West African musics in the 18th century

This is admittedly a placeholder post, one that I intend to replace with several more detailed posts in the future. At the same time, the blog is something I try to write every week, but the week that I was supposed to write about West Africa was a very busy week, due to various professional and personal obligations. So I was obliged to post readings and activities for the students instead of writing my own blog.

However, to make up for this, I’m including links to the articles I asked the students to read instead. (I made them a video lecture to tie these readings together). These might be useful if you’re interested in the topic.

The Sunjata Story – a modern, translated performance by Mande griots/jalolu

Linford, “Historical Narratives of the Akonting and the Banjo” (Ethnomusicology Review 2014) – a summary of the debates surrounding the banjo’s connection to the akonting

Musical Passage–an annotated facsimile of Hans Sloane’s account of African musicians in colonial Jamaica

Hunter, Handel and the Royal African Company (Musicology Now, 2015)–explaining G F Handel’s investment in the slave trade.

Returning tunes: form in the high Baroque

Much European music from the late 1600s and early 1700s (the high Baroque era) is built on simple forms with recurring themes. This is true of both instrumental and vocal music, and as longer pieces were often built out of many small sections, this basic formal principle will provide useful for understanding these pieces as well. We’ll focus here on two related formal types: the da capo aria and ritornello form. Both were typical of the type of music created by professional musicians in the Italian peninsula during the early 18^th century, and both became popular across Europe as musicians trained in the Italian style became more internationally respected.

The da capo aria was a mainstay of European vocal music in the early 18^th century. It could be found in dramatic music—such as staged operas, with their stories of gods and kings—and oratorios, with their unstaged retellings of stories from the Bible. The da capo aria also appeared in the cantata, which was essentially a setting of a poem for vocalists and a limited instrumental accompaniment. In all these cases, the stories being told would be divided into recitatives (story-telling/plot-driven sections of speech-song) and arias (songs in which the characters reacted emotionally to the plot). An opera, oratorio, or cantata in this period consisted of a string of recitatives and arias, with most of the arias employing the da capo form. Almost all these arias were for solo singers singing by themselves (duets were rare). This music was designed to serve the singers, allowing them opportunities to improvise and display their skills.

The da capo aria was essentially a three-part form, consisting of a two contrasting sections, followed by return to the opening section (which is repeated “da capo”—from the beginning). The opening A section is usually preceded by an instrumental refrain (the ritornello), which then returns periodically between the singer’s verses, often in abbreviated form. The contrasting B section is often quite brief, and usually provides a new melody, new lyrics, and a new mood. On the return to the opening A section, the singer could add ornamentation, improvise, or modify the notated music. One can chart the basic form in this manner:

A section

Instrumental refrain (ritornello) – stable

Singer’s verse – modulating

Instrumental refrain (ritornello) – stable

Singer’s verse 2 – modulating

Instrumental refrain (ritornello) – stable (fine)

B section – in a contrasting key

A section repeats from the beginning (da capo al fine)

The pattern could of course be extended by the addition of more verses, modifications to the repeated A section, etc. The general rule, however, was that the singer’s verses modulated, pulling the music to various related keys; the ritornellos would re-affirm those keys. You can see a basic example of this form in the aria “Bewundert o menschen” from Bach’s cantata Nunn komm, der Heiden Heiland. The open ritornello takes about thirty seconds, followed by a singer who sings for about 30 more seconds. The singer pulls the music toward D major by 1:08, and the next ritornello affirms that new key. The singer’s next verse is longer and pulls the music back toward G (and again is followed by a ritornello in that key). Note that the verses are not always the same length, and that the lyrics are repeated frequently. The B section (in E minor) appears at 2:58, and soon leads to a return to the opening ritornello and the reprise of the A section.

Substitute an instrument for the singers, and you’ll find that relatively similar formal patterns were used in instrumental music as well. Here they are called ritornello form—a recognizable cousin to the da capo aria. The chart below provides a sample of the form, but it could of course have more or fewer sections.

Instrumental refrain (ritornello) – stable

Soloist’s section (episode) – modulating

Instrumental refrain (ritornello) – stable

Soloist’s section (episode) – modulating

Instrumental refrain (ritornello) – stable

Soloist’s section (episode) – modulating

Instrumental refrain (ritornello) – stable

Soloist’s section (episode) – modulating

Instrumental refrain (ritornello) – stable, etc.

Unlike a da capo aria, the end of a ritornello form did not necessarily repeat the opening section exactly, but instead reworked the opening ideas in new ways to close out the form. This example (the first movement of the concerto in A minor) from Vivaldi’s collection of concertos, op. 3, provides a good example of this basic form. Every section in which the solo violinist plays an independent melodic line is an episode, while the recurring orchestral passages are the ritornellos. As in the Bach aria above, one can track the ritornellos’ modulation through closely related keys and the recurrence of the opening theme as stated in the ritornello.

The Italian concerto, as popularized by composers such as Antonio Vivaldi, tended to be structured in three contrasting movements (sections), usually in the pattern fast—slow—fast. The first and last movements often featured ritornello form, with the soloist, like a singer, making the music modulate, and the orchestral refrains staying tonally stable. Because there were no words, and no plot to guide the music, instrumental ritornello forms tended to focus on the music at a thematic level, allowing there to be orchestral concertos (with no soloist), and concerti grossi (which featured several soloists). But, like vocal music, instrumental concertos did provide vehicles for soloists to display their skill and talent.  

These formal patterns allowed composers to think in standardized ways, and to compose for large ensembles, confident that performers and listeners would be able to follow their ideas. The prevalence of these forms explains the extraordinary productivity of Baroque composers (Bach and Vivaldi each wrote over 1000 pieces of music, and others wrote even more). Further, these forms match contemporary accounts of musical composition as a kind of skilled craft rather than as an inspired art. Canonic thinking—which did not exist in its modern form when this music was created—might lead us to overlook the generic qualities of these forms.

