| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
Music from the East. 39 |
||
|
close study as imperfect sympathy—the three, by a somewhat ungenerous, yet not unnatural process, having too largely taken the form of antipathy which is unhappily historical. The remarkable attitude which the homeless Hebrews have maintained and retained since the birth, progress and enlargement of Christianity even unto these days;— the supremacy they have asserted in the face of persecution, bigotry, scandal not without some warrant to be found among the national characteristics of these people without a nation), could not fail to be accompanied by a certain injustice which, as it is the habit of injustice to do, has only fixed attention more permanently upon those who have been its object. Their place in the world of music has, from the days when, as Holy Writ informs us, Tubal Cain invented harp and organ, down to our own time, been peculiar and commanding.
From whichever side they be considered, the music of the Hebrews, and the aptitude and glory of that race for and in the art, are matters of the highest interest. Their tunes, considering the remote antiquity to which they pretend, are amazing. Though the fashions of organ, harp, lute, sackbut, psaltery, 'trumpet also, and shawm' have been modernised, a |
||