CHAPTER V

THE AGE OF PLAIN-SONG

Music in the Roman empire--Sources of early Christian music; the hymns of St. Ambrose--Hebrew traditions--Psalmody, responses, antiphons; the liturgy; the Gregorian tradition; the antiphonary and the gradual; sequences and tropes--Ecclesiastical modes; early notation.

I

From the point of view of the musical historian the dominant note of civilization at the opening of the Christian era was the all-pervading influence of Hellenistic culture. It is well to remember, however, that this influence was more in form than in content. Greek art was no longer the pure, bright flame that lighted the world so gloriously in the age of Pericles. Its blaze had become dull and lifeless; elements foreign to the fuel that had fed it in the classic age had been brought to it by the softly sensuous fingers of the Orient and the rough, unsympathetic hands of Rome. Hellenic art at the opening of the Christian era resembled that of Periclean Athens as little as the pseudo-classic architecture of the Italian Renaissance resembled the crowning glories of the Acropolis. The serene, clear, intellectual æstheticism of Greece had degenerated into the coarse sensuality of the pagan Latins and the sterile dilettantism of the theistic peoples of the Orient. Neither Latins nor Orientals were at all capable of understanding or assimilating it. Its joyous, essentially Aryan paganism was as foreign to the Semitic temperament as its lucid intellectuality was impossible to the turgid Roman mind.

We have then at the beginning of the Christian era a veneer of Greek culture covering a gross materialism in the West and a decadent, mystic symbolism in the East. Into this situation was born the new cult with its utter negation of everything the ancient world, pagan or theistic, held precious. Christianity from the beginning was at war with its environment--Greek, Roman, and Hebraic. Though its roots lay in Jewish philosophy, its pessimistic attitude toward the world, its view of life as an evil, poisoned condition, was directly opposed to the spirit of a people with whom, as Renan says, 'the evils of life were never chronic complaints’ ('_pour qui les maux de la vie ne deviennent pas des maladies chroniques_’). Its opposition to all the teachings and practices of paganism was, of course, absolute and uncompromising.

Nevertheless, Christianity absorbed from its environment the material of its ritual as inevitably as the tree draws nurture from the soil and atmosphere that underlies and surrounds it. That it absorbed those elements unconsciously, even unwillingly, goes a long way to explain our ignorance of the manner in which the liturgical music of the Church developed. It seems practically certain that among the most devout early Christians music was looked upon with suspicion, and its use, especially in connection with the worship of God, was probably discouraged as far as possible. Even as late as the fourth century we find a Syrian monk warning one of his brethren that we should approach God with sighs and tears, with reverence and humility, and not with song. When, through the inevitable pressure of environment, music had become an integral part of the Christian ritual, the Church fathers, with characteristic _naïveté_, completely ignored the source from which it was drawn, and, in what is obviously simple faith, attributed to it a divine origin. 'Our singing,’ says St. John Chrysostom, 'is only an echo, an imitation of that of the angels. Music was invented in heaven. Around and above us sing the angels. If man is musical it is by a revelation of the Holy Ghost; the singer is inspired from on high.’ St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, Justin Martyr, St. Basil, St. Benedict, and other early fathers talk in the same strain. John de Muris, more historical and less mystical, can find no more definite origin for liturgical music than a vague tradition.[43]

With those who were practically eye-witnesses to the growth of early Church music so serenely blind to the influences that determined its course, the task of the modern historian in reconstructing those influences becomes practically impossible. If, however, we understand clearly the conditions under which liturgical music took shape we can formulate a theoretical sketch of its history, which is probably not far from the truth. In this connection it will help us considerably if we remember that during the early centuries of the Christian era the Roman church was far from being the dominant and unifying factor which it later became, and that the great institution to which we are wont to refer simply as 'the church’ resulted from the confluence of many independent streams, and not from the expansion of any single one. These streams were divided, so to speak, between two main watersheds, one of which was Asia Minor and the other Italy. In Asia Minor the church was surrounded by a Semitic civilization shot through with Hellenic elements; in Italy it grew up in an environment of Græco-Roman culture.

It might be well to take a glance here at the state of music in Rome at the beginning of the Christian era. Roman music previous to the conquest of Greece (146 B. C.) had borrowed its forms from the Etruscans and the Greeks. Etruscan influences were probably predominant in the early centuries of the Republic.[44] The nature of these influences is not known to us. It would seem that the Etruscans were originally a Greek race, and the fountain-head of their musical art was consequently Hellenic. But they were, as their vases show, a race dowered with artistic ideals and genuine creative impulses, and they must have modelled their musical inheritance into something new, characteristic, and beautiful. But, if we are to believe Dionysius, Strabo, and other Roman writers who have touched on the subject, we must conclude that the Romans merely imitated such music of the Etruscans as was useful for religious and military purposes, choosing, presumably, the cruder forms of the art. We may accept this conclusion all the more readily since we know that the Romans, even down to Imperial times, remained obtuse and obtrusive Philistines.

It does not seem that the Romans borrowed much directly from Greece until after Greece became a Roman province. They were not, in fact, interested at all in art. But, after repeated conquests had made them rich and luxurious, they began to cultivate--or rather patronize--art as a sort of fashionable and expensive luxury. The result was a gradual growth, among the leisure classes in Rome, of a very real literary and æsthetic taste. By the time of Augustus Rome was able to produce such excellent imitators of Greek models as Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Catullus. In music, however, the imperial people never rose so high. Hellenic music had already degenerated when Rome fell under its influence. 'Besides pantomime with chorus,’ says Gevaert, 'Greek musicians brought to Rome only the instrumental solo and the song with kithara or lyre accompaniment.’[45] This branch of the art flourished apace in Rome, where, however, like Italian opera in later centuries, it became distorted into a craze for meaningless virtuosity. We know less about the music itself than we know about the famous kithara players who were the favorites of emperors and were accorded the honors and dignity of princes. History speaks to us about Tigellius, the friend of Augustus, and Mesomedes, of Crete, the intimate of Hadrian. Nero gained a humorous immortality by his pretensions as a singer and kithara player. The story of his journey through Greece, where he won the kithara prize at the Olympic games and defeated in public competition the most famous performers in every city he visited, is surely one of the most ludicrous narratives in all history.

