Chapter 31
Chapter 31 of Brave Men and Women, Their Struggles, Failures, and Triumphs by Osgood E. Fuller. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Kristen Hand Saint Cecilia The Patroness of Music
Myths Concerning the Origin of Music Its Relation to Work and Blessedness Her legend relates that about the year 230, which would be in the time of the Emperor Alexander Severus. Cecilia, a Roman lady, born of a noble and rich family, who in early youth had been converted to Christianity,
and had made a vow of perpetual virginity, was constrained by her parents to marry a certain Valerian, a pagan whom she succeeded in converting to Christianity without infringing the vow she had made. She also converted her brother-in-law to Bertius and a friend called Maximus, all of whom were martyred in consequence of their faith. It is further related, among other circumstances purely legendary, that Cecilia often united instrumental music to that of her voice in
singing the praises of the Lord. On this, all her fame has been founded, and she has become the special patroness of music and musicians all the world over. Half the musical societies of Europe have been named after her, and her supposed musical acquirements have led the votaries of a sister art to find subjects for their work in episodes of her life. The grand painting by Domenicino at Boulogne, in which the saint is represented as wrapped in an ecstasy of devotion
with a small organ, as it is called, an instrument resembling a large kind of Pandean pipes in her hand, is well known, as is also Dryden's beautiful ode. The illustration which accompanies this chapter, after a painting by one of the brothers Caracci of the 17th century, represents Cecilia at the organ. Born heavenward on the tide of music, she sees a vision of the holy family, the child Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, with an angel near at hand in quiet gladness.
God's harmony is written all through in shining bars, the soul his love has smitten as heaven is writ with stars. Myths Concerning the Origin of Music Music is so delightfully innocent and charming in art that we cannot wonder at finding it almost universally regarded as of divine origin. Pagan nations generally ascribe the invention of their musical instruments to their gods or to certain superhuman beings of a godlike nature. The Hebrews
attributed it to man, but as Jubal is mentioned as the father of all such as handle the harp and organ only, and as instruments of percussion were almost invariably in use long before people were led to construct stringed and wind instruments, we may suppose that in the biblical records, jubel is not intended to be represented as the original inventor of all the Hebrew instruments, but rather as a great promoter of the art of music. However, be this as it may, this much is
certain. There are among Christians at the present day not a few sincere upholders of the literal meaning of these records, who maintain that instrumental music was already practiced in heaven before the creation of the world. Elaborate treatises have been written on the nature and effect of that heavenly music, and passages from the Bible have been cited by the learned authors which are supposed to confirm indisputably the opinions advanced in their treatises.
It may, at first glance, appear singular that nations have not generally such traditional records respecting the originator of their vocal music as they have respecting the invention of their musical instruments. The cause is, however, explicable. To sing is as natural to man as to speak, and uncivilized nations are not likely to speculate whether singing has ever been invented. There is no need to recount here the well-known mythological traditions of the ancient Greeks
and Romans referring to the origin of their favorite musical instruments. Suffice it to remind the reader that Mercury and Apollo were believed to be the inventors of the lyre and sitara, guitar, that the invention of the flute was attributed to Minerva, and that Pan is said to have invented the syrinx. More worthy of our attention are some similar records of the Hindus, because they have hitherto scarcely been noticed in any work on music. In the mythology of the
Hindus, the god Nareta is the inventor of the vina, the principal musical instrument of Hindustan. Saraswati, the consort of Brahma, may be said to be considered as the Minerva of the Hindus. She is the goddess of music as well as of speech. To her is attributed the invention of the systematic arrangement of the sounds into a musical scale. She is represented as seated on a peacock and playing a stringed instrument of the guitar kind.
Brahma himself we find depicted as a vigorous man with four handsome heads, beating with his hands upon a small drum. Erid Vishnu, in his incarnation as Krishna, is represented as a beautiful youth playing upon a flute. The Hindus still possess a peculiar kind of flute, which they consider as the favorite
instrument of Krishna. Furthermore, they have the divinity of Ganesa, the god of wisdom, who is represented as a man with the head of an elephant holding in his hands a tambora, a kind of lute with a long neck. Among the Chinese, we meet with a tradition according to which they obtained their musical
scale from a miraculous bird called Huang Hong, which appears to have been a sort of phoenix. As regards the invention of musical instruments, the Chinese have various traditions. In one of these, we are told that the origin of some of their most popular instruments dates from the period when China was under the dominion of the heavenly spirits called Qi.
