How Music Developed

The Beginning of Modern Music

Descent of the Roman Chant from the kithara songs of the Romans and thence from those of the Greeks-First appearance of modern melody-Steps toward the formation of a musical system-Ambrosian and Gregorian chants-Their character-Nokter Balbulus and sequences-Spread of the Roman chant-Nature of music at this period.

IN reading any history of the development of music as an art one must ever bear in mind the fact that music was also developing at the same time as a popular mode of expression, and that the two processes were separate. The cultivation of modern music as an art was begun by the medieval priests of the Roman Catholic Church, who were endeavoring to arrange a liturgy for their service, and it is due to this fact that for several centuries the only artistic music was that of the Church, and that it was controlled by influences which barely touched the popular songs of the times. In the course of years the two kinds of music came together, and important changes were made. But any account of the development of modern music as an art is compelled to begin with the story of the medieval chant.

In the beginning the chants of the Christian Church, from which the medieval chant was developed, were without system. They were a heterogeneous mass of music derived wholly from sources which chanced to be near at hand. The early Christians in Judea must naturally have borrowed their music from the worship of their forefathers, who were mostly Jews. The Christians in Greece naturally adapted Greek music to their requirements, while those in Rome made use of the Roman kithara (lyre) songs, which in their turn were borrowed from the Greeks. Christ and the apostles at the Last Supper chanted one of the old Hebrew psalms. Saint Paul speaks also of "hymns and spiritual songs," by one of which designations he certainly means the hymns of the early Christians founded on Roman lyre songs. It is also on record that the Christian communities of Alexandria as early as 180 A. D. were in the habit of repeating the chant of the Last Supper with an accompaniment of flutes, and Pliny, the Younger (62-110 A. D.), describes the custom of singing hymns to the glory of Christ.

The psalms in the early Church were chanted antiphonally; that is, one verse was sung by one part of the congregation and answered by another with the next verse, or they were chanted by priest and congregation alternately. Of course there could not have been any high artistic endeavor in such music, because it must have been within the capacity of the least skilled performers. There could not have been any fixed system in the Church until its various branches in the vast Roman empire were unified under a Christian emperor, Constantine (306-337 A. D.). Under him art and architecture began to serve the Church, and it is about this time that we begin to discover attempts at the formation of a system in church music. Four distinct steps are traceable:-

First. A. D. 314.-Pope Sylvester founded singing-schools at Rome.

Second. A. D. 350.-Flavian and Diodorus made antiphonal chanting of the psalms a required part of the church service at Antioch.

Third. A. D. 367.-The Council of Laodicea forbade congregational singing, and confined the service to a trained choir.

Fourth. A. D. 384 (about).-St. Ambrose brought together the inharmonious elements in the church liturgy and formulated a general system of chanting known as the Ambrosian chant.

The foundation of singing-schools produced choristers who were able to meet the requirements of the improved music, for that was beyond the narrow powers of the early congregations. The reader will readily see how the first three steps toward the formation of a system were logical. But differences in practice naturally crept in, and the work of Ambrose appears to have been one of regulation. He founded his system on four of the ancient Greek scales, which were, of course, at the base of all the Greek and Roman tunes then used in the Church. It is unnecessary to go into any extended account of Greek music in order to get an idea of the character of the Ambrosian chant, but it is needful to give the subject some consideration, because Greek music influenced modern music for several centuries. All modern major scales are formed thus: two whole intervals followed by one-half interval (a semitone), then three whole intervals followed by a half. For example, take the scales of C and G:-

[C scale: 1 2 ? 1 2 3 ?]

Listen: G Scale

[G scale: 1 2 ? 1 2 3 ?]

