MUSIC. 



683 



Music has, from the earliest periods, been asso- 

 ciated with the services of the Christian church. 

 One of the first profane notices of the existence of 

 such a sect is the letter of Pliny to Trajan, in 

 which he says, " They assemble and sing hymns to 

 Christ as a God." Even in those primitive times 

 of simplicity and peril, when the cave and the 

 forest were the Christians' only shelter, and the 

 arch of heaven their only temple, even then rose 

 the choral hymn ; the fullness of the heart could 

 not be repressed, and surrounded by the magnifi- 

 cent and the beautiful of creation, they adored 

 their Creator in " music that whispered a heart- 

 felt devotion in song and in prayer." 



In after ages, when the persecuted religion, 

 everywhere spoken against, became the favoured 

 and triumphant system, music accompanied its in- 

 troduction into the basilica, the temple, and the 

 church. It has been fancifully enough imagined 

 that the style of chanting, which was in use at that 

 period, was derived from some species of more an- 

 cient, Grecian or even Hebrew music, thus forming 

 a connecting link between the remotest ages and 

 our own time. It is not impossible; but that is 

 all that can be said in favour of a notion, which 

 rests, like many others, advanced by the historians 

 of music, on the imagination alone. The chant- 

 ing of that era, as far as can be learned from the 

 imperfect accounts of it transmitted to us, very 

 probably resembled, in a great degree, that of the 

 priests of the Roman church of the present day, 

 with little variety of modulation, and little regu- 

 larity of measure. Very much was left to the dis- 

 cretion of the singer, and the influence of tradition; 

 \he time was absolutely so, as no time table had 

 yet been invented. 



In the progress of taste, the singing in the 

 church became more ornamented ; and it is a curi- 

 ous instance of the uncompromising consistency of 

 human nature, of the perpetual recurrence of the 

 same prejudices and feelings, that complaints were 

 from time to time made of the excessive ornament 

 of music, which, to our ears, would probably be 

 chargeable with any thing rather than too much 

 grace. The canto fermo of the church was origi- 

 nally, in all probability, chanting in unison and 

 with great simplicity. When ornaments were in- 

 troduced, they must have been performed by a 

 single voice, while the rest continued the original 

 chant; and thus the performance gradually became 

 separated into two parts, of which one was the 

 principal air, and the othej a connected accompani- 

 ment. This was called discant, or double chant ; 

 and, as music became more important in the church, 

 performers were engaged for this service ; and they 

 were employed to sing one part and to organize the 

 other, or imitate the sound of the organ in firm- 

 ness and continuity. At least this seems a suffi- 

 ciently probable interpretation of a word which can 

 hardly be exactly defined now. The invention of 

 the organ was begun in the early ages of Christi- 

 anity, though it may riot be possible to fix its pre- 

 cise date. 



In the reign of Charlemagne a national contro- 

 versy arose, which, though then settled by royal 

 authority, has been open ever since ; and will be 

 finally put to rest when national rivalry shall cease. 

 The singers of Charles's court attended him to 

 Rome to celebrate the festival of Easter; and a 

 violent dispute arose between them and the Italian 

 performers, as to the taste and correctness of their 

 execution of the music of St Gregory. The king 



gave it against his own choir, and employed Italian 

 masters to reinstruct them in the true Gregorian 

 style, which, he said, they had manifestly cor- 

 rupted. From this period, tlie close of the eighth 

 century, to the beginning of the eleventh, there 

 was no such rapid or sudden progress in the art of 

 music as to mark any particular point of time as an 

 era in its history. Still, progress was made in it, 

 and facilities were gradually accumulating for its 

 study and its practice. The chanting became 

 double, that is, in two regular parts accompanying 

 each other in harmony throughout ; and the system 

 of notation was improved by the introduction, at 

 first, of a single line, red for the key of F, and 

 yellow for the key of C, above and below which 

 line the notes were ranged, according to the acute 

 or grave character of their tone. This was already 

 a decided improvement on the preceding system of 

 placing a hieroglyphic over each syllable of the 

 word to be sung, representing the name and sound 

 of the note ; but a variety of plans were at differ- 

 ent times tried, such as drawing a line for each 

 note, then using six lines for the notes of a hexa- 

 chord, and afterwards reducing the number of lines 

 to four, and using the spaces also, as in the modern 

 system. The four lines and three spaces were just 

 enough to give a place to each of the seven notes 

 of the octave in the key of C, which was once the 

 only key used in the church, the pure diatonic scale 

 being the only one practised. Afterwards the key 

 of F was introduced, and rendered necessary the 

 use of the flat B, or B molle, as it was then called. 

 This rich sound was the first accidental ever heard 

 in a church.* The separation of the notes from 

 the words, by placing them in a score, gave an op- 

 portunity for doing what must naturally have sug 

 gested itself to the composer, namely, writing the 

 discant or double chant on two separate sets of 

 lines, in which each note would correspond with 

 one of the other part, and with the syllable on 

 which it was to be sounded. This was doubtless 

 the origin of counterpoint, note against note ; and 

 from this small beginning has arisen, in the course of 

 ages, the complicated art of the modern harmonist. 

 The earliest notes used were square, or lozenge- 

 shaped, without stems, and were easily and fre- 

 quently changed in writing into mere points. 

 Hence the word counterpoint. Stems were ere 

 long added to some notes to mark a different dura- 

 tion, thus giving a hint of a more exact division 

 of sounds by the time they occupied. Letters were 

 also prefixed to the score, which were gradually 

 corrupted into the clumsy clefs now in use. They 

 were originally intended to mark the key F, or C, 

 and not the voice by which the part was to be sung. 

 Thus we see, that, previous to the commencement 

 of the eleventh century, there was a beginning of 

 many things which served to facilitate both the 

 composition of music and the practice of singing, 

 as lines, notes, accidentals, and clefs. The use 

 of accidentals implies, of course, changes of key. 



We say all this was begun before the eleventh 

 century ; for at that time appeared one of those 

 distinguished men, who, effecting much for the 

 progress of the science to which they devote them- 

 selves, acquire a renown even greater than their 

 merits justify. This was Guido, the monk of 

 Arezzo, who, in later times, has been held up to 

 reverence as the inventor of counterpoint, and 



* It is to be presumed, that those at least, who believe in the 

 Hebrew or Greriati origin of the canto ferm, will uot con- 

 tend that ancient music was always in the minor mode. 



