A music-trail through many lands, over regions where dwelt the peoples of the earliest civilizations, this I have followed, attracted oftentimes to rambles by the way, gathering evidence on all sides in the course of my journey, picking up whatever seemed to be capable of throwing light upon the early conditions of music; from rock carvings, wall paintings, tablets and vases, marbles and sculpture, papyri and parchments, and records, the treasure-trove and finds of explorers old and new, who seem to have accounted for at least ten thousand years of human experience;—yet withal very few musical instruments of the earlier ages have been recovered, and these for the most part imperfect and unplayable, and we have to depend chiefly upon the ancient representations, drawings or carvings for what we know. ArchÆologists and antiquarians, unhappily for our quest, have not been very particular in truthfully copying even the drawings and sculptures, often leaving out important details, or supplying some imaginatively; in the absence of insight into the constructive principles of instruments, indifference may be a natural consequence, and that there was anything at all in a musical instrument worth thinking about, might probably never occur to their minds.

Music is not an isolated fact, it is bound up with the lives, with the daily routine of peoples and nations; its courses of development, cannot rightly be judged apart from geography, ethnography, archÆology and history. In the early migrations man’s music went with him as his language went, his simple instruments he could fashion by the wayside, and in later eras as men advanced, a craft would organize itself, determining the progress of the instruments from a rude to a refined style of construction; thus a kind of Art would be confirmed and thereout a system of music would arise, which to the people of the time, at whatever stage of attainment considered, would be as mature to them as our present system is to us.

The structure of the instruments defines the possibilities of the music, and my belief is that a true idea of the character of ancient musical display can only be arrived at through a practical knowledge of such structure, its capabilities, its limitations, and the scope of its technique, since the qualities of tone that are at the command of the player are always determined by the means of excitation of the sounds, and by the shape and interior forms of the instruments.

The ancients had no system of harmony, yet there must have been harmony in the air, a promiscuous harmony arising through the variations in a multitude of unisonous effects.

A study of the Double Flutes, the Greek Auloi, has led me to some original conclusions which may or may not be corroborated by future discoveries, and I read with eager hopes of a projected International scheme for the complete excavation of the buried city of HerculanÆum, just announced, which, if carried out, may reveal many things that we want to know concerning these mysterious instruments.

Throughout a long life I have been occupied with books and with music, especially with the instruments that make the music, their construction and scientific bearings and relations, practically and experimentally, and thus it has happened that many advantages seldom combined have favoured the pursuit of the investigations discursively related in the present volume.

My thanks are due to Messrs. Cassell and Co., who kindly supplied several blocks, illustrating the Egyptian and Assyrian sections, used by them in Nauman’s “History of Music,” and Dr. J. Stainer’s “Music of the Bible.”

To the Secretary of the Hellenic Society, Mr. J. Penoyre Baker, I am indebted for the photograph of the Apollo of Praxiteles brought by him from Athens, which I use for the frontispiece.

I was agreeably surprised to find that the late Dr. A. S. Murray, Keeper of the Greek and Roman Departments of the British Museum, in his last lectures on Sculpture, delivered by him at Burlington House, but a few weeks before his lamented death, had selected this Praxitelean Monument for the subject of his discourses. Referring to the Apollo Harp he said “it is quite beautiful.” The coincidence of choice attracted me, and calling to mind the learned Keeper’s courteous manner, and kindly help in former years, I had planned another interview, with questions which he from his stores of knowledge would have satisfied—but it was too late—he had passed through The Open Gateway.

Intimations of a proposed sequel to this work will be found in the last two pages of the volume, new and valuable materials having been brought to hand by recent discoveries.

Goethe in his “conversations with Eckermann” said that a book should be judged, first, by the aim the author proposed to himself—next, by the degree in which he had succeeded in accomplishing his aim. I may not have remembered the exact words, “’tis sixty years since” I read them, but the purport of the saying is there. My aim in writing has been to give the lover of music a companionable book, full of information of a kind likely as I think to be of interest to both amateur and professional. My own enthusiasm on the subject has, I hope, been tempered by ease in presentation, for I am wishful that the hours given to the reading of these pages may leave with all readers a pleasant memory.

HERMANN SMITH.