CHAPTER VII

What Church Music Imported from Greece

During the centuries when the Eastern nations were powerful the European continent was inhabited by primitive men, who had gradually formed tribes. They had rude songs, dances, and crude instruments. They used their music in religious ceremonies, to celebrate war victories and successful hunting expeditions, to sing to their sweethearts, and to accompany their work in the fields and homes, much as the American Indian did. Many manners and customs of the Anglo-Saxon (English), Teutonic (German), Norse (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian), Celtic (Irish) and Gallic (French) races may be traced back to these barbaric days, and even the beginning of national schools of music may be found.

Although a thousand years passed between the Greek musical era and the “Golden Age” of Christian Church music, much that happened in that time is hidden in darkness. The nations and tribes were fighting for existence and were developing into the nations which we know today.

Islam or the Mohammedan religion, and not Christianity, was the great influence.

Julius Cæsar (100–44 B.C.), the great Roman General, conquered Gallia (France), then invaded the land of the Teutons (Germany) and even reached England. In parts of northern Europe, one still sees the remains of great roadways, aqueducts or water works, and bridges, that the Romans built during their invasions.

In the Cluny Museum in Paris is a great hall built as a bath by the Romans. In Bath, England, the city was named for the ancient Roman baths still existing, and you can see the pipe lines which carried the water.

DARK AGES

The world at that time was not a happy place in which to live. There was constant warfare between the once powerful Roman Empire and these barbaric tribes. The poorest people were oppressed and many were slaves, bought and sold by the rich land owners and army leaders.

Into such a world was the child, Jesus, born—a world with little love for humanity, little unselfishness, little sympathy for the down-trodden and unhappy, few kind words for the poor or the sick, little justice and less mercy. No wonder that His teachings brought new life and gave hope to the people!

For several centuries following the birth of Christ, the world went through a period called the Dark Ages. Rome, the city of glorious victories and brilliant culture became the prey of the barbaric tribes—Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Franks, Saxons, and Slavs,—until it seemed that civilization would be wiped out and people would become primitive again.

Music was saved during the Dark Ages through a small band of faithful followers of Jesus Christ, who founded a church in His name. That their music should have been made up of existing tunes and words is very natural. Jesus, himself, brought up in the religion of the Hebrews, often sang the Psalms of David. The beautiful traditional music of the Jewish synagogues found its way into the services of the early Christian Church, because many of the believers were Hebrews. Soon the Hebrew Bible texts were translated into Latin—the everyday language of the Romans, and as most of these early Christians lived in Rome, they followed the rules of music the Romans learned from the Greeks. So, our Church music was influenced both by the Hebrews and Greeks.

For about three hundred years the early Christians had to hold their services in secret, as they were punished even by death when caught, for not worshipping Jupiter and the Roman gods. They were not rich and influential, but just humble folk to whom the teachings of Jesus came as a joyous comfort. They had no beautiful palaces where they could hold services, and at the same time hide from the Roman centurions, so they worshipped in dark and secret places and could not have much music as it would have attracted the attention of their enemies. The early Christians shunned music, too, because it had been used for the wild dances and festivals of their pagan oppressors. As they were poor and uneducated, they had had little training and lacked money to buy instruments, so all in all music had a hard time to keep alive.

From what we can gather, they chanted their Psalms much as did the Hebrews and had responses which sounded like soft and monotonous droning.

As time went on emperors like Constantine, began to take away the death penalty from those believing in Christ and gradually as the Romans saw the beauty of His teachings they became Christians in increasing numbers. Many of these Romans came from the upper classes, and as Greek was the language of culture they had had a thorough Greek education and owned many instruments, so they brought their Greek musical inheritance to the growing band.

Thus, the chants composed in Rome for the _kithara_ were the direct ancestors of our Christian hymns. These early hymns were also a bridge between the single melody line of the Orient and Greece and Rome, and the many melody lines, called polyphonic music, of Europe.

