In speaking of the straight lines of the melodies of the minnesingers and in comparing them with the tinge of orientalism to be found in those of the troubadours, it was said that music owes more to the latter than to the former, and this is true. If we admit that the straight line of Grecian architecture is perfect, so must we also admit that mankind is imperfect. We are living beings, and as such are swayed to a great extent by our emotions. To the straight line of purity in art the tinge of orientalism, the curved line of emotion, brings the flush of life, and the result is something which we can feel as well as worship from afar. Music is a language, and to mankind it serves as a medium for saying something which cannot be put into mere words. Therefore, it must contain the human element of mere sensuousness in order to be intelligible. This is why the music of the troubadours, although not so pure in style as that of the minnesingers, has been of the greatest value in the development of our art. This orientalism, however, must not mask the straight line; it must be the means of lending more force, tenderness, or what not, to the figure. It must be what the poem is to the picture, the perfume to the flower; it must help to illustrate the thing itself. The moment we find this orientalism (and I am using the word in its broadest sense) covering, and thus distorting the straight line of pure music, then we have national music so-called, a music which derives its name and fame from the clothes it wears and not from that strange language of the soul, the “why” of which no man has ever discovered.

XIII

EARLY INSTRUMENTAL FORMS

Referring to some newspaper reports which he knew to be without foundation, Bismarck once said, “Newspapers are simply a union of printer's ink and paper.” Omitting the implied slur we might say the same of printed music and printed criticism; therefore, in considering printed music we must, first of all, remember that it is the letter of the law which kills. We must look deeper, and be able to translate sounds back into the emotions which caused them. There is no right or wrong way to give utterance to music. There is but one way, namely, through the living, vital expression of the content of the music; all else is not music but mere pleasure for the ear, a thing of the senses. For the time being we must see through the composer's eyes and hear through his ears. In other words, we must think in his language. The process of creating music is often, to a great extent, beyond the control of the composer, just as is the case with the novelist and his characters. The language through which musical thought is expressed, however, is a different thing, and it is this process of developing musical speech until it has become capable of saying for us that which, in our spoken language, must ever remain unsaid, that I shall try to make clear in our consideration of form in music.

Until the very end of the fifteenth century, music, so far as we know, had no language of its own, that is to say, it was not recognized as a medium for expressing thought or emotion. Josquin des Prés (born at Conde in the north of France in 1450, died 1521) was the first to attempt the expression of thought in sound. Luther, in rebelling against Rome, also overturned the music of the church in Germany. He incorporated many folk songs into the music of the Protestant church and discarded the old Gregorian chant (which was vague in rhythm, or, rather, wholly without rhythm), calling it asinine braying.

While Luther was paving the way for Bach by encouraging church music to be something more than merely the singing of certain melodies according to prescribed rules, in Italy (at the time of his death in 1546) the Council of Trent was already trying to decide upon a style of music proper for the church. The matter was definitely settled in 1562 or 1563 by the adoption of Palestrina's style. 13  Thus, while in Germany ecclesiastical music was being broadened and an opening offered for the development of the dramatic and emotional side of music, in Italy, on the contrary, the emotional style of music was being neglected and an absolutely serene style of what may be called “impersonal” music encouraged. Italy, however, soon had opera on which to fall back, and thus music in both countries developed rapidly, although on different lines.

In England, the budding school of English art, as exemplified by Purcell, was soon overwhelmed by the influence of Händel and the all-pervading school of Italian opera, which he brought with him.

In France, up to 1655, when Cardinal Mazarin sent to Italy for an opera troupe with the purpose of entertaining Anne of Austria (the widow of Louis XIII), there was practically no recognized music except that imported from other countries. Under Louis XI (d. 1483) Ockeghem, the Netherland contrapuntist, was the chief musician of the land.

The French pantomimes or masques, as they were sometimes called, can hardly be said to have represented a valuable gain to art, although their prevalence in France points directly to their having been the direct descendants of the old pantomime on one hand, and on the other, the direct ancestor of the French opera. For we read that already in 1581 (twenty years before Caccini's “Euridice” at Florence), a ballet entitled “Circe” was given on the occasion of the marriage of Margaret of Lorraine, the stepsister of Henry III. The music to it was written by Beaulieu and Salmon, two court musicians. There were ten bands of music in the cupola of the ballroom where the ballet was given. These bands included hautbois, cornets, trombones, violas de gamba, flutes, harps, lutes, flageolets. Besides all this, ten violin players in costume entered the scene in the first act, five from each side. Then a troupe of Tritons came swimming in, playing lutes, harps, flutes, one even having a kind of 'cello. When Jupiter makes his appearance, he is accompanied by forty musicians. The festivities on this occasion are said to have cost over five million francs. Musically, the ballet was no advance towards expressiveness in art. An air which accompanied “Circe's” entrance, may be cited as being the original of the well-known “Amaryllis,” which is generally called Air Louis XV. Baltazarini calls it un son fort gai, nomme la clochette.

Music remained inert in France until 1650, when the Italians gained an ascendancy, which they retained until 1732, when Rameau's first opera “Hyppolyte et Aricie” was given in Paris. Rameau had already commenced his career by gaining great success as a harpsichord player and instrumental composer, mostly for the harpsichord. By his time, however, music, that is to say, secular music, was already becoming a new art, and the French merely improved upon what already existed.

Now this new art was first particularly evident in the dances of these different peoples. These dances gave the music form, and held it down to certain prescribed rhythms and duration. Little by little the emotions, the natural expression of which is music, could no longer be restricted to these dance forms and rhythms; and gradually the latter were modified by each daring innovator in turn. This “daring” of human beings, in breaking through the trammels of the dance in order to express what lay within their souls in the language that properly belonged to it, would seem almost ludicrous to us, were we not even to-day trying to get up courage to do the same thing. The modifications of dance forms led up to our sonata, symphony, and symphonic poem, as I hope to show. Opera was a thing apart, and, being untrammelled either by dance rhythms or church laws, developed gradually and normally. It cannot, however, be said to have developed side by side with purely instrumental music, for the latter is only just beginning to emancipate itself from its dance clothes and to come forth as a language for the expression of all that is divine in man. First we will consider the forms and rhythms of these dances, then the awakening of the idea of design in music, and its effect in modifying these forms and laying the foundation for the sonata of the nineteenth century.

The following shows the structure of the different dance forms up to about 1750.