THE HISTORY OF MUSIC
Dr David C F Wright
1. Earliest times
to the Renaissance
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1967 renewed
2003. Copyright exists on all of Dr
Wright's articles
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music is an integral
part of our lives. It is not as vital
as speech but it would be a sorry world
if there were no music, no singing of
birds, sweet ripples of mountain streams
or the sound of wind in the trees.
The American composer,
Ned Rorem, once asked how the caveman
or other early man made music. The usual
image of early man's communications
being only grunts and gestures does
not correspond with the nature of man
who has always had emotions of various
types. Earliest man would also communicate
by signals, by the beating of drums.
Today some animals beat drums and may
well have the ability to signal to others
as an instinctive facility. With early
man's use of hollowed animals horns
he could communicate, again by distance,
with others. If he were going hunting
across the river with his son, he might
draw the both of them and perhaps some
wavy lines denoting a river and a drawing
of a hunt with some arrows to indicate
the way he was coming home and so on.
But that does not mean he did not tell
his wife in a conventional form of speech.
Most international religions believe
that man was created with coherent language
as well as arms and legs, for example.
In the last seven centuries
when so-called civilised man has discovered
a so-called primitive tribe they found
that each tribe had a language their
very own even if it was limited. Explorers
also found that these primitive peoples
had their own national music and dances
that accompanied it. Even the most barbarous
tribes had music and their own art and
culture.
Man was born with the
gift of sight and sound. Who is to say
that he was not born with intelligence,
language, artistic and conversational
skills?
The oldest evidence
of previous civilisations shows the
presence of musicians, and orators and
often they can be seen to be on a path
of artistic development. The Old Testament
shows us that musical instruments and
song were being developed a few generations
after Adam. So it is with the extant
records of Assyria and Egypt. And there
is much to show that the earliest races
of people were both civilised and cultured.
I reject the claim
that music only originally existed solely
as rhythm and nothing else, since there
must have been melodic expressions in
the voice from the very beginning. While
few of us like to listen to a baby cry
and scream there are variations in the
pitch and notes and such variation is
a form of music. There are times when
a baby crying is a blessing as all parents
will testify.
Early musical instruments
fell into three kinds: percussion, wind
and later strings. Here is Mrs Caveman
beating some sort of drum to her mate
and son down in the valley saying that
dinner is almost ready. Here is Mr Caveman
out hunting with his brother on the
other side of the valley and blowing
into an animal's horn to signify a message
to his fellow hunter. In Jewish history
a number of blasts on an animal's horn
meant something depending on the number
of blasts.
From the very beginning
of man's history, he discovered the
difference in pitch of sound and therefore
could make notes and a series of notes
which constituted a melody. They discovered
that percussive effects could be quiet
as well as loud and that to reproduce
the beating of his heart on drums made
that music human. He could demonstrate
the sound of footsteps and so music
became very human. He could sing and
reproduce his melody on primitive instruments
and, to him, that music was himself,
just as if looking at his reflection
in a pool.
It is clear that families
would entertain themselves with instruments
in the very earliest days. A hollow
reed could be blown and various items
could be hit. To occupy the other hand
when playing a wind instrument if holes
were put in the hollow tube and fingers
placed over such apertures and combinations
of apertures then various sounds and
pitches could be produced. Slabs of
wood and slabs of stone when hit produced
different sounds as they did with different
types of beater. The bigger the diameter
of a tube or its longer length produced
a different sound than a narrow bore
tube. And one can ask, When was the
first primitive recorder consort formed?
Man discovered that
if you make several tubes of different
sizes or lengths and joined them together
you could make pan pipes. They discovered
that pieces of wood of differing sizes
joined together and supported by two
end pieces could make different sounds
and so the xylophone was invented.
Contrary to what is
alleged Jews are not Hebrews. Jews are
descendants from Judah, a son of Jacob.
Abraham was a descendant of Eber (Genesis
10) from which the word Hebrew comes.
Eber was a descendant of Shem, one of
the sons of Noah.
While the first man,
Adam, was still living and siring children,
one of his grandsons, Jubal, was playing
the harp and the organ. Jubal is said
to be the father of all musicians (Genesis
4.21) centuries before the Flood. Therefore
music is an art of high antiquity.
These matters are important
because primitive music is usually identified
as pre-Christian music.
It is not difficult
to imagine what music was like in those
early days. It existed in the very earliest
days of man and quickly developed into
a fine skill.
One of the first great
civilisations was that of the Assyrians.
