The Chinese orchestra is composed of about sixteen different types of percussion instruments and four kinds of wind and stringed instruments, whereas in our European orchestras the ratio is exactly reversed. Their orchestras are placed at the back of the stage, ours in front of it. The human voice is not even mentioned in their list of musical sounds (sound of metal, baked clay, wood, skin, bamboo, etc)., whereas we consider it the most nearly perfect instrument existing. This strange perversity once caused much discussion in days when we knew less of China than we do at present, as to whether the Chinese organs of hearing were not entirely different from those of western nations. We now know that this contradiction runs through all their habits of life. With them white is the colour indicative of mourning; the place of honour is on the left hand; the seat of intellect is in the stomach; to take off one's hat is considered an insolent gesture; the magnetic needle of the Chinese compass is reckoned as pointing south, instead of north; even up to the middle of the nineteenth century the chief weapon in war was the bow and arrow, although they were long before acquainted with gunpowder—and so on, ad infinitum.

We are aware that the drum is the most primitive instrument known to man. If all our knowledge of the Chinese were included in a simple list of their orchestral instruments, we should recognize at once that the possession of the gourd, mouth-organ, and lute indicates a nation which has reached a high state of civilization; on the other hand, the great preponderance of bells, gongs, drums, etc., points unmistakably to the fact that veneration of the laws and traditions of the past (a past of savage barbarism), and a blind acquiescence in them, must constitute the principal factor in that civilization. The writings of Chinese philosophers are full of wise sayings about music, but in practice the music itself becomes almost unbearable. For instance, in the Confucian Analects we read, "The Master (Confucius)[02] said: 'How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony, severally distinct, and flowing without a break, and thus on to the conclusion.'" The definition is certainly remarkable when one considers that it was given about five hundred years before our era. In practice, however, the Chinese do not distinguish between musical combinations of sound and noise; therefore the above definition must be taken in a very different sense from that which ordinarily would be the case. By harmony, Confucius evidently means similarity of noises, and by "melody flowing without a break" he means absolute monotony of rhythm. We know this from the hymns to the ancestors which, with the hymns to the Deity, are the sacred songs of China, songs which have come down from time immemorial.

According to Amiot one of the great court functions is the singing of the "Hymn to the Ancestors," which is conducted by the Emperor. Outside the hall where this ceremony takes place are stationed a number of bell and gong players who may not enter, but who, from time to time, according to fixed laws, join in the music played and sung inside. In the hall the orchestra is arranged in the order prescribed by law: the ou, or wooden tiger, which ends every piece, is placed at the northwest end of the orchestra, and the tschou, or wooden box-drum, which begins the music, at the northeast; in the middle are placed the singers who accompany the hymn by posturing as well as by chanting. At the back of the hall are pictures of the ancestors, or merely tablets inscribed with their names, before which is a kind of altar, bearing flowers and offerings. The first verse of the hymn consists of eight lines in praise of the godlike virtues of the ancestors, whose spirits are supposed to descend from Heaven and enter the hall during the singing of this verse by the chorus. Then the Emperor prostrates himself three times before the altar, touching his head to the earth each time. As he offers the libations and burns the perfumes on the altar, the chorus sings the second verse of eight lines, in which the spirits are thanked for answering the prayer and entreated to accept the offerings. The Emperor then prostrates himself nine times, after which he resumes his position before the altar, while the last verse of eight lines, eulogistic of the ancestors, is being chanted; during this the spirits are supposed to ascend again to Heaven. The hymn ends with the scraping of the tiger's back and striking it on the head.

We can imagine the partial gloom of this species of chapel, lighted by many burning, smoky joss-sticks, with its glint of many-coloured silks, and gold embroidery; the whining, nasal, half-spoken, monotonous drone of the singers with their writhing figures bespangled with gold and vivid colour; the incessant stream of shrill tones from the wind instruments; the wavering, light clatter of the musical stones broken by the steady crash of gongs and the deep booming of large drums; while from outside, the most monstrous bell-like noises vaguely penetrate the smoke-laden atmosphere. The ceremony must be barbarously impressive; the strange magnificence of it all, together with the belief in the actual presence of the spirits, which the vague white wreaths of joss-stick smoke help to suggest, seem to lend it dignity. From the point of view of what we call music, the hymn is childish enough; but we must keep in mind the definition of Confucius. According to the Chinese, music includes that phase of sound which we call mere noise, and the harmonizing of this noise is Chinese art. We must admit, therefore, that from this point of view their orchestra is well balanced, for what will rhyme better with noise than more noise? The gong is best answered by the drum, and the tomtom by the great bell.

China also has its folk song, which seems to be an irrepressible flower of the field in all countries. This also follows the precepts of the sages in using only the five-note or pentatonic scale found among so many other nationalities. It differs, however, from the official or religious music, inasmuch as that unrhythmic perfection of monotony, so loved by Confucius, Mencius, and their followers, is discarded in favour of a style more naturally in touch with human emotion. These folk songs have a strong similarity to Scotch and Irish songs, owing to the absence of the fourth and seventh degrees of the scale. If they were really sung to the accompaniment of chords, the resemblance would be very striking. The Chinese singing voice, however, is not sonorous, the quality commonly used being a kind of high, nasal whine, very far removed from what we call music. The accompaniment of the songs is of a character most discordant to European ears, consisting as it does mainly of constant drum or gong beats interspersed with the shrill notes of the kin, the principal Chinese stringed instrument. Ambros, the historian, quotes a number of these melodies, but falls into a strange mistake, for his version of a folk song called "Tsin-fa" is as follows:

[Figure 01]

Now this is exactly as if a Chinaman, wishing to give his countrymen an idea of a Beethoven sonata, were to eliminate all the harmony and leave only the bare melody accompanied by indiscriminate beats on the gong and a steady banging on two or three drums of different sizes. This is certainly the manner in which the little melody just quoted would be accompanied, and not by European chords and rhythms.

If we could eliminate from our minds all thoughts of music and bring ourselves to listen only to the texture of sounds, we could better understand the Chinese ideal of musical art. For instance, if in listening to the deep, slow vibrations of a large gong we ignore completely all thought of pitch, fixing our attention only upon the roundness and fullness of the sound and the way it gradually diminishes in volume without losing any of its pulsating colour, we should then realize what the Chinese call music. Confucius said, "When the music master Che first entered on his office, the finish with the Kwan-Ts'eu (Pan's-pipes) was magnificent—how it filled the ears!" And that is just what Chinese music aims to do, it "fills the ears" and therefore is "magnificent."[03]

With their views as to what constitutes the beautiful in music it is not strange that the Chinese find our music detestable. It goes too fast for them. They ask, "Why play another entirely different kind of sound until one has already enjoyed to the full what has gone before?" As they told Pere Amiot many years ago: "Our music penetrates through the ear to the heart, and from the heart to the soul; that your music cannot do." Amiot had played on a harpsichord some pieces by Rameau ("Les Cyclopes," "Les Charmes," etc.) and much flute music, but they could make nothing of it.

According to their conception of music, sounds must follow one another slowly, in order to pass through the ears to the heart and thence to the soul; therefore they went back with renewed satisfaction to their long, monotonous chant accompanied by a pulsating fog of clangour.

Some years ago, at the time of that sudden desire of China, or more particularly of Li Hung Chang, to know more of occidental civilization, some Chinese students were sent by their government to Berlin to study music. After about a month's residence in Berlin these students wrote to the Chinese government asking to be recalled, as they said it would be folly to remain in a barbarous country where even the most elementary principles of music had not yet been grasped.

To go deeply into the more technical side of Chinese music would be a thankless task, for in the Chinese character the practical is entirely overshadowed by the speculative. All kinds of fanciful names are given to the different tones, and many strange ideas associated with them. Although our modern chromatic scale (all but the last half-tone) is familiar to them, they have never risen to a practical use of it even to this day. The Chinese scale is now, as it always has been, one of five notes to the octave, that is to say, our modern major scale with the fourth and seventh omitted.

From a technical point of view, the instruments of bamboo attain an importance above all other Chinese instruments. According to the legend, the Pan's-pipes of bamboo regulated the tuning of all other instruments, and as a matter of fact the pipe giving the note F, the universal tonic, is the origin of all measures also. For this pipe, which in China is called the "musical foot," is at the same time a standard measure, holding exactly twelve hundred millet seeds, and long enough for one hundred millet seeds to stand end on end within it.

In concluding this consideration of the music of the Chinese, I would draw attention to the unceasing repetition which constitutes a prominent feature in all barbarous or semi-barbarous music. In the "Hymn of the Ancestors" this endless play on three or four notes is very marked.

[Figure 02]

In other songs it is equally apparent.

[Figure 03] etc.

[Figure 04]

[Figure 05] etc.

This characteristic is met with in the music of the American Indians, also in American street songs, in fact in all music of a primitive nature, just as our school children draw caricatures similar to those made by great chiefs and medicine men in the heart of Africa, and, similarly, the celebrated "graffiti" of the Roman soldiers were precisely of the same nature as the beginnings of Egyptian art. In art, the child is always a barbarian more or less, and all strong emotion acting on a naturally weak organism or a primitive nature brings the same result, namely, that of stubborn repetition of one idea. An example of this is Macbeth, who, in the very height of his passion, stops to juggle with the word "sleep," and in spite of the efforts of his wife, who is by far the more civilized of the two, again and again recurs to it, even though he is in mortal danger. When Lady Macbeth at last breaks down, she also shows the same trait in regard to her bloodstained hands. It is not so far from Scotland to the Polar regions, and there we find that when Kane captured a young Eskimo and kept him on his ship, the only sign of life the prisoner gave was to sing over and over to himself the following:

[Figure 06]

Coming back again to civilization, we find Tennyson's Elaine, in her grief, repeating, incessantly the words, "Must I then die."

