Chapter II
). These two forms have maintained an almost exact correspondence with each other in each successive stage of their musical development. The only real difference lay in the nature of the words employed, those of the madrigal being always secular, those of the motet, sacred. While the madrigal was just as polyphonic as the motet and followed the same general laws of musical construction, it was in lighter vein and in simpler style to suit the secular spirit of the words. The ponderous and solemn character of the motet was avoided, the contrapuntal parts became more plastic and expressive in conformity with the sentiment of the words. These freer and more expressive qualities in the madrigal were eagerly seized upon by the dramatic composers of the seventeenth century, during which period the madrigal was a regular feature of the opera. Dr. Stainer enumerates the following essential qualities of the true madrigal: themes suitable in character to the words, variety of rhythm, short melodic phrases, imitation and counterpoint.
The original home of the true madrigal is undoubtedly Flanders. It is mentioned here as early as the first part of the fifteenth century, when it was already a well established form of polyphonic writing popular with both Flemish and Netherland composers. It was regarded by them as second only in importance to the mass and motet. In a period when the musical leadership of Europe was located in the Low Countries, its cultivation by these learned masters insured its transmission to other countries and, more important still to the development of musical art, marked the first practical alliance of popular song and science. The offspring of this union was destined to achieve important results in the art-revolution of the seventeenth century.
Any narrative of early secular music would be peculiarly incomplete without extended mention of the oldest example of secular polyphonic music known to exist, the famous English canon or round, ‘Sumer is icumen in,’ an ancient manuscript copy of which is among the richest treasures of the British Museum. The first mention of this celebrated piece, hidden away in the Harleian collection of manuscripts, was made in the first decade of the eighteenth century. Until the middle of the nineteenth century the date of the manuscript was assigned to the fifteenth century. But after most minute and laborious research, the English historian, William Chappell, discovered internal evidence (which succeeding investigators have accepted) to prove that this venerable manuscript was written between 1226 and 1240 at the abbey of Reading in Berkshire by a monk named John of Fornsete. The manuscript is, of course, the work of a copyist; no clew has been found to the composer’s name.
The rustic character of the words would seem to ally it to the madrigal, but its musical form is that of the rota or round, very different from the free structure of the madrigal. In the manuscript are also Latin words addressed to the Virgin, indicating its occasional use for worship purposes. The old English words are as follows:
‘Sumer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu; Groweth sed and bloweth med, And springth the wode nu; Awe bleteth after lomb, Lhouth after calve cu; Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth, Murie sing cuccu. Wel singes thu cuccu; Ne swik thu naver nu.’
The Latin directions on the manuscript for singing the round indicate that the theme is to be sung in exact imitation by four voices of equal compass which enter, each four measures after the preceding one. Accompanying this strict four-part canon throughout are two additional parts, called a ‘pes’ or ground-bass. This two-voiced burden consists of a four-measure group which monotonously repeats itself over and over again, the two parts exchanging places in regular alternation.
The extreme antiquity of the piece would alone make it an object of reverent interest, for it is the earliest example of a canon, it is the first recorded use of the ground-bass or _basso ostinato_, and it is the only known piece in six real parts before the fifteenth century. But the wonder grows when we consider the musical quality of this remarkable melody of unknown parentage, ‘born out of due season.’ It is sweet and joyous in character, fitting the pastoral mood of the words; it flows along in graceful outline with a wonderful amount of melodic variety; it maintains an easy rhythmic swing in definite three-pulse measure; it has an unmistakably modern feeling for key--the key of F major--made all the more definite by clearly defined tonic and dominant harmonies which pulsate back and forth in alternate measures. In musical feeling and expression it is ‘immeasurably in advance of any polyphonic music of earlier date than the Fa-las peculiar to the later decades of the sixteenth century’ (Rockstro). Its formal structure displays full knowledge of the contrapuntal devices of the times and also remarkable freedom in handling them.
The apparition of this warm-blooded melody amid the arid scholasticism of the thirteenth century seems utterly incongruous. Yet Rockstro’s explanation[13] seems plausible enough. He points out that some folk-songs of greatest antiquity possess the same qualities of ingenious grace that shine so resplendently in this melody. The words are evidently Northumbrian; what could be more natural than that some trained monkish ear caught the melody and words as they fell from the untutored but inspired lips of some north-countryman, rubbed off a rough place here and there, detected its adaptability for use as a ‘round’ theme (a quality quite common in folk-songs), and worked it out with his clerical companions in extempore fashion after the custom of the times?
