34. " Alusic, before the invention of counterpoint," says Dr. Burney, " consisted, ct8 far as we are -able to discorer, in canto fermo, or melodies equally simple; on this inelegant and insipid treble, harmony was grafted, and practised in the church; but the discovery which was afterwards made in the invention of characters for thne was much more im portant, as it constitutes the true era of musical independ epee; for, till then, if melody subsisted, it was entirely sub servient to syllabic laws. AIusic, considered abstractly, without the assistance, or rather the shackles of speech, is now become a rich, expressive, and picturesque language itself, having its (own) forms, proportions, co»trasts, punc tuations, members, phrases, and periods." 35. The work of Franco, entitled Franconis Musica et Cantus Mcnsurabilis, is inserted entire in the Collection which Pd. Gerbert, the Prince Abbot of St. Blaise, has pub lished, under the title of Scriptores Ecclesiastici, potissimum de illusica Sacra. It contains an introduction, ancl thirteen chapters, nine of which are on the subject of rhythm, and the other four on discant. " Measured music," he says, " is song measured by long and short times, and these titnes may consist either of sound or of rests; I speak of a rest as mea sured by time, because otherwise the performers of two dif ferent parts, one of which should have a rest, and the other not, would be tillable to proceed together in exact time." This seems to imply something more than simple counter point. The details into which Ile enters show clearly that it is to the organ and organising that measured music owes its origin. lle distinguishes three kinds of duration, long, breve, and semibreve, for which he gives notes with corre sponding characters for their rests. The long may be per fect or imperfect. It is perkct when it is equal to three breves, because this number is the emblem of the Trinity. It is imperfect when it is equal to two breves. Besides their proper values these notes have a great many accidental pro perties, into the detail of which it would be useless to enter. Ile distinguishes five modes or moods of rhythm. The first consists of longs, the second of a breve and a long ; the third of a long and two breves; the fourth of two breves and a long ; and the fifth of breves and semibreves. Franco also makes ttse of bars drawn acro5s the staff, to mark the ends of a sentence or verse; and this is the only use that is made of bars at present in canto fermo.
"I have been able," says Dr. Burney, " to find no consi derable improvements in the time-table between the eleventh and fourteenth century ; when the chief merit of several authors in the cantus mensurabilis, whose names and writings have come down to us, was to dilute the discoveries of Franco, and pour water on his leaves." 36. About the end of the fourteenth century, musicians began to abandon the rhythmic feet of Franco, and to intro duce into the measure as many sounds as the different subdi visions of time furnished them. New figures of notes be came necessary, and were introduced about the beginning of the fifteenth century. Prosdocirno, who wrote in 1412, does not mention those additional figures; but in later au thors we find them distinctly described ; and among the first by John Tinctor, who was chapel-master to Ferdinand king of Naples, in the latter half of the fifteenth century. Tinctor
is remarkable as the author of the first dictionary- of music, which he published under the title of Definitorium tcrinino rum Musicce.
37. The doctrine of Tinctor is much more fully deve loped in the writinos of Franchinus Gaffurius, surnamed Laudensis, from Lodi in the Milanese, the place of his birth. He was born in 1451, and became chapel-master of the ca thedral of Milan in 14S4. The publication of the works of Gafforio is a remarkable era in the history of music, both on account of their own merit, and as being among the first which issued from the press. His Pratica Mnsica was printed at Milan in 1496. This work is divided into four books. The first treats of harmony, that is to say, of in tonation or melody, for at that epoch the word harmony had still the same signification as among the ancients; the second, of Pleasured song, the third of counterpoint, and the fourth of musical proportions.
Franchinus speaks of only- five characters for time; the maxima or large, the long, the breve, the semibreve, and the minim. But other writers, early in the sixteenth century, added to these the crotchet, the quaver, and semi-quaver.
33. The use of bars to divide the period into equal mea sures, and to mark the rhythm by- accents, did not take place till the beginning of the seventeenth century-. Hence the perplexity. of the old notation of time, of which the reader may form a notion front Rousseau's Dictionary, art. Liga ture, Afesure, Mode, Prolation, &c. After this invention, the ancient notes of dine, which sio-nified a greater duration than that contained between two b-ars, or one measure, fell into disuse; the longest note is now the semibreve; and the convenience of marking the lesser accents, by uniting in groupes the tails of quavers, semiquavers, &c. has contri buted to make composers prefer writing in these shorter characters of time, which gives modern music a different appearance to the eve from the ancient, even where the same proportions sul;sist in the duration of the sounds.
39. Franchino's third book treats of counterpoint, awl he lays down cight rules for the succession of consonances, which are nearly the same as are observed to this day. He treats also of dissonances, and we see that these intervals were used at that time, but with timidity, and only as pass ing notes, or by syncopation.
40. The practice of fig-urative discant very soon followed the invention of the time table. Even Franco's definition of discant might be construed to imply it. " Discant is the consonance of different melodies, in which these different melodies move in sounds of various lenztlis, lonos, breves, and semibreves, proportioned to each other, and expressed ',TX?' el in writing by adequate notes or characters." Whether this definition means that the different melodies in their simulta neous aLrreements were of different figures, two or more notes of the melody harmonising with one note of the other, may admit of question; but there is no doubt that fig-urath f or florid counterpoint, imitation and fugue, are to be referred to a very early period. It is certain that the first composi tions for the church that were printed, and which were com posed in the fifteenth century., are full of canons and fug,ues of the most artificial and difficult construction. The origin of these contrivances is thus accounted for by Dr. Burney.