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Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 18

Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 18
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periodical Publisher
Irish Folk Song Society
periodical Editor
[Periodical]
periodical Title
Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society
volume Number
1
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26even after they had become ohsolet . That some artists emancipated themselves fromthis conventionalism is proved by the vase above mentioned, and by a statement ofEuphorion, recorded by Athenteus, that a certain Lesbothemis, a sculptor of Mitylene,had put a Sambuki into the hands of one of the muses.Of all these polychord instruments, the one which concerns us most here is theTriqonon., or triangular harp. From a passage in the lost Jfyeians of Sophocles, pre-served by Athene-us, we learn that the Greeks believed this instrument to be of Phrygianorigin. The tragic poet Diogenes, in his tragedy of e.mele, makes the Bac.trian andLydian women go to the woods to sound the praises of Artemis on Trigona and Pektkku,and to play the Mayadis. These statements enable us to trace the course of the migrationof the harp from Assyria through the provinces of Asia Minor to the Greek Asiaticsettlements. There is ample evidence to prove that the Assyrians got their polychordinstruments from Egypt, and some of the Greeks themselves belisved the parent countryof the Triqonon to have been Egypt. . If, as some believe, the Phcenician Kinnor, ofwhich I shall speak presently, was the prototype of the Triqonon, that instrument mighthave found its way into Greece, not through Phrygia, but through Cyprus. Be this asit may, the Trigonon must have been known at a comparatively early period to theAsiatic Greeks, from the fact that the ffetaireia used a small variety of it at theHetairedeia, or feast of good-fellowship, said to have been established by Jason in hisnative country in honour of Zeus Hetaircios. The early Greek Trigonon, like its pro-genitor, the Egyptian harp, appears to have had no fore-pillar; small Trigona were,however, made at some subsequent but unascertained time, with a fore-pillar and a verysmall sound-box. They were usually strung with from eleven to thirteen strings, andtheir form was often ennobled by Greek artistic taste.We know very little of the musical instruments of the Romans before their conquestsmade theta acquainted with those of the other Mediterranean countries, and of the West-Asiatic nations. The musical instruments of Greece naturally found their way withGreek music into Italy, and among them no doubt the Trigonon, as it was modified bythe Greeks. Figures of Trigona and other polychord instruments are, however, as rarein Roman sculptures and mosaics as in Greek ones. A saracophagus, found at Volterra,has a baa-relief of late and debased Roman workmanship, representing the adventuresof the Sirens in the Odyssey. One of the sirens is represented playing a triangular27harp. A still more important example Of an old Italian figure of the Trigonon is that onan Apulcian vase. This harp is very similar to our modern harps, except that it wasplayed in an inverted position; the yoke, or harmonic curve in which the pins wereinserted, is below, instead of being above, as in our harps. The strings are not repre-sented; but there seems to have been a double row of them, as some believe to havebeen the case with the Epigoneion, each hand playing different set of strings, tunedan octave apart. The larger part of the sound-box is above, as in the h.irp on the vasein the Munich Pinakothek, while in the modern harp it is below. The most importantfenture of this harp is, however, the fore-pillar, which is elegantly formed of a carvedfigure of a heron or crane. This form of Trigonon is so manifestly the origin of themodern harp, that it. only remains to discover when and by whom it was first used inthe modern or inverted position.Whether the Germanic peoples were acquainted with the harp before theirdirect contact with the Romans or not, we have no means of ascertaining. But verysoon after we find them in possession of a stringed instrument known by the nameof Harpa, a name which occurs in the earliest literary monuments of the Teutonicracesthe poem of Beowuif, and the Eddaic song, the Voluspa. The Britons, and wemay consequently infer, the Irish also, used a stringed instrument which Greek andRoman writers describe as a lyre. Was this the modern harp, or, as some suppose, akind of Psatterium, or a kind of (Jithara? flow was the instrument called? Theseare the questions we have now to discuss, and if possible to solve.Giraidus Cambrensis mentions the instruments of music in use in Ireland, Scotland,and Wales in the twelfth century. According to this account, the Irish had twotheCitlmara and Timnpan; Scotland threethe Citliara, the Timpan, and the Chorus; andWales threethe Cithartr, Flute, and (Jhoriis. In the twelfth century the three countriespossessed an instrument which could be described as a Cit hara. This instrument was- called in Ireland, and no doubt in Scotland also, a Cruit; in Wales, a feign. Of theIrish and Scotch i istruments enumerated by Giraldus, two are stringed, as there cannow be no doubt that the Timpan was a stringed instrument. Of the Welsh instru-ments only one is a stringed instrument, the Chorus of Giraldus being, as was firstsuggested by Mr. Dauney, the bagpipe. In the Epistle to Pardanus, which is to befound among the spurious works of St. Jerome, the word Chorus is used to designate aV
issue Number
1
page Number
18
periodical Author
[Periodical]
issue Publication Date
1967-01-01T00:00:00
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anonymous,guest,friend,member

Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, Volume 1, Issue 1

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