THE NEW MONTHLY BELLE ASSEMBLÉE. JANUARY, 1850. A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF MUSIC, FROM THE CHAP I. BY A MUSICAL GRADUATE. or profane history has traced the events of former [The following outline of the history of the Music times, music has appeared, like the dove of of the Ancients has been extracted from the under-promise to the ark, to soothe the days of man; mentioned works, so far as possible in the words and by its genial influence to quell the stormy of the respective authors:-The Histories of Music passions of his heart, and soften and humanize of Dr. Burney, Sir John Hawkins, Nathan, his nature. The most ancient mention of music, Hogarth, and Stafford, and the papers upon or musical instruments, is in the Bible, where, Greek and Roman Music in Dr. Sinith's Dictionary we are told, when the sacred writer is enumerof Antiquities. The Compiler has thought it bet-ating the posterity of Cain, that "Jubal was the ter to make this general acknowledgment of his father of all such as handle the harp and the authorities than to interrupt his sketch by too organ” (Gen. iv. 21); and well may we imagine frequent a reference to the originals, and the use that when he of inverted commas.] "struck the corded shell, To worship the celestial sound : Dryden's Ode for St. Cecilia's Day. The invention of instruments at this early age of the world, implies the previous existence of vocal music; for instruments have always been devised for the purpose of imitating the melodious accents of the human voice: the earliest music, therefore, as nature and reason point out, must have been entirely vocal. What was the nature of the instruments invented by Jubal can only be matter of conjecture; for the words There is, perhaps, scarcely any subject in the whole range of literature, which has called forth a larger amount of curious and erudite research than the history of music. And yet, notwith-Less standing the labours of learned men, hardly a single fact can be gathered from the volumes upon volumes which have been written upon the subject, which can be of any practical use to musicians of the present day, or to those amateurs who cultivate the art merely from a love of it, as it at present exists. These works, however, contain a great deal of information respecting the customs and manners of the ancients; for ancient music was so intimately connected with poetry, mythology, government, manners, and science in general, that it is almost impossible to separate it wholly from them; and to attempt to do so (says Dr. Burney), "seemed to me like taking a single figure out of a group in an historical picture." Any deviation, therefore, which may be made from the main topic of this discourse must be understood to have arisen from the difficulty of isolating the history of music from the general history of times and manners with which it is interwoven. The history of the world itself is scarcely more ancient than the history of music. From the remotest period at which the pen of sacred 66 harp and organ," used in our translation of the Scriptures, are not to be held as meaning the instruments now known by these names. The translators of the Bible into modern languages, knowing nothing of their real forms and properties, appear to have given them the names of such as were of the most common use in their own countries. The Septuagint, instead of "harp and organ," has "psaltery and cithara," and the French translation of the passage, "violin and organ," though there is no reason B ideas of sound, as time, and the accumulated observation of succeeding ages, could not fail to improve into a system. Ancient authors suppose that mankind took their first notions of origin of wind-instruments might be traced to the wind whistling through reeds." The following translation of a passage from "Lucretius," quoted by Sir J. Hawkins, expresses the opinions alluded to, and seems too important to be omitted: to suppose that any instrument at all resembling the violin was known prior to the middle ages. Though no other authentic record exists of the state of music in the antediluvian period of the world besides that given by Moses, we can-music from the singing of birds, and that the not err in supposing that some progress was made in the art in the 1,600 years which elapsed between the Creation and the Deluge; and though the Flood swept away all its glory and grandeur, it is very improbable that Noah and his family were ignorant of the arts and sciences taught before that event; and, accordingly, we find that tradition carries back the invention of many arts to the period when that patriarch lived upon the earth; and it has been supposed that we see in him the original of more than one of the deities of Egypt and of Greece. 