MUSIC DOWN THE AGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22824, 7 March 1936, Page 22

MUSIC DOWN THE AGES

By Sophie Hall. 11. It was among the wonderful Greeks who lived before the birth of Christ that the foundations of modern music were laid. The term "music" was held by the ancient Greeks to signify any art over which, the nine Muses presided, and poetry and melody were combined in one art-form as a matter of course. All ths early Greek epic poetry was sung to the music of the lyre, and all Greek plays were sung. The _ modern counterpart of their tragedy being the musical drama, and of their comedy the opera-bouffe. Among the ancient Greeks music formed fin essential subject in the primary education of the young. While the two arts, gymnastics and music, were held by the Greeks as being necessary for the development of the body as well as of the mind. Aristotle (B.C. 384) advocated the study of music from childhood, as it contributed to moral : discipline, amusement and tational enjoyment. "It is evident," he says, "that music possesses the power of uffeoting in a certain way the character of the! soul; and, if so, it is clear that we ought to make use of it and educate the younger generation in it. For instruction in music is appropriate to the natural disposition of the young, as from their tender years they do not willingly put up with anything that is not sweetened, and there is a natural sweetness in music."

One cannot help being surprised at the matured views on music entertained by the ancients of over a couple of thousand years ago, and how thoroughly they had grasped its oesthctic, educational and moral importance. At the performance of the. famous Greek dramas, which were given in enormous open-air theatres and attended by thousands of people, music was continually used, and thus the people became familiar with it, for poetry, art and culture were looked upon by the ancient Greeks as real necessities, and the union of poetry with music made the study of the art of music one of great importance. With such importance attaching to music as a literary adjunct, although its possibilities as an independent art were at this stage not suspected, it was not long before some definite system of notation was sought and formulated. Greek music was, doubtless, largely influenced by Chaldean and Egyptian, and by Indian and Chinese, such as it was, while several early Christian chants were derived from .Jewish Synagogue tunes. The famous "Hymn to Apollo" is one of the few authentic examples of Greek music that has come down to us. The development of Greek music reached its height between 1000 and 401 8.C., when musical tournaments formed a highly fashionable entertainment during the national festivals and at the Olympic Games. At the close of this period, however, a great change crept into the nature of Greek music, for it threw off its allegiance to poetry and commenced an independent development. At this stage Greece was conquered by the Romans, and this began the decline of Grecian music, which practically died out with the fall of the Grecian Empire.

The next revival of music, which took place under Christian auspices, was the birth of modern music. During the one thousand years following the birth of Christ,-tho art, poetry, and mjifiio of the

world were closely connected with' the efforts of the church to bring the nations of Europe from Paganism to Christianity, no we find that the next step in the advancement of music was made by the e&rJy Christian church, in the service of which music became a very important part. Prom the first, music found in the worship of the Church a field suitable to its fresh development, and undoubtedly the employment of its resources for church purposes was the chief reason that music was the first of the arts to rise again in Italy after the great catastrophe of the year 547, which swept away the last vestiges of the ancient world. Had music, upon its adoption by the Italians, remained a secular pastime, it is difficult to see when, or by what means, its fresh revival could have been begun. Indeed, it might have remained for an definite period in the same condition as the_ other arts, which lay for many centuries after the recognition of Christianity, " ineffective and ignorant of their true direction." The finest church music, of which Palest'rina and Bach are the greatest exponents, is based on something more than a casual association with sacred words. Indeed, all true religious music is but an exalted prayer, that is, an exultant expression of religious feeling. For unless music " exalt and purify," Ruskin tells us, "it is not, virtually, music at all." Nothing can be more effective and conducive to a devotional atmosphere than pure music and sacred song, for they exalt the mind like the contemplation of , supernatural things.

Full oft a strain from thy serene dominions Some tender chord of harmony divine Hath borne my soul aloft on heavenward ' pinions. ...

Pure spiritual music can touch the hearts of men who would listen unmoved to the most eloquent sermon. The music of the Mass, or the simple melody of a hymn is often for us the expression of a spiritual emotion. The music that was sung in the churches during all the early years of Christianity was the plain-song, or Gregorian chant. These melodies were very many and varied, and were unaccompanied by harmony, and rarely went beyond the limits of one octave.

