In Ancient China.
THE TRUMPETS OF THE CHINESE.
Trumpets are amongst the very earliest of musical instruments, yet
remote as is their date they throw no light on musical scales of the
period of their use. Nevertheless for their very ancientness we cannot
well pass them by without reference. Pictures of them appear in Egypt
and in Assyria, but beyond that Old Time is chary of yielding evidence.
The workers in metal in very early times undertook the fashioning of
imitations of the horns of sheep, antelopes and oxen, and thus made
they were used in primitive musical effects in relation to sovereignty
or ceremonial. How strongly the aims of all royal and priestly offices
determined the development even of the minutiæ of civilisation and
the tendencies of domestic and industrial life, we are hardly able to
appreciate with our modern notion of the individual assertiveness,
limited only by the general good of the community. So it is well that,
in considering the position of the worker, we should remember that
he worked in order to fulfil the demand or behest of the king or the
priest; for both were to him equally sacred, and often indeed in one
man the two offices were combined.
Music may have remained with the people, as an instinct which in simple
ways found its gratification; but as an art to be cultivated it had its
beginnings to order. The musical instrument had a definite purpose to
fulfil; and, under royal or priestly guidance, so long as that purpose
was accomplished, little further thought was given to it. Under such
conditions there was the perpetual tendency to stagnation; progress was
not only unacceptable, but to the old conservatism, as in later days,
the new thing was unnecessary; since, if it were desirable, it would
have been thought of before by the proper responsible persons. Only
under such like estimate can we understand the lack of resource, the
poverty of invention, through many centuries during the sway of ancient
monarchies, as regards musical instruments.
The possibilities of the various types of instruments, as we know them,
were unimaginable in those days; for the human ear had not so far
progressed in sensitiveness as to be able to comprehend the feeling
for tone, for colour, for range, or for expressiveness, as we by long
use have grown accustomed to and look upon almost as our heritage.
Yet how short a period has it been since anything like a collection
of instruments represented by our modern orchestra attained even a
passable mechanical development! And what are the two last centuries
we look back upon in comparison with the thousands of years during
which the primitive instruments remained in their crude, barbaric
immaturity; unimproved, and with neither want nor longing that they
should be improved!
As instancing this blank, imperceptive state of mind and feeling, the
trumpet is very noticeable. An ancient instrument for ages: perhaps
nothing more than a ram’s horn, or horn of animal killed in the chase.
Musically, to be ranked as a tooter or hooter. Then it became in ruling
hands a means of signal: by sense of rhythm it conveyed to the hosts in
field or fortress the message that was equal to words; and in royal and
religious processions and ceremonies it communicated the intelligence
for which the countless thousands waited; to inspire them, to uplift
them in a contagious sympathy of exultation, or to bow them to the
ground in common feeling of awe or adoration. When wealth accumulated,
the pomp of ceremony increased. Then came the worker in metal, copying
the product of nature, yet not venturing much beyond it.
The old monarchies of Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt, with their tablets
and monuments and paintings, afford no evidence of a stage of musical
advance from the early horn; and we have but to contrast the wide
range of our trumpet with the few notes producible on a cow’s horn, to
recognise how, in the absence of higher aim inciting to achievement
which we call art, the dormant possibilities of a marvellous instrument
should have been unevoked: empires passed away, and the trumpet
remained a horn. Do not be mystified by a misconception to which words
may lead. The horn as we know it was an unknown thing in those far
away times; its quality of tone not approached even, nor its chief
constructive feature identified. The ram’s horn is the original parent
of both trumpets and horns, and in the consideration of type belongs
to that of trumpets more specifically. The shape of the _mouthpiece_
of the trumpet determines the character of the instrument, and the old
horns present only the same shallow cup. It is a matter to be noted how
comparatively recent is the long, conical form of mouthpiece absolutely
essential as it is to the quality of tone as we have it in the French
horn used in our orchestras.
As seen in the Assyrian and Egyptian forms, the bell is evidently an
added piece of funnel shaped metal, the first departure from the animal
form; afterwards in the progress of music the shape was expanded with
perception of its importance, until at last the bell became a marked
configuration of symmetry associated with quality of tone, refined,
penetrating, and sonorous. We have the old form still preserved to us
in our fog horns, and some ancient horns of the town in our market
place. In old Greek and Roman times some of the trumpets depicted
possess very beautiful outlines; but there is nothing to indicate any
great advance in musical evolution, and it scarcely seems probable
that even then the production of harmonic notes went much beyond those
common to the old trumpet horns. For an extended scale, much greater
length than any we see given would be necessary: else the harmonic
series could not be built up. Our old coach horn would about represent
the limit of the musical value attained; gradually, however, longer
tubes came to be used, and variety in shape and purpose awakened the
perceptive faculty to the possibilities of higher things.
Yet how strangely dull is human inventiveness, unless the ideal
aspiration precedes the routine of the worker, unless handicraft is
stimulated by demand going before, of “saying give me the power to
accomplish more; feed my ambition.” So we traverse the course of long
ages, finding it barren of improvements.