The Greek scales were formed on a wholly different principle. The foundation of the system was the tetrachord, which always contained, as its name implies, four notes. Between some two of these there was always a half-interval, and the scale was named according to the position of that semitone. The Doric scale had the semitone at the beginning of each tetrachord, the Phrygian in the middle, and the Lydian at the top, thus:-

Doric. [? 1 2 3 ? 1 2 3]

Phrygian. [1 ? 1 2 3 ? 1 2]

Lydian. [1 2 ? 1 2 3 ? 1]

The reader will understand that every scale was divided into two tetrachords, each having its semitone in the same position. There were, of course, several other scales, but these are sufficient to illustrate the subject. The peculiarity of the sound of chants founded on these ancient scales to our modern ears is what we call the "lack of tonality." Our scales are all determined by the semitone between the seventh and eighth notes, called the leading note. The scale of G, for instance, cannot exist without the F sharp. Our ears have been trained to expect that progression, and so these old Greek scales do not seem to us to be in any key at all, and when we wish to describe a tune that has apparently no beginning, end, or rhythm, we say it sounds like a chant. For several centuries all modern music written by the scientific composers suffered from this lack of tonality, while much of the popular music of the people was written in the modern major and minor keys. Any musician will see that the old Lydian scale was our scale of C major. The ancient ?olian scale was almost the same as our scale of A minor. From these two our modern scales developed themselves among the people who were not busy trying to build church liturgies out of Greek music.

Not much is known about the musical character of the Ambrosian chant except that contemporary writers regarded it as very sweet and solemn. One important fact has come down to us, namely, that the Ambrosian chant was metrical. This means that it followed the prosodial quantity of the syllables in the Latin text of the liturgy. A long syllable had a long note, and a short syllable a short note. From this peculiarity the chant obtained the name of cantus firmus, or fixed chant. It was, however, speedily merged in what is called the Gregorian chant. This has generally been attributed to Pope Gregory (590-604 A. D.); but recent investigations go to prove that he did little beyond issuing rules as to its use and for its regulation. The church chant, however, was changed in character in the time of Gregory, and one of the most fruitful alterations was the abandonment of its metrical character. The tones no longer had a determined length; and this abolished from the church music of the time the last vestige of rhythm. It furthermore left the singers free to do as they pleased, and so gave rise to abuses which seemed to be injurious to music, but which really led to good results, as we shall see. In form, the Gregorian chant was divided into five parts: the "intonation," which was the introductory phrase of the first half of the verse; the "recitation" of the principal part of that half on a single note; the "mediation," which finished the first half of the verse and formed the connecting link between it and the second half; the "recitation," which began the second half; and the "termination," which ended the verse.

[Intonation=Bar 1. Recitation=Bar 2. Mediation=Bar 3, Bar 4.

Recitation=Bar 5. Termination=Bar 6, Bar 7, Bar 8.]

Gregory arranged the mass in its present form, and prescribed a special introit for each psalm, and probably one for each division of the mass. The famous old anonymous hymns, the Te Deum, Magnificat, Benedictus, etc., had taken their place in the church service in its very earliest days; and the mass had gradually been formed by selection and arrangement of these. Another form which gradually grew up in the Church was the Sequence. This had its origin in a desire to allow the congregation more opportunity to take part in the musical service. In their oldest and purest form these sequences consisted of ornamental passages intoned on a single vowel,-as the final "a" of "jubila." These sequences illustrate in a striking manner that freedom from control of text which came so conspicuously into music in Gregory's time. This freedom, while it led to abuses of the church ritual, gave music a certain amount of independence as an art, and enabled it to develop more rapidly than it could have done had it been tied fast to the text. Nokter Balbulus, a monk of the famous convent of St. Gall, Switzerland, is said to have popularized the sequences in the ninth century by writing thirty-five special ones. Some of these are still used in the Roman Church. The convent of St. Gall, to which Nokter belonged, was a famous centre of musical culture in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. The writing of special words for sequences was followed by others than Nokter; and in the end these reduced themselves to these five well-known texts: Dies Ir?, Stabat Mater, Victim? Paschali, Veni Sancte Spiritus, and Lauda Sion.