The music of the Siamese, Burmese, Javanese, and Japanese has much in common with that of the Chinese, the difference between the first two and the last named being mainly in the absence of the king, or musical stones, or rather the substitution of sets of drums in place of it. For instance, the Burmese drum-organ, as it is called, consists of twenty-one drums of various sizes hung inside a great hoop. Their gong-organ consists of fifteen or more gongs of different sizes strung inside a hoop in the same manner. The player takes his place in the middle of the hoop and strikes the drums or gongs with a kind of stick. These instruments are largely used in processions, being carried by two men, just as a sedan chair is borne; the player, in order to strike all the gongs and bells, must often walk backwards, or strike them behind his back.

In Javanese and Burmese music these sets of gongs and drums are used incessantly, and form a kind of high-pitched, sustained tone beneath which the music is played or sung.

In Siamese music the wind instruments have a prominent place. After having heard the Siamese Royal Orchestra a number of times in London, I came to the conclusion that the players on the different instruments improvise their parts, the only rule being the general character of the melodies to be played, and the finishing together. The effect of the music was that of a contrapuntal nightmare, hideous to a degree which one who has not heard it cannot conceive. Berlioz, in his "Soirees de l'orchestre," well described its effect when he said:

"After the first sensation of horror which one cannot repress, one feels impelled to laugh, and this hilarity can only be controlled by leaving the hall. So long as these impossible sounds continue, the fact of their being gravely produced, and in all sincerity admired by the players, makes the 'concert' appear inexpressibly 'comic.'"

The Japanese had the same Buddhistic disregard for euphony, but they have adopted European ideas in music and are rapidly becoming occidentalized from a musical point of view. Their principal instruments are the koto and the samisen. The former is similar to the Chinese che, and is a kind of large zither with thirteen strings, each having a movable bridge by means of which the pitch of the string may be raised or lowered. The samisen is a kind of small banjo, and probably originated in the Chinese kin.

From Buddhism to sun worship, from China to Peru and Mexico, is a marked change, but we find strange resemblances in the music of these peoples, seeming almost to corroborate the theory that the southern American races may be traced back to the extreme Orient. We remember that in the Chinese sacred chants—"official" music as one may call it—all the notes were of exactly the same length. Now Garcilaso de la Vega (1550), in his "Commentarios Reales," tells us that unequal time was unknown in Peru, that all the notes in a song were of exactly the same length. He further tells us that in his time the voice was but seldom heard in singing, and that all the songs were played on the flute, the words being so well known that the melody of the flute immediately suggested them. The Peruvians were essentially a pipe race, while, on the other hand, the instruments of the Mexicans were of the other extreme, all kinds of drums, copper gongs, rattles, musical stones, cymbals, bells, etc., thus completing the resemblance to Chinese art. In Prescott's "Conquest of Peru" we may read of the beautiful festival of Raymi, or adoration of the sun, held at the period of the summer solstice. It describes how the Inca and his court, followed by the whole population of the city, assembled at early dawn in the great square of Cuzco, and how, at the appearance of the first rays of the sun, a great shout would go up, and thousands of wind instruments would break forth into a majestic song of adoration. That the Peruvians were a gentler nation than the Mexicans can be seen from their principal instrument, the pipe.

While it has been strenuously denied that on such occasions human sacrifices were offered in Peru, the Mexicans, that race whose principal instruments were drums and brass trumpets, not only held such sacrifices, but, strange to say, held them in honour of a kind of god of music, Tezcatlipoca. This festival was the most important in Mexico, and took place at the temple or "teocalli," a gigantic, pyramid-like mass of stone, rising in terraces to a height of eighty-six feet above the city, and culminating in a small summit platform upon which the long procession of priests and victims could be seen from all parts of the city. Once a year the sacrifice was given additional importance, for then the most beautiful youth in Mexico was chosen to represent the god himself. For a year before the sacrifice he was dressed as Tezcatlipoca, in royal robes and white linen, with a helmet-like crown of sea shells with white cocks' plumes, and with an anklet hung with twenty gold bells as a symbol of his power, and he was married to the most beautiful maiden in Mexico. The priests taught him to play the flute, and whenever the people heard the sound of it they fell down and worshipped him.

The account may be found in Bancroft's great work on the "Native Races of the Pacific," also Sahagun's "Nueva Espana and Bernal Diaz," but perhaps the most dramatic description is that by Rowbotham:

And when the morning of the day of sacrifice arrived, he was taken by water to the Pyramid Temple where he was to be sacrificed, and crowds lined the banks of the river to see him in the barge, sitting in the midst of his beautiful companions. When the barge touched the shore, he was taken away from those companions of his forever, and was delivered over to a band of priests, exchanging the company of beautiful women for men clothed in black mantles, with long hair matted with blood—their ears also were mangled. These conducted him to the steps of the pyramid, and he was driven up amidst a crowd of priests, with drums beating and trumpets blowing. As he went up he broke an earthen flute on every step to show that his love, and his delights were over. And when he reached the top, he was sacrificed on an altar of jasper, and the signal that the sacrifice was completed was given to the multitudes below by the rolling of the great sacrificial drum.[04]

[02] Kong. His disciples called him Fu Tsee, or "the master"; Jesuit missionaries Latinized this to Confucius.

[03] The Chinese theatre has been called an unconscious parody of our old-fashioned Italian opera, and there are certainly many resemblances. In a Chinese play, when the situation becomes tragic, or when one of the characters is seized with some strong emotion, it finds vent in a kind of aria. The dialogue is generally given in the most monotonous manner possible—using only high throat and head tones, occasionally lowering or raising the voice on a word, to express emotion. This monotonous, and to European ears, strangely nonchalant, nasal recitative, is being continually interrupted by gong pounding and the shrill, high sound of discordant reed instruments. When one or more of the characters commits suicide (which as we know is an honoured custom in China) he sings—or rather whines—a long chant before he dies, just as his western operatic colleagues do, as, for instance, Edgar in "Lucia di Lammermoor" and even, to come nearer home, Siegfried in "Goetterdaemmerung."

[04] This drum was made of serpents' skins, and the sound of it was so loud that it could be heard eight miles away.



VI

THE MUSIC OF GREECE

The first name of significance in Greek music is that of Homer. The hexameters of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" were quite probably chanted, but the four-stringed lyre which we associate with the ancient Greek singers was only used for a few preluding notes—possibly to pitch the voice of the bard—and not during the chant itself. For whatever melody this chant possessed, it depended entirely upon the raising and lowering of the voice according to the accent of the words and the dramatic feeling of the narrative. For its rhythm it depended upon that of the hexameter, which consists of a line of six dactyls and spondees, the line always ending with a spondee. Really the line should end with a dactyl ([- ' ']) and a spondee ([- -]). If a line ends with two spondees it is a spondaic hexameter.

From this it would seem that while the pitch of the chant would be very difficult to gauge, owing to the diversity of opinion as to how to measure in actual sounds the effect of emotions upon the human voice, at least the rhythm of the chants would be well defined, owing to the hexameter in which the latter were written. Here again, however, we are cast adrift by theory, for in practice nothing could be more misleading than such a deduction. For instance, the following lines from Longfellow's "Evangeline" are both in this metre, although the rhythm of one differs greatly from that of the other.

Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the earrings

and

Shielding the house from storms, on the north were the barns and the farm-yard.

Now if we think that these lines can be sung to the same musical rhythm we are very far from the truth, although both are hexameters, namely,

[- ' ' - ' - ' ' - ' ' - ' ' - -]

[- ' ' - ' - ' ' - ' ' - ' ' - -]

dactyls, ending with spondee.

Thus we see that metre in verse and rhythm in music are two different things, although of course they both had the same origin.

After all has been said, it is perhaps best to admit that, so far as Greek music is concerned, its better part certainly lay in poetry. In ancient times all poetry was sung or chanted; it was what I have called impassioned speech. The declamation of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" constituted what was really the "vocal" music of the poems. With the Greeks the word "music" (mousike) included all the aesthetic culture that formed part of the education of youth; in the same general way a poet was called a singer, and even in Roman times we find Terence, in his "Phormio," alluding to poets as musicians. That Aeschylus and Sophocles were not musicians, as we understand the term, is very evident in spite of the controversies on the subject.

Impassioned speech, then, was all that existed of vocal music, and as such was in every way merely the audible expression of poetry. I have no doubt that this is the explanation of the statement that Aeschylus and Sophocles wrote what has been termed the music to their tragedies. What they really did was to teach the chorus the proper declamation and stage action. It is well known that at the Dionysian Festival it was to the poet as "chorus master" that the prize was awarded, so entirely were the arts identified one with the other. That declamation may often reach the power of music, it is hardly necessary to say. Among modern poets, let any one, for instance, look at Tennyson's "Passing of Arthur" for an example of this kind of music; the mere sound of the words completes the picture. For instance, when Arthur is dying and gives his sword, Excalibur, to Sir Bedivere with the command to throw it into the mere, the latter twice fails to do so, and returns to Arthur telling him that all he saw was

"The water lapping on the crag And the long ripple washing in the reeds."

But when at last he throws it, the magic sword

"Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch Shot like a streamer of the northern morn. So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur."

Again, when Sir Bedivere, carrying the dying king, stumbles up over the icy rocks to the shore, his armour clashing and clanking, the verse uses all the clangour of cr—ck, the slipping s's too, and the vowel a is used in all its changes; when the shore is finally reached, the verse suddenly turns into smoothness, the long o's giving the same feeling of breadth and calm that modern music would attempt if it treated the same subject.

Here are the lines:

Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right The bare, black cliff clang'd round him as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels. And on a sudden, lo! the level lake And the long glories of the winter moon.

When we think of the earlier Greek plays, we must imagine the music of the words themselves, the cadenced voices of the protagonist or solitary performer, and the chorus, the latter keeping up a rhythmic motion with the words. This, I am convinced, was the extent of Greek music, so far as that which was ascribed to the older poets is concerned.

Instrumental music was another thing, and although we possess no authentic examples of it, we know what its scales consisted of and what instruments were in use. It would be interesting to pass in review the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the odes of Sappho and Pindar, those of the latter having a novel periodicity of form which gives force to the suggestion that these choric dances were the forerunners of our modern instrumental forms.

Such matters, however, take us from our actual subject, and we will therefore turn to Pythagoras, at Crotona, in Italy (about 500 B.C.), whom we find already laying down the rules forming a mathematical and scientific basis for the Greek musical scale.

More than three centuries had passed since Homer had chanted his "Iliad" and "Odyssey," and in the course of the succeeding fifty years some of the master spirits of the world were to appear. When we think of Pythagoras, Gautama, Buddha, Confucius, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Sappho, Pindar, Phidias, and Herodotus as contemporaries—and this list might be vastly extended—it seems as if some strange wave of ideality had poured over mankind. In Greece, however, Pythagoras's theory of metempsychosis (doctrine of the supposed transmigration of the soul from one body to another) was not strong enough to make permanent headway, and his scientific theories unhappily turned music from its natural course into the workshop of science, from which Aristoxenus in vain attempted to rescue it.

At that time Homer's hexameter had begun to experience many changes, and from the art of rhythm developed that of rhyme and form. The old lyre, from having four strings, was developed by Terpander, victor in the first musical contest at the feast of Apollo Carneius, into an instrument of seven strings, to which Pythagoras[05] added an eighth, Theophrastus a ninth, and so on until the number of eighteen was reached.

Flute and lyre playing had attained a high state of excellence, for we hear that Lasus, the teacher of the poet Pindar (himself the son of a Theban flute player), introduced into lyre playing the runs and light passages which, until that time, it had been thought possible to produce only on the flute.

The dance also had undergone a wonderful development rhythmically; for even in Homer's time we read in "The Odyssey" of the court of Alcinoues at Phocaea, how two princes danced before Ulysses and played with a scarlet ball, one throwing it high in the air, the other always catching it with his feet off the ground; and then changing, they flung the ball from one to the other with such rapidity that it made the onlookers dizzy. During the play, Demidocus chanted a song, and accompanied the dance with his lyre, the players never losing a step. As Aristides (died 468 B.C.), speaking of Greek music many centuries later said: "Metre is not a thing which concerns the ear alone, for in the dance it is to be seen." Even a statue was said to have silent rhythm, and pictures were spoken of as being musical or unmusical.

Already in Homer's time, the Cretans had six varieties of [5/4] time to which they danced:

[4 8 4 4 8 8 8 8 4 8 8 8 8 4 8 8 8 8 4 8 8 8 8 8] [- ' - - ' ' ' ' - ' ' ' ' - ' ' ' ' - ' ' ' ' ']

The first was known as the Cretic foot, being in a way the model or type from which the others were made; but the others were called paeons. The "Hymn to Apollo" was called a paeon or paean, for the singers danced in Cretic rhythms as they chanted it.

There were many other dances in Greece, each having its characteristic rhythm. For instance, the Molossian dance consisted of three long steps, [- - -] ([3/2]); that of the Laconians was the dactyl, [- ' '] ([4/4]), which was sometimes reversed [' ' -] ([4/4]). In the latter form it was also the chief dance of the Locrians, the step being called anapaest. From Ionia came the two long and two short steps, [- - ' '], ([3/4: 4 4 8 8]), or [' ' - -] ([3/4: 8 8 4 4]), which were called Ionic feet. The Doric steps consisted primarily of a trochee and a spondee, [- ' - -] or [7/8] time. These values, however, were arranged in three other different orders, namely, [' - - - - - ' - - - - '] and were called the first, second, third, or fourth epitrite, according to the positions of the short step. The second epitrite was considered the most distinctly Doric.

The advent of the Dionysian[06] festivals in Greece threatened to destroy art, for those wild Bacchic dances, which are to be traced back to that frenzied worship of Bel and Astarte in Babylon, wild dances amenable only to the impulse of the moment, seemed to carry everything before them. Instead of that, however, the hymns to Bacchus, who was called in Phoenicia the flute god, from which the characteristics of his worship are indicated, were the germs from which tragedy and comedy developed, and the mad bacchanalian dances were tamed into dithyrambs. For the Corybantes, priests of the goddess Cybele, brought from Phrygia, in Asia Minor, the darker form of this worship; they mourned for the death of Bacchus, who was supposed to die in winter and to come to life again in the spring. When these mournful hymns were sung, a goat was sacrificed on the altar; thus the origin of the word "tragedy" or "goat song" (tragos, goat, and odos, singer). As the rite developed, the leader of the chorus would chant the praises of Dionysus, and sing of his adventures, to which the chorus would make response. In time it became the custom for the leader, or coryphaeus, to be answered by one single member of the chorus, the latter being thus used merely for the chanting of commentaries on the narrative. The answerer was called "hypocrite," afterward the term for actor.

This was the material from which Aeschylus created the first tragedy, as we understand the term. Sophocles (495-406 B.C.) followed, increasing the number of actors, as did also Euripides (480-406 B.C.).

Comedy (komos, revel, and odos, singer) arose from the spring and summer worship of Bacchus, when everything was a jest and Nature smiled again.

The dithyramb (dithyrambos or Bacchic step, [- ' ' -]) brought a new step to the dance and therefore a new element into poetry, for all dances were choric, that is to say they were sung as well as danced.

Arion was the first to attempt to bring the dithyramb into poetry, by teaching the dancers to use a slower movement and to observe greater regularity in their various steps. The Lydian flute, as may be supposed, was the instrument which accompanied the dithyramb, associated with all kinds of harsh, clashing instruments, such as cymbals, tambourines, castanets. These Arion tried to replace by the more dignified Grecian lyre; but it was long before this mad dance sobered down to regular rhythm and form. From Corinth, where Arion first laboured, we pass to Sicyon, where the taming of the dithyramb into an art form was accomplished by Praxilla, a poetess who added a new charm to the lilt of this Bacchic metre, namely, rhyme.

And this newly acquired poetic wealth was in keeping with the increasing luxury and magnificence of the cities, for we read in Athenaeus and Diodorus that Agrigentum sent to the Olympic games three hundred chariots, drawn by white horses. The citizens wore garments of cloth of gold, and even their household ornaments were of gold and silver; in their houses they had wine cellars which contained three hundred vats, each holding a hundred hogsheads of wine. In Sybaris this luxury reached its height, for the Sybarites would not allow any trade which caused a disagreeable sound, such as that of the blacksmith, carpenter, or mason, to be carried on in their city limits. They dressed in garments of deep purple, tied their hair in gold threads, and the city was famed for its incessant banqueting and merrymaking. It was such luxury as this that Pindar found at the court of Hiero, at Syracuse, whither Aeschylus had retired after his defeat by Sophocles at the Dionysian Festival at Athens.

The worship of Bacchus being at its height at that time, it may be imagined that wine formed the principal element of their feasts. And even as the dithyramb had been pressed into the service of poetry, so was drinking made rhythmic by music. For even the wine was mixed with water according to musical ratios; for instance, the paeonic or 3 to 2, [' ' ' -] = [8 8 8 4]; the iambic or 2 to 1, [- '] = [4 8]; dactylic or 2 to 2, [- ' '] = [4. 8 8]. The master of the feast decided the ratio, and a flute girl played a prescribed melody while the toast to good fortune, which commenced every banquet, was being drunk. By the time the last note had sounded, the great cup should have gone round the table and been returned to the master. And then they had the game of the cottabos, which consisted of throwing the contents of a wine cup high in the air in such a manner that the wine would fall in a solid mass into a metal basin. The winner was the one who produced the clearest musical sound from the basin.

We see from all this that music was considered rather a beautiful plaything or a mere colour. By itself it was considered effeminate; therefore the early Greeks always had the flute player accompanied by a singer, and the voice was always used with the lyre to prevent the latter appealing directly to the senses. The dance was corrected in the same manner; for when we speak of Greek dances, we always mean choric dances. Perhaps the nearest approach to the effect of what we call music was made by Aeschylus, in the last scene of his "Persians," when Xerxes and the chorus end the play with one continued wail of sorrow. In this instance the words take second place, and the actual sound is depended upon for the dramatic effect.

The rise and fall of actual instrumental music in Greece may be placed between 500 and 400 B.C. After the close of the Peloponnesian War (404 B.C.), when Sparta supplanted Athens as the leader of Greece, art declined rapidly, and at the time of Philip of Macedon (328 B.C.) may be said to have been practically extinct. Then, in place of the dead ashes of art, the cold fire of science arose; for we have such men as Euclid (300 B.C.) and his school applying mathematics to musical sounds, and a system of cold calculation to an art that had needed all the warmth of emotional enthusiasm to keep it alive. Thus music became a science. Had it not been for the little weeds of folk song which managed with difficulty to survive at the foot of this arid dust heap, and which were destined to be transformed and finally to bloom into such lovely flowers in our times, we might yet have been using the art to illustrate mathematical calculations.

The teaching of Pythagoras was the first step in this classification of sounds; and he went further than this, for he also classified the emotions affected by music. It was therefore a natural consequence that in his teaching he should forbid music of an emotional character as injurious. When he came to Crotona, it was to a city that vied with Agrigentum, Sybaris, and Tarentum in luxury; its chief magistrate wore purple garments, a golden crown upon his head, and white shoes on his feet. It was said of Pythagoras that he had studied twelve years with the Magi in the temples of Babylon; had lived among the Druids of Gaul and the Indian Brahmins; had gone among the priests of Egypt and witnessed their most secret temple rites. So free from care or passion was his face that he was thought by the people to be Apollo; he was of majestic presence, and the most beautiful man they had ever seen. So the people accepted him as a superior being, and his influence became supreme over science and art, as well as manners.

He gave the Greeks their first scientific analysis of sound. The legend runs that, passing a blacksmith's shop and hearing the different sounds of the hammering, he conceived the idea that sounds could be measured by some such means as weight is measured by scales, or distance by the foot rule. By weighing the different hammers, so the story goes, he obtained the knowledge of harmonics or overtones, namely, the fundamental, octave, fifth, third, etc. This legend, which is stated seriously in many histories of music, is absurd, for, as we know, the hammers would not have vibrated. The anvils would have given the sound, but in order to produce the octave, fifth, etc., they would have had to be of enormous proportions. On the other hand, the monochord, with which students in physics are familiar, was his invention; and the first mathematical demonstrations of the effect on musical pitch of length of cord and tension, as well as the length of pipes and force of breath, were his.

