In support of the authenticity of these modes, and, at the same time, for the better understanding of their peculiar melodic powers, as affects the passions of men, we will again avail ourselves of the melodies of Scotland, which, from their decided similarity with the modes in question, must have been written by musicians intimately acquainted with the earliest history of the Greeks, and of the principles of their extraordinary modes. Indeed, such is the nature of these melodies, one would almost be induced to believe that they were known by the Greeks themselves.

It is an axiom, in the composition of modern music, that all melodies should end with the

HYPO-IONIAN.

key-note of their harmonic treatment, i. e. if the piece be in D, the ultimate of the melody should also be in D. This is not the case with the generality of Scottish music, for the tune Scots wha hae,' as will be seen on reference to its printed editions, ends with the fifth above the harmonic treatment given to it. The notes composing the octave of that fifth being employed in the construction of that song, the half-tones falling between the third and fourth, and sixth and seventh notes, and the melody commencing and ending with its own key-note, instead of the one given to it by its various harmonisers, the melody is written in the mixt-Lydian-mode of the ancient Greeks, thus:

an indubitable proof of its authenticity and peculiar powers; powers not to be expressed invariably ending with the key note of a minor or a major scale. But, to show more effectually the

difference between this and the modern or Ionian mode, we will insert our national tune, ‘God save the King, thus:

which, if the reader will compare with that of 'Scots wha hae,' and the Grecian scales it will immediately be perceived, that, inasmuch as the ear and mind become satisfied with the key notes of each tune, the unity of each mode is strictly preserved, and their respective powers firmly established.

Every genuine Scottish melody, ending upon a different note to that of its harmonic treatment, will be found of Grecian origin, as the following extracts and analyses will clearly demonstrate. But it must be understood that although in the singing of glees, or pieces of music for four voices, it often happens that one of the singers, with the utmost delight and satisfaction to himself, will sustain the ultimate note as long as his lungs will permit, a third above instead of the key-note of the major or minor mode, it is deemed vulgar and incorrect, and must not be considered a process whereby the piece thus disfigured is turned into a Grecian mode; nor must it be understood that all melodies should be confined within the limits prescribed by each octave; on the contrary, some of them often exceed, whilst

others do not reach that extent, partaking, consequently, of the intervals of principal and subordinate, or, to use the technicalities employed by the church of Rome, of authentic and plagal. Hence these modes have been termed perfect, imperfect, and mixed, a circumstance accounting for the occasional appearance of notes below, as well as above the octave, both in Scottish melodies and in subjects of plain chants. The note most frequently sounded determines the nature of the mode or class to which the melody belongs.

The specimen we have next to adduce, will, in a remarkable degree, tend to illustrate the wide difference between the ancient and modern ways of thinking, upon the subject of musical keys, as we shall quote, in support of this hypothesis, no less than Haydn himself. On reference to page 101 of Preston's edition of Thomson's Scottish Songs, vol. iii., it will be seen that that great composer, from the harmonic nature of the specimen given him, as for example Brimner's collection, and to which he was doubtlessly led to conform, considered himself

not only obliged to begin the song On Ettrick Banks' in one key, but to end it in another of an opposite description; to give, however, something like unity to such incongruity of materials, he splices a symphony to answer the final note of the harmonic treatment! A cure for any doubts we may entertain upon the subject of the existence of Grecian modes, as well as for our predelection in favor of the immutability of the major and minor scales. The tune in question will be found, on reference to the foregoing scales, to be written principally in the Phrygian

mode; a mode as remarkable for the singularity and beauty of its intervals, as for rejecting, when employed in the construction of melody, all harmonic support, the half tones falling between the first and second, and fifth and sixth notes; the lower ones (probably spurious) partaking of the Hypo or subordinate Phrygian, acting as replicates of the Phrygian mode (indicated by slurs), the last three measures occupying the whole extent of the Phrygian mode; indubitable proofs of the original design of the composer not to write in a major or a minor mode, thus:

The Eolian and Hypo-Æolian modes, transposed an octave higher, may express the above sounds, but no idea of a key note could be formed under such nomenclature. The accompaniment given by Haydn to this air begins in B minor and ends in D major. Now the necessity of such anomalous treatment, for neither the major nor minor scale is alone sufficient to express, either melodically or harmonically, the intervals of the above song, proves, beyond all possibility of doubt that such melodies were never intended to be accompanied. Of this description are the following O how can my poor heart,' begun in Bb, and ended in E. Tibbie Fowler,' begun in D major and ended in D minor.' 'Farewell ye Dungeons' begun in A and ended in E. O poortith cauld' (Kozeluch), begun in Eb and ended in C minor.

