between the single melody line of the Orient and Greece and Rome, and
the many melody lines, called polyphonic music, of Europe.

In 325 A.D., Emperor Constantine made Christianity the national religion
of Rome. He also founded the Christian Church in Byzantium, later called
Constantinople, and all through the Dark Ages, in many parts of Europe,
the cathedrals and church schools were the only gleam of learning in a
time of darkness and struggle.

After the Roman Empire reached its greatest height, in the 2nd century,
it gradually grew weaker and during the 4th and 5th centuries, the
Goths, Vandals and Huns drove the government from Rome to
Constantinople. In the 7th century Mohammedanism rose and swept over
Syria, Egypt and North Africa, and reached Spain in the 8th century.

                            ANSWERING MUSIC

It is related that St. Ignatius (49–107 A.D.) one of the early Christian
fathers, had a vision in which he heard the Heavenly choirs praising the
Holy Trinity, in alternating chants, and he was so impressed by it, that
he introduced into the Church the idea of two choirs of singers
answering each other.

In singing the Psalms of David, the Hebrews used this idea of antiphonal
music. (Anti—against, phonal—sounding: antiphonal—sounding against each
other.) We see it too in the Greek choruses, in the Roman kitharoedic
chants (chants accompanied by the _kithara_), and now in the early
Christian hymns. From this antiphonal music to the later polyphony
(poly—many, phony—sounds: many voices or parts) is a natural step. Here
again is an instance of the influence of one nation on another.

                       THE PATRON SAINT OF MUSIC

Among the martyrs to the cause of the Christian faith, was St. Cecilia,
a member of a noble Roman family, who was put to death for becoming a
Christian about 177 A.D. She is believed to be buried in the Roman
catacombs (underground burial chambers) and is the patron saint of
music, and she is supposed to have invented the organ.

It was St. Ambrose (333–397 A.D.) who worked out the first system for
church music and put it on a foundation that lasted for two hundred
years.

                         GREEK MODES AS MODELS

St. Ambrose built scales modeled on the old Greek modes and they were
given Greek names, but somehow the names became mixed so that the mode
called by Ambrose, Dorian (from D to D on the white keys of the piano)
was the Greek Phrygian; and the Phrygian (E to E) of Ambrose was called
Dorian by the Greeks; F to F is the Lydian mode; G to G, the Mixolydian.
These were the four authentic _Ecclesiastical_ or _Church Modes_.

St. Ambrose felt it his duty to make over the church music because
popular street songs had crept in with the Hebrew Psalms and Greek and
Roman chants! It was much the same effect as if you entered a church and
heard the organ and choir performing “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” This is
a funny comparison because it is said that a part of “Yes, We Have No
Bananas” is stolen from Handel’s great “Hallelujah” Chorus from the
oratorio _The Messiah_.

About this time, schools were formed to train singers in these new hymns
and church services, and a way to write down the music composed by St.
Ambrose and his followers was needed. The Greek letters had been used in
Rome, but now a new system called _neumes_ appeared; this word comes
from the Greek and means “breath” and the neumes simply marked where one
should breathe in chanting the hymns. There were eight signs with Latin
names which gave full directions when to raise and lower the voice.

The system of Neumes notation looks like our present day shorthand and
was a help, though, should we use it now we would think it anything but
a help.

While the Neumes writing showed how to mark the time, it had a serious
shortcoming, because it did not outline the melody exactly. It indicated
whether the melody rose or fell, but just how much was a question not
definitely shown. An unfamiliar chant could not be sung until the
notation had been worked out. It took five years for a choir singer to
be able to sing the music!

When the singers sang solos, they ornamented the songs and sang anything
they pleased! This made variety but it must also have caused much
confusion! The people may have learned this ornamental singing of the
Arab, from _The Gloss_. (Page 59.)

The next step was the Gregorian chant which even today is sung in the
Roman Catholic Churches.

To the four authentic scales of St. Ambrose, St. Gregory who was Pope
from 590 to 604 added four more called _plagal_. He did not invent these
scales but based them on the old Greek and Ambrosian modes. To each
authentic scale, he added a plagal scale starting four tones below it,
and to the name of the authentic mode is added the prefix _hypo_.

Each authentic mode and its _hypo_ are related.

Here is a table of these related modes, and their names:

  _After a painting by Garofalo, National Gallery at Rome._

  _Saint Cecilia—Patron Saint of Music._
  (_Holding a portative organ._)
]

  _After a painting by Maxence, in Paris._

  _Book of Peace._
]

      AUTHENTIC SCALES OR MODES            PLAGAL SCALES OR MODES
       (St. Ambrose’s Scales)              (St. Gregory’s Scales)

    I. Dorian:                         II. Hypo-Dorian:
         d ef͡ g a bc͡ d                       a bc͡ d ef͡ g a
  III. Phrygian:                       IV. Hypo-Phrygian:
         ef͡ g a bc͡ d e                       bc͡ d ef͡ g a b
    V. Lydian:                         VI. Hypo-Lydian:
         f g a bc͡ d ef͡                       c d ef͡ g a bc͡
  VII. Mixo-Lydian:                  VIII. Hypo-Mixo-Lydian:
         g a bc͡ d ef͡ g                       d ef͡ g a bc͡ d

We have marked the half-steps _bc͡_ and _ef͡_, and in every mode they
fall on different degrees of the scale. This shifting of the half-steps
tells us the name of the mode.

In order to try to give you a definite idea of how the church modes
worked, we have written the familiar national hymn _America_ in each
mode (see page 74). Play them, and you will see how one differs from the
other.

Katherine Ruth Heyman has used a similar idea in her little book _The
Relation of Ultramodern to Archaic Music_ in explaining Greek Modes.

It took many years to establish this music and it was not until the time
of Charlemagne (742–814) that it became a real system called Plain Chant
or Plain-song (from the Latin, _cantus planus_).

Pope Gregory founded the _Schola Cantorum_, school of singers, at Rome,
and with these trained people he tried to establish for all Christian
churches, a way to sing systematically and well. They studied nine
years, and everything had to be memorized, for only the leader had a
song book. Books were written by hand and were hard to get. The teacher
had a monochord, the instrument invented by Pythagoras, to give the
pitch, for all the singing was done without accompaniment. The singing
must have improved greatly after Gregory became Pope, for before his
reform, music had become a stunt with no solemnity, and people in the
churches waved handkerchiefs if the stunt pleased them!

[Illustration: AMERICA]

                             A LONG JOURNEY

At any rate the Gregorian chant flourished and was so loved that
Benedict Biscop, and other monks interested in music, came from far-off
England to learn the chant invented by St. Gregory. A long journey! In
675 Biscop sent to Rome for singers and built monasteries very close to
a pagan temple, where the Anglo-Saxons still worshipped the Roman Sun
god, Apollo, also god of music. These he filled with beautiful relics,
paintings and stained glass windows, Bibles and service books
illuminated in gold and color, which he brought from Rome.

Bringing things from Rome may sound easy to you, but fancy the travel
and inconvenience when there were no steamships, no railroads, no
aeroplanes, but only Roman roads, which however marvelous, were long and
wearisome by foot or by horse, or mule and rude wagons. This shows how
much the people of Britain desired music and beauty in their church
services.

                             VENERABLE BEDE

About this time, there lived a man in England so loved and respected
that he was called the Venerable Bede. Although music had no such
variety, melody and richness as today, just see what the Venerable Bede
says about it: “Music is the most worthy, courteous, pleasant, joyous
and lovely of all knowledge; it makes a man gentlemanly in his demeanor,
pleasant, courteous, joyous, lovely, for it acts upon his feelings.
Music encourages us to bear the heaviest afflictions, administers
consolation in every difficulty, refreshes the broken spirit, removes
headache and cures crossness and melancholy.”

Isn’t it remarkable for a man to have said this so long ago, when
scientists, today, have just _begun_ to think that music may have a
power of healing ills of the mind and of the body! Truly—“there is
nothing new under the sun!”

So Bede used the plain chant of Gregory and through his influence,
spread this dignified music throughout England, and wherever a monastery
was founded, a music school was started.

The Venerable Bede writes that Ethelbert of Kent, King of Britain, was a
worshipper of Odin and Thor, Norse gods, but he married a French
Princess who was a Christian. One day, writes the Venerable Bede, forty
monks led in solemn procession by St. Augustine, passed before the king
singing a chant. After hearing this marvelous hymn, he became a
Christian and gave permission to the English to become worshippers of
Christ instead of Norse and Druid gods. This hymn which converted
Ethelbert in 597 A.D. was sung thirteen hundred years later (1897) in
the same place, Canterbury, by another group of Benedictine monks!

At first the songs were sung unaccompanied, but later as in the time of
David, the Church allowed instruments. The lyre and the harp were used
first but the cymbals and the dulcimer, somewhat like our zither, were
considered too noisy.

The Venerable Bede called music made by instruments _artificial_ music,
and that of the human voice, _natural_ music. Whether at that time the
viol, the drum, the organ or the psaltery (an instrument like the
dulcimer) were used in the Church, is not known positively.

After Bede’s death, Alcuin, a monk and musician, continued his work. He
was appointed by Charlemagne, Emperor of France, to teach music in the
schools of Germany and France to spread the use of the Gregorian chant.

                         A CURIOUS MUSIC SYSTEM

In 900 A.D. an important thing happened, by which the reading and
learning of music was much simplified. A red line was drawn straight
across the page and this line represented “F” the tone on the fourth
line of the bass staff. The _neumes_ written on this red line were “F”
and the others above or below, were of higher or lower pitch. This
worked so well, that they placed a yellow line above the red line and
this they called “C.” These two lines were the beginnings of our five
line staff, but much happened between the two-line days and the five.

At this time people did not sing in parts, known as they are to
us—soprano, alto, tenor, bass, but everybody sang the same tune, that
is, sang in unison, and when men and women or men and boys sang
together, the men’s voices sounded an octave lower than the women’s and
the boy’s. Some voices have naturally a high range and others low, and
no doubt in these plain chant melodies the singers who could not reach
all the tones comfortably, dropped unconsciously to a lower pitch, and
in that way, made a second part. Soon the composers made this melody in
the medium range of the voice a part of their pieces instead of trusting
the singers to make it up as they went along. The principal tune sung or
carried by most of the singers was given the name _tenor_ (from the
Latin _teneo_, to hold or carry). We use the same word to indicate the
man’s voice of high range.

                          HUCBALD AND ORGANUM

Hucbald (840–930), a Flemish monk, first wrote a second part, always a
fifth above or a fourth below the tenor or “subject.” (The Latin name
for the subject is _cantus firmus_—fixed song.) Hucbald probably used
the fifth and fourth because they were perfect intervals, and all others
except the octave, were imperfect. There were often four parts including
the _cantus firmus_, for two parts were doubled. This succession of
fourths and fifths sounds very crude and ugly (just try the example),
but these people of the Middle Ages must have liked it, for it lasted
several centuries and was an attempt at making chords. This music was
called _organum_ or _diaphony_ (dia-two, phony-sound: two sounds). As
early as 1100, singers tried out new effects with the added parts and
introduced a few imperfect intervals, thirds and sixths, and tried
singing occasionally in contrary motion to the subject,—this was called
_discant_ from a Greek word meaning discord. Maybe at first it sounded
discordant but soon it came to mean any part outside of the _cantus
firmus_ or subject. (See musical illustrations.)

[Illustration: Organum (IXth and Xth Centuries)]

[Illustration: Diaphony]

  Discant (XIIth Century)

  Example of Organum, Diaphony, Discant
]

There was also a kind of diaphony in which a third voice was written as
a bass, a fifth below the _cantus firmus_, but it was actually sung an
octave higher than it was written and sounded much better that way. As
it was not a bass at all it received the name of false bass or _faux
bourdon_. This was the beginning of chords such as we use.

So, Hucbald started the science of harmony,—the study of chords. Hucbald
called this _ars organum_—the art of organating or organizing.

Hucbald also invented a system of writing music on a staff. It was not a
staff such as we use today for he wrote in the spaces the initials T and
S. T meant that the singer was to sing a whole tone, S, a semitone or
half-step. He used a six line staff and wrote words in script instead of
notes like this:

[Illustration: Staff]

               GUIDO D’AREZZO AND HIS ADDITIONS TO MUSIC

The next great name in music history is Guido d’Arezzo, a Benedictine
monk (995–1050), famous for his valuable additions to music.

He invented the four-line staff, using both lines and spaces and giving
a definite place on the staff to each sound:

                       Yellow line C————————————
                       Black line  .............
                       Red line    F————————————
                       Black line  .............

In the Middle Ages, the men did most of the singing so the music was
written in a range to suit their voices. C is middle C, and F the bass
clef.

All music had to be written by hand and the monks made wonderful
parchment copies of works composed for the church services. They soon
grew careless about the yellow lines and red lines, so Guido placed the
letters C and F at the beginning of the lines instead of using the
colored lines.

Sometimes there were three lines to a staff, sometimes four, five, and
even eleven! The use of clefs showing which line was C or F, made
reading of music much easier. At the end of the 16th century the
question of the number of lines to the staff was definitely decided,
then they used four lines for the plain chant and five for all secular
music. By calling the fifth line of the eleven, middle C, two staffs of
five lines resulted—the grand staff of today.

