It was not solely in German Protestant music, however, that popular song became merged. Much earlier than this time it had exerted its influence on the music of the Roman church. As early as the fourteenth century it had become the fashion among church composers to use popular tunes for their masses. It is hardly probable that the motive was to draw the people closer into the church service by giving them a tune they were familiar with. In fact, the church had several times been obliged to rule that the people should not sing in the service, except on certain days, before and after the ritual. But the church composers of the thirteenth century and after were in the habit of writing florid counterpoint around a set melody, called the cantus firmus, and it became the fashion not to invent the cantus firmus for one’s self but to borrow it from any source at hand. In the course of time composers hit upon the scheme of borrowing secular tunes. Dufay, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, used one of the tunes of the people, L’homme armé, which has been called ‘the most popular tune of the Middle Ages.’ Such a universal favorite did it become that it was used in masses by nearly every church composer from Josquin de Près to Orlando di Lasso.
V
It is quite possible that the presence of popular tunes in church music did something to aid the approach of the modern major modes (which had already been widely used by the Troubadours and Minnesingers). But their influence was at first disguised, for the cantus firmus was usually sung very slowly, in order to allow the florid counterpoint to grow around it, and hence usually became indistinguishable to the hearer. Certainly here the popular art had no such direct and inspiring effect as in the Lutheran revival. Forces were working slowly toward a great change in men’s art, as in men’s life and thoughts. Popular art underwent an eclipse for a time, to emerge later in a new world, dominant and victorious.
The eclipse came on slowly,—a general twilight all along the line of battle. Beginning with the twelfth (even the eleventh) century, men had been experimenting with counterpoint and polyphony, working out Chinese puzzles in the combination of two and more voices. Gradually they learned how to make these puzzles beautiful as well as ingenious. Then came the age of the great Catholic church composers, of whom Orlando di Lasso and Palestrina are the most famous. With them melody no longer had its former place. There was much more to think of than the beauty of a single voice. The whole art was more austere and more ethereal than popular songs had been.
And the polyphonic art began to dominate secular music. In place of the fluent melody of the Minnesinger came the part-song and madrigal. This was built on the same principles as the sacred mass, but its character was naturally lighter and more lively in movement. The part-song was the ‘catch’ of Shakespeare’s time and its popularity is shown by the frequent reference to it in Shakespeare’s plays. In ‘Twelfth Night’ Sir Andrew, Sir Toby, and the fool commence a catch (doubtless known to the audience): ‘Hold thy Peace, Thou Knave,’ Sir Andrew expostulating, ‘How can I begin if I hold my peace?’ The madrigals were not always of so sportive a character. Sometimes they were love-songs or songs of nature, showing keen poetic feeling. Often they were masterpieces of polyphony and canon. But though much learning went into their construction, their spirit was that of the popular song. The most interesting of early part-songs is one known as ‘Sumer is icumen in,’ a Northumbrian canon for six voices, which has been proved to have been composed not later than 1228. It is a delightfully melodious piece, written in fairly good harmony, in the major mode, typical of the freedom and gracefulness of popular music of the time in contrast to the rigor of the ecclesiastical works. From the early part of the thirteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth madrigals were written and were the principal form of secular vocal music.
During this time, of course, folk-song continued. But it was, as it had been several centuries earlier, but a poor relation of music, dwelling among the despised and rejected of men. It was doubtless during this period that the earlier specimens of the folk-songs now preserved to us assumed something like their present form. But so far as outward history is concerned secular song is contained in the madrigal (which is not ‘song’ in our sense), and in the mastersong of Germany, which was almost wholly lacking in inspiration. When the homophonic song once more awoke to its place, the world had experienced the profound changes of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Secular life had outstripped the religious in variety and intellectual interest. The church was powerful still, but it was no longer the centre of gravity for all men’s activity. So song found itself drawn into the vortex and forced to serve men’s pleasures and vanities in innumerable forms. What these forms were and how they tended to the Song proper we shall see in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VII
THE CLASSIC SONG AND THE ARIA
Italy and the monodic style—Song in the seventeenth century; Germany; France—Song in England—The aria—German song in the eighteenth century; French song in the eighteenth century; forerunners of Schubert.
I
The last half of the fifteenth century was a period of unrest and profound change in music. As we have seen,[10] it was in this period that the old pure style of church music reached its highest perfection under Palestrina, and, because the resources of the style had been exhausted, began to give place to the style which we know as modern. Out of this change grew directly most of the modern musical forms—the opera, the oratorio, the independent orchestral piece with its searching out of instrumental resources, and—the Art-Song.