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THEHISTORY OF MUSIC LIBRARY |
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CHAPTER I. Early Egyptian harps. Their origin to be traced in the
three-stringed lyre. Harps in Assyria, Babylonia, Uganda, and Persia.
Aethicus of Istria. Heccataeus.
Harps in pagan Ireland. Affinity between the Egyptian and Irish
harp. The Ullard harp. The timpan and ocht-tedach. Greek and Roman harps. The name “harp” of English
origin. How the harp was evolved from the hunter’s bow. High artistic
quality of early Egyptian music. It is a commonplace of musical history that Egyptian
harps have been discovered whose date goes back, to at least, three
thousand years ago. The statements of Bruce and Wilkinson were at
one time regarded as more or less apocryphal, in
regard to the very advanced state of musical culture possessed
by the ancient Egyptians, as illustrated in the representations
of harps from the Temple of Ammon at Medinet-Abou, near Thebes. Pocock and Norden were the first
to announce the ancient drawings of harps at Thebes, but it was
reserved for Bruce to accurately sketch two harps from the fresco
panels in Egypt. Recent researches have amply confirmed the authenticity
of the drawings made by Bruce, and therefore there is no longer
question as to the great antiquity of the harp among the Egyptians.
The instrument was fully developed under King Rameses III, circ.
B.C. 1260, as may be demonstrated by a reference to the drawings
given by Sir G. Wilkinson, especially the magnificent harp from
the tomb of Rameses here illustrated.
The harps of the royal minstrels in ancient Egypt were
magnificently ornamented, and were embellished with, the head of
the monarch himself. Herodotus tells us that the favourite song
of the ancient Egyptians was a dirge, “The Lay of the Harper”, which
is beautifully translated in Ancient Egypt, by Rawlinson. One striking peculiarity of this old-world instrument
is the absence of a fore-pillar. Many
writers have remarked that the Egyptian harps must, of necessity,
have been of very low pitch, inasmuch as
the tension was perforce weak, owing to the want of a fore-pillar,
or harmonic curved bar. This, however, is a fallacy, as, owing to
the artistic construction of the harps, a sufficiently high tension
was obtained. The strings were invariably of gut, and the number
varied from seven to twenty-one, although, in general, thirteen
was the normal number. Under King Thothmes
III., B.C. 1470, harps of fourteen strings were in use. In height the harps were about six feet, and were elaborately
ornamented, lotus flowers being much in evidence. The rows of
pegs sufficiently attest the method of tuning, whilst the slits
at the back were sound holes, as in the harps of our own
days. Bruce regarded the Theban harps as “affording incontestable
proof that every art necessary to the construction, ornament, and
use of this instrument was in the highest perfection”.
This highly-finished instrument was undoubtedly the evolution
of the three-stringed lyre, as depicted on the mast of Queen Hatashu's ship, which vessel she sent to the land of Punt,
identified as the south coast of Arabia. The traveller today can
gaze upon the wonderful temple that Queen Hatashu
built in honour of Amen, King of the Gods of Thebes, and can see
on monumental stone the carvings describing, as in a panorama, the
voyage of the five ships. Prominently displayed on the mast of one
of these ships is the three-stringed lyre. Here is an illustration
of such lyres, but with five strings. There is scarcely a shadow
of doubt that the harp was the final stage of the tightly-strung
bow of primitive man, when by accident the stretched string emitted
a musical sound on being plucked by the hunter. From one string
to three strings was an easy transition, and the form of the hunter’s
bow was retained. In the course of years the number of strings was increased, as in the accompanying
illustrations Figs. 3 and 4.
Assyria and Babylonia were famed for music from the very
earliest period, and the harp figured prominently in their social
life. The Assyrian harp— like the Egyptian and old Irish—had no
front body was uppermost, whereas in the Egyptian instrument it
was always at the base. The Assyrians appear to have used a plectrum.
Of all ancient peoples Babylonia can claim pride of place.
From the plains of Babylonia came the most advanced culture, as
may be evidenced by the bas-reliefs at the British Museum. A slab
was discovered two years ago at Tello, or Scipurra,
which Mr. St. Chad Boscawen dates as B.C. 2500. This remarkable
“find”, due to the American explorers in Babylonia, is a sculptured
tablet representing musicians, one of whom is seated playing on
a harp of eleven strings.