Here is a table to show you how clefs grew:

[Illustration: (from Vincent d’Indy’s “Cours de Composition Musicale”)]

Hucbald built his scales in groups of four tones like the Greek
tetrachords but Guido extended this tetrachord to a hexachord or
six-toned scale, and by overlapping the hexachords, he built a series of
scales to which he gave the name, _gamut_, because it started on the G
which is the first note of our grand staff (lowest line, bass clef) and
the Greek word for G is “Gamma.”

                     F G ab͡♭ c d }
                           ½ step }
               C D EF͡ G a        }  This was repeated starting
                    ½ step        }     an octave higher.
         G A BC͡ D E              }
              ½ step              }
                         (Read from lowest line up.)

In the lowest hexachord, the B is natural, in the second hexachord there
is no B and in the third hexachord, the B is flattened. Our sign (♭) for
flat comes from the fact that this B was called a round B and the sign
(♮) for natural was called a square B. The sharp (♯) came from the
natural and both meant at first raising the tone a half-step.

Guido once heard the monks in the monastery of Arezzo singing a hymn in
honor of St. John the Baptist. He noticed that each line of the Latin
poem began on ascending notes of the scale,—the first line on C, the
second on D, and so on up to the sixth on A. It gave him the idea to
call each degree of the hexachord by the first syllable of the line of
the Latin hymn, thus:

                           _Ut_queant laxis,
                           _Re_sonare fibris,
                           _Mi_ra gestorum,
                           _Fam_uli tuorum,
                           _Sol_ve polluti,
                           _Lab_ia reatum.

                      HYMN TO ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

[Illustration: _UT que-ant la-xis RE-so ne-re fi-bris, MI ra ges-to-rum
FA-mu-li tu o rum, SOL ve pol-lu ti LA bi a re a tumB͡C, Sancte
Io-es-nes_]

Here is a translation:

              Grant that the unworthy lips of Thy servant
              May be gifted with due harmony,
              Let the tones of my voice
              Sing the praises of Thy wonders.

We still call our scale degrees _ut_ (frequently changed to _do_), _re_,
_mi_, _fa_, _sol_, _la_. The French today use these syllables instead of
the letters of the alphabet, and Guido is known as the man who
originated this solmization (the word taken from the syllables _sol_ and
_mi_).

Where did the syllable _si_, the seventh degree of the scale, come from?
This hymn was written to St. John and in Latin his name is _Sancte
Ioannes_, the initials of which form the syllable _si_ which came into
use long after Guido’s time.

This system was very difficult for the singers to learn as it was quite
new to them, so Guido used his hand as a guide to the singers. Each
joint represented a different syllable and tone, and a new scale began
on every fourth tone. Look at the Guidonian hand on the next page.

Guido was so great a teacher and musician that he was given credit for
inventing much that already existed. He gathered all the knowledge he
could find into a book, that was sent to the monasteries and music
schools. He put in much that never before had been written down,
explained many things that had never been clear, and added much that was
new and useful.

Sometimes his name was written Gui or Guion. When he lived people had no
last names but were called by the name of their native towns; as Guido
was born in Arezzo, a town of Tuscany, he was called Guido d’Arezzo;
Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter, was born in the village of Vinci;
and the great Italian composer Pierluigi da Palestrina came from
Palestrina.

Guido’s work was considered revolutionary and not in accord with the old
ways which the church fathers reverenced. Because of plots against him,
he was cast into prison. But the Pope, realizing his greatness and
value, saved him. The inventors of new ideas always suffer!

[Illustration: Hand]

                     MENSURAL MUSIC OR TIMED MUSIC

Before Guido invented it, there had been no system of counting time.

If you are studying music, you know all about time signatures and what
metre a piece is in, from the ¾, ⁶⁄₈, ⁹⁄₈, ²⁄₄, ⁴⁄₄ or sign Ⅽ at the
beginning of the composition, but you probably do not know how or when
these signs came into use. In the Gregorian plain song and in Organum,
there was practically no variety of rhythm and no need for showing time
or marking off the music into measures. The accents fell quite naturally
according to the words that were sung, much as you would recite poetry.
But as music grew up and became more difficult, it was necessary for a
chorus singing in three or four different parts, to sing in time as well
as in tune, in order, at least, to start and finish together!

The first metre that was used was triple (three beats to the measure).
It was called perfect and was indicated by a perfect circle, ○, the
symbol of the Holy Trinity and of perfection. Duple metre (two beats to
the measure) was imperfect and was indicated by an incomplete circle, Ϲ.
Our sign for common time (four beats to the measure), Ϲ comes from this
incomplete circle. ⁹⁄₈ was written ☉; ¾ was ○; ⁶⁄₈ was Ͼ; and ⁴⁄₄ was Ϲ.

A monk named Franco, from Cologne, on the Rhine, early in the twelfth
century, invented these time signatures, and notes which in themselves
indicated different time values. Hucbald’s neumes were no longer suited
to the new music, and besides time signatures it became necessary to
have a music language showing very clearly and definitely the composer’s
rhythm.

            FRANCO’S NOTATION                 OUR NOTATION

             ▬         (maxima)      =      ⬭       (whole note)
             ▜         (longa)       =      ᑯ       (half note)
             ◼         (brevis)      =      ♩       (quarter note)
             ◆         (semi-brevis) =      ♪       (eighth note)

Franco used four kinds of notes. Here they are translated into the time
values of today.

                                 ORGANS

In the 10th century, organs came into use in the churches, but they were
ungainly and crude, sounding only a few tones, and were probably only
used to keep the singers on pitch. The organ had been invented long
before this, and had been used in Greece and Egypt. It was built on the
principle of Pan’s Pipes and was very simple. There were many portable
organs, called portatives, small enough to be carried about.

One organ (not a portative!) at Winchester, England, had four hundred
pipes and twenty-six pairs of bellows. It took seventy men to pump air
into it and two men to play it by pounding on a key with their fists or
elbows. The tone was so loud that it could be heard all over the town.
Fancy that!

During these centuries, music was growing slowly but surely. Out of
_organum_ and _discant_ and _faux bourdon_, arose a style called
counterpoint, in which three, four or more melodies were sung at the
same time. The writing of _counterpoint_, or line over line, is like a
basket weave for the different melodies weave in and out like pieces of
willow or raffia forming the basket. Later will come the _chorale_,
written in chords or up and down music like a colonnade or series of
columns. Keep this picture in mind. (St. Nicolas Tune, Chapter XI.) The
word _point_ means _note_ so _counterpoint_ means _note against note_.
The word was first applied in the 13th century to very crude and
discordant part-writing. But, little by little the monks learned how to
combine melodies beautifully and harmoniously and we still use many of
their rules.

Gradually great schools of church music flourished in France, Germany,
Spain, England, Italy and the Netherlands in the 14th, 15th and 16th
centuries.

Bit by bit this vast musical structure was built. It did not grow
quickly; each new idea took centuries to become a part of music, and as
often the idea was not good, it took a long time to replace it.

                              CHAPTER VIII
     Troubadours and Minnesingers Brought Music to Kings and People

Except for the first few chapters in this book, we have told you of
music made by men who wanted to improve it. You have seen how the
fathers of the Church first reformed music, and gave it a shorthand
called neumes; before that, the music laws of the Egyptians, the scales
and modes of the Arab, the Greek scales which the churchmen used in the
Ambrosian and the Gregorian modes. Then came the two-lined staff, and
the beginnings of mensural or measured music by which they kept time.
Then you saw how two melodies were fitted together and how they grew
into four parts. All this we might call “on purpose” music. At the same
time, in all the world, in every country, there was Song ... and never
have the world and the common people (called so because they are neither
of the nobility nor of the church) been without folk song which has come
from the folks of the world, the farmers, the weavers, and the laborers.

The best of these songs have what the great composers try to put into
their music—a feeling of fresh free melody, design, balance, and climax,
but more of this in the chapter on Folk Song.

This chapter is to be about Troubadours, Trouvères, and Minnesingers,
who have left over two thousand songs. In most of these, they made up
both words and music, but sometimes they used new words made up for folk
tunes that everyone knew, or for melodies from the plain-chants which
they had heard in church; sometimes they used the same melody for
several different poems, and often they set the same words to several
melodies. Many of these troubadour songs and _minnelieder_ became the
people’s own folk songs.

But now you must hear of the folk who lived hundreds of years before
these poet singers. Unknowingly, out of the heart and soul and soil of
their native lands, they made songs and sang poetry and played sometimes
other peoples’ song, scattering their own wherever they went.

From these traveling singers and players, in all countries, came the
professional musicians who were minstrels, bards, troubadours, etc.,
according to when, where and how they lived.

                        THE WHY OF THE MINSTREL

The people sang and played not only because they wanted to, or because
they loved it, but because they were the newspaper and the radio of
their time, singing the news and doings of the day. These minstrels who
traveled from place to place “broadcasted” the events. No music was
written down and no words were fastened by writing to any special piece.
The singer would learn a tune and when he sang a long story (an epic) he
would repeat the tune many times so it was necessary to find a pleasing
melody, or singers would not have been very welcome in the courts and
market places. These musical news columns entertained the people who had
few amusements. The wandering minstrels with their harps or _crwth_
(Welsh harps), or whatever instrument they might have used in their
particular country, were welcomed with open arms and hearts.

This sounds as if these singers and players traveled, and indeed they
did! They sprang up from all parts of Europe and had different names in
different places. There were bards from Britain and Ireland, skalds from
the Norse lands, minstrels from “Merrie England,” troubadours from the
south of France, trouvères from the north of France, jongleurs from both
north and south who danced and juggled for the joy of all who saw them,
and minnesingers and meistersingers in Germany.

                            DRUIDS AND BARDS

Centuries before this, Homer the great Greek poet was called the Blind
Bard and he chanted his poems, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, to the
accompaniment of the lyre, the favorite instrument of the Greeks. But
when we speak of bards in this chapter we mean the poets and musicians
of ancient Britain, when that island was inhabited and ruled by the
Druids, 1000 B.C. We do not know when the bards first began to make
music or when they were first called bards, but it is certain that for
many centuries before the Christian era, these rude, barbarous people of
the countries we know as Wales, England, Ireland and Scotland, had many
songs, dances and musical instruments.

Look at a map of France, and see how much like a teapot it is shaped.
The western part, the spout, is Brittany! As its name shows, this part
of France was inhabited by the same race of people as were in Britain,
they spoke the same language, had the same religion and made the same
music. These people were Celts and their priests were called Druids.
Much we said about primitive people is true of these early Britons. They
expressed their feelings, and tried to protect themselves from Nature
and human foes by means of religious rites and ceremonies in which music
and dancing played the leading part.

They had no churches, but held religious services in the open under the
oak trees. They piled boulders on top of each other to form altars, or
built large circular enclosures of huge flat rocks, inside of which they
gathered for worship, or to assist at some ceremonial in which
sacrifices of animals and occasionally of human beings were made. These
human sacrifices occurred once a year at the Spring Festival which was
celebrated in much the same fashion as in Greece. These masses of stone
are found not only in the British Isles, the most famous of which is
Stonehenge (which was recently bought by an American), but there are
also many of these so-called _cromlechs_ and _menhirs_ in Brittany.

It is curious how often men and women do the same things at times and
places so completely separated that they could not have been influenced
by each other, but did what was natural for them. It seems that between
the state of being primitive or savage and of being cultured, mankind
must pass through certain states of mind and certain bodily actions
common to all men. In tracing the growth of any habits and actions of
people,—in government, religion, amusements, art, music, manners and
customs, and language, we find the same customs constantly repeated
among different races. If you remember this point, you will be
interested to watch, in this book, the difference between these
experiences common to all mankind and those which later on, were caused
by the influence that one race had on another through meeting, through
conquest and through neighborly contact.

The bards belonged to the priesthood and were Druids. They sang in verse
the brave deeds of their countrymen, praises of the gods and heroes, and
legends of war and adventure, accompanying themselves on primitive
harps, or on an instrument something like the violin without a neck,
called a _crwth_. They wore long robes and when they were acting as
priests, these were covered with white surplices somewhat like the gowns
of our own clergy. From a bit of information handed down by the bards,
we learn that in Ireland, the graduate bard wore six colors in his
robes, said to be the origin of the plaid of the Scotch Highlanders; the
king wore seven colors; lords and ladies, five; governors of fortresses,
four; officers and gentlemen, three; soldiers, two, and the people were
allowed to wear only one. Even their dress seemed important and marked
the rank!

There were three kinds of bards: priestly bards who took part in the
religious rituals and were also the historians, domestic bards who made
music in honor of their masters, and heraldic bards whose duties were to
arouse patriotism through songs in praise of their national heroes. They
had to pass examinations to become bards, and the lower ranks were
tested for knowledge and ability before being promoted to the higher
ranks. Recently there has been a revival in Wales of the _Eisteddfod_,
or song contests of the Druids.

“Minstrelsy,” or singing to the _crwth_ or harp, lived on long after
Druidism had been replaced by the Christian faith. Did you ever wonder
where the custom came from of mistletoe at Christmas time? Or of dancing
around a Maypole? Or building bonfires for May-day and St. John’s eve?
Celebrating All-Hallowe’en with pumpkins and black cats? And of having
Christmas trees? Well, these customs are all relics of Druidism of 2000
or more years ago.

