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That this was the character of the music is perhaps not conclusively proved by the versification of the psalm:— but the probability amounts to more than a reasonable hypothesis, for no other hypothesis affords a satisfactory explanation of the verse. The unrhythmical nature of the music in general is all the more probable because of the care with which verbal rhythm is secured at the verse-end, where the music would naturally, in any case, be somewhat rhythmical. A cadence-effect would indeed be produced at the end of the bar by the mere occurrence of a pause after the hemistich, for the ear in such a case is forced to dwell on the last two or three notes and make a cadence of them, even when they are actually equal in time and stress; and that such a pause occured here is clear from the author's practice in the matter of elision: but the rime at the verse-end, and the almost uniform feminine endings of the hemistichs show that in fact the verse-end was still more strongly marked, and of course the music corresponded. It is a significant feature of the verse that where verbal rhythm was demanded it was secured not by quantity but by accent. (See the short accented penult in mare 1. 4 of the extract.) To Augustine, as to Sedulius and Fortunatus, verbal accent was the natural concomitant of rhythmical ictus, wherever such ictus needed verbal reinforcement at all.

Other compositions in verse of the same character as that just described are best explained in the same way. As a single additional specimen of such verse it may be interesting to refer to the ancient hymn in honor of St. Patrick.(1) It begins as follows:

Audite omnes amantes Deum, sancta merita
viri in Christo beati, Patrici episcopi;
quomodo bonum ob actum similatur angelis,
perfectamque propter vitam aequatur apostolis.

(1) Found in an 8th cent. MS. :-said in Julian's Dict. to have been composed perhaps about 458, but I do not know upon what authority this conjecture rests.

Beati Christi custodit mandata in omnibus, cujus opera refulgent clara inter homines, sanctumque cujus sequuntur exemplum mirificum, unde et in coelis patrem magnificant Dominum. The two hemistichs of each line are of 7 and 8 syllables respectively, and are neither quantitative nor accentual,— except that the poet shows a preference for a feminine ending in the first hemistich and for a masculine ending in the second. The hymn is divided (according to the letters of the alphabet) into stanzas of four lines each. Elision does not occur at all in the two quatrains given above, and it is rare in the rest of the poem.

§ 34. The two schools of church music. It has been shown that antecedent probability, and the evidence of two distinct kinds of verse in the early hymns, favor the theory that there were in the 4th century two kinds of music in common use. That which prevailed at Milan perpetuated the traditions of Greek culture. It was taken up by the church at a time when Christianity was no longer vulgar; and we have seen from Augustine's autobiography that the congregation included at least one woman of exceptional culture. This music seems to demand a verbal rhythm in whatever verses were set to it. But at the same time, there seems to have been another style, prevailing elsewhere, which made no such demand.

But the existence of two styles of music in the early church is a matter of history; and the evidence of tradition, as well as that of later musical development, points to just such a distinction between them as has here been drawn. The two styles are commonly known as the use of Milan and the use of Rome, and are associated with the names of the two great reformers, Ambrose and Gregory, respectively. Without reviewing in detail the a posteriori arguments of the historians of music, it remains only to cite their testimony as to the general results.

In Fétis's Dictionary we find the following :(1)—“La prosodie et le rhythme paraissent avoir disparu de la langue latine chantée au temps de Saint Grégoire: on croit qu'il acheva de l'effacer, et que, dans son antiphonaire, toutes les syllabes étaient notées à temps égaux". And again:(2) "La distinction entre le chant grégorien et l'ambroisien consista donc ordinairement, d'une part, en ce que celui de saint Ambroise était la tradition du chant de l'église grecque, avec ses ornements et l'usage de certaines suites de sons chromatiques, *** tandis que la réforme de saint Grégoire fit disparaitre ces successions de sons étrangères au chant diatonique; d'autre part, le chant ambroisien était rhythmique, et le grégorien ne l'était pas. Mais par la suite des temps, ces différences essentielles ont disparu, et depuis plusieurs siècles on n'apercoit plus de distinction saississable entre ces formes du chant ecclésiastique.”

