1.The ancient Near East in 18th- and 19th-century general histories of music

4‘The 18th century witnessed the first attempts to compile general histories of music. This development represented an important conceptual leap. The idea of a universal history of music assumed the existence of something called “music”, which originated in a single time and place, and which transcended boundaries of culture and historical period. Furthermore, scholars were confronted with the problem that there are big gaps in our knowledge for certain periods. In the first general histories of music, Antiquity played an important role. For example, Giovanna Battista Martini completed only the first three volumes of his Storia della musica (1757–1781). These first three volumes, which total about 1,500 pages, deal exclusively with the music of Antiquity, predominantly ancient Greece. Here, music is considered to be of divine origin, and the descriptions of music in the Old Testament are taken at face value, as history. In this sense, Martini followed a practice which was widespread during this period of music historiography.9 For him, what little is known about music in the ancient Near East, which during this period derives exclusively from the Old Testament and a handful of references from the works of classical authors,10 is considered to be of particular value as the origin of all that came later.11 Later universal histories sometimes include a few pages on the music of the ancient Near East, based on the same restricted sources.12 However, until the middle of the 19th century, universal music histories generally featured early chapters exclusively on ancient Egypt, Israel, China, Greece, and Rome.

5As discussed by Philip Bohlman,13 three clear reasons may be outlined for the prioritisation of the Near East in 19th-century general histories of music. Firstly, medieval Arabic music theory, which we have not considered above, was of particular interest due to the fact that it was often conceived as the legacy of ancient Greek music; crucially, medieval Arabic theory filled the historical gap between classical Greece and Rome, and the medieval Latin period. Secondly, the role of the Near East was central to narratives of the grand migration of civilisation from East to West. Thirdly, the Near East was prioritised as the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, and thus, the origin of western civilisation. I would argue that, in addition, the musical cultures of the pre-Islamic Near East happened to be discovered at this time. Indeed, it was precisely during this period, in the middle of the 19th century, that our knowledge of the musical cultures of the ancient Near East began to expand beyond the meagre and unreliable accounts in the Old Testament and classical sources.

6It was from the 1840s onwards that actual evidence for music in the ancient Near East was discovered. Amongst such pieces of evidence were the Assyrian wall reliefs, which date to the early first millennium BC, and some of which depict musicians. Carl Engel’s The Music of the Most Ancient Nations, Particularly of the Assyrians, Egyptians and Hebrews (1864) was the first in-depth study of these reliefs. By the standards of his time, Engel demonstrates a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of his material. By contrast with most of the 19th-century scholars, Engel does not adopt a Eurocentric, superior stance. Instead, he considers ancient Assyrian music as highly advanced and sophisticated.14 However, he was not immune to certain standard assumptions which were common during this period. The earliest music was presumed to be restricted to a small melodic range, featuring simple intervals.15 Along with (non-Darwinian) evolutionary ideas, Engel exhibits a tendency towards the generalisation of the characteristics of non-Western music. For example, he assumes that music in the ancient Near East featured the pentatonic scale.16 His reasoning lies in the assumption that “oriental peoples” or “Asiatic nations” must have shared certain basic characteristics, despite their local differences: “I shall now endeavour to show that the pentatonic scale was in common use in Asia at a very early period… The tenacity with which Oriental nations adhere to old customs is well known.”17

7François-Joseph Fétis’ Histoire générale de la musique (1869–1874) devotes a considerable section to the music of the ancient Near East.18 This section of Fétis’ work is indebted to Engel’s Music of the Most Ancient Nations, which it references on page 325. Fétis exhibits presuppositions concerning the culture and music of the ancient Near East which are in keeping with the 19th century. Such presuppositions include the notion of “Semitic peoples”, which are considered to have a uniform culture, due to an equation between language family, “race”, and culture. Secondly, Fétis exhibits the commonly held assumption that the culture of the ancient Near East is static and without historical development:

Le goût de la musique est uniforme chez tous ; car, dans toute cette grande famille sémitique, on trouve les échelles de sons divisées par les mêmes intervalles. Ils ont la même multiplicité de modes pour l’ordre de succession de ces intervalles ; le même caractère dans les mélodies ; le même luxe d’ornements du chant, composés de chevrotements, de trilles, de ports de voix et de groupes de notes de toutes formes ; la même absence de l’usage de l’harmonie ; le même emploi des instruments à manche et à cordes pincées, pour les ritournelles et pour soutenir les intonations de la voix, les mêmes tympanons à cordes frappées par des baguettes ou pincées par les doigts, enfin les mêmes tendances populaires à marquer le rhythme de la danse par des tambours, de petites timbales, des cymbales et des crotales de diverses formes : tout cela, disons-nous, se trouve chez tous les peuples issus de la même souche, et l’identité est évidente entre les temps les plus anciens et l’époque actuelle, comme on en aura la preuve dans le cours de cette histoire.19

