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Philipp Spitta Author(S): Jeffrey Pulver Source: the Musical Times, Vol Philipp Spitta Author(s): Jeffrey Pulver Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 53, No. 828 (Feb. 1, 1912), pp. 92-94 Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/907587 Accessed: 22-01-2016 10:04 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Musical Times Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Musical Times. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 129.96.252.188 on Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:04:11 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 92 THE MUSICAL TIMES. FEBRUARYI, 1912. pillage which were all too frequent. Yet it needed but the sounds are rapid and precipitate yet at the only the strong hand of one of the greatest of Irish same time sweet and pleasing. It is wonderful how in chieftains, generally known as Brian Boru, a thorough such headlong rapidity of the fingers the musical musician if we may trust tradition, to weld into one proportions are preserved, and by their art kept the more discordant elements which existed among his faultless throughout.' own people as well as among the settlers ; and when, So the clarsech became the national emblem of in the year I002, he assumed the kingship of Ireland, Ireland, and found a place in the I3th century on her a ten-years' peace ensued, the longest known for coinage and insignia. The twenty-nine strings, centuries, in which art and industry alike could flourish. plucked with the pointed nail, were gradually increased It was at this time, I consider, that the harp, owing to thirty-eight or even more, and the sweep of the to the brilliancy of its tone, which the Irish name graceful harmonic curve was extended until, in the Clarsecih suggests, definitely displaced the less resonant 17th and early i8th centuries, the clarsech stood lyre-shaped crot for all heroic and festive purposes. pre-eminent among diatonic harps for beauty of design The earliest illustration we have of the instrument in as well as richness of tone. The Bunworth harp Ireland occurs on the west front of Ardmore Cathedral, (Fig. 5), which was made by John Kelly in the co. Waterford, which was built in the I2th century, year 1734 for the Rev. Charles Bunworth and is now though possibly the series of sculptures, in which the the property of the present writer, shows that even harp is portrayed, may be a century earlier (see though the original which suggested the clarsecli 'Journal Soc. Ant. Ireland,' vol. 33). was English, the elaboration of the instrument was The fact that it first occurs amongst a Danish undoubtedly Irish and the result an instrument unique Christian community, closely connected with England in the history of Musical Art. and the English Church, is suggestive. Of the beautiful and characteristic example on the famous Shrine of St. Mogue or Moedoc, in the Dublin PHILIPP SPITTA. National Museum, I hesitate to say much; the BY JEFFREY PULVER. workmanship of the shrine has been attributed to the 9th century, owing to the long hair of the female 'Homer is not more decidedly the first oi heroic figures represented on one of the ancient metal plates poets, Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first ot is not more the attached to its side ; but the ornamental work still dramatists, Demosthenes decidedly affixed to one end of the shrine, and in which the harp first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers,' what Boswell was to appears, seems on close inspection to be of later date, wrote Macaulay; and Johnson certainly not earlier than the I ith century, though the and English literature, that and something more was figure of the harpist has been made to correspond Philipp Spitta to Bach and music. 'Something more,' more or less with those on the metal plates. The because Spitta's work is not only pure biography, and a for the reflection of the in which his reliquary of St. Patrick's tooth, on which another fine mirror age example of the instrument appears, was made in subjects lived; it is always work of the greatest I376; and one of the latest illustrations of the importance to musical history, and of the highest instrument in sculpture is to be seen on an altar tomb value to musical historians. of the I 5th century at Jerpoint Abbey, co. Kilkenny. A slight sketch of so eminent a man and his work As already stated, the clarsech, or Irish harp, appears will therefore surely not come amiss now, just seventy in Western Scotland on stonework of the I3th and years after his birth; a man who, had he but lived 14th centuries, having been introduced by Irish a life of average length, could have easily still been settlers, whilst Dante (c. I300) informs us that the with us. Irish harp had been introduced into Italy in his Johann August Philipp Spitta, the son of a famous day, with which country Ireland had long been in and popular poet, was born on December 27, I84I, at ecclesiastical contact. Wechold, near Hoya (Hanover), and after passing If, however, we deny to the Irish minstrels the through the course of education usual in Germany, honour of the invention of the harp, with which some completed his studies in philology at the University of patriots would credit them, we must nevertheless Gdttingen. With a love for pedagogy stronger than acknowledge the skill which they brought to its that for any other profession, Spitta commenced his practice, and the peculiar improvements which they activity as teacher at the 'Ritter- und Dom-Schule' made in its construction. The English, or Northern in Reval, at the comparatively early age of twenty-three. harp, was strung with twisted horsehair or with sinews, This post he held from 1864 till i866, when he migrated but the Irish musician had been accustomed on his to Sondershausen. The Gymnasium of this town crot to use metal strings of drawn wire, either of enjoyed the benefit of his instruction until I874 ; a year 'findruinne,' a sort of brass, or of silver. With metal at the Nikolai Gymnasium in Leipsic followed. strings he therefore strung his clarsech and obtained a It is at this point that we discover the first link Bach brilliancy and resonance unknown on the gut-stringed which was afterwards to connect the names of harp ; to resist the tension of the wire strings he and Spitta so firmly. The formation of the famous strengthened the framework of the instrument and Bach-Verein was going forward, and Spitta, entering increased the depth and size of the soundboard. The the movement with enthusiasm, was one of the prime on oldest Irish clarsech extant (Fig. 4)-now in Trinity promoters of the scheme. His fame, principally College, Dublin, though it is not so ancient as the days account of the publication of the first volume of the of Brian Boru, to whom it has been ascribed-shows Bach biography, was now beginning to spread us, however, the great difference between the Irish throughout Germany ; and academic Berlin was at last instrument of the early I3th century and the small impressed. A call to that city was responded to with light-framed harps depicted in English manuscripts of alacrity by Spitta, now in his thirty-fourth year, the same date. Little is it to be wondered at that the and in I875 he commenced his duties as professor of performances of the Irish minstrels on such instruments musical history at the University of Berlin, to which excited the admiration and wonder of all who heard was added the position of permanent secretary to the them; 'their skill is beyond comparison superior to Royal Academy of Arts. Soon after, a third post, that of any nation I have seen,' writes Giraldus that of professor at the Hoch-Schule fur Musik, was Cambrensis at the end of the I2th century; 'the offered him and accepted ; and in I876 he joined the modulation is not slow and solemn as in the council of directors of that institution ; in I882 he Xwas instruments of Britain to which we are accustomed, elected active director for life. This content downloaded from 129.96.252.188 on Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:04:11 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE MUSICAL TIMES.-FEBRUARY I, 1912. 93 The life story.of Philipp Spitta is thus easily told, Leipsic, Forkel's little work ' Ueber Johann Sebastian for it amounts to nothing more than a list of dates, Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke' was valuable and an indication of what advancement his learning on account of its author's intimacy with Bach's eldest brought him as these succeeded each other. Of the son; and although the enthusiastic Forkel occasionally enormous amount of work he was able and obliged to 'took something from the air' and indulged in a little perform in connection with his three posts, none of fantasy, Spitta knew how much to use and what to them a sinecure by any means, only passing mention reject. This unpretentious work of the cobbler's son can be made; but some idea of it may be obtained who rose to the eminence of Doctor, honoris causa, by considering his works, an account of which enjoyed great popularity, and was translated into follows.
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