These mathematical divisions of the monochord, however, eventually did more to stifle music for a full thousand years than can easily be imagined. This division of the string made what we call harmony impossible; for by it the major third became a larger interval than our modern one, and the minor third smaller. Thus thirds did not sound well together, in fact were dissonances, the only intervals which did harmonize being the fourth, fifth, and octave. This system of mathematically dividing tones into equal parts held good up to the middle of the sixteenth century, when Zarlino, who died in 1590, invented the system in use at the present time, called the tempered scale, which, however, did not come into general use until one hundred years later.

Aristoxenus, a pupil of Aristotle, who lived more than a century after Pythagoras, rejected the monochord as a means for gauging musical sounds, believing that the ear, not mathematical calculation, should be the judge as to which interval sounds "perfect." But he was unable to formulate a system that would bring the third (and naturally its inversion the sixth) among the harmonizing intervals or consonants. Didymus (about 30 B.C.) first discovered that two different-sized whole tones were necessary in order to make the third consonant; and Ptolemy (120 A.D.) improved on this system somewhat. But the new theory remained without any practical effect until nearly the seventeenth century, when the long respected theory of the perfection of mathematical calculation on the basis of natural phenomena was overthrown in favour of actual effect. If Aristoxenus had had followers able to combat the crushing influence of Euclid and his school, music might have grown up with the other arts. As it is, music is still in its infancy, and has hardly left its experimental stage.

Thus Pythagoras brought order into the music as well as into the lives of people. But whereas it ennobled the people, it killed the music, the one vent in life through which unbounded utterance is possible; its essence is so interwoven with spirituality that to tear it away and fetter it with human mathematics is to lower it to the level of mere utilitarianism. And so it was with Greek music, which was held subordinate to metre, to poetry, to acting, and finally became a term of contempt. Pythagoras wished to banish the flute, as Plato also did later, and the name of flute player was used as a reproach. I fancy this was because the flute, on account of its construction, could ignore the mathematical divisions prescribed for the stringed instruments, and therefore could indulge in purely emotional music. Besides, the flute was the chosen instrument of the orgiastic Bacchic cult, and its associations were those of unbridled license. To be sure, the voice was held by no mathematical restrictions as to pitch; but its music was held in check by the words, and its metre by dancing feet.

Having measured the musical intervals, there still remained the task of classifying the different manners of singing which existed in Greece, and using all their different notes to form a general system. For just as in different parts of Greece there existed different dances, the steps of which were known as Lydian, Ionian, Locrian, and Dorian feet, and so on, so the melodies to which they were danced were known as being in the Lydian, Ionian, Locrian, or Dorian scale or mode. In speaking of Hindu music, I explained that what we call a mode consists of a scale, and that one mode differs from another only in the position of the semitones in this scale. Now in ancient Greece there were in use over fifteen different modes, each one common to the part of the country in which it originated. At the time of Pythagoras there were seven in general use: the Dorian, Lydian, Aeolian or Locrian, Hypo- (or low) Lydian, Phrygian, Hypo- (or low) Phrygian, and Mixolydian or mixed Lydian. The invention of the latter is attributed to Sappho by Plutarch, quoting Aristoxenus.

These modes were all invested with individual characters by the Greeks, just as in the present day we say our major mode is happy, the minor sad. The Dorian mode was considered the greatest, and, according to Plato, the only one worthy of men. It was supposed to have a dignified, martial character. The Lydian, on the other hand, was all softness, and love songs were written in it. The Phrygian was of a violent, ecstatic nature, and was considered as being especially appropriate for dithyrambs, the metre for the wild bacchanalian dances. For instance, Aristotle tells how Philoxenus attempted to set dithyrambic verse to the Dorian mode, and, failing, had to return to the Phrygian. The Mixolydian, which was Sappho's mode, was the mode for sentiment and passion. The Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian were the oldest modes.

Each mode or scale was composed of two sets of four notes, called tetrachords, probably derived from the ancient form of the lyre, which in Homer's time is known to have had four strings.

Leaving the matter of actual pitch out of the question (for these modes might be pitched high or low, just as our major or minor scale may be pitched in different keys), these three modes were constructed as follows:

Greek Dorian (E F) G A (B C) D E, that is, semitone, tone, tone.

/ Phrygian D (E F) G A (B C) D, or F[#] (G[#] A) B C[#] (D[#] E) F[#], Asiatic that is, tone, semitone, tone. Lydian C D (E F) G A (B C), that is, tone, tone, semitone.

Thus we see that a tetrachord commencing with a half-tone and followed by two whole tones was called a Dorian tetrachord; one commencing with a tone, followed by a half-tone, and again a tone, constituted a Phrygian tetrachord. The other modes were as follows: In the Aeolian or Locrian the semitones occur between the second and third notes, and the fifth and sixth: [F: b, (c+ d) e (f+ g) a b] Theraclides Ponticus identifies the Hypodorian with the Aeolian, but says that the name "hypo-" merely denoted a likeness to Doric, not to pitch. Aristoxenus denies the identity, and says that the Hypodorian was a semitone below the Dorian or Hypolydian. In the Hypophrygian, the semitones occur between the third and fourth, and sixth and seventh degrees: [F: c+ d+ (e+ f+) g+ (a+ b) c+'] In the Hypolydian, the semitones occur between the fourth and fifth, and seventh and eighth: [F: e- f g (a b-) c' (d' e-')] The Dorian (E), Phrygian (commencing on F[sharp] with the fourth sharped), and the Lydian (A[flat] major scale) modes we have already explained. In the Mixolydian, the semitones occur between the first and second, and fourth and fifth degrees: [G: (a b-) c' (d' e-') f' g' a']

According to the best evidence (in the works of Ptolemy, "Harmonics," second book, and Aristides), these were approximately the actual pitch of the modes as compared one to another.

And now the difficulty was to weld all these modes together into one scale, so that all should be represented and yet not be complicated by what we should call accidentals. This was accomplished in the following manner, by simple mathematical means:

We remember that the Dorian, which was the most greatly favoured mode in Greece, was divided into two tetrachords of exactly the same proportions, namely, semitone, tone, tone. By taking the lowest note of the Mixolydian, B, and forming a Dorian tetrachord on it, B C D E were acquired. Adding to this another Dorian tetrachord, E F G A (commencing on the last note of the first), and repeating the same series of tetrachords an octave higher, we have in all four Dorian tetrachords, two of which overlap the others. The two middle tetrachords, constituting the original Dorian mode, were called disjunct, the two outer ones which overlap the middle ones were called conjunct or synemmenon tetrachords.

If we consider this new scale from octave to octave, commencing with the lowest note, that is to say from B to B, we find that it coincides exactly with the Mixolydian mode; therefore this was called the Mixolydian octave. The octave in this scale from the second note, C to C, coincides exactly with the Lydian mode, and was called the Lydian octave; from the third note, D, up to its octave gives the Phrygian; from the fourth note, E, the Dorian; from the fifth, F, the Hypolydian; from the sixth, G, the Hypophrygian; and from the seventh, A, the Aeolian or Hypodorian octave. Add one note to the lower end of this universal Greek scale, as it was called, and we see that the whole tonal system was included within two octaves. To each of the notes comprising it was given a name partly derived from its position in the tetrachords, and partly from the fingering employed in lyre playing, as shown in the diagram on page 87.

The fifteen strings of the kithara were tuned according to this scale, and the A, recurring three times in it, acquired something of the importance of a tonic or key note. As yet, however, this scale allowed of no transposition of a mode to another pitch; in order to accomplish this the second tetrachord was used as the first of another similar system. Thus, considering the second tetrachord, E F G A, as first of the new scale, it would be followed by A B[flat] C D, and the two disjunct tetrachords would be formed. Followed by the two upper conjunct tetrachords, and the proslambanomenos added, our system on a new pitch would be complete. This procedure has come down almost unchanged to our times; for we have but two modes, major and minor, which are used on every pitch, constituting various keys. These Greek modes are the basis on which all our modern ideas of tonality rest; for our major mode is simply the Greek Lydian, and our minor mode the Aeolian.

LIST OF NOTES IN THE GREEK SCALE

disjunct Aeolian. [G: a'] - A. Nete, or highest. - Hypophrygian. +- G. Paranete, next highest. Hypolydian. +- F. Trite, third. Dorian. - E. Nete, highest. - conjunct Phrygian. - D. Paranete, next highest. - -+ Lydian. +- C. Trite, third. Mixolydian. +- B. Paramese, next to central tone +- A. Mese, central tone. -+ ===+ + - G. Lichanos, index finger. + - F. Parhypate, next to lowest. - E. Hypate, lowest. === + - D. Lichanos, index. + - C. Parhypate, next to lowest. - B. Hypate, lowest. - [F: a,] A. Proslambanomenos, added tone.

To go into detailed explanation of the Greek enharmonic and chromatic pitch will scarcely be worth while, and I will therefore merely add that the instruments were sometimes tuned differently, either to relieve the inevitable monotony of this purely diatonic scale or for purposes of modulation. A Dorian tetrachord is composed of semitone, tone, tone; to make it chromatic, it was changed as follows: [G: e' f' g-' a'] the lichanos, or index finger string, being lowered a semitone.

The enharmonic pitch consisted of tuning the lichanos down still further, almost a quarter-tone below the second string, or parhypate, thus making the tetrachord run quarter-tone, quarter-tone, two tones. Besides this, even in the diatonic, the Greeks used what they called soft intervals; for example, when the tetrachord, instead of proceeding by semitone, tone, tone (which system was called the hard diatonic), was tuned to semitone, three-quarter-tone, and tone and a quarter. The chromatic pitch also had several forms, necessitating the use of small fractional tones as well as semitones.

Our knowledge of the musical notation of the Greeks rests entirely on the authority of Alypius, and dates from about the fourth century A.D. That we could not be absolutely sure of the readings of ancient Greek melodies, even if we possessed any, is evident from the fact that these note characters, which at first were derived from the signs of the zodiac, and later from the letters of the alphabet, indicate only the relative pitch of the sounds; the rhythm is left entirely to the metrical value of the words in the lines to be sung. Two sets of signs were used for musical notation, the vocal system consisting of writing the letters of the alphabet in different positions, upside down, sideways, etc.