                                 SKALDS

In the land of the fierce Vikings or Norsemen, who inhabited
Scandinavia, Iceland and Finland before and during the Middle Ages,
there were bards called Skalds or Sagamen. They recited and sang stories
telling of their Norse gods, goddesses and heroes, Woden, Thor, Odin,
Freya, Brynnhild, and of the abode of the gods, Walhalla. These ballads
formed the national epics called _sagas_ and _eddas_, from which Richard
Wagner drew the story for his immortal music dramas, the Nibelungenlied.

Odin, who was considered a Norse god, probably was a Saxon prince who
lived in the 3rd century, A.D. He revived the Norse mythology and rites
with the aid of minstrels, seers, and priests. His teachings lasted
until the reign of Charlemagne, a devout Christian, who put an end to
pagan rites.

In the 5th century came the Saxons, Hengist and Horsa, descendants of
Odin, and much of Britain fell under their rule; with them, came the
skalds whose duty it was to celebrate the deeds of their lords. They
appeared at the great state banquets, and also on the battle fields,
encouraging the warriors with their songs of heroism, and comforting the
wounded soldiers.

When the Danes, the Angles and the Jutes came to Britain in this same
century, the country was called England or Angle-land. Harpers and
gleemen followed in the footsteps of the Scandinavian skalds. These
musician-singers went as honored guests from court to court, and
received valuable presents. A popular gleeman was given the title of
poet-laureate, and crowned with a laurel wreath.

The songs were taught orally and learned by heart, as there was no
notation at this early date (500 A.D.). They accompanied themselves on
small harps which could be carried easily. The harp was handed around
the banquet table so that each guest in turn might sing a song as his
share of the entertainment. Singing and composing poetry were a
necessary part of a gentleman’s education.

The “Venerable” Bede (Chapter VII) wrote that “Cædmon the poet (600
A.D.) never could compose any trivial or vain songs, but only such as
belonged to a serious and sacred vein of thought ... he was not
practised in the art of verse. So, oft, in an entertainment, where for
the sake of merriment it had been agreed that each in turn should sing
and harp, as the dreaded instrument was seen approaching, he arose in
shame from the supper table and went home to his house.” However, we
learn that Cædmon who was a serving man, had a vision in which an angel
asked him to “sing the beginning of creatures,” and when the vision had
passed, he remembered the heavenly song, and thus Cædmon ceased to be
shy, became the first great poet of England and was permitted to be a
monk.

As the gleemen and harpers were not fighting men, they had many
privileges not granted to the warriors. They passed, unchallenged,
through the fighting camps, and we have any number of stories of kings
and warriors disguising themselves as harpers in order to get
information about their enemies. A secret service system of the Middle
Ages!

In 878, Alfred the Great had been robbed of power and authority by the
Danes, so disguised as a gleeman and armed only with a harp, he went
into the Danish encampment. The royal minstrel was received cordially,
and while the Danish king was listening to the songs, the harper
(Alfred) was getting the information he needed, and soon made a surprise
attack with his troops and was victorious. This is spying with musical
accompaniment!

The Battle of Hastings (1066) caused great changes not only in learning,
customs, language, music, other arts and politics, but in life itself.
The French who, under William of Normandy conquered Britain, were
leaders in composing poetry and song, and they brought over to Britain
all their talents. Now romance began and with it the art of glorifying
in song and verse, deeds of valor and the charms of lovely ladies. And
here the troubadours and trouvères make their entrance into our story.

France had had songs of deeds and action called _Chansons de Geste_,
which were tales of the brave Charlemagne, celebrating his victory over
the invading Moors from Spain. One of the greatest of these was the
_Chanson de Roland_. Other songs or ballads on religious, historical,
chivalric, or political subjects took the place of our modern newspapers
and were powerful at the courts and among the people in the towns. When
a man in court circles did anything that some one objected to, one of
the minstrel-poets was hired to make up a song about it, which was sung
everywhere until the news was well circulated, and the person punished,
often undeservedly. However it made the men of those days think twice
before doing things against the rights of others, for they were really
afraid of these songs that were spread among their friends and enemies.

In the Battle of Hastings, Taillefer, a famous soldier-minstrel, led the
attack of the Normans, singing songs of Roland and of Charlemagne. He
struck the first blow in the fight, and was the first one killed, but he
went to his death singing. Tales of our own soldiers in the great war
tell us the same about the need and love of music.

                           CHANSON DE ROLAND

The _Chanson de Roland_ is the national epic poem of France, and dates
back to this Norman period. It celebrates the death at Roncevals, of
Roland, Count of the “Marsh” of Bretagne, in Charlemagne’s expedition
against Spain in 778. The work is divided into three parts. The first
tells of the fight between the French (Christians) and the Saracens
(Spanish Arabs), of the valor of Oliver and of Roland, of the latter’s
death, of Charlemagne’s miraculous victory over the Saracens. The second
part is a poem not based on fact, in which Charlemagne fights Baligant,
the chief of all the pagans of the Orient; the western chief is
victorious over the pagan chief, who is utterly defeated and killed.
This poem pictures the victory of Christianity over Paganism. In the
third part, the revenge is carried further, by Charlemagne’s taking the
Saracen city Saragosse, and bringing back with him to France another of
the leaders, Ganelon, who was tried and condemned to death.

This is the leading French work of the Middle Ages, as it sums up the
greatest idealism, and brings to us that which they considered most
vital—the call of patriotism, of honor and of duty.

                  GREAT CATHEDRALS AND FEUDAL CASTLES

About this time began the building of the great Gothic churches in
France, England, and Germany. Rome had fallen, paganism had gone, and
the spirit of Christianity was taking great hold of the people’s hearts.
As a result of this feeling to praise God suitably the great churches
which we copy even today were built.

If “architecture is frozen music,” you can understand why music and
architecture developed at the same time.

This was also the age of Feudalism, when the noblemen lived in castles
with moats and drawbridges, and owned vast tracts of land and whole
villages. People were retainers, vassals and serfs, with no freedom and
no property rights except what the lords gave them. They even had to
give their masters much of the produce of the lands which they
cultivated. Of course, these feudal lords besides having to be fed and
guarded had to be entertained, and had to know what was going on in the
outside world. So, the minstrels and bards were cordially welcomed, and
wandered from castle to castle, receiving presents of money or clothes,
jewelry, horses, and sometimes even houses.

               WHAT TROUBADOURS LEARNED THROUGH CRUSADES

Every year during the early centuries of the Christian era, hundreds of
pilgrims journeyed to the Holy Land undergoing much hardship on the way.
They thought through this pilgrimage to be forgiven for their sins, and
win the approval of the Church, then far more powerful than the kings.
Toward the end of the 11th century, Mohammedans had seized Palestine,
and prevented the Christian pilgrims from doing penance or worshipping
at the Holy Sepulchre. This led to a series of expeditions against the
Mohammedans in Palestine in which all the Christian countries of Europe
united. These expeditions were called the Crusades (1095–1271), and they
have been celebrated in story and song ever since. The Crusades gave the
rough uncultured men of the Western world the chance to hear the poetry
and the songs of the Arabs (Chapter VI), who at that time were the most
advanced in culture and arts. Although the Oriental music with its
complicated rhythms must have been hard to learn, the Crusaders brought
back much of real value and beauty,—a new way of singing, new subjects
for poems, and two new instruments, a kind of guitar and _el oud_, in
Europe called lute. The lute had a strong influence on popular music,
for it was the most commonly used instrument for centuries.

                           ROMANCE LANGUAGES

Latin had been the language of France because the Romans lived there so
long, but later it became mixed with the rough dialect and speech of the
Franks and other Gothic barbarous tribes and was much changed. From this
mixture came rustic Latin, or _Romanse rustique_, and modern French,
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are still called Romance languages. A
new poetry was born in Provence, the south of France, and in Normandy in
the north, written in this _Romanse rustique_, and the oldest French
songs were called _lais_, lay or ballad. The great ruler Charlemagne
collected these _lais_ of barbarian period and the trouvères and
troubadours had wonderful old songs of heroism to choose from.

In Provence they said “oc” for “yes” and in Normandy, “oui.” So, the
language of the south of France was called “langue d’oc” and of the
north “langue d’oui.”

                   TROUBADOURS, TROUVÈRES, JONGLEURS

The troubadours, whose very name brings to mind a charming picture of
romance, chivalry and adventure, were the poet-composers of Provence a
land of sunshine where men were brave and courteous, and women beautiful
and gracious. The words _troubadour_ and _trouvères_, come from
_trobar_, _trouver_, meaning to find or to invent, for these troubadours
and trouvères were the inventors or composers of poems which they set to
music.

They wrote their songs on the four-lined staff in square notes, without
written accompaniment. The accompaniments played on the lute, the
guitar, the vielle, or sometimes the harp, were probably made up by the
_jongleur_, (_joglar_, _jouglar_, in English,—juggler) who sang the
songs, had trained bears, danced and played tricks. Then as now there
were composers and performers. The troubadours and trouvères were as a
rule, nobles and even royalty. Five kings belonged to their number, the
greatest of them were Richard Cœur de Lion, William Count of Poitiers,
Alfonso, Thibaut de Champagne, and King of Navarre.

The troubadour seldom sang his own songs, as this was the jongleur’s
duty. There were many more jongleurs than troubadours, and they belonged
to a much lower grade of society. The jongleurs traveled from place to
place, from castle to castle, with their instruments slung across their
backs, and their songs in a little bag at their side. They were heartily
welcomed wherever they went, but if they found the doors of the castles
closed to them, they soon gathered a crowd in the public squares, where
they performed to the joy of the townspeople.

Can you imagine the pleasure these strolling entertainers gave to the
people who did not have motors, movies, radios, gramophones and theatres
for their amusement? How happy the custodian of the castle must have
been when he looked across the moat and lowered the drawbridge for the
welcome minstrels!

The jongleurs grew so numerous, and their music became so poor that they
were nuisances, little better than outlaws and beggars. How easily a
good thing can be overdone!

In the 14th century they banded together in perhaps the first musical
union on record. They appointed leaders, called kings of the minstrels
or jugglers. At first they were hired by nobles and troubadours as
entertainers with the rank of servants. Even the monasteries received
them with joy during the early days; later they were denounced by the
Church, and forbidden to enter the monasteries, for they had sung of
evil things instead of lovely things and had acted unseemly. During
Lent, they were forbidden to appear in public, so they wisely used that
time to go to schools of minstrelsy, where they learned new songs, and
tried their skill at composing. In these schools they were also taught
to play their instruments. Sometimes we hear of women minstrels, who
sang, played the flute, danced, and performed tricks to the endless
delight of the audience. (See lining of the cover of this book.)

The jongleurs, at their best, seem to have “gotten in” everywhere,—at
the courts of kings, in all the tournaments, festivals, pilgrimages, and
weddings. A wedding wasn’t complete without them! At the knightly
tournaments and jousts, the minstrel was a most necessary person, for,
did he not take the place of newspapers, and give accounts to a waiting
world of the results of the exciting tournaments?

Massenet, the French composer, wrote a lovely opera called _The Juggler
of Notre Dame_, from one of the old miracle tales of a young juggler
sheltered by the monks of Notre Dame. Everyone brought rich gifts to
place at the feet of the Virgin Mary, but being a pauper, he had nothing
but his songs, dances and tricks, which he offered the Virgin by going
through them as best he could in front of the shrine. So shocked were
the monks by his seeming lack of respect, that they wanted to drive him
out! At this moment the miracle took place. The image of the Virgin came
to life and stretched forth her arms protectingly to the young juggler,
showing that she accepted his offering given in all sincerity and
simplicity.

As all the countries of Europe took part in the Crusades, the
troubadours’ songs were heard by others than the French, and their music
spread rapidly. Richard, the Lion-Hearted, King of England, was a famous
Crusader and a troubadour of skill. He invited jongleurs over from
France, one of whom, Blondel de Nesle, became his devoted companion
during the Crusade of 1193, and saved Richard’s life. Richard was taken
captive by Leopold, Duke of Austria, and was cast into a dungeon. The
English did not know where to look for their monarch, but Blondel
undertook the search, going from place to place, singing songs which he
and the king had written together. One day as he sang, from the tower of
a castle came a voice which he recognized as Richard’s, singing the same
song! And soon the royal troubadour was released.

                            THE TROUBADOURS

This new art of poetry and song was called “The gay science of chivalry
and love-service.” Indeed many of the poems about knightly adventure
were addressed to some fair lady, real or imaginary, known or unknown.
Curious as it may seem, the names of most of these songs came from the
Arabian, because the Europeans met them during the crusades and during
the Arabs’ conquests and roamings in Europe.

The names tell you what the songs were about. _Chanson_ and _canzo_ both
mean song, and we see these names today on our concert programs. There
were story telling songs called the _chansons de toile_, songs of linen,
which told of the lovely damsels at work weaving, of their beauty, and
of their thoughts, for the women of castle and cottage alike wove the
cloth out of which the clothes were made. Then, they had dramatic songs
and dancing songs called _estampies_ (from which comes our word
stamping); the _reverdies_, or spring songs, to celebrate the Spring
festivals; the _pastorelles_ in which the heroine was always a charming
shepherdess; the _sera_ or _serenade_, an evening song; the _nocturne_,
a night song, and love songs were often sung under the beloved ladies’
windows! The _alba_ was a morning song. The _sirvantes_, or songs of
service, sung in praise of princes or nobles, or telling of public
happenings were important. These were often accompanied by drums, bells,
pipes and trumpets.

We have debating societies in our schools and colleges, and questions of
the day are discussed in the newspapers, but in the troubadours’ day,
debates were made into songs, sung by two people, and were called
_tensons_. Many curious and rather foolish questions were made the
subjects of these songs.

