CHAPTER XII.

THE RISE OF POLYPHONY. OLD FRENCH AND GALLO-BELGIC SCHOOLS.

I.

We here enter upon one of the most interesting and important chapters in the history of music. The art of polyphony had its origin at the same period as the pointed arch and the great cathedrals of Europe, which our architects strive in vain to surpass. In the province of music it represents the same bounding movement of mind, filled with high ideality, which gave rise to the crusades, and poured out in their support such endless treasures of life and love. And in the same country, too, arose the Gothic arch, the beauties of the shrine of Notre Dame in Paris, and the involved and massive polyphony of music. _Polyphonic_ is a term which relates itself to two others, as the leading types of all effort toward the expression of spirit through organized tones. They are _Monodic_ and _Homophonic_. The musical art of the ancients was an art in which a single melodic formula was doubled in a lower or higher octave, but where no support of harmony was added, and where the only realization of variety could come through the province of rhythm alone; or, perhaps, to a very limited extent through changes in the mode or color of the scale from which the melody had been derived. Monodic art was an art of melody only, rhythm finding its explanation and source in the words, and so far as we understand the case, scarcely at all in the music. Our modern art of homophony is like that in having but a single melody at each moment of the piece; but it differs from the ancient in the important particular of a harmonic support for the melody tones composed of "chords in key." This harmonic accompaniment rules everything in modern music. It is within the power of the composer to confirm the obvious meaning of the melody tone by supporting it with the chord which would most readily suggest itself, within the narrowest limitations in the concept of key; or, second, it is within his reach to impart to any tone, apparently most commonplace, a deeper and a subtler meaning, by making it a peculiarly expressive tone of some related key. Instances of this use of harmonic accompaniment are numerous in Wagner's works, and form the most obvious peculiarity of his style, and the chief reason why the hearers to whom his works were first presented did not recognize the beauties and the novelties of poetic expression in them. Half way between these two types of musical art stands polyphony, which means etymologically "many sounds," but which in musical technique means "multiplicity of melodies." In a true polyphony not only has every tone of the leading voice a melodic character, but all the tones which sound together with it are themselves elements of other and independently moving melodies. Polyphony comprehends the most recondite elements of musical theory, but its essence consists of one leading concept--that of canonic imitation. The simplest form of this is furnished by that musical construction known as "round," in which one voice leads off with a phrase, and immediately a second voice begins with the same melodic idea at the same pitch, and follows after. At the proper interval a third voice enters and follows the procession at a corresponding distance behind. Thus, when there is only one voice singing we have monody; when the second voice enters we have combined sounds consisting of two elements; and when the third enters we have at each successive step chords of three tones. If there are four voices, as soon as the fourth enters, we have combined sounds of four elements. This form of musical construction was much practiced in England, as already noticed. A round, however, does not come to a close, but goes on in an endless sequence until arrested arbitrarily by the performers. Such a form is not proper to art, since it lacks the necessary element of completeness, for at whatever point it may have been arrested there was no innate reason why it might not have gone on indefinitely.

The polyphonic compositions of the schools in consideration in the present chapter go farther than this. While they consist of imitative treatment of a single subject carried through all the voices, or of several subjects which come together in such a way that the ear is not able to follow them as individuals, there is a conclusion, and the canonic imitation has a legitimate ending. Besides those compositions consisting of repetitions of the same subjects, these schools gave rise to other works in which several subjects are treated more or less in the same manner as a single subject would have been in a simpler composition. Nevertheless, in the earlier stages of the development, all the chords arose as incidents, and not as ends. The composer brought in his leading melodic idea at the interval prescribed or chosen. If crudities arose when all the voices were employed, he took no notice of them; the hearers, apparently, being too intent upon following the individual voices to notice the forbidden parallels of fifths or octaves, which inevitably arose until the composer had learned which intervals might be used without harmonic offense, and which not.

Before proceeding to the story of this chapter, the definition of a few terms may be advisable, in the interests of clearness. By "imitation," then, we mean the exact repetition of the melody of one part by another part, at the same or a different pitch. Such an imitation may be "strict," as when the intervals and progressions are exactly repeated; or "free," as when certain changes are made here and there in order to lead the imitation around better to the principal key. Canonic imitation is one in which the imitation is strict, the repeating voice exactly repeating the melody of the principal. By "counterpoint" we mean a second voice added to a melody already existing, the counterpoint having a strict relation to the leading melody, but a wholly independent movement. This conception had its origin in the art of extemporaneous descant, in which, while the choir and congregation repeated the melody of the plain song, a few talented singers performed variations to it, guided solely by ear and tradition, returning to the tone of the plain song at all the points of repose. We do not know when extemporaneous descant gave place to written composition, but it was probably early in the twelfth century. By "double counterpoint" is meant a counterpoint which, although written to be sung an octave lower than the principal song, can be transposed an octave and sung higher than the principal song without giving rise to forbidden progressions. This will be the case only when the original relations of the two voices have been restricted to certain prescribed intervals. By "fugue" is meant a form of composition in which every voice in turn enters with the leading melody of the piece, the same given out by the leading voice at first, called the "subject," responding alternately in tonic and dominant. This form comes later than the period we are now about to consider, but it grew out of the devices of polyphony, and accordingly is always to be kept in mind as the goal toward which all this progress was tending.