8The general Orientalist features of Fétis’ argument are clear. What is of particular interest here are the details of the music of the ancient Near East as imagined. The instrumental make up as listed is clearly inspired by the Assyrian reliefs which include musical instruments, and which were recently made known in Europe. This musical vision features a highly ornamental style (“chevrotements”, “trilles”), absence of harmony, i.e. monody, and a melodic character in keeping with contemporary music of the Near East. Elsewhere in this treatment of the ancient Near East, Fétis makes an analogy between the ancient Mesopotamian lyre and the contemporary lyre typical of north-eastern Africa. Here, the tuning of the contemporary lyre of this region (the kissar), which Fétis describes as pentatonic (using the example of the notes G, A, B, D, E), is assumed to correspond to the tuning of the ancient Mesopotamian lyre.20 However, in another section of this contribution, Fétis argues for a combined diatonic and chromatic system in the ancient Near East.21 As for the use of music notation, Fétis considers it certain that a system of musical notation was indeed used, due to the advanced state of Mesopotamian civilisation.22

9John Frederick Rowbotham’s History of Music (1885) adopts a transparent evolutionary and racial approach similar in some ways to the work of Fétis. The first volume is divided into two books. The first book is entitled Prehistoric Music and is subdivided into the drum, pipe, and lyre stages. The second book is entitled Music of the Elder Civilizations and Music of the Greeks, where the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Hebrews are classified as “lyre races”, as opposed to the “pipe races” of the “Chinese, Indo-Chinese and other Mongolids”. It includes a relatively long section on Assyrian music.23 Part of this section describes the musical scenes depicted on Assyrian reliefs, focusing on the types of instruments and ensembles. This contribution also includes a long section on the assumed modal system and tuning of the Assyrians. This section is of interest, due its purely speculative nature. Firstly, it is assumed that Assyrian music was monodic, and secondly that when instruments played together, they must have played in octaves.24 This assumption is based on an evolutionary vision of music; although the Assyrians are considered to belong to a stage of evolution which is beyond the prehistoric, their music is still assumed to be simple.

10However, of much greater interest is Rowbotham’s application of ideas of the “music of the spheres” to the musical system of Mesopotamia.25 The notion of a relationship between harmonics (musical intervals) and the planets is a concept known from Greek antiquity, which became of great importance in Renaissance music theory; however, there is no evidence for such a concept in Mesopotamian sources. Rowbotham reveals the inspiration for his treatment of the Assyrian musical modes, namely Pierre-Joseph Roussier’s Mémoire sur la musique des Anciens (1770). However, Roussier’s work deals with the music of ancient Egypt, Greece, as well as Chinese; it does not discuss the music of the ancient Near East specifically. Rowbotham applies Roussier’s theories to the music of the ancient Assyrians on tenuous grounds.26 He is here resurrecting an 18th-century universal vision of the history of music. This approach considers the ancient Near East as the origin of all that came later, simply because it is chronologically older. This historiographical principle can be traced to one of the earliest treatments of the ancient Near East in the general history of music , namely Storia della Musica by Martini.

11Borrowing from the work of Roussier, Rowbotham considers the Assyrian and/or Babylonian musical systems to be based on the principle of tetrachords, which is also integrated within a heptatonic diatonic system: “In the Chaldean system the two [systems] happily coincided, and the same scale was used by both—but with a different arrangement. For this arrangement of the scale in conjunct tetrachords, was always the esoteric or philosophical form of it—that is to say arranged as above—B to E, E to A, A to D, D to G, G to C, C to F—or generally in the form B E A D G C F…”27

12The origins of Rowbotham’s approach can be found in the 17th century and the attempt to trace the music of ancient Egypt, China, and Greece back to a single origin. As outlined by Rehding,28 theories on the musical system of ancient Egypt flourished during the period c. 1650–c. 1950, despite the absence of substantial evidence.29 The music of ancient Egypt was treated in the earliest accounts, by Kircher, as a representative of the earliest stages of music’s history, together with the music of China. This parallelism between Egypt and China follows a logic based on Biblical chronology; thus, the earliest civilisation (and by extension, music) from before the Flood is assumed to be uniform; it is only after the Flood, with the scattering of cultures across the earth and the multiplicity of languages (and by extension, cultures) following the Tower of Babel, that a divergence in the history of music is assumed to have taken place. In the 17th century the earliest music was considered through the prism of universalism and the principles of nature and harmonics. This parallelism between Egypt and China endured in the 18th and 19th centuries.