Of the instrumental system but little is known, and that not trustworthy.

[05] The fundamental doctrine of the Pythagorean philosophy was that the essence of all things rests upon musical relations, that numbers are the principle of all that exists, and that the world subsists by the rhythmical order of its elements. The doctrine of the "Harmony of the spheres" was based on the idea that the celestial spheres were separated from each other by intervals corresponding with the relative length of strings arranged so as to produce harmonious tones.

[06] Dionysus, the same as the Roman Bacchus.



VII

THE MUSIC OF THE ROMANS—THE EARLY CHURCH

The art history of the world makes it clear to us that when the art of a country turns to over-elaboration of detail and mechanical dexterity, when there is a general tendency toward vividness of impression rather than poignancy and vitality of expression, then we have the invariable sign of that decadence which inevitably drifts into revolution of one kind or another. Lasus (500 B.C.), who, as previously mentioned, was a great flute and lyre player as well as poet, betrays this tendency, which reached its culmination under the Romans. Lasus was more of a virtuoso than a poet; he introduced into Greece a new and florid style of lyre and harp playing; and it was he who, disliking the guttural Dorian pronunciation of the letter S, wrote many of his choric poems without using this letter once in them. Pindar, his pupil, followed in his footsteps. In many of his odes we find intricate metrical devices; for instance, the first line of most of the odes is so arranged metrically that the same order of accents is maintained whether the line be read backward or forward, the short and long syllables falling into exactly the same places in either case. The line "Hercules, the patron deity of Thebes," may be taken as an example, [(- ' ' ' - )'( - ' ' ' -)]. Such devices occur all through his poems. We find in them also that magnificence of diction which is the forerunner of "virtuosity"; for he speaks of his song as "a temple with pillars of gold, gold that glitters like blazing fire in the night time."

In the hands of Aristophanes (450-380 B.C.), the technique of poetry continued to advance. In "The Frogs," "The Wasps," and "The Birds" are to be found marvels of skill in onomatopoetic[07] verse. His comedies called for many more actors than the tragedies had required, and the chorus was increased from fifteen to twenty-four. Purple skins were spread across the stage, and the parabasis (or topical song) and satire vied with the noble lines of Aeschylus and Sophocles for favour with the public.

Meanwhile, as might have been expected, instrumental music became more and more independent, and musicians, especially the flute players, prospered; for we read in Suidas that they were much more proficient and sought after than the lyre and kithara players. When they played, they stood in a conspicuous place in the centre of the audience. Dressed in long, feminine, saffron-coloured robes, with veiled faces, and straps round their cheeks to support the muscles of the mouth, they exhibited the most startling feats of technical skill. Even women became flute players, although this was considered disgraceful. The Athenians even went so far that they built a temple to the flute player Lamia, and worshipped her as Venus. The prices paid to these flute players surpassed even those given to virtuosi in modern times, sometimes amounting to more than one thousand dollars a day, and the luxury in which they lived became proverbial.

During this period, Aristophanes of Alexandria (350 B.C.), called "the grammarian," devised a means for indicating the inflection of the voice in speaking, by which the cadences which orators found necessary in impassioned speech could be classified, at least to some extent. When the voice was to fall, a downward stroke [] was placed above the syllable; when the voice was to be raised, an upward stroke [/] indicated it; and when the voice was to rise and fall, the sign was [/], which has become our accent in music. These three signs are found in the French language, in the accent aigu, or high accent, as in passe; the accent grave, or low accent, as in sincere; or circonflexe, as in Phaon. The use of dots[08] for punctuation is also ascribed to Aristophanes; and our dots in musical notation, as well as the use of commas to indicate breathings, may be traced to this system.

As I have said, all this tended toward technical skill and analysis; what was lacking in inventive power it was sought to cover by wonderful execution. The mania for flute playing, for instance, seemed to spread all over the world; later we even hear that the king of Egypt, Ptolemy Auletes (80-51 B.C.), Cleopatra's father, was nicknamed "the flute player."

In Rome, this lack of poetic vitality seemed evident from the beginning; for while Greece was represented by the tragedy and comedy, the Romans' preference was for mere pantomime, a species of farce of which they possessed three kinds: (1) The simple pantomime without chorus, in which the actors made the plot clear to the audience by means of gestures and dancing. (2) Another which called for a band of instrumental musicians on the stage to furnish an accompaniment to the acting of the pantomimist. (3) The chorus pantomime, in which the chorus and the orchestra were placed on the stage, supplementing the gestures of the actors by singing a narrative of the plot of the pantomime, and playing on their instruments. The latter also were expressive of the non-ideal character of the pantomime, as is indicated by the fact that the orchestra was composed of cymbals, gongs, castanets, foot castanets, rattles, flutes, bagpipes, gigantic lyres, and a kind of shell or crockery cymbals, which were clashed together.

The Roman theatre itself was not a place connected with the worship of the gods, as it was with the Greeks. The altar to Dionysus had disappeared from the centre of the orchestra, and the chorus, or rather the band, was placed upon the stage with the actors. The bagpipe now appears for the first time in musical history, although there is some question as to whether it was not known to the Assyrians. It represents, perhaps, the only remnant of Roman music that has survived, for the modern Italian peasants probably play in much the same way as did their forefathers. The Roman pipes were bound with brass, and had about the same power of tone as was obtained from the trumpet.

It is easy to see that an orchestra thus constituted would be better adapted for making a great noise than for music, while the pantomime itself was of such a brutal nature that the degradation of art may be said to have been complete. As the decay of art in Egypt culminated under Ptolemy Auletes, so in Rome it culminated in the time of Caligula (12-41 A.D.), and Nero (37-68 A.D.).

The latter, as we learn from Suetonius, competed for prizes in the public musical contests, and was never without a slave at his elbow to warn him against straining his voice. In his love of magnificence he resembled a Greek flute player, with unbounded means to gratify it. His palace, the "Golden House," had triple porticos a mile in length, and enclosed a lake surrounded by buildings which had the appearance of a city. Within its area were corn fields, vineyards, pastures, and woods containing many animals, both wild and tame. In other parts it was entirely overlaid with gold, and adorned with jewels and mother-of-pearl. The porch was so high that a colossal statue of himself, one hundred and twenty feet in height, stood in it. The supper rooms were vaulted, and compartments of the ceiling, inlaid with ivory, were made to revolve and scatter flowers; they also contained pipes which shed perfumes upon the guests.

When the revolt under Vindex broke out (68 A.D.), a new instrument had just been brought to Rome. Tertullian, Suetonius, and Vitruvius agree in calling it an organ. This instrument, which was the invention of Ctesibus of Alexandria, consisted of a set of pipes through which the air was made to vibrate by means of a kind of water pump operated by iron keys. It was undoubtedly the direct ancestor of our modern organ. Nero intended to introduce these instruments into the Roman theatre. In planning for his expedition against Vindex, his first care was to provide carriages for his musical instruments; for his intention was to sing songs of triumph after having quelled the revolt. He publicly vowed that if his power in the state were reestablished, he would include a performance upon organs as well as upon flutes and bagpipes, in the exhibitions he intended to institute in honour of his success.

From a musical point of view, Suetonius's biography of Nero is interesting chiefly on account of its giving us glimpses of the life of a professional musician of those days. We read, together with many other details, that it was the custom for a singer to lie on his back, with a sheet of lead upon his breast, to correct unsteadiness in breathing, and to abstain from food for two days together to clear his voice, often denying himself fruit and sweet pastry. The degraded state of the theatre may well be imagined from the fact that under Nero the custom of hiring professional applause was instituted. After his death, which is so dramatically told by Suetonius, music never revived in Rome.

In the meanwhile, however, a new kind of music had begun; in the catacombs and underground vaults, the early Christians were chanting their first hymns. Like all that we call "new," this music had its roots in the old. The hymns sung by the Christians were mainly Hebrew temple songs, strangely changed into an uncouth imitation of the ancient Greek drama or worship of Dionysus; for example, Philo of Alexandria, as well as Pliny the Younger, speaks of the Christians as accompanying their songs with gestures, and with steps forward and backward. This Greek influence is still further implied by the order of one of the earliest of the Church fathers, Clement of Alexandria (about 300 A.D.), who forbade the use of the chromatic style in the hymns, as tending too much toward paganism. Some writers even go so far as to identify many of the Christian myths and symbols with those of Greece. For instance, they see, in the story of Daniel in the lions' den, another form of the legend of Orpheus taming the wild beasts; in Jonah, they recognize Arion and the dolphin; and the symbol of the Good Shepherd, carrying home the stray lamb on his shoulders, is considered another form of the familiar Greek figure of Hermes carrying the goat.

Be this as it may, it is certain that this crude beginning of Christian music arose from a vital necessity, and was accompanied by an indomitable faith. If we look back, we note that until now music had either been the servant of ignoble masters, looked upon as a mathematical problem to be solved scientifically, or used according to methods prescribed by the state. It had been dragged down to the lowest depths of sensuality by the dance, and its divine origin forgotten in lilting rhythms and soft, lulling rhymes.

On the other hand, the mathematicians, in their cold calculation, reduced music to the utilitarianism of algebra, and even viewed it as a kind of medicine for the nerves and mind. When we think of the music of Pythagoras and his school, we seem to be in a kind of laboratory in which all the tones are labelled and have their special directions for use. For the legend runs that he composed melodies in the diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic styles as antidotes for moods such as anger, fear, sorrow, etc., and invented new rhythms which he used to steady and strengthen the mind, and to produce simplicity of character in his disciples. He recommended that every morning, after rising, they should play on the lyre and sing, in order to clear the mind. It was inevitable that this half mathematical, half psychologically medicinal manner of treating music would, in falling into the hands of Euclid (300 B.C.) and his school, degenerate into a mere peg on which to hang mathematical theorems. On the other hand, when we think of Greek dances, we seem to pass into the bright, warm sunshine. We see graceful figures holding one another by the wrist, dancing in a circle around some altar to Dionysus, and singing to the strange lilt of those unequal measures. We can imagine the scheme of colour to be white and gold, framed by the deep-blue arch of the sky, the amethyst sea flecked with glittering silver foam, and the dark, sombre rocks of the Cretan coast bringing a suggestion of fate into this dancing, soulless vision. Turning now to Rome, we see that this same music has fallen to a wretched slave's estate, cowering in some corner until the screams of Nero's living torches need to be drowned; and then, with brazen clangour and unabashed rhythms, this brutal music flaunts forth with swarms of dancing slaves, shrilling out the praises of Nero; and the time for successful revolution is at hand.

