How music grew, from prehistoric times to the present day

by Marion Bauer; Ethel R. Peyser

All music of this period not composed for the Church had the general name of Madrigal, but a real madrigal was a vocal composition for from three to six parts written on a secular subject, which often gave to the work a grace and lightness not in the motet. The vocal madrigals were to the music lovers of that day what chamber music is today, for instruments were not yet used without singing. Later, the lute played the chief melody with the voice, and it was only a step to have other instruments play the other parts of the madrigal. The instruments played a section of the composition alone while waiting for a solo singer to appear. He sang a part of the madrigal that was later called the air and the instrumental part was called the ritournelle, which literally meant that in this section of the work, the singer returned from “off-stage” where he had awaited his turn. By the end of the 16th century it had become the custom for motets as well as madrigals to have a solo air or aria, and an instrumental ritournelle, and this was the beginning of chamber music,—a very great oak which grew from a very little acorn.

In the first printed music books are many of the madrigals of the early period. We will tell you of the composers of this period separately, but remember that they all wrote practically the same kind of music,—masses, motets, and madrigals, but all with the subject borrowed from something they knew and with many parts for the voices. Often, too, the same tunes were used for Church and outside the Church. For this reason much music was published without the words, so that the singers could use sacred or profane words as they wished.

Strange as it may seem, it was the folk songs and ballads and not the learned church music, that had originality and came freely and sincerely from the hearts of the people.

Songs in Dance Form

Because these contrapuntal writings were heavy (can you imagine dancing to a canon?) a new kind influenced by folk music grew up among these people who were naturally gay and jolly and wished to be entertained. Songs for three and four parts appeared, more popular in style and simpler in form than the church motet and were the descendants of the music of the troubadours. These were in dance form, such as the French chanson, the vilanelle, the Italian canzona, canzonetta or little canzona, frottola, strambottes and the German lied. Many of these songs in dance form later inspired composers to write music for instruments alone, so that people danced to music without singing. These dance songs were called branles, pavanes, gaillardes, courantes, forlanes, rigaudons sarabandes, gigues, gavottes and many other names.

The Lute

The favorite instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries was the lute. It fought for first place with the vielle, the viole, the harp, the psalterion and the portative organ, but won the fight and took its place beside the most famous singers of the day, sometimes for accompanying and again reaching the dignity of soloist, as we told you above. In the 15th century it took the form, which we see most often represented in pictures and in museums, with its six strings, graceful round body, and long neck bent back as you can see in plate opposite page [127] already described. As time went on this lute was made larger and strings were added until at the beginning of the 17th century, it was replaced by an instrument called the arch-lute or theorbo, which had twenty-four strings, a double neck, and two sets of tuning pins.

The spinets or virginals, the great-aunts of our pianofortes first came into vogue in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Tablature

There was a notation called Tablature used in the 16th and 17th centuries to write down the music for lute and other stringed instruments such as the viol, cittern, theorbo. You will find, in pictures of Tablature, lines which look like our staff, but they do not form a staff, but simply represent the strings of the instrument. These lines vary according to the number of strings, from four for the cittern to six for the lute. The notation showed, not the position and fingering as we write music, but the position and fingering of frets and strings. Instead of neumes or notes you will find the alphabet up to the letter j, figures and queer dots and lines and slurs, but each sign had its own meaning and was important to the lutenist.