13However, such a parallelism represented a problem. Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) attempted to situate the music of ancient Egypt between ancient Greece and China. Ancient Greek music is based on tetrachords, whereas Chinese music was represented by the pentatonic scale. In order to reconcile these diverse systems into one, Rameau devised his concept of the “triple progression”, which combined aspects of both. According to Rameau’s theory, this universal conception of music exists in nature, and it existed at the time of the Flood. After the Flood, the system was assumed to have split; the tetrachordal system may have emigrated to Greece, and the pentatonic system to China. Roussier took Rameau’s theory of the “triple progression” further, arguing that the ancient Egyptian musical system was essentially similar to the contemporary system of 18th-century Europe. Such ideas were widespread in 18th-century France.30

2.The continuation of 19th-century historiography in the early 20th century

14The approach to music history which attempts to reconcile the ancient Greek tetrachordal system with Chinese pentatonicism, and which characterised investigations of the music of ancient Egypt in the 18th century, persisted and transformed in later centuries. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, China and ancient Greece were often considered together as representatives of the most ancient stages of music, but for different reasons. The music of ancient Greece was studied mainly through documentary evidence. However, the music of China was thought to represent great antiquity due to an approach which treats the music of non-European cultures as representatives of an early stage of evolution. Rowbotham’s History of Music represents such an approach to non-Western music by its inclusion of “primitive” music within the category of “ancient” or, in Rowbotham’s terms, “prehistoric” music, forming the first chapter of his history.31 August Wilhelm Ambros’ Geschichte der Musik (1887) treats non-Western musics as part of his overall chronology, due to their assumed antiquity. The first volume is divided into two books. The first book, by Bertha von Sokolowsky, is a study of ancient Greek music. The second book, by Ambros, deals with “Die Musik der Culturvölker des Orients”, covering the ancient and medieval Near East, ancient Egypt, and East Asia. The musical evidence from Assyria and Babylonia is briefly discussed;32 the modal systems of the ancient Near East are not included, except for one page, which recounts the often-repeated comment of Plutarch on the musical system of the Babylonians.33 Plutarch states that the “Chaldeans” connected musical intervals with the seasons, namely the fourth with autumn, the fifth with winter, and the octave with summer. The second book also includes an appendix on “Die Musik bei den Naturvölkern”, the main section of which is entitled “Die Anfänge der Tonkunst”.

15During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many musicologists considered the music of the non-Western world as a kind of living museum.34 In this conception, a clear division was made between Naturvölker and Kulturvölker.35 Kulturvölker were distinguished by their complex civilisations and their use of writing; the musical cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt were the earliest examples. Naturvölker, by contrast, are primitives whose cultures were treated as unchanging, and whose music was therefore assumed to represent great antiquity. Thus, non-Western musics fulfilled a role in general histories of music, which adopted an evolutionary perspective, culminating in Western art music. This approach assumed that all cultures have “music” and that music is derived from a single origin. Also implied is the idea of increased complexity, exemplified by the presumed development from monody to harmony to dissonance, for which there is no actual evidence.36 Such historiographical principles were popular during the latter half of the 19th century, but they persisted well into the 20th century, as shown by the Handbuch der Musikgeschichte edited by Guido Adler (1924), which includes a first chapter by Robert Lach on “Die Musik der Natur- und orientalischen Kulturvölker”.37 This is the first, brief chapter of a general history of music. The essay features a theory of the development of scales in increasing complexity, with Naturvölker clearly separated from Kulturvölker. One of the last examples of such an approach is Walter Wiora’s Die vier Weltalter der Musik38 (1961), which outlines the general history of music into four parts. The fourth section of the first part is devoted to “essential characteristics of earliest music surviving among Primitive Peoples”.