Until the third century A. D. the kitharœdic chant was purely Hellenic, as we might surmise from the names of its most famous exponents, such as Terpnos, Menecrates, Diodorus, Chrysogones, Pollion, Echion, and Glaphyros. In the second century Ptolemy, writing his 'Harmonics,’ founded his system of tones and modes on the practice of the kithara and lyre players.[46] Practically all of the pieces which have come down to us from the Græco-Roman period, and which we have noted in the last chapter, belong to the literature of the kithara. The kitharœdic chants were narratives in the style of Timotheus, or lyrics, chiefly hymns to some divinity. These compositions were not in strophic form. The melody was divided into sections of unequal length (_commata_) and varied more or less from one end of the poem to the other. Until the beginning of the fourth century the texts were usually in Greek. The Latin kitharœdic songs, such as those of Horace and Catullus, were scarcely heard except at banquets and private reunions. Greek was, indeed, the prevailing musical language, as we may learn from Vitruvius, who prefaces to the chapter on music in his work on Architecture a warning that musical theory is practically a sealed book to those who do not know Greek.[47] After the removal of the seat of empire to Byzantium in 330 A. D., the use of Greek disappeared, and with it the use of musical notation by means of Greek letters. The transmission of music then became oral and the art of the kithara song and its accompaniments gradually vanished.[48]

II

Now the founders of Christianity were Jews, and Oriental influences were never absent from the church, even in Rome. Furthermore the apostles of Christianity in Rome were humble, untutored men, and the majority of their converts were drawn from the same class--the class which in all ages has naturally taken refuge in any creed which contradicts the views and practices of its masters and oppressors. Christ’s message of hope to the humble in spirit came home first to the humble in material possessions. '_Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles._’ For three centuries the Christians in Italy were subjected to constant oppression and often to fiercely violent persecution. Their rites were performed in dark and secret places and, presumably, without any noise that could be avoided. Under the circumstances one is tempted to conclude that music was severely ignored by the first Christians in Rome. They had every reason to avoid it. It was likely to attract undesirable attention; it was associated primarily in their minds with the sensual orgies of their pagan oppressors, and, finally, the first Christians themselves were not of the class likely to possess much musical culture. Nevertheless, it is practically certain that they intoned some of their services in a simple, discreet way. They must have chanted their psalms, at least, probably as the Hebrews did. This chant, it would perhaps be safe to assume, was responsorial and consisted of a low, more or less monotonous, recitative.

By the time the Edict of Milan (313 A. D.) struck off the fetters that bound Christianity the Church had already gathered to her bosom many of the most influential and cultured Roman citizens. Their advent must have changed gradually the whole complexion of the Roman church. With their cultivated taste for art they probably furnished the prime impulse toward the æstheticism which gradually came to be a distinguishing feature of the church ritual. After the Edict of Milan the church jumped almost at a bound to a position of social and political influence which soon became one of social and political predominance. The most influential of its members no longer came from the lowly and oppressed, but from the rich and powerful. Every reason that had operated against the use of music in the primitive church had disappeared, and with it had disappeared for a time the Oriental tendencies which the founders of the church had consciously or unconsciously incorporated with it. There is little doubt that during the third and fourth centuries Græco-Roman culture penetrated to the innermost shrine of Western Christianity and remained an active agent in the formulation of liturgical music long after the Orient had again become a predominant influence through the removal of the seat of empire to Byzantium.

It is unfortunately not within our power to indicate the point at which the Græco-Roman kitharœdic chant began to influence Christian religious music, nor do the relative proportions of a general history permit us to study the question here. However, it is sufficient for us to know that the kitharœdic chant was the direct ancestor of the Christian hymnody in the West. 'Among various kinds of pieces of which the Roman antiphonary is composed,’ says Gevaert, 'none is known by literary documents to be so old as the strophic hymnody; from the musical point of view it marks the transition from the vocal melopæia of antiquity to the liturgical chant properly so called.’ We find this transition fully accomplished in the hymns of St. Ambrose (d. 397), who is unquestionably the most striking and influential figure in early liturgical music. Gevaert aptly calls him the 'Terpander of Western Christianity.’ His works are full of reference to music, many of which are naïvely charming. For example, he writes: 'The angels praise the Lord, the powers of heaven sing psalms unto him, and even before the very beginning of the world the cherubim and seraphim sang with sweet voice Holy, Holy, Holy!’ He mentions the music of the spheres and recalls that it has been said the axle of heaven itself turned with a perpetual sweet sound that might be heard in the uttermost parts of the earth where there are certain secrets of Nature; that the wild beasts and birds might be soothed with the delight of voices blending. Even more practical, he points out that those things we wish well to remember we are accustomed to sing, for that which is sung stays the better in our memories. His hymns produced a great effect upon St. Augustine, who wrote of them in his 'Confessions’ in terms almost extravagant; and a whole century later Cassiodorus constantly cites St. Ambrose and bears witness to the wide and everlasting nature of his influence on Christian hymnody.

Six hymns which have come down to us are attributed with certainty to this gifted saint. They are the _Deus creator omnium_, _Jam surgit hora tertia_, _Æterne rerum conditor_, _Veni redemptor gentium_, _Illuxit orbi_ _jam dies_, and _Bis ternas horas explicans_. Probably also he was the author of _O lux beata Trinitas_, _Hic est dies verus Dei_, _Splendor paternæ gloriæ_, and _Æterna Christi munera_. The melodic forms of these hymns are borrowed directly from the Greeks and Romans. Stripped of their melismas their primitive contours are easily recognizable, and their structure is thoroughly in accord with the modal theory of the classic Greeks. All of these hymns which seem to be the most ancient belong to one of the principal kitharœdic modes--the Dorian, Iastian, or Æolian. The Ambrosian hymns in the Dorian mode have the same melodic texture as the hymn to Helios and the main part of the song to the Muse (see pp. 126-127 above). Hymns after the manner of Ambrose in the Iastian and Æolian modes are frequent in the Catholic hymnody.[49]

