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University of South Africa
Muckleneuk, Pretoria

MHS1511/1/2020–2024

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CONTENTS

1 Page
INTRODUCTION v
LEARNING UNIT 1: Music of the West from its ancient roots 1
1.1 A search for foundations: the imagined ancestry of Western music 1
1.2 Thinking about the beginning 2
1.3 A musical line of descent 4
1.4 A latter-day Catholic layer 6
1.5 A supplementary figure 7
1.6 Enter the professionals 8
1.7 The Greek root 14
1.8 Another road to reconstruction 19
1.9 References 21
LEARNING UNIT 2: The great trunk: Western Christendom confirmed in its music 23
2.1 Introduction 24
2.2 Out of the primitive church 27
2.3 The rhythm of the monastic day 29
2.4 The great sacrifice: the Mass 31
2.5 The fate of variety 36
2.6 Oral transmission, memory and notation; the church modes 43
2.7 Hildegard of Bingen 46
2.8 References 51
LEARNING UNIT 3: The West in its singing: the later Middle Ages 52
3.1 Introduction 52
3.2 The troubadour family 54
3.3 How polyphony began 59
3.4 The School of Notre Dame 60
3.5 Motets and the polyphonic tradition 63
3.6 Ars nova: how the rhythms of music appeared 65
3.7 Machaut’s Mass 66
3.8 Trecento Italy 68
3.9 References 69
LEARNING UNIT 4: The consequences of reform: sacred music in the 16th century 71
4.1 Introduction 71
4.2 The nursery of musical reform 72
4.3 The Roman (Catholic) Resistance 74
4.4 Music and missionary endeavour 76
4.5 Conclusion 81
4.6 References 81
LEARNING UNIT 5: The Renaissance to its close: dissemination and consolidation,
reflected in secular vocal music 83
5.1 Introduction 83
5.2 Music for profit 86
5.3 History into music 89

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5.4 The poem into music 92
5.5 References 98
LEARNING UNIT 6: The instrumental line 99
6.1 Introduction: the modern rediscovery of “ancient” music 99
6.2 The masking by “greatness” 101
6.3 The Danserye: a deposit of sociality 102
6.4 Solo instrumental traditions 104
6.5 The school of French clavecinistes 106
6.6 Italy – The great wave 109
6.7 On the German wing 112
6.8 The “voice” of the Baroque? 113
6.9 The growth of the concerto 115
6.10 References 117
LEARNING UNIT 7: Into the theatre: opera in its youth 118
7.1 Introduction and review 118
7.2 The “New Music” and its products 119
7.3 Monteverdi: L’Orfeo 121
7.4 The nature of the libretto 125
7.5 Opera: the French perspective 126
7.6 References 130
LEARNING UNIT 8: Germany at the turn of the 17th century: a phoenix rising from the
ashes? 131
8.1 Introduction 131
8.2 The historical factors – Schütz and Biber 132
8.3 Keyboard music as a test case – Buxtehude 135
8.4 Bach, the learned musician 139
8.5 Telemann of Hamburg 149
8.6 References 151
LEARNING UNIT 9: Conviction and charm: Handel and his sacred oratorio 152
9.1 Introduction 152
9.2 The oratorio as a historical problem 153
9.3 Messiah considered as a whole 155
9.4 The words for singing 157
9.5 The oratorio in close-up 158
9.6 A tale of two stories 166
9.7 A personal note 169
9.8 References 170

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INTRODUCTION
2Getting started: a framework for your studies

Welcome to the module Early Music to Baroque. This first-level module introduces you to
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the diverse and rich history of Western music, and covers four major periods: Antiquity
(3000 BCE to 800 CE), Middle Ages (medieval) (800-1400 CE), Renaissance (1400–1580
CE), and Baroque (1580–1750). Music in antiquity covers not just music in the West, but
across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. With the decline of the Roman Empire,
the consolidation of Christianity in its Eastern and Western forms, and the concomitant
rise of Islam, the Western tradition gradually receded to its more restricted geographical
and cultural position in Europe. For a sense of this Western sphere of influence, compare
the maps in HWM,1 figure 2.1, showing Christianisation at 325 and 600 CE, and figure 2.4,
the Holy Roman Empire at 800 CE.

The European voyages of discovery, beginning in the 15th century, resulted in a long
4

period of colonisation and cultural imperialism that spread Western music across the
globe and resulted in many new and syncretic traditions. This module charts the origins
of the Western tradition before moving to a discussion of its reception in Latin America
and Africa.

Most Western music belongs to what we call the literate tradition. By this we mean music
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preserved in notation. Musical notation of one kind or another has existed in the West
for well over a thousand years, so we have written evidence of many kinds of music, and
of a huge amount of it, ranging over many centuries (and well before the more popular
music known as “classical” today). Richard Taruskin suggests (2005:1-2) that the literate
tradition is important for at least two reasons: it allows us to look at musical repertory from
the past, and it made it possible for music in the past to “occupy space as well as time”.

The most important implication of this development is that music writing (as opposed
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to the oral transmission of music, common to all musical cultures) enabled musicians
in the West to share their music. More specifically, it made it possible for the liturgical
music sung in Rome, which was the centre of the medieval Western church, “to migrate
northward into areas that are now parts of France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria”
(Taruskin 2005:1). At a time when there were no sound recordings, writing down music
was a way of encouraging musicians who lived and worked in different places to perform
it. The notated version was never “the music”; it was simply a way of transmitting it from
place to place and musician to musician. It had little to do with “high” or “low” art, except
in the sense that those who knew how to read and write music notation were educated
in literate traditions. (Originally, they would have been monks who trained young boy
musicians to read and write music, who in turn would later become monks or priests.)
Then, with the invention of music printing in the middle of the 15th century, it became
possible for multiple copies of music notation to be produced at a relatively low cost. As
a result, the literate tradition became more and more widespread.

11 HWM: See full details below under Study Guide and Textbook.

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This module begins with the origins of Western music in antiquity, charting the beginnings
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of the tradition, and then moves to the invention of chant and notation in the medieval
period. Sacred and secular music are discussed in later chapters on the Renaissance before
we come to the more familiar territory of the common practice period, and the works of
JS Bach and GF Handel.

STUDY GUIDE AND TEXTBOOK

This study guide is written to complement the textbook, A History of Western Music, by J
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Peter Burkholder, Donald J Grout, and Claude V Palisca (10th International Student Edition,
Norton, 2019; abbreviated in this guide as HWM). You must read both the study guide
and the associated chapters in the textbook. The e-reserves and recommended books
are specified in Tutorial Letter 101. To appreciate the depth and range of Western music,
you need to listen and watch videos of each genre we discuss (a list of all recordings and
videos for this module is included in Tutorial Letter 101). Many of the activities involve the
analysis of texts, images, and musical scores. These activities are designed to help you
develop your listening skills as well as your music vocabulary, so that you can write and
speak about music with confidence. This first learning unit is one of nine, and it provides
an outline of the module, including its purposes and outcomes. You will need to keep
these purposes and outcomes in mind as you work through the learning material and
plan your studies.

PURPOSE OF THE MODULE

Qualifying students will be introduced to histories of Western vocal and
instrumental art music, from Antiquity through to the Baroque (up to 1750), and
to the composers and musical genres that developed in relation to particular
socioeconomic conditions during this period. Students will be able to identify,
interpret and discuss the characteristics of the various music genres and forms
studied in the module, including: the mass, motet, madrigal, dance suite, da
capo aria, fugue, opera, oratorio, and concerto grosso, as well as a range of other
vocal and instrumental genres specific to this period. Qualifying students will be
able to situate such genres within the frame of larger intellectual movements
– from Antiquity, medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods.

This module is the first in our survey of Western music history and culture. In your second
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year, you will study MHS2611 Classic and Romantic Music, followed by MHS3711, Modernism
and Music in the Twentieth Century. The genres studied in Early Music to Baroque are
fundamental to your understanding of Western music history, and to the content of the
second- and third-level modules. In fact, all the basic musical and cultural principles upon
which Western music is based, are introduced in this study guide.

The purposes of the module are closely linked to the learning outcomes. The learning
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outcomes form the basis of the assessments (assignments and examinations). Make sure
that you know the outcomes very well, so that you know you are on the right track with

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your studies. Outcomes are clearly marked in each learning unit and are accompanied
by the icon as below:

The learning outcomes for this module:

After you have worked through this module, you should be able to:
1. explain the social, political and historical factors that influenced the development
of Western vocal and instrumental art music, from Classical Antiquity (Greece and
Rome) to the mid-eighteenth century
2. analyse musical characteristics of selected music compositions and genres from
Classical Antiquity, medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras and assess the role of
leading composers and patronage systems, including the Christian Church
3. compare and contrast the intellectual traditions of Classical Antiquity, medieval,
Renaissance and Baroque periods and their expression in music

How do you accomplish these learning outcomes? You can accomplish the first learning
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outcome by:

 identifying and explaining the social, political and historical factors that shaped the
development of music genres in Classical Antiquity as well as the medieval, Renaissance,
and Baroque periods in music history
 analysing and interpreting stylistic features characteristic of specific genres during
this period
 explaining general stylistic features that characterise music from Classical Antiquity,
medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods

12 You can achieve the second learning outcome by:

 compiling coherently written and referenced discussions of representative genres and

forms of music from Classical Antiquity, medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods
 presenting arguments that are relevant to understanding the role and contribution
of various composers, performers, institutions, and patrons to the development of
specific music genres and practices during these periods
 explaining the role of the Church and other patronage systems in the development
of music from Antiquity to the Baroque

13 And you can achieve the third learning outcome by:

 presenting coherent arguments and explanations for intellectual traditions from

Antiquity to the Baroque, including but not limited to the Ars Nova, Renaissance, and
technological revolution linked to the printing press
 writing effectively, in providing relevant evidence on similarities and differences
between musical genres and their relationship to religion (including Christianity and
Judaism)
 explaining the role of philosophical and social factors in charting the course of Western
vocal and instrumental art music in Classical Antiquity, medieval, Renaissance, and
Baroque periods, including both sacred and secular music

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As you work your way through the study guide, you will see the purposes and learning
14

outcomes for each learning unit clearly marked on the learning unit’s first page. You
need to be aware of these when you work through each unit. You will notice that the
learning outcomes for each learning unit are linked to the three main learning outcomes
mentioned above. You will need to demonstrate or show evidence that you have achieved
these outcomes in your assignments and examination scripts.

It is vital that you listen to the music of each of the cultures we explore in this module.
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Simply reading about the music will provide a limited understanding of it. But listening
to it will not only expand your knowledge of the music, but strengthen your listening
skills, and enable you to identify a music genre and its significant features in the future.

THE LEARNING PROCESS

At Unisa, we encourage you to take an active role in studying. This is essential if you wish
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to get the most out of your studies. It is not enough to read through the study material
and the suggested readings and leave it at that –actively engaging with it will go a long
way to ensuring your success in this module. The learning process covers the following
aspects:

 Our expectations of you in the module and our relationship

 Assessment strategy
 Activities (purpose and feedback)
 Study activities
 Reflective activities
 Listening activities
 Suggested reading
 Learning journal

OUR EXPECTATIONS OF YOU IN THIS MODULE AND OUR

RELATIONSHIP
We expect you to take your studies seriously. Please follow the guidance provided and
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take an active part in your studies. A passive approach means reading through the study
guide. This will not enable you to succeed in this module. You need to engage with the
activities in the study guide, make summary notes, listen to the suggested examples and
read the suggested readings. These are the minimum activities that will enable you to
achieve the learning outcomes. By completing these activities, and more, your grasp of
the learning material will be deep. This will enable you to make professional use of your
skills and knowledge outside of your studies and in your career.

Much time, energy and care has gone into accrediting, creating and writing this module.
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We encourage you to take full ownership of the knowledge and skills you will acquire.
This will make our hard work all the more worthwhile. Many students fall into the trap
of “cramming” information a few weeks before the examination. It is important that you
work consistently through the module study material. We suggest you manage your time

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effectively by producing a timetable of which readings and study activities you will do
when, allowing enough reading, processing and writing time for your assignments. You
should be aware of your pace of reading and writing and manage your time accordingly.
A rough guideline for reading comprehension is 5 to 10 pages per hour, or on average
7.5 pages per hour, which includes note taking.

We urge you to use the online resources available to you as a Unisa student. Most of these
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are available through the Unisa library website. Tutorial Letter 101 has more details on
which resources are available and appropriate for use in this module, and how to access
them. You should regularly log on to myUnisa and access the module MHS1511. Refer to
TL101 for more information on how to access myUnisa. This study guide makes use of
material from online resources and websites, which will be to your benefit to access. Unisa
also boasts a well-resourced library with a vast array of books, music scores, and visual
and audio recordings. Many of the items are available at branch libraries. Do make use of
these resources as far as possible. Not only will they aid you in developing your knowledge
and skills in this module, but they will certainly inspire you in your music studies.

ASSESSMENT STRATEGY
You are required to submit formal written assignments during the course of the semester,
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as set out in Tutorial Letter 101. It is through these assignments that we are able to monitor
your grasp of specific outcomes. When assessing the work you submit for marking during
the course of the semester, as well as your examination script at the end of the semester,
we will look for evidence that you understand the outcomes of the module. This means that
you should concentrate on understanding the study material rather than memorising
information. You need to develop the skills and ability to apply what you have learned
so that you can discuss important topics and subjects in this field. Most significantly,
you should learn to discuss the material in terms of musical examples. You need to show
evidence for the claims you make through discussing specific music examples. You need
to substantiate your arguments with evidence. Listening to the music will go a long way
in helping you to provide evidence in your essays. You will need to know the outcomes
of this module very well so that you can direct your learning and understanding of the
material in accordance with them.

You will receive individualised written feedback on the assignments you submit. During
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the semester, you will also receive general feedback letters in the form of Tutorial Letter
201 and 202, providing further feedback and commentary to all students in the module.
The feedback you receive are essential to your progress in the module and will help you
to know whether you are on the right track towards achieving the module outcomes.

ACTIVITIES AND EXAMPLES

Your learning strategy requires that you actively engage with your study material. To help
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you achieve this, we provide interesting and enjoyable reading activities and listening/
viewing examples in each learning unit. We hope that these will indeed serve their purpose
of engaging you and inspiring you in this fascinating field of study. Each activity, whether

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writing answers to questions in your learning journal, or listening to a music example, are
marked with the icon Activity (reading, writing) or Example (listening, viewing). More often
than not, a combination of icons will show you what you will need to do. For example, an
activity with the following icons, explains that you will need to listen to a music example
and write answers to questions based on the example in your learning journal.

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24 Reading/writing activity Listening/viewing example

Activities in this module ask you to engage with recommended readings, to listen actively
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to music examples and apply the knowledge you acquire to analyse a given music example
or topic. Some activities involve more than one person. In these instances, you could
ask a friend or peer in this course to do them with you. Do take special note of further
information on the listening/viewing examples available in Tutorial Letter 101.

STUDY ACTIVITIES
In addition to submitting formal assignments, you will also need to carry out various
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informal study activities on your own. These activities are in the study guide and are in
the form of questions about the work covered. Some of these questions focus on specific
aspects of the material, while others require you to summarise what you have learned in
the study guide and recommended reading. The purpose of these study activities is to
help you focus on specific issues and assess your progress towards meeting the learning
outcomes.

TIME ALLOCATION
Accompanying most activities is a guideline of how long it should take you
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to complete the activity. Allocating a resonable amount of time for each activity,
as well as for reading each learning unit, is essential to working through the study
guide in a timeous manner. Spending too long on one section will limit your
time in another, and thus limit your opportunity to engage with the material
sufficiently. This module is worth 12 credits, thus a minimum of 120 hours should
be dedicated to this module, including all activities, readings, and assessments.

OUR COMMENTS
We provide some examples of how you could have answered various questions
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or completed various activities in the study guide. When you see this symbol,
you should not read further, but complete the activity and only then compare
your answers to the exemplary answers provided in this section. It is to your

(x)
 benefit to engage with the activities on your own first, instead of simply reading
the exemplary answers. This entails an active approach to enaging with your
studies in this module, rather than a passive approach, the latter of which
will likely require far more time to retain the knowledge and skills. An active
engagement with your studies is key to completing this module successfully.
We have designed an approachable study guide, and interesting activities to
facilitate an active engagement.

PAUSE FOR REFLECTION

Among the activities in the study guide, you will be asked to reflect on a
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particular section of a learning unit, or the study unit as a whole. Reflection

activities will help you to assess your progress in the module and to clarify
your opinion on a particular issue. It will also provide an opportunity to reflect
constructively on your understanding of the module material and whether it
is in line with the module outcomes.

LISTENING ACTIVITIES
Listening to and performing some of the music discussed in this module is a
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crucial part of internalising what you are learning. Imagine, for example, that you
are to understand, interpret and discuss a painting. Imagine that the painting
is made from colours that you have never seen before. You would need to see
the painting and its colours in order to discuss them. The painting might also
consist of colours you already have experiential knowledge of (colours you have
seen before), but combined in an altogether new way. You would need to see
the painting in order to begin to understand it, to interpret it, and in turn to talk
about it. The same applies to music that you have not heard before, or music
you have heard before but have not analysed in a formal way. You need to listen
to it in order to understand it, to know what its features are, and to be able to
discuss it. The study guide provides examples of music and activities that you
should complete after having listened to the suggested music example. More
often than not, you will need to listen to a piece of music, or recording, several
times. You need not only listen to music examples suggested in the study guide
but explore further, find an album of recordings that are related to the music
culture you are studying and listen to further tracks. Listen to them while in the
car, while cooking supper, while jogging, or simply sit and listen to them. You
will also need to listen critically, and at these moments it is best to sit in a quiet
place with no distractions so that you can think about the musical elements
while listening, and develop skills of distinguishing the important features of
a particular genre of music.

It is very important that you listen to music with the score in hand. Several anthologies
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are available as recommended books. To access the recommended books, you should
visit branch libraries, or order books from the postal collection. Scores are also available

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online using the Unisa Library resource, Music Online, or the free resource, Petrucci Music
Library, which you can visit at https://imslp.org.

The Unisa library audiovisual section has a vast array of Western music. Similarly, online
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resources will prove to be especially useful for quick and easy access. Please see Tutorial
Letter 101 for more information on how to access these resources.

SUGGESTED READING
In this module, you will be expected to conduct further reading. Tutorial Letter
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101 lists the recommended and compulsory readings, and explains how you
may access them. Activities in the learning units may also require you to read
suggested articles or chapters.

LEARNING JOURNAL
You need to keep a learning journal for this module. This can be in the form
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of an A4 or A5 book, or loose-leaf notes that you keep in a file. In the learning

journal, you should record your responses to the questions you are asked to
answer, the summaries you are required to write, your reflections, and anything
noteworthy while listening to music examples. It is also a good idea to make
summary notes for each learning unit as you work through the study guide
and to keep these in your learning journal.

Using a learning journal will help you keep track of your development through the semester.
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You may wish to return to your responses during the semester and possibly even revise
them in the light of what you learn as you work through the study guide, activities and
formal assignments, which are all part of the process of active studying.

This may be the first time you use a learning journal. The main purpose of the journal is
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to enable you to actively engage in your studies and to internalise what you learn. Passive
reading will only get you so far in understanding the material. But active participation is
key to developing your ability to grasp and retain the information you learn and ultimately
to turn it into knowledge. This is your journal, so be as creative with it as you wish. Draw
mind maps and diagrams, record keywords in a column on each page and use colours!
Such a method of learning will also help you discover the way in which you learn best!
Use the journal extensively and have it accessible whenever you engage with the material
in this module.

To begin your learning journal, we suggest you draw up an easily accessible page of the
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purpose and outcomes of the module so that you can make a quick reference to them.
The front page or even the cover could be an excellent starting place. You could also
draw up your timetable of engaging with the various sections of the module so that you
do not run short on time toward the end of the semester. With this timetable you could
include the notional hours outlined above.

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 NUMBERING
The numbering in this study guide is designed for easy reference so that you may easily
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access specific sections, figures or activities. All sections, figures and activities in a given
learning unit begin with that learning unit’s number. For example, Learning Unit 1 will
have sections 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and so on. It will have figures 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and so on. The same
numbering occurs for the activities and listening/viewing examples in that learning unit.
In Learning Unit 3, for example, all sections will be numbered 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and so on. The
same goes for the figures and activities within that learning unit. In this way, it is easy to
locate the learning unit of a given section, figure or activity from its first digit.

LASTLY…
The present study guide is not an exhaustive account of Western music history. Even
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Richard Taruskin’s monumental five-volume Oxford History of Western Music is selective.

The purpose is to discuss some of the major trends, musical works, composers and
performers who shaped this history most decisively, and whose music continues to be
performed and recorded to this day. We expect a high standard of work, and a positive
attitude towards your studies. You can expect from us that we will guide you in your
understanding of the module material as best we can. You are invited to explore the rich
diversity of Western music in all its shapes and forms. We hope that you will find interest,
inspiration, and enjoyment in the module material. Good luck and enjoy your studies!

USE OF ICON
The following icons are used in this study guide. An explanation of each icon is provided
40

below:

Study. This icon indicates the relevant sections of the prescribed book
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or the study guide that you need to study and internalise.

41

REFERENCE
Taruskin, Richard. 2005. The Oxford History of Western Music. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford
University Press.

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(xiv)
Learning Unit 1
Music of the West from its ancient roots

Purpose

The purpose of learning unit 1 is to introduce you to

 the foundational tributaries of the Western tradition

 the evidence of musical activity from the start of recorded history
 the dynamics involved in creating and maintaining a tradition
 the relation of historical and traditional viewpoints on antiquity

Outcomes

After completing the learning unit, you should demonstrate that you are able to

 describe the way in which ancient accounts conceived of the importance of music
 discuss the process by which the subjects of mythology served to elevate a musical
tradition
 highlight ways in which long traditions concerning music have undergone modification
 account for the especially prominent place that Greek musical culture has maintained
in the West

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING UNIT 1

43 1.1 A search for foundations: the imagined ancestry of Western music
44 1.2 Thinking about the beginning
45 1.3 A musical line of descent
46 1.4 A latter-day Catholic layer
47 1.5 A supplementary figure
48 1.6 Enter the professionals
49 1.7 The Greek root
50 1.8 Another road to reconstruction

1.1 A SEARCH FOR FOUNDATIONS: THE IMAGINED ANCESTRY

OF WESTERN MUSIC
The basis of this module and the related contents in the prescribed text (HWM, Part 1, ch
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1) is the idea that it is possible to trace over a long period of time certain cultural processes
that are typical of the Western tradition, and that these historic practices “hang together”
in an unmistakable succession of cause and effect, of initiation and growth, of clear and
steady persistence.

1 MHS1511/1
The reason for beginning the units in the ancient world is simply that no survey of a
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great tradition would give up the opportunity to establish its origins. Yet, important as
that quest is, it is a complex task. It is not clear how “the earliest music” that prevailed in
the preliterate societies of the Stone Age, or in the subsequent Bronze and Iron Ages, is
connected with the practices of the “present age”, whether that be in ancient recorded
history or in more modern eras. The survivals, though sometimes remarkable, are too fragile
a basis from which to argue for music as a purposeful activity that we would recognise.2

1.2 THINKING ABOUT THE BEGINNING

Activity 1.1

Read HWM, pp 5 to 8, Music in Ancient Mesopotamia, and make notes

in your learning journal.

TIME ALLOCATED: 15 minutes

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In order to uphold the conviction of a “Western history” in relation to the earliest periods
54

from which the tradition might have emerged, evidence has to be presented and subjected
to careful and knowledgeable scrutiny. Thus, the disciplines of palaeontology (the scientific
study of fossils) and archaeology (the systematic study of human remains) are dominated
by the task of inserting “finds” along a timeline or chronology, a process that has shaped
the dimensions of the timeline itself. Instead of working from a preconceived idea of time,
these disciplines build a view of the distant past by amassing and comparing material
remains. The history of music in the Western tradition since antiquity focuses largely on
texts and musical scores, but these become more and more scarce the further back in
time we go. For millennia, history rested on the interpretation of canonic writings, that
is, texts that were considered authoritative. The importance of this process is of direct
relevance to the present unit, since one of the sites of musical origins given prominence
in the West is contained in the Book of Genesis (i.e., “of beginnings”).
It is no exaggeration to say that the Western tradition is overwhelmingly an account
55

and interpretation of Christian texts, ideas and practices. Since the Christian past is itself
rooted in Jewish sources (in particular, the Hebrew Tanakh, or what the church calls the
“Old Testament”, hereafter OT), the tradition is technically defined as Judeo-Christian.
Yet Christian thought has typically treated OT themes and narratives as foreshadowing
the messianic revelation of the New Testament (NT), a form of interpretation known as

12 This broad three-age description, formulated in the 1830s, is still used today, though its basic succession
of technology, which classifies tools according to their material, has been much refined by introducing
sub-periods. Note that much of the African continent, apart from Egypt, Nubia and the rest of North
Africa, passed directly from stone to iron implements. This was also the case in much of the Americas,
in Australia and on many Pacific islands.

2
typology. As the following material will show, the identification of types (in the sense
of exemplary models, and anticipations) in the remote past has played a central role in
Christian theology and hence the intellectual tradition of the West.
The figure of Jubal, mentioned in Genesis 4.19 to 22, is a useful way to illustrate this type
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of interpretation. The brief mention of the “inventor of music” is located in a passage

coloured by ancestral, not to say patriarchal concerns:
19
Lamech [son of Methushael, son of Mehujael, son of Irad, son of Enoch, son of Cain,
son of Adam] married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. 20 Adah
gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock.
21
His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute.
22
Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all sorts of tools out of bronze and
iron. Tubal-Cain’s sister was Naamah.

Many commentaries and illustrations of the figure of Jubal base themselves on a literal
57

reading of the text, as though each form of skill (animal husbandry, musical capability,
and metallurgy) can be traced back to a single progenitor. The gist of this section of
Genesis, however, is about “generation” in the sense of multiplication or proliferation, as
well as branching and separation, and it is in the sense of a defined clan, tribe or “guild”
of related practitioners that these names should be understood.
The term in Hebrew translated as “flute” in the extract above is ‘ûģāb. The exact meaning
58

of the term is not clear, and the word appears in the OT only four times, each time with
different associated instruments, and with contrasting emotional contexts.3 Here it may
refer to a generic object symbolising all wind instruments, just as Jubal signifies makers of
music in general. The word translated as “harp” is kinnôr, which by contrast is a common
term in the OT that also occurs in pre-OT texts from the ancient Near East in a range of
languages. It has traditionally been linked to King David’s harp (see below), but from the
iconographic sources it seems that it is almost certainly a lyre.4
The instrument is mentioned in secular and religious situations, such as involve incantations
59

and cultic dances, and in the worship of deities far removed from the God of Israel. Post-
biblical documents mention 6, 7 or 10 strings; it was usually played with a plectrum rather
than the fingers. Whatever theological exclusivity has been read from the OT books, it is
clear from the musical evidence alone that syncretistic forces applied across many ancient
cultures, and that the borrowings moved in various directions (Braun 2002:16–19).
At the same time, the Hebrew terms used to describe musical instruments may also point to
60

detailed historical realities. The list of instruments mentioned in the Book of Daniel (3.5, 3.7,
and 3.10) is found nowhere else in the OT. The obvious explanation is the cultural context
of Babylon where the Israelites were taken into exile, and where the figure of Daniel, a

13 The other three instances are Psalm 150.4, where a collection of wind and stringed instruments are combined
with cymbals and dance in praise of God; Job 21.12, where a hand-drum, harp and ugab accompany the
merry–making of the wicked; and Job 30.31, where kinnor and ugab embody the voice of the lamenting
poet.
14 The difference between a harp and a lyre is important in this unit. Not only do they show design differences
– for example, the cross-bar in the lyre is at 90° to the strings, whereas many Near-Eastern types have
it angled in a trapezoid shape – but the harp was an obvious import into Greek culture. One notes by
contrast the rich ‘harp cultures’ of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Israel/Palestine.

3 MHS1511/1
Jewish hostage, emerged as a trusted counsellor of King Nebuchadnezzar (ruled 605–562
BCE). The Babylonian “orchestra” comprised qeren (a metal or clay trumpet), mashroqitha
(probably a double-reed wind instrument), qitharos (a lyre, the name derived from Greek
kithara), sabbeka (possibly a small, angular harp), pesanterim (a large harp played with
hammers, the name corrupted from the Greek psalterion), and sumponeyah (a drum);
that is, “a specifically Seleucid group of musicians” (Braun 2002: 35). The Seleucid dynasty
ruled the area of Syria from 312 to 65 BCE. This musical ensemble therefore represents a
telling example (and the only one of its kind in the OT) of a musical culture completely
foreign to the Israelites.

1.3 A MUSICAL LINE OF DESCENT

From this fleeting and ambiguous biblical reference, a typological tradition of music arose
61

in the West that was embellished by the addition of other figures.

King David, the illustrious second king and “sweet psalmist” of Israel (about 1 000 BCE),
62

and described in the Jewish scripture as skilled in the composition of odes and elegies,
was the organiser of the music used in Israelite temple worship. He was also credited as an
inventor of and skilled performer on musical instruments, and is traditionally considered
to be the composer of numerous of the biblical psalms. As a hero in both Jewish and
Christian history, he is usually depicted playing a harp.

Activity 1.2

Study the mosaic portrait of King David playing a lyre, as depicted in

figure 1.1. Make some relevant notes on King David playing a lyre in your
learning journal.

63 Time allocated: 10 minutes

64

Figure 1.1: Mosaic portrait of King David playing a lyre

4
This representation, figure 1.1, is part of a mosaic floor design. The image is of a male
65

figure, robed and crowned, playing an identifiable stringed instrument. The mosaic
was discovered in 1965 by Egyptian archaeologists in Gaza, over which Egypt then had
sovereignty. They believed they had uncovered a church pavement: the mosaic was a
typically Byzantine (Eastern Church) form of decoration, and the style of the dress and the
lyre suggested both King David (whose name appears in Hebrew letters) and Orpheus,
another typological figure of musical importance from the Greek tradition. (Pindar, a
Greek lyric poet of the early 5th c. BCE, called him “the father of songs” in a list of early
heroes.) In early Christian history, both were considered “types” of Christ, foreshadowing
his attributes. The animals in the depiction, attracted and tamed by the music (note the
lion’s submissive stance), seemed to confirm the miraculous power of music associated
with both David and Orpheus.5 After the 1967 war in which Israel wrested Gaza from
Arab rule, investigation continued, and it was established that the building had been a
synagogue, dating to 508 CE.6 This required corroborative evidence to silence doubts
about the frankly representational style of the mosaic: the art of ancient Israel has left
relatively few such depictions, since its aniconic visual tradition favoured abstract or
symbolic designs.7

The instrument is clearly a lyre, marked by its twin curved arms, its cross-bar with tuning
66

mechanisms and its strings (attached to a bottom resonator which is obscured in this
reproduction). The strumming plectrum in the player’s right hand and the open left hand
held behind the strings to damp them are all details “true to life”, as well as conforming to
many ancient pictures of lyres in use. The Greeks distinguished between a simple lyre (lyra),
suitable for amateurs and for use in education, and a larger, more elaborate instrument
called kithara, which was associated with their chief god, Apollo.8 It was massive, splendid,
as in this example, for use by professionals, and suitable for a royal figure.9

The fact that the instrument is so easy to trace to Greek sources does not mean that
67

Palestine did not have its own traditions of lyre and harp production. But the evidence
of this mosaic – reinforced by finds of the same period in Jerusalem, Sepphoris and
Beth-Shean (these latter two in the more northerly region of Galilee) – points to a highly
syncretistic culture. Graeco-Roman in its broadest sense, a mixture of pagan, Jewish and
Christian in its religious practices, it cannot be approached as a simple or unchanging
phenomenon. In fact, this kind of material evidence illustrates the way in which traditions
reformulate earlier materials, altering their significance without changing their usual
content. However, the tradition surrounding music and its personification in the history
of the West also shows abrupt interventions, as the third “patron” of the art demonstrates.

15 The young David’s ability to alleviate King Saul’s bouts of mental turmoil is mentioned in the First Book
of Samuel 16.17–21. The figure of Orpheus appears in many ancient sources. The myth concerning him
and his wife, Eurydice, is discussed in learning unit 6.
16 Gaza was an ancient port city, through which Jewish pilgrims, both those travelling from Europe by boat
or those using the land route from Egypt, travelled on their way to Jerusalem.
17 The aniconic properties of traditional Jewish art – the avoidance of images that resemble human or
animal features – stem from the commandment “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of
anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to
them or worship them...” (Book of Exodus 20.4).
18 Because of his pre-eminence in the Greek tradition, he was also considered a “type” of Christ.
19 The strip of diamond-shaped lozenges on either side suggests a rich decoration.

5 MHS1511/1
 1.4 A LATTER-DAY CATHOLIC LAYER
St Cecilia was a virgin martyr from Rome who died at an uncertain date in early Christian
68

history. The probable years of her martyrdom are estimated at 176–180 or 222–235 CE.
She was later (by 545 CE) called a saint, and honoured in the Western church. Her cult is
therefore rooted in late antiquity. An account of her suffering and death mentions her
“singing to God ‘in her heart’ while instruments were making music at her wedding”
(Attwater 1983: 81). This is a reference to her spiritual withdrawal from her marriage to a
pagan man; the union was forced on her by her parents. He was later converted, respected
her wishes for an asexual marriage, and also died a martyr’s death, along with his brother.

Activity 1.3

Examine an image of St Cecilia. Make notes in your learning journal.

Time allocation: 5 minutes

69

70

Figure 1.2: St Cecilia and King David. Source: Wikimedia. Photo Credit: Nheyob. Licence: Creative Commons
BY-SA 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holy_Family_Catholic_Church_(Oldenburg,_Indiana)_-_
stained_glass,_loft,_Saint_Cecilia_and_King_David.jpg

Given the relatively late date of St Cecilia’s entry into the company of music figures
71

honoured by the church, it is appropriate that the illustration is a modern one (mid-19th
c., Oldenburg, Indiana, USA). Depictions of her usually show an organ as her emblematic
instrument (here a small portative organ), but the flute and even anachronistic instruments
like the violin are also found.

6
The turn toward music in the reverence for St Cecilia began in the late Middle Ages. Prior
72

to this, her cult concerned “spiritual marriage” (i.e., marriage without sexual relations),
and a pictorial tradition had been established that contained no musical associations:
it honoured her virginity and her martyrdom, and included her husband Valerian and
his brother Tiburtius. She was also honoured in the hagiography (i.e., writings in praise
of saintly persons) of the Greek (Eastern) Orthodox Church. But the Orthodox tradition
contained no special indication of music in its icons of Cecilia. However, in a famous
depiction by the Roman artist Raphael of her “ecstasy” (1517–18), a transcendent state of
consciousness that indicates conspicuous religious devotion, Cecilia stands, a small organ
hanging down from her hands, among a host of other musical instruments. In other
words, the saint’s care for music was an extension of her ancient cult and a mark of later
Western spirituality; the fact that a Roman music academy was founded in her name by
Pope Sixtus V in 1585 places her official recognition as the patron saint of music squarely
within the Catholic Reformation of the late 16th century.

1.5 A SUPPLEMENTARY FIGURE

A final figure with a much more direct claim on musical involvement was the biblical
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Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron. Like King David, she entered the veneration of
Christians from their Jewish background. The textual source of her musical prowess is the
Book of Exodus 15.20–21, which follows Moses’ song in praise of God for the deliverance
of the Israelites through “the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon” (Exodus 14.9,
traditionally the Red Sea).
20
Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine [hand-drum] in
her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines [hand-drums] and
dancing. 21Miriam sang to them:
“Sing to the Lord [Yahweh], for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has
hurled into the sea.”10
The church-musical tradition of Miriam is confused in its iconography: the tambourine
74

or frame drum appears as her emblem, but also the harp and cymbals (and at least one
example of a tubular drum beaten with a stick). What is more important is this ancient
evidence for a gendered musical activity, specifically, the women’s “hailing” group, as in this
Exodus text or in the greeting of a victorious king.11 As Eric Werner pointed out (Buttrick
1962-76: III, 457), this scene – “of a female chorus, dancing and singing, accompanied by
frenzied drum-beating” – is familiar to the whole Near East, and persisted in isolated
Jewish communities (like Yemen) into the 20th century. Yet, in later reflections of Jewish
tradition, this genre, with its broad rhetorical power, weakened and receded. It has been
notably absent in the recorded tradition of the West, and haunts that tradition.

110 Meyers (1993:61) supplies the bracketed terms which scholars prefer to the customary translation. See
also Braun 2002:29–31.
111 The First Book of Samuel 18.6-7 provides an almost archetypal instance:
“When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine [Goliath], the women came
2

out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and
with tambourines and lutes. As they danced, they sang:
‘Saul has slain his thousands,
3

and David his tens of thousands.’”

4

7 MHS1511/1
When a specific musical activity of this kind can be shown to have persisted for centuries
75

(it is also a basic feature of traditional Muslim societies in North Africa and the Middle East),
yet receives no formal recognition in the documents and instruction by which a tradition
defines itself, it may be termed a “negative presence”. The same documents preserve a
view of women’s roles that expressly favours the domestic sphere while passing over the
public arena in silence. Just as women were excluded from the religious leadership of the
Jews, called the rabbinate, so in the succeeding Christian culture, women were treated
separately from men, and were denied ordination as priests. The Christian layer added
an aspect that was not present in Judaism: the enforced celibacy of priests. This added
another filter to human experience, that of gender, and found ways in which to justify
this tightening of the tradition. It is therefore no surprise that the negative presence of
women has been a fundamental part of the definition of Western musical culture. This
aspect and its slow undoing will be treated in later units and in other modules.

1.6 ENTER THE PROFESSIONALS

What led to the fading of this important musical manifestation in the textual record?
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Meyers (1993: 67) suggests that, despite the growing androcentrism of later Jewish history,
women’s music could still be found. But it was excluded from the rites of the temple
built by King Solomon. The activities of this sanctuary (a national shrine that claimed to
represent the presence of a god more powerful than all others), minutely legislated and
including musical performance, were in the hands of men. Specifically, the priests and
musicians were drawn from “the tribe of Levi”. Though this clan’s roots went back to the
earliest stage of social organisation in ancient Israel, it was only with the introduction of
the monarchy and its establishment of temple worship in Jerusalem that the connection
of Levites with music emerged.
The practice of temple music by a restricted “guild” of professionals came to the people
77

of Israel from their neighbour cultures, where precisely this intersection of priestly religion
and the musical requirements of its cult and of royal figures had much earlier in history
created a role for dedicated performers. The Egyptian evidence is very old, drawing as it
does on a recorded history of nearly 3 000 years.12 Despite the long history of sophisticated
writing in Egypt (hieroglyphs were in use by the early 3rd millennium BCE), no musical
notation has been identified nor has evidence of musical theory been found, but many
depictions of musicians and some of the instruments themselves have been preserved
in the desiccated conditions of the desert adjacent to the Nile Valley. Most of these
finds come from tombs built for a broad range of social types. Whether the detail in the
representation means they are naturalistic (true-to-life) is not clear; but they are governed
by conventions of “correct” portrayal which changed very slowly (Manniche 1991: 10).
The integration of activities apparently drawn from daily life with religious themes is
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pervasive in the ancient Egyptian record. Especially important are the scenes of funeral
banquets in which musical ensembles are present. Temple walls show carved scenes of

112 This total refers to the series of ruling dynasties of the Nile Valley that, at times, formed a strong central
government (Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom), and at others relied more on local rule (First,
Second and Third Intermediate Periods). In the Late Period (664–332 BCE), when Libyans and Persians
alternated rule with native Egyptians, traditions in the arts were maintained.

8
music in public feasts and processions, while private monuments tend to show music
occurring as part of the cult of a specific divinity. For example, “a singer of the God Amun
would set up a commemorative slab portraying himself playing his harp and singing face
to face with a deity” (Manniche 1991:11).
The figure of a male harpist, apparently blind, is a common motif associated with texts
79

found in tomb inscriptions that praise life after death. A number of conventions guide
the modern observer in these instances: the texts that appear alongside the figure of
the musician are assumed to have been sung, and the use of a single, curved line, rather
than the eye shape proper, is the reason for calling these figures “blind harpists”.13 The
precise context of Egyptian musical depiction is therefore of importance in deciding on
its interpretation, and the details of location are now always part of the archaeological
record.

Activity 1.4

Study the three examples of musicians depicted in ancient Egyptian art.

Make notes in your learning journal.

80 Time allocation: 20 minutes

81

Figure 1.3: “Blind harpist” from the tomb of a scribe named Nakht of the 18th Dynasty (c. 1422 to 1411 BCE).
Source: Wikimedia. Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maler_der_Grabkammer_des_
Nacht_001.jpg

113 The texts of hymns, associated with temple cults and festivals, are similarly regarded as sung material.
Poetic texts paired with depictions of agricultural labour are treated as ancient work-songs.

9 MHS1511/1
 82

Figure 1.4: Female musicians with elaborate hairstyles, playing (from right to left) harp, long-necked lute and
a double pipe, from the tomb of a scribe named Nakht of the 18th dynasty. Source: Wikimedia. Public Domain.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tomb_of_Nakht_-_three_musicians_600dpi.png

83

Figure 1.5: Bas-relief carving from the Temple of Saqqara. Source: Wellcome Images (‘Egyptian wall carving.
Wellcome M0002695’). Licence: CC-BY-4. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_wall_carving._
Wellcome_M0002695.jpg

10
 84

Figure 1.6: A sistrum. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Licence: CC-BY-SA-3.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Egyptian_-_Sistrum_-_Walters_541207.jpg

Feedback on activity 1.4

1

(1) Figure 1.3: The figure of the “blind harpist” comes from the tomb of a scribe named Nakht,
of the 18th dynasty. His tomb is dated to 1422-1411 BCE. This well-fed (i.e., wealthy) player
in a linen garment has a shaved head, normally a sign of ritual purity among priests. It
is unusual to find harpists portrayed, as here, with open mouth, which strongly suggests
singing. The convention of the harpist is still not well understood: Egyptian depictions
of the eye come in various forms, and this particular convention may indicate a player
with his eyes closed.
(2) Figure 1.4.: Another portion of the tomb of Nakht shows three female musicians with
elaborate hair-styles, playing (from right to left) harp, long-necked lute and a double
pipe. These New Kingdom figures are sensual in comparison with the more austere female
figures of earlier dynasties. Most depictions of musical groups are found in banquet
scenes. However, the feast is part of the honour shown to the deceased and is connected
with elaborate rituals for “feeding” the dead.
(3) Figure 1.5: From the Temple of Saqqara, this bas-relief carving shows (in the upper register)
a combination of harp with a long, rim-blown flute that closely resembles the ney flute
widespread in Middle Eastern traditional music to this day; the lower register links the
same type of flute with a lute.14 The continuity of musical culture in Egypt is suggested by
the survival of a long-necked lute from the Roman period (i.e., up to 337 CE) or possibly
from the following period of Byzantine rule (up to 642 CE).15

114 The central role in classical Arabic music of the ney (or nay) flute, its only wind instrument, underlines its
enormously long history. This site provides a short audio sample: http://www.mideastweb.org/culture/
ney.htm
1 15 Analytical photographs and full supporting text are available here: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/
collection/search/473395.

11 MHS1511/1
 (4) Figure 1.6: Of all ancient instruments, the sistrum (pl. sistra) is perhaps the one most
closely identified with religious practice. This may have arisen from its association with
Hathor, who ranked among the most important of Egyptian goddesses. At any rate, the
cult of Hathor was “closely associated with ... the sistrum, a type of rattle comprising
metal discs which were shaken rhythmically. Many surviving examples of the instrument
are decorated with the head of Hathor, and her son Ihy is normally shown carrying a
sistrum.” (Cox and Davies 2006: 99). Normally made from bronze, this example (c. 380 – c.
250 BCE) has a Hathor face incorporated in the handle.

It is significant that the ceremonies of the Coptic (Egyptian) and Ethiopian Christian
85

traditions both currently still use sistra. These traditions were planted early in the Common
Era, and overlapped the last centuries of Egyptian pharaonic history. The survival of this
ancient instrument therefore represents an adoption of a pre-existing feature of religious
devotion.
A fairly detailed picture of religious music can also be assembled from Assyrian evidence. A
86

kalu or “lamentation-priest” led temple rites, whether this involved “setting up kettledrums
in the temple courtyard for a noisy ritual at the time of an eclipse of the moon”, or leading
the cultic chanting – laments, prayers and “the type of religious song we should call a
psalm” (Saggs 1984:211). Drum or harp served for accompaniment. The kalu was assisted
by musicians of lower social prestige called naru (female nartu), who provided both vocal
and instrumental forces. Women, as is clear, were included, and the naru musicians were
also employed in royal palace celebrations, often in large numbers.
Another unusual case of Jewish representational art – a series of wall paintings from
87

Dura-Europos, a border post of the Roman Empire on the Euphrates River – provides us
with a concluding focus for this section. Excavation uncovered scenes like this on the
wall of the ancient synagogue:

88

Figure 1.7: Wall painting of Herod’s Temple in the ancient synagogue at Dura-Europos, a border post of the
Roman Empire on the Euphrates River. Source: Wikimedia. Public Domain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dura-
Europos_synagogue#/media/File:Herod%27s_Temple.jpg

12
This building was completed in 244 CE. The panel illustrated shows the courtyard of
89

the Temple of Herod, built over the remains of the original temple of Solomon. The
pedimented building at the top is the “Holy of Holies” or inner sanctum, and the figure
of Aaron (so labelled in Greek) stands to its right. Since he could not possibly have known
this temple, it is assumed that he here represents the line of high priests descended from
him – another instance of typological identification. The Levitical priests lead sacrificial
animals (like the realistic bos indicus cattle of hot climates, with their distinctive humps,
and the long-tailed sheep), and two Levites are equipped with horns (top right corner).
These are presumably depictions of the šôpār, “the only instrument to have survived
within Jewish liturgy essentially unchanged from biblical times” (Braun 2002: 26, 302). It
was found in straight and curved forms, and was made from a ram’s horn, sometimes
with gold or silver covering. The quality of its sound was important and had sacral
associations.16 This painting shows the instrument in a symbolic grouping with other
objects of liturgical importance, including the menorah (seven-branched lampstand), a
pair of censers and the altar of showbread.

The shofar in its remarkable persistence (it is used still today in synagogue services)
90

may stand as a sign of continued Jewish presence. The temple worship, its songs and
instruments, was silenced with the destruction of the Herodian (Second) temple by Roman
forces in 70 CE in the course of putting down a Jewish revolt. This was the start of the
historic Jewish diaspora; its communities thereafter shaped their liturgical and everyday
music with an awareness of the surrounding culture which, in Western Christendom,
was largely hostile to them.17 It is telling (and ironic) that Orthodox Judaism preserves to
the present the musico-liturgical forces of traditional Western practice: a cantor, a men’s
chorus and an organ. Yet the sound and significance of an instrument rooted in the early
history of biblical faith is unknown to the West. This may be considered another instance
of “negative presence”, in the sense that the life of Jews in the West was strictly limited by
Christian society, and involved the isolation of the Jewish population, who yet continued
to serve certain vital purposes.