In 325 A.D., Emperor Constantine made Christianity the national religion of Rome. He also founded the Christian Church in Byzantium, later called Constantinople, and all through the Dark Ages, in many parts of Europe, the cathedrals and church schools were the only gleam of learning in a time of darkness and struggle.

After the Roman Empire reached its greatest height, in the 2nd century, it gradually grew weaker and during the 4th and 5th centuries, the Goths, Vandals and Huns drove the government from Rome to Constantinople. In the 7th century Mohammedanism rose and swept over Syria, Egypt and North Africa, and reached Spain in the 8th century.

ANSWERING MUSIC

It is related that St. Ignatius (49–107 A.D.) one of the early Christian fathers, had a vision in which he heard the Heavenly choirs praising the Holy Trinity, in alternating chants, and he was so impressed by it, that he introduced into the Church the idea of two choirs of singers answering each other.

In singing the Psalms of David, the Hebrews used this idea of antiphonal music. (Anti—against, phonal—sounding: antiphonal—sounding against each other.) We see it too in the Greek choruses, in the Roman kitharoedic chants (chants accompanied by the _kithara_), and now in the early Christian hymns. From this antiphonal music to the later polyphony (poly—many, phony—sounds: many voices or parts) is a natural step. Here again is an instance of the influence of one nation on another.

THE PATRON SAINT OF MUSIC

Among the martyrs to the cause of the Christian faith, was St. Cecilia, a member of a noble Roman family, who was put to death for becoming a Christian about 177 A.D. She is believed to be buried in the Roman catacombs (underground burial chambers) and is the patron saint of music, and she is supposed to have invented the organ.

It was St. Ambrose (333–397 A.D.) who worked out the first system for church music and put it on a foundation that lasted for two hundred years.

GREEK MODES AS MODELS

St. Ambrose built scales modeled on the old Greek modes and they were given Greek names, but somehow the names became mixed so that the mode called by Ambrose, Dorian (from D to D on the white keys of the piano) was the Greek Phrygian; and the Phrygian (E to E) of Ambrose was called Dorian by the Greeks; F to F is the Lydian mode; G to G, the Mixolydian. These were the four authentic _Ecclesiastical_ or _Church Modes_.

St. Ambrose felt it his duty to make over the church music because popular street songs had crept in with the Hebrew Psalms and Greek and Roman chants! It was much the same effect as if you entered a church and heard the organ and choir performing “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” This is a funny comparison because it is said that a part of “Yes, We Have No Bananas” is stolen from Handel’s great “Hallelujah” Chorus from the oratorio _The Messiah_.

About this time, schools were formed to train singers in these new hymns and church services, and a way to write down the music composed by St. Ambrose and his followers was needed. The Greek letters had been used in Rome, but now a new system called _neumes_ appeared; this word comes from the Greek and means “breath” and the neumes simply marked where one should breathe in chanting the hymns. There were eight signs with Latin names which gave full directions when to raise and lower the voice.

The system of Neumes notation looks like our present day shorthand and was a help, though, should we use it now we would think it anything but a help.

While the Neumes writing showed how to mark the time, it had a serious shortcoming, because it did not outline the melody exactly. It indicated whether the melody rose or fell, but just how much was a question not definitely shown. An unfamiliar chant could not be sung until the notation had been worked out. It took five years for a choir singer to be able to sing the music!

When the singers sang solos, they ornamented the songs and sang anything they pleased! This made variety but it must also have caused much confusion! The people may have learned this ornamental singing of the Arab, from _The Gloss_. (Page 59.)

The next step was the Gregorian chant which even today is sung in the Roman Catholic Churches.

To the four authentic scales of St. Ambrose, St. Gregory who was Pope from 590 to 604 added four more called _plagal_. He did not invent these scales but based them on the old Greek and Ambrosian modes. To each authentic scale, he added a plagal scale starting four tones below it, and to the name of the authentic mode is added the prefix _hypo_.