66 Through all the woods they heard the charming noise Of chirping birds, and tried to frame their voice, And thus the pipe was form'd, and tuneful reed." The different tones of sounding strings must have been observed very early, and thus have given birth to stringed instruments; whilst instruments of percussion, such as tabors and drums, probably originated from the sonorous ringing of hollow bodies when struck. As in the first conception these instruments were clumsy and imperfect, so the first attempts to elicit music from them must have been rude and artless in the highest degree, and such as would afford little pleasure to the musician of the present day. In their early efforts, we can easily fancy the inventors themselves amazed at the effect produced, and starting with surprise or fright, "E'en at the sound themselves had made." It seems to have been a very common practice with antiquity to attribute to the gods all the discoveries and inventions to which there were no lawful claimants among mortals. And though we may now venture to doubt the marvellous facts which have been so seriously related by the most respectable historians of Greece and Rome, yet we must allow that the giving the invention of music and musical instruments to the gods, proves them to have been of the most remote antiquity, and held in the highest estimation by such as bestowed upon them so honourable an origin. But, in speaking of the invention of music, it must be understood that the art or practice alone is implied. It is an absurdity to consider harmony as the invention of man. "Nature," says Dr. Burney, "seems to have furnished human industry with the first principles of every science; for what is Geometry but the study and imitation of those proportions by which the world is governed? Astronomy, but reflecting upon and calculating the motion, distances, and magnitude of those visible but wonderful objects which nature has placed in our view? Theology, but contemplating the works of the Creator, adoring Him in His attributes, and meditating on the revelations of His will? Medicine, but the discovery and use of what inferior beings instinctively find in every wood and field through which they range, when the animal economy is disordered by accident or intemperance? Assisted, however, by the principles of natural harmony, we cannot suppose that the art or practice was invented by any one man; for music, equally with every other science, must have had its infancy, childhood, and youth, previous to the attainment of maturity. The first house was doubtless a cavern, or a hollow tree; and the first picture, a shadow. In tracing the antiquity of music, we necesEven temples at first were so small that the gods sarily revert to the annals of Egypt. From the could hardly stand upright in them! yet it has testimony of the most ancient and respectable hisbeen thought necessary, in histories of architec- torians, it appears that every art and science ture and painting, to celebrate the inventors of originally emanated from this fertile source of those arts. Thus in music. The voices of knowledge and civilization. But, independently animals, the whistling of the winds, the fall of of this evidence, the stupendous and splendid waters, the concussion of bodies of various remains of grandeur and refinement to be found kinds, and especially the melody of birds, as in Egypt, such as no other country possesses, they all contain the essential rudiments of har-furnish the most indisputable proofs of the exmony, may easily be supposed to have furnished tremely high antiquity of its religion, governthe minds of intelligent creatures with such ment, arts, and civil policy. Rough and discordant, however, to modern ears, as the music of the ancient world must have been, its existence and influence are to be traced in the records of every people, from the earliest ages, and are perceptible, at the present time, in every quarter of the globe; and, though we must receive, in a merely allegorical sense, the miraculous stories of music which abound in classical authors, we are constrained to admit that the simple existence of such fables as that of Amphion building cities by his harmony alone, and Orpheus suspending the course of rivers, and causing the most rugged rocks to follow him, is an incontestible proof of the enormous influence of the art over the feelings and passions of men; assisted, as it invariably was in those early times, by the sister art of Poetry. To the music of the Egyptians, therefore, we, will first direct our attention. This wonderful people appear to have been formed into a powerful kingdom, at a period when the ancestors of the Jews were confined to the single family of Jacob. Even then they appear, from the Book of Genesis, to have been far advanced in civilization; possessed, of course, of music, as well as those arts which belong more exclusively to polished life. The invention of geometry was assigned to them; and, that architecture was known, in a grand and magnificent style, much earlier than in other parts of the world, is certain, from the wonderful remains of it still subsisting in the pyramids, of which the antiquity was so remote, in the days of Herodotus, the oldest historian of Greece, [B. C. 485.] that he could neither discover the time of their construction, nor procure an explanation of the hieroglyphics they contained, though he travelled through that country expressly in search of historical information. all the most ancient female divinities of paganism; as the sun, under that of Osiris, does the male. Tradition is said to point at Ham, or one of his sons, as the first who led a colony into Egypt; and some writers suppose that Noah reigned there, identifying that patriarch with Osiris, to whose secretary Mercury, or Hermes, surnamed "thrice illustrious," the invention of the lyre is ascribed. Of the several ancient writers who have mentioned this circumstance, the account given by Apollodorus is considered