The History of Musical Notation Author(s): Henry C. Lunn Source: The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 12, No. 278 (Apr. 1, 1866), pp. 261-263 Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3354152 Accessed: 24-08-2016 14:57 UTC

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This content downloaded from 194.81.230.99 on Wed, 24 Aug 2016 14:57:10 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms TEE MUSIGAL TIMES. APRIL 19 1866.

261

THE MUSICAI. TIMES, should have been acquainted with thirds and triads in ancient times, for the cuckoo sings the first and 3nX ixngWg (g;Iass CrxIarv the blackbird the second: here are their songs, as we usually find theln in books, although I cannot say APRIL 1, 1866. that amongst the trees we often hear them, either in time or tune, according to this llotation.

Cuckoo. THE HISTORY OF MUSICAL NOTATION. SS_ _ a Q BY HENRY C. LUNN. S z r-m- . 11 r f-t: r -n 1 has ever seemed to me that the true aim of Blackbird. musical study-whether pursued as a profession or as an accomplishmenshould be the cultivation of the WS c ; . JK ; -r=t-f *-2-; * r tl mind beyond the merepractical demonstration of our faculty, so that the halld or the voice shall be but the Very pretty is the idea that we derived our music exponent of what lies deeply in the heart. Every from the birds, from the wind sighing through the step, therefore, in our knowledge of the art is so reeds, from the babbling brooks; but this is poetry- much gain to the artist; and in tracing its history not history. Read our earliest records, and the and progress from the earliest times1 we obtain not truth forees itself upon us, that not only did the only a clear insight ;nto the real foundatiorl of our ancients never attempt to imitate the sounds of aodern music, but we are taught to respect the nature, but that they shut nature out as an imperti- exertions of those who, in an age strenuously opposed nent intruder, and reduced their music to a series of to all Lnnovation, zealously battled with the world's matheinatical calculations. To this, however, I shall prejudice, and manfully worked in the cause of an presently more particularly allude. art which, but for them, might have struggled for We have no record to prove that the Phoenicialls years in the darkIless with which it was surrounded. or Hebrews had any method of lloting music, nor, The subject I have selected the history of musi- indeed, do we iluagine that any music worth noting cal noRation-is one which I have heard many per- existed amongst thern; although, so strangely do sons pronounce ;' dry." Now, if I were to confine authors disagree upon this- as, indeed, upon most myself to simply showing, by reference to innumera- other points of musical history-that it is confidently ble musty and worm-eaten books, how a certain affirmed by Fossivs that the five-line staff was used, umber of marks became7 in the course of time, a as we use it, by the ancient Egyptians. To the certain number of other n:larks7 there might be sorne Greeks, however, we seem naturally to look for the truth in the verdict; but history teaches us to blend germ of our modern notation; for it is here that we c&use and efEect in such equal proportions that no read of seales, modes, systems-even our words fact can be fixed in the mind without the events dietonic and c7wrom.tic; and it is amongst their which led to this fact almost insensibly creeping in authors that we never tire of hunting for remnants with it. Thus the history of coins seems " dry ," of a music which is stated to have produced effects but attempt to study the subject, and you will find such as even the strains of our own Handel can that it is, in fact, a history of civilization, the coins scarcely equal. Alas, how profitless is the research ! being the llwoveable diagrams representingt step by Unhesitatinfflly I say that we have no positive know- step, the progress and development o£ nations. The ledge of what the Greek music wasX and I would go history of writing seems "dry ;" but subject it to forther and state that, if we had there is every rea- the salne test, and you will discover that, as thought son to believe that we should be struck with wonder advances, the desire to perpetuate that ffiought to that such aJ mere bald succession of sounds should be future generations forces man to express his ideas dignified with the name of music at all. With the first, by ctlmbrous hieroglyphics, and1 through that Greeks everything was calculation. They ectlculated rude form, to arrive gradually at that perfect system for instance, that the octave, fourth, and fifth were which 110W exists throughout the civilized world. consonances, and rejected the third and sixth as dis- 'Ihese "dry" sllbjects, therefore, become instinct sonances. VVhether they really liked the successions with vitality as soon as they are touched by the of fifths and fourths appears somewhat doubtful- historian's walld for they show the struggles of for they were very much disposed evelltually to em- intellect from the earliest ages to add its store to the ploy only the octave but they calculated that they xvorld's riches in a form so durable that it shall last were right; and as it was llot thought worthy of a for ages after the body has passed away for ever. true Grecian to fall back upon his natural sensations If all this be true, then, of the subjects we have he felt bound to be exeruciated in the sacred cause llamed, how interestin to the student of music must of l:lathematics. be the history of musical notation. Here we see It appears to me, in considerin the subject of that the simple soullds utteredby infant society-too Greek music, that we Inust hesitate to take foI puerile perhaps, to be worth preserving-a.re lost to granted any stated fact! unless that fact can be us for ever: but when sound developed illtO a science authenticated by an existing record which shall be and music became a recognized power, the ;ngenuity the actllal work of a Greek hand of the period. His- of man was exerted to express this language by in- torians agree because one carefully copies from telligible signs * and from this time musical notation another; but when we desire to know not the takes its place in history. effect, for that is sMiciently vollched for - but the I do not intend to frighten rny readers by attempt- reason of the egWect of their music, we find ourselves ing to discover the origin of music. AVe haare a wofully at a loss. Even the miserable fragments right to believe that it commenced with the existence preserved to us throw not the faintest ray of light of man vlpon the earth. AVe have a voice, and we upon the matter. Dr. Burney seezxls to have pored singt for very joy this is music. The birds do the over these hieroglyphies with the zeal of a real same; we do not zanitctte them: had we dorle SO? we enthusiast in the cause; but without in the slightest

