Note Return to text — I VOCAL MUSIC ITS RISE, DEVELOPMENT AND DECLINE
William Henry Furness translation
Our art, only slowly developing itself from those earliest times, was cherished, mainly in Italy, for the sole purpose of exalting divine worship. We have, at least, no account of any secular art of music in those days. As yet unacquainted with harmony, the only singing was in unison, as was the custom, at an earlier period, among the Greeks; for not until the tenth century of the Christian era was it attempted, and then by a Flemish monk (Hukbaldus), to harmonize several and different notes; thus was invented and founded our harmony, whose exponent was the organ. 1