The Roman chant soon spread through Europe. The successor of Gregory was acknowledged by the Western nations as the Supreme Head of the united Church, and this, of course, tended to a general use of the same ritual. In 604 Roman singers were sent to England, and in 660 monks went to teach the Gregorian chant in Brittany. Paris had become the capital of France not long before that, and the Gallic service was now remodelled on that of Rome. The Roman ritual was introduced into Germany by Saint Boniface in 744, and it was probably made known at St. Gall about the same time. Charlemagne, in the eighth century, founded schools of music on Gregory's plan at Dijon, Cambray, Lyons, Orléans, and other French cities, and also at Regensburg, Würzburg, Mainz, and other German places.

The general introduction of the Gregorian chant established the melodic basis of modern music. It will be well for the reader to bear in mind that the three elementary constituents of music are melody, harmony, and rhythm. Melody is produced by the successive sounding of single tones of different pitch. Harmony is produced by the simultaneous sounding of single notes of different pitch. When those notes are united according to rule we call the result a chord. Rhythm is the regular recurrence of long and short beats. Now, if the reader has comprehended the account given of the early Roman chant, he will perceive that it embodied only one of the elements of music, namely, melody. There was no harmony, because everything was sung in one part. It was simply a plain chant; and when the organ first came into use to accompany it, the instrument played the same succession of single notes as the voices sang. This fact must be kept clearly in mind in order to understand the next steps in the development of modern music. In the beginning there was only melody; and that was like the earth before the creation, without form and void. There was no musical rhythm in either the Ambrosian chant, which followed the prosodial quantity of the words, nor in the Gregorian, which did not follow it. The text was prose; consequently it did not have a regular recurrence of long and short syllables, as poetry does, and therefore the music, following the text, could not have rhythm. All that existed in the beginning of the modern tone art was the raising and lowering of the voice through a certain number of intervals. How harmony and rhythm made their appearance in the early stages of the art, and what forms they took, must next be related.

* * *

Harmony, Notation, and Measure

The Organum of Hucbald-Use of combinations disagreeable to modern ears-Appearance of rhythm-Work of Franco, of Cologne-Establishment of Dual and Triple Measure-Introduction of notes to represent sounds of different duration.

IN the growth of modern music the second step was the introduction of harmony. The simultaneous sounding of notes of different pitch in combinations called chords is so essential a part of the music of today that even the uneducated mind has difficulty in conceiving a tune as wholly dissociated from the coloring influences of its harmony. Every schoolboy is accustomed to hearing melodies with what he calls a "bass" (an accompaniment founded on chords), and in the commonest music-hall songs the familiar harmonies are the results of centuries of experiment among the ecclesiastical fathers of modern music. It is difficult for us to understand that there was a time when harmony was unknown to musicians, but such is the case; and the first experiments resulted in the use of combinations which sound intolerable to our ears, while some of those which we regard as the most familiar and useful were deemed unbearable by some of the early authorities. For example, no modern chord can be formed without the third, i.e., the third whole note above the key-note. In the key of C that is E; in G it is B, thus:-

[Two Note Chord]

Yet for several centuries after harmony began to be employed that particular combination was forbidden, so that it was impossible to write the common chord of C major

[Three Note Chord]

or of G major

[Three Note Chord]

or of any other modern major key. The result was that for several hundred years music developed along lines not those of chord harmony, the first rude experiments at which early gave way to what is called counterpoint. What that system was we shall see in good time, but we must now give our attention to the early attempts at harmony.

The origin of modern harmony is wrapped in obscurity. It is believed that the Greeks knew something about chords and perhaps used a few simple ones in playing accompaniments on the lyre. But they made no extended study of them, and the early fathers, who founded their system on Greek music, had nothing to learn in this matter from the Greeks. All steps in the development of modern music have been the result of long processes of growth, and it cannot be doubted that many experiments in harmony were made before the first treatise on the subject was written. The first records of harmony are found in an old work called "Enchiridion Music?," and they speak of a system called Organum or Diaphony, attributed to Hucbald, a Benedictine monk of St. Armand, in Flanders, near the close of the tenth century. Hucbald appears to have studied Pythagoras's musical system, in which intervals between notes were measured according to the laws of acoustics by the number of vibrations made by each note in a second. Hucbald, finding that certain intervals had a mathematical ratio, decided that they must make concords, and he founded his system of harmony on that theory. He used the intervals of the fourth, the fifth, and the octave. The fourth is the fourth note of the major scale in ascending, the fifth the fifth note, and the octave the eighth, or the recurrence of the key-note. To make this matter clearer, let me state that modern scientists have decided that the C below the staff, in the treble clef, has 256 vibrations a minute. The next C above has 512, just double. The F of this scale, which is the fourth, has 384. This is the sum of the first C increased by one-half of itself. Consequently C and F make a scientific concord and a musical one, too. But there is hardly anything more disagreeable to the modern ear than a series of consecutive fourths. Yet Hucbald thought that such a series must be scientifically correct, and that it ought, therefore, to make good music. So he wrote such harmonies as these:-

