DRAMATIC MUSIC OF UNCIVILIZED RACES.
The first music of a dramatic kind originated probably in the passion of love. Savages, unacquainted with any other dramatic performances, not unfrequently have dances representing courtship, and songs to which these dances are executed. However rude the exhibitions may be, and however inartistic the songs may appear,—which, in fact, generally consist merely of short phrases constantly repeated, and perhaps interspersed with some brutish utterances,—they may nevertheless be regarded as representing the germ from which the opera has gradually been developed. Dancing is not necessarily associated with dramatic music; the dances of nations in a low degree of civilization are, however, often representations of desires or events rather than unmeaning jumps and evolutions.
Even in the popular dances of nations in an advanced state of civilization love is generally the most attractive subject for exhibition by action and music. The Italian national dances,—the Saltarello, the Monferrino, and several others,—have an unmistakable meaning; or, as Mac Farlane says, "there is a story in them which at times is told in a very broad, significant, and unsophistical way. The story is a sort of primitive courtship, varied by the coyness or coquetry of the female dancer, and animated by the passion and impatience of the wooer."[84] The same may be said of the Spanish Bolero and Fandango.
The excitement of the chase appears to be another cause of the origin of dramatic music. The savage, in pursuing the animals which he requires for his subsistence, experiences successes and disappointments which are to him highly interesting, and the recollection of which he enjoys. He naturally feels proud of results which he could not have achieved without agility and shrewdness, and he delights in showing to his friends how he proceeded in accomplishing his feat. Besides, savages have a strong instinct for imitation, almost like monkeys. Hence their fancy for counterfeiting the habits of certain animals which they chase and with the peculiarities of which they are generally well acquainted.