Thus, as we have just said, the Indians are born musicians. Those who before knew only the Chinese tam-tam, the Javanese drum, and a kind of flute of Pan, made of a bit of bamboo, today cultivate the European instruments with a love which comes to be a passion. They are not, for the most part, very strong in vocal music, for they have very little or no voice. Nevertheless, their singing offers in our opinion a certain character of originality which is not unworthy of attention.[7]
Scarcely had the Spaniards conquered that archipelago than its inhabitants tried to imitate the musical instruments of Europe, and the viguela, a kind of guitar having a very great number of strings, but which is not always the same, soon became their favorite instrument. They manufactured it with a remarkable perfection. And besides, they themselves made the strings.
The bandolon is another guitar, but smaller; having twenty-four metallic strings joined by fours. They are very skilful in playing that instrument, and they make use either of one of their finger nails, which they allow to grow to a very great length, or of a little bit of wood. We do not know from what nation they have borrowed that instrument, which we have never seen in Spain.
The music of the villages of which we have spoken is generally composed of violins, of ebony flutes, or even of bamboo in the remote provinces, and of a bajo de viguela, a large guitar of the size of a violon-cello, which is played with a horn or ebony finger expressly made [for that purpose]. They draw from it very agreeable sounds. That music, somewhat discordant, is not often wholly without something agreeable in it. We cannot help admiring men who can reach that point without having taken lessons, and of whom the majority have perhaps never had occasion to meet an artist.
The military music of the regiments of the garrison at Manila, and in some large villages of the provinces, has reached a point of perfection which is astonishing. We have never heard better in Spain, not even in Madrid. It is at the square of the palace that, on Thursdays, Sundays, and fête days, at eight o’clock in the evening, at the time when the retreat is beaten, the society of Manila and the foreigners and travelers, assemble to hear the concert. The Indians play there from memory for two or three hours alternately, from great overtures of Rossini and Meyerbeer, or contradances, and vaudevilles. They owe the great progress which they have made for some time in their military music to the French masters who direct them. These same musicians are also summoned to the great balls, where they execute pieces among the contradances played by other instruments.
We have stated that the vocal music of the Indians is not equal to that of their instrumental music, which is especially true of the quality of their voice, which is sharp and shrill. All their airs are applied to words of love; they are regrets, and reproaches, addressed to a faithless swain, and sometimes allusions drawn from the history of the ancient kings, or from holy Scripture.
Sometimes a number of Indians gather in the house of one of them and form a concert of amateurs. At that time they sing the Passion to the accompaniment of a full orchestra. At other times five, seven, or nine bagontaos (young bachelors) assemble at night in the beautiful clear moonlight and run about the villages in the vicinity of Manila, where they give serenades to their sweethearts, their dalagas, or donzellias [i.e., doncella (maidens)], whom the Tagálogs who are of more distinguished rank and who speak Spanish call their novias [i.e., sweethearts]. One could imagine nothing more singular and more picturesque than to see during those brilliant nights of the torrid zone, when the moon sheds floods of silver light, and the balmy breeze tempers the burning heat of the atmosphere, to see, we say, the Indians crouched en cuclillas for entire hours without getting tired of that position, which we would find so uncomfortable, singing their love under the windows of their mistresses.
Numerous orchestras of musicians are summoned at any hour of the day to the houses of Manila in order to have all sorts of ancient and modern dances there: the old rigodons,[8] quadrilles, the English contradances, waltzes, gallops, and without doubt the polka will not be long in penetrating there also. It is rare among the Indians, and especially among the mestizos, that a baptism, marriage, or any ceremony is celebrated without music and dancing. The burial of children (criaturas) is always accompanied by music.
One further word on the extraordinary talent of the Indians for musical execution. One day we accompanied Monsieur Auguste Barrot, our worthy consul, the alcalde of the province of Laguna, on a tour which he was making for the election of gobernadorcillos. We reached Calaüan, where we stopped to sup and sleep at the house of a respectable cura whose house, like that of all ecclesiastics, was open to all travelers without exception. Travelers are there fed and lodged as long as they please to stop and without any cost to them. Now, at the house of this cura we heard an Indian who played with equal perfection on seven different instruments, on which he executed the most difficult pieces. When he had finished, the good cura, in order to amuse us, performed some sleight of hand tricks and juggling, and showed us a theater of marionnettes, which he had himself mounted.
The comintang, which we have before mentioned as a national song, is also a dance. While the musicians are playing and singing it an Indian and an Indian woman execute a pantomime which agrees with the words. It is a lover who is trying to inflame the heart of a young girl, about whom he runs while making innumerable amorous movements and greetings in the fashion of the country, accompanied by movements of the arms and of the body, which are not the most decent, but which cause the spectators to break out into loud and joyous laughter. Finally, the lover, not being able to succeed, feigns to be sick and falls into a chair prepared for him. The young girl, frightened, flies to his aid but he rises again very soon cured, and begins to dance and turn about with her in all directions, to the great applause of those present.