In the ruins of their great city of
Nineveh were found many representations
of music. The actual instruments were
perfectly constructed and reproductions
of these can be found in the British
Museum. As with the Hebrews, and then
the Jews, before the time of the Assyrian
Empire it is clear that the Assyrians
had a means of writing music down and
an excellent sense of combining voices
and instruments. They also had a conductor.
On the bas-reliefs he is a man in front
with a beard playing a harp some four
foot high with ten strings. Behind him
is a man playing a dulcimer and another
a double flute. Following them are two
more harpists. There are other flautists
and harpists and a percussionist with
a drum apparently played by his fingertips.
This was the orchestra. But there is
more. Following the orchestra are 12
singers, six adult men and six boys.
It is also known that the Assyrians
had other percussion instruments such
as cymbals and bells, tambourines and,
like the Israelites, they had trumpets.
The Egyptians were
equally advanced. They regarded music
as exclusively for sacred purposes.
But they were grander in their music
than the Assyrians. Their harps were
bigger and more ornate. In their pictorial
records is evidence of lyres and lutes.
It is interesting to note that music
was not only associated with their religion
but with the study of the stars, a primitive
astronomy and instruments were buried
with the kings and noblemen of Egypt.
Music was so important to them in their
earthly life that it had to be available
in the after-life.
But it is the Hebrews
then the Jews, or Israelites, that were
the masters of music. This ties up with
the doctrine that when God made man
He gave him the power of speech and
aesthetic values immediately thus dismissing
the concept of earliest man being an
ignorant grunting savage. This is also
borne out in the writings of other religions.
The Biblical teaching is that God made
man to praise Him, that God requires
the worship of His creation and therefore
created man with the capacity to do
so. With such attributes must also come
morality, the knowledge of what is right
and wrong, although it seems to have
been made clear, following Eve's transgression.
In both the Old Testament
and the New Testament the importance
of music is paramount. It is clearly
something highly significant both to
God and to man. Even today people without
any beliefs find music is beyond their
assessment and claim it must have been
written by God. However banal or inane
it may appear to some, a friend of mine
was converted to the Christian faith
by hearing the slow movement of Bruckner's
Symphony no. 8. He said, "No man could
have written that or, at least, not
on his own!"
The great Beethoven
was inspired by the words of Schiller
when writing his Symphony no. 9 quoting
these words:
You
millions, I embrace
you
This
kiss is for all the
world!
Brothers,
above the starry canopy
There
must dwell a loving
Father.
Do
you fall in worship,
you millions?
World,
do you know your Creator?
Seek
Him in the heavens!
Above
the stars he must dwell.
The Hebrews had harps,
organs and lyres. The Israelites were
very skilled in music. They had long
silver trumpets and the shofar, the
ram's horn. Their trumpets were so large
that they had to be supported by stands
even when being played. Music was used
in worship, sounding alarms and gathering
people together. When you think of the
enormous size of the trumpets and the
onslaught of many trumpets blasting
at the walls of Jericho one can imagine
the walls falling down.
Hebrew music is still
used in the synagogue and is probably
little altered from Old Testament times.
Its connection with worship and national
events is clear. David was a musician
and composer as was Asaph and music
was written for ceremonial as well as
religious occasions. David kept on writing
psalms. He was the J S Bach of his day.
The music of the Israelites
was lofty and grand but in an unostentatious
way. It had a power to lift the spirits
of this unfairly maligned nation and
yet its nature was not pompous for often
it was tinged with lamentation and the
attitude was always of reverence before
the Almighty. With the Persians, Greeks
and Romans, music took on a different
character that of pomp and pageantry.
To some extent the
history of Israel is in their music.
There were songs of triumph extolling
miraculous victories over their pagan
enemies as in the songs of Miriam and
Deborah. David wrote psalms denouncing
the enemies of God and in severe terms
as in such phrases as 'Moab is my washpot
and over Edom will I cast my shoe'.
The music of the Greeks
falls into two main categories namely
that which is recorded in mythology
and that which is factual. The factual
music was unlike that of the Israelites
since the Greeks, and, indeed, the Romans,
had a different set of values and morality.
The music of the ancient civilisations
of Persia, Greece and Rome was decidedly
pagan and extolled the lusts of the
flesh and pleasures of life.
What the Greeks gave
us was drama which made wide use of
music in their plays. Aeschylus composed
music for his own plays and Sophocles
accompanied his plays on a cithara,
a harp type instrument. And so incidental
music was formed as well as, perhaps,
the beginning of the seeds of opera
which first appeared in the late sixteenth
century.