Each authentic mode and its _hypo_ are related.

Here is a table of these related modes, and their names:

[Illustration:

_After a painting by Garofalo, National Gallery at Rome._

_Saint Cecilia—Patron Saint of Music._ (_Holding a portative organ._) ]

[Illustration:

_After a painting by Maxence, in Paris._

_Book of Peace._ ]

AUTHENTIC SCALES OR MODES PLAGAL SCALES OR MODES (St. Ambrose’s Scales) (St. Gregory’s Scales)

I. Dorian: II. Hypo-Dorian: d ef͡ g a bc͡ d a bc͡ d ef͡ g a III. Phrygian: IV. Hypo-Phrygian: ef͡ g a bc͡ d e bc͡ d ef͡ g a b V. Lydian: VI. Hypo-Lydian: f g a bc͡ d ef͡ c d ef͡ g a bc͡ VII. Mixo-Lydian: VIII. Hypo-Mixo-Lydian: g a bc͡ d ef͡ g d ef͡ g a bc͡ d

We have marked the half-steps _bc͡_ and _ef͡_, and in every mode they fall on different degrees of the scale. This shifting of the half-steps tells us the name of the mode.

In order to try to give you a definite idea of how the church modes worked, we have written the familiar national hymn _America_ in each mode (see page 74). Play them, and you will see how one differs from the other.

Katherine Ruth Heyman has used a similar idea in her little book _The Relation of Ultramodern to Archaic Music_ in explaining Greek Modes.

It took many years to establish this music and it was not until the time of Charlemagne (742–814) that it became a real system called Plain Chant or Plain-song (from the Latin, _cantus planus_).

Pope Gregory founded the _Schola Cantorum_, school of singers, at Rome, and with these trained people he tried to establish for all Christian churches, a way to sing systematically and well. They studied nine years, and everything had to be memorized, for only the leader had a song book. Books were written by hand and were hard to get. The teacher had a monochord, the instrument invented by Pythagoras, to give the pitch, for all the singing was done without accompaniment. The singing must have improved greatly after Gregory became Pope, for before his reform, music had become a stunt with no solemnity, and people in the churches waved handkerchiefs if the stunt pleased them!

[Illustration: AMERICA]

A LONG JOURNEY

At any rate the Gregorian chant flourished and was so loved that Benedict Biscop, and other monks interested in music, came from far-off England to learn the chant invented by St. Gregory. A long journey! In 675 Biscop sent to Rome for singers and built monasteries very close to a pagan temple, where the Anglo-Saxons still worshipped the Roman Sun god, Apollo, also god of music. These he filled with beautiful relics, paintings and stained glass windows, Bibles and service books illuminated in gold and color, which he brought from Rome.

Bringing things from Rome may sound easy to you, but fancy the travel and inconvenience when there were no steamships, no railroads, no aeroplanes, but only Roman roads, which however marvelous, were long and wearisome by foot or by horse, or mule and rude wagons. This shows how much the people of Britain desired music and beauty in their church services.

VENERABLE BEDE

About this time, there lived a man in England so loved and respected that he was called the Venerable Bede. Although music had no such variety, melody and richness as today, just see what the Venerable Bede says about it: “Music is the most worthy, courteous, pleasant, joyous and lovely of all knowledge; it makes a man gentlemanly in his demeanor, pleasant, courteous, joyous, lovely, for it acts upon his feelings. Music encourages us to bear the heaviest afflictions, administers consolation in every difficulty, refreshes the broken spirit, removes headache and cures crossness and melancholy.”

Isn’t it remarkable for a man to have said this so long ago, when scientists, today, have just _begun_ to think that music may have a power of healing ills of the mind and of the body! Truly—“there is nothing new under the sun!”

So Bede used the plain chant of Gregory and through his influence, spread this dignified music throughout England, and wherever a monastery was founded, a music school was started.