Sometimes these popular songs found their way into the Church, and were
made into fine church music, and sometimes a bit of melody from the
Church went through the hands of a troubadour poet and was turned into a
_rounde_, _ballata_, _sera_, or _pastorella_.

This poetry and song of Provence lasted until the middle of the 14th
century, for in the twelve hundreds the revolts against the abuses of
the Church rose to such seriousness that massacres took place, towns
were destroyed and many nobles and troubadours lost their lives.

                               TROUVÈRES

Shortly after the troubadours began to compose, in the north of France
came the trouvères who profited much from the music and poetry of their
southern brothers.

However, the trouvères did not have the warm, lovely dialect of the
southern troubadours. As they were closer to the Church, their songs
were more religious, had less variety of subjects, and the melodies were
like Church music.

Although the troubadours did much to shape the rhyming stanzas in
poetry, the trouvères helped in the gradual forming of the later French
and Flemish schools of music, as you will see.

The jongleurs played on an instrument called the _vielee_ which was
great-grandfather to our violin. The short pieces played before the
songs and accompanied by dances, were the first pieces of instrumental
music in the Middle Ages. The combination of song, instrument and dance
was called _balerie_ or _ballada_ from which comes our dance _ballet_.
There was also a piece called _rounde_, _rota_, or _rondo_, composed so
that different voices and the instrument came in at different points,
each singing or playing the same tune, but arranged so that the parts
sounded well together. Perhaps you know _Frère Jacques_ or _Scotland’s
Burning_ or _Three Blind Mice_. These are rounds.

One of the most beautiful rounds in existence is an English song which
dates from 1250, the period of all this “gay science,” and it is looked
upon as a masterpiece. It is supposed to have been written either by
John Forsete, a monk, or by Walter Odington. It was written in the old
square neumes on a six line staff. The name of this “Six Men’s Song” or
round for six voices, is _Summer is icumen In_.

One of the best known trouvères was Adam de la Hale who wrote _Robin et
Marion_, said to be the very first comic opera. It was performed at the
court of Naples in 1285.

The trouvères collected tales of Normandy, Brittany, and of
Charlemagne’s reign, and so preserved valuable musical and literary
material.

So these troubadours and trouvères made the age of Chivalry romantic and
beautiful to us who came long after them, in spite of much
unpleasantness, prejudice, war, massacre and hardship.

                              MINNESINGERS

Along the river Rhine in Germany near that part of France where the
trouvères sang, lived the Minnesingers. They sang love songs,—_minne_
was the old German word for love. Like the troubadours the minnesingers
were of the nobility, but they rarely hired jongleurs or anybody to
perform their songs; they sang them themselves, playing their own
accompaniments on lutes or viels (viols).

Many songs expressed adoration of the Virgin, and others praised deeds
of chivalry. Differing from other minstrels, they made songs about
Nature and Religion full of feeling, fancy and humor, but the minnesongs
were not so light-hearted or fanciful as those of their French
neighbors. They had marked rhythm, beauty of form and simplicity, and
were more dramatic, telling the exploits of the Norse heroes in many a
glorious story.

Their story was far more important to them than the music which for a
long time was like the stern plain song of the Church. “We should be
glad they were what they were, for they seem to have paved the way for
the great Protestant music of the 16th century,” says Waldo Selden Pratt
in his _History of Music_.

You can get an excellent idea of the minnesong in Wolfram von
Eschenbach’s _Oh Thou Sublime Sweet Evening Star_, which Wagner wrote in
the spirit of the ancient minnesingers in the opera _Tannhäuser_.
Tannhäuser was a real minnesinger, taking part in a real song contest,
held by the Landgraf (Count) of Thuringia, 1206–7, who offered his
daughter Elizabeth’s hand to the winner, whatever his rank. We find
Elizabeth also in Wagner’s _Tannhäuser_, so when you hear it you will
know that it is history as well as beautiful music! How remarkable that,
in the days of feudalism, when the nobles practically owned the
so-called common people, talent for music and verse stood even above
rank! After all there is no nobility like that of talent. Even in the
13th century this was understood, and to either commoner or peer winning
the song tournament, the lady of rank was given in marriage.

Wolfram von Eschenbach, the minnesinger, visited the courts and sang in
many tournaments. Giving Wagner a character for the opera _Tannhäuser_
was not all he did as Eschenbach wrote a poem from which Wagner drew the
story for his _Parsifal_.

Walther von der Vogelweide, one of the most famous minnesingers, was so
fond of birds, that when dying he asked for food and drink to be placed
on his tomb every day for the birds. There are four holes carved in the
tombstone; and pilgrims today, when they visit this singer’s grave,
still scatter crumbs for them, who probably in their bird histories
record that Walther loved song even as they!

Prince Conrad, Konradin he was called, son of the last Swabian King, was
the last famous minnesinger. Everyone battled for other people’s
countries and lands then, and so Conrad, heir to the crown, joined a
Sicilian rebellion against France, and was killed by a troubadour, the
Duke of Anjou.

                             MASTERSINGERS

After poor Conrad’s time, the art of minnesinging declined, but as
people must have music, a new activity sprang up among the people or
“folk” instead of among the gentry and knights. The folk who took part
in this were called the Meistersingers or mastersingers and their story
is very thrilling and picturesque.

This was the day of the Robber Baron, when Germany was broken up into
little kingdoms and principalities. Any rich and powerful noble could
start a war to steal away the rights of another ruler, and become ruler
himself. This was no pleasant state of affairs for the people, for they
were in constant terror of death, of the destruction of their crops, or
new taxes. Life became so perilous that people left the farms and went
to the cities for protection. The feudal system began to fail, for the
people would no longer be slaves, and gradually took up trades and
formed themselves into guilds. The warring nobles had neglected music
for conquest, so these workers and artisans, hungry for it, formed music
guilds as well as trade guilds, drew up rules for making music and
poetry, and held prize competitions. In these music guilds there were
six grades of membership: first, member; second, scholar or apprentice;
then, friends of the school; singer, poet, and finally mastersinger or
_Meistersinger_. You can get a real picture of their day in the greatest
comic opera ever written, Wagner’s _Die Meistersinger_, and you can make
the acquaintance of Hans Sachs, the most famous Meistersinger
(1494–1576).

Heinrich von Meissen, known as _Frauenlob_ (Praise of Women), is said to
have founded the Meistersinger movement over a hundred years before Hans
Sachs’ time.

Til Eulenspiegel, whose merry pranks have been delightfully told in
music by Richard Strauss, a present day composer, was also a
Meistersinger.

The origin of the name “Meistersinger” is disputed. One historian tells
us that it was given to every minnesinger who was not a noble,—in other
words, a burgher-minstrel. The other historian claims that the title
_Meister_ or master was given to any one who excelled in any act or
trade, and afterwards came to mean all the guild members.

From the 14th century to the 16th, hardly a town in Germany was without
music guilds and Meistersingers. Although they lost power then, the last
guilds did not disappear until 1830, and the last member died in 1876.
They must have passed the long winter evenings pleasantly for they met,
and read or sang poems of the minnesingers or new ones composed by the
members themselves. These guilds must have been great fun, for they had
badges and initiation ceremonies and the kind of celebrations one loves
in a club.

They had complicated, narrow-minded rules called _Tablatur_ which today
seem quite ridiculous, so much has music matured and thrown off the
chains which once bound it!

When the guilds grew too large to be held in the different homes, the
churches became the meeting places for practise and for the contests.

The highest praise we can give the Meistersingers is that they carried
the love of music and song into every German home and made it a pastime
of domestic life. Their influence spread not only through Germany, but
throughout all lands. The composers who followed were glad to have their
songs from which to draw inspiration for the popular religious songs at
the time of the Protestant Reformation. Even though they did not make up
any very great words or music, they spread a love for it and made people
feel that the following of music as a career was worthy and dignified.

It is interesting to know before we close this chapter, that the
English, well into the 16th century, after the passing of the
troubadours, trouvères, minnesingers and mastersingers, still celebrated
the exploits of the day in ballads called the Percy Reliques.

                         VIELLE OR HURDY-GURDY

If you had lived in the Middle Ages you would have seen the strolling
players traveling around with a queer looking instrument known by many
different names,—_vielle_, _organistrum_, _Bauernleier_ (peasant lyre),
_Bettlerleier_ (beggar’s lyre) or _hurdy-gurdy_. This was a country
instrument, not often seen in cities, and was shaped like the body of a
lute without a long neck. It had wire strings, sometimes gut, and a set
of keys; the sound was made by turning a little crank at the bottom. The
_vielle_ or _hurdy-gurdy_ is a cross between the bowed and the keyed
instruments. In the 12th century it was called the _organistrum_, a
large instrument which took two men to play. It flourished in the 18th
century throughout Europe.

And so, now on to folk songs, although we would like to linger in this
romantic period of wandering minstrels.

                               CHAPTER IX
                       The People Dance and Sing

                               FOLK MUSIC
                   ALL THE WORLD HAS DANCED AND SUNG

We have watched the human race grow out of its state of primitive yells
and grunts, or babyhood, telling its stories and expressing its feelings
in crude music. We have seen it sing and dance its way through the ages
during which its men were semi-barbarians, like the Franks, Gauls,
Goths, Huns, Saxons, Celts, and Angles into the period when these same
tribes became the French, German, Belgian and English nations.

Music was not a thing of learning as it is today, it was merely a way of
talking, of enjoying life, and of passing on to others deeds and doings
of the time. Early people said in poetry and song what was in their
hearts. They knew nothing of musical rules and regulations and passed
their songs along from father to son through the long years when the
world was young, and their best songs have in them the seed of musical
art! A modern Greek folk singer said: “As I don’t know how to read, I
have made this story into a song, so as not to forget it.”

This music of the people, by the people and for the people is Folk Music
and we shall see how these simple, tuneful bits have influenced the
world of music because, as H. E. Krehbiel said, “they are the heartbeats
of the ... folk and in them are preserved feelings, beliefs and habits
of vast antiquity.” Don’t you believe that studying history through folk
tunes would be fascinating? People today have found out much about the
different races and tribal events through them.

It is impossible to find out who wrote the five thousand folk songs of
England and the more than five thousand of Russia and of Ireland and all
the others, for it was not until the 19th century that folk songs and
dances became a serious study. The fact is, that a true folk song
doesn’t want to find its composer for it loses its rank as a folk song
if its maker should turn up! Isn’t that curious? But it is not quite
fair, for surely we should accept as folk songs those which have sprung
up among them, or have become a part of their lives through expressing
their thoughts and feelings, even though the composer’s name has not
been lost. We divide folk songs into two classes,—Class A, the
composerless songs, and Class B, those tagged with a name.

Isn’t it exciting to think that folk songs and dances of the ancient
Greeks, the Aztecs of Peru, the Chinese, the Irish and Russian peasants
and our American negroes have things in common? It seems as if they
might have had a world congress in primitive times and agreed on certain
kinds of songs, for every nation has

  1. Songs of childhood, games, and cradle songs.

  2. Songs for religious ceremonies, festivals, holidays, and Christmas
       Carols.

  3. Love songs and songs for marriage fêtes, and weddings.

  4. War songs, patriotic songs and army songs.

  5. Songs of work and labor and trades.

  6. Drinking songs, comical, political and satirical.

  7. Songs for dancing, rounds, etc.

  8. Funeral songs and songs for mourning.

  9. Narratives, ballads and legends.

So it comes to pass, that many a time when nations, due to wars and
wanderings and vast passings of time, have forgotten their origins, the
singing of a song will bring back the fact of some far distant
relationship.

One day a party of Bretons, in 1758 (long after the Welsh and Bretons
had forgotten they were of the same race), were marching to give battle
to some Welsh troops that had descended upon the French coast. As the
Welsh soldiers marched forward, the Bretons were amazed to hear their
enemies singing one of their own national songs! They were so surprised
and so overcome with sympathy that the Bretons joined in and sang with
the Welsh. Both commanders, speaking the same language, gave the order
“Fire!” But neither side would or could fire. Instead, the soldiers
dropped their weapons, broke ranks and in wild enthusiasm greeted each
other as long lost friends. The song they sang is probably seven hundred
years old or older.

             (1) SONGS OF CHILDHOOD, GAMES AND CRADLE SONGS

From the day of the obelisk to the day of the radio, every baby that has
ever been born has been put to sleep to the soothing sound of the
mother’s song. The Greek mother sang to her baby,

 Come, Sleep! come, Sleep! Take him away.
 Come, Sleep, and make him slumber.
 Carry him to the vineyard of the Aga,
 To the Garden of the Aga,
 The Aga will give him grapes; his wife, roses; his servant, pancakes.

Many early lullabies were sung in honor of the infant Jesus, which
really gives them a very blesséd beginning. It is related by a Sicilian
poet “When the Madunazza (mother) was mending St. Joseph’s clothes, the
Bambineddu (Bambino—the Infant Jesus) cried in his cradle, because no
one was attending to Him. So the Archangel Raphael came and rocked Him
and said these sweet little words to Him, ‘Lullaby, Jesus, Son of
Mary.’”

The Indians, too, sang lullabies, for you know the squaw is a gentle
soul and takes beautiful care of her papoose. The Chippewas think of
sleep as a big insect and they have named him Weeng. Weeng comes down
from the top of a tree where he is busy making a buzzing noise with his
wings and puts you to sleep by sending many little fairies to you who
beat your head with tiny clubs!

