The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-13

esteem and the use that appertained Ito the ancient Roman music.
 The Roman shows and public spec tacles. intended to amuse and 1atter the common people, were necessarily calculated for the meridian of the vul- gar appetite and, in a great measure, must have rejected refinement and polish. The noise and indecorum of the clowns and mechanics at the the ater, whose chief delight was in the glare and glitter of the decorations and such music as was suited to their rude ears, are frequently complained of by Horace. And from Ovid we learn that the style of the airs of the theater was so adapted to the taste of the common people and their con- struction so artless and practicable
 that they wer sung by the ploughmen in the fields.
 One establishment, however ap- pears to have formed a characteris- tic of their public music, that of the creseendo and diminuendo. Cicero, (De Oratore 1, 3, c. 1O2) after speak | ing of the use of contrast in oratory, poetry and theatrical Reclamation, says, 'even musicians who have com posed melody are sensible of it's power as is manifest from the care they take to lessen the sounds of instruments in order to augment. it afterwards-to diminish, to swell, to vary and to di- Iversify. According to the same ora- tor, it was, in Rome, general hal-it with persons of rank to keep a band of musicians who were called Servi lSymphoniaci and Pueri Symphoniaci musical men and musical hoys-at- ltendants,
 It is also certain from various pass lages in Greek writers, that the anci- ent vocal music had it's introductory lsymphonies which were expressed by figurative word Mesaulici, imply ing .an entry or passage. Meibomius, speaking of the term Mesaulion, calls | it interplping.
 The following description of a mus | ical entertainment given by @ lady (Apuleius Metam. lib ii) shows that | in that authors time, music was pret- | ty well cultivated She ordered the icthara to be played and it was done.
 She asked for a concert of flutes and
 their mellifiuous sounds were immedi-
 lately heard. Lastly she signitled her pleasure that, voices should be joined with the instruments and the souls
 of the audience were instantly soothed with sweet sounds" And the ac-
 count given by the same writer of a musical performance in honor of Ce- Tres would not i'll describe some mod Iern concerts, The occasion was the celebration of a great festival dedi- lcated to the goddess and at which IApuleius himself was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. "A band of musicians, says he, now filled the air
 with a melodious concert of flutes and voices They were followed by a chorus of youths, dressed in white lrobes, suitable to the solemnity, whc alternately sang an ingenious poem which an excellent poet, inspired by the Muses, had composed in order tc leXplain the subjects of this eXtraor- dinary festival. Among these march led several players on the flute, conse.
 crated to the great Serapis who per formed many airs dedicated to tho
 worship of the god in his temple, Af. ter this, the venerable ministers oi the true religion, shook with all theil Iforce the sistrums of brass, silver anC lgold which produced tones so cleal land sonorous that they might have
 been heard at d great distance iron lthe place of performance.
 MORRIS STEINERT.