The Venerable Bede writes that Ethelbert of Kent, King of Britain, was a worshipper of Odin and Thor, Norse gods, but he married a French Princess who was a Christian. One day, writes the Venerable Bede, forty monks led in solemn procession by St. Augustine, passed before the king singing a chant. After hearing this marvelous hymn, he became a Christian and gave permission to the English to become worshippers of Christ instead of Norse and Druid gods. This hymn which converted Ethelbert in 597 A.D. was sung thirteen hundred years later (1897) in the same place, Canterbury, by another group of Benedictine monks!

At first the songs were sung unaccompanied, but later as in the time of David, the Church allowed instruments. The lyre and the harp were used first but the cymbals and the dulcimer, somewhat like our zither, were considered too noisy.

The Venerable Bede called music made by instruments _artificial_ music, and that of the human voice, _natural_ music. Whether at that time the viol, the drum, the organ or the psaltery (an instrument like the dulcimer) were used in the Church, is not known positively.

After Bede’s death, Alcuin, a monk and musician, continued his work. He was appointed by Charlemagne, Emperor of France, to teach music in the schools of Germany and France to spread the use of the Gregorian chant.

A CURIOUS MUSIC SYSTEM

In 900 A.D. an important thing happened, by which the reading and learning of music was much simplified. A red line was drawn straight across the page and this line represented “F” the tone on the fourth line of the bass staff. The _neumes_ written on this red line were “F” and the others above or below, were of higher or lower pitch. This worked so well, that they placed a yellow line above the red line and this they called “C.” These two lines were the beginnings of our five line staff, but much happened between the two-line days and the five.

At this time people did not sing in parts, known as they are to us—soprano, alto, tenor, bass, but everybody sang the same tune, that is, sang in unison, and when men and women or men and boys sang together, the men’s voices sounded an octave lower than the women’s and the boy’s. Some voices have naturally a high range and others low, and no doubt in these plain chant melodies the singers who could not reach all the tones comfortably, dropped unconsciously to a lower pitch, and in that way, made a second part. Soon the composers made this melody in the medium range of the voice a part of their pieces instead of trusting the singers to make it up as they went along. The principal tune sung or carried by most of the singers was given the name _tenor_ (from the Latin _teneo_, to hold or carry). We use the same word to indicate the man’s voice of high range.

HUCBALD AND ORGANUM

Hucbald (840–930), a Flemish monk, first wrote a second part, always a fifth above or a fourth below the tenor or “subject.” (The Latin name for the subject is _cantus firmus_—fixed song.) Hucbald probably used the fifth and fourth because they were perfect intervals, and all others except the octave, were imperfect. There were often four parts including the _cantus firmus_, for two parts were doubled. This succession of fourths and fifths sounds very crude and ugly (just try the example), but these people of the Middle Ages must have liked it, for it lasted several centuries and was an attempt at making chords. This music was called _organum_ or _diaphony_ (dia-two, phony-sound: two sounds). As early as 1100, singers tried out new effects with the added parts and introduced a few imperfect intervals, thirds and sixths, and tried singing occasionally in contrary motion to the subject,—this was called _discant_ from a Greek word meaning discord. Maybe at first it sounded discordant but soon it came to mean any part outside of the _cantus firmus_ or subject. (See musical illustrations.)

[Illustration: Organum (IXth and Xth Centuries)]

[Illustration: Diaphony]

[Illustration:

Discant (XIIth Century)

Example of Organum, Diaphony, Discant ]

There was also a kind of diaphony in which a third voice was written as a bass, a fifth below the _cantus firmus_, but it was actually sung an octave higher than it was written and sounded much better that way. As it was not a bass at all it received the name of false bass or _faux bourdon_. This was the beginning of chords such as we use.

So, Hucbald started the science of harmony,—the study of chords. Hucbald called this _ars organum_—the art of organating or organizing.

