of the old Pommer or Bombardo family and the origin of the modern
oboe. The oboe da caccia, derived from the alto pommer or Bombardo
piccolo of the sixteenth century, has gone out of use, the Italian
corno inglese (French cor anglais) having taken its place. There
being some confusion about the description by different writers
of the oboe da caccia and oboe d'amore, I fall back upon Dr. W.H.
Stone's authoritative definition that the oboe da caccia is a
bassoon raised a fourth in pitch, while the oboe d'amore is an oboe
lowered a fifth. The bassoon, the centre figure in the Plate, has
been regarded as a development of the bass pommer or Bombardone,
and the transformation has been generally attributed to a canon of
Ferrara named Afranio, a native of Pavia. This question has now been
definitively settled by Count L.F. Valdrighi, the librarian of the
Biblioteca Estense at Modena. He has proved (_Musurgiana_, No. 5,
"Il Phagotus d'Afranio"), that Afranio's invention, _ante_ 1539, was
of the nature of a corna musa (cornemuse or bagpipe), the bag being
most likely combined with soft bass melody pipes, called from their
quality of tone "Dolcisuoni," whence the dolcino bass of church
organs. This invention was improved by Giambattista Ravilio, also of
Ferrara, and thirty years later was perfected by Sigismund Scheltzer
of Nuremberg, who, rejecting the cornemuse bag, united the two tubes
into the "fagotto," so named from the fascine of beech (fagus), or
fagots. The fagotto is the same as our bassoon. This clearing up of a
disputed invention has been discovered in a very unlikely place--in
an Introduction to the Chaldee language, published in 1539, written
by the nephew of Afranio, Teseo-Ambrogio Albonesio, Professor of
Chaldee and Syriac at the University of Bologna.
The dolciano, to the extreme left of the Plate, will be thus seen
to owe the suggestion of its name to the original bassoon. But this
instrument has a clarinet or beating reed, not the double reed of the
oboe and bassoon. I state this fact upon the high authority of Mr.
Henry Lazarus, the clarinet-player, who names it "tenoroon," but Dr.
Stone has accepted this name as a synonym of the oboe da caccia, and
calls this instrument with a clarinet reed, "dolciano." Mr. Lazarus,
when in the Band of the Royal Military Asylum, played upon such an
instrument, as he informs me, made by Garrett of Westminster, at a
date that must have preceded Sax's invention, which combined the
conical tube and clarinet reed in the Saxophone. The basset horn, or
corno di bassetto, to the extreme right of the Plate, is the alto
clarinet, a fifth lower in pitch than the clarinet in C. It is said
to have been invented at Passau in Bavaria in 1770, but the name of
the inventor is not recorded. It was improved by Lotz of Presburg in
1782, and again by Iwan Müller in 1812. Mozart wrote two parts for
basset horns in his famous Requiem. The relative positions in the
Plate of the Oboe and Oboe da Caccia are indicated above.
[Illustration: XL]
PLATE XL.
SITÁRS AND VÍNA.
The Sitár is the favourite instrument of Upper India, and was
reintroduced and perfected by the poet-musician Amir Khusru of Delhi
in the thirteenth century. The name is Persian, and implies "three
strings," although the Sitár has now usually five, six, and sometimes
seven strings. Sitárs called _Taruffe_ have sympathetic strings of
fine wire attached to the side of the neck and passing underneath
the frets and bridge, to vibrate in unison with the notes of the
same pitch that are played. This contrivance, although of recent
date in Europe, is of great antiquity in the East, being mentioned
in the Sangíta Ratnâkera, the earliest known work in Sanscrit upon
music. The principal strings of the Sitár are sounded by a wire
plectrum worn upon the forefinger of the player's right hand; and
their accordance, which was noted when given to Mr. A.J. Ellis and
myself by H.H. The Rájah Rám Pál Singh, an Indian prince residing
in England, who played upon a fine Sitár now in my possession, is
[Music]. Here the keynote, or khuruj, is F. This method of tuning,
although not so common as tunings given later, is employed in the
north of India and the Punjab; and a similar employment of the
second and third for open strings may be found in the tuning of the
Sur-s'ringâra. The F string is the melody string stopped by the
frets. The other strings are occasionally struck, but are rarely
fretted, and never to produce harmony. The brass frets are secured
to the neck by catgut ties, and are movable, so that by changing
their positions different modes are obtained. The classical Sanscrit
name for the Sitár, the instrument drawn on the left, was Tritantri
(three-stringed) Vína. A form of Sitár, with a flat body, was called
Káchapi (Kacchapa, a tortoise) Vína, now known as Káchwâ Sitár. The
usual tuning of Sitárs having from three to seven strings is to these
intervals:--
[Music]
In these tunings C is the khuruj or keynote, the melody string being
máhdyamâ or F. Sitárs have usually seventeen to eighteen frets. The
five methods of arranging them, so as to produce different modes,
styled Thât, are as follows:--
[Illustration: Intervals upon the F or melody string.]