But, if merely to show how far human industry may succeed in giving these airs an accompaniment, it should be founded upon the principles observed in the composition of plain

chant (sotto il soggetto) of the Romish church; i. e. partaking only of the intervals peculiar to the modes to which the airs belong. To adduce another instance, in proof of the difference of opinion as to the proper mode of accompanying these airs, we notice that Weber in his arrangement of O poortith cauld' has begun as well as ended it in C minor, which, inasmuch as it corresponds in a measure with the Æolian mode, is judicicus. Kozeluch, however, thought, or was advised to act differently.

The effect of the accompaniment given by Haydn to the third measure of the air O saw ye bonnie lassie' resembles an unexpected shock from a galvanic battery; an effect arising from the violent contortion of two dissimilar modern keys, within the pale of one only mode, which, in this instance is not in F major, with the absolute key of Eb introduced and even established in the third measure, a modulation known by every musician to be wrong, but simply in the Dorian mode, thus:

Now this singular melody cannot be in the key of G, because there is no F sharp, nor can it be in C any more than in A minor; the whole of the notes employed in its construction existing in the Dorian scale, and the melody beginning and ending with its own melodic key note. That the reader may judge for himself, as to the propriety of the accompaniment given by Haydn, and of the attempt to express its first four measures in two major modes bearing no affinity to each

Let any composer harmonise the following passage, viz.

and we predict, that, however ingenious the accompaniment, it will be rejected as an alloy by no means satisfactorily amalgamating with the purity of the melody.

other, the air existing in one mode, we insert the passage alluded to in plate XIV. fig. 2. It were needless to remark upon the utter uselessness of succeeding efforts to accompany these and other similar airs, since, if nature had intended them to receive harmonic support, Haydn could not have failed in his endeavours to give them that uniformity and brilliancy of treatment which characterises all those Scottish melodies of his arrangement, which are proper to receive the principles of harmonic combination.

If we consider the eminently beautiful melody " Here's a health to those far away,' in no other light than in C major, we must deem the keynote, together with its mode, of trifling importance; but a few moments reflection will show how artfully the composer leads, by his choice of intervals, the ear to anticipate the one and to dwell with pathos upon the other, which is also the mixt-Lydian, the favorite mode, perhaps, of the Scots. Kozeluch was well aware of the beauty of this melody; his treatment of the keynote resembles the purity of a twelfth produced by a generating string: a treatment far different from the enormous mass of accompaniment given to it by some of its pretended admirers. The powers of the mixt-Lydian mode, to express the intervals of the above song, can be doubted by no one. "The little gems,' Och pretty Kate,' 'A highland lad,' 'Saw ye Johnnie coming,' if we may use the expression, are too Grecian not to be noticed. The following airs will also be found to have been constructed independently of harmonic rules, the final note of each indicating its own key-note, and that without the necessity of any formal introduction of the fourth of the key to establish, as in modern composition, its final cadence, viz. 'Our good king,' There's my thumb,' And O for one and twenty,' &c.

The intelligent musician, in his search for other specimens, will not fail, in his comparison of the melodies with the modes, to observe, occasionally, various spurious notes, introduced either by lovers of ornament ignorant of the principles of the modes, or by the first arrangers of them, or from a desire to accommodate them as much as possible to the rules of modern composition; as, for example, introducing the major seventh into the Eolian mode, instead of the minor seventh, the characteristic of that mode.

We have been thus particular in our description of the Grecian modes, feeling assured that in no work, ancient or modern, have they been noticed as fundamental principles in the formation of intelligible melody. Indeed, except for their employment in the chanting of the service by the primitive Christians, and as mere scales for the construction of counterpoint, no notice has been taken of them since the introduction of Christianity. Their celebrity previous to that time is known to every one.

The melodic powers of the Ionian and Eolian modes are, for the present, sufficiently explained. Their further discussion, involving the whole