Dance music in eighteenth-century Europe

In contemporary American culture, people sometimes ascribe unique intellectual value to European classical music, contrasting it negatively with contemporary popular music. The contrast between the “brainy” music of the canon and “shallow” contemporary dance hits is just another way of getting at an old concept—the idea that music that appeals to your mind is somehow better than music that moves your body. However, this perspective fails to account for the historic importance of dance music in the European classical tradition.

A great amount of European instrumental music from the eighteenth century consists of sets of dances, organized into sets called suites or partitas. These suites owe something of their popularity to the insertion of popular dances in French opera during the late 1600s; French names for the various dances were employed across Europe. French opera was heavily shaped by the French royal court at Versailles (King Louis XIV was a great patron of opera and ballet).

It would be a mistake to imagine that the dances of the suite were perfect reflections of popular culture. Some of the dances were sanitized for elite consumption. The sarabande, for example, is a dance first documented in Spanish Panama in 1539; by 1583, the dance was banned in Spain for being too sexual. In France, the sarabande became a slower, stately dance appropriate for performance at court. In many cases, the surviving versions of these dances hardly seem to merit the scandalized descriptions that one may occasionally read of them (even the waltz, which emerged in the early 1800s, was at first described as inappropriately sexual).

The dance suite was an increasingly popular genre in printed sheet music, as it provided something that was guaranteed to appeal to casual listeners and presumably to dancers. Consequently a number of well-known musicians wrote dance suites for a variety of solo instruments. Johann Sebastian Bach, for example, wrote dance suites for the violin, the cello, the lute, and the keyboard. It’s unclear if Bach expected people to dance to this music; it seems more likely that he was simply drawing on contemporary dance styles in his music.

The dance suite followed a relatively standard model. Most suites included a prelude and four dances. All the dances had standardized forms, unique rhythm features, and standardized tempos. Traditionally, all the dances in a suite would be in the same key, lending the group a shared tonal identity. Additional dances could be added to the suite at will, but the core of the form was the following:

Prelude—not a dance, but an instrumental warm-up piece; sometimes it was meterless

Allemande—in common time; moderate speed; rapid sixteenths

Courante—in triple meter, sometimes with 6/8 cross-rhythms; fast and moderate versions existed

Sarabande—in triple meter, with an accent on beat 2; slow

Gigue—in compound meter (6/8 was the most common); fast, often imitative

The dances themselves reflect the interaction of various European cultures (the embedded links are to performances of the historic dance steps). “Allemande” is French for “German dance”; the courante comes from Italy (its Italian name, “corrente,” means “running dance,” but it was slowed down considerably in the French version); the sarabande, as already mentioned, was a Spanish or Latin American dance; and the gigue (jig) was from the British isles (it’s the cousin of the jigs still played by Irish traditional musicians). Perhaps the international quality of the dance suite helped popularize it.

Most of the dances in the suite followed a standard binary (two part) form. Each dance was normally split into two sections, of 8, 16 or 24 measures, each of which was repeated.

||:          A       :||:          B    :||

The chief exception to this formal pattern was the minuet, a dance which was increasingly inserted in the dance suite during the 18^th century. The minuet combined two melodically-distinct binary sections into a three-part form:

Minuet 1 (||:A:||:B:||)         Minuet 2 (||:A:||:B:||)                       Minuet 1 (||:A:||:B:||)                                                               

Usually the dances also followed a typical tonal plan (which I am explaining in modern theoretical terms, not historical ones):

||:  A                                  :||:	B                                                              :||
Home key                cadence on V	Starting on V                   cadence in home key
example G major —————>D major	D major ——————————> G major

The dances rely on sophisticated tonal effects. When you repeat the A section, the dominant cadence at the end of the A section immediately leads back to the home key; it also has to seamlessly connect to the start of the B section (on the dominant). Both the A and B sections therefore have to move to and from the home key, tracing a kind of “there and back again” music plot, with the cadence at the end of the B section providing the only important cadence in the home key.

You can listen to a basic example of the suite—Bach’s suite in G for cello—here and study its score here. This suite includes a pair of minuets, but otherwise follows the standard form closely. Its prelude is highly popular today. Another interesting example is this keyboard suite in A minor by Elisabeth Jaquet de la Guerre (1665–1729), which begins with a meterless prelude, and includes a gavotte and minuet as well as a second courante. The forms are slightly modified, too, as her allemande’s internal cadence is not on the dominant, but the mediant.

In contrast to the binary dances typically found in a suite, there was also a family of dance types (folia, chaconne, and passacaglia) based on repeating chord progressions and bass lines. De la Guerre includes a chaconne in her suite, linked above. The folia (which had existed for many years) remained a popular choice, with Vivaldi, Handel, Corelli, Bach, and others composing their own versions.

The Spanish fandango deserves special notice, as its defining characteristics are really more rhythmic than harmonic, although its rhythmic features often correspond to recurring chord progressions. It also took longer to move from popular culture into literate culture. Consequently, the surviving notated documents of the dance appear later in the musical record. A notable example for harpsichord, with characteristic cross-rhythms in 3/4, is attributed to Antonio Soler (1729–1783), while Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805) wrote one for guitar and strings which is often performed with castanets today.

Although these dance suites provide only an echo of contemporary popular culture, they testify to the role that dance music played in European society at the time and the importance of rhythm in this music. Many later composers who are firmly entrenched in the classical canon, such as Mozart (c. 1791), Beethoven (d. 1827), Brahms (d. 1896), and Dvořák (d. 1904), wrote dances for the sheet music market. It is striking, therefore, how small a role dance music plays in the popular concept of the Western classical tradition.