The word "Thât," employed to signify scale or mode, should not be
confounded with "Râga," the foundation of all Indian music. Râga has
no equivalent in European musical language, but may be described as
a melody type founded upon the intervals of a mode, and having a
succession of notes so arranged as to excite a certain feeling of
the mind. There may be many melodies in the same râga, differing
distinctly from each other. Methods for the Sitár have been written
in Bengâli by the Rájah Sir S.M. Tagore, a well-known amateur, and
in Mahrátti by a Brahmin musician of Poona, Anna Ghárpure, a fine
performer now in the service of H.H. the Thâkore Sahib of Wadhwân.
Besides the Rájah Rám Pál Singh, I had an opportunity of hearing
a player from Jeypur, at an exhibition called "India in London,"
in 1886. The technique and charm of his performance are not easily
forgotten. The resonance body of an ordinary Sitár is a gourd, but he
had one with two gourds, known as the "Been," or Vína Sitár.
The Sitár in the centre, with fiddle-shaped body, is the Súrsanga, or
Esrar without sympathetic strings, a bowed instrument combining the
Sitár with the Sárungí. It is a modern instrument, and is intended
to accompany women's voices. It has four strings, tuned, upon the
authority of the Rájah Sir S.M. Tagore, as given by Mr. Victor
Mahillon in his admirable Catalogue of the Museum of the Brussels
Conservatoire, [Music].
The third instrument, upon the right, attached to two gourds, is
the Mahati or great Vína--known now as the "Been." It is the most
ancient and finest Indian instrument, and is also the most difficult
to play. It is composed of a bamboo resting upon two gourds, and has
seven strings--two at the side nearest the F or melody string, four
over the frets, and one at the side away from the melody string. The
tuning, the pitch varying with the size of the instrument, is as
follows:--[Music] The string × is tuned E or A as required in the
"râga" played. In the drawing five strings have been shown over the
frets; the string, however, from the peg above and nearest to the
nut, should pass over a small ivory head, not shown, but placed on
the side of the bamboo, between the second and third frets, to the
small bridge shown at the farthest end of the instrument at the side,
and not over the main bridge. The frets, twenty-two in number, are
at semitonic intervals, and fixed. The instrument is played with two
plectra upon the first two fingers of the player's right hand; the
two side strings are struck by the nail of the little finger moved
upwards; the single side string, upon the other side, is struck by
the little finger of the left hand when required. The instrument is
held with the gourd nearest the nut resting upon the left shoulder,
while the right gourd rests beneath the right arm. It should be noted
that the disposition of strings is, in Vínas, reversed from that of
Sitárs. There is a peculiarly soft and plaintive quality of tone in
the Vína that is altogether wanting in the Sitár.
There are two systems of music in vogue in India at the present
day--the Karnâtik or southern system, and the Hindustâni or
northern. The latter is chiefly in the hands of Mahomedan
professors, who have borrowed from the Arabian and Persian systems.
The Karnâtik is more melodious, and possesses fewer traces of foreign
innovation. Instruments used by Karnâtik professors employ only the
intervals of the tonic fourth and fifth (or their octaves) upon the
open strings. Hence we find the southern Indian Vína--an instrument
with only one resonance gourd, and a wooden body like a lute--tuned
to the following intervals:--
[Music] or [Music]
the first method being known as "Pánchamâ s'ruti," the latter as
"Máhdyamâ s'ruti," from the relative intervals between the strings.
The illustrations of the Súrsanga, Mahati Vína, and three-stringed
Sitár, are from a fine Indian collection, divided by the Rájah Sir
Sourindro Mohun Tagore between the Brussels Conservatoire and the
London Royal College of Music.
For completing this information concerning Indian stringed
instruments, as well as that of the Indian Drums in Plate XLI., I am
indebted to one of the highest authorities on the subject, Lieutenant
C.R. Day, Oxfordshire Light Infantry (late 43rd), whose recent
personal experience and searching studies have been generously placed
by him at my disposal.
[Illustration: XLI]
PLATE XLI.
INDIAN DRUMS.