Hucbald also invented a system of writing music on a staff. It was not a staff such as we use today for he wrote in the spaces the initials T and S. T meant that the singer was to sing a whole tone, S, a semitone or half-step. He used a six line staff and wrote words in script instead of notes like this:

[Illustration: Staff]

GUIDO D’AREZZO AND HIS ADDITIONS TO MUSIC

The next great name in music history is Guido d’Arezzo, a Benedictine monk (995–1050), famous for his valuable additions to music.

He invented the four-line staff, using both lines and spaces and giving a definite place on the staff to each sound:

Yellow line C———————————— Black line ............. Red line F———————————— Black line .............

In the Middle Ages, the men did most of the singing so the music was written in a range to suit their voices. C is middle C, and F the bass clef.

All music had to be written by hand and the monks made wonderful parchment copies of works composed for the church services. They soon grew careless about the yellow lines and red lines, so Guido placed the letters C and F at the beginning of the lines instead of using the colored lines.

Sometimes there were three lines to a staff, sometimes four, five, and even eleven! The use of clefs showing which line was C or F, made reading of music much easier. At the end of the 16th century the question of the number of lines to the staff was definitely decided, then they used four lines for the plain chant and five for all secular music. By calling the fifth line of the eleven, middle C, two staffs of five lines resulted—the grand staff of today.

Here is a table to show you how clefs grew:

[Illustration: (from Vincent d’Indy’s “Cours de Composition Musicale”)]

Hucbald built his scales in groups of four tones like the Greek tetrachords but Guido extended this tetrachord to a hexachord or six-toned scale, and by overlapping the hexachords, he built a series of scales to which he gave the name, _gamut_, because it started on the G which is the first note of our grand staff (lowest line, bass clef) and the Greek word for G is “Gamma.”

F G ab͡♭ c d } ½ step } C D EF͡ G a } This was repeated starting ½ step } an octave higher. G A BC͡ D E } ½ step } (Read from lowest line up.)

In the lowest hexachord, the B is natural, in the second hexachord there is no B and in the third hexachord, the B is flattened. Our sign (♭) for flat comes from the fact that this B was called a round B and the sign (♮) for natural was called a square B. The sharp (♯) came from the natural and both meant at first raising the tone a half-step.

Guido once heard the monks in the monastery of Arezzo singing a hymn in honor of St. John the Baptist. He noticed that each line of the Latin poem began on ascending notes of the scale,—the first line on C, the second on D, and so on up to the sixth on A. It gave him the idea to call each degree of the hexachord by the first syllable of the line of the Latin hymn, thus:

_Ut_queant laxis, _Re_sonare fibris, _Mi_ra gestorum, _Fam_uli tuorum, _Sol_ve polluti, _Lab_ia reatum.

HYMN TO ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

[Illustration: _UT que-ant la-xis RE-so ne-re fi-bris, MI ra ges-to-rum FA-mu-li tu o rum, SOL ve pol-lu ti LA bi a re a tumB͡C, Sancte Io-es-nes_]

Here is a translation:

Grant that the unworthy lips of Thy servant May be gifted with due harmony, Let the tones of my voice Sing the praises of Thy wonders.

We still call our scale degrees _ut_ (frequently changed to _do_), _re_, _mi_, _fa_, _sol_, _la_. The French today use these syllables instead of the letters of the alphabet, and Guido is known as the man who originated this solmization (the word taken from the syllables _sol_ and _mi_).

Where did the syllable _si_, the seventh degree of the scale, come from? This hymn was written to St. John and in Latin his name is _Sancte Ioannes_, the initials of which form the syllable _si_ which came into use long after Guido’s time.

This system was very difficult for the singers to learn as it was quite new to them, so Guido used his hand as a guide to the singers. Each joint represented a different syllable and tone, and a new scale began on every fourth tone. Look at the Guidonian hand on the next page.

Guido was so great a teacher and musician that he was given credit for inventing much that already existed. He gathered all the knowledge he could find into a book, that was sent to the monasteries and music schools. He put in much that never before had been written down, explained many things that had never been clear, and added much that was new and useful.

