The Childhood of Music in the Middle Ages and the Age of the Renaissance

Several things were introduced into music that made of it a lofty art, and it was given the title of the noble science. In this period, progress and development touched music in all its aspects. The known instruments were improved and new ones devised; musical writing and notation were organized according to fixed principles; and musical composition took a new direction, freeing itself from simple monophonic composition and adopting complex polyphonic composition. This development in the method of composition was followed by the appearance of new musical forms, among them the motet, the madrigal, and the folk song. The flourishing that music attained then proceeded in two opposing directions: the first an ecclesiastical direction, distinguished by restrictions laid down by the Church so as to preserve the sanctity of the religious melodies lest new elements corrupt them; the other a popular direction, whose banner was carried by the minnesingers in Germany and the troubadours in France. Three great figures stood out in the age of the Renaissance: Lassus, Martin Luther the Reformer, and Palestrina.

Church Music

Modern religious music first flourished in the monasteries and Christian temples of Syria, Egypt, and the land of the Chaldeans. Ancient Hebrew music was used at first for this purpose, with the additions and improvements the Greeks had introduced into it. The first church melodies were similar to "the Psalms of David," but they soon developed rapidly in style and form at the hands of Western musicians when they passed to Europe by way of the Roman Empire. The greatest credit for spreading these melodies and making them general in the land of Gaul (France), Spain, and Italy belongs to the Catholic Church.

In view of the importance of religious melodies in worship, the successive Popes saw that there was need to preserve the integrity of this sacred heritage, and that the best way of achieving this aim was to subject all these melodies to a single style. The melodies were arranged in eight modes; then, in the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great ordered all churches to use these unified melodies according to the eight modes. These modes were later known as the Gregorian modes. As for the effect of this restriction, it was harmful to music, for it forbade taking liberties with the melodies, which robbed them of many of their important qualities, such as splendor and freedom, and stood in the way of their progress and development.

Popular Music:

The popular movement went side by side with religious music; its banner was carried by the troubadours in France and the minnesingers in Germany. This movement was a movement of liberation and release where music was concerned, for it was not subject to the same restrictions that the Gregorian modes had imposed on religious music. The troubadours were a company of knight-poets who sang verses and spent most of their time roaming the countryside among the palaces of the nobles, where they found material support and moral encouragement. The minnesingers were a class of German nobles who were passionately fond of music and song; the word in German means "singers of love poems." The minnesingers made continual journeys through the German principalities, playing their new melodies. In such an atmosphere the folk song arose, springing from the soil of the people, and in it were reflected the hopes of the masses, their sorrows, and their joys. These singing poets are the pioneers of the modern musical renaissance that burst forth in strength and might in the centuries that followed. They freed music from every bond that stood as an obstacle in the way of its progress and development, and worked to raise its level and improve its instruments, until it was able to keep pace with the other arts, if it did not indeed surpass them.

The minnesingers and troubadours occupied a respected position: the palaces of the nobles were open to them at whatever hour they knocked, and the camps of soldiers — enemies and friends alike — always welcomed them, for they were the only entertainment, and the traveling newspaper that carried news from one place to another, and the storytellers who related tales of adventure and heroism in song, to the accompaniment of a musical instrument. Many of these popular melodies have been preserved, and the great musicians drew from them abundant themes for their compositions. This period extended between the middle of the twelfth century and the end of the thirteenth.

Composition and Musical Writing:

The most important event in the world of Western music was the introduction of polyphonic composition in place of monophonic composition. The new method depended on performing two or more melodies at one time while harmony was maintained, or on adding numerous melodies differing from the first tune, so that from playing them together a harmony was formed. This development in the method of composition was accompanied by a pressing need to fix speed, rhythm, and time in writing, for the musical staff until that time indicated only the rise and fall of pitch. Each note was given a name, the lines of the staff were fixed and each line assigned a note, and the musical accidentals, flats and sharps, were introduced (fourteenth century).

The New Musical Forms:

The development of the method of composition and the introduction of the new musical staff had a great effect, for music in general, religious and popular alike, was freed from the restrictions imposed upon it, and was made subject instead to flexible laws and rules of wide scope. New forms besides the Mass came into being, such as the motet and the madrigal.

The motet is religious choral singing usually made up of a basic melody known to the listeners; this melody might be part of a Gregorian mode, or a dance tune, or a folk song. The words are usually from a sacred text. This new musical form arose and flourished in France in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The madrigal, or popular motet, followed the pattern of the motet in melody, but its texts were free and not bound to a sacred text; the difference between the madrigal and the motet lies in the lightness present in the former and lacking in the latter.