Painted instruments consisting of a wooden drum, one of earthenware,
and a Tam-Tam. The employment of such instruments is necessarily
rhythmic, and they occupy a place on the borderland of music and mere
noise. Mr. Rowbotham, however (_History of Music_, vol. i., London,
1885), in formulating the stages through which instrumental music
has passed, according to a development theory as applied to music,
considers the drum first responded to the nascent conception of music
in the prehistoric man, and has since been tenaciously preserved as
an adjunct to religious service among partially civilised races. The
Nautch girls, at "India in London," London, 1886, performed their
soothing gyrations to the gentle Sárungí, a bowed instrument with
sympathetic strings, accompanied by the beating of such drums.
There are many varieties of drums to be found in India, the names
varying in different parts of the country. The largest of the three
Drums here shown is not used by professional musicians, but in bands
of street music found in all bazaars, and over the gateways of
temples, etc., called Nahabat, or Nakkera Khaneh (in South India,
Perya méla), and composed of low-class Mahomedans, or Hindus of the
barber caste. Such bands consist of drums of various shapes and
kinds, and primitive instruments of the oboe kind, with drones and
cymbals. Musicians in the East are usually placed over the gateways,
nearly all of importance having galleries for that purpose.
Professional musicians and Nautch girls generally use the _M'ridang_
or _Tabla_. The Drum with the striped body and leather braces is a
kind of M'ridang. The genuine Drum bearing this name is longer in
proportion to its diameter, and has one head larger than the other.
The two heads are tuned to the tonic and fourth or fifth as required.
The pieces of wood between the braces and shell are used to assist
in the tuning, and should be noticed. _Tabla_ are small copper
kettledrums tuned similarly. Drum-playing upon such instruments is a
great art, and can only be learned by years of study. A good _Tabla_
or _M'ridang_ player will earn from 100 to 150 rupees per month. The
wrist, flat of the hand, and fingers are employed. Such instruments
should not be very noisy, the skill of the player being the first
consideration. The M'ridang is considered to be the most ancient of
Indian Drums; its origin is popularly ascribed to the god Mahadeo
(S'iva).
The earthenware Kettledrum or Tam-Tam, here shown, is used by beggars
and fakirs to attract attention as they wander from house to house.
A similarly shaped kettledrum of copper, but very much larger--about
three or four feet in diameter--is known by the name of Nagara or
Nakkera, and is much used in the bands attached to the service of
temples, and found over the gates of forts and palaces of native
chiefs. Such drums are beaten in a peculiar way with short curved
sticks; and, although when heard close the sound is anything but
pleasing, yet, when heard from a distance among the mountains, in
company with shrill oboes and deeper drones, the sounds rising and
falling with the breeze and echoing from hill to hill, the effect is
in character with the wildness of the country, and the hearer often
listens, rapt, in spite of himself.
The three Drums, here represented, belong to the Music Class Room of
the University of Edinburgh, and have been drawn by the permission of
Professor Sir Herbert Oakeley.
[Illustration: XLII]
PLATE XLII.
SAW DUANG & BOW. SAW TAI & BOW. SAW OO & BOW. KLUI. PEE.
These instruments belong to H.M. the King of Siam, and were drawn
by the gracious permission of H.R.H. Prince Narés Varariddhi, then
Siamese Minister in England, and brother of the King.
The Saw Tai, or Siamese fiddle (centre figure), has the lower part
of the neck of carved ivory, and the upper part of gold enamelled.
The back is of cocoa-nut shells, jewelled. There is a jewelled
boss on the sound membrane, which is of parchment. It is the same
instrument as the Javese Rabáb, and is of Persian origin. The
strings, three in number, of silk cord, meet at the top beneath the
pegs, and pass under a ligature, whence they diverge to the bridge.
It has no finger-board, and the length of string to vibrate is not
marked off, as is usual with bowed instruments, by pressure upon the
finger-board, but by pressing the independent string with the entire
width of the finger, which leaves the intonation a little uncertain.
The player squats cross-legged, and holds the instrument in a sloping
position.
The Saw Chine, or Chinese fiddle, is shown in two varieties, the Saw
Duang (left of centre figure) with jewels round one of the pegs, and
the Saw Oo (right of centre figure). Like the Saw Tai, these fiddles
have no finger-boards. The bowstring, as in the Chinese Urh-hsien and
Hu-ch'in, is inserted between the strings so as to play either. The
wind instruments here shown are a Klui, or flute (on the left), which
has a membrane over one hole, resembling the Basque galoubet; and the
Pee (on the right), a kind of oboe, very harsh, and resembling in
tone a very powerful bagpipe, a resemblance assisted by the peculiar
heptatonic scale of the Siamese, being not far off the Syrian scale,
noticed in the Scotch bagpipe. (See Introduction, page xv., and
Plates V. and XLIII.) The Pee is considered to be of Javese origin.
