General History of Music

^:^m< '':-^':i^^\ r^: "^ rE" My-o^jsSA t i/lAf: 28 D • - T -Jul 31 ^, f If;. I O AUG Jl 1 ^ (:^^Ûf^ 9f 6; 5^îi •; Q?^ M 14 %^ NOV 2 mi Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2011 witii funding from Boston Public Library http://www.archive.org/details/historyofmusic01rowb HISTORY OF MUSIC. VOL. I. :'t- re- ' A HISTORY OF MUSIC, BV 1' J O W X F R K U E R I C K ROW BO H A M. 9 ^ / IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: TRUENER & Co., LUDGATK HILL 1885. J (The rigid (f transhuion is reserved. CONTENTS OF VOLUME THE FIRST. BOOK I. PREHISTORIC MUSIC. INTRODUCTION. ... Page xi. CHAPTER I. THE DRUM STAGE. Page i. CHAPTER II. THE PIPE STAGE. Page 35. VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. THE VOICE. Page 70. CHAPTER IV. PIPE RACES AND LYRE RACES. Page 139. CHAPTER V. THE LYRE STAGE. Page 151. APPENDICES. ' APPENDIX A. On tJie Three Stages in Central Africa, and especially the Lyre Stage. PAGE 185. APPENDIX B. On Darwin's Theory of the Origin of Vocal Mnsic. Page 188. appendix c. O71 Darzvins Theory of the Origin of Instriinieîtal Music. Page 188. CONTENTS. Vli BOOK II. THE MUSIC OF THE ELDER CIVILISATIONS AND THE MUSIC OF THE GREEKS. THE LYRE RACES, CHAPTER I. THE EGYPTIANS. Page 193 CHAPTER n. THE ASSYRIANS AND HEBREWS. Page 235 THE PIPE RACES. CHAPTER III. THE CHINESE, INDO-CHINESE AND OTHER MONGOLOIDS. Page 285. BOOK I. PREHISTORIC MUSIC. — A HISTORY OF MUSIC. BOOK I. PREHISTORIC MUSIC. INTRODUCTION. Music is a Dualism. It is formed of the conjunction of two elements—the one purely musical, the other poetical the one sensuous, the other spiritual or intellectual^ —the one owing its origin and development to Instruments, and based on the mere animal delight in Sound ; the other owing its origin and development to Language, and based on the fusion of the Emotional and Intellectual sides of man's nature. The object which the historian of Music must set before him is to trace the goings on of these two elements, at first far apart and moving in separate orbits —to show how their paths gradually approached each other—how a mutual attraction was set up, till at last they were necessarily drawn into the same plane of revolution. Here is the geniture of a New Music. He must then go on to show how the union is so com- plete, that the Instrument can lose its original characteristics, and become the exponent of the Poetical and Spiritual side of the Art, while the Voice can in like manner be the interpreter of the Sensuous and merely Musical side. How the organs of utterance may for ever vary, but how what they utter never varies. How the Sensuous and Spiritual I Intellectual, because of its Form (beings expressed by words), Spiritual, because of its Matter (being the same with the Matter of Poetry). xii HISTORY OF MUSIC. elements act and react upon one another. How sometimes one, sometimes the other is lord of the conjunction—sometimes both are so exquisitely blended that we are tempted ' to exclaim, Flere at last is perfect proportion ! In this symmetry and harmonious play we hail the climax of the Art's development' But further he must proceed to ac- count psychologically for these epochs of preponderance and equilibrium. He must show why some nations are naturally disposed to develop the Sensuous element at the expense of the Spiritual, and other nations to develop the Spiritual at the expense of the Sensuous. And finally he must show how these two elements of Music answer to the two grand ultimate divisions of the human mind, and how hence two great Schools of Artists, sometimes shading off into one another, sometimes in direct antagonism, have ever existed from the first glimmerings of the Art's history in un- broken succession to the present time. These are the objects which a historian of Music must set before him, and these I shall attempt in the ensuing pages however imperfectly to accomplish. n. I propose to commence by considering what I have termed the Sensuous side of the Art. Not because I would imply that it came into being before the Intellect- ual side—the case being exactly the reverse—but because, in all strictness, it is the more specially Musical of the two. Musical Instruments, though their varieties may be counted by hundreds, are yet readily reducible under three distinct types : — I. the Drum type; II. the Pipe type; III. the Lyre type. Under the first head fall drums, rattles, gongs, triangles, tam-tams, castanets, tambourines, cymbals—in a word, all instruments of Percussion. Under the second head fall flutes, hautboys, clarionets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, bugles—all Wind Instruments. And under the third head fall all Stringed Instruments, comprising the harp, lyre, lute, guitar, the violin (with all its varieties), the mandolin, dulcimers, pianos, &c., &c. Now these three types are representative of three distinct stages of development through which Prehistoric Instrumental Music has passed —and the stages occur in the order named. That is to say, the first stage in the development of Instrumental Music was the Drum Stage, in which Drums, and drums alone were used by man ; the second stage was the Pipe Stage, in which Pipes as well as Drums were used ; the third stage — INTRODUCTION. Xlll was the Lyre Stage, in which Lyres were added to the \ stock. And as in the Geological history of the globe, the Chalk is never found below the Oolite, nor the Oolite below the Coal, so in the Musical History of Mankind is the Lyre Stage never found to precede the Pipe Stage, nor the Pipe Stage to precede the Drum Stage. That this should be the order of development seems natural, if we consider the mechanical complexity of the Instruments themselves. The Drum is evidently the sim- plest of all ; the Pipe is more complex than the Drum ; but the Lyre, which consists of strings bound round pegs and strung on a frame, is the most complex of all. In keeping with this is the fact ihat savages sometimes have the Drum alone, but never the Pipe alone, or the Lyre alone ; for if they have the Pipe, they always have the Drum too ; and if they have the Lyre, they always have both Pipe and Drum, Meeting at the bottom of the ladder with the Veddahs of Ceylon, I the Mincopies of the Andamans',^ and the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego,^ who have no musical instruments at all, we find the Drum to be the only musical instrument known among the Australians,4 the Esquimaux,^ and the Behring's Nations generally,^ the Samoyedes and the other Siberian tribes, 7 and, until a comparatively recent date, the Laplanders.^ With the Polynesian Malays 9 and the Papuansô the Pipe / ^ I Tennent's History of Ceylon. 2 Mouat's Andaman Islands. 3 Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.SS. Adventure and Beagle. II. 4 Eyre's Discoveries in Central Australia, II. pp. 228, 2. 237. 32 331. Grey's Journal of Two Expeditions of Discovery in N.W. and W. Australia. II. p. 305. 5 Parry's 2nd Voyage, p. 530. Crantz, History of Greenland. I. p. 171. 6 Whymper's Alaska, p. 143. He is speaking particularly of the Malemutes and Kaveaks, but his remarks apply to all the Behring's Nations. 7 Richardson's Polar Regions, p. 335. Smith's AAônders ofNature and Art. London. 1803. II. pp. 277, 264, &c. 8 That is to say until within 200 years ago. See Scheffer's History of Lapland. 9 For the Society Islands, see Captain Cook's Voyages. Published by John Tallis, I. p. 87. For the Navigator Isles, Tui-ner. Nineteen years in Polynesia. p. 211. For the Friendly Iples, Cook. I. p. 427., and in the common edition, 1st Voyage, p. 397. See also Mariner's Tonga Islands. II. 214. 218. For the Mar- quesas, Melville's Life in the Marquesas, p. 185. For the Sandwich Islands, where, however, the Pipe is absent. Cook II. 250. And for the Maories of New Zealand, who are the most advanced of all, Captain Cook. I. 196. and Infra, p. And cf. generally Ellis' Polynesian Researches, p. 282. sqq. Of Ellis' book I regret I have been under the necessit}'' of employing two separate editions in the_ course of this work, nor am I in a position to say to which of the two the various references particularly belong. 10 For the Papuans, see Williams' Fiji and the Fijians, I. 163. Turner's Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 90, cf. Infra, p. —Jukes' Voyage of H.M.S. Fly. (for the Erroob Papuans), II, 176. (for the Papuans of New Guinea), I. 274, and plate I, 277. Cf. Rosenberg's Niev/-Guinea. p. 93. And for the Drum Form in the Papuan Archipelago, Shouten's Voyage in Purchas His Pilgrim^s, 1. 2. 100. — ) XIV HISTORY OF MUSIC. makes its appearance, while in no single instance is the Drum found wanting. The same holds good of the South American Indians. Both Pipe and Drum are in use among the tribes on the Upper Amazon, ^ the Indians of the Rio Negro 2 and the Uaupes,^ the Tupis,4 the Omaguas ^ and neighbouring tribes,^ the Artaneses,7 and Yucunas,^ the Itatines,9 and generally the rest ^° of the Brazilian tribes ; the aborigines of Guiana,ii the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru, 12 ^^g Huacho Indians of Peru,i3 the Abipones of Paraguay,i4 the Patagonians.^S These are all the cases I have examined in South America, and they all yield the same result—that is to say, the Pipe is nowhere to be found without the Drum being likewise present.^^ And what is true of the South American Indians is equally true of the North American Indians.^^ But where the Lyre appears, there both Pipe and Drum are also found as its never failing complements, as with the Dyaks of Borneo,^^ the Khonds.of Khondistan,i9 the Finns,2o the Tartars,2i the Cossacks,^^ the Turcomans,23 the Hindus,^^ 1 Bates' Amazons, II, 20r.

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