Usually in a Greek
drama the chorus of men would comment
upon the action accompanied by a flute
and lyre and the vocal solos were given
to a bass voice. Music was written in
modes not in the diatonic system. And
dialogue was regarded as music and if
you think about it, well spoken words
are musical. This was known as
speech music. This would explain why
many composers have set words to music
and, furthermore, why composers, bereft
of belief in God, have turned to the
beauty of the Bible to set texts.
It is reported by Plutarch
that when Athens was captured and threatened
with destruction the occupying forces
were so moved by the beauty of Greek
music and the power of their plays that
they did not destroy Athens but admired
its art and culture.
As the Greeks were
keen to keep written records we can
read today of ancient Greek society
and the important part music played
in ancient Greece. The earliest detailed
historical records of such music dates
from about 300BC in the writings of
Aristoxenus. He also wrote a musical
text book, as did Euclid (277BC), Nichomachus
(60AD), entitled An Introduction to
Harmony, and so on.
The Romans were comparatively
inept at music. While it is right for
us to admire some of the things which
they did they were basically barbarians
that sometimes tried to take on respectability.
They did not see music as a means to
worship God as did the Israelites and
the Egyptians, nor did they regard it
as a beautiful art as did the Greeks.
The Romans looked at music as a means
to display their pomp and glory and
drawing attention to themselves. Consequently,
it had no sincerity or aesthetic value.
What the Romans did was to develop wind
instruments so that they could be used
in battle and in triumphant processions.
this is probably where the concept of
the military band originated. All such
instruments were made of brass. One
trumpet-like instrument, the buccina,
was twelve foot long. As with the pre-Hebrews,
the Romans also had portable organs.
To Rome and to Roman
society came the wealth and culture
of many nations under their yoke including
Christians who were martyred but whose
decent music did establish some footholds
in Roman culture. Like some other nations
before them the Romans used music to
accompany lewd dancing. Xerxes of Persia
had tried to get his queen Vashti to
do this but she refused to be ogled
by the princes and noblemen at court.
As in much pop music, and indeed jazz
of our time, music was an integral part
of entertainment often associated with
brothels and other similar establishments.
Brahms played the piano in one and Schubert
frequented them regularly. Many jazz
artistes started their paid career in
such places.
The establishment of
the Christian church and the fall of
the Roman Empire gave rise to music
being almost exclusively church music.
Music in the church had been previously
handed down by oral tradition but Ambrose,
Bishop of Milan organised a careful
compilation of all music and largely
to maintain its survival. He was against
anything haphazard. Everything had to
be precise and accurate and still today
this policy must be the best policy.
We live in days when performers and
conductors know better than composers
and alter and revise and so pure music
is not produced. Our philosophy should
be, "If that is what Beethoven wrote
that is what we will play!" The very
faith of Christianity had almost been
extinguished by the pagan Romans and
so its survival, should it be under
another threat, might rest with its
music written down.
Around 380AD Ambrose
made a collection of church music including
settings of the psalms and this was
done not only for the survival of the
music but to preserve the originals
so that corruptions could be exposed.
The whole concept of originality was
important, the original manuscripts
were valued and today the essential
essence of being a great composer is
being original. And it is vital that
corruptions of the musical text be shown
up for what they are. Whatever one thinks
of Schumann's orchestration Mahler's
reworking and reorchestration of the
symphonies has produced a corrupt text.
I suppose it is true
to say that Ambrose was the pioneer
of musical orthodoxy. Church music was
dignified and pious and Ambrosian Chant
was noted for its simplicity and its
modality where note values were largely
determined by the importance of the
notes.
But people demand change
when a change is not necessary or required.
Within two hundred years Ambrosian Chant
was more relaxed and considerably altered.
Orthodoxy and originality were sacrificed
upon the altars of modern thought. And
such modern thought was turning away
from the purity of the simple unadorned
Gospel. As someone said at the time,
"Modern thought attempts to destroy
faith and reliability!"
Such modernism was
exemplified in Gregory the Great who
felt that all church music needed to
be updated. He became Pope in 590 and
he encouraged Plainsong. Such music
under the title of Gregorian Chant still
survives today and is appreciated in
many quarters.
Gregory also established
the order of the Mass giving it its
form as it exists today.
Chanting was simple
and dignified. The compass of the vocal
parts were small and restricted with
too much emphasis on the tonic and dominant.
Hence the inauguration of the perfect
cadence and later the plagal cadence
and there became an dependence on these
devices which has prevailed for centuries
laying some of the basics of fundamental
theory and harmony. However it was predictable;
if you listen to baroque and classical
work you can anticipate the final chords.