The obvious explanation of the so-called reforms of Gregory is well stated by Apel as follows:(3)-"Was sogleich in die Sinne fällt, dass nämlich der accentuirte Gesang, der sich in Hauptmomenten bewegt, weit mehr geeignet ist von grossen Volksmassen gesungen zu werden, als der quantitirende, weil jener ungebildeten Stimmen zu Hilfe kommt, die sich bloss dem kunstlosen Naturgefühl von Arsis und Thesis zu überlassen brauchen, und überdies grosse Tonmassen sich allezeit anständiger und würdevoller in gleichen Zeiträumen fortbewegen als in ungleichzeitigen: dieses bemerkte auch Gregorius und begründete auf diese Bemerkung seinen Plan zur Reformation des Kirchengesanges."

(1) Fétis Dict. s. n. Grégoire.

(2) Ib. s. n. Ambroise. This is curiously inconsistent in some respects with dicta in Fétis' history:- but there is such a general unanimity on the main point at issue, among the best authorities, that it has seemed not worth while to re-open the questions involved.

(3) II. § 498, as quoted by Ambros, II. 60.

And finally the most scholarly of all the recent treatises on this subject contains the following:(1) "Man pflegt, wie gesagt, den Unterschied zwischen dem Ambrosianischen und dem Gregorianischen Gesange wesentlich darin zu suchen, dass jener Längen und Kürzen unterschieden, dieser die unterschiedlos gleiche Dauer aller einzelnen Töne eingeführt habe. Richtiger hiesse es vielleicht: dass der Ambrosianische Gesang wesentlich auf der poetischen, der Gregorianische auf der musikalischen Metrik beruhte. *** Die eigentliche Bedeutung der Gleichdauer der Bewegung des Gregorianischen Gesanges liegt aber nicht in dem taktmässigen, gleichlangen Aushalten jeder Note, sondern (im Gegensatz gegen die metrischen, d. i. die prosodische Eigenschaft jeder Silbe zur Geltung bringenden Gesänge) darin, dass an sich alle Sylben ohne Rücksicht auf Prosodie für völlig gleichbedeutend, für isometrisch genommen werden, und daher nach den Bedürfnissen des Rhythmus die prosodisch lange Silbe auch in der Geltung einer kurzen genommen werden kann und umgekehrt, und bloss die Gesetze der natürlichen Declamation zu berücksichtigen sind."

Here it is to be observed that there are some striking differences of opinion as to matters of detail. Ambros by no means believes that the music of Gregory's celebrated antiphonary was wholly unrhythmical:—and Fétis thinks that the style of Milan, though strictly prosodical, was distinguished by a much more lavish use of musical ornament. But as to these essential facts their conclusions are the same:-that the Ambrosian music was rhythmical, and necessitated verbal prosody, but that the Gregorian, whether rhythmical in itself or not, made no such demands upon the verse.

§ 35. The influence of the church music on versification. Ancient tradition has it that Gregory's system

(1) Ambros, II. 59-61.

was not a new invention, but largely a compilation and revision of systems that had prevailed in the early churches: his object was not to introduce a new system, but to reduce to uniformity the diverse practices of different communities.(1) As to the most distinctive feature of his system, it is evident from what has gone before that this tradition must be correct; for St. Augustine's psalm shows that this feature, though perhaps in a much cruder form, was familiar as early as the 4th century. As it was apparently popular in Augustine's time, it may well have existed from the beginning of our era, or even earlier.

The significance of all this is apparent enough. During the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, which as we have already seen witnessed the transformation of metrical into rhythmical verse, two radically different styles of music were in vogue. One style was at first strictly prosodical, and always strongly rhythmical. The other was so unrhythmical (or, as Ambros would say, so independent of verbal rhythm) that even in the days when prosody was not yet a thing of the past, it could and did disregard it. The former style (the Ambrosian) was strict in its demands upon the verse, for it was at first only by a prosodical correspondence between words and music that the difficulties of the music could be overcome: hence we find a class of hymns in which, as prosody died out, regular accentual versification took its place. The old prosody could be discarded, for the new rhythm answered the same purpose better. Later still, as the unified system of Gregory began more and more to assert itself throughout the church, the stricter iambic rhythm might, so far as the music was concerned, be dispensed with, and the poet would need to practice only what he had learned about euphony of verse, without

(1) Ambros, II. 43, 44, and esp. the authorities cited p. 43, n.

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