The first steps toward actually defining the new music took place in the second century, when the Christians were free to worship more openly, and, having wealthy converts among them, held their meetings in public places and basilicas which were used by magistrates and other officials during the day. These basilicas or public halls had a raised platform at one end, on which the magistrate sat when in office. There were steps up to it, and on these steps the clergy stood. The rest of the hall was called the "nave" (ship), for the simile of "storm-tossed mariners" was always dear to the early Christian church. In the centre of the nave stood the reader of the Scriptures, and on each side of him, ranged along the wall, were the singers. The Psalms were sung antiphonally, that is, first one side would sing and the other side would answer. The congregations were sometimes immense, for according to St. Jerome (340-420 A.D.) and St. Ambrose (340-397 A.D.) "the roofs reechoed with their cries of 'Alleluia,' which in sound were like the great waves of the surging sea."

Nevertheless this was, as yet, only sound, and not music. Not until many centuries later did music become distinct from chanting, which is merely intoned speech. The disputes of the Arians and the Athanasians also affected the music of the church, for as early as 306 A.D., Arius introduced many secular melodies, and had them sung by women.

Passing over this, we find that the first actual arrangement of Christian music into a regular system was attempted by Pope Sylvester, in 314 A.D., when he instituted singing schools, and when the heresy of Arius was formally condemned.

Now this chanting or singing of hymns was more or less a declamation, thus following the Greek tradition of using one central note, somewhat in the nature of a keynote.

Rhythm, distinct melody, and even metre were avoided as retaining something of the unclean, brutal heathenism against which the Christians had revolted. It was the effort to keep the music of the church pure and undefiled that caused the Council of Laodicea (367 A.D.) to exclude from the church all singing not authorized from the pulpit.

A few years later (about 370 A.D.) Ambrose, the Archbishop of Milan, strove to define this music more clearly, by fixing upon the modes that were to be allowed for these chants; for we must remember that all music was still based upon the Greek modes, the modern major and minor being as yet unknown. In the course of time the ancient modes had become corrupted, and the modes that Ambrose took for his hymns were therefore different from those known in Greece under the same names. His Dorian is what the ancients called Phrygian, [G: d' d''] dominant, A; his Phrygian was the ancient Dorian, [G: e' e''] dominant, C; his Lydian corresponded to the old Hypolydian, [G: f' f''] dominant, C; and his Mixolydian to the old Hypophrygian, [G: g' g''] dominant, D. These modes were accepted by the church and were called the Authentic modes.

Almost two centuries later, Gregory the Great added four more modes, which were called Plagal or side modes (from plagios—oblique). These were as follows:

(Keynote)

Hypodorian, [G: a (d') a' ] dominant, F. Hypophrygian, [G: c (e') b' ] dominant, A. Hypolydian, [G: c' (f') c''] dominant, A. Hypo-mixolydian, [G: d' (g') d''] dominant, C.

It is easy to see that these so-called new modes are simply new versions of the first four; although they are lowered a fourth beneath the authentic modes (hence the hypo), the keynote remains the same in each instance. Still later two more modes were added to this list, the Ionic, [G: c' c''] dominant, G, which corresponded to the ancient Greek Lydian; and the Aeolian, [G: a' a''] dominant, E, which, strange to say, was the only one of these newer modes which corresponded to its Greek namesake. Naturally these two newly admitted modes were also accompanied by their lower pitched attendant modes, the Hypoionic, [G: g (c') g'] dominant, E, and the Hypoaeolian, [G: e' (a') e''] dominant, C.

SUMMARY

Mode. Key. Dominant.

Dorian. D A Hypodorian. D F Phrygian. E C Hypophrygian. E A Lydian. F C Hypolydian. F A Mixolydian. G D Hypo-mixolydian. G C Aeolian. A E Hypoaeolian. A C Ionian. C G Hypoionian. C E

Dominants

[G: a' f' c' {a (a')} c' a d' c' e' c' g' e']

Now all these lower, or derived modes, Hypodorian, Hypophrygian, Hypolydian, etc., received the name Plagal modes, because there was but one tonic or keynote in the scale; consequently a melody starting on any degree of the scale would invariably return to the same tonic or keynote. They differed from the authentic modes, inasmuch as in the latter a melody might end either on the upper or lower tonic or keynote. Thus the melody itself was said to be either authentic or plagal, according to whether it had one or two tonics. The theme of Schumann's "Etudes symphoniques" is authentic, and the first variation is plagal.

Between the sixth and tenth centuries there was much confusion as to the placing of these modes, but they finally stood as given above. The Greek names were definitely accepted in the eleventh century, or thereabouts; previously, they were known also as the first, second, third, etc., up to the twelfth, church tones or Gregorian modes.

At this point it is necessary to refer again to Ambrose. Apart from having brought the first four authentic modes into church music, he composed many hymns which had this peculiarity, namely, that they were modelled more on the actual declamation of the words to be sung than had hitherto been the case. We are told that his chants—to use the phrase of his contemporary, Francis of Cologne—were "all for sweetness and melodious sound"; and St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.), speaks of them with ecstasy. The words in these hymns were used in connection with small groups of notes; consequently they could be understood as they were sung, thus returning in a measure to the character of the music of the ancients, in which the word and declamation were of greater importance than the actual sounds which accompanied them. But now a strange thing was to happen that was to give us a new art. Now, at last, music was to be separated from language and dance rhythms, and stand alone for the first time in the history of civilization as pure music.

To appreciate the change made by Gregory (540-604 A.D.), it is necessary to bear in mind the state of the church just before his time. As the Ambrosian chant had brought something of the old declamation and sweetness back into the church ceremonial, so also in the church itself there was a tendency to sink back into the golden shimmer that had surrounded the ancient pagan rites. Already Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch (260 A.D.), had striven to bring a certain Oriental magnificence into the church ceremonials. He had a canopied throne erected for himself, from which he would address his congregation; he introduced applause into the church, after the fashion of the Roman theatres; he also had a chorus of women singers, who, as Eusebius tells us, sang not the Christian hymns, but pagan tunes. Later, in Constantinople, even this luxury and pomp increased; the churches had domes of burnished gold, and had become gigantic palaces, lit by thousands of lamps. The choir, dressed in glittering robes, was placed in the middle of the church, and these singers began to show the same fatal sign of decadence that we saw before in Rome and Greece. According to St. Chrysostom (347-407 A.D.), they used unguents on their throats in order to make the voice flexible, for by this time the singing had become a mere vehicle for virtuosity; when they sang their tours de force, the people applauded and waved their handkerchiefs, as they did also when the preaching pleased them. The pagans pointed the finger of scorn at the Christians, as being mere renegades from the old religion, and said, plausibly enough, that their worship was merely another form of the Dionysus tragedy. There was the same altar, the same chorus, the priest who sang and was answered by the chorus; and the resemblance had grown to such an extent that St. Chrysostom (350 A.D.) complained that the church chorus accompanied its singing with theatrical gestures, which, as we know, is simply the first step towards the dance.

This was the state of things when Gregory became Pope in 590 A.D. His additions to the modes already in use have been explained. His great reform lay in severing the connection between the music of the church and that of the pagan world before it. Casting aside the declamation and rhythm, which up to now had always dominated pure sound, he abolished the style of church singing in vogue, and substituted for it a system of chanting in which every tie between the words and music was severed.

The music was certainly primitive enough, for it consisted merely of a rising and falling of the voice for the space of many notes on one single syllable, as, for instance,

[F: (f g f g a a) a (a a a g a g g f a)] [W: Gloria]

The difference between this and the Ambrosian chant is evident if we look at the following; and we must also bear in mind that the Ambrosian chants were very simple in comparison with the florid tours de force of the Byzantine church:

[F: d (d f) (d e) f (g f) (g a) a (a g) a c' d'] [W: Al me pater Ambrosi, nostras, preces,] [F: (a b) a a g a f e d] [W: audi Christe, exaudinos]

Now this reform could not be carried out at once; it was only through the medium of Charlemagne (742-814 A.D.), a hundred years later, that the Gregorian chant was firmly established. Authorized by a synod of bishops, called together from all parts of Europe by Pope Adrian I, Charlemagne, in 774, caused all the chant and hymn books of the Ambrosian system throughout Italy to be burned. So completely was this accomplished that only one Ambrosian missal was found (by St. Eugenius at Milan), and from this work alone can we form any idea as to the character of the music used by the followers of Ambrose, who were much retarded by the lack of a musical notation, which was the next factor needed to bring music to an equality with the other arts.

[07] Imitating the sound of the thing signified. Poe's "Raven" has much of this character.

[08] [over-dot]c, perfect pause; c[mid-dot], short; c., shortest; breathings: [reverse-apostrophe] hard; ' soft.



VIII

FORMATION OF THE SCALE—NOTATION

In comparing the Ambrosian chant with that of Gregory, it may be said that we have touched upon the vital principle of modern music. The novelty in the Gregorian chant consisted in its absolute emancipation from the tyranny of actual words and declamation; while the idea, the poetic principle, or religious ecstasy still remained the ideal to be expressed in the music. Before this, as already explained, music was either a mathematical problem, a rhythm to mark the time in dancing, or a vehicle serving for the display of clever tours de force, the music of the tragedies being merely a kind of melodious declamation. To quote Goethe, "having recognized the fact, it still remains for us to see how it developed." Let us now consider this point.