They are so predictable and in that
sense predictability destroys an essential
element of originality.
Although the Greeks
had a system of writing music down Gregory
wanted this done in a more obvious way.
The neume system was adopted under which
notes which required accents were identified.
The notes were identified by letters
A to G and a coloured system of lines
was introduced. If the coloured line
was red the tonic was F, if it was yellow
the tonic was C and so on. By the eleventh
century a staff consisted of two coloured
lines showing two notes clearly. In
the following century there were more
lines; notes on the lines or in the
spaces were oblong which is the most
noticeable facet of written plainsong.
But these developments happened after
Gregory's death.
It was probably Guido
d'Arezzo (990-1050) who developed the
stave system and a system denoting the
lengths of notes. In the ninth century
singing a chant at two different pitches
either a fourth or fifth lower than
the original. This was called Organum
or Diaphony, a simple device which works.
Where a lower part could not go lower
the voice had to remain on the last
sung note which was reachable and hence
new harmonies resulted making music
more interesting. And so two part harmony
sometimes with so-called discords was
formulated.
The rhythm of the music
was dependant on the words and the only
time signature used was three time.
But there were always experimentalists
and it was found that if you used two
sets of words simultaneously there was
a greater rhythmic interest and the
two part music gave way to three parts
and so on. Motets were composed to Biblical
texts and, as it was obvious that there
were basically four types of voice from
the high to the low, motets were soon
written in four parts as a quartet.
What is not generally known or accepted
is that motets were invariably composed
on known tunes that were sung in the
countryside by agricultural workers
or something similar. Popular and secular
material has always been used in church
and so when we complain that modern
day pop songs and secular tunes are
used in church it has been the case
for a thousand years or more. There
developed a taste for music to be sung
in thirds and inverted thirds, namely
sixths. Papal decrees wanted to make
church music stricter as if to shake
off the shackles of popular and worldly
tunes and music. To put it simply, a
song which tells of a randy young lad
wanting to take a maiden to the woods
and lie with her under a greenwood tree
was not suitable to have the same tune
sung to ‘Lord have mercy upon we miserable
sinners’ in a motet in church.
The first really important
English composer in the context of what
we are saying here is John Dunstable
(1385- 1453). He was probably the first
composer to introduce instruments into
church in Britain to accompany the mass
and other liturgical works thus establishing
some sort of flexibility in church music.
He had great influence not only in England
but in Europe partly because he was
thought to be in the same tradition
as the Franco-Flemish composer Guillaume
Dufay (1400-1474); hence Dunstable was
said to be of the Flemish school. Dufay
developed a style of polyphony and his
masses and motets seem to be devoid
of popular tunes. Instead he wrote separate
secular music. Dufay also used instruments
to accompany masses. One of Dufay's
pupils was Jean de Ockeghem (1430 -1495)
who founded the Second Netherlands School.
He was extremely influential not only
in music but in serving the French king
and was the teacher of Josquin Despres.
It is said that Josquin
was a leader in the ‘renaissance’ movement.
The word means rebirth of course but
in musical terms it has come to signify
that period of music between the medieval
and the baroque - the early fifteenth
century to the early seventeenth century.
The early and medieval
music was noted for its simplicity and
in church music its dignity and slowness
which one can only describe as uneventful
music. Secular music may have had a
lilt about it. In the renaissance there
was some music that became a little
ornate and more eventful having greater
contrast in many aspects. Adrian Willaerts
(1480- 1562) is a fine example of this.
While some of his music retains the
restraint of the past other music is
lively and sparkles for its day. He
was the chapel-master at St Mark's in
Venice and founded the Venetian School.
The fifteenth and sixteenth
century saw a proliferation of masses
and sacred songs. Some were original
in their musical material and some still
used popular song melodies of the day.
Masses became a little decorative at
times although today we would not appreciate
that. This was considered by many in
the church to be an evil influence and
a form of extremism. Other forms of
extremism were involved such as flamboyance
and complexity. There were several long-lasting
debates on the subject of the reform
of church music.
The complaint about
music being decorative was largely a
complaint against counterpoint or polyphony.
In simple terms counterpoint is when
melodies are woven together but each
still retaining its individuality. There
are those who say that there is counterpoint
in rhythm as well, that is to say more
than one rhythm being present at the
same time. But art develops. It does
not stand still and some changes are
good; others are anathema.