The Græco-Roman complexion of the Ambrosian hymns is still further evident in their metrical form. 'The old ecclesiastical hymns composed in iambic dimeters and ascribed to Bishop Ambrose,’ says Riemann, 'are still firmly founded upon the antique art, as they respect absolutely the quantity of the syllables and introduce long syllables and short ones only where it is in accordance with the laws of classic poetry.’[50] The eight syllable iambi of the Ambrosian verse became extremely popular in ecclesiastical hymnody, and the Breviary, as it is to-day, contains many hymns in that measure. But this was not the only metrical form of classic Rome that became incorporated in the liturgy of the Church. Vanantius Fortunatus in the sixth century introduced the trochaic tetrameter, which was a favorite popular verse among the ancient Romans, and still survives in the rhythm of the Roman _saltarello_ and the Neapolitan _tarantella_. The elegant Sapphic strophe, so dear to Latin lyricists, made its appearance subsequent to the Carlovingian epoch. As long as Latin prosody remained dominant the ecclesiastical hymns were more or less metrical, but as literary Latin passed into desuetude these chants lost their isochronous rhythm. At the beginning of the eighth century the vogue of metrical verse had already passed. With it passed, too, the classic melopæia which had gradually become enriched by accessory inflexions.[51]

There was quite a large school of hymn writers in the Ambrosian style, among whom may be mentioned especially St. Augustine (350-430), St. Paulinus of Nola (_ca._ 431), the Spanish poet Prudentius (fourth century),[52] Sedulius (fifth century), Ennodius and Venantius Fortunatus (sixth century). The style spread rapidly from Milan into the different western provinces of the Roman empire. A text of the time of Sidonius Apollinaris (second half of the fifth century) tells us that at the feast of Christmas all the churches of Gaul and Italy resounded to the hymn _Veni creator gentium_, and Rhabanus Maurus, bishop of Mayence in the middle of the ninth century, tells us that the Ambrosian hymns were then in use in all the churches of the West.[53] Further proof of their wide prevalence is furnished by the rules of St. Benedict and Aurelian of Arles (first half of sixth century). For many centuries, however, they were frowned upon by Rome. The Council of Braga (563) expressly excluded from the divine office all chants in verse and all texts not taken from the sacred scriptures. Three centuries later the deacon Amalarius, charged by Louis the Pious with regulating the chants of the office for all the churches of the Frankish empire, leaves hymns completely aside in conformity with the usage of Rome at that time. In fact, the local rite of Rome had not yet welcomed hymns as late as the beginning of the twelfth century.

III

Priority is given to the Ambrosian hymns in this discussion, not because they are the most ancient forms of liturgical chant, but because they form the most easily demarcable point of transition from Græco-Roman music to Christian ecclesiastical music. The most ancient forms of the liturgy undoubtedly had their genesis in the Orient. There, of course, the influence of Greek music was also active, though to what extent it affected the Hebrew traditions we cannot even surmise. We find, too, the vogue of the kitharœdic chant even greater among the Roman citizens of the Orient than among the inhabitants of Italy. The former carried their passion for this form of expression to the extent of engraving the songs with their melodies on funeral monuments. It may again be remarked, however, that the first Christians were not of the class likely to be influenced easily by extraneous culture. Acquainted with foreign music they undoubtedly were. The apostles, for instance, speak of the Greek 'zither’ as a familiar instrument.[54] But this acquaintance was in all probability superficial. Humble and uneducated for the most part, those pioneers of a new cult were of the sort with whom custom and tradition die hard. They were reared in the atmosphere of the synagogue; and it must be remembered that they were not iconoclasts of the Hebrew faith, but rather professed reformers and purifiers of it. The Temple of Solomon, the Ark of the Covenant, the patriarchs and prophets were subjects as sacred to them as they were to older generations of the children of Israel. Their quarrel was not with the Jews, but with such Jews as refused to recognize their new king. While, therefore, they had every reason for avoiding the music of the Pagan Greeks and Romans, they had no reason whatever for abandoning that which had been handed down to them from David. They certainly took over the texts of the Old Testament psalmody, and it is a natural assumption that with them they adopted the music to which these texts were sung. We may conjecture with some plausibility that the psalmodic solo, responsorial chant, and antiphonal chant--all ancient Hebrew liturgical forms--passed directly from the Temple and Synagogue into the first Christian communities, with such minor changes as may have been necessitated by the new ritual and attendant upon the transference of its conduct from trained cantors to untrained laymen.

The psalmodic solo has no special significance in the development of the Christian liturgy. Of more importance is the responsorial chant, which consists of a solo interrupted periodically by the voice of the people.[55] It is very probable that this form of psalmody was in use among the first Christians, though we have no direct evidence on the point. We learn, however, from church historians that psalms were sung in this fashion at Alexandria in the time of Bishop Athanasius in the early part of the fourth century. The antiphonal chant, which is the most interesting and important of liturgical forms, is of extreme antiquity. David, we know, divided the singers of the Temple into two choirs. Whether this form passed directly and without interruption from the Temple and Synagogue into the religious services of the first Christians we have no means of knowing. It was, however, adopted at a very early date by Christian communities in the Orient. Eusebius, bishop of Cesarea (third century) reproduces a text of Philo in which occurs the following description: 'Suddenly all rose on both sides ... and formed two choirs, men and women. Each choir chose its coryphee and soloist ... then they sang to God hymns of different melodies and metres, sometimes together and sometimes answering each other in suitable manner.’ As showing the early expansion of this style of singing throughout the Christian world we may quote from a letter of St. Basil (fourth century) to the inhabitants of Nova Cesarea. 'The people rise in the night,’ he writes, 'and go to the house of prayer; when they have prayed they pass to the psalms. Sometimes they divide into two alternate parts, sometimes a soloist sings and all answer; and having thus passed the night in divers psalms they intone all together, as one voice and one heart, the penitential psalm.... If it is for this reason [the organization of the psalmody] you wish to separate from me you must also separate from the Egyptians and Lybians, from the inhabitants of Thebes, Palestine, Arabia, Phœnicia, Syria, and the banks of the Euphrates--in a word, from all those who hold in honor vigils and psalms performed in common.’ It may be remarked that the antiphon originally was merely the alternate singing of two choirs. Later it came to mean the solo refrain intoned by the high priest before the biblical psalm or canticle and repeated by the choir when the psalm or canticle is finished. According to the rules of St. Benedict this solo refrain was intended to give (_imponere_) the melody to the singers. Musically, says Gevaert, it forms the introduction and finale of the psalmodic chant to which it is bound by a community of mode. It probably took the place of an earlier instrumental introduction and finale, as, for some reason or reasons upon which it is idle to speculate, instruments were excluded from the services of the primitive church.

