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Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 35

Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 35
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periodical Publisher
Clementi & Co., London, 1809
periodical Editor
Edward Bunting
periodical Title
Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland
volume Number
1
issue Content
24Wales before them, where it was in the fourteenth centuryincreased to a triple row of strings, and the numberraised to ninety-seven; no alteration was even attemptedin theirs for an hundred years afterwards. Robert Nugent,ajesuit, who resided some time in this country, then im-proved it by enclosing an open space between the trunkand upper arm, covering with a lattice work of wood thesound holes on the right side, and placing a double rowof chords on each side . This innovation on the sins-plicity of our music does not appear to have gainedground, and has since been entirely abandoned.It is asserted that the Irish had the double row ofstrings from Wales; Davydd Benwym, one of theirbards, having said, about L589, that his Harp containedtwenty-nine strings or more; but it has just been shewnthat Nugent introduced it in Ireland a century earlier.Even the single rowed Irish Harp, so long in commonuse, contains a number of strings equal to those of Ben-wynn, and thus renders the assertion nugatory in itself.The most ancient Irish Harp probably now remainingis that which is said to have belonged to Brian Boiromhe,king of Ireland, who was slain in battle with the Danesat Clontarf near Dublin, A. D. 1014. His son, Donogh,having murdered his brother Teige in the year 1023, andbeing deposed by his nephew, retired to Rome, and car-ried with him the crown, Harp, and other regalia of hisfather, which he presented to the pope in order to obtainabsolution. Adrian the Fourth, surnamed Breakspear,alleged this circumstance as onp of the principal titles tothis kingdom in his bull, transferring it to Henry II.These regalia were deposited in the Vatican till the popesent the Harp to Henry VIII. with the title of Defenderof the Faith, but kept the crown, which was of massivegold. Henry gave the Harp to the first earl of Clan-richard, in whose family it remained till the begimsing ofthis century; when it came by a lady of the Dc Burghfamily into that of MMahon, of Clenagh, in the countyof Clare; after whose death it passed into the possessionof commissioner MNasnara, of Limerick. In 1 73 , it waspresented to the right hon. William Conyngham,who depo..sited it in Trinity College, Dublin, where it still remains.This Harp had only one row of strings, is thirty_twoinches high, and of extraordinary good workmanship..The sound board is of oak, the pillar and comb of redsallow, the extremity of the uppermost bar, or comb, inpart is capped with silver, extremely well wrought andchiselled. It contains a large chrystal set in silver, andunder it was another stone, now lost. The buttons orornamental knobs at the sides of the bar are of silver. Onthe front of the pillar are the arms chased in silver of theOBrians family, tiae bloody hand supported by lions; onthe side of time pillar within two circles are the Irish wolfdogs carved in the woods. The string notes of the soundboard are neatly ornamented with escutcheons of brasscarved and gilt. The sounding holes have been orna-menterl, probably of silver, as they have been the objectof theft. This Harp has twenty-eight string screws, andthe same number of string holes to answer them, con-sequently there were twenty-eight strings. The bottomwhich it rests upon is a little broken, and the wood veryrotten; the whole hears evidence of an expert artist f.In Vincentio Gahileis Dissertation on ancient andmodern Music, printed at Florence in the year 1581, wehave the following interesting information .Among tile stringed instruments now in use inItaly, tile first is the Harp, which is only an ancientcithara, so far altered in form by tile artificers of thosedays as to adapt it to the additional nuniber; and thetension of the strings, containing from the highest tothe lowest note, more than three octaves. This mostancient instrument was brought to us from Ireland (asDANTE says ) where they are excellently made, andin great numbers, the inhabitants of that island havingpractised on it for man i and many ages: nay, they evenplace it in the arms of tile kingdom, and paint it oiltheir public buildings, and stamp it on their coin, givingas the reason their being descended from the royalprophet David. The Harps wiucia this people use areAccordingto titular archdeacon Lynch, of Team, who wrote under tile Signature of Gratianus Lucius, p. 37.f Collect de Rib, ilib. No. 13. Dr. Ledwich has denied that this Harp could have belonged to Brian Boiromhe on account of the arms;armorial bearings, he asserts, were not introduced into thb country earlier than tise reign of Edward the Confessor.On a strict examination of the Harp in question, we are inclined to doubt its being of such antiquity as the time of that Irish monarch;we conceive it to be in too sound a state to have been made in that era, especially considering the nature of the wood, viz, red sally: even the soundboard is of this species, and not of oak, which, by general Vallencys description, it should he. The appearance of the latter timber is producedmerely by a slip of it clumsily nailed on the back of the sound board to keep it together, tile bottom lsaving been worm-eaten. A Harp madeby Corinack OKeily, of Ballynascreen, in tile county of Londonderry, about the year 1700, bears so perfect a resemblance to the Dublin harp inevery respect, among others, in the figures of the wolf dogs engraved on the front pillars of both, that it is not an unfair conjecture, that the age ofthe supposed Harp of the Irish monarch has been greatly overrated; till we have authority to prove the transmission of the instrument from thepope to Henry VIII., and from the latter to the earl of t lanrickard, we must remain of the opinion we have expressed. If the fact of its havingexisted Boo years rest solely on tradition, that evidence is too weak where internal proof is wanting.This most curious document we have tranolated from Vincentio Galileis Dialogue on ancient and modern Music, fblio edition, Florence,A.D. 1581. Part of it snay be seen in Joness IV. Bards, under another forLn. The honour it does to the Irish Harp will account for our going a newtanslation, and entering farther into the detail: after long search, it was found in the library of Jesus Co1le e, Oxford. Iii the British Musenm wehad previously met with the edition of 1602: he was a noble Florentine, ansi father of the great Galileo (Galilci), and a proficient in music, beingan excellent performer on the lute. Assisted by signior Giovanni, Dr. Burney avs, he was tise fire who camposed melodies for a single voice,i .aving modulated the pathetic scene of count Ugolino, written by Dante, which he sung himself sweetly to the accompaninsent of a viol: lie set,in the same style, parts of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. [ [ 4. of Music, iv. p. 22.] DANTE lived about A. D. 1300.
issue Number
1
page Number
35
periodical Author
Edward Bunting
issue Publication Date
1809-01-01T00:00:00
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anonymous,guest,friend,member

Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland