Among the names of musical instruments in Daniel iii. 5 and 15, the sixth, generally but wrongly rendered "dulcimer," is thought by many scholars to signify a kind of bag-pipe (see commentaries on Daniel and the theological encyc.). This belief is based on the supposition that the Aramaic sumpōnyā is a loan-word from the Greek, being a mispronunciation of συμφονία. The argument is, however, exceedingly weak. In the first place, the date of the book of Daniel is matter of controversy, hingeing partly on precisely such questions as the true significance and derivation of sumpōnyā. Second, it is possible that the word sumpōnyā is a late interpolation. Third, its exact form is uncertain; in verse 10, sippōnyā is used of the same instrument, suggesting a derivation from the Gr. σίφον (tube or pipe). Fourth, even if συμφονία is the source of the word, there is very little evidence that it was used for any particular instrument. The original natural sense of συμφονία is "concord of sound," "a concordant interval," and the evidence of its use for a particular instrument is of the 2nd century B.C., and, even so, very slight. Only one passage (Polyb. xxvi. 10. 5) really bears on the question, and there the translation of the word depends on a context the reading of which is uncertain (see Symphonia). It is, however, curious that the bag-pipe was known in Italy and Spain during the middle ages, the two countries through which Eastern culture was introduced into Europe, by the name of zampogna or sampogna, which strongly recall the Chaldaean sumpōnyā; and further that in the same countries the word sinfonia should be coexistent with zampogna and have the original meaning attached to the classical συμφονία, "a concord of sound." A single passage only in Dion Chrysostom (see Askaules) is enough to prove that the instrument was known in Greece in A.D. 100.[[26]] The Greeks had undoubtedly received some kind of bag-pipe from Egypt (in the form of the as-it), or from Chaldaea, but it remained a rustic instrument used only by shepherds and peasants. This conclusion is supported by allusions in Aristophanes and in Plato's Crito, which undoubtedly refer to the drone: "This, dear Crito, is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears like the sound of the flute (aulos) in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears."[[27]] Aristophanes, in his play The Acharnians, indulges in a flight of satire at the expense of the musical Boeotians, by making a band of Theban pipers play a Boeotian merchant and his slave into town. The musicians are dubbed "bumblebee pipers" (βομβαύλιοι, l. 866) by the exasperated inhabitants. The verb used here for "blowing" is φυσᾶν, the very word applied to blowing or inflating the bellows (φῦσα), and not the usual verb αὐλεῖν, to play the aulos. Another instrument, mentioned by Aristophanes in Lysistrata (ll. 1242 and 1245), which was probably a kind of bag-pipe, is also derived from φῦσα, i.e. physallis, the "concrete,"[[28]] and physateria[[29]] the "collective"[[28]] form of the instrument. We leave the realm of inference for that of certainty when we reach the reign of Nero, who had a passion for the Hydraulus (see Organ: History) and the tibia utricularis.[[30]] That the bag-pipe was introduced by the Romans into the British Isles is a conclusion supported by the discovery in the foundations of the praetorian camp at Richborough of a small bronze figure of a Roman soldier playing the tibia utricularis. The Rev. Stephen Weston, who made a communication on the subject to Archaeologia,[[31]] points out further the interesting fact in connexion with the instrument, that the Romans had instituted colleges for training pipers on the bag-pipe, a practice followed in the Highlands in the 18th century and notably in Skye. Gruterus[[32]] mentions among the fraternities a Corpus et Collegium Utriculariorum, and Spon[[33]] also quotes the Collegio Utricular. The bag-pipe in question appears to have two drones in front pointing towards the right shoulder, and although no chaunter is shown in the design, both hands are held in correct positions over the spot where it ought to be; it may have been broken off. The bronze figure has been reproduced from drawings by Edward King in three positions.[[34]] The statement made by several writers on music that a bag-pipe is represented on a contorniate of Nero is erroneous, as a verification of certain references will show.[[35]] The error is due in the first place to
Montfaucon, who misunderstood the explanation of Bianchini's drawing which he reproduced. The contorniate referred to is one containing the hydraulic organ, and the legend Laurentinus Aug., but no bag-pipe. Bianchini gives a drawing of a bag-pipe with two long drones, which, he says, was copied from a marble relief over the gateway of the palace of the prince of Santa Croce in Rome, near the church of San Carlo ad Catinarios. If the drawing be accurate and the sculpture of classical Roman period, it would corroborate the details of the instrument held by the little bronze figure of the Roman soldier.
From England the bag-pipe spread to Caledonia and Ireland, where it took root, identifying itself with the life of the people, as a military instrument held in great esteem by the Celtic races. The bag-pipe was used at weddings and funerals, and at all festivals; to lighten labour, during the 18th century, as for instance in Skye, in 1786, when the inhabitants were engaged in roadmaking, and each party of labourers had its bag-piper. It was used in old mysteries at Coventry in 1534. Readers who wish to follow closely the history of the bag-pipe in the British Isles should consult Sir John Graham Dalyell's Musical Memoirs of Scotland (London, 1849, with illustrative plates).
