=History a Record of Change=.—History is a record of changing
conditions. Nations rise into prominence and fall again; cities are
built to be torn down by conquerors; even the face of the earth has
changed since the days when the scions of the Aryan race began to leave
their home in Central Asia. Arms of the sea have shrunk to rivers,
rivers to shallow streams, the desert sands have encroached on the once
fertile valleys, and choked the springs and brooks of the meadows.
Geologists tell us that the great valleys were made by the alluvial
deposit washed down from the hills and mountains by the streams. The
Chinese followed the course of the great rivers that made toward the
eastern seas, the Hindoos toward the southern ocean, and still another
“swarm” followed the great rivers Euphrates and Tigris, which came
from the mountains of Western Asia. The great valley lying between the
desert and the mountains, a scene of waste and ruin as far back as
the time of ancient Greece and Rome, was once a most important centre
of population and wealth, the home for centuries of races that had
reached a high degree of culture in the arts and sciences, and the
seat of what may be considered the oldest of extinct civilizations.
The valley was wonderfully fertile, was brought to a high degree of
cultivation and supported an enormous population. As an instance of
the physical changes that have taken place in this region, it may be
mentioned that about 4000 B. C., the Tigris and the Euphrates entered
the sea by different mouths, instead of joining as now and in the days
of Abraham, the patriarch, who came from this region, and the town
identified by modern scholars as “Ur of the Chaldees,” which is now 150
miles up the Euphrates, was an important seaport.
=The Chaldeans=.—When the Aryans came down into this valley they
found already established there a people whose records are now being
unearthed, called Akkads, belonging to the Mongolian family, who had
reached a high degree of cultivation in art and science. The records
found show that music was an important branch of study; at a very early
date the harp, pipe and cymbals are mentioned, and we infer that the
people were fond of singing, since many sacred hymns have been recorded
in tablets. This race, joined to others, founded the Chaldean kingdom,
the capital being Babylon. In the 12th century B. C., a king of
Assyria, in the northern part of the Tigris valley, conquered Babylon
and thus gained the ascendancy.
=The Practice of Music Among the Babylonians=.—In the great ruins now
being excavated, tablets of clay have been found which give a vivid
idea of the social and religious esteem in which music was held by the
Babylonians. One of these tablets, said to date back more than three
thousand years B. C., contains a representation of musicians. One
strikes with a hammer upon a metal plate, another carries a reed pipe,
a third plays upon a harp of eleven strings, while two others beat
time or give the accent by clapping their hands. Especially rich in
sculpture is the palace of Sennacherib. One of the relief decorations
shows a festival procession in honor of the returning conqueror.
In front walk five men, three with harps, a fourth with a kind of
lyre, whose strings were struck with a plectrum; the fifth bears a
double flute. Two of the harpers and the lyre player dance. Then
follow six women, of whom four carry harps, one blows a double flute,
while the last beats a sort of drum. Following the instrumentalists
come six women and six children singing, who indicate the rhythm by
clapping their hands. From the fact that in these sculptures a few
soldiers indicate an army, we infer that the Babylonians made use
of large bodies of players and singers in their great ceremonies.
These tablets indicate that the Babylonians made much use of trumpets
to give signals to the armies and when great masses of the people
were gathered together. That musicians were highly esteemed we judge
from the fact that on one occasion Sennacherib spared the lives of
musicians among his captives, all others being put to death. Since the
Chaldeans, especially, were famous as astronomers and mathematicians,
it is thought that they, like the Egyptian sages, had knowledge of the
mathematical relations of the various intervals.
[Illustration: ASSYRIAN HARP (SAMBUCA). SANTIR.]
=Chaldean Instruments=.—Two instruments seem to be especially
noticeable: the Symphonia and Sambuca. The former was carried to
Palestine by the Hebrews, at the end of their captivity, and, according
to their accounts, seems to have been a sort of bagpipe, an instrument
particularly suited to a pastoral people like the early Chaldeans.
As to the Sambuca we have no authentic knowledge; it seems, however,
to have been an instrument of the zither type, held horizontally and
played with a plectrum.[2] A stringed instrument, struck with a hammer,
called the Santir is credited to the Assyrians.
=Egyptian Music=.—When the great Alexandrian Library of 495,000 works
of Persian, Chaldean, Hebrew, Egyptian, Greek and Roman literature
was partly destroyed during Julius Cæsar’s battles with the native
Egyptians, in 47 B. C., and finally, A. D. 391, by Christian fanatics,
history suffered an irreparable loss. Treasures of learning in all
branches, the records of early civilizations perished, never to be
replaced. Today we are dependent upon the discoveries of explorers in
the ruins of the great Egyptian cities, temples, tombs and pyramids.
