On the Origin and Progress of the Art of Music by John Taverner

Joseph M. Ortiz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367586409
• eBook ISBN: 9781351799003
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

John Taverner's lectures on music constitute the only extant version of a complete university course in music in early modern England. Originally composed in 1611 in both English and Latin, they were delivered at Gresham College in London between 1611 and 1638, and it is likely that Taverner intended at some point to publish the lectures in the form of a music treatise. The lectures, which Taverner collectively titled De Ortu et Progressu Artis Musicæ ("On the Origin and Progress of the Art of Music"), represent a clear attempt to ground musical education in humanist study, particularly in Latin and Greek philology. Taverner's reliance on classical and humanist writers attests to the durability of music's association with rhetoric and philology, an approach to music that is too often assigned to early Tudor England. Taverner is also a noteworthy player in the seventeenth-century Protestant debates over music, explicitly defending music against Reformist polemicists who see music as an overly sensuous activity.

In this first published edition of Taverner's musical writings, Joseph M. Ortiz comprehensively introduces, edits, and annotates the text of the lectures, and an appendix contains the existing Latin version of Taverner's text. By shedding light on a neglected figure in English Renaissance music history, this edition is a significant contribution to the study of musical thought in Renaissance England, humanism, Protestant Reformism, and the history of education.

On the origin and progress of the art of music (English lectures)

Lecture 1

[11] Those which search out the Pedigree of wordes, hunting after the subtilties of Etymologies, would needes perswade vs that out of the very fashion & composition of the name may bee gathered the true propriety of each thing. Generally in all wordes to attempt this extraction, might perhaps seeme too nice a curiosity, worthy to bee put amongst the number of those thinges, which Seneca calls ‘graue trifles.’¹ Yet in many wee see that the reason of the name & the condition of the thinge doe soe fitly & fully accord, that one would sometimes willingly yeild to their opinion, which held that names were first giuen to thinges not att happe hazard, but rather vpon good & mature deliberation.

Wherefore itt will not bee alltogether impertinent, if before wee come to the handling of the thing it selfe, wee speake something of the name. As they which goe to see some goodly temple, or curious peice of buildling, first stand & behold the frontispice,² looke vp to the top, diligently beholding all that is without, before they goe into the inner roomes, soe allso wee, before wee come to the more proper & intrinsicall matters belonging to this Art, examine a little the title itt selfe.

This word Musicke sounds so like that of the Muses, that it were hard to say whether borrowed their name from other, for the Muses anciently were reputed to exercise noething but Musicke, or att least noething without Musicke, as one might see by the images of Apollo & the Muses at Delphos, which had euery one of them musicall instruments in their hands.³ Hee therefore which would deriue this word Musicke from the Muses, should scarce satisfie one that lookes for a more curious Etymologie, then those which bee too obuious & easie. They which haue strained higher, haue diuersly deliuered their opinions. Plato in his Cratylus, derives itt παρὰ τοῦ μῶσθαι, which comes of the verbe μάομαι, & signifies to seeke or search out with a kind of vehemencie & eager pursuit.⁴ For such is the Muses dilligence that not content with ordinary matters, they are continually harping on newe & vnknowne deuises, and this hath beene obse[r]ued by the old Comœdians to haue beene allso the property of Musicke, for soe said one Eupolis cited by Athenæus in his 14th booke

Πράγμ᾽ ἐστὶ βαθὺ τι, καὶ καμπυλον

Αἰεί τε κἀινὸν ἐξευρίσκει τι τοῖς ἐπινοεῖν δυναμένοις

Musick’s a thing profound & variable

Allwayes affording nouelties vnto the able.⁵

[11v] Soe likewise Anaxilas:

ἡ μουσικὴ δ᾿ ὥσπερ Λιβύη, πρὸς τῶν θεῶν

ἀεί τι καινὸν κατ᾿ ἐνιαυτὸν τίκτει θηρίον

Musicke, good sooth, is like to Lybian ground

Wherein some newe strange creature’s daily found.⁶

Others bring itt from μαίεθι, which cometh allmost to the same passe, for μαίεθι is properly to play the midwife, & soe the Muses, as Vulcan out of Juppiter’s braine brought Minerua, out of ingenious braines deliuer into the world many goodly & beautifull Minerua’s. Others would haue the Muses soe calld μοῦσας quasi ὄμου ὄυσας, that is, as the words import, beeing togither, or agreeing together, & therefore in old time the Muses, they say, were pictured coupled togither, & linked as it were in a chaine face to face, looking one vpon another. This may allso not vnfitly bee applied to the name of Musicke, since that kind of consort & concord seemes to imply something musicall. Others going yet farther, fetch the name of muse and Musicke from the Hebrewe word Moish,⁷ which signifies water, because, as some would haue itt, Musicke was first found out in imitation of some bubling riuers pleasant noyse. And heereupon perhaps the Poets feigned such great familiarity & correspondencie betweene the Muses & the nymphes of the waters, from the Hebrew musar, which signifies to meditate. But not to trouble you any longer in this search, not vnlike to that of the head of the riuer Nilus, I come to the beginning of the thing it selfe.⁸

And sure itt seemes that naturally there is in man not onely a loue but allso a kind of pronenes to Musicke, which makes euen children & infants delight & practise itt. And not onely soe, but also all men of what trade or fashion of life soeuer, very carters & plowmen are not without their Musicke. It were easie to prosecute this argument through all the ranckes degrees & conditions of men; I will onely put you in mind, howe allmost all men, when they are alone & haue noething els to busie themselues withall, are still framing to themselues some kind of Musicke or other, as though then mans mind noe longer intangled in outward affaires, but nowe freed from all incumbrances, beganne to come home to hir selfe, & to bee doing that which most properly is hir owne worke, since, as some Philosophers have auerred, the very soule it selfe is noething ells but a kind of exquisite harmony, Aristotle allso yeilding, that though itt doth not consist of harmony, yet is itt not without [12] harmony.⁹ Soe that itt needes not seeme strange, that man is naturally inclined to Musicke, inclined I say onely, because accordinge to the Latin prouerb, noe man is borne an Artist.¹⁰ But as men haue their beginnings in Arts, soe Arts had their beginnings from men. It shall not therefore bee amisse, to make farther enquiry, whence this Art amongst the rest had itts first beginning.

May I then speake to hir in those wordes, which hee in the poet vsed to Dido queene of Carthage,

Quae te tam læta tulerunt, Saecula, qui tanti talem genuêre parentes?¹¹

What soe thrise happy age did first thee knowe,

And to what blessed parents dost thy beeing owe?

Surely, if itt hath allwayes been accounted one of Homer’s cheife happinesses, to haue had seuen famous citties striuing whoe should haue the honor to bee accounted the country of soe famous a man, you may well thinke itt a farre greater glory to Musicke, that not onely a fewe citties, but allmost all the seuerall nations of the world haue labored to appropriate hir birth & beginning to themselues, & not onely men & nations, but euen the Gods themselues heerein have been competitors. Solinus thinkes, that the Art of Musicke first came out of Creete, when as the Idæan Dactyli the watchmen of Iove’s cradle making a continuall noyse vpon their iron & brasen targets & helmets to conceale their charge, in the tinckling sound of the brasse by chance found out a kind of Musicke.¹² Diodorus Siculus attributes the inuention of itt to Mercurie, for when the riuer Nilus had, as itt is accustomed, ouerflowed the plaines of Ægipt, & at length returning backe to his old channell, left vpon the land diuers kind of fishes & other creatures: amongst the rest there was a Tortoyse, which this Mercury finding with the flesh withered away, onely the sinewes remaining, by chance touching them made a kind of pleasant sound, whereupon afterwards, according to that modele hee made a Lute.¹³ But Boetius, as allso diuers others, ascribe itt to Pythagoras, whoe by chance passing by a Smithes forge, on a suddaine their hammers saluted his eares with soe orderly a noyse, that him seemed hee heard some though rudely, yet truely agreeing sounds. Wherevpon imagining with him-selfe, that hee had nowe found an opportunity of confirming that by sense, which before hee had in his mind conceiued, hee comes [12v] to the smithes & curiously obserues their manner, noting the seuerall sounds which arose from the stroakes of their seuerall hammers, which diuersity when as att first hee imputed to the difference of their strength in beating, hee desires them that they would change hammers. When they had soe done & yet neuerthelesse the difference of the sound went with the hammers & not with the men. Then began hee to cast about & to examine the weight of the hammers, the difference of which having attained vnto, hee makes experience of the same conclusion vpon certain stringes made of shipps gutts, at the end of which hee hanges certaine weights proportionable to those of the hammers. When nowe on these hee found the harmony, which his obseruation in the hammers before had promised, increased in the sweetness of sound caused by the more pliant nature of those stringes, att length hee suted those sounds with numbers awnswerable vnto them.¹⁴ And thus in processe of time (which Aristotle calls σύνεργον ἄριστον the best workefellowe¹⁵) came the Art of Musicke, in which the Græcians as much laboured & as much delighted as in any other kind of knowledge whatsoeuer. I haue somewhat the longer insisted on this storie of Pythagoras, both because itt is the most receiued opinion amongst our writers & allsoe because itt is the very foundation whereon the whole frame of Musicke relieth.

