OPERA FOR THE PEOPLE
Opera for the People
The ceremony of opening a new organ, the gift of Mrs Galloway, was performed by Mr W. Johnson Galloway, M.P., in the City Road Mission Hall, Manchester, on Friday evening, September 6, in the presence of a crowded gathering. A Recital was given by Mr David Clegg.
Mr Galloway, M.P., who took the chair, in opening the proceedings, said
:—On an occasion such as this, it will not, I am sure, be deemed superfluous if I take a brief bird's-eye view of the history of music, and in a—comparatively speaking—few sentences trace its progress towards the position it now holds among the arts of modern life. Music, in one form at least, has been with us since the creation of man, for we may reasonably believe that in his most elementary stage, he discovered some vocal phrases which gave him a certain rude pleasure to repeat, or chant, in association with his fellows. Travellers, who have penetrated the confines of remote and savage countries, have told us of the curious
chanting of their inhabitants when engaged in what, to them, were their religious and festal celebrations; and as we cannot conceive man in a more primitive condition, we may take it, that in prehistoric times there was a limited melodic form, which afforded that peculiar delight to the savage mind, that the glorious polyphonic combination of to-day, give to the cultured races of Eastern and Western civilisation. Our slight knowledge of the art, in its early state we owe to such records, as have been handed down to us from that which may be termed the golden era of civilisation in Egypt. Long before the sway of the Ptolemies—ages before Cleopatra took captive her Roman Conqueror—music formed not only an indispensable part in religious and State functions, but entered largely into the social life of the people, and of this there is indisputable evidence in the hieroglyphics and carvings, to be found on the seemingly imperishable monuments, which the researches of archæologists have revealed to the knowledge of man. Of ancient Hebrew music we do not know much, but we may assume, that during the Captivity they learned not a little from their Egyptian masters, although it does not appear—judging from the harsher and more blatant character of their instruments—that they attained the