Critical and Historical Essays
of Person or Hindu origin, and was brought to the West by
the Arabs, who were in Spain from the eighth to the fifteenth
centuries; in fact, most of our stringed instruments, both the
bowed and those of the lyre type, we owe to the Arabs--the very
name of the lute, _el oud_ ("shell" in Arabic) became _liuto_ in
Italian, in German _laute_, and in English lute. There were many
varieties of these bowed instruments, and it is thought that the
principle arose from rubbing one instrument with another. The
only other known examples of bowed instruments of primitive
type are (1) the _ravanastron_, an instrument of the monochord
type, native to India, made to vibrate by a kind of bow with
a string stretched from end to end; (2) the Welsh _chrotta_
(609 A.D.), a primitive lyre-shaped instrument, with which,
however, the use of the bow seems to have been a much later
invention. Mention should also be made of the marine trumpet,
much in vogue from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries;
it consisted of a long, narrow, resonant box, composed of
three boards, over which was stretched a single string;
other unchangeable strings, struck with the bow, served as
drones. Only the harmonics were played on the marine trumpet.
The principle of procuring the vibrations in stringed
instruments by means of a bow was, of course, applied to the
monochord class of keyed instruments, and was thus the origin
of the hurdy-gurdy, which consisted of a wheel covered with
resined leather and turned by a crank.
The bowed instruments were originally of two types, the first
in the form of the lute or mandolin; the second probably
derived from the Welsh _crwth_, consisting of a flat, long box
strung with strings (called fidel from _fides_, "string"). The
combination of these types, which were subjected to the most
fantastic changes of shape, led eventually to the modern
violin family.
We know that the highest plane of perfection in the violin
was reached in Italy about 1600. The Cremona makers, Amati,
Guarnerius, and Stradivarius, made their most celebrated
instruments between 1600 and 1750.
The violin bow, in its earliest form, was nothing more than an
ordinary bow with a stretched string; Corelli and Tartini used a
bow of the kind. The present shape of the bow is due to Tourte,
a Paris maker, who experimented in conjunction with Viotti,
the celebrated violinist.
By looking at the original lute and the Arabian _rebeck_
or Welsh _crwth_ (originally Latin _chorus_), we can see how
the modern violin received its generally rounded shape from
the lute, its flatness from the _rebeck_, the sides of the
instrument being cut out in order to give the bow free access
to the side strings. The name too, _fidula_ or _vidula_,
from mediaeval Latin _fides_, "string," became fiddle and
viola, the smaller viola being called violino, the larger,
violoncello and viola da gamba.
In the Middle Ages, the different species of bowed instrument
numbered from fifteen to twenty, and it was not until between
1600 and 1700 that the modern forms of these instruments
obtained the ascendancy.
Of the wind instruments it was naturally the flute that
retained its antique form; the only difference between the
modern instrument and the ancient one being that the former
is blown crosswise, instead of perpendicularly. Quantz,
the celebrated court flute player to Frederick the Great
of Prussia, was the first to publish, in 1750, a so-called
"method" of playing the traversal (crosswise) flute.
With the reed instruments the change in modern times is more
striking. The original form of the reed instruments was of the
double-reed variety. The oldest known mention of them dates from
650 A.D., when the name applied is _calamus_ (reed); later the
names _shalmei_ (_chalumeau_, "straw," from German _halm_) and
_shawm_ were used. These instruments were played by means of a
bell-shaped mouthpiece, the double reed being fixed inside the
tube. It was not until toward the end of the sixteenth century
that the bell-shaped mouthpiece was dispensed with and the reed
brought directly to the lips, thus giving the player greater
power of expression. The oboe is a representative type of the
higher pitched double-reed instruments. In its present shape it
is about two hundred years old. As the deeper toned instruments
were necessarily very long, six to eight and even ten feet,
an assistant had to walk before the performer, holding the
tube on his shoulder. This inconvenience led to bending the
tube back on itself, making it look somewhat like a bundle of
sticks, hence the word _faggot_; although it is commonly known
in this country by the French name, _bassoon_. This manner of
arranging the instrument dates from about the year 1550. The
clarinet is an essentially modern instrument, the single
beating reed and cylindrical tube coming into use about 1700,
the invention of a German named Denner, who lived at Nuremberg.
All the brass instruments of the Middle Ages seem to have
been very short, therefore high in pitch. We remember that
the Romans had trumpets (chiefly used in signalling) called
_buccina_, and we may assume that the whole modern family of
brass instruments has descended from this primitive type. As
late as 1500, the hunting horn consisted of but one loop which
passed over the shoulder and around the body of the player.
A horn of from six to seven feet in length was first used
about 1650; and we know that, owing to the smallness of the
instruments and their consequent high pitch in those days, many
of Bach's scores contain parts absolutely impracticable for our
modern brass instruments. The division of these instruments
into classes, such as trumpets, horns, trombones, etc., is
due to the differences in shape, which in turn produce tones
of different quality. The large bore of the trombone gives
great volume to the tone, the small bore of the trumpet great
brilliancy, the medium bore of the horn veils the brilliancy
on one hand and lightens the thickness of tone on the other.
