Part 10

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 points up to 1500), first made by Johannes Spinctus, Venice, 1500. It was a harpsichord with a _square_ case, the strings running diagonally instead of lengthwise. When the spinet was of very small dimensions it was called a virginal; when it was in the shape of our modern grand piano, it was, of course, a harpsichord; and when the strings and sounding board were arranged perpendicularly, the instrument was called a clavicitherium. As early as 1500, then, four different instruments were in general use, the larger ones having a compass of about four octaves. The connecting link between the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the piano, was the dulcimer or hackbrett, which was a tavern instrument. Pantaleon Hebenstreit, a dancing master and inventor of Leipzig, in 1705 added an improved hammer action, which was first applied to keyboard instruments by Cristofori, an instrument maker at Florence (1711). His instrument was called _forte-piano_ or _pianoforte_, because it would strike loud or soft.

These instruments all descended from the ancient lyre, the only difference being that instead of causing the strings to vibrate by means of a plectrum held in the hand, the plectrum was set in motion by the mechanism of the _claves_ or keys. The system of fingering employed in playing the harpsichord, up to 1700, did not make use of the thumb. J.S. Bach, F. Couperin, and J.P. Rameau were the pioneers in this matter. The first published work on piano technique and fingering was that by C.P.E. Bach (1753).

With the advent of bowed instruments the foundation was laid for the modern orchestra, of which they are the natural basis. The question of the antiquity of the bowed instrument has often been discussed, with the result that the latter has been definitely classed as essentially modern, for the reason that it did not become known in Europe until about the tenth to the twelfth centuries. As a matter of fact, the instrument is doubtless of Person or Hindu origin, and was brought to the West by the Arabs, who were in Spain from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries; in fact, most of our stringed instruments, both the bowed and those of the lyre type, we owe to the Arabs--the very name of the lute, _el oud_ ("shell" in Arabic) became _liuto_ in Italian, in German _laute_, and in English lute. There were many varieties of these bowed instruments, and it is thought that the principle arose from rubbing one instrument with another. The only other known examples of bowed instruments of primitive type are (1) the _ravanastron_, an instrument of the monochord type, native to India, made to vibrate by a kind of bow with a string stretched from end to end; (2) the Welsh _chrotta_ (609 A.D.), a primitive lyre-shaped instrument, with which, however, the use of the bow seems to have been a much later invention. Mention should also be made of the marine trumpet, much in vogue from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries; it consisted of a long, narrow, resonant box, composed of three boards, over which was stretched a single string; other unchangeable strings, struck with the bow, served as drones. Only the harmonics were played on the marine trumpet.

The principle of procuring the vibrations in stringed instruments by means of a bow was, of course, applied to the monochord class of keyed instruments, and was thus the origin of the hurdy-gurdy, which consisted of a wheel covered with resined leather and turned by a crank.

The bowed instruments were originally of two types, the first in the form of the lute or mandolin; the second probably derived from the Welsh _crwth_, consisting of a flat, long box strung with strings (called fidel from _fides_, "string"). The combination of these types, which were subjected to the most fantastic changes of shape, led eventually to the modern violin family.

We know that the highest plane of perfection in the violin was reached in Italy about 1600. The Cremona makers, Amati, Guarnerius, and Stradivarius, made their most celebrated instruments between 1600 and 1750.

The violin bow, in its earliest form, was nothing more than an ordinary bow with a stretched string; Corelli and Tartini used a bow of the kind. The present shape of the bow is due to Tourte, a Paris maker, who experimented in conjunction with Viotti, the celebrated violinist.

By looking at the original lute and the Arabian _rebeck_ or Welsh _crwth_ (originally Latin _chorus_), we can see how the modern violin received its generally rounded shape from the lute, its flatness from the _rebeck_, the sides of the instrument being cut out in order to give the bow free access to the side strings. The name too, _fidula_ or _vidula_, from mediaeval Latin _fides_, "string," became fiddle and viola, the smaller viola being called violino, the larger, violoncello and viola da gamba.

In the Middle Ages, the different species of bowed instrument numbered from fifteen to twenty, and it was not until between 1600 and 1700 that the modern forms of these instruments obtained the ascendancy.

Of the wind instruments it was naturally the flute that retained its antique form; the only difference between the modern instrument and the ancient one being that the former is blown crosswise, instead of perpendicularly. Quantz, the celebrated court flute player to Frederick the Great of Prussia, was the first to publish, in 1750, a so-called "method" of playing the traversal (crosswise) flute.

With the reed instruments the change in modern times is more striking. The original form of the reed instruments was of the double-reed variety. The oldest known mention of them dates from 650 A.D., when the name applied is _calamus_ (reed); later the names _shalmei_ (_chalumeau_, "straw," from German _halm_) and _shawm_ were used. These instruments were played by means of a bell-shaped mouthpiece, the double reed being fixed inside the tube. It was not until toward the end of the sixteenth century that the bell-shaped mouthpiece was dispensed with and the reed brought directly to the lips, thus giving the player greater power of expression. The oboe is a representative type of the higher pitched double-reed instruments. In its present shape it is about two hundred years old. As the deeper toned instruments were necessarily very long, six to eight and even ten feet, an assistant had to walk before the performer, holding the tube on his shoulder. This inconvenience led to bending the tube back on itself, making it look somewhat like a bundle of sticks, hence the word _faggot_; although it is commonly known in this country by the French name, _bassoon_. This manner of arranging the instrument dates from about the year 1550. The clarinet is an essentially modern instrument, the single beating reed and cylindrical tube coming into use about 1700, the invention of a German named Denner, who lived at Nuremberg.

All the brass instruments of the Middle Ages seem to have been very short, therefore high in pitch. We remember that the Romans had trumpets (chiefly used in signalling) called _buccina_, and we may assume that the whole modern family of brass instruments has descended from this primitive type. As late as 1500, the hunting horn consisted of but one loop which passed over the shoulder and around the body of the player. A horn of from six to seven feet in length was first used about 1650; and we know that, owing to the smallness of the instruments and their consequent high pitch in those days, many of Bach's scores contain parts absolutely impracticable for our modern brass instruments. The division of these instruments into classes, such as trumpets, horns, trombones, etc., is due to the differences in shape, which in turn produce tones of different quality. The large bore of the trombone gives great volume to the tone, the small bore of the trumpet great brilliancy, the medium bore of the horn veils the brilliancy on one hand and lightens the thickness of tone on the other.

The horn, called _cor de chasse_, was first used in the orchestra in 1664, in one of Lully's operas, but its technique (stopped tones and crooks) was only properly understood about 1750; the present-day valve horn did not come into general use until within the last half century. Fifty years before the principle had been applied to the horn the trumpet had crooks and slides, a mechanism which, in the trumpet, is still retained in England, pointing to the fact that the trombone is, after all, nothing but a very large kind of trumpet.

XI

FOLK SONG AND ITS RELATION TO NATIONALISM IN MUSIC

In order to understand as well as to feel music, we must reduce it to its primary elements, and these are to be found in folk song, or, to go further back, in its predecessor, the chant of the savages.

Folk music may be likened to a twig which has fallen into a salt mine, to borrow an expression from Taine; every year adds fresh jewels to the crystals that form on it until at last the only resemblance to the original is in the general contour. We know that the nucleus of melody lies in one note, just as the origin of language is to be sought for in the word. Therefore folk music proper must be separated from what may be called barbaric music, the most primitive type of the latter being the "one-note" strain from which spring the melodies of the people. This one-note form passes through many rhythmical changes before song becomes developed to the extent of adding several notes to its means of expression. The next development of savage chanting (which is the precursor of folk song) may be traced back to its two elements, one of which was a mere savage howl, and the other, that raising of the voice under stress of strong emotion which still constitutes one of our principal means of expression.

Thus, in this barbaric music we invariably find three principles: 1, rhythm; 2, the howl or descending scale of undefined intervals; and 3, the emotional raising of the voice. The rhythm, which characterizes the most primitive form of song or chant, consists of the incessant repetition of a very small group of rhythmic sounds. This incessant recurrence of one idea is characteristic of primitive, weak, or insane natures. The second principle, which invariably includes the first (pointing to a slightly more advanced state of development), is met with in many folk songs of even modern times. The third principle is one which indicates the transition stage from primitive or barbaric music to folk music.

To the primitive savage mind, the smallest rhythmic phrase is a wonderful invention, therefore it is repeated incessantly. Add to that a certain joy in mere sound, and we have the howl, which certainly follows the sequence of nature, for a thunder clap, or the phenomenon of echo, is its prototype, being a loud explosion followed by a more or less regular sequence of minor reverberations. When the accent of passion is added to these two principles--will and nature--we have laid the aesthetic foundation for all that we call music.[12] The example of a loud tone with gradually ascending inflections has only been found in the most perverted types of humanity; for instance, an English writer quaintly alludes to the songs of the Polynesian cannibals as consisting of "gruesomely suggestive passages of rising quarter-tones sung gloatingly before their living captives who are soon to be devoured."

Now traces of these three elements are to be found in every folk song known, and we may even trace their influence in modern music, the lowest or most primitive being, as I have said, the "one-note" type, the next what I have called the "howl" type, the third the highest or "emotional" type.

