The book of musical knowledge : the history, technique, and appreciation of music, together with lives of the great composers, for music-lovers, students and teachers

Front matter

ARTHUR ELSON _ y | foe eal 35 im we hiphirt — puff b A ap , r x v3 AX L YE/3/ REFERENCE LIBRARY OF HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

2 Park STREET, BosToNn

NOT TO BE TAKEN FROM THE SHELVES ' EXCEPT BY PERMISSION OF THE LIBRARIAN aa Irene wh CO.

Preface

THIS book has been planned with a view to placing before the general reader the main facts that will enable him to appreciate music intelligently. One often hears the remark, ‘‘I’m fond of music, but I don’t understand it.’”’ The present work has been written with the idea of enabling the non-musician to comprehend the real meaning of the tonal art, and to familiarize himself with the value of the great composers’ works, the use of the instruments, the various musical forms, and a number of subjects of similar importance.

At the same time, certain other technical topics have been included. While these have been presented in such a way as to be understood by the non-musician, they have been given with sufficient thoroughness to make the work useful also as a textbook. It is therefore fitted to the needs of students and teachers, as well as amateurs. An effort has been made to condense the chief points of a general musical education into a single volume. While this book should prove of interest to the average reader, a course of study has been added, which will make it suitable for use in high schools or colleges also, or in any institution that aims to give a course in the understanding of music.

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Part I. — THE EVOLUTION OF MuSIC

. PRIMITIVE AND SAVAGE MUSIC .

. GREECE AND ROME

. EARLY CHRISTIAN MUSIC . 4 : ‘ , 4 . THE MINSTREL KNIGHTS

Part II. — The Great Composers

. WEBER AND ROMANTICISM . A .

. MENDELSSOHN . .

. SCHUMANN

. CHOPIN ; : : é ‘ .

. BERLIOZ AND OTHER FRENCHMEN .

. LISZT AND HIS CIRCLE : i : i : . . FROM GLINKA TO TSCHAIKOVSKY

. GRIEG AND THE NORTHERN COUNTRIES . 3 2 . STRAUSS AND RECENT GERMANS. Z : °

Viil

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.

XXXVITI.

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

XLII.

XLITI.

XLIV.

XLV.

XLVI.

XLVII.

XLVIII.

XLIX.

LV.

LVI.

CONTENTS

THE RUSSIAN SCHOOL . x 5 : -

OTHER EUROPEAN NATIONS . ug 5 ba

Part III. — MusiIcaAL FORM MELODY AND APPRECIATION . : ‘ ;‘ FIGURES AND PHRASES . Xs THE SONG-FORMS

THE RONDOS

THE SONATA-ALLEGRO FORM OTHER SONATA MOVEMENTS THE ORCHESTRAL FORMS DANCES AND PIANO STYLES

THE VOCAL FORMS . . ; K 5 4 THE CONTRAPUNTAL FORMS : P Part IV. — THE INSTRUMENTS THE PIANO AND ITS PREDECESSORS Ms ¢ THE ORGAN : 3 s i y ° THE VOICE 4 5 i ‘ : fe THE VIOLIN ; i ; 4 : OTHER BOWED INSTRUMENTS . : : 4

PLUCKED-STRING INSTRUMENTS . 2 is

FLUTE AND PICCOLO “4 ; } : °

OBOE AND ENGLISH HORN . ‘ A °

THE BASSOONS : : ‘ ; ° ° . THE CLARINETS . é : ) : °

. Horns, TRUMPETS, AND CORNETS . , . TROMBONES AND TUBAS 4 f :

. INSTRUMENTS OF PERCUSSION . i A 4 PART V.— SPECIAL TOPICS . SOME FAMOUS PIANISTS c , y SOME FAMOUS SINGERS . s = y

VIOLINISTS AND VIOLIN MusIC . x ;

261 oath

CONTENTS

LVII. ORCHESTRATION ° . ° ° ° °

LVIII. CONDUCTING ° ° ° ° ° ° LIX. ACOUSTICS ‘ ° ° ° ° ° “ LX. How To READ Music ° . ° .

APPENDIX A. IMPORTANT MUSICAL TERMS B. A COURSE OF STUDY, WITH REFERENCES

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ILLUSTRATIONS

WAGNER. ° : ‘ y : ‘ labesa ie’ : ‘ . Frontispiece

EXAMPLE OF OLD NOTATION FROM AN OLD MANUSCRIPT IN THE POSSES- SION OF THE AUTHOR . i p j : “ : i Aya 3

MEDIZVAL NOTATION . , pf : , K : 3 i i 29

CANON, FROM AN ANCIENT MANUSCRIPT IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM Aa “Sumer is icumen in,” dating about 1215

