Chapter 52

THE CHANGES IN MUSICAL NOTATION.

The entire movement of musical thought since three or four tones began to be put together into scales, melodies and unities of various kinds, has been in the direction of classification. This is shown very conclusively in the history of musical notation, which, at the end of the period just now under consideration, had reached a form nearly the same as we now have it. The early notation regarded tones as individual, and wholly without classification of any kind. The first musical notation of which we have any authentic knowledge was that of the Greeks already noted in chapter III. Their scale consisted of two octaves and one note, their so-called "greater perfect system," and the tones were named by the first fifteen letters of the Greek alphabet. This, however, was only a beginning of their system, for the variety of pitches required in their enharmonic and chromatic scales, and in the various transposition scales was so great that they required sixty-seven characters for representing them. These characters were written above the words to which they applied, and they had additional marks for duration, especially in the later periods of Greek music. Besides this they had an entirely different set of characters for the same tones played upon the cithara, so that a word to be sung without accompaniment had one mark above it for the pitch of the note, while if accompanied even by the same tone upon the instrument, a second character was written for the instrumental part. The system was wholly without classification, except that the letters were applied from the lowest notes upward, the same as we now have them. There was nothing to assist the eye in forming an idea of the movement of the melody, and as the forms of the letters were very similar in some cases there is no doubt that mistakes of copyists were numerous. This, however, is a matter of little concern to us, since no authentic melodies of the classical period have come down to us. The example of Greek characters given on p. 69, in connection with the Ode of Pindar, sufficiently illustrates the nature of this notation, although the interposition of the staff between the musical notes and the words deprives the illustration of a part of its value.

The Romans had also a notation consisting of letters written above the words to which they applied; they made use of the first fifteen letters of the alphabet in the same manner as the Greeks, but we do not know whether they employed the same characters for the instruments and the voices, or had different ones. The only example we possess of the Roman notation from classical times, or in close tradition from classical times, is that in "Boethius' Consolations of Philosophy." From the fact of this being the only place where the Roman notation is illustrated, certain writers have concluded that Boethius invented it--a supposition which is utterly improbable. Boethius mentions the Roman notation, and employs it, as also does Hucbald in certain of his examples, but neither one of them explains it or gives any account of its origin. We have simply to take it for granted that the Romans transferred the letter notation of approximate pitch to their own characters instead of using Greek letters. The following example from Guido's book illustrates the appearance of the Roman notation as he uses it:

[Music illustration: Fig. 31.

LETTER NOTATION OF GUIDO OF AREZZO, WITH DECIPHERING.

Qui tol-lis pec-ca-ta.]

The most curious notation of which we have a record was that of the neumæ, or neumes, which were employed by the ecclesiastical writers mostly from about the sixth century to the twelfth. This writing, as will be seen from the examples hereafter given, very much resembled the curves and hooks of the modern shorthand. The learned Fétis thinks that the characters were derived from the Coptic notation, and these again from the hieratic notation of the ancient Egyptians. The neumes signified mostly intonations, upward or downward slides of the voice, and not absolute pitch.

There are no clefs or other indications of the key, and it is little better than sheer guesswork to attempt to decipher one of them, for want of some one single base mark to reckon from. Accordingly, the various commentators have rendered the old pieces in a variety of ways. It is probable that the imperfections of this notation were helped out, when it was in current use, by tradition, which appropriated certain keys to each of the principal hymns of the Church; this being understood, the singer found himself able to make something intelligible out of a notation which, without the help of traditions, would have been meaningless. From about the eleventh century the supposed meanings of the various signs of the neumes are easily to be ascertained, because tables are given by a number of writers of that period; but the earlier examples are practically undecipherable. This notation came into use partly through ecclesiastical influence, and partly owing to its being easy to write, while at the same time it occupied little space upon the page. The earlier examples, as already said, were without clefs or any means of ascertaining the key note. After a while we find them with one line representing do or fa, and the signs arranged above, below, or upon the line, at intervals approximately representing the pitch intended. Still later we find a colored line for fa, a thumb nail line traced on the parchment, but not colored, for re, and a different one for la.

[Music illustration: Fig. 33.

NEUME NOTATION OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY, DECIPHERED BY MARTINI IN "GREGORIAN" NOTATION.

Po-pu-le me-us quid fe-ci aut]

Still later four lines were used. There were many varieties of forms of the neumes employed by the different copyists and by different nationalities, the heaviest marks of this kind being those of the Lombard-Gothic represented in Fig. 35. These marks were afterward written upon a four-line staff, and the note heads were derived from them.

There were no marks whatever for duration or measure in the neumes notation, and its persistence through so long a time signifies very plainly that it was not in the line of the musical life of the world, but was a special hieratic notation made to answer for ecclesiastical purposes by the help of carefully transmitted traditions.

[Music illustration: Fig. 35.

DECIPHERED NEUME NOTATION OF THE LATEST PERIOD.

Co-ro-nat re-gem om-ni-um]

One of the oldest forms of this notation is that of the lament for the death of Charlemagne, an extract from which is here presented, together with its translation as given by Naumann.

Incidentally this illustration gives a fair specimen of mediæval melody of the earlier period. It dates from the tenth century.

[Music illustration: "LAMENT FOR CHARLEMAGNE."

