and form; yet what terror did they not produce in the Eumenides of Æschylus, and what tears in that touching farewell scene of Euripides Alcestis! After the taking of Athens by Lysander, one of the Thebans proposed, that Athens should be destroyed, and all the citizens deprived of their liberty. While the leaders of the enemy's army were celebrating their victory in the banquet hall, one of the guests sang the melody of the chorus of Euripides, "O daughter of Agamemnon, Electra, I come to thy humble dwelling." So great was the emotion, the feeling of compassion which it excited among the listeners, that it saved Athens from destruction, and the citizens from servitude.1 The wonders which the ancients attributed to music, although related by the greatest historians and philosophers, we are much inclined to take for fables, for "Tales of a Thousand and One Nights." But do not our own days tell us of similar wonders achieved by this art? If ancient history relates that Timotheus could, according to the choice of his melody, excite or calm Alexander's soul; that Tirtæus was able to inflame for death or victory the Spartan army; have we not instances near our own times of similar effects? effects, indeed, which stand in nothing behind the reputed fables of antiquity. In the fifteenth century, in Granada, did not the whole mass of the people shed tears when they heard the ballad of the Moors, on the taking of Alhama? did not the simple and pathetic song of Schah-Culi, at the siege of Bagdad, save the life of 30,000 inhabitants?? Was not, a century ago, the Rans des Vaches forbidden, under pain of 1 Plutarch's Life of Lysander. 2 When Amurat IV. conquered Bagdad in 1638, he gave orders to massacre before his eyes, 30,000 inhabitants. Schah-Culi found means to be brought before the irritated Sultan, and in singing to the harp the lament of the suffering Bagdadians, Amurat was moved to tears; the massacre, already commenced, was countermanded. In softening this bloodthirsty tiger with his strains, still sung among the Turks and Persians, and known under the name of Muselie or Percerfi Bagdati Fetichi, (the taking of Bagdad,) he is deservedly called the Persian Orpheus.-See Toderini on the Literature of the Turks, and Encyclopädie der Musikalischen Wissenschaften, Vol. vi., p. 160. 1 death, because, to the memory of the sons of Switzerland, serving far away from their country, it recalled their native hills so powerfully, as to make them desert their ranks, or die of grief? Have we not witnessed the Marseillaise Hymn, wherever it was heard, exciting indescribable enthusiasm: the workmen quitting their shops, abandoning wife and children, and running in their shirt-sleeves to swell the ranks of the republican army? Deeds, which seemed beyond human power, were accomplished whenever the Marseillaise was struck up:1 and even at this moment its power is electric upon the French; its intonation still strikes with awe and terror the most valiant armies of royalty. It is, therefore, kept in constant thraldom; always feared, always watched like a lion ready to break forth from its den, and spread, a second time, desolation and carnage over half the nations of Europe. Similar effects were produced by the Polonaise of Kosciuszko and the Third May in the combat of Poland for independence; similar enthusiasm excited among the Neo-Hellenists the Δεύτε παῖδες τῶν Ἑλλήνων; similar excitement produces daily still the Gamel Norge among the Norwegians. For the same reason, the nursery song has often a power over our feelings, that no work of musical genius could attain. J. J. Rousseau, when speaking of his aunt Suzon, when a child, says :-"Would one believe, that an old dotard, like myself, worn out with cares and troubles, should find myself weeping like an infant, while I murmur, with a broken and trembling voice, the songs of my childhood." 2 It is known that the aria, Ombra adorata aspetta of Zingarelli's Romeo e Giulietta, so remarkable for its simplicity, caused an unheard-of emotion: as in the Eumenides of Æschylus, many people fainted, and women were carried away. Carpani relates,3 that when Bertoni's opera, Arta 1 The words of the Republican General are known, who asked for a "supply of 1000 men, or a new edition of the Marseillaise;" or another, who reported: "J'ai gagné la bataille; La Marseillaise commandait avec moi." 2 Confessions de J. J. Rousseau. * Carpani's Biography of Haydn. xerxes, was being performed in Rome, the character of Arbace was represented by a celebrated singer. At the famous judgment scene, the maestro had introduced some pauses to the instrumental accompaniment, after the words, E appur sono innocente! The action, the music, the art, and expression of the singer, had transported the whole audience. After these touching words, Arbace, perceiving the continued silence of the orchestra, turned round to the conductor, with somewhat of temper, and said: well, what are you all about? who, recalled to himself, replied: we weep. In truth, audience and orchestra, carried away by the power of his expression, remained mute and motionless, listened and wept. In many instances, when misfortune has struck too deeply into the heart, and ravaged, with little mercy, its dearest affections, when all the energies have been paralyzed, and tears, that great source of comfort, dried up, music has often come in unexpected, simple, touching strains, and presented a balm which medical science sought for in vain, a balm which, with its invisible source, appeared to be administered by an angel of comfort, a messenger from higher spheres.1 Thus we see that simple compositions have at all times operated more powerfully upon individuals and people than complicated scientific compositions; and, therefore, it can be nothing but idle speculation to pretend that, in modern times, 1 In the year 1778, the celebrated singer, Raff, came to Naples, where resided, at that time, the Princess Belmonte Pignatelli, who, brooding over her grief at the loss of her husband, had fallen into a state of total insensibility and stupefaction, and was fast approaching the grave. No tear brought relief to the breaking heart; medical skill had been tried in vain. In this extremity of desolation, her waiting woman, as a last resource, arranged that, while seated one evening in one of her summer houses, Raff should sing, as by chance, from a distance. He, with an unpretending voice, sung that simple melody of Rolli, Solitario bosco ombroso. The Princess seemed at first insensible, but soon the head rose; she opened the half-closed eyes, gazed as if awaking from a dream, and scarcely had Raff finished the first verse, when, fully conscious, she burst into a flood of tears, which continued for several days uninterruptedly. Thus her life was saved, and her spirits, by degrees, recalled to their former energy.-See Schilling's Encyclopædie der Tonkunst, art. Raff. music has either no longer that wonderful power which it had among the ancients, or that their music was then in its infancy, compared with the more harmonious and the more scientific development of ours. The power of music is still undiminished; its application to youth, and to the people, has only to be learnt. As simple music, then, produces the greatest effect, why should not every one find an opportunity to learn it?*In order to make the instruction in this art a really moral instruction, a powerful agent in the advancement and progress of individuals and nations, let us associate the simplest music with the best and noblest lines of poetical composition. Let us, with songs and poetry, with lessons of lofty thought and practical truth, store the memory of the young. What we are taught to sing, we never forget. The songs which we learnt in our youth, are the sweetest and most lasting recollections of man. C 34 V. Music among the Ancients, an essential part of Education.-Estimation in which Music was held by the Egyptians and Hebrews, by the Sages, Legislators, and the Founders of the different Schools of Philosophy in Greece. THE music of the ancients, their technical acquirements, their scientific principles of this art, are to us a great mystery. Hundreds of years have passed since the last strains of their music were heard. In vain we listen to their songs of praise or of triumph, of hope or of contrition; in vain we seek for them among their ruins, their temples, and their monuments; these sounds are hushed; they are gone to the grave with those who sought in them delight and comfort. The most minute and the most learned treatises have been written on the subject, but they leave us in the dark as we were before. No description, no explanation can help us. Sounds, sounds we want, living sounds carried upon the breath of man, or a notation of which we possess the key; a writing in accordance with our measure, our musical compass, to be our guide through the infinity of auditive space. One canto of a Rhapsodist, one stanza of the Paeans, one scolion, one ode of Sappho or of Pindar, in its musical accents, would reveal to us the nature of the Grecian music. The only Φράζου λάβε, λάβε, λάβε, the terrible cry of the awakening furies in Eschylus' Eumenides; one strophe of their invocation to the Night, Μᾶτερ ἅ μ ̓ ἔτικτες, ὦ μᾶτερ would give us more insight into the music of the Grecian tragedies, than the investigations of many centuries have been able 1 V. 125. 2 Eumenides, v. 312. |