Part of the distance that grew between early Christianity and its Jewish roots was the
91

rejection or radical reinterpretation of the musical instruments so highly esteemed in

Israelite life. Saint Clement (c.150–c.215), an influential theologian and leader of the
Catechetical School of Alexandria, offers an indicative account of prohibitions:

For if people occupy their time with pipes [aulois], and psalteries [psalterious],
and choirs [chorois], and dances [orchēmasin], and Egyptian clapping of hands
[krotalois Aigyption], ... they become quite immodest and intractable, beat on cymbals
[kymbalois] and drums [tympanois], and make a noise on instruments of delusion....18

Clement proceeds to reinterpret the “orchestra” of Psalm 150 as if its instruments were
92

purely spiritual items: the trumpet was read as a sign of resurrection, the psaltery the

116 Cf. the inappropriately translated “trumpets” mentioned in the Book of Joshua 6.4-20, where the shofar
was sounded as an instrument of warfare in the overthrow of (the walls of) Jericho.
117 See Schneider (1966:21–41), and Perry and Schweitzer (2002, chap. 1–3)
118 The Instructor [Paedagogus], Bk 2, ch. 4, in Roberts and Donaldson (1885:248). The Egyptian crotala were
actually a pair of small cymbals mounted on a forked handle.

13 MHS1511/1
tongue of praise, the lyre “the mouth struck by the Spirit, as it were by a plectrum”, the
timbrel and dance as the Church’s meditation on the “resurrection of the dead in the
resounding skin”, the strings and organ as the nerves of the body in “harmonious tension”,
cymbals as the mouth and the “pulsation of the lips”. Along with typology, this allegorical
approach to scripture became common in the Western Middle Ages. It represents a search
for transcendent (spiritual) meaning in the terms of the material world.

1.7 THE GREEK ROOT

Writers on music history have usually taken the “ancient world” to mean classical Greek
93

culture – in particular, the period 750 to 450 BCE, with a particular concentration on the city
of Athens –which has in the first place established the tremendous span of the tradition.
No history can claim significant status that cannot demonstrate its long duration; it needs
to be hallowed by its great age.

Many of the strands in the Western world trace their origins back to the Greek “cradle”
94

– the roots of its written language, the starting-point of its mathematics and certain
sciences (in particular medical knowledge), the basis of its philosophical and political
concerns, and landmark literary beginnings (poetry and drama, the writing of history),
not to mention the highly-prized survival of its visual art, in particular its traditions of
sculpture and vase-painting. It is impossible to study the later Western tradition and
not see in it the reflection of ancient Greek models and priorities: the Latin language
of the West quite obviously rooted in classical Greek, the mathematical contributions
of Pythagoras, the medical attitude of Hippocrates, the philosophical priorities of Plato
(reflecting in part the thought of Socrates) and Aristotle, the constitutional thinking of
Pericles, the start of historical writing with Herodotus, and – powerfully implicated in later
musical development – the imaginative literature of the Greeks, rooted in Homer’s epics
and conveyed in poetry and the transmission of a large body of mythology.

Some of these figures have direct links to music or to musical thinking. Pythagoras is
95

reputed to have observed the similarity of musical intervals to the movements of planets,
thus launching a long tradition of heavenly sound, the “music of the spheres”. Not only
did Plato and Aristotle espouse moral theories about musical styles; it has also been
claimed that Plato’s ideas about differing political constitutions are reflected in competing
musical tuning systems drawn from Pythagorean ideas (McClain 1978). The figure of the
blind singer who appears in the Odyssey (Bk 8) seems to reflect the way in which heroic
narratives were performed in an oral age. It is therefore understandable that Greek musical
activity and thought have long been regarded as lying at the root of Western practice.

Activity 1.5

Read HWM, Music in Ancient Greece, pp 9 to 13a. Make notes in your

learning journal.

14
 96 TIME ALLOCATED: 10 minutes

The survey of ancient Greek (or Hellenic) musical activity allows for a comparative
97

perspective on the long expanse of time over which the traditions of Israel/Palestine,
Egypt and Assyria endured. From prior to 1 000 BCE, each of these traditions constitutes
a thread or tributary in ancient culture. Historically speaking, they ran in parallel, but
they also influenced one another. The most obvious means by which this happened was
through conquest and colonial expansion, that is, the absorption of defeated cultures.
This happened in the case of all the above-mentioned societies. It is important to note
that victorious groups, contrary to common ideas of domination and submission, often
exhibited the adoption of cultural features from their subject groups.

Thus, by comparison with these traditions, the Greeks used a limited range of musical
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instruments, and lacked innovation in this respect. Those they used “remained decidedly
simple [and] had their origin in other lands” (Blades 1984:177). It is their melodic instruments
that are mostly in evidence: they had little need to emphasise percussion instruments,
because rhythm in Greek music arose from the sung poetry itself. In this respect, there
is some similarity with Hebrew poetry which, though found scattered through the OT, is
concentrated in the Book of Psalms. Here the poetry is contained in a series of units or
“verses” consisting of two parallel hemistichs, that is, two “half-lines”, each further divided
into two segments.19

Greek poetry used a different type of arrangement – the divisions of lines into groups (or
99

“feet”) of long and short syllables. Because the duration of the sound is fundamental, the
long syllable lasting twice the length of a short syllable, the poetry is called quantitative. A
line from Homer illustrates the quantities ( ̅ means long, ˘ means short), and the groupings,
or feet, are indicated by |:

100 numphe | potnĭ’ ĕ|rukĕ Kă|lupso,| di ă thĕ|aon

101 (“The nymph of power detained him, Calypso, divine among goddesses”)

The line contains six feet, and is therefore called a hexameter. Its basic content is a series
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of dactyls, that is, long-short-short. In feet 1, 4 and 6, the dactyl has been replaced by a
spondee, or long-long (Gaunt 1971: xv). The later Latin poets similarly arranged their lines
of verse in quantitative forms. This type of poetry has bequeathed to the West the idea
of feet, as well as a set of names describing the various combinations of long and short
syllables. But the poetry of, say, the English language – and most European languages – is
not quantitative; instead, it uses patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, and is called

119 This type of “parallelism” of utterance and meaning can be easily seen in nearly every psalm. For example:
1st hemistich: He turned rivers into a desert,
flowing springs into thirsty ground,
2

2nd hemistich: and fruitful land into a salt waste,

3

because of the wickedness of those who lived there.

4

Psalm 107.33-34 (New International Version)

5

15 MHS1511/1
accentual. The following lines show stressed syllables and organising feet (unmarked
syllables are unstressed):

103 What pás|sion cán|not mús|ic ráise | and qúell?

104 When Jú|bal struck| the cór|ded shéll,

105 His lís|tening bréth|ren stóod | around,

106 And, wón|dering, ón |their fá|ces féll

107 To wór|ship thát | celés|tial sóund20

The feet are all iambic (unstressed-stressed); there are five in the first line (a pentameter),
108

the rest have four feet (tetrameters). There are many ways in which poetic metre of this
kind can interact with its musical setting; but apart from simple children’s songs and
straightforward communal hymns, both of which originate in very specific types of poetic
language, it is difficult to claim a direct equation between poetic metre and musical
rhythm. This very complexity makes metre, whether it is directed by the words or inspired
by other factors, a fundamental and fascinating layer of Western musical practice.

The various combinations of syllable patterns used in Greek poetry were identified with
109

genres, which is another way of saying that the poetry strictly conditioned melodic style.
Thus, the genres of poetry, expressed in singing with associated movements, helped to
differentiate the sense of a song, its spirit and its appropriate instrument(s). The paean,
for example, was a song addressed to the healing god Paiān, as well as to other divine
healers – Apollo, Asclepius; it was a communication of a petition or a rendering of thanks
for health, and it used a typical quintuple-rhythm line. The hymn (hymnos) was a song in
honour of a god, and it was marked by a distinct form of address, called cletic, meaning
that it was a summoning or acclaiming song. The earliest surviving Greek hymns are
the Homeric Hymns (pre-400 BCE). They are composed in lines of six feet (technically,
hexameters), and were specifically intended to precede other hexameter compositions,
like heroic epic.

The dithyramb, while not exclusive to a single god or cult, was strongly appropriated
110

to Dionysus. These were choral songs, and their form was reputedly set in the early 7th
century BCE by Arion of Corinth, the first to compose a choral song, rehearse it with a
choir and produce it in performance, calling it dithyramb (Price and Kearns 2003: 176).21
Such compositions became vehicles for competitions in the early Athenian democracy. Each
of ten Athenian tribes entered two choruses, one of men, the other of boys, numbering
50 each. The costs of paying the poet, the choral trainer (chorodidaskalos) and the pipe
player, and equipping the chorus; all of this was the responsibility of a choregos, a civic
sponsor. Still, the victory inscriptions never mention the poet, only the tribe.

120 From A Song for St Cecilia’s Day, 1687 by John Dryden. The “corded shell” refers to the lyre, consisting of
a soundbox (in antiquity often made from a tortoiseshell wrapped in hide) and strings.
121 The origin of the word was foreign and its meaning is unknown.

16
 Activity 1.6

Read HWM, pp 13b to 19. Make notes in your learning journal.

TIME ALLOCATED: 15 minutes

111

The text now covers ethos (the moral content and effects of music), the system of Greek
112

music theory (in outline), the survival of ancient notation, and the Roman sequel. The
doctrines of musical ethos were of special concern to philosophers aiming to define and
promote values in personal and social life. This linking of character and musical stylistics
was perpetuated by theologians of the West, who saw in the medieval church-mode system
an analogy with (if not a continuation of) Greek ideas. As noted earlier in this unit, such
formalised teaching could be conveyed both in writing and in visual realisations. Thus,
the eight modes of the church could give rise to a series of sculptured equivalents, carved
around the heads of pillars, each of which symbolised the emotional range of the mode.

113

Figure 1.8: Capital sculpture at the Abbey of Cluny in France. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: Epierre.
Licence: CC-BY-SA-1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FR-Cluny-Abbaye-2643-0036.jpg

Figure 1.8 shows one of a series of sculptures that was part of the decoration of the Abbey
114

of Cluny in France, and dates from 1088 to 95. Cluny, a monastic foundation based on the
Rule of St Benedict (see learning unit 2 for further discussion), became a highly influential
institution in Europe. The idea depicted in these sculptures is a combination of ancient
Greek thought about ethos, Judeo-Christian imagery, and Christian theological assertions.

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Description: A bearded young man, seated, with a lyre (kithara) in a mandorla, the
115

almond-shaped frame; the surrounding Latin text reads TERTIUS IMPINGIT CHRISTUMQUE
RESURGERE FINGIT. That is, “The third [mode] thrusts and represents Christ rising” (Smith
1991:105).

By now, the reader will have grasped the similarity between this depiction and those of
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King David discussed above. The lyre may again be referred to the tradition of spiritualised
meaning, reflected in the writing of St Clement of Alexandria (above). Here is another
allegorical version of the significance of the instrument:

‟This boy [David], even, singing sweetly and manfully to the cithara, restrained the
evil spirit which worked in Saul, not because the virtue of that cithara was so great,
but because the sign of the Cross of Christ, which was mystically carried in the
wood and the extension of the strings, even then quelled the spirit of the demon”
(Gerbert 1784: 10)22.

Here, the material object – a lyre in the hands of King David – has been raised to the
117

level of a theological emblem: its wood suggests the Christian cross and its taut strings
symbolise the figure of Christ stretched out in crucifixion. Thus, an antique instrument
suitable for many musical functions was repurposed as a symbol of Christ’s defeat of the
devil. This again is typology at work – in which the healing of Saul stands for the salvation
of the world, and the details of the instrument for the means of that salvation.

The Epitaph of Seikilos illustrates the task of reconstituting ancient music from the often
118

fragmentary evidence of the notation that has survived.

Example 1.1

Listen to the Epitaph of Seikilos (the notation is transcribed in HWM, 18). A recording is
available as item #1 in the Norton Anthology of Western Music.

Time allocated: 4 minutes

119

One version from a survey of the notated fragments by the Paniagua Ensemble begins
120

“with a sonorous explosion which, in the manner of the Anakrousis or preludes, recreates
the silence necessary to enter in contact with a music as remote and unknown as this”
(Paniagua 1979: 8). These performers prefer to fill gaps in the sources with silence; or by
sometimes joining one fragment to another, “anti-archaeologically”, or with noises and
disconnected chords, “painful and totally dissonant”. All these gestures are meant to
maintain a psychological distance from the sources, as well as mourn the primary loss.

122 This text is taken from Nicetius of Trèves, who flourished c 527–66: De laude et utilitate spiritualium
canticorum. In Gerbert 1784:1:10. Translation by the present author.

18
Reflection: Listen to more than one version of the Epitaph for comparison. Note down
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what you feel are the similarities and the contrasts in these realisations of the notation.
(Might one of them have influenced another?)

Activity 1.7

Watch “The Seikilos Song: the Oldest Complete Song from Ancient
Greece” and a second recording “Ancient Greece: Song of Seikilos”,
available on Youtube. (See Tutorial Letter 101 for instructions.)
The attempt to revitalise ancient music is bound to raise arguments:
even the pronunciation of ancient Greek poetry has been a topic of
long and detailed debate.

Time allocated: 30 minutes

122

1.8 ANOTHER ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION

Scholarship, however diligent, cannot make up for this lack of documentation, even if it
123

now admits that it was in the nature of these early civilizations to dispense with notated
versions, or else to use them in a sketch-like fashion – as an unessential supplement to the
actual complex of words-sounds-movements. It is understandable that various attempts
at reconstitution have met with scepticism, since they always involve imaginative effort.
But it is worth considering whether the Western musical tradition has not found its own
ways to complete and celebrate the remains of ancient culture via its modern creative
works. In particular, the twentieth-century West saw an intense interest in its parent
cultures, and fostered powerful imaginative responses to these “lost worlds”: to their epic
and lyric poetry, their dramas, their myths and rituals – indeed, to ritual itself. Composers
made full use of scholarly information, but did not make the evocation of antiquity a
programme. Rather, with sensitivity to the voices of the distant past, and employing the
stylistic freedoms and diversity of modern (and post-modern) times, they engaged with
materials strongly stamped by ancient concerns.

Some of these creations will be encountered in later modules, but many of them
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remain completely unfamiliar to the broad public. It will suffice here to highlight some
of the notable modern “afterlives” of ancient works.

 Greek drama – Elektra, tragedy in one act by Richard Strauss (composed 1906-8);
Antigone, tragédie musicale by Arthur Honegger (composed 1924–27); Oedipus Rex,
opera-oratorio in two acts by Igor Stravinsky (composed 1926–27; using a text in Latin);
Antigonae, (1940–49), Oedipus der Tyrann, (1951–58) and Prometheus (1963–67), a trilogy
of Greek tragedies by Carl Orff; The Bassarids, opera seria with intermezzo in one act
by Hans Werner Henze (1965); Oedipus, music theatre by Wolfgang Rihm (1986–87).

19 MHS1511/1
 Homeric epic – Ulisse, opera in a prologue and two acts by Luigi Dallapiccola (1960–68);
(interest in Monteverdi’s version of the Odyssey poem was shown by both Dallapiccola
and Henze, each of whom produced his own version of the original 1640 opera Il
ritorno d’Ulisse in patria); King Priam, opera in three acts by Michael Tippett (1958–61,
based on part of Homer’s Iliad).
It must be conceded that the greatest modern recreation of the fall of the city of Troy
is contained within Les Troyens, a grand opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz (composed
1856–58), constituting a high point in romantic opera. However, though the destruction
of the city occupies the first two acts, the story is taken from the Roman poet Virgil,
and elaborates on the escape of Aeneas from Troy, his amorous dalliance with Queen
Dido in Carthage and his founding of Rome, “a new Troy in Italy”. This opera is therefore
inspired by Latin epic.
 Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources – The Epic of Gilgamesh, “neither a cantata nor an
oratorio, simply an Epic”, in the words of the composer Bohuslav Martinů (composed
1954-55); Gilgamesh, opera “in six days and seven nights” by Per Nørgård (1972);
Akhnaten, opera in three acts by Philip Glass (1980-83).
 Biblical sources – Salome, drama in one act by Richard Strauss (1904-5); Moses und Aron,
opera in three acts by Arnold Schoenberg (1930-32); Tehillim (Psalms) by Steve Reich
(1981, sung in the original Hebrew).
 Mythological identification – Oedipe, tragédie lyrique in four acts by George Enescu
(composed 1921-31), the libretto gathering the story of Oedipus’ life from various
sources, including two of Sophocles’ plays; The Mask of Orpheus, lyric tragedy in three
acts by Harrison Birtwistle (1973-75, 1981-84); Medeamaterial, (in spirit a “monodrama”)
by Pascal Dusapin (1991).

Creations from the world of Western dance have also contributed to this proliferation,
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especially as they combine two art forms in a way that antiquity would have considered
quite usual. A key work was Stravinsky’s neo-Baroque score Apollon Musagète (composed
1927, choreographed by George Balanchine in 1928), in which “the Muses ... refine and
civilize Apollo’s childlike, barbarian energies and teach him to behave like a god...” (Homans
2010: 337). The same collaborators produced Orpheus (1948) and Agon (1957), thus creating
a trilogy of Greek-inspired ballets that embodied modern neoclassical aims to perfection.

It is noticeable in reviewing even this limited sample that there are at least two principles
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underlying these works: one tries to purify or idealise creative impulses, the other appeals
to the viewer or listener with a direct, visceral impact. To some extent, these approaches are
reflected in the admiration of white marble sculpture as it has survived from antiquity, and
the contrasting effect, which was widespread among the Greeks, of painting over much of
the stone with a variety of coloured pigments (called polychromatic, “many-coloured”).23

An influential modern idea, stated most clearly by the German philosopher Friedrich
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Nietzsche, also refers to these two “poles”: the Apollonian and Dionysian aspects of
culture. Both Apollo and Dionysus were important Greek deities strongly linked to music
in mythology, and there was indeed a tension between them, but in recent times they
have become cemented as opposing symbols of reason and logic versus the irrational
and the anarchic; of the calm and clearly counted versus the pulsating and messy; of

1 23 Cook 1972:75–76.

20
constructive imagination versus disorderly power, and so on. In Greek music, this contrast
was typified in genres like the paean and ode versus ecstatic Bacchic (Dionysian) hymns
(traditionally the preserve of women) and the utterances of poets who were considered
divinely inspired.

One reason for mentioning these approaches is the need to keep a perspective on cultural
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history, which is often written as if chronology were a “cage”, in which stylistic/aesthetic

and intellectual movements unfold in one direction only (“forward”), without genuine
renascences or “returns”, and only through a sequence of “logical” steps. The usefulness
of breaking down the expanse of the past into periods (as presented in the historical
stages of A History of Western Music) is as a tool that allows comparisons, contrasts and
continuities to be discussed. Its helpfulness cannot be contested. But that should not
blind the observer to the many-layered nature of history itself. Nor should a tradition be
confused with historical perception: much that belongs to “tradition” has been made
to belong to it, by processes and forces of preservation (the conservation of ideas), of
accretion (the growth of ideas), of filtering (the preference for one version over others)
and of exclusion (the removal of contradictions, of factors that conflict with important
themes).

It is part of the work of historical investigation, wherever possible, to uncover these

129

mechanisms by which traditions constitute (and reconstitute) themselves over time, and
to attempt to explain why they do so. The units that follow will take up this challenge.

1.9 REFERENCES
Attwater, Donald. 1983. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints (2d ed). London: Penguin Books.
Blades, James. 1984. Percussion Instruments and their History. London: Faber and Faber.
Braun, Joachim. 2002. Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine: Archaeological, Written and
Comparative Sources. Trans. Douglas W. Scott. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B.
Eerdmans.
Buttrick, G.A. (ed.). 1962–76. Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. 4 vols and suppl. New
York: Abingdon.
Cook, R.M. Greek Art: Its Development, Character and Influence. Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1976 (orig. 1972).
Cox, Simon, and Susan Davies. 2006. An A to Z of Ancient Egypt. Edinburgh: Mainstream
Publishing.
Gaunt, D.M. 1971. Surge and Thunder: Critical Readings in Homer’s Odyssey. London: Oxford
University Press.
Gerbert, Martin. 1784. Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum. 3 vols. St Blasien.
Homans, Jennifer. 2010. Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet. London: Granta.
Manniche, Lise. 1991. Music and Musicians in Ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Press.
Marshall, Kimberly (ed.). 1993. Rediscovering the Muses: Women’s Musical Traditions. Boston:
Northeastern University Press.
McClain, Ernest G. 1978. The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the Song Itself. Lake Worth, FL:
Nicolas Hays.
Meyers, Carol. ‘The Drum-Dance-Song Ensemble: Women’s Performance in Biblical Israel’.
In Marshall 1993:49–67.

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Paniagua, Gregorio. 1979. ‘Musique de la Gréce antique’, booklet notes to the recording
Ancient Greek Music by Atrium Musicae de Madrid directed by Gregorio Paniagua.
Arles: Harmonia Mundi France. [Compact disc recording HMA 1901015].
Perry, Marvin, and Frederick M. Schweitzer. 2002. Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity
to the Present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Price, Simon, and Emily Kearns (eds). 2003. The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and
Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roberts, Alexander, and James Donaldson (eds. and transl.). 1885. The Ante-Nicene Fathers:
The Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325. Vol. 2: Fathers of the Second Century.
Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.
Saggs, HWF. 1984. The Might that was Assyria. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.
Schneider, Peter. 1966. Sweeter than Honey: Christian Presence amid Judaism. London: SCM
Press.
Smith, David. 1991. Historic Case Studies Reflecting Sources of Change in the Theory of Musical
Scales and Modes in the West. PhD dissertation, University of Cape Town.
Werner, Eric. ‘Music’, ‘Musical Instruments’. In Buttrick 1962–76: III, 457–76.

22
Learning Unit 2
The great trunk: Western Christendom confirmed in its
music

PURPOSE

The purpose of learning unit 2 is to introduce you to

 the roots of European Christian societies in the waning Roman empire

 the specific ordering of religious life in monasteries as well as in parishes, and the
types of vocal music that served to empower both spheres
 the historical fate of regional bodies of chant, and the centralising of liturgical music
 the preservation of ecclesiastical chant, in particular through advances in notation,
and its associated theory
 a case study of a medieval female intellectual, mystic and composer

OUTCOMES

After completing this learning unit, you should demonstrate that you are able to

 explain how the church became a guardian of medieval literate culture

 describe in outline the shape and functions of liturgical music in the Western
Church
 chart, with examples, the diversification of chant and its eventual control by
centralised authority
 interpret and locate the types of musical notation developed in succession in
the West
 recognise the claims made for the creativity of special individuals in the Middle
Ages

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING UNIT 2

130 2.1 Introduction
131 2.2 Out of the primitive church
132 2.3 The rhythm of the monastic day
133 2.4 The great sacrifice: the Mass
134 2.5 The fate of variety
135 2.5.1 The division of the failing Roman Empire
136 2.5.2 Growth and restrictions in the central tradition
137 2.5.3 The Carolingian design
138 2.6 Oral transmission, memory and notation; the church modes
139 2.7 Hildegard of Bingen

23 MHS1511/1
 2.1 INTRODUCTION
The study of the repertoire commonly known as Gregorian chant is most often approached
140

from the standpoint of “classical” music studies – what might be called the classic styles
of Western art music. “At school and university, chant is often presented as Chapter One
... in the long story of the History of Western Music” (Hiley 2009:5). This study guide began
with antiquity and the traditions that preceded chant (as we will call it). But what this
learning unit makes clear, is that chant is the very core of the Western tradition. There
are at least two very important reasons for this: first is that chant gave rise to the literate
tradition. The origins and evolution of music notation in the West coalesced around
chant. Second is that every subsequent generation of composers since the ninth century
(at least) have studied and composed music based in some way on chant. We have no
idea what the music of antiquity sounded like, but we do have some idea of what chant
sounded like. Today, the opportunity to experience actual chanted services is quite rare.
The language employed is, aside from the sermon and perhaps some prayers, exclusively
Latin. Unexpectedly, however, chant has seen a remarkable revival of interest in recent
decades, mainly through recordings, some of which have become “headline” items.24

Part of the attraction of these successes has been the obvious need of people living in
141

crowded, fast-moving cities for tranquilising retreats from the stresses of everyday life.
There is also an abiding attraction in “medieval” phenomena and styles, most clearly
expressed in 19th century Gothic novels – fiction that favoured “desolate or remote
settings and macabre, mysterious, or violent incidents”25–and in the 20th century Gothic
youth subculture, which contains a strong musical element. The many albums of chant
recordings released in the past thirty or so years are marked by one feature: they are
mostly in the nature of chant recitals, usually picking substantial independent chants
with special melodic qualities (and avoiding short or straightforward psalm-style chants)
and sometimes assembled as a sample of the seasons and feasts of the church year from
which they are drawn. Seldom does a complete chant service become a “best-seller”,
and even academic surveys (cf. HWM, ch 2 & 3) filter out much of the detailed context of
chanting, or treat selected chants as examples of chant genres. In this learning unit, both
genres and contexts will be addressed.

The parable used by Jesus of Nazareth to teach that from a tiny seed (of faith) a great tree
142

can grow, might have been referring to the Christian church itself. From a corner of the
greater Roman Empire, faith in Jesus the Christ (Gr “anointed one”, from Heb “Messiah”)
and belief in his resurrection from death spread out from Jerusalem and made ground
especially to the north of Palestine and then westwards, as well as south into Egypt, until
by 600 CE the new creed covered much the same area as the empire once had. Nor did

124 The most telling instance was the impact of Chant, a compact disc released in 1994, recorded by the
Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo of Silos (in Spain). The chants had been recorded in 1973 and 1980
to 81, but it was the mid-90s release that sparked the modern chant phenomenon: it sold between 6
and 7 million copies worldwide, and opened up the mass market to dozens of other choirs and groups
thereafter. Before 1980, chant recordings had been a purely specialist interest. The “phenomenon” derives
from the impact the music had on listeners who were not necessarily Christian (or devout in any other
sense), and who were not converted through the experience.
125 See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Gothic

24
the expansion stop there, but it is the centuries of rooting that occupy the first part of
this learning unit.

Activity 2.1

Read the following sections of HWM, chapter 2: The Diffusion of

Christianity; The Judaic Heritage and Music in the Early Church, with
their two source readings (pp 20-23; 24-25)

143 Time allocated: 20 minutes

Like Greek and Roman music, the music of the Jewish “Second Temple” (built as a
144

replacement for the shrine erected under King Solomon’s rule, which stood from c
950 until 586 BCE) and the cantillation of scripture employed in synagogues after the
Babylonian exile of the Jews (after 538 BCE) has no certain survivals in the Middle Ages or
beyond. There are two issues that drive discussion on this theme: the subject of notation
and its interpretation, and its relation to and dependence on memory.

Attempts to uncover the lost music of the Jewish rites have led to efforts aimed at
145

interpreting the system of diacritical marks present in the oldest manuscript versions of
the Hebrew Bible. These accents, indicated beneath the lines of script, are preserved in
the text of that bible known as Masoretic; they were incorporated into copies made from
earlier sources (now lost) by scholars in Tiberias, Palestine and Babylonia during the 7th
to 11th centuries. The accents were diligently copied, even though their significance was
not understood. They were assumed to be punctuation marks, but they have also been
interpreted as cheironomic signals, i.e., indications for “the use movements of the hand to
indicate approximate pitch or melodic contour to singers” (Randel 1986: 157). There were
ancient and widespread systems of such signals, and the fact that Egyptian tomb painting
gives a clear indication of its practice approximately 4 500 years ago, lends support to
the idea that Jewish practice might have drawn on this foundation. 26

The occurrence of cheironomic systems in ancient Indian music (found in treatises that
146

might reach back in time to around 500 BCE), in the special ekphonetic notation of
Byzantine Christian chant starting from the 8th century (CE), and also found in Syrian,
Armenian and Coptic (Egyptian Christian) manuscripts, and the neumes of plainchant
(discussed below) all imply preservation of the repertoire by oral transmission, with strong

126 A fine example is reproduced here: http://www.scribeserver.com/medieval/egypt3.htm.

Since flute players are depicted here, the above definition requires expansion: ‘to singers and
2

instrumentalists’.

25 MHS1511/1
memorising demands.27 Some of this notation or “musical setting” of the texts may refer
to hand gestures. The “Guidonian hand”, a teaching aid developed for training young
singers in the pitching of Western chant (in use by the start of the 12th c), is quite clearly
part of this historic practice.

Activity 2.2

Study the diagram of the Guidonian hand in HWM, chapter 2, figure 2.11,
with the caption explaining how pitches were mapped on the joints of
the fingers.

Time allocated: 5 minutes

147

If the Masoretic system of accents actually points to the musical realisation, it remains
148

to be decided whether these diacritical marks refer, in the performing sense, to melodic
formulas applicable in each phrase, or to more specific aspects like separate pitches. It is
a tantalising prospect to believe that centuries-old indications can again be deciphered
and the music communicated in something like its original form. Obviously, the results
of attempts at reconstruction are conjectures, when they are not frankly experimental;
those most readily available are mainly the work of a French composer, organist and
musicologist, Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura (1912–2000), whose view of the textual pointers led
her to propose melodic interpretations that are diatonic: with simple accompaniments
on a harp, the Psalms of David (and sections of other Hebrew scriptures) have been given
new but controversial breath.28 Esther Lamandier, a specialist in monodic performance
(ancient, medieval and Renaissance), has recorded some psalms and other Hebrew
scriptures according to Haïk-Ventoura’s deciphering. To view the tangible results of this
attempt at reconstruction, see 5 below.

In the absence of certainty around notation, another investigative approach has been via
149

the oral transmission mentioned above. It is assumed that oral traditions, especially of
socially isolated groups, do not change radically with time, though they might produce
elaborations of their historical models as well as regional “dialects”. This preservation of
musical traditions that do not use (or need) complex systems of notation has offered some
suggestive links between past and present practices. In particular, the idea that ancient
practices may still be reflected in oral traditions of the present has attracted researchers.
Another facet of this sort of enquiry involves the reconstruction of instruments as far as

127 A very clear example of Byzantine ekphonetic notation may be seen here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:Prophetologion.jpg. This page is found in a 10th century manuscript belonging to St Catherine’s
Monastery, in the Sinai Desert. The complete codex can be digitally paged through here: https://www.
loc.gov/item/00271070093-ms/. Folio 303, the last page, is famous for its list of ekphonetic signs: https://
www.loc.gov/resource/amedmonastery.00271070093-ms/?sp=315&r=0.136,0.371,0.93,0.358,0
128 Examples of Haïk-Ventura’s transcriptions in modern notation may be accessed here: https://shirhashirim.
org.il/files/Volume%201%20Score.pdf (Note that the file-size is large: 10.6MB.)

26
evidence allows: this offers a means of actualising sound and of weighing the options
that this creates.

In sum, the attempts to trace lines of musical descent depend on complex and scattered
150

evidence. This involves codicology (the study of bound manuscripts, as opposed to scrolls),
but also familiarity with the ancient language(s), a grasp of comparative ethnological
methodology in relation to music, the ability to interpret iconographic survivals – and the
skill and imagination to offer reasonable reconstructions, in the absence of final certainty.

2.2 OUT OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH

The music of the earliest Christian phase remains shrouded in mystery: in some ways,
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these centuries (1–4 CE) are even more silent for us than the ancient Greek traditions,
because nothing datable has been preserved in a notation that can be decoded. The
assumption is that there was no notation, that songs of the early church – attested to
by the references and quotations in the New Testament and other documents of the
time – can no longer be recovered as music. It is only when the surviving documents of
notated chant, beginning from the 8th and 9th centuries, can be related back to much
earlier practices that we can sense the longevity of certain traditions.

The meetings of Jesus’ disciples, with readings, prayers and song, and agape meals, is
152

the first layer in the complex evolution of public Christian worship. At an early stage, the
services were formalised in two parts, the first part being the Mass of the Catechumens
(including those under instruction in preparation for baptism) and then the Mass of the
Faithful (only for those already baptised, the catechumens having left the service). This
division is still reflected in the liturgical arrangement of Catholic and other churches in
the main sections of the later Mass, that is, the Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist (or
Communion). The effect of music, and of chant in particular, is to bind these together,
creating a unified act of worship with a definite shape and tone.

An important division among the early “believers” was to become built into the long
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history of the Christian West: on one hand, especially devout followers who separated
themselves from the world at large in order to pursue prayer and other disciplines without
distraction or interruption, and on the other the leaders (clergy) and lay people whose
lives were led in the great urban centres of the Hellenistic world. It is not inaccurate to
call this a divide between “desert Christianity” (which was where many devotees typically
withdrew, especially in Egypt and the Levant) and the Christianity of the cities. This was
the basis of the distinction which still holds, between the monastic or conventual life of
those who enter a religious order (men and women separately), and the life of “ordinary”
Christians centred on a cathedral or a parish church under its administration.

Since monastic life played a crucial role in establishing part of the vast number of chants,
154

it is of benefit to trace the roots of monasticism as reflected in the “Rule” (Latin, regula)
drawn up by Benedict of Nursia (c 480–550 CE).

27 MHS1511/1
 Activity 2.3

Read from the Rule of St Benedict, SSR2, #17

Time allocated: 10 minutes

155

McKinnon has summarised the importance of this text, drawn up about 540, as arguably
156

“the single most influential document written in the Middle Ages” (Strunk 1998:159). The
qualities of the writing, which comprises “a taut, inclusive, and individual directory of
the spiritual as well as of the administrative life of a monastery” (CODCC 1977: 57), are its
“clarity and reasonableness”. One must bear in mind that it was written for a group of
men, mostly lay people, and that Benedict himself seems never to have been ordained
as a priest or even to have thought to found a monastic order. McKinnon is thus thinking
also of its history, from these “obscure origins” to its high institutionalisation in the early
Middle Ages, as the universally observed monastic “constitution” or discipline of the West
during the Carolingian period.

Activity 2.4

Read The Office, HWM, pp 46 to 47.

157 Time allocated: 5 minutes

Note that the Office (sometimes called Divine Office) here signifies neither a place of
158

work nor an official position, but the daily cycle of religious services observed by monks
and nuns of the Middle Ages. This meaning derives from the old Latin word officium =
“service”, “duty”, “ceremony”.

The seven canonical “hours” of the day and the Night Office are based on the Roman
159

division of the day into twelve equal parts (from sunrise to sunset), as also of the night
(sunset to sunrise). Obviously, it was only on the equinoxes (25 March and 24 September)
that these divisions contained sixty minutes each. In the northern hemisphere between 25
March and 24 September, each of the daylight divisions (called horae in Latin, whence the
modern word “hours”) lasted longer than sixty minutes, while each night division lasted
less. Conversely, during the following six months, the night “hours” lasted longer than
sixty minutes, and the day “hours” less. These were the results of living by the sun; in this

28
respect, the life of Monte Cassino in central Italy, where Benedict located his community,
was no different from that of the peasantry among whom his followers lived.

Benedict’s rule took these calendrical discrepancies into account, as he was concerned
160

that the monks should get proper sleep: nine uninterrupted hours in winter, but only five
during the shortest summer nights, with the addition of the siesta, a midday or afternoon
nap taken in the hot weather.29

The approximate horarium or daily schedule which gave shape to the liturgy known as
161

Divine Office was:30

Midsummer (mid-June) Midwinter (late December)

Rising 1 am 2.30 am
Vigils or mattins (Night Duration 1½ hours, followed by reading when time
Office) allowed
Lauds 2.15 am 5.45 am
Working time – divided by communal recitation of short prayers, as follows:
Terce (third hour) Around daybreak
Sext (sixth hour) Around midday (11 am or later)
None (ninth hour) Mid-afternoon (2 pm or later)
Working ceased 2.30 pm 2.30 pm
Meals 1st around noon; 2nd around 1 only at 2.40 pm
7 pm
Vespers Before 2nd meal Around 4 pm
Compline Marking the end of the day
Sleeping Before 8 pm 5 pm

2.3 THE RHYTHM OF THE MONASTIC DAY

The monks thus spent 3½ to 4 hours daily at services, about the same duration in private
162

prayer or reading, and 6 to 8 hours – depending on the season – occupied with manual
labour. The group recitation of the Office – what Benedict called Opus Dei (‘God’s work’) –
was central to monastic life. It is notable that during his rule the Mass was not celebrated
daily, though it is considered the defining rite of the Christian church. Apparently, Benedict
was hesitant to admit priests to his community. (Only they were authorised to celebrate
Communion.) In other respects, too – in its buildings and provisions, and in terms of its
economy – the community was very much a self-sufficient institution.

163 The chief services of the Day Office were Lauds, Vespers and Compline.

129 The word siesta is Spanish, from sexta hora, “sixth hour”.
130 Table based on Décarreaux (1964): 224-26, who drew on a major history by D. Schmitz (Histoire de l’Ordre
de Saint Benoît, 1942–47).

29 MHS1511/1
Note that important parts of the Office (as also of the Mass) are identified by their initial
164

Latin word or phrase. Thus, Benedictus (= “Blessed [be the Lord]”) is the start of a song
of thanksgiving uttered by Zacharias for the birth of John the Baptist in the Gospel of
Luke 1.68–79. It was used in Lauds with a more general application. For other such Latin
“titles”, see the notes immediately following.

Lauds – the traditional morning prayer of the Western church, and one of the oldest parts
165

of the Office, traceable to apostolic times (the earliest period in the history of the Church).
It comprised four psalms with antiphons, a canticle, a scripture reading, a hymn (a later
addition, though pre-dating Benedict), versicle, Benedictus with antiphon, the psalms 148
to150 (in which the word Laudate, ie, “Praise [God]” occurs frequently and gives the office
its name), and concluding prayer. The appointed psalms include references to dawn, and
the theme of Christ’s resurrection is underlined.

Vespers – the Evening Office, of great antiquity, and along with Lauds the most important
166

of the Day Offices. In its present form, it consists of a hymn, two psalms, a New Testament
canticle, a short lesson from scripture, a short responsory, the Magnificat (or Mary’s Song
of Praise, Gospel of Luke 1: 46–55, whose English translation begins “My soul doth magnify
the Lord”) with antiphons and prayers.

Compline – usually consisting of an evening hymn, psalms and the Nunc Dimittis (or
167

Song of Simeon, Gospel of Luke 2: 29–32, that begins “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace”).

Mattins – the Night Office, consisting principally of a hymn, psalms, scripture lessons, the
168

Te Deum and a collect. The Te Deum is a Latin hymn to the Father and the Son, and begins
(in English) “We praise thee, O God”. A collect is a short prayer with a specific structure
consisting of an invocation, a petition and a pleading of Christ’s name.

The “Little Hours” of the day (Terce, Sext, None) consisted of a hymn, three psalms (or one
169

psalm divided into three parts) with antiphons, a short scripture reading, a responsory
and a concluding prayer.

It is important to note that every part of the Office was sung, the psalms to simple chants,
170

the hymns and canticles to more elaborate melodies. The dominance of the psalms arises
partly from their origin as songs and prayers composed for temple worship, and partly
to allow for the cantillation of all 150 psalms in the course of a week.

Optional Listening

Listen to the Latin service of monastic compline31

131 If you prefer to follow the parallel Latin-English text in a separate window, go to http://divinumofficium.com/
cgi-bin/horas/Pofficium.pl?date1=3-18-2018&command=prayCompletorium&version=pre%20Trident%20
Monastic&testmode=regular&lang2=English&votive=

30
 Time allocated: 20 minutes
171

The office unfolds in an unhurried fashion, although without unnecessary pauses. The
172

psalms are appropriate to the office, since they mention night, darkness, sleep, etc. (Psalm
4:8; 90 (91):5;133 [134]:2).32 The syllabic chanting is typical of psalmody generally. Instead
of the Nunc Dimittis, the canticle is replaced by Salve, Regina (“Hail, Holy Queen”), the text
of which is placed at the end of the office. This substitution was quite common. The Salve
is one of the oldest antiphons addressed to the Virgin Mary. Its authorship is unknown;
the earliest manuscript evidence usually dates it to the end of the 11th century.33

There have been many changes in the monastic routine in the course of time,
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especially in recent decades. Thus, a contemporary Benedictine abbey (as in the case of
Münsterschwarzach in Germany) would follow the broad outline of the horarium above,
but dispense with the shorter prayers:

The monks rise at 4.40 a.m. with Morning Prayer starting at 5.05 a.m. After this
there is time for meditation. Conventual Mass starts at 6.15 a.m. and is followed by
breakfast in the refectory.
The morning is dedicated to the work assigned to each monk. At midday everyone
gathers for prayer (12.00 noon). After lunch and a short period of rest work continues
until 5.00 p.m.
Vespers is sung at 6.00 p.m. with supper following at 6.40 p.m. After a period of
recreation Compline follows at 7.35 pm. Afterwards the Great Silence starts and is
observed until after morning prayers.34

2.4 THE GREAT SACRIFICE: THE MASS

The previous sections concerned the emergence of religious communities and their
174

liturgical observances. Now the focus moves to the central act of Christian worship: the
eucharist (Greek, “thanksgiving”). From a very early stage, it was a regular feature of
Christian gatherings. The doctrine concerning the Holy Communion (or Lord’s Supper, or
Mass) has been developed – and debated – down the subsequent centuries: how elements
of bread and wine “become” the Body and Blood of Jesus, and how his sacrificial death
and its benefits are reenacted and communicated in every Mass.

132 The Book of Psalms is numbered differently in Catholic and Protestant bibles. The Protestant version
divides Ps 9 in two, making it Pss 9 & 10. Pss 146 & 147 are combined. So all the psalms between Ps 9 and
Ps 147 differ by one from the Catholic system. The numbering used in these units refers to the Catholic
arrangement, with the Protestant numbering given in brackets.
133 For notation: http://www.institute-christ-king.org/uploads/music/benediction/SalveRegina_A176_alt.pdf
134 See https://english.abtei-muensterschwarzach.de/community

31 MHS1511/1
 Activity 2.5

Read HWM, pp 42 to 46, The Roman Liturgy, along with Music in Context:
The Experience of the Mass.

175 Time allocated: 20 minutes

No description of music (whether it be liturgical or otherwise) can equate to the experience

176

of actually hearing or performing it. This is especially true of chant, which gives a superficial
impression of being homogenous and, though allied with texts of great variety, of being
marked by a serene detachment. It is the very opposite of the passionately engaged
music that characterises much contemporary Christian devotion, not to mention the
broad output of Western music in the past three centuries.

The most significant change in this historical transformation is the abandoning of the
177

Latin language as the common tongue of educated society in Europe, and a symbol of
a thoroughly centralised church, emerging from and controlled by “Rome”, that is, the
papacy and the supporting institutions of the Vatican. The preference for vernacular
languages was a feature of movements associated with the 15th-century renaissance of
learning – ironically, since the Renaissance also prompted a profound admiration for Latin
and Greek thought and style. But the departure from Latin as the language of Christian
devotion became urgent in those reforming measures that split the Western church in the
16th century and began the drastic splintering of a common faith into denominational
“camps”, a sign that much more than simply language was at stake.

The Catholic Church, which was deeply conservative in this matter, nonetheless also
178

experienced the pressure to serve its adherents in their own languages: by the mid-
twentieth century the claims of national churches and linguistic areas had become
irresistible, and only monasteries and small pockets with traditionalist loyalties survived the
effects of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Latin and Latinity, that is, the intentional
cultivation of the language in the liturgy (and secondarily in theological and church-
administrative discourse), was indissolubly linked with chant. The withdrawal from one
meant the muting of the other.

Attempts were made to salvage the spirit of chant by the composition of new melodic
179

formulas for the psalms; they include the influential work of Joseph Gelineau (1920–2008), a
Jesuit priest whose setting of psalms in French in the 1950s benefitted from the imminent
re-evaluation of the Roman liturgy at the council.35

In one respect, his work reflects a greater fidelity to the ancient Hebrew texts than does
180

the Vulgate, the authorised Latin translation of the Bible: the translations used for his
settings (first in French, then in English) reproduce both the parallelism of the original

135 Gelineau was one of the liturgical advisors to the Concilium.

32
poetry, and its metrical structure: the concern is with the stresses in a line rather than
the number of syllables. In this example from Psalm 53 (54), the “pointing” in the text
indicates the rhythmic stresses in the lines:

1. O Gód, sáve me by your náme,

by your pówer, uphóld my cáuse .
181

2. O Gód, héar my práyer;

lísten to the wórds of my móuth .
182

But Gelineau’s approach also exhibited modern musical habits: these settings use fully
183

harmonised cantillation, which requires an organ accompaniment, and are written in

clear diatonic tonality. The daily use of chant in its historically authorised form (see HWM,
ch 2, Solesmes Chant Notation in the section The Development of Notation) is limited
to monastic choirs. Besides the monks of Solesmes and of Santo Domingo de Silos (see
footnote 1), monasteries such as Maria Einsiedeln in Switzerland (another Benedictine
abbey) also maintain strong chant traditions. The choir of Heiligenkreuz [Holy Cross]
Monastery in Austria has also made a recent impact.

Activity 2.6

Read Characteristics of Chant and Genres and Forms of Chant (HWM,

pp 47–56)

Time allocated: 25 minutes

184

The above readings encompass a vast body of chants. The differences among chant
185

types, the changes occurring in them over time, and the optional ways of performing the
sections and subsections (responsorially, antiphonally, or by a soloist alone) all underline
the functional nature of this repertoire. The demands of the church calendar and the
differing resources of congregations further complicate the picture. To cite just one
example: the antiphon Salve Regina mentioned earlier became so integral and popular a
part of devotion to the Virgin Mary that two musical settings now exist – one for monastic
choirs (see footnote 10) and a separate tonus simplex, more suitable for congregational use.

By hearing and following some of the chants specified for the Mass of Christmas Day, it is
186

possible to appreciate more easily their structural qualities and their place in the mass as
a whole. All of the chants sung by the choir in this festive mass are assembled in NAWM
vol. 1, #3 (a) to (k) (including notation, full texts and translations). The following analytical
notes concentrate on chants that are available in notation in the previous reading (in
HWM), but all are easily available through internet links that include visuals of the notation,
usually in the Solesmes edition.

33 MHS1511/1
As in the case of the Office, the most prominent parts of the mass are designated by
187

Latin words that either

a. indicate their function, for instance, Introitus, “entry”, the initial part of the service;
gradual (from gradus, “step”), antiphons sung after the epistle reading, so named
because they were originally sung on the step of the altar; offertory, sung at the
offering of the bread and wine for consecration
or
188

b. use their initial word, for example, Kyrie (Greek, “Lord”) which introduces a prayer
for divine mercy; Gloria (“Glory [to God on high]”), an old Latin hymn; Credo (Latin, “I
believe”), which begins the summary of Christian faith known as the Nicene Creed.

The examples begin with two chants from the Vespers of Christmas Day. In the case of
189

principal feasts like Christmas or Easter, the Vespers service of the day is also sung at
sunset on the previous day. Hence, the office on Christmas Day itself is called “second
Vespers of the feast of the Nativity of our Lord”.

Listen

Listen to the chants itemised in the following five examples. The notation is included in
HWM as indicated, except for the fifth example which appears in NAWM #3 (c).

Time allocated: 20 minutes

190

Example 2.1

Listen to Office psalm, “Dixit Dominus”, Psalm 109 (110) (example 3.1). This is a very clear
example of how a psalm is chanted in the office of Vespers (evening service) on Christmas
Day. The psalm is preceded by the singing of an antiphon (“Tecum principium”; example
3.2) that outlines mode 1, stressing D (the final), A (the tenor or reciting tone) and F. The
matching psalm tone for mode 1 is then applied to all the verses of the psalm. The termi-
nation of the psalm tone is indicated at the end of the antiphon, to be used for the words
“saeculorum. Amen” (written as vowels only: E u o u a e), as this provides the preferred
tonal link back to the repeat of the antiphon.

