The Evolution of Music. 389 



losophy, from the Greeks, adding nothing of consequence to 

 existing forms or to musical theory, though they advanced 

 somewhat the development of melodic form. The tempera- 

 ment of the Eomans was uncongenial to art-sentiment, and 

 such as they possessed was overshadowed by the stronger mo- 

 tives of worldly prudence and aggressive conquest. We pass 

 over several centuries before there emerges a school of music 

 informed with true musical ideas and based upon a correct 

 and satisfactory tonality. We remark, however, that Boe- 

 thius, the celebrated author of the Consolations of Philoso- 

 phy, published his Institutions of Music, in which he showed 

 a lamentable ignorance of the basis of Greek musical theory 

 and scales, but whose misleading text-book was adopted as 

 an authority in the English universities, and whose funda- 

 mental errors were thus perpetuated for centuries. 



Two distinguished names appear during the early middle 

 ages in connection with ecclesiastical music St. Ambrose, 

 Bishop of Milan (A. D. 384), and St. Gregory, or Gregory 

 the Great, Bishop of Kome (A. D. 590). Both drew up rit- 

 uals for the service of the Church, known, respectively, as 

 the Ambrosian and Gregorian, or " Milan " and " Roman." 

 Ambrose is said to have introduced the practice of antipho- 

 nal singing, but good authorities deny that the musical 

 forms and systems of notation called Ambrosian and Gre- 

 gorian are to be ascribed to them, and assert that these ap- 

 peared long after. None of the so-called Ambrosian music 

 now exists, though it seems certain that it was founded upon 

 the Greek system. The tones called Gregorian are still 

 familiar to us in Catholic and Episcopal services. If not 

 the invention of Gregory, they are still of a remote age 

 which can not be definitely fixed. There was this differ- 

 ence (of importance to the future of musical development) 

 between the two systems : In the Ambrosian the music was 

 accented, as among the Greeks a note against each sylla- 

 ble. In the Gregorian a series of notes might be carried 

 against one syllable. This so far relieved music from its 

 bondage to the text, and this partial flexibility invited fur- 

 ther experiment in free melodic invention. 



The extreme of ugliness in music was reached in the sub- 

 sequent organum, or system of harmony, of Hucbald. This 

 writer allowed progression in consecutive fifths, and asserted 

 it to be a fundamental law of harmony. Musicians will ap- 

 preciate the barbarity of this. It was so offensive even to 

 the musically educated of his own time that one writer re- 