But another minor rebellion
was taking place. Vocal soloists wanted
to show off and often elaborated their
solo lines with what we now call ornamentation,
grace notes, turns, shakes, mordents,
upper and lower, and other ornaments
improvised into the vocal line; elaborate
melismata was introduced. Ornamentation
has been a blight on music and debates
have raged as to how ornamentation should
be interpreted today. Here is a trill
in a Haydn symphony. Should it start
on the note above? Should it end with
a turn? And try fitting fifteen notes
of a trill against four quavers. Another
annoying device came into being. The
slowing down at the end of a movement
or section, the grinding rallentando
as if it was prophetic of the soon coming
end.
And I have heard conductors,
performers and experts on early music
say, "That is how it was played three
hundred years ago!"
Really? Were they there?
Secular music was important.
Since the fall of the Roman Empire there
appeared the minstrel or the gleeman
who lived a precarious existence going
from place to place but, because he
was an entertainer, he was accepted
in various types of society. He was
in the same category as jugglers, acrobats,
those who sold elixirs and potions.
The Roman church frowned upon such men
- such entertainment was not spiritual
and has its roots in the gladiatorial
entertainments of pagan Rome and was
therefore decadent. There were other
entertainers called strollers who generally
were not allowed into castles or the
homes of noble families but who would
entertain at the castle gates and in
market squares.
Provence in France
was said to be the most peaceful place
in Europe and it is thought that the
troubadours began here. Not all of them
were outcasts as was usually the case
with minstrels and strollers. In fact
some troubadours were men of noble birth
such as Duke Guilhem of Aquitaine who
died in 1127. Curiously, troubadours
became important as many of them seemed
to combine many facets thus making the
appeal universal. He could be a court
jester one moment and a supporter of
the church the next. He would uphold
chivalry and come to the cause of the
oppressed; combining all the requirements
of the society of the day. They were
also the newspapers of the day as were
the minstrels but the troubadour was
akin to a broadsheet whereas the minstrels
were akin to tabloids. They would recite
or sing the news and they were usually
welcome. The troubadours gave rise to
certain song formats such as the pastoral,
a shepherd's song, the alba, the song
of the morning from which we get the
word aubade, the serena, the serenade
and the ballad. In Northern France some
were called the Trouvères and
in Germany the Minnesingers. Later in
Germany there were the Mastersingers
who were burgher-minstrels. They arose
in the fourteenth century. Hans Sachs
of Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger
is an example. They founded guilds or
trade unions to protect their interests.
Many of them played instruments such
as primitive flutes which were known
as pipers, hence the Pied Piper of Hamelin,
for example. If they were adept on such
an instrument they seemed to win even
more favour.
Music in Britain followed
the same pattern as in Europe. There
was church music and minstrelsy. Music
was particularly advanced in Wales and
the bardic caste enjoyed great popularity.
In 1171 Giraldus Cambrensis, or Gerald
Barry, the Bishop of St David's visited
Ireland which Henry II had been given
by the British Pope, Adrian IV, provided
that the king collected money from each
household for Catholic funds. It is
clear that Barry influenced the Irish
so that they developed three types of
minstrel or bard, those that were basically
poets, and those who sang the law as
a precursor of a town crier. The last
set comprised those who dealt with history
and genealogy. Even today you can hear
songs tracing the history of some local
family. Latterly, the Irish developed
rebel songs blaming Protestants for
all their troubles whereas, as we have
said, the Irish troubles began 300 years
before the birth of Protestantism. But
these songs were in the style of the
ancient minstrels although their 'historical
facts' were often untrue.
In the Middle Ages
folk song was cultivated. In the early
thirteenth century a monk at Reading
Abbey composed or wrote down Sumer is
icumen in. A folk song is a traditional
song handed down by oral tradition.
Such songs should not be dismissed as
lesser music since they have their place
in the history and culture of its country.
Most of the earliest
books on music were written by Englishmen.
There is, for example, Odington's De
Speculatione Musices of which the only
known copy is in the library of Corpus
Christi in Cambridge.
It is clear that music
was vital throughout the ages. And in
the writings of Jewish, Christian, Muslim
and other faiths it is universally stated
that man was created to praise God and
created with the ability of intelligent
speech to sing such praise right from
the outset of man's history.
Copyright 1967, renewed 2003. This
article, or any part of it, however
small, must not be copied, quoted, used
in any way, stored in any retrieval
system or downloaded without the prior
written consent of the author. Failure
to comply is a breach of the copyright
laws and will render the offender to
be the subject of a Court action.
Part
2 Music
of the Renaissance and Reformation Periods
Part
3. Approaching the Baroque
Part
4.
Early American Music (1620-1800)
