Music is so delightfully innocent and charming an art that we cannot
wonder at finding it almost universally regarded as of divine origin.
Pagan nations generally ascribe the invention of their musical
instruments to their gods or to certain superhuman beings of a godlike
nature. The Hebrews attributed it to man; but as Jubal is mentioned as
"the father of all such as handle the harp and organ" only, and as
instruments of percussion are almost invariably in use long before
people are led to construct stringed and wind instruments, we may
suppose that, in the biblical records, Jubal is not intended to be
represented as the original inventor of all the Hebrew instruments, but
rather as a great promoter of the art of music.
However this may be, thus much is certain: there are among Christians at
the present day not a few sincere upholders of the literal meaning of
those records who maintain that instrumental music was already practised
in Heaven before the creation of the world. Elaborate treatises have
been written on the nature and effect of that heavenly music, and
passages from the Bible have been cited by the learned authors which are
supposed by them to confirm indisputably the opinions advanced in their
treatises.
It may, at a first glance, appear singular that nations have not
generally such traditional records respecting the originators of their
vocal music as they have respecting the invention of their musical
instruments. The cause is however explicable; to sing is as natural to
man as to speak, and uncivilised nations are not likely to speculate
whether singing has ever been invented.
There is no need to recount here the well-known mythological traditions
of the ancient Greeks and Romans referring to the origin of their
favourite musical instruments. Suffice it to remind the reader that
Mercury and Apollo were believed to be the inventors of the lyra and the
kithara; that the invention of the flute was attributed to Minerva; and
that Pan is said to have invented the syrinx. More worthy of our
attention are some similar records of the Hindus, because they have
hitherto scarcely been noticed in any work on music.
In the mythology of the Hindus the god Nareda is the inventor of the
_vina_, the principal national musical instrument of Hindustan.
Saraswati, the consort of Brahma, may be considered as the Minerva of
the Hindus. She is the goddess of music as well as of speech. To her is
attributed the invention of the systematic arrangement of the sounds
into a musical scale. She is represented seated on a peacock and playing
on a stringed instrument of the guitar kind. Brahma himself we find
depicted as a vigorous man with four handsome heads, beating with his
hands upon a small drum. And Vishnu, in his incarnation as Krishna, is
represented as a beautiful youth playing upon a flute. The Hindus still
possess a peculiar kind of flute which they consider as the favourite
instrument of Krishna. Furthermore, they have the divinity of Gen[=e]sa,
the god of wisdom, who is represented as a man with the head of an
elephant holding in his hands a tamboura--a kind of lute with a long
neck.
Among the Chinese we meet with a tradition according to which they
obtained their musical scale from a miraculous bird called Foung-hoang,
which appears to have been a sort of Phoenix. As regards the invention
of musical instruments, the Chinese have various traditions. In one of
these we are told that the origin of some of their most popular
instruments dates from the period when China was under the dominion of
heavenly spirits called Ki. Another assigns the invention of several of
their stringed instruments to the great Fohi, called "the Son of
Heaven," who was, it is said, the founder of the Chinese empire, and who
is stated to have lived about B. C. 3000, which was long after the
dominion of the Ki, or spirits. Again, another tradition holds that the
most important Chinese musical instruments, and the systematic
arrangement of the tones, are an invention of Niuva, a supernatural
female, who lived at the time of Fohi, and who was a virgin-mother. When
Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, happened to hear on a certain
occasion some divine music, he became so greatly enraptured that he
could not take any food for three months afterwards. The music which
produced this miraculous effect was that of Kouei, the Orpheus of the
Chinese, whose performance on the _king_, a kind of harmonicon
constructed of slabs of sonorous stone, would draw wild animals around
him and make them subservient to his will.
The Japanese have a beautiful tradition according to which the
Sun-goddess, in resentment of the violence of an evil-disposed brother,
retired into a cave, leaving the universe in darkness and in anarchy;
when the beneficent gods, in their concern for the welfare of mankind,
devised music to lure her forth from the retreat, and their efforts soon
proved successful.[7]
The Kalmuks, in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, adore a beneficent
divinity, called Maidari, who is represented as a rather jovial-looking
man, with a moustache and an imperial, playing upon an instrument with
three strings, somewhat resembling the Russian balalaika.
Almost all these ancient conceptions we meet with also among European
nations, though more or less modified.
Odin, the principal deity of the ancient Scandinavians, was the inventor
of magic songs and Runic writings.
In the Finnish mythology the divine Vainamoinen is said to have
constructed the five-stringed harp, called kantele, the old national
instrument of the Finns. The frame he made out of the bones of the pike,
and the teeth of the pike he used for the tuning-pegs. The strings he
made of hair from the tail of a spirited horse. When the harp fell into
the sea, and was lost, he made another, the frame of which was of
birchwood, with pegs made out of the branch of an oak-tree. As strings
for this harp he used the silky hair of a young girl. Vainamoinen took
his harp, and sat down on a hill near a silvery brook. There he played
with so irresistible an effect that he entranced whatever came within
hearing of his music. Men and animals listened enraptured; the wildest
beasts of the forest lost their ferocity; the birds of the air were
drawn towards him; the fishes rose to the surface of the water, and
remained immovable; the trees ceased to wave their branches; the brook
retarded its course, and the wind its haste; even the mocking echo
approached stealthily, and listened with the utmost attention to the
heavenly sounds. Soon the women began to cry; then the old men and the
children also began to cry; and the girls, and the young men--all cried
for delight. At last Vainamoinen himself wept; and his big tears ran
over his beard, and rolled into the water, and became beautiful pearls
at the bottom of the sea.
Several other musical gods or godlike musicians could be cited, and,
moreover, innumerable minor spirits, all bearing evidence that music is
of divine origin.
True, people who think themselves more enlightened than their
forefathers smile at these old traditions, and say that the original
home of music is the human heart. Be it so. But do not the purest and
most beautiful conceptions of man partake of a divine character? Is not
the art of music generally acknowledged to be one of these? And is it
not, therefore, even independently of myths and mysteries, entitled to
be called the divine art?