CHAPTER XXII.
In Ancient China.
THE TRUMPETS OF THE CHINESE.
Trumpets are amongst the very earliest of musical instruments, yet remote as is their date they throw no light on musical scales of the period of their use. Nevertheless for their very ancientness we cannot well pass them by without reference. Pictures of them appear in Egypt and in Assyria, but beyond that Old Time is chary of yielding evidence. The workers in metal in very early times undertook the fashioning of imitations of the horns of sheep, antelopes and oxen, and thus made they were used in primitive musical effects in relation to sovereignty or ceremonial. How strongly the aims of all royal and priestly offices determined the development even of the minutiæ of civilisation and the tendencies of domestic and industrial life, we are hardly able to appreciate with our modern notion of the individual assertiveness, limited only by the general good of the community. So it is well that, in considering the position of the worker, we should remember that he worked in order to fulfil the demand or behest of the king or the priest; for both were to him equally sacred, and often indeed in one man the two offices were combined.
Music may have remained with the people, as an instinct which in simple ways found its gratification; but as an art to be cultivated it had its beginnings to order. The musical instrument had a definite purpose to fulfil; and, under royal or priestly guidance, so long as that purpose was accomplished, little further thought was given to it. Under such conditions there was the perpetual tendency to stagnation; progress was not only unacceptable, but to the old conservatism, as in later days, the new thing was unnecessary; since, if it were desirable, it would have been thought of before by the proper responsible persons. Only under such like estimate can we understand the lack of resource, the poverty of invention, through many centuries during the sway of ancient monarchies, as regards musical instruments.
The possibilities of the various types of instruments, as we know them, were unimaginable in those days; for the human ear had not so far progressed in sensitiveness as to be able to comprehend the feeling for tone, for colour, for range, or for expressiveness, as we by long use have grown accustomed to and look upon almost as our heritage. Yet how short a period has it been since anything like a collection of instruments represented by our modern orchestra attained even a passable mechanical development! And what are the two last centuries we look back upon in comparison with the thousands of years during which the primitive instruments remained in their crude, barbaric immaturity; unimproved, and with neither want nor longing that they should be improved!
As instancing this blank, imperceptive state of mind and feeling, the trumpet is very noticeable. An ancient instrument for ages: perhaps nothing more than a ram’s horn, or horn of animal killed in the chase. Musically, to be ranked as a tooter or hooter. Then it became in ruling hands a means of signal: by sense of rhythm it conveyed to the hosts in field or fortress the message that was equal to words; and in royal and religious processions and ceremonies it communicated the intelligence for which the countless thousands waited; to inspire them, to uplift them in a contagious sympathy of exultation, or to bow them to the ground in common feeling of awe or adoration. When wealth accumulated, the pomp of ceremony increased. Then came the worker in metal, copying the product of nature, yet not venturing much beyond it.
The old monarchies of Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt, with their tablets and monuments and paintings, afford no evidence of a stage of musical advance from the early horn; and we have but to contrast the wide range of our trumpet with the few notes producible on a cow’s horn, to recognise how, in the absence of higher aim inciting to achievement which we call art, the dormant possibilities of a marvellous instrument should have been unevoked: empires passed away, and the trumpet remained a horn. Do not be mystified by a misconception to which words may lead. The horn as we know it was an unknown thing in those far away times; its quality of tone not approached even, nor its chief constructive feature identified. The ram’s horn is the original parent of both trumpets and horns, and in the consideration of type belongs to that of trumpets more specifically. The shape of the _mouthpiece_ of the trumpet determines the character of the instrument, and the old horns present only the same shallow cup. It is a matter to be noted how comparatively recent is the long, conical form of mouthpiece absolutely essential as it is to the quality of tone as we have it in the French horn used in our orchestras.
As seen in the Assyrian and Egyptian forms, the bell is evidently an added piece of funnel shaped metal, the first departure from the animal form; afterwards in the progress of music the shape was expanded with perception of its importance, until at last the bell became a marked configuration of symmetry associated with quality of tone, refined, penetrating, and sonorous. We have the old form still preserved to us in our fog horns, and some ancient horns of the town in our market place. In old Greek and Roman times some of the trumpets depicted possess very beautiful outlines; but there is nothing to indicate any great advance in musical evolution, and it scarcely seems probable that even then the production of harmonic notes went much beyond those common to the old trumpet horns. For an extended scale, much greater length than any we see given would be necessary: else the harmonic series could not be built up. Our old coach horn would about represent the limit of the musical value attained; gradually, however, longer tubes came to be used, and variety in shape and purpose awakened the perceptive faculty to the possibilities of higher things.
Yet how strangely dull is human inventiveness, unless the ideal aspiration precedes the routine of the worker, unless handicraft is stimulated by demand going before, of “saying give me the power to accomplish more; feed my ambition.” So we traverse the course of long ages, finding it barren of improvements.
The Chinese furnish a remarkable instance of a nation inventive yet stagnant; for although this people had the prototypes of almost everything that with Europeans has become of infinite value to modern civilization, the Chinese made nothing of them in practical development. Midway in time—how, when, and where, there is no information to guide us—the Chinese suddenly evolve a new thing, a telescope trumpet, a slide trumpet, the latent principle of the trombone; yet nothing came of it in their hands: it does not seem even to have been devised for any musical aim, nor to have a purpose beyond convenience.
The two trumpets here illustrated, called _Hwangteih_ by some authorities, but by Van Aalst (that of the pattern we should in a modern house take to be a hearth broom) is named _Haot’ung_; but really Chinese names have such a never changing likeness that they are as difficult to distinguish as Chinese faces; and as for remembering them, my advice is, Do not try. These trumpets are on the sliding tube system. The _Hwangteih_ is in three parts, and the _Haot’ung_ in two parts, the first named being of very slender dimensions; the latter is often made of wood covered with copper, but when for military use it is of copper only. And here we should notice the feature peculiar to all trumpets in these Eastern lands, the extremely shallow disc like mouthpiece, with only the faintest indication of a cup,—throughout India, Burmah, Siam, and in fact the whole Asian regions contiguous. The effect of a shallow cup is the easier production of high, shrill notes; and it may be that the lip muscles are in these races thin and tense, the expanse of the disc merely exercising pressure, leaving only a minute portion of the lips for vibration equal to the diameter of the very narrow aperture entered by the stream of wind. The actual force and vigour of the breath would thus have a more predominant influence than any calculated variation of the lip muscles by will. The whole character of the music which satisfies these semi-civilized people seems to corroborate such a view. Shrillness and ear piercing intensity were the effects aimed at.
These trumpets are made in several sizes; but as the proportions differ from those which we find necessary for full harmonic development, it does not appear that more than three or four notes are obtained by ordinary playing. The globular ornaments upon the tubes serve the same purpose as they do in European instruments, they enable the player to press the tube to his lips with strength; and evidently the notion is a very old one,—showing us how little is really modern. It is curious too that years ago in the British Museum I found a little bronze statue of a trumpeter of the Roman period, the trumpet being shaped at the end like the _Hao-t’ung_. At the time I wondered at the singularity, trying to find out some meaning and purpose in such configuration, but was baffled; and it is only in the presence of the Chinese instrument that one sees in it a survival of an Asian original type brought by Greek or Roman into Europe after far Eastern incursions.
The _Hwang-teih_ and the _Hao-t’ung_ are reserved for marriage and funeral ceremonies, in which they have a formal part assigned to them; but it is chiefly for the marking of time or progress in the ceremony. Some authors say that the _Hao-t’ung_ is only used in funeral functions, and that it gives a grave befitting note, prolonged and wailing.
The _La-pa_ is another trumpet with telescope slide, and is, one would suppose, the most modern of the three. It is the military trumpet, and it gives four notes, differently estimated by different writers. It is singularly like the ancient Roman Lituus, and I conceive it probable that the players were in advance of the procession, and that the return curve of the bell was made with the intent that the sounds or signals should be thrown backward for the better hearing by the hosts following. The itinerant knife-grinders are stated, by ancient privilege, to be accustomed to use the trumpet to proclaim their calling in the streets.
Of the drums used by the Chinese, little need be said; drums are much alike all the world over. The Chinese have them of great size, and as large as five feet in in diameter. They are highly ornamented. Various sizes are ordained to be used in the Confucian temple, each with some specially allotted service; thus one placed on the Moon Terrace is struck six times at the end of each verse, giving two beats in answer to three beats of the larger drum. So orderly is everything arranged and traditionally kept up.
There is one instrument—the _Yü_—so singular and original in character, that it is worth serious consideration whether it would not be well to introduce it into our orchestra, to further the Wagnerian development of the music of the future. We have great use in our day for triangles and cymbals, but they cannot reach the effect produced by the _Tiger_, a Chinese picture of which is here given. The animal is somewhat idealised, it must be admitted; almost as much so as permitted in a photograph. Mark the singularly fascinating expression of the face embodying pain, possibly torture; and then the reposeful attitude of the tail; the whole figure symbolising the two conditions under which music exists. In the musical scheme of the Chinese the normal state of the animal is quiescent, but its voice is indispensable to the winding up of the finale. You see that the _Tiger_ rests upon a resonant box, about three feet long and twenty inches or so wide; and it has on its back twenty-seven teeth, neither more nor less—an elaborate mystical engarnishment much resembling a saw.
At the end of the grand Confucian Hymn performed in the presence of the Emperor and all his Court, attended by his feather-swinging dancers, the chief officer assigned to this service strikes the _Tiger_ on the head three times; three fateful knocks (thus let it be noticed anticipating Beethoven’s ominous device). Then with a vigorous swish he passes his stick three times along the projections on the _Tiger_’s back to announce the end of the strophe; three weird screeches are heard succeeding each other (to the great delight of Straussians) rapid as flashes of lightning, and in a hideous screech the scene ends.
And,—the Emperor retires.