Tonality and the learned style

One of the most common signs of an educated musician today—at least, among those with the sort of music education we prize in our universities—is the ability to look at a piece of notated music and to know what key it might be in. This is undoubtedly an important skill. Yet it also rests on a set of assumptions about how music works—ideas which tend to assume that most music works in similar ways, and is governed by the laws of tonality.

However, the modern concept of tonality—of employing the major and minor scales, of having a central tonic note—are relatively new among musicians in the Western tradition. Pitch centricity had existed for a long time, but musicians had historically explained it through a system called the modes (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, etc.). These differed from modern tonal thinking in some key ways, most notably in their focus on the range of a melody as a defining feature of its identity.

Music theory, like other types of theory, generally tries to explain existing practices. In other words, music theory is sometimes out of sync with musical practice. Tonal thinking in the modern sense started appearing in the first half of the 18^th century, but earlier pieces of music can be understood as working in keys. Similarly, the shift from modal to tonal music theory was gradual, not sudden, and elements of older modal thinking remained in musicians’ consciousness for a long time.

One of the best-known musicians to propose something like a theory of tonality in the modern sense was Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764), a provincial organist who published the Traité d’harmonie in Paris in 1722, when he was nearly forty. His book drew a good deal of attention and he followed it with four more treatises (1726, 1737, 1750, and 1760), eventually attracting a rich patron who helped support him. His success as a theorist led to exposure for his compositions (especially operas), which earned him further renown.

Rameau’s chief contribution to the theory of Western music was his insistence that musical phenomena can be explained and understood scientifically. In this, Rameau is firmly part of the broader movement known as the Enlightenment, which relied on rational observation and empirical experiments to explain the world (as opposed to mysticism or religious faith). Rameau’s affiliation with this movement seems clear enough from the opening of his Traité, in which he states, “Music is a science which should have definite rules; these rules should be drawn from an evident principle; and this principle cannot be known without the aid of mathematics.” (Rameau, translated by Philip Gossett. New York: Dover, 1971).

Rameau did not invent the modern theory of tonality, but his work marks a point at which earlier theory starts to resemble our own. Synthesizing the work of earlier and contemporary theorists, Rameau advanced a coherent theoretical explanation for how music works. His theory of fundamental bass modified earlier thought on chord inversions, arguing that inverted chords with the same root were functionally the same chord (the roots were the “fundamental basses”). By sorting all chords into either consonant triads or dissonant seventh chords and studying their root progressions, Rameau was able to describe chord progressions in terms of the primary triads (tonic, subdominant, and dominant). Rameau’s concepts (if not his names for them) remain a mainstay of modern music theory classes.

Rameau arrived at some of his theories by studying the music of Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713), a distinguished Italian violinist and composer who spent much of his life in Rome under the patronage of such powerful figures as the exiled queen of Sweden, local noblemen, and a cardinal in the Catholic Church. Corelli’s music retains some features of older modal practice, but it illustrates many of Rameau’s core ideas: many of the chord progressions move by fifth, the movements tend to end with V-I cadences, and the music modulates through a series of closely related keys. This trio sonata by Corelli typifies these features. (Note that the trio sonata actually has four instruments: two melody instruments and two playing the continuo).

Rameau’s anticipation of the way we think about theory now seems to point toward the future. But the pull of the past was equally strong. One of the most important traditions was the learned style (stile antico or old style in Italian), which remains at the root of almost all counterpoint classes taught in the United States today. Closely associated with Catholic religious music but adopted by Protestant musicians as well, the learned style continued in the footsteps of Palestrina, who himself drew on an older tradition.  As a hold-over from the Renaissance, the learned style centered on complex polyphony, especially imitation—this was therefore a style that required advance training (thus making it “learned”).

One of the key documents of learned style was the Gradus ad parnussum (Steps to Mount Olympus) by Johann Joseph Fux, which was published in 1725. An approachable, step-by-step guide to counterpoint in five species, this book was widely translated and studied (you can find an English translation on IMSLP here). It remains a key document for understanding this historic tradition.

Learned style music, with its ancient traditions carefully preserved, was largely found in musically conservative genres, such as masses or oratorios (sacred dramas). One of the key features was the use of imitation, a complex texture in which the melodic lines echoed and chased each other. Aside from the updated tonal language used, there is not a tremendous difference in technique between the Kyrie from the Messa per Rossini by Antonio Buzzolla (1869) (go to 6:32) and the music of earlier centuries, such as this fugue from Handel’s Messiah (1742).

The fugue (with up to four independent melodic lines) was one of the most prestigious learned style genres. Church organists (such as Bach) were expected to play and even improvise fugues: here is one of Bach’s most famous pieces, the A minor fugue BWV543. Fugue improvisation was practiced by elite church organists such as Marcel Dupré (1886 – 1971) through the 20^th century; jazz musicians, such as the Modern Jazz Quartet, have also experimented with it.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) produced two foundational works in the learned style which are still studied today: the Well-Tempered Clavier (book 1, 1722; book 2, 1742) and the Art of the Fugue (unfinished at his death in 1750). Each book of the Well-Tempered Clavier contains a prelude and a fugue (an imitative piece in the learned style) in every possible key. (“Well-tempered” refers to Bach’s use of a form of equal temperament, which makes all keys playable, unlike earlier tuning systems in which some keys were unbearably harsh). The C minor prelude and fugue from Book 1, here performed on a harpsichord, are commonly played by modern pianists as well.

