Critical and Historical Essays
descended we should have to avoid the sixth, A[sharp], and the
third, E[double-flat]. As one can easily perceive, many strange
melodic effects are produced by these means. For instance,
in the _raga Mohanna_, in which the fourth and seventh degrees
of the scale are avoided in ascending, if it were employed in
the mode _Dehrasin-Karabharna_, which corresponds to our own
major scale, it would have a pronounced Scotch tinge so long
as the melody ascended; but let it _descend_ and the Scotch
element is deserted for a decided North American Indian,
notably Sioux tinge. The Hindus are an imaginative race, and
invest all these _ragas_ and modes with mysterious attributes,
such as anger, love, fear, and so on. They were even personified
as supernatural beings; each had his or her special name and
history. It was proper to use some of them only at midday,
some in the morning, and some at night. If the mode or _raga_
is changed during a piece, it is expressed in words, by saying,
for instance, that "_Mohanna_" (the new "_raga_") is here
introduced to the family of _Tanarupi_. The melodies formed
from these modes and _ragas_ are divided into four classes,
_Rektah_, _Teranah_, _Tuppah_, and _Ragni_. The _Rektah_ is in
character light and flowing. It falls naturally into regular
periods, and resembles the _Teranah_, with the exception that
the latter is only sung by men. The character of the _Tuppah_
is not very clear, but the _Ragni_ is a direct descendant
of the old magic songs and incantations; in character it is
rhapsodical and spasmodic.
IV
THE MUSIC OF THE EGYPTIANS, ASSYRIANS, AND CHINESE
In speaking of the music of antiquity we are seriously hampered
by the fact that there is practically no actual music in
existence which dates back farther than the eighth or tenth
century of the present era. Even those well-known specimens of
Greek music, as they are claimed to be, the hymns to Apollo,
Nemesis, and Calliope, do not date farther back than the third
or fourth century, and even these are by no means generally
considered authentic. Therefore, so far as actual sounds go,
all music of which we have any practical knowledge dates from
about the twelfth century.
Theoretically, we have the most minute knowledge of the
scientific aspect of music, dating from more than five hundred
years before the Christian era. This knowledge, however, is
worse than valueless, for it is misleading. For instance,
it would be a very difficult thing for posterity to form any
idea as to what our music was like if all the actual music in
the world at the present time were destroyed, and only certain
scientific works such as that of Helmholtz on acoustics and a
few theoretical treatises on harmony, form, counterpoint and
fugue were saved.
From Helmholtz's analysis of sounds one would get the idea
that the so-called tempered scale of our pianos caused thirds
and sixths to sound discordantly.
From the books on harmony one would gather that consecutive
fifths and octaves and a number of other things were never
indulged in by composers, and to cap the climax one would
naturally accept the harmony exercises contained in the books
as being the very acme of what we loved best in music. Thus
we see that any investigation into the music of antiquity must
be more or less conjectural.
Let us begin with the music of the Egyptians. The oldest
existing musical instrument of which we have any knowledge is
an Egyptian lyre to be found in the Berlin Royal Museum. It
is about four thousand years old, dating from the period just
before the expulsion of the Hyksos or "Shepherd" kings.
At that time (the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty, 1500-2000
B.C.) Egypt was just recovering from her five hundred years of
bondage, and music must already have reached a wonderful state
of development. In wall paintings of the eighteenth dynasty
we see flutes, double flutes, and harps of all sizes, from
the small one carried in the hand, to the great harps, almost
seven feet high, with twenty-one strings; the never-failing
sistrum (a kind of rattle); kitharas, the ancestors of our
modern guitars; lutes and lyres, the very first in the line
of instruments culminating in the modern piano.
One hesitates to class the trumpets of the Egyptians in the
same category, for they were war instruments, the tone of
which was probably always forced, for Herodotus says that
they sounded like the braying of a donkey. The fact that the
cheeks of the trumpeter were reinforced with leather straps
would further indicate that the instruments were used only
for loud signalling.
According to the mural paintings and sculptures in the tombs
of the Egyptians, all these instruments were played together,
and accompanied the voice. It has long been maintained that
harmony was unknown to the ancients because of the mathematical
measurement of sounds. This might be plausible for strings,
but pipes could be cut to any size. The positions of the hands
of the executants on the harps and lyres, as well as the use
of short and long pipes, make it appear probable that something
of what we call harmony was known to the Egyptians.
We must also consider that their paintings and sculptures were
eminently symbolic. When one carves an explanation in hard
granite it is apt to be done in shorthand, as it were. Thus, a
tree meant a forest, a prisoner meant a whole army; therefore,
two sculptured harpists or flute players may stand for twenty
or two hundred. Athenaeus, who lived at the end of the second
and beginning of the third century, A.D., speaks of orchestras
of six hundred in Ptolemy Philadelphus's time (300 B.C.),
and says that three hundred of the players were harpers, in
which number he probably includes players on other stringed
instruments, such as lutes and lyres. It is therefore to be
inferred that the other three hundred played wind and percussion
instruments. This is an additional reason for conjecturing
that they used chords in their music; for six hundred players,
not to count the singers, would hardly play entirely in unison
or in octaves. The very nature of the harp is chordal, and
the sculptures always depict the performer playing with both
hands, the fingers being more or less outstretched. That the
music must have been of a deep, sonorous character, we may
gather from the great size of the harps and the thickness of
their strings. As for the flutes, they also are pictured as
being very long; therefore they must have been low in pitch.
