How music grew, from prehistoric times to the present day

It is rather hard to believe that the largest of all instruments, the pipe organ, is a descendant of Pan’s Pipes, played by the shepherds on the hillsides of ancient Greece, is it not? The pipes of the church organ of today are of different lengths and are built on the same principle as were the pipes of Pan, our goat-footed friend, who broke off the reeds by the bank of a stream way back when the world was young, to pour out his grief in music for his lost love, Syrinx.

The next step was to supply the organ pipes with wind so they could be made to produce tones without blowing on each one separately. A wooden box was invented, and each pipe inserted into a hole in the top of the box, which is still called the wind-chest. At first this was supplied with air by two attendants who blew into tubes attached to the wind-chest. Soon the tubes were replaced by bellows, and were worked with the arms, and as the instrument grew larger, with the feet like in a treadmill. An organ is spoken of in the Talmud as having stood in the Temple of Jerusalem, and the hydraulic (water) organ in which air was supplied to the pipes by means of water power was built in Alexandria, Egypt, about the year 250 B.C. The small organ with keys that could be carried from place to place was called a portative (from the Latin porto—to carry); the larger organ sometimes stationary and sometimes moved on wheels was called a positive. The levers needed to produce the sound were soon exchanged for keyboards which at first had only a few keys, and you may remember our telling how the keys were pounded with the fists and elbows, in the Winchester organ.

A Greek writer of the 4th century A.D. gives us a vivid description of an organ: “I see a strange sort of reeds—they must methinks have sprung from no earthly, but a brazen soil. Wild are they, nor does the breath of man stir them, but a blast, leaping forth from a cavern of oxhide, passes within, beneath the roots of the polished reeds.”

It is not known just when the organ was first used in the churches, but there are records of its having been known in Spanish churches as early as the 5th century A.D. Pope Vitalian introduced it in Rome in 666, and in the 8th century in England, organ-building became a very popular profession. Cecil Forsyth says: “In those days a monk or bishop who wished to stand well with society could not take up essay-writing or social-welfare: what he could do was to lay hands on all the available timber, metal, and leather, and start organ-building.”

Pepin, the father of Charlemagne, imported an organ into Compiègne, France, from Byzantium in the 8th century. Charlemagne had it copied at Aix-la-Chapelle. The Arabians must have been organ-builders, too, for one of their most famous rulers, Haroun-al-Raschid, sent Charlemagne a pneumatic organ noted for its soft tone. The instruments made in Germany and France up to the 10th century were small and unpretending, but were objects of astonishment and curiosity.

In Magdeburg, in the 11th century, we find the first keyboard with keys 3 inches broad. In 1120, we hear of an organ in the Netherlands that had 2 manuals (keyboards) and pedals. Organ-building was growing up! In the 14th century the manuals of many organs had 31 keys.

The organ was not always accepted in the church, for in the 13th century its use was regarded as scandalous just as the English Puritans in the 17th century called it a “squeaking abomination,” and it is not even now admitted in the Greek Catholic Church!

Until the 14th century, the organ had been used only in a most primitive way to guide the singers of plain-song. It became a solo instrument when it was possible to grade its tone from soft to loud, which was done by the invention and use of three manuals: the upper one played “full organ” (very loud); the middle, the discant (softest), played a counterpoint to the subject; the subject was played on the lowest keyboard.

So we see how one invention led to another until the organ became an instrument of almost unlimited possibilities, and how keyed instruments had shown the composers how to develop music along new lines. By the end of the 16th century, organ compositions and organ-playing had made rapid progress all over Europe, and you will recall the great organists in all the churches and cathedrals in the Netherlands, in England, Italy, France, Spain, and even in Germany which up to this time had not been on the “musical map.” (Chapter XI).

Are you wondering why we have gone back into “ancient history” at this point, or have you already discovered that these grand old organists are leading us directly Bach-ward?

Frescobaldi

Just a century before Bach’s time, the greatest of all Italian organists, Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1644), was born at Ferrara, Italy. So popular was he, that he filled the vast Cathedral of St. Peter’s, whenever he played. His compositions were the most important produced for organ in the early 17th century, and his fugues were the first to be treated in modern fashion, in form, fancy, and feeling for tone color, and were a foundation on which Bach’s were built. His compositions include canzones, toccatas, ricercari, and numerous pieces in the popular dance forms. Most of these are found in two collections published for cembalo e organo (spinet and organ). He was not interested in opera, but went his own musical way expressing himself in an original and individual language far ahead of his period. With Frescobaldi, Italy ceased to be the world’s center for organists.

