CHAPTER XII

Music Gets a Reprimand—Reformation and Rebirth of Learning—How the Reforms Came to Be

Here is a little reminder of how music grew:

A scale came into use in Greece about 700 B.C.

It was separated into modes by the Greeks about 400 B.C.

It was adopted by the Romans and by the early Christians and was used until the 10th century A.D. with little change.

450 years before the Christian era was the Golden Age of Pericles in Greece.

450 years after the Christian era was the beginning of the Dark Ages.

Harmony was first attempted in 900 A.D.

Between 900 A.D. and 1400, music made little headway.

Music has travelled along two roads,—the Church road and the People’s road; they often crossed each other and became very much mixed up. You remember how popular songs had found their way into church music at the time of St. Gregory, and how the people took melodies from the masses, put profane words to them, and sang them in the taverns, at the street corners, in the tournaments and at work.

Early in the 15th century folk songs had again invaded the Church to the point that masses were known by the names of the folk songs from which they were taken. This led to a very important reform, as a result of which Palestrina, the greatest composer of the “Golden Age of Catholic Church Music,” wrote his beautiful masses and motets, and Luther, the founder of the Protestant faith, made up hymns that are still sung and loved throughout Christendom.

Many things happened between 1400 and 1600, the period called the Renaissance, or rebirth of the ancient Greek and Roman learning. At this time the people in Italy (later in Spain, France, England and Germany), awakened to study after the Dark Ages of war and conquest. Now the people tried to bring back the literature, drama, music, and sculpture of the Greeks and Romans. Read this list of men whose genius developed through the new learning: Hans Memling, the Flemish painter; Albrecht Dürer, the German painter and wood and copper engraver; Hans Holbein, the German painter; Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist, engineer and scientist, probably the most gifted man of all time; Michael Angelo, the Italian sculptor and poet; Raphael, Correggio and Titian, Italian painters; Cervantes, the Spanish dramatist, author of _Don Quixote_; Edmund Spenser of England, who wrote _The Faery Queen_; Copernicus, the astronomer and Christopher Columbus.

INVENTION OF PRINTING

But the greatest event of this time was Gutenberg’s invention of printing (1455) which has spread learning over the face of the earth. Soon people were able to get books cheaper than the hand written scrolls. Until this great moment the monks had been writing by hand all books and music scores. Only the great and wealthy owned them, and very few could read or write, for what would be the sense of learning to read if one had nothing to read? So the invention of printing awakened the desire to know how to read books and to learn poetry, which sharpened people’s minds and enlightened them. 12,000 volumes were printed from 1463 to 1471 where perhaps a hundred had been written before.

The first press (wooden type) was set up by Charles VII (1459) in the Sorbonne in Paris, one of the greatest institutions of learning in the world which still attracts students from all countries. The first music was printed (1501 or 1502) by Ottaviano dei Petrucci in Venice, and were three or four books of motets by Italian, French, Flemish and German composers. Music was benefited by being printed clearly and many changes were made to make it easier to read. Up to this time it was worse than cross-word puzzles! It seemed to be the object of the composers before the Renaissance to make music look just as difficult as it possibly could, and there are many examples of enigmatical canons which were used in the spirit of games and could be solved only by those having the key to the puzzles.

But now the printers who were learned men in those days, simplified the notation, and did away with many useless signs. People began to read it more easily, and music became more popular. After Ottaviano died, Antonio Gardane and his sons founded a publishing house in Venice, which was most useful to composers. Then Paris and Antwerp began to have fine printers, and in 1542 Ballard was made sole printer of music to the King and nearly all the music through Louis XIV’s time (1638–1715) was printed by his descendants. Late in the 17th century the measures were separated by bars as they are today, and when metal was used for type instead of wood, the old square note became oval like ours.

At the beginning of the Renaissance Church music was again mixed with the most vulgar words from popular songs. “The bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes”—as in _The Hunting of the Snark_.

At this time the people were beginning to think and read for themselves, and to question whether the Church had the right to dictate to and control them as it had been doing. They thought, too, that many of the church officers were not good enough, and by degrees the people protesting, broke away from the Roman Church and formed others. Through this protest the Protestant church won its name; this is known as the Reformation. With the new church came the need for new services, new music and new ways of singing.

