Evolution of Western music
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Western art music extending from the repertory of Gregorian chant to modern electronic compositions has remarkable scope, amazing variety and a stunning richness, writes SULOCHANA PATTABHIRAMAN.
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CLASSICAL MUSIC in any system, occidental or oriental, has provided joy, pleasure, tranquillity and solace to dozens of generations the world over.
Classical music has the same magnetic pull even today. It is good to stay in touch with the literature, art and music of the past for more reasons than one. Traditional music serves not only as an entertainment but also, at a more serious level, affords an insight into human experience and emotions, clearly representing the feel of the time as we actually live through it. The term classical means something old and established, and valued on that basis.
But with the passage of time, music has evolved considerably, in terms of sound, function and basic support system. The history of Western classical music could be divided into three phases. In the first millennium, European culture was the culture of the religion of Christ, Christianity. All musicians were associated with the church and they sang in churches, abbeys and cathedrals. The main purpose of church music was to stimulate worship, create an atmosphere of spirituality, to make prayer more ardent and intense, and services to become more sacred and fulfilling. Gradually the church's power was taken over by kings and nobles and during the 12th Century, and music was specially composed for princely courts.
Music became a means of entertainment for court society. Many famous kings and princes were keen musicians like Henry the VIII of England and Frederick the Great of Prussia. In course of time, music also became a vehicle to glorify kings and princes, not unlike the Indian system in which songs were composed in honour of patrons and heads of State. With aristocratic power on the decline in the West and the bourgeois gaining control, the public opera houses and concert halls became social venues for music. The first opera house was opened in 1650 C.E. or so, and the first concert hall about a century later. Music of the church and courts was mostly forgotten as actual sound, though the scores existed in libraries.
Fortunately, early music was revived significantly in the late 20th Century, thanks to commendable efforts by imaginative musicologists and musicians. Western art music, extending from the repertory of Gregorian chant to modern electronic compositions, has remarkable scope, amazing variety and a stunning richness that has a singular fascination, inspiring mankind. In today's world of music, early music has become more familiar despite being neglected and forgotten for centuries.
In the Middle Ages, the Christian church cultivated and directed music as it did art, architecture, poetry, etc. All composers were in holy orders, and the monks and the other clerics wrote down the music. The music, nourished and nurtured by the church, was singing and chanting of sacred words during services, and also following the traditions in the older religions, such as the singing of psalms in the ancient Jewish synagogues.
It cannot be denied that oral musical expression serves the fundamental objective to bring human beings into beneficial contact with deities, unseen spirits or with a single God.
Religions that have the largest following in the world — Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity — are the proud possessors of prized complex chant systems, as also smaller religions.
The Gregorian chant or plainchant is an unaccompanied, monophonic one-line vocal music without a fixed rhythm or meter. It is known as Gregorian after the famous Pope and church father, Gregory I, who is reputed to have standardised and assembled the basic chants for church services of his time.
The artistic effect of plainchant — music without harmony or rhythm — is concentrated in melody built on this rich, modal system. Sacred texts were sung at church services, and the life of the church centred around its services. Monks and nuns spent most of their time in prayer. Throughout the day, there were as many as nine services including the lengthy mass and a large segment of these rituals were sung. Providing music for the texts expanded the devotional spirit, and hearing a Gregorian chant or later medieval music, one is drawn into an experience where in some inexplicable fashion, belief gets more deeply impressed in the mind.
The early Gregorian chant was reconstructed and is usually sung in recent times in a performance style that was thought to be ``historical" in the 19th Century. However, this has also undergone changes, in which scholar musicians have proposed a different style that is austere, less refined and closer to other traditions of religious chanting such as the Koranic chanting.
The court songs by the troubadours (poets) comprising songs of chivalry, crusader's songs, laments for dead princes, etc, have beautiful lyrics with the music tuned by the popular musicians of the time known as Jongleurs.
It is true as often quoted that the religious chanting and hymn singing in the early period are the yearnings of the immortal soul made manifest, while the court songs of the medieval period have an impressive impact of their own.
(Reference acknowledgement: ``LISTEN," 4th edition.)
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