he feet of his
verses,--there resulted a tiresome uniformity of measure, which, as Dr.
Burney says, "no resources of melody could disguise." Lacking the
complex rhythm obtained by our equal bars and unequal notes, the only
rhythm was that produced by the quantity of the syllables, and was of
necessity comparatively monotonous. And further, it maybe observed that
the chant thus resulting, being like recitative, was much less clearly
differentiated from ordinary speech than is our modern song.
Nevertheless, in virtue of the extended range of notes in use, the
variety of modes, the occasional variations of time consequent on
changes of metre, and the multiplication of instruments, music had,
towards the close of Greek civilization, attained to considerable
heterogeneity--not indeed as compared with our music, but as compared
with that which preceded it. Still, there existed nothing but melody:
harmony was unknown. It was not until Christian church-music had reached
some development, that music in parts was evolved; and then it came into
existence through a very unobtrusive differentiation. Difficult as it
may be to conceive _a priori_ how the advance from melody to harmony
could take place without a sudden leap, it is none the less true that it
did so. The circumstance which prepared the way for it was the
employment of two choirs singing alternately the same air. Afterwards it
became the practice--very possibly first suggested by a mistake--for the
second choir to commence before the first had ceased; thus producing a
fugue. With the simple airs then in use, a partially-harmonious fugue
might not improbably thus result: and a very partially-harmonious fugue
satisfied the ears of that age, as we know from still preserved
examples. The idea having once been given, the composing of airs
productive of fugal harmony would naturally grow up, as in some way it
_did_ grow up, out of this alternate choir-singing. And from the fugue
to concerted music of two, three, four, and more parts, the transition
was easy. Without pointing out in detail the increasing complexity that
resulted from introducing notes of various lengths, from the
multiplication of keys, from the use of accidentals, from varieties of
time, and so forth, it needs but to contrast music as it is, with music
as it was, to see how immense is the increase of heterogeneity. We see
this if, looking at music in its _ensemble_, we enumerate its many
different genera and spe