Read Ebook: Shakespeare and Music With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries by Naylor Edward W Edward Woodall

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Ebook has 812 lines and 45397 words, and 17 pages

We find, on p. 208, that both Philomathes and Polymathes are young University gentlemen--looking forward hereafter to be "admitted to the handling of the weightie affaires of the common wealth."

The lessons end with their request to the master to give them "some songes which may serve both to direct us in our compositions, and by singing them recreate us after our more serious studies."

Thus we find that in Elizabeth's reign it was the "custom" for a lady's guests to sing unaccompanied music from "parts," after supper; and that inability to take "a part" was liable to remark from the rest of the company, and indeed that such inability cast doubt on the person having any title to education at all.

We find that one music master was accustomed to have his gentleman pupils so constantly "in his company" that they would practise their singing while "walking in the fields."

Finally--that part-singing from written notes, and also the extempore singing of a second part to a written plainsong, was a diversion of such young University gentlemen, and was looked on as a proper form of recreation after hard reading.

Anne Boleyn was an enthusiastic musician, and, according to Hawkins, "doted on the compositions of Jusquin and Mouton, and had collections of them made for the private practice of herself and her maiden companions."

There is also a letter from Queen Catherine , the mother of Queen Mary, in which she exhorts her "to use her virginals and lute, if she has any."

As for Elizabeth, there is abundant evidence that she was a good virginal player.

The best known MS. collection of virginal music has at least always been known as Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, and the following quaint story is quoted by Hawkins from Melvil's Memoirs .

"The same day, after dinner, my Lord of Hunsdean drew me up to a quiet gallery that I might hear some music , where I might hear the queen play upon the virginals. After I had hearkened a while I took by the tapestry that hung before the door of the chamber, and stood a pretty space, hearing her play excellently well; but she left off immediately so soon as she turned her about and saw me. She appeared to be surprised to see me, and came forward, seeming to strike me with her hand, alledging she was not used to play before men, but when she was solitary to shun melancholy."

Thus we find that in the 16th and 17th centuries a practical acquaintance with music was a regular part of the education of both sovereign, gentlemen of rank, and the higher middle class.

There is plenty of evidence, though more indirect in kind, that the lower classes were as enthusiastic about music as the higher. A large number of passages in contemporary authors shows clearly that singing in parts was a common amusement with blacksmiths, colliers, cloth-workers, cobblers, tinkers, watchmen, country parsons, and soldiers.

There is a poem of the 18th century which speaks of the old times,

However true that may have been--at all events it is certain that in the 16th and 17th centuries it was customary to hear instrumental music in a barber's shop, generally of a cittern, which had four strings and frets, like a guitar, and was thought a vulgar instrument.

Finally, in Gosson's "Short Apologie of the Schoole of Abuse," 1587, we find that "London is so full of unprofitable pipers and fiddlers, that a man can no sooner enter a tavern, than two or three cast of them hang at his heels, to give him a dance before he depart." These men sang ballads and catches as well. Also they played during dinner. Lyly says--"Thou need no more send for a fidler to a feast, than a beggar to a fair."

All this leads to the just conclusion, that if ever a country deserved to be called 'musical,' that country was England, in the 16th and 17th centuries. King and courtier, peasant and ploughman, each could 'take his part,' with each music was a part of his daily life; while so far from being above knowing the difference between a minim and a crotchet, a gentleman would have been ashamed not to know it.

SHAKESPEARE PASSAGES

TECHNICAL TERMS AND INSTRUMENTS

We now proceed to consider some representative passages of Shakespeare which deal with music.

These may be taken roughly in six divisions--viz. Technical Terms and Instruments, Musical Education, Songs and Singing, Serenades and other domestic 'Music,' Dances and Dancing, Miscellaneous, including Shakespeare's account of the more spiritual side of music.

To begin on the first division. There are many most interesting passages which bristle with technical words; and these are liable to be understood by the reader in a merely general way, with the result that the point is wholly or partly missed. With a reasonable amount of explanation, and a general caution to the student not to pass over words or phrases that appear obscure, there is no reason why these passages should not be understood by all in a much fuller light.

The following lines, though not in a play, are so full of musical similes that it may be useful to take them at once.

Here Lucrece tells the birds to cease their joyous notes, and calls on the nightingale to sing the song of Tereus, while she herself bears the 'burden' with her groans.

'Sumer is icumen in, Lhud? sing Cuccu, Groweth seed and bloweth mead and springth the wd? nu, Sing Cuccu, Aw? bleteth after lomb, lhouth after calv? cu, Bulluc sterteth, Buck? verteth, murie sing cuccu, Cuccu, Cuccu, Wel sing?s thu cuccu, ne swik thu naver nu.'--

The art of descant in Elizabeth's time corresponded closely with what we call 'Strict Counterpoint' .

'She syngeth in the thyke; and under her brest A pricke, to kepe hur fro sleepe.'

The word, however, has a further use, namely, to play 'divisions' on a viol-da-gamba. This was a favourite accomplishment of gentlemen in the 16th and 17th centuries. Sir Andrew Aguecheek numbered this amongst his attainments, ; and readers of John Inglesant will remember that 'Mr Inglesant, being pressed to oblige the company, played a descant upon a ground bass in the Italian manner.' Playing a descant on a ground bass meant playing extempore 'divisions' or variations, to the harmony of a 'ground bass' which was repeated again and again by the harpsichordist, until the viol player had exhausted his capacity to produce further 'breakings' of the harmony.

To give his own words--

'Diminution or division to a ground, is the breaking either of the bass or of any higher part that is applicable thereto. The manner of expressing it is thus:--

'A ground, subject, or bass, call it what you please, is prick'd down in two several papers; one for him who is to play the ground upon an organ, harpsichord, or what other instrument may be apt for that purpose; the other for him that plays upon the viol, who having the said ground before his eyes as his theme or subject, plays such variety of descant or division in concordance thereto as his skill and present invention do then suggest unto him.'

An entirely separate use of 'break' is in the phrase 'broken time,' which has the simple and obvious meaning that the notes do not receive their due length and proportion. In this connection we will take the passage of King Richard's speech in prison at Pontefract--when he hears music without, performed by some friendly hands.

A few words are necessary about 'Proportion.' This term was used in Elizabethan times exactly as we now use 'Time.' The 'times' used in modern music can practically be reduced to two--viz., Duple and Triple . But in Elizabeth's day the table of various Proportions was a terribly elaborate thing. Of course many of these 'Proportions' never really came into practical use--but there was plenty of mystery left even after all deductions.

Sesquialtera is more complicated, and means 'three notes are sung to two of the same kinde'; and 'Sesquitertia is when four notes are sung to three of the same kinde.' 'But' , 'if a man would ingulphe himselfe to learn to sing, and set down all them which Franchinus Gaufurius hath set down in his booke De Proportionibus Musicis, he should find it a matter not only hard but almost impossible.'

Ornithoparcus, in his Micrologus , gives us an idea of the way this subject of proportion was treated by more 'learned' writers. He says that music considers only the proportion of inequality, that this is two-fold--viz., the greater and the lesser inequality. The greater inequality contains five proportions, namely, multiplex, superparticular, superpartiens, multiplex superparticular, and multiplex superpartiens.

This is more amusing than instructive, perhaps. The three last lines of this passage refer to the various stories of real or pretended cure of disease by the use of particular pieces of music. One of the best known of these diseases is 'Tarantism,' or the frenzy produced by the bite of the Tarantula, in Italy.

Kircher, a learned Jesuit , gives an account, in his "Musurgia," of the cure of this madness by certain airs, by which the patient is stimulated to dance violently. The perspiration thus produced was said to effect a cure. In his "Phonurgia nova" Kircher actually gives the notes of the tune by which one case was cured.

In this connection, Kircher mentions King Saul's madness, which was relieved by David's harp playing. This is certainly to the point, and may well have been in Shakespeare's mind.

Our modern Tarantellas derive their name and characteristic speed from the old Tarantula.

The last sentence has yet another play on the double meaning of 'divisions.' A few lines further on Edmund explains what kind of 'divisions' he expects to follow the eclipses--namely, 'between the child and the parent ... dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state,' etc. But the very use of the word in the quoted lines brings its musical meaning into his head, for he promptly carries off his assumed blindness to Edgar's presence by humming over his 'fa, sol, la, mi.'

Guido d'Arezzo , in his Micrologus , named the six notes of the Hexachord , thus--Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La. These were the first syllables of certain words in the Hymn for the feast of St John Baptist, the words and tune of which are in Hawkins, p. 163.

"UT queant laxis RE-sonare fibris MI-ra gestorum FA-muli tuorum SOL-ve polluti LA-bii reatum, Sancte Joannes."

A rough translation of which is--

'That thy servants may be able with free hearts to sound forth the wonders of thy deeds; release us, O Holy John, from the guilt of a defiled lip.'

Edmund's 'Fa, Sol, La, Mi,' therefore, corresponds to F, G, A, B; or C, D, E, F sharp; or B flat, C, D, E, etc.; according to the pitch taken by the singer.

In this connection see the following passage:--

In this passage the names of the notes are simply those to be found in all instruction books of the 16th and 17th centuries.

'Gam-ut I am, the ground of all accord, A-re, to plead Hortensio's passion; B-mi, Bianca, take him for thy lord, C-fa-ut, that loves with all affection: D sol, re, one cliff, two notes have I: E la, mi, show pity or I die.'

Here Hortensio puts in his love-verses under the guise of a musicmaster's Gamut.

The lines may be taken separately as fantastic commentaries on the syllables themselves, as well as having their ulterior meaning for Bianca.

Morley gives us a clear idea that the extempore descant was often a very unsatisfactory performance, at any rate when it was attempted to add more than one extempore part at a time to the plainsong. As he says--'For though they should all be moste excellent men ... it is unpossible for them to be true one to another.' The following passage will be more clear on this light.

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