We all know our own _Bye, Baby Bunting_, _Father’s Gone a Hunting_,
etc., and _Rockabye Baby on the Tree Top_.

The Germans, whose children songs and lullabies are so lovely, have the
familiar _Schlaf, Kindlein, Schlaf!_ It is a sweet name the Italians
give their lullaby, the _ninne-nanne_! And the mothers in Lyons, France,
call sleep _souin-souin_ and have a charming little song:

                   Le Poupon voudrait bien do(r)mir;
                   Le souin-souin ne peu pas venir.
                   Souin-souin, vené, vené, vené;
                   Souin-souin, vené, vené, vené!

                   The infant wants to go to sleep;
                   Sleep does not wish to come.
                   Sleep come, come, come;
                   Sleep come, come, come!

                                 GAMES

We all have sung _The Farmer in the Dell_, _London Bridge is Falling
Down_, _Ring Around the Rosy_ and many other game-songs. We have told
you of the Indian moccasin game, and we know that in all the other
nations the children have had their game-songs.

  (2) SONGS FOR RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES, HOLIDAYS, AND CHRISTMAS CAROLS,
                  ETC., MAY SONGS AND SPRING FESTIVALS

Spring is so full of the beginnings of life, and people can see the
flowers begin to bloom and take on color and glory. Even as you and I,
they have never been able to see them without rejoicing and every one’s
rejoicing sooner or later is a cause for music. In many countries this
renewal of life is celebrated by rites and ceremonies that have been the
source of much folk-lore and music.

The Greeks, as early as the 6th Century B.C., celebrated the coming of
the spring with a religious festival named after the god Dionysus. Many
songs and dances accompanied these festivals. On the evening before the
festival, which lasted five days, there was an impressive procession by
torch-light in which an image of the god Dionysus was carried to the
theatre where the festival was held, accompanied by many handsome youths
and a very splendid bull which was sacrificed.

In the excavations of Crete this ancient hymn has been found,—a spring
song and a young man-song in one:

  Ho! Kouros (young man), most Great, I give thee hail, Lord of all that
  is wet and gleaming; thou art come at the head of thy Daemones. To
  Dickte for the year, Oh, march and rejoice in the dance and song.

In Germany, it was thought that on Walpurgis-nacht (May night) witches
rode on the tails of magpies and danced away the winter snows on the
Brocken, one of the highest peaks of the Hartz Mountains. In Germany
too, it was the custom for children to set May-flies (Maikäfer) free and
to sing this song:

                     Maikäferchen fliege,
                     Dein Vater ist in Kriege
                     Dein Mutter ist in Pommerland
                     Pommerland ist abgebrannt
                     Maikäferchen fliege.

or

                     May-fly, fly away,
                     Your father is at war,
                     Your mother is in Pommerland.
                     Pommerland is all burned up!
                     May-fly, fly away.

Don’t you think it is like our rhyme?

                        Lady-bug, lady-bug,
                        Fly away home.
                        Your house is on fire
                        Your children will burn.

And here is the French:

                      Avril, tu t’en vas!
                      Car Mai vient la-bas
                      Pour balayer ta figure
                      De pluie, aussi de froidure.
                      Hanneton, vole!
                      Hanneton, vole!

                      Au firmament bleu,
                      Ton nid est en feu,
                      Les Turcs avec leur èpée
                      Viennent tuer ta couvée.
                      Hanneton, vole!
                      Hanneton, vole!

or:

                      April, away!
                      For here cometh May
                      With sunshine again
                      To banish the rain.
                      May-beetle, fly!
                      May-beetle, fly!

                      Afar in the sky,
                      With flames leaping high,
                      The Turks with swords rude
                      Have slaughtered your brood.
                      May-beetle, fly!
                      May-beetle, fly!

The first comic opera, a _pastourale_ six hundred years old, _Le Jeu de
Robin et de Marion_ by Adam de la Hale, is full of May songs.

The King and Queen of the May and May Pole dancers and the English
Jack-in-the-Green, the Thuringian Little Leaf Man and the Russian tree
dressed up are only a few of the many examples of the rites of spring.
And we have seen how the Druids and the Aztecs celebrated spring.

One of the most modern composers, Igor Stravinsky, has written a ballet
called _Le Sacre du Printemps_ (Rites of Spring) in which he has used
the ancient Russian pagan rites of celebrating the spring. The music is
wild and the rhythms primitive.

                          RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES

From legends, we know that songs and dances of the Polish people
accompanied their religious ceremonies before Christianity. When they
exchanged their pagan gods for the teachings of the early Christian
fathers, many of these songs were lost, but some of them were handed
down merely by changing the pagan name to the Christian. These songs
have been traced by the fact that many of them are based on the old
pentatonic scale. The Slavs, the Lithuanians and the Germanic races have
kept this scale in Eastern and Middle Europe, and the Greeks, the
ancient Italians and the Celts brought it into Western and Southern
Europe. These scales are supposed to have come from Indo-China, for it
must not be forgotten that the Polish along with all Slavs migrated from
Asia, the cradle of the human race.

Two festivals,—St. John’s Eve and Christmas, came down from the pagan
era in Poland and the manner of celebration has changed little
throughout the centuries.

                            CHRISTMAS CAROLS

The Polish Christmas Carol was also handed down from the days before
Christ. The word “carol” comes from the old French _carole_ which was a
dance, and gave its name to the song by which it was accompanied. In the
pagan time there were summer carols, winter carols, Easter carols and
carols that celebrated a religious winter festival. As the winter
festival occurred about the same time of the year as the Nativity or
birthday of the Saviour, it was celebrated in the Christian Church as
Christmas. In England, the old Yule-tide of the Druids has influenced
the present celebration of Christmas with its fun, festivities and
Christmas trees!

Throughout Germany, Christmas Carols are still sung early every
Christmas morning, and many of the old hymns have thus been preserved.

The Christmas Carol in France is called _Noël_ and the old English word
was _Nowell_.

                             (3) LOVE SONGS

It is safe to say that there are more love songs than any other kind of
folk music, and among them is some of the most beautiful music in the
world. You will find charming folk love songs of every nationality on
earth.

Different countries have different marriage customs which give an
intimate picture of the life in different periods, of countries and
tribes far apart. Again we can trace forgotten relationships in like
customs of bygone days. Singing and dancing are very important in all
marriage celebrations, and some wedding music is of great age.

In Russia, for example, the marriage customs and wedding music are very
beautiful and impressive. At the same time no folk dancing is wilder or
gayer than that celebrating a peasant marriage.

Before going to a wedding ceremony, the Polish bride sings one
particular song built on the pentatonic scale, that has probably been
sung for more than two thousand years! There are other wedding ceremony
songs that can be traced back almost as far.

In Brittany, during the 11th and 12th centuries, the priest demanded a
“nuptial song” from the newly-weds on the Sunday following the wedding,
as a wedding tax!

In another place the feudal lord demanded that every new bride should
dance and sing before him and in return he decorated her with a bonnet
of flowers.

You haven’t forgotten the Indian and his love music played on the flute,
have you?

                          (4) PATRIOTIC SONGS

In the recent World War, we had examples of how folk songs were made.
There were popular songs like _Over There_ (George Cohan), _The Long,
Long Trail_ (by Zo Elliot), _Tipperary_, _Madelon_, that were sung by
millions. They were songs of the people, by the people and for the
people, and no one cared who wrote them.

Most of the national hymns and patriotic songs were born in a time of
storm and stress. Words inspired by some special happening were written
on the spur of the moment, and often set to some familiar tune.
_America_ was first sung to the tune of _God Save the King_ on July 4,
1832. The words of _Star Spangled Banner_ were written by Francis Scott
Key during the War of 1812 as he watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry
in Chesapeake Bay, and was set to an English drinking song, _Anacreon in
Heaven_. _Yankee Doodle_, a song first sung to make fun of the young
colonists, became the patriotic hymn of the Revolution! Where the tune
came from is a mystery, but it shows a family likeness to a little Dutch
nursery song, a German street song, an old English country dance, a folk
tune from the Pyrenees and one from Hungary! But we love our old _Yankee
Doodle_ anyhow! _Hail Columbia_ was adapted to a tune, _The President’s
March_, which had accompanied Washington when he was inaugurated, in New
York, as our first president.

England’s _God Save the King_ was composed, words and music, by Henry
Carey, and it was used first in 1743 during the Jacobite uprising. It
has since served America, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland. _Auld Lang
Syne_ of Scotland was written by “Bobby” Burns and set to an old Scotch
tune. _St. Patrick’s Day_ was originally a jig, and _The Wearing of the
Green_ was a street ballad of the Irish rebellion of 1798 mourning the
fact that the Irish were forbidden to wear their national emblem, the
shamrock. The Welsh song _Men of Harlech_, a stirring tune, dates from
1468.

The French have several thrilling national songs. If you heard _Malbrouk
s’en va-t-en guerre_ (Malbrouk to war is going) you would say, “Why!
that’s _For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow_.” So it is, and it has had a long
and chequered career. It is supposed to have been brought into Europe by
one of the Crusaders, and was lost for five centuries; it cropped up
again in 1781 when Marie Antoinette sang it to put the little Dauphin
(the French prince) to sleep. Paris picked up the tune and it was heard
in every café and on every street corner. Napoleon who had no ear for
music hummed it. It crossed the English channel. Even the Arabs sing a
popular song like it which they call _Mabrooka_. Beethoven used the air
in a Battle Symphony (1813).

The stirring hymn of France, is the _Marseillaise_ written by Rouget de
l’Isle (1792) on the eve of the Revolution. It became the marching song
of the French Army and was sung during the attack on the Tuileries
(Paris), the king’s palace. It has always been the Republican song of
France.

In almost every book you read about the French Revolution, _La
Carmagnole_ and _Ça Ira_ are mentioned. They accompanied thousands of
victims to the guillotine. _Ça Ira_ (It will go!) was a popular dance
which Marie Antoinette played on her _clavecin_. Little did she know
that the same tune would be shouted by the infuriated mobs as she was
driven through the streets of Paris in the tumbril to the guillotine!

The Italians show their natural love for opera by the fact that their
national hymn is adopted from Bellini’s opera _Somnambula_.

The _Rakoczy March_ of which you will hear later in the chapter is the
Hungarian national hymn.

We could write an entire book on this subject, but this is only to give
you a suggestion of how these songs grew and where they came from.

                 (5) SONGS OF WORK AND LABOR AND TRADES

We have shown you the American Indians singing their songs as they fish
and pound the corn; the boatmen rowing to the rhythm of their songs; and
we have tried to show you that everybody loved songs as much when they
worked as when they danced. Haven’t you, too, hummed or sung while
working? People who accompany dish cloths and dusters with songs work
better!

American negroes have used song to ease their work in the hot sunny
fields. They not only sang, but men were hired to sing and act as song
leaders in the slave days, to set the pace for workers, for more work
was done when the slaves moved to the rhythm of music. In modern
factories today, music is used to relieve the drudgery.

In Southern States the stevedores sing as they unload and load ships.
And haven’t you often heard a rhythmic sound uttered by men hauling
ropes on ships or buildings?

The world over, sailors have their songs and dances, farmers their
reaping and planting songs, spinners and weavers their songs, boatmen
songs like those on the Nile and the Volga boat song.

While few Greek folk songs have come down to our time, we know that they
had songs for reaping the harvest, for grinding the barley, for
threshing the wheat, for pressing the grapes, for spinning wool, and for
weaving. They also had the songs of the shoemaker, the dyer, of the
bath-master, the water carrier, of the shepherd, etc.

There are innumerable spinning songs of all nationalities, and
shepherds’ songs,—you probably know the French _Il etait une Bergère_.

In Africa, we hear that the workers when cleaning rice were led by
singers, who clapped their hands and stamped their feet to accompany the
song. One man reports that he heard the negro women singing a national
song in chorus, while pounding wheat always in time with the music.

Charles Peabody tells of a leader in a band of slaves in America who was
besought by his companions not to sing a certain song because it made
them work too hard!

The difference between the negro songs and the labor songs of other
peoples and places is, that the negroes had no special labor songs but
sang their religious songs, which they adapted to all purposes and
occasions, while the true labor song was composed to fit the occasion.

In old England we hear of the “Labor-lilts” which were all work songs of
spinners, milk-maids and shepherds. And we must not neglect the old
night-watchman whom we meet in Wagner’s _Die Meistersinger_. Neither can
we let go by unnoticed the “town-crier” who told the news, good and bad.
The street calls and cries of the Middle Ages were labor songs, later,
in England and in France made into real compositions.

We, in America, have the old Cow-boy songs, the Mining songs of
California, and the Lumberjack songs of Maine. These are not exactly
labor songs but are first cousins to them.

The stage coach _postillons_ with their fascinating horn calls are
really music of trades or occupations, too. Isn’t it too bad that the
inartistic jangle of the tram-car and the “honk-honk” of the automobile
tear our ears instead of the tuneful hunting horns and postillon horns
which are still occasionally heard in European forests!

The world’s workers sing to make work slip along easily, so you see song
is a great lubricant.

                           (6) DRINKING SONGS

In the great dining halls of the Middle Ages, when hunting parties
gathered, and guests were received from near and far, or at Christmas
time, when in old Britain the Wassail-bowl flowed freely, drinking songs
were an important part of the banquet. At the splendid feasts in Rome,
drinking songs were popular. In fact, all over the world there are
thousands of this kind of folk song.

The name Wassail dates back to the day when Vortigern, King of the
Britons, visited Hengist, the Saxon. Rowena, Hengist’s daughter greeted
him with, “Was hail hla, ond cyning!” which mean in plain English, “Be
of health, Lord King!” to which the king replied, “Drink heil” (Drink
health).

                          THE WORD VAUDEVILLE

In the second half of the 15th century, two men named Basselin and Jean
de Houx wrote many drinking songs. As they lived in the little valleys
(in French called _vaux_) near Vire in Normandy, drinking songs came to
be called _vaux-de-vire_. At the same time, songs that were sung in the
streets, in fact, any folk songs with gay melodies and light words, were
called _voix-de-ville_, (or voices of the city). So, in some way, these
two terms became mixed, and the familiar word, _vaudeville_ is the
result!

                           (7) DANCING SONGS

In the folk dance, man shows the feelings and dispositions of his race.
From this dance of the people, all music gradually took a measured form,
a rhythmic thing that is lacking in the song of primitive people. In
primitive times, all dances were sung, particularly was this the case
with the Slav race. As instruments were perfected, they took the place
of primitive drums and singing as accompaniment to the dance.

The plain chant, and in fact all music of the church, lacked the element
we call rhythm. It followed a metre or measure needed by the words, but
this was much more like talking than like singing. Even the ornamented
chant of the soloists in the churches had no definiteness of time or of
phrase.

Rhythm as we feel it today, occurs in two ways,—through the singing of
verses and through dancing. We must not forget that early peoples were
much like children, and took pleasure in jingles, and in moving their
feet and bodies in repeated motions which became dances.

It is most fascinating to see that the people who have the saddest
songs, have the gayest and wildest dances! Maybe it is because the
sadder the nation the more need it has for some gay way of forgetting
its woes. The Russians, the Poles, the Norwegians and the people of all
north countries where the songs are minor and tragic, have the wildest
dances. The clothes, too, of the folk in these countries are decked in
colored embroideries, and the decorations of the houses giddy and jolly.
When the Russians get together they forget their sorrows in wild and
almost frenzied dances, and directly after they will sing songs of
deepest gloom.

                             POLISH DANCES

The Poles have several folk dances that are easily recognized by their
rhythm and style. The great Polish composer Chopin used these folk
dances in some of the loveliest piano music ever written. For more than
six centuries they have been used by Polish composers, yet there are
people who say that folk song has no influence on musical art.

The Polonaise, in ¾ time, a stately dance of the aristocracy and nobles
rather than of the people, began as a folk dance, and is supposed to
have come from the Christmas Carol. The rhythm of the Polonaise, is
easily recognized and followed. In the early times, these polonaises had
no composer’s tag, but were often named for some Polish hero, and thus
show the date in which they were born.

One Polish writer dates the “courtly” polonaise from 1573. The year
following the election of Henry III of Anjou, a great reception took
place at Cracow, in which all the ladies of high rank marched in
procession past the throne to the sound of a stately dance. This was the
beginning of the stately polonaise, in which old and young took part,
marching all through the great drawing rooms and gardens.

The Mazurka, another very popular Polish dance, is also in ¾ time, but
faster than the polonaise, and slower than the waltz. It is performed by
a few couples at a time, two to eight but rarely more. The accent of the
measure falls on the third beat, which distinguishes it from a waltz.

Other well known Polish dances are the _Krakowiak_ in ²⁄₄ time, the
_Kujawiak_ in ¾ time, the _Obertass_ in ¾ time, the dance of the
mountaineers, called the _Kolomyjka_ in ²⁄₄ time, and the _Kosah_ in ²⁄₄
time. All these dances are fast, and all of them come directly from folk
songs.

                          SPANISH DANCE-SONGS

It is very hard to tell which of the Spanish folk pieces are dances and
which at first were songs, because the favorite songs of Spain are
nearly all sung as accompaniments to dancing. Spain had almost as rich
troubadour music as France, because the influence of the troubadours and
of the jongleurs was very strong, Provence being Spain’s neighbor. In
Catalonia the Provençal language has been used since the 9th century,
and the folk music differs from that of other parts of Spain.

The songs of Spain divide themselves into four groups. The Basque, the
music of Biscay and Navarre, unlike any music of which we have told you,
is irregular in rhythm, melody, and scale, and the _jota_ is one of its
characteristic dances. Galicia and Castile have gay, bright, strong
marked dance rhythms as may be seen from their characteristic _boleros_
and _seguidillas_. Andalusian music and that of Southern Spain is
perhaps the most beautiful of all, for here we find the influence of the
Oriental music to a marked degree, in the use of the scale, in florid
ornament, and in the richness of the rhythm; the dances _fandangos_,
_rondeñas_ and _malagueñas_ are thought to be finer than the songs. The
guitar is the king of instruments in Andalusia and how Spanish it is!
The fourth group of songs is from Catalonia of French influence and less
Spanish than the others.

                       THE BALLAD AND THE BALLET

In the English language we have the word _ballad_, which means a long
poem in which a story is told. We also use the French word _ballet_, for
a dance on the stage. These two words come from the same root, and show
that at one time ballads and dance tunes were practically the same
thing.

The English dance song, the “round” or the same dance in France called
the _ronde_, was a popular dance for many centuries, some of which are
most amusing and curious. One dance tune from the 12th century has Latin
words; there is also a well known tune, Sellenger’s Round, from the
collection called the _Fitzwilliam Virginal Book_. Another famous ballad
(dance) was _Trenchmore_, a good sample of English folk dance at the end
of the 16th century:

[Illustration: TRENCHMORE]

An English writer (how childlike was his fun!) in 1621 says of
_Trenchmore_, “Who can withstand it? be we young or old, though our
teeth shake in our heads like virginal jacks (see page 310), or stand
parallel asunder like the arches of a bridge, there is no remedy; we
must dance Trenchmore over tables, chairs, and stools!”

                            THE MORRIS DANCE

The English Morris Dance is a sort of pageant accompanied by dancing. It
may have come from the _Morisco_, a Moorish dance popular in Spain and
France, or perhaps from the Matassins, also called Buffoons, who did a
dance in armor, which may have come from the Arabs. This dance of the
Buffoons, popular in France during the 16th and 17th centuries, was
performed by four men with swords, and bells attached to their costumes,
used also in the Morris Dance. It may have come into England at the end
of the 14th century, but in the 15th it was flourishing. First it was
given as a part of the May festival and the characters who took part in
it were a Lady of the May, a Fool, a Piper, and two or more dancers. The
dance then became a part of the _Robin Hood_ pageant, and the dancers
were called after the characters of the Robin Hood ballad: Robin Hood,
Friar Tuck, Little John, and Maid Marian. Later, a hobby-horse, a
dragon, four marshals, and other characters were added. The Puritans
stopped the Morris Dance as they thought it too frivolous, and it was
never so popular again.

                           THE CUSHION DANCE

In the _Story of Minstrelsy_ is quoted a description of the Cushion
Dance from _The Dancing Master_ (1686):

“This dance is begun by a single person (either a man or woman), who,
taking a cushion in hand, dances about the room, and at the end of the
tune stops and sings, ‘This dance it will no further go.’ The musician
answers, ‘I pray you, good sir, why say you so?’ Man: ‘Because Joan
Sanderson will not come too.’ Musician: ‘She must come too, and she
shall come too, and she must come whether she will or no.’ Then he lays
down the cushion before the woman, on which she kneels, and he kisses
her, singing, ‘Welcome, Joan Sanderson, welcome, welcome.’ Then she
rises, takes up the cushion, and both dance, singing, ‘Prinkum-prankum
is a fine dance!’” Why not try it?

Thomas Morley (1597) wrote of a kind of dance-part-song called
_vilanelle_ or _ballete_. “These and all other kinds of light musick,
saving the madrigal, are by a general name called _aires_. There be also
another kind of ballets commonly called _Fa-la’s_....”

When printing was invented these ballads (or ballets) appeared in such
quantities, that they became a nuisance. Any subject or event was made
into a ballad. They were usually printed on single sheets so that an
instrument like the viol could play the air, and were carried around in
baskets and sold for a trifle. Ballad-singing in the streets took the
place of the older minstrels, but the newer fashion never reached the
dignity of the bards. These ballads were used as dances.

Both Henry VIII and Queen Mary issued edicts forbidding the printing of
books, ballads, and rhymes, probably because many were political ballads
uncomplimentary to them. In Elizabeth’s reign the edict was removed, and
many of these dance-songs are found in the plays of Shakespeare and are
sung today in concerts as examples of English folk music.

Many of the better ones have been preserved for us in the _Fitzwilliam
Virginal Book_, which is often wrongly called _Queen Elizabeth’s
Virginal Book_, and in Playford’s _English Dancing Master_ in which
there are ninety-five songs used for dancing; they are also to be heard
in the _Beggar’s Opera_ which contains sixty-nine airs, among which may
be mentioned _Sally in our Alley_, _Bonny Dundee_, _Green Sleeves_,
_Lilliburlero_, _Over the Hills and Far Away_, etc. John Gay gathered
these folk songs and dances into _The Beggar’s Opera_ in 1727, and it
was recently (1920) revived with great success in London and New York.

Tiersot (an authority on French folk music) has shown that Adam de la
Hale probably wrote the play of _Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion_ and then
strung together a number of popular tunes, many of far older date, to
suit his words. So this pastoral-comedy may be the oldest collection of
French folk tunes in existence.

In France, when a dance-air became popular, the rhymers made up words to
fit the music; this was called _parodying_ it. Our use of the word
“parody” means to make fun of something, but at that time, the word
meant to adapt words to a melody. One of the early French writers
translated the Psalms for use in the Church, and these very Psalms which
were dedicated to François I, the King, were “parodied,” so that the
people sang them to their favorite dance tunes,—_courantes_,
_sarabandes_ and _bourrées_. This happened at a time when church music
was being popularized, and one hears queer tales of the use of popular
songs in the masses and motets of the 14th and 15th centuries. It sounds
sacrilegious to us, doesn’t it?

In spite of all the mixing-up of tunes and words, the French folk dances
besides being very charming and winning were the parents of a most
important kind of musical composition. Just to keep you from being too
curious, the name of this important musical composition is the Suite—but
wait!

                (8) FUNERAL SONGS AND SONGS FOR MOURNING

All people from the savage state to the most civilized have had their
funeral songs and songs for mourning which have been characteristic of
the day and age to which they belonged and revealed many tribal and
racial beliefs, superstitions and customs.

                  (9) NARRATIVES, BALLADS AND LEGENDS

We shall not tarry long on this subject for it has been covered in the
chapter on Troubadours and Minnesingers.

All primitive races used this means of teaching and preserving their
tribal history, legends, etc., of telling the news of the day and of
praising their over-lords. Many hundreds of volumes of ballads of all
countries are to be found and are most useful as well as entertaining in
the story of mankind.

Among the most famous narratives known to us are: the _Sagas_ and
_Eddas_ and _Runes_ of the Northlands; the _Kalevala_ of Finland; the
_Percy Reliques_ of Britain; the _Odyssey_ and _Iliad_ of ancient
Greece; the _Song of Roland_ of France, _Beowulf_ of the Anglo-Saxons,
and others, many of which have been translated and simplified for young
readers.

                               CHAPTER X
                    National Portraits in Folk Music

There is one particularly lovely thing about folk songs and dances and
that is the natural labels which they bear, marking them as belonging to
France, Spain, Germany, Russia and so on. As with people, they all have
similarities and yet no two are the same in looks or in actions. It
would not take you long to know whether you were hearing a Spanish folk
dance, an Irish Jig, a Russian Hopak, a Norwegian Halling or an American
Foxtrot, because each has its own kind of rhythm and melody.

Some nations have gay, bright folk music, and others have sad, mournful
music. In northern countries where living is hard on account of the
long, dark, cold winters, and the people are forced to spend much time
indoors and away from neighbors, where money and food are scarce, they
are likely to be sad and lonely. In the centuries gone by they made up
songs that pictured their lives and their surroundings. On the other
hand, in countries where the sun shines most of the time, where people
live out of doors, are happy, and have many friends and much fun, the
music is gayer and usually lighter. This is why the music of Finland,
Sweden, Norway and northern Russia is so much in the minor key, and
seems grey, and why the music of Italy Spain, France and other southern
countries is in the major key and seems rosier in color and happier in
mood. Other reasons, too, for sad folk music is oppression, harsh rulers
and harsh laws. So the Finns and Russians, the American negroes and the
Hebrew tribes sang sad songs.

  _“The Music Making Boys,” by Frans Hals, from the Kassel Gallery,
    Germany._

  _Boys with a Lute._
]

  _After a painting by Teniers, in the gallery at Munich._

  _A Peasant Wedding._
]

                           RUSSIAN FOLK MUSIC

Again you see history in the songs, particularly in the Russian folk
music, which shows us in musical portraits, the tragedy of their lives
under cruel czars and serfdom. They sang in ancient scales which make
the music all the more mournful to our ears.

The rhythms in these songs are different from those of romance languages
or those derived from Latin, for the Russians have a language of Slavic
birth. The Russians have some Oriental blood from the Tartars who
invaded Russia and who were descended from Tartar, a Mogul or Mongol
from Asia. When you hear Russian songs that sound Oriental, you will
agree with Rimsky-Korsakov, the Russian composer, that the Russian, deep
down below the skin is an Oriental even though he has been living in
Europe for many centuries.