Another assigns the invention of several of their stringed instruments to the great Fohi, called the Son of Heaven, who was, it is said, the founder of the Chinese Empire, and who is stated to have lived about BC 3000, which was long after the dominion of the Qi, or spirits. Again, another tradition holds that the most important Chinese musical instruments and the systematic arrangement of the tones are an invention of Niuva, a supernatural female who
lived at the time of Fohi, and who was a virgin mother. When Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, happened to hear, on a certain occasion, some divine music, he became so greatly enraptured that he could not take any food for three months. The music which produced the miraculous effect was that of Koei, the Orpheus of the Chinese, whose performance on the king, a kind of harmonicon constructed of slabs of sonorous stone, would draw wild animals around
him and make them subservient to his will. The Japanese have a beautiful tradition, according to which the sun goddess, in resentment of the violence of an evil disposed brother, retired into a cave, leaving the universe in darkness and anarchy, when the beneficent gods, in their concern for the welfare of mankind, devised music to lure her forth from her retreat, and their efforts soon proved successful. The Kalmux, in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, adore a beneficent
divinity called Medari, who is represented as a rather jovial-looking man with a mustache and imperial, playing upon an instrument with three strings somewhat resembling the Russian Balalaikia. Almost all these ancient conceptions we meet with also among European nations, though more or less modified. Odin, the principal deity of the ancient Scandinavians, was the inventor of magic songs and runic writings. In the Finnish mythology, the divine Vänamöinen is said to have constructed
the five-stringed harp called the kantel, the old national instrument of the Finns. The frame he made out of the bones of a pike and the teeth of the pike he used for the tuning pegs. The strings he made of hair from the tail of a spirited horse. When the harp fell into the sea and was lost, he made another, the frame of which was birch wood, with pegs made out of the branch of an oak tree. As strings for this harp, he used the silky hair of a young girl.
Venamoynen took his harp and sat down on a hill near a silvery brook. There he played with so irresistible an effect that he entranced whatever came within hearing of his music. Men and animals listened and raptured. The wildest beasts of the forest lost their ferocity. The birds of the air were drawn toward him. The fishes rose to the surface of the water and remained immovable. The trees ceased to wave their branches. The brook retarded its course and the wind its haste.
Even the mocking echo approached stealthily and listened with the utmost attention to the heavenly sounds. Soon the women began to cry. Then the old men and the children also began to cry. And the girls and the young men all cried for delight. At last, Vainamoinen himself wept, and his big tears ran over his beard and rolled into the water and became beautiful pearls at the bottom of the sea. Several other musical gods or godlike musicians could be cited,
and moreover innumerable minor spirits all bearing evidence that music is of divine origin. True, people who think themselves more enlightened than their forefathers smile at these old traditions and say that the original home of music is the human heart. Be it so. But do not the purest and the most beautiful conceptions of man partake of a divine character?
Is not the art of music generally acknowledged to be one of these? And is it not, therefore, even independently of myths and mysteries entitled to be called the divine art? The relation of music to work and blessedness. Give us, says Carlyle, oh give us the man who sings at his work.
Be his occupation what it may. He is equal to any of those who follow the same pursuit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the same time. He will do it better. He will persevere longer.
One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness. Altogether past calculation, it's powers of endurance. Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous.
A spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright. Again, this author says, who had so much music in his heart, though not of the softest kind, rather of the epic sort, the meaning of song goes deep. Who is there that in logical words can express the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads to the edge of the infinite and lets us for moments gaze into that.
The late Canon Kingsley certainly conceived much of the height and depth and length and breadth of song when he wrote, There is music in heaven, because in music there is no self-will. Music goes on certain rules and laws. Man did not make these laws of music, he has only found them out.
And if he be self-willed and break them, there is an end of his music instantly. All he brings out is discord and ugly sounds. The greatest musician in the world is as much bound by those laws as the learner in the school, and the greatest musician is one who, instead of fancying that because he is clever he may throw aside the laws of music, knows the laws of music best, and observes them most reverently. And
therefore it was that the old Greeks, the wisest of the heathens, made a point of teaching their children music, because, they said, it taught them not to be self-willed and fanciful, but to see the beauty, the usefulness of rule, the divineness of laws. And therefore music is fit for heaven. Therefore music is a pattern and type of heaven, and of the everlasting life of God which perfect spirits live in heaven. A life of melody and order in themselves, a life of harmony with each other
and with God. If thou fulfillest the law which God has given thee, the law of love and liberty, then thou makest music before God, and thy life is a hymn of praise to God. If thou act in love and charity with thy neighbors, thou art making sweeter harmony in the ears of our Lord Jesus Christ than psaltery, dulcimer, and all other kinds of music.
If thou art living a righteous and a useful life, doing thy duty orderly and cheerfully where God has put thee, then thou art making sweeter melody in the ears of the Lord Jesus Christ than if thou hast the throat of the nightingale. For then thou, in thy humble place, art humbly copying the everlasting harmony and melody
by which God made the worlds and all that therein is. And behold, it was very good, in the day when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy over the new created earth, which God made to be a pattern of his own perfection. The minstrel's heart in sadness was wrestling with his fate.
Am I the sport of madness? he sighed, and born too late. No gifts are ever given, a friendly voice replied, on which the smile of heaven does not indeed abide. God's harmony is written all through in shining bars, the soul his love has smitten as heaven is writ with stars.
The major notes and minor are waiting for their wings. Pray thou the great diviner to touch the secret springs. He may not give expression in any ocean tide, but music like confession will waft thee to his side, where thou, as on a river, the current deep and strong, shalt sail with him forever into the land of song. End of chapter 31