Fig. 2.—Ancient Persian bag-pipe.
(From Sir Robert Porter's Travels in Georgia, Persia, &c., vol. ii. p. 177, pl. lxiv.)
On the downfall of the Roman empire, the bag-pipe, sharing the fate of other instruments, probably lingered for a time among itinerant musicians, actors, jugglers, &c., reappearing later in primitive guise with the stamp of naiveté which characterizes the productions of the early middle ages, and with a new name, chorus (q.v.). An illustration of a Persian bag-pipe dating from the 6th century A.D. (reign of Chosroes II.) is to be found on the great arch at Takht-i-Bostan (see fig. 2). This very crude representation of the bag-pipe can only be useful as evidence that during centuries which elapsed between the moulding of the figurine found in the tell at Susa, mentioned above, and the carving in the rock at Takht-i-Bostan, the instrument had survived. The reign of Chosroes was noted for its high standard of musical culture. The fault probably lies with the draughtsman, who drew the sculptures on the arch for the book. Nothing more is heard henceforth of the tibia utricularis. If the drawings of the early medieval bag-pipes, which are by no means rare in MSS. and monuments of the 9th to the 13th century, are to be trusted, it seems hard to understand the raison d'être of the instrument shorn of its drones, to see how it justified its existence except as an ill-understood reminiscence. What could be the object of laboriously inflating a bag for the purpose of making a single chaunter speak, which could be done so much more satisfactorily by taking the reed itself into the mouth, as was the practice of the Greeks and Romans? There is a fine psalter in the library of University Court, Glasgow,[[36]] belonging co the Hunterian collection, in which King David is represented, as usual in the 12th century, playing or rather tuning a harp, surrounded by musicians playing bells, rebec, guitar fiddle (in 'cello position), quadruple pipes or ganistrum, and a bag-pipe with long chaunter having a well-defined stock. The insufflation tube appears to have been left out, and there are no drones to be seen.
There are interesting specimens of bag-pipes in Spanish illuminated MSS. such as the magnificent volume of the Cantigas di Santa Maria, in the Escurial, compiled for King Alphonso the Wise (13th century). There are fifty-one separate figures of instrumentalists forming a kind of introduction to the canticles, and among the instruments are three bag-pipes, one of which is a remarkable instrument having no less than four long drones and two chaunters which by an error of the draughtsmen are represented as being blown from the piper's mouth. The fifty-one musicians have been reproduced in black and white by Juan F. Riano[[37]] and also by Don F. Aznar.[[38]] Another fine Spanish MS. in the British Museum, Add. MS. 18,851, of the end of the 15th century, illustrated by Flemish artists for presentation to Queen Isabella, displays a profusion of musical instruments in innumerable concert scenes; there are bag-pipes on f. 13,412b and 419; one of these has two drones, one conical, the other cylindrical, bound together, and a curved chaunter.
The most trustworthy evidence we have of the medieval bag-pipe is the fine Highland bag-pipe dated 1409, and belonging to Messrs J. & R. Glen, described above. Edward Buhle[[39]] points out that from the 13th century the bag-pipe became a court instrument played by minnesingers and troubadours, as seen in literature and in the MSS. and monuments. It was about 1250 that the human or animals' heads were used as stocks and as bells for the chaunters. The opinion advanced that the bellows were first added to the bag-pipe in Ireland seems untenable and is quite unsupported by facts; the bellows were in all probability added to the union-pipes in imitation of the musette. In the Image of Ireland and Discoverie of Woodkarne, by John Derrick, 1581, the Irish insurgents are portrayed in pictures full of life and character, as led to rebellion and pillage by a piper armed with a bag-pipe, similar to the Highland bag-pipe. The cradle of the musette is inconceivable anywhere but in France, among the courtiers and elegant world, turning from the pomps and luxuries of court life to an artificial admiration and cult of Nature, idealized to harmonize with silks and satins. The cornemuse of shepherds and rustic swains became the fashionable instrument, but as inflating the bag by the breath distorted the performer's face, the bellows were substituted, and the whole instrument was refined in appearance and tone-quality to fit it for its more exalted position. The Hotteterre family and that of Chédeville were past masters of the art of making the musette and of playing upon it; they counted among their pupils the highest and noblest in the land. The cult of the musette continued throughout the 17th and 18th centuries until the 'seventies, when its popularity was on the wane and musettes figured largely in sales.[[40]] Lully introduced the musette into his operas, and in 1758 the list of instruments forming the orchestra at the Opéra includes one musette.[[41]] Illustrations of bag-pipes are found in the miniatures of the following MSS. in the British Museum.—2 B. VII. f. 192 and 197; Add. MS. 34,294 (the Sforza Book), f. 62, vol. i.; Burney, 275, f. 715; Add. MS. 17,280, f. 238b; Add. MS. 24,686 (Tennyson Psalter), f. 17b; Add. MS. 17,280, f. 82b; Add. MS. 24,681, f.44; Add. MS. 32,454; Add. MS. 11,867, f38; &c. &c.
(K. S.)