The American History and Encyclopedia of Music

CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Mr. & Mrs. W. T. E. Gurley MUSIC 510 3 1924 022 388 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022388510 THE AMERICAN HISTORY AND ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MUSIC W. L. HUBBARD EDITOR IN CHIEF ARTHUR FOOTE GEO. W. ANDREWS EDWARD DICKINSON Associate Editors Special Contributors G. W. CHADWICK FREDERICK STARR FRANK DAMROSCH H. E. KREHBIEL FREDERICK STOCK EMIL LIEBLING W. J. HENDERSON Irving Squire Toledo New York ' Chicago I < H "2 s <2 ^ -d <n to .2 *^ 2 re +j "O rt nj ri <u y rt >» »-i eH rtra —a' t!»-< Td S 4j QJ > ,^ '^ -w n 6 c ^j3 ^S: iu h c 2 <2 +^ < 'c VO u o ^ y bioS w 13 in -t-" (U m -M o ^ -o U t-j *— O <L> -° OJ -S .5.3 " <U S ;, .2 •eu a3 go & .2 O <; i:! w 3 oOh I* (J to „ rt (u C — a < "« " f^ I— oj "C O o M •« a, w 4-( ?S *-• a ,4_, . Pi 43 O CJ u 60 Ih +3 X) i ° ^ en ;-! 3 ni ^ to Ji -^ SCOy C ^ H g a; „• o < w ^ o <2 tilu 3 o tj -a c THE AMERICAN HISTORY AND ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MUSIC HISTORY OF FOREIGN MUSIC WITH INTRODUCTION BY FREDERICK STARR W. L. HUBBARD EDITOR IRVING SQUIRE Toledo New York Chicago £> Copyright 1908 by IRVING SQUIRE Entered Stationers' Hall LONDON CONTENTS Music of Primitive Peoples 1 China 17 Japan 27 Korea 35 Malaysia 43 Persia 53 Turkey 59 Mexico 65 Italy 71 Troubadours 99 Germany 109 France 127 Russia 137 Eastern Europe 151 (Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland.) Scandinavia 171 (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland.) England 193 Ireland 209 Scotland 217 Wales 225 Canada 231 Spain 243 Bibliography 251 FOREIGN MUSIC LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. Imperial Opera House, Vienna .... (frontispiece) An African Band 8 Japanese Koto 26 Korean Orchestra 34 Ceylonese Band 42 Turkish Music 58 Mexico 64 Wilhelm Richard Wagner 108 Edward Harerup Grieg 170 MUSIC OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE MUSIC OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES Frederick Starr. Poetry, music and the dance are phases of one thing to primitive man. In the beginnings of human cuhure, they did not exist separated. They began together as expressions of the rhythmic impulse. Of course, to us poetry exists independent of these other two. Grosse defines poetry as the expression of emotion in aesthetic form with the idea of giving pleasure. When we analyze its elements, it seems that the first expression of poetry is the chanting of words as distinguished from ordinary speech. Such chanting is agreeable to savage man and arouses pleasant emotions in himself and in his hearers. To civilized man the most striking characteristic of the poetry or song of lower cultures is repetition. Just as the child delights to repeat the same sounds, so the man of primitive mind loves to repeat indefinitely. Songs of our own Indians are frequently mere repetitions of the simplest phrases. I knew an old Tonkawa who had a medicine-song of which he was extremely fond. It consisted of the single native word for pig; this he would sing, over and over and over again, for hours at a time. Rh3d:hm, of course, is the very essence of the whole combined expression, poetry-music-dance. It depends upon two elements, quantity or length, and quality. Nothing can be more beautiful than the perfect time which even savage peoples 2 FOREIGN MUSIC give to song, to instrumentation and to the movements of the dance. A curious thing, which has been often observed in the songs of some of our own Indian tribes, is a double rhythm, one for the words, the other for the accompaniment. Thus, when Hstening to Iroquois singers, using the turtle- shell rattle as the accompaniment to song, one is impressed with the perfection of time in the rattling, with the beauty of the meter in the song, but he is equally impressed with the fact that the two do not coincide. Constantly we encounter in the music of lower peoples a refrain; sometimes this has meaning and plays a distinct part in the suggestion of the song ; at other times the sounds of the refrain have absolutely no meaning but merely serve to fill out the meter in the lack of significant words. For it may be well to remember that while savages and barbarians have an abundance of fixed and permanent songs, they are also fond of improvising and that much of their singing is the spontaneous expression of a new thought at the moment of the singing. A favorite device in early song is alternation and response. Two devices which we constantly employ in poetry, viz., alliteration and