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56 PAGES.
With which is incorporated T H E KEYNOTE.
VOL.
XXVII. No. 19.
Published Every Saturday at 3 East Fourteenth Street. New York, Nov. 5,1898.
ORIENTAL ORIGIN OF IRISH MUSIC.
It is claimed that ancient origin is more
marked in Irish music than in that of any
other country in Europe. Its purity is
ascribed to the centuries of oppression and
enforced ignorance in which the develop-
ment of natural music and literature was
prescribed by the law of the conqueror.
Nevertheless, it is a national monument
that proudly points to that high mental
culture of the ancient Celt and a bulwark
of history against which the vengeful lies
of modern foes are powerless.
The
authority for these statements is M. J.
Murphy, in the Boston Republic.
He
refers to the early colonization of Ireland
by people of Eastern descent, a fact proved
by archaeologists, philologists, historians
and ethnologists. The Irish language and
the Phoenician dialect undoubtedly have
similar structure. So the rise of ecclesias-
tical music, adapted from Hebrew psalmo-
dy took the form of antiphonal choir
singing in the church at Antioch; chanting
was developed under Constantine, only to
be supplanted by the Ambrosian chant, in
form an adaptation of the Eastern mode of
singing, introduced in Milan. The writer
proceeds:
" The system of psalmody adopted from
the Hebrews by St. Ambrose, and by him
applied to the existing oriental Greek
modes, was that which was introduced into
Ireland by St. Patrick, and which was culti-
vated with a degree of religious zeal by
the ecclesiastics, who added occasionally the
soft tones of the harp to these primitive
and pathetic canticles.
"The four principal modes of the Greeks
—the Corian, Phrygian, ^Eolian, and Ionic
—were employed in the Ambrosian chant.
" If we now compare some of our national
original melodies with these scales, it will
readily be seen that much of the originality
and peculiar construction of those airs
may be ascribed to their being composed
in scales or modes corresponding with
those of the Ambrosian chant. Knowing
the impressionable nature of the Irish, it is
but natural to suppose that the practice of
this style of music being well calculated to
excite emotion, much of its pathetic char-
acter would be imparted to national music
during its development in Ireland. By a
glance at the Ambrosian modes and those
added in the sixth century by Gregory the
Great, it will readily be seen that there
was no lack of a perfect scale in our Celtic
music, for we have in those modes our
modern
major
and
minor
diatonic
scales, besides the other modes, which
served, to some extent, the object
of modulation.
To illustrate this fact
let us take the national instrument of
Ireland, the harp, tuned in the key of C,
the Ionic mode, and we have the modern
diatonic scale in the major mode, with the
semitones between the third and fourth
and the seventh and eighth intervals. In
this mode we may place the beautiful
'Coolin,' the pathetic ' Snowy Breasted
Pearl,' and such exquisite melodies as
'Pashtheen Finn,' 'The Fox's Sleep' and
many others that belong to this class and
employ all the intervals of the diatonic
major scale. Without altering the tuning
of the harp and by making A the key-note
or first of the series, we have the ^Eolian
mode, agreeing with our minor scale de-
scending. To this class such old melodies
as ' Avenging and Bright,' or the ' Fenian
Mount' and the better known ' Shule
Aroon ' belong.
"The principal key of the harp, how-
ever, was G major, with the F sharp.
Here we have also a complete scale, and
the next and most natural modulation
would be the E minor, agreeing with the
' exulting . and mystical ' Gregorian eight
tone, irregular, and also with the perfect
Phrygian, our E minor descending. It
may be well to state that our most learned
musicians write the F sharp in the Phrygian
mode. Sheldon tells us that to this Phry-
gian mode the Irish were wholly inclined,
a remark that seems quite true, inasmuch
as the majority of our most exquisite airs
are given in this impassioned mode. Such
charming melonies as ' The Brink of the
White Rocks,' 'Lough Sheeling,' 'Thy
Fair Bosom,' ' Renardine,' ' The Bunch of
Rvishes,' the antique melody of 'The De-
ceitful Stranger,' and in fact most of the
best known of the ancient airs seem to be
composed after this mode. It will be ob-
served that these and melodies of their
class have not the leading tone or major
seventh, so requisite in modern music. It
is omitted as not belonging to the ancient
forms of that mode, and also as it was not
$a.oo PER YE
SINGLE COPIES
on the harp tuned G, as already stated.
The ancient melody to which the ' Lamen-
tation of Deirdre for the Sons of Usnach,'
chanted by the peasantry, is also in this
Phrygian mode. It is hardly necessary to
enter further into the subject, as sufficient
examples have been adduced to show the
affinity between our ancient national melo-
dies and the early ecclesiastical music,
which embodies the musical modes of the
East. This fact and also the fact stated
by Didorus, that the harp was in use early
in Ireland, its music being utilized to ac-
company the voices of the Druids in the
poems, seem to confirm the idea that poet-
ry and music were wafted to us from the
East. It is to this Oriental source we may
also, and with good reason, ascribe what-
ever knowledge of the arts, or faint per-
ception of the light of infantine science,
which may have existed at that remote
period."
*
I T has frequently been stated, and as
* often been denied, that Verdi is en-
gaged upon a new opera.
According,
however, to a Milan paper, which claims
to be well informed, the veteran composer
has for some time past, in a desultory way,
been writing music to a libretto of Boito's
on the subject of "King Lear."
The
opera is not finished, nor is it likely to be
just yet; but according to the same author-
ity, Verdi hopes in the course of the winter
to give a private performance to his friends
of certain fragments from it.
*
Jl/I HENRI MARTEAU, the eminent
I V 1. French violinist, offers $100 in cash
to the American born composer who will
submit the best unpublished sonata for
violin and piano before Feb. 25, 1899, and
further agrees to produce the work during
his coming tour in this country. Interested
parties may learn the conditions by ad-
dressing " T h e Concert-goer," St. James
building, corner 26th Street and Broadway,
New York.
*
D R O F . McDOWELL, who achieved such
*
excellent results as conductor of the
Mendelssohn Glee Club, has resigned.
His university work, composition and
practicing for concerts has made it impos-
sible for him to give that attention to the
society which he considers necessary.