This content downloaded from 194.81.230.99 on Wed, 24 Aug 2016 14:57:10 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 262 TEE MUSICAL TIMES.- APRIL 1, 1866.

degree deciphering the riddle. He says that he considered rank heresy to admit it; for lllUSiC was " tried the series of sounds in every key, and in every nursed by mathematicians; and if a Grecian ear really almer that the feet of the verses would allow; and did detect that this system of fourths was contradicted as it, has been the opinion of some that the Greek by nature herself, the possessor vf it was probably scale and music should be read Hebrew-wise, he even wise enough to hold his tongue. Be this as it may, inverted the order of notes, but without being able there can be little doubt that the most ancient musical to reduce thele to the least grace or elegance." In instrurnent of the Greeks was a lyre; and we have fact, he emphatically says, " I do not at all under- every reason to believe that it had four strings stand the Greek music) and I never yet nlet algbody although this fact, earen, is constantly disputed. I who did.' am disposed, however, to think that, as their rnusic Where then are we to turn for any actual speci- was regulated by their instruments, and not their en of the so-called music of the Greeks? The instruments by their rnusic as we moderns are in- Choruses, which formed an important part of their clined to do-the single tetrac7ord on the four strings dramas, no doubt produced a powerful efiect upon of their lyre originated their system, and that other the audience; but in what manner they were aided tetrclchords were added as the strings of their lyre by music remains still a mystery. A large body of increased in number. voices rnerely regulated by that feeling for rhythm The musical characters of the Greeks were which was the life and soul of Greek poetry, may merely the letters of their alphabet; but these were have created all the effect about which their poets so distorted, inverted and abbreviated that it was have rhapsodized. The united soices of a turbulent often almost impossible to recognize them. Of Illob thirsting for vengeance, have a fearful inten- the idea of ascent and descent they conveyed not the sity: the cry of fire from a crowd m the stillness °f slightest notion; and indeed so thoroughly did each nigrht, thrills through every nerve; and Gluck, the tone exist independently of its neighbours that we composer? relates that the most painfully sublitne m.ay readily imagine how little our modern notion of chorus he ever heard was from a hungry multitude a ladder of sounds was at all necessary. The names in the street? during a time of famule, uttering the of the several notes in their great scale of sounds simple cry of "bread bread !' were enough to frighten any student: for instance, With every respect for the alllount of illtellect the note at the hottozn of the scale although never brollght to bear upon almost every subJect in ancient used in the tetrachord rwas called Proslambanomerzos Greece, I am almost mclmed to belleve, thereforeX which means literally "taken to begin with," and that music, such as modern nations understand perhaps after giving this as a specimen, I ruay be the word, was then perfectly unknown. Our at- excused from naming the others. WVith this cumbrous tempts to reduce their few remnants of music to our method of noting a few simple sounds, it is very easy present notation are utterly £utile, since we do not to imagine that every alteration must be in the right even know