The Music of Christendom: A History

By Susan Treacy

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Music plays such an important part in everyone's life but how much do we know about the history of music? How did music shape our civilization and how was music itself shaped by the Catholic Church? Susan Treacy, an experienced professor of music, is an excellent guide to the history of music. Every Catholic should own at least one book on music. This is it. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Jun 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781642291759

Book preview

Prelude

Is music something that merely expresses emotion, as many people believe? Is it something ephemeral, something mystical, beyond description? Is it something frivolous, something purely for entertainment? Or does music embody and represent a rational order? As we traverse the history of Western music, we will examine how some of the above questions were answered at various points in history.

In The Idea of a University, Saint John Henry Newman wrote:

Music, I suppose. . . has an object of its own. . . . It is the expression of ideas greater and more profound than any in the visible world, ideas, which centre indeed in Him whom Catholicism manifests, who is the seat of all beauty, order, and perfection whatever, still ideas after all which are not those on which Revelation directly and principally fixes our gaze.¹

Newman was not writing about sacred music, per se, but about music in general. As a violinist, he had direct experience with music; add to that his superb intellectual powers and his personal holiness, and it is clear that the above quotation has an immense authority. Joseph Pearce’s words echo Newman, and they remind us that

the age of Christendom corresponds to the finest flowering of civilization. It is an age in which becoming civilized (holy) is the only means of attaining the perfect civilization of Heaven. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the heart of Christendom—its theology, its philosophy, its painting, its architecture, its sculpture, its music, its literature—is the very incarnation of the integrated harmony, wholeness and oneness, of its Founder.²

In one sense, this book will be the story of Christendom, but told through its music. We shall travel the musical landscape of Christendom, stopping at various points and pausing to study selected masterpieces of music in their cultural contexts.

It is convenient—but not always accurate—to assign names and dates to different musical style periods. The Renaissance era in music history did not end at 11:59 P.M. of the year 1599; nor did the Baroque era begin at midnight of 1600. There is considerable overlap in musical styles, as well as in the philosophies that accompany them. Also, the chronology of style periods in music does not always equate with style periods in literature and the visual arts.

This book will cover not only vocal music, whose words have the ability to form us in virtue, but also instrumental music, whose varied tones have, in themselves, the capacity to affect us. The works discussed in this book are favorites of mine, and many of them are works that will amplify your understanding of the faith.

At the end of this volume is a list of one hundred master-works that every Catholic should know. Indeed, there are so many marvelous composers, genres, and masterworks of classical music that it has been a challenge to decide which ones to feature.

It is hoped that this book will be an encouragement to learn more about the great tradition of Western classical music, the music of Christendom, and above all, that it will encourage the reader to listen!

Let’s close this prelude with a quotation by Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI). The Holy Father, who is a classical music lover and pianist, has written about art and music many times, and here he is playing another variation on the same theme, the theme of Christ as the source of beauty, that beauty that civilizes and sanctifies.

Next to the saints, the art which the Church has produced is the only real apologia for her history. It is this glory which witnesses to the Lord, not theology’s clever explanations for all the terrible things which, lamentably, fill the pages of her history. The Church is to transform, improve, humanize the world—but how can she do that if at the same time she turns her back on beauty, which is so closely allied to love? For together, beauty and love form the true consolation in this world, bringing it as near as possible to the world of the resurrection. The Church must maintain high standards; she must be a place where beauty can be at home; she must lead the struggle for that spiritualization without which the world becomes the first circle of hell.³

1

Musical Wisdom of the Ancient Greeks

and the Transmission of the

Classical Legacy to Christendom

As Ovid recounts in his Metamorphoses, Orpheus was such a virtuoso singer and player of the lyre that none could resist the power of his music. When an asp bit his bride, Eurydice, on their wedding day, Orpheus descended, lyre in hand, to Hades to retrieve her. Ovid’s version of the tale does not mention the various personalities who would try to keep Orpheus from reaching the infernal deities, but it does include Orpheus’ impassioned plea, sung before the god of the underworld (unnamed by Ovid) and his wife, Persephone. These monarchs and their shadowy court were moved and granted Orpheus’ request to release Eurydice on the condition, however, that he not look back at her. We know, alas, that he did look back at his wife and that she receded into Hades. This familiar legend is iconic for its depiction of the power of music through the Greek concept of ethos, the idea that music can influence the emotions and morals / behavior of the listener.

Little actual music—only about forty fragments—survives from ancient Greece. Thus, how can Greek civilization have had such an important influence on Western musical culture? The answer is that far more writings about Greek music survive, plus depictions of Greek music-making in visual art (sculptures and vase paintings). For the Greeks, the term music (mousike) meant more than just melody (melos)—or sounding music. It also encompassed poetry, since most music—which was monophonic, consisting of a single, unison melody line—was vocal. Any instrumental accompaniment usually merely doubled the vocal line but could be embellished. Influential writings have come down to us from philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, and music theorists, such as Pythagoras, Aristoxenus, and Cleonides.

Tertullian’s familiar question, What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? might well be asked when the question of music arises. The earliest Christians were Jews, but after Saint Paul began preaching to the Gentiles, the Church took a new direction. The first Gentile, Greek-speaking Christians were mostly from the poorer classes, and they responded readily to the Gospel of Christ, which offered them hope. As time went on, however, evangelists approached Gentiles of the more prosperous, educated classes who, steeped in philosophy, demanded a more intellectual approach and sought for reasons to believe.

Was there anything of pagan Greek philosophy that could be synthesized with Christian truth? A number of writers applied themselves to this question, and Christianity became enriched by a selective incorporation of ancient philosophy. As for music, there were two interrelated philosophies that were appropriated from Greek philosophy by Christian writers. Disciples of Pythagoras who lived in the sixth century B.C. spread his idea that numbers were a key to interpretation of the cosmos. In the second century, for example, the neo-Pythagorean Nichomachus gave an account of how Pythagoras discovered musical numerical ratios while walking by a blacksmith’s shop. He was intrigued by the sounds of hammers of different weights striking the smith’s anvil. After noting the various weights of the hammers, Pythagoras went home and made his own experiment using weights. As a result of this he invented the monochord, a simple instrument of one string stretched across a box. He could then divide the string by stopping it with a finger, thus creating harmonic ratios. The resulting divisions of the string yielded the following ratios, which correlate to intervals: 2:1 = an octave; 3:2 = a fifth; and 4:3 = a fourth. The story is a mixture of fact and fiction because the ratios in the story can only apply to the length of strings, not to the weight of hammers. Nevertheless, these ratios were correct and formed the basis for the future development of music. Thus, Pythagoras and his disciples are said to have discovered the numerical correlations determining the fundamental intervals of music—the octave, the fifth, the fourth, the second.

Rhythms, too, were regulated by number because each longer note could be reduced to a basic duration. Thus, with musical intervals and rhythms being so closely allied with numbers, they instantiate the Greek idea of harmonia. This term, connoting well-ordered unity of different parts, had more than one meaning and could refer to philosophical concepts, mathematical proportions, societal structures, a musical interval (the distance between two pitches), scale type, or melody type. From here it was possible to extend the concept of musical ratios to the planets. The distances of the planets from each other, as well as their movements, were thought to be compatible with certain notes, musical intervals, and scales. As a result, the idea arose of the harmony of the spheres—that the planets, as they revolve, produce sounds that the human ear cannot perceive. For now, we won’t say much more about Pythagoras, but we shall see that his influence was transmitted to Western culture, and we will see it manifested at various points in our narrative.

One later example of Pythagoras’ enduring influence can be seen in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, when Lorenzo speaks of the harmony of the spheres to Jessica.

     There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st

     But in his motion like an angel sings,

     Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;

     Such harmony is in immortal souls;

     But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

     Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.¹

This Pythagorean idea of the musical and numerical under-girding of the universe had further ramifications, for if harmonia of the cosmos was governed by music, then it stood to reason that music could also affect the harmonia (harmony) of the human soul. Musica humana, according to the Pythagoreans, was this harmony between the body and the soul. Plato, in Timaeus (47e), describes this concept.

Harmony, which has motions akin to the revolutions of our souls, is not regarded by the intelligent votary of the Muses as given by them with a view to irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be the purpose of it in our day, but as meant to correct any discord which may have arisen in the courses of the soul, and to be our ally in bringing her into harmony and agreement with herself; and rhythm too was given by them for the same reason, on account of the irregular and graceless ways which prevail among mankind generally, and to help us against them.²

Music, thus, has the ability to instill harmony into the soul—a testimony to music’s ability to affect human conduct. Plato, in his treatises Republic and Laws, discusses this ethical power of music in terms of the educative value of the harmoniai (in the sense of modes, or scales) and the importance of keeping pure the various genres of music and poetry. According to Plato, the Dorian and Phrygian harmoniai were the most valuable in the education of the governing classes because the ethos of these modes cultivates the virtues of temperance and fortitude. Plato extols music’s educational value but cautions that the boys’ education must contain an equal mix of music and gymnastics, and he cautions against innovations in music.

In the Laws (770a—701c), Plato discusses various genres of music and the immemorial practice of not mixing them. He complains that now, in his own time, uneducated and disrespectful men have contaminated laments with hymns and paeans with dithyrambs, actually imitated the strains of the flute on the harp and created a universal confusion of forms.³ Now audiences have appointed themselves judges of what is best, based solely on what they like, thus initiating a trajectory of lawlessness that ends in anarchy and misery. Clearly, Plato sees that music has the ability to affect human behavior either for good or ill. Aristotle, in his Politics, laid out his own theory of imitation, whereby music that imitated a particular ethos would produce that same ethos in a listener. Many composers, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, would have Aristotle’s theory in mind, in order to move the emotions of their listeners.