[Series of Fourths: Sit glo-ri-a Do-mi-ni in s?-cu-la.]

This is very unpleasant to modern ears, yet it is not quite so bad as a series of fifths. When Hucbald wished to write in four parts he simply repeated the two treble parts in the bass an octave lower. And when he wrote in three parts he simply "doubled" the lower note of his fourth or fifth in the octave above, which is a process also forbidden in modern part writing because it makes two parts the same in melodic progression. Hucbald also employed a form of harmony in which the lowest note always remained the same. This was what we now call a "drone bass," such as is heard in the bagpipe, and it was certainly more flexible than the other kind because it admitted of the use of other intervals than the fourth and fifth. But the idea of writing in more than one part, once having appeared in music, developed itself gradually. All the earliest harmonic combinations sound ugly to our ears because of the difference in the character of the old scales adapted from Greek music for the Church and that of our scale. If the harmonists of those early days had been using our scale, no doubt they would have discovered how to write fine chords. They did, in the course of time, hit upon some of the combinations now used, and so the foundations of modern harmony were laid. But the modern style of writing did not come into use for several centuries after Hucbald's time.

The next element of music which made its appearance was rhythm. This came about through the improvements in notation and the practice of singers. It seems that after learning to add a second part to the cantus firmus, or chant, the singers, who were acquiring considerable dexterity in their art, began to ornament the additional part. This addition of ornaments was called the art of descant, because it was descanting upon a given theme. The singers all took to it with delight because it gave them fine opportunities for the display of their voices and of their musical skill. In some parts of France and the Netherlands this practice became a sort of mania. The voice which carried the chant was called the tenor, from the Latin teneo, "I hold." The other voice added an ornamental part above the chant, and as there was no measure in music, the two parts seldom came out together at the end. As long as the voices had moved in parallel fourths or fifths it was not difficult for them to keep together, but with the descanter singing two or more notes to every one of the cantus firmus it was quite impossible for them to do so. No one knows just when this art of descant entered into music, but it is certain that it was known some time before the close of the twelfth century, for it was about then that Franco, of Cologne, made successful attempts to systematize notation, and in doing so regulated the measure of music.

The earliest form of notation of which we have any knowledge is called the Neume notation. These Neumes were much like Greek accents in some respects, and in others resembled a sort of shorthand. All that could be accomplished by them was an indication of the direction in which the voice was to move, whether up or down, and of the number of notes which it was to pass. In Hucbald's day a series of horizontal lines, like our musical staff (but containing many more lines) was used. The names of the notes were written opposite the ends of the spaces between the lines, and then each syllable of the text was written in the space belonging to the note to which it was to be sung. Short lines were drawn upward or downward, as the case might be, between each syllable of one part so that that part could be followed. Another system in use in Hucbald's time, and even later, was arranged this way, the letters representing the tones:-

[Lau-de dig-num ca-nat sanc-tum.]

As time passed on it became evident that there ought to be some way of indicating a fixed pitch from which the notes were to start. So a line was employed and the Neumes were written in a definite manner with relation to it. If the line was red, the chant was in the key of F, and all melodies ended on F. If the line was yellow, the key was C. In the eleventh century both lines were used at the same time, and the certainty of the meaning of the Neumes became greater. Afterward Guido, of Arezzo, a famous teacher and theorist, who died in 1050, added two more lines, and thus came into existence a four-line staff. The character of the Neumes themselves had undergone many alterations, until, in Guido's time, they began to look a little like modern notes. But still there was no rhythm in the ecclesiastical music, and no way of representing it in notation. Franco advocated the introduction of measure into church music. He did not, of course, invent it, for it already existed in the popular songs and dances of the people, and had existed in them from the earliest times.