In Russia, from the Baltic Sea on the north to the Caucasus Mountains on
the south, from the sunny slopes of the Ural Mountains on the west, to
the bleak desert wastes of Kirghiz on the east, these mixed races have a
common tie in their love for folk story and folk music.

Marvelous tales have been handed down by word of mouth about the river
gods and the wood-sprites, about the animals who talked like men, and
the ugly old witch, Baba-Yaga, whose name alone was enough to quiet the
naughtiest child! Through these folk tales you can follow the Russians
from the time they were primitive men and pagans through all their
battles and the invasions of barbarous tribes, to the time when they
became Christians and had to struggle against the Tartars, the Turks and
the Poles. All these happenings were put into songs and are the epic, or
tale-telling folk music of the Russians.

But one of the most interesting things, we think, in all the growing of
music into maturity, is that Russia never had anything but folk music
until the 19th century! Music always belonged to the people, and there
were no musical scholars making it the possession of the educated
classes only.

Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and other Russians took the folk song from
its humble surroundings and used it in their compositions, for they
realized its beauty and its richness.

The Russians have instruments brought down from very early times, which
are found today in no other country. Perhaps you may have heard a
Russian _balalaika_ orchestra. The _balalaika_ is a stringed instrument,
with a triangular body and long neck, having three or sometimes four
strings, which are plucked and sound something like a guitar. It dates
back to the end of the 13th century. They also have an instrument like a
mandolin, with three strings, that dates from the 13th century also. It
came from Asia at the time of the Mongolian invasion.

Another instrument, a descendant of the Greek _psalterion_ and known to
have been in Russia since the 9th century, is the _gusslee_. It is
something like a zither, and is composed of a hollow box, strung with
any number from seven to thirteen up to twenty-four strings. It is held
on the lap, and the strings are plucked with the fingers.

There is also a sort of lute or _bandoura_ with many strings, dating
from the 16th century, played principally by the blind who belong to
groups of minstrels. There is also a wooden clarinet, on which one scale
can be played. Its special purpose was for use at funerals, and its
name, which comes from a word meaning tomb, is _jaleika_.

                             FINNISH SONGS

The Finns, a northern people, although often dominated either by Sweden
or Russia, have their own songs and peculiar rhythms. The _Kalevala_ is
their great epic poem, like the _Iliad_ of Greece, _Beowulf_ of the
Anglo-Saxons, and the _Eddas_ of Iceland. From this narrative poem or
epic, have come many a folk-tune. Besides, they sing of their beautiful
country, often called the country of lakes.

The typical rhythm of Finland is the ⁵⁄₄ time which sounds most
attractive. They have the _kantele_, a plucked string instrument, and
they glory in their folk music which they use as an everyday joy and do
not “turn it on” only for “hey-days and holidays.”

                             POLAND’S MUSIC

The Polish people have loved music as the Russians love it, and although
Poland has been reconquered, divided and redivided among the surrounding
kingdoms of Europe, it has always kept its own music. So we have another
set of Slav songs but with certain rhythmical differences, not found in
the music of other nations. (Chapter IX.)

There is an Oriental strain in this music, too, and it must be very
ancient indeed, for Oriental tribes have not lived in this country for
ages.

In addition to an instrument like the Russian _gusslee_, and a violin
like the Arabian _rebab_, the Polish have a clarinet made of wood,
called by its old name of _chalumeau_, the lute, and an instrument
called the _kobza_, belonging to the bagpipe family. This is of great
age, but is still in use among the mountaineers of Carpathia, and is
made of goat skin with three pipe attachments. The _kobza_ can replace
an entire orchestra!

                                GYPSIES

Gypsies! The name fires our imagination and brings up pictures of
dark-skinned, black-eyed people with glossy black hair, dressed in gay
colored shawls, with bright kerchiefs wound around their heads. We think
of them as being on “one grand picnic,” living out of doors, cooking
their meals over bonfires in the open, sleeping in their covered wagons
or tents, or under the stars, always gay, care-free and dirty! Then,
think of the Gypsy music,—the dances, the songs, and the wonderful
violin playing! So wild, so weird, so out-of-doors is it, that we are
thrilled by the very thought of it.

Where did these folk come from? Who are they? What are they? They have
spread over most of Europe, and are found in Hungary, Bohemia, Roumania,
Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, England, Turkey, and even America. They
are a race and they have a language of their own. Theirs is a mixture of
the ancient _Prakrit_ or Indian, with the different languages with which
they have come in contact in the course of many centuries. Men who make
a study of the history of languages say, that in their idioms, they show
traces of roving for many centuries in Asiatic countries, before
reaching Europe in or before the 15th century. They are often called
“Bohemians” because Bohemia (Czecho-Slovakia) seems to have been their
main European camping-ground. It is generally agreed that they came from
India and that they are Asiatic, but they got their name _Gypsy_, a
contraction of the word Egyptian, because people at first thought that
they came from Egypt.

The Gypsies have an extraordinary gift for music. They do not study it
as an art, as we do, and cannot even read musical notes, but they
imitate and memorize, and reach a high degree of skill in playing,
particularly the violin. They have such great power of imitation, that
they rapidly learn to play the instruments, and accustom themselves to
the folk music they find wherever they wander. However, they always keep
something of their own sadness and wildness. In Spain, they accompany
themselves on the guitar, and mark the rhythm with castanets, as do the
Spaniards themselves, borrowing the Spanish folk songs which they sing
in their own way. In Russia, England, Turkey and everywhere they do the
same with the folk music of those countries.

The special traits, then, of the music of the Gypsies, are found rather
in the way they play, interpret and express the music of others, than as
composers of their own music. Yet they use strongly marked rhythms,
florid ornamentation, and scales that are Oriental, which show us from
where they came. Here is one of their most used scales:

[Illustration: Scales]

There are many kinds of scales among the Gypsies,—a mixture of the
Oriental scale with the pentatonic, and with the European major and
minor.

The Hungarian Gypsy has made more music than any other branch of the
Gypsy people. In fact, when we hear music that makes us exclaim, “Oh,
that is real Gypsy music!” it is almost always Hungarian. At least one
quarter of the inhabitants of Hungary, a name which comes from the
barbarian tribe of Huns, are Magyars, descendants of Tartars and
Mongolians of Asia, who settled in the land of the Huns in the 9th
century. In the national music of Hungary, we find it hard to tell just
what is Magyar, and what is Gypsy, because the two have intermingled for
so long.

The important thing is that this Magyar-Gypsy folk music has been the
inspiration of hundreds of trained composers, like Haydn (see the Gypsy
Rondo from his piano trio, also arranged for piano alone), Franz Liszt
who wrote many famous Hungarian Rhapsodies, Hector Berlioz who made the
Hungarian Rakoczy March famous, Johannes Brahms who used many folk songs
in his compositions and wrote a set of Hungarian Dances. Even Bach,
perhaps the greatest of all composers, seems to have been influenced by
the Gypsy music as played on the Hungarian _cembalo_.

No Hungarian Gypsy orchestra is complete without a cembalo, which looks
something like an old-fashioned square piano with the top off. This is
strung with metal strings covering a range of four octaves, and is
played with two small limber hammers. The cembalo players perform with
great rapidity and agility; they are able to play scales, arpeggios,
trills, and the tricks of Gypsy music with great skill and ease. It is
not known just when this instrument came into use, but it is a
descendant of the _dulcimer_ and _psaltery_, instruments we hear of in
the Bible, and in Arabia and Persia, probably brought into Europe during
the Crusades.

The _czardas_ (pronounced chardas) is an old Hungarian dance in which
are all the national characteristics of this folk music, well marked in
syncopated rhythms (rhythms out of focus, page 144, Chapter X), strong
accents, many ornaments. The Gypsies dance the czardas every time they
get a chance, for they love it. It has two contrasting parts, one is
called _lassan_ which is very slow and sad, and the other called
_friska_ which is very fast and fiery.

Panna Czinka, a Gypsy Queen, who lived in the 18th century was the
daughter of the chief of a band of Gypsies and she inherited his title
when she was very young. She married a ’cellist of her tribe and went
all through Hungary, Poland and Roumania playing on a wonderful Amati
violin, in a very wonderful way. She brought the _Rakoczy March_ to the
people, although it is not known whether or not she composed it. She
always wore men’s clothes of most picturesque type and when she died she
requested to have her beloved violin buried with her! Long after her
death she was still an inspiration to young Gypsy fiddlers, who all
longed to play as beautifully as Panna Czinka.

                           BOHEMIAN FOLK SONG

Bohemia is rich in folk dances, most of which are named for places where
they originated or the occasions for which they were used, or from songs
by which they are accompanied.

The Bohemians have a bagpipe called the _Dudelsack_ and the player is
called a _Dudelsackpfeiffer_!

                   SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE FOLK MUSIC

To the outsider, there is a national color, rhythm, and charm in Spanish
music that is unmistakable. We recognize it immediately as Spanish, but
the Spaniard will be able to tell you the province from which it came,
for there is as much difference between a Castilian song and a Basque,
as we find between the speech of a Virginian and a Vermontian! (Chapter
IX.)

Portugal, although Spain’s next door neighbor, has quite a different
music; it is peaceful, tranquil and thoughtful, but doesn’t thrill you
as does the Spanish music. The Portuguese are calmer and less excitable
than the Spaniards, so here again you see the character and qualities of
people coming out in the music or what we like to call the musical
portrait of a nation. There are no exaggerated rhythms but instead a
steady melancholy flow of melody.

                           FRENCH FOLK MUSIC

The portrait of France that we get from her folk music is much like the
one we find in songs of her troubadours and trouvères. In southern
France, the folk songs are gay and filled with poetic sentiment and
religious feeling; from Burgundy come some of her loveliest Noëls
(Christmas songs) and also the drinking songs. From Normandy, come songs
of ordinary everyday doings; their mill songs, when sung out in the open
on a summer night by the peasants are very beautiful and often show
strong religious feeling. Brittany whose inhabitants were originally
Celts have a music not unlike the Welsh, Scotch and Irish. Long ago, the
famous French writer and musician of the 18th century, Jean Jacques
Rousseau, said of it, “The airs are not snappy, they have, I know not
what of an antique and sweet mood which touches the heart. They are
simple, naïve and often sad—at any rate they are pleasing.”

                           GERMAN FOLK MUSIC

The _Volkslieder_ or folk songs of the Germans are the backbone of the
great classical and romantic periods of the 18th and 19th centuries
which made Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Schumann, Wagner and Brahms the
music masters of the world.

As early as the 14th century collections of these songs had been made,
the subjects of which were mostly historical. By the 16th century music
had grown so much that every sentiment of the human heart and every
occupation of life had its own song: students, soldiers, pedlars,
apprentices all had their songs. These are folk songs of Class A,
because their composers forgot to leave their names and no musical
archæologist has been able to dig them up. (Page 108. Chapter IX.)

These songs became melodies independent of the accompaniment. They also
put the major scale on a firm basis which took the place of the church
modes. Their spirit and power were felt in every branch of music, and
they supplied melodies for the chorales or hymns, for the lute players
and organists in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

Every town had its own band called the _Stadt Pfeifferei_ (town pipers).
The peasant boys played the fiddle, and the shepherds the _schalmey_, (a
kind of oboe). Every festivity was accompanied by song and dance.

                            IRISH FOLK SONGS

No people in the world have more fancy and imagination, a keener sense
of humor, are more fun-loving and more superstitious than the Irish. All
these qualities come out in their vast treasure of folk music, which is
considered the most beautiful and the most varied of all the music that
has come from peasant folk. The subjects cover practically every phase
of life from the castle to the cot, and songs of every heading we have
included in the last chapter. There are reels, jigs, marches,
spinning-tunes, nurse-tunes, planxties (Irish or Welsh melodies for the
harp in the nature of a lament), plough-songs and whistles. The Irish
folk songs are rich historically as well as beautiful musically.

The form of the Irish folk music is perfect, and is a model of what
simple song form has been for several centuries. In fact, all large
forms have been built on just such principles of balance and contrast as
are found in an Irish folk song called _The Flight of the Earls_.

                         SCOTCH AND WELSH TUNES

The Scotch and Welsh also have a very rich store of folk song and
ballads. Along with the Irish they are children of the early Celts and
have brought down to us the music of early times. In all this music we
find the pentatonic scale, and a rhythm of this character ♩♩ ♩♩ a dotted
note followed by a note of shorter value, which gives a real lilt to
Irish, Welsh and Scotch music. We told you about the Welsh bards and
their queer violin without a neck, called a _crwth_, and their little
harp that was handed around their banquet tables from guest to guest.

The Gaelic music, or that of the Scotch Highlands, dates back to
prehistoric times. You have seen a Scotch Highlander in his plaid and
kilties playing on his bagpipe, and it has a special kind of scale (two
pentatonic scales put together) like this:

                          G A B    D E    G
                            A B C♯   E F♯   A

and a drone bass (one tone that does not change and is played all
through the piece) which makes it hard to get the same effect on the
piano. Scotch bagpipes are heard in districts where the milk-maids and
serving folk get together in the “ingle,” and still “lilt” in the good
old-fashioned way.