A so-lis or-tu us-que ad oc-ci-du-a Lit-to-ra ma-ris planctus pulsat pec-to-ra. Ul-tra ma-ri-na ag-mi-na tris-ti-ti-a Te-ti-git in-gens cum er-ro-re ni-mi-o. Heu! me do-lens, plan-go! Fran-ci, Ro-ma-ni at-que cunc-ti cre-du-li, Luc-tu pun-gun-tur et mag-na mo-les-ti-a, in-fan-tes, se-nes, glo-ri-o-si prin-ci-pes, Nam clangit or-bis de-tri-men-tum Ka-ro-li. Heu! mi-hi mi-se-ro!]

The earliest suggestion of the staff that we have is that in the work of Hucbald already mentioned, in which he proposed to print the words in the spaces of the staff of eleven lines, placing each syllable according to its pitch (p. 141). The staff, in connection with neumes, as given above in Fig. 34, probably came into use about the same time as that when Hucbald's book was written, but it was not until the days of Guido of Arezzo that the staff was employed in anything like its modern form, nor is it certain that Guido had anything to do with introducing it. In one of the manuscripts of his book letters are written upon the lines and spaces, and in another the neumes are given. The note head was not invented until some little time after his death, probably about fifty years.

By the time of Franco of Cologne, the four-lined staff with square notes had come into use, the notes having the value already assigned them in the chapter upon Franco of Cologne. (See p. 145.) The place of fa was marked by a clef, and with some few exceptions all the musical notation from this time forward is susceptible of approximate translation. The term approximate is used above by reason of the fact that no sharps or flats were written until long after this period, but it is thought that they were occasionally interpolated by the singers quite a long time before it became customary to put them into the notation. In this way, for example, a piece of music beginning and ending on the degree appropriate to fa might be brought within the limits of the key of F by the singer changing B natural to B flat wherever it occurred. Our information in regard to this practice is extremely limited, and, in fact, rests upon two or three detached hints. The signature was not employed until some centuries later.

As already mentioned in chapter XI, there was no measure notation for a long time after Franco's death. The data are uncertain concerning the exact time when the bar began to be used to mark the measure. Its earliest use was that of marking the end of the music belonging to a line of poetry. This is the same use as now made of the double bar in vocal music. In fact, everything points to the progressive development of music in all respects, and the development of what we might call self-consciousness in musicians, whereby each succeeding generation sought to place upon record a greater number of particulars concerning their music, and to leave less and less to accident or tradition. This progress has gone on until the present time, when two particulars of our music are exactly recorded--the pitch and the rhythm. The exact relation of every tone to the key note is ascertainable from our musical notation, and the precise degree of rhythmic importance appertaining to each tone according to its place in measure and in the larger rhythms. We are still lame in the matter of expression, and in pianoforte music also in regard to the application of the pedals. Here our notation affords only a few detached suggestions. If the master works of the modern school could be noted for expression as completely as for pitch and rhythm, the labor of acquiring musical knowledge would be very greatly diminished.

The four-line staff has remained in use in the Catholic Church until the present time, and with it the square notes. It is generally called Gregorian, and by many is supposed to have been invented by Gregory the Great; but as a matter of fact, about six centuries elapsed after his death before this square-note notation came into use. The five-line staff came into use about 1500. Information is wanting as to the causes which led to its adoption in preference to the four-line notation so long in use. The clef for do (C clef) remained in use until very lately, and is still used by many strict theorists, being written upon the first line for the soprano, the fourth line for the tenor, the third line for the alto. The G clef, also, when first introduced, was often written upon the third or the first line; the F clef, moreover, was not definitely established on the fourth line until toward 1700. In the scores of Palestrina's work, now published in complete form, there are pieces written with the soprano in the G clef upon the first line, the alto in the C clef upon the second line, the tenor in the C clef upon the fourth line, and the bass in the F clef upon the third line. This, while affording the eye two familiar clefs, the treble and the bass, places them in such a way as to practically make it necessary for the modern reader to transpose every note of the composition in all the parts, and, in fact, to effect a transposition for each part upon principles peculiar to itself.

The progress of classification is distinctly seen in the use of seven letters instead of fifteen, affording a tacit recognition of the most essential underlying facts of harmony--_the equivalence of octaves_. The staff, however, affords the eye no assistance at this point, since the octaves of notes occupy relatively entirely different positions upon it, the octave of a space being invariably a line, and the octave of a line a space. Moreover, the octave of a bass line is always very differently located when it falls upon the treble staff, and, _vice versa_, the octave of a treble note falling in the bass is very differently placed. If a notation had to be made anew it would no doubt facilitate matters to make use of a staff so planned as to bring out the equivalence of octaves more perfectly. A recent American designer, Mrs. Wheeler, has proposed a double staff of six lines, divided into two groups of three, for the treble and bass, thus presenting for the piano score four groups of three lines each, separated by smaller or larger intervals. Upon such a staff every tone would fall in the same place upon the three lines in every octave, the octave of the first line of the lower three would be the first line of the second three, and so on.

This, however, is to anticipate. The smaller rhythmic divisions of the measure were very little used in the old music which, if not sung in slow time, was at least written in long notes, and the smaller varieties of notes are the invention of a period perhaps rather later than that at which we have now arrived. They belong to the elaborate rhythmic construction of the music of Händel, Bach, Scarlatti and Haydn.