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136 National Music of the World. |
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These crotchets, my own speculations counting in the list, will always have a great attraction for persons who are decided in their likes or dislikes, but for the moment the matter must here be left.
It is impossible to overrate the freshness and vigour of the song-melody of the North—let the key be what it will. These bear company with like qualities in the popular poetry. And though trained art taking any form of originality is comparatively modern in the North, as compared with the South, the tunes themselves have a quaint sharpness of interval and rhythm, which amounts to a characteristic.
I must now enter into a detail or two. To begin with Muscovy. Russian music has singular particularities; among these, the double-bass voices— ranging, I believe, from about D in the bass stave to D below the line—who support the chords of the
chants of the national worship.
I am unable to speak of the effect of this chanting, save from the exhibition of it on a very reduced scale, which is to be met with in Paris. Even that, simple and monotonous as the music is, is most impressive; from its sweetness of tone, surety of intonation, and certainty of attack. |
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