Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/271

SCHOOLS OF COMPOSITION. very great—so much too great for detailed criticism, that we must content ourselves with a brief notice of those only which have exercised the most important influence upon Art in general. In making a selection of these, we have been guided, before all things, by the principles of æsthetic analogy, though neither local nor chronological coincidences have been overlooked, or could possibly have been overlooked, in the construction of the following scheme, in accordance with which we propose to arrange the order of our leading divisions.

I. The Art of Composition was long supposed to have owed its origin to the intense love of Music which prevailed in the Low Countries, during the latter half of the 14th century. The researches of modern criticism have proved this hypothesis to be groundless, so far as its leading proposition is concerned: yet, it contains so much collateral truth, that, while awaiting the results of farther investigation, we are still justified in representing Flanders as the country whence the cultivation of Polyphony was first disseminated to other lands. If the Netherlanders were not the arliest Composers, they were, at least, the first Musicians who taught the rest of Europe how to compose. And, with this certain fact before us, we have no hesitation in speaking of as the earliest manifestation of creative genius which can be proved to have exercised a lasting influence upon the history of Art. The force of this assertion is in no wise invalidated by the strong probability that the Faux-bourdon was first sung in France, and exported thence, at a very early period, to Italy. For the primitive Faux-bourdon, though it indicated an immense advance in the practice of Harmony, was, technically considered, no more than a highly-refined development of the extempore Organum, or Discant, of the 11th and 12th centuries, and bore very little relation to the true 'Cantus super librum,' to which, alone, the term Composition can be logically applied. We owe, indeed, a deep debt of gratitude to the Organizers, and Discanters, by whom it was invented; for, without the materials accumulated by their ingenuity and patience, later Composers could have done nothing. They first discovered the harmonic combinations which have been claimed, as common property, by all succeeding Schools. The misfortune was that with the discovery their efforts ceased. Of symmetrical arrangement, based upon the lines of a preconceived design, they had no idea. Their highest aspirations extended no farther than the enrichment of a given Melody with such Harmonies as they were able to improvise at a moment's notice: whereas Composition, properly so called, depends, for its existence, upon the invention—or, at least, the selection—of a definite musical idea, which the genius of the Composer presents, now in one form, and now in another, until the exhaustive discussion of its various aspects produces a work of Art, as consistent, in its integrity, as the conduct of a Scholastic Thesis, or a Dramatic Poem. Upon this plan, the Flemish Composers formed their style. They delighted in selecting their themes from the popular Ditties of the period—little Volkslieder, familiar to men of all ranks, and dear to the hearts of all. These they developed, either into Sæcular Chansons for three or more Voices, or into Masses and Motets of the most solemn and exalted character; with no more thought of irreverence, in the latter case, than the Painter felt, when he depicted Our Lady, resting, during her Flight into Ægypt, amidst the familiar surroundings of a Flemish hostelry. At this period, representing the Infancy of Art, the Subject, or Canto fermo, was almost invariably placed in the Tenor, and sung in long-sustained notes, while two or more supplementary Voices accompanied it with an elaborate Counterpoint, written, like the Canto fermo itself, in one or other of the antient Ecclesiastical Modes, and consisting of Fugal Passages, Points of Imitation, or even Canons, all suggested by the primary idea, and all working together for a common end. This was Composition, in the fullest sense of the word; and, as the truth of the principle upon which it was based has never yet been disputed, the Musicians who so successfully