rhyme, are relatively late inventions. Alliteration probably comes earlier than rhyme and represents a lower artistic develop- ment. Rhyme with us also is more exacting than among the peoples of lower culture, where a very poor similarity in sound may satisfy. In the study of primitive poetry and song, we should carefully distinguish between form and content. The " sub- stance of primitive poetry is rude and meager; egoistic, satirical; it rarely deals with the beauties of nature or the emotions of love." It is primarily the deeds of daily life that are sung; deeds of war, incidents of hunting. Praise of one's self and disparagement of others are common, but these are rarely expressed fully; they are only suggestions or catchwords. Very early the idea of magic power in the song develops. Incantations, sorceries or formulae are sung, and in the singing are potent. When singing once develops, every impulse and emotion may find expression MUSIC OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES 3 through it. In barbarism, there are songs for all occasions. There are war-songs, songs of exultation and songs of mourning. .Among the strangest are the death-songs. In certain of our western Indian tribes a man frequently composed, during his prime, the song which he hoped to sing when dying. I remember, in southern California, listening to an old gray-haired man, blind for years, as he sang his death- song, practising for the grim occasion. It is doubtful whether much that appeals to us as poetical in the expressions of people in lower culture, ought to be considered poetry. We should only call that poetry, which is intentionally put into aesthetic form with the idea of giving pleasure. Savages and barbarians frequently use striking metaphors, which, if employed by us, would be poetical. Thus, it is natural for the barbarian of northern Asia to speak of a flame of fire as a living tongue licking its prey before devouring it. If one among us should speak in such fashion he might properly be said to be employing poetic language. We do not believe the fire to be a living being, nor the fuel to be prey. To the barbarous man, however, the fire is really living, the fuel is truly prey to be devoured. With him the metaphor is simply prose. When the American Indian says, " I am a lone pine tree," he is unquestionably indulging in a figure of speech; he does not think he is a pine tree, but has selected the words intentionally to present a picture to the mind. This expression would be poetical. We have already said that primitive poetry and music are parts of one mental expression. In savagery and barbarism form is more important than meaning and significance is frequently sacrificed. Man must early have distinguished tones and taken pleasure in marking that distinction. A suc- cession of tones varying in pitch or quality forms a melody and the bulk of savage and barbaric song consists of simple melodies. During recent years, there has been much study of the music of lower cultures and much discussion of the question of musical scales. It is unlikely that lower peoples generally have clear ideas of a fixed and definite scale. That 4 FOREIGN MUSIC they distinguish clearly differences of pitch, that they in practise recognize what we call intervals is certain ; that they think of a definite number of fixed notes as forming a system- atic scale, is doubtful. One of the most famous students of American Indian music has written the Indian songs as four- part music. This seems to us fundamentally wrong. Cer- tainly, in most Indian music there is no intention of producing harmonies, or of singing part-music. To begin with, a large proportion of Indian songs are purely individual. A medicine-song, a death-song, a love-song, is an individual pos- session sung only as a solo. Of course, about such songs there can be no question and to write them as harmonized is plainly false. Another large proportion of Indian songs are those used in dances ; in these the purpose is to give time and rhythm. Each singer knows the song and each tries to sing it as the others do. Unquestionably, in the singing there will be individual failures to strike desired notes exactly, but the effort to do so is there. As the result of failure, there is more or less of blending and, from such blendings, it is quite possible that the idea of harmony arose but cer- tainly in the beginnings disharmony must have been what was produced. From poetry and song let us turn to instruments. Writers in general recognize three classes : instruments of percussion, wind instruments and stringed instruments.

Load more