There are four kinds of Bands in Siam, the precise details of which
are given in _Notes on Siamese Musical Instruments_, a work prepared
at the Siamese Embassy and published in London, 1885. The Lao Ph[=a]n
Band, peculiar to the north of Siam, includes the reed instrument
called Ph[=a]n, mentioned in the Introduction, page xviii.
[Illustration: XLIII]
PLATE XLIII.
RANAT EK. KHONG YAI. TA'KHAY.
These instruments, like those drawn in Plate XLII., belong to H.M.
the King of Siam, and were also drawn for this work by the gracious
permission of H.R.H. Prince Narés.
Harmonicons of wood and of metal, such as the Ranat and Khong,
are the foundation of music in Siam, Burma, Java, and the Indian
Archipelago generally. They also extend into India, and even, in
another direction, to South Africa. Tuned in Siam to a heptatonic
scale, not founded upon an harmonic conception of chords, they
present, at least ideally, a ladder of seven equal steps, with which
the native ear is satisfied. The performances, some years ago, of
the King of Siam's band in the Royal Albert Hall, South Kensington,
allowed this scale to be heard, and afforded full scope to the
remarkable technical skill of the Ranat players.
The instruments drawn are a Ranat Ek of twenty-one wooden bars, in a
cradle-like stand beautifully ornamented with ivory; a Khong Yai of
eighteen metal kettles, of a kind of bronze or bell metal known as
"gongsa," in an ivory stand painted like tortoiseshell, with brass
edgings; and the very peculiar Ta'khay, or crocodile, with three
strings and twelve bridges, including the nut, to fret them. The
last-mentioned instrument is played with a plectrum, and ornamented
with a crocodile's head and ivory ornaments.
[Illustration: XLIV]
PLATE XLIV.
HU-CH'IN & BOW. SHÊNG. SAN-HSIEN. P'I-P'A.
We learn from Mr. J.A. Van Aalst's comprehensive treatise on Chinese
Music, published, it may at first sight appear somewhat oddly, by
the Imperial Maritime Customs (Shanghai, 1884), that the Hu-ch'in,
the left-hand figure in the Plate, is one of the most popular
musical instruments in Peking. The strings, four in number, are of
silk, and are tuned in pairs a fifth apart. This instrument is in
fact a double-strung Erh-hsien or Urh-hsien (Van Aalst and Dennys;
Ur-heen, Engel), and has the same peculiar arrangement by which the
bow is fixed between the strings for playing. It is of cane and
horsehair, and the rosin for it is stuck upon the body, a hollow
cylinder of bamboo, wood, or copper, through which the long neck of
the instrument is thrust. The upper end of the body is covered with
snakeskin, while the lower is left open. The Erh-hsien, which has a
similar bamboo body but two strings only, is more generally popular
than the Hu-ch'in, and is met with all over China. The Ti-ch'in,
according to Dennys the favourite instrument with blind men, is also
similarly bowed, and has half a cocoa-nut shell for the body, covered
by a thin board. These bowed instruments, it is believed, found their
way into China with the Buddhist religion.
The name for the next instrument, the reed mouth-organ, Shêng, sounds
like "shung," rhyming with "sung." From this ancient instrument have
come the modern popular developments of the "free-reed" organ, first
applied about 1780, at the instance of Professor Kratzenstein, to
organ reed-stops by a Copenhagen organ-builder named Kirsnick, who
had settled at St. Petersburg, an invention soon afterwards carried
to Germany by the celebrated Abbé Vogler. The French Harmonium
and American Organ, the concertinas and accordion, are well-known
examples of the "free-reed" principle, which differs from the Church
organ beating-reed inasmuch as the reed or vibrator of metal does not
overlap any part of its frame. The Shêng is a gourd with its top cut
off and a flat cover cemented upon it. Twenty-one bamboo pipes are
inserted round the cover, but four, being intended for convenience
in holding the instrument, do not sound. Those intended to sound are
provided with small brass reeds. By a peculiar arrangement, unique in
reed instruments, the wind, attacking all the reeds simultaneously,
at once escapes by ventages in the pipes, until stopped by the
fingers for the pipes that are to sound. The lengths of the pipes
are merely ornamental, the actual lengths required being determined
by slot-like cuttings in the pipes, not seen in front. There are
seventeen sounding pipes, as already said, but only eleven notes, as
some notes are repeated in the unison or octave. The scale, which the
_à peu près_ musicians are satisfied with, may be thus noted--
[Music]
The succession of notes in the first octave resembles that of the
ancient Phrygian mode and that church mode in which Thomas Tallis's
famous service is composed. The exact measurements of the intervals
heard at the Health Exhibition are to be found in Mr. A.J. Ellis's
Paper _On the Musical Scales of Various Nations_, published in the
_Journal of the Society of Arts_, London, 25th March, 1885.