The Egyptians believed that articles of necessity to the living being
were necessary to the individual in a future existence. If certain
things could not, in reality, be placed in the tomb, a pictorial
representation would have almost equal value in the invisible world.
In Egyptian tombs pipes or “flutes” have been found, and in one
instance, in the tomb of a musician, the bronze cymbals he played
when alive. In the various tombs and ruins that have been examined by
explorers, pictorial representations of practically every phase of
Egyptian life have been found. The sources for our knowledge, almost
wholly inferential, are, then, the various pictorial and sculptured
representations of the Egyptian musical instruments and the manner in
which they were used, and a few fragments of their sacred books, which
were forty-two in number, two being devoted to music, although but one
fragment has been found. It must be noted, further, that the Egyptian
Government, although nominally a monarchy, limited, not absolute, was
in reality theocratic. The priestly caste had final power, and the
rules and regulations drawn up by them prescribed the minutest detail
of life, crushing all possibility of independent thought and freedom of
action, a condition fatal to high artistic development.
=Place of Music in Egyptian Life=.—To show the place of music in
Egyptian life, the following from Ambros’ history will serve admirably:
“From these decorations [on the walls of tombs] we perceive that the
Egyptians made great use of music. We find harps of many sizes and
shapes, small and easily portable, to others beyond the height of
a man, crude and of the utmost simplicity, to others elaborate and
extremely rich in decoration. We note an almost endless variety of
=lyres=, =guitars= and =mandolins= [that is, similar in type to the
instruments we know by these names], single and double flutes, played
by hands of numerous musicians, together with male and female singers.
Music was used to accompany the dance, the funeral cortège,[3] the
banquet and other social functions. Inscriptions show that there were
musicians of high social position at the court.”
=Egyptian Instruments=.—The records show a development of music from
a crude simplicity in early days to a brilliant and complex system
alongside of the changes in other arts and the sciences, some of the
discoveries going as far back as 1625 B. C. We give illustrations of
several forms of the Egyptian =harps=. The number of strings varied
from three or four to twenty-one. Mr. J. F. Rowbotham, the English
historian of music, says that “taking B below the bass staff as the
lowest note of the Egyptian scale, (since it likely followed the
Assyrian in this respect) the compass of the great harp would extend
to E, first line, treble staff. The small harps of various sizes had
a compass from D, third line, bass staff, to D or E above the treble
staff. Another series of stringed instruments, known under the general
name, lyres, had the same compass as the small harps; the lutes had
a low G, (bass) string, and the highest note was C or D on the
treble staff; various forms of the flutes had about the same compass;
pipes, [which may be represented by the flageolet of today] had a
compass of about one octave upward from E, fourth space, treble clef.
Other instruments were of the percussion character, =tambourines=,
=drums=, =cymbals=, etc. Although the Egyptians used their instruments
in combination, there is reason to believe their practice was the
alternation of groups, only occasionally using all simultaneously, to
secure fulness and power of tone.”
[Illustration: HORIZONTAL HARP. SMALL HARP. GREAT HARP.]
=Philosophy and Practice of Egyptian Music=.—The consensus of opinion
is that Egyptian music was melodic in character, the instruments
or voices playing or singing in different octaves, rejecting other
intervals. As the Greeks seem to have drawn from the Egyptians much
of their practice in music, it is reasonable to suppose that they
would have used harmony if the Egyptians had been accustomed to make
use of it. As to the Egyptian theory of music we have no information.
Since, however, Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher, was a student of
the Egyptian school for priests, we infer that his teachings were
founded on the science he acquired there; hence it is probable that the
Egyptians were familiar with a seven-fold division of the octave and
the mathematical relations of the fourth and fifth, as well as other
intervals of the scale. Of the old Egyptian hymns we have no remains
unless it be, as some assert, that fragments still exist among the
Coptic Christians.
[Illustration: TRANSVERSE FLUTE. DOUBLE FLUTE.]