The contrast between Rameau’s innovations and the learned tradition provides an insight into an apparent tension in the European traditions in the 18^th century. Yet in some ways these contradictory elements are two sides of the same coin. Remember, after all that Rameau spent his early life as a church organist, and his goal was to explain modern practice. Both harmony and counterpoint continue to be taught in American music departments today, suggesting that both traditions have a place in modern musical culture.

Conservatory culture and partimento

Today, much of the music that Americans call “classical” is associated with a canonic repertoire with its own unique musical culture. Teachers of classical music rarely encourage improvisation, and instead emphasize accurate performances of notated scores. Yet this pedagogical culture—and the canon, too—are relatively recent developments. Some of the first professional music schools in the European tradition—the Italian conservatories of the 17^th and 18^th centuries—prized a very different culture which centered on training in improvisation.

These conservatories took their name from their practical function as orphanages (they conserved the lives of abandoned children). Many conservatories were charity operations that were partly supported through public concerts; members of the church, and local governments, were involved in running them. Training orphans to be musicians was a practical decision—orphans had no families to support them, and had to be raised in some kind of trade. The fame of the conservatories, and the success of their graduates, eventually grew to be so great that some parents voluntarily enrolled their children in the conservatories alongside the orphans.

The conservatories’ success in training highly-skilled professional musicians led to the general acceptance of Italian musicians, musical terminology, and musical pedagogy across Europe. To this day, Italian tempo directions (allegro, andante, adagio, lento, grave, etc.) are still used in music education, as are Italian articulation directions (sforzando, crescendo, diminuendo, etc.), dynamic markings (forte, piano, mezzo forte, etc.), and formal labels (coda, dal segno, fine, etc.).

One of the best-known Baroque composers, Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) was a Catholic priest who spent a good part of his career teaching music at the Ospedale della Pietà (Hospital of Pity) in Venice, to female orphans. Many of his pieces were designed for his students to play in public concerts, which is why he wrote orchestral concertos featuring a wide range of soloists (violin, viola, cello, flute, recorder, oboe, bassoon, mandolin, lute, etc.).

If the cultural context of an 18^th-century conservatory education differed from ours, so too did the way the music was taught. In the modern system, theory and performance are relatively separated. One might learn some music theory from one’s applied teacher, but there is often a rigid distinction between theory class and practical music-making. The core of conservatory training, on the other hand, lay in the study of partimento and solfeggio, both of which integrated theoretical knowledge and performing skill.

Partimento provided practical schooling in the use of basso continuo (commonly called “figured bass” in English), which was a system of realizing chord progressions and melodies from a bassline with chord symbols (figures). (The way we still describe chords as consisting of intervals above a bassline—such as 4/3, 7^th, 6/5, etc.—derives from continuo). Continuo was one of the defining features of what we now call the Baroque style, and it provided a harmonic framework for creative work. Training in partimento, therefore, involved a progressive coaching of students through various levels of continuo practice, teaching them to combine, modify, and improvise on known chord progressions and their associated melodic patterns. Along the way, students received practical instruction in creating pieces of music in varying lengths.

Partimento is not widely practiced now except by specialists in historical performance. Yet it remained a powerful pedagogical tool in the Italian tradition even in the nineteenth century, even affecting later composers such as Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924), as Nicholas Baragwanath has shown. Modern scholars, such as Robert Gjerdingen, have also explored ideas related to partimento in their research. More recently, the child prodigy Alma Deutscher (b. 2005) has been trained in partimento from an early age. 

Modern solfege practice, as conducted in ear-training/aural skills classrooms across the United States, is closer to its historic predecessor. However, modern practice emphasizes accurate sight-singing over artistic creation. Historic solfeggio exercises were designed to train singers in vocal improvisation by making them intimately familiar with a multitude of vocal patterns, which the performers would then stitch together in performance in real time. Thus famous opera singers, such as Faustina Bordoni (1697–1781) and Farinelli (1705–1782) were renowned for their improvisational skills in performance, which were rooted in a thorough understanding of solfeggio as an improvisational practice.

In many ways, therefore, the training of professional musicians in this period was much closer to the way that jazz musicians are trained today than it is to the way that we train classical musicians. Although music notation played a major role in music education in this period, both partimento and solfeggio trained musicians who were skillful improvisers, rather than dutiful interpreters of notated scores. It’s ironic that many musicians who were vibrant improvisers—such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach, or Georg Friederich Handel—are now best remembered for their notated compositions. Had recorded sound existed earlier, we would probably have transmitted a very different version of music history, one in which the notated score is not worshipped so faithfully.

Chant and notation

Religious chant—the singing of sacred texts—is some of the first music to be consistently preserved in notation and the most likely to survive through oral traditions. This music and its notation survived for two reasons: because a community of worshippers preserved it, and because local religious and secular leaders supported religious communities. The Christian chant traditions of Europe are significant for our narrative, as the notation commonly used in the United States today derives from notation developed for medieval chant.

While much Christian chant is clearly very old, it is hard to date precisely. Ethiopian chant is a case in point. Much Ethiopian chant is attributed to St. Yared, who lived in the sixth century CE. He is said to have been divinely inspired, learning chants from birds. According to Ethiopian church tradition, St. Yared also invented the distinctive notation (melekket) in which these songs are preserved today. However, the first surviving books with sacred lyrics from Ethiopia date from the thirteenth century, and the first surviving books with melekket date from the sixteenth century. Similar controversies plague the origins of Gregorian chant in France and Italy. Traditionally attributed to Pope Gregory I (d. 604 CE), scholars have increasingly argued for its emergence during the reign of Gregory II (d. 731), based on surviving documents from the mid to late 700s.

Early notation systems such as melekket, like the Catholic Church’s neumatic notation, reflect very different assumptions about music than those common today. Our modern notation system teaches us to think of music as consisting of notes: individual sonic events which follow each other sequentially or stack on top of each other; notation maps the notes and explains their relationships to each other. This attitude is very similar to that documented in ancient Greek notation, which used letters of the alphabet to represent individual notes. Yet other types of historic notation reveal that musicians thought of music as consisting of gestures: phrases containing several of our notes but functioning as a single unit. In these forms of notation, the basic symbol was the gesture, not the note.

Many of the old chant traditions seem to rely on cantillation techniques, which are essentially melodic fragments and formulas which are stitched together in performance by the singers. The notation of such music means that signs represent melodic formulas rather than individual notes or rhythms. Unlike modern Western notation, which can be read by a person who has never heard the song, this notation functions more as a memory aid to a performer who already knows the song. Essentially, such notation is designed to supplement an oral tradition, not to replace it.

As Christianity spread around the Mediterranean and its cultural status grew, local chant traditions emerged. European chant traditions survived in the shadow of the Catholic Church’s standardized repertory (“Gregorian” chant), which was performed throughout Western Europe, but was resisted in Rome itself for centuries. Non-Catholic traditions showed greater diversity. For example, Coptic (Egyptian) and Ethiopian chant are unique in being the only styles to routinely use instruments. Byzantine chant, the music of the Eastern Orthodox Church, is particularly interesting for its use of microtonal inflections which are difficult to express in Western notation; it is still generally performed from gestural notation today.

Although chant was common, there is evidence that early Christians worried that its musical beauty might prevent a proper attitude toward worship. St. Augustin (354–430CE) wrote about music in his Confessions (10:33): “…when it befalls me to be more moved with the voice than the words sung, I confess to have sinned penally, and then had rather not hear music.” (Translated by E.B. Pusey.) The passage is worth reading in full, because of the nuances of Augustin’s thought; he acknowledges that some people might even worship more fully because of the music.

This ambiguous attitude toward music’s role in religion is echoed in attitudes toward Muslim chant, which sounds like music. It is, however, not music for devout Muslims, as music is inherently secular; instead, Muslim chant is termed qira’at. Arabic is one of the few Mediterranean languages to maintain a division between sonic arts which may be enjoyed (music) and sonic arts which are intended for spiritual purposes (qira’at).

The music notation commonly used in the United States today is a direct descendant of chant notation associated with the Catholic Church in Rome. Before the development of the staff, Catholic notation had generally relied on neumes, a type of notation which preserved the general shape of a melodic line. There were some efforts to distinguish the specific pitches of a melody through diastematic notation, which used the relative height of the neumes to show the pitch range. The staff, with its on lines and spaces, appears in an early treatise from the ninth century, but entered mainstream use through the efforts of Guido d’Arezzo, a monk who in Italy in the first half of the eleventh century. Little is known of his life. Guido’s system included colored lines to mark the notes C and F, thus making it easy to locate half-steps on B–C and E–F (eventually, the colored lines gave way to clef signs). However, this system did not replace neumes; one simply wrote neumes on the staff, thus retaining gestural notation while labeling its pitch relationships precisely (as in the modern Solemnes notation still used in many Catholic chant books). Only later, with the development of rhythmic notation, did gestural notation fade from the Western tradition.

Having refined the existing notation system, Guido turned his mind to a method that would allow musicians to read music at sight. (Although his system came to be used across Western Europe, it was not the first; similar, older systems are documented in both China and India). Guido explained his solmization system through the hymn “Ut queant laxis,” which begins each phrase on a successively higher note (C D E F G A). From this hymn, he derived syllables for each note (ut re mi fa sol la), most of which are used by Western musicians today. However, having only six syllables (a hexachord) meant that one needed to bend the rules to sing intervals greater than a sixth; sometimes one needed to start a new hexachord on a higher note to accommodate increased melodic range. Singers kept track of the system through a device called the Guidonianhand, in which each knuckle of one’s hand represented a single pitch. As in the video above, one could use the hand as a type of cheironomic tool.

Guido’s innovations took hold because the Catholic Church’s leadership supported them. His new notation allowed the definitive preservation of melodies (neumes cannot be read accurately unless the singer has a good sense of how the melody goes), while solmization allowed singers to learn to read unfamiliar melodies at sight. Thus notation served the leadership’s broader goal: making sure that sacred music was being sung correctly and properly. The Catholic Church’s position as the official Christian church in Western Europe meant that the system spread rapidly; eventually (with the addition of rhythmic notation) it developed into the system still in use today.

Thinking about the canon

A central concept that unifies the study of music history is the canon. This term refers, briefly, to a collection of exemplary pieces of music which typify a style, but it has implications which deserve detailed examination. Usually these pieces are created by respected musicians, who are then (by extension) said to be “canonic” as well. So the canon is both a collection of “great works” and “great musicians”; both are central to understanding and appreciating a musical style. (The idea of the “canon” was imported into musical studies from religion, law, and literature, fields which were long dominated by “great books”—whether they were scriptures, commentaries on legal practice, or literary works which were deemed particularly worthy of study and emulation.)

One can distinguish between the broad canon of music that is generally admired within a style, and the narrow set of repertories that are specific to certain contexts: such as the music that is played on specific instruments, in specific contexts, etc. Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829) is no way a “canonic” classical composer; his music is an essential part of the contemporary classical guitar repertory, but it is not essential listening for anyone who is interested in classical music in general. One might reasonably review a repertory as the specific canon of music that is associated with a subgenre of a major style.