MARTIN LUTHER, THE REFORMER

“Truth to Nature” was the _slogan_ of the Renaissance.

In 1453, the Mohammedans captured Constantinople, and the Christian Church which had been there since the end of the 4th century, was driven out. Many of the learned Christians fled to Central Europe and brought with them a knowledge of Greek literature and art which they taught to the people.

Christopher Columbus, in his search for a passage to India, found a new continent, and in the same way these seekers for “Truth to Nature,” although they may not have found exactly what they were looking for, certainly opened gates that swept men and women towards knowledge, appreciation, refinement and culture.

The outstanding person in the Reformation of the Church was Martin Luther (1483–1546) who interests us specially for what he did for the growth of music. Luther was a priest of the Catholic Church, but he was also a German; he believed in a national life free from Church government, and in singing hymns in the language of the people instead of in Latin, in order that the words could be understood. He spoke and wrote openly against certain actions of the Church and for this he was put out of the Church of Rome. But, very soon, he had enough followers to start a church of his own, and one of the first things he did was to make a new music for it. Up to this time the only music in Germany had been some hymns translated from the Latin into the “vernacular,” the language of the people, the songs of the Minnesingers and Meistersingers, and a rich crop of folksongs that had appeared in the 14th century. There were also a few composers who had learned to write counterpoint in the Netherlands, Heinrich Isaak, Ludwig Senfl and Heinrich Fink, and they, too, influenced the music of the Reformation.

Luther, a musician himself, knew the love that his countrymen had for their hymns translated into German and for the folksongs, and realized that singing in which the congregation took part would be a power in the church. He had to gather material for new hymns simple enough for the people to sing, and besides he needed new music to replace the Mass. The result of his work is the _chorale_, the foundation of the great German school of music of the 18th and 19th centuries. He was helped in the work of creating these hymns by Johann Walther and Conrad Rupf. The first hymnal (1524) was selected from some of the finest Catholic hymns, Gregorian and Ambrosian melodies, dignified folk-melodies, and some original chorales by Luther himself.

He played the tunes of his chorales on a flute, and Walther wrote them down. He wrote to a friend, “I wish after the example of the Prophets and ancient Fathers of the Church, to make German Psalms for the people, and that is to say, sacred hymns, so that the word of God may dwell among the people by means of song also.” The strength and beauty of these hymns can be seen in _Ein’ Feste Burg ist unser Gott_ (A Mighty Fortress is Our God).

The hymns were harmonized in four parts. They were usually sung in unison (all singing the same thing) with the accompaniment of the organ or a group of instruments. This great change, or revolt, broke the backbone of polyphonic music, freed the spirit of the people, and first brought into use modern scales (major and minor, as we know them). Curiously enough, this Reformed Church Music also brought about the “Golden Age of Catholic Music” with Palestrina as its leading composer.

PALESTRINA—PRINCE OF MUSIC

Martin Luther had hoped to reform the Church but instead founded a new one (another example of Columbus seeking a passage to India). But this action of Luther’s was a challenge to the Mother-Church, and steps were taken to reform many customs and practices in the Church itself. As we have pointed out many times, popular tunes with vulgar words had crept into the Church services. These works composed for the Church were used to show the skill of the composer rather than to express the love of God. Questions dealing with the reforms for purifying the services of the Church were taken up by the Council of Trent, a gathering of the learned Church men and the Catholic kings. The council lasted for twenty years (1542 or 3–1562). Fancy that for a club meeting! Towards the end of its long session, the council decided that all music in the “impure mode” (in popular style), should be banished from the Church. They decided, and we cannot see why they waited so long, that the Mass with popular airs and words not approved by the Church fathers should be prohibited. Palestrina had both the genius and the understanding to meet the requirements, and his compositions for the Church are the highest achievement of the 16th century.

