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 John XIX, eager to learn of 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 placed as having been born around 990. The year 1050 as the date of his death is pure conjecture. Some authors (Morin, M. Brent and, more recently, F. Schmitz) have advanced the hypothesis that G. was born in France; but the subscriptions to the manuscripts (over 50) reproducing G.'s works do not agree among themselves; the mention of G. a Sancto Mauro (=St-Maur des Fossés, near Paris) and G. Augensis (Eu, in Normandy) are contradicted by the titles of G. Cantuariensis (=Canterbury) and, more frequently, G. Aretinus (Arezzo).G. belonged to a branch of the Benedictine Order and thus it is not an error to number him among the ranks of the Benedictines. But it can be further specified that G. was a hermit or at least a monk of the Camaldolese family, which took its name from Camaldoli half a century after the death of the holy founder, which occurred in 1027. From the solid body of arguments supporting the Camaldolese tradition, which has always been alive, only this need be recalled: G. was certainly a monk; the two Benedictine monasteries that contend for him, namely Pomposa and Camaldoli, had certainly embraced the observance of St Romuald when G. entered them as a novice around 1010. Moreover, a testimony of Abbot Donizone (c. 1090) attests that G. had been a hermit; the details he gives about Bishop Tedald are important for this historical truth, which do not allow us to reject those he gives about G., a friend of the 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 also been one of the points on which criticism has found fault, doubting that in so small and holy a community as an hermitage jealousy could have driven out a confrere and especially forced him to take refuge beyond the borders of Italy. But it is truly demonstrated that G. crossed the Alps: the text «me vides prolixis a septentrionalibus finibus exulatum» is well explained if G. went to northern Italy; the expression «nobis alpetribus», found in some manuscripts, with which G. refers to his difficulty in staying in Rome during the heat of summer, and the fact that he was accompanied to Rome by a Milanese abbot Grunvaldo, confirm this hypothesis. It is enough then to recall the danger in which the monastery of Pomposa found itself when G. had to leave it, to understand the motives that spurred Abbot Guido Strambati to hasten his departure: the Patriarch of Ravenna Eriberto, taking advantage of the dissensions among the hermits, had moved against them with armed force to destroy the monastery and seize its goods. That G. may have been one of the causes of these dissensions is beyond doubt, since he himself repeats it several times; envy may have been aroused by the too frequent admirers and by the aversion and hatred of novelties always suspect to monks as well as by the continual requests for his work. That G. did not have the opportunity in the hermitage to sing, have others sing, invent and apply a new musical pedagogy does not stand up to the facts: the Camaldolese monastery differs little from the Benedictine one where much singing takes place; the liturgy of the hermitage is minutely described by Bl. Marinus III in the Liber Divinorum Officiorum, where it is seen that at least one of the three Masses celebrated each day was sung (1233). The number of novices at Pomposa then gave a master of song the opportunity to exercise his zeal: it is known that in 1040 the monks and hermits exceeded a hundred (cf. J. Mabilon, Annales O. S. B., IV, Paris 1685, p. 115).
Of G.'s life after his journey to Rome (1028), which he must have left for reasons of health, no certain trace remains. 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 Tedald; from there he almost certainly went to Camaldoli several times together with this bishop, so devoted to the hermits; indeed a document of 1033 existing in the curia of Arezzo suggests that G. remained long enough in the hermitage to become vice-prior. The painting of the 17th century preserved at Fonte Avellana is not sufficient proof of G.'s death in this hermitage, but it also bears witness to an unbroken tradition in the Camaldolese Order, where, rather than boasting of foreign names, it is customary to conceal all personal glory under anonymity.
II. WORKS AND INFLUENCE
The works of G. or attributed to him have been collected by M. Gerbert (Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica, II, St. Blasien 1784; anastatic reprint, Milan 1931, p. 178) and by Ch. E. H. De Coussemaker (Scriptorum de musica medii aevi novae series, II, Paris 1867, anastatic reprint, Graz 1908, pp. 78-116). The following are considered authentic: 1) the Micrologus, id est brevis sermo de musica, with the prefixed prologue. 2) The letter to Bishop Tedald, to whom G. dedicated the Micrologus. 3) The Regulae musicae rhythmicae. 4) The Epistola Michaeli monacho de ignoto cantu. The critical edition of these works, written at Arezzo, was planned on the occasion of the ninth centenary of G.'s death.The doctrine contained therein shows originality in comparison with that of the theorists before G., whom he also knew but from whom he consciously departed. First and foremost, the pedagogical innovations, the cause of so much fame, are set forth in the letter to Michael. The opening notes of the hymn to St John the Baptist «Ut queant laxis Resonare fibris...» rise by a whole tone or semitone at each phrase; G. retains the underlying syllables ut re mi fa sol la with the ascending progression of the degrees and fixes this firmly in the pupil's memory; the immediate comparison with this fixed chart in the memory will enable the reader to reproduce precise intervals on the parchment with his voice. In one month more progress will be made with this method than in ten years with the system hitherto in use, which to make the melody to be learned heard required the help of a teacher or at least an instrument, usually the monochord; in any case, one did not arrive at sight-reading as G. did, and in this consisted his true revolution.
This presupposed that the reading of semiography suggested precise intervals and in this too G. achieved a new advance. It is not true that G. invented the entire staff, which later took the name of «Guidonian staff»: shortly before his time there existed the practice of writing numbers above and below a dry-traced line (Aquitanian school), and perhaps G. may have known of it in the hypothesis of a stay in a French monastery of the Cluniac reform, or more simply from the accounts of St Romuald who spent ten years in the abbey of St Michael in Aquitaine (978-88). The improvement made by G. was to add one or two lines as the case might be and above all to fix the value of each, the F line with the letter-key F in red, the C line with the letter-key C in yellow, the A line remaining dry-traced. These are G.'s two inventions. The entire system of solmization with mutations and the three hexachords has also been attributed to him. The so-called Guidonian hand or harmonic hand does not seem to go back to G., although some figures of it are found at the end of the 11th century.
G.’s influence has at times been exaggerated, at times minimized to excess. If the introduction of the third into the rudimentary polyphony of the 11th century, known as organum vocale, is truly the work of G., the horizon opened by this ancient musician is wider than has been believed. Yet it suffices for his truly renowned creation to have been a method of solfège which, slightly modified, has remained in use down to our own day. The importance of G.’s invention is appreciated by comparing Western music with Eastern music, which did not emerge from the state in which it was at the time of G.: once the elementary difficulties of the symbolization of sound and its mental representation had been overcome, it became possible to direct musical invention toward combinations no longer merely linear but at various levels, of vocal and instrumental polyphony.