It was in the monasteries of the East, of Syria and Egypt, that the forms of the liturgy first began to take shape, and in Antioch and Alexandria there developed schools of singing which were to the Greek churches of the East what the _schola cantorum_ was to the Latin churches of the seventh and eighth centuries. In the fourth century, as we may gather from the canons of the council of Laodicea, they had already trained singers in the churches of Syria, and St. Augustine speaks of the singing of St. Athanasius as if the latter must have had a careful schooling in the art. Silvia, the Gallic pilgrim, mentions the singing of antiphons and psalms in the church at Alexandria (385-88). In the fifth century, as we learn from a letter of Sidonius Apollinaris, Syrian cantors were used in Italian churches.

The prejudice against Pagan music, which must have excluded all Greek or Græco-Roman influences from the Christian services of apostolic times, proved hard to kill. We find it cropping out even in Clement of Alexandria, who admits only 'modest and decent harmonies’ and excludes harmonies that are 'chromatic and light, such as are used in the lascivious orgies of courtesans.’ By that time, however, the prejudice apparently had become discriminating. The extraordinary popularity of the kitharœdic songs was bound to have its influence. The heresiarchs were not slow to recognize the hold of profane melodies on the people, and composed dogmatic chants to the melodies of popular songs, much in the manner of the Salvation Army of our day. Arius, for instance, the great heresiarch who was condemned by the council of Nicea (325), reproduced in his _Thalia_ the lascivious musical forms of the Ionian Sotades--to the great scandal of Athanasius. St. Ephraem (320-79), adopting the same idea, turned the Syrians from the songs of Harmonius by writing hymns in the Syrian language on the same melodies, and Gregory of Nazianza (328-89) composed canticles to take the place of the heterodox psalms of the Apollinarists.

While probably there was never any break in the communication between the churches of the East and those of the West, it is likely that they developed their liturgical forms more or less independently until about the middle of the fourth century. Then the floodgates of Oriental influence seem to have been opened by St. Hilarius and St. Ambrose. The former, who was bishop of Poitiers, is said to have introduced into his church the antiphonal and other forms of psalmody then practised in the churches of Asia, where he had lived in exile for four years (356-60). He is supposed to have introduced the Syrian hymnody into the Western Church. '_Hymnorum carmine floruit primus_,’ Isidor of Seville said of him. He is credited with having been the pioneer of the metrical style of hymn known as Ambrosian, though the three hymns from his pen which have been preserved hardly bear out this contention. They are crude in rhythm and not likely to have served as models for the cultured Ambrose. From all available evidence one is impelled to award to St. Ambrose the honor of having first introduced antiphonal psalmody to the West.[56] Indeed there is little doubt that he was the real founder of the Latin chant in general. Ecclesiastical songs, as we have already seen, had already developed, both in the East and in the West, to something like a formal art; but Ambrose seems to have been the first to gather together the various elements composing it and lay the foundations of a strictly ordered liturgy. From Milan the antiphonal psalmody spread through all the churches of the West. Even Rome, which until the twelfth century excluded the Ambrosian hymns, adopted antiphonal psalmody in the time of Pope Celestine I (422-32).[57] It is to Rome that one must look for the subsequent development of liturgical song; though until the time of the great schism the formative influences were more Byzantine than Latin. St. Leo the Great (440-61) established in the immediate vicinity of the Basilica of St. Peter a monastic community especially entrusted with the service of the canonical hours, under the patronage of Saints John and Paul, and this was followed in the second half of the seventh century by the community of St. Martin and, under Gregory III (731-41), by that of St. Stephen.

IV

The complete collection of liturgical chants upon which Rome finally set her approval has been called for ages the _Antiphonarium Romanum_; and this, as Rome became the head of the organization of the church, was adopted by all other branches in Western Europe as the Bible, so to speak, of ecclesiastical song. It was compiled from four collections of which the Ambrosian was one, the others being the Gregorian, the Gallican, and the Mozarabian or Spanish. The principal manuscripts in these collections have been reproduced in facsimile by the Benedictine monks of Solesmes in their invaluable _Paléographie musicale_ (1889 _et seq._). To quote from the introduction to this magnificent series: 'The Gregorian, Ambrosian, Mozarabian, and the little which remains to us of the Gallican _dialects_, seem in fact to have one common source, to have been derived from the same musical language: the chant of the Latin church in its cradle. That is at least the opinion to which we have been brought by the examination of the manuscripts in the libraries of our own monasteries and of those which we have been able to consult elsewhere. Concerning the similarities we can say modes and rhythms are the same in the four varieties of chant. The melodic forms present the same general character.... Moreover, in these diverse musical dialects certain melodic types or airs constantly recur which are always perfectly recognizable, in spite of the differences resulting from the peculiarities of style or character proper to each of them. Among the Ambrosian and Gregorian these mutual borrowings, these common heritages are especially frequent.’

The history of these collections is extremely obscure. No manuscripts are extant of earlier date than the twelfth century. As to who actually compiled the _Antiphonarium Romanum_, a long-standing and generally accepted tradition ascribed it to St. Gregory the Great (d. 604), but the validity of the tradition has been attacked by a number of reputable and authoritative modern historians, conspicuous among whom is Gevaert. Without entering into the merits of the controversy we shall briefly indicate the earliest sources of information on liturgical collections, following Gevaert on the Gregorian tradition, not in _parti pris_, but because the tradition has been so long and so strongly intrenched that it is more in need of examination than of support.