Example 2.2

Listen to the hymn “Christe Redemptor omnium” (HWM, ex 3.3; for the full text of the
hymn, see NAWM #4 [b])
From the same service of Vespers, the office hymn “Christe Redemptor omnium” (whose
text is dated to the 6th c) shows an archetypal melodic curve. The first line of melody is
a small rise-and-fall, while the second rises through an octave, and the third brings the

34
melodic direction steadily downwards again. The fourth line repeats the melody of the
first. The structure of the chant reflects something of the regularity of a typical hymn text:
the seven strophes (stanzas or verses) consist of four lines, each line having eight syllables.
The word stresses here are, however, not regular and rhyme is slight. Each strophe repeats
the same melody. Strophes 2 and 3 (there are 7 in all) are included in many recordings:
Strophe 2
Tu lumen, tu splendor Patris, You, the light; you, the Father’s splendour;
Tu spes perennis omnium: you, the everlasting hope of all:
Intende, quas fundant preces. hear the prayers poured forth
Tui per orbem famuli. by your servants throughout the world.
Strophe 3
Memento, salutis Auctor, Author of salvation, consider
Quod nostri quondam corporis, that formerly you were born
Ex illibata Virgine from an inviolate Virgin:
Nascendo, formam sumpseris. coming forth, you assumed our form
The changes that Pope Urban VIII authorised in the text of this hymn in the Roman Bre-
viary of 1632 illustrate the concern that arose among Renaissance intellectuals, with their
exposure to ancient Latin literary style, about the “weaknesses” of medieval Latin writing.
Strophe 1 – Original text compared with 1632 rewriting
CHRISTE, Redemptor omnium, Iesu, Redemptor omnium
ex Patre, Patris unice, quem lucis ante originem
solus ante principium parem Paternae gloriae
natus ineffabiliter, Pater supremus edidit.
Position of stressed syllables: In strophe 1, the original text has some stressed initial
syllables (sólus, nátus) that disturb the regular flow of iambic rhythm (sō-lŭs ān-tĕ prĭn-
cī-pĭ-ūm [—˘ —˘ ˘ – ˘ –]),
and are replaced by the smoothly regular ‘pă-rēm Pă-tēr-năe glō-rĭ-āe’ [ ˘ – ˘ – ˘ – ˘ –].
Vocabulary: ineffabilis is not classical Latin, but occurs in the 7th to 9th century. The choice
of Iesu, a Latin form, might have been preferred to the Greek form Christe.
The following two chants, drawn from the Mass itself, are part of the Proper, that is,
chants specific to this feast: ‟Viderunt omnes” and Alleluia ‟Dies sanctificatus”. (Examples
2.3 and 2.4)

Example 2.3

Communion “Viderunt omnes” (HWM, ex 3.4)

Sung by the choir while the elements of the eucharist were distributed, this chant origi-
nally consisted of a psalm with antiphon. When during the late medieval period the
chant was sung after the partaking of bread and wine, a much shorter piece of music
sufficed. The psalm was omitted, leaving just the antiphon. The melody here is hard to
define: it contains a variety of patterns, and exhibits the greater elaboration of mass an-
tiphons compared with those of the Office. Go back to “Tecum principium” in example
2.1 to observe this marked contrast.

35 MHS1511/1
 Example 2.4

Alleluia “Dies sanctificatus” (HWM, ex 3.5)

The constituent parts of the Alleluia are noted in the textbook:

 the responsorial setting of the praise word; intoned by the cantor, the choir entering
at the asterisk * with the jubilus, a lengthy, melismatic extension sung on –a, “word-
less praise”; the Alleluia repeated chorally;
 the psalm verse, always sung by a soloist; this allows for a complex chant that mixes
reciting tones (F and D) with melismas; again, the choir enters at * for the final phrase;
note the near repetition of a rise-and-fall figure on “Dí-es” and “qu-ia hó-di-e”
 the Alleluia is repeated chorally
The melody is assigned to mode 2, its final on d, its range (Latin, ambitus) from a to a’.

Example 2.5

Gloria (NAWM, #3(c))

The following chant is drawn from the Ordinary, the unchanging texts found right across
the mass services. (Note that the Gloria is exceptional, since it is sung only on Sundays
and feast days, and is omitted from the liturgy during the seasons of Advent and Lent,
both of which are regarded as preparatory and penitential periods before the feasts of
Christmas and Easter respectively.)
This, with the Credo, is a comparatively long text. It leans towards a syllabic treatment,
but has room for expansions on keywords: “Deus Pater omnipotens”, “Jesu Christe” (twice)
and “Sancto Spiritu” all use the same melodic idea, ensuring that the three Persons of the
Trinity are identified. Neumes also occur at certain closures (“Glorificámus te”, the last of
a fourfold acclamation; the first “Patris” at the end of the “Domine” addresses). Helping
to further integrate the music is a pattern (with pitches: F-D-C-D-E-E) that recurs, with
minimal variation, at the following points in the text:
bónae voluntátis
ágimus tíbi
Dómine Déus (x2)
Dómine Fíli
peccáta múndi (x2)
sólus Altíssimus
The Credo and Gloria are the only chants initiated by the celebrant (the presiding priest)
rather than the cantor.
The Gloria is followed immediately by the Collect (a prayer) and the Epistle, a reading from
one of the letters of the New Testament. Both are vocalised using very simple formulas.

2.5 THE FATE OF VARIETY

The abundance of chant material tests not only the comprehension of the serious student:
191

in this profusion of music, there are trends in its proliferation as well as in its control

36
(pruning) that go beyond simple “bureaucratic” measures. One involves the problem of
geographic and other divisions of the Western church, and the phenomenon of chant
“dialects”.

Activity 2.7

Read Divisions in the Church and Dialects of Chant (HWM, pp 23–28)

Time allocated: 15 minutes

192

193 Two dynamics are being dealt with here:

a. the gradual separation of the eastern and western branches of the church, until
their unity was decisively breached, along with missionary expansion northwards
and westwards, and the growth of regional traditions
b. the critical moment in the late 700s when a royal dynasty in France (then called Gaul)
began an aggressive programme of subjugation and incorporation of surrounding
territories, helped by an alliance with Rome.

It is not inaccurate to label the first of these a history of cultural expansion and diversification,
194

and the second (lasting not even half the duration of the former) a drive for political
centralisation, authoritarianism and imperialism. As usual, generalisations about history,
like these, overstate the case both ways. The processes are always mixed, and the values
by which we judge them will change, too. But if they are applied with discretion, these
themes can serve as a fruitful backdrop to the remaining sections of this unit.

2.5.1 The division of the failing Roman Empire

Technically speaking, Gregorian chant is a musical dialect, one “language” variant
195

among others that share a similar basis in liturgy and style (all are vocal – monophonic –
unaccompanied). But there are dangers in borrowing the linguistic term “dialect” like this:

Traditionally … dialects have been regarded as socially lower than a ‘proper’ form
of the language (often represented as the language itself). … Such a variety [i.e.,
the authoritative form] also has regional roots, but because it developed into the
official and educated usage … it tends to be seen as non-regional, often as supra-
regional, and therefore not a dialect as such.36

This closely fits the relation of the Roman liturgy to its Western “offspring” in Gaul (the
196

French-speaking area of the ancient Roman Empire), Iberia (Spain and Portugal), Britain,
and to a lesser degree and on a far smaller scale, in Milan, the capital of the Western

136 OCEL 1992:290.

37 MHS1511/1
emperors and the seat of the Kings of Lombardy (568–744). The city was famous for a
chant type named after Ambrose, who was bishop there from 374 to 397.

In the same way that a claim was made for this regional style by naming it after this
197

illustrious Doctor of the Church (though with little evidence for his direct contribution
besides the texts of a few hymns), so the Roman form was elevated through association
with a famous pope, Gregory the Great (served 590–604), who is traditionally depicted
receiving his inspiration from the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. There can surely be
no greater claim to authority than that.

A tenacious tradition developed after Gregory I (“the Great”), and may even involve a
198

historic confusion with Gregory II (the pope from 715 to 731). Gregory the Great is justly
admired for his personal qualities as reflected in his writings and pastoral projects, and
in sending out missionaries whom he advised “were not to impose Roman usages [in
liturgical matters and moral norms] merely because they were Roman, but to choose
what seemed best from whatever source, Roman or non-Roman”. (Markus 1997: 55) This
respect for diversity turned out to be one of his values that was mostly discarded in later
ecclesiastical history. It also singled him out from a number of his papal predecessors.

Gregory I is recognised for despatching Augustine (of Canterbury) to England with the goal
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of converting the Anglo-Saxon population. In this, he was successful: in a short time, he

saw Christianity adopted by Ethelbert, King of Kent (whose wife was already a Christian).
But Augustine also met with resistance from an already existing church generally called
“Celtic” today, which strongly identifies it with Ireland, but which also included Anglo-
Saxons as well as people in Wales and Bretagne (in western France), and which had
persisted for centuries. Today, the delicate artistry and the companionable spirituality of
the Celtic tradition is widely admired and imitated, but the pope’s envoy was seeking its
conformity to Roman usages; not surprisingly, this met with resistance, and it was only
gradually that the church in Britain submitted itself to Rome. No music from this source
has survived, but its liturgy was so highly developed that it is unthinkable that it had no
achievements in chant.

This gradual subjection of the Celtic church – which illustrates a complete cycle of
200

diversification and incorporation – may be contrasted with the sudden rupture of 1085,
when the Muslim rulers of the caliphate in Spain lost the city of Toledo to advancing
Christian forces from the north. Toledo Cathedral had long been a vital centre of church
administration in Iberia, serving those Christians who had lived under Muslim rule (the
strict meaning of “Mozarabe”) for three centuries, but whose church traditions actually
stretched back to the pre-Islamic reign of the Visigothic kings ( 5th–8th centuries). It is
only to be expected that a chant tradition that might have had roots quite as far back in
time as the Roman rite (5th c) would have grown to maturity, and by the 11th century had
begun to be copied in manuscripts with neumatic musical notation. Suddenly, the long-
anticipated reversion of power to Christian rulers in central Spain brought the imposition
of the Roman liturgy and the outlawing of the so-called Mozarabic (or Early Spanish) chant.

It is worth describing how this happened, for it was only one part of a wholesale
201

transformation under the new Castilian monarch. He – Alfonso VI – had struck a pose
of tolerance after taking the city of Toledo, calling himself “Emperor of Spain and of the

38
Two Faiths”, the population at this time being an amalgam of Christians and Muslims (as
well as Jews). But to the immigrants flooding south into Spain from southern France, this
must have seemed an incomprehensible attitude.

Evidence of [increasing French cultural pressures] is to be seen in the expansion of

Cluniac foundations in the [Iberian] Peninsula,37 the appointment of French bishops
to Spanish sees … and the introduction of the new Roman liturgy in place of the
old Spanish Mozarabic rite. In documents and books the old Visigothic script was
replaced by the French Carolingian hand. In buildings a new style of architecture –
Romanesque – appeared… (Tate 1973:74)

The switch from a regional elaboration to centralised dominance – in a word, “Romanisation”

202

with Frankish assistance – could not be clearer.

Example 2.6

Listen to the Psalm “Beatus vir” as recreated from 15th-century manuscripts of Toledo
Cathedral.

203 Time allocated: 4 minutes

The performers attempt to reflect the Mozarabic features of this chant: the timbre is
204

strikingly forward projected rather than contemplative, and the melodic contours are
inflected with slides and ornaments that suggest Arabic performing style. The rhythm,
which is always a matter for debate in chant, is here given a stabilised pulse, to which
the melismas must be fitted.

While it is unjust to attribute the extinguishing of the Old Spanish liturgy and its culture
205

purely to foreign influence – brutal times lay ahead for Muslims and Jews at the hands of
Spaniards themselves, culminating in their forced conversion or physical expulsion from
Spain (1492) – it is also important to acknowledge musical evidence for more peaceable
attitudes at these interfaces.

Activity 2.8

Read Cantigas and Medieval Instruments (HWM, pp 76–78).

137 The monastic foundation of Cluny in Burgundy (France) “founded 910, was of major importance in the
original formation and transmission of the Gregorian repertory” (Fassler 2014a:110). Sculpture from Cluny
has been referred to in the previous unit.

39 MHS1511/1
 206 Time allocated: 5 minutes

Example 2.7

Listen to Cantiga 159, “Non sofre Santa Maria” (NAWM #12).

Time allocated: 3 minutes

207

The textbook’s reference to the cantigas as “one of the treasures of medieval song” – not
208

part of the liturgy but very much part of the medieval cult of devotion to Saint Mary –
requires a brief context. In the early decades (7th c) of the new faith called Islam, when
Arab armies sped across North Africa and in 711 crossed the Straits of Gibraltar into Iberia
(the ancient Greek name for this peninsula), their conquests took them deep into what are
now Spain and Portugal, and even into the southern part of France. Partially driven back,
they occupied large parts of Iberia and established a caliphate in the city of Córdoba with
a rich court life. Christians and Sephardic Jews also lived in this culture, either through
religious toleration or by converting to Islam. The resultant “balance” and common culture
is called convivencia. But political forces from the north gradually uprooted and displaced
this in a process of reconquista (reconquest, as described above).

The Cantigas de Santa Maria are an important source of medieval monodic song. The
209

music is preserved in a collection commissioned by a Christian king of north-west Spain,

Alfonso X, whose reign (1252–1284) was marked by a period of delicate balance between
Christians and Muslims. By the time of this collection of songs inspired by Saint Mary,
Spanish Christians had pinned back the Muslims in the southern Kingdom of Granada.
From this position of ascendancy, they were glad to absorb what they could from Islamic
art, liberal and natural sciences, and technology. Many Arabs lived under Christian rule,
accomplished in architecture, astronomy, botany, medicine, and music.38 Alfonso attempted
to bridge language barriers, and his choice of Galician (an early form of Portuguese) for
these songs was deliberate. The language represented not just the north-western territory
of Spain, in which the tomb of St James of Compostela was a famous centre of religious
pilgrimage, but also Christian resistance to Islam, even militancy; furthermore, the region
had a tradition of cancionieros, songbooks compiled by Galician minstrels, so there was
a musical context for it as well.39

138 This population was described as mudejar (from Arabic mudajjan, “permitted to remain”), that is, any
Muslim who remained in Spain after the Reconquista.
139 For a description of the cantigas sources, consult Fassler (2014a: 163–65), and listen to her selection
(Fassler 2014b: No. 24), “Rosa das rosas”.

40
Here the point must be made that, while the pitches of the cantigas are easy to transcribe,
210

the rhythms are not notated. This leads to a wide variety of interpretation in performance.
Also, instruments are often added (see the source illustrations in HWM, fig 4.10); the note
on Medieval Instruments mentions the importation of a variety of them into Spain from
Asian cultures, chiefly Byzantine and Arabic. The desire to reflect Arabic influences has
thus also shaped performance styles.40

2.5.2 Growth and restrictions in the central tradition

This repertoire is the cue to examine more closely the manner in which, within the
211

Frankish-Romano chant tradition, new creations were accommodated once the calendrical
cycle of chants had been completed. The clearest way of viewing the continued desire
for new compositions is by considering two types of chant that grew up alongside the
stipulated forms studied earlier in the unit.

Activity 2.9

Read HWM, pp 56–60, Additions to the Authorized Chants with the Source
Reading on Notker Balbulus.

Time allocated: 15 minutes

212

The most remarkable thing about the medieval sequence – the product of several
213

centuries – is the way in which the Catholic Reformation, expressing itself through the
Council of Trent (1545– 1563; see HWM, ch 11, Catholic Church Music) cut down this very
popular outgrowth of the liturgy, leaving a mere four examples, one each for Easter,
Pentecost, Corpus Christi and All Souls/Masses for the Dead. Only one of the hundreds
of sequences that were suppressed in the Missal of Pius V (1570) was later readmitted to
the liturgy: the “Stabat Mater” was restored in 1727 in connection with the Feast of Our
Lady of Sorrows.

Example 2.8

Listen to the sequence “Veni Sancte Spiritus” (for Pentecost)

214 Time allocated: 3 minutes

140 A scholarly approach that recognises Arabic factors informs the recording of five cantigas by the Medieval
Ensemble of the Schola Cantorum (Basle), on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi GD77242.

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At the same time, tropes were removed in their entirety. It is true that, unlike sequences,
215

they had flourished mainly between the 9th and 12th centuries; but then their inspiration
started to dry up. As discussed below (see 2.7, Hildegard of Bingen), one aspect of troping
– which may be summarised as the adding of narrative or interpretive texts (and melodies)
to official chants, that is, often glossing and elaborating the words of scripture – was taken
up into liturgical dramas and exploited there. This is the element of dialogue. But equally
important in medieval culture was an intense interest in hermeneutics, the philosophical
basis for textual interpretation, dominated again by the words of the Bible and other
discourses of high status. This interest in “unpacking” authoritative texts was expressed
at first in marginal jottings in manuscripts, but with time it became a formalised practice
and the chants thus produced were collected in troparia. These books have attracted
the attention of musicologists because they contain some of the oldest Western musical
notation. But intellectual fashions in the church changed; the 12th century saw the rise of
scholasticism, a major shift from earlier medieval thought. In addition, monastic orders
such as the Cistercians tried to simplify their liturgical practices, in line (so they believed)
with the simplicity of early Benedictine attitudes. The profusion of chant thus had to be
reined in, and cut back. Tropes declined, and the Council of Trent simply pronounced
their formal death sentence.

Example 2.9

Listen to the Tropes on Puer Natus: Quem queritis in presepe and Melisma. The notation
and text are available in NAWM, #5(a)

Time allocated: 4 minutes

216

This trope, which is preserved as an introduction to the Introit chant Puer natus (see
217

NAWM, #3[a]), consists of a dialogue between midwives and shepherds (distinguished by

higher and lower voices) on the identity of the infant Christ. All voices join in the antiphon
itself, before the troping continues in the form of a long, wordless melisma (starting at
2’ 50” in the video).

2.5.3 The Carolingian design

To conclude this section of the unit, it is necessary to backtrack in time to the Carolingian
218

period, a stretch of approximately 200 years after 750. It is in this orbit that Gregorian chant,
as a coherent tradition and the preferred vehicle of the Roman liturgy, came into its own;
it was also the period in which musical notation began to attach itself to the liturgical
texts (see below). The historical question is: did chant rise to this eminence through its
inherent qualities, its cultural weight and distinction? Or did other factors, less attractive
than these, weigh in?

42
There can be no doubt that the social programme of Charlemagne (742–814; he ruled
219

from 771 to his death) included educational and church reforms, including liturgical ones.41
But it is also very clear that they were yoked to “Christianisation” efforts, and that those
were drivers of imperial ambitions and projects, including the invasion and subjugation
of territories and populations bordering the Frankish kingdom. It is for this reason that
Richard Taruskin (2005:I, 2) has broken sharply with respectful attitudes towards what
is known as the Carolingian “Renaissance”.42 He claims that the political dynasty of the
Franks from Pippin III onwards – 753, the year in which Pope Stephen II crossed the Alps
to seek Frankish military support, is a useful starting-point – was the means of ensuring
the standardisation and spread of the Roman liturgy; but also that the centrality of this
liturgical monophonic music hides the fact that there were various traditions, some of
them antedating that of chant – secular, instrumental and the music of non-Christian
worship – that had to give up their place in intellectual history in favour of Frankish-
Romano practice.

Essentially, this was a merging of chant that had spread from Rome in the preceding
220

centuries with local Gallican (French) practices; it was “sold” as purely Roman and as the
offspring of Pope Gregory I. It was actually the fruit of a deal: the papacy was to recognise
Charlemagne as the “Holy Roman Emperor”, while Frankish forces were to fight off the
pope’s enemies, especially those in Italian territory. Charlemagne obliged in two ways, by
seizing the Kingdom of Lombardy (a long-standing counterweight to Roman power) and
by restoring to the papacy those “states” that had been occupied by Hun and Ostrogoth
invasions. The “papal states” remained safely under Roman control for a further thousand
years, as did the regulation of Gregorian chant.

2.6 ORAL TRANSMISSION, MEMORY AND NOTATION; THE

CHURCH MODES

Activity 2.10

Read HWM, pp 28–33, The Development of Notation.

Time allocated: 20 minutes

221

Because early medieval singers relied on memory as their primary tool in singing chant,
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notation, when it finally appeared in manuscripts, was actually part of a composite

practice, an oral and a reading operation. From the fairly slow development of notational

141 The breadth and detail of his plan was expressed in a document called the AdmoniƟo Generalis of 789.
142 The modern understanding of this cultural period (broadly an approving one) is summarised by one of
its eminent scholars, Rosamond McKitterick, here: http://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/a/a140196.
pdf

43 MHS1511/1
refinements – for example, from the early neumes which may have been linked to hand-
signalling from a cantor to the heighted neumes, which delineated much more clearly
the separate tones and their pitches relative to each other – we must assume that the
system served its purpose. From the vantage point of familiarity with modern printed
music, it is relatively easy – looking back over the historical unfolding of notation (with
all its regional manifestations) – to perceive the stages by which chant melodies were
fixed and disseminated.

Activity 2.11

Examine the comparative table of notational signs in Fassler (2014b: A10) as it appears
in the Appendix of her book; this Medieval Music Primer is available to you separately
as an e-reserve. It contains much useful information for anyone embarking on a study
of medieval chant.

Time allocated: 5 minutes

223

The table (table P1) shows equivalent signs in the early neumatic and the later square
224

notations. Square notation was the form in which the Solesmes editions of the late 19th
century received the official endorsement of the Catholic Church (1903); its four-line stave
and characteristic “square” notes (the result of using a quill pen) had been circulating in
varying styles for centuries. Look at example 2.2 (HWM, p 32); it presents in square notation
a gradual chant of some complexity, a feature that arises from the presence of melismas.
Both “óm-nis” and “tér-ra” use multiple notes for their second syllables. The melisma on
Do- of “Dóminus” (in the verse) is by far the longest in the chant. The last word, “sú-am”,
also ends with a melisma.

Now compare this version with the modern transcription of the pitches in example 2.3
225

(HWM, p 33). Given the C-clef in example 2.2 (HWM, p 32), the conversion of the pitches
from the four-line to the modern five-line stave is not difficult to make. However, it seems
that the rhythm to which the chant must be sung rests on rules that are not visible in the
notation; there is nothing like the system of durations (“time values”) used in modern
notation. In fact, the rhythm of chant has long been a sticking point; the Solesmes editions
are usually performed using an approximately equal value for each note, and “groups the
notes into units of two or three pulses. It has no basis in medieval practice, but it does
achieve the softly undulating line that can be heard on numerous recordings” (Fassler,
Primer, A11).

Figures 2.6, 2.7 and 2.8 (HWM, p 31) show a clear progression in the notation of the same
226

Gradual, “Viderunt omnes”, at a much earlier stage of its notation. All three involve neumes,
some of which are indicated by conventional signs other than simple strokes (which
were called virga or tractulus) or dots (punctum). In the first two examples, it is possible
to observe instances of the clivis, the pes (or podatus) and the scandicus. The S-shaped

44
torculus is also much used in the third example. (For all of these, refer to table P1.) While
it is impossible to tell exactly what pitches (or pitch relations) are implied in the first
example, the second organises its signs in such a way that the directions of the melody
are much clearer. (Remember that both these examples are a system of “reminders” of
the chant for someone who already knows it from memory.) The third example clarifies
the pitches by using a red and a yellow line (f and c respectively, as the letter names on
the left specify, with a and e located proportionately between and above the lines).
A more recent edition of chant from Solesmes, called the Graduale Triplex, juxtaposes
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the familiar square notation with neumes drawn from early chant manuscripts. See the
Primer, A7, example P1, for the antiphon “Resurrexi” as it appears in this edition. Its neumes
are copied from
a. an early 10th-century manuscript source (designated L, for Laon, in Picardy, northern
France, where the codex was used in the cathedral liturgy) and
b. a manuscript of approximately a century later (called E, for Einsiedeln, in Switzerland,
whose monastic library houses the document).
In example P1, the L neumes appear above the square notation, and the E neumes
228

below. While the square notation confirms the pitches of the less exact (adiastematic)
neumes, there are also indications in the neumes of other musical aspects, like tempo
and expression. An inspection of the neumes shows that some of them have a small,
lower-case letter associated with the pitch sign: t indicates tenete (“hold”) and c indicates
celeriter (“hasten”). Such subtle modifications are often allied to the meaning of words,
and suggest an obvious element of expression; certainly, they argue against the Solesme
“equalist” approach to rhythm.

Example 2.2 in HWM, p 32, “Viderunt omnes” in square notation, has a numeral 5 at the
229

start. This is a feature of the older Solesmes editions, and calls attention to the system of
church or ecclesiastical modes.

Activity 2.12

Read HWM, pp 36-39, The Church Modes

Time allocated: 7 minutes

230

This system of diatonic modes grew up alongside the early development of notation. As
231

explained in the reading, the use of ancient Greek nomenclature for the modes involved
a misunderstanding of the original concepts. (It also involved the invention of pseudo-
Greek names like “Hypophrygian” and “Hypomixolydian”.)43 But the idea of an eightfold

143 The prefix hypo- indicates something lower or under; in these cases, it refers to the lower range of the
modes in comparison to the “authentic” forms (Phrygian and Mixolydian) that share the same final.

45 MHS1511/1
system probably came to Western Europe from the Eastern Church, which also has a
historic system of modes for its chant called octoechos. It may well have been brought to
the west by Byzantine scholar-monks migrating away from territories that were threatened
or had been overrun by Muslim armies, starting in the 7th century. Whatever their source,
the modes became an integral part of chant theory (used for classification of existing
melodies) and practice (guiding the composition of new music).

Fassler’s Primer A21 to 22 contains a brief note on the modes. The virtue of her discussion
232

is the linking of the eight modes with their corresponding psalm tones (A22–24). The
Psalm Tones are also covered briefly in HWM, p 49; see the relevant Example 3.2, an Office
antiphon, “Tecum principium”, which would require the psalm verse following it to be in
the same mode (in this case, mode 1). At the end of the antiphon, a termination formula
on the vowels E u o u a e shows how the singers should conclude the psalm tone so that
the quality of the link back to the repeated antiphon is melodically appropriate. Such a
termination was called a differentia.

2.7 HILDEGARD OF BINGEN

Activity 2.13

Read HWM, pp 60 to 62, Hildegard of Bingen.

Time allocated: 10 minutes

233

The rise to international prominence of an abbess whose medieval reputation, though

234

significant, was concentrated in an area of south-western Germany (west of the River Rhine)
is nothing short of remarkable.44 Her voluminous Latin writings attracted the attention
of German scholars in the 19th century, but their interest was chiefly in her prose works;
only in the course of the 20th century were her achievements as a poet given their due.
In the process, her entire output was edited, and translations began to appear, first in
German, then in English. The additional contents of the source manuscripts were studied
and published: images illustrating her unusual visions, and the music she had composed
for her own poems. Both these aspects had been carefully preserved through the work
of her own copyists, and saved for rediscovery by modern readers and, in the case of the
music, a modern audience.

While her education as the daughter of a socially prominent family ensured her status
235

as a learned woman, it was the 26 visions recorded and interpreted in Scivias (written

144 Her qualities and influence were given the ultimate recognition of the Catholic Church in 2012, when
Pope Benedict XVI declared her a Doctor of the Church, one of 35 in its long history, and one of only four
women.

46
1141–51) that won her special respect. Hildegard’s creative output can be related to
the course of her life in quite detailed ways. For example, her move from the convent
of Disibodenberg, where she spent 39 years of her cloistered life, to Rupertsberg near
the town of Bingen, constituted an act of unusual independence: it was in memory of
the young St Rupert, an 8th-century Rhenish nobleman who had died at the age of 20
(712–32), that she founded a convent of her own close to his burial place. This reverence
for a local saint is reflected in one of her “longest and most elaborate” sequences, “O
Ierusalem, aurea civitas” (Dronke 1970: 165).45

Example 2.10

Listen to “O Jerusalem, aurea civitas”

Allocated time: 10 minutes
The text and translation of the opening sections follows:
O Jerusalem, aurea civitas,
ornata regis purpura.
O edificatio summe bonitatis,
que es lux numquam obscurata.
Tu enim es ornata in aurora
et in calore solis.
et o laudabilis adolescentia,
que ardes in sole.
You are adorned in the dawn
and in the heat of the sun.
Nam tu, O nobilis Ruperte,
in his sicut gemma fulsisti,
unde non potes abscondi
stultis hominibus,
sicut nec mons valli celatur.
Oh Jerusalem, golden city,
robed in royal purple;
Oh edifice of highest excellence,
you are a light never darkened.
O beata pureritia,
que rutilas in aurora,
Oh blessed childhood
which gleams in the dawn,
and fair youth,
aflame in the sun.
For you, oh noble Rupert,
glitter in these like a gem.
You cannot be hidden
by human foolishness,
Just as a mountain
cannot be hidden by a valley.

In the course of her preaching tours, she visited the city of Trier, whose cathedral was
236

famed as the burial site of St Eucharius, claimed as the first bishop of Trier (second half
of the 3rd century).46 Again, Hildegard produced two chants specifically venerating
Eucharius, a responsory and a sequence for his feast day (8 December). Close to Trier,
the monastery of St Mathias had maintained an active correspondence with the abbess
Hildegard, seeking her counsel for the community. And again, her output contains a hymn
to St Mathias, possibly occasioned by her visit, and analysed for its generative qualities
by Fassler (2014b:100–2).

One of the most remarkable of Hildegard’s musical compositions is the Ordo Virtutum, an
237

hour-long liturgical drama. Drama in Europe had virtually ceased to exist between 600
and 1000, and its re-emergence began through short plays being introduced into services,

145 In total, Hildegard fashioned four songs in honour of St Rupert – this sequence and three psalm antiphons.
146 The city also had an earlier fame: it was one of the capitals of the Roman emperors.

47 MHS1511/1
mainly in Benedictine monasteries in France and Germany in the 10th century. The basis
of these dramatic exchanges was the trope, itself an embellishment of a chant, and the
most frequent context was the Easter mass, with the narrative of Christ’s suffering and
death as the background (the Passion Play). Thus, one of the most famous Easter tropes,
“Quem quaeritis in sepulchro?”, was a brief dialogue between a priest, representing the
angel at Christ’s empty tomb, and three choirboys, representing the three Marys.47 There
were also the Nativity Play (the Christmas story), the Epiphany Play (the visit of the Wise
Men or Magi), and other popular biblical subjects.48

Example 2.11

Listen to the trope “Quem quaeritis in sepulchro?”

Time allocated: 6 minutes

238

Interrogatio. Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, o Christicolae?

Responsio. Jesum Nazarenum crucifixum, o caelicolae.
Angeli. Non est hic; surrexit, sicut praedixerat. Ite, nuntiate quia surrexit de sepulchre.
Question [by the Angels]: Whom do ye seek in the sepulchre, oh followers of Christ?
Answer [by the Marys]: Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified, oh heavenly ones.
The Angels: He is not here; he is risen, just as he foretold. Go, announce that he is risen
from the sepulchre.

Hildegard’s drama is quite clearly a morality play. This was a type of allegorical drama, in
239

which personified Vices and Virtues were shown struggling for the mastery of a human
soul. In the Ordo Virtutum, all the characters – Anima (an individual Soul), Diabolus (the
devil, who does not sing but shouts his lines) and the 16 female Virtues led by their queen,
Humilitas (humility), are all personifications. There was often more than one location
represented in the drama, thus different spaces in the church (called “mansions” in the
English practice) were used. The Virtues might be situated on raised sedes or seats at the
back of the playing area; the conflict between Anima and Diabolus would be played out
in front of the Virtues, on a lower level.

Example 2.12

Listen to “O dulcis divinitas” from Ordo Virtutum.

147 This is a traditional identification of the women mentioned in the Gospel of Mark 16.1.
148 The liturgical dramas, as we shall see, share some aspects of the later Mystery or Miracle Plays. But the
differences between them are much more marked: where the former were in Latin, were sung and
were played in the church (the characters wearing church vestments), the latter were composed in the
vernacular language, were spoken and were played outdoors, often on a cart called a pageant that served
as a movable stage.

48
 240 Time allocated: 2 minutes

241 This short passage is sung by the Happy Soul, the central “character” in the play:

O dulcis divinitas, et o suavis vita, Oh sweet divinity, oh gentle life,

in qua perferam vestem preclaram, in which I shall wear a radiant
robe,
illud accipiens quod perdidi in prima apparition, receiving that which I lost in my
first manifestation,
ad te suspiro, et omnes Virtutes invoco. I sigh for you, and invoke all the
Virtues.

“She is sighing for the return of that blissful state which she lost in the fall of Adam”
242

(Dronke 1970: 172).

A full account of the action – the wonder of the Patriarchs and Prophets at the Virtues
243

(clothed spectacularly, if the images of the Virtues in Scivias are anything to go by), the
innocence of the Happy Soul, her succumbing to the Devil, only to return penitent and in
a pitiful state, the struggle to draw her back to the company of the Virtues – is too long
to include here.49 The final scene does, however, give an impression of the way in which
the resolution is expressed.

Example 2.13

Listen to “In principio omnes creature viruerunt” from Ordo Virtutum. The score with
translation of the text appears in NAWM #7.

244 Time allocated: 5 minutes

After four rhymed lines, the warrior (i.e., Christ) speaks: his words are in prose, and he
245

“asks God to accept his suffering as the cure for the ills of the wounded world” (NAWM
#7, p 52). Overall, the chant melody adheres to mode 3 (final on e, with b’ a frequent
resting point); the range is extended, as high as g’ above e’, as well as descending to low
c. Phrases frequently start with a rising fifth (e – b’) and then proceed with contours that
are clearly related.
246 e-b’-a-g-a-g-a-a-b’-b’ In principio [“In the beginning”]
247 e-b’-a-a-g-a-b’ sed aureus [“but the golden” {“number”}]

149 The full text of the play with parallel English translation is available here: https://studylib.net/doc/8212490/
ordo-virtutum—-text-and-translation

49 MHS1511/1
248 e-b’-a-b’-a-g’-a-b’ Nunc memor esto [“Now be mindful”]
249 e-b’-c’-b’-a-g-a-b’ Nam me fatigat [“It wearies me”]
250 e-b’-c’-b’-a-g Pater, vide [“Father, behold”]
251 e-e-b’-c’-b’-a-a-b’-b’-a-g-a-b’ Ergo nunc, omnes homines [“Now therefore, all
humankind”]
It is this free evolution of a melodic cell that Fassler terms “generative” (2014b:101). Broadly
252

speaking, the melody is a constantly varied stream, and closes with a choral melisma.
The following is a variant translation; it is clear from the imagery that the text is tinged
with mystical ideas.
253 In the beginning all creation was verdant,
254 flowers blossomed in the midst of it;
255 later, greenness sank away.
256 And the champion [Christ] saw this and said:
257 [Solo]
I know it, but the golden number is not yet full.
258

You then, behold me, mirror of your fatherhood:

259

in my body I am suffering exhaustion,

260

even my little ones faint.

261

262 [Chorus]
263 Now remember
264 that the fullness that was made in the beginning
265 need not have grown dry,
266 and that then you resolved that your eye would never fail
267 until you saw my body full of jewels.
268 For it wearies me that all my limbs are exposed to mockery:
269 Father, behold, I am showing you my wounds.
270 So now, all you people,
271 bend your knees to the Father,
272 that he may reach you his hand.
Not everyone has the same respectful attitude toward Hildegard, despite the mass of
273

books on and by her, and recordings aplenty. The final reading is a sceptical view; it also
includes an engaging account of how (and why) a modern cult has emerged around a
woman who on the face of things is an unlikely object of contemporary fervour.

Activity 2.14

Read Richard Witts, “How to Make a Saint: On Interpreting Hildegard of

Bingen” (available as an e-reserve item).

Time allocated: 25 minutes

274

50
 Activity 2.15

In your learning journal, write down the main points of Witts’s article
as you see them. What objections does he raise to the contemporary
admiration for Hildegard?

Time allocated: 15 minutes

275

2.8 REFERENCES
[CODCC] Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 1977. Ed. E. A. Livingstone.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Décarreaux, Jean. 1964. Monks and Civilization: From the Barbarian Invasions to the Reign
of Charlemagne. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Dronke, Peter. 1970. Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages: New Departures in Poetry,
1100–1150. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Fassler, Margot. 2014a. Music in the Medieval West. New York: W.W. Norton.
Fassler, Margot. 2014b. Anthology for ‘Music in the Medieval West’. New York: Norton.
Hiley, David. 2009. Gregorian Chant. Cambridge Introductions to Music. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Markus, R.A. 1997. ‘Popes and Emperors, 440–731’, in Paul Johnson, The Papacy. London:
George Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Pp 44–61.
[OCEL] Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1992. Ed. T. McArthur. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Randel, Don M. (Ed). 1986. The New Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, MS: Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press.
2
[SSR ] Strunk, Oliver (Editor). 1998. Source Readings in Music History. Revised Edition. Leo
Treitler, ed. New York: W.W. Norton.
Taruskin, Richard. 2005. The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tate, R.B. 1973. ‘The Medieval Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula (to 1474)’. In P. E Russell
(ed.), Spain: A Companion to Spanish Studies. London: Methuen, 1973.
Witts, Richard. 1998. ‘How to Make a Saint: On Interpreting Hildegard of Bingen’. Early
Music 26(3): 479–85.

51 MHS1511/1
Learning Unit 3
The West in its singing: the later Middle Ages

Purpose

The purpose of learning unit 3 is to introduce you to

 the moving forces in Western music of the later Middle Ages
 the impulses that gave rise to lyric poetry among troubadours and trouvères
 the series of historical practices by which polyphonic music originated and was
established
 the notational developments that allowed musical rhythms to be fixed and furthered

Outcomes

After completing the learning unit, you should demonstrate that you are able to
 identify the social environments in which sacred and secular repertoires operated in
the period 900 to 1300
 account for the profile attached to troubadours, trouvères and jongleurs
 trace the stages, with examples, by which a monophonic tradition developed a strong
polyphonic component
 identify the advances that were indispensable to the notation of time relations and
rhythmic features in the period under discussion

OVERVIEW
276 3.1 Introduction
277 3.2 The troubadour family
278 3.3 How polyphony began
279 3.4 The School of Notre Dame
280 3.5 Motets and the polyphonic tradition
281 3.6 Ars nova: how the rhythms of music appeared
282 3.7 Machaut’s Mass
283 3.8 Trecento Italy

3.1 INTRODUCTION
This learning unit covers nearly as much historical time as that on chant. It is built on
284

chant in various ways, but deals with the changes across four centuries beginning from
the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire in the mid-800s. Though Western Europe was to
undergo significant political re-ordering with this loss of centralised power, three modern
countries were ushered in – France, Germany and Italy – and the social structure began

52
to stratify into that order called feudalism that would endure into the Renaissance. The
general background to the many musical innovations of this period needs setting.

Activity 3.1

Read HWM, pp 63 to 66, European Society, 800 to 1300.

Time allocated: 10 minutes

285

In short, it is the gradual emergence of the West – a fractured conglomerate of peoples

286

on the defensive against frequent invasions – from its subsidiary position in relation to
two other power blocs: the Byzantine Empire, regarded by its citizens as the continuation
of the Roman Empire, and its rulers as inheriting their powers in unbroken sequence
from the first Caesars; and the sudden expansion of Islam out of the Arabian Peninsula,
its culture expressed in the courts of powerful caliphs.50
But in all of these, it was the elite and the rulers in particular who are saluted for their
287

patronage of the arts and architecture, while the life of the common people, many of
them agricultural labourers living outside towns and cities, and its expression in music
remains a closed book. That did not alter much, despite the success of the feudal economy
in Europe.
Thus, it is the interests of the Western clergy and nobility that are reflected in the forms of
288

music (and poetry) that mark out these centuries: songs of piety, many of them concerned
with devotion to Mary, mother of Jesus; songs reflecting medieval university life; poems
in praise of heroic figures (like Charlemagne); and the many sung poems of “courtly love”,
initially the province of troubadours and trouvères.

Activity 3.2

Read HWM, pp 66 to 68, Latin and Vernacular Song and Minstrels in

Medieval French Cities. Note in your learning journal the reasons for
the rise of professional guilds of musicians (keywords: urban – status
– apprentices).

Time allocated: 15 minutes

289

150 At the time we are considering (800 CE), these had been the Ummayad Caliphate (with Mecca as its
capital) and its successor, the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad. An offshoot of the Ummayads had created
a caliphate based in Cordóba, Spain, that was to both provoke and enrich the European nations.

53 MHS1511/1
290 Carmina qui quondam studio florente peregi,
291 Flebilis heu mestos cogor inire modos.
292 (Songs that once I composed full of zest,
293 Tearful, alas, I am compelled to begin sad songs.)

Thus begins The Consolation of Philosophy, a book written in 524 CE by Boethius, whose
294

De institutione musica was introduced in the previous unit (see HWM, pp 34–5), itself a
text that was still being used in old universities like Oxford well into the 18th century.
His Consolatio was an even more influential work, one of the most popular philosophical
manuals of the Middle Ages. It is dotted with poems in a variety of metres that have a
history of their own, as most were set to music before 1000, but were considered “lost
songs” – irretrievable because of the vagueness of their neumatic notation.

Their realisation has recently been assisted by the discovery and interpretation of an
295

unlikely source: a manuscript page once preserved in Canterbury that was used as scrap
parchment to bind a more important codex.51 The manuscript contains several of the
Boethian metra with neumes. This notation indicates melodic gestures, and the task
of expressing them musically has been entrusted in the first instance to singers with
experience in a range of early Western song, for instance, Anglo-Saxon texts such as
Beowulf, parts of the Icelandic Edda saga, Old High German epic fragments, and so on.
Thus, a notated source that is somewhat indeterminate can be given a hypothetical (and
open-ended) reading by making comparisons with (a) other notated sources of the same
songs; (b) other early traditions of oral delivery that employed similar vocal resources (and
possibly the same instrumental support).52

3.2 THE TROUBADOUR FAMILY

Activity 3.3

Read HWM, pp 69 to 75, Troubadour and Trouvère Song. Make notes in

your learning journal that focus on the linguistic aspect of troubadour
and trouvère songs, and their broad musical features.

296 Time allocated: 25 minutes

1 51 The story behind the preservation and elucidation of the metra (poems) is available here: https://
boethius.mus.cam.ac.uk/ where digitalised pages containing the songs may be inspected. See
https://boethius.mus.cam.ac.uk/cambridge-university-library-gg-v-35-0.
1 52 These include the Old High German Hildebrandslied (copied c. 830), the Anglo-Saxon poem
Beowulf (the MS dating from c 975–1025), and the Icelandic sagas called Edda (Poetic Edda c
985, the Prose Edda c 1220). The performer seeking to renovate these sung narrations is Benjamin
Bagby.

54
 EXAMPLE 3.1

Listen to “A chanter”, NAWM #9. Consult the notes and translation provided. HWM, p 72,
reproduces the first stanza.

Time allocated: 7 minutes

297

298 My reputation and my noble birth should sway you,

299 and my beauty, and above all my faithful heart;
300 therefore I send to you where you dwell
301 this song to be my messenger;
302 I want to know, my noble love, why you are haughty and disdainful towards me;
303 I do not know whether it is pride or malice. (NAWM, p 59, translation of stanza 5)

The figure of the troubadour has long fascinated modern European minds: the love-related
304

adventures of a colourful nonconformist found expression in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Il

trovatore (1851–53, adapted for Paris as Le trouvère, 1856), while Le Jongleur du Notre-Dame
(1900) by Jules Massenet is a more sentimental and historicising score, with references to
medieval instruments such as the hurdy-gurdy (called organistrum in its early form and
later symphonia) and to the sparse textures of early harmonic writing. Even the subject
of musicians’ guilds and the regulation of their vocation received an operatic treatment
in Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger (written 1862–64, 1866–67). Its historical material
is derived from a study of the musical forms, the strict compositional practices and the
names of medieval master-singers of Nuremberg.53 While all of these latter-day evocations
of the Middle Ages belonged to a conscious admiration of medieval life and culture that
was widespread in the 19th century, they were part of the seedbed from which grew the
post-1900 exploration and revival of “early music”.

The evidence of this repertoire is preserved in manuscripts that date from at least a century
305

later than the actual underlying practice. Given that comparatively little of the musical
settings of troubadour poetry has survived (about 10% by quantity), it is more helpful
to consider the remains as evidence not only of a strongly oral production but one that
brought together in a single linguistic domain – called Occitan – regional dialects from
the southern half of France. These included Provençal (defined by the region of Provençe,
though often used as synonymous with Occitan), Langue d’oc (for which the same applies),
Niçois (centred on Nice), and Vivaroalpenc (the dialect straddling south-eastern France
and north-western Italy). This aggregate may account for the various versions of some
songs that exist and for the range of verse forms that occur. It may also throw light on
the varieties of discourse used.

153 J. C. Wagenseil, Book of the Master-Singers’ Gracious Art (German original published 1687). The master-
singers were a guild that grew out of the earlier Minnesinger. See below.

55 MHS1511/1
Many questions attach to this phenomenon of medieval fin’ amors (Occitan, “refined love”):
306

is it the epochal invention of modern love that some claim, the unremitting desire of a
man for an unattainable aristocratic woman (or unusually, as in example 3.1, of a woman
for a man)? Or are these poems the result of literary conventions, “self-contained poetic
fantasy and ... the crucial beginnings of modern lyrical subjectivity”? (Camille 1998: 14).

I see no problem in accepting this new discourse of love as both reality and fantasy,
in the sense that what people imagine and shape into images is part of the structure
of their actual lives and not just the reflection of some text or ideology outside it
(Camille 1998:14).

Yet the literary inclination is a key factor. For example, the stylistic levels of language (a
307

typical part of medieval literary classification learned from ancient Latin rhetoric) were a
conscious feature of troubadour output, and were named and embodied in it:

 trobar clus – the most difficult style, deliberately obscure and exclusive, in which words
were used metaphorically and symbolically, and in which the apparent or surface
meaning is seldom what the poem meant to a discerning listener. Though he did not
know the term, Marcabru was the start of a line of clus poets (or who used a hybrid
of clus and ric), mostly moralising in tone and socially critical (see Fassler 2014b: #16
for an example).
 trobar leu – by far the most common poetic style, a straightforward, accessible manner,
using relatively simple verse forms and limited literary devices; the phrase originated
with Guiraut de Bornelh and might have been formulated as a reaction against the
clus type; the work of Bernart de Ventadorn fits this category (see NAWM, #8, and a
further example in Fassler 2014b: #17).
 trobar ric – a style marked by elaborate technical contrivances (extensive vocabulary,
invented words and colourful phrasings) but with a clear sense. Arnaut Daniel, inventor
of the sestina, is a representative figure.54

This serves to highlight the well-established conventions in which the poets worked:
308

each poem required a new stanza form, with five to seven metrically identical stanzas,
and an original melody. But the extant music does not seem to be radically shaped by
these prescriptions, other than by a continuity of melodic ideas that follow the line-by-line
unfolding of the narrative, or (to take one instance) the use of ornamental phrase-ends
in a song that begins by mentioning the flight of a bird (Fassler 2014a:84). It is not easy
to see how the innovation of Jaufré Rudel, the theme of ‘love from afar” (amor de lonh),
could easily translate into musical expression. Why then place emphasis on this corpus
of lyric poetry? Because it was an enormously influential phenomenon, and its influence
proved to be musical as well as literary.