THE MOZART FAMILY . : : : : : : . ; 86 By permission of The Print-Collector’s Quarterly

WEBER . : : r . : . ° - ° e . eI Wi eoes SCHUBERT . : : A i : ° ° ° ‘ ° ; - 122 MENDELSSOHN : Z . ° ° ¢ ° u ‘ : SA bray SCHUMANN : : d ° ° . ° CHOPIN . ‘ ; : A . ° :

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LISZT . : ‘ 4 : . : ‘ 4 ‘ : : : . 186 BERLIOZ . P - ° : : q . A A . Pe So10) RUBINSTEIN . ° ° : TSCHAIKOVSKY A A 4 i : ; ; : ; . - 200 WAGNER CARICATURED AS ATTACKING THE HUMAN EAR BRUCKNER : : . ° : ‘ : : A ° » 226 BRAHMS : a ° ° ° ° ° ° : ° ° ° . 226 GRIEG. . : ° ° STRAUSS. * ° ° ° °

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV ° . . 8 xi ILLUSTRATIONS

DvoRAK . . : : : : : : . ° ° 4 . 252 FRANCK : : : ‘ : : : . ° : 4 - ) aebe PADEREWSKI ; : 3 . : ; . ° > ° ; . 280 PAINE; CONVERSE; MACDOWELL; HADLEY; CHADWICK; FOOTE; PARKER 290

GROUP OF STRINGED INSTRUMENTS . - 406 1. Mandolin; 2. Lute; 3. Viola aeamore 4, Miglin’ 5. Bani 6. Viol: 7. Violoncello; 8. Guitar; 9. Harp; 10. Contrabass

GROUP OF WOOD-WIND INSTRUMENTS . . : RAR (Es , 428 1. Bassoon; 2. Oboe; 3. Bass Clarinet; 4. Basset Horn; 5. Clarinet; 6. Old Flute; 7. Saxophone; 8. English Horn; 9. Boehm Flute

GROUP OF BRASS INSTRUMENTS ‘ 5 : ‘ “ ° - 444 1. Valve Trombone; 2. Slide eon horte: 3. Trumpet; 4. Serpent; 5. Horn; 6. Bass Tuba; 7. Cornet; 8. Ophicleide

GROUP OF PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS . A 456 1. Snare Drum; 2. Triangle; 3. Chinese Gong; tai Glockensniel 5. Cust tanets; 6. Xylophone; 7. Kettledrums; 8. Bass Drum; 9. Cymbals; 10. Celesta

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Part I The Evolution Of Music

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I PRIMITIVE AND SAVAGE MUSIC

FETIS defines music as the art of moving the emotions by combinations of sound. This statement would give to the tonal art a very early origin, and would even allow it a pre-human existence in the songs of birds. The beginning of human music must have been vocal in character. Herbert Spencer considers song as a form of expression arising from the reflex action of the vocal organs under stress of emotion, just as a cry follows pain. This would reverse the definition of Fétis, and make music a result of emotion rather than a cause.

It seems probable that the early songs developed from huntingcalls, or other vocal signals employed in primitive life. As soon as such calls were used for the pleasure expressed or imparted, apart from any useful purpose, they became music in the strict sense of the term. Melody would thus arise easily from the amplification of a single call or the union of several. Some authorities think that song was first an accompaniment to the muscular expression that led to dancing; but the hunting-signals probably antedated the rudimentary tangos of the primitive races.

The origin of different scales may be traced with more detail, even if some of it is legendary. Our own scale is “founded on fact,” for Pythagoras brought its mathematical relations from Egypt, and made them the basis of the Greek scales. In this system the pitches of the notes corresponded to definite fractional parts of a stretched string. The Greek system became the basis of the Ambrosian and Gregorian modes, described in detail in a later chapter; and the same pitches were employed in the diatonic mode that replaced these. For the last two centuries the intervals, by common consent, have been altered slightly, to make our twelve equal semitones that permit of modulation from one key to any other.

