The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-23

HCIOu1 bhO DdBOA Oh OOhBo, W AeONs
J. Villa Blake, we quote as follows
The two lands which surpass all others
for beauty, richness, and variety of popular
songs are Germany and Scotland. The ro-
mantle Tyre of Provence bequeathed little or
nothing. France and Spain have each
highly characteristic music, but small in quan-
tity and inferior in depth. The Irish music
has many charms investing an unmistakable
individuality. Nowhere, in the ancient
days, were bards and poets held in higher
honor than among the Irish. Their profess
sion was hereditary privilege, allowed only
to members of Industrious families; and many
of their ballads, which were devoted chiefly
to the memory of national achievements,
still remain sources of the materials of Irish
history. But the legend of st. Patrick, ac-
cording to which he destroyed three hundred
volumes of ancient Irish songs in his jealous
determination to root out all antique super
stitions inconsistent with Christianity, at once
reveals the former national fecundity in song,
and reminds us of the present compara-
tive paucity of Irish folk-music.' Trelands
melodies are not very many in number, and,
though Characteristic and often very pleasing,
seldom or never reveal much depth of mental
or moral experience. England has an un-
equalled store of ballads, which are most de-
hcious poetry and by far the noblest speci-
mems Of heroic lyrics that any tongue possesses;
but the melodies to which minstrels sung
them have died out of the popular memory
and usage; nor have they been succeeded,
speaking generally, by any other
folk-songs of musical value. An excep-
ton is the well-known beautiful air
of Ben Jonson's song, "Drink to Me
only with Thine Eyes"-the many efforts to
discover the composer of which have been
unsuccessful, although it dates only from the
last century. England, however, whatever
may be it's popular musical status now, has
had its thriving time of folk-songs and of
general musical culture. A song which has
descended from about the middle of the
thirteenth century presents the first example
of secular music in parts (it was elaborately
harmonized in six parts) which has been
found in any country.
Although law of Queen Elizabeth pro-
nounced minstrels to be 'rogues, vagabonds,
and sturdy beggars," music seems to have
been much esteemed and cultivated during
that Queens long reign. The minor air,
(which Nobody Can Deny" dating from
that time, is still popular, and yet flourishes
as a street song in London. In Ohappell's
''Music of the Olden Time, to which work
we are indebted for our specimens of old
English song, there are some pages of
interesting and curious details illustra-
tive of the prominence of music in the six
toeutu CSuJuIy. MuSlCdl dDlllUl6S were au-
vertised among the qualifications of persons
wishing to be servants, apprentices, or far
mers. An impostor who pretended to be a
shoemaker was detected because he could not
''sing sound the trumpet, play upon the flute,
nor reckon up his tools in rhyme" Each
trade had it's special songs, and the beggars
also had theirs. The fine whistling of car
men became proverbial. Base-viols hung in
the parlors for the convenience of waiting
guests, and were even played upon by ladies
in James reign.
No barber-shop was complete without the
lutte, cittern, and virginals, wherewith custo-
mers might amuse themselves while waiting
their turns. To read music at sight was an
essential in gentlewoman's education, and
lute-strings were common New Years gifts to
ladies. ''Some idea of the number of ballads
that were printed in the early part of the
reign of Elizabeth, may be formed from the
fact that seven hundred and ninety-six bal
lads, left for entry at Stationers Hall, re-
manned in the cupboard of the council cham.
ber of the company at the end of the year
1860, to be transferred to the new wardens,
and only forty-four books"
But however pleasing many of the old
English songs may be, however original also,
we must recur to our previous statement
that, of all countries, Scotland and Germany
stand pre-eminent for folk-music; and if we
consider not only the number, richness, and
beauty of these songs, but their present
vitality in their fatherlands, and indeed all
over the earth where men are sensible to
refined music, Germany and Scotland appear
so to surpass all other countries in this
respect that, in comparison, hardly any
other can be said to have any people s-music
at all. The superiority of these two
exists, however, with this striking diff
ference between them, that the Scottish
oples-songs appear like a case of ar
rested development, since they exist un-
accompanied by any high art. Notwithstand-
ing the beauty, the witchery, the originality,
and undeniable genius of the Scotch peoples
music, Scotland never produced great com
poser or exhibited any scientific musical ac-
tivity or power; while above the people s
songs of Germany towers that wonderful
and sublime art with which all the world
is familiar as the grandest musical express
sion of the human soul. Between the
charms of the Scottish and German peo.
ple's songs we shall not venture to de-
eide authoritatively or dogmatically.
But, for ourselves, we must own that we
find the shadow or the light of every mood Of
mind and soul reflected in the German music
as we find it nowhere else 1t plays upon the
pulses to quicken or subdue like a beloved
| face so complete is the human nature ana
human life on all its sides, that floats on this
wonderful Amazon of melody and harmony
! German life, in its habits, manners, tastes
and feelings, is deep calm, partly philo
sophie, partly patriarchal. Their most ,popu
lous and most busy cities ''are quiet haunti
for meditation" compared to American ol
even even English activity When an intel
ligent lady, of simple tastes and poetic cul
ture, returned recently from Germany ant
landed in New York, she remarked that sht
had not encountered ANYTHING during hel