154 The sesƟna consisted of six stanzas, each with six lines, and an envoi (Fr. “sending on the way”) of three.
The rhyme scheme “requires that the same six end words occur in each stanza but in a different order
according to a fixed pattern” (Cuddon 1979:620). Its importance was established when it was taken up
by the greatest Italian vernacular poets, Petrarch and Dante.

56
 Activity 3.4

Study stanzas 1 and 2 of Lanquan li jorn son lonc by Rudel.55 Observe how
the idea of distance is embedded in the poem, and the regular pattern
of end rhymes. Stanza 5 mentions the presence of his beloved lady “in
the kingdom of the Saracens”; this lies behind the assertion that Rudel
died while on the Second Crusade (though the accounts of his death in
his lady’s arms in Tripoli are probably fanciful).

Time allocated: 15 minutes

309

310 Lanquan li jorn son lonc e may During May, when the days are long,
311 M’es belhs dous chans d’auzelhs de lonh, I admire the song of the birds from far away
312 E quan mi suy partitz de lay, and when I have gone away from there
313 Remembra’m d’un’ amor de lonh. I remember a love far away.
314 Vau de talan embroncx e clis I go scowling, with my head down
315 Si que chans ni flors d’albespis so much that songs and hawthorn flowers
316 No-m valon plus que l’yverns gelatz. aren’t better, to me, than the frozen Winter.
317 Be tenc lo Senhor per veray I trust the Lord’s fairness
318 Per que formet sest’ amor de lonh, in having formed this faraway love,
319 Mas per un ben que m’en eschay but for each consolation I achieve
320 N’ai dos mals, quar tant suy de lonh. I get two ills, because I am so far away.
321 A! quar no fuy lai pelegris, Ah! Why didn’t I go there as a pilgrim,
322 Si que mos fustz e mos tapis so that my staff and hooded cloak
323 Fos pels sieus belhs huelhs remiratz! would be beheld by her beautiful eyes!

155 The complete text and translation, as well as those of the other surviving songs by Rudel, are available
at http://www.trobar.org/troubadours/jaufre_rudel/jaufre_rudel_05.php

57 MHS1511/1
 324

Figure 3.1: Song 6 of Jaufre Rudel, ‘Lan quan li jorn sont lonc’, Folio 81v. of the Chansonnier de Saint-Germain-
des-Prés, BnF 20050. Lorraine, 13th century. Licence: This image comes from Gallica Digital Library and is
available under the digital ID btv1b60009580/f170.item. Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:BnF_ms._20050_fol._81v.jpg

The most obvious testimony to troubadour influence is the trouvère art of northern France
325

that was directly descended from the work of the troubadours; the earliest, starting c
1160, was frankly imitative. (The names of Conon de Béthune, Blondel de Nesle and
Gace Brulé may be mentioned in this connection.) But the poetry of langue d’oïl was to
spawn thousands of poems, of which about 1 700 have melodies. Just as important is the
appearance in the song collections of secular polyphonic compositions, mainly motets
for 2, 3 or even 4 voice-parts, alongside the monophonic creations. (This form is treated
below.) There are examples of songs that exist in both monophonic and polyphonic
versions, a typical medieval modus operandi. This repertoire is not only substantial, but also
varied, and it was also contemporaneous with the production of chansons de toile (“songs
of cloth/textiles”, i.e., weaving and spinning songs) that belong to a general category of
chansons de femme (“women’s songs”). It should be noted that the more formal motet
music also includes texts that express a woman’s point of view.

The troubadour flowering radiated influence beyond France. Occitan sung poems became
326

popular in neighbouring Catalunya and gave birth to a local Catalan version there. In fact,
the offshoots spread in every direction.

58
 Activity 3.5

Read HWM, pp 75 to 76, Song in Other Lands. (We referred to the

subsection on Cantigas and on Medieval Instruments in learning unit
2). Take notes in your learning journal.

327 Time allocated: 5 minutes

The manner in which the world of the troubadours came to a sudden end was a direct
328

result of military and political interventions by the nobility of northern France in the
country’s meridional areas. The powerful and independent southern aristocracy that
had fostered the art of l’amour courtois was, however, regarded – not always without
reason – as part of a church heresy called Catharism (its members were also known as
Albigensians, after the city of Albi). The ecclesiastical authorities relied on the temporal
powers to root out the heterodox doctrine, and Occitan society suffered greatly in the
period 1200 to 1244, as increasingly brutal measures were adopted to purify the church.
The troubadour art was alive in other territories, but in its home, it had been staunched.

3.3 HOW POLYPHONY BEGAN

In order to chart the rise of multilinear music – one of the hallmarks of the West between
329

the later Middle Ages and the 18th century – it is necessary to review developments that
go back to the 9th century.

Activity 3.6

Read HWM, pp 80 to 86, Early Organum, and Aquitanian Polyphony.

330 Time allocated: 20 minutes

In this capsule history of a momentous development, the initial growth of organum is

331

attributable to certain fundamental phenomena that need to be stressed.

 Preferences and rules – The most elementary form of differentiated voices – parallel
organum – rejoiced in the effect of simple consonances. The perfect fifth and octave
were the means of generating a special, fulfilling resonance; these intervals have
acoustic properties that explain this. The ancient and medieval world knew from its
study of numbers that the ratios involved in these consonances were the simplest

59 MHS1511/1
 available in nature: octave = 2:1 and fifth = 3:2.56 The experience of singing these
intervals in pure form yields an unmistakable physical sensation. The perfect fourth
(ratio 4:3) lacks some of the unusual stability of the octave and fifth, but is acceptable
within a 5th-8ve field.
It is the “non-consonant” intervals that create disturbance in the ear. In mixed organum,
332

singers accepted the presence of tones (9:8) and thirds (major 5:4, minor 6:5) as the
price for avoiding the highly disturbing tritone (45:32). We lack knowledge of how
rhythm operated in organum, but we also do not have any idea of what tuning was
applied. The “just intervals” (those with small-integer ratios) are not problematic, but
outside the perfect consonances there are various ways to tune the same intervals.
If instruments are added, some with inflexible pitches, the issue may become
problematic.57 Nevertheless, the intervals necessitated by rules of tritone avoidance
created possibilities for moving from less to more stable intervals, for instance, a 6th
moving outwards by step to the 8ve, a 3rd moving inwards by step to a unison or
outwards to the 5th. This rudimentary voice-leading – via conjunct motion to a point
of rest – was to become the cadential operation. Oblique motion would also involve
insights into changing degrees of harmonic stability.
 The words or syllables that “guide” or channel a voice part contribute materially to
the resulting sound. The confirmatory uses of rhyme have been mentioned above.
The accents of singers and their patterns of pronunciation, particularly in music allied
with poetic inventiveness, are therefore of importance in the hierarchy of vocal values.
 The transition observed from a decorative concept of organum to the tonal initiative
evident in florid or discant styles implies a move from communal performance to
soloistic leadership of the singing. Juxtapositions of group and solo voices added drama
to the delivery; the persistence of simple organal practices indicated a decided choice.

3.4 THE SCHOOL OF NOTRE DAME

It is important to grasp the context of this high point in late medieval culture, for it was
333

an expression not only of musical innovation but also of intense intellectual activity in
the leading city of Europe.58 It was eminent because of the coincidence of the Capetian
monarchy that ruled from the city, the commercial and business interests on the Right
Bank of the Seine River, and the outstanding schools associated with the cathedral (newly
rebuilt from c 1160) and the abbeys on the Left Bank. Just on 1200, King Philip II granted a
statute of rights and protections to students and faculty that led to the establishment of
the University of Paris, where famous teachers drew students from many parts of Europe.

Activity 3.7

Read HWM pp 86 to 96, Notre Dame Polyphony, making notes in your

learning journal.

156 The modern scientific method confirms this, but expresses it in terms of the frequency numbers of the
pitches (measured as hertz or cycles/second).
157 The topic of tuning in medieval music has received comparatively scant attention from scholars, though
it plays a prime role in the recent performing revival of this heritage.
158 Its population in 1200 was about 110 000.

60
 334 Time allocated: 30 minutes

The sections gathered here provide a route through some of the most appealing of
335

medieval music: the organa created in this Parisian sphere for the services and festivals of
the cathedral church. The conditions described above provided the setting, well-resourced
and coordinated, for the impetus that carried previous polyphonic composition, with
their restricted background of local observances and saints, and emphasis on recent
genres like sequence and versus, to unimagined peaks – of length and virtuosity, and
at a position in the centre of the liturgy.

The scale of the repertoire preserved in a few large collections is in every way unprecedented,
336

and points to ambitions of completeness (music fitted to all the great feasts of the church
year), of universality (suitable for use in any church context), and perhaps “a message of
institutional triumphalism” (Taruskin 2005: ch 6, The Cathedral-University Complex).

EXAMPLE 3.2

Listen to Leoninus (fl. 12th c, and colleagues), “Viderunt omnes”, NAWM #17.

337 Time allocated: 10 minutes

This extended piece of organum duplum was created for the Mass for Christmas Day (see
338

NAWM #3 [d] for the original Gradual chant). The short solo passage at the beginning of
the chant (“Viderunt omnes”) has been transformed into a slow-moving tenor, above
which the duplum moves, either in free rhythm or according to rhythmic mode 1 (florid
organum). As in the chant, the choir then completes the response (“fines terrae”). There
follow alternations of passages, as at the start, with sections that pair the two voices in
rhythmic modes 1 and 5 (discant style). In this way, the soloist’s psalm verse is elongated
enormously. The ending is chanted by the choir, as specified in the original chant. Then
all return to repeat the respond. It should be noted that “it is not certain whether the
upper part in the sections in organum style should be sung in modal rhythm or more
freely” (NAWM, p 91). By “more freely” is meant “fluid melody – nonperiodic and loosely
segmented” (ibid.). Both approaches can be heard on modern recordings of the work.

The organum purum is preserved in two important sources, Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August
339

Biblithek, cod. Guelf. 628 Helmstad; and Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 29.1.

While the rhythmic modes are reasonably clear to interpret when the notation is
340

understood, especially the use of ligatures, it must be remembered that these were
notational advances of enormous significance when they were introduced: they enabled

61 MHS1511/1
the clarification of rhythm to proceed apace. It is worth examining a brief tractate that
explains the notation of the rhythmic modes (with modern transcription), as the most
direct means of familiarising oneself with the signs and the characteristic rhythms they
represent.

Activity 3.8

Read Johannes de Garlandia, From De musica mensurabili, in SSR2, pp 223

to 26, and make notes in your learning journal.

341 Time allocated: 10 minutes

Check the quoted examples against the explanation of the rhythmic modes in HWM, pp
342

87 to 88.

The remaining achievements of the Notre Dame School fell to musicians of a slightly
343

later date, and the name of Perotinus (Pérotin), of whom little is known beside his floruit
(c1200), is indelibly linked to two organa composed for four voices (organum quadruplum),
a complex of rhythmically and harmonically organised sounds as had never been heard
before. The Perotinus version of the “Viderunt omnes” music works along the selfsame
lines as Léonin’s, but with an elaborate three-voice upper structure over the tenor.

EXAMPLE 3.3

Listen to Perotinus, “Viderunt omnes”, NAWM #19.

344 Time allocated: 10 minutes

It is noticeable that many descriptions of the music of the Notre Dame personalities stress
345

a link between the expansiveness of the works and the vast spaciousness of the cathedral
building, regarding the one as destined for the other. Benjamin Bagby, whose work on
the Boethius poems was mentioned at the start of this unit, has registered dissent arising
from his experience as a vocalist. Why, he asks, does the performance of 13th-century
polyphony in the cavernous and resonant spaces of Gothic cathedrals render the singers
insignificant and the music “a source of frustration” and “ineffectual in concert”? (Bagby
2013). He posits a different location for the performance of this repertoire: not in the
“soaring” and resounding nave, but “largely in the isolation of the newly-finished choir,
surrounded by stone walls, and behind a high stone rood screen” (2013:1).The sense of

62
the “gigantism of cathedral architecture” (Taruskin 2005) is a modern experience, after the
medieval choir walls have been dismantled and the rood screen removed. The original
space was an enclosed choir hung with tapestries and curtains, in which the singers
(men and boys) were led by young males (the so-called machioti) who served as soloists
(Bagby 2013:2).

This casts a quite different light on the nature of Notre Dame polyphony: an outpouring
346

of ardent sounds, but in an intimate space without podium or proscenium, a place where
the modal theory of rhythm could be appreciated for its directness, not its grandeur;
a theory which “is in reality an ingenious codification of a very gay and lively form of
rhythmic expression which served to establish a close relationship to secular music and
dance” (Gushee 1990:162). The extended “drone” effects in the organum-style passages
also operate semiotically as tokens of a music that is danced.

3.5 MOTETS AND THE POLYPHONIC TRADITION

If the presence of outside life could be sensed in the organa of the main Paris liturgy, the
347

genre of motet introduced an unapologetically secular factor. Motets were a long-lived

and multitudinous form, produced in both worldly and pious types, as well as “crossed”
forms that simultaneously used both spiritual and temporal texts in their polyphonic layers.

Activity 3.9

Read HWM pp 96 to 102, Motet, and take notes in your learning journal.

348 Time allocated: 15 minutes

The procedures involved in creating a motet in the 13th century varied in time and with
349

function. The genre was rooted in sacred polyphony, and took up clausulae – self-
contained portions of an organa – to rework them in fresh form for insertion into the
original composition. These substitute clausulae treated the tenor (the line drawn from the
primary chant) as a fixed-pitch series, but deployed it over a repeating rhythmic pattern
based on a mode. The tenor melody might also be repeated, though it would stretch
far beyond the rhythmic idea. Thus, the chant excerpt might drive two ideas, each with
different “gearing”.

The other feature to note in early motets is the concentrated re-use of existing materials.
350

This might be no more than a replacement of the duplum text, though that might in the
process change its language (most often Latin to French) and take up a secular theme.
But it also extended to stripping away the duplum and fashioning a new part – or maybe
two, each with its own text – on the tenor. The retention of the tenor in some form is

63 MHS1511/1
not a pious gesture to its source in chant so much as its recognition as a stable structural
member, the cantus firmus.

Phrasing in a two-voice motet might well coincide between the parts, but with more than
351

two voices, the phrasing tended to overlap, creating a continuously unfolding texture.

352 Graphic artist insert icons here

EXAMPLE 3.4

Listen to two versions of the motet “Super te Ierusalem/Sed fulsit virginitas/Dominus”.

Score and commentary in NAWM #20 (c). See texts and translation below.

Time allocated: 15 minutes

353

The three-voice version shows what – with time – became the most common route
354

to a new motet: using a fragment of chant to create a new tenor and adding one or
more voices above it. The tenor is “clipped” from the “Dominus” clausula in “Viderunt
omnes”, but does not confine itself to that melody: its rhythmic pattern differs from that
of substitute clausulae, and some notes are omitted, repeated or inserted. The source is
the Montpellier Codex.

The four-voice version, found in an English manuscript, adds another voice in the form
355

of Primus Tenor (with no text, but vocalisation is an option), thereby enriching the texture
and ending the motet on a chord that includes a third, an effect of great sweetness
typical of English taste, but unlikely to be found in a French source. The motet is found
in a collection called the Worcester Fragments, 13th- and early 14th-century polyphony
discovered on folios used to bind fly-leaves in other sources.

There is also a difference in rhythmic modes: the third mode appears in the upper voices
356

of the first version, while the English manuscript uses mode 1.

357 Triplum
358 Super te Jerusalem Over you, Jerusalem,
359 de matre virgine God has arisen,
360 ortus est in Bethleem becoming man
361 deus in homine; of a virgin mother in Bethlehem;
362 ut gygas substancie he came forth
363 processit gemine like a giant of twin substance
364 virginis ex utero from the virgin’s womb
365 sine gravamine. without pain.
366 Non fuit feconditas This fertility was not caused
367 hec viri semine … by the seed of a man …

64
368 Duplum
369 … sed fulsit virginitas … but her virginity took flame
370 de sancto flamine. from the holy fire.
371 Ergo, pie virginis Therefore, O merciful lord,
372 flos, pie domine, flower of a merciful virgin,
373 da medelam criminis give us the remedy for our sin
374 matris pro nomine for the sake of your mother’s name
375 ne nos preda demonis lest we, whom you have bought
376 simus pro crimine with the river
377 quos preciosi sanguinis of your precious blood,
378 emisti flumine. become the devil’s prey through sin.

3.6 ARS NOVA: HOW THE RHYTHMS OF MUSIC APPEARED

Activity 3.10

Read HWM, pp 108 to 14, The Ars Nova in France, and take notes in your
learning journal.

Time allocated: 20 minutes

379

In your learning journal, make notes on (i) isorhythm as found in De Vitry’s motets; (ii)
380

the main stages through which Western rhythmic notation has passed.

The isorhythmic concept has already been introduced in discussion of the 13th-century
381

motet. With De Vitry, the use of talea (repeated rhythmic pattern) and color (repeated
melodic period) is more strictly applied. In his motet “Cum statua/Hugo, Hugo/Magister
invidie”, the composer rails against “false prophets” (triplum) and a “prince of envy”
(duplum). The tenor color appears three times (from mm. 1, 46, and 91, the talea repeated
thrice within each color. The use of hocket arrives coordinated with the final two statements
of the color. These are not new processes, but they are deployed with great clarity.

At the same time, De Vitry’s Latin texts are ingeniously crafted, with 10-syllable lines,
382

rhymed in couplets in the top voice, and in triplets in the middle voice; with a switch in
the final four lines of both voice parts to 2 X 6-syllable lines with internal rhyme (“et quia
impia”, “pro vero refero”) interlocked with 2 X 10-syllable rhymed lines. Overall, the motet
is a highly intricate construction.

65 MHS1511/1
 EXAMPLE 3.5

Listen to De Vitry’s motet, “Cum statua/Hugo. Hugo/Magister invidie”, NAWM #24. This
provides texts, translation and the score with commentary.

Time allocated: 5 minutes

383

3.7 MACHAUT’S MASS

Activity 3.11

Read HWM, pp 114 to 22, Guillaume Machaut, The Formes Fixes, Ars
Subtilior, and take notes in your learning journal.

384 Time allocated: 25 minutes

The figure of Guillaume Machaut stands out in the late medieval context: himself a leading
385

poet, he produced a large body of music across all the genres then current, and saw to
it that it was preserved for posterity. His output ranged from quite simple monophonic
virelais, through more demanding polyphonic rondeaux and ballades to isorhythmic
motets and a setting of the Mass Ordinary that is a landmark in the sacred form: no
such cycle of movements conceived as a group predated his. All previous settings of the
Ordinary texts had been either single or paired movements, or had involved more than
one composer. His achievement in the early 1360s pointed to the future of the musical
mass, as well as addressing the sense of individual creativity that became the norm in
Europe.

His setting uses four voices throughout, built from the tenor, motetus (duplum) and
386

triplum, and utilising a contratenor that moved in much the same range as the tenor,
providing an added weight to the harmony.

EXAMPLE 3.6

Listen to Machaut’s Kyrie, from his La messe de Nostre Dame. The score with commentary
is in NAWM #25 (a).

66
 Time allocated: 8 minutes
387

The layout of the Kyrie follows two imperatives: the threefold nature of the prayer text,
388

and the four-limb structure of the tenor chosen for the composition, which is drawn from
the chant Kyrie Cunctipotens Genitor. The structure is thus:

Kyrie
389 Polyphonic
Kyrie
390 Chant
Kyrie
391 Polyphonic: Repeated

392 Christe Chant

393 Christe Polyphonic: New material
394 Christe Chant

395 Kyrie Polyphonic: Further new material

396 Kyrie Chant
397 Kyrie Polyphonic: Yet further new material

The rather stern atmosphere that characterises Machaut’s isorhythmic writing is lightened
398

by his characteristic use of syncopation in the quicker-moving parts. This was a habit that
developed only because of the advances in notation.

EXAMPLE 3.7

Listen to Machaut’s Gloria, from his La messe de Nostre Dame. The score with commentary
is in NAWM #25 (b).

399 Time allocated: 6 minutes

After the chanted intonation, this longer text is treated phrase by phrase, in a chiefly
400

homophonic style. Again, a Machaut “finger-print” may be observed: the frequent use
of a sustained chord at the start and finish of a section. The closing Amen is provided
with a polyphonic working-out, complete with hocket and even syncopated figures in
the contratenor.

The Ars Subtilior represents the extreme end of the French song production before
401

the emergence of the chanson. In what has been termed “the late 14th-century avant-
garde”, a centre of composition grew in Avignon in south France, where the papacy was

67 MHS1511/1
located for much of the 1300s.59 The popes convened a court of unusual cultural intensity
that fostered stylistic pressures towards the extravagant and the bizarre. Always, and
rightly, called “mannered”, it is only recently, when the extraordinary harmonic daring
and rhythmic complexity of this music has been equalled by that of 20th-century works
that a re-evaluation has taken place. Details about the circle of composers assembled at
the papal court are lacking, their names unfamiliar. Yet the music is a clear extension of
earlier genres: the forms are virelais (some quite approachable), and the more expressive
rondeaux and ballades. Some of this repertoire has thrown up odd discoveries, for instance
“Ma douce amour” (by Johannes Simon Hasprois), with its burgeoning decoration in the
voice part that “offers a fascinating example of written-out medieval vocal ornamentation”
(Munrow 1973).

EXAMPLE 3.8

Listen to Hasprois’ “Ma douce amour” (text and translation below).

Time allocated: 3 minutes

402

403 Ma douce amour, je me doi bien complayndre My sweet love, I have good cause
to complain,
404 Quant je ne puis avoyr soulas ne joye When I have neither solace nor joy,
405 De vous, que j’ay amé tous dis sans fayndre Of you, whom I have always faithfully
loved
406 Et ameray quoi qu’avenir m’en doye. And will love, whatever the future holds
for me.
407 Tant con vivray, las, or n’est bien que j’aye I shall, alas, never be content as long as
I live,
408 Quant je ne voy vo gente portraiture, Except when I see your beautiful face
409 En qui je preng ma douce noureture. Which is my sweet nourishment.

3.8 TRECENTO ITALY

Activity 3.12

Read HWM, pp 122 to 28, Italian Trecento Music.

159 The phrase is the title of a recording (1973) by The Early Music Consort of London under David Munrow.

68
 410 Time allocated: 20 minutes

The fact that music and dance were woven into the fabric of Italian court and city life in
411

the 14th century – as the literature of the time attests (e.g., Boccaccio) – does not offset the
sparsity of notated music from this period. Clearly, strong improvisatory habits prevailed.
Since this was the epoch in which Petrarch and Dante, both Florentines, were leading a
poetic revival, and the latter was establishing the Tuscan dialect as a literary vehicle, the
musical achievements are understandably vocal, and the coordination of musical forms
with poetic structure is strong and obvious.
It is noteworthy that the flowering of poetry displaced Occitan, which had become a
412

musical language in Italy as a result of troubadour influence there. At the same time,
Italian rhythmic notation, which was well adapted to florid melody, was supplanted by
French mensural system.
413 The material that survives, shows compositional concentration in three forms:

 The madrigal – an early manifestation quite different from the 16th-century type
 The caccia, involving strict canonic invention between two voices
 The ballata, being the music in which Francesco Landini excelled
Landini is forever linked to the cadence formula bearing his name. Though he might not
414

have actually invented the device, he established its use and saw it widely exported. But
the hallmark of his writing is a sweetness of harmony arising from the frequent use of thirds
and sixths, though not in place of the consonances found at internal and final cadences.

EXAMPLE 3.9

Listen to Landini’s ballata “Non avrà ma’ pietà”, the score and text in NAWM #31.

Time allocated: 10 minutes

415

In one way, this style was the end of a long historical progression. Yet, with hindsight, it
416

was at the same time part of the swelling tide that carried Europe into its Renaissance.

3.9 REFERENCES
Bagby, Benjamin. 2013. ‘What is a ‘Gothic’ Acoustic?’ Article published online at https://
www.sequentia.org/writings/gothic_acoustic.html
Camille, Michael. 1998. The Medieval Art of Love: Objects and Subjects of Desire. London:
Laurence King.

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Cuddon, J.A. 1979. A Dictionary of Literary Terms (revised edition). London: Andre Deutsch.
Fassler, Margot. 2014a. Music in the Medieval West. New York: Norton.
Fassler, Margot. 2014b. Anthology for ‘Music in the Medieval West’. New York: Norton.
Gushee, Marion S. 1990. ‘The Polyphonic Music of the Medieval Monastery, Cathedral and
Univerasity’. In Music and Man: Antiquity and the Middle Ages: From Ancient Greece to
the 15th Century, ed. James McKinnon. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Pp. 143–69.
Munrow, David. 1973. Sleeve-notes to EMI ASD 3621, The Late Fourteenth Century Avant
Garde.
Taruskin, Richard. 2005. The Oxford History of Western Music. New York: Oxford (available
as an e-book on the Unisa Library website).

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Learning Unit 4
The consequences of reform: sacred music in the 16th
century

PURPOSE

The purpose of learning unit 3 is to introduce you to

 the fundamental disruption of European society and culture that is for convenience
called “The Reformation”
 the consequences for music in the breaking-up of the medieval church in both Re-
formed and Catholic spheres
 the contemporaneous expansion of European kingdoms in the colonisation of Asia,
the Americas and Africa, as seen in musical culture

OUTCOMES

After completing this learning unit, you should demonstrate that you are able to
 identify (with examples) and account for sacred music that was the result of
Reformation and Counter-Reformation initiatives
 describe the ways in which the church tradition was preserved in the Protestant
sphere
 explain the long afterlife of Palestrina’s style
 account for the music produced in the Spanish colonies of South America in
the 15th century

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING UNIT 4

417 4.1 Introduction
418 4.2 The nursery of musical reform
419 4.3 The Roman (Catholic) Resistance
420 4.4 Music and missionary endeavour

4.1 INTRODUCTION

Activity 4.1

Review – HWM, chapter11, pp 229 to 31, The Reformation, Martin Luther

71 MHS1511/1
 It should take approximately 15 minutes to complete activity 4.1.
421

The great division of Europe in the 16th century was a powerful mixture of theological
422

and political confrontations with results that may be clearly observed wherever Christians
practise their faith today. The South African scene is a vivid example of the continued
division between Catholic and Protestant beliefs, and offers us a history of “church planting”
that was ignited in this now distant time. The full impact of missionary labours in this
country will feature in later history modules, but the story of European colonisation of
the globe is the most mixed of all the events that coincided with and marked the period
of reformation.

The features of Protestant innovation in church life and music under Martin Luther and
423

John Calvin were obviously influenced by the preferences of its leaders, as well as by their
broader musical background. But deeper even than these were the habits of reading –
enabled by printing technology near the end of the 1400s – of the new classes of people
who were served by inexpensive publications, and the crystallising of the demand for
books both great (the Bible) and small in the mother tongue. This growing emphasis
on communicable language fed into many political as well as theological demands, and
the Holy Roman Empire – the guardian of a single European Christendom – was unable
to resist the national identities that emerged.

Activity 4.2

Review HWM, pp 231 to 41, Music in the Lutheran Church, Music in Calvinist Churches,
and Church Music in England.’’

424 It should take approximately 45 minutes to complete activity 4.2.

4.2 THE NURSERY OF MUSICAL REFORM

The followers of the Swiss reformer Heinrich Zwingli were forbidden to use music in
425

services at all, so radical was their desire to distance themselves from Catholic practice. But
this radicalism of approach was not the norm. It is instructive that Lutheran and Anglican
(the English Protestant church) services both retained aspects of pre-Reformation church
practice, such as a revised form of the Latin Mass among Lutherans. Even so, there were
changes made to these retentions.

72
The Book of Common Prayer was first published in 1549. The Anglican liturgy, other than
426

anthems and hymns, was a recasting in English of the Roman form. It served as a means
of obtaining uniformity of practice in the Church of England. The order of Morning and
Evening Prayer, as well as Communion, was marked by greater simplicity than its model.
The canticles included in the daily services were drawn from the Latin Office: Morning
Prayer combined elements of Matins, Lauds and Prime, while Evening Prayer used elements
of Vespers and Compline. The Communion service preserved four of the five great passages
from the Ordinary of the Mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo and Sanctus.

The Anglican “use” includes the reading or singing of all 150 psalms in rotation: a complete
427

cycle is distributed over a month of morning and evening services. The music provided for
this, called “Anglican chant”, is a simple type of harmonised melody especially adapted for
singing non-metrical texts (i.e., prose), mainly psalms and canticles, when the latter were
not more elaborately set. In parish practice, psalms were sung in metrical translations –
that of Psalm 100, beginning “All people that on earth do dwell” is widely known – which
put them close to hymns. But in cathedrals, metrical congregational hymns were kept to
very few, the choir taking over the bulk of the singing as “the people’s representative”.

In addition, in both Morning and Evening Prayer, a place was indicated for a choral anthem,
428

the English Protestant equivalent of a Latin motet. While those in the early contrapuntal
style may have been strictly a cappella, the anthem was, unlike the Latin type, quite
often accompanied by organ and even by viols. After the Restoration (1660), it included
passages for solo voice, or for soloists in combination. This can be seen as an indirect
form of Catholic encouragement, since the music of the Chapel Royal was responsive to
the wishes of Charles II, the king whose taste had been formed, in exile, by the styles of
the French court.

Lutherans were deeply concerned with the participation of lay people in services through
429

chorales, German hymns of a particular strength and doctrinal emphasis that often took
over older melodic ideas, while the English church had room for composers like William
Byrd (an undeclared Catholic), who worked in the prevailing polyphonic style of the
Continent. But it must be repeated that the tradition of music established in English
cathedrals was not that of parish churches, where simpler compositions were the norm.
This was also the case in the Lutheran sphere. It should also be kept in mind that, helped
by the printing and dissemination of music (and the literacy that went with it), Protestant
devotions in the home could make use of much of the new hymnody. In this way, a body
of “spiritual songs” became available and familiar to large parts of the society.

EXAMPLE 4.1

Listen to two famous Lutheran chorales in NAWM I: #58 (b) and (c), and a Calvinist example
I: #59 (with commentary). You will soon find it possible to join in as the verses proceed.
Luther, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland
Luther, Ein’ feste Burg
Bourgeois/Goudimel Psalm 134

73 MHS1511/1
 Activity 4.3

Listen to William Byrd’s full anthem “Sing joyfully unto God” (NAWM I:
#61), which presents a vigorous example of the Anglican equivalent to
the Latin motet.

It should take approximately 9 minutes to complete listening example 3.1 and

430

activity 3.3.

It is well known (and seemed to be an open secret even in his lifetime) that Byrd, though
431

appointed as composer to a Protestant monarch, never forsook his religious roots, and
associated in secret with other recusants.60 It is useful to compare this anthem with
a later work from his Catholic “side”, the Latin motet “Ave Verum Corpus”, written for
private use on the Feast of Corpus Christi (which commemorates the institution of
holy communion, and which was abolished in the English church in 1559). It is a restrained
and heartfelt composition, typical of the later Byrd works that seem to radiate a plaintive
tone arising from a sense of being hounded for faithfulness to the historic church.

Example 4.2

Listen to Byrd’s motet “Ave Verum Corpus”. The score is available in Freedman 2013, #19
(with commentary).

Time allocated: 4 minutes

432

4.3 THE ROMAN (CATHOLIC) RESISTANCE

Having surveyed some of the significant threads in the Protestant initiatives between1520
433

and 1580, we now turn to the reaction of the old church, which took the form both of
self-correction in response to Protestant criticisms, and of self-assertion, especially the
confirmation of the primacy of the Roman pope and the Latin Church.

160 This was the name given to individuals, both Catholics and Protestants, who refused out of conscience
to attend services of the Church of England. A fine was levelled for non-attendance, that rose to ₤20 per
month by 1581. A series of penal laws aimed specifically at Catholics were enacted, the harshest involving
disqualification from an official position. They were later (17th c) gradually repealed.

74
 Activity 4.4

Read HWM – Chapter 11, pp 241 to 48, Catholic Church Music, Giovanni
Pierluigi da Palestrina

434 Time allocated: 45 minutes

In the overall tradition of Western music, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (his name may be
435

Englished as John Peter-Aloysius from [the small town of] Palestrina), and known simply
as Palestrina, is a special figure. The reason for this is partly his devotion to the music
of the church; what is more, his career coincided with the movement, spearheaded by
Rome, to purge Catholicism of some of the undeniable malpractices that had grown up
in church life. The official response to the schisms that broke the church first into Catholic
and Protestant spheres, then into further variations of Protestantism, was a lengthy council
that sat in Trent (It. Trento) to steer the mother church’s own reformation. (The adjective
is Tridentine, as in Tridentine reforms.)

The two movements from his Missa Papae Marcelli (Mass of Pope Marcellus) provided
436

in NAWM I: #63 show how his music both affirmed the long polyphonic traditions of the
medieval and renaissance church – the Agnus Dei is a typical unfolding of extended,
chant-like melodies – and simultaneously respected the reforming goal of making the
text audible and thereby understandable. Thus, the much longer Credo shows a different
approach in its many homorhythmic passages that lightly and clearly enunciate the words.

Example 4.3

Listen to Credo and Agnus Dei from the mass, NAWM I: #63 (a) and (b) (with commentary).

Time allocated: 12 mins

437

While Palestrina’s style is not the only creative output to attain such a level of compositional
438

mastery in polyphonic writing, his calm and transparent choral music has a unique
impact. Even during his lifetime, he was considered outstanding, and in due course, an
Austrian Baroque composer, Johann Joseph Fux, formulated a way of teaching students
how to write contrapuntal music along the lines of Palestrina’s. (Fux was a Catholic, and
himself composed some 50 masses.)

75 MHS1511/1
Though today Palestrina’s music is known through a comparatively small number of
439

his many compositions (and Fux’s hardly at all), the textbook through which Fux taught
the “style of Palestrina”, entitled Gradus ad Parnassum (1715), became an integral part of
specialised musical studies in Europe for the next 200 years. That in itself reveals how
highly regarded such polyphonic music was, even though, after Palestrina’s death, it
began a long decline in practice; and how persistently the skill of writing counterpoint was
considered essential in the training of a professional musician. The “spell” of Palestrina’s
musical pinnacle had to make space in academic studies for a later contrapuntist, Johann
Sebastian Bach (see learning unit 7), but the teaching of counterpoint continues in
universities and music conservatoires to this day.

Pause for reflection

How do you reconcile the relatively unchanged music of the Catholic Church during the
turbulent 16th century61 with the pinnacles of achievement by Gombert, Willaert, the
Gabrielis, and especially Palestrina?

4.4 MUSIC AND MISSIONARY ENDEAVOUR

We consider now a topic that receives attention in HWM as Music in the Spanish New
440

World. The rooting of Catholicism in the transatlantic territories seized by Spain grew
out of religious practice at home and is really part of “the counter-reformation as world
mission” (MacCulloch 2003, 427-441). This part of the text is handled later in the unit.

Protestants were so preoccupied with battling for their faith (and with one another), that
441

they undertook comparatively little mission work outside Europe until the 1700s. But
Catholics of the mid-1500s set themselves ambitious goals in seeking to evangelise the
wider world. The drivers of this expansion were monks and priests of the Franciscan and
Dominican orders, to be joined a little later by the formidable Jesuits, who added educational
programmes to evangelism.

The vehicle that carried them into far-flung mission fields was the overseas empires
442

established by Portugal and Spain in a period of rapid growth. (The term “age of discovery”
needs at least the qualifier “European”; terms such as “the opening of the world” also need
careful definition, since for the people who were visited by the European voyagers, this
global reach was often the “closing”, if not outright destruction, of their worlds). The Pope
had conceded temporal control of Catholic activity to the monarchs of these kingdoms.
In other words, the process lay with powerful southern European countries and worked
itself out through their colonising projects.

In Spain, there is an important back-story.62 It might be possible to understand the

443

treatment handed out to resident Muslims and Jews – their effective expulsion from

161 HWM, 241: “How music was used in the Catholic Church was changed relatively little by the religious
turbulence of the sixteenth century. … Instead, we find continuity in the roles played by music and in
the genres and forms that were used…”
162 See learning unit 2, note on canƟgas.

76
the southern part of Spain in 1492 – as the inevitable result of the long campaign to re-
Christianise Portuguese and Spanish domains that had formerly been under Islamic rule.
This was a costly and protracted military operation, spread across four centuries. In addition,
just as some Christians had converted while living under Muslim rule or pretended to, so
the church in the reconquered domains was intent on tracking down Christian believers
whose beliefs had been tainted by life in an Islamic society; it also sought to uncover Jews
and Muslims (some of them Christian in their roots but converted to Islam much earlier)
who merely presented themselves as Christian for the obvious advantages. The means
by which all this was achieved, was the Catholic Inquisition in Spain (launched in 1480).
Both the Portuguese and Spanish kingdoms of the later 1400s established themselves
as imperial powers by military conquest in Central and South America, Africa and Asia.
The church, in the form of missionaries, eagerly participated in the expansion, as they
anticipated conversions among subject peoples. This was in part a reaction to the loss of
many Catholic souls to Protestant growth in Europe. As for the souls of the “unreached”
heathen, the missionary priests took full advantage of the superior European fire-power
as a shelter under which to evangelise.

The opportunism involved can be judged from the policy of the Jesuit order, whose
444

founder, St Ignatius Loyola, had sought to avoid a priestly culture. “Notably, Loyola waged
an irritable battle to stop Jesuit churches staging elaborately sung high masses, although
when the Society realized that festive music and splendid ritual were effective evangelistic
devices in the mission field, it relented on this puritanism” (MacCulloch 2003:225).

445

Figure 4.1 The decoration of historic churches in Quito, Ecuador, includes aspects of Mudejar style, that is,
produced by Muslims who continued to live under Christian rule after the Reconquest. L: The ceiling of the
crossing in the Church of San Francisco (begun 1535); R: Nave interior of the Church of the Society of Jesus (begun
1605), view towards the organ loft. Note the arabesque design on the pillars. Photos: Diego Delso (http://delso.photo)
Licence: Wikipedia CC-BY-SA
L: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iglesia_de_San_Francisco,_Quito,_Ecuador,_2015-07-22,_DD_159-
161_HDR.JPG
R: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iglesia_de_La_Compañía,_Quito,_Ecuador,_2015-07-22,_DD_128-
130_HDR.JPG

It is worth pausing here to consider this point further. The general splendour of Counter-
446

Reformation religious celebration, both at home and abroad, can hardly be denied. This
means that, though the Council of Trent sought to prune and purify the sung liturgy in the
cause of refining the worship of the church, the reassertion of Catholic primacy took on
forms of such richness that they often seem worldly in their impact. This seeming paradox

77 MHS1511/1
– of earnest piety and sensuous ritualism – is attested in the words of a contemporary
observer.

Activity 4.5

Study Reading #36 in Weiss and Taruskin 1984:135-40, Counter-

Reformation. Note the illustration on p 136, “one of the very few pictorial
documents we have of the ... extravagant Counter-Reformation musico-
religious festivities...”

447 Time allocated: 15 minutes

But the finest evidence of this ecclesiastical “glory” is preserved in the music that
448

was composed for the basilica church of San Marco in Venice, a building constructed to
house the relics of the apostle Mark, and decorated on its arches, vaults and domes with
glittering mosaics. (Unusually, even the exterior of the building is thus adorned.)

Activity 4.6

HWM, chapter 12: The Rise of Instrumental Music, pp 271 to 74, Music in Venice
This passage gives a sense of the importance and wealth of the city, of its generous
support of the arts, and of the high standing of the basilica’s choirmaster, “the most
coveted musical post in all Italy” (272). The practice of dividing a choir into segments
(polychoralism) is to be encountered very widely, but it was a special feature of St Mark’s,
as well as of another impressive Venetian institution, the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, a
confraternity purposed for charitable works, but also mounting spectacular festivals on,
for example, its saint’s day, 16 August. Cori spezzati (Ital. “broken choirs”) also feature in
music by composers who took their skills from Venice to other cities, or were influenced
by the Venetian achievements.

449 Time allocated: 15 minutes.

To return to the global mission of the church. It is not that there were no religious figures
450

who questioned the right of Spain and Portugal to conquer and colonise – such were to
be found especially among Spanish clerics – and there survive documents that witness
to the thriving cultures that were overrun.

78
 Activity 4.7

Read SSR2 No. 77 (Motolinia on Aztec/Mexica culture), and No. 78 (Bartolomé de

Segovia [or Cristóbal de Molina] on Inca practices), pp 495 to 99 and 499 to 501.
Time allocated: 20 minutes
Christianity would have a major impact on the vast majority of indigenous populations.
In most places, leadership of the churches was assumed exclusively by European clergy.
“Indios [in South America] might become assistants in the liturgy, but never the principals –
catechists, sacristans, cantors and instrumentalists, but not priests” (MacCulloch 2003:430).
Even features that might seem to show tolerance of local conditions are not so easy to
interpret. For example, the interest and competence that Jesuit missionaries showed
in local languages like Nahuatl or Quechua did not spring from the same concern that
caused European Protestants to demand Bibles in their vernacular tongues. The Jesuits
were limited to two sacraments, celebration of the Mass and the hearing of confessions.
The confidentiality involved in the latter meant that the use of interpreters was impossible:
priests simply had to learn a local language in order to perform their duties.
What importance should then be attached to the music that was produced and performed
in the churches of the colonies? Central and South America have yielded a considerable
quantity of sacred music, composed mainly by clergy from Europe serving the communities
of indigenous converts who were drawn into villages – always designed on a grid plan,
centred on a church and the communal square in front of it – called “reductions” (in
Spanish, reducciones de indios; in Portuguese, reduções or aldeias). This arrangement
assisted the missionaries in many ways, including in the isolation of new Christians from
their non-Christian backgrounds, but also in protecting them from colonial labour uptake.
The process, however, had unforeseen consequences: since colonists could not easily
access the labour of indigenous Indian converts, they turned instead to the enslavement
of Africans, with the disastrous results that followed.
The larger church establishments, for instance, the cathedrals in Lima (Peru), in Mexico
City, and at Puebla (Mexico), grand buildings in their own right, supported strong
musical establishments, and drew converts into sophisticated Renaissance and Baroque
performance.

Activity 4.8

Read the account of music in Spain and its colonies in HWM, pp 249 to
51, together with its source reading, A Spaniard’s Description of Aztec
Festivals.

Time allocated: 15 minutes

451

There is also evidence that aspects of local culture (besides language) shaped church
452

traditions in the South American colonies. That may be concluded from the following

79 MHS1511/1
selection which is datable to the late 1600s but represents the extension of the life of a
song-type (the villancico, which was an old form of Spanish poetry with a very specific
verse structure) that was already familiar in the previous century. The notes following it
in the anthology are important for understanding the “dialect” effect of the vocabulary
used, the perspective of the text (through the eyes of “Poor boys, black boys from Safala”,
see below), and the jaunty syncopations derived from popular musical practices that
would have been familiar to these “poor boys” from their own backgrounds.

Example 4.4

Listen to Juan de Araujo, “Los coflades de la estleya”63

453 Time allocated: 4 minutes

454 The opening lyrics with translation are:

455 Los coflades de la estleya Fellow brothers of the Star

456 vamo turus a Beleya
457 y velemo a ziola
458 beya con ziolo en lo poltal.
459 Vamo, vamo currendo ayá.
460 Oylemo un viyansico
461 que lo compondlá Flasico
462 ziendo gayta su fosico
463 y luego lo cantalá Blasico,
464 Pellico, Zuanico i Tomá,
465 y lo estliviyo dilá:
466 Gulumbé gulumbé gulumbá
467 Guache moleniyo de Safala.
let us all go to Bethlehem,
and we shall see Our beautiful Lady,
with Our Lord in the manger.
Let’s go, let’s run there.
We shall hear a villancico
that Francisco will compose,
piping in his little voice,
and then Blasico will sing it
with Perico, Zuanico, and Tomás,
and the estribillo [refrain] will go:
Gulumbé, gulumbé, gulumbá,
Poor boys, black boys from Safala.

Juan de Araujo ... was born in Spain in 1648 and emigrated as a child to Lima in Peru. At the
468

age of twenty-two he was appointed choirmaster at the Cathedral there. In 1676 he moved
to a similar post at the cathedral in La Plata, which is now Sucre in Bolivia. He worked with
thirty-five musicians in this beautiful, white cathedral and stayed there until his death in
1712. Araujo was one of the finest choir trainers of his time and was particularly successful at
training young voices. The notation of Araujo’s music is particularly interesting, making use
of ‘void’ notation and ‘black’ notation. This is a very neat way of writing down the complex
rhythms of the villancicos, and warning the performer of the problems at the same time.
(Skidmore 2005)

163 The score, the full text with translation, and commentary may be accessed in the 7th edition of NAWM,
I: #91.

80
The Jesuits were also active in Asia, though some of their efforts, especially in Japan,
469

won them comparatively little reward. Nor did the missionary clergy have an easy time,
as they followed the Portuguese slaving ships down the west coast of Africa. The most
promising landfall was at Luanda, where the leaders of the kingdom of Kongo had already
been converted to Christianity and conscientiously sought friendly terms with the king of
Portugal. But what started as trade relations turned sour as the “trade” turned to slaving;
and, despite the efforts of the pious Mzinga Mvemba (otherwise known as King Afonso
I; reigned 1509–42) – he had one of his sons consecrated a bishop in Portugal in 1518,
opened schools that taught Portuguese, and built a cathedral city as his capital – the
experience of these African Catholics seemed to predict the pattern of things to come
elsewhere in Africa in the 19th century. The Portuguese crown insisted on appointing
its own bishops, inhibiting both the influx of European priests and blocking the growth
of a native clergy. The associations of the Portuguese with the slave trade simply made
matters worse. The kiKongo elite continued to practise their faith into the 17th century,
but political disarray put paid to the church’s organisation. Instead, creative popular
syntheses of Christian belief with previous religions created the first of the independent
churches that play such an important role in Africa today (MacCulloch 2003:439).

This brief account provides a context for a final reading, in which the musical culture of
470

Kongo under Alvaró I (reigned 1568–87), a descendant of Afonso I, receives admiring

attention.

Activity 4.9

Read Strunk SSR2 #79, from Relation on the Kingdom of the Congo and the
Surrounding Regions, by Filippo Pigafetta and Duarte Lopez, pp 502 to 04.

471 Time allocated: 10 minutes

4.5 CONCLUSION
In this learning unit, we have reviewed the profound disruptions in European religious life
472

in the 16th century and their musical out-working. In the next learning unit, we consider
the secular music of the same century, especially its vocal forms, and the system of
patronage that both required and supported them.

4.6 REFERENCES
Burkholder, J. Peter, Donald Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca. 2019. A History of Western
Music. 10th edition. New York: Norton.
Freedman, Richard. 2013. Anthology for Music in the Renaissance. New York: Norton.

81 MHS1511/1
MacCulloch, Diarmaid. 2003. Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490–1700. London:
Penguin Books.
Skidmore, Jeffrey. 2005. Notes to Hyperion CDA67524. ‘Moon, sun and all things’. https://
www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67524
Weiss, Piero, and Richard Taruskin, eds. 1984. Music in the Western World: A History in
Documents. New York: Schirmer.

