CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



used at present, determining by their position 

 and shape the pitch and relative duration of the 

 sounds represented. He also used signs to mark 

 the raising or lowering of a note by a semitone, 

 corresponding to our sharps and flats. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF HARMONY. 



We have spoken so far as to the early progress 

 of melody ; we must now, before going further, 

 glance at the ancient harmony. The earliest 

 mention of harmony, in our sense of the word, is 

 to be found in a treatise by Isidore, archbishop of 

 Seville, a contemporary of Gregory's, who dis- 

 tinguishes between consonant and dissonant com- 

 binations of notes, calling the one symphony, and 

 the other diaphony. What these combinations were 

 we have no very certain knowledge, but they had 

 probably made their way in some form into church 

 music. Hucbald (a Flemish monk, 840-930) 

 gives us examples of what he calls organum, the 

 species of harmony allowed by rule in his age. 

 He shews how a melody may be accompanied in 

 several different ways : with the octave above or 

 below ; with the fifth above ; with the fourth above ; 

 with the fourth above and the fifth below ; and with 

 the fifth above and the fourth below ; and so on. To 

 our ears such progressions are unendurable, and 

 at first one is apt to come to the conclusion that 

 they must necessarily have been the same to all 

 ears and at all times. It seems, however, certain 

 that Hucbald and his contemporaries must have 

 chosen the consecutive fifths, &c. in deliberate 

 preference to consecutive thirds and sixths, just 

 as they chose the mode of D in preference to that 

 of C. There can be no doubt that the ear can be 

 educated, like our other faculties. In no other 

 way can the storm of disapprobation be accounted 

 for which has greeted composer after composer 

 Beethoven, Schumann, Wagner who has written 

 anything original or uncommon ; this storm always 

 subsiding after a longer or shorter period, and the 

 popular feeling changing from dislike to enthusi- 

 astic admiration. It is, therefore, by no means 

 inconceivable that the combinations of Hucbald's 

 organum may have been such as gave pleasure to 

 the ears of the musicians of his time. It must be 

 remembered also that the progressions were sung, 

 and not played upon a 'tempered' instrument, 

 and that even to our ears there is a great differ- 

 ence between consecutive true fifths (as they can 

 be played on the violin) and consecutive tempered 

 fifths, as played on the pianoforte. One cause 

 also of our dislike to these consecutive intervals 

 arises from the confusion of key which they seem 

 to produce ; the ancients, not having our sense of 

 key relationship, would not feel them unsatisfac- 

 tory on this ground. 



Modern harmony, however, is neither ecclesias- 

 tical nor southern in its beginnings, but belongs 

 in its origin to the northern nations. Our Saxon 

 and Danish ancestors had beyond all doubt a 

 custom of singing in parts songs which were 

 subsequently called ' Three-men's ' or ' Free-men's 

 songs, and this custom lasted for centuries, and 

 is even said to exist stih 1 in some parts of the 

 south of England. There is evidence to shew 

 also that, from time immemorial, the people of 

 Northern Europe have possessed and used instru- 

 ments so constructed that they could not be 

 played on without producing a number of sounds 



708 



at once, and therefore playing a succession of 

 chords. It is notable, too, that it is among the 

 northern nations mostly that persons are found 

 with a natural aptitude (occasionally an incon- 

 venient one) for ' singing second ' improvising a 

 tuneful accompaniment to a melody. The art of 

 making melody thus grew up in Southern Europe, 

 based upon Greek models, but fostered by the 

 church, and doubtless continually influenced by 

 the secular melody of the people growing up 

 beside it comparatively free and unfettered ; while 

 the art of harmony was developing itself in the 

 wilder nations of the north, among the Britons 

 and the Russians, ignorant of rule or mode, and 

 having their own sense of tune to guide them 

 instead of learned but useless dissertations. Gre- 

 gory's missionaries carried everywhere with them, 

 as they came northward, the Gregorian melodies, 

 and everywhere, among Teutonic nations, they 

 found the people singing in harmony. This har- 

 mony they adopted as part of their music ; and 

 by the end of the nth century, we find the church 

 admitting the performance of 'discantus,' or 

 descant. This was simply an improvised 'second' 

 sung along with the plain-song or church melody. 

 Rude enough at first, and unwritten, in time it 

 came to be noted down, and got the name of 

 'counterpoint' point against point, or note for 

 note, as we should say. 



We have now given some idea of the develop- 

 ment of musical knowledge and art up to the 

 end of the I4th century, which Mr Hullah calls 

 the First Period. A tolerably complete notation 

 now existed ; harmony (in our sense of the word) 

 had become possible, and Hucbald's barbarous 

 'organum' had nearly died out: the art of descant 

 or counterpoint had been taken up by the church, 

 and was about to become the leading idea of 

 musicians for many centuries ; and some know- 

 ledge of key relationship (probably much re- 

 stricted in its application by ecclesiastical rules) 

 had been obtained. 



MUSICAL ART IN THE I5TH AND l6TH 

 CENTURIES BELGIAN SCHOOL. 



The Second Period to adopt Mr Hullah's con- 

 venient arrangement extends from 1400 to 1600 

 A.D. It is the period of those whom we are accus- 

 tomed to call the ' old masters.' They were not 

 restricted by all the Gregorian rules, but they still 

 used the old Gregorian, or rather Ambrosian 

 modes, and in this their music therefore differed 

 from ours. In another respect, their methods also 

 differed widely from those of the moderns ; their 

 harmony was not a succession of chords, but a 

 combination of melodies ; they wrote, as it were, 

 horizontally, while modern musicians write verti- 

 cally. Their rules of harmony for they had 

 many did not refer to the use of certain chords 

 one after the other, but to the arrangement of 

 certain melodies, or melodic phrases, one above 

 the other. 



At the commencement of the Second Peric 

 the Low Countries were at the height of the 

 prosperity, and it is to them that we have at tha 

 time to look in connection with the development 

 of musical art. About the end of the i4th 

 century, a number of Belgian musicians went to 

 Rome, and took with them the first masses that 

 had been seen there in written counterpoint. Of 



