The art of music. Vol. 01 (of 14) : $b The pre-Classic periods
History
The art of music. Vol. 01 (of 14) : $b The pre-Classic periods
Music -- History and criticism; Musicians
The instrument was known in the occident long before King Pepin
received one as a present from Emperor Constantine Copronymos in 757
A. D. A Greek description of an organ belonging to Julian the Apostate
(fourth century) and others mentioned by Cassiodorus and St. Augustine
furnish valuable details. These instruments usually consisted of from
eight to fifteen pipes (one to two octaves of the diatonic scale) which
were constructed in the same manner as the flue pipes of modern organs.
Throughout the ninth century organs were assiduously manufactured by
monks, especially in France and Germany, and their compass was made to
coincide with the middle range of the human voice (c to c´) so as to be
used in connection with vocal instruction. The names of the tones were
inscribed on the 'keys,’ which were small wooden plates in _vertical_
position. The player was obliged to pull this shutter away to allow the
wind to enter the pipes, which would sound continuously till shut. By
980 there existed organs of considerable size, such as the famous one
at Winchester, consisting of 400 pipes and two keyboards, requiring two
players. A special form of notation, known as tablature, grew up for
organ playing which coincides in general with our modern staff notation.
* * * * *
The above will, we believe, suffice to give a clear account of the
musical activities of the period which we have called the Age of
Plain-song. Among music-loving people in general there is a lack of
interest in plain-song, due partly to religious reasons, but chiefly
born of a tendency to regard it as a dry and spiritless formula, an
insipid sort of recitative designed to lend solemnity to devotional
exercises. Complete lack of sympathy and imagination could alone
excuse such an impression in the minds of those who have ever had the
opportunity of hearing it sung in a sincere and reverent spirit. Unlike
the pedantic, mathematical art that music came to be in the middle
ages, plain-song was preëminently a form of emotional expression.
Further, it was the expression of emotions most poignant and profound.
It came from the hearts of men who were conscious actors in a gigantic
drama. The inexpressible tortures of eternal fire, the ecstatic wonders
of a golden heaven, the ineffable mystery of the Godhead, the awful
panoply of the Judgment, the wrath and agony of a wronged and insulted
Deity who yet offered Himself as a bloody holocaust for the sins of
men--all the esoteric spiritual symbols of Christianity had for these
early believers a real and literal significance. To them was vouchsafed
the simple faith, the naïve wonder of childhood. Their souls were
possessed with a great awe, with an intense longing, with profound
humility and passionate remorse, with fiery zeal and ardent love, with
the joyous ecstasy of anticipated salvation and the nameless horror of
ever-threatening damnation. All this wealth of deep and keen emotion
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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