Critical And Historical Essays Lectures Delivered At Columbia U

That the Pan's pipes are the originals of all these species seems hardly open to doubt. Even among the Greeks and Romans we see traces of them in the double trumpet and the doub...

Now to do all this, there must be rules; or, to put it more broadly, there must be some innate quality that enables this art of sounds to move in sympathy with our feelings. I h...

In addition to this combination of singing and acting, the _tenson_ or poetic debate (which was one form of the troubadour songs, and one very often _acted_ by the jongleurs) pr...

We are aware that the drum is the most primitive instrument known to man. If all our knowledge of the Chinese were included in a simple list of their orchestral instruments, we...

Alessandro Scarlatti and his son Domenico, both celebrated in their day, are the next to demand attention. The former was born about 1650 and died about 1725. He wrote many oper...

To appreciate the change made by Gregory (540-604 A.D.), it is necessary to bear in mind the state of the church just before his time. As the Ambrosian chant had brought somethi...

An instrument of the harpsichord family which has significance in the development of the instruments of the Middle Ages is the spinet (from _spina_, "thorn"; it had leather poin...

Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right The bare, black cliff clang'd round him as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that...

If we take the next step in advance of instrumental music we come to the giving of meanings to these dances, and, as I have explained, these meanings will at first have referenc...

Until 1872, Bizet wrote but small and unimportant works, such as "The Pearl Fisher," "The Fair Maid of Perth," and several vaudeville operettas, some of which he wrote to order...

Round brackets: when around a single note these represent a note in the extract which was bracketed or otherwise highlighted. When around two or more notes, they represent a slu...

The fourth consists of a seemingly capricious intermixture of dual and triple rhythm, and is especially noticeable in Spanish and Portuguese music as well as in that of their So...

Referring to some newspaper reports which he knew to be without foundation, Bismarck once said, "Newspapers are simply a union of printer's ink and paper." Omitting the implied...

In making a Hindu melody (which of course must be in one of the seventy-two modes, just as in English we should say that a melody must be in one of our two modes, either major o...

Now that music began taking a more definite rhythmic form than before, a more regular dividing off of the phrases became necessary. This was accomplished by the use of a dot, an...

Carry this theory still further, and we shall make new discoveries. If we dance in the open air, unless we would dance over the horizon, we must turn somewhere; and if we have b...

disjunct Aeolian. [G: a'] +- A. Nete, or highest. ---+ Hypophrygian. +-| G. Paranete, next highest. | Hypolydian. +-| | F. Trite, third. | Dorian. +-| | | E. Nete, highest. ---+...

Last of all I wish to speak of the suggestion conveyed by means of tone-tint, the blending of timbre and pitch. It is essentially a modern element in music, and in our delight i...