vigorous influence upon ecclesiastical music, an influence constantly combatted by the church authorities, yet constantly triumphant. The two styles acted and reacted upon each other in a manner which may be observed at various periods of musical history.
The study of the development of music from 1300 to 1600 is largely the study of the art or science of polyphony. Polyphony, or counterpoint, is primarily the art of combining two or more voice parts so that they shall maintain their independent character and individual interest, and still harmonize with each other. Early musical notes were written as dots, or points, one voice under or against another, whereby the term contra punctum, meaning simply note against note, originated. As has been previously explained, the first or more important melody, called subject, theme, or cantus firmus, was generally placed in the tenor, so called from tenere (to hold), on account of its holding the melody: and the addition of one or more melodies to the cantus firmus, or theme, under strict rules and regulations, is the art of counterpoint.[84]
One of the most important devices for enhancing interest in the principal melody is known as ‘imitation’; that is, the repetition of a theme or phrase, or parts thereof, either at a different pitch from the original, or in a different voice part, with or without rhythmic or other modifications, which, however, must not be so great as to destroy the resemblance. Combining, as it does, variety with unity of impression, and offering the composer opportunity for the display of great ingenuity, the art of imitation grew rapidly in importance, and became one of the chief and most characteristic beauties of polyphonic writing.[85] To trace the growth of that style of writing, which has been called the Netherland style, is our present purpose.
In Chapter VI we traced the beginnings of polyphony in the stiff organum, and the growth of the so-called mensural system by which all music was reduced to triple rhythm and bound by mathematical laws, indifferent to beauty, relentlessly rigid and monotonous. During this period the musical centre of Europe was Paris, where the organists of Notre Dame were the most influential composers. Here the reaction against the system found voice in theoretical discussion, though this again was probably only the reflection of what had been going on in actual practice, both in France and elsewhere. Indeed, it is claimed by some writers (notably Riemann) that certain composers of Florence, under the direct influence of Troubadour song, were the first to throw off the fetters of musical dogma; England, too, has a serious claim for priority in the new movement,[86] which was influenced everywhere by the spontaneous florescence of secular song. But the name ars nova, by which the reform was designated by its protagonists in contradistinction to the ars antiqua of their Franconian predecessors, has led historians to connect it with the probable author of the treatise entitled ‘The Ars Nova.’ Philippe de Vitry, bishop of Meaux (1290-1361), is said to be the author of this treatise, as well as of several others dealing with measured music, ‘proportions’ and the relative value of the symbols of notation. In it he advocates counterpoint for several voices, rhythmic variety of a free use of chromatic alterations. None of his own compositions has been preserved to us, however. Another writer, known by the name of Jean de Muris, left several works of similarly radical character. He is not to be confused, however, with a theorist of the same name designated as ‘the Norman,’ who taught at the Sorbonne from 1321 on, and whose teaching was so conservative as really to constitute a reaction against the new method—the ars nova. This effort toward freedom was characterized, first by the reintroduction of duple time into church music, in which triple time, on account of its symbolistic connection with the Trinity, had long held the field; secondly, by the emancipation of individual voices by means of a greater variety of rhythm; thirdly, by the prohibition of parallel octaves and fifths;[87] and lastly, by the differentiation between half and full cadences,[88] which, in homophonic music—in plain-chant and in secular song—had long been recognized.
The introduction of the natural duple rhythm into music written for the church demanded the addition of new signs to the mensural system of notation (cf. Chap. VI, pp. 177 ff.), for it was necessary that singers should be informed whether they were to sing according to the triple or double scheme. Thus there appear about this period new time signs. Of these a semi-breve, still called, by the way, tempus perfectum circle,
, signified the division of the breve into three or perfect time. A half-circle,
, signified the division of the breve into two semi-breves, and this was imperfect time. A dot within the circle or the half-circle,
, indicated that the semi-breve was to be divided into three minims, but without the dot the semi-breve equalled only two minims. The three-part division of the semi-breve constituted major prolation, the two-part, minor prolation. Perfect or imperfect time was sung twice as fast if the time sign was cut by a line,
. The second of these cut signs still survives in the modern sign,
, signifying alla breve time. It appears likely that De Vitry himself was the first to think of using colored notes to signify still another genus of rhythmical subdivision called proportio hemiolia; and that he was the first to use the term contrapunctus, or counterpoint, instead of descant.
