Music in the History of the Western Church

nt to yourselves," he says, "the first man at the moment when he issues from the hand of God, when his vision rests for the first time upon his new em

covering God in the heavens, and attributing to him all the honor of this magnificence and of the harmonies of creation, he opens his mouth, the fi

2

of ghosts, deified ancestors, anthropomorphic gods, embodied influences of sun and cloud. In whatever guise these conceptions may clothe themselves, he experiences a feeling of awe which sometimes appears as abject fear, sometimes as reverence and love. The emotions which the primitive man feels under the pressure of these ideas are the most profound and persistent of which he is capable, and as they involve notions which are held in common by all the members of the tribe (for there are no sceptics or nonconformists in the savage community), they are formulated in elaborate schemes of ceremony. The religious [3] sentiment inevitably seeks expression in the assembly-"the means," as Professor Brinton says, "by which that most potent agent in religious life, collective suggestion, is brought to bear upon the mind"-the liturgy, the festival, and the sacrifice.[1] By virtue of certain laws of the human mind which are evident everywhere, in the highest civilized condition as in the savage, the religious emotion, intensified by collective suggestion in the assembly, will find expression not in the ordinary manner of thought communication, but i

4

Brown, "creates the artist."[2] Festivals among primitive races, as among ancient cultured peoples, are all distinctly religious. Singing and dancing are inseparable. Vocal music is a sort of chant, adopted because of its nerve-exciting property, and also for the sake of enabling a mass of participants to ut

nifestations of joy," says Herbert Spencer, "which culminate in singing and dancing, have their roots in instinctive actions like those of lively children who, on seeing in the distance some indulgent relative, run up to him, joining one another in screams of delight and breaking their run with leaps; and when, instead of an indulgent relative met by joyful children, we have a conquering chief or king met by groups of his people, there will almost certainly occur saltatory and vocal expressions of elated feeling, and these must become by implication signs of respect and loyalty,-ascriptions of worth which, raised to a higher pow

ligent as the Egyptians, Hebrews, and Greeks. Representations of religious processions and dances are found upon the monuments of Egypt and Assyria. The Egyptian peasant, when gathering his harvest, sacrificed the first fruits, and danced to testify his thankfulness to the gods. The priests represented in their dances the course of the stars and scenes from the histories of Osiris and Isis. The dance of the Israelites in the desert around the golden calf was probably a reproduction of features of the Egyptian Apis worship. The myths of many ancient nations represent the

7

rgies of the drunken devotees of Dionysus to the pure and tranquil adoration offered to Phoebus Apollo, consisted to a large extent of dancing. Andrew Lang's remark in regard to the connection between dancing and religious solemnity among savages would apply also to the Hellenic sacred dance, that "to dance this or that means to be acquainted with this or that myth, which is represented in a dance or ballet d'action."[4] Among the favorite subjects for pantomimic representation, united with choral singing, were the combat between Apollo and the dragon and the sorrows of Dionysus, the commemoration of the latter forming the origin of the splendid Athenian drama. The ancient dance, it must be remembered, had as its motive the expression of a wide range of emotion, and could be employed to symbolize sentiments of wonder, love, and gratitude.

tivities, gave rise to scandal; the church authorities began to condemn them, and the rising spirit of asceticism drove them into disfavor. The dance was a dangerous reminder of the heathen worship with all its abominations; and since many pagan beliefs and customs, with attendant immoralities, lingered for centuries as a seductive snare to the weaker brethren, the Church bestirred itself to eliminate all perilous associations from religious ceremony and to arouse a love for an absorbed and spiritual worship. During the Middle Age, and even in comparatively recent times in Spain and Spanish America, we find survivals of the ancient religious dance in the Christian Church, but in the more enlightened countries it has practically ceased to exist. The Christian religion is more truly joyful than the Greek; yet the Christian devotee, even in his most confident moments, no longer feels inclined to give vent to his happiness in physical movements, for there is mingled with his rapture a sentiment of awe a

liturgical worship in all periods. So far as the people had a share in religious functions, vocal music was employed by them in hymns to the gods, or in responsive refrains. In its instrumental form it was used to assist the singers to preserve the correct pitch and rhythm, to regulate the steps of the dance, or, in an independent capacity, to act upon the nerves of the worshipers and increase their sense of awe in the presence of the deity. It is the nervous excitement produced by certain kinds of mu

were imagined between instruments or melodies and religious or moral conceptions, so that the melody or random tone of the instrument indicated to the initiate the associated principle, and thus came to have an imputed sanctity of its own.

