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.