Scan 12
Researches into the early history of the violin family, 1883
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1The same remark applies also to the instruments of the most ancient nations of which we possess some historical records. Take, for instance, the Hebrews. Surely the musical performances patronised by King David differed considerably from those at the time of Moses; and, immediately after the death of David, King Solomon constructed new musical instruments, made of a foreign wood, and being regarded as improvements upon the previous ones. No doubt the musical progress of the Hebrews was slow, if compared with our own during the last five centuries. The art had not attained with them to the degree of cultivation which renders a rapid progress towards a higher degree of perfection possible. Besides, the almost exclusive employment of the most cultivated class of music in religious observances, which by their very nature were extremely conservative, must have retarded its progress, inasmuch as it rather prevented innovations in the construction of musical instruments as well as in the form of the musical compositions. Still, no people, however conservatively it may be disposed, can for a long period remain stationary and entirely uninfluenced by the notions and sentiments of other nations with which it happens to come into contact. Be this as it may, the usual attempt of our musical historians to explain the characteristics of the ancient Hebrew instruments from the representations on the Arch of Titus may reasonably provoke a smile, considering that the Arch of Titus was erected about fifteen hundred years after the time of Moses.
3It may be objected that we do not possess sufficient records about the music of the nations of antiquity to scrutinise its stage of progress in different centuries. No doubt this is true enough, at any rate as regards the Hebrews, Egyptians, and Assyrians; hence our imperfect knowledge about their musical accomplishments.
5At all events, in order to render the present researches as useful as is in my power, it appears to me necessary to state always with the evidences which I cite the centuries from which they date. Only in a few instances, where it is immaterial to know to which century of the middle ages the evidence recorded is to be assigned, I shall merely use the
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