the most intelligible and probable. "The Nile," says this writer, "after having overflowed the whole country of Egypt, when it returned within its natural bounds, left on the shore a great number of dead animals of various kinds, and amongst the rest a tortoise, the flesh of which being dried and wasted by the sun, nothing was left within the shell but nerves and cartilages, and these being braced and contracted by desiccation, were rendered sonorous. Mercury, in walking along the banks of the Nile, happening to strike his foot against the shell of this tortoise, was so pleased with the sound it produced, that it suggested to him the first idea of a lyre, which he afterwards constructed in the form of a tortoise, and strung it with the dried sinews of dead animals." Such is the most credible account of the origin of the lyre; and although, judging from analogy, it might be supposed that the invention of the flute or pipe would precede that of the lyre, yet it is by no means improbable that the invention of the lyre may be attributed to some such adventitious cause as Mercury stumbling on a dried tortoise-shell. Dr. Burney, with his customary research, has extracted from several ancient writers what may be deemed to be the substance of all they have recorded concerning music. Three of these, Pythagoras, Herodotus, and Plato, travelled into Egypt with a view of getting acquainted with the arts and sciences that flourished there; and as the latter was particularly attached to music, it is natural to suppose that his inquiries would be judicious, and his account of it accurate. The following is a portion of the quotation, given by Burney, from the Dialogues of Plato:-"The plan which we have been laying down," says that philosopher, "for the education of youth, was known long ago to the Egyptians, viz. that nothing but beautiful forms, and fine music, should be permitted to enter Athenæus, a learned writer of the third ceninto the assemblies of young people. 事 * tury, ascribes the invention of the flute to Other things practised among them may, per- Osiris himself; and Kircher supposes that the haps, be blameable; but what they ordained Egyptians very early formed flutes and pipes about music is right; and it deserves consi- from the rushes which grew upon the shores of deration, that they were able to make laws about the Nile. The instrument thus formed would things of this kind, firmly establishing such me- be the monaulos, or single pipe, which was unlody as was fitted to rectify the perverseness of doubtedly originally a reed; but they had also nature. This must have been the work of the the photinx, or crooked flute, an instrument Deity, or of some divine man; as, in fact, they shaped like a bull's horn; the idea of which, say in Egypt, that the music which has been so Dr. Burney imagines, was "not only suggested long preserved, was composed by Isis, and the by the horns of dead animals, but that the poetry likewise." horns themselves were long used as musical instruments." * An extract from Herodotus, after describing the manner in which the tabor and pipe were used at the festivals of Diana, tells us, "that in the processions of Osiris, or Bacchus, the Egyptian women carry the images, singing the praises of the god, preceded by a flute." The worship of the sun, moon, and stars, seems to have been the beginning of idolatry everywhere, as well as in Egypt, and to have laid the foundation of those systems of polytheism which prevailed in that country, and in Greece. The Isis and Osiris of Egyptian mythology may be proved to have been the originals of nearly every other deity of antiquity. For the moon, or Luna, under the name of Isis, means The other Egyptian instruments were the trigonum, or triangular harp, said to be of Phrygian invention; the psaltery; and the sistrum, which served instead of a trumpet in war. There is little agreement among ancient writers, either with respect to the form of the original harp, or lyre of Hermes, or the number of its strings, some giving it only three; an acute, a mean, and a grave sound, corresponding to summer, spring, and winter, the three seasons recognized by the Egyptians. Hermes is said not only to have been the inventor of the lyre, but also of a system of music adapted to it; and amongst the titles of no less than forty-two different works ascribed to him by his countrymen, (a startling number, even in the present day,) was one on the "nature and properties of sounds, and the use of the lyre." What kind of effect was produced from these instruments we can only conjecture; most likely sounds horribly discordant to cultivated ears, accustomed to modern refinements; but, though we know so little about them, and still less of the music performed on them, we are assured by credible history, that the art was held in the highest repute by the Egyptian people-that both its theory and practice were extensively diffused amongst them-and that music was re-mising to ascend with the most rapid execution; garded as the gift of inspiration, and was appropriated to the service, and dedicated to the honour of those fabulous deities, by whose kindness it was supposed to have been imparted to man. Some pieces of Egyptian antiquity, having reference to our subject, still exist, both at Rome, and at Thebes, in Upper Egypt; from which it may be inferred, that the music of that