A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Semibreve

by William Smyth Rockstro

SEMIBREVE (Lat. Semibrevis; Ital. Semibreve; Fr. Ronde; Germ. Taktnote, Ganze Note). Franco of Cologne, the earliest known writer on Measured Music (Cantus mensurabilis) who furnishes the types from which the forms of our modern Notation are evidently derived, describes notes of four different kinds—the Double Long (or Large), the Long, the Breve, and the Semibreve—which last was, in his day, the shortest note in use, though no very long time elapsed before the Minim was added to the list. The forms of these notes are generally supposed to have been suggested by those of the Neumæ of an earlier period; the Large and Long being clearly traceable to the Virga; and the Breve and Semibreve to the Punctus.^[1] Don Nicola Vicentino, however, in his 'L'antica Musica ridotta alia moderna Prattica,' printed at Rome in 1555 refers the forms of all these notes to a different origin; deriving the Large, the Long, and the Breve, from the B quadratum, or Square B, (); and the Semibreve, from the B rotundum (); the transformation being effected, in each case, by depriving the figure of one or both its tails. But Vicentino has fallen into so many palpable errors that we cannot trust him: and, in the present instance, his theory certainly does not accord with that early form of the Semi-breve which is produced by cutting the Breve (■) in half, diagonally, thus, (◤). This form soon gave way to the Lozenge ( or ), which was retained in use until late in the 17th century, when it was replaced, in Measured Music, by the round note of our present system (), though in Gros fa—the Gregorian system of Notation which represents the Black Letter of Music—the Lozenge remains in use to the present day.

Until the beginning of the 17th century, the Semibreve represented one third of a Perfect Breve, and the half of an Imperfect one. In the Greater Prolation, it was equal to three Minims; in the Lesser, to two. In either case, it was accepted as the norm of all other Notes; and was held to constitute a complete Measure, or Stroke. In the Greater Prolation—or, as we should now call it, Triple Time—this Stroke was indicated by a single down-beat of the hand, representing what we write as a dotted Semibreve. In the Lesser Prolation—the Common Time of the modern system—it was indicated by a down and an up beat, called respectively the Thesis and the Arsis of the Measure. It will be understood, that these two beats represented two Minims; and, happily for us, we are not left altogether in doubt,is to the average pace at which these two Minims were sung, in the great Polyphonic Compositions of the 15th and 16th centuries: for, apart from the traditions of the Sistine Chapel, early writers have left a very definite rule for our guidance. The Thesis and Arsis of the Lesser Prolation, they say, represent the beats of the human pulse. Now, the rapidity of the human pulse, taking into calculation the variations exhibited at all ages, and in both sexes, ranges between 66.7 and 140 per minute:^[2] allowing, therefore, for roughness of calculation, we may say that the Compositions of Josquin des Prds, and Palestrina, may be safely interpreted between = 60, and = 140—a sufficiently extended range, surely, to satisfy the individual taste of the most exigeant Conductor.

In Modern Music, the Semibreve retains more than one of the characteristics that distinguished it in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is now, indeed, the longest instead of the shortest note in common use, for the employment of the Breve is altogether exceptional: but it is none the less the norm from which all other notes are derived. To this day we teach our children to say 'A Semibreve is equal to two Minims, four Crotchets,' and so on, to the end of the Time-Table. Again, in our Alla breve Time, (), it is divided into two Minims, represented by an up and down beat, exactly as in the Lesser Prolation, as described by Morley and other early writers. More frequently we divide it into four Crotchet-beats, (), but this does not alter its character as a normal type; and indeed it was frequently so divided, in the 16th century, in the works of the great Madrigal writers. We may therefore say that, of all the notes now in use, the Semibreve is the one which unites us most closely to the system of those who invented the gerin of the method we ourselves follow; and it furnishes the safest guide we know of to the right understanding of their works.

[ W. S. R. ]

1. See vol. ii. p. 471a.
2. See 'Carpenter's Human Physiology' (Lond. 1881), pp. 300 et seq.