16Scholars such as Curt Sachs and Francis William Galpin made several revealing statements on the nature of this system, which demonstrate the assumptions held regarding the nature of ancient music.39 Sachs assumed that the ancient Mesopotamian system combined aspects of ancient Greek tetrachords with what was characterised as Chinese pentatonicism. As discussed above, the attempt to combine aspects of ancient Greek tetrachordal and Chinese pentatonic systems is an idea which is rooted as far back as the 18th century. In addition, Galpin considered the musical system of the ancient Near East to be essentially monodic (without harmony) and simple. These assumptions demonstrate several widespread themes of 19th-century historiography. Such ideas include the notion that non-Western music is essentially similar in various diverse cultures outside Europe, i.e. the “West and the rest” approach. A second feature which is typical of the 19th century lies in the treatment of non-Western music as ancient music, i.e. a preservation of unchanging tradition.40 Thirdly, the presumed simple nature of Mesopotamian music, in the sense that its pitch gamut41 was understood to be restricted, conforms to evolutionary ideas of music, progressing from simple to complex. This approach has survived in the early 20th century, as shown for example by the assumption of the use of the basic musical intervals of the fourth, fifth, and octave in images of ancient Egyptian and Assyrian harps.42

17Certain aspects of this approach may be traced back to the 17th century. Theories of René Ouvrard (La musique rétablie, c. 1690) and others posited the idea of the first music as divine, universal, celestial, and elementary. This is opposed to “artificial” music, which is metrical and harmonic.43 Such ideas persisted well into the early 20th century, as shown for example by Wiora, who assumes that the earliest stage of music, preceding the pentatonic stage, consisted of elementary stepwise melodies, which have survived in Europe in the form of children’s melodies.44 A similar approach is adopted by Sachs.45

18Furthermore, in the 19th century, music of the ancient Near East was assumed to feature frequent vocal embellishments, sometimes characterised as “arabesque” melodic decoration (e.g. tremolo, trill, flourishes). Galpin assumed that such ornamental grace notes were a characteristic of ancient music; indeed, they were integrated within his transcription of the presumed Mesopotamian musical notation. Such an approach to ancient music was not only characteristic of scholarship around the turn of the 20th century; it was also characteristic of composition in the Orientalist mode. In French music (or music performed in France) around the turn of the 20th century, by Claude Debussy, Jules Massenet, and Florent Schmitt, the Orient was evoked by means of melodic material which is generally restricted in terms of its gamut and which utilises whole tones, fourths, fifths, chromatic tones and/or pentatonicism; it also includes frequent vocal embellishments.46

3.Musical historiography of the ancient Near East after 1950

19The period from c. 1850–c. 1950 was a period in music scholarship which exhibited specific attitudes to the music of the past and of the oriental world. From the 1950s onwards, the field of modern ethnomusicology, with its emphasis on contemporary ethnography, developed in different directions. To conclude, we may consider the extent to which such 19th-century attitudes to the music of the ancient Near East persist to this day. As mentioned above, from the 1960s onwards, a small corpus of cuneiform texts was identified, which provide us with actual evidence for the tuning or modal system, and notation, of the ancient Near East. In addition to the Babylonian music theory texts, examples of music notation were also identified. These notation texts date to the 13th c. BC and come from the royal palace at Ugarit, close to the Syrian coast. These examples of notation indicate little information, by comparison with Western modern notation. The most complete text includes the lyrics of a song, together with the Babylonian names of dichords (pairs of strings) and numbers. Little agreement has been reached regarding the decipherment and performance of these texts. However, it is of interest that the interpretations of which I am aware tend to assume that this music was relatively simple and restricted to a modest pitch gamut.47 This feature is in keeping with the evolutionary view of music history, and the assumed simple nature of ancient music.

20In addition, scholars have assumed that the ancient notations of Ugarit may be deciphered, as is possible to some extent with modern Western musical notation. The highly specific tradition of modern European notation, especially in music of the 19th and early 20th centuries, is in fact unique in the world. In most examples of notation, from medieval India for example, notation is used as a mnemonic device, not as a means of recreating the music.48 In the case of the ancient notations from Ugarit, it is most likely that any attempt at decipherment, in the sense of transcription and recreation in performance, represents a misunderstanding of the role of notation in its context. In my view, writing and notation were used at Ugarit as a mnemonic aid in an orally transmitted musical tradition; the most that this notation may offer us today is a skeleton outline of some basic modal information. As with Sachs and Galpin in the early 20th century, modern decipherments of actual notation in the late 20th century perhaps reveal more about the assumptions of modern scholars than the ancient music itself.