Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/95

 MUSIC 87 of the major diatonic scale. The minor mode is also familiar to East Indian music. The fin- ger board of the vina is about two feet long, with frets like the guitar, which permit the player to divide the scale into half tones over 14 notes. The Hindoo writers have names corresponding to ours for the tonic or first, the mediant or third, and dominant or fifth of the scale ; and indeed there are multitudinous proofs of their assiduous study of the art, how- ever limited their practical skill, owing to the paucity and imperfection of their instruments. They have music in common and triple time, that is, in groups of two and three notes severally. The Hebrew music, both vocal and instru- mental, is constantly referred to in the Bible, and especially in the Psalms, and yet we have no certain knowledge as to its character. It was probably founded on the music of the Egyptians, and it is conjectured that one of the results of the Egyptian training which Moses received was the introduction into the Hebrew service of the music of the Egyptian priesthood. But no melodies that have come down to us can be identified as those used in the temple service. That the singers were a body by themselves under leaders, and that the singing was done by alternate choirs, as was later the case with the primitive Christians, is well known. That they had various instru- ments, both wind and stringed, is also known. So also had the Egyptians ; but as none of the ancient nations possessed a knowledge of har- mony, the music they produced must have been to a degree harsh and dissonant. The discovery by Bruce of a painting of a harp upon a The- ban tomb furnished the first evidence as to the ancient state of music on the Nile, and of the fact that long before Athens was founded the Egyptians were possessed of stringed instru- ments. It is further proved from the monu- ments that the Egyptians had an instrument with frets like the guitar ; none of the hun- dreds of representations of instruments of Grecian music indicate that the Greeks had arrived at that point of ingenuity. What the Egyptian composition of music was can only be inferred, for no relics of it exist, unless the inartificial songs of the boatmen on the Nile be taken as samples of the art of a polished people. Greek music was probably little more than sonorous declamation, sustained by the lyre, and some pleasant notes from the flute and pandean pipes, with the martial trumpet on occasion. In the Greek drama the language was sung, not spoken. It was a musical reci- tative, and the chorus intoned. The theatres were very large, without roofs, and were ca- pable of holding many thousands. To enable the performers to be heard well, it was neces- sary so to intone the voice; and moreover they wore metallic masks to add to the reso- nance. This was as artificial a mode of repre- senting passion and emotion as the modern opera, though its means were fewer. It is generally conceded that the Greeks did not understand harmony, and that their lyre of a few strings merely played the notes of the voice. The discovery of some Greek musical manuscripts (that is, poetry with musical signs) on the revival of letters gave rise to great dis- plays of erudition and much passionate argu- ment. Fanaticism in favor of Greek music culminated, but all to no purpose ; for no sat- isfactory key to the Greek system was found. Although a treatise on ancient music by Euclid is extant, and other writers of antiquity who have come down to us discuss it, they shed little light on the ancient musical manuscripts. "We know that the Greeks had many hundreds of musical signs; that to be a musician-poet required years of practice; but with the in- terpretations of the two or three extant Greek musical manuscripts, we can only discover, if the interpretations be right, that they had some sort of minor mode, and declaimed in a kind of recitative, and intoned pretty much as is done in the Roman Catholic service by the priest. The Greek lyre was too poor an instru- ment to afford much melody, though the an- cient flute might have had some advantages; and as there was a theocratic resistance to im- provements in instruments, and the mainte- nance of music in prescribed forms was con- sidered a state necessity, we may fairly infer that .the science of music was not understood by the Greeks. Nevertheless their interest in it was great. Musical tournaments were held, and choruses and dances were used to aid the religious ceremonies. Pythagoras and Aris- toxenes wrote upon the art, and Boethius has expounded their theories in five books De Mu- sica. "With the Romans the art never made any progress, and their music seems to have been an echo of the Greek, without force or originality. In tracing the history of the art as it exists in our own day, we need go no further back than to the beginning of the Christian era ; for although modern music may be said to have a certain relation to that of the ancients, the connection between the two is so slight that it may be disregarded. We look therefore to the early music of the Christian church, to whose fostering influence through several centuries the preservation and progress of the art was due, for the foundation upon which the modern system is built. The exact nature of the psalms used by the early Chris- tians is not known, but they were sung an- tiphonally, and probably were borrowed partly from Hebrew and partly from pagan sources. The first high ecclesiastic who is known to have greatly interested himself in the music of the church was St. Ambrose, to whom are at- tributed many of the early hymns and the selec- tion of the four so-called Ambrosian keys or scales in which he advised that the music for the church should be written. The next emi- nent priest to set his mark upon the music of his time and to further the advancement of the art was Pope Gregory I. (590-604). He
 * , ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni. These are the notes