GUIDO D'AREZZO. –
I. LIFE
The date of G.’s birth and death is uncertain. Since in 1027 or 1028 G. was summoned to Rome by Pope Giovanni XIX, who wished to learn about the monk’s innovations in the field of musical instruction, it is thought that G. may then have been about 40 years old, and he is therefore said to have been born around 990. The year 1050 as the date of his death is pure conjecture. Some authors (Morin, M. Brent and, most recently, F. Schmitz) have put forward the hypothesis that G. was born in France; but the subscriptions to the manuscripts (more than 50) reproducing G.’s works do not agree with one another. The designations G. a Sancto Mauro (= St-Maur des Fossés, near Paris) and G. Augensis (Eu, in Normandy) are contradicted by the titles G. Cantuariensis (= Canterbury) and, more frequently, G. Aretinus (Arezzo).The information supplied by G. himself in his works—the only sources whose value is undisputed—leads us to accept that the celebrated monk was born in Italy, specifically in Arezzo, particularly when, having returned to Arezzo, G. writes «tornatus ad patriam». Moreover, the word exile would make no sense with reference to France if G. had been born there.
A question concerning G.’s life that has now been clarified is whether he was a Camaldolese or a Benedictine. First of all, it is worth observing that the Camaldolese are also a branch of the Benedictine Order, and therefore it is not incorrect to count G. among the Benedictines. But it can also be specified that G. was a hermit, or at least a monk of the Romualdine family, which took the name Camaldoli half a century after the death of its holy founder, which occurred in 1027. From the substantial body of arguments supporting the ever-living Camaldolese tradition, only this need be recalled: G. was certainly a monk; the two Benedictine monasteries that claim him, namely Pomposa and Camaldoli, had certainly adopted the observance of s. Romualdo when G. entered one of them as a novice around 1010. Furthermore, a testimony by the abbot Donizone (ca. 1090) attests that G. had been a hermit; the details he provides concerning Bishop Teodaldo are important evidence of this historical fact and do not permit us to reject those he gives concerning G., who was a friend of that same bishop. «Musica seu cantus istum laudare Tedaldum - Non cessant semper; renovantur eo faciente - Micrologum librum sibi dictat Guido peritus - Musicus et monachus necnon heremita beandus» (Donizone, Vita Mathildis, ed. F. Davoli, Reggio Emilia 1888, p. 77).
G.’s exile has likewise been one of the points on which criticism has raised objections, doubting that in so small and holy a community as a hermitage jealousy could have driven away a fellow brother and, above all, forced him to seek refuge beyond the borders of Italy. But it is in no way demonstrated that G. crossed the Alps: the text «me vides prolixis a septentrionalibus finibus exulatum» is perfectly explained if G. went to northern Italy; the expression «nobis alpestribus», found in some manuscripts, by which G. refers to his difficulty in remaining in Rome during the summer heat, and the fact that he was accompanied to Rome by a Milanese abbot, Grunvaldo, support this hypothesis. It is enough, moreover, to recall the danger in which the monastery of Pomposa found itself when G. had to leave it, in order to understand the motives that urged Abbot Guido Strambati to hasten his departure: the patriarch of Ravenna, Eriberto, taking advantage of the hermits’ disagreements, had set out, with armed force, to destroy the monastery and appropriate its possessions. That G. may have been one of the causes of these disagreements is beyond doubt, since he repeats this several times; envy could have been aroused by the excessive frequency of admirers and by the aversion and hatred toward innovations, always suspect to monks, as well as by the continual demands for his work. Nor does the claim that G. had no opportunity in the hermitage to sing, have others sing, invent, and apply a new musical pedagogy withstand the facts: the Camaldolese monastery differs little from the Benedictine monastery, where there is extensive singing; the liturgy of the hermitage is described in detail by b. Martino III in the Liber Divinorum Officiorum, where it can be seen that at least one of the three Masses celebrated each day was sung (1253). The number of novices at Pomposa also gave a singing teacher the opportunity to exercise his zeal: it is known that in 1040 the monks and hermits numbered more than a hundred! (cf. J. Mabillon, Annales O. S. B., IV, Paris 1685, p. 115).