country must have been, like other arts, in a great measure lost, before it began to be cultivated by the Greeks. his neck and arms are also bare; his loose wide sleeves are gathered above the elbows; his head is close shaved; he seems a corpulent man, and about fifty years of age, in colour rather of the darkest for an Egyptian. To guess by the detail of the figure, the painter should have had about the same degree of merit with a good sign-painter in Europe; yet he has represented the action of the musician in a manner never to be mistaken. His left hand seems employed in the upper part of the instrument among the notes in alto, as if in an arpeggio; while, stooping forwards, he seems with his right hand to be beginning with the lowest string, and prothis action, so obviously rendered by an indifferent artist, shows that it was a common one in his time, or in other words, that great hands were then frequent, and consequently, that music was well understood, and diligently followed." Mr. Bruce then goes on, at greater length than we are able to cite, to describe the construction of the instrument, and accompanies his description with a figure of the harp. According to his representation, it closely resembles the harp of the present day, and is as elegant in form and rich in ornament as those which are seen in our drawing-rooms. Taken in proportion with the size of the performer, it must have been about six feet and a half in height, with thirteen strings; which must not only from its size have afforded powerful tones, but a scale of considerable extent. Mr. Bruce concludes his letter with the following observations:-" This harp overturns all the accounts of the earliest state of ancient music and instruments in Egypt, and is altogether, in its form, ornaments, and compass, an incontestible proof, stronger than a thousand Greek quotations, that geometry, drawing, mechanics, and music, were at the greatest perfection when the harp was made, and that what we think in Egypt was the invention of arts, was only the beginning of the era of their restoration." One of these is an Egyptian pillar, brought to Rome by Augustus, and still to be seen there, in the Campus Martius. On this pillar, which is supposed by the most learned antiquaries to have been erected by Sesostris, nearly 400 years before the Trojan war, [B. c. 1585], there is a representation of a musical instrument of two strings, and having a neck somewhat resembling the modern lute. Now the contrivance of giving to stringed instruments a neck, or finger-board, by which one string may be made to produce a series of notes by the pressure of the different fingers, was totally unknown to the Greeks; and this method of increasing the powers of stringed instruments was one of the circumstances which contributed most essentially to the advancement of modern music. The possession by the Egyptians of this most important However great was the splendour of the expedient, and its being unknown to the Greeks, Egyptian monarchy, and the perfection of their would lead to the inference, that, as the Egyp-arts and sciences, in ages of which nothing is tians had an instrument so much more perfect than any of those known to the Greeks, they possessed a kind of music corresponding to the superior powers of this instrument. known, it appears that this splendour had decayed, and those arts and sciences had been lost, before any Grecian author whose writings are extant had acquired any personal knowledge Another piece of Egyptian antiquity was dis- of that country. It is highly probable that at covered by Mr. Bruce, and is minutely described one period Egypt contained records, extending by him in a letter to Dr. Burney. It is a draw-up to its earliest existence; but these were ing of a musical instrument, in an ancient sepulchre adjoining to the ruins of Thebes. After describing the sepulchre, and its indications of a very remote antiquity, Mr. Bruce gives an account of the picture in the following remarkable terins:-" At the end of the passage on the left-hand, is the picture of a man playing upon the harp, painted in fresco, and quite entire. He is clad in a flowing habit, such as the women still wear in Abyssinia, and the men in Nubia. This seems to be white linen or muslin, with narrow stripes of red. It reaches down to his ancles; his feet are without sandals, and bare; destroyed by the Persians, under Cambyses, who, about 525 B.C., subdued Egypt, overthrowing the temples in which the records were deposited, and slaying the priests. Amidst the general wreck of their learning and magnificence, both their music and musical instruments were lost; until, under the Ptolemies, music, together with the other arts of Greece, were brought into Egypt, and encouraged at the court of Alexandria, more than at any other place in the known world, till the captivity and death of Cleopatra; an event which terminated both the empire and history of the Egyptians. 