Title: A Popular History of the Art of Music
Author: W. S. B. Mathews
Release date: January 5, 2007 [eBook #20293]
Language: English
Credits: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net/c/).
Thanks to Alex Guzman
for help with the modern transcription of neume notation.
Author of "How to Understand Music," "Studies in Phrasing," "Twenty
Lessons to a Beginner," "Primer of Musical Forms," Associate
Editor of
Mason's "Pianoforte Technics," etc., etc.
CHICAGO:
THE "MUSIC" MAGAZINE PUBLISHING CO.
1402-5 THE AUDITORIUM.
Copyright by W. S. B. Mathews, 1891.
I HAVE here endeavored to provide a readable account of the entire history of the art of music, within the compass of a single small volume, and to treat the luxuriant and many-sided later development with the particularity proportionate to its importance, and the greater interest appertaining to it from its proximity to the times of the reader.
The range of the work can be most easily estimated from the Table of Contents (pages 5-10). It will be seen that I have attempted to cover the same extent of history, in treating of which the standard musical histories of Naumann, Ambros, Fétis and others have employed from three times to ten times as much space. In the nature of the case there will be differences of opinion among competent judges concerning my success in this difficult undertaking. Upon this point I can only plead absolute sincerity of purpose, and a certain familiarity with the ground to be covered, due to having treated it in my lectures in the Chicago Musical College for five years, to the extent of about thirty-five lectures yearly. I have made free use of all the standard histories—those of Fétis, Ambros, Naumann, Brendel, Gevaert, Hawkins, Burney, the writings of Dr. Hugo Riemann, Dr. Ritter, Prof. Fillmore, and the dictionaries of Grove and Mendel, as well as many monographs in all the leading modern languages.
I have divided the entire history into books, placing at the beginning of each book a general chapter defining the central idea and salient features of the step in development therein recounted. The student who will attentively peruse these chapters in succession will have in them a fairly complete account of the entire progress.
W. S. B. MATHEWS.
Chicago, May 5, 1891.
Transcriber's Note: The listed illustration of Sterndale-Bennett is not in the original book, and the illustration of Gade is actually on page 518. There are additional illustrations, not listed above, of Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Smetana, Dvorak, and Grieg. Some illustrations have been moved slightly from their original locations to avoid breaking the flow of text. The page numbers above are the originals; the links point to the actual locations of the illustrations in this e-text.
Music defined — general idea of musical progress — conditions of fine art — qualities of satisfactory art-forms — periods in musical history — difference between ancient and modern music.
| CHAPTER I — MUSIC AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS | 27-39 |
Sources of information — antiquity of their development — instruments — uses of music — their ideas about music and education — "Song of the Harper" — kindergarten.
| CHAPTER II — MUSIC AMONG THE HEBREWS AND ASSYRIANS | 40-47 |
Music among the Hebrews — Jubal — kinnor — ugabh — musicians in the temple service — psaltery — flute — larger harp — Miriam — liturgy of the temple — musical ideal in Hebrew mind — music among the Assyrians — types of instruments.
| CHAPTER III — MUSIC AMONG THE ANCIENT GREEKS | 48-69 |
Importance of this development — extent of the time — date of Homeric poems — epoch of Æschylus — extracts from Homer — Hesiod — patriotic applications of music — choral song — festivals — lyric drama — début of Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides — nature of the classic drama — orchestic — Socrates — Aristoxenus — problems of Aristotle — Greek theory of music — Pythagoras and ratios of simple consonances — devotional use of music — Greek scales — Claudius Ptolemy — Didymus — the lyre and cithara — magadis — flute — æsthetic importance — Plato on the noble harmonies — loyalty to the true — Greek musical alphabet — notation — Ode from Pindar.
| CHAPTER IV — MUSIC IN INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN | 70-77 |
Early beginning — use of the bow — national instruments — the vina — theory — ravanastron — music exclusively melodic — saying of the Emperor Tschun — the ke — Japanese ko-ko.
| CHAPTER V — THE TRANSFORMATION AND ITS CAUSES | 81-86 |
General view of the transformation to modern music — causes co-operating — difference between ancient and modern music — harmony and tonality — consonance and dissonance — three steps in the development of harmonic perceptions — when were these steps taken? — tonality defined — growth of tonal perception — unconscious perception of implied or associated tones.
| CHAPTER VI — THE MINSTRELS OF THE NORTH | 87-108 |