are traced representations of instruments and players. Among the literary records discovered on the site of [12] Nineveh are collections of hymns, prayers, and penitential psalms, addressed to the Assyrian deities, designed, as expressly stated, for public worship, and which Professor Sayce compares to the English Book of Common Prayer. On the Assyrian monuments are carved

y of instruments, from the little tinkling sistrum up to the profusely ornamented harp of twelve or thirteen strings, which towered above the performer. From such an instrument as the latter it would seem as though some kind of harmony must have been produced, especially since the player is represented as using both hands. But if such were the case, the harmony could not have been reduced to a scientific system, since otherwise a usage so remarkable would not have escaped the attention of the Greek musicians who derived so much of their art from Egypt. Music never failed at public or private festivity, religious ceremony, or funeral rite. As in all ancient religions, processions to the temples, carrying images of the gods and offerings, were attended by dances and vo

morality and certain forms of music, and would have musicians constrained to compose only such melodies [15] and rhythms as would turn the plastic mind toward virtue. Plutarch, in his discourse concerning music in his Morals, says: "The ancient Greeks deemed it requisite by the assistance of music to form and compose the minds of youth to what was decent, sober, and virtuous; believing the use of music beneficially efficacious to incite to all serious actions." He even goes so far as to say that "the right moulding of ingenuous manners and civil conduct lies in a well-grounded musical education." Assumptions of direct moral, intellectual, and even pathological action on the part of music, as distinct from an aesthetic appeal, are so abundant in ancient writings that we cannot dismiss them as mere fanciful hyperbole, but must admit that music really possessed a power over the emotions and volitions which has been lost in its later evolution. The explanation of this apparent anomaly probably lies, first, in the fact that music in antiquity was not a free independent art, and that when the philosophers speak of music they think of it in its associations with poetry, religious and patriotic observances, moral and legal precepts, historic relations, etc. Music, on its vocal side, was mere emphasized speech inflection; it was a slave to poetry; it

oses in equal proportion the emotional definiteness that exists in simple and spontaneous tone inflections. The earliest reasoning on the rationale of musical effects always takes for granted that music's purpose is to convey exact ideas, or at least express definite emotion. Music did not advance so far among the ancients that they were able to escape from this naturalistic conception. They could conceive of no higher purpose in music than to move the mind in definite directions, and so they maintained that it always did so. Even in modern life numberless instances prove that the music which exerts the greatest effect over the impulses is not the mature and complex art of the masters, but the simple strains which emanate from the people and bring up recollections which in themselves alone have power to stir the heart. The song

f for its own undivided glory. Strict religionists have always looked upon this tendency with suspicion, and have often strenuously opposed it, seeing in the sensuous fascinations of the art an obstacle to complete absorption in spiritual concerns. The conflict between the devotional and the aesthetic principles, which has been so active in the history of worship music in modern times, never appeared in antiquity except in the

us a large variety of instruments grouped in bands of considerable size, we are justified in supposing that combinations of different sounds were often produced. But the absence from the ancient treatises of any but the most vague and obscure allusions to the production of accordant tones, and the conclusive evidence in respect to the general lack of freedom and development in musical art, is proof positive that, whatever concords of sounds may have been occasionally produced, nothing comparable to our present contrapuntal and harmonic syste

2

support such an opinion. There is no reason to suppose that music was further developed among the Hebrews than among the most cultivated of their neighbors. Their music, like that of the ancient nations generally, was entirely subsidiary to poetic recitation and dancing; it was unharmonic, simple, and inclined to be coarse and noisy. Although in general use, music never attained so great honor among them as it did among the Greeks. We find in the Scriptures no praises of music as a nourisher of morality, rarely a trace o

2

al system by the Bible or any other ancient book. We may be certain that if the Hebrews had possessed anything distinctive, or far in advance of the practice of their contemporaries, some testimony to that effect would be found. All evidence and

y suppose that some modifications may have arisen after they became an independent nation. The first mention of musical instruments in the Bible is in Gen. iv. 21, where Jubal is spoken of as "the father of all such as handle the kinnor and ugab" (translated in the revised version "harp and pipe"). The word kinnor appears frequently in the later books, and is applied to the instrument used by David. This [22] kinnor of David and the psalmists was a small portable instrument and might properly be called a lyre. Stringed instruments are usually the last to be developed by primitive peoples, and the use of the kinnor implies a considerable degree

l, translated in the English version [23] "pipe," may have been a sort of oboe or flageolet. The band of prophets met by Saul advanced to the sound of nebel, toph, chalil, and kinnor.[17] The word "psaltery," which frequently appears in the English version of the psalms, is sometimes the nebel, sometimes the kinnor, sometimes the asor, which was a species of nebel. The "instrument of ten strings" was also the nebel or asor. Percussion instruments, such as the drum, cymbals, bell, and the Egyptian sistrum (which consisted of a small frame of bronze into whic

ce was in the flower of its youthful vigor, the national pride had been stimulated by continual triumphs, the long period of struggle and fear had been succeeded by glorious peace. The barbaric splendor of religious service and festal pageant was the natural expression of popular joy and self-confidence. In all these ebullitions of national feeling, choral and instrumental music on the most brilliant and massive scale held a conspicuous place. The description of the long series of public rejoicings, culminating in the dedication of Solomon's temple, begins with the transportation of the ark of the Lord from Gibeah, when "David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord with all manner of instruments made of fir-wood, and with harps (kinnor), and with psalteries (nebel), and with timbrels (toph), with castanets (sistrum), and with cymbals (tzelt

ons of David and Solomon. With the burnt offering the song of praise was uplifted to the accompaniment of the "instruments of David," the singers intoned the psalm and the trumpets

2

praise the Lord, after the order of David king of Israel. And they sang one to another in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth forever toward Israel."[26] And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, as recorded by Nehemiah, instrumentalists and singers assembled in large numbers, to lead the m

peaking voice, but in musical tone. The minstrel poet, [27] it has been said, was the type of the race. Lyric poetry may be divided into two classes: first, that which is the expression of individual, subjective feeling, the poet communing with himself alone, imparting to his thought a color derived solely from his personal inward experience; and second, that which utters sentiments that are shared by an organization, community, or race, the poet serving as the mouthpiece of a mass actuated by common experiences and motives. The second class is more characteristic of a people in the earlier stages of culture, when the individual is lost in the community, before the tendency towards

. A text most appropriate for musical rendering must be free from all subtleties of meaning and over-refinements of phraseology; it must be forcible in movement, its metaphors those that touch upon general observation, its ideas those that appeal to the common consciousness and sympathy. These qualities the psalms possess in the highest degree, and in addition they have a sublimity of thought, a magnificence of imagery, a

ted in the liturgical churches of modern Christendom. Whether, in the ancient temple service, this twofold utterance was divided between separate portions of the choir, or between a precentor and the whole singing body, there are no grounds for stating,-both methods have been employed in modern times. It is not even certain that the psalms were sung in alternate half-verses, for in the Jewish Church at the present day the more frequent usage is to divide at the end of a verse. It is evident that the singing was not congregational, and that the share of the people, where they participated at all, was confined to short responses, as in the Christian Church in the time next succeeding the apostolic age. The female voice, although much prized in secular music, according to the Talmud was not permitted in the temple service. There is nothing in the Old Testament that contradicts this except, as some suppose, the reference to the three daughters of Heman in 1. Chron. xxv. 5, [30] where we read: "And God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters;" and in verse 6: "All these were under the hands of their father for song in the house of the Lord." It is probable, however, that the mention of the daughters is incidental, not intended as an assertion that they were actual members of the temple chorus, for we cannot conceive why an exception should have been made in their behalf. Certainly the whole impl

3

ant as a species of vocalism subordinated in rhythm to the text, yet with abundant movement and possessing a distinctly tuneful character. It has been supposed that certain inscriptions at the head of some of the psalms are the titles of well-known tunes, perhaps secular folk-songs, to which the psalms were sung. We find, e. g., at the head of Ps. xxii. the inscription, "After the song beginning, Hind of the Dawn." Ps. lvi. has, "After the song, The silent Dove in far-off Lands." Others have, "After lilies" (Ps. xlv.

3

needed, however, to prove the point, for the descriptions of worship contained in the Old Testament seem explicit. The instruments were used to accompany the voices, and also for preludes and interludes. The word "Selah," so often

priests and Levites. The sorrowing exiles who hung their harps on the willows of Babylon and refused to sing the songs of Zion in a strange land certainly never forgot the airs consecrated by such sweet and bitter memories; but in the course of centuries they became lost among the strange peoples with whom the scattered Israelites found their home. Many were for a time preserved in the synagogues, which, in the later years of Jewish residence in Palestine, were established in large numbers in all the towns and villages. The service of the synagogue was a liturgical service, consisting of benedictions, chanting of psalms and other Scripture passages, with response

nagogue to-day, a splinter from a mighty edifice which has been submerged by the tide of centuries. As would be presumed of a people so tenacious of time-honored usages, the voice of tradition declares that the intonations of the ritual chant used in the synagogue are survivals of forms employed in the temple at Jerusalem. These intonations are certainly Or

n successions of tones wedded to poetry of singular exaltation and vehemence, and associated with liturgical actions calculated to impress the beholder with an overpowering sense of awe. The interest which all must feel in the religious music of the Hebrews is not due to its importance in the history of art, but to its place in the history of culture. Certainly the art of music was never more highly honored, [35] its efficacy as an agent in arousing the he

ed men of

m virtues n

dull, no s

t, fired not

e grew mightier

erms with poetry, valid in the expression of man's consciousness of his needs and his infinite privilege,-thus consecrated for its future mission, the soul of music passed fro

3