How Music Developed

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n-Canons and the famous "Sumer is icumen in"-Character of the French music-The

t began in France, we must first note the historical facts in connection with the development of musical art in that country. The reader will remember that Charlemagne established schools for the cultivation of the Roman chant in many French towns. History shows us that the connection between France and the Roman Church grew closer and closer until, under Philip the Fair, the State dominated; and in the beginning of the fourteenth century the papal court was removed by the king to Avignon. In the twelfth century the University of Paris became the

nterpoint from the pen). As musicians acquired skill in the construction of these additional parts, they began to introduce new devices, and to write with greater and greater freedom. The more free their writing was, the further it tended to depart from parallel motion. In the course of time some one hit upon the musical device called "imitation," which means the repetition in a secondary part (say the bass) of some passage already heard in the principal part (the treble) while that principal par

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the first half. In order to make the first half act as alto in the second half, the composer had to push the second voice one bar ahead of the first voice, and then to add three extra notes to A in order to make a conclusion to his alto

he materials of their art, and they acquired a great mastery over them and constantly learned more and more about the possibilities of music. Double counterpoint, which is at the foundation of the most rigid forms of polyphonic writing, was generally known in the French school at least as early as the thirteenth century, but the example from Perotin seems to show that at least some of the composers knew it much earlier. This might account for the existence of the celebrated example of early English polyphony, a "canon" called "Sumer is icumen in." This was discovered by Sir John Hawkins, who wrote a history o

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e second half of the melody. When the third voice reaches the fifth bar of the first half of the air, the fourth voice comes in, and the second voice begins the second half. And so it goes on, the entrances always being made according to the rule established at the start, and each voice singing the tune without the alteration of a single i

enious calculation. Furthermore it must be borne in mind that they had no conception whatever of music as a means of expression. In a vague way they felt its suitability to the worship of their churches, and its Gothic complexity did indeed harmonize well with ecclesiastical architecture. But it never occurred to the composers of the French school to try to make music beautiful for its own sake. They were too busy exploring the resources of their art, and their materia musica was as ye

nt) in the middle, the descant (or counterpoint) above, and a bass below. It is not nearly so well developed in its polyphony as "Sumer is icumen in" or the works of the Frenchmen. Two of its voices move always in parallel fourths or fifths (as in Hucbald's "organum") and the other has a contrary motion. The most famous composer of

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ng so paved the way for the exertion of a large influence by folk-song upon artistic composition. His method of using the popular songs, however, was as bad as it was remarkable. In composing a mass he would substitute in place of the fixed chant of the liturgy some popular air; and he put the words in along with it, probably because the words of the liturgy could not be sung to the tune. Hence, in three masses by Dufay, still extant, the melodies and texts of three songs of his day are found. One of these songs

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t of the Netherlands, with which the art of writing unaccompanied church cou