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CURIOSITIES OF MUSIC. |
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claimed to have discovered in a monastery neat Messina, but the best authorities reject this aa spurious. The copies of the above hymns are not older than the fifteenth century, and have probably been much perverted by the ignorance, or half-knowledge of the transcribers, who seeing a fragment of a letter, would restore the whole letter, or change its position, thereby greatly alterÂing the character of the music.
To this fact is to be attributed the dense fog, which has prevented us from fully understanding the ancient Greek music.
On this slight foundation however, learned writers have built an edifice of erudition which consists of countless volumes of pedantry and ingenuity, mixed with a large amount of abuse for those who did not agree with their solution.
As we intend to deal, in these articles, more with curious musical facts than with musical systems, we will dismiss this branch of the subject entirely by referring the reader to the best representative works of this monument of research, which are Chappell's History of Music, vol. i., Ambros' Geschichte der Musik, vol. I., pp. 218-513, Fetis? Histoire Generale de la Musique, vol. in., pp. 1-418. Kiesewetter, and Drieberg also have written profoundly on the subject. These will give the different opinions held in the matter.
The scale of the Greeks, is however, definitely known, and was similar to our minor scale, alÂthough it contained no sharp seventh. Play on any pianoforte the notes, ABCSIF6, and you have played the Greek one octave diatonic scale. |
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