CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE

PAGE
General Introduction[ix]
Introduction to the Narrative History of Music
by C. Hubert H. Parry
[xxvii]
Part I. Preliminaries
CHAPTER
I.Primitive Music[1]
Music in nature—Theories of the origin of music—Intervals
and scales; contrast—The aborigines of Carribea,
Polynesia, Samoa, Africa—The rhythmic element: music
and the dance; instruments of percussion—Harmonic traces—Wind
instruments and their scales; the xylophone—Instruments
of semi-civilized peoples—The North American
Indian—Influence of modern culture on savage music.
II.Exotic Music[42]
Significance of exotic music—Classification; Aztecs and
Peruvians—The Orient: China and Hindustan, the Mohammedans—Exotic
instruments—Music as religious rite; music
and dancing—Music and customs; Orient and Occident.
III. The Most Ancient Civilized Nations[64]
Conjecture and authority—The Assyrians and Babylonians;
instruments; scales—The Hebrews—The Egyptians;
social aspects; Plato’s testimony; instruments—Egyptian
influence on Greek culture and its musical significance.
IV. The Music of the Ancient Greeks[88]
Significance of Greek music—Greek conception of music;
mythical records—Music in social life; folk-song; general
characteristics of Greek music—Systems and scales—Pythagoras’
theories; later theorists: Aristoxenus to Ptolemy—Periods
of Greek composition; the nomoi; lyricism; choral
dancing and choral lyricism; the drama—Greek instruments;
notation.
Part II. Beginnings
V. The Age of Plain-Song[128]
Music in the Roman empire—Sources of early Christian
music; the hymns of St. Ambrose—Hebrew traditions—Psalmody,
responses, antiphons; the liturgy; the Gregorian
tradition; the antiphonary and the gradual; sequences and
tropes—Ecclesiastical modes; early notation.
VI. The Beginnings of Polyphony[160]
The third dimension in music—‘Antiphony’ and Polyphony;
magadizing; organum and diaphony, parallel and oblique—Guido
d’Arezzo and his reputed inventions; solmisation;
progress of notation—Johannes Cotto and the Ad organum
faciendum
; contrary motion and the beginning of
true polyphony—Measured music; mensural notation—Faux-bourdon,
gymel; forms of mensural composition.
VII. Secular Music in the Middle Ages[186]
Popular music; fusion of secular and ecclesiastical
spirit; Paganism and Christianity; the epic—Folksong;
early types in France, complainte, narrative song, dance
song; Germany and the North; occupational songs—Vagrant
musicians; jongleurs, minstrels; the love song—Troubadours
and Trouvères; Adam de la Halle—The Minnesinger;
the Meistersinger; influence on Reformation and Renaissance.
Part III. The Polyphonic Period
VIII. The Rise of the Netherland Schools[226]
The Netherland style; the Ars Nova; Maschault and the
Paris school; the papal ban on figured music—The Gallo-Belgian
school; early English polyphony; John Dunstable;
Dufay and Binchois; other Gallo-Belgians—Okeghem and
his school—Josquin des Prés; merits of the Netherland
Schools.
IX. The Italian Renaissance[258]
Spirit of the Renaissance—Trovatori and cantori a liuto;
The Florentine Ars Nova; Landino; caccia, ballata, madrigal—The
fifteenth century; the Medici; Netherland influence;
popular song forms—Adrian Willaert and the new madrigal—Orazio
Vecchi and the dramatic madrigal.
X. The Golden Age of Polyphony[284]
Invention of music printing—The Reformation—The
immediate successors of Josquin; Adrian Willaert and the
Venetian school; Germany and England—Orlando di Lasso—Palestrina;
his life—The Palestrina style; the culmination
of vocal polyphony—Conclusion.
Part IV. The Development of Harmony
XI. The Beginnings of Opera and Oratorio[324]
The forerunners of opera—The Florentine reform of
1600; the ‘expressive’ style; Peri and Caccini; the first
opera; Cavalieri and the origin of the oratorio—Claudio
Monteverdi: his life and his works.
XII. New Forms: Vocal and Instrumental[348]
Résumé of the sixteenth century—Rhythm and form;
the development of harmony; figured bass—The organ
style; canzona da sonar; ricercar; toccata; sonata da chiesa;
great organists—The genesis of violin music; canzona and
sonata—The sonata da camera; the suite—Music for the
harpsichord—The opera in the seventeenth century; Heinrich
Schütz.
XIII. The Seventeenth Century[388]
The musicians of the century—Henry Purcell and music
in England—Italy: Alessandro Scarlatti; Arcangelo Corelli;
Domenico Scarlatti—The beginnings of French opera: the
Ballet-comique de la reine; Cambert and Perrin—Jean Baptiste
de Lully—Couperin and Rameau—Music in Germany:
Keiser, Mattheson, and the Hamburg opera; precursors of
Bach.
XIV. Handel and the Oratorio[418]
The consequences of the seventeenth century: Bach and
Handel—Handel’s early life; the opera at Hamburg; the
German oratorio—The Italian period, Rodrigo, Agrippina,
and Resurrezione—Music in England; Handel as opera composer
and impresario—Origins of the Handelian oratorio;
from ‘Esther’ to ‘The Messiah’—Handel’s instrumental music;
conclusion.
XV. Johann Sebastian Bach[448]
Introduction—The life of Bach—Bach’s polyphonic skill
and the qualities of his genius—Bach’s contribution to the
art of music and the forms he employed—The revision of
keyboard technique and equal temperament—Bach’s relation
to the history of music.
Index. See Volume III.
Bibliography. See Volume III.

ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME ONE

King René and his Musical Court (in colors)[Frontispiece]
FACING
PAGE
Orchestra of Pan’s Pipes (Aboriginal)[22]
Old Japanese Print: ‘Girl of the Old Kingdom playing the Harp’[58]
Ancient Egyptian Fresco showing Instruments in Use[82]
Greek Flute and Kithara Players (in colors)[96]
The Contest between Apollo and Marysas[122]
The Organ in the Middle Ages[156]
Mediæval French Sculpture showing Trouvères and Jongleurs with Instruments[202]
The Tournament of Song in the Wartburg[218]
Josquin des Près (photogravure)[252]
Altar of the Virgin by Bellini (photogravure)[268]
Orlando di Lasso (photogravure)[308]
Perluigi da Palestrina (photogravure)[316]
‘The Concert’; Painting by Giorgione (in colors)[328]
Claudio Monteverdi (photogravure)[338]
Henry Purcell (photogravure)[388]
Arcangelo Corelli (photogravure)[396]
Jean-Baptiste de Lully (photogravure)[408]
Jean-Philippe Rameau (photogravure)[414]
Georg Friedrich Handel (photogravure)[438]
Johann Sebastian Bach (photogravure)[468]