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Foreign Music
Canadian Music
M. Ernest Gagnon, of Quebec, some years ago published a collection of 'Chansons Populaires,' which includes all of the best known songs of the Canadian habitant. The oldest of these songs date from about the Sixteenth Century, and were brought from Brittany to Normandy by the early settlers.
Foreign Music
Chinese Music
There is hardly an important function in Chinese life, public or private, in which music, so-called, does not play a part. Long before Apollo demanded a lyre of his nurse, China had her Bureau of Music, a department of the Board of Rites. So ancient is the Chinese art that only tradition can tell of its origin.
Foreign Music
Eastern European Music
In all Slavonic countries, the music has features in common, the people coming, as they do, from the same stock. Especially is this true in regard to the folk-music. Russia being the leading Slavonic country of Europe with an art of its own, has been considered in a separate article.
Foreign Music
English Music
Doubtless the first music heard in England was the druidical songs sung over sacrificial fires, when women with disheveled hair and brandishing torches, joined in the barbaric rites so vividly described by Tacitus. Caesar makes casual mention of British music in his Commentaries, and Pytheas, the Greek, speaks of it at an even earlier date.
Foreign Music
French Music
With the introduction of Christianity into France came the religious songs of the early Christians. Later occurred the German invasion of Gaul and this added a more warlike spirit. Victories were celebrated by the singing in chorus of war-songs accompanied by the dance.
Foreign Music
German Music
Germany has long been recognized as the most musical country in the world. As a nation, the Germans are inherently musical, this trait showing very distinctly throughout all classes. Among no other people do we find apparent so much genuine love of music and such real pleasure derived from it as among the Germans. This is equally true both in town and country.
Foreign Music
Irish Music
It has been said that Irish songs are 'drenched in sorrow,' and it may be added that not only the songs but all the music of Ireland is touched with a similar tender melancholy. Even in the most rollicking drinking-songs may be discovered an underlying stratum of subdued grief.
Foreign Music
Italian Music
Italy, the land of song, owes a great musical debt to Greece. Including the mythical period, ancient Greece had one thousand years of musical history previous to her fall before the hosts of the Roman Mummius, and the result of her investigations forms the solid foundation upon which the whole art of music is built.
Foreign Music
Japanese Music
In the opinion of the writer, the Japanese have a taste for music, but not necessarily for that which passes as music in western lands. Let a western prima donna begin to sing 'Home Sweet Home' to an audience composed partly of Englishmen, and partly of Japanese who have never listened to foreign music before, and while the Englishman would be using his handkerchief to wipe away the tears that come unbidden to his eyes, the Japanese would be stuffing the white fabric into his mouth to keep from exploding with merriment.
Foreign Music
Korean Music
To westerners, Korean music, both vocal and instrumental, resembles that of China and Japan. Yet the Chinese and Japanese recognize a distinct difference and, naturally, prefer their own music. While the Japanese are indebted to Korea for their ideas of music, as they are for their beginnings in most other arts, this particular art has been so altered in transition and improved upon in the estimation of the Japanese, that the latter now profess to care little for the Korean music of the present day.
Foreign Music
Malaysian Music
The music of the Hindus at the present time is an inheritance from remote antiquity, many centuries before the Christian era, and is essentially different from that of the European nations. To the ordinary listener from western countries, the singing of the Hindus at first seems shrill and out of key, and their orchestral and band music a blare of inharmonious noises.
Foreign Music
Mexican Music
Scientists differ widely in their opinions of the origin of the races which have populated Mexico. Alexander von Humboldt claims to have recognized among the Mexicans unmistakable evidence of the Mongol type. Fétis, in his Histoire Générale de la Musique strongly insists upon recognizing very ancient influences of the Semitic element; and a careful comparative study of the musical scale of these peoples, as well as the characteristics of their melodies, reveals a close contact with the latter Asiatic type.
Foreign Music
Music In England
The relation of England to the higher art of music has been peculiar. In the sixteenth century and earlier it was one of the most musical countries in Europe.
Foreign Music
Music of Primitive Peoples
In the study of primitive poetry and song, we should carefully distinguish between form and content. The 'substance of primitive poetry is rude and meager; egoistic, satirical; it rarely deals with the beauties of nature or the emotions of love.' It is primarily the deeds of daily life that are sung; deeds of war, incidents of hunting.
Foreign Music
Persian Music
It is now generally believed that the Persians derived their science of music from India and that it was similar to that of the Assyrians and Babylonians. It is certain that later they communicated it not only to the Arabs but also to the Turks, for the airs most admired at Constantinople today are many of them Persian and it would not be surprising if it should be found that the Dorians borrowed from the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, who, in turn, borrowed their music from the Persians.
Foreign Music
Russian Music
Russian music has a peculiar fascination for the ears of the western peoples. They may not always like its weird melodies, its peculiar rhythms, its strange and at times bizarre harmonies, but, nevertheless, it fascinates. What then is the cause of this fascination? It is because the soul of the Russian people has been exposed in her music.
Foreign Music
Scandinavian Music
Under the general heading of Scandinavian music, will be included here that of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. These countries comprise the old Norseland, and while physically they are closely related, they show marked differences in their topography.
Foreign Music
Scottish Music
'Caledonia, stern and wild' is to the true Scot everywhere still 'Bonnie Scotland.' No land is better loved by her children and, by the same token, no native music is dearer to the hearts of a people than are the songs of her soil and the strains of her national instrument, the bagpipe.
Foreign Music
Spanish Music
The extreme conservatism of the Spaniards has impeded the growth of music in the country, however. Love of tradition has retarded the art at every stage. And so at the present day there is to be found little evidence of a distinct style of art music as the outgrowth of the folk-song and the early music of the church as is the case in other countries.
Foreign Music
Troubadour Music
Probably the most cheerful and picturesque figures of the age of chivalry were the troubadours who sang in southern France and northern Italy. There have been minstrels and strolling poets before and since them, from the time of Homer to something very like the present, but the troubadours are in many ways distinct.
Foreign Music
Turkish Music
Turkey is a country where races of different origin and nationalities of opposing character live side by side, influencing each other and yet each one clinging fast to his own national customs, traditions and natural inclinations. Such strong national tendencies, combined with the gradation of taste caused by education, produce infinite standards of beauty, and, in consequence, it is very difficult to form a clear idea of the state of the arts in Turkey.
Foreign Music
Welsh Music
The Welsh are known as a singing people. Just as the bagpipe is associated with Scotland and the harp with Ireland, so song is coupled with Wales. There, indeed, the voices are almost uniformly good, being powerful and mellow, and Welsh choral singing is famous the world over.
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