Not all people, however, use our scale. In Siam and some neighboring countries the octave is divided into five, six, or seven equal parts to form a scale. The Hindus, on the other hand, used smaller scale-parts than ours, having third- and quarter-tones. The legends tell us that when the god Krishna came to earth, he was met by no less than sixteen thousand nymphs, each of whom sang to him in a mode different from that of the others. If they all sang at once, the hearer would certainly have needed more than human patience; but the account does not deal with that point. From this event came the numerous modes, or Raagnis, that were found in the native Indian music. These were often of great power; and some were held even too potent for mortal use. Thus it is related that the Emperor Akbar commanded the famous singer Naik Gobaul to sing the Mode of Fire. That performer, after finding all refusal vain, started his fatal task, but took the precaution of plunging up to his neck in the waters of the Djumna. Before his song was over, the water around him began to boil. Even then the Emperor would not let him stop; so he resumed the fiery strain, only to burst into flames and be consumed as he finished it. The story seems apocryphal, though many later singers have been known to be persuaded into attempting things that they cannot manage safely.

China uses the so-called pentatonic scale, consisting of intervals similar to those of the black keys on our pianos. That this scale may give pleasing effects is shown by the Scotch folk-music, in which many of the most beautiful songs, such as “Auld Lang Syne”’ or ‘“Bonnie Doon,”’ are wholly in the five-note scale. Turning again to legend, we find that the Chinese evidently preferred this scale to our diatonic mode. Long ago the sage Ling-Lun, in search of knowledge, came to the banks of the sacred river. Here he found the immortal bird of China, the Foang-Hoang, with its mate. The female bird sang the notes of our diatonic scale, while the male bird limited his outpourings to the pentatonic scale. At that time everything feminine was held of little account in China, so the female’s notes were rejected, and those of the male bird chosen. A little judicious cutting among the bamboo reeds on the river-bank enabled Ling-Lun to perpetuate this scale. At present the Chinese often sing with a piercing intonation; but their music itself is not at all unpleasing, as the song in praise of the Mu-Li flower will show.

TSIN-FA

( A Chinese song praising a branch of Mu-Li flowers thrown into a maiden’s door. ) '

Among ancient instruments, those of the Chinese are best described. Their invention is ascribed to Kai-Tien-Chi, the ninth emperor of the spiritual dynasty mentioned in Chinese mythology. They are classified according to their material, and form the following eight groups: (1) The sound of skin; (2) the sound of stone; (3) that of metal; (4) of baked clay; (5) of silk strings; (6) of wood; (7) of bamboo; (8) of calabash.

The skin of animals, suitably tanned, is used in the eight varieties of Chinese drum. Most of these are barrel-shaped, but two of the smaller ones are more flat, and often partly filled with rice-grains. Musical stones, to the number of sixteen, form what is known as the king, the stones being shaped much like a carpenter’s square and hung in a row. These are very valuable when perfect. They date from early times, a set of them having been received as tribute in the year 2250 B.c. The sound of metal is heard in the many bells and gongs, which are highly esteemed in China. Baked clay forms the material of the hiuen, a whistle with from five to seven apertures. Silk strings are employed on the kin and the che, which are widely used. The former has seven strings, giving only the five tones of the pentatonic scale. The latter is much larger, having twenty-five strings. These strings are plucked to produce the tone, which is unusually soft and agreeable. Wooden instruments are devoted altogether to noise. The chief forms are a hollow box struck by a hammer, and a tiger-image with wooden pegs in its back, the pegs being swept at a stroke in much the same fashion that a small boy will use in running a stick along a picket fence. Bamboo forms the siao and the flutes. The former is a set of sixteen Pan-pipes. The latter have only three finger-holes, and therefore demand much skill in playing. Still more difficult was the obsolete form with the mouthpiece in the centre, three holes on each side, and the ends stopped up. The calabash, or gourd, serves as the air-chamber of the cheng, which has gold-tipped reeds stuck into it to form a primitive organ. In recent years the Chinese have adopted foreign instruments of the banjo and trumpet type.

Musical instruments were probably copied from natural models. The wind whistling in a hollow reed would suggest the flute; a branch bumping against a hollow tree may well have led to drums; while the twanging bowstring develops naturally into a rudimentary

PRIMITIVE AND SAVAGE MUSIC rf harp. In Egyptian mythology the invention of the lyre, ascribed to Thoth (the Greek Hermes), took place when that god’s foot came in contact with the tendons of a dead tortoise, which had dried and tightened on the animal’s shell.

