A really complete account of all the musical instruments from the
earliest time known to us would require much more space than can here
be afforded. We can attempt only a concise historical survey. We
venture to hope that the illustrations interspersed throughout the text
will to the intelligent reader elucidate many facts which, for the
reason stated, are touched upon but cursorily.
PRE-HISTORIC RELICS.
[Illustration]
A musical relic has recently been exhumed in the department of Dordogne
in France, which was constructed in an age when the fauna of France
included the reindeer, the rhinoceros, and the mammoth, the hyæna, the
bear, and the cave-lion. It is a small bone somewhat less than two
inches in length, in which is a hole, evidently bored by means of one
of the little flint knives which men used before acquaintance with the
employment of metal for tools and weapons. Many of these flints were
found in the same place with the bones. Only about half a dozen of the
bones, of which a considerable number have been exhumed, possess the
artificial hole. We give a woodcut of one of them.
M. Lartet surmises the perforated bone to have been used as a whistle
in hunting animals. It is the first digital phalanx of a ruminant,
drilled to a certain depth by a smooth cylindrical bore on its lower
surface near the expanded upper articulation. On applying it to the
lower lip and blowing into it a shrill sound is yielded. Three of
these phalanges are of reindeer, one is of Chamois. Again, among the
relics which have been brought to light from the cave of Lombrive, in
the department of Ariège, occur several eye-teeth of the dog which
have a hole drilled into them near the root. Probably they also yield
sounds like those reindeer bones, or like the tube of a key. Another
whistle--or rather a pipe, for it has three finger-holes by means of
which different tones could be produced--was found in a burying-place,
dating from the stone period, in the vicinity of Poitiers in France:
it is rudely constructed from a fragment of stag’s-horn. It is blown
at the end, like a _flûte à bec_ and the three finger-holes are placed
equidistantly. Four distinct tones must have been easily obtainable
on it: the lowest, when all the finger-holes were covered; the other
three, by opening the finger-holes successively. From the character
of the stone utensils and weapons discovered with this pipe it is
conjectured that the burying-place from which it was exhumed dates from
the latest time of the stone age. Therefore, however old it may be, it
is a more recent contrivance than the reindeer-bone whistle from the
cavern of the Dordogne.
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.
The most ancient nations historically known possessed musical
instruments which, though in acoustic construction greatly inferior to
our own, exhibit a degree of perfection which could have been attained
only after a long period of cultivation. Many tribes of the present day
have not yet reached this stage of musical progress.
As regards the instruments of the ancient Egyptians we now possess
perhaps more detailed information than of those appertaining to any
other nation of antiquity. This information we owe especially to the
exactness with which the instruments are depicted in sculptures and
paintings. Whoever has examined these interesting monuments with even
ordinary care cannot but be convinced that the representations which
they exhibit are faithful transcripts from life. Moreover, if there
remained any doubt respecting the accuracy of the representations of
the musical instruments it might be dispelled by existing evidence.
Several specimens have been discovered in tombs preserved in a more or
less perfect condition.
The Egyptians possessed various kinds of harps, some of which were
elegantly shaped and tastefully ornamented. The largest were about six
and a half feet high; and the small ones frequently had some sort of
stand which enabled the performer to play upon the instrument while
standing. The name of the harp was _buni_. Its frame had no front
pillar; the tension of the strings therefore cannot have been anything
like so strong as on our present harp.
The Egyptian harps most remarkable for elegance of form and elaborate
decoration are the two which were first noticed by Bruce, who found
them painted in fresco on the wall of a sepulchre at Thebes, supposed
to be the tomb of Rameses III. who reigned about 1250 B.C. Bruce’s
discovery created sensation among the musicians. The fact that at so
remote an age the Egyptians should have possessed harps which vie with
our own in elegance and beauty of form appeared to some so incredible
that the correctness of Bruce’s representations, as engraved in his
“Travels,” was greatly doubted. Sketches of the same harps, taken
subsequently and at different times from the frescoes, have since
been published, but they differ more or less from each other in
appearance and in the number of strings. A kind of triangular harp of
the Egyptians was discovered in a well-preserved condition and is now
deposited in the Louvre. It has twenty-one strings; a greater number
than is generally represented on the monuments. All these instruments,
however much they differed from each other in form, had one peculiarity
in common, namely the absence of the fore pillar.
The _nofre_, a kind of guitar, was almost identical in construction
with the Tamboura at the present day in use among several eastern
nations. It was evidently a great favourite with the ancient
Egyptians. A figure of it is found among their hieroglyphs, signifying
“good.” It occurs in representations of concerts dating earlier than
from B.C. 1500. The _nofre_ affords the best proof that the Egyptians
had made considerable progress in music at a very early age; since it
shows that they understood how to produce on a few strings, by means of
the finger-board, a greater number of notes than were obtainable even
on their harps. The instrument had two or four strings, was played with
a plectrum and appears to have been sometimes, if not always, provided
with frets. In the British museum is a fragment of a fresco obtained
from a tomb at Thebes, on which two female performers on the _nofre_
are represented. The painter has distinctly indicated the frets.
