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.
II
With the decline of the old French school the musical leadership of Europe passed into the hands of the Early Netherlanders, called by some historians the Gallo-Belgian School, which flourished, roughly, from the middle of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century.
It will be remembered that the fourteenth century was an epoch of great prosperity in the Netherlands. The ancient nobility had lost power, while the towns, with their astute and far-seeing traders, had acquired extraordinary strength. Earlier many serfs had been enfranchised, and thus a large body of sturdy workers was liberated into the independent trades and soon became wealthier and more powerful than the nobles. The trade guilds and burghers were uncompromising in resisting the encroachments both of the feudal lords and of the Church, and were, therefore, enabled to turn their energies toward commerce and agriculture, unchecked by the influences of a corrupt government. Great factories flourished, vessels of Dutch merchants plied their trade in nearly every sea, population, wealth, and intelligence increased. The ancient towns, Bruges, Louvain, Antwerp, Ghent, Ypres, still bear testimony to these days of prosperity in their magnificent examples, not of ecclesiastical architecture, as in Italy, but of splendid structures for municipal and domestic use. It was among these prosperous and music-loving people that the art of contrapuntal writing was nourished. They did not invent or create polyphony, as has long been believed; but they found pleasure in the fact that the principles of music could be reduced to laws and rules, and the more intricate the rules, the more the true Netherlanders delighted in them. In fact, it was this very tendency that smothered polyphony itself, in course of time; but not before a vast amount of systematized knowledge had been preserved for their successors.
The service of the Pope’s chapel up to the time of its return to Rome from Avignon in 1377 was sung in faux-bourdon, or in the still older method of extemporaneous descant. Ecclesiastical records show that, after the return to Rome, several Belgian musicians were among the singers in the papal choir. These brought with them, along with other music, the first masses written in counterpoint that had ever been seen there. Among the Belgians in Rome, in the early fifteenth century, was a tenor singer named William Dufay, born probably in Chimay, in Hainault, about 1400. There has been much misapprehension concerning Dufay, owing to the fact that Baini, an Italian historian (1775-1844), gave, erroneously, the probable date of his death as 1432. Recent researches, however, especially those of Sir John Stainer, have thrown much light on the life and work of Dufay, and enabled historians to understand facts which hitherto had seemed irreconcilable.
According to this recent authority, Dufay received his musical education as chorister in the cathedral at Cambrai, which in the fifteenth century belonged to the Netherlands. It is famous as the seat of the archbishopric of Fénelon and of Dubois, and for its ancient cathedral. According to contemporary evidence, the music of the Cambrai cathedral was considered ‘the most beautiful in Europe.’[90]
It was but natural, then, that the papal choir at Rome should draw what singers it could from Cambrai. It appears that Dufay entered it as the youngest member in 1428 and remained five years. After a break he was again appointed in the following decade, when he remained but a short period. It was at the time a frequent custom for the church to reward whom it would by ecclesiastical appointments, allowing the holder of office to reside elsewhere. According to this custom, Dufay was appointed to the canonries of Cambrai and Mons, both of which offices he held till his death, though he removed to Savoy about 1437 and travelled somewhat in the interests of his art. He died at a great age in 1474. His will is still preserved in the archives of Cambrai, and in it, among other items, he bequeaths money to the Cambrai altar boys. He is buried in the chapel of St. Etienne, beneath a stone he himself caused to be made, which, though mutilated, is still in existence. One of his last desires was that a certain motet of his own composition be sung at his deathbed.
The chief source of our knowledge of Dufay’s early works is the ‘MS. Canonici misc. 213’ in the Bodleian library at Oxford, compiled not later than 1436, a portion of which has recently been explained and given to the public by Sir John Stainer.[91] The MS. represents the period of transition from Machault to Dufay, including the early works of the latter. They are mostly in the old mensural (black) notation, and show an unusual proportion of secular pieces. Transcriptions and solutions of sixty of them, belonging to the period 1400-1441, are given by Stainer. Most of the pieces are dry in melody and show occasional harsh discords; but they also exhibit examples of fugal form and some crude attempts at expression. They are quite lacking in a certain sweetness of harmony characteristic of his later works, which has been traced to the influence of his famous English contemporary, John Dunstable. It appears advisable, therefore, to consider here the condition of music in England which is thus to make itself felt upon the course of music in general.