82
Learning Unit 5
The Renaissance to its close: dissemination and
consolidation, reflected in secular vocal music

PURPOSE

The purpose of learning unit 5 is to introduce you to

 secular vocal styles of the 16th century, using a series of examples

 the importance of printing for musical life
 the role of poetry in stimulating musical composition
 the leading forms of chanson and madrigal

OUTCOMES

After completing learning unit 5, you should demonstrate that you are able to

 recognise and explain, with reference to examples, the chief secular vocal forms of
the 16th century
 describe the forms of patronage and privilege that enabled musical activities
 explain how poetic texts shaped secular music genres
 understand the means by which music offered itself as a vehicle for political sentiment

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING UNIT 5

473 5.1 Introduction
474 5.2 Music for profit
475 5.3 History into music
476 5.4 The poem into music

5.1 INTRODUCTION
An important part of the history of musical styles involves detecting the influences
477

that contribute to a given form or practice; this is usually done by tracing the most
likely shaping forces: the cultural background during a composer’s formative years, the
teachers under whom (s)he studies, the positions to which (s)he is appointed, and the
twists and turns of the subsequent career. All these are applied to the music the composer
produces, confirming the sense of human continuity but also accounting for the novelties,
experiments and surprises that may be observed. Each of these, when identified, opens
up another “line of descent” for exploration, especially the maturing influence of other
practitioners. Historical narrative has to deal with a complex process of stylistic “branching”
(diversification), confluences (meeting points), purifications and syntheses.

83 MHS1511/1
 Activity 5.1

Construct a summary, in the form of a mind map, of the shaping forces that influence
musical styles.

Time allocated: 5 minutes

478

Without doubt, one of the great accelerators in European culture was (by stages) the
479

introduction of paper-making, which came from China via the Islamic world of both the
near East (the Caliphate in Baghdad) and Andalusia (Spain) in the 10th to 12th centuries;
the invention of the printing press and the associated techniques that allowed the
rapid transition from hand-carved wood-block to movable type (which took place in
the decades from 1440 to 1470); and, vital for printing musical scores, single-impression
printing, instead of the initial triple-impression which separated staves from the notes
and rests, and from the text, each element being printed in succession. This last advance
speeded up the printing of scores significantly, and thus lowered their costs; it became
the standard after about 1540, and was only replaced by printing from engraved metal
plates in the late 17th century.

These developments and the speed with which they spread across Europe made the writing
480

of books an engine of the Renaissance. The older tradition of manuscripts written and
illustrated by hand lingered on, but could not match the reach of the new technology; the
codex had always been a medium linked to small groups of users. At the same time, the
historic invention pioneered by Johannes Gutenberg created a tension within societies
that had long been accustomed to oral practices (and memorising habits). Printing itself
“invented” textual culture. Another paradox inherent in the rise of typography has been
noted:

“[T]he first two centuries of printing from movable types were motivated much more
481

by the desire to see ancient and medieval books than by the need to read and write
new ones. Until 1700 much more than 50 per cent of all printed books were ancient or
medieval” (McLuhan 1964:171).

However, this tendency was not so marked in the field of music. Medieval chant, the
482

daily expression of the medieval church, had of course to be printed. But musical taste
had been formed in the crucible of recent composition, and it looked back (at least at
this stage) only two generations at most. The following evaluation of styles, dating from
the 1470s, shows a clear commitment to music that had been produced in recent times.

Activity 5.2

Briefly list the possible causes that served as the accelerators of European culture from
the 10th century to the 1700s.

84
 Time allocated: 10 minutes
483

Activity 5.3

Read the dedication of Johannes Tinctoris that introduces his Proportionale

musices (1473-74), SSR2, #36. Make notes in your writing journal, especially
on Tinctoris’s ideas of history.
Why do you think Johannes Tinctoris changed his name from Jehan le
Taintenier or Jean Teinturier?

484 Time allocated: 20 minutes

He was originally named Jehan le Taintenier or Jean Teinturier (Fr. = “a dyer”). The fact
485

that he used a Latinised form of his name – a common Renaissance practice – clearly
signalled his participation in the humanist movement.

It is worth pausing for a moment to review the career of the musician considered so
486

highly by Tinctoris: Josquin des Prez. Despite his reputation, the documentary evidence
for his biography remains fragmentary. This has led musicologists to take seriously any
historical reference to him. Until quite recently, he was confused with a contemporary of
his of similar name who was employed at Milan Cathedral; he was Josquin de Picardia,
an older person. This led to a misunderstanding of the composer’s position. From the
surviving references to him, it seems that he was itinerant in his employment, and that
the following are the only positive identifications of his appointments:

In Milan: Household of Cardinal Ascanio Forza, 1484–85; Chapel of Lodovico Sforza, 1489–?
487

In Rome: Papal choir, 1490s In Ferrara: Maestro di cappella, Duke Ercole I d’Este, 1503–4
In Condé-sur-l’Escaut: Provost of Notre-Dame Collegiate Church, 1504–1521.64

It is true that the almost total lack of examples of ancient music contributed to Tinctoris’s
488

short perspective. But preferences in music – if they are not legislated by an overarching
authority – draw heavily on individual experience and participation in the culture of the
present. That the church saw itself as just such an authority and tried to control the course
of its musical activity would eventually lead to a stasis in the liturgy that persisted from the
17th into the 20th century. But the reforming spirit and the growth of humanism within

164 But he is not the only subject of whose biography has undergone revision: Freedman notes (132) that
knowledge has changed considerably in respect of other Renaissance “greats”, like Johannes Ciconia,
Guillaume Du Fay, Heinrich Isaac, Pierre de La Rue, Orlando di Lasso and Luca Marenzio.

85 MHS1511/1
the church itself was destined to challenge patterns of authority, and to bring change to
culture in the process.

Activity 5.4

Review HWM, pp 154 to 58, New Currents in the Sixteenth Century, including the sidebar
Innovations: Music Printing.
Make notes in your learning journal, paying particular attention to the dissemination of
music, regionalism in its styles and genres, the cultural effects of the Reformation, and
the early development of a market for printed scores.

489 Time allocated: 20 minutes

5.2 MUSIC FOR PROFIT

The largest internet repository of sheet music (http://imslp.org/) takes its alternative
490

name, Petrucci, from a pioneer Italian publisher of music, Ottaviano [dei] Petrucci, whose
work has been touched on in the last activity. There, his emphasis on publishing current
as well as popular secular music was noted; that served the Franco-Flemish style of the
day, helped in its dissemination and encouraged its influence far beyond the limits of the
places where its most outstanding composers had worked.

Petrucci succeeded in overcoming the technical problems of music printing, and the great
491

elegance of his many volumes set a standard unrivalled by the other Italian printers of
the early sixteenth century who issued music books, even Andrea Antico, who worked
in Rome and also Venice and was the only other publisher of the period to bring out a
substantial number of music volumes (Brown & Stein 1999:167).

This is the usual praise of Petrucci’s work found in music history texts. Behind this brief
492

citation lie personal histories of a more dramatic kind than the level tone implies. The
fortunes of Petrucci and his competition take us not only to the scene of music as a
business, sometimes risky, but to the root of issues that have become flashpoints in music
in the present: intellectual property (IP), copyright, “returns”.

The most productive period in Petrucci’s career was the first decade of the 1500s. His
493

printing business was in Venice, and he tried to consolidate his opportunity by asking
for – and receiving – a 20-year licence for all printing activities related to music in the
Venetian Republic.

86
 Activity 5.5

Read Petrucci’s petition to the Signoria (the council of rulers of the city-
state) in Weiss and Taruskin, Reading #24, pp 89 to 90. Make notes in
your learning journal on the key points in the petition to the Signoria.

Time allocated: 20 minutes

494

Note the request that the licensee should have no local competition and be protected
495

from imports of published music, and the suggested punishments for infringement:
confiscation of the material and fines. These protections would later evolve into the patent
of inventions and publisher’s copyright.

Venice, however, had made enemies in its expansion of territory by conquest, and the
496

trade benefits that followed. The League of Cambrai (a group of allies that included
the Emperor Maximilian, Pope Julius II, King Louis XII of France and King Ferdinand II of
Aragon) attacked Venice in 1508, and Petrucci left the city the following year for his home
town, which was situated in a Papal State. To further his publishing aims, he petitioned
the pope for a licence; he was granted one for a few years, but it was withdrawn on the
grounds that he had failed to publish keyboard music. Instead, it was awarded to Andrea
Antico, based in Rome, who subsequently expanded his business to Venice. This, despite
the high quality of Petrucci’s work, and the fact that Antico still worked with impressions
made from woodblocks.

At the request of the civic authorities, Petrucci eventually returned to Venice in 1536 –
497

he had spent the intervening years running a paper mill – and printed Greek and Latin
texts. He died in 1539.

However highly his work was (and still is) regarded, it could not stand up to the single-
498

impression technology coming out of Paris in the 1530s, chiefly the work of Pierre
Attaingnant. Besides his commercial advantage, Attaingnant had also obtained a
monopolistic licence lasting six years (from 1531). Royal privileges were in fact renewed
many times, creating for Attaignant an unassailable position in the market.

Activity 5.6

BACKGROUND: Read about the privilege granted to Attaignant by the

French king in Weiss and Taruskin, pp 90 to 92. Make brief notes on the
terms of the licence.

87 MHS1511/1
 499 Time allocated: 10 minutes

Attaignant’s main competition came from others who also sought a royal privilege, like
500

the firm of Le Roy and Ballard, which was granted its licence by the next king in 1551. It
replaced Attaignant as “music publisher to the King” in 1553, and from 1570 onwards had
a virtual monopoly on the market in Paris.

501

Figure 5.1: A sheet from the press Le Roy & Ballard, 1580. A tiny unevenness in the stave lines indicates the use
of single-impression printing. Compare this example with the products of Petrucci and Attaignant illustrated
in HWM, pp. 156-57.

Source: Wikimedia Commons (Image in the Public Domain) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe-

dia/commons/1/10/LRB_music.JPG

Activity 5.7

Discuss the various influences on Petrucci’s career as a publisher of music.

502 Time allocated: 15 minutes

88
As music printing spread, the licences and other factors played a major role in establishing
503

a group of select firms that often employed editors to compile the books and sometimes
also composers to contribute original material for a particular press.

We now examine how historical conditions could affect not only publishing but also the
504

content of what was published.

5.3 HISTORY INTO MUSIC

The disruptions that forced Petrucci to leave Venice continued into the decade of the 1510s.
505

The young French king Francis I launched invasions into north Italy, and the first of these
led to a decisive French victory: the Battle of Marignano, near Milan, in September 1515.

The reason for mentioning the battle is to draw attention to its musical significance. As was
506

customary, celebration of the victory included a motet specially written for the occasion.
The composer, Jean Mouton (ca 1459–1522), was so closely linked with French royalty that
he was virtually a “court composer”. He had provided music in the form of Latin motets
for the parents of King Francis (“Non nobis Domine”, 1510, on the birth of their second
daughter; “Quis dabit oculis”, 1514, on the death of the queen), and for Francis himself
(“Domine salvum fac Regem”, 1515, for Francis’s coronation; “Exalta Regina Galliae”, 1515,
for the French military success at Marignano). His motets, of which he produced about
100, have been identified as suitable for royal consumption by their “smoothly flowing
polyphony” (i.e., they lacked the detailed constructive aspects of a Josquin composition),
“full sonorities”, and, in the political motets at any rate, clearly articulated words (Brown
& Stein 1999:157).

The battle has another reflection in the music of the time: it was portrayed in musical
507

terms by one of the leading exponents of the French chanson, Clément Janequin (ca
1485 – ca 1560). He represents a general move among Parisian composers away from
imitative techniques and density of vocal texture, toward syllabic settings and, despite
moments of counterpoint, a clear hierarchy of voices: a central duet between superius
and tenor, supported by a harmonic bass and a “filler” altus part. In addition, the music is
usually repeated for each stanza of the poem. Between Janequin and Claude de Sermisy
(ca 1490–1563), this fertile pair wrote more than 400 chansons of various types.

Example 5.1

Listen to the chanson “Tant que vivray” by Claudin, as Sermisy was known. (NAWM, #51
has text, translation and notes; an excerpt with a brief comment appears in HWM, p 221).
It is an optimistic and affirming love song.
For contrast, listen to Claudin’s wistful “Languir me fais”.
Languir me fais sans t’avoir offensée, You make me suffer without my having
done anything wrong.
Plus ne m’escriptz, plus de moy ne t’enquiers, You no longer write to me, you no longer
ask about me,
Mais non obstant aultre Dame ne quiers: Nonetheless I don’t want any other
woman;

89 MHS1511/1
 Plus tost mourir, que changer ma pensée. I would rather die than change my mind.
Je ne dy pas t’amour estre effacée, I won’t say love is over between us,
Mais je me plainds de l’ennuy que j’acquiers, but I lament the pain I’ve received,
Et loing de toy humblement te requiers and far removed from you I humbly ask
that you,
Que loing de moy, de moy ne sois faschée. far from me, not be angry with me.
Both poems are by Clément Marot, a leading court poet of the early 16th century. His
career is in some ways a mirror image of William Byrd’s in the sense that, while Byrd en-
joyed royal patronage in England, his adherence to Catholicism made him suspect there.
Marot had Protestant sympathies that went against the grain of Catholic French society,
and was obliged to leave his homeland on two occasions. He died in Italy in 1544.

Time allocated: 10 minutes

508

Janequin, however, is chiefly remembered today for his lengthy “pictorial” chansons –
509

“The Hunt”, “The Song of the Birds”, “The Cries of Paris”, “The Women’s Chatter”, and,
to commemorate Marignano, “The War”, in which the singers imitate fanfares, calls to
arms, battle cries, and the sound of firearms and artillery.

Activity 5.9

Examine the excerpt from the score of “La guerre” (Warfare) and make some notes on
the imitative techniques used.

90
Figure 5.2: Two passages from ‘La Guerre’, edited, engraved and typeset by Pierre Gouin, Les
Éditions Outremontaises (Montréal, 2005) from the Werner Icking Music Collection. Licensed to
IMSLP/Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-3. Pp. 5 and 9. The entire score is available at https://imslp.
org/wiki/La_Bataille_de_Marignan_(Janequin%2C_Clément) The text of the chanson gives clear
indicators, if they are needed, for deciphering the mimicry of these passages.

 In -Figure 5.2 (a), references to trumpets and drums, and the call to “rally to the flag”
(beginning at m.97) explain the prolonged fanfare motifs, in both their triadic notes
and rhythmic patterns.
 In Figure 5.2(b), the rhythm of the repeated pa-ti-pa-tóc, always as equal eighth notes,
suggests the horses referred to in m.100, “In the saddle, men-at-arms”, and m.134, where
“courtaux” refers to pack-horses (non-fighting) – the equivalent of “clippety-clop”;
 In Figure 5.2 (b), Von, von, almost always sung on longer notes and on a low pitch,
clearly evokes the sound of “bombards and cannon” (from m.130); sometimes the
plosive Pon, pon is used.
We turn next to the central form of secular vocal music in the high Renaissance (c 1420
to 1600), the Italian madrigal.

91 MHS1511/1
 5.4 THE POEM INTO MUSIC
If one experiences madrigals in live performance in this country, it is quite likely to be music
510

of the English school. Since madrigals depend entirely on the poetry they use, those of
the English production give a particularly clear insight into their Italian forerunners and
models, because the music of the Elizabethan Renaissance – Queen Elizabeth I‘s long
reign ran from 1558 to 1603 – flowered later than that of continental Europe. In many
respects, the English version served to crystallise what had already been explored in
many genres with varied features.

Activity 5.10

Read The Italian Madrigal (introductory material), HWM, pp 208 to 10 and

make summary notes on through-composed writing, preferences in the
choice of poetry, musical texture, and printed distribution.

Time allocated: 15 minutes

511

The idea of the Italian madrigal – the name was first applied to musical compositions by
512

Costanza Festa in 1530 – was originally a short lyric poem written with singing in mind,
and by several voices, the mood often being pastoral. In northern Italy, the poetic form
went back to the 1300s, but it was in the 16th century that it was revived, and rose to
become the most common form of secular music of the century.

The dominance of the madrigal was ensured by the vast number of them composed, and
513

by the high levels of craftsmanship in their creation. But central to the whole phenomenon
was a serious regard for the poetry set, and a consistent endeavour to unite the sense of
the words with musical expression. Formative influences can be traced to simpler song
forms like the frottola, as also the absorption of Franco-Flemish polyphonic skills, but
its rise was also enabled by traditions of improvisation and the habit of direct expression
in Italian music. All of this – an amalgam of approaches – was needed to match the
experiments in poetry, in particular the impulse to revive “classical” (mainly Latin) models,
and the abiding poetic spirit of Francesco Petrarca [known as Petrarch] (1304–74) whose
collection of 100 poems, titled Canzioniere, established the Italian dialect of Tuscany, the
region around Florence, as the standard vernacular form. All the rest of his extensive
writings were in Latin, the medieval lingua franca.

It is often claimed that singing madrigals was a largely amateur activity. Given the
514

possibilities arising from the printing of music, it is not surprising that the form penetrated
deep into societies. Some madrigals are indeed manageable for relatively untrained
singers, though the concept of “professional” versus “amateur” was also not then the
strict division it has since become. Put another way, the musical commitment of those
who engaged in the culture of court life and those who formed the various “academies”

92
so popular among the educated elite of 16th-century Italy was high. The expectations
they had of the musicians they patronised were higher still.

The “professionals” of the time were chiefly those employed in “chapels”, meaning the
515

musical forces supported in the larger churches and by noble and wealthy families.
These institutions also overlapped, hence the phrase “princes of the church” applied to
prominent ecclesiastical persons. The pope, the (Holy Roman) emperor, and national kings
and queens naturally boasted the finest musical resources. Among the musicians there
was a degree of overlapping, too: many played more than one instrument, and singers
were expected to straddle sacred and secular styles.

The closer one approaches the actual music, the more it appears to group itself into at
516

least three chronological stages.

Activity 5.11

Read HWM, pp 210 to 220, covering early, mid-century and later madrigalists.
This reading also touches on Petrarchism, women’s engagement with the
form, and the lighter song genres being practised alongside madrigals.
(Note that the remarks on specific madrigals by Arcadelt and De Rore
will be taken further immediately below.)

517 Time allocated: 1 hour

Three samples of the madrigal will be discussed as an introduction to the principal

518

features of the form.

Example 5.2

Listen to Jacques Arcadelt’s “Il bianco e dolce cigno” (published 1538). He was of Franco-
Flemish background, as were most of the first generation of madrigal composers. (De-
scription in HWM, p 210; complete score and further notes in NAWM, I: #47).

519 Time allocated: 4 minutes (with anthology notes, 10 minutes)

This is one of the class of erotic madrigals: the swan’s pitiful song before dying contrasted
520

with the blissful “death” of the poet, a reference to the fainting excitement of orgasm
(male, presumably). The poem was by Alfonso d’Avalos [1502–46], known for his military

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achievements, but also apparently involved in founding the Accademia dei Trasformati
in Milan in 1546, with the aim of promoting the Italian language and its poetry.

While the lines of the poem are written in regular syllabic lengths (either 7 or 11 syllables, in
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a neat pattern 7-7-11/7-7/7-7-11/11-11, with the last couplet rhymed to clinch the argument),
the musical realisation moves with the sense of the text, and includes details like a dissonant
suspension on “more” (l 2, dies), a colourful E-flat chord on “piangendo” (l 3, weeping),
and cascades of imitative figures on “mille morte” (l 10, a thousand deaths). Yet the music
is typical of Arcadelt, with a clear cadence at the end of each group of three lines, the
repetition of some phrases, the conservative diatonic harmonies, charming melodies,
smooth part-writing, and transparency of sound (Brown & Stein 1999:201).

“Da le belle contrade d’Oriente” by Cipriano de Rore (1515 or 1516–65) is a far more
522

sophisticated piece, showing the mature madrigal of the 1560s, again from the pen of a
Fleming mostly employed in the courts of Ferrara and Parma in north Italy.

Example 5.3

Listen to the madrigal, noting the new norm of five voices compared with the earlier
preference for four. Besides the remarks in HWM, pp 250 to 51, the NAWM #48 provides
the score and further commentary.

Time allocated: 4 minutes [with anthology notes, 15 minutes]

523

Claudio Monteverdi, whose music is treated in the following learning unit, is often quoted
524

as tracing the roots of his radically new style of composition back to De Rore’s works.
What did he see in them? One approach to De Rore is via a study of his musical “devices”,
the means he used to set, illustrate and illuminate the text in hand. Here, the poem is a
conscious imitation of a Petrarchan sonnet, presenting a brief, amorous episode narrated
in both the poet’s voice and the direct speech of his lover. The rhyme scheme shows the
structure clearly: ABBA ABBA | CDE CDE.

These devices go much further than Arcadelt, and result in far more varied writing. This
525

is understandable, since the poem explores the anguish of a woman about to be parted
from her lover. The poet’s utterances frame her appeal, first by recollecting their intimate
embrace as dawn comes on; then, in describing the desperate clinging to which she
resorts at the prospect of his absence. If the poetry traces a “bell curve” of emotion, so
does the music.

In experiencing such products of the later 16th and early 17th centuries, the modern
526

listener tends to hear a relatively continuous flow of sounds; its “punctuation marks”
are silences created by rests (for reasons usually related to the content of the poetry),
by points of imitation, and by strong tonal cadences. Imitation and cadences are,
furthermore, integrated into the unfolding music by the careful overlapping of phrases.

94
The impression is that each phrase grows out of its antecedent in an unforced way. But
the term “phrase” needs careful definition: it is chiefly governed by the fitting of music to
each line of the poem, and the way that line is treated in all the voices. Quite often, the
shape of the phrase does not exhibit a regular periodicity; this is especially true where
the voice writing is affected by contrapuntal thinking.

If such music seems to have its own text-directed way of proceeding, and its extension
527

in time is linked to passages of counterpoint (whether strictly imitative or free), what is

it that binds the music together and gives it coherence? At base, it is controlled by the
tactus, or beat, usually reckoned in the 16th century as a semibreve value, “the rate of such
beats ... equal to the pulse of a man breathing normally, thus perhaps 60 – 70 per minute”
(Randel 1986:834). This steady beat underlies phrases of differing lengths, and permits
the music to be understandable without constant reference to bar lines which (a) were
not a part of 16th-century notation, (b) and tended, when they later became common,
to signal both regular stresses and (as a consequence) periodic phrasing.

When they use short-line poems and homophonic settings, madrigals show a clear periodic
528

effect, not unlike later barred music. But in poems with longer or irregular-length lines,
and with the inclusion of contrapuntal writing, the music attains a truly poetic status, and
requires of the listener an appreciation not just of the poem and its meaning, but of the
various compositional strategies used to set it.

Example 5.4

Listen to “As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending” by Thomas Weelkes, published
in 1597 as part of a madrigal collection praising The Triumphs of Oriana, that is, Queen
Elizabeth I of England. (Score and commentary in the NAWM #56)

529 Time allocated: 4 minutes (with anthology notes, 15 minutes]

530 From the extensive body of English madrigals, this one is noted for
a. its pastoral setting, and the references to various figures from ancient Greek and
Roman mythology and religion
b. the basis of the poem in the typically English line-form of iambic pentameter;
c. the nature of the composer’s own poem, which was devised to give plenty of op-
portunity for him to illustrate the words musically
The word painting is taken to an extreme:
531

532 In melodic shapes: -

 rise on “hill”, and fall on “descending”, with another rising scale on “ascending”
 falling again on “running down amain”

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 a rising figure on the final “Long live fair Orianna”, especially noticeable when the bass
part sings it in augmentation first by 8 times (from m 83), then by 4 times its normal
value (from m 102)
533 In the way that textures correspond to details in the text: -

 light imitation for “she spied”

 full 6-voice chords for “attended on by all”
 imitative figures for “came running down”
 duets for “two by two”, three voices for “three by three”, and a single soprano on “all
alone”
 vigorous imitation on “With mirthful tunes”
 intense and prolonged imitation of the “Long live” figure
Almost every mythological allusion in the text, although already long used in Renaissance
534

discourses, has a new significance within the personality cult of Elizabeth I. From the
title of the collection to the last word of the madrigal, the text is loaded with ideological
meanings:

 triumphs = parades of royal splendour, in imitation of Roman military victory processions

 Orianna = from Latin oriens, “dawn”, since Elizabeth’s reign was presented as a new
era in history
Vesta = worshipped by the Romans as the goddess of fire, and served by “vestal virgins”,
535

who kept a fire constantly lit in her temple; Elizabeth was known as “the Virgin Queen”

Latmos hill – in Greek mythology, a mountain that was home to Endymion, a shepherd
536

(note the reinforcing of pastoral ideas), whose naked beauty while sleeping diverted the
goddess Diana from her hunting

Nymphs = the attendants of Diana, her “darlings”; these and the shepherds are to be
537

understood as courtiers

The reverent idea of the queen as virgin (she never married) even displaced the old church
538

cult of the Virgin Mary during her long reign. (See Strong 1977 and 1987.)

To close this unit, we turn from this celebratory composition to an exactly contemporaneous
539

(ca 1600) English lute-song.

Example 5.5

Listen to John Dowland’s “Flow, my tears”, the text possibly coming from the composer’s
own pen. (See the NAWM #57 with score that shows the specialised notation called lute
tablature, plus a transcription into standard notation, and commentary.)

540 Time allocated: 4 minutes (20 minutes with anthology notes)

96
The genre of lute song or ayre represents a minor but significant peak in the range of late
541

Renaissance musical types. The attractive combination of the soft-toned lute and a high
male voice has given such music a niche in the recorded music catalogues of recent years,
especially as an outlet for counter-tenor voices. At the time of its creation, the published
lute song was a way for the musical enthusiast to gain insight into a form that was either
aimed at the royal court (of Elizabeth, but also of King James I, her successor), or designed
for theatre performance.
In fact, lute songs can be considered “cross-genre”, since they have roots in the common
542

practice of rearranging polyphonic songs for a single voice and instruments (such as a
consort of viols), or more simply for the lute, which during the Renaissance was more
popular and important than keyboard instruments. It offered chordal accompaniment,
but it could reproduce contrapuntal textures too. It was portable, and it could blend with
various ensembles, while still having the projection of a solo instrument. These attributes
helped to extend the usefulness of the lute well into the 1600s, and gave it a lengthy
career in Europe, easily some 200 years in duration.
This song began life as a solo lute piece in the form of a pavana, originally a slow, processional
543

dance whose music was stylised in the later 16th century for purely instrumental use. The
“word painting” of the title phrase – two melodic figures that descend through a 4th –
spreads into all the parts, both vocal and instrumental.
The English ayre had a French equivalent, the air de cour (“court air”). But the latter was
544

part of a much more continuous tradition of song production, not to mention French
lute music, both of which continued in other forms into the 1600s. The English song-type,
however, came to an end after the death of Dowland (in 1626) and Thomas Campion
(d 1620), its two leading exponents. To some extent, these fateful differences can be
traced to England’s geographical isolation, an important factor in the delay between
Continental developments in the Renaissance and their late adoption in English culture.
In addition, English life in the first half of the 17th century was to be profoundly affected
by Puritanism – as was also the musical life of New England in North America, where
English migrants settled in numbers. But the upheavals of English society caused by the
Civil War (1642–49) would stall developments in its music until late in the century. The
theme of music constricted by social conditions, especially prolonged conflict, is taken
up in learning unit 7.

Activity 5.16

(1) Recognise and describe, with reference to examples, the chief secular vocal forms
of the 16th century.
(2) Describe the forms of patronage and privilege that enabled musical activities.
(3) Explain how poetic texts shaped secular music genres.
(4) Understand the means by which music offered itself as a vehicle for political sentiment.

545 Time allocated: 20 minutes

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5.5 REFERENCES
Brown, Howard Mayer, and Louise K. Stein. 1999. Music in the Renaissance. 2nd edition.
Prentice-Hall.
Freedman, Richard. 2013. Music in the Renaissance. New York: W W Norton.
McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McGraw-Hill.
Randel, Don M., ed. 1986. The New Harvard Dictionary of Music. Harvard University Press.
Strong, Roy. 1977. The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry. London:
Thames and Hudson.
Weiss, Piero, and Richard Taruskin, eds. 1984. Music in the Western World: A History in
Documents. New York: Schirmer.

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Learning Unit 6
The instrumental line

PURPOSE

The purpose of learning unit 6 is to introduce you to

 the long history of instrumental music in its growth from Renaissance roots until 1700
 the rediscovery of this repertoire through ‘period performance’
 the growth of both solo and ensemble composition
 the differing results produced in three national spheres of activity

OUTCOMES

After completing the learning unit, you should demonstrate that you are able to

 describe the broad lines of the Early Music Revival (EMR)

 explain how the simple Renaissance dances came to prominence in the 17th century.
 relate the various solo and ensemble genres to their national or geographical
backgrounds
 argue for the vitality of both older and newer genres around 1700

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING UNIT 6

6.1
546 Introduction: the modern rediscovery of “ancient” music
6.2
547 The masking by “greatness”
6.3
548 The Danserye: a deposit of sociality
6.4
549 Solo instrumental traditions
6.5
550 The school of French clavecinistes
6.6
551 Italy – The great wave
6.7
552 On the German wing
6.8
553 The “voice” of the Baroque?
6.9
554 The growth of the concerto

6.1 INTRODUCTION: THE MODERN REDISCOVERY OF “ANCIENT”

MUSIC
It is notable that a special interest in the music of “the past” can be traced back to the
555

later 1700s, and began to spread its roots during the 19th century. Especially significant
was the revival of J S Bach’s music in Germany from the 1820s onwards, while in France,
at about the same time, a movement began to revive choral music by Bach, Handel and
Palestrina, as an antidote to the decadence of contemporary sacred music. The spread

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of these ideas into educational institutions would be one of the keys to the rediscovery
of music that had been buried under the changes of taste and the force of habit.

This movement was often spearheaded by unconventional individuals who were enraptured
556

by the “pastness” of the past, and laboured to give their rapture an institutional form:
Arnold Dolmetsch, who initiated the Haslemere Festival in 1925, the “prototype for the early
music festivals that have since proliferated around the world” (Haskell 1988:38); Safford
Cape (who founded Pro Musica Antiqua in Brussels in 1933); Noah Greenberg (founder of
the New York Pro Musica, 1952); Thomas Binkley (Studio der frühen Musik, Munich, 1960);
David Munrow (The Early Music Consort of London, 1967); Gustav Leonhardt (a Dutch
keyboard player of distinction who led his own ensemble). Until more recently, female
leadership has been comparatively scarce: only the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska
(1879–1959) had managed to impress the musical world, and she worked chiefly as a
soloist. Women emerged in the Early Music Revival (hereafter the EMR) initially as solo
singers: Andrea von Ramm, Emma Kirkby, Montserrat Figueras, Barbara Thornton.

Alongside these groups of instrumentalists (or instrumentalists mixed with solo singers,
557

like Anthony Rooley’s Consorte of Music, begun in 1969), vocal ensembles have exploited
chiefly sacred repertoire to claim their position: the Clerkes of Oxenford (from 1961), Pro
Cantione Antiqua, the Monteverdi Choir, the Hilliard Ensemble (all building on the English
cathedral choir tradition), and – the most famous group and one covering sacred and
secular repertory – the King’s Singers (founded 1968).

The pattern whereby performers with an interest in pre-Classical music formed

558

ensembles, partly for live concerts, but more often for radio broadcasts and on contract
to recording companies, had been a driver of the ERM in Europe since the 1930s. Haskell
calls this “the electronic media’s patronage of early music” (Haskell 1988:123). After World
War II, the phenomenon spread to the United States, and intensified everywhere as the
study and teaching of non-standard repertoire and instruments gained ground. A survey
of the mushrooming groups during the latter part of the 20th century simply confirms
that the ERM was historically inevitable.65

The ensembles associated with historically informed performance practice (HIPP) are,
559

almost without exception, smaller than the average modern chamber orchestra, and
normally comprise a complement of instruments and singers that varies according to
both the repertoire selected and the choices exercised in the disposition of the musical
forces. The former is true of standard symphonic orchestras, but the latter is not: until the
mid-17th century, the choice of instruments used was influenced by various factors: not
only their availability and great variety, but also by considerations of genre and purpose
(songs appearing in instrumental form, or arranged from polyphonic writing to a solo
voice with lute, the instrumental dance music distilled into keyboard format, the issue of
balance but also tonal colouration among the parts, etc.).

Going against the grain of the symphonic tradition, most period ensembles play without
560

a conductor, being led by one of the players. Improvisation plays a role that is also

165 Perhaps it is inevitable, too, that television executives have not been nearly so interested in promoting
the revival.

100
largely foreign to the symphonic tradition. And instead of enlarging the scope of familiar
instruments, the ERM has drawn its participants back to the evidence for instruments
current in the time of the music’s creation – “period practice”.

The ERM has opened doors for many vocalists, too, given that so much preserved
561

“early” music is conceived with voices in mind. But the historic restrictions upon female
participation and the prominence, especially in early opera, of castrati, means that the
search for historical authenticity has, on one hand, had to accommodate female singers
(choral as well as solo) where originally they had a limited role, and, on the other hand,
depends heavily on the supply of counter-tenors and male falsettists to compensate
for the absence of castrati from the prominent role they once played in opera. As in the
superseding of the orchestral conductor, the context of modern life has shaped modern
early music.

The exclusive emphasis on instruments in this unit is a consequence of the search for
562

the emerging autonomy of instrumental music across the course of time. This area of
musical endeavour is concerned not only with the restoring of older instruments that
have survived to the present, but also with the industry that produces replicas of historical
models. In addition, the manner of performing is a principal concern for instrumentalists
venturing into the field. This is in turn connected with a music publishing sector that
produces editions that are cleaned of obtrusive editors’ directions. The rationale for
such “denuding” indicates two things: a belief that the creators’ intentions can be better
realised from what are considered the most authentic sources (closer to the composer
in time, corroborated by other early copies or publication), and the conviction that the
practice of liberally editing a score for results involves the imposing of an outlook on the
music that is unjustified, when it is not plainly wrong.

These are not simple matters at all. Apart from the lack of definite instrumental specification
563

that is a feature of many early scores (and scores, in the modern sense of a bird’s-eye
view of all the parts, were not a custom until well into the 1600s), there are problems of
“over-specification”, too. Composers – perhaps at the insistence of their publishers – often
consented to advertisements that would ensure the greatest spread of the music, because
it could be played – so the title might say – by ogni stromenti (“any instruments” that
could manage the pitches). With time, that changed to more accurate specification; but
for a market that included a steady percentage of amateur players, offering manageable
writing and a choice of instrumentation was a reasonable policy.

6.2 THE MASKING BY “GREATNESS”

In tracing the unfolding in time of a compositional line such as instrumental music, the
564

points at which the labours of previous generations grow to a maturity and richness that
seems hard to account for when the music is considered chronologically, have the effect
of presenting a modern student and listener with a conclusive achievement: the works
of the late Baroque, exemplified in Vivaldi, Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach, yield a
satisfaction so adequate that to concern oneself with the preceding artistic generations
– the “build-up”, so to speak – may appear to be a purely academic exercise. Le quattro
stagioni (“The Four Seasons”) and Messiah have in their very acceptance and endless

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performances and recordings actually blocked the reception of Vivaldi’s vast spectrum of
instrumental concertos, in the one case, and the appreciation of Handel’s other oratorios,
not to mention his achievements in opera, in the other.66
It is important to grasp that masking has taken other forms, for example, the manner in
565

which a composer’s work that has been appropriated and celebrated by later generations
becomes alienated from itself, because it suffers the preoccupations and preferences of its
latter-day admirers being imposed on it. It is especially true of large-scale works like Messiah
or the Mass in B minor that their lengthiness has been equated with using large numbers
of performers, yielding a (thrilling) massiveness of effect. It has been the contribution of
the EMR to show that such works (and many others besides) can be stripped of excessive
weight and emerge enhanced, speaking with a remarkable transparency and freshness.

Activity 6.1

Read HWM, p 295, the side-bar on Historically Informed Performance

and Its Controversies.

Time allocated: 5 minutes

566

Recommended ACTIVITY: One of the resources studied for information about historic
567

instruments and practices is the iconography of music, i.e., its depiction in the visual
arts of the period in question. This seems like a promising anchor whenever the actual
sounds are uncertain. Yet, the observation of historic pictures of musicians requires an
understanding of the subject from other (non-pictorial) sources, as also the codes of visual
art representation. This has been touched on in learning unit 2 in ancient visual sources.
For a 17th-century subject, read Leppert 1979).

6.3 THE DANSERYE: A DEPOSIT OF SOCIALITY

Activity 6.2

Read HWM, pp 260 to 64, Dance Music, with the contextual side-bar
Social Dance.

Time allocated: 10 mins

568

1 66 As will be explained in a later learning unit (8), Messiah is moreover not characteristic of Handel’s oratorio
concept in some important respects.

102
In September 1961, an ensemble of musicians recorded an album of Renaissance dance
569

music for a company that proved to be an ambitious and significant force in period
performance. The Ensemble d’intruments anciens Harmonia Mundi67 became the
Collegium Aureum, a loose association of soloists and conservatory teachers, and for
more than three decades, they released recordings of chiefly Baroque and early Classical
repertoire. It is a little ironic that this dance music, one of their biggest-selling releases,
actually fell well outside that time frame.

Example 6.1

Listen to Tielman Susato (1510/15–1570), Dances from Danserye (1551), in NAWM #66
(with commentary).

570 Time allocated: 8 minutes

Published in Antwerp, Susato’s collection is just one of a widespread type. It gathers all
571

manner of dances in artless but cheerful four-part settings. Typically, the players are left
to decide on a great deal from the “blueprint” provided: the exact instrumentation, the
character of each dance, possible improvisation, and the linking of dances in sequence.
The exceptions to this approach are few. For example, Thomas Morley published a set
of dances “made by diverse exquisite authors” (including himself! [1599]) for a “broken
consort”, that is, a mixture of instrumental sorts: three plucked – treble lute, cittern (treble
range), bandora (bass); two bowed: treble and bass viols; one blown: flute (which covers
recorders, too). This clearly points to indoor usage, perhaps in the context of a masque.

Some dances were paired, either by custom or by melodic paraphrasing, or both (e.g.,
572

the pavane-galliard pair, to which French publishers like Attaignant added a third called
tourdion). The pairing is connected with proportional pulse and a sense of continuity
from one piece to the other. “In a century brought up on dancing and dance metres a
proportional change of tempo would have given as strong a feeling of unity as a melodic
link.” (Hogwood 1979:38). The process by which such pieces were removed from dancing
as such and became integrated into later instrumental forms rests on the rhythmic
gestures, the even pacing and symmetrical phrases, and the anticipatory upbeats that
are a feature of certain dance types.

167 “Grouping of historic instruments of Harmonia Mundi” [the recording label], so described on the French
release. The record company had been established in Freiburg, in south-west Germany, in 1958, the same
year in which stereophonic recording techniques reached the mass market. The long-playing record (12-
inch) had already gained a commercial foothold in the early 1950s, and was considered especially well
suited to “classical” repertoire, because of the extended durations it required. This was not a matter of
concern in this case, as the dances were uniformly brief, but the recording length allowed for a survey
of various composers and publishers in one album.

103 MHS1511/1
Though all people dance, these dances are an expression of the upper echelons of
573

society. For an idea of dance further down the social scale, some of the paintings of Pieter
Breughel the Elder (c 1525–69) serve as clear pointers. Peasant Dance before an Inn, The
Peasant Dance (1568), The Dance of the Bride, Wedding Dance in the Open Air, The Dance
around the Maypole, even The Magpie on the Gallows, seem to show couple or round
dances. The instruments invariably include beautifully observed bagpipes, sometimes
played in pairs.68 The first-mentioned painting includes a vielle à roue (or hurdy-gurdy).
The accent is on the vigour of the dance. It is worth mentioning that in Brueghel’s The
Triumph of Death (c 1562), a pair of courtly lovers appear in the bottom right-hand corner.
She holds an opened book of music, while he sits on her broad and luxurious skirts, singing
and accompanying himself on a lute. A flute lies at his feet, while a skeleton leans over
them, bowing a fiddle. The meaning of this strongly moralising painting is easy to read:
death comes for all, indiscriminately. 69

Tracking the often complex web of influences that appear to account for the rise of
574

specific forms in music history and the withering away of others is, indeed, one of the
important tasks of scholarship. But there are pitfalls in trying to plot a path for instrumental
music across the 17th century. For example, in hunting for the origins of the trio sonata,
the commonest type of Baroque chamber music, all that can safely be said is that the genre
gained cohesion at the same time as Italian opera, and spread with much the same speed
from its points of origin. The problems are the many scattered centres in which it was
produced, the lack of documentation (sometimes the scores themselves are lost, though
work titles may be recorded), as well as the toleration for “all manner of alternatives in
performance” (Hogwood 1979:22). Nor is chronology (strict sequence in time) an assured
guide to a developing form: especially in Italy, there were many discontinuities, and these
departures from the march of standardisation are made more confusing by the unclear
titles given by composers (or their publishers). “Canzoni, overo Sonate Concertate per
chiesa, e camera a due et a tre” (1637, “Canzonas, or Ensemble Sonatas for the church, and
the chamber [intimate domestic venue implied] in 2 and 3 parts”) by Tarquinio Merula
confounds two genres that have quite distinct histories; and Heinrich Biber’s ensemble
sonatas straddle this distinction as well (see 7.7 below, section on Germany).

Nonetheless, this part of the survey will follow a chronological series of creators, in the
575

hope that their output, though often unfamiliar, and their life trajectories will throw light
on the world of instruments and their characteristic sounds.

6.4 SOLO INSTRUMENTAL TRADITIONS

Activity 6.3

Read HWM, pp 330 to 32, Instrumental Music.

168 See Peasant Wedding (c 1568).

169 Another skeleton, seated on a cartload of human skulls, plays a hurdy-gurdy, in mockery of human
happiness. A third skeleton beats on a pair of kettle-drums.

104
 Time allocated: 10 minutes
576

The roots of keyboard music are here located in the improvisatory practices familiar to
577

church organists, and that were carried over into harpsichord playing. The sectionalised
products of this compositional stream were brought to an early peak by Girolamo
Frescobaldi. The incorporation of imitative counterpoint provided one way of extending
short, self-contained passages to form longer discourses. It also provided a focus that
would in time crystallise into fugues with preludial material.

Example 6.2

Listen to Frescobaldi’s Toccata No. 3 and his Ricercare “after the Credo”. Scores may be
found in the NAWM, #82 and #83, with commentary.

578 Time allocated: 7 minutes

The first piece enables one to hear the rapid passaggi scales and the unconstrained play
579

of motifs, little melodic cells that are moved from one pitch register to another, only to
dissolve into the next “germ” idea. This is clearly the virtuoso voice of the composer.

The second piece, from an organ Mass, permits comparison of the free toccata spirit
580

with the strictly contrapuntal treatment of a carefully announced soggetto (the short
fugal theme) that moves systematically through the four voices, accompanied by a
polyphonic counter-subject. This rigorous layout of the material allows for a variety of
manipulations that were to remain entrenched in the writing of fugues for a century
to come: for example, the inversion of the contours (the varied counter-subject in mm
24, 27, 29), the augmentation of the subject (doubled note-values, mm 24-41, sounded
in each voice in turn), the “coda” built on a long “pedal-note” (here in the alto voice).70
Since this is eminently practical music, it can be stopped midway (cadence, m 24) without
damage to the effect, according to the requirements of the Mass service.

Activity 6.4

Read HWM, pp 332 to 37, which survey important compositional categories

applicable to instrumental forms.

170 It bears mentioning that the actual pedal-board of the baroque organ grew in German territories and
the Low Countries long before it was introduced in France and Italy.

105 MHS1511/1
 581 Time allocated: 25 minutes

Frescobaldi grew up in a family of organists, and studied under one, Luzzaschi. He was
582

at the same time a child prodigy who typically travelled to perform and thus attract
patronage. While he was living in Ferrara, the city was visited by revered figures like
Monteverdi, Dowland, Lassus, Merulo and Gesualdo. It was the last flowering of the Este
family’s rule of the city, and the duke, Alfonso II, was passionate about music, importing
Italian and Flemish performers, amassing a library and a huge instrumentarium; the court
was known for its famed female vocal ensemble, the concerto delle dame principalissime.71
On the duke’s death (1597), the territory was absorbed into the papal states, and Rome
took over its artistic personnel.

Thus, Frescobaldi became organist of the Cappella Giulia in 1608, a lifelong appointment
583

negotiated by the Ferrarese ambassador to Rome. Unlike the Cappella Pontificia, the
pope’s private choir, which usually performed a cappella, the Cappella Giulia employed
instruments such as violin, cornett, violone,72 trombone, organ and lute. It normally served
in the smaller venues such as side chapels; though it performed some polychoral items, its
repertoire, like that of the Pontificia, was conservative, and built around Palestrina’s music.

Despite his reputation “In organorum modulamine in Europa et singularissimo” (the most
584

outstanding player of the organ in Europe), Frescobaldi needed both supplementary

income and additional outlets for his gifts. He coached singers and taught composition
– Johann Jakob Froberger (1616–67) was his most illustrious student – and he used his
association with leading families – the Bentevoglie (Bologna), the Aldobrandini (Florence),
the Barberini (Rome, from whose ranks came Pope Urban VIII), the Medici (Florence) – to
advance his career. He is acknowledged as the first important European composer to
concentrate on instrumental music, using a wide range of styles to construct his musical
“narrative”.

6.5 THE SCHOOL OF FRENCH CLAVECINISTES

The positive course of Frescobaldi’s personal destiny is in stark contrast with that of
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Jacques Champion, called Chambonnières (1601/2–72).

Activity 6.7

Read HWM, pp 352 to 55, [France:] Lute & Keyboard Music, Dance Music

1 71 HWM, p 217 includes a brief description of women’s vocal ensembles of the time.
1 72 The violone was the double-bass member of the viol family, playing an octave lower than the bass viol.
It was widely used in baroque ensembles, in preference to the early contrabass of the violin family which
seems to have been abandoned quite early in its history in favour of the violone. The modern double-
bass is a descendant of this latter instrument.

106
 Time allocated: 15 minutes
586

Taking his name from a small country estate belonging to his family, Chambonnières
587

benefitted in other ways from his family’s standing. Both his grandfather and father
were composers; the former, Thomas Champion, had a reputation as a “contrapuntist”,
and his father, also named Jacques, was a keyboard player in an official position at the
court of King Louis XIII. By a contract called a reversion, he shared his employment with
his talented son, who by 1632 had attained the title gentilhomme ordinaire de la Chambre
du Roy.73 When his father died in 1642, he became sole harpsichordist to the king. Besides
his court duties, he organised a series of fee-paying concerts, probably the first in France,
which continued into the 1650s. He was engaged in teaching, D’Anglebert being thought
to be one of his students; he also guided and supported the Couperin family, from whom
would come two eminent composers – François being the more famous–and a line of
important organists.

As a composer of harpsichord music, he inaugurated the French classical tradition, both

588

in respect of composing and performing. He was moreover an accomplished dancer,

performing with the young Louis XIV (while not yet king) and his close associate, Lully.
From this summit of achievement and influence, Chambonnières’ fortunes took a sharp
decline. In lawsuits he lost money and his property at Le Plessis-Feu-Aussoux; and in 1657
Étienne Richard was appointed as a royal harpsichordist, making his own position less
secure. It seems that court figures plotted against him, and his pension was withdrawn.
In 1662 he resigned his position (or was forced to), in favour of D’Anglebert.