Three things were necessary before these Gregorian chants could develop at all: (1) A simple, clean-cut musical scale or systematized table of musical sounds. (2) Some definite manner of symbolizing sounds, so that they could be accurately expressed in writing. (3) A cultivation of the sense of hearing, in order that mankind might learn to distinguish between sounds that are discordant and those that sound well together; in other words, harmony.

We will begin with the scale, and review what we know of the Greek modes in order to show how they were amalgamated into our present octave system of scales.

[Tetrachords / - / - ] [ F: b, c d e f g a G: b c' d' e' f' g' a'] [Mixolydian +-+-+-+-+-+ / ] [Lydian -+-+-+-+-+ / ] [Phrygian -+-+-+-+ -/ ] [Dorian -+-+-+ / ] [Hypolydian -+-+ -/ ] [Hypophrygian -+ / ] [Aeolian or Locrian or Hypodorian -/ ] [Notes labelled from highest to lowest: Nete, Paranete, Trite, Nete, Paranete, Trite, Paramese, Mese, Lichanos, Parhypate, Hypate, Lichanos, Parhypate, Hypate, [F: a,] Proslambanomenos.]

Under Ambrose and Pope Gregory, these modes had taken a different form. The chromatic and enharmonic styles had been abandoned in theory, the portamento which the singers introduced into their chants being the only principle retained. The new system was as follows:

[F8: g, a, b, G8: c d e f g a b c' d' e' f' g' a'] [First nine notes labelled: Hypoion., Hypodor., Hypophryg., Hypolyd./Ionian, Hypo-mixolyd./Dorian, Hypoaeol./Phryg., Lyd., Mixolyd., Aeol.]

In order to complete the story of the evolution of scales and clefs, we must add that the Flemish monk, Hucbald (900 A.D.), divided this scale into regular tetrachords, beginning at G, with the succession, tone, semitone, tone, forming four disjunct tetrachords,

[F: (g, a, b-, c) (d e f g) (a b c' d') G: (e' f+' g' a')]

This division remained without influence on the development of the scale.

The first change in the tetrachord system of reckoning tones and dividing the scale was made by Guido d'Arezzo (first half of eleventh century), who divided it into hexachords or groups of six notes each. Up to that time, each note of the scale had had a letter of the alphabet for its symbol. It was Guido who conceived the idea of using syllables for these notes. The story of how it occurred to him is well known: On one occasion, hearing his brethren in the monastery choir of Arezzo, in Tuscany, sing a hymn to St. John the Baptist, he noticed that the first syllable of each line came on regularly ascending notes of the scale, the first syllable coming on C, the first of the next line on D, the first of the third on E, etc., up to A on the sixth line. As all these syllables happened to differ one from the other, and, moreover, were very easy to sing, he hit upon the idea of using them to distinguish the notes on which they fell in the hymn.

[F: c d f (d e) d d d c d e e ] [W: Ut queant laxis Resonare fibris ] [F: (e f g) e (d e) c d f g a (g f) d d] [W: Mira gestorum Famuli tuorum ] [F: (g a g) e f g d a g a f (g a) a (g f) d c e d ] [W: Solve polluti Labii reatum Sancte Joannes]

Furthermore, as there were six of these syllables, he arranged the musical scale in groups of six notes instead of four, hexachords instead of tetrachords. Commencing with G, which was the lowest note of the system in Hucbald's time, the first hexachord was formed of G A B C D E; the second, following the example of the Greeks, he made to overlap the first, namely, C D E F G A; the third, likewise overlapping the second, commenced on F. In order to make this hexachord identical in structure with, the first and second, he flatted the B, thus making the succession of notes, F G A B[flat] C D. The next three hexachords were repetitions of the first three, namely, G A B C D E, C D E F G A, F G A B[flat] C D; the last was again a repetition of the first, G A B C D E.

THE GAMUT.

[F: g, a, b, c d e c d e f g a f g a b- c' d' ] [W: [Gamma] A B C D E C D E F G a F G a b c d ] [W: (Ut re mi fa sol la) (Ut re mi fa sol la) (Ut re mi fa sol la)] [Hexachords: (Hard Low) (Natural Low) (Soft Low)]

[G: g a b= c' d' e' c' d' e' f' g' a' ] [W: G a b c d e c d e f g aa ] [W: (Ut re mi fa sol la) (Ut re mi fa sol la)] [Hexachords: (Hard High) (Natural High)]

[G: f' g' a' b-' c'' d'' g' a' b=' c'' d'' e''] [W: f g aa bb cc dd g aa bb cc dd ee ] [W: (Ut re mi fa sol la) (Ut re mi fa sol la)] [Hexachords: (Soft High) (Hard Super Acute)]

To the lowest note of this scale, which was foreign to the Greek system, he gave a special name, gamma, after the Greek letter G. From this we get our word for the scale, the gamut. The other notes remained the same as before, only that for the lowest octave capital letters were used; in the next octave, the notes were designated by small letters, and in the last octave by double letters, aa, bb, etc., as in the following example.

[F: g, g G: a g' a' g'' ] [W: Capitals. : Small letters Double or very small letters]

PRESENT SCALE.

[F: c,, c, c G: c' c'' c''' c''''] [W: C_ C c : c' c'' c''' c''''] [W: Contra Great Small : 1st 2nd 3rd 4th ]

Following out his system, he applied the newly acquired syllables to each of the hexachords—for instance, the lowest hexachord, G A B C D E, which was called hard, became ut re mi fa sol la; the second, which was called natural, C D E F G A, also became ut re mi fa sol la; and the third, which was called soft, F G A B[flat] C D, became likewise ut re mi fa sol la. The next three hexachords were treated in the same manner; the last or seventh hexachord was merely a repetition of the first and the fourth.

Now in the hymns, and also in the sequences, as they were called (which were simply a series of notes forming a little melody sung to two or three words), the voice was rarely called upon to progress more than the interval of a sixth, and so this solmization, as the new system was called, was very valuable; for one had only to give the pitch, and ut always meant the keynote, re the second, mi the third, etc., etc. In time ut was found to be a difficult syllable to sing, and do was substituted. This change, however, was made after the scale was divided into a system of octaves instead of hexachords. The improvement in singing soon made the limits of the hexachords too small to be practical; therefore another syllable was added to the hexachordal system, si, and with this seventh note we have our modern scale. From this we see that the scale in present use is composed of octaves, just as the older scales were composed of hexachords, and before that tetrachords. Just as in mediaeval times each hexachord commenced with ut, so now every octave of our tonal system commences with do.

Before leaving the hexachordal system, it may be as well to explain the mode of procedure when the voice had to go beyond the interval of the sixth. We know that the first of every set of six notes was called ut, the second, re, the third, mi, etc. When the voice had to go beyond la, the sixth note, to B[natural], that sixth note was always called re, and was considered the second note of a new hexachord. If, on the other hand, the voice had to go beyond a, to B[flat], the fifth note was called re, since the syllables mi fa must always come on the half-tone.

In a study of our system of writing music, it may be as well to begin with the derivation of our sharps and flats. Observing the third hexachord on our list we see that in order to make it identical in structure with the first and second, the B had to be lowered a semitone. Now the third hexachord was called soft. The B[flat] in it was accordingly called a soft B or B molle, which is still the name in France for a flat, and moll in German still means minor, or "soft" or "lowered." For the fourth hexachord, which was called hard, this B was again raised a semitone. But the flatted B was already indicated by the letter b or round b, as it was called; hence this B natural was given a square shape and called B carre, . The present French word for natural (when it is specially marked) is becarre; the German word for major also comes indirectly from this, for dur means "hard."

An explanation of the modern German names for notes will be easily understood in this connection. In the German nomenclature the letters of the alphabet stand for the notes of the scale as in the English, with the exception of B. This B, or "round" B, in the German system stands for B[flat], which is more logical than our English usage, since our flat is merely a slightly modified form of b. The German B natural is our letter h, which is merely a corruption of the square b, , which by the addition of a line in time became our [natural]. The Germans have carried the flatting and sharping of tones to a logical conclusion in their present nomenclature, for by "sharping" the sound of a single letter it is raised a semitone from its normal diapason, thus F becomes Fis, G Gis. On the other hand, in order to lower a tone, the letter representing it is "flatted," and F is called Fes, G Ges, the only exception to these rules being the B which we have already considered.

In France the Guidonian system was adhered to closely, and to this day the becarre is used only as an accidental, to indicate that the note to which it refers has been flatted before. The naturel (which has the same shape) is used to designate a note that is natural to the key; thus the distinction is made between an accidental and a note that is common to the key. In F major, for instance, B[natural] is si becarre, A[natural] would be la naturel. Our modern sharp is merely another form of the natural or square B ([natural]) which gradually came to be used before any note, signifying that it was raised or sharped a half-tone; the flat lowered it a semitone, and after a while the natural received its present place between the sharp and flat. The first instance we have of the sharp being used is in the thirteenth century, when (in the Rondels of Adam de la Hale) it takes the form of a cross [x] (the German word for the sharp still remains kreuz). The French word diese (sharp) comes from the Greek diesis, a term used to indicate the raising of the voice in the chromatic scale.

And now we have to speak of notation and its development. Thus far we have found only two ways in which musical sounds were indicated by the ancients. First, we remember the invention of Aristophanes of Alexandria, his accents, high, low, and circumflex. Then we know from Ptolemy, Boethius, and Alypius that letters were used to designate the different tones; but as there is no music extant in this notation to prove the theory, we need not trouble ourselves with it.

The system of Aristophanes, however, was destined to become the nucleus from which our modern notation sprang. We know that an elementary idea, clearly expressed, has more chances of living than has a more complicated system, however ingenious the latter may be. Now this system is so plain that we will find it is common to many aboriginal peoples, for instance the American Indians have a system very similar.