Knowledge of a canon of respected and admired music is a major part of music education in many American traditions. Whether you are a classical singer starting with the standard volumes of Italian art songs and working your way through Mozart and Verdi; a saxophonist learning to improvise on standard jazz progressions in the styles of Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan, or Branford Marsalis; or a church musician whose musical taste is shaped by a succession of new and old hymnals, your musical predecessors have certainly played a role in the formation of your art. Knowledge of earlier styles allows musicians to relate their work to a past tradition and connect with their audiences.

The canon is a highly useful concept for listeners, too, as it organizes the musical past in some way. Canonic labels such as “old school” hip-hop, “classic” rock, and “evergreen” Hindi film songs have emerged among fans and taste-makers (such as radio DJs). All these terms involve a historic perspective in which music is part of a historical past and gains significance because of its continued relevance today, despite its age.

Although the canon is a useful, practical concept in many ways, its importance is usually taken for granted by musicians and listeners. This is because the canon is directly linked to aesthetic values—namely, those vague and often unspoken beliefs about what makes music good. Such things are rarely discussed openly, because it’s easier to feel them than to put them into words. However, it’s an important part of your education to reflect openly on the value systems that you participate in and subscribe to; thinking about canons provides a useful way of openly addressing implicit assumptions.

At the same time, musical canons provide a paradoxical link between present, past, and future. Because they represent a body of knowledge which previous generations have deemed worthy of preservation, they might seem to be inherently conservative: young musicians often struggle to relate their work to the canon while still preserving their individuality. The countless nineteenth-century musicians (such as Brahms), who hesitated to write a symphony, lest they risk comparison with Beethoven, is evidence enough.

At the same time, canons’ relationship to present-day tastes means that they are not fixed in time or unchanging: as societal standards change, some music gradually stops being respected or admired. Only a handful of people now are deeply familiar with the music of Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864), even though his music was widely admired during his lifetime and for some fifty years after his death. Read any Western music history book from before 1910, however, and you will find a casual assumption that the reader is familiar with his operas, especially Les Huguenots. It is, in fact, an enlightening experience to compare music history books and concert programs from the past with those in use today, and to observe the gradual changes in what is being taught, played, and listened to.

The fact that canons change is worth emphasizing. Although it’s easy to compare a musical canon to a museum collection—unmoving, monumental, worthy of awe—it’s also true that the items in a canon, like those in a museum, were placed there by people who made decisions. Taste-makers (including famous performers, applied teachers, researchers, critics, ensemble directors and librarians, and even music history professors) play a role in shaping our ideas about the past. In other words, the canon, like a historical narrative itself, is evidence of a conversation, not a divine revelation carved in stone. And sometimes, values shift, standards change, and the music of a renowned musician (such as Meyerbeer) gradually becomes less important for audiences, until it disappears from our collective consciousness.

The canon is a relatively new concept, in historical terms. Although repertories for specific instruments have existed a long time, the canon—as a stable, exalted repertory of culturally-important masterpieces which transcend boundaries of personal taste—has existed in the West for only about 200 years. One of the oldest longstanding musical ensembles in the United States, the Handel and Haydn Society (founded in 1815) is named after two famous musicians (both of whom were dead by the time the society was founded). Creating an ensemble dedicated to historic repertoire was a rather unique thing at the time, as much music was expected to be entertaining in the moment, but not necessarily a contribution to posterity. Even the music of a now-canonic composer such as Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was not widely performed in the years after his death; Bach’s modern reputation actually derives more from the revival of his music in Germany in the 1820s.

Canons, therefore, are changeable, emerging, and flexible. They embody a sense of shared heritage and provide a way for musicians and listeners to relate to each other in terms of tradition. They have, however, come under attack for precisely these features. The canon of Western classical music, in particular, formed during a period in which both women and people of color enjoyed few legal rights in Western societies; consequently, both groups are not represented in the traditional canon. This has led to a debate that has divided music scholars for some time: whether the traditional canon should be maintained, revised in the interests of inclusivity, placed in its broader context, or thrown out completely.

Consequently, the canon is an issue of central importance for students of music history. Ideas about the canon directly affect the ways that music history is taught, especially as many music history classes in the United States focus exclusively on the Western classical tradition. So it’s important to be aware of the canon, to think about the ways that we teach and learn history.

History is a construction

One of the greatest challenges you can face in studying history is getting into the right mindset. Far too often, the student of history assumes a history book is an objective record of the truth; the truth is known, and all you need to do is memorize it. This attitude results partly from the two different meanings attached to the concept of history. One definition is the events of the past—history as it actually happened. The other is the historical record—history as it is written in the books or recounted by people who were there.

Of course, if you’ve ever had to adjudicate an argument, or listen to eyewitness accounts of a car accident, you know that even people who were present at an event can’t always agree on what happened. This might throw some doubt on the idea of history as an objective record. Still, if you interview enough people, it’s possible to determine which viewpoint is supported by the most witnesses, and is most likely to be true.

Written history is therefore the result of an investigation, and, like any investigation, it reflects the investigator’s perspective and insights. Who is this investigator, and what were their goals in creating a written record of the past? If you are reading only to find out what happened in the past, or looking for basic facts regarding a topic, you’re likely to overlook the degree to which the historian’s personal goals, assumptions, and biases are present in a seemingly objective account.

 While a beginning student might think of history as “just the facts,” those who study history in a serious way are more interested in what you do with the facts, just as builders are more interested in how to build a house than in each individual brick. Historians organize facts to tell a story. Consequently, historians cannot be neutral observers of the past: by deciding that a story is worth telling, they have already revealed their opinion about its importance. Their reasons for valuing one story over another might very well be valid—but it’s your job as a reader to evaluate their work, not to accept it blindly as a matter of truth.

