writer upon music whose works have been preserved, the Greek system was called Systema perfectum, maximum immutatum-the great, the perfect, the immutable system; but perhaps modern musicians may not be so enthusiastic respecting a notation that appears to be as perfect a muddle as any classical nation ever tolerated. Ancient authors tell us that the Greeks, in writing their music, placed two rows of characters over the words of a lyric poem, the upper row serving for the voice, and the lower for the instruments. The multiplicity of these characters must certainly have made music in ancient Greece a long and laborious study. It is not therefore surprising that Plato, although he was unwilling that youth should bestow too much time upon music, allowed them three years to learn the rudiments. Despite these disadvantages, music made great progress in Greece; indeed, modern European music is directly derived from it. The Roman music was derived from the Etruscan, and was exceedingly rough, until the Romans in the Augustine age borrowed the musical instruments and music of the Greeks, when it received an impetus that is still felt; as it awakened a love of music which now seems inborn in Italians. Music having been used by the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, in their religious ceremonies, it is not surprising that the early Christians were particularly partial to singing psalms and hymns-singing even in prison and on the point of martyrdom. Their music, however, does not seem to have been of any new species; and it is probable that the music of the period, and perhaps even pagan hymn-tunes, were adopted. The use of music was universal amongst the early Christians long before they had built any churches, or their religion had been recognised by law as the established religion of the Roman empire (A.D. 312). In 313 Constantine built many sumptuous churches, in which music formed a very important part of the ceremonies. During the reign of Theodosius the Ambrosian chant was established in the church of Milan, and the psalms and hymns were exceedingly beautiful. The performance was so good that the Gentiles, who went from curiosity, often liked the service so well that they were baptised before leaving. After this, music was even more carefully practised in the Church, and Pope Gregory the Great, in the year 590, collected and arranged the hymns and psalms that had been used by the primitive Christians. This arrangement, called the Antiphonarium Centonem, was long in vogue at Rome, and was soon adopted in the Western Church, where the Gregorian chants are still great favourites. From the time of Pope Gregory to that of Guido there was no other distinction of key than that of authentic and plagal; nor were there any semitones used but those from E to F, B to C, and occasionally A to B. The musical notation was precisely the same in the Christian Church as that of the ancient Greeks, the Greek appellatives for the musical scale being used in the time of Boethius in 526. Pope Gregory used the first seven of the Roman letters in such a way that they stood for three octaves, thus: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, signified one octave; a, b, c, d, e, f, g, the octave above; aa, bb, cc, dd, ee, ff, gg, the octave again; so that three octaves were symbolised by these seven letters, which are still retained in most parts of Europe, although a different entablature and a new notation are used in practice, and seemed destined to become universal. After the Greek characters were disused, many systems of notation were introduced; but, for a long time, none were so popular as that of Pope Gregory. The other musical signs and notes were most difficult to understand, and an ancient writer, speaking of them, said, "These irregular signs must be productive of more error than science, as they are often so carelessly and promiscuously placed that, while one was singing a semitone or a fourth, another would sing a third or a fifth." About the year 1022, Guido Aretinus, a Benedictine monk at Arezzo in Tuscany, who was employed in correcting the ecclesiastical chants, com posed a scale conformable to the Greek system, adding a few notes to it above and below. Discovering afterwards that the first syllable of each hemistich in the hymn to St. John the Baptist formed a regular series of six sounds ascending-Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la-he placed at the sides of each of these syllables one of the first seven letters of the alphabet, A, B, C, D, E, F, G; and because he accompanied the note which he added below the ancient system with the letter gamma, the new scale was called gamut, by which name it is still known. The hymn which supplied the syllables ut, re, mi, &c., was used at church, and begins Ut queant laxis resonare fibris, Sancti Joannis ! Guido was not only the inventor of this celebrated gamut, but is also generally considered to have been the inventor of counterpoint as well as of the organ keyboard, which was afterwards introduced into the clavichord and other instruments of the pianoforte class. In the year 1055 Magister Franco, of Cologne, made his important invention in the musical time-table. This was of very great value; for time, in music, can impart meaning and energy to the repetition of the same For nearly two centuries after Guido's arrange note. D ment of the scale, and Franco's invention of the timetable, no remains of secular music can be discovered, except those of the Troubadours. In the thirteenth century melody seems to have been little more than plain-song 'or chanting. The notes were square, and written on four lines only, in the C clef, and it was not until the end of the reign of St. Louis in (1269) that the fifth line was added to the stave. Music then made rapid progress, although principally in the Church, until the sixteenth century, when madrigals and fantasias were introduced in Italy. The three modern schools of music-the German, Italian, and French-have originated those great musical forms, the sonata, the symphony, and the opera. The present German school was founded and built up by Handel, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Berlioz, Brahms, Liszt, &c., who gave an entirely new, intellectual, and really artistic character to music, by employing in their compositions subjects appropriate to the character intended in the particular piece, and by treating the different elements of musical pleasure in a methodical and artistic manner. These composers have raised the German school far above the two others; for not only have they produced sonatas and symphonies which are at present unapproachable, but in opera and oratorio also their masterpieces reign |
