Israel's Music-Lesson in Egypt Author(s): Jeffrey Pulver Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 56, No. 869 (Jul. 1, 1915), pp. 404-407 Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/909271 Accessed: 22-02-2016 04:36 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 194.27.18.18 on Mon, 22 Feb 2016 04:36:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 404 THE MUSICAL TIMES.-JULY I, I915. ISRAEL'S MUSIC-LESSON IN EGYPT. that during four centuries of such conditions the music of Israel and that of Egypt became, for all BY JEFFREY PULVER. practical purposes, identical. About thirty-two centuries ago the sandy shores of Let us glance at the condition of the country at the the Red Sea witnessed a remarkable sight. A huge time of Israel's arrival. Egypt was undoubtedly the band of fugitives, numbering, we are told, six hundred cradle of the arts, and in that of music we know her thousand male adults in addition to a comparatively to have been pre-eminent. We are supplied with large number of women and children, stood on the information in this respect more fully than in the case littoral and gazed in awe-struck amazement upon the of any other ancient nation ; the tombs of kings and overwhelming disaster that overtook the pursuing priests, mural paintings, and inscriptions tell us of a host. Gratitude to a beneficent Providence for their musical activity and excellence that are astonishing. escape opened their lips, and their leader sang: We find illustrations of instruments that for beauty 'I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed of design, soundness of construction, and musical gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown efficiency, stand high above those of even much into the sea' (Ex. xv., i.). That band of emancipated younger peoples. The pages of any history of Egypt, bondmen was destined to have a greater influence on and notably those of Wilkinson's 'Manners and the morals and religion of the civilised world than any Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,' provide sufficient other nation of antiquity. But besides this distinction evidence for the most sceptical. The arts flourished, the newly freed people possessed another: in an art and wondrously perfect instruments of music were necessitating the highest mental development they used, long before Joseph was made Grand Vizier. attained to a degree of excellence unequalled in any Harps, lyres, and three-stringed guitars, besides the other nation,-a precedence which they have, to a usual wind and percussion common to even primitive certain extent, held until the present day. nations, were in everyday use 'from the earliest The Israelites of the Patriarchal age were not periods of their known history' (Wilkinson). The musical in the technical sense; they were a Egyptian himself was easy-going, simple, and fond of his was his comparatively small clan of pastorals ; they possessed innocent amusement ; first object to enjoy as he could in accordance the poetry of pastorals used in combination with the earthly life as thoroughly and music of pastorals. They had the heart and the with the tenets of his faith; his aims were lofty a love the inspiration, but they had not the science. In Egypt sincere, and he had well-developed for they learned how to adapt the marvellous instruments Beautiful. Could such a people as the Israelites- possessed by their hosts to the requirements of their who were and are ever ready to assimilate the good latent desire for musical expression. When the family things of their hosts and neighbours-be left untouched such a of Jacob arrived in Egypt they found a hearty welcome by an art that had already reached high plane first awaiting them: the rulers were Hyksos-Shepherd of excellence in Egypt? Joseph was not the of Abraham's Kings-and in tastes and habits these must have had Semite to see Egypt: from the time much in common with the Israelites. The Patriarch visit onward such wanderers often came and went, been settled at Heliopolis (On) in the land of Goshen, a and thus Israel could not have utterly ignorant banks of the Nile. district populated by a mixed people-partly Egyptian, of what awaited them on the partly alien. In such surroundings they could The invasion of the Hyksos was not a crushing blow develop whatever traits they possessed without to Egyptian progress: Manetho says there was not attracting too much attention to themselves. They even a battle ; and the onward march of development had brought with them the Kinnor and Ugav invented in the arts could not have suffered any great check. by Jubal (Gen. iv. 2I)-possibly improvements upon Under this sympathetic regime the Israelites them, and also certain Syrian instruments that they commenced to take their music-lessons from their had learned to use from their erstwhile neighbours. Egyptian teachers. But before inquiring into the state But between these comparatively primitive of music in Egypt, it will be well first to ascertain instruments and the musical glories of the Temple which period we have to consider. The date of the there was great disparity, and it is in Egypt that I Exodus is variously given: we need not now go into seek the source of Israel's real musical greatness. the details that rightly occupy the pages of histories of The soul for the art was their divine gift ; it was from Egypt; for our present purpose a date that will allow the mathematically-minded physicists of Egypt that the main facts of history to fit in will suffice. The they learned how to make of music a science as well cities of Pithom and Raamses were built before the as an art. departure of the Israelites-that is certain; and this others that need not be mentioned When attempting to seek proofs and reasons for fact, in addition to after the of these statements we must keep three points in view. here, must place the migration reign that of one of his two The first is that Israel was long enough in Egypt to Rameses II., and during II. become Egyptianised in every respect except in immediate successors, Menepthah (Mer-n-Ptah), Sethos The latter religious faith,-and even in that, there is evidence to or Seti II. (Manetho, Ramesses). the date B.C. the be found in the Chapters of the Exodus dealing with would give us I270-I250 Adding of the to the wandering. in the Desert to show that this also four hundred and thirty years sojourn this, Between these two was, to a degree, influenced by Egyptian thought. we arrive at c. I700 B.C. dates, evidence to The second is that although the Egyptians incarnated then, we have to examine the relating their deities to satisfy the popular mind, there was Egypt's musical activity. otherwise very little difference between their views of The pictorial representations of instruments, life in general and those of the Israelites, and many musicians, dancers, &c., on the tombs, appear very of their manners and customs were identical ; we can early in the history of Egypt; they include singers, thus expect them to sympathise with one another and flute-players, harpists, lutists and others, and we find thus learn from each other. The third point is that them in almost every period, only differing in the stage Israel did not groan under the goad of the taskmaster of development of the instruments and only absent all the time of their sojourn, and that before the during the periods of invasion and war. The harp was accession of the Pharaoh 'who knew not Joseph,' of native Egyptian origin, and passed through a long they enjoyed a long period of peace, prosperity, and process of improvement: beginning with a simple development. I do not therefore think I shall be curved support holding a stretched string, and ending accused of taking too much for granted when I assert with the wonderful creations that Bruce discovered on, This content downloaded from 194.27.18.18 on Mon, 22 Feb 2016 04:36:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE MUSICAL TIMES.-JULY I, I9I5. 405 and copied from, the walls of a Theban sepulchre. otherwise it would be but reasonable to expect two such These last belong to the reign of Rameses III., and are nations of scribes to have left documentary evidence thus later than the Exodus; but in no country could of the art. I do not consider the sign-system used by such magnificent instruments-over six feet high and the Jews to indicate their cantillation a system of beautifully made and ornamented-be developed in a musical notation. No written music of any sort has short time ; and if the Israelites did not actually see been discovered, and we can only guess at the nature the final triumph of the Egyptian harp-maker's art, of that performed in Egypt.