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Chapter 7: The New Practice |
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Primary Evidence |
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Musicians and writers of all kinds had long speculated about the nature of music in classical antiquity, particularly the kinds of music used in ancient Greek drama. Even Gioseffo Zarlino, author of Le istitutioni armoniche ("The Foundations of Music"), the most important treatise on counterpoint in the 16th century, recognized that ancient Greek audiences had been moved by a combination of music and intelligible words—that is, words declaimed not by a multitude of voices in a polyphonic style, but rather by some method more nearly approaching solo song. Still, Zarlino remained ambivalent. In this passage from Le istitutioni armoniche, he praises artistic simplicity yet continues to favor polyphony, provided the words being sung are presented intelligibly.
"Even in our times we see that music induces in us various passions in the way that it did in antiquity. For occasionally, it is observed, when some beautiful, learned, and elegant poem is recited by someone to the sound of some instrument, the listeners are greatly stirred and moved to do different things, such as to laugh, weep, or to similar actions. This has been experienced through the beautiful, learned, and graceful compositions of [the poet] Ariosto: when among other passages, the sad death of Zerbino and the tearful lament of his Isabella are recited, the listeners, moved with compassion, cried no less than did Ulysses hearing the excellent musician and poet Demodocus sing. Thus, if we do not hear that the music of today works on diverse subjects the effects that it did on Alexander, this may be because the causes are different, and not alike, as some assume. For, if such effects were wrought by music in antiquity, it was recited as described above and not in the way that is used at present, with a multitude of parts and so many singers and instruments that at times nothing is heard but a jumbled din of voices and diverse instrumental sounds, singing without taste or discretion, and an unseemly pronunciation of words, so that we hear only a tumult and uproar. Music practiced in this way cannot have any effect on us worth remembering. But when music is recited with taste, staying close to the usage of the ancients, that is, to a simple style, singing to the sound of the lyre, lute, or other similar instruments texts of comic or tragic nature, or similar subjects, where there are long narrations, then the effects are observed. Those songs in which brief matters are related in a few words, as is customary today in certain canzonets called madrigals, truly are able to move the soul but little. Although these delight us greatly, they do not have the force alluded to above. That it is true that music universally pleases more when it is simple than when fashioned with much artifice and sung by many parts may be understood from this: that we listen to a solo singer accompanied by the sound of an organ, lyre, lute, or similar instrument with greater pleasure than to many. Although many singing together stir the soul, there is no doubt that songs in which the singers pronounce the words together are generally heard with greater pleasure than the learned compositions in which the words are interrupted by many voices."
Source: Gioseffo Zarlino, Istitutioni, II, 9, p. 75, trans. Claude Palisca, in Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 371–3.
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