Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/B/Ballad

Ballad. Formerly a little history, told in lyric verses, and sung to the harp or viol, either by the author himself, or the jongleur, whose profession it was to follow the bard, and sing his works. It is about a century since the word ballad began to imply a brief, simple tale, conveyed in three or four verses, and set to a short, familiar air. Perhaps no kind of music has so much influence with the multitude as ballad or song singing. Andrew Fletcher once said, " Give me the making of the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes the laws." Foreign travellers have complained of the American people, that they rarely have leisure, and that when they have, they know not how to enjoy it. There is some truth in the remark. We are eminently a working people. Part of this industry results, no doubt, from our condition, and from the powerful incitements to enterprise afforded by a young and prosperous country. Part of it, however, seems to result from impatience of rest. Not a few of the rash adventures and ruinous speculations, by which we have distinguished ourselves in years past, had their origin in a love of excitement, and in our aversion to being without employment. A partial remedy for this evil might be found by diffusing a taste for the elegant and ornamental arts. These arts would furnish that moderate and agreeable excitement which is so desirable in the intervals of labor. Since the days of Martin Luther, music has contributed to the refinement of taste and the strengthening of moral feeling. The greatest composers of Germany have consecrated their genius to the service of religion. Haydn, whose memory is so honored, was deeply religious ; his oratorio of the "Creation" was produced, as he himself tells us, at a time when he was much in prayer. In writing musical scores, he was accustomed to place, both at the beginning and close of each one, a Latin motto, expressive of his profound feeling that he was dependent on God in all his efforts, and that to his glory should be consecrated every offspring of his genius. The art of music has special claims upon the American people. All men have been endowed with susceptibility to its influence. The child is no sooner born, than the nurse begins to soothe it to repose by music. Through life, music is employed to animate the depressed, to inspire the timid with courage, to lend new wings to devotion, and to give utterance to joy or sorrow. It is preeminently the language of the heart. The understanding gains knowledge through the eye. The heart is excited to emotion through tones falling on the ear. And so universal is the disposition to resort to music, for the purpose of either expressing or awakening emotion, that the great dramatist, that master in the science of the heart, declares that -

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils ;

The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted."

Well may this be said of an art which has power to raise the coarsest veteran to noble sentiments of deeds, and to inspire the rawest and most timorous recruit with a contempt of death.