Franco was the first theorist to record the distinction between dual and triple time. The reader who is unacquainted with musical science should learn that the rhythms of music are like those of poetry. Instead of poetic feet, music has "measures" separated by vertical lines drawn through the staff, and called "bars." Measures are often called bars. The musical measure corresponds to the poetic foot. A bar with two beats in it is like a foot of two syllables, except that in music the accent is normally always on the first beat. A bar with three beats is like a dactyl, one accented and two unaccented syllables, or beats. Dual time, or measure, corresponds to a poetic rhythm made up of two-syllable feet; triple time to one of three-syllable feet. A polka is in dual time; a waltz, in triple time. Franco first explained these points, and insisted that triple ought to be used in church music for the na?ve reason that its three beats in one bar made it resemble the perfection of the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God. He made many improvements in harmony, among others recognizing the third, already described, as a concord, though not a perfect one. Another important feature of Franco's teaching was his advocacy of contrary motion of parts. The manner of writing practised by Hucbald prescribed what is called parallel motion; that is, the melody of the cantus firmus and that of the descant always rose or fell together. If the one ascended one interval the other did so, too. Contrary motion permits the parts to move in opposite directions, and this makes it possible to avoid such disagreeable arrangements as consecutive fourths or fifths, and so leads the way to a richer and more beautiful harmony. Others had already practised what Franco preached in regard to this matter, so the most significant part of his work was that which dealt with measure. In order to write the measured music it was necessary to have notes representing sounds of different duration, and these notes Franco either invented or adopted. Here are the four notes which he used:-

[Longa. Brevis. Maxima or Duplex Longa. Semibrevis.]

These names mean "long," "short," "double long," and "half short." The short note had half the duration of the long, and the duplex longa double it, while the semibrevis was half the length of the short note. We still have notes called breve and semibreve.

We have now seen how melody, harmony, and rhythm entered the process of development of modern music. But I have already called attention to the fact that the early medieval composers had no conception of a tune founded on subservient harmony, such as is now familiar to every one. They got their ideas as to the plan of composition from the art of descant, which consisted, as I have tried to explain, in adding an ornamental part to a selected chant. It became an essential of music in those early days that this second part should be melodious in itself. When the early composers began to write in more than two parts, they still preferred the style in which every part was a melody in itself. In our modern music the parts which constitute the harmonic accompaniment of a melody are not necessarily melodious in themselves, as any one can easily see who listens to the accompaniment of a popular song. The early church composers knew nothing about that kind of writing. They did not have instrumental accompaniment at all. Even after the organ began to be used, it simply played the same notes that the voices sang. The compositions were written wholly for voices, and each voice part was a melody in itself, and all sounding together produced harmonious results. This kind of writing is still employed at times. For instance, in the finale of "Die Meistersinger" overture, five different melodies are heard at the same time. This method of composition is called "polyphonic;" and we have now reached the period at which the art of descant developed into the art of counterpoint, upon which polyphonic writing rests.

* * *

The Birth of Counterpoint

The great French school of contrapuntists-What counterpoint is, and how it began-Canons and the famous "Sumer is icumen in"-Character of the French music-The masses of Machaut and Tournay-The Gallo-Belgic school and Dufay's improvements.

