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
composers late into the second half of the twelfth century.
A treatise by Guy, Abbot of Chalis, about this time, is concerned with
essentially the same problems and presents no really new point of view.
He is practically the last of the theorizing organizers. Organum gave
way to a new kind of music. In the course of over two hundred years
it had run perfectly within the narrow limits to which it had been
inevitably confined, and the science of it was briefly this: to devise
over any given melody a counter-melody which accompanied it note by
note, moving, as far as possible, in contrary motion, sinking to meet
the melody when it rose, rising away from it when it fell, and, with
few exceptions, in strictest concord of octaves, fifth, fourths, and
unison. Rules had been formulated to cover practically all combinations
which could occur in the narrow scheme. The restricted, cramped art
then crumbled into dust and disappeared. Again and again this process
is repeated in the history of music. The essence of music, and, indeed,
of any art, cannot be caught by rules and theories. The stricter the
rules the more surely will music rebel and seek expression in new and
natural forms. We cannot believe that music in the Middle Ages was not
a means of expression, that it was not warm with life; and therefore we
cannot believe that this dry organum of Hucbald and Odo, of Guido of
Arezzo, of Guy of Chalis, which was still-born of scholastic theory, is
representative of the actual practice of music, either in the church
or among the people. On the other hand, these excellent old monks
were pioneers in the science of polyphonic writing. Inadequate and
confusing as their rules and theories may be, they are none the less
the first rules and theories in the field, the first attempts to give
to polyphony the dignity and regularity of Art.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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