The art of polyphony is to be understood as an effort toward variety and unity combined. The unity consisted in all the voices following with the same melodic idea; variety, in the different combinations resulting in the course of the progress. The limitations of polyphony were reached when the true expression of melodic intervals was lost through their intermingling with so many incongruous elements.

II.

The beginnings of contrapuntal and polyphonic music have been traced to what is now known as the old French school, having its active period between about 1100 and 1370, or thereabouts. The principal masters known to us now by name, were all, or nearly all, connected with the cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, and several of them with the university of the Sorbonne. Paris, during the earlier part of this period, in fact during the greater part of it, was the most advanced and active intellectual center of the entire civilized world. When the French school had ceased to advance, as happened some time before the close of the history in 1370, as above assigned, it found a successor in what is known as the Gallo-Belgic school, which was active between 1350 and 1432. This, in turn, was succeeded by the Netherland school, extending from about 1425 to 1625. The removal of the star of progress from one location to another, as here indicated in the succession of these great national schools, was probably influenced by corresponding or slightly antecedent changes in the commercial or political relations of the countries, rendering the old locality less favorable to art than the new one. For questions of this sort, however, there is not now time or space. To return to the old French school--the recognition of the importance of this school is due to a learned Belgian savant, M. Coussemaker, who happening to discover in the medical library at Montpelier, France, an old manuscript of music, analyzed it, and found that it represented masters previously unknown, and, for the most part, belonging to the period under present consideration. In several monographs upon the history of "Harmony in the Middle Ages," he traced the steps through which polyphony had arisen, and was able to show that, instead of dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth century, as previously supposed, it had its beginnings more than three centuries earlier, and that Paris was the first center of this form of musical effort.

For convenience of classification the entire duration of the old French school may be divided into four periods, of which the first may be taken to extend from 1100 to 1140, the great names being those of Léonin and Pérotin, both organists and deschanteurs at Notre Dame. The Montpelier manuscript contains several compositions by both these masters, and in them we find the germs of the most important devices of counterpoint.

Léonin was known to his contemporaries as "Optimus Organista," on account of his superior organ playing. He wrote a treatise upon the art, a manuscript copy of which appears to be in the British Museum, and its contents have been summarized by an anonymous observer, but never published in full. He is said to dwell mainly upon the proper manner of performing the antiphonary and the graduale. It is also stated that he noted his compositions according to a method invented by himself. If this work could be fully examined it might throw important light upon the point reached in the practice of church music in his day; his notation, also, would be a matter of interest and possibly of importance. Quite a number of compositions by Léonin have been discovered. The successor of Master Léonin, as director of the music at Notre Dame, was one Pérotin, who, besides being a capable deschanteur, was an even greater organist than his teacher, Léonin. He was also a very prolific composer, many of his compositions being still extant. He made additions to his predecessor's manual of the organ.

By descant in the foregoing account, reference is made to the practice of extemporaneous singing of an ornamental part to the plain song or a secular _cantus fermus_. This art had its origin one or two centuries earlier than the period now under consideration, in the secular organum of Hucbald (see p. 142), and all the more talented singers, who were also composers as well, were expert masters of it. Descant was the predecessor of counterpoint.

The chief forms of composition in vogue during this period were motette, rondo and conduit. The terms were rather inexactly applied, but in general the motette appears to have been a church composition, in which often the different voices had different texts, so that the words were wholly lost in performance. The rondo seems to have been a secular composition, and was sometimes written without words. The conduit was an organ piece, occasionally, if not generally, of a secular character. All of these forms were also distinguished as duplum, triplum and quadruplum, according to the number of voices. The harmonic treatment in them is still crude, occasional passages of parallel fifths occurring, after the manner of Hucbald, but in the works of Pérotin passages of this kind are softened somewhat by the device of contrary motion in the other parts. He made a beginning in canonic imitation, Coussemaker and Naumann, after him, giving examples from a composition of his called "_Posuit Adjutorium_." In these works of Pérotin, and in many others of that day, traces are to be seen of an amelioration of the musical ear, and a preference for thirds and sixths, such as but a short time previously had been unknown to musical theory. This influence was probably due to what was called "_Faux Bourdon_," a system of accompanying a melody by an extemporaneous second and third part in thirds or sixths.

This art, again, is clearly due to the influence of the round singing of the British isles. Thus we have already a beginning of at least three important elements of good music: The recognition of the triad, or, more properly, of the third and sixth, a beginning in imitation, and the contrapuntal concept of an independently moving melodic accompaniment to a second voice, which in turn had been the outcome of extemporaneous descant. The works of Pérotin were undoubtedly in advance of his time, having in them no small vitality, as is shown in their having formed a part of the repertory of Notre Dame for more than two centuries.

