Page:Anecdotes of Great Musicians.djvu/21





There have been musical antagonisms in all ages of the world. Church and State have joined in them as well as individuals. But not all of them had as judicious an arbiter as had the dispute between the French and Roman singers on the occasion of a visit of Charlemagne to Rome to celebrate Holy Week, about the year 803, A.D. This most Catholic magnate had taken with him his choir; and the Gallic singers soon started a controversy with the choristers of the Roman Church, claiming to sing better and more agreeably than the Italians.

But the Roman choristers knew that their style of music was in direct descent from St. Gregory, and accused the Gauls of corrupting and disfiguring the true ecclesiastical style.

Finally this dispute between the singers of the good King Charles and those of Pope Adrian waxed so warm that the King thought it time to take a hand and end the hostilities. He called his singers before him and asked them whether they thought the water of a fountain would be purest at its source, or after it had run a good distance and been mixed with other streams. Of course, they answered that the nearer to the source the purer the water. The King then exclaimed, "Mount ye then up to the pure fountain of St. Gregory, whose chant ye have manifestly corrupted." 