The first mention of a collection of chants occurs about the year 760 when Pope Paul I sent to King Pepin an Antiphonal and a Responsal.[58] In the time of Charlemagne there existed a missal and breviary called Gregorian, as we gather from a letter addressed to the emperor by Pope Hadrian. This is the earliest mention we find of the Gregorian tradition, and it is not very enlightening. The first writer to give us much information about the liturgy is Amalarius, who was deacon of Metz under Louis the Pious. Aurelian of Réomé (_ca._ 859) classes the melodies according to the order of the eight ecclesiastical modes, and Regino, Abbé of Prum, toward the end of the same century gives us in his _Tonarius_ an extended catalogue of anthems and responses, accompanied by a neumatic notation. We find again a hazy reference to Gregory by Walafrid Strabo under Louis the Debonair, and it is only when we come to the life of St. Gregory, written by John the Deacon about 882, that we find an explicit and unequivocal ascription of the existing collection of liturgical chants to that pope.[59]

The scarcity of references to the Gregorian tradition among writers prior to John the Deacon is curious. Isidor of Seville and the Venerable Bede, both of whom occupied themselves much with the liturgy, are silent on the point; so is the _Liber Pontificalis_. Gregory’s own writings are singularly lacking in references to music. His only utterance on the subject that has been preserved to us is the decree of the Synod of 595 in which he condemns the tendency of the priests to be more preoccupied with the effect of their voices than with the import of what they sing, and orders that they confine themselves thenceforth by reciting the Gospel in the celebration of the mass and leave the singing to sub-deacons and clerics of inferior grade. This would not of itself imply any great devotion on Gregory’s part to liturgical music, though the necessity of training clerics of inferior grade to sing the services might have suggested the founding of the _Schola Cantorum_ which is traditionally ascribed to him. It is pointed out by Gevaert that the _Antiphonarius Gregorianus_ does not fit the ecclesiastical calendar of the time of St. Gregory, but belongs to the liturgical usage of Rome about the year 750.[60] Duchesne credits the editing of the Gregorian missal to Pope Hadrian during the first years of Charlemagne’s reign. The name Gregorian may have reference to Gregory II (715-31) or, more probably, to Gregory III. It is a fact that until the end of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century the churches did not open on Friday, and it was not allowed to celebrate mass on that day, because it coincided with the Pagan feast of Jupiter (_Jovis Dies_). Even as late as the end of the sixth century the celebration of this festival was so common that it was solemnly condemned by the Council of Narbonne (589). By the eighth century, however, the last remains of Paganism had so completely disappeared that the prohibition of Friday services was removed by Pope Gregory II, who ordained the celebration of the sacred rites on the Fridays of Lent. Now the Gregorian Antiphonary contains a mass for each Friday in Lent, while there is none in the Gelasian Missal of the seventh century. If the mass is not a later interpolation, then the Gregorian Antiphonary certainly could not have been compiled before the time of Gregory II.

Many historical considerations lead Gevaert to credit the completion and final formulation of liturgical chant to the Hellenic popes of the seventh and eighth centuries. Following the end of the Gothic kingdom and with the dominance of the Byzantine emperors begins the second period of church music in the West, a period which shows every sign of the Oriental influence so powerful at Rome under the rule of the exarchs of Ravenna. This influence is apparent not only in the more ornate form of the music, but in the frequent use of the Greek language and in the importation of feasts foreign to the Roman rite. In the seventh century four of the most ancient feasts of the Virgin--the Purification, Annunciation, Assumption, and Nativity--were brought from the Orient, and from the same epoch dates the adoption at Rome of the feast called the Exaltation of the Cross, which originated in the Oriental church. 'By the seventh century,’ says Gevaert, 'we are in the presence of an advanced art, conscious of its principles, with rules and formulas for each class of composition.’ Skilled interpreters had been developed by the _Schola Cantorum_, and these, together with the Syrian monks who fled to Italy after the Mussulman conquest, were the real authors of the responses of the nocturnal office and the true chants of the mass. The popes of the seventh century, most of whom were themselves versed in the _cantilena romana_, were particularly solicitous about the beauty and order of the liturgy. To the eleven popes of Hellenic origin who held the chair of St. Peter between 678 and 752 is probably due the final development and perfection of liturgical forms. Chief among them was Agathon (678-681), who seems to have regulated or fixed definitely the texts of what in the eighth century was called the Responsal, or actual Antiphonary, containing the complete repertory of the office of the hours for the entire year. The Venerable Bede says that Agathon sent the leader of the Basilica singers to England to organize that part of the ecclesiastical service according to the usage of Rome. Leo II, we learn from the papal chronicles, was very learned in the sacred chant, as was also Sergius II. The latter, our authority thinks, inspired the last work on the Roman Gradual, and was the first to initiate the Roman singers in the doctrine of the four double ecclesiastical modes, which later writers, following the lead of Boethius, identified with the eight tonal steps of Aristoxenus, falsely attributed to Ptolemy. The editing of that part of the _Liber Antiphonarius_ which has become our Gradual was probably due to the Syrian pope, Gregory III, who was very active in the promotion of liturgical music.

The _Antiphonarium Romanum_, or complete collection of liturgical chants of the church--consisting of several hundred pieces--is divided into two distinct parts--the _Antiphonarium_ proper and the _Gradual_. The former contains the offices of the canonical hours (_cursus ecclesiasticus_), consisting of the responses, anthems, and hymns reiterated day and night by religious communities. The custom of reciting the office began among the monastic orders of the Orient about the fourth century. Apparently it had its genesis in Antioch, about 350, and soon spread to the other Greek churches. The pilgrim in Silvia speaks of hearing the Vigils and other hours in the church of Jerusalem (386), and Bishop Cassian of Autun found the hour of Prime introduced at Bethlehem in 390. From Alexandria and Constantinople the office passed to Milan and Rome. In the sixth century it was organized somewhat as it is to-day. Cassiodorus (_ca._ 540) names seven _synaxes_, or daily reunions, and a similar number is mentioned in the rules of St. Benedict about the same time.

