[Illustration: M. Camille Saint-Saëns] ON THE EXECUTION OF MUSIC, AND PRINCIPALLY OF ANCIENT MUSIC BY M. CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS _Delivered at the_ "_Salon de la Pensée Française_" _Panama-Pacific International Exposition_ _San Francisco, June First_ _Nineteen Hundred_ _& Fifteen_ DONE INTO ENGLISH WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY HENRY P. BOWIE SAN FRANCISCO: THE BLAIR-MURDOCK COMPANY 1915 _Copyright, 1915_ _by M. Camille Saint-Saëns_ ON THE EXECUTION OF MUSIC, AND PRINCIPALLY OF ANCIENT MUSIC MUSIC was written in a scrawl impossible to decipher up to the thirteenth century, when Plain Song[1] (_Plain Chant_) made its appearance in square and diamond-shaped notes. The graduals and introits had not yet been reduced to bars, but the songs of the troubadours appear to have been in bars of three beats with the accent on the feeble note of each bar. However, the theory that this bar of three beats or triple time was used exclusively is probably erroneous. St. Isidore, in his treatise on music, speaking of how Plain Song should be interpreted, considers in turn all the voices and recommends those which are high, sweet and clear, for the execution of vocal sounds, introits, graduals, offertories, etc. This is exactly contrary to what we now do, since in place of utilizing these light tenor voices for Plain Song, we have recourse to voices both heavy and low. In the last century when it was desired to restore Plain Song to its primitive purity, one met with insurmountable obstacles due to its prodigious prolixity of long series of notes, repeating indefinitely the same musical forms; but in considering this in the light of explanations given by St. Isidore, and in view of the Oriental origin of the Christian religion, we are led to infer that these long series of notes were chants or vocalizations analogous to the songs of the Muezzins of the Orient. At the beginning of the sixteenth century musical laws began to be elaborated without, however, in this evolution towards modern tonal art, departing entirely from all influence of the antique methods. The school named after Palestrina employed as yet only the triads or perfect chords; this prevented absolutely all expression, although some traces of it appear in the "Stabat Mater" of that composer. This music, ecclesiastical in character, in which it would have been chimerical to try to introduce modern expression, flourished in France, in Flanders, in Spain at the same time as in Italy, and enjoyed the favor of Pope Marcellus, who recognized the merit of Palestrina in breaking loose from the grievous practice of adapting popular songs to church music.