=The Hebrews=.—What a wonderful history is that of the Hebrews! It
has seen nation after nation rise to power and go down. It has been
enslaved, seemingly beyond all possibility of recovering a national
existence, yet regained place. Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Rome, held
the Hebrews, yet the latter are still with us, as a distinct race,
while their conquerors have but pages of history. A glance at the
history of the race will show that they touched the sources of early
civilization. Abraham was a resident, according to the Bible story, of
Ur in the land of the Chaldees, where a considerable civilization had
been attained. From here he went to Canaan, thence to Egypt, and back
again to the country east of the Red Sea. When his descendants went to
Egypt they must have carried with them Syrian music and instruments,
doubtless preserving a trace of Chaldean influence. It was during the
four centuries’ sojourn in Egypt that the Hebrews, though for a time
enslaved, gained the proportions of a nation. As their duties placed
them in close relations to their masters, they gained considerable of
the Egyptian science, literature, customs, etc. At that time, musicians
were slaves, and tradition says that Miriam, the sister of Moses, was a
slave dancing-girl and singer. We know that Moses was instructed in the
learning of the Egyptian priesthood, and in that capacity officiated
in some of the functions of the temple services. Such facts as these
go far to justify the idea that the Hebrews gained their fundamental
notions of music and musical instruments during their long sojourn in
Egypt. Some writers claim that the songs of the Hebrews were adapted to
Egyptian chants. The pastoral life led by the descendants of Abraham,
the period of slavery which the Hebrews suffered in Egypt, and the
subsequent migratory life in the wilderness were not adapted to develop
a people’s song. The life in Palestine for many years was a strenuous
one; and then came another period of slavery among the Assyrians, by
which the Hebrew ideas were again modified.
=A Religious People=.—The Hebrews were an intensely religious people,
the code delivered to them by Moses fixing the status of music up to
the time of the pleasure-loving Solomon. Their music, in distinction
from that of the nations around them, was not sensuous but a true
_musica sacra_, in this respect more a matter of religion than of art.
During the reign of David, the Levites were organized as the singers
for the Temple services. Music and poetry were the chief subjects of
instruction. David himself composed many of the tunes to which his
Psalms were sung.
=Hebrew Poetry and Its Relation to Their Music=.—The key to the music
of the Hebrews is their poetry. They grew to numbers under the most
adverse circumstances, and developed a temperament indifferent to
environment and elevated to high spiritual aspiration, making them an
intensely religious people, whose life was little softened by artistic
practice. The effect of the injunction against the making of “graven
images,” as given them in the code of Moses, was to cut them off from
the exercise of the esthetic faculty in sculpture or painting; their
unsettled mode of life prevented outlet in architecture. So they poured
out the whole strength of their passionate, powerful natures in poetry
and song. The most striking characteristic of the Hebrew poetry is the
parallelism of the phrases, each sentence or complete thought being
made up of two similar or contrasted thoughts, and the accompanying
music must have had the same character. The following from the Psalms
shows this feature:
“Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplication.”
“I will not give sleep to my eyes,
or slumber to mine eyelids.”
When the great choirs of men singers were organized for the Temple
services, this parallelism brought about the division into two bodies,
who sang alternately, a practice in use today in certain churches with
ritualistic services, and known as antiphonal singing.
=Hebrew Music=.—It is unfortunate that we have no reason to believe
that the hymns in use in the Jewish synagogues today are sung to the
tunes of thousands of years ago, even if modified. In the various
countries of Europe, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, the airs are
quite different, suggesting that tradition has failed to deliver
anything that can traced to the days of the poet-king of Israel. Some
authorities find in the Gregorian chants traces of Hebrew melodies
which came down from the early Christians of Jewish birth and
training. Clement of Alexandria says that their songs were earnest and
dignified; there must have been some special character in them as
shown by the command of the Babylonians, “Sing us the songs of Zion.”
The principal relation that the Hebrews have to the history of music
arises from the enduring impress the works of the Psalmist and other
portions of the Scriptures have made upon the music of the Christian
Church.
=Hebrew Instruments=.—The Hebrews borrowed their instruments from other
nations, principally from the Egyptians, the one most favored being a
form of the =harp=, small enough to be portable, used to give effect to
the chanting of the prophets. “To prophesy meant to sing,” and it is
quite likely that Isaiah, Jeremiah and the other inspired poets uttered
their thoughts in verse and song, both being extemporized.
The student should bear in mind that the various musical instruments
mentioned in the Bible must be understood as types. The harp of David
was not the same as our harp, the organ was not like our great church
instruments, viols, sackbuts, cornets, pipes, psalteries, etc., are
names given by the translators to the Hebrew terms used in the Bible.
They used words with which they were familiar, and which they thought
corresponded in type to the instruments used by the Hebrews.