Through lack of actual examples of the period we are unable to tell how thoroughly and readily church composers adopted the methods of the ars nova, but eventually their advocacy was of momentous importance. It is true that secular music was the first to benefit by the advance, for it preserved naturally all the elements which the new law purposed to regulate. Hence the first form—that which constitutes the first ground of interaction, the transition to the polyphonic form of church music—was the popular chanson, an elementary form of song, evidently developed from the canson and the ballad of the Troubadours, etc., which, as we know, were composed for a solo voice with an improvised instrumental accompaniment. According to Riemann this development of the chanson first went forward in Italy, in connection with the movement known as the Florentine ars nova, a detailed account of which we have chosen to reserve for our next chapter. The Italian ars nova, which is held by modern historians to have influenced the French ars nova in various ways, and to have transmitted to it a style of composition in which the upper voice was freely invented and harmonically interpreted—though in a rude manner—by the accompanying voice or voices, a style which by 1400 was fully developed. These chansons were, it should be noted, like their prototype, chiefly for one solo voice with instrumental accompaniment and varied by instrumental preludes, interludes, and postludes. Purely vocal polyphony in chansons was rare before 1500, though examples of an elementary kind of part-songs have also been preserved, and, as the polyphonic style advanced, these eventually superseded the instrumentally accompanied solo (monodic song).
Meantime, however, the church had fallen heir to these primarily secular inspirations and developed under the rules of the ars nova a freer contrapuntal style, whose chief vehicles were the Mass and the Motet, forms whose general characteristics have been explained in previous chapters. Characteristic of this new polyphony is the so-called imitative style, whose real origin has never been discovered and which is the distinguishing feature of the schools about to be discussed. The first indications of this imitative, or Netherland, style are found in the works of Jehannot Lescurel and Guillaume de Machault (d. ca. 1372).
Machault is the composer of the first known four-part mass, which was performed at the coronation of Charles V, in 1360. It must be admitted that this is not a very good specimen, even of early polyphony. The parallel octaves and fifths already prohibited by musical authorities had no terrors for Machault, and his discords amount to nothing less than cacophony. It is a historical landmark, however, and serves as a starting point from which to trace the development of contrapuntal methods. In justice to Machault it should perhaps be said that he was a much better poet than composer, and his verses deserve a higher rank than this music, which includes, besides the mass, two and three-part chansons rondeaux and motets.
For some years longer Paris continued to be, as it had been for more than two hundred years, the musical centre of Europe. The prestige it had held so long was lost, ultimately, not only through an actual decline of original power, but through an abuse of the power they possessed. The standards of the old organ masters of Notre Dame, if somewhat dry, were at least scholarly; but we begin to see, in the early fourteenth century, a deterioration, and a tendency among singers to make a display of their ability in improvisation. Canons and rounds of that time, and even long after, were written in a kind of shorthand, understood, presumably, by every trained singer, but nevertheless giving some freedom of judgment to the performer, which was easily abused. The first phrase of the cantus firmus was usually written out; after this a few signs in Latin, meaning nothing to the modern musician unskilled in the mysteries of this art, would indicate the time of entrance and relative pitch for the other voices. Imitation was almost continuously in use; the ‘accidentals’ of modern notation were but rarely indicated, even as late as the time of Palestrina, and the ‘key signature’ of the present day was unknown. However, the training of the chapel singers was such as to give a thorough knowledge of the use of accidentals and of the musical symbols of the time. Intricate rules for their guidance were laid down; but, carried away by the flood of new ideas, and unrestrained by scholarly fastidiousness, many of them indulged in liberties which loaded down the pure melody of the venerable plain-chant with inappropriate ornamentations, and often rendered it hopelessly unrecognizable.
In protest against these unwarranted melismas and tasteless innovations of singers, especially of the cathedral choirs and of the papal chapel, the famous bull of 1322 was issued by Pope John XXII. It was not a protest, primarily, either against the popular faux-bourdon, which was generally in use until after the return of the papacy to Rome (1377), or the contrapuntal school, per se. It was certainly not against the methods of the ars nova, as is proved by the use of certain technical terms peculiar to the ars antiqua. It is against the abuses of the latter school, the obscuring of the plain-song melodies and the violation of the spirit of church music by frivolous rhythmic variations, ornamentation, and juggling with counter melodies, often of profane character. Many other protests of a like nature came from the papal chair during the next two hundred and fifty years; and we shall have occasion to see, in a later chapter, the result of the struggle between religious decorum, on the one hand, and, on the other, the vagaries of the artistic mind in the throes of development.
Yet it must be granted that the masters of the old French school deserve no small credit for their scientific and practical labors. During the time of their ascendancy the resources of notation were increased, double counterpoint was cultivated, a greater freedom in metre and rhythm was introduced, the several voices became more nearly independent, and an extraordinary degree of attention was paid to the problems involved in mensuration. They failed, however, in reaching a point at which true artistic composition, in the larger sense, begins. ‘Of symmetrical arrangement, based upon the lines of a preconceived design, they had no idea. Their highest aspirations extended no farther than the enrichment of a given melody with such harmonies as they were able to improvise at a moment’s notice: whereas composition, properly so called, depends, for its existence, upon the invention—or, at least, upon the selection—of a definite musical idea, which the genius of the composer presents, now in one form, and now in another, until the exhaustive discussion of its various aspects produces a work of art, as consistent, in its integrity, as the conduct of a scholastic thesis, or a dramatic poem.’[89]
It was this very quality of design which distinguished the work of the Flemish composers, who, about the middle of the fourteenth century, gained the dominating position among European musicians.