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-87) was the rising star in the French royal household, and
589

assumed the position of Surintendant de la musique de la chambre.74 Chambonnières faced

the prospect of playing basso continuo parts at the back of the royal ensembles, a role
that would have been a humiliating demotion for an outstanding performer. Though
he performed a little, and published two collections of his music (both in 1670), he was
effectively a spent force. He died in 1672. The lack of early French keyboard music preserved
in manuscript – and even Chambonnières’ unpublished music has been assembled from
some twenty manuscripts discovered only in the mid- to late 20th century – makes his
exact role in this tradition difficult to define.

These discoveries have also introduced difficulties, since they contain no examples of
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preludes, which as prefaces to a suite of dance movements reflected improvisatory

skills; and numerous pieces now exist in several versions, often dramatically different
from one another. This is particularly the case with the pieces in the Bauyn MS, which
contain almost no signs of ornamentation. It is an incontrovertible fact that this music
was tastefully and prolifically decorated with agréments.75 The total of 150 or so pieces

173 “Gentleman of the king’s household” – ranked either “first” or “ordinary” – was a title, with remuneration,
given to chamberlains and their assistants in the king’s personal service.
174 “Chief of music in the (king’s) household”.
175 See HWM, p 353, figure 16.9, for a typical table of ornaments as drawn up by the composer D’Anglebert.

107 MHS1511/1
that have survived are the first substantial keyboard oeuvre of the French 17th century;
thus Chambonnières has been accorded the position of the “father” of the French school.
Clearly, he must have drawn his style from older as well as contemporary harpsichordists;
equally important was the influence of the French school of lutenists whose style luthé is
reflected in the keyboard writing.

Perhaps because she had spread herself across a range of genres, the later composer-
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performer Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729) has been overlooked in

popular surveys of the French clavecinistes.76 Yet her published contributions – 34 pieces
grouped according to key (1687), and 14 movements in two key-suites (1707) – show her
to belong to the central French tradition. Like Chambonnières, she never referred to her
groups of pieces as suites, though the characteristic linking of [Prelude]-Allemande-
Courante-Sarabande-Gigue with various other optional dances is clearly in evidence. Unlike
Chambonnières, she published unmeasured preludes.77 She too came from a family of
musicians (and harpsichord builders) and she enjoyed Louis XIV’s protective patronage.
It is perhaps not irrelevant that ‘one of her earliest works was a five-act opera Céphale et
Procris [premièred and published in 1694], the first work by a woman to be performed at
the Paris Opéra’ (Briscoe 2004:80). It was modelled on the tragédies lyriques of Lully, with
the customary prologue in praise of the king. It surely helped that the king’s mistress,
Madame de Montespan, assisted in the youthful musician’s education.

Example 6.3

Listen to Jacquet de la Guerre’s Suite in A minor, No. 3 (from Pièces de clavecin, 1687)

592 Time allocated: 18 minutes

It is of great help to follow the recording with a score, which may be found in NAWM
593

#89 with the usual commentary, or online. There are also helpful notes on the various
movements in HWM, pages 356 to 58. The Prelude is meant to sound like a purely
improvised movement, though the notation allows the performer only rhythmic freedom.
So the effect will differ slightly from one performer to another. The other movements
are supplied with marks of ornamentation. The varying characters of the movements are
deducible both from the details of the writing and from the performer’s knowledge of
the conventions of Baroque suites.

176 A box of 29 compact discs released in 2016, “the most comprehensive set of this genre that exists”, bypasses
her music. To the label’s credit, it has recently released (2018) a recording of her “complete harpsichord
works”. But an earlier recording of the six harpsichord suites (2005) covers the same repertoire, and
attunes the ear to Jacquet de la Guerre’s style.
177 See HWM, p 367, Example 16.3 (a) for an example of their notation.

108
 Activity 6.8

In your learning journal, make brief notes on the distinctive features of

the main movements of this suite, as well as of the optional movements.
You may define them broadly, so as to help you identify the components
of the many suites you will encounter in Baroque music.

594 Time allocation: 15 minutes

6.6 ITALY – THE GREAT WAVE

In Italy, the instrumental equivalent of the operatic voice was the violin. Not only did
595

it rise through the course of the century to a position of unrivalled precedence, but it
brought with it a supporting cast of violin-affiliated instruments that were sometimes its
co-equals (especially a pair of violins), sometimes its accompaniment. The fashion for violin
music amounted to a “rage”, and craftsmen emerged capable of supplying handmade
instruments of the highest quality. Composers for the instrument quickly adapted the
available forms to the capabilities of the instruments – what we term “idiomatic writing”.

Activity 6.9

Read the sections in HWM, pp 377 to 83, on Instrumental Chamber

Music (with the preceding paragraph on the instrumental music at the
Church of San Petronio in Bologna), The Stradivarius Violin Workshop,
and Arcangelo Corelli’s Sonatas.

596 Time allocated: 30 minutes

The violinistic idiom involved virtuoso decoration of the part, and this is more easily
597

observed, because it was written out in early trio sonatas, as it was not in solo sonatas.
The passaggi (rapid scale figures), tremolos, double-stopping (bowing two strings
simultaneously; also triple- and quadruple-stopping) or chord-playing, arpeggio figures
(for example, in imitation of trumpet calls, the so-called “violino in tromba”), rapid jumping
between registers, retuning of the strings (scordatura) to assist chord-playing and to
bring out a particular sonority for a chosen key, the use of registers to create polyphonic
effects – all these techniques, along with the cantabile effect of which high strings are

109 MHS1511/1
capable – provided the means of expressing a range of affetti ,78 and of astounding the
listener with both pathos and bravura.

Beside the violin and its family, the cornetto (It. “little horn”, because of its curved shape)
598

should be noted, not just as a wind alternative to the violin, playing in a similar range,
but as a virtuoso instrument in its own right. Its ability to produce a wide dynamic range
allowed it to perform equally well in open-air, rowdy contexts (along with shawms,
trumpets and drums) or in a blend with strings, flutes, recorders and voices. It was highly
esteemed also as the instrument that approached closest to the human voice.

As for basso continuo instruments, the use of a bass instrument to double the bass line
599

only as a supplement to chordal instruments was a feature of the later 17th and early 18th
centuries. The harmonic structure was initially entrusted to the chitarrone (or arch-lute,
well suited to accompanying the voice), and often paired with an organ. The harp, with
the addition of a set of chromatic strings (arpa doppia, “double harp”), gave valuable
variation to the continuo sound, as did the harpsichord.

Thus, Corelli designated his Op. 5 as Sonate a violino e violone o cimbalo (“Sonatas for
600

violin and violone or harpsichord”), which permits of different continuo solutions: a lone
violone or Baroque cello is ideal for a sonata with duet-style writing (No 9), while the
organ and arch-lute described previously, or a lute, could as easily interpret the figured
bass. A guitar seems especially suitable for No 12, the Spanish-style Follia.

This richness of approach compensates for what seems like an austerity or plainness in
601

the writing. It is well-known that the sonatas, in particular the slow movements, were
always embellished in performance, along the lines of the “plain-and-decorated” edition
of Roger.79 Compared with the tendencies of a composer like Vitali, both Corelli’s solo
and trio sonatas exhibit a restraint in their content, and a consistency of ingredients
within and sometimes across the movements. It is part of the impact of the many trio
sonatas that they were refined and reworked at length before publication; they limit the
outbursts of violinistic extravagance; and they appeal as much to the listener as to the
player (Hogwood 1979:41–46).

Example 6.4

Listen to Corelli’s Sonata for violin and violone or harpsichord, Op 5, No 9.

Time allocated: 10 minutes

602

178 See HWM glossary, “affections”.

179 See HWM, 382, fig 17.6.

110
Some recordings conceive the sonata as a duet for violin and violone. The harmonic
603

implications of the two parts are so clear that a chord-playing instrument is not essential,
perhaps even unasked for.
Much of this writing sounds conventional to modern ears, especially the way the bass
604

moves by a 4th or 5th (a feature of modern tonality, purged of late modal influences), the
control of dissonance (nothing enharmonic or similarly extreme), no use of high positions
on the instrument. But the achievement of thematically single-minded movements, and
even the lack of melodic bloom, is part of the mastery of instrumental writing.80
It is simplistic to divide his works into da chiesa and da camera, as their formal structures
605

seem to suggest. Corelli never labels a solo sonata as da chiesa, in any case, though he uses
da camera freely. Furthermore, the dances that are the basic constituents of da camera
works appear in da chiesa sonatas too, though without titles. In fact, the distinction in these
terms seems to apply more strictly to the scoring: the trio sonatas “for the church” use
two violins with violone (a term sometimes used generically to indicate a Baroque cello,
rather than violoncino) or the archlute/organ combination, the lute playing not chords
but the bass line. In trio sonatas designed “for the chamber”, the continuo is the same as
for Opus 5, described above. Finally, note should be given to the use of the term organo,
which was used to include other keyboard instruments besides an organ.

Example 6.5

Listen to Corelli’s Trio Sonata, Op 3, No 2. Score and commentary in NAWM #96.

Time allocated: 7 minutes

606

A “da chiesa” work, this trio sonata exerts its charm through the usual four-movement
607

disposition:
 tempo – slow/fast/slow/fast [Grave/Allegro/Adagio/Allegro]
 metre – C; C; 3/2; 6/8;
 tonality – all in D major except the 3rd movement in B minor, all with limited modulation;
 texture (figuration)
− (1st movt) over the poised, serious steps of the bass, the violins add their intense
suspensions
(2nd movt) contrapuntal, with imitative entries, and play of syncopated rhythm
(3rd movt) a texture packed with suspensions, but this tension is balanced by
the clarity of the phrase lengths and the regular hemiola before each cadence
(4th movt) a typical gigue finale in conventional binary dance form, with simple
imitation, the rhythm in 6/8 filled by equal eighths (quavers) or trochees (long-
short, long-short, etc).

1 80 Useful details may be added to this from Heller 2014a:196–98, and Heller 2014b, Anthology #17.

111 MHS1511/1
 6.7 ON THE GERMAN WING
The importance of organ music cultivated in the Lutheran tradition will be covered in a
608

later learning unit (7).

Activity 6.10

Read HWM, pp 386to 88, for a brief overview of historical and social
aspects affecting music – Germany and Austria, and pp 395 to 97, Other
Instrumental Music.

Time allocated: 15 minutes

609

The focus here is on the position of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644–1704), both in his
610

capacity as a court composer and a representative figure of the more northerly European
cultural sphere. In terms of patronage, the area lay in the territories of the Austrian Habsburg
ruler, styled the “Holy Roman Emperor”. The kingdoms of Hungary, Bohemia, and Croatia
were all encompassed in his lands. Biber was fortunate that his career coincided with the
long reign of Leopold I (1658–1705), since the emperor – himself a composer – supported
a musical establishment in Vienna that was justly famous and inspired imitation. Moreover,
Leopold made the first appointment of a non-Italian musician to the post of court
Kapellmeister (“Music director”, in this case, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, ca 1620/23–1680).
It seems likely that Biber knew his violin music, typical of the mid-century virtuoso style.81
It is also possible that he was Schmelzer’s student.

Biber’s present fame rests chiefly on a cycle of solo violin sonatas associated with Jesuit
611

contemplative practices that helped devotees meditate on the 15 mysteries of the rosary.
Because these sonatas feature chordal writing for the violin and a remarkable assortment of
tunings, they have been considered to have influenced the still more famous solo sonatas
and partitas, all unaccompanied, of JS Bach.82 This is arguable, though they belong to a
broader German tradition of virtuoso violin playing that can be observed in Schmelzer’s
works and in those of Georg Muffat (1653-1704). Again, the skewing or “masking” effect
of Bach’s prominence may be observed. Biber’s sonata cycle has, in turn, masked the

181 Schmelzer’s Sonatae unarum fidium seu a violino solo (1664) was the first set of solo violin sonatas to be
published in Germany.
182 Biber’s rosary sonatas exist in a single manuscript; they are dated between 1678 and 1687. Digital images
of the score, each sonata having a small engraved image of the relevant “mystery” at the beginning, may
be viewed here: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0002/bsb00020682/images/
Bach’s Six “Solos” for unaccompanied violin were completed by 1720, but only published in 1802.
2

Candidates who might have influenced his approach (in addition to Biber) are Johann Paul von
Westhoff (1656–1705) and Johann Jakob Walther (1650–1717). Both had published works for solo
violin, with and without bass part, in the 1680s.

112
wide range of his other compositions, both instrumental works and an extensive output
of sacred vocal music.

Nonetheless, the “Rosary” or Mystery Sonatas continue to compel the interest of performers
612

and listeners. Since each sonata has a specific biblical (or extra-biblical) scene or event
in mind, the desire to interpret the violinistic writing as illustrating a specific feature
is understandable. But a programmatic or literal interpretation is not necessary for
appreciating the high achievement of the set. While a sonata on a tragic theme (see the
activity following) may understandably exploit a minor-key tonality and dramatic chordal
textures, it may also mingle softer elements which may not offer immediate explanation.
Such is the sonata for the meditation on the crucifixion of Jesus. Its preludial movement
uses forceful chord playing to set the tone. It is followed by an Air with variations, where
amabile (“gracious”) sections alternate with electrifying figurations that drive the work
to a furious finish. There is much in the music that is suggestive of the violent passions
implied in the gospel narratives. However, Heller (2014:202) makes the point that a separate
copy of only this sonata has survived (wrongly attributed to Schmelzer), which gives
programmatic titles to the sections. These, however, refer to the Turkish siege of Vienna in
1683. That puts the music into a quite distinct tradition of battaglia (battle) compositions.

Example 6.6

Listen to Biber’s “Crucifixion” Sonata, No 10 of the Rosary cycle.

Time allocated: 10 minutes

613

6.8 THE “VOICE” OF THE BAROQUE?

The inevitable thought that arises when one approaches a work such as this is: which of
614

the various performances that have been recorded (and on which we rely for insight) will
best help in understanding the music? This is not simply a question of individual taste. The
EMR as outlined at the start of this learning unit has attempted to reveal the sound world
of (say) the Baroque period, but in terms that would have been understood by musicians
and audiences of the time(s). However, the period is extensive and the traditions within
it are many, often localised and sometimes built around a comparatively small number
of composers.

What was considered imperative in this process of authentic recreation was the use of
615

historic instruments (or copies of them). Thus, the instruments used in specific recordings
are often listed individually, with maker and date, to show compliance with this principle.
Since the violin was the leading instrumental product among a host of complementary
instruments, produced in relatively small numbers by craftsmen often working in relative
isolation, the question of how to equip modern musicians for Baroque performance

113 MHS1511/1
can best be understood in terms of the differences between earlier and later forms of
the violin. These affect the structure of the violin body, its strings, its bows, the types of
strokes available with a pre-modern bow – all this in addition to the historic habits of
embellishment of the printed score. This approach is equivalent to the “reinvention” of
the player in order to communicate an empirically imagined music to listeners whose
preferences are based on the cultural milieu to which they have access.83

For present purposes, it is sufficient to note that Biber produced his instrumental works
616

in two locations. As “Musicus und Camerdiener” (Musician and Servant, though the term
probably refers to his work on masquerades and other entertainments) of the Prince-
Archbishop Count Karl II of Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn in the territory of Moravia, he was the
pride of an ambitious court-music establishment. The money available to build an elegant
Baroque castle also provided for an excellent orchestra with distinguished composers,
and – judging from Biber’s Sonata à 7 (for trumpets, timpani and continuo) of 1668 –
a troupe of outstanding trumpeters. The writing for natural trumpet, with an inbuilt
limitation on the range of available notes, uses both the middle register (principale) and
high clarino passages, in addition to complex echo effects that indicate the outstanding
professionalism of the original performers.

After Biber moved to Salzburg in 1670 to serve the more powerful Prince-Archbishop
617

there, he still incorporated trumpets in many of his works, both sacred and domestic.
The brilliance of effect obtainable in the grand dimensions of Salzburg Cathedral was
obviously an incentive to produce some extraordinary settings of the Mass. The lavish
performing resources required for his Missa Salisburgensis Armonico (in 53 parts, first
performed in 1682) are as follows:84

618 Choir I : “8 voci in concerto”, SSAATTBB soli and SSAATTBB ripieno, with first organ
619 Choir II : 2 violins, 4 violas
620 Choir III: 4 flauti (recorders), 2 oboes, and 2 clarini (high trumpets)
621 Choir IV: 2 cornettos, 3 trombones
622 Choir V : “8 voci in concerto”, SSAATTBB soli and SSAATTBB ripieno
623 Choir [VI]: 2 violins, 4 violas
624 I. Loco : 4 trumpets, with timpani in C and G
625 II. Loco : 4 trumpets, with timpani in C and G
626 Continuo, with second organ (for choir V).

183 The role of the individual instrument-maker has thus become prominent again; usually (s)he works
to some sort of commission or personal requirement. This aspect of the EMR is well outlined here:
http://www.themonteverdiviolins.org/baroque-violin.html#3
The website provides an example of how the EMR is propelled forward by a combination of scholarly
2

and experimental tasks. The section on strings shows how even the “authentic” understandings
of Baroque practice have to be interrogated and reformulated.
184 Information and score: http://imslp.org/wiki/Missa_Salisburgensis_(Biber,_Heinrich_Ignaz_Franz_von)
This work is another “mask”, claiming attention for its colossal dimensions (at least five different recordings
2

are currently available) at the expense of a series of other sacred works that Biber produced. A few of
these have only recently been recorded: Missa Bruxellensis, Missa ChrisƟ resurgenƟs (2 recordings),
Missa Alleluija.

114
Biber’s 12 Sonatae tam aris, quam aulis servientes (1676) are, by contrast, consort sonatas
627

“equally suited to altars [church performance] and palace halls”. The instrumentation of
these relatively straightforward works includes two trumpets and six-part strings at its
largest, but smaller combinations are also used. Here, the music of grand effect gives way
to inventive contrapuntal and melodious, dance-derived sections. The frequent presence
of trumpets (and of trombones in Biber’s large scores) is a reminder of the strong northern
European penchant for brass music. It is heartening to think that composers wrote artful
short sonatas for the town musicians to play from a tower, simply to mark the time of,
say, the mid-morning break. But Johann Pezel, whose Turmmusiken (“tower pieces” for
2 trumpets or cornetti, 3 trombones) are well known, published the identical music four
years later in a scoring for two violins, two violas, violone [or bassoon] and continuo.

The disposition for Biber’s Mass (detailed above) shows the extension of the Venetian
628

polychoral idea, as well as the separation of each vocal choir into a “concerto” of eight
soloists with a ripieno group of singers available to double the voice parts. The words are
used here with literal meanings, i.e., the soloists working together rather than as individual
voices; and the rest of the singers providing the “padding” or “filling” of the sound.

6.9 THE GROWTH OF THE CONCERTO

Activity 6.11

Read The Concerto, HWM, pp 383 to 86.

Time allocated: 10 minutes

629

Activity 6.12

Read Antonio Vivaldi, HWM, pp 407 to 15.

630 Time allocated: 45 minutes

Vivaldi had published two sets of sonatas, Opp 1 and 2 (trio sonatas, 1705; and solo violin
631

sonatas, 1709, respectively), before he brought out his Op 3, entitled L’Estro armonico (“The
Harmonic Flush/Inspiration”, a set of 12 concertos), which appeared in 1711.

115 MHS1511/1
The Op 2 sonatas, though much less celebrated than the Op 3 concertos, were both a
632

landmark in the solo sonata repertoire, and a look back at the practices of the recent past.
When the set was advertised prior to its publication, it was described as Sonate a Violino
e Violoncello. This suggests a collection without basso continuo. Genuine duets for two
string instruments had been cultivated in northern Italy, particularly in Bologna, in the late
years of the 17th century. In addition, the cello had by 1700 emerged as a greatly admired
instrument; technical changes in its manufacture had produced from the old bass violin
an instrument with “enhanced expressive and technical capabilities comparable with
those of the violin” (Talbot 2004:4). But when it came to printing Op 2, the designation
had changed: “violoncello” had become basso per il cembalo. Given the obvious duet
character of the music in many of the movements, it is an open question why this change
was made.85

From manuscript copies of Op 3 that have survived, and which surely predate the printed
633

version, it can be inferred that its contents had been written and distributed by the very
early years of the 1700s. The point of fixing even an approximate date is to highlight
the manner in which Vivaldi was moving from compositions typical of the latter 17th
century in Italy (in particular the Corelli-style sonatas) to these concerti. There are also
signs of overlap between these works and the concerti grossi of Corelli – in particular, the
use by Vivaldi of a concertino group (two violins and bass, Concertos 2, 5, 8 and 11) and
a contrasting ripieno.

The four concertos that have a single solo violin part employ the other violinists in unison,
634

in a manner typical of Venice. Only in the slow movement of Concerto 6 (see the activity
below) do the other three players each hold a separate line; and that movement (Largo)
is also unusual for the fact that it uses no bass instruments: the violins and viola surround
the soloist’s line like a sonic halo. It is also in a minor key, but provides relief from the
driving energy of the first movement, in its undulating, decorated solo part.

The three-movement form of No 6 also looks forward to the mature Vivaldi’s preference
635

for this structure, while ritornello form is here clearly established. This recurring use of
material is most fully stated at the beginning and end of the two fast movements, and uses
the tonic key. These framing sections are constructed from what turn out to be separable
units of melody; as the movement moves back and forth between soloist and ensemble,
these units appear in various combinations and variations. The soloist’s material may
refer to these ideas, but in general goes its own way, using different sorts of violinistic
figuration with the support of the basso continuo, or the lightest of ensemble textures.

The athletic rhythm that arises from the almost constant motion in eighth and sixteenth
636

notes (quavers and semiquavers) gives consistency to such movements; the music has
no need of the frequent changes of character and tempo typical of much earlier Baroque
writing. In later works, Vivaldi employed greater rhythmic and harmonic variety, but
the Op 3 concertos have an unsurpassed freshness to them, that made them extremely
popular in the 17th century. They remain just as popular in ours.

185 Talbot speculates as to whether this involved some rewriting of the cello part to make it more suitable
to a continuo manner. He also notes that the indication cembalo is generic here: it can mean harpsichord
or another chord-playing instrument.

116
 Example 6.7

Listen to Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A minor, Op 3 No 6, in NAWM #98
(with commentary)

637 Time allocated: 9 minutes

6.10 REFERENCES
Briscoe, James R. (Editor). 2004. New Historical Anthology of Music by Women. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Haskell, Harry. 1988. The Early Music Revival: A History. London: Thames & Hudson.
Heller, Wendy. 2014. Anthology for Music in the Baroque. New York: Norton.
Hogwood, Christopher. 1979. The Trio Sonata. London: British Broadcasting Corporation.
Leppert, Richard. 1979. ‘Concert in a House: Musical Iconography and Musical Thought’.
Early Music 7: 3-17. [Available as an E-reserve item]
Talbot, Michael. 1984. Liner notes to L’Estro armonico (DGG recording – 413218-1). Hamburg:
Polydor International.
Talbot, Michael. 2004. Booklet accompanying Vivaldi, Violin Sonatas Op.2, Nos. 1-6
(Hyperion CDH5540).

117 MHS1511/1
Learning Unit 7
Into the theatre: opera in its youth

PURPOSE

The purpose of learning unit 7 is to introduce you to

 the series of changes that constituted a transition in musical practice from Renais-
sance to Baroque characteristics
 the various manifestos and compositions that enshrined the new “expressive” art
 the achievement of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo
 the centralised patronage of opera in France

OUTCOMES

After completing the learning unit, you should demonstrate that you are able to
 account for the ferment in the years immediately before and after 1600 in staged
dramatic and musical works
 describe the theatrical results of the interest in ancient Greek theatre
 explain how Monteverdi sought to move his listener, using L’Orfeo as example
 weigh the factors that rendered opera a powerful tool of monarchical propaganda

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING UNIT 7

638 7.1 Introduction and review
639 7.2 The “New Music” and its products
640 7.3 Monteverdi: L’Orfeo
641 7.4 The nature of the libretto
642 7.5 Opera: the French perspective

7.1 INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW

Opera was “made” rather than “born”; and having been made, it was soon being “remade”.
643

That is to say, the year 1600 is a convenient marker from which to survey the dramma
musicale or opera reggia (“staged work”, from which the familiar term comes), but it
was almost 50 years later that opera found its identity as a mixed theatrical spectacle
performed for a diversified, paying public, the form with which we are acquainted today.
The phenomenon of opera was anticipated in different streams of Renaissance practice,
and came to its first crystallisation in northern Italian princely courts, whose wealth and

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genuine interest in the arts provided employment and outlets for a host of talented
writers, composers, performers, theatrical architects, designers and “engineers”.86

Though a history of music will understandably highlight the “sounding” features, theatre
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historians find this era of great interest for quite other reasons, for example, the introduction
of the proscenium arch, that is, the opening – or rather its frame – that separates the stage
from the audience. One of the first theatres to be permanently equipped in this way was
the Teatro Farnese in Parma, a city in the heart of northern peninsular Italy. (Though built
in 1618–19, the theatre was inaugurated only in 1628.) The design of modern theatres and
the study of historic theatre traditions from across the world have challenged the very
idea of this separation as serving a form of “distantiation”, reading it as a fundamental
issue in dramatic art. For the Renaissance audience, however, the proscenium served
other vital purposes: (a) to hide the bulky and complex machines that enabled the stage
illusions; (b) as a pictorial frame for sets that were based on one of the most significant
innovations of early Renaissance art – linear perspective.

Activity 7.1

Review HWM, pp 281 to 96, From Renaissance to Baroque, and General Traits of Baroque
Music (including the two source readings, pp 284 and 289). The following sections assume
that you have digested the topics in this broad survey.

Time allocated: 1 hour

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7.2 THE “NEW MUSIC” AND ITS PRODUCTS

The figure of Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) – whose music for the theatre was rediscovered
646

in stages from about 1904 onwards – is now recognised as one of the few composers
(he is not thought of as a performer, though he played viol and viola to a high level)
who serve as important “hinges” that connect one era in music history to another vastly
different one; who showed himself as much at home in the most important forms of the
late Renaissance as in the post-1600 changes that he called seconda prattica (see below);
and whose cumulative work proves to have had influence among his successors.

Although he had participated in some of the radical ventures in chromatic madrigal

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writing that took Carlo Gesualdo (ca 1561–1613) to the edge of the musical “universe” of
his time, his boldness was not that of the extremist. That is clear from the way in which
his seconda prattica avoids the experiments of the truly modern younger composers like
Giulio Caccini, Jacopo Peri and Emilio de’ Cavalieri.

186 This last category refers to the designers of machinery that manipulated stage sets (movable décor) for
striking visual effects. This included flying machines, rolling clouds and other vehicles to carry heavenly
persons, and the depiction of water and vessels on it.

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Briefly, Peri, Caccini, and Cavalieri all had connections with the court of the Medici family
648

in Florence towards the end of the 1500s. This immensely powerful noble (or patrician)
dynasty was connected by marriage to royal families in many parts of Europe and to the
papacy by the eminence of its churchmen. It took the humanist revival of literature and
arts seriously: as early as the 1460s an Academy, in imitation of Plato’s (429/8–347 BCE)
ancient school of philosophy, was instituted by Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–92), who also
encouraged patronage of the arts (as much through other people as by himself). But
the early academies were “essentially informal associations of humanists, professional
or dilettante” (Hale 1981:15), while a wave of academies arose after 1500, some of which
promoted clear scholarly or scientific aims.

The Accademia Filarmonica, founded in Verona in 1543, was the first such group to show
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a pronounced interest in music. The habit of gathering intellectuals with an interest in

humanist ideas had created a Florentine Academy (1540) that set out to purify the Tuscan
language, and it was followed by an Accademia del Disegno (“Academy of Drawing”,
1563) with a membership of painters, sculptors and architects. It was a similar group
who gathered around Count Giovanni Bardi (Camerata de’ Bardi, Florence, 1573) that
propounded a theory of ancient Greek drama that was then tested by its poets and
musicians through the creation of theatrical versions of Greek myths that were sung
throughout.

Activity 7.2

Read Caccini’s Dedication to Euridice, his setting (1600) of the Greek “fable”
(legend). It appears as reading #99 in SSR2, pp 605 to 7. Note the focus on
“the imitation of the sentiments of the words” in the solo vocal line (stile
rappresentativo = representational manner), and the method by which
instruments accompanied the voice: by “realising” a bass line from strict
harmonising instructions, but with freedom in the texture of the playing.

650 Time allocated: 10 minutes

It is clear that there was competition among these composers, a sure sign that they
651

recognised the importance of their innovation: drammi posti in musica per recitar cantando
(“plays set to music through sung recitation/declamation”). Still, it was the novelty of
the maniera di canto (“way of singing”) that was stressed. In part it concerned the clear,
close expression of the text; in this, it was supported by careful control of the improvised
ornaments that were a feature of late-Renaissance solo song. The typical products are
called monody, a general term for the sung line supported by instrumental harmonies.
The sense of “sung speech” has carried over into the now equally broad term “recitative”.

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 Activity 7.3

Review HWM, pp 298 to 304, which contains material on Forerunners of opera and The
first operas.

Time allocated: 1 hour

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The evidence of Monteverdi’s own perspective is found in brief introductions to two of

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his published volumes of music, namely, his 5th Book of Madrigals (studied in the initial
activity, 6.1), and the 8th Book, which carries the further specification Madrigali guerrieri,
et amorosi (warlike and amorous madrigals).

Activity 7.4

Read the Preface to Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi, in SSR2 #109, pp 665 to

67. Here, Monteverdi makes his own claim for innovation, the stile concitato
(“agitated manner”), that is, expressive of warlike passions: anger, disdain,
vehemence. With this, he asserts, music is perfected. The basso continuo
is, like the voice, also involved in this matching of style and emotion.

654 Time allocated: 15 minutes

7.3 MONTEVERDI: L’ORFEO

What then are the ingredients of his greatness, given the galaxy of outstanding talents
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among whom he worked on both sides of 1600?

Security of job tenure is one factor. In his long career – he published his first music at the
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age of 16, and died still working at 76 – he worked for only two employers: more than
20 years were spent in Mantua (early 1590s–1612) in the service of the city’s ruler, Duke
Vincenzo I Gonzaga, and 30 years in Venice, where he held the position of maestro di
cappella at the Basilica of St Mark. His first position favoured secular music, almost all of
it vocal; the second did not prevent him from producing music for the stage. But it was
the conditions in Mantua that enabled him to undertake theatrical projects that went
beyond the grand but often static festive productions that had been the hallmark of the
Medici court in Florence and, with a characteristic emphasis on dance, of the French court.

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One might conceive it as a confluence of music, rhetoric and drama. Music was considered
657

an everyday component of courtly life and a reflection of high status and taste, and this
gave Monteverdi onerous tasks to fulfil. Rhetoric speaks to Renaissance beliefs about the
“power” of music to influence the listeners’ outlook and thoughts, often in a moral way.
Drama calls on the resources of language, especially of its poetic forms, to construct an
expressive narrative in which even conventional figures like nymphs and shepherds are
recognised as the owners of great passions.
Under the leadership of Vincenzo’s son Francesco, Mantua’s Accademia degli Invhagiti
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(“Academy of the Lovestruck”) was instrumental in planning and mounting Monteverdi’s

first such work, a setting of a drama by Alessandro Striggio, Junior, secretary of state to
the dukes of Mantua from 1608, and a friend of Monteverdi’s.

Activity 7.5

Read SSR2 #108, pp 662 to 65, Letter to Alessandro Striggio (1616), which
records an opinion of Monteverdi’s on a suggested libretto some years
later. It is illuminating because it describes what the text lacks from the
standpoint of a composer seeking to convey human emotions.

659 Time allocated: 15 minutes

A selection of excerpts from L’Orfeo, first performed in Mantua in early 1607, will assist in
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demonstrating some of the forces that drove the “birth of opera”.

Activity 7.6

Read HWM, pp 305 to 07, introducing Monteverdi and L’Orfeo.

661 Time allocated: 15 minutes

The words of the Prologue, sung by a personification of Music, give a good idea of what
662

the seconda prattica was about.

Activity 7.7

Read Weiss and Taruskin 1984:177 to 78, which presents the text of the
Prologue in translation.

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 663 Time allocated: 5 minutes

664 The synopsis of Orfeo may be briefly summarised.

After a prologue, nymphs and shepherds are discovered rejoicing at the coming marriage
665

of Orpheus (tenor) and Eurydice (soprano). In a wood, Orpheus sings to nature, but
is interrupted by the Messenger (soprano) bringing the news of Eurydice’s death. He
descends to Hades [the Underworld] to find her, and is comforted by Hope; lulling Charon
(bass [boatman at the river]) with his song, he crosses the Styx87 and wins the agreement
of Pluto (bass) and Proserpina (soprano) that he may take her back to earth if he will not
turn round to look at her on their journey. Unable to resist reassuring himself that she
is indeed there, he turns just as they reach the light and she is snatched back to Hades.
Orpheus laments his lot, but is consoled by Apollo (tenor) with the promise of immortality
with Eurydice.’88

Example 7.1
Listen to the excerpt from L’Orfeo, Act 2, which gives a good idea of the diversity of musi-
cal ingredients used by Monteverdi. The score, with text, translation and commentary,
is found in NAWM #74 (a) to (e). You must watch these scenes (see Tutorial Letter 101 for
more information on accessing the recording). The five sections of the excerpt, found in
the video at the bracketed timings, are as follows:
a. “Vi ricorda o boschi” (the address to nature)
A 4-strophe aria with instrumental ritornello
b. [33’ 20”] “Mira, deh mira Orfeo” (a chorus voice urges further celebration)
Arioso
c. [33’ 55”] “Ahi, caso acerbo” (the announcement of Euridice’s death)
An extended dialogue in recitative between the messenger,89 chorus soloists and
Orfeo
d. [41’ 20”] “Tu se’ morte” (Orfeo mourns his wife and resolves to bring her back from
the Underworld)
Recitative by Orfeo, of lament and resolve
e. [43’ 35”] “A8hi caso acerbo” (the chorus moralises on the changeability of fate)
A 5-part choral madrigal, underlining inconsolable grief

666 Time allocated: 20 minutes

187 The stage direction here refers to a mechanical scenic effect: “Qui entra nella barca e passa cantando
al suono dell’organo di legno” (He enters the boat and crosses over, singing to the sound of the wood-
organ). This small flue-pipe organ is mentioned further below.
188 Arnold 1984:I, 666.
189 She is Sylvia, a companion of Eurydice’s.

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The affetti (“affects”, emotional states) in this stretch of the composition are deliberately
667

set in the strongest possible opposition: from carefree enjoyment of the outdoors,
the musicking and musing on love (and the dancing unmistakably suggested by the
ritornelli), to the disturbed messenger’s entrance, the anxious questioning, the account
of Eurydice’s death, and the plunge into bitter grief. Dramatically, the regular strophes
of Orfeo’s canzonetto (section a) give way to a sudden sense of unease, as the dialogue
(section c) progressively unfolds Eurydice’s fate; the poetry is unrhymed and the lines of
uneven length, and an anguished melodic idea (“Ah, bitter chance!”) serves to introduce
the various entries. In Orfeo’s mourning (section d), we hear verbal oppositions piling up
– morta/vita, respiro/partita, tornare/rimango (“death/life, breathe/depart, turn/remain”)
– until he reaches a threefold farewell (“addio” to earth, heaven, the sun).90 The chorus
responds with a verse (section e), rhymed and in 5- and 7-syllable lines.
The musical treatment works not only by isolating soloists – which permits a detailed
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“exploration” of their psychological fluctuations – but also by contrasting the continuity-

by-repetition at the outset with the increasing fragmentation of the dialogue. This drastic
change is reflected also in the tonality, moving broadly from “sharp”/major tonality to
“flat”/minor utterances. Another layer is the shift from consonance to highly chromatic
harmony. A structural aspect worth noting is the transference of the messenger’s first strain
(mm 13–19) and a solo part (mm 78–82), transposed down a perfect 5th, that becomes
the bass line of the choral (and chordal) madrigal (mm 1–6).91
How all this is achieved in performance remains an important question. Tempi have to
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be chosen (at “Vi recorda” [a, m 1], at “Mira” [b, m 1] and at “Ahi! Caso” [e, m 1]), and the
recitative sections interpreted for contrasts, sometimes in quick succession. Though
the printed score contains helpful details of instrumentation, the precise quality – of
“organ with wooden pipes and chitarrone”, or of “harpsichord, chitarrone and viola da
braccio” – allows for a degree of latitude. The question of vocal ornaments has also to be
considered, as well as attack and projection. The nature of an “early” score such as this
loads the performers with considerable responsibility for actualising the music.
The historian, too, in providing an account of a collaborative achievement like L’Orfeo is
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faced with various questions: is the work best understood through its provenance (the
circumstances of its precise origins), or via the drama and the nature of its poetry, or in
terms of the musical genre(s) to which it may belong or which constitute it, or through
its performers and their audiences? Is the spotlight to fall on the composer’s intentions
as expressed in the “text”, or on the locating of the “text” in its context? These broad
lines of enquiry become more urgent as the phenomenon of music overflows its courtly
confines and takes to the theatre.

Activity 7.8
Read HWM, pp 308 to 16, on Opera from Florence to Rome, and Public
Opera in Venice with the side-bar Innovations: The Impresario and the
Diva.

1 90 This is surely also a reference to Apollo, who will finally save him. Apollo, the chief among ancient Greek
gods, was strongly associated with the sun, as also with music and dance.
1 91 Bar numbers accord with the music as printed in NAWM #74.

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 Time allocated: 1 hour
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7.4 THE NATURE OF THE LIBRETTO

The rapid diffusion of opera – for that is what these theatrical collaborations quickly
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became – from its cradle in Venice happened on several levels: the San Cassiano Theatre
opened to a “public” (initially still nobility and members of the merchant class) in 1637,
and in this city alone there were ten opera theatres by 1678; operas produced here and
in other centres in the country were toured, encouraging the spread of the culture; and
courts in Europe outside Italy quickly equipped themselves with the means, i.e., theatres
and machinery, singers and composers, to imitate their Italian models.
In important respects, this was a dramatist’s market. Far more libretti have survived than
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scores from the industrial-scale production of the years 1650 to 1700, often in the form
of elegant engraved publications. They also highlight – in the frequent discrepancies
between various versions of the libretto, or between the libretto and the surviving scores
– the changeable nature of these ventures. There is seldom a definitive version, again
throwing responsibility on the modern presenters to select a version, or patch together
a coherent opera from several differing sources.
One of the most significant changes to a libretto occurs precisely in the case of L’Orfeo. It
674

was already a notable aspect of the pre-1600 sung stage works based on mythology that
the dramatist might alter the myth, especially its ending, to tune it to a happy occasion,
usually a dynastic wedding. Thus, the plot of Euridice (1600, music by Peri, libretto by Ottavio
Rinuccini), from the same narrative source as Monteverdi’s, allows Orpheus’s wife to return
to life and the work to end on a note of festivity. Rinuccini, working with Monteverdi on
his second stage work, L’Arianna (1608), also brought the myth of Ariadne to a suitably
affirmative close.92 When Striggio wrote the libretto of L’Orfeo, his final act contained
no intervention by Apollo: true to the myth, the desolate Orpheus was confronted by
a group of Bacchantes (possessed female followers of Bacchus), whose closing chorus
makes it clear that “our hearts are brimful/ of your [Bacchus’] divine fury”. The physical
destruction of Orpheus by these women, even though it is anticipated rather than reported,
was hardly suitable to mark a noble marriage. Hence the alteration of the fifth act with
Apollo’s appearance as deus ex machina, and his raising of Orpheus to celestial honour. 93

1 92 Except for a famous lament, the score of L’Arianna has been lost. The myth (and Rinuccini’s drama,
written for a wedding at the court of Mantua) are based on the escape from Crete of Theseus (“duke”
of Athens) and Ariadne, daughter of the Cretan king, who had fallen in love with him; almost the entire
libretto, recounting Theseus’s abandoning of Ariadne on the island of Naxos, and her fruitless waiting
for his return, tends to a tragic ending; actually, Ariadne in despair plans her self-immolation. At the last
minute, the god Bacchus arrives to marry Ariadne and immortalise her. It is a dramatic compromise “for
the court’s sake”.
1 93 It is supposed that this particular “happy ending” (It lieto fine) was tailored for a visit to the Mantuan
court by the king of Savoy, the prospective father-in-law of Francesco Gonzaga, later in 1607. (See Fenlon
1986:18) The redirecting and shortening of the final act has never seemed satisfactory to audiences,
either historic or contemporary. (See Sternfeld 1986:33.)

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 7.5 OPERA: THE FRENCH PERSPECTIVE
The doctoring of myth is a sure sign of court domination. (In later operatic history, the
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censorship of libretti by state or church officials continued this authoritarian attitude.)

But there are other aspects of 17th century lyric theatre that betray the same “top-down”
manipulation. It is all the more instructive when the manipulation emerges as a national
characteristic of the created works, and is held up for admiration by music historians. Such
is the case with the French stage works of the later 1600s, which were sponsored and
controlled by the state in the form of the monarch – Louis XIII to begin with (r 1610–1643),
but most famously under Louis XIV (r from 1643, though effectively 1661–1715).

Activity 7.9

Read HWM, pp 340 to 43, France, as far as Music at Court. The control by
the king of both the state and other power brokers is described.

Time allocated: 20 minutes

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Compared with the Italian phenomenon – its scattered centres of activity, its competition
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among theatres and impresarios, the haphazard preservation of its music – French
Baroque opera is a well-documented aspect of a highly controlled state apparatus. It is
remarkable that two Italians provided leadership for the court in Paris – Cardinal Mazarin
(born Giulio Mazarino), the first minister under both the aforementioned kings, and Jean-
Baptiste Lully (1632–87) – but they were “naturalised” and familiar with the patterns and
intrigues of life among royalty. For two other Italians who came to Paris as outsiders
known for their cultural achievements and by whom the French wished to advance their
own prestige, the invitations were little short of disastrous. Francesco Cavalli (1602–76),
a pupil of Monteverdi and his successor at the Basilica of St Mark in Venice, rose to fame
in Italy with his string of operas (some 32 between 1639 and 1672, most of their scores
preserved), and accepted Mazarin’s invitation to write an opera, on a grand scale, for Louis
XIV’s wedding. Despite its remarkable features (especially large ensembles that were rare
in Venetian operas), it found little acceptance, and Cavalli returned home disillusioned.
Much the same was to happen to Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), the leading Italian
sculptor and architect, whom Louis invited to redesign the Louvre Palace. (Bernini had
under papal patronage created an extraordinary “sacred city” in and around the Basilica
of St Peter’s in Rome.) Though Bernini arrived with great fanfare in Paris in 1665, his ideas
were obstructed by political intrigue, national pride and differing tastes; he left the city
after a mere five months. Yet his portrait bust of the king (at age 27) provides us with telling
insight into the mentality of absolutism: its strength, arrogance and restless dynamism.

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 678

Figure 7.1: Gianlorenzo Bernini’s striking bust (1665) of the young King Louis XIV, kept at the
Palace of Versailles. Source: Wikimedia Commons Photo: Louis le Grand. Licence: CC-BY-SA-2.5
URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LouisXIV-Bernini.jpg

Lully’s was a personality that suited his close relationship with the king: he was an
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autocrat, known for his strict discipline in the preparation of his own musical works. Also,
he obtained the Letters Patent for Académies d’Opéra (1672) that gave him the sole right
to mount staged music performances in France. These had begun as collaborations with
the dramatist Molière, a writer of comedies, with whom Lully wrote ten works between
1664 and 1671. Music was integral to these comédies-ballets, obviously to accompany
dancing, but also for vocal numbers. Both the playwright and the composer took part
in these productions – as bouffons (clownish characters), a role for which they were both
“naturals”. It proved to be the nursery in which Lully shaped his mastery of French-style
recitative. It was also an unusual blend of styles – expressing madcap comedy, tender
emotion, gracious love dialogues and (as an indicator of the king’s role as a dancer)
nobility and gravity.

Activity 7.10

Read HWM, pp 343 to 46, Jean-Baptiste Lully and French Opera, as far
as French Overtures.

680 Time allocated: 15 minutes

After a falling-out with Molière and the playwright’s death in 1673, Lully was paired with
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librettist Philippe Quinault (1635–88) in a series of operas known as tragédies lyriques

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(“sung tragic dramas”). As a writer of plays, Quinault had come via the school of comedy
to the sort of tragedies then in fashion. Their collaboration produced a remarkably
consistent type of entertainment through ten operas, mostly based on mythological
stories that locate the action in a remote time and place, amid marvellous, even magical
occurrences, engineered with spectacular staging, supported by the generous musical
resources of the court, and aimed at just one person: the king. (His court was expected
to applaud and join him in the dances.) Some of the qualities of this “music” (by which
we mean poetry, dramatic instinct, musical setting, dance, and visual splendour) are
highlighted in the two previous reading activities (6.9 and 6.10).

It is important to understand that “tragedy” has a specific connotation here. This is not
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the harsh and hopeless outworking of fate (as in Greek drama), though lip-service was
paid to classical models (e.g., the five-act structure, the presence of a static chorus), and
gods mingled with mortals. The number of works that end with a heroic triumph is high,
and the “glory” is meant to reflect the king’s aura. Yet the libretti dwell a great deal on
love. However, it is not gut-wrenching or ecstatic, and it remains within strict limits both
verbal and musical. The underlying premise is the approval of the kingly sense of duty
and the sacrifice it involves, presented by the king’s artist subjects. That duty, as far as
Louis XIV was concerned, was as much about making war and seizing territory as it was
about negotiating peace.

It is noteworthy that both plot and vocal writing in Lully’s last tragédie en musique (an
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alternative term for tragédie lyrique) move away noticeably from the stance described
above. It may well be that, with a deterioration in the relationship between the king and
his composer, the latter had felt emboldened to allow his imagination to range with
unaccustomed freedom.

Example 7.3

Listen to the Overture and Scene from Armide (1686), found in NAWM #77 (a) and (c), in
score, with text, translation and commentary.

684 Time allocated: Ouverture – 3 minutes; Scene – 5 minutes

The overture was part of the formalities preceding the opera proper, and introduced a
685

substantial prologue – in this case a debate between Wisdom and Glory (Renown). The
particular form is called “French ouverture” (it was taken up by composers all over Europe),
with a stately opening section in dotted rhythm, perfect for accompanying the entrance
of the king, and a faster section initiated by imitation among the voices; the overture
then restates its slow section.

128
The solo scene, in which the title character, a sorceress in love with the warrior Renaud,
686

has the opportunity to escape from the imprisonment which he has imposed on her, is
still formally divided into

 an orchestral prelude (excerpt c, mm 1–20)

 a section of récitatif simple (the voice accompanied by basso continuo only, mm 20–42),
which ends in recitatif mésuré (the bass part helping the music to move in measured
bars, mm 43–71)
 this merges into a second orchestral passage in the style of a minuet (mm 71–90), a
musical sign of yielding to love
 and closes with an aria with an orchestral postlude (from m 90).
These sections correspond to the (for Lully) unusually emotional course of the scene, as
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declaimed in the text:

 introduction to the scene, setting a mood of tension

 Armide’s initial determination to murder the sleeping Arnaud turns to irresolute self-
questioning, and then to the realisation that she cannot bring herself to kill him (simple);
she immediately decides that she would rather seek her revenge by compelling him
(through magic) to love her (mésuré);
 The orchestra prepares for the air
 Armide calls on her attendant spirits to support her, and to remove her to the remotest
part of earth.
At the end of the opera, that is what happens, more or less. In the fifth and final scene
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of Act 5 (score and commentary available in Heller 2014: 91-102),94 though Renaud has in
the meantime escaped her spell and fled, Armide is shown still caught in the dilemma
of love or vengeance. The usual outcome in these “tragedies” would have involved the
pacification of her heart and the “elevation” of Renaud. But this time Armide has the last
word: as the spirits transport her chariot into the sky, her magic palace is destroyed.

