KARISHMA D'MELLO
A Brief Overview of Music’s History (Part I):
Journey to the
Renaissance
We can’t quite trace music back to a time zero. A time before
the first chord was struck, the first note played or the first
time we could even comprehend or conceptualize what it was.
But it would be safe to assume, that for as long as sound has
existed, music has too.
Either way, if you want to venture down that particular
rabbit hole, there are two ways to go about it. One is the
historical (and rather, anthropological perspective), the
other is through musicology – a more critical analysis of the
evolution of music. This, however, is simply a brief overview
of some major moments in musical history and what we know
(or think we know) of the times surrounding them!
When we speak of prehistoric periods, there’s no way to
confirm anything and the best that can be done is guesswork.
Solid, evidence-based guesswork, but they are still
assumptions, nevertheless. Some of this evidence, includes
musical writings and compositions from Syria, along
with “Seikilos Epitaph”, which is recognized as the oldest
composition yet. A few years back, archeologists also found
bone flutes in the caves of Southern Germany. These were
estimated to be approximately 35,000 years old.
Countries have their own histories intertwined with music.
The Indian roots are always traced back to religious texts
of the Vedas, more notably the Samaveda. King Jamshid of
Persia was even supposed to have “invented music” during
his reign. This, of course, is in direct contradiction with the
Biblical texts that credits “Jubal” with this honor. The bible
has always had several references to a rich culture of music.
The concept of “litany”, even in its earliest forms involved a
profound co-relation with music.
But to truly wrap your head around the impact of the
Catholic Church on music, you would have to move into the
Medieval ages and the Renaissance, where it really hit its
stride. The Liturgical music under the rule of Pope Gregory
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I and the (coerced?) spread of the Gregorian Chant and the
development of Polyphony (two voiced harmony), and the
emphasis of notation and composition, all owe to this era of
medieval, catholic dominance in the West. Guido of Arezzo,
an Italian monk was credited with creating a system of
learning music by ear – solfege. Meanwhile, in Germany,
music was dominated by the “Minnesang”. However, these
were also times of epidemic and disease. Following the Black
Death, apocalyptic musings took precedence over everything
else. French forms of poetic musical expression developed
into varying expressions of “ballades”, “virelai”, “lai”, and
“rondeau”.
Despite the emphasis on religion, there was a group of
unwilling conformists who established themselves in secular
music. This would then create the foundation for the music of
the Renaissance.
Renaissance was the year of skepticism and enlightenment.
People were ready to move beyond chants and into more
complex forms of musical expression. Josquin Desprez, (the
“prince” of music), was one of the most notable composers
of that time, owing to his affiliations with the courts and the
Sistine Chapel alike.
However, this development was short-lived. Pope Pius’s
‘counter-reformative’ ideology eliminated the use of
instruments and put back the emphasis on harmony and
voices again, making one exception with the permitted use of
the organ. The emphasis on voices spawned the practice of
castration, and the castrati - a group of singing men, castrated
to preserve their young, falsetto voices. Why wouldn’t
they just use women, you ask? At the time, all women were
prohibited from singing in church.
Stay tuned for next month’s issue where we go into the
Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods of classical styling.