Here is a simple experiment that you can conduct to test this out for yourself. Think of a famous person and try to select the three most important facts about that person. For example, let’s take Thomas Jefferson. Here are some facts about him that might come to mind:

1. He was the third president of the United States.

2. He was the author of the Declaration of Independence.

3. He founded the University of Virginia.

4. He was ambassador to France.

5. He owned slaves.

6. He had a sexual relationship with an enslaved woman named Sally Hemmings.

7. He oversaw the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States.

8. He was born and died in Virginia.

Which three facts would you say are the most important? It will depend on your perspective and the story that you want to tell. If you were interested in American politics, then 1, 2, 4, and 7 would probably be the most important. If you were interested in contemporary race relations in the United States, 5 and 6 would need to be included in your list. If you were interested in the history of Virginia, 3 and 8 would be important. On another level, imagine that you were going to make a short presentation about Thomas Jefferson to different audiences: elementary school students, college students, a group of senior citizens, etc. How might your ranking of the facts, and the lesson you want to draw from them, change in each context?

In other words, historians prioritize facts in unique and specific ways, depending on their research agendas, audiences, and personal interests. This is why two different historians can offer vastly different interpretations of the same basic facts, and neither is necessarily lying or distorting the truth: they simply have different priorities. Each piece of written history is an artefact of a larger conversation.

If, however, you only approach history as a set of objectively true facts to be memorized and believed (rather like an item of religious faith), then you run two risks. First, you will absorb the assumptions and biases of your favorite historians without even realizing it. Second, you will be forced to discard a large amount of historical work because it contradicts your basic viewpoint: it seems to be changing history.

There is actually a name for this second risk: revisionism. “Revisionist history” is sometimes used as an insult. It implies that the historian’s political and cultural biases have clouded their objectivity and led them to create a written history that misrepresents or misinterprets actual historical events. Charges of revisionism are common in the culture wars being fought in America today, and usually have hidden political implications. Some historians proudly describe themselves as revisionists as a kind of virtue-signaling, to advertise that their work contains previously concealed truths.

However, if you compare history books used today to those from the past, you’ll inevitably find that the way history is told has changed to reflect modern perspectives. Every generation revises its history to make better sense of its recent past, and so the use of “revisionism” as an insult seems to miss the point. History is, after all, an attempt to make sense of the past; and every generation applies its own insights to the past, attempting to explain our current reality through what came before. As this happens, things that seemed unimportant at the time gain new significance. Thus someone like Franz Schubert, who lived and died in relative obscurity, became a musical hero for future generations, and may perhaps lose his place in music history one day.

 Written history is, therefore, a construction, meaning that it reflects the biases, assumptions, and priorities of the people who make it, and it is selected from the vast body of existing knowledge. This doesn’t mean that history is no longer reliable, but that an element of human error is present. Another, equally intelligent person might look at the same evidence, select different items as relevant, and reach a different conclusion.

This also means that history is closer to a conversation than you might at first suppose, as historians re-interpret facts already known to earlier historians. When I was learning how to conduct research, an older scholar explained all historical research as either: (1) you discover a new fact and (2) you discover a new way of interpreting known facts. Most research is in the second category. Every work of history is therefore either an addition to or a correction of earlier knowledge.

In conclusion: written history is a record of the past, but it is a record made by fallible people who use the past to understand the issues that matter to their own time. Many historians aspire to be neutral; others openly inform readers of their biases; some view the writing of history as a form of activism. It’s possible to be an ethical historian and do meaningful work from any of these perspectives, as long as the historian does not alter facts to fit their assumptions and is honest with readers about their goals and agendas. But because history is made by people, you should read it critically, aware that any given historical account is only one way of interpreting the past.

The cantata and sonata

The general use of basso continuo was probably the most important feature of the new “Baroque” style. The continuo part was used in both vocal and instrumental music, testifying to the importance of the new, chordal approach in both genres. Continuo parts also represent a new way of thinking about music, one which is relatively familiar to musicians today: the division between melody and a chordal accompaniment. Earlier notated styles, instead, had tended to reflect polyphonic traditions, in which each part could be melodically important.

Two new continuo-heavy genres emerged in the new style: the cantata and sonata. Both feature a set of contrasting sections, often in different speeds and in different emotional characters. Both genres feature a clear division between the melodic parts and the accompanying continuo. The chief difference is that a sonata (derived from the Italian sonare, to play an instrument) is designed for instrumentalists, while a cantata (derived from the Italian cantare, to sing) includes singers. Both genres began emerging by the 1620s, and stayed in use through the 1800s (although the structure and form of each changed significantly over time).

One of the first musicians to write sonatas and label them as such was Biagio Marini (1594 – 1663), who published a set of instrumental pieces in 1629: as this was his eighth published work, this is called his op. 8 (“opus 8”—opus is Latin for work). The title of this work makes it clear that the book includes a variety of music for various instrumental combinations: Sonate, Symphonie, Canzoni, Passemezzi, Baletti, Corenti, Gagliarde, & Retornelli, a 1.2.3.4.5.&6. Voci, per ogni sorti d’Instrumenti  (sonatas, symphonies, songs, passamezzos, ballets, corentes, galliards, and retornelli for 1 – 6 voices, for every type of instrument). The list of genres here is striking, especially as it includes many older dance types (such as the passamezzo, corente, and galliard).

One of these pieces, “Sonata IV per il violin per sonar con due corde” (Sonata 4: for a violin, played on two strings) is a good example of the loose form of an early sonata. (The “two strings” in the title reflects Marini’s use of double-stops, meaning that two strings are played at the same time). The notation includes a single melodic part for the violin and a sparse continuo part, which needs to be realized in performance (one could use any instrument which could play chords, such as an organ, lute, etc.). In the linked recording, the performers use a lute.

