How Chamber Music began — Early Chamber Music compositions — Musical position of England — Purcell — J.S. Bach — Great violin makers — Haydn and Mozart — Corelli and the compass of the violin — William Shield and 5/4 time.
“In the time of the Frankish kings,” says Mr. H.E. Krehbiel,[3] “the word chamber was applied to the room in the royal palace in which the monarch’s private property was kept, and in which he looked after his private affairs. When royalty took up the cultivation of music it was as a private, not as a court function, and the concerts given for the entertainment of the royal family took place in the king’s chamber or private room. The musicians were nothing more nor less than servants in the royal household. This relationship endured into the present century. Haydn was a Haus-officier of Prince Esterhazy. As vice-chapelmaster he had to appear every morning in the prince’s ante-room to receive orders concerning the dinner music and other entertainments of the day.”
How Chamber Music began
This may be taken as one explanation of the origin of chamber music. Another is that near the end of the fifteenth century, madrigals and other pieces which no doubt were originally intended for singing began to be described as “madrigali et arie per sonare et cantare,” or, in the plain English of the time, “apt for voices and instruments,” by which is meant that the instruments joined with the voices probably at first to support them, both performing the same music.
About the same period and earlier it became customary to introduce instrumental music at the banquets of the wealthier classes, and what may be regarded as chamber music was used as a stimulus and a cover for conversation, a practice not even yet quite obsolete.
Early Chamber Music Compositions
From some such sources it seems likely that this form of music made a beginning. Composers then began to turn their attention to the growing requirements of such performers, and we find that many works were issued chiefly in the form of Courantes, Sarabandes, Gavottes, Gigues, and other dance forms. Music called Fancies, and sets of Ayres, and other pieces for lutes (a kind of guitar), and viols (the predecessor of the violin), also incidental music for masques, were much in vogue in England about this time, composed, among others, by Morley, Gibbons, John Dowland, Mace, Sympson, Jenkins, Lawes, and Locke. Hugh Aston, an instrumental composer of distinction, may also be mentioned. He left, among other works, a hornpipe which is remarkable. There is also a virginal book in the library at Cambridge that contains two or three hundred pieces for virginals, which instrument was a kind of harpsichord. In 1611 a collection of music for the same instrument was issued, the compositions of Byrd, Bull, and Gibbons. It was called “Parthenia.” Byrd’s “Variations on the Carman’s Whistle,” and Sellinger’s “Round,” are noteworthy works. John Jenkins published sonatas for two violins and a bass, with thorough bass for the organ and theorbo.
This was the great period of English music. Our position as compared with other nations was one of artistic supremacy, and we ought not to forget this as Continental writers are apt to do to-day.[4]
Musical Position of England
Later on compositions such as we have mentioned were followed both in England and on the Continent by works of a more highly organised character, and to some of them the titles Sonata and Concerto were applied. These must not, however, be confused with the music of like name of our day, for they were much simpler in construction, and contained little or nothing of what we call development.