The _Gradual_ consists of the services of the mass, and contains the anthems, responses, and hymns proper to these services. There are a few fixed pieces, such as the _Kyrie_, _Gloria_, _Sanctus_, _Agnus Dei_, and _Credo_, constituting what is known as the Ordinary of the mass, and besides these there are a large number which vary according to the day and the name of the saint whose feast is celebrated. The chants belonging to the Introit and Communion are antiphonal, while those of the Gradual, Alleluja, Tractus, and Offertory are responsorial. The _Gloria in excelsis_ is a sort of hymn. Besides the hymns of the Ambrosian cycle, already spoken of, the Latin church adopted many Oriental hymns of the seventh and eighth centuries. Fourteen hymns of great age are still included in the Gradual, among them the _Pange lingua_, attributed to Fortunatus, the _Vexilla regis_, and the _Veni creator spiritus_, attributed to Charlemagne.

The hymns, anthems, and responses in the general repertory of church songs appear under two distinct forms--simple melodies and ornate melodies. The former, which are more or less syllabic, are used for all the anthems in the _cursus ecclesiasticus_ and the responses belonging to that part of it which forms the office of the day. The ornate style is used for the anthems and responses of the mass and for the office of the night. The responses of the Gradual, Tractus, and Alleluja are musically the most interesting of the liturgical chants. They are not so much an integral part of the sacrifice of the mass as they are a sort of vocal intermezzo for solo and chorus, allowing the display of considerable art, both in technique and expression.

A peculiar form of composition which first appears in the liturgy after the ninth century is the _sequence_ or _prosa_. Apparently this originated in the East and grew out of the custom of writing words as mnemonics under the syllables of the word Alleluja.[61] Gradually it became of such importance that it was detached from the Alleluja and made an independent form. The first examples of the sequence which appear in the Latin church are furnished by Notker Balbulus (830-912), who was responsible for developing it to the proportions of an independent form. Indeed he has been called its inventor. An ancient Irish authority, quoted in the Book of Lismore, says, 'Notker, Abbot of St. Gall’s, invented sequences, and Alleluja after them in the form in which they are.’[62] Among the most famous followers of Notker in the composition of sequences may be mentioned Tutilo or Tuathal (d. 915), an Irish monk of St. Gall’s, Wipo, and Adam de Saint-Victor. The council of Trent suppressed all sequences except five, which are still used by the church. These are the _Victimæ pascali laudes_ of Wipo; the _Lauda Sion Salvatorem_ of St. Thomas Aquinas; the _Dies Iræ_ of Thomas de Celano; the _Stabat Mater_ of Jacques de Benedictis, and the _Veni Sancte Spiritus_.

Another peculiar form, practically the antithesis of the sequence in its origin, is the trope, which consists of the dilation of the musical or the literary text by the interjection of complementary phrases. This--at least at first--was probably done to avoid monotony. For instance, instead of singing _Kyrie eleison_ nine times in succession, it was sung as follows:

'_Kyrie_ cuncti potens genitor Deus, omni creator _eleison_--fons et origo boni pie luxque perennis, _eleison_. _Kyrie_ salvicet pietas tua nos, bone rector, _eleison_,’ etc.

(Tutilo, _Cod. S. Gall_, 484.)

All parts of the mass, from the Introit to the Communion, have been decorated with tropes. There has been compiled a list of seventy-eight tropes for the _Kyrie_ alone. Like the sequence the trope developed from an accessory function to an independent form which at one time was practised with much assiduity.

V

Whether the musical theory of the ecclesiastical chants prior to the fifth century--apart from the Ambrosian hymns--was influenced more by Roman or Oriental traditions is a moot point. The question, however, is not vital, as the real founder of the church system of modes, the Pythagorean philosopher Boethius (fifth century), was professedly an imitator of the Greek theorists. Boethius speaks of the ancients with something like veneration, and takes pride in writing like a Greek, after the fashion of Plato, Aristotle, Aristoxenus, Nichomachus, Philolaus, and Ptolemy. He is a mathematician rather than a musician. He congratulates Ptolemy on having ignored the testimony of the ear and condemns the practice of music as interfering with the just and logical consideration of theory. Cassiodorus and Isidore of Seville speak in somewhat the same fashion. Boethius is the authority for a long line of church musicians, including Hucbald, Guido, Englebert, Jean de Muris, Adam de Fulda, and Alcuin. The mathematical view of music fathered by him gained such prevalence that in the curriculum of mediæval universities music was placed among the mathematical sciences.

We cannot do more here than briefly indicate the tone system used in the church after the liturgy had been definitely formulated, without going into the question of its earlier evolution. The system of modes was professedly founded on the tetrachordal species of the Greeks (see Chap. IV, p. 112), but with an obvious misunderstanding of the Greek system. At first only four forms were recognized, namely, the so-called authentic (from [Greek: ], to govern) modes of St. Ambrose. According to tradition St. Gregory added to these four 'plagal’ (from [Greek: plagios], oblique). At any rate before the eleventh century there were eight accepted church modes, four 'authentic’ modes, and four 'plagal’ or derived modes. Later theorists taught the existence of fourteen different scales. Two of these were rejected as 'impure’; the other twelve remained in use for centuries, and were known by the names of their Greek prototypes, but these names, too, were misapplied, as will be seen from the following table, where the octave D-d corresponding to the Phrygian species of the Greeks is named Dorian, and vice versa the octave F-f (Greek mixolydian) has become the Lydian, and so forth. The difference between authentic and plagal modes was chiefly one of range and emphasis. For example, in every mode two tones were considered, and were, as a matter of fact, of predominant importance; the _final_ or note on which the piece ended, somewhat analogous to our tonic or key-note, and the _dominant_, the note most frequently touched in the course of the melody, the centre of gravity, so to speak, about which the melody moved. In the authentic modes the melody never sank below the final except in cadence, where it might take the note immediately below the final and rise by one step to the close; and the dominant was, like our dominant, in the middle of the scale. In the plagal modes, on the other hand, the melody wandered freely as low as a fourth below the final, which thus was near the middle of the melodic range; and the dominant was a third below the dominant of the corresponding authentic mode. Whenever the dominant fell on B, C was substituted (indicated by _N.B._ in the table) and in the rejected Locrian G was substituted for F.