In these early days purely instrumental music was in its infancy. The idea of utilising instruments as an independent method of musical expression was the product of a later, more sophisticated age. However, by the end of the fourth century the organ was well established as a church instrument. But all the music of the early Christian Church was purely vocal, and instrumental music was banned as having been fashionable in the depraved Roman festivals. The various stages of vocal music can be traced back for thousands of years, in the histories of many countries, and it certainly represents the most genuine form of art. In the chants to which the minstrels inloned the Homeric poems, in the choruses of the Athenian tragedies and comedies, in the freat choral services of the ancient Eebrews in Jerusalem, to which instruments were merely used as an accompaniment, in the lays of the troubadours and minnesingers in the Middle Ages, and in the whole history of the polyphonic music of the Christian Church, vocal music was used as the spontaneous means of expressing the emotions and aspirations of mankind.

During the next 500 years, music, instead of being used solely for religion, came to bo used for secidar purposes ah well, and in the years that followed music flourished exuberantly everywhere. Meanwhile secular music had also changed, and crude cjbantg and primitive folk-songs had

given place to the heroic songs of the wandering minstrels of the tenth and eleventh centuries. This again was followed in the next century by the exquisite art of chivalrous poetry with its love-lyrics, its glowing life and its distinct popular feeling, in the portrayal of which the troubadours with their love songs, and' the trouveree, in France, with their myths and old legends, and the minnesingers and meistersingers in Germany, whose songs gave more importance to the beauty of Nature and to religion than those of the troubadours, became prominent. The melodies of, the troubadours, it is believed, formed the basis for many of the present-day folk-songs. Folksong may be described as the music that was produced by all races "in their chilhood." In the beginning folk-songs were not written at all. These traditional melodies were the spontaneous expression of national temperament in popular time, and essentially an art of the peasantry. Nearly every race has its own folk-songs and dances. In primitive races they are almost invariably associated with religious rites. Foil music is very strongly rhythmic and of the most simple and regular construction, and it is the basis upon which much of the greatest music in the world rests. Folk-song was the beginning of what we call " melody," and the best specimens of folk-songs are quite as perfect within their small range as are the greatest works of the masters. We realise how intimate a medium music is for the expression of feeling, when we remember that these folk-songs, perfect works of beauty as they are, were the spontaneous utterances of simple, untaught people who in forming them relied almost entirely on instinct. Climate, manners and customs, the degree of civilisation, all seem to find fitting expression in true folk music. European folk-song is considered the finest, and the nationality of the chief types can be readily identified. Celtic, German and Slavonic races, for instance, have a natural gift and preference for self expression in folk-songs and many of their examples are of rare beauty. Irish folk music, probably the most human, most varied, most poetical, and most imaginative in the world, is particularly rich in melodies which imply considerable sympathetic sensitiveness, and the Anglo-Saxon Border music is not far behind. Several of the great composers have transcribed folk tunes, while nearly all composers have used them more or less in their works. The Chorales in Bach's "St. Matthew Passion," for example, are based on traditional melodies. Folk-songs are used to a very great extent in Haydn's instrumental works. The Adagio of Beethoven's sonata " Pathetique," to mention only one example, springs from folk-song, and notwithstanding the long process of development through which music had passed, it reflects the same sentiment, in a more mature form, that one finds in folk-music. Many of the romantic composers also used folk melodies freely. Schubert, Liszt, Brahms, and Tschaikovsky, as well as Grieg and Dvorak among the number. Many of the old legendary tales and folk-stories have inspired numerous composers, especially Wagner, who had the most remarkable understanding of legendary lore, and whose works are all based on tlie greatest legends of literature. From the minnesinger knights he drew his material for " Tannhauser." which also combines the legend of St. Elizabeth with that of the Venusberg. The stories used in "Lohengrin." "Tristan and Isolde," and "Parsifal" were _ also obtained from the works of the minnesingers. " Die Meistersinger" was the

result of his contrasting the literary and musical works of the minnesingers and the meistersingers. While his great tetralogy, "The Ring of the Nibelungs," was the result of his adaptation of the eddas and sagas of the Norse with some of the Teutonic tales of the early minnesingers. So it follows that in order to understand and to prepare for the study of the works of the great masters folksong is the most natural and, indeed, the inevitable means of approach to such great music, for it is the foundation upon which much of the greatest music in the world rests. It could not be otherwise, for we know that the greatest minds, not only of musicians, but of sculptors, painters, and poets, have been rooted in the past, and have drawn their inspirations from common human experience. And so folk-song, the most apt vehicle for the conveyance of sentiment, comes down through the ages. Being pure melody, it can be readily understood by everybody without any actual knowledge of music.