Mr. N.B. Dennys, in his valuable notes on Chinese Musical Instruments
read before the North China Branch of the Asiatic Society, 21st
October, 1873, gives the name of the three-stringed instrument in
the drawing, with a long neck like a tamboura, as San-hsien, with
which Mr. Van Aalst agrees. The Peking musicians called it Sien-tzê
(pronounced like Shen-zy). Like the Japanese Siamisen the San-hsien
has no frets. The drum-like body is covered on the upper side with
snakeskin, the under side being left open as in a tambourine or
banjo. The three strings were tuned ascending a minor tone between
the first and second, and a fifth between the second and third
strings: the outer strings being consequently a major sixth apart.
The strings were plucked by two bone plectra extended like claws
beyond the ends of the fingers, and the player stopped a Pentatonic
or five-note scale, thus: [Music] nearly in just intonation.
The P'i-p'a, according to Dennys and Van Aalst, or Balloon Guitar
(the Peking musicians called it Phi-pe), has a body nearly a
foot in diameter, from which it takes its English name, and four
strings played usually with the fingers and tuned as fourth, fifth,
and octave from the lowest note. The large semi-elliptical frets
above the finger-board were not used by the player at the Health
Exhibition; he restricted himself to the twelve frets upon the
finger-board. The P'i-p'a is usually played by men who, in the South
of China, are hired as minstrels or ballad-singers. The stopping of
this instrument was pentatonic, as with the San-hsien, and the scale
began upon the same note, but the tuning of the fretted instrument
was less good than that noted of the unfretted one. Mr. Van Aalst
informs us that the notes are reiterated by rapidly passing the long
finger-nail or plectrum backwards and forwards across the string, to
produce an effect of sostenuto similarly sought for in Europe for the
Mandoline, Bandurria, and Dulcimer. These instruments belong to the
Music Class Room of the University of Edinburgh.
[Illustration: XLV]
PLATE XLV.
CHINESE TI-TZU, SO-NA, YUEH-CH'IN. JAPANESE HIJI-RIKI. CHINESE LA-PA.
The Ti-tzu to the left in the Plate is the Chinese flute. It is
usually bound round with waxed silk and ornamented with tassels. It
has seven holes besides the embouchure, that nearest to the latter
being covered with a thin membrane as in the Provençal galoubet,
taken from the sap of the bamboo and melted at the moment it is
applied, intended to make the quality of tone more reedy. The
remaining six holes are stopped by the fingers. According to Mr. Van
Aalst, twelve notes in a diatonic succession, beginning upon the A
of the violin, form the compass of this instrument, but with much
uncertainty of intonation, which may be as much due to the measuring
for boring by the instrument-makers as to the peculiarities of an
ideal Chinese scale. The scale played at the Health Exhibition, South
Kensington, in 1884, by a native ti-tzu player, was a B flat scale
with the third rather sharper than the minor but less than the major
third, that is, a neuter third, which, as we have seen, is frequently
met with in Eastern non-harmonic scales. However, there is great
difficulty in determining wind instrument scales accurately, from the
power the player has to alter intonation by blowing differently.
The Chinese So-na is a copper wind instrument--a kind of oboe--played
with a double reed. On account of the shortness of the reed there
is a disk below it to protect the lips of the player. There are
two small pierced copper spheres like those in the trumpets in Fra
Angelico's paintings, beneath which are the seven finger-holes
in the front and two thumb-holes behind the pipe. A loose brass
cone of considerable size covers the lower end and is fastened
to the upper by a string. This instrument is possibly the Indian
Soonai. There are nine notes, as in the Scotch bagpipe, which
the So-na somewhat resembles in quality of tone, but it is more
strident and disagreeable. The scale, as played by a native at the
Health Exhibition, gave intervals of whole and three-quarter tones
resembling the bagpipe, but as the performer succeeded in playing
with other instruments that apparently differed in scale, the
accommodation in blowing must be credited with the approximately
satisfactory result.
The Yueh-ch'in, or Moon Guitar, so called from the shape of the
sound-board, has four silk strings tuned as fifths in pairs. The
strings are struck with the finger-nails, which the Chinese wear
long, or a plectrum. The strings are sometimes of copper instead of
silk. The instrument is chiefly used to accompany the voice, and the
repetition of a note, as in the P'i-p'a, appears to be a favourite
effect.