A Complete History of Music / for Schools, Clubs, and Private Reading

by W. J. Baltzell

Give an account of music among the Gauls and Celts, the Saxons, Scandinavians, etc.

Tell about the great song movement outside the church, minstrels, etc.; the Minnesingers; the Mastersingers.

Each of these questions or several together may be made the subject of a written paper, giving a summary. Students should be encouraged to make critical examination of a subject, to institute comparisons showing progress, and the steps that mark that progress, wherein one man has drawn from a predecessor, wherein new things have been done.

LESSON VIII.
The Causes of Polyphonic Development and the
Importance of the Polyphonic Era.

In the Introduction attention was called to the fact that the labors of musicians to develop an art of music varied between the effort to make artistic use of the material of music, that is, to give it definite form, and to make it express the feelings of mankind; the first is in the line of construction, the second, content. The period we now take up was concerned most deeply, in its earlier stages, as we shall see, with finding adequate and logical principles of construction by which a musical composition of more or less length could be made from a simple musical idea and in which more than one voice could be used.

This period should be studied with the greatest thoroughness, and all possible examples of music of the composers representative of the period should be examined that one may gather a clear idea of the beginnings of composition and the development that shows from one generation to the next. These first gropings after the principles are matters of extreme interest to the musician when he compares the results in the music of the twentieth century.

The Polyphonic and Monophonic Styles.—Students frequently express surprise that the complicated polyphonic or contrapuntal system, which began to take shape in the 11th century, should appear first, historically. The pupil in composition begins his studies with the harmonic or monophonic style and is afterwards inducted into the polyphonic style. Why did the musical art develop along polyphonic and not on the simpler lines? It is intended that this lesson and those that follow shall show some of the influences that caused the line of development to move in a polyphonic and not in a monophonic direction. One thought is important to note. The elements of the simple, monophonic style were present in the music of the early centuries, in the people’s song, principally; since, however, it was the Church that determined the direction of artistic composition, the simple, natural principles of melody-making yielded precedence to a more highly organized, intellectual process. Before taking up the consideration of these matters it is well to get an understanding of the terms Monophony and Polyphony.

There are two methods of giving harmonic support to a melody: by adding an accompaniment of chords, in simple or elaborated form, or by dividing the notes of the chords among three or more voices, which notes are sung or played simultaneously with the melody (an example is furnished by any simple air with accompaniment or a hymn-tune in four parts, in which the “air” or melody is in the soprano); this is Monophony, (monos—Greek for “one,” phone—“sound”); a second method is to add to the given melody other melodies, each independent in its movement up and down and in the duration of its successive sounds so far as concerns the movement and duration of the sounds in the given melody. This is Polyphony (polus, Greek for “many”).

Relation of Polyphonic to Modern Music.—The exact relation of the Polyphonic Era to modern music has rarely been correctly estimated. Writers on this phase of the development of music are apt to lose themselves in wonder on noting the scientific growth of the art, and to express their great surprise that so peculiar an evolution should occur. This view of the question is totally inadequate. In order truly to estimate the value and influence of the period, it is necessary to inquire into the properties of the materials of musical construction which were developed, and the value of those materials as a foundation for the modern structure of music, apparently so different from the early forms, but yet so intimately related to these forms.

Polyphonic music presents to the student so complex a form as to require the aid of material imagery in order to help the mind to a proper conception of it. Perhaps no more misleading idea has been advanced than that which makes use of the Gothic cathedral as an illustration of polyphonic form. It is true that in its multiplicity and yet inter-relation of details the cathedral expresses one of the dominant ideas of polyphonic music; but here the likeness fails. A nicer perception of the subject may be gained by comparing polyphonic music to the foundation of a Gothic cathedral, strong and massive in construction, of utmost need to the permanence of the building, but entirely lost sight of in a general view of the whole structure; the importance of the comparison being the likeness of the complex and highly-developed superstructure to monophonic or modern music, seemingly so independent of what lies beneath, but in reality, dependent upon, and intimately connected with the established basis. Only in this way can we apprehend the real value of the polyphonic foundation to our superstructure of modern music; but for that foundation our modern music must have remained in its infancy for centuries to come. No freedom of artistic expression can be gained until absolute command of the material to be used has been obtained, and the principles thoroughly assimilated by the artist.