Each authentic mode had its related plagal. The final of the ecclesiastical Dorian mode was D.[63] The range of a melody written in this mode was limited to notes which may be represented on the pianoforte by the white keys between D and d, including the two D’s and, for the cadence, the C below the lower. The melody would centre about A and come to end on D. The related plagal mode, called the Hypodorian, had the same final, D, but the range of a melody in this mode was from the A below to the A above the final, centering about the dominant, F. The so-called relaxed modes which are frequently met with varied likewise from the authentic modes in range which in such modes might be extended to a third below the final. The dominant remained the same and the slight extension of range hardly altered the _ethos_ or character of the authentic mode from which it thus technically varied.

The modes were in as far as possible strictly adhered to, but the occurrence of certain intervals difficult to sing and not wholly pleasant to the ear (notably the augmented fourth, or tritone,[64] from F to B), led to modifications or, as we should say, chromatic alterations. B-flat, for instance, was substituted for B whenever the interval from F to B occurred; and later, in the development of part singing, many other alterations were found necessary. Marks indicating such alterations were seldom written in the score, and singers were specially trained to alter intervals at sight, according to the elaborate rules of the practice called _musica ficta_, or 'false music.’

We have already adverted to the gradual decline in the use of the Greek language at Rome and the incidental passing from the minds and the memories of men of the alphabetical system of notation which had been inherited from the Greeks. It is not quite clear, however, how the Oriental church, which used Greek until a comparatively late period and even introduced that language into the liturgy of the Latin church, could have absolutely ignored the Greek system of notation. Yet such appears to be the case. As far as we can discover, the early chants of the church, both in the East and in the West, were handed down _viva voce_, and not until about the eighth century do we find traces of any attempt to devise a system of graphic aids to musical memory. This system, as we first find it, was of a most elementary sort and consisted merely of a few strokes and dashes placed above the text of the song and serving apparently no other purpose than to indicate in a general way the rising and falling inflections of the melody. These signs are known as _neumes_, and from them gradually developed our modern system of notation. The origin of the _neumes_ is quite obscure. It would appear that at first they consisted merely of the acute and grave accents borrowed from the Byzantine grammarians and designed to indicate the occurrence of a rising and falling inflection respectively. To them were gradually added dashes, strokes, curves, and hooks in various combinations which in time became a fairly complete and precise system of musical writing. Their evolution into the square and diamond-shaped Gothic notation of the middle ages can be followed with sufficient clearness.

These signs, though representing definite turns and embellishments in the melody, gave no exact indication of pitch. The first sign of anything approaching a staff occurs in the tenth century, when one or two lines were drawn across the page to mark the place of certain tones or pitches. The first line was used for the tone F and the second for the tone C. Other lines were later added for the other tones, and each line was marked with the letter of the tone to which it was assigned. Though all the letters of the scale were used in this fashion, F, C, and G were the ones most commonly employed and from the Gothic characters for these were developed our modern clef signs, as may be seen from the following illustration:

A system of letter notation seems to have grown up contemporaneously with the neumatic system. Its invention has been ascribed to Gregory the Great and to Boethius, without much authority in either case. The first instances of its practical use are found in the writings of Notker Balbulus and Hucbald. Originally fifteen letters were used to designate the tones of two octaves; this number was afterward reduced to seven, repeated in successive octaves. The letters ran from A to G, but none of them had a definite tone meaning, as they have with us. A was merely the tone taken as a starting point and the series was always counted upward from it. In the system as it was finally completed the lowest G was added and called _gamma_ to distinguish it from the G in the regular series. It is of interest to note here that the introduction of B flat necessitated the use of two differently shaped B’s. The B _durum_ was angular [music sign] and the B _molle_ was rounded [music sign]. From the former was derived our natural sign (♮) and from the latter our flat sign (♭). Our sharp is merely a variation of the natural. The system of letter notation was originally devised chiefly for instruments, particularly the organ, though its use gradually became universal. It belongs, however, more properly to a period later than the one we have been discussing.

One other item may justly find a place in this chapter, namely, the early history of the organ. The instrument has virtually since the beginning of our era been associated with the church, and was already a factor in the service during the plain-song period. We shall presently see how one of the earliest forms of polyphony--of music that was not merely plain chant--received its name from the instrument. The organ is of ancient origin; according to Riemann, its ancestors are the bagpipe and the Pan’s pipe. Already in the second century B. C. there existed a true organ, in which air pressure was generated by pumps (bellows) and compressed by means of water pressure and the manipulation of a keyboard. The invention of this so-called water-organ (_organum hydraulicum_, hydraulic organ) was ascribed to Ktesibios (170 B. C.) by his pupil Heron of Alexandria, whose writings have come down to us. Water was, it seems, not a necessary accessory to this instrument and organs were soon after constructed without the hydraulic principle, in Greece and Italy.

1. Pneumatic organ, 4th century. 2. The famous Winchester organ, 951, A. D. 3. German organ, 11th century.

The instrument was known in the occident long before King Pepin received one as a present from Emperor Constantine Copronymos in 757 A. D. A Greek description of an organ belonging to Julian the Apostate (fourth century) and others mentioned by Cassiodorus and St. Augustine furnish valuable details. These instruments usually consisted of from eight to fifteen pipes (one to two octaves of the diatonic scale) which were constructed in the same manner as the flue pipes of modern organs. Throughout the ninth century organs were assiduously manufactured by monks, especially in France and Germany, and their compass was made to coincide with the middle range of the human voice (c to c´) so as to be used in connection with vocal instruction. The names of the tones were inscribed on the 'keys,’ which were small wooden plates in _vertical_ position. The player was obliged to pull this shutter away to allow the wind to enter the pipes, which would sound continuously till shut. By 980 there existed organs of considerable size, such as the famous one at Winchester, consisting of 400 pipes and two keyboards, requiring two players. A special form of notation, known as tablature, grew up for organ playing which coincides in general with our modern staff notation.

* * * * *

The above will, we believe, suffice to give a clear account of the musical activities of the period which we have called the Age of Plain-song. Among music-loving people in general there is a lack of interest in plain-song, due partly to religious reasons, but chiefly born of a tendency to regard it as a dry and spiritless formula, an insipid sort of recitative designed to lend solemnity to devotional exercises. Complete lack of sympathy and imagination could alone excuse such an impression in the minds of those who have ever had the opportunity of hearing it sung in a sincere and reverent spirit. Unlike the pedantic, mathematical art that music came to be in the middle ages, plain-song was preëminently a form of emotional expression. Further, it was the expression of emotions most poignant and profound. It came from the hearts of men who were conscious actors in a gigantic drama. The inexpressible tortures of eternal fire, the ecstatic wonders of a golden heaven, the ineffable mystery of the Godhead, the awful panoply of the Judgment, the wrath and agony of a wronged and insulted Deity who yet offered Himself as a bloody holocaust for the sins of men--all the esoteric spiritual symbols of Christianity had for these early believers a real and literal significance. To them was vouchsafed the simple faith, the naïve wonder of childhood. Their souls were possessed with a great awe, with an intense longing, with profound humility and passionate remorse, with fiery zeal and ardent love, with the joyous ecstasy of anticipated salvation and the nameless horror of ever-threatening damnation. All this wealth of deep and keen emotion is conveyed to us in the songs of the early church with the direct simplicity of Greek drama. No one, listening to the mournful strains of the _Dies Iræ_, could escape the vague awe, the blood-congealing sense of that tremendous drama set for 'the day of wrath, that awful day when heaven and earth shall pass away’; nor could any one hear the serene melody of the _Veni sancte spiritus_ without feeling some suggestion of the ineffable peace that follows the descent of the Spirit Paraclete. Understanding and sympathy--difficult perhaps for a scientific and rationalistic age--are essential to the appreciation of these poets of the ecstatic vision; but for any one who can bring imagination and sensibility to the study of plain-song the results of the task will prove well worth the labor. W. D. D.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] 'Auctoritatem ... in Ecclesia cantandi causa devotionis traxit a canta religiosorum antiquorum tam in novo quam in vetere testamento.’--John de Muris, _Sum. Mas._

[44] Cf. Strabo, _De Bello Punico_, Livy, Bk. xxxix.

[45] Fr. Aug. Gevaert: _La Mélopée antique dans le chant de l’église latine_.

[46] See Bellermann and Vincent: _Anonymi scriptio de musica_, Berlin, 1841.

[47] Book v, Chap. 4.

[48] For a fuller discussion of Græco-Roman music see Fr. Aug. Gevaert, _La mélopée antique dans le chant de l’église latine_ (Ghent, 1895); Combarieu, _Histoire de la musique_, Vol. I, Chap. XIII (Paris, 1913); Charles Burney, 'History of Music,’ Vol. I.

[49] _See_ Gevaert: _Op. cit._

[50] Hugo Riemann: _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_, I².

[51] For a detailed discussion of the metrical forms of ecclesiastical hymnody see Riemann: _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_, I².

[52] Prudentius was the author of two collections of hymns, the _Kathemerinon_ and the _Peristephanon_, which were first adopted by the Spanish church and later introduced to Rome.

[53] _De init. cler._, in Migne, _Patr. Lat._, cvii, 362.

[54] See Paul I; Cor. xiv. 7; John Apocal., v. 8, xiv. 2, xv. 2.

[55] A typical example is the recurrence of the phrase 'Quoniam in æternum misericordia ejus’ in the 135th psalm.

[56] Gerbert says of him: 'Illud sacrorum hymnorum in Ecclesia genus, quod antiquissimus in Ecclesiæ temporibus in usu fuit, in Oriente præsertim a S. Ephrem, inter Latinos a S. Ambrosio excultum, unde et Ambrosiani dicti sunt hymni ... non cantum alternum, vel populi concentum primu(s) indux(it) in ecclesiam Mediolanensem S. Ambrosinus, sed cantum modulatum antea insuetum in ecclesia occidentali.’--_De Cantu et Musica Sacra_, I, p. 199. The writings of the Fathers are full of fugitive, grateful references to the musical achievements of Ambrose. Nor is his fame based on tradition, as in the case of St. Gregory. Some of his most devoted admirers are near contemporaries. The references to his work are not usually inspired by a clear understanding of just what he did for church music, but all together they create a vivid impression that St. Ambrose is the biggest single figure in the history of liturgical song.

[57] According to some musical historians, Celestine introduced the antiphonal psalmody from Poitiers.

[58] _Regesta Pontificum Romanorum_, Jeffe, 2d ed., Leipzig, 1881.

[59] _Vita S. Gregorii Magni_, in Mabillon, _Acta sanctorum ordinis benedicti_, Paris, 1668.

[60] _Les origines du chant liturgique de l’église latine._

[61] The _Alleluja_ is not really a word but a sort of shrilling effect of great antiquity among the Hebrews and other people of the Orient. It was produced by choruses of women in triumphal processions and other joyous celebrations, and seems to have been about half way between a song and a cheer. The early Christians used it in songs of joy and praise, and perhaps sang it to take the place of the instrumental prelude of the psalms. 'Laudes, hoc est alleluia canere, canticum est Hebræorum,’ says Isidore of Seville. (_De off._, I, 13.)

[62] See 'History of Irish Music,’ W. H. Grattan Flood, Dublin, 1906. Notker was the author of the famous _Antiphona de Morte_, beginning _Media vita in morte sumus_ (In the midst of life we are in death), which was quickly adopted as a funeral anthem throughout Europe. Miraculous effects were attributed to it, and its use was so much abused that the council of Cologne (1316) forbade anybody to sing it who was not specially authorized by a bishop.

[63] Here should be noted one of the ways in which the Christian theorists misapplied the system of the Greeks. In Chapter IV we have seen that the Greeks did not consider pitch as in any way related to the character or ethos of the modes. This _ethos_ was determined solely by the arrangement of the steps in the scale. The Christian theorists, on the other hand, though they still recognized the variety of character obtained by varying the distribution of steps in the scale, evidently allotted to the different modes a different final or pitch, and thus pitch came to influence the character of the modes. The modes might, however, still be transposed and sung at any pitch.

[64] This dreaded interval was called by churchmen _diabolus in musica_, and as such studiously avoided.