There is no longer any reliable trace of G.’s life after his journey to Rome (1028), which he had to leave for reasons of health. He went to Pomposa, where he was reconciled with Abbot Guido Strambati, «father of his soul». He returned to Arezzo and was again received by Bishop Teodaldo; from there he almost certainly went to Camaldoli several times together with this bishop, who was so devoted to the hermits. Indeed, a document from 1033 preserved in the curia of Arezzo suggests that G. remained in the hermitage long enough to become vice-prior. The painting from 1600 preserved at Fonte Avellana is not sufficient proof that G. died in this hermitage, but it likewise bears witness to an uninterrupted tradition within the Order of Camaldoli, where, rather than boast of extraneous names, people customarily conceal all personal glory beneath anonymity.
II. WORKS AND INFLUENCE
The works of G. or attributed to him were collected by M. Gerbert (Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica, II, St. Blasien 1784; anastatic reproduction, Milan 1931, p. 178) and by Ch.E. H. De Coussemaker (Scriptorum de musica medii aevi nova series, II, Paris 1867, anastatic reproduction, Graz 1908, pp. 78-116). The following are regarded as authentic: 1) the Micrologus, id est brevis sermo de musica, with the prefixed prologue. 2) The letter to Bishop Teodaldo, to whom G. dedicated the Micrologus. 3) The Regulae musicae rhythmicae. 4) The Epistola Michaeli monache de ignoto cantu. A critical edition of these works, written at Arezzo, was planned for the ninth centenary of G.’s death.
The doctrine contained therein displays originality in comparison with that of the theorists who preceded G., whom he nevertheless knew, but from whom he consciously distanced himself. First and foremost, the pedagogical innovations, the reason for so much of his fame, are set out in the letter to Michele. The opening sound of the hymn to s. Giovanni Battista, « Ut queant laxis Resonare fibris... », rises by a tone or semitone with each phrase; G. associates the syllables beneath it, ut re mi fa sol la, with the ascending progression of the degrees and fixes this hexachord in the pupil’s memory; an instantaneous comparison with this fixed image in the memory will enable anyone reading precise intervals on the parchment to reproduce them with the voice. In one month, greater progress would be made with this method than in ten years with the system then in use, which, in order to make the melody to be learned audible, required the help of a teacher or at least an instrument, usually the monochord; in any case, one did not arrive at deciphering at sight as G. achieved, and in this consisted his true revolution.
This presupposed that reading the semeiography suggested precise intervals, and here too G. achieved a new advance. It is not true that G. invented the entire staff, which later took the name of the « Guidonian staff »: shortly before him there already existed the practice of writing neumes above and below a line drawn dry (the Aquitanian school), and perhaps G. became acquainted with it during a possible stay in a French monastery of the Cluniac reform, or more simply through the accounts of s. Romualdo, who spent ten years in the abbey of S. Michele in Aquitaine (978-88). The improvement introduced by G. was to add one or two lines according to circumstances and, above all, to establish the value of each: that of fa with a letter—the F clef—in red, that of da with a letter—the C clef—in yellow, while that of fa remained drawn dry. These are G.’s two inventions. The entire system of solmization, with its mutations and three hexachords, has also been attributed to him. The hand known as the Guidonian or harmonic hand does not seem to go back to G., although some representation of it is found at the end of the eleventh century.
G.’s influence has at times been exaggerated and at others excessively minimized. If the introduction of the third into the rudimentary polyphony of the eleventh century, called organum vocale, was truly G.’s work, the horizon opened by this ancient musician was broader than has been believed. But his renown is sufficiently explained by his creation of a method of solfeggio which, scarcely modified, remained in use until our own day. The importance of G.’s invention can be appreciated by comparing Western music with Eastern music, which did not emerge from the state in which it stood in G.’s time: once the elementary difficulties of symbolizing sound and representing it mentally had been overcome, it became possible to direct musical invention toward combinations no longer merely linear but arranged on various planes, in vocal and instrumental polyphony.