It is worthy of remark, that as the susceptibility to no other art is so universal, so none seems to have so strong an affinity for virtue, and for the purer and gentler affections. It is certain that from the fabled days of Orpheus and Apollo, music has always been regarded as the handmaid of civilization and moral refinement. Wherever we would awake the better affections, whether in the sanctuary or the closet, in the school fee infants or in the house of refuge for juvenile delinquents, we employ its aid. The Germane have a proverb which has come down from Luther, that where music is not, the devil enters. As David took his harp, when he would cause the devil to depart from Saul, so the Germans employ it to expel obduracy from the hearts c! the depraved. In their schools for the reformation of youthful offenders, (and the same remark might be applied to those of our own country,) music has been found one of the most effectual means of inducing docility among the stubborn and vicious. "At Berlin," says Professor Stowe, "there is an establishment for the reformation of youthful offenders. Here boys are placed, who have committed offences that bring them under the supervision of the police, to be instructed and rescued from vice, instead of being hardened in iniquity by living in the common prison with old offenders. It is under the care of Dr. Kopf, a most simple-hearted, excellent old gentleman ; just such a one as reminded us of the ancient Christians, who lived in the times of the persecution, simplicity, and purity of the Christian church. He has been very successful in reclaiming the young offender ; and many a one, who would otherwise have been forever lost, has, by the influence of this institution, been saved to himself; to his country, and to God. As I was passing with Dr. K. from room to room, I heard some beautiful voices singing in an adjoining apartment ; and on entering, I found about twenty of the boys sitting at a long table, making clothes for the establishment, and singing at their work. The doctor enjoyed my surprise, and on going out, remarked, ' I always keep these little rogues singing at their work ; for while the children sing, the devil cannot come among them at all ; he can only sit out doors there and growl; but if they stop singing, in the devil comes.' The Bible, and the singing of religious hymns, are amongst the most efficient instruments which he employs for softening the hardened heart, and bringing the vicious and stubborn will to docility." It would seem that so long as any remains of humanity linger in the heart, it retains its susceptibility to music. And as a proof that this music is more powerful for good than for evil, is it not worthy of profound consideration that, in all the intimations which the Bible gives us of a future world, music is associated only with the employments and happiness of heaven? We read of no strains of music coming up from the regions of the lot t. To associate its melodies and harmonies with the wailings and convulsions of' reprobate spirits would be doing violence, as all feel, to our conceptions of its true character. We think that the great Milton offered violence both to nature and revelation in the picture which he draws towards the close of the first book of his " Paradise Lost," where he represents the legions of Satan as moving " in perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders," "soft pipes that charmed their painful steps," &c. Music can have connection only with our better nature. Abused it doubtless may be ; for which of God's gifts is not abused? but its value, when properly employed as a means of culture, as a source of refined pleasure, and as the proper aid and ally of our efforts and aspirations after good, is clear and unquestionable. "In music," says Hooker, "the very image of vice and virtue is perceived. It is a thing that delighteth all ages, and beseemeth all states - a thing as seasonable in grief as joy, as decent being added to actions of greatest solemnity as being used when men sequester themselves from actions." Bishop Beveridge says, "That which I have found the best recreation both to my mind and body, whensoever either of them stands in need of it, is music, which exercises both my body and soul, especially when I play myself ; for then, methinks, the same motion that my hand makes upon the instrument, the instrument makes upon my heart. It calls in my spirits, composes my thoughts, delights my ear, recreates my mind, and so not only fits me for after business, but fills my heart at the present with pure and useful thoughts ; so that, when the music sounds the sweetliest in my ears, truth commonly flows the clearest in my mind. And hence it is that I find my soul is become more harmonious by being accustomed so much to harmony, and adverse to all manner of discord, that the least jarring sounds, either in notes or words, seem very harsh and unpleasant to me." All men are more or less susceptible to the influence of music. It is also true that all can acquire the rudiments of the art. It has long been supposed that, in order to learn to sing, a child must be endowed with what is called a musical ear. That this, however, is an error, is evident from experiments which have been made on the most extensive scale in Germany, and which are now repeating in this country. In Germany, almost every child at school is instructed in singing, as well as in reading. The result is, that though in this respect, as in many others, there is a great difference in the natural aptitude of children, still all who can learn to read can also learn to sing. It is found, further, that this knowledge can be acquired without interfering with the other branches of study, and with evident benefit both to the disposition of the scholar and discipline of the school. A gentleman, who in this country has had more than four thou-sand pupils in music, affirms that his experience gives the same result. The number of schools among us, in which music is made one of the regular branches of elementary instruction, is already great, and is constantly increasing; and we have heard of no case in which, with proper training, every child has not been found capable of learning. Indeed, the fact, that among the ancients, and in the schools of the middle ages, music was regarded as indispensable in a lull course of education, might of itself teach us that the prejudice in question is founded in error. Another consideration which gives music special claims on our regard, as a branch of' culture, is, that the best specimens of the art are within our reach. It is rare that the pupil can ever look, in this country, on the original works of a master, in painting or sculpture. We have engravings, casts, and other copies, but they can give us only faint conceptions of the artist's design, and of his execution hardly an idea. In written music, we have a transcript of the conceptions of the composer, almost as complete as in written poetry, or eloquence, and as easy of access. In all these arts, however, much may be done to call forth and improve the taste of our people. By multiplying exhibitions of art; by extending patronage to native talent for painting and sculpture which abounds among us ; by promoting efforts for the diffusion of a correct taste in music, and a love for that art, so essential in our devotions, and so useful every where ; and finally and especially, by introducing elementary instruction in music into our common schools, - we can do much towards securing a general love for the art. There are said to be, at this time, not far from eighty thousand common schools in this country, in which is to be found the power which, in coming years, will mould the character of this democracy. If vocal music were generally adopted as a branch of instruction in these schools, it might be reasonably expected, that in at least two generations we should be changed into a musical people. The great point to be considered, in reference to the introduction of vocal music into popular elementary instruction, is, that thereby you set in motion a mighty power, which silently, but surely in the end, will humanize, refine, and elevate a whole community. "We have listened," says a recent traveller in Switzerland, "to the peasant children's songs, as they went out to their morning occupations, and seen their hearts enkindled to the highest tones of music and poetry by the setting sun or the familiar objects of nature, each of which was made to echo some truth, or point to some duty, by an appropriate song. We have heard them sing the 'harvest hymn,' as they went forth, before daylight, to gather in the grain. We have seen them assemble in groups at night, chanting a hymn of' praise for the glories of the heavens, or joining in some patriotic chorus, or some social melody, instead of the frivolous and corrupting conversation which so often renders such meetings the source of evil. In addition to this, we visited communities where the youth had been trained from child-hood to exercises in vocal music, of such a character as to elevate instead of debasing the mind, and have found that it served in the same manner to cheer the social assemblies, in place of the voice of folly or the poisoned cup of intoxication. We have seen the young men of such a community assembled to the number of several hundreds, from a circuit of twenty miles ; and, instead of spending a day of festivity in rioting and drunkenness, pass the whole time, with the exception of that employed in a frugal repast and a social meeting, in a concert of social, moral, and religious hymns, and devote the proceeds of the exhibition to some object of benevolence. 'We could not but look at the contrast presented on similar occasions in our own country with a blush of shame. We have visited a village whose whole moral aspect was changed in a few years by the introduction of' music of this character, even among adults, and where the aged were compelled to express their astonishment at seeing the young abandon their corrupting and riotous amusements for this delightful and improving exercise." Music is one of the fine arts ; it therefore deals with abstract beauty, and so lifts man to the source of all beauty - from finite to infinite, and from the world of matter to the world of spirits and to God. Music is the great handmaid to civilization. Whence come those traditions of a revered antiquity - seditions quelled, cures wrought, fleets and armies governed by the force of song ? whence that responding of rocks, woods, and trees to the harp of Orpheus ? whence a city's walls uprising beneath the wonder-working touches of Apollo's lyre ? These, it is true, are fables ; yet they shadow forth, beneath the veil of allegory, a profound truth. They beautifully proclaim the mysterious union between music, as an instrument of man's civilization, and the soul of man. Prophets and wise men, large-minded law-givers of an olden time, understood and acted on this truth. The ancient oracles were uttered in song. The laws of the Twelve Tables were put to music, and got by heart at school. Minstrel and sage are, in some languages, convertible terms. Music is allied to the highest sentiments of man's moral nature-love of God, love of country, love of friends. Woe to the nation in which these sentiments are allowed to go to decay ! What tongue can tell the unutterable energies that reside in these three engines - church music, national airs, and finished melodies - as means of informing and enlarging the mighty hearts of a free people?