You will read in many histories of music that Palestrina was asked to write three masses to be sung before a group of Cardinals, in order to find out whether or not any composer could write music fit for the Church. These three masses were considered so fine, that he was claimed as the one who saved Church music. This would have been a great honor, but it did not happen, and was only a legend to show Palestrina’s greatness. No doubt Palestrina wrote more carefully and beautifully on account of the decision of the Council of Trent, and was so great a composer that all vocal polyphonic music of the 16th century is said to be in the “Palestrinian” style.

Now this Palestrina was Giovanni Pierluigi, born in a humble home at Palestrina, a suburb of Rome. In English his name would be John Pierluigi of Palestrina. The year of his birth was about 1525 or 1526. He probably was a choir boy and was trained in music in one of the churches of Rome. You may hear that the Chapel master of Santa Marie Maggiore heard him singing on the road and picked him out for his music school, but this may be only one of many legends told of him. Even the name of his teacher is uncertain, some say that it was Goudimel, others that it was Gaudio or Claudio Mell, and still others that it was Cimello. However, his teacher’s name seems to have had the letters “mel” in it, and all the rest is guess work. Before he was twenty, he played the organ in a church at Palestrina, sang in the daily service, taught singing and music, and shortly after was married.

In 1551 he became chapel master in the Capella Giulia (Julia Chapel) in the Vatican. His first published volume of five masses (1554) he dedicated to the Pope, Julius III. There had been many volumes of sacred music dedicated to the popes, but they had always been the work of musicians of the northern school, Hollanders or Belgians. This volume of Palestrina’s was the first by an Italian composer to be written for a pope. As a reward, the Pope made him one of the twenty-four singers of his private chapel, but not having a good voice, and not being a priest, the next Pope dismissed him. But in 1571 he was again made chapel master in the Vatican.

It was the custom in those days for musicians to dedicate works not only to popes, but to rich and powerful nobles, monarchs, or other church officials. These attentions were often rewarded with gifts of money, positions at court or in the chapels. This “patronage,” as it was called, made it possible for composers to do their best work. This was not only the case in music, but in poetry, painting and sculpture. Palestrina was kept busy dedicating his music to popes, for he lived during the reigns of at least twelve.

After the Council of Trent, one of his masses was recommended as a model, so it is said, of what church music should be. He was again granted the pay of singer in the Pontifical Choir, as he had been years before, but this time, due to his well-known skill, he did not lose his post when other popes succeeded in office. Many of his masses in manuscript are now in the Vatican library.

In 1575, fifteen hundred singers from Palestrina,—priests, laymen, boys and women, marched into Rome singing Giovanni Pierluigi’s music, with the great composer leading them. This shows, that he was appreciated.

He was asked to revise some of the old church music and while he tried, he so hated to change the work of other composers whom he respected, that he never finished the task. It was like asking Stravinsky to put up-to-date harmonies into Beethoven.

A list of his compositions published by Breitkopf and Haertel include 93 Masses, 179 Motets, and 45 Hymns for the year, 68 Offertories, 3 books of Lamentations, 3 books of Litanies, 2 books of Magnificats, 4 books of Madrigals. A big list, isn’t it? But his activities covered a long period, and he composed to the time of his death (1594).

He had very few pupils whose names have come down to us.

Palestrina never had great wealth, and some biographers make him seem poverty-stricken and suffering. At any rate, he was granted his heart’s desire, to compose as much as he wanted to, and even if he was poor, he had the joy of success and the glory of being recognized as the greatest composer of his time in Italy. His works have outlived many other schools of composition, and today are looked upon as models of beauty and of masterly workmanship.

Palestrina was honored by burial in St. Peter’s, and on his tombstone are the words “Princeps Musicæ” (Prince of Music).

You must not think that Palestrina was the only famous Italian composer of the 16th century, for Constanza Festa who died before Palestrina did his important work is called the first Italian master of the polyphonic school. There were also Animuccia, Andrea Gabrieli, and Andrea’s nephew Giovanni Gabrieli. Giovanni was a Venetian, and the Venetians loved rich coloring in everything, even in their music. Gabrieli tried to get it by using cornets, trombones and violins with the organ, which at that time could not make a _crescendo_, that is, its volume could not be increased, but as these instruments could all be played soft or loud with _crescendo_ effects, he created a color or quality that never had been before.