THERE is one peculiarity of the early attempts at writing in several melodious parts which must now be brought to the attention of the reader, and which is very difficult to explain to a person not versed in musical laws. Instead of writing free melodies to accompany the fixed chants, the early composers took up the practice of making the tune serve as its own accompaniment by the employment of a number of ingenious devices, all included in the art of counterpoint. I shall presently endeavor to explain the nature of this style of writing; but as it began in France, we must first note the historical facts in connection with the development of musical art in that country. The reader will remember that Charlemagne established schools for the cultivation of the Roman chant in many French towns. History shows us that the connection between France and the Roman Church grew closer and closer until, under Philip the Fair, the State dominated; and in the beginning of the fourteenth century the papal court was removed by the king to Avignon. In the twelfth century the University of Paris became the centre of study in Europe. It was natural in these circumstances that the cultivation of Roman Catholic church music should have flourished in Paris, and that, about 1100 A. D., a distinct school of French composers should have developed. This school flourished until 1370, and there has descended to us a knowledge of nearly five hundred composers who belonged to it. It would be impossible and useless to attempt to tell the reader all about these composers. What I desire to do is to point out what this school accomplished in the development of music.

Counterpoint is today the art of constructing two or more melodies which can be sung or played simultaneously without breaking the rules of harmony. Originally, however, it was the art of adding parts above or below a part already selected. It originated, as we have seen, in the practice of the descanters. A part improvised by a descanter came to be called contrapunctus a mente (a counterpoint out of the head), while an additional part written by a composer was called contrapunctus a penna (a counterpoint from the pen). As musicians acquired skill in the construction of these additional parts, they began to introduce new devices, and to write with greater and greater freedom. The more free their writing was, the further it tended to depart from parallel motion. In the course of time some one hit upon the musical device called "imitation," which means the repetition in a secondary part (say the bass) of some passage already heard in the principal part (the treble) while that principal part is still going on. The result of this device is that one portion of a melody is made to serve as the second voice to another portion of it. Who first hit upon this device, no one knows; but the earliest example of it which has been preserved is found in the "Posui adjutorum" of Perotin, one of the first of the French school of writers. Here is the passage; and by giving it careful study the reader will be able to understand the fundamental principle of canon, fugue, and all the polyphonic forms:-

[1st Voice, 2nd Voice, Canon Form.]

I think that even a reader who is not a musician can understand this. A is the first half of a melody, and B is the second half. While the first voice is singing the first half, the second voice sings the second half as the alto part of the first half. In order to make the first half act as alto in the second half, the composer had to push the second voice one bar ahead of the first voice, and then to add three extra notes to A in order to make a conclusion to his alto part. There are two imitations in this bit: the second half of the part sung by the first voice imitates the first half of the second voice part, and the second half of the second voice part imitates the first half of the first voice part.

By extending and developing such imitation as this, composers came to write in "double counterpoint," which means the construction of two parts in such a way that their different portions can be transferred from one to the other just as they are in the selection from Perotin. The reader will see at once that composing in this manner required a great deal of calculation, and was a constant tax on the ingenuity of the musician. In its early stages it prevented any attempt at making music expressive, and reduced composition to a mere exercise of scientific skill. But it forced the composers to a close study of the materials of their art, and they acquired a great mastery over them and constantly learned more and more about the possibilities of music. Double counterpoint, which is at the foundation of the most rigid forms of polyphonic writing, was generally known in the French school at least as early as the thirteenth century, but the example from Perotin seems to show that at least some of the composers knew it much earlier. This might account for the existence of the celebrated example of early English polyphony, a "canon" called "Sumer is icumen in." This was discovered by Sir John Hawkins, who wrote a history of music in 1776. Its manuscript was copied by a monk of Reading, John of Forneste, in 1228, and it must have been composed shortly before that time. The fact that Walter Odington, an Englishman, wrote a treatise on music in 1230, when the only famous school was that of Paris, leads me to believe that these early English composers were disciples of the French. But it is certain that the composer of "Sumer is icumen in" was a greater master of counterpoint than his teachers, because this "canon" is the finest specimen of polyphonic writing that has come down to us from those early times. Here is its beginning:-

["Sumer is icumen in" for Six Voices.]

Chorus:

Su-mer is i-cu-men in . . .

Lhu-de sing Cuc-cu,

Grow-eth sed, and blow-eth med,

And springth the w-de nu . . .

Sing Cuc-cu . . .

