The National Music Of The World

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	Music from the North. 155


	The zither, something betwixt a dulcimer and guitar, plays an animated part in the Tyrolese music. The sounds whipped out of its metallic chords are stinging and brilliant, and especially in the open air, where all catgut strings lose resonance, prove most effective as supporting the voices. The national music of Poland, matured into complete art at a period far earlier than any corresponding transformation in Russia, would furnish full matter for a chapter by itself. The organisation of the people—the same which makes them so remarkable as linguists—more picturesque, subtle, and flexible, perhaps, than genial, singularly lent itself to the cultivation of music. The courts of Poland were liberal and pompous in its encouragement from an early period; the nobles munificent in patronage; the Church, as everywhere else, eager to appropriate its services.