Paris was the centre of the musical world in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and there music had its place in the university with astronomy and mathematics, for at this time the art of music was in its academic stage, and was looked upon as a study like science and logic. During the next century Italy came again to the fore in music, art, and literature. The spirit of liberty, originating in profane music, began to be assimilated by church art, and by the end of the fifteenth century there was a wealth of music equal in brilliance to that of other arts, painting, sculpture, literature, etc., in that glorious age. Before the year 1000 there had been composed the most beautiful sacred music the world possessss, that which culminated in the works of Palcstrina. The musical literature of the Renaissance period is of, perhaps, unparalleled richness in history, and the achievements of Palestrina, although chiefly limited to church music, must be regarded as the highest expression of the ideals of his period. It was an age of pure beauty, for beauty was united to every art, and seemed to flourish everywhere. Never before were music and poetry so intimately bound together. Ronsard called music " the younger sister of poetry." and he said that without music poetry almost lacked grace, just as music without the melodiousness of poetry was dull and lifeless. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries such advances were made in the Italian school of vocal and instrumental music that the conception of opera, which, in the mind of its founders, was a resurrection of classical tragedy, was first fully realised by Monteverde, after the first attempts of Peri and Caecini.

We can now see how musical history evalved from its earliest beginnings, through the music of Greece and of the early Christian Church, through the music of the troubadours, folk-song, polyphonic and early instrumental music of the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century when instrumental music was given a status of importance (although a quantity of organ, virginal and violin music had already been written, and opera was thoroughly established. About this time Italy, the cradle of opera, yielded pride of place to Germany, which now became supreme in music. All these wonderful advances, however, were preparing the way for the coming of the greatest contrapuntist in musical history, for the culminating point of the possibilities and ideals of polyphony was now reached by Johann Sebastian Bach, an organist and composer of violin, organ, and clavier mufiic of great excellence, who is looked

|. upon as the father of modern music, and [ from whom all subsequent developments ; in the art of music are to be trajced. A ' new and terrific force entered music through Beethoven, a force that was new , to music but old as the human race —the spirit of revolt! ,The great possibilities in instrumental music that had been revealed by Bach were, previous to the advent of Beethoven, fully explored by Handel, Mozart, and Haydn. At the beginning of the nineteenth century music was expressing the awakening of a revolutionary individualism which roused the whole world. In 30 years' time the orchestral symphony and chamber music had produced their masterpieces. The revolution found its most heroic voice in the " heaven-storming Titan," Beethoven, the greatest genius and the greatest symphony composer in musical history. The climax of 11 decades of symphonic and chamber music, as well as of pianoforte music, is to be found in Beethoven. Beethoven looked upon music not only as a manifestation of the beautiful that is art, but almost as something of the nature of religion. All the joys and sorrows of humanity, all its aspirations, its tragedies, its earthly surroundings, and its glimpse of heaven are given voice to by Beethoven in his sublime outpourings. He is the spokesman of humanity! After Beethoven came the poets and dreamers of a new age, those great lyricists who brought a wave of romantic melody with them: Weber, Schubert, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Berlioz. The romantic movement of the early nineteenth century was a general artistic reaction against classicism and formalistic narrowness, and it culminated in the person of Wagner, who brought the wild romanticism of Beethoven and Berlioz to the mysticism of "Parsifal." In the best of Wagner's music dramas we realise how finely 1 and how clearly music and words may be united, how the song under the influence of great dramatic situations can be expanded, how vividly the orchestra can interpret and help the actions, and how the chorus becomes part of the dramatic scheme, how the " leit-motif" is made use of to characterise th e emotions or passions of people, and how unity results from the wedding of beautiful music to fitting words. Music-drama, as conceived by Wagner, attained for the first time perfection. Wagner revolutionised the whole system of opera, and upset all previous notions of musical form. He adopted the old device of making short phrases of music, called " leit-motifs," to define certain prominent qualities in his characters. His librettos are based, with one exception, on mythological stories or ideas, and his characters are eternal typos, Lohengrin being the personification of purity and heroism; Wotan, of power; Brunhilde, of heroic and noble womanhood; and so on. There is no doubt that Wagner deserves the distinction that has been conferred on him, that he is the greatest "Poet of Passion" known to musical history! After Wagner the atmosphere of mysticism which he introduced was spread over all Europe by the help of Cesar Franclc and his followers, Saint-Saens, d'lndy, Debussy, and others. The purer classic, traditions have bnnn preserved in Brahms, who stands as the greatest of modern symphonists. Sibelius, to-day, is closely following the great masters a« a strict adherent of the classic symphony-tradi-tion. Debussy appears to be the first example of the complete " individualist '' in music, the first composer deliber- ' ately to create for himself a style wholly ' his own, and owing nothing to any of his predecessors. A further development '■

I of this tendency is met with in the later i works of Stravinsky, Strauss, Mahler. » and others. Music to-day is free and emancipated, and can do as it pleases. New needs of the mind, of the heart, and of the sense of hearing make necessary : new endeavours, and in some cases the i breaking of ancient laws. Many old rules are no longer in vogue, and many old forms have become too hackneyed to be still adopted. Human beings are gradu ally assimilating new combinations if sounds and colours, and that is, perhaps, the cause of the trend that modern music is taking, in making dissonances play such a prominent part. We know that in order to create something beautiful, one muse create something new, and Beethoven toils us that there is no rule'that one may not break for the advancement of beauty. Well, beauty is harmony! Beauty is the test by which all art, especially that of music, is judged. Moreover, there are boundaries connected with beauty, which, while they need not necessarily be associated with a limitation of discord, are overstepped when a composition is all discord and nothing else. Many of our ultra-modern composers have wandered outside of the utmost pale of tonal orthodoxy, and have become revolutionary extremists }n every way. They have thrown off the shackles of the old order of structure; rhythm and polyphony, and are croating "futuristic' impressions from which all former landmarks of order .and form have disappeared, whide dissonances play the most prominent part. In some of this "futuristic" and "impressionistic music of to-day there is much sound and fury signifying nothing at all, such things as rules are ignored because they are rules, and the music presents, no doubt, what the " futurist" composer regards as "atmosphere - ' and nothing else. It would appear that the aim of the ultramoderns in many cases is to destroy much that has been handed down by the great masters, without behiff able to build up something that is sufficiently new and beautiful and sincere to take its place. Schonberg, the strongest revolutionary of his time, has thrown aside concord altogether and gives expression to his feelings in a counterpoint that negates the last laws of harmony and with a complete absence of strong rhythms. Scrialin, also, in his later period especially, is an extremist in every way. In his last symphony, " Prometheus" (also known as the " Poem of Fire") he introduces what he termed his chord of mystery, a chord founded upon a system of fourths, rather than thirds. Naturally the discords are very startling. With this symphony is introduced the idea of a keyboard of colour, so that with future performances of this work rays of light could be sent forth over the audience or on a screen to accompany certain motives in (he symphony. Scriabin is said to have possessed a wonderful sense of colour perception as related to sound, a sense which Wagner is said to have possessed also. Many passages in these works seem ugly to us, almost repulsively so, yet the exploitation of the higher harmonies will certainly lead to wonderful developments in the future, signs of which are already in evidence, for what is a discord in one generation is a comparative concord in another. It is questionable, however, whether the majority of these self-styled "futurists," in their frenzied endeavour to create something very daring and " modern," have not overstepped all the boundaries connected with beauty, and their work, being nothing but novelty and of a transient nature, must inevitably be obliterated by the hand of time.

It is comforting to know, however, that there are a great many beautiful

works, master-works, from the hands of modern composers, that have come to stay. Elgar, Delius, Strauss, Sibelius, RimskyKorsakov, Ravel, B ax, Reger, Hoist, Vaughan Williams', ana Scriabin.in his earlier works, to mention only a few of the many English and Continental modern composers, and their disciples, have; produced deathless works of unchanging importance. Their works are very characteristic of the period,, and have added enormously to our sense of colour in. music. They have also greatly, stimu- > lated our rhythmic sense, and have made new and pleasing use.of the tonal effects and qualities of different instruments and groups of instruments. This gallant band and their followers have fought, and are fighting, for complete freedom, and their inspirations are a guarantee that the future of music is on sure ground, and brilliantly safe! The work that has been accomplished by the great creative minds.of the w*rld down through the ages conveys a sense of continuity that is akin to. religion, and is a reminder of the continuity of life! We all need music, for, at its best, it reveals to us a higher reach of life that is a part of the inmost, being of us all. When we respond to it, a certain harmonious vibration is . set up within us, which tunes us to.one.another, to "the mother earth, the everlasting sea. and to that larger world of .'suns, stars, and planets of which they are a part"!