I urge the reader to give careful attention to the remarkable interweaving of the first four voice parts. At the fifth bar of the melody, in the first voice, the second voice enters with the beginning of the air. When the second voice reaches the fifth bar of the air, the third voice comes in, and at the same time the first voice begins the second half of the melody. When the third voice reaches the fifth bar of the first half of the air, the fourth voice comes in, and the second voice begins the second half. And so it goes on, the entrances always being made according to the rule established at the start, and each voice singing the tune without the alteration of a single interval to make it fit into the scheme. Rigid imitation of this kind is called "canon." In this particular canon the two lowest voices have a bass in two parts, written in double counterpoint, which they sing over and over again all the way through. A constantly repeated bass is called a "basso ostinato," and this is the first example of it.

This kind of writing possessed the merit of high organization, without which there can be no work of art. One might search in vain for evidences of artistic design in the early Gregorian chant, while in such works as those of the early Frenchmen and their English disciples they confront one in every measure. The result was that these writers developed several kinds of contrapuntal writing. But it must be admitted that their work was cold and mathematical, being wholly the result of ingenious calculation. Furthermore it must be borne in mind that they had no conception whatever of music as a means of expression. In a vague way they felt its suitability to the worship of their churches, and its Gothic complexity did indeed harmonize well with ecclesiastical architecture. But it never occurred to the composers of the French school to try to make music beautiful for its own sake. They were too busy exploring the resources of their art, and their materia musica was as yet too scanty to allow them to treat their art with the command of mastership. But they served well the cause of music by discovering many of its essential rules, and by formulating in their treatises much of its fundamental theory. It is not at all surprising that in the last period of this school we meet with a large work. The last important master of the school was William of Machaut, who flourished between 1284 and 1369, and wrote the mass for the coronation of Charles V. of France.

The teachings of the French spread into Belgium, and there arose a school called the Gallo-Belgic. The first evidence of its existence is found in the mass of Tournay, sung by the choristers of the Tournay cathedral. Its composer is unknown, but it was written about 1330. It is in three parts, the tenor (voice carrying the fixed chant) in the middle, the descant (or counterpoint) above, and a bass below. It is not nearly so well developed in its polyphony as "Sumer is icumen in" or the works of the Frenchmen. Two of its voices move always in parallel fourths or fifths (as in Hucbald's "organum") and the other has a contrary motion. The most famous composer of the Gallo-Belgic school was William Dufay, born 1400, died 1474. He almost wholly abandoned the use of parallel fourths and fifths, which did so much to restrict composition, and he also adopted the open-note notation, which had made its appearance in France in the closing years of the French school. Dufay used the following notes:-

[Large Long Breve Semi-Breve Minim Greater

Semi-minim Lesser

Semi-minim Semi-croma]

[ breve semi-breve minim crotchet quaver semi-quaver]

I have placed under Dufay's notes their present equivalents, with the names. Dufay is the first composer of whom it is known that he made earnest efforts toward a more plastic style of composition than that previously in vogue. This was undoubtedly due to the considerable development of the art of composition. In his search after a freer style, he abandoned the strict "canon," and used "imitation" only here and there in his works. Furthermore, he discerned the musical worth of the songs of the people, and in doing so paved the way for the exertion of a large influence by folk-song upon artistic composition. His method of using the popular songs, however, was as bad as it was remarkable. In composing a mass he would substitute in place of the fixed chant of the liturgy some popular air; and he put the words in along with it, probably because the words of the liturgy could not be sung to the tune. Hence, in three masses by Dufay, still extant, the melodies and texts of three songs of his day are found. One of these songs, "L'Omme Armée," became such a favorite that for more than a century nearly every prominent composer wrote a contrapuntal mass around it. This abuse had finally to be checked by the authorities of the Church. Dufay did another thing, of more benefit to music. He wrote some music in a very simple style, in which there were passages of pure chord harmony, such as we use in our music today. As an example of this, I quote the beginning of a fragment of one of his masses, reproduced in Naumann's "History of Music":-

[Dufay Mass]

Before Dufay's death the Gallo-Belgic school began to be overshadowed by that of the Netherlands, with which the art of writing unaccompanied church counterpoint reached its climax. To this school we must now turn our attention.

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