German Organists

At this point, Germany came into the musical field, and soon became the artistic center of organ-playing. Up to this time, the country had produced less music than any of its neighbors: Italy had written the greatest Church music, and invented opera; France had followed closely in Italy’s footsteps; the Low Countries had helped in music’s growth by their early work in polyphony and had taught all Europe including Germany; England had led the world in her compositions for virginals and harpsichord, the forerunners of piano music. Although Germany did not at first rank musically with these countries, the religious fervor and devotion to the cause of Protestantism bore fruit in the grand chorales of Luther. In these we find the birth of German music destined to rule the world for two centuries, the 18th and the 19th, just as the Italian had in the 16th and the 17th. The religious inspiration, the direct simplicity and sincerity of the chorales are the qualities found in the works of the first great German composer, Johann Sebastian Bach!

The religious wars of the first half of the 17th century crushed almost all the music out of Germany. In the second half, the organists became the leaders, and their music for organ inspired by the chorale was the first real contribution that Germany made to the growth of music.

One of the earliest of these German organists was Johann Jacob Froberger (1605–1667), of Saxony, who was a pupil of Frescobaldi, and court organist at Vienna. He went to London (1662), and as he was robbed on the way, he arrived penniless. He found work as organ-blower at Westminster Abbey. On the occasion of Charles II’s marriage, he overblew the bellows and interrupted the playing, which so enraged the organist Christopher Gibbons, son of Orlando, that he struck him. Poor Froberger! But he had a chance to redeem himself, for he sat down to the organ a few moments later, and started to improvise in a manner for which he was famous in Vienna. A former pupil of his, recognizing his style, was overjoyed to find him, and presented him to the King. He was invited to play on the harpsichord which he did to the astonishment of every one.

A Dutch organist, Johann Adam Reinken (1623–1722) and a Dane, Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707) belong to this school, as they lived in Germany most of their lives and worked along the lines the Germans were developing. Reinken was a pupil of Frescobaldi; he had a direct influence on Bach who often walked from Lüneburg to Hamburg to hear the far-famed organist. When Reinken was 99 years old he heard Bach improvise on his Chorale “By the Waters of Babylon,” which drew from him the praise, “I thought that this art was dead, but I see that it still lives in you.”

Absolute Music

It is very probable that had Buxtehude not lived, Bach would have written his organ works in a different style, so deeply did the younger composer study the older man’s compositions. Buxtehude was organist in Lüneburg and there he started a series of concerts which became so popular that they were continued into the 19th century. Bach walked fifty miles to hear Buxtehude play, but was too shy to make himself known to the great man; it was probably to hear one of the concerts which had the poetic name of Abendmusik (Evening Music), that he went. Buxtehude was one of the first to try to make instrumental music stand as music (a language in itself), without a dance form, a plain-song or chorale or poetic idea behind it, to act as a Biblical text does in a sermon. This music for music’s sake is called “Absolute Music” and Bach was one of its strongest disciples. Absolute music, which was so beautifully handled by Buxtehude, became the basis of the Classic School of the 18th and early 19th centuries.

The organ chorale prelude which was so important a musical form during this period had a very interesting history. Today the organist in our churches plays the hymn through before it is sung; he plays it quite simply just as it is written in the Hymnal, but in the day of these old German organists, the artistic feeling was deeper, and the organist was allowed to weave the chorale or hymn into a beautiful and complete composition. But in his love of composing and of showing how many different ways he could decorate the chorale, he often exceeded his time limit, and the chorale prelude was left behind. In its place the organ fantasia and the sonata appeared.

Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706), of Nüremberg, was a pupil of another celebrated director and organist, Johann Kaspar Kerl (1628–1693), who was said to be one of the best teachers of composition of his day. There were also three German organists born late in the 16th century, all of whom were followers of the famous Dutch composer Jan Sweelinck. They were known as the “three S’s”—Heinrich Schütz was the greatest of them. He wrote organ music, but also worked out a scheme for combining the chorale with the ideas of Peri and Caccini for use with Bible texts in the Lutheran Church. This was called Passion music and was originally written for Good Friday. On this foundation Bach built some of his grandest oratorios. The Italian influence came into Schütz’s work while he was a pupil of Gabrieli in Venice. Johann Heinrich Schein was a Cantor at St. Thomas’ School before Bach, and wrote many chorales. The third of the “three S’s” was Samuel Scheidt who was called the German Frescobaldi. “What plain-song was to Palestrina and his school, the chorale was to Schütz and his followers.” (Quoted from Charles Villiers Stanford.)

The Inventor of the Sonata and of “Program Music”

Johann Kuhnau (1660–1722), wrote many compositions which today we find very amusing! For his day, however, he must have been looked upon as ultra-modern! The composition which first brought him into public notice was a motet, written for the election of the town council. Could you imagine anyone writing a serious composition for an election today, or anyone willing to listen to it at the polls? He was organist of St. Thomas’, in Leipsic, a graduated lawyer, master of several languages, writer of satirical poems, musical director of the University, and finally Cantor in two Churches. He was admired and honored after his death as one of the greatest musicians of his day and one of the most learned men. He invented a style of music for the clavier which he called Sonata. It was in several movements and was not based on dance tunes as were the suites. While it was not in the form that later was known as sonata-form, it was a sign-post pointing the way. Seven of these sonatas he named Fresh Clavier Fruit! And it was fresh in style as well as in name.

He was the first German composer to write “program music,” that is the kind which tries to tell a story, or to imitate the actual sounds of natural objects, such as the crash of thunder, the motion of a windmill, the rocking of a cradle, and the cackling of a hen. You can see how long a list one might make and how easy it would be for anyone with a vivid imagination to make up all sorts of pictures in music. This is just the opposite from music for music’s sake which we described to you as “Absolute Music,” and most of it which follows this period when music comes of age can be put into one of the two camps,—the Program Music Camp, or the Absolute Music Camp.

Kuhnau’s program music took a queer turn! He was living at a time when religion was uppermost in every one’s thoughts, when the Bible stories were bedtime stories and when the leading compositions were the sonatas written for organ. So in 1700 he published six Biblical-history Sonatas. In David and Goliath, he attempts to put into music the rude defiance and bravado of the giant; the fear of the Hebrews; David’s courage and fearlessness, and the battle and fall of the giant; the flight of the Philistines (can’t you imagine how the composer would represent this with all kinds of runs and scales?); the joy of the Hebrews; the celebration of the women who probably came out to meet David “with timbrels and harps”; and general jubilation.

At the end of the 17th century, Germany was strongly under the influence of France and Italy, especially in opera. In Dresden, Berlin, Munich and Vienna, one heard only opera in Italian sung by Italian singers, but Hamburg tried to develop a national music by giving German opera sung by German singers, and attracted many serious musicians. Johann Mattheson (1681–1764) a singer, conductor and composer, is remembered chiefly for a book called A German Roll of Honor, in which he gathered up all the information he could find about German composers up to his time. He asked all the living composers to write accounts of themselves for his book, so we take it for granted that it must be truthful!

Music had changed more in the 17th century than in any that had gone before. If we tried to sum it all up in one word we should say that it was a century of transition or the passage from one condition to another. It began with the old Ecclesiastical, or Church, modes, and ended with the major and minor scales which we still use today; the reign of counterpoint was over, and now had to share the throne on equal terms with harmony.

Sonata-Form

The dominating musical form after Bach’s time was to be the Sonata, a name we have often used. The sonata which found its champions in Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, was the child of the sonata written by D. Scarlatti, Kuhnau, and Bach and his sons. It is built on the principle of contrast as were the suites. A sonata is a collection of three or four related pieces called movements: one, fast—one, slow—then fast. If in four movements, the first is moderately fast; the second, very slow; the third, fast (scherzo); the fourth fast (usually rondo form).

Sonata-form is the name given to the first movement of a sonata, a string quartet, trio, quintet, etc., concerto or a symphony. It has two main themes which are announced, then developed and then re-announced, forming three contrasting sections or panels: Statement or Exposition, Development, and Restatement. From now on, when we speak of sonata-form, this picture should come to you.

The stage is now all set for Bach and those who came after him.