[Illustration: _The Hwangteih._
_Fig. 43._]
[Illustration: _The Haot’ung._
_Fig. 44._]
The Chinese furnish a remarkable instance of a nation inventive yet
stagnant; for although this people had the prototypes of almost
everything that with Europeans has become of infinite value to
modern civilization, the Chinese made nothing of them in practical
development. Midway in time—how, when, and where, there is no
information to guide us—the Chinese suddenly evolve a new thing,
a telescope trumpet, a slide trumpet, the latent principle of the
trombone; yet nothing came of it in their hands: it does not seem even
to have been devised for any musical aim, nor to have a purpose beyond
convenience.
The two trumpets here illustrated, called _Hwangteih_ by some
authorities, but by Van Aalst (that of the pattern we should in a
modern house take to be a hearth broom) is named _Haot’ung_; but
really Chinese names have such a never changing likeness that they are
as difficult to distinguish as Chinese faces; and as for remembering
them, my advice is, Do not try. These trumpets are on the sliding tube
system. The _Hwangteih_ is in three parts, and the _Haot’ung_ in two
parts, the first named being of very slender dimensions; the latter is
often made of wood covered with copper, but when for military use it
is of copper only. And here we should notice the feature peculiar to
all trumpets in these Eastern lands, the extremely shallow disc like
mouthpiece, with only the faintest indication of a cup,—throughout
India, Burmah, Siam, and in fact the whole Asian regions contiguous.
The effect of a shallow cup is the easier production of high, shrill
notes; and it may be that the lip muscles are in these races thin and
tense, the expanse of the disc merely exercising pressure, leaving only
a minute portion of the lips for vibration equal to the diameter of the
very narrow aperture entered by the stream of wind. The actual force
and vigour of the breath would thus have a more predominant influence
than any calculated variation of the lip muscles by will. The whole
character of the music which satisfies these semi-civilized people
seems to corroborate such a view. Shrillness and ear piercing intensity
were the effects aimed at.
These trumpets are made in several sizes; but as the proportions differ
from those which we find necessary for full harmonic development, it
does not appear that more than three or four notes are obtained by
ordinary playing. The globular ornaments upon the tubes serve the same
purpose as they do in European instruments, they enable the player to
press the tube to his lips with strength; and evidently the notion is
a very old one,—showing us how little is really modern. It is curious
too that years ago in the British Museum I found a little bronze statue
of a trumpeter of the Roman period, the trumpet being shaped at the end
like the _Hao-t’ung_. At the time I wondered at the singularity, trying
to find out some meaning and purpose in such configuration, but was
baffled; and it is only in the presence of the Chinese instrument that
one sees in it a survival of an Asian original type brought by Greek or
Roman into Europe after far Eastern incursions.
The _Hwang-teih_ and the _Hao-t’ung_ are reserved for marriage and
funeral ceremonies, in which they have a formal part assigned to
them; but it is chiefly for the marking of time or progress in the
ceremony. Some authors say that the _Hao-t’ung_ is only used in funeral
functions, and that it gives a grave befitting note, prolonged and
wailing.
The _La-pa_ is another trumpet with telescope slide, and is, one would
suppose, the most modern of the three. It is the military trumpet,
and it gives four notes, differently estimated by different writers.
It is singularly like the ancient Roman Lituus, and I conceive it
probable that the players were in advance of the procession, and that
the return curve of the bell was made with the intent that the sounds
or signals should be thrown backward for the better hearing by the
hosts following. The itinerant knife-grinders are stated, by ancient
privilege, to be accustomed to use the trumpet to proclaim their
calling in the streets.
[Illustration: _The La-pa._
_Fig. 45._]
Of the drums used by the Chinese, little need be said; drums are much
alike all the world over. The Chinese have them of great size, and as
large as five feet in in diameter. They are highly ornamented. Various
sizes are ordained to be used in the Confucian temple, each with some
specially allotted service; thus one placed on the Moon Terrace is
struck six times at the end of each verse, giving two beats in answer
to three beats of the larger drum. So orderly is everything arranged
and traditionally kept up.
[Illustration: _Fig. 46._
_The Yü or Tiger._]
There is one instrument—the _Yü_—so singular and original in character,
that it is worth serious consideration whether it would not be well to
introduce it into our orchestra, to further the Wagnerian development
of the music of the future. We have great use in our day for triangles
and cymbals, but they cannot reach the effect produced by the _Tiger_,
a Chinese picture of which is here given. The animal is somewhat
idealised, it must be admitted; almost as much so as permitted in a
photograph. Mark the singularly fascinating expression of the face
embodying pain, possibly torture; and then the reposeful attitude of
the tail; the whole figure symbolising the two conditions under which
music exists. In the musical scheme of the Chinese the normal state of
the animal is quiescent, but its voice is indispensable to the winding
up of the finale. You see that the _Tiger_ rests upon a resonant box,
about three feet long and twenty inches or so wide; and it has on its
back twenty-seven teeth, neither more nor less—an elaborate mystical
engarnishment much resembling a saw.
At the end of the grand Confucian Hymn performed in the presence of the
Emperor and all his Court, attended by his feather-swinging dancers,
the chief officer assigned to this service strikes the _Tiger_ on
the head three times; three fateful knocks (thus let it be noticed
anticipating Beethoven’s ominous device). Then with a vigorous swish
he passes his stick three times along the projections on the _Tiger_’s
back to announce the end of the strophe; three weird screeches are
heard succeeding each other (to the great delight of Straussians) rapid
as flashes of lightning, and in a hideous screech the scene ends.
And,—the Emperor retires.