Small pipes of the Egyptians have been discovered, made of reed, with
three, four, five, or more finger-holes. There are some interesting
examples in the British museum; one of which has seven holes burnt in
at the side. Two straws were found with it of nearly the same length
as the pipe, which is about one foot long. In some other pipes pieces
of a kind of thick straw have also been found inserted into the tube,
obviously serving for a similar purpose as the _reed_ in our oboe or
clarionet.
The _sêbi_, a single flute, was of considerable length, and the
performer appears to have been obliged to extend his arms almost at
full length in order to reach the furthest finger-hole. As _sêbi_
is also the name of the leg-bone (like the Latin _tibia_) it may be
supposed that the Egyptian flute was originally made of bone. Those,
however, which have been found are of wood or reed.
A flute-concert is painted on one of the tombs in the pyramids of Gizeh
and dates, according to Lepsius, from an age earlier than B.C. 2000.
Eight musicians (as seen in the woodcut) are performing on flutes.
Three of them, one behind the other, are kneeling and holding their
flutes in exactly the same manner. Facing these are three others, in a
precisely similar position. A seventh is sitting on the ground to the
left of the six, with his back turned towards them, but also in the
act of blowing his flute, like the others. An eighth is standing at the
right side of the group with his face turned towards them, holding his
flute before him with both hands, as if he were going to put it to his
mouth, or had just left off playing. He is clothed, while the others
have only a narrow girdle round their loins. Perhaps he is the director
of this singular band, or the _solo_ performer who is waiting for the
termination of the _tutti_ before renewing his part of the performance.
The division of the players into two sets, facing each other, suggests
the possibility that the instruments were classed somewhat like the
first and second violins, or the _flauto primo_ and _flauto secondo_ of
our orchestras. The occasional employment of the interval of the third,
or the fifth, as accompaniment to the melody, is not unusual even with
nations less advanced in music than were the ancient Egyptians.
[Illustration]
The Double-Pipe, called _mam_, appears to have been a very popular
instrument, if we judge from the frequency of its occurrence in
the representations of musical performances. Furthermore, the
Egyptians had, as far as is known to us, two kinds of trumpets;
three kinds of tambourines, or little hand drums; three kinds of
drums, chiefly barrel-shaped; and various kinds of gongs, bells,
cymbals, and castanets. The trumpet appears to have been usually of
brass. A peculiar wind-instrument, somewhat the shape of a champagne
bottle and perhaps made of pottery or wood, occurs only once in the
representations transmitted to us.
The Egyptian drum was from two to three feet in length, covered with
parchment at both ends and braced by cords. The performer carried it
before him, generally by means of a band over his shoulder, while he
was beating it with his hands on both ends. Of another kind of drum an
actual specimen has been found in the excavations made in the year 1823
at Thebes. It was 1½ feet high and 2 feet broad, and had cords for
bracing it. A piece of catgut encircled each end of the drum, being
wound round each cord, by means of which the cords could be tightened
or slackened at pleasure by pushing the two bands of catgut towards or
from each other. It was beaten with two drumsticks slightly bent. The
Egyptians had also straight drumsticks with a handle, and a knob at
the end. The Berlin museum possesses some of these. The third kind of
drum was almost identical with the _darabouka_ (or _darabukkeh_) of the
modern Egyptians. The Tambourine was either round, like that which is
at the present time in use in Europe as well as in the east; or it was
of an oblong square shape, slightly incurved on the four sides.
The Sistrum consisted of a frame of bronze or brass into which three
or four metal bars were loosely inserted, so as to produce a jingling
noise when the instrument was shaken. The bars were often made in
the form of snakes, or they terminated in the head of a goose. Not
unfrequently a few metal rings were strung on the bars, to increase
the noise. The frame was sometimes ornamented with the figure of a cat.
The largest sistra which have been found are about eighteen inches in
length, and the smallest about nine inches. The sistrum was principally
used by females in religious performances. Its Egyptian name was
_seshesh_.
The Egyptian cymbals closely resembled our own in shape. There are two
pairs of them in the British museum. One pair was found in a coffin
enclosing the mummy of a sacred musician, and is deposited in the same
case with the mummy and coffin. Among the Egyptian antiquities in the
British museum are also several small bells of bronze. The largest is
2¼ inches in height, and the smallest three-quarters of an inch.
Some of them have a hole at the side near the top wherein the clapper
was fastened.