| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
Letter on music. |
151 |
||
|
have furnished but wild and refractory subjects to the harmonist It was only when the invention of Guido began to be known, and the powers of the harp* were enlarged by additional strings, that our melodies took the sweet character which interests us at present; and while the Scotch persevered in the old mutilation of the scale f, Our music became gradually more amenable to the laws of harmony and counter-point.
- In profiting, however, by the improvements of the moderns, our style still keeps its originality sacred from their refinements; and though Carolan had frequent opportunities of hearing the works of Germiniani and other masters, we but rarely find him sacrificing his native simplicity to the ambition of their ornaments, or affectation of their science. In that curious composition, indeed, called his Concerto, it is evident that he laboured to imitate Corelli ; and this union of manners so very dissimilar, produces the same kind of uneasy sensation which is felt at a mixture of different styles of architecture. In general, however, the artless flow of our music has preserved itself free from all tinge of foreign innovation J, and
instances in Haydn of an undisguised succession of fifths ; and Mr. Shield, in his Introduction to Harmony, seems to intimate that Handel has been sometimes guilty of the same irregularity.
* A singular oversight occurs in an Essay upon the Irish Harp, by Mr. Beauford, which is inserted in the Appendix to Walker's Historical Memoirs;— " The Irish (says he) according to Bromton, in the reign of Henry II. had two kinds of Harps, * Hibernici tamen in duobus musici generis instrumentis, quamvis prascipitem et velocem, suavem tamen et jucundum :' the one greatly bold and quick, the other soft and pleasing."—How a man of Mr. Beauford*s learning could so mistake the meaning, and mutilate the grammatical construction of this extract, is unaccountable. The following is the passage as I find it entire In Bromton ; and it require* but little Latin to perceive the injustice which has been done to the words of the old Chronicler :—" Et cum Scotia, hujus terrse filia, utatur lyra, tympano et choro, ac Wallia clthara, tubis et choro, Hibernici tamen In duobus musici generis instruments, quamvis prcecipitem et vetocem^ suavem tamen et jucundam, crispatis mo-dulis et intricatis notulis, ejficiunt harmoniam" — Hist. Anglic. Script, page 1075. I should not have thought this error worth remarking, but that the compiler of the Dissertation on the Harp, prefixed to Mr. Bunting's last Work, has adopted it implicitly.
t The Scotch lay claim to some of our best airs, but there are strong traits of difference between their melodies and ours. They had formerly the same passion for robbing us of our Saints, and the learned Dempster was for this offence called " The Saint Stealer." It was an Irishman, I suppose, who, by way of reprisal, stole Dempster's beautiful wife from him at Pisa—See this anecdote in the Pinacotheca of Erythrseus, part i. p. 25.
■ % Among other false refinements of the art, our music (with the exception perhaps
of the air called " Mamma, Mamma," and one or two more of the same iudicroui
L 4 |
|||