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34 National Music of the World.
The solitary usc of the national music of China by a trained writer which I can call to mind, is that made by Weber—of all composers, foremost and most felicitous in availing himself of what may be called wild music—in his overture to Schiller's translation of Carlo Gozzi's Chinese Fiaba—' Turandot.'
The music of the East, which I have dwelt on, is obviously too primitive and too uncouth to have been largely, if at all, recurred to as material by the trained composers of modern times, when they have been in search of what is called ' local colour.' An exception is now to be spoken of : a province (so to say), which has suggested a style, and given an inspiration to many modern artists. ' Turkish music,' —or, as they call it in Germany, Janissary music-has grown into an established musical term; as much as ' the stringed band,' and ' the wind band,' as definitions of the group of instruments which make up that magnificent machine—a modern orchestra. Yet no Oriental music seems to be so limited, and so .monotonous, as the tunes which the bells, cymbals, and duller ' Turkish' instruments of percussion support, and which possibly owe their simplicity and timidity to the restricted powers of the instruments to which the melody is entrusted. A few notes of |
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