Famous composers and their works, Vol. 1

by Unknown

and the semi brevis,

. He also distinguished common from triple time, calling the latter "perfect." Fétis quotes from the introduction to Franco's "Ars Cantus Mensurabilis" the following words: "We propose, therefore, to set forth in this volume this same measured music. We shall not refuse to make known the good ideas of others, nor to expose their mistakes; and if we have invented anything good, we shall support it with good arguments." Fétis, however, makes this significant remark: "Néanmoins le profond savoir qu'on remarque dans l'ouvrage de Francon, et l'obscurité dans laquelle sont ensevelis et les noms et les œuvres de ceux, auxquels il attribue la première invention de la musique mesurée, le feront à jamais regarder comme le premier auteure de cette importante découverte." [Fétis, Mémoire sur cette Question: "Quels out été les mérites des Neerlandais dans la musique," etc.—Question mise au concours pour l'année 1828 par la quatrieme classe de l'Institut des Sciences, de Litterature et des Beaux Arts du Royaume des Pays-Bas.]

With harmony and measure governed by rules and the written page at hand as a conserving power, systematic composition became a possibility. The study of this art was the work of monks, who were the repositories of polite learning in the middle ages, and they naturally sought for their thematic material in the plain chant of the church. Their treatment of this chant was a natural outgrowth of the impromptu production of music which had preceded systematic composition and which clung to existence with great pertinacity. Guido of Arezzo had taught choristers the art of singing with such success that they began the long-honored custom of adding ornaments to their melodies. They carried this practice to such an extent that it became necessary for one singer to intone the melody while another sang the ornamental part. This adding of ornamental parts was called the art of discant; and when the monks took up scientific composition they simply added discants to the liturgical chants of the church. This was the beginning of counterpoint, the art of writing two or more melodies which shall proceed simultaneously without breaking the rules of harmony. The name "counterpoint" was early applied to it by Johannes de Muris, doctor of theology at the University of Paris in the beginning of the fourteenth century. This indicates that by his time the scientific setting of note against note had fully superseded discant, the fanciful elaboration of the singers.

It was in the hands of the great masters of the Netherland school that this counterpoint, the first species of scientific composition, was developed to its highest perfection. In the main the differences between their counterpoint and ours are due to the cramped harmony of their time, which was fettered by the employment of the Gregorian scales. The superiority of Bach's counterpoint over theirs from a technical point of view is the result of his mastery of chromatics and his perfection of the system of equal temperament. With the aesthetic superiority of his work we need not concern ourselves, for we must bear in mind the fact that most of the Netherland masters were absorbed in developing the technical construction of music, and had little to do with the exploration of its emotional possibility.

Systems are not completed in a day. Those writers on musical history who pass immediately from the labors of Franco to the Netherland masters ignore the long series of tentative works of the French composers who flourished between 1100 and 1370 A. D., and of the English composers who flourished between the same years. It is a well established fact that in England there were many writers who showed skill in the early contrapuntal forms. Johannes Tinctoris, a Netherlander, writing in 1460 A. D., went so far as to say that the source of counterpoint was among the English, of whom Dunstable was in his opinion the greatest light. Walter Odington, an Englishman, wrote a learned treatise on counterpoint in 1217, and some authorities accept him as the composer of the notable canonic composition, "Sumer is icumen in." It is pretty clearly established, however, that Odington was a disciple of the French school, while Dunstable, being a contemporary of Binchois, was of later birth than the early French composers. The writer of this paper is of the opinion that the line of contrapuntal development appears to join Flanders with France rather than with England, and he, therefore, prefers to consider chiefly the French school.

The Frenchman, Jean Perotin, then, about 1130 A. D., employed imitation, and one of his immediate successors, Jean de Garlande, says in his treatise on music that double counterpoint was known before his time. He says it is the repetition of the same phrase by different voices at different times. It is impracticable in this article to review in detail the achievements of the French school, but a summary of its work is necessary to a comprehension of the Netherland school. The Frenchmen possessed three kinds of harmonic combinations: the Déchant (discant) or double, the triple and the quadruple, or in other words, contrapuntal compositions in two, three and four parts. Discants were of two kinds. In the first the cantus firmus, or fixed chant of the liturgy, was sung by one voice (called tenor—Latin, teneo, I hold—because it held the tune) while the other added a discant above it. In the second the discant was freely composed, and a lower part, or bass added.

Three-part compositions were of four kinds: fauxbourdon, motet, rondeau and conduit, the last three being written also in four parts. Fauxbourdon was simply a three-voiced chant, the parts having similar motion, the upper and lower being parallel sixths and the middle in fourths with the discant. In the motet each voice had a text of its own. The rondo was secular and was developed from the folk-music of the day. The conduit was uncertain in form, secular in character, and, like the rondo, was written for either voices or instruments. The early French masters made extensive use of the parallel movement of voices, yet had plainly no conception of harmony founded on chords. They show a much clearer purpose in their contrapuntal writings wherein the imitations are plainly devised according to rules. But the entire musical product of France between 1100 and 1250 was the cold, mathematical work of academicians, who nevertheless served the cause of the tone art by laying down indispensable laws. The last great master of this school, William of Machaut, who wrote the celebrated Coronation Mass for the crowning of Charles V., flourished between 1284 and 1369. Naturally enough the teachings of the French spread into the provinces of Belgium, and there grew up a school from which the Netherland masters rose. The most prominent early Belgian composer was Dufay (1350-1432). This writer introduced secular melodies into his masses, forbade the use of consecutive fifths, and freely used interrupted canonic part writing, in which the imitation appears only at occasional effective places. His works show evidences of a vague groping after euphonic beauty. Antoine de Busnois, who died in 1482, was the last of these early masters. His works abound in clever use of the devices of imitation and inversion. His canonic writing is more finished and his harmony bolder than Dufay's. The character of the music produced at this time has been well described by Mr. Rockstro. He says: "At this period, representing the infancy of art, the subject, or canto fermo, was almost invariably placed in the tenor and sung in long sustained notes, while two or more supplementary voices accompanied it with an elaborate counterpoint, written like the canto fermo itself in one or other of the ancient ecclesiastical modes, and consisting of fugal passages, points of imitation, or even canons, all suggested by the primary idea, and all working together for a common end."

Dufay was the connecting link between the French School and the great Netherland masters. At this time the Dutch led the world in painting, in the liberal arts and in commercial enterprise. Their skill in mechanics was unequalled, and we naturally expect to see their musicians further the development of musical technique. We must bear in mind facts to which the writer has had to refer elsewhere ("Story of Music," p. 21). "The general tendency of European thought at this time also had its bearing on the tone art. Scholasticism was in full sway, and such philosophers as Albertus Magnus, John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham were engaged in wondrous metaphysical hair-splitting, endeavoring to reduce Aristotelianism to a Christian basis by the application of the most vigorous logic. This spirit of scholasticism entered music, and contrapuntal science by too much learning was made mad." Yet the essential nature of music could not be wholly suppressed, and as the writers of the time acquired that marvellous mastery of musical material which came from their practice of counterpoint, they began to use their science as a means and not an end; and finally the masters of the Netherland school attained the loftiest heights of church composition. Various divisions of the periods of development of this school have been made. That adopted by the writer is Emil Naumann's with some alterations. It does not appear to be necessary to set the Dutch members of the school apart from the Belgians; and the writer, in his estimate of the comparative importance of the masters, agrees with Kiesewetter and Fétis rather than with Naumann. The division of the school into four periods, as follows, seems to be a fair one: