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IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Thomas Morley, Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall
Musicke (1597)
Thomas Morley (1557–1602) was a successful composer, music theorist, and music
publisher in Elizabethan London. As a composer, he concentrated mainly on secular
music such as the madrigal and keyboard music (Anthology, No. 74). Morley’s one
important theoretical work, his Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke
(1597), is something of a misnomer. It is not always plain, and it is certainly not easy,
at least the bulk of it is not for beginners. And it is long!—322 pages divided into
three parts: introduction to the rudiments of music, the art of counterpoint, and composition. Like many musicians in Elizabethan London, Morley came under the sway
of Italian musical fashion, as his preference for the madrigal suggests. But Morley was
greatly influenced by Italian music theory as well; in his Introduction, his discussion of
counterpoint and composition sometimes consists of page after page lifted directly
from Gioseffo Zarlino’s Istitutioni harmoniche (1558) and Orazio Tigrini’s Il compendio
della musica (1588). Indeed, Morley would have been sued many times over by the
estate of Zarlino had modern copyright laws then been in force.
One of the distinctly original sections of Morley’s Plaine and Easie Introduction,
however, comes at the very beginning of Part III. Here Morley gives his students a
lesson in composition. As with many theory treatises since the Middle Ages, Morley
sets his up as a dialogue between master and pupil, in this case, two pupils, the brothers Philomathes and Polymathes. Master and pupils have been separated for a while
and run into each other on the street. Polymathes, it seems, has had a few lessons from
a certain “Master Bold,” and Master (Morley) is eager to see how well he has been
taught—just how good is this Master Bold? Polymathes shows him (actually sings for
him—the shadow of improvised composition still hangs over the late sixteenth century) a newly composed line above a cantus firmus provided by the master. But it is
riddled with errors. Then he tries two others, but neither fares much better.
How would you have done under Morley’s censorious tutelage? Read the dialogue
given below, and study the musical examples. Where and of what nature are the
errors? Morley helps point out most of them. But take a piece of music paper, or at
least work it out in your mind. What would have been a correct treatment, according
to the rules of Renaissance counterpoint, of these offending passages?
MASTER: Scholar Philomathes! God give you good morrow. I marveled that since our
last meeting (which was so long ago) I never heard anything of you.
PHILOMATHES: The precepts which at that time you gave me were so many and
diverse that they required a long time to put them in practice and that has been the
cause of my so long absence from you. But now I am come to learn that which remains
and have brought my brother to be my schoolfellow.
MASTER: He is heartily welcome. And now will I break off my intended walk and
return to the house with you. But has your brother proceeded so far as you have done?
PHILOMATHES: I pray you ask him, for I know not what he has. But before I knew
what descant was, I have heard him sing upon a plainsong.
POLYMATHES: I could have both sung upon a plainsong and began to set three or
four parts, but to no purpose because I was taken from it by other studies so that I have
forgotten those rules which I had given me for setting, though I have not altogether
forgotten my descant.
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MASTER: Who taught you?
POLYMATHES: One Master Bold.
MASTER: I have heard much talk of that man, and because I would know the tree by
the fruit, I pray you let me hear you sing a lesson of descant.
POLYMATHES: I will if it pleases you to give me a plainsong.
MASTER: Here is one. Sing upon it.
The Master then gives the plainsong that appears below (bottom voice), to which
Polymathes adds a newly composed voice (upper voice).
PHILOMATHES: Brother, if your descanting be no better than that you will gain but
small credit by it.
POLYMATHES: I was so taught, and this kind of descanting was by my master allowed
and esteemed as the best of all descant.
PHILOMATHES: Whoever gave him his name [Bold] had either foreknown his
destiny or then had well and perfectly read Plato his Cratylus.
POLYMATHES: Why so?
PHILOMATHES: Because there be such “bold” taking of allowances as I dared not
have taken if I had feared my master’s displeasure.
MASTER: Why, wherein do you disallow them?
PHILOMATHES: First of all in the second note [against the second note of the
cantus firmus] is taken a discord for the first part of the note [beat three], and not in
the best manner nor in binding [by means of a suspension]. The like fault is in the
fifth note. And as for the two notes before the close, the end of the first is a discord
to the ground [against the cantus firmus], and the beginning of the next likewise a
discord.
But I remember when I was practicing with you, you did set me a close thus [see
below], which you do so far condemn as that (as you said) there could not readily be
a worse made; and though my brother’s be not the very same, yet is it cousin germane
to it, for this descends where his ascends, and his descends where this ascends, that in
effect they be both one.
POLYMATHES: Do you then find fault with the first part of the second note [the top
voice against the bottom voice in measure 1, beat 3]?
PHILOMATHES: Yes, and justly.
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POLYMATHES: It is the fugue [imitation] of the plainsong, and the point [imitated
melody] will excuse the harshness, and so likewise in the fifth note [fourth note of the
cantus firmus], for so my master taught me.
PHILOMATHES: But I was taught otherwise; and rather than I would have committed so gross oversight I would have left out the point [it is better to sacrifice exact imitation than to commit an error in part writing], although here both the point[s] might
have been brought in otherwise and those offences left out. . . .
MASTER: But shall I hear you sing a lesson [exercise] of bass descant?
POLYMATHES: As many as you list, so you will have them after my fashion.
MASTER: It was for that I requested it. Therefore sing one [below the cantus firmus
given here].
MASTER: The first part of your lesson [exercise] is tolerable and good, but the ending
is not so good, for the end of your ninth note [bar 5, beat 2] is a discord, and upon another discord you have begun the tenth, breaking Priscian’s head [the rules contained
in a traditional Renaissance Latin grammar book by the sixth-century Roman Priscian;
composer Guillaume Dufay studied Latin from this book] to the very brain. But I know
you will go about to excuse the beginning of your tenth note in that it is in binding wise
[is a 4–5 suspension]. But though it be bound, it is in fetters of rusty iron, not in the
chains of gold [the potential for a fine chain suspension exists here], for no ear hearing
it but will at the first hearing loathe it, and though it be the point [the subject of imitation, descending a, g, f], yet might the point have been as nearly followed [less closely
followed] in this place, not causing such offence to the ear [again, better to sacrifice the
integrity of the point of imitation than to create harsh dissonance]. And to let you see
with what little alteration you might have avoided so great an inconvenience, here be
all your own notes of the fifth bar in the very same substance as you had them, though
altered somewhat in time and form [see below]. Therefore, if you mean to follow music
any further, I would wish you to leave [stop writing] those harsh allowances.
Source: Taken from the second edition (London, 1608) with spellings and punctuation modernized.