A Popular History of the Art of Music

vince made use of the melodies already in existence. The first Christian hymns and psalms were probably sung to temple melodies brought from Jerusalem by the apostles. As new hymns were written (something which happened very soon, under the inspiration of the new faith and hope), they were adapted to the best of these old melodies, just as has been done continually down to nearly our own time. Our knowledge of the early Church, in this side of its activity, is very limited. It is not until the time of St. Ambrose, who was bishop of Milan in the last part of the fourth century, that the Church began to have an official music. By this time the process of secularization had been carried so far that there was a great want of seriousness and nobility in the worship. St. Ambrose, accordingly, selected certain melodies as being suitable for the solemn hymns of the Church and the offices of the mass. He himself was a poet of some originality. He composed quite a number of hymns, of which the most famous is that noble piece of praise, Te Deum Laudamus, a poem which has inspired a greater number of musical settings than any other outside the canon of the Scriptures. The melodies which St. Ambrose collected were probably from Palestine, and he selected four scales from the Greek system, within which, as he supposed, all future melodies should be composed. This was done, most likely, under the impression that each one of the Greek scales had a characteristic expression, and that the four which he chose

Lydian, do to do; Hypo-?olian, mi to mi. I do not understand that the terminal notes of these plagal scales of St. Gregory were used as key notes, but only that melodies instead of being restricted between the tonic and its octave, were permitted to pass below and above the tonic, coming back to that as a center; for we must remember that in the ancient music the tonality was purely arbitrary, and, so to say, accidental. While all kinds of keys used the series of tones known by the names do, re, mi, fa, so, la, si, do, it was within the choice of the composer to bring his melodies to a close upon any one of these tones, which, being thus emphasized, was regarded as the tonic of the melody. Whatever of color one key had differing from another was due therefore to the preponderance of some one tone of the scale in the course of the melody. The Plain Song of

iastical scales and names, a

n Phrygian Lyd

ich had crept in, and in a supposed "restoration" of the service to its pristine purity. The restoration, however, has never been complete. Church music, like every other department of the art, has gone on in increasing complexity from the beginning until now. The main differen

ost important movements in music have been made by ecclesiastics or officials deriving support from these sources. More extended particulars of this part of her influence will be given later. It may suffice to mention the cathedrals of Westminster and St. Paul in England, of Notre Dame in Paris, to which we owe the old