66 that I might have sent thee away with mirth and with songs, with tabret and with harp ?" Laban was a Syrian; so that the tabret and harp should be ranked among Assyrian instru was ments. A very few words will suffice to conclude this part of our subject; for, from that period, the cultivation of music was neglected, and finally prohibited by the government. "The sound of instruments," says an old writer, not heard in their temples, but their sacrifices were made in silence" a state of things quite consonant with a state of slavery; for though not, like the Jews, in a strange land, yet, like them, they had "hung their harps upon the willows." After this time the Sacred Text furnishes no musical incident till 1491 B.C., when we have the first song, or psalm of triumph to the Supreme Being, upon record; composed by Moses, after the passage of the Red Sea (Exodus xv. 1). "Then sang Moses and the children of In later times, the music of Egypt has been Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saythe music of its various masters; and at pre-ing-I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath sent it appears to partake of the properties of that of Turkey and Arabia. As the early history of the ancient Hebrews, from its high antiquity, can receive no illustration from contemporary historians, or from human testimony, but few materials of importance can be acquired relating to their music, except what the Bible itself contains. It will, therefore, be our business to examine, in chronological order, some few of the numerous passages, contained in the Old Testament, which relate to the progress of music, and which have been collected and arranged by the industry of more than one musical historian. That the Hebrews were a very musical people appears from every part of the Old Testament; and all that has been hitherto collected from other sources, relative to their music, shews that it was in general use amongst them, from the time of their quitting Egypt, till they ceased to be a nation; but what kind of music it was, with which they were so much delighted, no means are now left to determine; for the Jews had no characters peculiar to music, and the melodies used in their religious ceremonies have at all times been entirely traditional, with the exception of the chanting of the Bible, for which they have had characters about 1,300 years. triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea."" Moses is seconded, on this occasion, by Miriam, the Prophetess, who took a timbrel in her hand; "and all the women went out after her, with timbrels and with dances." And Miriam answered them-" Sing ye to the Lord!" &c. Here is an early instance of women being permitted to bear a part in the performance of religious rites, as well as of vocal music being accompanied by instruments and by dancing. The trumpet of the Jubilee is likewise ordered to be sounded so soon after the flight from Egypt that it is likely to have been an Egyptian instrument. (Leviticus xxv. 9). St. Stephen, in his defence, says, "that Moses, having been educated by Pharaoh's daughter as her own son, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." And Clemens Alexandrinus (quoted by Dr. Burney) particularizes his acquirements by affirming that he was instructed in his maturer age by the Egyptians in all liberal sciences, as Arithmetic, Geometry, Rythm, Harmony, but, above all, Medicine and Music. Nations, in their infancy, have but little leisure for cultivating music, otherwise than as it is connected with religious rites and military concerns. Accordingly, we find no other musical instruments mentioned, during the administration of the great Hebrew legislator, than trumpets, except the timbrel used by Miriam. No further mention is made of music, till the song of Deborah and Barak, which appears to have been sung in dialogue, unaccompanied by instruments. with dances. The construction and use of musical instruments have a very early place among the inventions attributed to the first inhabitants of the globe, by Moses. In the passage before quoted we are distinctly told that Jubal, the sixth descendant from Cain, was "the father of About 50 years after this period, and 1161 all such as handle the harp and organ;" and B.C., the unfortunate daughter of Jephtha, upon this at once established the fact that there were hearing of her father's victory over the Amother musicians as well as musical instrument-monites, went out to meet him with timbrels and makers, or he could not have been styled the father of all who handled the harp and organ. That at the Deluge some arts were lost, and others reduced to a state of second infancy, is probable; yet it is equally possible that a science so pleasing and useful as music was not wholly neglected by Noah's family. No mention, however, is made in the Scriptures of the practice of music, till more than 600 years after the Flood. But about 1739 B.C., according to the Hebrew chronology, both vocal and instrumental music are familiarly spoken of, as things in common use (Gen. xxxi. 27). Laban, addressing Jacob, says- Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me? and didst not tell me, From this time till Saul was chosen king, 1095 B.C., the Bible is wholly silent in regard to every species of music, with the exception of the trumpet in military expeditions. But here an incident occurs which merits particular attention. It is evident from many passages in Scripture, that music was as nearly allied to prophecy as to poetry. Samuel, after secretly anointing Saul king, and instructing him in the measures he is to pursue for establishing himself on the throne, proceeds, "And it shall come to pass, when thou art come to the city (Bethel), that thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place, |