According to the evidence of prehistoric relics, the most ancient instrument is of the flute type. Thus, a primitive flute, rudely fashioned from the bone of an Irish elk, was found among remains near Desmond Castle; a whistle of reindeer bone formed one of the relics found among troglodyte remains in the Dordogne Valley; a bone pierced with several holes was found with flint implements at Gourdan; and a stag-horn flute was discovered near Poitiers. Flutes of the bronze age, discovered in Belgium and Schleswig, were more advanced; while the early Egyptian flutes were well-developed instruments.

The conditions existing among the early races may be judged from those which obtain among savages of more recent times. The Caribs of Guiana, for instance, employed jaguar bones for their flutes; and when these grew scarce, they fell back upon human bones. The Surinam tribes have the pleasing custom of making flutes from the bones of slain enemies. In a country as distant as New Zealand flutes made of human bone were also used. The most practicable material, however, was a hollow reed. The Greeks said of the reed that it was useful in subjugating nations by furnishing arrows, in softening men’s manners by the charm of music, and in educating them by affording the means for tracing letters. Its use for making flutes has been widespread. Thus Humboldt describes the skill of the American Indians in making and tuning their flutes; Schweinfurth praises the African Bongos for similar ability; and Cook does the same for the natives of Tahiti. The last-named could tune a flute by surrounding it with a leaf, in the form of a scroll which could be lengthened or shortened at will. In some cases double flutes were used, consisting of two tubes branching from one mouthpiece. Still other flutes were arranged to fit the nostrils, and played by blowing through the nose. The syrinx, or Pan-pipe, was usually made from a set of reed tubes, though an old Peruvian instrument shows eight pipes cut from a piece of soft stone. Asa rule, the savage performer was not a great virtuoso. Thus the Kaffirs employed flutes chiefly to call cattle; the Caribs used the instrument as a signal to show approach; and the Iroquois braves reserved it for love-calls. The finger-holes were usually few in number, making it difficult for the performer to get any but the simplest effects.

Instruments of the horn and trumpet type also are found among primitive peoples. African horns have been made of ivory, wood, or even large seashells. Just as Siegfried, in Wagner’s Nibelungen Trilogy, has his own horn call, so many African chiefs had special horn signals of their own, for use in battle or to indicate approach. Sometimes nearly every member of a tribe would have such a signal. The Maoris of New Zealand had wooden war-trumpets seven feet long, which were audible for several miles. The Indians on the upper Rio Negro had something between a trumpet and a bassoon, made in eight different sizes for use in their so-called devils’ music. On these they played good melodies, with full accompaniment. Women were barred from this ceremony on pain of death, and even forbidden to look at the instruments; and it is said that the poison used as a penalty for breaking this rule was given by fathers to their own daughters, and by husbands to their own wives.

The gong is very popular among savages. Gong-like sounds are obtained in Borneo from small pieces of iron, and even from chains thrown into the air. Skilful African players can get many effects from the gong. Its chief use, however, has been to arouse its hearers to warlike frenzy, — a condition that sometimes results from gong music in more civilized nations. Bells were adopted by the East Indian Pegus, who united twenty of them into one instrument, played by hammer-strokes. The Javanese bells, or gammelong, sounded like a string orchestra when heard from a distance by the Challenger expedition.

Primitive drums come in all sizes, from the skin-covered bowls of the Hottentots to the large hollow tree-trunks of the Ashantis. In Africa the drum has several uses beside that of accompanying music or dancing. It is employed to announce the arrival or departure of a stranger, to give the marching time for native carriers, or even for a code of signals. The Dwalla tribes have such signals, which they read with as much skill as a telegraph operator will use in receiving messages on his sounder.

The marimba is a set of flat sticks on gourds of different sizes, the sticks being struck by ahammer. Some have claimed this as the

PRIMITIVE .AND SAVAGE MUSIC 9 origin of the piano, but it would be far more correct to call it the precursor of the xylophone.

Plucked-string instruments are well represented by the guitar of the Ashantis, known as the lanku. This has a long neck joined to a hollow, skin-covered wooden box. It has eight strings, supported in two rows by a bridge. The Africans have zithers also, with strings of bamboo fibres or twisted rattan threads.

