MUSIC. All Nature's full of thee: the summer bower Brook calls to brook, as down the hills they stray; To thunder's deep-toned voice, or ocean's sullen roar." The origin of music is lost in the mazes of antiquity; and all hypotheses on the subject are very little better than mere conjecture. The practice of this science being universal in all ages and countries, it is absurd to attribute its invention to any one man, or any particular nation; yet, as no people can carry back their researches into antiquity to so early a period as the Egyptians, modern writers seldom attempt to trace the history of music beyond their era. Apollodorus gives us an account of the origin of music in that country, which we must, perhaps, only regard as a fanciful idea of the writer, though it is not altogether improbable. He ascribes the origin of the art, and the invention of the lyre, to the Hermes, or Mercury of the Egyptians, surnamed Trismegistus, or Thrice Illustrious; and who was, according to Newton, the secretary of Osiris. The Nile having overflowed its banks at the periodical period for the rise of that wonderful river, on its subsidence to its usual level, several dead animals were left on the shores, and among the rest a tortoise; the flesh of which being dried and wasted in the sun, nothing remained in the shell but nerves and cartilages, and their being tightened and contracted by the drying heat, became sonorous. Mercury, walking along the banks of the river, happened to strike his foot against this shell, and was so pleased with the sound produced, that the idea of the lyre suggested itself to his imagination. The first instrument he constructed was in the form of a tortoise, and was strung with the sinews of dried animals. It is probable that vocal music was practised, or at least that the ancients were acquainted with the difference in the tones of the human voice, and its capabilities for harmony, before instruments were thought of; and the latter, without doubt, owed their origin to the observation of effects flowing from natural causes. Thus Diodorus, Lucretius, and other authors, attribute the invention of wind instruments to observations made of the whistling of the wind in reeds, and in the pipes of other plants. The different tones of sounding strings must have been observed very early, and thus have given birth to stringed instruments; whilst instruments of percussion, such as tabors or drums, probably originated from the sonorous ringing of hollow, bodies when struck. In the first conception all these instruments were rude and imperfect, and would afford little pleasure to the musician of the present day. Indeed, in the first effort, we can fancy the inventors themselves amazed at the effect produced, and starting with surprise or fright, "E'en at the sound themselves had made." The progress of improvement, however, was soon visible: and there cannot be a doubt, but that the music of the ancients was of a very high order. NOTATION. The invention of Notation, and of musical characters, is of ancient date, being generally ascribed to Terpander, a celebrated poet and musician of Greece, who flourished about the 27th Olympiad, or 671 years before Christ. Previously, music being entirely traditional, must have depended much on the memory and taste of the performer. LETTERS IN MUSIC. Gregory the Great (as he is commonly called), about the year 600, substituted the Roman letters A B C, &c., as the names of notes, in lieu of the more complicated Greek ones; by which the study of the science was greatly simplified.-See Dr. Burney's History of Music. ORIGIN OF DIVIDING MUSIC INTO BARS. In the 16th century, music began to be considered part of a polite education. In a collection called Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, some very difficult pieces of that era are preserved, several of which are by Tallis and Bird, two eminent composers of English sacred music. The English musicians of this period were equal to any of those on the continent; and it is difficult to say whether the Italian, German, or French schools, deserve the preference. At the beginning of this century, the mode of dividing music into bars appears to have been first used. ORIGIN OF THE DOMINANT IN MUSIC. The 16th century is remarkable for many improvements in the theory and practice of music, which have led to the present high state of the art. In 1590, a schoolmaster of Lombardy (Charles Monteverde) invented the harmony of the dominant; he was also the first who ventured to use the seventh and the ninth of the dominant, openly and without preparation; he likewise em ployed the minor fifth as a consonance, which had always before been used as a dissonance. The same professor introduced the double dissonances, and diminished and altered chords. About the same time L'Viadana de Lodi conceived the idea of giving to the instrumental bass a different, melody from that of the vocal, to which it had previously strictly adhered. He also invented the figured or thorough bass. CONCERTS. The first regular series of Concerts in England was instituted in the year 1710, under the title of "The Academy of Ancient Music," and continued to exist upwards of eighty years. In 1776, the Concert of Ancient Music was established in London, chiefly at the suggestion of the Earl of Sandwich.-An institution intended to preserve the solid and valuable productions of the old masters from oblivion, and of which Mr. Joah Bates was for many years the sole conductor. In the year 1813, the "Philharmonic Society" was established in London, with a view chiefly to the cultivation of instrumental music. In 1834, a Concert was founded under the name of "The Society of British Musicians;" and another in 1833, called a "Vocal Society," consisting of thirty professional members, who gave six Concerts at the Hanover Square Rooms, consisting almost entirely of vocal music, ancient and modern, of every school. TRUMPETS. The invention of the Trumpet has been ascribed to the Tyrrhenians; but others, with greater probability, to the Egyptians, from whom it might have been transmitted to the Israelites. It is usually made of brass, sometimes of silver, iron, tin, and even wood. Moses made two of silver, to be used by the priests (Numb. x.); and Solomon made two hundred like those of Moses (Josephus, lib. viii.), which shows the antiquity of this instrument. Among the Romans, there were various instruments of the Trumpet kind, as the tuba, cornua, buccina, and lituus. The tuba, or long trumpet, called by the Hebrews "The Trumpet of the Jubilee," may be seen in several pieces of ancient sculpture at Rome, particularly on the arch of Titus, or Trajan's pillar, and in a basso-relievo at the Capitol, representing the triumph of Marcus Aurelius. In England, they were sounded before Offa, king of Mercia, A.D. 790. 1 ORGANS. The origin of the Organ is obscure. We read of ancient hydraulic and pneumatic Organs, but the water must have been the moving power only, to impel the wind into the pipes. Of this kind is the representation of a tree, with birds upon it, described by Gerbert, (De Cantu et Musica Sacra, vol. ii. plate xxviii.) The Chronicle of Albericus adds to the singing of the birds before Constantine, "the roaring of enormous gilded artificial lions," (See Gerbert, vol. ii. p. 151.) That such birds can be made, iş certain, from Maillardet's beautiful little artificial bird, which started up out of a gold snuff-box, fluttered its wings, and sang with a pipe so clear and loud, as to fill a large room. In later times, the term Organ, in a musical sense, came to signify only the instrument now known under that name. Before the tenth century, Organs were common in England. St. Dunstan gave one to the abbey of Malmesbury in the reign of Edgar. Elfeg, bishop of Winchester, obtained one for his cathedral in 951, which was the largest then known. This is alluded to by Mason the poet : "Twelve pair of bellows, ranged in stated row, PIANO-FORTES. About three centuries back, there were in use two kinds of instruments with key-boards, namely, the Clavitherium, of a square shape, having strings of cat-gut, which were vibrated by bits of hard leather, operated on by the inner end of the key; and the Clavecin, resembling the grand piano, having strings vibrated by plectrums of quill or hard leather. These instruments continued in use till Marius, in 1716, presented to the Academy of Sciences at Paris a Clavecin, whose strings were vibrated with hammers, instead of plectrums. Two years after, Christoforo, at Florence, introduced some further improvements. In 1772, Sebastian Erard made the first Piano in France; and in the following year Stodart patented in London a combination of the harpsichord and grand piano. In 1786, Gieb took out a patent for what is called the grasshopper action, which is still used for square pianos, in the dampers of which improvements were patented in 1794 and 1798, by Southwell. In 1809, Thom and Allen patented compensation metallic tubes, which were adopted by Stodart in the grand piano. Broadwood, Collard, Kirkman, Stewart, and Wornum, have contributed to the improvement of this instrument. ITALIAN OPERA. To the close of the 16th, and the beginning of the 17th centuries, the invention of the recitative, or recited music, which gave to the lyric drama a peculiar language and construction, is ascribed. Mr. Burgh, in his Anecdotes of Music, gives the following account of the origin of this species of composition::-"Persons of taste and letters in Tuscany, being dissatisfied with every former attempt at perfecting dramatic poetry and exhibitions, determined to unite the best Lyric Poet with the best Musician of their time, Three Florentine noblemen, therefore, Giovanni Bardi, Count of Vernio, Petro Strozzi, and Jacobi Corsi, all enlightened lovers of the fine arts, selected Ottavio Rinuccini and Jacobo Peri, their countrymen, to write and set to music the drama of Dafne, which was performed in the house of Signior Corsi, in 1597, with great applause; and this seems the true era, whence we may date the Opera, or Drama, wholly set to music, and in which the dialogue was neither sung in measure, nor declaimed without music, but recited in simple musical notes, which amounted not to singing, and yet was different from the usual mode of speaking." After this successful experiment, Rinuccini wrote Eurydice and Ariana, two other similar dramas. In the same year, Emilio del Cavaliere composed the music to an opera called Ariadne, at Rome; and the friends of this composer, and of Peri, respectively lay claim to the honour of the invention of recitative for each of these artistes. The Eurydice of Peri was, however, the first piece of the kind performed in public; its representation taking place at the theatre, Florence, in 1600, on the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. of France with Mary de Medicis; and Pietro del Velle, a Roman knight, an amateur musician, who, in 1640, published an able historical disquisition on the science, expressly says, the first dramatic action ever represented at Rome, was performed at the Carnival of 1606, on his cart, or movable stage; when five voices, or five instruments, the exact number an ambulent cart would contain, were employed. Thus, it seems the first secular drama in modern Rome, like the first tragedy in ancient Greece, was exhibited in a cart! The Italian Opera has undoubtedly given a great impulse to English dramatic music. The first of this species of composition which was performed in England, was Arsinoe, in 1705. An English version, set to music by Thomas Clayton, one of the royal band, in the reign of William and Mary, was then presented. The translation was bad, and the music execrable; yet this drama was performed twenty-four times in the first, and eleven in the second year. * Of course, the secular drama is here meant. |