|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 7
The second strongest emotion of the race is love. All over the
world, wherever we find the pipe in its softer, earlier form, we
find it connected with love songs. In time it degenerated into
a synonym for something contemptibly slothful and worthless,
so much so that Plato wished to banish it from his "Republic,"
saying that the Lydian pipe should not have a place in a
decent community.
On the other hand, the trumpet branch of the family developed
into something quite different. At the very beginning it was
used for war, and as its object was to frighten, it became
larger and larger in form, and more formidable in sound. In
this respect it only kept pace with the drum, for we read
of Assyrian and Thibetan trumpets two or three yards long,
and of the Aztec war drum which reached the enormous height
of ten feet, and could be heard for miles.
Now this, the trumpet species of pipe, we find also used as an
auxiliary "spiritual" help to the drum. We are told by M. Huc,
in his "Travels in Thibet," that the llamas of Thibet have
a custom of assembling on the roofs of Lhassa at a stated
period and blowing enormous trumpets, making the most hideous
midnight din imaginable. The reason given for this was that
in former days the city was terrorized by demons who rose from
a deep ravine and crept through all the houses, working evil
everywhere. After the priests had exorcised them by blowing
these trumpets, the town was troubled no more. In Africa the
same demonstration of trumpet blowing occurs at an eclipse
of the moon; and, to draw the theory out to a thin thread,
anyone who has lived in a small German Protestant town will
remember the chorals which are so often played before sunrise
by a band of trumpets, horns, and trombones from the belfry of
some church tower. Almost up to the end of the last century
trombones were intimately connected with the church service;
and if we look back to Zoroaster we find the sacerdotal
character of this species of instrument very plainly indicated.
Now let us turn back to the Pan's pipes and its direct
descendants, the flute, the clarinet, and the oboe. We shall
find that they had no connection whatever with religious
observances. Even in the nineteenth century novel we are
familiar with the kind of hero who played the flute--a very
sentimental gentleman always in love. If he had played the
clarinet he would have been very sorrowful and discouraged; and
if it had been the oboe (which, to the best of my knowledge,
has never been attempted in fiction) he would have needed to
be a very ill man indeed.
Now we never hear of these latter kinds of pipes being
considered fit for anything but the dance, love songs, or love
charms. In the beginning of the seventeenth century Garcilaso
de la Vega, the historian of Peru, tells of the astonishing
power of a love song played on a flute. We find so-called
"courting" flutes in Formosa and Peru, and Catlin tells of the
Winnebago courting flute. The same instrument was known in Java,
as the old Dutch settlers have told us. But we never hear of it
as creating awe, or as being thought a fit instrument to use
with the drum or trumpet in connection with religious rites.
Leonardo da Vinci had a flute player make music while he
painted his picture of Mona Lisa, thinking that it gave her the
expression he wished to catch--that strange smile reproduced
in the Louvre painting. The flute member of the pipe species,
therefore, was more or less an emblem of eroticism, and, as I
have already said, has never been even remotely identified with
religious mysticism, with perhaps the one exception of Indra's
flute, which, however, never seems to have been able to retain a
place among religious symbols. The trumpet, on the other hand,
has retained something of a mystical character even to our
day. The most powerful illustration of this known to me is
in the "Requiem" by Berlioz. The effect of those tremendous
trumpet calls from the four corners of the orchestra is an
overwhelming one, of crushing power and majesty, much of which
is due to the rhythm.
To sum up. We may regard rhythm as the intellectual side
of music, melody as its sensuous side. The pipe is the one
instrument that seems to affect animals--hooded cobras,
lizards, fish, etc. Animals' natures are purely sensuous,
therefore the pipe, or to put it more broadly, melody, affects
them. To rhythm, on the other hand, they are indifferent;
it appeals to the intellect, and therefore only to man.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|