"Instruments of percussion were few, and not indigenous to the Romans: such as were used came from the East, and were chiefly used in the worship of Eastern deities at Rome. When the worship of Bacchus was prohibited, they passed away with that licentious rite. The most complicated instrument of the ancient world appeared in Rome during the first century of our era. It was an organ, not, as in the scriptural days, a mere syrinx, or Pan's pipes, but an undoubted organ, somewhat similar in effect to our modern instrument.
"The instrument is said to have been invented by Ctesbius of Alexandria in Egypt, who lived about 250 B.C. It did not appear extensively in Rome, however, until nearly three hundred years later. This organ has given rise to much fruitless discussion. In the field of musical history especially, 'a little' knowledge has proved 'a dangerous thing;' for, where slight descriptions exist of instruments of music, latitude is left for every writer to form his own theory, to fight for it, and denunciate those who differ from it.
"We have seen what a battle was fought over the three little manuscripts of Greek music; what a host of differing opinions were held about the scriptural word 'Selah:' and now, about this hydraulic organ, each writer mounts his hobby-horse, and careers over the field of conjecture. Vitruvius has given a full description of the instrument from personal inspection; but as his technical terms have lost all significance to modern readers, and have been translated in various ways, and as his work contained no diagrams or illustrations of the various parts, it is useless.
"Some writers imagine the organ to have had seven or eight stops,—that is, so many different kinds of tones,—which would place them nearly on a par with our own. Others think that they possessed seven or eight keys; that is, so many tones only. It has been a point of dispute as to what function the water performed in working it. Vitruvius is rather hazy on this point, saying only that it is 'suspended' in the instrument. The water, when the organ was played, was in a state of agitation, as if boiling.
"There are medals still in existence which were awarded to victors in organ contests, on which this instrument is represented with two boys blowing or pumping; but the representation is too small to clear up any doubtful points."
But, without devoting further space to the music that was in vogue prior to the Christian era, I proceed to notice that our first reliable account of it, as a system, commences with the fourth century; at which time St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, arranged the sacred chants that bear his name, and which were to be sung in the cathedrals.
In the year 600 St. Gregory improved upon these chants, inventing the scale of eight notes. His system is the basis of our modern music.
From the close of the eleventh to the commencement of the fourteenth century, minstrels, jongleurs, or troubadours, were the principal devotees of music. They seem to have been its custodians, so to speak; and to their guild many of the knights belonged. Some of the kings and nobles of the time were also, in a sense, troubadours; such as, for instance, Thibault of Navarre, and William the Ninth of Poitou.
These roving musicians, who generally united the qualities of the poet, the musical composer, and performer, were treated with much favor by princes and all the nobility, and were everywhere warmly welcomed for a long period. It is, however, far from pleasant to have to say that this for a long time noble class of musicians, to whom we owe so much for the preservation unbroken for three hundred years of the chain of musical life, as well indeed, also, as that of general literature, spoiled perhaps by the excessive praises and indulgences accorded them, became at last quite dissolute, and fell from their high position. All royal favors were finally withdrawn from them, and orders for their restriction were issued from the throne.
Mr. B.W. Ball (in that faithful exponent of art, "The Boston Commonwealth") thus expressively sings the story of the ancient troubadour, styling him—