The horn, called _cor de chasse_, was first used in the
orchestra in 1664, in one of Lully's operas, but its technique
(stopped tones and crooks) was only properly understood about
1750; the present-day valve horn did not come into general
use until within the last half century. Fifty years before
the principle had been applied to the horn the trumpet had
crooks and slides, a mechanism which, in the trumpet, is still
retained in England, pointing to the fact that the trombone is,
after all, nothing but a very large kind of trumpet.
XI
FOLK SONG AND ITS RELATION TO NATIONALISM IN MUSIC
In order to understand as well as to feel music, we must reduce
it to its primary elements, and these are to be found in folk
song, or, to go further back, in its predecessor, the chant
of the savages.
Folk music may be likened to a twig which has fallen into a
salt mine, to borrow an expression from Taine; every year adds
fresh jewels to the crystals that form on it until at last the
only resemblance to the original is in the general contour. We
know that the nucleus of melody lies in one note, just as the
origin of language is to be sought for in the word. Therefore
folk music proper must be separated from what may be called
barbaric music, the most primitive type of the latter being
the "one-note" strain from which spring the melodies of the
people. This one-note form passes through many rhythmical
changes before song becomes developed to the extent of adding
several notes to its means of expression. The next development
of savage chanting (which is the precursor of folk song) may
be traced back to its two elements, one of which was a mere
savage howl, and the other, that raising of the voice under
stress of strong emotion which still constitutes one of our
principal means of expression.
Thus, in this barbaric music we invariably find three
principles: 1, rhythm; 2, the howl or descending scale of
undefined intervals; and 3, the emotional raising of the
voice. The rhythm, which characterizes the most primitive
form of song or chant, consists of the incessant repetition
of a very small group of rhythmic sounds. This incessant
recurrence of one idea is characteristic of primitive, weak,
or insane natures. The second principle, which invariably
includes the first (pointing to a slightly more advanced state
of development), is met with in many folk songs of even modern
times. The third principle is one which indicates the transition
stage from primitive or barbaric music to folk music.
To the primitive savage mind, the smallest rhythmic phrase is a
wonderful invention, therefore it is repeated incessantly. Add
to that a certain joy in mere sound, and we have the howl,
which certainly follows the sequence of nature, for a thunder
clap, or the phenomenon of echo, is its prototype, being a loud
explosion followed by a more or less regular sequence of minor
reverberations. When the accent of passion is added to these
two principles--will and nature--we have laid the aesthetic
foundation for all that we call music.[12] The example of a
loud tone with gradually ascending inflections has only been
found in the most perverted types of humanity; for instance, an
English writer quaintly alludes to the songs of the Polynesian
cannibals as consisting of "gruesomely suggestive passages
of rising quarter-tones sung gloatingly before their living
captives who are soon to be devoured."
Now traces of these three elements are to be found in every
folk song known, and we may even trace their influence in
modern music, the lowest or most primitive being, as I have
said, the "one-note" type, the next what I have called the
"howl" type, the third the highest or "emotional" type.
Specimens of the first type, chants such as these [Figure 08],
are to be heard in every part of the globe, the rhythmic figure
being necessarily short and repeated incessantly.
The next step was a tremendous advance, and we find its
influence permeating all music. The most primitive specimens of
this type we find among the Jute Indians [Figure 09], a mixture
of one and two. The same is to be found in Australia, slightly
modified: [Figure 10] The Caribs have the same song
[G: g'' \ Chromatic g']. We find it again in Hungary, although
in a still more modified form, thus:
[Figure 11]
And last of all we meet with it in its primitive state in the
folk song used by Bizet in "Carmen." We can even see traces of
it in the quasi-folk song of the present century:
[Figure 12] etc.
The third element of folk song shows again a great advance,
for instead of the mere howl of pleasure or pain, we have a
more or less exactly graded expression of feeling. In speaking
of impassioned speech I explained the relative values of the
inflections of the voice, how the upward skip of the fourth,
fifth, and octave indicates the intensity of the emotion
causing the cry. When this element is brought into music, it
gives a vitality not before possessed, for by this it becomes
speech. When in such music this inflection rhymes with the
words, that is to say, when the speech finds its emotional
reflection in the music, we have reached the highest development
of folk song. In its best state, this is immeasurably superior
to much of our "made" music, only too often false in rhythm,
feeling, and declamation.
Among the different nations, these three characteristics often
become obscured by national idiosyncracies. Much of the Chinese
music, the "Hymn to the Ancestors," for instance, seemingly
covers a number of notes, whereas, in fact, it belongs to the
one-note type. We find that their melodies almost invariably
return to the same note, the intervening sounds being more
or less merely variations above and below the pitch of the