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Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 22

Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 22
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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
11At a few yards distance is a Smaller arch, at the further end of which are two male armed figures, over the heads of which are inscriptions in an unknown character.MUSIC OF THE HEBREWS.WT ivss respect to the musical instruments of theancient Hebrews, little is with certainty known. In afew hints on the subject, we shall be chiefly directed byDom Augustine Calmets great work, Critical Disser-.tations on the Old and New Testament.Tue Hebrews derived their instruments from theChaldeans, their progenitors, and from the Egyptians,among whom they so long dwelt; from the Phmniciansand other nations of Arabia, in the midst of whom theywere placed by the Situation of their country: accordingto rabbinical authority, they had a greater number ofinstruments than other nations no less than thirty-four orthirty_six kinds a, of which we can oniy at this dayretrace fourteen: eleven are enumerated in the writingsof Moses.Those with which this memoir is connected are thefollowing, on which much dependence cannot be placed,on account of the names of snch ancient instrumentsbeing probably confounded with each other.The nablum, psalterion, or assur, employed in thepompous ceremonies of religion.It was nearly the figure of the Greek , and playedon with both hands.The cythara, L -itros, or ha ur, a triganon or triangularfigure with ten strings, played on as the former.The ancient lyre, or Egyptian sex N NOR J-; calledalso kinyra, psalterion, and eythara: its invention is as-cribed to the Egyptian Mercury: it was in use before thedeluge, [ Genesis iv. 21.]: it had ten strings, was used byDavid when he played before Saul, and was the instru-ment which the Babylonish captives hung on the willows:its size must have been small, as the royal psalmist heldit in his hands when dancing round the ark; it was com-mon also at Tyre. On a Hebrew medal of Simon Mac-cabeus, there are figures of two instruments with onlythree or four strings, but very different from the form ofour present Harps . Father Montfaucon, with all hisresearch, found it difficult to determine in what the lyre.,cithara, chelys, psaltery, and Harp, differed from eachother. Six hundred lyres and cithara of which he ex-amined the figures iii ancient sculptures were withoutnecks, the Strings open as the modern Harp, and playedwith the fingers .Of such importance was music held even in theearliest times, that we see by PLATO, that it was fixedand made unalterable in Greta and Egypt: as far as pre-.sent documents extend, we are to consider the latter asthe fountain of music and musical instruments to aftergenerationsTHE GRECIAN LYRE.Tna Greeks pretended that their music descendedto theni from the gods, but were obliged to admit thatthe greater part of their instruments were had from otherquarters, viz. Phrygsa, Lydia, Syria, Egypt, and Persia.The instruments both of the Greeks and Latins havinghad their origin in the east (as the Romans admitted)ought, in some degree, to resemble those of the Hebrews,which were the same as the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Phmnicians, and Syrians.The fabulous history of Greece attributes the in-vention of the LYRE to Mercury, who gave it to Apollo;its body was originally the shell of tortoise, and thenceby the Romans afterwards called testudo. DiodorusSiculus, who wrote forty_five years before the Christianicra, mentions that at first it had only three strings, andafterwards four: Suidas gives it four; and says, that itremained at that number for 856 years; from Amphionto Terpander 6T 1 years before Christ. He adds, thatTerpander increased it to seven (a heptacord supplyingthe player with two cos joint tetracords), at which numberwe know that it was limited by law in the Spartan state;others alleged, that the Grecian lyre was always of sevenstrings, and that the smaller number related merely tothe Egyptian. One hundred and fifty years after Ter-pander we are told that Pythagoras, 560 years beforeChrist, added an eighth string, which formed two disjointtetracords. But Dr. Burney notices that this is irre-concilable with Homers hymn to Mercury [ line 51] inwhich the chelys, or testudo, is mentioned as consistingof seven chords.Timotheus was born at Miletus, an lonian city ofCaria, 346 years preceding the Christian sara, beingcotemporary with Philip of Macedon. According toPausanius, he attempted to extend the lyre from sevento eleven strings; but Suidas tells us that it had ninebefore the alteration, and that Timotheus only gave it atenth and eleventh. It is agreed, however, that the in-crease, whatever it was, made up the number eleven;and that the musician was banished by an edict of theEphori of Sparta, for thus daring to innovate on thesimplicity of their national music *.Kircher. Conor, GriLls, or Cennaire; croith is an Ir is /s term for a Harp.I Encyclop. Brit. Antiq. Expi. iii. Lib. 5. cap. 3.Dr. Burneys opinion deserves great credit, that the Hebrews had their music and instrument. from the Egyptians. It wa said Terpander composed music (probably recitative) for the Iliad.This senatus consultumn is preserved by Boethius. It does not appear in his five books of music, first printed at Venice, 1499; but it is foundiii a MS. of his de musica of the eleventh century, preserved in the British Museum. Boethius was born at Rome, A. D. 470, and put to death by
issue Number
1
page Number
22
periodical Author
Edward Bunting
issue Publication Date
1809-01-01T00:00:00
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Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland