CHAPTER VIII

THE RISE OF THE NETHERLAND SCHOOLS

The Netherland style; the Ars Nova; Machault and the Paris school; the papal ban on figured music--The Gallo-Belgian school; early English polyphony; John Dunstable; Dufay and Binchois; other Gallo-Belgians--Okeghem and his school--Josquin des Près; merits of the Netherland schools.

I

We have already discussed the origins of polyphony and the condition of secular popular music in the dim periods of the Middle Ages. We shall confine ourselves in this chapter for the most part to the development of polyphony, the art of music within the church, not because it was only within the church that polyphony was perfected, but because the art can be most easily and consistently traced in church music. None of the great composers whose importance we shall discuss restricted himself only to religious music, but all gave the greater part of their energy thereto, and most of the available knowledge of music from 1300 to 1600 is related to the church. It must not be forgotten, on the other hand, that secular music exerted a vigorous influence upon ecclesiastical music, an influence constantly combatted by the church authorities, yet constantly triumphant. The two styles acted and reacted upon each other in a manner which may be observed at various periods of musical history.

The study of the development of music from 1300 to 1600 is largely the study of the art or science of polyphony. Polyphony, or counterpoint, is primarily the art of combining two or more voice parts so that they shall maintain their independent character and individual interest, and still harmonize with each other. Early musical notes were written as dots, or points, one voice under or _against_ another, whereby the term _contra punctum_, meaning simply note against note, originated. As has been previously explained, the first or more important melody, called subject, theme, or _cantus firmus_, was generally placed in the tenor, so called from _tenere_ (to hold), on account of its holding the melody: and the addition of one or more melodies to the cantus firmus, or theme, under strict rules and regulations, is the art of counterpoint.[84]

One of the most important devices for enhancing interest in the principal melody is known as 'imitation’; that is, the repetition of a theme or phrase, or parts thereof, either at a different pitch from the original, or in a different voice part, with or without rhythmic or other modifications, which, however, must not be so great as to destroy the resemblance. Combining, as it does, variety with unity of impression, and offering the composer opportunity for the display of great ingenuity, the art of imitation grew rapidly in importance, and became one of the chief and most characteristic beauties of polyphonic writing.[85] To trace the growth of that style of writing, which has been called the Netherland style, is our present purpose.

In Chapter VI we traced the beginnings of polyphony in the stiff organum, and the growth of the so-called mensural system by which all music was reduced to triple rhythm and bound by mathematical laws, indifferent to beauty, relentlessly rigid and monotonous. During this period the musical centre of Europe was Paris, where the organists of Notre Dame were the most influential composers. Here the reaction against the system found voice in theoretical discussion, though this again was probably only the reflection of what had been going on in actual practice, both in France and elsewhere. Indeed, it is claimed by some writers (notably Riemann) that certain composers of Florence, under the direct influence of Troubadour song, were the first to throw off the fetters of musical dogma; England, too, has a serious claim for priority in the new movement,[86] which was influenced everywhere by the spontaneous florescence of secular song. But the name _ars nova_, by which the reform was designated by its protagonists in contradistinction to the _ars antiqua_ of their Franconian predecessors, has led historians to connect it with the probable author of the treatise entitled 'The Ars Nova.’ Philippe de Vitry, bishop of Meaux (1290-1361), is said to be the author of this treatise, as well as of several others dealing with measured music, 'proportions’ and the relative value of the symbols of notation. In it he advocates counterpoint for several voices, rhythmic variety of a free use of chromatic alterations. None of his own compositions has been preserved to us, however. Another writer, known by the name of Jean de Muris, left several works of similarly radical character. He is not to be confused, however, with a theorist of the same name designated as 'the Norman,’ who taught at the Sorbonne from 1321 on, and whose teaching was so conservative as really to constitute a reaction against the new method--the ars nova. This effort toward freedom was characterized, first by the reintroduction of duple time into church music, in which triple time, on account of its symbolistic connection with the Trinity, had long held the field; secondly, by the emancipation of individual voices by means of a greater variety of rhythm; thirdly, by the prohibition of parallel octaves and fifths;[87] and lastly, by the differentiation between half and full cadences,[88] which, in homophonic music--in plain-chant and in secular song--had long been recognized.

The introduction of the natural duple rhythm into music written for the church demanded the addition of new signs to the mensural system of notation (cf. Chap. VI, pp. 177 ff.), for it was necessary that singers should be informed whether they were to sing according to the triple or double scheme. Thus there appear about this period new time signs. Of these a semi-breve, still called, by the way, _tempus perfectum_ circle, [music sign], signified the division of the breve into three or perfect time. A half-circle, [music sign], signified the division of the breve into two semi-breves, and this was imperfect time. A dot within the circle or the half-circle, [music sign] [music sign], indicated that the semi-breve was to be divided into three minims, but without the dot the semi-breve equalled only two minims. The three-part division of the semi-breve constituted major prolation, the two-part, minor prolation. Perfect or imperfect time was sung twice as fast if the time sign was cut by a line, [music sign] [music sign]. The second of these cut signs still survives in the modern sign, [music sign], signifying _alla breve_ time. It appears likely that De Vitry himself was the first to think of using colored notes to signify still another genus of rhythmical subdivision called _proportio hemiolia_; and that he was the first to use the term _contrapunctus_, or counterpoint, instead of descant.

Through lack of actual examples of the period we are unable to tell how thoroughly and readily church composers adopted the methods of the _ars nova_, but eventually their advocacy was of momentous importance. It is true that secular music was the first to benefit by the advance, for it preserved naturally all the elements which the new law purposed to regulate. Hence the first form--that which constitutes the first ground of interaction, the transition to the polyphonic form of church music--was the popular _chanson_, an elementary form of song, evidently developed from the _canson_ and the ballad of the Troubadours, etc., which, as we know, were composed for a solo voice with an improvised instrumental accompaniment. According to Riemann this development of the chanson first went forward in Italy, in connection with the movement known as the Florentine ars nova, a detailed account of which we have chosen to reserve for our next chapter. The Italian ars nova, which is held by modern historians to have influenced the French ars nova in various ways, and to have transmitted to it a style of composition in which the upper voice was freely invented and harmonically interpreted--though in a rude manner--by the accompanying voice or voices, a style which by 1400 was fully developed. These chansons were, it should be noted, like their prototype, chiefly for one solo voice with instrumental accompaniment and varied by instrumental preludes, interludes, and postludes. Purely vocal polyphony in chansons was rare before 1500, though examples of an elementary kind of part-songs have also been preserved, and, as the polyphonic style advanced, these eventually superseded the instrumentally accompanied solo (monodic song).

Meantime, however, the church had fallen heir to these primarily _secular_ inspirations and developed under the rules of the ars nova a freer contrapuntal style, whose chief vehicles were the Mass and the Motet, forms whose general characteristics have been explained in previous chapters. Characteristic of this new polyphony is the so-called _imitative_ style, whose real origin has never been discovered and which is the distinguishing feature of the schools about to be discussed. The first indications of this imitative, or Netherland, style are found in the works of Jehannot Lescurel and Guillaume de Machault (d. _ca._ 1372).

Machault is the composer of the first known four-part mass, which was performed at the coronation of Charles V, in 1360. It must be admitted that this is not a very good specimen, even of early polyphony. The parallel octaves and fifths already prohibited by musical authorities had no terrors for Machault, and his discords amount to nothing less than cacophony. It is a historical landmark, however, and serves as a starting point from which to trace the development of contrapuntal methods. In justice to Machault it should perhaps be said that he was a much better poet than composer, and his verses deserve a higher rank than this music, which includes, besides the mass, two and three-part chansons rondeaux and motets.

For some years longer Paris continued to be, as it had been for more than two hundred years, the musical centre of Europe. The prestige it had held so long was lost, ultimately, not only through an actual decline of original power, but through an abuse of the power they possessed. The standards of the old organ masters of Notre Dame, if somewhat dry, were at least scholarly; but we begin to see, in the early fourteenth century, a deterioration, and a tendency among singers to make a display of their ability in improvisation. Canons and rounds of that time, and even long after, were written in a kind of shorthand, understood, presumably, by every trained singer, but nevertheless giving some freedom of judgment to the performer, which was easily abused. The first phrase of the cantus firmus was usually written out; after this a few signs in Latin, meaning nothing to the modern musician unskilled in the mysteries of this art, would indicate the time of entrance and relative pitch for the other voices. Imitation was almost continuously in use; the 'accidentals’ of modern notation were but rarely indicated, even as late as the time of Palestrina, and the 'key signature’ of the present day was unknown. However, the training of the chapel singers was such as to give a thorough knowledge of the use of accidentals and of the musical symbols of the time. Intricate rules for their guidance were laid down; but, carried away by the flood of new ideas, and unrestrained by scholarly fastidiousness, many of them indulged in liberties which loaded down the pure melody of the venerable plain-chant with inappropriate ornamentations, and often rendered it hopelessly unrecognizable.

In protest against these unwarranted melismas and tasteless innovations of singers, especially of the cathedral choirs and of the papal chapel, the famous bull of 1322 was issued by Pope John XXII. It was not a protest, primarily, either against the popular faux-bourdon, which was generally in use until after the return of the papacy to Rome (1377), or the contrapuntal school, _per se_. It was certainly not against the methods of the ars nova, as is proved by the use of certain technical terms peculiar to the _ars antiqua_. It is against the abuses of the latter school, the obscuring of the plain-song melodies and the violation of the spirit of church music by frivolous rhythmic variations, ornamentation, and juggling with counter melodies, often of profane character. Many other protests of a like nature came from the papal chair during the next two hundred and fifty years; and we shall have occasion to see, in a later chapter, the result of the struggle between religious decorum, on the one hand, and, on the other, the vagaries of the artistic mind in the throes of development.

Yet it must be granted that the masters of the old French school deserve no small credit for their scientific and practical labors. During the time of their ascendancy the resources of notation were increased, double counterpoint was cultivated, a greater freedom in metre and rhythm was introduced, the several voices became more nearly independent, and an extraordinary degree of attention was paid to the problems involved in mensuration. They failed, however, in reaching a point at which true artistic composition, in the larger sense, begins. 'Of symmetrical arrangement, based upon the lines of a preconceived design, they had no idea. Their highest aspirations extended no farther than the enrichment of a given melody with such harmonies as they were able to improvise at a moment’s notice: whereas composition, properly so called, depends, for its existence, upon the invention--or, at least, upon the selection--of a definite musical idea, which the genius of the composer presents, now in one form, and now in another, until the exhaustive discussion of its various aspects produces a work of art, as consistent, in its integrity, as the conduct of a scholastic thesis, or a dramatic poem.’[89]

It was this very quality of design which distinguished the work of the Flemish composers, who, about the middle of the fourteenth century, gained the dominating position among European musicians.

II

With the decline of the old French school the musical leadership of Europe passed into the hands of the Early Netherlanders, called by some historians the Gallo-Belgian School, which flourished, roughly, from the middle of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century.

It will be remembered that the fourteenth century was an epoch of great prosperity in the Netherlands. The ancient nobility had lost power, while the towns, with their astute and far-seeing traders, had acquired extraordinary strength. Earlier many serfs had been enfranchised, and thus a large body of sturdy workers was liberated into the independent trades and soon became wealthier and more powerful than the nobles. The trade guilds and burghers were uncompromising in resisting the encroachments both of the feudal lords and of the Church, and were, therefore, enabled to turn their energies toward commerce and agriculture, unchecked by the influences of a corrupt government. Great factories flourished, vessels of Dutch merchants plied their trade in nearly every sea, population, wealth, and intelligence increased. The ancient towns, Bruges, Louvain, Antwerp, Ghent, Ypres, still bear testimony to these days of prosperity in their magnificent examples, not of ecclesiastical architecture, as in Italy, but of splendid structures for municipal and domestic use. It was among these prosperous and music-loving people that the art of contrapuntal writing was nourished. They did not invent or create polyphony, as has long been believed; but they found pleasure in the fact that the principles of music could be reduced to laws and rules, and the more intricate the rules, the more the true Netherlanders delighted in them. In fact, it was this very tendency that smothered polyphony itself, in course of time; but not before a vast amount of systematized knowledge had been preserved for their successors.

The service of the Pope’s chapel up to the time of its return to Rome from Avignon in 1377 was sung in faux-bourdon, or in the still older method of extemporaneous descant. Ecclesiastical records show that, after the return to Rome, several Belgian musicians were among the singers in the papal choir. These brought with them, along with other music, the first masses written in counterpoint that had ever been seen there. Among the Belgians in Rome, in the early fifteenth century, was a tenor singer named William Dufay, born probably in Chimay, in Hainault, about 1400. There has been much misapprehension concerning Dufay, owing to the fact that Baini, an Italian historian (1775-1844), gave, erroneously, the probable date of his death as 1432. Recent researches, however, especially those of Sir John Stainer, have thrown much light on the life and work of Dufay, and enabled historians to understand facts which hitherto had seemed irreconcilable.

According to this recent authority, Dufay received his musical education as chorister in the cathedral at Cambrai, which in the fifteenth century belonged to the Netherlands. It is famous as the seat of the archbishopric of Fénelon and of Dubois, and for its ancient cathedral. According to contemporary evidence, the music of the Cambrai cathedral was considered 'the most beautiful in Europe.’[90]

It was but natural, then, that the papal choir at Rome should draw what singers it could from Cambrai. It appears that Dufay entered it as the youngest member in 1428 and remained five years. After a break he was again appointed in the following decade, when he remained but a short period. It was at the time a frequent custom for the church to reward whom it would by ecclesiastical appointments, allowing the holder of office to reside elsewhere. According to this custom, Dufay was appointed to the canonries of Cambrai and Mons, both of which offices he held till his death, though he removed to Savoy about 1437 and travelled somewhat in the interests of his art. He died at a great age in 1474. His will is still preserved in the archives of Cambrai, and in it, among other items, he bequeaths money to the Cambrai altar boys. He is buried in the chapel of St. Etienne, beneath a stone he himself caused to be made, which, though mutilated, is still in existence. One of his last desires was that a certain motet of his own composition be sung at his deathbed.

The chief source of our knowledge of Dufay’s early works is the 'MS. _Canonici misc._ 213’ in the Bodleian library at Oxford, compiled not later than 1436, a portion of which has recently been explained and given to the public by Sir John Stainer.[91] The MS. represents the period of transition from Machault to Dufay, including the early works of the latter. They are mostly in the old mensural (black) notation, and show an unusual proportion of secular pieces. Transcriptions and solutions of sixty of them, belonging to the period 1400-1441, are given by Stainer. Most of the pieces are dry in melody and show occasional harsh discords; but they also exhibit examples of fugal form and some crude attempts at expression. They are quite lacking in a certain sweetness of harmony characteristic of his later works, which has been traced to the influence of his famous English contemporary, John Dunstable. It appears advisable, therefore, to consider here the condition of music in England which is thus to make itself felt upon the course of music in general.

Though the twelfth and thirteenth centuries do not, in England, show well-defined groups of musicians working toward a common end, such as constitute a 'school’ in the accepted sense, there can be no doubt that the English were ahead of their time in the early days of polyphony and that English music strongly influenced composers on the continent. Indeed a very considerable case for the actual origin of polyphony in England has been made out by recent historians of great authority, and the case is supported by the famous old English canon, 'Sumer is i-cumen in’--one of the earliest extant examples of polyphonic music. The date of this interesting composition is given by Rockstro[92] as not later than 1250. It is a charming melody, composed to a gay, naïve poem, in the form of a round, or canon, for six voices, and is supposed to have been written by John Fornsete, a monk of Reading. In some measures the parallel fifths and octaves show the influence of diaphony, while in others there is excellent counterpoint which might have been written at least a hundred and fifty years later. The imitation is not confined to short phrases, but is consistently carried through in the four upper voices to the close, over two independent basses. The harmony is rather limited, the F major chord being in great preponderance: but, on the whole, the canon shows a high degree of skill in polyphonic writing. It is, in short, a remarkable example of the working out of an inspired folk song with two systems of part writing, which, so far as we know, were not contemporaneous.

One explanation of this apparent anomaly is that the composition, originally the work of a song writer of great natural genius, was later edited or corrected by a learned musician. Parallel octaves and fifths were not considered offensive in the thirteenth century, and such a learned scholar might easily have let them pass, while lifting other parts of the music to an artistic form considerably in advance of popular taste. It has been supposed, on the other hand, that the composition is really the single accidentally preserved specimen of a whole musical literature, which has otherwise been lost. In support of this latter theory it is urged that the art of imitation, as illustrated in the canon, must have reached a point of excellence beyond anything existing in France or Belgium at the time, and could only have been the product of a well-defined school. However the case may be, the song remains, an isolated but for its time brilliant example testifying to the freshness, vitality, and beauty of early English music.

It should be added that, under the auspices of the 'Plain-song and Mediæval Music Society’ of England, researches have been carried on, resulting in the publication of two volumes,[93] the first containing photographic reproductions of sixty of the most notable examples of English harmonized music prior to the fifteenth century, the second transcriptions thereof into modern musical notation, with explanatory notes. The majority of the examples are written for two voices, and some for three: none of these, however, can compare, in regard to workmanship, with the 'Sumer’ canon, which is also included in the collection.

Not until the beginning of the fifteenth century do we find actual evidence of a school, and it is interesting to note the points of resemblance between it and the first Netherland school. Both are characterized by a reliance on the plain-chant melody, by a conventional opening, a lack of sensitiveness to discords, an avoidance of the third in the closing chord, and an absence of harmonic effects. Compared with the old French school, however, they show a genuine progress in the abolition of the harsher discords, the use of the third in cadences not final, and in the more frequent employment of imitation.

Representatives of the early English school, it is important to note, were divided into two distinct branches, one remaining for the most part on English soil, while the other identified itself almost wholly with continental schools, and, in respect to style, seems to belong to them. In this latter group was John Dunstable, born about 1390, in Dunstable, England. He died in 1453, and is buried in St. Stephen’s, Walbrock, where an epitaph was said to be inscribed on 'two faire plated stones in the Chancell, each by other.’ Another, written by the Abbot of St. Albans, is headed:

'Upon John Dunstable, an astrologian, A mathematician, a musitian, and what not,’

and the six lines of elegiac Latin which follow bestow upon him heartfelt praise.

Dunstable was a writer of songs both sacred and secular. One of the latter, _O Rosa bella_, was discovered in the Vatican in 1847, and is one of the most beautiful specimens of the age. Of the two compositions in the possession of the British Museum, one is a sort of musical enigma, a form of composition quite in vogue among the later Netherlanders. The other is a work in three parts of some length, without words, and is found in a splendid volume of MS. music formerly belonging to Henry VIII. Four sacred compositions, two songs, and two motets are in the archives of the Liceo Filarmonico of Bologna.

Even with these few examples of his work, Dunstable’s reputation as a great musician seems to rest on solid ground. More than half a dozen interesting references to him are made in contemporaneous European writings, among them being one by Tinctoris, a Belgian theorist and composer (1445-1511), and another by a French verse-writer, who compares Dufay, Binchois, and Dunstable as song writers, to the advantage of the Englishman. The passage from Tinctoris refers to England as the _fons et origo_ of counterpoint, and cites Dunstable as her chief composer.

Absurd mistakes have crept into the commentaries upon Dunstable. One early writer, Sebald Heyden (1540), claimed that he was the inventor of counterpoint, and another identified him with St. Dunstan. These and other errors were handed down by subsequent writers, until Ambros, in his _Musikgeschichte_, set most of them right. Of course counterpoint was not, and in the nature of things could not be, the invention of any one man. It was built up gradually, one school contributing a little here, another there, until a comprehensive system was formed.

In England Dunstable’s name was either little known or else it was soon forgotten; for it fails to appear in an important work, _Scriptores Britanniæ_, published in 1550, scarcely a century after his death. From the fact that all but two of his extant compositions are in continental libraries, and that his reputation, during his lifetime, was evidently far greater in Europe than in England, it is supposed that most of his life was spent abroad. Since none of Dunstable’s compositions appear in the 'MS. Canonici,’ it is evident that his fame was not established in Europe when the collection was made (not later than 1436). Contemporary references to him, however, begin to appear about that time, or shortly after; and it is a remarkable fact that the compositions of Dufay, which are known to have been written after this date, show a marked advance both in contrapuntal skill and in style over those contained in the 'MS Canonici.’ In face of the facts that Dunstable was not only an older contemporary of Dufay and Binchois, but that he was also an excellent master of counterpoint and style, it is, therefore, not unreasonable to assume that he was one of the important sources upon which these Gallo-Belgians drew for their instruction and inspiration.

Like the Netherland composers, Dunstable shows a lack of variety and a failure to adapt his music to the sentiments of the words: but he far surpasses them in sweetness and beauty. His works are among the earliest to exhibit a design founded upon resources other than the plain-chant melodies of the Church. He was capable of writing learned musical puzzles, thus foreshadowing the frequent practice of the Netherlanders of the next century; but he also wrote in lighter vein with charm and purity, and definitely renounced the harsh discords employed by Machault and others. It is with good reason, therefore, that scholars have predicated, from these facts, the influence of Dunstable upon the early Netherlanders, even though, in his native land, we find no trace of his teachings until they were imported later from the Low Countries.

Through Dunstable, therefore, we are led back to Dufay and his contemporaries, and the real significance of this first Netherland school. The writers belonging to it were for centuries buried under the fame of the later Flemish composers, Okeghem and his pupils. As will be seen, however, Dufay is to be reckoned, not only as an important pioneer in the strikingly brilliant achievements of the Netherlanders, but also as the actual founder of a school. Learned and well versed in the musical science of his day, he possessed furthermore that indefinable touch of genius which enables a man to build a little higher than his forerunners, and leave art enriched by his labors. A large number of his compositions have been recovered, among them being fifty-nine secular songs, thirty-six sacred songs, eight whole masses, and about twenty sections, or movements, of masses. One hundred and fifty compositions were discovered by Haberl alone, hidden in the archives of Bologna, Rome, and Trieste. Masses and portions of masses are in the Brussels Library, others at Cambrai, still others in the Paris library, and in Munich a motet for three voices.

The oldest datable work is a chanson, _Resveillies vous et faites chiere lye_, written in honor of the marriage of Charles Malatesta, Lord of Pesaro, and Vittoria Colonna, in 1415. Dufay was one of the first composers to use the unfilled white notes, and it is believed that he introduced other changes in notation. He deserves great credit for discarding, in his later works, the empty fourths and fifths, as well as the parallel fifths, which still disfigured the music of some of the ablest composers of the early fifteenth century. We find, furthermore, in Dufay a more developed, though not very extended, canonic treatment of voices; and, again, there is occasionally noticeable a strong tendency toward expression, as, for example, in the mass, _Ecce Ancilla_, which is even more interesting on account of its harmonic character. Moreover, after he settled at Cambrai in 1436--that is, after Dunstable’s European fame was established--a new conception, similar to that found in the English composer’s works, seems to animate his compositions. His dry methods change, the different voices become more melodious, the harsher discords disappear, and the use of canon grows more frequent.

The feature of Dufay’s epoch, however, which had a most far-reaching effect, and one which, incidentally, brought the wrath of fifteenth century critics upon his head, was the practice of using in the mass secular melodies in place of the Gregorian cantus firmus. For example, the folk songs, _Tant je me déduis_, _Se la face ay pale_, and _L’omme armé_, were incorporated as 'subjects’ in a number of masses, which were named after the tunes. The absolute invention of new subjects was foreign to composers of that day, and such familiar tunes, repeated in the various parts of the mass, supplied a familiar nucleus, while the composer’s ingenuity found ample play in weaving about it manifold figures and phrases. This was decidedly a new departure, and one that could not be agreeable to the Church. But the new fashion was no sooner set than other composers eagerly took it up. Dufay’s pupils adopted it and passed it on to the later Netherlanders, who in turn handed it down to the Romans. _L’omme armé_ became such a favorite for the mass that the younger Gallo-Belgians, Faugues and Caron, the Netherlanders Josquin and Lasso, and even the Roman Palestrina, in his early work, made use of it. In appropriating these secular melodies usually only the beginning was employed, and around this were woven contrapuntal devices. In this manner the new melody acquired almost the importance of a theme. Imitation of one part by another, at a greater or less interval of time, is, at present, so inevitably a characteristic feature of every musical composition of a higher order that it is difficult to imagine a time when it was far from being an obvious or necessary element. The invention of this art was for long attributed to Okeghem and his school; though it is now apparent that it was not only practised fifty years earlier by Dufay, but that it was already used as early as 1250, as is seen in the now famous canon 'Sumer is i-cumen in,’ which has been mentioned above.

This epoch of the activity of the Gallo-Belgians resulted in the firm establishment of what might be called the Netherland style. Technical ingenuity was exalted over beauty of sound; the use of martial tunes and love songs, some of them accompanied by most indiscreet words, prevailed in the mass as long as the old polyphony lasted; and the art of canon, although as yet limited and crude, took its place among the indispensable adjuncts of all musical composition.

Of the three composers of this period who are frequently mentioned together by the old writers, two have already been briefly discussed. The third, Giles Binchois, born about 1400, died in 1460, seven years after Dunstable and fourteen years before Dufay. First a soldier, then a priest, Binchois became _chaplain-chantre_ to Duke Philip of Burgundy in 1452. Like Dufay, he was appointed non-resident canon of the cathedral at Mons. Twenty-eight of his compositions are in the 'MS. Canonici,’ of which all but one are secular. Six songs and two motets in the Munich library have also been recently discovered and transcribed by Dr. Hugo Riemann. Among Binchois’ extant works are also about a dozen sacred songs and six parts of masses. Like his contemporaries of the same school, Binchois was somewhat more interested in technical performance than in expression. Tinctoris mentions him with great praise as a composer whose fame would endure forever. It is evident, also, from the testimony of contemporary writers, that both Dufay and Binchois were widely celebrated as masters and teachers of counterpoint.

Another Gallo-Belgian, Eloy, born about 1400, produced a mass for five voices, a rarity for that time. This work, called _Dixerunt discipuli_, is in the Vatican library. Many of the pupils of Dufay and Binchois, among whom were Busnois, Caron, Faugues, Basiron, and Obrecht, became more or less celebrated in their time, and constituted a kind of second generation or transitional school between the first, or Gallo-Belgian, and the later Netherland schools. Growing more familiar with the resources of the contrapuntal method, they improved upon the work of their masters, while adhering, in essentials, to their precepts. Dufay and Binchois, for instance, usually imitated the pattern either in unison or the octave; their followers used also the canon in the fifth, and carried it out with more skill. They discovered the construction of chords, though they still had no idea of rational chord progressions. Busnois, especially, was a more skillful harmonist than Dufay. His fame spread to Italy, and Petrucci[94] included a number of his songs in one of his earliest publications, about 1503. Among these pieces is a four-part chanson, _Dieu quel mariage_, which, according to Naumann, is remarkable, not only for the refinement of its harmony, but also on account of its masterly treatment of the melody. This is placed partly in the tenor and partly in the alto--a novel feature for the time--with no disturbance of the free motion and canonic flow of the other two parts. Busnois had also more skill in design than Dufay, actually employing the beginning of the melody as a theme, and building upon it the whole canonic structure of the voices.

The spirit of change was upon the art of music, as it had been in turn upon architecture, poetry, and painting. Dry outlines were giving place to greater fullness of detail, to greater richness of coloring, harmony, and expression; but, even as music was the last of the arts to be affected by the renascent vitality of the late Middle Ages, so it was slow in travelling the tortuous course of technical difficulties which had to be conquered before true beauty of expression could be reached. Nevertheless, even at this time, music was a real art, possessing laws, modes of diction, and even traditions. Though it revealed its youthfulness in its limitations and crudeness it was by no means chaotic. The music of the mass already showed definite signs of form. There was a shadowy idea of key distribution, and efforts to arrive at a satisfactory method of modulation are evident on every hand. The compositions of the time begin to show a love of variety and contrast, together with extreme regularity in the matter of rhythm. During this time also it is clear that in some forms of secular music, at least, instrumental accompaniments were used. Sometimes songs, and even motets, were played and not sung; again, instruments were counted upon to assist the voices through difficult passages. The major seventh was not considered unvocal, but the compass of both instruments and voices was exceedingly limited. On every hand efforts were made to break through the bonds of old tradition. In these and other matters it is plain that our first Netherlander had left the Troubadour Machault far behind.

III

The next important advance in the art of polyphony is associated with the name of Johannes Okeghem,[95] to whom the leadership in the art of music passed at the death of Dufay, in 1474. Like many other musicians of the time, Okeghem was trained as a choir boy, being one of the fifty-three choristers in the cathedral at Antwerp just before the middle of the century. About twenty years later we find him in Paris as royal chapel master, in great favor with King Louis the Eleventh. He travelled to Spain at the King’s expense, and later, about 1484, revisited his native country, where he was received at Bruges with great ceremony. It is evident, therefore, that his fame was already well established during the lifetime of the older master, Dufay, to whose mantle he fell heir at about the age of forty-five. It is thought that during the latter period of his life he resided at Tours, where he died in 1495. It is most likely that he was a pupil of Binchois, rather than of Dufay.

The extant compositions of this master are seventeen masses, seven motets, nineteen chansons, and a number of canons. One mass is in the possession of the papal chapel, and five of the chansons were published by Petrucci early in the sixteenth century, not long after Okeghem’s death. The _Missa cujusvis toni_ was used for many years in the cathedral at Munich, where the MS., with corrections made by the singers themselves, still exists. Another mass, _Deo gratia_, has become one of the curiosities of musical history, from the fact that it is written for thirty-six parts, with a nine-fold canon.

It may be said at once that Okeghem’s celebrity, and his important place in the history of polyphony, rest upon two things: his remarkable influence as a teacher, and the fact that under him and his pupils the canonic style, in extremely ingenious combinations, reached the apogee of its development. Preceding composers had studied and written much about the proper manner of treating two or more melodies in combination, about intervals, progressions, dissonances, mensural problems, and the art of imitation, diminution, inversion, and the like. Some of them had expended their genius in systematizing and classifying the complex rules for contrapuntal writing, and they delighted in setting themselves difficult tasks to be performed within these rigid rules. This was all very well; it resulted in the establishment of a perfected technique and a body of knowledge, the value of which was recognized by every musician with scholarly aims. Okeghem appeared on the scene at a time when the struggle with technical difficulties seemed to be an end in itself, and his genius--of the mathematical sort--enabled him to master and play with them. It is a mistake to suppose that he devoted himself wholly, or even largely, to the composition of more 'riddle canons,’ as they are called; but it is probably a fact that he is most frequently remembered and characterized by them.

A hint as to the nature of these curious compositions will be sufficient, perhaps, to mystify the uninitiated reader. The mass, _Ad omnem tonum_, shows, instead of the clefs, question marks as signatures; and it may be sung, by using the corresponding accidentals, in any church mode. The thirty-six part mass, with canon for nine parts, already mentioned, is not a 'riddle,’ but has all the difficulties of one. In Okeghem’s school is found the so-called 'crab canon,’ _canon cancrizans_, which is first sung through in the usual way from beginning to end, then repeated backward. There is also a canon which, like the _canon cancrizans_, is to be sung through twice, but from the beginning to the end both times. In the second singing, however, each progression of the original melody _down_ is answered by a corresponding interval _up_, or _vice versa_. This is known as the 'inverted canon.’ One of Okeghem’s followers, Hobrecht, furnishes us even with a canon which has both the retrograde and the inverted motion.

In fact, canonic forms of all varieties and complications were treated by Okeghem and his school to the point of exhaustion. It must not be forgotten that the range given to a single voice was much more limited than at present; that these compositions must conform to the strictest rules, not only when sung in the normal manner, but when repeated in retrograde or inverted motion; and that the very essence of the work was the perfection attained in adhering to contrapuntal laws, rather than the expression of individual feeling. Okeghem himself made these puzzles but rarely, and, as it were, in the manner of providing an intellectual treat for the educated musicians of his day, especially those who formed the church choirs. These difficult works were a test of their ability and thorough acquaintance with Church modes; they afforded exercise in transposition from one mode to another and offered the charm of variety which the special characteristics of each individual mode imparted. Furthermore, they tended to develop the highest artistry the vocalist was capable of, and were an illustration of the variety of combinations possible with the already existing parts.

It has often been claimed that Okeghem was only a musical pundit; that his works are merely curiosities, depending for their interest on their mathematical ingenuity, and not on their artistic worth. But such a judgment does the master less than justice. Even from the point of view of later and more beautiful achievements, it must be acknowledged that at least some of his compositions have a certain artistic merit. Moreover, the service of Okeghem and his school was one of the necessary preliminaries to the full perfection of the art of polyphony. Technical difficulties were solved once for all, and a vast system of theoretical knowledge was prepared by their devoted labors for the use of the greater masters who should follow. So keen a critic and judge as R. G. Kiesewetter (1841) says of Okeghem and his followers: '... they have greater facility in counterpoint and fertility in invention; their compositions, moreover, being no longer mere premeditated submissions to contrapuntal operation, are for the most part indicative of thought and sketched with manifest design; being also full of ingenious contrivances of an obligato counterpoint, at that time just discovered.’

Besides, the work of Okeghem is interesting as illustrating a certain phase of character peculiar to the Middle Ages. There was, at the time, a love of secrecy and mystery, which led artists and expert craftsmen to embody the signs of their craft in a private and esoteric system, which no one but the initiated could understand. In accordance with this trend, the writing down of a canon of Okeghem, as has been pointed out, often took the form of a special musical design, consisting only of a few notes and a short Latin inscription. The reading of such a canon was not always easy, even to the initiated: but to the novice it had all the mystery of a Delphic oracle. It was not possible, of course, even for the most cultivated musician, upon hearing such a work performed, to recognize and follow all its complexities. Okeghem was the master who aroused and nourished the taste for these complex achievements in music, though he was by no means their inventor. Such devices, though to a less degree, were already known to Dufay, as is shown in his canon, _L’omme armé_. But Okeghem brought the art to the point of virtuosity; and it is for this reason he stands at the head of the Netherland school. Judged by the standard of pure art, he is at his best as a composer of chansons. Even these, however, have long outlived their day, just as his contrapuntal riddles have long ceased to tease the intelligence or curiosity of lovers of music.

It is by virtue of another quality, his gift for teaching, that Okeghem lives to-day. As the founder of the Netherland school merely, his influence must almost have ceased when the traditions of that school were superseded by the vital enthusiasm of another; but, as the teacher of the leaders of succeeding schools, he has achieved a kind of immortality sometimes missed by greater artists. In the whole history of music Okeghem as a teacher stands alone. Only Porpora, possibly, the great singing master of the eighteenth century, can be compared to him. Kiesewetter says, 'Through his pupils the art was transplanted into all countries, and he must be regarded (for it can be proved by genealogy) as the founder of all schools from his own to the present age.’

Only a few of his most distinguished pupils can be mentioned here: Jean de Roi, Basiron, Jacques Barbireau, Pierre de la Rue, Compère, Agricola, Caron, Verbonnet, Brumel, and, greatest of all, Josquin des Prés. Some of them, such as Agricola, unfortunately conceived the writing of contrapuntal intricacies to be their chief duty; while others used their acquired knowledge to better purpose. The Belgian, Hobrecht (1450-1505), chapel master of Notre Dame at Antwerp, was probably not a personal pupil of Okeghem, though a zealous follower and admirer. While assimilating and adopting the master’s ingenuity, he also was able to weave into his masses and motets a personal, subjective quality which marks them with the composer’s individuality. So highly esteemed was Hobrecht in his day that in 1494 the whole choir of the principal church in Bruges, for which he had written a mass, travelled to Antwerp in order to express thanks and do him honor.

During Okeghem’s supremacy--a matter of forty years or so--some of the more interesting forms, which had been cultivated in the time of Dufay, disappeared. We look in vain for the mediæval rondo, the ballad, the accompanied secular art song, and the paraphrased church song, with instrumental accompaniment. The contribution of Okeghem and his followers was the development of technical resources and a greater freedom, both in range and style, in vocal composition. His unremitting, thoughtful search for fundamental rules established the art of polyphony on a firm basis, and provided a safe starting point for the utterance of truth and passion. It is the fate, however, of work depending on a passing taste to grow old quickly, and Okeghem himself probably outlived his popularity. But his pupils spread over Europe and perpetuated his learning, and some of them, at least, enriched the art by a fresher genius. Unlike the old French and Gallo-Belgian masters, who stayed at home, these writers overflowed into Italy and Germany, established schools of instruction, and founded choruses for the production of vocal works. Among them, moreover, was one genius who exercised the strongest influence on the art of music, and deserves to rank as one of its greatest masters. That genius was Josquin des Prés.

III

Josquin des Prés is almost the last in the long list of Netherland composers, and overtops them all, with the exception of Lassus. The year of his birth is uncertain, but has been placed at about 1450, since he was a singer in the papal chapel under Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84). He has been claimed as a countryman by Italian writers, because his name was modified into _del Prato_; by German, because, ethnologically and geographically, the Low Countries are a part of Germany; by the French, because the Netherlands became a political dependency of France about two hundred years after Josquin’s death; and naturally the Belgians claim some share in the fame of the man who represents the glory of Belgian music. The towns of Condé, Tours, and Cambrai, the home of Dufay, and of others, have all been candidates for the honor of his birth; but scholars are now agreed that he was born at least in the province of Hainault, which belonged, during the middle and later fifteenth century, to the dominions of Philip the Good of Burgundy. Josquin had been chapel singer at Milan before entering the papal choir (1484), and afterward he is found in the service of Louis XII of France, with whom he was a great favorite. Like some of his predecessors, he received an appointment to a canonry, but seems not to have kept the office very long. In the year 1515 the Netherlands became German, and, according to Konrad Peutinger, Josquin left France for a position in the Netherland chapel of Maximilian I. It seems probable, therefore, that he spent the latter part of his life at Condé, in his native country, where he died in 1521.

Okeghem was still alive, and Dufay less than a score of years dead, when Josquin’s fame sprang to the sky. So great a stir did his gifts create in Rome that beside him the fame of all other composers paled. The Duke Hercules d’Este of Ferrara, for whom Josquin composed a mass entitled _Hercules dux Ferrariæ_, called him the Prince of Music; and the Abbate Baini, director of the pontifical chapel in the early nineteenth century, says of him: 'In a short time, by his new productions, he becomes the idol of Europe. There is no longer tolerance for any one but Josquin. Josquin alone is sung in every chapel in Christendom. Nobody but Josquin in Italy, nobody but Josquin in France, nobody but Josquin in Germany, in Flanders, in Hungary, in Spain--Josquin and Josquin alone.’[96]

Fables grew up about his name, as about that of Homer or Wilhelm Tell. It is said that the French monarch, under whom Josquin served, had a bad voice and a still worse ear. Nevertheless, he was fond of music and desired his brilliant retainer to compose something in which he could take part. Josquin was equal to the occasion. He constructed a quartette somewhat different from the usual sort, there being two upper parts in a canon, and a free bass. To these he added a fourth part, the _vox regis_, as he flippantly called it, consisting of a single note which it was the king’s office to repeat, almost incessantly, throughout the piece!

The emoluments even of a royal musician were evidently not always prompt or large, and Josquin is reported more than once to have given the cue to the king by compositions whose opening Biblical words contained a punning comment on the royal dilatoriness in paying salaries, or whose sacred meaning could be amusingly applied to his own indigence. When finally the king good-naturedly took the hint, Josquin poured out his gratitude in a motet, 'Lord, thou hast dealt graciously with thy servant.’ One biographer of Josquin cynically declares that the thank-offering was not at all up to the mark of the petitions.

Gaiety and humor were often in evidence in his music, as one would expect from so witty, lively a character. His work generally shows a careful finish and attention to details. Naumann points out that he takes greater care in declamation, groups his voices for better color effects, and achieves results, especially in the masses, which foreshadow the grandeur and simplicity of the great period of ecclesiastical music under Palestrina. The Passion motets and _Stabat Mater_ for five voices are among the most famous of his works. Severe contrapuntal art is shown in the two _L’omme armé_ masses, as well as in _Pange lingua_ and _Fortuna desperata_. The contrapuntal ingenuity, however, is lost sight of in a genial, naïve quality combined with nobility and ceremonial dignity.

His fame as a writer of chansons equalled his reputation in sacred music. In these also he stands far ahead of his contemporaries, paying more attention to syllabic values, and entering into the mood of the text. His manner is unforced and gay, and here, too, his great contrapuntal ingenuity is veiled by poetical, nicely calculated effects.

Concerning his work as a whole in comparison with his predecessors, it is generally considered that he is more concise, easier to comprehend, less laden with artifice, and able at last to put soul into the elaborate framework of the polyphonic art. He is the first important musician whose work has come down to us in such quantities as to enable critics to judge adequately of his powers. He was in the prime of life when the art of printing music by means of movable types was invented, and for a century or more his compositions were included in almost every collection that was made. Among his extant works are thirty-two masses, fragments of masses, motets, some of them for five parts, and chansons. Portions of his work have been given to the public successively by Petrucci (early sixteenth century), in Junta’s edition, Rome, 1521, in the _Missa XII_ of Graphæus, 1539; and no less than seven special editions of portions of his works were made during the sixteenth century. Masses in manuscript are to be found in the archives of the papal chapel, as well as in the libraries of Munich and Cambrai. Besides these, numerous examples have been preserved in the works of Glarean, Sebald Heyden, Forkel, Burney, Hawkins, Kiesewetter, Ambros, and others. The number and importance of his commentators and editors are glowing tributes to the importance of the man himself. With the exception of Lassus, no other Netherland master enjoyed such fame, either during life or after death. He is called 'Jodocus’ in affection, and described as 'at once learned and pleasing, everywhere graceful, the universal favorite of the age, welcomed everywhere, ruling without a rival.’ Luther mentions the 'Jodocus’ as one of his favorite composers, saying that others were mastered by notes, while Josquin did what he pleased with them.

And with all this popularity, even glorification, what living singer has ever sung, or what living amateur has ever heard, a note of his music? Specimens of it are not current, it is true; but neither are they inaccessible. Three hundred and fifty years are as nothing in the lifetime of a book, a building, a statue--even of a picture, so much more perishable.... Dante had need of a commentator before Josquin could have learned to read: the frescoes of Giotto were beginning to decay ere he visited Italy, and the beautiful cathedral of St. Quentin had entered its third century ere he first raised his voice in it.’[97]

The eclipse of Josquin’s fame, however, appears not to be quite so complete and thorough to-day as when the above words were written (1862). A number of German societies now regularly include his compositions in their programs, and some of his works have been given in New York during the current year (1914). But no matter how neglected, he occupies a great and honored place in the history of music. Hitherto, as we have seen, musicians had been almost entirely absorbed in the study and application of technical details. Their art was, first and foremost, an intellectual exercise, and its appeal, naturally, almost entirely limited to the intellect. To the modern amateur, good music is that which touches him. He wishes to be conscious of that indefinable spirit which is at once both simpler and deeper than intellect. The greater part of the contrapuntal subtleties of Okeghem must have left the listener cold, remaining in history only as amazing _tours de force_, whose artificial perfection could only be a stage in the development toward something higher. It was this higher quality, achieved by Josquin, which placed him at the head of composers of his time, and gives him importance in history. He, too, possessed the technical skill and learning necessary to the construction of contrapuntal riddles; he, too, was sometimes artificial, and occasionally surpassed even Okeghem in his quaint and grotesque combinations. But such intellectual gymnastic feats were not an important matter with him. He used, and has the distinction of being the first to use, learning as a means of expression, as the vehicle of personal, subjective, and sympathetic utterance. His style became simpler and more transparent, his conception of the text more poetic, and, by reason of these qualities, truth and beauty of expression are his chief merits.

The labor of the Netherlanders, from Dufay to the death of Josquin, offers a spectacle of almost unparalleled activity and painstaking research. It was, for the art of polyphony, the period of youth and adolescence, with its enormous energy, its too great reliance upon intellect, and its comparative lack of mellowness and heart. Dufay was a singer in the papal chapel exactly one hundred years before Josquin held the same position. He, with other Gallo-Belgians and the English Dunstable, added to the body of technical knowledge, established the principles of design in composition, and brought sacred music into closer touch with folk-song. Okeghem and his immediate followers were intoxicated, not with the wine of poetry or passion, but with a desire for intellectual artifice and refinement. They expended their genius on technique as an end, and produced compositions beside which even the most intricate contrapuntal efforts of later days seem almost like child’s play. Such work carries within itself, however, the seeds of its own destruction, and, so far as it rested upon puzzling subtleties, it was doomed to die. Nevertheless, the schools of Dufay and Okeghem prepared the way and the materials for the third and greatest of the indigenous Netherland schools, that of Josquin. To him the resources of counterpoint were merely the means to obtain beauty of expression. It is for this reason that we regard him as the first great composer.

F. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Strict or plain counterpoint is divided into several species: (1) note against note, there being one note in the accompanying melody or melodies to one note of the cantus firmus; (2) two notes against one; (3) three, four, or more notes against one; (4) syncopated; (5) florid or figured, in which the added parts are free. Counterpoint is single, or simple, when the added part is uniformly above or below the cantus; _double_ when the added part is so constructed as to be usable either above or below the cantus by a uniform transposition of an octave, a tenth, or some other interval; and _triple_, or _quadruple_, when three or four melodies are so fitted as to be mutually interchangeable with one another by transposition.

[85] Imitation is _strict_ when the succession of intervals is identical in both antecedent and consequent; _free_ when some modification of the one appears in the other. Imitation is called _augmented_ when the rhythmic value of the several tones is systematically increased, as, for example, when quarter-notes are represented by half-notes; _diminished_ when the rhythmic value of the several notes is lessened; _inverted_ (or imitation in contrary motion) when every upward interval in the antecedent is represented in the answer by an equivalent downward interval, or vice versa; _retrograde_ (or reversed imitation) when the intervals of the antecedent are taken in the reverse order in the consequent. A _canon_ is a composition in which imitation is carried out at some length. Imitation is also the basis of the _fugue_.

[86] It is in Walter Odington’s treatise that the first mention of duple metre is made.

[87] Similar intervals occurring between two voices that pass from one chord to another in parallel motion.

[88] A sequence of chords at the end of a phrase or period, involving, in modern music, a clear enunciation of the tonality or key in which the piece is written. Full, perfect, complete or authentic cadence is the dominant harmony in root position followed by that of the tonic in root position. This kind of cadence is comparable to a period. A half cadence is a less definite closing, used for phrases not final.

[89] W. S. Rockstro, in Grove’s Dictionary, III, 259.

[90] Quoted from an extant letter of Philip of Luxembourg to the Chapter at Cambrai.

[91] 'Dufay and His Contemporaries.’

[92] Grove: 'Dict. of Music and Musicians.’

[93] 'Early English Harmony’; Vol. I edited by H. E. Wooldridge, 1897; Vol. II edited by Rev. H. V. Hughes, 1913.

[94] See Chapter X.

[95] The form Ockenheim was introduced by Glarean, apparently without sufficient reason. It is supposed that Okeghem was born about 1430.

[96] 'Life of Palestrina,’ Rome, 1828.

[97] Hullah: 'Lectures on the History of Modern Music,’ p. 53.