The inference is irresistible that such a fragrant folk-song, if this be a folk-song, could not have existed as an isolated specimen. The few melodies of undoubted antiquity we possess demonstrate the presence of unrecognized Schuberts and Mozarts, geniuses ‘born to blush unseen,’ among the humble but inspired singers even of those far-off centuries. The devout and sincere monks who laid the formal foundations of the art of music were too much under the thraldom of authority and theory to perceive the spirit, or recognize the invaluable aid, of such free, spontaneous song in working out the problems they set themselves to solve. In many respects it was a real misfortune and a hindrance in the development of art-music that more of its early steps of progress could not have been taken under the stimulating influence of the folk-song, instead of exclusively under the influence and guidance of ecclesiasticism and the strict and deadening formalism of the early church. The oft-repeated argument that it was necessary to evolve complex musical forms before expressive musical utterance could exist, falls to the ground, shattered by a single phrase of this inspired Northumbrian lay. It would scarcely be maintained that the manufacture of carriages preceded the creation of man or that man acquired an extensive vocabulary before he became conscious of ideas surging within him for utterance.
The religious thought of the monk-musicians of the early centuries was centred on forms and externals, and the character of their religious thought dominated all their mental activities. They were not ready to be led by ‘a little child’; they had no ears attuned to the ‘still, small voice’ of free-born, inspired song. The free spirit of the song, which even in remotest periods insisted on choosing its own appropriate form, did not find real lodgment in art-music until the Romanticism of the nineteenth century conclusively demonstrated the inalienable right of every musical thought to determine the nature of the musical form through which it should be expressed, unfettered by tradition or theoretical law. The growth of this principle of emancipation in music has kept pace through all the centuries with the growth of the same spirit of freedom in the individual consciousness of man. At the beginning of the twentieth century we are for the first time in the history of musical art beginning to breathe in an atmosphere of full freedom in respect to the relation of musical thought to musical form. If wild extravagances have occasionally resulted from the realization of this full freedom, they are possibly the inevitable consequences of a youthful overjoy at kicking loose from the old harness of stereotyped forms--an exuberance of feeling that the present period of necessary readjustment and orientation will temper and direct into real constructive channels.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Especially Gevaert, _La Mélopée antique dans le Chant de l’Église latine_.
[2] The name ‘Sistine Chapel’ was not given to this organization until the Pontificate of Sixtus IV (1471-1484); it was derived from the _Cappella Sistina_ built by this pope.
[3] Practically all the music of these ancient collections has been lost, excepting the Spanish or Mozarabic or Visigothic. Recent discoveries have disclosed a considerable portion of the music of this branch of the Church, so that we have some definite information concerning at least three ancient ecclesiastical dialects of ritual-music--the Gregorian, the Ambrosian, and the Visigothic or Mozarabic. In a few Spanish churches the Mozarabic rites and music still survive.
[4] Pope Paul in 760 sent copies of the _Antiphonarium_ and _Responsoriale_ to King Pepin.
[5] Alert teachers of ear-training have frequently observed that certain students will sing tones given them by dictation a fifth above or below the given tone under the impression that they are singing in unison with it. (See also Parry, ‘The Evolution of the Art of Music,’ Chap. 4.)
[6] Such an expression of pleasure can be explained only when it is remembered that the monastic mind was thoroughly accustomed to being absolutely submissive to authority. Mediæval ecclesiastical authority dictated what was good or bad in musical theory and procedure, just as it did in the realms of morals, ethics, and religion; and authority decreed that only perfect intervals--fourths, fifths, and octaves--were usable, therefore they were pleasing. It took several centuries of the actual ‘practice’ of music to overcome the ban placed by ‘theory’ on the interval of the third in certain cadences.
[7] The development of the technical material of composition, imitation, canon, fugue, etc., is fully described in Vol. I.
[8] The melody of the celebrated ‘Lament’ over the death of Charlemagne, composed in 814 and sung by both Franks and Germans, is fortunately preserved to us. This remarkable melody (quoted by Naumann in his ‘History of Music,’ Vol. I, p. 199) has a compass of practically only three tones, yet in its simple outlines there is eloquent and dignified expression of the popular love for the great emperor. The melody of the more famous ‘Roland’s Song,’ also of Charlemagne’s time, has not survived, although it was sung as late as the battle of Poictiers in 1356.
[9] Among the favorite forms were the _canzonet_ or _chanson_, a love-song addressed to some courtly dame, the _serenade_ or evening song, the _aubade_ or day song, the _servante_, extolling the virtues of some prince, the _tenzone_ or dialogue song, the _roundelay_, with the same refrain repeated again and again, and the _pastourelle_, descriptive of ‘Arcadian love in idyllic nature.’
[10] Chap. 8 of Vol. I is devoted to an unusually full and illuminating discussion of the whole secular song movement of this period.
[11] As noted above, the melodies of the minnesongs were from the beginning dependent on the metrical and poetical structure of the strophe. The three principal kinds are the song (_Lied_), the lay (_Lerch_), and the proverb (_Spruch_).
[12] The word madrigal was used at various periods to apply to two other forms in addition to the one here described: (1) the solo madrigal or _madrigale concertate con il basso continuo_, and (2) the madrigal with accompaniment for several instruments, ‘apt for viols and voyces,’ as the old English song books have it.
[13] Grove’s ‘Dictionary of Music and Musicians,’ Vol. IV, Art. ‘Sumer is icumen in.’
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