CONCLUDING STROPHES OF THE HYMN TO CONFUCIUS.
The rhythm of the hymn is constructed so as to have four syllables to a line, and at the end of each line in the verses (here occupying one bar), and one of the instruments is appointed to sound three or six times a sort of interlude as in our recitatives. The music is simple, as with the Greeks, merely indicated by letters or signs associated with the words. The time taken very slow, probably somewhat as our “Old Hundredth” is sung in village churches according to ancient custom.
Mr. Abdy Williams gives a fragment of a papyrus roll belonging to the Augustan age, containing the music to chorus from the Orestes of Euripides (about 408 B.C.), from which it appears that the player extemporized a short interlude at the end of the verses. This is very curious, and will not be without significance if we compare this with the ancient Chinese custom which is so similar. The fragment consists of many bars; but the whole amounts to little beyond repetitions of the following, with now and then a slight variation.
A second hymn (key of G, with C♯) travels very monotonously within these limits.
The compass of the Delphic Greek hymn is one octave and a fourth, and it is curious that this is exactly the compass of the Chinese Sheng organ. The pitch is an octave too high for men’s voices, even as we find is the case with the original pitch of the Greek music.
Professor Jebb, in his address to the Hellenic Society, speaking of this Delphian relic—this marble music, says:—
The fragments at Delphi were fourteen in number. The principal one contained eighteen lines, and the musical notes were fairly complete,—only nine being missing out of two hundred and seven. The signs for the notes were the ordinary letters of the Greek alphabet, sometimes turned upside down or tilted. A key to them had been given by a Greek writer, Olympios, of the time of the Emperor Julian. He had written an introduction to music, which was still extant, in which he gave a list of signs representing notes. There were two distinct systems of musical notation, for voices and for instruments. Nine of the fourteen fragments were arranged for voices, and five for instruments; these were the lyre and the flute, which were named in the text. The instrumental and vocal music was always in unison. There was never more than one note.