science of harmony, must be deferred till we arrive at that period of history in which we are informed of the introduction of Counterpoint. We will, however, merely observe, that as ten out of the twelve modes evidently require ro accompaniment, and that as the intervals only of the mixt-Lydian-mode, and such as are employed in the tunes A highland lad,' and 'Saw ye Johnnie,' can alone be brought to amalgamate with the principles of modern harmony, it can no longer be a matter of surprise that so much should have been said by the ancient Greek and Roman writers upon the subject of melody, and so little upon that of harmony, according to our acceptation of that word. Nor can it appear extraordinary that, amongst the writings of the ancients, passages should have been thought applicable both to melody and harmony. For what are intervals employed in melody, requiring no accompaniment to support, but entirely dependent upon the key-note? And in what do they differ when employed in simultaneous combination? But whether the Greeks, who so wisely discriminated the melodic value and distinct powers of so many modes, as independently of the diminished fifth, to have rejected the following arrangement of the octave, viz. BCDE F GAB from the number of their authentic modes, could really know nothing of the barmonic powers of the Eolian and Ionian modes, together with the ascending major seventh, given by us to the former, he must be a first rate classic as well as a thorough musician to prove. It would, however, be desirable, that all interested in the science of music should reperuse the ancient writers upon the subject, keeping in view the distinct powers of the modes, separating, at the same time, the fundamental, or rather musical principles of declamation, as practised by the ancients; an art which, as it was totally of a different nature from the Dithyrambic species, formed the rock upon which the majority of writers have split.

Such is the scantiness of the materials afforded the musical historian, that with the exception of some extraordinary tales upon the powers and effects of the different modes, and of the adoption of other divisions of sound than those already described, principally to define the various inflections of the human voice in speaking, and to bring, as much as possible, to perfection the rules of declamation, we have but little of importance, or rather of an intelligible nature, to notice till the time of Euclid and Pythagoras, when, for the first time, all musical sounds were explained by mathematical demonstration.

In the following description of the celebrated octachord of Pythagoras, so often alluded to in the writings of the ancients, the reader will not fail to recognise the old Phrygian mode, derived from the ancient lyre of Orpheus, and therefore doubtlessly sung ages before the time of Pythagoras. It is, however, remarkable as showing the adoption of a new term to express the string originally designated Paramese, thus:

3

5

Aristoxenus, considering the ear the sole arbiter of musical intervals, was opposed to Pythagoras, who, on the contrary, thought the ear no more capable of deciding upon their nature than the eye of forming a circle without compasses. Ptolemy, endeavouring to steer a middle course, did but little service to the cause he espoused. There were other chiefs of sects, as Epigonus, Damon, &c. the former was the inventor of an instrument called after him the Epigonium, mounted with forty strings.

:

Such was the state of the fundamental scale of music up to the time of Guido Aretinus, who flourished in the eleventh century, when the principles of music underwent a thorough reformation. Of the most celebrated writers of the ancients, Aristoxenus, Euclid, Nichomacus, Alypius, Martianus, Capella, Guadentius, Bacchius the elder, Aristides, and Ptolemy, are the principal; editions of whose works have been given to the public with notes by Meibomius and Dr. Wallis.

Of the various specimens of ancient Greek music, mentioned by different writers, but four, in their supposed original notation, have been transmitted to us. For their elucidation we are chiefly indebted to the exertions of Monsieur Burette. Three of them are hymns addressed to Calliope, Apollo, and Nemesis; they were found among the papers of the celebrated archbishop Usher, in Ireland. As the musical note, generally speaking, is set to each syllable of the poetry, they are termed Syllabic compositions: not melismatic, a species of music said, though incorrectly, to have been unknown to the ancient Greeks. The fourth specimen was found in a monastery near Messina by Kircher, the words consisting of the first eight verses of the first Pythic Ode by Pin

dar; the musical characters corresponding to those attributed by Alypius to the Lydian mode, which Plato tells us was so peculiarly adapted to inspire tender affections, that he forbad the use of it in his republic.

As a specimen of the intervals with which the ancient melodies are said to have been composed, we select Dr. Burney's version of Burette's translation of the hymn to Calliope. See plate XIII. fig. 4. We are aware, however, that, although originally written in the Lydian mode, the tender affections of the reader will be the last to be awakened in its performance. No two notes, with the exception of the seventh line, connecting so as to form even the shadow of a musical idea throughout the piece, a circumstance quite sufficient to disprove its genuineness.

The intervals chosen for the translation of this hymnn being of Phrygian instead of the Lydian import, it may well have been cited in disproof or ridicule of the boasted virtues of Grecian music, as also of its utter impracticability of receiving harmonic support.

Following, however, the majority of opinions expressed upon the subject of the intervals as they constitute the different Grecian modes, and viewing their varied powers through the medium of nature rather than of speculations of authors determined to make all Greek music of an unintelligible nature, we are enabled to present our readers with a translation of this once celebrated hymn in a shape both genuine and satisfactory. The Lydian powers maintaining still their influence over mankind, all the quotations and hypotheses, entertained by a variety of writers, in proof that Grecian music was of a nature totally opposite from that of the present day, are overturned.