It is not surprising that a people like the Babylonians,
who were fully acquainted with the arch in architecture, should
be so advanced in the art of music. The Sumerian Plain is regarded by the most recent authorities
as the land of Eden mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and etymologists
are agreed that “Eden” means the “Plain”; that is, the alluvial
plain of Sumeria. Moreover, a hymn of
the Sumerians alludes to the “magical tree of life”growing
in Eden, analogous to what is mentioned in the Bible. Sargon, B.C. 700, founded a library at Sippara, and the student at the British Museum can feast his
eyes on hundreds of tablets, all testifying to a high degree of
culture. In the Assyrian Room of the British Museum are some of
the sculptured stones brought from the mound of Kouyunjik,
the acropolis of Nineveh, by Layard. Musicians are seen performing
on dulcimers, striking the strings with rods, that instrument
being attached to the waist by a string or ornamental tassel. In Uganda, as is recorded by Sir Harry Johnston, the
natives still play on a primitive form of harp of eight strings.
An older form of harp, or rather a one-stringed bowed lyre, is also
described by this African explorer, the performer holding the string
between his teeth, and plucking it, somewhat after the manner of
the trump or Jews’ harp. The Persians, too, had harps, as is attested by some
sculptures on an arch near Kermanshah, north-east of Bagdad. An
Irish traveller, who sketched the drawings in 1807, says that “the
strings of the harp (chang) were completely
visible and the figures were in perfect preservation”. As far
as can be judged from the drawings, which date from about the
sixth century, the size of the instrument was small, and only had
eight to ten strings. It may be added that
from Persia a bowed instrument called the rebab came to Arabia—a
form of violin. Pre-Christian Ireland certainly had harps, and a
remarkable fact is that these harps were apparently modelled on
those of the Egyptians—that is, having no fore-pillar. All Celticists
are agreed that the pagan Irish were a most cultured people,
and had the use of letters long before the advent of St.
Patrick. Aethicus of Istria, a Christian philosopher of about the Aethicus of year 300 made a tour to Ireland from Spain, and describes in his Cosmography that he had examined
the Irish writings or sagas. The old Irish name for the harp was crott or cruit. Originally a small
instrument of three or four strings, plucked with the fingers, it
is mentioned by an Irish poet who flourished about four hundred
years before Christ. Subsequently this Irish cruit was played with a plectrum, or bow, and is justly regarded
as the progenitor of the crotta (chrotta) and the Italian rota, also of the English crowd and
the Welsh crwth. St. Venantius Fortunatus, about the year 604, thus alludes to the cruit:— “Graecus achilliaca,
chrotta Britanna
canat”. This chrotta or cruit was the name for the oldest form of Irish harp, and it
is a mistake to confound it with the modern Welsh crwth. Much ingenuity
has been expended on explaining the above line of St. Venantius
Fortunatus, but it is certain that, originally,
the cruit was the small
Irish harp, called crowd by the English and crwth by the Welsh.
In early mediaeval times this equation of terms was observed; but
somehow or other a quite different instrument in Wales was given
the same name, just as the cornet of the Middle Ages is quite a
different instrument from that of today. Long before the coming
of St. Patrick allusion is made in some of the romantic tales to
the crott, and also
the crott-bolg or harp-bag, whilst the harper was invariably known
as cruitire,
or performer on the cruit.
We learn from Gerbert that the chrotta was an oblong-shaped instrument, with a neck and finger-board, having six strings, of which four were placed on the finger-board, and two outside it—the two open strings representing treble G with its lower octave. In fact it was a small harp played with a bow, generally placed resting on the knee, or on a table before the performer.
Carl Engel’s view seems correct that the original crwth
was not a bowed instrument but a small harp—in fact, the Irish crott, which in the course of centuries
was adapted as a fiddle-harp. An illustration of the three-stringed
crwth is also to be found in a manuscript in the National Library,
Paris, formerly belonging to the Abbey of St. Martial de Limoges.
This manuscript dates from the eleventh century, and the subjoined
illustration will give the reader an idea of the instrument. A very early authority for the cruit
in Ireland is Heccataeus, the Egyptian
historian, who gives a short description
of Ireland, about the year B.C. 500. From Booth’s translation the
following brief extract will be of interest:—"They say that Latona
was born here, and, therefore, that they worshipped Apollo above
all other gods.... That there is a city likewise consecrated to
this god, whose citizens are most of them harpers, who, playing
upon the harp, chant sacred hymns to Apollo in the temple”. From another ancient writer, B.C. 200, we learn that
the Irish children imagined the spirit of song to have had its abode
among the trembling strings of the cruit;
and, in the vision of Cahir Mor (A.D.
100), allusion is made to the “sweet music of the harp”. Again,
in the Dinnseanchus, attributed to Amergin
mac Amhalgaid, circ.
A.D. 540, we read à propos of the
reign of Geide, monarch of Ireland (a.m.
3143), that the people “deemed each other’s voices sweeter than
the warbling of the melodious harp”.
The perfected state of the small Irish harp (cruit) in the fifth century may be gleaned from a reference
to the tuning-keyin the Brehon Laws. No
authority can be higher than the wonderful code of laws known as
the Seanchus Mor
(published by the Record Office in six volumes), compiled in the
fifth century, and a special legislation was formulated in the case
of the non-return of a harp or a harp key. The term crann-glésa
literally means "tuning wood," and in case the tuning-key
of the cruit was lent and not returned, a smart penalty was inflicted.
Perhaps the strongest proof of the affinity between the
Egyptian and Irish harp is the still preserved sculptured harp on
the stone cross at Ullard, Co. Kilkenny—wherein
the fore-pillar is absent. Petrie dates the Ullard
harp (which I myself examined in 1888) as of the ninth century,
and was of opinion that the Irish harp was a form of the
cithara, derived from an Egyptian source, thus corroborating the
bardic tradition of the Milesians, as, according to the Irish annalists,
“the Milesians in their expedition from Spain to Ireland were accompanied
by a harper”. Closely allied to the three-stringed lyre is the Irish
timpan, which was played with a plectrum
or bow, deriving its name from the fact of the belly being drum-shaped. Hundreds
of references to this small instrument are to be met with in
the Irish sagas. The music of it was called a “dump”, and it continued
popular until the close of the seventeenth century. In mediaeval
days the plectrum was superseded by a bow, and the brass strings
were replaced by those of gut. It is referred to by Giraldus
Cambiensis in the twelfth century. A further development of the three-stringed harp was
the ocht-tedach—that is, the eight-stringed
harp. In a passage of the Book of Lecan,
relative to a King of Cashel in the eighth century, weread:—"On a certain
day when King Felim was in Cashel, there
came to him the abbot of a church, who took his little eight-stringed
harp (ocht-tedach) from his girdle, and played sweet music, and
sang a poem to it” . This passage makes it appear that the
ocht-tedach was attached to the girdle of the performer (as
was the custom of the Egyptians), and it also shows the then prevailing
custom of singing to the accompaniment of the harp.
The Greek and Roman harps were also due to an Egyptian
origin, or from an Asiatic source by way of Egypt. There were several
forms of the Grecian lyre, and, of course, similarly with the harp.
Visitors to the British Museum are acquainted with the beautiful
representations of Greek lyres to be seen in that vast storehouse
of knowledge. The Greeks, too, had a trigon, or three-cornered (triangular-shaped)
harp, of which a good specimen is on an Etruscan vase at Munich,
as here given. Terpander, who flourished
B.C. 670, is said to have increased the number of strings of the
lyre from four to seven. The late Roman harps would appear to have
the harmonic curve, containing the harp pegs below (instead of being
uppermost), whilst the sound box—as in the Assyrian harps—was above.
The Kissar, known also as the Kisirka,
or Ethiopian lyre, is the parent of the cithara and lyre. In the
very examples belonging to or the late Mr. T. W. Taphouse,
M.A., of Oxford, the strings are of camel gut. The Kissar
was plucked with the fingers, or else with a horn plectrum, and,
as in the case of the harp, there was much diversity in
regard to the number of strings—the general number being
seven.
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