Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century

(otherwise hardly known as a composer) looms so large in the present discussion. It was a giant step in
the direction that now seems favored by history. It was a step, however, that neither the author nor any of
his contemporaries could have known he was taking. That, of course, is not because he or they were in
any way obtuse. Nor is it because we see things more clearly than they could. It is merely because the
“step” can only be perceived as such in hindsight. The step as such is something created by our
perspective.