Most widespread among stringed instruments is the harp. It undoubtedly developed from the twang of the bowstring, although the New Zealanders do not have bows, and yet do possess a form of the lyre. The harp of the Kaffirs is a simple bow, on which the string may be tightened or loosened at will by means of a sliding ring. For resonance, a hollow gourd is lashed to the bow near one end. Other African tribes have harps varying in size, and with the strings ranging in number from seven to eighteen. In Guinea the natives make an zolian harp from the leaf-stalk of the zeta palm, by separating its parallel fibres and putting a bridge under them. Lutes have been found on the lower Congo, with strings of palm fibres. Dahomey has a primitive mandolin, while New Britain and the York Islands possess a rudimentary banjo.

The use of friction in tone-production seems to have originated in Africa. The negro habit of rubbing two sticks together produces fearful and wonderful results, but it is a principle easy to apply to other materials. Thus the Damaras stroked their bowstrings, and produced practically a violin tone. The M’Balunda negroes evolved a crude violin with three strings of plant fibre. The Malays have a two-stringed violin, while East Java offers a sort of flattened violoncello, with horsehair strings on a frame of a rare variety of cocoanut. The Arabian rebab, often considered the origin of our violin, had two strings which were plucked at first, and only bowed in later times. Other Arabian instruments were the lute (al wd), the tabor (tambourine), the single-stringed monochord, the ketiledrum, the zamar (an oboe), the nefyr (trumpet), several flutes, and the dulcimer, with its hammer-struck strings tuned in sets of three. The last-named is the real prototype of the harpsichords and spinets that led to the modern piano. The Arabian music, like that of Mohammedans in general, has a seven-toned scale, derived from a theoretical system of seventeen fractional tones. The scale, however, is not uniform, its intervals differing according to the number of fractional parts used in each tone. The music is rhythmical in character and striking in effect. It is well echoed in Félicien David’s symphonic ode “The Desert,’”’ and in Saint-Saéns’ song ‘‘ La Brise.”’

Babylonia and Assyria possessed harps, dulcimers, lyres, lutes, pipes, trumpets, and drums. The lyres were much like those of Greece, — instruments with an enlargement or resonance chamber at the bottom, nearly vertical sides, and cross-bar at the top, from which the vertical strings ran down. Some of the Babylonian instruments mentioned in the third chapter of Daniel have Greek names. A dulcimer-like affair, with strings plucked instead of struck, was known as the psaltery.

Among the Hebrews, music was cherished by the prophets as early as the time of Samuel, or about 1000 B.c. In the second temple, built about 520 B.c., singing with instrumental accompaniment was customary, and the psalms were collected for such use. This early music is lost, even the old Hebrew tunes of to-day, such as “ Kol Nidrei,” being comparatively modern. The Hebrew instruments were almost wholly borrowed from other nations. The kinnor, or harp, was probably small enough to be a lyre. The nebel was a psaltery, sometimes hung on the player’s neck. The asor, which David mentioned as an instrument of ten strings, was a lyre played with a plectrum. The timbrel, or tabor, or taboret, was a small hand-drum, or tambourine, probably made in different sizes. Cymbals were known, and trumpets and flutes; while probably some use was made of the Egyptian sistrum, as well as guitars and pipes. The organ in the temple was probably a set of very large Pan-pipes. The Talmud asserts that when this organ was played, the people in the streets of Jerusalem could not hear one another talk. But the name used, magrepha, meant fire-shovel also, and may have referred to the large shovel that was thrown down after the sacrificial fires were built. Some authorities even hold it to bea drum. All this shows our lack of knowledge on the subject, and the inaccuracy of the early writers. Another striking story comes from Josephus, who mentions a concert of two hundred thousand singers, forty thousand sistra, forty thousand harps, and two hundred thousand trumpets.

Ancient Egypt, that land of much forgotten civilization, had a well-developed system of music. The flutes in the old tombs, as