The score opens with a section labeled “tardo” (slow), which sounds a bit like an instrumental recitative—the melody is fragmented and is not built in symmetrical phrases. At 1:25, a new section, in the familiar long-short-short rhythm popularized by many songs of the time, introduces a new tune in short phrases. The remainder of the piece continues to play with the alteration between the two styles we have just encountered. At 2:10, we begin a section with rapid alteration between slow and fast tempos (“tardo and “presto”), decorated with elaborate trills and an ambiguous passage labeled “affetti” (3:10 – 3:55)—which implies that the performer should attempt to move the listeners’ emotions through some type of improvised ornamentation or other performing choices. The next section increases the speed of these alterations in style, coming to a rest around 5:35, as a repetitive bass line launches a new, calmer section. The sonata ends with a slow section (6:26) that brings us back to the key and speed in which we began. Marini’s sonata thus provides a set of rapidly changing musical moods, all linked together to provide a singular experience.

The cantata follows a similar path, although its lyrics make it slightly easier to understand its form. The words are typically divided into sections reflecting the recitative and arias styles popular in opera and oratorio.

A well-known early singer and composer of cantatas was Barbara Strozzi (1619 – 1677), who published eight volumes of her compositions between 1644 and 1664. Her cantata “Lagrime mie” (my tears) tells the story of an unnamed speaker who is in love with a woman named Lydia. Lydia’s father disapproves of their relationship, and will not allow her to leave the house.

Like Marini’s sonata, Strozzi’s cantata is divided into several linked sections which follow each other without a break. The opening section is a lament, which uses striking melodic intervals (such as the augmented second and diminished fourth) to depict the idea of grief. Much of the cantata employs a hybrid between aria (melodic singing) and recitative (speech-like singing) called arioso. This is fairly audible in the second section (1:44), which starts off with a highly decorated melody, but dissolves into quasi-recitative (2:15), with lots of repeated notes which emphasis the text. The central section of the piece is a repeated aria with several verses (4:00). Another important element in Strozzi’s cantata is the presence of aria-like tunes which are harmonized with repetitive progressions in the continuo (briefly at 3:02, and more significantly at 5:55). These suggest that continuo, rather being a simple accompanying device, could also affect the broader structure of a piece of vocal music.

The new style spreads

The “Baroque” remains something of an amorphous and ahistorical concept. Caccini, Monteverdi, and the other musicians we have discussed so far did not think of themselves as “Baroque,” although they knew that they were doing something new and innovative. The term “Baroque” is actually a textbook example of an insult being embraced by its targets—it derives from a French word which implies “misshapen” or “deformed,” and it wasn’t applied to music in any way until the 1730s. Even then, there was little agreement on what the term meant, and it wasn’t used in the modern sense, to refer to a musical style, until the early 20^th century.

So when we call music “Baroque” today, it’s because it is a useful shorthand for a musical style and its associated aesthetic, rather than a contemporary description of the style. Like any other musical style, it had connections to both past and future practice. Because style history always has the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to generalize music history into sets of simple, self-contained eras. The reality is that there was no decisive break with the earlier “Renaissance” style, but instead an intensification of the techniques already in use. As we have seen, the new style built on aspects of earlier music. Similarly, the new style was not broadly accepted, and the earlier style survived quite a long time.

Consequently, it’s important to trace the appearance of the new style outside of Italy. What we now think of as Baroque was really limited to Italy for much of the early 1600s, and spread gradually to other locations. Heinrich Schütz was one of the first people to export the style to German-speaking lands, and Jean-Baptiste Lully normalized it in France. These musicians helped make a regional style into a European norm, providing common ground for future generations of musicians. In both cases, the new style benefited from establishing itself at royal courts: Schütz at the court of the Elector of Saxony, in Dresden (modern Germany), and Lully at the court of King Louis XIV in France.

These musicians’ careers illustrate the increasing dominance of Italian music through Europe as a whole. Schütz studied spent several years (c. 1609 – 1612) studying music with the renowned Giovanni Gabrieli of Venice, and apparently learned something of monody from Monteverdi himself during his visit in 1629. Lully himself was born in Italy (Giovanni Battista Lulli) and Frenchified his name during his time in France. Remember, too, that John Dowland had traveled to Italy, hoping to study with the madrigalist Luca Marenzio; similarly, English translations of Italian madrigals (such as Musica transalpina) were quite popular during this period.

Schütz is best remembered today for his series of Symphonie sacrae (sacred symphonies), which employ continuo to accompany vocal soloists and chorus. His “O quam tu pulchra es” (published 1629) is a good example of sacred music built over a dance-like basso continuo, which alternates with short, speech-like passages. “Saul, was verfolgst du mich” (published 1650) (Saul, why do you persecute me?) illustrates the Bible story in which St. Paul hears the voice of god and is converted to Christianity. Although this is a piece for double choir with accompanying continuo and instruments, it displays an extraordinary variety of textural effects, trimming the ensemble down to a single voice and continuo at 0:57, then rebuilding the ensemble in a series of impressive climaxes (Schütz notated the dynamic markings himself—these were not decided by the performers).

Lully (1632 – 1687) is best known for his role in importing Italian opera to France. Originally a dancer at the court of King Louis XIV, he transitioned to composing for the King, and enjoyed a spectacular career. Lully modified opera to fit the King’s tastes, inserting plenty of dancing (the King was very fond of dance). He wrote a series of operas and opera-ballets in French, largely based on classical mythology, to entertain the king. His opera Armide (1686) contains a typical example of his fusion of Italian continuo with French vocals, in the context of a danced interlude in an opera (you can listen to the music here, read the lyrics here, and see the dance steps here, although this is not exactly how the number would appear in a staged performance). Dance remained a central feature of French opera for generations.