The second period of the old French school extended from about 1140 to 1170, and great improvements were made in the art of harmony meanwhile. The three great masters of this period were Robert of Sabillon, his successor in Notre Dame, Pierre de la Croix, and a theoretical writer named Jean de Garland. The first of these men was distinguished as a great deschanteur, in other words, a ready hand at extemporaneous counterpoint. Pierre de la Croix made certain improvements in notation, the nature of which, however, the musical historians fail to give us. Garland divided the consonances into perfect, imperfect and middle--a system which has remained in use, with slight alteration, to the present day. The thirds and sixths, however, still rank as dissonances. He also defines double counterpoint, and gives examples. The illustrations are crude, but the idea is correct.

The third period of the old French school is sometimes known as the Franconian period, from the two great names in it of Franco of Paris and Franco of Cologne, whose theories have already been noticed. (See page 146.)

Another celebrated name of this period was that of Jerome of Moravia, also a theoretical writer, whose treatise has been published along with the others in Coussemaker's "Mediæval Writers upon Music." He was a teacher and a Dominican monk at Paris. He was contemporaneous with Franco of Cologne.

The fourth period of the old French school extended from 1230 to 1370. The three great names were Phillippe de Vitry, Jean de Muris and Guillaume de Machaut. They were regarded by their contemporaries as exponents of the _ars nova_, in contradistinction to the Franconian teaching, which was called _ars antiqua_. One of these differences was the use of a number of signs permitting singers to introduce chromatics in order to carry out the imitations without destroying the tonality. Jean de Muris was born in Normandy. He was a doctor in the Sorbonne, and from 1330 a deacon and a canon. He died in 1370. He was a learned man of an active mind. He speaks of three kinds of tempo--lively, moderate and slow. He says that Pierre sometimes set against a breve four, six, seven and even nine semibreves--a license followed to this day in the small notes of the _fioratura_. This kind of license on the part of the deschanteurs had been carried to a great length, the melodic figures resulting being called "_fleurettes_" ("little flowers"). John Cotton compared the singers improvising the _fleurettes_ of this kind to revelers, who, having at length reached home, cannot tell by what route they got there. Jean de Muris reproved them in turn, saying: "You throw tones by chance, like boys throwing stones, scarcely one in a hundred hitting the mark, and instead of giving pleasure you cause anger and ill-humor." Machaut was born in Rethel, a province in Champagne, in 1284. He was still living in 1369. He was a poet and musician who occupied important positions in the service of several princes, and wrote a mass for the coronation of Charles V. Naumann thinks that Machaut was the natural predecessor of the style of Lassus and Palestrina. He says that the use of double counterpoint slackened from this time, whereby the music of the Netherland composers--Dufay, Willaert and Palestrina--is simpler and less artificial than that of Odington and Jean de Garland. Chords were more regarded. This also had its source in the north.

III.

The Gallo-Belgic school occupies an intermediate place between the old French and Netherlandish. Its time was from 1360 to 1460, and Tournay the central point for most of the time. The first great name in this school was Dufay, 1350-1432. The compositions remained the same as formerly, triplum, quadruplum, etc. One of the masters of this school, Hans Zeelandia, who died about 1370, is to be noticed on account of his part writing being more euphonious than that of his predecessors. He uses the third more freely, and he gives the principal melody in his chansons to the treble, and not to the tenor, as do the others. This also is in line with the British influence. Dufay was regarded by his contemporaries as the greatest composer of his time. The open note notation succeeded the black notes about 1400, or, according to Ambros, as early as 1370. Coussemaker dates Dufay 1355 to 1435. The introduction of popular tunes as a _cantus fermus_ in masses and other such compositions is due to him; there are a large number of such works still in the library of the Vatican. He was the first, so far as we know, who introduced "_L'Omme Armé_," and the same subject was treated by several other composers after him. Naumann thinks that the most noticeable peculiarity of the work of Dufay is the interrupted part writing, the imitation not running through the whole composition, but appearing here and there, according to the fancy of the composer. Dufay is also credited with having written pure canonic imitations without descending to the level of the rota, with its endless phrases. Quite a number of his compositions are preserved at the Vatican and the Royal Library at Brussels. The other great name of the first period of this school was that of Binchois, born in Hennegau, died about 1465. A few of his compositions are preserved, but they hardly present important differences from those of Dufay. There were several masters intervening between those just mentioned and Busnois, who closed the school, but at this lapse of time their work hardly retains sufficient individuality to warrant burdening the memory with them. Antoine de Busnois was born in Flanders in 1440, and died in 1482. During a great part of his active life he was _chapelain-chanteur_ in the household of Charles the Bold, and that of his successor, Maria of Burgundy. His salary in this position was extremely meager, ranging between twelve and eighteen sous a day, or, in our currency, between about twenty-five cents and forty-eight cents a day, but as the position carried provision for all the real needs of a man in the matter of food and clothing, perhaps the salary was not so insufficient, considering the greater purchasing power of money, which must have been at least three or four times as great as at the present. Busnois appears to have been on cordial terms with the duke, accompanying him in his travels.