the sounds produced by the strings of direction; for as it cou]d not very well be more com- their lyres; or mdeed, what was really meant by plicated, a greater simplicity gradually-but very any of the 1620 signs which they had to represent gradually crept in. Before I quit this part of my their notes. It may be said that we can refer to subject, it will perhaps lnake it clearer to my readers allthorities on the subJect; but where 1S the historian if they see the tetrachords of the Greeks written in that can go to the source of Greek music, and g*e our present notation. us facts from his own positive knowledge ? Hawkills Burney, Fetis} all are authorities * but in how many Diatonic. Chromatic. Enharmonic. instances have they based their information either 2 ol 4 ol F 11 I J$tJ r " lxa3 rJ iv 0 upon hearsay1 or upon the writings of those who s have preceded them; and in how many instances It is necessary here to say that the Greeks had no have they unravelled a Greek mystery according to method of denoting the duration of the sound by the their own fashion, without one tangible fact to character used to express the pitch the measure and assist them? In poring over these works we are feet of the verse beingthe sole guide to the singer. collstantly reminded of Washington Irvin's theories It will be foreign to my purpose to dwell upon the of cosmogony, in Knickerbocker's " History of New meaning of the words Dorian, Phrygial:lX Lydiarl, as York," where he says that many persons supposed applied to their several lnodes n and I will content that the earth rested upon the back of a huge tor- myself, therefore, by merely saying that we have toise; but not being able to discover, after lnuch every right to believe that they were merely so many research, what the tortoise rested upon, the whole variations of a mznor scale, and that our q7zajor scale, theory fell to the ground for warlt of a proper as we understalld it, was entirely ullknown to them. foundation. Many remnants of the (;reek musical terms are, I have dwelt thus at length upon the history of however, familiar to modern ears; but it must be Greek music because it is essential to understand carefully remembered that these terms are by no that, although we are tolerably acquainted with their means llOW used to express the same ideas. l'he method of notation, we have very little- if any-letter Gzzmqna, placed at the commencement of the eridence of what actual sounds were represented. scale, no doubt was the origin of our word Ga7nut t In the first place, we know that the system of tetra- but they attached, as we have already seen, very chords-or system of a fourth-ruled all others; for different ideas from our own to the words daatonic, even their whole scale (as we are accustomed to call chromatic, and enharmo7?ic. iEteferring to the three it) of eighteen notes was divided into five tetrachords. tetrachords, of which an example has been just given I will show presently how this system of a fourth is it will be perceived that the only place where a note usually rendered in our present notation. It may, lies between two whole tones is in the first one, marked however, here be explained that two of these tetra- Diatonic, the word diatone having reference to the chords joined together, will form what we call a note D, and thus naming the tetrachord. The terre " diatollic scale " thus: C D E F-G, A, Be C; CJtromatic (frole Chroœna, colouz) I believe to have but if the Greeks kllew this alsoS it was certainly originated with the coloured strings of the lyre,