“The last scene [Quinault] wrote, Armide’s rage aria, has that quality of crackling fire which
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so much of his work lacks. The use of the halting line, rare in Italian opera, and extremely
rare in French, heightens its paroxysmic nature...” (Smith 1971:61)

It is tempting to see in this departure from the genre the self-revelation of the composer
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who had for so long devoted himself to the glorification of his patron, but whose heart
was now beset by doubts and rebellious pangs. The destruction of the palace surely
belongs to “the sense of an ending”.95

194 The full libretto with English translation available at https://www.naxos.com/sharedfiles/PDF/8.660209_

sungtext.pdf#
195 Things are never this simple. The only composition by Lully after Armide was written for the Dauphin,
Louis’s first-born son and heir. Was Lully beginning all over again, with another power figure? But the
Dauphin, a liberal and kind man, was a far cry from his father, and while he waited “tranquilly ... to
become the greatest king on earth” (Mitford 1983 [1966]:106), he indulged his passion for music and for
collecting fine art. For him, Lully wrote a “heroic pastoral”, Acis et Galathée (1686). The composer died six
months later in 1687 (from gangrenous complications after an unfortunate accident during rehearsal);
the Dauphin never occupied the French throne, as he died before his father (1711 and 1715 respectively).

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The consensus, both at the time and at present, is that Quinault’s libretto for Armide was his
691

best work. There seems also little disagreement about the opera’s place in Lully’s output:
the opinion of 18th-century Paris held that this was his masterpiece. From our vantage
point in time and after the thorough investigation of all his works, it is still possible to
consider it not just the last but the most mature of the tragédie lyrique style – the most
subtle in the way musical details complement the inner conflicts of a character, the most
responsive, rhythmically and tonally, in its recitative, and exceptional in its orchestral
writing, particularly in its set-pieces (Rosow 1992:I, 202).

7.6 REFERENCES
Arnold, Denis, ed. 1984. The New Oxford Companion to Music. 2 vols. Oxford: OUP.
Fenlon, Iain. ‘The Mantuan “Orfeo”’, in Whenham 1986:1–19.
Hale, J. R., ed. 1981. A Concise Encyclopedia of the Italian Renaissance. London: Thames
and Hudson.
Heller, Wendy. 2014. Anthology for Music in the Baroque. New York: Norton.
Mitford, Nancy. 1966. The Sun King: Louis XIV at Versailles. London: Michael Joseph.
Rosow, Lois. 1992. Entry ‘Armide’ in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. 3 vols. London:
Macmillan.
Smith, Patrick J. 1971. The Tenth Muse: A Historical Study of the Opera Libretto. London:
Gollancz.
Sternfeld, F. W., ‘The Orpheus Myth and the Libretto of “Orfeo”’, in Whenham 1986:20–33.
Weiss, Piero, and Richard Taruskin, eds. 1984. Music in the Western World: A History in
Documents. New York: Schirmer.
Whenham, John (ed). 1986. Claudio Monteverdi: Orfeo. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1986.

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Learning Unit 8
Germany at the turn of the 17th century: a phoenix
rising from the ashes?

PURPOSE

The purpose of learning unit 8 is to introduce you to

 the general setting of the late Baroque in northern Europe, of its nations and powers
 some reflections in music of the political conflicts between 1620 and 1680
 the factors that encouraged specific traditions of keyboard music and the attempts
to recreate them in modern times
 the achievements of Johann Sebastian Bach, viewed as the interaction of musical
and literary-theological currents
 the continuing importance of chamber music and amateur opportunities

OUTCOMES

After completing the learning unit, you should demonstrate that you are able to

 describe the consequences of prolonged conflicts on musical life

 account for the unusual prestige of the North German keyboard tradition
 describe the most important factors impinging on the creativity of JS Bach
 locate in time and place key people responsible for the importance of German music
in the early 18th century

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING UNIT 8

8.1
692 Introduction
8.2
693 The historical factors – Schütz and Biber
8.3
694 Keyboard music as a test case – Buxtehude
8.4
695 Bach, the learned musician
8.5
696 Telemann of Hamburg

8.1 INTRODUCTION
Stylistic influence is a vital ingredient in the present learning unit, which seeks to explore
697

how various kinds of music-making, chiefly within the German-speaking sphere of the late
Baroque era, became the basis for a broad consensus of musical taste during the course
of the 18th century. It is assumed that during this period (roughly 1660–1740), national
consciousness was a continuous factor in the thought of cultivated people – among whom
music was a constant preoccupation – and was solidified in the projection of four “great
powers” by the end of the 1600s: England, France, Italy, and Germany. A considerable

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area of the German territories fell under the rule of Austria, whose Hapsburg monarchs
ruled vast reaches in the succession of the “Holy Roman Emperors”. Spain and its former
empire were losing ground in every sense during these decades, while the Dutch, who
were to some extent the target of powerful neighbours, enjoyed a time of prosperity,
and relied on a royal power figure when pressured. All these nations were agents jostling
one another in the often antagonistic manoeuvres that marked the politics of the times.

Music continued to rely upon patronage for its welfare, and the patrons were the same
698

as those who had historically supported the art. The church remained a leader of society,
particularly so in Catholic territories, and its appointments were prized and contested.
The courts of royalty and lesser nobility enjoyed the adornment of musical art as much
as ever, and even quite modest figures in the pantheon of the aristocracy managed to
maintain a Kapelle of some sort. (At the beginning of the century, this meant court chapels
and those who served in them, but the term changed with time to embrace the entire
musical establishment of a court, covering sacred and secular music, including opera.)
Cities also wielded considerable influence and wealth, and offered paid positions to
musicians who were then obliged to fulfil contractual obligations. The power of cities,
especially in Lutheran areas, included that of making church appointments. City posts
also held out the prospect of wider audiences, of the independent presentation of public
concerts, and of regular pedagogical opportunities.

Against these means of livelihood, certain counter-forces – in particular The Thirty Years’
699

War, and the subsequent military adventures undertaken by Louis XIV – meant decades
of fatal and destructive conflicts, and financially ruinous conditions in large parts of the
German territories. It is difficult to grasp this period of intense conflict, since the main
belligerents, like France and Spain, were often involved in conflicts on two or even
three different fronts. Fighting moved back and forth across the German territories, and
campaigns were often fought between mercenary forces rather than standing armies.
These lacked basic loyalty to a leader and were often undisciplined and brutal; they
attracted large groups of camp followers eager to take their money for all sorts of services.
One such mercenary wrote out of his experiences, even though Grimmelshausen’s famous
novel Simplicissimus (1669), this being the hero’s name, is not purely autobiographical. It
is also debatable to what extent Jacques Callot’s etchings entitled Grande Misères de la
Guerre (1663) are “the most terrifying record of the savageries of the Thirty Years’ War”,
though they seem to have been inspired in part by the French state’s invasion of Lorraine
(1633, instigated by Cardinal Richelieu) (Murray 1983:58).

8.2 THE HISTORICAL FACTORS – SCHÜTZ AND BIBER

Activity 8.1

Read HWM, pp 325 to 29, Lutheran Church Music, including the note on
Schütz’s biography and the source reading in his own words.

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 700 Time allocated: 10 minutes

That the misfortunes of extended warfare should leave their mark on the artistic products
701

of the time is not surprising. Schütz’s work was directly affected, as the reading above
notes, and it was not every establishment that was able to rapidly reinvest in its Kapelle
and recover as the court of Dresden did, once the fighting in its region had subsided. In
particular, it was the colourful orchestration in his concerted works that was the special
feature of his Symphoniae sacrae I, Latin works published just before he returned from
Venice in 1629, after his second stay there as a “student” of the newest Italian trends.
But the privations of war were to dog him through the 1630s, and are reflected in the
much reduced scale of his Kleine geistliche Concerte, though the concentration on a few
voices and continuo had its rewards, and the combination of monody with counterpoint
achieved a powerful type of declamation.

Example 8.1

Listen to Schütz’s “Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich”. Score and commentary in NAWM #81.

Time allocated: 8 minutes

702

From Symphoniae sacrae III, this example of his settings of German biblical texts dates
703

from about 1650.

704 Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich? Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
705 Es wird schwer werden It will be hard for you
706 wider den Stachel zu löcken. to kick against the [pricks] thorns.
707 (The Acts of the Apostles 26.14b)

The vocal requirements are six soloists (SSATBB, to whom Schütz gave the title favoriti),
708

with two violins and continuo; these alone introduce the uncanny summons of Saul (line
1). Two further groups of singers, SATB (one voice per part), enter on a sudden major chord
to add weight and splendour – and also to enable the line to end in a double-echo as
they withdraw. Line 2 proceeds in monody (tenor, then alto), before the calling of the
name and its echoes return in full force. Line 2 is repeated as a duet (soprano 1, bass 1),
before turning into an imitative passage (6 soloists and instruments) that then takes up
line 3 with a suggestion of Italianate passaggi. These rapid rhythms (on violin 1, bass 2)
later merge into the recurring chords of “Saul, Saul” (with their echoes). As the ensemble
proceeds to the close, the tenor soloist sings the name on rising, held notes – Christ’s
clarion call – till the question dies out in its echoes.

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What can be learned from considering Biber’s Battalia à 10?96 There is a suggestion of
709

naïvete in the sequence of musical illustrations that make up this multi-sectional work. At
least, modern audiences find it hard to suppress amusement at its artless depiction (in the
four titled sections) of a quodlibet that has attracted some notoriety (see below), a march
(the effect is of “fife and drum”), the battle itself (concitato chords and “slap pizzicato” for
the small-arms fire), and the mournful aftermath (represented by the doleful, chromatic
“cries” of the wounded).

The quodlibet (Latin, “whatever you please”), which superimposed pre-existing melodies,
710

was a light-hearted element in a Baroque composer’s stock of forms, though it required

skill and ingenuity to produce a satisfying amalgamation of the components. Biber’s
quodlibet takes the idea to an extreme; the rubric in the score, “Die liederliche Gesellschaft
von allerley Humor” = “the disorderly (dissolute, immoral) company with all kinds of
boisterous humour” reflects the rag-tag membership of the mercenary armies and their
hangers-on. The fact that it contains eight popular tunes of German, Slovak and Czech
origins, that enter successively but are all combined with one another in a cacophony
that suddenly stops on a grinding discord, seems to reflect Biber’s own background. The
dedication of the work to Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, is most likely related to this
“canteen moment”.97

The closing section – “Lamento der verwundten Musquetir” (Lament of the wounded
711

musketeer) – is also very pointed, historically: “The development of artillery and the musket
had revolutionised not only strategy and tactics, but also the composition of armies”.
Bands of peasants with homemade weapons no longer served a purpose, and even the
suit of armour that typified aristocratic protection in combat was disappearing: in order
to ward off increasingly penetrative armament, it had become impracticably heavy. From
the turn of the 15th century, fighting required the professionalism of “a steady line of
musketeers and their pikemen” (Blitzer 1968:34).

The musket as a military weapon had appeared in Europe late in the 1500s as a specialist
712

adjunct to the battle formation of arquebus and pikestaff; by mid-century, it was edging
out the former, and with the addition of a bayonet, the musket had by 1700 displaced
the latter, too. Thus, the Lament in the Battalia of 1673 reflected relatively recent history.
This seems to be confirmed by No 4 in the suite, a march that had already appeared in
almost exactly the same form in Biber’s Sonata representativa for solo violin and basso
continuo. There it is specifically entitled “Musquetier Mars”, a rather odd piece to be
included among the birds and animals that were selected for imitation on the violin. The
sonata dates from the later 1660s, placing it even closer in time to the actual warfare. But
perhaps the most revealing stroke is Biber’s writing for grouped trumpets and drums in
his Missa salisburgensis (1682). Their use in the Kyrie and Gloria in particular is unmistakably
militaristic, a decidedly shocking effect in a sacred work of this kind.

196 The work is scored for ten players: three violins, four violas, two violoni, and harpsichord.
197 Biber was born in Wartenberg, and worked in Kremsier, at the court of the Prince-Bishop of Olomouc.
Both these towns were then situated in German-speaking Bohemia. He later moved to Salzburg. Kremsier
(modern Kroměříž, in the Czech Republic) had to be rebuilt after the Thirty Years’ War; its population had
also suffered an outbreak of bubonic plague, which was easily transmitted in conditions of impoverishment
and enforced migration.

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 8.3 KEYBOARD MUSIC AS A TEST CASE – BUXTEHUDE

Activity 8.2

Read HWM, pp 391 to 399, Dieterich Buxtehude (box), and Lutheran

Organ Music.

713 Time allocated: 40 minutes

The history of the organ in the West is so extended and so vital in the life of the church
714

that it may seem like an undervaluation to treat it as merely part of a “period”. The reason
for holding the tradition of Lutheran organ playing and composition until this learning
unit is, first, the chronology involved: the “golden age” of the Baroque organs that have
survived is centred on the late 1600s and the early part of the 17th century; second, the
flow of music produced by the performer-composers of the great churches came to a
spectacular climax in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750).

This rich node of creativity was built on long-standing foundations of liturgical practice,
715

and it is important to note that Catholic and Protestant requirements led to quite peculiar
sorts of instruments and to widely differing repertoire for them. Before the “hardening” of
divisions caused by reforming (Protestant) movements and their political consequences,
the organ had already developed significantly in both technical and tonal features, as
well as in the compass of its keyboards (manuals). By the late 17th century, regional (or
national) characteristics had crystallised: organs of this period are regarded as embodying
“classical ideals”. They also represent civic attitudes. For example, Dutch organs of the
17th century were often secular instruments, the property of the municipality, and were
used for special occasions rather than regular ecclesial work, though this later reasserted
itself, adding new tonal requirements to the already refined disposition.

The liturgical divergence that affected organ building is most clearly seen in the traditions
716

of south and north German organ construction. The southern territories (Bavaria,
Swabia, Austria) remained largely Catholic, marking the role of the organ primarily as
the accompaniment of hymns and chants (in the abbey churches), improvisation to give
the mass a seamless unfolding, and the reinforcement of orchestras used in solemn
masses. Thus, the southern organ had an orientation towards vocal music, and provided
homogenous colours with strong blending properties. There was no need for a pedal
board that went beyond fundamental stops, since its purpose was support for the
harmonic basis of the music.

The situation in the Protestant north was quite different. Besides the utilitarian aspects
717

of accompaniment and continuity in the service, the music of the main services was
powerfully ordered by the prominent use of German hymns (chorales), around which
grew up artistic traditions of chorale preludes, fantasies and variations. The organs most

135 MHS1511/1
suited to these forms needed solo stops and were designed in their specifications to
render clearly the intricacies of polyphonic compositions. In particular, the pedal division
was well supplied with cantus firmus stops at various octaves so that the chorale melody
could be played against ideas developed on the manuals. But the availability of such a
pedal division also offered the opportunity for more complex writing. The organs built (or
rebuilt) in surprising numbers by the workshop of Arp Schnitger in Hamburg involved a
degree of standardisation in a field that had long been shaped by the skills of individual
makers, but also by the requirements and financial capacity of individual commissions.98

The impact of the early music revival (EMR) on pre-Romantic organs was immense, partly
718

because the technology and design habits of the early 1700s carried on well into that
century. The great breadth and virtuosity of Bach’s organ music was in itself a spur to the
modern exploration of instruments appropriate to it. Numerous Baroque organs have
survived, but many of them had been altered and rebuilt in the course of time, and the
results usually reflected post-Baroque tastes. The stripping away or isolation of stops that
were anachronistic for Baroque music was therefore part of their restoration. Another
important aspect involved the mechanisms that were used in the centuries before electrical
power took over both the function of the bellows and the “signal” from the keyboard to
the corresponding pipe. Blowers for air continue to be electrically controlled; but it has
become a norm – rather like using gut on “period” stringed instruments – to restore at
least part, if not all, of the connecting system with a mechanical tracker action. The effect
is a far more direct control by the organist of the moment at which a pipe “speaks” in
response to the depressing of the key.

But the revival of Baroque organs – and the renewed exposure of listeners to music,
719

some of which had been eclipsed for 200 years – involves an investment of highly skilled
craftsmanship, of significant material costs and of labour time that goes far beyond
any other “revival” ventures. (The original building periods of organs often took three
to four years per large instrument.) Modern attempts at rehabilitating old instruments
were kept within reasonable limits partly because the metal pipes (even when battered)
often continued to be serviceable. This saved a great deal of time and money in the
reconstruction. But the widespread desire of clients for new baroque-style organs meant
that the entire instrument was built de novo.99 This raised the question of whether – as
some felt – the use of the original pipe work actually had a critical effect on the sound.
Clearly, this was relevant to the central concern of the revival, that is, the qualities of the
historic sound, but merely replicating the casting of lead pipes (which was the metal
used in the period in question) took matters no further: modern pure-lead pipes simply
collapsed. It required electron microscope analysis to establish that it was the presence
of impurities in the 17th and 18th-century lead that gave it its tensile strength. Thus, the
introduction of specific impurities made lead pipes usable again.100

198 Schnitger (1648–1719) produced – through building or rebuilding – between 140 and 150 organs. From his
base in Hamburg, he supervised work in three regional workshops – Magdeburg, Bremen and Gröningen.
199 The general process of modern pipe casting may be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkko-
TAg6cU and from related YouTube sources.
1100 An illustrated overview of lead pipe casting in the light of this knowledge may be accessed here:
http://www.hevanet.com/dibblee/pipe_metallurgy.pdf

136
That could not by itself have settled the sound question, until a millennium project was
720

undertaken in Sweden in which a thorough recreation of early organ design and build
was undertaken (based on a selection of Schnitger’s instruments). In this “laboratory” of
the North German Baroque organ, all the questions of technical process could be debated
and recorded, and the pipe work production be tested in a rigorous fashion. Thus, the
instrument that was built (inaugurated in August 2000) involved research into many
outstanding models, an agreed design, and the building from scratch of an action and
of the divisions of the organ (including its case and decorative finish). This involved the
casting of the pipe metal in sand, which was the historical method at the time, but had
been abandoned in the course of the 1700s. This in turn necessitated the reconstruction
of historic tools capable of working (planing) the cast metal to the required thickness.101
The reproducing of early Baroque tuning systems is particularly troublesome on the organ,
but obviously has an impact on the nature of the sound. Thus, the Göteborg instrument
incorporates some alternative (split) keys on its manuals that enable the player to use
mean-tone tuning as an alternative to some form of tempered system. While all this
may seem to involve utopian ambitions, it is a reminder that much “early music” involves
practical compromises in performance, as well as the genuine rediscoveries that are driven
by contemporary idealism.

Example 8.2

Listen to the Praeludium in E Major, BuxWV 141 by Dieterich Buxtehude (c 1637–1707).

Score with commentary in the NAWM #95.

721 Time allocated: 7 minutes

Not one of Buxtehude’s many organ compositions – his output of 90 works is the largest
722

of any composer before that of Bach – has survived in the composer’s own hand. Some of
them have turned up in copies as late as the second half of the 20th century. It is therefore
impossible to put dates to them, and scholars of his music have had to content themselves
with the knowledge that Buxtehude (and Bach after him) was familiar with the musical
idioms of Italy and the Netherlands, via the music of Frescobaldi and Sweelinck. Buxtehude
cultivated forms that had been practised by Heinrich Scheidemann (ca 1595–1663) and by
Franz Tunder (1614–1667), and had put on these his own personal stamp. It is notable, and
a factor in the influence of all three of these musicians, that they held prominent posts
for long periods of time: Scheidemann served as organist of the St Catharine Church in
Hamburg for more than 30 years (before 1629 until his death), Tunder was Buxtehude’s
predecessor in Lübeck (1641–1667), and Buxtehude himself was organist at the same
Marienkirche for almost 40 years. He set an example for later performer-composers in

1101 This method of casting had yielded pipes of unusual hardness, which turned out to be an important
factor in the acoustic result. For a brief description of the project, the Göteborg Organ Art Centre website
may be accessed here: https://www.goart.gu.se/research/instruments/north-german-baroque-organ

137 MHS1511/1
the relative autonomy that he enjoyed – a happy circumstance related to the nature of
Lübeck as a free port.

“Prelude” should here be taken in a broad sense; it means “toccata” in the narrower sense
723

of an alternation of free and fugal sections. The free material is marked by improvisatory
flourishes, making it impossible to anticipate the way in which the ideas flow one into
another, with frequent changes in direction and pattern. Each fugal section presents a
systematic exposition of its subject (theme) according to pitch levels (tonic/dominant/
tonic/dominant); these are continued with variation in texture (e.g., dropping a voice
for a passage, restarting the counterpoint, altering the level of rhythmic activity), but
the tonality tends to remain strongly associated with the home key: the first cadence
on the dominant arrives only in m 36, the next ends a section before a new fugal tonic,
and the relative minor key appears, only to bring the proceedings to a halt (m72). The
sections played manualiter (without the use of pedals) include a fugue in the spirit of a
gigue (12/8 time-signature). The pedals are fully integrated into the work, thanks to some
highly active passages.

Besides the music for solo performance, the organ, in the form of a smaller, sometimes
724

movable instrument, played a crucial role in the growth of Lutheran vocal music. What
we today call cantatas (usually referring to those of JS Bach), were originally a gathering,
on a liturgical theme, of movements deriving from the sacred concertos of Schein and
Schütz (with biblical texts and opportunity for instrumental framing and linking); they
are elaborated through arias (using poetic, non-biblical texts, later often associated
with recitative), and they frequently include a chorale ingredient that ranged from
straightforward harmonisation of the chorale melody – a style called cantional – to
elaborate compositions on a hymn led by instrumental forces and using a motet-style
setting for the voices.

The expressive possibilities of such a recipe can be judged from a Buxtehude work of 1680,
725

Membra Jesu nostri. Each of the condensed “cantatas” in this cycle of seven is addressed
to one of the physical members of the crucified Jesus. A little apart from the medieval
devotion to the Five Wounds of Jesus, the poetic text for the work comes from a Latin
poem of Passion Devotion called Salve mundi salutare. It is now attributed to Arnulf of
Louvain (c 1200–1250), but was in the 17th century believed to have been written by
St Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercian Order of monks. His writings had
greatly appealed to Martin Luther, and thus had found a way into Lutheranism. In the
context of German Pietism, his writings were as popular among Protestant believers as
they were among Catholics.102 Buxtehude’s setting, his only one to use a Latin text, was
dedicated to a musician friend in Stockholm, also Lutheran.

Example 8.3

Listen to Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostri, Part VI: “Ad cor: Vulnerasti cor meum”. Score
and commentary in Heller 2014b, #20.

1102 Pietism was a movement, beginning from 1675, that sought to infuse new life into the official Protestantism
of the time. It was influential in Lutheran circles.

138
 726 Time allocated: 11 minutes

The relatively short “cantata” follows the general pattern of the rest of the series – Sonata
727

(instrumental); Concerto* (here for 2 sopranos, bass and continuo); Aria* (soprano 1); Aria*
(soprano 2); Aria* (bass); Concerto (repeating the earlier one).

The asterisk * indicates the presence of a short instrumental ritornello at the end of each
728

section so marked.

The text of the Concerto is from the Old Testament, while the arias use stanzas from the
729

medieval poem. The feature that distinguishes this particular “meditation” from the rest
of the cycle is the change of instrumentation from the prevailing two violins and continuo
– very much an influence from Venice – to a consort of five viols, which appear in the
final Concerto where they “create a novel instrumental halo around the voices” (Heller
2014b:179). This glance backward in time is really a part of the colouration of the work,
and shows Buxtehude drawing on both older and newer practices.

Yet Buxtehude – who held an organist’s position rather than that of cantor – appears to
730

have produced such music not for the purpose of services but for his own Abendmusiken
(“Evening concerts”), an annual series given in the church, and paid for through the support
of the Lübeck merchant class. It was JS Bach whose sacred concertos became central to
the liturgy of the Leipzig churches he served, and were key to the festivals and seasons
of the church year. Perhaps the crucial difference between their sacred vocal works lay
not so much in musical considerations, though by comparison Bach’s style is denser and
harmonically more dramatic, and instrumentally more colourful than Buxtehude’s. It may
be argued that it required a particular constellation of resources to channel the creative
powers of this, the leading figure in a highly regarded family of musicians.

8.4 BACH, THE LEARNED MUSICIAN

731 Bach’s employment is a key to his many-sided musical output.

Activity 8.3

Read the section in HWM, pp 427 to 31, on Johann Sebastian Bach,

including Organ Music.

Time allocated: 25 minutes

732

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 Example 8.4

Listen to the two organ works discussed in the text of the preceding activity, viz, Prelude
and Fugue in A minor (BWV 543) and the chorale prelude “Durch Adams Fall” (BWV 637).
Scores and commentary can be found in NAWM #102 and #103.

733 Time allocated: 12 minutes

The interplay of chorale material, with an improvisatory manner given notated form, and
734

the strict imitative/polyphonic treatment of a motif or subject, is a feature of Bach’s life-

work; to this should be added a fourth factor of undoubted importance – the inspiration
of musical ideas from biblical and poetic texts, even when the texts are not present (as
in instrumental compositions). One example: some of his earliest works involve organ
variations on a chorale melody, the number of variations matching the number of stanzas
in the original hymn. Conversely, even in his settings of hymns for ordinary congregational
accompaniment, he infused them with harmonic richness and introduced florid passages
not unlike cadenzas between the lines of the hymn. From early in his career (while organist
at Arnstadt, 1703–07), complaints were voiced about the “many curious variations [made]
in the chorale, ... many strange tones [mingled] in it, and for the fact that the Congregation
has become confused by it”.103
However, there were also both synthesising and “branching” dynamics at work in his music.
735

Of his synthesising capacities, there is ample evidence in his study of scores (by copying
and by rearranging) of French organ music and especially Italian concerto styles, in which
Vivaldi was a central presence. Besides such regional aspects, there was his adoption
of operatic forms – of arias of various kinds (including da capo), of arioso and recitative
semplice and accompagnato – though he never wrote an opera and showed little interest
in contemporary theatre. To this may be added his practice of “borrowing” from his own
earlier material, often across the sacred-secular divide, according to the requirements of
his job. There is not too great a distance between such adapting of his own works and
his persistent habit of revising his compositions, sometimes in drastic ways. More will be
said about this in connection with the cantata and passion examples below.
The “branching” impulse is equally strong, in particular his tendency to categorise and
736

separate “prelude” material from its “fugal” companion. The Prelude and Fugue in A minor
(see above) is an obvious example. The style of the work is a compound of violinistic
(mm 1–8) and keyboard-derived flourishes (mm 9–24), with integrated pedal part, in the
prelude; and a fugue on a subject of five bars length, in which the various appearances
of the idea (and sometimes just the start of it, m61, or just its “tail”, mm 72–74) serve to
establish the main keys; the linking material often consists of harmonic sequences.
737 mm 1–31 Fugal exposition (four voices , S-A-T-B) A minor
738 mm 44–50 Extra soprano entry, with modulation to E minor

1103 A Consistory report, quoted in Wolff 2000:85.

140
739 mm 51–56 Middle entry, tenor (lowest in 3-part texture) E minor
740 mm 61–66 Middle entry, alto (middle of 3-part texture) C major
741 mm 78–83 Middle entry, alto (lowest in 2-part texture) D minor
742 mm 113–6 “Stretto” of head motif (alto-tenor) E minor
743 mm 131–5 Final entry (tenor) A minor

The fugue ends with an elaborate cadenza, in the spirit of the prelude. Whatever factors
744

may lend a sense of unity to this work, it is a “synthesis” piece in the most literal sense.
The prelude dates from Bach’s years in Weimar (about 1709), the fugue was sketched as
a clavier work, that is, for keyboard only, during the years he worked in Cöthen (1717–23),
and the final form was settled on sometime after 1723, by which time Bach had moved
to Leipzig. Despite the changes in his works over time, these two compositional halves
seem to make a natural fit. It is manifestly intended as a showpiece, yet it has great
spontaneity about it.

Activity 8.4

Read HWM, pp 432 to 35, the sections on Bach’s Harpsichord Music,

Chamber Music and Orchestral Music.

Time allocated: 10 minutes

745

Example 8.5

Listen to the Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in E-flat/D# minor, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Bk.1.
Score with notes in NAWM #104.

746 Time allocated: 8 minutes

This pair of two quite distinct pieces makes one think immediately of the previous work,
747

and with good reason, as it turns out. The lengths to which Bach went in assembling the
contents of his two sets of 24 preludes and fugues (P&F) are extraordinary: starting with
a P&F in C major and then a pair in C minor, he proceeds to pairs in the C# keys (major,
minor), then to D, and so on up the chromatic scale to B major/minor. The first collection
dates from 1722, the second about 20 years later. These books were in the nature of a
demonstration: that by using a “well-tempered” tuning system, the full range of keys (12
major, 12 minor) was available to composers and performers, a great improvement on
the “mean-tone” system whose relatively pure 5ths resulted in increasingly unpleasant

141 MHS1511/1
effects as one proceeded from the neutral C major either sharp-wards or flat-wards. The
differences between some of the pitches could only be accommodated by split keys, for
example, by having separate keys for certain notes such as D# and E-flat. By tempering
(i.e., making a small adjustment to the size of some of the 5ths), more keys became usable,
and the split keys progressively unnecessary. Whatever system Bach had in mind when
he compiled his collections, it was almost certainly not the equal temperament with
which we are familiar. In this case, all the 5ths are tempered by an equal amount, all the
semitones are of equal size, and the system is completely neutral as regards key quality
or “integrity”.
Isolating one P&F from its context of tonal accommodation invites various types of
748

analytical questions: for example, what is the relation of the prelude to its fugue, taking
into consideration harmonic and melodic features, texture and rhythmic patterns, and
the Affekt? These matters lead to aspects that are not directly specified in the score, like
ornamentation, tempo and metric freedom, the type of instrument most suited to the
music and the absolute pitch level – quite apart from the previously mentioned problem
of the applicable tuning system.
The Prelude strikes most people by its expressive language: a steady harping of chords
749

(mostly marked as arpeggiated) defines the pulse in triple metre, around which –
sometimes above, sometimes below the harmonies – a voice “winds”, moving in dotted
rhythmic patterns or in curling, semi-quaver shapes. Some view this as a “recitative” over
a strummed harmonic bass. In an earlier form,104 the composition ended at m 29 with a
perfect cadence. This meant that the main internal cadence – on the dominant minor, m
16 – occurred about midway through the piece. In the course of rewriting, m 29 became
an interrupted cadence, after which 3 bars of three-part writing led to a prolonged
diminished 7th chord (mm 32–35) and the cadential 6/4 5/3 of m 36. That leads to a final
circle of harmonies above a tonic pedal point.

It is possible to regard the piece as a tombeau, the musical tribute beloved of French
750

lutenists of the 17th century, as a way of memorialising their deceased teachers and
colleagues. The tombeau was not intended to “represent” mourning emotion in the
manner of an Italian lamento, but there are opinions that credit the piece with just such
power. Engels (2006:65) supports her reading of the piece as a “depiction of acute, almost
paralyzing grief, the pain invariably associated with sudden calamity and loss”, by citing
from other Bach works where such emotion is undoubtedly involved (as can be seen in
the text as well as the melodic patterns and dotted rhythm:

751

Figure 8.1: JS Bach, Prelude in D sharp minor, WTC Book I

1104 As found in the “Little Keyboard Book of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach” prepared by Bach for the instruction
of his eldest son.

142
She points also to the downward direction of the melodic motif in the bass (mm 4, 6, 8,
752

10, 22–23), the frequent chromatic gestures (diminished 7ths in mm 9, 11, 17–18, 20–21,
32–35; a climactic Neapolitan harmony in m 26), and the tortured ascent of the melody to
a diminished 3rd interval in m 28. It is all compelling evidence. The question is whether
this elegiac interpretation can be extended to the companion piece without modification.
The contrapuntal achievement of the Fugue is notable for the degree to which the initial
753

subject is laid out, regularly, in each voice by turn, then altered and combined with itself
in various ways (see the accompanying graphic representation of the subject’s treatment):

754

Figure 8.2: Tabular analysis of JS Bach, Fugue in D sharp minor, WTC Book I. Table adapted from Philip Goeth,
available online: http://www.bachwelltemperedclavier.org/pf-ebd-minor.html. Used with permission.

143 MHS1511/1
755 The manipulation of the subject is achieved
 by overlapping entries (stretto)
 by inverting the subject, then presenting it in stretto too, and with the inverted form
in augmentation
 by combining in stretto entries in both the original and inverted forms, plus the
augmentation of the subject
 by setting stretto entries of the original in augmentation105
The use of partial statements of the subject and its inversion in stretto, as well as truncated
756

forms of the augmentation and its inversion, offered Bach both variety of treatment and
an integration of material at the same time. In short, the imitative architecture of this
87-bar composition is nothing short of dazzling. As to its mood, while the subject harks
back to 16th-century vocal polyphony, its formal organisation keeps emotion within a
channel. There are certainly instances of chromatic-scale figures and touches of piquant
dissonance, but much depends on whether the performer lingers over such corners.
Perhaps “the comprehension of grief” is a suitable label for this experience.

Activity 8.5

Read HWM, pp 443 to 46, the sections on Cantatas, Other Church Music,
and Bach’s Synthesis.

757 Time allocated: 15 minutes

Example 8.6

Listen to the cantata, “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland”, BWV62. See the score, text,
translation and further commentary in NAWM #105.

758 Time allocated: 20 minutes

The annual liturgical cycle of the Western church begins on the First Sunday of Advent.
759

One of the important hymns that has traditionally been associated with that day, Veni
redemptor gentium, whose Latin words are traditionally attributed to St Ambrose (c 339–
397), was translated into German by Martin Luther for publication in 1524 as “Nun komm

1105 Engels calls the initial augmentation of the subject ‘1.5X’ (mm 24–26, and again 48–50 and 77–80 [middle
voice]) because of its use of dotted crotchets; ‘2X’ refers to the subject in minims and crotchets (mm
62–67, 67–72 [middle voice] and 77–82).

144
der Heiden Heiland” – one of the founding chorales of the Lutheran Church. The technique
of appropriating and adapting both the ancient words and the plainchant melody used
with them was typical of the strategy in the reforming church. (Refer to HWM, p 217 for a
description of this process, and to the NAWM #58 (a) and (b) for complete texts, translations
and melodies.) It was on this chorale, honoured by a long tradition of music, that Bach
based the present cantata. But the text of the chorale is used only in movements 1 and
6, those involving the chorus. For the intermediate movements, an anonymous poet
provided paraphrases (or elaborations) of Luther’s hymn that suggest their own musical
treatment for soloists. For example, No 2, a tenor aria (“Bewundert, o Menschen”), uses
regular four-bar phrasing as its foundation. The mould for this is provided by the five-line
poem that uses the same metrical count throughout, and demands a triple metre in the
music, complete with anacrusis:106
760 Bĕwūndĕrt, ŏ Mēnschĕn, dĭes grōßĕ Gĕhēimnĭs: Admire, o humankind, this great
mystery:
761 Děr hōechstě Běhērrschěr ěrschēinět děr Wēlt. The supreme ruler appears to the
world.
The words of No 3, a recitative for bass and basso continuo, are drawn from the 4th stanza
762

of the chorale, but they are reshaped (by changing the length of the lines and the pattern
of the rhyme, too) and extended:
763 Luther Cantata
764 Er ging aus der Kammer sein, So geht aus Gottes Herrlichkeit und Thron
765 Dem kön’glichen Saal so rein, Sein eingeborner Sohn.
766 Gott von Art und Mensch ein Held Der Held aus Juda bricht herein,
767 Sein Weg er zu laufen eilt. Den Weg mit Freudigkeit zu laufen
768 Und uns Gefallne zu erkaufen.
769 O heller Glanz, o wunderbarer Segensschein!
770 Translation Translation
771 He went out of his chamber, Thus goes forth from God’s glory and throne
772 the royal hall so pure, his only begotten son.
773 God by nature and as man a hero, The hero from Judah descends among us
774 he hurries to run his course. to run his course with joy
775 and to redeem us who are fallen.
776 O bright splendour, o wonderful light of bliss!
The less compact rhyme scheme and the varying lengths of the lines in the later form
777

indicate the suitability of the text for recitative. Clearly, the text contains many determining
features.
Viewed from the side of musical considerations, the cantata shows that Bach drew upon
778

a range of forms in its movements:

1. a chorale motet, in which the hymn melody is sung in cantus firmus-style long notes
– doubled by a natural horn – above the related polyphony beneath it; the da capo
allows the orchestra of oboes, strings and continuo to repeat its opening ritornello
[Keys: D major & B minor; metre: 6/4]

1106 The marks ¯ and ˘ placed over vowels indicate stressed and unstressed syllables respectively.

145 MHS1511/1
2. a solo aria for tenor in da capo form; two oboes join the violins 1 and 2 respectively;
[Key: G major – modulations in the middle section from E minor through B minor, G
major and C major; metre: 3/8, with the suggestion of a minuet]
3. the simple recitative just discussed; [Keys: D major, F# minor, A major]
4. a da capo aria for bass in which the strings play in vigorous unison throughout, the
Affekt in the text (“Struggle, triumph, mighty hero!”) requiring a vigorous, warlike
number; [Key: D major – B minor; metre: C {4/4}]
5. an accompanied recitative for the soprano and alto voices, wherein the strings
sustain a halo-like series of chords appropriate for the approach to the new-born
baby’s manger and to the transcendent light sensed in him; [Modulatory: A major
– F# minor – E major – B minor]
6. the last verse of the chorale, a Doxology, set in cantional style. [Key: B minor]
The work moves among “glowing” keys – D major/A major and their relative minors –
779

and the orchestration is restrained yet positive. Given that Bach was required to produce
(on average) a cantata per week, it is not surprising that three-quarters of the duration
of this work is taken up by music for soloists and orchestra. The chorus, which drew on
the students of the choir school attached to St Thomas Church, sang in this instance for
about five minutes. Only by apportioning the workload in this way was it possible for
Bach to meet the liturgical demands placed on the Kantor.

Activity 8.6

Read HWM, pp 446–48, the section Other Church Music.

Read: Hearing Passions in Bach’s Time and Ours (Melamed 2005:3–15).
Available as an e-Reserve. In his introduction to a study of all Bach’s passion
music, Melamed describes the conditions of performance that, from the
available evidence, were applicable in Bach’s own time and space(s).
He thereby addresses the problem that, while today “we have original
instruments and original performance practices [we unfortunately] have
no original listeners” (2005:3).

780 Time allocated: 1 hour

Example 8.7

Listen to the excerpts from St Matthew Passion, BWV 244, Nos 36 a–d, 37, 38 a–c, 39, 40.
Score and commentary in NAWM #106.

Time allocated: 13 minutes

781

146
Like the cantata, the “Passion according to St Matthew” was written specifically for
782

performance in one of Leipzig’s two main churches (they hosted the musical event in
yearly alternation) during the service of Vespers on Good Friday. It too embraces the forms
studied in the cantata – concerted choral movements, recitatives and arias, chorales. But
it incorporates an important addition: the narration of the suffering and death of Jesus,
as found in Luther’s German translation of the New Testament. This is delivered in brief
recitative passages by a tenor (the Evangelist); and it is distinguished from the use of
recitative by other soloists because it uses the original prose, whereas theirs is written in
verse and is always coupled with an aria for the same singer. Thus, immediately before
No 36, the tenor soloist reacts to the Evangelist’s “Aber Jesus schwieg stille” (But Jesus
held his peace) with his own moralising recitative on Jesus’ conduct under persecution
(8-line, of varying lengths, rhymed abcba.ddc, with run-on lines indicated __):

783 Mein Jesus schweigt__ My Jesus says nothing

784 Zu falschen Lügen stille, in the face of false lies
785 Um uns damit zu zeigen, in order to show us
786 Daß sein Erbarmens voller Wille__ that, full of mercy, he is
787 Vor uns zum Leiden sei geneigt, bent on suffering for our sake
788 Und daß wir in dergleichen Pein__ and that, when we suffer such torments,
789 Ihm sollen ähnlich sein we should do as he does
790 Und in Verfolgung stille schweigen. And say nothing if persecuted.

This serves to introduce an aria on the same theme but viewed through the eyes of the
791

one who suffers (guiltless) outrage and scorn. In such a fashion are the periods of reflection
in the passion constructed.

The Evangelist’s role is to initiate dramatic “scenes” (or divisions) and to provide continuity
792

within them; the persons directly quoted in the narrative (Jesus, the High Priest, Pontius
Pilate, etc) likewise sing in recitative. The chorales interspersed in the structure relate,
through their texts, to the content of the scene, and often also round off each one, though
solo arias also serve this purpose. The soloists’ recitatives and arias provide the meditational
aspect of the passion experience. Thus the sequence of scenes communicates not only
the order and detail of the passion story, but also its significance.107

Thus No 36 presents the final confrontation between Jesus and the High Priest in the course
793

of his interrogation. (The Gospel of Matthew 26:63b–68). When the latter demands of the
watching crowd that they react to Jesus’ blasphemy, they do so in a brief double-choir
passage that exploits a formula (‘Ĕr ĭst dĕr Tō-dĕs schūl-dĭg’; He deserves to die) in close
imitation both within each choir and between the choirs as well (36 (b), mm 21–25). The
Evangelist having introduced the violence of the crowd (spitting in Jesus’ face, striking
him with fists), another, lengthier passage of double-choir writing confirms their abuse
of him (“Weissage uns, Christe, wer ist’s, der dich schlug?” (Tell us, Christ, who is it who
struck you?). This time in emphatic, homophonic chords, the two choirs interchange more

1107 The late-17th century organist and writer on music, Johann Jakob Bendeler, proposed a division of St
Matthew’s passion text into six principal “actions”. For details and suggestions of how these “acts” may
be further divided into “scenes” in the manner of a Baroque opera, see Gardiner 2014:410–12.

147 MHS1511/1
verbal/rhythmic formulae (wěis-sā-gĕ; wĕr īst’s; dĕr dĭch schlūg); the close imitation here
suggests the mounting cries of a mob.

A chorale in the same key (No 37, F major) breaks in. The melody is known from the late
794

1400s, and had been much adapted (it was a secular song in origin) to accommodate
words by different Lutheran hymn-writers, among them Paul Gerhardt, whose text from
1648 is used here. Its two halves are nearly identical, as the text in its syllable count and
rhyme scheme makes clear:

795 Wer hat dich so geschlagen, 7–a Who struck you,

796 Mein Heil, und dich mit plagen 7–a My Saviour, who tormented you
797 So übel zugericht? 6–b and treated you so badly?
798 Du bist ja nicht ein Sünder 7–c You are not, after all, a sinner
799 Wie wir und unsre Kinder; 7–c like us and our children:
800 Von Missetaten weißt du nicht. 8–b you know nothing of misdeeds.

The following scene, of Peter’s Denial (No 38), is not unlike the foregoing. It begins, after
801

the Evangelist’s announcement of the place and characters, with conversation between
a serving-maid and Peter (leading to the 1st denial). A second maid intervenes (the 2nd
denial), and a choral interjection from the bystanders follows (prompting the 3rd denial).
In a famous passage of recitative, the Evangelist evokes Peter’s reaction to the sound
of the cock crowing, and his recollection of Jesus’ prediction that he would deny him.
The expressive details – the triadic rise on “krähen wird” (will crow), the rise to a high B
on “Und ging heraus” (and he departed), and the extended chromatic melisma on “und
weinete [bitterlich]” (and he wept bitterly) – as well as the cadence in F# minor make of
this a highly poignant moment.

Before the anticipated chorale (No 40), Bach introduces a through-composed alto aria,
802

“Erbarme dich, mein Gott” (Have mercy, Lord, on me), in which all the parameters coincide
in the expression of heart-wrenching grief: a cantabile solo violin part with elaborate,
written-out embellishments that leads the ritornellos, and counterpoints the vocal line;
soft, sustained chords in the other strings; a voice part marked by extended rising-and-
falling phrases; a pulsing, pizzicato bass part that defines the 12/8 metre; and the steady
harmonic rhythm. The mood and details of this aria have long made it a favourite for
performance on its own. Predictably, perhaps, older approaches exploit its expansive
quality and dwell unashamedly on its details, while more contemporary interpretations,
influenced by the period-performance revival, find it meaningful at a more engaged
tempo.108

The scene closes with the chorale “Bin ich gleich von dir gewichen” (Although I have strayed
803

from you). This stanza was drawn from a Lutheran evening hymn (“Werde munter, mein
Gemüte” = Rouse yourself, my soul), published in 1642. In this instance, the words and

1108 A random sample of recent “historically informed” recordings (made live) offers durations of 5’ 46”, 6’ 43”
and 7’ 07”, which already shows a wide difference (by a factor of 23% between fastest and slowest). A
celebrated recording by Kathleen Ferrier (in English) runs to 8’ 08”, though her live recording in German
(1950) lasts 7’ 29”. A duration of ca. 7’ 30”to- 7’ 45” is not unusual. A Moscow account of 1980 takes 9’42”,
which appears to bear out the claim by Haskell (1988:167–68) that the period revival in music had little
penetration there during the era of the Soviet Union.

148
melody were composed at the same time. Bach used the melody with an entirely different
text in a cantata (No 147) from which his chorale setting has achieved great popularity
under the title “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring”. There it is adapted to a triple rhythm, whereas
the original 4/4 metre suits the far more sombre atmosphere of this passion scene. Yet
the text allows for hope in the midst of sorrowful penitence:

804 Ich verleugne nicht die Schuld; I do not deny my guilt;

805 Aber deine Gnad und Huld but your grace and mercy
806 Ist viel größer als die Sünde, are far greater than the sin
807 Die ich stets in mir befinde. That I always find within myself.

808 Appropriately, the key is A major.

Activity 8.7

Read HWM, pp 440 to 41, Bach’s Synthesis.

809 Time allocated: 3 minutes

8.5 TELEMANN OF HAMBURG

Activity 8.8

Read HWM, pp 424–35, Contexts for Music and Mixed Taste: Georg Philipp
Telemann,

Time allocated: 30 minutes

810

Example 8.8

Listen to Telemann’s Concerto Primo in G major, No 1 of his 12 Paris Quartets (TWV 43

G1), excerpted in NAWM #99, with commentary. The following notes extend to the entire
concerto.

149 MHS1511/1
 Time allocated: 10 minutes
811

Compared with the trio sonata, quartet writing was not a favoured form at this time (1730).
812

Yet Telemann produced some of his finest chamber music for the unusual combination
of flute, violin and viola da gamba – in other words, three solo lines – with a harpsichord
providing the usual continuo part.109 Nor was it a pointer to flute quartets composed
later in the century, in which the continuo would be replaced by a simple bass line and
its harmonies taken up into the middle voices. They in turn ceded pride of place to the
uppermost part. And, though Telemann often wrote chamber works in which a high part
might be rendered by recorder or violin or oboe indifferently, this work and the others
in the set of 12 (6 from 1730, and another 6 commissioned by French performers of 1737,
hence the title) depend for their effect on the timbre of the flauto traverso.

