How music grew, from prehistoric times to the present day

There was once a time when children did not have to go to school, for there were no schools; they did not have to take music lessons because there was no music; there was not ev...

Fortunately for our story there live groups of people today still in the early stages of civilization who show us the manners and customs of primitive man, because they are prim...

Three thousand years before Jesus was born, a corner of southwestern Asia and northeastern Africa was the home of people who had reached a very high degree of civilization. They...

that could be carried in the hand, to some that stood seven feet high and had as many as twenty-two strings. The dulcimer, an instrument something like a zither, was very popula...

The Greeks “dwelt with beauty” and believed it to be a part of being good, and they strove to make everything beautiful. Beauty to the Greeks was a religion. Had this not been s...

To hear two Chinamen exchanging greetings on a street corner, you would think they were singing or rather chanting, not because their tones are particularly pleasant for they ar...

Arabia is the southwestern peninsula of Asia and is bounded by the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. It was well situated to come in contact with the ancient nations of...

During the centuries when the Eastern nations were powerful the European continent was inhabited by primitive men, who had gradually formed tribes. They had rude songs, dances,...

Except for the first few chapters in this book, we have told you of music made by men who wanted to improve it. You have seen how the fathers of the Church first reformed music,...

We have watched the human race grow out of its state of primitive yells and grunts, or babyhood, telling its stories and expressing its feelings in crude music. We have seen it...

There is one particularly lovely thing about folk songs and dances and that is the natural labels which they bear, marking them as belonging to France, Spain, Germany, Russia an...

Don’t you think it strange that we have not told you of any pieces written for the lute alone, or for the viol or any other instrument? The reason is that until 1700, there was...

Music has travelled along two roads,—the Church road and the People’s road; they often crossed each other and became very much mixed up. You remember how popular songs had found...

A friend of Palestrina, Saint Filippo Neri, was the founder of Oratorio. In 1558, Father Neri started daily religious meetings to which all sorts of people came. These were held...

You will recall how far away England was in the 16th century from Rome, the Pope, and the other nations. Not that it has been pushed any nearer now, but the radio, the aeroplane...

In our range of musical mountains, we see just ahead of us one of the mightiest giants of them all, Johann Sebastian Bach, dwarfing everything around it and we must resist the t...

We left French Opera in 1600 when Henry IV married Marie de’ Medici. Ballets which resembled the English masques had been performed when Baif and his friends had produced _Le Ba...

It is rather hard to believe that the largest of all instruments, the pipe organ, is a descendant of Pan’s Pipes, played by the shepherds on the hillsides of ancient Greece, is...

Bach and Handel rescued the Germans from the reputation of being musical barbarians, for Germany had not had a Lully or a Palestrina! But just in time, Bach and Handel entered a...

In the last chapter we saw Bach rescue music from the danger of emptiness and frivolity, by perfecting polyphonic music and dignifying church music as it had not been since Pale...

About the time in history when Franz Joseph Haydn was born, the world was very much upset. No one knew what to think or how. It was a time of battle and struggle as he was born...

The French Revolution had closed the 1700s with blood and terror, and the American Colonies were uneasy under British rule, and before Beethoven was six, the American Revolution...

We feel so familiar with the Pianoforte that we call it piano for short and almost forget that it is dignified by the longer name. We forget too, that Scarlatti, Rameau and Bach...

The music of the ancient Egyptians and Chinese advanced very little, on account of fast and firm laws, and opera remained the same for a long time, because of the strict rules....

You have seen how Romantic Music began, and why Beethoven is often the first name mentioned when Romanticism is talked about, for he was the colossal guidepost pointing the way.

Richard Wagner, the Wizard, called out of the past a vast company of gods and goddesses, giants, knights and heroes, kings and queens. He made them live for us with all their jo...

Walther von Stolzing, a young knight, falls in love at first sight with Eva the beautiful daughter of Pogner, the goldsmith of Nüremberg, who has promised her to the winning sin...

After reading about the feats of the Wizard it is not surprising that he had many followers,—those who openly claimed to take him for an example, and others who did not realize...

Probably you think that any music on a program is program music! Of course it is, but not in the special use of the word, for when it is program music, it has a story of its own...

After calling Beethoven a Colossus, there does not seem to be room for any one else, and yet Brahms (1833–1897) is no less of a genius. You will often hear people speak of “the...

We cannot tell you very much about the history of music in Russia because until the 19th century, the Russians had little but their folk songs and church music. For many centuri...

Not long ago we visited the medieval castle of Amboise in Touraine, France, for the 400th celebration of the birth of the French poet, Ronsard. (Chapter XI.) A program of madrig...

Although Benjamin J. Lang (1837–1909) never published his compositions and never allowed them to be heard, he had much influence on Boston’s musical life, having been conductor...

There was once an old man who said: “I have lived to see the post-chaise give way to the locomotive but I _cannot_ and _will not_ accept the automobile!” What would he have said...