The history of theatrical music

Formative period

What is thought to be the oldest document of musical history depicts a man wearing an animal mask, manipulating what is possibly a form of musical bow, and dancing in the wake of a herd of reindeer. This is a prehistoric cave painting dating from the Stone Age, discovered at Ariège in France. Masks are tangible signs of that transfer of personality on which every form of theatre is based and in which song and dance have participated since the dawn of communication and animated ritual. Music in dramatic entertainment reached early peaks of development in European and Oriental cultures in, respectively, the ancient Greece of Homer and, some centuries later, the Chinese classical drama.

Descriptive evidence of the earliest Greek theatre indicates that music, mostly sung by a chorus, was essential but not continuous. At drama festivals the poet wrote his own music (as well as being actor, producer, and choreographer), probably based on some kind of traditional repeated formula. Later Greek theatre, after the fall of Athens (404 bc), initiated both the repertory system and a category of musicians trained more highly than the populace. Amateur and professional became separated for the first time, and increasing sophistication brought about its counterpart in popular pantomime expressed in song and dance, often satirical or bawdy in character.

The Roman musical theatre derived directly from the Greek, ousting a short-lived native form with Etruscan actors who also danced to pipe music. Latin versions of the Greek theatre with music were supplemented by a Roman variant of the pantomime as a dramatic solo dance with chorus and orchestra. It implied some prior knowledge on the audience’s part of the subject and the dance vocabulary. Amphitheatre shows of gladiatorial contests were regularly accompanied by music, sometimes involving up to 100 horn blowers and 200 pipers, as well as such extra devices as water organs.

About the time the Roman theatre flourished, an Oriental equivalent emerged in China from ritual ceremonies that came to be repeated for their entertainment value. The puppet theatre was a significant intermediate stage in this process, and the forms evolved into different styles of entertainment for courtier and commoner. Strings, flute, and handbells accompanied the songs and dances in upper-class entertainments; a form of mouth organ replaced the bells in shows for the common people. By the time of the Sung dynasty (ad 960–1279), from which the earliest written music survives, a type of musical variety theatre, the tzarjiuh, was widely popular.

The Chinese classical opera tradition has already been mentioned as a modern form of musical theatre. It first developed during the Yüan dynasty (1206–1368) and reached its peak of style and classical form in the Ming period (1368–1644). Its evolution was accompanied by a less formal counterpart based on the dramatization of folk songs linked by a thin narrative plot (Chueichang). The full-scale opera and its regional variants remained the most significant form of Oriental musical theatre until the modern post-revolutionary times, but throughout the Far East the indigenous forms of music have always played a prominent part in theatrical presentations.

In Europe the vestiges of Greco-Roman culture were submerged by the early Christian Church. By the 6th century the church had suppressed drama and adapted pagan rituals to its own liturgical purposes. A small flame of musical theatre was left burning only in the form of religious ceremonial (for example, in the mass). Festive religious celebrations eventually expanded into the liturgical music drama that slowly developed from about the 10th century. This brought in its wake the equally religious “mysteries” and miracle plays of the Middle Ages in Europe, which were performed in the vernacular instead of in Latin, had a strong musical element, and, in due course, developed a secular counterpart.

In a pattern that was to repeat itself after the birth of opera 200 years later, the secular theatre in the Middle Ages established itself either as lighthearted interludes in serious moralities or as deliberate parody tolerated by the church as a safety valve to consistent piety. The annual Feast of Fools in 15th-century Paris, for instance, incorporated an obscene parody of the mass performed in song and dance within the church. By the year 1400 numerous comedies and farces had appeared, usually performed on festive occasions in aristocratic houses or on open stages in municipal squares.

These plays often employed musical forces comparable to those of the religious plays and used them for similar purposes. Choirboys from the church sometimes took part, but surviving texts suggest that there was little choral music as such. The individual actors incorporated parts of songs chanted monophonically to embellish or heighten the dramatic effect, and dancing to specific instrumental music also had a regular place in the entertainment. Professional musicians might be hired and might also be required to act; the constituent parts of the entertainment varied widely from place to place.

The fact that, except for songs, documents of the period contain almost no music directly linked with the theatre is thought to indicate that very little original instrumental music was written for theatrical purposes at this time. Whatever was suitable for weddings, banquets, and other feasts perhaps served a theatrical purpose just as well. Musicians probably had little or no acquaintance with musical notation and played pieces from their regular repertory. These seem to have included arrangements of vocal melodies as well as dance tunes, among which the play texts most frequently identify basses-dances and branles.