PRIMITIVE AND SAVAGE MUSIC 1)

already mentioned, are found to be excellent instruments. There were three varieties of harp, —a small, bow-shaped affair to be carried on the shoulders, a larger, bow-shaped instrument that was held upright, and the more massive, loop-shaped affair, often triangular in form. None of these, however, had the pillar beyond the strings that completes the triangle in modern harps and keeps the instrument in perfect tune. For this reason the Egyptian harps could not have stood very great tension, and must have been comparatively low in tone. The strings varied in number from three to twenty or more. The Egyptian lyres, shaped like the letter U with a cross-bar above, had five or more strings. The lyres were usually set upright on a table or pedestal, but could be held horizontally instead. They were played either by a plectrum or by the fingers. The later lutes were provided with frets along the neck, in quite modern fashion. There were oboes with straw reeds in the mouth-pieces, and sometimes double tubes. Trumpets were made of copper or bronze, and used chiefly for military purposes. The syrinx existed in various sizes. Percussion instruments included bone or ivory clappers, cymbals, tambourines, and at least two kinds of drum, besides the sistrum. The last was a set of metal bars hanging loosely in a frame, and giving a jingle when shaken. It is thought that this instrument was used to give signals for workmen to pull and haul together, just as one of a group of sailors tugging at a rope will sing a ““chantey”’ to guide the men in pulling together rhythmically. Apparently Egypt had no bells or gongs, and nothing of the violin or dulcimer type.

The Egyptians employed music as a social diversion, a courtly luxury, and an adjunct of religious ceremonies. It was united with poetry and dancing. Professional singers, players, and dancers received careful training at large institutions, and some of the picturerelics show this in great detail. The existing instruments indicate that the ancient Egyptian scale was probably diatonic, and some of the pictures suggest the use of harmony in instrumental combinations.

In the seventh century B.c., Egypt was opened to the Greeks, and this international intercourse grew very rapidly. The Greek music is derived largely from the Egyptian, many of the Greek works on music having been written in Egypt. This being so, the Egyptian music, as well as the Greek, becomes the source from which our own tonal art developed. We know little of the Egyntian scale, and nothing of the notation; but apparently it could not have been greatly different from that of Greece, which has been described in detail by many writers. The so-called Ptolemaic scale system became a later model for Greece.

Enough has been set down here to show that music is by no means a recent development. The known antiquity of the Chinese instruments (of which, in passing, we may note that the Japanese are mostly copies) is so great that it makes our earliest musical classics blush for their extreme youth. The widespread employment of comparatively advanced instruments shows us that music might well have developed into a great art elsewhere than in Europe. Music, after all, is largely a matter of taste; the Chinese, on hearing European music under the auspices of Father Amiot, said that it was no doubt very learned, but that it did not touch the heart like their own music. But the old motto offers “‘to each his own,” and for Occidental nations the history of music, except for the earliest Egyptian suggestions, is wholly confined to Europe. The postscript of the last century shows us a development in America too; but that has been largely a reflection of European standards and models.

II GREECE AND ROME

WHEN the poet Collins called upon some party or parties unknown to “revive the just designs of Greece,’”’ at the expense of “Cecilia’s mingled world of sound,”’ it is doubtful if he knew just what those designs were. Certainly it was disloyal to the memory of Purcell and the great Elizabethan composers who had gone before him. But subsequent discoveries have given us a better insight into the subject of ancient Greek music, and we now have several actual specimens of that music to supplement the many historical treatises.

In Greece, poetry and music were at first treated as one art. In the Mythical or Heroic Age, the wandering minstrel flourished. He would travel about from place to place reciting his epic fragments or shorter poems with a certain style of chanting, or cantillation, for each kind of poetry. The music, therefore, was not definite, the vocal chanting and lyre accompaniment varying on repetition even though the style remained constant. The poets were received with sufficient honor in their peripatetic vocation. We read that

“Seven cities claimed the birth of Homer dead, Through which the living Homer begged his bread.” But this was written some twenty-seven centuries after the event; and it is probable that geniuses of the Homer or Hesiod type would not often go hungry.

Shorter lyrics began to appear in the seventh and sixth centuries B.c. Ionic iambics and elegiacs were composed by Archilochus and Tyrtzus, to be succeeded by the lyrics and odes of Sappho, Alczeus, and Anacreon, to say nothing of Pindar, and the later poetesses Myrtis and Corinna. These were still sung with improvisational accompaniment. They must have had a strong effect, for Solon, on hearing a work of Sappho, expressed the hope that he might not die before he had learned such a beautiful song.

Music was given a scientific basis by Pythagoras. Born in Samos in the year 582 B.Cc., he travelled extensively, and brought back from Egypt the knowledge of systematic music. He gave to the scale the mathematical proportions explained in the later chapter on acoustics, — a scale which was employed almost intact until 1700 4.D., and then changed only slightly to form our present scale. From his work and that of his successors came the well-developed system of Greek modes.