This content downloaded from 194.81.230.99 on Wed, 24 Aug 2016 14:57:10 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms T1IE 3;IUSICAIX r1'1X3£S.-APRIL 1, 1866. JtjB

which lnarked the half tonelike the black keys of { Although we are now in the fourth century of the our pianofortes and organs; but eventually it came ] Christian era, it will be seen that we have not yet to be used for the tetrachord where no diatone was N the slightest approach, not only to a staff, but to any found, and no interval smaller than a semitone b method of determining the ascent or descent of occurred. Enharmonic, proceeding by the diesis or r sounds. In Kieswetter's History of Music we are quarter-tone (to express which I have teen compeiled 1 told that before the introduction of lines, the sounds to use an arbitrary character), named the third tetra- * intended by the Composer were so uncertain that, (musicians. The means taken by the precedinffl note) by its shape. The immenss3 this tyrannical vocalist to ensure applause from his > difficulty of distinguishing definitely the intended audience would appear somewhat strange to modern sound was to a certain extent remedied during the concert-goers; for Suetonius, in his life of VespasianX ninth and tenth centuries, by drawing a line parallel afterwards Emperor, tells us how that personage with the words of the test, above and below which "often greatly provoked the anger of Nero by the words were inserted. Afterwards a still greater escaping from the theatre during the time of per- improvement was effected by bringing two lines into formance; however, fearing the consequences of the i use7 one red and the other yellow, " which served," oSence, he returned, in order to make atonement; as Kieswetter says " at the same time as the F and when, unfortunately, falling asleep while the Em- C keys: between these two lines, in the iVerstice peror was singingX only the most earnest intercession * higher or lower, according to the eye, the notes of his friends, raen of the highest rank, appeased the lying between F and C namely, G, A, B, were imperial wrath, and saved his life." inserted." The music of the early Christians, who at first i All these systems, ingenious as they are, appear so took the art under their especial protection, now inaccurate to us that little wonder can be created at claims our notice; for it was with these earnest and the diflerence of opinion ex:isting between Mater sincere followers of a faith destined eventually to i Trudo, Alaster Albinus, and Master Salomo as to the link mankind with his Creator, that music, d*ested notes really sntended to be sung. It has been shownS of its earthly, material clothing, seemed to be born however, by the invention of the red and yellow again, in truth and purity, as an aid to the heavenly lines, that some notion of the staff had already arisen mission of establishing Christianity on the face of in the lninds of the most intelligent thinkers on the the earth. That scholars-rather than musicians- subject; and from this time it will be seen that the should still be found, who would insist upon lookiIlg foundation of our present notation was slowlyX but back to Greece as the fountairt-head of music as of securely, laid, although important improvemerlts have all the other artstand sciences, may be reasonably been effected as Inusic gradually shook itself free e2rpected. Hence, again, came those terrible calcu- from the trammels with which it had been so long lations which had already set a barrier against the surroullded. possibility of appealing to our natural feelings for (To be COtltilM.) so many hundreds of years; and hence, again, poor ignorant man was inforlued that fourths, fifths, and CRYSTAL PALACE. octaves were perfect consonances; and that, unplea- THE Saturday collcerts at this establishment contillue to offer the sant as they were to his ear, he must use any others most tempting programmes to the lovers of good music and indeed the constant habit of performing together-80 absoluteiy necessary at his peril. The great point of dispute, however to enrure anything like decisiontin a band-has raised the orchestra was now the scale, and in the laEer part of the fourth under the able management of Herr Manns, into an importance century, St. Arnbrose, Bishop of Milan, chose four which the direetors of the Cry#tal Palace could scarcely have con templated. Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, and Schumalm's successions of tones, which, as will be perce*ed by thoughtful and dramatic overture to Manfred have been per- the following illustration, difered only from each formed, and thoroughly enjoyed by the audience; and Miss Agnes Zimmermann lately played Beethoven's Pianoforte Concerto in C other irl the situation of the senlitones. minor (with a eadence of her own composition) so thoroughly well as to elicit the most enthusiastic applause. Mr. Sullivan's new D E F G A B C D Symphony has been an interesting feature at these concerts, and seems to have achieved a success which we trust may have a healthy -EFGABCDE effect upon the yolmg composer. At our concerts in the metropolis we hope to have an opportunity of shortly hearing this work, for -F G A B C D E F there call be no doubt that the puerilities of Keniltoorth have (in spite of ill-advised laudation) disappointed many who began to G A B C D E F G believe in the coxnposer of the TempeJt music.

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