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Page 49
With the reed instruments the change in modern times is more
striking. The original form of the reed instruments was of the
double-reed variety. The oldest known mention of them dates from
650 A.D., when the name applied is _calamus_ (reed); later the
names _shalmei_ (_chalumeau_, "straw," from German _halm_) and
_shawm_ were used. These instruments were played by means of a
bell-shaped mouthpiece, the double reed being fixed inside the
tube. It was not until toward the end of the sixteenth century
that the bell-shaped mouthpiece was dispensed with and the reed
brought directly to the lips, thus giving the player greater
power of expression. The oboe is a representative type of the
higher pitched double-reed instruments. In its present shape it
is about two hundred years old. As the deeper toned instruments
were necessarily very long, six to eight and even ten feet,
an assistant had to walk before the performer, holding the
tube on his shoulder. This inconvenience led to bending the
tube back on itself, making it look somewhat like a bundle of
sticks, hence the word _faggot_; although it is commonly known
in this country by the French name, _bassoon_. This manner of
arranging the instrument dates from about the year 1550. The
clarinet is an essentially modern instrument, the single
beating reed and cylindrical tube coming into use about 1700,
the invention of a German named Denner, who lived at Nuremberg.
All the brass instruments of the Middle Ages seem to have
been very short, therefore high in pitch. We remember that
the Romans had trumpets (chiefly used in signalling) called
_buccina_, and we may assume that the whole modern family of
brass instruments has descended from this primitive type. As
late as 1500, the hunting horn consisted of but one loop which
passed over the shoulder and around the body of the player.
A horn of from six to seven feet in length was first used
about 1650; and we know that, owing to the smallness of the
instruments and their consequent high pitch in those days, many
of Bach's scores contain parts absolutely impracticable for our
modern brass instruments. The division of these instruments
into classes, such as trumpets, horns, trombones, etc., is
due to the differences in shape, which in turn produce tones
of different quality. The large bore of the trombone gives
great volume to the tone, the small bore of the trumpet great
brilliancy, the medium bore of the horn veils the brilliancy
on one hand and lightens the thickness of tone on the other.
The horn, called _cor de chasse_, was first used in the
orchestra in 1664, in one of Lully's operas, but its technique
(stopped tones and crooks) was only properly understood about
1750; the present-day valve horn did not come into general
use until within the last half century. Fifty years before
the principle had been applied to the horn the trumpet had
crooks and slides, a mechanism which, in the trumpet, is still
retained in England, pointing to the fact that the trombone is,
after all, nothing but a very large kind of trumpet.
XI
FOLK SONG AND ITS RELATION TO NATIONALISM IN MUSIC
In order to understand as well as to feel music, we must reduce
it to its primary elements, and these are to be found in folk
song, or, to go further back, in its predecessor, the chant
of the savages.
Folk music may be likened to a twig which has fallen into a
salt mine, to borrow an expression from Taine; every year adds
fresh jewels to the crystals that form on it until at last the
only resemblance to the original is in the general contour. We
know that the nucleus of melody lies in one note, just as the
origin of language is to be sought for in the word. Therefore
folk music proper must be separated from what may be called
barbaric music, the most primitive type of the latter being
the "one-note" strain from which spring the melodies of the
people. This one-note form passes through many rhythmical
changes before song becomes developed to the extent of adding
several notes to its means of expression. The next development
of savage chanting (which is the precursor of folk song) may
be traced back to its two elements, one of which was a mere
savage howl, and the other, that raising of the voice under
stress of strong emotion which still constitutes one of our
principal means of expression.
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