Sometimes his name was written Gui or Guion. When he lived people had no last names but were called by the name of their native towns; as Guido was born in Arezzo, a town of Tuscany, he was called Guido d’Arezzo; Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter, was born in the village of Vinci; and the great Italian composer Pierluigi da Palestrina came from Palestrina.

Guido’s work was considered revolutionary and not in accord with the old ways which the church fathers reverenced. Because of plots against him, he was cast into prison. But the Pope, realizing his greatness and value, saved him. The inventors of new ideas always suffer!

[Illustration: Hand]

MENSURAL MUSIC OR TIMED MUSIC

Before Guido invented it, there had been no system of counting time.

If you are studying music, you know all about time signatures and what metre a piece is in, from the ¾, ⁶⁄₈, ⁹⁄₈, ²⁄₄, ⁴⁄₄ or sign Ⅽ at the beginning of the composition, but you probably do not know how or when these signs came into use. In the Gregorian plain song and in Organum, there was practically no variety of rhythm and no need for showing time or marking off the music into measures. The accents fell quite naturally according to the words that were sung, much as you would recite poetry. But as music grew up and became more difficult, it was necessary for a chorus singing in three or four different parts, to sing in time as well as in tune, in order, at least, to start and finish together!

The first metre that was used was triple (three beats to the measure). It was called perfect and was indicated by a perfect circle, ○, the symbol of the Holy Trinity and of perfection. Duple metre (two beats to the measure) was imperfect and was indicated by an incomplete circle, Ϲ. Our sign for common time (four beats to the measure), Ϲ comes from this incomplete circle. ⁹⁄₈ was written ☉; ¾ was ○; ⁶⁄₈ was Ͼ; and ⁴⁄₄ was Ϲ.

A monk named Franco, from Cologne, on the Rhine, early in the twelfth century, invented these time signatures, and notes which in themselves indicated different time values. Hucbald’s neumes were no longer suited to the new music, and besides time signatures it became necessary to have a music language showing very clearly and definitely the composer’s rhythm.

FRANCO’S NOTATION OUR NOTATION

▬ (maxima) = ⬭ (whole note) ▜ (longa) = ᑯ (half note) ◼ (brevis) = ♩ (quarter note) ◆ (semi-brevis) = ♪ (eighth note)

Franco used four kinds of notes. Here they are translated into the time values of today.

ORGANS

In the 10th century, organs came into use in the churches, but they were ungainly and crude, sounding only a few tones, and were probably only used to keep the singers on pitch. The organ had been invented long before this, and had been used in Greece and Egypt. It was built on the principle of Pan’s Pipes and was very simple. There were many portable organs, called portatives, small enough to be carried about.

One organ (not a portative!) at Winchester, England, had four hundred pipes and twenty-six pairs of bellows. It took seventy men to pump air into it and two men to play it by pounding on a key with their fists or elbows. The tone was so loud that it could be heard all over the town. Fancy that!

During these centuries, music was growing slowly but surely. Out of _organum_ and _discant_ and _faux bourdon_, arose a style called counterpoint, in which three, four or more melodies were sung at the same time. The writing of _counterpoint_, or line over line, is like a basket weave for the different melodies weave in and out like pieces of willow or raffia forming the basket. Later will come the _chorale_, written in chords or up and down music like a colonnade or series of columns. Keep this picture in mind. (St. Nicolas Tune, Chapter XI.) The word _point_ means _note_ so _counterpoint_ means _note against note_. The word was first applied in the 13th century to very crude and discordant part-writing. But, little by little the monks learned how to combine melodies beautifully and harmoniously and we still use many of their rules.

Gradually great schools of church music flourished in France, Germany, Spain, England, Italy and the Netherlands in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.

Bit by bit this vast musical structure was built. It did not grow quickly; each new idea took centuries to become a part of music, and as often the idea was not good, it took a long time to replace it.