But others which (as Vitruuius in his 2 booke & 1 chap.) haue described the life of men to haue beene at first rude & sauage, little differing from that of wild beastes, liuing in the woods, lead vs about by circumstances telling vs howe first fire was strucke out of the flint, afterward certaine shedds or houells made by twisting the bowes of trees togither in stead of houses, of which if any desire to vnderstand more, I referre them to Vitruvius & Diodorus Siculus.¹⁶ These imagined that by listning to the singing of birds, men first attained to the knowledge of Musicke. With this opinion agrees Lucretius whoe setteth downe the whole matter in these verses:

At liquidas auium voces imitarier ore

Ante fuit multò, quam leuia carmina cantu

Concelebrare homines possent, auresque iuuare,

Et Zephyri caua per calamorum, sibila primum

Agrestes docuêre cauas inflare cicutas.

[13] Inde minutatim dulces didicêre querelas,

Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum,

Auia per nemora ac syluas saltusque reperta,

Per loca pastorum deserta, atque otia dia.¹⁷

In English thus—

First man obseru’d, then gan to imitate

The little birds sweet chirping melodie,

Before they could themselues to recreate

Frame ditties to delightfull harmonie.

The whistling windes amongst the reedes did showe

The vse of pipes, as they on them did blowe.

Thus by degrees, with helpe of skillfull hand,

They learnd those notes, at which amaz’d men stand.

But first itt was the silly shepheards trade,

Whoe, as his sheepe did feede, sat piping in the shade.

Neither is itt alltogether improbable, that men should learne Musicke of the birdes, since from them allso (as some say) men first had the manners of building houses, taught by the curious Architecture of their nests, besides diuers Physicall Secrets, first practiz’d by birds, & from them deriued to men.¹⁸ Chelidonia or the hearbe Celandine, soe medicinable for the eyes, was first made knowen by the swallowe, whoe therewithall vseth to heale hir yong ones sore eyes, & from this it hath taken itts name.¹⁹ The vse of clysters was first taken from the Ægyptian Ibis a bird described to bee not much vnlike the storke, with a long bill, by the helpe of which shee scoures hir selfe.²⁰ But to come to the rest whoe claime interest in the discouery of this Art, I will onely point at them.

Some of the Greeke writers (as Eusebius witnesseth²¹) attributed the inuention of Musicke to Dionysius, others to the brethren Zethus & Amphion, others to Apollo, for soe his status seemed to imply, hauing in his right hand a bowe, in his left the 3 Graces, whereof the one held a lute, the other a flute, the middlemost allso a kind of pipe.²² Others make Pan the God of shepheards the first inuentor of Musicke, & soe Virgil: Pan primum calamos cera coniungere plures Instituit.²³ Others [13v] Orpheus, whoe having found out Musicke, by the benefitt of that enchanting harmony, soe refined & charmed the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Series editor’s preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• On the origin and progress of the art of music (English lectures)
• Appendix: Taverner’s Gresham College music lectures in Latin
• Bibliography
• Index