The reed pipes, judging from the pictures and sculptures,
were no higher in pitch than our oboes, of which the highest
note is D and E above the treble staff.
It is claimed that so far as the harps were concerned,
the music must have been strictly diatonic in character.
To quote Rowbotham, "the harp, which was the foundation of the
Egyptian orchestra, is an essentially non-chromatic instrument,
and could therefore only play a straight up and down diatonic
scale." Continuing he says, "It is plain therefore that the
Egyptian harmony was purely diatonic; such a thing as modern
modulation was unknown, and every piece from beginning to end
was played in the same key." That this position is utterly
untenable is very evident, for there was nothing to prevent
the Egyptians from tuning their harps in the same order of
tones and half tones as is used for our modern pianos. That
this is even probable may be assumed from the scale of a flute
dating back to the eighteenth or nineteenth century B.C. (1700
or 1600 B.C.), which was found in the royal tombs at Thebes,
and which is now in the Florence Museum.
Its scale was
[G: (a a+ b c' c+' d') (a' a+' b' c'' c+'' d'') (e'')
f'' f+'' g'' g+'' (a'' a+'' b'' c''' c+''' d''')]
The only thing about which we may be reasonably certain in
regard to Egyptian music is that, like Egyptian architecture,
it must have been very massive, on account of the preponderance
in the orchestra of the low tones of the stringed instruments.
The sistrum was, properly speaking, not considered a musical
instrument at all. It was used only in religious ceremonies, and
may be considered as the ancestor of the bell that is rung at
the elevation of the Host in Roman Catholic churches. Herodotus
(born 485 B.C.) tells us much about Egyptian music, how the
great festival at Bubastis in honour of the Egyptian Diana
(_Bast_ or _Pascht_), to whom the cat was sacred, was attended
yearly by 700,000 people who came by water, the boats resounding
with the clatter of castanets, the clapping of hands, and the
soft tones of thousands of flutes. Again he tells us of music
played during banquets, and speaks of a mournful song called
_Maneros_. This, the oldest song of the Egyptians (dating back
to the first dynasty), was symbolical of the passing away of
life, and was sung in connection with that gruesome custom
of bringing in, towards the end of a banquet, an effigy of a
corpse to remind the guests that death is the birthright of
all mankind, a custom which was adopted later by the Romans.
Herodotus also gives us a vague but very suggestive glimpse
of what may have been the genesis of Greek tragedy, for he was
permitted to see a kind of nocturnal Egyptian passion play, in
which evidently the tragedy of Osiris was enacted with ghastly
realism. Osiris, who represents the light, is hunted by Set or
Typhon, the god of darkness, and finally torn to pieces by the
followers of Set, and buried beneath the waters of the lake;
Horus, the son of Osiris, avenges his death by subduing Set, and
Osiris appears again as the ruler of the shadowland of death.
This strange tragedy took place at night, on the shore of
the lake behind the great temple at Sais. Osiris was dressed
royally, in white, and after the horrible pursuit and his
murder by Set and his sinister band, Horus, the rising sun,
dispels the gloom, and a glorious new god of light appears. Set
and his followers are driven back to the gloomy temple where,
perhaps, there was another scene showing the shade of Osiris,
enthroned and ruling the dead. We have no means of knowing the
character of the music which accompanied this mystery play;
but certainly the deep tones of the harps and the flutes,
together with the chanting of men's voices, must have been
appropriate. Add to these the almost silent rattle of the
sistrum, which, for the Egyptians, possessed something of the
supernatural, and we have an orchestral colouring which is
suggestive, to say the least.
With this we will leave Egyptian music, simply calling attention
to the works of Resellini, Lepsius, Wilkinson, and Petri,
which contain copies of mural paintings and temple and tomb
sculptures relating to music. For instance, pages 103, 106, and
111 of Lepsius's third book, "Die Denkmaeler aus Aegypten und
Aethiopen," will be found very interesting, particularly page
106, which shows some of the rooms of the palace of Amenotep
IV, of the eighteenth dynasty (about 1500 or 1600 B.C.),
in which dancing and music is being taught. In the same work,
second book, on pages 52 and 53, are pictures taken from a tomb
near Gizeh, showing harp and flute players and singers. The
position of the hands of the singers--they hold them behind
their ears--is a manner of illustrating the act of hearing,
and arises from the hieroglyphic _double_ way of putting things;
for instance, in writing hieroglyphics the word is often first
spelled out, then comes another sign for the pronunciation,
then sometimes even two other signs to emphasize its meaning.
The music of the Assyrians may be summed up very briefly. All
that can be gathered from the bas-relief sculptures is that
shrill tones and acute pitch must have characterized their
music. As Rowbotham says, alluding to the Sardanapalus wall