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The Great Musical Reformers. III. Magister Franco Author(S): W. S. Rockstro Source: the Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol

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The Great Musical Reformers. III. Magister Franco Author(S): W. S. Rockstro Source: the Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol The Great Musical Reformers. III. Magister Franco Author(s): W. S. Rockstro Source: The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 30, No. 556 (Jun. 1, 1889), pp. 333-336 Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3359740 Accessed: 15-03-2016 03:18 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Musical Times Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 129.96.252.188 on Tue, 15 Mar 2016 03:18:04 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE MUSICAL TIMES.-JuNE I, 1889. 333 establishment of the band on Sunday-a much more the fact that he has rendered good service by likely day to attract the roughs-have been such as incidentally alluding to a real public grievance most effectually to dispel such a notion. On the finest -the extensive nature of the non-official engage- days the audiences have been orderly and respectable, ments of our best military bands. So long not to say fashionable. For our own part, we can as Mr. Crowest refrains from theorising, and see nothing to be frightened at in the advent of confines himself to statements of fact, he is useful respectable working men on such occasions. But and even intelligible. For instance, he shows that the fastidious may take heart of grace, for, as a cor- the pay of bandsmen is poor, and their chance of pro- respondent in the Daily Telegraph pointed out, it is a motion nil. Why then do they join ? "The answer to well known fact that the poorer classes have a this is, there are certain loopholes which a bandsman curious disinclination to frequent places which are the will join the army for the off chance of finding. One common resort of smart and fashionable people. It is this. Bandsmen in Line regiments are trained by will no doubt be objected that the high standard of their bandmasters until they complete their first term efficiency attained in our best military bands is the of service, and should they turn out good musicians, result of this demand for their performance on non- they invariably try for the Guards, Marines, Engineers, official occasions, and that if any step were taken to or Artillery Bands, which, if they get accepted for, curtail their earning capacity, this efficiency would they join, regardless of their old regiment's conve- suffer from the falling off of competition. If this be nience, or the feelings of the bandmaster who has so, we are quite at one with Mr. Crowest, who trained them. One would think that a system which suggests that bandsmen should be better paid all precluded this chopping and changing, and which round. The taxpayer would not be so inclined to made it possible for a regiment to command and grumble if once he felt a sense of real proprietorship in retain the services of its efficient musicians would be these fine bands. That he can not be said to do at the better policy for all concerned. But admission present. to these leading regiments means certain privileges which appeal strongly to the men, and which are not in force in ordinary Line bands. Thus, THE GREAT MUSICAL REFORMERS. in the case of the regiments of Guards, the men BY W. S. ROCKSTRO. have the privilege of wearing civilian clothes when off duty, which enables them to accept private III.--MAGISTER FRANCO. engagements; they can live out of barracks, and thus have wives and sweethearts, and a thousand OF the progressive steps by means of which the art other facilities for getting rid of their earnings; many and science of music were gradually raised to a engagements at parties, theatres, promenade concerts, comparatively high degree of perfection, during the balls, weddings, and flower shows, where wine and period which immediately followed the death of music frequently contract a not unfriendly alliance, Guido d'Arezzo, no detailed record has been preserved are open to them-all this and more is the portion of to us. It is only, therefore, by diligent study of the stationary bandsman. Bands such as the Guards' the MSS. handed down to us from this eventful are called "stationary" from the fact that they are epoch that we are able to arrive at a trustworthy not expected to leave the kingdom, and both bands- estimate of the facts therein presented to us in a men and bandmaster in such regiments have tolerably practical form, with no theoretical dissertations to aid snug posts. The duties of the Guards' bands chiefly us in our search after the truth. appertain to the State, which fact demands their We have seen that Guido furnished his readers presence nearly always in London. As Household with an immense amount of valuable information, troops they have extra work, such as guard mounting without clearly explaining how far the improvements daily at Old Palace Yard, guards of honour, levies, and he described were the result of his own inventive the like, to attend." genius, or telling us how many of them were in Put briefly, the result of the present system is this: general use at the time when he began to write. We that our best military bands in London or Portsmouth must, therefore, content ourselves with the certainty are so preoccupied with the fulfilment of their private that the compendium he bequeaths to us presents engagements that they are not fully available for public us with a trustworthy epitome of the condition occasions. Even officers have been heard to complain of musical science at the opening of the eleventh that they hardly ever hear their own bands. Now century. That a well considered system of improve- this, it seems to us, is a matter on which the public ment was in active progress at this period cannot is entitled to a hearing, especially at the present time, reasonably be doubted. Indeed, the fact is proved when an appeal has been made in the columns of the by innumerable MSS., in which the evidence of Daily Telegraph for the establishment of a daily advance is incontestable. But half-a-century, at military band in Hyde Park. least - possibly a very much longer period - It is true that the chief cost of supporting a military elapsed before another theoretical writer furnished band falls on the officers of the regiment, but the the world with a clear and intelligible account of the Government annually contributes ?80 to this end; improvements which had so long been gradually and, therefore, the taxpayer has some voice in the approaching perfection. This writer was Magister matter. The provincial towns are far better off Franco-popularly known as Franco of Cologne- than the metropolis in the matter of hearing open whose personal identity has given rise to as much speculation as the originality of Guido's discoveries; air military music. In London the crack military bands exist mainly for the benefit of Society-in other the scene of whose labours has been transferred, by words, for those who are rich enough to engage them dissentient critics, from Cologne to Liege, to Paris, and even to Dortmund; and the date of whose to play at their private houses. This is an anomaly writings has been disputed, to the extent of at least strangely at variance with the democratic tendency of the age. The reason alleged by the authorities for 150 years. Fortunately, the writings themselves are unassailable. We possess them in more than one refusing to acquiesce in the proposal advanced by our contemporary is equally out of keeping with the times. MS. copy, of unquestionable authenticity; and their But more than that; it can be shown to be baseless. substance is too clear to admit of controversy. It is asserted that such an institution would draw all Sigebertus Gemblacensis (ob. 1113) speaks of the rough element in the population to Hyde Park. Magister Franco as a Scholastic, distinguished for Per contra, the results, in recent seasons, of the his religion and knowledge, and celebrated for his This content downloaded from 129.96.252.188 on Tue, 15 Mar 2016 03:18:04 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 334 THE MUSICAL TIMES.-JuNE I, 1889. nor Hawkins saw any difficulty in accepting this probity and his scientific acquirements.* And the view; and, until some farther light shall be thrown same author tells us in another placet that he dedi- upon the subject, we cannot think that the student cated a tract, "De Quadratura Circuli," to Herimanus, runs any serious risk in following their example. Archbishop of Cologne-whose death, known to have Magister Franco's musical treatises are entitled:- taken place in 1055, forms an important land-mark in i. Compendium de Discantu, tribus capitibus. the chronological controversy. Trithemiust describes 2. Ars Magistri Franconis de Musica Mensutrabili. this tract as having been written, with many others,? by " Franco, Scholasticus Leodiensis Ecclesiac," who, 3. Magistri Franconis Musica. One of the earliest known MS. copies of the Coin- he tells us, flourished at Liege about the year io60, pendium de Discantu is preserved in the Bodleian during the reign of the Emperor Henry III.; and Library at Oxford.* Another early copy was pre- there is other evidence to prove that a certain sented to the Vatican Library by Queen Christina of Magister Franco - who may well have been the Sweden, and a third was discovered in the Paris Scholastic of Cologne-held the like office at Liege Library some fifty years ago by M.
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