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The Flat, Sharp, and Natural: A Historical Sketch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Frederick Niecks
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Extract

The history of the flat, sharp, and natural is not a dull record, but a tale full of stirring incidents. If my narrative does not succeed in engaging your interest, in stimulating your curiosity, and in now and then sending a thrill of excitement through you, I have failed to do justice to the noble subject of my choice. These remarks may lead you to suppose that I am going to speak of the human flats, sharps, and naturals of our profession. This, too, is, if not a noble, certainly an interesting subject; but it is not the one of which I intend to treat on this occasion. My subject is the origin, rise, and vicissitudes of the musical signs that raise and lower natural notes and restore raised and lowered notes to their natural state. No doubt most people would suspect such a history to be dull; but nothing is dull if only we go deep enough into it. The subject in question is certainly not an exception to this rule, which could be confirmed by the study of hundreds of the apparently dry details of our notation. It is with these details as with the humble constituents of society; with the flat, sharp, and natural as with those lowly neighbours of ours whose lives seem to us an unbroken level desert. How great is always our astonishment when chance allows us to get a glimpse of what is hidden behind the plain, prosaic exteriors, and we discover loves and hates, hopes and disappointments, joys and sorrows, aspirations, successes, and failures—in short, at least as much romance as in the lives of the great and mighty. Well, let us try to get a glimpse of what is hidden behind the plain exteriors of the humble friends now under consideration.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Musical Association , Volume 16 , 1889 , pp. 79 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1889

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References

∗ Johannis Cottonis De Musica, in Vol. II. of Gerbert's “Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum.”Google Scholar

† “Preterea a voce sexta F. per quatuor divide, et retro h. aliam b. rotundam pone : quæ amba pro una voce accipiuntur, et una dicitur nona secunda, et utraque in eodem cantu regulariter non invenietur.”—(D. Oddonis Dialogus de Musica, in Vol. I. of Gerbert's “Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum.”)Google Scholar

‡ Micrologus de disciplina artis musica, in Vol. II. of Gerbert's “Scriptores ecclesiastici.” See also Micrologus Guidonis, translated and explained (Latin and German text) by M. Hermesdorff (Trier: J. B. Orach); and German translation by Raymund Schlecht, in Monatshsfts für Musik-Geschichts, Vol. V., p. 135.Google Scholar

∗ Introductio Musics secundum Magistrum Garlandia, in Vol I., p. 166, of Coussemaker's “Scriptores de musica medii aevi.”Google Scholar

† Fratris Walteri Odingtoni De Speculations Musics, in Vol. I., p. 215, of Coussemaker's “Scriptores.”Google Scholar

‡ Art Contrapunctus secundum Philippum de Vitriaco, in Vol. III., p. 26, of Coussemaker's “Scriptores.”Google Scholar

§ Johannis de Muris Speculum. Musica, in Vol II., pp. 294 and 271, of Coussemaker's “Scriptores.”Google Scholar

∗ Tractatus de Contrapuncto, in Vol. III., p. 199, &c., of Coussemaker's “Scriptores.”Google Scholar

∗ The English composers were particularly careful in the use of accidentals.Google Scholar

† See in this connection and on the use of accidents in early times, articles by Robert Eitner in Monatshefts für Musikgeschichts III. (1871), 133; XIX. (1887), 20; XX. (1888), 75.Google Scholar

∗ The flat having here the force of a natural, recalling the preceding accidental.Google Scholar

∗ See what Adlung says on this matter in the quotation given farther on.Google Scholar