The World's Earliest Music. Hermann Smith
and the lyre, and on these they have conferred an immortality by the ceramic art which they carried to so high a state of perfection.
I have in the matter of dates brought together a few points which I would have you look upon not as mere antiquarian lore, rather as connecting our thoughts in a survey of the progress of music, and to give an idea of the association of these three peoples, Egyptian, Etruscans, and Greeks, in its development. You should keep distinct in mind the early Etruscan period under Egyptian influence, and the much later period when Greek influence had sway from 600 B.C. to 300 B.C. It is this later period of Art that we are now entering and a very remarkable one it is.
Etruria has given us a new thing: this is the subulo flute, the new Greco-Etruscan flute. It is a mystery that has not been fully solved: and, although I have my theory about it, as you will find, and have regarded these flutes very lovingly, scrutinizing every vase with a most personal affection, yet until some actual specimen is recovered from the past, I am denied that supreme satisfaction desired by the ardent investigator—proof. Before I began many years ago to state my impressions concerning the indications given by these vases, I do not know that anyone thought the matter worth notice, or said “Here is a new invention in flutes.” The peculiar feature of the construction is the presence of one, or two, or three bulbs, or cocoon shaped terminations at the upper ends of the two flutes. The peculiarity in the form was generally supposed to be ornamental, and an artistic way for lightening the upper part of the pipes; or, at most, a piece of decorative conventionalism. The learned saw no purpose behind the appearances, and therefore the idea of device or constructive design was not to be entertained. The illustrations here given are copied from figures depicted on the vases in the British Museum, and you will notice no longer the straight conjunctive tip-pieces of the step-like pattern the Arghool fashion of Egyptian flutes as displayed in the Corneto painting. That fashion has become old, it is out of date. Suddenly a change has come without a sign, in the home settlement in Tuscany. Centuries probably intervene, and a new influx of settlers arrives, this time of pure Greeks or Hellenes.
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