. BOUGHT WITH THE INCOl^E .. FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUlSfD THE GIFT OF Henrg W. Sage 1891 ,. A>.3ooq..i.i... /fiMJA MUSIC LIBRARY Cornell University Library ML 166.S78 1914 The music of the Bible with some account 3 1924 021 773 290 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021773290 Frontispiece. Sounding the Shophar. (p. 224/ THE MUSIC OF THE BIBLE WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS FROM ANCIENT TYPES BY JOHN STAINER M.A., MUS. DOC, MAGD. COLL., OXON. NEW EDITION : With Additional Illustrations and Supplementary Notes BY the Rev. F. W. GALPIN, M.A., F.L.S. London : NOVELLO AND COMPANY, Limited. New York: THE H. W. GRAY CO., Sole Agents for the U.S.A. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] 5 ORIGINAL PREFACE. No apology is needed, I hope, for issuing in this form the substance of the series of articles which I contributed to the Bible Educator. Some of the statements which I brought forward in that work have received further confirmation by wider reading; but some others I have ventured to qualify or alter. Much new matter will be found here which I trust may be of interest to the general reader, if not of use to the professional. I fully anticipate a criticism to the effect that such a subject as the development of musical instruments should rather have been allowed to stand alone than have been associated with Bible music. But I think all will admit that the study of the history of ancient nations, whether with reference to their arts, religion, conquests, or language, seems to gather and be concentrated round the Book of Books, and when once I began to treat of the comparative history of musical instruments, I felt that a few more words, tracing their growth up to our own times, would make this little work more complete and useful than if I should deal only with the sparse records of Hebrew music. iv ORIGINAL PREFACE I have received, in all the philological portions of the book, much valuable help from my friend, Ernest Budge (M.R,A.S.), of Christ's College, Cambridge ; to whom also I am indebted for Appendixes II. and IV. The transliteration of Hebrew words into our own tongue is always a difficult matter. I have uniformly spelt kinnor with a k instead of c, dreading lest readers should be tempted to pronounce it sinnor. The troublesome letter ghain has also been omitted from ugab. In other cases I hope the spelling will be found neither incorrect nor unpronounceable. J. S. EDITOR'S PREFACE. When, in the year 1879, The Music of the Bible was first issued in book form, our knowledge of the arts and habits of the bygone nations of the East, bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, was chiefly confined to the pioneer though splendid work of Botta and Layard in Assyria, and of Mariette and Wilkinson in Egypt ; but during the thirty and more years which have elapsed since then, new and unforeseen light has been thrown upon the conditions of life prevailing there in the far off centuries of the past. De Sarzec's and Peters's excavations in Babylonia, Flinders Petrie's magnificent discoveries in the tombs of Egypt, the graveyards of Goshen and the mounds of Philistia, Glaser's quest for Sabean inscriptions in Arabia, the explorations of the White Fathers at Carthage, and Wright's, Winckler's, Garstang's, and Hogarth's unveiling of the powers and resources of the Hittites, have placed students of Biblical archaeology under fresh indebtedness to these and other toilers in the wide field of research. Nor is the tale yet complete ; for, at the dawn of this 20th century. Sir Arthur Evans, Dr. Halbherr, vi EDITOR'S PREFACE and Miss Boyd have brought to Hght not only on the Island of Crete, but in Egypt, Philistia, Phoenicia, the coasts of Asia Minor, and prehistoric Greece, the artistic marvels of Minoan civilization. When considering, therefore, the extraneous influences which affected the musical culture of the Hebrews, we now have to reckon not merely with the ancient monarchies of Assyria and Egypt, but with those other gifted and great peoples with whom in the course of their chequered history they came in contact. It has been said that the Jews were and are a people without art ; and certainly the poverty of artistic treasure as yet discovered in Palestine contrasts most unfavourably with the wealth of those in countries surrounding. And although there are antiquaries who still hope to find similar relics in the Land of Promise, my own belief is that such sculptured and painted scenes, for instance, as have given us so vivid a picture of Assyrian and Egyptian life, will never be forth- coming ; and mainly for this reason, that the Hebrews were bound by the laws of their race not to make " any graven image or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth," and however they may have treated the other command- ments, they obeyed this law so implicitly that to-day we are without any illustrations of their crafts or customs. Hence the great difficulty experienced in obtaining any very definite knowledge of the subject with which the present work deals : for, dismissing delineations on coins of late date as too crude in execution if not fanciful in design, although we have the names — EDITOR'S PREFACE vii of the musical instruments which delighted this ancient people, except for the Roman sculpture of their sacred trumpets and Table of Shewbread on the Arch of victorious Titus, and the survival of the shophar of ram's horn at the present day both ritual instruments, be it observed—we are not permitted to obtain even a glance of the forms they knew so well, as they accompanied the festive dance or swelled the sacred song. Again, our knowledge of the evolution and distribution of musical instruments has greatly increased since the days when Carl Engel, from whose writings Sir John Stainer took much of his material, first drew prominent attention to the subject. For these and other reasons a revised edition of The Music of the Bible appeared called for ; and although it would doubtless have been an easier task to produce an entirely new treatise than to amend and expand an existing text, yet the author's work was, as we should have expected, so conscientiously and attractively done that the way in which he presented the subject to the public has become, and still remains, popular, notwithstanding the fact that the book has been for many years out of print. The form, therefore, of the original publication has been retained, and my duty as editor has mainly consisted in rearrang- ing obscure passages, correcting or omitting state- ments incompatible with more recent information, and adding to each chapter such Supplementary Notes as will place the reader in touch with the latest views and discoveries. The old illustrations, moreover, have been kept, except in a few cases where they were either viii EDITOR'S PREFACE poorly executed or misleading, whilst others have been added where it was thought they would elucidate the text and notes. As an interesting curiosity the author's classification of musical instruments in the Appendix has been reprinted, and one on more modern lines, and based on a systematic study of the various types, has been added for comparison. There has also been given, in an additional Appendix (V.), a short account of the use of the shophar in the modern Synagogue. For photographs of ancient sculpture and painting, as well as of actual instruments, I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor Flinders Petrie, to Professor Garstang, to Professor Hogarth, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to the Rev. Pere Delattre, Curator of the St. Louis Museum, Carthage, to the Director of the British Museum, to Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode, to Messrs. Holman (Philadelphia), and to Messrs. Suss of Whitechapel Road, E., for the excellent photograph of an Orthodox sAo/)Afly-player, which by the kind assistance of a Jewish friend, has been taken especially for this work. My thanks are also due to Mr. J. F. R. Stainer for permission to deal with his father's work in the way already indicated ; and by so doing, I hope I may have rendered it in its new edition as great a source of pleasure and instruction to the rising generation of music-lovers as the original was to me in the now distant days of my youth. • Francis W. Galpin. Hatfield Vicarage, Harlow. March, 1914. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. Origin of Singing and Musical Instruments. Probable Sources of Ancient Hebrew Music. Modern Hebrew Music. Works of Reference PART I. (Stringed Instruments). Chapter I.—The Kinnor : formerly thought to have been a Trigon. Illustrations of Trigons. Now believed to have been a Lyre. Ancient Lyres. Difference between Lyre and Guitar ... ... 13 Chapter II.—The Nebel : probably a moderate-sized Harp. Position of Harp when held by Player. Long-necked Instruments of the Egyptians : their importance. Frets. Ancient Harps. Link between Harp and Guitar. The Nebel-azor ... 28 Chapter III.—Sabeca, probably a Harp. Psanterin. Antiquity of Psalteries and Dulcimers. The History of the word Psanterin. The develop- ment of the Dulcimer into the modern Pianoforte 48 Chapter IV.—Kithros, the Greek Lyre. Explanation of several Words used in the headings and elsewhere in the Psalms.