These philosophical concepts from the Greeks would prove to be influential in the forging of Christendom. Already in the late first century, Pope Saint Clement I (r. ca. 88—ca. 97) wrote about the problem of mixing genres when he prohibited the singing of liturgical music in secular surroundings.

In the pagan festivals, let us not sing the psalms, and let us not read the Scriptures, for fear of seeming like the wandering minstrels, singers and tellers of tales of high adventure, who perform their art for a mouthful of bread. It is not fitting that we sing the canticles of the Lord in a strange land.⁴

Echoes of Pythagoras and Plato can be found in the writings of another Clement, Saint Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150—ca. 215). In his Protrepticus, Clement describes how the New Song—Christ, the Word—controls cosmic music, in contrast to pagan myths such as those of Orpheus and Amphion, who also evidenced the power of music.

[The New Song] ordered the universe concordantly and tuned the discord of the elements in an harmonious arrangement, so that the entire cosmos might become through its agency a consonance. It let loose the rolling sea, yet checked it from advancing upon the earth. It stabilized the receding earth and established it as boundary to the sea. And indeed it even softened the raging fire with air as if tempering the Dorian harmony with the Lydian.⁵

The most influential conduit of the ancients’ philosophy on music to Christian culture was Ancius Manlius Severinus Boethius (ca. 480—ca. 524). Best known for his Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius also left an unfinished book on music, De institutione musica (On the Instruction of Music). This became, as it were, the standard music theory textbook throughout the Middle Ages, and it enjoyed a revered status in later eras as well. In the beginning of Book 1, Boethius discusses the ethical dimension of music and cites Plato’s Pythagorean-influenced dictum that the soul of the universe was composed according to a musical harmony.⁶ Boethius reviews Plato’s teaching on the modes in the education of youth and relates stories concerning the power of music. Chapter 2 covers musica mundana, musica humana, and a third type of music—that which we actually hear—musica instrumentalis. In Chapter 10, Boethius retells the story of Pythagoras and the hammers; Chapters 11-33 are taken up with a presentation on ancient Greek music theory. In Chapter 34, Boethius defines the true Musician not as a practical musician, but as a philosopher—a man who studies and judges music. Book 2 of De institutione musica has just two chapters and ends with a definition of philosophy according to Pythagoras as zeal for wisdom.

In a General Audience of March 12, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI discoursed on Boethius and his contemporary Cassiodorus (485—580). The Holy Father characterized Boethius as one who

wrote manuals on arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, all with the intention of passing on the great Greco-Roman culture to the new generations, to the new times. In this context, in his commitment to fostering the encounter of cultures, he used the categories of Greek philosophy to present the Christian faith, here too seeking a synthesis between the Hellenistic-Roman heritage and the Gospel message. For this very reason Boethius was described as the last representative of ancient Roman culture and the first of the Medieval intellectuals.

These early writers illustrate the synthesis of ancient Greek philosophy with Christianity and, moreover, their consideration of the special place of music. In fact, music became a regular part of the quadrivium, the mathematical arts of the seven liberal arts.

2

Gregorian Chant:

Foundation of All Western Music

To claim that Gregorian chant is the foundation of all Western music may seem preposterous, but I hope to illustrate the truth of this. Even in secular universities and music conservatories, music majors must learn about chant’s foundational role in Western music. John Senior has asked the question: What is Christian Culture?. . . Christendom, what secularists call Western Civilization, is the Mass and the paraphernalia which protect and facilitate it.¹ Among the paraphernalia is music. Therefore, it is essential that Catholics become familiar with each musical element of Holy Mass. William Mahrt has noted that although liturgical scholars have done valuable work, yet in studying the texts of the liturgy, some have forgotten that while liturgy is regulated largely in its texts, it does not consist of a series of texts to be read, but rather a series of sacred actions to be done.² And these sacred actions are sung; yes, every part of the Mass (except the sermon) was sung and can still be sung (even in the vernacular). So, let us begin our journey into Holy Mass, focusing particularly on its Proper chants.³

Following ancient cultures, Gregorian chant is monophonic and there are several ways to classify chant, but one is by text setting. The simplest kinds of chants, sung by everyone (priest, choir, and congregation), have texts set mainly syllabically, that is, one note of melody for each syllable of text. Examples are dialogues between celebrant and faithful (e.g., Dominus vobiscum. . . Et cum spiritu tuo) and Credo III,⁴ which is widely sung. Spiritually, syllabic chants symbolize a proclamation or a paragraph; the Credo is a proclamation of faith, and we focus on whole paragraphs rather than dwelling on a word. The second type of text setting is neumatic—or semi-ornate—and can be described as anywhere from two to eight notes per syllable of text. One type of neumatic chant is the Communion antiphon, about which we will learn more shortly. Because neumatic chants have several notes of chant