Specimens of the first type, chants such as these [Figure 08], are to be heard in every part of the globe, the rhythmic figure being necessarily short and repeated incessantly.

The next step was a tremendous advance, and we find its influence permeating all music. The most primitive specimens of this type we find among the Jute Indians [Figure 09], a mixture of one and two. The same is to be found in Australia, slightly modified: [Figure 10] The Caribs have the same song [G: g'' \ Chromatic g']. We find it again in Hungary, although in a still more modified form, thus:

[Figure 11]

And last of all we meet with it in its primitive state in the folk song used by Bizet in "Carmen." We can even see traces of it in the quasi-folk song of the present century:

[Figure 12] etc.

The third element of folk song shows again a great advance, for instead of the mere howl of pleasure or pain, we have a more or less exactly graded expression of feeling. In speaking of impassioned speech I explained the relative values of the inflections of the voice, how the upward skip of the fourth, fifth, and octave indicates the intensity of the emotion causing the cry. When this element is brought into music, it gives a vitality not before possessed, for by this it becomes speech. When in such music this inflection rhymes with the words, that is to say, when the speech finds its emotional reflection in the music, we have reached the highest development of folk song. In its best state, this is immeasurably superior to much of our "made" music, only too often false in rhythm, feeling, and declamation.

Among the different nations, these three characteristics often become obscured by national idiosyncracies. Much of the Chinese music, the "Hymn to the Ancestors," for instance, seemingly covers a number of notes, whereas, in fact, it belongs to the one-note type. We find that their melodies almost invariably return to the same note, the intervening sounds being more or less merely variations above and below the pitch of the principal sound. For example:

[Figure 13]

Hungarian folk music has been much distorted by the oriental element, as represented by the _zingari_ or gypsies. The Hungarian type of folk music is one of the highest, and is extremely severe in its contours, as shown in the following:

[Figure 14]

The gypsy element as copied by Liszt has obscured the folk melodies by innumerable arabesques and ornaments of all sorts, often covering even a "one-note" type of melody until it seems like a complicated design.

This elaboration of detail and the addition of passing and ornamental notes to every melody is distinctly an oriental trait, which finds vent not only in music but also in architecture, designing, carving, etc. It is considered by many an element of weakness, seeking to cover a poverty of thought by rich vestments. And yet, to my mind, nothing can be more misleading. In spite of Sir Hubert Parry and other writers, I cannot think that the Moors in Spain, for instance, covered poverty of thought beneath superficial ingenuity of design. The Alhambra outdoes in "passage work," in virtuoso arabesques, all that an army of Liszts could do in piano literature; and yet the Arabs were the saviours of science, and promoted the greatest learning and depth of thought known in Europe in their time. As for Liszt, there is such an astounding wealth of poetry and deep feeling beneath the somewhat "flashy," bombastic trick of speech he inherited, that the true lover of music can no more allow his feelings to be led astray by such externals than one would judge a man's mind by the cut of his coat or the hat he wears.

Thus we see the essence of folk song is comprised in the three elements mentioned, and its aesthetic value may be determined by the manner in which these elements are combined and their relative preponderance.

One point must be very distinctly understood, namely, that what we call harmonization of a melody cannot be admitted as forming any part of folk song. Folk melodies are, without exception, homophonous. This being the case, perhaps my statement that the vital principle of folk music in its best state has nothing in common with nationalism (considered in the usual sense of the word), will be better understood. And this will be the proof that nationalism, so-called, is merely an extraneous thing that has no part in pure art. For if we take any melody, even of the most pronounced national type, and merely eliminate the characteristic turns, affectations, or mannerisms, the theme becomes simply music, and retains no touch of nationality. We may even go further; for if we retain the characteristic mannerisms of dress, we may harmonize a folk song in such a manner that it will belie its origin; and by means of this powerful factor (an essentially modern invention) we may even transform a Scotch song, with all its "snap" and character, into a Chinese song, or give it an Arabian flavour. This, to be sure, is possible only to a limited degree; enough, however, to prove to us the power of harmony; and harmony, as I have said, has no part in folk song.

To define the _role_ of harmony in music is no easy matter. Just as speech has its shadow languages, gesture and expression; just as man is a duality of idealism and materialism; just as music itself is a union of the emotional and the intellectual, so harmony is the shadow language of melody; and just as in speech this shadow language overwhelms the spoken word, so in music harmony controls the melody. For example: Imagine the words "I will kill you" being said in a jesting tone of voice and with a pleasant expression of the face; the import of the words would be lost in their expression; the mere words would mean nothing to us in comparison with the expression that accompanied them.

Take away the harmonic structure upon which Wagner built his operas and it would be difficult to form a conception of the marvellous potency of his music. Melody, therefore, may be classed as the gift of folk song to music; and harmony is its shadow language. When these two powers, melody and harmony, supplement each other, when one completes the thought of the other, then, provided the thought be a noble one, the effect will be overwhelmingly convincing, and we have great music. The contrary results when one contradicts the other, and that is only too often the case; for we hear the mildest waltzes dressed up in tragic and dramatic chords, which, like Bottom, "roar as gently as any sucking dove."

In discussing the origin of speech, mention was made of those shadow languages which accompany all our spoken words, namely, the languages of expression and gesture. These were surely the very first auxiliaries of uttered speech, and in the same way we find that they constitute the first sign of advance in primitive melody. Savages utter the same thought over and over again, evidently groping after that semblance of Nirvana (or perhaps it may be better described as "hypnotic exaltation") which the incessant repetition of that one thought, accompanied by its vibrating shadow, sound, would naturally occasion.

It was also stated that the relative antiquity or primitivity of a melody is invariably to be discovered by its degree of relationship to the original type, one note, one rhythm, the emotional, the savage howl, or, in other words, the high note followed by a gradual descent. To confirm this theory of the origin of folk song, we need only look at the aboriginal chants of widely separated peoples to find that the oldest songs all resemble one another, despite the fact that they originated in widely separated localities.

Now the difference between this primitive music and that which we call folk song is that the latter is characterized by a feeling for design, in the broadest sense of the word, entirely lacking in the former. For we find that although folk song is composed of the same material as savage music, the material is arranged coherently into sentences instead of remaining the mere exclamation of passion or a nerve exciting reiteration of unchanging rhythms and vibrations, as is the case in the music of the savage.

Before proceeding further, I wish to draw the line which separates savage from folk music very plainly.

We know that the first stage in savage music is that of one note. Gradually a tone above the original is added on account of the savage being unable to intone correctly; through stress of emotion the fifth and octave come into the chant; the sixth, being the note above the fifth, is added later, as is the third, the note above the second. Thus is formed the pentatonic scale as it is found all over the world, and it is clear, therefore, that the development of the scale is due to emotional influences.

The development of rhythm may be traced to the words sung or declaimed, and the development of design or form to the dance. In the following, from Brazil, we find a savage chant in almost its primitive state:

[Figure 15] etc.

The next example, also from Brazil, is somewhat better, but still formless and unemotional.

[Figure 16] etc.

Let this be danced to, however, and the change is very marked, for immediately form, regularity, and design are noticeable:

[Figure 17] etc.

On the other hand, the emotional element marks another very decided change, namely, by placing more sounds at the command of the singer, and also by introducing words, which necessarily invest the song with the rhythm of language.

Thus the emotional and declamatory elements heighten the powers of expression by the greater range given to the voice, and add the poignancy and rhythm of speech to song. On the other hand, the dance gives regularity to the rhythmic and emotional sequences.

In the following examples we can see more clearly the elements of folk song as they exist in savage music:

Three or four note (simple)

South America [Figure 18] Nubia [Figure 19]

Emotional (simple)

Samoa [Figure 20]

Emotional and Composite

Hudson's Bay [Figure 21] Soudan [Figure 22]

Howl and Emotion

[Figure 23]

Dance. Brazil [Figure 24] Simple [Figure 25] or Dance [Figure 26]

The fact that so many nations have the pentatonic or five-note scale (the Chinese, Basque, Scotch, Hindu, etc.), would seem to point to a necessary similarity of their music. This, however, is not the case. In tracing the differences we shall find that true folk song has but few marked national traits, it is something which comes from the heart; whereas nationalism in music is an outward garment which is a result of certain habits of thought, a _mannerism_ of language so to speak. If we look at the music of different nations we find certain characteristics; divest the music of these same characteristics and we find that the figure upon which this garment of nationalism has been placed is much the same the world over, and that its relationship to the universal language of savage music is very marked. Carmen's song, divested of the mixture of triplets and dual rhythms (Spanish or Moorish) is akin to the "howl."

Nationalism may be divided into six different classes:

First we have what may be broadly termed "orientalism," which includes the Hindu, Moorish, Siamese, and Gypsy, the latter embracing most of southeastern European (Roumania, etc.) types. Liszt's "Second Rhapsody," opening section, divested of orientalism or gypsy characteristics, is merely of the savage three-note type.

Our second division may be termed the style of reiteration, and is to be found in Russia and northern Europe.

The third consists of the mannerism known as the "Scotch snap," and is a rhythmic device which probably originated in that trick of jumping from one register of the voice to another, which has always had a fascination for people of simple natures. The Swiss _jodel_ is the best illustration of this in a very exaggerated form.