Part 8

The State Kettledrum of silver and draped with the Royal banner, represents the only member of the Drum family capable of being tuned to the pitch of the band with a clearly recognisable note. The head is of vellum stretched upon a ring fitting closely round the kettle of the drum. Screws, working on this ring, tighten or slacken the head to produce the note required from its compass. The pair of kettledrums are usually tuned to tonic and dominant, but inequalities of tension in the head, owing to the membrane not being perfectly homogeneous, interfere with the notes being strictly accurate.

PLATE XXXVI.

CAVALRY BUGLE, WITH TASSELS.

CAVALRY TRUMPET, EMBOSSED.

TRUMPETS, THREE INSTRUMENTS--WITH CROOKS, GILT, AND SILVER MOUNTED.

The Cavalry Bugle, decorated with tassels and graciously contributed by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, President of the International Inventions Exhibition, 1885, to the Music Loan Collection, has an historical interest in having been used by Trumpeter Smith to sound the moonlight charge of the Household Cavalry and 7th Dragoon Guards, at Kassassin in Egypt, August the 28th, 1882.

The Trumpet with crooks was carried by Sergeant-Major Webb of the 5th Dragoon Guards, Field Trumpeter to the Duke of Wellington, and with this instrument he sounded the grand charge at the Battle of Salamanca, July the 22nd, 1812. It is the property of a descendant of the Sergeant-Major, Mr. Joseph Webb, who contributes the veteran's description, often repeated to him, of the anxious moment when the command was given to sound the charge. "I trembled all over as I lifted the trumpet to my mouth, for I could see what the boys had before them, but as soon as my lips touched the mouthpiece fear left me, and I blew such a charge as I never had before or could afterwards."

The embossed Cavalry Trumpet, with a very heavy mouthpiece, belonging to Mr. A.W. Malcolmson, is English, and was made by William Sandbach in the last century. The remaining trumpets belong to Mr. Thomas Harper, the gilt one having been made by John Harris about 1730, and the silver-mounted one by William Bull about 1680.

PLATE XXXVII.

LITUUS, BUCCINA, CORNET, ROMAN CAVALRY. ROMAN INFANTRY. WITH TWO VALVES.

TRUMPETS.

The Roman Lituus, the antique straight instrument with the curved end, is drawn from a reproduction in bronze of the original, found in the tomb of a warrior discovered in 1827, at Cervetri, the Etruscan Caere, and preserved in the Museum of the Vatican. The lituus took its name from the augur's staff, which it resembled in shape; it belonged to the cavalry of the Roman Empire. It produces the following proper notes or natural harmonics--

[Music]

the seventh being flatter than the note which occurs in our modern musical scale. The fundamental [Music] which the length of this tube--5 feet 4 inches--would give, cannot be produced. It was from a minute description of the original instrument, by Signor Alessandro Kraus junior of Florence, that Mr. Victor Mahillon was enabled to make this interesting reproduction of an instrument which appears to be the only antique trumpet known. The curved Buccina is from another reproduction by him of an instrument preserved in the Museum at Naples, and found in excavating Pompeii. It was passed under the left arm of the executant and over his right shoulder, in a manner easily adopted by a foot-soldier. This Buccina is in unison with the horn in G, and has a bugle quality of tone. Its notes are--

[Music]

the seventh and eleventh harmonics not being in tune with the corresponding notes in our received scales, and the fundamental being again impracticable. To sound the lituus and buccina is to awaken the echoes of the ancient past; but, whether blown by Roman or Greek or Egyptian, we may be sure the harmonic division of a column of air into vibrating sections knows no change, and was the same then as now.

The Cornet with two valves shows one of the earliest adaptations of the now dominant pistons as introduced by C. Saxe of Brussels.

One Trumpet, by Johann Wilhelm Haas of Nuremberg, is of obsolete make; the other, also by Haas, is curved in half-circles to facilitate the production of stopped notes, and is curiously engraved.

These five instruments belong to the Brussels Conservatoire Royal.

PLATE XXXVIII.

TWO DOUBLE FLAGEOLETS, A GERMAN FLUTE, AND TWO FLÛTES DOUCES.

The Flageolet is the last example in present use of the "flûtes douces," or "à bec" (German Blockflöten), bored with reversed cones, that is to say, with the embouchure at the larger end. It is referred to by Pepys in his _Diary_ (1st March, 1666): "Being returned home I find Greeting, the flageolet-master, come, and teaching my wife, and I do think my wife will take pleasure in it, and it will be easy for her, and pleasant;" and again (20th January, 1667): "To Drumbleby's the pipe-maker, there to advise about the making of a flageolet to go low and soft; and he do show me a way which do do, and also a fashion of having two pipes of the same note fastened together, so as I can play in one and then echo it upon the other, which is mighty pretty."

The double flageolets in the Plate were made by W. Bainbridge, London, who had a speciality for such instruments. The flûtes douces--in Shakspeare's _Hamlet_ the "Recorders"--were made in families like viols, cromornes, shawms, and other well-known Elizabethan instruments, a fashion that modern instrumentation shows a tendency to return to. Evelyn, in 1679, mentions them as "now in much request for accompanying the voice." A bass and treble flute is drawn, also a one-keyed German or transverse flute which, in the last century, from its beauty and tone, although defective in intonation, was a favourite instrument, and supplanted the flûte douce in public favour. In the concerts of ancient music given in July, 1885, by members of the Brussels Conservatoire in the Music Room of the Inventions Exhibition, South Kensington, a movement from a Concerto by Quanz (music-master to Frederick the Great) was played by Mr. Dumon on a single-keyed ivory flute. In the same concerts, Mr. Dumon and his pupils played a March of the Lansquenets, of the time of the Peace of Cambrai (1519), on eight flûtes douces (flauti dolci), in parts, accompanied by a drum. This was the military music of that period.

The German flute is the second instrument in the Plate; the flûtes douces are the third and fifth from left to right. These instruments and those drawn in the next Plate are the property of Messrs. J. & R. Glen, Edinburgh.

PLATE XXXIX.

DOLCIANO. OBOE. BASSOON. OBOE DA CACCIA. BASSET HORN.

The shawm of the English Bible is the schalmey, the treble instrument 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.

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:--

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.

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.

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.

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.

PLATE XLIV.

HU-CH'IN & BOW. SHÊNG. SAN-HSIEN. P'I-P'A.