The Affekten are still in evidence: each movement proceeds in a single basic mood.
813

(The slow passages – for they can hardly be called movements, and function more as
dramatic frames or curtain-raisers.) Thematic variety within the movements is therefore
not paramount, and modulations remain within the Baroque convention of closely-related
keys. Telemann, though a master of counterpoint, showed no interest here in anything
but the freest treatment of his motivic ideas. Nevertheless, the inner voices, including the
gamba, are constantly engaged in vigorous interplay. A quartet like this would – in the
context of Telemann’s Tafelmusik – appear to have been the chance for the best players
to shine among his works for the broader ensemble.

814 Movement 1: Grave–Allegro – Grave – Allegro

The slow beginning is an arresting “upbeat” to the Allegro (G major), which is full of scales
815

and other dexterous passage-work, imitated between the upper parts but always allowing
the gamba a share in the proceedings. Pairs of instruments moving in 3rds (sometimes
inverted as 6ths) is typical of the lighter galant influence; here, such harmonising is built
into a general sense of animated conversation among the soloists. Indeed, much of the
attractiveness of these quartets arises from their ambitious energy: they are conceived
for professional, if not virtuoso players. This makes much of the music that Telemann
consciously wrote for amateur musicians seem in comparison to be pleasant but not
striking.

816 Movements 2, 3 and 4: Largo –Presto – Largo

Once more, the slow sections, theatrical in their rhythm and quick to modulate, are brief.
817

The first is a launch pad for further driving exchanges among the soloists in the relative
minor key (E). This is freely contrapuntal, featuring circle-of-5ths sequence and echo
effects. After a homophonic excursion and sequence, the first key area cadences on the

1109 The alternative bass part, designated for cello, acknowledged the relatively new-found status of the
instrument. The love of gamba playing so characteristic of France in the 17th century continued into the
18th century. Telemann could not have opted exclusively for one or the other at this time without doing
injury to his wide popularity.

150
dominant (m 31). A fresh idea enters, based on leaping 10ths, and this B minor section
moves toward more soloistic handling. A restatement of the initial material (i.e., mm
1–17) with parts now swopped, maintains the dominant minor key. The violinistic idea
continues at centre stage until sequences with suspensions – using long notes in one
voice – take the music to a cadence in A minor. The Largo is repeated without alteration
as a conclusion, halting on the dominant of E minor, and thereby releasing the music into
the concluding movement.

818 Movement 5: Allegro

The bounding 6/8 theme in G major is intensely worked, but not imitatively; it unfolds in
819

regular periods, marking this movement out as the most good-humoured of the work, and
typical in its finale relaxation. The structure is that of a simple rondo: A (mm 1–32) – B (mm
33–70) – A (mm 71–102) – C (mm 103–139) – A (mm 140–71). The A sections, all in the tonic
key, are identical. The B section sets out in E minor, but soon moves back by sequence to
land on a dominant pedal of the tonic key. This leads to the first restatement of A. Section
C begins on the subdominant harmony, but again a sequence keeps the tonality from
settling. After a chromatic passage (unusual in this movement), and transitions through
B and A minors, a sequence with suspensions culminates in a busy “Italian” passage in
octaves; the strong syncopations make this part the tensest of the finale. Thereafter, the
A section is recapitulated, taking the work out on a trouble-free note.

If this is the “end of the Baroque”, then it is an end consciously embraced and breathlessly
820

pursued.

8.6 REFERENCES
Blitzer, Charles. 1968. Age of Kings. Amsterdam: TIME-LIFE International.
Darrell, R. D. 1967. ‘Notes on the Organ Works’, booklet accompanying the Complete Organ
Music of Johann Sebastian Bach [recording]. New York: Crown Publishers.
Engels, Marjorie Wornell. 2006. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier: An Exploration of the 48
Preludes and Fugues. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Gardiner, John Eliot. 2014. Music in the Castle of Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach.
London: Penguin Books.
Haskell, Harry. 1988. The Early Music Revival: A History. London: Thames and Hudson.
Heller, Wendy. 2014a. Music in the Baroque. New York: W.W. Norton.
Heller, Wendy. 2014b. Anthology for Music in the Baroque. New York: W.W. Norton.
Melamed, Daniel R. 2005. Hearing Bach’s Passions. New York: Oxford University Press.
Murray, Peter, and Linda. 1983. The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists. 5th edition.
Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books.
Wolff, Christoph. 2000. Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician. New York: Norton.

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Learning Unit 9
Conviction and charm: Handel and his sacred oratorio

PURPOSE

The purpose of learning unit 9 is to introduce you to

 the general achievement of Handel as representative of the late Baroque in music

 the nature of his oratorios
 the problems surrounding Messiah and their historical solutions
 detailed observation of selected movements from Messiah
 the place and meaning of Messiah in South African history

OUTCOMES

After completing the learning unit, you should demonstrate that you are able to

 describe Handel’s work in relation to other contemporaneous musical traditions

 discuss the forms relevant to his oratorios and their functions therein
 show how the music and text of Messiah compel meaning for its audiences
 explain how the oratorio has assumed social values in its South African history

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING UNIT 9

821 9.1 Introduction
822 9.2 The oratorio as a historical problem
823 9.3 Messiah considered as a whole
824 9.4 The words for singing
825 9.5 The oratorio in close-up
826 9.6 A tale of two stories
827 9.7 A personal note

9.1 INTRODUCTION
In the person of Handel – Georg Friedrich Händel at his birth in Halle, northern Germany
828

in 1685, George Frideric when he died in London, his adopted home, in 1759 – we have
reached another pinnacle of the late Baroque. Stemming from the same Protestant roots
in Saxony as Bach, and inheriting the same broad musical background, he followed a quite
different path to that of his now much revered countryman. Handel’s father guided his
children into his own profession (medicine). The young Handel was however fortunate to
be trained by a young organist and composer, Friedrich Zachow, who introduced him to
the works of the finest German models – Froberger (known for his keyboard pieces), Kerll

152
(sacred works and operas, the latter now all lost), Krieger (a contrapuntist and organist),
and Muffat (music for instrumental ensembles, in particular).

Where Bach remained within confined geographical and social limits, Handel was a
829

traveller and a man of the world. Where Bach served courtly and civic/church interests,
Handel consorted with aristocrats on equal terms, and presented his music to a much
broader public, especially through his operas and oratorios. Finally, Bach was a devoted
husband twice married and father of 20 children whom he reared in the pattern of the
Bach family, that is, as musicians (this included his daughters). Handel was a lifelong
bachelor, free to lay out his resources on ventures that might put him at risk, when they
were not earning him handsome dividends. It is no wonder that the music of these two
figures should be so dissimilar.

Activity 9.1

Read HWM, 441 to 46, George Frideric Handel (up to Handel as Impresario)
with the biographical sidebar.

830 Time allocated: 25 minutes

9.2 THE ORATORIO AS A HISTORICAL PROBLEM

The English dramatic oratorio, effectively the invention of Handel, was a quite different
831

musical form from its Italian “predecessors”, despite the fact that its subject matter was
often derived from the same source, that is, biblical narrative, usually the Old Testament,
or the life stories of early Christian saints. But the aim of, say, Carissimi’s works was at base
devotional and para-liturgical. Handel’s were not merely the consequence of market forces
(though they were that), but an extension of his work both in the field of Italian opera and
for sacred services, the latter emphasising writing for choral forces. The combination of
these “tributaries” was often presented in theatres; recent staged productions of Handel
oratorios in opera houses show just how effective they are as theatrical compositions.

Activity 9.2

Read HWM, pp 446 to 52, Oratorios, Instrumental Works, and Handel’s

Reputation.

Time allocated: 20 minutes

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 Example 9.1

Listen to three excerpts from Handel’s Saul, Nos 66 to 68 (act 2, scene 10). Score with com-
mentary in the NAWM #108.

833 Time allocated: 7 minutes

These numbers give insight into the dramatic oratorio, in particular the use of the chorus
834

as integral to the drama. The action centres on Saul, king of Israel, and his growing jealousy
of the young warrior, David. As David’s victorious career increases, Saul resolves to kill him.
This scene conveys his decision in accompanied recitative, the strings playing a martial
fanfare motif. In an opera seria, this would have introduced an aria of revenge; but here,
in proceeding to continuo recitative, Saul confronts his son Jonathan and commands
him to find and fetch David, “for the Wretch must die”. Jonathan’s opposition brings on
a flux of rage in Saul (to be heard in the strained harmonies), and once again the operatic
response might have been a “rage aria” (aria infuriata). Instead, the chorus, very much in
the spirit of Greek tragedy, deplores this loss of reason in three solemn fugal passages,
each of which ends in homophonic assertions, and predicts Saul’s destruction as he goes
blindly “from crime to crime”.

The snag comes with Messiah, the most redoubtable of all his vocal/choral works, because
835

of its lack of narrative framework and clearly defined characters. By default, it has often
been performed in church settings, but just as often in important civic buildings (when
the two are not in fact the same). But the historic controversy about the presentation of
a manifestly “sacred” work in a “secular” venue has now passed. What has become the
prime issue in presenting the work revolves around the composer’s “original intentions”. In
terms of performance, this means trying to simulate what Messiah’s early listeners would
or might have heard. Clearly, this is central to the EMR remit.

This has led to a second major task: trying to ascertain what the composer’s “intentions”
836

actually were. Since Messiah has had a high public profile right from the start of its long
history and because quantities of source material has been preserved, it is clear that, even
if Handel began with a single idea of the work, it soon began to diversify into an array of
“versions”, involving revisions, substitutions, cuts and additions. Trying to honour these
has kept scholars and musicians (mainly of European and North American provenance)
occupied for decades now. Paradoxically, as it became clear that there was in fact no
single, definitive version of Messiah, performances and recordings began to reflect what
are widely considered to be “historically informed” approaches. Thus, the authority that
could not be conferred on an Urtext (because there is none) is now distributed among
modern editions of the score and their realisation in performances and recordings.

This in itself has complicated the contemporary picture of Messiah further. The “ideal”
837

size of forces required, following the evidence of Handel’s own performances, is – in

addition to the soloists, usually 5 – a chorus of about 20 (originally including boys in

154
place of women; the soloists sang with the chorus, too) – and an orchestra of 40. Not
only is this typical of Handel’s instrumental requirements, but it is contradicted, in terms
of the balance of voices and instruments, by much of the Messiah tradition after Handel’s
death. The impact of the EMR has, in this case, created a quite clear division between
“professional” ensembles geared to the original Handelian scale and “amateur” ones who
welcome far larger numbers.110

Activity 9.3

Recommended reading: Burrows (1991; available as an e-Book) provides

a review of the research on the score. For information on the various
versions, see chapters 3 and 4, in particular pp 30 to 44.

Time allocated: 40 minutes

838

9.3 MESSIAH CONSIDERED AS A WHOLE

Given that the uncertainties of the text as described above were no barrier to its popular
839

acceptance, we can consider the work as in some sense a historic “deposit”, a series of
songs (arias) and choruses enhanced by introductions and transitions (the Sinfony, the
recitatives and the Pifa) that, taken together, constitute the core of a tradition that is now
both worldwide in its impact and constantly renewed by frequent performance. The basis
of this core is the libretto, produced (unasked for) by Charles Jennens, with Handel’s music
applied. The fact that its content has been fairly stable across nearly 280 years is worth
pondering, since many hands have intervened to add to or subtract from its substance.

The best-known of the additions dates from 1789, when Mozart was commissioned by
840

Baron Gottfried van Swieten, one of his patrons, to reorchestrate the work for performances
in Vienna. He used a 1775 German translation, and worked from the first published edition
of Handel’s score (London, 1767). The “reworking” was considerable, despite Mozart’s
reverence for Handel’s music.111 The most obvious alteration was the addition, to the
modest but idiomatic Handelian orchestration, of woodwind and brass instruments, used
with imagination. In addition, where Handel had written arias with the violins playing in
unison above a continuo bass, Mozart created new parts for 2nd violins and violas, to fill out
the texture. There were many other changes of detail, all aimed at accommodating a work
he much admired to the taste of a late-18th-century audience. In viewing these changes
in general, it is noticeable that the relation of solo singer to orchestra was quite different

1110 The quote marks indicate that it is not musical standards that are in question, or even who is paid and
who not, but the underlying spirit of the projects – whether constrained by conscientious faithfulness
to the composer’s intentions, or not.
1111 He also made versions of three other vocal/choral works by Handel.

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for Handel and for Mozart. “Handel conceived this music as a concerto-like dialogue in
which the orchestra never plays the ritornello material while the singer is singing. ...
Mozart consistently minimizes the juxtaposition of soloist and orchestra throughout his
arrangement, weakening the ritornello structure in the process” (Schildkret 1995:143).
Towe (1996) offers another well-informed discussion of Mozart’s influential make-over.

What is the significance of this “translation” of Messiah? First, it updated the music, making
841

it acceptable to audiences acclimatised to the Viennese Classical sound.112 Second, it was

done at a time when choirs, many of them stocked with amateur singers, were proliferating
in England and Germany, in particular. These were not the modest numbers that Handel
knew and wrote for: the historical impulse was towards “festive Handel” and a “people’s
music”, and with increasing music literacy, choral numbers grew irresistibly. Apart from
the gigantic choirs and orchestras assembled for special occasions, the average choral
society required a progressively larger orchestra (or a majestic pipe-organ as a substitute)
to balance the whole ensemble. Mozart’s score was published in Germany only in 1803
– during the last years of his life, he had no interest in its dissemination – but it became
a staple item in the Messiah tradition. It looks, for example, as if the forces employed for
the first “complete” Messiah given in South Africa – that occurred in Cape Town in 1863
– were assembled with the requirements of the Mozart orchestration in mind.113

Let us consider a later development in this matter of cultural accommodation. As late as

842

1959, Sir Thomas Beecham, founder and conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,
decided to commission a fresh orchestration of Messiah from Sir Eugene Goossens, himself
a conductor and composer. The tangled story of this project has only recently been
unearthed.114 But the result was the logical extension of a 19th-century idea of orchestral
and choral sound. In the very year that Beecham was putting these finishing touches
to a venerated tradition, an 11-player conductorless string ensemble was beginning its
career, as the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Though they played repertoire from
every period of orchestral history (and adjusted their numbers accordingly), they were
destined to play a key role in the revival of Baroque performance in England. They were
not a period-instrument ensemble, but they played with the same spirited briskness
and closely observed detail that were hallmarks of the EMR, and their perspective was
broadly “historical”. Furthermore, they took an approach to Messiah that was destined to
be imitated by others, and which solved the problem of having to choose from among
the composers’ differing versions: they performed and recorded one specific version of
the score – a recreation of the London performance of March 1743.115

1112 A number of critics actually regarded Handel’s orchestration as “primitive”.

1113 How complete it was, is another question. But it had been preceded only by piecemeal performances of
selected arias from Messiah, and (naturally) the “Hallelujah Chorus”, that drew on the oratorio for patriotic-
imperial purposes. See Cockburn 2008, chapter 3. The Novello music publishing company brought out
a full score in 1859 that combined the Mozart-Hiller edition of 1803 with the original English text. It was
to be this version that dominated later 19th-century performances in the English-language regions.
1114 See the explanation at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4718203/Whos-really-shouting-Hallelujah.
html
1115 Recorded for Argo in 1976. The Academy of Ancient Music, who specialise in period performance, recorded
the 1754 version (1979), and the pattern has continued with the Academy’s 2006 recording of the 1751
version.

156
As for the subtractions, cuts in the score have been so frequent that they have acquired
843

the status of “tradition”. Mozart and Von Swieten dropped two numbers from Part 2 – “Let
all the angels of God” (No 35, chorus) and “Thou art gone up on high” (No 36, soprano
aria) – as well as the last aria in Part 3 (No 52, “If God be for us”, for soprano). The lengthy
bass aria, “The Trumpet shall sound” (No 48), was also much abridged. Considerations of
length seem also to have played a role in more modern cuts: No 53, the famed alto aria,
“He was despised”, was routinely presented on recordings as late as the 1950s without
the middle section of this da capo form, and, of course, without the repeated A section
either. Given the funereal pace of such recordings, it took six minutes simply to deliver
the first section, making a projected total time of nearly 14 minutes. It is not surprising
that record companies (and live audiences, too) would not accede to this.

This view of the aria stems partly from a misunderstanding of Baroque tempo indications
844

– after the passing of the late-baroque outlook, the word Largo came to represent a non-
negotiable pulse at the very limit of the metronome – but even more from the enjoyment
of desperate regret given a heart-stopping treatment by a few, extraordinarily gifted
singers such as Kathleen Ferrier and Maureen Forrester. The beauty thus achieved was
considered to outweigh by far the dramatic design of the composer. The achingly slow
unfolding of a single sentence belongs to a late-romantic, Mahlerian world, in which the
note of grief is prominent; such a mood had invaded Messiah at this point.

9.4 THE WORDS FOR SINGING

Though neither an addition nor a subtraction, the translation of the sung text is nonetheless
845

an important variant. A translation by the scholar-antiquarian Christoph Ebeling was

produced for the first performance ever given in German (Hamburg, 1775). The poet
Friedrich Klopstock also produced a translation, and a combination of these two were
used in the Mozart edition. This composite libretto is the German standard, and remains
the only translation out of English that is widely used.

The work of producing a translation of the libretto of Messiah involves both linguistic and
846

musical considerations. In particular, moving between the language of the King James Bible
(and the Book of Common Prayer) and that of another authoritative scriptural translation
creates particular difficulties (Plaggenmarsch 2014). These adaptations are activities
typical of peacetime, but Messiah has been sung in season and out. Performing Messiah
in translation can also be the result of coercion, as wartime pressures on an important
Dutch performing tradition make clear.

Many cultural activities were disrupted by the Second World War. These included the
847

regular meetings of a public choir founded in 1934 that was later to be called the Dutch
Handel Association. From May 1940, when the Low Countries and northern France were
invaded by German forces, the choir was temporarily suspended until a makeshift rehearsal
venue could be set up and a permanent director found.

In those days, rehearsals took place above a printing works in the Veldweg [in
Bussum, a small town between Amsterdam and Hilversum]. The obstacles were
great: blackouts, raids, shortage of fuel. In addition to monetary contributions, the

157 MHS1511/1
 members also had to bring along a gift in kind: wood, peat or coal. By posing as a
church choir, the group avoided having to register with the Kulturkammer.116

The rules of the German occupation forbade singing in English in public performances;
848

in order to perform parts of Messiah, temporary use was made of a Dutch translation.
Immediately upon liberation – finally achieved in Holland in April 1945 – the choir
performed the English version of Messiah in nearby Naarden “as an act of gratitude
to the [Canadian] liberators”. In 1946, the choir undertook Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus,
the “oratorio of liberation, freedom and heroism”. (Consciously partisan readings of the
oratorio(s) are discussed further in section 9.6.) In the same year it was renamed the
Haendelvereniging, and the following year received royal approval. Performance of Messiah
is an annual fixture, though it is given in different versions chosen from the 17 alternative
orderings that Handel used in his lifetime.

South Africa has produced a few translations in its vernacular languages; Sam Shabalala’s
849

(1995) version in Zulu being the only one that has so far been published. It was preceded
by a translation into the nine black languages of South Africa by Michael Masote, who
called it Black Messiah; it was premièred in April 1984. “This meant that very few choruses
and arias appeared in each language”.117 Masote followed this up by translating the entire
oratorio into Tswana. (Whether this has been performed in its entirety is not known.)
Shabalala’s translation is aimed in the first instance at black church choirs (it is notated
in tonic sol-fa only), but it is precisely here that familiarity lays the foundation for more
public engagements in time.118 It has received at least two performances with Durban’s
professional orchestra and amateur (or “community”) choirs, under different conductors.

9.5 THE ORATORIO IN CLOSE-UP

This section considers several numbers from Messiah in an analytical light. It is recommended
850

that you consult a copy of the score alongside the musical examples.

851 Graphic artist insert icons here

Example 9.2

Listen to Nos 2 to 3, Recitative, “Comfort ye” and Aria, “Ev’ry Valley shall be Exalted” (tenor)

1116 Translated from the choir’s website (see http://haendelvereniging.nl/informatie/koorhistorie/).

The Reichkulturkammer [Ger., ‘imperial/state ministry of culture’] was the agency set up in
2

Germany in 1933 to monitor and censor all forms of the arts and the press. During the German
occupation of Holland, a Dutch wing, the Nederlandse Kultuurkamer, was mandated with the
Nazification of national cultural activities. It required, for example, that all working musicians
be entered in a central register for the purpose of surveillance. They also had to prove their
“Aryan” ancestry, or at least that they had no Jewish blood.
1117 Mzilikazi Khumalo, prefatory note to Shabalala’s version (1995: [xv].
1118 Shabalala’s remark (Video-clip 2017, 00:46) that “other nations must feel our presence. We need to colonise
them through our language” should be taken in the context of his concern that the work should find
new audiences, and be appreciated for more than just one chorus.

158
 852 Time allocated: 7 minutes

Description: The recitative is an elaborate accompagnato, strictly divided in its material

853

between a string figure (with vocal potential, but not so used) and the tenor’s poised
and expansive phrases. Note how many of the phrases end with a falling figure of three
notes (either in semiquavers or a dotted rhythm).
Comment: The shift of key between the opening Sinfony (“Overture”, E minor) and this
854

number (E major) is a magical step; that and the quiet, pulsing chords immediately create
a hushed atmosphere of expectancy. The question of embellishment of the part is crucial,
here as elsewhere in the solos. Singers have a wide choice, including appoggiature, graces
and divisions. Some of these are notated in the manuscripts, but much has to be invented.
See, as an example, the page of suggested ornamentation (the published vocal line is on
the top stave, the embellished below it).

855

Figure 9.1: Extract from “Messiah Ornamented: An ornamented edition of the solos from Handel’s Messiah.
Edited by Peter Wishart. © Copyright 1974 Stainer & Bell Ltd, 23 Gruneisen Road, London N3 1DZ, www.stainer.
co.uk. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

159 MHS1511/1
The aria incorporates so much passage-work that ornamentation is limited to the final
856

cadence. This is a “motto aria”, skilfully built from the opening figure of five notes. The
twisting shapes that recur on “the crooked” is obvious word-painting, as is the smoothly
extended setting of “plain” (i.e., level). The high trills in the ritornellos are the remains
(after Handel cut some bars) of a longer passage imitating birdsong. This is in keeping
with the open-air atmosphere of the text.

Example 9.3

Listen to No 12, Chorus, “For unto us a child is born”

857 Time allocated: 5 minutes

Description: This chorus is one of those that the composer arranged from
858

pre-existing material, in this case taken from the duet-cantata Nò, di voi non
vo’fidarmi (2 sopranos and basso continuo), composed in 1741.119 To this he
added the strong choral acclamations “Wonderful, Counsellor”, et cetera.
Comment: The breathless flow of the original material is captured in the long choral
“melismas”. The orchestral part is confined to the opening and closing ritornellos, to
doubling the vocal lines, and lightly sketching the continuo harmonies.

Example 9.4

Listen to Nos 14 to 17, Recitatives (“There were shepherds”... “And lo, the Angel”...”And the
Angel said”...”And suddenly there was”...), and Chorus, “Glory to God”.

Time allocated: 4 minutes

859

Description: Alternating recitatives, semplice and accompagnato, are linked together

860

into a short “scene” that culminates in an extolling chorus. This is the only point in the
oratorio at which the text shows a narrative aspect – the revelation of Christ’s birth to the
shepherds. The modulations, starting from the calm C major of the previous “shepherds’
music”, moves through F major (1st accompagnato), then via D major to a solemn cadence
in F-sharp minor (2nd semplice). The 2nd accompagnato returns to D major and runs

1119 The subject matter is amorous: “No, I do not want to trust you, blind Love, cruel Beauty. You lie too much,
like flattering gods”.

160
straight into the chorus. Both the accompanied recitatives dispense with the violas and
bass parts; the light and high violin figuration thus provides “angelic” sounds.

Comment: The text, from Luke’s Gospel 2.14, is an ancient Christian hymn and is also part
861

of the liturgy of communion (Gloria in excelsis) in the western church. The tonality of the
chorus provides the underlying rationale for the various key shifts; its clarino trumpets
were pitched in, and limited to, D major. The trumpets are used with all the craft of a
theatre composer: originally marked in disparte (“aside, at a remove”), they are instructed
to play da lontano e un poco piano (“from a distance and rather quietly”). In this way, they
contribute to the ongoing “angelic” effect of the high string parts. Note the quiet ending
in a high register, a perfect illustration of the disappearance of the heavenly beings: “the
angels were gone away from them into heaven” (The Gospel of Luke 2.15).

Example 9.5

Listen to No 18, Aria (soprano), “Rejoice greatly, o daughter of Jerusalem”.

Time allocated: 4 minutes

862

Description: This aria, in B-flat major, is a virtuosic affair, requiring great vocal dexterity. It
863

has a basic da capo structure with the usual ritornellos, but it is fully written out, and there
are considerable changes to the A section on its return. (It even incorporates a passage
of dotted rhythm derived from the middle section.) This was the result of two rewrites,
the first one involving a cut of 48 bars.

Comment: It appears that the aria in its original form (preserved in the autograph in the
864

British Library) was not used by the composer in any of the performances he supervised.
It was a long, strictly da capo aria, written in 12/8 time for the singer and unison violins,
coordinated with a 4/4 metre for the bass line. Hogwood (1980:7) regards this as a
musical commentary on the text: though the word “Bridegroom” is not actually mentioned,
the writing is indisputably a celebratory gigue, and it is played on violins, “the instrument
traditionally associated with weddings”. In supplying his soprano with a showpiece,
Handel sacrificed this”‘nicety”. The original dancing-quaver passages were supplanted
by rapid semiquaver work.

This is one of the solos to which Mozart felt compelled to add inner string parts (2nd
865

violins, violas). The fact that he set it for tenor rather than soprano was probably done in the
interests of variety, since the following aria is again allotted to the soprano. Interestingly,
Mozart’s decision finds support of a kind in a manuscript annotation, in the composer’s
handwriting, showing that on one occasion he intended a tenor to sing it.

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 Example 9.6

Listen to No 22, Chorus, “Behold the Lamb of God”

866 Time allocated: 3 minutes

Description: Overlapping motifs (creating a loose effect of imitation) in the slow, dotted rhythm
867

typical of the French Overture style dominate this sombre G-minor chorus at the start of Part 2.
Comment: Conflicts in the notation (dotted and plain values) suggest a consistently dotted
mood. The fugal movement that normally follows the dotted section in the overture style
is dispensed with. There is a key-shift for mm 18–21 dwelling on E-flat major, presaging
the aria to come. The chorus also includes the textural device of a sustained soprano
note above moving harmonies in the lower voices that occurs, also in the approach to
the final cadences, in No 44.

Example 9.7

Listen to No 23, Aria (alto), “He was despised and rejected of men”.

868 Time allocated: 10 minutes

Description: A fully-scored (i.e., four-part) string accompaniment introduces the vocal idea
869

in the opening ritornello, and thereafter alternates with the soloist, never impinging on
the melodic line. That idea is marked by

i. rising fourths, interlinked and almost immediately reversed. See further mm 1 to 2

with m 6, and the effect in the dominant key, m 18, and its extension downward in
the following tonic-key passage (m 30);
ii. the “broken” quality of its phrases as they pause to accommodate delicate “droop-
ing” motifs (mm 2–3, 4–5, 10, 12, etc.);
iii. the use, with the falling-fourths shape, of tense chromatic harmony – m 6: E-flat
minor/m 7: a 7th chord on the flattened submediant (C-flat major), with correspond-
ing chords in the dominant key (m 18);
iv. the two-note, unstressed ending of phrases and subphrases (m 2, 4, 9, 11, 25, 26, 34,
35, etc.) that arises from the word forms (despisèd, rejected, acquainted).
The contrasting C-minor section, with its “scourging” rhythm in the accompaniment, has
870

its share of unstressed final syllables (smi-ters, spit-ting; pluckèd is never final but chimes
with the crucial words of the first section). Another form of the “drooping” figure is heard

162
in mm 62–63; here, its rhythm is sturdier, in accord with the sense of the text (“he hid not
his face from shame”) and its strong monosyllables.

Comment: Arguably the most celebrated solo in the oratorio, the over-romanticised
871

excesses that have been foisted upon it have been described above. As a complete da
capo aria, it presents two complementary affects – lyric pathos and violent rejection –
the latter through a persistent stile concitato effect. They are usefully seen as expressing
inward and outward impulses, the acceptance of sorrow and the flinty determination of
the Lord’s Servant. The embellishing of the repeated A section, in the hands of the singer,
aims at intensifying the primary affect.

Example 9.8

Listen to Nos 40 to 41, Aria, “Why do the nations” (bass) and “Let us break their bonds
asunder” (Chorus)

Time allocated: 4 minutes

872

Description: The “rage aria”-type referred to in the note on Saul (but there avoided) here
873

provides the bass with an opportunity for display of a frankly operatic nature, while the
strings (1 & 2 violins + violas) play aggressively repeated semiquavers. After a recitative
interruption, the chorus takes up the text (“Let us break their bonds asunder”) in a fast-
moving, lightly articulated fugal conclusion. It is built from two different subjects, and
uses stretto entries to intensify the sense of restlessness. Note how even the stretto
entries used in the exposition of the second of the subjects (“and cast away”), a decorated
series of outlined chords (mm 10–21) are, on their next appearance, juxtaposed even
more closely (mm 35–40). Thus, the counterpoint serves the intensification of the textual
expression. The orchestra manages to introduce even more close stretti in its brief “exit”
ritornello (mm 59–67).

Comment: No 40 was originally an extended da capo aria, the second section (“The kings
874

of the earth rise up”) continuing the furious mood in the relative minor key. Handel then
cut the first section at the cadence on the dominant, and reset these words as a brief
accompanied recitative. The chorus is very much in the spirit of the Turbae (“Crowd”)
sections in German Passion music.

Example 9.9

Listen to No 44, Chorus, “Hallelujah”

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 Time allocated: 4 minutes
875

Description: The chorus that ends the second part is the first number in which the whole
876

orchestra – with the trumpets (saved up since their atmospheric appearance in No 17)
plus timpani – is used. There are three musical elements:

 the initial, incisive rhythms for the word Ha-lle-lu-jah, the stress changing from the first
to the third syllable, and even to the second; this is always set chordally;
 the broad theme associated with “for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth”, with its
characteristic quick octave leap to a syncopation; this is set for the voices in octaves,
and then used as a fugal theme, with the “Hallelujah” rhythms as its counterpoint;
 the third idea, “and He shall reign”, a broad, stepped motive moving downwards,
treated imitatively, and dissolving into the “Hallelujah” rhythms against long-held
notes in the sopranos.
The orchestra chiefly doubles the vocal parts (in higher and lower octaves, as well as
877

at pitch), but with subtle variants of rhythm, and a final section of exultant, skittering
harmonies, the trumpets wittily following the choir’s Ha-lle-lu-jah a beat later.
Comment: The details of the writing are a great delight, but are often sacrificed to the
878

impetuous and over-forceful delivery that choirs tend to give this number. It is indeed the
culmination of Part 2, and a fitting release from the sense of tragedy and conflict generated
therein. But, like the speed chosen for each number, the range of dynamics cannot be
pushed too far in any one direction without detrimental effects. The complexities of the
scoring and the articulation of the text are almost always “flattened” or masked by over-
statement, if not lost altogether in the sonic storm.
This is not simply a matter of numbers, though that has a bearing, too. It is clear from other
879

works of Handel’s that also aim at grandeur of effect (such as the Coronation Anthems,
especially No 3, “Let thy hand be strengthened”) that greater numbers of performers
provided the composer with the opportunity to write for at least five independent voices,
allowing him to diversify the writing in contrapuntal passages and enrich harmonic/chordal
ones. Yet all the Messiah choruses remain determinedly within the four-voice disposition.120

Example 9.10

Listen to No 45, “I know that my redeemer liveth” (soprano)

880 Time allocated: 6 minutes

1120 No 33, “Lift up your heads, o ye gates” is exceptional, in that the first part (to m 31) uses antiphonal choirs
of three voices (SSA and ATB). When they sing together, the texture immediately reverts to four parts.

164
Description: A serene E-major aria that unfolds in three sections. In the first, the violins
881

share the melodic material with the singer by turns. There is a brief excursion to the
dominant key in both the first and second parts, but E major promptly returns. The
only true modulation, asserted through mm 101 to 119, is to the subdominant key.
Comment: The strategy of remaining within the major keys adds stability to this already
assured text. This is also in agreement with such gestures as the steadily rising scale on “for
now is Christ risen”. Note the frequency of the strings’ dotted alternations of two notes:
Hogwood (1980:8) pertinently refers to the end of Handel’s masque Acis and Galatea,
where the nymph transforms her beloved Acis (killed by the jealous Polyphemus) into
a bubbling fountain, to the selfsame melodic idea. These passages therefore have the
idea of immortality in common.

ACTIVITY 9.11

Listen to Nos 47 to 48, Recitative “Behold, I tell you a mystery” and Aria,
“The trumpet shall sound” (bass).

Time allocated: 9 minutes

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Description: Strings accompany the recitative with interpolated trumpet figures,

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heralding the use of the actual instrument. A dal segno aria follows, providing the only
true instrumental solo in the entire work. The D-major trumpet key means that, when
the key changes to A major, the trumpet cannot follow the melodic detail; because the
middle section is in B minor, the trumpet rests until the return of the tonic key.

Comment: As in No 23, the middle section and repeat of the A section is blithely omitted
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on older recordings where the full da capo design cannot be reconciled with slow tempi.
Yet it is Mozart’s final version that is most severely truncated. From his revisions, it is clear
that he was without a clarino player of the necessary ability, and rescored the part for
horns (with a clarino in the accompanying lines!). But it should be noted that, in German,
the “last trump” is die letzte Posaune. The modern meaning of Posaune refers to the
trombone, but in biblical usage (e.g., the instruments used in the destruction of Jericho)
Posaune is preferred as a general term. The King James translation also indicates that the
use of “trumpet” is sometimes generic, and may refer specifically to “ram’s horn” (The
Book of Joshua, ch 6).

Activity 9.12

Listen to Nos 53 to 54, “Worthy is the Lamb” and “Amen” (Chorus)

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 885 Time allocated: 7 minutes

Description: The oratorio ends with a triptych of choruses that mix homophonic and
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polyphonic writing. The opening section of chordal acclamation brings trumpets and
timpani back into the sound, and embellishes the bald chords of the choir with high,
falling scales in thirds in the violins. The steadily moving fugue that follows (“Blessing and
honour”) has a long subject with repeated notes and suggests a turn to the dominant
at its close. The exposition of this idea is unusual: having begun in the bass voices, it is
then repeated – without counterpoint – in the sopranos. Even before they have finished
its statement, the tenors begin a stretto of the “tail” of the subject (“that sittest upon the
throne”). This introduces further statements of the complete subject in stretto between
alto and bass voices. The sopranos and tenors meanwhile garland the writing with rising
and falling scales, while the “tail” is again treated in stretto but at a shorter distance.
Comment: From the cadence on the dominant (m 39), a possible cut is indicated in the
autograph. This sacrifices both further stretto games in the voices and high, decorative
figures in the violins which thereafter revert to doubling the voice parts.

Description: The “Amen” fugue is written, at the outset, in the typical fashion, the voices
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entering successively from the basses upwards. But there is much elaboration: the two
violins intervene with their own statement of the subject, and two fully harmonised entries
of the subject (located in the bottom voice) are the cue for the trumpets and drums to
embark on their penultimate reinforcing of the harmonies. It is these instruments, so
sparingly used during the oratorio, that add the final touches of brilliance to the ingeniously
crafted florid counterpoint.

Comment: The 18th-century organist, composer and music historian, Dr Charles Burney,
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described the close of this chorus more pithily than dry analysis can: “the subject is
divided, subdivided, inverted, enriched with counter-subjects, and made subservient
to many ingenious and latent purposes of harmony, melody and imitation” (quoted in
Hogwood [1980], 8).

9.6 A TALE OF TWO STORIES

The fact that Messiah has been a perennial favourite for so long and in so many places,
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tempts us to think that its quality and power reside somewhere “inside” the music – in
its melodic language, perhaps, or its rhythmic verve. Analysis seeks to expose just such
factors, in order to explain how the music grips the mind. But the work’s longevity and its
appropriation by a range of nations and groups within them points to another important
dimension: what listeners read (or hear) in the music that they themselves have put
there. This is more than the taste of individuals; it seems, from the stylistic arguments
considered earlier, that a sufficiently large number of listeners can in some hard-to-define
way agree in what they project onto or into the music, and thus together create a social
hearing of its features. Technically, this is called “ascribed meaning”, and the long time

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scale involved in Messiah’s popularity offers us the perfect perspective to explore this
concept. The following tries to do so in sharply localised contexts.

The history of Messiah in South Africa has been touched on in the foregoing treatment.
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Cockburn (2008) has provided a detailed account of the music within the national context,
and his dissertation is strongly recommended for study. It follows the “story” of Messiah in
two broad cultural settings, that of English-speaking immigrants and their descendants,
and that of urban African inhabitants. The latter’s presence and activity as performers of
the oratorio (and other music) has for much of this span of time been kept separate from
what the former group considered the “mainstream”.121

The early history of this former “story” will not be treated here, other than to note that
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the significance of Messiah among English-speaking citizens rose to a climax in the years
immediately following the end of the South African War (1902). This music seemed to
echo in many of its particulars a British understanding of their military victory over the
Boer forces, involving as it did, first the “birth” of colonies, then growing conflict over their
riches, the tremendous sacrifice of young (male) lives in battle, and – when the fighting
was over – the spread of “peace” in the region that ended in a union of its territories
(agreed to in 1910) and their joint incorporation in the British Empire that guaranteed
them a long and prosperous future. Every twist and turn of this familiar history can be
echoed in and from Messiah.

Moreover, the overriding sense of religious relevance that attaches to the oratorio had,
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in the course of the 19th century, grown close to an ideology that claimed equivalence
between the ancient nation of Israel and the modern one of Britain. One aspect of this
is the Britain Israel Theory.122 But equally it concerned the sense of national destiny.
Cockburn argues that the sequence of numbers from No 33 (“Lift up your heads”) to
No 44 (“Hallelujah”) could not fail to resonate with the mood of British colonists, not to
mention loyal citizens on “home soil”, in the wake of the British victory (2008:133–34).

What Cockburn’s study makes clear is that the ascribed meanings through which Messiah
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has passed in the South African context have changed across time, sometimes by
intensifying an interpretation, sometimes by retreating from one sense of meaning, only
to be reattached to a new and different one.123 His study tries to identify decisive points
in this sociocultural succession. Starting from perhaps the earliest record of a black choir
singing Messiah (or parts of it) – the Native Choir in Grahamstown in 1863 – he lays stress
on its decidedly Christian flavour. The singers were in the first instance the converts of
missionary labours, Mfengus, whose identity was bound up with mission education and
the wholesale adoption of Western norms. This acculturation process persisted into the

1121 The distinction can be reduced to “white” and “black” without entirely damaging the detailed picture
that Cockburn has painted.
1122 The book Our IsraeliƟsh Origins (1840) by John Wilson made the case that the “lost tribes of Israel” had
actually migrated to England. (The genetic burden was transferred from there to the United State.) A less
Anglo-exclusive view held that the Germanic peoples broadly had received the Israelite inheritance.
1123 This is not an exclusively South African phenomenon. Social changes in England forced similar rereadings
of Messiah, e.g., from the “society” oratorio of 1740 to about 1830, appealing to royalty and high nobility,
to the “people’s” oratorio that overlapped that date and dominated the decades after it. See Herbage
1948:57.

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late 1800s, until signs of black initiative appear, in the form of Rev Peter Masiza, ordained
in 1877, who saw it as an important part of his clerical duty to teach his congregants to
read tonic sol-fa and to sing from Messiah.

That such black singers were in the process of being integrated into the political order of
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empire and all that it entailed is an inescapable conclusion. But the path then led onwards to
institutions that by the first decade of the 1900s boasted their own (cross-denominational)
choirs, in particular Lovedale College and Healdtown, a teacher-training institution. This
was an important new stage, for their graduates went out as cultural beacons, into the
new mining towns of Kimberley and Johannesburg, with their Messiah in their pockets.
Influential in their communities as teachers and ministers, they viewed the spread of the
Handelian “gospel” as a sign of the progress of “civilization” and refined cultural attainment
amidst vulgar surroundings. But it was also from among these graduates that people like
ZK Matthews began to raise questions, not about Messiah as such, but about why black
progress in the world always needed European guidance in its performance.

We can observe in the impact of Adams College, where in the 1930s musical training was
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highly prized, the fragile shoots of interracial performance. This was to have a difficult
future, as apartheid ideology (already implicit in much of the colonial history) tried to
force black people out of Western identification, in order to develop “separately”. This was
ultimately to fail, but from mid-century on, inclusive participation in Messiah (and much
else) was proscribed by law. The 1952 ruckus involving teacher/choirmasters and students
of Orlando High School in confrontation with the Nationalist government provides a useful
symbol of the black intelligentsia striking out on its own, with the Messiah as an expression
of proto-liberation. But the 1950s were also a crucible of “multiracial” endeavours, and the
gathering of Soweto choirs and their collaboration with a white orchestra was one of the
drivers by which annual Messiah performances became part of the South African musical
landscape. In a sense, the tradition of Handel had already divided itself – for a century
– into the polarised blocs that typify the history of this society. The next sociopolitical
“moment” was fast approaching, however, and Sharpeville and its aftermath would force
apart even the advocates of the liberal “middle-ground”.

Activity 9.4

RECOMMENDED reading: The best account of this project and its fate
is Christopher Cockburn’s article (2008), “Discomposing Apartheid’s
Story: Who Owns Handel?”, in Olwage 2008: 55 to 77. This is available
as an e-reserve. The final part of this learning unit can more readily be
appreciated after a reading of his narrative.

Time allocated: I hour

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 9.7 A PERSONAL NOTE
Between 1978 and 1981, while teaching in a government school in East London, I played
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the piano in an ensemble that accompanied performances by a Mdantsane choir called

the East London Harmony Set. It was conducted by Cyril Mjo.124 We were scheduled to
join the choir in an Easter performance of Messiah at a church in the already sprawling
township.125 Negotiations between our organiser, herself a performer (violinist) and a
member of the East London City Council, and officials of the Bantu Affairs Department
went on till the eleventh hour: we were legally obliged to have a permit allowing us – a
group of white people – to enter Mdantsane. The officials kept up an infuriating game of
procrastination and “we’ll-see-phone-next-week”. They finally refused us permission, on
the instruction (we believed) of their superiors in Pretoria. (We had received permission
in the past.)

Since it was judged that the risk of police interference was high, the performance was
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moved to a venue relatively close to the boundary of the township (about 6 km away),
at St Luke’s Anglican Mission. The cruciform church building still stands there, somewhat
isolated in the fields and easily observable on Google Earth.126 We set up there and began
the performance; I recall that it was a pleasant early-autumn afternoon, either a Saturday
or Sunday. What we had not considered was the considerable length of the oratorio and
the waning afternoon light after the interval. It was clear that the building, which had no
electricity, would be far too dark inside for us to complete the work. The solution was to
delay the second half while local people went in search of candles, which they fetched
in sufficient quantities to illuminate the church in a roughly eighteenth-century manner,
and to allow us to conclude the performance.

For most black people there, working by candlelight was nothing out of the ordinary. The
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late 1970s was still a time of candle illumination and primus-stove cooking in township
homes.127 But the oratorio, with its “comfort”, its rejection of the Christ and his subsequent
rising to glory, and its closing praises, created a deeply poignant occasion. Even while we
were busily performing, it was impossible not to be drawn into the feeling that candles
were light enough; that their symbolism and “the glory of the Lord” would one day prevail
over the forces that held people in darkness.

It was not a performance aiming at historical authenticity of style, yet it felt historic – a
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moment of witness involving Christians, Jews, agnostics and atheists. In the end, though,
it was not only the fact that this unforgettable performance was its own reward for those
who were there: it led to a decision, when it was over, never again to seek official permission

1124 Simo Mzwandile Cyril Mjo (1935 – 2013) was well-known in sports circles as an outstanding scrumhalf and
a sports administrator. He also spent time in jail for ANC activities, where he formed a vocal ensemble,
The Lords. For further details of his career and accomplishments, see Mjo 2013.
1125 The background of this “black city in the Ciskei” and the terms of the “great urban resettlement” involved
in its creation, is conveniently fleshed out in the report of The Surplus People Project ([SPP] 1983:175–96),
whose fieldwork in the area was undertaken between December 1980 and February 1981 – very close
in time to the performance I am describing. The relevant section of the SPP report may be viewed and
downloaded at http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/introduction-mdantsane.
1126 Coordinates: 32°52’32.34”S and 27°45’44.57”E.
1127 The SPP report notes that “in 1980 15% of houses [in Mdantsane] had electricity” (SPP 1983:192).

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in order to collaborate in performances across racial distinctions. We were not pioneers
in this, but as black and white musicians, we entered the stream that swelled during the
1980s, of simply ignoring apartheid restrictions. It was a movement that hollowed out
the authority to divide, until the white political leadership finally capitulated. But again in
this case, it feels as if a greater change in the political landscape had facilitated a smaller
gesture like this: the 1976 Soweto student uprising, which had injected a fresh spirit of
defiance into the domestic struggle. Messiah could encompass that, too.

9.8 REFERENCES
Block, Daniel. 2001. ‘Handel’s Messiah: Biblical and Theological Perspectives’. Didaskalia
12:1–23.
Burrows, Donald. 1991. Handel: Messiah. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cockburn, Christopher. 2008a. The Establishment of a Musical Tradition: Meaning, Values
and Social Process in the South African History of Handel’s ‘Messiah’. PhD dissertation,
University of KwaZulu-Natal. Available at: http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/
handle/10413/8870
Cockburn, Christopher. 2008b. ‘Discomposing Apartheid’s Story: Who Owns Handel?’ In
Olwage 2008:55–77.
Herbage, Julian. 1948. Messiah. London: Max Parrish.
Hogwood, Christopher. 1980. ‘Notes on the music’. Booklet accompanying the recording
George Frederic Handel: Messiah – A Sacred Oratorio: Foundling Hospital Version 1754.
L’Oiseau-Lyre D189D3.
Mjo, Simo. 2013. Obituary (unattributed author)–http://www.grassrootsrugby.co.za/
rip-simo-mzwandile-cyril-mjo-african-springbok/
Olwage, Grant. 2008. Editor. Composing Apartheid: Music for and against Apartheid.
Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Plaggenmarsch, S. M. 2014. How to Handel: A Thesis on the Translation of ‘Messiah’ and ‘The
Young Messiah’. Master’s Dissertation, Utrecht University. Available at: https://dspace.
library.uu.nl/handle/1874/297049
Shabalala, Sam. 1995. (Translator) I~Mesaya: Unculo ka Handel ngesiZulu. Pietermaritzburg:
Reach Out Publishers.
Schildkret, David. 1995. ‘Mozart Contemplating a Work of Handel: Mozart’s Arrangement
of Messiah’, in Festa Musicologica: Essays in Honor of George J. Buelow (Stuyvesant, NY:
Pendragon Press), 129–146.
SPP/Project, The. 1983. Forced Removals in South Africa: The Surplus People Project. The
Project: Cape Town. Vol.2: The Eastern Cape.
Towe, Teri Noel. ‘Messiah – Arranged by Mozart’. Available at: http://www.classical.net/
music/comp.lst/works/handel/messiah/mozart.php
Video-clip. 2017. ‘Messiah sung in isiZulu’. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=5sGUgnCUhGI
Wishart, Peter. 1974. Messiah Ornamented: an ornamented edition of the solos from Handel’s
Messiah. London: Stainer and Bell.

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