The thing that makes us know Scotch music from any other is a queer
little trick of the rhythm called the _snap_ in which a note of short
value is followed by a dotted note of longer value, instead of the other
way around which is more commonly found. Thus: ♩♩ ♩♩ but the two ways
are always combined, thus: ♩♩ ♩♩|♩♩ ♩♩ ♩♩|♩♩ and so on. If you want to
make up a real Scotch tune yourself, just play this rhythm up and down
the black keys of the piano from F# to the next F#!

Many of the lovely poems of Robert Burns have been set to old Scotch
airs. He saved many of the old songs, for he gathered the remains of
unpublished old ballads and songs, and snatches of popular melodies, and
with genius gave life to the fragments he found. In his own words, “I
have collected, begged, borrowed and stolen all the songs I could meet
with.”

                          CANADIAN FOLK SONGS

Canada has the folk songs of the _habitant_ which are French in
character. They are very beautiful and full of romance and many of them
can be traced back to France. Many, however, were born in Canada and
reveal the hearts of people who lived in the great lonely spaces of a
new country.

                           ENGLISH FOLK SONGS

Most of the English folk songs are very practical accounts of the doings
of the people. The English seemed more interested in human beings than
in Nature, like the Scotch and Irish, or in romantic love songs like the
Latin races in Spain, France and Italy. The English had to be practical
for they were always leaders and at the head of things, while the Scots
and Irish were further away from the center and rush of life and so went
to Nature for their subjects.

There are about five thousand English folk songs which sing of the
English milk-maid and her work, the carpenter, the hunter and his
hounds, and hunting calls. They have the Morris Dance tunes, the May-day
songs, the sailor’s chanties, they even sing of criminals famous in
history and always very definitely tell the full name and whereabouts of
a character in a song. They also have songs of poachers (those who hunt
on land forbidden them), of murderers and hangmen as well as shepherds
and sailors. But England’s finest songs are the Christmas carols which
sing of the birth of Jesus. So, if they sang little of Nature they did
sing of man and God and have given us much that is beautiful and worth
while.

                           OLD ENGLISH CAROL
                 FROM THE TIME OF HENRY IV, OR EARLIER

        Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere fode,
        How xalt thou sufferin be nayled on the rode.
              So blyssid be the tyme!

        Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere smerte,
        How xalt thou sufferin the sharp spere to Thi herte?
              So blyssid be the tyme!

        Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge all for Thi sake,
        Many on is the scharpe schour to This body is schape.
              So blyssid be the tyme!

        Lullay! lullay! lytel child, fayre happis the befalle,
        How xalt thou sufferin to drynke ezyl and galle?
              So blyssid be the tyme!

        Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge al beforn,
        How xalt thou sufferin the scharp garlong of thorn?
              So blyssid be the tyme!

        Lullay! lullay! lytel child, gwy wepy Thou so sore,
        Thou art bothin God and man, gwat woldyst Thou be more?
              So blyssid be the tyme!

 (From the Sloane MSS. Quoted from _The Study of Folk Songs_, by Countess
    Martinengo-Cesaresco).

                          AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC

We come now to a question that has been the subject of many arguments
and debates. Many claim that we have no folk music in the United States,
and others claim that we have. It would take a whole volume to present
both sides and we must reduce it to a sugar-coated capsule.

Although we know that Stephen Foster wrote _Old Folks at Home_, _The Old
Kentucky Home_, _Uncle Ned_, _Massa’s in the Cold_, _Cold Ground_, and
_Old Black Joe_, they express so perfectly the mood and spirit of the
people that they are true folk songs. Harold Vincent Milligan in his
book on Stephen Foster says: “Every folk-song is first born in the heart
and brain of some one person, whose spirit is so finely attuned to the
voice of that inward struggle which is the history of the soul of man,
that when he seeks for his own self-expression he at the same time gives
a voice to that vast ‘mute multitude who die and give no sign.’”

And again speaking of Stephen Foster, Mr. Milligan says: “Although
purists may question their right to the title ‘folk songs’ his melodies
are truly the songs of the American people.”

The folk music of which we have told you has been the music portraits of
different peoples such as the Russian, the Polish, the French, the
German, the English, the Irish and so on. If there has been a mixture of
peoples or tribes as in England where there were Britons, Danes, Angles,
Saxons and Normans, it happened so long ago that they have become molded
into one race. We are all Americans but we are not of one race, and we
are still in the process of being molded into one type.

We unite people of all nations under one flag and one government, but we
have been sung to sleep and amused as children by the folk songs of the
European nations to which our parents and grandparents belonged! And so
we have heard from childhood _Sur le Pont d’Avignon_, _Schlaf Kindlein
Schlaf_, _Wurmland_, _The Volga Boat Song_, _Sally in our Alley_, or
_The Wearing of the Green_, none of which is American.

In spite of all these obstacles to the growth of a folk music in
America, we have several sources from which they have come.

As our earliest settlers in Virginia and New England were English, they
brought with them many of their folk songs and some of these have
remained unchanged in the districts where people of other nations have
not penetrated. _The Lonesome Tunes_ of the Kentucky mountains, also of
Tennessee, the Carolinas and Vermont are examples of this kind of
English folk song in America.

In Louisiana which was settled by the French, we find a type of folk
song that is very charming. It is a combination of old French folk song
with negro spiritual, and is brought to us by the Creoles.

In California there is a strong Spanish flavor in some of the old
ballads that date from the time of the Spanish Missions. There are also
mining songs of the “days of ’49,” including _Oh Susannah_, by Stephen
Foster, and we defy you to get rid of the tune if once it “gets you!”

Then there are cow-boy songs of the Plains, _The Texas Rangers_, _The
Ship that Never Returned_, _The Cow-boy’s Lament_ and _Bury Me Not on
the Lone Prairie_; the Lumberjack songs of Maine; the well known air of
the _Arkansas Traveller_, which was a funny little sketch for theatre of
a conversation between the Arkansas traveller and a squatter which is
interrupted by snatches of a tune; and in addition a whole book full of
songs sung in the backwoods settlements, hunting cabins and lumber camps
in northern Pennsylvania.

So if you seek, you can find a large number of folk songs without going
to the Indian or the Negro.

The Civil War brought out a number of new national songs among them
_Glory Hallelujah_ and _Dixie_. _Dixie_ was written in 1859 as a song
and “walk-around” by the famous minstrel Dan Emmett, and became a war
song by accident. It had dash and a care-free spirit, and the rollicking
way it pictured plantation life attracted the soldiers of the South when
they were in the cold winter camps in the North. Its rhythm is so
irresistible that it makes your hands and feet go in spite of yourself.
Besides these two the soldiers of the Civil War marched to _Rally Round
the Flag, Boys_, _Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching_, _Home,
Sweet Home_, _Lily Dale_, _The Girl I Left Behind Me_, _Hail Columbia_
and _The Star Spangled Banner_.

We have told you so much about the Indian and his song that it is
unnecessary now to dwell at length on his music. Of course some American
composers have used Indian folk legend and music, but after all it
remains the musical portrait of the Red Man and has not become the heart
language of the white man.

We have, however, a real folk-expression that has had a great deal of
influence on our popular music and will probably help to create a
serious music to which we can attach the label “Made in America,” and
that is the music of the American Negro.

In Chapter II we showed you what the Negro had brought from his native
Africa, and also that he had been influenced by his contact with the
white race. His music is not the result of conscious art and of study
but is a natural outburst in which he expresses his joys and sorrows,
his tragedies and racial oppression. Also we find rhythms, melody and
form that have grown as a wild flower grows, and are different from any
we have met heretofore.

Mr. Krehbiel in his book _Afro-American Folksongs_ says of the Negro
slave songs: “They contain idioms which were transplanted hither from
Africa, but as song they are the product of American institutions; of
the social, political and geographical environment within which their
creators were placed in America, of the influences to which they were
subjected in America, of the joys, sorrows and experiences which fell to
their lot in America.”

The Negro has cultivated, like all races, songs and dances. As we said
of the Russian, his song is sad and full of tragedy, but the dance is
gay, wild and primitive. From the dance of the Negro we borrowed the
rhythm formerly called ragtime, which is now jazz. The principle of the
Negro rhythm is syncopation, that is, the accent is shifted to the
unaccented part of a measure or of a beat, like this,—♩♩♩, ♩♩♩, ♩♩♩. All
sorts of combinations are possible in this rhythm, and it is this
variety that is fascinating in a good jazz tune.

The banjo is the instrument of the southern plantation Negro, and when a
crowd gathers for a “sing” or a dance, the hands and feet take the place
of drums and keep time to the syncopated tune and is called, “patting
Juba.”

A curious dance was the “shout” which flourished in slave days. It took
place on Sunday or on prayer meeting nights and was accompanied by hymn
singing and shouting that sounded from a distance like a melancholy
wail. After the meeting the benches were pushed back, old and young, men
and women, stood in the middle of the floor and when the “sperichel” (or
spiritual) was started they shuffled around in a ring. Sometimes the
dancers sang the “sperichel” or they sang only the chorus, and for a
distance of half a mile from the praise house the endless thud, thud of
the feet was heard.

In the beautiful Spiritual, the song of the Negro, we see also the
syncopated rhythm. The religious song is practically the only song he
has, and he sings it at work, at play, at prayer, when he is sick and
his friends sing it after he is dead. To our ears the words are crude
and homely, but always reveal a fervent religious nature as well as a
childlike faith.

No doubt you have heard _Nobody Knows the Trouble I See_, _Deep River_,
_Swing Low Sweet Chariot_, _Go Down Moses_, _Weeping Mary_ and many
others.

Such a wealth of feeling and beauty could not fail to leave its mark in
the land where it was born.

Just how it will bear fruit we cannot say, but it is making its appeal
more and more, not only to the American, but to the foreign composers as
well, and they believe that this music,—the syncopated rhythm that the
American is at last developing in his own way—in spite of its humble
origin, is the one new thing that America has given to the growth of
music, and they envy us that wealth of rhythm that seems to be born in
the American.

                         Music Becomes a Youth

                               CHAPTER XI
 Makers of Motets and Madrigals—Rise of Schools 15th and 16th Centuries

Don’t you think it strange that we have not told you of any pieces
written for the lute alone, or for the viol or any other instrument? The
reason is that until 1700, there was little music for a solo instrument,
but only for voices alone or for voice and instrument together.

The main sport of composers of this time, was to take a popular tune and
write music around it. The popular tune was called the _cantus firmus_
(subject or fixed song) and the composer who did the fanciest things
with the tune was hailed as great. So instead of wanting to make up
tunes as we do, they were anxious to see what they could do with old
tunes. Times change, don’t they?

“Like children who break their toys to see how they work, they learned
to break up the musical phrases into little bits which they repeated,
which they moved from one part to another; in this way the dividing of
themes (tunes) came, which led them to the use of imitation and of
canon; these early and innocent gardeners finally learned how to make
the trees of the enchanted garden of music bear fruit. Still timid, they
kept the custom for three centuries of making all their pieces from
parts of plain-song or of a popular song, instead of inventing subjects
for themselves; thus, what is prized today above every thing else—the
making of original melodies—was secondary in the minds of the musicians,
so busy were they trying to organize their art, so earnestly were they
trying to learn the use of their tools.” (Translated from the French
from _Palestrina_, by Michel Brenet).

By spending their time this way, they added much to the science of
music. If it was not pretty, at least it was full of interesting
discoveries which composers used later, as we shall see, in fugues,
canons, suites and many other forms.

The most popular forms of composition during these two centuries (the
15th and the 16th) were the motet for Church and the madrigal for
outside the Church.

                            WHAT A MOTET IS

The _motet_ probably gets its name from a kind of profane song (not
sacred) that was called in Italian _mottetto_, and translated into
French _bon mot_, means a jest. It dates back to the 13th century, and
was disliked by the Church. The first motets used in the Church in the
early 14th century are very crude to our ears, but interesting
historically. The composers of the different schools of this period
wrote many of them. Motets were usually those parts of the church ritual
which depended on the day or season. They were not the regular unaltered
parts like the mass itself.

This motet, or part-song, used as its central theme a tune already
familiar to its hearers; this tune, the _cantus firmus_ was sometimes a
bit from a Gregorian chant or from a mass, but more often it was a
snatch from a dance song or a folk song with very vulgar words, or it
may have been a troubadour love song with anything but the right kind of
words for the Church. The words for one part were often from the Bible
and for other parts very coarse words from popular tunes. Imagine
singing them at the same time! Still funnier, the words of the sacred
song were sung in Latin and the popular song was sung in whatever
language it happened to be written! Can you think of anything more
ridiculous? The masses came to be known by the names from which the tune
was taken and nearly every composer including the great Palestrina wrote
masses on a popular tune of the day, _L’homme armé_ (The Man in Armor).
Yet they were all quite different, so varied had become the science of
writing counterpoint.

Josquin des Près (1450–1521) the Flemish composer wrote a motet,
_Victimae Paschali_, which is written around an old Gregorian
plainchant, interwoven with two popular _rondelli_ (in French _roundel_
from which comes our terms _roundelay_ and _rondo_) and a _Stabat Mater_
of his. The _cantus firmus_, or subject of this motet is another secular
or popular air.

The popular composers returned the compliment and took themes or tunes
from church music and put secular words to them. History repeats itself,
for we today take a tune from Handel’s _Messiah_ and use it in _Yes, We
Have No Bananas_ and we jazz the beautiful and noble music of Chopin,
Beethoven, Schubert and many others.

Yet this music,—the child we are watching grow up—because of mixing up
sacred and profane music soon gets a big reprimand.