In the period now under consideration (from the third to the tenth century), music was noted in this way: an upstroke of the pen meant a raising of the voice, a downstroke lowered it, a flat stroke meant a repetition of the same note, thus [/ -] [G: c' g' c' c']. Gradually it became necessary to indicate the contour of the melodies with more accuracy; therefore the circumflex was added [Over-slur] [G: g' c'' g'] and reversed [Under-slur] [G: g' e' g']. Still later a sign for two steps was invented [Step] [G: e' g' b'] and when the progression was to be diatonically stepwise the strokes were thicker [Thick Step] [G: g' a' b']. So this notation developed, and by combining the many signs together, simple non-rhythmic melodies could be indicated with comparative clearness and simplicity. The flat stroke for a single note [-], indicating [G: b'], eventually became smaller and thicker, thus [Thick -]. By combining these different signs, a skip of a third and back came to be noted [Crenellation], and if the note came down on a second instead of the original note it became [Podium] [G: g' b' a']. The quilisma ([Upper Mordent]) indicated a repetition of two notes, one above the other, and we still use much the same sign for our trill. Also the two forms of the circumflex, [Over-slur] [Under-slur], were joined ([Turn]) and thus we have the modern turn, so much used by Wagner.

Now while this notation was ingenious, it still left much to be desired as to pitch. To remedy this a red line was drawn before writing these signs or neumes, as they were called. This line represented a given pitch, generally E; above and below it were then written the signs for the notes, their pitch being determined by the relative position they held in regard to the line. Thus [Podium, Turn, Upper Mordent] was the equivalent of [G: c' e' d' e' d' c' d' e' d' e' d' e' d'], considering the line as being middle C pitch, a fourth higher F. This was the condition of musical notation in 1000 A.D.

To Guido d'Arezzo is ascribed its development up to some semblance of our present system, although the claim has often been denied. It is certain, however, that the innovations were made at this period. In the first place Guido made the red line always stand for the pitch of F, and at a little distance above it he added another line, this time yellow, which was to indicate the pitch of C. Thus the signs began to take very definite meaning as regards pitch; for, given a sign extending from one line to the other, the reader could see at a glance that the music progressed a fifth, from F to C, or vice-versa. And now the copyists, seeing the value of these lines in determining the pitch of the different signs, of their own account added two more in black ink, one of which they drew between the F and the C line, and the other above the C line, thus . By doing this they accurately decided the pitch of every note, for the lowest line, being F, the line between that and the C line must stand for A, and the two spaces for G and B; the top line would stand for E, and the space between it and the yellow line for D. Little by little these copyists grew careless about making the lines in yellow, red, and black, and sometimes drew them all in black or red, thereby losing the distinguishing mark of the F and C lines. In order to remedy this, Guido placed the letters F and C before the lines representing these notes, thus . In this way our modern clefs (clavis or key) originated, for the C clef, as it is called, gradually changed its shape to and , and the F clef changed to , which is our bass clef in a rudimentary form.

Later, still another line was added to the set, thus giving us our modern staff, and another clef, , was added on the next to the lowest line. This, in turn, became our present treble clef, G. In the course of time the signs themselves underwent many changes, until at last from [Podium], etc., they became our modern signs.

Before this, however, a grave defect in the notation had to be remedied. There was as yet no way of designating the length of time a note was to be sustained; something definite in the way of noting rhythm was necessary. This was accomplished by Franco of Cologne, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. By disconnecting the parts of the sign [Podium] one from another, the following individual signs were acquired . In order to have two distinct values of length, these signs were called longs and shorts, longa , and brevis , to which was added the brevis in another position , called semibrevis. The longa was twice the value of the brevis, and the semibrevis was half the length of the brevis ([L = B B B = S S]). When notes of equal length were slurred, they were written . When two or more notes were to be sung to one syllable in quicker time, the brevi were joined one to the other , as for instance in the songs of the thirteenth century,

DIRGE FOR KING RICHARD'S DEATH

GAUCELM FAIDIT.

[W: Fortz chose est que tot le maur major dam]

ROI THIBAUT DE NAVARRE (1250).

[W: Si li dis sans de laies Belle diex vous doint bon jour]

or, in modern style,

[G: g' a' b' c'' (d'' c'') (b' a' g') a' b' (c'' b') (b' a' g') (a' b') g']

In this example we find the first indication of the measuring off of phrases into bars. As we see, it consisted of a little stroke, which served to show the beginning of a new line, and was not restricted to regularity of any kind except that necessitated by the verse.

The use of the semibrevis is shown in the following chanson of Raoul de Coucy (1192):

[W: Quant li rossignol jolis chante Seur la flor d'este que n'est la rose et le lis]

[G: d'' (c'' a') b-' (a' (g' f')) g' (a' b-' a' f') f' f' g' a' (b-' a') (c'' d'' c'' b-') (a' g') a' d'' (c'' a') b-' a' (g' f') g' (a' (b-' a') f') f']

The French troubadours and the German minnesingers of the thirteenth century used these forms of notes only, and even then restricted themselves to two kinds, either the longa and brevis, or brevis and semibrevis.

The necessity for rests very soon manifested itself, and the following signs were invented to correspond to the longa, brevis, and semibrevis . Also the number of note symbols was increased by the maxima or double longa , and the minima , which represented half the value of the semibrevis.

Now that music began taking a more definite rhythmic form than before, a more regular dividing off of the phrases became necessary. This was accomplished by the use of a dot, and another form, the perpendicular line, which we have noticed in the song of the King of Navarre (1250). At first a means to indicate triple time was invented, and the measure corresponding to our [9/8] was indicated by placing the sign Ọ at the beginning of the line. This was called perfect. Then, for plain triple time the dot was omitted [O]; for [6/8] time the sign C was adopted, and for ordinary common time [C] was taken. Consequently, when these signs were placed at the beginning of the line they changed the value of the notes to correspond to the time marked. Thus in Ọ (tempus perfectum, prolatio major) or [9/8], the brevis was reckoned worth three semibrevi [B = S S S] ([1. = 4. 4. 4.]); the semibrevis three minimi [S = M M M] ([4. = 8 8 8]). In [O] or [3/4] time [B = S S S] ([2. = 4 4 4]); but the semibrevis was only as long as two minimi [S = M M] ([4 = 8 8]). In C or [6/8] time [B = S S] ([2. = 4. 4.]), but [S = M M M] ([4. = 8 8 8]). In [C] or [2/2] time [B = S S] ([1 = 2 2]), and [S = M M] ([2 = 4 4]).

In the beginning of the fifteenth century the notes began to be written in an open form

Maxima. Longa. Brevis. Semibrevis. Minima. Semiminima, which was added later.

As still smaller units of value were added, the semiminima was replaced by [filled minima], and the half semiminima thus became [minima with tail], and the next smaller values, [two tails] and [three tails]. The rest to correspond to the semiminima was ; for the semibrevis , and minima .

Thus we have the following values and their corresponding rests:

Maxima Longa Brevis Semibrevis Minima Semiminima or crocheta Fusa or crocheta Semifusa

The rests for the fusa and semifusa were turned to the left in order to avoid the confusion that would ensue if the rest stood for [fusa]. Besides, the sign would have easily become confused with the C clef .

Signs for the changes of tempo, that is to say changes from quick to slow, etc., were introduced in the fifteenth century. The oldest of them consists of drawing a line through the tempus sign O. This meant that the notes were to be played or sung twice as rapidly as would usually be the case, without, however, affecting the relative value of the notes to one another. Now we remember that the sign [C] stood for our modern [4/4] time; when a line was drawn through it, C it indicated that two brevi were counted as one, and the movement was said to be alla breve. This is the one instance of time signatures that has come down to us unaltered.



IX

THE SYSTEMS OF HUCBALD AND GUIDO D'AREZZO—THE BEGINNING OF COUNTERPOINT

We have seen that by order of Charlemagne, Ambrosian chant was superseded by that of Gregory, and from any history of music we may learn how he caused the Gregorian chant to be taught to the exclusion of all other music. Although Notker, in the monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland, and others developed the Gregorian chant, until the time of Hucbald this music remained mere wandering melody, without harmonic support of any kind.

Hucbald (840-930) was a monk of the monastery of St. Armand in Flanders. As we know from our studies in notation, he was the first to improve the notation by introducing a system of lines and spaces, of which, however, the spaces only were utilized for indicating the notes, viz.:



His attempt to reconstruct the musical scale was afterwards overshadowed by the system invented by Guido d'Arezzo, and it is therefore unnecessary to describe it in detail. His great contribution to progress was the discovery that more than one sound could be played or sung simultaneously, thus creating a composite sound, the effect which we call a chord. However, in deciding which sounds should be allowed to be played or sung together, he was influenced partly by the mysticism of his age, and partly by a blind adherence to the remnants of musical theory which had been handed down from the Greeks. As Franco of Cologne, later (1200), in systematizing rhythm into measure, was influenced by the idea of the Trinity in making his [3/8] or [9/8] time tempus perfectum, and adopting for its symbol the Pythagorean circle Ọ or [O], so Hucbald, in choosing his series of concords or sounds that harmonize well together, took the first three notes of the overtones of every sonorous fundamental, or, to express it differently, of the series of natural harmonics, that is to say, he admitted the octave and fifth: [F: g, d g]. But from the fifth to the octave gives the interval of the fourth, therefore he permitted this combination also.

From the works of Boethius (circa 400) and others, he had derived and accepted the Pythagorean division of the scale, making thirds and sixths dissonant intervals; and so his perfect chord (from which our later triad gets its name of perfect) was composed of a root, fifth or fourth, and octave.

Hucbald, as I have already explained, changed the Greek tone system somewhat by arranging it in four regular disjunct tetrachords, namely:

[F: (g, a, b-, c) (d e f g) G: (a b c' d') (e' f+' g' a')]

This system permitted the addition of a fifth to each note indiscriminately, and the fifths would always be perfect; but in regard to the octaves it was faulty, for obvious reasons. As his system of notation consisted of merely writing T for tone and S for semitone between the lines of his staff, it was only necessary to change the order of these letters for the octave at the beginning of each line. With the fourth, however, this device was impossible, and therefore he laid down the rule that when the voices proceeded in fourths, and a discord (or augmented fourth) was unavoidable, the lower voice was to remain on the same note until it could jump to another fourth forming a perfect interval: