Back Aa

Popular History of the Art of Music

<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> <h3>THE MINSTRELS OF THE NORTH.</h3> <hr style="width: 15%;" /> <ANTIMG src="images/capu.png" width-obs="106" height-obs="100" alt="U" title="U" class="floatl" />PON many accounts the development of minstrelsy by the Celtic singers and harpers was one of the most important of all the forces operative in the transformation of the art from the monody of the ancients to the expressive melody and rich harmony of modern music. As it is to a considerable extent one side of the direct course of this history, which hitherto has dealt largely with the south of Europe, the present is the most convenient time for giving it the consideration its importance deserves. I do this more readily because English influence upon the development of music has generally been underrated by continental writers, the erudite Fétis alone excepted; while their own national writers, even, have not shown themselves generally conscious of the splendid record which was made by their fathers. The Celts appear upon the field of history several centuries before the Christian era. Cæsar's account of them leaves no doubt of the place which music held in their religion, education and national life. The minstrel was a prominent figure, ready at a moment's notice to perform the service of religion, patriotism or entertainment. There is a tradition of one King Blegywied ap[Pg 88] Scifyllt, who reigned in Brittany about 160 B.C., who was a good musician and a player upon the harp. While we have no precise knowledge of the music they sang in the oldest times, it was very likely something like the following old Breton air, which is supposed to have come down from the Druids. It is full of a rude energy, making it impressive even to modern ears. By successive migrations of Angles, Danes and Northmen, the Celts were crowded into Wales, where they still[Pg 89] remain. The harp has always been their principal instrument, and for many centuries a rude kind of violin called the crwth, of which there will be occasion to speak in connection with the violin, at a later period in this work.   OLD BRETON SONG. [Listen] <ANTIMG src="images/breton.png" width-obs="600" height-obs="598" alt="Old Breton Song" title="Old Breton Song" />   According to the best authorities the bards were divided into three great classes. The first class was composed of the historians and antiquaries, who piqued themselves a little upon their sorcery, and who, upon occasion, took up the rôles of diviners and prophets. The second class was composed of domestic bards, living in private houses, quite after the custom of ancient Greece. These we may suppose were chiefly devoted to the annals and glories of their wealthy patrons. The third class, the heraldic bards, was the most influential of all. They wrote the national annals. All these classes were poet-bards as well as musicians. The musical bards were divided into three classes. In the first were the players upon the harp; they were called doctors of music. To be admitted into this class it was necessary that they should perform successfully the three Mwchwl—that is, the three most difficult pieces in the bardic repertory. The second class of musical bards was composed of the players upon the crwth, of six strings. The third class were the singers. From the wording of the requirement it would seem that these must have had the same qualification as the first class, and therefore have been true doctors of music. For, in addition to being able to accord the harp or the crwth, and play different themes with their variations, two preludes and other pieces "with their sharps and their flats," they had to know the "three styles of expression," and accent them with the voice in different styles[Pg 90] of song. They had also to know the twenty-four meters of poetry as well as the "twenty-four measures of music." Finally, they must be able to compose songs in many of these meters, to read Welsh correctly, to write exactly, and to correct an ancient poem corrupted by the copyists. The classification of new bards was made at an Eisteddfod once in three years. It was a public contest, after the custom of the Greeks. The degrees were three, conferred at intervals of three years respectively. The organization of the bards existed until the sixteenth century; it was suppressed under Queen Elizabeth. The Eisteddfod has been maintained until the present time. The learned musical historian, J.J. Fétis, attended one in 1829, of which he has left an interesting account. The performances of the blind minstrel of Caernarvon, Richard Robinson, excited his admiration beyond anything else that he mentions. He says: "His skill was something extraordinary. The modern harp of Wales has no pedals for the semitones in modulations. It is supplied with three ranks of strings, of which the left and right give diatonic notes, those in the middle the half-tones. Nothing more inconvenient could be imagined; in spite of his blindness, this minstrel, in the most difficult passages, seized the strings of the middle ranks with most marvelous address. The innate skill of this musician of nature, the calm and goodness painted upon his visage, rendered him an object of general interest." Independently of the minstrels of this high class, they had also wandering minstrels who played the crwth of three strings, and who made themselves useful in the customary dances and songs of the peasants and the common people.[Pg 91] There exists an old manuscript, supposed to have been begun in the third or fourth century, Y Trioeddy nys Prydain ("The Triads of the Isle of Britain"). It contains the traditions from the ancient times until the seventh century. Among the famous triads of this book are: The three bards who bore the cloth of gold, Merlin Ambrosius, Merlin, son of Morvryn, and Taleisin, chief of the bards. There were three principles of song: Composition of poetry, execution upon the harp, and erudition. In the sixth century we see the bards playing the harp and singing their stirring songs with inspiring effect in animating the hearts of their compatriots again in their successful combats against the Saxons. Edward Jones, bard of the Prince of Wales in the last part of the eighteenth century, preserved the names of twenty-three bards who lived in the sixth century. The principal were Taleisin pen Beirrd, Aneurin Gwawrydd, Gildas ab Caw, Gildas Badonius. Taleisin was bard of Prince Elphin, then of King Maelgwin, and in the last place of Prince Urien Reged. He lived about 550; a number of his poems remain, but no fragment of his melody. Aneurin was author of "Gododn," one of the best Welsh poems that has come down to us. In the British Museum there is a manuscript supposed to have been begun in the eleventh century, containing much music for the harp. Among it are exercises in the curious notation of the Welsh, in which chords are freely used, and in positions suggesting the immediate occasion of their introduction—that, namely of supplementing the small power of the instrument by sounding several tones together, which, as octaves were impossible outside the middle range or pitch, were necessarily chords. Among the songs given are several which[Pg 93] betray the transition period of tonality, when chords had come into legitimate use, but the true feeling for a tonic had not yet been acquired. The preceding, for instance, proceeds regularly in the key of G in all respects but the very ending of each strain, which takes place in the key of C. Or to speak tonically, the melody and accompaniment after being written nearly all the way in the key of Do, suddenly diverge to the key of Fa, and there close.   DADLE DAU—THE TWO LOVERS. [Listen] <ANTIMG src="images/dadle1.png" width-obs="600" height-obs="351" alt="Dadle Dau" title="Dadle Dau" />   <ANTIMG src="images/dadle2.png" width-obs="600" height-obs="384" alt="Dadle Dau" title="Dadle Dau" />   <div class="blockquot">This old song was a great favorite with Henry V, while he was yet Prince of Wales, and with his jolly companions he used to shout it vigorously at the Bear's Head tavern, about 1410. (Edward Jones' "Relics of the Welsh Bards," p. 176) </div>   Another () is quite modern in spirit and treatment. It is a vigorous love song, and there is a boisterous chorus of bards which comes in with the refrain. A curious feature of this melody is the full-measure rest, immediately following the strong chorus of the bards. During the rests we seem to hear the chorus repeated.   OLD WELSH SONG, IN PRAISE OF LOVE. [Listen] <ANTIMG src="images/welsh.png" width-obs="600" height-obs="860" alt="Old Welsh Song" title="Old Welsh Song" />   In the eleventh century, Gerald Barry, an entertaining writer, made a tour of Britain, and his account of the people in different parts of the country is still extant and full of interest. Of the Welsh he says: "Those who arrive in the morning are entertained until evening with the conversation of young women, and the music of the harp, for each house has its young women and harps allotted to this purpose. In each family the art of playing the harp is held preferable to any other learning." He adds (chapter XIII, "Of their Symphonies and Songs"): "In their musical concerts they do not sing in unison, like the inhabitants of other countries, but in many different parts, so that in a company of singers, which one very frequently meets with in Wales, you will hear as many different parts and voices as there are performers, while all at length unite with organic melody in one consonance, and in the soft sweetness of B-flat.[Pg 95] In the north district of Britain, beyond the Humber and on the borders of Yorkshire, the inhabitants make use of the same kind of symphonious harmony, but with less variety, singing in only two parts, one murmuring in the bass, the other warbling in the acute or treble. Neither of the two nations has acquired this peculiarity by art, but by long habit, which has rendered it natural and familiar; and the practice is now so firmly rooted in them that it is unusual to hear a single and simple melody well sung, and what is still more wonderful, the children, even from their infancy, sing in the same manner. As the English in general do not adopt this mode of singing, but only those to the north of the countries, I believe it was from the Danes and Norwegians, by whom these parts of the island were more frequently invaded, and held longer under their dominion, that the natives contracted this method of singing." In further token of the universality of music among these people, Gerald mentions the story of Richard de Clare, who a short time after the death of Richard I, passed from England into Wales, accompanied by certain other lords and attendants. At the passage of Coed Grono, at the entrance into the woods, he dismissed his attendants and pursued his journey undefended, preceded by a minstrel and a singer, the one accompanying the other on the fiddle. ["Tibicinem præviens habens et precentorem cantilenæ notulis alternatim in fidiculare respondentem."] Similar devotion to music he found in Ireland. He says: "The only thing to which I find this people to apply commendable industry is playing upon musical instruments, in which they are incomparably more skillful than any other that I have seen. For their modulation on these instruments, unlike that of the Britons, to[Pg 96] which I am accustomed, is not slow and harsh, but lively and rapid, while the harmony is both sweet and gay. It is astonishing that in so complex and rapid a movement of the fingers the musical proportions can be preserved, and that throughout the difficult modulations on their various instruments the harmony is completed with so sweet a velocity, so unequal an equality, so discordant a concord, as if the chords sounded together fourths and fifths. They enter into a movement and conclude it in so delicate a manner, and play the little notes so sportively under the blunter sounds of the bass strings, enlivening with wanton levity, or communicating a deeper internal sense of pleasure, so that the perfection of their art appears in the concealment of it. From this cause those very strains afford an unspeakable mental delight to those who have skillfully penetrated into the mysteries of the art; fatigue rather than gratify the ears of others, who seeing do not perceive, and hearing do not understand, and by whom the finest music is esteemed no better than a confused and disorderly noise, to be heard with unwillingness and disgust. Ireland only uses and delights in two instruments—the harp and tabor. Scotland has three—the harp, the tabor and the crowth or crowd. Wales, the harp, the pipes and the crowd. The Irish also used strings of brass instead of catgut." The brilliant time of Ireland was the reign of Sir Brian Boirohen, in the tenth century. After his victory over the Danes, and their expulsion from the island, he opened schools and colleges for indigent students, founded libraries, and encouraged learning heartily. He was one of the best harpers of his kingdom. His harp is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and a well made instrument it is, albeit now somewhat[Pg 97] out of repair. It is about thirty inches high; the wood is oak and arms of brass. There are twenty-eight strings fixed in the sounding table by silver buttons in copper-lined holes. The present appearance of the instrument is this:   <ANTIMG src="images/fig19.png" width-obs="221" height-obs="300" alt="Fig. 19" title="Fig. 19" /> Fig. 19.   The Anglo-Saxons also were great amateurs of music. Up to the sixth century they remained pagan. Gregory the Great sent missionaries to them, and more than 10,000 were baptized in a single day. The Venerable Bede represents St. Benoit as establishing the music of the new church, substituting the plain song of Rome for the Gallic songs previously used. While few remains of the literature of the early English have come down to us, we have enough from the period of the Venerable Bede and the generation immediately following to give an idea of the vigor and depth of the national consciousness here brought to expression. From the seventh to the tenth centuries there was in England a movement more vigorous, more productive and consequently more modern, than any[Pg 98]thing like it in any other part of Europe for three centuries later. The Saxon poets Cædmon, the Venerable Bede, Alcuin, the friend, teacher and adviser of that mighty genius Charlemagne, were minds of the first order. King Arthur the Great was an enthusiastic and talented minstrel. It is told of him that in this disguise he made his way successfully into the Danish camp, and was able to spy out the plans of his invading enemies. The incident has also a light upon the other side, since it shows the estimation in which the wandering minstrel was held by the Danes themselves. King Alfred also established a professorship of music at Oxford, where, indeed, the university, properly so-called, did not yet exist, but a school of considerable vigor had been founded. All the remains of Anglo-Saxon poetry are full of allusions to the bards, the gleemen and the minstrels; and the poems themselves, most likely, were the production of poet-musicians classed under these different names. Many additional reasons might be given for believing that the art of music was more carefully cultivated in England at this time than in any other European country. For instance, at Winchester, in the year 900, a large organ was built in the cathedral—larger than had ever been built before. It had 400 pipes, whereas most of the organs previously in use had no more than forty or fifty pipes. There is reason to believe that among the other musical devices here practiced that of "round" singing was brought to a high degree of popular skill. Apparently also they had something like what was afterward called a burden, a refrain which, instead of coming in at the end of the melody, was sung by a part of the singers continually with it.[Pg 99] Nor was musical cultivation confined to England. In the eighth and ninth centuries the Scandinavians had a civilization of considerable vigor. The minstrels were called Scalds, polishers or smoothers of language. Fétis well says: "As eminently poets and singers as they were barbarians, they put into their songs a strength of ideas, an energy of sentiment, a richness of imagination with which we are struck even in translations, admittedly inferior to the originals. Not less valiant than inspired, their scalds by turns played the harp, raising their voices in praise of heroes, and precipitated themselves into the combat with sword and lance, meeting the enemy in fiercest conflict. Most that remains from these poet-minstrels is contained in the great national collections called Eddas, of which the oldest received their present form early in the eleventh century. The sagas contained in the Eddas form but a mere fragment of this ancient literature. More than 200 scalds are known by name as authors of sagas. These warriors, so pitiless and ferocious in battle, show themselves full of devotion to their families. They were good sons, tender husbands and kind fathers. The Eddas contain pieces of singular delicacy of sentiment." Their songs, when compared with those of other races, are more musical, the sentiment is richer and more profound, and the rhythms have more variety. The melodic intervals, also, indicate a more delicate sense of harmony than we find in other parts of Europe at so early a date. Their instrument was the harp. Iceland was the foremost musical center of the civilized world in the ninth century, and it is said that kings in other parts of Europe sent there for capable minstrels to lead the music in the courts.[Pg 100] A very highly finished English composition, a round with strict canon for four voices, with a burden of the kind already mentioned, repeated over and over by two other voices has been discovered. It is the famous "Summer is Coming In," composed, apparently, some time before the year 1240. On page 101 is given a reduced fac simile. It is written on a staff of six lines, in the square notes of the Franconian period. The clef is that of C. The asterisk at the end of the first phrase marks the proper place of entrance for the successive voices, each in turn commencing at the beginning when the previous one has arrived, at this point. Below is the pes, or burden, which is to be repeated over and over until the piece is finished. The complete solution is reproduced in miniature from Grove's Dictionary, on pages 102 and 103. The elaborateness of this piece of music led the original discoverers to place it much later than the date above given, but more careful examination of the manuscript justifies the conclusion that it was written some time before 1240. It is by far the most elaborate piece of ancient part music which has come down to us from times so remote. It indicates conclusively that early in the thirteenth century, when the composers of the old French school were struggling with the beginnings of canonic imitation, confining their work to ecclesiastical tonality, English musicians had arrived at a better art and a true feeling for the major scale and key. Following is the manuscript, the original size of the page being seven and seven-twelfths inches by five and five-twelfths inches. The reduced page before the reader represents the original upon a scale of about two-thirds. The Latin directions below the fourth staff indicate the manner of singing it.[Pg 101]   <ANTIMG src="images/sumer.png" width-obs="265" height-obs="400" alt="Fac simile" title="Fac simile" /> FAC SIMILE OF MSS. OF "SUMER IS ICUMEN IN." [Enlarge] <hr style="width: 25%;" /> [Pg 102] "SUMER IS ICUMEN IN." [Listen] [View modern transcription (PDF)] <ANTIMG src="images/sumermusic1.png" width-obs="600" height-obs="957" alt="Sumer is icumen in" title="Sumer is icumen in" /> [Enlarge]   [Pg 103] <ANTIMG src="images/sumermusic2.png" width-obs="600" height-obs="961" alt="Sumer is icumen in" title="Sumer is icumen in" /> [Enlarge] <hr style="width: 25%;" /> [Pg 104] <ANTIMG src="images/fig20.png" width-obs="201" height-obs="300" alt="Fig. 20" title="Fig. 20" /> Fig. 20. SAXON HARP. [From manuscript in the library of Cambridge University.]   The harp was the principal instrument of these people, and their songs and poems contain innumerable references to it. Sir Francis Palgrave says in his "History of the Anglo-Saxons": "They were great amateurs of rhythm and harmony. In their festivals the harp passed from hand to hand, and whoever could not show himself possessed of talent for music, was counted unworthy of being received in good society. Adhelm, bishop of Sherbourne, was not able to gain the attention of the citizens otherwise than by habilitating himself as a minstrel and taking his stand upon the bridge in the central part of the town and there singing the ballads he had composed." One of the earliest representations of[Pg 105] the English harp that has come down to us is found in the Harleian manuscript in the British Museum. It is presumably of the tenth century.   <ANTIMG src="images/fig21.png" width-obs="198" height-obs="300" alt="Fig. 21" title="Fig. 21" /> Fig. 21. KING DAVID. [From Saxon Psalter of the tenth century.]   The harp was three or four feet in height. It had eleven strings. It was held between the knees, and was played with the right hand. In the thirteenth century it appears to have been played with both hands. Two circumstances in this account may well surprise us; nor are there data available for resolving the questions to which they give rise. The presence of two such instruments as the harp and the crwth in this part of Europe is not to be explained by historical facts within our knowledge. The harp does not appear in musical[Pg 106] history after its career in ancient Egypt until we find it in the hands of these bards, scalds and minstrels of northern Europe. The Aryans who crossed into India do not seem to have had it. Nor did the Greeks, nor the Romans. We find it for a while in Asia, but only in civilizations derived from that of Egypt, already in their decadence when they come under our observation. Inasmuch as there are no data existing whereby we can determine whether these people discovered the harp anew for themselves or derived it from some other nation, and greatly improved it, either supposition is allowable. Upon the whole, the probabilities appear to be that this instrument was among the primitive acquisitions of the Aryans. All of them were hunters, to whom the clang of the bow string must have been a familiar sound. As already suggested, it seems that the harp must have been the oldest type of stringed instrument of all. The Aryans who crossed the Himalayas into India may have lost it, in pursuit of some other type of instrument of plucked strings. The crwth presents still more troublesome questions, which we must admit are still less hopeful of solution. (See Fig. 22.) In this case we find an instrument played with a bow in northern Europe, far one side the course of Asiatic commerce, at a time when there was no such instrument elsewhere in the world but in India. Whence came the crwth? The rebec was not known in Arabia until nearly two centuries after we find the crwth mentioned by Venance Fortunatus. We have seen that the Sanskrit had four words meaning bow, a fact affording presumptive evidence of the knowledge of this mode of exciting vibrations, while the Sanskrit was still a spoken language.[Pg 107] It is possible that the bow was a discovery of the Aryans in their early days, ere yet the family had begun to separate. The crwth may have been a survival of this primitive discovery, still cherished among a people not able to employ it intelligently, and not able to develop its powers. For while the crwth was in Europe two centuries before the violin, the improvement of this instrument was due to stimulation from quite another quarter. It was the Arab rebec that afforded the starting point for the modern violin, and this instrument was not known in Europe until it came in by way of the crusaders or the Spanish Arabs.   <ANTIMG src="images/fig22.png" width-obs="126" height-obs="300" alt="Fig. 22" title="Fig. 22" /> Fig. 22.   Another popular instrument of music in all parts of Britain from the earliest of modern times, was the bagpipe, a reed instrument generally of imperfect intonation, the melody pipe being accompanied by a faithful[Pg 108] drone, consisting of the tonic and its octave, and occasionally the fifth. It was the witty Sidney Smith who described the effect as that of a "tune tied to a post." This instrument was common in all parts of Britain until driven out by better ones. It still survives in Scotland. Its influence is distinctly to be traced in the Scotch melodies founded upon the pentatonic scale, of which the following is a specimen:   SCOTCH MELODY (IN THE PENTATONIC SCALE). [Listen] <ANTIMG src="images/scotch.png" width-obs="600" height-obs="612" alt="Scotch Melody" title="Scotch Melody" />   <ANTIMG src="images/deco2.png" width-obs="200" height-obs="50" alt="decoration" title="decoration" />   [Pg 109] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.